halloween ends? more like my patience ends

there’s not sticking the landing and then there’s teetering & flailing for a frankly uncomfortably long time before flopping straight on your face, and the halloween legacyquels opt quite decisively for the latter.

i spent the first half or so of halloween ends thinking, “okay, i sort of see what they’re setting up, i’m not sure i like it but i guess we’ll see what they do with it” and i kept waiting. and kept waiting. and kept waiting. and it became increasingly clear that they weren’t going to “do” anything with any of this, it was just sort of stuff happening, man.

like, in basically every technical aspect of filmmaking this movie is beyond competent, so it’s easy to be lulled into thinking it’s a perfectly serviceable movie by its solid moment-to-moment entertainment factor, but it just doesn’t add up to anything.

despite never really “losing interest” per se, i turned on this movie hard about halfway through it when i realized it was just thoroughly wasting my time, and subjecting me to plenty of unpleasant bullshit in the process. all while acting like it was a Serious movie with Things To Say.

hocus pocus 2 recaptures the magic

“i’m a witch, i know things.”

alright i’m going to start by trying to talk  about the elephant that was conjured in the middle of the room with some degree of nuance so we can move on to talking about the really terrific movie i just saw that i’m pretty fucking excited about. but yeah i expect i’m not going to be the one breaking this particular news to you, and if i am i’m sorry, but yes bette midler tweeted something kinda terfy and when our community understandably expressed hurt & frustration she issued a non-apology apology. my take on the whole thing is that we’re not so much dealing with a venomous politically savvy terf like j.k. rowling but more just like a clueless, somewhat out of touch old lady who’s doing her best, so i’m somewhat willing to give her a “forgive her, mother, for she knows not what she does” on this one. ymmv, there may be stuff i’m missing, etc etc.

universal’s halloween horror nights 31 (2022)

we made our triumphant return to halloween horror nights! honestly i’m pretty sure we’re gonna try to do this basically every year if we can.

universal’s halloween horror nights 30 (2021)

this year’s halloween horror nights will be my third! it’s turned into a pretty awesome tradition for me and one of my partners. we went to halloween horror nights 29 in 2019 on our first date. 2020’s was, of course, canceled due to the early stages of the covid-19 pandemic when the powers that be were pretending to actually try to prevent its spread. but when halloween horror nights returned to universal the following year, so did we!

universal’s halloween horror nights 29 (2019)

this year’s halloween horror nights will be my third! it’s turned into a pretty awesome tradition for me and one of my partners. we went to halloween horror nights 29 in 2019 on our first date. and i just love that this was the case? it combines one of her biggest special interests (theme parks) with one of mine (halloween). how perfect is that?

spooky movie season mini-reviews

little witch academia (2013) &
little witch academia: the enchanted parade

i kinda loved both of these but what finally clicked for me with the second one is that i hate akko as a protagonist. i love literally everyone else, including diana who i’m not supposed to like because she’s bullying the protagonist but like... she is better than her!! she’s brave, she’s constantly saving people from their own fuckups... yeah her elitism sucks, but with some guidance she can grow out of that! and she’s also the only character in this who points out what i immediately thought of the parade, which is that it’s just weird and degrading to throw a parade celebrating the organized mass torture and murder of witches???

akko, on the other hand, is completely selfish and just bulldozes over her friends’ feelings and then does literally nothing to fix it and just waits for them to come back to her which they do???? and i just want to know what i’m supposed to think about any of this.

but like... these still own!!! all the magic action sequences, especially at the parade in the second one, rule. and again i love literally all the other characters i didn’t even get around to gushing about amanda or any of her crew!! i just... hate the protagonist, and she gets rewarded for awful behavior and just... oh gosh oh no she’s just literally harry potter isn’t she.

please tell me she gets better in the series please i’m begging you. b-rank

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

halloweentown

this has been on my “i absolutely need to watch this” list for basically ever, but i kept putting it off. largely because i was terrified that i missed the boat by not seeing it as a kid, and it would be one of those nostalgic faves where you watch it too late and you’re like “yeah sorry i don’t get it.”

which would be depressing as heck because the movie is about a town where it’s HECKING ALWAYS HALLOWEEN, ARE YOU KIDDING? THAT IS THE RADDEST THING EVER!!! but of course i ended up liking it, because it’s about a town where IT’S HECKING ALWAYS HALLOWEEN, ARE YOU KIDDING? THAT IS THE RADDEST THING EVER!!!