Hocus Pocus 2

After 29 years, we finally have a sequel to Hocus Pocus. Please note, if Hocus Pocus isn’t one of your favorite Halloween movies, you might have something wrong with you.

Hocus Pocus 2 begins in 1653 Salem, when a young Winifred Sanderson (Taylor Henderson) has just turned 16. Reverend Trask (Tony Hale) insists that she should be married. When she refuses, the Reverend tries to take her sisters, Mary (Nina Kitchen) and Sarah (Juju Journey Brener), away from her. The sisters manage to escape to the forbidden forest behind the town. There the trio meets a mysterious witch (Hannah Waddingham) who recognizes them as sister witches and gives Winifred her beloved spellbook. Fast forward to 2022, where we meet Becca (Whitney Peak) on her 16th birthday. She has had a falling out with her friend Cassie (Lilia Buckingham) but plans on performing her annual birthday ritual with her other friend, Izzy (Belissa Escobedo). The girls are given a black flame candle by Gilbert (Sam Richardson), a magic shop owner and fan of the Sanderson sisters. They light the black flame candle at their ritual, bringing the Sandersons back to life once more.

The original Hocus Pocus is one of my husband’s favorite movies. In 2018, a book was released telling more of the story of the Sanderson sisters. After reading the book, my husband was really looking forward to the movie sequel. He was not disappointed.

I thought Hocus Pocus 2 was a pretty good sequel to the original. Where the original movie was all about normal kids trying to defeat a trio of witches, this one goes further by letting Becca dabble in the occult. Needless to say, that does make the ending a little predictable but I won’t give it away here. Let’s just say that I highly enjoyed the change from the mundane to the magical.

While the songs that Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker perform this time around aren’t quite as iconic as the “I Put A Spell On You” performance from the original, all of the songs were still very entertaining. My favorite was the cover of Blondie’s “One Way Or Another.” Though “The Witches Are Back,” a parody of Elton John’s “The Bitch Is Back” is the theme song of the movie. There’s even a scene during the credits of the sisters recording the song. Speaking of credits scenes, make sure you stick around after the credits. There is a post-credit scene to watch.

If you liked the original Hocus Pocus, I think you will find enjoyment in the sequel. There are some inside jokes and references that make watching the sequel fun. Personally, I liked Mary flying on two Roombas instead of a broom, the way she rode a vacuum cleaner instead of a broom in the original. Only the Roombas are way more useful this time!

X | Movie Review

My husband and I watched X awhile ago. Originally, I wasn’t planning on writing a review for it, but then the sequel came out and I figured I might as well review them both.

The year is 1979. A group of filmmakers travels to a farmhouse in Texas to film a new pornographic movie. Their movie, The Farmer’s Daughter, is directed by Wayne Gilroy (Martin Henderson) and stars Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) and Jackson Hole (Scott Mescudi). Wayne’s girlfriend, Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), will also appear in the film. However, Lorraine (Jenna Ortega) is only there to help her director boyfriend, RJ (Owen Campbell). That is, until she gets drawn in by the allure of the sex scenes. Then she wants to take part as well. Meanwhile, Howard (Stephen Ure), the owner of the farmhouse, is rather mean to the group. But it’s his wife, Pearl (Mia Goth), that they really need to avoid.

Like most A24 films, X is an unusual type of movie. Even though there are movies about making porn movies, they don’t quite follow the same format as X. We do see sex scenes (there is only one scene of full frontal nudity and it’s not related to The Farmer’s Daughter) but, for the most part, they don’t come across as sexy. They come across as almost robotic, which is probably pretty accurate for the porn industry. Something that needs to be done in order to become a rich and famous star.

In addition, the villain in this slasher film isn’t someone who can chase young adults across a farm in order to murder them. And still, most of the cast still ends up dead. It’s an interesting twist on the slasher genre of horror movie that definitely keeps you on your toes. Just when you think that the killer can’t possibly do something, that something happens anyway.

While I want to recommend X, it’s a difficult movie to actually recommend. It’s one of those movies that people will either love or hate. It is A24, after all. With that said, this is the middle film of a trilogy. The prequel, Pearl, came out on September 16 and the sequel, Maxxxine, will be coming out next year. You might want to wait until all three movies are out before watching this one.

Disney Dreamlight Valley | Video Game Review

I have recently become rather addicted to Disney Dreamlight Valley, a new video game from everyone’s favorite mouse. It is currently in early access, which means there are some bugs to work out. Here, let me tell you about it.

Disney Dreamlight Valley is a simulation game, somewhat akin to The Sims or Stardew Valley. Your character is having a difficult time in life so they return to a play area they frequented as a child. Suddenly, your character is thrust into a world of magic with Mickey Mouse and Merlin. Their world has been overtaken by The Forgotten. It is your job to help them rid the world of evil Night Thorns and bring their Disney friends back to Dreamlight Valley.

While I’m not a huge Disney fan, I was intrigued by Dreamlight Valley when it was first announced. I am a big fan of Stardew Valley so I was happy to hear about another game in a similar format. Though I will admit that I was afraid that the game would be too ‘kiddified’ to be any good. Boy, was I wrong.

One thing that I really love about the game is that you get guidance on how to proceed but you don’t necessarily have to follow that guidance. My husband, my daughter, and I are all playing the game and we have very different play styles. There are two types of quests in the game - Realm Quests (where you are bringing characters back to the valley from their realm) and Character Quests (where you are strengthening your friendships with characters in order to get new things for the valley). The two quests do overlap a little. For example, in order to proceed in Goofy’s quests, you need to bring Remy to the valley. I made it my goal to proceed as far as possible in the Character Quests without doing the Realm Quests. I actually got pretty far before I had to go to any of the other Realms.

My husband, meanwhile, has played the game a little more straightforward. He rescued Remy at the “correct” time and, I believe, has rescued all of the currently available characters from their Realms. I have rescued Remy, Moana, and Maui but, as of this writing, I have not rescued Wall-E. These differences don’t change the game play a lot but rescuing the Realm characters does make some of the other quests a little easier. I just chose a more difficult path.

Now for the bugs. My husband and my daughter have played the game on the Nintendo Switch, while I have stuck to only playing on my PC via Steam. None of us have played on the Xbox or the Playstation. If you are playing on the Switch, the game does crash fairly frequently. Since the game auto-saves every five minutes, you can lose up to five minutes of progress when the game crashes. I haven’t experienced that issue on the PC but sometimes the Disney characters will get stuck in a wall when they are helping you with a task. Sometimes you can fix the issue by transporting your character to another place on the map but sometimes the only fix is to restart the game. Other than those two issues, I don’t think I’ve found any other bugs. Sure, the characters sometimes get in the way when you are trying to do something but that is the life of an NPC.

Everyone in my family has found Dreamlight Valley to be tons of fun. And while it might help to be a Disney fan, interacting with your favorite characters, I don’t think that not being a fan would detract from the gameplay. If you are into sim games, especially Stardew Valley, this is the game for you. There are a lot of similarities to Stardew, except the NPC characters are a lot more interactive. Currently, you do have to pay for the early access to the game. Depending on the edition you choose, it can cost anywhere from $30 to $70. However, the game is supposed to be free-to-play when it goes live in 2023. Either way, I think a lot of people would really love the game. It is a ton of fun.

Do Revenge | Movie Review

As I was scrolling through Netflix, trying to find a movie or series to talk about, I came across Do Revenge. Led by Maya Hawke from Stranger Things and Camila Mendes from Riverdale, I just knew I had to check it out.

Drea (Camila Mendes) is one of the popular girls at Rosehill Country Day High School. When her boyfriend shares an intimate video she made for him, her life is all but ruined. At tennis camp that summer, Drea meets Eleanor (Maya Hawke), who is transferring to Rosehill next year. The two soon find out that they have both been terribly wronged by people they thought were friends. So they team up to take down each other’s bullies.

Do Revenge is based on the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Strangers on a Train. While I’ve never seen the movie myself, I am familiar with the plot. Familiar enough that I actually thought it was the plot to a completely different movie. My bad.

Where Strangers on a Train dealt with adults and actual murder, Do Revenge takes the plot to high school and goes with social murder instead of physical harm. And I actually think this movie handles the change quite well. There is an additional twist toward the end that Hitchcock did not have in his movie, which I think raises the stakes a bit. There definitely were some parts that kept me on the edge of my seat. I thought I knew what was going to happen but it was worse than I thought.

The acting in Netflix original movies can be hit or miss. Thankfully, this one is a hit. Hawke’s Eleanor starts off as an awkward newcomer but Hawke is able to pull over the amazing transformation into one of the “cool kids” and make us believe that she would get accepted into their group. Meanwhile, Mendes is perfect as Hawke’s conniving counterpart. Adding to the talent is Sarah Michelle Gellar as the school’s headmistress, Austin Abrams as Drea’s ex-boyfriend Max, and Alisha Boe as Drea’s ex-best friend Tara. All of them are their own special brand of terribleness.

Yes, Do Revenge should be on your “must see” list. Even if you can’t get into the high school drama, which you know you will, you will absolutely fall in love with the soundtrack. I found myself singing along more than once. For me, that is always a sign of a good show. Take the plunge and add it to your Netflix queue.

Pinocchio | Movie Review

Disney is really into their live action remakes nowadays. The latest one, Pinocchio, was released on Disney+ on September 8. After watching it, I understand why they chose not to release it in theaters.

Geppetto (Tom Hanks) is an old woodcarver in a small Italian village. One night, a cricket named Jiminy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) wanders into Geppetto’s house. The insect finds the old man putting the finishing touches on a wooden marionette named Pinocchio (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth). Before going to sleep that night, Geppetto makes a wish on the evening star. As he slumbers, the Blue Fairy (Cynthia Erivo) visits to bring Pinocchio to life. She assigns Jiminy as Pinocchio’s conscience as she leaves. Pinocchio, wanting to be a real boy, tries his best to learn the right way to live his life.

There are a lot of people that didn’t like this movie. This is, after all, almost a beat by beat remake of the 1940 animated version. There are a few new characters. Most notably, Fabiana (Kyanne Lamaya) and her puppet Sabina (Jaquita Ta’le), who work at Stromboli’s (Giuseppe Battiston) puppet show, and Sofia (Lorraine Bracco), a seagull who befriends Geppetto. But I’m not sure they were enough to really differentiate the live action from the original.

Personally, I didn’t hate the movie. But I didn’t love it either. There were a lot of scenes where I had trouble hearing what Geppetto was saying because Hanks kept mumbling all of the lines. It was the main reason I ended up watching the movie with subtitles on. In addition, the big scene where the kids are getting scooped up to go to Pleasure Island is so dark that I couldn’t tell who was who. It made it a little difficult to tell the kids apart from each other, except for Lampwick (Lewin Lloyd) because Pinocchio says his name every five seconds.

With that said, there were some very good parts. Fabiana and Sabina were perfect. I loved them so much. Casting Keegan-Michael Key as Honest John was brilliant. He is so good in evil roles. Finally, while I was originally confused about Monstro (thanks original Pinocchio), I loved his design. Instead of just being a giant whale, they actually made him a giant sea monster with tentacles and rows of sharp teeth. It definitely made him a bit more fearsome than the original designs.

Would I recommend watching the live action version over the animated version? Probably not. However, you aren’t going to hate yourself if you decide to watch this one instead. I don’t understand why it seems to get as much hate as it does. There are absolutely worse live action remakes out there. I’m looking at you, Beauty and the Beast.

Hersheypark Halloween | Things To Do

This year, my husband and I decided to get season passes for Hersheypark. The amusement park is in Hershey, PA, home of Hershey’s Chocolate, which is about an hour from our house. While we love roller coasters and rides, we love Halloween even more. With Hersheypark Halloween opening on September 17 this year, there are two additional weekends to the Halloween celebration at the park. My husband and I visited on Sunday to check out the scares.

As usual, Hersheypark Halloween has 13 coasters open, as well as many of the less scary family rides. Not all rides are open so be sure to check the website to see if your favorite rides are open before heading to the park. Before hitting up any of the rides, we walked through ZooAmerica, which is included in your Hersheypark admission. It is one of our favorite things to do in Hershey. Then we rode on our favorite coaster - Great Bear - and one of our least favorite coasters - Storm Runner. Great Bear was amazing, as always. Storm Runner was surprisingly a much better ride for us than it has been in the past. I’m not sure if it’s because we were in a different section of the train but we actually enjoyed the ride this time.

For dinner, we elected to eat at the Spring Creek Smokehouse. During the Halloween event, many of the food vendors have Halloween-themed food available. The Smokhouse has a Coal Dusted Half Chicken (which has some charcoal covering to turn the chicken black), a black brioche bun (made with cuttlefish ink so it is not good for anyone with shellfish allergies) for their pulled pork and brisket sandwiches, and two desserts: Sinful Cinnamon Bread Instestines (cinnamon bread with a red coating on top) and Evil Eye Cherry Pie (a cherry pie with an evil eye on top). We had the Coal Miners Platter, which lets you pick two meats and two sides plus a cornbread muffin. The meats were not the sandwiches so we didn’t get to try the black brioche bun but we did try to cinnamon bread and it was absolutely delicious. It may have been my favorite part of the meal.

Afterwards, we hit up two of the tamer rides (Dry Gulch Railroad and The Kissing Tower) before heading into the Dark Nights haunted houses. There are four haunted houses, which are not included with your park ticket. You do need to purchase an add-on in order to go into the houses. If you don’t want to spend the extra dough, there are three scare zones around the park with roaming actors. My husband and I didn’t find the actors particularly scary but we did enjoy watching them.

As for the haunted houses, we managed to get through three of the four houses before the night ended. Haunted Coal Mine, The Descent, and Twisted Darkness were the three we walked through. (We’re planning on visiting Creature Chaos on our next visit.) These are much like any other haunted house Halloween attraction - costumed actors try to jump scare you as you walk through decorated rooms with various special effects. Again, my husband and I don’t get scared by actors. However, we found the decorations and the special effects awesome. This was the first weekend of the houses so maybe the scares will get bigger as Halloween looms closer. But for now, we didn’t find any of these houses particularly scary. Enjoyable, yes. Scary, no. With that said, our favorite house was Twisted Darkness. The interaction with the actors and the effects made it a wonderfully spooky haunted house.

If you aren’t into the scares, you can easily skip the haunted houses and most of the scare zones. Unfortunately, if you want to ride the rides at the back of the park (in particular, Lightning Racer, and the Ferris Wheel ), you will need to go through the Midway to Misery, which is listed as “spine-tingling” on the scare meter. All of the other scare zones can be avoided with a slightly longer walk around it.

Considering how close we live to Hersheypark, the Halloween event is a no-brainer for us. But if you are looking for a super scary, thrilling Halloween experience, this isn’t for you. This is an event for people who love riding rides and maybe get a thrill out of some jump scares. Or if you want to check some of the Halloween-themed food vendors. I’m hoping to get a bite of Dark Moon Orange Sorbet at Milton’s Ice Cream Parlor or Brain Freeze Sundae at the Turkey Hill Ice SCREAM Parlor. Yeah, the ice cream at Hersheypark is good. You can never go wrong with a good ice cream sundae.

Hersheypark Halloween runs from September 17 through October 30. They are only open on Saturdays and Sundays from about 2PM until 10PM. Check the website for the hours before you visit the park. I hope to see you there!

Elvis | Movie Review

A lot of people know the story of Elvis Presley, right? A small town white boy learns how to sing like the black people around him then he makes it big. With Baz Luhrmann’s new movie, Elvis, we hear the tale from Elvis’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker.

As Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) lies dying in a hospital room in 1997, he thinks back on how he met the King of Rock n’ Roll, Elvis Presley (Austin Butler), and how they effected each other’s lives.

I know that seems like a very short description of the movie but anything beyond that would just be a biography on Elvis’s life. The movie takes us from the time Parker meets Elvis in Louisiana in 1954 (with some flashbacks to Elvis as a child) through to the death of Elvis in 1977 and the death of Parker himself in 1997. Through that time we see the ups and the downs. The highs of Elvis loving performing in front of people to the downs of Elvis buckling under the pressure of everyone depending on him to continue making tons of money. They even include Parker filling Elvis with all sorts of drugs to make sure he could perform every single night. It was a sad, lonely life.

it’s no surprise that most people who have watched Elvis loved it. The movie was both written and directed by Baz Luhrmann, the man who famously brought us such brilliant movies as William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (you know, the one with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes), Moulin Rouge!, and The Great Gatsby. Luhrmann is a master of flashy, stylish movies with amazing musical scores. If you have seen any of his previous works, you will see the same themes and styles here. Thankfully, Elvis Presley’s life, once he starts to get famous, is nothing but flashy and stylish. The glitter and gold of Las Vegas, chunky jewelry as far as the eye can see, and so many bedazzled outfits, you won’t be sure where a rhinestone doesn’t belong!

What I appreciate the most in this version of Elvis’s life story is that we get to see the parallels between the songs that Elvis has heard from various black people in his life and the songs that he himself released. A lot of the Elvis songs that we are all familiar with are songs that black people had recorded but weren’t able to get onto the radio due to the color of their skin. Now I’m not sure that Elvis was as accepted by the black community as he was in the movie - it would have been nice to have seen at least a few people be upset that a white boy made millions of dollars off of their songs - but it was nice to see that credit was given in some way. The movie will absolutely show Arthur Crudup (played by Gary Clark Jr. in the movie) singing “That’s All Right” then overlay it with Elvis recording that same exact song and becoming famous with it. And this happens multiple times in the movie with multiple different people.

With that said, I do think everyone should watch Elvis. It is a good movie. Butler and Hanks to a superb job as Elvis and Parker. The soundtrack is phenomenal, both the Elvis songs (which is part Butler’s voice and part actual Elvis) and the original songs that were thrown into various scenes. it may not be a completely truthful movie as it is intended to be from the point of view of the person that took the most advantage of the man but, from what I have read, the Presley family all approved of this movie and the way everyone was portrayed. That is good enough for me.

Moonfall | Movie Review

I don’t have an intro for Moonfall. My husband said he remembered wanting to watch it thanks to some trailer we saw before a movie. I don’t remember seeing the trailer or wanting to watch it. I watched it anyway.

During a 2011 mission to repair a satellite in space, the spaceship with astronauts Jocinda Fowler (Halle Berry), Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson), and Alan Marcus (Frank Fiola) is attacked by a swarming black mass. Marcus dies and Harper is disgracefully dismissed from NASA when he refuses to be silenced. Since Fowler was knocked unconscious during the attack, she can’t back up Harper’s story and the two are estranged. Ten years later, the moon begins to fall out of orbit. Conspiracy theorist KC Houseman (John Bradley) tries to tell NASA that the moon is an artificial megastructure but no one will listen. Fowler, now the Deputy Director at NASA, is tasked with finding a way to fix the moon’s orbit before it destroys the Earth. She turns to Harper and Houseman to help her save the planet and all of their families.

Yeah, that description doesn’t really do the movie justice. It is more terrible than I could fit into a small(ish) paragraph. Normally, I don’t give spoilers in case someone wants to watch a movie I review. There are going to be spoilers this time around. I don’t know how I could talk about the movie without revealing all of the secrets.

Moonfall is based on the crazy theory that the moon is a structure created by aliens with a white dwarf at the center powering it. And, no, that isn’t the craziest thing about the movie. We have, in no particular order: astronauts would be able to move around when a spaceship is spinning uncontrollably, cell phones that work no matter what else is happening on Earth, gravity randomly getting so weak that things are literally sucked up to the moon when it’s close, thanks to the low gravity cars (and people!) can leap over wide ravines, and Colorado is apparently where everyone goes when the shit hits the fan. Oh, and that there is a white dwarf INSIDE THE MOON. That isn’t all of the insanity, just the stuff I could think of off the top of my head. Honestly, the whole movie is insane.

Needless to say, my husband laughed through most of the film. I spent more time going “What?” or “How the….” or throwing my hands at the screen nonsensically. I can’t, with good conscience, recommend that anyone watch Moonfall. However, if you really and truly want to see how bad it is, make sure you go into the movie with less than zero expectations. Think of the lowest expectations you have ever had for a movie, then go about ten times lower. Then you might be ready to sit through this 2-hour festival of ridiculousness.

Love In The Villa | Movie Review

Kat Graham from The Vampire Diaries and Tom Hopper from The Umbrella Academy are in a Netflix romcom. So Love in the Villa can’t be that bad, can it?

Julie (Kat Graham) is a third grade English teacher from Minneapolis. She books a dream trip to Verona, Italy, setting of her favorite story - Romeo & Juliet, with her boyfriend, Brandon (Raymond Ablack). When Brandon backs out of the trip at the last minute, Julie decides to go alone. After an awful trip, Julie arrives in Verona to find out that her villa has been double booked. With no other option, she has to share the villa with Charlie (Tom Hopper) for the next week.

Love in the Villa is another one of those ‘hate turns into love’ movies. A good portion of the movie consists of Julie and Charlie being absolutely terrible to each other. The argument culminates in a giant food fight where they basically destroy an apartment that neither of them owns. But, for some reason, the two decide to call a truce and spend some time not trying to kill each other.

Of all of the romcoms that I have watched, this one is not the worst. It’s pretty rare to see an amazingly good romcom. This is not one of those. However, it is definitely watchable. Both Graham and Hopper are decent actors and the script is not completely terrible, even though the writer (who is also the director) likes to litter random Italian all over the place. There isn’t a ton of chemistry, just a lot of unexplainable googly eyes when they happen to get their faces too close to each other. We do get a little bit of a third act twist but, honestly, that is probably the worst part of the movie.

Fans of Graham and Hopper will most likely love Villa. Everyone else that wants to watch it should do so with a glass of wine or their phone in hand. Something that will distract them from the bad parts but let them enjoy the good parts.

Jurassic World Dominion | Movie Review

I am not a giant fan of the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World series. Sure, I was amazed in 1993 when Jurassic Park came out and the graphics were stunning. But I didn’t particularly care about any of the movies that came after it. But you can watch all of the movies on Amazon Prime and my husband and I were bored…so we watched Jurassic World Dominion over the weekend.

Four years after the events in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, dinosaurs are now living in the world alongside humans. Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) finds out about giant locusts that are destroying crops around the United States. She turns to her old friend, Alan Grant (Sam Neill), for help. Together, they travel to Biosyn, a genetics company that set up a dinosaur preserve in Italy. Meanwhile, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen (Chris Pratt) are raising Maise Lockwood (Isabella Sermon). When Maise gets kidnapped by Biosyn operatives, they must travel to Italy to get her back.

This movie felt so much longer than it actually was. The runtime clocks in around 2 hours 27 minutes. And that felt about an hour too long. Adding to that, the science didn’t feel legit. Granted, I’m not a geneticist so I am completely out of my realm. The explanations they gave for Beta, Blue’s baby, and Maise both felt wrong. Not that the science has to be perfect to make a movie enjoyable. It just didn’t make this movie enjoyable.

Other things that seemed wrong in the movie: Why was Ellie, a paleobotanist, investigating the destruction of current day crops? Why did she turn to Alan, a paleontologist, when she found out about the giant insects? While you can squint your eyes a bit and maybe think that the insects could possibly be in Alan’s wheelhouse, the crops are definitely not in Ellie’s. I know they were brought in for nostalgia’s sake but at least give them an actual real reason to be there.

As for the Maise/Owen/Claire storyline, they all felt very wrong. We know they have lived together for four years but we don’t really see them interacting a whole lot before Maise gets kidnapped. I would have liked for the plot to focus more on setting them up as a family instead of pulling in Ellie/Alan/Ian as a throwback to Jurassic Park.

If you like the Jurassic World series, you might enjoy Dominion. While I didn’t enjoy the movie a lot, it doesn’t leave the series open for another movie. I appreciate that. I just wish the series could have ended with a bigger bang.