Spy x Family Code: White

If you’ve paid attention to the anime scene in any capacity with the last few years, it’s likely you’ve heard of Tatsuya Endo’s Spy x Family, a highly successful manga and anime series about a spy who forms a false family for the sake of an important long-term mission without realizing that his adopted daughter is a telepath and that the woman he marries is an assassin. This success paved the way for not only a second season of the anime, but also a feature film, Code: White, which recently received a wide theatrical release in the US. As fans of Spy x Family, we leapt at the opportunity for more original content and saw a dubbed screening at the earliest opportunity. Needless to say, we had a blast, even with some small criticisms.

Stubs - American Fiction

American Fiction (2023) starring Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, Sterling K. Brown, John Ortiz, Erika Alexander, Leslie Uggams, Adam Brody, Keith David. Directed by Cord Jefferson. Screenplay by Cord Jefferson. Based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett. Produced by Ben LeClair, Nikos Karamigios, Cord Jefferson, Jermaine Johnson. Run time: 117 minutes. Color. USA. Comedy, Drama

When the Academy Awards nominations are announced, sometimes the movies being nominated are no longer in the theaters and if they come back, not always at convenient times or places. Such is my excuse for not having watched American Fiction before the Academy Awards. I tried to rectify this by watching the film, on my cell, during a recent flight to Texas. I enjoyed the film so much, that the next week, I watched it again at home so that my entire family could watch.

Migration (2023)

Following the original Despicable Me, Illumination has had a very spotty track record in terms of story quality, with incredible highs with The Super Mario Bros. Movie and varying lows with films like The Secret Life of Pets and Minions. What they have consistently improved on, however is their animation quality, to the point where I had some interest in viewing their latest film, Migration, for that sole reason, preferably without spending too much money in the endeavor. Fortunately, I got the chance to watch it as an offering of free in-flight (heh) entertainment, even if the airline made me watch it on my phone (RIP phone battery). Unfortunately, while Migration is a visual step up from Illumination's usual output, the story holds it back from really spreading its wings.

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!

Following their collaboration with DreamWorks that ended with Flushed Away, Aardman began a new partnership with Sony that began with Arthur Christmas. Whereas their previous two films were done in CG, their next feature, and their final feature collab with an American studio, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (The Pirates!), would see them return to stop-motion in adapting the book of the same name by Gideon DeFoe, who also wrote the screenplay in a rare case of the author also writing the adaptation. Although I had seen an international cut of the movie before, I had at one point become curious about seeing the original British versions of some films that were edited for America, with The Pirates! being one of them, and so imported a UK Blu-ray of the film. While the movie as I saw it originally was already good, I can safely say that it’s even better seeing it as originally intended.

Stubs - Fast and Furious (1939)

Fast and Furious (1939) Starring Franchot Tone, Ann Sothern, Ruth Hussey. Directed by Busby Berkeley. Screenplay by Harry Kurnitz. Produced by Frederick Stephani. Run time: 73 minutes. Black and White. USA Comedy, Mystery

Long before the never-ending sequel machine franchise Fast & Furious (aka The Fast and the Furious) began appearing on the big screen in 2001, the title was used as part of a different franchise in 1939.

With exhibitors unhappy with the long intervals between pictures in The Thin Man series of films, MGM made Fast Company (1938) because its "light" detective theme featured main characters in the Nick and Nora Charles mode. Following Fast Company, which starred Melvyn Douglas and Florence Rice, was Fast and Loose (1939) starring Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell, and Fast and Furious (1939) starring Franchot Tone and Ann Sothern. The one thing all three films have in common is that all three were written by Harry Kurnitz. All three sets of stars played the same characters, Joel and Garda Sloane, a rare book seller and his wife who become amateur detectives.

This edition of the series was rather rushed to the theaters. Shot between August 4 and September 1, 1939, it was in the theaters on October 6, 1939.

Doug Huggem

Although the Duke Nukem franchise still maintains a healthy fanbase, it’s not without its fair share of controversy from those less familiar with the IP, namely with the argument of how certain aspects haven’t aged well. In light of this, around the release of Duke Nukem Forever in 2011, San Diego-based YouTube comedy troupe Mega64 released a sketch called “Doug Huggem”, in which the team of the People for the Enriched Tutor­age of Attitudes Particularly In Teens (PETAPIT) announced their own game called Doug Huggem, with the intention of spreading positivity and with a release date of March 2024. Like many, as the next 13 years went by, I started to wonder if the game would ever actually see the light of day, mainly due to Mega64’s talent of staying committed to a bit for extended periods of time. Though Mega64 did formally announce Doug Huggem last month, I was still skeptical of it actually coming out due to its announced March 31 release date, with a one-day delay to April 1, but then I was surprised to wake up this morning to see the game had actually come out, available for free on the Mega64 website and itch.io. After finally getting to experience the game in its full glory, I would say the wait was well worth it, and actually pretty decent for their first game.

Stubs - Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) starring Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, Celeste O'Connor, Logan Kim, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson. Directed by Gil Kenan. Screenplay by Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman. Based on based on the 1984 film Ghostbusters by Ivan Reitman, and on the 1984 film Ghostbusters written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. Produced by Ivan Reitman, Jason Reitman, Jason Blumenfeld. Run time: 115 minutes. Color. USA Supernatural, Comedy

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) was a re-awakening of a franchise which had been dormant for more than 30 years. (I am purposely not counting the 2016 gender-bending remake/reboot since that is not part of this continuity.) The ending of the 2021 film, and by that, I mean the after-credits scene, pointed to bringing the story back to New York, which is where the new film comes in.