(Bad) Parasite

Movie in one sentence:
Comedy-thriller movie with no comedy and no thrills.

Movie in more sentences:
A family living in poverty manages to slowly infiltrate a gullible, rich family by getting rid of their staff and offering themselves as "ideal" replacements. All seems to be going well for them, until one day, the old cleaning lady returns to the door.

This is a comedy and a thriller, how? Did not laugh or wince in fear once, because I perceived not a single joke or fearsome scene in this.

The concept of a clueless rich family being cleverly tricked is interesting, but it's evidentially not enough to fill a movie. Eventually, there's this twist reveal where the previous cleaning lady's husband is found living in the rich folk's basement since forever -she too abused her employers' cluelessness- but I feel cursed having learned of that man's existence. What a pathetic loser. Were his scenes supposed to be comedic?
The introduction of this guy worsened the whole movie experience for me.

I also disliked how the father lost his mind at the party over literally nothing, yet the movie presents his eventual reunion with his son as something to cheer about. I'd be pissed if I were the son; he, his mother, and his father could've continued to work for the family had he not killed their employer.
The father put no effort in assisting his own daughter as she was dying, either, I'd never want to see that fool again.

(Average+) Trap

Movie in one sentence:
Looney murderer lucks his way past half of America's security force.

Movie in more sentences:
A father takes his daughter to a big concert, but notices law enforcement crawling all over the place. When he asks one of the staff members what's going on, he's told they're looking for "The Butcher"; a crazed murderer expected to show up at the concert.

Upon hearing this news, the father tries to find him and his blissfully clueless daughter a way out, but every male attendee is treated like a suspect and no one may casually leave.

Average+, but really, touches the "good" rating for me. I could easily watch this again with family and friends.

I watched this in a period I really wanted to visit the theaters again, but like always, there was little to pick from. I decided to give Trap a try, since the other unknown movie I had my eyes on had an even worse online score.
Having that said, those 1 star reviews really tricked me into believing this was going to be a boring, overly pretentious, badly acted shit show, yet this was the best movie I've seen in too long. This was not a "5 out of 10" experience, I've seen popular blockbusters with 8 or 9 ratings that were way more boring, pretentious, and badly acted. These Trap reviews are undeserved and I can't figure out why this movie's flaws got so hammered on. Is it because it was made by a living meme?

I didn't spoil the story for myself before seeing it and thus was presented a cool early twist. Maybe that made the difference. Since it was written by Shyamalan, I expected an otherworldly, supernatural reveal, like the concert being a cult that planned to brainwash its audience into worshipping some unknown Hellish spirit or whatever, so to see the story was mostly grounded helped keeping my spirits high as well.
Of course, it's fair to criticize the "moments of convenience"; where somehow no one at this busy event notices the criminal (thinking of) tinkering with stuff, or the police that allowed for things the real cops would never, but I was still intrigued by the criminal's quick-thinking. Or luck, really.

The cast was fairly good. The daughter character and concert attendees played the part of awestruck fans well, it requires talent to convincingly appear happy or entranced. I didn't have my eyes on the background at all times, but whenever I did see a minor character's face, I believed I was watching real concert footage.

The role of the singing celebrity was given to Shyamalan's own daughter, and his love for her/the nepotism is palpable, because the song performances in this movie -songs actually written by her- drag on. There were too many instances where I started feeling antsy and just wanted the story to move the fuck on. This is supposed to be a movie, not an actual concert, but Shyamalan truly seemed to struggle at not giving his child her place in the spotlight. Her music isn't worse than what you hear on the radio all the time and I didn't dislike her as an actor, she was given an interesting role to play at the end, but those extra seconds spent on watching everyone sing and dance to her songs should've been given to the scheming criminal.

I really liked seeing him roam around the place, figuring out ways to escape. I thought the actor was good, and maybe not every line fed to him was, but he did his best, in my opinion.
He started off so harmless and goofy, as intended, and as the story progressed, I did not doubt he was a two-faced mental patient.

(Average) Puss in Boots 2: The Last Wish

Movie in one sentence:
A bunch of fairy tale creatures risk their lives to find a wishing star, even though each one of their desires are objectively stupid to waste such a power on.

Movie in more sentences:
After a lethal accident, the once confident Puss learns he's spent 8 of his 9 lives and becomes haunted by the personification of Death, seeking to kill him. When he learns of the existence of a wishing star, he sets out to find it and wish back the lives he's lost so he may resume his career as a charming, celebrated hero.

I feel so disconnected with the rest of the world. Movies and series people praise are extremely mediocre to me, and this time was no different. I felt the same way about the first Puss in Boots movie. Don't even remember what it was about.
I've heard so many Youtubers praise every inch of this movie, it's why I checked it out, but after watching, agreed with none of their points. This sequel had the plot of a TV-show episode, it was a bit embarrassing.

The choppy "Across the Spider-Verse" animation during the fight scenes was hideous and distracting in a movie franchise that never used this technique before. What exactly was the direction's reasoning for doing this, besides being cheap? Puss in Boots is not a comic book-inspired movie. People, stop celebrating 2 frame per second animation, it never looked good and this isn't anime. You get the same effect when trying to watch a video on an old laptop with low processing power, and I don't recall anyone ever saying to enjoy that experience.

The villains weren't particularly interesting, either. Not that I hated them, they just weren't characters I'd care to make fanart for. Jack Horner could've been fun if the cricket had more scenes and stuck around throughout the movie, but he doesn't.
Goldilocks would've been better if she wasn't such a commanding bitch to her bear accomplices, they are her family after all. Why are these bears putting up with someone who's literal food to them? And why are they a criminal gang in addition to that? Just make them a normal family who already learned of Goldilocks' desire to have human parents. What other reason do you need to help your loved, but lonely and adopted child? Even so, the movie does not explain why this young adult needs to reacquaint herself with random people the star will deem her new family. A bit too late for that, isn't it? Why not wish back her real parents instead? It's not said why she was an orphan; maybe they died, opposed to having abandoned her.

Unlike what fans claim, the subject of mortality wasn't discussed with any originality; and Death itself was just a generic grey wolf with spoooooooooooooooky red eyes in an overdone black hooded coat. He had a completely different art style from the only other wolf the Shrek series introduced to us; the Red Riding Hood version, and was designed to look more cartoonish and "cool", which I have zero respect for. Consistency I respect.
Couldn't they have given him a wolf's skull for a head, at the very least? Or make Death look like Puss himself, but skeletal, or demonically warped, just anything opposed to this bore? I'm tired of wolves, man, the animal kingdom has so much to offer, but everything is always friggen canines and felines.
Even funnier is that this guy has been discussed online so often, yet he hardly makes an appearance in the movie, nor says anything interesting. Why on Earth does he exist. I would've written him out of the movie.

Puss in Boots 2 was a let-down, but I'm more let down by the people who audibly liked it. Are people so used to dreck that a simple tale like this is considered peak cinema? I envy them, though, I don't enjoy being in the minority.