What’s Up 2020: Week 17

Another week has gone by! I’ve been swamped in work and will remain this way for the next weeks of recaps (or so). Who knows, right? Either way, I’m still trying my best to work hard on different things.

READING

Currently reading: Undead Ultra

Reading is still suffering the most out of this whole working from home and change in work situation where my workload has increased immensely. I haven’t been able to find time or energy to get around to reading. Hopefully it will change in the coming week as I set some reading into my actual schedule.

PLAYING

• Concrete Genie
• Bounce that Bird (mobile)

Currently playing: Happy Color, Faraway: Galactic Escape, Color Spots

Wrapped up Concrete Genie for Game Warp recording so you can look for that. Concrete Genie was an anticipated game for 2019 and snuck under the radar and honestly, it lived up to most of my expectations. It was something dark and colorful and hopeful all at the same time and was a ton of fun just making funky genies and painting walls.

I’m still working through mobile games that were part of the Google Play Indie Game Festival Finalists for some quick mobile game roundups.

As I renewed the Xbox Game Pass for PC for three more months, the next game to tackle will FINALLY be Ori and the Will of the Wisps once things settle down soon!

WATCHING

• Rambo: Last Blood (2019)
• The Changeling (1980)
• Deadly Detention (2017)
• The Willoughbys (2020 Review)

A little bit more movie watching this week and surprisingly, we even managed to catch a new Netflix movie, which is honestly a rarity and I’m not sure why since I don’t even go to theatres anymore (even when they were open or when they reopen). The list here is one rental, one Shudder movie, one random choice for upcoming double feature setup and the new Netflix movie. It was honestly a battle between The Willoughbys and The Changeling for the recommended movie this week and the Willoughbys won out because it was what I needed and I just had a ton of fun watching it. You can check out the review, which I have already done (I know, I’m surprised also), linked above.

BINGING

• The Untamed (2019)
• The Singer 2020 (2020)

Currently binging: J-Style Trip, Love Equations, Me To Us, Youth With You 2, Welcome Back to Sound

Everything that I’m watching, I absolutely love. Last week, I finished up The Untamed. While I have to say that The Singer 2020 was pretty fun to watch, The Untamed was really great. Its been probably about a week as I type this up and man, I’m still thinking about it a lot. The little subtleties, the story, the character: so much thought and care has been put into the detail because of the source materials direction adapted for the strong censorship in China. I didn’t care too much about Yibo Wang before but I’m starting to see something with him but more than that, I absolutely love Sean Xiao even more. So amazingly talented.

As for currently watching, Love Equations reached its halfway point and its still very enjoyable and really nice to watch just like its sister series before. Me To Us and Youth With You 2 are two really great reality shows to create a band and girl group respectively and so far, its been pretty fun especially when it comes to discussing what each of these things mean and especially the former, talking about the challenges of finding a balance of bringing something new and still being accepted by the market. Very grounded in its concept when creating these bands and performances, in the making for its final band. The new addition here is Welcome Back to Sound on Mango TV. Its rehashing the radio broadcast concept onto an online live podcast where people can call in with their personal questions and send in traditional mail that will be replied by QR code message reply or read out loud. It has three hosts and two to three guests, so its pretty fun as well as some of the stories that are shared is pretty touching.

That’s it for Week 17!
Thinking back, I did manage to put some effort in catching up on certain things!
Now to schedule in reading time! Should be better in the next recap *fingers crossed*!
What have you been reading/watching/binging/playing?

The Willoughbys (2020)

The Willoughbys (2020)

Director: Kris Pearn, Rob Lodermeier, Cory Evans

Cast (voice): Ricky Gervais, Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, Alessia Cara, Terry Crews, Martin Short, Jane Krakowski, Sean Cullen, Brian Drummond

Convinced they’d be better off raising themselves, the Willoughby children hatch a sneaky plan to send their selfish parents on vacation. The siblings then embark on their own high-flying adventure to find the true meaning of family. – IMDB

There’s nothing like a quirky and colorful animated film to bring in some joy. The Willoughbys fills that really well. While its a bit of everything mushed together and incredibly random, (maybe you can call it imaginative), it manages to be clever especially as its full of little references of other popular things from movies and whatnot in their own version that makes it absolutely enjoyable to watch. That’s something that I’ve always appreciated in movies. It starts off with narration a little like A Series of Unfortunate Events and then the story moves on and these children are a little random like the Despicable Me kids and then we move forward the characters they meet including their parents are all very extreme in their own ways. It still manages to be quite entertaining.

The Willoughbys has a decent cast behind it and a few of them are pretty recognizable. First of all, we start of with Ricky Gervais being the narrator who is a cat that lingers in the neighborhood and just like Gervais’s humor, he delivers some funny narration that carries the story from one scene to the next. The parents who love each other so much that they don’t have any love left for their kids is voiced by Martin Short and Jane Krakowski, who are suitably mean for a family film. The nanny is voiced by Maya Rudolph who I’ve always loved and found incredibly underrated but her enthusiasm really carries through into the nanny here and adds so much fun. Then, on their city escape, the kids ends up meeting a Willy Wonka parallel sort of character voiced by Terry Crews whose voice is very unique and wildly entertaining all the time.

The Willoughbys is incredibly silly and at times some of the things that happen are a little absurd however somehow it all works together. There’s a lot to love here with the story progression. The kids themselves are trapped inside their world and each have their own personalities that somewhat balance each other out. They also have the heart to be true Willoughbys and defining what makes a good person and making good choices even if they don’t have the best approaches. At the same time, its a touching story about family whether its between the siblings or the finding them along the way.

You know what The Willoughbys is? Its simply a great time. Its full of laughs and adventures, mistakes and bad decisions and most of all, learning the meaning of family. There’s clever dialogue, fun characters and some pretty great voice cast tossed into the mix. Its charming, clever and colorful: three things that I love in animated films. Totally recommend this one!