Tag Archives: reviews

Movie Review of “M3GAN” (2022)

megan

© James Pyles

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Last night (as I write this), I watched the 2022 horror film M3GAN.I normally don’t watch horror films. I’m not overly fond of being terrified and calling it “entertainment.” However, I do have an interest in AI and humanoid robots. So a few days ago, when I saw the Blu-Ray at my local public library, I decided to give it a whirl.

The disc gave me the choice of watching the theatrical version (PG-13) or the unrated version (anything goes). Naturally, I selected the latter.

The story begins with a little girl (Violet McGraw as Cady) in a car with her parents going on a ski trip. The girl is playing with an advanced robotic furry doll run from her tablet and invented by her aunt. Snow in the ground, icy roads, fog, and a snowplow out of nowhere, and the parents die in a car crash.

Meanwhile her aunt Gemma (Allison Williams) who is supposed to be developing a better, cheaper furry AI doll with her team Tess (Jen Van Epps) and Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) are actually working on a prototype “child” android named M3GAN (Model 3 Generative Android).

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Secret Sequel to “Shoot the Devil” Coming Soon


If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

You may recall that I have a short story in the anthology Shoot the Devil called “Wolf in the Wind”, which by the way, seems to be doing pretty well. It’s got 91% four and five star ratings on Amazon.

There is a sequel coming out soon which I can’t really talk about yet, but it’s the same basic theme set against a completely different background. My story was a lot of fun to write.

However where a number of other stories in the first book were more strictly in the realm of spirituality and the supernatural, mine also included elements of steampunk, if you imagine that, and set in the 1880s in Idaho City, Idaho (which is a real place that exists today).

I’m writing this because ahead of the sequel’s publication, the publisher and we ten authors, are asking for more reviews of the first book.

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“Dark X-Mas” Anthology Has Nine 10-Star Reviews!

dark xmas

Promotional image for the published anthology of drabbles “Dark X-Mas.”

The 48 hour promotional offer of Dark X-Mas Holiday Drabbles: 100 Word Holiday Horror Stories is about to end, and I thought I’d do some checking.

Seems the anthology, which features two of my Christmas horror drabbles, has garnered a whole 10 reviews, 9 of them five stars. The 10th is a one star by someone I suspect doesn’t understand the nature of microfiction, but that’s neither here nor there.

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Charlie’s Angels 2019: A Brief Commentary

angels

Promotional photo from the 2019 film “Charlie’s Angels”

First of all, I haven’t seen the 2019 version of the movie Charlie’s Angels in theaters now, so this isn’t a review. I might have seen the 2000 movie, or some part of it, starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu, but I don’t have a clear memory. I definitely saw multiple episodes of the television series in the 1970s and 80s, originally starring Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett (then billed as Farrah Fawcett-Majors), and Jaclyn Smith. I don’t remember the show being terrifically good, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen an episode.

The current incarnation stars  “angels” Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and Ella Balinksa along side a plethora of “Bosleys” including Patrick Stewart.

The main reason I’m writing this is that I came across a scathing review called Why ‘feminist’ films flop on what appears to be a pretty conservative news outlet. I mean the author Maren Thom really pulled out all the stops. That made me curious about the movie (I wasn’t before and in fact, I didn’t even know it was in the theaters until I looked it up), so I started doing some reading.

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