Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With The Owl House nearly completed, my house has been casting about for some reliable replacement binging, and ultimately settled on another attempt at Jujutsu Kaisen. This has sadly been as disappointing as the first; Jujutsu Kaisen is a hodgepodge of ideas stolen from Naruto, Bleach, and Hunter x Hunter, with no understanding of what made any of those ideas work in the first place. The characters are one-note, the world has no substance, and the fights are preposterous Calvinball nonsense, with combatants inventing new aspects of their abilities constantly, meaning there is never anything resembling tension or a coherent contrast of powers. Gojo is likely the worst offender – his power is basically “I can do anything so long as I use the word ‘infinite’ while describing it,” and I’m thus frankly relieved that he’s found himself stuck in a box for our current arc. Anyway, we’ve fortunately had better luck with our recent film selections, so let’s break that shit down in the Week in Review!
Tag Archives: Film
Summer 2025 – Week 8 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I concluded my journey through Slayers’ first three seasons, which I am led to understand is basically the conclusion of the “classic series,” barring some scattered film and OVA appearances. I’ll likely check out the film next (it was quite a surprise to learn the amply chested lady everyone loves doesn’t even appear in the main series), but in the meantime have since been munching through The Owl House, Dana Terrace’s entry in the post-Adventure Time western cartoon renaissance. The show is unsurprisingly delightful; I don’t know how Terrace got Disney to greenlight “lesbians hang out in the dreamscapes of Hieronymus Bosch,” but I am absolutely here for it. Anyway, films!
Summer 2025 – Week 7 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today the thermostat is inching its way towards one hundred degrees, a balmy temperature for the infernal planes, but clearly unacceptable for us soft-skinned, hydration-fueled mortals. The heat is almost making summer’s encroaching end seem less miserable, but damnit, I am a summer season diehard, and if that means dying of heatstroke for my beliefs then so be it. Anyway, these unlivable temperatures have unsurprisingly facilitated plenty of film and show screenings – I’m actually just a half-dozen episodes off finishing Slayers TRY, and have munched through as many movies in the past week. Let’s break down a few of ‘em in the Week in Review!
Summer 2025 – Week 6 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve continued to munch through the original Slayers series, though my progress has been admittedly slow of late. There’s a good reason for that, though – after initially setting a new year’s resolution of spending one day writing personal fiction per week, I’ve lately been upping my output dramatically, spending my evenings banging away at what is increasingly appearing to be some kind of actual book. It has been immensely fulfilling to get back into consistent creative writing, and I imagine I’ll have some updates on that front soon, but for now, we’ve got some films to explore. Let us conclude our journey through the Chuckyverse!
Summer 2025 – Week 5 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With my housemate still away visiting family, I have continued to make rigorous use of my screen monopoly, munching through a bunch of Slayers and whatever horror films I know would normally get vetoed. That generally means “films about dolls or spiders,” and thus this week has seen me mowing down the greater Child’s Play franchise, munching through as many of its far-flung features as possible. The franchise has undergone a couple of major transformations over the years, but has actually maintained its core team and general quality through all of it, making it perhaps the most consistent of all the major slashers. Let’s break it down!
Summer 2025 – Week 4 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I have finally finished up Death Stranding 2, after spending far too many of my precious, fleeting hours trudging through snow and putting materials in boxes and receiving different materials to put in different boxes. I jest, but to be honest Kojima has got this gameplay loop down at this point, and has successfully merged Death Stranding’s mechanical fundamentals with a functional, Metal Gear-reminiscent combat system. The game is nowhere near as finicky or austere as its predecessor, which frankly left me with mixed feelings – Death Stranding 2 is a much more consistently dopamine-depositing game than its predecessor, but far less of an emotionally challenging, potentially transformative art experience. And considering the gaming industry is full of column A and sorely lacking in column B, it feels a little sad that one of our few reliable auteurs “just” made a solid videogame.
Anyway, I still quite enjoyed it, and will undoubtedly be returning to the roads of Australia for one of my final segments of these games: enjoying the fruits of my infrastructure work, riding the highways that now extend all the way across the continent. In the meantime, let’s break down the week in films!
Summer 2025 – Week 3 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week has seen me burning through a diverse grab bag of anime selections, as with my housemate away, I am once again free to watch whatever the fuck I feel like. I had the clear goal of “consume the entirety of Sailor Moon” in mind for last time, but I have yet to find such an obvious guiding objective for my current rampage, and thus my picks have been a touch more eclectic. I caught up on the first season of Dandadan (reasonable, not my thing), munched through the Ruin Explorers OVA, and have most recently been dabbling in the various adaptations of Masamune Shirow’s manga, including the ‘80s Appleseed adaptation and Dominion Tank Police. Let me know if you’ve got any recommendations I might like below, but for now, let’s burn down the week in films!
Summer 2025 – Week 2 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been avoiding the summer heat by playing a whole ton of Death Stranding 2, which is proving both immensely compelling and also quite different from its predecessor. I can see why Kojima was worried that his playtesters were “enjoying it too much” – the franchise has largely abandoned the austerity of both form and function that defined its predecessor, that singular sense of loneliness and unending toil that made it a distinct emotional experience within the medium. In contrast, Death Stranding 2 embraces enough of Metal Gear Solid 5’s mechanics to offer a crowd-pleasing summation of Kojima’s career to date, meaning it’s less of a revelatory art experience than simply a damn good videogame. It has nonetheless got its hooks in me deep, but I still managed to spare enough time to sneak in some film viewings. Let’s get to it!
Summer 2025 – Week 1 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ve hit the first week of the summer anime season, which of course means we’re in truth a third of the way through summer, because the year actually starts a month into winter and nothing truly means anything. Regardless, this occasion marks the perfect time to take a glance at the contenders of last season, whose glimmering early potential has at this point solidified into cold, uncompromising reality. It seems folks aren’t so hot on Shinichiro Watanabe’s latest, but I’m looking forward to checking out our latest Gundam, and have been hearing nothing but positive things about Apocalypse Hotel. Clearly more investigation will be needed, but for now, let’s run down our latest film contenders in the Week in Review!
Spring 2025 – Week 13 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This past week saw me returning to my Anime Classics investigations with a vengeance, as I burned through the entirety of the original Super Dimensional Fortress Macross. The series was a delight on the whole, serving as a somewhat more whimsical counterpoint to Gundam’s stoic war drama. It was interesting to see how the production’s focus on music over mechanical innovation (presumably echoing its intention to sell albums rather than models) impacted its dramatic structure; with songs taking the place of new weapons, the show swerved and soared at the pace of Minmay’s emotional narrative, painting a sad portrait of an icon who is too beholden to everyone to carve a space for herself. Plus the lead pair of Hikaru and Misa actually possessed excellent chemistry, making them easy to root for as the world collapsed around them. I can see why it’s such a beloved franchise, and I’m looking forward to continuing through its various successors. But for now, let’s burn down the week in film!