Menitta's Daily Yapping

So if you know me, you know I'm a movie buff. A cinephile  if you will. It's my secondary hobby behind video games. I love watching and thinking about movies. The problem I have, however, comes from how  I approach this hobby.  Ever since I was a kid, I liked to get DVDs of movies, be it renting from blockbuster, getting a copy of my favorite movies for myself to rewatch over and over, you name it. That evolved into my current appreciation towards the 4k Blu ray format. While not the case with everything, a 4k Blu ray is, more often than not, the highest quality way to watch a movie outside of the theater. It completely removes the inconsistencies of streaming while also providing higher color ranges via HDR and DV. Like I said, it's not universal. Lord of the Rings has a different color grading compared to other releases that some don't care for, and every single James Cameron release is thrown into a DNR slop filter. That aside, this is easily my preferred...

Today I finally finished Nioh 3. This was one of my most anticipated games this year and I'm extremely happy to say it delivered. I went in acknowledging the fact that it's a tall order to ask it to be better than my top 6 game of all time with Nioh 2 (top games might be a topic for the future) but I did have the desire for more Nioh. Thankfully I got that.   I am a massive fan of the Team Ninja RPGs. They're not the most cohesion games in terms of stories and such but I cannot get enough of their combat style. Nioh, Wo Long, Rise of the Ronin, all fantastic. Nioh 2 is such a strong refinement of Nioh's combat. The level design is so much better and the variety of things you can do is such a solid step up. When I played 2, I mained primarily Tonfas. The play style they encourage with that weapon type is "It's always my turn" and I love that. The stance switching and abilities that come with it are unlike any action game. It's such a fun gam...

So with the Mario Galaxy movie out today and with...lets call it less than stellar reviews, my beef with how big western animated movies get made, reviewed, and perceived comes crawling back. I want to preface this long winded rant with the fact that I have the utmost respect for those who actually put in the work and crunch for weeks on end in the animation industry. I do not want to take anything away from that. That being said, I think the western blockbuster animation industry is absolute dogshit.  I learned recently that there are institutional limitations on what an animated movie is allowed to be out of Pixar/Disney, DreamWorks, Illumination, and so on. At the highest, most prestigious level, the current students of animation are dissuaded from including any mature topics, swearing, or violence. Someone has an animated version of the rooftop scene in The Departed for an animation school project, well that's too violent.  Parents and kids won't want to see th...

Last week, I traveled to Sacramento for work. This was not the first time I've been to Sacramento and will likely not be the last, but outside of meeting up with a friend and having a relatively successful work trip, this was a fairly frustrating trip.  My folks were traveling elsewhere so they were unable to watch Miko. I had to board him at the local vet hospital which I was fairly concerned about. I would always prefer having him stay with my parents because he's comfortable with them and their home. It's basically his second home. Boarding him to a new place was stressful for both me and I'm sure him. Fortunately they're also a vet hospital so if something were to go wrong, he'd be fine. He was sick from stress on Monday sadly. When I picked him up, he was ecstatic to see me. I can tell he was barking a lot as his voice is a bit strained. This has happened before sadly. Other than that, it went okay but I would rather not do that in the future.  ...

I have a very simple approach to the Academy Awards. The Oscar's should only be seen as prestigious recommendations. I believe James Rolfe said something to that effect, and I wholeheartedly agree. I haven't seen everything that won or was nominated but looking at the list, I now have a bunch of movies I know to check out. I'm not gonna cover every movie/award but I like reflecting on the movies I saw within the past year.  Before thinking about what the Academy liked, let's think about what I liked. It's my blog, fuck you.  I try to separate "favorite" and "best" movie because, I definitely admit, my own biases and tastes don't actually align with what I would also say is the top quality movie. "This is brilliant, but I like  this" as Jeremy Clarkson once said. My favorite movie of 2025 was F1. I loved the performances, the story arc the two leads went through, and the cinematography on display during the races was so t...

One of the ways I pass the time during monotonous days at work is listening to various YouTube videos. Usually something out of Woolie Versus, Maximilian Dood, Cosmonaut Variety Hour, Dougdoug, you name it. Naturally it's something I've considered trying myself. I think it's awesome that anyone can make do this kind of content creation (gonna be honest I hate the word "content" now but that really is the best catch-all word for it). I've done some twitch streams in the past but recently I have genuinely thought about doing more dedicated stuff like that. My problem is I don't really know how to get started. I love talking about movies, games, TV shows, you name it. I know the world doesn't really NEED more dogshit media takes from mid/late 20 year old guys like me but I still think it'd be fun. I wouldn't be doing this with the goal of being a full time job or anything but something like this blog. Just my own personal scrapbook. What I need to...