In the last couple of months I've seen a few new movies both in theaters and on DVD; a couple of which are several decades old, so their only new to me, but whatever here are my thoughts on all of them along with some pointless number ratings.

"Krampus" 8/10

This is a movie I wanted to watch as soon as I saw Red Letter Media's review of it last December, and I finally did see it last month and I was not disappointed. It was a silly over-the-top horror comedy and it worked perfectly as that with a good cast, great dark humor, and stellar creature and monster effects. Of course, that last one shouldn’t surprise anyone because the same people who did all the wonderful effects for “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy also worked on “Krampus”, I’m talking, of course, about Richard Taylor and his crew at the Weta Workshop and I can’t stress how much they hit it out of the park on this movie.

If there's one thing I regret doing is seeing this film when I did, because this movie got me in the mood for Christmas, oddly enough, and I'm one of those people who hates any mention of Christmas until mid-November-ish so that was a bit of a mistake on my part. I wouldn't be too surprised if this ends up like “It’s a Wonderful Life” as a movie I screen every Christmas; I now it would be really strange, but I don't care.

"I'm Not Ashamed" 6/10

From the studio who brought audiences “God’s Not Dead” and “God’s Not Dead 2" comes a film about one of the first victims of the tragic Columbine Shooting, a girl named Rachel Joy Scott whose inspiring life and writings have led to several books and talks made by her family in the decade-and-a-half since. I did enjoy this movie a lot more than I thought I would; it’s a fun, inspiring, teen Christian drama, and if you’re in either of this film’s target demographics, people of faith and teens (although preferably both) then I do recommend it. Of course, having done some research into Columbine before hand, just because, I knew going in that everything involving the Columbine shooters in this movie was going to be awful and wrong and it was. But, this isn’t a Columbine movie (or at least it shouldn’t be) it’s a story about Rachel Scott and I’d definitely say that this movie’s subject matter and lead Masey McLain (who needs to be in more things right now) allows it to rise above its genre to being pretty good.

One last thing, I do hope that after this comes out on DVD that someone will make an edit of this movie without any mention of Columbine expect for the very last scene, but just like the “Mockingjay” one film edit that’s probably just a wild dream of mine.

"The Thing (1982)" 10/10

I’ve known about this movie for the longest time and I actually saw a good half of it on Sci-Fi a year-ish ago, but last week was the first time I sat down and watched the entire thing and I was absolutely amazed. I loved everything about from the overall tone and feeling of the movie, to the music, the through the roof practical effects (literally in one scene), the great performances all around (especially from Kurt Russell) everything was just incredible. Yeah, this might be one of my favorite horror movies of all time if not one of my all time favorite movies; if there’s one thing I don’t like it’s that I don’t understand why a group of scientists has flamethrowers at their base, but who cares because the movie's ten times better with flamethrowers.

"The Thing (2011)" 4/10

After watching the original, I was excited to see the prequel, which I never knew starred Mary Elizabeth Winstead (who btw was great in this year’s “10 Cloverfield Lane”) and it was alright, but obviously it wasn’t going to be anywhere near as good as John Carpenter’s film. I thought Winstead was good, although she wasn’t Kurt Russell and I liked some other minor things, but overall this movie was very middle of the road and forgettable for me. I could go on about all the ways this movie failed where the original, but I’d rather not; overall another forgettable late 2000’s prequel/remake/soft reboot.

"Hacksaw Ridge" 6/10

Mel Gibson’s first movie as a director in almost a decade is about Desmond Doss a World War 2 soldier who refused to carry a gun because of his religiously beliefs, but still won the Medal of Honor for his actions as a combat medic. Overall, I liked this movie, in the first half it’s mostly just alright, but then it almost shifts into another movie when the fighting begins. I know this sounds like an exaggeration, but I think the action in this movie comes the closer to toping the opening in “Saving Private Ryan” than any other film since. Putting some big questions aside like whether this is an anti or pro war movie I would recommend this as a good war movie with the caveat that if you have any problems with extreme violence than this might not be the film for you.

"Breakfast at Tiffany's" 5/10

I liked Audrey Hepburn in “My Fair Lady”, and so when I heard that “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was what most people recognized her for, I was on board for seeing it even if I’ve never liked romantic comedies and can’t name one I’ve seen from beginning to end. So, what did I think of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”? Well, it was fine, yeah Hepburn’s good in it and so is George Peppard and I didn’t find anything I really hated in it except maybe the generally boring plot even if did have some nice moments and hints of more interesting plot points, but still the plot was fine, just like most of the movie. Again it’s not bad and having looked into the film a bit I can see why other people would like it, but at the end of the day it’s not my cup of tea. I'll admit the whole time I was watching it I felt like I’d rather be watching “The Thing” because I want to see grotesque things set on fire with flame throwers in my movies. Either way, I’ll still probably give “Roman Holiday” a chance though.