Movie Recap: Ninja, Act 1

Welcome and also goodbye, everyone!

No, I'm not going anywhere, but the year is. And to finish it with a bang, I'm doing a two-for-one recap with one of my favorite actors and one of my favorite directors! So not only is today's movie an Isaac Florentine vehicle with the requisite amounts of cheese, WTF and brain-punching writing, but it's an Isaac Florentine vehicle starring Scott Adkins, so I'll get to make googly eyes during the fight scenes while I poke fun of everything else. Despite the... you'll see, I honestly kind of recommend this one – even though the plot feels like someone ran three different action movie scripts through an office shredder and had to piece a single one together from what they could salvage, the fighting is very much worth checking out, and I really can't sum it up in more eloquent ways than "Swoon, drool, awesome". So yeah. Go watch Isaac Florentine's Ninja... once you've read the recap, of course.

Put on the crash helmets, let's get right into ACT 1!

Book Recap: Moonlit Obsession, Chapter 8

Merry criminy, dear readers, we're back and at 'em with the bad.

This chapter isn't quite as hair-raising as the last two; mostly it just made me want to set something on fire and also laugh very hard occasionally. Don't worry, folks, we're on the last leg of the truly nauseating parts: if you can weather this with me, we'll get to point and laugh instead of point and scream soon enough. This is chapter 8 of Moonlit Obsession.

Warning: no physical abuse in this chapter, but the love interest continues to be skin-crawlingly creepy, there are allusions to assault (it doesn't happen, but it's discussed), and I rant about how abusive the romance in this book is, so beware.

Yet again, I'm substituting Deadfall screencaps for photos of the faces I was making while reading. Oh, awful Nic Cage movies... only you understand my anguish.

Book Recap: Moonlit Obsession, Chapters 6 and 7

Hello, dear readers.

I tried making a Countdown to Final Crisis joke in this intro because things keep going downhill in a wheelbarrow that's also on fire, but the only thing that comes to mind is "Welcome to pain" and I'm not hunting down the comic just to see if I'm not misquoting that.

This is one of the bad ones, folks: there's still enough dumb to pass around and marvel at, but I've gotta give y'all a heads up before we hold our noses and do a cannonball into the septic tank.

Warning: today's recap involves the love interest getting physically abusive with the heroine, as well as being intensely creepy and threatening her with harm repeatedly. Alas, this fuckery is necessary to the """plot""" of this book, so I can't sidestep it. Take care, gentle readers.

Grab all your fluffy animal videos, everyone, because here we go.

Pictured: me and this book.

Book Recap: Moonlit Obsession, Chapter 5

Greetings, gentle readers.

After the double dose of dumb that the last two chapters of Moonlit Obsession have been, today we're taking it easy and doing only one. But worry not, dear readers, for this is a spectacular chapter all on its own, and features 70% less of me wanting to reach into the book and strangle the characters with my eyes. I won't spoil what's about to happen, so hopefully you'll get the full effect I got when I encountered it for the first time. I will just put a Hungarian saying that I feel applies here and let you deduce what that means: God's zoo is large and the fence is very low.

Into the bleach we go.

This'll be everyone reading this by the end of the chapter. You'll see.

Book Recap: Moonlit Obsession, Chapters 3 and 4

Season's greasons again, dear readers! I hope you are ready to dive into the fail once more, because I'm having a little spare time to really dig into the badness of this book, and I'm set on making that everybody else's problem. We haven't reached the truly horrifying parts yet, but I can already feel my outrage building like steam in a pressure cooker. And I'm also making that your problem. Chapter 4 is fairly short, so I decided to do a bad-stravaganza and recap that one as well. You're welcome.

Today's reading mood.

Book Recap: Moonlit Obsession, Chapter 2

Merry Christmas, dear readers! Have some more bad, it's your gift from me!

Today's recap is a special one: I originally intended to put off reading the next chapter of Moonlit Obsession until after the holidays, but I took a look at it and nope, this can't wait. The recapper's credo is "If I have to suffer, so do you", and I intend to live up to it because holy moly is this not good.

Join me in Chapter 2 of my most, er, interesting romance read, where things take a turn from bad and creepy to bad and lowkey terrifying.

This chapter's image is from the movie Deadfall; a.k.a. the face I was making the entire time while reading.

Book Recap: Moonlit Obsession, Chapter 1

Hello and welcome back to hell, everyone!

Today's project is sort of an amalgamation of new and old ideas. You see, back in 2021, poor innocent Oculus saw a historical romance/adventure novel in their favorite used bookshop and bought the only available copy. The back cover promised an epic story about a British spy and an American patriot falling in love during the Napoleonic Wars; so poor innocent Oculus picked up that book expecting either a roaring good time with a fiery, heartstopping romance, or something faintly ridiculous but entertaining in classic bodice-ripper fashion. What I found instead was a jaw-droppingly stupid narrative with the most incompetent spies I have ever seen, and so many red flags and creepy undertones that it sent several seasoned bad-story veterans screaming from the chat in my writing group. Yours truly included, at a certain point.

I'm sure y'all would feel terribly slighted if I didn't share the pain with you.

Originally, I thought of writing up a review here and I've been meaning to get to it at some point next year, but that just wouldn't give me enough space to dissect every single brain-punchingly dumb or horrifying plot point. And since my latest recaps were fun to do and reasonably well-read so far, I figured I'd try the same with this book. It'll be less funny-snarky and more analytical-snarky this time around, but I'll do my best to let the fail speak for itself. Behold: the first chapter of the eyebrow-raisingly-titled Moonlit Obsession, written by one Jill Gregory.

source: Goodreads

Movie Recap: Bridge of Dragons, Act 3

Welcome back to the last leg of our journey, princes and princesses. Hitch up your wedding smocks, because this recap is going out with a bang – this is Bridge of Dragons, Act 3!

Movie Recap: Bridge of Dragons, Act 2

Welcome back to my action movie rogues' gallery, dear readers! I'm in a hurry this time because this segment of Bridge of Dragons has one of my favorite dumbass action movie scenes ever filmed (I think you'll know it when you see it in the recap), so let's get right into it. Ready, steady, action!

Movie Recap: Bridge of Dragons, Act 1

Hello, everyone. This is Oculus Recaps, which is a thing now, apparently.

Yes, here I go again like Whitesnake: after the unexpected amount of fun I had snarking at my dearest U.S. SEALs 2, I figured I'd sacrifice a few more braincells to revisit some of my other beloved Nu Image masterpieces. Undisputed 3 is way too unironically good for me to poke fun of, but there is another gem I have been meaning to return to and feature on this blog. That would be the 1999 action-adventure-romance Bridge of Dragons, which doesn't have a single bridge nor a dragon in it, as far as I recall. It does, however, have a lantern-jawed Action Man fighting an evil general for the love of a feisty princess, and said lantern-jawed looker is played by one of my favorite Action Man crushes: Dolph Lundgren. And who else would direct such high-octane cinema than Master Isaac Florentine himself?

I love Bridge of Dragons, dear readers, even when it hurts my head, and I'm here to make you love it too. Crash helmets on, sporks out, painkillers in hand, let's begin right away with Act 1!

Movie Recap: U.S. SEALs 2, Act 3

Home stretch now, girls and gentlefolk, so let's not waste any time! All I'm going to say before I get into the last half hour of this amazing experience is that despite my snark, I want everyone to know that I adore U.S. SEALs 2. Is it a good movie? Hell no - but it knows its own weight class and delivers solid, honest entertainment in that category, with every actor giving their all to each of these stupid, ridiculous, batshit, out there plot points and fight scenes. I admire a movie that has a heart, and U.S. SEALs 2 has so much, I find that I just can't stay mad at it even when it punches my brain for the fifteenth time in 94 minutes.

On to the dumb!

Movie Recap: U.S. SEALs 2, Act 2

Back and at 'em with the stupid, friends and femmes. Here's the second part of my recap of the most action movie ever: U.S. SEALs 2: The Ultimate Force, directed by Isaac Florentine.

Movie Recap: U.S. SEALs 2, Act 1

Hey again, everyone!

Not gonna make excuses for vanishing this time: 2022 was a very tough year for me, so I fell rather behind on almost every writing and blogging project I have. I do want to make up for the 2021 Sleaze-A-Thon falling through, though, so I will post the only review I have managed to write for it this month as a sort of mini-penance... as well as finish something else I started last year for y'all. Namely, I've been writing a recap for the most action movie I have ever seen: a little gem titled U.S. SEALs 2, an unforgettable follow-up to a mostly-forgotten action movie called U.S. SEALs, both from the famed low-budget fun times film studio called Nu Image. This bonkers sequel was directed by my favorite schlockmaster and direct-to-video wizard Isaac Florentine, so we're in good hands. I have been very fond of Mr. Florentine's output since my first jaw-on-the-floor encounter with Undisputed 3 (I made my mom watch that one with me and I still refuse to feel embarrassed over it), and this one didn't disappoint either.

Get ready, we're diving into the schlock in 3... 2... 1...