Ultimately made the effort to use my MoviePass to gamble with a video game movie.  Nintendo games were introduced to me at a young age with the NES in the early eighties and the Gameboy in the late eighties.  It’s always been my preferred type of game.  When I saw this movie being released, I was somewhat dreading it.  I thought possibly I could just avoid knowing that there was a “Mario Bros.” movie because that’s just not necessary.  I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with my Nanna the past couple of years and not only did her and my Poppa, whom I got my middle name from, buy me and my siblings our first Gameboys, she used to play many of the RPGs herself!  What a cool Nanna right?  So I figured it would be good to see this movie while she is still with us, being I gave away my Christmas present of a Switch to a children’s need center.  There are a lot of people working on this movie, but I just want to say that the Japanese don’t do anything half-a**ed when it comes to animation.  Surprising the voice actors and actresses cast in this production as well.  The plot isn’t mind blowing, but it’s enough of a beginning act to set up more Mario movies and let us pay attention to what else is going on, on screen.  They showed off lots of video game stuff impressively enough to sell more consoles and make money doing it.  How brilliant?  I thought lots of the characters were cute and added depth to their legendary profiles.  Others were developed with a unique and creative edge, that we will never be able to forget.  One of the things I really was wowed by, was the fact that the movie wasn’t a step back from video game production.  All my life I thought video games were the final frontier.  More money, more popular, more cool, more power.  This movie for the first time showed me that all the work making video games actually seemed like preparation for this showcase medium; work of art.  The scenes starting with old-school Mario confrontations with Bowser going all the way to the rotating screen Mario World RPG-type game, had set up a wonderful soundtrack and all the building blocks of a dynamic and deep, animated life.  So although I’m feeling empty of blood in my veins and spark from the recent trips and donation with Gulf Coast, I can recognize in my mind how moving this show really turned out.  So much thought went into making this an extension of the success of the Nintendo franchise, rather than a side project that would make extra money.  Charming nostalgia, subtle sadness, joyous sense of humor in tough times and more.  The music was probably the best part for me, but I was still amazed by the eyes of Princess for example and the textures in the skin and shell of Bowser.  I guess my development in art during covid as a sketch artist and tattooing has helped me appreciate many other things, if for nothing else.