This was fucking horrific. This scriptwriter should be forced to find a new career. The second that Rosamund Pike was kidnapped, I thought to myself, "He's either going to propose, or they're going to go into business together." The problem was in getting to the point, where this actually happened. These Russian mobsters must've been the most incompetent buffoons on the planet to not be able to finish off two individuals, who they'd already pretty much brought to w/in an inch of their life. This was such an incredible stretch that it made this movie absolutely ridiculous.
Aside from this, the fact that the writer tried to make these two women sympathetic characters screams that there's something really off w/ this writer. On what planet are people who take advantage of, and essentially murder, some of the most vulnerable members of society sympathetic?
On one last note, I've never been a fan of Rosamund Pike. I'd seen her in two previous films, where she was not good at all: Jack Reacher and Gone Girl. In the former, she's so melodramatic, it's difficult to watch, and it's even more difficult to take her character seriously. In the latter, although she's playing a character w/ Antisocial Personality Disorder, that doesn't necessarily mean someone devoid of affect, which is exactly how she played that role. She may as well have been a talking stump in that movie. I realize that she received industry-wide recognition for the latter role, but I prescribe this to the industries' complete and utter lack of understanding of psychological disorders and their accompanying attributes.
I wasn't going to watch this film b/c of my distaste for Ms. Pike's acting ability, but the movie, on its own, won such rave reviews, I figured that I'd give it a chance. However, something about her just wasn't right. She had this odd grin in a lot of scenes, where it either didn't fit, or it seemed like it would've been inappropriate, if it had been a real-life situation. I just find her acting to be really off-putting. Luckily, both Peter Dinklage and Dianne Wiest are always top-notch performers.
This is literally one of the worst films I've ever had the displeasure to watch. In fact, it was practically unwatchable. The cinematography and direction were awful, the script appears to have been written by someone who doesn't speak English, b/c no one in the world speaks the way these characters spoke in this film, the acting was downright terrible (Kyle MacLachlan is not a good actor, and Dennis Hopper is about as menacing as a declawed kitten), the story is ungodly boring, and the special effects, such that they were, look like a fourth grader's attempt at becoming involved in filmmaking. If I live to be 1000-years-old, I will never understand people's affection for David Lynch.
I hate the main character. He is so irredeemably unlikable, it's practically unfathomable that someone would write this, and it would get greenlit for production. Aside from being more boring than watching paint dry, one of the oddest things about this show, which is incredibly irritating, is the audio. In at least two of the first five episodes, they employed this background audio, which in one case sounded like a cellphone notification and in the other, a high-pitched squeal. I can't believe that no one caught this in post, b/c it's so hideous to listen to.
I felt that this show really should be evaluated in three parts, as it’s almost as if there were three shows in one. The first season was based on the novel of the same name, so the writers had clearly marked signposts to follow. As the novel was quite compelling, so too was the first season of the show. However, this is where the book ended, and the writers had to take up the slack. The natural progression of events led them to follow the court case surrounding the death of Hannah Baker, as well as the criminal trial of Bryce Walker..
I felt that these two seasons should be evaluated in terms of being different shows. The first season was clearly the best season of the four b/c, that’s the material the book covered, and the writers didn’t have to come up w/ any of their own material. The second season, although panned by some fans and critics, still followed the same themes of the first season, yet it was not up to par in terms of storyline or writing.
The third and fourth seasons should be considered a third show all on their own. While they did stick to similar themes from the first and second seasons, the writers clearly had no plan in place to go beyond the end of the novel. These last two seasons, especially, felt completely disjointed from the first two. The third season was long and drawn out, and the payoff in the end was neither surprising nor all that interesting. If they had maintained more of a mysterious atmosphere over what they were doing, it might have been better.
The fourth season was just a mess. Watching a main character who’s moody, bitter, angry, intense, depressed, and slipping into schizophrenia is not a compelling watch. They began this in season three and continued on in season four. It really added no particular value to the show or the character of Clay.
As for the storyline in the final season, it was absolutely ludicrous. I won’t go into the details, but suffice it to say, the writers really didn’t put much thought into what they were doing. The last two episodes of the show were especially pointless. The prom episode was completely unnecessary, as was the finale, at least the way it was filmed. And, it certainly didn’t require 90 minutes to portray the events of what happened in the finale. Not to mention, the last scene of the show was absolutely awful.
I think that the worst part of this show, however, was the treatment of two characters, Bryce Walker and Montgomery de la Cruz. In the third season, the writers actually spend quite a few resources rehabilitating the image of Bryce, as if there was some redemption to be had for him. He was a serial predator, and his actions would have stemmed from a deep-seated psychological disorder that wouldn’t have simply gone away, b/c he acknowledged his wrongdoing and felt bad about it. They did something similar w/ Monte in the fourth season, and I felt that it was incredibly disingenuous, dangerous, and irresponsible to take this path, b/c it showed that they really hadn’t researched the topics they were writing about. It was really surprising to watch this, and even both of Jessica’s relationships w/ Justin and Diego were quite questionable, especially given her role as head of the women’s rights movement on campus.
I haven't seen this, but I've read enough about it to know that it's a giant waste of time. The writer/director chose to sell tickets rather than present an even semi-accurate picture of what's happening in America today. Only one side is comprised of white nationalists, neo-Confederates, Christo-fascists, and neo-Nazis who already once tried to overthrow the government, while having spent the past decade or so threatening civil war. Any comparison of the right and left is a false equivocation. Fighting against the fascism of the right is not the problem; the problem are the fascists. Yet, this film doesn't even begin to address any of this. In fact, they California and Texas teaming up, which is just a ridiculous proposal. This film is a pathetic excuse for what's actually occurring in the world.
I'm down for dumb comedies, but when all you have is dumb, there's nothing fun or interesting about that. This was a huge swing and a miss on the part of the scriptwriters. There was nothing funny about any of this, and I don't know who Andrew Santino is, but his delivery comes across as mean-spirited rather than playful or funny. I don't know what William H. Macy was doing slumming in this.
Mama Stark murdering an innocent woman for no reason at the end? They should've smashed that thing's teeth in, until it stopped breathing.
For a number of reasons, Letitia Wright was an incredibly poor choice to step into the role of the Black Panther. Both Lupita Nyong'o and Danai Gurira were much more deserving. In fact, I don't think that they even needed to name a successor in this film, but they did, and they chose poorly.
This was trite and formulaic. This is the after-school special level of superhero movies. It's embarrassing that DC thought that this would kick off their new film franchise. This film was so derivative and so poorly written, it's astonishing that it was greenlit.
This is such an awful movie on every level that a film can be awful. The story: Terrible. The acting: Terrible. The casting: Terrible. The cinematography: Terrible. Costume design: Terrible. The dialogue: Some of the worst in the history of movie-making. This dialogue literally sounds as if it were written by a couple of high school boys. Two of the "writers" involved in this saw their careers ended by this garbage. It's shameful that a film this poor would not only see such popularity but spawn an additional 11 films. As a species, we should be embarrassed.
This was a weird, creepy, pointless film that had zero direction to it. What was Alison Brie thinking in accepting this role?!?
This film is not what it seems. It's one thing to look at mental health through the lens of stalking social media influencers, but this film goes beyond that into an area that doesn't deserve to be explored in a film of this type. Ingrid is a woman, likely with some type of undiagnosed attachment disorder, who stalks social media influencers by ingratiating herself into their lives. She attempts to make herself appear as if her life is fuller than it actually is, and she does so through duplicitous methods. For instance, [spoiler]she tells her newfound friends that she has a boyfriend, and she sleeps with her landlord in order to get him to pose as such for her.[/spoiler] It could be argued that this action fits with the narrative of the film by being symptomatic of her disorder. Fair enough.
However, she does other things that have nothing to do w/ her disorder that make her an awful human being. In one instance, [spoiler]she borrowed the truck of her landlord, and violated the agreement she had to return it, b/c she was having fun w/ a new friend. Later, she wrecked the truck, and when she finally brought it back, she had cost her landlord his ability to meet a responsibility, and she offered no accountability. She tried to pretend that it wasn't a big deal and not something she should be bothered w/. Later in the film, it's indicated that the damage was $8000, and again, she attempted to play it off. She later outrights steals the truck, which, again, could be seen as something related to her disorder.[spoiler/]
Those who engage in this type of behavior are dangerous. I felt that they focused so much on the mental health-related aspects of her behavior, they overlooked what a terrible human being they actually made her aside from that.
This is absolutely horrific. It's amazing that Craig Robinson was able to escape this dreck that drowned the careers of everyone else involved. I couldn't even make it through 90 seconds of this movie, before I started fast forwarding. t's just unwatchable.
This is one of those films that's very good for what it is. I found much of it quite amusing, which gave this film a different feel than similar entries in the genre.
This is how we should still be treating (neo-)Nazis.
After having just finished the two "Dune" films before watching this, and having seen a few other Denis Villeneuve films, I think that it's safe to say that he's quite poor at telling stories, especially those belong to other people. His ability to convolute a story is unmatched. I can't recall being more confused than when watching his films. I think that it's an injustice to the actors and the source material. This was a great idea for a story, but his telling of it left a lot to be desired.
This had a fine cast, albeit a bit old to be playing 16-year-olds, but the script and direction were not good. I found Dakota Johnson's character to be really unlikeable for most of the film, and there was no look into the three members of her cohort, which seemed like a really wasted opportunity. What was the plan, to tell their backstory in a sequel? Tahar Rahim is a fine actor, but he was not good in this, and for all the vitriol against this film, it wasn't that bad, but it also wasn't good, as it really wasn't a superhero film, so I'm not really certain why they marketed it as such. To give you an idea of how bad the scripting/dialogue was, there was a scene in the first third of the film, where the four main characters are standing in a park getting to know one another a bit. Celeste O'Connor complains that her father makes a fortune polluting the oceans with plastics, which would've been a worthy gripe had she not less than 30 seconds earlier finished eating a bag of beef jerky before tossing the empty plastic bag into the bushes. Seriously, no one in the entire filmmaking process caught this?
It's a well-made film, but I'm not now, nor have I ever been, a fan of white savior stories. No matter how you slice it, white, fascistic oppression is still white, fascistic oppression.
I got the feeling that there was so much to this story in the books than was explained here, as it didn't relate well to the screen. I was confused throughout this film. It wasn't bad, but I also felt that it wasn't nearly as good as others had made it out to be. Instead of trying to wrangle extra dollars, I wish that they would've made this into a longer epic and explained in greater detail the cultural aspects of these oppressed people and what it was everyone's intentions truly were.
In this series of "Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet..." films, this was not one of their best, but it was still a better-than-average film that showed why this formula was so popular for them.
This film was an important view of what it looks like to stand up to murderous fascism, those who use their outsized power to put their boots on the throats of those they oppress.
I really enjoyed this film. I thought that the cast did an exceptional job, and it was a sweet story full of heart and hope for a brighter future.
I was so disappointed by this. I really, really wanted to like it, but I never really understood what was going on. The mother-daughter story would've been of great interest to me, but it felt like they took an incredibly roundabout approach to dealing with that relationship. I'm not really sure what the rest of this was, if it all was in order to tell that story.
This wasn't at all what I was expecting, but it was a tremendous film w/ a tremendous cast. Neither the story nor the story outlay were unique, but they were well-done. This was a strong drama.
This wasn't really what I expected. I thought that there'd be more comedy, but that wasn't the case. This was very much a semi-light-hearted drama with some comedic elements. It was also dark, and it gave me Fargo vibes. I'd never seen Tina Fey in a role of this type, and I thought that she did really well. In fact, I'd like to see her branch out, and take on more roles like this.
This was a really unique film about the resilience, inventiveness, and intelligence of children. The cinematography gave it a nostalgic, 1970s feel to it, and the young actors were terrific. It was a sweet, heartwarming tale, and it would seem that Weston Razooli is a filmmaker to keep an eye on.
I really enjoyed this. I thought that Awkwafina and Sandra Oh had great chemistry together, and the comedy in this hit just the right notes. For me, Awkwafina always stands out in whatever I happen to see her in, and it's no coincidence. She's incredibly talented and brutally funny. I think that she's criminally underrated as an actor.
Overall, this was an interesting story. However, it should've been kept to five or six episodes. There was absolutely no need to string this out into 10 episodes. It really lost purpose in the middle, and it got away from the main focus for long periods of time. In the end, the performances by Amanda Seyfried and Tom Holland were quite strong, and they carried material that otherwise might've been quite lackluster.
This episode was certainly more interesting, as there was more happening to introduce elements to the story that might culminate in informing the audience of the truth. Yet, I think that the biggest drawback for me has been the writing. I don't think that they spent much time fleshing out how they would tell this story, and so they seem to be trying to shoehorn plot points into the story that don't really fit. In numerous episodes now, Amanda Seyfried's character has said things that simply didn't fit into the flow of the conversation she was having w/ Tom Holland's character. She pleads with him to get at the heart of the story, to tell the truth, to inform her of the details, but in his retelling of events, that's exactly what he's doing. He's not intentionally misleading her, so there's no reason for her to be saying these things. It seemed that the writers simply felt that they needed to give her lines of dialogue, and this was what they came up w/.
To try to twist the machinations this story involves, they had to write dialogue that doesn't really jive. And the dialogue also betrays later plot points that haven't been introduced, yet, so when they're discussing something the audience isn't aware of, it really doesn't make much sense in the moment. None of this makes for a compelling story.
