What a horrific episode. I swear there's a missing episode. I want to rewatch to see what kind of locations were in this episode just to see if it makes sense that they had to reedit for covid reasons. Because the episodes starts off clearly 3 steps ahead of the last one which makes no sense. How did Nathan and Nora end up at the whitenoise waterfall? They were very clearly not there before. Aleesha was just a manager but now she's celebrating being a VP. She's coming off a tug of war about will she or won't she accept the company leash. Something that was just starting to be hinted at last episode. It couldn't be more clear that a full episode is missing. Even Ingrid's storyline has jumped from her starting the baby process in secret to now this episode she's already told Nathan and scheduled a final appointment to seal the deal something he clearly knows about and is fighting. I kind of feel like Luke downgrade to G-Rated dreams feels like maybe it's the end joke to her setting him to PG-13 and then PG and then G but to be fair even without that technically his storyline fits. But everything else just feels like it advanced somehow when I wasn't watching. I actually paused about 3minutes in to triple check that I wasn't missing some episode because I'm not in the US or something.
As an episode it was merely okay which is kinda raw considering the big things that happened. The big one being the Download that was teased. A risky procedure that has risky complications some of which we may or may not see. It involves Nathan making some big choices in orders that aren't necessarily obvious. It's all ends not in a cliffhanger or a big moment but a small one. The kind of thing you barely expect to end an episode much less a season. There's a lot of behind the scenes talk about the season length. Supposedly they "let the story determine the season length" which just reads like justification after the fact. I don't actually have any issue with the season length in general. 3 episodes, 10 episodes, 7 episodes I genuinely don't care. The problem isn't the number of episodes it's that they complete their story. Wheel of Time had this issue too. It's got a MASSIVE story to tell and squeezing it into 8 episodes just wasn't enough for the scale they were going for. EVERY episode felt rushed. What I'm seeing here with Upload Season 2 was perfectly paced and well done until this episode where suddenly the only conclusion we can make is they didn't have enough budget or health and safety for the penultimate episode. So rather than delay the show and try to complete it they just decided to skip it and go right to the finale.
As a season I enjoyed this only slightly less than the first. I really like the complexity to their characters. It's not the deepest show ever but Ingrid is a sympathetic villain. Luke was enjoyably consistent. Aleesha shows depth.
Giving Beck a voice was great. It removed the creepy idolization stain on her from seeing her only from Joe's perspective. It gives her agency that is starting to be needed to take this show to a new level.
While severance has been a slick show from the beginning. Well shot. Well paced. Well acted. It's been kind of a slow drag to nowhere. Even the revelation of Petey while interesting didn't really take us anywhere. But episodes 8 and 9 really do successfully deliver on the tension that's been building all season finally unite the inside story and the outside story.
This episode was so tonally out of step with everything that came before it, that the message is kinda weakened. I understand wanting to make an episode with a contemporary relevant message, which is fine, but you have to include the other writers who were making an actual story because QL2022 has been a lot of things but it hasn't been nearly as cringe at this. For an episode that scolds the parents for "keeping their daughter locked up" who "just want to be a normal girl playing with her friends" this episode really focuses on making every aspect of her exceptional. I mean I get it. It's a rough time right now, so maybe they felt it was necessary.
Every 10 minutes it felt like the screenplay had the words "And then everyone clapped". The overly inspirational uninspired music choices, the focused closeups on "lesson moments". It reads like after school special rather than a story about inclusion. This may not be my genre of choice but if they do another episode on this issue I hope they can focus on integrating it into a more cohesive narrative where people aren't talking in memes (ain't nobody got time for that) and metaphors are more metaphorical than literal. They already have a trans character I think and they are fine. That character is one of my favorites in the show. They did an episode about drag queens and that was fine even if I thought it was a little silly it worked within the world that was built.
I think the episode would have been better if it had focused on a singular aspect of the issue and then IMPLIED the rest. For instance if the episode has been about getting her on the team and playable and then implied stuff like being allowed in the locker room, it wouldn't have felt like it was trying to do every story at once. Personally I think the concept of misgendering a body is so complicated (because gender is a social construction but a dead body does have a sex which is a biological presentation and that suggests there's a whole realm of realistic possibility for that happened beyond that obvious "They hate her because she's not like other girls" narrative the episode was going for) that it might have been more effective to just trim that bit and the whole mystery about what happened when she ran away. It didn't feel like it added anything other than just hiding things from the audience for another gut punch reveal that wasn't that gut punchy. It's like an episode about a black women who has to overcome people assuming she's poor and shrill and being sexually available just because she dated a white guy all at once. And then the one black guy called her a hoe to show off to his white friends and the her uncle abused her. It's not completely untrue to reality. There are women who deal with all that but the narrative can't support that many threads. Not even when you delay the overarching narrative to focus on this episode. Something's gotta give and in this case it was the verisimilitude.
Whatever. It's fine. it's one dip in episode quality and it's not a big deal. Next time they'll be better probably. It reminds me of the BLM episode of The Rookie where they had the IA chief literally slam his fist at how frustrated he was at the idea of even the appearance of corruption. A moment so laughable I still chuckle because in real life IA aren't cop hunters. They're cop shields. When the police "investigate themselves and find nothing" that's IA at work. But it values the police if IA is always seen as antagonistic to regular police because then people IRL are more trusting of IA.
No rating. My rating would be on the lower end but not for the reasons most of the lower ends are gonna be using.
Edit: Rather soon after this episode aired (relatively) there's been a case where a trans person died and apparently law enforcement are using the legal name to identify them rather than the name they choose. I haven't looked into it but it appears to be an issue with limitations within how the law allowed names to be changed. I only mention it because while it seems tangentially related to a minor point I was making. There's a strong distinction that in this episode the police found a body and couldn't identify it and labeled it according to the sex they could identify where as in this specific IRL story a body was found and identified and they choose to identify it based on what their papers said rather than how the individual identified according to information they should have had available. Hopefully the nuance of those two concepts conveys why I stand by my assessment that the episode would have been better without that storybeat as implemented in the final episode.
Well that was a fun season finale. D'Arcy has the most standout moment in my opinion. When she finds out Harry is an Alien and this is the big lie that Asta has been keeping from her. She actually acknowledges that this is a big lie and it's very realistic for Asta to lie to her about it. It was extremely satisfying to see this for once even if her completely ignoring the "dinosaur", to assure her friend she gets it is hilariously unrealistic and I mean hilariously as a matter of literal not scale. It got a solid chuckle from me out loud.
There was a lot of revelations for this season finale. Which started from a pretty noteworthy premise of The Greys giving Harry a way off planet leading to Harry needing to decide what to do. The episode is arc'd perfectly ending in a lot of things that we've been hinting at coming to a head and a few things we weren't thinking about to surprise you. The only part of the episode I didn't like was the "Documentary" within the show. A bunch of people talking about being taken or seeing Aliens that connected by to Patience in the end but as a whole I don't think was worth the time.
Can't wait till next season.
Okay, well that was confusing. The most notable storyline in this episode is the one involving the maths tutor, well specifically the maths tutor and the vicar.
Good lord woman why are you so.... and I struggle to find another word for this but stupid. Just one stupid moment flipped the entire path of the story for a character who honestly was amazing before then.
When you know someone so well why would make the presumptions she makes. Being shocked at CP I get. That's awful stuff I can't imagine. But assuming that Ben your math student is gleefully and casually taking ownership of it is ridiculous. The worst part is that in spite of the fact that his father is a vicar she can't imagine any other outcome than it's Ben's "He told me from his own mouth". Now Harry is also a moron for being unable to explain a simple concept like "it belongs to a parish member" without going through three fumbles. Just explain. How this ended up with her bleeding in your basement is beyond belief.
talia was being sexually harassed by a guest star. For some reason the show did not take her completely seriously there's no reason for them not to have done that because she is a main character and the perpetrator was merely a guest star who had no important role in the show. However she decided to stick to her guns and leave the show . this is very unfortunate because I really did enjoy her character. I've been wondering how they were going to deal with her character not being on the show anymore turns out they just use the laziest solution they have. It does the job but there's a very noticeable hole in the balance on the show.
Jennifer's Body is a fun romp. I remember when it came out and I definitely avoided it because of Megan Fox but also because I don't like horror movies. If I had been sat down to watch it back then however I definitely would have enjoyed it even back then. It's not the scariest movie out there and for me that's a bonus. It does a lot of very interesting things with characters. The hot girl and the nerd girl friendship is common enough it's becoming a trope but in spite of the many times I've seen it before this movie came out and before I actually saw this movie last night I actually like their relationship. The movie isn't about a giant schism between them from middle school they're actually friends and that's interesting. I even liked the ending. I might even watch a sequel to this movie because i think there's room to do things with this world. But I don't need it. I'm completely satiated.
a compelling and paced opening that doesnt deliver in the back end. the acting is solid the writing and directing are okay. until the movie can't stall any longer and is forced to try to do something with what build up it has. then it stumbles and falters to a finish.
This episode feels like they set it up to be interesting but ended up reductive. But that's just storytelling. I'm not a fan of this particular story. Previously we were told that just because something looks like a monsters doesn't mean it is. It kinda felt specifically like a hint that Medusa was a victim (and she is) in need of sympathy for what happened to her and not revulsion for how she looks. And yet we have Medusa who saves the children and ends up with her head cut off. Almost like we could have just judged her by her monstrous appearance in the first place.
I must be half way through part one by now and I think I'm realizing my issue with this season so far. First of all it's a mess. That's obvious. This isn't the focused character study we've been used to. This is literally a murder mystery. This is the Fast 5 genre turn for You.
But the problem isn't that it's different. It's that it's lost it's raison d'etre. I root for a lot of anti heroes here in "peak TV". I rooted for Dexter easily. I rooted for Walter White in slightly nuanced ways that I think a lot of Breaking Bad fans just didn't get. Yes he's the bad guys but I understand why he's doing it. It's why I was confused when I found out everyone hated Skylar. She's my second favorite character. Without rehashing that debate to myself again. Joe was different. I rooted for Joe like I do almost every main character but I felt slimy doing it. In a way I've never felt before. I wanted Joe to win. I wanted Joe to live. I wanted Joe to escape but there was nothing I could point to and say "here's why he deserves it not just because he's the lead character in a show about himself but he did this at least". That's why the children in season 1 and season 2 were a drag on Joe. The children were slightly redemptive. But Joe isn't a redemptive character. He's so well acted, well written that you don't need to redeem him. I put this on Penn because he does what the character does. He charms you. In anyone else or with worse direction you'd have to keep emphasizing how charming he supposed to be but with You, he just is. Joe is really goodlooking. Joe is erudite. Joe is everything I imagine a women wants to just take home and do filthy things to. And then you hear what's going on in his head. The "he loves kids" part ruins that. Just let Joe be Joe. He can just be the bad guy that you, as a man, understand just a little too well. The funhouse mirror to how you think when you meet a pretty girl or just any girl that says "Hi" to you while making eye contact. Nothing will make you fall in love faster than a girl who makes sustained eye contact.
Joe was perfectly crafted to be just so distasteful in exactly the right way. From a character perspective he thinks the same way Dexter and Walter do. He's justified in his actions because of his motivations and the information he has. But You did something great. It broke the internal narrative. And it did it by giving Joe an internal monologue.
It's not just hearing his voice but everything in the show that really showed Joe to be from the get go not what he thinks he is. Joe is horrible but he thinks he's noble. Joe thinks he's in love but he doesn't respect autonomy. Every dark thought I've had as a man, Joe breathes into existence and shows it's true face. He acts on thoughts we all learn to suppress like adenaline junkies learn to not jump off the cliff just because it's there. It was all so well balanced and focused on revealing Joe for who he is to the audience if no one else.
Joe in Season 4 isn't that guy. Joe's always fought with controlling himself and here suddenly he's a bastion of control. Suddenly here he's reading women for the signals they're actually giving him as opposed to the signals he wants them to give him. Here Joe is who is thinks he is. There's no heel turn. Not for us, not for Joe, not even in retrospect (at least not yet). And rooting for Joe now feels broken because he's still Joe but now I feel like the show is rooting for him too. You trust the show to keep you honest. To remind you that Joe isn't going to be the good guy this time around. The murder mystery (in every context of that term) is distracting from who Joe is. It's allowing him to shine as the hero he always thought he was. But that's not You. You is about a man who thinks he's the hero every woman wants but she's not even in danger much less in need of rescuing. Penn is still great. He's fantastic and I've seen Charlotte in so many programs and she's doing a rather solid job here. Will I tune in? Yes. But it's not You anymore. It's Me and a Joe focused on himself might make for a better man but it doesn't make for a better character.
oh dang Rachel those are TEENAGE GIRLS. Don't talk to them. Just don't make eye contact and hope they don't speak to you.
What a fun time and satisfying conclusion. Heck yeah the murder mystery genre is BACK!
All the twists and turns you want without any of the double crossing you get in the spy genre. All ending in a pretty solid conclusion.
As long as you're not the sort of person who is looking for the killer yourself You can sit back and watch our "bumbling... or is she?" detective do her interviews and drill down to the murderer complete with just enough tangles. I don't mind but I know some people really get annoyed when they can't follow along with the mystery and find the proof themselves. In this case the proof is so inconsequential I refuse to believe anyone would have noticed it on first watch. Yet it's not entirely inplausible that in the telling of the story that inconsistency didn't stick out.
A fun cast, a fun mystery. I mean seriously. How Great Is This Party?!?!?!
A fantastic premise for this show. An abbey of silence where they have to assess a miracle without saying a word. There's an air of the disturbing throughout the whole episode in spite of some of the most genuine moments of amusement in the series today. Some clever and unexpected visual design on the internal monologues really help keep the engagement up without disturbing the air of silence.
An utterly delightful episode that plays with the line between reality and fiction that is practically the trademark of this show.
Whoooo Doggy.
This'll probably be the last place I explain this but I used to be one of those guys who hated Megan Fox. I refused to watch Jennifer's Body in part because of that (and in part because it looked TERRIBLE, in retrospect of course it was a Spring Breakers level of reversal). That said I watched Jennifer's Body and as I said in that review it blew. me. away. With how excellent and funny and interesting it was. Between that and Lindsey Ellis' video on Megan Fox in Transformers[2] and that video with Jimmy Kimmel coming around yet again only this time it finally clicked. I've basically done a 90 degree turn on Fox. I'm basically neutral. I'm perfectly willing to accept her as an actress in movies I want to see. I've been rather eager to see what she does next.
Then I heard about Rogue. At first I hear she was leading a mercenary crew to rescue yada yada yada and honestly I didn't like it. Fox is still a petite, super attractive woman. I'm actually perfectly willing to see her in an action role even one where she isn't a sexy demon beast or whatever but this is one of the few roles I wouldn't have picked for her.
Then I saw the trailer and it was basically everything I was worried about. She's like a model in fatigues. But hey I've definitely watched much much much worst movies for less. I figured I'd give it a shot.
Honestly the first thing I compare Rogue to is Hustlers. Hustlers was a movie about strippers from the strippers perspective that was so well crafted, so well written and acted and framed that even in a movie that gave me Jennifer Lopez looking like she's at the top of her game oozing sex in a way that for whatever reason didn't come off cheap. Popped Lizzo's big girl behind in a thong throwing all that weight around. It's a fantastic movie. Just good film making. And in spite of that I never for one second buy in that Constance Wu the main character is a stripper. She screams it in literally every scene she's in... not a stripper. Someone pretending to be a stripper. And yet.... I don't care. It never bothered me. I never saw her as a stripper but the movie is so good I never needed to.
Rogue is kinda like that, but in reverse. Rogue is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. I will watch this movie again just so I can point out all the stupid insane dumb things that happen CinemaSins style. None of these characters make sense. From the moment they casually tossed one of their own mercenaries out of a moving car when he got killed to when it happened literally twice. The bad guys[1] are just SO dedicated to hunting these three girls that no matter how many of them die, they're still running guns up to die. The hostages who were literally kidnapped from school, beaten (but not raped?) and kept in cages and pick the worst battles in history. In the middle of an escape one refuses to wade into a river crying about how she needs a break. Do you not understand what they're going to do if they catch you? Everyone else went across the calf deep water why would you demand to stop? Of course the movie tries to justify this by having her actually get eaten by a gator but gator would have left her along if she was with the group and thematically doesn't make any sense to the themes of the movie. When one of the mercs is bleeding they demand to know what's going on in full Karen effect. Ladies you're teenagers not medics. You don't even know or like him why would you get to know what's going on with his triage? They don't trust the man who saved their life because he admits he used to work for the bad guy. Everyone is just SO STUPID. I haven't seen this level of stupidity since Avenue 5 which is a hilarious comedy about a Space Gilligan's Island with one intelligent person and a shipfull of people at 3 different levels of stupid. It's worth watching for that one episode alone. It's so macabre and funny.
And yet, my worries about Megan Fox were justified. She can't pull off military gunner that well. She doesn't have the body for it. That said she tries. She's the only character who actually seems like she's taking anything seriously. There's an unnecessary "she's a GIRL?!? and military!??!?" dialog at some points. It serves no purpose the movie isn't about her being a girl with a gun. There's no reason for anyone to not trust her character's bona fides as the leader of this mercenary group. But again Megan Fox showed up on set to WORK. She goes seriously, not overly cheesy but with some snark when needed. She can relate to her men without trying to "be one of the guys". She's not one of the guys. She's the boss and she acts like it. She gives orders well, she controls the rescuees well. Megan Fox is the only one in this movie that makes any sense. It's a shame the movie can't manage to warp around her. Everything else BUT her is so bad including the closing tag trying to tell us that captive lions are an issue which has nothing to do with the plot and most will call hypocritical in light of the real lions used (at the end) of the film.
Rogue is a bad bad movie but it does still leave me interested in what Megan Fox does next.
[1] (hmm actually at one point they DO suggest an amount of religious zealotry)
[2] Framing Megan Fox: Feminist Theory Part 3 | The Whole Plate: Episode 7 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKyrUMUervU]. Highly recommend it completely changed my perspective on the characters in Transformers. It's still a terrible movie but wow apparently for that first one the writers were at least trying and Michael Bay really went hard ruining it.
Not the biggest fan of the ending but I also didn't hate it. It was a fun ride and it did something new with the GHD formula which I liked. It added a second person. Talk about co-dependence ehh?
With the rise of the Alt-Right and Neo-Nazis just becoming Nazis again. And half the country clamoring for the return to the racist 50s when white people could just .. ya know prosper without having to fuss too much with all these non-normal non-white people. You have to figure eventually they would make their kind of show. You'd have to wonder what kind of show would they make? Would they make Archie Bunker but not sarcastic? (Because for those who don't know the fact that Archie Bunker was a racist POS was the joke of the show it wasn't like a documentary)
Well wonder no more. Do you hate minorities? Are you tired of politically correct culture ruining your ability to call someone fat to their face without getting shamed out of a job? Do you think journalists are pansies who have never had a real job trying to shame innocent Americans who are just achieving the American dream that one day you just might achieve yourself? Do you fight taxes against the rich (like the estate tax WHICH ONLY AFFECTS THE RICH) because one day you might be a lottery winner and you'll be gosh darned if you have to pay taxes when you get rich? Then this is the show for you. This is a show that skewers minorities of all types as "abnormal" and "shocking". Watch our cool headed straight white female protagonist just get exhausted and ask "can't we all just be normal tonight"? Watch our popular kids (who are all also minorities exercise their "minority privilege"[1] by threatening to take away innocent college scholarships from white males for violating "esoteric social justice rules that they don't even care about".
Get ready for new Alt-Right memes. Are you tired of Chanty Binx? Oh wait if you're tired of her you probably know her as "Big Red Feminist" Get ready for Heather No 1 memes where she says the things that that man-o-sphere is always saying feminists say. Get ready to hear that body-positive is literally the same thing as fat because literally zero thin people need body positivity. Get ready to mock all types of social justice as our protagonist of white man and white female are here to bring the school's queen bees to their knees. Even the Asian bee.
[1] For the record there's no such thing but if you think there is then you like the creators of this show are both wrong and enjoy this drek
Naked is a good but not great groundhog day clone. It's above decent even, with a touch of gross out humor (and I'm not talking about Marlon's naked body) that plague Wayan's films since Scary Movie 2. Still sincerity is developed eventually, though it doesn't feel that way from the start.
Groundhog Day movies are about characters becoming better people. The main character in this movie usually has to start off as a bad character and become better. Rob Anderson, our naked main character, does not start off bad. He actually starts off very sympathetic, but as the movie goes on you realize that he's not exactly good as he seemed.
It's a sort of backwards wave for character development and it causes things to start off a bit slowly because you don't realize if anyone has had any actual character progression. By the end of the movie, however, a solid argument could be made that the film is worthwhile. So to reconclude, in the end the movie is better than decent but not fantastic.
It wasn't bad. But honestly I'm very very disappointed this isn't a TV show. I misread the trailer and wasn't expecting a movie. I think this would have been amazing as TV show. It could have done what the True Lies tv show failed to do. It would have done what I expect the upcoming Mr and Mrs Smith show will fail to do. Kaley did a solid job as an action character. She's no Megan Fox in Rogue (2020) [awful movie but Fox was excellent] but she was solid. I'm not her biggest fan but I don't hate her and, respect where respect is due, her acting was more than okay. David however, like the plot, was under-fulfilled. I think he could have done more with his character of the straightman muggle husband. The script just didn't give any room for it. They did have more chemistry than I expected they would. I saw the trailer and in no way did I think I would buy them as a couple 100%, I was expecting maybe 60% buy in, but I kinda do.
Antagonists Bill Nighy and Connie Nielsen were enjoyably bad. Though Connie was under written. I didn't really get that slightly psychotic character from her the way the script seemed to want me to.
The tone of the movie was uneven. You're never really quite rocked out of the mood of the movie, but you've never sitting comfortable in it either. Mr. and Mrs. Smith the movie was very much a sexy spy "kill a bunch of guys" movie with likes of whiplash pans. True Lies the movie was very much an Arnold comedy with a bunch of one-liners and amusing growls. There are others that are more about the romance like say Mr Right or This Means War. Which are all very much comedic spy stuff with a heavy heavy dose of RomCom. The ingredients were there to make this the variation that focused on Romance with a capital R. I haven't seen one of those in a while and like I said they had the chemistry for it. But the movie wants to be an R-rated comedy so it tries to have it's cake and eat it too.
Almost every problem I had with this would have been resolved if it had been a full season length. Heck I might have even bonded with the kids. They could be given personalities and then maybe I'd care when their health is threatened.
A middling pilot, but there's certainly a lot of room to grow
A great season opener reminding you of everything you like about this show. The amount of memes you could make from Kristen's face alone
just a quick shoutout to the faux Greta Thurnberg. I'm sure Greta as barely a teenage has well intentioned but incompletely formed thoughts on the environment that are probably still worth listening to but this caricature of her is ridiculous.
"She's amazing. Sixteen and speaking truth to power like that?"
The girl said it was literal WASTE for everyone to have a microphone. hahah. She tried to shame everyone for the waste of energy it takes to make ice cubes. Someone introduce faux Greta to the ADA because there's a lot of wasteful things in there that don't NEED to be done but get done because they serve a purpose of making life dignified for people with disabilities. Like maybe people with poor hearing get to hear clearly because microphones exist. I'm only 3 minutes in but I feel like this character is a huge swing and a miss. Even if you don't like Greta this is really unfair.
We can't end every episode with a character reveal. All the people who hated WandaVision for "being so slow". Well this is the show for you because it's basically a marvel movie without any of the recap. If you don't know who everyone is before you started episode one this series is just a mess. SO many people wanted to know if they could watch WandaVision without seeing Marvel movies first and it's so doable with so little information. "She's a witch, he's an android" that's it. TFatWS is so far the opposite. I've seen every MCU property and I'm still barely keeping it straight. I'm sure this will be the most fun for the people who do the entire MCU marathon and having just watched 15 movies going right into this it will feel great but watching it live is still not that good. It's just so hard to care about anything or anyone in this series.
As the many professional reviews I read afterwards suggest, Fatman is a movie that doesn't live up to it's promise.
Fatman has a great premise about a gruffy slightly gritty Santa, a boy-child that feels wronged with his lump of coal and a Santa-obsessed hitman hired to kill him. I even think for the most part that tonally it mostly works. It's not overly gritty and it's not overly serious for most of it's runtime. It strikes that nice balance of casual surrealism.
The problem is that the movie knows what it wants to tell you and doesn't have any patience or subtlety in getting there. All the dramatic tension you expected from the trailer when you hear Mel Gibson's Santa yelling to the hitman about "You think you were the first to come for the Fatman?" the movie doesn't actually have much Fatman hunting. There's no series of hide and seek where we see that Santa is capable of defending himself. Even the tension the movie decides to try to generate of the Hitman even trying to FIND Santa in the first place isn't really tension. It's just a road trip without all the fun aspects of a road-trip movie. No interesting stops, No interesting road people. The movie just walks a straight lines from Point A to Point B. Nothing you see even really matters. Santa goes by Chris in this movie. In this small down he knows everybody and everybody knows him. There is however no payoff for this. He saves a woman from going home with a married man by casually reminding him of his wife and kids but while we see her again and she's clearly a friend there's no payoff. It's like a failure of the Chekhov's Gun trope.
There's a semi interesting plot line about Santa being underfunded and having to take a military contract to be able to pay his workers. In retrospect this entire plot line fails to have any narrative purpose other than world building Santa as a factory owner. In spite of their presence all over the final fight scenes these military security personnel plan next to no role in the violence. There's an even smaller plot line about Chris/Santa being grumpy because of his commercialized depictions compared to this underpaid status and while I like the characterization there it serves so little point to the plot that it feels kinda wasted.
Wasted is unfortunately the only way to describe this whole movie. I went into this hoping for a darkly humorous film with a bit of violence and while a lot of the scenes sans context imply that, this is no Ladykillers (either one).
It was good. earnest still which is great. Gail Simone said she cried three times and I can see it. It has some very successful emotional scenes that don't feel manipulative. The soundtrack was missing TIna Guo's electrio cello which were so distinctive in the last movie. I don't like Kristen Wiig and yet I enjoy everything she's in. It's a weird dichotomy and while I think they went a little hard on the "oh she's unsexy because she's wearing baggy clothes" I think Wiig does an admirable job of being the schlubby Dr. Minerva and being the empowered Cheetah.
I've heard there are negative feeling about the movie but I can't imagine where. The final fight between Wonder Woman and Cheetah looks good CGI wise (RIP Black Panther) though it lacks in choreography. It's directed well enough I never lose track of where WW and Cheetah are in the space but I have no idea why if WW is trying to get into a facility she's spending so much time going in essentially big circles dangled on her lasso. There's a hilarious scene in the white house fight between them where Pine's Steve Trevor is fighting some guards in the background and you can see them essentially dancing as the camera focuses on the main combatants.
I liked the final fight with Max Lord they clearly didn't have the studio force a CGI fight on the movie like with the original movie with Aries. But this was a fight of earnestness and sincerity which is what Wonder Woman is all about. The fact that a TV transmission doesn't count as touching to the point where even the President says "it's just a phrase" made me laugh. I'm willing to buy that he can take your wishes over the TV. I'm not wiling to buy that he's limited to physical contact and this special TV signal counts. I feel like the movie was leaning in the right direction when Max took the TV slot from the faith leader. I figured this would be the start of his I can take your wishes over the TV and it would have snowballed easily.
I think the homage to the invisible Jet was fun and when she learned to fly that was as I already hinted earlier super emotional. The stinger nod to Lynda Carter was excellent.
This is a parody of rom-com and a good parody imo will maintain genre. it's stupid easy to make a comedy parody of everything. See things like Epic Movie and Date Movie. But a good parody of horror films will also itself be a horror film see Scream and Happy Death Day both excellent horror films that lampoon aspects of horror films. I think what sets this movie apart from other parodies is that it does a very effective job at being a romcom. It doesn't take itself seriously which is what you expect but there's a level of sincerity that you don't expect.
It's super hard to pull off a song and dance number in a movie and not have it be super cheesy. Few films do this that aren't all about singing or dancing (Step Up, Pitch Perfect). But the number in this movie manages to be legimately fun which surprised me. Rebel Wilson is Rebel Wilson most people hate her I find her charming enough. Hemsworth plays a one note character that's on screen enough to be funny with his constant "You're beguiling" but not so much that you get annoyed with him. If I had known Priyanka Chopra was going to be in the movie I might have skipped it. I'm not a fan of her as a person. Also I learned she looks terrible in extreme close ups. When you pull out just a little bit she shines. She's a good looking person, a mostly decent actor and she has a top notch voice.
If I cared about Adam Devine personally I'd be scared for his career becoming one note but here he's pretty toned down. Which helps him a lot.
Plotwise I have a big problem with the opening scene after the prologue where Nat has to get a note off her door and give it to her neighbor. It's filmed so badly you can barely tell what's going on. WHich is that he's hot and girls are constantly leaving note for him but they don't know which door is his so she ends up with notes on her door. It's a weird problem that makes no sense but at least they do a callback to explain it at the end. But beyond that the plot doesn't try so hard to make sense. Which is a good thing. It's just walking the path of the romcom you the audience (more than Nat) try to figure out which tropes are going to make it in and which ones will get left out.
It was a fun ride that didn't overstay it's welcome. A light airy movie that didn't leave you empty. Congratulations we have a date movie.
As this episode opens I begin to see how this concept can work as a television series. The first episode was good but this is the episode that seals me in. Now I'm ready to see where this leads.
A solid episode. Great drama. Great policework. Stakes to care about in the major and minor plotlines. This episode did everything that MacGyver (3x11) did wrong this week. The series wide technical issues are still there. The body cameras that the cops are never without and are clearly not the footage we see based on the angles the footage shows. Here's a minor hint: If the character is peaking around the corner, then they will only expose their head. Therefore, the body cam footage shouldn't show the peaking around the corner.
But to be honest the fact that I'm literally complaining about the body cam footage parts shows how great this episode was. It might be my top 5 of the season. I even cared about the episodic characters. I care about the pregnant woman trapped in a relationship with.... I dunno a drug kingpin or a gangster or a gun runner whatever he classifies as. I cared about the black man who didn't want to take no muss from the cop but still let them survive in his apartment. I was invested in the two (IA?) guys who showed up late to the party [spoilers] and as much as I didn't like them. I felt reasonably sad when one died saving his partner[/spoilers]. Even the B-Plot about the break-in and the new investigation about it and whether or not it would be revealed that Lucy and John were having sex that night was interesting. One of my bigger complaints in the show is how idealized the police are where one lie can get you kicked off the force but IRL you can shoot a 7yo in the head and not get kicked off SWAT. But even that was toned down this episode. There's a minor theme about the truth setting you free but the only one who buys into that nonsense is John Nolan because that's the sort of thing a white guy might think but Lucy knows better. Even Commander West knows this and is clearly only using this to trick John Nolan into giving himself up. It's the sort of theme that would be super annoying if a full episode was dedicated to it but in this episode it was used exactly as much as it needed to be.
This show need to stop trying so hard. I don't know how it gets so many things wrong so often. This kid talking about his podcast like it matters is just off.
Finally having a group meeting is one of the smartest things they've done. I really don't think they needed a traitor element in the first place but we'll see.
Also in pro news the kids are apparently transferring houses. Between mom and dad. Which does respect his fatherhood status even if it might mean complications for the kids.
Honestly this episode is much smarter than the last episode. Even with the cheesy podcast stuff.
Like this "Holy Grail" thing where everyone is like "yeaaahhh right". As if no one has ever used the "holy grail" to mean something important before.
and then just like that an episode that started off rocky, was going smoothly then nosedives ruining a 6/10 episode to 3-4/10 territory. Lady Cop blames an amnesiac for beating his wife when the guy can't even remember his name. As if that makes any sense. At the family house young Olive invites her new-Daddy home to eat dinner to cheer up her mom because children understand complex adult dynamics either 100% or 0% depending on the episode and when real daddy summoned by his son via text shows up real-Daddy and new-Daddy get into a fight over the dumbest thing ever. You're ADULTS. act like it. Even if you wanted to yell who gets into a fist fight? No wonder Jordan Peterson thinks he's a genius he's learning everything about manhood not from historical cultural myth but television. But just everything about that scene is stupid.
"It doesn't look like a happy reunion" - what? You literally just walked into the house mr "Who is this man and why is he in my house that I'm exiled from"
"You are the whole reason this family is messed up" - WHAT??!? The dude disappeared in an airplane. He didn't mess up his family. Someone else messed up his family. He's literally innocent in all of this.
Olive sucks. Olive sucks worst than her mother and her mother SUUUUUCKS. Everyone on this show sucks to a little degree. But good grief.
And we have the second episode with a couple cheating to get back together (You 1x07-08)
This episode like so many of this series had the potential to be solid. Ending it by having white guy do the podcast is silly. Except plot twist.. good plot twist it's an insurance policy something the podcast host is too dumb to understand. Then finally having other people's callings show up is brilliant. Everything about this ending is compelling enough to make me want to see what happens next. If only the middle didn't just suck donkey balls so frequently.
First of all Everythingship is an adorable couple thing. I think it's interesting. But let's talk about that opening. The one that contextualizes the ever present narrative voice of Joe. I nearly peed my pants when you realized Joe was talking to someone. Bunch of scenarios popped up in my mind of who he could be talking to but I was surprised when the listener was revealed.
The show takes the very lovely tension it's built up and it keeps it taunt by adjusting the pacing in this episode things happen over month. We see the fall of Becks/Joe and after the fictional world shattering events of the last episode watching this happen was a surprise you don't expect things to change the lives of the characters twice.
On the creepy Joe front there's not a lot to talk about with regards to what he is doing. Which I think is important. The show is showing you that creepy guys aren't creepy 100% of the time. Sometimes it's a few red flags for a couple of weeks and then for a few months they seem normal or ideal even but in this story we see the constantly running stream of consciousness of Joe and we know that even though his actions seem fine his mental state is troubling. It's something the show never wants you to forget. Everything Joe does it intentional even when it doesn't seem to be. But there are SOME things to talk about like pee jar makes it's return as we see a character from last episode show up again here in a manner that feels like breadcrumbs that will eventually lead to him. We see Joe push a boundary that leads to an ultimatium with Becks and then we have yet another jump scare again with Joe as the target which is an interesting turn of events. In this case as with last case the person who caught Joe has the upper hand.
At the end of the episode we have another hint to the personhood and fate of Candace someone who is becoming more and more important to the narrative. There's a mystery to unlock there and that mystery might give even more context to Joe's nature.
