One of my favorite heist films and one of my favorite Ryan Reynolds films all in one.
Crikes this show with it's longer format is just wild.
Anny and Robert. Anny might be a gold digger but she doesn't pretend not to be. She came for a lavish lifestyle and Robert lied to her. Then he doesn't even try to fake the funk. He just pretends she should be worshiping him for having the privilege of being in America. This dude is a simp. He's not a simp for being broke. He's not a simp for being dumb. He's a simp for disrespecting this girl to her face and then getting angry when she fights back. He's a simp for saying anything to get the girl and then doing NOTHING to prepare for her. He wants to sleep in one tiny bed with him the kid and the new woman? Come on son. Get outta here with that nonsense. Who you trying to fool? A surprise shopping spree to the 2nd Hand Store? Who does that. Then he wants to go home and still get some adult play time? She should have held out on him. P.S. Has this man heard of parenting? He's treating his son like his drunk homey? "Ahh you just gotta wrestling him till he tires out"
Sidenote: in the 2nd hand store. this bald headed chick shows up to say hello. i mean i get why the producers told her to tell Anny it was a 2nd hand store because Robert was trying to pull a simp move and not tell her but why did she stay during the whole fight?
Mike and Natalie. A no gap couple which is always rare and an older woman which is even more rare even if she is a basic white girl with crazy eyes. Not much really happens with them so it's hard to have any feelings. He's going to spend money he doesn't have to cry about her visa delay of 6 months. that's sad. it's just 6 months. next time don't tell everyone you're leaving till you have the Visa in hand. My dude lost some poundage. he looks good. She's not that hot. She's in his league. But this city girl in the country isn't going to go well.
Sidenote: They wanted to make the lake blue..... were they dying it or chlorining it? Because the former is country and the 2nd is well better.
Mursel and Anna. On one hand they're a no gap couple and maybe TLC is just tired of picking up mormons finding random poor Brazilian girls. Whatever.This couple is stupid. They're so stupid that the fact that they real talks when they can't even communicate is just stupid. The three boys have to be kept a secret and I get why but i don't get why everyone is talking about it. They're in America they aren't going to move to Turkey. that's not MY imperialist tendencies that's every American on this show. She has three kids why would they uproot the kids and move to Turkey. Speaking of uprooting the kids. They're at delicate ages no mater the posturing and introducing a random guy to be their new step father in 90 days or less is insane. the constant passing of the phone back and forth. The racism against turks. the overly dramatic "discussions about hiding the boys".
Sidenote: They need to find a better app to talk. They need multiple phones. They need to learn farsi.
Michael and Juliana. Eww. Ewww. Ewwwwwwww. Everything about this couple is gross. Watching this dude make out with a 13 year old girl is disturbing. Watching him make out with a 13 year old prostitute is even worse. When they finally landed at his house. HOLY SNOT BUBBLES!!!! he's rich. he has a fleet of cars, he has a Brazilian prostitute buy a car on his spare credit card. he has a bunch of guitars. He looks like a pedo. WHY is his house a disaster? WTF is in his house? Why are there so many FexEx boxes in there? It's a disaster? Juilana acts like oh this is a bachelor hour but he has KIDS!!!! Two kids whoa are pretty charming actually. They're nice kids (as opposed to the baby Bryson). They don't deserve what the kids at school will say when they get older.
Sidenote: this man said they should do limo porn? He should be arrested for human trafficking. EWWwW. I repeat one last time Ewww. and I have small friends. I have one small friend who even looks young. Eww.
Emily and Sasha. It's very hard to feel sympathy for 3rd Wife Emily. She's so stupid. She can't learn ANY Russian. She's so stupid she had her baby in Russia rather than in America where the staff could probably understand what she's saying because her boyfriend is a meathead. She's so stupid. Emily is stupid. Emily is stupid. Emily is stupid. lol at Sasha "I normally work when my kids are born". Dude Russian men are like normal men they probably want to be there when their kids are born. Don't pretend dude. You're simple.
Sidenote: Sasha says the name is David. Emily says it's Daveed. Guys you're both stupid.
Tania and Syngin. Ok here we go. They inspired me to review this episode. WoW. Tania isn't ugly. She's a good looking girl. She's got a nice body and a pretty face. I actually like her ambition. Gun to my head: It's probably a touch too much for me. Maybe. But I respect her at least for knowing what she wants and being unafraid to say it. HOWEVER. I repeat HOWEVER. this episode is about babies. They have lunch with the friends before they go and they talk about babies. They have dinner afterwards and they talk about babies. This is why no one trusts these relationships. this is why marriage counselors exist. Maybe a shotgun wedding isn't the time to talk about babies[1]. Now dinner should have been their first romantic dinner in America. it should have been light and easy. they have 89 days to do the hard talks. but the producers were clearly very clever and got them to fight. Let's go through who was right and when.
Syngin is an idiot for wanting to talk about issues at dinner. you're a free love hippie. Enjoy the night stupid. +Tania
Syngin tried to do the math. "I want a kid in 3 years" "so I'll have to impregnate in pause to do math" "well i mean like 3 and a half" dude she didn't literally mean 3 years. Chill. +Tania
Syngin: You can't just say yes or no if you want to have a baby -- Tania: Ask me the question right now | +Syngin. You live in the shed of your mother's house.
Dear Tania, I respect you want to start your family but you have to be clear if you want the family life or the travel life. It's not so easy to do both when you have no prospects. Syngin is right here that you need to step back and think about what you really want and what you're willing to give up for it. this conversation proves everything i said about this man when i saw him. He's a hippie. He'd rather have no kids for a while and travel than have kids right away and not be able to do anything. Ironically he's thinking it through. Tania continually gets angry at this but it's what she should want in a partner. Not a lapdog, but a man willing to process what having a baby means. This is not a guy who is going to cut and run. We'll get back to the rest of what Tania needs to know as we go through the list.
Syngin: I don't think she gets that a child can make or break you. +Syngin | for all her Type A personality I haven't heard any sort of plan on how she plans to support the child. No talk of making partner in the next year so she'll be set when the kid comes. No plans for Syngin to join a lawfirm so he can work to support them. Nothing. Just "i want a kid".
Syngin: You alk about travel and I don't see how that's possible with a child on your hip +Syngin | Now this requires some explanation because Tania misunderstands the pronoun. Maybe she hasn't spoken to many foreigners but it is very clear when he uses "your hip" he's not specifically talking about Tania being obligated to carry the child. He uses the collective your but she reads it wrong and she gets off at what she thinks is a sexist comment. I see why she did that but she was wrong. Syngin wasn't being sexist here. He was trying to talk reality hardships. He even tries to clarify it but she's already seeing red, too late for her and he's not emotionally aware enough to know how to break her from that.
Tania: No one ever asks the man that question so don't ask me that question Syngin: I think you're overreacting now. | +Tania The irony is that Syngin is right here. He's 100% in the right. But his response is in poor taste and shows he doesn't respect her enough to understand why she's upset.
Tania: Shoot for the sky, land on the moon. That's what I'm doing. | +Syngin Tania is being foolish here. Honestly earlier she said she would pick her friends over Syngin and she picked right. Her friends know her. Her friends called this fight to. a. tee. She needs to listen to her friends more. Her friends are dope. They see her acting irrationally and this is an example. First off the saying is shoot for the stars or sun and land on the moon. And key to that is preparing to land among the stars. She's shooting from the hip and that's a bonus Syngin point.
Tania: It takes planning, responsibility, commitment-- Syngin: Money. | +2Syngin.
Tania: Maybe we'll have a job you don't like to do, but I'm willing to do that so i have the life i want to live.... Syngin: For me to step in and even for six months for a job that I hate is a tremendous task for me.| +1 Syngin. In life you have to pick. Do I want to struggle at my job so I can reap rewards with what the job pays me? Or do I want to enjoy my job so I don't need the job to pay me for rewards. Most people pick the first. But it's perfectly valid to pick the second and Tania here is invalidating Syngin's entire lifestyle to fit her needs. It's wrong.
Syngin: Don't come at me. stay on subject. | +Tania A pitty vote because honestly her problem IS Syngin. It's not the subject.
Syngin: It's almost like you wrote the story, and I'm just a character in it. |+4Syngin There's a lot of modern narrative that tells women they can do everything they want without a man and use man like men use women. But they shouldn't. It's .. in a word unkind. She's being very unkind right now and he captured it perfectly here. When he dismissed her emotional outburst at the beginning I was very much not in favor of him but throughout the fight it's been made clear that Tania is the one in need of self reflection. They're a horrible match and she needs to see that and kick him to the curb, send him home.
Tania: Babe, really? | +Syngin
Syngin: You're not willing to change any aspect a little bit, maybe to accomodate me? Tania: I am, having kids later in life than i would have had them on my own | +Syngin whatever I think of him in general I think he's really trying to have a conversation here. I think it's a stupid conversation to have on day 1 but regardless he's trying to get through and find some way to work out this relationship. Tania is trying to get Syngin on board with her plan. Two very different tasks and as a result Tania isn't having a discussion. She's having a debate that she intends to win at all costs. Contrary to the next words out of her mouth she doesn't take his opinion seriously. I mean I have opinions about her desires for motherhood at a young age but that's her choice. I respect that more than she respects her fiance.
Sidenote: She spelled "Your Suger" on the printed out sign last episode. My sister thinks Suger is her last name but nah. I think she misspelled sugar.
[1]Yes to the pedants I know the irony
WOW. Everything I hate about the law is here, but the real criminal is this is bad film-making. This movie started off interesting and then 25% of the way through it suddenly started to look amateurish. Bad shots, bad mis-en-scene, bad storyboarding, bad sight-lines, bad editing. As soon as our States' Attorney goes to the restaurant everything falls apart. And that's just on a cinematic level. That's purely without considering the morality on display.
Plotwise it's a mess too. Guy goes to prison for 8 years because the contract killer tells all. Fine. Someone finds the body completely elsewhere from where the contract killer said it would be (washed away to sea) so now he's been proven innocent. This is the starting premise of the movie. I've seen a lot of these and as frustrating as this premise is from a moralistic point I'd watch 50 of these a year if they're good. But here we have a Attorney who is fighting bail because he's a convicted murderer. But she was clearly wrong on that so why is she fighting bail? The Judge who doesn't dismiss the charges but orders a new trial. Attorney wasn't to deny bail but the judge gives a number. It's rough it's unfair but it's not hopeless and doesn't feel uncommon. New evidence, new trial. But the weird part is in the upcoming events I come to realize that the Attorney actually believes he's guilty... but why? Because the killer who lied said he was hired? In a film like this there is usually a sinister side of the defendant which introduces ambiguity. Or a righteousness to the attorney that introduces ambiguity. But NOTHING is saying that here. He's innocent and should be released but this movie wants to press the issue. If later on we find out he did it then I'm complaining even MORE about how bad this film is. Our protagonist attorney goes snooping at a boarded up restaurant alone without permission that the defendant owned and wow i said this scene was bad but it bears repeating how confusingly shot and edited it is. She finds money which she handles and then puts back? So the police can find? along with her finger prints? This doesn't make sense. If she thinks he's guilty she should be able to get police to let her in and collect evidence. There's literally zero reason for her to break in herself and muck everything up with her prints. Her boss finally gives up and wants to drop all charges and she refuses "I won't let a killer free" this is when I realize that unlike every other depiction so far this isn't about "losing a case" because lawyers are all about not losing cases and never about right and wrong. But somehow for her this is right and wrong and she's not willing to consider that she got it wrong? She's not willing to even sit down with herself and say "did we get the wrong guy?". This character lacks in self awareness and no matter how it turns out she's evil for that.
Okay so this complete 180 where the movie tries to make her out to be the good guy who won't give up because she refuses to drop the case again makes no sense. Because he's clearly innocent. Frustratingly confusing.
I need something to say beyond "Okaaaay" and "Wow" because this movie is just throwing curve balls left and right. Right after serial righteousness is a potential new relationship with the eager young photographer but the sexual tension is coming out of nowhere. He's far too eager to be her friend for someone who was just introduced to her. Part of what makes this scene too intimate is that shot selection. Those closeups for the conversation are too close. Not that the bar is a good choice of location anyway. And the shear balls of her complaining that the innocent defendant is ruining HER life is again a lack of self-awareness that border on psychopathic. The former cop who doesn't like serving the public is the PERFECT synergy for the DA who complains about how innocent men ruin her life. WHAT THE HECK IS HE SAYING?!???!? "Who am I as a police officer to disrupt the narrative you had concocted with the truth". What kind of police officer says that. Honestly his characterization of "I didn't mind the 'protect' but I wasn't a fan of the 'serve'" is the only perfect thing in this movie because it perfectly justifies why he would withhold the RUSSIAN MOB from a criminal investigation. It's completely unethical, illogical and counter productive but it's completely in character for this stupid character. I mean telling people might do damage to the mob so why NOT tell people. I don't understand what the movie is doing here. I think they're trying to make the DA into a hero but rather than realize that she had it wrong somehow she's doubling down?
The audio is solid but now that the illusion has been shattered everything is looking poor now the lighting, the pacing, the dialog. Oh the glorious repeaty awkward dialog, the cuts to things that aren't important. Oh the camera zooms the purse she dropped but for no reason. The camera pans to lollipop wrappers.. but for no reason.
Good Christ almighty the judge is the only character here in this entire movie with a lick of sense. He's reasoning and he understands his duty. I don't blame the judge for sending an innocent man to jail. Here's an example of a scene was fine but could have had more punch.
The judge tells our Attorney that there's information she was never made privy to that he allowed to be thrown out because of mysterious people above his station. That's a heavy load in a normal movie. Here it's the only SHRED of sanity. But afterwards he goes to his car. Attorney sees his pen drop to the floor and then bends down to pick it up. Simultaneously the judge has walked out side and into his car. As he starts the engine she's bending down to grab the pen and the car explodes.
I'd increase the drama by leaning into the trope. She picks up the pen and turns to go outside and return it to the judge. Maybe she even starts to yell out his name "Judge [Lastname]" and as she's saying that the car explodes and she's thrown back in a shower of glass.
And then the writing goes illogical again. See now it makes sense that the bomb was for the both of them. It doesn't make sense that the bomb would be in the judges car. I was afraid this might be the case. The solution is the move the bomb. Move it to the inside of the dinner. Same scene though. Different vector. She's leaving the restaurant the judge having dismissed her to make her own conclusions and as she's turning back to return his pen a bomb goes off inside the dinner. Harder to implement but it fixes the "I should have died" logic.
Here the movie makes the biggest twist in logic yet and that's saying something. After the bomb our Attorney finally has a light-bulb moment "What if we were wrong?". Again from a logical standpoint she should have been asking herself this since the body appeared. She should have been emotionally torturing herself with this. And now she dam has burst and she has to confess to her boss. Instead she's posing the question to her boss. Still.. it's making sense. What if we were wrong. Only his response is basically "What? Are you crazy of course we weren't wrong". Which throws me for a loop because it's my understanding the reason she was thrown off the case was because they planned to basically admit they were wrong and drop all charges (or I think specifically they were doing to give him time served which is honestly insane but just the sort of insane that DAs do in real life to whittle away at money and time defendants don't have to argue their case. Defendants get to go home and the DA never has to admit fault or technically lose a case. They still won they just let him out early. It's an evil evil practice). HOLY plot twists batman. I know triple agent movies that have less plot whiplash than this. Out of nowhere they're accusing Defendant of killing everyone in the movie with again zero evidence. Where is this coming from? The irony is there's a seed for this actually. But movies have the rule of threes for a reason. You show something, you reinforce something and then you pay it off. But you can't skip the middle part. Or the last part (see: Suicide Squad's unicorn). But it could have been there. His lawyer hinted that he would want retribution for being locked up for 8 years. That's the perfect motivation. Everyone killed has been tied to his original case. It even lines up but NO ONE has been talking about that or suggesting it. So for Attorney's boss to suddenly jump up and announce they're arresting Defendant for the murders it makes no sense.
The romance between the Attorney and the Reporter is not a bad romance it's just written so poorly. I think they actually have decent screen chemistry but they move in such leaping motions towards their romance I can't even enjoy their "PG-13 Sex Scene" where they make out wearing pants and a bra. It's actually a pretty good scene. Most of the edits are good, the audio is a nice level, the lighting is fine, the actors work well. It's just that this feels like their third scene together and they're having "we're boyfriend/girlfriend sex" which is just so fast. The.. the arrest went through? Why? Oh an cinematically a push shot that works excellently. A beautiful push in on Attorney as Defendant finally explains what he knows of the murder and why it happened. He leaves her with The Batman question infamously posed in Identity Crisis, "Who benefits?". The cruelty of DAs that she would still offer him time served only if he drops the lawsuit even though she has strong reasons to suspect he's innocent. But why is she offering deals anyway? She's off the case.
Did... did the script say one thing and the actors acted out another?
ADA (Protag): Ray we need to talk NOW.
She knocks over a glass
ADD (Protact): Oops
DA (Her Boss): It's okay
DA(Her Boss) to his table: Gentlemen excuse me
*DA Stands up
DA (Her Boss) to ADA: It's okay
Because on paper it sounds like she accidentally spills water and then apologizes. In the movie she intentionally pushes the glass into his lap to show how serious she is.... so why is he still apologizing for her. "it's okay" doesn't fit here.
The mid shots in this movie are excellent. The closeups are WAY too close.
What? but.. but what? There are so many twists and reveals in the actual story at the end I'm confused why the movie is so bad. There's a legit thriller in that screenplay. Our Defendant is innocent, her boss is the guilty part but the Defendant has been killing everyone who sent him away since he got out. WHY!!! He finally convinces Attorney that he's innocent and they goes after her so now the movie frustratingly makes her the good guy again. When in real life she's insanely stupid and evil. But then in the end she shoots him in functionally cold blood. She could have held him at gun point and walked away she knows everything now, she could have held him at gun point while she called the police. So many choices instead there's a one liner and a gun shot and Defendant takes a swan dive. Happy Ending?
Found this on Amazon Prime.. it's... short. I mean it looks good. i'd check out something more extended and none of that story shows up. All you see if a woman being chased and she runs from them then it's over.
The visual style PERFECTLY captures the scenes as described by Dick. The floating faces always recognizable as faces but never as anyone specific. :chefs kiss:
ahh the introduction to Tyr's son. An excellent episode
man they are really expanding the cast this season. It really cuts into the policework but we have extended family, we're seeing other employees. I mean i saw Alan Tudyuk's name and then when he showed up at a crime scene I assumed he was a mastermind. Then Sara Rue showed up barely recognizable, I think she's lost even more weight, and this is really growing. I'm not sure how I feel about that though.
For a show I had zero interest in this was a very effective pilot. It got me over a hump of ennui and it sold me on a premise of everyone being blind. I think episode two answers most of my questions about plastic bottles and metals which I remember being SUPER annoyed by when I watched this.
Once again we have a great episode but I don't know what show this is supposed to be.
Much better than the last episode but it suffers from a problem this entire season suffers from. It's a playing between Catholic realism and debunking. The episode should be good. All the elements are solid but it doesn't feel great like it should be. It's a step up from last episode though.
hahahahaha
For real? Are we really doing this? First of she sounds more and more like the character she was on Scandal and I don't hate that. I DO hate the clearly insane restraints he has to keep himself in because he's so "tortured".
So the 2nd scene of the episode has Bright ripping his restraints to fling himself out the window held on only by the other half of his restraints. Why doesn't he have proper restraints? He's not super human he can't rip restraints out of the wall if they're properly secured. Why did he end up half out the window? His bed isn't that close and it wouldn't make sense. I'm 4 minutes into the episode and I feel like the entire series just jumped the shark. 4 Minutes into Episode 3 and I might just no longer care about any one or anything happening. If you jump out the window you get cut especially when the only thing holding you in the window is a ledge of broken class.
Everyone keeps trying to tell him his memories are messed up and they're telling him to basically man up. I mean this time they even mention mental health but still no psychologist? I take it back he finally has a shrink. But why is it a child's shrink? People just keep making Bright more and more eccentric but eccentric people aren't eccentric because they make odd choices. It's because they make unusual justifications. Monk might see a kid's shrink because she's got the highest record of improvement in the state. Johnny Smith might choose her because she's wears gloves or doesn't shake hands. Bright chooses her because..... lollipops? I know he was being facetious but the whole thing is silly.
:sigh: Whatever happened to smart writing.
weird and qwirky medical examiner because MEs can't be normal people: The victims had high doses of LSD 50 times normal
Bright: That's no coincidence. That's our killer's MO
Who wrote this dialog? The fact that the ME said it MEANS it was the killer's MO. She was confirming what you said was the killer's MO earlier. Why would you restate the obvious.
Honestly people shoot way too often in this show. Every time Bright is about to be stabbed someone shoots them. It's weird. This show is all flash and no substance three episodes in. Very unfortunate.
also in before all the druggies start chiming about how LSD is actually healthy and no one ever dies on drugs and whatever druggies say.
Season 4 is hitting on all cylinders.
Like the last episode this feels not very cohesive. It's lose articles thrown together. I mean it's bad and cliche when our protagonist is looking up family and then the story that episode is about family. It's super cliche and especially in procedurals but it does at least suggest things happen for a reason. Here we have the opposite. A prophet and a family invasion I don't need these stories to link per se but as storylines right now they feel disconnected from everything.
This time we have decent crumbs, there are bits and pieces that could be interesting but nothing happens. In some cases like the prophet filling in the missing and hidden prophecies that might become important later. that might become a central plotline for the series. I'm willing to sit on that. In other cases Kristen gets advice on how to deal with her dreams of George. Now the problem with this is Kristen already knows how tell if her dream with George is real. She did that BRILLIANTLY in the second episode where she used the fact that she can't read text in dreams. That said even though it's redundant it works like gangbusters. You want something to happen. You want her to confront George and ask his purpose as she was told to, but she doesn't. It's just a weird sequence that doesn't do anything with the meaty setup it has. I mean maybe George is real and she controls the dream but not him. Maybe George isn't real and she can do with him what she wants. Maybe it's a mix. But nothing. It was a perfect setup and an utterly failure of a scene. It could have even been ambiguous like maybe George pretends he is under her control, but it just fails.
the prophet barely manages to be a decent setup. I wish she could have been more. Taking her away didn't feel like social commentary, it felt cheap and reductive.
Michael Emerson is not in my favorite role here as the psychopath Dr Leland Townsend, but he's good. I don't like his character though. It feels like a step down. I want him to have more menace either obviously or not obviously. It was nice to see Kristen act when they cross paths but it sucks she can't make their relationship more clear to her mother. If she just explained who he was and what he did this is an open and shut case but instead she gives half the truth and it sounds like she's jealous and it's just ridiculous.
In spite of pretty decent ingredients. this episode didn't really go anywhere. The exorcism should have been a venue to really inject some progression but it doesn't no matter how much they want it to have by opening the next episode with our leads angry at each other about what happened in this episode.
Ben visits a ghost hunter TV show for reasons that aren't explained. They must want the Ghost Hunter skeptic Vanessa to play a bigger role because she was completely unnecessary in this episode and it would have worked better without them. They're ghost hunters that go hunting and they pick up a local skeptic to go with them. That's at least half way to explaining why Ben is on the show. it explains why they want him. I'm STILL not sure why he agreed to go and "to meet my online friend" is just weak.
The girl's basically have their own story line. It's a ghost story. It's actually a very good ghost story. It's a very nice little segment of the episode but again it doesn't progress anything. And unlike earlier "Monster of the week episodes" the exorcism doesn't even give you the satisfaction of figuring out the exorcism. It feels like the Ghost Hunters story was there just so we could have something "figured out" this episode and leave the exorcism ambiguous. But the Ghost Hunters story isn't satisfying. It's confusing in retrospect, leaving us with an ambiguous story and a pointless story.
Honestly the ghost story was so good it should be in another show. It's perfect Grimm/Supernatural/Sleepy Hallow heck even Fringe material. The girls who are often loud and annoying in a way that is clearly intentional for whatever reason as if we wouldn't think her home life was hectic if the kids were more orderly.
Ok so now let's talk about the restraints and genius of Malcolm Bright. It's a lot. I want to dance around the whole episode. First of all Brights mother (Bellamy Young) is clearly the First Lady from Scandal and I'm slightly disappointed I didn't see it sooner.
Ok so these restraints. I mean that's so gaudy. What are they thinking. He has to take 15 pills and still gets night terrors. Where's the psychiatrist character he should be talking to on a regular basis because yet again we have a new york protagonist who lives alone in a gorgeous and large apartment. He's the son of a serial killer why is he that rich?
I think they want to make Bright super intelligent but they can't decide how super intelligent he should be.
Bright: "DId you know the mace was invented in the 13th century"
and that's it. Nothing about the mace and how it's used or how it's changed. Just a random half-fact about the mace. Why? This is some crucial character development. That's being wasted. How is he into weapons AND snakes? Why? Isn't he into murder? Again the most interesting character is his father The Surgeon and maybe his mother with the revelations at the end of the episode which again don't make sense. The Surgeon's entire prison situation doesn't make sense and they have one more episode to get to it and explain how he went from a cage in a room to a room with books and a desk and pens and such. I'm a generous viewer. I'm willing to do a LOT of heavy lifting to explain things. So it should say something when I can't work out why The Surgeon is in his current situation and I'm asking why. There are other unanswered questions but I'm not asking them.
This show is a lot of handwaving around the characters and then they solve a case. In this episode it was a killer who murdered his family. Now at the start of the series I thought this was going to relate more to his father. The first killer tried to copy a 4 kill streak his father did. I thought this was going to be like The Blacklist in that every killer would be trying to do something his father did. But instead it's going to be his father helping with just other killers. Here's the problem with using psychopaths to hunt psychopaths. It makes sense when they're copying each other to ask the original for insight. But it doesn't make sense otherwise. Psychopaths don't have meetings or clubs or communications with each other. Why would they be more insightful on another psychopath? It's just ridiculous. Bright himself goes though the step of outlining how many different types of killers there are and their different motivations and that makes sense because he's spent his whole life researching why people kill. He studied it, he trained in it, he worked it. How does his father get insights? It's not like his father taught other psychopathic killers. He was a medical professional and he killed himself. He might be useful in determining serial killer activity from a forensic perspective but that's about it. Where does The Surgeon get insight on other types of serial killers than he was.
An excellent movie. Michael Mann does character tension excellently. Jamie Foxx was excellent, and Tom Cruise was an unexpected delight. On subsequent viewings it's still a very strong very comprehensive film filled with characters that we don't really know that well but we do empathize with. I dont' really feel like I know Max but I do feel like I understand every thing he does. Not a lot of stupid decisions here.
What an EPIC episode. It's an emotional version of Rich Bride, Poor Bride. It's SO intense watching one wedding for nearly perfect with no effort and another wedding take hit after hit after hit with a lot of effort. And then there's a H1 Visa situation.
In the end I now want to go to Auz just to meet Sue in the bowling club. She's the best.
What an oddly warped movie. I've heard things about JDATE but i finally caught the movie and it's just as wacked out insane as everything implied it would be. I walk out of the "theatre" just in a weird state of shock at all the stuff I've just seen. I definitely enjoyed it for what it was.
There's a thing where when a bad movie is bad but it's for kids it feels like people behind movies are like "ehh it's for kids it's fine". To an extent that's true because kid do not care about quality. Or more accurately kids don't understand quality. If they did things like Transformers and Despicable Me wouldn't be franchises. The former is indecipherable and the latter was surpassed incredibly by MegaMind. This movie triggers a lot of those same thoughts in me. There are parts of this movie that feel like many of the utterly trash random "for kids" movies I've seen. There's child actors trying to spit out technobabble and technically they're saying words and technically those words are techno babble but there's no rhyme or reason to them. At one point in this movie the smart kid start mouthing off about triangles and it's supposed to show he's intelligent but it just sounds weird. I wish film makers would find better ways of showing intelligence than just obsessing about details in one tiny thing. There are weird obstacles in these random kids movies like the nerdy kid who can't jump over 2 feet of water without drowning in what is essentially a moving puddle. And then there's my favorite which is when they're doing it wrong. Which is what I call it when they start using terms poorly. Like quantum computers.
The "time toys" are devices from the future. A military contractor uses his quantum computers to bring back plans from the future only to lose control of them when they arrive. The plans turn out to be some devices which our protagonists deem "toys". The toys themselves are a mix if clear and unclear. [spoiler]There's the face mask that let's you look like anyone you see. Clear. There's the shoes that let you move fast and walk on walls (in a hilarious obvious scene where rebuild the room sideways and turned the camera 90 degrees). There's gloves that make you strong (and fast?). There is also a hat that makes you a genius somehow. A gun that shoots out like 8 different liquids. It doesn't look impressive but it does lead to a disgusting poop joke that I imagine was supposed to be funny but instead drove me close to gagging. And then there's a top that can incapacitate someone but messing up their hair and sometimes making them a laughing mess. [/spoiler]
The toys are somewhat interesting even if I wish they were more clear but the real problem I have is they don't drive any character development and they could have. Matt is the closest one with his crush on a girl who is too shy to speak to and his toy (the mask) lets him talk to the girl. He finds out she's not as shallow as he thinks and they actually have more in common than he thought. (For the record no kid that young "loves" Catcher in the Rye). I would have liked to see more development with him but honestly for what this movie is it was fine. The problem is no one else gets this. Mel is the dumb kid who becomes smart with the smart hat but nothing really comes from his character. There are beats but nothing really develops it feels unsatisfying when at the end of the movie [spoiler]he likes studying for math now[/spoiler]. The same thing with Boomer who is, as most tv dweebs are, filled with fears and hypochondria and then at the end of the movie [spoiler]a wannabe track start just because he had fast shoes which he never really uses to run in the entire movie[/spoiler]. Now Boomer's case is especially traumatic because it feels built in. Her development is when he can't jump across the pond. Later in the movie she has to jump across something pond like and he does but at no point does he develop confident in it. I wanted to see her jump across anything while wearing the shoes but it never happens. Last and of course least is Eddie who gets the gloves of fighting and maybe they could have centered the bullying around him and that could have been his struggle but honestly he just doesn't have anything going on he doesn't change as a character in the slightest. In the weird "X days later" epilogue Eddie isn't doing something that shows he was changed by the time toys. He's just doing something random.
But despite the many issues I have with the movie I think it's a solid kids film. While there are specific things that don't make sense as a whole the movie does. Which is a blessing. It's a fun romp even if wildly unrealistic. The reveal about the time toys is that [spoiler]they are indeed just toys.. from the future.. 25 years into the future. The movie asks the viewer to believe that in the future we'll have hats that make you smart, shoes that make you run 80 miles per hour, and a mask that can make you look like anyone and these are just the toys that children play with. Between that and the quantum entanglement computer it was very frustrating to buy into this world. But the low level stuff the character relationships and 70% of the dialog was workable. Still not sure how Ed Bagley Jr's Wiz character keeps appearing and disappearing. The ending was too cheesy to live and this is coming from someone who loves happy endings.
Whoa whoa whoa edit time. I forgot about the incomprehensible time travel aspects.
[Spoiler]
Ok so the premise in short is that they build a machine to grab something from the future. It was supposed to be blueprints but instead there were toys. The future encyclopedia (futurepedia) says the world will go bad. Then they fix everything and the futurepedia says everything is fine and we find out that our main character left the toys there for himself as a kid.. but then why was the world ever going bad it couldn't have been because we start the movie with the good ending "I told my son to leave his toys there".
[/spoiler]
An excellent Sarah focused episode.After that Sarah-less episode.
So there's a number of interesting classic dead zone things happening in this episode. there's Johnny's plans get derailed which is practically every other episode. There's You can't do that on TV which is how i refer to johnny doing creepy things you can't get away with. In this episode it's following his mark. He does this often and in a modern show he'd have to find another way. There's I'm a psychic but don't believe me which is when he openly admits he's a psychic (something he does every single time) but does it in a way that's easily misunderstood in this case it's misunderstood as flirting and he does nothing to change that perception. Maybe it's supposed to be read as Johnny's into her, but it just comes off as annoying insufferable. Like just tell her so you can understand.
HAHA the conductor.
Stranger: Hey buddy, I'm looking for a blonde with green eyes you seen her? She's my girlfriend.
Conductor: Yeah I saw her talking with a guy in jeans jacket in the car ahead
Like bro you never heard of trafficking? Or general human abuse? Laughable. But solid episode with good chemistry between Johnny and our guest star actress. I almost wish he would have stayed with her.
I actually liked this episode a lot. In some ways it's super prescient about the world we live in now in 2016.As a whole it's a racial mystery box. I love mystery box episodes which is why I really enjoy this series because a lot of is is mystery boxing. We know what's happening but we don't know how or why. In this case it starts off with a racial murder to solve but evolves into a future killing of the confessed killer. The twists and turns kept me engaged but they weren't so much it felt overwhelming. Like they included a bunch of social issues in here but not all of them and it just had a good mix.
I kinda wish this was one of the episodes i had caught in the OG run because I would have liked to know how I felt about Muslims at the time. I knew some Indian Hindus growing up but I never really knew Muslims until I was an adult. The muslims here are side characters though. Peripheral. The real stars are the stain of white supremacy. And even though we find out the the white power kid who confessed isn't what he seems in that his father coerced him to commit a hate crime the episode ends in a true scare, the reality that online racism still exists and they'll believe what they want regardless of truth.
This episode's fun moment: The female online voice loves saying RaHoWa. She's sounds absolutely adorable saying that random make up word. When it comes to the internet age there's always a problem of slang moving too fast. Some movies like Bringing Down the House just made up slang (which works excellently as long as you don't take it too seriously). Here they wanted an easy to recognize racial word and they made up (Ra cial Ho ly Wa r) and while it works. You can substitute any modern equivalent (All/Blue Lives Matter) and the meaning and threat are still there. It's just a silly word though and would never be used in real life for all sorts of reasons. Perhaps that was their goal though. Not to draw more attention to real white power slogans.
If you want to make a prologue use original footage not just random clips.. don't be cowards.
Shoutout to the black man for pointing out "People don't want you in your neighborhood? People could say that to me for what I look like". Because by this episode I'm getting the real Johnny is black vibe and I'm glad to see it called out in even that minor way.
Now this is one of the most interesting episodes of_The Dead Zone_ that I've seen so far. I mean watching this show in 2019 (and I kinda do regret skipping it at the time) is very interesting because of how different things are now then they were back then. One of the oddest things about show so far is how much people hate Johnny Smith the Psychic. Last episode someone told him he shouldn't be allowed to walk the streets. That's some violent vitriol. It occurred to me after this episode and the next that Johnny might be one of the few white characters who can approach understanding what being black is like. Speaking being black. Blackness is one of the interesting aspect of this episode, and not just because one of the jurors dropped the n-word on basic cable but because he did it while at the same time espousing what would be known now as "respectability politics".
The premise of this episode is simple. Johnny Smith the man with ESP gets jury duty. In a modern show this would be a more extravagant affair in part because of technology and in part because of how characters are written nowadays. Typically these cases goes one of two ways. And innocent guy who has evidence stacked saying he's guilty or a guilty guy who has evidence stacked saying he's innocent. In this case we have the former. So everyone votes Guilty except Johnny.
Now my man the black father juror is very frustrated because he believes it is his solemn duty to follow the rules and that (if I read farther into this than the show makes explicit) white people will leave us alone if we can prove that we're willing to self police ourselves. No need to kill our children when we will turn in the bad ones ourselves. Now that's an extrapolation but it's also why that character doesn't work anymore. He's interesting and compelling and I like the actor but his entire motivation rests on ignoring other fundamental assumptions about the justice in America. Police lie, Black kids can be innocent of murder, jury nullification is a thing. The point being that that character is a character lost in time and I'm not even sure he's from 2002. I mean certainly we were not as aware back then as we are now but that specific character who wants to punish the boy for his own good even if it mean punishing him with 25 years in prison (15 with good behaviour but no one talks about how hard it is to get good behaviour when you fit a certain demographic). There's a lot to unpack in this episode. It's the sort of thing that makes me want to research who wrote it. How many black people were involved in the creation of this character.
The rest of the episode is standard Dead Zone things. Such as Johnny revealing that there's evidence that one of the witnesses changed his statement and that the original statement fits the idea that there was another party present at the moment of the crime. Johnny validates this vision he had with the actual original witness statement. But between his presentation of the information and the Johnny fan who proudly claims that he witnessed Johnny do an esp thing. Everyone looks on with suspicion. Honestly the other interesting thing is that everyone want to bully the jurors but Johnny is the one who defends their right to disagree with the new facts. I liked that.
This whole episode makes jury duty look heavy and complicatied and that a lot of work goes on into it. This makes me question other shows about the other branches of justice. Lawyer shows are about court. Cops shows are about arresting. Jury shows are about jury but in each case they completely ignore every other branch. Even this episode requires incompetent lawyers to make pitiful defenses and ignore evidence analysis just so the jury can solve the crime by themselves. It's a thing. it's weird. But the episode was fun.
Fun opening. Great introduction to our cast with the promise of more to come. That said the characters of that time suffer from sensitivities that weren't common at the time. Characters like The Phantom and The Shadow have white savior issues and a little of that leaks into the phantom introduction scenes. But I'd definitely watch more.
A solid episode filled with consequences and so called "good intentions". I wasn't a fan of the way Kalinda was dismissive of an immigrant problem. Now to be fair unlike Cary I don't expect her to be particularly sympathetic to an India immigrant. I think his presumption that she spoke Hindi was rather offensive even for the timeperiod. But Kalinda not caring "because my parents came here legally" just stinks of not knowing that's she's a minority and minority people get mistreated. This isn't like someone illegally crossing the border or overstaying their visa. This is a person who paid to immigrate legally but got swindled. This is a very different type of illegal immigrant. This could have been her parents if they trusted the wrong lawyer. I find that one scene particularly frustrating.
Eli Gold is one of the best characters in the show. Top 3 with Alicia and Kalinda.
The Sarah Palin joke in this episode is the funniest thing of the season.
I have some problems with this movie. A parachute shaped like a spider is stupid. That would serve to give you terrible drag. The joke about "we need to talk about you and my aunt" is a great joke in the absolutely worst place possible. It makes no sense in that scene. The scene where Spider-Man goes full Iron Man is stupid. Because Spider-Man isn't Iron Man. They're completely different characters not the same character with different powers. Tony Stark is a tech obsessive genius. Peter Park is a smart kid who grapples with morality.
I think it says a lot about the film that my problems with it are in the end so small. There's LOT I loved about it. Mysterio was done brilliantly. With the exception of his death. I think Marvel is starting to develop a problem of killing off their villains. Killmonger and now Mysterio. Both of these (along with Vulture of all characters) are great. They were acted well. they were written well. They were genuine but not overly exaggerated threats. They're the type of villain the comic book superhero movies need. The type that can realistically come back and be taken seriously. And yet they are killed it's frustrating. Hopefully Mysterio's fate will be revealed to be more ambiguous.
If you've seen the trailers you know that Mary Jane figures out that Peter Parker is Spider-Man and it is both touching and funny in the unique way that Spider-Man films are. I think there are too many Spider-Man films. I think he's a character that's done to death. Everything about him is done to death. And yet... Homecoming managed to charm me after the horrendous clowning that was done in Amazing Spider-Man (Great PP, Bad SM) with a Peter Parker that felt fun and a Spider-Man that felt different enough.
About the after film scenes. There are two one mid credits and one post credits. I was told there were good and honestly they were. Quite possibly the best after film scenes of the MCU. I'm glad they got J. Jonah Jameson back and having Nick Fury be a Skrull does answer the post Avengers question of "Why is this world ending event down to this movies superhero". It's been a problem since the first Avengers movie.
So I went into this moving having seen the trailer. I expected reductive dreck. And yet this movie surprised me, both positively and negatively.
The premise was handled well. I generally enjoy this premise and I worried it would feel too samey. It doesn't even though some aspects around the premise feel a bit cheesy. The app idea is great. The app as we see it is kinda cheesy. The idea of a customized Brooks is great. What we actually see is cheesy. He's literally hopping into and out of costume shops. His "douche-bag" date in particular is a big low point. Looking back at it, though it's not the idea that's bad. It was the execution. It felt like he went 5 steps too far because this is a stageplay and you have to exaggerate for the backrow.
I'm bad with faces so I wasn't sure which girl would be his "real" love interest. I assumed it would be the first date and I was pleasantly surprised when I actually liked her. She's the opposite of what I described so far. On paper she's the same as every girl in this character but this actress is actually not terrible in the role.
I think it starts to fall apart when the movie is supposed to fall apart. As with every teenage gigolo movie he starts off spinning plates: Best Friend, Keeping up with First Girl/"Real" Love, His eye candy girl, his fake life (the paid dating) and his real life (College Admission). When the plates are spinning I actually love this movie. I love romcoms. I love teen drama movies. Before the plates start falling the movie is great. It's earnest, it's fun, it doesn't try too hard.
I only had one issue that kept bugging me. He needs to date girls to make money. He makes an app. How does he stop too many girls from getting the app and blowing up his phone. Watching the movie I began to assume this was a flaw in his plan and how his plates would start falling. Normally in this type of movie they use a word of mouth method to keep it secret and manageable. But the app as described here could get passed around too much and lead to him getting 20 requests in one weekend. That would still be an interesting movie where he has to recruit other Stand-Ins.
Honestly at this point I'm at a 4/5 on this movie based on pure simple easy flowing charm. This is max score for a movie like this. It even has cheesy "memory" lines. The lines you're supposed to remember and inspire you.
A Bronx Tale - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8p1iG-6d-w
It's heartwarming enough. But then.... BUT THEN... so the first plate to fall is the best friend. First off this character is super underdeveloped. Hmm actually that's not right. He's a pretty full character. The problem is their friendship is underdeveloped. The goal of the screenplay is that the friendship breaks and things happen. The problem is you don't see a broken friendship. You see a broken friend night (barely) and then suddenly the friendship is over and jumps into dying mode. It's jarring. Almost as jarring as when the first girl plate falls. It happens because our hero does something so out of character for absolutely no reason. He uses super personal information as content for their fake break-up. But why? He started the break-up fine. Then he suddenly spirals into her literal deeply contained feelings just for this fake show they're putting on. And then again BAM the third plate falls the hot girl plate. He gets caught via an old customer who outs him like paying for dates is normal and she doesn't understand social tact. The hot girl dumps him for lying? So weird.
And long story short it ends. That's all there really is to say. There's a really cool decision but then nothing really happens with it.
