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.
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.
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.
This is an episode that cements something that's been bothering me this entire time. I'm not a fan of all the changes they've made to the relationship dynamics but these things are inevitable. But the thing that really bothered me is that Wednesday comes to this school and three nearly identical dudes are super into her, which in itself is fine. The problem is that contrary to what Xavier says here Wednesday gives absolutely zero indication that she's into any of them. So when the boys get upset that she isn't returning their affection I'm confused like why? She has given you nothing. The real problem is the framing of the show suggests they are right and Wednesday should be recognizing what she's doing to these poor guys. While I never saw Wednesday as an emotionally stunted child like they're clearly making here, Ortega has done a brilliant job of making Wednesday show absolutely zero affection for anyone or anything except the oppressed. She protects her brother. She protects her friends. She protects anyone who needs protection. But she couldn't care less about your romance neither rejecting nor accepting just completely apathetic.
For a show that keeps name checking patriarchy it's kinda weird that the show also wants to basically shame Wednesday for doing absolutely nothing in the deluded fantasies of white dudes that insist she's giving them signals.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Okay so let's talk about episodes 5 and 6.
Ron Pearlmen was an utter delight. I can't not say that. He always is. Just is. Even here in this lackluster role. That said the second half of the season is a noticeable upswing. I really like even this episode and what it's doing character-wise. Plot-wise it was nonsense but it's not like it's going anywhere anyway at least now I'm starting to enjoy the ride. The interplay between our leads is interesting even if the again the fact that they are spies is not. What I find fascinating is that there's more narrative flow and consistency in the titles and descriptions than there is in the show. It's like they prepared the show with the titles and synopsis long before they started filming. Because this
Couples Therapy (Naked & Afraid) - Oh, John. Oh, Jane. Our pair have been oh so bad at sharing and caring. Time to call in help -- John and Jane, get ready for: COUPLES THERAPY, what a gas!
Is an entire different level than what even this episode is. This is fun and goofy and comical in a way that not even at it's best the show is. Maybe on a scene by scene basis you might find something worthy of the type of gassing in the title/synopsis but most of it is very different. It's lazier, more laid back, less invested. Which to say yet again I don't put on Maya and Donald. They're solid but the writing and directing just don't care. It's weird to look at this show and say "Well at least True Lies the TV Show tried." I mean the True Lies show bombed like 70-80% of it's run time but at least they were going for something. The jokes were sometimes dumb but they came (a little too) consistently.
As for episode 6? Well honestly it's my favorite episode so far. It's fun in a way that few episodes have been until now. Holy snap it just occurred to me. Part of it is the missing intrigue. As I've said before this is a show with zero guile. I mean they're spies but spies in this world is a gig job. Anyone signs up anyone gets in and the AI runs you like an uber app. It's dumb and boring and uninteresting. But here... here they have to lie. They have to explain translate and keep things up in front of a therapist who, imo, Sarah Paulson made utterly adorable "Yeah! Whatever DID happen to Mya?" I died. She was hilarious. It's amazing how just getting the formula right finally lets everything shine. The spycraft is minimized but it doesn't matter because I'm having a ball watching Maya and Donald rehash their relationship. A relationship I actually care about this episode. "The therapist episode" shows the potential of this series.
Wow what a ride. An excellent entry for the predator franchise. Fantastic pacing. This movie takes you from setpiece to setpiece without dragging or rushing. Every beat felt like it was right on time. This was a perfect movie to just get immersed in. I'm glad I both watched it in Comanche and blacked out my other monitor and other RGB.
The Prey title obviously can be interpreted many way but for my money the most interesting (if not the most obvious) is that the Predator considers itself Apex and only hunts predators. It saves a mouse to kill a snake. It saves a rabbit to kill a wolf. It saves Naru to kill a bear. Naru is a compelling protagonist in a classic if possibly overdone situation of being a women who wants respect in a man's world. I'm not as familiar with Comanche history and culture in this day. Maybe women struggled to be hunters. But that aside the predator has an interesting dynamic. It's an older more raw version of the predator than we've seen before. And yet for a creature that comes from a society that respects "the hunt" they are as one character points out eventually "cheaters". They don't fight far they have superior technology that they abuse. They follow their rules when they feel like it. Naru takes every advantage to grow and prove herself until the climatic conflict where she's forced to use everything she's learned about the predator to try to survive.
There's a lot of reviews that seem confusing to me. They act like our hero arm-wrestled the predator. She spent a lot of time outsmarting the creature which was the whole point . You'll never out power a predator. If Arnie couldn't why would anyone. You have to be smart and think fast and that's what Naru does.
The biggest negatives were the animals. CGI animals never move right. I just have a hard time thinking these creatures especially the bear would fight like that but it's certainly handwaveable.
It's been so long since I've seen a styling masterfully directed movie from Guy Ritchie. This is far from the best movie of all time. Not even my favorite Guy Ritchie or Jason Statham film. But it's a movie that's told with such verve. This is a crew that isn't trying to do new experimental story telling at this point. They know exactly where they want to go. The tension and the pacing are prepared like a chef whose done this 100 times before. In the wrong hands you'd wonder why the narrative goes back and forth all the time but in Ritchie's hands this only serves to help the tension build.
This is your mother's pie, it's comfortable and delicious in all the ways you hope it would be. But there are misses here as there are in any film. Mostly in the writing. I like Statham and I think his presence carries the perfect amount of menace. There are a few poorly explained plot points like H taking pictures of employee badges (I think this was to do research on all of their names a point that leads absolutely nowhere). I understand H and I empathize with his motivation but I don't care about him. He's almost too much menace. A good Statham role is about 50-70% menace and the rest English bad-boy charm. H is about 90% menace leaving not enough room for anything else to matter. His previous characters have been meticulous and precise almost to a fault and you get to revel in his mastery but here we have that character interrupted forced to forgo the planning we know him for and in it's stead just a continuous forward progression. The rest of the cast is filled with characters that should have been fun. They have great names, solid backstories. In a John Wick style movie this cast would be amazing but here we could have used more of Ritchie's telltale dry gallows humor. For such a full cast filled with actors who could really chew the scenery they didn't get a lot to do. Taking everyone here and transplanting them in something like Boss Level would be perfect. Those characters were almost too cartoonish. I would have loved to see these actors get more to do.
Um, what happened? Who wrote this episode because they deserve a raise and everyone else needs to be fired because this episode so far (50%) is EXCELLENT. And the couple that is literally the worst is having a legit fight. But let's back up.
This episode picks up on the event that happened last episode Cal is missing. So the entire family is kicking up a storm. Dad wants to spy hard, Michella kidnaps the spy passenger (I don't even know when she learned Autumn was a spy because I must have fallen asleep last episode, something that happens regularly but I try to rewatch later to see what I missed) to find out what she knows. Assuming the infomation matches this is a reasonable act. Mom calls the cops which is a reasonable action given that she doesn't know what's going on.. wait is that right? Because Dad and Mom fight about this. Did he not tell her about all the stuff going on? I swore he did and she scoffed him off. Either way we get the "Don't protect me" speech which I usually agree with, but again I don't think he was protecting her because I thought I remembered him telling. If I have that wrong I have to reassess everything to do with Mom and how wrongly she's been acting. Not this episode though.
Dad: This is the drawing that is the only clue to where our son might be
Mom: I know this place
Dad: Are you sure?
Mom: it's made out of crayon I don't know.
wow. a great response to a stupid question. You have no leads. What do you care if she's sure. Then they have a drive that's just as awkward as it needs to be (with bonus product placement). Before they scour the town and have a legit fight. I mean a real legit fight over real legit things. I was so shocked that I suddenly realized the entire episode has been good and I had to get my notepad++ open just to type this mid-episode. They have a fight about whose fault it is that Dad moved out.
Mom: If we lived together this wouldn't have happaned
Dad: Yeah, I agree but it's not your fault
Mom: Wait what?!?!
Holy balls. Where do you get the cajones to say something that stupid hombre? I mean do you not like your wife? I thought you wanted to have her sleeping next to you? Because that's exactly how you keep her sleeping next to your replacement. She is rightfully offended at his presumption that she blames herself. After all it was his decision to leave.
Uh oh. I just hit unpause and it got stupid.
Dad: You kicked me out
Mom: You didn't fight for "us" (Ed: Ugh really?)
Mom: You left because you know what you did. You didn't make Cal the number one in your life.
Chicken-head says what? (I'd like to apologize for the unnecessary sexism. it's not cool. I was just super frustrated with the dialog) Like dang Grace you've been blocking Ben from doing what he needs to do FOR the family.
Dad: Everything I've done has been to keep Cal safe.
Mom: But no one else is blowing up their families why can't you be normal like them?
Dad: I'm a main protagnist do you not get how this works yet?
Alright the episode has gotten cheesy and product placy but you know what it hasn't got? Bad.
Dad: Mom, see this car? (Ed: because it's so ridiculous everyone needs to see it - https://i.imgur.com/2wkwI4G.jpg)
Dad: I think someone is following us. There's a single car behind us on this two lane highway with infrequent exits. Why else would a car be behind us.
Mom: But.. how can they keep up with us and not get lost we've been driving straight down the highway
Dad: I don't know but we're not driving a normal direction we're going straight
Mom: Does this car have any off-road features or anti-lock brakes?
Dad: I'm glad you asked that because all the base models come with both of those and for an extra $1000 we'll throw in linen seats.
Michella and Jared show up to do information exchange with the spy passenger Autumn
Mich: Thanks for switching to our side
Autu: You're welcome.
Mich picks up the information she brought autumn from the table behind her rather than from a brief case or any sort of envelope she would have been carrying on her. thus indicating she came in. Put the envelope down and walked in to talk to Autumn rather than just holding on to it for whatever reason.
Do the show runners even car about prop logic?
Mich: Did you guys get the location I sent you?
Mom and Dad: Yes.
Mich: I know it took you guys hours to get where you are but I'm coming too.. wait hours for me to get there don't try anything stupid like going to find your lost and missing son in the middle of winter.
But these are all relatively minor complaints in this show. I mean after this episode i can see what they were trying to do with Grace's character act. it just made no sense until now. In retrospect those earlier episodes are even worse because it was intentional. they need a firm steady hand to keep the characters and their motivations consistent and reasonable with the long term serial nature of the show. This shouldn't be impossible. But even the mythos ending was great. The hiker from Michella's vision isn't Cal in the future as I thought it's another time skipper, this time a hiker who skipped two years . He's an interesting addition to the cast and we've barely met him. This has got to be one of THE BEST episodes of the season.
Ed: Some of the conversations have been paraphrased for laziness reasons. Some have a bit of creative license in them
So now that Becks and Joe are over (1x07) we maintain that high digetic pace as Becks and Joe enter new phases of their life. We have a new character introduced Karen Minty and honestly I like her. I think the actress is attractive and I think the character brings a different level of interest into this circle of romance/stalking. For a while things seem fine and on the surface nothing is wrong but they encounter each other and like two opposing magnetic poles they are drawn to each other in a manner most would consider unhealthy. Of course it's nice well not nice but interesting to see Becks taking an assertive position in their relationship. In a traditional romantic comedy or romantic show this would be the episode where you would root for the romance in spite of the insurmountable obstacles in front of them but this is You and you, the audience, know Joe inside and out. It makes you feel awkward to be put in the position of hoping they get back together even though you know this is a bad outcome. This is an outcome that you shouldn't want to happen. Interestingly enough when Joe breaks up with his new love interest and she doesn't get immaturly emotional he's confused because as I've said before Dexter is psychotically devoid of emotion. Joe is psychotically additicted to emotion.
As with the last episode Candace comes up only this time not around Joe and it raises flags and makes for some interesting tension that taints an otherwise "charming" moment in ways that should ripple out to have massive repurcussions when events inevitably come to a head.
The worst episode of the season. This episode manages to crush everything wrong about Punisher in one episode. Luckily the rest of the season is excellent. But this episode has so many problems such as the overly idealized "perfect wife" who isn't a real person (which continues). There's violence in this episode towards the end that is just brutal for the sake of being brutal. It's what a teenager thinks The Punisher is about.
The Punisher is a character who understands everything about what he does. He's violent yes but controlled violence that's purposeful. He kills but he kills because he's already done the mental math and concluded that it must be done. It's his superpower as it were. Moral superiority. He doesn't agonize about whether or not to kill his enemy. He kills and goes to sleep because he unlike many superheroes has already suffered extreme cruelty. But Castle's not cruel and the violence in this episode can't be considered anything other than cruel. He doesn't need to destroy these men to save the boy and yet he does. The framing of the episode so far does everything it can to humanize the victims of his attacks. Which isn't what you do when you want your hero to kill people. The framing of the fight scene at the end implies this is an awesome thing done by an awesome guy. It's not. It's just an ugly violent inhuman version of Frank Castle even by comic book standards. When what made him so good in Daredevil Season 2 was his humanity.
Okay. I'll give it this. Whatever my gripes with the series as a whole, it ended well. Let's talk about episodes 7 and 8. The final pairing.
Episode 7 starts with "Infidelity" and ends with the third strike and a separation between Jane and John. Michaela Coel has what is probably the best line of the series. Which is a shame because unlike say the best line in Ted Lasso it has nothing to do with the show. It's a throwaway line about how "We're not bonding you have a gun on me". It's brilliant. In a world where no one seems to care about telling anyone they are a spy, it makes it very confusing to care about things like when spies take people hostage. Oh sure this time she turned out to be a spy as well but in the next episode the same thing happens but not. The show very clearly doesn't have any conception of what a spy is. To the point where they get missions and pretend they have to keep a secret but then they ... don't. Ever. pretend or keep secrets. This was a solid episode where I liked the interplay between them because they had something to do while keeping up that interplay. Sort of like how YouTubers hold microphones no matter what type or style or situation because they need to do something with their hands. This show needs to do something with it's background plot or the interplay between the leads just feels weird and pointless.
Episode 8 Our finale of course is going to have a lot of big moments. You have your requisite dramatic irony as two character try to kill each other for the crime of trying to kill each other a crime neither committed. It goes on for way way way too long as an audience member but it's balanced well with all the action. It comes to a nice conclusion fight scene wise. We find out who was really pulling their strings as well as who was pulling THEIR strings. And then we have an excellent cliffhanger ending. Once again we have a spy taking someone to extreme levels of violence but this time it's not a spy posing as a civy it's an actual civy. In a show that played this sort of thing for laughs that could be funny but this show has a mise that's fairly serious but doesn't make sense. You can't do that. As a counter example I just watched Jason Statham's Beekeeper recently. That's a movie that's ostensibly about getting revenge on tech support scammers from someone who has never actually seen a tech support scam. What I actually think happened is because of the complexities of the optics and racism they needed to modify the villains so they made them into wall street traders. Which is fine because this is a fairly goofy movie. Contrast that to MMS where everything about it is goofy (Title, Concept, Synopsis, even the poster) except the actual episodes themselves. Those are played far too straight to take with humor. So when the FBI gets a case that involves oval office members and they tell the Secret Service to put it aside? I can take that in a movie where some dude gets strapped to a car and driven off a bridge. But when you hold a gun to a Sotheby's agent and threaten to kill them except "nah it's ok". That's a little harder to take. It's a good episode. Top 3 of the series even, but almost all of the good is due to finale shenanigans. Not literally all but almost all.
I'm perfectly willing to watch a second season. I naively believe now that we have a lot of the awkwardness out of the way there's no way the second season is going to have the same problems that plagued the first. We'll have a more focused story because there's not a lot of story floating. We have direct questions that need to be answered now. I actually need to rewatch the whole thing because I think there's a lot of ending interstitial I might have missed. The one in episode 7 foreshadows some of the discussion about Hihi in episode 8.
A fun sex comedy that has survived better than most others. Denis is a brainiac, who tells the entire school, that he loves Beth Cooper, local hottie and dream girl to whom he has never spoken. Beth and her fellow hot-girl friends decide to follow up on this and take Denis out to a party. Thus begins a crazy graduation night, that involves parties, nudity, bullies and beer aka all the requisite ingredients for a teen sex comedy.
With Beth dragging Denis along to all the stops, while driving like a maniac, she has the perfect mixture of ingredients to be a manic pixie dream girl. I actually will not fight anyone, who thinks she is just another MPDG. That's perfectly fair. I think, however, she subverts in some interesting ways even if others might argue that maybe it is not enough. The whole point of this movie is that Beth isn't a dream girl. She's a real person. She drives like a maniac, not because she's quirky but because she's a bad driver. She makes bad decisions (that ostensibly she might need to be rescued from), but she feels trapped in her role as the hot girl everyone wants. She's even got personal family life issues that affect her outlook and perspective.
The opening of the movie is about Denis coming out of his shell but the rest of the movie is about him learning that Beth Cooper is more than the girl on his ceiling poster.
There's a side-plot that I hate. One that showed up in 1997's In and Out that I, again, absolutely despise. It was nearly subverted here, but the plot point is if someone calls you gay, it's because you're gay. No matter how you act or what you say or how you feel or what your life has been. They are never wrong. If someone calls you gay in act one by the end of the movie you will be gay. Rich, aside from the "Let's sword-fight with our boners" flashback isn't really that gay. Yet for some reason people look at everything he says as if it's really gay but most of it wouldn't be looked at twice if not for the speech and the non-digetic history. It would have been a better movie if Denis had been wrong on all of his speech subjects. The graduation speech would have needed to be a little bit different. But it would have given the movie a stronger point rather than just fleshing out Beth it would have shown that Denis was the one with blinders on. But hey maybe next time. Guess in 2009 we weren't there yet. Or at least that's what I might say if 2006's John Tucker Must Die didn't exist. There's an aspect of this movie that like it's main character puts Beth Cooper on a pedestal and now I suppose it serves as an archival representation of a collective way of thinking that isn't as mainstream anymore.
Hayden and Paul have solid Beauty and the Beast chemistry. I think there's a lot of stylistic choices the movie makes that I like. Unfortunately while it's certainly not as bad as some sex comedies I've rewatched from my younger days this one isn't nearly as great as i remembered it and this wasn't top tier in my rose tinted perspective to begin with.
Skylines aka Skylin3s is a bad movie. Just like Skyline and Beyond Skyline before it. Skyline was a movie directed by special effects guys that looks like a special effects demo piece. But between Beyond Skyline and Skylines they've managed to do the unthinkable. They've created potential. I don't walk away from Skylines thinking about how bad it is. My first thought isn’t about how bad it was that an effects-based movie will randomly and for no reason suddenly have CGI so bad that it looks like I myself made the movie. I'm not walking away thinking about the bad underdeveloped flat characters and sub-par acting. I left this movie and somehow my first feeling was disappointed. Disappointed that after flipping the genre 3 times no one made anything of ANY of them, the effect film wasn’t good, the action film wasn’t good, the sci-fi heist film wasn’t good.
Beyond Skyline took off from plotless movie (Skyline) and spend half of its own runtime setting up the last half of its runtime, which was an action set piece. It was even a fun action set piece. I liked a lot of it actually. But I was still mid headache from realizing that I spent half the movie watching things not happen. It was almost as bad at Pirate of the Caribbean 2. Beyond Skyline even sets up cliffhanger sequel bait that was, dare I say, compelling. I legitimately wanted to see what came next and considering the quality of the movies up to that point, I remain shocked.
Somehow Skylines, which opens in the first three minutes by completely skipping over that giant space battle/opera that was setup in the last movie, does the most to setup the world. It has the biggest and most interesting world to play in. And yet it fails on EVERY level to do anything with it. I mean for crying out loud there are human brains in alien machine bodies and none of this is explored. Do they still age? How long do they last? Do they have a unique culture? There's a hint that the hybrids were accepted as human but what does that look like? Do people have new relationships with these hybrids? Do they engage in old ones? Yet the movie then forgets all of that complexity in spite of the fact that the bad guy is represented as bad in part because he is prejudice against the hybrids in a world that we’re told completely accepts them. In the last third the film sets up the hybrids as killing fodder and so it is with zero remorse or thought they're slaughtered in fight scenes. There's no exploration of prejudice which must exist in this scenario. It can’t just be our main bad guy. After all it’s shown that he has help. His project is way too big to have done it himself. It's just a mish mash of ideas. Many of the ideas presented are good and interesting some of them would even make compelling dramatic sci-fi pieces all by themselves but in the Skyline franchise they're just completely empty of fleshing out. In spite of what the characters will say nothing matters and no one cares. The movie has two main hybrids Trent and Violet and they’re interesting. They’re actually interesting and unique characters. Violet is hardcore pro-rebellion even getting her tank body spray painted. Trent is the only hybrid we’ve seen created that’s still alive. We saw him as a human and saw him as a hybrid. We know what he was like as a human, we can imagine him transformed into this hybrid. And yet somehow the human characters are even more flat than them. We have a bad guy, we have a minor bad guy, we have the guy who hates Rose for what happened in the prologue, we have the specialist it’s all so rote and uninteresting set in a world that is teaming with interesting things the movie just doesn’t want to talk about. Like why do these aliens harvest brains only to refuse to use them what purpose do the brains serve the the bodies don’t? Why is the earth human relations the way they are? There seems to be a human government and yet there are encampments? Why? Who rejects humans? Why is Rose so hunted when she is clearly so despised? And that’s just shooting from the hip. In the corner of every scene is something interesting something that could flesh out the people or the world and the movie just doesn’t have time for that.
I can see why people might enjoy this one but it's just sad how much it could have been. The creature designs are solid, the alien voice isn't annoying. The main character is unique for reasons that aren't explained or explored. The bad guy is just the right kind of bad to be enjoyable except he's bad for no reason. There are baits and switch but it's hard to care about them because I don't care about the characters. As soon as you see the setup of a heist on an alien planet you know it's bad when you're mostly wondering which one will be sacrificed on the altar of "this is really dangerous. . see Person X just died". Our main character has so much potential for complex motivations and the movie skips over all of them. Rose hesitates to fire on the alien ship, and it could have been a moment of learning about the aliens about her about anything and instead it's only referenced in a throwaway motivational monolog. Skylines is the movie that couldn’t. Shame.
Wow what a whirlwind. This is not an easy show to watch. You really have to step into the culture and really handwave a lot of stuff as just being due to their culture. Not just the matching, but the dispassionate way in which they force the matching. The insistence on traditional aspects to the point where they don't make sense like hand writing your database rather than keeping them on a secure database. It's just maddening watching this woman scroll through hand written notes when a simple database query would be much more efficient. If you want to reduce people to number that's fine. But then what purpose does writing them down serve.. at that point just assign a number and use filters and queries.
That matches are all over the map. There's the villain girl, the secret gay, and the foreigner which in this case means East Indian from Guyana. There's definitely a degree to which some of this is just reality TV nonsense. Like without stepping on cultural toes. I think I can safely say that the last one has no business even looking to this particular matchmaker. She's very East Indian old school. Which doesn't even look close to what she wants. But hey it does get her on the reality show. Our villain girl is a typical rich kid but that's pretty much everyone here. She's not very friendly but I think that actually makes her super easy to match with. You find her a guy who doesn't mind being "bullied" by his wife and there are plenty of guys like that. There's so much to take in though.
Not bad I guess. Not really sure how you judge a true crime show especially not episode by episode but it was compelling. They do a lot to convince you this is "the real scoop" and two things stand up.
Subject director - There's a lot of scenes where the subject of the scene opens the scene by talking with the crew about what kind of shot they're going to make and what it will look like. This is I presume common in all reality TV. There's so much fakery in reality TV from people answering the door like they don't know a camera crew is outside to people wondering where people are when the everyone has their own personal camera crew. But typically they clip the part where the subject says something like "So I'll stand here and you can get me and the cat in the same angle". It's clearly supposed to make the whole thing feel authentic.
Both Sides-ism - Even though clearly the Tiger King is the "bad guy" and the Sanctuary lady is the "good guy". They keep enough ambiguity in some scenes. They point out that the Sanctuary lady also has people pay money to see her cats. I legit have questions about her operation. I mean I don't have any about TK's though that's just a bad spot but I am curious about some of the finer points of hers.
This is one of the funniest episodes so far.
I mean just such a delicate subject and then turned completely for laughs, successfully. A simple premise of Ryan getting fired leading to the passengers suspecting outer space might be fake. Oh it could have gone so many ways but everyone on this show is in three different levels of stupid so of course it takes the absolute worst result possible. In theory a show about passengers jettisoning themselves out an airlock is a pretty tragic event but this show manages to avoid even having it become black comedy and instead it's just barely blue. They're all so convinced they're on a reality show that one of them jumps out the airlock only to die IMMEDIATELY and become a frozen corpse. An event so shocking and honestly rather disturbingly depicted, that the only result for the level 3 stupid passengers is to of course double down and become even more convinced they can just walk off the ship. Which you wouldn't think would be possible. After all how stupid is everyone and yet it happens again. In the same "just disturbing enough to bother you" fashion, two more passengers airlock themselves. Including what was up to then one of the smartest "level 1 stupid" passengers. It's something that should make you feel grossed out or even teary sad and yet.. it's absolutely hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing at the sheer stupidity so much so I was practically shocked when it happens yet again for the third time. It's just.... so impractically stupid the scene works just because they don't quite hit diminishing returns. When the frozen bodies started bouncing off the shuttle :kissing_closed_eyes:. It does at least tell us the shuttle is very near by. That should introduce some interesting dynamics.
Lucy is being written as a bit bubbly this season. It feels weird. I mean I don't mind her being bubbly but it feels different from last season. Which I haven't seen in a long while to be fair.
This is a bad cop episode so it's going to make the ACAB section a bit harder.
HAHAHHAHAHA when Nolan kept her in the back of the car even during lunch. I'm still laughing about that.
Shame they had to end it on a terrible note. I mean wow we finally get a permanent cast member and that's good news for the show. But wow do I hate that last line. After revealing that her purpose for going backwards is to be in a steady 9-5 job so she can see her daughter, which is super relatable and commendable, she ends the scene saying "I'm going to get her back." A sentiment which doesn't apply when she left her family to go undercover. I presume the white man is the child's father and I fully supported her trying to get 50-50 custody and I even liked that he didn't freak out about that, but that last line hit all the wrong and unsympathetic notes that the entire scene was building.
ACAB
Ok so in the ACAB corner I think I'll highlight all the ways the show tries to make cops look better than they are. This is not normally a reflection on the show or it's quality. My only thought is that a gun runner who is escaping a busted buy is probably hyper sensitive to cop cars behind him. It strikes me a little unrealistic that they could just follow him and he wouldn't know. Or that his front gate people wouldn't notice the giant cop car under the overpass.
As an aside I noticed it in episode 2 and wish I had made the comment then but The Rookie really pushes this bodycam thing to a point where it feels silly. At least it's not as bad as last year when body game footage was at the wrong height.
Ok wow that was good. Like really good.
Man just a lot of fun.
So plot wise this is a movie about two people both of whom are bad people. They meet happenstance and find out they're both going to the same destination wedding. Lindsay is the former fiance of the groom (he left her) and Frank is his half-brother. They both hate the groom Keith but it barely unites them as they both just hate everything.
This plotline sounds familiar because it's basically all you need to know to watch FX's absolutely excellent You're the Worst. But this is just a movie version of that pilot. So what you really look for in this movie is not so much the plot which we all know (Boy meets girl, ... , They get together), but the chemistry and how they get together. Ryder and Reeves have EXCELLENT chemistry and the writing was top notch. Which it had to be because this movie is 90% Lindsay and Frank riffing off one another. It doesn't feel improvy or forced. But the sheer endurance of the back and forth between them is impressive. They should be together based on that alone. But Keanu plays a character that in other people's hands would feel lazy and dull. I love Bruce Willis movies but ever since I learned he has a rider that says he films his parts in like 2 days and then collects his money and they film the rest of the movie. It suddenly clicks what is wrong with his performances lately. It's that he's not performing. Reeves does the oppsite here. He takes a character that is written as lifeless and stiff and he performs that stiffness. Ryder's Lindsay on paper is pathetic. Keith broke off their engnagement like a dick but she sues him and is still coming to this Destination Wedding performatively instead of saying no and sparing herself the pain. Ryder infuses her with pain and anger and spite. Yet she's develops a hesitant but honest and open affection for Frank that keeps her interesting.
This is exactly the sort of movie I would buy just to have on tap when I need something to watch that's entertaining but not stupid.
A solid episode of Manifest though flawed. Everyone is acting like Real_Dad attacked someone without provocation but mysteriously ignoring the fact that 828_Racist actually threatened his son.
This episode our new character Zeke (which will be the name of my future first son by the way). With his lack of desire to return there was a while when I thought he might be a serial killer or something. After all so far we haven't really had any 828 passengers who are bad people. We had a domestic abuser who lost his memory. We have the Spy_Passenger who I still don't understand.
So by the way 828 racists are a thing apparently. I don't know how people who write TV think hate groups work but these are Alex Jones like conspiracies and you see them in every show like this, Manifest, The Event, Flash Forward and each time it's just silly. No one would buy this. Much less successfully start an entire movement on it. After all there are people who think they're saviors where are they? Why aren't they debunking the livestream which should clearly show that 828_Racist threatened a child. Why don't the police know that matter of fact. Why isn't Real_Dad pointing this out. This is TV writing. People do things for reasons and then when asked about what happened they stutter "uh uh uh.. i just lost control". No you didn't. You had a reason for what you did. Oftentimes a mitigating one.
Another thing I don't understand. Why is it so hard to remove spray paint? that must be the most ingenious invention ever created because NO ONE can solve it. They just all use water and scrub uselessly. Why doesn't ANYONE go out and buy some solvent. There are pages and pages and pages on how to remove spray paint but all you ever see is a bucket of water and a scrubbing brush. It's my understanding that if you get it while it's wet, maybe that'll work but considering how long that X was there you're going to need more than that.
But look how minor my complaints are this episodes. Spray Paint and super effective "racism". Like the one where-- that was last episode. Like Last episode this was pretty good, even with my nitpicks. I didn't mind Olive_theDaughter even though there was plenty of potential for her to insist that she should have been filled in earlier. The whole "everyone who knows dies" thing kinda feels contrived. They're drawing conclusions with barely any evidence. Correlation is not causation. People who know have died but that doesn't mean knowing is what makes them die.
Oo ooo oo.. Also. they played Bananagrams. As a board gamer I like to see fun games being played. not boring family games like monopoly and connect 4. Bananagrams is an excellent family game. it's exactly the sort of family game modern families should be playing.
Quantum Leap (2022) has at times struggled with what kind of show it wants to be. I would have preferred something a lot more intimate, very much like the original Quantum Leap. I've given up on that as no one makes TV shows like that anymore. Every show has to be an ensemble cast, every TV show lead has to have an entire team, not just a buddy.
I was willing to buy into that and I set aside my expectations for what Quantum Leap means and how much I enjoy the original. My personal preferences aside, it has mostly worked. I have issues with one episode but you can check my review on that. It's not like every episode of the OG was perfect either. This Season 2, however, has failed to spark anything within me (so far). I'm just not interested in a three-year time skip on a second season of this show. I don't know why it's there. I don't know what I'm supposed to be taking from this. It feels like in the TV world having someone move on so harshly in 3 years is wicked fast. Maybe it's not but regardless, I'm not an invested in their drama. This is weird because I like Ben and I like Addison. I weirdly never just cared about them as a couple. Unfortunately it looks like that's the only drama that is going on (at least right now). At first I thought this was just a ploy to make Ian the person in the imaging chamber and I was actually interested in that. I think Ian's an interesting person and it would have been fun to see Ian as a hologram. At this point, I'm not sure that's what they're doing.
This episode features a sort of modernism that I find really pretentious. There's a point where Ian is the hologram and Ian is standing in a desk. Ben notices and gestures to Ian that Ian should step aside. Ian looks down and screams in shock, but why? It's the silliest scene and it doesn't make any sense and it feels like it completely is there for modern weird jumpscare short attention span tick tock sensibilities. It would have been much more interesting to see Ian casually step aside. I'm pretty sure Al did that in the OG.
In general Al was a lot more "cool" about being a hologram than the people in this show are. It gave the sense that the hologram technology itself was so old hat. They didn't send a scientist or a specialist. They just sent his buddy. After all in the future holograms are just the way we do things. Except here where people get amazed and shocked at being a hologram. I suppose that's the effect of telling Quantum Leap that takes place in the future vs Quantum Leap that takes place now.
