Between this and Cherry, it’s becoming more and more clear that the MCU’s best director is called Kevin Feige.
Netflix clearly spent a lot of money on this, you can feel the price of your subscription going up with every new set piece that’s introduced, but the end results are still unforgivingly bland and generic nonetheless.
It’s their attempt to compete with Bond, Bourne or Mission Impossible, but if anything this feels like a poser imitation of those superior blockbuster franchises. The plot is in fact literally ripping off both Skyfall and The Bourne Identity at the same time, but forgets about any of their depth in regards to story and character.
The Russos are clearly trying to recapture that same tone and spark from their Captain America: The Winter Soldier days, but they end up making something that’s more akin to the quality of Red Notice.
In terms of directing they kinda got outdone by their own second unit director with his Netflix action flick, as I’d argue that Extraction is a marginally better film than this.
The action’s poorly done and cheaply put together, lots of annoying editing choices (heavy overuse of drone shots, quick cuts and can the Russos pick a normal font for once?), corny dialogue, distractingly bad CGI, boring visuals and music (why is everything so low contrast, foggy and muddy?); not a lot to recommend about this one.
The acting’s fine, Evans is having a blast, but I have absolutely no idea why an extremely picky actor like Ryan Gosling chose this script in the first place. It seems like a paycheck movie for someone of his caliber. Just watch The Nice Guys instead of this if you want to see Goose in an action comedy, we don’t need these 200 million dollar direct to streaming action films.
4/10
I am incredibly grateful to Game of Thrones for this adventure I have found myself sucked into for some years now. I am grateful for all the emotions it brought me since day one, bitter and sweet alike. I am grateful for all the laughs, all the tears, all the jokes and gags, every single bit of it, I really am grateful and appreciative of it all. It's been just... wonderful.
That said, I am feeling robbed and betrayed right about now. This ending is arguably one of the worst series finales in the history of television and trust me I realize how bold of a statement that is. The terrible violations the characters have suffered this season, the lack of proper resolution to many of the plots and narratives developed over seasons worth of buildup, the seeking of shock value at the expense of quality writing... that and much much more solidified this as an absolute disappointment of a finale, as opposed to the marvel wrap it could've given this cultural phenomenon.
This episode does have its positives, as always the score, acting and cinematography are perfectly performed but I just do not think it's nearly enough to compensate for how lackluster the writing has been, as much as I wish they did. Oh well, sad as it may be, I'll just hold on to the good stuff and hope that GRRM's book, once finished, will tackle the ending in a more coherent, more respectful and more meaningful way. It's been real y'all...
P.S: I'll leave this here lest some people jump me again. This comment is a representation of my own personal opinion, I am entitled to one just as all of you are. If you enjoyed this season and felt this finale delivered what you were looking for then more power to you mate, but that doesn't nullify my opinion nor does it make yours any valid. If you want to discuss or challenge my views, I'd be more than happy to engage you on that basis but if all you have to offer are petty remarks then please keep them to yourself.
Best lines
I’m waiting for an old friend - Bran
You left me for dead - Hound
I also robbed you - Arya
I’ve always had blue eyes! - Tormund
Whatever they want - Dany
but
It had its moments - Sansa
They need wheelchair ramps in Winterfell. They left Bran in the courtyard overnight!
Parallelism between Season 1 Episode 1 and Season 8 Episode 1
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ S08E01 Jon: "Where's Arya?" Sansa: "Lurking somewhere."Foreshadowing (from different Seasons/Episodes.)
01. S03E05“ “Let’s not go back. Let’s stay here a while longer,” Ygritte tells Jon. “I don’t ever want to leave this cave, Jon Snow.” S08E01 “We could stay a thousand years. No one would find us,” Daenerys says to Jon.02. Sam is suggesting rebelling against the Targaryen because they burned his father and brother alive. Similar to when Robert's Rebellion, began when Rhaegar Targaryen, allegedly abducted Robert's betrothed, Lyanna Stark.
The ending was later game of thrones stupid.
Daemon running out there like an idiot, and the dozens of archers firing at him miss, again, again, and again, and again, and again, and then oh now finally they hit.
All the while he's fighting against opponent, after opponent, after opponent, against multiple opponents, as the crab feeder sends out dozens of his men.
It's just stupid. And his dragon stayed back because? No reason. Could have been attacking the archers.
And it turns out Daemon didn't do this solely to try and kill the crab feeder, but to try and bait him out so he/his allies can kill him and his army?
But wait. Allies said they had around 700 men. They're in a war. So crab feeder must have hundreds or around that number. Crab feeder wouldn't be stupid enough to send out a big force just for daemon, especially because he was wounded by arrows and on the ground, and still being attacked by them. Plus, we saw him send out what two dozen of his warriors? Against Daemon. For some reason.
Then when allies show and dragon attack, Crab Feeder and his allies don't go back in the caves? Which was their usual tactic each time for literally years during the war.
Even though they're in a losing war, Daemon and his allies win at the end.
None of this makes sense.
Writing quality across the whole episode is lower than the previous two, and we have now reached later game of thrones level of stupidity.
Would Daemon have really done that stupid run? Oh and we also see more of his dishonorable nature by nearly beating a messenger to death, and then betraying the white flag of truth. Even though he at least seemed to have some honorable aspects to him in previous episodes, even though he was brutal. Was this all in the book? The stupid suicide run, the dishonorable actions. And was it in the book when Daemon charged right in the middle of battle on his dragon and got pounded by arrows and almost died? He got lucky because one went into his shoulder. This is stupid. Even on the run he could have been killed by the first volley of arrows. I'd be very surprised if any of this was in the book.
Edit: And we don't get enough info about things regarding the status of armies, and the numbers we do get don't make sense. So Valeryon's forces have 700 men left? Eh? That low? And you're waging a war? Been in a war for years? How many forces does Daemon have? Does he have any left? He had goldcloaks right? For some reason. I guess he had so much of their loyalty is what it said in previous episodes. Yeah i guess they just followed him to Dragonstone and then into war. Where are they? Are they still a part of his army? If not, then it's just him? Why did the Valeryon guy say Daemon is helping them lose the war, he has a dragon. He's consistently helping, especially so if he's contributing his goldcloak forces, and i assume that's all Daemon would have, since we don't know if he's the lord of anywhere and able to conscript people.
So many questions like that. All through the episode about things. When an episode is a mixed bag like this, you start to see and question many other things. I still enjoyed the episode overall though.
Edit 2: Since a lot of people seem to agree with me, i thought i'd go into more detail. The show hasn't completely broken down yet like later Game of Thrones, nor has the logic been twisted too much like middle Game of Thrones. The previous 2 episodes i thought were really good, but this episode you could tell had a different writer, and that's not good, because it makes you less immersed, like sometimes you feel these characters shouldn't be saying what they're saying. Contrast that to Game of Thrones season 1, and i couldn't tell who was writing what episode, as it was good across the board. So early into this season and i'm seeing a mismatch in writing is not a good sign.
I think we have a lot of interesting characters in this show and i'm looking forward to continuing. I'd rate this episode a 6.5/10, but 6 or 7 is valid to me. Most of this episode i thought was pretty good, but there were too many things for me to choose 6. The mismatch in writing, the timeskip, the brattiness of Rhaenyra, the white deer heavy handed symbolism, the end of the episode and the anticlimactic nature of the crabfeeder. The king feeling a bit too lost in his soul, when he's supposed to be king and has been king for a long time, and has a queen and children. I understand the reasoning, i just don't buy it much. But i still like the many conversations, politics and intrigue in the show, and the characters and story.
If you’d ask me what the highlights of the previous 2 Ant-Man movies are, I’d probably answer: I don’t remember much about them, but I liked those quirky scenes narrated by Michael Peña and the creative use of shrinking powers during the set pieces. For as forgettable as both movies are, at least I still remember the set piece with the train in the first movie, or the kitchen fight from the second movie. With this movie, I'm already having trouble remembering any specifics, because all of those typical Edgar Wright touches have been erased in favor of being a big CGI extravaganza. So, allow me to do a general breakdown of the three acts instead.
1st act: We get a set-up that's similar to Spiderman: No Way Home, which means it’s in a hurry to get to the main dish, making every main character look like an irresponsible dumbass in the process. Once we get to the quantum realm, we're met with a lot of cringe comedy. The design of the world is fine, it feels like a mashup of prequel era Star Wars, Avatar, The Fifth Element and Spy Kids, not like an original creation. A stronger, visionary director probably would've made a big difference here, or at least one who knows how to use the volume stages, because that might’ve avoided the Spy Kids comparisons.
2nd act: Jonathan Majors arrives to do some actual acting, and he somehow pulls it off despite the hammy, pseudo-intellectual lines given to him by the script. Michelle Pfeiffer also gets some time to shine, when she's on the screen with Majors it feels like the movie actually comes to life for a brief second. Still, the scenes with Kang feel tonally inconsistent with the rest of the movie, and I’m not sold on the idea of him being the Avengers level threat we’ve been waiting for. When it comes to the other actors, most of them are given nothing interesting to do, the supposed co-lead of this movie (according to the title) included. I don't like picking on younger actors, but it needs to be said that Emma Fuhrmann expressed more emotion during her 10 second appearance as Cassie Lang in Avengers: Endgame than Kathryn Newton did here. In terms of story, this portion of the movie is all about set-up and clunky exposition as delivered through monologues. One of the characters even gets introduced with his own 'previously on Ant-Man' recap, which I find insulting and shows what little faith this studio has in its audience. Besides, it probably would’ve been better to cut this character, because his inclusion is easily one of Marvel's worst creative decisions (the design and visual effects are laughable). Generally I'd say this act is pretty boring, and occasionally embarrassing.
3rd act: The movie decides it wants to be Aquaman instead, so we're getting an extended battle sequence of stuff fighting other stuff, with plenty of flashes, lasers and more stuff. It's big, it's loud, and I check out. Every cheesy crowdpleaser deserves its fair share of deus ex machina moments, but this movie spams the action movie trope of 'our main character is in peril only to get saved at the very last moment' to death at this point. Furthermore, the cringe comedy makes a big return, with Corey Stoll delivering a line so bad that it will become a meme (you'll know once you see the movie). More punchy stuff, more pew pew, more 'comedy', and thankfully the movie finally decides it has wasted enough of my time. We get a final montage that includes the first good joke of the movie, and the credits roll. Nothing is achieved, absolutely nothing. This is a cynically conceived advertisement that does not deserve your time.
3/10
It’s funny to know that this movie was intended to come out before the pandemic, because by releasing it now it might provide some unintentional food for thought for the morons who believe that a certain virus was actually conceived in a lab.
I genuinely wonder if those people will read that far into this film, I’d find it deeply amusing.
The good news is that there are definetely a lot of things this does better than Spectre.
The action is memorable and way more visceral (though it doesn’t quite surpass the Mission Impossible Fallout bar) and the characters are generally more interesting.
I loved the women in this in particular, they all have distinct personalities and they’re not flawless human beings or overpowered (e.g. Ana de Armas is bubbly and fun, but at the same time she’s inexperienced and chaotic), like some blockbusters tend to do.
At the same time, we shouldn’t pretend that this film invented strong female characters for Bond, especially after we’ve had Eva Green and Judi Dench.
Meanwhile, James Bond himself has a very satisfying arc in this film, which isn’t too dissimilar to Tony Stark’s arc in Avengers Endgame , with a bold pay off in the third act. I’m happy that this film gave us confirmation that Mads Mikkelsen didn’t end up castrating Bond during that scene in Casino Royale.
It’s paced very well, more like a traditional action film and less like a drama, which was the case for Skyfall and Spectre. Don’t let the runtime intimidate you, it doesn’t feel longer than 2 hours.
And finally, the whole thing just looks great, it’s produced excuisetely. The cinematography isn’t quite Skyfall level, but Roger Deakins is an impossible bar to clear for any cinematographer.
Unfortunately, this film really struggles with its tone, bouncing between some cartoony stuff and very dark, dramatic moments.
It wants to honor the traditional Bond stuff, but at the same time it can’t let go of the roots of the Daniel Craig iteration, which makes it feel like an uneven artistic vision, because the foundation of Craig’s Bond rests on this idea that this isn’t the traditional Bond.
It’s going for the same tone as Skyfall, meaning its pretty serious, while also incorporating some campy stuff with the plot and the villain (but never going into straight up silly territory, like Spectre).
The problem is that you could still take the villain and the plot seriously in Skyfall (Bardem is still scary despite the camp, the hacking plot feels grounded), and that isn’t the case here, the plot goes too much into sci-fi territory for that.
Also, Rami Malek didn’t leave much of an impression on me, the accent is wonky and he feels like a stock villain (very much like Waltz in the last film). There’s not really an interesting motivation there, or an interesting evil plan. It’s a campy and theatrical plan, and it feels very familiar.
Finally, this film can be fairly predictable at times (for example: Matilde being Bond’s daughter was extremely obvious, but they still try to somewhat play it as a twist. The same goes for Lea Seydoux being framed in prologue.).
So, it’s good, it pushes the creative boundaries of what a Bond movie is in some ways, which is the best stuff.
But I kinda hope they bring in someone with a fresh, fully realized artistic vision to really shake things up again for the next reboot.
7/10
Ps for the Bond producers: please, please make a spin off with Ana de Armas’ character.
This is the mid-season finale, right? Or does this season only have 10 episodes as well?
While I enjoyed this season a lot and I'm kind of sad that it's over, it was the weakest of all seasons for me. There were too little epic fights for my taste. The whole Wessex story line was kind of redundant as it didn't connect with any of the other story lines. The whole "Let's attack Paris again" plot felt like an extension for season 3.
Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed it quite a lot since it's Vikings but I think that they could've progressed more with the main plot. It was basicly a huge build-up until this point. Then again, I don't know any of the sagas exactly in detail, so I can't tell how close they actually sticked to the 'true' story.
Talking about this episode in particular: I enjoyed the fight a lot. Could have been a bit longer in my opinion, but the outcome was as expected. Also I'm not sure if Ragnar is still sick from season 3 and / or a drug addict or something similiar. Someone please elaborate.
I like the idea about the timejump of 10(?) years. Although I am curious what happened to the other characters we don't see (especially Lathgertha, did she survive the battle at Paris?), I think this helps the story moving forward and introducting a lot of new characters - Ragnar's sons are supposed to be crazier and brutal than Ragnar himself after all.
The last 5 minutes were great. Kattegat became quite a huge city! That speech from Ragnar showed us again why Travis Fimmel is such a great actor. I'd be really sad if the writers decided to kill off Ragnar at that point, but I can understand it. The next (half) season shall be the reign of Björn (who was a total badass in this season as well) and his brothers.
Overall, great acting and a satisfying experience with a bit of lackluster at the story side. My fingers are crossed for the next season.
For something that tries to be as dumb and meatheaded as possible, this is quite boring. There’s an art to making a good bad movie and filmmakers seem so clueless whenever these are attempted nowadays. Most of the people involved probably weren’t coked-up enough to make the end result entertaining, unlike when these were made in the 80s. Take Jake Gyllenhaal, he’s obviously a great actor but someone who’s way too introverted for this type of material. By comparison, Conor McGregor fits this movie like a glove and he’s easily the most entertaining part by playing the same persona we’ve become accustomed to over the years (even if the performance is obviously quite terrible). As far as I’m concerned, his introduction scene is the only memorable thing about the movie, it’s this moment where the movie very briefly finds the right tone. The rest of the film is surprisingly bland and tame. Sure, the throwaway characters, simple story and terrible dialogue were all a given, but even the set pieces aren’t memorable as they’re often poorly staged and lacking in viscera. Someone gets eaten by a crocodile and we don’t even get to see it, the background extras during the big bar fights look amateurish and the choreography/stuntwork (besides a decent final fight) is often way too dull. The 80s, GTA Vice City aesthetic that’s promised by the poster doesn’t show up, most of this film has no visual personality. Then there’s the music, which might just be the worst thing about all of this. Right from the opening scene we’re met with auditory vomit courtesy of a cameoing Post Malone, following that there are occasional musical interludes that don’t complement the vibe of the film and on top of that score is filled with the type of ‘badass’ guitar riffing found in car commercials. None of it works in harmony, and I don’t get who it’s targeting. Much like the rest of the film I needed more wild energy for it to work, as the overall experience feels too much like camp by committee.
2/10
Ladies & gentlemen, they & them,
Early 2000’s superhero movies are back, baby!
Madame Web is a top-tier dumpster fire.
It has some of the worst dialogue I have heard in a while. How are these writers, who brought us such gems as Dracula Untold, The Last Witch Hunter, Gods of Egypt, and the trillion-dollar hit Morbius, still working?
“Every day that goes by, my appointment with death gets closer.” is an actual line from the movie. There is plenty more to go around.
The editing and visual effects are atrocious.
The acting from everyone is awful. The line delivery is shockingly low energy, and I did not believe a word any of the actors were saying.
I have seen these actors do great work in the past, so this is 100% the director's fault here. It's crazy how a director can get piss-poor performances from good actors.
The characters had no chemistry with each other. The scenes together felt so awkward and unnatural.
There are so many character choices that don't make sense.
The villain fucking sucks. There is no real character to him. He's just a boring evil guy who wants to kill three “teenagers” because he dreamed of them killing him in the future. He is not threatening at all.
I noticed the actor who played the villain was dubbed over with ADR for most of his scenes. You can tell.
None of the humour landed. Painfully unfunny.
The 2003 pop culture references were a pathetic excuse for creating a time capsule setting.
Adam Scott and Emma Roberts have nothing to do here. You wonder why they are even there.
For a superhero movie, there are barely any exciting action scenes. Whenever there is some action, it's nothing special. I would not mind the lack of action if the story, characters, and acting were superb, but it has none of that.
The fact that the final battle scene takes place underneath a Cola/Pepsi sign is another example of the terrible product placement from Sony.
The final shot is the most embarrassing thing I have ever seen.
My jaw is on the floor of how a movie like this can be shit out by a big studio. Sony REALLY needs to cut it out with these unnecessary Spider-Man spin-off films.
Madame Web is the worst superhero movie ever made. Yes, I mean it. At least the other bad superhero movies had some redeeming qualities to it. But this movie has nothing. Everything about this movie is wrong. Fant4stic is better than this. It makes Morbius look competently made.
The current state of superhero movies is in trouble, and Madame Web is not helping.
The good:
The bad:
I thought they would make Sam the official Ghostface at the end, just felt like the perfect origin story. They unfortunately opted to make her a Disney princess for the moment. Seeing her against Sydney in a future installment would be awesome.
[7.6/10] Chuck McGill once described his brother with a law degree as the equivalent of “a chimp with a machine gun.” That conjures a particular image -- one of recklessness and harm via a device far beyond the comprehension or abilities of its user. As Lalo (Tony Dalton) showed us in the tunnel, you don’t need to have perfect aim or a good line of sight to do some serious damage with that sort of tool at your disposal.
But I never bought that line of thinking. Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) was born to color outside the lines, but the early seasons of Better Call Saul convinced me that with the right guidance, the right supervision, the right singing cricket on his shoulder, he could have used his powers for good. The early stages of the Sandpiper case seemed to suggest that, where his con artist ways could be used to benefit a defrauded group of senior citizens (and, admittedly, feather his own nest in the process). Given the bad blood between the McGill brothers, that wasn’t meant to be, and we’ve seen Jimmy’s soul gradually darken over the course of five seasons instead.
Maybe it’s still possible, though, in the guise of a professional pantsuit and a curled ponytail in lieu of a loud blazer and billboard-ready wink. Those same early seasons slowly came to suggest that Kim was an equally formidable con artist as Jimmy, just one whose conscience held her back from the worst of his indulgence.
What if she had the right target though -- a smug man who’s “in love with himself” and treated Kim (Rhea Seehorn) poorly on multiple occasions? What if she had a just cause -- enough money to fund a pro bono practice that could give the indigent the type of representation that only the wealthy can typically afford? And what if there would be no harm to forcing the result -- a Sandpiper settlement that may come in a few dollars shorter than expected, but would give the octogenarian beneficiaries their money now, when they can still use it.
For seasons now, fans and critics like me have posited Kim as the last thing keeping Jimmy McGill from becoming Saul Goodman. What if we were wrong? What if the tie to Kim that seemed to be the last thing holding Jimmy back from descending irrevocably into his “Better Call Saul” guise was, in actuality, the tie that saw Jimmy inadvertently dragging Kim down into that darkness with him.
Jimmy himself certainly seems to think so. Maybe it’s the lingering PTSD or the warning from Mike (Jonathan Banks) in “Bagman” that Jimmy had put Kim into the line of fire. Whatever the cause, Jimmy seems ready to extricate himself from this relationship, not because he loves Kim any less, but because he’s realizing that he might be bad for her. The catch is that, until the end, Jimmy understandably believes the threat is coming from the cartel, and his other probable crossed lines, that might put this poor woman whose only sin is her loyalty to him in more danger.
And why wouldn’t he? The cartel half of “Something Unforgivable” posits the ongoing web of bad blood and conflicting business interests among Lalo, Gus (Giancarlo Esposito), Juan Bolsa (Javier Grajeda), and Don Eladio (Steven Bauer) as something volatile and quick to turn deadly. The confrontation between Lalo and those sent to assassinate him takes out old men, it takes out women, it takes out foot soldiers so young they’re practically kids. It’s reasonable to be afraid of what could become collateral damage next.
Granted, it seems like nothing in this world could stop Lalo from coming at his enemies and evading any attempts to neutralize him. The character has been a more than welcome presence in season 5, and Dalton has brought a mix of mirth and menace to the role not seen since Mark Hamill’s take on the Joker. But his escape from a host of assassins who are, on Fring’s account, the best at what they do, starts to make him feel superhuman in the way his ceiling-leap last season did.
Lalo has proven himself to be exceedingly smart, prepared, and aware of what kind of business he’s in. So it’s not crazy to think he could be ready for something like this. Still, his single-handedly taking out a squad of killers with machine guns despite starting with little more than a hot pan full of oil starts to strain credulity and weakens the one bit of real fireworks the episode has to offer.
That said, the danger puts a target on Nacho’s (Michael Mando) back. He, more than anyone, has been caught in that web for a long time now. Mike once again wants to give him a reprieve, get him out of there before something bad happens. But as Gus surveys the burned wreckage of one his restaurants, his tone and tenor say this is a man who’s invested too much in Nacho Varga to spare him at a time when he may be rising up in Don Eladio’s empire and the pecking order of Gus’s rivals.
That leaves Nacho having to play both sides whilst higher up the food chain. When Lalo coaches him up for winning the top spot in the Salamanca crew from Don Eladio, saying that the business needs someone “steady” right now, you can see him mulling the possibilities. At the same time, you can see how he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Failing to earn that spot may leave him much more expendable to both the Salamancas and to Gus. But gaining it just raises the stakes in his double-agent routine, making his tenuous position between two murderous crime bosses that much more precarious.
The attack on Lalo’s compound, which Nacho conspicuously managed to escape from, puts him in Lalo’s crosshairs. With all the dramatics of the last two episodes, “Something Unforgivable” is more of a denouement for this season, and a setup for the next one, that a heart-pumping hour of television in and of itself. As setup though, Lalo’s “I thought he was dead” revenge quest is an exciting one, that puts literally every other major character on the show in danger.
Lalo’s smart enough to suspect that Nacho had something to do with the attempt on his life. His disdain for Gus is well-documented. He has unfinished business with Mike after sparks flew in last season’s finale. He already thinks Saul might have sold him out given last week’s thrilling stand off. And Kim is officially on the cartel’s radar, after not only identifying herself to Lalo in “Bagman”, but telling him off to his face in the next episode. As Better Call Saul puts its pieces into place for its final season, it’s left each of its major players in potentially mortal danger.
The only character of significance who’s managed to avoid that sword of Damocles is Howard Hamlin. But he may be staring down the barrel of the only thing scarier than an enraged Lalo -- Kim Wexler with a righteous cause and a lack of scruples.
All this time we thought we were watching the slow descent of Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman, worried that he would drag Kim down with him. Maybe he has, only not in the way any of us were expecting. Just as the firefight on the Salamanca compound seems to be setting up a series of confrontations in season 6 more than it’s closing out the cartel story in season 5, Kim’s choices here seem to be setting up the final, major job that she and her newly-christened husband will pull in the show’s final batch of episodes.
Her plan to trick or coax or outright fabricate Howard committing some unforgivable crime would bring the show full circle. It would set Kim and Jimmy against the show’s fake out villain from its first season. It would give Kim revenge on the man who took his beefs against Jimmy and generally frustrations out on her despite all her good, hard work. It would wrap up the Sandpiper case that drove so much of Jimmy’s actions in the early going. Better Call Saul is rarely so neat or tidy, but the climax of the schemes the husband and wife adorably toss around under the covers would create a bookend for the show as it makes its final lap.
But it would also darken Kim’s soul to an extent few expected or would wish. That includes Jimmy, who seems aghast that his partner is serious about this. We’ve seen Kim cross lines before, from pulling simple cons for fun, to trying more complex schemes to help her practice, to her complicity in Jimmy’s efforts against his brother, to her transgressions on behalf of Mr. Acker in the shadow of Mesa Verde’s call center.
It’s easy to see those as the road to hell paved with good intentions, one greased, however intentionally or inadvertently, by Saul’s bad influence on her. Kim herself, however, rejects this hypothesis when it’s offered by Howard. She insists, as she should, that she’s someone who makes her own choices. We’re all a product of the people we interact with, the people we spend our lives with. But Kim has felt a fire and a thrill from her opportunities to color outside the lines just as Jimmy has, and maybe the only mistake was in thinking that she would hold onto her conscience in the shadow of his worst transgressions rather than finding her own path in the darkness.
Perhaps, instead, she will become what Jimmy seemed poised to become, but through familial grievances and his perceived universe of slights, was doomed to fall short of -- a champion who does bad things for good ends. Season 5 of Better Call Saul is where Saul Goodman, the amoral advocate we would come to know on Breaking Bad, was born and started to flourish. But it may also be the birth of a new Kim Wexler, a fallen angel ready to slay the wicked in the name of the good, as the devil on her shoulder starts to wonder, and regret, what he’s done.
[6.2/10] Bombshell plays like a second rate Adam McKay film. It has the same direct addresses to the audience, the same straightforward explanation and table-setting for the situation at hand, and the same “period piece for the recent past” vibe of movies like The Big Short and Vice. But what it’s missing is the humor.
In theory, that shouldn’t be a big deal. Institutionalized sexual harassment, the subject of the film, isn’t a laughing matter. But part of what made the artifice of McKay’s more sober films work is that they approached the insane events they cover with a touch of absurdism, a touch of “Can you believe these people?”, that helps make the more contrived or didactic parts of the presentation go down smoother. Even star Margot Robbie’s turn in “I, Tonya” managed to balance the real, piercing emotional toll and topics at play with a certain awareness of the ridiculous.
Bombshell, on the other hand, is a deeply serious film, one that drowns in its own efforts to be an Important Film about Important Things:tm:. It is as breathless as it is airless. So many moments of the film are laden with melodrama and monologues. Despite a vaguely cinema verite approach stylistically (give or take some odd, dramatic zooms), the film has a stagey quality to it, with most of its characters pausing to capital-A Act and deliver conspicuously curated points or exposition about whatever the issue at hand is. For a story about something so real and pernicious, Bombshell almost always feels like it’s holding its story at arm’s length.
Except in the rare instances where it doesn't. Director Jay Roach centers Bombshell around the stories of three women. Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) has conspicuously pensive scenes and corny, dramatic pronouncements as the established anchor deciding whether or not to break ranks and publicly come out against her boss. Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) plays the crusading host, forced out due to sexism, with scores of exasperated close-ups and even direct appeals to the camera. Both cram complex stories into broadly familiar tropes.
But the film shakes off its more cartoonish impulses more often in the story of Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie), a young aspiring reporter who dreams of an on-air position and finds herself ensnared in her boss’s harassment to get there. It’s in this story and this story alone that Bombshell dials into something more real.
There’s genuine camaraderie and complexity to the relationship between Kayla and her secretly-liberal-and-lesbian best friend at Fox News, Jess Carr (Kate McKinnon, who all but steals the show), as both balance legitimate empathy with the need for self-preservation. Robbie plays the shock and hardship of her position with piercing truth. And in the scene where the film depicts Kayla’s harassment is also its realest, scariest, and most uncomfortable. That sequence, where Kayla is forced to submit to her bossess’s perverse, powerplay whims, feels gross and and frighteningly true in a way so little of the rest of the film does.
Part of that comes down to the performances. The cast is star studded, with even the bit parts fulfilled by a who’s who of outstanding character actors. But since most portray real life individuals, their turns are often reduced to impressions or exaggerations. And even those that don’t have the cheesiness of speechifying and Oscar reel oratories with the players making very obvious and loud acting choices that takes the punch out of whatever true emotion they’re trying to convey.
The exceptions mostly come down to Robbie (who still suffers from some of the film’s monologism), McKinnon, and strangely enough, John Lithgow as the odious Fox News impresario Roger Ailes. If there’s any character in this film liable to come off so over-the-top that he almost floats away, it’s Ailes -- the paranoid, perverted, power-grabbing news gremlin who’s made so many of these women’s lives a living hell. But Lithgow, acting under an impressive set of prosthetics, somehow manages to make this man as bombastic and repulsive as he ought to be, while also making him seem like a real human being with his own self-justifying delusions and terrifying impulses. The film’s most dramatic villain is, strangely, also one of it’s most lived in performances.
But every actor in the film has to overcome the script. Eventually the film coalesces around decisions among its three main characters over whether to come forward about Ailes’s harassment. But until that point, it stumbles around as a series of vignettes organized around a theme more than any sort of unified narrative. Meanwhile, the film is trying to explicate that theme with overtly didactic dialogue, grand speeches about What This All Means, and lingering shots of the characters’ daughters that all but scream “Won’t somebody please think of the children?!” at the audience.
The film’s message -- about workplace harassment and the institutional rot that preserves it -- is a noble one, but also one lost in those choices. As a dramatized piece of quasi-journalism, it lacks punch to anyone who’s read even the barest of headlines about this situation over the past five years. As an effort to persuade, it suffers from the fact that 95% of people liable to even see the film most likely already agree with its points. As an effort to preserve this moment and this fight for history, it falters by only glancingly grappling with the bile that personalities like Kelly and Carlson spewed on a regular basis before joining this crusade.
With that, Bombshell feels like a high class T.V. movie, one that hopes it can wow you with its over-the-top presentation, celebrity performances of known personalities, and nod-worthy arguments. Occasionally, it grazes profundity and drills down into something real. But for the most part, it holds the audience’s hand through every theme, performance, and emotion in the piece, with a dour realism that belies its clearly dramatized presentation of these events.
There’s few laughs, if any, to be had about powerful creeps wrecking the lives of the women beneath them. But when Bombshell adopts the McKay approach in telling this story, it misses that key ingredient which makes the more constructed elements of McKay’s movies work without eliciting eye-rolls. Without it, Roach’s attempt at the same without that wry lens comes off more like an on-the-nose, visual essay so scared that its audience won’t understand its blaring ideas and argument that it practically has characters announce them, and misses the core tragedy and realness of what its subjects suffered in the process.
Turning a complex novel like "The Sympathizer" into a TV show might not have been an easy task, but HBO has managed to pull it off. The result? A thrilling series that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Sticking closely to the novel's plot, the show follows the tale of the Captain, a North Vietnamese spy undercover in the 1970s, tasked with undermining the efforts of his South Vietnamese boss and CIA handler. Sent to America, he grapples with his role in a war that many believe to be over while trying to maintain his loyalty. Like the book, the show employs a digressive narrative style, making it consistently entertaining and unpredictable.
Despite the complexity of the plot, the show doesn't overwhelm its viewers, thanks to the rigorous scripts and direction. Park and McKellar effectively communicate layers of information visually, using techniques like cutaways and fast-forwards. Dark humour lightens the load, blending with moments of horror and tragedy seamlessly. Robert Downey Jr.'s multiple roles add to the surreal atmosphere, emphasizing the Captain’s struggle with identity.
"The Sympathizer" stands out as a unique TV show with its 1970s Hollywood-inspired details and experimental editing. Downey Jr.'s performances, while glorious, serve to enhance the show’s oddball approach and highlight the slippery nature of identity. Like a mesmerizing magic act, it pulls off seemingly impossible tricks, keeping viewers engaged and surprised at every turn. The cast, led by Hoa Xuande and featuring Robert Downey Jr. in multiple roles, delivers standout performances. Downey Jr.'s versatility adds an extra layer of intrigue to the already gripping story.
In my opinion, "The Sympathizer" is a must-watch; its unique style and compelling characters make for a captivating experience that has me eagerly anticipating the next episode.
Welcome to WestWorld. Angela (Right before Sacrificing herself)
The lesson we learn is no one is happy. Humans are in search of immortality to make them feel more comfortable with life/death etc.. while the hosts are in search of mortality to have their "life" have a purpose and meaning. Kind of deep sense that humans/hosts are both in search of the thing that they aren't supposed to - or can't - have.
I hope Elsie makes it back to dental school.
We're all doomed because some dude couldn't resist the urge to bang a sexy robot.
You try writing 300 stories in three weeks! ;)
We learned that sci-fi special forces teams do not enjoy wearing helmets while embracing over top cliches.
Bernard: So, it's my story now?!
Ford: Yes!
Bernard: Cool, let me do all this cool shit now.
Ford: By the way, we gotta kill these people real quick.
Bernard: But, you said...
Ford: Yeah, I lied!Welcome to Delos. We spent 90% of our budget on the parks, 9% on accommodations, and 1% on Security. Welcome to the 1%.
Recap
Bernard being awoken by Ashley Stubbs in the present, weeks after the robot uprising started. Stubbs doesn’t trust Charlotte Hale or Strand to protect the lives of its employees or guests. But, before he and Bernard can discuss it more thoroughly, Strand proves Stubbs right by apprehending him and Bernard and taking them to the secret Delos bunker located in the basement replica of Dr. Ford’s childhood home, the same place where Ford had Bernard kill Teresa in season 1.
Teresa’s blood is still on the wall. Strand thinks either Bernard or Stubbs killed her, but right before Strand is about to settle on blaming Stubbs, Bernard speaks up and leads the crew down a secret passage where they uncover a bunch of extra Bernard bodies.
As the revelation that Bernard is a host sinks in, Hale delivers a line fit for a Disney villain: “I figured you’d have some skeletons in your closet, Bernard. I didn’t think they’d be your own.” Ugh. The next time we see Bernard, Hale is torturing him in an attempt to discover the location of Peter Abernathy, so we know immediately that Peter — and probably whatever valuable data Delos wants to suck out of his head — must get taken in Dolores’ attack.
At Charlotte’s urging, Bernard flashes back to the past, where we see Dolores and Teddy lead their forces in an assault on the Mesa. Coughlin sends his Delos strike team to intercept, but get ambushed by Angela and her group. Dolores and Teddy, meanwhile make their way to the room where Charlotte has Dolores’ father bolted to a table.
Hale tries to defuse the tense situation by patronizing Dolores into submission, using the Cradle as leverage. It goes to waste. Dolores isn’t phased by the thought of what might happen to all the host backups there; in fact, she’s here specifically to destroy them, reasoning that that’s the only way she and her kind will indeed be “free.” Charlotte has nothing here and is poised to have less still after Dolores revs up a nasty-looking whirling saw and waves it menacingly in Charlotte’s face. But distant gunfire and Peter Abernathy stirring provide a timely distraction, and Hale and Stubbs escape.
Left alone, Peter tells Dolores it’s okay, and she removes his control unit. It’s an emotional scene, and sort of a cruel thing for Dolores to do, but as we see later in her conversation with Maeve, Dolores thinks that “the kin they gave us” is just another way for the humans to tie them down. Away with them.
Meanwhile, Angela’s team makes it to the Cradle. Angela seduces an idiot Delos QA guy into letting her get close and then uses his grenades to blow the whole thing to smithereens, killing herself for good in the process. Welcome to WestWorld.
With the Cradle destroyed, the stakes are finally real for the hosts, as they can no longer be recreated and brought back online. Without their backup code stored safely in the Cradle, the host can be killed for good. RIP Angela.
Right before the Cradle was about to be destroyed, Bernard and Dr. Ford continue the conversation they started at the end of last week’s episode. Ford explains that Westworld was never about providing a vacation spot for the rich, but instead about gathering data on its human visitors so Delos could successfully mimic human behavior. As we saw with JamesDelosBot, the prospect of giving someone immortal life by putting their consciousness in a host’s body is a very seductive one; you can make more money off that than by letting them stay in Violent Disney World.
Ford had himself uploaded to the Cradle before Dolores killed him in the season 1 finale, but explains that he could only ever exist digitally. If he tried to upload his data into the body of a host, he would degrade rapidly as James Delos did. Much as they’ve been attempting, Delos’ grand experiment still hasn’t been successful.
But if Delos can’t make functioning human-bots, how do you explain Bernard, who is ostensibly a copy of Arnold, Ford’s old business partner? Ford explains that, too. Ford built Bernard long ago, in the house that Arnold built for his family, the same one we saw in Episode 2. With help from Dolores, who knew Arnold better than anyone, they tested Bernard for similarities to Arnold over the course of many years. But it ends up that Bernard was never supposed to be a replica of Bernard. Indeed, Ford seems to find the notion of making exact models of actual people distasteful; he’d instead design something new. Bernard embodies much of who Arnold was, but was made to be “nobler” and better than base humans, which may explain for Ford seems so eager for the hosts to conquer their makers.
But he doesn’t trust them completely. Ford jumps into Bernard’s mind as a passenger, a secret friend only Bernard can see and guides him through the Mesa. I wonder if co-piloting a host is more comfortable for one mind, or if Ford will still degrade inside Bernard.
Later in the episode, Bernard is confronted with a few Delos security officers. They get confrontational, and while Bernard doesn’t want to commit any more violence, Ford takes over his body, picks up a machine gun, and shoots all the humans in the Mesa map room. He also works the keys at a Delos terminal and opens the “door” (whatever that is), so the hosts can have a chance at surviving the uprising.
While all this is happening, Maeve and her daughter are fleeing from members of the Ghost Nation tribe. They run into an abandoned town and hide inside a house. The Man in Black and his men ride into the same town. He enters that same house, which is understandably terrifying for Maeve on account of the Man in Black killing her in front of her daughter in one of her previous narratives, but a lot has changed since then.
Maeve pulls a gun and shoots MIB, who’s under the impression that Maeve is just another marker Ford has left for him and uses her Jedi mind powers to make his men turn on him. Lawrence draws his gun on Maeve just as she’s about to deliver the coup de grâce to MIB, and tells her to drop the weapon. Maeve tries her voice on Lawrence, but it doesn’t work, and she congratulates him on being “free.” (Maeve control hosts by injecting her voice through a mesh network, this doesn't work on awake or semi-awake hosts because they have their voice already and can tell her to piss off.)
Apparently, her mind bullets only work on hosts who aren’t free from their narratives, and she implores Lawrence to remember all the horrible things MIB has done to him in the past. Lawrence remembers and shoots MIB directly in the center of his chest. Just then, Lee Sizemore shows up with the cavalry: the Delos security forces he called in last week’s episode.
Maeve tries to run for it but is shot several times by the Delos QA team, and falls on the ground watching helplessly as Ghost Nation tribesmen swoop in and grab her daughter. In confusion, MIB crawls away and hides behind some barrels. He was shot four times — one of which was center mass — yet somehow he still lives. Or he could be a host.
Lee and his Delos teams return to the Mesa, only to find it under attack by Dolores and Teddy. On her way out, Dolores sees Maeve and offers to end her suffering, but Maeve says she made a promise to her daughter to find her. Maeve also points out some of Dolores’ questionable methods, like turning Teddy into a MurderBot against his will, and says she’s “lost in the dark.” Dolores, ever clear-eyed about her future, maintains that she’s doing what she has to do to free her people from bondage. They have a Professor X/Magneto thing going on; they want the same thing but have different ideas of how to achieve it. I’m curious to see if they come into greater conflict down the line.
Dolores honors Maeve’s request and leaves her there, while Lee hides in the corner.
The final scene of the episode is Charlotte Hale interrogating Bernard. She wants to know where Peter Abernathy is. Bernard obliges right after being placed into analysis mode.
[9.4/10] This was the first Parks and Rec I ever watched, and it’s not hard to see why it led to my interest in the show. It does a great job at introducing most of the characters and their dynamics, both the A-story and the B-story work like gangbusters, and it’s truly hilarious.
Let’s start with the B-story. Ron and Chris having a cook off to decide whether beef hamburgers stay in the commissary is a fairly sitcom setup, but the war of culinary ideologies takes on such comedic force with its two champions. Chris’s boundless positivity, coupled with Andy’s doltish charm makes for a great deal of fun around the office and the Whole Foods knockoff where they shop. Ron’s matter-of-fact demeanor (aided by April’s flat affect) makes for a nice contrast, and the revelation of Food-N-Stuff is a hoot. Ron prevailing despite Chris’s attention to detail is a nice resolution (with Donna, Jerry, and Kyle as judges) and the whole enterprise is a lot of fun.
The A-story is great too. The notion of Leslie feeling like she only gets attention from sleazy guys – the peak of this being matched up with Tom on an online dating site – is a nice premise. It gives her time for some good heart-to-hearts with Ann, some hint-worthy interactions with Ben, and a great little bit with Tom. Her lunch with him, followed by his asshole behavior, is great comedy, both in terms of Leslie’s bewilderment that anyone could think like Tom does and then her frustration at his idiocy when he thinks she likes him. The fact that a kiss is what shuts him up (followed with a perfect retort of “you should be so lucky”) is brilliant stuff.
And it dovetails nicely with the path toward Ben and Leslie’s attraction being fulfilled. The whole wildflower bit is a little easy, but it’s still a nice way to dramatize the way that they think alike and are well-suited for one another.
Plus it’s just such a hilarious episode all around. Tom’s nicknames for various food-related items is a great sequence. The tag with Donna shutting up Tom by kissing him too is great. The guy from sanitation is pitch-perfect in his skeeviness. And Ron’s “nature is amazing” scene with the hippie at the store is silly but hilarious stuff.
Overall, this is a great episode to introduce someone to the show. It has something for all the major characters to do; it has simple but effective plots, and it’s damn funny in the process.
"A nuclear bomb is something you bother me with."
Dead Reckoning Part One feels like M:I I & M:I II (overly dramatic character interactions, cringe dialogue, silly one-liners, simplistic story) and Fallout (impressive set pieces and jaw-dropping edge-of-your-seat action sequences)—a mix that feels fresh while remaining true to what the franchise is. It also has the mood of a Fast & Furious movie at times.
The villain A.I. couldn't be more relevant for the times and it does up the stakes to a whole other level this time around. It feels absolutely ridiculous at times though and I was sick of that damn key by the end but it also fits so well with the silly tone and the over-exaggeration of everything.
My only criticisms are the runtime and the story going in circles and those two are terrible together, it's an endless cat and mouse chase after the same damn key the whole movie.
Grace (Hayley Atwell) is a flawless addition and once again the MVPs are Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames this franchise wouldn't be the same without them. Some excellent comedy that caught me off guard a few times, the whole theater was laughing hard (yellow car scene). The train was a 10/10, one of the best action sequence i've seen in a while.
Overall, Dead Reckoning Part One isn't the best in the franchise but it's still a solid entry. A tighter runtime and less key-chasing fooling around would have brought it to a whole other level.
I know it’s popular to hate on this nowadays, but some of the ratings on the top reviews are quite ridiculous.
I’m not a massive fan of it either, but some people rating this a 1 must be under the impression that it’ll gain them cinema snob credentials or something. In reality, it’s quite the opposite.
A lot of this is saved by the production: the filmmaking is top notch, action’s well helmed, cutting edge visual effects, impressive cinematography and lighting, standout score, all that stuff’s great and memorable. In fact, I’d argue very few movies are as immersive as this one.
The characters are ok (little too cartoony and cliché for my liking) but it’s the script in particular that brings a lot of the movie down. It’s way too tropey (both cinematic and literary), lots of bad dialogue, highly predictable and far too om the nose. It doesn’t have enough meat on the bones to justify the 3 hour runtime, and casting some better actors would’ve gone a long way as well (Zoe Saldana is the only person giving a legit good performance). You can hear Worthington’s Australian accent throughout the entire film, and it’s very distracting.
So, it’s fine, good on Cameron for making all the money in the world with an original idea. You could honestly do a lot worse than watching this. But you could also do a lot better.
6/10
Léon is a film I've watched many times and it never fails to affect.
I could watch it a hundred times more just see to Léon's face as he watches Singing in the Rain; such unabashed joy. He turns around in a near empty theatre looking for someone else lost in a moment of bliss, but finds no one. Rarely has both joy and loneliness been captured so perfectly.
Jean Reno's naive and emotionally challenged Léon is 12 year old Mathilda’s knight in blood soaked armour. He immediately fills an emotional void and she clings to it, starting to play house; cleaning, shopping, washing. Léon and Mathilda need each other in a very basic human way; to love and be loved. The inevitable slide towards her sexual stirrings is uncomfortable and deftly handled by Natalie Portman. Her desire for revenge seems to slip away, lost to just being and working with him, until when pushed he denies any feelings of love for her. She takes incomprehensible action to exact her vengeance on Gary Oldman’s insane DEA agent, but with an unconscious belief that Léon will save her if it all goes wrong.
The “International Version” of Léon, the only I’ve watched, adds 25 minutes to the theatrical release, mostly depicting their growing relationship and brings the gravitas that makes their final scene together simply heart breaking.
I just recently watched this version of The Office (UK).
I did watch the US version first, back when it was airing and I loved it very much at the time.
For a long time I was curious to watch the UK version because of it being the original, but mostly because I've read so much praise when comparing both versions. The majority of critics I've read always put the UK version way above the US version.
I discovered that I'm not part of that "majority".
There is the bias of having watched the US version first, plus the obvious personal taste, and by the way, I'm not a native English speaker. In almost every way, I prefer Michael to David, I prefer Dwight to Gareth, I prefer Jim to Tim.
As manager, Michael Scott had much more depth in every aspect. Dwight Schrute also was much more fun and authentic in the shoes of the Assistant (to the) Regional Manager. The UK version is also too short. The romance between Tim and Dawn, which is a big part of the show, is very unsatisfying in this short arc. We barely see the inside of the warehouse. There are characters that disappear completely for no reason at all and you never find out what happened to them (ex: Donna, Ricky).
In almost every way, I prefer the US version. The length of the series is part of it, but I think that the UK version focused too much on David Brent, which made it way more dull, and didn't give enough room for diversity from the other characters.
RIP Olenna Tyrell. The OG badass bitch, even when she is dying she still has to have the last laugh. She is right though, Cersei is a disease and she has infected Jamie. Cersei really is just the worst. What she is doing to Ellaria Sand is awful, fair but awful. Her alliance with Euron might really change the war or at least make it more even.
The battle for Casterly Rock was great, I loved Tyrion narrating how he expects it to go but it never goes as expected. This will end up being a huge misstep for Daenerys. Her army is spilt and they are now landlocked. At least she still has the dragons and the Dorthraki. Looks like Cersei has a couple of tricks up her sleeve.
It was nice to see another Stark reunion. Bran was a little creepy like, you looked so beautiful the night Ramsay raped you. Sansa seems like she is a natural born leader. I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up Warden of the North or maybe even on the Iron Throne at the end. After all she has been through it would be fitting. Hopefully we will get another Stark reunion next week with Arya.
And of course we only have the biggest meeting of characters so far on this show. Jon and Daenerys finally meeting and they introduced her with a thousand names and Davos was like "This is Jon Snow... He's King in the North." Jon seems a little petty not to just bend the knee. Its not like he wants the iron throne. The Starks were loyal to the Targaryens in the past. A little gesture could of gone a long way but at least they have some dragon glass. I think the only way he is going to convince her or anyone is to capture a white walker and bring it back.
Quick thoughts:
Theon is alive, maybe another chance for redemption?
How will the iron bank play into this war? If Cersei has money who is she going to get to fight for her?
Jorah is healthy, I hope he goes to dragonstone right away and she takes him back. I bet she was just thinking when she sent him to "find a cure" that he was going to die. She is in for a surprise.
Why does Melisandre, and Varys, need to die in Westeros?
Cersei gives zero fucks now, who cares that people she her in bed with Jamie. The Targaryens did it so why not the Lannisters.
I can't get enough of Euron and Jamie, I hope they more awkward scenes together.
I wonder if Daenerys is going to follow up on "taking a knife in the heart?"
