A potentially great film being held hostage by its PG-13 rating and its messy, all over the places screenwriting.
By PG-13 I don't simply mean its visuals/goriness, but most importantly its dialogues, themes, and storytelling it tries to raise. Let me explain.
First, the dialogues.
The film opens with murder and Batman narrating the city's anxious mood. We get a glimpse of noir in this scene, but it soon falls flat due to a very uninteresting, plain, forgettable choice of words Batman used in his narration. Mind you, this is not a jab at Pattinson - Pattinson delivered it nicely. But there is no emotion in his line of words - there is no adjectives, there is no strong feelings about how he regards the city full of its criminals.
Here's a line from the opening scene. "Two years of night has turned me to a nocturnal animal. I must choose my targets carefully. It's a big city. I can't be everywhere. But they don't know where I am. When that light hits the sky, it's not just a call. It's a warning to them. Fear... is a tool. They think I am hiding in the shadows. Watching. Waiting to strike. I am the shadows." Okay? Cool. But sounds like something from a cartoon. What does that tell us about you, Batman?
Compare this to a similar scene uttered by Rorschach in Watchmen. "The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood. And when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. All those liberals and intellectuals, smooth talkers... Beneath me, this awful city, it screams like an abattoir full of retarded children, and the night reeks of fornication and bad consciences." You can say that Rorschach is extremely edgy (he is), but from that line alone we can tell his hatred towards the city, and even more so: his perspective, his philosophy that guides him to conduct his life and do what he does.
Rorschach's choice of words is sometimes verbose, but he is always expletive and at times graphic, making it clear to the audience what kind of person he is. Batman in this film does not. His words are always very safe, very carefully chosen, which strikes as an odd contrast to Pattinson's tortured portrayal of Batman as someone with a seemingly pent up anger. His choice of words is very PG-13 so that the kids can understand what Batman is trying to convey.
And this is not only in the opening scene. Throughout the film, the dialogues are written very plainly forgettable. It almost feels like the characters are having those conversations just to move the plot forward. Like that one encounter between Batman and Catwoman/Selina when she broke into the house to steal the passport or when Selina asked to finish off the "rat". They flow very oddly unnatural, as if those conversations are written to make them "trailer-able" (and the scenes indeed do appear on the trailer).
Almost in all crucial plot points the writers feel the need to have the characters to describe what has happened, or to explictly say what they are feeling - like almost every Gordon's scene in crime scene, or Selina's scene when she's speaking to Batman. It feels like the writers feel that the actors' expression just can't cut it and the audience has to be spoonfed with dialogues; almost like they're writing for kids.
Second, the storytelling.
Despite being a film about vengeance-fueled Batman (I actually like that cool "I'm vengeance" line) we don't get to see him actually being in full "vengeance" mode. Still in the opening we see Batman punching some thugs around. That looks a little bit painful but then the thugs seem to be fit enough to run away and Batman let them be. Then in the middle of the film we see Batman does something similar to mafias. Same, he just knocked them down but there's nothing really overboard with that. Then eventually in the car chase scene with the Penguin, Batman seem to be on "full rage mode", but over... what? He was just talking to Penguin a moment ago. The car chase scene itself is a bit pointless if not only to show off the Batmobile. And Batman did nothing to the Penguin after, just a normal questioning, not even harsher than Bale's Batman did to Heath's Joker in The Dark Knight - not in "'batshit insane' cop" mode as Penguin put it.
Batman's actions look very much apprehensive and controlled. Nothing too outrageous. Again, at odds with Pattinson's portrayal that seem to be full of anger; he's supposed to be really angry but somehow he still does not let his anger take the best of him. The only one time he went a bit overboard that shocked other characters is when he kept punching a villain near the end of the film. But even then it's not because his anger; it's because he injected some kind of drug (I guess some adrenaline shot). A very safe way to drop a parent-friendly message that "drug is bad, it can change you" in a PG-13 film.
And all that supposed anger... we don't get to see why he is angry and where his anger is directed at. Compare this to Arthur Fleck in Joker where it is clear as sky why Arthur would behave the way the does in the film. I mean we know his parents' death troubled him, but it's barely even discussed, not even in brief moments with Alfred (except in one that supposedly "shocking" moment). So... where's your vengeance, Mr. Vengeance? And what the hell are you vengeancing on?
Speaking of "shocking" moment... this is about the supposed Wayne family's involvement in the city's criminal affairs that has been teased early in the film. Its revelation was very anticlimactic: the supposed motive and the way it ended up the way it is, all very childish. If the film wanted the Wayne to be a "bad person", there's a lot of bads that a billionaire can do: tax evasion, blood diamond, funding illegal arms trade, fending off unions, hell, they can even do it the way the Waynes in Joker did it: hints of sexual abuses. But no, it has to be some bloody murder again, and all for a very trivial reason of "publicity". As if the film has to make it clear to the kids: "hey this guy's bad because he killed someone!" Which COULD work if the film puts makes taking someone's life has a very serious consequence. But it just pales to the serial killing The Riddler has done.
Even more anticlimactic considering how Bruce Wayne attempted to find a resolve in this matter only takes less than a 5 minute scene! It all involves only a bit of dialogues which boils down to how Thomas Wayne has a good reason to do so. Bruce somehow is convinced with that and has a change of heart instantly, making him looks very gullible.
And of course the ending is very weak and disappointing. First, Riddler's final show directly contradicts his initial goal to expose and destroy the corrupt elites. What he did instead is making the lives of the poor more difficult, very oxymoron for someone supposed to be as smart as him.
Second, the way Batman just ended up being "vengeance brings nothing and I should save people more than hurting people" does not get enough development to have him to say that in the end. Again - where's your vengeance? And how did you come to such character development if nothing is being developed on? And let's not get to how it's a very safe take against crime and corruption that closely resembles Disney's moralistic pandering in Marvel Cinematic Universe film.
Last, the visuals.
I'm not strictly speaking about gore, though that also factors in the discussion. The film sets this up as a film about hunting down a serial killer. But the film barely shows how cruel The Riddler can be to his victims. Again, back to the opening scene: we get it, Riddler killed the guy, but it does not look painful at all as it looks Riddler just knocked him twice. The sound design is very lacking that it does not seem what The Riddler done was conducted very painfully. Riddler then threw away his murder weapon, but we barely see blood. Yet when Gordon arrived to the crime scene, he described the victim as being struck multiple times with blood all over. What?
Similarly, when Riddler forced another victim to wear a bomb in his neck. The situation got pretty tense, but when the bomb eventually blow off, we just got some very small explosion like a small barrel just exploded, not a human being! I mean I'm not saying we need a gory explosion with head chopped off like in The Boys, but it does not look like what would happen if someone's head got blown off. Similarly when another character got almost blown off by a bomb - there's no burnt scar at all.
Why the hell are they setting up those possibly gory deaths and scars if they're not going to show how severe and painful these are? At least not the result - we don't need to see blood splattered everywhere - just how painful the process is. Sound design and acting of the actors (incl. twitching, for example) would've helped a lot even we don't see the gore, like what James Franco did in The 127 Hours or Hugh Jackman in Logan. In this film there's almost no tense at all resulting from those.
I'm not saying this film is terrible.
The acting, given the limited script they had, is excellent. Pattinson did his best, so did Paul Dano (always likes him as a villain), Zoe Kravitz, and the rest. Cinematography is fantastic; the lighting, angle, everything here is very great that makes a couple of very good trailers - perhaps one could even say that the whole film trades off coherency for making the scenes "trailer-able". The music is iconic, although with an almost decent music directing. And I guess this detective Batman is a fresh breath of air.
But all that does not make the movie good as in the end it's still all over the places and very PG-13.
Especially not with the 3 hours runtime where many scenes feel like a The Walking Dead filler episode.
If you're expecting a Batman film with similar gritty, tone to The Dark Knight trilogy or Joker, this film is not for you. But if you only want a live-action cartoon like pre-Nolan Batmans or The Long Halloween detective-style film, well, I guess you can be satisfied with this one.
Let me start this off by saying that this sequel did not feel outside of what we remember.
Blade Runner 2049 maintains the mood and feel of its predecessor. The visuals, the sound... the dystopian future, it's all there.
| FIRST THOUGHT |
I love writing reviews, it comes somewhat naturally to me after watching something that I learn to feel passionate about.
This movie taught me to be passionate.
But... it's really hard for me to express judgment. And I'm going to explain why:
Actually, it's very simple. This was a 3 hours movie. Of these 3 hours, 2 were simply... air. Now, don't get me wrong, that isn't always negative, like in this case. It was refreshing air, but still... it doesn't (at first glance) hold anything on the plot.
Because of this, the viewer (me at least), is left with a lot of questions, the picture doesn't explain itself. Also; as a side note - you most definitely need to watch the first one. The great majority of the runtime is inexplicably useless.
The longer it goes, the longer it begins to add new stuff, and then some, then it seems somehow related to what's actually going on, but right after it deviates the actual story on an ideal from the characters involved, that at a certain point, evaporates. I'm really conflicted about this because it looks to me like the screenwriters and director wanted to leave all of this to theory and the fans.
Why is this confusing? Because it's a very strange mixture of linear narrative and non-linear narrative. One is focussed on one objective, the other starts a bunch of other objectives and then it simply dies. No explanation was given, no closure was given.
And this is aggravated by the fact that it's a 3 hours movie, of which 1 hour of the actual story is spread and mixed amongst 2 hours of absolutely nothing. VISUALLY IMPRESSIVE NOTHING. A VERY INTERESTING BUNCH OF LITERAL VOID.
This is actually the only thing I did not like about the movie. Which, again, if you are like me and enjoy movies that aren't patently explaining themselves, it's not a bad thing. I just feel like it could've been much more interesting if they explained somehow what happened to all the side characters, or just cut them out.
|STORY & ACTORS |
Aside from what I've mentioned before, the more "linear" part of the story is actually not that bad. It's nothing impressive. A part of what I said earlier connects to the fact that this movie constantly keeps juggling between what is real and what is not. Be it by robots, or actual reality that the characters are living. So it came out pretty obvious that the movie would have a twist at some point, somewhere. I will admit that I did not get it until the very end, so, don't be discouraged.
Ryan Gosling was great, also because he as an actor was perfect for his role. Being so that he has this way of being and looking conflicted, and so it portrayed really well on the protagonist.
Harrison Ford had less value to this movie than he did in the last Star Wars.
Jared Leto's character is a mystery to me, but he did a phenomenal job talking random shit.
All of the other actors, Jared Leto included, were there to push the story forward (or to add random bullshit) and that's it. They did a fantastic job, but unfortunately, as mentioned above, at first glance it looks like they don't mean shit.
| CINEMATOGRAPHY |
The movie is visually pleasing, it's bliss for people with OCD. It's perfectly round and at the same time perfectly square. It keeps smooth lines combining great color combinations in the palette, and utilizing great solid colors at the same time.
As I said before it holds perfectly a spot near its predecessor, the mood and feel are almost identical. (Having watched the first one only an hour before going to the theater to watch this one)
I have to say, this one looks A LOT, like A FUCKING GIGAZILLION LOT more gruesome and splatter than the first one. The fighting scenes are brutal, they do not go into dramatic effects, they just are what they should be. A punch in the face, exploding heads and blood.
There is no doubt that this movie looks fucking amazing.
It sounds amazing as well. It has a collection of deep, pure sounds. There is not a lot of music, but when there is it's powerful and present and it makes you wake up and amaze. Same goes for the special audio effects: I have watched it in ATMOS and I have to admit, they did not utilize it at all, except for one scene later in the movie, but the way it goes from absolute silence to seat trembling sensations it's really amazing. The sounds were so powerful I could literally see the movie screen shake and the subwoofer hit made the whole room shake.
I would also like to add that in the Italian version, you can clearly see that they used "incorrect" words grammatically, they used a lot of anglicisms, I guess they've done that to express how language is evolving? It's actually current of our generation, I see a lot of people adapting English words in Italian, so I was very impressed by that.
| FINAL THOUGHT |
I feel like everyone needs to understand, before watching this movie, that you need a time, a mood and a place perfectly fit to sit for a 3 hours movie that it's going to feel like a 6-hour long journey into colors, shapes, and absolute "living" silence.
This is NOT a Marvel movie, there is action, well-done action, but it's not about action. You need to sit, relax and don't think about time, because, trust me, it's going to fuck you.
Please like my comment if you enjoyed my review, it makes me really happy.
Note that all of this is driven by my personal opinion. If you think I wasn't objective in some of the parts of what I've written, you're welcome to make me notice where.
On Twitter, I review the entire world -> @WiseMMO
These new Disney+ series are developing into the the modern, overbudgeted equivalent of direct-to-video films from the ‘90s.
In an age where popular and accessible television is continuously pushed to new and exciting heights (Daredevil, Money Heist, Ted Lasso, Stranger Things, Arcane to name a few), these recent shows banking on the Star Wars and Marvel brands feel amateurish, schlocky, and often read like bad fan fiction.
Look, Boba Fett in the original trilogy is nothing more than a visual.
He’s not really a character, I think he has about 4 or 5 lines, but he became popular because of his look.
You can’t just throw me in a story where he’s the main character and expect me to care without putting in the work.
It’s a show that operates in Disney’s new business model of throwing references, ‘member berries and empty spectacle on the screen, while the important and engaging stuff (character, story, drama, emotion, filmmaking) are reduced to an afterthought.
Granted, that’s pretty much the same problem that I have with a lot of IP related content from the past couple of years, but this show in particular feels so calculated, focus tested and cynical, it’s gross.
Even the production kinda sucks this time around (compared to The Mandalorian), it looks really ugly and washed out, more like Marvel than Star Wars.
Where is the voice of Jon Favreau?
Where is the voice of the director of Iron Man, one of the most character driven and vibrant blockbusters of the past 20 years?
This show is not even close to being up to par in just about every sense.
Black Mirror went from sick, dystopian futures to... VR romance, social media and a kid's comedy with Miley Cyrus.
I see why shows get worse over time, but I can't wrap my head around the fact that Charlie Brooker is responsible for both the masterpieces that this show has produced and the big question mark that is this fifth season.
A film that just misses greatness can be more disappointing than a film that doesn't come close. Dream Scenario is outstanding until the last 20 minutes. It feels as though Kristoffer Borgli just couldn't figure out how to end it and ran out of time. Too bad. #BestNicolasCagePerformanceEver
I’ve tried to watch 3 new movies today – Vanquish (2021), Nobody (2021), The Courier (2021). They have one thing in common - we're (back) in the very familiar political era where Russians are again the biggest and most amoral, vicious, evil ever. Here is the formula - (A[Popular character actor]) + (B[Video game plot]) + (C[Russian villains) = 2021 Hollywood movies.
Nobody (2021) and Vanquish (2021) are basically the same movie. RIP Mexican (or other Latin American) drug lords, you no longer exist in Hollywood world because you might hurt sensitive American feelings. Now it’s all about Russian mafia.
Nobody (2021) is a celebration of American masculinity. Violence is the answer and is so awesome; Russians are bad, killing them leads to a fulfilling American life. That’s the moral of the story. Seriously! That’s it! The protagonist killed a bunch of people under the pretext Russians went to his house to get revenge. But it’s okay, it’s okay. Why? Because, he is 1) American, and 2) a former CIA agent, so it’s totally cool that he killed so many people. What are the consequences of his actions? Well, just like in real life after Americans are done with brutalizing and murdering people in foreign counties, they go on to live the American dream - a white picket fence suburban house with blonde wife and dumb children.
Everything offered up here borders on cliché. The writing is super bland and predictable. The seven-minute introduction of the ~~quirky psychotic villain (who is as generic as they come) is a trope that is already tired enough. The characters are insanely one-dimensional, with no real traits that factor into the plot (besides "the Russian villain", "the wife", etc.), there's zero purpose behind anyone's actions or the movie itself in its entirety.
I'm so over movies about American (or British) exceptionalism. Americans just loooove the fantasy Hollywood version of themselves.
All three movies offset the eyeroll-worthy ugliness of a 2021 film being about an American/Brit gleefully slaughtering a bunch of Russians. A heinous laundering of American/Bri'ish liberal chauvinism. They cater to a single demographic, and relies on unoriginal content to cover up the fact they are way too masturbatory that nobody outside of the target audience can relate. But this is the future of American/Bri'ish cinema, we are just going to constantly recycle the same themes and topics over and over again until the end of time.
I'm reminded of Dziga Vertov's comment on Western Cinema from 99 years ago.
quote “To the American adventure film with its showy dynamism and to the dramatizations of the American Pinkertons the Kinoks say thanks for the rapid shot changes and the close-ups. Good…but disorderly, not based on a precise study of movement…still lacking a foundation. A cliche.”
It's not exactly a 'Netflix-Original'. Started out as a joint production between Universal and Legendary Films with a budget of 70-million. After completion, Universal wasn't happy with it, Legendary didn't like their feedback and they had a falling out -- the planned 2016 summer theatrical release was canceled. Chinese-owned Legendary Films shopped around, Netflix picked it up as an already finished movie and branded it a 'Netflix-Original'.
Not awful. Competent, experienced cast; OK story and decent effects contribute to a production that had some budget to work with. A few plot-holes here and there, like beings that can fly over things, yet laying iron shavings on the ground provides a barrier of protection because they can't step in it. Contrived ending, and, so what if they kinda-sorta borrowed a central plot mechanism from the 1995 anime movie "Ghost in the Shell" https://trakt.tv/movies/ghost-in-the-shell-1995 -- it's an enjoyable watch... :-)
I love that the romans are speaking actual latin the entire time. It sounds amazing.
I could repeat my comments from last episode, but I won't do this. In a nutshell: it looks awesome, but the story and most characters are mediocre. I still enjoy it but it's certainly not great.
Let me talk about something else instead. Tolkien's work and Jackson's adaptation have always received their fair share of criticism regarding ethnic and racial stereotypes. One example is the problematic Wagner-ish portray of dwarfs. I won't go into this. Enough was said about this. In this show, they added Hobbit "ancestors". Hobbits were never funny and a a big fat Irish stereotype. Now they added this element of "migration". How could you not think that they are inspired by Irish Travellers? The Harfoots have other traits allegedly ascribed to their culture: they too love music, gather around campfires, organize themselves in families and live at the edge of society in relative poverty. It's like costume artists were fans of The Kelly Family. I'm not even saying that only negative stereotypes are reverberated: the Harfoots are too likable to immediately incite prejudice and discrimination against Travellers. But I wonder why they always do that in this franchise? Why do they often use a discriminated ethnic or racial group as a template and why do they choose to portray them in a very stereotypical way? They could have designed this people very differently very easily. Who's next? Gypsies? Pygmy peoples? Sámi? Eurasian nomads aka "horse people"? It doesn't really bother me though. (I'm not a snowflake and I realize that fiction is different from reality). This was mostly an academic remark. But I think, it was worth to be mentioned. Instead, very interestingly though, the show is (totally unfairly) criticized by some for including (as in: inclusion) black actors. Really? It makes you think whether "our" value system is well calibrated.
PS: I knew it. Yolandi Visser is one of these weird, otherworldly, pale elves. These guys are elves, right?
Very bad season. Plots are pretty weak. The darkness, the dystopia, the incisiveness on new technologies misuses, everything that made Black Mirror what it was is 100% gone. It's barely futuristic,and the issues are the wrong ones, like they lost what they were trying to say in the middle or just didn't think it through.
They were some very BM subjects that could have been talked about in these episodes : They could have lost their identity in the virtual space in the first one. The ever spying and omnipotence on your life from data collected by social networks in the second. The constant spying of in-home assistant, or the impact of these techs on young minds in the third. But they were totally ignored.
Kinda like if somebody was given a starting idea for a BM episode without knowing what the show is (or used to be) about and then did it in a totally different style.
Acting is actually very good in general, so it's not a pain to watch it, just a bore, but still.
Watched 3 episodes and it just got dumber and dumber.
Not only that, but no one is actually paying attention to details in the filming of it. Here's a couple of examples..
1. She's at the pool with her daughter. she's wearing a grey/white T-shirt. She leaves and gets into her car. She arrives at the destination wearing a yellow top and yellow jeans - huh?
2. Twice she tracks somebody down using her mobile phone - it shows us her doing it. How does she track someone she doesn't know? does everyone in Barcelona have a chip embedded that anyone can use to keep track of them?
3. She goes to meet somebody but parks literally 2 miles away. She stuffs a gun in her waistband but we never see it until she needs it then it appears again
4. She plays a game of tennis - doesn't sweat at all. Walks away and her mobile phone just appears in her hand!!
5. Someone shoots out her rear window and she drives to her destination.. with the window in tact
6. She runs away from the bad guys who jump into their Range Rovers and pursue her only to appear from two different directions to block her!!!
I could go on, but you get the picture.
1/10
Liam “I will find you, and I will kill you” Neeson is back.
This is the kind of movie you’ve seen him do a billion times for the last decade.
In that, it is very similar to Taken, Unknown and especially Non-Stop.
This movie is essentially the final act of Batman Begins, but with the roles reversed.
It’s okayish for the most part, but completely derails (yes, that terrible pun was intended) in its third act (pretty much like every Collet-Serra thriller), where it gets exposition heavy and stops making any sense.
There are two or three camera tricks, one continuous fight scene that was pretty well done, and it’s somewhat engaging due to the mysterious nature of the plot.
At the same time, it’s nowhere near as tense as the aforementioned clone of this movie (seriously, Non-Stop 2: The Unstoppable would’ve been a better title), too drawn out, and has no interesting characters besides Liam Neeson.
4.5
^ But hey, it’s January, so that’s not too bad!
Without SLJ this would be a mediocre movie. And that's how it felt until he had his entrance. From that moment on, the movie really gets rolling. Nobody plays "cool" like him.
But I don't think I would want to see another Shaft movie with Junior.
Just another reg-urge remake to make a little money on the next generation. The original is much better and this story is the type that can only be told once. ALIVE [1993] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106246/
Personally I don't get the hype. It's an interesting, entertaining show but nothing new here. Especially if you're watching Asian movies and shows regularly. I give it a 6-7. There's much filler stuff and unnecessary side stories going on. Overall good but nothing spectacular.
Definitely an interesting production. It feels like I am watching a noir film, but in a modern setting. Timeless story and personalities. Self-described addict to movies, which we see glimpses of from time to time, as if to show he imagines his life to be like one, with Bogart. The protagonist is a bit like a relict from the past. Lone gentleman in a suit, driving a vintage car, caring for the vulnerable, dealing with his own demons, longing for a mysterious woman, and who can see right through your deceit. Obvious allusions to the Golden age of Hollywood, but I also sense some inspiration by the French new-wave (inspired by the former). It also simply looks beautiful. I eagerly await new episodes.
EDIT after the finale - I love the topic of trying to understand what it means to be a human, the pensiveness and sensitivity of Sugar, the eerie quietness of every character, even the ones who are supposed to be aggressive.
[9.6/10] The vast majority of us live in bubbles of one kind or another. No matter how broad our experiences or perspectives, there’s spaces where we tend to feel comfortable, circles that we tend to run-in, and those unofficial metes and bounds of our lives shape who we are and how we feel. But so do the times we’re able to pierce them.
My bubble is very different from Alice’s, but what grabs you in “Houston”, the best episode of Mrs. America’s already sterling season, is how relatable her experience at the National Women’s Conference in 1977 feels despite its specificity to a particular moment in time and one woman’s very particular processing of it all.
Some of that comes from the fact that, unlike many of the major figures in this show, Alice is a composite character, a fictionalized reimagining of the sort of women who allied themselves with Phyllis Schlafly. That gives the series’s writers some extra wiggle room, a more blank canvas upon which to project awakenings and epiphanies, without the surly sandbagging that comes from having to maintain fidelity to real people and their true histories.
Make no mistake, that also gives way to a fair bit of wish fulfillment and fantasy. The fact that in the span of one weekend, Alice has all of these experiences that make her question if she’s on the wrong side, that persuade her that her own beliefs push her toward more complexity and acceptance than the Stop ERA crowd allows, that cause her to rethink her allegiance and maybe her whole life, is implausible, or at least exaggerated.
But that’s the beauty of fiction, which this is, bundled neatly within a series of true stories. It allows storytellers to heighten and package an array of experiences in a single vessel, making some moments symbolic or representative, but lining them up for maximum impact. It’s no coincidence, to my mind, that our perspective character here is named Alice, because like the great tale of fantasy from Lewis Caroll, our hero slides down the rabbit hole, takes a pill that affects her perception, and finds a startling new world on the other side of the looking glass.
It’s a world where nothing goes the way that she and Pamela planned. In their fight to make a stand against “the libbers”, they end up accidentally becoming liberated themselves, or at least one step closer to it. That’s another of the key ironies in this show, one that vindicates Bella and Gloria’s push to let all women participate. By the very act of having all of these women come together, forced to act independently at least a little to participate, hearts and minds can’t help but change a little, forged in the bonds of sisterhood and self-discovery.
So sure, it’s a rush how quickly that happens for Alice, but each vignette and experience is a potent one, and one more prick to puncture her bubble. She finds that her privilege has no power here, whether it’s walking to the front desk and insisting that she made her reservation or telling the clerk that she’ll get her husband involved to no avail. She’s left with no choice but to share a hotel room with a black woman and her daughter, and to sleep in the closet lest she be kicked by Pamela in their head-to-toe sleeping arrangement. Her usual comfort and security is gone here, forced to fend for herself amid the crowd of equals.
But the real turning point comes when she sits down with a kind southern woman, who perceives Alice’s forlorn conditions and gives her solace...as well as what might be some acid? Their conversation is the first major flip of Alice’s expectations here, when she meets someone who could be her: a mother, a church-goer, a wife who was devoted to her husband. The difference is that this woman is a devoted member of the National Organization for Women, despite her cutting an image that’s familiar to Alice instead of the radical lesbian feminists she was imagining.
That’s the thrust of this episode. Through her safe environs inside the prairie state, she had a particular idea of what the opposition was like, of how they were evil, cruel, unreasonable, and almost inhuman. So much of Alice’s journey here is her reconciling that propaganda caricature with the reality of the decent, considerate, very human and humane people she meets in Houston.
The acid doesn’t hurt that realization though! “Houston” has a real Mad Men feel to it, reviving that show’s periodic drug trip episodes that would allow it to get a little more impressionistic and experimental. Director Janicza Bravo shakes and rattles the camera ever so slightly, or shoots Alice from powerful angles as she kneels before a nun. The editor deploys unnerving cuts that move Alice through the frame in ways that violate the grammar of film. Sparkling reflections and images projected on screens present Alice with different visions of herself. And thumping bass drums and train whistles signify in sound the thundering discombobulation that Alice is going through.
On that trip, a term which carries extra meaning here, she sees how the other half lives. She realizes that a majority of people support the ERA, in contrast to her assumed silent majority. She finds out that one of her favorite patriotic songs is also a socialist anthem. She sees how the anti-gay posters she and her confederates put up hurt real people who are no longer abstract boogiemen but flesh and blood human beings. She witnesses other women’s libbers as church-goers, who are not godless, but rather see their faith as a blessing and motivation for their cause.
More than anything, she sees their kindness. She listens to random knockers on a bathroom stall just want to make sure that the women they hear crying in there are OK. She contrasts Rosemary chastising him for eating out of the trash with kind nuns telling her where to find food. She watches a group of organizers commiserate, listen to, and laugh with one another when deciding on their course for the convention floor.
And most importantly, she sees her bete noire, Gloria Steinem, leading them with kindness and making sure each of them is okay with the decision before she goes forward. It’s a sharp contrast to the dicatotorial bent that Phyllis deploys and which Rosemary imitates in her stead. Alice and Pamela gaze at their arch enemy, having planned all the vicious things they’ll say to her. Instead, they can only gape at her equal and opposite self-assurance. Instead of the vitriol Alice expects, Gloria just compliments her. It’s in contrast to the barbed kiss Phyllis plants on her later in the episode before telling her to “fix her face,” a telling echo of Alice’s fever dream.
Rosemary strips Alice of her speaking role after one rough interview; Bella reiterates the Eagles’ right to speak despite their harsh disagreements. Stop ERA is a den of vipers ruled by their queen cobra, ready to tear women like Alice down and keep them from speaking for themselves. The National Women’s Conference is a place where women from different walks of life build one another up, empower one another, support one another.
It’s in these moments, after Alice has spoken so admiringly about Phyllis, that she begins to realize her alleged dear friend’s subtle abuses and negging. Her southern drinking partner remarks that Alice has no trouble expressing herself. Alice looks hard at a copy of a newsletter which declares that Phyllis is liberated because she makes her own choices, while bossing people like Alice around. Suddenly it dons on her that this has all been a lie, but that this work prepared to genuinely break through and break free.
Alice’s speech to her would-be allies, asking about common ground and something other than total opposition, lays it on a little thick. But the story is told best through Sarah Paulson’s acting. Paulson is a pro at selling the combination of disorientation and awe that Alice experiences as she goes through the thick of her trip. Even moreso, the story of her gradual, night-long transformation comes through in Paulson’s expressions: a wide-eyed gaze, an exaltation of joy, a thousand yard stare that sells the weight of her realizations.
But it also sells the way that she is energized, invigorated, to be a part of this grand achievement and collection of women expressing themselves. She stands in support of the conference’s closing resolution of solidarity, visibly affected by all that she’s seen and heard, before the attendee’s join arm in arm and sing “We Shall Overcome.”
The conference-goers may have been one verse away from declaring, “We shall not be moved,” but I was. How could you not be? How could you not feel something when Betty Friedan casts aside her self-admitted prejudice and supports her lesbian compatriot’s civil rights? How could you not be affected by the moment when Alice turns to Pamela and tells her, “I’m sorry. I will help you.” How could you not see all these women, with their friends, allies, and daughters, joining together in sisterhood and not have your heart swell?
Alice does. It’s stark contrast to the cold scene she sees when she arrives at Phyllis’s counter-rally, one with a confederate flag in the background, an attempt at a hug nearly thwarted by what’s implied to be Klan bodyguards, and another veiled putdown from her supposed friend. There are two images presented here, one of warmth and ecumenical grace and empowerment, and one where you’re expected to tow the line set by whoever can exert their authority over you.
That’s the power of breaking out of that bubble. It shows us an alternative. It shows us the real versions of the people on the other side of our cocoons, not the exaggerated spectres we imagine. And it shows us how life could be, but for a few choices on way or another, that might enrich us, engage us, or free us.
The show is getting completely unbearable. Half the scenes have a soft piano playing in the background when one would expect to find a good moral lesson instead the show shoves degeneracy in people's faces.
To complete the socially woke read and creatively broke theme they had russia-phobic scene. Complete with an African man showing a Russian how adore works. I'm glad I gave up halfway through the episode because the ending sounds great ridiculous.
Amazing Amazing Acting across the board. The plot and characters is so moving and powerful that it reminds me of The Wire. James and Maggie were Fantastic.. there best work ever. Definitely needs more following.
Can't wait for the next season.
A solid movie focusing on a terrible incident. The acting overall is pretty great. Jason Clarke is a pretty underrated actor and can be great in the right roles. Ed Helms and Jim Gaffigan both give really good performances in non comedic roles. The pacing is pretty good, it kept my attention the entire movie. The story is still relevant to today's society. Overall worth a watch but nothing ground breaking.
This is a modern take on the classic Columbo, with some minor changes. The criminals in Columbo was smarter, and watching Columbo finding the clues was interesting. In Elsbeth the criminals are not as smart, and the actual police is not only incompetent they are refusing to let Elsbeth help when she obviously does the job for them, that makes no sense.
The point where Elsbeth shines is in how happy and easy going the show is thanks to its main character, smiles are contagious and watching it makes me smile and there really are to few of those shows. That really is the brilliance of the show and what makes me wanna watch more of it. I hope it will get lots of episodes and lots of seasons, this is a format that can continue forever and I'll keep waiting for the next one.
I CANNOT believe they have ended this series. So what? April just dies now?
I don't know if I'd call it a great wall, but it was certainly a pretty good wall.
You can’t have a teacher say “I want to think it’s them that teach me” in 2024 unironically. That’s how bad the writing is.
Galadriel and Halbrand arrive on Numenor and we get to know Elendil and his family. The island realms of Numenor is impressive and looks really wonderful, Galadriel seems a tad less irritating this episode, but I have no idea why they totally changed the history of Numenor, while they had the rights to the Appendices in LotR, where that history is summarised. Apparently Tar-Miriel is the queen, her father is still alive in some tower, and Pharazon is only her counsellor and not the usurper king (though they can put things right later on by making him usurp the kingship but why complicate matters in the first place when they could have followed the Appendices they had the right to?) I liked the tower of lore with all its scrolls, apparently Galadriel befriended Elendil and he took her there, but the horse-riding scene is really kitschy, Galadriel has a grimace as if she was really straining and not enjoying the ride. She discovers in one of the scrolls that the sign Sauron left was actually the map of Mordor which he plans to establish, how silly of Sauron to lay down his secrets like this. Halbrand fares worse than Galadriel as he antagonises some local smiths and lands in prison, Galadriel finds out that he is some sort of leader of men, though it is not clear whether the good ones or the bad ones. From the interest he showed in the smithy, he could have been Sauron but I guess that the guy Adar the orc worship would turn out to be Sauron in the end (maybe Adar because they don't have the rights to the name Annatar?). Elendil's family is OK, even the invented sister is not so jarring, but here they are sailors and not members of the royal house which is also a huge mistake. The worst part about the Numenor plot is that they never say that the reason why the Men estranged themselves from the Elves was because they were jealous of the Elvish immortality (as it is not said anywhere in the show that the Elves are immortal), so the reason behind the Numenoreans' dislike of the Elves is never explained. This is a huge mistake that would bite the showrunnners back later on.
The hobbits has some sort of celebration before leaving their current camp, and Nori decides to steal a page of Sadoc's book to find out more about the constellations the Stranger has showed her, the sequence about the theft and her friend Poppy covering for her is quite funny. But her dealings with the Stranger are discovered as he puts the stolen pages on fire by accident. She is to be punished and as a result her whole family has to travel at the back of the whole colony, which is especially hard due to her dad's twisted ankle, as the hobbits have to drag their wagons themselves. This seemed a bit un-hobbit like to punish the whole family for what only Nori did. In the end, it looks like the Stranger helps them to push the wagon. I hated the hobbits in the trailers but now I am used to them and they seem the mosst enjoyable part of the show. They are a bit like pixies from myths and legends, deeply rooted in nature, and it is rather sweet, though the last speech of their leader brings back to mind Bilbo's speech in Peter Jackson's films. They also had some commemoration of their dead, lost during the journey, which was quite moving.
Arondir lands in orcish slavery, where other Elves and Men work under the whip of the orcs, which are very sensitive to sunlight and can be seriously burned by it. This may be a callback to Morgoth enslaving Elves in the First Age, as well as Arondir fighting the warg, which may bring to mind Finrod fighting such a creature in defence of Beren when they were captured in Sauron's tower. It is a nice touch to refer to some material they have no rights to, but why on earth they do not use that one they do have access to properly? The show could have been much better if they stayed true to the summary of Numenorian history written in the Appendices. Now as it is, it does not make much sense.
First half was 7 points but however second part 4 points. You had an original story but you succeed to transform trash. Good casting, good acting but weird scenario.
Not bad, not great. Not too original, but good enough and it's easy to watch.
