I really appreciate this one because one of the few episodes if not the only one
that doesn't have overly Savage violence
it's a really simple story it's very short
but the animations really interesting some amazing use of colors
it's an interesting cautionary story
This episode is better then pilot (01x01), but still it lacks something.
This film has garnered a lot of great reviews, but for me, it was only partly successful. It's certainly well made, but by its very nature, is more suited to stage or a dance recital than a movie. Impressive performances, and a good music score, but as a story it only works in fits and starts.
I was concerned halfway through this season that the show had set up too many leads, too many loose ends, that it was pointing too many fingers in too many different directions that would give the show an easy out (as well as the opportunity to leave an open edning which I don't care for) , but it tied itself together in a fairly compelling way.
When the truth comes out though, while it all makes sense, it felt kind of sickening.
The villain is treated almost as an off-shoot, which on the one hand I prefer, it means they get no attention in the faux-documentary happening within the show, but I kind of wanted a little more of them. One scene, one interview, give me something to hate, because all we get are interviews and wrap-ups with victims - not necessarily innocent victims but victims nonetheless - and it leaves a really bitter taste in my mouth. Just a real undercurrent of sadness and loneliness.
Good season of TV. Hope there's at least one more to come. Could watch this show on a loop.
This is one of the movies that is really hard to rate for me, and I am torn between two sides. On the positives:
I liked the acting of this rather unknown cast. Acting for a normal movie is hard enough, and I believe that musicals are the supreme discipline, as you do not only have to have the ability to be a good actor, but you also need to both, be able to sing and dance and it has to sound good and look good. And here I have to say: They are excellent. All dance choreographies where really challenging, and had really funny ideas that made me smile a number of times. Comparing it to other musicals I have seen in the last year I have to say, those choreographies where even better than those in the beloved La La Land. Those choreographies where also well designed and scripted - for instance take the very first dance choreography in the high school - it is used to convey all the relationships of the different characters and their (hidden) feelings for each other, which I think was really great.
And speaking about great ideas - the entire movie is a absolutely great idea - when did you ever see a Christmas-High-School-Coming-of-Age Musical with Zombies? A really innovative idea, creating something new, which is really hard, in today's movie landscape.
The movie uses a lot of absurd ideas and interesting camera angles (e.g. the burning tire or a few of the deaths) and the humor that is conveyed using these angles was also really good. The movie doesn't take itself serious, there are a number of splatter scenes that are really funny, many things look unrealistic, because they avoid CGI and everything is made of practical effects (and those are simple) but with this I think they pay homage to the stage musical where you don't have CGI and use simple practical effects throughout - and also these things make the movie look even more funny.
And last but not least, the movie has a lot of soul, everybody seems to be really invested into this movie and giving his or her very best. It is a really charming movie.
If I point out that I have found a number of positive aspects that means that unfortunately I also have found some aspects that I consider negative:
Probably the most important one for me: The jokes that they made on purpose in movie where absolutely bad, and I couldn't laugh at any of the dialogues or one liners (e.g. "Oh no" - "What?" - "Justin Bieber is a zombie" - how is that even remotely funny?). I thought most of the jokes where either embarrassing, not funny at all or even annoying. And for me that really harms the movie.
Obviously Shaun of the Dead is an inspiration to this musical and it's even referenced. The parallels however are often really obvious and the problem with that is: Whenever Anna and the Apocalypse "copies" something we already know in Shaun of the Dead the later makes it so much better than this movie does. For instance they use the typical cut technique we know from Edgar Wright (e.g. in Worlds End where they order their beers and a water), but when they do, they do not try to convey a funny moment and therefore it seems unnecessary and wasted (for instance they use it in a random scene where the guys get into a car, which has no funny moment and does not compact something that needs to be shown).
Musicals are called musicals because they have music, and for me, a good musical has a song that captures me and that stays with me even after I've seen the movie for the first time (without rehering the soundtrack, etc.). Take La La Land, for instance. I've just seen that movie once, yet when I read the three words "City of Stars", I have an instant earworm that will stick with me the entire day. The Greatest Showman's "This is me" is equally catchy. With "Anna and the Apocalypse" there is no song that stood with me, no song that stood out, that captivated me, and a few weeks later if you'd play a song from this movie to me, I believe I wouldn't recognize them).
And when it comes to the genre of Zombie movies, this movie does not bring you anything new. And even for Zombie comedies there are a lot of better options to turn to. The only thing unique to this movie is it's setting at Christmas time, but they don't really cash in on the Christmas spirit, so other than the date and the decorations, this movie does not feel like a Christmas movie at all - take classics such as Home Alone, you can see that it is possible to convey a Christmas feeling even though your movie is not really about Christmas but cool action. And here - again - Anna and the Apocalypse falls short.
Last but not least - I am not really a musical fan. It's just not my genre. So convincing me is just as much harder, and in that aspect "La La Land" really did an excellent job, while all of the other current musicals didn't - this one included. I would have loved it to become a Christmas steady, I am always open for good new and unconventional Christmas movies (I feel like there are too few Christmas movies that I actually like - you can fill them into one evening, so I would love to have some additions to that list) but I am not sure if this movie could fill that spot - unfortunately.
Still I have to also honor all the positive aspects that I have mentioned, and I am sure that everyone who enjoys musicals will find this movie a great pick - it's no La La Land, no Shaun of the Dead and no Zombieland - but for a low budget independent movie with an entire cast of new inexperienced actors this movie this is really worth your time, so I would still recommend to give it a chance, and I am sure that it will find its fandom.
This is... weird.
And great to see that 2030 will be even worse than 2020.
Now my 2-year-old runs around the house saying "WHAT? NO!" all day. SMH! At least we get a couple lines of Ratzenberger.
great production values and a capable female lead makes for an engaging film that was well worth the time. looked good, fast moving plot, plenty of action, and some adequately portrayed drama. kept my interest and got my heart pumping a few times.
Not my favourite. I love angst in love stories, I don't mind the uglier side of relationships, but not when it feels like the characters absolutely cannot stand each other. The arguments were too petty and too annoying and too cliché to actually build any sort of meaning or commentary beyond what we were given at face value. Yeah, alright, the movie proves love isn't a bed of roses, but it does so in an uninspired way in my opinion, then trying to salvage itself by throwing a few callbacks and clever dialogue about the relationship between love, life and time that all just mostly fall flat (even if there's some genuinely good moments in the midst of it all). Jesse and Celine work as a fleeting relationship, not as a long lasting one. In the other two films you could see they got on each other's nerves but it worked cus they were only in each other's presence for a brief period of time. This film wants so hard to be realistic, but there's nothing realistic about these two staying together for this long. The creator of this trilogy should have realised this worked better as a succession of one night stands.
I love Lego Star Wars but this was not very creative. It would have been a lot of fun if they interacted in an interesting way with the different time and places. For example the Mandalorian was just 3 seconds and just a plug.
Shock Wave is "a lot"...maybe a bit too much?!?
Andy Lau does a very good job, but that isn't really a surprise, and even though the script leaves something to be desired (which is partly his own fault as he co-wrote it) Herman Yau has done a great job directing this. The rest of the actors did a very good job as well. The movie looks very good, and the sound is, for the most part, spot on.
But...
Shock Wave tries to be something that it's not, and it hurts the movie somewhat, but by being rather exciting and have actors that definitely knows what they are doing, it's not that noticeable as you are viewing the movie, but it becomes rather apparent as soon as you start to think about it.
Shock Wave is indeed exciting and has a lot of great and suspenseful action scenes. The thing is...it's a bit too long with bits that really didn't fit. I still liked it, but it won't end up on rewatch list any time soon.
"Does it hurt? Well I'm sticking my cock into a gas tank, so.. yes." LMAO!
This was such a great take on the Xmas story. Very adult, and it doesn't include Josh and his friends, but it is just as surreal. It took me from "OMG - they aren't doing that" to "that was awesome!".
There is potential some people will take offence. But they shouldn't anymore than for other episodes.
As this film was written and directed by Frenchman Quentin Dupieux (whose Rubber (2010) I adored), I had high hopes for this one.
Unfortunately, Au Poste! / Keep An Eye Out has absolutely everything necessary to be a cult comedy except enough comedy.
Okay. Here's the thing. You go in knowing this is a Jackass movie so stupid stunts. You see the commercials and think "Hey! It's Meatballs, but with a theme park." The original Action Park is such an interesting story, you figure this will be fun.
But not really.
It is not really fun. First, a completely unnecessary wraparound story is thrown on this thing. Unneeded except I think they wanted to make sure it was feature length. Then there are the stunts which look painful, but with it being a narrative film...you just don't care. The jokes are all rather flat and the SLOBS vs. SNOBS theme is more "Ernest Goes To Camp" than "Meatballs." Most interesting...this was an R rated comedy but I didn't see any nudity, the violence was of the variety the Three Stooges has, and maybe one or two drug references. So it must have came down to the cursing and the references to drunken and reckless behavior. The only sex onscreen was between 2 doggies, so I guess it gets an R, but surprising this is how they went about it.
Overall, not painful to watch, but didn't bring much joy either.
"Your uncle Basil died!" lol
I'm someone who was loathe to use the Trump name when I heard the first pronouncements after the escalator introduction. I've adopted different monikers to try and stem the tide of his overwhelming influence. I'm more dead inside than the frothiest pundit attempting to explain the exponentially terrible and long term consequences of what his reign will bring. I felt obligated in a kind of cultural accounting to watch The President's Show, despite the sinking and desperate feeling of wishing for it to all be over. I never much cared for when the cartoon version showed up in The Late Show. I understand that there's a whopping mental discord that needs to be contended with even before we pretend we can piece together the extent of the destruction.
All that said, the case for this show is almost too explicit. They are cartoon characters. This could be a dozen different short-lived cartoon shows from MTV or Comedy Central over the years. What made them exist in the first place were chuckle moments or an exploration of a particular pathology. Here, because the cast of characters is so large, you get to see a slightly broader take on each person. It's one thing to hear a dozen renditions of the same joke from late night hosts, it's another to see it transposed into a light-hearted attempt to not choke to death on what all of the real world examples truly mean.
It's not a particularly good or intriguing show on it's own so far (2 eps). It's more of a therapy session and slightly cranked up mockery. But that's almost the point. Where do we go from here but into tyrannical ever-escalating death? If you can't imagine it as a cartoon, how can you much cope with anything coming out of this saga? Consider the wholly uninspired "Donald Trump is the President" end credits song; when you can't parody anymore, you just repeat it over and over in disbelief.
The main strength is that it doesn't solely rest on another 25 minutes of Trump-isms, but there's plenty. The whole party gets to be implicated and you get a sense of the collective absurd psychosis that has taken hold. This is a show that is looking for laughs after you've conceded you're broken and if life can't be a cartoon, at least this can be. I've been unable to find the funny in Trump from the beginning, which I think stems from a deep appreciation for consequences and historical understanding. His idiot cartoon sons or gonzo Ted Cruz don't feel as much an explicit betrayal to the idea of us ever pulling our shit together and taking responsibility for what's really happening, and were hence what got the chuckles from me. Is it also a cynical small-minded cash and attention grab attempt utilizing an ongoing disaster? Probably. Can it serve as a bridge between the monstrosity and one day feeling capable of cleaning it up? Hopefully.
I don't know man. I'd trade this for a second of hope for the future.
They do it once again - the last episode is the best one, like in the first season. To be honest I thought that the second season will be just a pale copy of the first one. There is no way to enter the same river twice. But... They have managed to add something new and have found another topic to address in the show.
[5.4/10] Why do I still watch this show? That’s not a rhetorical question. I’m a firm believer in letting lauded shows find their voice before you give up on them. I absolutely believe that living through a series’s rougher stretches makes you appreciate and enjoy their better stretches more. And I think that over time, you can grow to really like shows that you may have been resistance to at first.
But after 50+ episodes, a show pretty much is what it is. Sure, show’s can get much better or much worse after that point, and some can even blow up the status quo and shift into something different (hello Friday Night Lights!). But once you’re half a c-note into a series, after it’s had four years to hone its voice and decide what it wants to be, the tone, the style, the presentation of a show isn’t going to change much from there.
And I really haven’t liked The League at this point. It’s generally crass without being clever. Its 90% of its characters are unlikable 90% of the time. And its connections to the world of football, both real and fantasy, continue to become more tenuous and contrived. I have given this show chance after chance and only rarely rated it as even a hair above “good” through most of that run.
This episode is a great example of its flaws. This a big wet lump of a finale, with juvenile jokes that give you nothing but broad humor and a fourth grade sensibility without anything resembling layers. There’s the little bit of set up and payoff with Rafi’s women’s self defense course culminating in Baby Jeffrey’s dick punch to Ruxin, but otherwise this is a whole heap of “See! They’re hitting each other in the nuts! It’s hilarious! Andre’s girlfriend is allergic to semen! How wacky! Oh look! Taco made everyone poop! And Rafi’s ejaculating at the same time!”
This is the lowest common denominator of comedy. I am far from above enjoying the particular charms of scatalogical humor, as my appreciation for the likes of South Park and The League’s stablemate, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia can attest. But this isn’t smart comedy draped in the sophomoric. This is just a bunch of shit and jizz jokes with nothing supporting them beyond the fact that we’re supposed to laugh because shit and jizz are involved. That is the well that this show keeps going back to.
And the group continues to be abjectly awful to one another. Nevermind the “scroat squad” bit, which at least has the spirit of knucklehead camaraderie to it. Rather than having the slightest bit of sympathy for Andre for not being able to conceive a child with a fiancée, or heaven forbid concern for the woman having a severe allergic reaction, everyone not only insults and makes fun of Andre over it, but then they hang onto the pictures of the event happening in the photo booth. That’s on top of the fact that it’s such a contrived setup for Andre and Trixie to do that in the phone booth in the first place.
Hell, even Rafi, who is usually the breath of madman fresh air that livens up this show, was too much for me here. His over the top “ballsyguard” routine went to ridiculous extremes with him going for the nut check while Kevin is roof-surfing on top of the Shiva-mobile. I’m all for T.V. being exaggerated or heightened in comedy, but this is a show that nominally has a tether to reality, and we’re just going for hidden car attacks that lead to people getting into car accidents and coming out unscathed.
Throw in the fact that Taco has somehow unlocked the key to the brown note. (Something, I’ll note, that South Park did better.) Throw in the fact that the show continues to do weird incest/semen donor humor with Sofia. Throw in the fact that the culmination of Pete’s arc with Gina is that he undercuts his own fantasy team over her dating Adrian Peterson, replete with another fawning depiction of an NFL star and another unrealistic excuse to include them in the proceedings. You just have a finale that lands with a thud.
Maybe Shiva really did lay a curse on The League as much as she did The League. There’s promise of something of a fresh start for next season, with name changes and different draft locales and the prospect that we’ll meet another one of the mysterious out of towners. But the fact that Shiva (who really shouldn’t want anything to do with these assholes) has removed her hex doesn't fill me with much hope for whatever the series has to offer in season 5.
So why am I still watching? I don’t really know. It is, at best, a bit of a slog to get through every time. A good number of my good friends like the show, so I suppose there’s a part of me that wants to see what they see in it. Part of what prompted me to watch the show in the first place was catching a random episode at a friend’s house and thinking it was hilarious, so I’m tempted to watch at least until I get to that episode. And there’s also the simple fact that there’s not really another scripted comedy so devoted to the NFL and the ridiculousness of fandom and fantasy football. As a fan of the gridiron, I keep wanting the show to make good on its stellar premise and become a funny reflection of the great but also terrible game that I love.
So now, as we approach Superbowl 53, I am going to take a break. I started this show in September when the NFL season was starting, and so ending it with the close of the season seems right. Maybe seven months away will make me apprecicate coming back to the show in the excitement of a new season. Maybe The League turns a corner in season 5. Maybe my problems with the show will fade in the background and the improvements it showed in season 3 will come to the fore again.
If I was smart, I would probably just dump the series, but like the fan of a bad football team, I still imagine I’ll be back next season, naively thinking that “this might just be our year.”
The real highlight is the cinematography. The story itself, while not uninteresting, is kind of a typical romance-that-should-not-be wrapped around events that are to be described as histrocial fiction.
Worth watching but nothing extraordinary.
Absolutely magnificent.
Hagen as a sleazeball drug kingpin just nails it, he is glorious and Skarsgård is splendid as always.
The mix of dark comedy and thriller is just perfect.
Easily one of the top five films to come out of Norway in recent years.
Frankie is a song without enough music, a poem with a shortage of words, a cluster of stars yet nary a night sky.
At least I got to watch Isabelle Huppert share scenes with Marisa Tomei, so my place wasn't wasted.
«I just don’t understand why you’re so into punishing yourself. And it’s not just yourself because every time you get cold, Guess who has to give you his coat? (..) I just don’t know why I should suffer because you have this ideological objection to feeling good».
—
«Non capisco perché hai questa tendenza a punire te stessa. E non ti limiti a te stessa, perché ogni volta che hai freddo chi ti presta il cappotto? (...) Ma non vedo perché dovrei soffrire io per la tua ideologica avversione allo stare bene».
Anna-Kat recast ruined the show for me.
another time travelback to major, well known scenes from previous movies thing.
seemed to be missing the usual amount of Lego based jokes.
the voices get close to sounding like the original cast, but are instantly noticeably not who we know.
it did have a nice point that Rey realised at the end.
like someone else said,a lot of things are going off,.
so younglings will have to be old enough to know the original trilogy and the other additions well enough to get things, and be young enough to actually want to watch it.
Lol with the jug of water on the car and his mom's girlfriend... I never know if I should laugh from the show or just continue staring.
The visuals this movie creates are nothing like what I imagined while reading the book. The book was genuinely scary, where this movie is disjointed and almost silly. Christopher Walken was not a good choice to play Whitney Strieber. He's too quirky or too odd to generate much sympathy.
I don't recall if the book was this trippy. What I mean by that is Strieber's recollection and later hypnotically-induced memories are so scatter shot. It is really tough to stay with this. I thought Lindsay Crouse was good as Mrs. Strieber. She really grounded things and was the real voice of reason through the craziness.
The alien creations are very disappointing and the special effects are all bright lights and fog.
They’ve gotten so good at subverting even their subversions to keep things fresh
Another forgettable light comedy - but Claudia O'Doherty is awesome in this
