J Lucas C

I've been quite tentative on recent Spike Lee outings, maybe he doesn't have it any more I said.

I watched the trailer for this and knew I had already been proving wrong.

The story of 4 black soldiers who served in Vietnam going back to reclaim many things they lost, love, gold and much more.

While the cast was all excellent, Delroy Lindo as Paul STOLE the show in what is probably his greatest performance.

From the very start you can tell he's a PTSD powder keg ready to explode and boy does he ever.

The hurt, the anger, the bitterness, even the psychosis is on full display as he presents to the audience a truly broken man, if he's not atleast up for an oscar it will be highway robbery.

Chadwick Boseman shines in what is slightly more than a cameo as Stormin Norman.

I'm assuming they shot on location in Vietnam, if not they did a heck of a job recreating vietnam because everything looks very authentic, especially the jungles.

Lastly even though there's not a whole lot of it, the gore effects are SUPERB, there's one scene and you'll know when you see it where someone dies and it's just disgusting yet beautiful at the same time.

The acapella Marvin Gaye soundtrack interwoven with real life solders who wouldn't otherwise get mention was the cherry on top.

Bravo to all involved, Spike Lee is back.

I felt that this show really should be evaluated in three parts, as it’s almost as if there were three shows in one. The first season was based on the novel of the same name, so the writers had clearly marked signposts to follow. As the novel was quite compelling, so too was the first season of the show. However, this is where the book ended, and the writers had to take up the slack. The natural progression of events led them to follow the court case surrounding the death of Hannah Baker, as well as the criminal trial of Bryce Walker..

I felt that these two seasons should be evaluated in terms of being different shows. The first season was clearly the best season of the four b/c, that’s the material the book covered, and the writers didn’t have to come up w/ any of their own material. The second season, although panned by some fans and critics, still followed the same themes of the first season, yet it was not up to par in terms of storyline or writing.

The third and fourth seasons should be considered a third show all on their own. While they did stick to similar themes from the first and second seasons, the writers clearly had no plan in place to go beyond the end of the novel. These last two seasons, especially, felt completely disjointed from the first two. The third season was long and drawn out, and the payoff in the end was neither surprising nor all that interesting. If they had maintained more of a mysterious atmosphere over what they were doing, it might have been better.

The fourth season was just a mess. Watching a main character who’s moody, bitter, angry, intense, depressed, and slipping into schizophrenia is not a compelling watch. They began this in season three and continued on in season four. It really added no particular value to the show or the character of Clay.

As for the storyline in the final season, it was absolutely ludicrous. I won’t go into the details, but suffice it to say, the writers really didn’t put much thought into what they were doing. The last two episodes of the show were especially pointless. The prom episode was completely unnecessary, as was the finale, at least the way it was filmed. And, it certainly didn’t require 90 minutes to portray the events of what happened in the finale. Not to mention, the last scene of the show was absolutely awful.

I think that the worst part of this show, however, was the treatment of two characters, Bryce Walker and Montgomery de la Cruz. In the third season, the writers actually spend quite a few resources rehabilitating the image of Bryce, as if there was some redemption to be had for him. He was a serial predator, and his actions would have stemmed from a deep-seated psychological disorder that wouldn’t have simply gone away, b/c he acknowledged his wrongdoing and felt bad about it. They did something similar w/ Monte in the fourth season, and I felt that it was incredibly disingenuous, dangerous, and irresponsible to take this path, b/c it showed that they really hadn’t researched the topics they were writing about. It was really surprising to watch this, and even both of Jessica’s relationships w/ Justin and Diego were quite questionable, especially given her role as head of the women’s rights movement on campus.

I'm not a professional film critic or anything, and I'm not trying to comment like one, but I've got something I'm pretty sure on why some movies are so great: They simply never stop on get better as the runtime go.
I saw the movie because of its reputation. I knew its something good and i wanted to find out why everyone can't stop praising it. So when Henry Fonda pulled out that switch blade and stuck it on the table, i thought "oh thats it, that's why they say this movie is great, a huge twist". And then came the old guy with great insights about the old man downstairs and the woman across the street, they were on 2 to 10; And then there was the man who shouts his hate for people from the slumps, everyone in the room showed him how ignorant he was, they were tied on 6/6; And finally, the last man teared up his photo with his son he haven't seen in 2 years, sobbingly say "not guilty" ... Everything built up like a pile of random acts at first, but as the movie progresses everything fell into place like a luxury box of Belgium chocolates. I'm not saying you need to be keep on getting better to be a great movie, a lot of classics don't work the same way (or even the opposite), but if a movie can build up like 12 Angry Men, you just can't be bad.

@bouncyeyeball

if you dont like the show, then stop watching.

a) I did. Ages ago.
b) you have to watch something to know whether or not you like it
c) "if you don't like my comments, then stop reading"
d) it's called criticism and totally valid to say, even if you have issues with criticism of a show you like, because you project that criticism on yourself
e) if you can't see anything wrong with this show, good for you

no one wants a homophobic asshole watching the show, believe me.

a) why should I believe you, you are a stranger starting directly with ad hominems and you are - sorry to say - no authority to say who wants what, or what person to declare an "asshole"
b) educate yourself what "homophobic" actually means and realize, in the context of my criticism here and in several episodes, that it's not applicable towards me. But for that you might need to fully understand what I say instead of getting riled up over a comment you don't like, on a show you enjoy so much that you'd ignore all the issues it has. If you call it equality and not the exact opposite how this show uses male homosexuality to provoke then I can't help you, you are a part of the issue this show has.
c) nice ad hominem, thanks for making another great example why trakt needs moderators to take away the ability to comment for some people.

and peter nowalk writes the show, not shonda. get educated before you speak

I don't care who writes the show on a regular basis, nor did I say here Shonda Rhimes is writing it, didn't I? Shonda Rhimes' company produces it and if you think she has no influence on this show at all you're incredibly naive.

Get educated, hm? I like the irony in that.
Thanks for the chuckle, but go back under the bridge you came from. :D