I hate Pete so much!
You know, I'm not really into animated shows or movies.
I play many games but League of Legends isn't something I'm interested in.
When I saw this on Netflix, I thought "well not for me".
Boy, was I wrong.
After reading many articles, I decided I should give it a try and launched the first episode.
And the second, and the third and so on and on.
I was blown away. I am still blown away.
The story is great, and far reaching. I know nothing of league of legends, didn't need to.
The setting, this steampunk/victorian/magical world is so unique.
The characters are full of life, full of emotions, doubts. They are not empty shells but full on humans/humanoids. More so than many live-action characters.
The graphics and animation are the most amazing I've had the pleasure to witness. I mean, every scene is grandiose. Like moving paintings. What a feast for the eyes.
And last (but not least), the music is perfect. The main title by imagine dragons is on point, and the score complements the story so well. Case in point, many scenes don't have any dialogue, the animation and the score being sufficient.
Emotions are high at the end, I can't wait for what's in store next year.
Please, please, please, do watch it. Even if games are not your things, even if League of Legends isn't. Even if animated video aren't.
Watch it.
They should have dropped all the unnecessary subplots and drama and made it into a two hour movie
Futurama at its finest. The Twilight Zone-esque vibe of the mystery, the creative animation and superb score with all the bees and dreamscape scenes, and emotional core of Leela's guilt and fear were all perfectly calibrated for this episode. All the little callbacks make the episode feel a bit like a series finale, and if it had been, I wouldn't feel shortchanged. But still, just a mind-bending episode that kept the audience on its toes but still managed to be funny as hell.
Was this so bad before as well or I just shouldn't have binge-watched The Magicians right before it?
Boring AF episode! Nothing happened.
If you are looking for a great show to watch with your kids, this is one to check out. You can never go wrong with a show that features a image of "Bat Boy" in the opening credits.
They always say “read the book first” but sometimes it is fascinating watching a film version without any knowledge of the text it is based on. Book fans can get quite agitated at seeing their vision or interpretation of the book trampled on in some way but at the same time if the film doesn’t capture the essence of the book in some way, then what’s the point ? Looking at this purely as a film, it is enjoyable to watch, but what is a little disappointing is Luhrmann seems to be trying to recapture much of what made Moulin Rouge so great and repeating himself, sometimes successfully and sometimes less so. The fast paced editing, visual style, music and direction captures the decadence, glamour and excess of Gatsby’s world in much the same way, though equally this heightened anachronistic interpretation of the 1920s will no doubt delight or irritate in much the same way too. Both DiCaprio and Maguire are excellent as Gatsby and Carroway and the strongest moments of the film are their scenes together. Indeed, the exploration of the character of Gatsby himself, his motivations, hopes and backstory and importantly Carroway’s interpretation of him form much of what works well within the film and it was no surprise to learn that these two were cast well before others. Luhrmann evokes a great sense of mystery and intrigue over Gatsby's character initially, gradually revealing elements over the course of the film and DiCaprio's presence and charisma serve the character well. The overarching narration that served Moulin Rouge so well is also present, however here it feels heavy handed and ultimately unnecessary (despite some clever visual trickery with words from the book), with Luhrmann seemingly unwilling to let the audience take their own interpretation of the story from what is presented. Furthermore, whilst Mulligan is fine as the central female character, it is difficult to care about her other than through Gatsby’s motivation and Edgerton’s performance veers towards pantomime on occasion, another stylistic conceit seemingly lifted from Moulin Rouge. These two characters may well serve to underline one of the film’s themes at the end but it makes it very difficult to accept Gatsby’s motivation other than through DiCaprio’s admittedly great performance. A partial return to form then for Luhrmann after Australia, but not wholly successful either.
So, it turns out that the man in the high castle is... well, I won't spoil it for those who have not seen it. But we saw just one guy who lived in a high castle and collected films.
Again, without spoiling, I think the ending was superb. I think the show out-Dicked Philip K. Dick. Dick suffered from schizophrenia, and so his feeling that the world was not real is a constant theme in his books. The changes the TV show made relative to the book actually improved the portrayal of an unreal reality, in my opinion.
For those who were left confused by the ending, consult the I Ching.
Interstellar was alright.
To start with, the opening was very clunky. Obviously some exposition was necessary but it wasn't done naturally at all. Here, meet Cooper, just your average, every day engineer-scientist-quantum-physicist-drone-programmer-explorer-pioneer-farmer-pilot. Avoiding information dumps isn't really either Nolan's strong suit and while later on, especially on the space ship, expository dialogue is definitely necessary considering the subject matter, it still comes across as awkward. Cooper is occasionally an expert on things that should be beyond him (which, of course, he conveniently explains for you), while at other times he's completely clueless about things that he should really know about in his position (which, of course, somebody else conveniently explains for you). Cooper isn't the only one guilty of this though, everybody else on the spaceship likewise seem very ill-prepared for such a trip.
Speaking of characters who aren't Cooper, everybody else's characterisation is terrible. You don't know anything at all about two members of the crew, and somehow you're meant to care about one of their completely avoidable deaths (come on, he got to the ship first, he could have easily gotten in without getting in the way of TARS)? Somehow you're also meant to care about My Cocaine's death (which I'll get to in a moment) because he's a father of somebody? They're not even shown to have a close relationship or anything, it seemed more just an excuse to make a big reveal (which I'll also get to in a moment). His daughter, Anne Hathaway's character, also doesn't seem to have much of a personality until it turns out that hey, she's actually in love with this person you've never met. Even this "aspect" of her otherwise bland character seems to just have been added in as a lazy way to flesh her out and add unnecessary conflict. On the subject of unnecessary conflict, both the children, Murph and Tom, make really irrational decisions. When Murph tells Tom that he should move to save his family, he gets really upset because... who knows? And then even though he's given up hope on his dad, it's magically all okay later on when, after burning his crops, Murph tells him some nonsense about "hey, it was him all along, it was him, our father sob". Prior to that of course, Murph's been holding a grudge against Cooper for like three decades, even though she knew for a large chunk of that what he was up to, after she began work at NASA. This relationship gets all sorted out when she has her magical realisation that the ghost was Cooper all along even though that's just a huge leap of faith and there's nothing to indicate that might be the case, unless, of course, it was ~love~ (which, yes, I'll get to in a moment too).
Back to the death bed scene. It had terrible sound mixing as you struggled to understand what My Cocaine was saying at all, but even worse it lacked any emotional significance as mentioned above, instead serving to make the reveal that he never wanted to go with Plan A all along. Of course, like all final words, it also ends with a very convenient moment where, instead of letting Murph know that her father didn't know anything about this, he decides to recite a poem because you gotta have that pointless ambiguity and conflict. This big reveal about it ends up removing any tension that might have happened when you get told the same twist later by Matt Damon; there's no emotional impact as you were just told that ten minutes ago and you've had that whole time to let it sink in. Instead, you're just sitting there for a couple of minutes waiting for the characters on screen to come to terms with it.
Now to the script. The script was terrible. The expository dialogue was really bad, as mentioned above, and there were just so many cheesy lines in it. All the idealistic things that were being spouted out just made me roll my eyes, with all the "we're pioneers, humanity was born here, but we weren't meant to die here" crap. And of course love transcends time and space and everything. Anne Hathaway knows that one planet is better than the other because of ~love~. The whole reason Cooper can contact Murph and all that is because of ~love~. Love conquers all, man.
For some more minor things, using Morse code to be able to communicate data related to astrophysics and then magically using this to "solve" gravity is just dumb. Messing with time didn't always work out like somebody casually waiting for 23 years and then acting like it's nothing when they see humans for the first time again, or how Jason Bourne can sprint back to the station in five minutes when it clearly took at least an hour to walk from. A lot of the things with planets wouldn't really work: all the waves stuff, how shallow the water is and their drop, solid ice clouds, the fact that they can escape from a planet with 130% gravity just in their spaceship, but whatever, I've tried to avoid criticising the science because it's not really a big deal and even though it's sort of set up as being a realistic film, it's still just a movie. Besides, the science is mostly theoretical and speculation anyway so who knows, they might not be wrong about anything at all (they are). How come nobody cares what Cooper got up to in the 100 years he was gone? Also that's not what Murphy's law is.
Of course, it does a lot right, in particular the visual effects were really good and the score was absolutely outstanding, it definitely added a lot to the atmosphere, as did the use of silence. The docking, the way the takeoff was handled, entering the wormhole and some other scenes were really well-done too. TARS was great.
Now, despite having written all that, I'd still recommend watching it, especially in a cinema. I can definitely admire the film's scope and I'm really glad that somebody's able to attempt something like this while still having it be considered mainstream cinema. However, the people who are saying it's one of the best films of all time are absolutely kidding themselves; I'm yet to see Insomnia, but otherwise Interstellar is Nolan's second worst film, ahead of only TDKR. Of course, the fact that I've written so much about it obviously means I care and it certainly was thought-provoking and visually splendid, so even if I had a lot of issues with it, you should watch it if you haven't already and who knows, maybe you'll love it. At the very least, it's definitely Nolan's most ambitious film to date.
I thought this was a bit of a letdown. It's retreading the plot and structure of the first one with some minor twists added and a different ending, so its not seen as the blatant copy it actually is. By having the same structure as the first movie did, most scenes before the 1 hour mark feel like filler and most after feels like a copy of the first movie, slightly amped up. To me it felt too much like the first one, a feeling I last had watching Transformers 2 - and that is not a good thing, as I avoided the sequels. Though, to be fair, it was mostly because Transformers 2 was very annoying.
The movie felt long. Really long. I think it could have been 40 minutes shorter and it wouldn't lose any important things while actually giving it a better pacing, as the movie feels just stretched out just so it runs over two and a half hours. And because of that stretching, the ending feels like it came really quick and was over before I realized it. The ending also leaves you hanging, desperately wanting you to want to see both parts of the final movie, both being released in a November (2014 and 2015), taking the route of unnecessarily stretching out the lifespan of the movies like it's usual now.
I don't understand why they think they need to do this. The Harry Potter movies, a franchise with a similar target audience, had the two parter finale released in a span of 6 months. Even the Matrix sequels came out in the span of 6 months. Both were very successful and at least the former was beloved by most who saw them. Maybe it's because of Twilight, as its two part finale was also released in a November (2011 and 2012).
But for now, until both sequels come out on DVD/BR, I don't have any interest in seeing (or even reading) The Hunger Games in the foreseeable future.
I knew very little about League of Legends beyond some character names, but this show absolutely blew me out of the water. It's clear they spared no expense in the animation and writing of this show, every episode kept me captivated and wanting to watch the next one. The TV-14 rating is a bit of a misdirect, the show tends to be pretty adult-oriented and can catch you off guard with some story elements.
I hope they continue adapting the universe they've created into stuff like this, they've clearly put a lot of care and effort into their characters and world-building.
I was expecting this to be pretty bold-faced Israeli propaganda and I'm happy to report after having seen the entire season that it is not that. This show follows Israeli spies as the protagonists, but Israel is presented as flawed and occasionally brutal (if ultimately justified), meanwhile the Iranians in the show get to be fully fleshed relatable humans rather than evil monsters. It's a pretty fair portrayal where everyone gets to be human. The real villain is the hyper-conservative religious leadership.
As a show, it's middling. The initial set-up is good, then it feels like they were told they had to stretch the show over more episodes than originally planned, and it quickly became aimless from the middle on. It gets bogged down in a love story and a side plot about young Iranian rebels. The season ends on a very bland note, way too many (ironically predictable) double-crosses and last minute twists, and does not leave me very exciting for a potential season 2.
Sometimes I wish I could be this dumb.
Mediocre. That's the word that comes to mind after I ended Season 2.
Paul, creaks a little here and there, but it's consistent, bold, and appetizing as a comedy with a buddy movie spirit and a good dose of sci-fi satire.
WarGames is a perfectly fine little gem of a thriller. Well...not exactly a thriller, but it gets rather exciting at the end. Great performance by a young Matthew Broderick as the protagonist, John Wood as the "wacky professor", and Ally Sheedy as the "love" interest. The story is even more relevant today than back in the cold war...WHEN will technology make us extinct?!?
Should be viewed and collected by everyone!!
Interesting new start. Stargate fans should like this.
I cannot believe this... I actually cried. She was my favorite character
I guess I can never watch Game of Thrones again without hating Aria...
Now we're really cooking! Lots went on in this episode. Gonna be some serious ramifications.
With some anticipation I looked to Apples new programme list and this one stood out. An alternate history where the Russians made it to the moon first. The knock on effect is fascinating affecting politics, equal rights and family dynamics.
From the team that brought Battlestar to the screen it has been made with a realism that makes it accessible and possible.
Well cast and characters fleshed out to a point that you care about all of them. Really please to see where this goes in the future and hope Apple keeps supporting projects like this.
I'm not ready to pass any judgement on this one...yet, but there's one thing that annoys me to no end with the first couple of episodes. The behavior of this “FBI team” is atrocious. The arrogance is just freaking unbelievable. I really hope, for international law enforcement cooperations sake, that this is just awful writing, and not even just a little like how these teams work in real life. I get that this is fiction, but if I was on one of these teams in real life, I would be really pissed...that's for sure.
A stupidly addictive show. I don't even watch television, so naturally I hold a strong disdain for reality shows. This one came at me like a sucker punch. It captures genuine and mundane moments between people, from intimate conversations to cooking meals together. It's well-edited and well-paced, occasionally interrupted with fun commentary by a panel of comedians. Ironically, for a show without a script, it has it's share of "character development" and twists. All Hail Yuto Handa.
An unexpected gem. To say anything beyond it's kind of about a homicidal tyre will spoil it. The anthropomorphism instilled in the tyre is superb.
I think people will either love it for it originality or hate it because of the concept.
WHAT?!! NO BROWN COATS??!!!!! What a gyp!!!
Just as well done as the first season I think. Some fans might not like how much this season is about relationships. I found all those scenes beautifully done though. I loved all the character additions too.
8.5/10. I have to admit, I'm a sucker for the Banana Guards, and they brought a lot of laughs here. The "infiltration" by Finn and Jake during the changing of the guard (replete with Banana cream pies!) was a Three Stooges-esque delight, and their affable, loving stupidity tickles my funny bone every time.
But what I really loved about this episode was how it played on the way different people see Princess Bubblegum. Finn sees her as "cool," and can't shake that image of her, which is why he's kind of upset when he originally sees the graffiti. Jake sees her as just a part of the continuum, which is why he appreciates the art and is able to look past who it's representing. The Banana Guards in general look at her as an object of worship, as a benevolent if frightening persona whom, as PB herself points out, they both love and fear. Banana Guard 16 in particular sees her as a cold and unknowable deity, with the way she destroyed candy people and tampers with their minds and their very beings. And Princess Bubblegum sees herself as "just a person." The leader of Ooo has had a lot of shades added to her over the years, and her acceptance, or at least attempt to vindicate the idea that she's no longer a god on high, but a part of the community, on the same level as her creations, is a nice grace note to the opening of the season where we see her bitter and disappointed at having been ousted by the candy people.
Because at the end of the day, she accepts and loves them. She's not the same PB who would mess with Banana Guard 16's brain; she's the one who recognizes that these big yellow dopes she's been frustrated by and indifferent to have special talents that she may never have imagined (and which, in a kind of weird sequence, drive Jake crazy). The idea that Finn and Bubblegum see that in them, that but for a few genetic bumps in the road, they can be different and unique and just as valid, thinking and feeling being as anyone else in Ooo, is a nice little breakthrough for the show. It's wonderful to see Adventure Time still adding wrinkles to its characters and its world as it closes out the show's seventh season.
(Also, Banana Guard 16 was giving me mild flashbacks to "Princess Cookie.")
Really love it so far
This movie is so incredibly bad that it's almost funny..
The special effects are worse than horrible.
The acting is horrible.
The story is horrible.
They even managed to make Tara Reid look hideous.
But for some reason I still watched it from start to end...
I can't really explain it. It really is WAY worse than a B-movie but I watched it anyway.
I guess it was the curiosity of what kind of moronic things they could come up with.
When you look at the plot you think that it'll be pretty boring but it's actually quite captivating! The acting is good, the plot is much better than you think and Idris Elba, I mean you can't do a lot wrong when it comes to his acting.
UPDATE: After watching all the episodes I would say it's a decent one-time watch but I don't see myself ever wanting to revisit this again. What captivates you is the way in how everyone does "their thing" but that's only good one time, after that there's nothing more to surprise you.
I still feel the acting is well done but it does get a bit predictable and unbelievable the further into the show you get.
