[9.5/10] They got me. They really did. I believed that Saul would do it, that he would find a way to lie, cheat, and steal out of suffering any real consequences for all the pain and losses he is responsible for. I believed that he would trade in Kim's freedom and chance to make a clean break after baring her soul in exchange for a damn pint of ice cream. I have long clocked Better Call Saul as a tragedy, about a man who could have been good, and yet, through both circumstance and choice, lists inexorably toward becoming a terrible, arguably evil person. I thought this would be the final thud of his descent, selling out the one person on this Earth who loved him to feather his own nest.
Maybe Walt was right when he said that Jimmy was "always like this." Maybe Chuck was right that there something inherently corrupt and untrustworthy in the heart of his little brother. This post-Breaking Bad epilogue has been an object lesson in the depths to which Gene Takovic will stoop in order to feed his addiction and get what he wants. There would be no greater affirmation of the completeness of his craven selfishness and cruelty than throwing Kim under the bus to save himself.
Only, in the end, that's the feint, that's the trick, that's the con, on the feds and the audience. When Saul hears that Kim took his words to heart and turned herself in, facing the punishments that come with it, he can't sit idly by and profit from his own lies and bullshit. He doesn't want to sell her out; he wants to fall on the sword in front of her, make sure she knows that he knows what he did wrong.Despite his earlier protestations that his only regret was not making more money or avoiding knee damage, he wants to confess in a court of law that he regrets the choices that led him here and the pain he caused, and most of all he regrets that they led to losing her.
In that final act of showmanship and grace, he lives up to the advice Chuck gives him in the flashback scene here, that if he doesn't like the road that his bad choices have led him, there's no shame in taking a different path. Much as Walt did, at the end of the line, Saul admits his genuine motives, he accepts responsibility for his choices after years of blame and evasion. Most of all, he takes his name back, a conscious return to being the person that Kim once knew, in form and substance. It is late, very late, when it happens, but after so much, Jimmy uses his incredible skills to accept his consequences, rather than sidestep them, and he finds the better path that Kim always believed he could walk, one that she motivates him to tread.
It is a wonderful finale to this all-time great show. I had long believed that this series was a tragedy. It had to be, given where Jimmy started and where the audience knew Saul ended. But as it was always so good at doing, Better Call Saul surprised me, with a measured bit of earned redemption for its protagonist, and moving suggestion that with someone we care for and who cares of us, even the worst of us can become someone and something better. In its final episode, the series offered one more transformation -- from a tale of tragedy, to a story of hope.
(On a personal note, I just want to say thank you to everyone who read and commented on my reviews here over the years. There is truly no show that's been as rewarding for me to write about than Better Call Saul, and so much of that owes to the community of people who offered me the time and consideration to share my thoughts, offered their kind words, and helped me look at the series in new ways with their thoughtful comments. I don't know what the future holds, but I am so grateful to have been so fortunate as to share this time and these words with you.)
EDIT: One last time, here is my usual, extended review of the finale in case anyone's interested -- https://thespool.net/reviews/better-call-saul-series-finale-recap-saul-gone/
The whole theatre burst into spontaneous cheers several times, and the whole theatre completely went silent - people literally stopped chewing their popcorn - on numerous occasions.
Like you've probably already heard, the movie REALLY is a phenomenal throwback to the original trilogy, with an extra oomph and insane amounts of creativity and new found inspiration that will take the franchise to a whole new level.
The characters are three-dimensional, it's nowhere near as strictly black and white, good vs. evil like in most of the previous movies, and Adam Driver as Kylo Ren is the best example of that. Hands down, the best villian to appear in the Star Wars franchise other than Darth Vader.
Daisy Ridley & John Boyega are thrilling to watch, the old cast members, popping in during the movie were just as fun to watch.
J.J. Abrams and the writers somehow managed to create a plot that was very confined in space and time, yet they effortlessly captured the grand universe that is Star Wars with some pretty great throwbacks to the old trilogy plot-wise. Some might argue that it's lack of creativity and unnecessary repetition, but I thought it was a wonderful homage. It flowed naturally and there really was no dull moment.
Absolutely phenomenal. :)
9.5/10. If you'd said to me, "Hey watch this short film that's a cross between Lost in Translation and the opening act of Wall-E," I'm pretty sure I would just look at you funny. And yet that's pretty much what this was, and it worked beautifully. The undersea world BoJack found himself in, where he couldn't eat the food, couldn't engage in his usual vices, and most of all couldn't speak or understand the local dialect, captured the experience of isolation and confusion that can come from visiting a foreign country through a distinctively BoJack lens.
But it also created a great atmosphere for a format-bending episode. Offering a nigh-wordless half hour of comedy in a show that makes its hay from its dialogue could either be gimmicky or bold, and thankfully this episode tended toward the former. It helped to put the viewer in BoJack's shoes -- only able to communicate and express mood through non-verbal cues like gestures, body language, and the score.
And in the absence of dialogue, Bojack Horseman reverts to a certain Looney Tunes-esque vibe where BoJack finds himself inadvertently responsible for an adorable little seahorse moppet. (I had flashbacks to the "Buttons and MIndy"segments of Animaniacs and a dozen other classic cartoons.) The design and personality of the seahorse baby struck the right balance of adorable and mischievous, and it created a nice opportunity for BoJack to be caring, brave, and as always, eternally frustated.
But this being Bojack, of course there's a quiet strain of melancholy through the whole thing. When Bojack returns to the seahorse babe to its father, the dad is mildly grateful, but mostly blase, and the baby doesn't even wave to him when it's time for BoJack to say goodbye. They went through this experience together, through shark attacks and taffy explosions and being stranded, and the moppet is too little to even look up for his soup or appreciate what his equine friend did for him. There's an emptiness there, a sort of existential realization that all that effort, which was quite noble in and of itself, feels a little hollow without someone to share it with or to appreciate it.
So through this experience, BoJack finally finds the words to apologize to Kelsey Jannings, noting that grand acts are nice, but that accomplishments, even ones far more important than winning and Oscar like returning a child to their parent, can seem like building a sandcastle, inevitably fleeting and meant to be washed away with the coming tide. But that those connections between individuals are what sustain us and give us life and reason to go on in a world of sandcastles.
Again, this being BoJack Horseman, those words too are washed away before he can get them to Kelsey in any sort of readable fashion. To add insult to injury, he realizes in the end that he could have talked this whole time, which is the right combination of sad and funny. But overall, this is a wonderful episode that uses some great Warner Bros. silent capering to further the show's project of examining its lead's attempts to find meaning in his life, and finds an inventive way to convey that experience.
This wasn't a very funny episode. Most of this was straight up, if occasionally lighthearted, drama. There is something unbelievably sad about seeing someone be both self-destructive and hurtful to the people they care about in the choices they make. From the second BoJack took Penny on a driving lesson, I was convinced they would hook up. It's kind of how television works and he already sort of pulled this trick with Sabrina from Horsin' Around.
But the show convinced me that's not where they were going, and then yes and no and yes and no that by the end of it, I was not only convinced that BoJack and Penny weren't going to hook up, but I was actually proud of BoJack for turning Penny down, not only when he was still fairly right-minded and knew she was feeling weak after the prom, but then again after he was feeling down and vulnerable after being told to leave by Charlotte.
But that just made the finish, where Charlotte finds them about to go at it, all the more horrible and disappointing. The last five minutes or so of the episode, where BoJack and Charlotte seem so close and he seems so happy, transitioning to Charlotte's inevitable realization that it's not good for him to be there, on to the terrible betrayal of finding him in bed with her daughter, was powerful and dark and--to use a word I keep coming back to when talking about this show--devastating.
It's devastating to watch someone burn their own life, their own chances for happiness down. BoJack was never going to get back together with Charlotte. She's right to point out that she doesn't know him anymore, and that BoJack's idealized something as a salvation. She's also right that he's trying to run away from deeper problems when his real issues are internal. But he could have had support. He could have had friendship. He could have had the real connections with other people, albeit platonic ones, that help make a person feel loved and whole. Instead, he not only couldn't sustain that, but he had to sabotage any chance of that with Charlotte and her family, hurt a friend who's shown him nothing but kindness, and try to exorcise the demons of his past with a young woman whom, he admits in his more clear-headed moments, doesn't know what she wants.
It's not comedy. It doesn't have to be. To be frank, a lot of the comedy doesn't really work in this episode. The jokes about Trip's boner are pretty lame. Kyle is basically a non-entity. The sitcom-esque intro to Charlotte's life was just kind of there; the high school drama element is fairly cliche, and really only Maddie's delivery of the word "society" gave me a chuckle. But the character work, and the dramatic elements in the episode's close really carried the day. It's not the last minute gut-punch of my favorite Futurama episodes; it's a core of sadness that runs through BoJack and eventually dissolves into wherever he is and whatever he touches.
It's sad. It's really sad. And the episode's final moment that juxtaposes him with an equally sad Dianne isn't promising for BoJack not making any further bad decisions. But it's still damn good.
I've watched this series from day one and loved it until season 4. When season 5 started, with their major plot changes, I wanted to quit this show but this episode made me loathe this show to the point where I would literally beat up Martin for giving HBO the rights to change the story line this much. I'm personally disappointed with HBO for killing of such a lovable and adorable character in a way that it wasn't possible. Stannis would NEVER agree to such a thing (and if you remembered in the last episode, he turned down Melissandre without thinking twice). Why did the TV show drop in quality? I was ready to bear the fact that Lady Stoneheart wont be in the show (even tho she has a MAJOR influence in the books) but not this major flaw. Stannis is a weak man, unable to endure the seduction of a witch and the only thing that was able to cancel her manipulation was Shireen. For god's sake Selyse had second thoughts, the woman who hated her daughter more than anyone in the world but Stannis didn't, the man who showed so much love and pride in her daughter.
I'm rating this episode 1 because this is the last episode I will ever watch of Game of Thrones. I was able to survive "The Red Wedding" and Oberyn Martell because I knew this was coming but this... THIS... I'm disgusted.
EDIT: If the actress didn't wanna act in the series any more they (HBO) could have at least killed her via Ramsey Snow's 20 men sneak attack or something. This was utterly revolting. :/
Sarah Lynn has always been a source more of humor than of drama on BoJack Horseman. Sure, there's always been a dark edge to the jokes made about her drug-induced lifestyle and the ways in which she was doomed from a young age, but for the most part, it was part and parcel with the satire of Hollywood and its dark side that stretches throughout this series. And yet, in this episode, that humor is brought down to Earth. It's not that there's no ridiculousness here, but suddenly the show starts taking that part of Sarah Lynn's background seriously.
And the tragedy of it becomes much more clear. Both BoJack and Sarah Lynn have been harmed by this lifestyle, bereft of empathy and only seeking thrills and substances to try to fill that hole in their lives. But the difference is that BoJack came to acting as an adult. Sarah Lynn was forced into it as a child, she never had a choice, and she never had a chance, and that's tragic. That's what makes something truly tragedy -- not just that it's sad, not just that it's unfair, but that it's the horrible result of forces beyond a person's control.
There's a Trainspotting vibe to this episode, a sense in which both BoJack and Sarah are letting go of whatever control they have as they take a feverish jaunt across L.A. and eventually across the country. That leads to the episode feeling somewhat shaggy in places, but it works with the rambling, unfocused, black out experience of the main characters, and so it works. That tack gives the story momentum even when it's rolling all over the place.
That spree takes BoJack (repeatedly) to the door of Ana Spanakopita, where she delivers an assessment of BoJack that is possibly even more harsh than Todd's. When BoJack asks why she abandoned him when he needed her the most, she basically tells him that he is not only unsaveable, but that he brings down anyone who would try to help him. He doesn't quite understand it, but there's a cold truth to those words, especially as they come to fruition in the rest of the episode, as BoJack brings down two young women.
The first of these is Penny. After a frantic, misguided attempt to make amends to all of the people BoJack's hurt (which leads it a hilarious "Dianne is just Asian Daria" routine), BoJack stalks Penny at Oberlin. In the process, he discovers something surprising -- she's just fine. She seems happy; she has friends, and she seems cool and comfortable where she is. That is, until BoJack shows up to mess that up. His presence reminds her of what happened and rattles her in what seemed like a safe environment. As Sarah Lynn points out, she was good until he showed up.
Sarah Lynn doesn't have the same kind of self-awareness about the way in which BoJack brought her down as well. It's hard to say that BoJack is truly the cause of Sarah Lynn's downfall. After all, in the past there were her parents and the other parts of the Hollywood machine that helped turn her into the person she became, and in the present, the very fact that Sarah Lynn was only engaging with sobriety so that she could get a really good high later suggests this would have happened eventually regardless of what BoJack did. (And, true to life, people who relapse often overdose, because their tolerance has diminished but they still consume their drug of choice in the quantities they used to, which overwhelms their systems.) To a degree, there was an inevitability to this.
But BoJack could have been there, could have eased her away from it, could have been a voice of experience and an angel on her shoulder rather than someone who brought her into his desperate race away from his own misery. Instead, BoJack was feeling bad for himself, and had managed to alienate literally everyone else important in his life. So he resorted to his old co-star, the one he was a father figure to, and jumpstarted the process that led to her demise. Maybe this would have happened eventually anyway, but BoJack was there, he hastened it, and took part in it, and managed to lose one of the last people who'd bother speaking to him in the process.
BoJack has his own damage to deal with, and much of it isn't his fault. He has an emptiness and a selfishness that he inherited, both through nature and nurture. The problem is that he prioritizes his own pain over everyone and everything else, and doesn't care about what his means of trying to feel better, or at least feel less, does to anyone close to him. That's what makes Ana's words so vital here -- BoJack really is drowning, he really is thrashing and kicking and trying to keep his head above water. He has legitimate problems, and sometimes he even makes legitimate attempts to fix them, but he's oblivious to those connections to others in this terrifying world, and that's his greatest sin.
So we feel for him when he loses out on that Oscar. It represents something important for him -- a signifier that his life and his work meant something. And we sympathize when he wants to do anything but face reality when that falls apart. But then Sarah Lynn wins an Oscar, and we see how meaningless it is for her. All she can do in that moment is think about what it should mean, what it would have meant to her, before she went down this path. BoJack is a victim, but also a perpetrator. As far as we see, Sarah is just a victim, someone who was poisoned before she even really knew how to read. And BoJack could have done something to stop it, to help it, then and now, but didn't.
Because BoJack just wants to try to anesthetize himself from his own pain, to hold himself back from his own damage. That's why when he looks into the projected stars of the planetarium, he absolves himself. BoJack never accepts blame, never takes the fault. He looks at the vastness of the universe and the eons that pass in a blink when pulled out to that scale, and declares that he need not feel bad for anything he does because nothing he does matters. To put it in Brothers Karamazov terms, anything is permitted. BoJack takes it to the self-serving extreme, to ignore his fractured attempts at making good so that he needn't feel guilt.
There is, however, a catch the nihilist's way out. Try as he might, BoJack still feels a connection to Sarah Lynn. As they sit on that bench together, gazing at the sunset as they've done in the past, he realizes that she is one of the few people equipped to understand him. They may have come to it on different terms, but they've been through the same thing. He cares about her. He may not want to care about anyone. It's easier to justify your own bad actions, to compartmentalize all the terrible things you've done, if you don't care about anyone.
But he does. And Sarah Lynn dies. And he was there for it all.
That's the kicker. Maybe your choices don't matter on a cosmic scale, but they matter on a personal one. You can hurt the people you care about, and no matter how many beers you drink, how many drugs you take, how many false amends you yell into the night, you will still feel that. BoJack will still feel that. All of his attempts to run away from his pain have only caused more pain, for many innocent people whom he's dragged beneath the waves with him, and for himself.
Who knows if Sarah Lynn would ever have become an architect. Maybe she would, as Tony Soprano once put it, ended up selling lawn furniture on Route 9. But maybe she would have been happy. Maybe BoJack could have helped her be happy, made himself happy, or at least avoided letting one more lost soul into his morass of discontent. Instead, a young woman dies, and for all his attempts to avoid his own hurt, to avoid the results of his bad acts, they finally catch up to him, and to those unfortunate enough to be in his wake when that reckoning comes.
Belle... A collection of music videos glued together by a really badly written narrative.
Belle is one of the weakest animated movies i have seen in the past few years, and that makes me really sad, as a fan of the director i went into this expecting an 8 or an 9, but what i got is a 5 at best.
Belle has a interesting idea, with its reworking of the "beauty and the beast" and its child abuse themes... But it fails to build on its characters and to explain basic premises of its own world, making it for a very boring and bland experience.
Most of the things we thought would be relevant were completely ignored and absolutely useless, we asked ourselves watching "did she get some disease and now is unable to sing in the real world and that is why the U is an escape?" No, they never address this, she just fails to sing and vomits once because the movie wanted to i guess? They keep all her "friends" completely irrelevant and underdeveloped until the last quarter of the movie, so i basically don't care about any of them in the end, they never explain the socio economical structure of the U world... How does this work? They say the avatar is made automatically based on people physiognomy, but the avatars are crazy different in form and species, how can that be made from ones physiognomy? How is the invitation system decided? Who is invited and why? Why even have an invitation system instead of selling the app or freely distributing it if that ends up irrelevant to the story? Why show us a very interesting singer character on the start that rivalizes our belle if you are just going to forget her for the whole movie? How to know which avatars are AI controlled and which are actually people? Is it possible do die in U? If not, what is the relevance of all the conflict we see?
Belle raises too many questions and answer very little, it presents us with an beautiful and interesting virtual world but tells us NOTHING about it and how it all works, it presents us with futuristic technology in a world that seems stuck in the 2000s, it gives us many bland and uninteresting characters with only one personality trait each and develops none of them... There are so many problems, so many drawn out scenes... That it all gets boring and tiresome...
And.... That makes me really sad, the music is GREAT, the visuals are BEAUTIFUL, the music scenes are AMAZING... But they are few and far in between and the rest of the movie... Is not interesting, they present us a nice duality of belle and the beast, but their interest in one another is so out of nowhere and forced that it doesnt feel even a little bit real or natural... There is a great scene that develops the characters and emotional connects, but it is only in the last quarter of the movie... When it has already lost all my interest and attention... and the plot of child abuse is ok and very important... But it feels shoved in... The main plot... Feels shoved in... Oh, and how they find the boy... Well, that was just the worst "investigation" bit i have ever seen...
I really wanted to like this movie, but there are just too many unanswered questions, just too little character development, and a plot that is just generic and bland enough to lose my attention... The visuals and music alone are not enough...
At the end, i feel like they made some really great music videos and didnt want to release it as just animated music videos, so they wrote a really bland movie around it and shoved a controversial and important theme(child abuse) to appeal to peoples hearts in an effective but kinda cheap way.
Wow. GLOW is such a fantastic show with a lot of unexpected depth to it. I didn't know what to really expect (other than Alison Brie wrestling other women) after just skimming some reviews online and trying not to spoil myself, but it was very well made dealing with a myriad of different social issues and themes. I never thought that so much drama and intrigue could come out of making a female wrestling league/show.
There are definitely a decent amount of feminism and SJW vibes, which can usually turn me off to a show/movie if taken overboard. However, I thought the tone of the show struck a very nice balance to those themes with wisely timed comedic dialogue and chose not to go too overboard on stating some of the "obvious". I really liked the emphasized theme of "things don't just happen; people make choices" that is expanded upon. There are some times you can't just blame society and everyone else for everything, and at times, you have to just take some responsibility yourself.
Alison Brie did a great job as the lead in this one, and hit the humorous parts quite well. She definitely doesn't play the typical spunky girl who never gets down in order to overcome all obstacles in this one. Lots of bad shit happens to her constantly in this show (some of it self-inflicted), and she has to eventually deal with the consequences. Some are dealt with better than others. She really developed her character throughout the course of this season, but she never really crossed into that "totally likeable" realm for me.
However, this is alright because the other supporting characters in GLOW were fantastic in their roles as well. I was pleasantly surprised that the show was really able to flesh out almost every single character/female wrestler introduced and give them all some plot lines and conflict to overcome (even Sheila the wolf girl!!). My favorite girl/wrestler was probably definitely Debbie, played by Betty Gilpin. She is just badass and goes totally YOLO at times. The end of episode 1 was just pure f'n gold. I could watch that entire scene over and over again. It was so well acted out between Alison Brie and herself. I also really enjoyed Marc Maron's character, the director Sam Sylvia, who adds a ton of crass humor into all the dialogue that he's given. He could have just mailed it in as the sleazy coke'd out director, but he completely owns the role and adds so much to the show.
Anyway, I really enjoyed GLOW and I'm hoping for confirmation of a second season ASAP because the creators definitely left a few loose-ends hanging and we still have a lot more potential story to unfold. Looks like Netflix has another hit on their hands. Watch/binge it if you can at least before GoT owns all our lives starting in July.
I watched Annihilation on Saturday after being pretty excited to watch the movie for the past couple weeks as it was coming from Alex Garland, the director of the fabulous Ex Machina. I'm not going to lie though, I was a little bit disappointed in the end. Not because the movie was not good by any means. It was actually a very well done film with stunning visuals and art direction. It's just that I felt like it had the potential to be a "great" movie, and just fell a bit short in the last quarter/third of the movie or so.
I think that opinions on the ending sequence has varied quite a bit. Some people love it and have raved about it. I, on the other hand, felt that it was a just a tiny bit lacking and while visually stunning, not super original or "groundbreaking". I can't quite put my finger on why I didn't connect as well with the final quarter of the movie though (if that makes sense) without spoiling some major parts of the film.
While the movie is based on a trilogy of books (I've heard that it diverges quite far from the books though), the film borrows heavily from Tarkovsky's Stalker (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). The influence is noticeable throughout, not just from both movies having a Shimmer/Zone. If you're a fan of Stalker (1979), I'd definitely recommend checking Annihilation out.
As I mentioned before, the visuals were stunning, and I thought that the set pieces and scenarios that evolved over the first 2/3 of the film were very well done. I liked the balance of the film being a thriller (both physically and psychologically), while adding lots of thinking points and contemplative questions of "who we really are", "what is actual destruction", just to name a few. The cast was well done for the most part, albeit I wish that the characters other than Natalie Portman's protagonist could have been developed a bit more.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie and thought it was a grand visual experience. I was just disappointed a bit perhaps because I was expecting a bit too much coming in, and from what the first 2/3's of the movie set up. Also of note, the trailer definitely markets this film as something like a female Rambo/Predator action flick, which it really isn't. In the end, I think that I would give the movie a solid 7.5/10.
Ridley Scot is back! After some less interesting movies he succeed to make an great one again! It isn't the greatest movie I have ever seen but I couldn't recall one fault or issues with this film. The acting was great especially with his carry Matt Damon! The rest of the cast did fairly good. Matt Damons character stranded on Mars and wants to find a way to survive until he is rescued. This is the main part of the film which was surprisingly funny. Mainly due to the optimistic attitude that Matt Damons character had. It was even funnier than some comedies I have seen this year. Besides that there are some really suspenseful scene with are handled very well by Ridley Scott. He build the suspense fairly slow but great. They also created a great setting of Mars, it really felt like a place which was gorgeously filmed.
Overall I would gave the film a 8,5 but unfortunately Trakt would allow me to give that many hearts so I rated it a 8. Simply because I liked my 9 rated films more than this one. Nevertheless I had a really good time with this entertaining, greatly directed and interesting film.
It does not happen often these days that an anime, or any tv show for that matter manages to get such a tight grip on me. But Made in Abyss manages to do it with flying colors.
For me Made in Abyss is the complete package. The story is captivating, the characters are very likeable, the music is perfect for setting the overall feeling you are supposed to get, and above all, that feeling for wanting to experience the unknown, to venture out into the debts of the abyss (no pun intended) and that feeling you get when watching this anime in your underbelly of yearning for something more, and to press on, no matter the consequences or the dangers is in my opinion one of the absolute cornerstones of this anime that makes this a masterpiece!
The story starts off very innocent and cute. And from the first few episodes you might think that this anime might be just a light anime because of how young the children are, with some comic relief. But if you keep watching that you will see that with every episode as Rico and Reg go deeper into the Abyss the story gets more darker and more disturbing.
To be frank, i did not fully understand when Rico and Reg said goodbye to their friends in episode 3 that goodbye really meant farewell forever. But as you can see in the later episodes (at the very least for Rico) there is no coming back alive once you go down the Abyss deep enough. In my opinion that makes Rico her fortitude and resolve to venture into the unknown, and leave everything and everyone she loves and knows behind even more daring and captivating.
I really REALLY hope that this anime gets a second season. Because this anime is the very reason i watch anime in the first place. I can wholeheartedly recommend this anime to anyone. Trust me, you will not regret it.
This is THE anime that we've all been waiting and yearning for. Many of us hardcore Mushoku Tensei fans have been waiting years upon years for an anime adaptation to finally hit, and HIT it has. I was a little skeptical with a brand new studio undertaking this, but all the previews had looked great so I was cautiously optimistic. The source material is my absolute favorite isekai series (which says a lot) and the light/web novel will always hold a special place in my fandom. So how were the first two episodes so far (first has aired officially and the first two were previewed beforehand)?
AMAZING. I really don't know if it's just because the source material is that good, but this has been a SPOT ON adaptation so far. Right when I heard "Gintoki" as the NEET narrator, I knew shit was gonna be good. The sense of humor and pervertedness of Rudy is really well incorporated throughout the first two episodes, and makes this more than just a "another OP isekai". But even with that sense of humor, the anime has taken great depths to give solid (but not overwhelming) background info on the characters and highlighting particularly serious moments. This was especially evident in the second episode where the handling of Rudy's "fall into NEETness" and past trauma was interweaved perfectly into his current situation and setting.
I can't wait for the rest of the anime to air. It seems that a second cour has already been green-lighted so let's hope this can turn into one of those long-running anime series. If they can make it to the school arcs, I'll have lived a complete life...
[8.1/10] A very nice way to end the season. Let’s take thing story by store.
I loved the Diane-Mr. Peanutbutter story, because (a.) it felt so real and (b.) it really captured the best and the worst of them as a couple. Everything from little arguments in traffic, to nice gestures that don’t quite connect, to big gestures that lead to misunderstandings and emotional realizations. It feels like BoJack had been setting up Diane and Mr. PB to fail as a couple from the beginning, but credit where it’s due, they’ve soft-pedaled their falling apart nicely, to where it feels like the accumulation of a lot of little things, rather than some big blow up. Very well done, and lots of truth to how things seem headed for a split.
I also enjoyed the resolution to Todd’s crazy storyline with the rabid dentist clowns. Turning it into a way to motivate people to run is the sort of zany business idea he would come up with, and turning the fish from the Better Business Bureau into an asexual love interest for him is a nice place to end his arc for the season.
Princess Carolyn has a nice capper to her arc too. Her opening, Draper-esque monologue about how stories were great, but it’s important not to mistake storytelling for real life hits home. And I love the fact that after all her cajoling and manipulating, BoJack is good enough to do the Philbert show just because she tells him that she really needs him for it. It’s a subtle but effective sign of growth for him.
Last, but certainly not least, I love the resolution of the BoJack/Hollyhock saga. The lengths that he was willing to go to in order to help Hollyhock, with no desire for credit or expectation of reward, is such a sincere sign of change and an effort to do right by someone else. They did a great deal in S4 to show BoJack’s change through actions and showing, not just words and telling, and I really appreciate it.
At the same time, it’s great to use the Schindler’s List “done all I could” as a throughline. Seeing how far BoJack is willing to go, and using the same animation style for his “Piece of Shit” internal dialogue to illustrate it is a wonderful way to convey his learning to do and be something more selfless and empathetic than it was before.
His bonding with Hollyhock about the crappiness of honeydew, and the fact that his gesture breaks through is a really sweet moment. And the “but I’ve never had a brother” line, followed by BoJack’s little smile and the music playing over the end is just a perfect, heartwarming bit.
Overall, a nice capper to a stupendous season, full of creative risks, emotional moments, and inventive storytelling. For whatever reason, this show never fully worms it’s way into my heart when it’s not on the air (so to speak) but I always find myself appreciating it and admiring it when I watch it. I might need to go back and revisit earlier episodes more often, because there’s a lot there.
That this movie, at the time of writing this, holds an 8.8 rating at IMDb is simply beyond my understanding. Needless to say I did not really like this movie. The story is not very good, the science is ludicrous and the visuals not all that impressive. Maybe the latter would be better in a big theater (I watched this on my home cinema system which has a relatively large screen by European standards) but I am not really sure about that either.
Be warned that the rest of this review might contain a spoiler or two.
The movie starts of with the usual “I told you so” wet dream of the green fanatics on a dying Earth so it is off to a depressing start right away. That is an overused concept today as far as I am concerned. Then they pour it on with a school official claiming that he Apollo missions and moon landings never happened. What the f…? If they wanted to depress the audience right from the start they succeeded, at least with this audience.
The story proceeds with our heroes finding these gravity waves in the sand and by a huge stretch of imagination decrypts them to mean coordinates which leads them to the secret NASA base. Once there Cooper is told that he is their best choice of pilot for a “save the human race” mission through a wormhole. Yeah, right! This guy was former NASA. His whereabouts could hardly been unknown to them. If he was their best choice why would they entrust a mission to save the human race to someone else until he stumbled onto their door? Typical Hollywood nonsense!
The movie is full of this kind of rubbish. Romilly wastes 23 years of his life doing pretty much nothing except deciding not to go into the sleep capsule. The supposedly highly trained and vetted professor that they do find turns out to be a psychopath as well as and idiot almost blowing up the ship when trying to proceed with a docking that all the systems tells him have not succeeded. Then they proceed to dock with the main ship and stop its spin as well as bring it out of orbit around a planet with the shuttles engines. That is one hell of a powerful shuttle not to mention the strength of the docking mechanism! This just goes on. When someone is not doing something illogical or stupid (or both) they sit around talking, philosophizing and dragging the movie forward at snails pace. 169 minutes is way too much for this movie.
The movie ends up in one big time travel mess (okay they do not travel in time, just sends messages through time but still…) during a bunch of psychedelic scenes while traveling through the back hole. Science? Not so much. And what about this totally ludicrous massively illogical and inefficient robot design?
The one good thing I can say about this movie is that the performance of most of the actors, especially Matthew McConaughey, are quite good. For the rest, not my cup of tea.
Quality episode. I have to admit, I've grown a little worn out by Barry. There's nothing wrong with the character, he's just gotten a little played out and they needed to find a different direction for him. I don't know if this was it exactly, and in truth he was mostly up to his old schtick, but he and Archer have a good, funny dynamic that was particularly enjoyable when the two of them were in the cab together. Barry is understandably resentful of Archer, and Archer is kind of oblivious, lightly vindictive in that trademark jocular Archer way, and the clashes between them are usually entertaining because of it.
But the highlight of the episode was Mallory being locked in the underground chamber and finding her way out. Jessica Walter has such a verve in her world weary wit, to where when she's talking about the various steps of escape, it's enjoyable how acerbic she can be (like when she sees the Archer graffiti and realizes in a delightfully cutting fashion that someone blaming this on Archer doesn't narrow down her list of possible assailants much). Plus, it's also nice to see her being a bit of a badass spy herself, whether it's finding her way out of a SAW-like cell, or manhandling a truck driver. (And the Ron Cadillac cameo was great!).
Overall, there was a lot of the fun group dynamic in the A-story with the group trying to find out who Barry's mom is. Krieger in particular got to shine a bit, both from helping Archer with his electrocution plan (I assume Archer knows about the whole Edison thing from his brief time as Bob Belcher watching "Electric Love"), comforting his transgender frog, and the reveal that he has masks and gloves for each member of the former ISIS team. There wasn't as much narrative momentum to go with the laughs--Barry's plan felt more like an excuse to get everyone together than something that really drove the story--but the laughs were good, so the episode largely still worked.
Skip Beat! is one of my absolute favorite shoujo anime and manga series out there that seamlessly integrates comedy, drama and romance into one unforgettable story. Skip Beat! and Glass Mask (Glass no Kamen) are two of the best anime/manga series imo that give us a compelling story and set of lovable characters that really have been able to tackle and effectively portray something that wouldn't normally interest most: the world of "acting". While Glass Mask takes a more serious and reserved approach to its story and characters, Skip Beat! loves to embrace the "craziness" of the industry and infuses humor at just the right times. Kyoko is a great female protagonist (flaws and all) that carries the show with her energy, passion and joy. The secondary characters are no slouches as well as you eventually end up loving almost everyone (even the antagonists).
The only downside of the anime was that things were left incomplete at the end of the first season with no second season in sight... However, if you delve right into the manga afterward, the magic continues especially as we learn a lot more about the secondary characters of Ren, Shou and many others. I highly recommend watching this show even if you aren't normally interested in the "idol" or "acting" genre of anime as the humor, characters and relationships are so well-done that it serves as a great introduction into this genre of anime.
If Halle Berry is in he cast, I really don't care who is there with her. Just seeing her for 94 minutes is enough.
Now, this film made it's budget back on opening weekend. The next weekend almost doubled that, and ever weekend after that it was more that double, sometimes triple. This is a good omen. When a film gets more money every week, the word of mouth is driving business, and we can expect a good thriller.
Seeing the action in a 911 call center was exciting and informative. It is no surprise that a mistake can be made in the heat of the moment. The hard part is that a simple mistake can have disastrous consequences.
Berry was outstanding as the 911 operator, and Abigail Breslin was magnificent at the abductee. She has come a long way from Little Miss Sunshine.
The film had you on the edge of your seat when it got going. It was innovative and the tension never let up. A bathroom break was impossible as you wouldn't dare miss a minute.
I am sure that there will be debate over the ending. As a fan of revenge films, I applauded it, but others may have reservations.
I am editing this review after finishing season 1. It went from being something I really enjoyed to one of my all-time favorites and something I consider a genuine masterpiece. This is a story about looking back by looking forward, about understanding the importance of living in the moment, about the importance of the little moments. Each arc, whether it goes by within a single episode or lasts multiple episodes, is suffused with emotion and impact, with an intentionality that is almost surprising considering how effortless and cozy the show feels. The animation is stunning, especially the visualizations of the magic, and Evan Call's soundtrack is top tier. It has been a privilege to watch Frieren's journey and reflection on her past, obvserving both unfold simultaneously as we learn the way she learns about the importance of small details she originally ignored. Honestly, everyone should watch this beautiful and poignant anime.
Original Review: This is ongoing, but I am really enjoying it. I appreciate how it takes a fantasy setting and the concept of an elf who outlives all her companions to explore how and why relationships between people matter. Using her unique perspective, the story is able to help accentuate humanity from the outside looking in. The side characters also get focus, so we get to see their character growth juxtaposed against the initial companions and Frieren. Sometimes the episodes feel inconsequential or too subdued, but they all have such a gentle and cozy feeling to them that I do not mind.
7.7/10. Look, John Oliver isn't telling us anything we don't already know here. If anything, this feels closer his Daily Show roots -- a recapitulation of the major news of the day, expression shock and anger and resignation more than adding much additional insight. And yet, it's cathartic coming from Oliver, someone you can tell is legitimately upset by Trump's election as he recaps the path that led to it and discusses the terrible things that might very follow in his wake. This is Oliver being a conduit for the frustrations of half the country (and, I have to imagine, most of the Last Week Tonight audience) rather than an informer, and there's merit in that, especially at a time when the wound is still fresh. Oliver's picking up the party lines, blaming the media for normalizing Trump, pointing to the sequestered lives and fake news that foster the echo chambers which allow candidates like Trump to emerge. But for the most part there's less information than consternation here.
That culminates in the "Fuck 2016" video, a tribute to the ways in which this year has felt particularly harrowing, particularly bizarre, and particularly difficult for so many people. The trademark celebrity appearances are a nice touch (Nick Offerman and Megan Mullaly are always a treat, and Weird Al's sidestep of the F-word was a highlight). And that too is a bit of a catharsis, a way to say we hope that things will be better going forward but good riddance to what's behind us. That may feel like too little too late, but it's nice to have Oliver putting a final stamp on this year-long shitshow of an election season, exploding numbers or no.
Myriad Colors of Phantom World is the most recent in-house Light Novel adaptation from KyoAni. Unlike the ones before they didn't even award it their own grand prize (after which they publish submitted works). For whatever is written in the original work not much seemed to have made it on screen besides the core concept of the phantoms (I have however little proof for this except the back blurbs google translations). The episodes are all episodic and varying greatly in quality, most of them are however bland setups for fan service and action scenes. Don't get me wrong, they can be creative... it's just that the whole cast and the battles they're put in are not engaging at all.
The characters have the depth of whatever waifu generator that is cool right now. Needles to say they don't need much of a personality. This also fits in with whatever (little) logic this world carries; each and everyone of them feels redundant as it's mostly a gamble as to whose power is able to defeat what phantom.
I have the feeling this wasn't anyone's passion project and the intended audience is probably quite young given the lengthy exposition intros every episode (or maybe that is related to them opening up an English website).
I belive "Wake Up, Girls!" was intended to be the first full series made by Yutaka Yamamoto's Ordet Studio to put them on the map or at least make some revenue? They certainly were ambitious with forming their own idol group to base their series on and open with a movie premiere a day before the show start... maybe a little too much.
The story follows a newly formed idol group from Sendai which isn't as lively as Tokyo and thus isn't used to something like an idol group. The format is the usual underdog story that ends early enough for them not having their breakthrough, leaving space to whatever they want to follow up with.
Initially we see a certain degree of criticism of the idol industry like the rival idol group being presented as an army under a draconian leadership, a girl being kicked-out of the group for a romantic relationship or the WUGs being pimped out to a concert in skimpy outfits (no shaved heads though). To really be the anti-idol show though it would have needed more of that because as the show progresses it doesn't concern itself with that anymore. (Let's just hope the AKB48 director does not book his own group for the Olympics in 2020 at this point.)
The biggest issue I had with the show is the Studio itself. They're only about 10 guys or so and they do not manage to keep the visual standards they set themselves in the movie. Every episode has plenty of animation outsourced and gradually increases the QUALITY. The dances look absolute shit at times to the point where you often don't recognize certain characters or only by hairstyle and color (ex. http://i.imgur.com/nhAy9jN.gif). The CG effects are also not pretty nor well integrated (ex. http://i.imgur.com/ctqlB8h.jpg). Certainly does not speak for your "animation" studio.
Overlooking all that, the characters were diverse enough and not just a "product" and the drama worked well enough. It's not something I'd recommend though unless you want a little insight on the idol industry and not the girls being super heros like in AKB0048 (http://trakt.tv/show/akb0048) or your typical worship/moe-blobb show like iDOLM@STER (http://trakt.tv/show/the-idolmster) and it's various spin-offs.
Too bad they skip the subs for all the songs:
触れたら崩壊 仮想の世界
Everything I touch crumbles down in this imaginary world
何度も創りなおして
How many times have I rebuilt it?
ずっと待ってた 身体甘くして
I've waited for so long that my body became skilled.
月の裏側から
From the other side of the moon
さみしいかみさま
A lonesome God
あたしのこといってんの
Is telling me...
さみしくなんかない
Don't be sad...
さみしいとか考えない
Don't think about sad things...
ねえ きみの生まれた世界は
Hey, there in the world you were born...
きみの過ごしてる味は
What's the flavor your time is spent?
甘い 辛い しょっぱい 苦い
Sweet? Spicy? Salty? Bitter?
それとも 酸っぱいの？
Or is it poisonous?
どれくらいの愛情を
Where is your love?
この世界に向けてんの？
Are you pointing to this world?
影 嘘くさいな
The reflection is unnatural...
仮面舞踏会みたい
Looks like a masquerade party...
ぐるぐるぐるぐる まわる
Going around round round
すぐすぐすぐすぐ空いちゃう
So quickly it is thinning out (Of people)
ぽっかり空いた穴から
Gently disappearing from the hole
甘い 淡い 痛い 溢れる
Sweet Faint Pain is brimming over...
触れたら崩壊 仮想の世界
Everything I touch crumbles down in this imaginary world
何度も創りなおして
How many times have I rebuilt it?
ずっと待ってた 身体甘くして
I've waited for so long that my body became skilled.
月の裏側から
From the other side of the moon
触れたら崩壊 妄想の果て
Everything I touch crumbles down as this is the end of the illusion
何度も創りなおして
How many times have I rebuilt it?
ほらみて触れて
Oh look! I'm touching...
何か感じて 本当のアタシを
It feels... Really I'm...
触れたら崩壊 妄想の果て
Everything I touch crumbles down as this is the end of the illusion
何度も創りなおして
How many times have I rebuilt it?
触れた途端に崩れて消える
Right when I touch it, it collapses and disappears.
あたしの中のアタシ
The me from within me.
I 愛 I 愛 I 愛 しりたい
I love I love I love... Want to know.
I 愛 I 愛 I 愛 - あいして
I love I love I love... - I love (as in she loves someone)
I 愛 I 愛 I 愛 アイがなくちゃ
I love I love I love... I lost my love.
この世界は破滅よ
This world is doomed.
--
ゆめみてたのあたし
The me from a dream
天と地の丁度真ん中
Right in between heaven and earth
浮遊する揺るがないあたし
I'm there floating quietly
誰もが羨むんだ
Envying everyone
唯一 絶対的な存在
I'm the only one that exists...
こんにちは
Good afternoon!
こんばんは
Good night!
おはよう
Good morning!
はじめまして ありふれていて
"Hey how is it going?" are a common thing
当たり前でないふれあいを 知りたいの 求めているから
I want you to greet me different than the others
対等の 価値ある何かを ありったけ あたしにだけ
That you give me everything that you have, only to me
運命 奇跡 導きがあって あたしに会えたあなたは幸せ
Fate Miracle Divine guidance... Being able to meet me brought you happiness.
足りないものしかない
There is nothing that suffices
足りないものしかみえない
I can't see nothing that suffices
あたし以外のすべて
With the exception of me
きらめいてみえるのなんで？
Why does everything glow?
楽しいな 楽しいよね
Is it fun? It's fun!
嬉しいな 嬉しいよね
Are you happy? I'm happy!
あなたもそうならみんな同じ 話しましょう
You are like that, just like everyone. Let's talk.
何から話そう
What should be talk about?
ワクワクするね ドキドキするね
You're nervous huh? You're excited huh?
今が一番 幸せ
Right now I'm the happiest...
みんな と出会えて良かった
I'm glad we all met.
あたし ひとりじゃないんだ
I'm not alone.
満たされた願望
The wish I could fulfill...
これが求めてたきもち
This is how it feels to have wished
あたしもみんなと同じ きらめいてみえるはず
I'm just like everyone too... I should see the glow too now...
叶ったはずの夢だ
My wish came true in a dream.
これが求めてた居場所？
Is this where wishes are?
まだあたし以外がすべて
I still see the glow
きらめいてみえるの
in everything else (everything that's not her)
叶ったはずの夢だ
My wish came true, in a dream.
足りないものしかない
There is nothing that suffices
足りないものしかみえない
I can't see nothing that suffices
あたし以外のすべて
Everything that is not me
きらめいてみえる理由
Glows for a reason.
すき、スキ、好き、大好き。
Like, kiss, like, love.
ないものねだりなあたし
I beg for what I don't have
いつから壊れていたんだろ
For the things that have been broken for who knows how long.
ゆめみてたのあたし
The me seen in a dream
ゆめでもみれて嬉しかった
But being able to see it in a dream made me glad.
