Full of gorgeous cinematography and some tear-inducing acting by its cast, especially a surprising breakout performance by Alice Halsey, Lessons in Chemistry is a better-than-serviceable but too-trite-to-be-great miniseries that is, despite its faults, absolutely worth your valuable time.
Brie Larson is magnetic as Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant wishcast of a woman whose talent and ambition are stifled by all of the sexism and ignorance of 1950s America. As insidious as all of the offenses against her are, and as affecting as her performance navigating them is, at times the scenes feel like a checklist of problems that women trying to break through into male-dominated workplaces in a male-centric society face. Ironically, it's during her scenes with other women when the real malevolence of gender discrimination comes through and when she loses many of her battles.
But what starts out as the premise of the show is quickly overshadowed by the love story between Larson's Zott and Lewis Pullman's Calvin Evans. They have a wonderful, um, chemistry, and the twist that sends the show down a totally different pathway is gut-wrenching, to say the least.
The appearance of Madeline gives the show another boost, and Alice Halsey simply mesmerizes in the role. Her brilliance and precociousness suck up every scene that she's in to the point where the parts that she wasn't in felt unnecessary. Who cares what happens to Elizabeth's show? I want to see what Mad is up to!
And that's the irony of this show: The parts that are good are startingly good; they make the parts that feel too contrived or too convenient, or too formulaic stand out all the more. There's a great show buried within the series, but it's surrounded by to much fluff to ever break out and truly shine.
An update that fundamentally lacks the essential element that allowed the original to exist at all.
What's missing? (Spoiler: It's intelligence)
It's a dumb action show with philosophical pretentions, that sometimes manages compelling scenes, with extremely expensive visuals that show off truly excellent CGI (because it doesn't 'look like' CGI), and has some great cinematography and production design (but also some pretty weak/generic/nonsensical production design, mainly in the abysmally stupid Hardin/Terminus bits.)
What about the actual source material?
Asimov grew considerably as a writer throughout his career, addressing his weaknesses of having rather dry dialogue and matter-of-fact storytelling, and, more specifically, kind of flat characters, and weak female characters. Foundation itself saw a considerable upgrade in its depth and focus on women and girls as main characters, as it went on, but it is still dry by comparison to his later works such as Nemesis, which is still one of my favorite books (the main characters of Nemesis are a plain, probably autistic teenage girl and her mother. So, yes, there are a number of different ways a Foundation adaptation could have gone, stylistically. Although, there's really only one option nowadays with the current trend of dark, overly self-serious, and frankly suffocating mid-brow pretension in "serious" "science fiction", the formula could have definitely benefitted from a transfusion of dramatic lifeblood.
The problem is that they forgot (actually, never understood) the core ethics and dynamics of the story, and the story told therein ends up as a confused mess of incoherent melodrama that completely and utterly slanders and wastes its core concepts. They also frontload and spoil two of the biggest reveals of the book series within the first few episodes, for absolutely no narrative reason, and absolutely zero payoff. They also utterly assassinate every single aspect of arguably the most important character to the centuries-spanning plot as a whole. So do yourself a favor and read the books before getting more than five episodes or so in.
Yeah, Lee Pace is a dead sexy beast as a charasmatically domineering and ever-young Cleon. Lou Lloubell is also a great actress and Gaal and Hari compelling characters until they make her and Hari into idiotic telenovela characters because modern Hollywood (non)writers don't understand how to write stories about the conflict of empirical and religious values without making it into incoherent emotional nonsense, likely due to working out their own personal issues without actually having read or understood, or likely even been exposed to decades-old knowledge and exegesis on the subject.
And it was predictable. Friedman showed he had a surface-level attention to and understating of SF concepts with his Sarah Connor series. I liked that at the time, but even as a twenty-something I could tell he didn't understand basic computer science, and didn't bother to consult with anyone to write it properly. One look at Goyer's filmography and it's clear that he doesn't do anything but dark, pulpy action fantasy. We got children without sea legs and hacks sailing this boat.
sigh It was ok. It started off very well, then a few episodes of dragging, but in the last two episodes, the plot became cheesy and forced. Every cop suspense show needs characters to make stupid mistakes they wouldn't make in real life, but by the end of this series, the writers were depending too much on stupid errors to keep the plot moving along. Yes, the ending was satisfying, but it didn't match the clever opening setup of this miniseries. It turns out that episodes 1-2 were by one writer, and 3-6 were by another; they should have stuck with the first writer. I'm sure that a script doctor could use the right language to describe what was wrong about this series; I don't have the ability; but there certainly was potential which fell apart.
I like spy thrillers, and good ones receive an 8 from me. My 6 here is due to over-reliance on character stupidity, terribly ragged pacing and writing, and inclusion of a romance which Eva Green did not present in a believable fashion.
One thing I loved about this show was the mercenary Delage, well-acted by Vincent Cassel. Thanks to his experience working for all the countries involved in this plot over his career, and his loyalty to each when they were paying him, we could never make assumptions about which side he would prefer in a given moment. The viewer expects betrayal by one or two peripheral characters in a series of this type, but when the central character is of uncertain fidelity, the suspense level increases tremendously (in a good way)!
This fascinating, excellent, intellectual, thoughtful piece of art has to be a "must see" and a mandatory viewing for all religious people. All these poor souls who think there's a merciful God who nontheless permits an Holocaust of 6.000.000 innocent souls in WWII's Germany, or a genocide of a million+ in Rwanda, or a massacre of 8.372 in Srebrenica or even an earthquake with 50.000 victims in Turkey. As an atheist, I can only repeat and say again and again my opposition to this Mormons' religion's doctrine, which happens to be all religions' doctrine:
- If they tell you to put your questions on the shelf, never put your questions on the shelf.
This is the only way to honor the memory of this poor mother Brenda Laferty and her poor 15 months old baby, victims of the fundamentalism of some half lunatics bigots fanatics who think God told them to spill blood, in order to save some other people by killing them.
As the Indian detective says "religion is allergic to the facts, because facts lead to truth".
Vastly overrated.
This is basically just a Nancy Drew, Veronica Mars style murder mystery, but placed in a supernatural school.
If you're a 30-40-something year old looking to revisit the Addams Family for some creepy capers and what-not. This isn't for you. This is written for alt-teens who grew up on Disney Channel movies and are now at the point in life where they are trying to rebel. The only thing here for the older crowd is Christina Ricci popping up in a new role.
The show is entirely predictable from the moment the "Hyde" (monster) is introduced. Ask yourself, why are certain character 1 and 2 so prominent in the story? What are they seriously offering?... Oh, it's because they're the bad guy and whoever are the bad guys at the start obviously won't end up being so. There are zero surprises here.
Despite the world it's set in, werewolves, sirens etc., it's entirely unimaginative and lacking in any real depth. Wednesday is just a 15/16 year old kid trying to be a detective and sticking her nose in where she has no business. Everyone keeps telling her to go away and stop and she is just annoying as anything. She also just isn't creepy and at all threatening like Christina Ricci was in the 90s. Jenna Ortega seems to act like she's watched one too many movies of Hollywood depicting an autistic kid and rolled it all into one reclusive bundle. It doesn't help that the script is bad and cheesey to be fair to her but again, she's just a kid devoid of giving a crap... with some one liners thrown in to make her sound like she's threatening or creepy here and there just to remind you she's Wednesday Addams and not Veronica Mars.
I fell asleep three times trying to watch through some of the middle episodes.
Oh... and the CGI on the Hyde monster. HORRIBLE. So cartoon. If you want to be reminded "this is definitely not realistic", that CGI covers it off nicely for you.
I rarely give anything a 10/10, but how can I not when it comes to Peter Jackson’s «Get Back»?
Casual viewers are not the target audience here. This is, however, absolutely perfect for anyone who wants to be a fly on the wall while The Beatles are writing songs, rehearsing, discussing, kidding around, rewriting songs, smoking, arranging songs, reading newspapers, tuning instruments, looking back and planning ahead. Oh yeah, and they also perform a spectacular 42-minute gig on a London rooftop at the end.
I’ve been waiting for something like this since 1993 (when the first rumours about a remastered «Let It Be» movie surfaced) and I went in watching «Get Back» with sky-high – really absurd – expectations. «Get Back» not only fulfilled my expectations, but surpassed them. Jackson and his team have done a spectacular job! The series even has a happy ending!
Any bad parts, you ask? Well, the intro in the first episode has a few factual errors, f.ex. that John and Paul first met in 1956 (it was 1957) and that Ringo joined The Beatles before Brian Epstein became their manager (he didn't). It doesn't affect my 10/10, though, because... well, because the rest was so fantastic.
This is The Beatles as we have never seen them before. A splendid time is guaranteed for… some.
That was a heavy ride! I would encourage everyone to watch this limited series. It's one of the best I've seen in recent years. On every level! Cinematography, performances and especially the sound design which I wasn't expecting due to the shows topic! Masterfully crafted, intense, heavy, necessary!
I'm german, so I'm looking into this story from the outside. (even though germans obviously had similar problems in this era and especially later)
But I think with this series, I have gotten the best impression of black peoples' lives in this era and how their story continues throughout today.
I have not read the book, but the concept of an underground railroad is genius. Connecting different states and by that also different types of racism. In the show it is made clear, that this railroad didn't exist in reality. Under ground it almost feels like a dream, which it unfortunately was. But I also felt that this show was giving the black community so much dignity by implementing this into the story. To me it felt a lot like they were building a foundation of this country down there, which was just powerful to see.
I always thought about America as a whole. The "United States" of America. Turns out: Life in the different states that are even right next to each other, was quite different (duh). The main thing that these states (that were shown) "united", was basically some form of racism.
That's obviously not all, but that's what this show focuses on. And that is heartbreaking and horrible to see.
Yes, this show is more of a slow burn, but the emotions I've gotten from this type of pacing were truly worth it. It is not an easy watch, but I strongly believe, that not everything should be an easy watch. And this shouldn't be one either.
Go watch it!
Oh and I wrote this right after finishing the show. So I'm still thinking about it. These are just my first impressions I could turn into words. :smile:
Everyone in Spain (and many Latin American countries) knows who Cristina "La Veneno" (Poison) was, to a greater or lesser extent. Many will remember her for her famous intervention in the long-gone "DEC" hosted by Jaime Cantizano on Antena 3 and the iconic phone prank she was played there, in which a woman posing as her neighbor insulted her to piss her off. I certainly recall the times in which she faced Nova, another trans woman who criticized Cristina for not standing up for Trans rights. Others may remember her for her appearances on "Esta Noche Cruzamos el Mississippi" (Tonight we cross the Mississippi), Pepe Navarro's well-known program thanks to which she came out of her anonymity.
From her first appearance on television until her death in 2016 under strange circumstances, many things have been said and published about the life of Cristina Ortiz, but the truth is that they have never been told with such sensitivity and respect for her figure. Cristina worked as a streetwalker, one of the few outlets that hundreds of trans women in Spain were forced to go to in order to make a living.
Inspired by the book of her memoirs: "¡Digo! Ni puta ni Santa: Memorias de la Veneno" (I Say! Neither a whore nor a saint. The memoirs of La Veneno), "Veneno" is much more than an autobiographical show about the life of Spain's most famous trans woman. The mini-series, of 8 one-hour episodes, paints a faithful portrait of the skeevy, homophobic, and ultra catholic Spain of the late Francoism that mistreated and humiliated anyone who did not meet or fit certain standards. The series is a work of great maturity that mixes comedy, tragedy, and kindness in just the right doses to create a cocktail that, as a whole, is balanced and satisfactory.
One of the highlights of "Veneno" is in the successful cast of actresses who give life to Cristina throughout her life (from younger to older; Jedet, Daniela Santiago and Isabel Torres), as well as Paca la Piraña (played by herself), a mythical friend of Cristina's, who provides the comic relief of the series. Special mention should be made of the young Guille Márquez and Marcos Sotkovski who bring to life the Cristina of childhood when she was still known as Joselito; and of course Lola Rodríguez and Mariona Terés, two actors who grow up and shine even more with the course of each episode.
This new series by "The Two Javis" (Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo) is certainly the most original and groundbreaking work they have done to date, both in terms of script and production. The fact that a series like "Veneno" has managed to see the light (and even reach the big screen) is a milestone in the Spanish audiovisual scene. Because although it is true that we see more and more gays or lesbians or bisexuals in series and films, we finally find a series that features transgendered people as the main event. Equally or more important is the openness with which the series shows and raises awareness about this reality that is so important and so mistreated: transgender issues.
"Veneno" is an unprecedented revolution in the Spanish audiovisual industry. It gives us sex, violence, and insecurities without any concealment, with all the rawness with which it is sometimes associated, without leaving room for imagination. Probably, this series has also achieved more than any public awareness campaign promoted by many NGOs.
But the important thing is that "Veneno" exists and is necessary. You should see it, regardless of whether you like the character of La Veneno or not. Cristina Ortiz is just one more example of how much trans people suffer throughout their lives, of how difficult it is for them, physically and emotionally, and of the challenges they face every day. And so I would like to end by congratulating Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo for making this series that brings to light a reality that, unfortunately, many still see as taboo.
