[7.7/10] So much good stuff in this one. At base it has a surprisingly strong story, rooted in Leela’s emotions. She’s lonely because of her eye. She ends up trying to connect with someone who, despite his piggish exterior, seems to feel the same way. And in the end, she realizes that he was just as superficial and dunderheaded as she thought, only to find a different kind of comfort in the pet she saves from him. It’s a great throughline to build a story around.
Plus, holy hell, what a fun Star Trek parody. When I originally watched Futurama, I hadn’t seen The Original Series, and this episode is twice as much of a blast when you’re more versed in what they’re spoofing. Brannigan isn’t just Kirk-as-Shatner taken to the extreme, but Kif is Spock with his “long-suffering second-in-command” bona fides exaggerated, the Prime Directive is rightfully satirized, and trappings like Captain’s Logs and velour outfits brings the yuks. This one is a real treat for Trekkies, and it speaks to how strong the material is that you don’t have to be a Star Trek fan to appreciate the ridiculousness of Brannigan and company -- it just enhances it.
There’s also some just plain entertaining sci-fi lunacy here. The various animals on Vergon 6 let the writers flex their goofy zoology muscles. The dark matter fuel solution is surprisingly clockwork and comes at the right time. Even the “retro” bar where everyone wears hovering rings is a laugh-fest. The show clicks with great visual gags and fantastic quotability here.
Overall, this is a hilarious coming out party for Zapp Brannigan in particular, but it’s also Nibbler’s debut and, more importantly, a great establishing episode for Leela that give us her plight but also her determination and kindness. Another early winner.
Movie is nostalgic since it tries to refresh the backstory of the show that got cancelled.Unfortunately, there is a lot of filler in the movie to try and extend it's time, I think it would have been better to make a new season instead of a movie, but I guess this can work as a pilot run in order to decide if they want to restart the show.
:musical_note:PEACE IS NICE! PEACE IS NICE! PEACE IS BETTER THAN CHICKEN RICE!:musical_note:
Can’t help but complain about that according to the story line, the kids picked up a French accent after living there for a while, but still can’t pronounce Japanese right :rolling_eyes:
But I love how Viv is so focussed on not seeing things in black and white, only because you are told they are monsters, are they really? Love her for that. Still excited to see what the connection between her and mystery-lady are. Other than her witnessing her breaking out. Or maybe it was more than just witnessing?
Each episode just gets better and better. That ending though..!
Stop being afraid of ghosts, Geoff. Just ... why make fun of your sister and then not tell her something has been going on with you as well? Lowwww.
I love how Fred and Dee are all like “how could you breach our trust like this kids!!?”
And the next moment they’re in a situation where it’s revealed to their kids that what they’ve been doing for 18 years... and ... yeah that was definitely awkward haha.
[4.4/10] Thank goodness for Kyle MacLachlan as Agent Cooper. That’s about all I can say for the second episode of Twin Peaks. There is such a joie de vivre, a wide-eyed, confident heap of quirk to the character and the performance, that his presence instantly elevates every scene he’s in. From the Batman-like introduction in this episode, to his meticulous evaluation of coffee, pie, and various other breakfast foods, to his ability to sniff out that the Sherriff is seeing Ms. Packard, there’s the sense that Cooper is certainly eccentric, but also scrupulous and good at what he does because of it. It doesn’t hurt that MacLachlan can make Lynch and Frost’s dialogue sound believable in a way that no one else in the cast can.
The only other character in the episode who offers anything of note is Audrey. There’s parts of that I find unpleasant, because her role seems to be to titillate as much as she’s meant to be a legitimate character. But the other side of the coin is that there is an intrigue and an unassuming pathos that cuts through the way she’s uncomfortably cast as a teenager oozing sexuality.
That comes through in her apple cart-upsetting ways. Like everything in Twin Peaks, it’s absurdly over the top, but the scene in which she pulls her pencils out of the cup she just bored into, just to see what happens when the coffee spills everywhere, represents the way in which she is something of a wildcard, willing to stir the pot for the sake of stirring the pot.
But as much as it seems like adolescent nihilism, or causing trouble for trouble’s sake, there’s also the sense that it’s a cry for attention. It’s trite to have the wealthy parents with kids who make problems because they feel neglected, but it’s at least an interesting tack to take in the scene where her dad confronts her for scaring off the Swedish investors with the news of Laura’s death. It’s all a little silly, but unlike most of the characters in Twin Peaks (Dale Cooper excepted) she at least has a presence about her that makes her stand out in a show full of thinly-drawn, stereotypical characters. (It may help that she typically doesn’t have to spit out too much of the series’s abysmal dialogue.)
And no one in the show is more of a flat, stereotypical character than Leo, the abusive husband of Shelley. But before we get into that, let’s tease out the ridiculous, lumpy, love-dodecahedron that the show has going with its teen cast members at the moment. It starts with Leo, who’s married to Shelley, who’s seeing Bobby on the side, who was also dating Laura, who was having a dalliance with James (and possibly two other guys), who is not romantically involved with Donna, who is officially dating Mike. If that weren’t enough, there is Naomi (the eye patch-wearing nut obsessed with drapes), who’s married to Ed, who’s secretly seeing Norma, who’s married to a man in jail. And just to make sure there’s enough tangled romantic webs to really make things convoluted, the Sherriff is seeing Mrs. Packard, who is flirting with Pete, who is married to Catherine, who is schtuping Audrey’s dad. Phwew. Suffice it to say, this is a show where you need a diagram to keep up with all the romantic connections, and it’s utterly, utterly ridiculous.
Anyway, we get Leo’s homecoming with Shelley, where he is viciously jealous (over unfamiliar branded cigarettes in his ashtray) and willing to beat her with soap in a sock over a missing, blood-stained shirt. I’m willing to cut some slack to a show made in 1990, but I can’t help but wince at something as serious as spousal abuse being depicted in such a cartoonish, Halmark Channel-esque fashion.
Rest-assured, there’s plenty more crap where that came from, as we dig deep into a budding relationship between expressionless James and Donna. There’s the grain of something solid there, with the idea that grief provokes strong emotional states in people that sometimes forges unexpected connections, but there’s next to no chemistry between the pair.
It doesn’t help that James has all the ability to emote of a particularly dull Rock, or that Donna is saddled with the cringiest of bad dialogue. Her little monologue about this all seeming like a wonderful dream, but also a nightmare, is a noble attempt to capture the confused feelings that emerge around grief and comfort, but it’s written with all the nuance and eloquence of an episode of G.I. Joe.
That level of depth and subtlety carries on in the scene that Donna shares with Laura’s mom. As if the over-the-top acting the mom had already shown weren’t enough, we get some poorly-done special effects to superimpose Laura’s face on Donna’s to signify that the mom is delirious or out of it in her grief and grasping in vain for her daughter. The frantic screaming when she sees a random dude peeking from behind the couch is too much too, and it’s hard not to laugh when the show at least seems to be going for sincere, grief-stricken emotion.
The thrust of the episode seems to be a dichotomy of Laura as someone who was an upstanding young student on the one hand – dating the captain of the football team, volunteering at meals on wheels, and tutoring Audrey’s mentally-challenged older brother, and a doomed ingénue on the other, two-timing her boyfriend, doing cocaine, and getting lost in dark forests with mysterious people. But it’s a rote sense of duality, the usual Madonna/whore complex without any wrinkles in the early going beyond mystery thrown on top of mystery in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, it’ll all be going somewhere.
That’s the best I can hope for this rewatch of Twin Peaks, that eventually all this over-exaggerated camp and baroque plotting turns into something decent beyond its status as an intermittent showcase for Kyle MacLachlan. We’ll just have to wait and see.
I love that this story of the anthology is left unfinished, will Jacob be stuck forever?
Shows that maybe Inuyasha isn't a "bad guy" after all. Yes he wants the Sacred Jewel, but he's realizing that Kagome isn't Kikyo, even though there are many similarities.
Good episode. Introduces the sacred jewel, and some of the main characters you will see throughout the series.
I stumbled across this little gem, probably because Netflix has bought the international streaming rights and were promoting it's release (29 June 2018), but I was able to watch the first season as broadcast on UK's Channel 4. What fascinated me was the way the film makers moved between the real and virtual worlds. Both the leads (Tallulah Haddon, Simona Brown) have such striking facial features that even in the live action they seemed to have a flawless animated quality. Dark themes akin to Dark Mirror. Excellent acting. Good writing (although there were some flawed logic jumps in episodes 5 and 6). This is quite an unusual thriller and I was giving each episode solid 7s (good) out of 10. If this series is renewed (no news yet but the finale set us up for another season) I will definite be rewatching it, which bumps up my rating to an 8 (great) for the series so far. (AN ASIDE - Beyond the presence of a reoccurring song in the sound track, I can't quite figure what the title has to do with the story). CAUTION: a fair amount of nudity. [SciFi Mystery/Triller]
Nothing special to see here and it was boring, I don't even know if I'll watch the next one since the episodes are so long.
Scorpia deserved an apology from Catra and I'll die on that hill.
i couldn't possibly have asked for a more perfect ending to this perfect show
Almost a podcast on film, The Vast of Night is a gripping thriller with some of the most captivating scenes and style this year. Absolutely stellar work from Patterson, along with some awe inspiring long takes from both Sierra McCormick and Jake Horowitz (the switchboard scene and Mabels interview are some phenomenal cinema). Great work.
The movie that propably had the most impact on my life.
I was little over 10 at the time I saw it first. My dad brought it home on VHS. From the first second my eyes were glued to the screen. Immediately after it was over I rewound the tape and watched it again which up to today, close to 35 later, I haven´t done with any other movie. I recorded it on audio tape so I could listen to it, even wrote down the whole thing on paper (that was well before the internet, folks). We re-ennacted the scenes, I had memorized every line. I cannot recall how many times I`ve seen it since then.
I would give it 11 if possible.
There are shades of Close Encounters here, albeit on a microbudget. Its quite stylish in parts, evoking the Twilight Zone with its setup, although the talky nature of the film might be offputting to some.
"In this life now, you kill or you die... Or you die and you kill." - The Governor.
Of course it's good! Just for the nostalgia factor, it's all good to me. I missed GIR so much!
This show is a walk down memory lane for me. The video games of my youth. The love triangle is an unnecessary but at the same time both the girls are relatable. Hidaka is cool, and hearing her thoughts in words, her hopes and dreams really adds to her charm. Oono, despite being mute is relatable due to her melancholy and life pressures. Does this anime break any new ground? No, but it's still thoroughly charming.
It's the best of any of the Star Wars movies for me. Hayden Christiansen may not be a great actor but literally every other actor involved is great, and Ewan MacGregor is amazing (It's also worth noting that Harrison Ford is literally the only good actor in the originals but I won't get into that now). The story for this one makes more sense than any of the originals and adds a level of politics and historical/mythological background that is completely absent from the originals. The action and effects have obviously gotten better with time and because the people involved with Star Wars have so much experience. This movie is exactly what it was meant to be the Fall of Troy combined with Julius Caesar and a little bit of Oedipus thrown in there just for fun.
I don't know if I should root for Oono or Hidaka, I like both.
I liked how they recapped the relationship without being too heavy handed, but it didn't really go anywhere. It still had charm and heart as always. I am hoping for a little more progression this season.
quite an incredible series!
works very well for kids, has quite a few hidden gems for adults' amusement, animation is understated with a number of very surprising but subtle details that completely transforms it into a work of art.
An absolutely fantastic series with a wealth of imaginative and breath taking fantasy elements not only beautifully drawn, gorgeously animated but also wonderfully written as well. Mixes fantasy and mystery together brilliantly while also understanding the variety of tropes being used and how to subvert and/or execute them effectively.
Do you love Gravity Falls? Then you might love Hilda too. I am really impressed by this tv series. Voice actors were amazing and animation was absolutely lovely. I really enjoyed this tv series! Trolls, magic, deer fox and fantasy creatures. You will love that!
probably my favorite episode so far. I like eerie-creepy vibe from the marra
A creative episode of course, but sneaking the twist through multiple plot lines (and the self-irony of having a "B-side story") is what makes it truly amazing.
This show is just so freaking amazing
