Perfect Bonus Episode , this was a great adaptation of the dream country
Finally! Some of the vile people are getting some sort of retribution and it feels good!
Oh. My. Gods.
Just so much better than Shazam.
Has everything that a Shazam movie needs.
9/10
[7.9/10] Nope is a film of tremendous spectacle. Writer/director/producer Jordan Peele has not lost the slightest of steps in crafting evocative sequences with his team. He elicits tension as heroes and bystanders alike flee the giant specter lurking through the sky, ready to suck them up. He captures the balletic grace of a ribbony jellyfish creature floating through the clouds and gobbling up what it finds. He gets the heart pumping as his new age cowboy races through the western skyline, dust whipping in his wake, as the creature sharply pursues. To see it on the big screen is to be awed by it.
But at the same time, it is a film about that spectacle, the lengths filmmakers go to capture it, profit from it, take credit for it. It’s hard to know how to take that. There’s a recursive quality to the film, a movie rife with impossible images about the cost and peril, moral and otherwise, about committing those images to film. At the very least, it speaks to one of Peele’s recurring narrative motifs, those overlooked or underappreciated, who nonetheless contribute to that which is beautiful and even transcendent, even as they’re appropriated or forgotten.
Here, he extends that franchise to the animals made to perform for Hollywood productions. From Gordy, the sitcom chimp who goes on a rampage, to the horses on the Haywood family ranch loaned out for television and film, to Jean Jacket, the living UFO who feeds on whatever flesh he finds in the great loping west, Nope is suffused with an inherent respect and fear for the wild animals made to perform for our amusement.
The subtext of the story suggests that these animals should not be treated as just another prop, but rather respected and treated like the fellow souls they are. They possess a power, one that requires us to meet them on their level to be able to forge a working relationship with them, lest we be subject to the parts of them that remain wild, the parts we cannot control, no matter how much we think we have them cowed.
The themes, as always, are potent. Nope lingers in the mind and the heart, in its reflections on the creatures made to perform, the urge to wrangle such heart-stopping images, and those who are disregarded and overlooked in both efforts. But the film’s characters are some of Peele’s most inaccessible. Their decisions are often strange, their reactions stranger. Their motivations vary, but often come down to the need for wealth or fame or both. They are some of the director’s most colorful figures, but in a way that can obscure the sense of an inner life beyond the ideas and motifs they signify. It makes the movie a hard one to warm to at times, with the players more sketched than defined.
And yet, in those quieter undefined spaces, Daniel Kaluuya shines once again. It’s hard to discern whether his character -- O.J. Haywood, the inheritor of his father’s Hollywood horse ranch -- is meant to be neurodivergent or simply the archetypal strong silent type. Regardless, he is a man of few words, and Kaluuya makes a meal out of the meaningful looks and body language that convey his bearing and demeanor despite that.
He is reserved, if not outright shy, full of determination, if only to carry on the barrier-breaking legacy his father built, and he is made of steely, steady, stuff. Those qualities make him someone who understands animals better than people, and combine to make him the perfect soul to respect, comprehend, and even commune with this being from the beyond.
Peele and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema also understand how to shoot him. Nope is filled with any number of eerie, low-light scenes where OJ, his more extraverted sister Em, and their handful of neighbors and allies investigated the strangeness hovering above their doorstep. Peele and his collaborators still know how to evoke a sense of dread in these moments, with obscured visions, suggestions of something ominous, and blank spaces for the viewers to fill in with god knows what.
But there’s also great attention to the detail in the lighting, bringing out Kaluuya’s complexion and definition even in darkness, highlighting his expressive eyes, that allows his performance to take center stage even amid the building horror and eerie tone. There’s an interiority to O.J. in particular, and sharp choices in lighting and composition help draw it out to the audience’s wavelength.
Peele and company also do well to set up rules for Jean Jacket that both speak to the movie’s themes while creating practical challenges for the main characters to overcome. The flying beast deadens anything electrical in its wake, something that stops vehicles in their tracks, permits the sound team to chill the audience with waning audio, and makes filming it that much more challenging. The alien creature can only consume organic matter, with rains of discarded metal and other leavings that make it sick creating both a practical danger and frightening imagery. And as with the horses the Haywood family trains, it is provoked through making eye-contact with it as it roams the skies above, turning the horror flick into a reverse “the floor is lava” game of staying shielded from view. These qualities are cinematic, while also creating pragmatic challenges that the main players must be clever and determined to overcome.
In that, the movie’s creative team crafts some of the stunning horror that already defines Peele’s budding filmography. The title drop comes when O.J. witnesses the magnitude and power of this cloud-hopping behemoth, “nopes out” of doing anything to get in its way, as the same imposing figure prompts the audience to do the same. It’s a film as steeped in feelings as it is in thoughts, and the sense of abject terror as something that cannot be controlled, or tamed, only accommodated, imposes its will on those brave or foolhardy enough to try to use it for notoriety, riches, or entertainment.
Nope uses it for those ends too. It’s hard to tell whether the filmmakers want us to feel complicit in this, to speak out against animal cruelty in Holywood, to recognize the below-the-line workers who make the impossible into the real, or simply to experience the same terror and triumph its players do. But in this alternating languid and exhilarating movie, the spectacle, and the awe, overwhelm, as Peele conveys his signature incredible images, through his characters striving to do the same.
Funnest episode of the season. I grew up with the 90s sitcom so this put a big smile on my face.
Nice try show! But I'm not buying what you're selling. Murphy's come such a long way. He's moved way past being a selfish, self serving asshole. He cares too much about his friends to betray them like that. Plus, the writers of this show are too good to give him such a lazy regression. Murphy is too smart for you Josephine! He's just buying time.
Every second of this episode was magnificent. I was worried they were gonna drag out the whole not Clarke thing. But I should've known better. This show doesn't let you catch your breath before throwing you into the next thing. And I loved it so much that it was Bellamy who figured it out. They're each other's person, how could he not? #bellarkeforever
Also Jordan being the most sensible made my heart happy. He's the new moral compass. He definitely takes after his dad! It's not okay that the primes are brainwashing people into thinking it's cool to kill someone to hijack their body. Besides, this boy, who grew up really isolated, was the first one to realize something smelled fishy. And everyone else, who should know better than to take things at face value, were super dismissive about his concerns. I love Jordan.
And how amazing was that Octavia/Diyoza heart to heart? Diyoza certainly knows a thing or two about being a violently ruthless leader. And it seems she has struggled with the guilt and consequences of her actions (much as Octavia is doing right now) and come out the other side. It's also pretty clear she sees herslef in Octavia. Maybe she'll turn into a mentor of sorts (kinda like Indra was in previous seasons), and teach her how to accept and move on, so Octavia doesn't self-destruct and can learn to live with herself and the terrible things she's done, just like all the other characters of the show. Plus there was that weird event with the green light and now her hand is all messed up!
I can't wait for next week!
I love the fact that they're making this like it's a comic-book that came to life. From the get go you're confronted with that hightened reality (esp. that Spartacus-like buckets of blood) and over the top action, and the generally comical interactions. Because toning it down or grounding it in reality would do it more harm than good.
I think most people would know from just this episode how much they're gonna love/like/hate the show, it encompasses everything that is American Gods : Dreamy, comical, weird, dark, and super weird. You'll go "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?" more times than you can count in this story.
I just can't fucking wait for people's reaction on the Salim and the Jinn story in ep. 3
Onward is a solid and heartwarming adventure about brotherhood and the importance of believing in yourself
Even though over the years we have come to expect nothing but perfection out of Pixar, (Which is kinda harsh from my perspective even though it unfortunately makes sense) I believe it is still worth noting that movies like this one give the impression that the beloved animation studio wants to keep enchanting us with stories that are relatable, creative and tug hard at your heart strings.
The movie pretty much does all that is listed and then some. The world is unique combining our modern day world with a dungeons and dragons like twist, The chemistry between the brothers is beyond enjoyable and the story does it's very best to give audiences something adventurous but also something though provoking as well
Although I personally wouldn't put it up there with other Pixar Originals like Inside Out, Wall.E, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo and ect.... I still believe that Onward is still one of the better movies Pixar has put out in a while and definitely stands on it's own merits as a great family adventure that has something for everyone
All I can say now is, Pixar, I'm super excited to see what you come up with next.
what the hell did i just watched?
really don´t know, but i liked it.
[9.2/10] I've said before that I am particularly receptive to episodes of these mythos-heavy shows that get a little spiritual and philosophical about their worlds. I don't know why it appeals to me exactly, but maybe it's because it's the show doing what reviewers often do -- try to extract the deeper meaning and symbolism of the proceedings. So having Aang trained by Toph and Katara on the one hand, and Zuko trained by Iroh on the other, with lots of parallels and maxims and spiritual interludes really scratches an itch for me.
I particularly like the way that the episode compares and contrasts Aang and Zuko. Both of them are trying to learn a new skill to complete their challenges, both of them struggle with it because it calls upon them to do something unfamiliar and outside their natural skillset and mindset, and both of them connect these new skills with personal connections.
But what distinguishes them rather than unites them is the way their specific difficulties are different, even if they take the same form. Aang has proven to be preternaturally adept at each new form of bending (as you’d expect The Avatar to be) so the fact that earth-bending, which Katara explains must be air-bending’s opposite, is so unintuitive and hard for him is unusual. Zuko, on the other hand, has always struggled to learn how to use his powers, as we’ve learned from his flashbacks, so his inability to perform lightning-bending is just one more frustration on top of his usual struggles.
The reasons for their difficulties are also distinct. Aang is used to the malleable, adaptive nature of air, so the ethos of earth-bending, which requires standing your ground, facing your challenge head on, and simply out-willing it rather than finding a creative solution is unnatural and unintuitive for him. He starts to wonder if he has the mettle in him for earth-bending, if he will ever be able to call upon that instinct. Zuko, however, has a near-opposite problem, where he cannot find balance or peace or humility sufficient to learn how to bend lightning. Rather than being unable to stand his ground, Zuko feels the ground constantly shifting underneath him, and so, oddly enough, lacks the stability to control something as mercurial as lightning.
But their solutions are different. What allows Aang to break through his struggles is what always pulls him through in difficult times – his connections to his friends. The fact that Sokka’s life is at stake in the face of a charging saber-toothed moose lion (???) is enough to make Aang stand his ground. A bare rock hurtling toward him just prompts the usual ways of sidestepping for Aang (which is reductive of his past, but works for the story the episode’s telling), but one of his best friends being at risk changes the stakes and gives him the courage to stand his ground.
Zuko’s only connection is to his uncle, who offers one of those creative solutions that Aang is trying to avoid. There’s such intrigue in the notion that Iroh is interdisciplinary in his bending. Again, there’s a thematic contrast, where Aang is trying to learn to hold firm so that he can earth-bend, where Zuko is trying to learn to be balanced and use defense as offense, by learning Iroh’s lightning-channeling technique. But unlike Toph (who probably had control of the situation if things had started to get bad, though who knows) Iroh is unwilling to put his pupil at risk.
And yet, Zuko seeks it out on his own. Zuko standing on that mountain, offering angry pleas at the heavens for lightning to test him, is a heightened emotional moment, bundling up Zuko’s passion, his regrets, his insecurities, his anger, and his pain in one grand gesture. Zuko doesn’t get that lightning, merely prostrating himself against a sky that is as uncaring as his father, but something tells me he’ll have his chance before the season is over.
But even apart from the larger Aang-Zuko parallels, the episode is supremely enjoyable and compelling. For one thing, the discussions from Iroh, Toph, and Katara about the different natures of the four elements and their practitioners is fascinating. Iroh’s descriptions of the four disciplines fall a little too much into the often reductive Hogwarts House phenomenon, but still does a good job at tying the qualities of the elements themselves with the qualities of those who wield them. And the fact that he promotes the idea that understanding all four and taking things from each is important helps sand down the edges of some of the categorization. From last season’s reveal that Iroh can see into the spirit world, there’s always been hints that he’s more attuned to these things than others, and it’s nice to see that explicated a bit.
There’s also a nice contrast drawn between Toph and Katara. Rather than the pair of them butting heads, it shows the two of them as essentially parents with conflicting styles who both want the best for the kid they’re “raising.” Katara’s encouraging style, focused on positive reinforcement and motivating Aang through compliments and gentle correction have gotten him far, and Iroh’s speech implies it’s the correct technique for learning water-bending. But Toph’s hardnosed, Rocky-montage routine seems to be equally appropriate for learning earth-bending, where her subtle nods and harsh tones eventually effect the right change in Aang to make him able to move rocks.
And I haven’t even gotten to the great comic relief from Sokka being stuck in the ground! (Shades of the Robot Chicken “Giraffe in Quicksand” sketch!) First of all, the saber-toothed moose cub is the most adorable creature A:TLA has offered thus far, and Sokka’s name for it only added to that. But just seeing Sokka, in a comic mirror of Zuko, plead with the heavens for salvation, promising no more meat-eating or sarcasm in exchange, was hilarious. The comic writing for Sokka has improved by leaps and bounds, to where he is a consistent highlight and great break from the more serious side of Avatar.
Overall, this is one of the show’s best episodes so far, even as the batting average for A:TLA has much improved in its second season. The thematic parallels and distinctions between Aang and Zuko provide a nice spine for the episode, and the philosophical discussions about the various elements make for an interesting look at the spiritual side of the Avatar world. “Bitter Work,” and the show as a whole, offer the story of two young people, trying their hardest to achieve something that doesn’t come naturally, and finding very different choices and different outcomes based on who they are, and who they have helping them along.
- "He was some sort of mixed Asian, Japanese, Korean, or Chinese, maybe Indonesian?"
- "Look, I am trying to target an entire continent here. That's four billion potential listeners. Ah, you're welcome."
- "Look, every great Episode 2 always makes you care deeply for the victim."
- "That's true. I've fallen in love with so many dead people."
- "And do you consent to being recorded? Just say anything to agree."
‐ "No, please."
‐ "Thanks, perfect."
Such a fun episode, old and new Sabrina shows collide with elder spices. And Salem Head Writer Hilarious. 10/10
Either you love this movie or you don't. I loved it, I think it's supposed to be cringe and everything. I loved the cameos and the story line. I got a kick out of the one liners and references to other movies and shows. Hopefully we'll see more
Yep, I teared up.
Then I teared up some more.
Thennnnnn when Kiki was reunited with her father? Cue the waterworks.
Possibly one of the best episodes so far from this show.
His Dark Materials keeps getting better and better. First episode of the show that actually made me cry. I forgot I was watching actors playing characters and just saw the characters this time. Good stuff. Excited for next week.
Btw if this gets cancelled I'm suing.
There are points here where I completely forgot I was watching puppets. Incredibly high artistry just as in the original film. Mission accomplished.
The show starts in a post-apocalyptic setting, with 100 teens being used as guinea pigs to see if the Earth is habitable, while the rest barely cling to life in the Arc, a collection of merged space stations.
You have to give this show more than the first two episodes before you make a final judgment. Episode three has an event that demonstrates that it's not a fluffy teen show. Although the 100 kids just party, fuck, and quarrel in their initial time on Earth, starting episode four they turn their attention to sensible survival things like food and defenses. If you still don't like the show by episode five, it's probably not for you.
If I offended you with one bad word in the previous paragraph, then this show is not for you. Also, it's not a show for young teens or older prudish viewers. In this show, a ~33 year old scores easily with a ~16 year old girl. One teen girl has been with three guys by the end of season two. There is a bit of lesbian teen girl action. Teens are murdered by teens. Making immoral decisions to survive is a constant theme.
The character development is quite noticeable. Some "evil" characters become good. Some "good" characters become evil. It's appropriate, given the difficult circumstances they face. Over time, cartoony one-dimensional characters morph into complex interesting people.
Many commenters point out the beautiful female cast members. The star, Eliza Taylor (Clarke), reminds me of Reese Witherspoon in appearance. She's gorgeous and yet eclipsed by the beauty of costar Marie Avgeropoulos (Octavia), who rightfully gets the lion's share of drooling from the teen boys in the show. Then there is Paige Turco, who plays Clarke's mother. She's 49 years of total hotness, and she's also a very experienced and skilled actress. Holy cow, 49. Lindsey Morgan (Raven) looks her age (24 years old), and I think she's supposed to be 18 on the show, so she takes me out of the immersion a bit. Of course, Clarke and Octavia are played by shockingly old actresses as well.
On top of that, there are at least three cast members who played major characters on Battlestar Galactica.
The science seems really weak, but maybe I'll change my mind as I learn more. I was skeptical of the acid fog, but then the show gave a logical explanation that satisfied me.
All in all, it's a good science fiction show and not the teenybopper show that it seems to be initially.
This episode is one of the best of the season, the writing and tension superb. There is not a single extraneous or wasted scene or moment, and the focus on the story unfolding remaining very sharp.
The salvage mission on the the Anubis by now feels familiar, but I'm glad it's the crew of the Rocinante doing the blowing up rather than running. What they uncover of course are more questions, and almost few answers.
The moment the crew of the Rocinante and Miller meet up in the Blue Falcon, in search of Lionel Polanski, is one of the high points of this season, and one that still thrills me although I think I've seen this episode three times at this writing.
Somehow, and there's a little voice that is telling me this, they will be together for a minute.
One has to feel some type of way for Miller. His heartbreak at finding his answers is heart wrenching. This is some major turning point for Miller. I'm not certain what is coming for him, but Julie Mao will be for him, what the Cant is for the crew of the Rocinante, and maybe for the whole solar system. Either way, this looks like kismet. Never mind the whole, "touch me again and there'll be another body on the floor," bit. It looks like kismet.
One of the things to appreciate with the season winding down, is how it has used detail and visual textures to build a convincing world and story. The little clues we've been getting are beginning to add up.
Listen, I am really digging Amos. He's the last of the Rocinante crew that I've gotten attached to, but I am really digging him.
Good wholesome fun movie. There’s a fantastic dog that makes it all worth it.
I had already been crying before I noticed my eyes were shedding tears...
Now, if I had known beforehand that I was gonna cry (for whatever reasons, happiness&sadness), I would have prepared tissues.
Really loved this season and the addition of the guy playing michael, who did a fantastic job selling all sides of his character. I enjoyed the flashbacks and web of interconnections to other seasons and some of the obscurer ones to discover really blew my mind.
Thanks to Covid. I was able to waste a day to confirm what I thought: season 4 is bad.
"THIS IS FOR MY MOM!!!" and "LET IT BURN" Those sentences shouted by Clarke made the entire episode worth it! I loved the premiere. I'm really looking forward to see where the whole anomaly plot goes. That was a really good start for the final journey!
Probably one of the best episodes of the whole show. more of this would have been great.
Liberty high has already had 4 deaths, a lawsuit from the girl who killed her self’s parents, a girl who ended up in the hospital from cutting herself, a heroin addict, rapists, an almost school shooting and murderers, hows it still open and hows it gonna get any worse this season.
this episode was so emotional. just an epic episode.the ending of this show with this season is gonna be Tears-Bomb
By God's Lyra is aging fast! The danger of actors in that age group. You're always racing against puberty hitting!
A good season opener and I can see the benefit of setting up Will's story last season so we can hit the ground running in this one.
Ruth Wilson shines as always. Still perfect casting in my opinion.
As one who saw the original Dark Crystal in the theaters as a kid, this is a breath of fresh air on all fronts. From visuals to story to masterful puppetry to score, it is a beautiful and gorgeous world and achievement for Jim Henson's legacy and Netflix. They don't make things like this anymore and it is a delight to see. You can see the cost spent up on the screen. I hope they keep making this for years to come. Brilliant. You cannot find anything wrong with this program.
Aw, man... Too bad that, at this moment, S02 will be the last we'll see of this show. It was so good, and it wraps up so perfectly by closing this arc while leaving the path wide open for the next ones.
I liked it better than S01. It's just as crazy but I guess that, being a bit familiar with most characters, we're not in the dark the whole time.
