Verion

VIP

5

I'm exhausted. This tension, the politics, the intrigue, even to the last second. So much is happening in this episode. So much concealed under such elegant garments.

In one way I look forward to the finale next week, however I'm not sure how they are going to fit what I was anticipating to be in this episode into the last, unless it is a 3hr episode, but I think it won't be such.

The other way I'm looking forward to the finale, is I no longer will need to invest all my emotion and attention in this concentration of spectacle and the craft of each Actor performing to perfection their role, and appreciating each word, glance, and interaction with their counterparts in such a magnificent, stunning location.

I'll be ready for this finale but until then I'll be soaking in what I've watched today. What a pleasure it is to witness what the Arts can deliver if given a proper opportunity.

Thank you to the Creators, Actors, Crew, and Those That have painstakingly brought this masterpiece to us.

The conundrum has set in... I desperately want to see the last episode now, but I don't want it to be the last show. 10/10

What a Bloody outstanding show! This is the first time I've ever wanted to give a show a genuine 11/10!

The writing brings out all of the respect, honour and dignity, even in deception. I love this epic and especially this episode (although once I see next week's episode I'll no doubt rave over that too), there is no dumbing down for the audience, you need to be immersed.

When 'Mariko' translating as she does 'Blackthorne's' words to 'Toranaga' and the sublime transition turning to 'Blackthorne' with eyes the sharpness of a sword, to ask "Shall I translate this too, or is this directed to me". Outstanding.

Each and every actor, no matter who they represent in this epic 'goes all in', for their character, their craft in acting is flawless. If there was any legitimacy in the Academy or in any entertainment award for actors, crew and show, Shōgun would do a clean sweep without exception, even though we still have two episodes to go.

Shōgun is definitely the pinnacle of any show I've had the privilege of watching in my six decades of life. This is not a throw away comment as I am an enthusiast in quality entertainment for most my life.

I cannot wait to own this on UHD Bluray boxset when it's released. Outstandingly Brilliant. 11/10

[8.9/10] A title like The Holdovers has a double meaning. On a basic level, it’s simply the technical term for the three individuals--a teacher, a student, and a kitchen manager--all spending their holiday break on the grounds of the New England boarding school they call home during the year.

But in a broader sense, it refers to people who have been left behind, who remain in some uncertain limbo not just in where they lay their heads, but in their lives as a whole. The nominal goal at the center of the film is for this trio of disregarded remainders to make it to the New Year without wrecking each other or the school. But its broader aim is to give each of them a direction, a connection, and something that jostles each of them from their different flavors of sad stupor and toward a reinvigorated purpose.

The results are, in turn, uproarious, heartbreaking, and ultimately moving. The Holdovers has its antecedents: from the locked-in mischief and camaraderie of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to the young man struggling with trauma a la Catcher in the Rye, to countless broader flicks about grumbly instructors warming up to rambunctious students. But there’s a greater depth, a clearer sense of open-wounded humanity, a distinctiveness in how its main players are formed and bounced off one another, that makes the film feel unlike any other.

It wouldn’t achieve that success without its triumvirate of great character and even greater performance. Paul Hunham could easily have been little more than a walking trope -- a stuffy and curmudgeonly civics teacher who’s hard on his students but betrays a hidden heart of gold. Instead, writer David Hemingson makes him more complex than that. Hunham is grumpy and hidebound before softening to this charge, yes, but he’s also a depressed drunkard, pessimistic about the world’s prospects for the future, with his dreams whittled down by the same forces that grind the other Holdovers, in various ways. Even that could have been a prestige picture cliche, but Paul Giamatti’s performance gives Hunham such spirit, and so many layers behind each grand pronouncement and reluctant, heartfelt compromise. Together, Hemingson and Giamatii make a broad archetype of a character feel achingly human, which is no small achievement.

Likewise, Angus Tully, the bright but trouble-making student unexpectedly left behind by his mother and inclined to rebel against Hunham’s supervision, could also have been a stock cliche. The recalcitrant but troubled youth who fights back against, but ultimately confides in their mandated caretaker is no less traditional a tale. And yet, again, the script doesn’t leave Tully as a one-note stereotype, but instead, gives him a cleverness, a sense of compassion, and a deep well of pain that makes him more than that outline. At the same time, twenty-year-old Dominic Sessa conveys the anger, hurt, and unassuming innocence of Angus to perfection. He cuts the figure of a young Alan Alda with both his snark and his sadness, and delivers a challenging performance for a young actor without stumbling once.

But it’s Da'Vine Joy Randolph--who plays Mary Lamb, the school’s head cook--that steals the show. Unlike Mr. Hunham and Angus, Mary is not the type of character you see much of in either these scholastic coming-of-age stories or prestige pictures. She is a black woman who works among the downstairs set in contrast to the mostly white, upper crust pupils and professors who reside upstairs. She is a woman bathed in grief, having lost both her husband and her son before they turned twenty-five. And most importantly, she is a full-fledged part of the film’s central trifecta, whose needs and concerns get the same attention and focus as her counterparts who are more often spotlighted in these stories.

Her inner life is potent and conspicuous. The things she’s feeling deeply at all times but never saying come through loud and clear amid Randolph’s powerhouse performance. She delivers the film’s signature scene, a furious, crestfallen, devastating lament in a suburban kitchen about the child and partner both gone too soon, with their absences all the more noticeable and piercing in what should be a season of joy. Like all the characters in the film, Mary is more than her trauma, with moments of kindness, levity, and insight just as memorable, but in a movie full of heart-rending monologues and stellar performances, Randolph takes the prize.

Despite the sense of hurt and alienation at the core of the film, The Holdovers is an unexpectedly hilarious movie. Angus’ antics to entertain himself and/or tweak Mr. Hunham have the shaggy whimsy of teenage rebellion. Mr. Hunham dispenses vulgar insults that tickle the funny bone, like “too dumb to pour piss out of a boot” and “penis cancer in hidden form.” The actors provide bouts of great physical comedy, from Angus’ disobedient gym floor flop, to Hunham’s ridiculous football-flubbing flail. And Mary has a dry wit that singes and can get a big laugh with a reaction shot alone. For a movie as unafraid to explore blunted hearts and lingering traumas, it’s full of humor and vigor that makes it come off like a fulsome view of life’s ups and downs, rather than a shameless tear-jerker or sap dispensary.

Nonetheless, there is a thematic undercurrent beneath all that pain and exclusion -- privilege. The recurring motif of The Holdovers is the idea that there are people who manage to wriggle out of the harshest obligations in this world, from schoolwork to plagiarism to war, because of power and position and the dishonesty and dishonor it can cover for. Some people go to Ivy league schools and get safe cushy jobs whether they have the intelligence or character for it, and others die in labor-intensive fields where worker safety is secondary to output quotas. Grades are inflated, service workers are casually demeaned, racism is tolerated, so long as it all comes from a class of people who don’t realize how lucky they have it.

The zenith of this is the Vietnam War, which hangs in the background of this seventies-set film. For all Angus’ legitimate issues, Hunham calms him down when he gets into a snit with a local missing a hand, since the teacher intuits how and why the injury happened. And the grandest injustice in the film is Mary’s son, sent off to fight and die in ‘Nam, when he had the grades, but not the funds, to go to college, denied the student deferment from the draft that would come alongside a university education. This sense of unconscionable disparity between the haves and the have-nots--one group excused from even the most minor of consequences for their actions, and one group forced to suffer the worst of them despite doing everything right--pervades the movie.

But it is also what unites Mary, Angus, and Mr. Hunham. Though thrown together by circumstance, and very different people on the surface, they find solace and understanding in one another, and it’s the most heartening part of the film. That comes through in the elegant cinematography of Eigil Bryld. The visuals of The Holdovers are not flashy, but they are quietly brilliant. Each frame is perfectly composed to convey the character of the grounds, or the ridiculousness of a gag, or the burgeoning intimacy that steadily washes over the main trio.

All three of them are touched by loss and loneliness. Mary still mourns her husband and her son, and is all but spit on by entitled twits who insult her cooking in a job she took to provide for a child who’ll never have the same life or opportunity. Mr. Hunham is, on his account at least, a low-level teacher, scorned by his students and his peers, alone in the wake of a long-since-failed shot at love, isolated and barely able to muster half-a-dream after being kicked out of Harvard for a privileged roommate’s intellectual theft. And Angus is abandoned over the holidays by a mother off to honeymoon with his new stepdad, a reminder of the mentally disturbed father whom he’s forbidden to see, and cursed with a parent in a state of living death -- physically there but mentally gone -- something all the more devastating for a young soul in particular.

So they share drinking problems. They share depression medication. They share flailing grasps for human connection that are reached for then rejected in a state of guilt and self-loathing. And eventually, they share a particular sort of bond that emerges from commiseration and acts of kindness, from recognizing one another’s pain and helping them through it, from seeing how the system works for others and stealing a piece of it for one another.

You can see it in the progression of “what Barton men do.” Angus lies about the cause of his dislocated shoulder to protect Mr. Hunham’s job, a falsehood the teacher accepts with some lecturing about honesty. Only then, Mr. Hunham lies to an old classmate about his career, reasoning that truthful or not, giving his social betters the satisfaction of his comparatively sorry state is not something he owes them.

And in the film’s close, when Angus’ mom and stepdad arrive to excoriate their son and his erstwhile babysitter for daring to let a lonely boy visit his father on Xmas, Mr. Hunham has an out. Angus’ guardians all but invite Mr. Hunham to throw Angus to the wolves, to say that the young man tricked him or “slipped the leash”, which would be half-true. Instead, Mr. Hunham lies in order to take full responsibility; he dissembles to excuse the young man entirely, sacrificing his job and the content-if-stagnant life he’s enjoyed for decades to save Angus’ future.

That is the crux of the film. The key message comes earlier when Hunham reassures Angus that he will not become like his father. Despite his obsession with the classics, he decries the Greek poets’ belief that our path is set and resistance only ensures submission to fate. Your destiny is your own, he implores the young man, and it’s not too late, never too late, to change it.

So Mary will still carry the scars of loved ones taken from her too soon, but she can make space to laugh and reminisce with her sister, and save for her newborn nephew who will carry on the name, and hopefully the spirit of her dearly departed son. So despite the prospect of being kicked out of Barton and forced to attend military school, with the prospect of war and death that comes with it, Angus can remain at Barton and find his way to the sunnier shores all but assured to bright young men in well-regarded centers of learning and the resources to propel them further.

So Mr. Hunham can become the unlikely surrogate father figure Angus is in desperate need of, and change his mind about the prospects of the next generation, at least for one young lad who makes him hopeful, whose success is worth martyring his comfort and security for. And he too can be lodged from his complacency, spurred to go visit the sites of the ancient world he’s studied but never seen, and write that monograph he’s been putting off.

When we’re introduced to the three of them, they are not just hunkering together in those almost unreal, interstitial days that envelop the end of the calendar. They are all in some in-between state, not quite where they started, but not quite able to move forward. When we leave them, Mary if able to make some semblance of peace with her tragedies and rekindle connections to her family; Angus knows someone has faith in him and has the surefootedness and, yes, character, to see his schooling through to the end; and Mr. Hunham, the stymied student-turned-teacher who’s been “held over” longer than anyone, finally finds a reason to break free.

[9.2/10] There are parts of Barbie that aren’t for me. I am a guy. A “Ken” to use the film’s own lingo. I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman. I don't know what it’s like to face those challenges myself. So much of the film is about that experience, both the idealized version that Barbieland represents, and the sometimes harsh reality of it our unwitting doll protagonist crashes into in the real world. I can appreciate some of those things secondhand, and even be compelled by them, but they’re not going to resonate with me the same way they will for someone who’s been through it.

There are parts of Barbie that are very much for me as a guy. As someone whose high school Xanga page used to autoplay “Push” by Matchbox 20, some of the comedic tweaks of masculinity hit a little too close to home. I’ve waxed rhapsodic about The Godfather ad nauseam. I’ve played music “at” girls I liked. And more seriously, in my wayward youth, I treated romantic partners like a solution to my problems rather than ends unto themselves. The film’s playful jabs, and its more serious critiques, are on point, and will resonate even if you’re the target of them.

There are parts of Barbie that are for me as someone who simply appreciates when a film has a distinctive look and feel all its own. Director/co-writer/three-for-three visionary Greta Gerwig and her collaborators construct an incredible world for their title character. Translating a doll’s playspace for the big screen could easily go terribly awry. But their realization of Barbieland is stunning in how vibrant and creative it feels. Everything from the layout of Barbie’s neighborhood, to the movements of the characters, to the texture of the ground give this unique realm a tremendous sense of place. The details big and small are a brilliant example of how to blend the realism of modern film with the bizarre but endearing unreality of such a specific setting.

There are parts of Barbie that are for me as a lover of out there, postmodern camp. WIth that locale comes the wild cosmology of the film: a neat mishmash of a land of imagination crashing into the problems of modern life, of spritely cartoon characters finding unexpected cracks in their paradise, of goofy figures playing their roles to the hilt without a hint of irony, and of a wide-ranging satire that spoofs the gendered elements of society and the peculiar quirks of a toy box world at the same time. Bright colors, wild schemes, beachside battles, song-and-dance numbers, wide-eyed characters, undeniable weirdos, all wrapped in a candy-coated shell. If Barbie hadn't already dominated the box office, it would be destined to be a cult classic.

And as that box office take suggests, here are parts of Barbie that are for anyone. I’d argue they’re the most important parts. I may not know what it’s like to be a woman. But I know what it’s like to grow up. Beyond the gender critiques that swirl around the film, this is, first and foremost, a story about steadily realizing that the world is bigger, more challenging, and more complicated than the ones we perceived and imagined as children.

Through a nigh-magical bond with the young woman who played with her, our protagonist, Stereotypical Barbie, starts to think about death. She starts to feel existential dread. She deals with stress and fear and unease and even (gasp) cellulite. The most piercing aspect of Gerwig’s third feature is how it uses the doll’s awakening conceit to analogize both the humbling, terrifying broadening of perspective we get as we grow up, and the generational motion sickness we get from looking back at what enchanted us, what inspired us, when we were younger.

In that, Barbie is insightful. It is hilarious. It is delightful. It is inventive as all hell. And it is deeply profound.

What’s doubly impressive about all this is that the call is coming from inside the house. If Gerwig, for example, made a thinly-veiled “Malibu Stacy” movie, we’d praise it as subversive. Somehow, though, this is an official branded release that deconstructs and reconstructs the gender politics that Barbie reinforced and then evolved with, that satirizes the Mattel Corporation itself (headed here by one of Will Ferrell’s trademark manchildren characters), takes square aim at the patriarchy, and uses the existence of genitalia to symbolize self-actualization. To convince the powers that be to cosign such a transgressive take on a beloved icon is an achievement beyond the art itself.

How could the suits say no to talent like that though. With her Oscar-nominated pedigree, Gerwig brings the same reimagining virtuosity and millennial vanguard she showed off in Little Women. Margot Robbie simply is Barbie, embodying the blithely joyous icon, and then nailing the subtle and shattering changes that came as she slowly feels the weight of the world beyond her shores. Ryan Gosling nearly steals the show with his committedly weird, blithely blinkered, and yet somehow pathos-ridden take on Ken. Comedy vets like Kate McKinnon and Michael Cera bring wry laughs in perfect casting as “Weird Barbie” and just plain “Alan” respectively. And the diversity of the denizens in Barbie’s world is plus that aids in the sense that damn near everyone here is perfectly cast, no matter how big or small the role.

Despite its incredible successes, the film is not perfect. In places, it feels unfocused. Barbie strives to cover a lot of thematic ground in less than two hours. As a result, even though it remains stellar on a scene-to-scene basis, sometimes it comes off disjointed as a whole. While many of its criticisms are right on target, some feel like the male equivalent of “bitches be shoppin’”-style observations. That sense of caricature in some sequences fits the heightened tone of the film, but can seem comparatively shallow to the movie’s more incisive critiques and observations. Late in the film, those critiques and observations start arriving in what amounts to a few blunt spoken essays, rather than arising organically from the situation.

And yet, this is a film of great nuance. Despite the sense of Ken as a blithe, patriarchy promoting dope, the script has genuine sympathy for him, and even uses him to explore gendered marginalization in the context of Barbieland. It plays in the space of motherhood, examining the challenges and expectations that can drive parents and children apart but also the beauty and understanding that brings them back together. It manages to encompass nearly every part of the conversation around Barbie, while also internalizing them to one person’s journey of self-discovering in a way that feels surprisingly natural.

That comes from the sheer boldness and ambition of the story. A doll “malfunctioning” from her owner’s existential quandaries, barging into the real world and coming back shaken by it, with layers of meta commentary and Charlie Kaufman-esque recursive self-reflection, is a hell of a thing to try, let alone pull off with flying (mostly pink) colors the way Gerwig does.

What holds it all together is the way this story comes down to Barbie herself as a protagonist. After psychological tugs and troubles that are a metaphor for the growing, scary understanding we all develop over time, Barbie breaks down. She’s ready to give up in the face of it. She’s lifted up by someone who gives voice to the challenges and contradictions, but in the end, after this enlightenment, isn’t sure what she wants.

The conceit of making her creator a godlike figure, there to bless her and open doors for her, is one of the film’s canniest choices. In Rhea Perlman’s pitch perfect rendition of Barbie inventor Ruth Handler, Barbie has a mother, one who symbolizes the goal not just of feminism, but for all parents -- to try to make the lives of their children a little safer, a little kinder, a little better than theirs were.

So Ruth gives her child the gift of vision, a chance to see and feel the breadth of experiences that await her if she leaves the safety of Barbieland and a safe childhood view of the world, and trades it for the world of adulthood, with all of its terrors and pitfalls, but also a waterfall of joys, fellowship, and wonders. That closing sequence, set to Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?”, is the bravura crescendo of the film that surprised and moved me.

It is a cinematic showpiece to capture, well, life, and beyond that, the sublime, terrifying choice to embrace that complex array of experiences, good and bad, that await you. To accept that, to countenance the overwhelming scope of existence, knowing that it will overtake you and that it will end, is an act of profound courage, and a gobsmacking thing to successfully convey on the silver screen.

No matter who you are, you feel that plight. You feel that awe. You feel the spiritual catharsis of a doll who knowingly becomes a person, and scarier yet, a grown-up, with all that comes with both. You feel the hardship and hope of choosing to live in a messy and imperfect world and to be messy and imperfect. And that part of Barbie is for everyone.

A near-perfect season of television, and dare I say one that sets a new standard, not just for video game adaptations, but for adaptations in general.

The Last of Us is a breath of fresh air in this oversaturated genre. While many may take issue with the fact that the infected in this show are relegated to the back seats, I think it's a brilliant and welcome change. The Last of Us is not a 'zombie show', it's a show about love and loss; a show that aims to display a brutal, bleak, and heartbreaking world where these characters are forced to cling onto whatever they can get hold of to justify their continued fight to survive. The relationship between Joel and Ellie is brilliant, and their chemistry as a father/daughter type duo is second-to-none.

I've seen a lot of fans of the game complain that there's not enough action, and while it's certainly true that there's very little action in comparison to the game, I don't think that's a bad thing. This is not an action show, and video game fights do not translate well on screen. The game version of The Last of Us often sees the player (controlling Joel) mow down dozens of enemies at a time, and as a game, that works. It's necessary to have all those enemies, as action is a big part of the experience when playing a video game. But for a show, fewer action sequences make much more sense. The show feels much more grounded and realistic than the game ever did, and that's in part due to the action sequences being both far fewer, and also much more of a struggle for the characters involved. In this show, Joel is not a superhero, not like he is in the game. He can't take three gunshots and still take down five armed men, three runners, and a clicker. No, in this show, Joel is very much human; when he gets in a tussle with even one opponent, he struggles; and when he gets stabbed, he goes down and spends a long time recovering back to full health.

As far as the plot goes, the show hits every major beat that the video game did, and almost all of the major scenes are word-for-word identical to the video game counterpart. This was fantastic to see, as the game had already done a perfect job of hitting certain emotional scenes out of the park, and the show is no different. However, there are a bunch of times when the show does make some plot changes. One of the main changes is the entirety of episode three, 'Long, Long Time', which details the story of Bill and Frank's relationship. While this episode might be one of the most beautiful love stories ever told on television and was an easy 10/10 for me, it was also a huge departure from the game's plot. In the game, we never get to meet Frank; we only meet Bill. We meet Bill while playing as Joel, accompanied by Ellie. Bill is a bitter man who hates pretty much everything in the world, and his 'partner', Frank, is already gone. The show making the decision to never have Bill meet Joel and Ellie in the present timeline was a huge change, and while I was disappointed that we never got to hear the banter between Bill and Ellie in live-action, I actually think it was a very smart, and well-executed change; and one that gave us what will likely be considered by many to be the best episode of television this year.

There were other, much smaller changes throughout the show too. One example is that in the game, we never went to Jackson to find Tommy, in fact, we never get to see inside Jackson until the second game. Instead, Joel and Ellie meet up with Tommy and Maria at the hydroelectric dam. Another, even smaller change, would be how in episode eight when Ellie is hacking David to pieces with that knife, the game's equivalent scene actually has Joel find her during that, and he physically pulls her off of David to comfort her. Whether or not you like these changes is obviously going to be entirely subjective, but I will say that I found almost all of the changes to work well and make a lot of sense considering the change in medium.

Nothing will ever be an exact 1:1 adaptation of source material, that's just how things are. It doesn't matter if it's a book, a video game, or a comic book - there have to be some changes to make it work better for television. I don't agree with people who want as many changes as possible and who think that a 1:1 adaptation would be boring - I think that's silly. But I also don't agree with people who complain about every time there's a slight change to something and who then go on and complain about the show not being true to the source. This show is objectively one of the greatest adaptations ever put to screen, and I think we have the involvement of the game's original writer, Neil Druckman, to thank for that. The show hits all of the major story beats and character moments that the game does, while also expanding on various points in order to flesh things out a little more than they did in the game. If you genuinely think that this is a bad adaptation, then you must never have seen any other adaptations of other materials. You must never have read a book that was made into a movie, or any other game that was made into a show. Take 'The Witcher', for example, a show that received a lot of praise, especially for its first season. That show is literally one of the worst adaptations of source material that has ever been put to screen. The main plots literally changed and were abandoned in favour of the showrunner's own original content. Characters literally behave in ways that they never would in books or games. How about the recent Halo show? That was a bad adaptation. The Uncharted movie? Awful adaptation. But The Last of Us... this show is the furthest thing from being a 'bad' adaptation. The characters are true to themselves, the tone is a match, the plot is a match, the emotional impact is very, very close too.

I think the only thing that comes to mind when I think of things I didn't like about this season, was probably the stuff with Melanie Lynskey's character of Kathleen in episodes four and five. It wasn't that she was poor in the role or anything, but her entire character just felt entirely unnecessary, and it felt as though we spent too much time with her when we could have been spending it with Sam and Henry.

For me, the weakest episode of the season was probably episode seven, 'Left Behind'. It was still a good episode, and Bella Ramsay was great in it, but I felt as though the time spent in that episode would have been better suited elsewhere, maybe giving us more time with David's group to help flesh that plot out a little more.

Overall, this was a damn near-perfect season of television. The pacing is fantastic, the characters are compelling, the tension is fantastic, and the emotional payoff is brutal. Season two will no doubt be controversial, just as the second game was. Though, from what I read, it seems that they're planning on splitting the second game across two seasons rather than just one, so that will be interesting to see.

Overall: 9.4/10

"I do worry sometimes I might just be entertaining myself while staving off the inevitable."

The Banshees of Inisherin is one of the saddest breakup movies since Marriage Story. Well...in the film, they are not a romantic couple, but Padraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson) were good friends, until one day their friendship ends abruptly, just because Colm decides that despite there being no bad blood between them, he does not like him anymore. The reason is: you are dull. In some ways, friendships are like relationships; it starts with the strong bonds you form with each other until that feeling towards them is not the same, and you no longer like/love them anymore.

I mean, everything was fine yesterday.

A strange occurrence that is not explainable but does happen. I believe it starts when one person changes while the other doesn’t. In the movie, Colm is a wise and articulated older man with an artistic ambition that he never acted on and never stopped to think about getting older. Living on a small remote island off the west coast of Ireland, where everybody is freaking boring and gossiping little bitches who love to stick their noses in other people's business and drama, because there is nothing else to do on the island. The movie does a fantastic job of giving you the impression that living on this rock slowly kills you on the inside. While being a supporting character, this is the dilemma with Colm. He does the same thing every day with his ex-friend, going to the pub at two pm and talking endlessly about meaningless crap and nonsense, and who knows what else happens the rest of the day, which is not that interesting, I assume.

The end of their friendship is hard to watch because it leaves the audience with everlasting pain. Brendan Gleeson is remarkable as the desperate and often cold Colm.

Despite what film Twitter tries to tell you, Martin McDonagh has yet to make a bad movie. In the same vein as Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, whenever McDonagh makes a new movie, I am 100% there. Every movie this guy has made has been brilliant, and Banshees is no different. A dark comedy at its finest cause you know when things go so wrong to the point it gets funny. Well, Martin McDonagh's movies are like that.

The writing is superb and has plenty of dry humour. The film-making is not anything grand or flashy; some comment on how stagy it is, but I do not feel it needs to be a technical marvel. With that said, there are some beautiful shots of the landscape of Ireland.

Comparing his work in The Batman early this year and this movie proves that Colin Farrell is one of the finest working actors. His character Pádraic Súilleabháin is a dim-minded, polite man who, unlike Colm, has found peace and happiness in his daily life. Farrell brings a child-like vulnerability to the character, where everything he does or says can be funny and depressing. His character arc is incredibly heart-rending.

Pádraic sister, played by Kerry Cordon, another standout performance, and some of her line delivery has implanted itself in my head. Her character Siobhan is trying to find the ultimate purpose in her life, echoing the problems that Colm is facing, which the two get along like a house on fire.

Barry Keoghan plays Dominic, and out of all the characters in the story, he lives the worst life under his abusive father. Keoghan continues to be an excellent actor who is on a winning streak. The character of Dominic is a playful and childish man, but the tragedy of the character is that he is lost in this life and has nowhere to call home, often appearing at the most random of places during odd times.

The score from Carter Burwell immerses you in this story and contributes to the stunning visuals.

Overall rating: On paper, a simple concept of a friendship breaking up, but its approach to mental illness, kindness, art, masculinity, and our inevitable death was strikingly profound. At times, it felt like Shakespeare mixed with the Brothers Grim tale.

It is one of the best movies of 2022.

Like gravedigging, you have to dig deep if you want to get the payoff.

Alex Garland's film about the abuse of women succeeds thanks to its rich tapestry of jarring images. While fans of traditional horror may feel disappointed by its lack of jump scares, those who appreciate the more cerebral psychology of neo-horror (à la Hereditary) will find what they are looking for here.

The film is largely a success thanks to its strong cast and rampant symbolism, though Garland's choice to focus more on the women as victims rather than the titular men as aggressors means the movie misses its mark when it comes to demanding receipts.

My interpretation of the symbolism:

:rotating_light::construction::octagonal_sign::warning:MAJOR SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT:warning::octagonal_sign::construction::rotating_light:
The film, obviously, is on a mission to portray women (or at least one woman) as a victim to the male gender. That the director wants to paint all men with this broad stroke is evident in the choice to have the same actor (Rory Kinnear) play all of the aggressors, saying, in essence, that deep down all men are the same man: a being that's driven to hurt women.

Of course, her abusive husband, James, isn’t played by Rory Kinnear. Does this mean he’s somehow different than the other men who appear later in the film? Absolutely not, and proof of that is Jame’s injuries. After he falls / jumps from the building, we see that a gate post splits his right arm from his elbow to his hand, and that his left ankle is broken. Later on in the film, all of the men in the town who besiege Harper are shown to share these exact same injuries, illustrating that they are the same man as the abusive estranged husband.

This point is also reinforced by the presence of 'the naked man'. 'The naked man' is the personification of "The Green Man" (who is also symbolized in the stone carving on the church altar). According to Wikipedia, “The Green Man is a legendary being primarily interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of new growth that occurs every spring,” which indicates that, as violence breeds violence, the cycle of violent men will continue with no end in sight. This is also what’s meant by the endless cycle of men birthing men that we witness in the film’s climax.

A quick glance at the film’s characters shows us several types of abusers that exist in society.

First, her husband, who starts off emotionally abusing his wife -- “If you leave me, I’ll kill myself” -- before graduating to physical abuse.

Then there’s Geoffrey, the man who rents her the mansion. He represents the “nice guy” who imposes his generosity on women and, when he’s later rebuffed, hurls insults at the women who aren’t interested in him.

The priest represents the patriarchy of religion and the structure put in place to perpetuate male domination and abuse.

Samuel is the young man 'frat bro' who feels he’s entitled to his ‘bit of fun’ and rebukes women who dare refuse him what he considers to be his due.

The police officer represents authority because, when he arrives at Harper’s rental property the night of the home invasion, he stands in her front yard yet neither says nor does anything. He’s as useless and impotent as the police and other authorities women might turn to when they seek assistance.

All of this is not to say that Jessie doesn’t have her allies. There is her best friend Riley (Gayle Rankin) who provides moral support throughout the film, and the kind policewoman who speaks with Harper when the police initially arrest the naked man. Garland’s point here is that the best place for a woman to get the support and assistance she needs is with other women.

This concept is driven home by the second figure etched into the altar (on the opposite face of The Green Man), that of the sheela na gig. The sheela na gig is a carving of a woman with an exaggerated vulva and is used to symbolize fertility and protection against evil.

That’s a brief rundown of the symbolism in Men, and also serves to illustrate what I appreciate about the film: it’s not because it’s horror that I have to turn off my brain. [/spoiler]

Denis Villeneuve is the man!
There’s only one word that came into my mind after watching it: finally.

Finally, a blockbuster that isn’t afraid to be primarily driven by drama and tension, and doesn’t undercut its own tone by throwing in a joke every 30 seconds.
Finally, a blockbuster that puts actual effort in its cinematography, and doesn’t have a bland or calculated colour palette.
Finally, a blockbuster with a story that has actual substance and themes, and doesn’t rely on intertextual references or nostalgia to create a fake sheen of depth.
Finally, a blockbuster that doesn’t pander to China by having big, loud and overblown action sequences, but relies on practical and grounded spectacle instead (it has big sand worms, you really don’t need to throw anything at the screen besides that).
Finally, a blockbuster that actually feels big, because it isn’t primarily shot in close ups, or on a sound stage.
And of course: finally, a blockbuster that isn’t a fucking prequel, sequel, or connected to an already established IP somehow.

(Yeah, I know Tenet did those things as well, but I couldn’t get into that because the characters were so flat and uninteresting).

This just checks all the boxes. An engaging story with subtext, very well set up characters, great acting (like James Gunn, Villeneuve's great at accentuating the strengths of limited actors like Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa), spectecular visuals and art design (desaturated but not in an ugly washed out way), pacing (slow but it never drags), directing, one of Hans Zimmer’s best scores: it’s all here.
I only have one real criticism: there’s too much exposition, especially in the first half.
It can occasionally hold your hand by referencing things that have already been established previously, and some scenes of characters explaining stuff to each other could’ve been conveyed more visually.
Other than that, it’s easily one of the best films of the year.
I’ve seen some people critiquing it for being incomplete, which is true, but this isn’t just a set up for a future film.
It feels like a whole meal, there are pay offs in this, and the characters progress (even if, yes, their arcs are still incomplete).

8.5/10

When Apple TV launched (with The Morning Show, See, and Dickinson) there was only one show that was tolerable out of their limited selection: For All Mankind. Anyhow, after its meh first season, the series immediately turned itself around in its second year where we finally see how speculative the concept of the Russians reaching the Earth would look like.

Anyways, this season creates some amazing dynamics and merges the real historical events with the whole nukes and guns on the moon concept. In the beginning of the season, you notice these characters have changed drastically, and they develop even further once the finale ends. One critic I love stated this is similar to another show that lifted up until its second season, that's Halt and Catch Fire. The reason for that series's turn of quality was that the writers discovered the women of the series were the driving force, not the men. The outstanding performances came from Shantal VanSanten as the astronaut wife turned bar owner Karen, Wrenn Schmidt as the headstrong and heartfelt Margo, Jodi Balfour as the closeted and conflicted Ellen, Krys Waller as the undermined yet loyal Danielle, Sarah Jones as astronaut turned celebrity Tracy and Sonya Walger as the badass Molly (who is most likely Starbucks ancestor). Don't who would be up for lead or supporting, but if the Emmy's at least picks one of these women, they'd be doing something grateful. I'd even say Michael Dorman steals the show with his character arc that has us root for the once jerk astro jock to the now pot bellied dead beat drunk.

I gave this an 8, which means there are flaws. There's a storyline between Karen and Gordo's son, that's best to forget about like Landry killing a guy in Friday Night Lights. But all in all, this is a sophisticated season of TV with one of the most thrilling and heartbreaking episodes to appear on the small screen (the finale, which I praised about on its TrakTV page). But there are some terrific ways in which history is intertwined with this alternate reality, such as the Korean Airflight 007 which results in a terrific two episode arc in which the characters interact with their Russian foe (or friends?). Even how they discuss placing nuclear weapons on the moon, and requesting astronauts use artillery is done in a very serious manner that doesn't have viewers roll their eyes, but ask what if the Moon turned into the next colonialist site.

Anyways, S2 concludes with two major cliffhangers that will have you requesting S3 ASAP. It'll be interesting to see how much the science of this series develops as the creators question how far human technological advancements would have gone had we stayed in the sky. When the series was first pitched, the concept sounded so limited and could only work as a miniseries like The Plot Against America, but Ronald D. Moore and company show there more to speculate beyond the moon. So much to think about, though it is sad from the very ending, you know some characters won't be coming back or they won't be playing as big of role as they did in the first two seasons. And if the characters haven't grown on you after S1, they will here. Damn good TV!

Much improved in comparison to earlier episode this season, many elements from the novels are introduced, and Triss's visit to Kaer Morhen looks almost like in the books, of course except the investigation about the leshen. Triss looks much better this season and resembles the book Triss much more, she is also the person to give the witchers the dressing down they deserve for teasing and humiliating Ciri. I wonder why she never tells Geralt that Yennefer is in fact alive, maybe because she is not sure how long this is going to be the case after Yennefer's escape? There is an emotional scene between Triss and Geralt when they talk about their shared grief and Triss confronts him about his ability to feel real emotions. It is quite enjoyable to watch Triss, Geralt and Ciri work together in the lab to unravel the mystery of Ciri's power. Later on, Ciri's Elder Blood is introduced, something that would be very important in the later volumes, though Vesemir's reaction is really disappointing, as he now sees Ciri as his stepping stone to creating more witchers, thus turning into yet another person that wants to just use Ciri for their own purposes, as if there weren't enough of them. Poor Ciri...

There is Dijkstra and Phillipa Eihard in her owl form - though this is not obvious for those not familiar with the books. He looks totally different from the games, but is rather a convincing character, though I guess I would like to see more of him to really judge.

Finally Jaskier reappears! It seems he had matured a bit since we last saw them, he is more thoughtful and empathetic even towards Yennefer and has another emotional conversation with her after guessing she had lost her magic, saying he really fears losing his poetic talent - he seems to understand Yennefer very well, as his identity is build on his being a poet just like hers was built on being a mage.

The situation Yennefer and Cahir meet Jaskier is totally different from the books, as they are on the run and get in touch with the elven underground in order to get to Cintra. There is some kind of Lord of the Rings callback as they meet some sort of watcher in the water when they are travelling in the sewers. Then they meet Jaskier though who turns out to be some sort of a smuggler helping the elves escape to Cintra, which is now elven city. In the novels, Jaskier got into trouble when he sang the ballad about Gerald, Yennefer and Ciri, and almost got killed before Yennefer saved him from Rience's bandits, but I wonder how it would turn out in the show, since now she has no magical powers and would not be able to rescue him in this way. The ending of the episode suggests Jaskier might be in trouble indeed, I wonder how he would get out of it now. The episodes are getting more and more interesting anyway :)

[7.2/10] This was fine. I’m not very versed in Matt Fraction’s run on the Hawkeye comic, which this show is supposed to be at least partly based on, so some of the nods and bits of foreshadowing are lost on me. But it does what it needs to do as a first episode, even if it’s closer to a single than a homerun.

This is mostly an introduction to Kate Bishop who, spoiler alert I guess, will almost certainly become the new Hawkeye. Her backstory here is fine. I like the idea that she lost her father in the Battle of New York, but inherited his sense of protectiveness in general, and for her mother in particular. Her seeing Clint Barton’s heroism during the fight with the Chituri is some nice clockwork plotting amid the cinematic universe to explain why she’d choose to take up archery along the way. It’s all a bit tidy, as such character introductions tend to be, but it’s all sound enough.

I also appreciate her as a bit of a troublemaker, and a resourceful one at that. Her bell-ringing/tower-destroying stunt is amusing enough as to how she’s clever but can still get in trouble. And the way she manages to infiltrate a secret rich guy auction for illicit goods shows some of her chops as a budding hero.

I’m not enamored with the actual character work, though. Her relationship with her mom and putative stepdad starts out as boilerplate. There’s some class issues at play, which I can appreciate, but the show only gestures toward them here in the beginning. Maybe we’ll get more on why she feels out of place in the world of the wealthy (and why her mom feels so comfortable there despite seemingly putting up some resistance to it in the cold open flashback). But it’s hard to invest in any of these generic relationships and tensions in the early going.

All that said, I found myself surprisingly compelled by Clint Barton here, who’s never the Avenger I’m most invested in. I appreciate the way he’s still grieving Black Widow, not skimping on the emotional impact of the human costs of Endgame. By the same token, I appreciate his discomfort at the way he and his colleagues have been valorized by the world. The idea that after you’ve been through something hellish and at times life-destroying -- seeing the way it’s been gussied up and turned into a Broadway musical, or how people want selfies, or how well-meaning restaurateurs treat you more like a paragon of virtue than a person -- would be a lot for you to take. The distance between the popular image and the reality would be mentally taxing, and I like the show exploring that idea.

I also like the setup that Kate might be, if not a replacement for Natasha, then someone who fills the same space in Clint’s eyes (and the audience’s). She’s another badass normal, one who uses conman schemes to get past surly wait staff managers and sneaky parkour to get into places she’s not supposed to be. There’s a setup that Clint training her is as much about him processing Natasha’s death and seeing her legacy carried on as it is Clint possibly filling in the role of a father figure that Kate does not want filled with her cruddy-seeming soon-to-be stepdad.

THere’s potential in all of this, the execution is just a little off-the-shelf. Visually, the episode is surprisingly bland despite the “Xmas in NYC” setting. The fight scenes are indifferent and over-edited, leaving Kate’s coming out party as an ass-kicker seeming murky and dull. The only real excitement despite a heists, showdown, and wine bottle skirmish, comes from what we don’t see. Clint kicking some random thieves’ behinds on top of a car, where we just see the aftermath, sells the butt-whupping prowess better than any of the actual fight scenes we get to see, which isn’t ideal.

I’m likewise not especially invested in the murder mystery, even if Armond Duquesne was the most entertaining performance in this episode. So much of these initial episodes has to be setup, and the plot machinery being moved around didn’t do much for me.

Still, again, this was fine. It doesn’t set the world on fire, but it does what it needs to do in terms of introducing the characters, the character conflicts, and something plotty for our heroes to concern themselves with over the course of the show. Hopefully with that throat-clearing out of the way, there’ll be better things to come, but this is a series premiere that gets on the board more than it hits right on target.

Netflix loves to cancel its shows without warning, and it especially loves canceling them after 3 seasons, so I'm about 60% sure this is goodbye. But then again, Sex Education has been a huge hit for them, so I guess we might get a renewal.

If this is the series finale, it's pretty good. Unlike last season, there aren't any major loose ends left. The only storyline that hasn't been resolved is the paternity of baby Joy. Judging by Jean's reaction, it's not good news for Jakob.

As much as I disliked Hope all season, I enjoyed her conversation with Otis. It made her feel a bit more human, even if she is still deeply terrible.

The Groffs had a great storyline. I loved seeing Adam and Michael grow in their own ways. If we do get another season, I hope they explore their relationship a bit more. It's sad that things didn't work out for Adam and Eric, but maybe it's for the best. Eric clearly has some things to work through before he's ready to commit to one person. And seeing Adam discover his talent and passion was lovely. He didn't win, but he still achieved something really impressive all on his own.

I'm glad Aimee knocked some sense into Maeve. Their friendship is genuinely one of the best parts of the show. We didn't get a lot of Otis and Maeve in this episode, but if this is the end of the road, Maeve got a very fitting and satisfying ending. She finally has a family and she's off to do her thing in America. She deserves the world and finally she's getting it. And things with her and Otis are left open ended and hopeful. Even though they can't know if they'll still be right for each other when she returns, they're both willing to give it a shot. That's good enough for me.

I do hope this show comes back. I really do. There's something so quirky and unique about it, the storylines are great and the cast is excellent. It's truly a gem. But I'm keeping my expectations low just in case. Netflix has disappointed me many times before.

[7.6/10] I didn’t like the sitcom material in this one as much as in the prior two episodes, but I liked the dramatic/horror material even better, so it balances out. It’s hard to say why the 1970s sitcom stuff didn’t work for me as well. It didn’t quite have the zip or the verve of the 50s and 60s parodies. Wanda wandering around her home with Geraldine, trying not to reveal that she’s pregnant or the weird stuff resulting from the combination of her powers and her labor didn’t have as much comic zing as the boss dinner or magic act.

But what it did have was some (I think) clever commentary on television conventions, like how quickly kids grow up on TV shows and how sitcoms used to come up with zany ways to try to hide actresses’ pregnancies so that they wouldn’t have to incorporate the babies or pregnancies into the show. There’s at least some high concept fun to be had.

It’s also a nice episode for the effects team. They come with a lot of creative ways to show Wanda’s powers tricking out while she’s having labor pains. I particularly enjoyed the appearance of the stork, replete with red smokes that fails to shoo it off, and an Untitled Goose Game-esque effort at blending into its surroundings.

But more than anything, I like the deeper confrontation of horror and tragedy that’s been lurking at the edges of the show coming to the fore. Details like Vision telling Wanda something seems wrong only for her to clip things back again gets your attention. The neighbors cutting through partitions and whispering about what they’re really doing here without spilling the beans feels freaky. And things come to a head when Wanda and Vision’s twins are born (a cute resolution to the “Billy vs. Tommy” debate by the way).

It introduces a note of grief to the proceedings, as the babies’ arrival isn’t just a cause for joy for Wanda, but also a reminder of her dead brother, her lost twin. There’s a subtle sense of grief running through the show, and maybe the sense that Wanda is trying to escape from it here, wherever here is.

It also gives us the clearest look at Geraldine, who is, apparently, not like the other residents of Westview. She knows about Ultron and seems to be trying to get through to Wanda in some way. It’s a striking conversation between them, one of the scariest in the show, with Wanda seeming downright frightened when the sanctity of her world seems to be threatened. There’s a certain sense that maybe the other residents are prisoners here, held captive by Wanda’s abilities and emotional turmoil, and I’m fascinated to see where that goes.

We also get the sense that Shield or some other governmental force is monitoring the situation, and perhaps that Geraldine was sent in to try to distract or get through to Wanda.

Overall, I am loving the concept here and the hints at the margins of what might be wrong with this scenario. I certainly don’t want to wait another week for more!

[7.7/10] Another really entertaining episode. This is more explicitly doing Bewitched and 1960s sitcoms, and there’s a lot of sheer entertainment to be had from a riff on tropes of odd couples trying to fit into their idyllic neighborhoods.

I also appreciate the recognition of classic sitcom tropes and how they’d evolved in the subsequent decades. That goes beyond just the different decor in Wanda and Vision’s home. We see them walk outside and go seemingly on location, beyond the confines of a single set. We also see many more people of color populating their white picket fence town. It’s small details, but they add up to show change.

The notion of Wanda trying to impress Dottie, the queen bee of the neighborhood (Emma Caufield, aka Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and Vision to get in good with the neighborhood watch, so as to further their joint initiative to fit in works as a great premise for the episode. There’s a lot of humor to be wrung from off-beat Wanda trying to fit in with the Stepford-esque ladies under Dottie’s purview, and awkward square Vision accidentally fitting in with the guys of the watch.

What’s more, the set piece of the two of them trying to pull off a magic act at the local talent show, where Vision is functionally drunk due to some literal gum in the works, and Wanda has to work to make people think it isn’t magic, is fantastic. There’s a great, frantic energy to the whole routine, and both Olsen and Bettany play it to the hilt.

This was also a great episode for stray lines. The running gag of people chanting “For The Children” in unison brought a lot of yuks. The poor mustached man from the prior episode going “That was my grandmother’s piano” when Wanda turns it into a wooden standee was a solid laugh. And one of the housewives in the audience asking “Is that how mirror’s work?” when Wanda uses them to try to explain Vision’s phasing hat trick had me rolling in the aisles.

But it’s not all laughs. There’s more horror at the edge of the frame that’s done quite well. The presence of an airplane that’s visibly Iron Man’s colors seems to shock Wanda as revealing that something’s wrong here. When Wanda assures Dottie that she doesn’t mean any harm, Dottie says “I don’t believe you,” in genuinely frightened tones, while a strange voice cuts through the radio, causing her to break a glass and bleed fluid that likewise breaks through the black and white color scheme. It’s another superbly done unnerving moment.

There’s also some interesting lines that have double meanings that are quickly glossed over, like their new friend saying “I don’t know why I’m here,” seemingly referring to the garden party, but also suggesting she’s been wrapped into this fantasy world somehow and doesn’t know why. There’s a lot of little bits of dialogue that work like that in this one, and it’s fascinating.

We also see and hear some loud thumping, played for laughs in the “move the beds together” scene (another wink toward classic TV changes), but also witness it used for legitimate scares. There’s some frightening imagery when the man emerges from the sewers in a beekeeper outfit and more “Who’s doing this to you, Wanda?” calls are heard, especially when Wanda uses the power to rewind the tape. The advent of a pregnancy is an interesting development, and the arrival of color with their kiss is some great effects worth.

I’m nursing a theory that this is all part of Wanda coping with the loss of Vision, feeling sick or afflicted and unwittingly creating this fantasy world out of some kind of grief, wrapping more and more people into it. Whatever the answer, color me appropriately intrigued by the mystery, charmed by the pastiche, and appropriately disturbed at the hints of something deeply wrong with all of this.

[8.2/10] What a blast this is. I’m impressed both at how well WandaVision is able to replicate the 1950s sitcom vibe, especially for supernatural-themed comedies like Bewitched mixed with The Dick van Dyke show, while also including a subtle but palpable sense of existential terror beneath the three camera confines of the show.

I really enjoy how this first episode plays on the classic sitcom tropes: a couple not remembering an important date on the calendar, a wacky neighbor, a boss coming over for dinner who needs to be impressed. The show does a nice spin on them, while also feeling true to the sitcoms it’s paying homage to. I’m particularly stunned by the cast, who are able to replicate that acting style, and the editors and other behind the scenes craftsmen, who are able to replicate the rhythm, to such perfection.

What’s neat is that the episode works pretty perfectly separate and apart from its larger MCU connections as a solid old school sitcom pastiche. There’s a lot of nice setup and payoffs of gags, like Wanda repurposing a magazine's “Ways to please your man” article to distract her husband’s boss and his wife, or Vision singing “Yakety Yak” after decrying it earlier. Even the lobster door knocker routine was a fun and comical grace note to an earlier bit. As cornball as it is, there’s something charming about this sort of thing, right down to the “What do we actually do here?” gag about the computer company. And despite the light spoofing at play, this works as a solid meat and potatoes sitcom episode.

But the show goes a step further and has real fun with the fact that its leads are a self-described witch and a magical mechanical man respectively. There’s tons of amusing gags, starting with the intro, about the pair using their powers in trifling 1950s household sorts of ways. At the same time, it does well with the jokes about hiding their true identities. Vision writing off Wanda’s behavior as “European”, Wanda reassuring her neighbor that her husband is human, and Vision taking offense when a coworker tells him he’s a “walking computer” are all entertaining bits that make the most of the weird premise.

And yet, what really elevates this episode is the unnerving hints that there’s something terribly wrong going on here. It’s not hard to guess that after the events of Endgame, there’s still concerns about what happened to vision. The show plays with the melodic rhythms of the sitcom form to suggest something off at the edges here, in a really sharp way.

For instance, there’s an interstitial commercial featuring a Stark toaster, and not only does it feature the only bit of color in the black and white presentation with the beeping light, but the toasting takes just a beat too long for comfort. Likewise, the fact that Wanda and Vision can’t remember their story or how they got married is initially played for laughs, but then it becomes creepy when Mrs. Hart demands answers.

The peak of this comes when Mr. Hart chokes on his broccoli and the artifice freezes for a moment, leaving everyone paralyzed by the departure from how things work in this sort of situation. It’s a great piece of work, of a piece with the likes of Twin Peaks and Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared in its quiet horror.

I’ll refrain from speculating about who’s watching the broadcast we see or who’s in the monitoring room we seem to have an eye on, but the hints at what's really going on, and how that influences the images the audience witnesses, creates a great organic mystery and another layer to the proceedings.

Overall, this is a boffo debut for the series, and I’m excited to watch more!

Before explaining why I liked this movie, I'd like to point out that the main idea of the movie is NOT that you need find your purpose to have a happy life. It's the exact opposite! I'm not saying this just to be a professor, but because it's really important and that's why I loved the film so much. You don't need to be fixated about something to find a meaning in your life. You need to savour it and learn to enjoy the little moments instead of waiting for something big to happen to reach happiness. It's so profound and refreshing. A movie just about a guy waiting for his big moment and feeling fulfilled after having reached it would have been dull, boring, trite and most of all wrong, like pretty much all "self-help" advices.
Instead the opposite idea is presented and if you just pay attention to the dialogues -and the story, really- you'll understand what I mean and most importantly what you might apply to make your everyday life better.
But back to the movie I've got to say I almost cried as the end was approaching as much as I was going to turn off the tv when the movie started. The whole initial setting reminded me too much of Inside Out, a film I quite disliked, so I was worried it was a copy of it (it kind of is in the beginning). But luckily the second half steered away from it and developed in one of the most moving film I've seen in a long time. Undoubtedly one of Pixar's best.

This movie was released soon after my father had passed away in a similar situation, but in an FPSO ship, and for that reason, it took me so long to be able to watch it and I still don't want my mother to do so.
My father died saving his crew and I can tell you from experience that there's no justice in this world, nor even for big things like this.
I can only feel empathy for the families of those who died in the Deepwater Horizon, the deep damage the incident caused to them... it's sad to think they probably didn't get any real support from those companies afterward, just like we didn't get any as well from the big Norwegian company my father worked to.
In the end, you can read all the accident reports you can find, with their "consequences" for the accidents sites, but you won't find one that includes the consequences for the families of the deceased ones and the trauma of the survivors.
There should be so much more movies about these "accidents"... maybe it'd raise awareness of how dangerous and risky this work is and why it should be better and heavily regulated and supervised - but not by the companies operating them, but by neutrals affiliated to the Navy, who won't cover up the wrong things in the name of profit. If there was more serious supervision, many of these accidents could be avoided, for the good of the sailors, crew and the sea.

Hardly any words can describe the emotional punch and moral divide this film gives you when watching. It, like it's predecessor, has trumped the movie that came before. With even more maturity built into the story than before. It shows the targeted audience extremely important lessons, displayed with animation that outshines some modern CGI in big blockbusters.

The scenery is gorgeous and the cinematography is outstanding. Not trying to outdo the previous films with the "look what we can do with the camera" gimmick. But improves the stability and grounds the viewer within the world. Vivid imagery that adds to the story and the style, this movie has many points other studios need to take a note from.

At first, the villain seemed typical and unneeded after the second film. But the wit and backstory they gave him, don't make us feel for him. Only adding to Hiccup's story and his choices throughout the film. Toothless is way more "himself" here. Seeming that Dean Deblois wanted to focus on him letting loose. It really pays attention to how this voiceless dragon, needs to have a compelling arc as well as his rider. This does lead to my one gripe about the film, the Light Fury. She represents a very important aspect in the film. Her introduction, however, didn't feel right and could have been a bit more coherent to how she acts throughout the rest of the film. Although, it all adds up to the end. For this really is the final movie in this amazing trilogy.

With this marking the end of these stunning and surprising films. They capture the story of a boy, who trudges through hard times to find life's hardest challenges and truths. And they ended it extremely wholesomely. It feels, complete. As if it always should have been this way.

9.5/10

The man who rode that train was built weak and born to fail. You fixed him. Now forget about it. Teddy 2.0

Dolores wanting to change everything but herself, Maeve wanting to change herself to influence the world.

What we learned in Phase Space

1. Dolores is programming and testing and Arnold bot
   Or maybe, that's not her (or her cr4-dl consciousness). That's Ford. He needs to have her appearance b/c that's what the real Arnold knew about that conversation.

2. William thinking his daughter was a host sent by Ford. ROFL!!!
   Of course, he was testing her to see if she was a real or host version of Emily sent by Ford as part of the game

3. Climate control is working

4. More about the Cradle
   Cradle—spelled CR4-DL is "the simulation technology that stores and tests all of our storylines" and ensures customers "get the immersive and dynamic experience [they] deserve." So it's the way Delos test-drives its experiences. Bernard describes it as a "backup," and Elsie calls it a "hive mind" where all the host's consciousnesses are "alive.

5. Japanese Armistice is sticking with Maeve and the gang

6. William and Emily's relationship has been...difficult
   William confused his wife with his daughter when recounting the story about the elephants in Raj World. Does that say something about his family life, a simple slip of the tongue, or is it something else like MIB is a Host?

7. Maeve's daughter has new parents
   Who didn't see Maeve meeting her replacement? Did she think her daughter was all alone? That was typical of Lee to omit that little piece of information. And what is the Ghost Nation's game?
   Ghost Nation wanted Maeve to come with them. Since they protect the guests, there was also more to Maeve than simply being a host.
   Akecheta is awake & probably sees that Maeve is too!

8. Teddy 2.0 is Stone Cold
   Dolores is going to regret reprogramming Teddy in the coming episodes.
   Her reactions were so funny "oh shit what have I done!"
   Teddy is aware that Dolores reprogrammed him. I feel that will be important later.

9. Ford is inside the Cradle
   Ford's back, or at least an approximation of his consciousness in the Cradle. We all suspected Ford would return as a Host despite the flat-out denials from Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Nolan & co.. They pretty much telegraphed his return over the season (he's in the system, briefly surfacing in Hosts e.g. young Ford), but Episode 4 all but confirmed it.

Dolores and Maeve storylines ** is not interesting at all. They're currently paper thin and taking their sweet time to go anywhere.**

The Man In Black's daughter who we know nothing about is a far more compelling character.

The Cradle Is Capable Of So Much More Than We Expected

The Cradle, in essence, is a server that stores memories and consciousness for retrieval. Like a file cabinet, the hosts’ “data” is copied and contained within the server, and can be accessed to run theoretical or training simulations on the robots. The main function of the Cradle, though, is to act as a backup for each of the intricately-crafted hosts; a way for Delos to preserve the work that went into detailing their appearances, their preferences, their mannerisms, the very things that make them so human. Think of it as the Cloud that stores your phone pics.

Those pearls, it turns out, are the container for the hosts’ consciousnesses. But the Cradle itself send commands to the parks, not unlike the way the Matrix papers over glitches with deja vu. And the implications of this functionality go way beyond just data storage. It means that the Cradle itself can run simulations or disrupt the flow of time —if it has a programmer (the host) to program a server farm (the Cradle), illustrated by Bernard getting off the train at exactly the spot he needed to be. The Cradle doesn’t appear to create simulations without a host’s consciousness to guide it.

Do we have a host in the Cradle? We sure do, and because Bernard just uploaded his brain pearl into the Cradle, it could mean that everything we’ve seen in season 2 thus far — the multiple timelines, the weird ways that the characters are interacting with him — are just a simulation. This totally mind-bending but plausible theory was put forth by YouTuber HaxDogma, and in a 10-minute video he makes the case that Bernard has hacked his way into the Cradle, and everything is running from his point of view. In other words, it’s as though we’re viewing everything like Neo did at the end of the first Matrix: as a source code that can be manipulated.

Or (and this is even more sinister), perhaps Robert Ford has been in the Cradle all along, pulling the strings, and driving wedges between Dolores and Maeve with her new powers.

The finale of the Ilus arc already happened on previous episode; this episode closes the other stories: Avasarala's campaign, Bobbie's post-military life, and Ashford's/Drummer's hunt for the terrorist. Those plot points feel disconnected at earlier episodes in the season, but now it's tightly knitted to each other.

This episode is also a send-off to two characters. They managed to make Ashford a likeable character in the last two seasons, he really seemed like an ex-space pirate that has found his way through diplomacy. His death thus feels like a lost to a "civilized" side of the Belt, who has seen the both sides of the story. However, they could have raised less death flags for him. When he told Drummer to save the beer for after he came back, it was a glaringly strong and obvious death flag.

Meanwhile Miller, who retains his riposte and gruff character, finally has to be brought to end again. Holden's final moments of the protomolecule remains on his ship, which he seems to think to symbolize everything about Eros and his venture with Miller, was a sad farewell.

The Expanse does their best finale mid-season, and here we have one more season finale that hits all the right note but never went to go fully satisfying. Regardless, it manages to close the relatively self-contained season - kinda different from previous The Expanse season when story arcs go toward the other first half. Some would say it's been a filler season, which I don't disagree, but it never lost all the stuff that makes The Expanse great. Ready for Season 5.

Altough I'm german I rarely check out german TV shows. The last one was Deutschland 83 and that was like two years ago. Germany just hasn't figured TV out yet but that's another discussion.

When I heard Netflix was producing a german show I just had to check it out because Netflix has a great track record so far and Germany does have talent infront and behind the camera. But overall I think this show just fell flat. Good, but nothing great.

Fantastic visuals that are shot very beatifull, the actors IMO are mostly great and the music/score can be beautiful but often gets obnoxious. But unfortunetly there are too many characters that are hard to keep track off which distracts from the story.

The story is already confusing enough even without trying to keep up with the many characters over different decades and it heavily sets up future seasons without answering a lot of questions about this one and just left me unsatisfied at the end.

Still worth watching tough IMO and very bingeable similarly to Stranger Things.

But if you do watch it then choose the subbed version. I checked out the dub really quick and it sounded horrible. And also don't browse your phone as you might do on other shows. You're going to miss so much important shit.

EDIT after Season 2:

I'm not actually sure what just happened and what I think about it. But the one thing I'm sure of is that the casting in this show is absolutely phenomenal. The actors look so much like their younger counterparts that I'm not fully convinced they aren't actually related.

Plus the cinematography is still fantastic and the music monatages are really beautiful (and they got rid of those obnoxious sound effects).

And altough the story is still very confusing I found it more easier to follow and more engaging than Season 1 because I now know all the charcters and their background. And it seems that the writers had this all planned out and aren't just making shit up as they go.

Changed my rating from 8 to 9.

EDIT after my first rewatch just before S3 is released.

Changing my rating again. This time to a 10. After S1 I thought it was good but confusing show (8), after S2 I thought it was great and really well thought out one (9). Now after rewatching both seasons for the first time I think the show is fucking masterpiece. (10). Once you can watch it without being confused and actually knowing what is happening your just in awe throughout all of it.

If they stick the landing with season 3 it could be up there with the best ever.

EDIT after Season 3

Masterpiece. Simple as that.

Writing. Directing. Cinematography. Casting. Acting. Soundtrack. Everything is perfect.

I'm going to miss the beautiful music montages at the end.

I was reading through the comments and was surprised that some people think Otis is trash this season... Literally the party scene was the only one where he did wrong so far. He's been dealing with his mom and Jakob's relationship (+ Jakob's personality), Ola, Maeve, his own and other people's sex-related problems for a long time - who wouldn't explode at some point?
Just like how Jackson had enough of one of his mother's dictatorship and almost broke down (well, technically with the self-harm he already did) and how Eric stood up face-to-face to Adam and told him his honest thoughts (yaaas, so proud! I was actually afraid that he would change his mind and back down, but I'm so glad that there's a character in existence who doesn't choose the "bad guy" bully at the end!). These characters had enough too, yet I don't see anyone bashing them. And Otis has/had a lot more on his plate than these two.

I'm conflicted about Maeve now. Last time I wrote that they're basically soulmates with Otis, and I really thought that... but then Isaac came, and now I'm kinda rooting for him? But I'm also rooting for Maeve just concentrating on herself? And also rooting for Otis to apologize and speak to Maeve about his feelings while he's sober?
Since Maeve and Otis are 2 of the 3 main characters, and almost the whole SE1 was about them starting to like each other, I guess they'll end up together, but it wouldn't be a first of this show to give things a twist and pair Maeve up with Isaac.

Jackson and Viv are getting closer, yaay! I mean, that was a strong gut feeling right from their first meeting, but it's still nice to see Viv starting to care more about Jackson (and vice versa), little by little.

This is the Unforgiven of superhero movies, a brutal yet tender portrayal of former heroes growing old. Logan is tired and world weary, waiting for death to take away his pain. Charles is 90, riddled with drugs to mute his mind, his "super weapon." Despite their friendship their relationship is fractured. Into their lives comes a new mutant and a road trip begins.

I don't want to say much more, having given away a little of the premise already explored in the films trailers. This is a tough, violent and sad film with few moments of humour. There is action but not of the blockbuster kind, one key car chase is like something from a 70's thriller.

This is the swan song of Logan and Charles, both actors giving it their all in their final performances as these characters. To bring them back after this film would undermine their work and the story here.

The film is brilliant and I can't recommend it enough - don't expect a traditional X-Men movie and you will be blown away. If the film itself were a mutant I would say its genes had been spliced with Mad Max and Shane, with a little bit of Children of the Corn (and I mean that in a good way). Excelsior!

After my wordy thoughts regarding how Netflix chose to do the first episode, I feel conflicted about this one... :confused:
On one hand my inner fanboy wants a closer representation of what happened in the books, especially as they decided to cut out practically everything from the original short story "The Edge of the World". I so wanted to hear the witty back and forth between the "devil" Torque and Geralt. I didn't even expect Lille, but at least more of the fun wheat field-scenes....
But then again I can see why they decided to go this route: They had to fit three stories and two and a half meaningful introductions into 60 minutes. And the focus was clearly on Yennefer with 34 minutes, compared to 14 minutes for Geralt and 11 for Ciri. You can't possibly fit a 60-odd page short story into 14 minutes. It just doesn't work. So they didn't even try and just left the parts in that would have been relevant for a "Previously on The Witcher..."-reminder somewhere down the line. I personally would have prefered if they would have decided to use a different story for the introduction of Jaskier, so they could use more of the short story later on.

But did it work as an episode, if you wouldn't try to compare it to the books? Phew... That's a tough one...
Let's start with the easy one: Ciri. Ciri's part worked quite well, fleshing out her character and showing us how she clearly isn't the naive little princess. But she clearly needs some guidance. Without the help of our hooded teenager ex machina she would have died within the first minutes of her screentime. And they cleverly used him and the scenes with the noble familiy's servant to show us that she obviously is far less simple minded and xenophobic than her surroundings. She's going to have a tough time in The Witcher's world.
Geralt: I've already spent 187 words on his 14 minutes, therefore I'll keep this one short: Our Butcher of Blaviken had only little room to develop and or showcase his character, but he used them wisely. Netflix made a wise decision in sticking to his philosophical side and I hope he gets more chances to show it off. This was like the abstract on a multi page paper about the possible future relationship between humans and elves. I hope Netflix lets Geralt read from the main parts of his papers every now and then.
Jaskier: He's very promising and I can't wait to hear more from this witty, whiny and surprisingly musical fellow. I always knew he was supposed to be a great bard, but somehow I thougt he wouldn't be that catchy. We really need his songs out there to buy and or stream!
Yen: This was a Yen-episode and practically everything was original. In the books we only learn very little about her past, so there's a lot of room to go all out for the writers. And I think they will, creating not only an origin story for her, but adding in new, fleshed out characters, new conflicts, and adding lore to the sorcerers and how magic works in The Witcher. I hope they don't try to create a hard magic system for the show, but keep it as soft as it is in the books. I'm interested in how she develops and turns into a multi faceted sorceress.

I'll give this one a 8 out of 10. Why, after I've spent lamenting about the differences to the books for around a third of my comment? Because I stand by my word and will try to see this as a stand alone re-telling of my favorite stories. And it's a promising second episode to what will hopefully turn out to be a very successful and longer running show.

Important note: If I sound joking, ironic, or condescending, I apologise in advance if my words hit you. I have a sharp tongue and usually joke about things, including myself. For example, I came up with the nude girl example in the last paragraph, because some part of me like the book's version with one girl better, so I was joking about myself more than any of you readers :sweat_smile: Thanks for reading!

I've recently re-read the short stories for the forth (or so) time and played two out of the three main games, so I cannot not compare the different interpretations of The Witcher. But I won't spoil anything beyond the first episode and it's all tagged.

First of all: It was obvious there was and is and never will be a way to cater to all fans. It is impossible if there are only two fans in the whole wide world which have only read the books. Or if there a many of them, all with different first contacts with Geralt and his story, and different backgrounds. A German fan has a different approach to many of the stories compared to for example an American one, because he had heard the fairy tales, which Sapkowski wove into his stories, reinterpreted. Just an example.
So obviously that was something Netflix had in mind and it seemed they cared about it. I would have preferred a different decision (sticking closer to the books), but I see why they did what they did and I think it's the right decision.

So what did they do? They chose to use different timelines to introduce Geralt and Ciri with their defining moments: "The Lesser Evil" for Geralt, which marks him as the Butcher of Blaviken, and Cintra's fall for Cirilla (Ciri), which introduces us to her possibilities and sets her on her path. It also hints at the connection between the two stories, but that's for another time.
They also decided to sway in the minor and sometimes bigger details, sticking to the red line of each story and weaving a new telling around it. It reminds me a little of Neil Gaiman's "Norse Mythology", where he admits that his retelling is deviating from the source in some points, because he is re-telling the stories, not copying them. And that's a good thing. Yes, we might not see some moments of dialogues in Netflix's version, but imagine them as someone telling you Geralt's story as you sit around a camp fire. You don't care about the details, if Stregobor did know Geralt beforehand or not, or if Geralt met the Alderman or his daughter. You want to hear the story of the Butcher of Blaviken, how he had to face this dilemma. It doesn't matter if Renfri and the witcher f*cked (Do I need to censor this word here?) in a room or a forest. You want a good time and you'll have it.

And we had it. It was a great first episode, telling two very interesting stories, defining characters, setting up the story. Compared to so many other first episodes of shows, this was a great one. And comparing it to other great first episodes, it doesn't loose either.

Yes, some people may be hurt that they experienced a story that wasn't exactly what they expected. Maybe they are not sold on the cast, maybe they hate that there were more than one nude illusion girl in Stregobor's tower or that Geralt didn't cut someone in two. And that's okay. The Witcher fans are a passionate bunch coming from many different directions. Let's give this retelling of our favorite story a chance. It deserves one.

Jimmy Hoffa: “I heard you paint houses.”

Frank Sheeran: “Yes, I do.”

It’s a great day when you get to see a new Martin Scorsese movie, but a new gangster movie staring some of one of the greatest actors that have ever bless cinema, now that’s killing two birds with one bullet. I’ve said this many times before, but whenever Scorsese releases a new movie - I’m there, as I have 100% faith he will deliver something so crafted in style where his passion to create a fresh new experience for audience to slip right back into loving movies. And Scorsese has made another masterpiece.

‘The Irishman’ is an old school masterpiece. A sweeping epic that’s so rich and timely through it’s presentation that I was reminded of the likes of Coppola and Leone. Everything from the razor sharp back and forward conversations with characters, long takes, and the fantastic use of music that helps create the setting and time period.

Now let me talk about the visual effects in the movie - something that everyone including Scorsese himself was worried about. While at first it was a bit uncanny to see fresh faces from De Niro, Pacino and Pesci. The movie has a difficult task, because the entire runtime takes place in the past and occasionally it will cut back to a present day/older De Niro, aka what he looks like now, so it’s so easy to judge on the cgi wizardry. I can safely say you really get use to it after awhile and doesn’t distract from the amazing performances, as I could still feel the emotion from their faces. I bought into it and the evolution of the technical is absolutely astonishment.

Robert De Niro plays a cold, yet charismatic gangster, Frank Sheeran - a friend of Jimmy Hoffa. He follows orders to kill and dose it without a sweat. His children are afraid of him and have seen both sides of him, which would later hit him harder than a million ton of bricks. He doesn’t need to say or do anything to express the characters thoughts and feelings. Fantastic as usual.

Al Pacino plays a loud month Jimmy Hoffa that’s a huge ball of energy and reeks of desperation, which Pacino portrays beautifully. From ‘Dog Day Afternoon’, to this, it’s amazing how Pacino never lost that fiery energy that makes him so captivating to watch. The fact he’s never been in a Scorsese movie baffles me, but am loving his comeback recently.

Joe Pesci plays Russell Bufalino, a silent and collective man who sniffs out trouble and takes care of “business”. If you expect to see the nut job Pesci, then think again. He’s brilliant in the movie. It’s great seeing Pesci back after disappearing from the spotlight for a couple of years, and it’s almost like he never left at all.

With the run time of 3 hours and 29 minutes, not a single frame felt pointless. At times the length was felt, but I was never bored. Thelma Schoonmaker, the editor of Scorsese movies is a legend and needs no introduction. Without spoiling anything, but there’s an incredible scene involving a woman terrified to turn the car engine on as the camera lingers on a shot of keys hanging in the ignition waiting to be turned. When she dose there’s a sharp cut to an exploding vehicle (not hers) with the engine roaring as the sound affect. The most tense scene in the entire movie.

And the cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto was excellent with the use of color that made it visually striking.

Martin Scorsese, the man who revived the gangster genre for what it is and now he’s the one to bury it. The shot outs are often unexpected and messy - basically violence in general. Almost similar to ‘Once Upon a Time In Hollywood’, because there’s an underlining message of age and the modern generation slipping through as the old ways ain't the same anymore. You are taken through a journey of a mobster from youth to old age.

Overall rating: Cinema at its finest. I’m just in awe of the thought we got a movie like this where no other studio wouldn’t dare to touch it for some reason. What an experience.

Three words: I. LOVED. IT.

Listen, I'm a simple bitch, okay? Let's establish that right out of the gate. I can make fun of tropes all day long (especially the romantic ones) but in the end, I will eat that shit right up and walk out of the theater with the biggest grin on my face. Arthur and Mera accidentally hold hands and suddenly I turn into your 80-year-old grandma Gladys clutching her pearls and going "oh my". Jason Momoa and Amber Heard are DCEU's new dynamite duo (as much as I love Gal Gadot and Chris Pine, they've been knocked off the top spot for me). Their chemistry makes my skin tingle. Was the romance cliche? Hell yeah it was! And I adored every second of it!

Of course some stuff besides the romance also happens (but who cares about that? Not Gladys, that's for sure). The main plotline of finding the Trident does feel kinda like a treasure hunt with Arthur and Mera hopping from place to place, but because their chemistry and dynamic is just THAT good, it's all very fun and watchable. The villain is... well, he certainly is, eh? Actually there's two of them, but neither really made me feel anything. Still better than Steppenwolf, I guess? Although that's not saying much. The jokes hit more often than they miss and the movie did get a few good laughs out of me. But the more serious moments hit home for me as well, whether it's Arthur's reunion with his mother or his admission that he knows he doesn't deserve the Trident but it's his only hope of saving the people he loves. The tone feels pretty consistent and the transitions between the dramatic and comedic moments don't seem as jarring as in some other DCEU installments. The fight scenes are awesome. Especially the one in Sicily really made me feel pumped.

My favorite scene was by far Mera really experiencing the life on land for the first time. Her wide-eyed wonder (no pun intended, I guess) not only reminded me of Diana arriving in London, but it also had something wonderfully Little Mermaid-like (and not just because of the hair) about it. It was soft. It was pure. It made me feel warm inside. Mera eating the roses and Arthur immediately doing the same? Nobody's ever gonna ride for me this hard. Those are the kind of scenes that ground these huge superhero movies, that make them feel relatable to me and allow me to take a breath and really connect with the characters. And when 20 minutes later Mera goes full Bad Bitch In Charge on those soldiers and kills them with deadly wine spikes? Oh, I just about lost my mind. I want her to murder me. But aside from that entire sequence, there were plenty of other moments that really got my attention: little Arthur at the aquarium, Arthur and Mera's escape from Atlantis (such a fun chase!), our favorite power couple emerging from the ocean looking like they're on Baywatch (it was great, don't @ me), every time Mera used her powers (the glowing eyes!), the list goes on.

The visuals are absolutely stunning. Gone are the dreary grays of some lesser DCEU movies. Instead we get beautiful colors (Atlantis is beyond gorgeous), some great shots (Arthur and Mera swimming with the flare while surrounded by thousands of Trench people is breathtaking) and of course incredible CGI. It's a very aesthetically pleasing movie. And the music! I loved the music. This is one of the soundtracks I'm definitely gonna need to listen to at some point. And it takes some big balls to put a cover of Toto's Africa in your movie. I appreciate that. Some people are definitely gonna cringe when they hear it, but I had the biggest grin on my face.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable ride. It's quite long, but it didn't drag. I was invested in Arthur's journey. I thought the casting was perfect (and gosh darn do Jason Momoa and Amber Heard look good together! That has to be one of the most visually stunning pairings to have ever graced the big screen). And I just... felt super happy afterwards. I still can't stop smiling. It's a good movie not just by DCEU standards, but in general. I'd love to see it again and I'll definitely try to do so over the holidays. I honestly didn't expect to like it as much as I did. What a great surprise.

I don't buy it a second that Blaine suddenly wants his father in his life. That whole part of the story this season was hardly believable.
It all started with Angus extorting brains from Blaine.
Blaine's father is simply insane, that's partly Blaine's fault I'd say, yet he still is an abusive father to him.
Him riding on a horse out of that smoke looked pretty awesome, though. That was a very good shot.
Speaking of, his real death and the filming of it was somewhat comical in its exaggeration.

But what they wanted to achieve with these fade out shots I don't know. Mood killer.
Let's have a climax on this episode and season finale and ruin it with something like that.
Didn't know how to make this whole setup work without those shots, huh?

Here we proved again, dating Liv is a death sentence in more than just the zombie way.
Overall a very typical iZombie season finale.

But why does Liv someone need to eat the whole brain to be cured? The rat ate a tiny bit.
That's simply idiotic, yet again so arbitrarily limiting the cure, basically wasting the whole brain for nothing.
As if it couldn't help Ravi in creating a cure. He barely did anything with it as there were so many other shenanigans going on.

Major is still tainted as a character. Yes, he came around the last episodes but I still do not like him.
Oh, look, the sheeple need a new Führer and he gets Blaine into his boat as the first act and forgives him all his debts. Pfff..
Besides that, I am longing for the episode where Don E. is finally killed off.
Given Major's new position is he going to be the next antagonist, will he also die like any other previous boyfriend of Liv?
Or are they going to get together again, that's why he did not get killed of?
Well, we'll see.

Trivias
+Pam tells Jim that she types 90 words per minutes. Having worked as a receptionist at several jobs, Jenna Fischer types 85 words per minute.
+Although the idea for writer Michael Schur to be Dwight's cousin Mose had been a joke among the writers since the first season, B. J. Novak pitched the idea when writing "Initiation". Schur had to grow out his beard for three months and wear wool clothes on a hot day as part of his character. Mose was based on an actual participant in the UPN reality show Amish in the City.
+Even though this episode aired after the fourth episode, "Grief Counseling", its filming took place before that episode due to the availability of shooting on Dwight's fictional beet farm.
+When Ryan catches up to Dwight outside the Schrute Farm's barn, Dwight gives him a salute with an extended flourish. That salute is a reverse version of the "Rimmer Salute" from Red Dwarf (1988).
+The figure that Mose whittles for Ryan is a replica of the Venus of Willendorf, a prehistoric figurine that dates back approximately 25,000 years.
+In what's mostly likely a coincidence, Andy sings part of "Lovefool" by The Cardigans and then says "Wonder what ever happened to those guys?" The Cardigans released a new album a few weeks before this episode aired.

*Soundtrack Credits*
River Runs Red
Written by Life of Agony and Alan Robert
Performed by Life of Agony
Lovefool
Written by Nina Persson and Peter Svensson
Performed by John Krasinski and Ed Helms
Rock and Roll Part 2
Written by Gary Glitter and Mike Leander
Performed by Gary Glitter
O Fortuna
Written by Carl Orff
Performed by Boston Pops Orchestra

Trivias
+The first cut of this episode lasted 45 minutes.
+When Michael calls for a grief counseling circle in the conference room, Pam describes the movie "Million Dollar Baby," Ryan describes +"The Lion King," and Kevin describes "Weekend at Bernie's."
+In this episode, the Stamford office discusses the order for "Fairfield County Schools." However, Connecticut schools are not run by counties but rather by individual town and regional districts, meaning Fairfield County wouldn't be the ones placing a paper order.
+Dwight says his grandfather was reburied in an old oil drum. This must be the same grandfather whose tux he inherited.
+This episode was filmed after the fifth episode, "Initiation".

*Goofs*

Continuity
First, they talk about Ed Truck like he still worked at Dunder-Mifflin, Michael says he's retired when he appears in The Office: The Carpet nine months earlier. In that episode Michael goes on about how he hates Ed Truck, so it's either a continuity error or the writers expect us to remember that episode and assume Michael is overly grief-stricken over his death to get attention from his coworkers. The way it's portrayed Michael's grief really comes off as a continuity error and he seems to really care deeply for Ed Truck.

Plot holes
In the episode, Karen wants a bag of Herr's Salt and Vinegar chips, but there aren't any in the vending machine. However, when she walks by the vending machine you can see the chips in slot B1.

Spoilers

During the bird funeral, the cast wore coats despite the hot summer weather.