The production value is amazing! The acting is top-notch! The writing isn't bad. BUT this is one anti-climactic first episode compared to the pilot for Game of Thrones. It's not terrible, but there isn't much of a drive that makes it as addicting as GoT. I'll stick around to watch the rest of the seasons, but this first episode makes it feel like a supplement to the original series rather than its own thing. So odd that the week started with the end of an amazing spinoff but now the start of one that doesn't realize it has heavy shoes to fill.
Jeez, the snowflaky reactions of straight white men because not every single episode and narrative centres them - anything deviating from that priority is apparently "woke". Get over yourselves, you egomaniacal bigots.
Anyway, another great episode that nicely expanded Ellie's backstory - bonus points for the Mortal Kombat II appreciation, too :nerd:
Between this and Cherry, it’s becoming more and more clear that the MCU’s best director is called Kevin Feige.
Netflix clearly spent a lot of money on this, you can feel the price of your subscription going up with every new set piece that’s introduced, but the end results are still unforgivingly bland and generic nonetheless.
It’s their attempt to compete with Bond, Bourne or Mission Impossible, but if anything this feels like a poser imitation of those superior blockbuster franchises. The plot is in fact literally ripping off both Skyfall and The Bourne Identity at the same time, but forgets about any of their depth in regards to story and character.
The Russos are clearly trying to recapture that same tone and spark from their Captain America: The Winter Soldier days, but they end up making something that’s more akin to the quality of Red Notice.
In terms of directing they kinda got outdone by their own second unit director with his Netflix action flick, as I’d argue that Extraction is a marginally better film than this.
The action’s poorly done and cheaply put together, lots of annoying editing choices (heavy overuse of drone shots, quick cuts and can the Russos pick a normal font for once?), corny dialogue, distractingly bad CGI, boring visuals and music (why is everything so low contrast, foggy and muddy?); not a lot to recommend about this one.
The acting’s fine, Evans is having a blast, but I have absolutely no idea why an extremely picky actor like Ryan Gosling chose this script in the first place. It seems like a paycheck movie for someone of his caliber. Just watch The Nice Guys instead of this if you want to see Goose in an action comedy, we don’t need these 200 million dollar direct to streaming action films.
4/10
did an anti-vaxxer write this script or what
Pretty bad, more like a bad comedy. And those girls were just two bitches with daddy issues who think they're making a point and giving what? moral lessons?. The poor bastard said 'No' a few times, and I'm not justifying him because he was stupid but those girl kept pushing, come on, everyone has a limit.
Solid episode, was def entertained through out. The chemistry between Emma and Seth in this is great
I also like how the naming of the unborn son was the same as the truck driver who ran Annie and her sister off the road. You can tell it really threw Annie off guard which in turn made her remember an actual memory from her past Once she got back in the car.
What’s happened to Mr Burns? He sounds like someone who can’t do a Mr Burns impression
i really like the pace for me i do not find it slow or boring, there is probaby to much story to tell and what are the showing is enough for now. I like how they trying to connect everything.
Also the opening credits are fantastic.
Please just greenlight the spinoff about the piano-playing frog already!!
This was a disaster of an episode. Where did the ending come from. Completely random.
“How was I supposed to know there'd be consequences for my actions?”. Gina cracks me up everytime!
After the 3rd episode, I quit. Just not into this show. I did try.
This week's scene of Christina Ricci pushing Juliette Lewis away to snort the latter's coke is worth the price of greenlighting this show alone.
Love this show, love these characters!!
I don’t know if the fact that Rebecca stays alive for another 10 years is due to the clinical trial, but it would be really annoying that Randall is right after all.
I was super excited to find out that Jack has a sister and that Toby and Kate adopted. However, I am still concerned that we haven’t seen Kate in the future, not even once...
And for Kevin, I’m so happy that he finds love and has a family. I do believe he’s trying to do better and the fact that Randall never cuts him some slack makes me hate him even more :sweat_smile:.
Can’t wait for next season!!
I really enjoyed this movie. A great cast and amazing acting. I was lucky to see it in a theater before the Netflix release. If you like law suit drama's then this is a movie for you. Based upon true events with real footage in it
I found it surprising the lack of comments around here mentioning the single most awesome thing to have come out of this show, yet: Butcher holding a super baby and using the little dude as a weapon to inflict massive gory damage upon his attackers. Both totally bonkers and superb!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
hands down best episode this season and one of the best overall
I was laughing the whole time during that kinky dragon shit LMAO.. very enjoyable episode
One thing I'll say is that I kinda want to know what Rick and Jerry saw inside the cat's head but at the same time I don't.. It seems very very bad that even Rick wanted to kill himself!!
I had high hopes for this movie since it has two of my favorite people in it but I was still surprised by how great the movie was. Funny, smart and elegant both in cinematography and writing, it’s just amazing. I won’t stop recommending it.
Probably the best found-footage movie I've seen. Creep is an accurate title as it's more creepy than scary or spooky.
I am incredibly grateful to Game of Thrones for this adventure I have found myself sucked into for some years now. I am grateful for all the emotions it brought me since day one, bitter and sweet alike. I am grateful for all the laughs, all the tears, all the jokes and gags, every single bit of it, I really am grateful and appreciative of it all. It's been just... wonderful.
That said, I am feeling robbed and betrayed right about now. This ending is arguably one of the worst series finales in the history of television and trust me I realize how bold of a statement that is. The terrible violations the characters have suffered this season, the lack of proper resolution to many of the plots and narratives developed over seasons worth of buildup, the seeking of shock value at the expense of quality writing... that and much much more solidified this as an absolute disappointment of a finale, as opposed to the marvel wrap it could've given this cultural phenomenon.
This episode does have its positives, as always the score, acting and cinematography are perfectly performed but I just do not think it's nearly enough to compensate for how lackluster the writing has been, as much as I wish they did. Oh well, sad as it may be, I'll just hold on to the good stuff and hope that GRRM's book, once finished, will tackle the ending in a more coherent, more respectful and more meaningful way. It's been real y'all...
P.S: I'll leave this here lest some people jump me again. This comment is a representation of my own personal opinion, I am entitled to one just as all of you are. If you enjoyed this season and felt this finale delivered what you were looking for then more power to you mate, but that doesn't nullify my opinion nor does it make yours any valid. If you want to discuss or challenge my views, I'd be more than happy to engage you on that basis but if all you have to offer are petty remarks then please keep them to yourself.
Bran: I can never be Lord of Winterfell, I can never be Lord of anything, I'm the Three-eyed Raven.
Also Bran: I'm the King.
They'll just build a new one... and make the White Walkers pay for it.
I just saw this movie, I had no idea what it was about or had any expectaions at all. And damn I got suprised. And I really liked this movie, and it keept me hooked from the begining til the end. But one question, why did they hijack the plane? Anybody that understood this? I guess we have to live with not knowing. :grin:
[9.0/10] It’s just supposed to be business. You come in. You sign the forms. You check the boxes. You pay the fine. You don’t get sentimental. There are practical reasons to do this thing, reasons that, coincidentally, involve your continued safety and freedom.
But then you look at the person standing across from you, a person whose joy or pain matters to you, and suddenly you can’t pretend that this is all just a ministerial act, just a necessary concession to the gods of bureaucracy or the legal system. Instead, it becomes something meaningful, something personal, that has an emotional import and connection that makes it more than just business as usual.
So yeah, Kim and Jimmy are married now. After fans reeled from last week’s cliffhanger, it turns out their union isn’t a last desperate act of mutual self-immolation or an impulse borne of bad family lessons. It’s a means of protection, so that if Kim is implicated in Jimmy’s lies once again, she can never be compelled to testify against him as her husband.
And yet, my favorite moment in an episode not short on great moments comes when the two of them face one another in some dingy courtroom, enduring the world’s least romantic wedding ceremony and, against all odds, they’re both moved by it. It’s an outstanding piece of acting from Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn, who hardly say a word in the scene, but whose faces and subtle changes in expression let slip that however much these two people themselves this wedding is a practicality, it is actually a fleeting moment of romantic transcendence for two people who, whatever their problems, do genuinely love one another.
It sets the tone for “JMM”, an episode where people try to keep things professional, detached, and calm, until it’s contrasted with something much more personal, much more piercing, that wins out.
That’s certainly true for Kim. The episode doesn't spare us the aftermath at Mesa Verde in the wreckage of Saul’s stunt last week. “JMM” involves Kim and Rich low-key groveling before a miffed Kevin Wachtell, all but ready to fire their firm. The partners do the respectful, deferential thing, evincing the sort of demeanor that’s expected between lawyers and their clients, and take responsibility for the failures that led to Wachtell and his company getting fleeced for hundreds of thousands of dollars by Saul. And all it gets them is a dismissive, perturbed kiss off from Kevin, along with the admonition that Kim can do better than her shady beau.
But after walking out the door, Kim decides that she won’t take that lying down. She barges her way back in and is frank with Kevin, about how she really feels, in a way her deferential act wasn’t. She tells him that time and again they advised him against every step that led down this path, and he rejected their advice and barged ahead. It’s not entirely true (or at least omits how much fuel Kim threw on the fire), but she challenges Kevin, approaches him candidly and directly and, most important of all, personally. He respects that and, with a terse but telling response that he’ll see her on Thursday, lets her know that she’s keeping the business.
That directness matters. It builds on a frankness, a realness, that Kevin respects in Kim far more than all the fancy degrees and smarty pants advisors he low-key loathes given his faux-blue collar roots. Truth and honesty gets to him in a way that the usual routine in this situation doesn't and wouldn’t.
There’s a similar contrast between the professional and the personal in Gus’s part of the episode. His first appearance in “JMM” is in a bland boardroom meeting, where fast food CEOs are golf clapping over quarterly percentage increases and plastically delighting over the unprecedented advent of spicy curly fries (which, in fairness, do look pretty tasty).
But the tenor of the conversation changes when we see Gus, Lydia (!), and Peter Schuler behind closed doors. Breaking Bad fans will remember Herr Schuler as the Madrigal exec who had an...unfortunate reaction to the DEA’s investigation. “JMM” plants the seeds for that fatalistic response to external pressure. Schuler is deep in the muck on this, helping to fund Gus’s operation and far enough into it to know and worry about the threat posed by Lalo and the cartel. He’s panicked over auditors, desperate not to get caught, and ready to throw in the towel.
That is, until Gus makes it personal. I don’t want to speculate too deeply about the friendship that Gus and Schuler share, but there’s a familiarity and intimacy to their interactions back at the hotel. Gus persuades his benefactor to stay in the fight by holding him by the arm, looking him (and by extension, the audience) in the eye, and calling back to a shared history together. It’s that gesture, that remembrance, that keeps Schuler mollified enough to give Gus a little more rope, a little more time, far removed from the practiced smiles of the boardroom.
It’s personal for his mole too. Nacho ends up helping Gus burn down one of his own restaurants, under orders from an imprisoned Lalo, to keep the pressure on for the Salamancas and to keep up appearances for Fring. It is, as always, a cool and cathartic sequence on this show, and Gus’s chicken slide grease explosion (which he cooly walks away from, naturally), is a visual highlight.
But for Nacho, however cool this may be, it is something he does not out of loyalty or anger or a sense of rivalry, but because it’s just his job. It’s the necessary evil to protect the thing he actually cares about -- his father. In his meeting with Mike, he tells his new handler that he wants out, that he wants to whisk his dad away somewhere that the cartel can’t get him, because the separation from his “career” and his family is getting thinner by the second.
At the same time, Mike is finding peace on that front. If it weren’t for Kim and Jimmy’s strange but endearing wedding, Mike’s interludes with his granddaughter and daughter-in-law would be the sweetest thing in the episode. He reads to his son’s little girl. He reminisces with Stacey about his boy’s elementary school age antics. And he tells her that he’s better, that he’s accepted what his professional situation is and doesn't want to fight it anymore. More than anyone in the show, Mike is able to find equilibrium by accepting the “hand he’s dealt” in his job, and enjoying the private, personal things that job (hopefully) exists far away and apart from.
He does, however, still have a job to do, and right now that means getting Lalo out of prison so that Gus can force him south of the border where it’s harder for Lalo to call the shots. (And hey, if it gives Gus a chance to take the guy out, all the better). That leads to Mike crossing paths with Saul for the first time in a long time, feeding Saul the dirt (which Mike himself created), to get Lalo out on bail and back to Mexico.
Jimmy is genuinely conflicted about it. As ready, willing, and able as he’s been to represent the, shall we say, less than reputable members of the community, becoming a “friend of the cartel” is a horse of a different color. He says as much to Kim in a heartening moment of honesty and candor between them. He thinks about the money, “ranch in Montana” money, but when she asks him if it’s what he wants, he says no. It’s about the thrill of the chase, and about making a life for and with the people he cares about with Jimmy, not necessarily the size of the bankroll. Money’s a means to an end, not an end unto itself for him.
Still, Mike shows up on his doorstep, notes a mysterious benefactor, and between that and the intimidation of a scary crime lord telling him it’s better to be in front of the judge than the cartel, he does what’s expected of him as a zealous advocate and professional. He uses the info that the prosecution’s star witness was coached by “some P.I.” to cast the judge’s ire on the state, and deploys a phony wife and family to show ties to the community. It works! Despite facing a murder charge, Lalo receives a bond and can afford it despite a hefty price tag.
But something’s eating at Jimmy through all of this. In contrast to the fake fiance and moppets he scares up to sway the judge, Jimmy looks across the aisle at the real family of the victim. He sees a poor kid’s mother crying in the courtroom, where he’s helping a cold blooded killer evade justice. Even when it’s done, he peaks at them from around a corner, with his reflection on the marble helping to represent the duality of him in this moment.
It’s too neat and clean to divide this man into Jimmy McGill and Saul Goodman. There’s elements of each in the other. But there’s always been a side of the man whose born initials are “JMM” that wants to win at any cost, and a side of him that genuinely cares for people and can feel their pain. There are so many exit ramps in Jimmy’s life, so many places where he could have changed directions and not become the shyster we met in Breaking Bad, and this moment, where the palpable, deeply personal pain felt by this poor family cuts through his typical mercenary craftiness is one of them.
But it’s not to be. Howard Hamlin intervenes, revokes his job offer, and calls Jimmy out for his recent antics with bowling balls and prostitutes and other schemes to mess with Howard’s life. To say that Saul reacts poorly is an understatement. He lashes out at Howard, accusing him of killing Chuck, declaring that a job at HHM is beneath him, loudly and publicly promoting himself as a god, whose stature and grandiosity are so great as to make Howard’s piddling little offer to him infinitesimal.
That’s the thing about Jimmy. He didn’t become a lawyer because of a supposed deep respect and admiration for the law like Chuck. He didn’t do it as a way out and a way forward like Kim. His reasons were always personal. He wanted to impress his brother. He wanted to make Chuck proud. His business life and his private wants were always mixed and matched.
Only here, that motivation has changed. There’s still good in Jimmy, the impulse to gaze at the mournful expressions of a victim’s loved ones and have it give him pause over whether he’s doing the right thing. But the polarity of the personal has changed for him. He’s no longer just in the legal business to earn Chuck’s respect or make a living or fund his dreams with Kim. Now he wants revenge, to show Chuck’s ghost, and every living manifestation of the people and institutions and norms that have made him feel “less than” and looked down upon his whole life that he’s better, and more important, bigger than everyone who once thought less of him.
For Jimmy it always starts out as business, as a transactional thing he does without real consideration. Then, time and again, he has that moment of pause, that moment of restraint, when he thinks about the emotional impact of his choices. But then, inevitably, his personal grievances, his perceived slights, the personal baggage he’s carried for so long, shoves him back toward being Saul Goodman. No deep look into someone’s eyes can change that, however much we might want it to.
The movie is way too unrealistic. No one plugs in a USB cable on the first try.
[9.8/10] It seems like every season, there’s one episode of BoJack Horseman that just floors me, and this may be the best of them all. More than BoJack’s dream sequence in S1, more than his unforgivable act at the end of S2, more than the even the harrowing end for Sarah Lynn in S3, “Time’s Arrow” is a creative, tightly-written, absolutely devastating episode of television that is the crown jewel of Season 4 and possibly the series.
The inventiveness of the structure alone sets the episode apart. It feels of a piece with the likes of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for finding outside the box ways to communicate the idea of dementia and the brain purging and combining and reconstructing dreams and memories into one barely-comprehensible stew. The way that the episode jumps back and forth through time is a superb way to convey the way this story is jumbled up and hard to keep a foothold on for Beatrice.
And that doesn’t even take into account the other amazing visual ways the show communicates the difficulty and incoherence or what Beatrice is experiencing. The way random people lack features or have scratched out faces, the way her mother is depicted only in silhouette with the outline of that scar, the way the images stop and start or blur together at emotional moments all serve to enhance and deepen the experience.
What’s even more impressive is how “Time’s Arrow” tells a story that begins in Beatrice’s youth and ends in the present day, without ever feeling rushed or full of shortcuts. Every event matters, each is a piece of the whole, from a childhood run-in with scarlet fever to her coming out party to an argument about the maid, that convincingly accounts for how the joyful, smart young girl we meet in the Sugarman home turns into the bitter husk of a woman BoJack is putting in a home. It’s an origin story for Beatrice, and a convincing one, but also one of the parental trauma that has filtered its way down from BoJack’s grandparents all the way down to poor Hollyhock.
And my god, the psychological depth of this one! I rag on the show a decent amount for writing its pop psychology on the screen, but holy cow, the layers and layers of dysfunction and reaction and cause and effect here are just staggering. The impact of Beatrice’s father’s cajoling and her mother’s lobotomy on her development as a woman in a society that tried to force her into a role she didn’t want or necessarily fit is striking in where its tendrils reach throughout her development. The idea of rebelling against that, and the way BoJack’s dad fits into that part of her life is incredible. And the story of growing resentment over the years from a couple who once loved each other, or at least imagined they did and then found the reality different than the fantasy is striking and sad.
But that all pales in comparison in how it all of these events come together to explain Beatrice’s fraught, to say the least, relationship to motherhood and children. The climax of the episode, which intersperses scenes of the purging that happens when Beatrice contracts scarlet fever as a child, her giving birth to BoJack, and her helping her husband’s mistress give birth all add up to this complex, harrowing view of what being a mom, what having a child, amounts to in Beatrice’s eyes.
The baby doll that burns in the fire in her childhood room is an end of innocence, a gripping image that ties into Beatrice’s mother’s grief over Crackerjack’s demise and whether and how it’s acceptable to react to such a trauma. The birth of BoJack, for Beatrice, stands as the event that ruined her life. BoJack is forced to absorb the resentments that stem from Beatrice’s pregnancy being the thing that effectively (and societally) forced her to marry BoJack’s father, sending her into a loveless marriage and a life she doesn’t want all because of one night of rebellion she now bitterly regrets. For her, BoJack is an emblem of the life she never got to lead, and he unfairly suffers her abuses because of it, just like Beatrice suffered her own parents’ abuses.
Then there’s the jaw-dropping revelation that Hollyhock is not BoJack’s daughter, but rather, his sister. As telegraphed as Princess Carolyn’s life falling apart felt, this one caught me completely off-guard and it’s a startling, but powerful revelation that fits everything we know so well and yet completely changes the game. It provides the third prong of this pitchfork, the one where Beatrice is forced to help Henrietta, the woman who slept with her husband, avoid the mistake that she herself made, and in the process, tear a baby away from a mother who desperately wants to hold it. It is the culmination of so many inherited and passed down traumas and abuses, the kindness and cruelty unleashed on so many the same way it was unleashed on her, painted in a harrowing phantasmagoria of events through Beatrice’s life.
And yet, in the end, even though BoJack doesn’t know or understand these things, he cannot simply condemn his mother to suffer even if he’s understandably incapable of making peace with her. Such a horrifying series of images and events ends with an act of kindness. BoJack doesn’t understand the cycle of abuse that his mom is as much a part of as he is, but he has enough decency, enough kindness in him to leave Beatrice wrapped in a happy memory.
Like she asked his father to do, like she asked her six-year-old son to do, BoJack tells her a story. It’s a story of a warm, familiar place, of a loving family, of the simple pleasures of home and youth that began to evaporate the moment her brother didn’t return from the war. It’s BoJack’s strongest, possibly final, gift to his mother, to save her from the hellscape of her own mind and return her to that place of peace and tranquility.
More than ever, we understand the forces that conspired to make BoJack the damaged person he is today. It’s just the latest psychological casualty in a war that’s been unwittingly waged by different people across decades. But for such a difficult episode to watch and confront, it ends on a note of hope, that even with all that’s happened, BoJack has the spark of that young, happy girl who sat in her room and read stories, and gives his mother a small piece of kindness to carry with her. There stands BoJack, an individual often failing but at least trying to be better, and out there is Hollyhock, a sweet young woman, who represent the idea that maybe, just as this cycle was built up bit-by-bit, so too may it be dismantled, until that underlying sweetness is all that’s left.
This movie is dumb.
Something else needs to be pointed out as well. They never show her getting off the dam tower. Lame ending.
Why didn't she just stuff the phone in the bird
That was a heavily loaded episode. But the writers already said loong beforehand they'd include these topics/are contemplating on how to deal with writing a cop show in these times, so no surprise there. They did a good job, especially not ending on a joke, even if the second episode sets itself free from the context of the precinct to be "fun" again even if it might be for just one episode. It's foremost a comedy after all and making fun inside the precinct is going to be difficult in this last season, given what's going on currently in this world. Completely ignoring it, in quite a diverse cop show no less that never shied away from addressing issues, would be irresponsible. Personally, I am looking forward how - if at all - they are going to deal with what this first episode set in motion in this challenging last season. This show never shied away from addressing the elephant in the room, never too subtle either. But now it's a problem for some?
Everyone out here complaining about the ending. I’m just really upset my dude died his hair that hideous red color
Normally, I like Charlie Kaufman, but this is him at his most pretentious.
Not that it’s all bad, I actually liked most of the first long scene in the car.
It’s the kind of scene that will make many casual viewers dismiss the film right away (due to its length), but I thought it set up both of our leads very well.
Then they arrive at the parents’ house, and my opinion on the film did a 180.
It does what every annoying art movie does (not saying all art movies are like that, I like a lot of them): everything starts to get weird for the sake of trying to be interesting, but without any artistic reasoning.
For example, the acting becomes a nonsensical mix of very grounded performances (our leads) on one side, and extremely heightened, cartoony perfomances on the other side (the parents).
Also, the cinematography is pedestrian at best, and I fail to see the reasoning behind the chosen aspect ratio (unlike films like The Lifghthouse or Mommy).
Just stick to writing, Charlie.
4/10
