I have some problems with this movie. A parachute shaped like a spider is stupid. That would serve to give you terrible drag. The joke about "we need to talk about you and my aunt" is a great joke in the absolutely worst place possible. It makes no sense in that scene. The scene where Spider-Man goes full Iron Man is stupid. Because Spider-Man isn't Iron Man. They're completely different characters not the same character with different powers. Tony Stark is a tech obsessive genius. Peter Park is a smart kid who grapples with morality.
I think it says a lot about the film that my problems with it are in the end so small. There's LOT I loved about it. Mysterio was done brilliantly. With the exception of his death. I think Marvel is starting to develop a problem of killing off their villains. Killmonger and now Mysterio. Both of these (along with Vulture of all characters) are great. They were acted well. they were written well. They were genuine but not overly exaggerated threats. They're the type of villain the comic book superhero movies need. The type that can realistically come back and be taken seriously. And yet they are killed it's frustrating. Hopefully Mysterio's fate will be revealed to be more ambiguous.
If you've seen the trailers you know that Mary Jane figures out that Peter Parker is Spider-Man and it is both touching and funny in the unique way that Spider-Man films are. I think there are too many Spider-Man films. I think he's a character that's done to death. Everything about him is done to death. And yet... Homecoming managed to charm me after the horrendous clowning that was done in Amazing Spider-Man (Great PP, Bad SM) with a Peter Parker that felt fun and a Spider-Man that felt different enough.
About the after film scenes. There are two one mid credits and one post credits. I was told there were good and honestly they were. Quite possibly the best after film scenes of the MCU. I'm glad they got J. Jonah Jameson back and having Nick Fury be a Skrull does answer the post Avengers question of "Why is this world ending event down to this movies superhero". It's been a problem since the first Avengers movie.
So I went into this moving having seen the trailer. I expected reductive dreck. And yet this movie surprised me, both positively and negatively.
The premise was handled well. I generally enjoy this premise and I worried it would feel too samey. It doesn't even though some aspects around the premise feel a bit cheesy. The app idea is great. The app as we see it is kinda cheesy. The idea of a customized Brooks is great. What we actually see is cheesy. He's literally hopping into and out of costume shops. His "douche-bag" date in particular is a big low point. Looking back at it, though it's not the idea that's bad. It was the execution. It felt like he went 5 steps too far because this is a stageplay and you have to exaggerate for the backrow.
I'm bad with faces so I wasn't sure which girl would be his "real" love interest. I assumed it would be the first date and I was pleasantly surprised when I actually liked her. She's the opposite of what I described so far. On paper she's the same as every girl in this character but this actress is actually not terrible in the role.
I think it starts to fall apart when the movie is supposed to fall apart. As with every teenage gigolo movie he starts off spinning plates: Best Friend, Keeping up with First Girl/"Real" Love, His eye candy girl, his fake life (the paid dating) and his real life (College Admission). When the plates are spinning I actually love this movie. I love romcoms. I love teen drama movies. Before the plates start falling the movie is great. It's earnest, it's fun, it doesn't try too hard.
I only had one issue that kept bugging me. He needs to date girls to make money. He makes an app. How does he stop too many girls from getting the app and blowing up his phone. Watching the movie I began to assume this was a flaw in his plan and how his plates would start falling. Normally in this type of movie they use a word of mouth method to keep it secret and manageable. But the app as described here could get passed around too much and lead to him getting 20 requests in one weekend. That would still be an interesting movie where he has to recruit other Stand-Ins.
Honestly at this point I'm at a 4/5 on this movie based on pure simple easy flowing charm. This is max score for a movie like this. It even has cheesy "memory" lines. The lines you're supposed to remember and inspire you.
A Bronx Tale - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8p1iG-6d-w
It's heartwarming enough. But then.... BUT THEN... so the first plate to fall is the best friend. First off this character is super underdeveloped. Hmm actually that's not right. He's a pretty full character. The problem is their friendship is underdeveloped. The goal of the screenplay is that the friendship breaks and things happen. The problem is you don't see a broken friendship. You see a broken friend night (barely) and then suddenly the friendship is over and jumps into dying mode. It's jarring. Almost as jarring as when the first girl plate falls. It happens because our hero does something so out of character for absolutely no reason. He uses super personal information as content for their fake break-up. But why? He started the break-up fine. Then he suddenly spirals into her literal deeply contained feelings just for this fake show they're putting on. And then again BAM the third plate falls the hot girl plate. He gets caught via an old customer who outs him like paying for dates is normal and she doesn't understand social tact. The hot girl dumps him for lying? So weird.
And long story short it ends. That's all there really is to say. There's a really cool decision but then nothing really happens with it.
It's raining it's slightly increased because I put it on an Indian sliding scale. I have a lot of technical problems with the movie. I like tiebreaking, bad editing, inconsistent editing, inconsistent filming.
But it was Stillwell made, the story was interesting and mostly well told. This is primarily a legal thriller. The legal aspects in the movie are really hard because I don't know anything about Indian a law. but the opening was very shaky around the midpoint started to come together and become very interesting. There's a lot of things I really disagree with I can't tell if it's because of cultural reasons or legal reasons that they happened.
But overall it was a very good time.
This is merely an okay episode for The Orville. So little 6-7 our of 10 basically. There's just not a lot interesting going on.
I have to assume everyone else reviewing these episodes are 12 because I very MUCH remember smoking on TV when I was a kid in the late 80s-90s
This show comes off as so weirdly sincere. Not like forcing tears from you like A Dog's Purpose or A Dog's Journey. This was a particularly good episode.
QuickRecap:
The friend request (and that's what I'll call even if when it's something such as "liking" or "rating". They're all fuctionally friend requests) this episode is a couple who sent a package that somehow ended up at Mile's place. Also Cara's boss is pressuring her to write about the account, which violates her agreement with Miles that only he would write about the account. Also Rakesh gets some information about how their boss might be behind the account. Their clue from last episodes to try to look into connections leads them to their first friend request who they quizz about the account older.
Resolutions: The first friend can only tell them that Henry gave bone marrow to someone whose identity he can't disclose. Though Cara's interview with the boss we learn he's revealing the big project in like a few weeks. The family's package was their dead daughter's violin ends up in the hands of a poor girl who turns out to be the owner of their daughter's heart via transplant. Finding that out heals them enough to move on. And finally the big resolution is that Cara decides to write the article and tells Miles who doesn't take it well.
Now with regard to the major resolution it's cheesy, it's predictable, and it's telegraphed. BUT what GFM does well is that it feels mostly real. In most TV shows I have to handwave why people are fighting because while it might make sense for Person A and Person B to be fighting rarely does it match their words. In this episode a lot of things turn out right. Rakesh discovers Cara's secret and rather than blab to Miles leading to a stand off where he pretends he doesn't know and bullies her into admitting it thus starting a fight. He tells Cara he knows. He doesn't blackmail her or anything he tells her to come clean and she agrees. That's already 15 steps ahead of a normal TV fight. It's realistic. Then during the fight which was delayed unrealistically with the rest of the plot (but whatever you gotta save the best for last I get that) she comes clean and basically tells him the whole deal. Not the WHOLE deal. She doesn't explain the pressue he put on her but she does explain how her saying no wouldn't stop it from happening.
My estimated resolution: Miles talks to his hosts and they agree to let the newspaper be the official written branch of the account ID and thus everyone gets what they want.
Sidenote: Cara's boss is kind of a dick. I think he's a little bit overstepping his bounds in telling her how to write her story.
So I skimmed past a headline that said something like
The Orville finds itself in Identity Part 2
It inspired me to remember that Part 2 came out and catch up. 20% of the way in this is a fantastic episode. It's excellent work. All around.
There's a scene where Isaac reveals that he choose his designation in honor of an intelligent human (Newton) and Kylon Prime tells him to change it. We assume he refuses because he's later referred to as Isaac which is confusing because a) it's never brought up again or leads anywhere b) it's unclear if the other Kylon is calling him Isaac because of his old designation or because they all maintain a database of designations and Isaac never actually updated it. The point being it's a wasted scene. Well not whole scene but that line is wasted. There is no point in ever revealing why he's called Isaac. The only thing gained by it is trivia. When it's sci fi trivia night and someone asks what is the name of the robot on The Orville you can remember isaac because of newton. But it does little to expand character, setting or plot. and that small line might be my biggest complaint of the episode.
The thing of it is this episode actually did bring to mind something that I've been thinking about and that's the humor. Sometimes it's a bit non-sequiteurish. It's finally occurred to me that it feels like someone went through the script and then just inserted jokes without telling anyone and they filmed it. Things like the pee corner. If you literally clip that out. The rest of the episode feels like a real spec fic. That said the phantom script editing IS the Orville identity.
That said in no way did The Orville find itself in this episode simply because it found itself in the episode where Isassc began a relationship with the doctor. Or the episode where Bortus had tried to defend having a girl. Or even the episode where starsigns were taken seriously by a budding new civilization. Are there still random jokes someone clearly is inserting into the scripts without supervision? Yeah but all of that is part of the identify The Orville has long ago established for itself. This show has the potential to become a long remembered science fiction classic. It has everything it need to inspire spin off movies and books and RPG and games and sequel shows. And it's had all that long before Identity Part 2.
Ok so here's the thing. How do you rate a reality show about terrible people? Do you rate it highly because they're all as bad as promised? Or do you rate it highly because they changed a lot? Or do oyu rate it highly because they didn't. Does authenticity matter? Does likeability (which is often gamed?) matter?
I've caught episodes here and there of CWD and I've even seen one full season before a long time ago. This season is different from all the others for a bunch of reasons and I base that on my own viewings and talking with other viewers. The first change is to the format. No more hardcore basic drills. Now they include technology. Backup cameras, something called a "Birds-eye cam", anti-lock brakes all that jazz. Now you might imagine a lot of this makes some of the challenges so easy as to be pointless. The answer is a qualified yes. Yes, but the people on this season are literally the worst batch of people I've ever seen. Even the people I like are horrible... well maybe not people, but drivers. They're all horrific drivers. not just bad at driving. But to an extent we would all be better off nuking all eight licenses and calling it a day.
There's one challenge where our drivers have to practice backing up a trailers. A challenge I remember and would ordinarily be a nightmare for them. But in this season they show technology that lets you control where the trailer goes with a rotary knob. Meaning you can steer the car with a small knob. When it's the driver's turn to complete the challenge, half of them refuse to use this easy as pie knob resulting in just bad driving. It's painful to watch. But not as painful as, what I call, The Ballad of Karlene.
To be fair to Karlene there are times the hosts background in driving skills teaching and lack of psychological training show. Karlene used to be a professional driver, until she was hit as a pedestrian. She flew 15 ft and literally almost lost her leg. As a result she's in a constant state of panic and fear and overwhelmitude. So when the host mocks her panic attacks it's roughly 50-50 good natured ribbing and callous insulting. It's frustrating that he at times can't let up. Karlene is a laughable driver. Watching her drive is like a black comedy where you want to laugh at her spinning out and then crying but she just cries for six minutes straight and you start to see how badly she was broken by her accident. Karlene should have been the heart of this episode. She's the only one with a non-psychotic driving history. She's sympathetic. Without spoiling how far she goes I'll simply say watching Karlene improve was some of the most rewarding parts of the season.
There are drivers that stand out like Darris who has a tragic backstory but has the skills to drive. He's literally the most successful driver every episode and yet you keep praying they find an excuse to keep him there because he's clearly not road safe. Brandon who was nominated by what must be a really really good friend because he is just head shakingly bad. And yet in spite of those standouts who ordinarily sound like they would be "the bad one" in a normal season you have drivers like Alexis who texts while driving so much that the 21 year old got t-boned driving into a red light where he young daughter was in the her rear facing car seat. Brittany and Descy both have terrifyingly horrific driving histories. Brittany's 20-30 collisions she's been in doesn't even count the times she's cut people off and hit them on the high way. It's so normal she doesn't consider them collisions. Descy's body is like a roadmap to her collisions. I wonder if the tattoos cover up the scars but then we see some and not really.
Over all it's an interesting season though not as educational as other seasons might be simply because teaching a child how to walk doesn't really do much for your marathon training regimen. Fun facts we did learn. In Ontario when driving in reverse you don't need your seatbelt. Also while parking in a handicap parking space is a ticketable offense that is not the case for the family/expectant mother spaces.
For me the thing that sticks out even more than the girl thinking Damon Wayans is a "handsome man" . I thought that was sweet. What sticks out to me is the fight Murtah has with his wife. First off it's a stupid fight to have "oh no my wife when she was a teen married some guy". Who cares? She married me and had kids with me and- here the kicker, she's not in anyway interested in him. I'll never understand this fight. At least on shows like Friends Ross was confronted with Pablo in his face. He had to meet him and that inspired jealousy. But this is a name. There's zero reason to be jealous.
Then on top of that with absolutely no inciting introspection or discusison with anyone he decides he doesn't care. Like why not just start there Murtah. I mean dang man I love ya and your wife and your marriage and I actually jive with what you were telling Bailey about how your wise elder act is just that an act. But then getting legit angry at your wife for being divorced is not that big a deal at this point in your marriage.
Ok that fight really is centry to everything I didn't like about this episode. The rest of it was basically everything I want in a basic LW episode. It's not overly deep. It's not overly cheesy. It had stakes I cared about enough to invest. It's not the greatest episode but it's better than average simply by being ideal.
A very plodding pace is masked by great but not colourful visuals. It does this thing that I generally find more annoying than not of not tell you everything. Where they introduce some people but not others and you just have to infer a bunch of things. At least everyone is unique looking so you don't have to spend three episodes before you can tell them apart.
Overall this was a very very good pilot episode. After watching Titans and Doom Patrol it's nice to see something with a bit more polish.
The dance scene was great. The fight scene was great.
This was an okay adaption of a short story. It's super faithful but in this case it hurts the overall product. The conciseness of the short story is what made it work so well. Here we have a story that doesn't work as well visually in the first place and then you throw in an unnecessary side plot to make it a movie and you end up with a film that's dark to hide what becomes obvious in the light and pacing that doesn't work and the only parts that work as what's in the original short story (All You Zombies).
So while I'm not the biggest fan of the whole Mockl'n what if everyone was gay and straight people were outcasts thing. I kinda worry we're going to tap that well too often. But to be fair it's not as if they've run out of ideas. The other episodes are interesting and creative and this episode wasn't bad.
the synopsis is basically a whodunit focusing more on a mystery (albeit very lightly in order to make room for social commentary). It is generic upgrade season and they invite a Mockl'n Engineer that is the ex-boyfriend of Bortus with a secret. He's into women not men. This is an, as you would expect, forbidden nature for men to have. Since Mockl'ns are a violent species, this is a death sentence. Inevitably over the course of.. what felt like maybe 3-4 days the Mockl'n engineer falls for the Talia and she takes on the role of "that one girl who is super accepting of everything" and reciprocates those feelings. While they stroll through the set piece of the week (old timey New York), someone kills the Engineer and masks their identity. The identity is revealed to be Clyd'n mate of Bortus. Someone who discovered is "filthy deviant secret" and killed him for it. When they finally put him away there is a plot twist. Maybe it wasn't Clyd'n and maybe our Engineer is still alive. Yes he is and they turn him in to save Clyd'n condemning him to death from a culture that doesn't understand "free love".
So the humor didn't cross the line this episode as it does so rarely. This is a very classic Trek:TNG style episode but with like two jokes but they're restrained and amusing jokes that don't go on a bender. The first where they double check that they said "no torpedoes" had me considering whether or not the engineer lied and they were going to legitimately take over the ship. The second was a tally of the crazy things that happened on the ship. It all worked.
The flaw of this episode is that the plot doesn't work. So our visiting Engineer expert has a secret and someone kills him for it. The problem is that the person in the brig would be revered by the Mockl'ns for killing the Engineer. The Mockl'ns wouldn't want justice because the Engineer's secret is a shame to the Mockl'ns. They would have killed him themselves. They DO kill him themselves. So this whole drama of the Mockl'ns trying to get justice doesn't make sense. It only peripherally makes sense in that for whatever reason the Mockl'ns never got to confirm with the prisoner that the secret was real which doesn't make sense because they would have already sent the message. And maybe the Federation would still have locked him up. I suppose that makes sense and it's not crazy to believe. It just feels like it could have been written better.
But overall a solid episode that I didn't really care for.
EDIT: On re-watching another thing I wanted to highlight is that while I like our new security chief, heck I even think they gave Alara a good goodbye and Talia has a pretty respectful welcome that both keeps the momentum of the show while acknowledging our attachment to Talia. The problem is Talia is a newcomer. Yet she knows all the hot gossip [until she doesn't because it makes for a great joke]. It's a weird gap that and the lack of characterization. She appears to be a mix of Riker and Kirk in that .. sort of slutty way. But it only feels that way because we don't really know much about her.
solid 4/5 Michael Moore documentary not as good as the original 9/11 or Bowling for Columbine but it's good.
Honestly this season has been a whiplash break neck free for all. It's absolutely wild. And I thought Season 2 was insane. There's a theory going around that this should be the future of DC and I'm both scared and excited for that because I don't know if I can take how fast it's going to get.
There's so little I can dock this episode for. One of the few flaws I find in this series is that it doesn't treat it's non-white non-normal women fairly. Talla had a super relatable problem of being unable to find a man who could tolerate her being superior to him physically. She suffers from emasculating unintentionally all the men to whom she is attracted with her stature and her ability. It's part of what made Captain Mercer compelling that he's one of the few who didn't care. But now she's gone which sucks because she was one of my favorite characters.
My favorite character was Doctor Claire Finn. She's great. This episode engaged in a trope that's sucked since I was kid even before I was aware of it. It's the trope of the black girl dating the abnormal guy. You see it in Saved by the Bell and Family Matters and all sorts of shows and a few movies. It's also been subverted a lot more lately. But still I've been waiting for this Claire-Issac relationship to come to a boil for a while now. Which is honestly one of the many many many things this show does right. Rather than randomly throwing the two into a relationship for laughs. There's build up. You as a viewer feel like this relationship makes sense. Even if you disagree with it, you can understand why it's happening. That's incredible. Also for a relationship that's quite frankly laughable all the players perform realistically. Realism is something the show is 80:30 on. Sometimes it's amazingly real and sometimes there are family guy style jokes that remind you this is a comedy and not an adventure show.. but it's also an adventure show. Everyone with regard to this relationship acts realistically. Claire most importantly of all is in full awareness that the relationship is crazy. She doesn't have love goggles that make her unable to see Isaac as he is when he does foolish things. One of the things I like about Claire is that unlike most people she's able to explain things to the robot characters. Often people explain things to robots like they're a slow child. They use euphemisms that the robot can't comprehend. They use slang and try to explain the slang with more slang. Claire is clear and to the point with Isaac.
I could go on and on about this episode but it's just so sincere in it's robotic relationship that it works. They don't mock the relationship event though there are many jokes about it ("dating a vaccuum", John and Gordon racing to tell the bridge about the date). There's humor where Claire and Isaac are the butt of the jokes but there's almost none where it's at their expense.
And then in the end there's real tension when Isaac breaks up and then finds himself at less than 100% function. This relationship is based on a premise I hate and yet by the end I'm hoping Isaac evolves and develops a level of attachment to Claire that could be noteworthy. I'm hoping her changes his faceplate potentially. But for now they have the simulator which is to it's benefit child-free.
One of the most easily enjoyable Spike Lee movies. This isn't as gritty and dark as Bamboozled though it does borrow a lot from it. There are a multitude of reasons why I've had this waiting to be watched mostly because I'm never sure if I wanted to have to watch yet another movie with so much racism but this was much more palatable than a typical period piece. The comedy isn't over the top as it shouldn't be. The racist characters did their job without chewing up the scene the way I expected with all the talk about Toby McGuire's David Duke (and seeing Duke at the end of the movie. I can see now that Toby does make a decent fit).
From a narrative perspective, this is everything the trailer promised it would be. A black cop signs up for the Klan and when he needs to meet in person a white Jewish cop pretends to be him. One of the big things that arise in that situation is that they don't sound the same. But even though phones were much more clear in the 70s it's both understandable and laughable that this doesn't really come up. They infiltrate and try to stall out Klan activities and keep getting accepted deeper and deeper into the hierarchy.
What little I've heard in terms of reviews have focused on the ending which if you've seen Bamboozled you can prepare yourself for. A lot of people call it ham-fisted. I'll agree it's not subtle. Some will say it was unnecessary and I'll disagree. I think that ending footage is what will elevate the movie out of it's time. It seems cheesy and overdone now but in 10 or even 5 years from now that's the sort of thing that will have more punch. I grew up watching Merry Melodies and all those classic cartoons and seeing them at the end of Bamboozled was the talk of the movie for me and my friends when we walked out of the theatre. America is a country under white power and white power is something that always finds a way to suggest racism presented as bad as it was is disingenuous. "It was bad but not as bad as all that" and while it's not a perfectly encapsulated here as it was in Bamboozled the end scene does serve the purpose of showing viewers later on that yes, it was as bad as we said it was.
This is the only season I have or will watch of Game of Thrones. Interestingly enough this was when I got out of the hospital and while I was in the hospital I had finally picked up this book everyone was talking about called Game of Thrones. it was a middling book because it promised all this fantasy element and just I read the whole book waiting for something to happen and nothing ever did. That just left weird political intrigue and you never understand the first time through. You have to either keep reading until it makes sense in context or just reread it slowly until you get it. I didn't like it.
Then unknown to me the TV show popped up. I figured I'd give it a chance. Honestly the best thing I can say about the TV show is that it's a faithful adaption. It's a VERY VERY faithful and good adaption of the first book. Unfortunately I didn't like the first book. WHich leaves me in the position of watching everything I hated happen all over again. I finished the first season and if you love the book series you'll love this season. But for me I stopped the books at 1 and I'll be stopping the show at 1 (season) and that's it. I have zero interest in ever watching this show again.
Actually this was a pretty solid episode. Unlike last week's rage monster episode. This one works on pretty much every level. Team Flash (which I'll point out is a term I hate because not everyone has a Batman-like family and The Flash has always been a more solo hero than team based but at 5 seasons in this will probably be the only time I mention it) actually takes a good step towards solving the big bad Cicada problem. Try to use his daughter to get through to him on a personal level. it's a brilliant idea that they should have tried AGES ago when they first learned Cicada's backstory.
They use cheesy handwavy technology to go inside her head. They use cheesy handwavy biology to explain that the head has a psychological immune system that will fight them. Honestly that makes so much less sense than the first sentence in this paragraph I literally signed and almost rolled my eyes in person by myself. But narratively it works fine. They have to get in and get out quickly or the brain protection will attack them. The two interesting results of this are [spoiler](1) [spoiler]the name drop of Red Death[/spoiler] and (2) [spoiler]the girl is evil[/spoiler].
Think that second result is interesting. I feel it's somehow related to [spoiler]the dark metal or meta metal or whatever we're calling it this season that was left in her head because "it was too dangerous to remove"[/spoiler] which means either we kill a little girl or we fix it.
This is a reprieve from the worst characteres on the show Caitlin/Killer Frost. a) why is she still named Killer Frost? It makes no sense and I will complain about it every chance I get. NOTHING ABOUT KILLER FROST MAKES SENSE!!! I have to rewatch the episodes with her father to even see if her being a metahuman before the explosion makes sense b) just bloody integrate the personalities already. I mean what happens when everyone else is dating and they finally need to give Caitlin a boyfriend? Does he date both of them? Do they each get their own boyfriend? Ugh the whole thing is just stupid but we don't have to do anything about it this episode.
Ralph and Cisco are a fun team. It's good to see Ralph just wanting to connect man-to-man. There's not a lot to say about their interraction but it was charming. Hopefuly they give Cisco a new love interest and hopefully they don't take her away for no reason. We don't need Cisco to be the Xander "Zebo" Harris (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) of the group.
What. the. heck. did. I. just. watch?
My first instinct was to replay the whole thing just because there's no way I just watched 25 minutes of show. Man I've forgotten how engrossing this show can be. I am not even sure I have words to break down what just happened. True to form You're the Worst showcases a couple that's perfect for each other because they literally are and remain the worst. I mean the love story at first had me wondering if there was a hidden backstory to Jimmybecause everyone kept calling him Jake. Only to have it go for a wrenching when Gretchen takes the lead of the story. At this point I imagined they were writing a movie together which explained a few oddities. I lived in the AOL era and dick pics weren't really a thing then.
Gretchen tapping in should have given up the jig. In retrospect the clues were there I just didn't understand the background. But there are so many aspects that are just so true to the show from the way this super heart-felt narrative being weaved fades apart. Gretchen stops caring about logic even less than Jimmy did. (First International Mainstream Blockbuster with Graphic Sex and so many murders). But there are moments of genuine glee like when Jimmy is startled to learn that "the reporter who asked you the question was [him]". I laughed really loudly at that part. But this entire effort suggesting at least a step forward for our "worst" couple ends up being a facade with no real point, which turns out to be their opinion on marriage ceremonies next episode. The whole thing finally begings to go somewhere and the episode is over.
An amazing movie with some of the best creature design I've ever seen. Attack the Block is a sort of London hoodlum version of Goonies. Only instead of innocent children going for X marks the spot treasure. These are kids no one cares about except their own. And they face off against an alien threat. It's easy to assume based on descriptions that these characters aren't likeable because the first act of the movie is the gang robbing a nurse of her stuff (including her wedding band) on her way home from work. A home that she will turn out to share with these kids. But the movie is more than that one scene. The characters are fleshed out. Their actions in that moment while never justified are explained. When the world hates you and yours you develope an us vs them mentality and that turns out to play a strong role in what happened in that very short opening scene. But there's so much more to the movie to love. A character literally named Moses who has to lead his crew to victory first to the promised land of a step up the gangster heirarchy ladder and then to the fighting back against the alien menace. A menace that is very real and very realized in this film. Good kids don't make it and bad kids do. Even with the help of the nurse they don't have the easiest time. But the movie is a triumph of character that while primarily a sci-fi action set-piece has scenes of comedy that are some of the most emotional in the whole film. A must watch film. The lead character is so captivating I couldn't to see him in something else. A few year later I would get my wish.
Hollar at the Asian dude who literally called out Shawn for literally saying what he's thinking all the time. It's WEIRD and more people would be commenting on it. again and again this show doesn't seem real because not enough people hate shawn.
So what we have here in this episode is lot of my "favorite" medical show tropes. Honestly I'm surprised they didn't sneak "the patient who knows what the doctor is really going though" in there. But we do have another one that's equally frustrating. The patient who questions medical advice from doctors.
Medciene: We have another doner
Patient: How many markers does he have?
M: 5/8
P: That's not good my father (who is locked down under quarantine) had more. I can't go though all this again.
Like bruh you're literally on deathbed. Who refuses to take the chance with a doner.
It's not a medical show without a big huge event and in this two parter it's an unknown viral airborne pathogen that initiates a quarantine. I can't wait to hear how they explain how this happened. But never fear we have Doctor Shawn Murphy the worlds worst doctor on the case. A doctor with no tact and no ability to not say exactly what is on his mind no matter if the information should be spoken in front of patients or not. This week on difficulties only Shawn will face it's "light bulbs". The man is paralyzed by a light bulb that is buzzing. I want to believe that there's something going on with the light bulb and Shawn is just hyper aware of it and it's going to be key to why people are getting sick but by the end of the episode. Nah. Just Shawn being Shawn.
I love AoS against all odds because I in general hate everything about SHIELD as an organization in comics, movies and even TV. But Season 5 of AoS is one of the best comic based seasons of television even with the flaws it hate on the back end. The show had a premise that was weak featured an organization I hate, and opened with bigger ideas than writing. But honestly it's pretty great as a whole and I have no trouble recommending it to anyone. But I'd be happy if they start prepping for the end properly because I don't want this to go cliffhanger to cancellation.
ok so here's the thing with MacGyver as a series. This episode kinda exemplifies what you will be getting most of the time. Which is to say it's uninspired. It doesn't fail anywhere really except at being entertaining. Mac and Jack get kidnapped and have to literally MacGyver their way out. This is the sort of premise that made MacGyver. But here it's just.. uninteresting. What's actually more interesting here is the B-plot where the B-Team (Bowser, and the ladies) have to steal a necklace. Do computer stuff do it and return it all without getting caugh. Honestly it's much better executed than Mac and Jack. It's fun at least. But even that plotline like the other one lacks stakes. In a previous episode I recommended you introduce your friends to it if you want them to like this show. This is an episode you recommend when they already hate it. It's not going to change minds much but you will be able to argue "See it wasn't terrible" because that's what this episode is, not terrible.
I mean for crying out loud the B-Team has to do a jewel heist from a terrorist. This should be exciting and with tension and stakes it could be because it's written well. things go sidways, they have to improvise but there are beliveability issues. That might have to do with editing. Bowser has shown himself to be a crafter. The show has made good and bad use of that before but here.. he needs to come up with a mini fashion show in one day and at no point do you see this. It's one day he gets the ultimatum and the next scene we see him in it's the next day and he has dresses. I would have liked to see him working on the dresses to see the ladies appreciate his ability to come up with dress designs or maybe work with him or something. I don't know where the dresses come from and it's just like "magic" with a lot of money and it feels uninteresting. It doesn't do anything for me and I wish it did because it could have been interesting. I think it fails because they try to introduce a personal plotline to the B-Team. Bowser asks his girlfriend (B-Team lady) to move in with him and she hesitates. Which leads me to two points:
So here's an example of things that are bad with this show.
The crew are helping a woman find her birth parents. Miles is also hitting that moment in every tv show when the girlfriend who won't last starts to feel like a second fiddle.
What happens is that Miles is supposed to go to the movies with his girl when they find a clue. So Miles has to cancel his plans to track down the clue.
But why? What kind of time management is this? What clue wouldn't survive two hours to watch a bloody movie?
It completely belies the whole reason he doesn't take the girlfriend with him. He claims to want to keep his romantic life separate from his philanthropic one but he doesn't have a personal life anymore. He doesn't have friends unassosiated with the account, he doesnt do non account things. Nia far from being turned off by the account (which would be valid reason for the "church-state" line Miles draws in his relationship with her), is actively interested in joining him. He has a chance to do his work and keep his romantic partner happy by doing it with her. It's the sort of thing that could bond them together. HIs friends and 'real' romantic interest haven't expressed opposition.
The whole thing in one scene gives you about 3 of the 10 things wrong with this show and there's a bunch of scene like this throughout the show little scenes that don't make sense and represent about 3-4 things that keep popping up wrong in the show. Only the light nature of the show (and my completionist tendancies after all I DO want to see who the account holdler ends up being) keeps me turning in week after week.
This pilot was good. Really good. having no idea what this was I was left in a lot of suspense on whether it would deliver on the tension that seemed to be ratcheting up. A self narrating bookstore of above average intelligence begins stalking a woman who walked into his store? He uses social engineering to trick people into giving him access to her. It has a strong Dexter vibe but where Dexter was supremely dispassionate here our lead Joe is the extreme to the other end, cold and purely emotional. His narration, and his deadpan give the appearance of flattened simplified emotions. He's in love with her because she's not like other girls, therefore it's his duty to steal her panties and raid her computer to know everything about her. I won't spoiler which way it goes on the Dexter route on this episode review but I was certainly intrigued enough to sign up for the rest of the season and see how this turns out.'
Update::
Upgrading from a 7 to a 10 because this episode all by itself really is an amazing piece of television. We've had villains as main characters before. We've had villains as main characters that I've liked and rooted for. But Joe is something different even right now from episode 1. A lot of anti-heroes speak to the part of us we don't listen to. The dark thoughts we have but have learned to ignore as we socialized. Joe speaks to something else. Joe makes me more uncomfortable than any of the killers or dealer on TV because he speaks to a part of my self that I could see myself giving into to. That part that falls a little bit in love with a waitress if she touches my hand when I give her the tap machine back. I don't give into that voice because I understand how reality works but unlike killers and dealers and serial killers there's a LOT of dudes who DO give in to that voice. There's a lot of dudes that justify the way Joe justifies. The ending gets a little dark but the show goes to great pains to show us it's not a twist. It was the inevitable road that started when Joe took notice of a woman and didn't just observe but presumed. He presumed
It's definitely a lot less creepy than the original. It's no smash hit but the original wasn't either. It's a fun mostly family friendly film. He has more chemistry with the kids than with the woman but beyond that it's servicable.
Amazing film. Bad heist. I wanted a heist film with black women. I've been wanting this for years. Widows looked like it was gonna give me what I wanted. It did not. And yet I'm not disappointed. I instead got a awesomely acted crime drama that had a heist in it. Viola Davis is going full tilt like she's Taraji P Henson. Michelle Rodriguez I'm still in love with and she's great in this. Honestly I was sold off of those two alone but I can't lie about how great Elizabeth Debicki was and I was not at all prepared for the greatness that is the Nigerian Cynthia Erivo aka my new bae and I hate using that term. But girlfriend is on a whole other level with her intensity. I never saw Bad Times at El Royale but darn if I'm not about to make that my next target. Needle in a Timestack and Harriet are now on my watchlist. I think she'll be a great Harriet Tubman. I've heard of the Recy Taylor story before but now that i know my girl Erivo is in it I might check that out too.
But this film is just a well directed, well acted tense but not pornographically tense action crime drama. Daniel Kaluuya is getting his Dule Hill (Sleight 2017) on and his maniac gangster is great. What I love about this that I didn't like about Sleight (to the point where I haven't finished Sleight yet) is that Steve McQueen doesn't refuse to use extreme violence but he doesn't make you watch it. It's not a gross out scene when people get kill or when bad things happen to people. It's violence that serves a purpose for the story if not the characters and we know it happens but it's not for titilation. I really really appreciated that. It made certain scene in the film palatable when I was worried I would have to look away.
This was actually a good episode. watching everyone learn to swerve and avoid was great. Darus is as confusing as ever. I'm about half way through the episode and I'm still unsure if he should pass or not? Karlene was great but Alexis was scary. To think she literally had no idea she smashed the center of the obstacle is just horrific.
This movie is basically every bit as good as I had hoped. The action is good but it's not pointless . Which is all I ask from for basic action movie. This movie exceeded my expectations by a degree or two. It Manages to have a consistent and coherent theme.
A fine movie that has literally ruined Batman films.
