beanofdoom

Okay. Just to get it out of the way, this is a low budget production. Obviously so. The most distracting areas this popped up for me were with the music and some of the editing and staging of scenes. Some reviewers have talked about the acting, but I really didn't notice too many issues there.

If you just can't watch low budget movies, then maybe you should avoid. I think that'd be a shame though because this movie has a lot to offer in terms of social commentary, though they do go over the top at times spelling it out for the audience.

My 8/10 is for the commentary being offered and the interesting idea of exploring it in this specific time period. I was hooked from start to finish, despite elements that, in other productions, might have made me stop watching.

I subtracted 2 points for the distracting score, some awkward/jarring choices with regard editing and scenes, and for not trusting your audience to make the connection, feeling you had to spell it out constantly.

I can tell you that back in the day, when I'd see her around, she was one of my favorites. I was a kid then though. I remember being super impressed when she was on Star Trek Voyager. Honestly though she kind of fell of the radar for me since the 90s. I didn't even realize she was still around until she hosted the Daily Show. I made it a point to watch all the ones she did and they were great. Took me a little while to get to this, but it was entertaining. She's still pretty good. Not as many laugh out loud moments as I recall from back in the day, nothing so groundbreaking, but the jokes all land and her stage persona is still really likeable. I'd give this a watch if you were ever a fan. 8/10.

Alice was fine. It was a perfectly enjoyable film. It does not deserve its current 4.4 rating. The acting and cinematography was top notch, the dialogue was simplistic but the story was was entertaining and meaningful. Only mistake these folks made was putting a black face on the cover and-- 'boom!'-- minus three stars. Ignore these jive talkin' reviewers, man; Alice is all-right.

It's a shame this film's been review bombed. I hope its unreasonably low rating doesn't dissuade from watching Master anyone who otherwise might have.

Of course films covering these types of issues always incite a bit of chest-thumping by the ignorant, but this one seems to have especially drawn their ire. I think this is because Master alienates them in two ways: They have no basis of experience upon which to understand the meaning of the film, and they don't seem to be able to even follow the basic storyline. Master doesn't spell things out for you.

You'll see, for example, that some reviewers were confused by the ending. For those of us for whom this film may as well be a documentary the ending was not confusing in the slightest.

This movie is exceptionally well-made, poignant and timely. If after watching the trailer and thinking about the themes raised there you think it might appeal to you, I strongly recommend that you ignore these reviews and give Master a watch.

I'm thrilled to be living at a time when movies like these, especially in the horror genre, are being made to speak to an experience not widely or well explored in cinema. The price these hyper-focused artistic endeavors often pay is they leave out in the cold a lot of people who then go to the internet to write bad reviews.

Master preaches to the choir mostly. It tells only people who have the rosetta stone of lived experience things they already know to be true while confusing/angering almost everyone else. While this is obviously not a good approach to educating or raising awareness, maybe that simply wasn't the point.

Ultimately I think Master was a gem. I hope low ratings don't discourage artists from producing more films like this in the future. 8/10.

Episode 1: This is a show about the same sorts of things other shows are about. To get a more specific idea about what sorts things I'm referring to keep reading.

Episode 2: As I sit here, about to share with you whether or not I like this show, I'm gazing at myself in a mirror. I think my face gives my feelings away entirely, my eyes are wide, is that a smile or a grimace?

Obviously my opinion of this show is--

Episode 3: What's that sound? Are there people outside? Oh, just people leaving the bar across the street. But one of them noticed me watching from my upstairs window and gave me a super intense look.

Episode 4: Anyway my opinion is... no different than the sorts of opinions others have had about other sorts of things. You probably want to know what I mean by this exactly; more on that below.

Episode 5: Let's talk about characters. The storyline revolves around individuals. Who are they? I'm getting to that, keep reading.

Episode 6: Were I to give this show a specific number of stars, I'd first gaze at myself in the mirror again, this time shaking with.. Anticipation? Fear? Surprise?

Wait, who left the back door open?

Episode 7: Oh, nobody. It's not open; it's been closed this whole time.

No let's not do the stars this time. It's too much.

(To be continued next season)

I went into the movie with few expectations and having not read the work upon which it is based.

I wouldn't say, as some have said, that I felt mislead by the trailer, rather the trailer made promises I think the film largely fulfilled.

One thing to bear in mind, toward the end of sparing yourself the violently negative response others seem to have had, is that this is not going to be a Marvel movie. Unlike some, I don't believe that liking or not liking this film will be a question of intelligence, but one of openness to the experience. It moves slowly, meditatively-- be warned. I myself have found that quality frustrating in some other films, so I understand. But here I felt genuinely drawn into the world they'd created. And I think this is due to the genius job they did transporting you to the place:

Of course the cinematography was amazing; the color palette from scene to scene was just indescribably well-done. The sound design though takes the prize, it was absolutely out of this world, I was blown away. One little complaint was the whole thing had this low-contrast effect going on. I assume that choice was intentional but I found it just a tad overdone. With all the other stuff going on, we didn't need that to communicate the otherworldliness of the place. It was too much and worse, the awesome job with the color palette wasn't really able to shine through as much as it could have without it.

I ultimately felt a part of journey of the protagonist though. And this was exciting for me at least due to the strange, beautiful, magical and dangerous world they conceived and then so expertly communicated. And the whole experience definitely left an impression, even now days after watching it.

Even understanding how one might have expected something else, it's hard for me to understand, given how much obvious work and genius went into this film, how anyone could, in good faith, give it one star.

The film, in my opinion, is a solid 8.

Armed, attractive people tightly choreographed into a braindead script. A little silly, tbh. Not bad, not good. It's a movie. Nothing more can honestly be said of it.

I've watched one episode and the season preview so things could change, I hope they do.

I was excited about an animated series because I thought it'd be a cheaper format for them to do some really exciting stuff-- intricate plot lines and locations/creatures it'd be prohibitively expensive to do in other formats-- but the writing is brain dead. They've sacrificed any semblance of good Trek for comedy and they didn't even get that right. It's not funny.

I just don't know who they made this for. It certainly isn't for me, a lifelong Trek fan. Hell, I even liked Enterprise and watch the new stuff without complaint, but this is just disappointing because it could have been so good and they've made it so awful.

I'm sure they've done the market research and they have sound financial incentive for making a crappy comedy Trek show. And I honestly hope it makes somebody a gazillionaire because at least then it couldn't be said to have been utterly pointless.

Some reviewers are really turned off by a black person playing Arthur, a couple saying things to the effect: "pretty sure there were no black people in England back then!" This is technically wrong. Even still I'd answer that I'm pretty sure there were no sorcerers or magic swords in England back then either. Funny how suspension of disbelief can only go so far for some people. Literal magic: "sure, sure" but brown skin and "what? this could NEVER happen!" I wish people could grow up and get over these insignificant, superficial differences.

For watchers that aren't so racially preoccupied, this isn't the best show in the world, I'll admit, but it's not the worst either. I give it 6 out of 10 stars, mostly because although I found it entertaining, I have so far felt that it must be geared toward a younger audience than mine. While I will continue for a time, I haven't found the first couple of episodes particularly intelligent and I don't know how much I care about the characters yet. I have ended up getting really into shows that I found less interesting at the start, though, so we'll wait for a few more episodes to see if anything grabs me.

I'm a latecomer to anime in general, but after thoroughly enjoying titles like Dororo, The Promised Neverland, Boku dake ga inai machi, and Kino's Journey I was off to a really good start. I found Hell Girl on a list of supposedly cerebral anime with dark themes. Unfortunately it's not particularly dark or cerebral, more repetitive and sappy. I lost interest around episode 17. I feel like the whole series is an exercise in waiting for something that never materializes. 5/10.

When I was a child I had unrealistic notions about social and moral progress. I imagined, for example, that problems like racism and poverty would have just disappeared by the time I was grown up. How could humans continue to be so awful to each other? Star Trek gave me a lot to look forward to.

Of course, I realize now that I won't live to see the type of society I'd like to see. So much about our nature threatens that Star Trek future, but that's part of the reason I was so excited Picard was coming back. Even if we can't be those evolved humans, maybe it'd help us to at least have them there as examples to aspire toward. My generation couldn't manage it, perhaps we could inspire a new generation.

The production value of the series is great, the acting leaves nothing to complain about, but I just watched two humans straight up kill two others, brutally and for silly reasons. The universe this show is set in is every bit as bleak, dreary and hateful as the real world.

I think hope for our species has never seemed as far away to me as it does right now when we can't even dream of it anymore.

Good stuff. Who'd want a child for a president? Who'd want a child for a doctor? Timely and poignant; this is exactly everything Twilight Zone should be!

ZQ annoys me and I think that, if I'm to be honest, it's as a direct result of comparisons to Leonard Nimoy.

I hate to be one of those fans, and I knew that in Trek they'd have to replace Nimoy eventually, but Quinto is just not a good fit in my opinion. I've tried to keep an open mind about him, I thought maybe he'd grow on me, I mean the other new actors for the other characters were all okay, but Quinto just takes me out of the the thing every time he's in a scene.

That said, him now doing this reboot of In Search Of is just adding salt to the wound. I wish they'd have just made it a new series, then I imagine it would have been easier for me to be fairer to Quinto, to judge the series on its own merits. As it is though I can't help but to compare him to Nimoy again and, of course, as a result find him lacking.

The one place where this is most notable for me is with the narration. Nimoy's voice itself was a phenomenon. It had this sort of meditative quality to it. Quinto on the other hand just sounds like some dude they gave a microphone to. I just can't get over it.

I actually quite liked the film. I think it's for a specific audience though.

I think it's supposed to be science fiction for people who like documentaries. As a person who could spend the whole day watching BBC Horizon and PBS Nova documentaries on science and space, this movie come off just like one of those.

The acting is pretty solid if you consider that these are supposed to be normal people; the dialogue is stellar to the degree that it was scripted to come off unscripted.

Like many documentaries I watched it in a couple of chunks. The science was a little off sometimes, but not badly enough to be too annoying.

If you're a fan of nature and science documentaries, definitely give it a shot. If you're looking for super accessible, hollywood sci-fi on the other hand, I'd say you're ascending the wrong carbon nanotube space-tether

It's a funny show. The cutaway skits for example are hit or miss, but it's hard to say whether even the misses aren't contributing to what Wolf is trying to accomplish. She's a super talented comedian who seems to specialize in awkward. I've seen it done before, but she's brilliant in how completely oblivious she comes off to what she's doing and the fact that she is able to consistently reproduce it.

I couldn't believe how well she did at the correspondents dinner. The jokes, most of which clearly weren't written to be 'har har' funny, contributed to this whole experience; the awkward looks the weird silences-- even the camera cutaways and close-ups, which she had no control over-- it was weird, memorable and funny. Just perfect.

This show seems to be getting off to a similar start, and coming on here to find a clearly unwarranted 4/10 star rating-- and especially reading the content of some of these reviews, wow-- all just part of the comedy!

Take E.T., mash it up with the aesthetic sentiments of Amelie, throw in a dash of The Artist, top it all off with some amazingly open-minded attitudes toward bestiality and you have The shape of Water.

Elisa Esposito is a cleaner at a government facility where top secret projects are kept. Her life is pretty hum-drum until one day she meets a creature from the deep at work and gives him an egg. She instantly falls in love with the beastie and talks her bestie Giles, an aging artist with relationship problems of his own, into helping her mount a rescue. Along the way she receives initially reluctant assistance from her workmate, Zelda, as well as the help of a kind-hearted Soviet spy named Dimitri.

Visually, the movie is quite nice, the soundtrack was also very well chosen, but as a story the film seemed not to be able to make up its mind exactly what it wanted to be. The romance was rushed and never really felt believable, the best friend neighbor was only likeable sometimes, it seemed to want to make some sort of a social statement about male culture in the 50s, but this was only given, at best a superficial treatment; it kept toying with the idea of becoming a musical right up until it sort of did in a number that seemed as out-of-place, awkward and forced as the romance between Esposito and the creature from the deep.

All in all I'd say that this would be one of those films to watch with friends some night for a laugh, but don't expect much more than unintended comedy, as it's otherwise an utter mess.

At the time that I am writing this review, this movie has an abysmal rating on IMDb (less than five stars).

If IMDb were a room full of people with exceptional taste, I guess I would understand why. The movie is thoroughly derivative; it tries a little too hard. I get the feeling that it's supposed to be a 'Hunger' for the modern era, moody and atmospheric-- they've even traded the classical and operatic soundtrack for haze-scene and low key beats looped with synth harpsichord melodies -- and yes, sometimes it falls a bit short and comes off amateurish.

But IMDb is not a room full of people with taste, so I don't get it. There so many movies on this site with absolutely no redeeming value that have ridiculously high ratings. This movie, while not art, did try; it never came off heavy handed, overall it was approachable, and entertaining. I keep asking myself what about it is causing people to react so negatively; the only thing I can figure is that perhaps the vampire crowd are portrayed as too cultured or something, I don't know.

Ultimately I guess I'm writing this review for people like me, those who put a lot (perhaps too much) stock in IMDb ratings. As a fan of films like The Hunger and the whole 'artsy, excessively classy but tortured immortal' cliché I can honestly tell you that I didn't think this film was an utter waste of time (at least no more so than many other movies). It was a perfectly fine hour and a half spent on a rainy afternoon.

I find its current rating a bit unfair.

This movie isn't clever or witty; it tries way too hard. Brooks comes at you a gag a second with farts, silly puns and racial slurs, I mean we're really talking bottom barrel "humor" here-- I just couldn't believe that this was the great classic comedy I'd heard about. I respect the guy, I've seen other things of his that I found at least somewhat amusing, just not this one. Perhaps there's just something of this movie that's been lost to time. I tried watching it with the mindset that it would be dated and I freely admit that a lot contemporary humor isn't much better, but normally I can make it through those films, even the bad ones, this one I stopped watching at about 3/4 of the way through. I just couldn't take it anymore. It's not so shocking or offensive that you won't be able to handle it or anything like that, that would at least be something. No, it's just really dumb and boring; it's an utter waste of time. I can honestly think of nothing redeeming about it. The fact it is so universally cherished really makes me scared for the future of my species.

This film, technically and aesthetically stunning, is certainly successful in establishing a mood that is pervasive throughout the entire work. I imagine that Melville must have been pleased with the finished product but I do wonder how Cocteau felt about it.

My curiosity stems from the fact that the images of the written work were always successfully employed by the imagination to increasingly sinister effect. The siblings were basically two parts of the same being and their histrionics as well as their torture of each other felt as natural and unremarkable as a self-deprecatory comment made to oneself about some minor mistake. This histrionic nonchalance was missing from the movie. Watching the characters harass and chase each other around was a two dimensional representation of a dynamic that would, i think, have been far more successfully established by relying less upon running and screaming. Their games had an emotionally taxing impact upon those in their presence and this wasn't established too well either. Ultimately, I guess that most of these observations can be attributed to actor/observer effect, the difference between being a part of a story, as in a well written book, and watching a scene. I just found the characters to be somewhat laughable at times in the film and I imagine that had I've not read the book, the ending may have seemed excessive and self-indulgent.

I genuinely think that the creative realization of this work paid too much attention to the aesthetics/mood of place and not nearly enough to aesthetics/mood of dynamic. What results is a well-acted, aesthetically pleasing, character study of a few individuals that never really feel real. Melville is often guilty of this but for his subject matter, which is typically more plot driven, it works. The hustlers and lowlifes of the pulp era noir flicks aren't supposed to be accessible. Those films unfold like clockwork scenes performed by little tin wind-up thugs-- and its perfect, don't get me wrong. But the power of the 'two sides of the same coin', co-dependent siblings fable is the pervasive sense of dread that one feels as the dynamic starts to unravel; this is absent from this film. Nonetheless, I give this film seven stars for being a provocative work by two artists for whom I have a great deal of respect.

'Dead Ringers' is an example of the same fable that I thought was remarkably well realized. Of course it's nowhere near as good a movie from a technical standpoint.