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Angel Studios is doing something interesting here: they're making non-preachy value based films that are palatable by your average non-religious movie goer & yet they are using a "pay it forward" system of good doers to passionately promote it and literally pay for others to see it. What's more is this film, as well as Sound of Freedom, are extremely well made for the low budget independent movies they are. They're attracting top talent not because of religious guilt (like a Kirk Cameron Left Behind film might or religious dogma stuff God's Still Not Dead), no these actors are doing these roles because I think they see how strong of writing they have. David Morse, a vet actor, plays one of the best roles he's played in years & even a cameo style featured role of John Lithgow (the mayor) lets him seethe and breath slimy life into yet another wonderful villain role. Cristina Dell Anna in the title role is consistently strong & although it probably won't be treated with the same consideration for Oscar awards due to critics predisposition about the studio (supposedly run by Q'anon supporters I think the stories have said), her role and many roles in the film are no worse than Oscar bait roles are in similar movies like Little Women. The filmmaking, the same as Sound of Freedom Director & also the Cinematographer, is once again very beautiful and visually stunning. Even if a few critics are (I think unfairly) rallying against it, like it or not, it's well made inexpensive and efficient cinema... the exact mid-budget made-for-adult serious cinema that used to be the bread & butter of Hollywood. If the studios are unwilling to make it, I'm glad somebody is keeping up the tradition.

The film doesn't have a meta-self aware bone in its structure & that's refreshing. I'm creators race to reinvent the wheel of film theory, we forget these feel good tales until one comes along and reminds us how much we need a nice uplifting, not challenging society, story. The last film that had this kind of a feel, without religious guilt, was The Upside. I predict this might also do pretty well with the feel good crowd & their praise and money matters too!

I read one critic call it bland, but I disagree. I think it's the kind of film that unabashedly appeals to your emotions over intellect, which some today call manipulative, but if done for a non-dogma cause is just called filmmaking. If religious people used films like this more, uplifting & non preachy, non-cliched and about more reality than biblical theory, I think more from outside the flock would see their perspective. It's only when you're sitting in a movie (like I've seen a thousand times) where a cruel and uncaring god seems to be behind every misery in a very present way, when idiots like Kirk Cameron are acting "holier than thou" and spouting off hateful things supposedly in an effort to convert you that the average person rejects it. So often films have no pretense of entertainment and are really stupidly written only for those who are used to religious cliche & redundancy.

Here, by contrast, we have some intelligent writing, a worthwhile true story about somebody extremely interesting and good who led an inspiring life... that's how to bring 'em in. Maybe some might be inspired to go to church more or like me, while I won't be becoming any more religious, still enjoyed seeing a woman who had faith fight for something good and decent... without strings... just like both Angel Studio movies I've seen. Smart play. Well done. Like Sound if Freedom we have a movie about faithful people, but I would go so far as to say this isn't a "faith movie". Just like a movie may have a serial killer in it and not be a horror movie. I think they've found a good middle ground & i'd see a third movie.

While I'm not here to argue the value of a Netflix backed short verses a low budget indie (as they both have value obviously), having two short films which have blockbuster actors and borrowed talent from mainstream Hollywood May miss the point of the short film. In my mind it's to highlight new and unsung talent, or at least show the talent you know in a less safe and less refined light that could not work in mainstream. This year we have a by-the-book, but charming, Wes Anderson film & a David Oyelowo sob fest... both of which could easily have been a snippet of a big feature blockbuster film. Let's go one by one:

"The After", in particular, feels like a really expensive student film as it recycles cliches of student work in multiple ways. It has a cartoonish faceless villain, with far too big of a knife and shot in the most boring wide shots and utilizing some cheesy 1990's Unsolved Mysteries recreation style cuts. The rest of the film is then about the father character being silent and then freaking out on people who know nothing about his struggles. There is no problem to solve and there is no solution... you're just along for the ride to watch how total messed up he is. There are no relationships, there are no plot points. It's just angst for several long minutes. We've seen this done before from many students who don't have an outlet for their angst. It's weird to see a Netflix quality show do it.

"Red, White & Blue" starts out much the same way, a bit cliche. It's shot in a blurry, shallow depth of field way, and is starting to feel a little generically made... when it does start to get some life into it when her customer inexplicably lends her money sensing she needs it for an Abortion. No explanation is made at how she came to this conclusion (which would have been nice). It jumps up a major peg when a surprise is revealed that pushes the story in another direction and keeps this feeling fresh and topical. The title and its message is a little too on the nose for me, but it is effective & some great acting keep you going.

"Knight of Fortune" was my favorite of the films. It subverts your expectations and finds gallows humor in a deadly serious topic. It keeps tapping the subtle well of bittersweet misery and empathy. It made me cry and it's extremely well photographed and directed. This was the best short in my opinion. It's the sort of movie that used to be the norm in Oscar Nominated short category. It's not flashy, but it is memorable. I hope it wins.

"invincible" is a sweet true story of a teen that is born to cause trouble. I wish I knew more of WHY he does what he does, but much like Short Term 12 a few years back it is entertaining watching him challenge the system and so sad to see him not know why he does bad things. Acting and cinematography are strong.

"Henry Sugar" is a well made short film in the style of the absolutely irreplaceable Wes Anderson. His style and color palate are so infamous by now. I can't say anything negative about the film except that because it provides nothing new to Hollywood it doesn't belong nominated. Millions would have watched this on Netflix or on a DVD extra without a nomination. I'm sure it adds some butts in seats to see this short program in theaters, but I would have just as well seen a new vision by a new or unsung director in its place. It's a fine film. Strong acting, cinematography and screenplay. I still think it shouldn't win and wasn't the best choice.

You get more flies with honey than vinegar, but this film is determined to ruin your day... but don't worry the rich will be able to leave to a new world to wreck so that Earth can be returned to an untouched vista in which (you guessed it) the rich can vacation without all those pesky poor people crowding it. I certainly think it was unintentional to show the problem of the world only being 3rd world decay, but rarely are people in business suits seen as the problem (when the rich elite almost certainly consume much more). I'm used to heavy handed messages in nature docs, basically "look how beautiful, don't you want to save it", but Postcards from Earth's solution is leave the wrecked Earth and let it recover without us, rather than learning to live with it. On a giant Sphere screen, nobody really wants to view a full 1/3rd of a film where we get to see poor people picking oranges, poor people living in urban hellscape (with planes flying loudly overhead and nobody looks too happy to be involved with this expensive vision). The audience OOOOOs and AHHHHHs at previous few moments of nature shown, but the depressing message is hammered home over and over. There truly isn't such a thing as subtlety in film anymore. I think the film needed to go one way or the other: either a feel good Disney Nature film with a "save this place" message -or- a downer film where science talks about the harsh reality... but this film is neither. It's bleak, but the solutions of dropping a seed and instantly terraforming a planet is sublimely stupid. And if this solution is possible, why would anyone need to preserve the Earth and leave at all? Just drop a seed every few years and start again when the planet dies? The film ignores responsibility for an easy answer. Is it really ECO for a single couple to travel space? Shouldn't there be a lot more people? Where are all the poor people? Did you leave them on Earth? And in what universe would everybody "leave voluntarily"? Have you met any confederate people from the south? Or a New Yorker. No way they're leaving their hellhole. The film should have been brighter and with more fun, a message is fine, but how about a realistic one?

Not unlike "22 Short Stories About Springfield" did years ago, changing the format once in a while can be a really strong play for the writers struggling to come up with a new concept after so many episodes. It does feel a little off for a Simpsons, maybe even a little too serious, but I'd rather have a heart filled episode that feels true to the characters than a episode trying to be funny but being untrue to the meaning of the show. I would call this a companion episode to "The Mysterious Voyage of Our Homer", the episode where a chili pepper send Homer on an acid trip through his mind led by a Johnny Cash voiced Coyote. That episode, like this one, feels a little too serious... but is ultimately an important character building episode. Marge's odyssey is a sweet and surreal trip through her fear of losing touch with Bart, which is right in character for her and gives the episode a proper weight of importance. It's a beautifully animated episode which results in a great emotional payoff. This kind of writing is sorely missed from modern Simpsons which I hope we get more of to make these final years salvageable. Could this also mean a simpson 3rd wave of a comeback? We had the first 12 years of classic Simpsons, then seasons 13-19 were mighty shaky, then a sudden come back of funny and cleverness around the time the movie came out Iike they changed over or something) season 20-26, then some really really questionable episodes season 27-34. Could 35 be the start of one final push of greatness? Maybe.

Overall the season has been somewhat strong, but this episode had all kinds of stuff wrong. Firstly Marge cheating is out of character for her, when she has been dishonest in the past it was a Marge episode and the writers worked hard to have her learn a lesson & have her overwhelming guilt set her soul free. Here, she simply isn't sorry enough or go through enough storyline to justify such a major cheat. Next, Homer vomits in a bush because he feels guilty for "ruining" Marge with dishonesty. The joke is jarring, belonging more to a bad Family Guy joke, but for a sweet show like the Simpsons really lowered the class of the episode... a brand new low. Vomit jokes are usually not funny, it wasn't funny before with the Harry Potter frog puke joke and it isn't funny here. Then, to double down on the stupidity Cletus does a call back to the vomit joke which again doesn't work. Somebody has got to be in a position of authority to stop these kinds of jokes from getting through. It was really bad.

A show like this sneaks up on you with its cleverness, not unlike Nathan for You or Schitts Creek. We're so used to modern shows, especially comedies, having morally unwavering characters that when one comes along more akin to Breaking Bad than your standard comedy it takes some time to understand why it's funny. It's a hard balance making you like people in a show that you probably wouldn't like in real life, making you see your own life's conundrums compare with these flawed characters... but the creators do it and do it well. The entertainment of the show becomes figuring out what makes them tick and judging their decisions as they go through cringe moment after cringe moment. You can't always relate, but you can laugh at the discomfort of humans making mistakes. I appreciate the subtle messages of the show: not pre-judging people (not wanting to sell to a guy because he has a blue lives matter flag, but realizing that human beings are more complex and harder to judge from afar), people wanting to help a neighborhood (but under the condition they do it their way and make huge profits off of it) & my favorite, the lampooning the all too true fakeness of reality tv show making & social media propping up of one's self, showing anything but what's real. The show is very self aware, proven by the side characters that sometimes stare right into the camera even though no camera is supposed to be there. Meta is the buzz word for modern feeling projects and this would qualify as that. It almost feels like a very honest reality tv show, always filmed from outside a window or around a corner or in one long take. Much like Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul it's best moments are in the long drawn out pauses and holds. It's is slow, but we need to understand that slow isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes slow is deliberate and slow cooking greatness, so long as it pays off the moment eventually. So far, it has.

A parody that actually has a higher production value than the movie it's parodying, a higher sense of quality in its filmmaking & actually scarier. What it doesn't have is the pretentious vibe of the original film. Good job. It was commitment to flush the Barbie head and I hope it didn't actually flood the house. It's hard to tell if they actually liked the original film or not, but I suppose it doesn't really matter if they did. I personally hated Skinamarink and tried to leave early in the theater but it was a dine in movie and the waiter didn't bring my check until the credits were rolling so I sat there absolutely bored. This made me feel better about having went through that & I laughed out loud a few times.

Hated this film, most tedious action movie ever. It oversells the opening credits death of his son. While I understand it's the crux of the motivation, we get 30 minutes of his suffering before he decides to do a thing. Feels emotionally manipulative, wringing every last drop of milk from the tragedy to the point where it can't be called a fun action film in the least. The entire film is dialogue free, which works for him since he loses his voice, but becomes a big, dumb gimmick as every character in the film is given an excuse not to speak. One is gagged, one cries and texts the entire film, one is simply quiet and stoic and the rest grunt and groan to fill the gaping void. So finally, after a long cliched montage of him body building and gun training (and why he needs to be extra ripped I don't understand, but I'll buy it). He has a year to plan the perfect revenge and what does he do? Drives up, makes a lot of noise, makes every mistake imaginable & is constantly getting beat up and luck saves him every single time. Bad guys aim for his bullet proof vest over and over again, they give him long cool looks instead of just shooting him as he loudly makes himself an eye sore in every situation, never using even the smallest amount of stealth. He decides not to shoot a woman who just unambiguously just shot at him to kill him, which obviously doesn't go well for him. He tells the bad guys he's coming for him and is surprised that they best him. The lead bad guy decides to dance with his girl for like 10 minutes in slow motion as he is killing all his guys in what is possibly the most over decorated art direction ever in a movie... his lair looks like a groovy Los Angeles art installation or something meow wolf would dream up, hardly a gang member's decorating style. He sees his son in things and plays with his toys over and over stopping the action in its tracks. And finally, why are all the gang members cliches from 1990's movies? Why are they squatting and squaring off in abandoned ruins of buildings? Don't they have anywhere better to be? This movie was a boring, ridiculous, mess. John Woo tried his best to make it interesting visually, but the hyper style that worked in films like Face/Off never stops and makes it feel even more dramatically over the top.

This spent so much time setting up pieces and never knocked it down comedically. The cooking at the firehouse, leaving the kid in charge, on a low simmer... how could a fire not start there? That's so obvious... can't believe you left that comedy on the table. What was the use of any of that set up? None of it was comedy. The funniest thing was the firefighters thinking the kid was an orphan. Where is the situation? It's a sitcom... that is literally short for situation comedy. You have a premise (son tries to prove to dad his firefighter job is important), but a premise is NOT a situation. If there is no situation there is no fuel for comedy. Watch some Cheers for gods sake. Watch some Dick Van Dyke. I Love Lucy. Comedy first, deep meaning second.

It took far too long to get to actual episodic situations, but six episodes in we are scratching the surface of what a comedy sitcom's strengths are. Matured Frasier is no fun, just because he's older and wiser doesn't mean he doesn't fall for the same petty quirks his personality has always had. If he doesn't have those quirks, why have the show at all? This episode better showed his refinement, his jealousy & actually had a situation occur and went through the motions of having it be the main part of the scene. A previous episode had a guy get a armor suit arm get stuck on him and the scene was flat because they did nothing with it. He waved once, what's the situation there? Here, we see the situation of not knowing who a date is there for... the awkwardness makes it funny. Funny is goal. 10 eps is not enough to get this show going. It's just gotten started right here... this should have been the pilot or second episode.

It's a shame they only ran this for 10 episodes, it's not enough to get into the characters and the writers to get into the groove of the Fraiser universe. For a situation comedy (ie sitcom) there are barely any situations they get into, in trying to be so modern and hip they seem to have abandoned the tried and true laughs that come from awkwardness. Fraiser is trying to be more serious, less flashy and refined, less selfish & doesn't chase stardom anymore. Stop it. We want to see Frasier grow into something better, but along the way we have to see him always take low road, always be a snob & always have to apologize. Ask yourself: is this scene about a situation Fraiser has got himself in? Is the situation funny and relatable? If not, skip it. For example, one of the few good situations: Frasier & Freddy have blind dates but don't know if the first woman is for which guy... that's a great situation and a lot of funny jokes came from it. Bad example: the British guy gets a knight armor arm stuck on his hand... and that's it... he does nothing with it, had to explain nothing... all he does is wave a couple times. That's not a situation and it's not funny. Too often here we have Fraiser being serious like Martin was in the other series... he can't be that serious... the main character has to be light and fun, only the side characters can bring him back down to Earth. As far as casting: they did a great job. Every actor is funny & doing their all. I personally would have combined the British guy and the Dean woman into one character... because neither are interesting or funny enough to have as much time as they do. Freddy is wonderful & the neighbor has possibilities. I absolutely love David, his lines have made me laugh more than any other. It's a good show, just needs more zaniness and lightheartedness. It needs 22 eps a season. It needs to focus on a few of the characters more & the settings need a pick up of life. Fraiser has no motivation in career and life any more, no struggle. The family dynamic is only part of it.

This episode has maybe the best set-up ever for Black Mirror, but the ending is lackluster. We have three characters which have ample motivation and conflict interacting in a grounded future scenario. Missed are the opportunities of Hartnett's pretending to be her husband and her starting to slowly suspect, of the son figuring it out and becoming the man his father often beat into him to be, of the wife fighting back. There are a lot of ways this could have gone, but, an offscreen kill of characters and a flat ending of the leads staring at each other isn't at the top of the list. It's an okay ending, but I could have seen more. Lot of good time was used in the beginning showing the two men's different lives and approach to it. I feel like as soon as Hartnett's family dies he has much less to do acting-wise and his character gets much more simply motivated when it's on the actor himself. He shouldn't simply lust after her, he should envy him more and what he feels he doesn't deserve. I would have liked to have seen more time given to his character, especially embodied by Hartnett, coming to grips with his own envy and the fight the jealousy had to take over his better self. It does seem like he doesn't have a better self and that it's a straight line down as he loses his family. It would have been more interesting to see him resist the urge to take his life over. Paul's character also is missing something in the end, having realized he has taken for granted his life, he could have attempted to correct it (hints are given he might have done that, but too little). He should have been locked out looking in as he is in the chamber taking over his life, fighting to get back in. I'm not sure how the episode should have ended, but we should have seen more of the last battle for his life. I get time is limited, but there was a good story here that deserved more time.

Frustrating how often the entire game is moot and the team which is obviously not great steals the game by getting one lucky guess at the end. One guess should not undo an entire game of a team smoking the competition. I get wanting to give the behind team a chance to catch up, but it should be tougher for them to absolutely pass them. It always feels like at least one team that makes it to the final showdown is weak and lo and behold often that team totally chokes when it comes to actually playing Lingo, not just guessing a word with a overly obvious clue. Many clues I don't need a single letter and I'm already thinking of the answer. It's not fair and I've turned off the show at this point many times because of how irritating this is. Overall the show is good, a better version of the Game Show Network version with Chuck Woolerly. Rupaul is a personable host that has fun with the contestants and I think the show has long lasting potential.

Starting in season 02 all of the characters who are supposed to be the ones we're rooting for make selfish decisions that ruin others lives and break promises they made to each other, yet the show never makes them live up to these self realizations. Victor is only slightly sorry for abandoning Rahim at a party, Victor instantly drops his original love and is constantly giving into his sexual desires instead of giving it a second and being there for this guy he loves. Sure he feels bad about it, but actions count not intentions. Mia makes everyone bend to her will, asking her father to finally choose her & stop his career ambitions. She gets back together with the Andrew and says it's what she wants. Her father even asks a guy retiring at his job to stay on another year JUST so he can be with her and she can be happy! He asked a guy who had worked his whole life to push off his happiness just so a strangers daughter could be happy. She makes a living arrangement of living with Lake and changes her home dynamic & after ALL THAT... on a whim, just decides she wants to go with her dad after all because she is happier. She doesn't care what her boyfriend feels, makes arrangements to leave without even telling her best friends. This is supposed to be a noble quality, this interfering with peoples paths until you don't need them anymore. It happened again when Felix dumps Lake for the stupidest reason ever, then admits it was the stupidest reason ever and also ditches her mid romantic dance at a party so he can run after a girl he just became aware is crushing on him. Where is his loyalty to this mad love he had? Why is it so easily lost? And why does the show always think following your heart doesn't matter how many people you hurt as long as its what makes you happy now? Victor even pretty coldly rejects Simon, not simply saying he's good on his own but that he doesn't need him anymore. Could he not have stayed friends with Simon, ever asked Simón what he could help with in HIS life? In my opinion, Victor and Felix & Mia seem to be users of others and while that may be a realistic trait and even a good one for drama, it's hard to like them after they have messed with the feelings of such well meaning people to get to their own selfish happiness. I'm running out of people to root for, and even if they do find happiness are they just one sexy glance away from throwing it all away to discover what new person is around the corner for them? What's the point of these relationships at all?

I've been waiting for a new Mel Brooks comedy for decades and, as likely the youngest age one could be and still be directly influenced by Mel Brooks 90's material when it first ran, I feel like I'm coming from an interesting old world-new world cross. The good news is the show doesn't feel like it's letting down the good name of Mel Brooks or History of the World Part 1 (I event rewatched the film just to be sure). I fully believe that Mel Brooks spent quite a bit of time not only approving but even directly shaping the content here. I can also see that through all the casting choices and filming quality that the younger generations tasked with living up to Mel Brooks amazing casts of characters are trying, some harder than I've seen try in a while, just because of the name behind what they are doing. A lot of jokes zing just the same way Mel Brooks always has & hit at a higher brow of humor, with more effort put into the subtext and double entendres. Now for the bad news: whether it comes from Mel Brooks or not, is unclear, but there are also a lot of jokes and even whole sketches that fall very flat for which Brooks in his prime would have trimmed out and tried again I think (or more classic stars would have talked him out of in the moment). Though I believe I heard be butted heads with Gene Wilder, it's clear Wilder's instincts enriched Brooks ideas more than harmed. Now, though the cast has the potential to do something similar (and maybe did resulting in the good that is here) likely the lesser involvement of Brooks, the faster filming speed of tv verses 1980's film and possibly some bad give and take with other collaborators means that sometimes an idea gets through that really bombs. In between smart social commentary & clever sexual humor you also have entire sequences of vomiting that is meant to carry the comedy for an entire scene much like Family Guy would have done. Sometimes the sketch is barely getting going and stops short to make a cheap joke more like it was on a sketch show on Comedy Central, not the grandiose genius that Brooks should always push forward. Granted, I also recently rewatched Dracula: Dead & Loving It, Brooks last major project he was majorly involved in (director, writer & producer of a screenplay concept, not remaking his own work) & I realized it did show signs of a slightly out of touch comedic touch. Most filmmakers would have just kept going and found their groove once again such as Woody Allen did or Steven Spielberg, reinventing themselves... but Brooks seemed less interested if he couldn't work with his cadre of talent that he obviously loved and appreciated. I want to like History of the World: Part 2 and, don't get me wrong it is occasionally getting me to giggle, but 4 episodes in I have yet to have a single moment where I've lost my air laughing. Even Dracula had a couple moments that did so & most Brooks films had several. One problem is that the show seems unconfident in its own material, rushing to the next joke or cutting the next scene before you can realize it wasn't funny or something. This does soften jokes that don't land but it also dulls sharp jokes that could really be milked for its comedic potential. I keep thinking even Marty Feldman would only be amusing here at this this speed, rather it needs a director like Brooks who would actually slow it down when the gag really really lands. I'd much rather have one memorable moment than 100 mediocre ones. The format of the show switching back and forth to the same concept multiple times gets a little annoying. Could they just have had 3 sketches per show and really got them to their natural conclusion. The show is always taking you out of the universe by reminding you there's more to come, keep watching, here's what happened last time... guys it's Hulu, if you didn't slow release the shows I'd have already watched the whole season by now. Previews and repeats are unnecessary. Plus, the plots are rarely deep enough to need reminding anyway. I think back to the muppets repeated sketches, which went at a similar pace, and they just assumed the audience was in on the joke and wasted no time explaining why they were suddenly in the civil war era... if it's funny it shouldn't need much more explanation or backstory. Anyway, I'm glad Mel Brooks got the new Hollywood pull of talented young people such as Nick Kroll & the always great Wanda Sykes, because sadly otherwise the appreciation of Brooks alone might not have been enough to get the show greenlit. There is a lot to like here and I hope it leads to a resurgence of Brooks wit on new projects for years to come. Maybe one more witty comedic foil, Mr Brooks? You're obviously up for it & a lot of people have missed your voice. Comedy needs picking up now more than ever.

What started out strong went downhill very quickly, with signs of wear showing starting about season 4. By season 5 it was becoming unfunny and dopey, cliche & unmotivated. Season 6 has Bob Newhart written out of like 8 episodes, the literal version of phoning it in, which I'd felt metaphorically for a while up to that point. As much as I appreciated the series early on it was a chore getting through the last two seasons. Overall the series is still good and has a lot of good moments, so it's too bad they left this bad final impressions and didn't end the series sooner before it got stale. Thanks for it all.

Love the show overall but this episode seems like a filler episode. Wayne is missing, watching a show which repeats the same bad joke for the 10th time. Lots of long sports sequences without humor. News people doing very little comedy. Stewart getting ripped. Everything is building to something but there is no momentum in this episode and every joke falls flat, has no clever banter. Don't get me wrong... the show overall is still one of my favs. This episode just is difficult to get through and I don't know it's purpose. No episode before had zero people to root for, zero drama, zero heart, zero stakes & even zero witty banter. A series low, hope it goes back to former cleverness.

In the words of Abe Simpson: "I've coughed up scarier stuff than that". Skinamarink is a bland, pretentious, a film experimental only on the patience of the people who are watching it. It's all mood, no substance. It's proof you can make a film without a tripod or a light or an actual idea. I nearly fell asleep. I tried to leave early after 35 minutes of nothing happening, but ended up finishing it because the waiter didn't bring me my check until it was almost over anyhow. No, it's not just "not for me"... it's an awfully done film who can only find an audience in people who like liking things that are anti-mainstream. It tries so little to be anything how can you love or hate it? I don't hate it... you didn't love it. I just nothing'd it. The audience I saw it with had 3 people walk out, other people saying "I guess the face at the end was scary". No, people, you aren't wrong... it was utter garbage with a good trailer. It was a feature film with 10 minutes of content. It sucked, that's not a controversial opinion.

I think the reason the original series was so popular was it was very accessible and, while it did have some subtext for stuff too controversial to say at the time, it also had enough on the surface (especially with the BIG idea of each episode, often relating to the twist) that you could be happy with without diving deeper.

Here there is a lot that is purposely not answered and purposely inserted red herrings. Some not answered questions: Was Joe real? Did Joe crash because he as a bad pilot? Why did the plane crash? Why did the podcast change from every passenger dying to only one... did the events actually change the outcome? Why did the universe give him the code?

Then the red herrings: the Russian mob plot went nowhere, the subtle attempts to put racism in as motivations for him to talk to certain passengers, & why would two people listening to a game cause the plane to go down?

The script writer obviously had a lot to say and questions to ask but didn't feel the need to explain the answer. When you do that you shut out a lot of the audience who come for clear plot twists and thought out explanations. In the original show the gremlin was never explained, but the fact that it was a gremlin was simple and straight forward.

It's hard to understand how the writing of this show has gone downhill so far. I'm struggling to get through this season. The much much too obvious subtext of the AIDS epidemic with a mixed message of the vilification of hedonism in homo-eroticism & subsequent glorification and use of its sexual powers to get you to keep paying attention. The season explores trauma, buts it's much too heavy and basic for the usual pop & smarter series. There is too little actually going on on the surface to excuse or cleverly hide the subtext, instead it plays like a bad after school special reenactment series... detached from itself and telling a personal experience in a non-personal way. It's aimless except to educate and depress. This show used to enjoy its own horror and now it just feels aggressively begging for your attention, yet it doesn't deserve it.

The beach scene, an important blur of information and revelations with absolutely no pay off. Characters don't react to life changing news, they don't even take their sunglasses off. The show had been dragging for about 2 episodes, particularly with the previous tarot card episode, but it really starts down a path of indifference with this episode. If it were season 02, we would be in a more picturesque place and the lighting and camera angles would be more thought out. We would have had some close ups on characters, some emotions as their decisions happen to decide what their wrecked world would lead to next. Gino goes into the breaking bad this episode and yet it happens so so easily. Instead of spending time with that we get more gratuitous sex... to the point where it's not sexy or scary or thrilling. He's sick and has an addition to it. We get it already. The scene with the killer getting into the car with the body, he doesn't even look around... another missed opportunity for suspense and horror... no it's just a bland car chase. The next episode says "believe me the cops wouldn't have come"... why not? Why didn't Gino call the police? Why wouldn't they have? Or at least they could have sent the mob to clean it up. The whole thing just absolutely falls apart and goes nowhere and it's right here where it happens.

For some reason a string of horror movies lately have been abandoning on-screen scares by going 100% internal and metaphorical & whats worse you're left to 100% interpret it without much if any help to know if you're going down the right road. As an audience member I like a combination of on-screen literal & metaphorical creep. Here we are led up to what might be literally in the house or in an otherworldly backwards version of the house or in someone's mind... but at the end of the day you're left without a shred of evidence to entertain any theory. Instead, you must try to decipher some plot crumbs to piece together yourself what is probably a big metaphor for dementia or old age or death... except you could have figured that out without the horror, without all the lead up... so in a film that is 100% metaphor what is the point of watching it all?

Hard to criticize an episode that is purposely trying to write bad concepts and plots not good enough for the show. The only comparison I can make is when Simpsons did the Mid-Season replacement three-segment episode way back in the first decade. In that the concepts were all again supposed to be bad, cheesy, unsellable; however, the jokes continued from there with fully baked lampooning of mystery cop shows, the Brady Bunch musical debacle & "My Mother the car". Here the joke is funny, but it never gets past that and feels like a Robot Chicken grouping of random spliced vignettes of bad concepts. The concepts are also not just bad, but sometimes the joke is how awkward it makes us feel. It's successful in doing that, but I'm not sure if that's entertainment exactly. The show isn't a complete loss as it does have a few good random moments and a few jokes that work.

If you had to write a MasterClass about how to anger the fans, end a franchise with utter disappointment & not give the audience even a little of what they want by making an entirely different movie and slap the name of a beloved intellectual property on it... this would be it. Firstly, it's clearly made by people who don't appreciate the horror genre, nor the Halloween franchise, has no problem lying to the audience to get them in the door. Past an hour in Michael Myers appears in figurative form a couple of times, instead we deal with ... the one we all were told the film would be about and came to see (psych)... it's some cheesy 70's/80's-esque origin of a dude named Corey. I would be okay with this, as I love cheesy psycho stories, we're it not masquerading as a Halloween film. They didn't learn from Halloween III (which is a film that I do enjoy) that you can't over complicate the franchise, can't do without Michael. The previous film insinuated that Michael would become supernatural, a much smarter bit of writing. This makes the film very unlikable as a new direction and sadly doesn't provide closure either. With so little screen time with who we came to see & a general metaphor meanness surviving all, it took an almost innocent and fun concept of a slasher and made it far less fun and far less special. Failure at the most deep level is all over this.

Based on reviews and the trailer I expected to hate this, but dang it if it didn't win me over for its accurate adaptation of the source material. It's not high class, it's a sitcom with dad jokes about Halloween. Jeff Phillips playing Herman is definitely within the brilliant comic timing of Fred Gwynne & like him he leans into the innocence of Herman. Jeff also adds a younger and (might I say) sexy appeal that wasn't there before. His timing is perfect & I laughed at every one of the cheesy one liners he said. Sheri Moon Zombie was a little over the top, less subtle than the sitcom, but she played off others well. Character actor Daniel Robuck does an amazing impression of the previous performance & also adds some young life into it. The Elvira actress Casandra Peterson got me when she teased a costume she would be in, only to be a witch instead... nicely done. I think the mistake here was calling it a film, when it was so obviously going for the style and feel of a TV movie of the week. A lot of people don't know what those are anymore and expect a Rob Zombie movie to be more. That's the audiences fault and not the fault of the film... it was exactly what it wanted to be & did it well. In the framing of mind that it was a TV movie adaptation it was perfect fun. I'd be down to see more with these actors and why not as the sets are built now.