jasonsgk

How is this show so well received? It's not a bad show but it isn't good either. It's clearly HBO buts like all original programming they make it's nihilism. Most episodes are completely pointless and you could in fact due without them all together and it would have zero outcome on the story itself. Plus, it's zombies. And not like a new interesting take on them. It's just zombies again; like you seen them a million times before but this time with fungus. They still act the same, bites make more zombies, hive mind, etc. It's not interesting. But take that, throw in the plot from Mandolorian and splash of the tone from west world and you got yourself this insanely overrated snooze fest. Guys, sometimes it's not a "slow burn." It's just dull.

The first half was a decent setup. While not spectacularly acted it had a ton of directions the film could go that would make sense. Then the second half was just bizarre. It felt rushed, the acting shifted to a new character that absolutely could not act and it was genuinely distracting how bad she was. But for a fun camp movie you could still make that work. The real problem was that nothing made any sense. Their counselors themselves made no sense and they didn't provide any background or explanation. We didn't even know who they were by the end. Like, who was Bacons character? I'm not sure they told us his name in fact. The villain was the most confusing character since their story was full of gigantic plot holes, like so bad you could not watch the movie twice. They tried to get a surprise ending but went about by deceiving the audience but yet it was still somehow predictable. But at the end, what was it even about?! Was is an empowerment movie? It wasn't effective if it was supposed to be. Was it trying to make a point about culture today? Was it a hyperbole? If any of those, how were they trying to say it? Like, it was total nonsense. I assume what happened is that maybe they didn't have a good story and then just super rushed it at the end and maybe the point was completely loss? I don't know. Maybe people got behind because of it political messaging, if there was any, which, their wasn't. It was an extremely amateur film that borrowed from a million before them, like Sleepaway Camp. It's just a mess.

It was campy and cliche and predictable and absolutely perfect. The pacing, the classic storytelling, the callbacks, the action sequences couldn't be better done. My expectations for this film were so low that even after seeing all the good reviews, movies of this era have been so poor, boring, overhyped and preachy I still figured it would be horrible. But it was incredibly refreshing and a reminder this is what movies were for. Entertainment.

Are stuck between not being able to decide whether the last Jedi or the my little pony movie was better? Well than have I got a finale for you! That's not to say all the dudes just stood around. I mean most did while cheerleading but two didn't. Mind you what they did do didn't really matter. So... It was ok. Let's be totally honest, the first 7 episodes, while bloated with tons of inconsequential plot lines like the Sullivan's military or most of the Russian plot, its was still fine. Didn't take away. This episode had sooooo much exposition and characters pouring their hearts out. It was a little weak and a cheap way to build up a sense of magnitude for potential character deaths only to have 11 rush into save the day exactly like she does every single time. Psychic claw dragon ball z grimace off. It was fine, it really was, it was just insanely predictable and unbelievably low risk. The build up from the entire season had such a poor payoff.

The first season was so clever and experimental and interesting. Tons of episodes and all offering something new. With exception to a couple episodes, it was a near masterpiece. Then came season 2 which was straight garbage with maybe 3 episodes being ok and the others being basically just a ripoff of those episodes. Then came season 3 which is really just another bland wokist snore fest we've seen over and over and over again. Netflix got their grips in it and apparently doubled down from the mistakes of season 2. Pay attention Netflix, this is why you're quickly going bankrupt. Bleh.

It's those two films forced together and in a weird and honestly, very boring way. The characters were not intriguing, the story relied heavily on hiding things from the audience, typically run of the mill poor writing. But you know the weirdest thing? It had a very inclusive cast, which is fine except, they left out Egyptians. How did they miss the people where it's filmed?! It's so odd. If you were to tell me the title was "Death in New Orleans" I totally wouldn't even question it. Because I'm casting, theme, music, it very much was. It was extremely forced and felt that way. Just another mediocre hide and reveal who done it. Bleh.

You've seen this before. Privileged woman gets swindled by too good to be true man who promises exorbitant wealth. Yet another sympathetic female brought down by manipulation and ambition and misunderstood as a villain. Guys, she's a bad person. She stole from people, she stole from her employees, she wasn't even a very good vegan. She's crazy dishonest obviously. But they thought the most honest person to tell her story was her?! I don't get this new total lack of accountability we put on seemingly smart and capable women. I think if you manage to stay awake through this series you'll see it for what it really was too. A fraud. She ran her business dry then tried to steal and gamble her way out. No sympathy needed here. Also, so boring.

There's a lot to like about this series unfortunately not much has to do with the series itself. It's a very interesting story. It's a crazy story. But this series is just kinda... weird... First Renee Z does a good job capturing her likeness which is pretty shocking but she did. However RZ has a very distinct voice that really doesn't work at all. Pam Hupp sounds like baritone 30 year smoking lady at the DMV. So it does pull you from the moment. She was okish in the role but this is one of those scenarios I can't help but wonder if they casted too high for that role. RZ can't be the best fit. There has to better fits to try to capture an ugly middle aged mean scowled woman than RZ. The strangest thing is without a doubt Keith Morrison though. He narrates the story at unnecessary time which I assume is suppose to be reminiscent of Dateline but instead feels like Christmas movie. It's just bizarre and would work better without this constant fourth wall stuff. A traditional drama I was genuinely looking forward to so this was disappointing. The only other odd thing was that this woman was indisputably evil, so why play it for laughs? She killed 3 people. I mean there's dark humor and then just tasteless humor. These laughs they were going for kinda flopped. The series is really worth watching but the show has some massive weirdness that is pretty distracting.

The style is more like Luca but pretty to look at if you don't mind strobe effects.

Popart like but not as well executed as say Big Hero 6. The story is fine. I mean it's a coming of age classic trope told in a way we've seen before at least a billion times. Extremely unoriginal but it's cute.

You know the real issue, is that it is in the vein of all Pixar movies now. They're just kinda, eh. Watchable but not special. I dawned on me that they have not made anything special since they fired John Lassiter and he apparently took what made Pixar special with him on the way out. Too bad, Pixar was the gem in the crown and now their straight to home video.

It was pretty poor attempt at telling a story that really doesn't need to be told. It's just boring. Honestly if they made this into a single movie, it's still boring. Plus the show was retcon of history which is even weirder. Tommy lee was arrested twice for domestic abuse during this timeframe and the agreed to have single showings of the tape. She made other tapes too and even dated a guy involved in the Paris Hilton tape. The sudden victim narrative is forcing modern values on historic events without context and it falls flat. It's just a bizarre retell of something no one cares about that much to begin with. The first episode was legitimately entertaining and the cast was near perfect. I say near because, who called Rogan in for this? He didn't contribute anything and didn't even look like the real guy. Everything he touches is worse for having him in it. He can not act but for some reason every time they need a middle aged loser his phone rings. Shop around guys. It was mediocre and long winded but I guess had a couple redeeming qualities.

It's a very watchable true crime drama told through the gaze of poor storytelling. The cartoons used to depict the re-enactments are very poor, ugly and distracting. The stories themselves are interesting enough to watch them all but it's nothing new in this genre. In fact Discovery had this exact same show they did in recent years and produced it better. I think the show could've been significantly better too if some of the people being interviewed weren't clearly intoxicated as they told thier stories. It was distracting and an odd call by editing to leave that in. I mean numerous interviews and it wasn't hard to tell. Weird.

Like I said though, watchable and as far as I can tell about half the stories they had were not already been done yet, so something new for the crime buffs there.

It was based on a book that provided a lot more information but it in itself was not great either, that said, this was an absolute unmitigated disaster.

Enormous plot holes, confusing storytelling, bizarre pacing all wrapped up in "bad white man" package. What's even weirder is the stuff they changed from the book made it worse.

It sucked, but the worst part was that acting. Not all of them but that lead actress was unreal. I'm not sure what more to say about that. One of the worst, most scattered movies I've ever seen.

Three major problems with this rehash. First was there was virtually nothing new or more intriguing presented than what was already in the documentary. It was a lazy narrative. Tell us something new. Or make the narrative about a topic we really want to see. Tell me someone wouldn't rather see her missing husband story.

Second was the casting. Geez, what a miss. Some characters were ok but Joe and Carole did not even kind of look like them. Kate MCKinnon always looks dream d and overacts but she was not a good version of a much older, much heavier Carole Baskin. The last huge issue was the storytelling. What is with media's obsession with making Carole look like a sympathetic hero. It's possible they were both terrible people and that's ok. This was an absolutely pointless retread and the CGI was straight out of 1995. Skip it.

We've seen this before and to make matters worse they just sort of mashed together a handful of other mediocre shows to make, you guessed it; another mediocre show. First of all it's not for Fresh Prince fans. It's not even kinda the same show. Imagine if you just took every left wing cultural trope and shook it up and let them fall out like bingo balls. That's this show. By the way, I'm pretty sure Phil would make a worse AG than Gascon.

The real problem is that this show is that it is one in a long line of this era of television programming where we can't can't have nice things. Every form of entertainment has to a political device, an instrument for education and for that, shows like this will only appeal to this smaller margin of viewers who are really only getting affirmation sold as zero investment social activism out of it.

If that wasn't enough to turn you off, it's incredibly slow. Paint drying slow. It's boring. Nothing of meaning ever happens. Characters come and go with no consequence. Events come and go with no consequence. It's just bad writing.

It does have a couple things going for it. It's well produced. It's nice to look at visually. That said the sound doesn't match, in tone or quality. Frankly the lyrics are offensive and I have no idea why shows keep perpetuating the thought that it's ok to drop n words without purpose. I get the argument, it's cultural. But honestly guys, who do you think are making these shows? It's the worst form of pandering. We need better quality programming if nothing else to raise the waterline and stop making this corporate, focus group, wokist snorefest.

I went in knowing it would have political tones to it. Bad white men and whatnot but that's really not what ruined it. It was way too long for something that barely had the content to make a dateline out of it. Guys, there's better stories out. Far more interesting stories. However this is where it where it diverted from other Shondaland stories; really poor production. Pacing was awful, casting was mediocre and the acting was shockingly terrible. What I liked the least though, was the narrative they chose to run. This Robin Hood genius story. By all accounts she was a simple greedy grifter who stole from the wrong people. Far from a hero tale.

It's not a terrible show, it really isn't. But the problem is that we had baby bears in the previous we bare bears and this is very much a lazy feeling loosely inspired remake. If no previous show existed with the characters to make comparison it might be passible though the art style is a turn off. Too much of that CalArts look. But there was a previous show, with a more unique style, better voices and better developed stories. Heck, even the music was substantially better. It's a very mediocre offering.

It was a mindless binger and it was well acted, albeit the supporting cast was almost non existent. I don't know about it being some Oscar worthy performance like many said because I thought that it actually highlighted the lack of Harts range. He thrives in that insincere, dry comedic niche, so certain scenes requiring emotion fell very flat. Odd too considering it was a show about a comedian there wasn't any humor in the entire series. In fact they actively cropped out all the stand up except for the portion of social justice halfway through. Those are easy to overlook however given the decent pacing and direction.

The real criticisms were that the plot was insanely predictable but also requires you to overlook massive plot holes at the same time. I mean, just guessing how the plot would go in my head worked story wise better than what the series presented. That's why the series I think only works as a binge. Given time to marinate it leaves you with more questions than answers. The good news is youre also required as the viewer to see it as an allegory so that's not what the series was about really anyway.

Which brings me to my real criticism. It was a vanity piece. It was this excessively drawn out fabricated allegory about how the wealthy and privileged are simply not loved enough. The story presents us with the idea that they are just put upon, taken advantage of and not appreciated. Like come on man... How can a series that's illustrates kids with cancer in one scene, be a wedged into a theme about self pity? Actually that's one of the most interesting scenes in the show because if you watch it again, you notice the protagonist consistently redirects the pity and attention to himself. It was odd. I mean the show had to invent a fake premise to make the point. I what point did we cross from hyperbole into blatant the self service?

That said, it was worth the watch while maybe folding laundry or something, but don't expect it to be the thought provoking deep masterpiece that even it's name pretends to be.

It's enjoyable, fun and family friendly Christmas movie. No, it's not brilliant. The story is not very tight and pretty meandering. Hard to give it points for nostalgia that it was probably was going for since it jams elements not really representative of the times or even the 8 bit era. Truthfully the movie was an obvious attempt at remaking A Christmas Story. It was not subtle. All the way down to the narration and identical events, it was heavily derivative. Doesn't mean it wasn't good. But just take the movie for what it is. A light hearted fun movie for the holidays thats pretty unmemorable but with decent casting, well acted and directed. Really it's a solid 6/7 out of 10 but Steve Zahn has a knack for making you watch it twice.

One of the mixed bag things about Korean dramas is that they often are a big allegory. While not necessarily a bad thing, sometimes, like in this one, it gets too caught up in the analogy and forgets it still needs a vessel in which to carry its message. This vessel unfortunately sprung a leak and ran dry. As a result, and perhaps because it has themes clearly not intended for a US audience it loses both relevance and impact. Basically, its boring. It's hella boring. The first episode is ok. And frankly that's all you really needed. Nothing else really meaningful happens. Like a lot of Netflix content, a movie would've worked better than a series. Brevity is the soul of wit. It's not horrible, it's well produced after all but it's also a clear coat tail rider on the recent popularity of Korean dramas and one we absolutely could've done without.

I remember accidentally catching Cowboy Bebop in the middle of the night as a teenager and like all who loved the series believing that you secretly stumbled on a unique, subversive anime that created new themes and broke molds of the genre. The first episode I saw was Toys in the Attic, and thinking back to that episode specifically it highlighted the major issue I have in this remake. The original felt clever and experimental. This conversely feels entirely ingenious. To simply remake the scenes from the anime into a Live action it doesn't pay homage, instead it feels extremely lame, campy and childish. Reminiscent more of the Wachowski's Speed Racer remake than Cowboy Bebop. The original new material they added, being a deep dive into Spike was cheesy and if we're being totally honest, a boring tromp in the boring syndicate storyline.

The biggest issue however was without a doubt the casting. Spike didn't feel right. While he was clearly the only one who could actually act, he didn't seem right and it's hard to put my finger on why. He was too old, too soft, too unconvincing to play the Bruce Lee like quintessential cool guy. Instead he felt like Harold on his way to a hunt a bounty at the White Castle. Jet was the most reminiscent of his original character, albeit he was originally of French decent in the series. I mean an African American actor playing a character named Jet Black almost feels like a joke from Semi-Pro. That was definitely not the issue with his character at all though and honestly he was one I was genuinely looking forward to seeing in the role. No, the problem there was that he was one of the most inept actors I've ever seen. Sounded just like him but the dude could not act. And you know what, those two were the best characters. The worst was Faye Valentine. She was unbearable. The acting, the dialogue. Heck, she didn't even kind of look like her. If I saw a picture of her outside the context of the show I would assume it's a new Netflix show about coffee baristas who want to break into being a graphic artist. She's a like a Gen Z stereotype reimagined as a cartoon toughie. And why a race swap? She was already Asian in the show. Why now a gap toothed Latina who by the way, looks white? The costume wasn't even the same colors. This one was like space bus driver palette. Every scene she was in she was awful and made the scene worse by her participation in it.

So here's another weird repeating and annoying thing Netflix does: lighting. The original show had a melancholy to it, no doubt, but it wasn't monotone. This one is dark, as in not bright, to the point some scene actually have a shadowed circular frame like I'm watching it through a peephole. The cinematography is not great either. The saving grace? The stunts are worse. They are so poorly done, I'm the first episode when they are being sucked out the hole in the wall I was reminded of the scene when the main actor fell from the window in Hitchcock's Rear Window.

That said, the jazz music (albeit way overused to the point of feeling like your sitting a pretentious professors office. Like I get it man, you like chai tea, can we turn this pseudo intellectual stuff off now?) ships and what not were pretty spot on. They did a good job replicating many of the iconic visual and musical elements of the original series. But given the episodes were longer and big budget I think that was really the basic entry fee so I can only give some credit since it didn't feel like an homage but a rewrite.

The last comment I'll say is remember how cool Darth Vader was? You remember the mystique of a character they didn't overuse? Well, Netflix forgot and I hope you like Viscous, because there's a lot of him.

Truthfully, I was going to give the series 2/10 but Ein is still as awesome as ever and I can't overlook that.

First of all, it's thoughtful, philosophical and has great action scenes. Now that that's out of the way, I've admittedly never understood fans obsession with the original Dune story yet alone this remake. The old one while good it was always too much to digest in one sitting. No matter how long they made it. They broke this one up which is better to be honest. Too many allegories, too much lore, too many themes all set to a Shakespearean motif making it too muddled for my liking. Was it about colonization, tribalism, messiahs, oil, hero story, all of the above? While I liked the old one, a revamp was welcome since it really needed to be focused into an actual story. That is what I was hoping for in this one. Unfortunately it's not what we got. We got something while visually beautiful, ably acted and well directed, had the exact same issues. It was boring. It was all one color, it was all one tone, it was dry. It was like reading a reference guide to the actual story without getting that story. I'm sure that a lot of people probably love the depth but much like the originals and the book, it suffered from an identity crisis making it kinda average. Great ideas but it never feels like a fully fleshed out story. Just a bunch of ideas. It was basically the book meets Chronicles of Riddick. If you love both of those, you'll be in for a treat, but really it's overrated and way too ambitious.

Yes there's a fourth season coming but this is rapidly falling off a cliff. First season was a 10, second was an 8, this one is a 3 or a 4 tops. This season struggled hard for originality and relevance neither of which is fully achieved. Much of the same we've already seen in previous seasons and for about 80% of the season, nothing really happens of any real consequence. The season didn't really have a central theme or plot and kinda clumsily drudged forward. But that wasn't really as bad as the sudden character changes everyone suddenly went through. Joe turned far less optimistic and more a depressive character, Love just became a sociopathic version of her character from Bly Manor but somehow they show wanted to portray as the conflicted victim, which was odd. Please someone tell that actress she needs to close her mouth. Literately no one has a constant half open, furrowed brow, I wonder if I'm gonna get to the bathroom on time look on their face. Anyone else bothered that she looks like a muppet too? Maybe like the farmer from Wallace and Grommet a little? Doesn't help she only wears the Ginsburg hair style though. Like why did they style her hair like she's riding to warn the British are coming? I digress but the show really confuses bad guy/good guy roles and antiheroes much like Dexter which it seems to borrow from heavily. Not to its own fault, but again this season didn't offer anything other than more ham fisted political messaging and extremely disposable victims. The kind of victims that in old slasher flicks they'd throw in just so they had someone to kill victims. Politically it was not even well dressed, I mean one character overtly talked about loving Rachel Maddow. Like come on Netflix... The last thing Id mention is the really bad lighting in this season. It's like they left all the light bulbs back in season 2. I get it, it's a tone thing. And that's the point, there was no light in the show in every meaning. All dark, all the time. Contrast guys. You need contrast in both cinematography but also tone, you know, like the first 2 seasons.

Amazons target audience is really confusing for this one. Why are they remaking a movie from 1997 into a long-winded series for a very specific tiny group of young girls who don't buy stuff anyway? Heads up guys, they're just watching this in their parents account and they have no connection to the original. Haven't they learned their lesson with countless other series, most recently Panic? You need to have a demo! You can't make the show for the demo you want to exist and think it'll simply manifest on the basis that you've made content for it. There is a core demo for a remake of this kind, but clearly they didn't know who it was.

The tone is bad, the pacing is bad, the soundtrack is horrendous, the lighting is bad, the acting is some of the worst I've seen, the story is incredibly fractured, the casting is stereotypical, tokenism. Although as a side note, the lead actress is 24 but looks about 40, which is kinda weird. Must be the smoking.

But taken away from all conceptual issues I have with the show, honestly it in itself is just weak. It's non sensical and incredibly boring. I mean it's a slasher that starts with a monologue by a one dimension character you sort of hope is the first victim... what were you thinking there? Another Amazon issue of trying too hard to be a dialogue driven slow burn and is really just disguising that they don't have enough material. Which they don't, this was originally a 90 minute movie and they evidently don't have good enough writers to alter its source depth. This is a total and thoroughly confusing whiff.

Weird number of reviews praising Mike Flanagan. It's not that good, in fact it's not even average. The first half was beautifully setup and enjoyable but incredibly slow. Like paint drying slow. Good dialogue however and dutifully acted, albeit some political messaging, characters and anti Christian jabs, it was good, harkening strongly to Steven Kings styling reminiscent of The Stand or Storm of the Century: while thankfully better then those two pieces, it's not because of pacing. No, the real letdown happens at the reveal halfway through the series when it trades its fun ecclesiastical mystery for basically a rebranded Dan Brown version of Little Shop of Horrors. It's just too dumb. And honestly lazy.

It's a good series. Is it as good as Alice in Borderland, not really, this one, while having more realistic qualities, is basically that series meets Parasite with a light flavoring of Saw series. Outside of the main character there isn't much in the way of an engaging cast. In fact towards the end of the series you're rooting against most of them. The side story was particularly laboring and disengaging. The theming is little too blatant and bordering on sophomoric. It's really just not that clever, despite the hype. It is a good series, and of course being a K series social and economic injustice is deeply threaded into the theme. Like I said though, it's enjoyable, worth the watch but not as thoughtful as it tries so hard to be.