shanayneigh

I've played the Assassin's Creed franchise from the beginning, and I have (mostly) loved the games, in particular the fantastic Ezio trilogy, which remains the gold standard.

I watched this movie in a half empty cinema in Hai Phong back when it was released.

My.view of the film echoes the one I have of The Dark Tower movie adaptation released in 2017. For anyone who hasn't played the games or read the books, the story in the movie must be nigh incomprehensible. And for anyone that has, the story in the movie deviates so far from the original material that it becomes nonsensical. Although to be fair, the story in the Assassin's Creed movie is so weak I can barely remember what happened.

The film boasts the highest free fall performed by a stuntman, but everything surrounding him is so smeared in CGI that it might just as well have been a digi-double.

This film managed to make the vampire genre feel fresh and exciting again. Made on a mid-range budget of 30 million, every dollar ended up on screen, especially since the entire town had to be built from the ground up. CGI is kept to a minimum which works in the film's favor. The acting is good for the most part. The one exception - as per usual - is Ben Foster who always go over the top with his telenovela drama school intensity.

Sure, there are some curious aspects. I've worked above the Arctic circle, and of course planes land there all year. And the perpetual night looks pretty bright in this film. But if one suspends disbelief enough to overlook these very minor points, you're in for a good ride.

It's strange, I haven't seen much by the director David Slade after this movie. Judging from his impressive work on this film and the excellent Hard Candy which was released two years prior, I thought he would be a much bigger name today. I had to check IMDb to learn that he directed a Twilight movie (not my cup of tea) and some television episodes (including the Black Mirror episode "Metalhead" which, incidentally, is my least favorite episode in the series).

I can recommend the blu-ray which has a nice collection of special features.

Just don't bother with the pointless sequel released in 2010 which is amazingly bad.

This managed to do what I thought was impossible. It made Exorcist II: The Heretic - with its ridiculous campy scenes which reached its apotheosis when Richard Burton attempted to put out a fire by beating it with a crutch - seem like not such a bad movie.

Can someone please ban David Gordon Green and Danny McBride from ever touching another horror movie? The Exorcist: Believer is so poorly written with a plot so dumb that it boggles the mind. The twist with the choice was a nice touch, but the rest of the movie was insulting.

David Gordon Green has zero skills in setting a mood. Sure, there are a couple of cheap jump scares. But those are startling, not scary. Compare this movie to the original Exorcist, which primarily really isn't about an exorcism. It's about the plight of a mother afraid that her daughter is going insane, attempting to do anything she can to find out what is wrong. Parallell to this the personal torment of Father Karras. The mood is *everything* in the original Exorcist. Going to a priest in the original Exorcist is a last resort. In The Exorcist: Believer the main character's friend (?) immediately invade his house with a bunch of witch doctors seemingly hours after his daughter has gone missing. Why? Hell if I know. Other than to set up the ridiculous third act, of course. I assume they wanted the exorcism scene to be scary. Nevertheless, I found myself laughing out loud more than once.

The girls do a good job with what they have to work with. The rest of the supporting cast apparently believe they're in a telenovela. The whole production reeks of Blumhouse cheapness. Everything in this film is as pedestrian as a Hallmark movie. This is the Muppet Babies of Exorcist movies.

I liked the early episodes of this series, but I gave up in the middle of episode 12 of the first season. At that point I really din't care at all who was the killer and why. The characters were acting in the dumbest way imaginable in order to stretch this into sixteen 1+ hour long episodes. I am being generous if i say that there is possibly enough story and character development to fill half as many episodes, and that's already a stretch.

After I gave up I read the episode summaries on Wikipedia and I'm glad I didn't sit through another 4+ hours of melodrama. I watched a couple of minutes of the remaining episodes. The actual core of the story - corruption - is actually quite interesting, but the way the choose to tell that story was so convoluted with fake-outs aplenty that they even have the main antagonist write a letter in order to explain the plot. Also known as lazy script writing.

Bae Doona is always good and the guy in the lead does a fine job, but with most of the supporting cast there is the usual Korean style overacting with people pulling faces and shouting.

I made it two and a half episodes before checking out. Already at this point it felt terribly drawn out, and we had almost ten more hours to go.

As per usual Netflix has to turn everything into a ten episode series regardless of whether the project has enough story or character development to justify ten episodes. But hold, this time Netflix went even further and stretched it into twelve episodes each lasting about an hour.

The basic concept of the show, with the school and the science teacher, is interesting at its core. But judging from what I've seen so far this story has just about as much meat and potatoes to fill a two hour film. The rest is endlessly drawn out and shoddily executed action sequences where the oh-so scary violent zombies are bested by flimsy sliding doors and handheld windows, I kid you not.

The acting is on par for a Korean drama. Over the top melodramatic at every turn.

Not finishing the rest.

First of all, I'm a huge fan of Fincher's movies, especially his early ones. His latest ones have not been for me. Mank (2020) was a vanity project for Fincher, and The Killer obviously a vanity project for Fassbender.

I certainly wasn't expecting a balls to the wall action movie, that's not Fincher's style. What we got was the worst of Fincher: Style over substance, a simplistic plot and zero characters. Fincher is a lot like Stanley Kubrick and Christopher Nolan in that way. Great visual directors but detached emotionally.

The main problem with The Killer is that I don't really care about the character, which also means that I don't care about what happens to him or those supposedly close to him. I suppose the filmmakers would argue that him not letting the audience in is intentional. But that also means that the one thing that supposedly drives the entire movie from the second act - The Killer avenging his girlfriend - doesn't work. Fassbender drones on and on about how empathy is weakness and to trust no one, yet we are supposed to believe he cares about his girlfriend we know absolutely nothing about? John Wick meting out justice to those who killed his puppy makes more sense, however preposterous that may sound, because we have seen that he actually cares about his dog.

And as Brian Cox says in Adaptation (2002): "God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you. That's flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write a voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character."

In its procedural style manner, I guess the one of Fincher's other movies it comes closest to is Zodiac (2007) which, incidentally, is one of my favorites. Some people have compared it to Le Samouraï (1967) with Alain Delon, I personally think it feels more akin to Edward Fox's arc in The Day of the Jackal (1973), a far superior movie.

I had some hopes for this show since it (allegedly) was supposed to be an intelligence based competition.

But quickly, and I mean within minutes, it was just another reality show like Big Brother or Survivor with all the contestants forming pacts, secret or otherwise. And suddenly the show became more about the drama between the contestants than solving the actual tasks at hand. And this is where my eyes glaze over.

I can only agree with the guy in glasses (an actor perhaps?) who, in the second or third episode after a number of players had been sent packing thanks to reality show pacts instead of how they actually were performing with the tasks, said: "I'd personally like to see skill-based eliminations".

It does get a bit better with the last few episodes where it becomes more about solving the actual tasks.

Although the rules are enormously cumbersome and it takes up half the episode to explain them (just to have the speaker and players explain them again repetedly throughout the tasks) they aren't terribly difficult. They pretty much all center around very basic maths.

In the end I didn't root for anyone to win. The two who ended up in the finals were particularly unlikeable.

I sat through nine hours of this slog but I can't take it anymore. There is zero forward momentum with at best paper thin characters. Of course I watched this since it was written, produced and to a large part directed by the Wachowskis, but this show was a huge letdown. The Wachowskis seem more interested in producing an LGBTQ manifesto and are more preoccupied with representation than telling an engaging story with interesting characters.

And no, I wasn't hoping for huge shootouts and car chases simply because the Wachowskis made the Matrix movies. I was hoping for a good science fiction series with forward momentum, something which seems to be low on the list of priorities in the age of streaming.

After sitting through nine hours the show is still spinning its wheels with its oh-so clever transitions with different characters visiting each other, with precisely none of them actually doing anything to propel the story forward. The only one who even comes close is the transgender girl and to some extent the cop. The rest of them, like the Indian and Korean girls and the Mexican and Kenyan guys sort of trundle along in their own storylines which have zero bearing yet on the (alleged) overarching narrative. And this after nine hours! Oh how I detest the slow burn fad which is on par with the shaky-cam of the early 2000's.

The acting is very shaky, but what can any actor do with dialogue of this low calibre?

Apparently people were upset that this show was cancelled after the second season. I honestly can't believe why it wasn't axed after the first. This show is a huge waste of time.

I made it through two episodes before I gave up. The show is basically a string of standalone "monster of the week" episodes tied together with a gossamer thin narrative thread. Some people have compared it with The Blacklist, another show I gave up on mainly due to the fact that I can't stand James Spader.

Perhaps it was a mistake that I had just sat through Heaven and Hell: Soul Exchange, also starring Issey Takahashi, before watching this show. It too was a cop show with quite lackluster narrative and Japanese style overacting. I'm sure that Invisible too will turn into a romantic melodramedy between the two leads. Although I will never know.

I didn't get my hopes up too far considering it starred Gerard Butler, who seems like an awesome guy but one whose output has been rocky. From great movies like Law Abiding Citizen and Olympus Has Fallen, to mediocre fare like Gods of Egypt and Den of Thieves, and then horrendous ones (the less that is said about Gamer and the Fallen sequels the better).

But Plane is a different story. It's a good old 90's style action movie with a perfect runtime of 1 hour and 47 minutes. Unlike a lot (it almost feels like most) of other action movies today it doesn't overstay its welcome by dragging out the proceedings to 2.5 hours or more. The script is tight as is the pacing.

The first 25 minutes of the plane going down (that's the premise, not a spoiler) is fantastic. I can see why this movie wasn't included in the in-flight system on my recent long haul flight (funnily enough to Tokyo, as in the movie) just a few weeks ago...

I gave this show a shot some years ago and couldn't stand even a full episode of Larry David's constant smirk, which one could describe in one way that is apparently verboten on IMDb.

I gave it another chance this year and have watched it from beginning to end, still without really knowing anything about it other than it stars Larry David.

After watching for a bit I started to think "This smells a lot like improv". Characters are constantly yes-anding by either saying "oh wow!" or simply repeating what the other character has said, as if to buy some time to come up with something (allegedly) witty to say. Almost every scene starts spinning its wheels and end up being 20% too long.

So I look it up on Wikipedia, and lo and behold: The dialogue is indeed improvised with simple outlines for the plot.

I can't say I'm surprised I haven't seen much of the actors in anything else (except for the celebrity guest stars, of course) because the acting is pretty weak throughout, especially Larry David and JB Smoove (what a ridiculous name, by the way). The many, many scenes with these two characters are like torture after a while.

Judging from Larry David's performance I guess I must have seen a later episode when I first tried watching the show. Because he is surprisingly low key in the first seasons. But that goes straight out the window after a while, especially after season 7, the Seinfeld reunion season. After that point every episode is mainly a bunch of Jews yelling at each other. Comedy, I guess.

Also, the attempts at catch phrases like "prettyyy, prettyy good" and moves - meaning the stare down - get old very, very fast. They were likely improvised one day and someone said, "hey, let's have Larry do that in every scene from now on!".

I guess I'm too much of a fan of tight scripts to appreciate this show. I have chuckled a couple of times, but real belly laughs are few and far between. Which is remarkable since I've sat through 110 episodes at this point.

I watched this movie mainly because it stars Kasumi Arimura who was excellent in "Call Me Chihiro". Unfortunately she isn't given much to do in this film.

It starts off very well where we follow Hideo, a manga artist in Tokyo, as the viral outbreak begins and all hell breaks loose. Pretty soon he runs into Hiromi and I won't spoil it any more than that. They head for Mount Fuji because of a rumor that the virus is inefficient at that altitude. For some reason though they stop at an outlet near Mount Fuji first which is where the rest of the movie takes place.

This is also the point where it becomes pretty standard zombie action fare with people making the dumbest decisions imaginable to fill a two hour runtime. The effects look pretty good, and the high jumper was a pretty nice touch.

It killed two hours but like not something I'll watch again.

Due to innumerable disappointments I usually stay away from films with the big, red Netflix N. But I am so glad I gave "Call me Chihiro" a chance, because it was a gem.

This is not a plot driven movie. Anyone expecting a fast paced car chase will be sorely disappointed. It's very close in style to the later films of Hirokazu Kore-eda (one of my favorite directos), perhaps best described as character studies or slice-of-life films.

What is truly remarkable is the acting, which is on point from top to bottom, even the kids whose performances are top notch. Just look at the scene with kid Chihiro working up the courage to reach for older Chihiro's hand. Or the dinner scene at the little boy's house.

I have maintained for almost 20 years that there is no living director better at working with children than Hirokazu Kore-eda. But it seems he has some competition now in Rikiya Imaizumi. I have never seen any of his work before, but I'll be sure to be on the lookout for both past and future films.

The description and still image chosen by Netflix did not to this show justice. Judging from them I had anticipated a thriller. What we ended up with was a pretty cheesy romantic melodramedy where the end makes zero sense with what happens earlier in the show, in particular the video clip sent by the supposed serial killer when he's in the female cop's body to the female cop who is stuck in his body.

The premise - a serial killer and a cop switching bodies - would have made for an excellent feature length thriller. But since we're living in the age of streaming everything must be stretched into a ten hour series, regardless of whether they have enough story or character development to actually fill those ten episodes.

The acting is pretty weak throughout, and the show is chock full of the usual Japanese style of overacting (especially in comedies) with screaming aplenty.

The best thing was probably the song "Tadaima" by Aoi Teshima playing in every episode.

A fun drinking game would be taking a shot every time you hear jingle bells or the "moon ding" (watch the show and you'll know). Prepare to die quickly of alcohol poisoning.

Not a horrible show, just mediocre and a failed opportunity. It killed ten hours but is nothing I'll watch again. However, I have listened to more of Aoi Teshima's music, so thanks for that tip.

The subject matter is certainly interesting, but the execution of the storytelling leaves much to be desired.

First of all the acting which is on a telenovela level. Some are overacting so ferociously that it at times becomes a distraction.

The staging of the fire itself is so poor it boggles the mind. There is zero sense of geography.

But the real culprit is the writing, especially in the later episodes which deal with the legal process. We rush from one court decision to another without being shown anything of the actual process which might explain how the courts reach their decisions.

One thing I found peculiar. In Sweden we had a similar nightclub fire in the 90's and in the US there was The Station nightclub fire in the early 2000's. In both cases some survivors had the typical facial burns where all recognizable features are vanished. Perhaps none of these cases existed in this Brazil fire (although I find that quite doubtful) because every survivor in this show wake up from comas looking like they're in a L'Oreal commercial.

Remember when people were able to tell a story in two hours or less? When stories had a beginning, middle and an end? When the number one priority wasn't to build a never ending franchise, but to simply tell a story?

I liked Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) which I thought was surprisingly good.

Please, give the whole multiverse schtick a rest. Sure, it offers the great (merchandising) opportunity to include a zillion versions of Spiderman, but it also reduces the stakes to absolutely nothing.

In the first half of the movie they establish the new main bad guy (or so one would think) whose backstory is a ridiculous throwaway gag by one of the animators of the first movie. After an hour or so the new bad guy vanishes from the movie. As we get closer to the end I look at my watch thinking "There's no way they'll wrap this up in the ten minutes that are left". And of course they don't, since their priority isn't to tell a coherent story, but to build a franchise. So we're left hanging with no resolution. If we want one, we'll have to pay for the next movie too! Genius film making.

Of course it was 20-30 minutes too long as per usual for comic book movies today. And this is only the first installment! Including the sequel (or rather, the third act of this movie) this simple story will probably be about an hour longer than Gone With The Wind. Amazing.

I watched this movie on a huge screen in Tokyo. The visuals were grating. The dotted areas and the double/triple outlines, which I suppose are meant to emulate early printing techniques of shadows/gradients and out-of-focus areas did not look good on the big screen. The first movie employed the same visual style, although not as pronounced as in this sequel. On a small screen (like my 65 inch OLED at home) they were not an issue. But on a huge cinema screen they were making my eyes bleed.

There is no way I'll pay to see the third one.

Perhaps it was fortunate that my expectations were set very, very low. The story was somewhat engaging, but of course the end result is a half hour too long, as per usual for comic book movies these days, especially in the DC Extended Universe.

Ezra Miller in either of his roles is grating. He showed so much promise in We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011). He can be a very good dramatic actor (although he hasn't shown much evidence of that in subsequent roles) but as Flash it's quite clear that he's not a comedic actor.

It's fun to see Michael Keaton back in the cowl. I really liked him as Batman back in the day, but he more or less sleepwalks through this movie. Sasha Calle as Supergirl isn't onscreen that long, but the little that she does is fine.

For a $200+ million dollar movie the effects are at times astoundingly bad. It's like Warner Brothers could tell they had a dud on their hands, threw up their hands and said "good enough, we're not throwing good money after bad".

An OK two and a half hours (although I kept looking at my watch in the second half) but not something I'll bother watching again.

This review is in no way a defense of Purdue Pharma or the female doctor on trial in this show.

But like so many other true crime documentaries in the age of streaming where everyone is clamoring for content, ethical concerns are thrown straight out the window. It raises more questions than it answers.

The pharmacist who is at the center of this series raises a fair amount of questions.

Like, for instance, why he chose to tape his wife in agony as they have received the news of their son's murder. He hadn't begun his investigation at that point. Did he tape EVERYTHING in their lives? Did the others know?

It also raises the question why the filmmakers decided to include that conversation in the show. Did it really add anything other than a moment of sleaze and a manipulative pulling at the heart strings (a recurring theme in this show)?

Even stranger is the pharmacist's decision to surreptitiously tape seemingly everyone of his clients coming in to fill a prescription for pain medication, apparently assuming they're all addicts, even questioning their medical record. There was not one question about privacy concerns. Did he find it ethical to do so without their knowledge? Did he inform them? Did the filmmakers before including their voices taped in secret in the show? Was it even necessary for this documentary? Again, sleazy.

Sure, he and the show cherry picks a few cases, but how many people legitimately taking Oxycontin as a pain reliever did he make feel like junkies simply because he was on a private crusade? Not that the filmmakers care to ask such a question. Had I been a client at this pharmacy I would have been absolutely livid. In the words of the female doctor to the pharmacist: "Who the **** made you a doctor?"

And then we have his video surveillance footage. Were there any ethical concerns on the part of the filmmakers to include footage taken without their consent, which now might brand them as junkies to the world in general? Not to mention that he risked blowing the federal case with his amateurish gumshoe activities, even driving to the FBI office when he believes he's being followed (not a single question about that either, by the way).

Apart from ethics, the show is of course too long as per usual in the age of streaming. A feature length would have been sufficient. The first episode doesn't really have anything to do with the following three, other than the pharmacist's son being killed by his drug dealer. Somewhat curiously, he was addicted to crack cocaine, so it didn't even have anything to do with Oxycontin. You'd really have to stretch to blame doctors being responsible for his son's addiction to crack.

I absolutely love this show. My ex is Japanese (no I'm not a weeb, it's just a coincidence...) and after attempting to speak a little Japanese with her relatives, one of them jokingly called me Anjin-san, a nickname that stuck.

I've seen this show multiple times and recently rewatched it after having read the book for the first time this summer. Perhaps it's because I saw the TV series before I read the book, but I prefer the former.

The creators behind the series made the decision that we should see (almost) everything through Blackthorne's perspective. Which is also the reasoning behind the bold decision to not use subtitles. If Blackthorne doesn't understand then neither should the audience. It does become somewhat puzzling later on in the series however when Blackthorne does start to understand Japanese (although Chamberlain rarely says more than wakarimasen and hai) and there still aren't subtitles to help the audience which still doesn't understand Japanese after seven hours of television.

The book is quite different. Almost the entire second half is devoted to some intricate Japanese power struggle, which quite honestly gets a bit tedious after a while. But it does explain their hostage situation in Osaka Castle, with a fantastic episode (which isn't in the series) where Mariko turns out to be a bad mofo.

Shot entirely in Japan, it's interesting to visit the locations if you get the chance. Himeji and Hikone castle stand in for Osaka castle. Himeji is the grander one (also seen in the Bond movie "You Only Live Twice") with an impressive garden, Hikone feels more intimate and also has less tourists. It's interesting how they in the series can switch between the two in the same scene. Both are nice day trips from Kyoto.

And if you're in Tokyo near Ginza, there's a.small memorial about two blocks from Nihombashi devoted to William Adams, the real life inspiration for Blackthorne.

I see that there's a new adaptation in the works (shot in Canada...) which I doubt I'll see. A not too far fetched guess is that they'll up the violence and sex. Perhaps the sex toy sequence in the book will make it into this adaptation?

First of all, I love Christoper Nolan's work. He's the only director whose films I always see in a cinema. But it's clear that he's is now so powerful that no one has the guts to tell him no. He's almost the Stephen King of film making these days, with the end results too often overly long and meandering. Perhaps my Nolan cinema-first policy will end after Oppenheimer.

I remember how the filmmakers in the special features to The Godfather Part II (1974) discussed that it took a long time for them in editing to figure out how often they should switch between the different time periods. Clearly no one bothered to ponder this question in the editing of Oppenheimer. We jump backwards and forwards in time so frequently that no scene has time to breathe. This movie manages the almost impossible. It's simultaneously rushed and plodding.

Nolan falls into his regular trap of telling instead of showing.

We're told by other characters that Oppenheimer's a genius. The evidence we've been shown to support this claim is him dropping a beaker in class and not much else. Compare this to A Beautiful Mind (2001) where they try to illustrate how the mind of that main character works. In Oppenheimer that's substituted with blurry macro photography.

Two hours into the movie we are also told by one character that Oppenheimer is a womanizer. At this point he has been shown to have had two women. Again, show us, don't tell us.

Filming the entire movie in IMAX was truly casting pearls before swine. The huge format added nothing (except production costs I imagine). It reminded me of The Hateful Eight (2015). I was so excited that Tarantino was going to shoot a Western on 65mm, a perfect format for glorious vistas. And then they were outside for like the first five minutes of the movie and spent the rest inside a little log cabin. The same holds true for Oppenheimer, which is 95% dialogue scenes in tight quarters making the IMAX format completely and utterly useless.

As for the explosion of the bomb, which occurs around the two-hour mark, I have to say that it was quite underwhelming. Mad respect for Nolan's ambition to not use CG, but perhaps sometimes it's justified. The explosion in the opening of Apocalypse Now (1979) and at the end of Blown Away (1994) looked more impressive than the one in Oppenheimer, which is covered mostly in closeups anyway.

The supposed reveals in the end about Strauss' being the secret puppet master behind Oppenheimer's faux trial and the contents of the conversation between the latter and Einstein were, in the case of the former telegraphed so far in advance one can only wonder why Nolan treated it as a reveal, and as for the latter the only appropriate response in a shrugging of the shoulders. For anyone with the slightest bit of knowledge of the atomic bomb program, Einstein's views are well known, and we had already seen plenty of examples of Strauss' vanity in the preceding three hours. But no Nolan movie without an attempt at a plot twist, amirite??

As for the results of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are shown nothing. Some abstract numbers are discussed, and the only visual reference we get is of Oppenheimer's face watching a newsreel. For anyone interested in an account written only a year after the bombing I would recommend Hiroshima by John Hersey (available for free online in The New Yorker). Or better yet, visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum which is outstanding.

Funnily enough, this movie is carefully toeing the line of decades long American propaganda where the bomb is presented as an alternative to invasion, which is claimed to have saved tens of thousands of American lives (by now the figure mentioned if often in the millions). I would urge anyone interested in this to read Hiroshima Nagasaki by Paul Ham which is an extensive study of the development of the nuclear bomb program. The bomb was never an alternative to invasion, it was a complement. And the Japanese leadership didn't even consider the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The reason they surrendered to the Americans was because the Soviet Union opened up a front against Japan which threatened not only their colonies in Manchuria and Korea, but also Hokkaido in Japan proper.

It looks good and is very well made, but my God is it repetitive. The central conflict is established immediately, and doesn't change throughout the series.

Every scene is a variation of the ones that came before it. Seriously, you could lift entire dialogues from season 4 and insert them as is into season 1, and vice versa, without it having any real effect. Even after Logan dies. Because it is always about the same thing. "I want to be boss!" "No *I* want to be boss!" "Dad said I should take over!" "No dad said *I* should take over!" "Dad, aren't I the best suited to take over?"

After a while this show felt almost like a postmodern experiment, because just about every episode is the same. Sure, some extraneous things change - they go to Italy, they go to Norway etc. - but it's always about the same thing.

There's really no character development to speak of, they all end up where they started. Sure, Culkin has a crying scene and mopes around in the last couple of episodes, but it's a stretch to call that character development.

The acting is good for the most part, but they lean too heavily on Culkin and the mentally challenged country bumpkin cousin as comic reliefs. The problem is that neither character is as funny as the writers and producers want us to believe. I don't know whether to blame the writers - who have obviously binged Veep - or Culkin's delivery, but his supposedly snappy one-liners soar as lead balloons. I'm certainly not offended by them, but they simply don't work.

The problem with this is that the constant - and failed - attempts at comedy effectively undercuts the drama.

How this show lasted more than one season is beyond me.

I really liked the first season and I wish there was a way to rate seasons separately on IMDB.

Here's what I wrote in my review of the first season:

Hadn't heard a peep about this show, I watched it just by chance. It's good!

The acting is pretty good throughout (with some exceptions) and the story is quite intriguing. The flashbacks are more interesting than the modern day story line. The score, and in particular the vocal or choral parts, is outstanding.

However, the dialogue leaves much to be desired. One example is shortly after one character discovers a desiccated corpse and says "Something bad happened here". What gave it away?? This actually made me laugh since it was almost exactly like when Forrest Whitaker discovered a bloody, gruesome murder scene in Species (1995) and has the same obvious moronic observation.

Unfortunately the show falls into the mystery trap when present day characters talk to each other and say something along the lines "because of what we did out there" which happens numerous times. I understand why the writer chose to phrase it this way since they want it to be a mystery (and possibly because the showrunners still don't exactly know yet). The problem is that it makes no sense for the characters to talk this way when they're only speaking with each other, it's only for the audience.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this show would have benefited from being a single season show with a proper ending, because it's already starting to drag a little. But I'm happy if they prove me wrong with season 2. Let's just hope this doesn't turn into another Wayward Pines.

Rating: 8

Review of the second season:

Well, it turns out my suspicion was bang on target. The tempo slows down even more. Oh how I hate the ridiculous "slow burn" fad, which is on par with the shaky-cam fad in the early 00's. Just because something moves along at a glacial pace does not necessarily make it more profound.

More mysteries are introduced and none are solved. Also new characters, even ones supposedly in the plane crash although they weren't in season 1. Echoes of Lost abound.

The show has in part devolved into farce. The side plot with the police investigation is a dud, especially due to the performance of the new cop.

The acting overall is even more broad, sometimes bordering on camp, in particular Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci. The one part I found the most interesting were the scenes between Shauna and dead Jackie.

Such a shame. I can't say I particularly look forward to season 3. AT any rate, let's hope it ends there.

Rating: 5.

I wasn't too fond of this show the first time I watched it, but it was better the second time around. Unlike a lot of other viewers I thought the last seasons for the most part made sense.

One thing which is jarring though is the decision to compress time in the later seasons. In the earlier ones it could take several episodes for someone to get from points on opposite sides of the map- In the last season in particular they rush to and fro with lightning speed. I listened to the audio commentaries on the blu-rays, and it was a conscious decision in order to get to the end sooner.

I have to be honest, the whole actual game of thrones aspect, who will rule the North, sit on the Iron Throne etc is the part i liked the least. After a while I couldn't care less who ruled.

Perhaps it's because I'm from a monarchy (albeit a constitutional one) that I lack an American's fascination with royalty. Off with their heads, I say. Every single last one of them. So the never ending discussion about pledging fealty and bending the knee bored me to tears. So much for breaking the wheel.

The battles, the white walkers, the dragons, gratuitous violence and nudity etc is window dressing in my eyes. The real heart and soul of this show is the development of some (some being the operative word) of its characters.

I'm likely not alone to be fascinated by the trajectory of Arya Stark. That is, until it comes to a screeching halt once she reaches Braavos (which I am told mirrors the books where she's stuck still to this day). Her relationship with The Hound is a highlight of the series.

And then, of course, there is the complicated (to say the least) dynamic between the Lannister siblings.

But that's about it. The Stark boys all seem to be one-note idiots being tricked again and again. Both Rob and Jon are so milquetoast they melt into the background. Poor Theon is stuck in a dungeon with a painfully over the top side character (here's looking at you, Ramsay) for half the show. And don't get me started on the dreadful Three-Eyed Raven side quest with Bran which is spinning its wheels endlessly.

The show looks gorgeous considering that it's made on a (albeit generous) TV budget. Until we reach the final episodes where it goes full Tropical Thunder with its cinematography when Fabian Wagner et al are seemingly given free reins.

Suddenly the show turns into a day-for-night underexposed muddled mess of greyish brown nuances, a look which carries over to the House of Dragons spin off. I have listened to the smug comments made by Wagner et al about how the consumers who watch this show know nothing about proper calibration of their televisions and only watch content on the phones and iPads. Well, as it so happens, I have worked as an AV-technician (as well as a lighting technician for film and television) so I have watched both shows on a well-calibrated 65 inch OLED screen in a room with blackout curtains, and it still looks like garbage.

Their next excuse is that streaming compresses the image resulting in a loss of picture quality, and that the image is completely different when you watch it on blu-ray or a 4k disc.

I'm sorry, but how do you think most consumers view your product? Who do you think you're making this product for? Talk about a big middle finger right in our faces. Again, as it so happens, I have watched the Game of Thrones on blu-ray on the same setup, and the change in image quality is miniscule.

It's time for smug hack Wagner to take lessons from real cinematographers who are known for dark cinematography but understand the necessity of contrast, like Gordon Willis or Darius Khondji.

I only watched the first episode and couldn't be bothered to finish it. What is the point if I even can't see what is happening on screen?

I didn't even have to guess that the cinematographer of this episode was Fabian Wagner, the same guy who shot the battle of Winterfell in the last season of Game of Thrones. It is the same use of day-for-night underexposed muddled mess of greyish brown nuances. Don't modern cinematographers learn anything about contrast anymore?

After his failure in the battle of Winterfell I listened to the smug comments made by Wagner et al. About how the consumers who watch this show know nothing about proper calibration of their televisions and only watch content on the phones and iPads. Well, as it happens, I have worked as an AV-technician so I have watched both shows on a well-calibrated 65 inch OLED screen in a room with blackout curtains, and it still looks like garbage.

Their next excuse is that streaming compresses the image resulting in a loss of picture quality, and that the image is completely different when you watch it on blu-ray or a 4k disc.

I'm sorry, but how do you think most consumers view your product? In other words, you don't care about streaming consumers. Who do you think you're making this product for? Talk about a big middle finger right in our faces. Again, as it do happens, I have watched the Game of Thrones on blu-ray on the same setup, and the change in image quality is miniscule.

It's time for smug hack Wagner to take lessons from real cinematographers who are known for dark cinematography but understand the necessity of contrast, like Gordon Willis or Darius Khondji.

Not watching the rest.

An elderly Don Quixote in 1960's Newcastle upon Tyne rages against the BBC machine in his crusade for free television for the elderly. Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington and its frame is stolen from the National Gallery in London. Who dunnit?

This was your ordinary British bog standard cutesy dramedy which attempts to be funny as well and poignant, ending up neither. There's not necessarily anything wrong with this movie, the acting is overall quite good, it's just quite bland. The courtroom scenes in the end were quite embarrassing with the swelling music and cutesy smiles I have come to detest in movies.

Mainly an hour and a half of background noise to be perfectly honest.