Emma-M-V

I found this series really dull. I hardly know how to break it down, because it is just so meh. The acting is fine, and some of the characters are interesting - like the mother character, and the controlling grandmother, and the uncle has his moments, but by and large it is a dull story filled with dull characters. I'm not sure whether this is better blamed wholly on the adaption or not. I haven't read Rice, and I hear some compelling characters might be missing here. But to compare the show with Interview with the Vampire, which is this one's sister show and which I really enjoyed, despite the many liberties taken there, I think perhaps the source material might be a bit at fault, at least for me. The setting is less interesting, being set in modern times, and there is no chemistry or compelling story between any of the romantic pairings. When I heard there was an adaptation of an Anne Rice witch series, I was excited. I find witches, mages, wizards and so on to be pretty fun and compelling, generally, but this idea of the witch as imagined by christians - the demonic witch, really doesn't work for me as well. It is a mythology built on patriarchy and misogyny and which presumes a christian ontology, which when played straight is quite off-putting to me as a non-christian and feminist. The main character feels very powerless and lacking in agency and motivation, and she's again, just not that interesting - she's introduced as this archetype of the "modern" career woman who had no friends besides her mom and is unhappy because she won't create a monogamous relationship with a guy. And then throughout the rest of the series she is pulled between good boy and bad boy, while confronting mostly evil relatives. There is next to no real joy or emotion here, and very little to really capture your interest besides the pretty houses.

I knew of the ending to this movie before watching it and I think that helped me have a good experience - as did being introduced to it as a trans narrative. I think I still would have liked the film if I had gone into it entirely blank, but I understand that a lot of people feel somewhat tricked, even if the clue is right there in the title.

The movie is a beautifully poetic exploration on the trauma of failing - failing at heteronormative gender roles and feeling like failing at life in general. Of living your life like an animal that has been run over but is still limping along. With goals and desires turned to dust.

And it is told such a creative way - the way that these complex abstract ideas like alienation and disassociation is made into understandable words and actions on screen. So dreamlike. It is a really lovely film.

At times not very visually interesting - a long stretch is shot-reverse-shot in a car, at other times it is very visually interesting indeed. The dialogue is really something else. Poetic is the only word for it. And the performances are excellent.

I am three episodes in and now calling it quits. After the first episode I was hopeful about the show, but in episode two the love interest, Zhou Shu begins to blackmail Gao Shi to be his "servant" in order to spend time with him, and from there it is just downhill with the controlling behavior, forced submission fetish and just a generally creepily coercive relationship.

Maybe these elements will fade away from the relationship eventually, but honestly, somebody who is able to do such things is not a character I can ever forgive or root for. Red flag supreme. Get away as soon as you can Gao Shi!

Honestly, I am very disappointed, because this storyline of a person who always feels lesser than if they aren't winning having a rival who is in love with them sounds very fun and thematically fruitful. Nobody should base their self worth on being "the best" and you really don't need to compare yourself to others, especially not your loved ones, but I really doubt the show would be able to deliver any good arc for Gao Shi, since it seems far more interested in comedically justifying putting him in a subservient position to his love interest than in his own personal motivations and struggles.

This movie feels very poorly plotted, with the story jumping in leaps and bounds, instead of building at a satisfying pace. We are thrust into the plot headfirst, given a kind of misleading focus. This is likely because it is a sequel to the Given series, so it focuses on that series' main character Mafuyu first before settling into a focus on the three main characters of this story. I felt it was a poor choice to avert the focus like this, and to keep cutting back to Mufuyu as if he is a main character here when he would work better as a secondary character. I feel like the movie doesn't know what it wants to be - a story about a Mufuyu's band entering a song contest, or a dramatic love story. In trying to be both it feels discombobulated and strained.

I think the story line of the love triangle is quite interesting, but it feels a bit under cooked. Haruki's character and reactions feels very authentic, and I like Akihiko's arc. He is basically going through the process of exiting an abusive relationship, which is very intriguing, but the abusive dynamic between Akihiko and Ugetsu is kind of unexplored. It's this very interesting element, but there is never really a reckoning with the fact that Ugetsu is physically abusive, or that Akihiko has way less material power than him, being a runaway. And the ending, where Akihiko returns to his parents, and apparently ghosts Haruki for a while because he is "trying to become a man deserving of him" (and isn't that the most annoying kind of romance trope? ) happens wholly off screen in a time jump. Why did he run away from his parents in the first place? What did he "apologize" for? Who knows, who cares. Even if it seems crucial to Akihiko's character.

I did enjoy the story, and I found it a pretty interesting one, but I have a feeling reading a summary of the plot would be about as interesting as watching it - and perhaps less confusing.

TW: There is also a scene of quasi-sexual assault between the mains (Nothing so horrible as the old Yaoi tropes, but still).

There are obviously good things about this movie - a lot of talented people worked on it and especially in the scene design there is a lot to like. But there are a lot of problems too. For one it feels disjointed, as if there are scenes that have been uncomfortably cut out. Only a few characters get introduced, and just a few more get what feels like a decent amount of screentime and dialogue. With Cap for example, his role feels extremely insignificant - as if he as a character could have been replaced with any other Avenger performing the same actions and nothing would change. I thought Vision's and the Witch's romance was pretty inoffensive and sweet. I was surprised at how much of a role they had, but the actors did very well at making me see them as real characters, which was at times difficult with some of the more main-cast characters. On the other hand Tony gets an uninteresting and cheesy as hell intro that easily could have been pared down, he and Strange have a stupidly prolonged dickwagging segment and Banner's way to frequent attempts at humor made me wish somebody would shoot him in the face already.

The main I have is probably Thanos though. Thanos' plan is quite obviously deranged and stupid as hell, but he's never portrayed as deranged. We're supposed to see him as a smart, sympathetic villain - which, quite honestly, is a joke. He's just a big, sadistic dummy with a god complex. If they wanted me to see him as anything more they'd do more to set him up as traumatized and disturbed by the events at his home planet so we could see why he would ever be so dumb as to cling to his silly "just kill half of everybody - that'll solve inequality" plan. Also, at a point at about the middle of the movie we realise Thanos can change reality around him, and from then on whenever he's in a physical fight with anybody I couldn't feel any stakes at all. He should be able to stop them with a thought or handmove or whatever - so is he fighting them with his fat fists? Does he just think it's fine excercise?

It also doesn't help my view of the movie that I'm a Guardians (and Spiderman) fan over a fan of MCEU in general. If you've watched the movie already you'll probably know why that kind of sours one's view of this movie. I would much rather have more Guardians content in some other form than have this movie. It feels like it sacrifices Guardians - the characters, style and feel of it, on the alter of the crossover cash cow. Similarly for Thor this movie kind of fucks up the story Taika Waititi built up in Ragnarok.

This series is quite beautiful in terms of scenery, score and cinematography, and though the dialogue is a bit meandering and often feels to be of little consequence I did enjoy the dynamic between the three siblings and their aunt.

The main issue I have with the series is the total lack of chemistry between any of the romantic pairs. Absolutely none of their relationships felt believable.

The only characters I felt had any potentially sexual chemistry was Mrs Wilcox and Margaret, so to see Margaret later paired with the bland, unlovable and callous Mr Wilcox was baffling. The feelings which they supposedly have for each other do not read as authentic, and so Margaret becomes a less likeable character as a consequence.

Furthermore, several pieces of the story feels disjointed - I'm thinking particularly of the space between episodes 1 and 2 and the of end; both places where large amounts of time is skipped over. This kind of skipping is of course typical of epilogues, but in this case it felt weirdly jarring. They were obviously trying to wrap the series up in a neat little bow, but if felt anything but neat.

Without spoiling the end, the events which lead to the resolution seemed extremely cheap and almost offensive in how certain characters were disposed of.

If nothing else the series did make me curious to read the book Howard's End and see whether the series fails due to going too far away from the source material, or not having the proper means to give the source material life.

When watching this series it's obvious that a lot of effort was put into it. The soundtrack, which is superb, was what hooked me and made me realise I had to watch the whole of it, and the scenery and shot composition is wonderful as well.

The story is engaging, but the writing is for me what drags the series down on the whole. The antagonist's misdeeds seem largly unmotivated and there is drama which seems cliche and pointless (the "you lied to me!" reveal) or overblown and unbelievable (the mist scene).

The theme is also kind of confused, in part as result of dramatics, and that dulled the emotional punch.

This movie has some terrific animation and music and in the racing scenes this makes for an extremely fun, energetic ride where you can hardly take your eyes off the screen. Sadly the story and characters are much weaker than the audio-visual aspects and so the connecting bits felt at times like a bit of a drag. Very worth a watch.

Baby Driver is a pretty fun movie to watch and you will definitely not be bored by it. The music choices are great and the fact that everything in the movie lines up with the music makes for a very entertaining watch. It is also very impressive and makes you wonder how much work must have gone into getting the action to match up with the beats.

Sadly it seems that the effort that that took eroded Edgar Wright's focus and when it comes to other aspects of the film, mainly the story, the characters and the comedy the movie falls far short of his previous films.

(Now, obviously I won't rank it down because it isn't funny, since it's not listed as a comedy, but an action musical, but if you wish to watch it you'll probably want to know beforehand) This is in no way a Transformers or Fast and the Furious level of action schlock, but there are some strange choices and some straight up bullsh*t in it.

For example, Baby's living situation. I'm not saying it's impossible that a single deaf black man would want to foster a kid and be seen by the CPS as a good fit, but it's the kind of thing that makes you wonder how in the world it happened and takes you out of the story a bit as you ponder the possibilities.

Kevin Spacey's character was the worst part for me personally, both because of Spacey's lifeless line delivery and because of a breach of character which happens late in the film and appears so illogical and unexplainable that it almost seems an ex machina.

For a fan of House of Cards it was just hugely disappointing and slightly embarrassing to see him perform so badly. He hardly performed a sigh better than he did in that sh*t show Nine Lives!

There is more I could go into, but for fear of spoiling anything for you I'll keep from saying anything further than that there are some other plot turns that just do not make much sense. If you would like more info I'm sure it's not too hard to find.

So, to conclude; Baby Driver is far from a bad movie and is highly entertaining, but it's hardly great and it is far from the hilariously beautiful genius that is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World or Hot Fuzz.

Asylum movies like this one only exist to piggyback off the popularity of more popular movies and trick gift-givers into buying the wrong movie come Christmas. They take a big-budget movie, such as Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk", which they know is coming out soon and churn out a movie with a kind of similar plot and a very similar name, but with horrible acting, atrocious writing etc. for near no money at all. It's nothing but a cynical, pseudo-plagiarist con.

Don't watch this joke, watch the real "Dunkirk" instead.

This summary is lacking in both crucial information (ex: we never even get to know who the Greyjoy house really are beyond some short mentions) and in emotional power. They intersperse incredibly short clips of footage from the show with comments from not only the actors in the scene and George R.R Martin, which are fitting, but also actors with smaller roles unrelated to the footage and random journalists (Why, BBC? Why?) That and the common narrator voice used causes the summary to seem choppy, cheap and unable to catch either the tone, the beauty or the epic nature of the series.

As somebody who has seen the entirety of the series you will likely be annoyed at the lack of detail and the lack of respect shown by the BBC in the creation of this.

As a potential new viewer of GoT I don't think this is the best way to get caught up or the best way to be introduced to the show. Better to just read the Wikipedia summary and/or watch previous episodes before starting season 7, I think.

If you are thinking about watching this movie there are at least two things you should keep in mind.

1) This is not an action movie. There is some action in it, but most of the movie is entirely devoid of suspense.

2) The thing that was advertised as a huge twist in the trailers turns out to not be much of a twist at all and is instead a pretty logical progression of the plot which you will no doubt predict before it happens.

(In other words: the trailer kind of sucked. Or maybe it was a great trailer, since studios seem to care more about getting your respective butt in their seats than having you actually enjoy their content)

In any case, I still found it very enjoyable. It wasn't the most inventive story ever, but it was a sweet tale about humanity's need for companionship with a robot (always a plus),some fun futuristic ship design, some action, some drama, some beautiful visuals of space and some enjoyably questionable gravitational shenanigans.

Jennifer Laurence is pretty great (as is the norm) and Chris Pratt's performance is good (I think), although it is kind of a different type of role from what he's known for being cast as (it's almost a bit strange seeing him this reserved).

The movie definitely exceeded my expectation, but keep in mind that I personally adore sci-fi and that I put a lot of weight on visuals.