Reviews

And it's still more entertaining and intelligent than some recently made movies.

Terminator 2 has all a masterpiece of a movie needs:

-great actors -an intriguing story -intelligent writing -excellent cinematography

Usually movie sequals tend to be bad because the producers fail to expand the movie universe you were introduced to in the first movie.

But Terminator 2 is even better than its prequel.

It took the general storyline from the first movie and twisted it while also hugely expanding on every other front, be it the quality of the acting, the visuals, the scope of things etc.

Terminator 2 even goes as far as to pose some philosophical questions about the essence and meaning of human life which is even today unusual for an action flick.

Simply put, it's a much more mature movie than Terminator 1 and even if you don't like genres like these or are unfamiliar with the franchise I still HIGHLY recommend to watch it.

You WON'T regret it.

Now I am not going to claim that Drawn Together is primarely satire/political criticism disguised as a comedy to teach people morals because it's not.

At it's core it is clearly an entertainment show intended to give you endless laughs and that's about it.

But the beauty of this show lays in the way it does this by blatantly including and addressing racial, sexual, societal and hierarchical preconceptions, stigmas and taboos in a way that exposes the very hypocrisy and pointlessness within them.

This show is literally filled with cliche filled characters which have preconcieved routines and habits and the fun starts when they get forced to abandon their way of life and enter interaction with the other characters.

Or to cut the story short - If George Carlin would have made a cartoon, this would be it.

Which is considered its ideological rival.

My conclusion:

No Man's Land is by no means a bad movie, but it certainly can't keep up with the masterpiece that "Pretty Villages Pretty Flame" is.

The reasons:

If you are a foreigner you first have to understand that comedy plays a central role in yugoslav culture, especially in Bosnia.

Every topic, be it news, sports events or politics is always handled with a healthy dose of humor.

Why is this important?

Because No Man's Land and Pretty Villages Pretty Flame both narrate the war topic with humor. But when you do this you have to be careful, because you cannot turn the movie into a fully fledged comedy strip.

And now comes the cruxial part:

Although both movies stick to the "anti-war" narrative by highlighting the paradoxy of the Bosnian war through a comedic lense, No Man's Land ultimatly fails at delivering its story believably because it falls back on Hollywoodesque humor and overcartoony portrayal of the situation. Many scenes reminded me of bosnian comedic TV serier rather than a serious movie which wants to send a clear message.

In this field Pretty Villages Pretty Flames clearly excells.

Why you ask?

Didn't we say it also relied heavily on comedy?

This is true, but in contrast to No Man's land Pretty Villages Pretty Flames wrapped its almost provocing humour into a dark, grim and sureal personal drama which really makes you question the idea of war.

Aside from this main mission of the movie No Man's has some interesting scenes up its sleeves, especiially as we get nearer to the end of the movie which prevent it from being a bad movie.

Especially the scene with Mike felt very forced and unnecessary. Also when Jimmy organized another "shortcut" to get what he wants he doesn't even try to hide it.

Both these things make the show seem unrealistic and rushed which wasn't the case in the seasons before, when Mike and Saul were involved in their "usual business".

Still, the last scene gives me confidence that the next episodes are going to be better.

The story is nothing revolutionary, no extra twist or suprise but the real gem here is the way the story is told and the movie was shot.

In contrast to the oversaturated Hollywood exhaustive action packed style this movie manages to tell the intriguing Dreyfus affair in France 1895 without unnecessary overdone action scenes/music whilst maintaining the core tension of the topic that doesn't let you off the hook.

When the movie was finished I couldn't believe that over 2h were over and I felt pleasantly refreshed and renewed, although I was constantly focused on what will happen next. That's the level of smoothness we are talking about here.

A connection to past Polanski or french movies is definitly visible and this way of storytelling can be thought of as a new take on it.

If you like historical dramas with a good portion of crime you should definitly take a look at this gem.

The other reviewers already said it all. A massive dip in the quality of the plot that nobody not even the most hardcore fans can forgive.

It's such a sad and undeserving ending season for such a great show. Go look at the ratings, not a single episode up until this one got a rating below 8.

We waited 2 years for this underperforming which can only be attributed to the bad writing of D&D.

Don't put any expectations on the final two episodes, wait for the proper book and rather read GoT or otherwise all your memory of the past 7 seasons is going to be deminished by this one.