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Reviews
The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On (2022)
Impossible to believe this is real
..even for reality show standards. Love is Blind has a ridiculous premise, but seems mostly real, aside from the expected reality tv editing and staging. This is very hard to believe any of, to me. These people are being put in a situation (let's watch my partner (who I want to marry) date and potentially "fall in love" with & leave me for someone else whilst in the same room as me) that would trigger primal feelings of stress, jealousy and misery in the vast majority of people. But these people are all as flat as can be. It just doesn't look like real human behaviour. Entertaining but less so because of the seeming fakeness.
Manifest (2018)
Interesting premise, bad execution
I was captivated by the premise at the beginning of the first episode, but would have much preferred if they had stuck to a mix of some scifi and drama, rather than going hard with the supernatural stuff. When the voices started coming up and especially when the plane randomly went up in flames, I already lost a lot of interest.
It does maintain the drama aspect but it all feels a bit lackluster and underwhelming. The acting isn't THAT bad, but the characters don't really have charisma or chemistry with each other. There's not one that particularly stands out that I care about. It doesn't help that a lot of dialogue is just boring exposition to explain directly to the audience what's going on or what has happened in the past, instead of just showing us through more natural conversation. Everyone also kind of acts the same, not a lot of variety or personality.
Waste of a decent premise, it falls flat so quickly (actually, the voice over at the very beginning of ep 1 already sets the tone, no creativity at all)
Aftermath (2021)
I'm confused
The final "one month later" scene where everyone lives happily ever after was actually almost laughoutloud funny. Ok so it's been one month since your sister(/in law) was murdered, your dog was murdered, and you were stalked, assaulted and nearly murdered by an actual freak monster, in addition to being brought in serious danger/stalked by a whole other, unrelated person. You already had serious marital and financial issues prior and unrelated to this. But it's all good now? Ok Aftermath. Also how did they sell the house and were happily moving out when previously it was an issue that they couldn't because they couldn't afford the financial loss? Surely the house didn't go up in value after EVERYTHING else that transpired? Why is everything solved? Why is no one extremely traumatised, in shock, grieving and broke? Maybe because it was already one month later tho.
Two more things concerning the husband: 1 can we forever get rid of the spouse-not-being-believed trope, especially with the extremely lazy pop psychology "oh she cheated on him so they have Trust Issues". Would that really make him this sceptical that she has paranoid hallucinations and can't tell reality apart from nightmares anymore? Seems like kind of a different league of spousal suspicion. She herself literally showed him a bunch of pictures on her phone, terrified, that someone had taken of her while she was asleep, and he brushed it off with "hmm idk maybe it was your BOYFRIEND" and just left it at that snarky comment. What?!? ... And 2 did he really get into bed with the decomposed body of his wife's sister thinking it was his wife and cuddle up to her. A decomposing body. Wouldn't that smell so bad your neigbours would be throwing up from the smell in their separate homes but ok I'm not a scientist
The psychology behind the final monster of the show was kinda haphazerdly implied and alluded to but not really explained, didn't seem to make a lot of sense and was definitely very very overdramatic but that's fine for the genre I guess.
90210 (2008)
Didn't watch original but watched this one with 13 years in between and LOOOL
I first watched all episodes of 90210 as they were coming out, and I was around the same age as the characters (not the actors who were all older lol). Now I watched them all again 13 years later. It doesn't feel like that long ago but damn times have noticeably changed.
The thing that 90210 has going for it in my opinion, compared to recent high school/young millennial dramas like 13 Reasons Why and The Bold Type, is that it just embraces it's outrageous characters and plotlines for the drama, nothing more. It's not preachy, it doesn't seem to take itself seriously, it's not pretending it's something it's not. It's just an overly melodramatic teen/young adult drama, which you can watch in peace.
That said though, when I say outrageous, I mean completely outrageous. If this show pretended to be of any "importance" by resembling realism, I would give it a 1/10. The first three seasons, in which the main characters are in high school, crazy stuff happens all the time but it has some form of cohesion.
Season 4 and 5 are clinically insane. First of all, to maintain the plotlines between the main cast (around 8 characters at this point), EVERYONE conveniently finds their own personal reason/change of plans to stay right where they are, instead of going to a college elsewhere or anywhere else. They all end up living in the same house even, imagine the odds, even though they are all so extremely different from each other and all have different personalities and goals (cliché archetype no. 1 to 8, you can think them up before ever watching the show). That's the tamest aspect of the insane plotlines to come though. If you look at the actions of all these main cast members individually, they are all literally deranged psychopaths who never change even after 56 redemption archs because CRAZY STUFF JUST KEEPS HAPPENING 15 TIMES PER EPISODE. In reality all of these would be in a mental asylum. The plots are truly outrageous and no one ever goes to therapy (they could've at least lazily mentioned them going to therapy off-screen lol). Only one of many examples: Annie's serious boyfriend who she said I love you to dies completely out of nowhere and the next episode shows her shopping with her bffs as a form of "retail therapy" and that's the last we hear of him.
Characters, especially the ones who made a return from the original show (which I haven't watched) don't stick around for the later seasons so they kind of fall out of the plot, sometimes with a lackluster explanation and sometimes with none at all (Annie & Dixons mum, who apparently moved to Paris, made a comeback for 1 episode when Dixon was fighting for his life in the hospital, but there is literally no mentioning of his dad who was a huge part of the first season and is meant to just live in LA with his new girlfriend). Also Kelly - there was never any mentioning of her moving anywhere, she just wasn't in the show anymore. Even though in the first few seasons she is Silvers biggest confidant, being her sister who she lives with. In the last two seasons, Silver is kidnapped and almost murdered, her bff switched her pills against bipolar disorder for placebo's so she goes on a manic rampage and then becomes suicidal and hospitalised, she finds out she has the BRCA gene and suddenly only has 1 chance to have a child and that turns into a miscarriage and then she hears she has cancer the same day (this list is not exhaustive). But Kelly is suddenly just.......chilling in her kitchen doing her own thing I guess.
It's trashy entertainment without any sort of preachy undertone, so take it as that. Dixon and Navid are pretty funny and likeable characters, so is Naomi sometimes although they do put her through the same scheming mean girl>redemption arch over and over and over and over and over again. But those characters do well with what they were given. Silver too. The rest is too often cringy and annoying.
Also, by the end of this show I think every main character had a relationship with every other main character in their random "friend group" (even though there were also sooooooo many side characters). I was literally waiting for siblings Annie and Dixon to just do it in the end because honestly that's how outrageous it got.
Anyway, you can get some enjoyment out of this.
Four Good Days (2020)
For such a small story still feels a little plotholey
I'm not entirely sure what to make of this one. It did captivate me until the end, it's a decent movie. Acting was decent - Mila Kunis was actually better than I had expected, although a bit more subtlety would maybe have been better on her character, especially in terms of her look which seemed a bit theatrical. The movie is definitely more lighthearted than the trailer makes it out to be, by the way, which was a good thing in my eyes as I expected pure (melo)drama all the way. As another review stated though, the trailer is basically a summary of the movie otherwise (though less so in tone). Trailers tend to do that though and it's very annoying.
The movie is relatively short and much more psychological than very plot-driven. Still in my opinion there were some inconsistencies in the psychology, which almost read as plotholes. It's mostly about the inconsistency in the mother's actions. Although I do understand they were trying to convey the reality that there is not much consistency in how anyone would deal with a loved one (let alone your child) self-destructing like this, and it's mostly ups and downs, mindtricks and manipulation - this movie takes place in a very short period of time, and in that timeframe I found the mother's actions to be kind of confusing in combination with each other.
The scene were Molly fakes a phone call from the clinic about her appointment being rescheduled, and the subsequent weekend she spends at her ex's place was weird to me. Her mother had been watching her like a hawk for days, even pacing closely behind Molly while she was faking her phone call. Then her mother immediately voiced very logical suspicions (which later turned out to be the truth) about the realness of the phone call, but still let Molly storm off to her ex's place who had recently asked her to score drugs for her (like, one day prior). Ok, so I guess she couldn't necessarily have stopped Molly from leaving, but WHY didn't she call the clinic the next day to try and confirm this rescheduling? If it HAD been true, would that not have put her mind at ease a bit at least? And why does she frantically try to get a hold of both Molly and Molly's ex, but only by texting and calling, and not by driving over? But then she does drive over to Molly's dad's house for some reason? It's not even just Molly who was involved here - it was also her grandchildren. Just didn't really make sense to me.
Another thing: why is the mother so overly optimistic, as if they're going to live happily ever after, after Molly finally got her shot even though they both knew she had lied about having been sober long enough. The doctor literally told them that the reason she had to be sober for a week was because otherwise the shot could have life-threatening consequences. So why didn't they discuss that risk more, and why did they happily walk to the car and was it then shown as some sort of plottwist when Molly went into acute withdrawal? Didn't they literally know that that was a strong possibility all along? Confused me too.
The pregnancy/adoption story thrown in there was a bit random, not sure what that was meant to achieve or add to the story to be honest.
Lastly, a bit more backstory on Molly's ex/the father of her children would have been good. Now I guess we learn he's low-key a drugabuser as well (which kind of makes sense given that Molly would've been in a relationship with him as an active addict, like we are told she has been since she was a teenager), who asks her to get him drugs as soon as she gets out of rehab, and even goes out with her the day after she was meant to get her shot to get high together? Sounds like he was in pretty deep as well then. Why does he then have custody over the children by himself and is this not really addressed, at least after she gets clean?
Things like that were frustrating throughout the movie, although constant frustration and false hope is probably what they were trying to portray - it could have been shown in other ways than these ways which just seemed too nonsensical.
A bit more background on Molly herself would be good too, like maybe a couple of flashbacks or dialogue about the early stages of her addiction. Now it is just referred to a couple of times in a rushed way. However, I can appreciate that Molly does not necessarily have a crazy traumatic backstory to explain away her addiction issues. The idea that people can just be wired differently is refreshing in an era of, say, 13 Reasons Why type hypes where every act of self-destruction or violence is explained super neatly - although the opposite idea is pushed a bit too hard in this movie too. In reality the truth probably lingers somewhere in between nature and nurture. That whole dialogue scene in which it was (over)stated that basically no one could have done anything to prevent this, was a bit too on the nose and imposing. They could have either fleshed that out with more of a backstory or just left it in the middle more.
Very watchable film, touching at times, with good pacing and a good overall tone: bearable to watch because it's not an extremely heavy dramafest. Still though, for such a "small" plot, it left too many questions, and presumably not the questions they wanted to leave the audience with.
Atlanta (2016)
Straight up infatuated
I've seen every episode 10 times. I haven't been so hyped for the next season of a show since many years before the most recent season of Atlanta aired. It's the best thing out there right now, a creative masterpiece.
It's extremely funny, it conveys harsh socioeconomic and cultural criticism without being at all preachy or using its characters as mere vessels for particular messages. The setting and the characters stand firmly on their own, and the stories build on that in an impressively natural way. This makes the messages it does spread throughout the show that much more powerful. Donald Glover, you are a genius.
I love the raw and perfectly blended mix of hard realism and absurdity. It makes its audience work and think but it's always decipherable, even in its most absurd scenes/episodes.
Obviously Donald Glover is the star of the show as he wrote it, and he plays the character of Earn very well too, albeit that his character is obviously the most reasonable and neutral one of the group. But Brian Tyree Henry in the role of Paperboi/Alfred and LaKeith Stanfield in the role of Darius are absolute stars. It can't be overstated what COMEDIC GENIUSES they are, and how they portray characters you literally care about from episode 1 onward.
I'm in actual awe of this show clearly. Being from Amsterdam this wasn't a show that would've crossed my path easily because it's on an American channel (and I believe it's much more under the radar than it should be even in the US too) but I started watching it on a flight from the US and it blew me away. AND they're currently filming in my city for the next season which made my life.
Only for One Night (2016)
Was this actually written in a day?
This doesn't even reach the level of a mediocre movie in this (already mediocre) genre. Quite literally comes across as if it was written in one day.
Was there really not a single person on board of this production who raised a flag about the fact that it is literally, LITERALLY impossible to know that you are pregnant after a couple of days? They really didn't need ANY extra budget for that to be corrected. And yes, the sister's repeated drinking during a (strongly wanted) pregnancy also seems to have been completely overlooked. This COULD have been explained away by the fact that apparently the sister is just completely insane (with no depth beyond that whatsoever), but it still wouldn't explain why Angel-Princess-Wife/sister never called her out on it. I guess everyone just LITERALLY FORGOT.
Also what on earth kind of drug was the husband meant to have been given? Clearly it wasn't anything incapacitating as he very actively - as has been mentioned before by multiple reviewers - smashed the sh*t out of the sister. Some kind of upper is definitely implied, like molly or something? That really wouldn't have such an effect, at all. I don't know about any substance that would (so completely out of the blue, over the top and out of control) and apparently neither did the makers or they would've probably specified it.
Did the relationship between husband & wife really have to be so nauseatingly impossibly perfect in the beginning? It just made the rest of the plot via his actions even more unrealistic. At the very least the makers could have thought of a few other ways for the characters to show their love for each other besides just constantly making out and citing generic Valentine's Day card quotes to each other. Or was this all just necessary set-up for Angel-Princess-Wife to forgive him in the end and live happily ever after, literally after her husband cheated with her sister (with nothing more than the vague implication of being drugged by an unknown and probably unconvincing substance, and also: didn't he do it again later? Or had this mysterious drug just not fully worn off yet? Lol) who ended up getting killed because of the situation.
1 extra star for the male lead, Brian White, who did a completely decent job with what trash he was given. The sisters' acting, even with the very little depth they had to work with, was just bad. Timing and tone completely off and unconvincing, downright cringy most times. I'd been following Karrueche Tran (playing the wife) and her path for a bit because she seems like a nice positive chick and I was invested in her story and her come-up. I've seen snippets of more recent appearances where her performance did get a bit better (not much unfortunately) - but in this movie she really really wasn't ready. Also, I know she herself IS actually an appropriate enough age for the woman she's portraying (still kinda young at 27/28 but ok), but at the end of the day Karrueche just looks much younger so I guess should be casted for younger roles. If I had watched this movie not knowing her as an actress, I would think why did they cast a 22 year old as a married woman with a child who's like 7. The babyvoice to emphasize her complete innocence, purity and naivity didn't help the situation either. (Also although it was never specified in the movie of which ethnicity the sisters are meant to be, why not at least pick two actresses with the same ethnicity?? Maybe a bridge too far for this show but come on they don't even look like each other at all.)
Nah come on even if the plot was thought up in one day and even with the expectations that people have of a low-budget film in this genre, it could have been at least 4 stars. Ya dropped the ball.
The Bold Type (2017)
In their quest to be a progressive show, it becomes too boring and bland
Sometimes I've heard people say they're worried that when a show (or any kind of creative project) focuses too much on "political correctness", it will become bland. Though I don't agree this has to be the case, it is for this show. Not only is the message of the show constantly politically correct/as woke as possible, and does the plot build literally every event around this - its characters are also constantly politically correct all the time. I guess it's a little bit refreshing sometimes to see characters they could have easily made cliché villains out of be reasonable, but they push it to the point that everyone is so perfectly mature, good and correct all the time, that you don't even care what happens anymore. Everything's going to be resolved in the most perfect way imaginable anyway. It flattens out any real sense of drama or connection with the characters, as it's simply unrealistic and, very quickly, predictable again.
Besides that, while I understand the appeal of looking at attractive and colourful young people on screen, the trope of women in their mid-twenties with these overly glamourous lives in one of the most (if not the most) expensive cities in the world is just tired. It just makes it even more unrealistic. Not every show needs to be realistic, but if you're going to make in unrealistic, do something special with it to justify that. The Bold Type just hovers somewhere in the middle where it's just not interesting enough either way. The show shouldn't describe itself as "the daily lives and struggle of three women at their jobs in New York" or something along those lines (which it does), because they are really barely struggling (never for very long anyway) and they live in a fantasy world.
The acting is fine, nothing spectacular, but the actors probably did the best they could with the fact that no real defining personality traits were written into any of the characters. Season 1 shows little to no background information all season, so it's also not clear to me, for example, what makes these three women so suitable for these highly sought after jobs. In fact, after 10 episodes I still barely know anything to tell one character apart from the next.
Of course I know this show was never meant to be some top notch piece of art and that's fine, but even within its genre it could have been a lot more interesting to watch. It's not very good but it's also not really guilty-pleasure material, they should have just picked one.