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Reviews
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)
Wondering if this was written by chat GPT?
I'm wondering if Chat gpt wrote this off a brief to make it sort of like a Star Wars story, include some Vikings, a Lara Croft type female lead, South African baddies, Black Panther, Tarzan, Chinese action movie heroine and Sons of Anarchy (if it was in Northern Ireland and just to stack the movie with some totty!), then add in an evil general with great cheekbones modelled on the worst of 3rd reich.
Mental concept! Which is why this movie
really didn't seem to go anywhere most of the time while they rode across space collecting various odds and sods only to end up with a final battle straight out of a gaming programme and some cheesy dialogue.
So yeah, that's pretty much it.
Unknown: Cave of Bones (2023)
Cool cave, bad sciencing
This could have been awesome - the cave, the bones, the possibility of burials of a related species to Homo sapiens. But it was just all so flimsy and speculative, which is a bit of a shame really. Asides from the obvious physical discoveries and an amazing scanning technology in France, the rest was a whole lot of "what if?" speculating that moved it into Bad Sciencing.
I had so many questions...How is it that the leader of the excavation hadn't been into the cave himself for 8 years? If ever there was a reason to drop a few kilos and get in shape, surely that would be it. Also, how is it they didn't share any chemical or other analyses to support their hypotheses? Or maybe they didn't have anything to fit their narrative? How do they know there were burials as opposed to lots of H. Naledi becoming stuck down there, and could the child with the tool in their hand just have fallen in the dark?
Especially cringey was the emphatic connection of the rock scratchings they showed across 3 different species. These lines scratched into a rock reminded me of scratching lines into wooden desks at school when I was bored senseless in class. Perhaps it's art or perhaps they simply got stuck down there and became very bored?
There was so much speculation, all of it by just a couple of people, and no wider corroboration with other experts or evidence presented. It's really annoying to be speculated at without any other hypotheses or scenarios being presented, as if they assume the audience isn't capability of critical thinking.
Perhaps I should have realised by now that Netflix isn't the place to learn about good sciencing thingies.
Bienvenidos a Edén (2022)
Pretty people in blue active wear
I like blue, it's probably my favourite colour, but this show is a lesson in not being too matchy matchy in your outfit choices because it can be a bit much. There's some cute crop sweat tops and lots of toned abs. Everything and everyone is pretty, and the theme song is set to spa music.
I've watched 2 seasons and I'm not actually sure where this is going. It seems to have a stream of consciousness plot line, in which the writers seem to be thinking about sex a lot. And it's sex for everyone,..including if roofies in watered down Powerade is your bag.
In any case I'm getting a bit bored of it now because we all Netflix is going to spin it out for 3 seasons and then cut it with out giving us an ending - because that's what they do. I was hoping to see more of the emo PI though. We needed more of her than the pretty people.
This is a non descript review about not much to be honest - very much like this show.
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Just embrace it
I feel compelled to counter all the negative and low scores on here with a positive review. Yes it was hectic and all over the place, but how awesome was that? The world needs more thinking well outside the box, and to stop taking ourselves so seriously all the time. When was the last time any of us just let out mind wander and see where it goes?
Under all the crazy shifts was a very relatable and emotional story about expectation, acceptance, love and the choices we make - This was painful, beautiful and moving. It is all of us wondering what else we could do or be - a mirror held up to us about how our biases and expectations limit our own potential.
It's a different way of thinking that isn't typical, it's beyond the binary black and white. In so many ways it's like the neurodiverse showing the neurotypical majority/norm what's inside our heads - an entirely different way of solving problems or telling a story that doesn't follow norms or a specified format or process. That Michelle Yeohs character's superpowers were hidden, she was hidden and made herself smaller to follow convention was the absolute kicker - because this is the experience of so many who are different and walk this world with our own multiverses going on inside our heads feeling like weirdos.
This was messy, frenetic, bonkers and painfully relatable and beautiful all at the time time. Just let go of your expectations and enjoy a fantastic ride!
MH370: The Plane That Disappeared (2023)
I'm confused - was it the Russians or the Americans?
Oh Netflix! Why oh why do you let these crackpots sell their stories and peddle confusion on such a public platform. The main qualification for the people featured with "theories" is that they use the Internet...and therein lies the problem.
Jeff Wise (surely his surname is a joke?) has clearly watched snakes on a plane one time too often to come up with his hypotheses about how planes work and for what happened to this flight. To be honest, if Russia wanted to off an entire plane of passengers they would just shoot it out of the sky like they did 4 months later. Why go to all the effort of flying it to Kazakhstan? It seems to be an incredibly inefficient way to conduct an act of terrorism, especially if you're not going to claim it and make people scared.
Then it's the Americans jamming the plane systems to stop some drones or comms equipment (or maybe just a bunch of cellphones) going to China. Again, a baffling course of action unless the plane was carrying something far more sinister like maybe nuclear or biological weapons or a nasty lab-made virus that one day could make the whole world catch flu or a plane full of snakes. Maybe then the Americans might shoot it out of the sky.
No one doubts the media comms and family liaison was handled horribly and insensitively. Malaysian airlines has never really showered itself in glory - If you've ever been stranded by delays in KL and had to go to the customer service desk, you will know first hand that it's impossible to know what is happening with your booking until over an hour later you're handed a boarding pass and a voucher for a questionable nasi lemak from the only place open in the terminal.
I'm actually wondering if Netflix misfiled this series under documentary when it really meant to tag it fiction? Now there's a theory for the tin foil hat brigade - what even is behind them doing something like that?
Rurangi (2020)
Beautiful series about identity & family
This series seems to have completely flown under the radar, I'm guessing because some consider it indie LGBTQI+ territory. But that is so far from what it really is. It's about identity on multiple levels - cultural, gender identity, sexuality. But it's also about love, the environment, and family.
I adored Caz, Anahera, Jem and Ellie, and Gerald. The acting is excellent. The setting in rural Waikato is achingly familiar, and I love the supernatural spin series 2 has taken, weaving Maori folklore into the storyline. It's beautiful, heartbreaking, and has a kind of restraint that is done with the greatest of care. This has been an unexpected find and beautiful surprise.
I can't wait to watch the next series (please fund it NZ on Air!).
Dziewczyna i kosmonauta (2023)
It looks nice
Look I'm not going to lie. I only semi-watched this in between doom scrolling on my phone.
And if I'm doom-scrolling then I'm not terribly engaged. I missed important details like what year it actually is because there's 80s stuff like cassettes and bad hair but then there's the blue/dark insta-filter stuff which is presumably the dystopian future, but it's a bit actually nicer than the rest of the Netflix dystopian futures on offer. There's alot of splicing past and present and a cornfield moment that makes for some lovely imagery.
I suspect this was about cinematography rather than storyline. I really should have paid attention to find out who everyone was too.
There's also an annoying toxic masculinity/frat boy vibe that reeks of Tom Cruise's sweaty cologne in Top Gun. The characters don't seem especially likeable. There was completely naked shagging in a carousel if that spins your wheels. This scores a 2 for the attractive visuals, but otherwise what seemed like a reasonable premise but totally failed to live up to it.
Vikings: The Best Laid Plans (2020)
I wish other reviewers would spell check
This episode was a game of chess. There's a lot of reviewers who assume a very binary view on what this series "should" be. But times change and the Vikings change. No one said this was accurate! Just sit back and enjoy this for what it is.