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The Sopranos: Isabella (1999)
Joking Depression
This is, by far, the best episode of this series, and probably will be the best in all time. The performance in this episode is excellent. Moreover, the juxtaposition in this episode is just stunning.
This episode is all about Tony's depression, but jokes or juxtaposition are everywhere. At the former part of this episode, the hired hitman joked about that Tony was ordered hit by his mother, which was actually part of the truth. Later on, Tony looked for motherly love from Isabela, but his wife misunderstood it. And when the Priest came, Tony embrassed her by pointing out the stay. During the family dinner, little Antonio asked "How can it be a joke if you're crying?". After the hit went south and Tony's family gathered in the hospital, the board behind the seat where Tony's kids sat read "Safe Families. Everybody needs one". At last, the motherly love was an illusion while the hit was the reality, which is quite sarcastic: psychiatry that heals people with love failed, while the hit healed the depression of Tony.
Memento (2000)
Interesting Narration Instead of Good Writing
The movie tells the story in a reversed order, which confuses people and keeps building suspense. It was fun to watch, but the story was not that worthy.
The story is mediocre, which is about manipulation of a man that lost his short-term memory. Actually this seems a little unfair, because the writer decides when the protagonist starts forgetting things. So I won't say this movie has a good writing. Good writing shows consistency, which means the concept that makes up the movie should be taken through invariably. The Nolans did very well in The Prestige and Inception, but just no this one.
However, the narration is innovative in a certain way: the confusion was just enough to drive me watching instead of forbidding me to undertand the plot.
In recent years, they did Tenet which was not so well-received. That movie has a learning curve in its narration to make sure people following, but it tells a boring time-tralvel story, while the time-travel part is quite fancy. I think Tenet made the same mistake in this movie: they try to catch people's eyes with narration instead of solid plot.
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
EDM DUDE OBVIOUSLY
The action scenes are intense and stylish, as this series have always been. But in this episode, the use of various electronic music makes the scenes more breath-taking.
This film reminds me of a famous video game, Hotline Miami, in which blood and gore was shed while additive electronic music playing. The music creates a unreal atmosphere, makes people lost themselves into killing machines.
This atmosphere is exactly what this film needs. Although John Wick tries to be a 'loving husband', but the world forces him into a cold-blooded hitman. The coldness of the world, the defiance and the distorsion of John's soul is well expressed with electronic music.
Dark (2017)
Illusionally Beautiful
I'm a big fan of time travel stories. These stories can be divided into two categories, based on how paradoxes are answered, for example, can one who travels back in time kill one's parents? Some of them obey Novikov self-consistency conjecture, which means, simply put, no one can kill their parents because one was already born. The others create parallel worlds when one tries to kill their parents. Time travel based on self-consistency conjecture questions free will, and that based on the other questions anything else. I prefer the first category, because it is more fair: the writer can only change things in a 'reasonable' way, and logic applies to these stories. In my opinion, this prevents these stories to be meaningless.
However, this method of classification falls right into dualism. Maybe a third kind can exist? This series experimented this idea. At first, the story belongs to the first category; at the end of Season 2, the story creates parallel worlds: at the exact moment of the apocalypse, the self-consistency conjecture can be broken.
At a glance, the story is reasonable and well-contemplated. But then I begin to question why there were two time machines (of Adam's world type) in Season 2? This is easily answered: they were from different times. Here arises a paradox: if one can duplicate time machines by taking them from different times, why Jonas and Martha can only be duplicated when the apocalypse happens?
So, this time, dualism wins. This series does not create a third category, but belongs to the second category. I was really disappointed when I first realized this. This series should be viewed as artworks based on visual illusion, like ones created by Maurits Cornelis Escher: they are beautiful but can never exist in real world.
The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
Not for fans, but for producers themselves
In the first part of the movie, the essence of this sequel is mentioned. For example, "We can't see it, but we're all trapped inside, these strange, repeating loops.", said by Morpheus, suggests that this sequel is repetitive. Later, the montage suggests that "Originality" "Fresh" "WTF" "Big, Loud and Dumb" "Lots of Guns" "Mayhem" "Mind-porn" "Bullet Time", should be included. Especially near the end of the montage, they said that Matrix is a metaphor of capitalist exploitation. After I watched the whole movie, I found these words very true. The movie is filled with meaningless action scenes (for mayhem) and irrational plots (for WTF), indicating that it is a result of capitalist exploitation. These reviews (or complains, more precisely) from the producers can also be found in other lines said by antagonists.
So in a way, producers are portrayed as Neo and Trinity, and W. B. is portrayed as the antagonists. Neo suffered mental stress and showed reluctance when being asked for a sequal, so did the producers. However, in the end, Neo and Trinity came back and thanked the Analyst for another chance. This contradiction was resolved during the movie: everything that made The Matrix (the movie) up was deconstruted, and this revision taught the producers something about filming.
These producers asked themselves: why were The Matrix trilogy so successful? Then they answered in the movie: the philosophy, bullet time and a love story. This sequal, therefore, is the best summary but the worst episode of The Matrix series.
Prison Break (2005)
Intense and Definitely Worth Watching
As the title suggests, this show is mainly about framed people planing and improvising in order to escape from a prison (actually prisons, plural), and related people fight for their freedom outside the prison. With scores composed by Ramin Djawadi, the same composer of WestWorld, this show is full of suspense and is breath-taking till the very last second, except for Season 5, which is completely garbage.
Season 1 is incredible without doubt. The plot is well written and filmed with a fast pace. You don't want to miss a second of this season.
Season 2 is interesting at first but rushed to conclusion in the end. The end of this season, especially the last episode, is flawed and poorly made.
There is a dispute about Season 3. In my opinion, it is not so bad. Season 3 is significantly different from former seasons. Maybe that's why it is not accepted by some people.
Season 4 is a satisfying conclusion of the whole show. Similar to the end of Season 2, the beginning of Season 4 tried to move them onto a new mission and the plot is a little ridiculous. However, the rest of the season is thrilling.
A few years later, Season 5 was released and turned out to be a huge letdown. The plot is controversial almost everywhere. It would take hours to list every inconsistency here. This season is redundant because the story was properly concluded in Season 4. Nevertheless, it ruined my good memories of this show.
Prison Break: Greatness Achieved (2008)
Full of Surprises, but Fair Enough
Back in Season 1, when Bellick resumed the death sentence of Lincoln, I thought he was really evil instead of merely being a prison guard stereotype. A prison guard is prone to abuse of power, according to The Lucifer Effect. However, actively helping the excecution of another human being is just not acceptable in my opinion.
Here in this episode, Bellick sacrificed himself to ensure their plan was properly carried out. Because of the prejudice built during the first three seasons, I found it difficult to see Bellick work with the others at first.
What Bellick did in this episode was quite surprising but not so unnatural. Bellick had experienced a dramatic change of role, from a guard to prisoner, and persecution in Sona. In this episode, he showed sympathy for Lincoln and his dialogue suggested a happy childhood. Maybe Bellick is good under the bottom of his heart and completely different from convicts like T-Bag.
In Prison Break, those characters were constantly exposed to high stress and often behaved irrationally and unpredictable, making the plot intense and enjoyable. However, a plot that was too unexpected could feel unreal. Except for the last few episode in Season 2, the writers did an excellent job.
Millennium (1996)
We don't need another X-Files
This three-season show was called off by Fox, ending with a cliffhanger. I think the reason behind this was that no one wanted another X-Files when it was still airing.
The show was made by Chris Carter and the scores were composed by Mark Snow, it is hard not to relate this show to X-Files. However, the first season felt completely different from X-Files. Almost every case was explicitly explained without supernatural phenomena and conspiracy theories, which were the main elements constructing X-Files. Additionally, they created a dark and depressing atmosphere for this show. The show was trying to ask and answer 'what the evil really is', resembling Stephen King's work where he was seeking for the nature of fear. In a word, season 1 was very distinguishing and truly a hidden gem.
At the end of the first season, the familiar X-Files-like seasonal ending just appeared. By saying this, I mean they made a cliffhanger but ended it with something trivial in the next season (no questions answered but more asked). Then here went season 2. Because of X-Files season 5's shooting, Chris left this show to two young producers. Although the subject of the show was unchanged, these two producers did something experimental in this season. I must mention episode 21 'Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me'. Although it is highly rated, I think it is contradictory to this show. This episode consists of four short stories with black humor, but not so humourous. In season 1, no humor was added because humor would spoil the atmosphere. Nevertheless, supernatural and conspiracy element came *back* into this show, making it more similar to X-Files. Apart from that, they tried to exploit the main character but ended up with a stereotype: a farher protecting his family. Most exploring on the main character began with a threat to his family. They surely could do more than this, because they had a main character who directly touched the evil, would this have any effect on him? The ending of season 2 was not well developed, either. But there was a reason for this. The producers concluded the story in limited time for fear of the cancellation of the show. And many people in their group was looking for new jobs due to the same reason, leaving the producers short of hands.
Season 2 was not the worst. Some episodes were as impressive as the ones in the first season. In addition, season 2 switched from the evil influenced by environment to the pure evil, and was at least in accordance with the first season.
Season 3 was a total failure, even the return of Chris Carter did not save this show. The subject of the show changed from the true nature of evil to the conspiracy of Milliennium Group. They even added a Scully for the Mulder in this show. Story patterns were also similar to X-Files. There were 'Monster of the week' episodes. In the meantime, people related to the Group showed up from time to time, reminding you about them and their conspiracies. Compared with the ones in former seasons, plots in some episodes deteriorated due to the lack of creativity. In the end, they made another X-Files-like ending of the season. The only thing that differentiates this show from X-Files in season 3, was that they always had a murder case to investigate and a criminal to chase.
Maybe Fox did not see the point of making another X-Files, maybe something else happened. They decided to end this show instead of ruining it. If they did ruin a show called millennium right before the millennium, it would be the hugest mistake ever made in TV history.
Millennium: Antipas (1999)
Just like that in the Wind-up Bird Chronicle
As the incarnation of the pure evil, Lucy Butler came back in this episode.
The story is kind of plain, execpt for the part that includes Frank Black. The plot between Frank and Lucy reminded me of the Wind-up Bird Chronicle, a novel written by Haruki Murakami, a Japanese novelist. In the novel, the protagonist had sex with a prostitute via a dream, after he had just broken up with his wife. And the same evil came to tempt Frank, who actually was in the same shoes of the protagonist in the Wind-up Bird Chronicle.
The episodes on Lucy Bulter may contain some metaphors, and are the most imaginative in the whole series, just like the work of Haruki Murakami.