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The Big Door Prize (2023)
Not Perfect. None of Us Are
Let me echo others who say this is billed as a comedy when it's not (though we chuckle at the screen and ourselves), it's billed as science fiction when it's not (it's slightly a fantasy, but not much of that either), and that the likelihood of you enjoying is dependent on your age, but seems probably true.
It's not strictly a comedy and it's full of introspective downers.
Apple calls this science fiction. I see none. There is a dash of fantasy. (I take this opportunity to chastise many of you. In the past few decades people have been calling pure fantasies works of sci-fi. I think you are afraid of saying you like a fantasy. Does it make you seem like a child? Come, on. Grow up.)
I agree with others who suggest that your age will dictate whether you like it our not. When I was 25 I'd not have lasted two episodes. Now both my head and heart are fuller. I'm older and like this show.
I especially like that the show doesn't try to answer the mysteries of the MORPHO machine. The show isn't about the MORPHO machine. Now that the machine has set things into motion, it's mostly unnecessary. The show is about interwoven and mostly normal lives. The quirks of the people in play provide much of the "comedy", and those oddities of personality are treated lovingly. No one is treated like a second class citizen.
AND! No one is trying to kill anyone else! Go figure.
I have many issues with this show, but they are small and ignorable.
If you want to become invested in people and their stories, even it they are over-the-top weird, watch The Big Door Prize. Otherwise I'm sure you can find someone dancing on TikTok.
American Fiction (2023)
Very Very Good
I liked this a lot, You'll root for the protagonist, even if he's not perfect. The acting is great, especially Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K Brown, and Tracee Ellis Ross. Wright and Brown deserve to be Oscar contenders. Writer/director Cord Jefferson gives us a movie that is smart, but not cerebral, funny but not silly. Not grandiose like some of this year's other presumed Oscar contenders, it is often simply a look at a family with all the joys and disfunctions we all have in our own families. I saw Mr. Jefferson on a morning talk show. I knew then that I had to see it. I'm very glad I did. You'll like it.
Maestro (2023)
Mulligan Amazes - Cooper grows
Carrie Mulligan is outstanding. Cooper the actor is almost as good. Cooper the director is often breathtaking.
I knew in advance that this was a study of the Bernstein's romance, and not of his creative process as an artist. It is hard to show that creative process in a film. Many times, to portray the trials of creation effectively, a director must expect his audience to have some familiarity with the process. Most of us are not painters, nor dancers, nor composer/conductors. Most of us don't understand how a composer can wrestle with choosing the next note... a 4th or a flat 4th? Such quandaries aren't fascinating to most and are largely unexplored. Films that partially succeed often have crazy protagonists: "Lust for Life"'s Van Gogh, or "Pollock".
Cooper's direction makes frequent use of the "long take", a single shot that can take minutes and has no cuts or edits. These shots give us a sense of "place", we are there: a long take (and long shot from a distance) of the couple talking with arbors of grapevines framing the scene, the couple on either side of a room arguing while the Thanksgiving Day parade floats past the window, and a wonderful six minute long take of Cooper conducting Mahler 2. Kudos to Matthew Libatique's photography.
... and a brief statement to those who complain about the prosthetic: grow up.
On the whole, the movie came up a bit short for me. My takeaways: Mulligan rules, and I can't wait to see what Cooper does next.
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
Waterlogged Cotton Candy
This is a beautiful film to watch, often surprisingly so. The scenery and the water-life are magical and they make this movie worth watching.
But that's it. The story, such as it is, is a rehash of the first Avatar, with some of the same human characters wasting military resource to seek revenge on the Navi who beat them 15 years ago.
Mr. Cameron, you are clearly a smart man. Your movie is breathtakingly beautiful. Why do you think your audience needs silly fighting conflict to hold its interest. I challenge you to make a similarly beautiful movie in which there is no fighting. You hint at the Navi character... show us THAT.
FUBAR (2023)
I gave up and watched Terminator instead
I wanted to like this. I like Arnold well enough. I wasn't familiar with Monica Barbaro, but she's attractive and competent. His support team was dragged out of CSI or Criminal Minds (not in a good way).
The premise of father/daughter teaming up is unusual and could be fun, but the writing was... well... if you are 12 years old you might like it (though your parents would hopefully object).
After the first episode I still felt I owed it a shot, so I started episode two. It let me down very quickly by just getting sillier, but as I was in an "Arnold" mood I went to the Terminator, which I'd not seen in years. Now that's Arnold. Maybe tonight I'll go for Predator, or even (dare I say it?) Kindergarten Cop.
Black Summer (2019)
Pick any fight/chase scene, run it on a loop, no need for writers
I gave Black Summer a 2 instead of a zero because it is technically well made. It looks good.
In the first couple of episodes we meet the characters. It's a standard setup, made interesting by seeing multiple points of view of the same events. I liked the device of showing the audience a title card for each "chapter", a technique that carries throughout and gives context and sometimes humor to what we are about to see.
But after we meet the characters, nothing happens. There is no character development. We don't know their pasts. We know they must be a little smart (or lucky), otherwise they'd be dead by now. We know they need to get to the stadium, where a mom fully expects her young daughter to be patiently waiting, in spite of the world of zombie chaos that surrounds them. We know something of "Spears" past, but not much.
By the time we get to mid-season, nothing happens. It's an endless chase scene run on a loop. It takes minutes to beat a zombie to death, and we get to see every repeated strike. It's not particularly gruesome, it's just boring. And why pay for good writers when you can just do long scenes of non-talking or beating?
If they make it through the insane chaos of the city, rampant with zombies, and finally arrive at the stadium, do you think the stadium, with it's hundreds of access points in a sea of zombie madness, will have a few monsters lolling in the stands, or cavorting on the 50-yard line? Or maybe, in spite of all of the surrounding mess, it could be a pristine oasis, quiet, peaceful, serene? Want to make any bets?
I started season two. By halfway through the first episode, nothing had happened yet, other than the fifteen minute loop of head bashing.
I quit.
Florida Man (2023)
Fun !!
Everyone else who has reviewed this has said what I have to say, so I won't repeat it all. It's fun. It's not Citizen Kane or Sophie's Choice. I picked it at random and was not disappointed.
I would like to comment on another user's review, who disliked it because it wasn't filmed in Florida: "Why create a show called Florida man, make the plot based on a guy going back to Florida and then film the entire thing in North Carolina?"
Practical reasons? Costs? No sane person chooses to go to Florida if they have a choice?
If you have similar concerns, don't watch The Martian (spoiler- it wasn't filmed on Mars)