Russian Doll is a pretty weird show in the vibe of Groundhog Day that comes off as a bit off-putting in the first couple of episodes, but seems to really grow on you as it progresses - especially with the introduction of Alan. Both Nadia and Alan are very strange characters that don't seem to be particularly likeable at first. However, as the story progresses (or rather, resets again and again) and eventually concludes, they both grow and become better people. The ending of S1 is somewhat of a conclusion, but intriguing enough to leave space for another season.
Reviews
8 Reviews
The Great
(2020–2023)
Wouldn't history make an equally entertaining story?
17 July 2020
This occasionally true story takes its subtitle to mind-boggling levels. Very little is actually historically accurate here, but why though? Wouldn't a historically accurate version have been way more entertaining, needless to say educating?! Especially considering that Catherine is all about education, I don't really see the point in making this show so ridiculously historically inaccurate. Pretty much nothing is accurate here, least of all, of course, the casting - it would have been more fun to actually see Russians speaking Russian here, rather than British people not even pretending to be Russian.
The show is entertaining, though it drags on a bit towards the end. They either should have moved the events of the final episode in S1 to a much earlier episode, or just have reduced the number of episodes to a maximum of 6-8.
The show is entertaining, though it drags on a bit towards the end. They either should have moved the events of the final episode in S1 to a much earlier episode, or just have reduced the number of episodes to a maximum of 6-8.
The Magicians
(2015–2020)
A magical masterpiece of nerdiness
17 July 2020
The Magicians is the nerdiest, geekiest show I've seen in a very long time - which is appropriate for a show whose primary audience are nerds and geeks. The show is in essence a spiritual successor to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and not like some people want you to believe, to Harry Potter) and it has the same atmosphere of fun and quirkyness paired with soul-crushing drama.
Admittedly the plotlines take a few liberties here and there, which I guess can be explained away with "It's magic!", but that is not really what makes the show worth watching. It's the characters that grow so close to your heart that every re-watch of this show is like getting back together to hang out with your best friends. The characters and their developments in this show are truly phenomenal and each one is unique in their own way. It's truly rewarding every time to watch these people go through their lives.
Altogether all five seasons of this show are absolutely worth watching. They all tell more or less self-contained storylines (with some overarching plots here and there, especially between S1+2), and the show has a very nice, satisfying conclusion. The absolute highlight of the show is S3 though, which has one of the best segments I've ever seen in a TV show (Harriet's story... you'll know it when you see it).
Admittedly the plotlines take a few liberties here and there, which I guess can be explained away with "It's magic!", but that is not really what makes the show worth watching. It's the characters that grow so close to your heart that every re-watch of this show is like getting back together to hang out with your best friends. The characters and their developments in this show are truly phenomenal and each one is unique in their own way. It's truly rewarding every time to watch these people go through their lives.
Altogether all five seasons of this show are absolutely worth watching. They all tell more or less self-contained storylines (with some overarching plots here and there, especially between S1+2), and the show has a very nice, satisfying conclusion. The absolute highlight of the show is S3 though, which has one of the best segments I've ever seen in a TV show (Harriet's story... you'll know it when you see it).
A Tragedy At Sea
25 May 2007
I've been a fan of the Disney ride since 1996, so I was all the more excited when I saw the first movie in 2003. I absolutely loved it, it was a solid, spirited story and great escapism. But now imagine the writers - you have a great hit movie, the people are screaming for more, so what do you do? Throw all the characters from the first movie in a pot, add some new ones, hell even bring some back from the dead, flavor it with lots and lots and lots of action and fantasy, stir a few times, and boom, there's your story! Does it have to make sense? I guess not.
The second and the third movies can't live up to the first. Their story lines are heartless and wobbly as Jack's brain. They both might visually be mind blowing and make you feel like you're a pirate in the Caribbean yourself, but story wise they are just confusing. I had a very small headache when I entered the theater and a really big headache when I left.
The character developments are more than questionable - they change their opinion by the minute and you never know who is on who's side, it's incomprehensible what their motivations are. The extra portion of epic love just didn't fit into this movie, nor did the sudden change of heart in a battle scene, of which we do not even know what the meaning of it was, just as we don't know why other certain things happened. Allover I can't even put my confusion about the plot into words. It's way too much to absorb and it'll just be confusing to think about it any longer.
The one scene I enjoyed the most was when the screen went all black and you could hear far away singing and rattling and a voice slowly saying "Dead Men Tell No Tales" - those were original sounds from the Disney ride, and I felt just like I was in there again. It had such a great atmosphere, even the air in there is unforgettable. And then the screen went white.
The third movie is deeply melancholic from the first to the last scene - despite all action. The ending leaves the audience frustrated and discontented. The scene after the credits seems to close the trilogy - which is a good thing, because nothing will ever live up to The Curse of the Black Pearl.
The second and the third movies can't live up to the first. Their story lines are heartless and wobbly as Jack's brain. They both might visually be mind blowing and make you feel like you're a pirate in the Caribbean yourself, but story wise they are just confusing. I had a very small headache when I entered the theater and a really big headache when I left.
The character developments are more than questionable - they change their opinion by the minute and you never know who is on who's side, it's incomprehensible what their motivations are. The extra portion of epic love just didn't fit into this movie, nor did the sudden change of heart in a battle scene, of which we do not even know what the meaning of it was, just as we don't know why other certain things happened. Allover I can't even put my confusion about the plot into words. It's way too much to absorb and it'll just be confusing to think about it any longer.
The one scene I enjoyed the most was when the screen went all black and you could hear far away singing and rattling and a voice slowly saying "Dead Men Tell No Tales" - those were original sounds from the Disney ride, and I felt just like I was in there again. It had such a great atmosphere, even the air in there is unforgettable. And then the screen went white.
The third movie is deeply melancholic from the first to the last scene - despite all action. The ending leaves the audience frustrated and discontented. The scene after the credits seems to close the trilogy - which is a good thing, because nothing will ever live up to The Curse of the Black Pearl.
Erbsen auf halb 6
(2004)
An unusual and moving story
11 June 2006
Jakob, a young theater director in Hamburg of Icelandic descent, goes blind after having a serious car accident. He doesn't accept his fate and wants to kill himself, until he meets Lily who was born blind and who was sent to him by a rehabilitation center for the blind. Together they somewhat accidentally set off to Russia, where Jakob wants to visit his sick mother.
Jakob's origin is the one confusing thing in this movie - the way I figured, he must have grown up in Iceland because of his slight accent, to an Icelandic father and a German mother who was of Russian descent.
Even though I'm not a big fan of love stories and of German movies, I really liked this movie because it's a very unusual, strong kind of story. It's hard to describe it, you could say it's a very visual movie, though not in a visual sense. Since it's about being blind, you somewhat empathize with the characters and their way of seeing with all their other senses. Also, I watched it with the audio commentary for the visually impaired, just for fun ;) The dialog in this movie is as mediocre and clumsy as in any other German movie, but the physical acting is definitely brilliant! It's gotta be very hard playing a blind person, but those two actors are doing it perfectly with their gestures and their rigid gaze.
An affecting story, outstanding performances and an excellent, award-winning soundtrack make this in my opinion one of the best German movies ever. I was very touched by this, and I can definitely recommend it.
Jakob's origin is the one confusing thing in this movie - the way I figured, he must have grown up in Iceland because of his slight accent, to an Icelandic father and a German mother who was of Russian descent.
Even though I'm not a big fan of love stories and of German movies, I really liked this movie because it's a very unusual, strong kind of story. It's hard to describe it, you could say it's a very visual movie, though not in a visual sense. Since it's about being blind, you somewhat empathize with the characters and their way of seeing with all their other senses. Also, I watched it with the audio commentary for the visually impaired, just for fun ;) The dialog in this movie is as mediocre and clumsy as in any other German movie, but the physical acting is definitely brilliant! It's gotta be very hard playing a blind person, but those two actors are doing it perfectly with their gestures and their rigid gaze.
An affecting story, outstanding performances and an excellent, award-winning soundtrack make this in my opinion one of the best German movies ever. I was very touched by this, and I can definitely recommend it.
Not doing justice to the book
30 November 2005
Warning: Spoilers
WARNING! This may contain spoilers for anyone who is not familiar with the book! Since my opinion is rather negative, you should probably also not read it before seeing the movie.
Positive: Um, this is hard. I liked Luciuses hair. And I thought there was more of a 'schoolish' atmosphere in some scenes. The band at the Yule Ball looked like a goth band or something. Filch's way of running gave me a laugh. He was really funny in this movie, but that's probably also negative because he's not really supposed to be funny. Some stuff is just nice to look at.
Negative: I don't know where to start this. Well allover, the movie felt like a total haste. The scenes were incredibly short and HUGE amounts of detail were missing (again...). But worse, they even added some total crap to the plot, stuff where you just think 'What's this sh*t supposed to be?'. For example Barty Crouch Jr. in the Riddle Mansion. Didn't make sense at all and spoiled the whole plot. Also the Pensieve scene with him was ridiculous. Dumbledore wasn't Dumbledore. He was some weird crackp*t or something. He was just mean. Dumbledore is a wise, silent old man, and that wasn't him. Richard Harris was so much better, especially his voice and his way of speaking. No Sirius at all (that fire thing doesn't count). Also, no Dursleys. I was looking forward to them meeting the Weasleys... too bad. And no Charlie Weasley at all. They totally could have left out the Quidditch World Cup. Those two seconds weren't worth it. The whole dragon chase was unnecessary. The Great Hall looked scarily small to me. I remembered it to be a lot bigger in the first movies. Daniel Radcliffe's leg hair is rather gross. Yuck. Mad-Eye Moody also didn't look like anything I ever imagined. He's supposed to have no nose and have a scared face. Well... The music at the maze was really ridiculous as well. Sounded like German Oktoberfest. The maze was also weird. No obstacles? On to the interesting parts... The Death Eaters looked, as a friend suggested, like a mixture of Sido and the Ku-Klux-Klan. Ridiculous. And Voldemort himself looked totally nice. And harmless. Nothing at all like the Moste Evile Wizarde of all time. He didn't have any crinkles (he must be at least 65 years old), he wasn't tall at all, and his nose looked stupid. His eyes weren't really red. His fingers weren't really long. His toenails were quite ugly though. I always imagined him a head taller and much thinner than any normal man. The whole graveyard scene didn't scare me at all. There's nothing really evil there. The 'vibe' isn't there. The Prior Incantatem was also not really stunning. I thought they would be floating. And I didn't understand the ending sequence. Why the f*ck are they all so happy? Stupid.
Thoughts:I could probably rant and ramble on like this forever. But it's true, you can never do a book like that justice with a 3 hour movie. I really think they should have made a TV Show of this, one season per book, maybe 12 or 15 episodes per season. Then there wouldn't be any details missing. Also, the people who create this still hold on to the thought that this is for children. It's NOT. Poor children, honestly. But by trying to make this viewable for children, they ruin the whole thing. It has to be a lot darker and a lot more depressing. Especially all that evil stuff. That wasn't evil. I couldn't see anything evil there. But maybe the actors are just bad? Who knows... The kids, especially Harry have to learn how to become more emotional. There was a lot of emotion missing, especially in the end. Nothing can ever do justice to one's own imagination. That's one of the reasons why I started to read the first book again yesterday night. I'll go for all six now. Haven't read one after another in quite a while now.. Must have been at least two years or so ;)
Positive: Um, this is hard. I liked Luciuses hair. And I thought there was more of a 'schoolish' atmosphere in some scenes. The band at the Yule Ball looked like a goth band or something. Filch's way of running gave me a laugh. He was really funny in this movie, but that's probably also negative because he's not really supposed to be funny. Some stuff is just nice to look at.
Negative: I don't know where to start this. Well allover, the movie felt like a total haste. The scenes were incredibly short and HUGE amounts of detail were missing (again...). But worse, they even added some total crap to the plot, stuff where you just think 'What's this sh*t supposed to be?'. For example Barty Crouch Jr. in the Riddle Mansion. Didn't make sense at all and spoiled the whole plot. Also the Pensieve scene with him was ridiculous. Dumbledore wasn't Dumbledore. He was some weird crackp*t or something. He was just mean. Dumbledore is a wise, silent old man, and that wasn't him. Richard Harris was so much better, especially his voice and his way of speaking. No Sirius at all (that fire thing doesn't count). Also, no Dursleys. I was looking forward to them meeting the Weasleys... too bad. And no Charlie Weasley at all. They totally could have left out the Quidditch World Cup. Those two seconds weren't worth it. The whole dragon chase was unnecessary. The Great Hall looked scarily small to me. I remembered it to be a lot bigger in the first movies. Daniel Radcliffe's leg hair is rather gross. Yuck. Mad-Eye Moody also didn't look like anything I ever imagined. He's supposed to have no nose and have a scared face. Well... The music at the maze was really ridiculous as well. Sounded like German Oktoberfest. The maze was also weird. No obstacles? On to the interesting parts... The Death Eaters looked, as a friend suggested, like a mixture of Sido and the Ku-Klux-Klan. Ridiculous. And Voldemort himself looked totally nice. And harmless. Nothing at all like the Moste Evile Wizarde of all time. He didn't have any crinkles (he must be at least 65 years old), he wasn't tall at all, and his nose looked stupid. His eyes weren't really red. His fingers weren't really long. His toenails were quite ugly though. I always imagined him a head taller and much thinner than any normal man. The whole graveyard scene didn't scare me at all. There's nothing really evil there. The 'vibe' isn't there. The Prior Incantatem was also not really stunning. I thought they would be floating. And I didn't understand the ending sequence. Why the f*ck are they all so happy? Stupid.
Thoughts:I could probably rant and ramble on like this forever. But it's true, you can never do a book like that justice with a 3 hour movie. I really think they should have made a TV Show of this, one season per book, maybe 12 or 15 episodes per season. Then there wouldn't be any details missing. Also, the people who create this still hold on to the thought that this is for children. It's NOT. Poor children, honestly. But by trying to make this viewable for children, they ruin the whole thing. It has to be a lot darker and a lot more depressing. Especially all that evil stuff. That wasn't evil. I couldn't see anything evil there. But maybe the actors are just bad? Who knows... The kids, especially Harry have to learn how to become more emotional. There was a lot of emotion missing, especially in the end. Nothing can ever do justice to one's own imagination. That's one of the reasons why I started to read the first book again yesterday night. I'll go for all six now. Haven't read one after another in quite a while now.. Must have been at least two years or so ;)
The Brothers Grimm
(2005)
Fantasticó! Absolutely great one!
5 October 2005
I was really surprised by this movie, it was much much better than I expected it to be because of certain prejudices against Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, but they finally did convince me of their talent in this movie, though that doesn't mean I like them better now.
The Brothers Grimm, Jakob and Wilhelm, are charlatans in this movie, they travel from village to village and stage fake hauntings and make a lot of money with getting rid of those 'witches' and 'ghosts'. However when they arrive in the village of Marbaden (which apparently doesn't exist in RL) they suddenly have to face real magic and real evil witches. Children have gone missing in the spooky forest of Marbaden and the Brothers Grimm made the promise to bring them back .
The environment of this movie feels very creepy, it's like the childhood nightmares that are lurking under your bed. There are not any of the real fairy tales told, there are just a lot of hints and suggestions from which the Brothers Grimm might have created them. According to IMDb this movie was filmed in Czech, which is most definitely what it looks like. When I went to Prague by bus and saw all those landscapes there, it did feel like a creepy fairy tale, you were just waiting for the werewolves to jump out of the forest.
However, as creepy (and partly even gross) this movie is, it's also hilarious. Jake and Will are a very funny team. I think a laughed more in this movie than the rest of the audience did. Peter Stormare was also hysterically funny, probably one of his best roles ever. He makes a great Italian for a Swede :) It's also relieving to see that there is finally a Hollywood movie where the Germans are NOT the bad guys (the French are), though there was a small 'insult' at the beginning ("How can you speak this language? Every word sounds like an execution!"). Of course one could also start everlasting argument about makes a 'German' movie in English with giving the characters British accents, but I suppose that's senseless. I think the audience is meant to think everyone's speaking German and we just hear them speaking English or something. Very complicated. But it's confusing again when they say those few words in German ('Guten Tag', 'Scheiße') but then start speaking English again. Thinking about those Hollywood clichés is giving me a headache. ^^ But the movie is definitely worth seeing, I enjoyed it a lot. You could call this a 'creepy comedy'.
The Brothers Grimm, Jakob and Wilhelm, are charlatans in this movie, they travel from village to village and stage fake hauntings and make a lot of money with getting rid of those 'witches' and 'ghosts'. However when they arrive in the village of Marbaden (which apparently doesn't exist in RL) they suddenly have to face real magic and real evil witches. Children have gone missing in the spooky forest of Marbaden and the Brothers Grimm made the promise to bring them back .
The environment of this movie feels very creepy, it's like the childhood nightmares that are lurking under your bed. There are not any of the real fairy tales told, there are just a lot of hints and suggestions from which the Brothers Grimm might have created them. According to IMDb this movie was filmed in Czech, which is most definitely what it looks like. When I went to Prague by bus and saw all those landscapes there, it did feel like a creepy fairy tale, you were just waiting for the werewolves to jump out of the forest.
However, as creepy (and partly even gross) this movie is, it's also hilarious. Jake and Will are a very funny team. I think a laughed more in this movie than the rest of the audience did. Peter Stormare was also hysterically funny, probably one of his best roles ever. He makes a great Italian for a Swede :) It's also relieving to see that there is finally a Hollywood movie where the Germans are NOT the bad guys (the French are), though there was a small 'insult' at the beginning ("How can you speak this language? Every word sounds like an execution!"). Of course one could also start everlasting argument about makes a 'German' movie in English with giving the characters British accents, but I suppose that's senseless. I think the audience is meant to think everyone's speaking German and we just hear them speaking English or something. Very complicated. But it's confusing again when they say those few words in German ('Guten Tag', 'Scheiße') but then start speaking English again. Thinking about those Hollywood clichés is giving me a headache. ^^ But the movie is definitely worth seeing, I enjoyed it a lot. You could call this a 'creepy comedy'.
Six Feet Under
(2001–2005)
A masterpiece in television
4 October 2005
Warning: Spoilers
This is probably one of the best TV Shows ever. It's a pity that it's already over. There were 5 Seasons with each 13/12 Episodes á one hour. The Pilot introduces us to the Funeral Home 'Fisher & Sons' and the Fisher family who is hit with the tragedy of losing their father, husband and funeral home owner Nathaniel Fisher in a car accident.
After his death Ruth, goes on a journey to find herself and goes through a lot of trouble while doing that. She has several affairs, but somehow she doesn't seem to find anything to make her content, and she's always having a hard time.
The oldest son Nate lived in Seattle but after his father's death he stays in LA and becomes a funeral director himself, which he swore never to become in his youth. Eventually he's beginning to like his 'new' job. He has a wild relationship with Brenda Chenowith who is a very complex person, raised by Therapists and over-analyzed as a child, she is just longing for a normal life.
The middle son David is deeply ashamed of being gay, which causes a lot of trouble in his relationship with his lover Keith in the first season. After his father's death he is the head of the funeral home, assisted by their employee Rico who makes up the dead.
The youngest is Claire, she has a 'thing for sociopaths' and during the show she starts to go to art school, she wants to become an artist and she really does quite a lot of nice artwork. She's on drugs a lot, which the others are occasionally too.
The show lives a lot of it's little 'dreams', 'ghosts' and 'imaginations' which are weird or unreal scenes during the real ones, showing the imagination of the characters. Those are a really fantastic thing. Also, the death's at the beginning of each episode are quite nice. Those are small scenes showing the perish of the funeral home's 'customers'.
It's a very complex show even though it 'only' has 63 episodes in all. Most of it is rather dramatic because it is a Drama show, but some parts are funny, some are morbid, some are weird. This show certainly breaks an awful lot of Taboo's in the environment of TV Shows. The dead are shown - sometimes more and sometimes less grotesque, drugs are more or less common, swearing and sex are anyway, and the show also has highly political aspects, for example the state of homosexual people in the society. Episode 5x11 also is very critical towards the war and crap like that.
Throughout the show we accompany the Fisher family through a lot of small and some big tragedies, which in the end all tie up. Therefore it doesn't make sense to just watch it 'every now and then', you really have to watch every single episode from the beginning, otherwise you won't have a clue of what's going on and what's this all about. It's like a huge complex storyline in a book or similar. You can't just skip pages when you're reading a book ;) The show is of course essentially about death and everything that surrounds it (like the Fisher family ;) When I just watched the 4 Final Episodes yesterday and today, I really couldn't stop myself from crying, and I haven't cried over movies or shows since a couple of years. It's so damn unbelievably sad. But the last 5 or 10 minutes in the very last episode make it good again, when a small glimpse of the future is shown.
It's simply a great show.
After his death Ruth, goes on a journey to find herself and goes through a lot of trouble while doing that. She has several affairs, but somehow she doesn't seem to find anything to make her content, and she's always having a hard time.
The oldest son Nate lived in Seattle but after his father's death he stays in LA and becomes a funeral director himself, which he swore never to become in his youth. Eventually he's beginning to like his 'new' job. He has a wild relationship with Brenda Chenowith who is a very complex person, raised by Therapists and over-analyzed as a child, she is just longing for a normal life.
The middle son David is deeply ashamed of being gay, which causes a lot of trouble in his relationship with his lover Keith in the first season. After his father's death he is the head of the funeral home, assisted by their employee Rico who makes up the dead.
The youngest is Claire, she has a 'thing for sociopaths' and during the show she starts to go to art school, she wants to become an artist and she really does quite a lot of nice artwork. She's on drugs a lot, which the others are occasionally too.
The show lives a lot of it's little 'dreams', 'ghosts' and 'imaginations' which are weird or unreal scenes during the real ones, showing the imagination of the characters. Those are a really fantastic thing. Also, the death's at the beginning of each episode are quite nice. Those are small scenes showing the perish of the funeral home's 'customers'.
It's a very complex show even though it 'only' has 63 episodes in all. Most of it is rather dramatic because it is a Drama show, but some parts are funny, some are morbid, some are weird. This show certainly breaks an awful lot of Taboo's in the environment of TV Shows. The dead are shown - sometimes more and sometimes less grotesque, drugs are more or less common, swearing and sex are anyway, and the show also has highly political aspects, for example the state of homosexual people in the society. Episode 5x11 also is very critical towards the war and crap like that.
Throughout the show we accompany the Fisher family through a lot of small and some big tragedies, which in the end all tie up. Therefore it doesn't make sense to just watch it 'every now and then', you really have to watch every single episode from the beginning, otherwise you won't have a clue of what's going on and what's this all about. It's like a huge complex storyline in a book or similar. You can't just skip pages when you're reading a book ;) The show is of course essentially about death and everything that surrounds it (like the Fisher family ;) When I just watched the 4 Final Episodes yesterday and today, I really couldn't stop myself from crying, and I haven't cried over movies or shows since a couple of years. It's so damn unbelievably sad. But the last 5 or 10 minutes in the very last episode make it good again, when a small glimpse of the future is shown.
It's simply a great show.
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