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southside721
Reviews
Welcome to Wrexham (2022)
Good....but.....
Hard to write this. I like soccer/football very much esp. The lower level English leagues, which most Americans don't follow. I loved seeing the progression of the team, the local stories, etc. And it seems like Ryan & Rob really do care for the team.
But - I really dislike the continued motif through season 2 of the suffering town, the long suffering fans, the cinderella story and so on. They even had that bit in one of the episodes about how much $$ they're losing and so on.
And all that - come on. I get it, it's a poorer Welsh town/city, had some real tragedy with the mining disaster, many years of heartbreak with the football team. But - there's a hundred towns in the UK with the same story. The reality is this town hit the lottery, literally. A couple megastars from Hollywood picked Wrexham to buy and flipped their script overnight, spending millions on a coach, new players, improvements to the grounds and more.
That happens to ANY lower level team and they'll skyrocket. Now, *spoiler alert* here in 2024 they've been promoted two levels up in the EFL - but it's so hard not to realize they pretty much bought their way there, which makes it hard to really like them as much.
Hollywood FC indeed.
Shôgun: A Dream of a Dream (2024)
Disappointing
Again, the acting and scenery/visuals were fine. The story and plot, were not - sadly. So many details left out of the book, and basically solving the whole inter-Japan "war" with some off-screen exposition?
In the book they do describe the battle at the end, where Ishido is captured and buried up to his neck, taking three days to "die very old". We spent so much useless time with the machinations of the council and they just kind of vanish....
Not to mention the characters of Toronaga & Blackthorne were severely downplayed. Toronaga almost remaining a background character and Blackthorne remaining nowhere as important as he was in the book & previous miniseries. Toronaga did not have him around just for laughs. He was a full on samurai and hatamoto with hundreds of his own Samurai. The seppuku scene was supposed to be meaningful - but in the book it happens far earlier when Yabu declares the village will die if they don't teach Blackthorne enough Japanese in 6 months. When he does try seppuku and is stopped by Yabu & Omi, he instantly earns their real respect and at that point he pretty much stops being European and becomes Japanese.
Here it just felt like a cheap scene to let Toronaga treat him like a child again.
Well, the series could have been great - there was lots to like but way too many blank episodes - and a huge misfire was there was zero chemistry between Mariko & Blackthorne. She was still being openly contemptuous of him 6-7 episodes in.
I'm forced to overall give the series a 3 or 4 - although the acting was very good and that lovely Canadian scenery (not Japan) was beautiful.
Shôgun: Crimson Sky (2024)
Closer to the novel - but yet another miss.
I'll say this - they finally got more on track with the original novel. But that's after too many episodes of nothing. Last episode any drama was undercut by the knowledge this is all part of Toronaga's plan. But this one - 55 minutes of needless buildup and of course, empowering the female characters.
I realize that's the directive in the movie/TV industry these days. This series has elevated Ochiba to a far higher role than in the novel or previous miniseries, making her the actual figure of power, giving her a backstory (that's empty) with Mariko and so on.
And I get it, Mariko is samurai and can fight to a point. The drama over her seppuku was right out of the book, except they added Blackthorne as her second. Then she gets a reprieve and suddenly her and Blackthorne are showing tenderness, love etc. Really?
In the book they're lovers from relatively early on - same for the original miniseries. In this series, they've had ZERO chemistry. Zero...Mariko has been downright unlikable in most of this - grumpy, angry, constantly wanting death and so on. Now suddenly they're lovers, mere minutes before her death.
It's not working - and I'm sure the finale will be much like G o T - thrown together that make little sense, etc.
It's too bad cause the book is really excellent - they could have made a very good series out of it. But too many blah episodes, too many predictable outcomes, too much drama and overhype.
Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)
Excellent Movie - Monstrous Plot Hole
Like many below - this is a terrific submarine film. Good drama, the usual action & tension with torpedoes & depth charges, etc. But for a movie that prided itself on its accuracy, there are some definite errors and plot holes.
The most glaring one is one that makes it hard to take the rest seriously as the rest of the film is based on it. It's the opening scene with Richardson's original sub - after firing torpedoes at some enemy shipping, they are quickly sunk by a Japanese destroyer. We see floating wreckage, survivors, etc.
The next scene after the credits we see Richardson comfortably at a desk at Pearl Harbor. Ok - how exactly did he get back? Not only has the destroyer amazingly vanished from the scene, but somehow Richardson managed to get back to Hawaii from literally one of Japan's inland waterways - no other US ships were anywhere near there, presumably, this was 1942.
One of three things would have happened - the Japanese destroyer or one of the merchant ships would have a) left them in the water, b) machine gunned them in the water, or c) at best picked them up to be interrogated then sent to a POW camp. There is NO possible way he and other survivors would have made it back to Hawaii. Unless another US sub was in the area which was unlikely at that time in the war. Nor would they have had time to pick them up anyway, with a destroyer right there and other Japanese ships and planes in the area.
There were other errors too but by far that was the big one. The rest of the movie was good but it was hard to overlook the errors.
Shôgun: A Stick of Time (2024)
It's Losing Me
Ok, I'm older. I've read the book multiple times, I've seen the 80s miniseries 3 times. This isn't Clavell's Shogun.
This is GoT - lots of promise but crashing and burning.
This is Bram Stoker's Dracula - a much praised movie, that deviated massively from Bram Stoker's novel.
We have 3 episodes left? Maybe I missed it and there's a season 2 coming, but this series is losing me. Seems like the last few episodes, barring a few moments, is the same actors sitting around in the rain in Anjiro mildly plotting, going over the same nonsense over and over. Blackthorne whining about his ship, Buntaro whining about his wife & Blackthorne. Mariko being a grump about literally everything.
They've accomplished almost nothing since the daring escape from Osaka - Blackthorne is still a useless, whiny "barbarian" where in the book by this time, he's much more accomplished with his Japanese, has Samurai warriors, etc. Him and Mariko are firmly in love -
I could go on and on. This had a lot of promise but started falling apart a couple episodes ago.
Prey (2022)
Lots of Promise but a dud
Despite the glowing reviews, this movie literally lost me in the first few moments. The Comanches in the Northern plains? Northern? The Comanches ruled the southern plains. Texas primarily and parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico.
You can't even get this right? Most elementary school kids know the northern plains were the lands of the Sioux, Cheyenne and so on. The Comanches dominated the south and southwest.
Figured the rest of the film would be disappointing. Lots of woke 2022 nonsense. 5 foot native girl, admittedly a bad*** warrior, takes down 7 foot alien killing machine. Despite being saved repeatedly throughout the movie and the predator looking unstoppable until it's time for the latest female hero to become almost supernatural.
Yet another sad attempt by Disney to push their agenda on us. There are reasons why their movies are failing these days. Thor's ticket sales plummeted after the first week, for example. Many more.
Could have been a great concept, the Comanches rocked.