Change Your Image
ageorge-43975
Reviews
Midnight Mass (2021)
Two different shows
Episodes 1-5 are amazing. Maybe 9/10. A character we go on a journey with, naturalistic dialogue, people seem to make reasonable decisions, the strange story is treated with great realism and seriousness. There are technical flaws like bad cgi and makeup. It gets monologuey near episode, but this feels somewhat justified to explore the themes of the show. Overall, the good far outweighs the bad.
Then there's episodes 6 and 7. It gets completely cartoonishly and loses all feeling of impact. People are making completely stupid decisions. Scenes feel artificial and staged for drama instead of naturalistic and realistic like before. The monologing is cranked up to 11 in such a ridiculous way. Like people stop while running away from a deadly threat to turn around talk to the camera for 5 minutes. The mechanics of the vampirism get really muddled and nonsensical too. There are just so many moments that leave you scratching your head and thinking "that's never how that would happen". The show also can't seem to reanchor itself without its main character.
I wish I would have stopped at episode 5 as an open ended ending.
The Witcher (2019)
Cliche ridden
Watched episode 1, not sure if I'll continue. A blase badass casually brushes off any opponent that stands in his way, and many more cliches I'll share after getting other thoughts out. The presentation was decent enough, the pacing kept it watchable. I had to turn on subtitles since everyone speaks in a strained whisper and there's so much diegetic jargon. The music is kinda corny and feels a bit dated, especially the vocal female wailing "ayayayaaaa" type of stuff. Some creativity, like the monster at the beginning and the magic, but nothing really original feeling. Some dumb decision making and completely ridiculous seeming events but not the worst especially when compared to other shows. For example, the scouts see troops coming, then 5 seconds later they're in a huge battle, and for some reason the king and queen are in the thick of it fighting with the footsoldiers. And not only that, somehow from the middle of the chaos they can see the whole battle, and literally shout "we're losing", and then decide this is the time to ask their scout if reinforcements of coming, instead of asking before deciding to engage in battle. Real eye roller stuff.
Other cliches/eye rolly garbage: woman does BIG FAST BEER DRINK in front of man who is surprised. Get it? She a woman and she drank big beer fast wow.
The castle has a moat and a drawbridge, which of course go completely unused.
A magician has the ability to make forcefields and uses it in the most uncreative way possible, they could trap the army at their gates with it, and crush them, drop them in the moat, pour hot oil or tar on them like people did in medieval times, any number of clever things. But no he just puts up some stupid doomed temporary wall and waits to die. No wonder that group got wiped out.
Adolescent experiences trauma which awakens her special powers.
Mob of men attack another man, he easily slices up each of them one by one, and the entire time none of them think "oh golly gosh, maybe I shouldn't be doing this".
Trite moralistic stuff about being a monster.
I'm sure people would say "it gets better" but honestly, anything should get better as it goes on. You have more time to develop characters and themes. If you want me to invest in a whole damn show you've got to start off strong.
You know, the more I wrote about this, the more I'm thinking I'm not going to continue.
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Simple but good
Simple and predictable, easy to follow, yet a lot of fun. Eddie Murphy's charisma and screen presence is amazing. Good chemistry with his lady friend, and the cop characters are great support. There's nothing unnecessary or indulgent which makes it easy to follow and keeps it tight and at a good runtime. The theme is legendary and plays over and over again which is good for some unintended laughs.
Meantime (1983)
Couldn't look away
Don't really know why but I couldn't look away. Nothing really happens, and no one really says anything, except for an exchange about economics and anthills, but something about it is captivating. Great performances of course are some of that. Saxy is a feral animal.
Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Somehow good
The acting is terrible, the script is bad, the action is godawful. The actors, especially Arnold, feel more like objects than people. Yet somehow it works amazingly well.
Sanatorium pod Klepsydra (1973)
Displaced from a modern American but still easy to appreciate
Very fun to watch, some really thoughtful and cinematically awesome moments. I'm just a white little American kid so all the references to Polish Judaism which dominate this film aren't much I can understand or relate to. The cinematic transition where he's lost in thought and it zooms out through the flowers at around 19 minutes is one my favorite ever. I remember the first time I saw that how it had me sucked into that feeling of being lost in thought then snapping back to reality so well.
Worth watching even if you can't relate to the greater themes like me. Looking forward to seeing more from this director regardless of whether or not I can relate to it.