Reviews

Right off the gate this documentary series starts off well by describing the rise and fall of Boyz II Men. They explain in great detail how they came up, how the highs came about and what caused the fall of their dominance. They do the same thing with episode 2 with T-Pains career and the auto tune phenomenon. I think for someone who doesn't know every single story behind Boyz 2 Men, T-Pain and the backlash against auto tune and then the big Swedish pop phenomenon, I think those first 3 episodes are amazing.

I can also say that as a swede, I appreciate when our impact in the pop music industry is rightly acknowledged. I have to say however that it would have been even better if they acknowledged the artist Robyn's impact when it comes to early Swedish pop export.

All in all the second half of this show was a bit anti-climactic at times and had a lot of moments where bits and parts of stories were brought up without deep diving into them. I wish they would have picked a handful of stories and really go into detail with them (for example in the Festivals episode). However, this is just me picking this documentary apart, I really do think that they did a great job showcasing aspects of music history that we seldom hear about. Therefore it gets a 7/10 and was really worth the watch.

If you value your time, do not watch more than half of the first episode of this. This documentary is badly paced and dragged out for absolutely no reason at all. You will get more value out of reading the Wikipedia page about the case.

If you like documentaries about robberies/scams/frauds like this, I would recommend the following three documentaries instead:

• Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art (2020)
• Sour Grapes (2016)
• Murder Among The Mormons (2021)

Smart, witty, brilliant, original and an instant classic. That is how I would describe this show. Elle Fanning is remarkable, I have not been impressed by an actress in a show for a while like this. She gives a 10/10 performance.

It is the overall story, the end goal and the characters that drives the story forward. The writing could however be a little bit more sophisticated for my taste. The chemistry between Elle and Sebastian (Leo) could also have been better. It was a little lackluster. But the chemistry between Elle and Nicholas was all the way there.

You should watch this if you want a funny and clever period drama that is not focused on a love plot. It is instead about a coup lead by Cathrine with some occasional historical accuracies.

Like with every movie or show, you have to know what kind of expectations you should have for the content you're going to watch. This had a dramatic structure more leaning to a theater production rather than what a regular drama film usually has, kind of like Viola's other movie Fences (2016).

I myself came here for the performances, and boy did they deliver! Every single one of these actors played an integral part. I was however a little bit underwhelmed by Taylour Paige's contribution but I guess it's hard to shine through when you're sharing a screen with Viola, Chadwick and let us not forget Glynn! Glynn Turman (who played 'Toledo') stole a lot of scenes for me. His eyes basically talk for him and makes it hard not to look away or feel something. What also made this all the better was the music and the little sequence of watching Ma's stuttering nephew try to sing.

For me, this also managed to deliver the message that Green Book (2018) thought it delivered. The message of what it was like for accomplished Black musicians back in the day. All in all this was a pleasure to watch, I think more would have appreciated if it had a regular more elaborated storyline but I think this stylistic choice was more fitting for a portrayal of Ma Rainey.

This could have been a great docuseries because of the concept of it, but I feel like they fell short on delivering what was promised all in all. They didn't dive in to the media's involvement in a majority of the episodes, but rather showed how some characters used publicity stunts in their own cases. It was not really a critique on the media in those cases.

However, there was two episodes where I felt like they gave us what the show promised - a look on how the media can put people on a public trial with severe consequences. Those two episodes were ep. 2 "Subway Vigilante" and ep. 5 "Big Dan's". These two episodes show how the media fed the public a specific narrative on how to look at the cases' victims and perpetrators, which then led to serious consequences for everyone involved.

Episode 4, "King Richard", is a good recommendation for the absurdity of the trial itself. But it is less about the media's involvement and more about the legal strategies of a very charismatic defense attorney. I thoroughly enjoyed it though.

The rest of the episodes you could watch just for educational purposes to know about the cases (like with ep. 3 "41 Shots" for example) but you could really learn as much by watching 10 minute youtube clips that explain the cases much better. Even if the production was good at laying forward evidence from two or three sides of a story, it criticized the characters involved more than it did the media's involvement. If they do a season 2 (which I think they should), they should study 'Dirty Money' on how to present a story with a clear focus.

This was a well written and gripping series that most likely transcends many orthodox communities. An important story that, even though it probably isn't shared by all hasidic women, is most definitely relatable to many women. We get to follow a young woman who lives in a community where her personal autonomy isn't valued, this becomes an issue for her so after many frustrating events she decides to escape to find her freedom.

For a 4 episode show I think it was well paced, there were some plot holes but I leave that to them probably leaving the door open for a second season. I would also like to say bravo to the leading actress Shira Haas, she really carried this whole show. Last time I got blown away by a young actor's performance like this was when I saw Jharrel Jerome in When They See Us.

Lastly I would like to say that I think every person will take away something from watching this. What I took away was the irony of us humans always moving from place to place to find freedom only to find ourselves under new domination again eventually (whether it be voluntarily or involuntarily). We are just not fit to live in cages (whether visible or invisible).

This centers around one man, Dan Schneider, who goes out on a quest to find answers about his son's death after the son gets murdered during a failed drug deal. In the way the story starts, you could never guess how it all would unfold. Dan is an amazing storyteller, and to top it off he has also documented, filmed and recorded almost everything that has happened to him since the 80's. Because of how well documented this story is, and how much material they presented to me as a viewer, I felt that the story was as nuanced as it gets. They basically left no stone unturned.

From the son's murder to the investigation of the doctor, this documentary also makes you empathize greatly with Dan's frustrations over the different situations and systems he was dealing with. And even though I have read a lot about the opioid crisis and the Purdue cases etc, I feel like I got a very unique insight of the micro and macro causes and effects of the opioid crisis. I think that a documentary like this one can really make people start questioning how complicit the drug companies, but also more importantly - the authorities have been during this epidemic.

So I am not American, didn't know who Aaron Hernandez was before watching this and needless to say don't watch American football. Nevertheless I really found this to be very interesting and very well presented by the makers of this documentary mostly due to the legal aspects of the story. Like with many other murderers and especially with serial ones, it almost always takes the perfect storm to create one. Because of that I appreciate when portrayals of murderers are nuanced like this one. Understanding why people commit the crimes they do is important for a society in my opinion and I believe this documentary did a good job at presenting facts as well as personal stories about him without taking a stance on the matters. The stories told by his friends and acquaintances should of course be taken with a grain of salt, especially the ones told by his former "best friend" since nothing was presented from Hernandez' side to corroborate those anecdotes. But I liked how they very vividly painted the picture of his whole childhood and the aspects of what it means to be a professional football player.

The missing part for me, or what could have made this more interesting, is if his fiancé would have participated in this and told her side of the story. That way this could have been more balanced. But I can understand why she would decline to do so.

I give this an 8/10 for execution and would recommend it to anyone regardless of one's interest in Hernandez or American football. It is an interesting case on it's own.

I read a lot of rave reviews about this before I saw it. I also saw it on many "must see" lists the past month, so I thought, alright I'll watch it, and approached it with a "show me what you got" kind of attitude. It didn't take long before I realized that I was watching something incredibly different. In fact It is incomparable with anything I've ever seen before. It belongs and at the same time doesn't fit in in any kind of genre. It is as thrilling as the best parts of Gone Girl and is everything Jordan Peele's Us tried to be. I would say that this is the most divine work of cinema I've seen in many many years.

Some people refrain from watching foreign language films. I find myself paying more attention to the plot since I have to read what is being said. This is very beneficial to a film that demands your attention at every single moment, which this one does.

Parasite deserves a 10/10 because of the very simple reason that I wouldn't want to change a single second of it, everything had purpose. So watch it, I bet it will exceed any expectation you might have from reading all of these reviews.

The documentary is told in a very simple way, using very basic techniques and clichéd ways of painting a picture. It made me think that this could have been done by a very unexperienced director or something. There is so much material of Bikram and his life but still someone thought it was important to be very literal in the way they told the story. For instance, if someone said "it all went dark", they would cut to a black screen to enforce it even more. Or if someone said I was driving down Rodeo dr. in my red car, they would show clips of someone doing exactly that. It's the overexplaining of the unimportant details that made me roll my eyes a couple of times.

However, the fact that this is a very interesting story makes it worthwhile. I had never heard about him before and would recommend people seeing this for the same reason I would recommend someone to watch documentaries about The church of Scientology for example.

Sometimes writers choose to have one or two big twists in a season/plot line that shocks us and changes things entirely, and sometimes they choose to have a bunch of minor twists that go off like small bombs throughout the story. The writers of You have clearly chosen to do both of these things. In some aspects maybe less could have been more for us but in others I was pleasantly surprised by it. One thing I do know though is that there were at least one too many characters involved this season.

Before seeing this I had seen the documentary about the CP5 that came out in 2012. That was a great documentary so I was a little hesitant to watch this because I didn't think it was gonna provide anything more than what I got from the documentary. But man was I wrong! This biography captured the injustice of the boys on another level. These boys were denied justice by New York but sure as hell were vindicated by Ava DuVernay. How this happened to them is baffling to me. To have one person wrongfully convicted on loose grounds is one thing, but 5?? FIVE?? Five young boys convicted on proven lies and no technical evidence is insane. 1989 is not that long ago for something like that to have happened.

I've seen a lot of content by DuVernay but this is in my opinion her best project yet. The casting was impeccable, I was so glad to see Logan Marshall-Green as Roberts. Jhareel Jerome who played Korey Wise was the star of the show in my opinion. The way he portrayed him was so authentic and captivating that it almost made it hard to watch. Felicity Huffman playing such an unlikeable character was fitting considering the whole college tuition debacle.

All in all this was a 10/10 for what I expect of a biography about the CP5.

When I first saw his Thoughts and Prayers special I was floored. I couldn't predict most of the jokes and was actually shocked that he said some of the things he said. It was hilarious and for me dark humor at its best. This however was just him trying to recreate the same effect in the most laziest way possible. All these repetitive setups became tiring and predictable after 20 minutes. I think we got it after the thousandth 10 second punch-line.

He gets a 6 for originality though, I haven't heard his types of jokes anywhere else. When you watch a lot of specials it's refreshing to watch someone who doesn't make the same kind of old jokes about millenials, Starbucks ordering, how times have changed, people getting easily offended and so on. He is in his own lane and therefore competes with himself, this wasn't his best tho.

This was an absolute TREAT. I did not know what to expect when I started watching this but after 2 or 3 scenes, I knew I was gonna binge watch this. I dont feel like The Troubles is a historical event that has been touched on very often in popular culture. That´s why I found it so refreshing to see it in a comedic way through the eyes of Derry teenagers.

The writing was spot on, you could never tell what was going to happen or what someone was going to say. Everything was just surprisingly hilarious all the time. If you can overlook the fact that the actors who are playing the teenagers are around ten years older than they should be, then you´ll find their performances convincing. Some of them overacted sometimes (Erin´s character is a little unnatural) but since the whole show is a bit nutty it kind of works.

Ellen is undoubtedly one of the most beloved comedians today, if not the most. She doesn´t really have to do much to make one laugh, she really is funny just being herself...at least on her talkshow that is. This however was almost cringeworthy to watch. You could see her noticing when she didn´t get the reaction she was expecting from the crowd after a joke. I felt like I was waiting for a punchline throughout the whole show but there never was one. It was almost like someone was forcing her to be there.

Although I did like the throwbacks of when she started out as a comedian. That was very relatable. So maybe she should´ve made this into a TED talk instead?