ArgonReviews Reviews

True Detective: Night Country: Part 3 (2024) Season 4, Episode 3

Serious Signs of Game-of-Thrones-ism

[2/10 · 30 January 2024]

This episode really starts to highlight issues of dialogue, writing, and character continuity. A massive problem for this season is the writing around Hank Prior, who seems to appear and disappear from scenes with no logic, and whose pretenses to being a cop seem close to absurd. If you try to track Hank's movements in this episode, it feels like the issues you'd feel in late seasons of Game of Thrones. Character just appear in scenes even if they seemed like they should have been off doing something else. Like, Hank in one scene is setting up this big hunt for the suspect... and then in the next scene he's apparently been going through his things and decides to have a sentimental moment with his son about some ice skates RIGHT NEXT TO A BUNCH OF DEAD BODIES.

The show seems way more interested in playing the Hank/Liz/Peter trifecta as a dysfunctional family than in presenting them as a plausible group of cops. Hank clearly isn't supposed to be a good cop; he's basically the "realistic" series bad guy, but the problem is I don't buy him as a bad cop because I can't buy him as a cop at all. If you stop and consider "would a real human being do this" for either of his scenes in the ice skating rink, both in this episode and in the preceding episode, the answer I think is a resounding no.

Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Enjoyable With a Glimmer of Insight into Japanese Culture

[7/10 · 24 December 2023]

This is an enjoyable film to watch, and if you're on the tail end of its theater run or considering if it's worth streaming, the short answer is it's worth seeing. I do feel like among certain fan circles the movie is slightly 'overhyped' but that doesn't make the movie bad, it is in fact quite good. I think the exploration of the main character's relationship with kamikaze piloting, and in turn both Japan's historical understanding of that phenomenon as well as the West's, is actually still more poignant and worth exploring than perhaps we might be inclined to give it credit for. It's hard to overstate how culturally significant the kamikaze pilots were during and in the immediate aftermath of World War 2; although we had Oppenheimer to remind us of the cultural impact of the bomb, for soldiers that lived during World War 2, it was the stories of the kamikaze pilots that left a huge impact, even for people not in the Pacific theater. Likewise, Japan has long struggled to articulate its historical relationship to kamikaze pilots, with the memorial there being a kind of hot-button issue for multiple decades now. This film perhaps doesn't offer a searing insight, but rather a kind of wishful alternate path to how Japan and the west feels about kamikaze pilots. I think what's particularly remarkable about this film, frankly, is the way it pushes against the grain--a lot of Japanese cinema, especially that designed for view by western audiences, tends toward a construction of victimhood due to the bomb. This film tries to grapple with the echoes of imperial desire both immediately after the war and, perhaps, now.

Honestly, come for the big cool depiction of Godzilla, but leave with a reflection of Japan's relationship to World War 2.

The Creator (2023)

AIs are too 'human' without debate for the plot to be thought-provoking

[6/10 · 24 December 2023]

The Creator is now on streaming services like Hulu, so I'm approaching this review along the "is it worth your time" without the baggage of a movie ticket. But the answer there is really "maybe?"

The main problem I have is right from the get-go, where they establish that AI is already sufficiently advanced that it *is* used for the police, it *is used* in factories, it *is used* in national defense. I feel like this film wanted to explore the idea of Artificial General Intelligence, the nature of what it means to be human or sentient, but it jumps the gun by imagining a level of advanced AI that is already functionally human. If you just write a human character and call it AI, then you're not really exploring the premise, I feel. That Alphie feels so human I think undercuts the extent that this feels like a really legitimate exploration of AI. She just *is human* so there's no real debate or room left for thought. And so the main issue I have with the rest of the film really all stems from that one initial concern--all the AIs are already too human, so it doesn't really feel like a thought-provoking exploration of the subject.

Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)

Of all the Zack Snyder films, this is one of them

[4/10 · 23 December 2023]

This is Zack Snyder saying, "I want to make a remake of Star Wars: A New Hope but with 15% more weird Dune tentacles and 10% more Warhammer and also that scene from Avatar where a guy trains a griffon." And if that sounds like a random hodgepodge of science fiction movie elements that builds to no cohesive whole... that's exactly what this movie is!

You got space nazis, near beat-by-beat remaps of A New Hope, a british robot introduced and then forgotten, a griffon introduced and then forgotten...

A think a real nice juxtaposition is when they introduce Bae Doona, who implores them to not seek revenge. And then they meet Djimon Hounsou... who they convince to join them to seek revenge. Do Bae Doona and Djimon Hounsou ever talk about the fact that their temperaments and goals are diametrically opposed? Nope!

There definitely are scenes that I enjoyed watching for the sheer mindless spectacle of it all, but on the whole this is one of the most undercooked scripts I have seen in recent memory. And to be clear, I don't have anything against Snyder--I loved Dawn of the Dead. But this is definitely not his best work by a significant margin.

Stamped from the Beginning (2023)

Over-Edited Mess of Un-Captioned Footage

[2/10 · 20 November 2023]

I quite like Kendi's book, and when I saw this pop up on Netflix I clicked it instantly, looking forward to see a documentary visualize the content of the book in an engaging manner.

Sadly, it's honestly harder to follow than expected, even for someone who has read the book. Williams' direction led to extreme over-editing, and the lack of captions or context for what you are looking at in the montages leads to frequent confusion and annoyance.

To be clear, I understand the logic behind Williams' editing style--but it still doesn't work. What he was going for was to try to amplify the continuities of 17th century racism to racism today, which is fitting with Kendi's main thesis. But in terms of documentary style, it goes a little 'too extra' even to that end, mixing together speeches, films, historical footage, contemporary news footage, highly stylized reenactments... to the extent that at any given montage, you could go a solid three minutes not being sure what CENTURY the footage you're looking at is coming from, let alone decade, or whether it was real footage or fiction.

If you were an educator, and wanted to have a conversation about Kendi's ideas, but hadn't assigned the full book, should you show this to your class instead? No, absolutely not -- this documentary will be annoying and confusing if you aren't already familiar with Kendi's point, and honestly, even if you agree with Kendi's thesis you might even then find much to dislike.

For instance, consider the 7 minute sequence from about 11 minutes into the documentary to the 18 minute mark, on Bacon's rebellion. Could your students answer the following questions: -What century was Bacon's rebellion in?

-What was Bacon's rebellion about?

-What was the outcome of Bacon's rebellion?

No--because Bacon's rebellion is just an incident mentioned in support of the idea that whiteness was invented to prevent poor whites from allying with poor blacks. You might be able to follow the point the documentary is trying to make, but the result is that, unless you already know the example, you would completely lose sense of historical trajectory or continuity because the documentary tells you so little contextualized information.

Now you might say--oh they didn't have time to go into all this context on the example. But they used two minutes right after introducing Bacon's Rebellion to give a four-century spanning montage of depictions of racism... instead of giving almost any basic context about the example of Bacon's rebellion or its relevance to the argument.

A lot of the montages, for that matter, feel... conspiratorial? What I mean by this is that again, they're not really making articulated connections; they're not even naming the people in the photos, so either you 'get it' or you don't--but isn't the point of a documentary to make it so that people unfamiliar with the subject will understand? There's no names given when someone's face pops up on screen, and the faces and names go by so fast even someone highly educated is likely to be left wondering "wait who was that guy..?"

Basically, even in a classroom setting where you had already read Kendi's book... I honestly feel like this documentary would do more harm to comprehension than good.

Good Night World (2023)

A show that comes dangerously close to having something to say

[6/10 · 15 October 2023]

The first two episodes of this series seemed like maybe it would have something to say about family dynamics, internet addiction, online vs. Offline personas and personalities, or something else. By the third episode, though, it becomes increasingly clear that it's not really interested in having fun with the premise, leaving the tone in the unfortunate position of being too absurd to be serious but too serious to be fun. Unfortunately this means too that, although this is a show about a "NEET" main character, it doesn't really have anything interesting to say about that social group... the show clearly WANTS to say something, it just doesn't know what it wants to say or how to say it.

Ahsoka: Part Six: Far, Far Away (2023) Season 1, Episode 6

Still just not very good

[5/10 · 20 September 2023]

The main problem with this episode is that Sabine just isn't fun. She hasn't had any major growth arc. She gets ambushed in this episode and even though she's not wearing a mandalorian helmet and takes a bunch of direct shots she basically just shrugs it off. Nothing involving her feels like it has any stakes, despite every character insisting that all of her decisions have terribly weighty stakes. It's very ham-fisted and distracting the way every character tries to make her feel bad about her choice in an earlier episode, even though nagging her about it makes 0 sense for their characters.

Ray Stevenson does alright with his lines, and Lars is fine too. But the real star of this episode is rat-horse, which is almost immediately charming despite it having no plausible reason to act as nicely to Sabine as it does.

The problem this series runs into is I don't care about Ahsoka and I don't care about Sabine. It's not like this episode on its own is jarringly bad, but it was this episode where I finally decided this series really just is too dull to even enjoy for the spectacle.

Ahsoka: Part Five: Shadow Warrior (2023) Season 1, Episode 5

Best episode of the series thus far despite pacing issues

[7/10 · 13 September 2023]

This episode is better put together than the previous few episodes. In part this is because of a very solid performance by Hayden, but Filoni's writing has also broken off the weeds of pacing that I think he was struggling with in the first few episodes. Even though there's a few meh lines, there's a flashback sequence that on the whole is very good.

There's still some pacing issues, and the movement of the episodes still sometimes suffers from obvious budget limitations -- basically, it's very clear that they're using one of the dome-rooms (idr their real names) for filming, and so basically actors can't move too much on the stage. This makes certain scenes, particularly little kid + robot sitting looking over the ocean, feel oddly stilted and stationary, despite the effects team trying to add a few leaves and wind to increase verisimilitude.

Even with that complaint, this is still easily the best episode of the season, even if I personally don't think it actually justifies watching the season up to this point.

Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes and Huntsmen Part One (2023 Video)

Better than it should be

[7/10 · 4 September 2023]

This is, looked at just as a RWBY adventure, a solidly above average RWBY adventure. It's also 'interesting' to see the DC heroes thrown into a RWBY universe, but it feels very odd given I wanna say DC characters get turned into kids every 3-4 years so this shouldn't feel new to them.

I went into this with very low expectations but was pleasantly surprised. The plot makes no sense, but it does capture the spirit and style of older RWBy fight scenes in a way that some of the more recent seasons don't. Every character gets a chance to showcase their abilities and team up with someone. The Weiss/Batman scenes were jarringly out of character for Batman, but a 'interesting' take on the character nonetheless. Really though, the Superman/Ruby scenes showed a genuine contrast to her style of leadership that would have been nice to see in the main series.

Bottom line, if you're a fan of the older rwby seasons, this is pretty much for you.

Ahsoka (2023– )

A Few Decent Ideas Muddled by Poor Direction

[5/10 · 31 August 2023]

Dave Filoni directed episode 1, and Steph Green directed episodes 2 and 3. Of the two, Steph Green is more competent, but all three episodes suffer from scripts that are struggling to get off the page and strangely bad pacing decisions. Filoni's writing and direction both seem to be the cause of more of the problems, but the series is struggling to be at all fun or enjoyable.

Makeup: I think it's just an oddly bad decision to have two of the major characters be Twi'lek and Togruta with this style of makeup. It's not like they actually give a sense of these different star wars species, but they are different. Nonetheless the effect of this is that the twi'lek character (Hera/Winstead) just looks 'off' standing next to the togruta Rosario's Ahsoka. They either needed to take a different approach to makeup, or choose some different species, but it's very hard to maintain immersion when Ahsoka looks like a star wars character and Hera looks like a star wars cosplayer. (not blaming the makeup artists--this is in my mind on Filoni). To be clear, Rosario's Ahsoka looks fine on her own.

Pacing: Almost all of Filoni's shots of Natasha's Sabine in the first episode are... oddly slow. It's not even that Natasha is acting poorly, it's very clearly Filoni's direction. Why is he having her linger for an extra 5 seconds here and an extra 5 seconds there? It makes everything with the character feel overdrawn and plodding. Other things, like Sabine waking up fully clothed after a short nap, just seem... odd? Like there's something about this world in Filoni's direction that just doesn't feel fully realized. Very rarely do I feel so self-conscious in that "I'm watching actors on a set" not the world of star wars.

Green's direction in episode 2 is a bit better, although the makeup problems remain. But other different problems emerge in 3. Green is given a script where Sabine is recreating a kind of homage to Episode's IV iconic training sequences with Luke. But Sabine is worse at it than Luke, and this is overblown to the point that it just feels... kinda mean? I like Ahsoka and Sabine less after this scene. The script isn't doing Green any favors, but I feel like the pacing and handling of it could have been a lot better. In general I feel like Filoni's writing has just kinda cast Ahsoka as something of a prick.

Casting: Tennant is good for a lot of parts, but honestly I don't think he really 'fits' Huyang. It's not bad-bad but it feels miscast.

Acting: The main cast aside, I feel like a lot of the bit parts in the first episode feel weirdly stilted and unnatural. Again, I'm inclined to blame Filoni again because this just feels across the board rather than any one bit actor.

Hair: This is the one thing I have no notes on. Everyone has great hair. Good job hair team.

I'm going to give it a few more episodes because I really want to see what they do with Wes Chatham, but that IMDB as of this review has this series above an 8 seems... incorrect. There's a lot of problems here, even if we're talking about this as a streaming show and not doing movie standards.

The Witcher: The Cost of Chaos (2023) Season 3, Episode 8

Let's all appreciate S3Ep6 as the end of this series

[2/10 · 2 August 2023]

Will the witcher get another season with a different cast? Yes. Will I watch it? No.

S3Ep6 might not be a 'great' episode, but it was the best episode of this season and to me, the ending of the series altogether. Episodes 7 and 8 are almost wholly skippable, with the small possible exception of T's scenes here.

This isn't the worst episode of this season (that would be either 5 or 7), but it isn't any good either. After this season, I think that we can all safely agree that among television fantasy series, this was definitely one of them. My one sadness is that Joey Batey pretty much completely nailed every single one of his scenes through this entire series but sadly was just not given enough screen time. And Henry, well, he really embodied Geralt in an impressive way that still wasn't able to elevate the writing, direction, effects... well the everything else.

So long, Witcher!

The Witcher: Everybody Has a Plan 'til They Get Punched in the Face (2023) Season 3, Episode 6

Much better than the first half of the season

[8/10 · 2 August 2023]

At this point, if you're even hitting this episode, you have enough patience to take the flaws of the Witcher for what they are. So, with the caveat that this is still a flawed episode, it's still perhaps the best episode of the season.

More 'plot' happens in the first twenty minutes of this episode than in the entire preceding episode. Some of the 1-on-1 fights feel like the choreographers were actually having fun. And some of the high intensity moments do feel like they have some weight, moreso than almost anything else this season.

Is it still a heavily flawed episode? Yes. The 'level' of magic feels completely inconsistent between episodes, characters constantly are stepping in to sacrifice themselves to 'buy time' even when a different character made the same sacrifice in the EXACT PRECEDING SCENE, and how many times will we have Ciri running through the wilderness juxtaposed with people killing each other?

All those points in mind this is still clearly among the best of the witcher and certainly the best this season is probably going to manage. Does it justify the preceding season? No not really, but it's an action-packed, plot-dense episode with some fun fights, and one eloquently wicked burn from Joey Batey's Jaskier.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

A Good Movie Rewards Rewatching

[10/10 · 6 July 2023]

There's an essential part of the premise of this movie: you're not supposed to think Andy killed his wife. Andy's a good guy, it clearly was a terrible coincidence.

The movie takes great pains to give the impression that there even is a plausible second possible person who would have killed Andy's wife.

Here's the thing though. If you were on that jury, you definitely would have voted guilty for Andy. Because there is no way, if you were in that court room, you would be dead certain Andy did it.

The beauty of a good movie is the power it has in rewatching, but I think what's rewarding about returning to The Shawshank redemption is thinking about it from the perspective social perspectives. The first time, you're listening to Morgan Freeman tell you about his friend. The second time, you know Andy like he's a friend of your own.

But if you watch it again, given the film is in some sense about how we construct and constitute justice, you can consider it from different perspectives.

What I think is fascinating about this film, is at some point you realize--despite what the film invites you to believe, Andy absolutely killed his wife. That's not a spoiler--but that's the conclusion I reached after my fourth or fifth time watching the movie. And the beauty of the film is that it only becomes more beautiful and more poignant once you realize that what is one of the most important central conceits for the first time watching the movie is in fact completely implausible, and that the desire to believe Andy didn't kill his wife warps the entire narrative that follows. That's what makes this movie a timeless classic, that at different point in your life you can believe fundamentally different--diametrically opposed--principles of the core tenets of the film. That's craftsmanship.

The Witcher: Shaerrawedd (2023) Season 3, Episode 1

One of the Stronger Episodes this Season, But Raises Questions about Ciri's Arc

[6/10 · 5 July 2023]

One of the strengths of this episode is seeing the trio acting kinda like a makeshift family and trying to just live for a while. The 'together' scenes are a little fakey with Yennefer always laughing in response to some pre-cut joke but the effect still works, although it raises a big question for the season going forward: what does Ciri actually want?

Throughout this season, Ciri's conflict begins to take more center stage: what does she actually want? Does she want to be queen, sorceress, witcher... or normie? The last option is the one that's never meaningfully offered to her, mostly because it seems so out of reach and she has all this baggage about destiny, but honestly the scenes and dialogue where acts like she just wants a life that is rooted in some form of 'normalcy' and stability are the most convincing. The later scenes this season where she ponders how important it is she change the world to be more peaceful honestly seem just less convincing compared to how she seems to want to act this episode. And of course, being a high-budget fantasy series Ciri has to end up being 'more' even if that's clearly not what the character really wants.

I think the season is playing out Ciri's internal conflict decently well, but I do feel like this episode raises particular questions on where that arc should actually end and how satisfying it will be when we get there.

The Witcher: The Art of the Illusion (2023) Season 3, Episode 5

The Worst-Paced Episode of the Series

[2/10 · 5 July 2023]

To be frank, the strength of the Witcher as a series is more its action set-pieces, particularly when it is oriented toward singular enemies. Geralt (Henry) vs. Baddie of the week--these episodes are fun and exciting, and Ciri killing monsters is fun too.

This episode has no fun fights, and instead goes through the same boring political scene three different times adding frankly very little to the viewer's understanding of the plot with each new iteration.

This narrative style was most heavily influenced by Rashomon (even if it predates it, Rashomon popularized it), but Rashomon tells three *radically different* perspectives of the same story, each of which adds *entirely new* information and also includes *fun fight scenes*. Rashomon is not a boring movie, but this episode, which is trying to riff on Rashomon's structure, doesn't seem to understand what made that film work.

Nimona (2023)

Heavier than Expected, Unafraid to Break Stuff

[10/10 · 30 June 2023]

Nimona is a heavier movie than expected, but for the most part in a good way. One character is severely wounded early in the film, which sets the tone for an animated film that isn't quite aimed at young-young kids but is more aimed at a "ready for the Lion King" age range. That was surprising given the trailer, but not bad.

The character of Nimona is fascinating; she's a shape-shifter character who doesn't clearly have a "base form" but takes advantage of that characteristic in the full range. Whale, Gorilla, Ostrich--it's all fair game, and she enjoys the transformations and causing chaos generally. If you enjoyed the shapeshifting in the Dungeons and Dragons movie, this will be right up your alley.

It's based on a comic by Nate Stephenson, who is the same creator that made She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. So, think the energy and vibe of She-Ra if you happened to see that, but with a much better animation budget. (And if you end up liking this film, and haven't seen She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, that might be a good follow-up).

Black Mirror: Joan Is Awful (2023) Season 6, Episode 1

Engaging Premise Takes a Dump On Itself

[2/10 · 18 June 2023]

The basic idea for this episode is actually pretty good: what if we take the issues with data privacy and always-on devices and combined them with the fears and concerns pertaining to A. I. and deepfakes? Voila, a new television show *about your life* based on things that happened *today* that *everyone* can see. That's a great premise. Too bad the episode sucks.

The problem is that, like the rest of this season, it feels like Charlie just isn't writing human characters. Selma Hayek's dialogue in the second half is cringe-inducing and was actually so bad I gave up. And Joan does absolutely nothing to stop using the devices that allow the show to continue spying on her while bafflingly complaining about enablers. And that's where it really takes a dump all over the premise: the premise isn't engaging if the characters don't creatively engage with it. They respond, but only in the stupidest ways possible.

And not to get into spoilers, but the second half gets way more stupid still.

Black Mirror: Beyond the Sea (2023) Season 6, Episode 3

Not Charlie's Best Writing

[4/10 · 17 June 2023]

There are elements of this episode that works -- Aaron Paul does a fantastic job doing a challenging part, and I thought Kate Mara did a great job too. But I feel like all of them are struggling to elevate a plot that just isn't quite there.

When Black Mirror works well, it leaves you talking or thinking about the episode for weeks or even years afterward. Sometimes it veers heavier into allegory, sometimes it results in interesting character studies. This episode frankly just doesn't work for either. The 'message' or meaning isn't there, and the plot's handling of David Ross's (Josh Hartnett's) plight completely jumps the shark. I'm willing to suspend disbelief for the science fiction elements of the episode (even if that too really pushes suspension of disbelief on multiple fronts -- honestly WHERE IS GROUND CONTROL?) but the human elements seem far less believable than the science fiction elements.

To be clear, Josh Hartnett's acting seemed fine -- but the script he was given was to play a frankly unbelievable character.

To Charlie's credit, there was a moment where I was like, "I don't get why Kate Mara's character isn't doing X thing" and then Kate Mara did exactly that thing about a minute afterward, but that still didn't resolve the bigger issues with the episode.

Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre: Whispering Woman/Soichi's Beloved Pet (2023) Season 1, Episode 12

Whispering Woman has a neat ending

[6/10 · 23 January 2023]

Whispering Woman is like a high 7, and Soichi's beloved Pet is like a low 5, so I'm giving the episode an overall 6.

I didn't particularly care for either of the Soichi mini-episodes of this season; neither were 'bad' and I can kinda see why Ito does them. They're neat abstractly in terms of what they might imply about what Ito *doesn't* want to see in his audience, but other than that don't do much for me.

Whispering Woman was a solid mini episode. There's some really neat ambiguity at the end where it's unclear whether the 'twist' is entirely realistic and just based on the mental illness of the main girl or actually supernatural, and I think the ambiguity there is actually a bit fun to think about.

Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre: Unendurable Labyrinth/The Bully (2023) Season 1, Episode 10

"The Bully" is the most f'd up episode of the season

[5/10 · 23 January 2023]

No spoilers for micro-episode 1, Unendurable Labyrinth, but I will go hard on "The Bully" spoilers in this review.

Unendurable Labyrinth is kinda fine--maybe a 6 star micro episode. The setup and worldbuilding is good but the payoff cuts off the climax way too fast. I wanted some denouement for that one, personally.

"The Bully" on the other hand is one of the more 'interesting' episodes but probably one of the most actually f'd up episodes of the season. The premise is that this girl gives some initial kindness to a lonely boy and he immediately gets fixated on her, at which point her kindness gets warped into bullying. The thing is this gets all sorts of weird if you actually think about it. Like, maybe it's a long-con revenge story, but even if so, it's an extremely f'd up revenge story to basically take the object of your revenge, give them a kid, and then have your 'revenge' be them abusing this new child. How is that revenge? And if it isn't revenge, what even is it? As soon as you think about this story, it's terrible people doing terrible things to each other and to other totally innocent kids, and acts of kindness becoming acts of violence as a result. Sometimes Ito stories fail because the moral is too obvious or mundane, but this is maybe the only one where I'm fascinated by the twists but think I actually disagree with the logic that goes into the premise at some level.

Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre: Tomb Town (2023) Season 1, Episode 7

Interesting worldbuilding but too straightforward

[7/10 · 23 January 2023]

This is one of the stronger episodes of the season, in that it presents one of the most interesting premises--what if there was a town where people turned into tombstones when they died? That's pretty wild. Unfortunately after that, the execution is a bit too obvious. Guy does crime, guy tries to cover up crime, guy is punished. The problem here is that, going just a bit into spoilers, the guy is actually thinking "I guess I should just turn myself in" but then people basically shovel down his throat that "oh the only way to avoid terrible curse is to throw bodies down the well" so obviously that's what he decides to do. I just think the people of the town basically shoveling the climax down his throat feels oddly like entrapment which takes away from the already too obvious moral of the episode. Still, I give it a 7 for the kinda cool premise.

Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre: The Back Alley/Headless Statue (2023) Season 1, Episode 11

Back Alley Strong, and Headless Good for Silent Hill Fans

[7/10 · 23 January 2023]

Of these two shorts, I think The Back Alley is the stronger of the two, and one of the stronger shorts of the season. Headless Statue didn't do much for me personally, but probably would be enjoyable for any Silent Hill fans. Of the two, I'd give Back Alley an 8 and Headless Statue a 6, so I list the episode as a 7 overall since there's no way to split the review like that.

Explaining what I like about The Back Alley would risk drifting into spoilers, but basically I'd say the exact circumstances of the ending explains enough that you feel like there is an explanation, but introduces some new little mysteries that leave it just a bit fun to think about afterward.

Headless Statue has some fun imagery but is not exactly a thinker of an episode.

Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre: The Hanging Balloons (2023) Season 1, Episode 3

Best of the season

[9/10 · 22 January 2023]

I think this is the best standalone episode of the season. A lot of the others, which more often veer into two short micro-episodes, can be evocative but don't really leave you thinking about the premise afterward. This one becomes more fully post-apocalyptic, which to me makes the episode feel more suggestive. Even if it's pretty surreal, is this episode doing something to explore cultural attitudes toward suicide? I'm not sure it's making any sort of coherent argument, but I find myself haunted by the imagery in this episode far more than anything else from the season.

I only had limited familiarity with Ito's work before this, and to me this episode highlights the overwhelming dread mixed with surrealism that is the best of his work.