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Reviews
Leo (2023)
Was it good ? No ! It was great !
I direly needed to see a good movie in these times, and boy I was not disappointed : it was not good, but great !
The first third of the movie is very funny for an adult, with a lot of movie references and silly things that kids can't catch : I hadn't laughed like that for a while.
Overall, the movie is well paced except for a little slowdown around the middle. The animation does the job : it's well done.
It's full of funny, nice & sweet ideas, and even if it's not groundbreaking or very original, the whole thing comes as fresh enough for an old timer as myself.
The main theme is that it's hard to grow up when we're kids in the last year of elementary school, right before jumping to the junior school.
However, for my 4-year old son it was a bit too evolved and he just mildly enjoyed the movie.
Even for my 7-year old son it was still a bit too much, but he enjoyed it. However, it made him a bit sad : he realized that life can be harder when growing up, and that he might have some of his best time right now.
I'm still glad he saw this movie though, because it taught him it's very important to find someone worthy of his trust to listen to his issues and help him find solutions (hopefully, it'll be me !).
All in all, it's a great movie that pack fun and have a very positive & important message for kids.
Captain Fall (2023)
Written by AI and horny teenagers ?
Although the setup is decent, the story is awful, going everywhere and nowhere, making little sense, and requiring continuous suspension of disbelief.
It's so bad that it feels like an AI wrote it.
And most jokes feel like they were written by 14-year-olds who still didn't do it, but pretend they did it. It's just juvenile, cringe, basic, and dumb.
[... Mini spoiler coming ...]
Here's the main example of the poor writing : a cop didn't buy that the 1st captain who got jailed was the head of the operation & only culprit, so he did his own investigation.
In the end, he finally arrives on the cruise ship, finds a pre-made book of pieces of evidence against Captain Falls, and what does he conclude ? That Captain Fall was the head of the operation & only culprit ! WTF ?!? :-o
The whole series is awfully like this, subpar, idiotic, with barely anything remotely funny, unfocused, and badly rythmed.
To end on a positive : the main feminine character is smoking hot, strong, and somewhat multilayered.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015)
Must see for 30 Rock fans
If like me you think 30 Rock (by Tina Fey) deserved at least a couple more seasons, then you should really give a chance to Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (still by Tina Fey).
However, be sure to stick around at the start, because everything and all characters seem a bit too silly.
But after a while, you'll be ok as you'll notice everything and all characters are actually a bit too silly. ;-)
And they get lovable both in their qualities and defaults. (ok, mostly defaults :o) )
South Park: Tweek x Craig (2015)
A South Park Classic
This episode is South Park's classic : lot of non-senses on 1st sight, with a lot of different possible interpretations.
The plot is that Tweek & Craig are perceived as a gay couple because Asian artists drew "Yaoi" of them.
And they are forced to be gay by the society, and they didn't choose that because the Asian artists chose for them.
Of course, you could conclude it's a generic call against society forcing you into something you're not.
But are you sure it's so general ? Now, just replace the gay couple by an heterosexual couple whose the guy is gay. What do you get ? Almost exactly the same story : parents forcing their gay kid to be straight to be accepted by them and the society. A story that is still a reality for thousands of gay around the world nowadays.
So what this is all about ? Gay acceptance ! And by inverting the roles, as often seen in South Park in the past, the authors once more created some hilarious non-sense while showing the bigotry of our societies.
So when the morale of a South Park episode is sounding like "It's OK to be Gay, because it's the Japaneses who decide who is", we know we just saw a classic South Park and we sure glad we did ! :-)
*** Big Spoiler ***
Oh and I almost forgot : there's also Cartman masturbating on his toilet while taking a dump, so there's that as well. Horribly shocking & disturbing.
Classic I said ! ;-P
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Award (2013)
Hidden meaning not really hidden
The allegory of this episode is simple but great : the show hadn't won a single award at that point, and the gang was refusing to add crappy romance and light dumb jokes to their show, even if it was the single best mean to win an award, as brilliantly mocked concurrent awarded shows usually proceed (we won't name names, showing mercy).
And they would rather spit in the faces of the award granters than change their show.
THANKS TO THE GANG ! ;-)
PS: The Show finally won a couple of awards in 2016 => http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472954/awards?ref_=tt_awd.
Arrested Development: Blockheads (2013)
Probably not excellent, but still really great !
*** This is a review of the whole season 4 ***
So that's clear, this season was less good than the old ones. Still, this is just great and features a pretty original narrative way to unfold the story (I won't spoil anything, but the more episodes you watch, the better it gets!).
For me, the main downsides were that sometimes we got a bit too much narrator talk, a bit too much music, and not enough characters' action & dialogs.
So thanks to Netflix to have let us enjoy all these silly characters once more. Now, the only thing left to do is to bring us the Season 5 ! Pretty please ..? :-)
The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (2012)
I'm young again !
I got into this movie without expecting much, I even didn't know it was by the creators of Wallace & Grommit, but I recognized their style right away, and they greatly improved it : the visuals are stunning, with a lot of details & delightful backgrounds, and the rendering is really different of the usual 3D stuff, as it looks like it's done with clay (not sure what's done with real clay or CGI, but it looks great anyway).
I was 1st annoyed by the low frame rate implied by the stop-motion animation, but after 10 minutes into the movie, I didn't think about it anymore : I just got a big grin on my face that never left me during the whole movie, except for some nice laughs !
This movie stacks up more imagination, creativity & originality than all other movies I've seen so far in 2012 combined. I'm getting old, and vastly bored to see the same things over & over again, and I'm craving to see something good & different like this movie provides : I feel young again ! :-p
It lasts only 85 minutes, but it's packed with so much stuff going on on the screen, so much gags either visual or word-play, that it felt much longer ! Hey, I will even have to watch it at least a couple more times to catch all the little stuff I missed running into the background ! :-)
Now my only hope is to see another adventure of The Pirates! , completely different of the 1st one, yet with the same crazy, silly, funny spirit raging into its soul !
True Blood: Save Yourself (2012)
Season 5 review : somewhat disappointing
This is a review of the whole season, not only the final.
This season has been somewhat disappointing. The show has become much of a drama, almost a soap one : there are a lot of characters, fighting each other to grab some air time displaying all their stories that have almost no connection whatsoever between them. At the end, it means all the little stories go too fast, without much depth nor real interest, at the image of Bill change : 1 episode, he's his old self, the next one is totally something else. In the middle, he got high and didn't seem to think much about his "revelation".
I have never been a true fan of True Blood ; so far the show was globally worth 7/10 ; this 5th season is worth 6/10 ; it's still totally watchable & a nice way to pass time, but it's not a should-see anymore.