CoolX3 Reviews

Ozark: A Hard Way to Go (2022) Season 4, Episode 14

completed the story

[2 May 2022]

The whole show is about the byrde's moral decay as every compromise they made wore them down, so the last couple minutes where they let you know who die fits because that's always been their line and they finally crossed it. Similar thing with the final scene.

The season wasn't perfect because the tension with wendy and marty was never resolved. The show made it extremely clear wendy's treatment of people alienated marty but he refused to do anything about it. The car crash scene also served no purpose. But complaining about those final couple scenes makes no sense because they clearly communicate a thematic conclusion that makes sende.

For All Mankind (2019– )

sneaky good

[9/10 · 21 February 2021]

The social justice angle so many are criticizing makes sense for the show. much of the cold war was fought through social issues like america's treatment of women and non-white people, and how these and other issues factor into the space race feels natural and historically consistent

the middle of season one is where the show peaks. the first couple episodes feel like just another show, but once episodes start to let large-scale political issues shift the story focus to all characters around nasa the world gets much more interesting and the story becomes more dynamic. the cold war politics and domestic political struggles play out through fleshed out characters who give the action stakes and it makes for a really enjoyable watch

if anything, it's when the show strays from this that it starts to lose me. drama that results from character decisions is good, but when big events that shape the story start to get *just* interpersonal rather than the large-scale political events that shape the show's middle it loses some of what makes it feel special and reverts back to being just another show, but this only makes up a small part of the show

most of the tension built feels real and makes you genuinely question what will happen next but there are a few conflicts that feel like they're going through the TV motions rather than that they're crafted for this show specifically

The Leftovers (2014–2017)

ambiguous, surreal, and the best show of all time

[10/10 · 25 November 2020]

Without spoiling, the interaction that best encapsulates the show comes when a character is in what might be the afterlife and is told "if you want to get out of here all you have to do is sing (karaoke)" "i don't believe you" they respond "why?" "because it's stupid" "ahhh"

if this scene would make you mad - that's to say if you need everything to have a coherent and spelled out answer/explanation - you won't like this show. the creators clearly said they wouldn't answer what happened to the people who disappeared or where they went. it's a show about grief and the stories we choose to believe as we cope

but if you'd like this scene - that's to say if you're okay with a show that revels in the absurdity of the world and comments on how silly our search for answers to life can be - then you might like this. the leftovers is melancholic, funny, depressing, moody, surreal, absurd, and deep. it's direction is artistic without being pretentious, it's used music and score incredibly well, it's lore and world are absolutely unique, it's characters are well-drawn and interesting, it's story is unpredictable, and it isn't afraid to take risks. in my opinion, this is the only show that is absolutely flawless. 28 perfect episodes with a perfect ending

The Undoing: Trial by Fury (2020) Season 1, Episode 5

uNrEaLiStIc

[25 November 2020]

I for one am shocked that a television show prioritized entertainment and drama over realism in a courtroom scene. simply appalling that fiction doesn't totally recreate the exact banalities of regular life and feels the need to embellish with things like "entertainment" and "structure" because we all know Real Life doesn't follow scene and act structure. i'm even starting to get the feeling the music that's played during this show is (gasp) not in the natural environment and (weeps) is added in after the fact

seriously if you're getting upset that a court scene isn't 100% realistic what are you even doing watching tv? the entire advantage of fiction is that it *doesnt* have to adhere to the rigid rules of real life and can prioritize emotion, drama, entertainment, etc, which are all things this show does well. it's definitely lost some momentum as it's gone on, and i do wish they'd more directly answered the cliffhanger from the last episode, but it's still highly entertaining and i'll definitely watch the finale

every work of fiction bends how things work in reality, even if you don't recognize it, because nobody lives their life in the conflict-laden, hyper-condensed world of story. if you seriously can't suspend your disbelief far enough to allow for the embellishment of court room drama - which in reality is not dramatic in the slightest - then i feel really bad for you and your lack of imagination. go watch a docuseries about sand

Little Fires Everywhere (2020)

it's not just kerry washington

[4/10 · 22 April 2020]

Washington's portrayal of mia isn't the best, but people are writing reviews like that's the worst thing about the show and that's not true. the book provided character depth, which reinforces the core theme of the story with subtly. celeste ng presented things from the richardson's pov and trusted the reader to be intelligent enough to come to their own moral conclusions. by doing this, we can empathize, but not agree with the richardsons and go on to see their behaviors in ourselves/society at large. its challenging and trusts us to comprehend complex ideas.

the show lacks any sense of character depth and therefore subtly and therefore thematic punch. it beats you over the head with who the good and bad guys are. this kind of writing makes the richardsons (most of them) unempathetic. we can all sit back and say, for the most part, "that's not me," and bask in our own non-racism/homophobia/whatever. by holding your hand like this, the show removes any challenging aspect and kneecaps its thematic punch. it takes those complex ideas from the book and turns them into "prejudice is bad"

from a technical standpoint it's fine. the young actresses playing pearl and izzy do a particularly good job, reese witherspoon is good but not doing anything she hasn't done before. in flashback scenes/episodes the younger versions of the characters sounded and acted EXACTLY like their older counterparts. these are probably the most well-matched performances i've ever seen. that is the one and only exceptional thing about this show, and none of it's technical competence makes up for the dumbed-down writing

Legion: Chapter 16 (2018) Season 2, Episode 8

why the hate

[27 May 2018]

Someone said this season only has 5-6 good episodes... 8 episodes in... as if that's not most of them. sure this one was a bit slow but it still did advance the plot a decent amount and contained some amazing visuals, which is what the show is really good at, just the fantastic cinematography. the Jon Hamm narration part was probably the worst of those segments this season, but other than that i don't see why this episode in particular is getting so much hate. this is definitely one of the most unique shows on right now, they've earned the ability to do a slow episode and have the audience's patients. judge it on how this develops team.

Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)

An HONEST review

[6/10 · 16 July 2016]

This is an average to marginally above average movie. Melissa McCarthy is hit or miss for me, but she does well here. Kristen Wiig is always good, McKinnon and Jones both shine and Chris Hemsworth delivers as well. Everyone makes the best of the given material, which is not always great. The banter is good, but the characters can be one-note. Hemsworth is dumb, we get it. He has a few really funny lines, but "dumb" is his entire character. Jones has the same one-note problem. McKinnon was my favorite, she brought a sort of Bill Murray quality of not taking the plot seriously. Overall I LOVE that they had an all female cast for a summer action-comedy and I think they got the right actresses for it. However, the overall plot left something to be desired. I would have liked them to explore the main villain a bit more. I get that the joke is that he's a whiny, entitled guy but it would have liked to see him really overreact to rejection. They also don't really bust a lot of ghosts in this movie. They catch maybe one before the climax.

So like I said, the acting and line-to-line dialogue was good but the overall writing doesn't really stick. It's entertaining. Don't listen to the original Ghostbusters fanboys who dedicated their time to destroying this movies IMDb rating.