anonim-5 Reviews

American Fiction (2023)

Was this written by Charlie BlacKaufman?

[8/10 · 18 February 2024]

Finally, a good social satire that tries to move the situations past the same tired tropes that seem designed for award season. The story of a black author having success with a parody feels partly autobiographical, as the frustration of someone forced to pander to simplistic expectation of all those through the greenlighting process and not of the public itself. It also helps that there's a good bit of funny moments.

Acting is generally good, but Jeffrey Wright does stand out with a great performance.

The only negative aspects I saw would be the fact that the story meanders a bit, although all the superfluous parts of the story work to paint a non-stereotypical picture of a black family. I just wish it would have been done with a slightly faster pace.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022– )

The race of writers is all but extinct now

[3/10 · 2 September 2022]

After watching the first two episodes, I'm at a complete loss at how so much money could be sunk on such a mediocre show.

The greatest problem is the writing, which aims for Game of Thrones Season 8 levels of bad. The actors struggle with it and put on a decent effort in delivering lines that you'd think were written by teenagers aiming to sound profound. Besides the dialogue, the main plot is weak as well, without any clear purpose for the characters. I have not read Tolkien's materials on the First or Second age, but even so it's obvious significant changes were made.

Some casting choices and styles (short hair for elves) seem to break immersion without absolutely any perceived benefit.

The visuals are good (especially the set design), but somehow the color grading makes it feel soulless. It feels like a more critical eye would have improved the overall look by showing an attention to details and having some experience in what makes a great cinematic feel. A bit more polish on the CGI would have helped as well in post-production, as some scenes

In the end, the music is the only department that is on par with expectations.

I honestly can't understand with such a budget why the creatives in charge were not people with a proven track record. Is this what a billion dollars gets your, or was it all just a money laundering scheme by the people in charge?

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality Documentary (2022)

Highly entertaining for Sabbath fans

[8/10 · 4 July 2022]

Worth watching for the entire hour, this documentary gives a glimpse into the creative process that created arguably one of the most influential albums of all time.

What shines best is the way it seamlessly changes the scope of the story, describing both the broad context and also detailing enough minor event that you can extrapolate a rich picture of what happened back then.

The only thing I would have like to see more about was the drug-fueled insanity of the time and a deeper understanding of the working class background of the boys from Birmingham.

Halo (2022– )

It was the best of times for production values, it was the worst of times for writing

[4/10 · 27 March 2022]

I honestly have come to believe that studio writers are writing just for industry insiders and don't care about the general public anymore.

Fans of the games will have a hard time connecting to this show, since the writers seem to have used the source material more as a guideline. As a PC gamer I never was invested in the Halo universe, but I was at least hoping for a decent sci-fi.

The sets at least look great, but the effects feel a bit uneven, as if there was too much to care about, and someone just said "good enough".

Characters are the main problem, as they feel as if written by teenagers without any life experience, that just try to imitate the seriousness of actual adults. In a presumably militarized future the nonsense that presumably high-ranking individuals say sticks out like a sore thumb.

While the visuals reminds me of Starship Troopers, the writing is almost the exact opposite: shallow clichés, masquerading as something deep.

At this point I'd pay to see a shot-for-shot remake of Star Trek: The Next Generation, just to get a sci-fi with some real characters.

The Matrix Resurrections (I) (2021)

Mediocre movie, with fantastic meta-commentary

[7/10 · 25 December 2021]

In the trend of cash-grabbing sequels and remakes, the latest Matrix movie gives the expected level of disappointment. The pacing lost you from the start and the execution gave it a feeling of not really caring anymore.

There was one thing I didn't expect through, and that was the commentary on today's cultural landscape that felt almost cathartic to watch -- sometimes delivered directly by the characters. Thank you Lana Wachowski for sharing your vitriolic thoughts with us, you gave me hope that there's a way we can dig ourselves out of this hell we've created from modern Internet over usage.

If you can stream the movie for free, do so, but it's not worth the price of a movie ticket.

Foundation: The Mathematician's Ghost (2021) Season 1, Episode 3

Writers that don't understand science and technology

[2/10 · 2 October 2021]

While some of the deviations from the book could have been good (the cloning of the emperor as a symbol for an ossified ruling class), the overall writing seems to just be getting worse. Characters and plotlines just make no sense, and the disappointment with what could have been done is reaching GOT Season 8 levels.

Maybe the worst for me is seeing foundation members argues if they should preserve water clock or sun dial technology. Only writers that have no understanding of science and technology could think of something like this, as they just pulled whatever they remembered from a high school project they once did.

Simple technology can always be reinvented by humans, if they have a scientific and engineering driven mentality, something everyone making these movies is missing.

Foundation (2021– )

High production value, terrible writing

[4/10 · 25 September 2021]

Anyone that has read the books needs to adjust their expectations when seeing a movie/series. I'm aware of that, but even if I try to see this as something standalone, I find the end result to be disappointing.

Not only does this series butcher Asimov's main ideas, events are also a lot more non-sensical. Oftentimes things happen just to look more cinematic: the trial of a presumed anarchist and enemy of the state is broadcast publicly, something no authority would choose to do. A terrorist attack takes place so easily that you wonder why something like that doesn't happen daily with that level of poor security.

The costumes and sets look good, and the CGI is fantastic, but I'm left feeling that there are no writers anymore in Hollywood that have ever solved an integral in their life. In the end, this show could only have been done well if they could have hired the Futurama writers.

A missed opportunity to adapt something that's even more relevant today than when it was first written.

The Boondocks: Stinkmeaner Strikes Back (2007) Season 2, Episode 4

Good humor skirts the line, great humor ignores it

[10/10 · 22 August 2021]

This is one of the ridiculously funny episodes ever to be broadcast on TV, and I doubt anything like this will be made in the next 10-20 year.

While everything clicks together perfectly, on a second viewing you can notice how well crafted the show is. You can notice from the attention to details, like little references to the 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Shaw Brothers films that a lot of care was put into this.

Maybe it works so well because it's funny without being preachy at all, but lets you analyze it as deep as you want: the "nigga moment" that Stinkmeaner has with Robert that triggers their feud is a rare treatment in media of how violent urges exist in all humans, as we are all animals after all and only through guided self-control and social harmony can we overcome them.

Just watch it.

The Green Knight (2021)

Great visuals, bad movie

[3/10 · 21 August 2021]

The Green Knight seems to have been made by a filmmaker that aims to check the boxes of what an art film shold be, instead of actually aiming to say something about the human condition. There is no clear message, and the whole gimmick of "you decide for yourself what that meant" gets old fast.

A jumble of scenes move along painfully slow, each played out by characters we have no reason to care about, and where logic seems to be missing.

Please do not spend money on this and rewatch something like The Red Violin, The Piano, anything back from when movie could aim higher than commercialism and still be good.

Watchmen: This Extraordinary Being (2019) Season 1, Episode 6

The original watchmen was great because everything was not black or white

[2/10 · 30 November 2019]

One of the greatest things that cinema can do is to force us to face an inconvenient truth, and by helping us process it we can grow and even achieve catharsis. This episode does almost the opposite, and I would have forgiven more if only it were better made.

As a European, I thought that the "Hollywood liberal agenda" was mostly an exaggeration of Fox news types, but this episode sure does try to convince me that it's something real.

Instead of aiming to heal a fractured society, this just seems to preach hate as a response to past hate. It seems to only be made for US liberals to further justify their ideology, as it just drives an oversimplified black vs. white narrative, without even mentioning the wealthy land-owning elite that's responsible for most of this. Everyone that gave this a 10 has no idea that the rest of the world doesn't follow their framework and just wanted to see flawed superheroes deal with a complicated world.

Message aside, it's also not very good in terms of writing. The cinematography is excellent, but felt almost wasted. Characters seem to be shallow stereotypes, and the story has so many things that don't seem to make sense when you think for more than 5 seconds about them that it's hard to suspend disbelief.

The biggest thing this shares with the Watchmen comics seems to be the yellow font.

Live at the Necropolis: The Lords of Synth (2016 TV Short)

There is no such thing as art, there are only artists

[10/10 · 11 November 2019]

You'll either find this fascinating (if you have even a mild interest in 80s synth) or think it's just random gibberish. I'm definitely in the first category.

This is one of the most original and most surreal 15-minutes I've ever seen on TV. I had no idea what it was, but I couldn't stop watching it.

It's definitely a passion project, and I wish a lot creative stuff like this would be made.

Watchmen (2019)

I expected nothing and was still disappointed

[2/10 · 28 October 2019]

I don't know for what audience this was made. It's fine to make a show about America's racist history (the show starts with the Tulsa riots, which were a real and horrific event), maybe just don't call it Watchmen.

Even after 2 episodes, this show has no real connection with the original comics.

The rest of the world used to watch US shows because of their universal elements, now half of what on TV seems to be made by and for a small minority.

Game of Thrones: The Iron Throne (2019) Season 8, Episode 6

The great work of thousands is flushed down the sewer of King's Landing

[2/10 · 20 May 2019]

I don't think there has ever been such a squandering of acting and directing talent and potential storyline in a series. Were there no executives that saw the episodes before airing? Did none of the actors rebel and scheme, but just allowed the writers destroy the story? Maybe this season's story is a mirror of how it was produced: burning everything down without any purpose.

See You Yesterday (2019)

Algorithm generated script

[2/10 · 19 May 2019]

I saw this on Netflix, and was intrigued by the time travel concept. But it was a huge disappointment to see how recommendation algorithm have started being used to generate the plot of future movies. I can't explain this mediocrity any other way. It feels like this has no soul and no human spark that wants to tell a story, just a machine dictating what should be filmed.

The Simpsons: Last Exit to Springfield (1993) Season 4, Episode 17

One of the greatest episodes ever

[10/10 · 28 January 2006]

As a Simpsons junkie who has seen almost every episode of the show, I can safely say that this is one of the most memorable episodes of the series. It follows the adventures of Homer as a Jimmy Hoffa-like union leader against Mr. Burns, trying to keep the company dental plan. All this because Lisa needs braces. The animation is superb, especially the great Beatles parody when Lisa is gassed-out. The story is excellent, evolving on many levels with a few great spoofs and a lot of little thing that show you that it's far more then the sum of it's parts. In the end, I don't find it surprising at all that it's featured on many polls and is often regarded as the best Simpsons episode ever.