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Legion: Chapter 23 (2019)
Doctor Who but better
Praises:
+ Genuinely the coolest and creepiest monster design I've seen since Doctor Who's Weeping Angels.
+ Excellent VFX and sound design for the monsters, and the way they sorta teleport every tick/second is jarring in a good way.
+ The monsters being foreshadowed back in earlier episodes (for some reason I didn't expect them to ever actually appear)
+ Time jumping/deleting scenes were interesting.
+ A more horror-ish survival episode reminiscent of the best Doctor Who episodes.
+ Great directing from the person who would go on to direct Everything Everywhere All At Once.
+ The ending gets you excited for the next episode.
Criticisms:
- It ended.
Legion: Chapter 24 (2019)
He finally says the thing
Praises:
+ A fantastic scene where David finally says "I am Legion."
+ Numerous sudden main character deaths.
+ Great cinematography as always.
+ Farouk being an interesting villain/hero/antihero/whatever he is, ostensibly helping David.
+ The song at the end where David manipulates (or imagines) everyone into singing, including corpses, which was amusing and creepy.
+ David being a full on evil psychopath at this point, killing people without second thought or remorse, yet I'm still rooting for him.
Criticisms:
- Minor plot holes (David can read minds, so he should have anticipated and prevented the suicide, and also shouldn't have fallen for the trap and got touched).
Mononoke-hime (1997)
It's a great movie
Praises:
+ The story is deep, meaningful, moving and mature.
+ I always appreciate themes of nature and animals.
+ The characters, particular the main character, are complex and nuanced.
+ The art and animation is breathtaking.
+ The music is really good.
+ The acting (english dubs) is pretty good but not great.
+ The movie doesn't shy away from showing depictions of violence
Criticisms:
- The titular character Princess Mononoke is more of a side character than a main character.
- The world isn't quite as magical and imaginative as the ones of Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away.
- The pacing, especially around the middle of the movie, can be a bit slow.
Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Southern Air Temple (2005)
Great
The first 2 episodes were more your typical kids cartoon, with fight scenes that were more slapstick than serious, and the occasional implication of war themes.
In this episode, it starts being a bit more serious. We see Aang, who is just a naive young child, break down crying because he discovers the murdered corpse of his father figure, amongst a pile of enemy soldier corpses. While it's not exactly graphic as they're just skeletons, the emotional impact on Aang is nonetheless devastating. This is when Aang realises everyone he knew, all his friends and family, have been murdered. In fact his entire race of Airbenders is extinct; a genocide that occured during a war that has been ongoing for 100 years. The war was started by the oppressive fire nation, led by a genocidal tyrant attempting to subjugate the remaining tribes so the fire nation can rule the world. Having a children's cartoon be set in a war where death and genocide are major themes is an interesting choice. It's a narrative even adults can easily get invested in.
Meanwhile, two villainous characters from the fire nation, Zuko and Zhao, engage in an intense and firey duel. Zuko manages to gain the upper hand and knocks Zhao to the ground, who then taunts Zuko to kill him. Zuko decides to spare his life, prompting Zhao to mock him for being a coward. Zuko promises that he won't hold back next time, implying he will kill him if he gets in his way. This was an exciting fight scene with actual stakes, as we're not sure who will win (they're both "villains" so who do you root for?), and notably wasn't punctuated with slapstick or childishness. It was a simple and raw fight between 2 characters who hate each other and solved their conflict with violence and rage. Afterwards while Zuko is leaving, Zhao cowardly launches a surprise attack against him while he has his back turned. Zuko's uncle Iroh (the fabled Dragon of the West who we later learn commanded a siege against a city for 600 days but ultimately withdrew after his son was killed in battle, then essentially became a surrogate father to his nephew Zuko) intervenes halting the attack, and then berates Zhao for his lack of honour, insinuating that even Zuko, who is banished from his kingdom by his own father, is more honourable.
There is a lot of character info you learn in this episode, with even the villains having backstory and ambitions. The fight scene lets you learn a little bit about Zuko's character; even though he is a villain, he refrained from killing when he had the chance, showing he has a code of honour, in contrast to Zhao who likely would not have offered the same courtesy. This lets us know he's not irredeemably evil like others from the fire nation. And even though Aang finds out he is alone in the world, he is comforted by his companions who have become his new family, and bond over the fact that they too have lost loved ones to the fire nation. It's bittersweet and emotional, while still palatable to a young child audience, a delicate balance the show exceeds at.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Certainly didn't expect this at all
Yeah, this isn't what I was expecting as a sequel to Halloween II. A world renowned and revered toymaker turns out to have sinister secrets. It turns out all his workers are androids, and he's mass producing halloween masks as a way to kill millions of children. How does he plan to kill all the children with halloween masks? It's rather simple actually:
He's also manufacturing computer chips which are made from material harvested from the stonehenge which he stole a boulder from and is using android slaves to mine it for him and it turns out the stonehenge has magical witchcraft powers that he is harnessing in the chip so that when it is put on the masks in disguise as the company logo and exposed to a particular TV broadcast will activate it and cause the wearer's head to rot away while magically many bugs, worms and snakes will springforth and emerge out from the place where the head was, with the venemous snakes potentially even killing more people. He ensures that millions of children will be watching the broadcast while wearing their masks by having the broadcast be an annoying captivating advertisement for the imminent advent of halloween and a promise of a big giveaway at 9 o'clock which is in fact when the broadcast turns deadly with flashing images that activate the chip but probably also cause some accidental deaths in epileptic kids.
The bad guy's motives? Oh, he just wants to restore his old irish tradition of child sacrifice rituals.
I can't think of a more farfetched plot in a horror movie, and I'm surprised it is part of a mainstream horror movie franchise centred around Michael Myers. It doesn't feature him, and it's not even set in the same universe, because we can briefly view Halloween playing as a movie within this movie. This movie gets some points for being unique and creative, although overall it is not a particularly great horror movie and you won't be missing out on much if you skip this one. It's just some silly entertainment with a few memorable scenes.
Hereditary (2018)
Decent modern horror with mild scares
This movie succeeds in being a perfectly average and typical modern horror movie, and not much more. The drama is pretty good, especially in the 1st act. The acting is amazing overall, with an incredible performance from the mother and a mostly great performance from the son, but some scenes are so poorly acted (such as whenever the son is crying) they're cringe/laughable. An unexpected event early on was very shocking but paved the way for some phenomenal acting scenes, and some really creepy horror moments.
Unfortunately the writing and plot is absolute bonkers and drags the whole movie down. The end twist is silly and for me it effectively reduced the horror of the movie. Basically everything is relying on a series of many, many perfect coincidences and/or plain magic. And with the amount of magic/luck necessary to ensure every single event happens perfectly, it just doesn't make sense why it needs to happen in such a long roundabout way other than for screen time and to allow for horror moments. Towards the end, some horror moments also border on comedic, like when you see someone randomly Spiderman crawling on walls and then flying and smacking their head on the ceiling upsidedown.
This movie works more as a good drama due to some exceptional acting and the shocking twist near the beginning, but slowly descends in quality as the horror elements become more contrived and silly. I did not find this movie very scary in the 2nd half. And if I ever rewatched I doubt any of it would seem scary anymore. The acting of all the characters are good, but the characters themselves are often unlikeable, unbelievable and commonly make multiple dumb decisions that make no sense apart from magic and plot reasons. In fact the movie goes as far as the excuse of magic being the reason for the dumbest out-of-character moments.
If the movie needs to explain why characters make so many bad and dumb mistakes then maybe the plot shouldn't require such retarded characters in the first place. But at least there technically is a canon reason for the many stupid character mistakes.
To conclude, I found the plot and writing dumb, but because of the acting and some drama/horror scenes, I consider this a decent modern horror movie. It's certainly good at subverting expectations so it's best to watch the movie without knowing any twists. But there's nothing really special about this movie; it's just a pretty good and kinda scary modern horror movie.
Color Out of Space (2019)
Horrifically bad and Disturbingly boring
This movie was so painfully boring I almost stopped watching. Right from the beginning we are treated to nothing more than mediocre acting, uninspired writing, and a waste of time of a 1st act when we should instead be getting acquainted with all the characters so we can care about them. But none of the characters are likeable, or intelligent. It's as if the characters were all written by a primary school student. The characters are so silly and have almost comedically over the top traits such as the dumb stoner gamer and the magic ritual girl who carves symbols into her body for no reason, other than dragging out screen time. Everyone fails to make any good choices and noone seems the least bit surprised when the weird stuff starts happening like when the whole yard turns into pink fairyland. The father doesn't seem the least bit fazed when his son and wife are zapped into a gruesome amalgamation in agony and dying, however when he decides to kill his mutated alpacas, that is the one and only time he actually expresses sadness. Ridiculous characters that have no sense or consistency. Cage's acting in almost every scene fails to convey appropriate emotion. Only towards the end when he is suppose to be truly crazy does his acting work. The amount of disbelief you are forced into takes away any ounce of potential horror. The one shoehorned jumpscare is cheap, pointless and annoying. You as an audience couldn't care less if any or all of the characters die. This movie must take place in an alternate dimension where everyone has an iq of 50 and the emotional intelligence of a half-brained ant. The movie is so insultingly stupid and impossible to take seriously that the only horror in the movie is how boring it is. The only emtion I felt was boredom and regret for watching. At least the special effects were sometimes really cool, so +1 stars for that.
Overall this feels like a huge insult and mockery to Lovecraft's work and you should definitely never consider watching this movie, ever. Watch Annihilation instead :)
Dark: Was man sät, das wird man ernten (2017)
Intense, intriguing and dark
This episode is one that solidifies many of the themes of the show, such as casual determinism, free will or the lack thereof, wormholes, duality being incorrect, the triquetta, and probably more. Though the symbol of the triquetta was shown much earlier (episode 2 or 3 iirc), this is the first time we learn about it. It's also an important set-up for events that are yet to happen, and it's a very cool experience to view this again after watching all 3 seasons, and knowing why certain characters are doing certain things. There's a couple scenes that wouldn't even have meaning the first time you watch this. Oh yeah and there's the dark scene that was quite shocking and demonstrates that Dark doesn't hold back, while also perfectly feeding into many of its themes. I also have to mention the music montage scene is great in this episode just as every episode. Slow character-focused scenes without any dialogue and with perfect accompanying music is powerful and masterful storytelling and is one of the main reasons I regard the show so highly. This is a great episode of Dark that has a little something for everyone.
Dark: Wahrheiten (2017)
The first big "wow" moment in Dark
This is the episode where Dark becomes not just a great scifi mystery show, but a great mindbending scifi mystery show with mind blowing plot twists. Not one of the best episodes, but probably one of the most important.
Dark: Geheimnisse (2017)
A great show starts out slow, mysterious and even a bit spooky
This first episode is probably one of the spookiest and mysterious episodes, because as the series progresses we start to understand things and it becomes more and more interesting but loses the spooky atmosphere. This is a great episode to really get us interested in all the mysteries but sadly it is quite insignificant to the overall plot. This episode successfully sets the tone and introduces many of the main characters without being totally overwhelming. But in a show like Dark, maybe it could have been a bit more complicated to start out with. I can't say it's one of my favourite pilots even though Dark is my favourite show.
Dark: Kreuzwege (2017)
A slow episode that doesn't surprise
Yeah there's nothing really special about this one. It's slow, it doesn't have any plot revelations or twists, it doesn't advance the plot much, and it doesn't even have a music montage scene. But I'm just spoilt; compared to the average TV show this episode would stand out as a top notch episode of great writing, acting, directing and atmosphere. It just feels slightly underwhelming after the previous 2 episode were absolute wowers.
Crossroads is a great episode, even though it's one of Dark's worst episodes. That just goes to show how great Dark is.
Dark: Sic Mundus Creatus Est (2017)
The first episode to let us know for sure: Dark is a masterpiece
The very previous episode had an incredible plot revelation that no one could have predicted, and established the series as an amazing scifi mindbending show with meticulous and genius writing. But writing alone does not make something a masterpiece hence why I only gave that episode a 9.
Sic Mundus Creatus Est, in my own opinion, is a genuine masterpiece. No other TV show has ever had an episode of this calibre in only the first season. This episode is like Breaking Bad's Ozymandias, but at the beginning of a show instead of at the end. Now obviously it's not as good as Ozymandias buuuuuut my point is that the whole episode is scene after scene of moving and powerful moments, and more emotionally charged than it has any right to be for such an early episode.
This is also the episode that includes the Martha Ariadne play scene, which is among a great number of people's favourite scenes (not mine though) and is one of the most heavily analyzed scenes in the show. And that was before s2 and s3 came out. Now more than ever especially after watching the entire show, we can see just how important and full of foreshadowing that one scene is and just how well it ties (pun intended) into the core themes. That scene is almost irrefutably a master stroke and contributes towards this episode being the masterpiece it is.
Like (almost) all episodes in the show, it has a music montage scene that features one of the nicest songs in the whole series. Too bad the scene is short and doesn't show a lot, but nonetheless it is still beautiful. Dark has a knack for utilising the perfect song, almost as uncannily as the casting.
Overall this episode is indeed a masterpiece and is series 1's magnum opus.
Dark: Das Paradies (2020)
more perfect than perfect
Every rating lower than 10 was actually people trying to rate higher than 10 but the site messed it up. Example: trying to give it 16/10 instead gives it 6/10 which incorrectly skews the data. Assuming this is rectified, this episode gets an average rating of around 13/10
Dark: Zwischen der Zeit (2020)
a truly perfect 10/10 episode
Everyone who wrote negative reviews are severely lacking in some fundamental understanding of the plot. since the ONLY negative reviews are from people who don't understand the show and rate it low out of frustration or misunderstanding, I guess we can call this a genuinely perfect 10/10 deserving episode. I have yet to see a single genuine flaw pointed out.
Dark: Deja-vu (2020)
continues the amazingness
The amazingness continues in the 3rd season. you will not be disappointed by this episode.
Doctor Who: Orphan 55 (2020)
The most pathetic excuse for 'writing' I've ever seen
This is the quality of writing you would expect in the telletubbies or other stupid kids shows that are for a braindead audience. The stupidly blatant PC messages aren't even the main issue anymore. The writing is so bad that you will hate it regardless of your stance on any PC issue.
Every scene contains numerous plotholes, and some laughably stupid scenes that not even a child would find believable.The monster design is fine but their entire premise is a huge plot hole, in fact the whole episode is one big plot whole and makes no sense in the continuity of Doctor Who. An utter disgrace of an episode that drags the overall quality down and genuinely confuses me how the writer could even pass kindergarten, let alone make it into writing for a major BBC show.