The behind-the-scenes stuff is nice, but this entire series provides too little context and tries to force in stories where in the broader scope, there isn't one. This episode is about Rune and Alcaraz chasing down Djokovic and apparently succeeding with wins at Rome and Wimbledon. Right after Rune beats Djokovic at Rome in the quarterfinals, we drop Rune for Wimbledon and skip the French Open entirely. What happened to Rune at Rome? The episode doesn't cover Rune beating a very good clay courter in Ruud in the semis and then lost against a usually awful clay courter in Medvedev in the final. Skipping Roland Garros means skipping another Djokovic slam win. What about the rest of the story? In the Paris Masters, Djokovic would beat Rune, and in the Tour Finals, Djokovic would beat Rune again. At the Cincinnati Masters, Djokovic would beat Alcaraz, and in the Tour Finals, Djokovic would beat Alcaraz again.
Reviews
7 Reviews
Survivor jumps the shark
13 April 2023
Survivor has jumped the shark this season and this episode epitomizes the problems with the show. As players have gotten savvier, the show tries to upend them by introducing more and more gimmicks until all that's left in the show are the gimmicks. There are now just too many immunity idols floating around, too many fake idols floating around, and now on top of that, the game throws in immunities for half the tribe plus one, and an advantage half the tribe cannot plan around. (And when it's played, it is played in a totally inept fashion that makes no sense.) The show has reached a point where people get knocked out of the game far more by random chance than from any skill.
Why THE LAST JEDI is being rejected by fans
18 December 2017
Warning: Spoilers
I've read articles saying the THE LAST JEDI is being rejected by fans because the fan theories all turned out to be incorrect. That's wrong. THE LAST JEDI is being rejected because it didn't deal with any of the questions that THE FORCE AWAKENS spent so much time asking. Who are Rey's parents? It doesn't matter. Who is Snoke? Shrug. We're going to save Luke Skywalker until the last few seconds. Why? So he can spend almost the entirety of the next movie doing absolutely nothing.
Mark Hamill has said in interviews that he disagreed with Rian Johnson's take on Luke Skywalker, and THE LAST JEDI reveals that Hamill was spot on. Luke's reasoning in the film makes no sense. Even if he doesn't want to train any more Jedi, he should still want to stop the First Order and help his sister. One thing has nothing to do with the other. That Han Solo's death doesn't even motivate him is a betrayal of the original trilogy and everything those characters went through. If you're going to make a movie about Luke Skywalker, master Jedi Knight, something the entire original trilogy built to, don't you want to see what one of the greatest Jedi Knights can do?
Basically THE FORCE AWAKENS was to spotlight Han Solo and this movie was to spotlight Luke Skywalker, but this movie is about Luke doing nothing. Watching Luke do nothing for 90% of his screen time simply doesn't work as drama. What's even worse is we know that Luke will come around or else there would be no story. The original trilogy is about Luke leveling up. Now we should get the payoff, and the ending looks like it's going to give it to us, but then it does a bait and switch and it turns out Luke was never really there.
Think of how awesome the ending would be showing Luke tossing First Order walkers through the air? Giving Luke this kind of moment wasn't necessary specifically for this movie except that Johnson purposely had Luke do nothing instead. If you're going to do that, then you have to counterbalance Luke's inactivity with Luke doing a lot in the end, which he doesn't, and then he died, so that mean we won't ever get to see the culmination of Luke's Jedi training. What a wasted opportunity.
Mark Hamill has said in interviews that he disagreed with Rian Johnson's take on Luke Skywalker, and THE LAST JEDI reveals that Hamill was spot on. Luke's reasoning in the film makes no sense. Even if he doesn't want to train any more Jedi, he should still want to stop the First Order and help his sister. One thing has nothing to do with the other. That Han Solo's death doesn't even motivate him is a betrayal of the original trilogy and everything those characters went through. If you're going to make a movie about Luke Skywalker, master Jedi Knight, something the entire original trilogy built to, don't you want to see what one of the greatest Jedi Knights can do?
Basically THE FORCE AWAKENS was to spotlight Han Solo and this movie was to spotlight Luke Skywalker, but this movie is about Luke doing nothing. Watching Luke do nothing for 90% of his screen time simply doesn't work as drama. What's even worse is we know that Luke will come around or else there would be no story. The original trilogy is about Luke leveling up. Now we should get the payoff, and the ending looks like it's going to give it to us, but then it does a bait and switch and it turns out Luke was never really there.
Think of how awesome the ending would be showing Luke tossing First Order walkers through the air? Giving Luke this kind of moment wasn't necessary specifically for this movie except that Johnson purposely had Luke do nothing instead. If you're going to do that, then you have to counterbalance Luke's inactivity with Luke doing a lot in the end, which he doesn't, and then he died, so that mean we won't ever get to see the culmination of Luke's Jedi training. What a wasted opportunity.
Justice League
(2017)
Justice League pros and cons
21 November 2017
Justice League pros: Wonder Woman shines, Flash is funny.
Justice League cons: Everything else - weak, one-dimensional characterization; way too much exposition; atrocious dialogue; clumsy pacing; Ben Affleck; generic uninteresting villain; trying to squeeze too much into too little time; super sappy ending.
Justice League cons: Everything else - weak, one-dimensional characterization; way too much exposition; atrocious dialogue; clumsy pacing; Ben Affleck; generic uninteresting villain; trying to squeeze too much into too little time; super sappy ending.
Mahjong
(1996)
Easily Yang's worst film
18 January 2011
Edward Yang made his only bad movie (and I've seen them all) with this flick about young gangsters in Taipei and the scams they run. All the foreign actors are god-awful and that includes poor Virginie Ledoyen when she has to speak English. Most of the humor and purposefully over-the-top acting falls flat. Among the cast, only the very talky Tang Tsung Sheng and the subdued Lawrence Ko stand out. None of the relationships among the characters ever really gets fleshed out, and the movie has an extremely conventional ending. Ledoyen is of course extremely gorgeous so maybe Yang was distracted because he never gets a handle on the tone of this thing.
Short Order
(2005)
For Emma de Caunes fans for sure
17 May 2008
SHORT ORDER is a lot like a crass Jean-Pierre Jeunet film. It's filled with vignettes trying to link food to sex. So we have Jon Polito describing mending pizza dough in the same way he would touch a woman and we see a chef from behind furiously beating eggs and looking a lot like, well, you figure it out. There's also plenty of college freshman-level existential philosophizing, Moby Dick references, and allusions to classic Hollywood musicals. The movie is not all that overall, but it did confirm for me that Emma de Caunes is the most beautiful actress currently working, and co-star Cosma Shiva Hagen might be a pretty close second.
In Search of Mozart
(2006)
Bad film-making but great music
31 July 2007
In Search of Mozart is a really poorly directed documentary that gives a straightforward if somewhat defensive biography of Mozart. Director Phil Grabsky engages in some off-putting extreme close-ups of interviewees/performers (I don't really need to get nose-hair close to them) and the 129-minute movie is unevenly paced. It spends a lot of time on the birth and sudden (if common at the time) death of Mozart's first baby, then barely mentions his father's death in passing. It does a couple of things well. The musicians and their performances are choice (except for Don Giovanni). There are certainly interpretations of Mozart's music that are far worse out there. Best of all are the musicians explaining how certain pieces work while they play select portions. The movie could have used more of this in even greater depth. A deep analysis of Piano Concerto No. 20 could have been sublime.
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