House of Cards Season 4
Season 3 really turned me off. The in-fighting was logical character progression, but was still kind of boring, and there weren't really any likable characters. Season 4 changed that.
I like Claire and Frank working together again. I feel like they each regained a little of their humanity this season. The season was also filled with plenty of intrigue and suspense. It was just somehow fun again. If you dropped out because of Season 3, I'd definitely try picking it back up.
Daredevil Season 2
So, for those of you who don't know, Daredevil is the best show on Netflix. Possibly competing with Game of Thrones and Hannibal for the best show on TV in the last couple years; and remember this is coming from a guy who doesn't read (superhero) comic books and generally dislikes most superhero movies/shows.
Season 2 is good, and, in a lot of ways, better than season 1, but you probably won't like it as much, because it's season plot arc is a little less cohesive than season 1, and it does some weird stuff in the second half of the season. The production value has definitely increased (and it already looked pretty good).
Season 2's greatest strength is probably the way they use every principle character (Foggy, Karen, Electra, Punisher, Stick) as a foil of Matt. This show really understands character, and damn do they do a good job developing Matt, Foggy, and Karen.
It handles the Punisher really, really, really well. His character arc is good, but, even better, is the arc the show takes you the audience on with is character, changing your perspective of him.
If you watched Season 1, I don't have to tell you to watch season 2, because you already have. If you haven't checked out Daredevil yet, do so right now. Binge watch it immediately.
Trailer Park Boys Season 10
Weird. Weird season. Just like the last several, it's more of the same, but, if you're a fan of the show, it's still funny and charming, so there's that. As long as they keep making them, I'll keep watching them.
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Zootopia - or Don't be Racist
Zootopia was really cute and pretty darn funny. I loved it's heavy-handed social commentary. It basically holds it's back-hand to the audience and says in a very stern voice, "Don't be racist now. DON'T BE RACIST." Great message. Loved it. Everyone go see it.
Now. Let's talk about the dark side Zootopia doesn't want us to think about. . .
The movie hinges on this world where predators and prey live together in harmony. Okay, cool. But what they explicitly tell us is that all these animals are exclusively mammals. So where are the fish, birds, bugs, reptiles, amphibians, etc? How do you think predators and prey are able to live together, huh? That's right! The movie might not admit it, but I figured it out. The dark secret behind Zootopia is that birds and fish aren't people. It's kind of like that episode of Bojack Horseman.
Anyway, Zootopia is an awesome movie about how racism is bad. Y'all should watch it. Make your kids watch it. Make your racist family members watch it.
Now. Let's talk about the dark side Zootopia doesn't want us to think about. . .
The movie hinges on this world where predators and prey live together in harmony. Okay, cool. But what they explicitly tell us is that all these animals are exclusively mammals. So where are the fish, birds, bugs, reptiles, amphibians, etc? How do you think predators and prey are able to live together, huh? That's right! The movie might not admit it, but I figured it out. The dark secret behind Zootopia is that birds and fish aren't people. It's kind of like that episode of Bojack Horseman.
Anyway, Zootopia is an awesome movie about how racism is bad. Y'all should watch it. Make your kids watch it. Make your racist family members watch it.
Batman V Superman - The Donald Trump of Movies
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
What the actual f--- did I just watch?
First of all, I did not pay to see this movie, so take heart knowing I did not contribute it any financial support. I would encourage anyone who has not yet seen it to do the same. Don't pay to see terrible movies. The way to speak to Hollywood is with your wallet, but that's a rant for another day. Also, I'm not going to proofread this, because, if I have to think about this movie anymore, I'm going to get angry; so I'm going to go write a review of some good things instead. Like Zootopia.
Two more things to get out of the way before I get into the meat of this review:
1) I come from the school that Batman (and, for me personally, almost all super heroes) should never kill. What makes Batman Batman is his moral code and how absolutely stubbornly he sticks to it. So that bothered me in BvS:DoJ, but I won't spend time on that moral debate, and I won't use it as an argument against the movie. I know that there are plenty of people who do not share that sentiment, and I respect their right to think that way (even if believe them to be inherently wrong). I also, by no means, claim to be even remotely an authority on super heroes or comic books, so I will not get into philosophical debates about these characters.
2) I hate Zack Snyder movies. Every one of them. For insight as to why I think they are terrible, refer to any CinemaSins review of one of his movies. But, just like item number 1, I will not use my predisposed biased against Snyder as a primary argument against this movie. This movie needs no help to explain why it's bad.
My primary complaints:
1) Context (or lack thereof)
2) Cohesion
3) Pacing
Thirty minutes into BvS, I was bored and confused as I had no idea what was going on. Batman's parents died?! Spoiler alert! Lois Lane is doing some stuff. Clark/Superman is also doing stuff. Lawrence Fisburne is also doing stuff. Oh, and Batman and Alfred are doing some excellent acting while also doing some stuff. The point is, movie, you haven't given me any clear indication of a plot yet, you haven't had any action sequences. Maybe it will get better?
Fifty-five minutes in: MOIVE, what is going on? After an hour you've still given me no discernible plot or character development. Oh, I'm sorry, how could I expect your characters to develop when you still haven't given me any context for them to begin with. What's that you say? Every character has very clear motivations and I should know that because other characters tell me so? F--- you, movie! I'm still bored and confused.
Two hours and twenty-two God-damned minutes in: . . . Go f--- yourself, movie.
Let me be a more clear. For such a long run time, BvS spends very little time on any little thing. It suffers from a problem I fear too many films suffer from (particularly Marvel movies and The Force Awakes), a problem I call ADD syndrome. It's as if filmmakers worry that audiences will get bored and go home if a movie has any breathing room. Breathing room and boring are not the same thing. Breathing room consists of scenes that give us some context for what we saw. They let us gather our thoughts and think about what's happening, let us reflect on the characters and the emotional stakes of the film. Such scenes actually make a film less boring because their added context draws us in, makes us emotionally invested in the characters and raises the stakes of the movie. But BvS gives us no context. Characters announce how they feel or why they or others are doing thing, but we are never shown these things. In fact we're not shown plot. We have to take the screenwriters' word that a plot is happening.
Case in point: Lex Luthor. Clearly he's orchestrating the whole Batman vs Superman conflict. Okay. How? Why? Batman and Lois kind of follow some breadcrumbs, but the breadcrumbs only take us as far as "Oh, I think Lex Luthor is behind all this!" How does Lex know the things he knows? Why is he behaving the way he is with his distaste for Superman? The only context we have is "because he's Lex Luthor, that's why." The same is true about literally every other character in the film.
Other people have said the one redeeming thing about this movie is the casting of Afflec and Irons, that they are so amazing as Bruce/Battman and Alfred respectively. I say, probably? I don't know. There wasn't enough of them for me to judge.
I have a problem with how consistently short every single scene is. I felt it created a lack of context and a lack of tension, which made the film incredibly boring. Okay, maybe that's just a Brad thing. Is that truly the problem with the movie's pacing? Well, you have a 2.5 hour runtime, but you're still not able to spend any significant amount of time developing any of your characters or your plot. The movie jumps from scene to scene to scene with little context or cohesion (probably much like this stream-of-consciousness review). In fact, there's little cohesion within scenes:
Case in point: The final action sequence. I'll admit, when Wonder Woman showed up (albeit out of nowhere), she was kind of a bad-ass (and that's the nicest thing I'll say about this movie). And in each shot, I could kind of see what was going on and tell "Oh, Wonder Woman is slashing Doomsaday with her sword. Got it." But from one shot to another, I was very confused about the screen direction and context and what was going on. It's Wonder Woman is slashing with her sword; then Batman grapples away from a random eye-blast; then Superman is dicking around with Lois in some stupid situation (Which situation is that, Brad? Doesn't matter, every situation Lois gets written into in this movie is pointless and stupid and a terrible waste of the amazingly talented Amy Adams). And now Wonder Woman has Doomsday in her lasso? I feel like her wielding that thing should have been a bigger moment.
And the car chase in the middle of the film with the Batmobile. I had no idea what was going on. That was so poorly shot and edited.
This movie made so little sense that other good movies are now bad simply by being movies and this thing also exists and is a movie. The Godfather and Casablanca have lost credibility, because both they and Batman V Superman are movies. For heaven's sake, Avengers: Age of Ultron was a more coherent, entertaining movie (and I thought that movie was shite).
I'm so. . . I can't. . . I read reviews before hand. I knew it was going to be bad. But I still couldn't believe what I was watching. It was so bad that I can not physically compile my thoughts on it together into a coherent review. If you watch this movie, you will be turned into a white girl, because, when you walk away from it, you just can't even. I'm kind of ashamed to work in the entertainment industry.
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice is the Donald Trump of movies.
What the actual f--- did I just watch?
First of all, I did not pay to see this movie, so take heart knowing I did not contribute it any financial support. I would encourage anyone who has not yet seen it to do the same. Don't pay to see terrible movies. The way to speak to Hollywood is with your wallet, but that's a rant for another day. Also, I'm not going to proofread this, because, if I have to think about this movie anymore, I'm going to get angry; so I'm going to go write a review of some good things instead. Like Zootopia.
Two more things to get out of the way before I get into the meat of this review:
1) I come from the school that Batman (and, for me personally, almost all super heroes) should never kill. What makes Batman Batman is his moral code and how absolutely stubbornly he sticks to it. So that bothered me in BvS:DoJ, but I won't spend time on that moral debate, and I won't use it as an argument against the movie. I know that there are plenty of people who do not share that sentiment, and I respect their right to think that way (even if believe them to be inherently wrong). I also, by no means, claim to be even remotely an authority on super heroes or comic books, so I will not get into philosophical debates about these characters.
2) I hate Zack Snyder movies. Every one of them. For insight as to why I think they are terrible, refer to any CinemaSins review of one of his movies. But, just like item number 1, I will not use my predisposed biased against Snyder as a primary argument against this movie. This movie needs no help to explain why it's bad.
My primary complaints:
1) Context (or lack thereof)
2) Cohesion
3) Pacing
Thirty minutes into BvS, I was bored and confused as I had no idea what was going on. Batman's parents died?! Spoiler alert! Lois Lane is doing some stuff. Clark/Superman is also doing stuff. Lawrence Fisburne is also doing stuff. Oh, and Batman and Alfred are doing some excellent acting while also doing some stuff. The point is, movie, you haven't given me any clear indication of a plot yet, you haven't had any action sequences. Maybe it will get better?
Fifty-five minutes in: MOIVE, what is going on? After an hour you've still given me no discernible plot or character development. Oh, I'm sorry, how could I expect your characters to develop when you still haven't given me any context for them to begin with. What's that you say? Every character has very clear motivations and I should know that because other characters tell me so? F--- you, movie! I'm still bored and confused.
Two hours and twenty-two God-damned minutes in: . . . Go f--- yourself, movie.
Let me be a more clear. For such a long run time, BvS spends very little time on any little thing. It suffers from a problem I fear too many films suffer from (particularly Marvel movies and The Force Awakes), a problem I call ADD syndrome. It's as if filmmakers worry that audiences will get bored and go home if a movie has any breathing room. Breathing room and boring are not the same thing. Breathing room consists of scenes that give us some context for what we saw. They let us gather our thoughts and think about what's happening, let us reflect on the characters and the emotional stakes of the film. Such scenes actually make a film less boring because their added context draws us in, makes us emotionally invested in the characters and raises the stakes of the movie. But BvS gives us no context. Characters announce how they feel or why they or others are doing thing, but we are never shown these things. In fact we're not shown plot. We have to take the screenwriters' word that a plot is happening.
Case in point: Lex Luthor. Clearly he's orchestrating the whole Batman vs Superman conflict. Okay. How? Why? Batman and Lois kind of follow some breadcrumbs, but the breadcrumbs only take us as far as "Oh, I think Lex Luthor is behind all this!" How does Lex know the things he knows? Why is he behaving the way he is with his distaste for Superman? The only context we have is "because he's Lex Luthor, that's why." The same is true about literally every other character in the film.
Other people have said the one redeeming thing about this movie is the casting of Afflec and Irons, that they are so amazing as Bruce/Battman and Alfred respectively. I say, probably? I don't know. There wasn't enough of them for me to judge.
I have a problem with how consistently short every single scene is. I felt it created a lack of context and a lack of tension, which made the film incredibly boring. Okay, maybe that's just a Brad thing. Is that truly the problem with the movie's pacing? Well, you have a 2.5 hour runtime, but you're still not able to spend any significant amount of time developing any of your characters or your plot. The movie jumps from scene to scene to scene with little context or cohesion (probably much like this stream-of-consciousness review). In fact, there's little cohesion within scenes:
Case in point: The final action sequence. I'll admit, when Wonder Woman showed up (albeit out of nowhere), she was kind of a bad-ass (and that's the nicest thing I'll say about this movie). And in each shot, I could kind of see what was going on and tell "Oh, Wonder Woman is slashing Doomsaday with her sword. Got it." But from one shot to another, I was very confused about the screen direction and context and what was going on. It's Wonder Woman is slashing with her sword; then Batman grapples away from a random eye-blast; then Superman is dicking around with Lois in some stupid situation (Which situation is that, Brad? Doesn't matter, every situation Lois gets written into in this movie is pointless and stupid and a terrible waste of the amazingly talented Amy Adams). And now Wonder Woman has Doomsday in her lasso? I feel like her wielding that thing should have been a bigger moment.
And the car chase in the middle of the film with the Batmobile. I had no idea what was going on. That was so poorly shot and edited.
This movie made so little sense that other good movies are now bad simply by being movies and this thing also exists and is a movie. The Godfather and Casablanca have lost credibility, because both they and Batman V Superman are movies. For heaven's sake, Avengers: Age of Ultron was a more coherent, entertaining movie (and I thought that movie was shite).
I'm so. . . I can't. . . I read reviews before hand. I knew it was going to be bad. But I still couldn't believe what I was watching. It was so bad that I can not physically compile my thoughts on it together into a coherent review. If you watch this movie, you will be turned into a white girl, because, when you walk away from it, you just can't even. I'm kind of ashamed to work in the entertainment industry.
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice is the Donald Trump of movies.
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