osefiloglu Reviews

The Queen's Gambit (2020)

Too many shallow characters

[7/10 · 13 March 2021]

This was a nice mini-series that I enjoyed watching and finished in one day. But there was something that irritated me all along. There were so many characters that were dimensionless, and obviously written to play an important part in a specific point in the series, and nothing more. (I do not know if this problem is related to the series, or the book from which it was adapted). Some examples:

• Townes: to magically appear before the last match against Borgov, to help Beth.
• the French girl: To magically appear before the second game against Borgov, to spoil Beth and ruin her game.

-The twin brothers: to magically appear in every chess tournament (with no reason) to befriend her

• Jolene: to magically appear after many years when Beth hits the bottom, to put her back up.

Apart from these key roles they play, we learn almost nothing about these characters. For example, the French girl (I do not remember the name) appears only twice. First, the scene that they have met (which was obviously written to create a justification for the second) and the second scene, in which she finds out Beth is in Paris, goes to her hotel, illogically insist her to drink with her and make her drunk, while knowing that there is a huge game the next day. This did not feel real while watching.

The Night Manager (2016–2025)

8.1? Seriously?

[4/10 · 2 February 2021]

This was bad. Really bad. The script, acting, everything. But it helped me understand something. Now I will reconsider before jumping to the conclusion that 8.1 deserves watching. Really does not deserve a more thorough review than this.

The Man in the High Castle (2015–2019)

Season 1 is far from perfect

[5/10 · 28 December 2020]

I am very surprised to see the frequency of reviews which mention that the season 1 was excellent, but the following seasons could not keep up. Season 1 is miles away from being excellent. Obviously the topic is very interesting and it makes you binge-watch, but there are 2 main issues:

1) Everything, yes, EVERYTHING is driven by crazy coincidences. In this aspect, the only rival of this series can be "La Casa de Papel". It is easy to see how each season got worse. Heavy reliance on coincidences create unsustainability in the long run.

2) The main characters terribly fail at transmitting even the basic emotions. I mean, when your sister is killed in front of you, you can not just go on with your life after two drops of tear.

I do not even mention the stupidity about how our Most-Wanted girl, for whose capture people were gassed and killed, shot and tortured, continues her life without being hunted down after completing her mission in the neutral zone. I am hoping (but not expecting) to have an explanation for this.

Children of Men (2006)

Highly overrated

[6/10 · 10 July 2020]

Obviously, it is all about the cinematography now. As long as you shoot difficult, complicated scenes (indeed there were several fantastic ones in this) you do not need to tell us anything about the characters, motivations, we do not even need to know anything about the underlying infertility issue, why the world turned to a hell, what is the issue with immigrants, what is the human project etc. Never mind, just show us your fancy camera skills and blow our minds.

The Stranger (I) (2020)

Failed Execution

[5/10 · 13 March 2020]

This series gets you inside easily. I wanted to watch it non-stop and finished in two days. But at the end, I sat on my couch and asked myself: "What did I watch just now?"

Do not want to get in to the details of the inconsistencies of the plot. The series spends around 30% of its time for a parallel story about the 3 kids (involving drugs, the Alpaca and the naked boy), spiced up with horror movie themes like a figure emerging from the dark and frightening everyone. And at the end you realize that all of this story is nothing both a cheap diversion from the main plot, with a shameful ending on its own, and without ANY connection to the main plot.

Plus, The ending was pathetic. Build-up of all of the the main characters fell to pieces because of the rushed and inconsistent script-writing. Relationship between the husband and the stranger, undefinable decision of the police officer to tamper with evidence to save someone that she has no relation with were really embarassing. Plus, the series did not do a good job of telling us the motives of two people: The stranger and Katz. We, as viewers, were not given adequate depth about why they do what they do.

Overall, watch it if you have lots of time to spend. Otherwise, keep away.

Marcella (2016–2021)

Coincidences & Plot Holes

[4/10 · 27 February 2020]

I completed both seasons. Was it entertaining? Yes. But this does not mean that it is of high quality. Most of its problems are already mentioned frequently in other reviews, but from my perspective the major issue is that this series defies the science of statistics. A couple of examples:

1) What is the probability that two successive, major serial killers are closely related to their lead investigator in the police department? (First one: Brother of the lover of her husband, second one: mother of her son's friend). 2) What is the probability that the son of the lead investigator is almost raped by a criminal and almost murdered by a serial killer in a very short period of time, plus both of these attacks were stopped at the last second? The answer to both of the questions are the same: Infinite small. The second major issue is the plot holes. Actually the word "hole" is an underestimation. There are plot craters in both seasons.

• Mystery of the night of the murder of Grace Gibson (It was explained pathetically in Season 2)
• Killing of the taxi driver
• Killing of the sex worker girl
• Killing of the rock band drummer
• Killing of the truck driver
• Crazy uncertainties regarding how and when the murderer of the 2nd season does what she does, given her social/physical profile.
• "Death" of Marcella, given that she was around and visible to everyone while the fire which "killed" her started.

These are the ones that I remembered in just 30 seconds, there are lots more. After watching Bron/Broen, it really becomes hard to tolerate such deficiencies in the script, since Bron/Broen was the ultimate point in script quality and plot consistency, from my perspective.

Having mentioned Bron/Broen, I believe Marcella scriptwriters were significantly inspired by it. The way the story was built, lots of individual and seemingly independent stories start simultaneously, and step-by-step converge to an intersection. But in Marcella this process is so crowded and confusing that after the first couple of episodes you start to forget the people involved and their stories. Plus, lots of these individual stories do not end. They just vanish and it is irritating. For example, what happened to Jason's crime? The murder of the rock band drummer? No idea.

One positive: We now know who will be the next "Joker" after Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix. It is Marcella Backland. I expected her to say in the last scene: "Why so serious?"

Jokes aside, there are lots of better alternatives to Marcella. If you consumed them all, go for it. Otherwise, no need.

Fawlty Towers (1975–1979)

Tiring

[6/10 · 16 July 2019]

This series is definitely a pleasant watch, I will not deny that. But after a point it becomes crazy tiring, since most of the content is based on simple miscommunications with the Spanish waiter and hustling around of Basil to hide some of his stupidities. Of course this is a comedy and no need to look for logic in every act, but I fail to enjoy seeing Basil trying to communicate with the Spanish waiter exactly the same way in all episodes, although it is obvious that he will not understand.

Roma (2018)

No Content

[3/10 · 14 June 2019]

I adore films about human. I like dramas. I like ultra slow films, and despise action movies. Yet, apart from the fantastic camera tricks and some very difficult-to-shoot scenes, I have nothing to praise about this film. Honestly speaking , it was simply terrible. Very beautifully shooted, highly aesthetic but pointless and extremely needlessly long scenes are seamed together to create a 2.5 hours long torture. It is obvious for me that the director could not (or did not) balance the cinematography with the content, which is "cool" and always well received by the festivals and Oscars, but I feel like I deserve some , tiny bit of content in something I invest 2.5 hours.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)

A movie for kids

[4/10 · 14 June 2019]

To evaluate the movie adaptations of books, I try to see the movie as a standalone object, and try to evaluate how the movie works for someone who did not read the underlying book. And as a person who did not read any of the Harry Potter books, I believe I am in the position to make this evaluation objectively. I can say that for the first movie of Harry Potter Series, this way of thinking signals a huge failure. The movie just assumes that you know all of the significant background information about this universe. Everything just... happens, you do not understand how, and no one cares to tell. No one is surprised of any magical stuff going on.

Of course during the movie adaptation of this depth, lots of important stuff is cut to fit the content to 2 hours, and it significantly damages the narrative. I had the same experience in Lord of the Rings. But at least in those movies there was the acting, and the character depth. In Harry Potter, there is almost no acting. And no character depth at all, we have no idea who the characters are, what are their motives. Half of the movie is allocated to the pointless scenes of the three main characters, and we are not even told who Dumbledore is, who Voldemort is, what is the story of Hogwarts etc.

To sum up, I did not enjoy the movie at all. It is unfortunately nothing more than a movie for kids. I do not say this as an insult, if it was caategorized as a Kids movie, I would have rated it differently. But obviously the movie was marketed as a movie for everyone, that is why I evaluate it this way.

The Bridge (2011–2018)

Perfection

[10/10 · 17 May 2019]

One of the best TV series I have watched. I really respected the dicipline in the scriptwriting, very limited number of logical fallacies. Characters are so well designed, and their histories, personalities are so nicely told. Crime cases are perfectly designed.

Plus, Saga Noren is unforgettable.

Money Heist (2017–2021)

Evolves to a Comedy Show after a point...

[5/10 · 17 May 2019]

We Mediterraneans have a tendency to live the moment, plan less, act unorganized, and try to save the day first. The scriptwriters of this show exibits all of these attributes of an average Mediterranean. Obviously they have worked on the first two episodes in depth, and went on to sip their Sangrias. The public interest the show has received must have been a huge shock and they were obviously totally unplanned, since I can find no other explanation for the shameful comedy show that it evolves afterwards.

The perfect plan for robbery that the show is based on quickly evolves into a series of random acts, mainly based on continuous overhearing of some dialogues by others (Very typical in Mediterranean - Latin American shows) and our bunch of stupid robbers can not manage to keep their sexual desires under control for a couple of days. I could not count how many times there were effectively ZERO robbers guarding the captives, while they were having a meeting, fighting with each other or having sex somewhere. And the ultimate point, Tokyo's return to the Mint... words are not enough to describe the level of stupidity of that scene.

As I mentioned at the title, after a point I could not stop laughing while watching. Still, I finished the show, but will definitely not watch the new season.

Luther (2010–2019)

A dominant lead figure is all that is needed to have high ratings

[5/10 · 17 May 2019]

Started watching this show after I saw the ratings it received on IMDB. And I could make it for only 3 episodes.

Yes, Idris Elba is superb. Really fits to the role. But we can not (At least in the first 3 episodes) understand his motives, his background. And other characters? They are totally invisible. Crimes? Solved in seconds, I did not even understand why they were there. The relationship with the psychopath murderer girl? Throwing evidences to the river? Not reporting any of his talks with her? Not even considering to have his phone listened, although all of his talks with the girl included zillions of crime confessions?

In crime shows, the thing that irritates me most is logical fallacies and holes in the scenario. This show has lots of both. That is why I will not keep on watching.

After Life (2019–2022)

Highly Overrated

[5/10 · 17 May 2019]

Update for Season 2: I sincerely believe that Ricky wrote the 2nd season by simply copying, and pasting the Season 1 document. I was really expecting much more and I am seriously disappointed. Plus, l am appalled by the ultra-positive reviews for this season. I empathise with the fact that lots of people remember their loved ones while watching this but this is not a fair way of evaluating something this lazy, repetitive, and two-dimensional. *** I love Rick Gervais, not only his comedy, but also his ideas, and the way he defends them. Currently he is by far my favourite comedian.

Coming to this show, After Life, I need to say that it is nothing more than a pleasant watch. It is definitely not a comedy, and it is not supposed to be. The way grief of the husband is transmitted, and flashbacks to his life with his wife were awesome. But the dialogues, oh, the dialogues... Especially the ones with the marketing girl. They were completely out of context, and were obviously solely written as a mechanism for Ricky to tell the audience his views about the world, religions, God etc. but they were all so baseless, and clumsy unfortunately.

Plus, the "enlightenment" of Tony in the last episode... It was nothing but a disaster, in terms of the quality of the script. Really left a bitter taste in my mouth and significantly affected my final rate for the show.

Lucifer (2016–2021)

Losing confidence in IMDB Reviews

[5/10 · 17 May 2019]

I like Lucifer as show. Especially the first season is phenomenal. But with the second season, the content, the dialogues, the characther depth all started to deteriorate. I still watched it, and still do, for the sake of the perfect match between Tom Ellis and Lucifer Morningstar.

I watched the first 5 episodes of season 4. Nothing new. All show still relies on the wit and charm of Tom Ellis. The scenario, the crime cases, the diaolgues between the characters are nothing but childish. And I still watch it (because of Tom Ellis, of course)

Coming to my main point, I see that all of the episodes of season 4 are rated as 9.5/10 or above. I sincerely can not understand how this is possible. and this is not for this show only, all of the recent shows that I started watching recently, following the great ratings I saw here turned out to be average at best (Two examples are "Luther" and "Afterlife"). I am not claiming that this show is terrible, but 9.5? Come on...