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Reviews
History of the World: Part II: I (2023)
Funny reminder of irreverent comedy
This show has a difficult job which is competing against the ghost of a movie people have replayed over and over for more than 40 years. HOTW 1 is one of my all time fav comedies.
Its hard to review this as if you just saw the original yesterday and many of the negative reviews are almost like comparing a new Mona Lisa 2.0 to the original, basically impossible to fairly do.
That said this really is a funny show totally in the vein of the original. I got lots of laughs out of it in a very similar way to when I first watched the original.
The only gripe is they seem to have avoided the sexy side of the old comedy and some other subjects that might have exposed them to the hyperactive cancel culture of today. Mel Brooks works like HOTW and Blazing Saddles couldn't really be made today.
While there are all sorts of subjects they clearly couldn't touch this really is funny and in the same style as the original.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Subspace Rhapsody (2023)
StarTrek Bollywood Edition
I hope they never, ever do this again. It was so cringe I fast forwarded through almost the entire thing.
Clearly, some of them are very musically talented. But man this was bad as in watching a giant bollywood production that nobody in the usa will watch because it's cringe, silly and destroys any hint of suspension of disbelief.
Hopefully this experiment is deemed a total failure and nobody in the Star Trek universe goes down this path again.
On a side note I think experimenting with new ideas for episodes is a cool thing generally speaking. My favorite episode of DS9 was "in the pale moonlight" was shot as essentially a captains personal log video journal. But a singing episode? Somebody should have nuked that idea instantly.
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Bizarre Movie
This movie was none of the things I thought it would be. Completely beyond me how this is receiving high ratings.
It's all over the place related to the rules it establishes for it's universe. Without spoiling anything there is no way you could randomly evoke an instance of yourself with specific sets of skills. It would take a million tries but with this... no.
If you put even the slightest thought into this it falls apart.
The other thing is they often go quite low brow with the humor and its usually not very funny. I did laugh a few times at random but most of the bits missed me.
Vikings: Valhalla (2022)
Not as bad or good as some reviewers here portray
I watched all the episodes, something I doubt many of the 10's and 1's here did.
The show is decent with some annoying elements. The quality is good as are the production elements.
The story revolves mainly around the beginnings of Leif Ericcson's life and clearly is *highly fictionalized.
Yes they have injected some fictional elements that can easily be considered silly and woke. The Jarl of Kattegut and the shield maiden trials were cringy and laughable. Fortunately, those are basically a small subplot but their handling of it does definitely hurt the show.
Luckily the non-plausible elements are maybe 10% of the show or less and the rest is very good.
IMHO I would like to see more and the show is generally quite good.
Star Trek: Discovery: Anomaly (2021)
Most cringe tv episode I've seen
I can't believe how far down Star Trek has fallen. Their team is clearly in the camp of inject beliefs first, second and third with story, continuity, quality etc. Running distantly behind.
They are repeatedly inserted totally arbitrary scenes that revolve around contemporary issues when the year is supposed to be well over 1 millennia in the future. None of it feels like part of any story but rather checking off boxes. I.e. Must have scenes that contain a, b, c, d etc. With subjective examples of the showrunners beliefs.
This strategy causes this episode in particular to be an utter disaster. Scene after Scene of their resolution of 2021 social scenarios shown in the most cringe producing ways possible. Even the delivery is poor as if there was no time to film more than one attempt at each scene. (like that would help)
This was a series I was very excited about but wow it's oh so bad. Hopefully one of the Trek series turns out to be good. The showrunners should watch the Mandalorian or seasons 2-5 or so of game of thrones to see what engaging television is like.
The Wheel of Time: A Place of Safety (2021)
Good episode that gets draws you in
I don't get the bad reviews. It's all people who are looking essentially for a direct translation of the books. They are comparing very specific things to the text and then going SEE! They changed something, omg they changed a characters beard! I wonder if they even realize how silly a criticism like that is.
Uh you kind of have to if you want to do a TV adaptation. Direct adherence just doesn't work and they know it.
The show is very good to excellent. Production values and acting are top notch. I was worried I'd see cringy effects but it's quite good.
I read one review where he is looking for the dialog in old english... Seriously? Game of Thrones didn't do that.
First 3 episodes did a great job of peaking my interest. This seems to be true for most people looking at the imdb rating except for the highly triggered.
Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
Vastly better than the original version
This cut of the film improves every aspect of the original. What's amazing about it is you could almost freeze frame any section of the movie and turn it into a great screen saver. This turns comic book scenes into live action very similarly to the way the movie "300" did many years ago.
The style used here has created a classic that will be popular for a lengthy period of time. I think this is a value aspect that Hollywood has entirely forgotten as they look purely at how it performs over a very short period of time rather than producing material that can last the test of time. This revised film will be one of those that is watched many years after it was made again and again.
Star Trek: Discovery: The Sanctuary (2020)
Bizarre Episode. Barely added to the story.
This felt like a "filler" episode that you would occasionally see in TNG, DS9, Voyager etc. It only added some very minor plot points and was genuinely painful to watch. The "Spocks Brain" of Discovery.
I do indeed think this is one of the weakest episodes in the series. I won't get into spoilers but suffice it to say that some of this episodes story is just pure ridiculousness. Reminded me of the old Battlestar Galactica episode where they just spew a planetary shield around Terra to stop a nuclear war. This was that level of silly stuff.
They didn't just do this once in this episode but *multiple times. Magic McGuffin saves the day etc.
A Hidden Life (2019)
Slowest pace in a movie I've ever witnessed
The premise of this movie sounded interesting and looking at the previews the imagery it looked quite stunning.
In fact the cinematic aspects of this film are the best part and really it's the only redeeming aspect.
This movie is almost 3hrs long and a few words are only spoken about once every 5 minutes. This is literally the most boring film I've ever seen. I'm normally "OK" with movies where events happen that move the plot rather than a lot of dialog. In this case really there are no plot moving events and almost no dialog.
This was just painful to watch. Nothing happens in 99.9% of the movie, just loooooong rolling views of waterfalls, wheat fields, mountain vistas, people going about their lives doing chores and so on. Probably 90% of the screen time is just a camera showing meaningless scenery.
Bottom line this film wastes what could be a very interesting subject and is the most mind numbing, boring experience you can possibly imagine.
To recap you get 2.75hrs of views of wheat fields, mountains, chores, sheering sheep and so on with NO dialog. The remaining 15 minutes just meanders around in confusing and pointless directions that largely don't build around the facts of the story.