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mandadrene
Reviews
Cook at All Costs (2022)
Odd format
Honestly baffled as to what the point of the first round even is. It doesn't matter in any way. Is is just to deplete their bank? The first round has no consequence or bearing on the final winner. Confusing.
Overall it's decent if you like to watch people cook, but it's basically just Chopped except they all get different baskets from each other and have to spend their prize money on surprise ingredients, which often breeds an uncomfortable energy among the contestants that the show would be better without.
The guest chefs and host are good, no complaints there.
But very odd choice of format.
Fired on Mars (2023)
Unlikeable
There's a lot of great voice talent here, which makes this dull show all the more disappointing. There's absolutely nothing going on, enacted by 100% fundamentally unlikeable characters across the board.
The main character is especially difficult to care about, I want him to stop talking as desperately as the characters around him do. He's a useless nothing of a person and bad stuff just keeps happening to him, that's the whole concept here.
The satire revolving around the corporate structure is predictable and obnoxious while not saying anything worthwhile at all.
Repair the tank and put him back in, credits.
Dark Water (2005)
True Horror Story
This is the only movie to truly capture the horror of trying to get your landlord and super to complete basic necessary repairs to your apartment. Terrifyingly accurate.
Christmas Together (2020)
Worst acting in known universe
Okay I've seen hundreds of these movies specifically because they're hilariously terrible. This one though, man, this one. The female love interest is probably the worst actor I've ever watched, someone please tell her making constant pouty faces isn't acting. She needs to hear it. Very odd to watch a lifeless monotone come out of a face contorting so unceasingly and excessively, I think she thought she was in a silent film? I wish it had been one.
The male lead is bland, seemingly 25 but with a 13 year old daughter, bland, wearing ridiculously huge glasses frames with no lenses, and is also so bland he doesn't deserve even another adjective to describe him. Just bland.
Vivica A. Fox, the queen of Xmas films, was perfect as always. She earned the only stars this film gets.
Bob's Burgers: Driving Big Dummy (2021)
Teddy is intolerable
Teddy heavy episode, warning for everyone who can't stand this terrible character. I've been a loyal viewer but honestly think Teddy and the show's insistence on keeping this awful character around at all, much less writing whole episodes highlighting that abhorrent useless turd, have finally used up all the goodwill I had for it.
Incredibles 2 (2018)
Why the writers chose to do this is inexplicable
Naming one of your main characters "Evil Endeavor" instantly gave away the identity of the villian in this story and ruined the rest of the film as I just waited for Evil Endeavor to shockingly be the bad guy. It made all the red herring plot line mean absolutely nothing.
Overall still a good movie but if you're planning a twist why give the twist away before it happens?
Hotel Artemis (2018)
The acting is great, everything else garbage
Imagine a cast of legitimately good actors trying their best to enact an ill-written half-assed story with no stakes and plot lines that come out of nowhere, do nothing, and resolve themselves without incident.
Whatever you just imagined was better than this film.
The acting is honestly very good across the board, which makes this story and the fact that the concept could have made for a truly great movie an even bigger shame. The characters aren't written as humans that would behave and react as human beings. Their actions are clearly written as whatever would be easiest to allow the writers to shoehorn in another plot device that dies before it ever becomes anything interesting.
There's a reason why when typing this film's title into Google, it immediately suggests the often-searched question "What was the point of Hotel Artemis".