nikoyam Reviews

True Detective (2014– )

Very Well Done! (Season 4 Night Country)

[9/10 · 25 February 2024]

I really am enjoying this season of True Detective. The writing on this is very well done. It works it's way through the case as quietly and uncomfortably as the landscape and area it takes place in.

The acting is top tier. Jodie Foster does as great a job as she always does, very well. Kali Reis is a newcomer for me as I've never seen her act before, but her performance here made me wonder who was she and where did she come from? To find out that she is a boxer! Wow, that really impressed me since most athletes make really poor actors/actresses. So, bravo to her.

This season is so far one of my favorites. I love the mood and the creepy air of the environment and the strange happenings. This case is very interesting and I appreciate when horror fuses with the fantastic (fantasy/spiritual). The cold, wintery landscape teamed with constant darkness over the land makes for the perfect backdrop to tell a chilling tale.

This season also veers from being dark into being mysterious and mystical. The cultural ribbon of the Inuit culture and spirituality, weaves so beautifully into the story and is its own silent character. I love that this also tells the story of a culture that is hardly ever seen or represented. As a Black woman, I know not only the importance of representation, but even more the importance of telling stories of POC that are honest and true to everything about that individual culture. It's not about demeaning white culture, it's about sharing the stories that happen to people outside of white people, from a perspective outside of the white perspective. True Detective Night Country does a great job of that.

I am excited to see how this ends and it makes me hopeful for any upcoming seasons. Please keep up the good work.

Mea Culpa (2024)

Tyler Perrry Continues to dupe Black America

[2/10 · 25 February 2024]

I am truly beginning to believe that Tyler Perry understands that his achievements and ability to employ so many black actors/actresses and workers has struck such a cord of respect from Black America, that he knows that he'll never be cut off from us and continues to shovel out this crap. I am disheartened for Miss Kelly Rowland who deserved better than this and I am saddened to have to be so negative.

This movie is full of the typical TP (Tyler Perry) tropes and overly written caricatures. He is such a poor writer and it continues to be seen in the poor quality of repugnant caricatures he creates. He doesn't know how to allow characters to be victimized without having to overly exaggerate the scenarios and people surrounding them for it to be possible.

Mea (Kelly Rowland) is supposed to be high profile lawyer who is very good at what she does, yet we get nothing to build her as such. She spends most of her screen time being a skulking, moody shell of a woman who, for a lawyer, seems to leave her brain at home every time she crosses the doorway. We get no peek at her being a great lawyer, a wife or a friend. Everything just begins happening and her reactions to the unfolding of her life are always confusing and just plain DUMB!

The cast of caricatures around her are as flat as a dollar bill. Zyair (Trevante Rhodes) is literally just in the movie to look sexy and talk slow. His character has no substance. Mea's husband (Sean Sagar) is flat and as usual, written to be so extremely uninvolved and weak that you can't like or dislike anything about him. The brother in law and Mother in law are extremely exaggerated as being insufferable (in order to make Mea look like a complete victim), but you get no reference as to why their relationship is like this or why they do what they do.

This movie was supposed to be an erotic thriller and this seems to be the area where TP really put all of his energy (go figure). The interactions between Mea and Zyair are supposed to be sexy and seductive however, no seductive or alluring nature is given from Zyair that would make any married woman want to compromise her entire marriage for. Instead both individuals come off as dumb and just looking for excuses to have unwarranted and immoral sex. And the "excuses" (because that's what they are) that are mapped out via the plot are weak and watery at best. I also don't feel Mea's character showed enough interest to suddenly shift gears so suddenly the way she did. TP tried to make her this strong, unflinching woman who wasn't going to give in, so we never really saw her interested. (This is a miss both in the writing and the acting... Sorry Kelly.)

For Background, the set design and environments are getting better than his movies of the past. But again, we are introduced to the TP prototypes: every actor/actress is stunning and in great shape. The homes they live in, cars they drive and clothes they wear are a stretch compared to their work or the financial situations they are supposed to be in and this all takes away from being able to take the movie seriously rather than seeing it as another TP stage play.

Overall, the plot is predictable and full of tropes and holes. The writing is terribly poor and underwhelming. The characters are flat and snooze worthy. The acting is sub-par at best (a step above daytime soap operas) With the exception of Ronreaco Lee who plays Jimmy the PI. Ronreaco was a save in this film. You can tell he's a seasoned actor and he brought what little light to this film there was to be had. The ending offered nothing new or intriguing and TP needs to be stopped. But hey, at least we didn't get bad wigs eh?

The Strays (2023)

Misses the Mark...

[3/10 · 2 April 2023]

The Strays tells a story that speaks to racial disparities and issues fought both within as well as outside of black culture. Cheryl/Neve is a woman who has left her previous life as black woman to assume another life as a woman, who still being black, has left everything associated with her blackness behind. She is in an essence "passing" and lives life as close to a white woman as she can, to the point where she even prohibits the inclusion of "blackness" in any facet of her new life, even to the extension of her children. However, her old life creeps back in via the fully black children she has left behind who are now back for revenge and to uproot the "new life" she has made without them.

While the movie succeeded in having a haunting air and making you feel uneasy throughout, the execution and storytelling fails the setup. The movie needed more space to breathe and more time to tell a thorough story. This would have served much better as a limited series rather than being a movie. There was so much backstory that needed to be dealt with for many of its characters.

It feels like you're coming into the middle of a dissatisfied person's life, made to feel like they're normal, only to find they are completely immoral and selfish. This all happens with no explanation of why or how she came to be this way? You also cannot deal with issues as heavy as race and self-acceptance without dealing with a root or at least giving details to the origin of these characteristics.

As far as actors go, all of the actors do a great job, but again, the storytelling and writing is not full enough to allow the actors to properly use their skillset, so much of their acting comes off as over-acting. Which is unfair to their abilities.

Personally, I also feel that it is another poor representation of black culture in film as a whole. While the story is trying to point out the disparaging differences between black opportunity and lifestyle vs. White opportunity and lifestyle, it once again puts darker skinned, black people as the "angry antagonist". It's over-exaggeration of the anger her previous children feel towards her by having them plot and plan to torture and more than likely kill the whole family is demented and unrealistic. It puts black people back into the box we're always put in of being angry, violent and vengeful. Willing to kill even the innocent for issues that don't involve them. In the wake of their anger, the innocent "white" characters become victims to the raging black characters. They were so busy trying to make this a black horror film (in the likeness of Jordan Peele's Get Out) that they missed the mark and only made black people look worse. Again, if the story took more time to dig deeper into what each character has gone through that has brought them to where they are, maybe we as the audience could go with them on this ride and feel more comfortable with their reactions, but when it's all coming out of the blue with little basis, it just seems extreme and unnecessary. This story and what it wanted to say could have been told with a much better storyline and with a much better storytelling.

Shadow and Bone (2021–2023)

Couldn't Finish it... and I wanted to

[3/10 · 6 February 2022]

I'm sorry, I just couldn't finish this one. Understanding that this is geared for a teenage audience, I gave it three stars rather than the one that I would give it otherwise.

Trite, boring and completely expected at every corner. It was just too immature and predictable. I know this is my personal opinion, but I can't stand when they build movies/shows around a teenage love story. Teenagers are generally confused hormonal nuisances that are a ball of unused energy and lust. They are not the ones you build a substantial love story around! I'm sorry, it's just unrealistic. The concept of devotion and unrequited love is beyond most adults, more or less some pubescent teens. It just puts the whole story on shaky ground from the start.

The storytelling is very typical and characterization is the same tropes that have been used over and over again. The constant "cool kids walking together" shots are overused and underwhelming. And moments of interest are dropped to put us back in lala loveland with corny flashbacks.

Maybe I'm being too harsh. And if one day I get the courage to go back and finish it, I'll come update my review if it gets any better, but for now... I just can't.

The Wheel of Time (2021– )

Watchable but don't expect much

[3/10 · 6 February 2022]

I am on the 6th episode and at this point I can only rate it as watchable. It is definitely not something to write home about. Game of Thrones really set the bar in fantasy dramas and it feels like everyone is scrambling to meet the bar or reset it. This one does nothing new for the genre.

The acting is decent on a few accounts, but most of the acting is shallow and without depth. The love stories are trite, immature and boring, and as usual, get in the way of good story telling.

The visuals are pretty good, but some of them are goofy-looking, such as the witches (Aes Sedai) harvesting of their magical powers, which look like smoky ropes swirling into baby tornados.

The languages and names for people and things were inaudible and often unmemorable. I couldn't name any of the creatures or characters if you asked me to because I often can't make out they're saying!

Something that really annoyed me was the lack of imagination from the makeup and visuals teams. So many of the creatures and characters look like they were literally traced over from characters in other hits like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones. Even the mannerisms were borrowed. It just felt like they cut and pasted too many creature concepts from fantasies of the past.

The last grievance is with the constant intrusion of societal social norms, agendas and PC representation. I'm all for representation and inclusion, but I am not a fan of piecing together this quilt-o-love where every tribe and nation are a rainbow of all the people of the world, joined together hand in hand as one. It robs the ability to celebrate culture and showcase the differences within cultural traditions. I'm not saying you have to divide a color for each set of people, but the way they are doing things now, it just feels so purposed, like they're checking racial inclusion boxes to ensure everyone is represented. I also don't like the whole "women power" ethics. Only women are magical while the men are just useless waterboys. When one man gets the power of magic, it becomes dark and he's just evil and crazy. This is not equality, it's role reversal. If it wasn't good when men were treating women like useless pounds of flesh, then why is it now ok for women to do it?

Overall, the show is watchable on a lazy weekend when you're looking for something to watch. But I just wouldn't look for too much. This is not your next GOT or Harry Potter. I am hoping season 2 (if there is a season 2) will bring something new to the table and spend more time focusing on character development and good story telling.

Them (2021– )

I'm still trying to figure out WHY?

[3/10 · 28 April 2021]

I am ranking this higher than it should be if it were based upon the show alone. But I would never want to disrespect the actors and their talents in that way, so I gave it 3 stars instead of the 1 that it deserves. Just know that two of those stars are due to the actors and their great efforts in a show that has TROPE written all over it.

I'm not going to go into all the things that I disliked about the show because then I'd just be writing a book called, "THEM- the residual of wokeness that needs a nap." All that I will say is that I really wish that my beautiful black people would stop buying into this level of ignorance because we're so busy trying to feel important in a time when we're acting the most unimportant/ignorant than we ever have before. Meanwhile, the fabric of our culture is being robbed and taken to the cleaners to be bleached out and regurgitated as if it were never ours to begin with.

This show was unnecessary and definitely held no significance that offered me any inspiration, thought provocation or insight to who I am, could be or would like to aspire to. It was like opening deep, old wounds just to see the blood and for no other reason at all.

If you want to spend 10 hours of your life, feeling angry, unwanted, underappreciated and enjoy being exposed to extreme levels of unnecessary trauma and pain, I highly, highly suggest watching this. You will not be disappointed!

Vikings (2013–2020)

Could have been better

[6/10 · 28 April 2021]

I started out the show really excited to see a show that finally told a story of the Vikings, however, I have found myself disappointed by only the second season in.

While it has all of the makings to make it a really interesting and poignant show, they keep resting on the heels of typical and expected storylines. One of the things that made GOT great was it's ability and willingness to tell the story, regardless of who was the audiences favorite and get rid of characters that would normally (like in this show) never be considered for death. It made the show unpredictable and gritty. Vikings however, runs the same storyline with characters who are nearly undefeatable, and tells a one-sided story.

While I don't need the show to be historically accurate in it's storytelling, I would like it to attempt to be accurate in it's depiction of the time it is created in and to not lean on the story telling of past entertainment that allows the chosen main characters to be the only ones who look good.

Of course in this show, the Vikings are always victorious! They come in with their small armies and defeat the "weak, idiotic Christians" who seem to do nothing but sit around in armor pretending to be soldiers yet have no training.

I understood when they were overcoming small and unprepared monasteries, but to continually defeat armies who would have been larger and much more prepared than they depict, is just silly. They don't even give them a good fight. It's like watching the same fight scene over and over again. They have one trick up their sleeve that gets really old, really fast... a shield wall...I mean really? No strategy, no real fighting skill that gives them more advantage above these armies that they defeat, just shield walls.

In order to make the Vikings look good, they continually make their opponents look vulnerable, dumb, weak and unable to fight. In most fighting scenes you pretty much so see their opponents lift a sword... and that's about it. If they have any talent beyond lifting and swinging their swords, you wouldn't know it.

Women are depicted with way more power than women would have ever been given at that time (something that also bothered me in GOT) and act more like women of today, which just would not have been true. There just seemed to be too many modern day ideologies mixed in to accommodate today's overly-emotional and touchy viewers who cry and whine because their modern day belief's are not depicted in a show that takes place in a different time.

This show was definitely on par to be another great period piece that would have knocked viewers out of their seats, but instead they watered it down and used typical "We always win, because we're the baddest mofo's on the block" tropes. I just saw more for it than this. And it felt like a waste of good acting/actors, and it diminished the strength of the Vikings as a people by dumbing down their opponents to make them appear more tough.

Marlon (2017–2018)

I just couldn't get into it fully...

[4/10 · 4 February 2020]

I really like the Wayans, but often times Marlon is too much for me, and this show only made that clear.

There were some really funny parts, but it often felt like he would push it too far or go on for too long. He'd go over the top with his silliness then all of a sudden, at the last two minutes of the episode, he'd be serious! It wouldn't allow the seriousness of the topic to really shine. The kids felt like an afterthought who were just there every once in a while to be background noise. Marlon was so silly, it was hard to see him ever being anyone's father and definitely not married to a woman like Essence Atkins, who came off as really classy and cute. But I didn't think that she was funny. I think Bresha Webb would have actually been better to play his ex wife.

Other than that, it had decent casting and writing I just think Marlon should have toned it down a bit and allowed himself to be more natural. It felt like someone craving attention and doing whatever it takes to get that attention.

Family Reunion (2019–2022)

Not bad, but hopefully it gets better...

[6/10 · 4 February 2020]

This show has some good points and some bad ones. It's definitely a little corny and not hilarious, but it has a good solid base that is trying to bring value back to TV. I don't like the whole "tv set" feel. I'm hoping they advance to more realistic locations for filming. But it offers some lovely nods to classic television shows like Family Matters, Full house and maybe a lower grade Cosby Show with content that has moral standing and values. While still trying to be new and tackle some new age issues.

Casting is weak in some areas with some of the children, and the brother (uncle), but again, I am hoping this is just early season wrinkles that will iron themselves out as they all get more familiar with one another.

I am really rooting for this one because I really like Loretta Devine, Richard Roundtree and Tia Mowry and I see potential. Fingers crossed!

Flip or Flop Vegas (2017– )

Welcome to Pee Wee's Playhouse!

[1/10 · 24 June 2018]

As an interior designer, this show is an absolute insult to our abilities. HGTV already does a poor job of displaying the reality of being an interior designer by glamorizing what we do as nothing more than making things "look pretty" by waving our magic wands and marrying some buff handyman. But this show is like going to the land of unicorns and popsicles. I feel like I'm watching a little girl create the spaces she imagines in her dreams (our nightmares). The cheap, tacky designs she puts together feel like they'll cause night terrors or put you in a comma. She has no focal point, but rather 8 million focal points. Her color spectrum is childish and garish. She is cheap and has extremely poor taste in EVERYTHING! Her poor husband seems like a ready-built hubby-to-go that she winds up so that he nods at all her bad choices and pretends to like whatever crazy idea she throws out. And I don't believe for one minute that these realtors really love her whack-a-doo designs. I've seen too many pained, constipated first reactions before they pretend to like her dollhouses. Feels like they're told to be positive. Shame on you HGTV for being so concerned with having a cutie-pie, cookie cutter couple that you fail to actually look for talent! I am not amused.

Crimson Peak (2015)

Well done...

[9/10 · 19 November 2015]

I don't know if my opinion qualifies considering that I am a big Guillermo del Toro fan so at this point, the man can do no wrong. But honestly, I love his work because it's quality, it horrifying (in a good way) and it's always entertaining. Here, the movie is described best as it begins, it is not a ghost story, but rather a story with a ghost in it. (don't worry I'm not giving anything away) But it is very well done and told thoroughly from beginning to end. Each character is wonderfully enticing and well played by the actors and actresses. There is no horrific gore or overly heightened drama or stupidity, just good old fashioned ghostly story telling. The set and costume design is impeccable and it just makes for good entertainment. I look forward to what Guillermo has coming next!

Blood & Oil (2015)

I'm really diggin' this show...

[8/10 · 19 November 2015]

From the first episode, I was quietly interested. The scenery alone is enough to keep your attention, but add Don Johnson and you've got me!!! It reminds me of "Revenge" (which I loved) in a different setting. I love that it doesn't rush through the plot, but it keeps you interested. The cast seems comfortable and not overly done. Of course, everyone is good- looking (except the ethnic roles, they're average looking of course) but I can't say that I expect any different, that's how most television shows operate. Removing that fact, it's a good show with an interesting plot and good character portrayals. I hope it continues to do well and I look forward to seeing the plot thicken. Hap is a mess and his wife is up to something.... I'm in.

Empire (2015–2020)

Growing into a favorite

[9/10 · 19 November 2015]

Although I liked the first season, I was not as impressed as ratings and reviews posed. I felt the show was catchy at best, but the constant barrage of A-list musical guest appearances seemed gimmicky, while the show seemed to run too quickly through issues that could have had more effect if they were given the proper time to play out. I feared that it would fizzle out quickly due to overly forced agendas and constantly pushing for gasps and "Oh-no-he-didn't" moments. However; then season two came along... and it was as if Lee Daniels had read my mind. The show has since, slowed down and is very interesting, but not in a cliché manner. The overly hyped agendas took their rightful place behind the lines of good story-telling and the music is as good, if not better than it was before, which is hard to achieve because it's always been good! I find myself wondering what certain characters are up to and wanting to see more each week. I'm really excited and happy to be able to support the show, not just out of desire to support my black community but because it really is a good show!!!

Hopes for the future: let Hakeim do more music! He hardly performs this season.

Rosewood (2015–2017)

Typical but engaging and cool...

[8/10 · 19 November 2015]

I will admit, upon watching the trailer, I was skeptical of Rosewood, however, I was interested. I loved seeing Morris Chesnut in a role where he really shines. The fact that he's gorgeous is not relative to his character, an overly optimistic, happy-go-lucky pain in Villa's butt.I didn't feel like that was overly played, some viewers Posed his character as cocky because he mentions himself in quirky ways, but it's actually a play on his sarcastic comedy. The show in and of itself is nothing to write home about, a basic pairing of mixed gender characters with a love/hate relationship (that will more than likely veer into a romantic direction- let us all pray not) who want to avoid admitting the obvious fact that they work well together and are made for each other. This has been done repeatedly and frankly beat over viewers heads when mixed with the typical cop, CSI drama. However, the mixture of Villa and Rosie's characters are nice and their acting both together and individually is growing on me with every episode.I love the positive family atmosphere and feel that all the supporting actors do well with each other and at holding their own. I feel the show is a refreshing break from the dark, high-paced, slapstick comedy, reality hungry barrage of television we've been reduced to. It's clean, it's funny, it's cultural and it's light. That deserves a well done in my book! Personal hopes for the show: they keep Villa's and Rosie's relationship friendly. They bring back Nicole Ari Parker as his love interest (that was a lame excuse for a break up!), they continue to advance the cases they work on to be more interesting.