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thomasibach
Reviews
Superman: Solar (2023)
One of the worst things ever made
The people rating this utter garbage 10/10...come on. Looks like something Doug walker would make. Absolutely nothing redeemable, basically unwatchable. The only people praising this movie I imagine are doing it for some external culture war reasons I don't understand or care about. Go watch a Superman themed porno, I imagine the budget would be roughly the same with a much better script.
If you're really invested in the people who made this crap and want them to be successful despite their lack of talent or abilities, go ahead and lie to yourself and pretend this is watchable, let alone good. Just don't lie to others and act like this isn't objectively poor quality.
Better Call Saul: Saul Gone (2022)
Tragic masterpiece
This episode is not the breaking bad finale. This isn't a crowd pleaser, it doesn't end with a shootout or a heroic sacrifice. It ends with Saul Goodman, the character jimmy has turned himself into, finally being shed, and him deciding, for the first time in his life, to be honest with himself.
A reoccurring theme in this episode is regret, namely, what mistakes in the past would we want to go back and correct. We see the regrets of Mike, of Kim, of (spoilers) Walt, yet the one character who consistently avoids confronting his mistakes is Saul. With his back against the wall and facing life in prison, he quickly figures a way out. He realizes he can get off easily. He's about to take the easy road, just lie on the stand, and yet, he knows he'll have nothing left for him when he does. Kim had long since abandoned him. Chuck is dead and it's his fault. Howard is dead and it's his fault. He makes the one choice he never had before; he doesn't take the easy way out. He faces up to what he's done, and sheds the name "Saul Goodman".
Much like the title suggests, Saul is now gone for good, and all that's left is Jimmy McGill, rotting in prison for the rest of his life. It's incredibly bittersweet, knowing that Kim has forgiven him, but knowing they'll never live a happy life together after what they've done. But it's an incredible way to end things, even if it won't satisfy some more casual viewers.
Better Call Saul: Nippy (2022)
Gene pulls off a scheme
"Gene" decides to pull off a slippin Jimmy scheme in order to get Jeff off his back. That's the episode. Is it entertaining? I guess. Is it a bizarre departure from what direction the show has been going? Yep. It's not the type of episode that typically is at the end of a television drama, especially one like this. By this point in breaking bad, hank was confronting Walt in the desert in order to finally arrest him only to get into a standoff with neo-nazis. Just for comparisonson
It was pretty blatant the show had to do a timejump soon in order to get to the gene timeline. I'm glad they didn't bother with a gradual montage and just cut straight to it, but man does it kill the momentum. I mean does anyone actually care about whether Jeff blackmails gene or not? It seemed when they introduced that two years ago it was supposed to be open ended, and when they actually had to follow through and resolve that plot thread they just wanted to get it over with and dedicate an episode to gene doing a Slippin Jimmy style scheme. Only it's not really clever or anything, he honestly could've been caught a dozen times or pulled off something far less risky with Jeff that would've had the same effect. It's pretty weak.
The best thing about the show right now is that with the Jeff storyline out of the way the show is completely open to do whatever now, so we have three episodes left to see how this all ends up. This one isn't gonna go down in anyones best list though.
Better Call Saul: Point and Shoot (2022)
Spoiler Free since jerks are posting (mostly fake) spoilers
Like the end of last season, this episode continues a trend of raising the stakes, which, if you saw the last episode, you'd know is difficult to do. The opening let's you know what you're in for.
For nearly an hour and ten minutes the audience is under duress seeing saul and Kim being put in a catastrophic position, having them follow the well kept secret that is lalos masterplan while being involved directly in the war between gus and the not-dead lalo Salamanca. "Point and shoot" has gone passed the point of no return.
During my original viewing of this episode, I was initially curious as to where Kim's development ends up, since this takes the character to someplace completely unexpected.
Better Call Saul: Black and Blue (2022)
Writing has noticeably regressed
I hate to admit it, as I'm one of the fans who is consistently amazed by how good the writing is on Vince gilligan shows, but this season feels off. There were early signs that I thought were forgivable, Gus's plan at the beginning of the season was stupid, Saul and Kim were doing blatantly obvious schemes in public where they could easily be recognized, etc. But I assumed those were intentional choices. But this episode is just...really making me wonder if anything was thought through or if this season was just rushed due to COVID.
Gus is paranoid about Lalo. We get it. We don't need five scenes demonstrating that. We also don't need gus hiding his weapon in the meth lab. We know that there's inevitably going to be a showdown with lalo there at the end of the season, because they've been so unsubtly foreshadowing it. It's really bad when I feel like the average fan can probably guess most of what's going to happen 5 episodes in.
The boxing ring scene, where Howard challenged Saul to a boxing match to settle their differences, is just bizarre. Doesn't seem like something the character would do but I guess it was supposed to be funny. The show is clearly trying to set up something horrible for the mid season finale, possibly something going wrong in Jim and kimmys plan that results in something significant, possibly the death of Howard. Usually the writing isn't this on the nose.
Lalo being in Germany was a popular fan theory, and I'm sorry, but it was just really dumb both in theory in execution. A man wanted internationally for murder can just fly to Germany on a whim? I get they treat Mexico as a lawless state and that may be true to a degree, but can someone please explain how the hell he tracks down Werner's wife based on knowing nothing more than his name? It doesn't seem like Werner Ziegler would be an uncommon name and he doesn't know anything else about him other than the fact that he was German. This is never explained, and I don't think it ever will be. I think it's obvious the writers just had to get from point A to B. It's obvious, just disappointing, and I really hope I'm wrong.
Better Call Saul: Rock and Hard Place (2022)
Spoiler free review
Not only a great episode, but a great tribute. Even after the first two episodes, which were good but could be seen as lacking for those expecting a heart stopping pace, I was sure this would deliver. Of course it's not without its faults.
Despite what many would consider to be a copout, I felt the way they handled a character in this episode was fitting to their arc, although I'm very sad to see the bittersweet payoff.
The Batman (2022)
Decent. Way overhyped
Not really sure why this movie is getting rapturous praise by audience scores. It's alright. Pales in comparison to the Nolan films, which were far more tightly focused and had superior characters. Not that this Batman film is bad, it's the best live action Batman movie in ten years, which given the movies in between isn't saying that much. Robert Pattinson doesn't bother playing Bruce Wayne, he's essentially Batman at all times, which is fine, but it does make his rare Bruce Wayne scenes suffer.
This detective Gordon is just a gruff but honest cop, to such a fault it's almost parody. It's less compelling than the Gary oldman version, which wouldn't matter except for the fact that he's got probably the second most screen time in the movie. Catwoman is fine, but she's not really any better than previous versions.
The beginning of this movie is great, the riddler is genuinely compelling, at least until the end where he just becomes over the top crazy. Speaking of which, the ending conflict comes out of nowhere and was clearly just there so the movie would have an actual climax. It wouldn't have felt like padding except for the fact that the movie is ungodly long. It did not need to be 3 hours. That alone makes rewatching this a chore, which it probably wouldn't be if Bruce Wayne were remotely interesting.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Gang's Still in Ireland (2021)
They're back
Feels like a return to form to classic sunny. Tons of great jokes, great character driven situational jokes. They actually set things up in the beginning of the episode that pay off at the end. I think they put a lot more work into this two partner than they have in a while. The one thing that never gets followed up on is Dee's actress storyline, which I assume was just an excuse to have them get to Ireland.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Gang Buys a Roller Rink (2021)
Surprised people are as low on this as they are
This episode is perfectly fine, honestly feels like something they would've done in the early seasons. The gang doesn't waste as much time with obnoxious meta commentary, most of the jokes come from the actual characters themselves, and there's good references to how the characters used to act early in the shows run. The botched drug deal and having Dennis eager to hang out with his dad only to watch frank have sex with prostitutes were great jokes. I don't get the negativity here.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 7 (2021)
Better than the first one, but...
This episode is better than episode one, but it has the exact same problem that iasip has had for years now, which is the over reliance on meta humor. Just because you're capable of being self aware doesn't mean that being self aware is automatically funny. In fact it usually means you're substituting in references where actually jokes should be. The gang feels less and less like characters and more like the writers attempting to acknowledge the state of the world around them, and while that's fine in stand up comedy, it doesn't work for a scripted sitcom. Then they add in a scene of Dennis only doing all this weird meta commentary because he wants to get laid, and fair enough since that's his character, but it definitely doesn't make sense for the rest of the gang. The only funny jokes throughout the episode either involved the guest appearances or frank being his usual self, pretty much everything else was unfunny meta commentary.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: 2020: A Year In Review (2021)
Too obvious
Unlike a lot of the people reviewing this, I don't have a problem with political comedy or even dated political comedy, my problem with this episode is that every joke is insanely obvious. There's almost seven full minutes dedicated to the Rudy Giuliani hair dye incident, and it's blatant from the first mention of hair dye that that's exactly what the joke would be. I mean was it even that funny to begin with? The gang keeps making references to voting for trump, only to have it revealed, in again, incredibly forced fashion, that they voted for Kanye. That's the joke that they milk for half the episode. It genuinely feels like they had a couple ideas for jokes and just wrote an episode to go along with it, with nothing of substance in between. It just felt lazy.
Rick and Morty: Rickmurai Jack (2021)
Holy ****
Well the fans finally got what they wanted. Kinda wish the writers would stop bait and switching, but this really was an incredible cliffhanger to end on.
Rick and Morty: Amortycan Grickfitti (2021)
Solid
Decent return to form after the two least funny episodes in the series. The car was a nice returning character that was pretty funny, Rick felt like Rick again, although the hell subplot was a little overwritten. At least this episode made an attempt at good situational humor instead of relying on gross out like last week's garbage fire. Definitely not their best, but still felt like Rick and morty, which the show often doesn't in this latest season.
Rick and Morty: Rickdependence Spray (2021)
Another swing and a miss
Last weeks Rick and Morty was pretty unfunny, particularly by Ricky and Morty standards, but had enough (in my opinion, forced) drama that earned it some praise. This episode goes completely for the comedy, and just like last week, nearly every joke falls flat. The intro is great, it sets up the premise really well and makes it seem like it'll be another vat of acid style episode with morty's selfishness being exploited by Rick for a long con. But nope. It's all about Morty creating a race of weird sperm monsters and the government having to kill it. Is it a funny premise? Not really. Does it make up for it with good jokes? Nope.
Honestly the only funny part in this was the end goal of preventing a giant incest baby, the rest was just overwritten jokes that didn't land. There's a ninja type marine who wears his fake supermodel wife's thong? Ok? And then at the end it turns out his wife was real? Did I miss something or is that seriously the joke? Beth and summer are bad because women don't get respect. Ok, sure. Is there any comedy to be had from that? Nope. This show is great because of its humor, yet for the second straight episode the writing was flat out unfunny. Maybe if you think the gross out concept of giant living sperm is a good one you might have a laugh, but that gets old really quick. What you're left with is another bad episode.
Rick and Morty: A Rickconvenient Mort (2021)
Meh.
Not particularly clever or funny, the twist that planetina was a psychopath managed to be both super expected and came out of nowhere, Rick was extremely out of character the whole episode. This was written by a new writer and it shows, the drop in quality from the previous two episodes to this one is massive. It's still Rick and morty so it has some funny lines here and there but this episode can easily be skipped.