Change Your Image
mofolotopo
Reviews
Jigeum uri hakgyoneun (2022)
Cool setting, good performances, garbage writing
I really liked the first few episodes of this show, and throughout it I continued to think the setting was great and the performances ranged from good to great. The writing, though, is just the laziest, hackiest garbage imaginable. It basically requires every single character to do the dumbest possible thing at any given time, with little to any justification, just so the showrunners can get to another set piece or action scene. That's lazy writing and the rest of the show (and the audience) deserves better.
Super Drags (2018)
Absolutely awful
Just horribly written and cringe-inducingly unfunny. It's also very actively promoting a very regressive and arguably problematic picture of gay people, and of drag. Within the first few minutes of the first episode one of the drag queens grabs the crotch of an unconscious man that she KNOWS would not have consented, and then lets a terrorist go after he tried to murder a bunch of people because he was handsome. I'm not an easily offended person and it's not like I was traumatized by any of that, but ffs you can only go to that sort of length if it's actually in support of something really, really funny. To have it pop up somewhere that is so absolutely devoid of laughs really just highlights how gross it is.
To the people who made this show: you're better than this. If you're not better than this, please step aside and leave this stuff to someone who is.
War of the Worlds (2005)
Great movie ruined by a stupid ending
Up until the last two minutes of the movie, this was one of the best science fiction movies I'd seen in a long time. The ending was absolutely horrible, and I'm not talking about the fact that the aliens were wiped out by viruses/bacteria. That's in the original, and is exactly what I expected. I'm talking about the fact that Tom Cruise's character makes it to Boston and finds his entire extended family alive and looking as if they just got done with tea, despite the overwhelming improbability of ANY of them making it through alive. I felt like this was an insult to my intelligence, but when his kid, who absolutely COULD NOT have survived running unarmed towards a bunch of alien ships that were killing people by the thousands, mysteriously showed up alive and in Boston. It completely ruined the gravitas that was so well established by the rest of the movie. This ending felt like a personal insult. I felt like Spielberg must have a pretty damn low opinion of his audience to tack on an improbable, stupid happy ending that makes no sense.
This movie would have gone down as one of my favorite science fiction movies of recent years, had the ending not ruined it all.
Battlestar Galactica (2004)
What good sci fi should be!
I've been a sci fi fan since I was a kid, and I've watched pretty much every major television science fiction television show in the last forty years. This is the FIRST one that I felt truly lived up to the promise of sci fi.
I've seen a considerable amount of whining from people who are upset that this isn't like the old show. That's entirely ture; the original show was the lowest form of infantile dreck masquerading as science fiction, transparently designed to sell toys to five year olds. I should know, I was one of those five year olds and I bought those toys. I loved the original BSG when it was out, because I was in its target audience. What I can't fathom is how an adult can look back at that show with anything other than a rueful shake of the head at the kind of garbage that you can get kids to watch.
The new BSG, on the other hand, is what science fiction SHOULD be; it's a very carefully plotted adult drama about human beings put into an extraordinary situation. That's the true value of science fiction - it allows human beings to be put into stories that can't be told any other way. Complaining about the rarity of dogfights and flashy gizmos in the newer version is like going to the symphony and complaining that there was no guitar solo; it makes it patently obvious that you JUST DON'T GET IT. If the silly little trappings of sci fi are the only thing you understand about it, that's fine. Just go watch The Last Starfighter or something and stop complaining while the grownups are watching TV.
Solaris (2002)
What science fiction should be
This movie is a perfect example of how science fiction should be done. It constructs a situation which makes us question our ideas about reality, and about what it means to be human. It's a shame so many moviegoers here and elsewhere seem to equate good sci fi with action/adventure; we miss out on a lot of great stories like this because Hollywood thinks they can't sell science fiction without boobs and explosions.