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Reviews
The Good Doctor: She (2018)
The Good Doctor takes a turn for the worse
This show started out great, with highly intriguing writing and a style that felt like an authentic House 2.0.
Since then we've been bombarded by progressivism laced nonsense dialogue that was completely meaningless to the plot or anything else, and then a sudden and totally unfitting dive into meaningless drama halfway through the season that just made you want to go back to the pilot and wish they didn't screw up something with so much potential.
This is now official, explicit, and overt politicization. People don't turn to entertainment for more political brainwashing and lecturing. This isn't welcome, and this is the final straw for this series.
It's sad to see an entire season of a modern TV show that fails to live up to the pilot. I'll happily remember The Good Doctor as the only TV show that I've ever seen that lasted for a mere single episode.
Dragon Ball Super: Doragon bôru cho (2015)
Super makes GT look good
What's perhaps most disappointing about DB Super is that it actually has the potential to be good, in fact very little would have to change, and this just shows the sheer apathy that the authors have for this series today.
Things held as canon for decades are dismissed as if Zeno is the writer spending mere seconds on each episode's "plot". The things we've held dear for this entire time, character development, growth, and any real danger are completely absent or intentionally paved over. This series seems like it should've been named "Dragon Ball Fan Service".
I started listing all the terrible things about DB Super and when I hit about 40 I realized I had skipped most of the problems, so really I don't think I can even enumerate just how bad this show is. It has some okay animation and some decent music, in some spots. That's it. That's not enough to save it. The fights are all THE EXACT SAME, nothing original, nothing unique, no build up, no suspense, no consequences.
Dragon Ball GT was far better than this.
Ribrianne's existence is sufficient to give this show a 1 star rating. Ribrianne is also far from even the top 10 worst things about Super.
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
Terrible even on its own merits.
The most obvious thing to point out about this show is that it is not Star Trek. Nothing about it is Star Trek. If you just changed the names of things, it would resemble no Star Trek episode or movie ever made. The Orville started off as an apparent parody and comedy inspired by Star Trek but has transitioned fairly well into a proper Star Trek homage, the comedy is more subdued and the stories and character development more impactful like you'd expect on Star Trek. If you're looking for a "new" Star Trek, go watch that.
But even if you were to consider what this show is, without letting the fact that it's pretending to be Star Trek yet besmirching that name color your review, this show is utterly terrible in every facet. The "enemy" is uninspired, the combat is inexplicable, there is no real tension. It has obvious and needless political messaging everywhere, which are always bad signs in a show unless it's parody, and this isn't a comedy. The story is weak. The acting is weak. Then let's get into the awe inspiring stupidity that reveals that this is just a means to "show off" and spend money.
The cinematography in this series is atrocious. Perhaps among the worst I've ever seen. It's certainly possible to do worse than a neutral cheaply made indie shot. The shots in this series are routinely painful to watch. There are lens flares everywhere which makes no sense given the contrast this implies would cause serious eye strain on those on the ship. And lens flares THROUGH the screen? And this "screen" that's a window but really it's a screen? How about the lighting on this ship. We're at a binary star so let's "2017" it up and show all the light in the scenes coming from the star system for dramatic effect -- so if we were at warp this ship would be nearly pitch black. EM waves vibrating a ship? CAMERA SHAKE IN SPACE, WHILE NOTHING IS HAPPENING? Constant. Jump. Cuts. EVERYWHERE. And camera angles at 30 degrees because WHY? The weapons fire looks like something I could cook up in mspaint and not at all menacing.
There are dozens of serious oversights and errors in the first two episodes alone, and that's accompanying the cinematography that just aims to be "original" or something. Why would a beacon be lit sending signals IN ALL DIRECTIONS if all the ships are going to warp in from the *SAME EXACT DIRECTION*.. and even worse, through the binary star formation? Through the accretion disk? ???? This first officer has served for 7 years under the same captain and is yet shown to be CONSTANTLY insubordinate and hostile, showing no trust and no apparent connection at all. Yes, we can't see people from orbit, but we can see that drawing in sand THROUGH A STORM CLOUD. It's apparent not a single thought was given to anything in this show. Nothing is consistent, everything is absurd.
I'd give this show a 2/10 if I even enjoyed a second of it, and I'm even willing to look past the obvious lie that is calling itself a Star Trek, but that's too generous. This is the worst TV show I have ever seen.
Suburbicon (2017)
A badly written propaganda piece disguised as "entertainment"
Something important to note is that trailers of this film completely mislead the viewer. The previews like to pretend like there's some kind of story here, but in reality there is no story. You're being sold mostly anti-white anti-"alt-right" propaganda thinly veiled as "entertainment." There is no direction here. I wish I could blame this on one person, but there's little in this movie that wasn't awful. Nothing of it is salvageable. If you are thinking of watching this because you watched a trailer, don't. You're being sold something that doesn't exist.
The part of the story involving Gardner's plot to murder his wife and run off with his lover and the insurance money is full of loose threads and completely transparent plot devices (the uncle, for instance). Overall it's very badly written and nonsensical. What this movie seems to be, primarily, is an exaggerated and excessively pessimistic view of the 1950s, particularly the so-called "white flight." The ultimate claim of the movie is that this town, Suburbicon, is so obsessed with their own racism that even the most horrendous acts of crime you can imagine committed by whites are ignored compared to the presence of a single black family moving into town.
As part of this movie, Suburbicon is a town created by whites for whites to get away from blacks during the civil rights movement when integration began being forced by the government. The movie is full of pot shots taken at this, and full of overt acts of racism hidden behind masks of "I'm not racist", including a scene at a market where just because a woman is black she is effectively forbidden from shopping, a scene which does not have any impact on any other part of the movie, further telling us just exactly what this movie is. When by all appearances an upstanding black family moves into town, everyone seems outraged. A murder happens next door to this black family, yet receives almost no media attention, and there are no real witnesses despite there being plenty of people gathered around the black family's home. Later, there is a murder on the street next to a riot at the black family's home, mere feet away from hundreds of people and multiple police officers (who all remain oblivious), followed by a man breaking in, murdering Gardner's lover, stabbing Gardner's brother in law who then manages to shoot the murderer twice, followed by Gardner accidentally killing himself. In addition to this, the other killer dies in head-on a collision with a fire truck. The next day, the press is gathered around the black family's home, showing the damage of the previous night's riot: a burned car, trash cans, and a broken window with a confederate flag hung in it (the ultimate virtue signal there, Hollywood, thanks for that). The press does not interview the black family, but a bunch of white residents of homes nearby, and they place blame for everything that has happened on the black family's arrival. No real questions of the things that went down the night before just next door are asked.
I get what this movie was. The real story was the view of the 1950s, meant as a modern-day critique of white nationalists by exaggerating the negative parts of the country's past. That's why the story involving Gardner is so absurd and full of holes, it's not meant to matter. That's why this movie is sold as something completely different from what it is. This racism angle is not present in the trailers. The movie you're expecting is the one involving Gardner. You were fooled into watching poorly written and even more poorly executed propaganda against the history of the US and the modern day alt-right. The alt-right is a fringe minority that disagrees with the center left, right, libertarians, progressives, and even hardcore conservatives. This is an unwanted screed against a group that garners no mainstream support. It's hardly a film. Do not watch this utter crap. It's not entertaining, and if I wanted progressive propaganda, I'd just turn on CNN or watch Vox/BuzzFeed videos on YouTube.
This is why Hollywood is in decline. I can't even believe anyone put their name on this steaming pile of garbage. The direction was bad. The editing was bad. The writing was bad. The story.. well there is no story. The acting wasn't even good considering the talent involved. Just.. no. There is nothing here you want. Nothing. If you have a ticket, get a refund.