I dunno, I think the whole thing is just tainted by the human incarnation of damp cardboard that is the main character. I hope to god if they make 7 they start from scratch instead of rehashing the same garbage group for the third time in a row. Everyone feels so one dimensional, you can literally sum every character up in less than a full sentence. At least Sidney was likable and had a personality beyond permanent resting-sulky-face, and even she had a different cast around her each time. Honestly, why bother getting in Courtney Cox, Hayden Panettiere and Samara Weaving for bit parts when you're gonna have the queen of bland on screen 90% of the time. The faster they kill off this Sam loser, the better.
Reviews
27 Reviews
M3GAN
(2022)
Absolute trash
3 August 2023
If you've seen the trailer for this, you've seen the whole movie. It's so stupidly unimaginative. Ever seen Child's Play? Yeah it's that but replace voodoo possession with AI.
This is the film equivalent of the garbage, heartless mascot horror genre of games.
The technology is on the level of "it's just magic, cos AI." There's no reason she can magically tap into everything electrical around her, from controlling a house to running a car wirelessly.
Why does she randomly dance in a tense moment? Because they thought it would look good for the trailer.
Why does she randomly break into a song? Because "hAhA i Am TiTaNiUm!!1!" and they thought it would look good in the trailer.
Why does her voice become randomly more robotic whenever she's doing something evil? Plot convenience.
Save yourself the time and skip this overhyped garbage.
This is the film equivalent of the garbage, heartless mascot horror genre of games.
The technology is on the level of "it's just magic, cos AI." There's no reason she can magically tap into everything electrical around her, from controlling a house to running a car wirelessly.
Why does she randomly dance in a tense moment? Because they thought it would look good for the trailer.
Why does she randomly break into a song? Because "hAhA i Am TiTaNiUm!!1!" and they thought it would look good in the trailer.
Why does her voice become randomly more robotic whenever she's doing something evil? Plot convenience.
Save yourself the time and skip this overhyped garbage.
Orphan: First Kill
(2022)
Not a brilliant follow up to the original
9 May 2023
The first Orphan was great. The biggest thing was what a strange story it was and how hard the twist hit.
That's missing when you watch a prequel and it's all already known. On top of that it's the same character, so while there's 'threats,' you know by the end of it she MUST be completely fine to go off and do the events of the first movie.
It had a decent spin to the story, but not one that was unforseeable. They weirdly tried to shoe-horn in a very similar plotline with the father to what happened in the original, but spent so much time focusing on the mother and brother that there didn't seem to be any development of that relationship and it kind of just got tacked on as an afterthought in the final minutes.
That's missing when you watch a prequel and it's all already known. On top of that it's the same character, so while there's 'threats,' you know by the end of it she MUST be completely fine to go off and do the events of the first movie.
It had a decent spin to the story, but not one that was unforseeable. They weirdly tried to shoe-horn in a very similar plotline with the father to what happened in the original, but spent so much time focusing on the mother and brother that there didn't seem to be any development of that relationship and it kind of just got tacked on as an afterthought in the final minutes.
X
(II) (2022)
Awful pacing, unimaginative kills, stupid story.
7 May 2023
Warning: Spoilers
It's a trope that slashers have some aspect of sex in them, sure, but the entire first hour of this pos is just the result of a horny director who wanteed to make porn but also wants to pretend they're making a legit movie to their friends. So they filmed bad porn and then tacked 40 mins of slasher on the end.
A solid hour of just "look she STILL has her tits out" and "let's have another group discussion about the morals of dating a porn star," followed by a kill scene set to the most cliched song to ever be in a kill scene.
I get that there's some stupid nonsensical lookalike story going on with a girl and the old woman, but every time she moves in tense moments and a big rubber mask is bending in unnatural ways it pulls you right out of the immersion.
The pacing is all over the place. Some scenes just go on for way too long for basically no additional payoff. Like yes, the killer is obviously emotional, but I got that from the first 10 stabs, and the next 20 just had me waiting for it to be over. Some scenes are way too blunt, having a person wander into an area and get killed in about 1 min flat.
There's very little imagination in the kill scenes, which may have flown in the decade it's set, but we've had decades of slashers and can expect a bit more these days than someone blatantly holding a knife behind their back stabbing someone. I really hope nobody lost any sleep trying to write that scene.
A solid hour of just "look she STILL has her tits out" and "let's have another group discussion about the morals of dating a porn star," followed by a kill scene set to the most cliched song to ever be in a kill scene.
I get that there's some stupid nonsensical lookalike story going on with a girl and the old woman, but every time she moves in tense moments and a big rubber mask is bending in unnatural ways it pulls you right out of the immersion.
The pacing is all over the place. Some scenes just go on for way too long for basically no additional payoff. Like yes, the killer is obviously emotional, but I got that from the first 10 stabs, and the next 20 just had me waiting for it to be over. Some scenes are way too blunt, having a person wander into an area and get killed in about 1 min flat.
There's very little imagination in the kill scenes, which may have flown in the decade it's set, but we've had decades of slashers and can expect a bit more these days than someone blatantly holding a knife behind their back stabbing someone. I really hope nobody lost any sleep trying to write that scene.
Lookism
(2022– )
It's just a few hours of cruelty.
11 December 2022
Warning: Spoilers
It goes absolutely nowhere. There's no morals, no progression, just the constant blunt message of "people are awful to ugly people."
The same fat character get beaten up 6 times in the same alley in the same way for the same petty reasons. Even when the ugly characters do great things, everyone pushes them aside and look past them to the main character in his new, hot body.
Like 1-2 bullies stop bullying some characters, but they aren't nice to them, they don't talk to them or act friendly, they just start pitying them and step in to help ONLY when hot MC already has.
Really the only people in the series who are genuinely nice to ugly people are the other ugly people, or an ugly person who got a hot alternate body.
Honestly it sets itself up as a heartfelt series that will show how people grow to accept people on more than their looks, then just spends 3-4 hours dunking on ugly characters mercilessly.
The same fat character get beaten up 6 times in the same alley in the same way for the same petty reasons. Even when the ugly characters do great things, everyone pushes them aside and look past them to the main character in his new, hot body.
Like 1-2 bullies stop bullying some characters, but they aren't nice to them, they don't talk to them or act friendly, they just start pitying them and step in to help ONLY when hot MC already has.
Really the only people in the series who are genuinely nice to ugly people are the other ugly people, or an ugly person who got a hot alternate body.
Honestly it sets itself up as a heartfelt series that will show how people grow to accept people on more than their looks, then just spends 3-4 hours dunking on ugly characters mercilessly.
Game Changer
(II) (2019– )
Really, really mixed bag
15 September 2022
Just started binging this, and there are some genuinely really funny episodes. Not generally a huge fan of improv comedy but it's sort of constrained enough that it all sort of fits and is funny.
My biggest issue is that most (or all) of the contestants and the host are ex-collegehumour employees who all clearly know each other fairly well. That's not an issue in and of itself, but when entire episodes are heavily reliant on in-jokes and knowing about the lives of these people ahead of time, they just aren't engaging or funny.
I've legitimately never heard of any contestant so far, and I'm paused on the first episode of season 3. The 'game' of season 3? Guess who the mystery person is. Not a celebrity, not a well known person that the viewer has a chance of knowing. Just some random person who made youtube skits for 10 year olds a while ago.
Who is that for? It's a bunch of in-jokes and details about people who nobody knows. It's like listening to a podcast by a bunch of random strangers talking about what they did in their week, why would anyone care?
So there are some seriously great episodes, but there are definitely some that can either be skipped with literally no loss or can be turned off halfway when it becomes "guess which food that one guy we know likes!"
My biggest issue is that most (or all) of the contestants and the host are ex-collegehumour employees who all clearly know each other fairly well. That's not an issue in and of itself, but when entire episodes are heavily reliant on in-jokes and knowing about the lives of these people ahead of time, they just aren't engaging or funny.
I've legitimately never heard of any contestant so far, and I'm paused on the first episode of season 3. The 'game' of season 3? Guess who the mystery person is. Not a celebrity, not a well known person that the viewer has a chance of knowing. Just some random person who made youtube skits for 10 year olds a while ago.
Who is that for? It's a bunch of in-jokes and details about people who nobody knows. It's like listening to a podcast by a bunch of random strangers talking about what they did in their week, why would anyone care?
So there are some seriously great episodes, but there are definitely some that can either be skipped with literally no loss or can be turned off halfway when it becomes "guess which food that one guy we know likes!"
Choose or Die
(2022)
Utter mediocrity, bad effects
21 April 2022
There were a couple of good moments, but overall just a super underwhelming movie.
The opening scene sets up that the game can force horrendous gory situations to occur in real life, which is a good hook, but through the movie the choices we actually see consists of:
8-bit game versions of what's happening.
Terrible CGI deaths that makes no sense except for the sake of making the main character make a nonsense choice.
A final 'fight' where the choice also seems to make no sense nor difference to the outcome.
All the setup for horror scenes is there, but then they wimp out on actually making them satisfying.
I've seen the "A or B choice that affects reality" idea done before and time and time again they seem to ditch meaningful choices early for "just insert any choice where either option will progress the story in the same way."
Oh, and don't forget, it's Netflix, so of course there's a shoe-horned in white guy ranting that white guys aren't allowed to be the hero of stories any more. Can't have a horror flick without pushing political agenda.
Also whoever paid for their awful spoken word poetry to be put in a movie instead of a soundtrack should be ashamed.
The opening scene sets up that the game can force horrendous gory situations to occur in real life, which is a good hook, but through the movie the choices we actually see consists of:
8-bit game versions of what's happening.
Terrible CGI deaths that makes no sense except for the sake of making the main character make a nonsense choice.
A final 'fight' where the choice also seems to make no sense nor difference to the outcome.
All the setup for horror scenes is there, but then they wimp out on actually making them satisfying.
I've seen the "A or B choice that affects reality" idea done before and time and time again they seem to ditch meaningful choices early for "just insert any choice where either option will progress the story in the same way."
Oh, and don't forget, it's Netflix, so of course there's a shoe-horned in white guy ranting that white guys aren't allowed to be the hero of stories any more. Can't have a horror flick without pushing political agenda.
Also whoever paid for their awful spoken word poetry to be put in a movie instead of a soundtrack should be ashamed.
Zumbo's Just Desserts
(2016–2020)
A competition show needs at least one likable person
25 December 2021
From the host, Adriano Zumbo, who has the personality and charisma of a brick, to the female judges who just seem to be cast to be mean generally mean, to the contestant who are all just begging for a smack, nobody on this show is likable.
There's plenty of cooking competitions out there that don't have you yelling "please just shut up" at the screen.
The challenges are as bland as the people on the show, and the levels of creativity are at an all time low. One person in the second season spent a whole 30 minutes just saying how daring it was to use lavendar, and hoping she didn't use too much. That was the only thing that happened all episode.
There's plenty of cooking competitions out there that don't have you yelling "please just shut up" at the screen.
The challenges are as bland as the people on the show, and the levels of creativity are at an all time low. One person in the second season spent a whole 30 minutes just saying how daring it was to use lavendar, and hoping she didn't use too much. That was the only thing that happened all episode.
Old
(2021)
A magic beach makes people lose years, and viewers lose hours
15 October 2021
This movie went about twice as long as it needed to. It took SO LONG to even get to the beach and then very, very slowly progressed the story of them working out what was happening. There were only a few key moments through the movie that were exciting and everything else was so drawn out and stale.
Baking Impossible
(2021)
Lots of build-up, not much payoff.
15 October 2021
Most of the challenges were decent, requiring thought and solid design to get through, some were just boring like the clothes one.
The host is that super obnoxious guy that made 'magic for humans' unwatchable. The judges consist of that one annoying contestant from 'the great british bake off' who says "BAKINEERING" literally every other word to the point where you want to smack him one before the first episode's even over. The main food judge doesn't have a single nice word to say through the entire series. The engineering judge is king of pointing out the glaringly obvious. The contestants are forgettable at best.
I feel like they miss the point of making things "edible." Like yes, technically you can eat sausage casings, but reusing them about 6 times across 8 challenges as just massive lengths of pig-intestine rope isn't really the same as making something "edible." Similarly the use of literally any food crushed and broken up and set in chocolate to make "concrete" isn't all that impressive. Like you could probably use inedible materials at that point because nobody's going to put that near their mouths. Also, it's glaringly obvious that of the 20 different people who used the word "epoxy," none of them know what epoxy is.
The host is that super obnoxious guy that made 'magic for humans' unwatchable. The judges consist of that one annoying contestant from 'the great british bake off' who says "BAKINEERING" literally every other word to the point where you want to smack him one before the first episode's even over. The main food judge doesn't have a single nice word to say through the entire series. The engineering judge is king of pointing out the glaringly obvious. The contestants are forgettable at best.
I feel like they miss the point of making things "edible." Like yes, technically you can eat sausage casings, but reusing them about 6 times across 8 challenges as just massive lengths of pig-intestine rope isn't really the same as making something "edible." Similarly the use of literally any food crushed and broken up and set in chocolate to make "concrete" isn't all that impressive. Like you could probably use inedible materials at that point because nobody's going to put that near their mouths. Also, it's glaringly obvious that of the 20 different people who used the word "epoxy," none of them know what epoxy is.
The extended cut is a whole lot better
5 October 2021
Warning: Spoilers
The extended version cuts out the "that character just didn't die" story, as well as her daughter being held hostage and replaces it with what was clearly intended as the real story, indicated by lots of the details of the rooms.
I mean they're not brilliant movies, but they're entertaining and the room designs are cool, if fallible. It's just that the story is so much better than the theatrical cut.
I mean they're not brilliant movies, but they're entertaining and the room designs are cool, if fallible. It's just that the story is so much better than the theatrical cut.
Metal Shop Masters
(2021– )
Good show, super disappointing decision making
17 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Why in the hell does the entire finale build hinge upon using assistants who, for one contestant, turned out to be absolute morons who wrecked his whole build and put stuff on backwards.
It came down, not to who was a better metal worker, but who lucked out and got the better assistants.
It came down, not to who was a better metal worker, but who lucked out and got the better assistants.
Dota: Dragon's Blood
(2021–2022)
Decent start, but nothing groundbreaking.
25 March 2021
Huge fan of Dota and it's lore. This was a decent adaptation but all round was generally overhyped. It's difficult to root for anyone, especially coming in with pre-formed opinions on characters. Most of the people meant to be the villains of the series were characters I particularly like, whereas some of the main protagonists were absolute nobodies who I couldn't care less about. It's all shades of grey too, most of the cast do awful things in the names of their people and it's difficult to like characters who cause wars for selfish reasons. For being "Dragon's Blood," Dragon Knight's story really ended after episode 1 and then he just becomes secondary to Mirana, Luna and Fyrmyr's story of the Elf civil war. There wasn't a whole lot of coherent reasoning that anybody did anything, there really wasn't much of a conclusion to anything either. It's obviously aimed at a season 2, but if it keeps following these same characters I can't see it staying out of the realm of "bland" for long, which would be a pity considering the many different facets of dota lore that can be explored, and hundreds of other characters with their own stories to tell. So if you like the game, it's worth the watch, but it's definitely nothing groundbreaking.
Best Leftovers Ever!
(2020)
Solid show, far from the best.
1 January 2021
Running on the premise of taking leftover food and completely reinventing them into a new meal is cool.
Personally I think the structure needs work, both rounds are essentially identical with the slight variation of all using the same ingredients in round 1, and all using the same THEMED ingredients in round 2. There's no real structure to judging. In shows like Nailed It, winning round 1 gives an advantage in round 2 where the overall winner is decided. In this they just do both rounds then call a winner. It's particularly flawed when one person does excellent in the first and another in the second, and they just pick one seemingly at random.
I wish there were stricter rules. Part of the fun of giving contestants weird ingredients is seeing them use it. In this they're given up to 4 different cooked dishes to start with, but they choose what they use and it's boring to see some people only using 1 of the ingredients and not really participating in the gimmick of the show, as well as certain weird dishes just get left out by every contestant. I'd rather see LESS ingredients that they MUST use, than a bunch of stuff that they can pick and choose from.
I don't think anyone needs Jackie Tohn-Deaf's singing at the end of each episode, nor intermittantly throughout, and her 'songwriting' might as well be done by a 5 year old. She's a pretty brash personality on a show like this. David So was pretty bland but at least he's willing to have a bit of a laugh at himself. Rosemary Shrager is the saving grace of the whole show.
Personally I think the structure needs work, both rounds are essentially identical with the slight variation of all using the same ingredients in round 1, and all using the same THEMED ingredients in round 2. There's no real structure to judging. In shows like Nailed It, winning round 1 gives an advantage in round 2 where the overall winner is decided. In this they just do both rounds then call a winner. It's particularly flawed when one person does excellent in the first and another in the second, and they just pick one seemingly at random.
I wish there were stricter rules. Part of the fun of giving contestants weird ingredients is seeing them use it. In this they're given up to 4 different cooked dishes to start with, but they choose what they use and it's boring to see some people only using 1 of the ingredients and not really participating in the gimmick of the show, as well as certain weird dishes just get left out by every contestant. I'd rather see LESS ingredients that they MUST use, than a bunch of stuff that they can pick and choose from.
I don't think anyone needs Jackie Tohn-Deaf's singing at the end of each episode, nor intermittantly throughout, and her 'songwriting' might as well be done by a 5 year old. She's a pretty brash personality on a show like this. David So was pretty bland but at least he's willing to have a bit of a laugh at himself. Rosemary Shrager is the saving grace of the whole show.
Midsommar
(2019)
The worst, most boring movie I have ever sat through.
3 November 2020
"Artistic" horror needs to stop.
2 and a half hours. It's at least an hour too long. AT LEAST an hour.
The cinematography is nice. You might like the movie if you're the sort of person who watches 3 hour youtube videos of "oddly satisfying" patterns, because nearly every shot is done with some sort of symmetry or weird effects.
It takes SO LONG to get to the point, the first time anything mildly interesting happens is a full hour in, then there's another solid hour of nothing until the 15 minute conclusion.
I just can't get over how many people have raved about this piece of garbage. The characters are bland, unlikeable, and uninteresting. The entire plot is so slow burning that they probably could have filmed grass growing and it would have been more thrilling.
Everyone talks about how it's "unsettling" or "psychologically terrifying," ok, maybe the last 5 minutes, but the rest is just a bunch of cult people drinking mushrooms and screaming together. It's not unsettling so much as it is annoying. Constant repetitive music, samey scenes that all play out the same way.
I can't believe I sat through this garbage. I didn't pay anything and I still want my money back.
2 and a half hours. It's at least an hour too long. AT LEAST an hour.
The cinematography is nice. You might like the movie if you're the sort of person who watches 3 hour youtube videos of "oddly satisfying" patterns, because nearly every shot is done with some sort of symmetry or weird effects.
It takes SO LONG to get to the point, the first time anything mildly interesting happens is a full hour in, then there's another solid hour of nothing until the 15 minute conclusion.
I just can't get over how many people have raved about this piece of garbage. The characters are bland, unlikeable, and uninteresting. The entire plot is so slow burning that they probably could have filmed grass growing and it would have been more thrilling.
Everyone talks about how it's "unsettling" or "psychologically terrifying," ok, maybe the last 5 minutes, but the rest is just a bunch of cult people drinking mushrooms and screaming together. It's not unsettling so much as it is annoying. Constant repetitive music, samey scenes that all play out the same way.
I can't believe I sat through this garbage. I didn't pay anything and I still want my money back.
Crazy Delicious
(2020)
"Meh" pretty much sums it up.
27 June 2020
First off, the all round structure. It's not groundbreaking, and it doesn't do anything particularly interesting with its challenges. The concept of a willy wonka style "everything is edible" room to get ingredients from really didn't play much of a role and seems like a LOT of wasted effort for a backdrop.
Round 1 is "magic ingredient," the contestants need to feature a specific ingredient. It's been done well before, here it's poor. They keep picking really generic ingreadients to feature like apples, tomatoes, and mushroom. In what world are those challenging or entertaining over seeing something weird and harder to use. On the plue side, contestants know the challenges ahead of time and the show doesn't pretend it's a surprise.
Round 2 is "the reinvention," again something we've seen before; take a well known food and present it in a new way. The rules seem unclear about this and many contestants take it in different ways that make the judges frown on their work.
Round 3 is "the final feast," which seems to be basically the exact same as round 2 but with a broader theme, like picnic compared to hamburger.
In terms of the judges/host. First, calling your judges "food gods" its pretty pretentious. I think they were aiming for the gods coming down from the heavens to a garden of eden to try the food, but it was never really referenced and just came off as uppity.
I didn't mind Jayde, the host, she had some funny moments, but I can see how she'd rub some people the wrong way. Carla, in any other situation I would have found a bit obnoxious and over the top, however alongside the two masters of bland personality, she was needed. Heston, whoever he is, may be famous for being great at cooking, but he has all the personality of white bread. Niklas barely spoke from start to finish, and watching him take a bite of any food gives far too much insight into what his face looks like in moments of... intimacy. Contestants were really dime-a-dozen, except the first episode where you really wish you were there for the tactile pleasure of smacking an annoying tool.
All in all, it's not bad, it's just very short and doesn't do anything that other shows haven't done better.
Round 1 is "magic ingredient," the contestants need to feature a specific ingredient. It's been done well before, here it's poor. They keep picking really generic ingreadients to feature like apples, tomatoes, and mushroom. In what world are those challenging or entertaining over seeing something weird and harder to use. On the plue side, contestants know the challenges ahead of time and the show doesn't pretend it's a surprise.
Round 2 is "the reinvention," again something we've seen before; take a well known food and present it in a new way. The rules seem unclear about this and many contestants take it in different ways that make the judges frown on their work.
Round 3 is "the final feast," which seems to be basically the exact same as round 2 but with a broader theme, like picnic compared to hamburger.
In terms of the judges/host. First, calling your judges "food gods" its pretty pretentious. I think they were aiming for the gods coming down from the heavens to a garden of eden to try the food, but it was never really referenced and just came off as uppity.
I didn't mind Jayde, the host, she had some funny moments, but I can see how she'd rub some people the wrong way. Carla, in any other situation I would have found a bit obnoxious and over the top, however alongside the two masters of bland personality, she was needed. Heston, whoever he is, may be famous for being great at cooking, but he has all the personality of white bread. Niklas barely spoke from start to finish, and watching him take a bite of any food gives far too much insight into what his face looks like in moments of... intimacy. Contestants were really dime-a-dozen, except the first episode where you really wish you were there for the tactile pleasure of smacking an annoying tool.
All in all, it's not bad, it's just very short and doesn't do anything that other shows haven't done better.
Floor Is Lava
(2020– )
Genuinely Terrible
21 June 2020
It's a weird obstacle course, we've seen them before.
The objects are sitting in, or floating on 'lava.' Pretty much every single failure is just someone slipping off into the water because everything is constantly being splashed and is slippery. Compared to Wipeout, the falls aren't dramatic or exciting, it's usually just "nope didn't jump far enough so my legs went in and I have to let go."
Another reason something like Wipeout is better, they had a bunch of different obstacles to keep it interesting. All of this show is either a climbing wall, or just differently shaped objects to leapfrog between.
40 minute episodes were WAY too long, 3 teams of 3 making their way across a ~10 meter room gets old fast. We don't need to see 3 straight minutes of a person staring down the next jump going "can I make it? I don't know if I can. I'm not sure." This show could really benefit from an editor. That issue gets even further exacerbated about 5 episodes in when 2 teams' runs are so drawn out that they basically just cut down the last team to 5 mins (not exaggerating) and just went in with them halfway going "we join this team already in their run." The following episode only had 2 teams. 20 MINUTES to watch an obstacle course that Wipeout competitors would be sprinting in under 5.
Really annyoing host, tries to make a controlled splash hitting a contestant's leg an overly hyped moment, either yelling as though that must have really hurt them or thrown them off, or laughing like a maniac. It's just a splash mate, calm down. Contestants are pretty loud and annoying across the board, but I imagine many of them were told to play it up.
The objects are sitting in, or floating on 'lava.' Pretty much every single failure is just someone slipping off into the water because everything is constantly being splashed and is slippery. Compared to Wipeout, the falls aren't dramatic or exciting, it's usually just "nope didn't jump far enough so my legs went in and I have to let go."
Another reason something like Wipeout is better, they had a bunch of different obstacles to keep it interesting. All of this show is either a climbing wall, or just differently shaped objects to leapfrog between.
40 minute episodes were WAY too long, 3 teams of 3 making their way across a ~10 meter room gets old fast. We don't need to see 3 straight minutes of a person staring down the next jump going "can I make it? I don't know if I can. I'm not sure." This show could really benefit from an editor. That issue gets even further exacerbated about 5 episodes in when 2 teams' runs are so drawn out that they basically just cut down the last team to 5 mins (not exaggerating) and just went in with them halfway going "we join this team already in their run." The following episode only had 2 teams. 20 MINUTES to watch an obstacle course that Wipeout competitors would be sprinting in under 5.
Really annyoing host, tries to make a controlled splash hitting a contestant's leg an overly hyped moment, either yelling as though that must have really hurt them or thrown them off, or laughing like a maniac. It's just a splash mate, calm down. Contestants are pretty loud and annoying across the board, but I imagine many of them were told to play it up.
The Big Flower Fight
(2020– )
The book is exactly what's on the cover.
19 May 2020
Binge watched this, because that's apparently just what I do with Netflix's ever-growing list of esoteric competition shows now.
You get exactly what you expect, people making big sculptures out of plants.
In terms of the people, the female host had more personality than most hosts on shows like this, happy to crack some jokes, poke fun at herself and get involved. The male judge? I don't really know what the point of him was. He basically said something at the start then disappeared and showed up in the final. The recurring judge was apparently competing for "world's most smackable individual" and I hear he won after baring his teeth at contestants repeatedly.
Some contestants were a bit... over the top? It really just shows the divide between artistic and creative people who make incredible things, and people who want you to think they're artistic and creative so they dive through the dumpster of a Halloween costume shop between every scene.
Some of the pieces they make are absolutely incredible. Considering the contestants are amateurs and many have very little experience with plants and the sorts of challenges they were doing, what they made was incredible and realistic to an insane degree. Personally I feel some teams were relatively overlooked, when they made really beautiful work they got minimal comments like 'it's really nice' before the judges went on to endlessly praise the same two teams every single challenge.
I feel the pacing of the show was mediocre for the most part. In the early episodes you knew from the get go which two teams were competing for first, and which two were facing elimination, because the other teams were simply not shown for more than 10 seconds. In an early episode teams created huge animals and when they were revealed I really had a moment of "wait, someone was making a wolf?" because I honestly hadn't seen the team since the start of the episode.
50 minute episodes for single challenges was also a bit drawn out at times. It's a very artistic competition so compared to a lot of similar shows where different techniques can be shown, there was just a LOT of watching people plant plants, as the final result was the only standout moment. There was a significant amount of what felt like staged drama, little spats over the selection of accessories and plant colours and one person hoarding one thing or another, but somehow miraculously everyone happened to come out with everything they needed.
All in all, if you watch the trailer and it looks interesting, it probably will be. It's not overly long so as to get boring, but there's no really significant ups and downs or particularly exciting moments, just some pretty cool plant sculptures.
You get exactly what you expect, people making big sculptures out of plants.
In terms of the people, the female host had more personality than most hosts on shows like this, happy to crack some jokes, poke fun at herself and get involved. The male judge? I don't really know what the point of him was. He basically said something at the start then disappeared and showed up in the final. The recurring judge was apparently competing for "world's most smackable individual" and I hear he won after baring his teeth at contestants repeatedly.
Some contestants were a bit... over the top? It really just shows the divide between artistic and creative people who make incredible things, and people who want you to think they're artistic and creative so they dive through the dumpster of a Halloween costume shop between every scene.
Some of the pieces they make are absolutely incredible. Considering the contestants are amateurs and many have very little experience with plants and the sorts of challenges they were doing, what they made was incredible and realistic to an insane degree. Personally I feel some teams were relatively overlooked, when they made really beautiful work they got minimal comments like 'it's really nice' before the judges went on to endlessly praise the same two teams every single challenge.
I feel the pacing of the show was mediocre for the most part. In the early episodes you knew from the get go which two teams were competing for first, and which two were facing elimination, because the other teams were simply not shown for more than 10 seconds. In an early episode teams created huge animals and when they were revealed I really had a moment of "wait, someone was making a wolf?" because I honestly hadn't seen the team since the start of the episode.
50 minute episodes for single challenges was also a bit drawn out at times. It's a very artistic competition so compared to a lot of similar shows where different techniques can be shown, there was just a LOT of watching people plant plants, as the final result was the only standout moment. There was a significant amount of what felt like staged drama, little spats over the selection of accessories and plant colours and one person hoarding one thing or another, but somehow miraculously everyone happened to come out with everything they needed.
All in all, if you watch the trailer and it looks interesting, it probably will be. It's not overly long so as to get boring, but there's no really significant ups and downs or particularly exciting moments, just some pretty cool plant sculptures.
The Platform
(2019)
Mediocre, but it's about ethics so it'll be praised.
1 April 2020
Warning: Spoilers
First off, the situation; a prison exists with inmates paired in cells. A single food platform moves down each day and you only get what the people above leave, so the lower you get the more likely you are to starve. Each month the inmates are randomly shuffled to different levels. If your cellmate dies you get a new one in the shuffle.
Now great, it's metaphorical, but it's the kind of plot that has that hitch right from the start. This would never happen, be approved, or continue to operate. Ok, whatever, suspend disbelief and go with it (which you have to because no explanation is ever offered except "the people running it don't care," and cellmate #2 shows us people working for the organisation don't even know the full extent.)
The main character goes in voluntarily (showing that outsiders have no knowledge of how it operates, despite prisoners being released after their sentence) for 6 months in exchange for a degree. A degree in what? Never mentioned. How being in prison is somehow a degree? Never mentioned.
The movie just leaves so many important facts completely unaddressed because they know it's so nonsensical that they could never offer a satisfactory explanation.
So the last section of the film has the main character and cellmate #3 riding the platform down to the bottom sharing out food equally, finding most of the lower layers dead, and attempting to keep a panna cotta intact as a 'message' to the admin that they protest. I really fail to see how that sends any form of message at all. A full platform maybe, but "oh hey we didn't eat one thing" is a pretty dull protest. At the bottom they find a child and feed her the panna cotta and send her back up on the platform instead.
So your message is "we can ride the platform up." You think people didn't try that? It's a kid so magically they'll grow a conscience and everyone's let out?
Overall it's just such a poor attempt at being deep and questioning morals, but because it's really artsy everyone will rave about it. I wish people had better standards for movies than just having it try to make a statement in a nonsensical, boring way.
Now great, it's metaphorical, but it's the kind of plot that has that hitch right from the start. This would never happen, be approved, or continue to operate. Ok, whatever, suspend disbelief and go with it (which you have to because no explanation is ever offered except "the people running it don't care," and cellmate #2 shows us people working for the organisation don't even know the full extent.)
The main character goes in voluntarily (showing that outsiders have no knowledge of how it operates, despite prisoners being released after their sentence) for 6 months in exchange for a degree. A degree in what? Never mentioned. How being in prison is somehow a degree? Never mentioned.
The movie just leaves so many important facts completely unaddressed because they know it's so nonsensical that they could never offer a satisfactory explanation.
So the last section of the film has the main character and cellmate #3 riding the platform down to the bottom sharing out food equally, finding most of the lower layers dead, and attempting to keep a panna cotta intact as a 'message' to the admin that they protest. I really fail to see how that sends any form of message at all. A full platform maybe, but "oh hey we didn't eat one thing" is a pretty dull protest. At the bottom they find a child and feed her the panna cotta and send her back up on the platform instead.
So your message is "we can ride the platform up." You think people didn't try that? It's a kid so magically they'll grow a conscience and everyone's let out?
Overall it's just such a poor attempt at being deep and questioning morals, but because it's really artsy everyone will rave about it. I wish people had better standards for movies than just having it try to make a statement in a nonsensical, boring way.
Glow Up: Britain's Next Make-Up Star
(2019– )
It's a much worse version of Skin Wars.
11 December 2019
Warning: Spoilers
It's really mediocre as a competition show. Skin Wars was successful because it showed us really unique and interesting artwork, Glow Up follows it up by showing us someone who can make a lip shiny.
They cannot settle on whether they want good make-up or art. Some people do full pictures on people's faces and get told "Wow, we love it, it's so creative," someone does the same thing a few weeks later and get "It's too artistic, it's a painting not make-up" and get eliminated.
The host was bland. Her entire job was to tell people to enter and leave the room, and she even managed to make that seem more dull than it was.
The judges are legitimately terrible. I don't know who this harpy is who keeps yelling, but seriously; "Ding Dong!" doesn't mean 'you did well,' stop yelling it 4 times an episode. Ding dong is not a thing, ding dong will never be a thing. The only time 'ding dong' will be appropriate is when the townsfolk sing about a house falling on her. The male judge was completely forgettable, and let's be frank here, of all the people who should be judging a beauty competition, it shouldn't be the dude rocking waxed curlicues in his moustache.
The actual structure was pretty bad. One challenge puts 2 people "at risk" of going into the faceoff, but that's meaningless as it's the challenge 2 results that determine who goes into the faceoff. They realised this about halfway through the season and actually gave a penalty to the challenge 1 losers of 15 minutes less time in challenge 2. The faceoff is a 5 minute challenge to do one aspect of make up on someone. They blatantly designed them to favour certain individuals though, as when someone who failed 2 challenges based on lack of creativity ended up in one, the challenge was suddenly "we don't care about creativity only technical skill," then inversely other contestants would face "this is all about spontaneity over actual results!"
The winner was a massive letdown, as they just slapped a rainbow on a face 8 episodes in a row and were told they were amazingly creative for it, while the best competitor was eliminated the episode before for no reason, and the best person in the finals honestly screwed themselves over with a bad design and didn't make it to the last challenge.
Hope they get their wits about them and cancel this before it makes it to a season two.
They cannot settle on whether they want good make-up or art. Some people do full pictures on people's faces and get told "Wow, we love it, it's so creative," someone does the same thing a few weeks later and get "It's too artistic, it's a painting not make-up" and get eliminated.
The host was bland. Her entire job was to tell people to enter and leave the room, and she even managed to make that seem more dull than it was.
The judges are legitimately terrible. I don't know who this harpy is who keeps yelling, but seriously; "Ding Dong!" doesn't mean 'you did well,' stop yelling it 4 times an episode. Ding dong is not a thing, ding dong will never be a thing. The only time 'ding dong' will be appropriate is when the townsfolk sing about a house falling on her. The male judge was completely forgettable, and let's be frank here, of all the people who should be judging a beauty competition, it shouldn't be the dude rocking waxed curlicues in his moustache.
The actual structure was pretty bad. One challenge puts 2 people "at risk" of going into the faceoff, but that's meaningless as it's the challenge 2 results that determine who goes into the faceoff. They realised this about halfway through the season and actually gave a penalty to the challenge 1 losers of 15 minutes less time in challenge 2. The faceoff is a 5 minute challenge to do one aspect of make up on someone. They blatantly designed them to favour certain individuals though, as when someone who failed 2 challenges based on lack of creativity ended up in one, the challenge was suddenly "we don't care about creativity only technical skill," then inversely other contestants would face "this is all about spontaneity over actual results!"
The winner was a massive letdown, as they just slapped a rainbow on a face 8 episodes in a row and were told they were amazingly creative for it, while the best competitor was eliminated the episode before for no reason, and the best person in the finals honestly screwed themselves over with a bad design and didn't make it to the last challenge.
Hope they get their wits about them and cancel this before it makes it to a season two.
Sugar Rush
(2018–2020)
Nothing special, but not the worst
8 December 2019
If you enjoy competitive cooking shows, this covers that pretty well. There is a time limit, but it's intentionally VERY lenient and contestants almost always have time to do what they wanted.
Hunter March is the main host, and he's alright; funny at times, annoying at others. The two other main judges, Candace Nelson and Adriano Zumbo are really not contributing much. They could be replaced by cardboard cutouts and nobody would notice a difference. Guest judges have never wowed me, and are mostly just bakers no normal person would have heard of, or someone from a Netflix show nobody is watching anyway.
While the 3 rounds are explained as "surprises," it's clear the contestants know what they're doing ahead of time, bringing supplies that could certainly not just be things they brought in case, including obscure ingredients that suit the task, or elaborate equipment to stack a very specific final cake.
Some of the themes to episodes are downright cringey, like the "grammable food" epsiode. (Hate to break it to you guys, food isn't "grammable." Keep your food to yourself.)
The contestants are very dime-a-dozen, and sadly there's very little variation in what they do. There's 3 episodes in a row where EVERYONE does a 'geode' cake, which was obviously just the trend of the week at the time, and after the first one it's no longer a cool new thing, just people who aren't actually creative with their own ideas.
So in the end, I like seeing what they make and how they do it, I enjoy the competition, and I love seeing people's souls die when their food comes out bad. It's alright if you have nothing better to watch, but there's better out there.
Hunter March is the main host, and he's alright; funny at times, annoying at others. The two other main judges, Candace Nelson and Adriano Zumbo are really not contributing much. They could be replaced by cardboard cutouts and nobody would notice a difference. Guest judges have never wowed me, and are mostly just bakers no normal person would have heard of, or someone from a Netflix show nobody is watching anyway.
While the 3 rounds are explained as "surprises," it's clear the contestants know what they're doing ahead of time, bringing supplies that could certainly not just be things they brought in case, including obscure ingredients that suit the task, or elaborate equipment to stack a very specific final cake.
Some of the themes to episodes are downright cringey, like the "grammable food" epsiode. (Hate to break it to you guys, food isn't "grammable." Keep your food to yourself.)
The contestants are very dime-a-dozen, and sadly there's very little variation in what they do. There's 3 episodes in a row where EVERYONE does a 'geode' cake, which was obviously just the trend of the week at the time, and after the first one it's no longer a cool new thing, just people who aren't actually creative with their own ideas.
So in the end, I like seeing what they make and how they do it, I enjoy the competition, and I love seeing people's souls die when their food comes out bad. It's alright if you have nothing better to watch, but there's better out there.
Sugar Rush Christmas
(2019–2020)
More of the same, still pretty mediocre.
8 December 2019
I just keep end up watching this show when new Nailed It runs out.
This has the same issues as the normal show. Hunter March is funny at times, but Candace and Zumbo could be replaced with cardboard cutouts and nobody would notice a difference. The guest judges are nothing special either, usually just some random from a show nobody's watching on Netflix. The one exception was Liza Koshy, a comedienne who had some legitimately hilarious moments in her episodes. No spoilers, but the "Christmas Spirit" episode is well worth the watch just for her.
The challenges are largely pretty vague, and even for the "Christmas" theme there's very little direction. There's still this false pretense of the contestants not knowing the challenges ahead of time. "Oh I just HAPPENED to have this obscure bottle of blackberry liqueur that's perfect for the theme of this challenge!"
So if you liked the regular version, this isn't worse, it just isn't any better.
This has the same issues as the normal show. Hunter March is funny at times, but Candace and Zumbo could be replaced with cardboard cutouts and nobody would notice a difference. The guest judges are nothing special either, usually just some random from a show nobody's watching on Netflix. The one exception was Liza Koshy, a comedienne who had some legitimately hilarious moments in her episodes. No spoilers, but the "Christmas Spirit" episode is well worth the watch just for her.
The challenges are largely pretty vague, and even for the "Christmas" theme there's very little direction. There's still this false pretense of the contestants not knowing the challenges ahead of time. "Oh I just HAPPENED to have this obscure bottle of blackberry liqueur that's perfect for the theme of this challenge!"
So if you liked the regular version, this isn't worse, it just isn't any better.
Wounds
(2019)
Nonsensical Waste of Time
19 October 2019
I am stunned by how awful this movie was.
There is 0 plot. A guy and his girlfriend hate each other, and he's still into his ex. He finds an evil phone.
THAT'S BASICALLY IT.
There's a lot of scenes of generic scary imagery, a bath filled with blood, severed heads, bugs! Bugs are scary now apparently? None of them are ever explained, they don't tie in with each other. There's no motive, no reasoning, just a couple of scary things happen because why not?
There is almost 0 character development through the whole movie, and the cardboard cutout who plays the main character does a great job of showing this.
If you have an hour and a half to watch this movie, consider finding an hour and a half recording of TV static for a more entertaining, meaningful experience.
There is 0 plot. A guy and his girlfriend hate each other, and he's still into his ex. He finds an evil phone.
THAT'S BASICALLY IT.
There's a lot of scenes of generic scary imagery, a bath filled with blood, severed heads, bugs! Bugs are scary now apparently? None of them are ever explained, they don't tie in with each other. There's no motive, no reasoning, just a couple of scary things happen because why not?
There is almost 0 character development through the whole movie, and the cardboard cutout who plays the main character does a great job of showing this.
If you have an hour and a half to watch this movie, consider finding an hour and a half recording of TV static for a more entertaining, meaningful experience.
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