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Shôgun (2024)
Bizarre waste of money and talent
What a mess. The main feeling I got from it was nihilism, darkness, and despair. Lots of pointless cruelty and violence including torture.
I am getting it an extra star because the visuals are incredible. The people responsible for the costumes, sets, photography, etc. All did a great job. Production value-wise, it's as good as it gets. And I don't fault the actors either. But it's such a shallow film beneath the pretty surface.
It feels like a mob film, where everyone is the bad guy and all the cultures are portrayed disrespectfully. It's a caricature of the time period. A documentary would have been 10x more interesting and satisfying.
The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)
I'm a fan of Flanagan, but this is a disappointing outing
I stopped watching after episode 6, as I realized I wasn't enjoying the gleeful sadism bordering on torture in this show. I don't mind dark content, but this felt nihilistic in how it wallows in misery and torment. Much of the show has a forced quality to it. Even the music can be distracting when it's clear they want to get a song in via a character's background audio. The whole show is like that. It wants to force the viewer to take in an uncomfortable, overly long violent scene, or an awkward sexual scene, or a song that's discordant with the scene.
And blame falls squarely on the directing and editing: the actors are great, as is the photography, and especially the set design, which was amazing in Hill House and Bly Manor and Midnight Mass too. Interiors are warm and lush and filled with detail, like perfectly-lit doll houses.
So while the technical chops are without question, the tone and atmosphere is what truly feels off. It has echoes of the torture porn movies that were popular some years ago. It also feels like it's trying to ape the much better Succession. While the two properties are in different genres, the parallels of a rich, obnoxious family are obvious, yet this one has none of Succession's sharp humor or deft, dark satire. More time should be spent on character and mystery and dialogue, not the overly gory, overly long violence.
I think this is Flanagan trying to break out of more conventional, trope-filled stories (Hill House, Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass all feel much more traditional), but the writing and directing and editing don't support it.
Though I bailed on this series before its end, I am game to try his future work. Let's hope 2023 is a brief stumble for Flanagan and not a permanent fall from earlier highs.
The Last of Us (2023)
Spectacular adaptation, a good sign of things to come for video game adaptations
As a huge fan of the games (been playing them repeatedly since 2013!), I can tell they are nailing this adaptation. There's a lot of little changes, but they all work, and they serve to keep the viewing fresh -- a 1:1 match with the games would have been a mistake. And all the big story beats are the same, so it's still staying faithful to the tone and the overall plot of the games. The actors are all well-cast, from the stoic Joel to the feisty Ellie. The production values are high, and it has just as much suspense, terror, and humanity as the property it's based on. I'm so glad HBO was the one to pick this up, and so glad they're taking good care of the source material.
Andor (2022)
Star Wars is back!?
I had given up on Star Wars because the recent films had terrible writing and relied on visual spectacle rather than storytelling and characters one could care about. Andor is refreshing! Psychological realism, political realism, gritty and dark without being bleak, actions scenes that are tense and exciting because there are real stakes. I am blown away. I didn't realize Star Wars could be this good! Some are saying this is the best Star Wars property in 32 years, since Empire Strikes Back and I am ready to believe it. If they're going to keep releasing Star Wars like this -- mature, well-written adult stories -- I'm totally on board!
Emily the Criminal (2022)
Tense, suspenseful
OMG I can see why it got 93% Rotten Tomatoes.
So good! Tense, suspenseful, and good commentary on class and working life.
Holy s#$%. Plaza was so convincing.
Highly recommended!!!
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
The blue/black white/gold dress of a movie
The blue/black white/gold dress of a movie: inexplicably, some people love this movie; others hate it. If you enjoy "kung fu meets potty humor", and like your movies low brow and juvenile, you'll love it. If you go in expecting profound and meaningful, with something to say about existence, multiverses, or achievement in life, you'll be disappointed. It's a chaotic mess of a movie that tries too hard to shock and bewilder, while missing any opportunity to use that shock to get more than surface level with its premise. It's like someone saw The Matrix, then decided to remove the philosophical ideas and change the fight scenes from visceral to silly. It's no fault of the actors, the costume makers, or photographers: the blame lies squarely on the writers whose convoluted experiment in simulating ADHD on screen is a self-indulgent mess.
Station Eleven (2021)
Bait and switch
The plot is scattered, like the first and second halves were written by different people. It's self-indulgent and acting-inside-baseball. The actors are amazing, ditto the music and the colorful scenery/sets/costumes. And you can kind of see what it's trying to say re: grief, friendship, etc. But it does it all with dialogue (tell instead of show) and drawn-out back stories, rather than a coherent plot that gives the audience a reason to care. I feel cheated, since the first episode was excellent.
Sundown (2021)
Crushingly dull
A second Franco stinker after his nihilistic New Order. Crushingly dull. Mostly we watch Roth's character drink beer at the beach or by a pool, and feel zero connection to him or the threadbare plot.
Giri/Haji (2019)
Undeserved praise
Minor spoilers. Starts off great like a gritty neo-noir, but starts dipping in quality near the middle episodes. You realize the supposed protagonists are awful people (e.g. Yuto beating an old man) and the action becomes silly (unrealistic gun fights) and the drama becomes melodrama. On top of that, some of the character's personalities are shallow and flat. Kelly Macdonald's talent is wasted; she acts like bystander most of the time, or only reacts to what's happening instead of having agency. Yuto's brother I guess is supposed to be a stoic, quiet type but could not be more uninteresting. I don't get the praise for this show.
Mare of Easttown (2021)
Depressing and drab
Derivative and inferior to Ozark's dark humor and True Detective's Southern Gothic mysticism. Contains disturbing bullying and child neglect themes.
Den blomstertid nu kommer (2018)
Ugh, what a rip off of an ending
About the only good things were the action scenes and effects and the surround sound. All of the main characters were selfish and deceptive people. Cheesy and melodramatic silly ending. There were too many unbelievable coincidences and people magically avoiding danger. Unrealistic premise of the nation being caught completely by surprise. Ugh.
ZeroZeroZero (2019)
Pretty but empty
The problems with this show are that it's difficult to root for any of the characters (they all seem fairly awful, except perhaps the son) and it feels incredibly derivative. Why watch this when Traffic and Narcos and other similar pieces have been produced? It has excellent photography and music, and Byrne and Riseborough are excellent as usual (see them in In Treatment and Possessor for example). But it feels lifeless, like it's going through the motions of generic "gritty drug lord drama".
The Spy (2019)
A must-see; thought-provoking and exciting
Wow. Fascinating spycraft, suspenseful tension, complex characters, and interesting history and strategic ideas. It's told from the Israeli point of view, so I don't know how objectively accurate it is or how fair it is to the Syrians; however, it is for sure one of the most compelling shows I've watched in a long time.
Ozark (2017)
One of the best shows on TV right now
Fills a void left by Breaking Bad's end. Season three has palpable dread and cliffhangers that are irresistible.
Joker (2019)
Stunning
Wow, amazing acting from Phoenix as usual. Taxi Driver and Seven vibes, with noir NYC atmosphere. Great musical score and an important commentary on mental illness and child neglect.