showcaseshowdown Reviews

The Girls on the Bus (2024)

definitely written by A.i.

[3/10 · 16 March 2024]

"Girls on the Bus" sets out with an intriguing premise: following a group of female journalists navigating the cutthroat world of a presidential campaign. But the execution falls flat, leaving us with a show that's neither insightful political drama nor engaging dramedy.

The biggest culprit? Uneven pacing and tone. One moment the girls are cracking jokes in a hotel bar, the next they're grappling with the weight of journalistic integrity. These emotional gearshifts feel clunky, leaving the viewer unsure whether to laugh or cry.

What's more, the characters themselves fall into tired tropes. We've got the idealistic rookie, the jaded veteran, the career-obsessed workaholic - you can practically fill in the blanks yourself. Their personal struggles, meant to add depth, feel predictable and melodramatic.

The show also misses the mark when it tries to tackle serious issues. Heavy-handed dialogue and forced emotional moments feel inauthentic, like a network drama's attempt to appear profound.

Don't get me wrong, the cast is talented. But even Melissa Benoist's charm and Carla Gugino's gravitas can't salvage a script that feels derivative and superficial.

Vice Principals (2016– )

brilliant.... again

[10/10 · 10 March 2024]

Jody hill and danny mcbride scored big time with Eastbound and Down, and now they've done it again with Vice Principals. There's so few misses, and so many grand slam moments. With the exception of The Simpsons in its early/prime years, i can't think of a show that makes me laugh out loud so consistently, and to be fair, i think i laugh even harder at these Hill/McBride shows. On top of the comedy, the show is capable of going to very emotional, usually dark, places, and often it's in a way that feels less contrived than a lot of the more celebrated dramas in the last 20 years. I haven't seen their latest show about the TV evangelists yet, but i'm hoping it can keep up, be respectable, etc.

Gilbert and Sullivan (1953)

surprisingly good

[8/10 · 24 February 2024]

Not even in the realm of art that Topsy Turvy is, but still... this is a pretty well made film. The art direction, the music direction, the pace, the fun... it's really good. Biopics are such an inherently difficult (flawed?) subgenre of film, but this movie seems to navigate the "and then this happened... and then this happened... and then this happened" pretty well. Thankfully there was plenty of drama between Gilbert and Sullivan to use in constructing various conflicts/resolutions, so none of the events seem overplayed "for dramatic effect" as they say. No, all that stuff happened, and Gilbert was just as anal as he's portrayed. Absolute genius, yes, but also absolute curmudgeon, haha.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019)

the worst part of the movie is Rey

[3/10 · 9 July 2023]

The movie is garbled, but there have been plenty of garbled movies i've enjoyed, some even loved, so as we try to articulate WHY this movie is so bad, let's not rely on the simplelist explanations. The truth is, had Rey as a character been more interesting, we would've tolerated the rest of the nonsense. But Rey as a character, from her arc to her beauty to her expression and her dialogue, is absolutely flat. She inflects every line either as 'Stoic Brit' or 'Exasperated Brit'... and that's it. That's all there is to her. Her face never changes. The only time she seems distressed is the moment before she tries to overcome her obstacle, which invariable is on her 1st try every time. There's nothing to anticipate or wonder about. We know exactly how it'll unfold from Force Awakens, and Rise of Skywalker doesn't shake anything up. Nothing. Not one thing. I'm sorry the actress had to go down in history as the woman who played the least interesting thing about Star Wars in Star Wars history. That's including all the boringness of the prequels. Horrible work.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Over and above its sheer "why was this made?"-ness, it had one really fatal flaw

[3/10 · 1 July 2023]

Why does Indiana Jones have any patience for Shaw? It's hard to have a 'Bringing Up Baby' antagonistic-yet-romantic duel between the two characters when they were not (and cannot) be romantically interested. (BUT SHE'S SOME GUY'S DAUGHTER OR SOMETHING!!!!) Yes, I don't care. If you want us to believe he have filial love for Shaw, you gotta do better establishing that.... BUT MORE THAN THAT, no way am I buying he'd have that much patience with anyone unless he's trying to get with her. She's a rake, a rogue, a scamp, etc... but Indiana Jones would never tolerate that nonsense (*unless he's trying to get with her).

After that, the movie has a thousand flaws, but I could overlook most of them had I believed Indiana Jones, the character, were properly motivated.... but I don't (and it's not even close... not even the audience wants to get with Shaw... perhaps if she were wildly charismatic, maybe... but she's not, and it's not even close). Is that the actress's fault? No. Does that matter? No.

Not a movie I'd ever even consider watching bits or pieces from again, and it's because no scene really ever excited, and it's because Indiana Jones the character simply didn't care about anything, especially not Shaw. Very emotionally and spiritually deflated film. Not terrible but not good (at all). Better than Crystal Skull, but who's counting?

Watcher (I) (2022)

the script probably says "Protagonist stares blankly" 40 or 50 times

[3/10 · 29 May 2023]

The pace is really.... really.... slow. Which isn't necessarily bad if it amounts to something, if the pacing sets you up for something... but no, this movie never delivers anything. Everything you think will won't happen because it's too predictable does indeed happen. Maybe if it were a DePalma film, that'd be ok, because at least that would only be the end of Act 1 of 3, but no, all 3 boring af acts of this movie amount to nothing more than exactly what the title and poster alone suggest will happen. Go ahead and look at the poster and take a guess what the story is and what will happen. You're right. The part you're wrong about is "yeah but the twist will be...". No, the twist is there's no twist.

Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)

Proof that even the best hearted people suffer with delusions

[2/10 · 26 May 2023]

It's been 7 years now since this movie came out, and I don't know if anyone could really objectively evaluate the movie on its own merits, at least not without some unconscious desire to love or hate it. Rewatching it now, I can say with certainty that the movie is trash. In fact, it's probably worse than I judged it the first time I saw it. Perhaps I was terrified my opinion would be biased and so finding the movie so bad scared me into believing I was biased. No. The movie is trash. And what's worse, the studio, the execs, the media, celebrities, everyone rich and famous and powerful desperately wanted us to believe either we liked it or we were bigots. They even went as far as trying to make us rethink our love for the original, all just to promote what they knew to be trash. That's really despicable, but we've seen since then, over and over, how often it happens. We were just not used to such treatment yet. There are many many many movies just as bad as this, but I don't remember ever feeling so guilty about recognizing them as bad. And now, as a result, movies aren't the mindless entertainment (and potential bringers of sheer joy) they once were. Not only are movies considerably worse in the last 20 or so years, but now we have to engage in heinous 'debates' with our friends and family God forbid we don't eat the trash and say 'yum.' Go to H, E, Double-Hockey Sticks, Hollywood.

Creepshow (1982)

Easily a 10/10 film. Every aspect of it is top-notch.

[10/10 · 12 October 2022]

The acting, the dialogue, the costume/makeup design, the set design, the lighting, the animation (especially the illustrations used as segues), but most of all, the tone. It's both very eerie, dark and black but simultaneously hilarious. Total grand slam. Very grateful Hollywood was making movies like this at one point. Now everything so dimly-lit and the sound so over-the-top loud/fake (and the fx are all CG)... it got old very quickly. Creepshow is brighter and more colorful than Wizard of Oz, and music is almost as good ;)

It's an anthology ala EC Comics from the good ol' days of comic books, with a solidly creepy frame story, so there's no reason you should ever get bored. Have fun.

Santa Inc. (2021)

just not funny

[2/10 · 6 December 2021]

Set aside all the blatant attempts to piss people off. This series is not funny. At all. I used to love sarah silverman's tv show on comedy central. Her humor just hasn't aged well. And now 15 years later, mixed with animation and a religious holiday she doesn't observe... wow. It's very distasteful.

Once Were Brothers (2019)

so ridiculously self serving

[3/10 · 10 March 2021]

Talk about the winners writing history... robertson dominates this narrative and of course it's exactly what you'd expect... i'd love to hear commentary from levon, setting the record straight(er)

Doctor Sleep (2019)

wow. this movie is a pale shadow of the shining.

[2/10 · 3 February 2020]

I'm tired of people pretending like movies in the last twenty years haven't been bad, or at least compared to those that preceded them. this movie reminds me of a second rate netflix series. nothing about it is particularly impressive. the special effects are weak. the cinematography looks like a tv movie. and the story is about the level of an anne rice novel.