The Good: ...
The Bad: Lazy plot devices (like the droid's speakerphone, magical signal triangulation etc.) and shallow characters. Andor not realizing that Karn is an officer, and not just some grunt, because they don't wear any kind of insignia.
The Ugly: Framing Kassa's kidnapping as an act of kindness (or worse, a necessary evil)...
Wow, freedom-of-speech-loving QAnon snowflakes were so butthurt that they mass-reported my previous comment after receiving the most likes because it exposed their cult.
This sensationalist piece of far-right propaganda is actually harming with its lies the real victims of human trafficking, most of which are aged 15-17 and/or LGBTQ runaways, not kidnapped pre-adolescent children as the film suggests.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/sound-of-freedom-child-trafficking-experts-1234786352/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a3apm/anti-trafficking-group-with-long-history-of-false-claims-gets-its-hollywood-moment
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/archive/blog/2013/06/lgbtq-youth-high-risk-becoming-human-trafficking-victims
https://www.romper.com/life/mom-influencers-child-sex-trafficking
The self-loathing was real in the '90s.
A handful of good moments but chickens out and doesn't go all the way.
Jeff, Bee-Bee and Pony were very well written. Erica and Buff were the shallowest.
Cinematography and editing was very '90s, generic and unremarkable. It needed more wider shots when they were talking, to reinforce the sense of alienation.
Impotent adaptation with an identity crisis, that doesn't know if it wants to be an absurdist satire, rom-com, or drama.
I think Roger Avary tried to reproduce the formula of Pulp Fiction, but just couldn't pull it off.
There were too many side-characters included from the book that were completely unnecessary for the movie, like the 3 scenes with Rupert, the OD scene with Harry, the bedroom and restaurant scenes with Richard, the diner scene with Victor etc. that just wasted precious time that should've been used to flesh out the 3 main characters (Sean, Paul, Lauren), instead of boiling down their characterization to a sophomoric "No one'll ever know anyone".
I just hope someone someday will re-adapt the book into a TV series more faithfully in its original '80s setting.
Is this what passes for good writing these days?
lol I found it hilarious that Maggie is holding out to the two black detectives, overcomplicating things for apparently no reason.
Just tell them you fucked Rust to make Marty mad FFS! Why lie?!?
The first half is a 10, the second half is a 6.
Amazingly ahead of its time, paving the way for the "anti-work" and "quiet quitting" movements.
It came out only a month before The Matrix, and it's insane how similar the two films are in themes and in some cases even visually, e.g. the "cubicle ducking" scenes are shot almost identically!
If there's ever a biopic about Putin, they should get Matthias Schoenaerts to play him! Holy hell, the resemblance is uncanny!
Interesting (if not depressing) down-to-earth spy thriller that drives home how espionage is actually either a no-win situation or a fool's errand, especially when it's about double or triple agents, since sooner or later it always devolves into a game of "give me something to show they can trust me" on both sides ad nauseam .
I was expecting a more complicated gambit for the ending: I thought Korchnoi (Jeremy Irons) was not actually the mole, but he was testing Dominika to see if she would give him in.
I wouldn't mind a movie sequel or TV series. The Americans has left a big hole.
I didn't expect this to be so good, or so funny!
I knew it was considered campy, but it captured the insanity of NYC in the late '80s - early '90s with a perfect dose of cynicism and nihilism. Nicolas Cage, at his prime, doing what he does best. Listening to him deliver noir-ish monologues is always a treat. Unique cast, unique characters.
IMO, much better than the Taxi Driver.
Nuanced, thought-provoking plot, but clumsy direction that didn't age well.
They could remake this as a TV series. It has many supporting characters with different perspectives, backgrounds, motives, and enough antagonists to fill at least a couple of seasons.
An eye-opening, somber, enraging experience.
One of the most hard-hitting documentaries I've ever watched, devoid of dramatizations, half-truths or propaganda.
Directed by Josef Weitz's own great-granddaughter, as she delves into the diaries of Josef, the architect of one of the largest land-grabbing, ethnic cleansing, population transfers in recent history. This is the history of the Zionist state of Israel.
The most important takeaways:
Richard Fuld, former CEO of Lehman Brothers, has never been charged with any crime.
A few months after Trump was elected, the DOJ discontinued investigating Lehman Brothers.
In 2018, Trump rolled back the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, a law that protected consumers from abusive lending practices.
A romantic perspective of a purely analog lifestyle. That's all the movie is.
The storytelling and character-building are very stereotypically Japanese.
Interesting premise and very good acting by Kirsten Dunst and Mel Rodriguez, but the writing was basic and very lazy, full of plot conveniences and happenstances. The show was canceled, so no moral or social justice delivered in the end, only the glorification of individualism. A waste of time.
So, Krystal went from good to evil to good, and back to evil again. Fuck this show. What a waste of time.
What despicable people...
Those aren't public servants, they're public tyrants.
This episode felt quite rushed compared to the previous ones, compressing more than 10 years this time.
The first 3 episodes were excellent, the next 3 were okayish, the last 3 were atrocious.
Oh man, why did they have to bring this fatalistic BS into this?!?
The "universe correcting itself" is such an outdated, unscientific trope.
And bringing in a "scientist" to give credibility to it...
"Have faith in science" is how a religious whackjob thinks scientists talk like.
How the fuck does she know with "90%" certainty that saving only 350 lives would cause the unraveling of space-time? Why wouldn't they just melt away, like we've seen before? Shooting them down, instead of letting them crash, would also cause altered facts, so it's not like they would be on the clear after all.
I'm absolutely loving this show so far!
Another very unconventional story with many twists & turns.
A simple gimmick but masterfully written and acted, keeping the tension high throughout the episode.
Superbly written and acted. Very realistic, and at the same time, tightly paced dialogue. Fantastic sound design and overall art direction.
Okay, so if the theme of the episode is gonna be grief, and how (mainly) Ramona deals with it, why the F did we sit watching the evil douchebags for more than half the episode?? Who the F cares about their in-fighting?!? It's like they have a minimum sakuga budget per episode, so they have to shoehorn a fight in there to waste those animator hours.
The first 5 episodes were amazing. The last 3 not so much.
Maybe the season was cut short so they had to rush the finale, I don't know.
In the previous episode, I suspected Cate being an accomplice, but the plot hole in this episode was that when everyone woke up wiped, she didn't have bloodshot eyes... Omitting that, feels like dishonest storytelling.
Also, why does Andre's voice change so much when he's using his power? Is that how he activates it? Or is that just his "angry" voice?
An unoriginal, superfluous, subpar rip-off of Toy Story 3, which already had enough problems.
The dolls here are apparently magic, and no one freaks out that they can move and talk to humans.
They should've at least made them robots, to fill those plot holes and make the story more topical (even though Time of Eve (2008) had already done this far more interestingly and competently).
What a bunch of stupid clichés.
Such surface-level and problematic characterization.
Nina was a literal puppet, an attractive exotic dancer in bondage, without any agency, with zero romantic chemistry between her and Zozo, yet she immediately dances with him to console him. And before we get to know a little more about her, she goes away, only to serve as a "Lost Lenore". That's not a character, that's a prop.
Zozo, the psychopath, repaired Rosy for the sole purpose of using her for his personal quest. Rosy couldn't see that because she immediately got Stockholm Syndrome'd. Zozo was never kind, thoughtful or empathic. He was always a self-serving psychopath, and the plot wants us to believe that he became this way because of the chronic physical abuse.
So, both female characters only existed to accommodate Zozo's feelings. GG Marc Haimes...
P.S. And one more plot convenience that bugged me: It was Ollie's hunch to jump off the train early, Zozo wanted them to reach the end of the line, but if they hadn't jumped off, they wouldn't have found the amusement park and Zozo wouldn't have had his big reveal as the villain. That was mighty convenient for them.
Maybe you've heard of CGDCT (Cute Girls Doing Cute Things).
Well, this is Psychopathic Incels Doing Psychopathic Things.
It's irreverent, but not satirical. It's just offensive and mean-spirited.
So, it's Bad Boys, but British? They even ripped off the typeface.:laughing:
