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Good Sci-Fi including HARD Sci-Fi
Good Sci-Fi, Mystery and Horror
This list is in no particular order! It's just as I thought of them I added them.
Reviews
New Girl: Raisin's Back (2017)
Funny, but the EDM dig was pathetic :)
A funny episode as always!
But did nobody get the EDM joke?
Winston and Cece WROTE an OK EDM track!!
They demonstrated they had some programming talent.
Schmidt's 'taste' was never called into question - which makes it all the clunkier that he apparently 'folds' straight away.
I'm presuming this was somebody having a dig at Electronica :)
Hopefully not just some Jazz, Classical - or god help us Folk or Atonal or something - ignoramus who just doesnt' have any range! :)
Westworld (2016)
Even Season One was a waste of time.
The only reason we liked Season One was because it was so promising and fresh. But opening a story is the easy part. You don't have to have anything worked out.
With Season Two everyone's faces dropped, because it didn't go anywhere and pulled really boring rabbits out of really boring hats.
And then with Season Three it became quite obvious this was just another LOST/BSG and the writers had NO idea where it was going.
You need a Plot, in order to call something a story.
Sorry, it's a 1/10, for the whole thing. I'll give you a dollar and this stale doughnut for the lot.
Raised by Wolves (2020)
Deeply embarassing
Wow.
I think that's possibly the worst thing I've ever seen!
And the reviews here ...
A swathe of paid 10's, with a smattering of 9's and 8's to make them look legit. In between, the actual viewers' reviews hovering around 1, with some very generous bumps up a bit higher.
And a tiny number of reviews but a staggering number of votes.
The IMDb score of this series is bought by HBO, and that's that.
Ridley - it's over mate. Give it away. THE MARTIAN was the last good thing you did and nobody's sure how. PROMETHEUS and COVENANT were bad, mate. Very bad. Terribly, awfully bad.
And this series - this series is bad, too mate. Ed Wood bad.
In fact, that's not fair to Ed Wood.
You know what RAISED BY WOLVES reminded me of?
BATTLEFIELD EARTH.
Yes. Let that sink in.
Craith (2018)
Take note of the bad reviews. (Aka: If only it had a story. )
Do better. Come up with a plot before you start filming.
And trim the fat. If you are comitted to 8 episodes, make sure you actually HAVE 8 episodes worth of material, not 3 episodes worth maximum.
And get a better villain.
Disjointed (2017)
Hi Netflix! Just to let you know we're cancelling you because you cancelled this! :)
Well, not quite. Having exhausted the good part of your catalogue quite quickly, we found we could not face trudging through the rest of your tedious offerings. You had some good moments - GLOW was a high point!
But then you cancelled Season 3 of MINDHUNTER, and we started to wonder if it really was worth carrying on. (Terribly embarassing things like boxes of birds just made it harder to contemplate staying.)
We were just about to let you go and stick with the much superior STAN, when, out of the blue, we discovered DISJOINTED! We worship Kathy Bates in this joint! And we were not disapointed by DISJOINTED!
We laughed till the tears ran, on almost every single episode, and at the same time were enraged by things like the DEA raid, and deeply intrigued and moved by the security guard's story and that just trippy, trippy artwork.
We were, however, bitterly disapointed, to discover that yet again the coke budget in the boardroom had drained any money necessary to fund a good show, and the last drunken rapist to turn the lights out had randomly selected another, actually quality programme to cancel.
Well, in doing so, you cancelled our subscription!
:) Happy self-isolation, Netflix! Without a season 3 of this or MINDHUNTER you are getting no more of our money! :)
BoJack Horseman (2014)
Great, then Good, then Terrible.
Started off brilliantly, gradually began to believe more and more of its own hype, and finally collapsed in a load of existential drivel.
The 'dark' plot lines would have been fine - if they had stayed *lines* and not become the entire series.
It gradually got less and less funny, and so became boring. When it was a black comedy it was good. Because it was a black comedy. Not just bleak, dark, tedious and repetitive. Oh so repetitive. Oh how it repeated itself, repeatedly, repetitively and - I repeat - with repetition.
All the beauty had gone from it.
So disappointed.
Netflix writers kill yet another good idea, and I think Netflix itself for once did the right thing. Take it out and shoot it.
Wounds (2019)
Shocked twice: (1) Netflix Original that didn't suck! (2) Idiot, IDIOT reviews!!
A 4.1?? As I'm writing this film has a 4.1 on here!!??
Look, 9/10 Netflix Originals (It's a HULU Original? On Neflix it says it's a Netflix Original so I'm going with that) are, or have been, just garbage, garbage, garbage. Often plotless, try-hard, nicely filmed, empty time-wasting nothings.
So, they take a novella, turn it into one hell of an atmospheric, disturbing - that's DEE-STURB-ING - little horror thriller using good actors, a good director and judicious use of CG, and ... THAT'S THE ONE THE MORONS CHOOSE TO PUNISH??
Punish Netflix for their sins, not their good stuff. Punish them for rubbish like Bird Box and Another Life.
REWARD them for when they get it right - like MINDHUNTER, and GLOW.
And this. This was a GOOD ONE!
And by the way - and I'm sorry this is aimed also at some of you good folk who said nice things about the film, nice to see you aren't paid shils from Indian and Phillipines sweatshops either (nobody said "Surprisingly Good!") - I'm afraid I have to say:
The ending DOES make perfect sense.
The plot is actually quite tight - go back and re-watch it if you don't believe me! This isn't an ENDLESS/RESOLUTION situation (though I love those films, especially THE ENDLESS because it explains RESOLUTION ... but I digress).
I went in dreading the usual N.O.-"No." Instead I got a good little deep, dark CreepyPasta reward.
Makers - you did good! Do more!
The Call Up (2016)
Who paid for the low (4.9) IMDb score?
Who paid for the low (4.9) IMDb score?
There's something like 6000+ votes for what is a rather obscure movie.
It's certainly not a D-grade thing that belongs below a score of 5. I personally score it at about an 8, but a 7 would also be fair.
So. Somebody really hated the people who made it? Somebody didn't get paid? Somebody made a slur against somebody else?
If I could be bothered I'd go hunt it up.
But that negative score is most definitely artificial.
Anyway.
This film is like an extended Black Mirror episode, and I don't just mean by that "It's SF and modern! Like that, um, .... mirror thingy!' No it IS actually like a Black Mirror episode, in content and atmosphere. Very much so.
It's not the most wonderful film ever made.
But let's say - It's better than M Night's 'Glass'. I know that's a low, low bar but I was surprised by how much I ended up enjoying that piece of silliness after hating everything that came before it. It's not as good as 'Arrival'. It's a country mile better than that load of excrement 'I Am Mother' that recently smeared-up our screens.
'The Call Up' has reasonable acting. A good concept - done before like everything in current SF but not done exactly this way before. Props and scenery are good enough. Denouement is a good one and the script earns it. And it's not boring, it keeps you watching.
It's actually a pretty good film, I have to say.
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Cam (2018)
JUST falls short! Worth watching but could have been a MASTERPIECE
If they had just spent one more week writing, this could have been one of the most well executed pieces of modern Science Fiction so far. Certainly of the last year just gone, at least.
The build-up is wonderful, but it never stops. You get to way, way too close to the end of the film and it's STILL building up. Then they crush the resolution in.
I'll say this, at least the ambiguities are OK for once! it doesn't just lazily end with nothing resolved, thankfully.
You (2018)
Go Sera!
Sera Gamble really is one to watch. Whatever she gets behind or gets involved is almost guaranteed to be worth checking out.
YOU is going to offend a LOT of people. That's frigging GREAT ... :)
Bird Box (2018)
Mistakes were made ...
Stop putting 'A Netflix Original' on the start of things as though it were some badge of pride. You've made a couple of good things. You've made many dreadful ones and this pile of garbage is one of them.
Astral (2018)
Who the hell is rating this higher than 1?
What kills this is the script and the dialogue. And gee, take those away and you have .... nothing, really.
It looks nice, the actors do the best they can, the music is competent, the special effects are competent.
But with the dialogue and script gone:
The cinematography makes no sense at all.
The actors just embarass themselves, and the speeches are absurd and boring.
The music keeps just surging at completely random intervals.
The special effects convey a story that keeps changing direction as the drunken author wakes up and scribbles another paragraph.
If I were a producer and this landed on my desk as a DEMO? I'd have a good laugh, then possibly call the creators in for a chat:
"You folks really have potential. We're going to give you a REAL script to work with and see what you do, but this demo? It must NEVER reach the public or you will never have any credibility associated with your names? Understand me?"
Alien: Covenant (2017)
Astoundingly, worse even than the 2nd AvP film
I don't understand something.
He made the Martian, and it was a great film based on a great book.
Then he did this, and everyone involved should really go to gaol.
How?
How did this happen?
Beulraek (2017)
Definitely unwatchable!
Got 10 minutes in and just couldn't stomach the appalling lack of skill or craft or anything worthy.
I felt rather like the character in the absurd opening minutes (not a spoiler, it happens straight away, though you'll wish they hadn't bothered) who voids his stomach, endlessly, in an endlessly unfunny attempted-comedy scene.
This is not up to South Korea's modern cinematic standard, and is a bitter disappointment. I was shown the way to 'Black' after becoming disillusioned with mystery television in general - there isn't much of it that's good, full stop, so I/we cling to the high moments.
But this was Ed Wood bad and Marx Bros slapstick without actually being entertaining or even amusing.
The opening credits look like they were done by a high school dope-head kid. That put me off right away.
The opening scene was written by a 14 year old girl, and is just a waste of digital compositing and prosthetics.
Then the main character opener was written by a drunk, who stayed around to direct.
No, no, running away, not staying to cringe through the rest of this.
Come on, there has to be somebody on South Korea who can make the most frightening, nail-biting, gripping mystery/supernatural series imaginable. Get on the case!
The Circle (2017)
A dark and timely warning, if poorly executed.
I'd still say The Circle is worth watching, and I admire Tom Hanks and Emma Watson for doing it.
I just wish they'd hired a good editor or better writer to fix up the book's shortcomings. Actually, I haven't read the book, but whether the film follows it closely or not there's still things missing.
Watson does a great job of portraying the poor sap getting overwhelmed by the storm of BS and brainwashing gobbledygook she finds herself immersed in.
Hanks does a great job of portraying the megalomaniacal hypocrite employing every propaganda technique and piece of modern 'toy-tech' at his disposal to enlarge his empire.
The supporting cast do their best as well - especially the 'staffers' who give the most convincing, chilling, stomach-churning depictions of creeping, nasty 'modern' business practices. Those infected with the insidious disease, spreading it like religious slaves to the new recruits. Brrr.
Yes, that's all good ... but the script isn't:
It starts off well, gets heavier, gets you on side ...
Then ends. It just ... ends. Half-way through telling the story.
The point it is trying to get across with Emma Watson's character is a good one, and very dark indeed.
It covers badly needed ground such as YES, privacy IS critically important to a society, and NO, just because somebody is rich does NOT mean their ramblings and projects carry any weight whatsoever! It does careful, side-long bombing runs of the Church Of Jobs and the Church of Zuckerberg and several other deserving, soft targets.
But the story execution is so poor it just kind of plops out of nowhere, drops onto the road, then flops around dying. There is no impact.
And it misses some very important points such as hype=unsecure: the more more hyped-up something is, the more likely it is to be hackable, just due to the ridiculous pressures placed upon its development and deployment. Or the more everyone 'knows' (THINKS they know) about each other ... the more of a FANTASY the world becomes, it doesn't become more REALISTIC. All missed, along with many other points.
The Circle IMHO is worth watching, but it's just nowhere near as good as it could have been.
Shoulda hired a writer, folks.
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Colossal (2016)
Ah, morons and their negative reviews. NOT a colossal waste of time, in fact quite the opposite.
I mean, being realistic, they can't help being stupid. They were born that way. It's when you read negative review after negative review for a film like this that you remember, painfully, that many people actively voted for Donald Trump and Tony Abbott.
It's sad, but it's just an evolutionary fact. Lots of the populace are very, very stupid.
For the lucky rest of us, with brains bigger than a gnat's, we get to enjoy movies like this. Clever little genre-bending, daydream, thought experiments.
I DID enjoy 'Colossal', and in fact I can only really level one criticism at it: Just after the start, during the setup, it becomes a little slow and it did bore me for a few minutes.
I decided to give it more of a chance (it really gets rolling after that point, oh boy does it), but I can see why morons would have turned off. Heck, I can see why INTELLIGENT people might have turned off, since we have been bombarded with slow pseudo-art garbage pretending to be clever.
That could explain a little more of the negativity; those who couldn't face another "Mr. Nobody" or "Melancholia" or "El Incidente" just walked away, saying "no more, no more..." And I can understand, fully. (The problem being, it left the morons who will watch anything to watch it through, and only THEN realise they didn't understand it.)
But Colossal isn't one of those self-indulgence fests.
It's tight, it resolves it's arc, and it PULLS IT OFF!
It DELIVERS.
The ridiculous premise sets it up as a fantasy, or what is sometimes called 'Slipstream' these days (stuff that bends reality weirdly, regardless of the story basis). That's a given. Then it proceeds to tell a gripping, dark, tense little tale around it (with an astounding ending).
Anne Hathaway's physical beauty is wonderfully under-stated in this piece. Her hair is a fantastic cascade of sheer, wavy messiness and her clothes are random. She gets across a "good time girl surviving issues". Similarly all her acting colleagues' characters are represented as real-world, believable types; with BAGGAGE. Then they are forced to interact, and there come the surprises.
Dark, nasty surprises.
These producers bothered to actually hire a writer, folks.
COLOSSAL is well worth your time.
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Preacher (2016)
Nothing to do with the excellent comic, but still excellent in its own right.
I've seen people criticise this TV series *purely* on the basis that it departed completely from the comic. That's such a weak argument, and the reason it's so weak is it requires you to have no artistic appreciation of the series at all.
The series is wonderful. It has the moment-by-moment tension, and humour, of 'Breaking Bad'. But it's a wildly supernatural story evocative of 'Constantine'/'Hellblazer' (now that's another whole comic hoo-ha discussion), somewhat of the series 'Supernatural', and at the same time it's completely its own thing.
And the characters are just wonderful!
I loved the comic. This series has almost nothing to do with it. And I love this series!
Cannot wait for a firm date for Season 2!
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American Horror Story (2011)
The highs of 'Asylum' and 'Hotel' are brought down by the lows of 'Coven' and 'Roanoke'
Season 6, 'My Roanoake Nightmare', was marginally better than Season 3, 'Coven' (a very, very low bar), but still managed to be more tedious than Season 4, 'Freakshow'.
We are all waiting now for something the equal of the superb Season 5, 'Hotel' - we may possibly wait in vain, as they may never get it that together again.
So the score is taken as an average across the following components.
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Season 1 (retrospectively named 'Murder House')
7 / 10
It was a bit of an incoherent mess but it was new and exciting, and engrossing enough to be enjoyable.
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Season 2 'Asylum'
8 / 10
A TOTAL mess! But the performances and atmosphere were so awesome it was impossible not be be absorbed!
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Season 3 'Coven'
0 / 10
An absolute, abject write-off. Just embarrassing, and not even the great Ms Lange or amazing Ms Bates could save it. After 'Asylum' it was just a bitter, stinging disappointment and a slap in the face to the fans. This season should never have made it to transmission.
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Season 4 'Freakshow'
4 / 10
Had all the ingredients and a universe of potential, as well as probably the best opening titles sequence AHS has ever had. It squandered pretty much all of it and just managed to bore the viewer into seeking their thrills elsewhere. It should have had a complete re-write before filming began, as it could have been a masterpiece.
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Season 5 'Hotel'
10 / 10
The masterpiece we were all waiting for. Easily the best season of AHS ever and the one that has truly, finally, put it on the map. 'Hotel' is now the new bar, the one they have to aspire to in all future efforts -
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Season 6 'My Roanoake Nightmare'
1 / 10
- which makes it such a shame that this is all they managed to come up with. Boring, utterly un-engaging, and overly complicated but without being particularly clever. It wanted to make you *think* it was clever, but didn't actually include the necessary smarts. Even the implied fourth-wall-breaking was done clumsily and without much evident planning.
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And so we reach an average of:
5 / 10
AHS is overall not that great, but its few great moments *are* enough to keep an audience, including this reviewer, coming back to check it out.
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Aftermath (2016)
Lot of very silly low reviews on here by very silly people
Update: no, they were right, it's garbage.
I don't have high hopes for where this series goes. I resume it will just end in a pile of loose-ends boost-the-next-season mush like Lost or a dozen other series that nobody bothered to write before filming.
But this one has a big difference. It's fun.
The characters have depth and are engaging. When they hit something that could be boring, the writers move on quickly. Lots of stuff keeps happening and happening.
The best thing is that - most of the time - when the characters turn to each other to discuss something ... it's over and done quickly. We don't get The Walking Dead's miles and miles of tedious silence and meaningless back and forth'isms. It's just quick, to the point, they say their piece, and move on. Hallelujah.
I'm waiting to see how it ends. There have been a couple of bum episodes but most of them I've found rather gripping. I would have waited all the way to the end to comment but too many idiots jumped in and just started bucketing it - some after only watching the pilot.
Moro... I mean silly people.
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Black Mountain Side (2014)
Starts off brilliantly! Ends up as ABJECT, DIRE CRAP!
Have to bucket this piece of try-hard garbage. Have to. Because it wasted an hour and 40 minutes of my time, and left me and my S.O. basically bored and depressed that we could have done something more fun with the evening.
AFTER THE FILM STARTED OFF SO WELL!
At around the half-hour mark, whoever the good writer was just departed, and left a bunch of fumbling, drug-soaked idiots to finish off. Except they never finish, this thing drags itself along like an animated severed limb for the remaining hour.
It's so bad. It's so, so bad. And it's just amazingly so, because IT STARTED OFF SO WELL!
No direction. No purpose.
SHOCKING script errors where important elements get forgotten 2 seconds later.
Attempts to imitate great stories like The Thing ('Who Goes There' by JW Campbell) - except it can't even do a decent homage because it's such a confused, slow moving, boring MESS!
Worst kind of film. The kind that deserves punishment. Somebody should be made to pay for this. Because it STARTED OFF SO WELL, sucked us in, then turned on us. It soaked us in bile. It vomited over us. It urinated in our faces.
Do not, EVER, watch this film. You will kick your TV screen in.
YES, it REALLY IS that bad.
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Outcast (2016)
Kirkman = STRONG OPENING; NOTHING HAPPENS for the rest of the season; CLIFFHANGER. Then rinse-repeat next Season.
I gotta stop writing negative reviews. For some reason it's easier to bucket something unworthy than to praise up something good. I guess good things don't irritate you.
Kirkman has managed to irritate me. One too many times.
In fact ... that's it. I've had it with him. He's a talent-less charlatan. I won't even be bothering with Walking Dead when it returns - I read ahead on TWD and found out what happens I got so bored with waiting.
Outcast has done the same thing he always does.
First episode is really gripping. You want to know what happens.
Then:
Talk. Let's talk. Have we talked about this? You only ever want to talk, you never talk about the real issues! You're just saying that, I wanna talk about this! Have they talked about this? I dunno, we'd better talk about it. Have we talked enough? We don't talk enough anymore. I think you should talk to him. Have you talked to her? She talked to me. We talked. But I don't think we did enough talking for the group. We'd better have a group talk. We all need to talk more. We definitely haven't talked enough. You talk, you're better at talking. Hand on, I'll talk, you talk later. We all talk now or we talk later. You gotta talk to him. I have talked to him, he hasn't talked to you. I talked to him, what are you talking about? We'd better talk about that. Talk more. Come on, talk. Just talk. Talk.
Oh oh I don't know how to write a story, so I'd better create a cliffhanger ending so people think I have some suspense ability. I'm Robert Kirkman, and basically I'm a liar and a fake.
The only good points:
* Great first episode, which turned out to be the only good episode.
* Fantastic opening track by Atticus Rose et al, with excellent visuals.
* Philip Glenister (his accent was amazing too, he only let slip one English syllable that I noticed in the whole season).
* Reg E. Cathey.
* Brent Spiner.
* Wrenn Schmidt in a wet and soapy nude scene.
None of which are enough to entice me back for Season 2.
Mr. Kirkman, you are a fraud and we are done here.
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Hangar 10 (2014)
Ignore the hate. People are idiots.
Ignore the hate. People are just idiots and expect the wrong things.
The low scores must have come from low brows all wanting massive FX budgets and big casts and big sets. This is a low budget story.
HANGAR 10 is a 'found footage' movie, yet another one. But it doesn't suck for several reasons:
The cast are good.
The tension builds and builds.
There are some jump scares and genuinely unsettling moments.
The camera footage isn't just random "OOh! Something is happening so we must point out the ground!" rubbish. It actually manages to stay on-point.
The later scenes get weirder and weirder.
The ending is just explosive.
Criticisms?
* Some of the CG is a bit weak in the body of the film, but it gets better as the film goes, and the stuff at the climax is astounding.
* The film goes a bit slow towards the end, and they start repeating themselves a bit, but it doesn't last long and suddenly the end-game story is upon you. It's not a boring film. Unless you are a moron with the attention span of a sparrow.
Normally I'm not a huge fan of these films, but they've been creeping up and up on me as I find better and better ones. This is a good one.
Haters gonna be morons, y'know?
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The Honourable Woman (2014)
Unwatchable, pretentious, time-wasting crap. Don't bother.
Couldn't get through a whole episode.
It's not often that the opening credits really, really signal what an awful programme you've stumbled upon, but 'The Honourable Woman's really, really signal it.
They look, and sound, like they were cobbled together by a drunk arts-student and never actually finished.
Over the years I've got pretty good at instantly recognising the class of B-grade horror I'm about to be subjected to, and I got this one's number right there in those very credits.
I suspended disbelief, decided to give it a try, dove in ...
... and yep, yep, regretted it.
The point where I gave up was Stephen Rea making some kind of 'be ba boo!' baby-talk speech to Lindsay Duncan on the doorstep, with her responding in kind and massive amounts of silence and sideways-looks.
I didn't realise the UK was still making this type/kind/species of crap, but it appears somebody in there has the ear of the producers.
Maggie Gyllenhaal(sister of the much more talented Jake)'s English accent is to be complemented, but her wooden, starry-eyed, condescending (to the audience, not as in in-character as a member of the privileged upper-crusters) performance just had me wanting to punch her in the face in the first few minutes.
Throw in some extreme violence every now and again to indicate this is 'International!' 'Spies!' 'Ingrigue!' 'Edgy!', 'Thats what this show is all about! Shock! Yeah!' and what 'Innovative!' 'Daring!' 'Avante Garde!' film-makers we are and ...
Yeah it's a pile of crap.
Watch something else, don't subject yourself to the beating that seeing this all the way through would be.
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Jessica Jones (2015)
Yeah well, that's what happens when you let DUMB PEOPLE write a story that needed SMART AUTHORS
I've almost given up on Marvel, I just think they're a bunch of silly nerds.
They really, really bit off more than they could chew with this one. This needed a smart set of writers and an acceptance that the usual lowbrow audience wasn't the target audience.
Marvel've had a couple of moments.
Deadpool is great, but it's pure slapstick and works because of everyone who contributed to the MOVIE, that's the MOVIE.
The first season of Daredevil rocked, but as everyone has already stated the second season is a disaster.
Agents of SHIELD was OK till it became obvious it was just the same plot with different toys over and over again.
I couldn't get through one episode of Agent Carter and just want Haley Atwell to die die die.
And the Thor, etc, movies - WHO CARES. It's just different clowns in different costumes and things blowing up WHO. THE ****. CARES.
Personally, I think DC are kicking their asses - certainly Gotham is. Can't believe how much I get sucked in by each episode.
So, we get to Jessica Jones ...
I think the theme music sums it up brilliantly. It starts off with this beautifully dark, jazzy theme that gives you a nice little shiver. Ooh, you think! Pensive. This has the potential to be weird and intriguing.
But then the Artist Formerly Known As The Annoying Guitarist screeches in, and with one good key-change in a wall of over-baked nonsense, pretty much any originality goes out the window. Attempt to save with one little arpeggio at the end. Enter episode...
And yeah. That's kinda how the series goes, too.
Oh one thing. If you are about to say "Yeah but the COMICS/GRAPHIC NOVELS that this was DERIVED from ...". I need you do do something for me -
Take your original comic book series for this story. In their original plastic covers. Roll them into a tight cylinder.
Now, bend over.
Drop your trousers.
And insert them violently into your anus. Get it up there. Got it up there? Oh yeahhhhhh. It's up there. It's up there gooooood.
Now, we continue.
A heroine who is utterly unlikeable. Somebody (with super powers) needs to smack her.
Her self-obsessed friend. Somebody needs to smack her.
Her annoying boyfriend. Somebody needs to smack him.
And so on and so forth.
Nobody, not one character in this entire play is likable. You don't care when or if any of them die. They are all utterly expendable.
Not even David "The Mumbling Scots Git" Tennant's acting chops could save this. He's a good villain, but this role isn't a 'likeable villain', so we get no sympathy hit there either. (Btw, he still mumbles several important lines, just like he did in Doctor Who. I don't understand why no director makes him re-take. Is it a 'best take out of 5' type situation with him??)
The concept, like all concepts, is an old one. But the setup for this usage of it really, really had the potential to be brilliant.
A gritty PI story.
Reconstructing what happens in flashback.
Shocks aplenty - who is to be trusted? Anyone?
And what of the villain's own background? What there? What can Jessica find about about h...
Oops sorry, I nearly started caring.
And that's the problem. It just fumbles on and on, with characters making stupid decision after stupid decision, and tells a story that would have fitted neatly into six episodes but they had to drag it out and out.
And as usual, they started 'talking about their feelings' (yeah, apparently Marvel's 2d-cutout characters have 'feelings', and apparently we are supposed to care about them too) towards the end, and out came the fast-forward button.
Oh and my god - the STUNT acting was ATROCIOUS! What was the story?? Every time Jessica picked something up and threw it I was reminded of the awful plays Joey got stuck in in Friends. Or the set-destruction that the boys used to do in 'The Goodies', where in it was DELIBERATE for COMIC EFFECT.
So bad.
And just for extra icing -
Extras who do everything short of breaking the fourth wall to indicate they are not real people in the street.
Nossir.
Nossir I didn't like it... by which I mean I was deeply, deeply underwhelmed.
By something that could have been REALLY GOOD.
If it hadn't been written by DUMB PEOPLE.
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The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015)
Try again
I'm not sure you can get away with this kind of trash these days? I mean, back in the 80s or 90s, maybe a film where nothing happened for an hour and 32 minutes with good actors and dark cinematography and nudity and a completely over-baked soundtrack ... might have got up and bamboozled a few people.
But now? We've seen it all. These films are a dime a dozen. Style over substance, atmosphere over content, and let's do anything except write a story. Anything.
Waste of some very good actors, some great photographic direction and locations.
A depressing dark tale of ... mainly mud, farmyard animals, and the deeply religious stupidities of ... I can't even be bothered looking up which branch of christians they were. I used to know heaps about this bunch of self-flagellators but it's all gone.
Don't watch. It will depress, bore, and annoy you.
This isn't the 80s or 90s anymore.
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