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JakeBrinkman
Reviews
A Man Called Otto (2022)
High-budget Hallmark garbage that alienates all audiences
A Man Called Otto is a movie with no target audience. The overall message is "Boomers are completely justified in being total jerks to everyone around them, and everyone should still love them regardless because boomers are the most important people in any community." Despite the pro-boomer message, it completely alienates the boomer audience by also including pro-immigrant and pro-trans messages. Tom Hanks doesn't even act well; he just grumbles and shows absolutely no emotion about anything ever. The cinematography, music, supporting acting, etc is so bland that I thought I was watching a high-budget Hallmark movie. The movie gets a rare 1/10 from me.
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (2014)
The first 25% is awesome, the last 75% is tedious and boring
I got all but 2 achievements, which took me close to 100 hours. The game is okay, but because of the time commitment, I ultimately regret playing it.
The pregression tracker and unique personalities of *every* enemy is crazy detailed, so I can see why the game was considered innovative, but I had completely exhausted my enjoyment of the system after 25 hours, at which point I only completed about 40% of the achievements. Despite my boredom with the game, I forced myself through another tediously repetitive 75 hours pushing for 100% completion, only to find that I will never be able to motivate myself to complete the final 2 DLC achievements, which each take players an average of 5-8 hours to accomplish.
Despite the enemy system's innovation, it's like they decided "Hey, this is a great idea, let's throw it out there as quickly as possible and don't give a hoot about anything else in the game." Not only was the story incompatible with Lord of the Rings canon, the story is also nearly non-existent. In 100+ hours of gameplay, there is only 1 hour and 15 minutes of cutscenes, which is insane for a game based on a franchise with the richest lore. Also, the gameplay is an *exact* ripoff of the Batman Arkham games. It's bizarre to see a game that's so innovative in one aspect and so unimaginative in every other aspect.
I can see why people like this game, at least for a couple dozen hours, but I genuinely have no idea how this game won Game of the Year. 2014 must have been a terrible year for video games.
The Bear (2022)
Excellent, captivating, and tedious
Note: I have seen the first 3 seasons and may or may not continue watching.
This show captures everyday life incredibly well. Scenes are long and drawn out, with awkward moments in conversations, uhms and ahs, and all those little moments that make the scene seem SO real. You really feel like you're watching a real life conversation, definitely not overly dramatic or theatrical. For that same reason, it probably isn't for everyone. It's an amazing feat of acting and cinematography, but would probably be tedious for people who use TV for escapism.
It will also never have an ending because it's real life, and real life just keeps going and doesn't wrap up in nice story arcs. So I recommend you stop watching after season 2 episode 6 because that is by far the peak of the series (9/10), and it just keeps going with no peak after that.
And if you only want a taste of what the show is about, just watch season 3 episode 8. Despite being so far into the series, it's actually pretty standalone, and it's the 2nd best episode so far.
Madame Web (2024)
Exactly as bad as everyone says
It has always been trendy to hate on non-MCU superhero movies. Since the release of Endgame, that trend has extended to nearly all superhero movies and shows. So I have lately been expecting every movie and show to be at least a little bit better than critics and audiences say. But in this case, Madame Web was exactly as bad as everyone says it is.
I actually liked a lot of the major plot points and concepts, and several of the jokes were good. The 2 big problems were:
1. All the minor details were unbelievably inconsistent and/or incorrect. I could barely follow the overarching story because I was constantly flabbergasted at how they could have possibly screwed up some minor detail so badly. The biggest one is that CPR is a huge recurring plot point for the movie, but apparently none of the actors were given even basic training on how to perform CPR (even in the scene where Web is teaching people how to do CPR lol).
2. The acting was horrendous. O'Connor was the only one who tried to give a decent performance, but it's a little overacted. Everyone else is completely emotionless. Still, it is passable for everyone except Madame Web, Ben, and Ceiling Guy (the main villain who was so bad that I just watched the movie and already don't remember his actual name). Dakota Johnson didn't seem like a bad actress, but she put zero effort into her performance. It was the 2nd-worst wooden performance I've ever seen in a big budget production. Likewise, Adam Scott did decently well, but I've only ever seen him in comedies, so seeing him play serious Uncle Ben seemed like a major miscast. For Ceiling Guy, they re-recorded several lines without reshooting, so there are multiple scenes where his lip movements don't match his words, which is insane for even a low budget movie, let alone this $80M film. Plus he was a not-so-great actor given a terrible script to work with, which is a recipe for disaster.
Morbius, the previous movie in this series that got a ton of hate from critics and audiences, was actually a decent film in my opinion. It was not incredible or even noteworthy, but it was still fun and I didn't regret watching it. I cannot say the same about Madame Web.
South Park: The Stick of Truth (2014)
As a fan of the show, I regret playing this game
I'm not sure why this game was made. Every major joke is just a retelling of the biggest jokes from the show, but in a longer drawn-out format, broken up by combat and running around a map. There were 11 major arcs and it took me 22 hours to get 100%, so that's like dragging each 20 minute TV episode out to 2 hours long... The game might be intended for people who didn't watch the show and only wanted to see the highlights, but finding a list on Google of the best South Park episodes to watch would be more enjoyable and take less time than playing this game. The game does have original jokes, some of which made me laugh out loud, but they are too sparse to make playing the game worth it.
The gameplay itself is fine. It's essentially a ripoff of Paper Mario, which works well for South Park's art style. Achievement hunters will be VERY annoyed as there are dozens if not hundreds of missable collectibles, so you will need to heavily rely on a walkthrough guide if you want to complete the game in a single playthrough (and trust me, you won't want to play it more than once).
Life on Our Planet (2023)
Not the prehistoric nature doc that it pretends to be
This show is incredibly disingenuous. The name itself is accurate; this series gives a brief history of all life on Earth. But the show's advertisements and even the show itself constantly teases that the focus of this show is the dinosaurs, despite dinosaurs only being the focus of maybe 25% of the entire series.
The present day material is beautifully shot, but the storytelling and information is much better in other series such as Planet Earth, Life, or Life on Earth.
The dinosaur material mostly sticks to facts, but it also includes lots of details that are simply guesses, but it presents them as if they are known facts. Specifically, every bit of dinosaur behavior is completely unknown to us. Sure, these details are educated guesses based on currently living creatures, but this series presents them as if they are known facts.
The one thing this show does very well is the first 15-ish minutes of episode 6. It does an excellent job of describing how a single asteroid can cause a worldwide extinction event, which is a concept that can be difficult to understand. I probably won't ever rewatch this series, but I will probably rewatch this one segment.
If the show was less disingenuous, it would be neat to watch this series to see how some dinosaurs may have behaved. Then again, if you're just wanting to watch dinosaur fiction, you might as well watch Jurassic Park instead.
Horizon (2024)
A beautiful tourism advertisement
The shots are beautiful, but don't expect them to all contain nature. This show presents a series of popular Saudi Arabian tourist spots and research buildings that are related to nature and animals. Some animals are shown exclusively in captivity with no wild footage at all.
I greatly prefer the series Wild Arabia. That show did have lower quality cameras, but it (a) showcased all of the same animals plus more, (b) it had significantly more documentary information about each species, (c) it had actual scenes of their behavior in the wild rather than captivity, and (d) it explored the symbiotic lives shared between humans and some animal species.
Blue Beetle (2023)
Spy Kids with cuss words
It's like the main objective of the movie was to be the Spy Kids for this current generation of kids, but also it was really trying not to be because it had a ton of completely unnecessary cuss words. So the result is something that every adult and most teenagers would think is way too childish, but also no parent should show it to their kid. It's strange that they somehow managed to alienate every potential target audience.
My biggest complaint was that I don't understand the point of having a person in the Blue Beetle suit. His only contribution was demanding the suit must use non-lethal force, and the suit did literally everything else without any help from him and often in direct defiance of his orders. So there's no protagonist for the audience to connect to because the man seems useless while the suit is an unrelatable computer.
Also, the leading actress' accent is so thick that I genuinely wondered if she was deaf in real life.
With all that said, once I accepted that it would be filled with Spy Kids goofiness, it did make me laugh several times. The action was nothing new, but also not much to complain about (except Spy Kids cheese). The 80s color theme was really good. It was a good popcorn movie that I won't rewatch.
The Marvels (2023)
Dumb popcorn movie with flashes of fun
It's a fun popcorn movie with action and laughs, but every single aspect of it crumbles to pieces when you apply any semblance of logic.
When the movie commits to a scene, it's a lot of fun. The intro action sequence could have had minor improvements, but it did a great job of making me excited for the rest of the movie. Unlike most of the top IMDb reviews, I thought Nick Fury's climax was incredible, but only because they fully committed to the absurdity, and this scene is the only reason I rated this movie as high as I did.
The biggest problem is that everything is completely forgettable. I watched it last night, and I already can't tell you the villan's name. Ms Marvel is a likable character, but there isn't one single person in the movie that is given any sort of character development or backstory that isn't already shown in their other shows or movies. The only non-Earth planet that I can remember anything about, I only remember it because it had the potential to be just as memorable and enjoyable as Nick Fury's arc, but as soon as they introduced it, they chickened out and went back to boring normalcy instead of fully committing.
The second biggest problem is that anyone with an intro course understanding of physics would continuously cringe at the dozens of times that the most basic laws of physics are completely broken and ignored.
Mass Effect 2 (2010)
MASSive improvement over the first game
Note: I first played the game in 2023-2024. It took me about 95 hours to 100% complete the game.
I can't talk about ME2 without first discussing the orginal game. ME1 was fantastic at world-building (it took me 9 hours to complete the intro, and 8 hours of that was just reading the lore), but gameplay was an afterthought and grew really repetitive. They also gave the illusion of many branching conversational and plot-effecting decisions, but your choices actually had little to no impact on future events. I gave it a 5/10 as a game, 3/10 if you skip all the reading, but I'd give it 8+ if it had been a novel.
ME2 is a WAY better game. *Every* single mission felt unique, which is crazy for a ~100 hour game. Some were worse than others, but overall I loved the variety. Also, combat was completely overhaued, and almost all of the changes were for the better. It also abandons the illusion of many branching choices and instead focuses on telling a great story. There are still choices that can be made, but very few of them seem to have massive consequences. The character development was written so well that, by the end of the game, I genuinely cared for every one of my 12 team members on a personal level. I still have minor complaints about the combat, and I dislike that certain story missions can start a timer for the next story mission with no prior warning, so it's easy to miss out on half the game's content if you don't make sure you do *everything* possible before intentionally progressing the main story. So it's not perfect, but it's still the biggest improvement in a direct sequel that I can think of for any video game.
Dumb Money (2023)
They pushed this movie into production way too quickly
Tl;dr - Dumb Money tries to act like it's on the side of the household investor, but the subliminal messages are simply not factual at best, and truly malicious at worst.
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Dumb Money was added to Netflix this morning. I watched it. It's actually a pretty great depiction of the average stock subredditor's perspective of the Nov 2020 - Feb 2021 period, but it's really obvious that the movie was made way too early because they didn't and/or couldn't include any of the information that has been uncovered from March 2021 through today. They try to remedy *some* of that with some text blurbs before the credits roll, but at that point production was probably too far along to alter the actual screenplay, and they also get things wrong even in those final texts.
Incorrect info:
* The shorters are portrayed as if they were blindsided by the public interest around GameStop. The Congressional hearings and resulting documents (compiled and made public in Jan 2023) proved that they were each actively aware of the situation and operated in full collusion to knowingly commit crimes. The text right before the credits does state this, but it is not included in the movie itself at all.
* The event is continuously referred to as a squeeze despite the SEC's investigation results confirming that a short squeeze never occurred and is still imminent (SEC Oct 2021 report).
* The movie implies that the majority of GME shareholders sold after the crimes were committed. In reality, less than 10% of investors sold during the event (SEC Oct 2021 report), and nearly 0% of investors have sold since (inferred from OBV data for GME).
* The movie's before-credits text claims "hedge funds have dramatically reduced their short positions" despite absolutely no evidence to support that and significant evidence to refute it. The shorters successfully altered short interest reporting requirements to hide their true short positions taken against specific companies. With no investors selling GME (see previous bullet point), the only possible explanation for GME's price decline since Jan 28, 2021 is new short positions opened against GME. Across all the companies Citadel has shorted, Citadel has increased its short position investments by nearly nearly 30% in the time since the GME event.
* The movie also implies that the people who didn't sell during the event are idiots. It doesn't show any of the actual theory to support either GME's strong fundamentals or the inevitability of a GME short squeeze. If it did, then the audience would realize the people who sold were the true idiots, but they "won" because they got lucky (the true "dumb money"), and the only reason that the smart holders "lost" was because they didn't anticipate crimes would be committed against them, or that when crimes had occurred, those crimes would be pardoned by the government and regulators. The movie does portray Keith Gill's holding (and doubling down) as a positive thing, but only as a motivational story, and it still strongly implies that him continuing to hold and buy was a huge personal financial mistake.
* Although this one is less serious of an error, I think it's unforgivable that a movie wanting to make fun of big money didn't show Ken Griffin vomiting after he committed perjury during the Congressional hearing (the vomiting wasn't shown on camera during the live stream, but it's clearly audible).
Suits (2011)
A soapy drama that pretends to be smarter than it is
Note: I have seen 7 seasons, but I wish I only watched 1.
Suits is a show about lawyers, but it doesn't really know how to make a compelling law show. The result is something that is dressed up to give the impression of being smart and witty, but there is no substance underneath the tailored suit. So the real target audiences are people who want to watch a soap opera without admitting it's a soap opera and people with less than average intelligence who want to feel smart because they can follow along with the show's simple legal jargon.
They throw around legal terms that most people should have heard of as if they were discovering something incredible, then they gloss over the actual legal proceedings and instead spend the majority of the screen time on soapy drama. That said, Markle (Rachel Zane) and Hoffman (Louis Litt) both carry the series with their dramatic performances while the rest of the cast is varying shades of average.
Season 1 - Nothing noteworthy, but it held my interest. 4/10
Season 2 - An intruder in the firm successfully causes infighting between the protagonists. None of the characters or cast have chemistry. 2/10
Season 3 - They regain their chemistry, but they lose their moral high ground. When the protagonists are forced to represent clients that they know are criminals, instead of using the situation to show their qualms and build interesting emotional depth, they simply blow it off as "I'm just doing my job," which implies that they have no problem with the situation. Even the biggest white knight characters become morally grey. 3/10
Season 4 - The show has now abandoned all pretense of being anything other than a soap opera. Also, every single protagonist shifts from morally grey to varying shades of evil. 1/10
Season 5 - Characters have stopped doing things that are blatantly unethical, but they lean into the soap opera even harder, blatantly ignoring everything about their clients if it doesn't directly relate to the singular main character's personal life. But the worst offense is reducing the primary climax of the entire series so far to 1 single episode. For the first 14 episodes of this 16-episode season, I honestly believed that season 5 will just be the set up for a courthouse trial that will take the entirety of season 6, which the writers *very* easily could have done if they wanted to salvage any measure of Suits being a legal drama. Instead, they show that 5 seasons of buildup is absolutely meaningless to them because they would rather get back to the soap opera as fast as possible. 1/10.
Season 6 - Early on, a character says "This isn't going to be like you expect because this isn't a prison movie." The season then plays out exactly like you'd expect because it uses literally every single clichéd prison TV trope you can imagine. 1/10.
Season 7 - The show is no longer pretending to be a legal drama, and it has gone full soap opera. No one is ever worried about their cases except for how it affects their personal relationships. I'm guessing they also cut their budget for directors because the new directors added a terrible handheld shaky camera effect in every "tense" scene.
Echo (2023)
A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one
Note: I have seen the first season.
I wasn't expecting much from Echo, the new Marvel show. It's a spinoff from the Hawkeye show, and you should definitely watch Hawkeye to have a better understanding of Echo's plot. Hawkeye was mediocre with flashes of greatness, so I was expecting even less to come from this spinoff. But when the first episode has a 3 minute 58 second single take action scene that ENDS with over a minute of the most difficult choreography... well it certainly grabbed my attention!
It lulls just a bit in the middle, but the climax is emotionally moving. At one point I was filled with a unique mixture of pity, outrage, and joyous relief that I could feel tears beginning to well.
This show is not intended for children, though it's only a bit more violent than the latest theatrical Marvel films, and it stays pretty clean in terms of sex and language. Despite the focus on an adult audience, the story and acting don't quite reach the level of Marvel's best adult-audience shows (Daredevil & Jessica Jones), though it's much better than the weaker adult-audience shows (Luke Cage & Iron Fist).
Warning: Immediately at the end of the first episode, they show a trailer for the rest of the season... As if people would watch a whole episode and not be able to make up their mind as to whether or not they want to keep watching? So frustrating.
Call of the Sea (2020)
The best Lovecraftian game I've played
A first-person puzzle game inspired by HP Lovecraft (Cthulhu).
It's a low-budget indie game, and at first I was put off by the cartoony art and glitches. The glitches got significantly better after chapter 1 and were gone after chapter 2. And I quickly got used to the art and swept up in the story.
The story was really good, and I was filled with ever-growing dread and anticipation from the moment act 2 began. The main character's voice actor was really good. The puzzles were perfect. A few were headscratchers that stumped me for a while, but I never needed to look up a guide.
I tried to explore everything in one playthrough. I completed the game and had about 90% of everything (60% of achievements) after 8 hours. Another 1 or 2 hours for a quick run-through to grab the things I missed and get 100%.
If HP Lovecraft made a video game, it would be exactly like Call of the Sea. I think the ending was somewhat more logically understandable and less terrifying than most of his stories, but Call of the Sea is still a fantastic addition to the eldritch horror genre.
Predators (2022)
Slow-paced, but beautifully shot and occasionally incredible
I've read the other reviews on IMDb, and I think most people stopped watching after the 1st or 2nd episode. I agree that those episodes were not good, but I'm glad I pushed through.
In all episodes, the camera quality is phenomenal. Some reviewers didn't like Tom Hardy's narration, but I don't feel that way. I think his voice was perfectly appropriate, never monotonous or overly enthusiastic. My biggest problem is the pacing. I think each episode could have been trimmed by 10-15 minutes.
The first 2 episodes, Cheetah & Lion, cover animals that are so commonly covered in documentaries that they present no new information at all. To make it worse, for those 2 episodes, the camera crews weren't lucky enough to capture any particularly epic hunts, so these episodes drag on and probably aren't worth watching.
Episodes 4-5 are much better, though they are still slow-paced. Episode 3, Puma, has no new information, but the guanaco hunt at the climax is jaw-dropping. Episode 4, Polar Bear, covers bears hunting beluga whales, which I have never seen before. Episode 5 covers the rarely covered African Wild Dog.
In the end, I wish I had skipped or skimmed through the first 2 episodes, but the last 3 were well worth the watch.
L.A. Noire (2011)
Excellent addition and homage to film noir
I got 100% and all achievements in the remastered version of LA Noire. It took me nearly 50 hours.
Likes: Crazy level of detail. The map is basically the entirety of LA in 1940, which is nuts, but my favorite part is the cases. Nearly every case is based on either a real-life crime case or the plot of an old noir film. The dialogue is really interesting. The voice acting, facial expressions, and mannerisms during interrogations are done really well. You feel like you're actually solving the crimes with the detective. The script was 2,200 pages, and it shows in the fantastic execution.
Dislikes: In true noir fashion, nearly every character (including the main character) is unlikable overall.
Dislikes that only achievement hunters would care about: You need 5 stars on every level, which means you either need to follow a guide (which feels lame and less immersive) or you need to play through once and then replay the whole game while following a guide. The collectibles are obnoxious in such a massive map, and impossible to complete without a guide.
Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures (2023)
Worse than childish
Note: I have seen the first 7 episodes (14 since they're 2-part episodes), and I have no intention of watching further.
Canon - For those only looking for this series addition to canon: At the time of the High Repiblic, there were enough youngling Jedi that the Jedi established Adacemies on multiple planets. That's it. And yes, that info is supplied in other media, so this show really adds nothing at all.
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This series isn't just childish; it's idiotic. The entire collection of canon media emphasizes frequently how difficult it is to pilot a ship and that it's practically impossible for non-Jedi children to do so, yet the adults are constantly and knowingly sending groups of children into danger with a non-Jedi child for a pilot who has, by her own admission, never flown anything bigger than a landspeeder prior to the show's first episode.
The series' action and target audience is comparable to Spidey and His Amazing Friends, but at least Spidey still shows the adults doing adult jobs such as driving vehicles.
The villain is also idiotic. Spidey's villains pose actual threats (physical pain, city-wide damage, civilians in potentially deadly scenarios), and that series is able to depict those "mature" threats in a very child-friendly light. On the other hand, Young Jedi's big baddie reveal is... a kid stealing fruit from a street vendor. Something that poses no real threat to anyone and could be solved by a simple "Hey! Stop that!"
People defend this show by saying "It's for kids," but having kids as a target audience doesn't mean it has to defy logic, break canon, and ignore common sense. The target audience is children, not imbeciles.
Ahsoka: A Star Wars Story fan film (2019)
Great cast and props, rushed storytelling
The actors' performances and the costumes are spot on.
The editing is way too choppy. This film really needs to be about 5-10 minutes longer for the story to make sense. It doesn't even need to have additional scenes or dialogue. All it needs is more time to set the scene so the audience actually has time to process what planet we are seeing and what is even happening before it quickly cuts away again to another scene.
The canon continuity was strange. The writers correctly and plausibly fit this film into a specific point within the Rebels TV show, but they ignore her white lightsabers and instead use one blue and one green. This film was probably made as an homage to the character Ahsoka, but that respect is in contrast with the saber color choice because ignoring the white sabers means the editors are disrespecting all of the character's development and growth that came with restoring her Inquisitor-bled crystals from red to white.
If they correct the lightsaber colors and double (or more) the runtime with added exposition, this would earn an easy 7+ out of 10. But instead, this feels more like a very rough draft.
Great Shark Chow Down (2019)
How not to make a compilation video
Compilation videos are supposed to show the highlights from the source material, but this one strangely chooses not to. It does well at cutting down the important information to get the stories told in bite-sized chunks, but the video itself is clearly not a highlight reel. For example, the unique 180-degree camera from "700 Sharks" provided some breathtaking footage of the swarm hunting, but "Great Shark Chow Down" only had one brief clip from that footage. "Great Shark Chow Down" felt more like an extended teaser trailer that made you want to go watch the source documentary rather than watch this one.
Super Mario Galaxy (2007)
It's a major improvement, but far from perfect
Note: I first played this game in 2022. I would have probably given it 8/10 ir higher if I had played it when it was first released compared with other games of that time.
I beat the game, so this is a complete review. Well, I got 120 stars, so technically I only halfway beat the game, but I don't plan on repeating the entire game as Luigi just to unlock the final level and get all 242 stars.
Pros:
* The gameplay is vastly improved over 64 and Sunshine. For 50-75% of the levels, solving puzzles felt like I was solving puzzles rather than 64 & Sunshine where 50-75% of the "puzzles" were simply struggling against game mechanics or unclear instructions of what to do next.
* The difficulty scaled really well between the early and endgame levels.
* The spin attack added new movement capabilities that I really liked. It's not as versatile as the hat in Odyssey, but a step up from 64 without feeling like I'm cheating (like the hover in Sunshine sometimes made me feel)
Cons:
* Like 64 and Sunshine, this game also has infuriatingly limited camera controls, and joystick movements flip nonsensically whenever you are walking on walls or the ceiling.
* A solid 25% of the missions still had me angry at the game mechanics. Specifically the later levels that inexplicably have fewer or zero checkpoints. It's a huge improvement over 64 & Sunshine, but far from perfect. I know finally achieving that flawless execution is the gratifying reward that a lot of people get from the Mario side-scrollers, but that has never been my preferred type of game.
* I needed to look up guides to complete 10ish% of the levels, which is *way* better than Sunshine's blue coin fiasco, but still annoying.
* Other movement mechanics, especially the backflip, were inexplicably made more difficult to execute.
* Star Bits seemed like collecting just for the sake of collecting. They were basically useless during a level and were only used to feed the hungry Lumas.
* The story had a bit too much Japanese wackiness for my taste. They went way too in-depth with the pseudo science that completely violated every law of physics. They could have worked harder to come up with a reasonable explanation, or they could have not tried to explain it and let the players ignore it as "cartoon physics." But the fact that they specifically call it out but completely fail to convincingly explain it broke my immersion every time. I still enjoyed playing the levels, but I didn't care at all for the overarching story.
Overall: 6/10. I probably won't replay it, but I'm glad I did play it, and I would recommend it to people who have not yet played the far superior Odyssey.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: A Jedi's Return (2022)
Not actually a behind-the-scenes documentary
Calling this a "behind-the-scenes" or "making of" documentary is false advertising. There is nothing in this documentary that explains how anything in the show was made, filmed, composed, or any of those things that are staples for a good behind-the-scenes documentary. The only exception is a look at the puppet/mask designs for some of the aliens, but this is only a 2-minute scene.
Instead, the the show focuses almost exclusively on having each of the major actors talk about how they felt being in a Star Wars production. As a fan of the prequels, the first 5-10 minutes were interesting to hear about Ewan's original acceptance of the role, and it's nice to see Ewan and Hayden are such good friends, but there's no reason to drag out the feel good stuff and the "I love Star Wars" sentiment for a whole hour when they could be showing us some actual information about how the show was made.
The Nevernight Connection (2020)
A short and low budget propaganda piece
This video was produced by the FBI as a fearmongering propaganda piece. I do agree with the message, but audiences should be aware that the film was made with a clear and strongly biased agenda. Side note: why is the FBI making counterintelligence movies when international concerns are the CIA's job?
The audio editing and choreography were surprisingly good for a low budget short, but those are the only positive aspects of the film.
The acting is as expected from a low budget film that doesn't have any A, B, or even C list actors. It's never egregiously bad, but it's also never good (only the lead character is decently relatable at times).
The plot and screenwriting are a total mess. On one hand, the use of flashbacks to tell the story makes this movie more interesting than most corporate proganda, but the flashbacks are used far too often and are sometimes poorly edited. None of the characters are given any motivation for their actions. The film is almost over before the audience realizes whether or not Landry even knows he did something wrong, and the audience doesn't know either because the movie is entirely too vague at explaining what it is he actually did. The wife's motivations are revealed much too late in the film, and every scene prior makes it look like she's just played by a really bad actress. The former coworker seems irrationally angry, and the audience doesn't even know why until during the ending credits. As a staple of corporate propaganda, the bad guy Landry is written way over the top, a complete sleazeball all the way from big things like his checking out women despite being married, down to the little things like his never saying "thank you."
Worst of all, the audience is never shown any sort of reason as to why Landry did what he did. It's easy to say "no" when the situation is presented as black-and-white. But if he risked everything that he did for a measly $15k (in the movie, $25k in real life), then he most likely had some sort of financial problems at home that lead him to need a small sum of cash quickly. The film misses the entire point it is trying to make by preaching "just say 'no'," a message that programs like DARE have proven never work. The message would be better received if the movie had focused instead on warning the viewer "you need to say 'no' even when the offer is really tempting."
Diabolical (2022)
Weak start, strong finish
Note: This is a spinoff of The Boys. The first season of Diabolical was released after season 2 of The Boys, and it contains some spoilers for the main series
Episode 1 - 1/10 absurd, entirely unfunny, and overtly grotesque
Episode 2 - 4/10 funny concepts for reject heroes, but obnoxiously grotesque
Episode 3 - 4/10 closest to the theme of The Boys, but ultimately just a random side story
Episode 4 - 6/10 unoriginal plot, but it does a great job of getting the audience emotionally attached to the main characters in such a short episode
Episode 5 - 6/10 original and funny, but little emotional attachment
Episode 6 - 6/10 emotional, and the villain is funny, but the conclusion is rushed
Episode 7 - 5/10 emotional, but it doesn't really fit the theme of The Boys
Episode 8 - 7/10 the only episode in this season that fans might consider a necessary watch. Adds background and character development for Homelander and Black Noir.
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Two sided, but only one side is sharp
Nocturnal Animals is basically two short films combined in one movie, switching frequently between the two. One is a film about a lady reading a book called "Nocturnal Animals," and the other depicts the actual contents of said book.
The book - 8/10 - A compelling story with some great acting performances. Some decisions the characters make early in the story don't make the most sense, but it's compelling and moving all the same. If this story wasn't broken up so frequently by the terrible 2nd story, then this story probably would have brought me to tears on multiple occasions.
The lady reading the book - 1/10 - Horrendously wooden acting performances, unnecessarily obscene, and the main character is an extremely bigoted spoiled brat.
Marvel Studios: Assembled (2021)
Consistently bland with occasional sparks
This series is episodic, so it is better to rate individual episodes. The series is ongoing, and I will update my review as I watch new episodes.
9/10 - These episodes don't waste time by retelling the movie's/show's story, but rather focus on deep dives into casting, character development, screenwriting, stunt work, effects, costume/set design, music, cinematography, etc.
* Loki (season 2)
7/10 - These episodes don't have any mind-blowing new trivia, and they still focus a bit too much on simply retelling the movie's/show's story, but they check all the boxes for a good behind-the-scenes documentary by exploring the casting, screenwriting, stunt work, effects, costume/set design, etc.
* Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
* Hawkeye
* Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
* Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 3
* Echo
5/10 - These episodes have some good info and I'm glad I watched them, but at least 50% of the show follows the series' terrible 2/10 formula.
* WandaVision
* What If...?
* Eternals
* She-Hulk: Attorney at Law
* Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
* Secret Invasion
2/10 - These episodes contain no new information and are essentially in-depth plot recaps of the movie/show that you already watched, as told by the leading cast & crew.
* The Falcon and the Winter Soldier - This one is particularly heartbreaking to watch as you can see all of the cast are genuinely excited for the show, believing themselves to be part of something that will be amazing, but completely oblivious to the fact that the director and screenwriters are destroying everything good about the series by trying to pull the plot in too many directions at once.
* Loki (season 1)
* Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
* Ms Marvel
1/10 - Same 2/10 formula, except they either completely ignore or fail to explain the decisions behind elements that were drastically changed for the worse compared to the comics.
* Black Widow - When talking about Taskmaster, they all but directly say "Diversity is literally the only thing required to make a good movie/show" as if that somehow justified their decision to destroy every element of the character that fans enjoy and turn him/her into one of many mindless martial arts masters in the MCU, which was a horrendous decision regardless of the character's gender. They also state "Black Widow is unique because she is just really well trained and isn't actually a superhero" while completely ignoring the fact that they bizarrely gave her superhuman strength and endurance for this film.
* Thor: Love and Thunder - actual quote: "Don't worry about (all the previous Thor movies). You can pretty much forget everything about them."
* Werewolf by Night - 15 minutes of "making of" documentary buried alongside 40 minutes of the director's family home videos.