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Orange Is the New Black (2013)
Too bad the agenda takes over...
I'm really loving the original content that Netflix has been creating. I enjoyed the latest Arrested Development (sure, more of the same but the same is still good) and I highly rated their House of Cards. I didn't know anything about this one, but on the merit of their other shows, I decided to give this one a try.
On the surface, it's your standard issue fish-out-of-water story, prison-style. What struck me early on is how they gave personality to the different characters through backstory vignettes, especially the transgender inmate. TV requires that a transgender be an overly flamboyant drag queen with no motive or life of their own, but always ready to dispense some pithy 'life lesson' about tolerance to whoever the main character happens to be. "Orange" at least gives the Sophia character a little backstory and motivation before sending her back to being a sassy-but-wise prison hairdresser. Think Lafayette from True Blood but dialed down to a 6 from Lafayette's 9.
I didn't have a problem with the amount or way that a lot of the lesbian relationships were depicted. With black hair, no makeup, and clunky hipster frames, Laura Prepon does a decent job as Piper's husky- voiced ex-girlfriend. She's an interesting character who is both good and bad but mainly falls into the grey because she has her own goals and motivations and they try to make her something other than just a prop for the Piper character.The offputtingly unattractive Natasha Leonne grunts the lines of her aggressively sexual character through clenched teeth, and the handful of attempts to make this character interesting rather than annoying don't ring true. Some of the other 'tribes' are more reliably stereotypical, the black girls being loud and unruly and the latinas being hot-headed but loyal.
Now for the down side. If I'd done this review clear up to episode 6 or 8, I probably would have given the show an 8. As the season went on, it became clear that the only group not to get the soft-shoe treatment is the Christians. Portrayed by drab women with ridiculous meth-mouth tooth prosthetics that prevent them from even speaking naturally, the leader is a shrill Bible-thumper that only exists in a Hollywood writer's book of bogus stereotypes. Somewhere on the spectrum between the preacher from Footloose and insane Pentecostal snake handlers from the 1950s, the hyper-evangelical Pennsatucky character is an artificial villain conjured up from the only group that political correctness allows TV writers to insult. I was able to ignore the first few interactions with this character and focus on some of the more compelling plot lines, like the Daya/Pornstache/Clean-cut guy love triangle. It soon became clear that this show was going to beat the anti-religion drum loud and long. Once little Piper oh-so-cleverly cast doubts into Pennsatucky's minions with her trite little bumper sticker atheist screed, I knew what to expect for the rest of the show.
Also, the Piper character whipsaws back and forth between being helpless and hopeless, then having "I must do this, now!" epiphanies. After about the 3rd time, it started getting old. I also began wondering how they're scaling time in this show, I know the episodes aren't continuous days, but when Piper snitches or does any of the zillion other things that should get her shivved in the shower, the other inmates even ones they go to great lengths to establish as 'no nonsense' and dangerous seem to shrug it off and forgive and forget like it's nothing (except Pennsatucky, of course).
All in all, it's a fairly entertaining show that you watch to burn an hour of your time, but has little to no 'take away' value. Netflix's lack of commercials means a 1 hour show is really 1 hour, so that's a plus. Too bad the writers spun out of control late in the season and nobody reined in their ham-handed attempts at a "message".
House of Cards (2013)
How to make politics watchable
*Possibly very minor spoiler*
I saw the high ratings so decided to check this one out. I generally dislike political programs, since I hate politics and politicians, mainly due to the non-stop assault of the 24 hour news cycle where there is no escape from these egomaniacs and sociopaths.
This show does the political theme as well as it can be done. You can tell it's definitely a show, but it's neither too dumbed down nor too in-depth when riding along with Francis as he navigates the various relationships with members of Congres, the White House, and DC in general. The writing is whip-smart, the 4th wall asides are not off-putting, and the acting is of the highest quality. There is a lot of exposition, but nothing unnecessary or blatantly insulting to the viewer's intelligence. The only hokey part I've seen was the 'bum whisperer' scene where Francis pacifies a deranged man with some Dr. Phil 'tough love'. To be fair, that was maybe 20 seconds of eye rolling out of 13 episodes, so it's forgivable.
5 episodes in and there hasn't yet been the standard Hollywood pandering where the Republican is a conniving villain and the Dem is a noble visionary. In this show, like in reality, the team you're on doesn't matter when you're jockeying for personal power. The "main" guy, isn't necessarily a good guy, and rather than Dems or Repubs being all good or all bad, or being a caricature of what Hollywood wishes they were, it really looks like each secondary character is differentiated by how much or little of a pawn they are to Francis.
This is a strong 9/10 effort and definitely the kind of program that continues the demise of lowest common denominator network programming.
Under the Dome (2013)
Great idea, but horrible execution
The pilot episode started off with a very intriguing premise and I made it a point to watch the next few episodes. A few people die and it really gave you a sense of being swept along as the characters come to terms with the new reality they're faced with and try to understand the Dome.
By the 2nd and 3rd episodes, the characters have fit perfectly into their 2-dimensional roles and now I couldn't care less about them. It seems the casting and writing was done to be extra politically correct, and their 'moral' points are being made with all the subtlety of an 'After School Special'.
In the era of pay channels and far better series without language/nudity censoring, Under the Dome is a 3 that loses a point for it's ham-handed and preachy writing. This is definitely not a show where you set aside time to watch.
A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)
Incredibly Bad
This is the worst version of Die Hard I have ever seen. The plot is both threadbare and ridiculous. The shaky-cam action sequences are hard to follow. It's purely an exercise in "If 5 explosions is good in an action film, then 25 will be totally awesome bro!"
John McClane isn't a hero in this one, he's a psychopath. I'm not sure if he was written to pretend to be 'dumb' or if the angle they were trying for was that he truly was an American ignoramus completely oblivious to the existence of other countries. Either way, it's incredibly annoying and lacking any of the charm of previous Die Hards. He flat out murders people, drives a vehicle "monster truck"-style over lines of cars containing people. His one-liners are terrible. His son's character is terrible. He has calm cellphone conversations during a high speed chase.
I gave this one a 2 based solely on the amount of property damage and explosions, for those who enjoyed Transformers 2. The only other movie I can think of that forcibly crammed so many unnecessary action movie tropes in so remorselessly was Tango and Cash.
On movie night, if it's this movie or nothing, please choose nothing. Go to bed early and be thankful the next day that you didn't waste an hour and a half of your life.
The Host (2013)
What was that?
I went into this movie without knowing anything beyond the 'body- snatching' premise. What I got from watching it, is that this movie never really developed a sense of what it wanted to be. Alien horror like Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Chase suspense like the Bourne movies or Blade Runner? Tweener pulp like Hunger Games or Twilight?
I hadn't seen The Lovely Bones in ages, and didn't realize this girl was the same one from that. What brought TLB to mind was the incessant narrative while the human girl was arguing inside the creature girl's mind. I still got lost from time to time, even though when the creature was supposed to be expositing she'd move her mouth and actually talk while the human girl's voice was only in her head. Ultimately, I realized I didn't care enough about what they were saying to try to figure out who was saying what.
Basically what you're left with is a weak, annoying, and boring Frankenstein's monster made up of parts and premises of much better movies, yet failing to capture any of the interesting points of any of them. For obvious teenie flicks like Twilight I always keep in mind that I'm not the intended demographic so I'll like it less than the audience it's intended for, but The Host was such a big nothing that I wasn't even sure if it deserved to be cut any slack.
Hannibal (2013)
Really good for network TV
I came into this series entirely by accident, simply by its name (I thought it was historical, about Hannibal Barca)but went ahead and watched anyway. It is a standard detective procedural, where you watch the good guys and bad guy maneuver around each other to build suspense for a climactic showdown. In the meantime the stories are part CSI, part Numb3rs, part whatever else they show 20x per week on primetime.
While none of the characters are who you'd want to spend time with, they're certainly entertaining to watch, and the stories are entertaining as well, given how well-trod the entire genre is.
I docked it a point for 2 things: 1)When the main guy goes into his "trance" the amount of loud throbbing sub-bass and the amount of time it lasts is really irritating. You could turn down the sound, but inevitably the next scene is someone having a quiet dialog and then you miss something. 2) Only 2 episodes in and they went for the cheap pulp-theology bit along the lines of 'God must love killing, He kills lots of people every day'. Fine, whatever. It just sounded less like the character and more like a Hollywood screenwriter trying to sound badass and edgy.
All in all, this is a fine watch-it-when-it's-on series, but if you miss a week, don't hang yourself over it.
Paranormal State (2007)
The Worst of the Ghost Hunting Shows
I initially tuned in to Paranormal State because I (more or less) find the paranormal search genre to be interesting TV, if nothing else.
I really enjoy Ghost Hunters because well over half of their investigations result in total debunking, and find Most Haunted to be hilarious with its use of mediums and frumpy British women with Paris Hilton day-glo eyes fainting from fear/demonic presences all shot in lovely night-vision green.
Paranormal State has none of this appeal. It feels like it was cobbled together from "leads" that Ghost Hunters rejected. The episodes ranged from trailer trash families and single mothers with emo adolescents sitting around and scaring themselves, to an "interview" with a 5 year old about the monster who lives in his room (the monster goes RAWRRR, we are told). All of these people calling upon a college club to solve their problems. The whole show is about Ryan and his partner, his enormous ego. He leads his troupe of doe-eyed coeds around, except when a case is deemed "too extreme" and orders them to remain at the hotel HAHAHA. Better leave it to the pros, ie himself.
The unwitting comedy of this show is all in how gullible the participants are. Ryan spins his tales of being hunted, followed, etc by a demon that he first encountered when the Catholic Church recruited him to assist on a case. Sorry, but the Catholic Church has people who can do that, they don't need the day-shift manager at Quiznos to chip in his 2 cents.
This show is awful, shame on A&E for bankrolling this silliness, trying to follow in the footsteps of some much better paranormal-themed shows. It's almost unintentionally funny, except that Ryan is so arrogant and devoid of charisma that watching the show long enough to mock it isn't worth the trouble.
Swordfish (2001)
God Bless the $5.25 matinee
Well, the opening sequence is cool, from there they threw out the book of originality and picked up the "Summer Movie Checklist" Car chase with requisite explosions? Check. Cheesy "expert-hacker" montage with techno music overlay? Check. Main character using a weapon (rocket launcher) they would realistically have no way of knowing how to operate? Check.
To complete the checklist, they needed the "undercover detectives meeting at a strip club" "sidewalk vegetable vendor cart being smashed by runaway car" and "men carrying large pane of glass across the street" sequences. I will forgive the omission of the strip club sequence b/c they did show Halle Berry topless. Kiddies save your money to rent the video though, it's only like 4 seconds total and after you buy popcorn and soda you're out 15 bucks to see 4 seconds of boobs. They're nice..but not THAT nice.
Finish off with a "surprise" ending and you have a lot of flash, very little substance and quite a few ideas that probably looked ok on paper but never got fully treated in the film version. Go in with the idea that you're not paying to see Citizen Kane caliber movie-making and you'll be ok. 6 out of 10