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schmuelio75
Reviews
Secret Chef (2023)
Needed a real host
So much of what makes competition cooking shows watchable is the host(s). When you're relying on civilians for your charisma you're already betting on long-shots. The central gimmick to this was good enough to grow from, but it just gets hindered over and over again by its own ostensibly clever machinations. And the biggest wart for me was how the challenges were so often unachievable by the competitors in the time allotted. Which leads me to the other reason to watch cooking competitions-to be educated/inspired. Since the completed dishes on this show were very often less than presentable, they definitely weren't inspiring and since a lot of the methods involved in preparing the dishes were rushed and constrained by bizarre parameters they also were rarely educational or edifying.
A somewhat entertaining spectacle but it needs retooling to become worth making another season.
Class of '09 (2023)
Smells like compromise coming from the writers' room
Maybe this was a case of too many cooks in the kitchen (read: too many producers with script notes) but it had such a great first half (perhaps first 3/4) and then just felt like it shed all of it the elements that were keeping it artfully together to do a mad dash to the finish line. It needed at least an extra episode--these 8 episode runs are almost never nearly enough and it seems like the HBO model of 12 episodes for a show, or season of a show, has always felt the best to me, not too long not too short. Class o'09 was a nuanced exploration of the good and bad potential for using AI in law enforcement. I know personally I would generally fall on the negative side of the debate for using AI but the show did a great job of demonstrating that there are potential upsides if there were ever real checks and balances baked in. But then, right around the time the show felt it had made its philosophical points, it just rushed to end everything and tie everything up in a tidy gift bow. If I had to guess, I'd say there were budgetary constraints foisted on the writers. I bet they had great scripts and had to cut them down. I mean, even the last episode was kind of unceremoniously short compared to the rest. Also there were a couple characters that felt very tacked on that I wonder if they had a more fleshed out backstory in earlier script revisions. Regardless of all that, the two lead characters, Poet and Tayo, really carried the show with their performances and made the overarching themes of a Pandora's box and a Golem convincing as realistic possibilities. Also, I'll say that I've never before watched a show that made me wish I'd had different goals when I was younger and had considered the option of joining the FBI. And I don't feel like this show serves as copaganda while it also doesn't serve as the opposite. To sum up, I've seen a few other shows fall harder off the cliff in a run up to ending the series or mini series and this show didn't come close to those *cough cough Dexter cough cough*. Definitely an entertaining and thoughtful watch that I wish I could have given a 9 or 10 but the last episode I rate as a 4 so that brought down the average.
Smile (2022)
Sat in the 2nd row for full immersion-you should do the same!
I feel like this is an example of when a filmmaker sits down and says, what are a few of my favorite horror movies/shows, and then extracts some dramatic and storytelling devices from each and tries to make a new thing. Often this experiment fails. I submit that for Smile it worked, even while I was conscious of the borrowings while I was watching. My take is that the sources of inspiration for this are The Outsider (Stephen King/HBO), It Follows and The Ring. How can I hate on those influences?! I'm sure there are other elements too but those stood out. All combined, this movie kept me on edge the whole time. I loved the cinematography with a lot of long shots that allowed me to examine all the corners of a set. Plus, I think the new horror-favorite Dutch camera angle is to now have a drone shot that turns upside down-very unnerving! I'm sure it was probably done before, but I credit Ari Aster using it to great effect early on in Midsommar to let the viewer know, things ain't right. I agree with another reviewer how unfortunate it is that horror movie actors are never considered for Oscar noms (hello Toni Collette in Hereditary!). I don't know if Sosi Bacon's performance would completely rise to that level of deservedness, but I'll be damned if she didn't completely sell this roll with her whole being. Without her performance I don't know how a viewer could have empathized with the condition of absolute fear and sense of losing one's mind. I didn't give this movie a 10/10 because there were a couple annoying plot elements that took me out of disbelief suspension, mostly just how those closest to her turned their backs on her so easily, especially her sister and fiancé. It seemed like she had no previous history to cause them to cut bait so decisively. Just weird that they had a one strike and you're out policy. Maybe there were scenes left on the cutting room floor that would have explained that better?
X (2022)
They're sure energetic for nonagenarians
Fun and well-made and everyone plays their part perfectly for what the auteur is seeking, at least from what I can gather. My main thought I kept having though was, this decrepit elderly couple that keeps talking about how old and tired they are sure have way more energy than people half their age, what with all the running around in the middle of the night, getting up to myriad violent hijinks. I'm in my late 40's and I wish I had their gumption to get up and go. But it still didn't necessarily detract from the moodiness of the entire piece, which I'm just throwing a wild guess out there, is a sort of meta homage to Texas Chainsaw Massacre that aims to turn that sub genre of horror somewhat onto its ear. I guess it got there.
Prey (2022)
Totally worth the watch
Normal pitfalls of action movie logic-if you can't look past those then why even considering watching. Compelling heroine that I was rooting for the whole time. Sometimes I couldn't help but think, hey it's Revenant vs Predator (of course without a white man being at the center of the story), but I didn't have any issues if that was ever a thought that started the ball rolling to make this film. It's not wildly innovative, but it incrementally took some pretty cool ideas to fruition and I'm all for it.
NOS4A2 (2019)
Worth watching... and simultaneously unnecessarily drawn out
At the end of the day, this is some solid world building and it bums me out that they didn't get the chance to finish their intended run. These two seasons could have been combined into one 12 or 13 episode season and then they would have had a chance at completing the story before they got canceled. The producers could have had 6 episodes for the first part and then had a short break before heading into the 2nd part, thus not losing momentum and viewers between airings. I have to wonder if they lost viewers by having so much filler, long drawn out scenes where nothing new happens to propel the plot forward (you don't have to spend as much time as they did on showing the characters struggling with their inner turmoil/demons-we get it already!). All that said, every episode has some good to great elements and is worth watching just to get to the episodes that are front-to-back compelling, which fall disproportionately toward the last two thirds of season 2 (another reason to be bummed out that the ball stopped rolling there, just when it was starting to pick up speed). The acting is solid and look of the show is great--the production design looks like they really cared and you can see a lot of work and careful crafting went into every built set, and of course the picture car team killed it. Suffice to say, it doesn't look like it was a cheap show to make, which probably went into the decision to axe it. At least most of the story lines had come to a resting point by the end of season two, so don't not watch it just because the story wasn't naturally ended.
P. S. My brain often saw parallels with Girl in the Woods on Peacock (heroine lead/battling supernatural forces/internal struggles) and I wish that show had more of the NOS4A2 ethos in their production and storytelling.