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Triangle of Sadness (2022)
Quality comedy all the way!
I read some reviews, at the time of writing the movie had a 7.3, so okay, I have it a chance. It took me a few minutes to get into it, but wow!!! I haven't seen a movie this good made in a long time. Although unlike some imdb raters, I enjoy juvenile humor too, thi't isn't juvenile; the humor is so much better, and the characters put together in one situation, I can't imagine a more entertaining ensemble. And the whole critique in society, done in such a funny way, really blew me away. I read some people complaining about the final, but honestly I can't think of a better way to end the story. Quality comedy all the way.
Game of Thrones: The Iron Throne (2019)
Last episode I was defending GoT, but now ...
I am not among the group of people that was upset last episode about things not going in the direction they had hoped. And still in this episode I don't think that I disagree with the destiny of the different characters, what bothered me was how they got there in this episode. This episode was completely RUSHED. Not only are crucial decisions unrealistically quickly made without any objection, big parts of the story are simply gone. And I mean, sure, if things are straightforward you can skip them, but they weren't! In specific John's story line is simply incomplete. Had they simply taken double the time, they could have had told us the full, and probably logically consistent story, but by skipping half the scenes, they really messed up the final, a shame.
Game of Thrones: The Bells (2019)
The episode that does make sense, though you didn't see it coming
This episode got me hooked from start to finish. You look at the rating: a lot of 10's end a lot of 1's. The episode is the ending of a lot of different plot lines, a very emotional episode, and cinematically beautiful. You clearly see it also took a lot of inspiration from what we know from fire bombing of cities (like Dresden, and Tokyo). So why the 1's, and why are they wrong?
1. The power of the dragon. Where we saw a problematic difficult battle it turned out to be overwhelmingly easy. But how should anyone in the story know how easy it is to shoot a dragon? It happened once, and in hindsight, that probably was a lucky shot. It's like shooting helicopters out of the sky with RPGs. You have to be very lucky. Most of the time, they miss. Knowing how easy it turned out to be for Drogon to avoid arrows, sure Dany should have attacked Kingslanding before joining John. Sure, Cersei shouldn't have put the Golden Company outside the gates. But how could they have known? They couldn't have. But that things could have been easier in hindsight, is not forbidden. In probably happens a lot in real life too.
2. Dany becoming the mad queen, while she the heroine in many peoples eyes. The strong female role model. However, clear signs of megalomania, the ability to be very cold about people dying whom she doesn't like, and a strong impulse to react aggressively to things that frustrate her. Many people, including me, overlooked this, because well, we also never liked the people she killed, she did it in the name of ending slavery, and she had her trusted advisor to listen to. But from the moment she learns her legitimacy to the iron throne (on which her entire identity is build) was false, and that John is the rightful heir, we have seen her crumble apart. This crisis of identity, further reinforced by 1) the murder on her closest friend Missandei, 2) the lack of support she has in westeros, 3) John's unwillingness to share the bed with her, and 4) Johns popularity, just makes her snap. And subsequently she does what she has always done in those moments, go after people that irritate her, without any remorse or concern for their well being. In hindsight, none of Dany's story would have made sense without Dany's turn to madness, yet few people saw it coming.
The Orville (2017)
Seth's version of Star Trek
This is a true modern Star Trek. Using the galaxy as background it deals with contemporary questions concerning morals and how we handle cultural differences, international/interstellar interactions, personal relationships, etc. Characters make mistakes, and don't always do the right thing; but throughout the show there is unwavering optimism concerning the potential humanity of all intelligent life. It portrays earths and its allies ongoing battle to overcome xenophobia and shows an optimistic bright future in which tolerance is chosen over bigotry and war. And by doing so it stays true to Star Trek as Gene Roddenberry intended it. At the same time I like it more than any Star Trek show, because of the touch of humor Seth gives to it. Although I should note that the first few episodes have a bit too much jokes stuffed into them. The humor used creates a lightness to the show that makes it very pleasant to watch, and it actually makes some of the interactions between characters more realistic.
And as everyone is making the comparison with Star Trek Discovery. I personally did like Discovery, but it simply isn't Star Trek. You don't get to know the names of most crew members let alone their background stories and the thin moral and interstellar relationship aspect seems to be the background for the action we see, instead of the other way around. The Orville should have been Star Trek Cannon, and Discovery should have been some dark action genre Star Trek spoof.
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
It does improve a lot after season 2
Summary: I do not consider myself a Star Trek fan. The first two seasons have a few good episode, but are over all really boring and hard to follow, check the IMDB ratings of the individual episodes to pick out the good ones (I would say >7 is good, >6.5 is maybe). But from season 3 onwards, there are very few bad episodes (I still skipped most of the lowly rated ones).
I did not grow up with Star Trek, I don't own any Star Trek gadgets, nor do I have any friends that are crazy about Star Trek (as far as I know). But I try to give well-rated TV-shows and movies a chance. I ended up watching several Star Trek series, the original series, was a bit slow, but a nice distraction while doing some chores at home. I really liked some of the series that seem to be less popular with the die hard fans like Enterprise and Discovery. But I just couldn't get through TNG, I kept feeling puzzled about why it was rated so highly. Eventually I decided to give it one more chance but skipping all the low rated episodes, and that did the trick, I was hooked. In the first two seasons there are a lot of boring episodes, but afterwards it actually becomes a really good series.
Star Trek: Voyager: Threshold (1996)
Did they steal the idea for this episode from a 5 year old?
This episode is really bad. Let me try to explain so without giving too much away. First of all, there is not so much suspense and it feels quite boring, but okay; that can happen, and suspense has never been the primary focus of star trek. However, no interesting moral questions are raised, nor are any interesting scientific/futuristic concepts presented. In fact, the concepts presented sound like those of a 5 year old. Let me summarize these concepts (I hope this doesn't count as a spoiler): if you travel past warp 10 (a threshold this episode suddenly came up with; and is not adhered to in some other star trek canon) you are everywhere, but apparently also at different points in time. Slowing down will make you miraculously pop up very close to where you left when you went to warp 10. Rather than traditional evolution which happens over many generations, if you are everywhere and at ever moment in time, your DNA suddenly changes to whatever a human ancestors or successors DNA looked/will look like at some specific time in the past/future. Even my dreams are more logically consistent than this episode. Everything that happened in this episode feels completely random.
The Untold History of the United States (2012)
Once I finished I felt disappointment there wasn't more!
To clarify one thing: I am not a big fan of documentaries at all! They often get boring, because they often take way too long to say somethings. Not to mention the irritation I feel from the often wrong or skewed information they present. They try to make you believe eating meat is worse for CO2 production than gasoline usage or tell you pyramids are made by aliens and take 2 hours to do so.
However, this documentary is by far the best I have ever seen! The density of information is super high, I actually was able to watch it 4 times and still pick up something new every time. Everything is fact checked by them and by Showtime (not a USA critic organization). And I haven't found a mistake in the whole series. And once I finished I felt disappointment there wasn't more! What a series! You (almost) never see the narrator talking, there are constant video fragments, edited extremely well. And what a clarifying view on history! The stories focus on where the USA went wrong AND where USA almost went right but unfortunately didn't; in stark contrast to the bulk of the stuff we have been fed. An important theme of the series linked to the period discussed is the threat of nuclear war. Everything they say is still extremely relevant with the cold war regaining strength. Go enjoy this documentary, you won't be disappointed!
Wrong Cops (2013)
Absolutely brilliant comedy
I am personally very surprised by the movies low rating. It is true that the movie has a specific type of humor you have to be into. But when you are into this kind of humor, you will very much enjoy this movie. I was pretty much laughing continuously for the whole movie. I guess comedies always get a relatively low rating because there are a lot of people out there without any humor. However of all comedies, this is definitely one of the better ones. My advice: watch the movie, if you are not rolling on the floor laughing after the first 10 minutes, don't watch the movie. If you are rolling on the floor laughing, well I don't have to tell you what to do. Anyhow, there is also another point which is the music, I can imagine that some people are annoyed by Quentin Dupieux electronic music, yes, in that case this movie is not your movie.