Reviews

There's a scene in this movie about halfway through where the filmmakers, Lawrence, and the kid had it, like the movie in the palm of their hands, had it. A genuinely moving scene that could have launched the story into a direction few movies like this have gone and have the girl really fall for the geek and then she, the gorgeous, funny, wonderfully charming Jennifer Lawrence has to be the one to win him. It would have been hard to pull off without that scene, but again, they had it. If you've seen it, surely you know what I'm talking about (Man Eater, if you don't). You saw it on her face. She was falling for him. The story wasn't going to be the standard goofy kid falls for hottie. It was going to be the reverse of that. I was excited to see it.

But then it didn't go there. The movie pulled back and it became another Duckie doesn't get a girlfriend just a girl who's a friend. I don't understand why it didn't do it. Why couldn't we see Jennifer Lawrence's character really make herself vulnerable to him, let this green kid with no life experience be the one who shows her what life and love can really be about?

As it is, which is what should be reviewed, it is good. I cracked up aplenty. The trailer spoiled too many of the funny parts though, so I wasn't laughing as hard as I wish I had been.

I don't usually want a sequel to comedies, but I want one of this. I want them to be in a relationship. There's a lot of potential for some great comedy and conflict. Could those two survive as a couple. I'd love to find out. I just wish this movie had had the guts to explore it.

After the episode ended, I was left with a delicious case of melancholy, the kind excellent episodes of Black Mirror bring me. Like I felt after watching the amazing White Christmas, I thought I would be dwelling in that place for days. Sounds awful, but it's not. Unlike depression, melancholy can explored. Depression, you just want to die. Melancholy is like seeing a world from a different perspective, sad, yes, but rich with different warring ideas and emotions you get to wrestle with.

But then I read a review on here and the writer ruined it for me because he or she was right. They pointed out the why not send the robots up instead, but that's not the point that got me. If you pay attention, the episode provides an explanation for that. What the reviewer said is that a parent who witnesses his family brutally murdered in front of him would never inflict the same type of hell on another parent. As a parent myself, the point deeply registered with me and the episode fell apart for me and it was goodbye melancholy. I get that Harriet wanted to establish a connection with the only person he was going to see for the next four years, but I cannot imagine anyone beating a mother and a small child to death to achieve it. So, the ending ruined what was, as I was watching, turning into my favorite episode. I wouldn't want the ending I thought we were leading to with the guy taking over the android either because it was so choreographed it practically had a police spotlight beaming on it. Maybe a happy ending that still maintains the melancholy? Maybe Hartnett sees that his partner's wife is unhappy, so he figures out a way to pilot and manage the ship on his own so Paul can stay in his androd for the duration of the trip and repair his marriage. That's the happy part. The melancholy comes in with Hartnett spending the next four years alone. But he's more content because he knows he has given Paul the family that he lost. I don't know if that would have worked for most of the audience, but it would've worked better for me and maybe that one reviewer. .

Seriously, if you want to enjoy a show, you have to forgive some $h*t. Reviewers on here moaning about leaps of logic, most doing so to brag how smart they are that they spotted a plot hole. This would never happen in real life , that would never happen in real life. It ISNT real life. The people behind it know they aren't making a documentary. It's fiction and to tell a good story, you have to cut a few corners. Johnson and his team are smart enough to know they're taking liberties. Someone gets shot and turns out okay. Someone finds a bunch of trash and inexplicably Rain Mans each piece of it into a major clue. They know that wouldn't happen. They just hope you'll let it go and enjoy yourself. If you want real life, there are plenty of true crime shows out there for you. Give them a go and leave this one to people not looking to make themselves feel smarter by tearing down a legitimately well-written tv show.

Those two dudes could have hitched a ride with another truck in the convoy. One of several other instances this season of action precipitated by the weakest of plot threads. Like Jack Ryan being on the run in the first police. There was no just reason behind higher up white dude pinning the death of scientist dude on Ryan when the evidence he was provided was more than enough to suggest that Ryan was onto something. All that said, as nonsensical as the plotting of this show is, it is oddly difficult to stop watching and this is coming from someone with zero problem putting down a 1000 page book at page 900.

This show was a hard watch from beginning to end for me. I didn't enjoy much of it. The situations that I think were written with the intention of provoking laughs disturbed me too much to elicit even a chuckle. Like the scene where the daughter discusses what sexual position her grandfather may have preferred. I read some reviews on here that said how funny this was. I didn't find it funny at all. The father's world was upended and his family was mocking him. How was that funny? The whole show I felt like I was supposed to be laughing, but I wasn't. I also felt like I was supposed to feel for the characters in some way, but I couldn't do that either. There was very little about any of the characters that gave me an "in," something for me to latch onto that would allow me to care in even the smallest way about them with only a few exceptions and those people are more miserable or worse by the end of the story while the privileged escape better off than they were when the story began.

Tanya finds closure but at the expense of someone less fortunate than her.

The Mossbacher's relationship strengthens but at the expense of two people less fortunate than them.

Shane gets happiness but at the expense of his less fortunate wife.

I get the message: The rich suck, but they will always win. But I don't in any way like it. Therefore, I can't in any way like this show.

So, why the high rating? Because I understand that it's well-made, just not with my sensibilities in mind.

I have a 15 year old son who was gonzo for this show. When the genre flip happened back in I think episode 4? Blew him away. Would not stop going on and on about this show. I'm being literal. He talked about it all the time, theories about Alex and time travel and the meaning of the book. Then we watched the new episode yesterday. And nothing changed. He's still going on about it. Except, rather than praise, it's vitriol. Despite what the creator says about wrapping up everything, the show doesn't answer much in a way that feels fully thought out.

How and why did Alex drop that phone right there? Shrug.

How and why was Alex able to do what piqued my son's and my interest by painting Emma and Chidi (can't remember his name) in the mural? Shrug.

What was happening to Alex's memory? Shrug.

What is the glowing time pond really? Shrug.

My son had a lot more gripes, but the reason this review has 8 stars instead of 1 is because, he's not writing it. As an adult who has watched thousands of hours of TV and movies, I have long since come to understand that the stories are all about characters, and what the show does with the main two, how it completes their arc and Emma's, while simple and maybe somewhat predictable, was beautiful. I had difficulty breathing and could not sit still through the tunnel scene and I'm not claustrophobic at all. The scene perfectly balanced the literal physical threat to her with the metaphorical one. She had been the cause of the crisis wreaking havoc on her the entire season. She became aware of it and saved herself from letting it destroy her. And when faced with the opportunity to experience again what she lost, she held fast to that resolve, turned away from her past, embraced her present and saved the lives of two kids lost in their own. It echoed a lot of my own issues with my past past and I imagine that's the case for most adults who watched this show.

But not for the young like my son. And I'm not being patronizing by saying they just wouldn't understand because they wouldn't. I get it. I was where my son was when Lost ended. I was furious over all the questions left with unsatisfactory answers. But that was 12 years ago. I've lived a lifetime of regret in that period of time that he hasn't and I know how important it is to just let things go. I have also come to fully appreciate the idea behind shows like Lost and The Resort. The otherworldly dilemma does not matter. It's the characters and how they use the dilemma to better (or worsen) their lives.

I hope he never does "get" it. I hope he always hates this show and doesn't some day revisit it and understand why I liked it as much as I did. I really do.

7 recent fugitives, seven people who have escaped custody at least once before, a couple of them known to be be violent and only one guard is escorting them?

That is what's commonly referred to in writing as cheating.

The awesomeness of Season 2 of The Boys had to give. With episode 5, it did just that. This past ep isn't a **** the shark up the arse kind of moment, as I imagine Butcher would phrase it, but by taking a major shortcut to move the story along and kneecapping the development of a major character, it definitely weakened what has been an amazing show so far. Homelander was recorded lasering an innocent man damn near in half. A few memes over such a short period of time would not have repaired his public image. Nope. But, I get why they did it. They needed to get Homelander and Stormfront together. They should have spent more than one scene on it though. At least show us the effects of Stormfront's impromptu PR campaign. It probably would have slowed the story down, so I can get on board with the expediency, but I can't get on board with what they did to Butcher. Were you moved when he risked reuniting with his wife to save Hughie from Starlight back in episode 3? So was I. But episode 5 says I shouldn't have been. It wasn't that Butcher had grown so fond of Hughie over the show's run that he cared about him. He wasn't really saving Hughie at all. He was saving his dead brother Lenny. The reason that moment in episode 3 worked so well was that Butcher had been such an ass to Hughie. Seeing him sacrifice the opportunity of reuniting with his wife again really opened up his character and told the audience that Butcher had the propensity to care about others. Grief and his desire for revenge hadn't completely eroded his humanity. There was hope for Butcher. But, turns out, no. He didn't care about Hughie. Hughie is just a symbol of something dear to him he lost. That's why he's being so decent towards him. The show made me believe Butcher could change, that he was growing as a person, but he wasn't. Hopefully, the Lenny storyline will bear fruit, but I hope it's juicy enough to replace the story element we lost.

I haven't seen the original. I'm reviewing this as a film unto itself. I enjoyed it while I watched it, but that enjoyment didn't extend past further reflection. The tone is wildly off. The film tries to present itself as a drama and comedy, but it's very clearly the former. The comedy confuses the drama. If it stuck solely to it's dramatic elements and dealt with the subject matter at hand and really peeled back who these people are and examined why they did what they did, we would have had a great and possibly poignant character piece on our hands, but instead it leaned on uncomfortable moments for laughs, which killed the dramatic tension. Also, it should have been a good thirty minutes longer. The characters kids needed way more attention than they got. So did Ferrell and Dreyfus. Especially Ferrell. The entire narrative hinges on a single action his character makes and the movie doesn't come close to truly exploring why he did what he did. And what it does to address it, makes very little sense. SPOILERS follow. An avalanche hits. Instead of helping his family, he runs. His fight or flight instinct kicked in and his was the latter. Very interesting. Have him examine this. Let us watch a man deal with learning that his first instinct is cowardice. The movie doesn't think that's interesting. It thinks it's interesting to have the character yearn to be twenty and responsibility-free, but having that be a motivation for the character poses a question that muddies the water: If he wants to be single again, then was leaving his family to die an intentional act? The movie never goes there so I'm assuming the answer is no, so why even go there in the first place? All in all, I think the movie's main issue is focus and indecision. It should've settled on a tone and stuck to it and made a clear decision on how to approach the main characters actions and then let the narrative naturally unfurl from there. But, It didn't, so the movie didn't work for me. I'm going to check out the original now and see how those filmmakers handled it. Hopefully their approach will work. I love the concept.

Ever seen those digital billboards over the interstate telling you the dangers of cellphone use while driving? This is basically that.