Reviews

Shameless is a frustrating show to be a fan of. It had alot of potential early on and the initial concept of having a drama/comedy show around a particularly dysfunctional family living in poverty and trying to get by is fair. The characters you are introduced to are very full of potential. Unfortunately the arcs ultimately all go no where satisfying, and no characters really face true repercussions in the story in any meaningful way for their mistakes unfortunately reducing all the drug use, and emotional abuse to poverty porn for laughs. The writing gets more and more convoluted as seasons progress and season 11 just defecates the bed entirely. I'd say watch season 1 and imagine it developed into something better than it did and leave it at that to get the flavor of the show without the disappointment.

So don't get me wrong here. Im not a hater off the bat, I don't mind the new art style much, the animation is smooth....but even in the character re-design my main critique of the whole reboot comes in. . . This series in it's attempts to tell the story in a new light fails to realize what made the original so good; firstly the key plot points are slowly revealed over the course of many interactions between characters in the original. For example: In the or first we do not find out Vash has a bionic arm and get the first clue that Vash is more than an oddball pretending to not be a skilled gunman until quite a few episodes in.....in this they took out the whole air of intrigue and mystery and imply all of the intriguing developmental plot points right in the beginning of the show. His Bionic arm in plain sight, no attempt to hide his mysterious odd connections really. It's just weak storytelling. The animation is sadly pretty impressive but the pacing and progression that it is all tied to in my opinion just feels underwhelming, half baked, and overall a much less impressive compositional mix than first. Would have been better off as a stand alone cyber punk style story and not tying Trigun to it imo. All of the characters just feel like shallower versions of their original concepts. It was nice to see a little more about Knives and Vash's mom but the incredibly direct way it is all spoon fed to you just never felt super surprising or exciting. I guess it might be pretty decent if you never watched the original and were forced to compare them though.

This film is a MASTERPIECE of an allegory for fear, anxiety and paranoia most of us face in life all spun up in an absurdist caricature that keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end. I think the fact that it's dialogue and editing style being so fast paced and never letting up throws some people for a loop but if you can hold on and appreciate what is going on I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

The atmosphere that is created is so engaging; a tad less charming than Wes Anderson but certainly similarly dry, stylized, absurd and austere to draw a comparison dialogue wise. Alot of variety in style and tone though throughout the film that set it apart and by itself as being unique. Again that fast rapid fire pacing most scenes have really is the beating heart of this movie and that heart is beating a little too fast for its own health but thats kind of the beauty of it in my opinion.

The film styles itself as some tongue in cheek satire of midwest "Americana," small town culture in the 80's but really just drags. Middling performances from some notable names; with situational dry humor thats drawn far beyond its welcome usually. Most films that lounge in their atmosphere like this are at least visually engaging or have great audio engineering but this film limps along and its best moments just feel like a bad sardonic music video for the Talking heads lol. I am a Talking Heads fan don't get me wrong but this film was just not good and is vastly overhyped due to peoples love of David Byrne.

Amazing atmosphere building; no cheap red herrings or jump scares here. Just a solidly crafted macab tale. I wouldnt even go as far as to fully call this horror despite the horror aesthetics. More of a fantasy and witchy revenge tale in a way.

If you like really atmosphere driven storytelling then you will adore it, but it definitely isnt for everyone as its VERY atmosphere driven. It's 70% visually told and it errs in the side of the unknown instead of fully explaining the phenomena in dialogue. I thought it was pretty straightforwardly told and satisfying though.

Longtime fan of Shameless. Everyone whos watched from the beginning has realized the last few seasons are a bit lower quality but man this last season was extra bad. It's like the writers decided that instead of respecting the shows legacy, pacing, and general mood they decided to all of a sudden completely change the style, and constantly only make basic and obvious political commentary. Really beating the audience over the head with it, but without adding anything of real substance to that conversation either! I lean left too and it was still unbearable to watch unfold lol. I couldnt even get properly emotional about the show ending I was so shocked at how absolutely bad it was.

Shameless? More like Shameful.

Evangelion, it is for better or worse quintessential Eva storytelling but it gets caught up in a lackluster mire like its predecessors in trying to resolve the story succinctly...it has good animation and the concepts are solid but imo the execution gets a little trite, alot of this movie could be strengthened by more honest editing and trimming. Also it kind of exposition dumps at the end in a uncharacteristically straight forward attempt at fully tying all the story string together which felt awkward to me. Still a good movie but imo not the strongest of the reboot movie series.

Classic Shyamalan writing: I mean the twist in this case is meta in that ultimately....wait WHO wrote this screenplay and then you realize this was the Shyamalan magic the whole time. Boom. I know right?