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jaxonwagner
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Babylon (2022)
Too long and self important
There is one character I found interesting, Brad Pitts, it seemed semi autobiographical, an old star dealing with no longer being relevant. The silent era ending and talkies taking over is a cool story to tell but it's never the focal point, no real explanation of the moral codes and the societal reason for the change in direction as a result of the roaring 20's.
The kid "manny" was basically just a spectator who's motives and character arc never felt like they were developed, he was only useful as a tool to enable Margo Robbie's character to be bailed out of bad behavior routinely, she was a complete train wreck and never held accountable for her actions because of her enabler, manny, who's adoration for her never made any sense. It was a love story to old Hollywood as well as a hate story toward the same era, both romanticizing it and shaming it. Like a wanna be "once upon a time in Hollywood" if it was set in the 20s and 30s with less interesting characters, worse dialogues, worse editing, worse cinematography (very chaotic for large portions way too many pointless drawn out party scenes) and way less cool.
Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet (2020)
A guilty pleasure.
This show is sub par in a handful of ways but overall the show is fun, mostly casual, dramedy.
The two main protagonists, Ian and Poppy have a slew of irredeemable qualities but it seems Ian has more of a sympathetic personality type, he wants to be liked and most of his "bad behavior" is rooted in that desire.
Poppy wants to be liked but is far less motivated by that and her need for validation comes across as more mean spirited and aggressive preferring superiority acknowledgment to praise and appreciation, she's a hard character for me to empathize with and her antics ruin a lot of the show for me.
I actually can't stand her character.
I assume she's meant to be autistic, but she's too petty and unapologetic to come across as autistic, it seems inconsistent. I just really don't think the writing staff does her character justice by the way she's had almost no character arc, she's just as irredeemable now toward the end of season 3 as she was in the beginning of the show. No one on the show likes her, and there's almost no reason to.
The rest of the characters have some fun exaggerated archetypes, Dana being a fun one, a overzealous exaggeration of a midwestern Republican, a little too much from the liberal point of view, she's of course "uncaring and rude" per the stereotype, and Brad the salesman and capitalist is much the same.
A little too on the nose.
In order to write good comedy you have to actually find redeeming qualities in the characters you're making fun of. That seems to be the main thing holding this series back, too few likable characters.
But it's worth watching, just nothing special.
Champions (2018)
Terrible writing.
This show is so poorly written it's almost offensive. I made it through the first episode but at no point did the over the top, corny, gay sons antics come across as sincere or funny just outdated stereotypes. The rest of the dialogue was stiff and predictable.
Example: mom goes into the gym tells the son to wait for her as she goes off screen he immediately walks into a private office "looking for something to eat" then this well educated kid with a private school scholarship decides to steal a protein bar out of said office and stumbles across the exact document he needs to to push the story forward, doesn't even know the significance of the document but tosses away the exact thing he came in there for... he's then caught in there and there's no consequence, basically a "hey kid" and then the stupid backstory starts to unfold.
This is a show 20 years past being relevant writing, predictable and lazy, bad acting, bad directing bad writing.
Triple threat of suck.
Me Time (2022)
This movie was so hack
Jokes were predictable and unfunny, the acting was corny, there was no point in this movie I thought it was satisfying.
I kept watching hoping it would turn a corner and get funny since Hart can be funny, but his movie choices are more and more unpredictable and he makes 50% trash these days, this falls into that category.
The movie is about Kevin Hart as a stay at home dad and he's having a crisis of masculinity, which he solves by continuing to be a stay at home dad and doing children's parties as a part time gig...
Trying too hard to be progressive, it couldn't even allow the man (who's story this was) to have a manly resolution. Trash.
Burnt (2015)
A simple fluffy movie.
This film was enjoyable, the dialogue was pretty corny and the plot devices were extremely predictable, even the corny goons like it was a noir film and the exposition was painful at times.
They weren't very creative with how they explained the world.
Like, every rule of the kitchen was said out load for no reason other than to inform the audience, like, in modern cinema it's expected the audience can piece it together and not need to be spoon fed.
It felt like a movie that would've been made in the 80's, which has a lot of fun, simple, predictable movies.
Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)
Disney+ Slow decay.
Every series seems to be worse than the last. The Marvel and Star Wars properties have fallen victim to disneys maniacal insistence on making the broadest product possible.
This show is so disappointing it's painful.
The Witcher (2019)
Fun world, corny writing.
The Witcher has a great world to play in and a lot of really fun elements.
The writing is very "young adult" with tons of exposition and the love stories are all super simple making it feel like a soap opera for large portions of the series.
It's like Percy Jackson meets Game of Thrones.
Don't Look Up (2021)
McKay has evolved into a left wing evangelist.
This movie is Adam McKay embracing the message what he's been trying to subtly suggest through his last few projects, he hates capitalism.
The movie's characters were all irredeemable cartoons except Lawrence, who was portrayed as the lone voice of reason, in the WHOLE world...
It had funny moments, the acting was funny for the most part, but again, McKay has to squeeze in his politics at every turn, which are almost child like and void of nuance.
We get it, Adam, you can stop basing the entire plots of your movies on the "evil capitalists" (one of which he is, as a multimillionaire production house owner, his preaching is just hypocritical virtue signaling for his Hollywood peers, at least Marx was a broke loser so he has some credibility)
Bumblebee (2018)
This is a kids movie... expect little
This film didn't even need transformers to tell the story it set out to tell, it was about a girls coping with loss and learning to heal, and there was a robot B story going on. The writing was extremely lazy, dialogue was terrible, silly scenes for gags that had zero motivation and didn't help move the story along, but from the same screenwriter as Birds of Prey it makes sense, this lady must have powerful friends because her screenwriting is formulaic garbage, every beat is predictable, the exposition overt and the only thing that saves this from being unwatchable is it's another vehicle for Stienfeld to showcase her incredible talent (which has been wasted on this script).
It was really odd that this was jammed with 80's nostalgia and had a great soundtrack but people who would appreciate the soundtrack and nostalgia are clearly not the target audience, which one would assume is teenage girls, in a franchise that targets teenage boys...
A good story in Hollywood these days, take a successful male driven property and throw a female lead in, at this point it's just getting cliché.
RIP original ideas.
Time Indefinite (1993)
Basically a narrated reality show.
This was the most boring doc I've ever seen. Pointless self important meandering narrative. A glimpse into a boring ordinary life...
The Week Of (2018)
Very slow and very awkward.
This movie is a hard watch, all shot on a steady cam, no normal cuts just a bunch of long shots of boring conversations with no soundtrack unless it's organically used in the world of the film.
From the story telling aspect it was also very awkward, there's no real formatting, it all just blurs together. It didn't feel like an actual movie, it felt like just following around a very odd man and his awkward family dynamic.
Don't expect light entertainment or expect normal Sandler-esque gags. The humor is meant to be in the awkwardness... which I personally don't enjoy.