Reviews

This is going to be a very unpopular opinion, but hear me out before you judge. The first season of Kidding had some of the best writing and directing for a TV show that I had experienced in years - a truly outstanding gem, and criminally underwatched. The show was just magical, bold and overall amazingly creative. Jim Carrey did a fantastic job and deserves all the praise he's been getting for his performance here. In a few words - I used to love the show.

But when I started watching the second season I discovered very quickly that there was something missing... the magic was just gone. This is most likely due to the almost completely absent directorial genius Michel Gondry, who directed half of the episodes in the first season and was deeply involved in the creative execution of the show. (If you've never heard of him I highly recommend checking out his other collaboration with Jim Carrey "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", which is a masterpiece in its own right.) Gondry only ended up directing a measly two episodes in the second season, but it doesn't just end there. He actually expressed immense displeasure working on Kidding due to Dave Holsteins excessive micromanaging of all aspects of the show and its execution, which lead to Gondry taking a big step back from his creative involvement in the second season - and this is felt at every moment. The surreal and wondrous energy that Gondry brings to all of his projects was replaced by a more down-to-earth direction, which hurt the overall tone of Kidding and made it wildly inconsistent. Gone is the often surprising and innovative writing from season one - now the characters all act and talk like shells and caricatures of themselves. Especially the writing for Deirdre's character suffered greatly this season - I almost didn't recognize her, and not because of some much-needed character development, but because of how completely unbelievable her character has become. As a result of this Catherine Keener's acting also suffered, which made Deirdre's stories frustrating and boring. Carrey's Jeff unfortunately wasn't handled very well either, but overall more believable than most of the other characters. In addition to poorly written characters we also get whole plots and subplots that are either dropped altogether without any closure or brought to a premature and unstatisfying conclusion. (For example Jeff rebuilding the family of international "Mr.Pickles" representatives - this could have been a very fun and engaging plot if done right.)

Furthermore, the musical Score was recycled to death. The recurring themes did not bother during the first season since it was all new and fresh, and beautifully composed, but when you hear the same darn tune for the hundreth time during the second season it will likely get on some viewers nerves and result in, once again, a lack of joy and innovation. Some of the amazing pieces from the first season (The track at the end of the very first episode gave me chills!) were never heard of again or built up on. This is just a shame since the composer David Wingo did such a fantastic job initially. I can only guess that Dave Holstein cut the music budget. Whatever resulted in this misuse of the music, it is incredibly disappointing.

But where it really started to fall apart for me was the direction, which could not have been more uninspired and dull in season two. Even the editing and cinematography were a let down because of this. The first season was full of memorable moments, like the famous one-shot scene of S1E3 - which was of course directed by Michel Gondry. Moments like these really made the show feel cinematic and special. Season two had no such moments, most scenes felt like the life was sucked out of them.

I could talk for hours about my displeasure with the second season, but will leave it at that. It is mindbloggling to me how so many people did not notice the very obvious shift in tone and decline in quality - to the point where some even say the second season topped the first. Yikes. If there is a third season I hope Michel Gondry will agree to be, once again, more deeply involved and given more creative freedom, since I strongly believe he was what made the show so great in the first place. Actors can only do so much, as brilliant as they may be. If the showrunner runs the show into the ground and the writing and directing are subpar, the whole thing falls apart.

Let me say right off the bat that it absolutely makes sense to me that "Devs" will likely end up being a fairly polarizing piece of art. The reason for this is that the show is taking a very, very slow and mysterious approach to unfolding the story. There is not much explanation for anything so far, a lot of it is left up to the viewers imagination and theories, which is great for some, but might be too much to ask of of others. I personally find myself in the first category of viewers.

This is a very cerebral and smart show, but it is also incredibly weird and, again, slow. There seems to be a lot of inspiration drawn from David Lynch's and Nicholas Winding Refn's work, which is awesome in my opinion! If either or even both ring a pleasent bell - this show is probably for you! What Alex Garland is doing here is definitely not for the masses, nor is it meant to be. I'm certain he knew that he was creating something for a nieche group of people, which is why it is sort of a miracle that this even got greenlit by FX, but I for one am very happy that it was.

The music is outstanding, with Garland staple Geoff Barrow (of Portishead and Beak> fame) once again throwing his unique electronica into the mix amongst other composers. (Lots of Ambient with crazy but satisfying saxophone sounds... rad!) The cinematography is fantastic as usual and the acting and writing are great for the most part - with some disappointing but excusable hickups here and there.

I also love that Garland seems to be the primary writer and director for all the episodes, which is increasingly more important as the blurring of lines between tv and movies continues. (This is why the masterful first season of "True Detective" or the criminally underrated Netflix gem "Maniac" were so perfect - they had one primary writer and one primary director working in order to deliver a consistent experience throughout.)

Overall I would highly recommend "Devs" to anyone that likes odd and thought-provoking entertainment.

After binge-watching this amazing new Netflix Original in one day I was curious about peoples opinions on IMDb and was honestly pretty shocked to see the overall rating so far. First off I am not a professional writer and I don't write reviews very often, so this will just be my little, short take on the show, nothing more and nothing less.

Easy is a Romantic-Drama Anthology series (like Tales from the Crypt did with Horror, Black Mirror with Sci-Fi and so on...), which means that each episode of this show is a self-contained story. Sometimes characters from one episode will have small connections with characters from others, but except for two episodes (Which are also my favorites), the stories aren't connected to each other.

The show has comedic elements but overall I would definitely call it a drama. It is the brainchild of Indie-Filmmaker Joe Swanberg (Drinking Buddies, Digging for Fire). Fans of Mumblecore and artsy Rom-Coms will have a lot of fun with this little gem.

Easy aims at examining the small and big problems in modern-day love relationships and how the people involved deal with them. The writing and acting are absolutely superb, the stories engaging and realistic, the characters and their issues are very relatable and the cinematography is artistic without being pretentious. The overall style, pace and execution reminds me a lot of the even better (HBO) show "Togetherness" by the Duplass brothers. I also want to give a small shout-out to the musical score and soundtrack, great song choices!

Some of the actors in Easy are unknown and some are familiar faces, I was definitely surprised to see some A-Listers acting in here, but overall I thought that the lesser known actors fit in more with the indie-vibe the show is going for.

Not every episode blew my mind, but for the most part I absolutely loved Easy and can't wait for season 2! Highly recommended!