satanenterprises Reviews

City Hall (2020)

How About That Mattress Getting Crushed

[7 November 2022]

I was going to write off the film, and then that full queen sized bed and BBQ got crushed.

It is fly on the wall, but that fly really landed on a boring wall. Hours of people talking about how they want to meet people halfway and develop community based solutions to the needs of marginalized communities with consultation and communications based on meeting in a community oriented setting...

There are interesting moments, but it just feels like a marathon. If you work in white collar job this just feels like being dragged into a work meeting with no written agenda.

I'm not really sure who this is for, if you're involved and into municipal government you'll probably stop watching because it feels like the boring bit of the work. If you don't like municipal government then you probably won't enjoy watching government employees edging 4 hours closer to their pension.

If you live in any city, you can access city council meetings and consultations online. I'd just use the 4 hours to learn about some park or bridge or development going on near you. You'll get the gist and you'll come out of it knowing more about your own town.

Stories About Here (2022– )

Classic Uytae

[31 March 2022]

I just finished binge watching this series of mini-docs over an hour and a half.

Uytae Lee has been working on small one-off productions for years now. If you've managed to catch them on his YouTube channel, this is a whole stack of them at once.

He tackles a number of serious North American urban issues in this lighthearted and unique style. They're really easy to watch despite the complex topics and I found myself smiling the whole way through.

King of the Hill: Pigmalion (2003) Season 7, Episode 9

Probably The Strangest Episode of King of the Hill

[11 December 2020]

Every time I see this episode I wonder what was going on in the writers room.

Was it a Halloween episode? No. It came out in January. I almost wonder if they just wanted to just get Michael Keaton recorded saying some weird lines. It's difficult to describe how strange it is, not only because it veers off the "realism" that King of the Hill tries to go for but also because it basically turns into a horror franchise.

The episode literally ends with Peggy and Luanne committing manslaughter, having a little "I learned something today" moment then heading back home to the twanging end credit guitar.

Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024)

Pretty Average

[11 November 2020]

The most telling thing is I just don't get around to watching it anymore.

Lower decks has a few episodes that have good ratings which shows the fanbase are capable of coming around to something vastly different to what they were into. It kind of feels like they're just throwing whatever they can at a wall and seeing what works. That seems fine, but if it's the plan why not axe the stuff that doesn't work? Maybe this works for a niche, I've never met anyone who was super into it.

I assume the tax credits make this work financially. Thanks Canadian taxpayers for the science fiction filler content to pad out the CBS streaming service!

The Twilight Zone: A Human Face (2020) Season 2, Episode 7

Humans! They're Always Humaning

[7 August 2020]

This is like watching two characters wake up in the night to find their house burning down, and then burned to death while arguing if someone left a candle lit instead of getting out of the house.

Just, not remotely what any person on earth would do in this situation. Kind of weirdly like how you might behave in a dream when you have no cognitive ability. That would be fine, however people behave fairly rationally in the rest of the series. Are they the aliens?

The Twilight Zone (2019–2020)

It's Actually Pretty Solid

[15 July 2020]

Reading these negative reviews it feels like I'm the one in the twilight zone.

Both The Twilight Zone and Creepshow are like popcorn Black Mirror, they're a little more wry and fun and don't leave you feeling as disturbed.

It's pretty obvious that this show is suffering a horrible disservice from old fans willing something they loved from the 1960s to exist today. If this was called "The Sunset Zone" so it could jettison these people's unrealistic expectations it'd benefit from both having a much higher rating, and also from the sounds of it, babes in bikinis.

The original show started it's run before black people could even vote in the South, and it's now hosted by a generational talent in the genre who is black. Yeah progress!

But then on the other hand. Whenever I finish an episode with a smile on my face, thinking "Ha, what a crazy fun little journey that was" and then read the reviews on here it is hard not to think. OK, what the hell is with this disconnect?

I think that disconnect put simply is: 60 years, what that does to a person, and what that does to society. People as they age stop wanting new things and like things that they were raised on. Society changes and the things that are compelling and relevant to it change too.

Grandpa doesn't like heavy metal, and heavy metal bands don't try to make music for grandpa.

I hope that the show keeps going long enough to bring in the new viewers it deserves to balance out the BS from the outraged boomers. That way we can give the Twilight Zone another 60 year lease of life so that one day someone can complain about Twilight Zone 2079 having a "Mars colony centric agenda".

Star Trek: Picard: Stardust City Rag (2020) Season 1, Episode 5

Horribly Mediocre and Sad

[23 February 2020]

Formulaic modern television without the critical point of difference that made Star Trek: Optimism for humanity.

Human beings today are already better than the people in this show. It's not remotely believable.

Do you have any idea what you're taking away from people? Star Trek is an inpiring part of many modern humanist's lives. Watching this feels like watching a family member going off the rails and messing up their lives.

Star Trek: Short Treks: The Trouble with Edward (2019) Season 2, Episode 2

It's Great

[19 December 2019]

These short treks are a really interesting laboratory for show concepts and direction. This probably made me laugh more than anything I've seen in star trek which has to count for something.

Then I read the comments here.

The fact that old nerds complain about it not lining up with a campy TV show where hero's chuck styrofoam rocks, dweeby kids save the ship, whales are aliens and space Lincoln exists is a preposterous golden age fallacy. This just continues the legacy of levity for tribble episodes in both TOS and DS9 guys. The wink of an insider joke baton passes to a new generation.

I love star trek, but it's vision for the future of humanity will die with its aging fanbase if we can't modernize it with each generation. Sure, less rediculous melodrama in the new show would be a welcome change, however, the melodramatic pedants in half these comments are even worse.

Be happy. We finally have a short episode that you can onboard someone to star trek with. Maybe you're a Sisco fan, someone else is about Kirk, and this new person might end up being a Saru or Pike. I'm just happy to have them onboard our idealistic vision for humanity. This of course is the tolerance of a Picard deciple speaking ;)

Schooling the World (2010)

Really?

[11 June 2014]

There's something to be said for the point being made, that people should be more involved in what their charitable donations support. Of course education programs should be sensitive to the cultures of the countries that they are in.

However, this ridiculous hour long argument with a straw man from the white guilt overcompensation crew is just a straight up disservice to that cause. It almost totally ignores everything good about the myriad of achievements of western society. Just constant shots of L'Oreal billboards interspersed with poor kids that treats western culture like it's the great Satan. It's not the only way to do things, but to say that there is little merit in the education system that (for example) put people on the moon is just bad documentary making.

The reality, if you've ever traveled and taught in developing countries around the world, is that there is demand for a modern education. In fact, the mass rote learning that they display so much is something that you rarely see anymore in modern schooling systems in the developed world. It's ironically the foreigners overseas who are the most put off by the Orwellian rote learned techniques applied in those schools The problems are probably more of a product of poverty. A teacher to student ratio of 1:60 really limits the style of teaching you can employ. That (for example) would of been a really great angle to explore, or just the question "Hey, why do you send your kid there?" or "What would you change about the school that these foreigners made?" but they just had absolutely 0 interest in making this informative.

This documentary ironically taught it's viewers exactly the same way as the education system it sought to disparage. "This is how it is. This is the right way to think. That's it."

China: The Rebirth of an Empire (2010)

Informative Documentary

[9 February 2011]

Just saw a screening of this last night at the Yellowknife film festival. A very informative examination of China choosing to looking at the geopolitical situation in this ascending region. It comes for a "Pro- Democracy" wary westerner sort of angle but generally isn't as fear mongering as most books/films on the issue and wraps up with the hope that China will change over time.

The film does have it's credibility taken from it through use of sound effects and visuals which lead to some moments of comical bizarreness. A few highlights are the car crash sound effect, bombing of japan, the brothers walking across the mountains, and paintings of empire in different stages. Probably the result of a very small crew and loss of perspective when editing.

I Am Legend (2007)

Deep Movie

[2 May 2008]

Society often enjoys giving their respect and praise to sports stars, musicians, actors and other people that don't really change the world. Sure they entertain us, some even start up charities, but even the Bono's of the world don't do much beyond making noise.

People that do make a real difference like politicians and scientists don't really get much of the "hero" limelight. The're not portrayed as heroes by pop culture even though a good one can save and improve millions (and billions) of lives.

I was really happy to see this movie putting a scientist in the hero position, not the nerd who makes the heroes car faster or "hacks into the mainframe" on his behalf.

Will Smith (in his best acting to date) played a scientist working to fix a screw-up caused by science in the first place (Think Einstein and the atomic bomb). We watch his tireless struggle and slow loss of sanity when science doesn't come through for him and, he is rescued from the brink by a woman of faith who has been sent on a mission by god.

Yeah he could of taken the horror approach and locked himself in a mall and either died off or tried to escape to a island. He could of taken the action approach and decided to kill all the zombies seeing as his family is already dead. Instead he decided to make it right by working really hard with what he knows. A real, realistic hero.

When I got home I was disappointed to read reviews and see people didn't like the movie because the CGI doesn't look good. Yeah it's not that good, and would of been better with the crew from a modern George Romero doing makeup on real people. But get over it! Any movie that is made now will look like crap when you see it in 30 years time. CGI doesn't make a legendary film. It always comes back to the quality of and plot, which this movie has plenty of.

CGI is worth knocking down 1 star in a movie to me, when you're giving it 3/10 because of CGI you need to ask yourself "Do I enjoy movies or do I just enjoy explosions?"

Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends (1998–2000)

Great Show

[3 June 2007]

This show is a unique and highly enjoyable experience. His interviewing style is not only hilarious to watch, but very effective at getting people to expose their most blunt and inner secrets. This means that each episode is not only a learning experience but laugh out loud funny.

This also often results in some pretty intense scenes where people reflect on their often sad lives. At this point they either get mad at him, dismiss him, or take it on board. Usually they will simply dismiss or get mad which can make the show a little depressing at points. I would say this makes the humour more appealing to fans of shows like The Office and other British comedies, but also funny for and American audience because of Louis naive character.

28 Weeks Later (2007)

A movie about zombies, made for zombies

[27 May 2007]

Horror movies are about scaring people. There are basically two ways to do this physically and psychologically.

Physically is extremely easy, you just lower music, make the character look around a dark corner, through a hole, behind a door and... Bang! Out comes the antagonist. Then the antagonist can start cutting strips off the character, digesting organs and squirting bodily fluids everywhere. Sure when done well it's scary, but my little brother could do this with a big enough budget.

Now the other side of a horror is the psychological scare. This is by far more superior and much harder to do. This is when you watch a horror and get swept into the movie. You start to think things like "I would of done that", "That could actually happen" or "They don't deserve to die". The movie makes you think about the problems the people faced, you can relate to them and may even feel sorry for the clever characters who die.

This movie is a classic example of a movie that has all the first and none of the second. Gaping plot holes aside basically every character can only be described as mentally retarded (Refer to all the other 1 star reviews for evidence). I'm sick of watching stupid people being used as plot devices in horror movies, it just shows that the creators of the movie aren't very clever.

This is to horror what slapstick is to comedy. Not very intelligent, good for a few thrills that are equivalent to getting a member of my house to jump out at me a couple of times during the day. Isn't it time that horror moved on, we've been at this level for the last 30 years with far too few exceptions. If mouth breathers would stop rating these films so well with comments like "It's got some good scares" and "It's just a horror movie" then we might see some changes.

I'm not scared Juan, I'm just really bored!