Safetylight Reviews

From: The Kindness of Strangers (2023) Season 2, Episode 2

Insufferable incompetents continue to melt down.

[3/10 · 2 May 2023]

Season 2, Episode 2. Let's review..!

A guy chained to a wall was able somehow to throw down a rope for Our Hero to climb out of a well.

How was this emaciated fellow able to throw down a rope? He was chained right up on the wall. Was this glaring discordant detail critical to the plot? Were we meant to call out to Our Hero, beg him to notice and ask that question, or was it just another in a series of annoying oversights which make taking this show seriously all but impossible?

Psh. It doesn't matter.

Next up.., a new woman has arrived to discover her long-lost love, (a 'diverse' same-sex relationship, we must mention, for the check box win), and what does she do?

Is she overwhelmed with joy? Does she hug and kiss and anxiously hang on every bit of news to discover what happened since her partner went missing? Just think! Like a parent finding a long-lost child after six months, would you waste precious time scolding for your kid talking to strangers? Or would you forget recriminations and just be overwhelmingly thankful to see your loved one again?

Well, if you're like me, you guessed wrong! This is the New-new-age of gushy selfishness, after all. This woman isn't happy. She is ANGRY! She is full of accusation. Why? Who knows? For having been caused to feel bad, I suppose..? (In the age of selfishness, YOUR feelings are paramount, and a lover's job is exclusively to make you feel good. Vanishing without a trace makes you feel bad, so don't you see? She DESERVES to be reprimanded and cold-shouldered, not treated with joy and affection and grateful curiosity.

Next up...

One of the recurring Strong Female Protagonists, (regularly described by other characters as 'Strong!' and 'Amazing!') is unable to warn or rescue a bunch of newbies from the zombie hoard. Oh my! So what does she do? -Why, she flips out in a decidedly NOT strong way, with hysterical, irrational flailing around and pathetic whimpering. It takes her would-be boyfriend to restrain her from getting the two of them killed by rushing out a back door and smashing a window. Gosh, I love Strong Female Protagonists in the New-New Age. They are very inspiring!

A 'man' wakes up trapped under a bunch of fallen house debris and needs to stay quiet in order to prevent himself and the other guys from all being eaten alive by Monsters. What does he do? If you're detecting a pattern, you may guess: He flips out! He starts making noise, begging that he "Just wants to go home!" Is he six years old? What is wrong with him? In the world of "FROM", that's just normal. Everybody is a safe-spacer. And so it takes all the effort of the others to calm him down. They talk to him like he's of kindergarten age, which mentally, he basically is.

I was disappointed to see that their efforts succeed and that he wasn't eaten alive. -Instead he died of regular injuries, but not before his whinging attracted the monsters which then killed one of the more promising men. Once again, weak fools get good people killed. That's the only lesson so far taught by this ugly show.

By far, these characters are just that; ugly, weak and emotionally unstable.., (and my goodness, they all certainly swear a lot during the course of their many futile tantrums! Such imaginative writing!). I can't recall any other show where I was so actively rooting for the monsters! (Except I'm only half-doing that, because even the monsters are annoying. FROM is entirely a series of projections cast into TV land by people who are apparently helpless calves in the Forest of Life.)

The Rehearsal (2022– )

Horrifying. But very good. This is stealth therapy disguised as something else.

[8/10 · 16 July 2022]

This show has value as a cautionary tale. Nobody should live like this!

This is exactly the wrong way of engaging with life; trying to control and micro-manage every possibility is based on fear and a lack of developed connection with one's instinct. People have instincts, and they can tell that something isn't real.

I knew a guy who approached women in this way, hyper-studying the object of his obsession and planning flow charts of possible actions and reactions. It sort of worked for a while, but fairly soon, she reacted like a trapped animal. It was insanely frustrating for me to hear about this. "No, no, no! Don't DO that. That's NOT how you interact with people. (What the hell is wrong with you??)"

You have a soul. Souls are like surfboards. Trying to freeze everything to get it right is like trying to reduce yourself to a reaction machine. It's like trying to cheat god. It cannot last.

HOWEVER...

The point of this show is not to attempt success through the method of hyper-control.

The point is to demonstrate the futility of trying to control god, and through the exercise, stealth-grow the subject's confidence in dealing with random events.

Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024)

Starfleet is more than a jumpsuit.

[2/10 · 5 June 2022]

Huh! They keep deleting my review of this series. This must be the fourth time I've posted this. The first time, it had accumulated around 200 "This was helpful" upvotes before being deleted.

I don't think I used any trigger words, but I DID post a review which was honest and reasonably well-written.

The only thing I can think of which might have offended the censors was my describing the character of 'Tilly' as physically unfit and psychologically/emotionally unstable, declaring that she was not at all suitable for Starfleet as she'd be likely to endanger her crewmates as a direct result of her physical and mental shortcomings. -I said that she should be returned to boot camp to toughen her up and address her problems, or failing this, be rejected from Starfleet altogether as substandard material.

I know that for some reason it's considered 'mean' to criticize overweight people and emotional train wrecks, but thems the breaks; Starfleet is a military outfit with standards. A decent military would be able to help a girl like Tilly, so there's no excuse whatsoever for her being on board a Starfleet vessel. Somebody, somewhere was doing her a great disservice and endangering lives.

There isn't a military outfit on Earth today which would disagree with that assessment. But what's really strange is that I was hardly the only reviewer to note this. Perhaps I was singled out for the censorship hammer because I was more articulate in how I said it..? Who knows?

The other things I discussed included the low morale and extreme disrespect of the crew to one another.

In Ep 1 of season 4, that chief engineer lady dismissively refers to a crewmate who is cleaning up the remains of a dead man as, "Hazmat."

The man stops for a moment and haltingly tells her what his actual name is.

She doesn't even look at him, "I don't care and I've already forgotten."

Nice eh? A degrading brush off letting him know what she thinks of his personal worth.

Can you imagine any commanding officer aboard the Enterprise, DS9 or Voyager treating another crew member in such a horrid way? No, you can't, because none of those crews were Twitter-grade sociopaths.

I also noted that in this episode, Michael (sp?) punches a man in the face four or five times over the course of the show. It's hard to say why. Because she was frustrated and didn't get what she wanted? Because she doesn't know how to express emotions like an adult? The fact that the writers saw this as a normal, even amusing way for a Starfleet officer to conduct herself is.., astonishing.

I pointed out a few other items, like the fact that nobody on the crew likes or trusts one another, probably because they are constantly peppering their conversations with barbed verbal attacks designed to win 'points' off each other, and the propensity for the writers to think that this kind of behavior is somehow entertaining or funny, (probably as a result of their living in the Twitter-sphere, where misappropriated Joss Whedon-esque 'ironic' comments are considered normal social fare. -But really serves to tell the audience both that the characters have nervous teenager mindsets, and not to take the show seriously during scenes where we're supposed to be engaged.)

I think that was about it. There were some observations about psychopaths and Hollywood and people of low creativity and poor impulse control. It wasn't my most articulate posting, but I suppose it was enough to trigger somebody with feelings of self-doubt and seething anger for providing them a mirror. Whatever the reason, my review was removed.

Well...

Let's see if they do it again, shall we?

(And this time what did I do wrong? Nothing, kids! If you pull it again, it's simply because you can't handle reality. I dare you to leave it up this time. Show some strength of spirit already! It'll do you good.)

Star Trek Discovery is an objectively awful show about awful people doing awful things.

I give it 2 stars for having otherwise high visual production values.

Stranger Things: Chapter One: The Hellfire Club (2022) Season 4, Episode 1

Season 4 (ep 1-7) - Perfect TV

[10/10 · 1 June 2022]

I don't give too many 10 ratings, but "Stranger Things" deserves one.

Yeah, I'm sure the aficionado could find things to complain about. There are flaws in everything, things which could have been done better or arguably been sent in directions with more promise, but after a certain point in such debates, there is a diminishing returns rule in effect. What we have works wonderfully, effortlessly.

Stranger things has its act together in every sense.

The Duffer Bros. Have not dropped the ball, not given into any of the many and various black holes creatives find themselves tumbling into these days. There are no politics or messages in their work. They are true to their story, doing their best to serve it rather than the other way around. They are still sharp and earnest, their craft is at an all time high.

I honestly couldn't suggest any significant change which I would like to see.

What an amazing show!

Enjoy.

Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)

The Instagram Crowd are Growing Up. Slowly.

[1/10 · 30 May 2022]

This is a fanfic activist script written by over-protected children. No question.

However, I must say that they are putting forth their A Game this time.

-Which means their shallow, slogan-based philosophical reasoning has been crafted and honed and polished as far as is possible. It runs effectively, hits all the intended beats, everything it feels is important to visit is timed out nicely.

Old man dealing with self-esteem issues, hurt, (oh, so hurt!), by the big scary world. (The writers can't comprehend that people might be resilient and strong, must make everybody as weak and emotionally vulnerable as themselves). Check.

Precocious girl child who won't be told what to do.., "Leia! She's a strong, stubborn child. Not afraid of you! Capable! She goes in for a hug and pick-pockets her adoptive mom with a coy grin. And she's bullied. Life is SO unfair! But she's going to be a Great Woman! Just you wait!"

Yeah... Check.

And all the other checks you might expect. It's got it all!

When that junior high version of strident chutzpah is your baseline, when it's all you've got, when that's as deeply as you are able to see your characters.., as adjunct feminist new-age doctrine delivery persons.., you're going to get brochure level scripting. As is evidenced here.

Grownups with life experience and the ability to see through lies and do proper research.., well they don't write like that. And certainly not about Star Wars.

But those people aren't in charge. It's just mechanical reaction machine stuff done in earnest. It's "Ideas having people".

It's not as bad as what happened to Doctor Who, but it's a branch off the same DNA sequence.

4/10 because it looks spectacular for TV and it serves as functional leftist entertainment. Meaning, thought-lite and glossy.

But.., I must ask.., what's with the pointless parkour scenes? Are the same people who were in charge of the Mods and scooters and their walking speed chases still getting contracts? Wow. Fire those fools, please. They're just not competent or serious people.

Night Sky (2022)

Slow, well acted, interesting concept. Petty characters.

[7/10 · 21 May 2022]

That's life.

A portion of the people you're going to meet in this world are immature, poorly socialized and so lacking in self-awareness that you sometimes just need to leave the room or risk barking at them, dashing what little self esteem they might have collected in their petty, tragic lives.

(I'm not talking about the main leads, btw. Simmons and Spacek do a fine job.)

Sometimes you can get along alright, even form healthy relationships with young souls. -The ones who are earnestly trying to learn and explore and deal with their mistakes. In fact, those are often some of the best people. None of us are perfect, after all.

But this story features a couple of extraordinarily annoying people who you just want to smack.

And you'd think that would be fine, I guess. Some stories need villains, even if their villainy stems from being awkward and broken. It's good to perform character studies on such people so as to prepare yourself for dealing with them in real life.

But god... It's tiresome!

My favorite stories are those where such characters don't make it into the final draft. (Or the first one!). There's plenty of stories which work just fine, where we get to see excellent people being their best and we don't have to cringe through the antics of petty, bumbling morons being awkward and creepy.

On episode 4, I find myself compelled to bow out, (leave the room) simply because I don't want to spend another minute with idiots during my (supposed) down time entertainment. There are enough awkward creeps in the real world, thank-you.

That being said...

This show is quite well done and deserving of a good score. Just be prepared to grind your teeth at times.

******Update

Now on episode 6.

The frustrating characters are finally dealt with, either given their comeuppance or actually allowed to improve and become absorbed into the social fabric of the story in pleasing ways. I'm glad I hung on, but... whoo! Five hours? That's a long row to hoe for a turnip! I was THIS close to walking away in disgust. Good thing there was nothing else on!

Uncharted (2022)

I offer Three Notes which I've not seen mentioned by other reviewers...

[4/10 · 24 April 2022]

1. The trope of the pick pocketing genius is officially overplayed. -Where the character accidentally bumps into a guy and manages to effortlessly steal his wallet/passcard/keys?

That's god-level stuff, believable only in rare circumstances and only with extraordinary characters, like Sherlock Holmes or James Bond or Doctor Who. (Huh. All Brits...) But nowadays they're handing out those super-powers like cheap candy to any bum character. "She didn't even touch him! How could she possibly have lifted the cross out of his fully secured backpack without him noticing? -When he's also supposedly a master pick-pocket? Who green-lit that #$&*..? Take away their Ambien at once!"

2. No subtitles for the non-English speaking parts. For goodness sake! I don't want to watch two guys having a serious discussion evidently critical to the plot and not know what the heck is going on. Am I supposed to feel guilty or something? Gee, thanks. I'm a colonial oppressor, am I? Well isn't that a spiffy little reminder to jab me with in the middle of a film. And I'm SURE you didn't provide subtitles or dubs when this played in foreign markets, because why would you?

This is clearly a symptom of the cult-riddled Hollywood trying to virtue signal. Well.., keep that nonsense at the Oscars (where we can all not watch), and out of your movies. -No wonder this was a soulless film; people with real virtue don't have to signal it. And they can actually create cool stuff. The moment creative people go woke, their works turn to mud; It's so predictably true that I suspect it might be a sort of spiritual universal law.

3. Go watch Indiana Jones to see how this stuff is supposed to work. There's a valuable exercise to be performed here, with poignant insights to be derived: If you can figure out WHY this movie, which had all the right ingredients, fell flat nonetheless, then you will be several steps closer to being a good story-teller yourself.

That's what I got for ya.

Thank-you for reading. Enjoy the rest of the reviews.

4/10.

Halo (2022– )

Nasty characters. Creators didn't play the game. What could possibly go wrong?

[3/10 · 23 April 2022]

The Halo universe is mean and cruel and nobody likes or trusts each other, everybody is selfish, manipulative, sociopathic and nobody seems to realize just how awful and unhealthy this social climate is.

Now, I should add that hair-trigger censors blocked my first two attempts at reviewing this series. What did I do, I wonder?

Is it because I said that Cortana (the character) came first and that Microsoft engineers deliberately took the name (for their annoying OS search feature) because they were Halo fans? (Which is WAY more creepy than if it were just a cringe ad spot.)

No..., Can't be that. That's actually an interesting detail.

What else did I say..?

I noted that the producers deliberately took an attractive actress and made her look like a potato wearing a potato sack. They gave her that 'popular' mental illness shaved-sides-of-her-head haircut which, never in the history of the world, ever didn't look ugly.

Yeah. It was probably that.

-Actors are supposed to look great on screen. We don't live in communist hell just yet, (though we're awfully close to it, some would argue), so it's still okay for some people to look better than others. Anybody who pushes 'Ugly is the new Normal, (and shame on you for noticing!)' is making a critical error. Five years of activist Twitter cult campaigning isn't going to derail thousands of years of human behavioral and biological evolution. -Thinking it can be forced is pure arrogance, and it's why communism always fails, (and gets millions of people killed, btw; the censors are essentially aligning with mass-murderers without even realizing it. How cute).

So.., Halo is junk for other reasons, including ones pointed out by others, (like ranged weapons which are only apparently able to penetrate targets when fired by main characters. If you're a background character, then you're outta luck!)

But mostly, it's the woke messaging and the social baseline of Twitter-entrained cruelty of the characters which makes this show awful.

3/10 because it looks nice.

Thank-you for reading!

From (2022– )

90% of the characters are emotionally unstable, incompetent and annoying.

[5/10 · 20 March 2022]

The episode I just watched (episode 7) demonstrated that emotionally unstable, incompetent people are a danger to themselves and others.

-A house full of dreamy flower children is a powder keg, because it only takes one (of the many) emotionally unstable people in it to open a window and get everybody killed. This danger was obvious from the first episode, and (spoilers) that's exactly what happened.

What kind of parents would allow their daughter to live in a death trap waiting to happen? And the Dad character is one of the only (somewhat) level-headed on the show. But does he protect his daughter from culty weirdos who are obviously going to get people killed? No sir!

But that's what you get from Progressive writer's rooms..

People living in the land of Wishful Thinking are by default warding off hysteria at every turn.

Allow me to explain that, using the Red Warning Light analogy...

-A red warning light blinks to life on the dash of a driver's car. The Conservative driver will see it, stop the car, determine the nature of problem and formulate a solution. The car is serviced and the light stops blinking. After dealing with an initial inconvenience, the driver does the work required and carries on content and happy.

By contrast...

A Progressive will take a piece of black tape and stick it over the light and say, "Everything is fine! (Engine trouble is a social construct)!"

When the passengers raise concerns or offer advice, the Progressive driver's sense of 'manifested' well-being is disturbed by their annoying chatter. When the engine starts groaning and smoke starts coming out from under the hood, the driver refuses to take responsibility. It must be somebody else's fault! Anger and anxiety are the result; the driver yells and argues with the passengers who cringe in fear. There is an insane person at the wheel!

The longer this goes on, the worse the Progressive's hair-trigger emotional state becomes. It takes enormous energy to pretend that everything is okay when really it is not.

So...

For Progressives who deal with life's difficulties in this manner, hysteria is always bubbling just beneath the surface. And moreover, they believe this is the normal state for all human beings. Having never learned to deal with problems and thus avoid living in a perpetual state of anxiety, it is impossible to imagine that other people might have a completely different internal psychological landscape. They have no other reference to measure by.

"From" was written by a bunch of these types of people.

That's why all the characters which make up the story reality are all dangerously unstable 2-dimensional caricatures of real people. -Who are by default dangerously incompetent.

Golly. What a fun bunch to spend time with!

Alternatively...

I might be wrong.

It may possibly be that the writers are actually very smart and observant, and that they are trying to demonstrate exactly the points I outlined above. -Like that episode where an unstable moody weirdo gets a bunch of people killed, we see Action/Reaction. That's actually a sign of responsible writing with the message being: "Don't give power to unstable, moody weirdos. Keep an eye on them and be strict. If they cry and throw tantrums and threaten to cancel you, just take it in stride. They're flakes and they need to be controlled because it's not a matter of IF they will cause tragedy, but WHEN."

Not a bad life lesson.

So, maybe.., JUST maybe, the writers did this to make a point about dreamy flower children.

If so, then I don't mind continuing to tune in. Watching fools destroy themselves offers a kind of grim satisfaction, though mostly I find myself just groaning in annoyed frustration at their self-destructive antics.

Is that entertainment?

You decide.

5/10

-Because 'From' is relatively well produced and the writers might turn out to not be the kinds of people who use black tape to solve engine problems. If it turns out that they are, I'll revisit that score.

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn (2012)

A decent little sci-fi movie released sideways.

[7/10 · 15 March 2022]

Let's bear in mind that this came out several years before Netflix rudely awakened the slumbering movie industry with their 2017 Wil Smith project, "Bright".

-Which critics completely panned, not because it was bad, (it was a solid 7/10 movie which regular folks enjoyed), but because it bucked the system and made all the little Authoritarian reviewers feel threatened. (You can't get free passes and pats on the head if the regular Hollywood machine's distribution network gets bypassed and Netflix ignores you and doesn't send you review copies, and has the audacity to still rake in tens of millions of viewers without your shillmanship).

I love that! Hollyweird needs to undergo a serious purge at every level.

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn was essentially a grab bag item, like a coffee mug or tee shirt, swag to be released along with the latest episode in their flagship game franchise. I rolled my eyes when a gamer friend of mine insisted that I watch his DVD copy, "No, it's really good!"

Come on. It's a marketing product. An advert. How good can it possibly be?

So I strapped in, ready for a dose of tacky cheese...

And was blown away.

Wow! They hired real movie pros, actors, production teams. And script writers! It was better than most sci-fi TV shows.

I came to the end asking, "Is there more?"

That was the day I realized that just because Hollywood didn't spit it out doesn't mean it can't be good!

This is good stuff!

Severance (2022– )

Twin Peaks meets the Dharma Initiative. On the Death Star.

[9/10 · 11 March 2022]

My heart rate actually increases when new episodes pop up for this.

It's got to be one of the most original productions on the air right now.

And it's smart!

You know you're not being told a story by a gang of dimwits who learned story-telling at the local Nanowrimo fest or who have a favorite anime 'ship' to squeal about. They are not going to deliver socially approved color-by-numbers plots, drop the ball, forget their lines, do something dumb or let their inner activists blow flatulence during production meetings. The people behind THIS have a Plan, they Believe in it enough to put their creative A game behind it, actually HAVE an A game, and they're taking their Time to execute it just right.

This is also not some druggie art house piece of film nihilism. There is reason and sense behind every move. There's no confusing visual blather for the sake of being weird and moody. The people who made this aren't lazy, stupid or nuts. (So.., in that last sense, Twin Peaks isn't an accurate comparison; there was plenty of insane stuff in Twin Peaks which only David Lynch could understand, and that dude was 10% certifiable). The people working on this production have been spared whatever mind worm lived in Lynch's brain.

Severence is the product of sane people who have a sense of style and grace. It is not the product of culty dingbats whose scrawled ravings suck people in and trick them into wasting time and attention trying to find signal in garbage which is nothing more than hypnotic noise.

But okay, okay. Let's address the reason more than half the reviews here are baffled and bored by what they've seen.

It's slow.

Or rather... it's actually quite fast and economical. A lot happens during every minute of screen time, it's just that the details are subtle and easy to miss if you don't know what you're looking at. And that's fair.

I just watched a scene where the main character was asked to "Make a kind expression." The production people went to pains to get the result just so. If you weren't looking, you wouldn't notice how much care was put into it, or that the people shooting the scene were aware that there was a right way and a wrong way to do it, and that doing it wrong would mess everything up. To the causal dopamine addict, it might just look like.., a guy's face and a waste of another minute of your life.

So Severence is not made for the jitter generation. If you don't derive fascination from mystery and the careful, subtly humorous portrayal of psychology and social engineering at work, then most of this is going to seem pointless and weird. If, however, you take an interest in such things, you'll be riveted because the producers have put a lot of deliberate thought into this project.

This is also not a 'horror' in the normal sense, with a-holes wearing 'scream' masks running around with hatchets. It's not violence porn. It's a 'horror' in the George Orwell sense.

Anyway.., I'm totally digging Severence and I look forward to more.

Recommended. (But I'll understand if it's not everybody's thing.)

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

Wow. Got Better with Age.

[8/10 · 1 February 2022]

It's been 7 years since this first came out. -I recall watching and then promptly forgetting all about it. I didn't care enough to even bother reviewing it.

But after seeing the brand new Tom Holland, "No Way Home" film, I thought, "You know, I'd like to see that Andrew Garfield guy doing his thing, and the origin of Electro and all that."

And I'll be..! Maybe I've gotten dumber in the last few years, I don't know, but I REALLY liked the movie this time around. A lot!

I was surprised to discover that Gwen Stacy stood out as the first of Peter Parker's on screen girlfriends who I 'got'. Emma Stone was fantastic! She had "It", whatever "It" is. I'd fall for that girl too. And her chemistry with Garfield was believable and fun.

I think there's also another element to why I really enjoyed TASM2 this time around. It's the same reason Age of Ultron went up in my estimation from a 5 to an 8 on re-watching it years after its release as well. And the reason is this...

Tapestry.

Comic books are good at this, too, and it seems the format of having lots and lots of chapters and interlocking parts works for film as well.

After years have passed and more episodes have come and gone, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is no longer standing alone at the head of a line, but is now a part of a whole. The mythology of Spider-Man is larger today. The big moments hold more meaning.

When watching Garfield in this film, you don't just get what you see, but you also remember, he's the guy who "Always wanted brothers", holding up a wounded Tobey Maguire. -Who managed to save the girl from falling to her death this time around, and feeling heart break when remembering Gwen.

That stuff fills out the mythology, inflates this film beyond its original moors with extra meaning and depth.

Today, watching it with all the other films fresh in mind, makes it the difference between a story about a guy who is Spider-Man, and a guy you know and like, a friend you have traveled with, who is Spider-Man.

Tapestry.

For anybody curious, who may not have thought much of this movie on the first go-round, I strongly advise giving TASM2 another try. Like me, you may find yourself pleasantly surprised.

The Giver (2014)

Trips on the Dismount.

[7/10 · 1 February 2022]

First of all... The original book was a short story without enough meat to fill out a proper cinematic release.

It would have made for an excellent Twilight Zone episode, but there just wasn't enough for a whole movie.

OR.., it could have made for a successful TV series. (Remember how Westworld managed to pull two (or was it three?) seasons out of a basic killer robots tale? Like that. But, using the themes surrounding Utopian philosophy rather than artificial intelligence.)

But here.., we instead got a nicely made, attractive little movie. I found it very watchable. People think the problem is that it was too light and simple and somehow missing.., something.

I'll tell you why they felt that way:

They changed the ending. They changed the ending!

That's like changing the ending of Planet of the Apes, so that the Statue of Liberty was just a fake and the astronauts really get to go home after all, or Avengers, Infinity War where.., Hooray! They stop Thanos after all and half the universe isn't instantly killed.

Apparently Harvey Weinstein (yes, THAT Weinstein) felt that The Giver wouldn't work in film with the book's ambiguous downer ending, and needed to give it a Hollywood by-the-numbers Happy Ending, where Goodness and Light Saves the Day and everybody lives happily ever after.

Well, that was the wrong decision.

The thing which cements the original book version of The Giver in one's memory is precisely the ambiguity of the final paragraphs, forcing the reader to struggle. -And when I read it, I was certain that the ending was indeed tragic. The light was.., you know.., "The Light", not some safe physical harbor where everything was going to be okay. No, no! He and the baby died and all was lost. The Brave New Utopians won, and Humanity was Lost.

In the book, there was certainly no magical tower which spontaneously returned memory to all the pathetic socialists caught in Utopia. The ending was meant to be a horror. A warning. Something you want to avoid out here in the real world!

(Though, the book's ending was more clever than that; it was indeed also "The Light", the mystery of the spirit escaping the foolish errors of humanity into God's embrace. Or it was, for the die-hard wishful thinker, a critical escape hatch, where, sure, they did find a safe place to have a happy ending. The clever part being that the reader was forced to puzzle and ponder, and thus extend the effect of the book's all-important message: "Don't Do Socialism! (you fools!")

But, slap a happy ending on that story, and all you'll succeeding in minting is yet another instantly forgettable film with no utility other than casual entertainment. Thanks Harvey.

I guess we shouldn't be too surprised.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

WonderfuL! I'd forgotten the "Spielberg, Reitman, Zemeckis" language of loving self-awareness of our human failings.

[9/10 · 4 January 2022]

Did you see that?

Those unspoken moments of character and comedy? Paul Rudd puffing his chest, trying to Be The Man with his new girlfriend's kids? That's bittersweet and awkward; people don't like that stuff in real life. But here, it's comedy and charming.

Those difficult human experiences are portrayed, not with an eye to judge or ridicule, but like a loving parent watching their kids fumble and just.., adoring them while also laughing behind their hands.

I think Spielberg invented the film-maker's eye for that stuff, the way of communicating all these little moments, and along with his (Great) contemporaries, Ivan Reitman and Robert Zemeckis, defined an era of film story-telling.

Ghostbusters Afterlife remembered how to do that.

We haven't seen that level of self-awareness in a looooong time.

This film was totally engaging and smoothly competent on every level. It doesn't get a 10/10 from me, because that top star is reserved for New and Brilliant. -This was just Brilliant.

In any case, I'm very glad to have seen this. It was a salve against the woes of 2021, where so much has been lost and forgotten.

Castle Falls (2021)

Nobody will talk about or remember this. But I'm glad I saw it.

[7/10 · 8 December 2021]

This was an actual modern martial arts film. -Probably the first I've seen where the fights are based on what we currently know to be the most effective and real approach to hand to hand combat.

And it wasn't overdone. -It wasn't a bunch of guys from the gym deciding to make a movie. The story came first, and the fights made sense, the skills baked into the story rather than the story being an excuse for them. That's competence, right there. Competent scripting.

As for the realism... I mean, the moves were all recognized and real MMA tactics. Nobody walks away without getting hurt. Nobody flies through the air. And no 100 pound girls bring down man bears. (The film did feature a girl, and she fought like a girl. She was a mean b****, and you wouldn't want to run into her in a dark ally, but she was a girl and the script and action dealt with her very believably.)

And best of all.., it was a solid story featuring Good Guys and Bad Guys, and some grey guys in between. But the hero was.., heroic! Damn! How often do you see that?)

It was mid-budget, nothing fancy, nothing to mark it as a Block Buster or make it stick out in the culture swirl. Sadly, it won't be remembered. It didn't look like 'money', but it was competent and engaging and satisfying. Nothing about it was stupid. (Though, I was making "Hurry Up" motions with my hands at the hero when he found the money. "Get out! Go Go Go! Stop being.., a regular guy who isn't used to this kind of world and who is taking a moment to deal with a 3 Million Dollar windfall... Okay, I get it, but still... GO!")

But seriously. Competent. Engaging. Satisfying. Nothing stupid.

Those are pretty rock solid hashtags. In today's insane media landscape? Yes.

Recommended!

Blade Runner: Black Lotus (2021–2022)

Cringe anime. Paychecks are why this got made, not interest.

[3/10 · 14 November 2021]

I love anime!

When it's done right.

This wasn't.

The motion capture in this thing is bad. Long hair doesn't obey gravity, moves like a low-resolution helmet. Walk sequences look like jokes about video game clipping.

The background assets were, however, well made and well lit. So kudos for that. Except I showed up for the story... There isn't one.

The main character is an uninteresting waif who makes those annoying little girl chirp noises popular in (bad) anime and generally looks pathetic. I couldn't stand her. That might just be cultural, but how is it that other anime doesn't annoy me this much?

So I didn't stick around to see if she could kick ass. We already know she can. -Because cliche tropes are what they are. Who cares?

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Ages well. I wasn't impressed when I first saw it. But 4 years on... loved it!

[8/10 · 16 September 2021]

In the larger context of the other films, where you already know the characters well, when you already know what will happen next, this really works. I'm not entirely sure why, but there it is.

I was riveted the whole (second) time.

What a weird phenomenon. Age of Ultron is also remarkable in this way.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Gets better with every viewing.

[9/10 · 14 September 2021]

When this first came out, I was non-plussed. I thought it was okay.

Joss Whedon was in the middle of being 'cancelled' by the progressive mob, (many of whom were so adamant about their bandwagon distaste for the man that they retroactively denied ever having liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Firefly, despite probably having cosplayed as characters from those properties at some point. Progressives are not exactly the epitome of rationality.)

In any case, the film didn't deliver whatever magic the earlier MCU movies had delivered, and audiences felt it.

However, upon later re-watches, I have found that my appreciation for the film continues to rise. It might actually be one of my favorite entries into the Marvel suite at this point.

Perhaps this is due to the fact that all the major characters were later developed in subsequent films, so that going back to see them in Age of Ultron allows a more profound connection to the individuals in the large ensemble cast.

For instance.., the Vision was first introduced in Age of Ultron, but went on to play a pivotal role in Infinity War and feature in Wandavision, where the character was allowed much more range and the actor did a bang-up job in provoking emotional sympathies. Going back to see him in Age of Ultron was no longer a case of, "Who is this purple guy and why do I care?" but rather now a, "Ohhhh. And see how Wanda reacts to him? Ooooh."

And that's just one of the characters. The viewer has the same advantage of foreknowledge now with all the characters, so that watching Age of Ultron today becomes a very different and more layered experience than it did when it first hit theaters.

I'm upping my star score on this film from an 8 to a 9 as a result.

I can't think of any other film franchise where I've noticed this effect.

Very interesting!

In the Earth (2021)

Film makers hopelessly out of their depth try their very best. While on Mushrooms.

[5/10 · 30 August 2021]

Hallucinogenic drugs are all the 'rave' these days.

What can one say (that the kids will listen to)?

"It's a traaaaaaaaaap!"

So, the writer/director has arrived at the same erroneous conclusion all the vegans have settled upon:

"Earth Mother Good, Humankind Bad."

Should one bother to explain that the whole Gaia craze, while it did arise from ages-old pagan ritual idolatry, etc., was recognized, (and rightly so), by the CIA as the perfect tool for destabilizing and controlling society? -And thus given a hard spin with funding by multi-billionaires from the Rockefeller clan?

What's the point?

Who will listen? People seem to need to learn it the hard way, which savagely enough, is one of those lessons which leaves deep scars and renders away any fight which might be needed later for fending off very real predators. Not surprisingly, this film wordlessly builds itself upon the foundational concept that humans probably deserve to be eaten anyway. (Which, to be clear, is a false message delivered into our subconscious by the Enemy.)

Other reviewers have asked, "Why was the global Covid-like plague, so deliberately introduced at the beginning of the story, never brought up again?". I think it was not nearly so innocent as topical color, but rather a fully intended extra brick in that foundational suggestion; Nature is striking back at the nasty human interloper.

Which, given that the real world virus was another product of black budgeteering from the intelligence community and not brought to us by an emissary nature bat, ought to be instructive once again, but also probably won't be among the mushroom enthusiasts.

In a world today which has lost its connection to the spiritual, it is inevitable that people feeling the gnaw of absence within them should go seeking. That the Black Hats have left a convenient, easy path of mushroom crumbs for the wayward to follow, (into a meaningless oblivion of self-annihilation and prostitution to the hungry spirit world), appears highly suspect to me.

As for the film itself...

Too many strobe light effects, which everybody in media production knows are nasty things you don't inflict upon an audience unless you are trying to hurt/hypnotize them. I think this is just another clue as to the disrespect the creators have for the humanity visiting theater seats.

Joel Fry, (Yesterday), did a good job with what he had, though his character was annoyingly useless throughout, letting the women and the madman do all the physical lifting. (Typical again today, where the Predator has cut the nuts off masculinity for their own dark reasons). Indeed, the movie really had it out for him, cutting him up and chopping off bits, like a predator nipping at a sacrificial morsel, which I have no doubt was another intended image.

The production looked good, was slow, and the severely limited dialogue was perhaps appropriate for characters who had all been in isolation for months and had forgotten how to socialize, but it leaves the average viewer sighing impatiently.

All in all, this film was exactly what one might expect from a crew of lost souls expressing their bewilderment and vague attempts to penetrate the meaning behind finding themselves caught inside a trap -which they were born into and thus don't have the necessary experience or knowledge to even recognize as a malevolent artificial construct.

The low scoring reviews here are perfectly valid responses to the dark impulses which manipulated this film into being and left their grubby fingerprints all over it. The high scoring reviews recognize that the exploration was indeed done in earnest by the creative team.

I give it a 5/5 because they're both right.

Final thoughts:

Don't do mushrooms. They're how the spirit world prepares their meals. Your existence is an important gift and shouldn't be carelessly handed away. Stay sharp and aware and live with energy because the Wolf IS at the door and it's quite okay to crack it across the head.

Oh, and CO2 is plant food and the planet is actually cooling.

Have a nice day!

Reminiscence (2021)

Too slow for jacked-up audiences today. Climate Propaganda is dumb.

[6/10 · 21 August 2021]

This was a safe movie which made safe choices.

-The brain tech wasn't dangerous or outrageous; there was no chance of a user getting lost or confused. I've watched more thrilling Star Trek "Holodeck" stories than this.

They also played it nice and safe, staying in the warm middle of the culture flock, believing all the politically correct narratives, right down to the bone;

-That is, any creative team which believes in the Global Warming narrative so hard that they'll base an entire world-build on its precepts is by default going to be too mediocre in the awareness and knowledge department to be able to create anything more than mediocrity.

This was made by people who are had by ideas, not the other way around.

Still, I gave this a 6 out of 10 because.., it was competent if slow. It almost looked great. If you are ignorant in key subject areas. (Some of the water effects indicated a terrible lack of understanding about the destructive effects of salt water and wave action. Buildings aren't going stay standing with their bottom three floors submerged, and no, dykes don't work like that. If you can't figure that stuff out, and you're too oblivious to hire somebody who can direct your production team, then you're probably oblivious about just.., all kinds of things.)

And the ending...

That was stupid and nihilistic and childish. You lose a star for making me sit through the whole film just to be fed that ending.

But otherwise.., it was a pretty good photocopy of a photocopy of a Dashiel Hammett novel made by a young person without enough clues or real experience in life. A for effort. Maybe when you graduate college you can make real movies one day. But backpack around the world first. And go sailing at least once.

Free Guy (2021)

That was fun. Silly fun. Nice to see Steve Harrington and a Robin clone finally together.

[6/10 · 19 August 2021]

You already know the general concept.

Like Ready Player One but less post-apocalyptic.

The Villain was kinda dumb; if you realized that you had the first living AI in your system, the last thing you'd do is try to kill it off because it was getting in the way of making video game sales. You could trade up for actual power in the world. But whatever...

The casting director played nicely off the Stranger Things characters, though I would have liked to have seen the actual Maya Hawke playing against Joe Keery. I guess she wasn't available or didn't have the right connections or something. (She's certainly attractive enough.)

It was fun to see the licensing department spring for a few expensive seconds of Star Wars and Marvel Universe IP. (That stuff broke the bank on Ready Player One.)

There were a few irritating nods to Woke ideological garbage, but not so much that you couldn't ignore it. It didn't exceed a 1990's level, (but everybody is so raw-nerved about that stuff now that it nonetheless causes some brief winces).

Fun and forgettable, made for all ages.

You won't feel like you've wasted your time, but it's still mostly empty calories. Like a 'health' bar you bought at a gas station.

The Colony (2021)

Grey, slow, well-produced.

[6/10 · 7 July 2021]

The world is wet, covered in perpetual mist, there is almost no color and everything is miserable and rotten.

I became fed up past the first thirty minutes and then spent the next fifteen clicking the 'Jump Ahead 10 Seconds' button looking for key scenes in order to see if things got any less dreary and dull, and to get an idea of the story thesis.

I can report that the sets become more interesting, (rotted big ships from a previous age form a depressing community), and there is something of a developing mystery in the story, featuring fascist leadership and poor waifs, etc. However, even with the power of "Skip Ahead" at my disposal, I found I just didn't care enough to see how the miserable tale played itself out.

Perhaps I've been spoiled, my brain re-wired by a diet of high-speed flashy films and peppy story lines. Maybe slow and dreary and damp are your thing. If so, this film is for you.

As for the thesis...

This film offers a vision of the world from the perspective of Climate Change alarmism. -Which is hard to take if you know anything about how C02 works on plant life; (you don't get endless mud flats and too much water), but who cares about science or facts? -Not the writers, who evidently envision advanced space faring humans capable of removing our species to a distant star system as apparently NOT capable of engineering a landing craft which doesn't look like an ancient Apollo capsule and which doesn't immediately sink to the bottom of the ocean upon touchdown and kill its occupants. Even in the 1960's we knew how to make more reliable space ships.

Tides offers lots of dreary 'feels' which don't care about your facts. Otherwise, the production values and acting were above average and the film made good use of a limited budget.

6/10 because honest craft went into this production.

No Sudden Move (2021)

Teen film student in charge of set dressing? Anachronisms abound!

[4/10 · 1 July 2021]

It was painful to see how deliberately placed all the 1950's stuff was all over the various sets. Real thought was put in, by somebody who hasn't finished developing full awareness.

In the opening credits roll, I saw fancy old cars parked liberally about (Look! We got the 50's cars! See!), in front of a house porch sporting one of those Walmart white plastic stamp pressed lawn chairs made in China circa 2010. How embarrassing!

The whole thing was filmed using the odd choice of a fish-eye lens or whatever it was. -Figures distorted near the edge of the screen. I don't know what the intent was with that, but the result felt cheap and home-made.

There was another element which contributed to the whole thing feeling fake... Hard to put your finger on. I think it might have had to do with the weathering of everything. Objects and buildings erected and painted in the 1950's would look new, not like they had been taking sun and rain for 75 years...

The overall effect was that it felt like one of those films shot through necessity in the director's own neighborhood, but with a budget enough to rent some extra props but not the talent and tech support needed to use them effectively.

The story was interesting, the acting wasn't bad, (though there were a few fall down moments only a green film student would make.) I could have gotten through it if I'd been really determined, but I confess to being unable to get past the half-way mark before calling it quits.

A stand-out try for a student film, but weak for a professional production. Hopefully the folks in charge really were young and inexperienced. Those conditions are temporary.

Loki: The Nexus Event (2021) Season 1, Episode 4

I went from, "FU Marvel" to "Oh. Okay, this is awesome!"

[8/10 · 30 June 2021]

I thought, "Oh dammit, NO! Sophia Di Martino is here to Jodie Whittaker a truly wonderful character! Hell, they even LOOK and sound the same! Why, Marvel, WHY??"

And then the super-secret after-credits nugget.

It was like thinking you're having a heart attack and then you just burp.

I wonder if on some level they did that on purpose? -Which would be kind of awesome, if you think about it; a huge middle-finger to the BBC. (But I'm probably getting too meta.)

Anyway, I said early on, after the first episode, that the only way this series would be redeamable would be if the TVA turned out to be the Big Bad and Loki burned it all down. Sophia is just icing on the cake.

-But seriously. Don't try to replace Tom with her. Let her be her own thing. Enchantress is already in the running for one of my new favorite characters, so I sure hope you don't mess it up.

Really.

YOU will be burned down Marvel, if you pull a BBC. You know that, right? You're skating super close to the line.

Loki: Glorious Purpose (2021) Season 1, Episode 1

Flashy Graphics, Emotional Button Punches, Broken Logic. The J.J. Abrams forumla applied to the MCU.

[3/10 · 10 June 2021]

-The powerful villain redemption arc worked for and earned in the MCU is all tossed. All you needed to do is show him a highlights reel to get the god of mischief to see the error of his ways.

-Authoritarian Time Gods don't think you should have free will. They'll disintegrate you for making choices they don't approve of.

-1960's Earth government aesthetic populated with 'diverse' Americans is apparently what all-powerful Time Gods pick to manage all of reality.

-"What is a fish?" You know what an infinity stone is, help manage all of reality, speak English perfectly, presumably have been alive forever, but you don't know what the word 'fish' means? One of the most basic life forms? That's a thoughtless reach for a cheap joke.

-Kafkaesque court wants you to plea on charges for breaking a law you were never told existed and you didn't even know how to break. Basically you made a Free Will choice they didn't like. If George Lucas had tried to not create Jar Jar Binks, he would have been in violation. If Ted Bundy tried to not be a psychotic cult leader, he would have been in violation, asked to plea innocent or guilty and would have been ignored and disintegrated regardless. Think about that.

The only way this show can redeem itself is if Loki realizes that this fascistic agency needs to be destroyed. Right now, I'm pulling for his 'evil' self in the hopes that the Time Gods can be stopped.

Glossy graphics, emotional buttons punched, lore disrespected... This is how J. J. suckered people into 'liking' his Star Trek and Star Wars movies while he drained the soul from them, gutting culture (like a fish).

Nice production values, though. It looked pretty and if you are not thinking, then you might be lulled into believing it was good.