berkeskaya-22284 Reviews

Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall (2017) Season 7, Episode 6

Awful fan fiction full of cheesy entertainment, deus ex machinas and nothing unpredictable

[1/10 · 21 August 2017]

The episode was a pack of lazy writing.

People argue there are many earlier episodes that are worse than this but they're missing the point. There are more boring and meh episodes than this, yet this episode isn't boring at all. It's actually cringeworthy, predictable, obviously irrational and full of deus ex machinas and untimely epic action.

To sum up, it leaves the path that makes GoT different from all other shows. "It was fun and shocking and that's enough for a good show" some think, and it's all about tastes of course. But it doesn't change the fact that it was cheesy entertainment.

GoT was much more than that. Just imagine Ned Stark was rescued from execution at the last second. It would have still been exciting, but GoT wouldn't be what it is today (or some time ago). Imagine the same thing for Red Wedding or Jamie's hand or Joffrey or Shireen and Oberyn or Hodor and so on. It's not all about characters' survival or death. It's about the show being predictable. You wouldn't know if a character (no matter who, even Jon Snow) dies or survives or suffers a fate worse than death, unlike any other show, and you would experience a unique excitement.

Now, several guys surrounded by dead and yeah they must be the greatest warriors in Westeros that all of them survived there, except Thoros who was already dead at that point. So many times that characters needed to die in plain logic, but they were saved by friends. How original and surprising. Not even want to mention Benjen thing.

Almost every "Jon Snow and his mates are about to die" moment is cringing. Because we absolutely know they, especially Jon, will be fine and saved by Dany. The exact same scene happened before, when Dany was surrounded by the Sons of Harpy.

Let's talk about 'time' here. We know mostly events happen in different times in GoT so we don't much care about it. But Gendry running all the way they've come, in far north, and again, 'running all the way' without fainting or having a damn heart attack (what a marathoner), asking to send a raven, which flies all the way to Dragonstone and informing Dany about the stuff, and causing Dany to immediately decide to fly all the way to far north, while that several guy are fighting with an undefeatable, extremely crowded army of dead. That's pure nonsense. Not just because it's illogical, but because it's dreadful, lazy writing. It's so childish and even for a fan fiction story it's terrible.

Finally, and most importantly, it's untimely epic action and cheesy entertainment to bring the dragons beyond the wall. Since the White Walkers and the dead became an army, everyone knew the dragons will face them at some point in the show. And this was actually the greatest premise of the show. The Great Confrontation. Now, it happened and it happened in like twenty minutes or something, just to save some random guys (except Jon Snow) and in favour of killing one of the dragons to make it join the Army of the Dead. I liked to idea of having a dead dragon, but it couldn't have happened in a dumber way.

Writers knew most people now watch the show for fandom, (team Dany and so) and people would go crazy for such an episode. Well, they were right. But the show lost many things that had made it special once.

Black Mirror: Playtest (2016) Season 3, Episode 2

The most disappointing episode so far

[2/10 · 31 January 2017]

Right at the beginning, seeing the episode's name written in arcade games style font excited me and I thought "that will be a roller-coaster episode!"

It was not hard to guess where will the episode head to. Virtual Reality. VR and Black Mirror. It sounds like a treasure.

But I'll say the thing which I was to say at the end, at first: This was the most disappointing episode of this great show.

Watching a minutes-long sequence of a troubled hipster touring the world and sleeping with a cool girl, that's fine. But for what? What exact purpose of this long build up, if it is a build up anyway? To remember many beginnings of great Black Mirror episodes, they all had a point for the story. We watched it just to see him run out of money abroad so he has to do anything.

And we finally got the to actual point in the middle of the episode. Of course we usually get to the point in the middle, but mostly, we get so much to see to that point (it didn't). What did we see here? A whack the gopher game and.. Nothing actually.

Then at the boss's office, when they said that game knows one's fears and simulate them, I thought "Wow, that's great and pretty much like 1984". The guy's unrevealed-then (and never) relationship with his mother came to my mind and I thought that mansion in that posters is just superficial, and inside it's all a realistic, devastating real-life fears experience.

This didn't happen. Instead, it's really the inside of an old mansion. Alright, it could have still been good. Then the spider came. Then that old bully guy. I was still hopeful. When that human-faced spider showed up, I got excited and thought this episode was going to a freaky and shocking point. I can't ignore the fact that there were jump scares. Yeah the protagonist mocks with jump scares after that, but really, it actually had jump scares. Embarrassing.

Then we saw Sonja, the girl Cooper formerly slept with, as she was warning him but then it turns out to be that her visual is a part of the game. What an incredibly boring cliché. So she attacked her as you can expect. I didn't feel trapped or tense when Cooper realized he can feel pain. It was all shouting. Yeah we see you are suffering and terrified.

Then the amnesia part, which again I didn't feel anything for him. It's not because I'm cold, I sympathized with many Black Mirror characters before. Because as the viewer, I was excluded from the universe of the show. I wasn't in it, unlike the previous episodes. This was a failure.

And the final part where the plot twists started to come. I don't see why I should be fascinated and shocked by those twists, while they all went to the same place that the producers observing him. His mother's loss of memory wasn't terrifying at all. It seemed pretty logical to me. Then that twist again, going back to same point. This time, protagonist is dead.

These twists resembled White Christmas episode, which some may argue is similar at quality to Playtest. Not at all. White Christmas was exciting, absorbing, entertaining and smartly shocking, well-paced work. Playtest just felt unsteady and sloppily made.

Atmosphere was lazy, shots were OK until the mansion sequence. Acting was bad and boring because of the lousy writing. Effects were good but not mind blowing. Directing of course, was awful. Whole episode felt like a big-budget low quality short horror film, instead of a Black Mirror episode. The last time I disappointed with Black Mirror was The Waldo Moment. But even The Waldo Moment wasn't that hilariously dreadful. It was boring but at least it had a consistency and wasn't childish.

I got really excited because of the great beginning of Season 3 and I still am excited. I can forget this 56 minutes of B movie quality high- budget film type emptiness.

Inside (2012)

Great visuals, right in place atmosphere but OK directing and poor writing

[5/10 · 30 January 2017]

Cinematography (which is by Türksoy Gölebeyi) is awesome. It captures many emotions and states throughout the film. It's visually satisfying. Especially the dinner scene is great. That scene is also directed successfully. Colours are perfect for the environment. Dark and cold, just as it's supposed to be.

But this film, is overall not a great one. The biggest problem with it is the script, which I guessed that it was written by Demirkubuz himself. I felt like it was written for the international audiences. But for a native-Turkish speaker, it's unbearably alienating. While there are much profanity, it doesn't feel natural. Maybe that's because as a Turkish person, I am familiar with almost the entire cast, and that's why I expected them to be natural. Acting wasn't bad, as all the cast are talented actors. But writing was annoyingly unnatural that I felt it was kind of a Sheakspearen play. It's not probably because I am familiar with the cast. Characters are dressed in Turkish, they act in Turkish, but their language is somehow artificial. Even the language of Türkan, which is a character designed with traditional elements from head to toe, sometimes felt artificial.

While the story is well-written, directing ruins it a bit. Events are enjoyingly proper for character's journey, but the directing was distracting and not inviting. Long-shots are weak at telling characters' emotions and state of mind. Instead, it's just tiring and distracting.

I prefer the actors to be chosen from unknown people, still it's no big deal as long as it's all the right choices. But here, casting is also unsuccessful. Actors are talented but they all tend to go to a realistic and natural acting, while the script forces them back to synthetic performances. So everyone seems odd in this annoying and obvious dilemma. I also sadly think that Engin Günaydın is not the right choice for Underground Man. He is superb when it comes to absurd, exaggerated characters as well as calm and nervous personalities. But for a furious, unstable and needy but pathetically proud person like Underground Man, he is insufficient (his look is suitable but that's not the point). There was just one point towards the end of the film where Muharrem was seen in close up. That moment the anger was great and proper but it was a one hit wonder anyway.

Viewer's connection with the character is also weak. If you're big fan of Engin Günaydın, you may easily sympathize with the character. But director cannot create either positive or negative connection between the character and viewer. I neither hated or loved the character. I was all indifferent with the things happening around him. And this is, in fact, the biggest failure of the film. In the novel, even if you are bored by the thoughts of the character, you can sympathize with the things and situations that the character faces. This feeling of familiarity, 'finding yourself in it' feeling is the core of the novel's success and it's legacy. This film lacks that feeling. Director could have chosen to make the audience hate the character, but even this wasn't intended at all.

Of course, adapting such a book is challenging as hell. But when I see this great environment, I think much better could have been done with the story. Not ironically, but quite comprehensibly, best acting credit goes to Nergis Öztürk, which plays the Fahişe character, who probably has the least lines. She fired the only emotions that I felt throughout the film. Her dullness and ignorance, with a feeling of neediness were wonderful that she was the only one who felt 'real'.