kyordhel Reviews

The Big Flower Fight: Sea Creatures (2020) Season 1, Episode 6

Flawed enough to stop watching it

[2/10 · 10 January 2024]

Until this episode the show was barely watchable, (barely mainly because of the main judge and poor editing) yet somehow still enjoyable. Then it comes this flowery pile of garbage where the TWO referees are annoying stuck ups.

The competitors are requested not only to build a 3m (10ft) wide hybrid sculpture of plants and garbage (yes, literal garbage), but to balance it on a pole (although juggling the sculpture is NOT part of the requirements). So the competitors have to guess a design not knowing in advance which materials/plants they'll have access to or the max load the pole can stand, but still put their best to face a clearly unfair challenge.

Now, imagine if, to add spice, the structural integrity of the poles were not tested in advance, so one might just break at the soldering point... But don't worry, if the pole breaks: you won't get disqualified because using the pole is not mandatory.

Obviously, the team that fails the non-requirement is sent home.

Sugar Rush: The Baking Point (2023– )

This is NOT Sugar Rush

[1/10 · 22 July 2023]

I was quite hyped when I saw there was a new season of Sugar Rush on my feed, just to be flooded by The Cringe as soon as it started. And i mean Cringe with capital C because this ain't no regular cringe. You expect Hunter March but stumble with this guy who has the dynamism and cheerfulness of a rock in the middle of a sand desert. The rest of the jury have about the same level of spark.

It seems to follow the same format, but soon you realize it will take you the whole series to find the winner. Participants lack charisma and some of their dialogues sound scripted, or it will if you are fluent and used to Spanish. The visual quality is the expected one for a Netflix show but other than that it is closer to one of those Televisa or TV Azteca morning reality shows nobody watches since the 90's.

Half the way through the first episode it already feels like a bad parody of Sugar Rush.

Money Shot: The Pornhub Story (2023)

Too prude for a documentary

[3/10 · 25 March 2023]

Straight from the title and before reading any reviews you'd think this is a documentary on the site we all know (it is advertised in the title) from beginning to end. Well... it is not. It focuses a LOT (and I mean a bloody lot) on the latest ordeal to the point it is over 75% of the whole documentary. To the tech geeks like myself, there is not a single reference to the tons of features that were innovated here and then taken by everyone else. There are also no devs interviewed. It focuses a lot more on the other thing... and not what you'd be looking for should you enter the site, but rather the other nasty stuff that came as collateral.

I'd be lying if I said that the documentary does not present the 2 sides of the coin, it does, but one gets far more screen time than the other. The other problem is the perspective. It is not a coin with two sides, but more of a dice where society and law enforcement play a HUGE role, yet the documentary has a strong bias against the object of study from a moral high ground that should be unacceptable in a documentary.

If you already have a strong mindset against the adult entertainment industry or THAT company in particular, you'll grant this production 10/10 stars. Same as if you consider such activities as sinful or morally unacceptable. To the rest, be warned: nobody is innocent here, reality is much darker than it is presented in this "documentary".

Somebody Feed Phil: Madrid (2022) Season 5, Episode 5

Tapas without beer

[3/10 · 2 July 2022]

One of the worst episodes in the series. Not that the show is bad but happens that this episode lacks of the flavor of Madrid. Other than the unscheduled place and the churros, everything is just ads for top-notch gourmet chefs that barely represent what the people eats in Madrid. I mean, come on! Tapas without beer?

Death on the Nile (2022)

Cringy quotas disguised as a boring crime movie

[2/10 · 23 April 2022]

From beginning to end, it is nearly impossible to get into convention. It's the year 1937 and we have a band of black people singing blues or jazz for a crowd of accommodated Londoners in a exclusive club. Characters haven't been fully introduced and you have some sort of twerking dance. And yes, it is 1930's London. Strap on your seat-belt because the blues/jazz will accompany you till the end of the film (not that I have anything against it doesn't run with the plot).

Half an hour into the movie you're poking your eye in boredom and characters hasn't been introduced yet, there is no mystery to solve, and the editor is slapping your face with another amazing drone sequence. The photography is beautiful but not specially remarkable, so it looks more like a touristic advertisement than a 90 million crime movie.

It's possible (if not advisable) to skip the first 40 minutes and still understand the plot. The acting in average is pretty mediocre with the exception of Gal and Army who blatantly zück. Dialogues aren't better than the acting and the plot simply doesn't run. At this point in time you just glance at the wall clock to check how far are you from the end of this torture right before questioning yourself for still being there.

I genuinely fail to understand why Branagh accepted to take part in this piece of flushable toilet material.

The Northman (2022)

Icelandic saga made movie: best film in 10+ years

[10/10 · 18 April 2022]

It took Eggers OCD and love for details to make a movie from an Icelandic saga while keeping a fair view from the Viking perspective, and I'm just getting started.

Visually the movie is beyond gorgeous: it is stunning. There's no CGI in it, but rather natural lightning and SFX, so the film won't age. From the detail of the villages and the clothing of the characters to the landscapes and the battles. The photography is as perfect as the 2022 cameras allow.

The acting goes hand to hand with the script. If the reader allows me the allegory, Eggers made a Jurassic-parkean reconstruction of the DNA of the sagas, stripping the christian interpretation of the monks and hit the core of the north-men folklore that lets you witness how these people perceived the world with all its myth, filth and brutality. Even the rituals and its symbology was reconstructed with academic historical precision.

The same love was set on directing and acting, particularly from Taylor-Joy as a stunning earthbound witch, and Skarsgård who effectively turns into a berserkr, both helped by the breath-taking ambient. For the spectator, the soundtrack provides the final push to witness with Odin's very eyes this marvel of film-making.

Unless the reader has an attention-span id 3 minutes, needs goofy gags every five minutes, or requires a politically-correct discourse rather than an historically accurate one (sorry, this ain't Disney/Netflix), this movie is a definite must to watch in cinemas. It won't age, and is on the right track to become a scholarly reference, a museum piece, and a cult movie.

Bull: Espionage (2021) Season 6, Episode 2

Nope, this ain't Bull

[4/10 · 16 October 2021]

Bull gets demoted from a fully trained law expert psychiatrist to some sort of traumatized and angry dude who's also both, a bully boss and a bully prosecutor fighter with a shade of environmentalist? The protagonist feels completely without direction and with a pretty broken moral compass and the episode works because the actors know their characters and can play them despite the script.

But at the end of the day none of this matters because his team of unconditionals come out with a Deus Ex Machina that allows them to arrange a deal. There's no win, no loss, and you could skip the whole trial.

Foundation: Preparing to Live (2021) Season 1, Episode 2

Asimov would die by watching this

[3/10 · 8 October 2021]

If you know nothing about Asimov's work, you may well enjoy this. Acting is convincing and aesthetically speaking the episode is beautiful, and despite utterly boring romantic and spicy scenes between two of the main characters, the events in Trantor keep you hooked (although to be a 12,000yo empire, their politics are a bit too tyranic and irrational but OK). You'll get to watch a planet killing a-la StarWars which never was Asimov's style which is weird but passable. Plus there is a huge slowdown from Ep1.

But honestly, the core concept is complex enough for this to be a series for fans, not for normies. So, if you ever read he books, you'll feel the writers decided to lower their pants a dump a brick on The Foundation and rewrite everything to their taste.

There are important plot-wise reasons for the lack of robots in the Galactic Empire despite their advanced tech, they introduce a robot and gets a bit cringy but one can deal with it. But Hari Seldon had to stay IN Trantor for he was the first First Speaker of the Second Foundation which was the actual foundation that matter. Further, he died due to a condition while working and even R. D. Olivaw went to his funeral. In this episode he is backstabbed to death while on its way to Terminus and the plot points it was due to some sort of irrelevant love affair?

But even turning a blind eye to that, there is no Foundation story here. This episode feels more like the bastard son Game of Thrones (without bewbs) and Disney's StarWars had on a drinking night.