Reviews

"The Tower" opens with a young girl and a senior police officer having been killed after falling off the Portland Tower. The blame is quickly laid on the girl, but DS Collins (Gemma Whelan) doesn't buy it. What really led to the tragic death of two people?

On paper, this is an interesting premise. It brings us into the action immediately, and tempts us with a plethora of fascinating characters. As the series progresses however, a lot of this potential is squandered.

The series is overly convoluted, illogical, and whatever twists and turns along the way are predictable and anti-climatic. It's definitely well acted, but the actors can't sell the messy storyline convincingly. It's somewhat worth watching given that it only lasts three episodes, but you're not missing much if you skip it.

The first season was incredibly mixed in terms of quality. It had some high highs and low, dull lows. This episode shows the potential of the show when it lets the actors take the characters in interesting directions. Worth a watch, even if it's the only episode you ever watch of the show.

Superstore has always been political, and it has always struggled with subtlety when it attempts to get those political messages across. When it manages to find a balance, the commentary can be on point and funny. This episode is neither.

It clubs you over the head with heavy-handed political commentary with no actual weight or value. One of the worst episodes of the series.

It's boring.

Horror can be a lot of things. It can be blood spewing and gore filled. It can be slow burners that really get under your skin. It can be political, subtle, over the top, or even humorous. The one thing it is not allowed to be is boring.

This movie tries a lot, but fails at almost everything. The characters aren't engaging, the story is dull and uninspired, and the pacing is sloooooow. This all amounts to a boring film that, despite its modest 90 minute runtime, seems to last hours!

Like most sitcoms, the show finds a somewhat sturdy footing after 3-4 episodes. The first episode is quite rough, but they flesh out the characters a bit more. Instead of just being walking stereotypes (washed-up dad, sassy gay son, dumb brother), they become a bit more engaging. Not much more, but a bit.

It's a watchable show that'll make the time pass. It's not memorable at all though, so you'll probably forget having ever watched it.

The movie tells the story of a record store owner named Frank and his daughter Sam. Sam is preparing to head off for college, while Frank is struggling deciding what to do next in his life. They, somewhat haphazardly, record a song together which lead the remainder of the plot.

The core of the narrative as described above would be more than enough for a film that clocks in at a little over 90 minutes. However, there's somewhere between 5-7 different story archs that all need to be resolved by the end. Sadly, this is the film's greatest weakness. The plot is unfocused, since it tries to pack too much into so little time. When the arcs are resolved at the end, they don't get the emotional weight they need to in order to be memorable.

So while it's a perfectly functional film, it struggles to stand out. It might've been better if the plot was more focused.

The concept is brilliant. However, it belongs in a different type of horror film. The concept for the flick is that seven teenagers born on the same night a serial killer is supposedly killed start being killed one at a time. That would work a lot better in a supernatural mystery type flick than the straight forward slasher narrative we're offered. If we weren't told about their connection in the first twenty minutes, and instead learn it as the film progresses, we would be a lot more invested in their fates. Instead, since it's a slasher flick, we know from the beginning that one will be the "shock reveal" killer, one will be the last one standing, and the rest will die horrible deaths.

Add to this that what we're offered suffers from a plethora of tonal and pacing issues, you get a lacklustre flick that sadly squanders its potential. It feels more like a low-budget directorial debut than one of the last films from one of the greatest horror directors of all time.

This is a review for both season 1 and season 2 of this show.

This show has both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness in its main characters. Early on, it seems like a worthwhile endevaour to follow the misadventures of these characters, to see what sort of crazy hijinks they get up to, but what plagues them by the of season 2 is the same feeling of staleness that most shows like these struggle with. If characters always get into trouble, then it's neither shocking nor interesting to see how they get out of it, cause you know from the start that they will and that they will inevitably get into more trouble later on.

So this is what I mean by the earlier sentiment. The characters start to feel like paper-cut outs of their earlier selves, where they are put into situations as opposed to naturally growing with the show. Add to this, a frustrating amount of storylines that disappear into nothingness, and you have a show that, while great at times, fails to really deliver on its promise.

On paper, this should've been a home-run. You have a skilled and gifted comedian in a starring role, but unfortunately it falls prey to the same lack of creativity that has plaged other vanity projects like this one (see Mulaney as another recent example).

The jokes lack creativity, the storylines are cliched and the comedic timing of most of the actors is terrible. You have some solid moments and a lead that elevates the overall quality, but all in all, this is a forgettable show that will drift into obscurity over time. It'll probably get a second season, cause most Netflix comedies seem to, so hopefully it'll pick itself up.

The concept for this show is really quite brilliant. Looking at the shady underbelly of food manufacturing, and trade is a compelling idea. The first episode dips into this potential by looking at how Chinese honey exporters dilute their honey with various syrups made from rice, corn, and other food products. The fourth episode about garlic taps into part of the concept as well by looking at how Chinese garlic producers use prison labor to peel garlic that they then sell to the U.S.

However, despite moments of thoughtprovoking brilliance, this series only scratches the surface of most topics, and is increadibly unfocused in several of the episodes. The episode about chicken for instance deals more with a series of chicken coup attacks in the Southern U.S., then it does looking at the payment structure for farmers and the globalized scale of ownership with chicken companies.

So while the core idea is terrific, the execution of the series leaves a lot to be desired. They should've dug deeper into the issues, focused their episodes a lot more, and ensured that the finished product is just as engaging and thoughtprovoking as the idea itself.

When I saw the trailer for this movie I thought it looked horrible, I should've listened to that attitude. It would've saved me from the experience of watching on of the worst horror movies ever.

The acting, true it's not bad, but it's stereotypical to the horror genre. The special effects aren't very special at all, they stink worse than a carton of milk left on the kitchen table for a month! The death scenes are unmotivated and not very logical, and with the terrible special effects they look extremely unrealistic. The plot reminded me a little of Jaws but it certainly did not have the qualities of Spielbergs 1970's horror/thriller!

Sure, the half naked girls jiggling their business all over the place is a huge plus for the movie, but even that is not enough to compensate for the horrifyingly crappy movie.

My advice DON'T watch this movie. 2/10!!!