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Reviews
Love, Victor (2020)
Going down in quality every season
Love Simon was a heart warming movie that explored the struggles of a teenager coming out, so I was pretty intrigued by Love Victor when it came out, and season 1 didn't disappoint. Love Simon had 2hrs and had a simple world where the friends and family were supportive. There were a few moments of hardship where Simon dealt with some jerks at school but overall the journey was smooth, lucky, and enviable to a lot of people in the real world.
So I thought it was nice that Love Victor chose a less previleged family and dealt with a lot of very real struggles of a gay person. There was the teen struggling to confirm to himself that he was gay and hiding in the closet, getting a girlfriend that he feels guilty towards. There's the family that doesn't completely get it. There's reaching out to Simon for help, going to NYC and realizing how diverse the LGBT community is... It was nice that the show acknowledged the gay population who are less fortunate than Simon, the ones that have religious parents, that defy traditional gender expectations more, and have survived some real hardship.
Season 1 was successful in that it explored some realities of being gay where Love Simon felt very happy go lucky. It was still a lighthearted high school drama show though, which was a balance that wasn't easy to achieve. It was also cool that the season ended with Victor finally getting the guy he wanted and coming out to his parents.
Season 2 explored more of the parents coming to accept a gay son, which was very nice too. Though at this point the show was becoming more standard high school drama with the triangles, break ups, and losing virginity. New characters also seemed to be introduced just for plot reasons and it didn't feel organic. Eg. Lucy was introduced as Benji's friend but had no interactions with him, just smooched Andrew, broke up, and showed up at the last episode flirting with Lake. Victor broke up with Mia and literally had no interaction other than the obligatory scenes where they talked things over and made up.
Season 3 really felt unnecessary. At this point there weren't any more "lessons" about the gay world anymore. Well, maybe hook ups and STD eds? Most of the last season was just standard high school drama with more same sex relationships. Victor and Benji ending up together was also unsatisfying in some ways. Benji was basically just a puppy crush that ended up being toxic and incompatible, which made the ending hard to root for. It was a nice show, but tbh by season 2 it already ran its course, and season 3 was just a redundant gay gossip girl spin off.
Jigeum uri hakgyoneun (2022)
I had high expectations but it fell flat... not terrible tho
I liked Train to Busan so when they said that a new Korean zombie show was coming out I was really excited. The trailer looked good and I'm for TV series over movies to tell a big story all day any day. I thought it was cool that they had some scientific explanations for the zombie outbreak and not just "it started". It was also cool to have 12 hours to cover surviving a zombie apocalypse rather than 2 in a movie. But the show really fell flat.
For starters, the plot was really ridiculous at times. The virus origin story was just "what"? So the teacher's son was bullied, and instead of protecting him, moving him to another school, finding ways to prove the bullies' guilt, using his status as a teacher to push for punishment, signing him up for self defense classes and basically everything rational... he injects his son with a new virus he just created? I'm impressed he was able to contain his son and wife at home without getting hurt himself btw. Then when the virus broke out his actions were really inconsistent. He was agitated at first when finding out that the student he chained up was released. But then he took centuries to explain everything. Also he sent the cop to his computer to retrieve the solution when it was just "burn them all"? I was really hoping this character would be developed and utilized more, since the scientific side of a zombie virus is pretty interesting and would've separated this series from other zombie shows.
Moving on, the characters that we follow are mostly not very likable. There were some actors that were horendous at acting too. Zombie in your face and these kids just poker face... I get that these kids are just teenagers, but it's a zombie apocalypse, one of the kids actually mentioned Train to Busan in episode 1 or sth, lets get to work with building up defenses, armoring up, finding resources, figuring out what's going on outside... can we save the meaningless squabbles and love triangle drama for later? The kids also act very dumb at times. Can we throw an infected person out of the room before they actually become a zombie and get another person bitten? Yes I can imagine it being tough when it's a friend or family, but sometimes they really go over the top with it and just makes the characters seem stupid and irrational. Neither the protagonists nor the antagonists were particularly well written, and I can't help feeling that the writer had something against women in general. I get that Asia's gender expectations are more traditional, but most of the females just cowered behind while the guys did all the work. Like seriously? You need the guys to tell you to help them push and not just sit behind and watch?
Half way through the series become more about the conscious "half zombies" than the rabid thrashing ones, which is okay, but the subplots were quite underwhelming too. The bully's obsessed with the male lead. The bullied girl decides that the person she wants to avenge the most is... the guy that tried to comfort her at the rooftop? Class president gained these super powers and couldn't die anymore... and she couldn't do anything to help? Like go out, find a safe path, find food & water? It's like having Spiderman with an invisibility buff on your team and he does almost nothing. They spent half an episode on making toilets, a much more mundane matter that nobody asked for.
I wanted to like the series. I really did. I watched it as soon as it came out, but in the end it was kind of underwhelming. It wasn't terrible, it was a thrill to watch people run away from the zombies, but many of the times when they weren't actively fighting or escaping the zombies ended up pretty frustrating.
Busanhaeng (2016)
Almost perfect aside from a few issues & inconsistencies
So overall this is a thrilling film that has depth and packs emotional punch. The movie keeps you on the edge of your seat with the looming zombie attacks, and also has fantastic character arcs. I really enjoyed how the lead character became a better man over the course of the movie, and all the side characters were very well fleshed out too. You really grow to love some of the characters and hate others. There are people who choose to help others, those who sacrifice themselves, those who sacrifice others, and those who take revenge. It's all a great display of humanity and I think it's really great that a zombie apocalypse film had so much depth.
Ok about the bad stuff (spoilers ahead). The zombie turning process had no consistency. The first girl was able to run away from the zombie at the station, get on the train, and stay conscious for a while before she turned. After that, most people only took mere seconds between getting bitten and starting to bite people themselves. I thought it was about the site at first (limbs take longer than face/neck), but then the school girl started spasming immediately after a bite on her leg. I get that they're going for the effect of zombies swarming, but this takes ppl out of it a bit.
Next up, the scene at Daejeon station had so may logical flaws. The captain didn't even know about the zombies (riots) in some compartments in the train, but only the humans had their compartment doors open. The zombies were still trapped. If all doors opened, the zombies in the trains should've gotten to the humans first. And it was really crazy when the humans just walked off the train and walked outside unsuspecting. The COO guy was evil but he made perfect sense here: there's no way that station was safe. Watching all those people walk past bloody riot gear to find the military zombies had me screaming at the screen. The chase itself was also a bit too scripted. The protagonist surviving off of plot armor, the 4 guys holding the glass door against the zombie swarm, and the big guy Jon Snowing the zombies before getting on the train were all just way too dramatic.
Once they were back in the train, the action of the 3 guys trying to rescue their loved ones was good, but why would you take off your clothes and expose your skin? Once they got back to the last compartment, I really don't get why they're so hell bent on getting in the last compartment, instead of focusing more on fighting off the zombies that are trying to get in. For a long time they only had one guy holding the door. The men could've closed the door and covered the glass with something so the zombies don't see them. And then after a while maybe the people on the other side could let them in since they're clearly not infected. Breaking the glass was also weakening the defense.
I really don't get the old woman for giving up her life in front of her sister. She was just at the door. That led to her sister letting the zombies in to kill the entire compartment, which was all really unnecessary. And the people in the compartment were all really weird to force the new comers into another compartment that was further from the zombies. Shouldn't you want the safer one? And what if they really do turn into zombies later? How would you get out with zombies at both doors?
And the last fight. After fighting several compartments of zombies the protagonist really froze at the evil COO turning huh? Tho yeah he was meant to sacrifice himself for his daughter in the end anyway, so I guess it had to happen.
I still think this film is great despite these logical flaws. But it probably could've been more convincing if it had more consistency and less brain fart from the characters.
Denise Ho: Becoming the Song (2020)
Overall okay, with flaws though
As someone who's somewhat familiar with Denise Ho's story as well as the political situation in HK/China, I think this documentary is both appreciated and somewhat disappointing.
While I side with HK's fight for freedom and respects Ho's perseverance, I think it's still important to acknowledge the complexity of the political situation in HK and China. The film took the easy way out by playing the soundbites. It's easy to paint everything with a "China evil" brush, but it is quite a complicated and delicate issue, touching on propaganda, misinformation, authoritarianism on one side, and xenophobia and cultural identity issues on the other. Anthony Wong talking about the Tiananmen massacre, while a perfectly valid point to question the CCP, only offers the extreme of one side. Ho mentioned Montreal's influence on her upbringing. Well Montreal also deals with the Quebecois identity issue, and there's no introspection from Ho considering whether the exclusiveness is progressive. The film romanticizes Ho's sacrifices (which definitely are extraordinary), but fails to hold her to much standards. Ho is controversial for good reason. Her demand to the United Nations to remove China from human rights panels lacked seriousness. The 5 demands that HK protesters made was also not a serious proposal, aiming more to humiliate Carrie Lam than to bring real change. Lauding Ho's speech in front of the US Congress was also somewhat ironic, since Marco Rubio's hardly a champion of social justice in America. This is not to take away from the film's efforts to tell the story of HK's fight for freedom, but it lacks depth.
With respect to Ho herself, the film tells most of her life story faithfully, but carefully cuts out her love life. It's understandable why they did this, as her former flame is still active in the entertainment industry and trying to survive China's censorship. However it does feel cheap, since this is supposed to be "tell all". There were a few places in the film where it was almost unavoidable to talk about it, like her coming out and the concert tour which "pays tribute to this important person", but they covered it up by diverting to Anita Mui and political martyrship. This reminded me of Bohemian Rapsody pretending Freddie Murcury's straight for the most part. It also leaves out the piece of the puzzle that imo at least partially explains Ho's transition from playing by the rules to going all out against the machine.
Also missing from the film were many of the big names in the HK music industry who Denise was once close with. Again, it's understandable why almost none of them appeared in this documentary - they have careers - but the film might have benefitted by saving the story for a later date, when other artists and ppl who worked in the industry may have filled the stories up with different perspectives on how certain events took place, like the risks of coming out in a conservative culture, or CCP's warning to artists on political conformity. By only interviewing the likes of Anthony Wong, it created an echo chamber.
The film also implies that Ho's descent is completely due to her political activism, which is also somewhat romanticized to fit the narrative. She's aging and a couple years removed from releasing any hit songs. It's not that big a conspiracy that she can't pack the Coliseum anymore.
In all, this film did pick an interesting story, but in its efforts to stick to the narrative, lacked depth and became self confirming.
The Half of It (2020)
Good story, but could have been told better
I like the message that they're trying to go for. I like the way they designed Ellie and Paul and Aster's arcs. And I like the end game that nobody ended up with a romantic partner, but each learned about love, found bonding, and broke out of their molds to become the person they're meant to be. But I feel like a couple of things were way too comical and unrealistic, and the dialogue was just too cringy and pretentious.
For starters, I couldn't see this film as a comedy. It's too slow paced and philosophical. But as a serious movie, all its characters outside the leads were complete caricatures. Aster didn't say a single word to Trig the entire film. The girls hanging around Aster & Trig even wore the same clothes. I mean come on... This creates problems. Once Aster caught Paul kissing Ellie and Paul realized Ellie was gay, there weren't any scenes to be written. The 3 leads weren't talking to each other, and other than that there weren't any real characters, so Paul's coming to accept Ellie's sexuality seemed to have happened over night.
Aster's character was quite poorly written. I finally understood Aster the 2nd time I watched the film, how she's repressed by her religious family, and how her friends are too superficial for her. So it made more sense that she cheated on Trig and stuff, but she didn't even express any internal struggle that what she was doing was wrong. She said she kinda knew the truth and did have feelings for Ellie too. Ok that's quite a big deal, so where's the foreshadowing for that? Alice Wu insists that Aster felt something that she wasn't ready to admit at the hot spring, but the film didn't show us any hints. We didn't get to see Aster contacting Ellie after the hot spring, or Aster being confused about her feelings for Paul and Ellie, or any tension at the hot spring. So it just felt unearned when she kissed Ellie in the end.
Most of the dialogue were really poorly written. Paul's date was so pathetic it couldn't even come off as funny. Ellie's conversations with Aster were way too pretentious. They tried to make them sound deep. They just sounded boring. And the church scene. Ugh. Who wrote that?
Anyway in general the movie's pretty nice. It's a good coming of age story. But it could've been better.
Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)
Cute, but falls flat
I agonized a bit between 6 and 7. The movie's enjoyable, but it falls short compared to the last movie and pretty much every other Marvel installment, probably because Marvel didn't quite know where it wanted to go with this movie either.
Homecoming kept Peter Parker a typical nerd teenager, screwing up missions, awkward conversations with Aunt May (parents), having a failed crush on Liz... it was relatable to most teenagers and adults who remember what it was like growing up. Far From Home seemed confused. Peter has now gone to space, become an avenger, blipped 5 years, and lost Tony Stark. He should be more of a man now, and Marvel has no idea how to do this other than making his next relationship a bit more successful, but it wasn't because he was a better guy this time either, MJ just happened to like him. And MJ was a great character in the last movie, stealing the show despite being a comic relief character. It would have been great to see Peter slowly seeing how cool she is, but boom, Peter just likes her now. Sigh and I thought this generation of movies would focus more on the inner strength of female characters (which MJ did have in Homecoming) besides just being a love interest... It also still repeats the story of Peter trying to juggle two lives, almost failing the avengers, and redeeming himself in the end. We've seen that already. It feels like the same story, just with a new villain. Oh and the villain... pretty much just popped out of nowhere with a paper thin backstory and almost no motive but to be a bad guy. He's also comically unlikable with the cape thing.
Overall this movie's okay for popcorn, but I really wonder how dumb the producers thought their audience would be. Even Disney cartoons have more character development these days. Hopefully the next movie's not as one dimensional and predictable
Black Panther (2018)
I just wish this movie deserved all the hype and rave
I was going to type "I have no idea why this movie is smashing the box office", but then, I do know.
I get it that liberals (especially racial minority liberals) would think of this film as some sort of equality milestone, and conservatives would think of this film as political correctness agenda. But really? Just this was enough to get you 1B+ in box office? Wonder woman was 10x better as a movie. Maybe they were right in 2016. America IS more sexist than racist.
Anyway, the movie itself was very bland. The plot made zero sense. I know the Avengers universe was supposed to be very fiction, but still, this was stretching it. A small country in the middle of Africa being sooooo advanced? And if it's so advanced, why do people still wear those half naked clothes and fight so primitively? Why is their election still so savage? Whoever wins a fist fight... Geez. And why would a kid raised in America for his entire life, who went to MIT and everything, have no ambition other than to go back to this African country and be some stupid king? And really? You grew up in Oakland. I thought this would be one of the less oppressed places for POC. He recites the history textbooks like he lived 300 years to see all the slavery. I mean at least write some plot that makes sense.
The characters were very one dimensional as well. Black Panther himself was super boring. Nobody had any personality. Killmonger was a complete douche. I mean I thought in recent years Marvel made sure to write characters with life stories and end games that made sense. Killmonger was like one of those 60's Disney villains that just wanted to burn the world. In the end, everything's predictable, and you're just waiting for the movie to end.
I'm a die hard liberal. I'm happy that a black hero movie broke records. But I wish that it was from a film that deserved it.
Passengers (2016)
6.5
So I finally saw this movie after missing it in the theaters a few months back, and I'm a little disappointed.
The concept's pretty good, but the plot just fell way too predictable and cheesy half way. They fall in love, OK he didn't even have to try much. But I guess if you wake up stranded with one other human being and he's Chris Pratt, why not. Aurora finds out and goes nuts, sure. A crew member wakes up for the sole purpose of giving them the keys to the operating room and dies immediately, wow that's lazy. Jim has to sacrifice himself to save the ship and he magically survives, oh come on even Disney doesn't do this anymore. Aurora forgives him and there's that magical resurrection, just spell cheesy. Jim figures out there is a way for Aurora to go back to hibernation but she chooses to live with him instead. Oh really, she forgives him for "murder" just like that?
The visuals were good, and the acting was fine, but this is a film that should have had much more potential. I really liked the plot summary they wrote, 2 people stranded on a spaceship with their destiny pinned, but the way it developed was way too underwhelming.
Exam (2009)
The plot makes absolutely no sense
1. Why would anybody go to these lengths for a stupid interview??? Some of them are infected or have family members that are infected, but so what? It's not like you can't buy the drug? Is this worth killing for? Why would a real company ever want to hire murderers?
2. They have passed previous rounds. How? White is a total sociopath. They didn't weed him out in the previous rounds? Brown is totally unlikable too.
3. What's spoiling paper? If writing on it with pencil is, how come making it wet isn't? How come so many people are willing to try with their own paper?
4. Even if anything's within the rules, this is an interview process. These people couldn't figure out that assaulting (almost sexually assaulting) women won't make a good impression?
5. The plot twist at the end makes no sense whatsoever. At least be something of actual substance. "Any questions?" Really?
6. The security measures are insufficient. What if they shoot someone in the head? They'd die for sure. Regenerating tissue won't work. What if someone stabs someone to death with a pencil? What if they beat each other to death with a chair / their belts or suffocate someone with their ties? What if someone tries to kill the security guy?
7. How come white is the only person who needs to take the pill during the process?
8. What if white actually died?
9. Blond is worth hiring? How? Because she managed to get the pill out with her hairpin? Black also tried?
10. Even if nobody noticed deaf tampering with the timer, how come nobody tried to see what the other button on the timer did?
11. What's the point of even tampering with the timer? And couldn't you do it more elegantly? Connect it to a computer outside and drop 5 minutes from it?
Carol (2015)
Overall a very good film, but the development was unconvincing
I gave some claps after the movie ended, so I did think it was good. The cinematography was beautiful, the music was great, the movie did well in capturing emotions, and the acting definitely deserved the nominations.
However, the love story was quite unconvincing. For some reason, Carol just sets eyes on Therese and goes after her. And for some reason Therese just gets obsessed with Carol. All of a sudden Carol's inviting Therese to everything and Therese is getting all awkward around Carol. Don't you know that in a love story you need to at least explain why they got attracted to each other? The sex scene was good, but you can't just throw that out there and claim that that's chemistry. The development was very weak. For the first half of the movie, it was pretty much just Carol seducing Therese and inviting her over. It really just seems like a lesbian hook up, but half way through the movie we're supposed to accept that they're the love of each other's lives? I've seen some complaints about this movie and I do agree on this: The romance seems so forced and rushed, are we just forgiving it because it's a gay relationship? If we take the gay context out, switch the roles of Carol and Harge, make Harge the one ending the marriage and hitting on young girls, would people still be okay with the way the story was developed?
And I think the directors really need to understand that being gay doesn't justify everything. It explains why Carol didn't want to be with her husband, but it doesn't justify her abusing him and ignoring him and lying to him. It explains why Therese decided to give up everything with Richard for Carol, but both Richard and Harge were good guys, it's not okay to abuse them like that. It would be one thing if Therese told Richard "I realized I'm gay and I decided to follow this woman so let's break up", but it's another that she denied it, lied to him, and still used his feelings for her. OK I realize this is the 50's, but still, by victimizing Harge and Richard, I lost a lot of compassion for Carol and Therese when things didn't work.
And Carol's character just wasn't very likable overall. If I had to pick a villain of this film, it would be Carol. Lesbian or not, she was having affairs. Her husband tried to ask her to stay, and she abused his decency. She seduced Therese, and irresponsibly brought Therese with her on her get away trip, then dumped her because she made a mistake and got caught. She seemed to love her daughter, which was probably her one redeeming quality, but then at the beginning of the film she gets her daughter a train set even though her daughter wanted a doll just because she was busy seducing the cute little salesgirl. She claims to love her daughter, but won't compromise anything to Harge even if that was the only way. She dumps Therese and gets her lawyer to make a convincing case for her to gain custody, and she screws his hard work. Yeah I know nobody's a saint, but by making Carol so unlikable, they really make this story a lot harder to sell. I was really surprised that they had a happy ending. In some ways, it didn't seem like Carol deserved it, and Therese deserved more to move on.
The story was a good story. The filming was outstanding. But it's not a masterpiece.
The Age of Adaline (2015)
Could have been better
I think the movie was good, but there was a lot more potential.
First off, there's got to be a better way of telling the background story than the stupid narration. It's 2015, nobody does that anymore.
Secondly, the romance was unconvincing. Blake Lively showed me that she has evolved from eye candy for Gossip Girl to an actor who can actually act, but the chemistry was absent. Ellis's character was creepy. I'm just not convinced that a beautiful woman who have seen 80+ years of all sorts of flirting would fall that easily for something not that special.
Also, it's good plot that they designed Ellis's father to be another man Adaline loved, but it turned out to be very cheesy and unrealistic. William has been married for 40 years and he still can't forget the girl who stood up his proposal-date. And then in the end he celebrates his anniversary with his wife like nothing happened. He finds out that Jenny is indeed Adaline and wouldn't a normal person be much more shocked than he was? He was a medical student for Christ's sake. No way a medical student doesn't get at least curious about how the hell this was possible. He must have wanted more answers from Adaline about their relationship. And heck, your son is going to marry a 107 year old lady who will never age. Aren't you at all concerned that if your son gets the life with Adaline that you never had, his life will never be normal? And does it not bother you at all that your son is dating (possibly marrying) your ex-girlfriend? He came to the conclusion "you lived your life like you never lived" way too fast.
And the daughter was also kind of too supportive to be true. It must be hard to have a mother that could never age, and hence could not be there in your life, but the daughter barely cared. I know she's also lived a lifetime, so she's at the age where people start to forgive everything, but it's still kind of a stretch to hope for your 107 year old mother to go out and date 30 year olds.
Anyway, it's still a good movie, but there should have been much more conflicts and struggles than what was presented.
The Office (2005)
The Office ...of psychopaths
Okay I'm only at Season 2 and I'm really surprised that this show has an 8.8 here.
Most of the characters are really unlikable. Michael's a really annoying person who nobody dares to tell him to stop just because he's the boss (such charisma-less people rarely become regional bosses). Dwight's a total psychopath. Angela is also a really weird person who you'd never want to meet. OK I get it, they're both psychopaths so it'd probably make sense that they're attracted to each other, but wow I feel bad for their kids. Kelly just won't shut up. Even the audience gets annoyed when she starts talking non-stop about something that nobody cares about. I took Dwight's side for the first time in the show when he violently told her to shut up. Ryan is passive to the extent of being selfish, but he's actually probably the most likable character here. At least he's feeling the same way normal people would, which is usually just very uncomfortable.
Most of the people in the office are really unattractive. I get it. In the real world, nobody works with a dozen supermodels, it's unrealistic to have no seniors or obese people. It's also true that we all knew some coworkers who are just huge jerks. But this is a really cheap form of being funny. Jim was the best looking guy in the show (which isn't really too impressive considering the competition), but I really can't call him handsome. I just came from John Krasinki's IMDb page, and I strongly suspect that he wrote his own biography. It's too fan-girl- y to start a biography with "Tall, handsome American film and television star".
Anyway, call me old school, but I really can't wrap my head around the fact that Pam is engaged and the writers decided to write the Jim- Pam relationship. I mean, I get it if you found a person you like better when you're just dating. I get it if after years of marriage you got bored. But when you're engaged and just about to get married? Wow. That's pretty disgusting, and even if you show Jim as a nicer guy who has more chemistry with Pam than Roy, I really can't root for it. I really just can't.
I don't know how this show got a 8.8, at least not at this point. It's never really funny. It was barely relate-able and most of the times it's too cringe worthy to even be entertaining. I'm giving it a 4 now. Season 1 was even worse.
Two and a Half Men (2003)
This is the score for the Charlie era (seasons 1-8)
I know a lot of people are using pretty strong language on this forum about how the show sucked after Charlie was kicked off, but I really just wanna say... it wasn't that good to start with either.
The characters were inconsistent, the stories were unconvincing, and the humor at sometimes were really kinda sick. I know it's not very fair to criticize a sitcom of not being very logical and realistic, but 2 and a half men sometimes really stretches things a bit too far and make you wonder about the producer's personalities.
Let's start with the characters. Charlie Harper is this lucky bastard who is a total jerk to all people around him. He lives an incredibly unhealthy lifestyle, doesn't give a damn about anything that he should, and is just unfairly rich. He's the man that everybody loves to hate: gets everything in life easy but doesn't deserve a single bit of that status.
Alan Harper is a chiropractor, a profession that is supposed to make 100k+ annually, who is unbelievably cheap after being divorced by his ex-wife. He's also incredibly awkward in all situations and has the worst luck with women. The show tries to make him a poor pathetic little nerd with a life so miserable it's borderline worthy of committing suicide.
Jake Harper started off as a kid that was somewhat smart, though usually being considered as stupid. Charlie found the kid amusing so he took Jake and Alan in. However, that only lasted for a very short fleet, and I guess the producers just thought that it's way easier writing a stupid kid than a kid with okay gifts that just wasn't interested in exploiting his talents.
So the center of this show is pretty much trying to make fun out of the contrast between Charlie and Alan, how Charlie so successfully abuse the women in his orbit, how extremely unlucky and pathetic Alan is, and how stupid Jake is. The humor here is pretty evil. It's basically built on all the worst things in life, and making jokes out of people. Yeah I laughed some times, but do you really consider stuff like Alan taking the medical exam that gave him so many health problems good humor?
And let's look at the female non-leads. Rose, the crazy stalker with no boundaries and serious mental problems that Charlie never appreciated until, well, you know.
Judith, Alan's ex-wife who divorced him to be a lesbian, but later adjusted to a "typical" wife that became strict and annoying and demanding and uninterested in sex right after marriage.
Evelyn, the un-motherly mother who would put sex and money before her children in a heartbeat, and doesn't get any appreciation from her children (or grandchildren) despite the help that she does provide them.
Berta, the very unattractive maid who has no work ethic and a strong attitude and very often disrespects her employers. She also has a really really messed up family that produces loads of cheap slutty daughters.
Aside from Berta who has a Garfield-like attitude who could actually be funny without being offending and making viewers uncomfortable, most of these women are just very, very messed up. I get it that everyday life is boring and almost no sitcoms are remotely realistic, but the theme of "we're terrible people, now laugh" gets pretty unfunny after a while. Wait... why did I dis-include Berta in this category anyway? Alright let me say this in another way, of all these characters, Berta's character seems to be the only one not viewer-offensive to me. That's probably not that nice.
Then there were the girls like Mia and Chelsie who were pretty much bimbos that Charlie just happened to actually like. I really can't remember much about these women now, they were way too normal so the part with low credibility was more on how Charlie landed such wonderful women and why would Charlie want to have a serious relationship and settle.
So all in all, I know that people blame this show for killing off Charlie. I still have yet to watch the episodes of the show in the post-Charlie era, but seriously, I don't think the Charlie Sheen era was that perfect anyway.
UPDATE:
Okay so I just watched through over half of the episodes after the switch from Charlie to Walden and I have to say, I understand the rant now. The humor is very low, and they are turning all the characters into unlikable bitches. eg. Alan's basically a leech now. It was barely tolerable when he was Charlie's brother, but after Charlie died, the only (marginally) reasonable thing to do for him was to move in with his mother. The show should have cancelled long ago when Charlie and Augus left. Now this show is just very pathetic.
Gone Girl (2014)
One of Fincher's best
This is one of David Fincher's best movies. Yes, we're talking about the person who made Fight Club, Se7en, The Social Network, and other awesome stuff. This is one of his best works.
The plot, the planning, the execution, the editing, everything was perfect. The acting was really good too. I had problems with Amy in the beginning - she seemed too graceful to be normal. But as the entire story unraveled I totally got it. I think we're looking at at least an academy nomination for her. And I'll be surprised if this film doesn't get at least a nomination for best picture. The score was just right for the tense and creepy atmosphere.
I haven't read the book, so I do think there are some plot holes. Amy's entire plan, though terrifyingly brilliant, was full of flaws. When she returned home she didn't have any major wounds to explain all the blood in the kitchen. Desi's CCTV tapes doesn't exactly work in her favor. The thieves had a pretty good chance of finding out who she was and ratting her out. And even if she didn't have to execute this plan B, how would the police fail to track any of her financial records and transportation methods? She had a car. If it was her car, the police would have figured that the car doesn't just disappear with the person. If it was a new purchase, the records from the automobile sellers / renters would have retrieved the data. Also if she was carrying like 100k with her, her bank account would have shown a pretty big withdrawal as well. And even if she executed everything as planned (her suicide), her body would have revealed that her time of death was a couple of days past the time Nick contacted the police.
So it doesn't really make sense that she won in the end. By the way how would she be able to impregnate herself? It would require some damn complicated medical procedure that doesn't have a close to 100% success rate to do that. And Nick could have taped some conversation between the two of them. In all, to all the crazy people out there who got inspired by this film and want to frame their spouses of murder, don't do it. As smart as Amy was, it's a miracle she won.
But anyway, these flaws doesn't ruin the film a bit (I realize I'm talking about them too much for a film I gave 9/10, but I guess I'm just that nerdy). It was very intriguing watching Amy's plan execute through, her plan B execute through, and her final triumph. The film keeps you on the edge of your seat and the ending gives the perfect haunt. It's definitely one of the best films of 2014 (I have to see if Chris Nolan's Interstellar can beat this) and I'll be looking forward to when this comes to DVD.
The Fault in Our Stars (2014)
I really can't see how this is 8+
I'm giving this a 3 because I gave Boyhood a 2 and I think this movie deserves slightly better.
I gave Boyhood a 2 because I come from China and I know what "abysmal" means and I wanted to separate Boyhood from those films that actually deserved absolute trash.
But that's it. That's the only reason this film is getting the extra 2 points from me.
Honestly I'm losing faith in IMDb and rotten tomatoes and all critics and the general audience. How do people give such high scores for such pretentious and empty films?
I'm NOT one of the people who think that visually pleasing films are the best. However, I think people who would back any "indie" film and attack the ones disagreeing as shallow and ignorant are equally annoying. I don't think there's any superiority in genre. And concluding "you must be one of those that love Transformers" is a pretty weak arguing point.
Anyway, rants aside, I think this movie is extremely childish and unrealistic. The story kinda parallels Twilight and 50 Shades, only it made the fantasy ride on a tragedy to seem more deep and mature. It really makes me wonder how much the authors of these books experienced in life to have came up such unrealistic crap.
Terminal cancer patients don't behave or look like this. Oh gosh this is so disturbing to me... Couldn't they have picked somebody else for the actors? Cancer patients don't look this healthy. Gus was one that needed to lose a limb, but still had that healthy skin and beefy body, huh? Even the CGI for the prosthesis was so fake. I guess his shin was just too bulky to make it look like it was just a stick underneath the pants.
Haley's character was really unlikable. The girl had more negativity and aloofness than Bella from Twilight, plus she liked to get all deep and talk about some philosophy that the pretentious teenagers love. I was totally wondering where Gus got all that stuff he talked about in his final love letter. How did you see this girl as all those good qualities anyway? I had minimal impression of her being smart or caring.
Gus was unreal. The philosophy was incredibly naive and pretentious. His way of dealing with things were childish. The way people responded weren't much real either. I mean, you give THAT speech at a middle aged lady and she LETS you throw eggs at her car and house? And all that applauding when they kissed? I'm surprised they even let Haley continue climbing. And yeah, a virgin that's about to die has that much confidence in landing girls who don't even want to talk, huh? Also, even putting the character aside, the actor had very bad acting skills for a lead.
This movie makes no sense. Was it written by a 15 year old? I can forgive someone that age for thinking this is good philosophy and realistic love and a good story.
Oh wait the movie wasn't all naive and pretentious. The writer was a character with some dimensions, and the writer had a good point. But they made the writer such an asshole that it was impossible to redeem him or explain his reason in the end.
In all, just a very naive and unrealistic movie with pretentious philosophies and childish fantasies.
Boyhood (2014)
This is not worth all the praise
When I heard about this movie over summer in China, I was so excited that I prayed it would still be in theaters when I came back. And it was still in theaters when I came back.
But it's NOT worth 99% on rotten tomatoes or an 8.8 here. And it's not worth an Oscar nomination. I'm just glad they didn't take it all the way.
Just because you took 12 years filming this doesn't mean you get to geta 99% RT and an 8.8 IMDb without deserving it.
And honestly, I don't agree with any of the people saying how we should appreciate their efforts. Look, the director gathered the people around once every year for like 3 days or something, to film a script that was made up impromptu. There was no effort in planning this film. They practically didn't even pay anybody to write a script. Also, judging from how abysmal the acting was (I didn't even feel that Arquette deserved her Oscar and Hawke deserved his nomination), I don't think they gave much effort at all. And come on, the budget was 2.4M... One episode of the big bang theory beats this. The best I can say is that they had patience. But I don't think you can make a bad film good just because they refused to recruit more actors and employ CGI to do the aging effects.
Okay let's talk about this movie. It had no plot, other than showing us "look, he got taller, he cut hair, he grew back hair, he's drinking, kissing a girl, breaking up with a girl, going to college..." Look, I know this film is supposed to be about everyday life, so I wasn't even expecting an epic storyline, but this is too boring. Modern Family is about everyday life, and you see the kids growing up, but there's something worth watching in the episodes. The only purpose of Boyhood is showing you, look, the kids grew up and the parents got wrinkles. While I can appreciate how time flies, how kids grow taller and adults grow wrinkles is really not worth making a movie about.
I grew up almost in the same time, I think I'm 2 years above the boy... but Mason's journey didn't click with my teen life at all, and this is coming from a Harry Potter fan. Maybe other people can relate to this, but even if you do, it doesn't exempt this movie from having no plot and no meaning. Also the movie shows you some historic moments, just for the sake of saying, "oh look, we're at 2008 and Obama's running for president". I get it, you want to time stamp this, but what the heck does it have to do with your story?
And for everybody who's saying "but that's how real life is", NO, this is not how real life is. Things happen in real life. We make mistakes and we learn from them and correct ourselves. We grow older not only physically but also mentally and spiritually. We have aspirations and we work towards them. We have a purpose in life, besides whining and wondering what's the point. And we have relationships that are romantic and memorable. It's not just about getting together and separating without even bothering to learn their names.
And let's look at the characters. They're all very unlikable and extremely one dimensional, or even zero dimensional. The only traits on both stepfathers were their abusiveness. The mother was just there to make bad decisions and wonder why her life is so miserable in the end. The father was just a hipster. Mason was simply whiny and passive, and I don't even think Samantha had a personality besides her selfishness. I've never seen a lead cast that's more boring and unlikable in my life. I don't remember myself ever judging on appearance, but these characters really have the worst hair style choice I've ever seen, and Mason's languid and feminine appearance really bugs me. Why would you design a character like this? What purpose does it serve? Anyway I heard that the actor is gay, and while it explains, it actually makes it worse. I have nothing against the gay community, my best friend is bisexual, but actors need to be their characters instead of themselves in their films. So please hide your gayness when you're playing a straight character.
So that's pretty much it. If you want to pay money to just watch the cast age, go ahead. If you're actually looking for something inspiring, don't expect to find that in boyhood. It's pretty much just a timeline with a bunch of messed up one dimensional characters and abysmal acting talents. The opening with the Coldplay song was the only good thing about the movie, it went insufferably bad after that. So I'd recommend buying Coldplay's records than watching this movie.
Ellen (1994)
If only Ellen Degeneres didn't try to make this show a gay show...
I didn't rate it because I have no idea how to rate this series.
Season 1 was pretty solid, and my personal favorite. The style was close to Friends', and it was pretty fun. Anita and Holly and Adam were all fun and ordinary nice people. They're like your best friends - fun and nice and when you're together you just have these sort of silly funny moments. It wasn't as good as Friends, and also a bit inferior to the first few seasons of How I met your mother, but it was quite good. A 7 or an 8.
The following seasons had a different gang, and it really seemed that they tried to be funny simply by giving all the characters some rare and annoying qualities. After a few episodes, it really gets boring watching Audrey's weirdness and Spence's bipolar disorder. But they did this for the entire length of the show's existence, which gradually dropped the show from 7 to 4. I think 7 was when Adam was still on the show, and 4 was towards the end of season 4.
Season 5 was a complete disaster. I have nothing against gay people. And I'm okay with Ellen DeGeneres' decision, even though it was a bit inconsistent since her character was perfectly straight in the first few seasons. But the show just became super boring and annoying when everything had to revolve around Ellen's sexuality. I get it that LGBT equality is important to you, but nobody's watching a comedy to get educated about civil rights. Seriously, Ellen, your show did not get cancelled because you came out. It got cancelled because it was boring and annoying. I hate to be mean but it really became a 1 or a 2 at the end of the show.
Joey (2004)
Okay, but nowhere near Friends
The show started out okay. It wasn't Friends, but it was okay. Through the first season it actually got better. Then over the second season it went down.
The characters weren't as good as the gang in Friends. Friends was fun because the characters were all funny in unique ways (Pheobe's weirdness, Monica's OCD, Chandler's humor...). In Joey, Gina's the only one that's remotely close to the level the gang was on. And Joey's rarely the core of the humor in Friends. He's usually there just to show off some dumbness, his eating, and his luck with women. In my opinion, that's why putting him in the center of the play was a bad idea in the beginning. You can't be funny just by making mean jokes of people being stupid all the time. Also, it looks more sad than funny that Joey's 35 and still such a baby. Come on, Chandler became a good husband, Rachel became independent... why no change in Joey?
Also, the show mainly rides on some ridiculous plots for humor. Bobbie wasn't as fun as Estelle, and Bobbie's character can't be any more unreal, but Bobbie's actually one of the funnier characters in Joey. The character development is incredibly weak, the jokes usually just come from showing off how insane these people are. And they made a terrible decision with Jimmy. The actor (same one for Eddie, as in Chandler's crazy roommate) looks incredibly annoying by default, and made Jimmy's character extremely unlikable. I mean, this is like making Janice a regular in Friends. Sure, she's entertaining, but can you stand her if she's in every episode?
And I think that's when the show went down.
It was kinda sad watching Friends end. I always wondered how their lives would turn out to be, especially Joey's, given he's still single. But after seeing this crazy world life that looks like a Las Vegas fantasy, I kinda agree with the people who said that it's better if we don't continue the story of Friends. It's not gonna be the same.
Okay I didn't want to compare this show with friends when I just wrote this, but I can't help it... So if you just want to watch a comedy show, this is not a bad one, but don't expect this to be the 11th season of Friends.