Reviews

So the basic premise of the episode is, that the life of a woman get televised and dramatised showing her to be worse than she actually is. Only that it is using very convincing deep-fake CGI

And for some reason everyone thinks that's how Joan, our protagonist, actually is. She has to deal with all the following problems. And things keep escalating.

This premise is already so flawed in its roots. It makes no sense that everyone thinks that is actually what she is like. And all the legal nonsense is also so laughably dumb. Pretending that as long as you sign it, you basically have no rights. No, that's not how it works. I am surprised Black mirror wants to open with this episode after such a long break.

This is such an odd series. Tropes and flat personalities are contrasted by a fairly natural, normal way of filmmaking and a realistic representation of some of the shown social and cultural aspects.

A standard structure leads through the series, similar to how a by-the-books sport movie would work. But it still feels new and refreshing from time to time. Granted, most of the time that is due to the unique setting of sumo and this basically being like a Live-Action anime. A few standard dirty tricks to get the audience involved are utilized. Bullies, rises, falls, intrigues, training montages, etc. Even though these cheap tricks are noticeable, they work to get the viewer rooting and ending up wanting to see more. Still, it feels kind of bad to enjoy this because of all these tropes, but most of all because of how horrible some characters are written. Especially the protagonists mother is so cartoonishly vile. Women in general are portrayed quite problematic. There aren't many and of those who do appear many are either dumb, shallow, vile, greedy, dishonourable or a combination of those. The good ones can easily be counted on one hand.

If I were to describe this series with a confusing few words, I would put it like this: Comedy, drama, slice-of-life fantasy documentary Hodge podge to tell the story of typical high-school sports movie about sumo (minus the "high-school").

Tries to hard, but I still found this movie enjoyable. All the ingredients for a great movie are here, but they have been overcooked into a kind of mainstream stew.

Acting performances are for the most on point. Presentation and production value are there and deliver. Basically most aspects are done pretty well. But sometimes it is very over dramatic, ridiculous and features a few tropes. It comes across self-indulgent and takes itself too seriously.

Apart from that, you will find a mostly interesting story that takes one or two unexpected turns and is well executed. It offers a little change if you're currently having a limited palette.

From the title I expected classic folklore. This was very exciting to me, as I know very little African tales. I guess it is partly up to my misplaced expectations that I did not enjoy the series, but my expectations do not influence my rating. Because even without considering them, this fell short in various ways.

Each episode is half an hour long, plays in a different part of Africa and is from a different director. These tales will be quite different in genre, era, etc. There are stories that take place in the past and stories that take place in the future. So in some regard, this is a bit like love, death and robots. It even shares some of the mistakes. This is where my personal disappointment stems from. The reimaginations are all over the place, but seem to lack motivation, grit, they never managed to really draw me in.

There are better and worse episodes, but they sadly never reach great heights. The different styles and qualities of the episodes make it difficult to give an impression of the whole season. Several of them felt like they didn't know where they want to go/end up at or are uninspired, there is surprisingly little mysticism considering these are folktales.

Director Paul Anderson has a history of producing some of the worst (high budget) movies that were ever made. This fits right in.

First about the IP that he is abusing this time. I won't let my personal love for the monster hunter series influence this review, but there are still things about the game, that are worth mentioning: Players wield massive weapons that would probably weigh more than their entire body and can also be larger than their body. The physics are also a bit unrealistic as humans can shake of falls, cuts and blows that would obliterate any normal human. It's very easy to miss in the game, but it plays in a distant future.

The reason I mention this is, because the movie props up the "game-world" as an alternate world (not future). Not only that but humans from our world travel there and our physics apply, or at least sometimes. Which makes no sense when the "natives" wield their ridiculous weapons that require super-human strength, but they are somehow also equal to the strangers when they fight hand to hand against each other. These decisions just beg the question why. Why did we need people from our world be shoehorned into this movie? It adds absolutely nothing and stands just to spite the game/fans and even doesn't make sense in the movies own logic. Our protagonist could have simply been someone who isn't a hunter, but got stranded. Someone from the same world but who doesn't know anything about whooping giant creatures.

But now more about the movie itself: The soundtrack is pretty unfitting as a synthy, rocky, blaring cacophony doesn't suit the wild fantasy setting a lot. The game has pretty great and distinct tracks, so no idea why they couldn't use those or create something similar.

The special effects are both good and terrible. Some look good, some don't blend well together and look a bit like a collage and some look a bit bad but never really awful.

The acting is adequate for a movie like this, good enough that it doesn't throw you completely off the movie.

The story though is very thin, unimaginative, boring, cliché ridden and stupid, the same goes for the characters and their dialogues. Compared to some of the resident evil movies it's not so bad, but that isn't saying a lot. I'm not going to into detail here, but if you know Andersons work, you know what I mean. This is an embarrassment.

The series is an interesting character study. Well acted, nice cinematography, good dialogue. Each character with an understandable background and human emotions that fit. The question of what it means to be an adult is well presented through various scenarios.

But when I am saying that, it isn't the whole truth, because much like that statement, this series isn't whole, it is missing something.

While every scene in itself is engaging, they seem disconnected from one another. Sure, there is a clear timeline and you will never be completely lost as to where the current scene takes place. But everything is disconnected on an emotional level.

Many many actions (primarily those of the protagonist) come out of nowhere. The interesting thing is, they aren't completely broken to the point where you would say "plot hole" or "mistake". You think to yourself "oh well, I guess it kind of adds up." And that would be fine. But it's almost as if this is the way the story is told in general. It's the style of the narration, because it just keeps happening, non stop. This has the upside, that you are always surprised and engaged to what's going on, but ultimately I ended up feeling stupid and deceived in the end. Believing that in the end, it would all add up to a grand conclusion. A precise message this would paint.

As I mentioned the protagonist is the main source of this disconnect. That is for two reasons: 1) she apparently loves to make those around her angry at her actions. Often (if not most of the time) her actions seem motivated by nothing more than to actively act against the interests of others. She provokes constantly. This alone wouldn't not allow the disconnect but 2) Our protagonist is very reserved with showing emotions in any way. She doesn't talk a lot about her emotions, her facial expression always stays empty, there are no inner our outer monologues that helps us understand what's going on inside her. When she talks she constantly seems to contradict herself because of reason 1). She mostly says things to rile others up. So we can't even gain a lot of insight when she talks (usually though she is very quiet and the others do the talking). Her actions more often than not seem to be solely motivated to provoke to the point where it's against her own interests. People give her advice and I guess she's like "I will show you, by shooting myself in the leg!". You get the sense that she is constantly scheming and manipulating, but to no benefit, no goal. So, to me our protagonist stays an enigma for the entire series. A coming-of-age story usually has the protagonist go through a change, but in this one, it honestly feels like everyone BUT our protagonist changes. Their personalities and their life. While she is just floating along. Being an ass to unlikeable people and nice people alike. To people who love her and to those who don't.

This irritating behaviour also extends to some of the side characters. At some point a character just suddenly leaves. It comes out of nowhere, the whole scene takes a few seconds, it is never mentioned again. And just as it is so often in this series you can come to a conclusion, it is not like the information can't be extracted from what Information was given before. But still, you have to guess and that makes you feel like you're watching a murder mystery and the detective keeps uncovering murderers without telling the motive or how it was done. Even worse is, that without a more extensive insight into our characters, their behaviour seems erratic. If we can't be bothered to know our characters motivation before they take action, we can't really feel any empathy when the scene takes place. Empathy should have a pretty important role in a story like this though. And there are just aren't many characters here that can evoke any.

Those few characters that can, are great and I love them! The mother is an excellent example. Her behaviour never seems out of place for her character, she is sympathetic, interesting, she is faced with problems to overcome and she changes throughout the plot.

In conclusion I have to say, that this is an interesting work, with some beautiful sights, a not-so-good soundtrack, great production, (some) wonderful characters, good dialogue, and interesting concept, but it's often irritating storytelling drags it down a lot.

The show starts off good. Even though the "stranded in the wilderness" Formular has been used often. I think the writers didn't trust, that that alone would carry the show. That is why they implemented backflashes and hallucinations (or, more likely, just imaginations I guess? Would make more sense). The former I'm okay with, the latter just become increasingly annoying.

Another problem is, that they focus more and more on our protagonists past and the way it is blended with the wilderness plot makes increasingly less sense. Some parts work metaphorically or as realisations, but they don't make sense in the actual scenario our protagonist is in.

That is why the whole thing falls apart. First 2 episodes are 7/10, middle is 6/10 and the last 2 episodes are 5/10 and are only saved by Barrera's performance.

This movie excells at presenting charming trash characters and offers a unique premise and overall presentation that is both depressingly bleak and at the same time very colourful and goofy. Especially the two brothers are wellcasted and played, some smaller roles are lacking though. For a movie like this, I feel like the music could have been more vibrant and attention grabbing. I imagine some punk bands would fit well, which is a rare opportunity for a movie.

Anyway, the biggest flaw of the movie is the lack of a overall drive/motivation. Yes, technically there is motivation for every scene, but it's just not a lot. The side plot actually has more power than the main plot. This is especially the case in the second act where the movie drags a bit.

Overall this was a nice experience simply because it was refreshing, but it won't be a movie that is going to reach cult status or any big numbers.

It is difficult to rate this show and to know where to start this review. The reason is how different aspects are heavily lacking, while others are great. If you were to just tune in for one or two scenes, you could probably asume this to be a quite solid entertainment.

The color grading is nice, the sets feel authentic and vary from clean, solid and efficient to lived in, run down and disgusting. Yet they all feel coherent and paint a good picture of a post apocalyptic world. Some of the actors performances are quite good, especially Lance Reddick (to little surprise, but his role fits him fantastic). The creatures are pretty much what you expect a modern, well funded version of the franchise would look. Pretty good, but not exceptional. The Soundtrack is good forthe most part, only sometimes there are questionable choices. There are two things however that are SO Bad, it ruins the whole show.

Number one is the dialogue. For the most its alright. Pretty much what youd expect, but some characters have such dumb lines. Some more than others.

The worst part though, is the writing. While the framework and the backstories are interesting, they are both just part of a awful whole. As If someone would get fine meat for a sausage and then adds fruity loops dipped in vomit.

It is so bad in so many ways. Its so lazy, people keep doing the dumbest, worst possible things. Just so the story can move in the right direction. That counts in a small scale (a scene) just as much as it counts for grand scale aspects (motivation, plans, etc). If you want to enjoy this, dont think about it, because the more you ask, the more holes you will notice.

These two points (dialogue and writing/plot) also dont allow to be invested into anything. I cant relate to anyone, because everyone except Lance basically plays a maniac or an idiot.

Also I dont understand the obsession of dropping pop culture references or the word COVID. "...Like COVID" gets said several times. Is that the only Virus people know?!?! Because apart from being a Virus, COVID has nothing in common with the T Virus in this Show.

Fantastic Fungi opens rather interesting. Most of the information given was known to me, but its direction and beautiful imagery made eager to keep watching. The female narration, acting as if it is the voice of fungi, is a bit silly though.

As the documentary progresses it shifts more and more away from nature documentary and closer and closer to spiritual and psychological and the industry behind trying to revolutionize how the world sees fungi and to sell them for various purposes. Thats concerning to me for multiple reasons:

The documentary clearly tried to reel in audiences, that otherwise wouldnt sit through a documentary like this, the first half hour, the poster, the trailer, the synopsis all point to a different direction that the documentary shifts to. It was clearly meant to deceive

Much more importantly though, everything they mention looses it scientific value. Evidence becomes anecdotal. I.e. As "proof" something works, we get one or two sappy personal stories instead of telling audiences things like "it has a X% chance, it can help with X, etc. The crowning moment of this is when famous Mycologist Paul Stamets proclaims during a TED Talk, that mushrooms cured his mothers terminal breast cancer. We are not given any further information about this and are simply expected to clap and gasp. Clearly this should be wonderful and huge news! Finally a cure for breast cancer! So why isnt this already used everywhere? How does it work? In which cases does it help? Are there side effects? None of these questions get answered! Nothing ever gets fleshed out and thus I sadly can not take anything in this documentary seriously.

As a clsoing note I want to say that I forage for mushrooms every year, and every year I study a few more and broaden my repertoire of mushrooms eaten. I am fascinated by them aesthetically, historically and in a culinary way. I also have taken psychedelics three times in my life. Other documentaries on the subject manage to remain credible. "Magic Medicine" for example. It was too depressing for me to enjoy, but it was well made. I could take it seriously, because it was more factual, it was more credible and scientific. Fantasic Fungi, sadly is crap and was an utter waste of time.

What makes this a fantastic Horror Show is, how straight they play it. The cliché setting and kick-off plot are contrasted by a few good surprises. The cookie-cutter characters pretty much work the same was, as they leave you guessing who will transcend their cookie dough and when. You constantly have to wager which trope you can trust to be true and which will betray you.

Kristen Bells acting is just perfect for this role.

I cant say a lot about the look, Soundtrack, etc. Of this series, as it is pretty much how you expect it to be, but that is kind of the point.

This is a rare gem of good Horror Satire. Something I only find once every other year!

This was a beautiful movie with a decent Story, good characters (especially motivations and arcs). I am usually very critical towards sequals, but this really doesnt deserve so many bad user reviews.

I honestly believe too many people remember the original through rose tinted glasses. Because the original had Plot holes, an uninteresting main characters with no Arc, a detective who doesnt do detective Work, it was also very slow moving and the romance was terrible.

What made the original a classic (one that flopped on release btw) was the world building.

The new movie takes that world, doesnt overblow it or underutilizes it and improves what didnt work in the original.

As far as sequals go, this is one of the best and does exaclty what a Blade Runner sequal needed to be.

In General, I love the concept of offering an Outlet for animated Shorts that is quite flexible. But while this series delivers some amazing pieces, it also delivers top tier trash.

Really, you should review those Episodes one by one. There are some really nice Stories, zima blue being my favorite. But there are quite a few episodes that feel Like graphic Demos, Studios promoting how good they can make stuff Look, but lacking anything else. They feel shallow and dont bring anything new to the table. To give a reference of how much my rating would vary between episodes: 9-10 for the best and probably 2 for the worst.

I would say i liked about 40% of the episodes in season one, that may be a low score, but at least those were really refreshing. So in total, i enjoyed season one, i wasnt blown away because some stories drag the overall experience a bit down. I was excited to see a Second season.

Season two underdelivers. Not only are there only half as many episodes, they are also shorter and worse in overall quality. Only one Story did I actually Like, two others were okay-ish, the rest was bad.

Update/edit season 3: same principles as before apply, many episodes feel like graphic demos. I don't even want to count the number of episodes that basically follow the plot "soldier squad on their own, killing some monsters" just in different settings. But overall I liked season 3 more than the second. It was almost worth watching. Perhaps a sign that season 4 might be good again? I certainly hope!

Rating for season 1: 7-8 Rating for season 2: 3 Rating for season 3: 5.

Pretty much everything, apart from effects, went wrong. So lets chop it up into sections:

Story: very clichée driven, If it werent for the setting and the swamp thing itself, it would have been instantly forgettable as it Brings nothing remotely original. Mind you, that the original Story was writen by Alan Moore. Same Guy who wrote others masterpieces of Comic, such als watchmen, v for Vendetta, from hell, etc. I read the original books and they really failed to deliver that.

There are often plotholes or Things that dont really make Sense. Scientists dont know how science works, continuity Errors and stuff Like that. Very little Attention to Detail and many clear cut mistakes.

Acting: everyone has the Talent and the Charisma of some B-plot side character. Not painfully bad, but surely not redeeming.

Visuals: terrible, ugly color grading, often too dark. But as i said, I Like the effects, even though they are taken straight from "the thing", which doesnt completely suit the whole plant aspect, but I still kind of liked it. Also enjoyed the Locations in the swamps. Outside thebswamp they seemed a bit too caricatured.

Dialogue: Just boring, cliché and flat.

Characters: the worst part of this, which is probably thanks to equal parts in writing, acting and dialogue. What really drove me nuts is, how stupid or unrealistic everyone behaved. Here some examples (all from ep1): "Wear masks, gloves and goggles" - very next Scene the Person making that Statement can be Seen without goggles.

Or "someone is illegally Dumping Dangerous, biologically hazardous Material in the swamps, i will go alone into there, at night. Not like I could wait, Take someone with me or call Police or some Other federal Institution." Or, Person discoveres human corpse, plants sprouting from inside it. Apparently they grew so fast and suddenly, that the Person ist locked in place and movement. Standing in Front of a mirror. Seems wierd and shocking, right? Well the Person discovering this, isnt wierded out at all, seems very Casual about it, but what is THIS?! A pill-bottle?! Well that sparks interest and must be investigated. That weird corpse also doesnt become a news Sensation, or even Just a scientific sensation. Nope, it doesnt even ask for some safety measures in the autopsy, even though the corpse is also linked to an outbreak of a unknown disease which, the Person who found the corpse and also deducts the autopsy IS SUPPOSED TO HANDLE!

Yea, im sure normal people behave like that.

This show ist terrible and its good that its canceled.

Nothing about this is new or particularly well done.

The message has been done before (and better), there are a couple groundhog day movies and series that are better, the dialogue feels like its written by a 16yr old. Really flat, quite silly at times. Protagonist is a cardboard figure of laidback, nice-guy, successfull with cool job. While antagonist is cardboard angry white cop (I know thats on purpose, but it still just doesnt add anything for me). Did enjoy the color grading and general palette and look, but thats the only positive I can add.

Overall not bad, but also not good. Since its only half an hour, you might wanna give it a watch, if not: you havent missed anything.

It just puzzles me this got an Oscar. I guess they prove once again, that they are pretty worthless awards which does not really care for best movies/actors/etc. But actually its just Hollywood that wants to shine a good light on itself by choosing progressive messages over quality.

Queens gambit manages without usual tropes or the usual story telling tools. There is no villain, no quest to save the world, no big romance story about the one true love and even the topic of chess players sounds boring. It is all the more wonderful how great this show turned out to be! It is simply a girls story and her obsession to become one of the greats when it comes to chess.

What makes it work are the perfectly written and played characters. Every performance fits like a glove, every expression tells you so much and I genuinely felt tension in God damn chess games I couldnt even follow properly because of their pace and strategies.

There isn't really much more to say, this show is near flawless in execution. Although admittedly the narrative felt a tiny bit unfocussed at times in the second half.

This show does a lot right, but also brings some very weird and bad decisions to the table, sadly they drag my opinion of this show quite a lot.

The most important mistake (for me) is that some of the leading characters are embarrassing. Wether that's on the writing or the actors I'm not sure to be honest. The best example is Arthur who is so insufferably boring, that I wince at the thought that he is supposed to be the love interest. Another excellent example is an antagonist who's basically an evil marry sue with the looks of a 12 years old idea of an edgy, mysterious powerful villain (it's the worst character design I have seen in ages). The world is also a bit problematic, I like the settings but it's kind of unclear for me. Because when Rome takes part and the crusades in Jerusalem get mentioned (i.e. historical reference) and in the very same breath they talk about how the fey (magical people's) are much more important enemies yet no one in history ever mentioned how the church literally fought fairies and whatnot, then the boundaries of this world become muddled. Btw it is never mentioned why these fey are a threat to Christianity. Which makes the huge conflict (the most integral part of the plot) a bit stupid. It gets even more muddled, when characters share names from Arthurian mythology and even sometimes twisted mirror images of their traits or experiences, but they mostly resemble something different than their names might suggest. The world has no rules or boundaries, or rather it picks and choses history, mythology and fantasy/fiction as it damn well pleased and thus remains shapeless and loses appeal because we are constantly reminded, that this is a show written by confused people, instead of being able to immersing ourselves.

There are a few more details I could nag about, but those are the most important ones. Honestly though, as a big fan of fantasy it offers juuuust enough for me to keep watching, although not enthusiastically. For most people this won't be enough.

I watched a bunch of anime about 10years ago but quickly the tropes, clichés and repeating characters turned me away so that now I only very very rarely try to touch one.

But Dorohedoro is exactly the fresh air I needed. Setting, characters, story and artstyle are unique and very well made. Especially the artstyle is with pointing out, it uses 3d sparingly and very well, in most other animations the 3d is a bit off-putting. It is virbrant and grungy at the same time and when I look at a face, it doesn't look like the gazillion other anime faces I have already seen and that blend together in my head as one blob.

This kind of reminds of the amazing anime movie "mindgame" because of its energy and Japanese crazyness. Although I have to say that Dorohedoro is lacking the depth of mindgame.

Even the villains are so likeable that you want to see more of them.

In the beginning it only gets explained how earth was lost to godzilla, after that there is tons and tons of exposition. So we get no action until about 40-50minutes into the movie. I'd actually estimate that 90% of this movie is people talking one on one or in meetings. It's all the more reason to be astonished how flat and one sided the characters are, how riddled with plot holes and nonsense these 90% of talking are. There are so many characters with so little distinguishing qualities, that in the first 20-30minutes it is quite difficult to know who is who. There also are NO relationships between anyone, so apparently godzilla also robbed humanity of the capabilities for friendship and love.

Making a godzilla movie isn't a mysterious and difficult recipe, but somehow only Toho has managed to get it right, although I'd say this instalment is clearly worse than all of the Hollywood attempts.

At least the animation is decent.

Even by anime standards, this dialogue is extremely cliché and flat. It feels like I'm getting ulcers while listening. And sadly pretty much the same goes for the animation, because even children's morning cartoon shows from the 90s looked better and I am not using hyperbole here, I would prefer ANY artstyle that comes to my mind, over this one. How people can rate this higher than 6 is beyond me. This is one of the stiffest, most uncomfortable viewing experiences I have ever had and I'm usually a sucker for sword and sorcery stuff and usually don't even mind that much if it goes into B movie territory. Yes, I can enjoy dumb dialogue as let's say Conan, but not dragons dogma.

The dialogue is like from a cheesy TV drama, flat, predictable and as much "development" as you can cram into it. Just watch the first 5 minutes and see how many setups that immediately get followed up you can spot. How am I supposed to be invested if things resolve quickly? Or actually let's say deteriorates, because everything has to keep getting more tragic. It feels like a cheap attempt to tug at your heartstrings. It is stuffed with familiar tropes to the brim. Bet you'll wake up in the hospital if you make that a drinking game. The only good things I have to say are about technical things like scenery, colorgrading, costume and overall production quality. But everything else, from acting, to dialogue and story...it's...what you would expect from a stereotypical melodramatic TV program that runs for 16 seasons and no one knows how they make it so far.

I was really really into this show when I saw it and wondered, why Ive never heard anyone talk about it. After all Pendelton Ward (Adventure Time, one of my favourite cartoons) was one of the creators, the thoughtful topics seemed to hit my spot and the imagery is perhaps my most favourite animation. So what the hell bothers me about this show?

Well, to start off: the show is basically a podcast. Protagonist Clarence visits a new simulated world every episode and talks to one figure there. The people he talks to are real people, that actually believe and practice what they are saying. The topics are usually religious and/or spiritual. Meanwhile there is always a weird if not trippy story going on in the background.

And this is basically why I also cant like this show. Firstly, because the content of these talks is rubbish and even if you are into that kind of stuff, they arent presented adequately enough (more on that later under "1)"). Secondly, because the background story that mainly functions without dialogue stands in the way of the talk. You can not really think about those topics that require a lot of thought and still keep track of whats going on, its two things pulling into different directions, its like hearing an audiobook while watching a cartoon (more on that under "2)").

1) The way the show presents these talks is less like a serious journalist learning about new views/religions/etc. its more like he agrees and practices all those different beliefs and Im sorry, but even though I am interested in these cultures, acting like there is LITERALLY magic is just dumb. (There is an episode where there is a guy who calls himself a magician (not in the showtrick kind of way) and how after death there is the second death where your ghost dies and through something that is basically a step beyond transcendance we can avoid or second death and become a "Solar body"....WHAT?! Theres also another episode featuring a "wizard") The thing is, without the research, which I did before watching later episodes, you do not really understand those people and their beliefs and even if you do some research, why would I need the same things explained in a 15min talk. Why would I want it to be presented in a preachy way. Even if you want to stay for the conversation, they are terribly unstructured. They feel like someones babbling on about whatever is on their mind. You dont know where any of this is going, in fact, you even have to figure out the main topic all of the stuff thats been or will be said in the episode youre watching. Sometimes it can take several minutes until it is clear what the focus is, sometimes that focus shifts and you have to ask yourself "Oh, is that where we are headed? No? Something different?" My enthusiasm for the show alsways turned into a slimy feeling because I feel like some religious nut sneezed his eternal wisdom all over me (Sorry if anyone is offended by my wording, its ok whatever you believe in. Im an atheist and Atheism is also just some kind of belief you can laugh about if you want). As I already said, I AM interested in these views, I just dont like how an episode feels like if I got really high and decided to talk to one of jehovas witnesses at my subway station for 15mins straight. And I do not like how these views are presented like facts or things we all experienced.

Also, many (not all) of the interviewed people very obviously wanted to sound smarter to add some credibility to their belief because, duh, they know big words, they must be strong in mind. Im pretty sure 16year old me wouldve felt really smart hearing that stuff and thinking but mid 20ies me just thinks its a bit pretentious.

2) As I said, it is not really possible to focus on both things (podcast and background story) wholeheartedly at the same time. Which either means you focus on the dialogue, in which case: why spend all that money for those nice animations? Or, you decide to focus in whats happening on screen. Which, to be honest, I recommend. Just occasionally listen when the story is slowing down for a moment. I bet some might say "oh, so youre just slow in the head and blame it on the show?!" Well, no. First of all Im pretty sure a lot less people actually can efficiently multitask like than there are people that think they can. Secondly: I have tried it and it kind of works. Kind of, because its very draining. When you start to try taking in such widely different streams of information it just feels exhausting, which is not the reason I watch a cartoon. If I wanna think, I can watch some documentary or listen to a podcast or read a book (probably the best when it comes to these topics).

If I try to focus on both it is so draining, that I actually feel like what some cults and religions do to get you into a spiritual state, which is to exhaust you until your body feels different (there are various different practices to achieve that, some group mantras for example, where people shout and move the same for hours until they feel as one). But I dont want to join a cult, I dont want to have a new religionand even If i would, a 20min TV show would not be the place for me to discover it.

I will say this: not all guests are on some kind of new-new-age-but-its-not-new-age-cause-new-age-is-is-not-true-but-this-clearly-is trip, but the good ones get overshadowed by the ones that arent. And the concept that is fun for the first 10minutes becomes tiresome for the remaining 10minutes of an episode. Even one of the most charming and beautiful visual styles and animations cant fix this.

What a pitty. I believe with the right guests and 10-14min episodes this still could become something very good and unique. But rarely have I felt that bad after a show. The only reason this gets 6/10 is cause there are some delicate candies in this very mixed bag adn it did have some enjoyable moments.

Vivarium turns the picture-perfect family life into an enstranging, horryfing, repetitive prison. On that regard it delivers an interesting setup, but it stays at that. There isnt any development that results in anything that matters, there is nothing that surprises you at all and it also didn´t handle the material in any genius metaphorical fashion.

So in the end watching this movie felt pretty hollow but it´s still worth a watch if you want to watch a weird movie that slowly chuggs alone but still manages to keep you somewhat interested simply by the weird world it is set in. Although it has to be said, that as weird as that world is, it does seem familiar from other tv shows and movies.