Reviews

"The Karate Kid" is not a complicated movie.

It doesn't try to talk about any "issues" or cover vast and complicated themes. Most of the key plot elements take place in a handful of locations with a handful of main characters. Yet its action scenes are more powerful than any amount of CGI could add.

Pat Morita (I'm embarrassed I had to Google his name) does an intense and wonderful job as the sage karate master Mr. Miyagi. The scene with the sake, his wife's picture, and his bittersweet tales of wartime triumph is among my favorite scenes in any movie.

(I saw this in July 2017.)

I enjoyed the first "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie. I really did. Its humor and authenticity made for a wonderful film, as did its feel-good warmth.

However, its sequel lacks that human touch and replaces it with a grab- bag of Hollywood tropes. Every action that anyone takes is driven by desire for "family" which they insist on explaining on screen in length. Showing and not telling has apparently been forgotten since the first "Guardians" movie.

Ego's complicated motivations for destroying all life in the universe are given way too much screen time given how confusing they are, and the subplot about the Ravagers that culminates in the final fight is ham- fisted, though it is the most amusing part of the movie. That clumsiness is shared with that of Gamora, whose role in the movie is eminently forgettable.

The movie isn't totally boring, and the 80s flashbacks are fun as always. I had expected better though from both Marvel and the "Guardians" franchise. Hopefully the next movie will be more like the first than the second.

(I saw this on a plane on September 17, 2017.)

I was weirdly unimpressed by this movie.

It is admittedly beautifully shot, though that's probably not all that difficult to do in the visual splendor of the Rockies. Many of the scenes and lines from this movie have become iconic pieces of film history, much mocked and admired since its release.

However, I just didn't enjoy this movie very much. The pacing was slow at the beginning, and then suddenly too fast at the end. The transformation of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) into a psychotic murderer felt rushed, though the typewriter scene was magnificent.

"The Shining" is certainly worth a watch, but I won't rush to see it again.

(I watched this on August 25, 2017.)

I binged this over the course of a long lazy night, and it was a lot of fun. Window sales in Essex, with the deft hand and raunchy mouth of "White Gold", is transformed into the background for a hilarious, if often cringeworthy series.

Like many British comedies, few characters come away from the end of the season looking good, though the level of depravity and stupidity that they each sink too varies. From dubiously legal "photoshoots" to gay hookups in a parking lot, "White Gold" pokes fun at its characters and itself repeatedly.

Fun and weirdly endearing, "White Gold" is a surprising good deal.

(I watched this entire season on August 22/23 2017.)

As many of the other reviews have mentioned, this is essentially two documentaries.

The first is an interesting, if a bit simplistic, depiction of doping in cycling and sport in general. It comes to the persuasive conclusion that doping is absolutely endemic in modern international competitions like the Olympics and the Tour de France and that no technological screening can be sophisticated enough to beat it. Bryan Fogel, the documentary's star and central driver, successfully dopes for an amateur cycling race, though the cheating doesn't seem to make a big difference in his performance.

The second part is the very personal story of a emigré Russian scientist and the massive fraud he successively administered and then revealed. It is intimate and exciting, even though most of us know the "end" of the story.

Though as Icarus reminds us, it isn't really over until someone crashes into the ocean.

This movie is a fanciful romp through time and space in the City of Lights, with a screenwriter-turned-aspiring-novelist (Owen Wilson as Gil Pender) as the protagonist. Its central conflict is about love, creativity, and that funny feeling of nostalgia for periods which you personally have never seen, for Gil the 1920s and for Adriana the 1890s. It is wry, fanciful, and that sort of chuckle-funny that Woody Allen excels at. It is rarely funny enough to laugh, and the series of inexplicably attractive women that surround the creative types of the movie is wish fulfillment at its worst.

Woody Allen's unmistakable touches cover this movie, and it is richer for it. The clichéd image of romantic Paris is mocked, extended, and even reinvigorated by his irreverent touch. Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams both do fine jobs, and Wilson's character dominates the movie, but the real star to me is Marion Cotillard's wonderful portrayal of Adriana. She is an effervescent and artistic delight.

This movie is well worth a watch, and I enjoyed it a great deal.

(I have seen this before, but I last watched it on August 13, 2017)

To be blunt, it is difficult to keep anyone's attention span for more than four hours, particularly given the fact that the film spends hours covering the trek of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum across the volcanic wasteland of Mordor.

However, every minute of the film bristles with artistry. It is a beautiful movie, and the vistas between Minas Tirith and the Black Gates of Mordor are visually stunning. The soundtrack seems like a character as well, and it adds a much appreciated richness to the film.

I have a standard set of complaints about this movie, and its less-skilled imitators. The battle scenes go on for far too long, some characters (Gimli particularly) can often devolve into caricatures of themselves as the plot moves forward, and plot elements (like the eagles to fight the Nazgûl) seem to drop into the plot out of thin air.

Despite those flaws, "The Return of the King" is well-done from start and finish and deserved every one of its prizes and accolades.

Note: I watched the Extended Edition, and it was an absolute delight. I haven't seen the shorter version in several years, but if you can spare the time, I would recommend the longer one.

From the bucolic Englishness of the Shire to the ethereal otherworldly beauty of Galadriel's elven forest to the underground horrors of Moria, this film excels in creating settings that are not merely evocative but totally immersive. The characters are well-done, the plot swims along, but the locations created by JRR Tolkein and brought to life by Peter Jackson are the highest point of this movie. The wild landscapes of New Zealand are transformed with aplomb into a variety of settings throughout Middle Earth. Sean Bean does a particularly great job as the tragic and conflicted heir of Gondor, Boromir.

More than 15 years after the release date of this movie and decades after the book was published, I feel there is little I can say in terms of the actual content of "The Fellowship." I can however say that while some of the CGI-driven special effects may seem a tad dated in 2017, they are used well throughout.

Note: I watched the Extended Edition, and it was an absolute delight. I haven't seen the shorter version in several years, but if you can spare the time, I would recommend the longer one.

It is hard to tell the middle of a story. I've always thought that middles lack the novelty of beginnings or the satisfaction of endings. However, "The Two Towers" does a wonderful job of continuing the various plot threads of Middle Earth without starting or ending them. From the psychologically raw tale of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum to the heroic epic of Rohan to the Blakean ecological tragedy of the ents, Tolkein and Peter Jackson a vast story in this incarnation of his saga.

Gollum is a disturbing treasure, and any scene involving him is indisputably well-done. That's not to say that his mere presence doesn't disgust, but his role is indispensable. In terms of the smaller details, the design work done in Rohan is magnificent. Low-key and fitting with their lack of worldly sophistication, it is nevertheless done with pride. It would have been a great movie without the little details like that one, but it wouldn't have been as good as it is.

The film certainly has its flaws, many of which have since become clichés. Legolas's pre-modern AK-47 in the form of a bow and arrow is both silly and unnecessary. Many of the extended fight scenes feel redundant, and after you see the first several orcs getting decapitated, what's the added value in seeing ten more? Clearly greater than zero, at least according to Peter Jackson.

Note: I watched the Extended Edition, and it was an absolute delight. I haven't seen the shorter version in several years, but if you can spare the time, I would recommend the longer one.

This movie technically begins by depicting the squalid life of the film's villain, but it soon speeds on to the movie's primary subject - Tony Stark's insatiable ego. Stark acts like some comic book caricature of John Galt, and many of his lines could be verbatim quotes, as far as I can tell. He says lines like "Because I'm your nuclear deterrent. It's working. We're safe. America is secure. You want my property? You can't have it. But I did you a big favor." In other words, he begins the movie as a charming egotist, Shrekli if he had a soul.

The movie (and my perception of Tony Stark himself) get much better as it goes on. Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer does a solid job and manages to be even easier to hate than Robert Downey Jr. Watching either of them prance around on stage is cringe-worthy but both performances are well done.

The movie's long camera shots of various attractive women and its reverence for gee-whiz technology feels a bit overdone at times, but I guess that that is what the people making the movies thinks its audience wants that. They know better than me.

Iron Man 2 is wish fulfillment and not at its best. It is, however, not at its worst either, and it is an entertaining movie that is at its best when Tony is being bashed, or slightly worse, bashing someone else.

(I saw this on July 15, 2017)

Hidden Figures is a movie about three NASA workers, mathematical prodigies, who play vital roles in different ways in the American space program. I don't know enough about the specific history of NASA to comment on that point, but the exposition was integrated well. They are all African American women, and they face all the bigotries that one would expect in the mostly intolerant environment of Virginia in the 1960s. They all start as "computers" to perform mathematics manually but soon move into roles ranging from computing orbital mechanics to programming their technological replacements.

Hidden Figures tries to do a lot, and it does much of it well. It is, at times, a touching movie that pulls on the heart-strings. Yet despite its grand ambitions, I do not think that it is a great movie. Its message, while noble, is made ham-fistedly. Jim Parsons as villain was a nice touch, and the three main actors did a marvelous job. Taraji Henson did a particularly striking job. However, the film's ambitions of covering three different character arcs perhaps weakened its execution of all of them. John Glenn's character in particular seems more like 21st century wish-fulfillment than a realistic take on a character, and the physical smashing of the segregated bathroom signs was also a bit too obvious a metaphor.

It is not a bad movie, and it is certainly an uplifting one, if not exactly a great one.

"The IT Crowd" is not a complicated show. There are a few main characters, none of who I had heard of before watching it, relatively few big set designs, and a generally sparse style. Yet with so little, the show is one of the funniest that has come out of Britain in recent years. It poke fun at both the foibles of big business and "normal" people while simultaneously skewering the quirks of "nerds."

Yet despite its attempts at being topical, the show is at its best when it is just silly. One of my favorite episodes involves the IT department's hapless relationship manager, Jen Barber (Katherine Parkinson), being told she's giving a speech at the end of the week. The IT workers, Roy (Chris O'Down) and Moss (Richard Ayoade), decide to play a prank on her by giving her a box "containing" the Internet, straight from Big Ben. They assume that she will be mocked at her big presentation. Instead, when the box is destroyed due to the intervention of the episode's B-plot, the assembled middle management of Reynholm Industries descends into hysterical violence.

It is not a serious show, but it is a very funny one that transcends social status, social skills, and culture to bring a message of silly humor and general mockery.

(I watched this show in its entirety most recently in April 2017.)

Here in the year 2017, just eighteen years into Fry's long-term freeze, it's hard to imagine what will happen over the next several centuries. There will be alien invasions, more alien invasions, and yet more alien immigration, and emigration. Us Earthicans will have a number of world governments, ultimately culminating in the wonderful talents of Earth President Richard Milhouse Nixon.

Yet through it all, we will have Futurama to keep us company. It will tell our futures, yes, but it will also make us laugh, as it has for nearly twenty years now.

At its most basic, Futurama is a hilarious show. Its consistent high- quality in both humor and heart is good to see, as is its originality in storytelling. It sometimes leans too much into the show's own universe of inside jokes, but it never stays there too long to be very boring. There are also a fair number of much more serious episodes. One about Fry's long suffering dog comes to mind.

For a show set more than nine hundred years in the future, Futurama is astonishingly ahead of its time. A true comedic masterpiece.

(I have seen this show many, many times over the past several years.)

If you're looking for a realistic take on law school, the criminal justice system, or anything linked to objective physical reality, look elsewhere.

But, if you're looking for soapy fun, outrageous escapades, and some regular murder, this is your show. It is frequently absurd, often inexplicable, but never, never boring. The plot got a bit muddled in the second season, but it straightened out soon enough. Viola Davis as Annalise Keating is the complete star of the series, and her emotive style makes any scene with her, especially in court, wonderful. The ensemble of students does a solid job as well, particularly Alfred Enoch as Wes Gibbons.

This is not a legal documentary. It is, however, a great drama and a hell of a lot of fun.

(I have seen this show several times, most recently in June 2017.)

Imagine that you begin to hear voices. Imagine that you begin to see flashes of other people's lives. Imagine you are connected to a group of people all over the world who you have never met before. Imagine you are closer to perfect strangers than you are to anyone you have ever known or loved. Imagine if your brain was no longer your own.

Sense8 builds on those ideas to create a show built around a group of psychically connected people from all over the world. While some would undoubtedly mock Sense8's premise as New Age hocus pocus, Sense8 explores that idea of ecstatic human connection and takes that idea to its natural conclusion. Most of the plot follows the standard cinematic model that vague sinister forces, in this case mostly represented by a single evil British man named Whispers, are trying to purge the mutants to preserve the larger body of "regular" people. There are many twists and turns along that plot, alongside the more mundane issues of Mexican homophobia, Berlin gang wars, and Indian marital problems.

Yet the focus on shared humanity is never really lost, and our cast of central characters continually revisits the shared-ness of their lives and its implications for humanity as a whole. At times the show's fixation on sex can go on for a bit too long, but as a bisexual man, I value the show's inclusion of diversity in all its forms. One particularly beautiful scene can be found in the first season in a shared sing-a-long where each of them discovers themselves in each other.

(I started this show before but binged it in May 2017.)