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Reviews
Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022)
A pleasant surprise
There is a tad bit of the overworked reference material akin to what made Space Jam 2 unlikeable; however, the film is unique and clever at most of its twists and turns. Some of the stylized art choices were fairly jarring, but the story was mostly accommodating of them in order to serve a purpose. Andy Samberg, John Mulaney, and Akiva Schaffer deserve praise for bringing something different to Disney's formula of film making and acting. The film felt largely forgettable, and I am tremendously curious what happened behind the scenes to send it straight to streaming, but I hope that it continues to find an audience.
Ghosts (2021)
Modern actors playing dress up instead of character development
All of Sam's ghosts are not quite attempts at comedic, period relevant, satirical characters, but instead they are much more like modern character creations borrowing historical costumes and using clichéd tropes of even more modern sitcoms. The show largely hits on many of the same major plot points as the original but relies on over explanation and expositional pieces to get the audience involved. The adaptation takes the melancholy/defeatist atmosphere that lent the original so many comedic opportunities and spits out peppy dialogue that kills the remakes of jokes built on old ghosts/new society. This show seems to forget about how important it is to not try hitting a joke or dramatic plot point every 3 seconds.
Sheila Carrasco as Flower is a good new character and Asher Grodman as Trevor is the only good adaptation, but the characters not from the past several decades are huge misses. It's unfortunate to see Rebecca Wisocky as Hetty wasted so blatantly in a vastly one-dimensional version of the original character, Fanny, whose arc over 3 seasons so far (19 episodes) was far deeper and more surprising than the audience would expect after being introduced to her. Wisocky's character, however, was short-changed in a half-baked attempt to make her seem uptight with the unwillingness to make her at all unlikeable.
Just watch the original on the BBC through any means necessary if you enjoy the concept of this show. I'm from Minnesota and found Ghosts because I became of a fan of its star Charlotte Ritchie. I then thoroughly enjoyed the show more than I anticipated. I just watched the adaptation and found it wasn't at all worth watching both because of the massive amount of direct crossover. So, just pick one and know that the BBC created better story elements across the board. The only failure that the adaptation improves upon is the digital rendering and compositing.
Tales from the Loop (2020)
7 episodes of incredible TV
I would rate the first 7 episodes of Tales from the Loop no lower than an 8.0 out of 10.0. Huge credit to Jonathan Pryce for bringing a strong performance, as well as Dan Bakkedahl. Big shoutout to Philip Glass and Paul Leonard- Morgan for composing one heck of a score. However, the finale is a pretty big mess that really just failed in its ability to bring things together. If you are going to tell interconnected short stories, you kind of have to nail the denouement. There can still be questions and not every plot device needs a succinct ending, but the finale of this show took the artistic expression of story-telling much too far outside the understandable, relatable, or believable. I really like Jodie Foster as a director, but I think the story for the final episode wasn't really able to be elevated by cinematography or film editing.
I love the adaptation of Simon Stålenhag's sci-fi interpretations and really like the script that portrays normal dialogue and emotions in a way typically abandoned by other works that go for the fun or wow factors. But even just the decision to rely on Duncan Joiner (Cole), a child actor, to bring home this winding road of a production, was a poor decision. The scenes of just Cole on his quest stretch from 14:30 to 29:00. That is 15 minutes or roughly a third of the finale relying on a child actor to carry all those scenes with zero support. Not to mention the fact these scenes are some of the more computer-graphically intensive; this means he still has interactions with other characters, but just those characters can't emote back to him. Joiner did a fine job and put on a good enough performance, but it didn't carry the sort of weight needed and led to a very rushed back end of the episode.
I kept waiting for our seemingly intelligent characters to question the things happening in their lives or share more with others to discover the missing pieces of their own stories. Episode 6 is the only episode that really nails this type of reality in which a character actually attempts to understand their bizarre situation and it's really only capable of achieving that because it exists in a closed loop (no pun intended). Episode 1 tries to, but even the very end of it goes unfulfilled to the viewer.
Stålenhag said, "As a painter, like as an artist, Tales from the Loop is about being a kid and growing up and realizing that the adults [don't] have a clue what is going on." As a film/story you should stop subverting expectations and exposing mystery eventually to achieve some sense of fulfillment so my edit would be to change the focal point of the finale from Cole to either Loretta or younger Russ, or both. The most emotionally charged moments of the episode involve her anyway and some of the heaviest emotional scenes of the entire show involve one of them in some capacity. A young Russ would be an interesting narrative to demonstrate exactly how, like Stålenhag, Russ grew up to look at the world differently and create things once thought to be impossible. You could leave the already told tales mostly open ended, as they are, while giving us some insight into the hard science fiction aspects that dictate the story's setting so that we don't leave more confused than when we started. It would have segued nicely after episode 7, plus, it would have been nice to give us some reward for watching 7 almost hour-long episodes by further involving a character with some real knowledge instead of continuing the trend of exploring the lives of those simply affected by their environment.
The Grand Tour: The Grand Tour Presents: Carnage A Trois (2021)
Good special; poor ending
Carnage a Trois and Lochdown each were astoundingly put together despite massive travel and work restrictions. Each had a different style of mockery and more serious, realistic levity. However, they both completely botched the ending. I know it's funny for Clarkson to end these projects by announcing it as a disappointment, but there is clearly a lot of money and effort put into the final gags before this capstone catch phrase. The amount of budget and time that must have been spent on the "American town" joke and trebuchet gag were not at all worth it in the slightest. While it is fun to see this trio of car enthusiasts fumble around with an engineering project, the payoff hasn't worked recently.
This is not the type of show that needs to add completely mocked up CGI elements. It's ruinous and beyond wasteful even when it's only used for a couple of seconds. The entire car launch scene finale looked horrible and all it takes is for the physics of a scene like that to look off and it kills the entire joke. The thoroughly enjoyed the special throughout. I thought they capitalized very well on the type of gags we all enjoyed similar to Clarkson constantly tipping over the Robin. Its ok to jerry rig a machine for more humorous results and it certainly worked in a lot of situations. The stereotyping bits are funny when you include enough camaraderie elements for everyone to laugh with the stereotype. But to end it all in that computer graphic nightmare that probably took a couple of guys several days of work to still not get a shot that looked good is just poor decision making.
Truth Seekers (2020)
Hidden gem of a dramatically haunted comedy
Truth Seekers had a plot that bounced around between genuinely spooky, laughably far-fetched, and excitingly mysterious all within the realm of being a realistically day-to-day comedy about conspiracy theorists and paranormal believers that are becoming more and more pronounced in the modern world. I'm so glad that I found this while looking for things to watch around Halloween, but I only wish I had discovered its existence sooner. Nick Frost is in, what I consider to be, his most relatable role yet which doesn't rely as much on over the top humor. His relationship and banter with Malcolm McDowell grounds the show really well and gives us one of its best and most unexpected surprises. Sometimes I think the writers relied too much on the expectation of success and the show's inevitable renewal, but some of that was very good for the mystery of the first season. Emma D'Arcy and Samson Kayo were both incredible at moving the show forward past the initial focus on Frost and, by the 8th episode, gave the show a rousing ensemble of characters with independently interesting story lines. I'd say that the writers tried to insinuate and hint at too much of the character development and motivations of those played by Susan Wokoma and Julian Barratt. I'm sure this is in part due to creating so much story in just 8 episodes, but their characters didn't land much for me and felt like they had overly forced progressions. I really wish this show was going to be given a second season, but part of me would have worried that the believability may have started to go off the rails given time. The first two episodes of Truth Seekers though were generally some of my favorite I've seen from a novel comedy in some time. This definitely deserved a second series more than Sick Note.
Dune (2021)
Would have loved a 5 hour saga
If they simply defied traditional movie format and made an outright 5 hour saga film, it would have been the greatest movie ever made. Still very solid on many aspects, but definitely unfortunate to have to wait for payoff.
The Grand Tour: The Grand Tour Presents: Lochdown (2021)
A different, less grand, tour
The Grand Tour has always differed from its Top Gear predecessor in a variety of ways, and has separated itself even more in the 4th season of large, adventurous specials.
This pandemic special is the perfect amalgamation of what is great about both shows. It is nice to see the trio tramping around the UK and also giving both a nod and kick in the ass to American viewers. I was concerned that it would be visible that these three would be tired of creating this type of show since they have all further ventured into other businesses, but they still manage to bring the same giddy, childlike enthusiasm and camaraderie as before.
I for once was disappointed when Clarkson announced a disappointing ending because it felt very anti-climactic after the previous endeavor, but it also gave me hope that the next special, likely to be made without travel restrictions, will be one for the ages.
Luca (2021)
Pretty average, but interestingly stylized film
Disney rehashes pretty obvious story elements from its other oceanic based films The Little Mermaid and Moana as well as The Fox & The Hound; there just isn't much novelty to the story. While I love the actors involved (Jack Dylan Grazer really shines as one of Disney's most seamlessly funny comic relief characters), they did a much worse job than a film like Coco of blending languages in a way that is both appealing and purposeful, especially with the choice of American actors.
While the film has some fun Studio Ghibli vibes in the style, it takes a half-baked approach to doing a more foreign style film because they still want to appeal heavily to their U. S. base audience. I love the director's work in this project, especially as the one whose personal life heavily influenced the interesting summer friendship dynamic. The design of the movie is pretty great, but the overly simple plot and overtly familiar story trends make it more narrowly appealing to a much younger audience than it could have been. It carries the extraordinarily dumbed down adult trope to a level I haven't seen since 90s Nickelodeon. While the aim seems to be to promote a theme of nondiscriminatory inclusivity, the simplistic nature of the film mostly serves to dampen a lot of credibility to the motivations of its characters.
I have read comments from people elsewhere that they were unsure of the film's quality within the first 10 minutes, but soon came around to really enjoying it. However, the awkward and rushed start can definitely serve as an off-putting exposition that doesn't draw the viewer into the story.
Clarkson's Farm (2021)
Jeremy Clarkson points a TV crew at the brilliance of real farmers
Many people are criticizing this show already (see the horrendous Lucy Mangan review in the Guardian), but seem to have either not watched the series or completely misunderstood Jeremy Clarkson's goal. Clarkson is a mostly useless tool on his farm and he makes decisions seemingly guided by blind luck and assumption...which is utterly on brand and perfectly reflects the real challenges of farming.
While he spouts a few typical Clarkson-esque utterances that might irk a sensitive viewer, he largely serves the purpose of highlighting an amazing supporting cast of real farmhands and farmers. His efforts in cocking about turn into genuine appreciation and respect. It seems that he set out to make this show hoping to highlight the difficulties of farming, but in actually facing some of the harshest realities in a tragic year for agriculture, Clarkson seems to surprise even himself with how much he learns.
I would by no means consider him a true farm manager yet, but his show was an excellent experiment in detailing the real lives of farmers with more natural, entertaining, and heartwarming stories. He has made overly manufactured television in the past (though great entertainment), but instead, creates a show in which the real personalities of everyone involved with running a large farm are showcased.
People like Kaleb, Charlie, Gerald, Ellen, and Kevin are the highlights of the series, and rightfully so. Jeremy Clarkson will always have enough charisma to draw viewers, but it's the interactions with his friends and colleagues that kept me watching. In unsurprising fashion, Clarkson spends considerable time lambasting government regulation and restriction, but for once it feels much more like he is at least somewhat voicing the pleas of other farmers in regards to the very real consequences of sustainable agriculture. Anyone who has ever worked a farm will enjoy the schadenfreude of Clarkson's naivety; it brought me back to my time as a kid working my uncle's land. But we can all laugh and empathize with his year in a recognizably arduous and important profession. As a TV presenter of motoring shows I have always found Clarkson to be entertaining, but in "Clarkson's Farm" he finds a great group of people during one of the most disastrous year's in recent human history who, together, create a series that presents the watchable realism of a lovely, virgin farmer.
The Great Escapists (2021)
Why have such adept and mechanically skilled actors in such an overly dramatized show?
In most shows you need at least two story lines so that you can cut to and from each story, but in this case it hampered the show's best entertainment. The biggest problem was the interrogation room plot line. However, the interactions between two mechanically adept builders on a beach were genuinely so fun to watch. Of course its not a realistic shipwreck, but it was a fun setting to watch Hammond and Belleci create. Tory often does overdue the fake excitement a little much because he is a better builder than actor, but without the overly gimmicky side storyline and constantly shifting concept of time/present the show would have worked better. The meta references were one of the only positives from the interrogation room scenes. Even with just a little more realism, the show would have been more entertaining (especially from two actors who are known for their realist television and who actually are skilled). That being said, to make a show of this quality in the current times is quite an impressive feat.
Man with a Plan (2016)
It's a sitcom people, and a very good one at that.
It seems that all of the reviews below 5 stars all harp on the overuse of the laugh track. Its almost as if they forgot the sitcom formula that has been used since the 70s. While it could probably be used less, it works in this family comedy. LeBlanc and Snyder have such a good husband-wife dynamic that is unlike others seen on tv in that they do not need to constantly rely on stereotypical gender tropes. But they also do not pander to modern, overly PC that ruins a lot of present sitcoms. The show also has some of the best writing for kid actors I have seen since the 90s. They are not presented as overly intelligent characters that attempt to bolster kid viewership. The whole show feels very sincere and true to form. This is one of the best sitcoms made post 2010 and its a shame that it has gone away.
Top Gear (2002)
Thank god for The Grand Tour
Chris Evans one season stint was clearly an indicator for how the show was going to regress heavily after the departure of the three most iconic Top Gear presenters. Jeremy Clarkson, who was a part of the original Top Gear program, and the additions of Richard Hammond and James May truly brought the show into the forefront of television. While vulgar and slightly out of touch, they made their foibles into a truly entertaining, informative show. It was one of the most innovative and constantly improving shows of its time.
The show never caught a good stride after their departure. Harris is not bad, and I commend him much more for his journalistic work done before Top Gear. But Paddy and Freddie are just not working on the show. The show will never be able to reclaim its former international status. Thank god for The Grand Tour.