Fantasmas

Julio Torres never presents a cliche' subject. Go with the flow, and enjoy every delicious moment. Surprises around every single corner awaits. Stories within stories, within stories. He packs each half hour segment like a can of sardines with his enchanting plots. His wardrobe and background settings are done with an artist's vision of both beautiful colors and unique geometric shapes. He may have changed his hair color of choice from blue to orange, but his signature creativity is still woven in the wickedly absurd vignettes. The new characters that he introduces to us like Chester the driver, played by Tomas Matos or Steve Buscemi, as the unforgettable Q, are hysterical! I can't wait for the next episode to come an take me into his magically twisted dreamland of delight.

Having seen "Los Espookys" and "Problemista," I'm a fan of Julio. His offbeat humor, quirkiness, fantastical, surreal elements are woven through all, and "Fantasmas" is so far my favorite.

I love satire, and I'm really enjoying all the commentary on a wide variety of challenges and flaws of modern day society. This is often expressed through a ridiculous, exaggerated situation, which shines a comedic light on how truly dystopia some things are.

Each character is offbeat, and some are straight out of a fever dream.

In order to really enjoy this, you'd have to be along for the ride and not overthink or question a lot of the absurd, nonsensical things that happen, or be wanting a strong storyline structure.

This show feels weird for the sake of being weird, and it will continuously surprise you.

Premise: been forced to watch this stuff by a group of friends. Had no idea.

Do not waste your time.

Opening scene somehow promising: "maybe we are getting into Zoolander territory?" I asked myself. You know, full on farce, clear over exaggerated characters who become a caricature of themselves and hysterical dialogues.

Well, the illusion evaporated quickly.

The whole thing is a step below the surreal stories kindergarten kids create when bored.

Our writer-director-protagonist gets into one senseless situation after another (+ pitiable characters who take the spotlight) with the explicit goal of taking himself seriously in the search of an earring and pretending to make the audience laugh (or at least giggle). The egotism is too intense for my brain and I had to (mentally) check out.

Seeing Steve Buscemi made me sad, but I guess the paycheck was alright.

Out of curiosity I had a look at some critic reviews. One pathetic sentence after another meant to elevate what i think are the author nightmares written once he woke up.

High-concept mania; dream logic-fueled sketches ; nihilistic remark ; loose, over-arching narrative ; digressive vignettes ; outsized characters

Must say would love to be a fly on the wall in the producer's room when the marketing folks are discussing the different ways to present this colorful scam to the HBO audience.

Just watched the first episode of "Fantasmas" and wow, it's crazy funny! 😂 It's kinda like Family Guy, with cutaways from the main story, but the cutaways are more like the early Family Guy episodes - super cool and hilarious. Those cutaways really make this show a gem!

The episode starts off with this weird plot about the letter "Q" and a pink teddy bear. I know, sounds random, right? But trust me, it works! 🐻 The characters are all over the place, but in a good way. Their conversations had me laughing out loud for real.

There's this mix of old-school vibes and really out-there comedy that keeps you watching. Some of the sketches are just bizarre, but in a fun way. If you're into weird humor and stories that don't make sense (in a good way), you should totally check this out!

I'm not usually good at writing reviews, but I had to share how much I enjoyed this. The first episode was so random and funny, I can't wait to see what happens next. It's definitely not your average show, but that's what makes it awesome.

Not sure if everyone will get it, but if you like offbeat stuff, give it a try. It's got this unique vibe that's hard to explain, but it's totally worth watching. Can't believe this is my first IMDB review, but this show deserved it! 😄👍

First episode and it's seemingly more of Julios spontaneous, surreal style of filmmaking. Very quirky, very funny and clearly influenced. There's a unique feel to his projects, like a flow of thoughts coming and going, creatively juggling themes in this dreamlike splash of colours, costumes and alternate worlds similar to something you'd see in "poor things". The first episode picks up many concepts in 30 minutes, though so far they dont really land well enough to impress me (or hopefully these ideas will be explored in following episodes) but based on this being the exact issue I had with his feature film, I'm uncertain if these established themes will be revisited in this "stream of Julio's conscious thoughts" style. I liked his feature "problemista" but he is still clearly in the early stages as a filmmaker.

Check this out if you like funny, surreal, quirky weirdo filmmaking from an exciting upcoming indie director still finding his footing.