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johnnymonsarrat
Industry reviewers write their reviews as though the only people reading will be arty film buffs. But I'm more of a regular guy. I enjoy an intellectual drama, but only if it's not slow. And I don't care how great the scenery and music is if the plot's bad. So I decided to write my reviews as though recommending them to a friend with a similar personality.
Check out my blog on off-beat Boston events at http://eventsinsider.com and my art project on big life questions at http://soulburners.org
All content by Johnny Monsarrat!
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An error has ocurred. Please try againIt starts with the ones I feel most strongly about.
Reviews
Love Actually (2003)
Not aging well
Ugly decisions. One guy's a stalker... even worse than what we're used to in other films as a persistent romantic. One guy's cheating on his wife. One guy fires an employee because he fancies her.
Ugly interpretations of love. A boy has no trauma from the death of his mother. A woman allows her abusive brother to destroy her personal life.
The film is flooded with fat shaming and people caring only about appearance, not character, like the father, the guy who goes to America, and the two characters who don't even speak the same language.
I used to love this movie but I just don't any more. I find it cringy and messed up. This is what love is supposed to be?
Silo (2023)
Too bleak, too slow, this rule of Hollywood explains this show
There's a rule of Hollywood: you can't tell a compelling story about boredom.
Or to rephrase that, you can't tell a story about a bleak grey world without the viewer feeling part of a bleak grey world. It's depressing.
Have you seen the political news lately? Who are these fans who want to spend 10 hours per season feeling like they're in a dystopia?
Look, the only reason we like a dystopia is to root for the revolution. Right? We want heroes who overcome. Except on a TV show that may stretch to 6 seasons... there can be no revolution. If the revolution comes like in Total Recall, the show ends.
So we end up just waiting and waiting. I put subtitles on and increased the speed to 2.5x, and I still found this show boring. Viewers want to see (a) clever mystery points solved by (b) compelling characters we can root for. This show has neither.
And it doesn't help that this show is visually bland, and its lead characters uninteresting. I just don't sense a basic goodness that makes me want to root for these characters, and I don't find the various plot twists interesting. AT ALL.
There's nothing wrong with a long story arc that spans many TV seasons. But you don't make that the main story. You need episodic, short stories and they should be character driven, not about what machine is broken this time. Then put the long arc in the background so that the season-by-season pace doesn't ruin, you know, the episodic pace.
After watching the first episode, if this is not a place you want to pretend to live in for a few hours, it's not going to get any better. I'm sorry, this show just didn't work for me, despite compelling performances and production value. 5 stars.
Maron (2013)
Funny at times, self-indulgent at times
Marc Maron is brave in this series about his own flaws, and I found the early episodes a good combination of funny and thoughtful.
But the character Marc annoys his friends and resists changing into a good guy... At some point that becomes annoying to the viewers. Marc becomes unlikable. I get it that I think to keep up viewer interest in a character like that you need a lot of variety. The first couple of seasons have that variety, then the show seems to stall on new ideas.
Then unfortunately the drug addict and rehab stuff is darker and less comedic. I think there's a self-indulgence in this. The show could just as easily have shown Mark taking off to celebrity, but I suspect that he just wanted to share his struggles more than to make a compelling show.
Viewers like to root for a character who has confidence and makes bold and smart decisions. Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm is also acomplaining weirdo, but it's balanced with acts of friendship and the jokes aren't bitter. There's more a sense of fun, which seems lacking in Maron. I'm sorry.
1600 Penn (2012)
A quote from the creator of Bugs Bunny explains this show
Chuck Jones, who created many of the old Warner Bros. Cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, wrote an autobiography, and to me, the most interesting quote was this, paraphrased:
If the protagonist is a straight man surrounded by strangeness that's comedy. If the protagonist is the strange one, that's farce. Comedy works and farce doesn't.
I actually appreciate this show. It's stupid but it's also fun and has a big heart and it's written by White House insiders so has some realism too.
However, I see why others don't like it. Skip, the Josh Gad character, is a weirdo protagonist whom everyone must tolerate. That's farce. The joke is that he annoys people. But he's also annoying us, the audience! That's like poison for a TV show or movie.
Take a hint from Chuck Jones. Don't make your protagonist a annoying and weird, inaccessible to the viewer. Your protagonist should be an accessible everyman who's easy to identify with, and who reacts to the weirdness, like the White House Press guy in this show.
Also, the show isn't completely wacky like Arrested Development, where anything can happen. The show is mainly played straight. That's a tonal conflict with Skip, who is wacky. Skip would never been allowed in a straight White House world. Something should have been rebalanced.
Some episodes are sort of genius, but some are too cringy to watch. 6 stars.
Total Recall (2012)
Too much CGI and iffy casting
I really wanted to like this movie, and previously had given it a 9 out of 10. I love science fiction and the premise that you don't really know if it's real or not.
But the casting doesn't quite provide for romantic chemistry or bad guy chemistry. A bad guy has to be fun to hate, to root against. Bryan Cranston is an accomplished actor but maybe too nice to be scary. He needed to go all out like Gary Oldman in Leon: The Professional (1994). And Cranston doesn't present as an expert martial artist at all, I am sorry.
More problematic, there's a lot of wide shots with CGI that leave the viewer feeling empty, not in awe. Compare that with a film from the same era, Star Trek (2009), where they tried to use practical effects as much as possible. Total Recall is one of those movies like Star Wars II in the Colosseum / arena scene where so much is happening that it's supposed to feel bigger than big but instead it's just so big that it's visually overwhelming and you lose the threat of the personal character arcs.
Finally, I couldn't overlook the plot holes. Gravity doesn't work like that. Some plot twists seem contrived. You can't fight a superhuman robot hand to hand. Various people in the plot win or lose based on how good they are at fighting, not in a way that's earned from the character choices and character arcs.
6 stars.
The Boys (2019)
I have no character to root for
I understand that fleshed out characters will have flaws, but in Season 4 now that everyone on the show is a murderer, even Starlight and Homelander's son, who am I supposed to be rooting for?
The level of gore and violence keeps going up, like it's the main plot line to shock us, and meanwhile plot holes keep emerging, like the bad guys keep cornering the good guys but not killing them.
I loved this show in the first seasons because it was a cultural commentary on celebrity worship and use of political conspiracy theories and smear tactics. But I have to wonder, what exactly is the commentary? Except that smear tactics exist... does the show make any commentary with nuance?
And now the good guys, who want to stop Chemical V and superpowers... are also taking chemical V? Even Simon Pegg? I feel like the moral compass of this show has been lost, and I no longer care about the characters because they're all bad now. The plot is convoluted and seems to be going nowhere.
There's a little humor in the show, but it's black humor. I'm so tired of shows where the "humor" has to be ugly and depressing. Have you seen the political and covid news in the last few years? We've had enough bleakness. I'd like the goodguys to be good and for them to make progress in interesting ways where the plot points make sense to the characters.
I really have to question the people who champion this show just because they love the gore, or they're able to overlook the ugly morality. Is that what you want from life, ugly heroes and gore? I just don't think it's fun.
I'm sorry. I originally rated this show a 10 but in Season 3 and now Season 4 it's become unwatchable. I stopped watching.
The Boys (2019)
I have no character to root for
I understand that fleshed out characters will have flaws, but in Season 4 now that everyone on the show is a murderer, even Starlight and Homelander's son, who am I supposed to be rooting for?
The level of gore and violence keeps going up, like it's the main plot line to shock us, and meanwhile plot holes keep emerging, like the bad guys keep cornering the good guys but not killing them.
I loved this show in the first seasons because it was a cultural commentary on celebrity worship and use of political conspiracy theories and smear tactics. But I have to wonder, what exactly is the commentary? Except that smear tactics exist... does the show make any commentary with nuance?
And now the good guys, who want to stop Chemical V and superpowers... are also taking chemical V? Even Simon Pegg? I feel like the moral compass of this show has been lost, and I no longer care about the characters because they're all bad now. The plot is convoluted and seems to be going nowhere.
There's a little humor in the show, but it's black humor. I'm so tired of shows where the "humor" has to be ugly and depressing. Have you seen the political and covid news in the last few years? We've had enough bleakness. I'd like the goodguys to be good and for them to make progress in interesting ways where the plot points make sense to the characters.
I really have to question the people who champion this show just because they love the gore, or they're able to overlook the ugly morality. Is that what you want from life, ugly heroes and gore? I just don't think it's fun.
I'm sorry. I originally rated this show a 10 but in Season 3 and now Season 4 it's become unwatchable. I stopped watching.
God & Country (2024)
Agree with the points but needed more structure
I absolutely support the points of this film, but it meanders. The viewer needs more milestones and takeaways.
I suppose the lack of a narrator is an attempt by the filmmakers to stand back and let the film speak for itself, but the viewer can easily get lost. I say this as someone who was NOT lost but only because I'm a topic expert, having worked for separation of church and state.
Ultimately, who is the audience for this? The film is too hard hitting to convince religious people, and it's not accessible enough to draw in new secular people.
So I'll give a 10 for the topic, but dial it down to 8 for the actual impact of this film.
Journeyman (2007)
Someone told the writers that conflict equals tension
So Dan is risking his life saving people, and he constantly gets grief from his wife and brother. This is repetitive and makes the characters unlikeable. It's like someone told the writers that they have to inject lots of conflict.
But conflict that doesn't go anywhere doesn't work. And we like conflict to come from bad guys with an agenda, making smart decisions. We don't need soap opera style conflict from supposed loved ones. We love to hate a malicious bad guy. A protagonist's loved one just can't be malicious or hated. Complaining isn't an agenda and it really isn't a plot point either. It's filler. It also weighs down the joy that should be felt at the end of each episode's successful mission.
The plots with the newspaper editor and the ex lover work for me, because they are allies. The plots with the family home life go nowhere and have nothing to do with the main mission of each episode. It undercut this series for me, taking it from 9 stars to 7, even 6.
Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (2020)
Network bias crushed this
I get it. There's the gem of a great show here. I loved Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, I love musicals, and I really wanted to like this show.
But I also value my time. The standard network treatment crushed the life out of this, at least for me.
Sets have to be brightly lit and basically unreal. Actors have to be bizarrely attractive and wonderfully dresses and basically unreal. The dialogue needs clunky put-downs and it's all sort of dumbed down, unreal relationships. Like why her rude neighbor is suddenly her friend. The show plays into stereotypes. The mood varies from joyful to suicidal but not in a natural way, more like they're not sure what the show's desired emotional direction is. Instead of trusting the audience with nuance they throw the plot points at us. Anything can happen in a comedy, but the comedy isn't smart enough to be the reason why the plots and relationships don't gel.
Oh! It makes my brain ache. I'm just the sort of person this show was made for, except I guess I'm not. I need nuance. I reject generalisms. It's too bad. I can see that there's a truly great show somewhere in here. But it would have gone to a streaming service.
Murder in Successville (2015)
Innovative, hilarious - just one complaint
I love this series. It's original, laugh out loud funny, and because the guest star is genuinely expected to try to solve the mystery, that means we have a shot at doing so also. It's the perfect combination of structured and improvisational.
Unfortunately the clues are not shown clearly.
In s01e01 we're supposed to notice that an e-cigarrette is not a real cigarette, but there are no closeups to help with this.
In episodes 2, 3, and 4 we're supposed to notice an item in the room, which I'm sure was there, but but the way the scene is staged and shot, it's not shown to the viewer! No, really. I went back to each scene to check!
So that undercuts the feeling that hey maybe I should pay attention and actually try to solve the murder myself as a viewer.
Well, I'll still give 8 stars. It's excellent and such an original idea.
To me, the American version Murderville is better.
The Fall Guy (2024)
Here's the secret why this film is actually genius
To understand this film, you have to get it on 3 levels.
1. It's an action / comedy. Because of Hollywood's "Rule of Cool", if it's cool enough, a few plot holes are allowed.
2. There's a real story. There's heartache, there's love.
3. It's a love letter to stunt people, and the audience gets to join in.
Towards the end of the film, #1 and #2 are completed. That's when the plot gets silly, because we're still wrapping up #3.
The purpose of the last 20 minutes isn't the love story. It's "hey, everyone, let's make a movie!" It's straight up a celebration of filmmaking. It's joyous. It continues straight through the film's conclusion to the credits with outtakes.
Anyone criticizing the film for plot holes just doesn't understand its actual purpose.
Actually, The Fall Guy is genius. It's somehow both a well-written, thoughtful movie, but also a powerful action flick. It doesn't take itself seriously but is also very moving. It's a tribute to stunt people and can be appreciated culturally the same way that other films bring you into other cultures and peoples.
It is similar in its joyousness but a far, far better film than Drop Zone (1994) with Wesley Snipes, which celebrates skydivers.
What a wild ride, and a great homage to the original The Fall Guy, which started Lee Majors, whom you may know better as TV's The Six Million Dollar Man.
When I was a kid, my father let me stay up "late" (8pm) to watch Lee Majors. It was so thrilling to be up past my bedtime and sharing an adventure that just washed away all my little kid troubles.
The new film did the same for all my adult troubles. Just go see it and let yourself experience joy in a way that (as a planet) we've had rarely in the last few years with covid and politics and war.
To me it's the first film since Top Gun: Maverick that I've wanted to see more than once. It's a party. It's a celebration. It's got world record setting stunts. Stop complaining. Go see this film and join in!
V for Vendetta (2005)
I can't look past the ugly message
I used to love this film, and of course I respect revolutionaries fighting a police state. If you live in Russia, this film may give you inspiration.
But that's not what the filmmakers intended and it's not how it's perceived in society. In society, it's a shorthand for political outrage instead of debate. It's about the United Kingdom, which is not a police state.
Alan Moore, creator of the original comics, is a self-described "anarchist" and a conspiracy theorist who admires cultist and con man Aleister Crowley.
I find it curious. Some of the most "liberal" people who believe in social justice admire Che Guevara, who was a murderer and wannabe dictator. Now in V for Vendetta we're supposed to admire Guy Fawkes, who was a religious fanatic and wannabe murderer who wanted a new monarch.
I get it. It's only a movie. And I love movies like Batman. Batman is a vigilante but it's okay because Batman is so clearly a fantasy, and he's written so that he's never wrong. V for Vendetta, with its earnest poetry about "ideas", is not so much a fantasy as a call to arms.
If you actually live in an Orwellian nightmare, fine. But for the rest of us, debate and peaceful protest are the only moral tools in a democracy. If you're angry but uninformed, full of self-righteousness, and you think this justifies illegal acts, that makes you part of the problem. That's not liberalism. That's populism, a mental and moral dead end.
Stoking hatred and fear is what's getting society into trouble. Showing empathy and reason is the only thing that gets us out.
If you love this movie, grow up. When you're a teenager it's fine to wear black lipstick and pretend to embrace death like a goth and think you can pull violent stunts like blocking a highway because there's some moderate injustice in society, but when you're an adult, you have to reject Alan Moore's ideas entirely. The way to rid ourselves of injustice in a democracy is through debate and peaceful protest.
One of my favorite quotes is this line: For every complex problem, there is a simple solution, and it is wrong.
So I'm reducing this from 10/10 to 4/10 because I am no longer a child and I don't think like children do.
Obliterated (2023)
A writer explains why this is genius
Wow! I'm shocked by the reviews saying that Obliterated isn't intelligent.
Folks, it's a comedy. Silly, off-the-wall antics is part of it.
In fact, as a writer I have to say that the script is actually genius. Do you have any idea how next level it is to write a story that works both as a comedy and as action?
And have it all take place in one 12-hour period, and it's an ensemble cast, but every character is fleshed out and has a story arc. And the plot has lots of surprises, and the plot is character driven?
The comedic bits are silly and fun because they're supposed to be. But actually, the crew doesn't have a comedic moron who makes deliberate bad choices just for effect. Instead, it's amazing how all the characters manage to get through the 12 hours with mainly sensible motivations, given that they're all high, and without as many coincidences and you would think.
To me it all comes together as a next level version of the TV show 24, which was full of mechanical plot for plot's sake and obvious plot direction, plus laugh out loud comedy. It's stunning. Most comedies, except for rare cases like Austin Powers, just don't work as action. Most action films, even the Die Hard films, don't have much genuine humor.
Please show respect. If you didn't like it, fine, but this is a genius series that is well written, well acted, and a huge amount of fun. Don't call it brain dead. It's just not.
10 stars! Even better than FUBAR.
Extraordinary (2023)
Breaks three rules of Hollywood
Rule 1. Have likable characters. I loved the pilot episode, but the main character lies and cheats her friends. I can't root for that.
Sure, Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy lies too, but by the end of the episode she is genuinely sorry. There's no sorry in Extraordinary. Instead there's real pain and sometimes deliberate cruelty. That deflates comedy. It robs the audience of the feeling that everything will be okay in the end. The show's premise is too wacky to be a dramedy.
Rule 2. Viewers want characters to make bold choices. Three of the main characters are just useless. We don't like to root for weak characters, and we can characters don't drive the plot. The plot goes nowhere. I get it, in a dark comedy it's okay for the protagonists to ultimately fail and get nowhere. But this sure doesn't feel like a dark comedy. It feels like it's trying to be a real comedy.
Rule 3. Stories must have an arc. Story arcs require character arcs. Character arcs require character change.
The show is too heavily plot driven, without the characters changing. The plot hints at character changes, but then they always just reset. For example, in the story two characters who are dating break up. But then they continue hanging out together.
I get it, Jen is resisting growing up. But when characters don't change, the plot just seems to be running in circles. If you don't want to have long story arcs, that's fine but then make your show episodic with some resolution at the end of each episode.
I really don't understand people who like this show. This is not Breaking Bad, where it's fun to root for the bad guy because the show is so clearly not reality. The lies, cheating, and abuse of this show are all too real from the worst parts of normal life. Do viewers who like this show really think it's okay to act like that? To be petty and to celebrate hurting other people and scoring points in this way?
This show has a very interesting premise, and good acting, but it just runs into a wall with the quality of the writing. I'm sorry. Five stars out of ten.
Outrageous Fortune (2005)
Started great, then broke this Hollywood rule
Okay, this wasn't made in Hollywood. :)
Season 1 had a lot of antics. The characters are always trying to deceive each other, with crazy spirals and really great acting. Season 2 was pretty good too, but then they broke a rule of Hollywood.
The rule is, in a comedy, even a dramedy, everything has to be okay in the end. You can't have real pain. This show began as a dysfunctional family but ultimately they love each other. Then it just became fighting, real pain, and if characters are willing to cause each other real pain, that makes them unlikable.
Of course the mother should complain. She has a lot to complain about. But she's also the normal one, the "everyman" that the audience can identify with. If she's complaining, the audience feels like they're unsatisfied too.
I'm sorry. I absolutely saw the genius of this show, but after a while it became repetitive to me and it just didn't cheer me up to have them go through so much heartache. By the middle of season 3, it seemed to be a pretty straight drama with essentially no comedy remaining.
6 stars, a pretty high rating considering that I stopped watching the series.
Quantum Leap (2022)
This rule of Hollywood tells you everything about why Quantum Leap is both good and bad
To me, the new Quantum Leap has all the heart of the original show. Ben goes to times where he helps real people in a compelling drama and we learn something about history. The writing is excellent, very moving.
But a third of the show centers around the people that Ben left behind, the people running the computers and time travel system. It's soap opera level with contrived plot twists. Some military VIP will threaten to shut down the operation center, or they need to fix this week's software problem.
There's no emotional heart to it, or there is but it's melodramatic. I think basically they just don't have a strong concept for the home base storyline. That's why the set design is dark and weird, and they never shoot on location in the real world. That's why a multibillion dollar operation only has about six people working there. That's why it feels nothing like NASA.
The basic problem is that the show breaks this rule of Hollywood: In science fiction / fantasy, it's not about the premise. It's about the effect of the premise on real people.
Here's an example. Imagine that The Walking Dead was split between people surviving zombies out in the wild, and then a laboratory of bickering people trying to cure the disease. The two things don't go together, stylistically, and the more you focus on the premise the more you basically reveal that most sci-fi premises make no sense.
For example, in Star Wars, don't think too much about the Force. It's just a device to tell compelling human stories. Imagine that Star Wars was all about how the Force actually works, and it wasn't about awesome lightsabers and space travel. That's how you get, in Star Wars I The Phantom Menace, mitichlorians and the Virgin birth. Don't make us stare at the premise. Focus on the human stories that it triggers. That's a rule of Hollywood.
Even Lord of the Rings, which came from decades of historical research and plotting by a serious academic, doesn't go into how the magic ring works. Because it's blah blah blah Magic, and you can't tell a compelling story about nonsense.
In the new Quantum Leap, the soap opera at home base is not compelling and takes show time away from having a fleshed out story in the main time travel adventure. You know, the one where I might learn something about history. The one that has a big heart. The one that makes the show different from other TV shows. Call it the competitive advantage.
The competitive advantage about this show, compared to other science fiction TV shows, is that it explores the past in an educational and heartfelt way by inserting an everyman hero whom the audience can identify with.
The home base plot lines dilute what makes your show different and special.
The original Quantum Leap was like The Lone Ranger. The focus of the story was on the people that you met, not on the protagonist or regular supporting cast. You learned almost nothing about the crew back home, because that wasn't important. And ultimately how the time travel actually works is just blah blah blah nonsense. Don't stare into it.
I definitely recommend the new Quantum Leap! It's just, now I'm near the end of the second season, and I watch the show while skipping past the home base scenes. Think about that. How is it possible for me to understand the main plot line if I'm not watching anything from home base? It's because they're basically two different TV shows.
That explains everything you need to know about Quantum Leap and why it's good and it's bad. It's a good time travel show with a bad drama about administrating a time travel laboratory.
Anyone But You (2023)
Not goofy enough to be so plot driven, not character driven
Hello again, fellow film travelers.
I have to wonder what happened to the writing of this movie. There are some interesting and touching twists to the plot. But mainly it seems plot driven, not character driven. Characters don't make consistent choices with their personality or logic, for example what happens with the parents at the end.
The male lead has an acting style that's full of confidence, but he's supposed to be a comic figure that has disabling phobias. God knows why he can barely swim but he can teach diving.
The female lead, I take no pleasure in saying this, tends to speak at the other actors instead of to them.
I get that the writers were trying to go for a Shakespeare type of thing, like Much Ado About Nothing, but the movie simply wasn't comedic enough to have unconvincing character choices. You can get away with a lot of goofy stuff in a slapstick comedy. But this had mostly drama. So the characters need to make sense.
I am sorry. I really wanted to like this.
There were hints of genius. There was some good physical comedy and a few touchimg moments. But the cringe worthy flaws buried them.
AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem (2007)
One Hollywood rule explains this film -- and it be bad
Hello again, fellow film travelers!
I loved the movies when Star Trek and the Terminator were set on modern day Earth, and after Alien: Resurrection I really wanted to see the Alien franchise set on Earth. But, it's bad.
One Hollywood rule explains this film. If one actor is bad, it's the actor's fault. If all the actors are bad, it's the director's fault.
Unfortunately, the film is riddled with unrealistic character moments that pop you out of the suspension of disbelief. It comes from all directions:
-- The editing. Characters get startled at the wrong instant. It's hard to follow the fight scenes.
-- The sound design, when we can hear the alien through a glass window, but the guy right next to the alien can't.
-- The dialogue. Being chased by a monster you don't need to say "We've got to go." A guy grabbed by a monster should be too shocked to say "Help me."
-- The writing. Person A sees Person B beat up (by humans) and in the next scene neither mentions it. No one is skeptical of monster sightings. The military's decisions are inexplicable. The surprise ending is telegraphed.
-- The blocking, when characters who should flee have to "stay on their mark".
-- The lighting. I turned my video player's brightness all the way up and it was still too dark. Even the daytime scenes are too dark.
-- The directing. This is just not a serious movie. It's a slasher film. It's not worthy of the franchise.
-- And finally the acting, as I have already noted. A notable exception was Chelah Horsdal (from The Man in the High Castle), who bridged the film's flaws with compelling terror.
You can see from my profile that I rarely give films low ratings, but this time, I have to, I'm sorry.
3 stars. Keep on traveling!
Connections 3 (1997)
Good but sometimes disconnected, themeless
This show is worth watching but sometimes meanders through "connected" topics that really aren't very connected.
For example, if topic A makes you want to complain you can do it by ground mail. So let's talk about ground mail. That's not a connection. If you make the topics more thematic and connected it helps with learning. For example, if every example had something to do with the history leading up from ancient times to how modern gears work.
At intervals the program stops to recap. That's an acknowledgement that the various connections are hard to follow. Also, many of the topics are either repeats from the previous Connections series, or aren't science.
Finally, the show is full of cute verbal flourishes that undercut the clarity. Things like "He was all abuzz about bees. Well, insects. Well, any creepy crawly thing." Or "He failed. Mind you, he did succeed in one thing."
What? I'm just trying to understand. Stop taking back what you said and obfuscating. It's fine to have fun flourishes, but make them support clarity.
For whatever reason, this doesn't have the power of the original Connections TV show.
Still, you might learn a few things. 7 stars.
The Lazarus Project (2022)
Season 2 broke three rules of writing
I loved Season 1, but in Season 2 they broke 3 rules of writing.
1. Don't let your premise take over. The premise in science fiction, or any story, is about the people.
Season 1 set up some simple rules for time travel. In Season 2 they got massively more complicated, adding new characters and duplicating the original characters in across 3 timelines. I could no longer follow what was happening in the show. Time travel stories all have trouble with repeating themes. The characters are literally going in circles, time-wise.
The Walking Dead ran for 11 seasons and they never changed the rules of the show for how the zombies worked, because ultimately the show wasn't about the premise. It was about its impact on people.
2. You don't need to make the stakes bigger. Just make them personal. Throughout Seasons 1 and 2 planet-wide disasters keep coming. But in the face of such catastrophe, it makes all the melodrama seem petty. Characters keep making personal decisions instead of personal sacrifices -- even to save the planet -- and it doesn't feel true to me.
3. Vary the tone. If you push it to maximum darkness and keep it there, it's overwhelming. The audience needs to breathe and reset.
I'd give Season 1 an 8 out of 10, but in Season 2, I didn't know what was happening, the characters became unlikable with weird choices, and it's so dark -- both literally with many night scenes and figuratively -- that it wasn't even a fun ride. I gave up.
Monk (2002)
Started good, then broke three rules of writing
Hello again, fellow film travelers!
Monk was originally a lot of fun in it's earlier seasons, but the show ended up breaking three of the most important rules of writing.
1. Be likeable. The big joke with Monk is that he can't stand dogs, friends, vacations, anything. He's always complaining. It's unlikeable. Viewers want heroes to be good, to be kind to others. Where are the big and small gestures of kindness? In one episode they enter a flower shop and of course he hates it. Viewers don't like to root for people who hate everything. If Monk is such a great guy, show it.
2. You can't make boredom interesting. Monk's OCD plays out in overly long scenes. Sometimes it's funny but as the series went on it became repetitive and predictable, and so less funny. Mostly the joke is how Monk is obsessed about something, like counting paper straws, and is wasting the time of the supporting characters, who are bored. In one episode the joke is that Monk hosts a bachelor party but it's lame and everyone's bored. My god! Who's idea was it that viewers want to watch characters deliberately being boring? When Monk wastes the time of other characters on the show, he's wasting the time of the viewer! When he annoys other characters, he's annoying the viewer!
3. Pain isn't funny. There's nothing wrong with a dramedy, a dramatic comedy, but there are bits in Monk such as every OCD scene that are clearly supposed to be comedic, but contain pain, and that's a mismatch. When Bitty Schram would argue with Monk, it was in a comedic way that didn't show pain. You knew that everything was going to be okay. With Natalie, the actress played it straight and earnest, genuinely hurt. When she fought with Monk it was distressing, like watching your parents fight.
In addition, the show never regained the magic after losing Bitty Schram, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance, and then let go in a contract dispute. It must have been a bad one, because she never acted again. Some genius writer decided that the replacement, Natalie, would call Monk "Mr. Monk" instead of "Adrian", as though deliberately setting an emotional distance between them. Neither the actor nor the writers ever managed to give Natalie interesting character nuances, or the daughter, who was mysteriously absent in most episodes.
For example, Natalie's reactions to Monk didn't vary; it was always just to chastise him. That does not develop character. With Bitty Schram, she was always going on kooky dates, thinking of ways to make quick money, or having a more fleshed out relationship with her child or ex-husband. Natalie's character never seemed to have a separate personality away from her role supporting Monk.
The backstory with the death of Monk's wife goes nowhere. Even though it's Monk's top goal of the show, the case only develops in 3 episodes of 122 before the series finale. The writers clearly had no idea where it was going. Same with bringing in some of Monk's family as guest stars instead of recurring characters. One episode is not a family.
Finally, kudos to Jason Gray-Stanford, who was the funniest cast member, doing so much with even small scenes. It's a shame that they did not wrap up his character by showing that his "bumbing idiot" persona had at least a hint of genius.
There is much good to say about this show, but I recommend that you watch only the highest rated episodes.
Connections 2 (1994)
Good but lacks the original's flair
Connections 2 is less memorable than the original, and I'm saying that as someone who just watched both at the same time, not someone sunk into nostalgia.
There is a bit too much smugness. For example, you'll find phrases like "He wanted to discover X to Y wouldn't happen. He did, so it didn't." Cute turn of phrase, but you're confusing me.
I found Connections 2 overall less thematic and more confusing to follow. The original show had more signposts to remind the viewer where we've been and where we were going.
The show goes into topics like Robin Hood that don't involve the history of science, and what science there is often is a repeated topic from the original Connections.
Still, I did learn a few things, so 7 out of 10.
Kimitachi wa dô ikiru ka (2023)
Unlikable boy has no agency in surreal story that makes no sense
I loved other Miyazaki films My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away, I liked Princess Mononoke, and I didn't care for Howl's Moving Castle.
This one didn't grab me.
I don't know what's so "magical" about the animation. Yes, it had some special effects, but overall the animation I would call choppy. I guess you guys have never seen The Incredibles or Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
It's a story of a sullen boy who does not seem to have kindness, or a personality. I didn't care to root for him. And he's pulled through adventures without making his own choices, without agency. It reminds me of the first Harry Potter movie. The kid doesn't do things. Things happen to him. Moviegoers like to root for strong characters who make choices.
And nothing makes any sense. Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro had, you know, a plot. I understood what was happening. I loved the new Godzilla Minus One with its WWII themes of Japanese life, so I'm not against the topic or foreign films with subtitles. I just found this boring.
It seemed like every few minutes we got a disconnected scene with new characters of unknown intent. Some animals are friends and some you want to kill, and some are both? Some characters are kind, and some are cruel, and some are both? It's so weird and aimless seeming.
And it's presented timidly, long pauses that don't seem earned by the plot and not enough supporting music. It's as though I'm supposed to come into the movie carrying my own awe instead of the movie earning my awe. It takes place during World War II but the war is hardly mentioned.
I'm sorry. I guess I was supposed to like this, but I didn't.
Dream Scenario (2023)
Slow paced, distressing, and with no payoff
If you click on my profile, you will see that I rarely give low ratings to films, but this one checked all of my boxes, I guess.
Have you had a tough last few years with covid and social isolation and politics?
How about a movie that's both boring and depressing, with characters you don't like to root for?
If a film can't be entertaining, it should at least be edifying, but ultimately Dream Scenario is just too weird to have anything to teach us.
I guess it's sort of about cancel culture, but I can't think what it has to say about that. It's mostly about a sort of nobody guy whom you don't hate but has unlikable flaws and don't care what happens to him. And then horrible things happen to him, but not in a roller coaster like a horror movie but sort of a death march.