shrewd.buddha

When it seemed as if Maeve and Soldier Boy were dead, things seemed to have moved forward. But afterwards, it looks as if the producers want to have the same characters running around in the same circles. A lot of the characters' repeated behaviors are becoming tiresome. The Butcher/Huey and Huey/StarLight dynamics are continually being rinsed and repeated. It's not as amusing anymore when Huey and Butcher manage to get so many people killed while promising them protection for their help with taking down HomeLander. And what could MM's ex-wife ever see in a guy like Todd? Some of these people are almost caricatures.

It seems to me that Season 5 will have to be like the last Harry Potter movies - - there can be no more 'normal lives'. Which is a shame, since the appeal the show was nerdy kids living their lives in the 80's. Now, there will probably be no more school, the kids are infamous thanks to everyone having seen the Hellfire club photo, the basketball captain is dead/missing, Hawkins is basically destroyed and the townspeople may still think there is a serial killer somewhere out there. I do hope they manage to put some fun into the final season and not have it be all about the battle to defeat Vecna/One/Henry.

I know some people rant about giving any credence to reviewers... but for me, personally, I have found that once you have found particular reviewers that have similar tastes as your own, they can be helpful. I also learned from Wonder Woman 1984 that early reviews can be very misleading - - glad I didn't risk covid for that one. (Apologies to those who loved it.)

I will be taking a wait and see approach to this one. Ragnarok was fun, but borderline silly. Every serious moment was undercut with joke. Some of the previews make this look too much like a slapstick comedy. It's not a good sign that Waititi has decided to continue to include himself as Thor's goofy sidekick and has made Korg a main character (a troubling sign to me, anyway).

A lot happened in the final episode, but I was still left wondering .. Whatever happened to the Hawkins' police force? And wouldn't the National Guard be showing up to this level of disaster? Whatever happened to the Army guys gunning for Eleven? Did they just decide to take a break? Was the pizza van too difficult to follow? Whatever happened to Nancy's mission to be the next Lois Lane, ace reporter? Wouldn't the residents of Hawkins benefit from someone actually reporting the truth, no matter how unbelievable it seemed? Lives could have been saved, Eddie could be vindicated instead of vilified.

It really was - - but it was so much so that it sorta felt unsatisfying as its own season ending. It was the story's final battle - stretched out to two hours, with a half hour of conclusion. It was impressive to juggle all the locations and actors but I wonder/worry that the producers think that even more is even better .... will the next season have even more characters, locations and split-off groups? Yes, I'm looking forward to the next season (hopefully without such a long wait). But the producers can't expect everyone to be excited if they just roll out the same formula: big bad appears, groups form to tackle different parts of the attack, the final confrontation comes down to Eleven saving the day with outstretched hand, a trickle of nose blood and a head tilt. Eleven is great character (and MBB is a great actor), but this show could benefit from another power player to shake things up a bit.

It's a very well written, well acted show. A rare event these days. I would certainly watch a third season - but I do wonder how the writers can put Deborah and Ava in a situation where they are forced to cooperate for the sake of their individual careers (without undoing the progress they have made thus far). I'm hoping they can.

I never found the American version of The Office funny. The BBC version was much easier to take - it was in smaller doses and it was easier to laugh at those crazy British people. The American version was too much like a sad reality - people trapped in an office, suffering the whims of an incompetent boss. For me, I don't see a sad reality between Deborah and Ava on this show. It could be for people who are personal assistants or work in similar situations. Deb and Ava are in the entertainment industry - one fighting to hang on and one struggling to get started. At this point they are beyond employer/employee - they are in a relationship. Ava knows Deborah's issues and sympathizes with them, mostly. Deborah has learned a lot about Ava and has a soft spot for her -- she even spoke at Ava's father's funeral. They are on a journey together, like The Odd Couple. And though a lot of the humor can be uncomfortable, I am enjoying it -- much more than the canned-laughter so-called comedies on broadcast television (what's left of it, anyways). And as others have pointed out: Deborah is business savvy. Appearing to be litigious could be a good move to scare off people thinking about using the email. Others would consider the legal risks and consequences more carefully. This would be - as Deborah said to Ava - a good learning experience. But of course she wouldn't tell that to Ava at first.

Brad Pitt did a good job of parodying his own reputation. Daniel Radcliffe was swinging for the fences -- and it mostly worked. Channing Tatum seemed 120% committed and willing to suffer any amount of humiliation for laughs (and quite a commitment physically, too). I was surprised how tame this movie felt. It was 'cute', 'amusing' but not exactly laugh-out-loud funny. Most of the humor was the result of slightly awkward situations - not slap-stick moments. It felt too safe and not willing to risk offending anyone. It was as if the producers couldn't bring themselves to make too much fun of Bullock or make her the butt of jokes. Channing Tatum seemed to take all the pies to the face for the movie. There were some clever lines - but they tended to land flat - and clever isn't the same as funny. But despite all that, we didn't regret the time we spent watching it. Edited to add: I really enjoyed all the "Big D" inuendo at the beginning of the movie. They should have kept the name of Bullock's character's book as the movie title: The Lost City of D - - and just gone for more raunchy humor.

The writers have regressed Eleven back to her season one persona. It is as if she is a bully magnet because of her low self-confidence, sad-sack attitude and social awkwardness. And they are laying it on thick. The bullying is over-the-top. The writers have even made Eleven the odd duck amongst the other laboratory-raised children, even those younger than her. It is a bit much... (feels like lazy writing to me)

One one hand, it's a shame because we are left with with a major cliffhanger regarding Mother and GrandMa. One might think a more high-tier network like HBO would offer some type of conclusion, such as a two hour movie. On the other hand, wandering around aimlessly in deserted locations was also a perfect metaphor for this show. So many plot points seemed completely random and the child actors were quickly outgrowing their characters. So many WTF moments.. ... but I would probably have followed the show to season 3 just out of curiosity - to see what direction it would veer off to next.

In order to wrap up all the season's unconnected dots, the show gave us Cassie's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Dealing with Grace's suicide. Bringing Megan to Shane to make a deal. Being kidnapped and threatened by Dot. Dealing with her brother's partner to discover he was missing. Working through all of her mental-mindscape personas. Dealing with Jenny and an off-screen serial killer's plot to kill her. They even managed to get Annie and Max married and Cassie had good phone call with her Mom. It actually, mostly, worked. But the episode felt like a series of loose ends being tied up. Speaking of over-worked, it is difficult to believe the amount of work that bad-CIA official Dot had to do: matching Cassie's outfits, pre-planning all the locations on the view-master and coordinating the time between Cassie's visit and the murders, etc. The idea of manipulating troubled assets for her own purposes wasn't so bad, tho. This felt like a series wrap-up. It is hard to imagine a scenario where Cassie would have an excuse to be in an alternate mind-scape again. Alcoholism worked for season 1, the concussion sort of worked for season two. Season three: a coma? brain tumor? If there is a season three, it would be nice to have Cassie do some actual Flight Attending. There are potentially interesting stories with Cassie's love-hate relationships with her co-workers.

I am sorry to say that I found this one to be disappointing. As some others have said, it felt like too much, yet not enough. From the very beginning, the over-the-top CGI kept me from getting into the story. The monster that was chasing alt-Dr. Strange and the girl just looked fake -- plus it could have killed them easily, multiple times. To me, the biggest issues were: Strange and Wanda both have vaguely defined, plot-determined, hand-wavy powers. Having them battle each other was like two airport runway directors having a dance-off. It would have helped if it was more clearly shown that the Book of Evil had corrupted Wanda. Instead, her motivations and logic of how to get her magically created children 'back' did not add up. There should have been some mention of Vision (and the 'white' version that is still out there). It was as if Wanda didn't care about finding a world where Vision was still alive. Wanda can take out vibranium Ultron-type robot guards and Reed Richards with a flick of the wrist, but needs to fight Captain Carter hand-to-hand? Again with the plot determined power levels. Dr. Strange's biggest role in his own movie seemed to be babysitting Ms. Chavez and telling her to believe in herself. After 'America' showed Wanda her own ugly reflection, it was Wanda who brought an end to the threat of Wanda. There was one interesting development that the movie seemed to ignore. It appeared that on Illuminati-world, Dr. Strange had found another way to defeat Thanos -- by sacrificing himself to the corruption of the Darkhold book -- knowing that he himself would then be the potential world-ending threat. It would have been interesting if our Dr. Strange admitted to have seen that alternative, but chose the 5-year snap/blip option instead.

I know it was for the sake of drama .. but Cassie's brother knew that she had just fell off the wagon the night before and he also knew he was tricking her into a intervention situation with her mother. He could have easily prevented that by telling Cassie that her mom was not out of town and they should avoid going to her house. .. but Cassie would have missed out on a well-deserved come-to-Jesus meeting with her mom .. and a nice slap (Mom was just a stand-in for a lot of viewers) And Annie could have just sent an ALL-CAPS text instead of trying to get Cassie to answer her phone (which no-one does anymore, anyway). But again: the drama is not as easy to come by if characters make sensible decisions. At least Megan's soon-to-be-ex husband made the right call. I'm not feeling any sympathy for her situation. If nothing else, after watching this show I will certainly be side-eyeing all the flight attendants on my next trip.

As much as I enjoyed Paul's encouraging speech to Julia near the end, I couldn't help to be taken out of the moment, slightly, because part it sounded like a checkbox of current ideas: specifically "catastrophizing" and "saying 'yes' to everything". It felt like someone had been reading books from the current self-help section on Amazon. It also seems as if the show is trying to create a dynamic between Russ Morash and Alice that is somewhat like Mr. Grant and Mary Richards from the Mary Tyler Moore show. I appreciated that the showrunners did not attempt to use Julia's decision to stop the show as a cliffhanger for the season. Paul's speech was nice, but it might have been better if Julia had been collecting her things from the TV station and somebody wheeled out shopping carts full of fan letters addressed to her. it would have been a good time for Julia to realize that she was "sparking joy" to a large number of people.

This show concerns/bothers me in the same way that The Crown does: how can showrunners take such exaggerated poetic license with actual people just because they are public figures? The same was true the the move: The Social Network: the director admitted he wanted to tell a particular story and Mark Zuckerberg's personal life and private conversations were altered to fit his cautionary tale of success. The disclaimer notice at the beginning should at least be much more prominent.. I am happy to watch Julia: The Accidental Feminist. She, with her own career and college degree, showed what was possible for (some) women -- even though Lucille Ball had already blazed trails in the entertainment industry. This fictionalized Betty Friedan came off as a bully. She could have easily expressed her opinions more graciously, starting her rant with "I worry that .." But that would probably not be dramatic enough to suit the showrunners. Attacking Julia Child for celebrating the art of cooking is like criticizing Bob Ross for painting -- both are sharing the thing they are passionate about. The reaction of (fictional) Betty Friedan sems like petty jealousy because people enjoy being entertained instead of being lectured to.

Scott (Forrester?) has some serious boundary issues. He is having an on/off affair with his subordinate, then he is on the verge of starting an affair with his language tutor. The tutor made the right call to put an end to his drama (tho the writers made her as suspicious as possible, so his reaction was not completely out of line). I don't understand why the showrunners think these things are making Scott interesting or sympathetic. It is not ... and revisiting his mama drama isn't going to make things any better.

It was ... underwhelming. I was definitely not whelmed. The original trailer was incredible-- I watched it dozens of times. Little did I know that the movie would be just those moments from the trailer -- but each one stretched out to the point of disinterest. Whoever edited that trailer should have edited the movie. When the Batman arrived at the first crime scene, it was novel, and the tension between the police, Gordon and the Batman was interesting. But then the Batman continues to interact with the police -- he even visits a mob club -- and his shroud of mystery is lost. By the end of the movie the Batman is just another rescue worker helping to load injured people onto stretchers - - - the Batman becomes just a regular guy who likes to dress up in a costume. Personally, I think the movie should have ended with the capture of the Riddler. Everything after that felt like padding -- as if the stakes needed to be higher -- even at the expense of the Batman's detective skills and his enigma status. It was a low point when the Batman visited the Riddler in Arkham, beating on the glass partition and demanding to be told what clues he missed.

It could be that Julia was uncomfortable around drag queens and the like because she was a physically large woman -- thus having to deal with a lot of opinions as to how manly she was. Maybe that self-consciousness was threatened when actual men could create a more feminine version of her. ... but then they (the producers) followed through with a muddled message when Julia embraced the drag queen scene and had a wonderful time at the club. I am enjoying the show, but not enjoying some of the revisionist history, like the fictional character of Alice Naman (though well played by Brittany Bradford). Instead of exploring the reality that some Caucasian men of the 60's could see, and champion, the potential of Julia Child, the powers-that-be of 'Julia' want to fall back on the easily triggering tropes of racism and sexism. I do like characters such as Blanche Knopf (Judith Light) who have business agendas that Julia doesn't fit into.

Same here. Besides the extravagant display of obscene wealth, and a vanity project for Branagh, there did not seem to be much need for a newer version of this. Poirot, the character, came off poorly. There wasn't a murder until after an hour into the movie. The world's greatest detective had spent quite some time with these people, but did not see anything coming ... until after three people ended up dead. Poirot seemed to pull his conclusions out of his ass. And the killer's plan relied on everyone else staying exactly were they were expected to be. Is Poirot supposed to be really poor at reading people and only good at evaluating evidence and circumstance?

This show does not seem to care about logic or science. It seems to only care about symbology, specifically religious symbology. Giant flying snakes, organic androids that can regrow after a million years, people turning into trees within seconds that produce fruit within minutes. There is no adult leadership structure. These people who managed a 30+ year space journey are mostly milling about like desert rats in shanty-style tent villages. Everyone is always standing in some sort of line for something -- just there to react to whatever Mother or her group are doing. For some reason, there is an even lower-class tent city further away that spends its time bartering for goods and watching android fights. Sometimes a group of armed guards appear -- but only during some scenario that needs them to even exist at all. Paul ends up back in his same bed despite all his shenanigans during the season. Campion befriends an android that viciously murdered several people (and almost his 'sister'), but he decides it has a soul. Father seems to be more gullible and moronic with each passing episode. I feel that if there is a season three, the show will magically manifest a new group of people for Mother and Father to deal with -- and some new barren landscape for everyone to be constantly wandering through. Is this show even popular? There doesn't seem be any buzz about it -- no cast interviews on the typical talk shows -- no 'breaking news' after significant events of an episode. ... tho if West World is any indication, HBOMax will make more of this, because all the streaming services seem desperate for new content .... just for the sake of content.

I am not sure we will continue on with this. Probably because I'm not interested in the atheist assholes or the cult of crazy. If this is what is left of humanity, I'd say the universe is better off without them. All the bad science , willful ignorance and refusal to use available technology is more annoying than entertaining. And now Paul has a literal mystery box. All the prophesies, mythology and Garden of Eden metaphors just feel like mental rabbit holes to keep the audience distracted .. while the main characters spend a lot of time walking around in desolate landscapes that require the least amount of FX budget. Tho it does have striking visuals and intriguing locations ...

Something felt inappropriate about using historical fiction in a genre that is supposed to be over-the-top outlandish. Having historical figures being part of a 'Legion of Doom' type organization and taking orders from a Dr. Evil type leader also seemed odd. Even at the end of the movie I wasn't really clear as to the motivation for Dr. Evil's plan (not that I was paying close attention). All the set-up and history recaps at the beginning slowed things down. Conrad seemed to exist only to be Ralph Fiennes' over-protected son .. and die. It was a shame that his death wasn't even heroic - just the result of his ill-conceived identity swap with a Scottish soldier. Conrad should have had some educational advantages that would have allowed him to contribute more to the war than just being another foot soldier.

As far as ways to pass the time go, this was a pretty good show -- despite its tendency to follow most of the lone avenger tropes. It could have been reduced to six episodes, though some of the backstory was interesting. I do hope they don't go heavy into the flashback stories. I'm just tired of that storytelling technique. The only quibbles I had were when Reacher inexplicably stopped acting like Reacher: he didn't bother to find Picard's body when he shot him and Picard fell over the interstate railing. Reacher isn't that sloppy. It's hard to believe that Reacher would just leave his brother's body behind in Margrave GA without any mention of arrangements. Also: the bad guys went out of character when they decided to use Reacher instead of instantly killing him. But that's just plot armor trope.

The first couple of episodes had a nice, creepy slow burn feel. It felt as if the show could be a mash-up of Rosemary’s Baby and The Shining. But it started losing its way as it went along and unraveling into too many directions. A limited series would have been more satisfying. The last couple of episodes did not give me confidence that the writers were interested in coming to any conclusions - or even attempting to be coherent. Not sure how they can continue with the found footage format, either.