shrewd.buddha

I must have glazed over the election night events.

Bingo. The only way the writers know to telegraph smartness is to have Sage surrounded by stacks of books. Also - why does it feel so random that it is suddenly Christmas? The show has not bothered to show any type of progression towards the end of the year. This means the super important election we have been building towards is still almost a year away.

The world's "smartest person"? Has she done anything demonstrably smart ? There was some lame media manipulation.. Was it smart to let the wrong guy be killed for being a mole? Even if Sage has been working a long con against Vought/Homelander, I can't recall any actual moments of genius. ^.. The actual source of the problems.. The show is stuck with these characters, stuck in one area of the US, existing in a world where apparently there are no natural disasters or actual criminal activities that the Vought super-people can provide help with. The Deep doesn't even live near water. And apparently it's too much trouble to have Homelander and Ryan fly around anymore.

It feels a bit lazy at this point. Apparently season four is the season of butt stuff.. Butcher has been "dying" for six episodes - yet we know he isn't going anywhere. Once the show reached the point where Homelander and the Vought know exactly who and where The Boys are and could remove them any time they wish - but never will - you just have to decide to sit back and watch things go 'round and 'round.

Recently saw Giancarlo Esposito in The Gentlemen on Netflix - - exactly the same character. Maybe the theme of the season is repetition: the Vought convention hit the same socially offensive notes as before. The farm adventure seemed to be staged a little awkwardly, trying to give everyone something to do and say .. but at least they had the forethought to bring extra no-name characters to be cannon fodder for the killer sheep.

Things did get a bit sloppy towards the end. But, it was an easy watch. What stuck with me the most was how the movie, using the college lecture scenes, slow-walked the audience into becoming comfortable with the idea that it is okay for a "good person" to commit murder to remove obstacles in order to become "their best self".

"Smartest person on Earth" is an easy tagline - but to actually demonstrate that type of ability requires smart writers. There is a possibility a person could be very smart but have no ambition to gain wealth or pursue scientific research - - but it is very doubtful. Hughie and Starlight, Frenchie and Kimiko, Butcher and M.Milk: they are all going through rinse-and-repeat story beats. After you have braced yourself for gross-out death and sex scenes, there's not a lot left for the show to offer.

I almost respected that misdirection. But with today's technology how did they not have a photograph of a most wanted FBI rogue agent? The new team leader (Brian Lange) was okay - but he looks like a cloned version of the team leader on FBI Most Wanted. Not his fault, but still ...

We sampled it, mostly because it was new, and we were drawn in because it seemed like a quirky cozy murder mystery. Taking jabs at the current podcast craze was enjoyable - because you can't go five minutes without hearing about someone's podcast these days. In the end, it felt as if the show didn't know what it wanted to be: a comedy, a murder mystery or a quaint Irish dramedy. There was a feeling of unfinished business at the end -a lot like Dove and Emmy's hook-ups in the village: messy, undefined and unresolved. But we did stick with it until the end, which is what seems to matter these days.

My exact feelings regarding the show. It took a while to get through it all - the pacing and drawn out conversations made each episode feel like a two hour movie. I wondered if I had become an old softie who felt more sympathy for the victims instead of the charismatic criminal - but this Ripley was not charismatic. At the end, I was still sad for Dickie, who no one cared enough about to fight for more answers about his alleged death. The cinematography and camera angles were impressive. But Italy looked like a ghost town (probably due to costs of trying to recreate a time period?). While I appreciate the showrunner's choice to be true to the locale, the requirement of reading English subtitles did start to wear on us as the series went on.

Overall it was light and breezy - an easy watch without a lot of expectations. I think it could have been better if the 'Dead Boys' had actually been cast as boys (remember how well that worked for the first season of Stranger Things?). Netflix seems to always go for the older teen sexy times vibe, with middling results. It was difficult not see the leads as early 20-somethings. And the actors playing Edwin and Charles could have swapped roles: I think the Edwin-actor could have pulled off the 'muscle' half better since he looked physically larger. Most of the episodes were pretty good - as long as they were dealing with the case-of-the-week. Too many side-plots per episode really slowed down the momentum. The cartoon animation parts did help with avoiding extended exposition dumps. With this type of show, it would be difficult to avoid a lot of explanation of concepts, creatures and the setup of the cases to be solved. The nitpicks are better left alone, such as: how could Crystal not know her full name yet manage to take a flight from Europe to the US? Can the Dead Boys conjure up fake passports? Also, all teens these days seem to have their entire lives documented on social media.

My biggest anticipation for this Part 2 was all the fun reviews and memes it would generate. Still waiting for the 'Pitch Meeting' treatment. One reviewer said that a positive outcome was that in our troubled times Rebel Moon Part 2 could at least bring people together: to agree on how lame it was. I could list dozens of things that were ridiculous. I will add this one: Apparently there is an unwritten rule that once a hero character pulls out a glowing sword, all attacking soldiers must also engage in swordplay, no guns allowed. And the shirtless Griffin warrior guy only fought with axes. And it wasn't exactly a rebel moon was it? It was a rebellious village of a few hundred people on a moon named Veldt. Considering Rebel Moon's reception, the greenlighting of additional movies or even 'Snyder cuts' of these would seem unlikely. Netflix did not seem to put much promotion behind Part 2.

I suppose Maggie has to angst over something at all times .. .. yet there are hundreds (thousands?) of job positions in the FBI that don't require the chance of being shot at. Look around, there is an entire cubicle farm of FBI agents who surf the internet all day for surveillance footage, financial information and Facebook status of suspects. Is she only qualified for foot chases and poor undercover work? It would have been nice of him to tell her the reason he was packing a gun during their coffee date. I was thinking, cop? drug dealer? terrorist? NRA enthusiast?

Started watching, but debating as to whether to continue. Considering the age of the actors, I had thought this was going to take place after the events of the first movie/book. As is, it made me think of Yentl, (40-ish Streisand playing a 13 year-old, because..?) The black&white is a choice, but the scenes in Italy are so stark and sparsely populated, it feels like a Hitchcock horror movie. The biggest obstacle for me is that, unlike the Matt Damon movie, I feel no sympathy for this Tom Ripley. This Ripley gives off a stalker/sociopath vibe. Not sure if that is intentional, but all my sympathies are with his unwitting victims.

Not sure if this is considered a spoiler, but ..

This last episode seemed to turn back to a semi-serious tone - no wacky comedic shenanigans or characters. The pre-apocalypse setting and the vault creation conspiracies are the only parts that I found engaging. Is the fact that Fallout doesn't take itself seriously the reason it is considered better than something like Rebel Moon? Both have high production values, but also cliched characters and the usual story tropes. At least Rebel Moon provides second-hand entertainment with all the meme material it generates. Fallout seems to be saying: "Hey look, I'm not even trying." Was that her entire life's mission? Cold fusion energy for everyone? She seemed to have vastly different, ideological goals in previous episodes. Is the LA Observation Center a cold fusion power plant now?!? The electrical grid is still intact? All those light bulbs in those buildings from the early 60's still work? Why am I trying to make sense of all this? This feels like a show I could take more seriously if it were animated.

On a scale from 1 to 10, the level of plot coincidence and contrivance is set to 19. Lucy, Maximus, the Ghoul, Thaddeus and the Dog all happen cross and crisscross paths with one another with perfect timing. With the appearance of radio DJ Fred Armisen, the leader of Vault #4 and the other vault characters, it seems safe to assume that this show wants to be a comedy.. .. which is perfectly fine .. but the wacky tone of the show isn't doing it for me. If the show was more like the pre-Nuclear apocalypse storyline, with a sense of dread, corporate conspiracies, anarchist groups and conflicting ideologies, I would like it much more. I never played the game - so any appeal based on references to that is completely lost on me. I can only judge it for how it appeals to me as a streaming series.

I'm sure the showrunners put time and effort in finding all those ironically used "oldies" music choices .. but it is annoying now. If it were toned down a bit it could work - but there is nothing subtle about this show. The show is a depressing dystopian comedy of errors with characters who aren't very bright, barely managing to stumble from one situation to the next. The return to Lucy's brother and the vault dwelling community is setting the stage for their naive and petty idiocy leading them to slaughter. Like 'The Office' - but with violent murders. How did these people manage to survive this long? The flashbacks to the Ghoul's life before the apocalypse are the only scenes with a sense of normalcy instead of absurd wackiness. But, respect for the set designs and cinematography.. Well done, there. Now I understand why Amazon dumped the entire season online at once. My appetite for more is quickly diminishing. But what do I know? I'm older and not hip to current trends - - this could be just the type of thing the kids crave these days.

Sigh.. the first episode made me optimistic but this one seemed to set the tone for the show: which appears to be apocalyptic wacky shenanigans with sprinkles of gory violence. I can deal with the gore and violence but not sure how long I can tolerate the grizzled hillbilly chicken f**kers and the main characters being dumb and dumber. Quirky can be amusing, but in a savage wasteland, a naive idiot like Lucy wouldn't keep her belongings or survive for more than a day. Maximus also seems to be bumbling from one situation to another, just lucky to survive. I will stick around for a few more episodes, but this may be one of those shows that isn't engaging to me. The shootout in Filly scene and the gory foot attachment device just struck me as silly. Maybe fans of the Fallout game are getting more out of this than me. On the positive side, it appears that a lot of people manage to survive past middle-age in the wasteland.

I also know nothing about the game. But the first episode was compelling: somewhat serious, somewhat campy, some gallows humor, some genuine emotions, impressive sets and good acting. Not sure how the different storylines are going to intersect, but it didn't feel like an impenetrable puzzle and made me want to watch more. (It almost felt as if one storyline was in a different time period but maybe that is because so many shows are doing that these days) Not sure how to interpret AmazonPrime dropping the full season at once (like the old days). I took that as a sign of low confidence so I was braced for mediocrity .. but was happily surprised with this beginning.

Not sure if the source material avoided this problem, but the super-advanced VR headset should allow the AI's - and the San-Ti - to explore/scan the human brain and have real-time communications with a human about their feelings, motivations, etc. @Chicago Redshirt, your detailed list of issues with the show are the kinds of problems the showrunners should have anticipated when viewers start pulling at the threads of the story as told: things don't add up. Evans and Ye made a lot of ridiculous assumptions about what the San-Ti would do when arriving on Earth. If you don't trust your fellow human beings, why would you think an alien entity would have any altruistic plans for any life on Earth?

My three problems with The 3 Body Problem. (based on what has been shown so far) An invasion fleet 400 years away is not the biggest problem: the aliens are already here. The AI (Sophons) and cult-helpers have real-time communication with the aliens. They can manufacture metallic headsets with neural interfaces. They can cause mass hallucinations (blinking stars). They can override electronic communications (Times Square billboards, EV vehicles). Why not create a super virus? Create advanced weapons for the cult-helpers to use? Blind all key scientists with countdown images? Launch some nuclear missiles? Don’t expect me to be devastated by the death of a guy with terminal cancer who didn’t want to pursue further treatments - - especially after you expected me to accept that for the sake of humanity there was a need for a boatload of children to be sliced into deli meat. (90% of the people on that boat were likely clueless spouses or children of the zealots.) If you want to brand yourself as a smart sci-fi show, you had better expect a lot of nit-picking: A water filter that doesn’t need cleaning? Nano fiber tech that goes from prototype to industrial use in a few weeks? Cryo-hibernation tech that appears just when they need it? Saul not being smart enough to realize Yen was giving him some type of clue with the "joke". Etc, etc..

Over the years I have gotten tired of the standard sci-fi narcissistic notion that "only humans matter" - as if it would be perfectly fine if all life on Earth was destroyed but a small group of humans managed to survive. Personally, I don't think life would be worth living without all the other life on Earth. But there are so many issues with (Chinese Mom) Yen Wenjie's way of thinking: Turning "Silent Spring" into a anti-human manifesto is messed up. "All life is connected.": agreed - but that includes human life. Yen has been betrayed, beaten, helped deforest acres of land and has lost faith in humanity .. but her own brutality is making her seem like an evil crazy genius scorned woman. Yen received only one message from the aliens before she invited them to conquer Earth. Why would she assume the aliens were only interested in subjugating humans? They could have plans to terraform the entire planet.

Even with today's technology, human scientists can scan for possible inhabitable planets; why didn't the aliens? Why not live underground or become a space-faring species like in Battlestar Galactica? What does the "restarting civilization" and "re-hydrating" the aliens after a 'chaotic' cycle really mean? Do they lose all intellectual progress? Do they have to evolve from protozoa again? Again: build satellites and spaceships and send them to a safer place during the 'chaotic' periods: your technology and some of your species could survive to return and catch you back up.