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chris6004
Reviews
The Bear (2022)
Difficult to review
This is a top-rated, critically-acclaimed TV show, so we thought we should try it out. It turns out it's just a Drama - not really a Comedy at all. This hard-hitting high-stress Drama deals with the reality of revitalising a struggling restaurant whilst dealing with the previous owner of the restaurant committing suicide and the fall-out of that, including the impact on the various family members and staff of the restaurant.
It's very well-acted, directed, filmed and edited. So you can't really fault it from any of those perspectives.
I think the reason I honestly can't give it more than a 5/10 though is because of the subject matter. I've never worked in a restaurant and don't really care about the inner machinations. This results in a very stress-inducing show, when most people watch shows to be entertained and relax.
We've just finished season 1 but I really don't think it's for me. It's just really not that interesting of a premise and they don't really have any standout likeable characters to make you really care about them; they're all just kind of annoying in their own ways. I'm not sure if we'll bother with season 2.
Pointless (2009)
Too much chat & too British-centric
Too much wasted time on boring chats with the contestants, a lot of the trivia is too specific to UK.
They should have a broader range of quiz questions from across the Commonwealth, USA, other English-speaking countries, plus some global trivia.
The host blabs on a bit too much about random garbage. We don't care about you or whatever you're going on about.
We also don't care about the life stories of the contestants, way too long spent on them blabbing on.
Some of the celebrities and references are just British only. They should use more globally-known celebrities in the Commonwealth or USA.
Ford v Ferrari (2019)
Decent but not great
Confused plot with a lot of filler. This movie could easily be a short and sweet hour and a half. Decent acting; Christian Bale pulls off a good British accent. Some of the character's motivations aren't really clear and therefore their actions seem illogical at times. It doesn't go on to show Ford actually beating Ferrari. They could have skipped some of the character development of Bale's wife and kid and gone on to show Ford beating Ferrari. There's a fair bit of boring car racing scenes that started to put me to sleep a little, as long action scenes tend to do that for me. It's honestly just pretty bland subject matter so they didn't have much to work with to be fair. I don't think this really needed to be a movie, maybe just a 30 minute documentary would suffice, so I probably wouldn't recommend it but it's not the worst if you're stuck on a plane for 15 hours and can't find anything better to watch for example, it'd be fine, but at home where you've got the choice of anything I'd skip this.
Mare of Easttown (2021)
Pretty good cop mystery/crime but unlikeable protagonist
Pretty well-acted by most, Kate Winslet is convincing in the lead role, however we really don't like her as a protagonist. She is the classic trope of a rogue cop cutting corners and doing illegal things in order to get the outcome she wants, both in her personal and professional life. She's struggled to deal with a lot in her life, but that doesn't excuse her actions. I feel they could have made her character more likeable and it would've made us "root for her" to succeed more. We found ourselves just wanting to find out the mystery, rather than for the protagonist to succeed, not caring much what happens to her or not.
I'd recommend it to people for a watch-through once, but it doens't have much rewatchability due to the mystery genre and it not being amazing enough to justify a rewatch.
Fucking Adelaide (2017)
Worth a watch
Decent attempt at an interesting Australian dramedy. Pretty good acting, directing, score, cinematography overall. The plot is decent except there's three really strange/odd/unnecessary things with Toby (Emma's husband) being from an unspecified and unclear country, Cleo (Emma's daughter) is deliberately dressed up in boy's clothes and has short boy's hair for some reason, so much so that I thought Toby and Emma were stupid naming their son Cleo, and finally, Emma, Toby and Cleo randomly speak another language at times. Three completely pointless things that detract from the core story. Worth a watch, but not overly profound/interesting enough to be worth a re-watch hence 6/10.
Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019)
Great director, great actors, 3 hours with no plot...
It's such a shame to have to give this only 4 stars, but I feel I have to, as it went for almost 3 hours with literally no plot. I love Quentin Tarantino, Leonardo Dicaprio and Brad Pitt. This was directed perfectly, with great cinematography, and perfectly acted by Leo and Brad, but there was just no plot. The whole thing was pointless. It's literally 3 hours of nothing. Margot Robbie only had about 5 lines in the whole movie; why was she even in this?! I loved Django Unchained, Inglorious Basterds, and Reservoir Dogs. Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction and The Hateful Eight were also pretty good. It's just a shame that this had no plot.
The Other Guy (2017)
Some of the best Aussie media ever produced
Australian television is 99% garbage, most of it unrelatable/unrealistic drama and endless reality TV shows. The Australian Film and TV industry sucks, hence most people these days either stream or download their TV shows and movies.
"The Other Guy" bucks the trend and is one of the few gems that shines through the rest of the garbage. It is actually of a comparable quality to American TV, however based in Australia with Australian actors. Granted, some of it is unrealistic and exaggerated, it is still worth a watch as it is based around an interesting, realistic scenario.
Good character development. Good quality video, filming and editing. This was really refreshing to watch. If you're after something Australian, it's definitely worth a watch. Recommended age range 18-40, I'd say. I'm eagerly awaiting season 2.
Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You (2017)
First and second gen reviewer
As someone who watched Pokemon from the start until the third movie and played the first two generations of the game, this was an interesting take on the first few episodes of the Pokemon TV series. It finally lets us see what could have happened when Ash saw Ho-Oh at the end of that first episode.
I didn't appreciate the inclusion of all of the gen 3+ Pokemon, as I don't think they really fit into that first episode sort of timeline of the show. I would have preferred them stick to the actual plot of the original episodes, but focusing on Ash's sidequest to encounter Ho-Oh, rather than including characters and Pokemon that didn't exist at that time. They should have used Brock and Misty, and it would have been nice if they had made the Ho-Oh encounter take place at the Burned Tower (the actual place in the game), and set the movie at that point in the Pokemon timeline.
Pointless, negligible inclusion of Team Rocket, however I always found them annoying anyway so I don't mind having their inclusion as minimal as possible here.
Alex, Inc. (2018)
Average
The actors are decent but it isn't really worth your time. I watched the whole season and can understand why it was cancelled. There really isn't much interesting going on in the show at all. Most of the plot is standard boring stuff. I enjoyed Zach Braff in Scrubs though, and if you did it's probably worth checking this out at least, but it certainly isn't amazing. Watch it if you're really stuck for something to watch.