Jeremy_Blaiklock Reviews

Butt Boy (2019)

Far Too Grim and Serious for the Premise

[5/10 · 15 March 2023]

So when I heard about this movie I was pretty excited. A guy who's obsession with shoving things up his butt spirals out of control, absorbing pets, kids and finally fully grown people.

It's a ludacris premise, and life being as bleak as it is, I was looking forward to an absurd movie befitting the premise. This was to be the preposterous tale of the titular Butt Boy and the world-weary detective that finally stopped his rectal rampage.

While that was indeed what I got, the movie's tone doesn't match the promise of it's premise. There were a few moments of levity, but they're largely drowned out by the grim heaviness of the rest of the movie. Most of the hour and a half running time is composed of bleak, depressing, dark (both thematically and the chronic underuse of lighting) scenes where everyone's just miserable, and by the end of the movie I was pretty miserable too.

Death Stranding Director's Cut (2021 Video Game)

A Long, Slow, Sad and Beautiful Dream

[9/10 · 9 March 2023]

It's hard to describe Death Stranding, as a dream-like experience about love, loss, loneliness, connection and stranding, all amid a stark and beautiful world.

You can have fun (as I did) delivering packages across middle America and knocking out crazed MULEs to get the materials to keep all the roads and machines in working order, as well as donate things to your fellow players. And that's a fine thing to do. But don't get lost in that, as it can all be done after the story, and I suggest that you play it that way.

I would describe the game as an experience, something to be taken in a bit at a time. It encompasses a kind of beautiful melancholy in a way that's hard to describe, and is well worth crossing the snow-capped mountains and rocky valleys for. Ultimately it's a tale of longing amid fear, connection amid isolation, and hope amid extinction.

44 Inch Chest (2009)

Wonderful performances, but ultimately pointless

[5/10 · 1 March 2023]

It really hurts to write a quasi-negative review for a movie that is so overflowing with talent that they have a hard time fitting them all on the poster. But Ultimately, at the end of the movie, I was left disappointed.

No spoilers, but proper movies should have an arc. Either in the narrative or for the characters; There's a problem, and by the end of the story it gets resolved. That's a story. But in this movie, there's no resolution, and very little story. There's reveals, there's plenty of commentary from characters delivered with magnificent performances, but nothing is accomplished. Things happen, and then the movie is over. Leaving you with the feeling, in the end, that it wasted your time.

1899 (2022)

A well made, well acted, "Mystery Box"

[5/10 · 5 February 2023]

I've never seen "Dark" so I went into this with no prior expectations. At first the show seemed quite good, a complex mystery told over eight episodes, but by episode 4 the honeymoon phase had worn off.

A great deal of this show is mysterious things happening solely to be mysterious, not to build into a greater story. Many of the things that happen have no setup, no real payoff, and sometimes even no real character motivation. Things just happen, people just do stuff (then often change their minds), and once an hour the show tries to wow you with something extra mysterious near the end of each episode.

It feels like a feature-length film stretched out to eight hours, with enough empty fluff to put Little Debbie out of business.

Pantheon (2022–2023)

A wonderful return to intelligent, human sci-fi

[9/10 · 15 October 2022]

It's hard to find a show with real imagination these days, and this show continues to astound me episode after episode with how smart and human it is. It's almost a shame this is a cartoon because it may keep it from getting taken as seriously as other SF shows.

It poses a lot of questions about what we might do with unlimited power, and then lets it's characters play them out. It indroduces quite a number of characters, and the show makes them all relatable enough that you can disagree with the good guy and relate a little bit to the bad, because they all have good (or at least understandable) reasons for what they do. They're not one-dimensional superheroes, they're real people with real motivations who suddenly have unbridled power, and it makes for a great story.

If you're on the fence, give it a chance. I bet this little show will win you over.

The Sandman: Dream of a Thousand Cats/Calliope (2022) Season 1, Episode 11

Great writers team up

[10/10 · 24 August 2022]

I'm usually all for sticking to the source material as closely as possible, but where this episode deviated (In Calliope, 1k Cats was pretty much spot on) it actually served to accentuate the essence of Mr. Gaiman's story instead of override it, like in the Rose/Vortex arc. In re-reading that section of the comic after watching, I actually found myself mentally adding in the extra depth this episode established. To have an adaptation actually add to it's IP is a rare thing these days and a treat. Well done, show.

Halo (2022– )

Yet another purchased IP that alienates it's fanbase

[1/10 · 24 August 2022]

This show is just another purchased IP that is written by people who aren't interested and don't care to learn what people like about the franchise.

They're a self-aggrandizing bunch (watch the interviews) that would rather tell their own unimaginative story by riding the success and name recognition of something they didn't create and don't respect. I would think that's a recipe for pissing off the very people who's love of the universe you're depending on to float your show, but hey... what do I know.

The Sandman: Playing House (2022) Season 1, Episode 8

Further deviating from source material, it continues to feel lacking

[3/10 · 24 August 2022]

While the Rose Walker/Vortex story is indeed taken out of the comic, it undergoes further renovations from it's sharp deviation in episode 7.

Leaving aside the endless debate of whether the art of the past should be edited to fit with modern ideologies, the fact that the writers are clearly much less talented than Mr. Gaiman becomes apparent in this half of the show. The final 4 episodes containing the heavily edited Rose/Vortex arc are the lowest rated episodes of the series, and may others have commented that it feels like the series just abruptly stopped and started again as something completely different. Look at the reviews for episode 6, at least four of them are just titled "What happened?".

Rather than going point by point on the changes, it can best be said that the story was chopped up into it's componet elements, and bits that were judged unacceptable or distasteful were removed and re-written. After the chop job was done, it was re-assembled into something vaguely story shaped, but akin to a good story the way a person is akin to frankenstien's monster.

Narratives and situations are tilted to make certain characters more virtuous, and other more vile. This is done deliberately and for effect, with little concern for the integrity of the story as a whole or the characters roles within it. As a result the story is less engaging than episodes 1-6, which were almost perfect translations of the source material free of 'creative input'. We don't relate to or care about the characters that were favored because they don't have any sharp edges or flaws like real people. We don't take the villains seriously because they're cartoonishly evil and one-dimensional. There's never a feeling of danger because it is so obvious that the story favors Rose and Jeb that we never get the feeling that it would hurt them in the end.

Overall everything in these episodes just feels common, sanitized, and boring. The touch of the master storyteller is gone and we are left with something that feels more like Sandman fan fiction than an adaption.

The Sandman: The Doll's House (2022) Season 1, Episode 7

Where they start deviating from the comic, and it shows

[3/10 · 24 August 2022]

As a long-time fan of the comic I was absolutely in love with the show up until this point, and watching this episode broke the spell entirely.

You see, the show had been very faithful to it's source material up until this point, often lifting dialogue word for word and matching the story beat for beat. However starting at this episode, the narrative was deliberately altered (and in Lydia's case scrapped and completely re-written) to be much more favorable towards certain characters (Rose, Lydia, and Jeb's Foster Mother), writing them out of situations that would make them look weak or complicit in any wrongdoing. Meanwhile other's evilness was ramped up, creating an artificial situation where the blame is overwhelmingly one-sided and the moral judgements it implies feel like a child hitting the same key on a piano over and over.

The dreamy tone is lost, the acting is quite bad from some characters (Rose and Lydia stand out the most) and the series goes from entertainment to something the feels more akin to mediocre fan-fiction. The artful touch of the master storyteller is lost, and is replaced by something as subtle as a fart in a car, and as authentic as Taco Bell.

The Sandman (2022– )

Good when it followed the comic, bad when it strays.

[6/10 · 14 August 2022]

The first half of the show was wonderful, rich and imaginative, with visuals that had spectacle and served to accentuate the story. Almost all the story beats and a good bit of the dialogue was copied word for word from the comic, which is a level of respect for the source material I'm not used to seeing much anymore. It was both refreshing and heartwarming to see the story transcend mediums so well and impactfully.

However right at the beginning of episode 7, the writers started deviating from the source material and it all started to feel more common and less imaginitive. Situations and narratives were changed to be more favorable towards specific characters and ideas within the story, and the overall conclusion felt less impactful and more predictable. A lot of the nuance and dreamy tone was lost as well, and as a result it ended on a sour note for me.

If this gets renewed for a second season, I would humbly suggest that the writers focus on what they did in the first place, translating the material between mediums with care and reverence. Because that's really what fans like myself want.

For All Mankind (2019– )

Intelligent, thoughtful sci-fi of a rare type

[8/10 · 28 July 2022]

Stays pretty good over the course of three seasons (so far) and never ventures into dumb territory (rare for sci-fi these days). It's a show that assumes you're smart enough to follow what it does, and carries you along with a fantastic central cast and writers that actually know the material. It does have it low points, there's some out-of-place thematic elements and and dramatic slogs, but the main cast carries the show well enough I can forgive it. Maybe modern Star trek has broken me, I'm just so happy to have sci-fi be smart again that I'm willing to put up with it. Still 8 stars.

Lake Mungo (2008)

Very Well Made , Well Acted, frustrating "Mystery Box"

[5/10 · 28 April 2021]

As the title says the production quality and acting of the film was excellent. It was clearly made by people well versed in their craft doing superb work, but where the movie falls flat is the story.

Without getting into spoilers, the loop that repeated itself throughout the movie was introduce something, develop it for a while, and then invalidate it with another reveal before it had fully culminated, or just forget about it. Probably about 80% of the movie was that, and it felt like filler. A "Mystery Box" full of things that are mysterious, but don't advance the story in any way and ultimately never really go anywhere.

If you cut out all the fat and stitched together the actual story, you would have a pretty decent short film. Perhaps the writer/director had a good short story idea and added the extra filler to bring it to feature length, or maybe they had multiple ideas for the story and tried to work them all in. Either way, as a movie experience it's a slow wander through a dark hallway that's very effectively atmospheric, but more than a little bogged down by the time it spends on sublots that go nowhere.

Doctor Sleep (2019)

What a Movie Should Be

[9/10 · 17 June 2020]

This movie, like it's namesake, seems to be a sleeper hit for me as well as the public's reception to it. It wasn't until a week or so after I watched it that I realized I kept thinking back to moments in the movie, and how impactful they were. Re-watching it again, I've come to realize that this movie does what a good movie should: It shows, and doesn't tell. Doesn't force a feeling or perspective on you.

And because of that, the drama that takes shape is somehow a bit personal because we've filled in the details ourselves. Even setting by the wayside the incredible job they did in re-creating the tone and feel of the Overlook in the 3rd act, this movie is a masterpiece in it's understated way.

It's a testament to the filmmakers that they were able to not only make a sequel to a Kubrick movie, but create a powerful and sometimes very frightening world of their own without borrowing anything more from it's predecessor more than the world.

Killjoys (2015–2019)

Come for the jokes, stay for the characters

[8/10 · 20 April 2019]

Killjoys isn't a spectacular, groundbreaking show heavy with nuance and sci-fi staples. It's a show that has a lot of fun, and invites you to have fun with it. Perfectly timed zinger one-liners, a failed one-liner that tuns into it's own joke, cracks about Turin's magnificent hair, D'Avin's statuesque cheekbones, Johnny's rampant nerd-dom and a dozen other things.

The show takes a while to find it's feet, picking up by the end of seaon one. One it's in full flow, every episode's a good stream of fun moments. Moments like D'avin standing by outside a high-class sauna, wherein Dutch has hauled off and is beating the crap out of two bodyguards, as he nods to passers-by and explains the noises as "Aggressive therapy. Yup... deep-muscle... uh... fracking".

What also sells me is the dynamics between the characters, done very well. The actors obviously are friends outside of their roles, and that plays through to their performances. Not only the banter but also the poignant moments, while sometimes hampered by awkward writing, still sell.

Does this series re-define any conventions? No. Does it make me think deeply about humanity? Not really. Is the plot even all that great? Ehhh... it's okay. But do I enjoy every episode? Yes. Yes I most certainly I do.

Isn't that what's important?

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Not my Star Trek, but it may be a beginning for a new generation of fans.

[2/10 · 22 March 2019]

I didn't like the movie very much, by itself it was an okay film but as an old-school Trekkie I feel... well enough of us have ranted in other reviews, suffice it to say I agree with most of it. But the fact of the matter is, this movie really isn't for us.

When Star Trek: The Next Generation came out, it was widely hated by fans of the original show for not being the original show. I grew up watching it, it was my Star Trek, just as the Original Series was my Father's. And the fan's weren't wrong, they're very different. But to me The Original Series is dated and cheesy, and TNG is the "True Star Trek".

Now that torch is passing onto the newer movies, and a new generation of fans. Maybe giving it the Marvel movie treatment (Quippy dialogue, comedy moments and gratuitous CG action and effects) is the way to go. If this movie gets a new generation of people into the franchise, I can't say it's bad.

There's a tendency for people to view new things as being inferior to what they're used to. Just listen to your weird Uncle that tells you that Led Zepplin is the greatest band that ever was, and all modern music is garbage, to see how true that is. But if we set aside our prejudices, it might be possible to see that the popularity of the new movies is just the next evolution of the universe.

Those that can appreciate the deeper, more philosophical bent of the older iterations will most likely seek them out, and those who don't will see the movies and leave it at that. And that's okay. The Star Trek we loved isn't somehow getting erased, it'll always be there. And when the time cones for this new generation to give way to another hopefully it will be just as successful, so that the torch can be passed on once again.

Suicide Party #SaveDave (2015)

A fun ride, plus boob weed.

[9/10 · 10 May 2016]

This one really surprised me.

Indie movies on the whole are really hit-or-miss, and in reality are all-too-often a miss. The actors aren't strong enough to carry the film, the story falls through (or was just bad in the first place), they aimed to high and fell too short... about a zillion and a half things that can cause an otherwise okay film to to fall flat and boring.

That being said, the reason I loved this so much was the interaction of the three main characters. They start off as fairly standard roles you see pretty often. Spunky cute girl, comic relief best friend... okay, okay I've seen this before. But at some point when you're not looking you're sucked right into it, and that's where the movie really starts. I don't know if the actors were friends in real life, but the bond between them grows so much over the course of the film that you fall right into it with them. It's little things, like their body language towards each other, the little interactions and insults, inside jokes you don't catch right away. Even little bits in the movie itself, like the McGuffin that keeps popping up (so good). It's a lot like spending an afternoon with your friends. Your total #$%hole friends. But in a good way.

Overall a really fun ride with a few subtle heartstring tugs, and well worth a watch.