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Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (2022)
More of a miss than a hit
Guillermo der Toro has always been one of my favorite directors, and I went into this expecting to see his signature style of dark fairytales (though I am aware that he's the creator of the series, not the director). And, unfortunately, I was very disappointed. Some of the episodes here good, but the majority either fell flat or were straight up garbage.
Episode 1: I don't know who decided to put this as the opening episode, because this is probably the second worst one. 80% of the time is spent showing us how problematic and unlikable the main character is, and the interesting part last five minutes. This felt so clumsily done, even though it had potential.
Episode 2: Overall this is an interesting episode with a great greedy main character (the director of episode one should've been taking notes) but I found the graphics very weak for 2023, which is a problem with the entire series.
Episode 3: One of the greatest episodes of the show. The idea is fascinating, as well as the execution, though there are multiple scenes where the camera visibly shakes. I also found the gore in the end a bit too much, as I personally cannot deal with any facial injuries. I also find gore a very cheap way to make someone feel uncomfortable.
Episode 4: I don't even know what to say about this aside from asking about what was the point. This feels like an old "goosebumps" story, and I really hated how stereotypical it was.
Episode 5: Now, I have watched pretty much this entire series for this episode only. Ben Barnes is one of my favorite actors, and he's fabulous it this story. Overall I found it to have a very H. P. Lovecraft vibe, as well as a "Layers of Fear" feel, which is an amazing horror game about an insane artist.
Episode 6: Great episode. It's lovely to see Rupert Grint in a new role, and I feel quite confident that this entire series was made to create this episode.
Episode 7: The absolute worst episode of this anthology. It looks and feels like a fever dream of someone that reads too much Murakami, and I had to watch it on double speed just to get through it.
Episode 7: Not bad by any means but it's basically every horror movie ever. It also has Andrew Lincoln who looks and acts like he's still stuck in The Walking Dead.
Overall, there are more bad episodes then there are good ones. If you want to watch it, I only recommend episodes 3, 5 and 6.
Good Omens (2019)
Season two is incredible
Now, I'll be completely honest - season one didn't impress me. I watched it with a flatmate and it was nice to have a laugh but it was also all over the place and I really didn't care about the subplots. In my opinion, season one focuses way too much on secondary characters and not enough on the main duo. So when I learned that season two is on the horizon, I wasn't sure if I was going to watch it or not. When it did come out, I've decided to give it a shot mostly because I was craving something fun and light. And oh god, season two is an absolute masterpiece.
It seems like the creators of the show have really done their homework and fixed all the things that were not so great about season one. This time, ALL the focus is on Crowley and Aziraphale, and their relationship is an incredible one to follow. The overall dynamic of the season is also much improved compared to season one, and I've watched all the episodes in one go. Nothing about the second installment has disappointed me. Highly recommend, just know that it only gets better as you go.
Dorian Gray (2009)
Watch it only for Ben Barnes
The Picture of Dorian Gray is probably one of the most influential and well-known stories ever written. It's unique, scandalous, raw in its ideas and, what's most important, written in a way that speaks to the darkest parts of one's soul - Dorian is a horrible character, but it's incredibly hard to hate him, and how many would turn down the opportunity to remain forever beautiful?
From all of the above, unfortunately, the movie manages to only keep one thing - Ben Barnes is painfully beautiful, and I cannot imagine a better actor to play Dorian Gray. But beauty alone cannot make this a good movie. Compared to the book, it's very shallow, needlessly obscene. It's like the director and screenwriter only read a short summary of Oscar Wilde's book and made the movie using that limited information. The Picture of Dorian Gray has an immense potential for adaptations, and it's truly a shame that this one didn't do it any justice.
Trigger (2018)
Repetitive and boring
I went into this show with high expectations as my friend recommended it to me as one of the best shows she'd ever watched. And because of that the disappointment was even worse. I found the show ridiculously repetitive and predictable, as well as severe under-researched. Attention to detail seems a foreign concept altogether to the creators of Trigger, as there were so many instances where I rolled my eyes at somewhat minor details that stuck out like a sore thumb (for example, there was a scene at a tattoo shop where the artist was about to tattoo a client's neck while they were sitting up on a stool).
I also found it very annoying that every episode had to involve sex/cheating. Not everything in life revolves around it, and so making it such a major part of the show seemed very immature to me, like the writers just wanted to show how different they are from everyone else and how they're not afraid to speak about sexual relationships. That's nice and all but it's redundant.
Additionally, the characters are very under-developed, and most of them just have one (1) trait, which is either to love or to hate the main character. They are incapable of doing anything else.
Finally, the ending of season one was alright, through clearly only made for shock value, and the ending of season two was outright ridiculous. I don't know why they've decided to include those last 30 seconds, but without them the ending would've been so much better. Overall, a total disappointment.
The Umbrella Academy (2019)
Boring and repetitive
I was very excited for this show, as I used to be a huge fan of Gerard Way as a teen, and I remember actually crying on episode one because of how proud I was. That being said, however, the show severely disappointed me.
Season one was fine, though not amazing, and then it just became repetitive. They save the world, then it all goes to hell again; they save it once more, and in the last episode a new apocalypse is on the horizon. It's boring to watch, as it is incredibly predictable.
Furthermore, season 3 put several nails in the coffin. The scene between Alison and Luther (if you've watched it, you know which one) was ABSOLUTELY disgusting and uncalled for. I don't know how it ever got approved and didn't get as much as a trigger warning. It ruined everything that was still good about the show for me and I'm definitely not going to watch the following seasons.
I don't think the show deserved the 7.9 stars that it currently has and the cult following that it managed to obtain. Five and Claus are cool characters but they simply can't carry the load all on their own.
Loki (2021)
Romance has ruined everything once again
Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has been my favorite Marvel character since the first Thor movie in 2011, so naturally, when it was announced that he's getting his own show, I was more than excited.
The series kicks off really strong, with episodes one and two being absolutely brilliant, but it very quickly goes downhill after we're presented with one of Loki's alters- Sylvie. As a character overall, she feels extremely generic, which is a problem that Marvel has with a lot of female characters, but the thing that really disappointed me was the completely unnecessary romance that blooms between her and Loki in what is literally three days. I've always hated the "instant love" trope in movies and literature, and here it's done in the worst of ways. Loki falls for her in the matter of days, and that is so out of character for him, that it's laughable. The notion of "he fell for her because she's an alternative version of him and he's a narcissist" also falls flat, because if you've watched anything that features Loki before, you know just how much he hates himself.
The romance ruins the show and makes Loki as a character incredibly one-dimensional, taking away all the things that made him the best antihero that the MCU's ever had. Overall, the show lives up to my expectations in the first two episodes but because a major disappointment after that. I will probably skip over season two completely, for I'm not sure if there is a way up from the sinkhole the writers have created by being too afraid to not include romance.
Hard Candy (2005)
Don't waste your time on this.
Literally the worst movie I've ever seen.
The director was probably doing for a "scandalous" and "provocative" but it turned out to just be boring, poorly executed and overall horrible. The acting, the story, the motives - everything is as bad as it gets.