cherold Reviews

Dickens of London (1976–1977)

Great for the first half, a bit mixed for the rest

[7/10 · 30 May 2024]

Dickens of London tells Dickens life story, up to a point. Each episode begins with an elderly Dickens doing a speaking tour of America before flashing back to his younger days.

The series starts with his childhood, and it is portrayed as wonderfully Dickensian and full of odd characters, most notably his father, who is excellently played by Roy Dotrice, who also plays elderly Dickens and, later in the show, no-longer-young Dickens (he's less charming in that role).

At the start, the series is very entertaining and engaging. But somewhere along the way, as Dickens turned into a rather vain and obnoxious adult, the charm drained out a bit. The Dickensian quality of England also faded - increasingly, Dickens seemed to just hand out with rather ordinary people.

In the latter half, episodes vary in quality. Some episodes, like Magic, are a real slog, but a few, like the fanciful Nightmare, are quite entertaining. The series final is an oddity that seems a peculiar way to end the series.

I watched this series when it first came out but never saw the end, and used to joke that because of that I had no idea if Dickens ever died. But it turned out the series doesn't follow his life all the way through, almost as though they were hoping there'd be enough interest for a sequel.

I hunted this series down because I always regretted not seeing the last of it, but in retrospect, I'd probably seen most of what was worth seeing.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

somewhat entertaining, with a 75% good cast

[6/10 · 28 May 2024]

I've seen one F&F movie, Fast Five, which is said to be the best of the lot, and thought it was awful. So I normally wouldn't watch a movie with Fast & Furious in the title. But the movies David Leitch made before and after this one - Deadpool 2, Bullet Train, The Fall Guy - were all terrifically entertaining, so I thought I'd take a look.

The movie begins with a superpowered bad guy stopped from stealing something but a super-determined good guy. Bad guy frames good guy, the world is in danger, and two characters from the F&F franchise are told to work together even though they hate each other but somehow they work together (this part was not well explained - they run around in split screen, there's violence, they yell in unison, and then they're on board?).

Of the four principles, 3 - Idris Elba as unstoppable bad guy, Vanessa Kirby as tough good guy, and Dwayne Johnsons as a franchise spin-off - are terrific.

Then there's the other franchise spin-off guy, the charmless Jason Statham. How is this guy an action star? It's not just that he doesn't have acting ability - lots of action stars can't act. It's that he lacks presence and star power. For me, he was a constant nagging irritation.

Outside of that, well, the movie has some solid action and moves quickly. On the other hand, it never has much momentum. At one point I thought "are we near the end" and checked and it was the midpoint.

Much of this is dumb and unpersuasive, but much of it is also funny and exciting. There are moments, like a fight between Johnson and Kirby (great chemistry between those two), or a wild set piece with a helicopter, that are really pretty entertaining. But other times the movie drags. And while it's mean to keep harping on it, Statham's character has a connection with the characters of Elba and Kirby but because he can't act you don't feel any real sense that he has a history with either of them.

I'm not saying Statham sunk this movie. I'm not honestly sure if replacing him with someone better would raise my rating from a 6 to a 7. But he definitely didn't help matters.

I wouldn't say this movie was worth my time, but if you're looking for a watchable action time waster, you could do worse (i.e. Fast Five).

Bullet Train (2022)

wild, funny, and ingenious

[8/10 · 26 May 2024]

In Bullet Train, Brad Pitt is a genial criminal who's been working on himself in therapy and needs to steal a briefcase on a train that has an inexplicable number of professional killers on board. This leads to a series of crazy fights and weird plot twists.

Brad Pitt is terrifically funny as Ladybug (almost everyone here has a codename or alias). He's a shambling, charming, everyman who just happens to be terrifically good at fighting. The rest of the cast is also marvelous, including Joey King as an innocent-presenting psychopath and Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry as bantering killers.

One thing I don't see anyone talking about in the user reviews is the ingenious construction. Even though it's true that much of this can be picked apart, from minute to minute the way it unfolds, and the clever throughlines like that water bottle, have a lovely intricacy to it. Everything fits together neatly, at least until you start thinking about it after.

The other thing about this movie is that it is a contemplation of fate. Everyone in the film talks about fate and luck (Ladybug talks about his bad luck, King's character Prince talks about her good luck). I wouldn't say the movie's philosophy of fate is especially consistent, but that may be because the movie is more concerned with how fate is perceived than what it actually is.

(Director David Leitch's follow-up movie, The Fall Guy, talks about wrapping the central thesis of a film in the tasty bacon of action scenes, and this movie appears to be exactly that.)

So come for the action, vibe on the goofy philosophizing, observe the construction, take note of the plot holes, and have a good time.

Highly recommended.

The Fall Guy (2024)

Comedy, romance, and action - in that order

[9/10 · 26 May 2024]

After watching the trailer, I was expecting an action picture with a little romantic comedy thrown in at odd moments. But while it would be an overstatement to say this is a romantic comedy with some action thrown in, it wouldn't be off by all that much.

The movie is about a stuntman whose back, career, and romance, are all broken in one moment. Then he's asked to return to work on his lost love's big sci-fi epic.

For the first half hour the movie is almost entirely a romantic comedy with a background of behind-the-scenes filmmaking, as the two leads, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, banter in amusing but heartfelt ways. The chemistry of these two is terrific, and you're pulling them from the start.

When we start getting action, it's imaginative (especially that striking fight in the club), funny, and still tied very much to the romance. No matter how much is going on, the movie always makes sure to tie back to its love story.

The second half of the movie is more pure comedy action, with most of the actual story crammed in, although even then it never lets the romance out of its sight.

The movie is very funny and very charming. The action sequences are lively and fun. The cast is terrific. The behind-the-scenes stuff feels authentic (director David Leitch used to do stunts).

I was a little torn between giving this movie an 8 or a 9. I feel like if I take a step back then objectively it's not *really* a 9, but it was just so much freaking fun that I can't help myself.

Highly recommended.

Elsbeth (2024– )

lady Columbos everywhere!

[8/10 · 19 May 2024]

When I saw the capsule description of Elsbeth, I thought, well that sounds dumb. Then I realized that this was the goofy-yet-brilliant character I had loved when she appeared on The Good Fight (unbeknownst to me, she had previously been a character on The Good Wife, which I didn't watch much of).

Carrie Preston's Elsbeth is a fascinating character who uses her genuine goofiness and friendliness to make suspects underestimate her prodigious detective skills.

Not that Elsbeth is a detective. Instead, in a rather strained premise, she's a lawyer sent to investigate a police department who just pokes her nose into every murder case that comes her way.

Each episode starts with us watching the murderer committing the crime, then the rest of the episode is Elsbeth, who seems to instantly recognize the killer, pestering them until she finds the clue that reveals all.

If this sounds familiar, well, it's both the formula for the old TV series Columbo and for the current series Poker Face, which also gives us a female version of the deceptively harmless detective.

While Poker Face is a little more original in design and premise, and is arguably a more interesting series, I really like them pretty much equally. Each has an engaging star, an interesting villain, and a satisfying reveal.

I will say that Poker Face has smarter killers. Some of Elsbeth's suspects would probably have been caught by pretty much anyone. But it's always fun to watch everyone realize that Elsbeth is more than meets the eye. The trick of this series is each week there's a new killer and a new police detective who dismisses Elsbeth out of hands, but the show doesn't pretend that there aren't rumors about how smart she is.

The main difference between this and Columbo is, Columbo was from a time when no one expected a story arc. Now that such things are required, there is this whole story involving a police captain that just distracts from the fun of the investigations. But it doesn't suck up a lot of time, so it doesn't do any real harm.

The acting by the sidekick cop and the villains (who Elsbeth seems to genuinely enjoy talking to) are very good, but still, this is Carrie's show all the way, and Carrie carries it beautifully. You should watch it.

Doctor Who: Space Babies (2024) Season 1, Episode 1

I freaking loved this episode

[9/10 · 15 May 2024]

Doctor Who is a silly show. It's always been a silly show. Yes, it can get dark, and it can get scary, and it can get into elaborate mythology, but even when it's doing all that, it is still silly and cheesy and weird.

So I'm not sure why so many people seem to really dislike Space Babies, which is exactly the kind of silly one-off episode that we've seen over and over again. Is it ridiculous? Yes, it is goofy and comical and cute and people run around and there are jokes and babies, and it's clearly not going to be part of whatever elaborate story arc will be introduced this year, but how is any of that a bad thing?

This episode has a lower rating than the very worst episodes of the Capaldi era (like The Zygon Invasion) and I find that just so weird.

Anyway, great episode.

Hazbin Hotel (2019– )

unique and full of good ideas, and yet ...

[6/10 · 15 May 2024]

Hazbin Hotel has a lot going for it. The premise of a pollyanna trying to save Hell's sinners is unexpected, the Broadway-ish songs are tuneful and well sung, the animation is quirky and ornate, and it's just fascinating to see Heaven as kinda evil.

But after watching three episodes, I just couldn't get past that I was never that drawn in. First off, while much of the approach is comical, it's not actually very funny. There are also a lot of characters in it and I found myself losing track of who was who. And even when I knew who was who, I didn't feel that interested in them.

Ultimately, Habin Hotel is a show I wanted to enjoy more than I ever actually enjoyed it. Still, it's worth taking a look at.

30 Coins: Telarañas (2020) Season 1, Episode 1

quite the crazy thrill ride

[8/10 · 13 May 2024]

30 Coins started off with a real bang with this crazy episode, which is awash with a very Italian, Catholic-horror sensibility, as a cow gives birth to a human baby and things just get weirder from their.

The outline of the series is neatly sketched out - muscly priest with secrets, young veterinarian with gumption, well-meaning but rather bland mayor and his shrewish wife who is I assume getting the short end of the narrative stick so the show can do something with the vet and the mayor.

The supernatural bad guys are after something the priest has - one of the dumb parts of the episode is everytime he says "what do you want" they say "YOU KNOW WHAT WE WANT" and yet it turns out he doesn't. But that's par for a series that based on what I've seen has a lot of stupidity on both sides.

I've seen the next few episodes and they're quite enjoyable, but not nearly as weird or action-packed as this one. But *this* episode is really pretty amazing.

Magic in the Moonlight (2014)

Woody Allen's gonna Woody Allen

[6/10 · 13 May 2024]

In Magic in the Moonlight, a famous magician (Collin Firth) is asked to debunk an unusually convincing psychic (Emma Stone). The movie revolves around the twin questions of "is she or isn't she" and "does the world contain mystery and magic."

This period piece is attractive and pleasant, with a nice jazz score. It's got typical Woody Allen touches, like short bridge scenes that rather bluntly further the plot and people discussing philosophy and spirituality to great length. Firth is solid as the magician and Emma Stone is likable as the psychic, although you wouldn't guess from this movie that she was about to unleash Emma-Stone-the-brilliant-actress in Birdman later the same year.

Firth's cynicism is often unnecessarily obnoxious and Stone is rather unrealistically tolerant and even achieved by his boorish behavior. And the unlikely connection the two make is what caused my girlfriend to say, "well, Woody Allen's gonna Woody Allen." Because of course the young, fresh woman will be drawn to the old, brilliant cynic. Allen has his world view, after all.

The actors are good, the movie looks good, and the premise is intriguing. But the script and direction or just ... okay. It's a mildly funny comedy with little tension or surprise - I wasn't positive I knew how things would turn out but my guess did turn out to be on the money. And it would be refreshing if Woody Allen could have kept his worst Woody-tendencies at bay. But you know, Woody's Allen's gonna...

M3GAN (2022)

Amazing movie equals/surpasses director's Housebound

[9/10 · 3 May 2024]

Every once in a while there is a movie so good that I peridically check to see if its creator has made something else. Imagine my joy when I discovered Gerard Johnstone, the director of the brilliant Housebound, had finally made his second movie, M3GAN.

In M3GAN, a young girl, mourning her parents, is given a robotic AI prototype doll by an inventor who hopes she can fix tragedy with technology.

Like Housebound, M3GAN is wonderful at mixing comedy and scares. The story is, as some have said, predictable, but that's part of the fun. We *know* where this story is going, and that makes every weird look or movement of the doll kinda hilarious. This is a knowing movie that plays to people who know the tropes, but if you go in expecting some original story with an amazing twist well, that's not this movie.

The movie flows seemlessly from family drama to sci-fi to comedy to suspense to horror, and like Housebound can hope from humor to scares and back without being jarring.

I was pretty shocked to see this movie only has a 6.3 on IMDB, but then, Housebound only has a 6.7 so perhaps a lot of people just don't know a good movie if they see one? I was torn between giving this movie an 8 or a 9 but when I saw so many middling scores I decided I *had* to go with 9 just to balance things out a tiny bit.

Anyway, if you liked Housebound, watch this. If you liked M3GAN, watch Housebound. And if you like good comedy/horror/thriller/dramas, watch both.

Not Dead Yet (2023–2024)

is this an unfunny comedy or an overly broad dramedy?

[6/10 · 1 May 2024]

Another review here said Not Dead Yet doesn't know what it wants to be, and that's exactly how I responded.

In Not Dead Yet, a reporter on the obituary beat discovers she gets haunted by whoever she's writing on. A series about someone who can talk to dead people is nothing new (people comparing it with Ghosts have a limited historical knowledge of the genre), and this series does nothing new with it. She meets a ghost, she learns about the ghost and herself as well. Standard stuff.

The series kind of feels like it should be an hour drama. That's how it's filmed, and that's what ghost-of-the-week series generally do. But it's only a half hour. The acting has an exaggerated quality, although the actors themselves are an appealing bunch.

I watched one episode, with Martin Mull as the ghost. It was very dumb, it wasn't funny (although maybe it was trying to be?) and it did have a genuinely touching moment at the end. It didn't seem like something I'd want to re-experience.

The likeable lead, Gina Rodriquez, is known for Jane the Virgin, which was also broad and dumb, so this is in her wheelhouse. But Jane was a little funnier and a little stronger story-wise.

I can totally see this as something people would like. I did think it looked very promising from the trailer. I did like the way Gina kept shouting NO! It seems well-intentioned. But I wouldn't recommend it to someone like me.

Peter Gunn: The Kill (1958) Season 1, Episode 1

I guess this was good at the time?

[5/10 · 30 April 2024]

I heard this was an old noir-ish tv series so I thought I'd take a look. It's an oddly paced show. It's only a half hour long, and in the user reviews someone said that was a problem because they didn't have the time to develop a story, but the show spends an endless amount of time on a rather dull conversation with Gunn's hot girlfriend so in a way it seems they had more time than they knew what to do with.

The half hour was a weird mix of overlong scenes, short scenes that didn't really go anywhere, and continuity skips that just hopped to the next place in the story. The story itself barely qualified as a story.

The acting is decent, it's got a couple of good lines, and it does have a noir-ish look. For 1958 television it might have been great. Watching it in 2024 for the first time though, it doesn't come off that well.

Pantheon (2022–2023)

Brilliant from the first minute to the grand finale

[9/10 · 29 April 2024]

I watched this compelling, wildly imaginative series in spite of a very unimpressive trailer, because there were so many raves, and it's one of the best decisions I made. The very human moment in the first scene was more compelling than anything in the trailer, and the series did a great job throughout of combining deep felt humanity with high-concept sci-fi and philosophizing about the nature of existence.

The first season was brilliant, and if season 2 had been more of the same I would have been fine with it, but instead, it all grew in imagination and narrative daring, culminating in a final episode that is so sweeping and vast that it's just so wild to think back to that first scene and realize this was where it would wind up.

According to wikipedia, this series was cancelled after one season even though the second season was already finished, but we got both seasons in the end and it's a very satisfying wrap up (I would say there was no place left to go but the writers have proven that their imagination far eclipses mine).

Watch this.

Get on Up (2014)

a biopic that's actually interesting

[8/10 · 28 April 2024]

Most celebrity biopics leave me wondering, why was I supposed to find that interesting. But from the beginning, when a lunatic James Brown starts ranting and then looks at the camera to let us know this is his story and he's telling it, I thought, this is actually more than a by-the-numbers biography.

Brown is brilliantly played by Chadwick Boseman, who is all intensity and prickliness. The movie shows Brown's drive and genius, as well as his violence and capriciousness. It also shows how amazing he was in concert - I don't even like live music yet I regret not saying Brown when he was alive.

The criticisms I've heard of this movie perplex me. Some people claim that it *is* a standard biopic, and it seems to have gotten less love than much more conventional celebrity takes like Elvis and Walk the Line. Other complained because it failed to show *enough* of Brown's genius, or musicality, or violence, which is weird because it's a two-hour movie and it's impressive that it manages to touch on as many things as it does.

Anyway, Boseman is amazing, the movie is imaginitively told, and Brown is a legitimately interesting guy, even if he's not always a likable one. Recommended.

We Have a Ghost (2023)

Shapeless and shambling

[5/10 · 28 April 2024]

We Have a Ghost is an ET/Poltergeist hybrid that I guess wants to create that old 80s fantasy magic. In the film, a family moves into a haunted house and one of the kids befriends a ghost in the attic.

The most interesting idea in this is of monetizing that ghost, leading to a reasonably entertaining moment of the story catching fire on social media. But outside of that, this movie is just so uninteresting. Characters run in and out with their agendas, people make faces, the kid gets the ghost to do stupid stuff, there's a chase scene.

The chase scene is where I stopped, about halfway through I think. It wasn't terrible, but like everything else in the movie, it really wasn't anything at all. It was just a lump of inert matter pretending to be a story development.

This is surprising coming from director/writer Christopher Landon, whose movies I check out because the Happy Death Day movies were so entertaining. And while his previous film, Freaky, was not very good, it still had some interesting things in it. But this, this is a film-shaped void.

Don't bother.

Fallout (2024– )

slow disjointed start left me cold

[5/10 · 28 April 2024]

Before I say anything about Fallout, I want to correct all the people who keep thinking West World's Jonathan Nolan created or wrote it. He just directed the first three episodes. That's it. This show was created by a TV comedy writer and a film writer whose credits are generally unexceptional.

Now, on to the review of the first episode, which is all I've watched.

While the brilliant videogame Fallout 3 established the premise and built the world quickly and threw you into an exciting world, the TV series starts as an episodic mess. There's a pre-apocalypse scene that's a decent beginning, followed by 15 tedious minutes of scene building, then some over-the-top violence, then a new, uninteresting character in an uninteresting place, then a tiny bit of plot movement, and finally a little more violence. At the end of over an hour of this, there was literally nothing in the story or the characters that made me want to watch more.

The movie is good looking. The 50s soundtrack does a nice job of capturing the lost-in-time aspect of the world. Ella Purnell seems like she might make a decent heroine.

But it is beyond me why people are so ecstatic about this series. I looked at reviews for episode 1, to see if maybe it was a low-rated episode compared to the rest, but nope, people really liked it. And I didn't understand what they see that I don't.

My recommendation is, play Fallout 3, which is amazing. (Or perhaps one of the others, but that's the only one I've played for reasons that have to relevance to this review.) But I can't recommend this show.

Rustin (2023)

The march and the man behind it

[8/10 · 17 April 2024]

Rustin is the story of activist Bayard Rustin's scramble to create one of the biggest events of the civil rights event, an event that for most people is considered something MLK did.

What Rustin is not is a "biopic," as some describe it. I don't like biopics, because I watch them and ask, would I care at all if this person weren't famous. Yes, there is some biographical info in here, but this is primarily a gripping movie about the building of a pivotal moment in an important movement.

So it drives me crazy when people say this is a "typical biopic." This is not, guy born, finds his calling, goes through travails, triumphs, fades. This is, here's a short electrifying period in the life of a really interesting guy.

The story is an interesting one full of grand ambitions, schemers, heroes, victims, compromises, and deals. It is a fascinating civil rights tale that doesn't get the attention it should.

The cast is solid. Colman Domingo is very good as the fiery, brilliant Rustin, although his performance pales a little in comparison with the absolutely stunning portrayal of Rustin by Griffin Matthews in the 4th season of Genius, and Aml Ameen, who I fondly remember from the first season of Sense8, makes a an excellent MLK.

Ignore any review that calls this a biopic. Recommended.

Peninsula (2020)

weakest entry to date in the Train to Busan series

[6/10 · 15 April 2024]

Yeon Sang-ho has made 3 zombie flicks so far - the incredible Train to Busan, the excellent animated prequel Seoul Station, and now the rather meh sequel Peninsula. Each takes place in the same world at different times, and each has its distinct approach, so you should go into this movie understanding that it isn't remotely like Busan except for having bunches of zombies.

This time around, the approach is action adventure built on a heist/suicide-mission scenario. 4 people go deep into zombie territory in search of treasure, and of course everything goes wrong.

The result is a mixed bag. Some of the action is fun, and the movie finds interesting ways of battling zombie hordes, who run pellmell, including into each other in big pile-ups. The CGI is weak - not only do the zombies look fake - the entire city is clearly built out of mediocre CGI. There are a couple of entertaining kids and an intense performance by Kim Min-jae as a canny psycho.

In parts, the movie is brutal and entertaining, but it's got some severe pacing issues. There's a chunk in the middle that tries and fails to do a little character development and just brings the whole movie to a standstill. Even worse is the final 15 minutes, which tries to milk a tremendous amount of pathos from the situation by making it go on way longer than it should - it's basically a 5 minute scene stretched out until it breaks, so the closest thing it creates to emotion is irritation.

I feel if you edited out about a half an hour of this movie it would be a snappy little zombie thriller that still wouldn't be as good as the two previous films but would be worth a watch. But as is, it's something you can easily skip.

Zero Effect (1998)

OMG how do people like this?

[4/10 · 14 April 2024]

Okay, I didn't know anything about this except from the description on my flight's entertainment system, but a detective comedy is very much something I'm prone to like and it had good stars so I took a look.

The movie begins with a huge chunk of exposition in which Ben Stiller simply relates stuff about his employer, both praising him to a potential client and lambasting him in a bar. This is very tedious and goes on quite a while.

Then we finally meet the genius detective, Pullman, and he is just the most annoying person in the world. Not funny annoying, just irksome and unpleasant.

It was so dumb and annoying that I had to stop. Does it get better? Do the positive reviews here represent that after a really dreadful, poorly constructed, badly written start the movie somehow becomes great? It's possible. But even trapped on an airplane I couldn't watch anymore.

Unpregnant (2020)

Hilarious road trip movie

[9/10 · 14 April 2024]

In Unpregnant, a teenager finds herself pregnant and unable to get an abortion in her state without telling her mom. So she presses an ex-friend with a car into a road trip. And crazy things happen.

There are a lot of good things in this movie, but the best is Barbie Ferreira's hilarious performance as the quirky ex-friend.

During the road trip the two women relive past times in bad and good ways, argue, act supportive, act unsupportive, and meet some real weirdos, including a couple that become involved in a wildly funny chase sequence.

This movie treats the third rail of abortion with a light but persistant touch. The movie is unapologetic - Haley Lu Richardson's pregnant girl isn't required to explain or agonize on her decision - she is a decisive girl who has made a decision and that's just what's happening. The movie's politics are really subtext most of the way through, with the hijinx in the foreground, but it does eventually have some sharp commentary on the insanity of what Richardson is forced to go through.

I imagine if you're pro-forced-birth you will find this film horrendous on many levels, but if you're not, this is just terrific fun that hits the road trip sweet spot of wacky adventures and touching realizations.

Highly recommended.

Suicide Squad (2016)

most notably for giving us Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, but generally ok

[6/10 · 14 April 2024]

This movie has a terrible reputation, but after seeing Margot Robbie's amazing performance as Harley Quinn in two later films, I thought I'd check this out. And while it's not great, it proved to be a reasonably enjoyable movie to watch on an airplane.

The movie centers around anti-terrorist Amanda Waller's project of using psychotic super villains to fight terrorism. This idea proves to be just as terrible as you would expect, and most of the movie is Waller trying to clean up the mess she made.

While the movie has some good action sequences and excellent performances from Robbie, Will Smith, and Viola Davis, it is poorly constructed. The first part of the movie is a series of minisodes introducing the main super villains, which just means the actual movie doesn't get started until maybe a third of the way through. Lots of movies manage to integrate character introductions into the story itself, but this movie can't be bothered.

Throughout, characters make odd choices, action varies in quality, and everything is just kind of ... not quite satisfying.

Even Robbie's gleeful psycho feels a bit like a prototype that still needs some work - there are just moments that don't feel true to her character, although perhaps I'm influenced by her subsequent roles.

Anyway, there are parts of a good movie here, and even if those parts are greater than the whole, this movie can be genuinely entertaining in spurts and is worth watching if your options are limited because Norse Air doesn't offer very many movies.

Hellbound (2021– )

Trailer: thrilling horror - Series: Talk Talk Talk

[4/10 · 14 April 2024]

I think Netflix did a disservice to Hellbound by making it look exciting in the trailer. That was easy to do, since the opening is full of disturbing action, and while the CGI was only okay and it wasn't a tremendously compelling scene, it was decent.

But after that scene, the episode becomes people talking about morality. It's not particularly interesting dialogue but there sure is a lot of it, with everyone very serious and morose.

Every conversation goes on too long. Then there's the broadcast by some extremist which is super annoying and seems to go on forever. I don't know whether it does, in fact, go on forever, because after what felt about 10 minutes of nonsense ranting I had enough and stopped watching.

The thing is, Netflix should have made an honest trailer showing people talking about religion and morality and justice. And then the people who thought that was a great trailer would have been the people to watch this and it would have a higher IMDB rating.

If you want chat, this is the series for you. If you want something from the director of Train to Busan that in the same thrillride style as that movie, expect to be disappointed.

Full River Red (2023)

a perplexing movie that would probably make sense if you were Chinese

[6/10 · 14 April 2024]

This is a tough movie to get a hold of. The producers apparently described it as a suspense movie with comedic elements, but it is rarely either funny or suspenseful. I'd say it's in part a drama of intrigue, part a mystery, but mainly I'd call it a horror movie because it's got a brutal body count and many deaths are horrifically cruel.

In fact, for me what's most interesting about the movie is how well it portrays a world where the pecking order involves who can kill who, making life cheap as people use murder to impress or jockey for position. It's actually a good example of a systemic issue - it's a kill or be killed world and there's really no way out.

The story involves a murder investigation, at least at first, but there are all sorts of twists and turns along the way. It's convoluted and at times I got lost.

But finally at the end the central driving force of everything is revealed, and it made ZERO sense to me. I had to do a bunch of research to figure out the meaning. Full River Red is apparently a poem schoolchildren learn in China but if you don't know the poem or Chinese history then the denouement is incomprehensible.

I'm not saying this as a criticism - it's perfectly fine to make a movie that only makes sense to the people of the country it's made in. I'm just offering a warning that the ending may not resonate as well if you didn't grow up in China.

Overall, I liked Full River Red but didn't love it. It's genuinely engrossing. The cast is good, particularly Teng Shen and Wang Jiayi. The score by Hong Han is amazing, with all these crazy punk songs that I've read are rocked-out Chinese folk songs. But the weird genre stew, the unpleasant brutality, and the puzzling-until-you-research-it ending made it less enthralling than the best of director Yimou Zhang's films.

Wonka (2023)

instead of a sense of wonder, I just wonder ... WHY?

[6/10 · 11 April 2024]

My first response to the first song in Wonka was, wow, this is a really bad song. Was it the worst song in the movie? Not necessarily. But it was certainly not a song you should start a musical with.

The music is in service of the story of a young chocolate maker who comes to the big city and has various travails that he faces with equanimity and magic. He quickly acquires some powerful enemies and powerless friends and a bunch of not-especially interesting stuff happens.

While I single out the songs, the movie is also notable for the weakness of its world building. You have this town where everyone is paid in chocolate and there's much evilness but none of it holds together.

I always find Timothée Chalamet irritating, and here is no exception. The rest of the cast tries their best, and their best is pretty good, but the only genuinely fun performance is by Hugh Grant, who makes a terrific snarky Oompa Loompa.

Visually the movie is colorful and fun, and there are two good songs - both listed from the Gene Wilder Wonka - and one surprisingly decent number for Wonka's shop opening.

The story is full of holes and coincidences, but this is very much a kids movie and I guess if you're a kid you can overlook a lot. But if you're an adult I wouldn't recommend this.

The Portable Door (2023)

Harry Potter and the Entry Level Job

[7/10 · 11 April 2024]

In The Portable Door, a nebbish gets a job at a company where at first no one will explain what the company is or what he does at it. Turns out it's a sorcery shop and all the executives seem to be out to get each other.

It's all very light and amusing, with good performances. At the same time, it sometimes seems to be trying to hard to be quirky for the sake of being quirky, and in the second half things get a little jumbled and there were elements I couldn't follow and only figured out far past when they should have been clear.

I'd never heard of this movie when I found it listed on an airplane's entertainment system, and only watched it because I liked the title, but I did really enjoy it overall and would recommend it even if you're on solid ground.