Change Your Image
FigurativelyTheWorst
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Unfair: Exposing the IRS (2014)
More propaganda for the poor designed to keep them poor using fear
This film capitalized on a legitimate concern - the fact that the IRS audits overwhelmingly target the middle class and that tax write-offs require substantial starting capital - as an excuse to push propaganda. And, as usual with anti-tax small government rhetoric, it pushes the idea of gutting government services and programs in order to reduce taxes paid. It's a strategy that's never worked. It always gets implemented as "starve the beast", where obstructionists underfund programs to cause them to fail, in order to gain power. However, the next step is always to siphon tax money into private pockets - not to reduce taxes.
People concerned with high taxes should always keep in mind that *every* tax cut always provides *even higher* benefits to corporations and the most wealthy, while increasing national debt. What we need is not a tax cut, but to ensure that the most wealthy, who gained wealth through exploiting working-class Americans, the poor and publicly-funded resources, are made to pay an even higher tax rate than most Americans. As it stands, most of the wealthy in America pay 1% or less of their gains as taxes. The entire point of adding additional funding was to give the under-staffed IRS the resources to audit millionaires and billionaires. But they're likely to do the easiest thing and keep auditing people without armies of lawyers to defend their wealth hoarding.
Republican congressionals overwhelmingly voted against stopping corporate profiteering (such as by fuel refineries and energy congolmerates), and despite the consistent whinging about high taxes for blue-collar workers, did absolutely nothing to help anyone making less than $200K/year. Which is typical. It's a party that exists solely to exploit the poor by convincing them that they're under attack by other poor minorities. Democrats did a bit better, choosing to fund the IRS and spend tax money on citizens rather than defense contractors. But they also added in the $600 banking limit to catch people venmoing. We need to oust the Republican party entirely and split up the Democratic party, which is basically run by people who make policies that are fiscally the same as a 1980s Republican, but also try to separate Church and State like the founders intended.
Look up ranked choice voting. That's the kind of thing we need if we want minority parties to actually have a voice in Congress that can contest the current two-party system. Get your representatives to pass that. If they won't do it, they're part of the problem.
Lower and middle classes have to pay taxes and *then* pay for everything out of pocket because Republicans consistently run the narrative that *only* the federal government is corrupt - and not state, city, and county governments and law enforcement. And most especially private industry, which now runs many utility companies and private healthcare because of Republican lobbying.
As a nation, we pay the highest percentage of our income for goods and services of any first-world country for maybe a 10% increase in wages for in-demand jobs. Realistically, if we properly legislated single-payer healthcare and education spending, we'd all have "free" healthcare and education - meaning we'd pay no more more taxes than we do now to get it. But no one tries that, because wealthy donors fund trash propaganda like this film to convince them that there's no way to fix it short of civil war, and that other nations are worse off despite having less crime, better health, and a better standard of living.
It's probably a waste of time to even write this, considering the target demographic of this film and their understanding of how government actually works, but I had to do something to counteract the shills posting rave reviews of this blatantly false extremist propaganda.
Please actually look up the text of laws and the cost of things like roads, healthcare, and education, and then ask yourself why we can't get things for the same rates here in the greatest country on earth. It's not because it's impossible. It's because the people yelling the loudest about supporting regular Americans are the biggest thieves.
Masking Threshold (2021)
An disjointed film that's deliberately hard to watch so that people can pretend that they're elite for "getting it"
This movie was clearly inspired by Pi (1998), but it's not as good. It's derivative and self-congratulatory to its core and is a natural result of modern art's eventual inclusion of art parodies as actual art without the introspection. The only real creativity, I guess, is including new ways of torturing the audience as an experience. Someone should nominate it for the Turnip award.
It attempts to be immersive by assaulting you with audio frequencies to emulate what the main character is suffering from. Almost all of the audio is the protagonist rambling about conspiracies set to the maddening warbling and oscillating of various frequencies. The video, on the other hand, is almost entirely close up shots of his experiments and pontification. I guess that could be considered as immersive if the main character cooks food with his face 6 inches away from the meat he's cutting. The monologues could have been a GPT-3 ML creation trained on conspiracy and pseudo-science forum posts. Even ignoring all that, I can audibly feel the narrator pushing his glasses up his nose ridge as he mansplains Transformer mating rituals to me. You can't write and direct this sort of thing seriously without being part of it. Imagine sitting down to enjoy a movie only to be subjected to 90 minutes of internal monologue from the most demonstrably unstable comic convention attendees while incoherent video clips flash before your eyes. Occasionally the audio and video are actually related. This type of chaos is deliberate because it forces you to expend maximum effort to follow the film and relies on pattern recognition for viewers to fill in the obvious gaps with their own life experience. And it's a sunk cost by the end of the film, encouraging you to spin the experience positively so you don't bemoan the wasted lifespan.
In the end, the plot and experience of the movie has been sacrificed to the dead art gods in a faustian bargain - trading the viewer's sanity and time for vacuous praise, some hemp shoes and a Trader Joe's gift card. Clearly the director thought it was worth it. Those who, like me, were fooled by the mostly-positive rating are acceptable casualties to the scene. The substance was eviscerated so that the various clown vultures who feast on the corpses of style and good sense can flock over and glut themselves on the empty calories of how much better they are than everyone else.
Films like this are pre-packaged Stockholm Syndrome for the indulgent indie scene. They have to be empty enough that the viewer can completely fill it with their own meaning while having just enough substance to not be a blank sheet of paper. A winning art house film isn't one that makes all the right moves, but one that stays away from the wrong moves and inhibits the inevitable projection of the viewer. Banality is indie perfection. Yes, you can make all sorts of creative analogies to justify its existence. But if you're that easy to please, why not just sit on the floor and amuse yourself with a cardboard box and a dinner roll?
The Equalizer: Followers (2021)
This episode is a litmus test of whether you can "get" the show
At it's surface, the Equalizer is perhaps not much more than above average as an action series or as a crime procedural. There are shows which are honestly better at both. And, at times, the acting can be a bit over the top. Latifah can occasionally cross the line into wooden when trying to speak lines with conviction - narrowing her eyes and forcefully nodding her head (with an occasional head-tilt).
Lorraine Toussaint is a magnificent actress and, as anyone who watched Rosewood can tell, excels at wholesome, caring, motherly roles. Unfortunately, many writers fail at depicting concern and distress, leaving her with dialogue that makes her seem manic and "hysterical". That's on them - not her. And of course there's the struggle to sell Robyn as a peak combat veteran. Sometimes that's a win. Sometimes not. Moving past the reliance on family to demonstrate the softer side of a vigilante, characters like Dante, Mel and Harry provide a lot of nuance and emotion.
Where The Equalizer excels is in making the characters human and relatable, and in choosing narratives that spotlight the plight of the downtrodden and disenfranchised. It's far too easy in a procedural crime show to focus on the crime - sending the writers in an escalating spiral trying to top the last episode's crime. It's also common for these shows to only rarely spotlight the massive failings in our legal system (which is explicitly not a "justice" system) because the protagonists themselves represent that legal system.
By choosing an outsider for the protagonist, and having her work *with* the police as much as *against* the police, The Equalizer tries to give a more balanced, nuanced narrative. Law enforcement is essential to society - especially in a society with pervasive inequality and poverty. But when the police and prosecutors have no oversight and no reason to look past their initial impressions, law enforcement can be as much a tool to rubber-stamp injustice as much as prevent it. This season (in particular episodes 3-5) highlights a lot of the ways our legal system fails us because what it wants is someone to blame - not for the truth to come out.
As is typical in a procedural, we have a few plots running simultaneously. There's the main plot questioning whether media attention can be more harmful than not. There's the sub-plot involving Delilah and Vi's public encounter with a vicious, spiteful Karen. There's little drops of story here and there, such as the wrongfully accused person ruined by careless social media sleuths. This is hardly the first show to take this format or to tackle these issues.
But this is a show where you should get lost in the characters. And while lost in the characters, you will learn more about the difficulties that people different from you may face and learn to have empathy for people who might otherwise be to alien to understand. It shows the struggles of living while black in the United States and the sometimes harder struggle of trying to rise up and be the bigger person instead of succumbing to the bitterness caused by the unending, systemic grinder that chews up the lives of people of color in favor of the stability of a system designed for white people.
And it breaks my heart that more people were moved by the short audio-only reference to animal abuse than have been moved by the possibility of a hard-working, law-abiding woman almost being sent to jail for a period of years-ruining her life and those of her family - all over a retail spat with a lady abusing her privilege as a believable victim. And the hateful, narrow minded, unrepentantly bigoted words she speaks are the reminder of how far we are from being enlightened.
It shows in the votes that people were quick to condemn this episode over the kitten segment. It's easy to love animals because we see them as non-threatening extensions of ourselves - only capable of loving their owners, capable of doing no wrong. True humanity is learning to love and fight for people - all of whom are capable of saying and doing things that make them hard to love.
This show may cause the occasional eye-roll. It's most definitely not perfect. But there are precious few shows teaching our society about the dangers of a bureaucratic system that thrives off the ready, consistent sacrifice of the most vulnerable of us. We need more shows that openly discuss these issues while simultaneously providing the strong, caring role models we need. Don't condemn a person based on the first color you see, and don't condemn a show for what's on the surface. What we can learn depends on our depth as much as the depth of the material.
Sanctuary: Kali: Part II (2010)
Physically painful overacting
Will Zimmerman has become a "herald" because a Makri spider got a close relationship with his insides. Then rich supervillain uses electromagnets to force the spider out so he can get some of that sweet second-hand spider action. Supposedly when the Makri go out for cigarettes like this, the abandoned host is supposed to die. Apparently it releases toxins that can kill the host on its way out like a jerk. Except it did that because it was forced out? Anyway, Will spouts Hindi and seizes on the bed for a while, then goes out for a nap in the trash when no one's looking. Meanwhile, Captain Lizard Cardassian plots his coup and is generally obnoxious.
Later, Kali, who's a spider that likes to dream flirt with its heralds, is off pooping magnetic power with extreme prejudice at the center of the earth under the control of Evil Rich Guy. Apparently Evil Rich Guy wanted some new islands, so he plotted this instead of many other presumably cheaper and more manageable solutions. The kidnapped and disdainful cult priestess starts tapping out the rhythm of the night, which, in combination with his spidey sense, wakes Will. He climbs out of the crash, starts scaring the Mumbai locals, and then, because he lost his pokemon, he dances to get Kali's attention. Despite the fact that she can hear him, she just does what the Makri asks. Will dances very "well" with the aid of some spectral backup dancers in one of the most cringey scenes yet. The whole episode he's absolutely manic. Probably on purpose, but that doesn't make it easier to watch.
At the end, Captain Lizard Cardassian reports the resolved conflict as a failure and attacks the spider anyway because "muh ambition". The season ends with the plot unresolved. We all wanted an end, and we didn't want whatever this was. Much less with the promise of more.
I think that for multi-part episodes, this one had a disastrously specious plot with token cultural references butchered by a Foreigner. I, too, wanna know what love is. But, Will, I don't want you to show me. Now in my life there's been heartache and pain. Mostly from bad acting and dancing.
Tommy: The Swatting Game (2020)
Tone-deaf episode that sucks up to the police state
Episodes up to this point have tried to approach policing with a more progressive standpoint. This one, however, is a trip back to the stone-age with a lackluster Hollywood "omg hackers and bullying" plot. They focus on the swatter and the doxxing as usual in this kindergarten-level attempt at complexity. They're not even touching the bigger issue of police militarization. Why is SWAT a permitted police approach to this type of call?
A no-knock entry is already questionable for a DV disturbance. Police have to identify themselves, so making a huge racket with spotlights and screaming (which they always do) would be more effective at calling the attention of a potential perpetrator. Yet these dimwits don't even shine a light on the "suspect" before opening fire. Despite having rifles with flashlights on them. For this alone, they should be charged with murder and fired. If you carry a gun, you have a responsibility to use it right. Blind firing a deadly weapon should be a trip straight to the court for an attempted murder charge at a minimum.
The claim was also made that they heard "screaming" from the house, but the daughter was playing a military FPS, which should have been immediately obvious to anyone with half a brain. Especially since that's a type of video game many police officers are familiar with. The headphones would have stopped any noise from the game, anyway.
Not only that, false reports get made all the time. Even before swatting started. What kind of idiot would open fire without even seeing the face of a person knowing that? It's just apologetic nonsense to excuse trading in citizen safety for an unwillingness to do proper police work or face any level of danger.
Even this episode tries to touch on some complexities, like systemic racism in policing. But it doesn't stop them from justifying police brutality and the violation of fourth amendment rights by sloppy cops. What a disappointment. I'd rather see an in-depth discussion on why telecoms are permitted to allow number spoofing in the first place when they have the means to prevent it than see this travesty of a plot.
Whoever wrote and directed this episode should have their paper and pens confiscated until they can prove themselves responsible enough to use them well. Clearly they didn't bother to get familiar with the subject matter, which is a cardinal sin for police procedurals, technology writing and scriptwriting in general. Another hour of research would have made this episode tolerable instead of trash.
Broke (2020)
It's a travesty to put good actors in this dumpster fire of a show
I'd been interested to follow it after the hype, and trying to support Pauley Perrette's new endeavors. She talked about it in interviews like she had rediscovered her calling. I came in with anticipation, and I left with disappointment.
This is the kind of show that seems "fresh" and "original" to people with "family values" that furtively copulate with their neighbors' spouses in seedy hotels while hypocritically denying anything and everything that could possibly give meaning to their hollow, empty existences. They'll surely talk about how it offers "good, clean fun", but will refuse to entertain anything remotely more interesting because they need to fill their lives with pointless drivel to successfully mingle with their similarly stifled neighbors in their deranged masquerade. This is the kind of show that people who don't know how to clear their browser history watch to keep up appearances. This is the show for people that stay married for the kids. It's bad, and you should feel bad for liking it. And you will once you hit that mid-life crisis. Also, for the rest of you, keep a careful eye on anyone who does like it.
That said, the cast is individually very good. Pauley Perrette's the headliner. She's got years of TV screen time under her belt. Natasha Leggero is amazing, and Jaime Camil has done great work in a lot of shows. And Izzy Diaz has a lot of potential. I'd love to see them all in something else written by people who hate the people who wrote this. As it stands, I can't stand to watch more than two minutes of it at a time and I have to take a break.
It's painfully apparent that someone spent time selecting fresh, local ingredients and dumped them all in a pot with some cheap ramen noodles. Despite all of the nostalgia I have for Pauley Perrette, her acting style doesn't fit with the rest of the show, which makes the one dimensional characters and canned laughter that much more obvious. The other actors are similar in that they're far superior to the roles they're given. The strong acting pulls at the weak seams of the plot and writing. The producers should have changed the recipe or changed the ingredients. But why spend all that effort polishing ? This show isn't really worth careful attention. I mean, Batman & Robin was better than this.
I'd hoped that there could be at least a modicum of subtlety in the jokes and punchlines. But no. This show is the Chef Boyardee of comedy. Bland, dated sitcom humor sauce spotted with chunks of decent one-liner delivery by skilled actors blackmailed into mediocre roles. You know exactly what's coming out of this can. But are you sure that you really want to eat it?
Literally the best thing would be for them to throw away all of the script and footage and redo it from scratch. Or maybe go meta by making it a show about being forced to act in a terrible show. That's not likely to happen, though. It's clearly the brainchild of somebody with some serious nepotism and a cocaine addiction. So unfortunately it's going to keep airing and tanking careers.
MacGyver: War Room + Ship (2017)
Bittersweet character development
Feelings, decisions, determination. This episode fleshes out multiple characters beyond the archetypes. We don't all grow the same way or at the same time. In a show full of perfect, timely improvisation, sometimes there's not a perfect answer.