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Reviews
Fern Brady: Autistic Bikini Queen (2024)
Nearly unlistenable
The entire internet is just one big circle-j of people pretending. Pretending they like certain things because they think it'll make them look like a good person.
Despite other rave reviews, I just did not enjoy any part of this standup routine. She leans into her accent in a very exaggerated way and it goes from grating to obnoxious. I know it's a fad among people with simple senses of humor to think "funny accent ha haha" but it's done so over-the-top it's the only thing I was paying attention to.
If I had been in the audience, I would've left. Standup is a hard job to do so 3 stars for making the effort, if nothing else. But this wasn't in any way funny or enjoyable to listen to.
Saturday Night Live: Ryan Gosling/Chris Stapleton (2024)
Mostly bad
The deluge of guest stars tells me that this show doesn't suffer from a lack of talent on a weekly basis, it suffers (heavily) from poor writing. Bottom line, the jokes are mostly just not funny. Bland. Safe.
Take this week's opener. Giving "high school jock who realizes her best days are behind her" vibes, Kate McKinnon pops by for yet another take on the alien abducted lesbian. Every version of this skit is identical. Woman gives "funny" names for her vagina and butt. That's the whole bit. As a side note, this is Kate's 3rd or 4th visit this season. Why did she even bother to leave?
The rest of the episode consisted of a lot of "breaking". Let me let you in on a little SNL secret: The breaking is on purpose. Jimmy Fallon had an old trick that if a skit was bombing, "fake break" to make it better. This entire episode was just break after break. One skit it made sense, the rest it just grew very tired and stale quickly the more it happened.
Loren Michaels just does not trust this new cast. So much airtime is given to guest stars, like he doesn't trust his own cast to be able to do the job well. Watch the goodnight part and you'll see them in the far rear, waving like "Hey remember us...the cast?"
Jenny Slate: Seasoned Professional (2024)
Like, this was difficult
I will preface this review by stating I think Jenny Slate can be a very funny comedic actress. I've enjoyed watching her in a number of film and tv bits, including her time on SNL.
That having been said, there is something fundamentally wrong with her delivery as a standup comic, at least in this particular special. "Like, like, like" every 3-5 seconds. It was really hard to sit through.
I think she needs to listen to her own set from an audience perspective, maybe just the audio. This is not a joke nor an exaggeration, she says "like" 604 times in this special. Almost 8% of the words she said out loud during this routine was "like", that one word.
I don't think I need to say anything more about this special than that. I know some people use like as a crutch, but this was so overdone it was nearly impossible for me to hear anything else she said.
On the Line (2022)
Oh so THAT'S why it's a Netflix film
This film starts out decently enough. If you're a fan of trashy thrillers the "shock jock who tangles with.a crazy caller" is sort of an old troupe found in cheesy movies from the late 80's / early 90's.
But when executed well this style of film can be quite entertaining. When it's executed well. This was not one of those films.
Again, the premise was fine, but the execution left a lot to be desired.
For one thing, having a movie with twist after twist gets tiresome from an audience perspective. Around the 3rd twist people stop caring. I know I did.
But then at the very end this film just falls completely apart by committing the ultimate mortal sin of cinema: not mattering. Absolutely nothing that happens in this film ends up mattering, it's a complete waste of the audience's time.
I know Mel Gibson hasn't been mainstream successful in a long time, and he's a trash human being, but at least his films usually have a purpose. This one doesn't. Avoid, it ls a complete waste of your time. I promise.
Mike Epps: Ready to Sell Out (2024)
Not funny
Mike Epps delivered a standup routine like a time warp from the 1990's.
It's just him lazily standing around complaining about things. I learned a few things from his routine though: He's racist. He's sexist. He's anti-LGBTQ without even trying to be.
Standup routines where some hack stands around and brags about his own bad habits is just a painful thing to watch in 2024. I can't remember a single joke from this because I'm not sure what even qualified as a joke or humor to begin with.
Did you know Mike Epps does cocaine? Ha. Ha.
The worst part of this show though was hearing Mike complain about the gig itself, that he only even does this anymore because he needs money.
Netflix should've paid 10 young hungry comics each 1/10th what they paid Mike for this and I guarantee you what they would've created would've been much better quality wise.
Mean Girls (2024)
Really hard to watch
In this review I am comparing it a lot to the 2004 original, which I think is apt because this film begs the question, "Does this actually need to exist?" (Other than to make Tina Fey some cash), and I have got to say, after having actually seen the film, my answer is "absolutely not".
The cast is so underwhelming compared to the original. Any of the original actors in the core mean girls group are just head and shoulders above the new cast, in talent and in every other regards.
The musical aspect was a good idea to hide in the trailer, because in the actual film itself it just does not work. The musical numbers are nearly constant and begin awkwardly every single time they happen.
Fun fact: adjusted for inflation the original made $212 million in 2024 dollars, about double what the 2024 film took in.
I really wish this film had made zero dollars. Pointless cash grab that added nothing. Stop giving Tina Fey your money.
Not Dead Yet: Not Owning It Yet (2024)
Still spinning its wheels
I want to like this show. Truly.
It's got a talented cast of actors. I find it somewhat humorous that Brad Garrett has joined the cast. Between Lauren Ashe, Nico Santos, and others, it's become this castaway show of actors from previous sitcoms.
But that's not the problem.
The problem I'm finding with this show is that it's mostly no stakes and the plot is usually somewhat boring.
The protagonist can speak to the dead but it's played off now like it's a bad allergy she has to deal with.
So many interesting things could be done with the focal point of the entire show but they just refuse to do anything with it.
For example, in this episode the "conflict" is that the rich clueless paper owner has to deal with her even more clueless rich father. Yawn.
The show itself has a good concept and good actors, I just wish it wouldn't throw all of that aside to be a boring plain "sitcom" in so many of its storylines.
Kevin James: Irregardless (2024)
Heard it all before
Did you know...Boomers don't like video games? That they like beating their kids? I've NEVER heard that before!
Oh wait! My bad, I've heard the exact same material from literally every boomer-aged comedian. In their minds, the world would just be such a better place if we just hit our kids. Come on guys, it's not child abuse. Whipping people who can't defend themselves is how we achieve world peace!
Kevin James needs TV editing. He's not a comedian, not a good standup one anyway. He's a comedic actor. Huge difference.
This entire act was so lazy and boring. Complaining about VR headsets cuz it's a video game! Kevin really knows what America is talking about.
I hope you sense the sarcasm. Low effort boomer humor garbage.
Saturday Night Live: Ayo Edebiri/Jennifer Lopez (2024)
How can you think that?
I sometimes wonder if my tastes diverge a lot from the mainstream, and tonight's episode of SNL in many ways confirms that to me. Not that it's a bad thing.
I have heard some high praise for this episode on Reddit, and maybe that's a small echo chamber but wow does it surprise me.
IMO this was easily the worst episode of the season. After watching her in "Bottoms" and seeing the same style of humor on display here, I can say confidently that I do not enjoy Ayo's style of comedy. She overacts in the extreme. There is absolutely nothing subtle about anything she does.
The voice is grating and hard to listen to. Just. Awful. On so many levels. How on Earth do people think she's some kind of comedic genius? Incredibly unfunny episode.
Jacqueline Novak: Get on Your Knees (2024)
Slow moving and not funny
The main purpose of standup should be to get laughs..right?
In that sense this special wasn't successful. I didn't laugh a single time. I'm guessing the audience laughter came from some sunk-cost fallacy mindset on their part.
Okay, so it wasn't funny. Well maybe I could look at this more as a "one woman show" than a standup special. Maybe she'd have interesting things to say?
Turns out, no. Her act is the same sex-obsessed act that a lot of heterosexual women comedians tend to focus on, she just does it in a very long winded pretentious way.
She also has this knack for pacing on the stage, and combine that with her whiny sing-songy voice and I was just "no thanks" on this one.
Imagine the most boring person you've ever met trying to be sexy, and it'll give you some idea what watching this was like.
I will never watch another standup act by this person. No way.
Ted (2024)
Not particularly good; is this really 1993?
Sometimes in a series the setting is its own character, like NYC in Friends or Seinfeld. Or the time in which it takes place, like the 1960's being integral to plot of The Brady Bunch or Wonder Years.
For starters, I will say that I really enjoyed the "Ted" films, that style of "crude" humor doesn't really bother me at all, and I thought the films had smart, funny writing.
The jokes in the "Ted" tv series are a little more flat than the films. I don't really think cuss words are that funny, and sometimes the jokes literally are "dad says cuss word", "doll says cuss word", "sister says cuss word".
But the somewhat bland writing isn't really what bothers me about this content, it's that nothing really feels like the early 90's in this show. Imagine you took someone who learned about "the 90's" from Tik-Tok, and then told them to write a series based on what they learned. You'd probably get something like this series.
"Blaire", the sister, looks like a modern hippy with a 90's esthetic, although the blonde girl who had the joint is far worse. No girls in 1993 were referring to guys as "Bro", and I can't say I ever saw any person look like her back then. Was it not possible to find a 20-something year old who didn't use massive lip fillers to play that role, or is she Seth's flavor-of-the-month?
This is a minor qualm, but another thing that feels inauthentic about this series is that some of the "social ethical" conversations don't ring true for 1993-suburbia. Those conversations wouldn't even happen.
Bottom line though, the worst offense this series makes is that the premise of the "Ted" series is essentially exactly the same as the film, "Guy deals with foul bear shenanigans". It covers no new ground and probably doesn't need to exist.
Raid the Cage (2023)
Incredibly boring and repetitive
I'm easy to please when it comes to game shows, so if I take the time to actually review one it's probably because it's very good or very bad.
Let's put "Raid the Cage" into the "very bad" category.
First of all, the host is clearly just collecting a paycheck. He says "Raid the Cage" like he's just trying to get the words out as fast as possible, and the "other" host has the attitude of a Disneyland performer. Everything is just wonderful and exciting for her at all times in a very fake delivery.
The gameplay itself and what you can win is where this show really loses steam, however.
The game, answering trivia questions to build time to run into an arena to grab prizes, is very repetitive. Every round is exactly the same with slightly altered elements.
The contestants, flat out, aren't given enough time to grab much of value, and are so paranoid about running out of time that not much truly valuable stuff is ever won. Who wants random iPads and weird jewelry?
I don't enjoy game shows with absolutely no cash prizes. All you can win in this game is "stuff". Never cash. This is a first for me. "Shop Til you Drop", "Saie of the Century", and "The Price is Right" are all also prize gameshows, but at least you can also win money on them.
I think this is the first gameshow I've ever watched where if I was offered a chance to be on it I'd just turn them down. No thanks.
Foe (2023)
Bad. What happened to her career?
It's dull. Really dull. I kid you not most of the plot involves people crying and wincing in pain as they stare longingly out across the plains.
Seriously, what the heck happened to Saoirse Ronan's career? This film came out only 6 years after Lady Bird. She's not even 30 and it feels like it has passed her by with this film. Probably needs to fire her agent. She does a serviceable job in this film (I did notice her very Irish accent a few times), but the plot leaves no room for the actors to do much of anything, so no real fault on their part.
This is a very low budget sci-fi film, so things like the fact that it's supposed to take place in the Midwest USA but is actually Australia took me out of it some. There are absolutely no special effects or any real evidence of this taking place in the future, other than one random shot of a CGI space station.
I'm so incredibly happy I didn't pay anything to watch this, but even free I don't think it was worth the time I spent on it.
The Equalizer 3 (2023)
No stakes turn your brain off action
I'll start off by saying I loved the first film in this series. I thought the 2nd film was "okay". The 3rd film, well...it has a great shooting location, I'll say that much.
When crafting any story a basic requirement is some level of tension. An actor can be an absolutely amazing one like Denzel Washington, but if your script gives you nothing there's not much you can do with it.
This film lacks ANY tension. The outcome is a foregone conclusion. The protagonist has, slowly, between each film, become more and more a "John Wick" level killing machine but his opponents in this film are about as tough as your average street thugs.
There is never any moment when you think Denzel's character could lose. The final shoot out is a non event.
The film pads its length considerably by adding in a pointless subplot to reunite Denzel Washington with Dakota Fanning. Fanning, playing the least believable CIA / NSA (?) operative in cinema history, exists in this film to be this weird nepotism favor Denzel gets involved with part way into the film, but her true purpose is to make a short-ish plot light film somewhat higher stakes.
This was a big disappointment from previous Equalizer films. Go watch it for the scenery and nothing else.
What If...?: What If... Strange Supreme Intervened? (2023)
"What If" we cared about these stories
I think "What If" is the absolute best example of how the "downfall" of the Marvel franchise has happened. It's not racism, hating of genders, or political ideology. It's just bad writing.
"What if" is an anthology show. Apparently the powers that be at Marvel have forgotten that or they are just so obsessed with interconnected stories due to the whole "multiverse" angle that they feel an overwhelming compulsion to connect absolutely everything.
This series could be so good. Viewers have no idea what they are missing. The comic series had such strange and insane ideas, and all that potential goes to waste in season 2 of "What If".
I just don't particularly care about Captain Carter. It was an okay idea in season 1, but in an anthology series where you can literally do ANY story, for some reason they just keep going back to the same one.
"What if Thanos was right? ", "What if Red Skull won?", "What if the other half got snapped?". Just a few ideas.
But no, we get "what if. Nebula was a cop?" Like, really? How pathetic.
Marvel, you will wither and die if you don't hire competent writers. Perhaps it's already too late.
What Happens Later (2023)
Weird; almost no one in this film actually exists
There are a lot of reasons to rate this film poorly, like the absolute absence of chemistry between the lead characters, the fact that there are no scenes changes during the film, at all, and just the general lazy tone of the screenplay, but my biggest issue with this film is that no one actually exists outside of the main characters, and I don't just mean that metaphorically.
About 1/3 of the way into this film I noticed background characters were acting...strangely, and that it was odd that the 2 leads never physically interacted with anyone except each other, and then it dawned on me...no one else in this film is actually real.
All the people besides the leads are CGI AI characters. Just ignore the film for a moment as you watch and look at what the background people are doing. There's an older woman with long grey hair just walking in circles holding her luggage, and many more examples of this.
I get.that the film producers wanted to make this movie on the cheap, but using AI standins for background characters is a disturbing trend that makes me not take this film seriously.
And the story itself is a dull bore.
Carol & The End of the World (2023)
Thinks it is very deep, is actually extremely boring
I watched it all. The whole thing, because I wanted to be fair in my summation of it.
This series is not in any way enjoyable to watch. It wants to be deep, it REALLY wants to be thought provoking, but the Netflix format just gives it too much room to wander, and this results in the story itself drowning under its own weight.
The series starts very quickly establishing that the world is ending due to an incoming comet, and everyone has basically stopped living their regular lives in an attempt to hedonistically ride out the end. Well...most people, some like our protagonist Carol decide they want to spend the end working to give their aimless lives purpose, and that's where the writing on this series started to lose me.
There are a lot of crazy things people would do with 7 months left to live in the world, but going back to a M-F 9-5 job is not one of them.
There's this weird Animal Farm / cringey "The Onion"dystopian idea by the writer of this show that regular people would just go insane if they couldn't work, but let me tell you, that's just not reality. Not in this scenario.
Speaking of inconsistent writing, at various intervals it's obvious society has broken down and public transportation is gone, yet somehow people are still flying and taking trips. Who is flying these planes? Who is handling the luggage? Who is feeding these people?
The military seems to be the only functioning government body, yet also not, at the same time. The world building is either wildly inconsistent or carelessly discarded.
Carol, the protagonist, is meant to be this audience view of the world, but she's so hopelessly unlikeable. Being a neurotic depressed individual while the world is also ending was already handled by the film "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World" and it was done with more interesting writing in much less time.
Seeing that Carol is so boring, the series attempts to branch out into other characters later in the show, but I didn't like any of those, either. This series feels like one of those late-night Adult Swim "deep thoughts" cartoons that were 10 minutes long. Too bad these were a half hour, getting through almost every one was a huge slog.
I say "almost every one" because the episode where Carol reunites with her sister was pretty decent, I don't know why they didn't stick with that mindset throughout the whole show. By episode 8 when the Somali pirates hijacked the nude cruise (yes this happened) I was about ready to call it quits, yet I soldiered on.
The series itself is also incredibly crudely drawn. When is it "okay" to say animation isn't a style choice, that it's actually bad? Because this one, was bad. All the naked wrinkly people just looked absurd, too, btw. Was that supposed to be funny?
The worst part is that in the end this series is just a bunch of painful stilted dialogue and staring, but is also somehow incredibly pretentious and preachy at the same time (Carol teaches us all that if you just learn people's names, "everything is gonna be okay", barf).
You ever want to watch animated characters just stare at each other? Then this one's for you.
Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)
Very poor writing
Do general audiences just not have brains anymore? The audience score for this film is either artificially inflated or people just don't demand absolutely anything from films they watch now.
The literal second the blonde cop shows up, I looked at my partner and stated "oh! The love interest is here!"
Everything about this film is telegraphed a mile away. There is an attempt to build a sense of dread but the film shows its hand almost immediately. The video game this is based on does so much better of a job building a sense of dread.
Once you see the the animatronics in full CGI glory it's over. All tension, all scariness. All the air goes out of the room and I'm like "Ah, cartoons. So Scary!"
It's also obvious immediately that the ghost kids want the little girl. That the thugs the woman hired are going to quickly die. Even the cop being the villain's daughter, the big reveal, was not in any way surprising or shocking.
Mr Blum, this film could've been so much better with better writing. I'm available. Lol.
Starfield (2023)
Exciting at times, vast scale, and mostly incomplete
Starfield is the first RPG game I've played to completion in years, so the fact that it engaged me that much says something for it. This review is detailed, so thank you to any who actually take the time to read it all. To fully explain my rating this review contains some spoilers.
The Good:
-Although not easy to get used to from other space flight simulators, once I got the hang of space flight and combat it was very fun. I wish way more of the game took place in space (see below).
-Ground combat is also fun. There are a lot of weapons, weapon modding is cool, and the guns do what you expect them too. I enjoy combat in this game much more than all previous Bethesda games, easily the biggest win over Skyrim and others (although I miss the unique joy of VATS from Fallout 3).
-An impressive amount of voice dialogue and the acting is great.
-The Skill system is a carryover from previous Bethesda games although it's larger. More specialization available but kind of grindy.
-Once you get the hang of it ship customization is fun and being able to walk around and explore your own ships is just a great thing to do in this game.
-Parts of this game look amazing. Almost photorealistic. The best looking Bethesda game from a purely realism standpoint.
-New Game + (NG+) is handled by the main quest in an original way, and makes narrative sense in the storyline. The first Bethesda game to have a legitimated "explanation" for NG+.
-The music is great. Not varied, but it's pretty great in certain parts of the story. You'll feel like a bada** when you level up.
The not-so-great
-Ship building is fun but the game in vanilla form imposes lots of restrictions on what you can do early on. You won't make that ship you love until you are well into the game. There are also learn pains in building. Expect to spend a lot of time here, not all of it fun.
-Character facial animations are uncanny valley. Just not right.
-They got rid of gore. Boo! When you finish a hideout infiltration it feels like you just left a big slumber party because everyone is so sleepy. D'aww. This game didn't need to go to Fallout or Oblivion extremes but it's so so tame for a "Mature" rated game. It's "barely" MA. Space drugs are why it's MA. Lame.
The Bad
-The worst thing about Starfield by a country mile are the repeating points of interest. There are over 1000 planets you can lend on, but there are only 4-6 major city locations spread over all the systems, some minor city-ish locations, and then there's a set of 30-50 handcrafted points of interest used for enemy hideouts. That."30-50" figure is me being optimistic by the way.
Any time you land on one of those 1000 planets, you'll have the option on most to walk 300-1000 M (meters?) to one of those 30-50 locations . Where you'll encounter a repeating set of enemies, loot, and location lore.
"Wait...aren't planets big? If they are going for realism, wouldn't only having 30-50 points of interest (poi) for each entire planet mean that there's the potential for a lot of repetition?"
Yes.
About 1/3 of your way into the main story your game will really open up and allow you to explore. When this happens you can go on a lot of bounty hunter style quests, and that's where you'll begin to realize the repetitive nature of those places.
I can't oversell how repetitive it gets. You find the same enemies and lore bits in every single hideout of the same layout. Luckily there are other things to do besides loot hunting, but the game needs to fundamentally change how it handles hideouts.
-The story is very uneven at times. There are bits of incredibly engaging story, and a lot of meh or so-so. Too few dialogue options, and the final outcome to each quest only has limited variety, and only in 2 of the faction quest lines. True choice is somewhat an illusion in this game.
-The main quest involves "Multiverse" stuff and that's so Marvel 2019, I'm sort of over that sci-fi troupe. Here we are again. The storytelling feels lazy compared to Skyrim or Fallout, especially the main quest line.
-Way too many faction quests involve "take item or note to another person". There is nothing that happens along the way. You just go there. And since you can fast travel basically everywhere you can usually, after a load screen, just immediately arrive at your destination/delivery location, giving you the impression no time passed at all and you completed the quest in seconds,
-Some quests, too many, can be completed literally in seconds, especially once you know where you are going.
-No city maps. It's almost like Bethesda knew the story was too short so they introduced. / excluded game mechanics just to make the game take longer to complete. For example, getting lost is very possible, especially early on going. Cities are not easy to navigate, dungeons and mines far worse. I hated how a Series X gen game could launch so unfinished to not include an overhead map option or true world map, the ground world map is laughably bad. You use it for fast travel icons only, nothing else.
-Speaking of fast travel, it's way too much of what you do in this game, Almost no travel is seamless. Typical travel in this game, this is 100% real: In New Atlantis, a city walking around, I decide to "travel" to an outpost on the other side of the galaxy. Load game menu, star map, fast travel to my ship, load menu, star map, fast travel to the outpost, load menu, I'm there. There "was" travel to my ship, travel into orbit, warping to other system, system travel to planet orbit, land at outpost, get out of ship, but all of that just became 2 menu loads and 2 loading screens.
-Complete lack of ship travel planet to planet.
-Many other systems that feel very incomplete. Unique ship habitats that have no purpose. Ability to assign companions to outposts who do absolutely nothing. Many instances of fast travel, but you fast travel to just outside the location you wanted to go to, rather than just in it, forcing you to endure yet another load screen. For example, traveling to your main outpost early in the game is 2 load screens for absolutely no reason.
-Load screens! The game loads very fast on Xbox X and about the same on a good PC but there are so many load screens between areas and common places you travel to. But which location has a load screen and which does not is weirdly arbitrary. It really feels like a game engine on its last legs. The worst was a big space battle that included 4 load screens in the middle of it,
Is this game worth buying? Sure. But it feels like 60% of a game.
Secret Chef (2023)
An interesting character study into the dangers of spite
I'll say upfront my rating of "4" overall for the series as a whole is due to the incredibly annoying voice host and some of the repetitive sound effects.
It's not a cartoon, it's a real voice actor behind a cartoonish character. I don't have a problem with that per se. But unfortunately it's just played out in a slightly too childish way. Either it needs to be removed entirely or made much stranger. And that alarm sound when the conveyor belt moves plays way too often. It's terrible.
But the headline of this review, isn't so much about my rating, it's my own personal commentary on the finale (and this outcome did not affect my overall rating, it's just an observation).
It's interesting to me how the finale was structured the game intentionally or unintentionally subverted the expectations of the players themselves.
Lanky, the eventual winner, was the only player in this game who wasn't self editing his reviews, he was willing to be "mean", and by the end of the game clearly the other players wanted Leon to win.
I think off-the-screen discussions were made between the ex-contestants (the finale judges) at the finale, that they were going to discern which dishes were made by Leon, and vote him the winner. I believe this decision was made before the dishes were even judged.
Ultimately, due to his "meanness" in his voting, Lanky drew the ire of the other contestants so much so they decided to vote Leon the winner by default. The only problem with this strategy was that they guessed the wrong player.
Ironically, if the ex-contestants had voted based on the merit of the dishes alone, Leon, their preferred winner, would have won, because he actually made the better dishes, but the spite of the judges caused them to vote emotionally, causing the opposite result that they had intended.
It's a kind of garbage show, but the finale did contain a Poe-ish twist of irony. So there's that.
Killing It: Timber (2023)
A terrible finale
I really, really hope this series gets a season 3. I say that because I'm honestly a fan after watching all of season 1 and 2, but they better not let the entire story end like they did after the season 2 finale.
TV content has gotten so dicey in the age of streaming, you never know when making any series if it'll end or get renewed, so as a writer you have to self-contain each season enough that you'll have a satisfying conclusion if the series isn't renewed, or else your show gets to end on a real down note.
Case in point, the finale of season 2 of Killing It.
It may or may not be renewed for a season 3, and if it does not get renewed....what the heck did I just watch? Is this supposed to be seen as an edgy hard look at American greed, or is it just an incomplete story?
If this "was" the end of it all, Craig Robinson's character "wins" by...betraying all his friends?
Again, I'm assuming it's playing out so Craig learns some better lessons in life in season 3...but if there is no season 3, then this show was just a terrible waste of my time.
"So, you just didn't like how it ended, so that makes it BAD?" You ask. No, that's not why I'm rating it poorly.
I'm rating it poorly because "how" it got to its finale was only accomplished through incredibly contrived dumb coincidences that just kept happening throughout this series, but really went overboard in the end.
This series should've been titled "Craig Robinson's A Series of Unfortunate Events" because that's what it literally was. Over and over again. The man has worse luck than any human on the planet.
But at the end...how the heck do you miss the gigantic snails on the very top of the berries? Why were they there, suddenly? Why was Jillian just over-the-top conscientious at the very end of the story? Oh! To cause a very contrived falling out with Craig at the very end.
I don't mind "bad" endings. I mind shows heaving bad luck on people relentlessly in order to give us contrived endings.
(It reminds me of an episode of "Married, With Children." I loved that show as a kid. But around season 4 or 5 the Bundys win the lottery and use the fortune to buy enough lottery tickets to win "even more." Of course they lost, it was just a super contrived way for them to lose a fortune instantly. But it was a bridge too far for me as a kid, it was just "too dumb" so I stopped caring about the show afterwards. The giant snails was the "Bundy" moment for me and "Killing It".)
Worst Cooks in America: Fiery First Date (2023)
Fake show getting more fake
I know probably no one even cares enough about this show anymore to look up any reviews for it, but in case there is ANYONE watching this still, this one's for you.
This show follows a very specific formula that is nearly identical every season, which tells me by itself that it is scripted.
But the contestants this season in particular just screams FAKE! Every single contestant this season lists their job as actor or content creator. If you were casting a show with people good on camera, that's who you'd pick. I guarantee the audition process for this show now consists of production assistants scouring Tik Tok videos.
The audition tapes themselves are so fake looking as well. Obviously people play up how bad they are to seem more outrageous, because that's more entertaining in the eyes of producers. The ones who act terrible on camera are cast because they are the best actors, not because they are the worst cooks.
The first round no contestants get cut, so producers tell the contestants behind the scenes to make disgusting food on purpose. People get cut on this show for being boring, not for being bad cooks.
Here's a trick that Worst Cook producers do at the beginning of every season: The "outrageous" dishes the contestants make in round one serve the purpose of ensuring that the audience thinks all these cooks truly are terrible, and when they later prepare food properly under the guidance of the professional chefs it serves the purpose of making the professionals look like geniuses who magically turned these people around.
Everything about this series is designed to make the contestants look clueless and the professionals look like gods. Neither thing is actually true.
Oh and I didn't really mention the "dating" premise of this season because it's just as fake as everything else is. It has no purpose and nothing will come of it.
Secret Invasion: Home (2023)
Marvel has a problem worse than superhero fatigue
Let's call it, "superhero disinterest", never in my life have I seen a Marvel series where the majority opinion online seems to be..."who cares?" Worse than fatigue, these series are making people actively dislike Marvel content more.
This series would've been better off just not existing. Pretend like nothing that happened actually happened and I bet 80% of the audience would be okay with that.
Gravik was just the most boring and pointless dude. His showdown match I just did not care about. CGI vomit.
But yeah, after another episode of mostly talking, I'd say it's pretty obvious 95% of this budget went to bloated salaries, because it looked awful. Grey, dull, lifeless.
The worst part though has to be the low stakes world-impacting nature of this whole series. So much happening and it's all so "important" but none of it mattering, you could easily skip this entire series and it will have no impact on your ability to follow Marvel going forward.
Skip it.
Platonic: When Will Met Sylvia (2023)
Missed opportunities
This was a decent series with a disappointing finale.
Well acted, well shot, but ultimately doesn't really say anything.
What was the point of this? They were childhood friends, then not, then friends again. Nothing of actual consequence happens in this episode.
They saw a UFO. Was that really the "climax"? They saw a UFO.
That would be a fine occurrence in episode 2 or 3 of a 10 episode series, but this was the finale. Something should have happened to justify this journey.
Oh, the main guy makes another poor romantic choice (dating his own boss), and so we've come full circle. Was that the point? That nothing changed?
This was a decent series that just completely falls flat on its face in the finale. There needs to be some tension, some resolution, beyond the "well that was fun!" That we got. Because that's nothing.
....If they actually wanted a season 2 Sylvia should've just kissed Will right at the end. Out of nowhere. Fade to black and credits. Give me a reason to keep watching.
You Hurt My Feelings (2023)
Nothing actually happened
In every good film or at least entertaining film there is that moment where you understand why the film was made. This film doesn't have one of those moments.
There are zero stakes. Zilch. Even though the lead may get upset by her husband, at no point is there ever any indication their relationship would actually be threatened. The "stakes" are dirty looks and hurt feelings.
To give an example of how "not important" almost any scene in this film is, there is a sequence where the protagonist and her mother visit a doctor. Things happen and things are said that would ring as a typical scenario for this type of sequence, yet it has absolutely nothing to do with the main plot, and then the film just sort of shambles onto the next scene. No clear explanation as to why it happened. Just filler I guess?
That's what this film is though, the plot itself would be filler in other more interesting content.
I know films and tv aren't what they used to be, but could we get...you know, a point to them existing at all?