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niles-warren
Reviews
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (2016)
A Comedic & SF Triumph
Season one: Samuel Barnett (Dirk Gently) is a genius comedic actor, Max Landis is proving to be to be a great comedic screenwriter - and their combined talents pull together Douglas Adams' amazing books into the funniest wittiest thing I've experienced this decade - or this century, for that matter. Great job by other cast members too, but wow. Out of the park amazing job, Samuel Barnett.
Season 2: Very entertaining - very unique and funny I still rate it 10, but by comparison on the same scale season one should be a 13 or 14.
NTSF:SD:SUV (2011)
Funny Stupid Wonderful
Great actors and comedians clowning around. The writers are brilliantly funny and amazingly talented and probably working full-time for other series but having a lot more fun getting together and writing this one. And nailing it. Probably only care that they're cracking each other up and not going for the lowest common denominator in the audience. They're going for the lowest common denominator in the writing room room and I love it. A lot of high-profile big budget comedies try harder and screw it up (Avenue five being a prime example).
Avenue 5 (2020)
Suddenly improves on episode 3
Gets much better starting episode 3. Becomes actually funny. I change my rating from a three (very generous based on the first two episodes) to a seven (stingy based on a much improved writing in episodes three and four). I hope it continues to improve, because I really like the premise and it has so much potential (and the set and production value is phenomenal).
Aside: I like Josh Gad in general. That said, one of the biggest problems is that Josh Gad's character (Herman Judd) is to unlikable and unfunny (and silly and cliché ridden and poorly written). That he's unlikeable and clueless appears to be a deliberate choice on the part of the shows creators and writers (and hair, make up and costuming). It's as if they were trying to create a character like Basil from "Fawlty Towers" or Michel Scott from either version of "The Office." But it doesn't work, because Basil and Michel WERE likable and funny, and Gad's portrayal of the clueless Billionaire owner Judd lacks the magic of a John Cleese, Ricky Gervais, or a Steve Carell (and, again, the character is written so poorly). But by episode three, the other characters and actors and plot reveals suddenly becomes funny enough to tip the scales and make it a good show, and you are able to just ignore the poorly written and poorly portrayed character of Herman Judd.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
Kramer vs. Kramer vs. Godzilla
In the comment tracks the director joked that he was making "Kramer versus Kramer versus Godzilla." He's not wrong. Great special effects and there's some clever ideas if you can wade through the boredom to get to them. But the family relationship subplots r a fail. I found watching the movie's astounding visuals with the comment track playing to be more enjoyable than watching with the actual movie dialogue. The directors ideas were better than the film :-/
The Grinch (2018)
Great animation and design - but misses the mark
Ruined the "you're a mean one mr grinch" song. And Cumberbatch should've done his Famous Alan Rickman impersonation For the Grinch, and /or the narration, to come even close to the wonderful affect of Boris Karloff's narration in the original. And I don't remember them actually singing Christmas carols in the original. They sang Suessesque holiday sounding songs. The whole point of the original was to cause you to take a fresh look at winter celebrations and their meaning-the spirit of Christmas and Hanukkah and all the winter gift giving traditions.
Hellboy (2019)
UUuuGh. I was hoping for so much & got this
When you have the creative genius of Guillermo Del Toro alive today, why this? If Michelangelo were alive today, would you pass over him to have a second ceiling airbrushed by a merely competent contractor? Instead of the third installment, featuring Perlman who might as well have been "genetically engineered to play the role" and the astounding genius of Guillermo Del Toro at the helm, we have this mediocrity. It would be barely passable in this day and age as a television episode. Each and every episode of HBO's " Watchmen " surpasses this. This film isn't just bad. It's emblematic of something wrong with society. We don't value what we have, even when it's amazing. How could we turn aside Del Toro's and Pearlman's vision for this?
The Mandalorian: Chapter 4: Sanctuary (2019)
Beautiful opening scene, scary AT-ST action, nice world development.
Gets a lower rating than previous episodes, but it's still great. Astonishingly beautiful opening sequence with the harvest of the blue shrimp. Beautiful villager costumes (possibly the blue dye used by villagers is derived from the shrimp?). We get a glimpse of one of the worlds that the rebellion was fighting for. The Mercenaries harken back to canonical Star Wars anthropomorphic animal characters. The menacing AT-ST (all Terrain Scout Transport) is scary like a Jurassic Park bipedal dinosaur. Some of the negative reviews carry elements of truth like the reviewer who called this "The best episode of Stargate SG1" he's ever seen LOL. Disparaging comparisons to Xena warrior Princess abound. All funny and not untrue, but this is a nice piece of character development and shows that Mando at least tried to hunker down and hide peacefully with baby Yoda. Yes, the Mandalorian had a spaceship and he could've just blasted the AT-ST from space, but I think the idea was that he transformed the villagers, and the villagers transformed him. He's not the same Mandalorian he used to be. He changed when he saved baby Yoda, and he's changing still. I think they also wanted to add some context to baby yoda's isolation from being on the run - The normality he's giving up.
Lost 2 stars because it was too much of a diversion & too many plot holes. Yes, let's face it - plot holes are part of Star Wars. Still, it didn't quite seem to fit the traditional Star Wars movies as well as the first 3 episodes did - more of a clone wars episode, but W/ less forward plot momentum - so it loses points only by comparison to the first three episodes.
No Activity (2017)
I watched season three first it's hilarious
If season one seems too slow for you, just start with season three. It's faster paced and you don't really need the set up from seasons one and two. But it's so funny I bet you'll go back and watch season one and two after that, and you'll gobble it up because you've acclimated to the style watching season three. Personally I started watching a little of the first season and decided to put a pin in it and maybe watch it later when I was in the mood. It was slow burn funny but I didn't get drawn it right away. Like other negative reviews, I was a little put off by the slow pace. Went back to it and accidentally started watching season three and it was hilarious. Binged watched it to the end. Pacing is great and the jokes are spot on. It was SO GOOD I decided to go back to the beginning. Glad I did. First season is not as fast paced as the third season, and is and not afraid to grind to a halt to build a slow burn joke, but now I get it it. I'm so in love with the cast and humor from season three that I eagerly watched season one and I'm looking forward to watching season two.
Babylon Berlin (2017)
Rewatch with no dubbing
Really enjoyed this series, except the dubbing into English just doesn't match the high quality of the original. I don't speak a word of German, so I first began watching it dubbed into English. It was a good story, and engrossing, and visually exciting, but the dubbed dialogue didn't really capture me because it sounded more like a "table read" than acting, and the sound effects in the dubbed version often (but not always) sounded like an old radio show. The dubbing quality was so inconsistent with the astounding visual production value that I decided I must be missing something. So, around episode 12, I started over watching it from the beginning in German and reading the subtitles. Magnificent. Amazing. Definitely worth the effort to read the subtitles. And this suggestion is not coming from a foreign film snob or subtitles fan (the last movie I watched in German, with English subtitles, was "Wings of Desire" 30 years ago).
As a parting thought, I really don't want to criticize the dubbing team - I'm sure they had budget constraints. But this amazing German series should've had more resources provided by Netflix to produce dubbing worthy of the magnificent original content. But still thank you Netflix for bringing it to English speaking audiences.
The Crown: Olding (2019)
Brilliantly addresses new, older cast in first scene.
I miss the old cast, but the new cast is fantastic and this change is much better than piling on the makeup to age the previous one. After just one episode I've easily adjusted to them (again, superb acting & casting). And the first scene of this first episode with the new cast addresses the change in casting/appearance with such sly wit that I have great faith in what the writers and show runners will do with this cast, and where they will take the series.
How to Get Away with Murder (2014)
Enyoyable Law & Fantasy
Enjoyable if you forget reality ... Characters and actions are as unrealistic as if they are vampires and wizards and werewolves, and just as bloody & fun to watch. No spoilers here: none of the characters turn out to be any of the above. Just saying its a law and dissorder fantasy ride in an alternate universe and, if you can accept that, and don't wince at fluid sexuality, it's really enyoyable.