beatlesrock69 Reviews

Flavors of Youth (2018)

Slow but good!

[8/10 · 17 September 2022]

This movie is beautifully animated, has very well written dialogue and a great soundtrack. It's divided in to three stories but there's a big difference in quality between each.

The first story is slow paced, isn't really trying to get anywhere plot wise, but it's an enjoyable exercise in melancholy and hope for new beginnings. The middle story is by far the worst of the three, and in my opinion doesn't belong in the movie at all. It doesn't fit as seamlessly into the theme of youth and nostalgia the other two stories follow, it's quite boring, the dialogue is less well written and the characters aren't interesting, I'd advise you just skip it if you find it's dragging too long. If the second story was the clear loser, then the third is the clear winner. It's incredibly nostalgic, wonderfully animated and scripted, and it could have honestly been its own movie. It was a beautiful way to end things and I'm giving this review an 8 out of 10 primarily because of it.

If I had to give each story a rating it would be: story 1: 7.5 story 2: 6 story 3: 9.

The 100 (2014–2020)

A Disgrace to the Sci-Fi Genre

[4/10 · 25 January 2017]

THIS FIRST PART HAS NO SPOILERS:

The show suffers from one of the largest number of scientific inaccuracies and plot holes that I've ever seen. It's almost like they went out of their way to make the entire thing implausible. It would be bad on its own, but sci-fi more than anything has to try and give sound explanations for its premises. I'll go into detail about this later.

Moving on, the characters are flat and boring. There isn't the slightest hint of character development throughout the show. None of the life changing events the teens go through seem to alter their personality or relationship in the slightest. The show seems to think that sprinkling the occasional sex scene and teen romance here and there compensates for good dialogue and introspection.

The directing is poor at best, but that's quite frequent in mid-range sci-fis so I won't penalize it too much. Suffice it to say it's uninventive, repeating the same exact shots fifty times: hand-held camera, suspenseful music and bad acting.

The whole thing feels like a bad version of a Lost and Walking Dead mashup, with poorly characterized "outsiders" in the form of grounders and a "plot twist of the week" narration format.

Also, what's with this show's complete inability to kill its characters off? Without going into details, time and again major characters come close to death, some times all logic would point to their lack of survival, and yet the show feels compelled to get them to miraculously come back from the shadows. It's childish and condescending to a grown audience, death is a part of life, and thus a part of any show that mirrors it.

The 100 is just a terrible teen romance show cloaked in a sci-fi skin. Then again, this is the network that brought us such gems as The Vampire Diaries, 90210 and Supergirl, what did I expect.

SPOILERS:

Now on to naming some of the most frustrating plot holes, inaccuracies and straight up nonsense in the show:

1) Chancellor Jaha lands on Earth from space in a missile. Yes, a missile. He somehow finds space to crawl inside it, and the missile not only doesn't explode upon impact, or while burning through the atmosphere, but is so unscathed that Jaha is unharmed when he "lands". What?!

2) After the nuclear disaster the world's space stations assemble together like a transformer? That's not how engineering works.

3) Why would air run out on the ark? The show never even bothers explaining how its ENTIRE premise takes place. Surviving in space for that long meant air wasn't finite to begin with, but produced through onboard flora, as the show hints at for literally 3 seconds in one of its episodes, so why is it running out?

4) There's a bridge that connects the grounders' camp to the 100's. Apparently in a forest, the only link between two patches of land probably a few kilometers away, is a bridge. Also, Jasper had no problem getting to the base of the bridge and back up, why couldn't the grounders?

5) Why did the Exodus ship carrying Diana Sydney explode? Once again the show completely glances over incredibly important plot points. This is an event that caused the entire ark to be doomed and we don't know WHY Sydney organized the coup and we don't know how her fate ended, we know NOTHING.

6) OK so apparently the Ark's people can survive on Earth because radiation levels from the sun in space are even higher than those of a post-nuclear war Earth. What a load of drivel.

FIRST, If that were the case then everyone on the Ark would have died just like on the Earth.

SECOND, that's not the case. Being a few thousand kilometers from the Earth's surface doesn't in ANY way increase radiation coming from a sun that's thousands of millions of kilometers away. If it did, we wouldn't send astronauts to the international space station for months at a time.

7) An underground bunker wouldn't stop radiation, what kind of nonsense science is that? Also, the people at Mount Weather use hazmat suits and gas masks to shield themselves from NUCLEAR RADIATION?! I mean, come on. Oh and for some reason they think dialysis will cure "contaminated" individuals of radiation. Radiation doesn't just affect the blood, the entire body is contaminated, dialysis won't do anything, even IF you could remove radiation from the blood.

8) At some point in season 1 some of the 100 hide in a cave to avoid radiation fog, because as we all know radiation can't enter open crevices...

I could go on forever, this show has more nonsense than substance.

Anyway, don't watch this overrated drivel.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015–2019)

The definition of mediocrity

[1/10 · 26 October 2016]

I have never written a bad review, but since everyone keeps commending this show I feel the need to say otherwise.

It looks like a bad mashup of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and some failed SNL musical sketch. The protagonist isn't funny, she's obnoxious; the side characters aren't interesting, they're flat, and the writing may be one of the worst parts of the entire debacle.

I haven't found a single decent joke in the entire show, it's not even funny situations a la Seinfeld, it's just boring, ordinary scenarios with no jokes to fill in the monotony, but rather a lot of over-exaggerated acting and terrible musical breaks.

Don't waste your time with it.

11.22.63 (2016)

Exceeded all Expectations

[10/10 · 26 April 2016]

If you watch one TV show this year, make it this one.

The show is directed like a movie; every frame is wonderfully cast, with great historically accurate settings and costumes.

The acting is top notch; the chemistry between Franco and Gadon (the female lead) is incredibly real. The sad moments are heart breaking, the happy ones elating.

The show isn't realistic of course, there is a time machine in a diner, and everything that ensues is historical speculation, but you have to accept the fact that this is fiction before you start watching. Once you do, it becomes that much better, the entire voyage reads like a fantasy journey instead of a rational sci-fi thriller.

The dialogue and plot are both very well curated, it is based on a Stephen King novel after all, but I think this is a really striking factor. So many times I'll find a show with great directing, great plot, great acting, but mediocre, lazy dialogue, and it completely ruins the experience. Dialogue is the center piece of film, and this show does it best.

The ending, without spoiling anything, is one of the most emotional and well made I have seen on any TV show so far.

Lonely and Horny (2016– )

Todah!

[10/10 · 14 April 2016]

What can I say, they really seized the cheese with this one.

The show is extremely well directed and filmed, professional video work and production.

The jokes are on point, and while they may have changed their character names since their College Humor days, the humor's the same, and every bit as good.

If I had one criticism it would be the episode length. Only seen the first two episodes so far, but 8 minutes is too little, anything in the range of 20-25 would be good.

Hope to see more great content from these coy little divas in the years ahead.

Conan (2010–2021)

Conan King of Late Night

[10/10 · 5 April 2016]

I'll have to open with a simple statement, Conan is the King of Late Night. This is a man who's been on the air for more than two decades, with a career spanning from writing for The Simpsons to hosting the Emmys, twice. The show follows of course the historical talk show format, but that's about the only conventional thing about it.

On TBS I feel Conan's much more free to experiment and to express himself, not always to critical acclaim, but certainly to great amusement, showcasing ridiculous gags and segments that often involve cheap costumes, fake infomercials, and props.

Guests are varied, and unlike The Tonight Show, it's not the usual A-listers with boring stories about their dog or diet. While Conan's historical reputation still attracts movie stars to TBS, guests are usually the more interesting middle tier of actors with stronger followings but less popularity.

While on most talk shows people tune in for the guest, Conan is one of the few programs where I tune in for the host. Many times I won't even know who the person being interviewed is, but Conan's effortless humor makes it worth my while to stick around.

His signature style is foolish and self deprecating, but no part of it is dumb. Conan is silly comedy for non silly people, fighting the American standard of Roasts and fake laughter (Cough, Jimmy) with original, heartfelt jokes that aren't shy of hitting back at the jokester.

One overarching reason I'd give to watch this show, beyond the host's intelligence and humor, is that Conan is a class act. Throughout the years I've seen him pay tribute and homage to many comedians, actors and celebrities, and every single time I believed him. If he mourned the death of a colleague, it was because he cared about it, not because it would bring ratings to the network, and that's especially clear in many instances where he paid tribute to comedy greats who the major talk show hosts couldn't care less about like Sid Caesar or Garry Shandling. When Letterman played his last show, Conan told his viewers to switch to his channel and record his slot for later. He's a man of character, which is very hard to come by in Hollywood.

If I could boil down three reasons to watch this show they'd be its wit, its humor and the lovable Andy Richter.