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Here's the deal with Search Party: The characters are AWFUL people, generally parodies of (younger) millennials. They are selfish as gently caress to an absurd degree, in specific ways depending on the character, each generally obsessed with their own personal journey at the expense of everyone else's. Sometimes you don't really realize how they are doing that until later, but the absurdity of their personalities is what drives the show. If that concept sounds like it has the potential to be funny at all, you owe it to yourself to at least attempt a few episodes of the first season looking at it through that lens. If you liked any of those episodes, you should really try to finish S1. After the first season, you'll know if you want to keep watching. Everyone I know did. punk rebel ecks posted:This is actually selling me on the show after being put off by the painfully mediocre first episode. ...man. precision posted:oh u have no idea lmao It just GOES. edit: BaldDwarfOnPCP posted:It went in a very stupid direction. Glottis fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Jan 22, 2022 |
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Jan 22, 2022 03:48
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I watched the first episode of Station Eleven and immediately thought that I still wasn't over the poo poo show of the current pandemic enough to enjoy a story about another one. But I stuck with it, and it does end up not really being about the pandemic. It's touching, it's surreal at times, and it's a really satisfying web of characters. I recommend it even though it's not a great time for it.
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Jan 23, 2022 06:41
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GonSmithe posted:
Using any of the crowd-sourced objective ranking lists as a an objective way to figure out if one movie is better than another is silly, whether it's IMDB, Metacritic, RT, or anything else. It's not just IMDB's problem. Those sites put out ranked lists to get clicks even though it's basically nonsense when you're talking about something this subjective.
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Jan 25, 2022 21:59
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Field Mousepad posted:I know the black face stuff is terrible but drat the Lethal Weapon episodes were loving hilarious. Luckily they made another one!
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Jan 26, 2022 18:27
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I enjoyed Archive 81 quite a bit. I know nothing about the podcast. It leans you into the weirdness relatively slowly, characters act reasonably, not based in jump scares, a good amount of lore feeds into it, and the plot advances at a consistent pace throughout the show. If you like stuff that's just sorta creepy and supernatural with a bit of a Stranger Things + Ex Machina vibe, but aren't expecting 1000% quality, it's worth watching.
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Jan 27, 2022 18:32
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smackfu posted:I think it was okay but I don’t remember Upload being especially funny. Upload isn't especially anything, to me. It's kinda funny, kinda neat, kinda interesting story. I will personally give S2 a shot but it's not something I feel like I'd need to finish, especially if there are better shows out there. Could improve quite a bit in S2 though, who knows.
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Jan 28, 2022 02:17
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I watched The Woman in the... whatever out of morbid curiosity. It's very weird. Some parts are plainly ridiculous jokes, like her daughter's gravestone always changing, but most of the time it's just played straight? I was kind of mesmerized at how noncommittal it was. I can't tell if they thought it would come off more satirical and just failed or what. I did laugh a few times, but rarely. It seems like they bought a legit script for one of these types of stories and just added a few jokes here and there and amped up some of the cliches, but failed to actually convert it to a comedy. Don't waste your time with it, though.
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Feb 1, 2022 03:37
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If you enjoy James Gunn, Peacemaker is great. I was honestly surprised with the range of episode 6. It seriously hit more notes in 45 minutes than almost any show I can recall. Granted, it's still goofy superhero ish bullshit, but it's fun, and the actors take it seriously. Completely unrelated, but if you need more Beatles content after watching Get Back, please watch McCartney 1 2 3 on Hulu. It's Rick Rubin loving around with the masters while Paul enthusiastically spouts his insane memory and legitimately enjoys his own songs. It's fantastic. It puts me in a good mood just thinking about it.
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Feb 4, 2022 04:39
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Listening to the Always Sunny Podcast and it's hilarious how much they fuckin hate S1. You can feel their relief once they get to S2 and start enjoying the episodes.
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Feb 8, 2022 04:32
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+1 to Kimi, very entertaining. I really enjoyed the use of sound in it. The setup with the kombucha bottle got me, hah.
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Feb 13, 2022 02:27
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Peacemaker finale remained consistent in quality with the rest of the show. Easily the most fun DC show. I expect they'll be fighting Marvel for more James Gunn poo poo now.
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Feb 17, 2022 19:04
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Severance (Apple TV+) is actually grabbing me. It's a little bit of what is becoming a common trope that I'm calling "mysterious retrofuturism" but the 2 episodes released so far are worth watching. The fundamental concept, which is explained right away but I'm spoilering it anyway in case you want to go in 100% blind, is that the technology exists to separate your personality and memory into work and not at work, so you functionally have 2 lives that know nothing about each other. 2 Episodes in and they've already explored some interesting ideas relating to that. Space Force Season 2 was exactly what I expected after season 1. Not very funny or clever, mildly amusing most of the time. Not a significant improvement from season 1. I don't know why I watched it. It's on the cusp of being decent but the writing just isn't there for me.
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Feb 21, 2022 16:30
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Yeah, it's not like they were just trying to figure out how to make him unlikable and added that bit, it's a character element that is important and not ignored.
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Feb 22, 2022 21:43
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re: The One, I have a very distinct memory of being at a LAN party in ~2003 in which one of us was suggesting we watch The One and I suggested Equilibrium. Halfway through Equilibrium, the person who suggested The One said "this [Equilibrium] is way better". Equilibrium is also about 90 mins without credits but I have no clue how it tracks today compared to The One. I'll probably go watch it now anyway. It's on HBO Max apparently! Kind of an interesting comparison of post-Matrix movies. The One leans into the action and modern music, Equilibrium just does the style and guns with 10x the 1984. Both are silly as hell for different reasons. I stand by my choice, 18 years later. edit: should be made clear that both are stupid, and yes Equilibrium thinks it is much more profound than it is. Still fun. Glottis fucked around with this message at 11:10 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 02:44
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Simplex posted:I've never been able to figure out if Taye Diggs constant smiling is intentional or not in Equilibrium, and I think the answer to that question will ultimately decide my judgement of the movie. Cleric.
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Feb 23, 2022 11:13
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I would like to retemper people's expectations of Equilibrium - I loving love the movie and it has some extremely memorable moments that have never been repeated, but it is in fact hokey as hell. Still, you should watch it. For those that have already seen it, my most memorable moments, or if you are on the fence and need encouraging but don't mind semi-minor spoilers: * Gunkata murdering of the potential puppy killers * Obscenely huge pistol clip reloading scene at the... palace? * Taye Diggs saying "cleric" 1000 times * Literally one car and some repurposed airport vehicles * Sean Bean doing what he does best, dying * The only enjoyable thing Kurt Wimmer has done, sorry Kurt precision posted:Equilibrium usually gets mentioned as a kind of Matrix-alike, which isn't totally wrong, but I think of it more as being of a piece with 1984 and Brave New World. It has that very Golden Age Sci Fi feel, the ridiculous po-faced nature of the whole movie... it's safe to say that the movie would not have been made in it's current form if The Matrix wasn't successful, but yeah, it doesn't actually share a whole lot with the movie other than the concept of smooth dudes with guns. Glottis fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 21:03
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double post, oops
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Feb 23, 2022 21:05
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"Free Guy" is another movie that squanders the opportunity for a zillion jokes about video games that would be funny to both gamers and everyone else, but instead just seems like it was written by someone who only knows about Grand Theft Auto from what they saw on the news and that's about it. I was also surprised at how bad it is.
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Feb 26, 2022 21:05
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I try to focus on finding elements of shows to enjoy rather than things to pick apart, but having said that "The Dropout" is a steaming pile of overdramatized poo poo to me and I have a hard time finding anything that was done well. It's probably because I'm way too close to the actual story in my education and experience, and nobody involved with the creation and writing is anywhere near it, but who knows. I hope nobody who ever worked for Theranos has to watch it. I couldn't do more than 2 episodes. I mean if I was an actual pirate I might say the same about Our Flag Means Death (since it's also based on some facts) but that one is actually enjoyable and clearly ridiculous for fun.
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Mar 5, 2022 08:17
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West Side Story (the new one) is the most interesting and best possible version of that story, while keeping the original songs, that I can imagine. I still think the songs are hokey as gently caress, and dancing gang members will never make sense, but if you just accept those things and try to enjoy everything else it's pretty great. Some fun shots, sets, and a few pretty decent acting performances. My main complaint is the Maria actress looking, and actually being, like 8-9 years younger than everyone else. It was distracting and odd.
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Mar 8, 2022 01:22
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precision posted:i don't think Fresh was going for "this is EXTREEEEEEEEEME cinema", i think it was more trading on being humorous all the way through for me personally it absolutely wasn't funny enough for that to work. If that was indeed the angle, I think they put too much of the heavy lifting on 'man he's a cannibal isn't that wacky' to make things funny, which it didn't really. I don't think it needs to be more gory but it could be more clever. Fresh was OK, but I wouldn't recommend it. There are things to enjoy in it and I'm sure some people think it's great (as evidenced by this thread) but nobody I know in real life would really enjoy it. precision posted:i made the extremely dubious decision to start Legends of Tomorrow as a show to put on while playing games, since it's 7 seasons long and probably not something one needs to pay attention to, and it's actually great for that purpose. it's one of those old style serial scifi shows like Sliders and it kinda owns Sliders is a good comparison, except Legends is actually a bit goofier and more aware of its goofiness at times than Sliders. As long as you know it's just schlocky serial superhero stuff, it's pretty easy to enjoy.
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Mar 11, 2022 00:08
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Raised by Wolves is tough for me. I keep wanting it to be a universe where the next crazy thing that happens is more like a creative escalation rather than a completely new and insane concept with zero connection to what we've already seen. It just feels like nobody says "no" in the writing room. Felt to me like after in S1 a computer impregnates a robot with a giant snake baby that flies away they kind of moved from a steady stream of mysterious new ideas to getting pelted with them non-stop with no time to sink in. Reviewers and people on the internet seem to just enjoy the ride, but the show keeps changing the status quo so quickly that it's hard for me to feel invested. "Batshit" and "body horror" aren't really enough. I've tried just watching it while intoxicated, and I inevitably have to read a recap article just to make sense of all the insanity I just witnessed. Maybe I'm missing the point if making sense of it is a goal. Glottis fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Mar 11, 2022 |
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Mar 11, 2022 21:25
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The Adam Project is a good sci fi action movie mainly targeted to kids. I also enjoyed it as an adult, despite being super tired of Ryan Reynolds being in everything. I saw reviews complaining of the idea of having 2 people acting as annoying as Ryan Reynolds at once, but honestly I thought the kid was great. The music drops are entertaining but confuse me with the target age group. It's a lot of songs that would be iconic to someone that is 50-70. It's not going to blow your mind. Most of the concepts have been done before. It's just relatively competent and delivers on the low promise. SuperMechagodzilla posted:Raised By Wolves is actually extremely simplistic: it's a straightforward character drama on a planet where the alien equivalents of god and satan actually exist and are assholes. That much is readily apparent by partway into the first season. Kind of. That's a decent lens to look at it through but characters change allegiance at the drop of a hat and nothing is consistent. Tell me that anything about Sue's arc makes sense, for instance. Honestly another issue with it is the frequently poo poo quality CGI. It's kind of embarrassing at times. The "tank" they show looks like something I made in TrueSpace 20 years ago.
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Mar 13, 2022 07:21
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I wish I could agree, but the tanks have absolutely poo poo CGI. It's not just the shape, it's just sloppy CGI. Poor shadows on the environment, poor ambient occlusion. It doesn't look like an object actually moving across terrain and kinda glides. Just looks like baby's first CGI project. The show 100% cut corners and is trying to act like it's a stylistic choice. The snake also looks like poo poo compared to basically any other modern effects. It's perfectly OK to enjoy the aesthetic, but it's absolutely an inexpensive one. Sue was an atheist, then a fake Mithraic, then an atheist again, then a reluctant Mithraic helping her murderous fake husband, then basically a real Mithraic, then a tree. She heard a random transmission and it made her completely betray everything she stood for. Based on the logic of the show, she could have easily flipped back in the course of 20 minutes. Her fake kid alternates between loving and hating her based on the episode and plot. Glottis fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Mar 13, 2022 |
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Mar 13, 2022 14:19
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Kid Ryan Reynolds was the best part, he nailed it. If you see a couple of scenes with him and think "now the movie is even MORE annoying" you should probably just turn it off.
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Mar 17, 2022 19:49
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RCarr posted:Ryan Reynolds is super annoying and unlikable. I can’t even imagine how bad a child version of him would be. a valid opinion, but apparently not a common one based on the fact that he's in loving everything
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Mar 18, 2022 00:41
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punk rebel ecks posted:Just saw this on imgur and this perfectly describes me when starting to watch foreign media on HBO Max: on that note, is there a way to make the HBO Max subtitles not loving gigantic or is that just an issue with my streaming device
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Mar 20, 2022 04:21
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Severance is still great so far. It's still really keeping pace in a good way but has extreme danger of not actually wrapping anything up. If that concept is concerning enough to prevent you from watching, wait and I'll let you know. I've enjoyed the progression so far regardless. Pam & Tommy is a downer but interesting. Trying to be sympathetic to everyone can come off stupid, but this really does seem like a scenario that just sucks. I realize the makeup isn't perfect but Lily James looks just like how my preteen brain remembered Pamela Anderson looking, and it's weird. I also realized I felt like Sebastian Stan was charismatic only from his interviews, not from his acting, and in this role he finally gets stuff to do and he's great. I get why actual Pam Anderson doesn't want to watch it, but it's more sympathetic to her than anyone else. Honestly makes me feel even worse for her. punk rebel ecks posted:Season 1 of "Our Flag Means Death" concluded today. Same reaction. I may have said "interesting" out loud. Glottis fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Mar 25, 2022 |
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Mar 25, 2022 03:41
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smackfu posted:Not to tell you how to post but there is a severance thread with a lot of discussion. I consider this the "casual mentions" thread, we're good. I brought it up again just to update.
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Mar 26, 2022 07:13
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rht9P0bYSFI There is no "knowing what's going on" in that show. The people writing it don't even know what is going on. Either you enjoy complete insanity or not.
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Mar 27, 2022 07:50
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GonSmithe posted:Yeah, Raised by Wolves is super "the subtext is text." It's all insane poo poo but it's super easy to follow imo, I don't get the confusion some people have (haven't watched S2 yet). I should clarify - it's impossible to know what might happen next because every moment is totally nonsense. There are no clear arcs. For instance, the concept of someone turning into a loving tree was clear but came out of nowhere. Confusing? No. Still absolute nonsense
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Mar 28, 2022 07:10
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The Bubble is literally Leslie Mann and Judd Apatow exaggerating stories from people they know about situations on sets during early Covid-era productions and casting their friends / selves. A lot of it is mimicking things on set that annoy people who have worked in movies but wasn't really translated to be funny to everyone else. I'm reasonably sure a chunk was written when they thought we'd immediately realize we were overreacting to Covid, and just depicting Covid stuff would be funny, and it's not (yet). Recognizing all of those things, I still found jokes that were really funny to me. I didn't hate it. The cringy stuff is supposed to be cringy, which does not automatically convert the cringiness to quality, but I got what they were going for. An out of touch executive that is desperate to increase profits and pushing for a rewrite to incorporate an awful tiktok dance in the movie because tiktok is popular is exactly the kind of poo poo that is really happening. Was that scene funny by itself? No. But I thought the concept was, so it worked for me. I could name 10+ other moments like that. I wouldn't push anyone to watch it, just felt like giving a dissenting opinion.
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Apr 2, 2022 22:45
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mcmagic posted:I like Severance but I'm worried that they are going to end the season without any real exposition about what is going on and that would suck. They're certainly not going to explain everything that is going on, so if you aren't already satisfied with the rate that details have been revealed then you're going to be disappointed.
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Apr 5, 2022 21:34
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the Severance finale was intense and ends on a massive cliffhanger. Adjust your expectations accordingly. It's huge progress for the story but does not answer everything. So many great moments that were well earned, though. I especially loved how innie Mark considers his real brother in law to be a visionary and his brother in law was super confused Glottis fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Apr 8, 2022 |
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Apr 8, 2022 17:00
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I had the urge to watch Russian Doll again the other day, probably because I'd been thinking about the S2 trailer, and had completely forgotten that it takes place on her 36th birthday. It was my 36th birthday when I sat down to watch it again. Weird. Anyway it's still a great show and season 2 comes out in about a week so it's a good time to rewatch.
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Apr 12, 2022 23:04
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Moon Knight seems to think that every single sequence needs to have at least one character that is a fish out of water, and it's frustrating. If Oscar Isaac #1 knows what's happening, Oscar Isaac #2 is super confused. We barely get to see anyone competently doing anything. The villain seems to show up in and leave from locations without logic. They use the idea of switching personalities to justify sudden location changes for the main character all the time and it gets pretty unsatisfying after a while. It's really hard to get a bead on the rules of this universe and as a result it's difficult to really care about what's happening. Is he invincible? What even does the Steven suit do? Ethan Hawke and Oscar Isaac do well with what they're given. This show just doesn't have anything special enough to distract from the bad CGI and uninteresting plot. I'm going to keep watching it but it's definitely not worth recommending at the moment.
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Apr 18, 2022 19:26
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I'm honestly surprised The Batman is reviewed as well as it is. There are elements to enjoy (the actors are well-cast, the atmosphere is thick, the car is neat looking, and it's nice to see some detective stuff) and not too many elements that are overtly annoying (Riddler's entire style just being the Zodiac Killer with a strange moaning way of speaking to seem creepy and occasionally livestreams, the rocket powered batmobile that struggles to keep up with a random Maserati sedan, Batman getting shot a bunch and at worst it just stuns him for a moment) but it also has a whole lot that just doesn't need to be there (The Penguin and his scenes straight up didn't need to be in this movie, a Joker tease that adds nothing, and other scenes that really drag on). From reading reviews it seems like some people found the concept of corruption being everywhere and maybe Batman not being as good of an influence as he hoped to be an exciting and new take; I did not. If you're a Batman fan and have HBO Max it's absolutely worth giving a shot but I wouldn't get your hopes up or expect the conclusion to be any more satisfying than the first hour or so. Megaman's Jockstrap posted:While I feel your pain on Harrow and think Hawke is definitely misused, I don't know why the heck anyone would want another bog-standard Marvel show about competent heroes that solve everything with a kick and a quip. (and besides, Layla is plenty competent). I'm glad you're enjoying it, but it's punch+quippier than either Wandavision or Loki, except that they often just skip over the punches and go straight to the quip. Any comic-inspired element of ambiguity in what is real with the character is completely absent given that he often manifests a bulletproof suit that everyone else can see and comment on. The nuance of the comics has been removed in favor of convenient CGI action or action that is skipped over entirely. I think it fits your last definition of "bog-standard cape pastiche" more than basically any of the other Disney+ Marvel shows. We're only three episodes in but so far it doesn't really seem to have any sort of message or underlying theme to speak of, it's just "get the bad guy".
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Apr 19, 2022 18:33
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veni veni veni posted:The chase with the penguin was one of the best parts of the movie and I wouldn't want to see him cut I agree, but that chase could have been with Falcone or something instead. I thought Penguin was actually well done and the makeup / acting were great, it just could have been saved for the next movie so we could focus on the other 2 villain plots and cut out a significant amount of runtime.
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Apr 19, 2022 20:04
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Barb and Star clearly seemed like it required me to find their overall demeanor to be funny in order to enjoy any of the other jokes. I did not. Different humor but that aspect reminded me of Chicago Party Aunt - I assume these types of people are funny to some, maybe you had to know people like that, but they just aren't to me.
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May 6, 2022 22:15
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Yeah, Adam McKay "only" made a movie that kept people interested in one of the driest, labyrinthian, and least accessible topics imaginable. I dunno, NASCAR is pretty popular.
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May 11, 2022 20:19
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