Post by Martin Stett on May 16, 2017 17:10:06 GMT
I forgot to do this yesterday.
O.J.: Made in America (2016) -- As someone who knew nothing about O.J. going in, this was a powerful and infuriating watch. Most interesting was how the racial dynamics affected the case and the people involved. This never took sides in that debate, painting a long, painful history of hatred on all sides. This is one of the best documentaries I've encountered. I still feel sick about watching it, though. 9/10 at the moment.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Season 1) -- As a fan of Mamoru Oshii's movies (and having heard many good things about SAC), I decided to try out this alternate take on the same material. I wasn't thrilled. This show has characters that are flat as pancakes, not even developing into stereotypes. They exist to fill spaces for the plot. The stand alone episodes are usually pretty well paced action pieces that can be very good, but without people to care about, they are instantly forgettable. The "Laughing Man" plotline was pointless, because we needed to know how the Laughing Man's crimes were affecting the team and how they felt about it. But they feel nothing, they're only plot devices. And that one GIGANTIC fault brings down the entire show, which boasts some excellent animation quality and some interesting ideas. None of it matters if I don't care. 5/10, and I will not be checking out further seasons.
Intentions of Murder (1964) -- It's a sadistic porno masquerading as a sorta-feminist art film. 2/10
The Nice Guys (2016) -- This one wasn't doing it for me. It was trying too hard to be the swingin' cousin of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and the jokes weren't landing because they were all playing the swingin' 70s gags and jokes about the teenager growing up in a depraved world instead of being unexpected. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't working for me all that much. But sometimes, all you need is one good scene that slips under my guard and makes me begin enjoying myself, and that happened here. The elevator scene had such silly wordplay and dialogue that I couldn't stop smiling, and immediately after that there was a gag that caught me off guard and made me laugh, and from that moment on it kept the humor running smoothly and I was laughing the whole damn time. I think that my problems with the earlier scenes were probably more my fault than the film's. Maybe I was in a bad mood? I don't know, but looking back on it, this movie was a grand time on the whole. 8/10
O.J.: Made in America (2016) -- As someone who knew nothing about O.J. going in, this was a powerful and infuriating watch. Most interesting was how the racial dynamics affected the case and the people involved. This never took sides in that debate, painting a long, painful history of hatred on all sides. This is one of the best documentaries I've encountered. I still feel sick about watching it, though. 9/10 at the moment.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Season 1) -- As a fan of Mamoru Oshii's movies (and having heard many good things about SAC), I decided to try out this alternate take on the same material. I wasn't thrilled. This show has characters that are flat as pancakes, not even developing into stereotypes. They exist to fill spaces for the plot. The stand alone episodes are usually pretty well paced action pieces that can be very good, but without people to care about, they are instantly forgettable. The "Laughing Man" plotline was pointless, because we needed to know how the Laughing Man's crimes were affecting the team and how they felt about it. But they feel nothing, they're only plot devices. And that one GIGANTIC fault brings down the entire show, which boasts some excellent animation quality and some interesting ideas. None of it matters if I don't care. 5/10, and I will not be checking out further seasons.
Intentions of Murder (1964) -- It's a sadistic porno masquerading as a sorta-feminist art film. 2/10
The Nice Guys (2016) -- This one wasn't doing it for me. It was trying too hard to be the swingin' cousin of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and the jokes weren't landing because they were all playing the swingin' 70s gags and jokes about the teenager growing up in a depraved world instead of being unexpected. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't working for me all that much. But sometimes, all you need is one good scene that slips under my guard and makes me begin enjoying myself, and that happened here. The elevator scene had such silly wordplay and dialogue that I couldn't stop smiling, and immediately after that there was a gag that caught me off guard and made me laugh, and from that moment on it kept the humor running smoothly and I was laughing the whole damn time. I think that my problems with the earlier scenes were probably more my fault than the film's. Maybe I was in a bad mood? I don't know, but looking back on it, this movie was a grand time on the whole. 8/10
