Just as with The Mandalorian, here are my episode by episode Hot Takes on The Witcher. #1: The End’s Beginning (The Witcher introduces and exits its most interesting character) That was really… oddly paced. For a first episode it rushed in way too fast. It could really have benefited from setting up Geralt, the role … Read More
Following from my previous post on the Mandalorian, here are my thoughts on the second half of the series. Spoiler alert: it’s exactly as boring as the first. Episode #6: An alien, a gunslinger, and a Mandalorian walk into a prison ship… Do locks not exist in the Star Wars universe, or does Mando just … Read More
Episode #1: Not a Great Start The first episode of the Mandalorian as a whole didn’t work for me. It felt clunky and stilted and awkward. Who is said Mandalorian? What’s his personality? What motivates him? Not even on like an existential level, just what is his motivation in this episode? I get he’s supposed … Read More
Zygote has a lot of both the strengths and weaknesses that define Neil Blomkamp’s work as a storyteller. It’s the latest in a series of short films Blomkamp has been making under his new production studio, and has an intriguing premise and all the building blocks of a good story, but suffers from weak characters … Read More
I posted a few months ago about the 2019 Twilight Zone: the simple version is that it’s not very good, not as smart as it would like to be, and fundamentally flawed in its structure. I thought that would be the end of my thoughts on it, but somehow it’s festered in my mind, and … Read More
Without reservation, Fury is among the best World War 2 movies made in recent memory. It’s beautifully shot, smartly written, emotionally resonant, and filled with nuance. It’s also a part of the war we don’t often see, following the crew of the tank Fury in the waning days of the the German Reich. But there’s … Read More
Pacific Rim is a movie that I love. Giant robot’s fighting giant monsters? Hell yeah, I’m so there. It is also, unfortunately not a movie that is particularly good. Don’t get me wrong, the core concept is great and the fight scenes incredible, but the story is lackluster, the character stilted and unengaging, and the … Read More
In my previous post I talked about all the ways the Battle of Winterfell is totally nonsensical. But just as much as all the dumbness of the battle bothers me, so does how easy it would be to fix it. So how do we do that? Make it more logically coherent? Add that ebb and … Read More
Since its first episode, Game of Thrones, the most popular fantasy tv show of all time, has been building up to the ultimate battle between its heroes and the supernatural threat of the White Walkers, icy demons of frost and death who raise zombie armies to fight for them. That final battle takes place in … Read More
Everybody Loves Raymond was a sitcom that ran for nearly ten years from 1996 to 2005 and spans 210 episodes. From the first episode it’s a confident and charming series (despite the 90’s hairstyles and clothes that do no one favors), and only gets funnier as the series hits its stride and lets its characters … Read More