Reviews
Bad Words (2013) – I somehow missed this movie from a good while ago, but it is hysterical!. Full of over-the-top adult humor yet it delivers not just in comedy, but with a fun story. It’s always amusing, to me at least, when you have an adult / kid duo that involves corrupting the kid. I know, it’s juvenile and such, but I do find it amusing.
I watched The Gorge (2025) on Apple TV. Billed as a horror, I kind disagree overall. While there certainly is a horror element and it does make up a portion of the movie, it’s barely half of it at most. It starts out more as a drama turned literal romance movie oddly enough, then transitions to the horror element. Even that part was creative and interesting because it wasn’t just “here’s a lot of scary things”, it actually had a neat backstory. When you see something early during that part you may think “ok what the hell, that is silly” until you later learn the back story of the creatures. Overall it was a good watch and scratched the itch of a sniper movie, drama, romance, and horror all in one. My friend dan described it as “That movie went to the genre buffet and got a little bit of everything.” and he is on point.
Uprising (2024) on Netflix was outstanding, with a really good story based on the Japanese invasion of Korea during the Imjin War, good character development, and amazing fight scenes. If you are into the period and sword play, you may enjoy it.
Finished Adolescence on Netflix last night, a four episode mini-series. Overall it’s pretty good and worth a watch if you are into family drama. The series starts out like a fairly standard murder mystery set in England. Where it diverges, pretty quickly, is after the first episode. Each of the four episodes are very different, not only in covering different time periods after the initial incident, but they change the focus from the police, the psych evaluation, and the family struggle. It does not have a big climatic ending like most American police dramas either. The cinematography leans very heavily on long scenes that follow a character, or in one case, what appears to be a single take that is 30 minutes long (using neat camera tricks but great effect). I’d recommend it if you are looking for something different and a break from the U.S. crime thrillers.
The TV show Land Man is one I cannot sing enough praises for. The amount of rapid-fire witty dialog and banter is unbelievable. Not only do they have great writers and casting, but they take their casting very seriously. In the very first episode you see two people who you automatically assume are going to be in it for the series, or at least the season. Nope! Both gone in an instant which is a great little twist to start. Meanwhile, other huge names are basically distant supporting actors in a way they are certainly not needed, and the fact that they are big names doesn’t bring any value other than a talking point like this. But I think the show knows it, even though small roles, sometimes for their acting chops and other times for this subtle, recognizable presence. It works, meanwhile other much more prominent characters, done by actors that I don’t recognize at all stand out in big ways as well. Finally, Billy Bob Thornton was made for this type of role.
Hidden Strike on Netflix with up-and-coming John Cena, at least relative to Jackie Chan, is basically a washed up action movie that is not compelling. It seems more like the point of this film is to remind people that yes, John Cena can speak Chinese. Which deserves mad props on that as it certainly is not an easy language to master. Otherwise, Hidden Strike attempts to bring Cena’s style of humor to Chan’s martial arts. Buddy whatever movies are so overdone that it takes something special to really stand out. Worse, throw in scenarios and action sequences based on absurd situations and it moves past “turn your brain off and enjoy” and moves squarely into “this is stupid” instead. Bussing people through a canyon and magically there’s this sandstorm that’s created by … large fans, really? And somehow in the sandstorm the bad guys can attack the buses with a level of precision that’s just beyond supernatural. On the back of that, I hope Netflix truly understands, appreciates, and records metrics to see that I thumbs-downed a new show in about 80 seconds, rather than watching the entire thing and voting it down.
General Thoughts
Between TV and movies, historically, flash back to Iron Man and it may have been the first mainstream modern movie that centered around a human in a mechanical suit of some form. More recently, Atlas on Netflix, had the same premise. From the titular movie Iron Man, the idea is literally some powerful suit that gives some level of invulnerability. While entertaining, in reality this is just absurd. While the suit may protect you against a direct hit like a bullet or punch, where that reality stop is when the person gets hit hard enough to cause them go flying back and slam into something. A yard, 10 yards, or 50 yards and it doesn’t matter matter, you are likely to get a concussion from the suit itself even if a yard. Getting hit so hard you fly back 10 yards or you fall an incredible distance into water even, it is going to be fatal. The more space in the suit the less likely it protects you because of whiplash and concussions. I can suspend disbelief but it is increasingly difficult to do so for technology-based superheroes.
I hate when you get pulled into a series because it starts out really good. Five out of six episodes in and it is great, then the last episode it’s like a new writer stepped in and they had no idea how to create believable drama. So they go back to old bullshit tropes like some young fast person running while a slow lumbering old man always manages to catch up to them, and magically finds where they’re hiding despite having no possible way to do. That was the last episode of Last Samurai Standing (2025) on Netflix and it is just discouraging and annoying.
For years now, we the consumers, have known about many problems with our streaming content providers. This time it is Netflix and The Diplomat which came across to me as a fairly different show for them. Solid actors, great casting, great dialogue, great plot and just across the board a phenomenal series. The problem? They ended season one with a “what the hell is going on?” moment. And that is fine in some cases, we love a good cliff-hanger. But when a studio does that while not being sure if there’s going to be another season to learn what happened? Content providers should put up a banner clearly saying a second season is coming. If they aren’t sure a subsequent season is coming, then wrap it up a lot more neatly. Giving fans cliffhanger shows that are never ended is a quick way to build more and more resentment against your industry. Eventually, more and more people are going to realize it isn’t worth watching some of these shows, no matter how high the budget is. Give writers the ability to write two endings and actually produce both. If the show isn’t doing well mid-season, give us the clean ending. If you aren’t sure until the end, then release it after the season wraps as a ‘special alternate ending’. In short; respect your paying customers.
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