mandreasen2001 Reviews

Don't Worry Darling (I) (2022)

The victory project

[5/10 · 9 November 2022]

Don't Worry Darling, Olivia Wilde's Stepford Wives meets the Matrix is visually attractive, stunningly nostalgic and playfully acted yet an olive short of a decent Martini. Intriguing as it begins like a promising yet underfunded cocktail party, it fizzles like flat champagne.

Two thirds of this film is a slow decent towards the big reveal. The set up is grand. A Utopian suburban society circa 1958, where the men drive Ford T-Birds, Classic Corvette's and Cadillacs to their perfect jobs out at HQ. Palm Springs is the lead character with its post WWII planned community of Art Deco ranch style homes taking center stage.

The actors look and play the part in this 1950s patriarchal society, where the men work and the wives make the home perfect for their husbands.

Not a care in the world as the Victory Corporation provides all to raise a perfect family, in a perfect town.

That is until one little Mrs. Stepford Wife goes all haywire and starts to speak out.

And what are the men doing inside that mountain all day? Fracking? Drilling? Something subatomic?

Well maybe they will answer that in the sequel, because it was of no consequence to Ms. Wilde. As long as the point of dismantling the patriarchy was brought home as heavy handed as possible for act three, Olivia was fine.

The society begins to break down when little Mrs. Stepford goes all haywire and starts to speak out. Victory tries to sweep her psychosis under the rug. Yet once the idea of her rights is introduced to Alice, she cannot unsee the horrors.

It is only a matter of time before the revolution is televised ( ... in simple black and white.) Looking back to the good old days may be nostalgic and fun, yet being forced into reliving it, is not what it was and a bright future is not what it used to be.

Sprung (2022– )

Near Perfect Comedy in the Age of Covid

[10/10 · 16 September 2022]

Sprung is a near perfect comedy series in the Age of Covid. The story centers around three misfits Jack, Rooster and Gloria, Sprung from prison on reduce sentences released early due to Covid-19 outbreak.

Nowhere to go, nowhere to work and nowhere to live Jack finds himself lost after 26 years in prison. Rooster, Jack's cellmate barters Jack's last 40 bucks to let him stay at Rooster's mom's house. On the way out of the prison Rooster offers the same deal to Gloria, Jack's "prison girlfriend" whom have only communicated on blind dates through an air gap in the toilet.

When Barb, Rooster's mom (played to near perfection by Martha Plimpton) pick's up Rooster and crew the hilarity begins. As Barb drives the neighborhood she simultaneously steals Amazon packages from the neighbors porches.

With everyone hoarding essentials, Barb stops at at a local low level criminals' stash house to buy essentials from Melvin who has cornered the market on toilet paper. His Usery fees per roll are criminal yet Barb has already sacrificed her drapes and an oven mitt in the name of a good wipe.

As soon as the new brood is settled Barb has them set to be her new crew. Yet Jack refuses to cheat innocent people and vows only to partake if they steal only from bad people in their hood. Hence a modern day Robin Hood crew is born.

The set up is brilliant, allowing Greg Garcia to take shots at all the absurdity of these crazy times.

With terrific writing, gifted acting and straight up hilarious situations, Sprung tells a new tale of adventure and a past backstory each week.

It takes the time for us to laugh at ourselves and reflect how silly we looked during the first weeks, days and years of the pandemic.

Hilarious, sweet, clever and funny this show exposes its heart as we follow this group of misfits Sprung from a parallel universe of the Coen Brother's Raising Arizona and the mind of Raising Hope and My Name is Earl's Greg Garcia.

Greg Garcia and team knows funny and has yet to disappoint in telling his stories about the lovable lowlife American loser in us all.

Luck (I) (2022)

Luck had little to do with Luck's failures.

[4/10 · 11 August 2022]

Started out with a ton of promise. Then the film got lost in exposition and over complicating what could have been a great story if they concentrated on the Home For Girls and her Sammy's new beginnings.

Eva Noblezada was excellent as Sam, yet the execution of story was not.

Had potential, yet it took a wrong turn emphasizing plot over character and story.

It wasn't a case of bad luck or luck at all. It was emphasis, execution and poor decision making.

Luck had little to do with Luck.

Hacks (2021– )

Two Seasons is Perfect.

[8/10 · 4 June 2022]

No reason to continue. Two Seasons is Perfect. It will become an iconic show if it ends here. Leave while everyone is still laughing, crying and longing for more.

Where would Judd Apatow be if NBC picked up Freaks & Geeks for four more seasons.

He would be a hack punching up scripts for Larry David.

Less is more in this case.

Congratulations HACKS you beat television.

You won.

Perfect ending.

The Batman (2022)

Easily the worst Batman film ever.

[4 June 2022]

The Batman is a con trying to pass sadism off as art. Marketing itself as a great procedural in the vein of the nineteen seventies cinema.

The Batman is not even in the same league as the great Batman productions of the past. Let alone be compared to Chinatown, Taxi Driver or Klute as a great noir detective flick. Those films had real style and subtle dialogue that suited and ecplored a culture.

The Batman is a bad procedural episode of Gotham meets Law & Order dressed up in a bat suit.

Is the production design a watered down copy of Fincher's SEVEN, FIGHT CLUB and ZODIAK. Yes.

Yet as a fully realized thought provoking film, The Batman is all dress up and posing.

Take a bunch of noir movies most millennials never saw or have a clue about and compare them to The Batman.

. The Batman is a cheap marketing ploy aimed at an international audience. One where Bang Bang, Crash, boom sells. The Batman is a terrible Batman film and only vaguely resembles Fincher in the most superficial of ways.

To compare to Scorsese, John Huston or Polanski in his prime is joke and an amateurish attempt at relevance.

Those three films make one realize what The Batman is not. It is not in the same league as those classic noir films. It is not authentic nor specific to a unique vision.

It is more like GOTHAM, the TV show than a fully realized Major Motion Picture.

. There are so many problems with this film in regards to carrying the torch of Bruce Wayne.

. The film is more sadistic than dark. More inauthentic than creative. Just as the crimes are delivered with blunt force trauma, the film is ugly and lacks subtly.

. It is a film school hack of Fincher's Seven shoe horned over the Batman Franchise.

. It was obviously made for an International market in the worst way. Dialogue is minimal because nuance of language does not translate or sell to foreign markets. Humor is non specific, because humor does not translate. There is zero humor in this film unless you find the visual "Thumb-Drive" funny, in that case you should see a psychologist.

. Cinema needs to be specific and about a personal poi TGIF view to achieve an authentic tone.

. The Batman is vague and lacks real nuance. This is what you get when you point to world market profits by trying to please as wide a market as possible, as opposed to making a great film. This is a new breed of foreign film geared for greed over the art of cinema.

.

It is a package made for the largest burgeoning market, Asian markets, with its vast potential audience. That is all it is, a C poser version of something vaguely resembling a Batman film. Product exploiting Batman's marketing.

. Villains and main characters have a lack of subtlety or character development. It is as if they were dropped in on us. The Riddler's name could be anything other than The Riddler. Gary perhaps. Psychotic Gary. His riddles are neither intriguing or intelligent. Yet the stupidest dolt in the theater can figure it out in seconds.

These kind of villains are given titles of the Riddler or Joker, without earning the position. The drop in assuming we will rely on our preconceived knowledge. This makes the film lazy and incomplete.

. I am sorry but vague moodiness, bad lighting and long slow plodding set pieces does not make it art.

. It is boring, long on exposition for the sole purpose of moving plot without creating empathy for any character. There is no heart nor any real Batman DNA to care about.

. It is all dress up with weak convictions and the worst car chase scene in the history of the bat mobile, if you could call it that.

. Damn I hated this movie. I Am a huge Batman fan and this is easily a swing and a miss.

. PS - Bob Kane's Batman goes all the way back to the 1930s. The 1950's & 1960s were a Golden Era of Batman comics. This Movie is a sullied, sadistic attempt to highjack the franchise as product. Purely a cynical money grab to exploit the franchise, especially in non-English speaking markets.

. So sad to see people buy into this dark for dark sake as an excuse for a Batman film.

There is no there, there and there is no joy in this film.

The Bubble (2022)

The Bubbke broke the first rule of comedy ... be funny. It was not funny.

[2/10 · 2 April 2022]

The film had a simple yet promising concept, what was it like shooting a film during the Covid-19 pandemic.

It was lightly amusing for about 20-30 minutes, then it went downhill ... fast. By 40 minutes it was repeating the same jokes, by 50 minutes, I could barely keep my eyes open.

Then the film became about the tedium of being stuck on location shooting a bad film. After that it just became a really bad film.

There was no direction from the 40 minute mark until the final scene. The final hour and twenty minutes just rambles. Yet worse than that, it broke the first rule of comedy.

Be funny.

It was not funny.

At all.

I will give one performance kudos, Iris Apatow. Leslie Mann and "Director" Judd Apatow's youngest daughter. Ms. Apatow was charming, playing a TikTok star hired to star in a Hollywood big budget blockbuster to take advantage of her huge following on Social Media.

She is a star. In her first film role Iris Apatow lit up the Silver Screen. She has that certain "IT Factor" and seems poised to be a star of her own making.

Is it no wonder the film took a nose dive in the second half of the film, when Ms. Apatow was barely given another scene to steal.

I give this movie 2 stars out of a possible 10.

And Just Like That... (2021– )

Woke, cringey, superficial mess.

[1/10 · 10 December 2021]

And just like that ... I watched one of the worst episodes of television. Just plain awful.

Woke, cringey, superficial mess.

Every cliché you can think of about liberal New York society encapsulated in one half hour. (Well 44 minutes.)

If I did not know of Sex In The City, I would think this was produced to be a Dystopian American Nightmare of exaggerated liberal values in an attempt to horrify middle America.

From getting a table at the trendiest brunch spot in Manhattan, to the deconstruction of backfired white savior complex deconstructed by our new woke masters.

Cis gender this, non binary that, tradition is defined as slavery by the anti-patriarchal overlords of our future.

Overwrought melodrama for the new millennium disguised as 1990's nostalgia.

Gawd this is awful.

Just like that ... I learned how long 44 minutes could actually be.

Cry Macho (2021)

A Beautiful Movie ... Clint Eastwood a master auteur at any age.

[10/10 · 17 September 2021]

A Beautiful Movie about wisdom, redemption, growing pains and growing old. Clint Eastwood creates a small masterpiece. As Mike (Clint Eastwood) is growing old into his final chapters of life, he mentors the parentally neglected, juvenile thirteen year-old boy, Rafa, who is in need of direction as he is quickly heading down the wrong path.

Mike must "pick up" Rafa from Mexico to deliver the maternally abused tween boy to his father (Dwight Yokum) back in Texas. What ensues is a sublime Road Trip movie crafted with pace and heart. The films subtle beauty shines in the sure, steady directorial hands of the 91 year old Hollywood legend.

Clint Eastwood continues to amaze crafting and acting in three late career classics Gran Torino, The Mule and his latest Cry Macho.

God bless Clint Eastwood and long live Clint Eastwood as he is a true National Treasure.

Nobody (I) (2021)

One Great Action Scene, One Great Actor, One Nobody Director.

[4/10 · 27 June 2021]

The premise is simple. The review is simple. Nobody consist of a good premise, with a great actor and an action sequence in the first act which is spectacular.

The rest is tropes, cliche's and good guys jumping away from machine gun gun while the bad guys get pulverized.

Bob Odenkirk is outstanding in his action hero debut. The Bus scene is perfect. The rest though well acted never lives up to the inventiveness of the Bus Fight.

Great first act with the remainder failing to live up to the potential presented early.

Wanted to live it, but there was no there, there in the second half of the film.

Starstruck (2021–2023)

Was intriguing ... but ran out of steam by episode 5.

[6/10 · 21 June 2021]

Was intriguing at first but then went nowhere fast.

As the episodes pile up so do the clichés. Every subsequent chance meeting between Tom & Jessie was shoehorned and contrived conveniently to time with the next cliff hanger misunderstanding.

Jessie is a likable enough character who devolves into a whining poor woman's Carrie Bradshaw slash William Thacker as the show devolves into a slow paced Gen Z Notting Hill wannabe episodic. The roles have been just slightly tweaked from Notting Hill to be considered a homage and not plagiarism as Tom (Nikeish Patel) takes on the famous actor amongst the "normal" folk characters.

I adore Rose Matafeo. She is captivating. Has a charm and charisma that is unique but ultimately her own material let's her down. Nikeish Patel is likable but after episode two he does not seem capable as a top level megastar.

The show deserves a second season to correct it's own mistakes and take the dramady to the next level, where Tom and Jessie prove they can take the next steps into adulthood.

I like that Tom may be less capable and mature than he originally put forth. The writers could use this as a dynamic struggle that leads to more internal conflict between Tom the reluctant movie star and Tom the serious actor.

I also like when Rose Matafeo took less than conventional chances with the characters. She too has so much evergreen space to expand the narrative of sudden fame and the struggle of two young lovers as they navigate the trappings of "Hollywood" as they struggle to maintain as mature as productive members of society.

Sophomore season will make or break this very intriguing yet so far flawed series.

Mythic Quest: Quarantine (2020) Season 1, Episode 10

Mythic Quest had a fine first season, this episode took it to Mythic Heights!

[9/10 · 21 April 2021]

Megan Gantz's work has shown brilliance from Community to Modern Family and here her skills shine to Mythic Heights. The episode was written by Megan, David Hornsby and Rob McElhenney with heart, soul and compassion all while never forgetting the funny.

The chemistry of this cast has progressed throughout the season. It feels effortless as it plays out here in a very special quarantine episode. To feel this seamless from soundstage to isolation as the cast shot their scenes on iPhones from their actual homes is no minor feat.

What a great piece of television. The finest productions in Hollywood aim for this kind of chemistry, kudos to everyone involved as Mythic Quest nears perfection in it's first season.

This episode had me laughing, sighing in tears of sorrow and ultimately crying tears of joy as the writers, directors and cast put together a time capsule piece of art that captured the ethos and essence of these quarantine times.

WandaVision (2021)

A superhero movie shoehorned into a half baked concept based on a clever title.

[4/10 · 5 March 2021]

It would be too easy to just say the show is awful, or the whole affair is empty. Yet it may be fair to say it emphasizes style over substance.

Don't get me wrong, it tries. It tries oh so hard. As does Elizabeth Olsen, the actress playing Wanda.

The underdevelopment of a character that must carry a multidimensional tone but written and performed as an off key singular note is problematic.

It is hard to blame Ms. Olsen's caricature of the 50s housewife and lack of comedic likeability of a Mary Tyler Moore, Elizabeth Montgomery or a Lucille Ball but it is painfully evident. Ultimately it is too tough of a mashup to pull off for almost anyone, let alone Ms.Olsen. (Whom I have adored throughout her career.)

A storyline that is ultimately about loss and it's psychological effects could of been a rich area to mine with depth beyond any film from the MCU.

Yet the construct of aping old classic sitcoms through the decades falls flat. They may achieve the look of each decade with robotic precision but the tone is all wrong. It is all window dressing for big action but ultimately a shallow exercise.

It all comes back to the writing. There is no real sense of heart. Tons of plot, very little heart. More vulnerability may have balanced this odd tone but who knows?

The time and length of storytelling they go through to reveal a tiny morsel of connective tissue to string the series together is downright infuriating. The first three episodes are a borefest. Not until episode four does the show reveal anything worth mentioning.

The show started to become tolerable when Monica Rambeau's backstory is revealed in the fourth episode. After displaying depth and a multilayered approach in this frame, they u-turn right back to the odd mashup of light sitcom, military heroism with faux melancholy in the following episodes.

The show is odd and I give them credit for taking a swing, but the awful writing is so hard to overcome.

The one dimensional cardboard character of Military Director Heyward and his cliché war monger heavy is laughable and seems abrupt and out of touch with this fantastical event they are witnessing.

Yet there are some bright spots. Paul Bethany has the ability to overcome the writing and saves just about every scene he is in with his light wit, charm and screen presence.

Teyonah Paris and Randal Park are good in their supporting roles. Yet it is KAT Dennings that truly shines in her supporting spot, she steals scenes and lights up the screen. When paired with Paul Bethany you have the makings of something special.

It feels as though Marvel had a gimmick and tried to shoehorn a superhero movie inside of a half baked concept based on a clever title. Although parts of WandaVision are unique and there are inspired moments (too few) it is tough to give this bombastic convoluted effort more than a middling review.

Yet those moments are far too few to save WandaVision.