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pogofan
Reviews
Paper Girls (2022)
Giving up after ep. 5; the comic was much more fun
I loved the Vaughan/Chiang "Paper Girls" series, and I thought the first episode of the adaptation got off to a decent start---minus the huge hole left by the omitted time-travel scene. (Three of the girls were conscious; what did they think was happening? Why did the capsule stop if Heck and Naldo wanted them to get back in immediately? How come there was subsequent dialogue between Erin and the others about what she'd missed while unconscious?)
But starting with the second episode, the show started departing from the source material, de-emphasizing the imaginative, science-fictional elements and emphasizing the interpersonal drama. In particular, the relationships among the girls had less cameraderie, and less humor in the dialogue, and more contention and angst. And don't get me started on the repetitive scenes with the Prioress!
For me, episode 5 was the final straw. Two big things happened that definitely did NOT happen in the comic, and again, both added to the show's overall "heavy," grim tone. A friend who's also read the series has watched two episodes so far; if he gets past episode 5 and tells me that it gets more enjoyable after that, I'll give it another try. But I'm guessing he'll give up by then also, if not sooner.
Awake (2012)
This show was a fraud!
Watching the first episode of "Ordinary Joe," with its use of different color palettes to identify different realities, reminded me of "Awake"---and of Entertainment Weekly's "exit interview" with the show's creator, Kyle Killen, that revealed that the writers had NO IDEA what they were doing! Almost 10 years later, I'm still angry enough to take the time to bash the show here.
The EW article said three things---including two direct quotes from Killen---that together completely undermine the viewer's experience of the show:
1. Britten, the main character, "was absolutely a man who had survived a car accident and lost one or the other of the people closest to him and created another world to correct that damage."
2."We didn't feel it was necessary to decide which one was his imagination now."
3. {Not a direct quote from Killen:) "Britten is not a psychic detective."
So then...
Problem #1: If only one world is real, _and you haven't decided which one it is_, then you can't present one as more real than the other, so the episodes provide no clues for viewers to follow.
Problem #2: Corollary of #1: Things that SEEM like definitive evidence of one world's reality---like the time the therapist had Britten read aloud a portion of the Constitution he had never memorized---somehow AREN'T.
Problem #3: Britten's ability to use experiences in EACH world to help him solve cases in the other world makes no sense. How would something that really happened give him a clue to a case he imagined? Worse yet, how would something he imagined _before starting a real case_ help him solve the real case??
I enjoyed watching the show as it aired. But after reading the EW article, I was grateful that it had been cancelled after one season, so that it couldn't cheat me out of any more time. Clearly, the creators were so busy being "creative" that they didn't stop to think that their show made zero sense.
Vingt et une nuits avec Pattie (2015)
A quirky tale of a woman's sexual reawakening
Both my wife and I gave this film three stars out of five when we saw it last night at filmfestdc. We might have enjoyed it more had it been described more accurately: though it has a few humorous moments, mostly near the beginning, it is _not_ a comedy. For us, the best things about it were the beautiful lead actress, whose face was evocative and touching, and the depiction of rural French life.
One correction of a previous IMDb review: there _is_ a very brief sex scene (just a few seconds, though preceded by a somewhat longer scene of oral and physical foreplay). I would also disagree that the movie is "about necrophilia," though certainly that plays a major role in the plot. And though the main character is definitely buttoned-up--the arc of the movie is about her becoming unbuttoned, so to speak--I don't think she should be called prudish; a prude would not have tolerated Pattie's stories of her sexual escapades. Sorry for the quibbles, but after last night, I want to see the film described as accurately as possible!
Somewhere in Time (1980)
Hokey, cheesy, corny---where are the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys when you need them??
Wow--some people actually LIKE this movie?? Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since Nicholas Sparks sells a lot of books and movie tickets. But as Groucho Marx might say, "There is nothing like a good love story. And this movie is nothing like a good love story." My wife and I watched it last night and could not believe how bad it was--slow, syrupy, unbelievable, and directed with the subtlety of a Clairol commercial.
A few examples:
Our Hero, staying at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island (easily the best thing about the movie) wanders into its room of historical memorabilia. He's bending over a display case and looking at something on the wall behind it, but then he freezes...and there's a long...pregnant...pause...before he gradually turns around and slowly moves...toward...a photograph on the wall that had been behind him. What--the PHOTO has magic powers to call to him??
(Oh: and this photograph is of such cosmic significance to the hotel's history that it has an entire wall to itself...but they haven't bothered to replace the plate identifying the subject!)
Then there's the scene where the lovebirds meet for the first time (in the past, that is) and move toward each other in a way that instantly said "Clairol commercial" to both me and my wife.
Our Heroine says she has to rehearse all day before her performance as the star of the evening's play...but then she changes her mind and agrees to meet him at 1:00 (and subsequently spends the bulk of the afternoon with him). Why, when all he's done is thrown himself at her like a lovesick puppy? Well, she thinks he might be "The One"--the man her manager has been warning her about for years, saying that he will come along and ruin her life. Um, why would he have harped on that, accomplishing nothing but stoking her anticipation to actually meet "The One"? (I kept waiting to learn that he too was a time traveler, who somehow knew that Our Hero would show up---but no, that would have added some actual complexity and intrigue to the plot.)
Of course, we never get to hear what they say to each other during their three-hour afternoon outing--which is a pity, because I was really curious to know how Our Hero was going to pass himself off as a man of 1912. (He wasn't making the slightest effort even to modify his 1980 speech patterns!)
Oh--and how thick does Our Hero have to be to have emptied his 1980 hotel room of everything modern (except for the twin lamps over the bed) in order to hypnotize himself back to 1912...and still be listening to his recorded voice on a cassette tape player??
Okay, you get the point. To summarize, this is the first movie I've seen that I would consider watching again, with the right group of friends, just to make fun of it. I can recommend "Somewhere in Time" on that basis--but if you actually want a good romance or time-travel story, stay far away.
--------------- p.s. SPOILER ALERT I didn't realize this until I read it in the "Goofs" section of the IMDb listing, but the movie has a plot hole you could drive a truck through. The watch that Our Heroine, in her old age, presses upon Our Hero in the first scene is precious to her because he left it behind in 1912 when he visited her in her youth. But that means...he had the watch because she gave it to him, but she had the watch because he left it with her, so...nobody ever BOUGHT the watch! It came out of nowhere!