popkiller Reviews

Star Trek: Picard: Two of One (2022) Season 2, Episode 6

Worst moment in Trek history

[1/10 · 2 May 2023]

This is the worst Trek has ever gotten.

The Borg Queen possesses one of the main characters, sets off an EMP, then makes her sing a Pat Benatar song at a black tie gala, unscheduled. The band somehow knows the song and joins in. This is the worst moment in Trek history. I audibly begged them not to do it, that's how cringe-inducing this moment was.

Dr Noonian Soong's ancestor (who is played by Brent Spiner and is named Soong, obviously) hits Picard with his car, but was trying to hit Jean-Luc's ancestor (named Picard, obviously) because Q told him to.

OH NO! Is Picard going to die?! On a show named Picard?!

Star Trek was once a proud and revered franchise and Next Generation was its crown jewel. Now it's in the hands of the same studio that makes CSI. We deserve better than this.

Skinamarink (2022)

An interesting experiment...

[2/10 · 19 March 2023]

...that cannot sustain itself over 1:40. The director/editor could have easily cut 20 minutes out and still had the same film. I'm all for experimental cinema, but experimentation has to leave open the possibility of failure, and ultimately that's what Skinnamarink is, unfortunately. I respect the director's vision - the film was borne out of a series of shorts he made based on the dreams/nightmares of others, but that is best suited for a shorter format. Other experimental horror films - notably The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity - have a sense of rising action, but the tempo of this film never changes.

Died Suddenly (2022)

It's not a documentary if you make it up

[1/10 · 4 February 2023]

Complete fabrication; BS designed to raise the profile (and thus line the pockets) of its creators. It's not worth even commenting on the filmmaking (which is very, very poor) when the premise itself is false. A cynical, solipsistic cash grab made by trolls.

And this is without even going into the societal dangers the film poses. To put forth this premise, of which no quality research has been done, creates an unnecessary distrust in the science of vaccines. They're proven to be effective, but it's a popular talking point in victim culture to blame them for easily explainable medical conditions.

Irresponsible trash.

Look Both Ways (2022)

generally speaking, you're supposed to tell a story

[1/10 · 20 September 2022]

Really a pointless piece of filmmaking, the premise is there are two divergent paths her life could take, and we explore both, but at no point is she faced with a dilemma. It's just an exploration of what would happen. It feels like the writer had two ideas for romantic comedies and couldn't decide, so they just did both. But why?

SPOILERS: The movie doesn't make any larger point about the path you take, other than maybe "things will end up okay in the end no matter what you choose". BUT - she didn't make a choice. Both things happened and that was it.

When faced with a crisis point early on - is she pregnant or not? - she makes no decision then, or when it returns to this point at the end. So why tell this story, if you can even call it that? It's just empty wish fulfillment of what one's life would have been like if it took a different path. It's similar to the film Family Man, but in that movie, the main character actually makes a decision that will affect the rest of his life. In this, she does nothing but we see how two scenarios play out. It's like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book except you don't have to choose, bc you get both at the same time.

Anyway, it's bad, don't watch it.

HouseBroken (2021–2023)

It's a slog

[4/10 · 21 August 2021]

Wanted to like it. Decent joke every once in a while but repeating the same ones over and over won't make them any funnier. The turtle thinks a shoe is his girlfriend, we get it.

Needs the cast reduced by half, some kind of renewed drive past the group therapy conceit, and a new theme song to replace the one it has, one of the worst I've ever heard.

Chef (2014)

Great movie! Especially the part where...

[3/10 · 26 May 2021]

...the white chef becomes successful by selling culturally-appropriated sandwiches made with meat cooked by other people and doesn't credit them. I also liked the director/star's choice to cast a beautiful woman 18 years his junior to play his girlfriend, and her important role in the story of becoming aroused by his cooking skills as she poses sultrily.

Ooh, Jon Favreau studied with a professional chef for a couple weeks before filming?! Give me a break. This movie is a full cinematic representation of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

3/10 for competent directing and nothing else.

Vice Force Action Squad (2017– )

Absolutely hilarious

[10/10 · 2 May 2021]

Most amateur comedies - shorts, webseries, etc - are meh, unfunny vanity projects, but this show actually made me laugh - a lot. Like Starsky and Hutch meets Beavis and Butthead. Not at all sophisticated, but really funny. The cast is great, the two leads play really well off each other, and the weird doctor from Scrubs is hilarious as the chief. Check it out!

Wayne (2019)

All-Time Top 5 Show

[10/10 · 3 March 2021]

One of my favorites ever. Just raucous, hilarious fun with a ton of heart and really well-drawn characters. Writing is exceptional. Watch it ASAP

Me You Madness (2021)

simply put: one of the worst movies I've ever seen

[1/10 · 25 February 2021]

It feels like the vanity project of a rich guy's wife. There's nothing at all relatable or interesting in it; you've seen the same things in better movies plenty of times. Even the rich people in Mr. & Mrs. Smith had the decency to play down their wealth, and that's a much better version of this.

The acting is atrocious; I never though Ed Westwick was that great on Gossip Girl but he made it work for the show. Here he's wooden and unfunny. And she... well there's a reason she had to make a movie in order to star in one. Oof.

Plus, how many more tributes to the 80s do we need? It was 40 years ago, let's move on already.

Watch Promising Young Woman instead. You'll still feel icky but at least you'll have had a better time getting there.

How It Ends (2018)

Don't.

[1/10 · 21 October 2018]

Simply put: one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

Star Trek: Voyager: Repression (2000) Season 7, Episode 4

Nigh unwatchable

[2/10 · 18 November 2013]

A lot of people consider the season 2 episode where Paris and Janeway turn into space slugs, hook up, and pop out a couple of space slug kids as the worst episode of Voyager, and even Star Trek history, but they obviously never made it far enough to watch this steaming pile of crap.

We start off with some Bajoran witch doctor putting some space voodoo on Voyager, then immediately to the "comic" relief in which Mr. and Mrs. Tom Paris go on a date night to a 3D movie theater. On the holodeck. The irony is not lost on B'Lanna, who comments that it seems silly to watch two-dimensional technology using three-dimensional holographic equipment. Not seems, Mrs. Paris, IS. IS SILLY. The most sophisticated entertainment system ever created, and little Tommy Paris uses it to watch 400-year-old movies. That's like using my playstation to watch...well, nothing, because entertainment wasn't even invented until the 20th century.

Back to Voyager - seems as if someone is attacking seemingly random crew people until it's revealed that it's not random, there's a pattern - they're all former Maquis! Hey, remember that thing that stopped being an issue in Season One? Nope, me either.

It's been SEVEN YEARS. Why bother reminding the audience of a storyline so long-abandoned, so mundane, even the characters didn't care about it anymore?

Somehow it's revealed that the Bajoran witch doctor is some kind of Dr. Mindbender, who did a bunch of experiments on Tuvok because he was jealous that the Maquis kicked him out of their club. What?! Why does any of this matter? Seven years ago, it might have mattered. This feels like another "Friday Before A Holiday Weekend" episode, where the writers just found whatever resembled a story and made them shoot it the next week.

Shameful. Anyway, the Bajoran has been using Tuvok to mind-meld with the Maquis people, of which Chakotay states is about 1/4 of Voyager's crew. On the high side, Voyager has 150 crew people, so that makes around 32 Maquis. After Tuvok's mind-melds, all of the FORMER Maquis (because remember, THIS DOESN'T MATTER ANYMORE) become all crazy mind-controlled and stage an insurrection, taking over Voyager. Why? Why is any of this happening? Turns out no one knows or cares. Best part? When Evil Maquis Chakotay tells Evil Maquis Tuvok that they still had around 21 of their people who didn't get the mind-meld, so they can't help. 21 of 32 are not helping them. That leaves 11. Eleven former Maquis took over all of Voyager without any pushback. More than 11 people get sick after eating Neelix's cooking on a nightly basis.

All this stupidity ends when Janeway tells Tuvok to remember who he is, and then he does and something happens, the end.

Just a dumb, dumb, useless episode. Which is a shame, because it started out really great with a Ten Little Indians kind of feel with the crew getting attacked one at a time.

Eleven people. Give me a break. They even changed out of their Starfleet uniforms after they took over the ship. So, outmatched around 12-1, the Maquis jerkwads find a way to take the ship and stop by their apartments to change their clothes in the process.

Poo. Utter poo. 2/10 and only because of that horror movie vibe that died around 10 minutes in.

Star Trek: Voyager: Live Fast and Prosper (2000) Season 6, Episode 21

The Classic Space Grifter Story

[3/10 · 25 October 2013]

A clam of an episode, in which a three-man band of space con artists pose as Captain Janeway, Tuvok and Chakotay. How? It seems that they somehow managed to download information from Voyager's database without them knowing. Don't they have encryption or an IT department on a spaceship run ENTIRELY by computers? Voyager manages to catch up to their imposters, imprisoning the fake Janeway, then putting on the least believable con in the history of the Delta Quadrant. And of course... it works! Then Fake Janeway, or Faneway, has a change of heart, because Neelix talks to her for two hours about how he used to not care about anything but now he's found a home on Voyager, being the cook and the comic relief because Tom Paris isn't nearly as funny as he or the writers think he is.

Why does Faneway have a change of heart after a lifetime of grifting? No idea. Why were they posing as Voyager in the first place, since Voyager has no reputation in this sector? Because there was plenty of backstory? I have no idea.

The best parts: seeing the Fake Tuvok, or Fuvok, pretend to be Tuvok. The worst part? The real Tuvok giving a John McLane-esque one-liner before shooting his counterpart. Why is he even on this show? B'Lanna can scowl enough for five people.

This might be the lowest point of a low season. But when you've come this far... there's no turning back.

Star Trek: Voyager: Vis À Vis (1998) Season 4, Episode 20

Freaky Friday, Star Trek Edition

[7/10 · 9 August 2013]

Infinitely more interesting than the snoozefest of a two-parter that preceded this episode, Voyager gets super high concept when Tom, suddenly bored with everything except for fixing a 400 year old car, makes a new friend with a hot rod of his own.

That last bit wasn't intended as a double-entendre, but feel free to interpret it however you want.

Steth, Tom's new BFF, thinks he has The Right Stuff, and wants him to come test drive the new 2372's. Tom is nearly in, but Steth starts turning into a woman, and then takes over Tom's body. He's a shape-shifter! Sort of.

The writing's a little sloppy, but this is one of the rare Voyager episodes that is actually about something, even if it is a contrivance. Tom has to learn and grow as a person, and that means spending more time with his gorgeous girlfriend and less time repairing a 1969 Camaro on the Holodeck. Do they have a Dead Man's Curve simulation to test it out on? Also fun are the instant stakes in the audience knowing what's going on (alien posing as Tom), but the rest of the crew just thinking it's classic Tom Paris.

Anyway, this feels way more Star Trek-y than most of the recent episodes. Which is a nice change of pace for a Star Trek show.

Star Trek: Voyager: The Killing Game, Part II (1998) Season 4, Episode 19

Yawn.

[4/10 · 9 August 2013]

Universal must have been offering their backlot at 50% off, because that's the only thing this two-parter exists for.

The Hirogen have taken over Voyager for nearly 3 weeks and are subjecting the crew to endless Holodeck programs in order to hunt. Safely.

How did the Hirogen take over Voyager? Must not matter, because it's never explained. Who cares about mundane details like that? The important thing is that Jeri Ryan gets to show off her singing voice.

The Hirogen have been pretty much all the crew has had to deal with for the last 3 episodes, and while the previous ones have shown them to be ruthless hunters (a la Kraven The Hunter from Spider-Man), they're suddenly trying to soften their stance...by pretending to be Nazis.

It's just a big, big mess. It feels like the whole thing was pitched on a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend: What if the whole ship was turned into a Holodeck...and the whole crew were in World War II France...and Neelix was a Klingon?

What if I just move on to the next episode?

Star Trek: Voyager: Message in a Bottle (1998) Season 4, Episode 14

A Little Space Magic

[7/10 · 7 August 2013]

Now that we're in Season 4, the crew of Voyager can make a little progress on their trip home instead of the constant disappointment they've grown so used to.

Seven of Nine, apparently with plenty of time on her hands to turn knobs and push buttons in astrometrics, has found a Starfleet vessel in deep space. Deep, deep, deep space for Voyager, as it's in the Alpha Quadrant. It seems that some aliens built a bunch of cell towers in space and Voyager tries to use them to send a voicemail home. When that doesn't work, they send The Doctor, because why not? It makes perfect sense - a simple sound file can't get through thousands of light years without degradation, but one of the most complex computer files in existence works like a charm.

The Doctor then appears in the pristine sickbay of a brand new Starfleet ship, only to find that some dirty, stinking Romulans have already stolen it and are headed back to Romulus, no doubt to stir up some trouble in years to come.

So it's up to Dr. Sourpuss to convince that ship's new and improved (debatable) EMH to stage an insurrection and retake the ship so that they can alert Starfleet so that the Doc can get home so that Voyager can know that Starfleet knows they're still alive. A lot of work, but the payoff is nice, as our crew finally has some hope. Not gonna lie - got a teensy bit emotional when the Doc gives Janeway Starfleet's message - "you're not alone." Though, Voyager might just want to stay in the Delta Quadrant once they learn Andy Dick is the new space doctor.

Star Trek: Voyager: Worst Case Scenario (1997) Season 3, Episode 25

2/3 of a great episode

[6/10 · 26 July 2013]

It starts off as a great premise - the various crew members, curiosity piqued, participate in a holonovel originally designed as a training exercise in which Chakotay stages a Maquis mutiny.

Not only is it interesting to see the various scenarios play out like a super fancy video game, we get a real, grounded version of the holodeck instead of the magical cure-all it's normally used as.

When the popularity of the novel spreads to the crew, wet blanket Tuvok wants to shut it down until Voyager's own Bart Simpson - Tom Paris - convinces him otherwise. From there, the episode seems like it's going to take another interesting turn in which Paris and Tuvok debate how to approach writing the rest of their holonovel. Thinly veiled, but it's always nice when the writers get to have a voice on the show of their own. So Tuvok opens up the re-write file and then...

Voyager.

So many interesting episodes up to this point on the show have been ruined by quick fixes, deus ex machina, or the Doctor completely fabricating science that never existed before just to end the episode. This one had so much potential until the insufferable Seska takes control of the holodeck and the whole ship.

Wait, isn't she dead? Yep, for a year now. But hell hath no fury like a Cardassian woman posing as a Bajoran woman scorned, as Seska planned a little bit of revenge on her ex-boyfriend Chakotay and his new friends. Eventually.

What was interesting prior to the "stakes" is that there were no stakes in this episode. Just fictional characters in a fictional setting having very real conversations about temptation, ship gossip, creative approaches and what equates to cabin fever.

Disappointing, as the stakes aren't really stakes - you know Paris and Tuvok aren't going to die, so what's the point? We've seen this story literally hundreds of times on various Star Trek series, but so rarely have we seen our characters just being people for a whole episode. Maybe it's unfair to judge the show by 2013 standards instead of those of 1997, but it just hurts to see them get so close to something great before deciding to take the easy way out.

Probably a 7/10, but bringing back the intolerable Seska long after her death knocks it down a point.

The Provider (2003)

Distractions

[5/10 · 1 October 2003]

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS

Although its unusual situation is probably what most people will remember about this film, the theme of survival and the animalistic portrayal of humans is overlooked. I, for one, was too distracted by the logistics and mechanisms of the "food" (e.g., what is it?, how did it get there?, etc.) to recognize the basic themes. However, the film succeeds in commanding attention and lasting in the viewers mind for a while after watching.

Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

The absolute worst movie I have ever seen

[1 November 2001]

This movie is atrocious, the very thing I loathe about Hollywood filmmaking. The acting is terrible, the script is dumb, just a poor excuse for a film. I find it notable that my 2 least favorite movies ever are this one and Wing Commander, both of which starred Matthew Lillard...oh, but the sets were cool...

The Passion of Martin (1991)

Obsession at its finest

[7/10 · 28 March 2001]

Alexander Payne's (Election) black comedy student film about Martin, a 30-something photographer who has made it his life quest to find his soulmate. After seeing a girl admiring his work in a gallery, he runs into her again at a photo shoot for a wedding. The two hit it off, but Martin becomes puzzled when she leaves before he wakes up the next morning. From there we get a peak inside Martin's psyche, as he cannot comprehend why she hasn't made a life-long commitment to Martin after one date. Brilliant performance by Charley Hayward (Poison Ivy) as Martin. Written and directed by Payne, The Passion of Martin is a dead-on depiction of obsession and someone feels when the love of your life is unrequited. Definitely (if you can find it) worth seeing if you enjoyed Election.