JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies Reviews

No Escape Room (2018 TV Movie)

Proceed with caution

[8/10 · 28 February 2021]

I quite enjoyed this. I really like the escape room/"puzzle horror" subgenre. Anyone who is a fan of this subgenre will probably enjoy the first 2/3.

In my opinion the acting is fine, and the production values are very good--especially for a made-for-TV, SyFy channel original.

Unlike most "puzzle horror" films, this one has supernatural elements. That was a bonus for me, as I also love supernatural horror and especially haunted house films, which No Escape Room starts to resemble.

However, the big caution is that the last third becomes increasingly surreal, where ultimately, a decision was made to refrain from (at least overtly) explaining any of the bizarre twists and turns taken. Everything is left wide-open to interpretation. So if you don't care for films that are unresolved--and this one is about as unresolved as you can get--I'd recommend passing.

The Watch (2020–2021)

Could have been great

[6/10 · 9 February 2021]

I've read some of the Pratchett books and enjoyed them, but I really couldn't care less whether the series bears any particular resemblance to the books. I'm fine letting the show be its own thing. My issues with the series have nothing to do with any departure from the books.

I like the world we've been set in here. I like the characters and for the most part I like the actors chosen to portray these characters--in some cases the actors are among the series' biggest assets. They have admirable chemistry. The production design is quite good. The absurdist tone is right up my alley, and often enough The Watch can be laugh out loud funny. At its best it can come across like a steam-punky, neo-noirish Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The problem, unfortunately is the story and the scripts. There's a stream-of-consciousness, random, attention deficit disorder feel to the story, where it feels like not only every episode, but more or less every scene is making things up as it goes, a la pulling brainstormed ideas out of a hat, only to get rather bored with it shortly thereafter, in a way that robs the show of narrative drive, suspense, or any clear long-term goals. It's not that tasks rooted in conflicts are not completed--each episode moves forward and advances the plot in a number of ways. It's rather that there are just so many ideas here, far too many, where a few scenes later, none of them particularly seem to matter. Tons of ideas are simply dropped from episode to episode, and insofar as anything is remembered, there never seems to be any weight or import to it. It's on to the next set of ideas, most of which seem arbitrarily rooted to anything that came before, and all of which remain underdeveloped and disengaging because of this.

It's too bad. The assets are strong enough that I still enjoyed each episode to some extent. I never stopped rooting for it to succeed. This could have been a great series with a strong cult following--it's weird enough to good effect that a cult following was there for the taking. But the disconnect of the overarching plot due to the tens if not hundreds of stream of consciousness mini-plots, where an overarching plot was never very clear in the first place, tended to instead put me in a stupor where I'd forget set-ups and objectives from just a couple scenes ago. That's no way to become absorbed in a show.

Walker (2021–2024)

Very disappointed with the first episode

[3/10 · 22 January 2021]

Too much of a soap opera. Everyone is mumbling and the captions only covered maybe 60-70% of the dialogue. The story was choppy/underexplained. Everyone seems unsure of themselves when they talk, too. The tiny bit of a case we're shown, with a tiny bit of action, seemed like an afterthought. I'll give it a couple more episodes, but if the above issues persist, there's no way I'll keep watching. I have little interest in soap opera stuff/straight dramas.

Edit after second episode: the delivery of dialogue improved a bit, and there was a little bit more to the case of the week, but overall it was still a mess with _way_ too much soap opera crap. The writing, directing, cinematography, editing and plenty of the acting has problems. It feels very cheap overall. I'm a _huge_ Supernatural fan, I liked the original Walker, and I'm someone who really likes the Magnum PI reboot, the Charmed roboot, etc., so I was rooting for this to be great. I'll give it one or two more shows, but I'm skeptical at this point that I'll keep bothering for a whole season, despite how badly I want it to pull it together and succeed.

Project Blue Book (2019–2020)

Mixed Bag

[8/10 · 5 February 2020]

Overall I'm enjoying this show enough to keep watching it, but part of it might be that I so badly want X-Files to still be on that I'll watch anything that's even remotely in the same vicinity.

I like the premise a lot, and I like the cast. As an "X-Phile" I'm obviously interested in the subject matter. The idea of a show based on the real-life Project Blue Book investigations is intriguing. The historical setting is a nice change of pace.

The problem is that tonally and conceptually, the show is inconsistent. Characters often seem to have multiple personality disorder.

During the course of a typical episode, the two main characters (Aidan Gillen and Michael Malarkey), as well as their immediate superior (Neal McDonough) will vacillate many times between (a) seeming to believe that people are having UFO and alien (and occasionally other Fortean) encounters, (b) seeming to think that the idea of UFO and alien encounters is pure bunk, and (c) being more agnostic about it but seeming to think that their job is (i) ultimately to provide b.s. cover stories for the government, or (ii) ultimately to be subversive and suggest that the government is covering up something.

A lot of screen time that could be spent on investigations is spent on inter-character drama where our stars take turns being on opposing sides of (a), (b), (c)(i) and (c)(ii) above. It becomes confusing. You don't know who is on what side. It's usually not clear what anyone's goal is exactly. And the bosses seem to continually make decisions--including many times that Project Blue Book was going to be closed or at least our investigators fired--that they renege on within 20 minutes.

The pacing and overall aesthetic--even the style of dialogue delivery, reminds me a lot of the video game L.A. Noire, which wasn't exactly a blockbuster, but it had its fans.

With less vacillation, better character focus, more attention on weird phenomena and investigations, and a bit more action this could be an excellent show.

Deputy (2020)

Okay but kind of weird and confusing

[6/10 · 17 January 2020]

So far I'm enjoying this show well enough to keep watching it. I don't have a problem, really, with it having a political agenda. I don't require that shows reflect my personal views, anyway.

But I do have a number of complaints about it, and there are a number of things that have mystified me about it.

Chief among my complaints are that:

* There's way too much shaky cam. The edict for the show's cinematographers is apparently that they are required to (a) use handhelds, and (b) keep them in motion at all times. Some of that is okay. I'd rather not have an hour of it straight.

* There are too many close-ups/tight shots. Again, some of that is okay, but there needs to be more variety in the framing.

* The way that the plots progress has tended to be a bit confusing or random-feeling at times. There can be too many narrative jumps and non-sequiturs, and the dialogue can be a combination of too jargony and trying too hard to sound hip and stylistic but tough and kind of neo-noirish.

* Some of the characters/character relationships are a bit confusing so far. This is exacerbated by a number of them having a similar look, although this is the sort of thing that becomes much less of a problem the more you watch the show and get to know the characters. Still, it shouldn't be so confusing at the start.

Under the "mystifying" category:

* Why, exactly, does Stephen Dorff's character seem like a redneck from a small town in the middle of Texas when he's from LA, with generations of his family prior to him also from LA?

* Why would the sheriff of Los Angeles County be required to have an assistant who acts like his boss/chaperone and who is also his bodyguard? (And then why would that assistant be someone who comes across like a relatively frail, diminutive but sassy young college student?)

* Why would the "majors" (I'm not even sure just what they're supposed to be in terms of the Sheriff's department, or if they're even really part of the department) be like a ragtag group of mercenaries, almost like they got lost on their way to be Arnold's backup on a Predator film?

My problem with the above, by the way, isn't that it's not realistic--I have no idea if it's realistic or not. And that doesn't matter to me. I don't expect fiction to be realistic. My problem with it is that none of it is explained or justified or motivated very well in the context of the show. It just seems arbitrary, like random, very sketchy brainstorming ideas that have even confused the writers, so they decided to just brush over them without weaving relevant details into the show's world.

Aside from that, the stories and the action, even though they've been relatively stock for a police-oriented crime show, have been entertaining enough, and Stephen Dorff is excellent. He also has exactly the right look at this point in his life to play this character. But some of that stuff I mention above is almost enough to make me question why I'm continuing to watch the show. Hopefully the frustrating quirks will improve if Deputy manages to stay on the air long enough.

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017–2019)

A series of ____________ (adjective) _____________ (plural noun)

[4/10 · 17 November 2019]

I like the tone of this series. I enjoy the caricature-like characters and the affectations of the acting. I love the production design. The variety of settings were intriguing. It's not too odd for me or anything like that.

What I didn't at all like was how mind-numbingly formulaic it is. There aren't really different stories. It's the same story over and over and over, simply with Mad-Libbed details. I really can't understand how this is so popular as a series when it's so formulaic. Why don't people want more than the same story repeated with Mad-Libbed details?

Fun Mom Dinner (2017)

Okay if you lower your bar enough

[6/10 · 15 January 2018]

I went into this expecting it to be a "Hell in a handbasket" film--those have intentionally simple set-ups, with usually (darkly) comedic plots propelled by events gradually spiraling more and more out of control until characters have a complete disaster on their hands.

That's not what this is, though. This is more of a quaint, somewhat chick-flicky buddy film. They seemed to be shooting for a middle-age-yuppie-parents-oriented John Hughes style flick, a la the Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, 16 Candles, etc. It doesn't take much imagination to realize this. Characters regularly reference 16 Candles.

I found a few scenes laugh-out-loud funny, but that's not necessarily what they were shooting for here anyway. They're just as often trying to be poignant or simply "cute"--the latter most consistently hitting its target.

Unfortunately, overall, Fun Mom Dinner winds up falling a bit flat, unable to sustain or even build any significant momentum. It too often displays the relative laziness of its title. It's a short film, but some scenes drag--the marijuana dispensary bit is one of the worst offenders.

I wouldn't say it's not worth watching, but lower your expectations--bury the bar in the ground after all. If you approach it as a sketchy, cute dramedy, though one with a character or two who can be on the annoying side as often as not, it has some assets.

American Sniper (2014)

I should have loved this

[5/10 · 12 November 2017]

First, let me say that I'm not very much into politics, so my views about this film have nothing to do with political views, or even moral views or anything like that. Even though this is based on a true story, I watch films like this as if they're completely fictional. And I watch films from more of a "formalist" perspective.

I do like this genre. I'm writing having just seen this film for the first time in late 2017. Both "The Brave" and "S.E.A.L. Team" are about halfway through their first season, and so far I love both. I love video games like the Sniper Elite series. I've enjoyed playing the Call of Duty games.

And I did like this film. But in my opinion it has some serious problems too. I want to talk about what I believe the problems are. The problems are why I didn't love this film. I'm assuming you've already seen the film, or you at least know a lot of the plot basics.

In a nutshell, director Clint Eastwood tells this story in a very choppy, superficial way, with too many plot holes and too many befuddling character actions.

The timeline jumps around, with an early flashback that has to be gleaned simply contextually. All of the jumps have to be gleaned contextually throughout the film. That flashback works out fine, although when we jump forward in bits and pieces I had a bit of confusion re whether I was still watching the two brothers or different characters. I was confused why they were all of a sudden rodeo cowboys, because the film just jumps into that with absolutely no preparation or set-up. And all of a sudden Chris not only has a woman he's living with but he's already having problems with her, she's already fooling around on him, etc. That part is like we've jumped to at least the middle of something that should be a separate film, where unfortunately we've missed a bunch of important scenes.

A couple later jumps, halfway through the film, are even more confusing. Chris's military team apparently blow up a terrorist known as "the Butcher." Meanwhile Chris's wife--who by the way does a couple personality 180s that are never explained or justified--is pregnant with their first kid. Well, not too long after that, we jump at least four or five years into the future, because the kid is now four or five years old, but (a) Chris goes back to the Middle East as if it's the very next tour relative to the one where they blew up the Butcher and Chris's wife was pregnant (so what happened during that four or five- year span?), and (b) they talk about the Butcher as if he's alive. For a minute or two, I was assuming that the plot must have jumped back in time in the Middle East again. This is one of the problems with doing time jumps only contextually, so that they're unannounced.

The Butcher is never brought up again, so I guess that they did blow him up. A couple other plot holes are more problematic. Chris's brother, who seems increasingly weaselly and traumatized by being in the military in a war zone (we never see why), more or less just disappears from the film about halfway through. Chris's parents are never mentioned again after the early flashback scenes, either. I don't know why. There didn't seem to be any sort of problems in their relationship with Chris. More seriously, though, is the fact that one of the most interesting things about the true story this is based on is the fact that Kyle wound up killed by a fellow military member, only once Kyle was back in the States, back in civilian life, and where he was trying to help out the guy who killed him. We're given no details about this. We're not shown it. We're only briefly shown the guy when he shows up at Chris's house, they drive off, and that's it, the film is over. We learn that Chris was killed via a brief title card.

Maybe most problematic though are the characterizations. I mentioned Chris's wife's 180s earlier. Well, Chris is portrayed as quite enigmatic and as increasingly unlikable. There seems to be something seriously wrong with him mentally, and it only gets worse as the film goes on. You want to kick him at times when he's on the phone with his wife during battle rather than concentrating on the turmoil at hand. And then you want to kick him when he's back home and he seems increasingly catatonic, as if he couldn't care less about his family--at least not until he gets back to the Middle East, so that he can call them during the middle of a battle again. And then eventually, it seems that Chris's mental problems have more or less vanished with no explanation. It's another plot jump effectively.

Akin to Chris's distractions with phone calls, both the U.S. soldiers and the Middle Easterners are regularly shown behaving as if they don't quite grasp that someone could be shooting at them at any moment, from any possible angle/vantage point. They'll be la-di-da-ing around and then oops! I'm shot in the head, where that consequence is of no surprise to the viewer, if only the characters had a bit more awareness of the peril they're in.

Focusing only on the problems, it must be a wonder why I liked this film at all. There was enough that I liked, but I certainly didn't think it was perfect. Since comments seem to be either praise or political or moral complaints, I wanted to bring up some things that I feel are formal flaws with the film.

Hacking the Wild (2017– )

Best if viewed as comedy

[5/10 · 23 March 2017]

I really _want_ to like this show.

That was true before I started watching it, and it's true now that I've seen the first five episodes.

It's not that I've seen a ton of survival shows--I haven't seen anything that Bear Grylls has done yet, for example. But I did love Les Stroud's Survivorman. And in general, I really like documentaries done in an infotainment style. I love travel and adventure shows. I'm a huge fan of Expedition Unknown. I'm a huge fan of River Monsters. I'm also a big fan of a bunch of science-oriented infotainment documentary shows. I love Mythbusters. I love Outrageous Acts of Science.

So when I saw advertisements for this show, it seemed right up my alley.

Unfortunately, after five shows, I'm not at all convinced that it wasn't intended as a mockumentary. It's a bit more enjoyable when you think it might be a put-on with comedic intent.

Hacking the Wild is quite formulaic. We begin with host Andy Quitmeyer traveling to some exotic locale with a tale of people "recently" being stranded there. In every show but one so far, supposedly they managed to survive for four days prior to rescue. Why does Hacking the Wild claim they stranded for four days? Because that's how long Quitmeyer will be stranded. It's the formula of the show.

The raison d'etre is that Quitmeyer is going into the wilderness armed with some technological gadgets and absent some of the normal gear one would have. He's going to adapt the technological resources to aid his survival.

Upon arrival, Quitmeyer first meets with a "survival expert" (they all come across like rather amateur actors instead, but maybe they are who the show says they are). The same thing always happens in these scenes. The survival expert says that Quitmeyer is crazy to head into the wilderness with what he has in his pack. Quitmeyer meanwhile gives them a gadget for monitoring his progress.

The items that Quitmeyer does and doesn't bring with him are fairly ridiculous. No one is going to head deep into the Alaskan wilderness without a compass. And no one is going to into these locations loaded with lasers, servos, chemistry kits, a big array of gator clip leads, etc. On top of that, he never seems to have any power problems, even after three days in harsh weather. So that part doesn't seem very realistic or very useful if the show has instructional intent.

On top of that, the things that Quitmeyer builds with his tech often seem both ridiculous and woefully under-explained. He frequently builds some crazy Rube Goldberg-like contraption without showing very well just how he's building it or just how it works. At least he doesn't do this in a manner where anyone watching could be expected to build this sort of stuff themselves, unless they could do so without needing to watch Quitmeyer in the first place.

But there are bigger problems than this. For one, Quitmeyer comes across as if he has zero practical, common-sense survival skills. I don't know if that's an act for the show, but there's no way that someone would go into the wilderness while making the decisions that he routinely makes and not wind up severely injured and/or severely ill followed by severely dead. It often seems more like you're watching an old Jerry Lewis film--"Jerome in the Jungle" perhaps, as Quitmeyer bumbles his way through the dumbest decisions ever regarding how and where to travel and what risks to take.

It doesn't help that Quitmeyer does not come across as very likable. He seems rather weaselly and nerdy. "Nerdy" can be endearing, of course, especially to other nerds, but Quitmeyer seems rather like the kind of nerd who always wants to hang out with you even though you keep avoiding him.

Another problem is that you often do not get much of a sense of Quitmeyer making progress. Days will go by where he apparently doesn't travel at all, for example, even though the overall plan is to travel to a specific location. This just leads to the sense of the show being staged, not really the scenario that it's claiming to be. It's simply as an excuse to build those Rube Goldberg contraptions as an idiot savant.

Another huge problem is that Quitmeyer is clearly not stranded in the wilderness alone. He has at least one camera/sound-man with him. This is unlike Survivorman, say, where Les Stroud demonstrated at least once just how he filmed the show. Here, occasionally they try to give the impression of Quitmeyer filming everything himself, but the show is loaded with obvious shots from a separate cameraman, as they pan the camera, zoom in and out etc. from a distance. Some shots are also obviously drone shots, but Quitmeyer is never shown operating the drone. He'd have to be operating it to get the shots they're getting.

So it's never really believable that Quitmeyer is stranded at all, or that he only has the resources that he's showing on camera when it comes to food and water for example. Of course, some of the scenarios he's placed himself in so far would have been far easier to get out of anyway, merely by sensibly hiking in a known direction. Quitmeyer's stupid on-camera decisions often seem designed to make his situation worse and enable more gadgetry.

It doesn't take much to start laughing at Quitmeyer and the show instead, much like you'd laugh at "Jerome in the Jungle". There's also a bit of Gilligan's Island to it--Quitmeyer is both Gilligan and the Professor rolled into one. Seen as a fairly subtle mockumentary, there is more value in Hacking the Wild, but it's still not a great show. I'll be surprised if it lasts very long.

The Voices (2014)

Quality Black Comedy

[9/10 · 16 May 2015]

* Pretty dark, quirky black comedy that slyly transitions from what feels like an indie RomCom out of the gate to a sometimes sad and sombre tragedy.

* Lower budget necessities contribute to a bit of a "Twin Peaks" (1990) vibe.

* Imagine, though, Adam Sandler making Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) by way of "Twin Peaks."

* Great performance from Ryan Reynolds.

* Has serious, nuanced subtexts about schizophrenia.

* Co-recommendations: Serial Mom (1994), To Die For (1995), Lars and the Real Girl (2007), You Kill Me (2007), Very Bad Things (1998)

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

Make sure you know what to expect--I had misconceptions, and it was a disappointment I would have avoided otherwise

[3/10 · 16 May 2015]

* A talky "behind the scenes" drama about producing a play on Broadway, centered on a troubled Hollywood star making his stage debut.

* There are a few light moments, and a few very slight fantastical elements, but I wouldn't classify Birdman as anything other than a drama.

* Has the feel of a faux-documentary film, though without the crappy cinematography that typically entails. Rather, the cinematography/extended shot construction/"choreography" are the only consistently brilliant elements.

* Does have the typical, affected, very artificial feeling/faux-realist soap-operatic melodrama of most of those faux-documentary flicks.

* The dialogue regularly swings back to critical commentary a la "high art" vs "low art"/art vs. entertainment/"legitimate" vs. commerce-oriented etc. distinctions that I can imagine a lot of fans of the film agreeing with directly as stated by various characters--and after all, part of the idea of the film is that the protagonist is shooting for legitimacy versus the blockbuster superhero fare he'd become rich and famous for, but those views are so much b.s. in my view, and thus, for me, that dialogue came across across as insincere, pretentious and should-be-satirical or ironic, but there wasn't really a payoff if we interpret it as the latter.

* Not the sort of film I'd usually bother with--the genre isn't really my bag. I don't like to know too much info prior to watching anything, though, so it's partially my fault for expecting something in the vein of Defendor (2009) or Super (2010), both of which I like a lot.

* Co-recommendations: Black Swan (2010), Synecdoche New York (2008), Noises Off... (1992), Persona (1966), Floating Weeds (1959), Children of Paradise (1945). (Noises Off... is the only one of those that I'm personally a fan of. In fact, it would be on a short list of my favorite films.)