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StreetScumSurfer
Reviews
808 (2015)
The doc I didn't know I needed
A fascinating and awesome tour through the foundations of a huge chunk of essential music. Big names like Albarn and Beasties (rip MCA) make an appearance and lots of other artists and producers I either had a vague knowledge of or were complete unknowns to me. Not only fascinating but a cool introduction to some foundational genres and artists of a lot of modern music. A lot of pennies dropped. Respect to the 808
Venom (2018)
Don't trust a film critic
This movie is undeniably fun. Tom Hardy is clearly enjoying himself and I did too. A lot of critics complaints reference how the tone of the film isn't consistent... Well so what? Neither is Venom and I personally enjoyed watching a film that didn't get boxed into horror, comedy or action genres and instead said hey, let's mix it up and have some fun!
The OA (2016)
Poor writing with more holes than Swiss cheese
Where to begin?
Firstly a lot of people will take the view that not liking the OA is akin to having a 'closed mind'. Unfortunately the reality is that not liking the OA isn't to do with the inability to believe in fantastical concepts, but an inability to enjoy 8 hours of stupid character decisions, nonsense plot points, events that make no logical sense, and situation after situation designed to tug on emotions and build suspense, but due to poor writing make so little sense that as soon as you dig deeper you are left feeling empty.
The OA's biggest crime is that it insults the audience on too regular an occasion as it desperately tries to draw emotion out of one dimensional characters defined by their family situation of uninspiring archetypes (angry bully, stoner), by creating weird constructs of unstable and confused plot points. the extra hurt comes from the fact it takes itself so unbearably seriously.
Below is a list of dumb moments/things that make no sense off the top of my head:
- how did no one notice their front door was open (seriously why?)
-Picks up knife next to guy who kidnapped her - makes a sandwich.
- Why did Homer want to send money and a ring - why not a note to the police? Seriously, so stupid.
- the FBI are not concerned they bought Prairie as a child illegally. - When the sheriff comes why not say we'll cure your wife if you let us out? and maybe arrest the guy that kidnapped us for 7 years?
- probably the most contrived and dumbest of all: why did the kidnapper order food with tomatoes in, get a blind lady to prepare it for her and then eat it??? seriously, are the writers that incapable of creating drama out of something not stupid? And he ordered fries with ketchup earlier in the show. So dumb.
- All of going to Cuba
- First the kidnapper can't talk Spanish. then the reception phones him in Spanish? Regardless of poor writing the whole thing makes no sense
- firstly how does the OA (cringe) know the details of it all, how did he fly into Cuba with an unconscious guy with no passport, and was his plan to sneak in when they were boning, really... and just hope she wasn't able to see the door when he sidles in? really??
- Why didn't Homer overpower the guy when he thought he was drugged... he had multiple opportunities to free all of them from being imprisoned. they could have carried on the experiments themselves if they wanted to.
- Why oh why didn't she talk to the police to try to find her kidnapped friends?? She thinks the guy she is obsessed with is being kept prisoner in a basement of a house by a mine where a sheriff and his disabled wife disappeared - doesn't tell the police.
- the teachers brilliant plan to save the kid from going to army school. 'I've put an order of order sign on the toilet door'. Did she carry that round with her? The two army guys took the check, what did they tell their bosses? Why did the dad not mention it again? They must have paid thousands to send him there, and because he escaped no one is following up on that. Seriously, so stupid.
- she decides that the OA a sound from another dimension stands for original angel, the first letters of two English words.
- why was the guy from the FBI in Prairie's house? The house was empty when the kid arrived. And why did he just hug him, and how was he allowed to carry that box out - he was caught - by the FBI - robbing stuff from the house.
- what happened to the bully's dog? e.g. when the army come round? - Why did the mum show the dad the letter only in the last episode? It was totally irrelevant by that point and served only to drag a few emotions out of the audience.
- Gunman gets tackled to the ground, rifle shoots bullets by falling on the floor.
- introducing herself as the OA: surely she knows the FBI are asking her the name shes had for the last 20 years, not her extra dimensional name. She comes across as stupid and annoying way too often.
- other characters act like she is charismatic. However she acts stupid and annoying all the time.
-OA talking to the teacher, says nothing profound, teacher has mind blown and totally changes her approach to her job.
This is a fraction. No one should be able to construct a list like this in 10 minutes off just 8 episodes for any show, unless it really is a garbled mess.
It could have been a good show if it wasn't so half baked and lazy. The idea being that the audience will be drawn in by the mystery and profound sounding statements that as soon as you read into them fall apart. This is the con of the whole show really, I can buy fantasy and sci-fi, ridiculous concepts I enjoy regularly, but when there are so many faults - people don't act like people, characters are incredibly stupid, every 10 minutes there is something that lifts you out of it because it so dumb, doesn't make sense or is laughable - the substance is lost leaving a confused mess behind.