D.Moore

Everything that literally scares me about modern technology and what it can do to us if we let it, crammed into less than 50 minutes. Chillingly brilliant.

Fritz Lang could rise from the grave and declare with a smirk, "I told you so!" This is Metropolis, 2011.

I was expecting sci-fi, because that's the show's reputation, not a drama set in contemporary (admittedly, alternate) England. But whatever. Mostly it's an original, well-written story, both funny and chilling, that just makes you think. How would you see it? And would you watch it or not? Who knows.

Completely, completely, completely different from the first series. Really only the actors and one of the writers have remained, otherwise just about everything has changed – and some of it for the worse. For example, the number of episodes increased, but that has only led to a watering down of the story, which also wasn’t that great. Miracle Workers is kind of a really long sketch show that finds itself somewhere in the middle of the series and realizes what it wants to say. A great many of the jokes are absolutely divine, some don't work so well... that makes sense. However, thanks to the reasonable running time and the sensational Geraldine Viswanathan, Steve Buscemi, and Daniel Radcliffe, I was entertained even in the weaker moments.

The Brits have combined the American The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the Japanese Godzilla, and the result is something that is quite decent up to about halfway through but gets worse from the halfway point on. Behemoth doesn't even have the super fun gimmicks that Ray Harryhausen equipped the above first movie with, and its anti-nuclear appeal isn't nearly as strong and timeless as Godzilla's. It's just a generic monster movie.

There are comparisons between this film and our own Witchhammer all over the internet. Why not, but unfortunately for the British, Vávra's film is infinitely better. While Witchfinder General tells the same story and conveys the same horrific experience to the viewer (the absolutely impassive stares of the crowd watching the burning are sheer terror), it is not nearly as evocatively disgusting and authentic from start to finish. It's as if the filmmakers were afraid to tell the story of the witch trials "just because," so they wrapped the story in a fairly classically conceived adventure story with a romantic plot. It's certainly not bad, but I was expecting something a little different. I don't need to mention that Vincent Price (whom I would hardly recognize) is amazing.

I get what John Hughes was trying to say, and especially given the punchline, I won't fault the film for the fact that the main characters represent well-known (not only) American high school stereotypes... But if I hadn't been so bored watching their dialogue and monologues, I would have been at least one star happier.

Well, well, a great show doesn't have to have a lot of long episodes. If it's well-written, it's totally fine like this. I'm putting Mae Martin on my list of comedians to watch.

Kind of, well, bland, and that's despite the great Kevin Kline, whom you trust with the Italian womanizer the same way you've already trusted Peter Sellers with the French detective, the Indian actor, the US president, or the German ex-Nazi. At the same time, the subject matter of I Love You to Death isn't bad either, but I think it needs a lot more "Britishness" to keep it witty and not just dry with the occasional joke... In short, to be on a par with, say, A Fish Called Wanda two years before.

Carrie à la Netflix? Sort of, yes, but mostly a good coming-of-age story where the supernatural (not clearly defined at first) serves as a metaphor. And then there's Sophia Lillis in the lead role. She's great, and I almost can't believe she's the same girl who played the incredible Beverly in It. Hats off to her.