TV Review: Doctor Who – The Twelfth Doctor Era (2014-2017)

Original Run: August 23rd, 2014 – December 25th, 2017
Created by: Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber, Donald Wilson
Directed by: various
Written by: various
Music by: Murray Gold
Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Alex Kingston, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, Maisie Williams

BBC, 40 Episodes, 45-90 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

When Peter Capaldi was originally announced as the new Doctor on a television special, I was really optimistic and pretty damned pleased with the casting.

However, despite him being great and also being a pretty perfect Doctor, his material severely lacked when compared to what Matt Smith, David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston had to work with, before him.

Initially, I liked Clara a lot. However, she got terribly annoying by the end of her run as the Doctor’s companion. She started being a know-it-all and bossing the Doctor around, teaching him lessons. It got ridiculous and frankly, killed the show and everything that was once great about it. When she left after staying incredibly too long, I thought we’d get a cool, new companion.

In came Bill, a lesbian that you knew was a lesbian from the get go, that had to play up the lesbian thing so much, it’s all you really knew about her one note character. I thought that the actress, Pearl Mackie was okay, she was just given shit for material. I don’t care that she’s a lesbian and really, most people don’t. But when that is all your character is, you’re a shitty, basic character.

In the end, Bill actually got a compelling story but by then, it was too little, too late and she was gone.

There were also only a few really good episodes in this stretch. Most of them were either awful, boring or both. Usually, it was both.

You could tell that the budget was either cut or that the showrunners just didn’t want to put in much effort anymore, as many episodes were just characters trapped on a ship, or in a base or in some other basic facility with lots of hallways and control rooms of some sort.

There were some decent concepts and characters that popped in. I liked how the epic, long-running River Song story wrapped up. I also liked everything associated with Maisie Williams’ recurring character. However, these high spots were too far and few between and most of Capaldi’s run felt like monotonous filler.

However, things would only get exponentially worse once he left and we got the next Doctor.

Rating: 6/10
Pairs well with: The Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors’ runs.

Film Review: Berserk – The Golden Age Arc Trilogy (2012-2013)

Release Date: Part I: ….ber ..th, 2012; Part II: ….ber ..th, 2012; Part III: ….ber ..th, 2013
Directed by: Toshiyuki Kubooka
Written by: Ichiro Okouchi
Based on: Berserk by Kentaro Miura
Music by: Shiro Sagisu, Susumu Hirasawa
Cast: Hiroaki Iwanaga, Takahiro Sakurai, Toa Yukinari, Marc Diraison, Kevin T. Collins, Carrie Keranen

Studio 4°C, Madman Entertainment, Viz Media, Kazé UK, Lucent Pictures, 76 Minutes (Part I), 91 Minutes (Part II), 107 Minutes (Part III)

Review:

“Heed my words, Struggler. Soon a rain of blood, the likes of which you cannot imagine, shall fall down upon you. It will be a storm of death. But take heed, Struggler. Struggle, endure, contend. For that alone is the sword of one who defies death. Do not forget these words.” – Skull Knight

Since I watched the anime television series that served as a sequel to this first, I had a very different perspective going into this trilogy of anime films.

Being that I knew where these characters would end up, actually made me a lot more interested in how they got there, which is a place very far from where they start at the beginning of the first movie in this trilogy.

I also now have all the context regarding the three main characters in these films and it’s made me want to go back and watch the anime series again, as I think it’ll have even more of an impact.

I guess whatever order you watch these in is up to you and you probably should watch the animated Berserk material in order. If you’d prefer to do it that way, you should start with the original animated series from the late ’90s, which I actually haven’t seen yet. But I’m going to watch it in the next week or two, coming off of the high of this.

As far as these three films go, they’re pretty fucking exceptional.

The story and the relationships of the three main characters is what made this so great. A lot happens in these three films and by the end of them, you’re left exhausted and emotionally overloaded. And to be honest, I didn’t expect this to end with such an emotional punch to the gut.

It’s fucked up, tragic and you find yourself pretty fucking angry over what a particular character ends up doing to those you assumed he loved. Especially, after everything they went through together over a pretty long passage of time.

The animation is also pretty damn stellar. Overall, this looks better than the show that followed it.

As these three films rolled on, I wasn’t sure how all of this would pan out and whether or not there’d be a grand, worthwhile payoff. This exceeded any expectations I could have had for it and from my perspective, I’d call the entire body of work a masterpiece.

Rating: 10/10

TV Review: The Innocent Man (2018)

Original Run: December 14th, 2018
Created by: Ross M. Dinerstein, Clay Tweel
Directed by: Clay Tweel
Based on: The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice In a Small Town by John Grisham
Cast: John Grisham, various

Campfire, The Gernert Company, Netflix, 6 Episodes, 42-52 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

This was another release in a long list of Netflix true crime documentary miniseries. As I’m trying to work my ways through these, out of the ones I hadn’t yet seen, the premise for this one interested me, especially since it dealt with the possibility of false confessions, which has been a key portion of other similar documentaries I’ve seen.

This deals with a small Oklahoma town called Ada, and two murder cases that happened just two years apart in the early ’80s. The fact that two brutal murders happened in such a small town, so close together, isn’t even the most shocking thing. The story of these two cases and their similarities captivated crime author John Grisham so much, that all of this became the subject of his only nonfiction book.

I thought that this had the same issue as a lot of the other Netflix true crime releases with more than a handful of episodes and that was pacing and a fixation on certain details that are overall moot. I guess that these are made to lay out as much of the evidence as possible but at the same time, Netflix true crime productions have omitted things in the past and they don’t need to dwell on certain things just to milk the story in an effort to increase viewing hours. Well, maybe they do, as investors are fickle hoes.

Like many of the other Netflix true crime sagas, this also doesn’t give you a satisfying ending, as these cases are still a clusterfuck, the justice system is in the way of itself and the people who are most likely wrongfully imprisoned are still imprisoned without much hope that this will change.

Still, these things are usually damn compelling and this is no different. I like hearing from the people involved, directly, and getting their two cents without some third party just interpreting their words and potentially adding their spin or agenda to it.

Rating: 6.5/10

TV Review: The Keepers (2017)

Original Run: May 19th, 2017
Created by: Ryan White
Directed by: Ryan White
Based on: Murder of Catherine Cesnik
Cast: various

Film 45, Tripod Media, Netflix, 7 Episodes, 60 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

This Netflix true crime documentary featured an incredibly interesting story about the mysterious and unsolved murder of a nun more than fifty years-ago and how it seems as if it is associated with the sexual abuse committed by a priest at a high school.

Sadly, that priest is dead and can’t suffer for the things he did to several children. However, this documentary does serve as an avenue for these victims to speak about what happened to them and how it may very well relate to the murder of the young nun, who many of the female victims saw as their one true confidant in the school.

This documentary series is seven episodes long and while each is chock full of details, this did seem like it was dragged out much further than it needed to be, especially since the case is still unsolved, even after all the information that is shared in these seven hours.

Like many of the other Netflix true crime miniseries, though, this is well-produced and well-presented. 

This is a tragic and honestly, infuriating story. Hopefully, this sheds enough light onto the case that it can actually be solved some day. As is the nature of these things, though, the more time passes, the less likely that seems possible.

Rating: 7/10

TV Review: Berserk (2016-2017)

Original Run: July 1st, 2016 – June 23rd, 2017
Directed by: Shin Itagaki
Written by: Makoto Fukami
Based on: Berserk by Kintaro Miura
Music by: Shiro Sagisu

Liden Films, GEMBA, Millepensee, Universal, Sony, Wowow, MBS, TBS, CBC, 26 Episodes, 24 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

So I’ve heard people rave about the manga Berserk for years. I’ve wanted to read it for awhile now but there’s like 40 volumes and it’s going to be a real undertaking. However, I figured that I’d check out the anime, as it’s streaming on HBO Max.

I found out, after being a half dozen episodes deep, that this actually takes place after a trilogy of anime films and an earlier anime series from the ’90s. So I guess I started at the end but even then, I found this pretty easy to get into and never felt like there was a lot of context or knowledge missing.

For the most part, I dug the hell out of this, especially the first of the two seasons. I guess some people found the animation style to be off-putting but I actually liked it.

I’m also not a big fan of the mixture of CGI with traditional hand-drawn animation but for whatever reason, I liked how they blended together, here. I think that has to do with the style of shading in the art, which looks like thin-lined pencil shading.

I think most of all, I really liked the character designs. Everyone was distinct and pretty damn cool in their own unique way.

I also found the stories to be pretty solid and interesting. However, it really just left me wanting more, so I’ll probably try and check out the previous anime releases and then start reading the original manga, at some point.

All in all, this was dark, twisted, really fun and pretty damn entertaining.

Rating: 8.25/10

Film Review: Parasite (2019)

Also known as: Gisaengchung (original South Korean title)
Release Date: May 21st, 2019 (Cannes)
Directed by: Bong Joon-ho
Written by: Bong Joon-ho, Han jin-won
Music by: Jung Jae-il
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Lee Jung-eun, Jang Hye-jin

CJ Entertainment, Barunson E&A, 132 Minutes

Review:

“[to his son] You know what kind of plan never fails? No plan. No plan at all. You know why? Because life cannot be planned. Look around you. Did you think these people made a plan to sleep in the sports hall with you? But here we are now, sleeping together on the floor. So, there’s no need for a plan. You can’t go wrong with no plans. We don’t need to make a plan for anything. It doesn’t matter what will happen next. Even if the country gets destroyed or sold out, nobody cares. Got it?” – Ki-taek

It’s been long overdue but I finally checked out Parasite.

I actually had the opportunity to see this in the theater, two years ago. I passed on it, despite the buzz, because I wasn’t a fan of the other pictures I had seen from Bong Joon-ho. Those earlier films that I’ve seen are Snowpiercer and The Host.

This time around, Joon-ho captivated me and I really liked this movie, even if I think it’s been extremely overhyped and definitely wasn’t the Best Picture of the Year, as the ass clowns at the Academy decided.

The film is about an incredibly poor family that cons their way into a rich family’s home. All of them get various jobs for the rich people and they have to act like they’re strangers in order to protect the con. Then one night, while the rich family is away, the previous maid, who was unjustly fired as part of the con, returns and shit hits the fan.

For me, the story becomes unbelievable once you learn that the maid’s husband has been living in the labyrinthine basement for years, undetected by the rich family. In fact, I thought this part of the plot was kind of stupid and the rest of the movie was built off of this weird reveal. It reminded me of the implausibility of Snowpiercer and how that film fell apart for me, as it rolled on and got dumber and dumber.

The thing that makes Parasite not completely derail itself is its ability to build tension and how it essentially pits two families from two very different social classes against one another.

The picture is superbly acted from just about everyone. Even the young kid does a really good job.

My only real gripe about the movie is that it just makes some strange narrative choices, This is also the main flaw in the other Bong Joon-ho films I’ve seen. This one, however, is saved by its strengths, which keep it from completely falling apart for me. And it’s those great strengths and how they’re capitalized on that made me rate this as high as I did.

Rating: 8/10

TV Review: Don’t Fuck With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer (2019)

Original Run: December 18th, 2019
Created by: Dimitri Doganis, Adam Hawkins
Directed by: Mark Lewis
Written by: Mark Lewis
Music by: Blue Spill
Cast: various

Raw TV, Netflix, 3 Episodes, 60 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

I knew vaguely about this story from headlines that I’d see pop-up on social media from time-to-time. However, I never knew all the details and how big this investigation by regular people online had grown in an effort to catch this sick, sadistic, narcissistic fuck.

Overall, this was a compelling documentary miniseries and one of the best that I’ve seen from Netflix. Weirdly, I’m starting to get addicted to these things, where they weren’t my cup of tea before. Maybe that has something to do with getting older or maybe it’s just because Netflix creates some high quality, really well produced material in this regard.

Initially, the story starts out with a group of people on Facebook trying to discover who is behind a video that features the murder of a cat. Things escalate to the point where the cat killer challenges these people to find him, as he’s obsessed with the attention its getting him. He then kills more cats and hints that he’s going to turn to people next. Eventually he lures in a guy for sex but murders him on camera, as well.

All the while, the authorities are of no help and don’t really believe the warnings of the people from the Facebook group. Ultimately, once a human is killed, the real authorities get involved and take all the previous evidence more seriously.

By the end of the story, the scumbag is caught and brought to justice.

This was presented in a compelling way and all of the key talking head interviews were pretty damn stellar, as they were able to recall all the details and help paint a picture of who this killer was and what they feel were his motivations.

In the end, this is an incredibly disturbing story that is hard to get through, at points, due to the nature of the crimes and the details, but it does have a happy ending considering that such an evil piece of shit is off the streets.

Rating: 8/10

Film Review: Leatherface (2017)

Also known as: Texas Chainsaw 4 (working title)
Release Date: August 25th, 2017 (UK – Horror Channel FrightFest premiere)
Directed by: Julien Maury, Alexandre Bustillo
Written by: Seth M. Sherwood
Based on: characters by Tobe Hooper, Kim Henkel
Music by: John Frizzell
Cast: Stephen Dorff, Lili Taylor, Vanessa Grasse, Sam Strike, Chris Adamson, Finn Jones, 

Campbell Grobman Films, LF2 Productions, Lionsgate, 90 Minutes

Review:

“You take one of mine, and I’ll take all yours, Verna. All of ’em.” – Hal Hartman

So this was created to be a prequel to the original 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, dismissing all other movies in the franchise except for 2013’s Texas Chainsaw, which was the end of this “trilogy” that no one wanted or liked except Lionsgate.

This movie is terrible but it’s not the worst Texas Chainsaw flick.

Still, it’s abysmally bad with a terrible fucking storyline that is supposed to be the origin of Leatherface. However, it’s so far off the mark that this could’ve just been a seperate movie about completely unrelated characters and no one would have noticed except for the chainsaw being forced in, as some sort of unnecessary plot device.

Anyway, the killer family kills the sheriff’s daughter. With that, the sheriff vows to take all of Mama Verna’s babies away. He succeeds in getting Jedediah locked up. Jeb changes his name to Jackson and he’s just some skinny normal teen that looks nothing like the hulking beast that Leatherface is. However, they throw in a hulking fat kid that acts half-retarded to serve as some sort of red herring that doesn’t work because we know the skinny kid is future Leatherface.

So, teen Leatherface, fat kid and a nurse get kidnapped by a psycho idiot and his psycho girlfriend during a prison break at the teenager psych ward. Leatherface, fatty and nurse babe are held against their will but have a billion chances at escaping but never do. Shit eventually hits the fan, fatty gets killed, the psycho couple gets killed and Leatherface and nurse babe escape in a car for some reason, which leads to Leatherface getting half his face shot off while also being made mentally handicapped by the ordeal.

This eventually leads to Leatherface killing the cop in a really gruesome way that I was actually kind of impressed by. However, he then murders nurse babe too and then goes back to the psycho mansion to suckle his psycho mom’s breasts.

Well, as I ended the review of the previous film in this series… fuck this movie.

Rating: 4/10

Film Review: Texas Chainsaw (2013)

Also known as: Texas Chainsaw 3D (original theatrical title)
Release Date: January 3rd, 2013 (Belgrade premiere)
Directed by: John Luessenhop
Written by: Adam Marcus, Debra Sullivan, Kirsten Elms, Stephen Susco
Based on: characters by Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper
Music by: John Frizzell
Cast: Alexandra Daddario, Dan Yeager, Tremaine ‘Trey Songz’ Neverson, Tania Raymonde, Thom Barry, Paul Rae, Bill Moseley, Scott Eastwood, Richard Riehle, Gunnar Hansen, Marilyn Burns, John Dugan

Mainline Pictures, Millennium Films, Lionsgate, 92 Minutes

Review:

“Family’s a messy business. Ain’t nothing thicker than blood.” – Darryl

This film was created to be a direct sequel to the 1974 original. There would then be a prequel film released in 2017, which established a new “trilogy” with these two 2010s bookends sandwiching the original. Granted, I don’t think anyone on the planet considers this “trilogy” to be their canon.

These new attempts at reviving the Texas Chainsaw Massacre were significantly worse than the two 2000s movies. Although, they are better than the worst sequels of the original four flicks.

Anyway, it should be apparent that this franchise has become a total clusterfuck. I also recently read that there is another reboot in the works. Whatever… keeping up with these constantly rebooted horror franchises is fucking exhausting.

There’s really only one redeeming thing about this movie and that’s Alexandra Daddario, who looks absolutely gorgeous. Seriously, this may be the best she’s looked but I also really like the goth/emo edge her character has.

Beyond that, it’s probably worth mentioning that Tania Raymonde was pretty hot in this too. But then, that’s obviously what the producers were going for and it’s been a major selling point of slasher-y type horror films since the ’70s.

The only sequence I really like in this movie is the opening. This actually features some cameos by previous Texas Chainsaw actors, most specifically Bill Moseley. After the opening, though, everything spirals downward into the second worse storyline in franchise history, which has only been outdone by the film that followed.

So Daddario inherits the killer family’s mansion and with it, Leatherface. Although Daddario and Leatherface have no idea that they’re blood relatives until the last five minutes of the movie and then suddenly they’re the tag team champions of west Texas, killing an evil politician, his cop son and their inbred minion.

In the end, Daddario decides, “Ah… fuck it… I might as well live in the psycho killer house and make meals for my homicidal maniac cousin that spent the whole film trying to kill me and succeeded at killing all my friends.”

Seriously, fuck this movie.

Rating: 4.5/10

TV Review: Making A Murderer (2015-2018)

Original Run: December 8th, 2015 – October 19th, 2018
Created by: Laura Ricciardi, Moira Demos, Lisa Nishimura, Adam Del Deo
Directed by: Laura Ricciardi, Moira Demos
Written by: Laura Ricciardi, Moira Demos
Music by: Kevin Kiner, Jared Forman, Dean Kiner
Cast: Steven Avery, Brendan Dassey, Kathleen Zellner, various

Synthesis Films, Netflix, 20 Episodes, 47-77 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

Being that I’ve been binging the shit out of Netflix crime shows, I figured that I’d finally delve into the longest one, which is also probably responsible for Netflix leaning so hard into this type of content.

Making A Murderer is the story of Steven Avery, a man who was released from prison after eighteen years. He was falsely sent to prison for a rape he didn’t commit. However, not too long after his release, he was arrested once again for the murder of a young photographer.

The thing is, the system targeted Avery and had no interest in any of the other people who were obviously suspects, as well. And as more and more details are revealed, it appears that Avery is possibly innocent of this crime, as well, and that the police and the legal system are trying to lock him back up, as he was on the verge of successfully suing them for his previous false imprisonment.

As twisted as that all sounds, there are so many other layers to the story that come to light with each episode. There is also Avery’s nephew, Brendan Dassey, who was possibly duped into giving the police a false confession. With that, Dassey has also been sitting in jail from the first time that he ever talked to police.

The first season of the show goes through the details of the case and the investigation with a fine tooth comb. However, after it aired, it was criticized for leaving out key elements of the story.

The second season addresses these criticisms and it switches gears, focusing more on the lawyers trying to free both Avery and Dassey from imprisonment.

While I liked the second season and seeing the sloppy police investigation being torn to shreds, I think the show was strongest during the first season. It’s honestly two very different shows and also, despite season two being focused on freeing these two men, things are still left pretty unresolved. Because of that, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was eventually a third season if any significant changes were to occur.

I binged the hell out of this and blasted through it in a few days. I wanted to absorb it all in with the details being fresh in my mind. I think that the scariest takeaway from this story, is how easy it is for the system to try and make an example out of someone that they’ve targeted over their own biases. The level of narcissism and ego that the prosecutors and police officers had was astounding.

Rating: 8.5/10