logbinder's reviews

As someone who didn't read the book I have to say this is a really bad ad for the book (although I hear it's way better than the movie). The writing in the movie is so cheesy and I cringe so hard at the acting especially of the actor potraying the president's son. The actor potraying the prince was way better but I think the lines were also very cheesy so I'm more so impressed with how he managed to act it so well. Regardless after forty minutes I wasn't able to watch the movie, because it was painful to watch so I had to literally consiously decide to pay half the attention so that I wouldn't feel all that cringe. I do believe the book is better but whilst most movies inspire me to read the book this one actually discoured me.

This gives me high school play vibes with lots of nudity, sex and shock value with absolutely no content. I think they thought they will just add a lot of famous last names to the mix and that will do it, but this is really bad. The plot is incredibly not interesting, the actors have very little to work with so no wonder that they come out as doing a bad job. But I don't know if any actor would save it. I was tired after 10 minutes, but I thought I would give it a benefit of a doubt. At 20 minutes something inside of me was breaking. It's clear now that Sam Levinson cares only about aesthetics which is not my kind of tea anyway and not much about content. The dialogs are like an AI idea of what a human dialog should be. This is really embarrassing for everyone involved.

Really honest, transparent and funny yes, but most of the times I was actually sad. And I guess that's why this show was so great, because it's really hard to find something like this. It was so heartfelt, sometimes dark and I actually thought it's not something really funny, but I got that having a laugh at it was a coping mechanism. I was very impressed overall and I have never seen a set up like this and the audience was amazing too. I loved how this felt like a conversation, sometimes even therapy and it did address so many topics including homophobia and racist but in a kind and understanding tone. It is a gem.

The issue that this movie has is that there isn't enough substance to be invested in any of the characters (ironically apart from a robot cat). Couldn't care less for Buzz, couldn't care less for the rest of the characters. Couldn't care less for the plot. Characters aren't developed at all (no interesting backstory, no authentic or interesting vulnerabilities) so as a viewer it's impossible to develop any empathy for them. Beautiful animation and action scenes are not enough. Maybe they grew tired of the Toy Story franchise? It is the fifth movie and maybe they didn't feel the creativity anymore? I know this is somewhat a new director/writer at Pixar, but someone from the old crew must have overseen this?

The first few episodes are pretty good, but halfway through the season, you realize they are going to stretch out the plot that's been already exhausted into 8 episodes and that's when it gets downhill. The character development was also questionable and some decisions that were made often didn't result from the character arc, so it was very disappointing to see the plot go some ways where you know that the character is going against his character arc. Some characters were too flat and one-dimensional and their decisions were again not backed by anything and it all looks like wishful story writing with some cringe scenes.

By the end of it, I couldn't wait for it to finish.

I usually don't watch this genre, but I have to give it to them - the show was amazing. Everything was thought out and the writing was excellent, maybe I felt like Navaro's story and few others were a little bit of a stretch hence 8/10 rating, but overall I am impressed with the writers.

This is nothing new, but unbelievable performances too - Julia Garner as Ruth, Jason Bateman as Marty were outstanding, but perhaps my personal favorite was Laura Linney as Wendy. I mean the sheer range of emotion and nuance she brought to the role! I also realized whilst watching Netflix's special 'The Goodbye to the Ozark" or something like that, that I would be frightened have I met the actress playing Darlene on the street, which means she did her job incredibly well too.

Im very glad the show ended with a 4th season (although it could have been shorter) and the 4th season was the weakest. The story ran its course in my opinion and it was perfect moment to finish it. And with good writers you get a great show ended in the right spot instead of dragging it out just to make some extra bucks by the producer. Do I wish the ending was stronger? A little bit, but I think I for one, can forgive it.

I will be missing Ozarks though!

I am a little shocked that when I came here to see reviews I saw people saying basically that people shouldn't shop there if they didn't like it. It's 2022 and there are still people who support this brand?! I mean even if you are white and "cool" do you really want to defend something that would tell you that you suck if you for example get fat? I am sure that the new CEO has good intentions, but even the current rebranding looks so forced and inauthentic that it's difficult to digest.

The documentary was pretty disappointing though, I mean obviously racial discrimination was a major problem with the brand, but there was so much more to dissect. Just the slogan on one of the t-shirt "i had a nightmare that I was a brunette" how low-key offensive and problematic is that to half the population? There was so much more that could be addressed.

I feel that they spent too much time picturing why A&F was successful instead of going into the detail on the problematic behaviours. This is why this documentary feels to be done with not as much effort as I expected from a contemporary documentary movie.

I even heard a local story (when I was living in the UK) of a muslim girl being discriminated in around 2013-2014 by a manager, that I had worked for in another retail chain and hoped it would be featured in this documentary too but clearly they thought one story is enough...

Funny thing I was once asked on the street in 2014 to come for an interview to work at A&F as a model and believe it or not I didn't really know what A&F was (I am early gen-z eastern-european guy) and was pretty surprised to see on the website that the way they understand "model" was just a retail worker for minimum wage salary who is obviously white and relatively attractive. I knew how problematic it was so I never went for an interview. Now I am very happy I didn't.

...but this is just boring. Delivering the same plot over and over again for fifth season, just different cast combinations. Given the popularity of the show I get that it was already renewed for sixth season, but at the same time I can't believe it because I am at episode two and wish this already ended. This isn't guilty pleasure series anymore and soap opera level now.

Being a fan of both Friends and Harry Potter, I enjoyed this reunion much more than the Friends one. Having said that, this one wasn't without any flaws - the biggest one for me was how much of a documentary rather than reunion it was. It was a good documentary, but perhaps too much of it. I expected far more getting together of the WHOLE cast, like we can clearly see in the trailer even, that there was a big party, yet nothing of it really is shown, no conversations there are held?

I did enjoy getting together of the individual cast members, many of them were wholesome and quite frankly brought me to tears, just because I, like so many did grow up with these actors.

The most important factor that made this reunion so good for me, that I'm not sure everyone appreciates, is how the older cast and the crew treated children on the set. 90's were so very cruel to the actor children and we hear story after story of their adult life being shattered because of their child-acting experiences. It was so important to see how these children on Harry Potter's sets grew up in an atmosphere of love, support, protection - not only from the adults, but their mutual care for each other. I think that's what protected them and I think it was so important that there was the three of them on the set. Even though they didn't spoke about it openly, they did not have to go through this undeniably insanely overwhelming experiences alone.

Okay I know this fictional drama, but... The things the characters said to each other even at their most intimate left me actually traumatized. As much as I don't like them I feel sorry for each of them.

I wrote a review on the first episode and I am so glad my worries seemed to be unnecessary. Episode two was so much better than episode one and although I am still unsure as to where the season is going or what is the main subject of this season, now at least I have trust and hope the season will unravel in a very good way.

Season one was top notch. It had clear storyline, the plot was clearly outlined right from the first episode. I watched the first episode of the season 2 and it felt like there is no direction for the second season really. It felt like show being carrying on just because it was good in the first season so let's just throw more money at what's been working... Fingers crossed the whole season is good, but episode one had me worried.