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Reviews
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (2016)
This Show Had Me At "Holistic Assassin"
I found this show by way of watching a random interview about comics on YouTube, wherein the show-runner, Max Landis, hyperactive-ly explained the plot. I decided to give it a shot. Nine hours later I had finished the whole show in one run with breaks only to cook food that I ate in front of my laptop.
I don't know how to accurately describe the tone and feel of the show. On the one hand it has the kinda-quirky "Doctor Who" vibe wherein characters act insane only for the plot to fall in line behind their actions, but it also has a grittiness and grungy feel to it. Characters are written so that they can be lovable and evil or darkly- endearing. It's a very strange, multi-layered vibe throughout the show.
What I absolutely loved, above all else, was the character of Bart, a "holistic assassin" who randomly, violently, and gruesomely murders people with zero remorse while looking rather terrifying. Not only is it a refreshing change of pace to not somehow tie violence to sexuality with a female character, which they don't do with Bart (the name is short for Bartine, apparently), but it's also pretty insane how they make a character start off seeming like a sociopath monster only to sway the audience into genuinely loving her by the end of the season. I think the last show to do that for me was "Orphan Black."
It's not a show you can have playing in the background while you do other things around the house. The little clues, the sometimes frantic dialogue, and the physical performances actually require you to give it your full attention if you don't want to feel lost. A lot of the negative reviews say they skipped through large chunks, which I think would ruin it for anyone. And it doesn't follow the source material apparently (I never read the books), so if that's a deal-breaker, you'll hate it.
But it's an insane little show that is fun, quirky, charming, violent, dark, gritty, and whimsical all in one. And if you watch it for no other reason, check it out to see Fiona Dourif as Bart, because that has to be one of the strangest and coolest characters I've seen in recent memory.
Range 15 (2016)
This Is Not the Movie You Were Promised
This isn't the worst movie ever. It's a bad movie, but if you're drunk enough it can be an enjoyable-bad movie. But that's kind of the bad thing about Range 15. It's not what it could've been.
When this movie was being made, I followed all of the updates on Ranger UP and Article 15. I'm a vet, I've been in some really twisted things in Iraq, and I was looking forward to what the film-makers said about the upcoming film. A movie by and for veterans, a flick that would get the veteran attitude and outlook right. A comedy-horror film seemed about the best way to go about it.
But this movie wasn't that. It is no way a movie "for veterans." It's a movie for people who love Ranger Up and Article 15 YouTube videos. The characters don't act like cartoon versions of vets or active-duty military, they act like over-exaggerated versions of the already-exaggerated caricatures you see in those videos. I did laugh quite a bit during the flick, but not because it resonated some deep, veteran-aspect of my humor. No, it was just dumb, goofy jokes that came in at random.
What kinda pisses me off about this movie is the fact that it was so heavily marketed as this big deal due to it being by and for veterans. The movie is slapped together. The script is pretty dumb, serving only to get from one joke to the next, and the effects (both practical and digital) are Sega-CD quality. And that would be just fine. It would be just a crappy, Z-grade zombie flick. But it's not that. It's the "first veteran-made" movie. So it basically sets the tone that we veterans can't really be trusted to make anything of actual quality.
And I'm not some film-snob who is out of touch with the veteran world. I'm a vet and a fan of some pretty bad movies. But at least most bad movies are bad earnestly. The film-makers of those films were trying to make something good
they just screwed up. Range 15, on the other hand, really feels like a cash-grab.
They raised over a million and a half dollars from donations to make this film, and the amount of free stuff (weapons, gear, etc) they got form the sponsors (extremely blatant advertising throughout) makes me wonder where the hell any of the cash went. Maybe it all went to hiring the name-actors that do bit parts throughout. Because it sure as hell didn't go into writing, set design, costuming, or effects.
I can't help but feel that anyone who donated got taken for a ride. The movie just doesn't work. It's a very stock zombie movie, but if someone gave a damn about the project they could elevate that. Instead I felt like I was watching most of the cast just jerk themselves off over how awesome they are (with the exception of Jack Mandaville, who actually gave a legitimately funny performance). It was like they didn't care. They got a bunch of money and cameras, hung out for a couple weeks, threw some credits on the thing and figure it was good enough. No passion, no effort, and roughly zero f***s were given towards making a movie instead of a glorified "look how funny we are" home movie.
I guess at the TL;DR version would read like this:
This movie is bad, but not 1-star bad, and there is some humor in it (seriously, someone tell Jack Mandaville to start auditioning for real movies). It sucks because it so heavily hyped up the veteran aspect that it makes veterans look either incompetent (as in they can't make a movie) or easily-duped (as in they donated to a movie wherein the film-makers just phoned in the production).
Stream it illegally, borrow the DVD from a buddy who paid for it, but don't spend money on it. It's worse than a straight-to-SyFy flick, and those are free.
Numb3rs: Sniper Zero (2005)
Well I'll Be Damned...
You know how scientists and nerds get mad at "The Big Bang Theory" for getting their culture and jobs wrong? I have no sympathy. As a former Army sniper I cringe at the mere mention of a show having a sniper- centered episode. It is extremely rare for shows to even come close to not screwing up royally.
Then comes NUMB3RS. A show I only watched on Netflix out of boredom. And lo and behold, they have a sniper episode that gets nearly everything right. 300 meter center-mass shot? Yup, not impressive says the FBI sniper guy. He explains it's amateur hour. He even deconstructs the crappy hide-site the would-be sniper selected. Bad mouths the cheap yet somehow often-championed on TV Blazer rifle, and explains mechanics of long-range shooting like hear rate and breathing patterns.
I was dumbfounded. A relatively dumb show about solving crime with math and yet it came the absolute closest I've seen in depicting snipers by deconstructing all the crap other shows spout about us. The sniper in question turns out to be a simply a wannabe, which isn't a spoiler considering FBI sniper-guy says it flat out within the first three or four minutes, which explains why he uses the crappy techniques one would think a sniper uses from a lifetime of video games and bad TV.
All in all, it's still NUMB3RS, so either you like the show's premise or you don't. But as far as an episode goes, this one was a winner. A nice critique of crappy sniper tropes from other shows and movies. Hopefully the show does the same with all it's subject matter in other episodes.
Far Cry 3 (2012)
Amazing Story-telling
This review is focused completely on the story, not any game play elements. And as far as story-telling goes, this is the best depiction of the slide into insanity and/or empowerment that survival in a violent environment can bring.
The fact that the main character is a character, rather than just some first-person avatar for the player, let's the creators of the game tell an amazing story of transformation. Jason Brody starts the game out as a privileged white kid. He's the kind of guy that the majority of us would hate. And in fact, he is pretty douche-y. But over the course of the game, as he has to do more and more to save his friends he changes.
So many times Hollywood is quick to portray only two outcomes from having to fight a war, which though he is in no way a soldier is exactly what Jason does. Either you become a kill-crazy nut-job or you become a despondent, PTSD-ridden misanthrope. Jason skirts between both, sometimes questioning what it is he has become and other times realizing that he is in fact a stronger person for all that he has gone through.
It's really his reactions in this game and how he goes from simply wanting to save his friends to wanting to not only save them but also kill everybody involved in their capture that is so amazing. It really is like watching a very well written and directed movie.
The primary villain through most of the game is Vaas, and he is extremely interesting and fun to watch. He has the same kind of chaotic energy as Heath Ledger's Joker, a kind of humorous outlook and deceptively flighty attention to the world around him that makes is sudden snaps into full-blown psychotic utterly frightening. And he makes a great counterweight to Jason. You get the feeling that if Jason spends too much time on the island he could end up like Vaas.
I've never seen the psychological consequence of battle shown in this light on screen, in games, TV, or film, like this before, and it comes shockingly close to the reality of it. A little part of you does like it, and Jason shows that part. A little part of you can't believe what you've done, and Jason has those moments of panic as well.
If you don't want to play the game or aren't willing to spend $60 for a good movie, watch some Let's Plays on YouTube. It makes for a great movie night.
The Spoony Experiment (2007)
A Groovy Little Show
Firstly, if you don't like caustic internet reviewers, you won't like Spoony. It is a pop-culture review show, and while he does things that other don't, at it's core the show is just a guy mocking games and movies.
However, if you do like this form of entertainment, Spoony is by far one of the best in the format. He's not limited to one form of entertainment. He reviews movies, games, TV shows, and even some board games. And unlike many other reviewers, Spoony does more than just say "this sucks", he admits when he likes cheesy or horrible things, so there's a kind of child-like wonderment buried under the swear words and pop-culture references.
One thing that sets him apart from his peers is the fact that he does a wide variety of video types. He has many twenty-minute-or-so reviews, but he also does extremely long videos as well. His Ultima Retrospective comes out to about five hours, his FF VIII, X, and X-2 reviews are feature-length. He has also done "Let's Play" videos, where he plays entirely through FMV games from the mid-90s which are hours long, during which he riffs on the acting like an episode of MST3K, and he's actually pretty damn good at that.
If you work at a computer all day and usually listen to music or something in the background, I suggest listening to his Ultima Retrospective or Let's Play videos while you work. They're funny, you get a real feel for the guy's personality, and they are so enjoyable they make your mundane job fun. That's really what I use his videos for, a work soundtrack.
But like I said, if you hate internet reviews, Spoony will probably not be any better. But if you do like shows such as "The Nostalgia Critic", then Spoony is just as funny but in a different format(s) and tone, and in my opinion better.