With the debut of The Legend of Vox Machina’s second season, I can’t help but remain excited for the fantastic adventure it will be. The season is off to a great start as it sets up the new villains and tells a narrative so captivating, I am impatient for next week. If you haven’t watched the first season, now is a great time to start.
An enclave of dragons has attacked Emon, destroying the newly found home for our group of misfits. Now it is up to Vox Machina to care for the refugees and find a way to save the world from dragons. Can this band of ne’er-do-wells step up and become the heroes the world needs, or will they be another blood stain on dragon scales?
I have said this before, The Legend of Vox Machina is a great series for those who know nothing about fantasy or dungeons and dragons. While the series is heavy with easter eggs for fans of Critical Role and Dungeons and Dragons, knowledge of either isn’t required to enjoy the story. Even if you aren’t a fan of fantasy, I dare you not to like this story.
The voice acting is as amazing as you’d expect from a cast of this caliber, the art is beautiful, and the story will keep you on the edge of your seat. I have seen the campaign that this series is based on, and despite knowing how everything ends, my heart still races when Vox Machina faces danger. This is just a testament to the scale of how epic this series can get. The action is well-choreographed, the stakes are well-established, and the heroes are imperfect enough that the danger is still palpable. The series does a fantastic job at making you fall in love with a group of assholes that begin to find their call to heroism, and they reluctantly take the call.
If you haven’t seen this series, it is a great time to start. I must warn you, this series is graphic. It is full of nudity, profanity, and gore. Viewer discursion is advised. That aside, it tells a fantastic story for an adventure that I am sure will be amazing. I am excited for what is to come, and you should be too. You can stream it on Amazon if you have a Prime membership.
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Series Review: The Rig (2023)
It has been a while since I have been this bored with a series. The Rig is another example of a series that should have been a movie. While it has some good moments, there aren’t enough to earn a recommendation. Do yourself a favor, don’t watch this series.
Out somewhere in the ocean, a greedy corporation drills for oil at any cost. Tensions run high on the rig as burnout falls over the workers. With another season coming to a close, strange things start to occur. The rig loses communication with the outside world as a mysterious fog rolls over them. There is something in the fog making people sick and damaging the rig. Can the crew find a way off before it is too late?
The series has a solid cast, but the narrative and pacing aren’t. The plot unravels so slowly that I lost interest almost immediately. I didn’t care about any of the generic characters or their storylines, I just wanted this series to be over. There may have been some neat visuals and interesting ideas buried within all the nothing, but they aren’t cool or interesting enough to save this series from mediocrity.
What I liked least about this series is how preachy it gets about its messaging. This series wastes too much time on its explicit green and anti-corporate messaging that it loses its effectiveness. The writing is so bad that there are lines of dialogue where characters will explicitly complain about bad oil is for the environment and how evil corporations are. I tuned out a lot of this series because it is repetitive and lazy. Had this series been condensed, it would have been a forgettable B movie.
It’s hard to write too much about this series because it is mediocre. This series is boring, and I can’t recommend it. You can stream it on Amazon if you have a Prime membership, but don’t waste the data.
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Movie Review: Something From Tiffany’s (2022)
I have been avidly avoiding Christmas movies this season, not because I am a Grinch, but because I couldn’t muster the strength to sit through them. Let’s face it, this genre is the recycling of the same movie every year, and it is getting harder to sit through them. I decided that today I would start getting into the Christmas spirit, but unfortunately, the movie is Something From Tiffany’s.
Something From Tiffany’s is the story of two lost souls who are stuck in their respective relationships. Fate brings these two unknowing souls together by way of New York City taxi. Ethan is at Tiffany’s buying his engagement ring when Rachel’s boyfriend comes in that same night to buy his girlfriend a cheap gift. In a brief moment, the boyfriend gets hit by the taxi, causing the events that will bring Ethan and Rachel together for Christmas. Ethen, being the generic and caring man that he is, rushes to check up on the generic boyfriend, but he ends up switching the ring with the cheap gift. Ethen and Rachel will meet in the hospital, and it is love at first sight. Fate keeps bringing them together, and in a matter of days, they fall madly in love with each other. You can guess what happens from here.
This movie is bad even by the genre’s standards. The acting was surprisingly good, but its narrative is terrible. I always feel bad for the significant others in these movies who have the cruel fate of being love’s cruelest obstacle. Ethan’s girlfriend seemed like a nice girl whose only fault seemed to be that she wasn’t quirky enough. Ethan was ready to propose, but one brief encounter at the hospital was enough to change his mind. Rachel’s boyfriend was a loser, but at least he wasn’t evil which is refreshing.
The idea was to show how the leads were stagnating, stuck in their routines. It was only through finding true love that they can move forward and live their best lives. But is it love that they share? Is it fate bringing these two together? Is it Christmas magic? They are only together for a day before they decide that they are meant to be together. I see this as a relationship fueled more by desire than love. Rachel and Ethan lust for something different and fresh, and this accident gives them that. It is less romantic to think about how this race to fall in love for Christmas is less about fate and more about a change in scenery. Even if they were meant to be together and were previously in bad relationships, they were ready to be engaged, and that is where I have my problem.
I am overthinking a movie that had no effort put into it, but I was bored. Let me have this. There are better movies in this genre. Go watch something like The Princess Switch or Falling for Christmas instead. They are bad too, but somehow they are a little better.
You can stream this on Amazon, but I wouldn’t.
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The Legend of Vox Machina Season 2
It’s finally happening! The second season of The Legend of Vox Machina is set to premiere on January 20, 2023, on Amazon. If you haven’t seen the series, now is a great time to start. Check out my full review of the first season for more information. Trust me it was a fantastic season. Even if you aren’t a fan of fantasy, this series will blow you away and leave you wanting more. It has everything you want in a show. It has fantastic characters voiced by amazing actors, a great story, mayhem, and lots and lots of blood. If you aren’t a fan of fantasy, prepare to be one. It has beautiful art, epic action, and lots of humor. It is a bit on the adult side so viewers beware.
This post isn’t sponsored, I am just very excited about a series I absolutely love. The trailer has just dropped, leaving me incredibly impatient for what is to come. This second season promises an even more epic adventure as Vox Machina must band together and save the world from dragons! Why have the dragons banded together to attack humanity? Why dragons? It is probably Tiamat, but we will have to wait and see. Check out the trailer, mark your calendars, and go watch the first season!
Series Review: The Rings of Power (2022)
I was initially keeping up with Rings of Power when it was first released but fell off after a couple of episodes because of its pacing. I was initially excited about this series, but that excitement has since dulled. The Rings of Power isn’t a bad series, but it isn’t the epic prequel I was promised either.
The Rings of Power is fine, but it is not without its faults. The acting is fantastic, but the writing holds them back. I love the diverse casting and it makes me happy to see people of color in prominent roles in fantasy. The fantasy genre has always felt exclusive to white people. Growing up, I enjoyed fantasy but had to hide this fact to avoid getting picked on. It is amazing to see characters of color who make an impact on the narrative instead of just being villains and henchmen. I hope this is a growing trend in the genre, even if this series isn’t the best.
The biggest issue I have with this series is its pacing. It was too slow to be released weekly. I wouldn’t mind if this series was slow because it was carefully developing its lore. Instead, this series is bogged down by its excessive use of metaphor. The Rings of Power is desperate to sound poetic and it is off-putting. It is safe to say that the writing for this series isn’t great, and at times it sounds like a cheap attempt at emulating Tolkien. It wasn’t bad enough to make me stop watching, but it made it difficult to finish it.
The rest of the series was fine, but I wouldn’t have finished it if it wasn’t for this review. It looks pretty. The CGI cities look cool, the action is decent, and the costumes are great. They even have a fantastic villain, but at its core, this series is just average at best.
I don’t think this series is for everyone. If you aren’t a fan of fantasy, watch the movies instead. This series is a slow burn that barely pays off. The Rings of Power only works as a supplement for those casual Lord of the Rings fans who want more stories in the universe but don’t want to read the books. This isn’t a series I’d rush through, and I definitely recommend you skip around. You can stream it all on Amazon if you have a Prime membership.
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Series Review: The Peripheral (2022)
The entire season of The Peripheral is finally available for streaming, and it wasn’t worth the wait. I started watching this series as it came out but quickly gave up when I lost interest. Having this series be a weekly release was a mistake because there isn’t enough happening to get you excited for the next episode. If you are looking for a good sci-fi series to binge, look elsewhere.
Flynn Fisher is the best VR gamer in the world, but she is also poor. She and her family live paycheck to paycheck and use Flynn’s gaming skills to make extra money. One day, a mysterious benefactor offers to pay her to test a new VR headset. Flynn finds herself in a hyper-realistic simulation where she must complete dangerous tasks to earn her paycheck. But there is an evil cabal working against her benefactor. Flynn finds herself in the middle of a deadly conflict where she and her family must fight to survive. Can Flynn get to the bottom of this mystery before anyone she loves dies?
I am happy this series has a recap before every episode because I struggled to remember the plot. The plot isn’t confusing, but it is boring. There clearly wasn’t enough plot for a whole series because they drag out what little plot they have over the eight episodes. This series is terribly paced. This series needed to be thrilling, fast-paced, and suspenseful, but it isn’t.
The cast is decent but they are wasted on flat characters and dull narrative. Flynn is a Betty Sue who seems to care the least about being in this series. She is much too perfect and will easily beat every encounter she faces. Any suspense and action that could have saved this series from being an abysmal flop are poorly executed. The action scenes are lethargic, the build-up is slow, and the big reveal comes out of nowhere. This is a series that suffers from a severe identity crisis as it struggles to try to define itself. There are too many plotlines fighting for your attention, and none of them will earn it.
I haven’t read the book this series is based on, but I can assure you it is a very loose adaptation. If you are here because you are a fan of the book or the Westworld series, prepare to be disappointed. This series was a waste of time. You can stream it on Amazon, but I wouldn’t bother.
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Movie Review: Emergency (2022)
Emergency is a fantastic movie that you need to watch. While this movie may be packaged as another Hangover clone, it proves to be much more meaningful. Emergency uses the tired old formula of the genre to make important criticism about racial inequality. This is a movie will make you laugh, but it will also make you think. It isn’t an uncomfortable movie, but its message is real and important.
Kunla, Sean, and Carlos just want one night of epic partying in their last year of college. They decide to go on the blackout tour, a night where they hit all the biggest parties on campus. Their plans get complicated when they come home to discover a passed-out white girl in their living room. The optics don’t look good because they are men of color, and the young white girl is drunk and possibly drugged. They decide that the best course of action is to take her to the hospital so that she can get the help she needs. Unfortunately, this act of kindness leads to the worst night of their lives.
I love this movie. The acting is fantastic, and the chemistry the leads share is infectious. The story is phenomenal. This is a well-made movie.
Emergency differentiates itself from the rest of the genre through its unique narrative. The shenanigans and challenges the leads face during the night aren’t caused by drinking and partying but rather by their race. The characters are limited in what they can do because of the color of their skin. The movie does a fantastic job of contrasting what they are allowed to do against what the white students can. They can’t call the police or do much because they could be arrested or have their reputations destroyed. It is a difficult situation that they continue to be in because they are constantly facing challenges due to their race. The movie does a fantastic job of balancing the humor and messaging to make an effective narrative without it being preachy or difficult to watch. The intention of this movie isn’t to shame or guilt, but rather to share an important point of view that often gets ignored.
This movie became very real for me because it is an issue that I am familiar with. I am constantly being made aware of my race and am limited on what I can do because I have to always worry about the optics. Am I looking menacing when I am walking in the park playing Pokemon GO? Do I look like I am about to steal when I am shopping for groceries? These are just a few thoughts that go through my head on a daily basis. I have to constantly be adjusting how I present myself so that I don’t get in trouble for existing. It is a trauma I have always carried with me, and one that I will continue to carry.
This movie does a fantastic job of showing this trauma through a familiar narrative. I don’t mean to scare you or make you uncomfortable with my analysis. Emergency is a fantastic comedy, but it gets serious when it needs to. It is charming, funny, and a very refreshing take on a tired old genre. Check it out on Amazon if you have a Prime membership.
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Series Review: The English (2022)
The English is an Amazon original that left me feeling disappointed and a little bit offended. At its core, this is a white savior narrative disguised as something empowering.
Cornelia Locke has made it to America in search of the man responsible for her son’s death. Now she, with the help of a Pawnee Indian she meets along the way, scours the western frontier seeking her revenge. Can she survive the unforgiving landscape of the new world and find the man she’s looking for, or will the unforgiving plains claim another victim?
The show is an average western at best and very preachy. The acting is great, but the story and its pacing aren’t. The series jumps between different stories ineffectively, making this a disorienting experience. While I appreciate the attempt at a more complicated narrative, there is a lot of filler. This is a series that takes too long to get to the point.
The biggest issue I have with this series is how it tries to whitewash history. I was a bit disgusted by the lengths to which this series goes to prove that not all white people during this period were terrible. I don’t believe all white people are bad, I just don’t like how hard they try to prove this.
There is clearly a white savior complex and some virtue signaling at play in this series. You can see this with Cornelia and how she carries herself. Every episode has a moment where she has to talk about how brown people aren’t bad and that we should respect them as people. She has a whole speech about how white people are stealing from the Native Americans. It gets a little much, and I had trouble caring.
I get that Cornelia has a reason to be so kind, but this series goes above and beyond to prove that she isn’t racist. Other white characters in this series suffer from this same complex. Lately, I have been noticing many examples of modern media capitalizing on white guilt and virtue signaling. We don’t need this kind of whitewashing and hand-holding, especially when we are dealing with the terrible aspects of our history. Tell the stories how they are. They are meant to make us uncomfortable because they were uncomfortable stories.
I did not appreciate how this series presents the atrocities of this time as reactions from the good white characters. There is a problematic scene in this series where an entire Native village of Native Americans is slaughtered. You hear the slaughter in the distance, but the focus is on an English man and his overly dramatic anger. I am not saying they should have shown the slaughter, but this type of commentary is insulting. It was as if the series was saying, “we know this was bad, but there were good white people trying to stop this from happening too.” This shifts the focus from a terrible event and puts it on a white man.
I might be taking things a bit too personally, but this theme was too present to ignore. The English isn’t a good redemption story because it is sloppy and lazy. It isn’t a good romance because there isn’t any chemistry, and the romance wasn’t set up properly. It isn’t even a good western because of how cartoonish it becomes. They have great actors who are wasted on such a mediocre story. I am sure there is an audience for this, but it wasn’t for me. I would recommend you skip it, but you can stream it on Amazon Video if you have a Prime membership.
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Image by Philippe Verdier from Pixabay
Movie Review: The Policeman (2022)
The Policeman is a terrible movie. Do not watch it because it isn’t worth your time.
The Policeman is the story of a homosexual couple who must hide their love from the oppressive homophobic climate of Britain’s 1950s. At first, Tom and Patrick have a private affair, keeping their love a secret. Tom grows ambitious and realizes that the only way to get ahead in life is to have a wife. He marries Marion, but this façade quickly crumbles when Marion finds out the truth about Tom’s relationship with Patrick. Tom breaks up with Patrick and lives the rest of his life pretending to be heterosexual. The movie is about characters reflecting on their youth.
I had a lot of trouble writing up the synopsis for this movie because I lost interest several times. I had to rewind a lot because I kept getting lost, not because the plot was complicated, but because I was zoning out. This movie is boring, and nothing in this world can save it.
The acting in this movie is uninspired, and the characters lack the chemistry needed to make this love story work. They might be doing their best, but the script isn’t doing them any favors. It is no secret that Harry Styles isn’t an actor in any sense of the word, but he is not at fault for the quality of the narrative. None of the actors are. Harry Styles is merely the tool used to trick people into watching a movie they otherwise wouldn’t bother with.
The pacing is possibly the worst part of this movie. The plot moves slowly, and I suspect it is because there isn’t enough story for a full movie. As a result, we get a lot of filler in the form of slow takes, shameless fan service, and pointless shots of characters looking longingly out windows. If you cut out the sex scenes and condense the meaningful plot, this is maybe thirty minutes of content.
The Policeman is a poor representation of the struggles of the LGBTQ community. A lot of the hardships are glossed over quickly. The scenes of hardship and oppression seem to have been added almost as an afterthought. They don’t add anything of value to the plot except to briefly say how hard it was back then. It never feels like the characters are under any real pressure to keep their secret except for the fabricated kind designed to force the plot forward. And because the acting is so bad, none of the emotional moments hold the power needed to work.
You can stream this movie on Amazon Prime with your membership, but I wouldn’t bother. I am tempted to cancel my subscription because of this experience.
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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – First Impressions
Amazon has just released its Lord of the Rings show, and I have to say, I am addicted. I am not the biggest fan of the series, I haven’t read the book and have only watched the Hobbit, but this show definitely sparked my curiosity. I am living proof that you don’t need extensive knowledge of the lore to enjoy this show, but having the wiki open might help you get a deeper understanding of what is going on. If you are intimidated to get into Lord of the Rings, don’t be. It is a very in-depth fantasy, but it is well done.
This is a prequel to the series as it details the events that led up to how they crafted the rings. So far there are only two episodes out for the series with new episodes coming out weekly. The acting is fantastic, the story is interesting, and the setting is beautiful. The first two episodes do a great job at introducing the different factions, setting up the world, and getting you hooked for more. They spent a lot of money producing this show, and it shows. My only complaint is that I have to wait another week to see what happens next.
If you are patient, hop on this show immediately. If you aren’t, wait till it is all out. I am definitely excited to see where this series will go.
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