The Tomorrow People

This is a show, that's based off another show of the same name which aired in 1973. I have no idea what that show was like and how well it was received, but this version so far, has my full attention.

 

The Tomorrow People, 1973

Let me give you the opening monologue for you:

"My name is Stephen Jameson, and I'm one of the Tomorrow People. The call our powers the three T's: telepathy, telekinesis and teleportation. There's a shadow war between us and Ultra, a secret organization that hunts us. The only way to keep our species from going extinct is by finding my father... and the only way to do that is by working for the enemy."

Dramatic, much? Yes, actually.

And, well, that opening mono is pretty much the entire show for you--this seemingly ordinary guy who suffers from 'mental disorders' (such as hearing voices and finding himself waking up in places he did not sleep in) discovers he has no mental disorders after all, and in fact, has these superpowers which enable him to read other people's minds at will, teleport to any place he wants to, and control objects telekinetically. He is immediately confronted by this group of people who're just like him--they call themselves 'The Tomorrow People'. But RIGHT after THAT, these men in suits show up and force him to join them; it turns out that these men in suits are the 'bad guys' who recruit these super-humans to perform experiments on.

He ends up being a double agent, and without revealing too much, that's the show's outline for you.

Weird-ass experiment at Ultra. Also, this Stephen Jameson guy is supposed to be 18. WHICH 18 YEAR OLD IS THIS BUFF? wtf? Ugh, television.

But OHMYGOD the plot twists keep coming! 

I'll admit, there were times when it felt like I was just watching some pretty faces trying to keep the show going, but I think the actors themselves needed time to get used to their characters or something; because mid-season, the show picks up, and no I haven't finished the season yet, but I can already tell that this is going to be great.

Seriously, just look at these pretty faces

There's also this really annoying love triangle in the middle which honestly came off weird, but they don't dwell on it much and move on instantly, sort of (thank the LORD).

The casting's fine, I guess--they're all new faces for me except for Mark Pellegrino--

--who played Lucifer on Supernatural, and for guest star (who's recurring) Alexa Vega from Spy Kids.

The writing's pretty good. Suuure, sometimes the dialogues are a little cliched, but they mostly come off genuine enough.

All in all, so far, I'd give it 3.75 on 5.

Drive

Am I on a Ryan Gosling spree?
Er, yeah? Yes? Obviously? Duh?

So this one. Well. Okay, so before we start, the first movie that I saw which had R Gosling in it was Only God Forgives and honestly, only God would have forgiven that what-the-eff of a movie, like what even WAS that? I'm not an art student or a film student, and the entire movie was just symbolism. I didn't even have the energy to think about what those things could have meant. I'm just a consumer, a commercial movie-go-er if that makes any sense, and to have watched THAT movie and to have actually paid to have watched it... I mean, I don't know if I'm ashamed I watched it or if I'm ashamed that I didn't understand what was going on. I would NEVER recommend that movie to anyone, not even as a ploy to stall them from dominating the world. Ugh.
But then I watched Crazy, Stupid, Love and then I began trusting Ryan Gosling's script choices again.
The one thing that I don't do, is read about the movie's directors and script-writers before watching the movie itself; I read the synopsis of the movie itself, obviously (well, sometimes) but I don't pay attention to who directed/produced/wrote it. Just putting it out there.

God Bless you

So I watched this move along with my friend, Nabeela because we were supposed to have had a Ryan Gosling Movies date which didn't work out.
First off, Ryan G looks dapper in this, again. He looks cool. Okay, so now that we have that already out of the way...

THE MOVIE WAS SO COOL LIKE WTF OMG OKAY I DON'T THINK ANYONE WOULD HAVE EXPECTED THAT GOING IN LIKE WHOA OMG

So Ryan Gosling is a part-time stuntman, part-time theif-aid (if that's a word). His biggest deal is that he can drive really well, so he makes money on the side as someone who helps thieves get away after they rob a place. Besides this, he's also a mechanic, who helps his mentor and friend, played by Bryan Cranston (Walter White from Breaking Bad, Hal from Malcolm in the Middle lol) around in his car garage where he makes cars for movie stunts. It all starts off slow and nice, with Driver (that's Ryan G's name in this movie. Don't ask) meeting a woman and her son, and liking them, and with then the father of that family coming back, so it gets a little sad and stuff.

 

Bryan C as the mechanic

Ryan G aka Driver and the family he meets/befriends

And then the shit hits the fan because it's basically like someone switched off (or is it 'on'?) a button and the entire setting changes into something STRAIGHT out of The Walking Dead because people are DYING EVERYWHERE and the Daryl Dixon of this whole show is DRIVER HIMSELF and dayyummnn as someone who enjoys stuff like this, it was AMAZING. So, yes, this is a warning for people who don't like gore and blood and, well, graphic violence in general.

Is he holding a hammer? Yes. Is he helping to nail some furniture together? Well, is a person's skull equivalent to furniture? Then yes, he's helping someone nail a piece of furniture to the floor.

The slow pace of the movie, even if it might have bored and annoyed some people, was a perfect compliment to the scenes where shit goes down.
The ending was quite sad actually, and it gave us (both my friend and I) no closure at all in terms of what happens to Driver afterward. It was a good representation of how it is when you meet someone, I guess--like we got to 'meet' Driver just when all this happened, and we get no back-story about this strange guy who knows how to kick ass without batting an eyelid and who knows how to drive so skillfully, and we don't get to know what happens later either, because you get to meet this person only for that moment in their present. Does that make sense?
The slow pace reminded me of Only God Forgives a LOT, and it was literally only a week or two later that I realized that it was the same director for both (Nicolas Winding Refn).

Since we've already established that I can be a critic, I would have given OGF a 'no rating' status (because like wtf was even going on?), but I'd give Drive a 3.5 on 5.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

It was the perfect blend of laugh-out-loud funny, and all THE FEELS. It was a little weird with the baby-sitter thing (you'll know it when you see it) and that made me cringe a bit, but other than that, it was actually pretty sweet. It was just REALLY good, like I can't remember the last time I had such a good time watching a rom-com! Well, maybe I should stop calling it a rom-com--it was a blemd of romance/drama and comedy, so yeah.
It has Steve Carrel, Julianne Moore, RYAN justkillmenow GOSLING, and someone who is fast becoming one of my favourite actresses, Emma freakin' Stone.

Ryan Gosling lookin' dapper

So needless to say, the acting was spot-on; there was a lot of talent on screen, and they all fit in to their respective roles like a well-flitting glove. Though it may not look like it, everything was well-thought out, I feel, form the clothes they wore, to the places they shot at.
The direction was perfect, because SO much could have gone wrong with this thing, but it didn't. It fell into place perfectly. The story-line was a mixture of all sorts of the usual tropes--which is what made it unusual and refreshing in a sense, I think. It had the 'gets a makeover' trope, and it had the 'kid who makes the lead realize what love is about' trope and it had the 'playboy falls for the sweet girl and talks about his feelings all night' trope as well. It was a blend of all these things, which is why it would have been SO easy to mess up or lose track of what's going on, but it wasn't.

Steve Carrel gets a makeover y'all

Each of the characters got their own little screen time, which is something I personally love because you get to see that they aren't just characters written in for the convenience of story-telling alone, and that they have their own roles and back-story too. This made them seem real enough to empathize with. Special shout-out to Julianne Moore here because she didn't make me hate her character even though it would have been easy enough to do so given the first impression we get of her. Maybe this was not just the actor, but because of the director and the person in charge of the script/screenplay as well (for showing all sides, and mildly, but justly, justifying all actions--as unreasonable as it may seem, they still made it seem...reasonable?), so I guess this is just a shout-out to all of them.

Congratulations, I don't hate your character which would have been hard to do, I think. But you played her like she were a person, and maybe that's why no one actually disliked her so much.

The story itself was warm, and the dialogues weren't cliched, and like I previously said, it was refreshing in a sense because there were so many tropes in one single film.
The movie was highly enjoyable, though!
And yes, though I can be a critic too, I'm going to go ahead and not criticize this movie much because I really enjoyed it.

4/5 stars.

Ruby Sparks (THERE ARE SPOILERS IN ABUNDANCE)

So many words needed to let all this out.

Acting/script/direction was really good, cinematography was great as well, but I don't want to talk about any of that, I want to talk about the concept it explores instead.
(It's like a hipster movie. No other word for it.)

Okay, so it's about Calvin, a novelist who writes about his 'dream girl' (literally: 'dream' girl), who somehow by some miracle becomes an actual, living, breathing, PERSON.
Well, when I say 'person'....

EDIT:~~Okay so this is where I delve into the plot itself and if you don't want that and what to keep it 'a mystery' then just jump right to the VERY last paragraph where I rate the movie. Seriously. But if you don't mind having a slight idea... then think 'Paper Towns' by John Green or 500 Days of Summer.~~

This movie (I'm tempted to say 'story') is all about how guys seem to want this 'manic pixie dream girl' (henceforth, MPDG) all their lives, and I don't want to believe it's true but I know it is, and I know it in the most personal sense (at least SOME do, okay?)

The concept is fantastic, because I think it does a VERY good job of showing how people are real and they're not 'writable' and/or 'set in stone (paper)' like characters in books are, and the thing is, I feel like girls in general get it. Like ALL of us girls have an idea of whom our 'ideal' guy is, but it's not as cruel as the idea of a MPDG, in my opinion. I mean, sure, we have an idea definitely, but we don't try to impose them on real people (at least I like to think so; I can only speak for myself and my group of friends).
I can attest this is true for guys as well--most of the guys I know seem to NOT have a specific idea at all, and maybe this idea of a MPDG is what EVERY guy secretly wants or dreams about the same way EVERY girl dreams about Prince Charming, and maybe this whole MPDG thing is not even that big of a deal to make a movie about, I DON'T KNOW.
REGARDLESS of gender, if there are people out there who dream of guys or girls in the same way the lead dreams of his 'one true love' in this movie, and heck even if they didn't, I think stuff like this would still open up people's eyes and they would start to realize how unfair it is to do stuff like that--to think of people as 'more than just people' as John Green put it in Paper Towns. And I WANT to say 'Regardless of gender' because this story was written by a girl! By the every same girl who plays Ruby Sparks in the movie actually: Zoe Kazan.

But it's strange--every 'romantic' book that talks about girls as magical creatures who maybe aren't even real, ALL end in the SAME way--with the glaring fact that they ARE real and that they are human, and not just some two-dimensional art on a canvas.

I think it's strange how there are so many movies and books like this (Paper Towns included) and these are things that are primarily written for a male audience I think, because I don't think girls can relate to the lead--they can only  relate to the girl itself, maybe---and the thing is, they ALL end in the same way, too: the girl just says "I'm REAL and I'm not just an IDEA!" and even then the guy doesn't seem to get it, and he just seems confused and offended that a girl can be different from the idea he has of her.
And this movie I think does an even better job that Paper Towns (sorry, John Green. I still love you, though) because in THIS movie, the guy actually DOES try to make her fit into his idea of her and well, ultimately when the shit hits the fan, and the 'meltdown' takes place, everything falls into place like I wanted it to. It was VERY well done in terms of acting and direction, by the way. It was fantastic. The actor (Zoe Kazan) was REALLY good in this particular scene. It must have been super challenging to do all that.*

All being said and done, I wasn't too happy about the ending itself, actually.
I mean, sure, it had a little bit of character development but...I don't know. Maybe he should have (**SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT READ FURTHER!!!**) met an Autumn after Summer like in 500 Days of Summer. I think I would have liked it more then.

EDIT: This is from Wikipedia:

"From early in the development she (Zoe Kazan) wrote the lead character Calvin with her boyfriend Paul Dano in mind. On the feminist aspects of the story Kazan explains she wanted to explore the idea of "being gazed at but never seen" where a woman is not properly understood but in a way that wasn’t unkind or alienating for men. She rejects the description of Ruby Sparks as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, calling it reductive and diminutive, whereas Ruby Sparks is about the danger of idealizing a person, of reducing a person down to an idea of a person."

Yes, to the 'reduction to an idea' part but no to the MPDG part because the idea of the girl she happened to pen down for Ruby WAS of a MPDG in my opinion. That's what my interpretation of a MPDG is, anyway.


Rating: 2.5 on 5 stars.
And yes, I can be a critic too.


*Another movie example of this concept is 500 Days of Summer. EVERY guy I have met and who has admitted to watching the movie, LOVED it, but I personally thought it was just okay (maybe a 2 on 5). Also, do all the actors who fit into this role of a quirky/MPDG have to be called 'Zoe'?

The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro

This movie was so long, it could have been TWO movies.
I don't know if that's a good thing, or a bad thing--when a movie seems long, I mean.

It was funny in a pun-ny way, so needless to say I thought it was hilarious. I think I LOVE this trilogy/installment/whatever over Tobey McGuire's because that guy just seemed like he was trying too hard, and he ALWAYS. CRIED. FOR. EVERYTHING.
So Andrew Garfield FTW. And Emma Stone is super pretty as well.

Okay, so on to the movie:
First off, LOOK at this poster!

Awesome!
It's based off a comic-book, so again, if you're walking in thinking of Inception-like movie-intensity, you are just stupid. I mean, really?
So that being said, it's a "fun" movie to watch. Whenever Peter Parker dons the Spider-Man spandex, he becomes this sarcastic, fourth-wall-breaking superhero that constantly verges on comedy/irony that your usual 'serious' superheroes from Marvel don't do, which is so awesome! It's just what we need, I think (this is also a secret cry for that Deadpool movie to happen).
The villain is Elecrto, played very well by Jamie Foxx, although his acting does sometimes come off as...well, acting. It's not too good. It's like, you KNOW he's acting, you know? The villain's character itself was okay, I guess, and I'm tempted to say that it was unbelievable in a sense, but whattheactualhell, THIS IS A STORY ABOUT A MAN SPIDER, AFTER ALL. So really, who am I to judge?
Electro is just one villain in this thing, btw. There are like THREE by the time the movie gets over, so maybe that's why I thought the movie seemed too long.
The second villain, obviously, is Harry Osborn, and dayum, he is a looker just like the other one was (James Franco). Just sayin'. Played by Dane DeHaan, this character is I think in many ways, better portrayed than the original one.

JUST LOOK AT HIS FACE:

Gosh, he looks good playing the troubled anti-hero. Not a lot of people can pull that off. I see a lot of badness in this one; akin to Tom Hiddleston, too.

I think maybe the script is just better, and the actors are fantastic and so is the directing. I mean, these things play such a huge role in what a movie ends up like, and even though the story-line is the same, EVERTHING is different. The perfect illustration of this would be the difference in the aired and the un-aired pilot for the TV show Sherlock. The dialogues in most scenes is literally the same, and yet EVERYTHING is different. It's a prime example of what a director alone does to a particular piece, and that being said, I think everything falls into place in a much better sense with this Spider-man installment/trilogy thing than it did with Tobey McGuire.
Dane DeHaan is a better actor than Jamie Foxx is, man. In this movie, at least. He seemed much more believable I guess; I'm not sure if it's because of the character or because of the acting itself, honestly. Maybe it's both.
Oh wait, I think it was the character. Because looking back, for the second-half of the movie, I thought Jamie F did a better job as Electro like holy crap he was GOOD. Damn. Maybe it was CGI. Maybe it was him. You'll never know.
The chemistry between Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield was OBVIOUSLY really good. Dane DeHaan is a FANTASTIC Harry Osborn and Jamie Foxx was a good Electro too, I can't argue with that.

Special mention: RYAN FROM THE OFFICE IS IN IT! Hahaha! It was nice watching him in something other than The Office. Siggghhh, B.J. Novak.

To keep it short, it was a good watch, and I do NOT regret any moment of it. Though I do think it should come with a warning for (***SPOILER ALERT***DO NOT READ***) major character death.

And seeing as how I can be a critic too, I would give it a 3 on 5!

Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier

THIS was a really good movie.

It lands off running, with an awesome action sequence within the first 10 minutes, which is something I absolutely LOVE. YAY, MARVEL! 4 for you Marvel, you go Marvel!

SO anyway, as a person who hadn't seen Capt. America part uno (don't judge me), I was a little worried I wouldn't get some stuff, and that I would be lost half way. But nope. Sure, I was probably the only one who didn't gasp out in utter disbelief when the Winter Soldier was revealed (Spoiler Alert? Nah), but I still knew how intense that plot twist was. Heck, there were enough, "Aw NOOO SHE DI'INT!" moments in that movie to keep me going till Avengers 2.
Also, there are TWO post-credit scenes. One has 'twins' in them and there's one RIGHT at then end.

Okay, so now to break it down:

It's based off a comic book, so I don't know what y'all expect when you go there; it's action-packed, the dialogues are limited and to the point, the movie was the perfect length for me, and I didn't even at ONE point think, "Ugh, when is this getting over?" There's a little bit of dry humor and a whole lot of "Omg, NOOO!" moments. There are a lot of references to the other Avengers (Stark and Banner especially) and the Black Widow is there throughout, so there's that. I really hope Black Widow/Natasha Romanov gets her own movie as well. I know that this might be the closest we get to one, and you know what? For now, I'm fine with that. The dynamic between the two is wonderful and I would love to see more Avengers team up for stuff. I would love a movie called 'Budapest' for example (um... EVERY ONE on Tumblr wants that?), with Hawk-Eye and her in it. Also, no matter what went on between Steve and Nat, their relationship is always just platonic to me, which is WELL DONE I MUST SAY. Kudos, you Marvel folks! Because you can never have Nat and Steve romantically involved with each other, it just goes against whatever was established in The Avengers, so even though there was some flirting (I don't think this a spoiler, ugh) it was still platonic. And well, this just reminds me of the Harry Potter franchise, where it IS a Romoinie thing, but people still kept shipping Harmony because the actors/crew/directors failed to make sure that the thin line between friendship and relationship was properly conveyed. I can pinpoint to exactly where it started to confuse movie goers: the Goblet of Fire when Hermoine unexpectedly hugs Harry just before the dragon task. I mean, COME ON, whyyyy would you dooo that? That went against the whole 'hand holding' thing in PoA between Ron and Hermoine FIRST of ALL, and by the time GoF (the movie) was out, we all KNEW it was Romoine canonically and YET. And YYEETTT. All this is really important to me, it just is. Establishing the kind of relationship between the characters involved is just as important as having a good script or having good actors in your movie.

ANYWAY.

The direction was alright, the script was good, I'm in LOVE with the actors, and the overall cinematography and the experience itself was very pleasurable. The graphics were amazing, too! The graphics in The Avengers was WAY below par. I was surprised when The Avengers was nominated for an Oscar for the same, but not Battleships (poor dialogue, OKAY acting, but DAMN the graphics were REALLY cool. Hasbro, I think. The same people for Star Trek, if I'm not mistaken; or maybe it's Hasbro because both of them are owned by Hasbro Toys, I don't know honestly).

I think my heart skipped a beat and I nearly yelled, "GIMME!" when I saw what the 'Falcon Project' was.
I DID scream when I saw Nick Fury... well, you'll know it when you see it.

I'm a fangirl. So yes, I went in excited and I came out excited.

All in all, 3.5 on 5 stars!

Bridesmaids (and a bonus rant!)

Okay, first off, I only watched this because people told me it was like the female version of The Hangover, and well, NOW I know that every SINGLE one of them HAVE NEVER SEEN THE HANGOVER (THEY DON'T EVEN GET TO VEGAS BY THE WAY). Because JEEZ, this was not what I expected it to be, and that's always a let down. ALWAYS. This one is no exception.
It wasn't as funny as I thought it would be except for that ONE scene which involved food poisoning, and well, that wasn't even funny funny, it was just something you'd laugh at because it was just that gross. All in all, it was just a typical rom-com, I guess. I don't understand why the newspapers and tabloids praised it so much. I guess the ONLY different thing was that all the lead characters were female. Then again, that's not really 'new' is it?
The lead (I literally just finished watching the movie and I've already forgotten her name) and her character is actually well portrayed--you can empathize with her quite well, mainly because the kind of stuff she faces is not so different form what everyone feels once in a while. We don't know much about her back-story which was a good thing because it would have only made what was already a drag, even more boring. I don't know why, maybe it's because I watch a TON of TV shows all the time, but A LOT of the movies I've been watching lately, feel like they could have been cut short and we as an audience would not have lost out on ANYTHING.
One of the most well filled out TV shows would probably be My Mad Fat Diary. More on that later (or soon).
BUT ANYWAY, getting back to Bridesmaids: why is the movie called 'Bridesmaids'? It should just be called Maid of Honour or something because that's what it was about anyway--the bride's best friend who's life is heading on a downward spiral. I really would have liked to have seen what happened to the OTHER bridesmaids too--the characters were so well outlined, and they would have made such a lawless group of bad-asses, but nope, the movie was heading in another way completely. I mean, WHY are you marketing your movie in such a way? LOOK AT THE POSTER FOR GOD'S SAKE:

So yeah, I was disappointed. Rightfully so, I think.
The other characters deserved more screen space. There was this one scene on a plane where we do get to see the other bridesmaid interact with each other and it wasn't too bad, it was actually quite entertaining. And that WAS IT. I would HAVE REALLY LIKED FOR THEM TO HAVE MORE SCREEN TIME.

There's nothing to delve into, nothing to dissect really. It was a simple movie in the end. I got bored a bit in the middle. I rejoiced when she finally spoke against the "antagonist" which was nice. I liked the wedding itself, like HOLY CRAP, how fancy all that was! And the dresses, oh sweet, gorgeous dresses!
There was a time though, when I got a little tired of how everything was going to shit for her. I mean, guys, I cannot stress this enough: I really thought this movie was going to be funny and just, provocative (?). It would have been refreshing to see a bunch of girls actually do some random shit once in a while. Annnddd I'm back again about how I don't like this film. Would not recommend to anyone looking for a good laugh actually.
It all works out in the end though, and the ending wasn't bad. It was obvious, predictable, and typical, but hey, by the time I got to the 25th minute of the movie, I knew EXACTLY what I was getting into... and I must admit, I kept watching it. So even though the movie itself was a let down because of my own expectations, it wasn't actually that bad. I would NOT watch it again, but I don't completely regret watching it either.
You know which movie I stopped halfway and decided I did NOT want to even KNOW what would happen after? The Ugly Truth. Every time something happened, I just went, "Oh for FUDGE'S SAKE!" because it was just that annoying. If I rolled my eyes even a little more than I did while watching that movie, they would have fallen right off. Oh, another movie was The Time-Traveller's Wife. That was just messed up, man. Like what even...? Why does she even like him? Why does he even like her? I don't get it. It was like River Song on Doctor Who... we don't know where she comes from or how she gets there, but she does and sometimes you don't know why she's there or how they're married, and it's just... I don't want to talk about Doctor Who. I have a WHOLE blog that I can ACTUALLY create about Doctor Who ALONE. I mean, seriously.
Okay, so now I've gone off course.

Bridesmaid, right. Rating: 2 on 5 stars. Maybe 2.5 because even though it was ugggghhh I still managed to sit through it.

Pushing Daisies

Pushing Daisies was definitely called off before it's time, I can tell you that.

This is a wonderful story about a man, Ned 'The Pie-Maker' (Lee Pace) who has this wonderful (?) ability to bring back dead things to life--but there's a catch. He can only bring the thing back to life for a full minute, or else something else would have to die in it's place. The first touch brings the person/animal back to life, but a second, would leave the person/animal dead again, this time, forever.

Ned is now a pie-maker and owns a pie place, 'The Pie-Hole'. I would be lying if I said it didn't make me crave pie every time I watched this show. Dean Winchester, I understand your obsession.

A PI, Emerson Cod, comes across this ability Ned has, and teams up with him to solve crimes together.

So far, the show sounds a little morose, yes?

But no.

This is such an amazing, feel-good show! One often feels like you're reading off a children's story-book when watching this show. The story-telling itself is very unique, with a narrator in the background telling you what the 'facts' of a situation are (I am SO going to miss listening to the narrator saying, "The facts were these..." and you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm going to find a way of easing that phrase into everyday conversation). It reminds me of Arrested Development in a sense. Ah, what an amazing show that was! Listening to Final Countdown still makes me laugh, and I know it'll always bring a smile to my face. But that's for another post.

The show starts off with Ned bringing back his childhood sweetheart, Charlotte "Chuck" Charles back to life after Cod and himself decide to investigate her death. That's what they do; they bring back their dead victims to ask them what they know and to thus make their crime-solving easier. However, they get only one minute to ask their questions, which makes it otherwise harder I suppose. Ned, instead of making her 'dead' again, keeps her alive for more than a minute, thus bringing her 'back to life', leaving them both in a predicament: they can now never touch each other, because if they do, she will go back to being dead, and she won't come back. They fall in love, needless to say, and they thus find themselves in what is probably the cutest love-story ever told.

Now onto the characters themselves.
This show is modern, and when I say 'modern' I mean it tends to, and consistently does, break all the rules of the usual story-telling process, and it doesn't stop there either. It breaks stereotypes and gender roles, and it's just so refreshing.

We have Ned, the lead, with this super-power which will make you think he's this big-shot with a big ego and confidence levels that reach the sky or something, but nope. He's this sweet, shy, clumsy, socially-awkward, cutie-patootie who often finds himself surprised with what his finger can do more than the others around him. He knows he has this 'magic-like power' but he doesn't know squat on how to deal with it, until Cod comes around.

Cod is a PI, a money-minded-but-not-greedy, 6-foot-something, BIG as HECK African-American who has an equal amount of sass to fill up that body, to bat. And he also likes knitting, and pop-up books, and is a big 'ol softie. And none of these 'hobbies' are ever used as comic relief like most shows would, but instead portrays them as perfectly normal hobbies to have. Hurray for that.

Chuck is a wonderful character, and she's sweet and caring, and would do anything for her two aunts. She knows when she's being demanding, is very apologetic about it, and I think the best part about this love-story, is that it's not strained or adrift with the usual drama TV likes to have. The relationship is sweet, and kind and compromising on both parts. And honest. And did I say sweet? And did I say there's no drama? Because I cannot stress how feel-good this show is.

Ned works with Olive, who's a waitress at The Pie-Hole and who's also a little bit in love with oblivious ol' Ned. SPOILER ALERT but not really because you kind of realize that in Episode 1 itself: they don't get together, because of wonderful Chuck. But that doesn't stop her from pursuing love itself, and though you often find yourself feeling sorry for her, there's not one moment where you start to resent her for getting 'in the way' (ahem, spoiler!) She is a rational, smart character who realizes Ned will not love her, and deals with it, in a dignified and often hilarious ways. She's strong in that sense; she knows what she can and cannot have, and most importantly, she's honest. The awkwardness and hopeless love you have for someone you cannot have but still dream about, is very elegantly portrayed, and it's honest, but it's never messy.

The character gets as much screen-time as the others and that's what's great; you have the chance to love each and every one of them in your own way, and you can relate to all of them as a result.
Which is why I love this show! All the characters have this nice-ness to them (maybe that's why it's so children's-story-book-like?) and they all live and let live, and the only drama is caused by the investigation itself. And you have no idea how refreshing and relieving that is when a love-story is almost the primary story-line in a show. Also, Olive likes breaking out in song randomly. That's a plus for me.

It lasted just two seasons, and that makes me sad. It should have lasted longer, definitely, and it would have too, if it weren't for the Writer's strike. The show was penned to last more than two seasons, like most shows are, and I'm quite sure that the producers must have realized they weren't getting a third only after half (or more) episodes were already shot, because the last couple of episodes (especially the last one) hurries to tie up the loose ends and leaves you with a very unsatisfactory sense of closure. The finale was good, sure, and it was a happy one (obviously) but it seemed rushed. Still, most shows that try to tie up ends in the last episode or so have a tendency to royally screw things up. Therefore, this show, even if it DID end too quickly, and even if the finale WAS a little too rushed, still did the job quite elegantly.

It just struck me. It ends like a story book would end too.
With a happy ending, wherein you want to know what else happens, but really, you're still quite happy about where you left off the characters.

All in all, 3.5 stars on 5.

Now, I'm sure I can never quite capture the feeling of watching the show itself, but hey, I can try and be a critic, too.

Red Sky

You know what?

I think the poster says it all:

Look at how awful that poster is. What is this, 2001? Come on! You could have designed a better poster, I'm sure!
But that's just the tip of the iceberg; heck it's not even a tip OF the tip!

Let's break this down:
1. Screenplay: What the flip
2. Characters: What the flap
3. Story-line: Why even bother
4. Direction: At this point I fell asleep

So yeah.

No but let me elaborate, right? The story-line was alright, I think, but it was really badly conveyed. I was confused for a bit because I myself wasn't sure who was bad or good; the story-line was mediocre at best, but the story-telling itself was just...like I can't even find the right word.
There's this bit in the end when the lead's once-best-friend-who's-now-a-bad-guy suddenly turns good and dies "a hero's death" which was GOD AWFUL because the transition was terribly done. The way the dialogues were written seemed very inconsistent with the kind of characters that were initially established; I feel like the screenplay writers themselves got tired of this BS story they were weaving and gave up. Actually, the movie could have been MUCH better told if there wasn't so much unnecessary dialogue involved. One of the subplots, for example, was the good guys trying to figure out what the WMD they were fighting against was. It was called 'Rainmaker' but no one knew why or even what it did.
This was suddenly conveyed just before the jet-plane climax and it took them like 10 seconds to tell us, and it was SUCH a let down! You see what I mean? It was too far-fetched, too hyped up, and there was SO much dialogue. The editing could have been MUCH better in those terms. It was a 110 minute movie, and I think all of it could have been well conveyed in 50 minutes, max. The only good thing I think was seeing the guy from A Walk to Remember in it, and that also was spectacularly destroyed thanks to how awful EVERYTHING was.
I was so BORED.

It was so boring, just WRITING about it is making me feel bored all over again.

The acting wasn't too awful, so there's that I guess. It wasn't amazing, but God DAMN, a good script is what makes it or wrecks it; I highly doubt Benedict Cumberbatch would have the cult fan following he has if it wasn't for the brilliancy of Sherlock, for example.
The cinematography was nothing to be amazed of, but I guess that wasn't too shabby either.

Oh wait, I think I got it.
It lacked substance. It lacked "soul."

Yep.

See? I can be a critic too!