Thoughts on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

So yeah... I haven't really had a lot of time to go to or watch any movies lately so I'm doing this instead. I wrote a review for the first season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt back in 2015 and saw it very akin to 30 Rock. The Tina Fey produced Netflix comedy ran for 3 more seasons after the first, quite a few more than I originally thought it would, and then it came to a close after 4 seasons, that's not bad.

So why am I writing this "thoughts" piece? Well, I've blown through the past few seasons that I couldn't really do a season by season analysis and I want to talk about the impact the show has had over the past 4 years its aired.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt follows the story of Kimmy (played by Ellie Kemper) a young woman who was abducted when she was young and forced to live in a bunker for 15 years with three other women. She emerges from the bunker when the cult leader who imprisoned her (played by Jon Hamm) is arrested and Kimmy starts her new life becoming accustomed to the modern New York world.

She moves in with an obnoxious gay wannabe actor named Titus (played by Titus Burgess), has a landlord who is afraid of her neighborhood being gentrified (played by Carol Kane), and works for and befriends a trophy wife by the name of Jacquelyn (played by Jane Krakowski).

The overall theme of the show is about Kimmy becoming accustomed to the world around her, but more importantly deal with some of the trauma that she and her fellow "mole women" experienced in the bunker. Kimmy, Titus, Lilian, and Jacqueline go through quite a lot over 4 seasons like relationships, jobs, etc and they deal with it all in a super absurd but relatively heartfelt way. And similar to 30 Rock, the humor is pretty nuanced and very wordy that you have to pay attention to pick up on it sometimes.

The show also feels a little timely. I mean that some of the jokes are really specific to the time when this aired.

Sure it's funny now that Titus does a weird rendition of Lemonade, but for someone who is not a die hard fan of Beyonce, I can't imagine that scene having the same effect now in 2019 that it did in 2016, much less someone who wants to watch this show in two or three years when that music video is in a long faded memory of pop culture. I think there are a lot of jokes that are fun and will stand the test of time, but the Lemonade video and a lot of other jokes will kind of be relics of the time between 2015 and 2019.

And that timeliness both helps and hurts Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

So in my review of season 1, I made slight mention to the off color humor that started to appear early on. Most notably in the fact that Jacqueline is Native American even though Jane Krakowski is pretty damn white. Well they don't let that joke go.

And it doesn't really stop there. There were a lot of episodes where I had to stop and wonder what their angle was here, why they were making some of the choices they were making. Was it to make a point? Was it to get a shock factor? Or was it to do both?

Comedy is subjective. There are probably some insensitive jokes in here that some people won't like that I found funny and others that you might find funny and I thought were in bad taste.

I'll repeat what I mentioned in my season 1 review, apart of me feels like Tina Fey has had this desire to break these rules for a while and was always constrained by prime time television. A streaming service with no regulations can do whatever the hell they want and if it crosses a line, it's one episode in a huge ocean of content, chances are, not that many people are going to see it, especially if its that subjective comedy where it could be offensive depending on your sensibilities.

I think one way Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt will stand out in the future is that it is probably the first show to really take a stab at the MeToo movement and make a lot of jokes about it while still pushing a positive message about consent, female empowerment, and a lot of other MeToo ideas. Again, it's a mixed bag. Some of it feels productive, and some of it feels in bad taste.

One thing I might take back from my previous review is that I would have liked to see more of the mole women, I saw more of the mole women and I did not enjoy that nearly as much as I thought I would.

There are a couple of episodes where the Mole Women show up and its a good way to tie back to Kimmy's journey of dealing with her trauma. But I do think they kind of lost a lot of steam with the Mole Women. I do think there were still some pretty funny bits flashing back to them from time to time, but I do take back that I would have enjoyed a whole show about them, these particular women ended up not being nearly as funny as Titus, Lillian, and Jacqueline and that should say something about this cast. They grow on you after time. They're all caricatures so there's only so much I can really get invested, but over the course of the seasons, I definitely wanted to see more of them and not the mole women, so I think they made the right choice.

The main difference I found between the first season and the following seasons was the sense of direction. The first season was focused on Kimmy's reintegration and ended with her facing her fears and confronting the Reverend at his trial. It came together really nicely and felt complete. The following seasons kind of drifted from one plot point to another that I honestly couldn't tell you exactly what happens in season 2. I remember some details but it wasn't exactly a show that caught my attention all the time. It serves best as a show you can put in the background while your on the internet or doing homework. It attracts your attention enough for some good laughs, but the overall plot drifts a little.

The last season overall feels a little odd. I couldn't tell you what the through line of it was, and it was split in two. The first half aired in May of last year, and the final half aired this month. The split had such a long gap that I had totally forgotten what happened in the first half of the season and I didn't care to go back and re-watch it.

By the end, I saw a stitched together ending that felt complete, but ultimately felt pretty hollow to me. A lot of the time, when comedies like this have a lot of heart and soul to them, you can feel the passion behind the last few episodes and you can feel the cast giving their all because they know this great opportunity is coming to an end. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt never felt like that, especially in the end. Which is a bummer because I think this show hit its stride in its second season in 2016 and 3 years later I doubt a whole lot of people know that its final season is out. I know its only been 5 days, but you can tell when something on Netflix is a big deal and when its just kind of a whimper, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt ended on a whimper for me.

I've been reading a lot of praise for this show and even saw someone say that its the "first great sitcom of the streaming era". And to be fair, I guess that's true. There are not a lot of sitcoms on streaming services that have broken ground like this show and it did kind of have a reputation of its own. But I can only hope that we understand that this is a pretty low bar and we can do better than this in the future.

I don't want to shit on this show too much. I had fun watching it. I do think I came to have a lot of fun with the characters, and I think the celebrity cameos that showed up in this show were really well placed and executed well.

But I do think the show is far from perfect. For me, this was a show with an expiration date and they probably could have closed it up after the third season. I like it for what it is, but I don't think it's going to have a huge impact for me.

But at the very least, at least its not The Ranch right?

Those are my thoughts on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and its final season. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!

The Upside

So most of the time, January is a pretty weak time for movies. Typically, its seen as a dumping grounds for movies that studios don't think would make money in more popular times of the year, or where you put movies that weren't strong enough to make it into the Christmas movie watching season. You can expect some people to go see it because let's be real, its January, what else are you gonna do? Go outside?

But honestly, the weird thing is, this year there might be some exceptions to that stereotype. I totally forgot that Glass came out in January (perhaps that should have been a sign to us all), and this movie came out. I realized the time that the movie came out the day before I saw it and I worried that it might not be good.

The Upside is a story that has been done a couple time in movie form. Apparently its based off a true story but I can't believe that after so many remakes the story remains still in tact. The most famous one before this one is called The Intouchables. It is a French film and while I haven't seen it, I'm pretty sure I could find a copy of it somewhere. The Upside makes me want to and compare the two. We'll see if that happens, but my point is that I'm curious how similar the story is with the two movies, with the rest of the remakes, and how close it is to this apparent true story.

The Upside follows the story of Dell (played by Kevin Hart). He is an ex-convict who is looking for a job. My accident, he stumbles into an interview to be a life auxiliary for a paraplegic billionaire by the name of Phillip Lacasse (played by Bryan Cranston). Phillip takes a liking to Dell and against the advice of his Executive Assistant (played by Nicole Kidman) offers him the job to do the things that Phillip cannot do in his condition.

Predictably, the two get to know one another and form a friendship. They uncover each others passions, push each other better themselves, and they just enjoy life together in a pretty comedic story.

And the first thing to say about this film is that the performances are really good.

 This movie would not work if you didn't like the main characters and they got a pretty awesome cast for this movie. I was actually a little surprised on how well Kevin Hart acted in this movie. He's usually the goofy comic relief or in comedies that rely more on the laughs rather than the heart but I really liked him in this role. It was written pretty well to work for him. You also can't complain about Nicole Kidman, she's a good actress. Her part is a little odd but I'll talk about that later.

And then you have Bryan Cranston who definitely goes into my top five best actors working today. He's really good in this film.

Now there was a "big" controversy over an abled actor like Cranston being cast as a disabled person and why they didn't cast a disabled person. I don't wanna get too much into it. I am putting a link to a BBC article discussing the controversy as well as Trevor Noah making commentary on it. I think it's an interesting debate but that's not really what I use this blog for. Bottom line is, they used Cranston and they got a really good result. Does there need to be a conversation about opportunity for disabled actors, yes. Is casting an incredible actor like Cranston a controversy? I really don't think so. Read the article, listen to Noah's commentary, decide for yourself.

BBC Article
Trevor Noah Commentary

The real pleasure of this movie was the interplay between Hart and Cranston. I think the movie was just able to put a smile on my face through the majority of it, whether it be through the comedy which was really good, the heart and chemistry between these two, or after a really emotional scene where either one performed really well.

The issues that I had with the film aren't really that big of issues because I don't feel like they really bring down the movie. The main problem is that the plot is overall pretty predictable. This kind of movie has been done about a billion and two times so its not surprising when they have a falling out, kind of out of nowhere or the plot resolves itself perfectly with a little bow on it. This would bother me more if the predictability of the movie felt contrived, but I really only felt that one time and that was during the predictable falling out the two have. I guess you could consider that a spoiler but there was only one time that I knew that part was coming and it happened with no real reason or motivation. I think if I would have changed anything, it would be to have that falling out happen over time and utilize the two hour time frame a little better to facilitate that predictable format in a less predictable way.

I also think Nicole Kidman's character wasn't really that consistent and really changed depending on where the plot needed her instead of the way her character would naturally progress. Again, she's not bad, she's just more of a plot device instead of a real fleshed out character which is unfortunate because there is one scene where they talk a little bit about her as a character and I'm sure they could have done more with that, but for me it wasn't as smooth as the development of Hart and Cranston's characters.

Overall, The Upside is a feel good movie. It's not gonna win any awards and if I could do it again, I'd probably wait until this comes to a streaming service to watch it, but I'm not mad that I went to it in theaters. If you need a pick me up, this is a movie that will do that. Yes it's predictable, but not every movie is going to, nor should they be, a groundbreaking one hundred percent original film. This movie has been remade a billion times because its a touching story and there's nothing wrong with that.

But those are my thoughts on The Upside. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a good example of a film that looks appealing and could be something that I might enjoy, but also are full of elements that I usually will push off for a while because while I'm sure they're good, I just usually don't get me to watch these kind of movies right away. Coen Brothers movies, I know they're good but I don't go out of my way to watch them. Westerns, similar idea. I think the thing that made me finally give in and check it out was word of mouth. I heard a lot of friends and online reviewers talk really well of this movie and the multiple unrelated narratives sounded interesting to me. On top of that, 6 interesting but unrelated stories made this movie feel more like an Old West miniseries rather than a full movie so it was a little more digestible and I felt better taking a break after one story and coming back for the next.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs tells six short stories set in the Old West. It's kind of hard to describe the film because these stories are really unique and feel like a collection of short films rather than a whole movie.

I think a common theme among all of these stories is they are very dark and they are very philosophical. However, the cool thing is that you can take these stories on face value and they are really good. But if you think about the larger philosophical ideas in them, the Coen Brothers are able to make a simple story of a bunch of passengers in a stage coach having a conversation seem like really important idea piece. Symbolism of nature, age, circumstance, struggle, and death surround a lot of these stories and they're all done really well.

On top of that, the movie has just a superb cast who shine in their respective story from well known actors like Liam Neeson and James Franco to the lesser known actors like Zoe Kazan, Tim Blake Nelson, and Tom Waits.

Honestly the movie is really hard to review because each short story is so different from the one before it. Tim Blake Nelson's is almost a musical black comedy with a lot of dialogue and song, while Liam Neeson's has barely any diagetic dialogue and is very serious. Tom Waits's story might be my favorite and the majority of it is just him talking to himself because its essentially just him alone in the wilderness.

Even the stories that start of a little boring really had me by the end. The one with Zoe Kazan was the closest to being the weakest, but then the Coens manage to show off that they do action and suspense just as well as their heavy dialogue so by the end I was literally on the edge of my seat in suspense because they're able to show off these characters really well in such a short time.

I think my only issue with the film is that it doesn't feel like a cohesive movie. And that's not even a really bad issue to have considering it is 6 short stories in a sort of anthology. I think this movie works perfectly for Netflix because you could easily watch these stories like episodes in a TV show. I watched two, paused the film, did some other stuff, came back finished another two, did the same thing, then finished it up later and I didn't feel like I was missing anything because they are so unrelated to one another besides their setting of the Old West.

Honestly by the end of it, I kind of hope that the Coen Brothers return to this setting and do another one of these, or maybe make a Black Mirror type anthology series because these were a lot of fun.

Again, I'll mention they are very dark. Don't go into this thinking you're going into a fun happy go lucky western film despite the singing Cowboy being the titular character.

But I think you get a lot of Coen Brothers philosophical thinking pieces in this movie and it actually made me wanting more by the end of it. If you haven't checked it out already, it's on Netflix, it might be among the best feature films to be produced by the streaming service.

But those are my thoughts on The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. What did you think? You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks of reading!

A Series of Unfortunate Events Season 3

So there are good things I'm going to say about this season I swear, but I'm gonna be honest, at this point I'm just more excited for Neil Patrick Harris to move onto something more interesting. The only times I really see him anymore are when he's wearing that Count Olaf make up and get up and I think think that this character has stayed its welcome. It's time for Neil to move onto something else.

A Series of Unfortunate Events Season 3 starts directly after the events of Season 2. The Baudelaire Orphans, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny (played by Malina Weissman, Louis Hynes, and Presley Smith respectively) are still on the run from the clutches of Count Olaf (played by Neil Patrick Harris) and his henchmen, including Esme Squalor (played by Lucy Punch) and Carmalita Spats (played by Kitana Turnbull).

Honestly, it's a little hard to do a recap of the last season because the second season was really all over the place. The Baudelaire orphans were slowly discovering secrets about their parents, the nature of their murder, and the secret organization they were apart of called VFD (Volunteer Fire Department) but the previous season was handcuffed by the fact that a lot of the reveals needed to come to light in the final few episodes and that's very much what happens in Season 3.

The third season really ditches the formula that was getting tiresome in Season 2 where the Baudelaires are put in the custody of a new often well meaning, but incompetent guardian, Count Olaf shows up but in a new disguise, shenanigans ensue, Olaf is foiled but the orphans need to find a new guardian for some reason. I mentioned in my review of Season 2 that that formula was getting really annoying and I'm really glad they ditched it. Instead, the show focuses on the orphans actually uncovering some of the mysteries behind VFD, actually taking action to help themselves instead of just enough to get them thrown into the custody of an incompetent guardian again, as well as delving into the history of Count Olaf and his background.

In some ways, this felt a little bit more like Count Olaf's season as we discover more about what brought him to where he is now, the mentorship he had under the woman with hair but no beard and the man with a beard and no hair (played by Beth Grant and Richard E Grant respectively).

They do quite a bit of villain redemption retconning in this season and some of it works while some of it seemed a little rushed or uncharacteristic. It's one of many things that I have to take a step back and remember that at the end of the day, this is a kids film. Whether it's accurate with the books or not (which I think it is but I haven't read the book so I have no idea), Count Olaf (and while we're at it, The Woman with Hair but no Beard and the Man with a beard and no hair) was never going to be the full blown villain you'd expect from a regular story. It's a kids story and I have to remember that. While these books came out while I was a kid, the show is aimed at kids and I need to recognize that more.

Another new character was Kit Snicket (played by Allison Williams).

This could be up for debate but Kit could potentially be the hovering adult character that is tailing the Baudelaire orphans who is the least worthless. In the first season it was Jacquelyn (played by Sara Canning) who disappeared from the show all together in this season. In season 2 it was Jaque Snicket (played by Nathan Fillion) who was fun but ultimately useless. And in this season it was Kit who I'm kind of mixed on.

On one hand, I think Allison Williams is a great actress and I have really enjoyed almost every role she's ever played. But on the other hand, these characters are very much like Gandalf in The Hobbit. They show up, they seem like they could be helpful but they're written out of the book in order to help the main character grow. But in a show like this, you need to fill up the time and the best way to do that is put them through some hijinxs that might be funny... but probably aren't. I'm not saying Allison Williams was bad or Kit Snicket wasn't a good character because we knew a lot more about her than any of the other characters I mentioned, but she was only just fine.

Once again, the show has a special guest of the episode where they have a relatively better known adult actor be the character the Baudelaires need to work through to solve their episodic issue. There are a few less than usual in this season but a lot of the living ones from the previous seasons come back and it's kind of fun to see all the characters from the previous episodes come back.

But by far the best character in this season, and possibly in the entire show was Max Greenfield as the Denouement Brothers.

I'm honestly a little baffled on why his character(s) worked for me so much but for some reason they did and that episode was the highlight of the show season for me. Without giving too much away, he plays a pair of twins named Earnest and Frank. One is good and one is wicked, the Baudelaires need to figure out which one is which. It was this moment that I was thoroughly entertained and I thought the show had finally hit the right chord. This show has always been ridiculous. In a way, it's kind of like Alice and Wonderland, it doesn't follow the logic of our world and you're doing yourself a disservice if you try and rationalize something like an organization putting their faith in a brother who could easily be mistaken for the wicked brother who is on the opposite side. I don't know, for everything that didn't work in this entire show, this really worked and I was invested in that episode in a way I hadn't been since the first season.

I also think Max Greenfield was having a ball with this role. I mentioned in my previous reviews that Neil Patrick Harris (and maybe Patrick Warburton) really seem like they know exactly what kind of show they're in and they go nuts with it. Max Greenfield knows exactly what kind of movie he's in and he milks the hell out of it.

The kids are pretty much the same as they were in the previous seasons. They're okay at delivering dead pan lines that utilize some kind of funny deadpan humor, but when there are super emotional moments or they're supposed to be happy, it really seems like they're trying really hard to act.

I was very happy that the Quagmires weren't in this show nearly at all. They really only have a presence in two sets of episodes and even then their exposure in this show is pretty limited. That was a drastic improvement over the last show.

But I also felt like the show had a little bit more of a purpose this time around and that was to uncover the mystery of VFD, the sugar bowl, their parents, and in a sense, Count Olaf's past. And unlike the other seasons where this was kind of the underlying goal, this season actually reaches that goal and it feels satisfying to see them reach the finish line... sort of.

The show felt more streamlined and delved more into the characters backstory because it finally gave itself the opportunity to do so. Neil Patrick Harris is a good actor but I felt like in the second season he needed to think up new creative characters and they were starting to get tired. In this he barely wears any costumes and he can focus more on being Count Olaf, which I actually think is where he shines the most.

I think at the end of the day I was confused on who the target audience of this show really was. On one hand, the story is pretty simplistic and feels very much like a Roald Dahl children's story. But on the other hand it's got a very black comedy feel with some dry comedy that might go over kids heads. The book series came out when people now in their twenties were in elementary school but the series doesn't go the whole 9 yards to make it mature enough for those who would know the subject material the best.

As I go farther in the show, I thought it was going to try and be similar to Doctor Horrible Singalong Blog, especially with the periodic song numbers that NPH would throw in. And to a certain extent it is very similar because both shows show absurd caricatures with the main protagonist playing it straight, unsure how they got into this mad world. But whereas Doctor Horrible Sing Along Blog was made for adults, this is trying to capture a dark comedic tone but maintain a very kid friendly environment and story.

I think as far as seasons go, I'd put the first season at the top of my list due to its unique formula that wasn't tired yet, and the larger than life feeling environments that they originally went to in each episode. The disguises that Olaf used hadn't overstayed their welcome, and it was still early enough that you rooted for the kids without it feeling formulaic. The third season comes in second because it ditched the tired formula and owned the fact that this is all absurd. And the second season is in last place because it just drifts between what worked in the first season but wants to reveal secrets but can't.

I think as far as it goes for the show overall, I'm just conflicted. I don't think this is a story that needed 13 books to be complete. But at the same time the ending of it and the message they have in the final episode actually kind of touched me. The whole lesson of the show is that a series of unfortunate events is all about perspective. Bad things are going to happen, they could happen very frequently that it feels like the world is against you, but staying in a safe place and not experiencing those bad things will never allow you to grow and I liked that message. Even though the series felt a little dragged out and I was really ready for the show to conclude by the end, I am glad I know the story that Daniel Handler started.

It is flawed for sure, but if you're looking for a PG adventure show that is a lot smarter than Fuller House, you won't really go wrong with A Series of Unfortunate Events. I wouldn't recommend it for younger kids and much older kids are going to think its lame, but there's a sweet spot in there I'm sure somewhere out there can find.

This was clearly a passion project of Neil Patrick Harris's and I'm glad he got to do it. I remember when I heard that this was going to happen and I heard NPH was going to be Count Olaf. It seemed weird at the time but I do think he did as good with this role as he could.

I really do hope he moves onto bigger and better things after this. I think he's been preoccupied with this show that he hasn't done other things and now he has that opportunity and I'm looking forward to whatever it is. He was consistently the best part of the show and if someone forced me to give an absolute plus of the show, it would be Harris.

But those are my thoughts on A Series of Unfortunate Events. I feel like I could have said more, but I'll be honest, I want to be done talking about this show. It's time. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films and TV shows I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!

Spider-man PS4

I don't review a lot of video games. They take a lot of time to complete (especially when they're really good) and I often feel like I'm not hitting all the points that video game reviewers usually need to hit. Gameplay and graphics are not my strong suit and while I comment on graphics and gameplay, I feel like I'm really just saying my gut feeling without any real knowledge of what equates great and what doesn't. My focus is on the story and therefore I really only focus on video games where the story is at the forefront, and I'm 100% invested in the story. And boy is that the case with Spider-man for the Playstation 4.

Spider-man follows the titular superhero (voiced by Yuri Lowenthal) as he fights crime that plagues New York City while balancing the work and relationship issues that a 23 year old usually deals with as his alter ego, Peter Parker.

While there are a lot of twists and turns, side quests and DLC (that I haven't gotten to yet), the main story of Spider-man begins when a strange gang of masked criminals start to terrorize the streets of New York. Spider-man must investigate the gang and their mysterious leader, Mister Negative as they bring chaos to New York and try and bring the structures of power to their knees.

Along the way Peter is balancing his relationships with his ex-girlfriend Mary Jane (voiced by Laura Bailey), his aunt May (voiced by Nancy Linari), his boss at his research job Otto Octavius (voiced by William Salyers), and other characters you might recognize from the Spider-man universe.

The thing I really liked about this game was how fresh the take on the Spider-man story felt opposed to previous movie adaptations and games. This game is not the video game adaptation of a movie, it's its own original story and it takes the story of Peter Parker to a place I'm not sure I've really seen it go.

Peter Park isn't in high school anymore, he's graduated college actually. He's been Spider-man for a few years now and he's put away a lot of high level bad guys. He has a working relationship with the NYPD, especially Captain Wantanabe (voiced by Tara Platti). He's not working at the Daily Bugle, he's instead doing research with Otto Octavius.  Mary Jane, a reporter for the Daily Bugle (not an actress who doesn't contribute anything) knows Peter Parker is Spider-man but they're broken up and yet have a really compelling and fun relationship nonetheless. Norman Osborn (voiced by Mark Rolston) is the mayor of New York. Miles Morales (voiced by Nadji Jeter) is in the game and he has a huge part as well as a lot of interaction with Peter Parker. Jonah Jameson (voiced by Darin de Paul) has retired from the Daily Bugle and does an Alex Jones-like podcast where he continuously rips on Spider-man. There's just a lot of new things in the story and it was a lot of fun seeing this world play out.

And it's not just the ingredients and new story elements that were interesting, when put together, you get a really interesting main narrative that I couldn't wait to get all the way through, and was a little sad that there wasn't more. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to the sequel to this game and they would be insane not to continue the story, especially with what they set up in the end.

I think what made this game so compelling was all the characters and their relationships. But at the same time, this game was able to take those great personal moments and mix them with really great, over the top, epic action sequences, especially in the cut scenes. I have a lot of great things to say about the game play, but I don't think I've really see cut scenes that were as good as the ones in this game. Many of them felt so cinematic and honestly had me on the edge of my seat with how intense they could be.

It feels like everyone involved with this game absolutely loved Spider-man and they wanted to not only give a lot of nods to the grand mythology that the character has, but also give the cut scenes and story the wide range to really show off the kind of capable and emotional character Spider-man can be.

The motion capture is just spectacular and pieced together with a really well made narrative, there were a lot of cut scenes, especially near the end that I had a knot in my throat due to how emotionally invested I had become with these characters.

It's true that the story is never going to be as cohesive as a movie might be because these cinematic scenes are still broken up through game play, but I thought the story felt so cinematic that I would have been totally fine if this had just been a movie and not a game.

Another criticism I would have of the story is a lot of the villains throughout the game. That's not to say they're not interesting, they for sure are, but with the exception of one villain in particular, the villains in this game felt very much like the rogue of the week and not the quintessential bad guy that you need for a movie. I recognize that this is in fact not a villain and therefore it works, but if I'm looking at this from a story perspective, I wish I knew more about Mister Negative. He's a good video game villain because he creates a challenge. But the villains that exceed the standards of video games are the ones that it fits with the story.

Furthermore, the plot(s) of the game flow like a video game. And yes, I recognize that this is a video game, not a movie. But the narrative was so cinematic that I can't help but compare the story to that of a movie.

While I'm unfairly comparing this game to a movie, I would say that there are some parts that I think could have had some more emotion to them if this wasn't an action video game.

For example, one of the main parts of the story is a huge attack. Now in the context of the story, it's a big deal, there's debris everywhere, it's very 9/11ish, but it loses a little bit of it's effect when earlier in the game I was chasing a helicopter around New York and it was crashing into the sides of buildings creating a lot more carnage than I think the game gave it credit for. On top of that there are bombs that you'll throw in the game play that have quite large explosions, because of that, the video game aspects kind of clash with the story telling aspects.

That being said, the game play was absolutely fantastic. This game might be one of my favorite games of the year because it was such a pleasure to play.

I think one thing I was worried about with this game was that it might be overly complicated or rely too heavily on combos in order to make you actually feel like Spider-man. But to my surprise, the controls, while somewhat complicated at times, are incredibly easy to pick up with practice, and even if you're not hitting all the right button combinations, you still feel pretty awesome swinging through Manhattan with random small crimes popping up no matter how far in the game you get.

I legitimately had a difficult time with the game because I was so conflict at times between pausing my progress in the game and going after the collectibles and side missions, or continuing the awesome story. Again, one of the biggest downfalls of the really great story is that it's not a cinematic movie. Usually my perfectionist side comes out and I want to knock out the side missions or collectibles before completing the story, but Spider-man introduces new collectibles throughout the game and encourages you to do both.

The other thing that surprised me was how much I enjoyed the subtle peppering of missions where you don't play as Spider-man. You either play as Mary Jane as she does some investigating reporting, or Miles Morales in what is mostly stealth missions to get from point A to point B. While those don't sound interesting, they're mainly in the game to change up the pace a little bit and give you a different characters perspective to enhance the story.

I'm really glad these missions were pretty infrequent and only really happened to serve a purpose, and I do think it broke up the monotony of always being Spider-man.

The game also did it's rewards system pretty well. If you're like me, another way the game can get monotonous is if you're looking at the same red and blue Spider-man swinging around the entire time.

 In another example of the game encouraging you to moderate between the story and side quests, it has a collection of costumes that you can earn throughout the game by spending tokens you receive for different events like challenges, crime prevention, and other collectibles.

If you're a fan of any of the movies, you'll be really happy with the costumes they open up. You can change into a new costume pretty much whenever you want and there are plenty of fun options to try on to give the best Spider-man experience.

I don't have a lot of huge issues with the game. The story is one I would for sure go back and re-experience. The game play is a blast and keeps you totally engaged and it is not repetitive at all. I honestly think this game and Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse have drastically changed my perspective on Spider-man as a property, especially as the character has become pretty tired in recent years.

There was a time that Spider-man used to be the greatest superhero that Marvel had. Sam Raimi's films were the gold standard of superhero films and everyone's favorite superhero was Spider-man. But I've felt that for quite a while, the hero was overplayed and audiences just weren't as interested in his adventures as they used to be, myself included.

It probably has a lot to do with the fact that we've had three live action versions of the character over the past decade. We know the story, we've seen more inventive and just different stories from a wide variety of heroes since, Spider-man just isn't as compelling as he used to be. And I would include Tom Holland's Spider-man to a certain extent. I love his version of Spider-man but I think he's very much been designated as a side character in MCU team up films, and Homecoming, while a great film, was incredibly smaller in scale than previous Spider-man films, missing a certain level of epicness to the Spider-man story.

But after seeing Into the Spider-verse and playing this game on PS4, I've been reminded on why Spider-man is such a rad character and how epic he can be.

Somehow a video game and an animated film was able to do the character of Spider-man the best its been done in quite a long time. I never thought I'd say something like this, but the MCU can learn a thing or two from Sony and Insomniac Games on how to do Spider-man because while Tom Holland is great, I would take these stories over his any day of the week.

But those are my thoughts on Spider-man for the PS4, what did you think? Did you like the game? What'd you think of the gameplay? What'd you think of the story? Do you agree that there's an underground revival of Spider-man happening under our noses? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me requests for other movies, TV shows, or video games I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!

Titans

I don't know why, but Teen Titans never appealed to me. I'm not just talking about this show, I'm talking about the material in general. I think the biggest reason is because I didn't have cartoon network as a kid so I never watched the original cartoon series like every other kid I know. Even the episodes I did see, I don't think I was a fan of the semi-anime style at the time and regardless, I don't think I ever understood the team up that much or why it was appealing. Individually, a characters like Starfire, Beast Boy, Raven, and even Robin to a certain extent are interesting, but it never really made sense to me why these characters needed to team up.

On top of all of that, I really had no interest in this show. If you were following movie and super hero news in the lead up to this show, you'll know that the trailer for this show was just reviled among fans and non fans alike. And yeah... it's bad.

On top of THAT, it was a show that was airing on DC's streaming service, DC Universe. And there are a lot of people who didn't know that DC even had a streaming service. I'll talk a little bit about that later, but I just wanted to make it known I had to go searching for this show and I only ended up watching it because a friend said he wanted to talk about it with someone. Well I'm doing that and talking about it on here.

Titans is the story of the formation of the team most well known as the Teen Titans, but in this it is just the Titans (minus Cyborg because he's made it mainstream now). But mainly, this is a story about Dick Greyson (played by Brenton Thwaites) or his better known alter ego, Robin.

This show takes place after Dick has left his partnership with Batman. He is a cop in Detroit and wants to get away from that life, but he finds himself thrown back in this "dark" and "gritty" interpretation of this team's formation.

Dick comes across a girl named Rachel (played by Teagan Croft) who is on the run from mysterious men. Dick realizes soon that she has special abilities and he takes it on himself to help her, especially when he realizes that the system is both corrupt, and unequipped to deal with her special situation.

At the same time, the two of them come into contact with a strange woman who doesn't remember her past by the name, with strange powers of Kory (played by Anna Diop), and a teenage boy by the name of Gar (played by Ryan Potter) who has the ability to transform into a tiger.

Together the team comes together to protect Rachel, help her figure out her dark powers, and discover the mystery behind her missing parents.

And the result is... messy... very messy.

Right off the bat, they need to turn on as least one light in this show. Every joke about DC movies being too dimly light and having people fight in the dark is totally true in this show. Everything is so freaking dimly lit that it's almost impossible to figure out what people are doing, where they are, and why I'm supposed to care. There are a couple of points where they have flash lights and I'm asking myself, why are there absolutely no lights in this show?

But on top of that, the show goes out of its way to make itself the dark and gritty version of DC that is willing to go the extra mile.

Now I'm not opposed to dark and gritty. I think with the right writing, this could have worked. In fact there are a lot of points where I thought to myself, hmmm that is actually an interesting take.

But let's take a step back and think about the material. I had a friend kind of explain the Teen Titans to me and he said that essentially, the team is the sidekicks trying to prove themselves and help in situations that are too small for the Justice League.

From what I know/remember of the original cartoon series, I know it rode that fine line between comedic moments and really serious drama.

But whether it's that show with that fine balance or the new show that is total fluff and even some light hearted satire, both shows knew what the Teen Titans were, knew the limitations, but was able to break some of those limitations if need be. In fact, from what I know of the original Cartoon Network show, it did break those rules. There were a lot of edgy episodes that I think fans really connected to. So I understand why there is such a fan base for this property. I don't connect with it myself, but I understand how years of narratives about these characters would earn them such recognition from the fan community.

But Titans takes this team and forces a dark and "edgy" vibe down your throat without really earning any of it. It's like a movie being rated R or PG-13. Not every movie should be rated R. There are films that can do a lot with its story without going fully graphic or to the level that would get an R rating. And if you're going to bring something like the Titans to an R rated show, it has to be earned, and I really don't think this show earned it, especially in the main characters.

You would think the most interesting characters in a show called Titans would be the actual team. But I found myself just bored with Robin's inner turmoil, Rachel's emo kid antics, and the fact that Beast Boy has absolutely no reason to be in this group.

The only person I was really interested in by the end of the show as Starfire and even that felt weird. Essentially her being is transported into the body of essentially a prostitute. That's why you have the elaborate clothes and wig. But for a show that's going for heightened realism, it's kind of hard to do that with a character dressed like that, kids with unironic purple and green hair, and Robin.

Now to be fair, I wouldn't say there isn't ANYTHING I didn't like about this show.

While I wasn't interested in the characters, I wouldn't say the acting is absolutely terrible. Furthermore, there are small ideas that I did find slightly interesting like the secret organization that felt very cult like that was going after Rachel. It was boring a lot of the times, but at times I saw where they were going and thought there was something interesting there.

The last episode of the first season was probably the most interested I had ever been in the show and I swear, that entire episode could have been the entire series. It actually made me a little bit angry that that wasn't the whole series right there and if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.

I just think the show didn't really make me care enough about these characters past one really good final episode (that I heard wasn't even the final episode because they moved the finale to be the first episode of the second season... so that sucks).

Honestly, the side characters they run across throughout the show were a lot more interesting and compelling compared to the core group. Throughout the show, the team is bouncing from one comic book cameo to another, again not really giving any time to develop the core group as characters, but those tertiary characters seemed a lot more interesting at the end of the day. I wanted them to hang out with the Doom Patrol more, I wanted to figure more about Donna Troy, or Hawk and Dove, or the weird brainwashed family that comes to murder them. Every other character besides the Titans were 100% more interesting than them and that's a huge issue with the show.

In the process of writing this, I had a friend explain to me what the origins of the Teen Titans were from what he knew because like I said, I'm just not familiar with the group. He explained that the Teen Titans were formed to help with smaller crimes that the Justice League couldn't be bothered with and was organized from the sidekicks, mainly Robin and Kid Flash. As the sidekicks proved themselves they were given more important jobs.

But that's not the story given here. So there are certain decisions that given the context of the show don't make a whole lot of sense, namely when people are in trouble and the only people that can help are superheroes, logically these people would call for help from Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, or other stronger heroes... not Robin...

And the show makes it very clear that those heroes exist in this universe. It wouldn't be a stretch that if Dick Greyson needed help, he could just call Batman. And I get it, there's bad blood there, he wouldn't call him unless it was an emergency, but in an effort to make this show feel important, they start off on a potentially world ending plot that it doesn't make logical sense why Batman wouldn't be called.

And I don't like using that argument, that why in a solo superhero film like Iron Man, that he doesn't call the Avengers. But when the main characters draw so much attention to those off screen characters, you do have to explain why they're not being called.

By the way, Batman is not in this show. There's a whole ton of references to him and there's some scenes where he's fighting, but there's no set actor playing Bruce Wayne, just stuntmen, so I don't count it. I don't know if that's going to change, but I almost feel like it has to with how much of an impact Bruce Wayne has on the development of Dick Greyson.

While I didn't have much of an interest in this show, when I was given the opportunity to watch it, I took it without hesitation because it does intrigue me because it is confusing to me.

This is a really fascinating time for superhero television because I think we have passed what could be considered a very small golden age window. Two or three years ago, superhero shows were crushing it on all sides of the aisle.

Marvel was releasing Daredevil on Netflix with more heroes on their way to eventually do a The Defenders series. Arrow and the Flash were at the height of their powers and only adding more and more big names to their line up.

But now things have changed. Marvel Netflix shows are being cancelled and don't have the draw or hype that they used to. I honestly don't hear as much about Arrow and the Flash that much these days. I know they're still going strong and doing giant cross over events with too many shows for me to count, but I just find it really interesting that DC is shifting gears towards a streaming service when that universe has been doing monstrously well.

I get that a lot of it comes down to business decisions. Original content is a lot cheaper than licensing these heroes out to the CW, and Disney is doing the same thing with their streaming service in the next few years.

But if the business decision is to bring those fans from the CW super hero universe over to the DC Streaming service, I find it very odd how they not only want to start from scratch but build this "dark" and "gritty" look at DC that fans have not responded to in movies like Batman v Superman, and Suicide Squad.

They have to market the hell out of this show but also the DC universe streaming service to the world because I know very few people who actually know that that's a thing. But the only way they can do that is actually give a damn with these shows. It's not enough to have Robin just be able to say "Fuck Batman", I need to actually care about why he's saying that or why there's a show about him at all and Titans didn't do that for me.

I highly doubt I'll check out the second season. As long as I have access to the DC Universe Streaming service I'll check it out, but honestly, it's not off to a great start.

But have you seen Titans? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter, @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films and TV shows I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!

Vice

Well Happy New Year to everyone!

Before I talk about this movie, I wanted everyone to know that I have been working on some reviews. The one thing about them is that they are TV shows and a video game so they are taking some time for me to get through them. I do have some really great ideas and thoughts on these shows and I'm looking forward to sharing them with you, as you know they just take a little bit more time then movies that I can usually knock out the day after if not the night after I see it. I hope to get those out before the end of the weekend.

But I am actually really glad this is the first movie of the year because this was one of the movies I was looking forward to over the holiday season. Actually, had Mary Poppins Returns not come out, I think my family would have gone to this movie instead. But I finally got to see it tonight and boy do I have thoughts.

Vice is the biopic centering around Dick Cheney (played by Christian Bale) and chronicles the rise of his mysterious career from his humble beginnings as a drunk in Wyoming, all the way through his career in Washington up to the end of his career as Vice President of the United States under George W Bush.

The movie was directed by Adam McKay who you may know as the guy who directed Anchorman, but his more relevant director credit to this movie is his recent success, The Big Short.

Now if you've seen The Big Short, you'll know exactly what you're getting into with Vice. Vice follows a similar format. A comedic, very self aware style of storytelling that keeps things relatively light hearted but for sure doesn't shy away from the reality of the message that the movie is trying to get across.

The difference though is that The Big Short had a very poignant message about the financial crisis in 2008, with Vice, it's a little bit more complicated.

Honestly, the strongest part of the movie is the first hour. The movie starts in 1963 and tracks Cheney's career as an intern, to eventually becoming the Secretary of Defense under George W H Bush all the way up to when George W Bush offers him the job of Vice President. Along the way, you learn about the people he's closest to. His wife Lynne (played by Amy Adams), his daughters Liz and Mary (played by Lily Rabe and Allison Pill respectively), and the people he worked with like Donald Rumsfeld (played by Steve Carrell), Scooter Libby (played by Justin Kirk) and of course, eventually, George W. Bush (played by Sam Rockwell).

First and foremost, every character in this movie is beautifully cast. Steve Carrell is hilarious and brilliant as Rumsfeld. Amy Adams is great as Lynne Cheney. Sam Rockwell is hilarious playing a role that really paints George W Bush as quite a moron, so just be ready for that. And there are just a lot of other actors involved in really interesting roles. Both Alison Pill and Lilly Rabe do a great job, Tyler Perry plays Colin Powell which I never thought would work, but it worked. All of them come together to create this political atmosphere that is just wildly entertaining and cut throat. If you're a fan of House of Cards, you'll feel right at home in this world, and at the front of it all, you have Christian Bale as Dick Cheney.

I have a lot of things I could say negative about this movie, but the one thing that makes it great is Christian Bale as Dick Cheney. I swear, Christian Bale might be one of the best actors of the modern times because he has just had a wide variety of roles that he's played and he gets lost in almost every single one of them. You lose track that this is an actor and not the actual Dick Cheney he does such a good job.

The thing I thought was really interesting about this movie was the fact that while its pretty apparent from the trailers and the start of the movie that Dick Cheney is supposed to be a bad guy in the eyes of the audience, they still make him a sympathetic character. You still like him and you still are super interested in his journey, especially in the first half of the movie. Part of that is the writing, but I think a big part of it is Bale's performance.

One other side note is how committed he gets to his roles. If you've watched him over the years, he'll go from super thin in the Machinist, to buff as hell in Batman, to kind of a chubby dude in both this movie and American Hustle.

I feel like it's a little bit cliche to praise such a well known actor, but I think his fame is pretty well deserved and it shows in this movie.

Bottom line is, this movie is a lot of fun. If you liked The Big Short and liked the comedy, the political intrigue, and the information that they convey in a really funny way, you'll like this movie... However...

The movie stumbles a little bit, especially around the time when it talks about Bush asking Cheney to be his VP, and his time as VP. By no means is it bad. I just had a few issues with it that kept it from being potentially the best film of the year.

The first is the accuracy. Now the movie addresses this from the get go. They say this is a true story, or as about a true story as they could manage considering that Dick Cheney is a very secretive person. Up to the hour mark, the movie was telling a biopic. Sure they could be some inaccuracies, but it felt like a good narrative. Then in the Bush administration it becomes less biographical and delves into seemingly conspiracy theory territory. And I'll say it, I believe that some of the stuff portrayed and said in this movie probably happened. Often times its the craziest stuff that you don't think is true that is actually very true, but this movie has a message and I get the feeling that they took a lot of liberties with this movie to make a poignant point.

The movie utilizes very similar techniques that you saw in The Big Short. Scenes that aren't actually happening but are metaphors for what is actually happening. In the big short, they were cut aways or addressing the 4th wall to explain things that might be confusing or complex, in this movie is just seems like there were a bunch of guys in a dark room pulling all the strings surrounded by people who either had no idea or didn't have the intregity to stand up for what was right.

While the movie tries to make Cheney slightly sympathetic, it also makes him his evil mastermind puppet master that I have a hard time believing they didn't take some liberties with that.

The other huge issue I had was the jumps this movie takes to pretty much try and blame Cheney for the problems we face in our political climate. There's a montage near the end that has this confusing montage of horrible things happening in the world and somewhat tying it back to Cheney and I had to just pause and say that that's just too simplistic.

And while I'm at it, I need to talk about the ending.

This movie was pretty solid up until the last 20 minutes because I swear the third act of this movie just disappeared. It's treking along, you feel as though the climax is coming, and then suddenly the movie does a huge time jump and kind of stumbles into a confusing, seemingly politically biased ending that just had me a little confused.

And that's the issue with biopics, Dick Cheney never really had his third act comeuppance, nor did he ascend to anything that would really tie this link he apparently had to all the evils of the world liberals might believe he was the root cause of. And I'm not saying this from a political stand point, I'm talking as a political science major who has studied a lot of the characters in the movie.

I mean up front, if you were going into this movie thinking it was going to be praising Dick Cheney, you're going to be in for a big surprise. There is somewhat of a bias. Some of it is pulling out facts, but some of it is really painting Cheney (and frankly Republicans) in the darkest light they can. This is also coming from somebody who knows that Cheney was involved in some dark shit and some of the stuff in this movie is probably true.

But whereas The Big Short almost felt like a documentary with facts and a compelling argument to be made, I don't think anybody is going to watch this film and come out with any differing ideas on Dick Cheney, or the Bush Administration that they didn't already have.

 That's not to say you won't enjoy this film, regardless of political beliefs. As I've said, there's some great performances in this movie, it brings to light some actors and events of history that you might not have known were happening right underneath your nose, and the styling of Adam McKay is really spectacular, making him a director that I will always enjoy watching.

But I do think the issues do bring this movie down quite a bit. I think this could have been a really interesting look at a mysterious guy (and it is), but as it is, its a pretty entertaining movie with some structural issues and blatant messaging that you may go for or you may not. It's for sure a movie I will want to check out again, and I do recommend you go and see it, make a decision for yourself.

But those are my thoughts on Vice. What did you think? Did you enjoy the film? Did you think it was biased or am I the exact people the "post credit" scene is talking about. (Don't leave right away, there is a funny scene in the middle of the credits). You tell me. Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!