Brenton Gebel

Season 1: a solid 4/5 Season 2: 5/5 all day long Andor: The best show at the worst possible time. Well acted, well written, well thought out. Has its moments of brilliance . Has great characters! Has a talented cast. Is absolutely worth a watch. Luthen Rael is the best character in the show. His monologue in episode 10 was the best scene of the season. “What is my sacrifice ? EVERYTHING!” BUT …. The first two episodes for season 1 are a chore and a half to get through. They are a complete slog through the mud! Then episode 3 kicks the show into gear! There’s a couple plot lines that just completely get dropped. ( his sister And the space box) The show has suffered from the bad content that came before it . (Obiwan and BOBF) SEASON 2 UPDATE, the first 3 episodes. while doing a fair amount of set up and picking up where we left off 2 years ago are a slow and methodical slog as well. However, I was on the edge of my seat the whole way. The writing and dialogue is top notch ! The most intriguing characters/ dynamic is Cyril and Dedra. I want more of them on screen! 2 critiques I have right now is they totally sideline Andor in the first 2.5 episodes. It’s well executed… but just felt unnecessary. Episode 1 didn’t exactly open in the best way IMO. The tie fighter scene just felt way too goofy. UPDATE FOR EPISODES 7-9 WOW!!! I was completely blown away by this trio of episodes. The story telling is by far the best Disney Star Wars. I won’t spoil it because you have got to see it ! It’s good to see that Disney finally produced something decent. But after S3 of Mandalorian, Obiwan, BOBF, Ahsoka, Acolyte, and Skeleton Crew, the show is a cherry on top of a crap sundae.

The Hunting wives: Not bad, but not great. The show, while competently directed, acted, and fairly well written as a whole. Is just too much. I had to do something I never through I’d need to do. I had to physically take notes. I wrote down all the main characters, their motivations, conflicts, relationships…etc. without this, I would not have any kind of a grasp on the plot. I actually had to watch the show twice just to make sure I got everything. I think they needed more episodes to fully express what was going on. Right when I thought I had everything… boom! A new character or some sort of wild development just happens! Again, this isn’t to say the show is bad. It’s just too much for the format it has. 3/5 I will be watching the second season

Sullivan’s Crossing : A complete mess. The show honestly has the makings of a potentially good Drama series. However the show has way too much going on. I had to actually take out a notepad just so I could write down the characters and their motivations or conflicts. The shows pacing is just ATROCIOUS ! The show won’t take 5 minutes to breathe and have the characters interact without having some contrived nonsense interrupt a simple dialogue. The episodes surround the new restaurant were especially bad in this regard. Yet the show remains to be just barely engaging. I’ve nodded off multiple times watching. The pacing reminds me a lot of The Force Awakens and the Ahsoka TV Show. Sprinkled in between the “action” (using that term loosely) are long pauses, characters staring at eachother and lots of nothing happening then BAM some contrived thing happens and pacing goes from having slowed to a crawl to full throttle again. The show feels like the writers took the plots of 3 or 4 hallmark movies and just smashed them together with a healthy dose of stretching out the conflict or dialogue. Don’t waste your time.

A Goofy Movie: hilarious, charming, and touching. After my fiancée and I decided the Sunday night football game boring, we turned on this movie. After my first rewatch in 20 years, I can officially say that this movie is one of the Walt Disney Company’s most charming. I laughed almost the entire way through it. The piano scene with the Mime had me in tears . There is something about the old school animation that is just so nostalgic and charming. maybe it’s because you know people actually put their blood and sweat into their work? I’m not sure …. But I’d love to see some modern 2D animation, The message of the movie is something we have all had to deal with at some point in our lives. Although we all grow up we will still be that little boy or girl to our parents, and sometimes, the vacations we go on with family are the ones we remember the most or are the ones that mean the most. 5/5.

Mickey 17 - a confusing mess at best. I watched the movie 2 times and I still didn’t understand the movie. I will go on to say that I did like Pattinson’s performance and the way he narrates the story was pretty funny. However I did not care for Ruffalo in this movie. I don’t think he is a very good actor in general. The visuals were nice. Most of the ideas were interesting but were communicated poorly. The movie is way too political. I understand that the politics the movie presents does act as the set up for what Mickey is doing, but the messaging is so ham-fisted it’s just annoying. 2/5 overall just not a great movie.

Thunderbolts* - a solid entry in the marvel portfolio. I’ll start this review by praising the acting and casting choices. The acting was very good, casting was well thought-out. Humor; marvel humor has been known to be too over the top. But this movie did a great job using humor sparingly. Of course there were a couple jokes that could have been left out but overall nothing too repetitive. Setup and payoff; the writing was mostly solid untill the last 15-20 mins. (I’ll circle back to this.) there was actual set up and payoff for once ! Visuals; as per usual, the movie was a joy to watch, editing was very good as well. Now we have arrived at the cons of this film. The writing; Bob and the powers of “the Sentry”. I could help but be left scratching my head over all that. I couldn’t help but feel like they intentionally left that vague cause the writers themselves had no good explantation for any of that. How does any of that work ? It seems to work in tandem with his emotions or his memories … I think. I don’t know, it’s barely explained And that annoyed me. Matter of fact, they barely touch on the explanations of back stories of most of the main cast. Now obviously we dont need a fully detailed back story on Walker, or Yelena’s dad but I would have liked more than the crumbs we got. Overall, Thunderbolts* is a solid entry in the marvel universe. 4/5

Happy Gilmore 2- nothing but nostalgia and member berries. I will go as far to say that I did enjoy some of the cameos and jokes in the movie. Some of the slap-stick was pretty good. A few of the jokes from Sandler did land but it is typical Adam Sandler being Adam Sandler. John Daly was hilarious the whole way through and he is the best part of the whole thing. Plot is absolute nonsense. CGI is GOD-AWFUL! Effects are not very well done and look cheap. The movie has way too many cameos. Like I said I did enjoy some of them but there are way too many ! They could cut out about 12-15 and the movie would have not suffered any. The movie is also about 30 mins too long. The movie easily could have been about 90-100 mins at most and you wouldn’t lose much of the story. I got about 1/2 way through the movie and just bored to tears. I tried to resist the urge to look at my phone, but it was a slogfest! While I’m on the plot, it just just hilariously unoriginal. (The down on his luck guy/athlete that has fallen from grace pulls himself together to win one more championship) just not original and I thought the motivation for happy was pretty lack luster. Needs money for Sending his daughter to ballet school? Seriously ??? Nothing with his other kids ??? Just his daughter is the only one that matters? That’s just silly !!! 1/5. It has its moments, but it’s pretty lackluster and it leans way to much into nostalgia.

The Great Dictator: Chaplin’s Magnum Opus. This movie was no doubt ahead of its time and still delivers a powerful message that 85 years later is just as relevant. The speech at the very end is ironically one of the greatest speeches of all time. When he is silent , we are laughing. When he speaks, we are silent. Soldiers! In the name of Democracy, let us all UNITE!

Ironheart : Marvels worst piece of content yet! Couldn’t make it past the first 2 episodes, the show is just a total cluster . Spits on Ironman/Tonys legacy and sacrifice. Tone-deaf themes and messages. Obnoxiously preachy and spiteful. Unoriginal . Plot makes almost no sense. CGI looks cheap. Pitiful acting performances. Don’t waste your time. 0/5

The Mandalorian- Another nail in the Star Wars Coffin. Season 1 3/5 all day long. Season 2 4/5 all day long. Season 3 1/5- and that’s being generous Went from a solid 4 star review at the conclusion of season 2 to an abysmal 1 star review at the conclusion of season 3. I loved season 1 and 2, but the book of boba fett and season 3 pretty much pressed the Reset button on the entire show. There was so much wasted potential! Let’s start off with the fact that the season costs 120 MILLION DOLLARS but the helmet the foundling put on in the opening 5 mins looked like they bought it at Walmart or 3d printed it in a garage. The plot of season 3 is an absolute train wreck and the show forgets it’s own plot at multiple points. We need to repair IG88 because we need to test the atmosphere on Mandalore. Problem #1 IG88 blew up to smithereens in season one. Yet apparently there’s his entire head and torso that is salvageable. WHAT? Problem #2 We can fix IG88 (somehow) but we need a new memory chip so we go to the mechanic on tattooine but she ends up selling mando an R4 unit. Problem #3 after all that it turns out we could have just pressurized our helmet and didn't need any of those droids. WOW! Episode 4 and 6 of season 3 really did the show in for me. The writing and cameos all but killed the show any any momentum season 2 had built. Lizzo and jack black ? Are you kidding me? Oh and don’t forget wasting Chris Lloyd! Baby yoda In a mech suit ? Jesus Christ that was beyond stupid and looked so dumb. Bo katan forgetting she has the dark saber in episode 7. Speaking of the dark saber, Mando just outright giving it to Bo Katan through several contradictions to the previous lore surrounding the dark saber just felt lazy and chickened out of what could have been a great character arc for mando. (Maybe have him realize the saber is just not meant for him). Moff Gideon being about as threatening as a wood plank, and being defeated for the THIRD STRAIGHT TIME! Supposedly he's dead this time, but I seriously doubt it. Mando being an idiot numerous times throughout the season …. The list goes on and on… What really pissed me off was how they completely shoved Mando into the background and all but made the Book of Bo Katan. I could have SPIT on my tv during the finale! What a waste of a season and what a waste of a good tv show!