Danny Boyd

High marks for editing, music and some performances, but all that gets brushed aside for the bad writing and questionable direction. In this post MeToo era, I am truly puzzled why Disney, which owns the future of the Star Wars franchise, is creating female lead characters sexually drawn to their abusers? A certain generation of feminists would consider this the template to r*pe culture. From Rey sexualizing Kylo Ren (RISE), to now Osha being drawn into the character of Qimir, this seems to be the new Star Wars brand that I would think doesn’t translate well for kids. An easy argument could be, “well this is just bad writing needing to create dramatic tension between characters”, but it’s a theme being repeated. I personally wouldn’t let kids watch this show. There are no heroes. Every character is either lying or disrespecting the others in their scene. The series ends with darkness prevailing. I can’t even enjoy this series as an adult for every other scene undermines the scene before it. We go from Jedis forcing truth out of people through the Force, meanwhile the following scenes will be Jedis lying to each other not detecting lies - or other non Jedis lying going undetected. It’s a mess for low information viewers who question nothing.

At first I didn’t know this was a sci-fi show. It’s not until episode 6 that it’s fully realized what’s happening is time jumping. Up until episode 6 I thought the show was fabulous, but for Elizabeth Moss’s character having drastic hairstyle changes which at first made me think it was filming mistakes. What aggravating about the show is it spends so much time dealing with the reality of trauma, but then spends literally zero time reflecting on the time traveling elements. This is what drives my rating, which originally was high marks for acting, storytelling, character building and the reality the production brought, to a screeching halt once it’s revealed what the gimmick is. And it is a gimmick. Once Moss’s character Kirby seems to realize what’s happening in a matter of seconds, she doesn’t kill the serial killer nor destroy the time traveling “device” he’s using to transport through time. Furthermore, the means to which the serial killer murders is to stick tchotchkes, trinkets or knickknacks into his victims. Why? THE STORY NEVER TELLS US! I thought it would be revealed this had something to do with time travel. It didn’t. And the aspect of retaining your some memory through all the time continuums makes no sense. That this only affects characters the show wants to focus on and not everyone also makes no sense. And if the serial killer’s instinct has never changed, then Kirby letting the serial killer go only seems to reinforce wanting to create another season of trauma rather than end the trauma. So the show undermines its plausibility, morality and ethics. You don’t let’s a mass murder free. If the argument is “the device made him do it”, well now Kirby holds the device. So does she become a mass murderer? The entire concept is convoluted as hell so it’s just makes me wonder if the book was as flawed.

Wow. WOW! Loved this opening episode so much I wished it was longer! Jennifer Walters is A+ new MCU material that is gonna demand her own movie. When the MCU team gets it right, they sure do get in right. I’d put She Hulk up there with Iron Man, Captain America and Black Panther - solid personality, different from the rest, someone who the audience is gonna want to always chime back in on. Thrilled.

Blackkklansman is a must see film, in particular just to learn about this historial true story about Ron Stallworth - but I don’t know if it’s Lee’s best work. My issue was with the film’s tone. It fluctuates between promising serious drama about Rob Stallworth, but the tone plays out like Ron Burgandy from ANCHORMAN. I don’t know if it’s Jordan Peele’s production influence on Spike Lee, but the humor, oh yes, humor about white supremacists teetered on tv sitcom to cartoonish. I literally was expecting BOSS HOGG from Dukes of Hazard to pop up or Burt Reynolds barreling through in a black grans am. I see buzz about Terence Blanchard’s score, but the score simply reminded me like something from the CHiPs or Charlie’s Angels - and I don’t mean their anthems, but rather some of the dramatic filler music. The direction of the actors was deliberate and I don’t know what they were directed the way they were - especially the klansmen. I can only hear the N word said so many times over in a cartoonish way that after a while the usage just seems to be filmmakers being childish rather than exposing the racism. So I started to wonder if maybe the production team of director, producers and editors actually enjoyed the racism. But then the film would take deliberate dramatic turns, showing real documentary footage of hate crimes and violence that conflicted with the sitcom scenarios the film set up. But maybe this was Lee’s point. There is a way of poking fun at racism and it’s vulgarity, like Mel Brook’s Blazing Saddles, where we clearly recognize the racists are idiots. But Blackkklansman is going into territory about unarmed black men being shot - and I don’t see a punchline in that, that works. Basically, this felt like what would happen if James Franco did a movie about racism and made it a comedy - but it wasn’t James Franco. All that being said, I would still recommend it watching, but then follow up by reading the book.