Na A

This movie has a good script. Which, unfortunately, is a rarity today. It is beautifully shot. Not too scary. I loved the acting. Sadly, this is probably the best movie I've seen this year. (Also wow Nosferatu's styling was kind of like the Cossacks from Repin's painting, which was an interesting choice. Like he sported an oseledets and the traditional moustache. Not sure this was the fashion in Transylvania at the time, but ok.)

This movie is very kind. It has a feeling of warmth about it. Kind of like your favorite comfort food for the soul. Karren Karagulian and Vache Tovmasyan are both extremely funny as hapless enforcers. I liked Mikey Madison a lot as a modern-day heroine. Good job! And Yura Borisov is cute. *hearts*

I never read the comic book, but I listened to the Audible dramatization of Sandman, and I part admired it and part was repulsed by it. It was full of gore and felt dated, but also had a feeling of true inspiration and honesty to it. Now comes this TV series from Netflix. There are good things about it, but overall, it feels like the creators were so busy making it woke and politically correct that they made the story lose its soul. They didn’t do justice to the story of Rachel: it’s rushed and the tragedy of Rachel’s addictions and her relationship with her father which is something that had probably made her an addict was completely omitted from the series. I wonder why? The living house made of a living human being would have been one hell of a visual. They didn’t do justice to the journey to hell either: the story has amazing demons and descriptions of hell landscapes, but they are either not shown at all in the series or look cartoonish and bland, like your demons from a Disney movie, like nobody really cared to make them memorable. Good Omens did a much better job at that. The story of Nada – missing the drama that was in the dramatization, it feels like the writers didn’t realize how important this story line was. Jed, Rose and the cereal convention – could have been a bone-chilling, tragic thriller - True Detective: Season 1, anyone? - but instead feels really sanitized and sterile. For some reason, the series creators retained all the gore (which also feels kind of sanitized) from the dramatization – but got rid of all the drama! The good bits were: the guy who played Hob Gadling was pretty amazing - I did not expect that! He gave this character warmth and charisma! - and the bromance was real, and the relationship felt developed and real too; Tom Sturridge is really great as Sandman, loved him; Gwendoline Christie made a great Lucifer! It feels like the actors - at least some of them - were the best part of this series, while the story adaptation was its weakest aspect. This is an okay adaptation, but not a great adaptation - it’s too disrespectful towards the source material. Also, I counted ONE Asian character in this entire series. One Asian character - and not the main one - for a very big cast. Something isn’t right with Netflix’s wokism. Overall, this would have been a much better series if it had stayed a terrifying - and often repulsive - honest, sentimental product of the 1980s culture with its political incorrectness and all the vices. This has been a not very successful attempt to adapt it to ‘the current thing’.