mamad-kt Reviews

Futurama: The Impossible Stream (2023) Season 11, Episode 1

Falling Full Flat

[2/10 · 20 January 2024]

Bender: Any idiot can be a TV writer.

Calculon: Many are.

Ironically, this bit at 16:35 best explains this episode. The jokes are cliché, slapstick, and pointless (like Farnsworth cutting Leela's ponytail out of nowhere and then wearing it; or Leela pushing back Bender's hand and it randomly swings to hit Zoidberg; as if it's a children's cartoon) and at least for me, they all fall full flat. It's as if a group of writers are desperately trying to mimic what the show was like in its glory days, but really don't have a clue. They've made a checklist of the kind of jokes to squeeze in for each character, and that's how they've made what is, in my opinion, the worst episode since the very beginning of the show.

The timing of the jokes is off sometimes by half a second or a third, but that's enough to make it look forced and enough to show that the director's have lost their touch.

In the end, the most ironic bit is Fry's words at 22:45: Don't reboot a show if the quality is not gonna be there.

(To the writers: do this if you've been taken against your will and need to be rescued ✊✋)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Incredibly over-rated non-sci-fi

[2/10 · 4 January 2024]

There may have been 3 or 4 films in my life that I have watched on double-speed just to get through, and this is one of them. I'm a serious fan of sci-fi, but this is absolute bs-fi.

The story and characters, the developments, are every bit as cliche as they could be. Story development doesn't even try to be rational. From the overnight miracle drug which also teaches the apes overnight years worth of learning, to the "hollywood villain" drug company CEO and shelter workers. To the whole hollywood-silly way they worked, to the hollywood-cliche sets and props, everything was overwhelmingly tasteless. Today, even in early days of AI era in 2024, if you ask ChatGPT to write a scenario for this film and direct it, it would probably do a better job.

Frozen II (2019)

Unbelievably Underwhelming

[5/10 · 8 January 2023]

I rarely may say this about any animation, but you won't miss anything missing this one out.

The visuals are great, especially that I watched it in 3D, and that's about it. The plot ideas could work magic in other hands; it could have impact, emotion, thrill, and epicness, yet it fails to deliver any. Instead of a beautifully woven story, it seems like just a bunch of threads thrown together into a convoluted mess. No part reads to other parts. Olaf's confused search has nothing to do with anything. Kristof's singing sequence is so cringe and unnecessary and out of place, they could improve the film's rating by a star just by taking that out. The way the story points are delivered is messed up, it's mostly through someone just reading the plot or a character have sudden intuitive realizations. No effort has gone into developing a cohesive story with a calculated delivery. It's just a forced gathering of all the same old characters for the sake of sales.

The Yakuza's Guide to Babysitting (2022)

Too Mediocre

[5/10 · 27 July 2022]

The "childcare" genre, or as I call it, "single dude becomes father figure to little girl" is apparently the new trend. I have watched Deaimon and Usagi Drop in that genre and liked them very much, but this one is doesn't appear to be on the same footing as them.

The animation is mediocre.

The story, characters and gags are too cliche.

Three episodes in, I have decided to drop it.

What the Health (2017)

Simply A Vegan Promo

[3/10 · 11 May 2022]

At first I thought I was going to watch an eye opening documentary on the deceits of food industry and the garbage that we're eating, which I know is garbage.

But I ended up watching a very determinedly vegan promo video, so clearly insistent on selling the vegan idea that I even started to doubt any information it had provided in its first half.

If you want to know about the food industry, want to learn about a healthier diet, or even want to learn about vegan diet, don't waste your time watching this. There are better (or in fact, "actual") documentaries out there. Even spending an hour and half searching the internet would yield more trustworthy information than watching this promo.

Hello World (2019)

Clearly Underrated

[9/10 · 24 July 2020]

As a Sci-Fi lover, Hello World was an unexpectedly great experience for me. As it goes for most recent anime films, the visuals are fantastic and spice up the experience the film delivers. Although, as few as they are, the characters are not deep and certainly needed more development. The way the plot is explained is also not very clear and may leave the audience baffled. These two points are probably why it is rated as it is, since probably most people didn't really understand what was going on.

But Sci-Fi-wise, the story is quite brilliant. At first it starts like a run-of-the-mill high school romance drama, but soon enough it changes with the appearance of the future Katagaki. And as the film gets into the second half, with some quick hints here and there we realize the story is more complex than what we thought it was. Saying anything further, borders on spoiling the story, so if you like Sci-Fi stories, give this one a try and enjoy.

Sheeple (2018)

Unexpectedly brilliant

[9/10 · 14 November 2018]

I may say unexpectedly, but people who follow Seyyedi's works may have expected it to be brilliant.

The film displays the daily lives and social dynamics of a class of society which our cinema rarely looks at. Even when it does, it's usually made up of untasteful and threadbare cliches, pasted together in cheap films targeting audience from lower classes with old-school ideas of family honor, brotherhood, loyalty and zeal; or at best films made to show apparent social concern mostly targeting audience outside this country.

Sheeple (or as its Persian title goes, Little Rusted Brains) is not one of those films. It gets deep in the heart of Tehran's slums, showing us people that are neither dark nor clean, but as grey as it gets. People bound by poverty, caged in a community that abides by its own rules. They may be the lowest of the lowest or the kings of the neighborhood, but they are all bound by the same rules nonetheless. Even the shepherd and his dogs are just part of the herd, moving as it moves. All they can do is try to survive, and change little things when they can, showing sympathy that is in their hearts from time to time, but the herd goes where it goes.

Outstanding performances are a big part of what makes this film brilliant, Navid Mohammadzadeh and Farhad Aslani are particularly extraordinary. The characters in the film are hard to love, harder to hate, and all actors did their best to make them believable and real.

Iran's cinema normally produces one or two outstanding films every year, usually bearing the name of Asghar Farhadi as the director. But it seems this year, Seyyedi has taken on the part.