jazzica Reviews

Only Murders in the Building (2021– )

Nostalgic feel for modernism

[10/10 · 8 March 2022]

This show is great on details in pictures and propping, first of all. It is hilarious, has good twists and merges multiple generations of viewers with the cast, which is pretty genius by having Selena Gomez sidekick Steve Martin and Martin Short, belittleing them in "rando" speech of her generation at times and telling them not to go on TikTok. Some jokes are a bit obvious (standing next to Sting in an elevator, what song comes up?), but overall, the journey the three of them take to pursue a murderer, manage their podcast and come to terms with their individual lives is just a joy to watch. It has inklings of Woody Allen (maybe it is just neurotic New York) in the storytelling. And it summarizes a feeling of a generation growing up with few tv shows, thus remembering those heroes, along with living next to young people and trying to stay put with them - in language, which can be learnt, and behavior, which, as we see, does not differ much. It is a triumph to and over ancient morals, and functions as the parentheses to exactly that gap many fear in modernism vs. Preserving-good-ol'-days.

The Wilds (2020–2022)

The Truman Show 2.0 for Generation Z

[9/10 · 1 July 2021]

Loved this show for the development of insights - as a viewer and as to the protagonists. The psychological lines we walk on, drawn by others or ourselves, one of the big questions of the series. How much can we trust our gut, how much are we influenced by "society", or, in this show, cunning manipulators. Why do we get manipulated after all? Because we all have suffered from more or less trauma and we strive for some healing and someone to "fix it".

It is a well told story (yet to be told further), with brave heroines, a rooting for and at the same time criticism on basic feminism and its structures (copying power and violence like men, which leads to the question: do males and females, equalling humans, really a division by gender?) and I was really hooked. Nicely done, and a great soil for discussions with friends.

The Widow (I) (2019)

No bad acting at all!

[9/10 · 2 March 2019]

The series takes a while to pull you in, but overall it is a tense plot with surprises and finely woven threads as to side characters. The topic itself, made into a series (no US series!) is absolutely zeitgeist.

The Soul of a Man (2003)

Wenders's Self-Celebration

[1/10 · 16 June 2004]

This film is deeply disappointing. Not only that Wenders only displays a very limited musical spectrum of Blues, it is his subjective and personal interest in parts of the music he brings on film that make watching and listening absolutely boring. The only highlight of the movie is the interview of a Swedish couple who were befriended with J.B. Lenoir and show their private video footage as well as tell stories. Wenders's introduction of the filmic topic starts off quite interestingly - alluding to world's culture (or actually, American culture) traveling in space, but his limited looks on the theme as well as the neither funny nor utterly fascinating reproduction of stories from the 30s renders this movie as a mere sleeping aid. Yawn. I had expected more of him.