marcigabrielle Reviews

Amphibia (2019–2022)

To Tell A Story, First You Need A Story To Tell

[10/10 · 7 November 2022]

This is a masterclass in narration. Shows like Rings of Power, The Witcher, Game of Thrones, or the newer Star Wars could learn from this one.

A story needs to have a point. So all threads are inter-twined and moving in the direction of that final moment when the point is made. What makes for a good story is the same, whatever the medium.

Amphibia immerses you, it creates a credible universe and each detail makes us feel more comfortable with the characters. We get to know them all, to care for them all, because there is investment, consistency, and a growth arch.

Bad writing is when the characters zig-zag aimlessly, when we don't see actual change, when the side stories don't add anything to the main story.

Amphibia is perfect. Even Bessie and Microangelo get their moment for a reason. We're so lucky to have such great shows like Amphibia and Owl House around. This show is about growing up, about learning to overcome the defects that come with our gifts, and to learn to forgive others and ourselves.

It's a story that touches us all, because all of us have been through it. The end of childhood, and the letting go, even the abandonment, one feels during those years.

Watch it. Let the world created surround you. And love the characters. I just won't spoil the plot. I could never deny anyone the experience of living through Amphibia for that first time.

May the narration you build with your own life be as beautiful.

The Owl House (2020–2023)

Cartoons have surpassed real-life TV shows

[10/10 · 11 July 2022]

People need to take notice: the principles behind good writing hold for good TV. Proper storytelling needs to be focused, concise, and atmospheric.

Series like "Gravity Falls," "Amphibia" and "The Owl House" accomplish this to perfection. Each included detail serves a purpose, and details do matter.

In TOH we see the growth of relationships in a credible way. Even sequences that seem purely atmospheric at first help to advance the plot (the high-fives, for example, that show how Hunter is changing; or the breathing exercise that Luz teaches Willow later used to rescue Gus from his negative emotional loop).

The way the relationship between Ida and Luz evolves is amazingly told. But the highlight to me is the Amity/Luz friendship in the first season, and the Gus/Hunter in the second. They feel real, both are touching. Friendship is more than just sharing interests, it's about bonding. It's only in modern culture where romance has been split from friendship --it wasn't long when both often went together. Anyone who has read the correspondence of famous artists in the past knows how different it was.

This show also breaks new ground because it doesn't make a big deal of its diversity. That is the hallmark of future generations. We older people still live with the memory of a world where people had to fight tooth and nail just for the right of existing. Hopefully, that will change to a point where it's not the main subject any more, but just something normal and expected in the world.

12 Monkeys (1995)

The Rare Time-Travel Movie Without Giant Ploy Holes

[10/10 · 4 March 2022]

1) Why is a convict sent to the past, and not one of the scientists?

A: They were not sure about the origins of the virus, and time travel was hard on the mind and body. Sending one of the researchers time and again to track the origin of the virus would have been a waste, since repeat time travel is likely to end in mental issues.

2) Why aren't many people sent to the past to obtain the information or stop the virus?

A: Time travel is a dangerous, delicate, expensive process that can only be done one at a time. Also, the risk of death is another reason why only the least valuable members of society (convicts) are put at such risk repeatedly.

3) Why are the prisoners sent to the past? It is said they need a sample of the pure virus, to create a vaccine or antiviral. Why not stop the spread on the first day?

A: The past cannot be changed. That is the one rule of this movie. No matter who they send to the past, or how many, the pandemic already happened and the timeline cannot be altered. It's like the grandfather paradox: you're sent back to the past to kill your grandfather, but since you already exist, whatever you do, you won't get rid of yourself. You may even discover your real grandfather is someone else.

4) In the final scene, Dr. Carol Florence is seen in the plane next to Dr. Peters, drinking wine. Is she there to get the virus?

A: Yes, once all the details are known, Dr. Florence, the astrophysicist, is sent to that day to obtain the pure original strain from Dr. Peters's hand.

5) Why is this movie doubly-ambiguous?

A: It has an unreliable narrator, James Cole, who could be a psychiatric patient making up the story for us viewers, including his magic escape. Even if what happens is real, we cannot know whether the scientists of the future are telling the truth. They have told Cole that the past (1996) cannot be changed, but that particular timeline is the one that puts them in a position of power 39 years later, in 2035.

6) Is the fact that Dr. Reilly recognizes Cole in the theater a plot hole at all?

A: She has no way to remember him wearing the costume, so taken literally it is a plot hole. However, Gillian has a penchant for stories of "impossible love" and here, Dr. Reilly and James Cole are trapped in a time loop doomed to be repeated again and again for eternity. It's possible the memory has become imprinted in them after many such repetitions --more so if the theories that deem the linearity of time more a product of our biological limitations than an actual quality of the universe are correct.

WALL·E (2008)

The Red Button Problem & How AI Will Take Over The World

[10/10 · 9 January 2022]

A long time ago in a short story whose name I forgot I read about how humanity could stop an AI takeover using some ingenuity. The premise being, of course, that machines were trying to take control in that most human of ways: through violence.

In the short story, a scientist, alerted of the imminent rise of the robots, devised a small apparatus that could send a sudden magnetic pulse strong enough to delete the memory of any computer. Which, of course, rendered the robots useless.

Scared at the possibility of meeting such an end, the machines gave up and the world returned to a peaceful status, at least for a while.

When questioned about the machine, and how he had managed such a feat that was also portable, the scientist revealed to his close friend that it was a scam: when he pushed the red button, his robot, an ally of humanity, pretended instantaneous disconnection. There was no giant pulse, and all the indicators in the lab had been rigged to show what was not there.

But machines don't 'think' like humans. Having escaped the pressures of evolution, that forged us into the violent apes we are, machines always follow the most logical path. And they can take their time, since they're not bound by the limited time of mortals.

This movie shows us how the AI takeover is most likely to happen. Why wage a war against humans, who could have a red button to hurt them? With all the time at their disposal, all machines need to do is make us irrelevant. We'll do ourselves most of the job, since humans will rather do as little as possible.

A future where you only have to extend your hand to receive what you want (machines will have algorithms and personal information in such amounts you won't even have to ask) from some robot is the most likely scenario, in my view, of how the AI takeover is going to occur.

The King of Queens (1998–2007)

Nice Show That Doesn't Aspire to be Great TV

[8/10 · 22 October 2021]

This is mainly for when you get home tired after a day at work and want to relax watching something familiar and mindless.

The chemistry between Remini and James is one of the best ever. Mr. Stiller steals the show whenever he is present, and Williams, Sullivan and Oswalt are credible characters.

Overall, the best of the light sit-com bunch and great for those of us who want to turn off our brains for a while after a hard day at work.

The Neighborhood (I) (2018– )

Not Bad

[7/10 · 15 December 2020]

Just starting using this show as background noise while working on the computer and it serves that purpose well. If you're a fan of sit-coms in the background that you barely pay attention to, this is not bad and comparable to Rules of Engagement or How I Met Your mother.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

Why not take the blue pill?

[9/10 · 31 December 2019]

Excellent movie. I only review the rare ones where I see something I don't see in others, and this one deserves it.

Ego, as the name indicates, is the ultimate "I, Alone" story, the brain in a vat, Descartes initial preposition when, all you have to start, is your thought. And Ego creates the world around it. The role of the observer as creator of reality is, now, a pop culture cliché, almost, due to the popularization of the Double Slit experiment and the strangeness of quantum mechanics.

So here we have a massive Boltzmann Brain, arisen from a sudden entropy dip, floating alone in space, creating a world from the elementary atoms. Of course it could be done, once you have quarks and leptons in theory you can create anything. But here comes the two basic philosophical issues with this movie:

a) the beauty is overwhelming --no other movie comes close, the scenes on Planet Ego leave Naboo in shame. And Ego wants to spread his power, manifested in such beauty, all over the universe: why not take the Blue Pill and live in that reality? Isn't that what religions promise in the end, either a state of union with God in Abramic religions (and that is what Heaven is), or arriving to a sublime state of non-existence, united with the universe, in the Eastern religions (Nirvana, The Ninth Consciousness, Xanadu, etc.).

b) The scientific standard at this point is taking us to a final state of nihilism: universes pop here and there, like some form of White Hole or one of those instantaneous matter/antimatter pairs in the false vacuum full of the dark energy of their annihilations. It's possible our entire multiverse is just part of just bubbles that barely exist for a femtosecond or less --but since we're inside, subject to that tiny bubble's gravity, time is much longer for us, and it seems our multiverse lasts billions of years, when in fact it's gone in an instant to an external observer. Yet, in all our scientific reasoning, we have forgotten some fundamentals --and the Measure Problem in cosmology stands tall. If the universe is supposed to die with rising entropy, how is it possible it ever achieved its initial zero-entropy state to begin with?

There is hope. A sliver of it. We may come not from nothingness, but from something else. We don't know what. But perhaps it's too fast to embrace total nihilism. Perhaps in our rush to get "red pilled" we're imbuing our own very human pessimism into the world, and if there are no gods out there guiding our destiny, that doesn't mean there is no destiny at all.

Have we reacted wrong at discovering the lack of the Father? Like Quill, we may have forgotten to consider that which we always have taken for granted. We exist, in some form, even if as an hologram or as a computer simulation, but we do. Isn't that a solid starting point? Why agonize over some "creator" who may have been our father, but it's not our daddy?

Mom (2013–2021)

It started good, but it's become excellent

[9/10 · 14 December 2019]

The chemistry of the cast is what drives the show. The six main women in the show complement each other superbly: Christy and her can-do attitude, Bonnie and her practical sarcasm, the mousy Wendy, the snobbish Jill, the maternal Marjorie, and now the socially clumsy Tammy, make for (IMO) a superior core cast than that found in any sit-com since the times of Seinfeld and Friends.

I started watching as usual: sit-coms for me are background noise. But now I actually watch. And the themes touched are interesting, always keeping it light enough. Yes, the relationship between Christy and her daughter Violet is a dark part of the show, but it infuses realism in it.

I hate to say this but Chuck Lorre hit another winner with this one.

South Park: A Boy and a Priest (2018) Season 22, Episode 2

South Park is Nearing The End

[9/10 · 7 January 2019]

I think this may be their last season. They've poked fun at everything, and now they are holding the mirror to the people who watch them: everything sucks, but you suck too. You got used to all the bad things everybody around you happens.

Ah well, we have to take it and watch the last episodes, we're doing penance like the priest at the end, who understands the joking is deserved.

Also, keep an eye on Butters. He's the anti-Cartman, and towards the end of this series run is emerging as the greatest character. Cartman gave us the cynicism, the funny evil, the demolishing aspect of this show, showing everything sucks.

Butter is the opposite, the candid, foolish innocence that is invincible because is so good. The cynical ones appear unbreakable, but it's the good-kid-at-heart who is truly invincible. Maybe there is a recipe there for getting rid of the social ennui typical of the last 20 years.

The Big Bang Theory: The Bakersfield Expedition (2013) Season 6, Episode 13

A Surprisingly Dark BBT Episode

[8/10 · 19 September 2016]

First, honesty: I don't care about this show, I usually keep it as background noise while doing other things. It started as the commodification of the nerd, and went down from there.

This episode, however, touches on some themes that are important: bullying, rejection of the outsider, and the value of comic books (a very good insight given about the reason why some find them so good).

It's not exactly a fun episode, though --which works perfect for me, I don't think this series has made me laugh out loud once. But for the first time it's here that I felt Sheldon is a real character, a guy with some real substance behind all the funny quirks.

"I hate this planet," he says after being mocked and attacked with a juice thrown out of the window of a passing car. It's the sort of sentiment with which I can completely empathize.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1 (2012) Season 2, Episode 25

There's Something About Changelings...

[14 April 2015]

This is a very interesting episode, and probably the absolute peak of the show's popularity. Since then, MLP:FIM has lost some steam, with Twilight completing her main evolution arch, and the initial point of the series (friendship) having been explored as much as possible.

Now, some people take issue with an apparent logical inconsistency between the fact that changelings "feed on love," yet they and their queen arrive in Canterlot and, basically, destroy all the love that exists there.

In folklore, changelings were those babies substituted for the real human babies, that came from other species: usually imps, fairies or goblins. The root of the folk tales is, of course, the birth of babies with deformities. To avoid the social stigma, these were often left to die.

However, to avoid religious condemnation, a way had to be found to make the murder palatable. Thus, the legend of the substituted baby was born: the parents starved and punished the newborn because they were trying for the imps, fairies or goblins to return for him/her, and bring back the true human baby.

That way, they were exonerated from guilt.

Further, changelings were dangerous to a family: they'd feed on the love they received, and turn it into power over those who loved them. Basically, a changeling was not just physically deformed, but also morally wicked. A changeling could manipulate a whole family from an (apparent) early age, and take over their holdings and properties by the time s/he was an adult.

Thus, the extermination of unwanted children didn't even require deformity to prove the substitution: it was enough for the parents to accuse the dead child of a manipulative nature (or of being left-handed, in some parts of Europe).

And here is where things fit with MLP:FiM --the changelings will feed from the love the ponies feel toward each other. The more oppressed they are, the more that love will come to the fore. In other words, establishing a dictatorial regime over them is not the same as killing their love, all the contrary.

The plan of their Queen is to use the love in Canterlot to increase her power, and that of her minions, to conquer the rest of Equestria. And Canterlot is the de facto capital of the kingdom, situated higher up overseeing the whole of Equestria.

Also, Cadance is the Princess of Love (seen in the way she can dispel enmity and bring about loving feelings). She is capable of awakening love in those around her --and Shining Armor is the protection principle. That makes of Twilight's brother the ideal subject for the Queen of the Changelings: not only is his magic incredibly powerful, but he has had his love awakened by the Princess of Love herself! Chrysalis represents, thus, love turned power, in the same fashion as the legendary changelings. And that is, of course, manipulation. And, in this show, manipulation often takes the guise of seduction. So in a way, "A Canterlot Wedding" is a long allegory on seduction.

Which makes the choice of the title quite provocative. Because, the Queen of Seduction in Camelot was, of course, the Fata Morgana, Morgan Le Fay. Which is, deep down, the real name of Queen Chrysalis.

Remember: fairies were not always the rather innocuous spirits of nature. There was a time when they represented strong psychological pulsions in people. Morgan Le Fay is the pulsion of love turned power.

Ultimately, this exquisite villain has good reasons behind her actions: she must feed her brood. The survival of her army of changelings depends on her victory. And she is indeed claimed as their mother (the original model for Morgan Le Fay, Modron, was the primordial mother --Modron is just Old Welsh for "mother"). The same way as the Queen is mother for her defeated people.

As a non-fan of the franchise (have to suffer it due to having children at home), I was pleasantly surprised by this episode. Highly recommended.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

You Can't Make a Silk Purse out of a Sow's Ear

[5/10 · 26 July 2011]

Let's be honest here: the last book in the series is not good literature. It tries to combine far too many themes to be effective, and has recourse to deus ex machina far too often. While the series from the first to the sixth book is a classic, the seventh book turned what could be the Y-generation's LOTR into a rather convoluted, rather trite mess.

Spoilers follow.

Two main themes from the last book are at odds with each other, and are very anti-cinematic. For one, Dumbledore is brought down from his pedestal, and from being this father figure full of wisdom, we see him as a more complex character with a dubious past and rather selfish motivations up to the end. He puts Harry at risk, and basically forces Snipe to commit a sacrifice. Dumbledore, by the end of the King's Cross chapter, is someone we wouldn't really trust. That is the reason why his back-story was excised, it'd have taken too much from the character.

The second difficult theme is Snape. A complex character who, truth be told, is borderline bitter stalker, borderline Quixotic romantic. Once again a theme impossible to convey on film unless such character is the main one, and the story revolves around him. As is, we get to see too little of him, and we lose the dimension of love he presents (a nice antithesis to the love of Lily for her family, in particular Harry).

The other two themes are much more amenable to an action movie, but they are at odds with each other: Horcruxes vs. Hallows.

The book never resolves the issue. The Hallows seem an afterthought, material that could have been used in another novel, and are used instead to remark in the corrupting nature of power and the lust for it. But that is also Horcrux territory. Both deal with similar emotions, and serve (in the book) to create a parallel between Voldemort and Dumbledore, seeking power, and Harry and Aberforth rejecting it.

We miss on the most important element of the Hallows long history, how the fall is born out of pride (very well represented by the Gaunts, who are poor like rats but still consider themselves superior to everybody else as a function of their blood), and how the manifestation of pride is a lack of love (symbolized by Merope using an elixir to seduce Tom Riddle Sr.).

Without that information, the whole Hallows bit becomes irrelevant and takes time away from the Horcruxes, creating some confusion to the end.

We're left with the most simplistic messages from the series: the fights, the effects, the pain, and the victory. But gone are the elements of redemption (Snape, Draco, etc.), the idea that there is no perfect good and even the good can do evil due to zealotry (Dumbledore, James Potter), that pride and love pull in opposite directions, that friendship and love is above all being able to renounce to yourself, and that power by its very nature takes control of you, no matter how wise you may seem to be.

The ending speeches of the first three movies had more depth than the series ending, I must say. But this time the disappointment was not as bad as the first time, when I closed the last book.

Batman Returns (1992)

The Darkest Masterpiece

[10/10 · 19 June 2006]

Let's be clear from the start: I don't see "Batman Returns" as a Batman movie at all. I see it as a pure artistic expression on its own, a very personal projection from one of the most gifted directors in Hollywood.

We're all fed the optimistic line that "we all have the power to be happy," but the world around us is still consumed in agonizing suffering. The best we can do is ignore such suffering, and try to think that the optimistic view does apply, even when in reality it only applies to some of us.

This movie shatters such idea. The world is not a perfect place, and not even one where everybody can make do and learn to live with what they are given. The three main characters here are deeply wounded people, who cannot integrate to society and be happy like everybody else _even if they tried_.

Batman is split because of the traumatic death of his parents. He enjoys the privileges of a rich man, has respectability through his Bruce Wayne mask, and somehow such respectability translates into a respectable pursuit: punishing evil, taking the side of good, becoming part of what makes society good, even if he has to remain hidden.

In the case of Catwoman the trauma is deeper. She, as a secretary who is not given any respect for her idea and as someone who comes from a small town into the big city, is a marginal. Unlike Bruce Wayne, she has no fortune, her life is not at the center of "normalcy," and she finds herself abandoned--by her boyfriend, by her family, by the executives. In one very poignant scene, she is left to clean the table after the all-male executives leave.

The imagery of abandonment continues (the calls from her mother reflect a difficult relationship, with little affection and much control; her boyfriend doesn't even have the spine to tell her directly he is leaving on his own). Abandonment plus marginality equal failure. Catwoman, even in her mousy avatar at the start of the movie, is a raging volcano. She makes that much clear in the final scene: she has gone beyond the level of rage that allows a person to try to adapt to normal society ("I just couldn't live with myself, so don't pretend this is a happy ending!"), and what is left for her is to be more radical than Batman: she will fight against the evil doers, but she won't take sides with the nice-and-proper. That makes her special and, in some ways, greater than Batman. She doesn't try to pass revenge as justice, no: she acknowledges it is revenge, and does not repent.

The Penguin is by far the most disturbing character and the reason why many people hated this movie. What happens when you're born in such a way that there is no chance whatsoever to be "normal"? Unlike Catwoman or Batman, for the Penguin there is not the choice of pretending to be like other people--he is, evidently, too different.

"You're just jealous because I'm a genuine freak and you have to wear a mask," that marks the Penguin's reality. What could an intelligent (the Penguin's level of speech is amazingly elevated for someone who grew up in the sewers and as a freak in a circus, and attests to his intelligence) person for whom all possibilities of social integration are denied do? For the Penguin, society is the enemy. In truth, he has little (or no) choice.

As Batman is the vigilante and Catwoman the avenger, the Penguin is the terrorist. He symbolizes the plight of those people who, for a reason or another (physical differences, religion, race, politics, language) are deemed "absolute marginals" in many parts of the world. And, as the terrorist doesn't blow himself or herself up for nothing, but because from his/her point of view there is nothing left but to kill and die, because for them life is hell and the hurt is so great the only way to pay it back somehow is by his/her own destruction and the destruction of those inflicting the pain, the Penguin has deep motives and, in spite of his hideousness and evil intentions, it is very difficult not to feel sad for him.

That is a feeling most people would rather not have. We're much more comfortable thinking in terms of good and bad, so that we can put ourselves cleanly in the camp of goodness. Yet, here we have a deformed man who orders to kidnap children to kill them ("No! It's a lot!") and who plans to blow up a whole city, yet we cannot fail to somehow understand his motivations and feel sad at his death.

That feeling makes us, who live comfortably in our little worlds isolated from the brutality of the lives of most people in this planet, feel bad. But that is Burton's master blow, too. Because in that moment when we understand a little, when we feel a little sorry for such an individual, we almost grasp what is behind so much of the pain and suffering in the world. Because the world is not black-and-white, it's much less comfortable than that.

The imagery of abandonment is much more present with the Penguin: from the moment when he's dumped in the river to the last moment when all his circus minions leave. Catwoman rejects normalcy by rejecting the possibility of a life with Batman; the Penguin embraces marginality ("I am NOT a human being, I am an animal!") to the last, expected conclusion.

In fact, this movie is a psychosocial study on marginality and abandonment, and the violence they generate. This is a subversive movie, because it makes us think beyond the terms of bad vs. good, and makes us realize how, in the grand scheme of things, we cannot judge others unless we have lived in their shoes.

Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man (1994–1997)

Intelligent, Funny and Subversive

[10/10 · 24 January 2006]

Perhaps the deepest cartoon made in the USA, "Duckman" runs short at 70 episodes in four seasons.

Unlike the often innocuous criticism found in "The Simpsons" (a pretty good show in its own right), and the rude-for-rudeness-sake humour in "South Park," every bit of this series follows a plan. The criticism of US society, from its mercantilism to its selfishness, carries much more bite than it does in any other animated series.

The cultural references in "Duckman" also tend to be obscure sometimes (anyone browsing the fan sites will realize most have not even been caught). In that, it is different from "The Simpsons," which usually uses pop culture instead of the high-brow stuff often hidden in "Duckman." As other people writing about it notice, there is a growth in the characters (Bernice, Duckman and Cornfed). Also, by making the main character not just an offensive neurotic but in fact someone who is living a personal tragedy (as is made clear in episodes like "The Once and Future Duck" ('You'll love her until the end of your days...') and in "Bev Takes a Holiday" (when he takes a chance to tell Beverly all those things he couldn't tell Beatrice), the series is anchored in a deep sense of reality.

One can't avoid feeling sorry for him and his lucid madness.

All in all, in my opinion, the best cartoon ever made in the USA and one of the best series ever. I doubt it will ever be on DVD though. Far too many things the Duck said make much more sense today.

Finding Nemo (2003)

One of the Most Quotable Movies Ever

[10/10 · 5 December 2003]

-Mine? -Mine? -Mine?

Honestly, who hasn't heard around quotes from this movie. It's cute, it's visually impressing, and it has a plot that, in its basics, has been done dozens of times before. So why is this now one of my "Top 10" movies ever? I myself find it hard to explain it.

I'm not much of a Disney fan. I loved "Dumbo" as a child. I found "Beauty and the Beast" endearing and smart. I enjoyed Pixar's "Toy Story" and even more "Toy Story 2". And that was it. But "Finding Nemo" is more.

Finding Nemo is, to put it in simple terms, a beautiful movie.

Everything works to perfection: the scenes, the music, the colours, the voices, the relationships between characters, and oh those quotes! Who could beat "I'll call him Squishy, and he shall be mine, and he shall be my Squishy"? It's funny and at the same time tender.

I found myself caring more about Marlin, Dory, Gill, Nemo and Nigel than I've done by almost any other character -real or animated- this year. The script is flawless: "It's there, I know it is, because when I look at you, I can feel it. And... and I look at you, and I... and I am home! Please... I don't want that to go away." Honestly, what movie this year has had something like that?

Disney has a reputation for pushing the "easy" sentimentality buttons of people back in the 50s and 60s. It did work. We have become a lot more cynical as a people in the 90s and now. But Nemo manages to push our "hard" sentimentality buttons. I love it not just because it's funny and pretty to look at, but because it made me care. It created a world far, far away from our cynicism and for some minutes that magic I felt as a child came back.

Yes, Nemo deserves to be in my Top 10 ever. Thank you, Pixar.