firstanold Reviews

Smallville: Collateral (2011) Season 10, Episode 12

Ugh. Made me glad Chole's been gone.

[3/10 · 28 March 2013]

Every time Chloe punned or alliterated I wanted to punch a writer. It was just freaking painful.

And yes, it's a really blatant rip-off of the matrix, not because of the theme--The old super man series Lois and Clark did a V.R. episode looooong before the matrix was ever around so superman has a pretty solid precedence here--but because of the style. Chloe is dressed like they dressed in the matrix, she has lines similar in style and substance to the matrix (Dorothy, rabbit hole, dreamland, spoken while holding reflective CG objects up to one's face, etc.) and her combat moves are taken right out of the matrix she actually does that one-armed fight scene just like Neo does at the end of the matrix. It was so cheap and predictable--the style similarities were too reminiscent of the matrix, and its scenario, for it to come as even a remote surprise when the big reveal came.

And I just can't overstate how cringe-inducing Chloe was in this. She was the source of some of the sloppiest homage, puns and rag-newspaper-esque alliteration I've ever seen. just revolting.

Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman: Swear to God, This Time We're Not Kidding (1996) Season 4, Episode 3

It was alright up until the end. Then it really turned to total crap.

[3/10 · 20 January 2013]

If they'd cut Mike out of this episode it would have been fine.

The point at which Clark half breaks the fourth wall say "everyone needs to know that this isn't some kind of evil genius, cloned, amnesiac fake-out..." really sums up the episode well.

I mean, holy crap. How cheesy must the scenario be if you need to turn to the audience and say "Hi! This is NOT a dream sequence, it's just dumb and weird, but we couldn't think of anything better." They introduce a few new characters from past adventures and have a bunch of awful cameos of the Mike guy who is god or an angel or some crap. It's just awful.

The episode would have been fine if they'd just cut mike out, and had them elope to a tropic paradise as yet untouched by man but noooooo. For most of the episode I was wondering if Mike was Mxyzptlk from the superman series because everyone kept doing what he told them to which is Mxyzptlk's power.

The worst part is that it was so utterly out of place among the other episodes striking a completely different tone, and being just generally awful every time they shoved the angel into your face.

Waiting... (I) (2005)

Well, at least the title is apt.

[1/10 · 15 January 2013]

This was a sad, sad excuse for a comedy. These people have no idea how a joke works. I was told this movie was good by a friend, who I have since realized has no taste, so I had some hope for it at the time.

It starts out promisingly. A bunch of--fairly likable--friends slogging through work in a family style restaurant - good.

Then -SPOILER ALERT- (ha.) they reveal that the staff has this game where they try to show one another their scrotum by surprise, "okay," I thought, "this is going to be the set-up to an incredibly funny joke."

Then they escalate by revealing that the staff has this game where they try to show one another their scrotum by surprise, "okay..." I thought, "this seems familiar. But maybe the joke is going to be SO good that they wanted to reestablish the set up so no one would miss it."

And then finally, FINALLY, the punch line: They reveal that the staff has this game where they try to show one another their scrotum by surprise.

Yeeeeeaah. So I spent the whole movie "Waiting..." for a punch line and not even cracking a smile as the hope slowly drained from me. Then they wrap the movie up with this shitty coming of age BS that could have been ripped from any other movie, book, or TV show about this age group.

This was absolutely pathetic. The movie had one half-formed joke and they repeated it over, and over, and over. There was also some utterly predictable cr*p about messing with customers and how hard it is to be young that was totally forgettable. And, contrary to what most of the reviews say, completely inaccurate. No one messes with food that gets sent back because you can get the kind of lawsuit that will leave you permanently bankrupt from that kind of sh*t. Every other shred of half-hearted observational humor was so obvious that it wasn't funny.

I am from this age group. I am a bar tender. I am the target demographic. This move did not appeal to me in the least. Maybe it's because I keep my scrotum to myself of because I had no poorly written angst about whether to go to university.