Change Your Image
Jade3593493
Reviews
Stranger Things (2016)
Loved it but just have a few comments.
Just finished watching season one and enjoyed it very much. Looking forward to season two.
Enjoyed all the actors and also the 80s setting.
Millie Bobby Brown is phenomenal. I am also a fan of David Harbour who is just great. Winona Ryder can do no wrong in my book (unless she's shoplifting).
I'm not super-crazy about the monster thing. 80s nods aside, it's so cheesy. For me it would have been more effective if you never see the monster, just the lights and the people disappearing. And if the Upside Down was just a bit different - maybe more surreal rather than gross, more mystery than an actual "place", a place where people just got lost or experienced paranormal phenomena, more "Lost" than "Alien," it would have been more interesting.
However I do like the characters, the actors, and the unfolding of the story, so I will watch season 2.
The Bachelorette (2003)
Deliciously, wonderfully, stupid, mindless guilty pleasure
Face it folks. Life is hard. Whether it's volcanoes in Hawaii, Fire and Fury, pets on a Sarah McLachlan commercial (please adopt), the lifting of EPA regulations (if you like clean water, please vote) , the world melting down on the news (no words for this one), having to choose between paper and plastic (bring your own bags please), or two hours of The Handmaid's Tale (wake up), there's an awful lot of angst, death, destruction, despair and tragedy out there.
That's what makes The Bachelor (and while we're at it, Bachelor in Paradise and 90 Day Fiance), escapes for which I am personally grateful. Is it an example of the moral decline of civilization? You bet! And with chocolate cake and ice cream, it's even better.
It's not meant to be analyzed. It's supposed to be stupid. It's trash. Wonderful, vacuous trash. So check your brain at the door, get over yourself, fire up Twitter, and forget for two hours that we all might die tomorrow. Really, you (yes even you) could do to loosen up a bit.
The Handmaid's Tale (2017)
Guard your freedoms lest you lose them.
So much has been said in these reviews that I will just add to it. I think this show is spectacular in every aspect - the cinematography, the acting, the political commentary. It will scare you half to death but it will also wake you up.
In reading the negative reviews, it's notable that many are written by people who are dismissive of it being so "PC", think it goes so overboard it bears no resemblance to reality, or are defensive about it politically.
Those people might want to consider the flipside. What if, instead of a so-called Christian theocracy, it was a regime that persecutes Christians? Maybe executes people caught stepping out of line for, oh, reading a BIble?
Is it possible women could lose their rights? How about gays? How about Jews? You don't think that can happen, anywhere? Really?
Is it possible one group could take over, take the women as spoils of war, and force them to bear children and grow the regime? Could that happen anywhere in the world? Ask any of the women kidnapped in war or trafficked on a daily basis.
Is it possible that people protesting could seek refuge in a restaurant and have to crouch down to hide from guns? Nah, that would never happen, right?
How about the loss of a free press? Journalists executed? Watched the news lately? Why not ask any of the journalists around the world who have disappeared or been imprisoned? Oh wait, you can't.
Is it possible someone could be sentenced to a labor camp where they work until they die? Maybe of exposure to toxic materials? Anywhere in the world?
Is it possible people could be forced to be married off to strangers or forced marriages? Here? Anywhere?
Is it possible that women could be forbidden to read? To go to school?
Is it possible that someone, somewhere in this world, loses a hand or an eye as state punishment for some minor infraction?
Genital mutilation of women? Anywhere?
Is it possible that the government could engage in systematic torture? Our government? Any government in the world?
The brilliance of this show is that it breaks through our American arrogance, our complacency, our sense of "oh, isn't that awful that X is happening, I'm so glad I'm safe from that as an American. Oh look, The Bachelor is on!" (No disrespect to the Bachelor - trust me you'll need it after watching this).
It forces us to experience these things as if they were happening here. And we are shocked and traumatized. It seems so unlikely that people would snark, 'oh that would never happen.' And yet these things happen to people every day all around the world. Who are shocked and traumatized, who we see in 1 minute of a 4 minute news block and then go order pizza.
So if you want to whine about being "PC" - you may want to think about this just a little bit deeper. Our laws and freedoms are the only things that protect us. All of us. We have to guard them.
Could a band of crazies launch a coup upon Washington and all over the country? Logistically, probably not. But if we allow our freedoms to erode, don't defend our institutions, take our protections for granted, over time we will all be in danger. We can do that to ourselves.
If this program doesn't stand your hair on end, you are most definitely in a coma.