Reviews

I still loved this! There was bound to be some disappointment given how excited I was for this movie after reading the book, but it is just SOME disappointment. The casting for this was just excellent! The picks for Alex and Henry were pretty perfect. Visually, this was gorgeous. So many scenes were taken directly from the book and flawlessly brought to life. That moment on the couch with Alex's shirt hanging open was not only perfect for this book adaptation, but brought to life the covers of a few Regency era gay romances in my book collection. It really does do great editing the book down to a 2 hour movie.

For the most part.

Now I have to compare it to the source material and point out the flaws that I, personally, find. I hate Miguel, who does not exist in the book. Not sure why they chose him as a character to create and insert into the movie, but he comes across as an old hookup scorned out to get Alex for not wanting more with Miguel. Not only do I dislike that kind of character in general, I don't think they account for how his presence messes with the key trope of the book, Alex's bi-awakening. The book works because Alex is unaware of his attraction to Henry and just oblivious that Henry may feel the same, but the movie, through Miguel, makes it clear that Alex is bisexual so why would he not at least a little aware that he only saw Henry as an "enemy" because he'd been hurt by how Henry, his crush, had acted the first time they ever met. Another big issue I have is with the absence of two key characters from the book. I can understand cutting out Rafael Luna and all the politics there, but why is June, Alex's sister, erased? They hardly used Nora in the movie, certainly not in the same way she was written in the book as a previous girlfriend of Alex's that people still shipped together, so why keep her but cut out Alex's sister? Another extremely underutilized character from the book was Shaan Shrivastava, a personal favorite of mine, but I guess I should count us lucky to even have him appear in the movie. Zahra, similarly, had woefully little screen time which was such a waste of the beautiful and wonderful talent of Sarah Shahi. Basically, they cut and trimmed a lot to fit the runtime and so many things I loved in the book just didn't make the movie which is a bummer. The development of characters and plot are what make the book so great and the movie lacks a lot of that.

But all of that doesn't mean that I don't love the movie. It'll grow on me in the places I didn't instantly adore. Except Miguel. I'm never going to like that insert, especially with the implied connection he has to the media leak.

Before I get into spoilers, of which there will be plenty, I have to say that I loved this. The cast and acting are stellar; very natural and believable for better or worse. There is so much to relate to if you're from a dead-end town, regardless of sexual orientation, and I felt Leo's want to escape by fantasy or actually leaving on a deeply personal level.

Now for spoilers territory.

Kyle, the main bully, is so well played as an absolute closet-case in love with Leo that I hate him, but my heart hurts when the two of them have their final face-off and essentially say goodbye to whatever they had been and all they'll never be together. I think Chris O'Shea did an amazing job with the role to make him so compelling and dimensional no matter how stereotypical his bullying seemed.

Diego, Leo's boss, aggravated me to no end. I love Jason Scott Lee, but his character in this is confusing. He seems like an ally and the scene toward the end implies that his son is some part of the LGBTQIA+ community, BUT why doesn't he fire Kyle???? Kyle obviously creates a hostile work environment and attacks Leo on the business property so he has plenty of grounds, but he seems happy to keep Kyle around causing problems. Is it just so Diego can scope out more potential boxers from all the fights Kyle gets into?

Matt Dallas can still play straight and his portrayal of Declan confuses me. How old is he supposed to be, for one thing? Leo and Tristen are under 21, but Declan's walking around with booze all the time and not getting carded at bars so he's an adult but he seems to have moved to Alaska with his father and he oozes teen angst and confusion. The alcohol seems to be a real issue that he might need help with. His interest in Leo is obvious from the start and made utterly confusing when he says he isn't gay and instinctively punches Leo when an excited kiss on the cheek ends up more on the lips when Leo wins his first boxing bout. Then Declan doesn't stay away from Leo like Tristen said after that punch and the three of them end up leaving together, but I don't see them as being together in the end. The ending is a little ambiguous as to whether they're leaving together as friends or a couple and it really just makes Declan's leaving with the twins kind of weird.

George, the twins' dad, could be a movie on his own. A streetside preacher with a gambling problem, he's pretty absentee in the father department. But, in the end, we learn that he's the one that sent the postcards from their mom that kept the twins' spirits up when Lucy left them all behind. We also learn he's a closet-case whose affairs with other men contributed to Lucy finally leaving the family and, it's assumed, Alaska. Dan deserves better, but I would absolutely love to see them end up together.

Now, the bars. Leo believes that Jan, played by Margaret Cho, owns the only gay bar for 100 miles, but we learn that the more popular redneck bar in town is owned and operated by a gay male couple. While I love John and Tim and want a movie about their story, the feminist in me is irked by the fact that Jan's bar is failing because she's openly or believed to be a lesbian while the guys' bar is thriving because no one has figured out that they're a couple and not just business partners?

The drinking in this is a lot. How casually it's accepted that Leo and Tristen drink while underage and how many characters seem to struggle with alcohol is concerning. There's even something of a background bit with a pair of workers from the cannery where after work each day one asks the other out for a drink, the other declines because they're in AA, but the first guy keeps asking after every shift until the second guy agrees to go get drinks and then we have a day of work end where the second guy issues the invite for drinks and the first guy says he'll be going to a meeting instead. I have family with addiction issues and that casual peer pressure is very realistic and understandable but I don't like how that plays out as something humorous.

Finally, Leo and Tristen. I am so thankful that they survived thus movie because I 100% expected a tearjerker ending with cancer killing her and/or Leo being killed in a hate crime. This movie balanced on a razor's edge between potential romcom and heartbreaking drama.

I want to know what happens to them! There is so so much story involving them and all the other characters I referenced above that this movie was just woefully inadequate to truly satisfy me. I didn't even get to Hal, the walking PSA against smoking who happens to have been a drag queen himself and his protégé, Miss Orientated, who wins the drag show. With just one viewing, I absorbed all of this and each time I watch it over I just notice more details that I could see expanded on more. Also, I have got to say, I read a LOT of gay romances set in Alaska so I would just love a show that explores that small, isolated community way of life with open and secret hostility to open and secretly queer residents. This movie does so much and I wish the cast and crew were allowed to do more. That all said, this movie is an unexpected delight for so many reasons and I don't know why I left it on my watchlist for so long before finally playing it. I highly recommend it.

Being from the US and never having seen a Georgian movie before this, I can say nothing of the culture or realism in this movie. What stays with me is Merab and his obsession with and love for Georgian dance. I get it. His family has history with performing professionally, so there's a sense of legacy and pride from that and he clearly sees making it as a dancer as his way out of his current situation. That aspect of this movie resonated with me deeply.

I wanted to love what grew between Merab and Irakli. I, again, can understand their situation given the context presented in the movie and, given their circumstances, I understand how it ended like it did.

For me, though, Merab's unraveling was very concerning. He seemed to be in such a stifled and stifling situation that something had to give and Irakli just seemed as good a catalyst as any rather than a person who really changed Merab's trajectory. In fact, there were several moments by the end that made me question what was actually real between Iralki and Merab and how much might have just been Merab building up something in his own mind. Watching him spin out of control, going from such a rigid daily life to try and do his best to provide for his family and make them proud to everything in shambles, was painful. I hurt for him when I saw his circumstances in the beginning and I hurt all the more for him at the end. That last dance was passionate to the point of madness and after multiple viewings, I still don't know if he was fighting for a position with everything that he had or letting go of the restrictions of the Georgian dances to be truer to himself. That not knowing whether I've just watched a life destroyed or a character maturing is why I'm not rating this higher.

Merab's brother, David, really surprised me, in the best way, with his interaction with Merab after the wedding and I wholeheartedly agree with him that Merab has to get out of Georgia. When those end credits start rolling, I struggle to believe that Merab will find a way out, though, and that keeps me going back to his life being destroyed and I am devastated for him. I don't really feel that Irakli or Merab's sexuality have as much to do with that despite what the movie's description implies. Merab's obsession with the dance was clear throughout and the ways he constantly pushed himself seemed destined for disaster regardless of any other factor. Iralki pointed out how Merab's positioning on some of the dance moves could result in injury and I'm just surprised that an injury didn't occur earlier or more seriously in the movie. To me, this movie is more about the dedication it takes to be any kind of professional athlete or performer and the scarcity of success in those professional arenas than anything else. That means it's still a very good and impactful movie but it just doesn't check all the boxes for me. Absolutely worth a watch if you enjoy media from countries outside your own with a focus on LGBTQIA+ elements.

Ecohorror is one if my favorite subgenres to read or watch and I was very pleasantly surprised to find that here. I went into this without paying much attention to the description. It was new and 6 episodes so I thought why not try it.

For location and atmosphere this had some wasted potential, but I give it credit for presenting a setting that I never would have thought of for suspense. Now that they put the idea out there, all I can think of is how terrifying it would be to be stuck on an isolated rig out in the sea or ocean, dependent upon boats or helicopters for supplies and transport to land and finding yourself in a situation without boats or choppers coming to you.

For characters, that is definitely where the show lacks. Hutton stands out as awful. Alwyn was my favorite. Fulmer really grows on you. Rose and Magnus have ups and downs as the represent company management. Baz undergoes such change that it's hard to rate his character. Cat and Easter get focused on for their essential duties on the rig so I like them but it feels forced in to like or relate to them.

Finally, the ecohorror. One could see this show as anti-oil and drilling and there is some explicit commentary to support that within the show. BUT, what they've found is something primordial that has been the cause of all extinction level events on Earth and that thing is now awakened to close this loop of time and begin another extinction event. If you argue that dependence on fossil fuels is what caused this then how do you explain what caused it to carry out the previous extinction level events we know of. The show also positions Coake as the evil big oil exec who actually may have been the only one capable of stopping the coming catastrophe. So it seems a little unclear what the show is trying to say or how they're saying it. I think the 6 episodes, especially with so much focused on interpersonal drama, were insufficient to work with this premise.

I would love to see more, though, focusing on the theoretical science of the premise and the force behind the extinctions. The closing minutes of the last episode provide multiple cliffhangers that will bug me to no end if this is all we get of the show. Because of that, I highly recommend you wait to watch this until after it's renewed if you hate cliffhangers. If it gets canceled, I'll honestly lower my rating because the 7 is for the potential of the idea. A 5 is more accurate for the actual execution of the idea within these 6 episodes.

I'm not a big fan of "reality TV" but dud watch the earliest seasons of The Real World and Survivor. The very beginning of this show, in the first episode, was very similar to The Real World and that should be your warning to opt out if you're there for a cooking competition. I wanted a cooking competition, but got hooked on the drama like reality TV wants.

Like Survivor, many cast mates are voted off by the others based on strategy and alliances rather than merit and the ultimate winner of $100,000 is chosen by the eliminated chefs. Each episode has a focus on confessionals and interpersonal drama in addition to the cooking challenge and judging. I'd love an after party show to see how Sergei's fiancée and Caroline's husband feel about the "work" spouse relationship that developed there or how Christan feels about Jeana in the end. It's that kind of show, which, again, signals that it is more reality TV sensationalism than cooking competition.

I hate that I got pulled into watching it all, but I did and I won't lie and say that I wasn't wrapped up in it and ultimately happy with the outcome. If I rate it solely as a cooking competition, I'd maybe give it a five for the unique way challenges came in and the unpredictable way each challenge was carried out then judged. There were some interesting dishes presented with a few of the beat by the clock dramas that one expects from a cooking competition where something made fails to make it on the final plate or the chef just didn't have time to properly execute their plan. The "blind judging" and elimination votes by housemates is why this doesn't rank higher for the cooking aspect, because in those instances the cooking didn't matter as much as who the judge thought made the dish and who the housemates wanting gone.

But those negatives for it as a cooking show are what up the rating as reality TV. Watching the interpersonal play in the first episode, you would never expect Mike's development through the eight episodes and I credit Lana with alot of that, so it felt right that hers was the deciding vote in the end. The Final Table, Nailed It and Is It Cake remain my personal favorites for Netflix baking/cooking competitions, but I don't feel like I wasted my time watching this. I hate myself for knowing that I would probably definitely watch more if this was renewed for more seasons.

Very quickly into this I got It Follows vibes and I, personally, do not like that movie. Yes, there were some great, creepy visuals in both of the movies, but I'll always love Fallen (1998) most for a movie where evil gets passed on from one to another.

In Smile, we see Sosie Bacon play Dr. Rose Cotter. While Sosie does great at acting like she's falling apart and going crazy, she is not at all believable as a therapist. The limited interaction we see her have with patients just isn't good. Her lack of urgency when calling for help to deal with Laura and her failure to do anything upon seeing a weapon in the hand of the patient she was evaluating was aggravating. She made zero effort to talk the woman down before harm was done.

Sticking with this after that moment, we see Rose getting no support from her fiancée who now seems worried that he's attached himself to a nutter. Rose's apparent ex, Joel, is much more helpful, though, when he's brought back into her life as one of the cops taking Rose's statement regarding what she saw Laura do.

When Rose visits the widow of Laura's dead professor and is told how the man said it was trying or wanted in him, I had a pretty good theory of what happens. Whatever this thing is, it attaches to you and torments you until you finally break and let it in, like we saw happen with Laura. Once it's in, you get the maniacal grin as a clue before "it" kills that victim, though it appears they're killing themselves. In her search for answers, Joel and Rose find one person who "survived" and he had to kill an innocent person to do it. So this thing wants a life and a witness to pass suffering on to. Rose seems to think that she can kill it, but I thought her only choice would be to kill herself without a witness to break the cycle. We were both wrong. Once this thing has you, it HAS you. It made Rose believe she had defeated it only to show her that that was all a mind game it was playing. It wasn't going die or let Rose die without a witness to move on to. I don't really know how I feel about that realization and the ending. I think I got what they were trying to say, but it was just anticlimactic. The pacing of this was just too slow to pack the punch I'm sure they wanted with that ending or maybe I've just seem this idea played out too many times now. In the end, I'm just disappointed because it's yet another new release that put all the best bits in the trailer and fails to deliver with the actual movie.

I binged this in a day and need more! What, at first, appears to viewers to be a killer in a duck costume turns out to be so much more than Jamie Walsh ever could have imagined when he got aboard the Sacramentum cruise ship to find out what happened there to his sister Pippa. I won't spoil it, but let "Hostel" be a hint. Though I hated that movie and loved this show. The show only has a few funny moments, so I agree with other reviews that say that, but it does have darkly comedic moments and lives up to the slasher horror categorization. Eventually. It does draw things out to give it more of a mystery feel for the overall plot. There's also more focus on developing relationships than one might like if they're only here for the horror, but I personally loved the mix of tone and themes. It's a bunch of young adults out on their own on the high seas, many for the first time, exploring their independence and sexuality while a growing number of crew come to realize that their employers are as Evil Corp as a company can get. Stay with this one til the end. It is worth it, even if you want to speed through the more teen drama moments.

I'm a huge fan of the original Hellraiser 1 and 2. As such, I really have got to stop watching anything else that they slap this label on. While some of the looks were cool, this had nothing else going for it. The Cenobites looked alien & the fact that the gods seemed to come down in a spacecraft just cemented them as being alien/extraterrestrial in origin. I remember there was a Hellraiser in space sequel back in the day that was utterly forgettable, to me, but maybe where this one was pulling the bulk of its inspiration. Regardless, I watched it. I hated it. I'll go rewatch the original again now.

Let me start by saying this isn't the kind of show I normally watch, but some of my favorite shows are ones I never would have expected to enjoy. So I decided to give this series a watch before my Starz channel subscription ran out. That said, if you're at all curious about this but don't immediately vibe with it, you need to stick with this one.

Season 1 was a 5 star watch that I nearly quit after 2 episodes, but the Lil Murda and Uncle Clifford storyline was enough to keep me watching because I am a sucker for romances and I was rooting for them to find love together. That was the main draw for me to keep watching. The athleticism of everyone that took to the poles in both seasons was amazing and another reason to keep watching. Autumn's storyline just wasn't as compelling to me as it should have been given the focus it got. Mercedes was the better character in season one because the acting was better from Brandee Evans, in my opinion. Keyshawn's storyline was another one that didn't hook me. I sympathized and get that she's a beautiful, talented sweetheart of a woman played excellently by Shannon Janai Thornton, but the abuse storyline was a little triggering and is my least favorite part of the whole series even if it's a very real portrayal of situations many people are in or have been through. So with all the highs and lows, I was pretty meh about the first season.

Then the first episode of season 2 started playing and they immediately had me with how they brought the panorama into the world of P-Valley. So much of season 2 dealt with real REAL events from the last few years (has it only been 2?) and it was done in such a way that you couldn't watch without remembering how it was for you and feeling all of it all over again because we've all been through things since 2020 and I connected so much more to this show and the characters for how they brought it all to the story. Season 2 was a 10 out of 10 and this is probably the only show made better by Covid. Not only did the incorporation of more real life situations make the whole show better, but the returning characters all felt more developed and many newcomers were just excellent adds. The growth of Woddy's character and the developments with Diamond were especially good, in my opinion. Whisper's character brought such an ethereal air to the show, I love her look and character. Big Teak's character just breaks the heart with what he brought to the season and John Clarence Stewart played that part brilliantly. I loved the paranormal vibe in many of the episodes like the Paradise Room being haunted after season 1 and Whisper maybe being otherworldly and Diamond having a magic touch and people seeing lost loved ones like ghosts. Lil Murda continued to steal the show for me and solidified himself as my favorite character by far. J. Alphonse Nicholson just nails the bravado, vulnerability, strength and weakness of the character and so much of his best work is just the expressions and gestures he uses. Everything emotes and speaks volumes.. He was good in season 1, but season 2 was award worthy and he should be nominated for and awarded all of the awards possible, in my opinion. As I said, I'm a sucker for romances, especially the angsty ones, and the Lil Murda/Uncle Clifford storyline remained my favorite part of the series. That scene where Cliff was hiding on one side of the door with LaMarques trying to apologize on the other side was one of those moments where the gestures spoke volumes because the way they both touched their side of the door as Lil Murda left was just gutwrenching but so simple and beautiful. I need Katori Hall to start writing romance novels and get one out asap for the Cliff/LaMarques relationship because I want to read it. I want all the details and thoughts and feelings that she imagines for those characters because seeing it is one thing, reading it and letting it play out in your own mind is another and I want it ALL!

All said, this is another show that I love and never expected to even like. For both seasons, the stories and characters are real and relatable. Sometimes too real. The writing and acting are just getting better and I join everyone else demanding a season 3 because there is so much more potential. I'm serious about the romance novels, too. I don't really read plays, but I am tempted to buy whatever Amazon has for me to read by her.

When I saw this coming with Bae Doona (Sense8) and Gong Yoo (Train to Busan) in the trailer the show went to the top of my watch list. I didn't really know what to expect, but knew it would be good just from those two being in it. The acting was great. Many of the concepts and plot points were excellent. I personally loved the Aliens vibe from the first few episodes and knew there had to be a Newt like character as soon as I saw those tunnels for navigating the base. The idea of Lunar Water was fascinating in its possibilities and dangers. There are some parts that are needlessly drawn out and hurt the momentum of the story. Like Taesuk's death - OMFG I swear he's probably still alive up there. The ending, sadly, is where it fails. It gets ridiculous in its efforts to make emotional impacts and instead robs many events of the significance they should have had. I question so many of the choices in writing for the last episode, but I was definitely with the show from start to finish. It was good, but should have been great with all that it had going for it. And I would really love it if someone could explain to me the significance of the starfish that the infected saw.