WeView

⭐7/10 I'm really conflicted here. Honestly this season just made me lose faith in the Survivor formula. This show needs to go back to the drawing board. I thought the season had some of the most beautiful, truly heartfelt human moments, but the finale left such a bad taste in my mouth that I can drum up no enthusiasm for future seasons. I enjoyed the season for the most part, but they just need a better system to determine the winner because again there seems to be a massive disconnect between what happens in the episodes and what happens in the finale. I'm basically going to spoil everything, so if you plan to go back, this is your warning. But immediately to begin, I was drawn to a lot of these characters, but specifically i was drawn to Joe because he is handsome and has a great name. And also because he seemed like a genuinely amazing guy! Sure, it can feel a tad corny at times, but I genuinely admired this guy in a way I've never felt watching reality TV. H...

⭐ 10/10 There are many games I would consider my favourites because of the nostalgia I have attached to them, and even the games I would say are the greatest have some glaring flaws that I can overlook. Red Dead Redemption 2 broke me, what I would call a perfect game in all aspects. I can use qualifiers and say that this is the best story-driven game I've ever played, but that's lame - let's just put it on the Mount Rushmore. Playing this game outside of the toxic discourse and depressing year it came out in it is impossible for me to understand any reason someone would dislike this. But I don't want to make straw man arguments, I'd rather just say what I liked about this. My lead at work says this is his favourite game of all time, that it uses a video game to tell a story in a way only video games can, and I agree completely. The lackluster season 2 of the show, and even season 1, feel like cheaper copies where there is a barrier between you and the characters yo...

⭐ 7.5/10 The plot of this movie kicks off with a divorced older woman with the most beautiful house of all time working on a renovation. Its actually insane, this is the most pleasant looking house I've ever seen but she needs to tear it all down. That's when she meets Steve Martin, but also her ex Alec Baldwin is trying to ignite the old flame. Honestly this was funny and pretty enjoyable. It felt fresh, some older people romance, less shallow or based on looks. Even the way they talk about their looks is very sweet, when an old woman feels self conscious and her ex says she looks beautiful it actually feels like it means something. Oh, her ex is also married to a much younger woman and they are having an affair. Tension coming from cheating sucks, and you feel bad for his wife, which is not what the movie is going for at all. Its kind of makes it romantic in that he is attracted to an older woman because of their history, but its a flaw in the movie to me that the implicatio...

⭐ 6/10 I still persist with this show, and it feels less bad when you can skim through sketches on youtube the next day.  I watched the 50th anniversary special live and even with all the stars there this show is so long for something that gets maybe 3 laughs a night. So many forgettable hosts, very few memorable sketches. Paul Mescal I remember being good, and Chalamet had some funny moments. Mulaney is always good but he's basically cheating. Weekend update has been good, although the joke swaps in the finale felt recycled.  That's kind of my main complaint, when they do find something funny they do it over and over to get those same laughs again. So formulaic. The other sketches often have a funny idea, but then they do the same thing for 4 minutes, same setup and same joke. I should stop watching but every once in a while I am glad I watched. I can pan through an episode in under 30 minutes and smirk a couple times. Why not. The Please Don't Destroy guys are severely u...

⭐10/10 I've always had a bit of a hard time describing my relationship with Star Wars because I'd consider myself a massive fan, and have consumed tons of supplemental material, and yet I don't actually love too many movies or shows. But beyond anything, I was a kid when the prequels came out, and so I'll always be under the spell.  Well, you don't need to be under any spell to enjoy Andor. It is one of the most detailed, meticulously crafted, thoughtfully written peices of media ever to exist, and it was made for adults. This show is incredible on its own, but I also feel like it adds a ton to the Star Wars universe in ways that prequels rarely do, and makes me have a whole new appreciation for what exists.  This show, for the uninitiated, is about those who began the rebellion that Luke, Leia and Han later complete. While they get the glory, it's these ordinary humans that sacrificed everything (Luthen voice: EVERYTHING) to get them there. It has s...

⭐8/10 A Call of Duty review? What a sorry state this website is in! I have almost no experience with this franchise. However, I DID play a COD campaign on my Nintendo DS many, many moons ago and actually really enjoyed it. And now, something about the current political climate has had me itching to go back to kill some Nazis.  I actually thought this campaign was totally badass. It's around 7-8 hours, and it is nonstop action with shootouts that run off pure adrenaline and cinematics that have you jumping out of falling buildings. I'm not sure what I was expecting from a campaign that is made purely for the multiplayer, but this went far above my expectations. The shooting was fun, the action exhilarating, the cinematics thrilling.  Otherwise? Nothing to see. There is certainly some attempt at crafting a story, but it was a little melodramatic and uninteresting. I also know that COD isn't the game for it, but I thought there were the bones for a moving story tha...

⭐9/10 Astro Bot the Mario killer! After like 80 hours with KCD, a deep rpg with mature themes and complex mechanics, it was nice to kick back with a short platformer.  This is technically a demo that comes free with every PS5, but I put a good 5 hours into this to 100% it.  After a long time of grappling with my innermost thoughts, I have come to admit that I'm a Mario fan. This game is as similar to Mario Odyssey as it can get: super tight controls with unique and creative platforming challenges. It takes place in a silly world with lots of secrets and side-challenges. Every level presents a new little gimmick to master, and the only element of progression is becoming better at the moveset.  Yeah, this was absolutely awesome. The platforming was consistently fun, and they never hung on to an idea for too long. In fact they may have even left a little meat on the bone, but that's totally acceptable for a demo. I'm 100% on board to play the proper game that won...

⭐7/10 It's definitely a bit of a hot take having this movie rated so low. I certainly liked it, but I think that the expectations I'd built up for this one hurt the overall experience. I thought it was good! But I'm pretty confused as to where all this praise as an all time great is coming from.  So this is a movie about... well it's a movie about a thousand things and I think that's my main issue with it. It's about music, African mythology, vampires, race, gangsters, freedom... It has a million themes that only seem somewhat related, and it never really came together for me. It was a mishmash of genres, and I'm not really sure if this movie was trying to say something, but it was either trying to say too much, but to me, really said nothing at all.  There is a scene in the middle that is being celebrated, and I agree that the scene is amazing. You will know it when you see it. But I also didn't really get what the scene meant within the con...

⭐ 9/10 This might be recency bias, since there was a lot of hype around the quality of this movie. Although this falls outside my typical movie genres that I enjoy I thought this was awesome. I've loved all of Coogler's non-MCU stuff, and I loved Michael B. in Creed, so seeing them both back in action is a treat.  It results in a unique and original story, something worth going to the movies for. The setup here is great, you basically spend an hour learning about this place and the people in it, and then all hell breaks loose. I will say I didn't love the whole twin aspect of it, in that I still can't tell you which twin goes through what, even though they nicely colour-code them for you. I thought it looked amazing, and it was a fun place to be in even before you meet a vampire. Maybe I've become a bit desensitized, but the horror aspects were exciting and not scary for me. The introduction of the vampires, learning what they want, I won't say it made them rel...

⭐4/10 This was our romance movie of choice for our anniversary, and we couldn't even get through it (blaming this movie if our marriage falls apart). It's not even 3 hours but feels like the longest movie I've ever seen. We watched until we needed a bathroom break, and our hearts sank when we realized we were only 1 hour in (I find that the quick bathroom break is always telling). Then we watched for another eternity, paused it, realized only 40 minutes had passed, and we were out.  This movie is wildly boring. It's weird, non-linear format makes it confusing and there is just nothing going on. But the biggest sin is just that the romance is completely unconvincing. I was high on Fiennes after watching Conclave, but he seems just as celibate in this movie as that. Yes, he has a beautiful voice and accent, but he is the least bangable guy imaginable here. These are major neckbeard, incel vibes, reciting poetry at the wrong times, always trying to teach his ro...

⭐ 8/10 This is a 3 hour movie, and for 2 hours of it I thought this was the best paced 3 hour movie I had ever seen. The film making is electric, and that is saying a ton for what the content is here.  Its basically 10 or so characters in distinct storylines over the course of a day that intersect in interesting ways.  There is a smart kid in a game show, a home nurse caring for a dying man, an alpha-male motivational speaker that yells about how to get women, a bumbling cop, and more. The movie cuts between them in interesting and quick ways, never leaving one story for too long, with catchy momentum-building pop music playing under it all. The adrenaline of Goodfellas, but based around somewhat normal characters, even if they are dealing with some extraordinary circumstances. My stupid brain unfortunately only thinks in WeView scores now, and as I began the final hour I could feel half-stars falling off.  The movie really slows down, characters start to give big monolo...

⭐ 9/10 This one has been on the list for a while and did not disappoint. Roma is an all time favourite of mine, so it was cool seeing another Cuaron movie.  Lots of the same flourishes, with the breathless long takes, but the subject matter here could not be more different.  This is a world where no baby has been born for 17 years.  No reason is given, but the world is in turmoil.  Such a great sci-fi premise, and I love the lack of detail it gives you.  This bleak world is enough. There are a couple incredible action sequences, and the final one I have no idea how it was done.  So much is happening, so many explosions, I just don't know how you can make something like that happen and have it look that good. And then you throw a pregnant woman into all of it and the stakes are sky high. I was playing Last Of Us Part 2 at the same time and there were a ton of parallels, not just the apocalyptic violent world. The movie feels like that game plays, set piece ...

⭐ 7/10 I've been holding off on my review, mostly because when I think about this show my mind races with the things I didn't like. But I will start by saying this is easily the best season. It might be because this covers events from possibly my favourite book of the whole series, but to their credit I think they knocked some of the big scenes out of the park.  Rhuidean in particular was imaginative, and while not perfect I thought it really captured the magic of reading that chapter for the first time. I will also say I still think this show is well cast, and when I think of the characters many of these actors are now the faces I think of. The acting can be hit or miss, but Elayne, Moghedian and many of the other newer faces that get more screen time do a great job. My favourite moment of the season was a fight that made no sense the moment it happened, and the person Rand fights makes no sense, but the way his use of the power was depicted was so spot on I felt like I was r...

I'm not a huge fan of instalove, but a monster instantly deciding she's found the body she wants to plant her eggs inside of? Yeah, I'm intrigued. Shesheshen is an amorphous shapeshifter who keeps to herself, but when she gets attacked because apparently she put a curse on a family, she's stuck pretending to be human to stay safe. Then she meets Homily, and she knows immediately that she's the right person to plant her eggs in, which will unfortunately kill her in the process. But as she spends more time with Homily, she learns more about what it is to be human and love, and maybe they can fall in love and she won't have to lay her eggs at all. But first she might have to get revenge on Homily's terrible family.  This book is super gross, with vivid descriptions of Shesheshen eating people and using their bones and organs to form her own organs. It was pretty awesome. I also really enjoyed Shesheshen's observations about the monstrosity of humans and bad...