Westworld: The Most Overrated Show on Television

Spoilers for the first season of Westworld.   Regardless of what I say here, go watch it. Then come back. I need clicks.

Westworld is the hottest girl you've ever been with. Great to look at, something you'll never forget, and something you'll talk to your friends about until they're sick of you; and in the same way you never end up marrying her, Westworld cannot be classified as the (or even one of the) greatest show(s) on TV right now. The phrase "All Style, No substance" springs to mind; here's why:

The Characters

Since the dropoff on these posts is greater than a bar of soap in the Parkinson's ward, I'll get the big point out of the way first. 

The characters in Westworld aren't bad, but only because they aren't even quantifiable.

With an ensemble cast of world-class actors (and Thandie Newton's boobs), you'd be mistaken for thinking that the characterization in Westworld is comparable to other great shows right now like Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul. Silicon Valley and The Walking Dead (Just kidding). There is no doubt that none of these actors are phoning it in, and they're a big part of why this show is revered, but they're not playing characters as much as they're just really good as reading lines off a script. A few weeks ago I proved this point to someone by playing what I like to call "The Star Wars Prequel Test". The game is simple. Without describing what they look like, or what they do in the story, describe a character. Are they brave? Are they funny? etc. Besides for Lee (the British writer), who is a satire piece given life and a pants-tightening accent, my friends were stumped. Try it now. Describe Bernard for me. I'll wait.
Thought so.
I'm going to focus on a single character to illustrate this point. Robert Ford, played by the spectacular Anthony Hopkins. Anthony Hopkins has always been the king of idealistic, convoluted monologues. In his most famous role he pretty much did this exclusively, but the reason it works as Hannibal Lecter and not as Robert Ford is that the nonsense he was spouting was not only intrinsic to the character, but it at least served as an allegory to the events happening in the film. You could argue that Ford's speeches are tied to the goings on of the show, but you'd have to have an asterisks at the send so big that Ray Charles would spot it if he was playing a show on the moon. The other big reason that this doesn't work is that nearly every character spouts off pretentious nonsense that would give any hipster stoner an erection. The only characters who don't fall into this category are Elsie, Ashley (the security guy), Theresa and Charlotte. To make matters worse, it's almost as if the show punishes the ones who can actually say a sentence with less than five words in it. Three of the four I just named are either dead or presumed dead, and the fourth is considered a villain.
To summarize: Anthony Hopkins, played by the spectacular Anthony Hopkins

I know I've talked about characters a lot already but there's one thing I need to add.
The hosts, like everyone else on this show, have no personality. From a narrative standpoint, they're not supposed to. We see this firsthand when we are shown the personality matrix (or whatever dumb sci-fi name they gave it). We literally watched Maive fuck with her character bio on screen. I understand that it's not a flaw in the narrative as much as it's a choice, but it's hard to relate to a character when their traits can fluctuate on a whim.

Moving on...

The Story
Westworld juggles two main story-lines with sub-stories happening in both. There's also a bit about corporate espionage. If that sentence felt tact on, well you just figured out my point. First things first though:

Maeve's Story:
Whenever I watch a Film or TV Show, I know that I'm making a conscious decision to devote my time to it. If it's bad or disappointing, I only have myself to blame. Maeve's story-line marks the first time I've ever felt my time has been truly wasted. Her story starts strong. A robot gains self-awareness and confronts her makers. Sure, not the most original of plots but I'll bite. The pacing was good, watching Maeve have a reality-shattering moment every episode until she became the Fucking Terminator, but more on that in a bit. The problems with this story come in at two key points. The two scientists (medics?) Felix and Sylvestre are quite possibly the dumbest characters on the show, nay, on TV, NAY in fiction. While it's pretty clear that Felix probably spent one too many days locked in the girls bathroom in high-school, it doesn't let us, the audience grant him the benefit of the doubt for the amount of shit he gets away with. He allows Maeve access to the ENTIRE HOST SYSTEM, GRANTING HER THE ABILITY TO DISOBEY AND HARM HUMANS. Come to think of it, I'm done with this tool. Instead of listing all the shit he's done with that doe-eyed look on his face, I'm just gonna copy and paste. He allows Maeve access to the ENTIRE HOST SYSTEM, GRANTING HER THE ABILITY TO DISOBEY AND HARM HUMANS.
Fuck that guy.
Sylvestre at least is a shorter discussion. Maeve threatens to shut down his entire corpse-brothel operation he has going on. "How?" You might ask, well so would I, because I have no idea. It really doesn't matter though. Sylvestre could've solved this entire situation by walking into his boss' office, saying " That chick woke up, tried to stab me and is a danger." Maeve gets put in cold storage and end of discussion. Sylvestre obviously doesn't do that, and thus we have Whorenocio.
The second element where this story stumbles is that Maeve turns into a fucking God. She maximizes all her traits so that she's basically a perfect human being, and from there on she turns into another nonsense-spouter. It's hard to relate to a character when they have a perfect plan in place and know how to perfectly deal with everything perfectly so that the perfect plan goes perfectly. See my point?
Oh, and the piece of shit resolution to this whole ordeal. Maeve turns into Robot-Jesus, escapes using manipulation, coercion and pure smarts, only for the whole thing to be undone by her "loving her daughter". Her daughter that, by dying, caused Maeve to develop awareness in the first place. It's as if the writers wanted this story to come full circle, but personally, it feels like having your car break down just before the finishing line, and having it towed all the way back to the beginning.
I know there's more to this, like Arnold allowing Maeve to wake up in the first place, but to be honest I'm sure you're as tired of reading about this as I am of typing it. Fuck Maeve. Fuck Felix. Fuck Sylvestre and Fuck The Walking Dead (That last one may be unrelated)

Delores' Story:
Delores is the protagonist of this show. We open on her story in the pilot, and we finish on her story in the finale. As a whole, it's not bad. It's the one with the twists, the least plot-holes, and it has Ed Harris' Man In Black, who, for the first few episodes, was the only character who actually did anything.
That's not to say it's perfect though, even though the twists were predicted weeks before they were revealed, it was still hard to follow along with what was happening. This made the finale feel less like a finale and more like a Cliffnotes for what came before. The William-Man In Black Theory has been talked about to death on other websites so all I'll say is that it qualifies as a perfect example of why all TV shows should release Netflix style.
Westworld promised a story about artificial intelligence, and while Maeve's story had its own spin on the tail, Delores' tail was the one that felt original. The reveal that Arnold's voice in her head was actually her thoughts was a great reveal, and going back, it felt like a genuine take on what it must be like to suddenly have an inner monologue for the first time. 

Overall, Delores' story was well told, and offered something new, even enough to justify the story it was being told alongside. 

The tacked in corporate espionage side story thing 

At best this story can be summarized as world-building for season 2. At worst, it can be seen as something to fill out the runtime. Between Bernard and Theresa's "thing" and Ford's New Narrative, nothing here affected other stories substantially nor did it offer anything unique. To carry in talking about it would be a waste of my time as well as yours. Let's just hope that it all pays off in season 2.

Everything else:

This is where Westworld shines. The cinematography is gorgeous, the production design will have you fully invested in the Wild  West as much as the cold, sterile future that Westworld calls present day, and hearing a Cowboy version of Paint It Black gave my brain an orgasm. If Westworld can be considered to be pushing the medium, this is how. 

Lastly, it would be remiss to neglect talking about the sheer amount of nudity that Westworld boasts (and "boasts" is the correct word here). Some have called it atmospheric and brilliant, while others have criticized it for being gratuitous. Personally, I think that every scene that has it could've achieved the same thing had the characters been fully clothed, but I'm never going to say no to some boobs. 

P.S. I do at least appreciate the fact that the boob to dick ratio is more reasonable than most shows, cough Game Of Thrones. 

If you've made it this far, you probably don't need a summary of everything I've just said, but I have to adhere to some sense of structure here so... 

Westworld is a show I would recommend to everybody. Even though I've spent the last nearly 2000 words shitting on this show, I've only highlited it's problems. It's a good show that is at least trying something new, and the acting alone should be enough to sell it. I hope the characterization gets better in future seasons, with greater payoff, but for now, only time will tell. 

Movie Review: Nightcrawler

SPOILER ALERT!

The end of the year is here. While catching up on things I missed this year, I remembered Nightcrawler, Dan Gilroy's 2014 neo-noire love letter to "Stringers" i.e. people who video crime scenes and sell the footage to TV stations. This movie was lauded as one of the best of last year. Unfortunately, Nightcrawler failed to live up to the hype.

While I'm no stranger to the hype machine and it's shortcomings, for the movie to have a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and for it to end up in 29 reviewers top movie lists of the year, I expected more. While the performances are stellar and the writing a cut above the usual rut that we're used to by now, the film doesn't reach the peaks that other movies in it's league manage. To give you an idea, Full Metal Jacket and The Silence of the Lambs also hold 95% ratings. On any given day, I would rather watch those films.

That's not to say Nightcrawler is bad, it's good, but it's just that; good. It's a film that you can watch and not feel like you wasted your money and your time, but it's not a landmark in cinema. While it's clear that a hell of a lot of work was put into researching Stringers and their tactics, Nightcrawler falls prey to modern film-making. The pacing is off. The film will spend 30 minutes on a single week, and then skip forward two months only to explain how the main character gets a faster car in order to progress the story.

Let's focus on the story. Lou Bloom is a thief looking for a career. He "doesn't have what you would call a formal education" and he learns about business tactics by reading articles online. To the film's credit, his constant regurgitation of things he clearly read about is well implemented, and this is one of the few places where the film shows true promise.

Lou then sees two stringers film a crash and decides that this is what he wants to make a career out of. After buying a piece of shit camcorder and a police radio he finds himself at a crime scene where he films a near-death man. He manages to get a close shot and takes it to a station to sell it. The news director loves it and becomes almost like a mentor to him. Okay, now I'm all for Lou to be good at filming, If films have taught us anything, it's that when the main character does something we would not be able to, that's a free suspension of disbelief. Remember this point. It comes in later.

After one night, Lou then decides to hire an assistant. Rick, a down on his luck 20-something who's homeless and has next to no experience applies and gets the job because - um... because Lou's eccentric and has a scheme! Rick is essentially just a vehicle for Lou so we can see how crazy he is.

Together they film more and more crimes until 2 months later they're driving a mother-fucking Dodge Challenger. Let me get something straight, the Dodge Challenger SRT that Lou drives costs $47,000. You imagine that Lou would have to pay cash due to his past, so he amassed that amount in 2 months.The only way my disbelief is still suspended is because it's hanged itself from the ceiling.

Anyways, Lou encounters some competition from another Stringer who's been in the game longer then he has. He can only afford two shitty news vans *ahem* and Lou misses one crime because he chose not to join up with him. Not 5 minutes later, we see the Stringer in a car accident. Now I'm all for coincidence, but come on. Lou is allowed to be adept at filming, but when he's essentially playing on God mode, we stop relating and it becomes like actually watching a car wreck. We just want to see what happens next, without actually caring about the people involved.

The film ends with a climactic car chase that feels more out of place than your uncles funny shirt at a funeral. Again, credit where credit is due, that scene was better shot than the movie would build you up to expect, and it will have you on the edge of your seat.

Lou
What the fuck. He reminds me of Nicholas Cage in the Ghostrider movies. He's weird, but not justifiably or relatably so. He just does different things and is clearly a sociopath. While I don't need a saint as my protagonist, I need someone I can relate to. Lou is the opposite of that. He essentially murders his partner, blackmails a woman into sleeping with him; repeatedly and he withholds information about wanted criminals just to get his shot. Look at Walter White, he did worse things, but we knew why he did and we saw what led him to do so. It was more than just a paycheck for him. Lou never develops past that point. What I feel obligated to point out though, is Jake Gyllenhaal's performance. Regardless of the material he was given, he was an inspiration. I have a feeling he'll be popping up much more prominently in the coming years.

I stress again, Nightcrawler is far from a bad film. It's just not nearly as good as people have been saying. Watch it if only to know for yourself, but don't expect to be blown away.

You Should Watch: Short Term 12

Short Term 12 is the best movie I've seen this year. It came out in 2013 to critical praise and commercial... acknowledgement.The film is about a group home and the people who work there. It's one of those films that transcends its setting; with scenes being so good that you forget about whatever else is going on in the overarching story (see: Whiplash for another good example of that).

I want to talk about everything that happens in this film, but I guarantee you haven't seen it, so I'll write a spoiler free section at the top here and for those of you who managed to find a way to see it, scroll to the bottom for my spoiler filled section.

Spoiler-Free

Okay so you haven't seen it, I'll forgive you for now. If you've stumbled here by accident wanting to see me vent my sexual frustration, sorry but you'll have to wait for next week. If you're here because you consider yourself a cinephile (it means you like movies, get that thought out of your head you sick pedophile), then make yourself a cup of coffee, pause whatever music you have in the background, and listen the fuck up.

Fuck clichés. Short Term 12 is an experience. A film is something you know you're watching, at any point you can take a step back and say "this isn't real". With Short Term 12, the writing, and especially the acting (oh my god the acting!) keep you engrossed to the point where you can't step back; even though you'll want to, because this film is more depressing than a litter of HIV-positive puppies being thrown off a bridge by a holocaust survivor. 

I haven't even mentioned who's in this fucking thing. Brie Larson plays Grace; the supervisor of the home and our main character. She was the chick Jonah Hill pedophilically kissed in 21 Jump Street. She fucking kills it. There's secondary scenes that have nothing to do with the group home at all, and she manages to make us care about them almost more than anything else. Her relationship with John Gallagher Jr is also so sincerely written and acted out that you imagine they were together during filming (they were not). John Gallagher hasn't been in anything significant besides a few episodes of Law n Order, but I imagine his agent got busier after this. He plays Mason, the most every-man man to ever grace a screen. He's not boring mind you, he just doesn't have that otherworldly wit or clumsy charm that every other male in cinema seems to overflow with. He's just a dude. He tells funny stories and has a rocking beard. Their relationship serves as the B-story to the goings-on in the home but as I said, it's so brilliantly pulled off that you start to care more about them than you do the kids; which totally makes you a terrible person. 

There are other caretakers, but they're mostly pushed to the side so lets talk about the residents of Short Term 12 (the home, not the movie). The big story that gets pushed is the newcomer Jayden, but we'll get to that. The story of Marcus, a  17 year old who is about to leave the home is fucking gut punching. He's older, and although it's never outright said, they imply that he's seen more of the outside world than the younger kids. The first half of the film focusses on him turning 18 and "graduating" the home. Without spoiling anything, you get shown what he feels about it and why he has a much more depressing disposition on life than anyone else there. It will make you thankful for what you have; and that's all I'll say about that.

Next up is Jayden. A newcomer to the home who thankfully doesn't serve as the clueless protagonist who provides the audience with exposition. I watched the film about a week ago, so I can't for sure remember, but Short Term 12 isn't her first home, and it's brilliant to see her accustom to the environment so quickly; even though it's pretty depressing on second thought. She has great chemistry with Grace and without spoiling anything, their story arc is more than satisfying (even if it is a TINY bit unbelievable).
The interesting thing about the film is that while there is a build-up and a climax, it never feels like a conventional story. Things just happen, and the film ends. Jayden's story arc is used for the climax of the film, but it only affects Grace. It's a nice way of breaking convention while still feeling like it had a place in the film.

This film doesn't hold back, while you won't see any of the horrific stuff these kids have been through, they make sure you know about it and that you feel it. It's one thing for a comedy to be good at making you laugh or a sad film to make you cry, but the mark of good writing comes when a film can make you do both. Granted the film is more about the crying and the humour is framed within the dark reality the rest presides in, but it's there at the right times. The best scenes of the film (minus the Grace and Mason scenes) are when the film is most dark or when it's most upbeat. Not to say the rest is filler, but a gut punch will always be the most memorable part of a story; physically or figuratively. I feel like I'm rambling now. Go watch the film. If you struggle to find it or are too lazy, maybe I'll lend you my copy if I like you.

Now onto the spoilers. DO NOT READ FURTHER UNLESS YOU'VE SEEN THE FILM

I'M SERIOUS

STOP BEING A DICK

OKAY FINE

SPOILERS AHEAD

First off, how fucking awesome was that right? I don't want to just have a spoiler-filled version of the last section. Instead, I want to talk about some scenes and characters that frankly, deserve to be talked about.

Lets start off with Marcus and Mason. That rap.

Goddamn. Talk about execution meets intention. Without needing a lengthy exposition dump where one character would explain things that they already know to each other, we know everything about this kid, and it's way more than we bargained for. Behind all the fucks and the bitches, there's a story here. A sad story of an abused kid who had to sling drugs before he hit puberty. You can tell he acknowledges his mother but he rejects to accept her as such. It's subtle storytelling,one of my personal favourite things to see. On top of the story, towards the end where he says "I'm stronger than you", it shows that he's ready to move on. He wants to put it behind him and function normally in society. It also lets us in on Mason and Marcus' relationship. Marcus acknowledges that Mason is an authority when he comments on the amount of cusses in the rap, but we see that they see each other in a more friendly way when Mason waves it off. The end is even stunning to Mason who (in the audiences words) doesn't know what to say. Even through all the shit he's seen, Mason has nothing to say that will comfort him or re-assure him. I imagine it's how any of us would react in the same situation. In two minutes, the movie tells us more than five minutes of conversation ever could, and it's a solid rap to boot.

Next up, Grace and Marcus.

There isn't a specific scene I want to talk about here, just their chemistry. It's evident that while Marcus doesn't see Grace as a friend like he does with Mason, the fact that she doesn't immediately give him up about the weed shows that she understands him and that they have common ground. While Mason seems to represent Marcus' youth, Grace is his age, forcing him to mature and come to terms with his life. The fact that he's older than his house mates does contribute to their bond, but you can tell that Grace has had her fair share of less than favourable decisions, and this helps her relate to Marcus. The reason I bring this up is that none of this is explicitly told to the audience. It's done in ways that would make sense in real life. Someone who used to smoke weed would be more inclined to talk to a pot-user rather than just ratting him out immediately. With all that being said though, she still understands that she's responsible for him, and something tells me should would be less inclined to let him spew out a rap filled with swear words. Again, none of this is said, and it's what makes this movie so goddamn interesting. You can speculate about the characters on your own, There aren't any questions left unanswered, just believable characters that you can talk about like they're people you know.

Let's talk about Jayden and to an extent, Grace.

It's obvious that a decent amount of work went into developing Jayden's character. Even before she is seen on screen, she's talked about for a solid three minutes of screen time. The movie doesn't fuck you around, it wants you to care about this character. To be honest, I didn't cling to her arc like I did everyone else's, but as a character she is just as believable as everyone else. She's introduced in a way that you think she'll be this stuck up bitch that eventually will come to terms with her situation, and for the most part that's what happens. It's the way that it's handled is what makes her an interesting character. Having her throw a tantrum is a brilliant way of conveying her realisation of what's happening to her. We saw Sammy have a fit, and that showed us how people act in this home, so by having her do the same thing, we see not only that she's going through turmoil but that she's slowly becoming a member of the home. Her bond with Grace isn't exactly engaging, but is still easily believable. Based on how Grace reacts to finding out that Jayden was abused, we get the feeling that she's never encountered someone like this before, and it motivates her even more to help this kid.

The payoff may have been a bit on the nose, but it's clearly done in order to inject some levity into an overly depressing movie. After being taken on such an emotional ride, I can let a slightly forced happy ending slide.

Mason and Grace. The best, most boring love story ever

It's weird that their scenes together were the most engaging in the film. I've seen love in movies before, bad love told well and good love told bad, but it's rare that we see normal love told normally. There's no speeches in airports, no boombox outside the window. It's just love, and it's fucking beautiful. I really want to talk about the scene above in particular. We don't need to know how long they've been dating or how they met, the movie tells us how it is now. It's not overly exaggerated love like we see in rom coms, it's what love is like for us. There's the funny, but there's also the heartfelt. Mason tells Grace that she's the weirdest most beautiful girl he's ever met, often that kind of line is used when the guy is trying to woo the girl, but here, it's Grace testing him. She wants to know if he'll stick around when he finds out she's pregnant. 

As much as Grace is our main character and we're supposed to root for her, she is flawed. She's too scared to tell Mason she's pregnant and it's unclear whether he knows she was abused. When they start kissing and he sticks his hand up her skirt, she freaks out and hits him. She can't deal with what's happened to her and it puts a strain on the relationship. This is after we see such a touching and heart-warming segment that makes us believe that these two are happy. Love!

As I've said multiple times, you need to see this movie. For someone who sees movies for their artistic value, it's an example of all the positive of movies we keep talking about. For someone who thinks that the Transformers movies are the best you've ever seen, hopefully it can set you on the right track.

Next week we'll be looking at either Whiplash or Prisoners. I'll decide eventually.

9 Must Watch Movies

I watch a lot of movies. Like really, a lot. There should be a legal limit on my Netflix account. I like to think I have the experience to know when a movie is worth watching, so here are 9 good ones. Not necessarily the best movies ever made, but in my opinion, these are the ones that everyone should watch, ESPECIALLY if you want to get into film in any way at all.
BTW: These are in no particular order. You should watch all of them, as they're equally important.

Her
I just finished watching Her. Again. Fuck man, it's impossible to describe this movie without sounding like a fucking psycho, or giving the plot away. To (extremely) summarise it, a man falls in love with someone... unconventional. It's easily the best movie of 2013 and I guarantee that not enough people have watched it. If you can find it, keep an open mind and watch it. Trust me, it will stick with you LONG after you're finished watching, as it did for me.
Why you should see it:

The most unconventional love story in film. And quite possibly the best ever told.

Mr Nobody
Another one that will have you thinking about it afterwards. Mr Nobody is about... well everything really. Think of it as a collection of love stories starring Jared Leto, which is never a bad thing. You will definitely want to watch it again, as it deals with some complex shit. The beauty in Mr Nobody is that even though you may not know what's going on in the story as a whole, each individual scene will have you completely invested.
Why you should watch it:
If Jared Leto isn't enough for you, it also has Dianne Kruger, whom I may or may not be in love with.

Reservoir Dogs
Everyone knows about Pulp Fiction. But a small amount of people are as aware of its socially awkward, super violent older brother. Tarantino's first film ever, Reservoir Dogs is a storytelling masterpiece. From the opening monologue about Like a Virgin, to a fake story told within a fake story, Reservoir Dogs is crucial viewing for anyone who thinks themselves a writer.
Why you should watch it:
A crime film with the best soundtrack in the genre. You'll be humming the credits song long after the film has ended.

Clerks
We've all worked in customer service jobs. And they've all sucked. Clerks is a collection of the best and worst things we deal with when dealing with people. Sure the movie is made up of people standing around and talking, but the dialogue is so good that you don't even care. It's a statement that anyone in their early 20's working a job they hate can get behind.
Why you should watch it:
The Star Wars monologue may be my favourite scene in any movie ever.

Chasing Amy
I'll try keep this under 200 words, because there's a lot I can say about this movie. Basically, a guy falls in love with a lesbian. If that alone doesn't get you hopeful for where the movie goes, then you have some problems. The writing in this movie is exceptional, even if you've never had a similar experience, you'll still be on on board with the subject matter. It's love in a way that you've never seen before, but it's handled in a way that everyone can relate to.
Why you should watch it:
It will help you understand the not so great parts about love.

500 Days of Summer
Finally, someone made a rom-com for dudes. 500 Days of Summer is what I hope all movies in this genre will eventually be like. This movie not only shows love, but it explains and examines it. At times, it can even feel like a documentary, because it's so relatable. It's also genuinely funny, which helps.
Why you should watch it:
ZOEY DESCHUNEL!

Shaun of the Dead
If you have an inner nerd, watching this movie will make him (or her) wet themselves. It's a zombie movie done right, and it's a comedy done even better. Everything is so offbeat and weird that you can't help but like this movie. From the references to the running jokes, its always nice to see a well put together movie that isn't trying to take your money *cough* Transformers *cough*

Why you should watch it:

You'll have one liners with your friends for weeks.

Trainspotting

No holds barred. This movie is a fucked up portrayal of what happens when you get addicted to drugs. Some of the shit in this movie will have you even eyeing your Panado with suspicion. Above all this though, Trainspotting still manages to squeeze some comedy in, to great affect. Sure, not much can pull a movie back from (SPOILER ALERT) a dead baby, but Trainspotting finds it and runs with it.

Why you should watch it:

More realistic than the Wolf of Wall Street when it comes to hard drugs, which is something everyone needs to see.

Dear Zachary

I really can't say much about this one. Just watch this movie. 

Why you should watch it:

Because I'll give you ten bucks if you don't tear up at the end.