One Sentence Media Reviews
Outland fails because it’s right in the center of the camp / drama spectrum - too serious for accidental hilarity, too goofy and underdeveloped for serious art.
Great to see all the old grainy black and white footage of regular people in wisconsin in 1960, and some of the behind the scenes looks at jfk and humphrey - I nerd out for this sort of history stuff.
Even though this classic old drama only really has one point / joke to make, it makes it every well, and is worth a watch - the only other funny thing about it is that it feels like it was shot a decade earlier, not sure why.
This incredible spy intelligence thriller had me hooked from jump, PSH and the other cast are just perfect, what I really liked was how realistic and complex the writing was - no cheap tricks, just hard lessons.
Interesting sci-fi novel clearly converted from a series of shorts, interesting from emotional/character perspective and well written (short, packing a punch), some questionable setup elements and a terrible epilogue.
Very well-written history of financial fraud, lay perspective, readable but complex, sometimes funny, overall just super cool.
Jack Nicholson is always great at playing a stylish asshole, and in this character study of a lost and broken former piano player he does that quite well; movie didn’t have much more of a point to it than that tho.
In the ever expanding genre of “former special forces gets messed with by the wrong crooked organization”, this netflix original action thriller is well acted but poorly shot and only semi-adequately written.
Time travel in novels works best as poetry (nothing explained, vibes only) or as hard sci-fi (intensely careful plotting, solid internally consistent rules) - whereas this loose handwavy mix of jargon and clutter made no sense, and was totally unsatisfying.
This is a scholarly work concerning the way the ultra wealthy launder their consciences through nature, which is a fascinating idea and discussed in some depth here, but as a scholarly work this book is plodding, repetitive, and very careful, such that it doesn’t get as deep as I would’ve liked.
my old chestnut “Every book an essay” definitely applies to this very helpful but very repetitive parenting manual, although I do think that if one was coming to it with no previous conception of the approach, the repetition might be more useful than it was for me.
Having burned through this entire fantasy epic, my verdict is that it’s enjoyable and light, you could read it on the train or at the beach, it’s written with craft and each book has one or two great moments, but it’s missing something - verve, jazz, poetry… art, I guess.
Abundantly readable and exactly as satisfying an ending of a five book fantasy series as you could ask, but also totally boring - it seems like Abraham took the least-risk option every step of the way here, and so ends up with a conclusion that feels like the solution to a mathematical equation.
4th book in the dagger and coin series is another bridging story like the 2nd; as such, it’s a bit boring from an action perspective, but overall satisfying and clearly setting up a nice finale.
Just as nonsensical and whimsical and dark as many children’s movies of the era, but also (and this coming from someone who hates 80s music) the music kinda slaps.