The Last Of Us Season Two Overview: The Flaws Of Bella Ramsey

We return to the fungal zombie apocalypse.

So as someone who has played the games I knew what was coming and I will give the show props from not shying away from it. The death of Joel, Pedro Pascal, was controversial when the games came out and I knew it would be just the same here. Looking at the shows plunging ratings it is pretty clear that a number of people have checked out but I think if the show had saved it for the end of the season it would only have been worse.

I think the thing that has become glaringly clear in this second season is that Bella Ramsey is not a very strong actress and is struggling to carry the show on her own. They are becoming more and more reliant on Joel flashbacks and will no doubt have him appear as sort of grief induced visions over the third season to keep Pedro around. I think last season Ramsey’s inabilities were not so on view as they are here, but it is becoming ever more clear she was the wrong choice to play the character.

Moreover, I feel the pacing this time around feels slow, in many senses it feels like they are trying to stretch out the second game into three seasons to try and take it for all it is worth. I understand the idea to have one season from each of the girl’s points of view, but it does reek of filler. I wonder what the ratings will be like when it does come back.

Overall, very much like the game it started off well and then fell off a cliff.

2/5

Pros.

A few good scenes

It is interesting to learn more about the world

Cons.

Ramsey

It is using Joel too much as a crutch

The pacing

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Hostages: The Scary Power Of Influencers

Summary

A group of people get stuck in a hotel room.

So I watched this one a little while back in my day job, as a film festival programmer, and normally I don’t cross the streams but I thought that enough time had passed that I would write about it here.

So this is quite a funny comedy film about social media news and the corrupting effects of online fame and how quickly mass hysteria can form. In many sense this film works as it is timely however, I would say that it won’t feel dated as that sense of seeing coverage of something online and freaking yourself out is fairly timeless.

The cast are all strong though I would say that Charlotte Ritchie is probably the star of the show, especially as we see her go darker than she has done in past roles, particularly towards the end of the film. There is a moment where she reminds you just a little bit of Jim Jones or one of the classic cult leaders of the last century.

The humour is not hitting with a joke a minute, but does have a number of good jokes and recurring bits over the course of the film.

Overall, a funny British comedy film

4/5

Pros.

It is funny

Ritchie

The characters are likeable

It is timely but also timeless

Cons.

Not all the jokes land

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Andor Second Season Overview: Rape In Space, ICE, and Unfortunate Comments from Diego Luna

Summary

Andor returns for an incredibly slow second season.

In many ways this entire second season was a step back from the first, there was less action, less character development and even more things left open-ended.

The final arc of the second season wherein we were seeing more of the Partisans on the earlier rebellion should have been the main focus of this season, but instead we got wild weddings, an ICE allegory and far too many scenes of Syril’s mother. The first two arcs were boring filler that really added very little to the overall season. How was seeing Mon Mothma dancing for well over 5 minutes in any way necessary to understand the early rebellion. Gilroy has gone on to say that Kathleen Kennedy fought for him to have his vision but maybe just maybe this is one of those times she should have intervened.

Showing the Ghorman Massacre was interesting and probably the high point of the season but again this was far too drawn out with about 5 episodes leading up to the actual massacre. The pacing of this show is really what kills it for me in many ways. Likewise I thought the finale arc mainly revolving around Luthen’s assistant was a weird move as it prevented us getting closure with seemingly much more important characters in the narrative.

Overall, it is watchable but the pace is so bad it will send you to sleep.

2/5

Pro.

The Ghorman Massacre

Some of the earlier Rebellion stuff

Cons.

The pacing

The unanswered questions

Too many side characters

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Yellowjackets Season Three Overview: Falling Off

Summary

After a long hiatus the yellowjackets are back.

So by and large this was the worst season of the show. The fundamental question regarding that is why that is, was it because they never really had a clear plan for this show? Was it because the writers strike changed thing? Or are they trying to spin their wheels for as long as they can in order to profit off the show?

Who is to say, however, I will say that the first half of this season is damn near unwatchable with how slowly it is paced. The amount of filler that is being injected into this part of the show, would make even Millie Bobby Brown blush, it is infuriating to watch as you are left with week after week with basically nothing of major importance happening.

You have the season long mystery of who killed Lottie, Simone Kessell, which just feels like it comes out of nowhere, and the revelation of who did it was both obvious and also uninspiring. It just feels like such a missed opportunity, as there was far more ground they could have covered and directions they could have gone in if they had not done that.

Then you have what I think is the biggest flaw of the season Shauna. So Shauna, Melaine Lynskey, has always been shown to be cold blooded, however, in this season she goes off the rails in a cartoonish way trying to feed a woman a piece of her arm, and vowing to go after her husband and daughter who have left her and reclaim her Queenhood, meaning the savage side of her from her time in the Wilderness. This is coupled with the teen timeline where Shauna seemingly becomes even more of a supervillain as she can force other people to do what she wants with a bark and manages to keep well over ten people locked down when they want to leave with a glare. The writing here is absolutely stupid as it makes no logical sense how one small young woman could keep all of these other people at her mercy with one gun, yes she could shoot one of them but the rest would still get away. The writers I assume would explain Shauna’s fall to the dark side in the teen years by trauma resulting from the death of her child, yet even in that context this seems far fetch and simply as bad writing. They have turned Shauna into this almost psychopathic killer when she really wasn’t presenting as that before, they have likely done this to create drama and not for any other reason. It feels like extreme flanderisation.

Overall a step back in almost everyway from the previous two seasons.

2/5

Pros.

It still has some good moments

Hilary Swank

Cons.

The death of Lottie

How they change Shauna’s character

The pacing

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Opus: Yet More Black Girls Seeing Through White Men’s Nonsense

Summary

Yet another film about cults.

Why is Hollywood failing you ask? Well one of the many obvious answers to everyone but them is the fact that they repeat things over and over again until they grind an idea, theme, or even genre of film into the dirt. Enter cults. I understand the popularity of true crime, and as such executives think that films about cults even fictional ones will sell, and whilst that may have been right a few years ago, it is played out now.

Moreover, the on the nose messaging of a cult run by a white man, John Malkovich, with a mostly white power structure being foiled by an opinionated black woman, Ayo Edebiri, is incredibly cringe. This film goes what if Get Out was even more on the nose and we didn’t even try and hide the fact that the white people were in a cult. Yes you have a few non white characters also under the spell of the cult, to try and avoid points like these, but the fact the person leading it was white, the power structure was mainly white and it was a black girl resisting it, the message was clear as day. I have no issue with a well done message in my films, but when it comes to ham-fistedness I draw a line.

Overall, cinema tickets cost a lot of money, you have seen this before if you have ever watched either a film about cults, or a social horror film before.

1.5 /5

Pros.

It has some nice cinematography at times

It is short

Cons

The message is smacking you in the face with its obviousness

It is a rehash of better films

It has pacing issues

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Bring Them Down: Protect The Sheep Of Ireland

Summary

Two shepherding families go to war.

Before you get too excited no this is not an action film, rather a drama/thriller film. It works well in that regard, though it’s not one for everyone’s taste, there is unrelenting bleakness to the film not unlike something Shane Meadows might produce and you have to be prepared for that.

The escalating tension between the two families is well done and the built does feel delivered upon. However, the choice to go backwards in time and reframe things makes the film not only harder to follow but also slows it down, it does this to lead to an ending wherein the main character, played by Christopher Abbott, feels bad about what he has done, which in my mind does not work at all. The ending stunts the film as Abbott has been attacked and harassed since the start of the film he is within his rights to go after the family that killed his sheep and his dog.

Also there is a weird plot line at the beginning of the film wherein Abbott’s character got so angry he drove dangerously and killed his mother, and other than being brought up a few times this doesn’t really tie into anything in a meaningful way, maybe it was done to show he was a psychopath but then the film didn’t really go down that road with it.

Overall, a film with some promise but that is derailed by odd writing choices and a bad ending.

2.5/5

Pros.

The tension

The build

It is interesting

Cons.

The ending

The time stuff

The pacing

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The Girl With The Needle: The Horrors Of War

Summary

A harrowing journey through Danish history.

This film is not for the faint of heart, and I would advise if you want to watch this film to have something happy ready to watch after as its pretty bleak. The film follows a young woman, Vic Carmen Sonne, as she deals with an unwanted pregnancy in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. During this she comes into the employ of one of Denmark’s most notorious killers.

There is a gothic spectacle to this film that makes it a must see film in terms of truly feeling like you are going back in time. The oppressive world and the grim struggle of things feels just as overwhelming for you watching it as it does for the character as she lives it.

Overall, the film is harrowing but ultimately engrossing and capturing.

4/5

Pros.

The style

How engrossing it is

The tension

The atmosphere and the world created

Cons.

It is bleak

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Lost Dogs: Finding Your Way Home

Summary

A dog sitter, Brianne Buishas, fails.

Whilst at first appearances this film feels rather breezy and light on stakes, within minutes it grips you. Not only is the protagonist incredibly human and relatable, reminding you of times in your life when you had to do jobs you might not want to, might be over qualified for, might not be your dream but did as you needed the money, but once the dog goes missing then things really open up dramatically and the tension begins.

I was on the edge of my seat worrying about what might happen to the dog and was hoping it was not going to be the kind of drama film wherein the dog wouldn’t be found or it would be dead at the end. Luckily it is not, the film is more a meditation on what it means to grow up and become an adult, and I don’t mean the shift from child to adult, but rather the shift from being a student or being in your early twenties to maturity.

By dealing with issues and themes that are commonly effecting most people and a wider sense of the fear of failure this film manages to be both instantly relatable but also get under your skin and stick with you far after watching it, as it makes you question your own life to an extent.

Overall, a relatable and thought provoking exercise.

4/5

Pros.

It is relatable

There is a warmth there

It is transformative

It sticks with you

Cons.

Some of the supporting cast are a little underused

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Rumours: A Fitting Takedown Of Justin Trudeau

Summary

A group of politicians gather together to write a joint statement, things then get out of hand.

I enjoyed the satire of this film, I thought that it tried to do something different and poke fun in a smarter way at politicians and the wider political climate. However, certainly not all the aspects of it came together, I do think that some of the weirder stuff from the third act went a little bit too silly, I could see what they were trying to say but I think that it started to lose the intelligence it had built up in favour of trying to be more out there for the sake of it.

The cast is quite good I would say that this is Cate Blanchett’s film through and through and she does tower above everyone else in it. She is not the main character and the film acts as more of an ensemble yet whenever she does have a scene she steals it.

I wouldn’t say it was a laugh a minute, I would say that they are more few and far between but the film did make me laugh a few times and does have some good jokes in it, if you like the humour of something like VEEP, you will like it.

Overall, an original film if one that doesn’t completely work

3/5

Pros.

It has charm

It is original

Blanchette is good

Cons.

The third act doesn’t work

It has pacing issues

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Conclave: The Oscars Get It Wrong Again

Summary

A gathering of the cardinals is made appropriate for the 21st century, and you better like it you bigot.

So I had forgotten about this on first release but then I saw it later and excitedly remembered it and thought I’d give it a watch. On the surface this film should have been good, a sort of papal intrigue drama film about deciding who would be the new Pope. Yet whilst there was some of that there was also a lot of modern day filler like a whole plot about one of them being intersex, as it is 2024/2025 and you cannot release a film unless it has some form of representation like that.

Moreover, I found the dialogue to be a little stiff, what I mean by this is that for films that have lots of long drawn out scenes of people talking you need them to be gripping and yet here whilst the performers brought gravitas I found a lot of these scenes ended up feeling overly long. This film was always going to hinge on the quality of its writing, and sadly it got let down.

I don’t really see how this got nominated for an Oscar outside of the fact it has been a slow year, there is interest and a well put together narrative sans one sub-plot, I bet you can guess which, but by and large it doesn’t come together in the way an Oscar nominated film should.

Overall, another odd choice for Oscar nomination.

1.5/5

Pros.

It has some interesting moments

It is not your average slop

Cons.

The intersex storyline and how needless it is

The writing is patchy

There is pacing issues

It was broadly disappointing

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