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Manhunt (2024)
Perfectly watchable, not sure why folks are so upset
If you enjoy period pieces and/or procedural dramas and you don't mind a bit of a slow burn, you'll probably enjoy this series. Tobias Menzies is excellent (and does a really good American accent), even if he doesn't have the truly glorious beard the real Edwin Stanton had. Anthony Boyle is absolutely despicable as Booth, as he should be. Every scene with Lovie Simone is so tense and beautifully acted that I can't really take my eyes off the screen when she's on it.
As other reviewers have mentioned, there are of course historical inaccuracies. Duh. Every movie or series based on historical events has inaccuracies. If that bothers you to the point of distraction, then perhaps you should stick to documentaries. As for Lincoln's voice, which a lot of reviewers seem to find downright offensive, historian and Lincoln-enthusiast Harold Holzer has said that Lincoln was almost certainly a tenor based on contemporary accounts. Some who heard Abe speak even described his voice as high and shrill. It may be a bit jarring the first time you hear it, but Linklater's voice at least is consistent with contemporary descriptions of Lincoln's.
I also just genuinely don't know what the complaint about casting is. So what if some of these actors are better known for comic roles? They're definitely not playing their roles comically here. I don't find anyone particularly miscast.
This show is fine. It's not going to go down in the books as the greatest series ever, or even one of my favorites. But holy canoli, it's so much better than the majority of reviews are giving it credit for.
The Good Place: Live Panel Discussion (2020)
I hate to see it go, but I love to watch it leave
I don't have a lot to say, I just wanted to be clever with the title and didn't see if this was taken yet.
This was a perfect ending. I know it's a lot to ask, but this needs to be the standard by which sitcoms are measured from now on. The Good Place proves that (1) sitcoms can be smart and audiences will go with it; (2) they don't have to be all about relationship drama all the time; (3) and they don't have to keep going until every last bit of joy has been wrung out of them.
The Order (2019)
This show is soooooo thirsty
This show wants to be The Magicians so bad, they cast Todd and a charmless Quentin look-alike.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018)
Almost so bad it's great...almost
Favorite line of the series:
"I have some reservations about saving my body for the Dark Lord." I doubled over laughing at this line.
I like Miranda Otto, Lucy Davis, Michelle Gomez, and Richard Coyle. They seem to be the only ones having any fun at all with the campy gothic vibe. Everyone else is so painfully earnest that it started to grate on my nerves within a few minutes. The show takes a "tell, don't show" approach to its politics, making it heavy-handed, shallow, and boring. The race- and gender-minority characters are tokens, not representation. Sabrina's "feminism" appears to be all show, no substance, like it was written by someone who read a Take Back the Night pamphlet 23 years ago. The show wants, so badly, to have an original take on Satanism as a promotion of free choice, rather than evil, but also wants to have the Satan-worshiping characters totally cool with murder and cannibalism. They're trying to have it both ways, and just failing at both. Plus, it's like they think we're going to forget that everything in the supernatural world is sinister, so they have to remind us constantly. It's not a baptism, it's a "dark baptism." It's not the infirmary, it's the "infernal infirmary." I'm waiting for someone to say, "Let's meet in the spoooooky student lounge," or "I want an eeeeeeerie bagel!" (best read in silly ghost voice)
The show just can't quite commit to being Penny-Dreadful-dark or Addams-Family-camp. Both of Sabrina's worlds seem so unappealing that there are no real stakes. Her friends are milquetoast approximations of "issues that young people care about" and the magical world is just.so.dreary. If it leaned into the campiness harder, it could be great. The actors who do camp it up are proof of that. As it is though, it's a boring, unfocused, over-earnest mess.