Zach’s Zany TV Binge Watchin’ Reviews: BETTER CALL SAUL SEASON 5 (Netflix + AMC App & basically a review of the show as a whole)

It doesn’t really necessarily count as binge watching for me if I’ve watched the latest helping of BETTER CALL SAUL SEASON 5 over the past nine weeks, watching every new episode one it came out on a app now does it? But it does count as binge watching for you if you take my following recommendation: watch Breaking Bad on Netflix, it’s all there, then watch the El Camino Breaking Bad movie (love, love, LOVED it), and then start Better Call Saul, watch through season 4, and then borrow someone’s AMC Network log in information to watch all of Season 5. It’s going to be the best quarantine binge watching of your life. I guarantee it. Usually sequel or prequel series that come almost directly after one of the greatest television shows in history are doomed to fail, there is no way that the creators can reproduce that kind of quality so fast and the end product ends up nowhere near as masterful, sometimes even ruining and tarnishing a bit of the phenomenon that came before. But not Better Call Saul. It is the one and only television show that I have ever seen come so close to matching the glory of Breaking Bad, it’s absolutely astonishing that it has been able to pull it off so far, with each season being better than the last, and just getting that much closer to being the television show that Breaking Bad was. That’s right, Season 5 is easily the best season of the show, then 4, then so on to the first season. Not saying the first season is bad at all, just want to get it in your head the fact that this show that keeps on getting better and better is an almost near impossible feat. Yet it still does it.

After this season, there is one more green lit season (who knows when it’ll actually start getting filmed because of bitch ass COVID) and in the end, if you count the El Camino movie as one episode of Breaking Bad, both Better Call Saul and it will have had the same amount of episodes. 63, I think. Which to me, is perfect, stay in the game to tell the story it needs and then goes out on top without any sort of bad after taste whatsoever. If you don’t know what Better Call Saul is (first off, shame on you) it’s a prequel series to Breaking Bad that stars Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill and his eventual transformation into the sleazy criminal lawyer named Saul Goodman that we all love to hate in the masterful series that starred Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul. And while the series has had some minor cameos from old Breaking Bad alumni (Tuco, Crazy 8, Huell, Lydia etc.) and some major series regular call backs (Mike and Gus) it hasn’t felt the need to be a fan service kind of series, but one that stands out on its own, making the call backs tiny little winks, but then getting down to the original nitty gritty so to speak. The story telling is wonderful, and with each season, Jimmy slips deeper into becoming Saul, but also has giant satisfying character arcs of other original characters that were never in Breaking Bad, for example, Kim Wexler, played amazingly by the wonderful Rhea Seehorn. While she’s been a major supporting background character, season 5 was her’s to shine, revealing something shocking about her by the end that we didn’t know we were supposed to know all along. You’ll see, it’s just a fantastic narrative.

The early seasons dealt mainly with Jimmy and the relationship with his brother Chuck, and while those were the weaker seasons to be sure (but still wonderfully addicting), Season 4 and 5 have gotten so close to the quality of Breaking Bad, it’s unbelievable. My God, if in Season 6, they can stick the landing just like the last season of Breaking Bad did, you’ll have two series and a movie that will be unmatched and unrivaled for the years to come. “But what about Game of Thrones?” FUCK GAME OF THRONES. It was masterful until those two schlock showrunners David Benioff & D.B Weiss ran out of book material and pulled shit out of their ass to bring us one of the worst final seasons I have ever seen out of a tv show. And while I love 24, only really season 1 or 5 of that show got anywhere near the ballpark of (and certainly not even in the stadium) of how great Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are. It is storytelling, acting, cinematography, editing…to absolute PERFECTION. Breaking Bad is a perfect series and Better Call Saul is a near perfect series, with El Camino as a nice, sweet, really great, yet unnecessary epilogue for both of them. If you haven’t watched any of it, you are a moron. I said it, a moron. And well, if you have nothing to do right now…what are you waiting for? Especially if you haven’t heard any sort of spoilers whatsoever. You are in for an absolute treat. The only bad thing is we’ll probably have to wait another year to 2 years for the final season. Fuck you COVID-19, you fucking FUCK.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: UNCORKED (Netflix)

If you are willing to paddle through all the overdone cliches and father/son relationship career angles that you’ve seen a dozen times before in other movies, UNCORKED is a delightful find on Netflix. I was willing to forgive all that because I was entertained, the performances were pretty great, the ending threw me for a loop, and the fact that it was a unique career that the main protagonist was going after that I hadn’t seen done before in another movie. The film is about a twenty something African American named Elijah who doesn’t want to inherit the family owned Memphis barbeque business from his father, but instead wants to become a sommelier. If you don’t know what a sommelier is, it is a wine steward, you know, you seen them if you’ve ever seen the movie Sideways or taken a wine tour, someone that can be given a taste of a wine blindly, and know everything about it. Year, where it came from, other origins, etc., etc. You see them in very fancy restaurants. The film takes a unique tour of how to become one, all wrapped around a family drama of what ones parents expect out of their child. Everything that is supposed to happen in one of these films is like poetry to me when I’m watching it. I was pointing at the screen with my wife and like, “this is the big fight between father and son,” or “this is where the mom wants to support her son and defies the husband,” and the enivitable “this is where the father sees the light.” But thankfully I was able to look past all that, and enjoy the best wine film since Sideways itself.

The writer and director of this film, Prentice Penny, when looking up his career, mostly in television, has written some fantastic episodes of stuff that I’ve actually watched such as: Scrubs, Happy Endings, Insecure, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. This is his first feature. And he did a pretty excellent job, definitely knows his way behind the camera, and is definitely an actor’s director because of the performances. The film mainly stars Mamoudou Athie as Elijah, Courtney B. Vance as his father, and Niecy Nash as his mother. I love love love love love love LOVE Mamaoudou Athie, I’ve been following his career closely ever since his excellent turn in his supporting role in Patti Cakes. This is his first headlining feature, and once again, he knocks it out of the part. Producers and casting directors need to start letting this guy be a leading man. He has that spotlight and presence. I heard he has been cast in the third and last Jurassic World movie and so far that casting decision is the only reason why I still have any interest in the series after the disasterous Fallen Kingdom. Courtney B. Vance is great in this as well, the man can act, just watch him play Johnny Cochran in American Crime Story, the OJ Simpson Season. Niecy Nash, who I’ve only really known for her character in Reno 911! is excellent here. She probably has the most dramatic role with just that little comedic relief to show how great of an actress she is when given the right material. Everybody in great in this, parts big and small.

The best parts of the movie are easily Elijah’s studies to become a sommelier. Yes, the cliched father’s animosity toward his son for not wanting to inherit the family business is still watchable and interesting here, but since you know where that is going to end up going, the movie needs another clutch to make the movie kick into high gear. All the wine tasting, studying, and guessing stuff was a lot of fun to watch. And Niecy Nash’s arc. This movie probably was bought by Netflix, because there is no way a theater would take a movie like this nowadays, especially since the story lines have been done to death. And while Netflix gives us mediocre crap like Love Wedding Repeat and really bad pieces of shit like Wine Country, eventually they will have to give us something pretty good like Uncorked to balance everything out. So basically, if you liked the movie Sideways, if you like wine, or barbeque, or can’t get enough of that family career dynamic that has been done to death, I definitely recommend checking this out if you are bored and have nothing to watch. It’s definitely a nice little find on this streaming platform that is used to uncorking a bunch of stinkers before you get that perfect chardonnay that you drink up in less than a couple of hours. An hour and forty four minutes to be precise.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: LOVE WEDDING REPEAT (Netflix)

My first sentence for my review for the new Netflix film starring Sam Caflin and Olivia Munn called LOVE WEDDING REPEAT is going to be generic as possible and then I’ll dive into more details later: It was okay. The real problem of the film is that makes a broken promise out of the log line on several film sites, including IMDB’s: “While trying to make his sister’s wedding day go smoothly, Jack finds himself juggling an angry ex-girlfriend, an uninvited guest with a secret, a misplaced sleep sedative, and the girl that got away in alternate versions of the same day.” Yeah, really just two alternate versions. The first original version goes on for so long (about a full hour into the only hr and 40 minute run time) that I thought that maybe in the process of putting the final touches on the movie the editor said “fuck it” and decided to just deliver a straight forward one timeline comedy. But then it finally goes completely off the rails ridiculousness wise and pauses and then I knew that the film’s concept was going to have to switch dramatically. I was correct. It switches to a bunch of different versions of the same wedding day in a weird mini montage type situation that stays mostly at one of the important wedding reception tables for two to three minutes (and then some cut moments weirdly in the end credits), and then just ends with the correct time line with the last thirty five. This did not work for me. I was expecting something like Happy Death Day or Groundhog Day, where it shows a bunch of versions and the editing is near perfect with the flow of the narrative. This mediocre Netflix film (which I should’ve thought was too good to be true in the first place) complete botches and almost completely incinerates the “Repeat Day” movie.

“Whoa Zach, then how did you come to the conclusion that it was okay?” Well because the acting and dedication of the cast made the film watchable and enjoyable at parts, that’s why. At this point in time and in this country, I’m starting to give “eh” movies into a reasonable benefit of the doubt. Sam Claflin (the hot muscular that reveals he’s on Katniss’ side near the end of Catching Fire) is one of the main leads, and he is delightfully and subtly funny throughout the whole thing. The other main female lead is played by Olivia Munn, who while I don’t find her as a very good actress (to me she has and still is wonderful eye candy), she does give her best performance since her role in The Newsroom series, where she has this monologue in the latter half of the movie where she describes losing her mom and in those two minutes she has shown the most sincerity ever in a role. There are other players here that you may or may not know. The brides Maid of Honor (or Man of Honor as he wants to be called) is played by that guy that was main lead’s friend in the film Yesterday, the girl interested in him is played by the wife in that Paul Rudd recent series, Living With Yourself, and Frieda Pinto, the female lead that won our hearts in Slumdog Millionaire, has a small part as Caflin’s ex girlfriend that got invited to the wedding as well. Frieda Pinto is fantastic in her small part, and it makes me wish that she got more stardom after Millionaire and not all those indie projects lost in the vast sea of never ending straight to video fare.

The movie, other than the wasted “Same Day Over & Over” gimmick, is basically Can’t Hardly Wait or Death At A Funeral, and instead of taking place at a house party or a funeral, takes place almost entirely at the wedding (after a cute and brief introductory scene). What makes the latter film I mention funny is that the guy that wrote that film, wrote and direct this one. Death At A Funeral (the British version that is) is a far superior film, and the writer/director Dean Craig needs to work on his directing skills. The camera is all over the place, breaking two person framing, fuck even breaks multi purpose framing, and with the editing a little choppy in parts, it doesn’t help the entire feature at all. But there are a few embarrassing character moments that are really funny because of the actors and the expressions on their faces, the story is cliched but decently entertaining enough, and the main point: it is watchable, especially if you just few it as a light comedic chick flick. My wife loved watching it with me during quarantine, and for all the husbands out there, isn’t that all we are hoping for in dire times like these? Find one of these films, bear it, rinse and repeat is what I say, and maybe we’ll come out if this with a good old fashioned Hollywood ending.

Zach’s Zany TV Binge Watchin’ Reviews: TIGER KING – MURDER, MAYHEM, AND MADNESS (Netflix)

This is it. The review you’ve all been waiting for. I did it. I managed to watch all seven episodes of this dumpster fire in the middle of this giant trainwreck with endless gasoline being poured over the entire scene of the crime. Who do I blame for sitting down and actually not being able to look away from TIGER KING: MURDER, MAYHEM, AND MADNESS? I blame the endless string of hilarious gifs and memes I didn’t quite understand. I blame some of you that kept fucking messaging me to watch the show and write this review. I blame COVID-19 for me running out of shit quickly to review. I blame a whole bunch of God damn things. But I did it, so the least you can do is read this whole review, especially if you were one of the ones that specifically asked this from me. This won’t be a long review, I’m not going to jump in and dive into every single detail and frame of all seven episodes. This is going to be a broad review, crossing some t’s, dotting some i’s, and figuring out some WTF’s. Basically, I am going to review this as if I was watching a feature length documentary, in a movie theater. I’m going to review it on several levels: is it well made? does it get its point across? is this a story that was worth being told? Did it entertain? Did I laugh my ass off? Did I come out of it respecting the human race better than I did before? And probably the most important question in your minds: did Carole Baskin kill her first husband? The answers, before I go into detail on them is: Not really, Sort Of, Yes, Yes, Hell Yes, Fuck No, and bitch did that shit.

Is this documentary well made? Not really. Out of the seven episodes, the three best are easily the third, fourth, and fifth episodes. Why? Because they don’t lose focus with the points of Joe Exotic’s story that they wanted to tell. They focus on one or two specific things and stick with it. The first two episodes are all over the place in terms of narrative story telling. We are introduced to characters at random without really being introduced to them. It jumps to too many points in time just making sure it gets every single ounce of crazy into the viewers brains. I had to rewind several times just to make sure I was getting the entire picture and sometimes I just gave up after several rewinds and just went with it, hoping I’d understand it later. The sixth and seventh episodes, while still having a bit of focus, more than the first two, feel like they are stretching out the story too much, and it could’ve condensed the information into a tighter 6 episode arc. I personally think it all could’ve been a really tight tale in just 3 or 4 complete hour long episodes. We didn’t need seven (5 hrs, 17 minutes total). Way too much. What I’m trying to say is that even with some focus the sixth and seventh episodes are redundant and quite boring (yes, I didn’t find the murder for hire part all that interesting). This entire limited series, if you think about it, is a lopsided burger. The first two episodes represent a small top bun with a bunch of condiments thrown together and mixed up too much, nothing nice and layered. Episodes 3, 4, and 5 is the nice juicy meat of the story, really good angus beef that satisfies with its bombastic yet tightly focused story and shocking revelations. Episode 6 and 7 are the little tiny spray of ketchup or mustard on the underside of the meat patty with a giant un-flavorful bottom bun that’s teetering at the edge of falling off your picnic table.

Does it get its point across? Sort of. The point of this cautionary tale is buried under a shit ton of information, but it is there, you just have to dig deeper into the situation, past what the documentary provides, in order to completely understand it. I constantly had to do Google research after this to put several more pieces of the giant endless puzzle together. I get that this documentary is going to make you do research anyway, mostly for the best memes or gifs, but you shouldn’t have to do that much research afterward to piece everything together in order to “get” it. It’s a bit of a mess, but I was able to eventually see a complete picture. There is just tons and tons and tons of information and footage, each almost outlandish than the last. The whole thing just needed more focus. Do I really need to tell you what it’s about? Probably not, because if I do, it will just get me into spoilers, so I’ll “borrow” IMDB.com’s log line : “A rivalry between big cat eccentrics takes a dark turn when Joe Exotic, a controversial animal park boss, is caught in a murder-for-hire plot.” That’s all you need to know, except one thing: the murder-for-hire plot is the LEAST interesting thing about this show. Which answers the next question: is it a story worth being told? Abso-fucking-lutely. Just like the poster says, it is such a ridiculous story, if you told someone about it in words, no one would fucking believe your ass. But with all this footage, they have that gateway to prove that story true, even if all the information cobbled together is a bit of a mess.

Did it entertain? Yes. There are a couple of boring parts, really only in the last two episodes, but even with the first two episodes being an unfocused, giant pile of crazy info, this documentary completely entertains. I’ve never heard of this guy, Joe Exotic, till now and what shocks me is I probably never would have if not for this documentary. He’s just absolutely bat shit crazy. Did I laugh my ass off? Hell yes. I laughed my ass off more times than I could count, and combine it with the gifs and memes I had seen before starting the show, I was in tears on the floor, my voice cracking with all my uncontrollable laughter. Not to get into any spoilers that will ruin your laughs but Joe Exotic’s mannerisms, internet shows, feud with Carole Baskin, a euology at a funeral, some really weird photos and weddings, and the worst tattoo ever is just some of the things you are in for. Did I come out of it respecting the human race better than I did before? Fuck no. There aren’t really any likable characters in this. When at times Joe Exotic is somewhat sympathetic he just goes off and does something shady and monstrous to make you hate him. Even his husbands, apparently straight and with meth teeth, don’t come out looking too great on the other side of things, one part of their story will shock you to the point of your draw dropping on the floor and going into the Earth. Even the other rival tiger, big cat “rescue” operations owners are unlikable, scummy, and weird. Multiple wives, sex cults, and what not. Which brings us to my final paragraph: Carole Baskin.

That bitch killed her husband. I’m not surprised to learn that the disappearance case of her first husband has been reopened after this documentary aired. There is enough evidence alone in this documentary that she really was the only one that could’ve had something to do with it, or that son of a bitch just really was that sneaky and is sipping a Pina Colada on some remote island some where, having finally gotten rid of the cunt. Maybe he as even since died on that remote island with a completely new identity so no one would ever know. Carole Baskin is an awful bitch. She has resting bitch face, a couple of “sympathetic” qualities, but with all of her mannerisms and her behind the scenes actions, you know she’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. No doubt about it in my mind. And if she ends up going to jail because of the documentary, that would make me respect this whole seven episodes of craziness even more. So, in conclusion: you should definitely check this thing out. While I would say that the hype of this limited docu-series is bigger than the actual product, it is still an interesting as hell story. And even though the series is a little unfocused and gives the viewer too much information and then just keeps throwing in multiple kitchen sinks to add to the run time, it is still entertaining. Plus, in the end you will secretly want to be in on all the gifs and memes you’ve seen out there and will want to start making some of your own after all is said and done. While not the best (I still think the long OJ Simpson and Aaron Hernandez documentaries and some of Michael Moore’s stuff is much, much better ((and organized)) than this), it certainly earns the throne of king of crazy ass documentaries. Enter at your own risk.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: DAVE CHAPPELLE – THE KENNEDY CENTER MARK TWAIN PRIZE FOR AMERICAN HUMOR (FEATURE LENGTH NETFLIX SPECIAL)

Holy fuck that title is a mouthful isn’t it? And holy fuck, when did I start doing reviews on specials? **someone whispers in my ear** Oh that’s right, COVID-FUCKIN-19. Anyway, how did this thing come on Netflix in January and I basically just randomly ran across it when cruising Netflix yesterday? Doesn’t matter, I’m just glad I did. DAVE CHAPPELLE: THE KENNEDY CENTER MARK TWAIN PRIZE FOR AMERICAN HUMOR was a little delightful hour and 25 minute special celebrating the life and accomplishments of Dave Chappelle, probably my favorite comedian of all time. I grew up with him as a teenager and caught ALL of Chappelle’s Show when it was broadcast for the first time on Comedy Central, I’ve seen him twice live in stand up specials, and I’ve watched all of his stand up specials wherever I could find them. Dave Chappelle is a genius. He’s genius in his art, in his craft, and his lifestyle choices. The man has somehow found a way to make fun of everyone and everything, no stone un-turned, and has had the least amount of triggered people after him that I have ever seen. How one does that, especially nowadays, is damn near impossible. But somehow he has done it. And I am forever grateful.

This special is basically a bunch of other comedians, actors, writers, commentators, and musicians, and then like a roast but no one bashes him harshly, himself, that talk about the entire life and career of Mr. Chappelle, from birth to where he is today. There are a couple of short musical performances, but mostly remembrances, with grand praises and gratitude for the comedic legend. There are also clips from his career, from his early stand up, to Chappelle’s Show, to his recent stand up (he was basically absent for 12 years after his epiphany when leaving the Show after only 2 seasons). Basically the whole thing is to tell Dave how much everyone and the world means to him, while getting some laughs, and maybe even a few tears out of him. And then he thanks everyone. It was a nice, easy little feature to watch, and it mainly makes you want to go back and watch all of his stand up from the beginning, Chappelle’s Show, and then his recent stand up, all over again. You could tell that this even was probably about really 3 hrs in length, and you know what? The only disappointing thing about this feature is that we weren’t shown the entire thing.

I would have gladly watched it, no matter how long it was. They could’ve at least kept the entire musical performances from the musicians he respected the most. They felt like really short little stanzas of their music and it was a little awkward when it just cuts off and ends. Basically, if you love Dave Chappelle like I do and have followed his career almost from the beginning, or hell if you are just now discovering Dave Chappelle, this special is a definite must watch. Can’t really rank it in my best films of 2020 because it isn’t really a movie per say, but needless to say, I would definitely watch this again. It’s a big tribute to a man who’s genius is unmatched. He is an incredible comedian, person, artist, what have you. The fact that he can tell it like it is, while only really butt hurting just a handful of people is nothing short of amazing. The fact that someone can yell at you, “I’m Rick James, bitch!” and pull up a bunch of fond memories of the man…well…he definitely deserved this award and then some. Congratulations Dave Chappelle, I’m very, very happy you won this award.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: COFFEE & KAREEM (Netflix)

COFFEE & KAREEM, a new movie that debuted on Netflix today starring Ed Helms and Taraji P. Henson, is like a more vulgar, obnoxious dumb, stupid, fucking terrible remake of Cop And A Half…and if you don’t know what that movie is (Burt Reynolds is in it), all you need to know is that it is considered once of the worst films of the 90’s. So saying that Coffee & Kareem is worse than that…you know I’m saying something. Were the producers of Netflix smoking crack while watching this film and deciding to purchase it for their streaming service? That’s the only logical explanation for this tone deaf piece of shit that is a giant waste of time. And usually my whole deal is that I really, really like young kid cursing movies with dick, sex and fart jokes galore. BUT…that is only when they have heart, like the movie Good Boys. While that film was vulgar, the message of it, and the jokes, had heart in them, which is what made the movie hilarious and cute. Coffee & Kareem is just a bunch of people yelling at each other for an hour and 28 minutes. And the yelling become obnoxious very very fast. And the jokes are vulgar and gross just for the sake of being vulgar and gross…which I hate. This film has no hearts, no smarts, and not one decent joke that deals with farts. Another giant Netflix bomb to be precise.

And what really is odd is that it contains one of the worst performances I’ve seen all year from Betty Gilpin, who actually is a decent actress on Netflix’s girl wrestling series Glow and she made the most recent movie The Hunt entertaining and a little bad ass. Here she plays an obnoxious cop that just screams obscenities at people…and she can’t even pull that off realistically. It screams paycheck. Anyway, the movie is really about a white cop named Officer Coffee, played by Hangover’s Ed Helms, that is dating an African American woman, played by Taraji P. Henson, and them deciding to reveal who’s she dating to her young 12 year old son named Kareem, who before he’s informed of their tryst, catches them in the act of having sex. Kareem then decides to get revenge on this white cop by trying to hire a local gangster to scare Coffee, but it backfires, forcing Coffee and Kareem to team up in order to save themselves from Detroit’s most ruthless drug kingpin. If that sounds really dumb, it’s as dumb as it sounds. And all the racial jokes you can think of try to fly and then land here but end up stumbling all over the place combined with the worst obnoxious pedophile child rape jokes I have ever heard. If you can imagine, it’s all in very bad taste. The movie tries to have heart at the very end of the film (heart in one or two lines of dialogue), but everything before it is so nasty and rude that all of it feels forced to the point of ridiculousness.

Ed Helms plays a bumbling idiot, nothing new from him, it’s basically his character from The Office and The Hangover movies combined. How his character was even approved to be a police officer to begin with is baffling. Taraji P. Henson basically plays her character from Empire, Cookie, but just a little toned down. And the kid that plays Kareem, just spouts off vulgar joke after vulgar joke, making him completely unlikable, when the movie should be playing him with just enough sympathetic traits to make the audience relate to him more. But nope, it’s “the officer tried to rape me” this or “the officer tried to touch my penis” that every five minutes. The plot is contrived, it of course involves drugs, money, crooked cops, dumb fucking criminals, pointless shootouts, dumb twists and reveals, cheap production value, over the top bad acting…it’s just a giant piece of shit. When I saw the trailer to this, I laughed at the title, for how simple and dumb it was, and knew it was going to be a piece of shit, and I wasn’t wrong. People that like this movie probably liked the movie Sextuplets with Marlon Wayans, that’s how bad it is. And if you liked that movie, and if you liked this, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM WHY WE STILL GET SHITTY MOVIES LIKE THIS…AND ESPECIALLY IN THIS WEIRD TIME OF THIS COVID-19 WORLD….all I have left to say…is FUCK YOU. Whoever wrote this film, his career should be over, along with the director, along with the producers at Netflix that picked this up. I’m willing to give the actors another shot as sometimes, you just gotta get that paycheck to keep on living. They are probably especially happy now that they did it, considering they probably won’t get enough work in awhile…fuck you COVID-19. I’m blaming you about 5% for this shitty film. Easily one of the worst films of 2020.

Zach’s Zany TV Binge Watchin’ Reviews: OZARK SEASON 3

Well, this time my Facebook was blocked because of some dumb error with my young son accidentally changing my birth date on the site. My fucking…birth date (I didn’t have another meltdown so no worries, just if you are close to me, text me). So I’ve had to send Facebook a picture of my government ID and they had a COVID-19 warning saying there are less people being able to confirm ID’s so mine might not be looked at for some time or not at all until this is over. Fan-fucking-tastic. Well, I’m not going to let something small like that prevent me from writing my reviews. But with this whole end of the world thing happening, new movies are going to be scarcer and scarcer to come by in the coming months. Who knows when theaters will reopen…so it’s down to new 2020 movies that I haven’t seen yet that came out earlier this year (and I didn’t see them because they looked like shit), straight to video on demand shit, and TV Bingeing shit. Fuck, I’ve even gotten to episode 3 of Tiger King, eventually reviewing that massive train wreck to my constant readers just to fill my review writin’ void. But for right now, let me review the exact opposite of a train wreck…well in terms of quality at least…OZARK SEASON 3 on Netflix. If you are in a small corner of television binge watching and have never heard of this television series before, it stars Jason Bateman and Laura Linney, and it’s basically a much more dark and depressing version of Breaking Bad, except not as masterful as that show (but I mean, it’s still pretty good, just nothing will probably ever beat Walter White or Jesse Pinkman for me). And while Breaking Bad is a nice and slow burn for how much shit all the characters have to go through, Ozark puts their characters fast and furious through a blender several times in just a one hour episode. It’s ten episodes of all the characters digging deeper holes for themselves a dozen times in the span of sixty minutes. And I fucking love every second of it.

The whole series itself is about a family that has to relocate their family to the Ozarks to launder money for a Mexican drug cartel. Yeah there are a bunch of different plot threads over the first two seasons, but I’m not going to get into those because it will take all day. For a quick little summary of what starts this season, Jason Bateman and Laura Linney successfully opened a casino on the lake, basically another front to launder more drug money for the cartel. The casino is mainly run by their curly haired sailor mouth named Ruth (one of the highlights of the entire series, the actress, Julia Garner, just won an Emmy last year), and when we start season 3, the casino is running smoothly…until the FBI starts doing an audit of their enterprise. That’s basically all you need to know and that a new character enters the game, Laura Linney’s character has a brother named Ben Davis, that causes some problems, even though he’s a good character at heart. But you’ve heard of the road to hell being paved with the best intentions right? Anyway, shitty thing after shitty thing begins happening to a lot of these characters, and they either die, or come up with some elaborate fucking way to narrowly escape their predicaments. It’s fantastic television to say the least. The direction is great (Jason Bateman always directs the first two episodes, I wish he did them all, he won an Emmy last year for one of his directorial efforts), the cinematography is dark, blue, and moody, the acting is top notch, and the story is fast paced and tense as hell. If you love shit like that, you’ll love this series, and you should start from the beginning if you haven’t already.

But if you are an Ozarkian like myself and was already caught up before Season 3 premiered all ten episodes last week, you are in for a treat. Now, the question that everyone asks is, is this the best season so far? I’d say that this and the first season are pretty on par for how great they are. Season Two lost a little bit of quality from the first, but not that much, all three are very tight pieces of solid entertainment. The most valuable player this season isn’t Ruth, but the new character, Ben Davis, played by Tom Phlphrey (Iron Fist season 1 and 2). He’s excellent as a bi polar family member that tries to do good, but just ends up making things worse. Episodes 8 and 9 will probably win him a best supporting actor Emmy this next award season. He’s really that good. In the end, I love this series, and hope it gets picked up for Season 4, as Season 3 ends in a literal bang, one that made me jump out of my seat it was so unexpected. Season one of Ozark took my about a week to get thru, Season two I finished over a weekend and regretted it (just because it felt like I did nothing of use that weekend), this one I finished in 5 days. That’s how good it is. If I’m going to revisit television shows in the future, it will always first be Breaking Bad, followed by Better Call Saul, 24, Lost…and depending on how it ultimately ends, probably somewhere in between, Ozark. It keeps pulling you in, and you let it, because the white knuckle ride is worth it.

Zach's Zany Movie Reviews: THE PLATFORM (Netflix)

You didn’t think you’d see me this soon again now did ya? Yet, I am scraping the bottom of the barrel with streaming movies (as long as they are new for the U.S. as of 2020) and several of my movie sites I frequent pointed me to THE PLATFORM, a new international feature film that debuted on Netflix last Friday. There is always some kind of small treasure when you search the bottom of barrels, and needless to say, this was a very nice small treasure. Now, I say international feature film, and now you are probably smacking your head because you are in fear that means you’ll have to go above and beyond like you did recently to watch and read the subtitles to the 2019 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, Parasite. However, this is not subtitled, it’s a new hurtle that you’ll have to get over if you want to enjoy the film…it is dubbed. It is a Spanish science fiction horror film, with a high concept. If you’ve ever heard about or scene the movie Cube, it is kind of like that, but not really (I’ll get to the synopsis in a moment). But it is DEFINITELY original, and after about 5 minutes I got over the dubbing (the voices not matching the lip movements) and enjoyed this nice and tight 1 hr and 35 minute feature that has no filler, didn’t blink once, I was quite amazed at how solid it is. Definitely one of those rare Netflix treats that you don’t want to miss.

The concept (without going into spoilers, and borrowing from IMDB and Wikipedia because I’m just too lazy nowadays to put it in my own words: “The film is set in a large, tower-style prison where the inmates are fed by means of a platform that gradually descends the levels of the tower, ostensibly a fair system if each inmate takes only their fair share of food, but deeply inequitable in practice as inmates at the top levels have the ability to take much more food and leave less for those below them.” And now we get to a little of my own description: Two men wake up on level 48, not knowing each of each other’s back stories, but one of them has been in the prison already for a little while and knows the ups and downs. They are going to have to learn to get along so they can survive long enough to outlast their sentences. Aaaaaaand that’s where I am going to stop. Any more and I would spoil the many surprises that the film has in store for you. And when I say many surprises, I MEAN MANY. In bold. This movie completely subverted my expectations, with one hell of a roller coaster ride that leads to a near perfect ending that I didn’t see coming. The film is very layered with messages, such as politics, socialism, etc. but doesn’t beat you over the head with any of them. The Platform is finely crafted, and you can tell the filmmakers spent a lot of time fine tuning it so that all audiences could enjoy.

I am not familiar with the director or any of the actors, so I won’t get into too many particulars, but needless to say, the acting is top notch and the direction even better. The film is dark, gritty and shot masterfully. It’s a high concept that pays off. Now while this film is being described as horror. It isn’t a jump out at you cheap jump scare type of thing. Like Hereditary, Midsommer, or any other well written horror film that doesn’t contain any jump scares, this is a movie that preys and feasts on the mind, making you shudder if you try to put yourself into the situation of any of the inmates there. It will chill you to your bone. So I’m gonna make this review short because I feel like I’m about to blab about something that should be saved in your viewing. If you can get past the dubbing, which for me was less then 5 minutes, and you get to the core of the story, you are going to have a helluva time with The Platform. In fact, I want to re watch it soon just so I can pick out things planted within the movie that I might’ve missed on first viewing. Just like the prison, this film has many layers, and its story will stick with me for quite some time.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: LOST GIRLS (Netflix)

It’s only fitting that my last review for the time being (nothing scheduled to hit original film streaming wise for the next two weeks) is trying to persuade you to not watch this film. Especially when you will watch it anyway, because its one of the only things you haven’t seen. But let it be known, in my opinion, LOST GIRLS, a new movie that just premiered on Netflix this past week, is a massive disappointment. Clocking in at a measly 1 hr and 35 minutes (including credits), this really only feels like half a movie, 40-45 minutes lost somewhere to…God only knows what. And it is very frustrating because you will see that there is a more meticulous story in there somewhere. I mean, it is a true story about one woman’s determination to find her missing daughter, feared that she was killed by The Long Island Serial Killer. Serial killer movies, especially the ones based off real life are fascinating because they usually go into the mind of the killer to try and figure out why the fuck he/she was doing what they were doing. This film, just to forewarn you, doesn’t show the serial killer, mainly because, he still hasn’t been caught to this day, so we don’t have any sense of his actions or of where he was exactly when. So it relies on this woman’s story fed up with the police investigation, which she says is lazy, and tries to find her daughter (whether it be body or alive) on her own. One of the other main problems with the movie is, it is only one sided.

There are constant scenes of Amy Ryan (who plays this real life mother named Mari Gilbert) talking about how the police are ineffectively doing their jobs and completely fucking up the investigation. However, we don’t ever see the other side really. I mean, we do see Gabriel Bryne’s almost retired detective doing some work (and it didn’t seem to me to be ineffective), but she just keeps spouting off what the police are doing wrong, but we never see it. We as an audience are just supposed to take her work for it, and that be that. That’s why I think it is only half a movie. If the filmmakers really agreed with how the police fucked up the investigation leading to an arrest, THEY NEED TO SHOW IT ON FILM. That is a perfect example of what could’ve been in those (not confirmed, only saying what it feels like to me) 40 minutes that could’ve added a lot of (no pun intended) meat to the bones of this story. The story also jumps in time erratically (we are told through dialogue it is one year later yet everything else that happens still feels like it was yesterday), which leads to the audience asking questions like, “what the fuck is happening?” Albeit, those questions are better answered than say the other newer film on Netflix (and worst film of the year for me so far) titled The Last Thing He Wanted, but still, if you are going to have leaps in time or actions, they all need to be transitioned better.

Her investigation leads to her daughter’s (this is early on, so not really a spoiler) life as a sex worker (the Long Island Serial Killer is known to be targeting women sex workers), and so there are a couple of sex workers that knew her daughter and they sit around and have like a therapy session type thing in some scenes, and all of that felt hugely out of place for me. I can see why those scenes were in there, as in they show that even though they are sex workers, they are human beings and a community in themselves worried about their own, but the scenes feel randomly inserted. This goes back to the editing and pacing problem I just talked about. Those scenes in the movie needed to feel more natural, and it feeling like only half a film, it takes a jarring toll on the rest of the story. The acting is one of the only saving graces of the film, as Amy Ryan and one of her daughters still alive, played by JoJo Rabbit’s Thomasen McKenzie, are excellent here. There are the only two that really got me through the film. Now let’s talk about the ending without getting into spoilers. I think I can do it. So the film ends where it should, but then there is a epilogue of text, and that epilogue of text is so shocking (I didn’t do any research about the real life stuff beforehand) that I think it shouldn’t have been text, but in the film. It would’ve made for a shocking yet depressing ending to be sure, as it really did happen, and again, that’s part of what feels like it is missing from the movie. Had the text only epilogue been a harrowing scene in the movie…I could’ve maybe seen me giving it a mild recommendation.

So yeah, I’m basically giving this movie a negative review because it felt like half a movie. That’s it. The cinematography is good, it feels gritty and dark the entire way through. Already said the acting was top notch. And the fact that there is a great, great story in there just adds on to the massive disappointment of what could’ve been. I don’t know, if any of this sounds interesting to you, maybe you should have a watch because you will probably like it more than me. Especially in these dark COVID-19 times where you are going to be relying on watching a bunch of shit to keep you sane through quarantine. And not just watching any bunch of shit, but new shit you haven’t seen before. I was even debating on doing this review but I figure, since it’s my last one for a couple of weeks, might as well, even if its negative. Because while I might review something, it’s still your choice whether or not to watch it, which is fine (even though I might give some of you shit for watching other, worse, films). And you might not even know this film even exists without this review here. Which, if you watch it, could help get it exposure to help out that community, what with all their productions being shut down and all due to this cock sucking virus. So while I say nay on Lost Girls, you could actually find this thing and say yay.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: SPENSER CONFIDENTIAL (Netflix)

I don’t really know what to say about this movie other than that when actor Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg were on a roll, they were on a roll. They had a fantastic little true story action trilogy together with Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, and Patriot’s Day. All three filmed with precision, clarity, and accuracy. But now with Netflix’s new original film SPENSER CONFIDENTIAL and 2018’s Mile 22, they are officially in a major downward slump, and the only question is, are they going to make a third film together to cap off this mediocre trilogy or maybe they’ll start to get the hint and look for other projects with different people for a change? The real problem with this movie is that it’s misfire is with it’s execution of what tone it wants the film to have, combined with too many predictable cliched story elements for it to make sense why this script was even greenlit to be made. Is it a actioner? Eh, I would have to say it’s probably Peter Berg’s worst directed film (not worst movie, that goes to Very Bad Things, but at least that movie had a unique style to it that can’t be denied). He’s on autopilot here, with action so sparse, cheap and staged poorly that the movie turns into a horribly edited shaky cam of a Frankenstein monster which is even more jarring when compared to the other scenes where characters just talk and they use the usual steady, smooth cam dolly movements. This isn’t a giant Netflix misfire like the recent The Last Thing He Wanted, but it’s definitely not worth any of your valuable time.

This Spenser Confidential is apparently loosely based on Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels, which itself was turned into a television series back in the 80s. This whole film feels cheap to the point where it maybe should’ve been turned into a limited series on HBO or Showtime. Maybe bring in some writers to make the whole story more complex. Here? Not so complex. I knew who was the secret bad guy right when I saw them, and I figured the whole thing had to do with drugs, money, and possibly a venture such as a Casino to launder that money into and make even more money. It was all so very simple to figure out, that I yawned almost every couple of minutes when all these developments revealed themselves. Mark Wahlberg plays a cop named Spenser who is sent to prison for five years for beating the shit out of his boss when he suspects his boss of being a dirty cop after trying to bury a murder investigation and also sees that he beats his wife. After five years he is out, and after a little time in sort of a halfway home time situation living with Alan Arkin and Winston Duke, he’s going to move to start his new life. Problem is, he still has that solving corruption itch he has to scratch, especially when his boss ends up brutally murdered and another cop (who apparently committed “suicide” after the crime) is to blame, one that Spenser remembered was legit and kind. Combined with having to deal with an obsessive ex-girlfriend that can’t make up her mind whether she wants him completely out of her life or just to keep fucking his brains out, he has to figure everything out before he moves, and hopefully leave with him and his friends life in the process.

And as I said earlier, the problem with the movie is with tone. The movie tries too hard to mix too many genres together. It wants to be a buddy comedy, but there isn’t enough of Winston Duke in the entire film to warrant that. It wants to be taken as a serious drama as some point with a really awkward scene of a woman finding her husband dead in a car with some one shot dolly pull back. It wants to be taken as an action movie, but there are few action scenes and they are shot shaky cam horribly. It was to be taken as a mystery/thriller, but has no mystery (because everything is predictable), and it has no thrills. I didn’t laugh once. And when an extended cameo from Post Malone is THE BEST ACTING THE MOVIE HAS TO OFFER…you can chalk it up to something being wrong. And don’t even get me started on actress Iliza Sclesinger, who literally gives the worst performance of the year so far, with a Boston accent so fucking over the top and fake you’ll be plugging your fingers in your eyes so you don’t have to fucking hear it anymore. And Mark Wahlberg, he’s coasting in this film like he does in most, the only performance where it seemed like he actually tried was Instant Family in 2018, and before that maybe not even The Departed in 2007. He’s has the range of Scwharzenegger and Stallone, always the muscle, never the award winner.

Yeah a Netflix blunder for sure. And if you are a constant reader of my reviews, don’t worry, I won’t go into the whole “Netflix has much more blunders than winners” schpeil all over again. You’ve probably all figured it out yourselves. This all felt like a really low rent made for television movie, where you wouldn’t find the likes of Mark Wahlberg ever touching this thing. It all screams a giant Netflix paycheck, with Whalberg being able to be directed by a friend again, who he knows can coast through this production with his eyes closed. What happened to trying? What happened to actually giving a shit? I mean do all these screenwriters have some sort of time crunch where this is the best that they can come up with or are they smoking weed until an hour before deadline? It sometimes just doesn’t make any fucking sense. I hardly saw this film marketed, but you would think they could’ve titled the film Spenser For Hire to get older fans of the novels and TV series amped up to watch this, but it was just dumped on Netflix this weekend, not a care in the world, and I see that a trailer had only debuted a month ago. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…wonder why? Doesn’t take a detective to figure it out…confidentially yet unconfidentially mediocre.