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[7.1/10] Not my favorite episode, just because the main story doesn’t work especially well for me. As I mentioned in my last write-up, I don’t mind the ripped from the headlines “candidate you could have a beer with” idea, and I don’t mind the idea that Leslie can’t handle someone not liking her, but she’s just so over the top here. Leslie’s an outsized character, and that’s okay, but there’s something just kind of not fun to watch when she’s basically stalking this guy and browbeating him into voting for her.

But hey! Eventually Ben punches him and that’s kind of fun! And I like that the bookends for the episode are Tom conducting focus groups that show people like Leslie (and Ben) when they’re being themselves and Leslie’s not bending over backwards to be someone she’s not to impress someone. It’s a solid sitcom lesson, it’s just a little too awkward getting there.

That said, I really enjoy both B-stories. April initially trying to destroy Chris’s happiness, only to relent and actually feel bad for him after Jerry’s daughter breaks up with him is very sweet. The nice thing about having reserved, stingy-with-feeling characters like Ron and April is that when they do show affection, it has that much more weight. Her not only giving Chris the tickets as a reluctant gesture, but getting a third one so that he can go with April and Andy is heartwarming stuff.

And on the pure comedy side, I love Ron’s bewilderment at Tom’s dorky but effective granny-style bowling strategy. His reaction of “son, people can see you!” is a knee-slapper, as is Tom’s childish whining when his “fingies” get hurt and Ann comparing him to a baby bird. Ron surreptitiously trying it out and then denying all evidence of it is the icing on the cake.

Overall, the A-story isn’t the best P&R’s ever done, but the B-stories are fantastic, and so that boosts this one up a notch.

[9.1/10] I use a lot of hyperbole when writing about this show, but the sequence where Leslie & Co. try to make it across the ice and get Leslie on stage is one of, if not the, funniest bits of physical comedy in the entire series, and maybe any series.

It’s just such a perfect disaster: the gang awkwardly shuffling on the ice, the dog peeing on Ron, Andy taking a spill, the red carpet not going far enough, the miniature stage, Leslie’s attempts to get on the stage, Leslie’s attempts to give a speech, Leslie’s attempts to wave and try to talk on ice at the same time, Pistol Pete’s miserable attempt at a dunk, and god help us, the constant repetition of the “get on your feet” song. It’s just a wonderful cornucopia of things going wrong and it’s a perfectly edited sequence.

It represents the ramshackle ways Leslie’s campaign is getting started as they try to make it on their own. The amateurish quality of it is brilliant, as is the way it both shows how big of an underdog Leslie really is and the need for her to bring Ben and his know-how onto the team.

Speaking of which, his attempts to dive into his hobbies are hilarious. There’s something great about him committing to the calzone idea or stop-motion animation (which is such a perfectly Ben Wyatt interest), and then realizing how little he’s actually accomplished. Chris recognizing that Ben’s depressed, even when Ben didn’t is a nice touch that shows their friendship, and it’s the push Ben needs to get back to doing something beyond indulging his hobbies.

There’s lots of great laughs, particularly with the team of Ron, Andy, April, and Tom getting pulled over by the cops. It’s such a great ensemble, and I’d forgotten that this was there they added Champion to the mix. (Ann’s line about him being terrible at digging was superb.)

Overall, one of the all-time funniest scenes in the show and some solid advancement for both the characters and the campaign arc make this one excellent.

[8.7/10] I just love the fact that you can take the civil servant out of the government but you can’t take the government out of the civil servant. The fact that even when she’s on suspension, Leslie can’t help trying to do her job, to the point that she basically makes her own shadow parks department to try get things done. The fact that it’s also a way for her to sublimate some anger at Chris is a nice touch too, even if she ends up apologizing to him at the end. The fact that she’s polling poorly is a blow, but it’s clear from the P.C.P. (the group, not the drug) that she has the perseverance and crazy Leslie Knope zeal to see it through.

And the rest of the gang is going to help her! The final moment of the episode, with the entire department stepping up to run her campaign, is one of the most touching in the series. Ron is particularly on fire, from his being furious at Leslie’s “thoughtful, personal” gifts, to his quiet protestations that he wanted to build a miniature wooden parks department rather than a gingerbread house, to his angry inability to glue graham crackers together. There’s a lot of comedy from the gang banding together, but the way it all falls into place when Leslie walks in is lovely. There’s always been a beating heart on this show, and everyone being willing to give up their lives to support Leslie, because she’s always done it for them, proves that with gusto.

Ben wondering what his next job will be and interviewing around has a solid amount of good comedy as well. I love the guy at the accounting firm who (mildest of mild spoiler alerts) you’ll see again and is a delight in his dorkiness everytime. The horror of Dennis Feinstein’s interview is great, as is Jean Ralphio’s terribly-put but surprisingly helpful advice. The notion of driven Ben taking some time to explore himself is a good one.

But overall, this is an episode about Team Leslie, and from her fervent citizen action, to everyone banding behind her, it’s full of the true X-mas spirit – the spirit of giving your time and talent for someone you care about it, because you know they’d do the same for you.

I'm a sucker for an open ended narrative, and Anatomy of a Fall gives us so many breadcrumbs to work with it's hard not to get lost in how we feel once the credits roll. It's been amazing to read multiple interpretations throughout the days following my viewing, and I'm still not sure where I land on the ultimate conclusion of the plot. What I can say for certainty is that Anatomy of a Fall is a glorious peek inside the life of a delightfully nuanced couple. Their interactions are raw and real, arguments feel clumsy and looped, realistic and believable. It asks us to question our perception and interpretation of others; seeing relationships for brief moments and coming to grandiose conclusions about their infinite nuances without ever truly knowing these people and the dynamics that push and pull between them. I'll continue to return to this movie in my head for weeks to come, as another minute detail bubbles up and questions the narrative I've built in my head about these people and what transpired between them. Maybe I should watch it again, I can't imagine what a second viewing will unearth. Fantastic film, I expect a lot of award season love for this one.

[9.1/10] Such a great episode. I’ll admit, at first I bristled a bit at Leslie’s behavior here. At times (like in the prior Model U.N. episode) Leslie hews too closely to her Michael Scott-esque origins. Don’t get me wrong, I love Michael Scott as a character, but since Leslie is a capable if occasionally overcommitted civil servant and Michael is a well-meaning but generally incompetent if lovable dope, his style of social ineptitude and selfishness isn’t always a good fit for her character.

But what I like is that rather than just completely going with Leslie taking Ben’s admonition that they shouldn’t work together after the “Littlest Park” project is done as an invitation to draw out the project as long as possible for wacky sitcom hijinks, P&R uses it as an opportunity to have people call Leslie out for this behavior.

It’s great that it comes from Ann, who is a confidant and someone who loves Leslie wholeheartedly despite her occasional steamrolling nature. (Their exchange about the Harry Potter movies is great.) And it sells a genuine frustration for Ben that isn’t some made up conflict but which speaks to Leslie’s good intentioned and understandable, but occasionally overzealous ways. It’s hard to shine a spotlight on the way your main character can be inconsiderate or even dismissive of other people’s feelings, but using it as a learning moment and a chance for growth is what elevate Parks and Rec over similar shows.

It leads to such a great, all-timer of a moment with Ben and Leslie in that little park. It’s moment like these that show what a strong performer Amy Poehler is. She is such a flawless comedian, with crackerjack timing and the ability to pull off any number of gags. But she is also 100% up to these big emotional moments, selling Leslie’s earnestness and hurt at the thought of not getting to see Ben anymore, at her contrition for not taking his wishes into account, and the magnitude of her being willing to risk the fallout in both her job and her dream of public office it means getting to be together. Their kiss is one of those great, heartwarming, fist-pump moments on Parks and Rec, and the episode earns every minute of it.

And I haven’t even mentioned the B-story! Andy trying to figure out which class to take at community college is just and endless font of comedy. April and Ron pushing and pulling him as to what to take creates all sorts of great moments, and so many situations for Chris Pratt to react to in character. (His lines about “women’s lasers” and “one ticket to women” are especially funny idiot-isms.) There’s something heartening about him ending up in a women’s studies course, and especially heartening about Ron paying for it. Ron is the ultimate father figure to a lot of these characters, and seeing him open his heart and his wallet shows one of those parental, sweet dimensions beneath his grump and facial hair.

The least of them is probably Tom’s story about picking a new font for the Parks Dept. logo. That said, I like the bit about him using Jerry’s 70s ID as inspiration, and the subtext that even if he stays a longtime government employee, he’ll always find ways to inject his own individual flair into his work

Overall, it’s a stellar episode that hits on all three stories, and finds interesting depths and challenges for its characters along the way.

This will probably become more beloved than Dune for being a bigger, more action driven film. Personally I prefer the first film by a long shot, but there's a lot to like here. I loved Paul's new journey for this installment as it doesn't develop in the way you'd expect based on the ending of the first film. The themes of colonialism, false prophecies and religion reach a level of depth that cannot be found in other sci-fi/fantasy contemporaries like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars; this film certainly made me understand why this story is taken so seriously as a piece of literature. Despite the source material being so old, there's still something new and refreshing about it. You don't often see major Hollywood productions calling out religion as a manipulative force helping the people in power. On top of that this brilliantly subverts the concept of the hero's journey we've become accustomed to by everything that was in one way or another inspired by Dune. The acting is pretty great, Timothée does a great job at playing the transition Paul goes through. Despite his boyish looks I was sold on his performance as the leader of the Fremen. Rebecca Ferguson and Javier Bardem are also scene stealers. The visuals are once again mindblowing, in terms of set/costume design, cinematography and CGI this is as close to perfection as you could get to right now. The vision and scope of this movie are truly unmatched, which leads to some breathtaking sequences that I'll remember for a while (sandworm ride; the black/white arena fight; knife fight during the third act).

However, for all the praise I have for Dune: Part 2, I think Denis is being uncharacteristically sloppy with this film. First of all, Bautista and Butler feel like they're ripped from a different franchise altogether. Their over the top, cartoonish performances are more suited for something like Mad Max than the nuanced world of Dune. The bigger cracks start to appear when you look at the writing. The brief moments where the movie pokes fun at religious zealots through Javier Bardem's character, while funny, probably won't age very well. Like the first movie, it has a tendency to rely too much on exposition and handholding, a problem which might be worse here. I feel like a lot of the subtlety is lost in order to make the movie more normie proof, and that's quite annoying for a movie with artistic ambitions like this one. For example, there's this scene where Léa Seydoux seduces Austin Butler's character, and everything you need to know as a viewer is communicated through Butler's performance. Cut to the next scene, where Seydoux is all but looking at the camera saying "he's a psychopath, he's violent, he wants power, etc.". I just feel like compared to Villeneuve's precise work on Blade Runner 2049, he's consciously dumbing it down here. It's understandable and somewhat excusable for a complex story like Dune, but he occasionally takes it too far for my liking. Then there's the love story subplot between Chani and Paul, which almost entirely misses the mark for me. It feels rushed, there's no chemistry between the actors and some of the lines are painfully cheesy. Because of that, the emotional gutpunch their story eventually reaches during the third act did little for me. Finally, I'm a little dissatisfied with the use of sound. I loved the otherworldly score Zimmer came up with for the first Dune, however this film is so ridiculously bombastic and low-end heavy that it starts to feel like a parody of his work with Christopher Nolan. For the final action beat of the film Villeneuve cuts out the film's score, and it becomes all the more satisfying for it.

Overall, I recommend this film, however maybe temper those expectations if you're expecting a masterpiece. There's a lot to admire, but it's flawed.

6.5/10

[8.4/10] Some cringey moments, but that’s one of the things the Greg Daniels-Michael Schur coaching tree does really well. I love the theme of this one, where everyone, in their own way, confronts what the end of the world would mean to them, and each character’s personality is reflected in their reaction.

First and foremost are the Zorpies though! It’s not deep (or, at best, it’s fodder for other parts of the show to be deep), but I love the quiet riff on Scientology and other local cults. The details like the founder being an office supply manager or their little wooden flutes or their smugness at paying for things with a check are delightful.

They also create a great setup for some good Ben and Leslie drama. Leslie is at her most exaggerated and dare I say, unpleasant, since Season 1. I don’t mean to say that I don’t enjoy her here, but she’s normally someone so easy to root for who tries so hard to be a good person. Here, she’s being selfish and unfair, and that’s entirely human and understandable, but also compromises her character a bit. It’s a good thing, and gives her reason to acknowledge it and make amends.

Her conversation with Ron, like most of her conversations with Ron, is fine fine material too. They have such a great dynamic. He tells her that no matter how much the epiphany that she’d want to spend the end of the world with Ben means to her; it won’t be ending, and she’ll be back where she started. It’s sobering, and it serves as motivation for Leslie to be an adult and apologize (albeit sneakily). I don’t know. I like extreme Leslie, who’s clearly in the wrong but going after what she wants (or scaring people off from what she can’t have) in her own loony way. It makes her as endearing as all the preternaturally capable things she accomplishes do.

Tom and Jean Ralphio face the end of the world by, true to form, throwing the perfect party. The party is such a great reflection of the trendy pair’s unrestrained ids at play. The over-the-top cartoonish and uber-stylish vibe of everything is a great reflection of their sensibility, straddling the line between ridiculous and just believable enough to seem plausible. Bringing back Lucy to give it a little emotional punch is nice, and Tom and his buddy losing, but trying to make the best of it is very endearing as well.

Even Chris and Ann, who are mostly a sideshow here, have their moments. Chris contemplating the Reasonabilist philosophy, and Ann cutting through it with her homespun wisdom, which naturally leads them to the party, is a pleasant bit. And Ron taking advantage of the Zorp cult to sell his wooden flutes and recorders is plenty funny, especially when they’re hailing Zorp and he’s just counting dollars.

The most affecting story, though, is probably Andy and April’s. The pair trying to do everything on Andy’s bucket list is as adorable as you’d expect, and fits their creative, impulsive, “don’t think, just stupid” philosophy. Maybe it’s just the indie rock soundtrack, but their spur of the moment trip to see the Grand Canyon is touching in just the right way. It’s not cloying, but April admitting that she wants to be annoyed by it and is coming up empty sells the moment (along with Andy wondering where Mt. Rushmore is).

Overall, if the world were ending, I don’t know if I’d be watching Parks and Recreation, but it’s still a nice set of stories about people spending a night thinking about where they’d want to be, and who they’d want to be with, if there were no tomorrow.

[5.9/10] Suffice it to say, not my favorite episode of the show. Tom just acts like too much of a jerk to be redeemed in the last two minutes. I get the vulnerability he’s supposed to be showing after his grand business idea fails, but it still just rubs me the wrong way how he pulls the rug out from under Leslie like that. It’s Tom at his most selfish and annoying, and it’s not the sort of thing you can just sweep under the rug.

It’s not like he crosses any major moral event horizons or anything, and Leslie’s mild drowning of him is amusing enough as a bit of revenge (not to mention her great “butthead” line), but it’s just one of the more unpleasant stories the show has done, and it doesn’t really recover enough goodwill in the end to make up for it, even if Leslie’s confidence that Tom won’t fail again is encouraging and Tom’s video biography of Leslie is sweet.

The rest of the episode is solid enough. My favorite of the other stories is Ron and Ann’s. Ron derives such joy from fixing things, and him sharing that with Ann, who takes to it with her usual enthusiasm, creates a small but heartwarming bond between the two of them. Ann is particularly funny with how into it she gets.

My least favorite story is Chris and Jerry’s. Maybe I’m just supposed to find Chris feeling uncomfortable about seeing his daughter in the throes of passion funnier than I do, but it’s continued to be a dud for me. Rob Lowe’s still doing good work as the endlessly positive Chris, but I just don’t love where they’re going with it.

Somewhere in the middle is the Ben/Andy/April storyline. When Andy and April throw a party and don’t tell Ben, it brings out their different methods of conflict resolution. That’s a decent enough storyline, and each of them having to figure out a method of resolving their beefs that works for everyone, particularly Ben having to overcome his passive aggressive hints at things, is a solid notion. The comedy just doesn’t follow like it needs to an the resolution is a bit underwhelming.

Overall, it’s still P&R so there’s still a decent number of laughs and some good character moments, but the show can do better.

[8.5/10] In some ways the Obama birther nonsense feels like it was a million years ago, and in others, it feels like it was just yesterday. P&R folds that topic, like it does so many current events, into its own little world in a natural way. From complaints about "gotcha" journalism, to calls for long form birth certificates, to the delightfully specific reveal that Leslie was born in Eagleton, the episode does great at commenting on the absurdity of such complaints in a funny, and ultimately inspiring sort of way. The "it's not where you're born, it's where you're from" commentary isn't exactly funny, but using Leslie's clear and utter devotion to the City of Pawnee as a way to take the air out of the whole birther idea works like gangbusters.

It's also superb for the comedy side. Leslie's disgust (and near-vomiting) after having to even say the words Eagleton is great. Chris being shocked when his attractiveness doesn't get him a special exception at the Eagleton records office is a nicely played moment from Rob Lowe, and Andy leaping over the counter is an excellent bit of physical comedy. Even the recurring gag about racoons infesting Pawnee is a nice touch.

The B-story with Tom, Ben, and Joan was a little broader. I do like the idea of Tom having to face the music after flirting with Joan for so long, and Mo Collins is a pro, but it got a bit over the top at points. Still, Ben's sarcastic commentary ("Is she going to powder her vagina?" "That was as long as it was loud") saved any of the more ridiculous parts.

And the C-story with Ann trying to have a 5-minute conversation with Ron and April was well-conceived as well. Putting Ann on an island in those talking heads can be a gamble because she works better when playing off of someone, and this was no exception, but the well-edited sequences of her trying to get some sort meaningful response from the two unenthusiastic acquaintances landed very nicely. The medical malady story as the clincher was great too. And the capper, with Ron and April using wrong names for people, worked superbly as well.

Overall, a very strong episode that brings the laughs and packs a little emotional punch in the process.

[6.3/10] There’s a story worth telling in Killers of the Flower Moon. The tale of an indigenous population being murdered for their oil money, of state and local authorities ignoring blatant murders because it serves their prejudices and interests, and the feds finally stepping in after so much blood has already been shed, is ripe for the cinematic treatment. What such an event in the not-so-distant past says about our society, and the people involved, could make for an incredible film.

This is not that film. It has the wrong protagonist, the wrong pacing, and only intermittently hits the most fascinating and poignant parts of the story.

The film centers on Ernest Burkhart, a suggestible numbskull. Ernest deliberately and unwittingly does the bidding of his uncle, W.K. Hale, a local operator who’s ingratiated himself into the Osage Nation in Oklahoma at the same time he’s conniving ways to knock them off so he and his family can inherit their oil rights. As part of these machinations, Hale nudges Ernest to court and eventually marry Molly Kyle, an Osage woman with full rights and a family full of people who’ve been the target of Hale’s murderous plots.

Burkhart is our entree into this world and the fulcrum at the center of the movie, and the big problem is that he’s not especially deep or interesting. At best, he evokes the same sense of co-star Robert de Niro’s character in The Irishman, a hapless but good-natured goon who finds himself falling into bad company and regretting where his “just do what your told and keep your head down” mentality leads him.

But there’s very little depth to Ernest. He’s a dope at the beginning, and he’s a dope at the end. He seems to harbor genuine love for Mollie and his children with her, but otherwise he’s just a schmuck who seems too stupid and influenced to fully comprehend his choices or their consequences, which makes him pretty tepid and unengaging as a central character. That might be overcome by the acting, but star Leonardo DiCaprio gives the same affected, labored performance you’ve seen him give in a dozen other movies. While not bad, necessarily, it doesn’t have the lived-in character to make you invest in a thin, flat character who takes up too much of the spotlight.

It’s especially frustrating when Lily Gladstone’s Mollie is right there. The tale of a woman who loves her husband, but knows he’s connected to people who only want her family’s money, while trying to convince stodgy government officials to intercede on behalf of a group they either don’t care about or are actively working against, could be incredible. In places, we see glimpses from her perspective, or delve deeper into how the Osage Nation of 1920s Oklahoma reacted to all of this, and it’s the best part of the movie. Filtering it through Ernest’s perspective instead feels like a sad, missed opportunity.

It doesn’t hurt that in a film with multiple Oscar-winning actors, Gladstone gives the best performance in the film. There’s an understated subtlety to Mollie’s responses and reactions that evinces a sense of layers otherwise missing from most of the film’s players. A minor change in her expression, a simple shift in her gaze, can communicate more than the film’s bigger stars can in dramatic monologues. Gladstone steals the show, and the only shame in it is that director/co-writer Martin Scorsese doesn’t lean more into her character as the focus of the piece.

That assumes there is a focus to the piece. While ostensibly adapting the story of the Osage murders, Scorsese and company leave no bit of texture excluded, no cinematic cul de sac unexamined, no narrative rabbit hole unexplored. Some of the inclusions are good! The chance to see glimpses of Osage rituals and traditions amid the broader events is engrossing, and you can understand the filmmakers’ desire to share them with a bigger audience.

But many of them feel like wheel-spinning in a film that barely gets going until it’s two-thirds of the way through. Unlike Scorsese’s best films, this is not a movie with a sense of build or progression. Killers of the Flower Moon establishes early that Ernest, Hale, and Hale’s operatives are steadily taking out those with oil rights, and then it just keeps happening for two hours.

There’s very little difference, very little progression, very little interest as Burkhart acts the fool and Hale and enacts his plan in the same, undifferentiated fashion for the bulk of the movie. There’s no tension or intrigue to it, because there’s little sense of growth or change, let alone mystery, as to what’s happening. The notion of Ernest feeling divided loyalties to the woman he loves and the complicated father figure doing some bad things could be worthwhile! (Hello Departed fans!) The notion of him feeling trapped by the authorities but unsure how to unravel the net with either family could also be an idea worth exploring. (Hello Goodfellas fans!) Sadly, Killers of the Flower Moon never really capitalizes on any of this, instead offering reheated versions of the same thing for much of the movie with little in the way of differentiation or momentum.

To the point, god help the pacing here. Even in the film’s most interesting stretch (which is basically when the feds are working through their investigation and tightening the net), Scorsese and company let scenes drag and drag. You could fairly argue that Scorsese needs to trim the fat at a big picture level, jettisoning scenes and sequences that might be alright on their own but don’t add much to Killer of the Flower Moon’s larger project. But even in important, meaningful, gotta-have-’em scenes, the conversations lurch and lumber on, while the emotion and energy in any given moment drains away. Tighter discipline in the editing bay could have salvaged some of these scenes, but as is, they, and the movie as a whole, feel bloated and ungainly.

This all makes me sound more down on the movie than I really am. Most of the film is solid at worst, with a few keen bright spots. (The clever radio show epilogue is the most inventive and affecting highlight on that front.) At this stage in his career, Scorsese is a master of his craft able to attract some of the best talents in the business. As a result, there’s some memorable, textured performances in even smaller roles, impressive imagery in sequences like the ones where Hale burns up his property for the insurance proceeds, and even a few piercing human moments between Mollie and Ernest as they weather this storm together and then apart.

In that vein, Scorsese also deserves credit for telling the story, with his heart clearly in the right place even if his focus isn’t. Apart from the quality of the art, using your clout and platform to shine a light on an under-recognized injustice that is a metonym for broader problems in the treatment of indigenous communities is commendable. The events depicted here are both galling and horrifying, and the subject matter is worth the time, even if the execution leaves much to be desired.

But you do a disservice to that worthy cause by centering its fictionalization on an uninteresting dolt, and burying it in three-and-a-half hours’ worth of turgid cinematic bloat. Killers of the Flower Moon isn’t outright bad by any stretch. There’s too many talented people across the production for that to happen. But what’s maddening about the film is that amid its missteps and flaws, you can glimpse the outline of a better movie, one which shifts its perspective, kills its darlings, and honors the tragedy, but also the humanity, of the people unjustly cut down, rather than laying its focus on shaming their betrayers.

It was undoubtedly very longggggg and pretty boring at times but surprisingly, I was mostly captivated. It is such a horrible tragic true story that is worth knowing and therefore I say take your shot and suffer through it…

The characters actions and reactions are often so stupid and unrealistic that if it were not (supposedly) very close to what really happened, I would say that the writing is terrible and that audiences would never play along. A perfect example of how true stories can be so whacked that they would not fly as fiction.

Mostly good acting and sometimes great but it took me a while to get used to DiCaprio making a constant and incredibly sever frown with his mouth. He and Lily elegantly portray village idiots with depth and finesse. DeNiro plays himself perfectly as a total megalo a-hole. Frazer is scary as heck. Someone needs to cast him as the monster in a new horror franchise.

Anyone know what McDouffus was adding to the insulin? Was Mr. Cob a white dude and did he end up with the headrights? They should have taken a lil fat off the three hours and put it towards meat on the tail end…

This has everyone involved play to their strengths. It's another tale of Scorsese deconstructing the myth of the American dream, but with a thematic approach I found quite refreshing for him. The way that the film tackles racism, and how it's tied to issues of money, power, greed, trust and systemic injustice, feels authentic and well constructed. It's a movie that's unsettling and will leave a mark on your brain emotionally, you should know that going in. De Niro has a lot of fun playing a sinister crime boss with a wholesome facade, it's a performance that could be compared to Giancarlo Esposito in Breaking Bad. DiCaprio is always at his best when playing a pathetic dumbass, and he also shines here. It almost feels like he's in Tarantino mode, it's not similar to any of the previous work he's done with Scorsese. Yet, despite both of Scorsese's go-to actors having prominent roles here, it's actually Lily Gladstone who ends up delivering the most emotional, subtle performance. Technically the movie is pretty much flawless. The production design, lighting, cinematography and score are all immaculate, and despite the long running time, Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing kept me engaged for the entire runtime. However, the pacing is still somewhat of an issue. As Scorsese has matured as a filmmaker, the choices he's making are becoming more and more understated. The tracking shots and montages are still here, but they're less energetic and he's relying more on pauses instead. There's nothing wrong with that, given that the substance carries the movie, but with a movie this long I want a little more pop. There's one scene involving fire that'll stay with me, as well as another couple of haunting moments, but besides that he's not turning up the intensity too much. It would've been nice if the movie ended with an extended courtroom scene where all the actors get to really show off with some incredible dialogue, for example. This movie still ends in a pretty weird way, having some creative use of what are essentially ending title cards, but it involves a major tonal shift that didn't work for me. Finally, I thought Brendan Fraser's performance was flat out bad, showing up for a small part and overacting every line. All in all, while I do recommend this movie, I don't think it's a masterpiece. Martin 'this is cinema' Scorsese would probably hate me for saying this, but given the pacing issues, there's an argument to be made it would've worked better as a miniseries.

7/10

I remain unconvinced that a film needs to last more than two, let alone three hours. "Killers of the Flower Moon" also was far too long for my personal liking. To be fair, though, I have to admit that I was already pretty tired when the movie started. The extremely slow pacing definitely didn't help, though. Still, there's a lot I really like about this movie. For example, it looks fantastic, has an intriguing and previously unexplored setting, and impresses with strong performances by the actors. Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and especially Lily Gladstone are all more than convincing, although the latter unfortunately disappears from the film for long stretches. De Niro's character was also a bit too one-dimensional in my opinion.

Looking at the story, I hoped for a long time that it would pick up speed, at least in the last third, when the "investigation" of all the murders starts. Unfortunately, that didn't really come true, although the pacing was at least a bit brisker at the end. Overall, it's hard for me to give a final rating, but I'm relatively certain that even in a less tired state, I wouldn't see "Killers of the Flower Moon" as Martin Scorsese's next masterpiece. However, the film is good all the same.

[8.0/10] There are two sequences in Oppenheimer that are a metonym for the rest of the film. Early on, a young J. Robert Oppenheimer is given a hard time by his teacher, essentially punishing him for his human struggles by denying him the chance to see a lecture from his hero. So Oppenheimer, filled with frustration and a chance bit of inspiration, fills his professor’s apple with an injection of cyanide. He does the deed coldly and methodically, attends the lecture, and doesn’t seem the slightest bit perturbed that he’s essentially committed an act of attempted murder on someone who made his life miserable.

But when he wakes up in the morning, he is wracked with guilt and stricken with an urgency to undo what he’s done. He rushes to steal back the apple before the worst consequences of his choices take hold, something made all the more desperate when it’s his hero, Neils Bohr, not his jerk teacher, who’s about to take a bite. Spurred by his regrets, he snatches it out of Bohr’s hand before it can do its damage.

It’s a microcosm for how to account for Oppenheimer’s behavior for the building of the first atomic bomb. For so much of the film, he is single-minded to the point of being myopic on achieving his goal. To him, the United States needs nuclear weapons, and they need them now, because the Nazis are building them. Hitler and his goons are threatening Oppenheimer’s fellow Jews, and if he can help stop them, use his physics to prevent the Third Reich from gaining the upper hand, he feels he has a responsibility to do so.

So he ignores his good friend and fellow Jewish physicist, Rabi, who tells Oppenheimer he doesn’t want to participate in something that would wreak death upon the world. He dismisses the growing contingent of his Los Alamos workforce concerned about the ethics of what they’re building. He brushes off his colleagues from Chicago who want him to tell the American leadership not to act. He is full of justifications and rationalizations.

There is something workmanlike, methodical about his goal to produce the atomic bomb. He gently raises the objections of his colleagues, but presents himself as a vessel for communicating the views of others rather than injecting his own opinions. He is a man with a job to do, deadlines to meet, villains to defeat. And even when Germany is defeated, he’s still under orders, still anxious to see his work come to fruition, practically pacing when the day of the bombings arrives.

Only then, at his moment of triumph, once the job is done, he feels naught but the blood on his hands, the rot in his souls, the feeling that had been tucked away into a dark corner until the job was complete. The most bravura sequence in the film sees him in the moment of his greatest triumph, being cheered on by his fellow scientists, reveling in their victory, whilst being haunted by the gravity of what he hath wrought.

The sound, the light, the visions of blighted flesh and communities turn to ash, overwhelm his senses and drown out the singing of his praises. His ra-ra speech seems awkward and uncomfortable -- lacking in genuine fervor from someone whose emotional reckoning with what he’s done hits on a delay, like the time-displaced sound wave from his own bomb. Only after he’s done it, does he feel it, and start to wish he could take it back.

It is the apple again, a piece of nature poisoned, only now amplified in magnitude beyond comprehension. And it is the peculiar psyche of this astonishing man, suddenly made to feel the weight of destruction and history, wondering what he’s unleashed upon the world.

Writer-director Christopher Nolan has the audience feel that weight too. Clocking in at over three hours, Oppenheimer plays appropriately epic, not just as the story of the creation of the atomic bomb, but encompassing the life of its father that serves as a prelude, the regretful aftermath that leads him beyond that seminal moment, and the public clashes that consumed his life afterward.

In that, Nolan and company hit a number of the standard biopic beats. The early portions breeze through relationships and foundational experiences that, while specific to Oppenheimer, will feel familiar to anyone who’s seen a cinematic accounting of a historical figure. Grand speeches are given. Famous faces are introduced with suitable fanfare. The names of notable people and places are dropped with the freighted, portentous importance of an MCU post-credit scene.

And yet, there is a greater artfulness to what Nolan and his collaborators set out to do that sets Oppenheimer above its standard prestige comparators. Some of that is the pure aesthetics. If ever there were an argument for big screen viewing, it is the film’s grand atomic test -- a wash of light, columns of all-consuming flame, the straightjacket of silence that envelops all gazing upon it, and the sonic boom that punctures the moment. Theatrical viewing is a boon, maybe even necessary, to feel the full strength of that awe.

At the same time, Nolan’s team goes for more impressionsitic sequences amid their otherwise stately production. The aforementioned victory celebration gone awry is an achievement in using the cinematic form to contrast the external mask with the internal state. The way the trappings of the nuclear explosion intrude on Oppenheimer’s interrogation proves a creative way to show how the bombings haunt him as he struggles to reconcile his past fervor with his present regret. And in a similar vein, the transposition of his ex, depicted in full passionate lovemaking as his infidelity is laid bare on the public record, foregrounds the guilt and the anger between him and his wife in visceral terms.

There’s also more formal creativity at play. Beyond the nonlinear presentation, that juxtaposes past and present in canny ways, Oppenheimer offers not one but two frame stories. One is fission, the recollections that turn out to be part of Oppenheimer’s adversarial hearing on the renewal of his security clearance. The other is fusion, with still more recountings channeled through the Senate confirmation hearing of Lewis Strauss, Oppenheimer’s colleague and erstwhile admirer.

The tangle of the two gives the film leeway to play the contrast and compare game wherever necessary when it wants to put two meaningful moments side-by-side. It allows Nolan and his team to disorient the audience, lose them in the timeline to where the tumult of events washes over you. And it allows him to hide the ball, bringing the two storylines into jaw-dropping clarity right when it will have the greatest impact.

The choice to tell Oppenheimer’s story in color and Stauss’ part in black and white helps distinguish them so the viewer can keep some track. But it also helps code that we’re seeing these events through each’s differing perspective. That helps color their different takes on what happened, and shield the twist that Stauss is not one of Oppenheimer’s defenders suffering unfortunate guilt by association, but rather a bitter, resentful and conniving rival, prepared to throw Oppenheimer under the bus to feather his own nest.

Therein lies the grand turn and irony of the film. When Oppenheimer is willing to do the dirty work of powerful men without question, he is given everything he asks for. They build towns in the desert. They give him billions in resources. They push through his security clearance despite his occasional dalliances with communism and, worse yet for the times, with communists.

But when his conscience reemerges and he is a hindrance, not a help, to the cause of nuclear weaponry, men like Strauss turn that same infrastructure against him. He is dragged down by those jealous and scornful of his refusal to keep helping. He is written off by the President who championed him. He is torn asunder by forces greater than himself that, as none other than Einstein warns him, are ready to minimize and punish him once he’s no longer useful. And worse yet, Oppenheimer wants it; he thinks he deserves it.

There is something elemental, even Shakespearean in that. And yet, the grandest flaw of the film is that you do not always feel it.

Oppenheimer has its pitfalls. The film is remarkably brisk for a three-hour runtime, but you can sometimes feel Nolan trying to cram anything and everything into his feature, whether it’s truly essential or not, because it fascinates him. At moments, particularly after the big turn, we don’t need to be so deep in the weeds. Likewise, the script indulges in some of the corniest biopic tropes, from a Senate staffer casually dropping the name JFK, to the same staffer delivering a Sorkinesque speech about doing the right thing and matters bigger than one politician’s aspirations.

But the biggest of them is that despite Oppenheimer centering itself on one man’s growing guilt, questioning, and eventual self-flagellation, it often feels cold, lacking in feelling. Perhaps that’s appropriate for one anchored on scientists who are irregular around the margins, but who can be clinical in their work. The thing about Nolan’s filmography is that he’s often better at crafting characters who feel like avatars for big ideas than he is at developing them as three-dimensional people.

The same affliction permeates this movie, with the sweep of history and provocative notions about responsibility, myopia, urgency, and regret keenly felt, but the emotions of its central players, so key to the film, not always coming through with as much visceral clarity.

And yet, if there’s something that helps cover for that, it’s the downright relentless pace of the film. Part of how Oppenheimer makes the time fly by is the fact that it never stops. Clock the dialogue scenes. There’s barely a moment between retorts. There is a continual chugging in the film, conveying the urgent need to complete this task and the restlessness in Oppenheimer’s thoughts and history that led to it. The same goes for the score, which pounds, rich with sonic beauty and the ticking of geiger counters, making the broad jump across years culminating in the bomb’s deployment feel like one grand movement.

Until it stops. Two-thirds of the way through the film, the pace suddenly slackens. The score drops away. Freed from the irresistible pull of the mission for once, both Oppenheimer and the audience are given a chance to stop and reflect, and it’s then that the gravity of what’s been done truly starts to sink in. The way Nolan uses the pacing of his film to drive its central change of heart is masterful.

Because then it picks up again. Between the machinations of Stauss in his committee hearing, and the futile maneuvering of Oppenheimer and his allies before the body sent to rob him of his security clearance, and with it, his credibility, the rhythm kicks up anew, selling the controlled chaos that ensues to match the controlled chaos that preceded it. But in between is that quiet moment of clarity.

The rub of Oppenheimer is that the eponymous protagonist wants his punishment, no matter how unjust the source of it, because he wants to atone for his sins. He believes that, contrary to the warnings that the chance to destroy the world is near zero, he’s set off the chain reaction that will invite the apocalypse. He hopes this will be his penance, his chance to pay for his sins.

Because that’s the other sequence that serves as the metonym for Oppenheimer. Once he told his tempestuous lover, Jean Tatlock, that he would always answer. Then, when his life took a different turn, with a wife and children, he told her he couldn’t anymore. And in the absence of his intervention, she killed herself, her worst demons spiraling out toward destruction.

That is the reason Oppenheimer acts so swiftly and so gravely in trying to put a stop to this hell he has unleashed upon the world. Because he knows, in ways personal and devastating, what happens when he sits by and doesn’t intervene to stop the worst from happening, to blame yourself for the blood that’s spilt when you could have stepped in but instead shut yourself off. He has felt that loss, and in his post-Hiroshima activism, he feels it once more.

What if you didn’t get to the apple in time? What if you couldn’t stop what you’d started? What if the best and worst of your nature caught up to you at once? For a troubled world, much as for a troubled friend, J. Robert Oppenheimer fears that it’s already too late.

There could have been so much more to "Renfield" than what you get in the end. Those who watch the film solely to see Nicolas Cage as Dracula will undoubtedly get their money's worth. Cage plays the character exactly as one could have hoped, even if he could have had a bit more screen time. Nicholas Hoult and Awkwafina also do a solid job, although the latter was probably not the right choice for her role.

Entertaining is the level of violence, which is appropriately splattery, but there is one big caveat: the blood effects rely 100% on CGI, so it ends up looking bloodless. I don't have a problem at all with exploding heads not being realized with practical effects. But if CGI blood is splattered all over the place, why do all the characters' clothes look like they've been freshly cleaned? That's what kept pulling me out.

I was also negative about all the other characters aside from the three mentioned so far. Ben Schwartz is not convincing as the villain, and the rest of the characters remain flat. And the script is also more functional than good. All in all, "Renfield" is still solid but also pretty forgettable. And I find that quite a pity in view of my expectations.

The premise of having the story focusing on Dracula's familiar instead of Dracula himself sounded like a great original idea. The thing is Nicolas Cage as Dracula is far more interesting than whatever they tried to do with Renfield. Whenever Dracula was on-screen I was entertained but it just becomes boring whenever Renfield is around. A great deal of the movie doesn't even focus on him either, it's mostly about the local crime family and the corrupt police department subplot. They certainly tried with the comedy and I got some What We Do in The Shadows vibes for most of the runtime but it's not nearly as funny, nor is it an interesting satire on vampires. I'm totally ok with cringe but none of the comedy really worked for me, I laughed maybe twice. It would have been forgivable if the action sequences were good at least but that's not the case. The blood is entirely ugly-looking CGI, the action has no stakes and characters with no powers (ex: Awkwafina's character) fight as if they have powers. Awkwafina plays herself, Renfield is uninteresting and the third act was so incredibly predictable and underwhelming. Nick Cage was awesome as Dracula though, I wish he was in another movie!

It has been a while for me. I love this film. I love good musicals at least where the music is not only beautiful but makes sense for the scene and has a part to play in the telling of the story. I love when the music moves us emotionally forward in the character's development and their story. In this magical, whimsical, dreamy, nostalgic, hopeful and heartbreaking film the music does. I was not completely sold on the chemistry between these to two although I have seen them in 'Crazy, Stupid, Love' in which they were perfect. This one took some time for me. I think it is because he taught her how to dream wholeheartedly again. So for a while he was a teacher and though that can cause a connection if felt like the opposite. It felt like it caused distance. I may have to watch this again to get it. There are some scenes though that made me melt. The "where is my car" scene at the end and the "VERY last scene in the movie with both of them" . That filled my heart and broke it all over again. This movie addresses so many things including the fact that you love who you love and you love what you love. When it is right you just know and it takes a strong heart and a bit of courage to follow through. I wish I had that courage to say what I truly felt when it comes to the heart. Maybe one day I will learn but in the mean time I appreciate everyone who made this beautiful film. OK...gonna watch it again.

I don't think I have ever been in love with a movie, like I'm in love with La La Land. From the first few seconds, till the very end. This movie had me and didn't let go. My english vocabulary is not good enough to express my love, heck, my dutch vocabulary is not good enough to express it. This movie is everything.

It is beautiful, happy, magical, romantic and I could go on for a little while longer but I won't. I wasn't expecting it to be this musical-y, but I mean, I love musicals so I'm not complaining. I think this is a great "musical" because there isn't non stop singing, so people who don't like musicals might like this one because it's more "subtle". I can only imagine how much practice went into all those dance routines and don't get me started on the impressive piano skills Ryan Gosling showed us.

Something that really impressed me as well was the way they filmed everything. It's a very creative and different way, which I really enjoyed and think makes this movie a great inspiration for those who love film and camerawork themselves. The build up and flashbacks and stuff were really cool as well. Yea I really enjoyed that. Also, the storyline, which does so much for a movie, was so great.

This is normally the part were I talk about the actors, but seeing that there were mainly only two actors and they were both amazing (I do think tho, that Ryan Gosling his character wasn't a very challenging one for him because we have seen him in roles like these before. Mixing it up with all the dancing, singing en piano playing though, you got something quite different and I loved it), I'm going to skip this part and say that you should watch this movie, do nothing more, just watch it, enjoyed it and love it.

[7.3/10] There’s some cool moments in this episode, but mostly it stumbles by feeling more like a setup for S4 than a conclusion to S3. L’il Sebastian’s memorial service creates a big enough set piece to send the season out in fine fashion, but the stories feel more disjointed and incomplete than usual, and that hurts the proceedings.

On the one hand, the main story is pretty good, even if the resolution is saved for S4. The notion that Leslie and Ben are playing with fire is a good one, particularly with Ron finding out and providing a convincing demonstration as to why they’ll get caught and fired and there’ll be nothing he can do about it.

The love vs. job routine is an old one, but the episode nicely underlines how these two career-focused people may very well be able to do their work and have a relationship at the same time, but that it’s too much for them hide it at the same time. All the screw-ups and rearranging at L’il Sebastian’s funeral are a great illustration of that, and Ron being the voice of reason and suffering the brunt of their on-the-fly retooling is a nice touch and wake up call.

The rest of the episode has mini-stories, few of which get particularly tied off, but which point things in new directions for S4. The biggest is Tom and Entertainment Seven-Twenty, which is pleasant enough, and has the same deal with him deciding whether he’s done all he can in government, but there’s more seed than tree here.

Andy’s song is great, and his asking April to be his manager after she gets him 50 bucks and helps him with songs is kind of cute, but it’s also very slight. The same goes for the hints at Tammy 1’s return and the shitstorm to follow.

The best of them, oddly enough, is Chris and Ann’s bit. Chris seeing tendonitis, coupled with L’il Sebastian’s death, as a harbinger of death is a good choice for the episode. The endlessly positive guy facing a minor setback and having it all crumble down for him emotionally made me laugh and even pity Chris. But it also gives Ann a chance to regain some standing in their (platonic) relationship, to help him and be a bigger person, and that’s a nice beat and resolution to Ann’s story throughout the season. Really, hers is the only one that gets closed out in a satisfying fashion here.

Still, even if it’s open-ended, I do love where they leave things with Ben and Leslie. Job vs. love is, again, a little trite even if it’s been done well in the back half of S3. Still, now we’re talking about love vs. dream, and that’s a miniature horse of a different color. It’s more cliffhanger than anything, but it raises the stakes in a believable and compelling way, and that give it a lot of credit. I don’t like the way this one just seems like part 1 to the S4 premiere, but in an age of binge watching and streaming that doesn’t matter as much I suppose. It’s a good enough episode, it just feels a bit incomplete.

[7.2/10] This is a pretty good, but not great episode. The main plot, about Ben meeting Leslie’s mom, is one of those typical sitcom plots that the show can breathe new life into with its execution. Details like Leslie and Maureen’s simultaneous head tilts are great stuff. Still, the twist that Maureen makes a pass at Ben doesn’t really work for me, as it feels a little too contrived a monkey wrench to throw into “the bubble.”

Still, the whole “bubble” thing resonates, with the universal desire to prolong that initial burst of carefree euphoria invoked, and that gives it a bit more pep. At the same time, after being initially flummoxed by Leslie underpreparing him, and then doing too good a job after Leslie overprepares him, the fact that Ben finds the middle ground (and backbone) on his own initiative to tell Maureen that he and Leslie are dating is a nice resolution.

The B-story with Ron reacting to Chris shaking up the department is a mixed bag as well. The various changes lead to some funny scenes (like the woman who made tea with sprinkler water chasing Ron around his swivel-desk), but gets a little broad for my tastes. Still, Ron perfectly assessing his team to Chris to try to undo the shakeup, and stomaching a week at the dreaded swivel desk as a sacrifice for the return to normalcy are nice looks for him.

The C-story with Tom and Andy helping to digitize the archives on the fourth floor is similarly hit or miss. Andy’s clueless enthusiasm is always funny, but Tom’s stymied schemes don’t do much for me, and the exaggerated gags about how horrible the fourth floor are a bit too much as well. (Though the guy who pour out coffee and then smashes the pot is a nicely surreal moment.) It’s a decent enough way for Tom to start feeling the tug of his leash in local government, but moment-to-moment it’s just not that great.

Overall, it’s an episode with some evident flaws, but still a largely enjoyable one due to the comedy and characters.

A third of what was entertaining to me here is seeing actors who you know are brilliant act bad dialogue badly (and badly act actors badly acting characters badly acting bad dialogue - that's fun).

Another third is Wes Anderson out-Wes-Anderson-troping himself - the movie is one long Wes Anderson parody.

And the other third that works is the actual signature Wes Anderson excellence in palette and soundtrack and set design.

But, like, the actual movie under those technical layers? There was no there there for me, no compelling story or character or idea. It was all very thin.

What I love about other Wes Anderson movies is that the exaggerated technique permits some emotion to be expressed more directly than we'd usually accept. Here there is no apparent emotion. Emotion is deliberately suppressed. The questions of the script are well-trodden questions about what art is for, how we go on, and why we do what we do, and there's nothing fresh in the movie's responses to those questions. No emotion or observation is allowed to hang in the air without an immediate joke. The play-within-a-play is used for the exact same questions about agency and meaning it is typically used for.

For a movie that's this quirky, terrifically little is unexpected.

Still a sensory delight. And there are a number of very funny moments, mainly because all of these actors are geniuses and could captivate me by reading census data, but the comic timing of the editing is also quite good, and the film is stuffed with clever detail.

Scale it down, Wes. I’ve been a fan of everything he’s done since Fantastic Mr. Fox, and this is the first one in a long time that doesn’t sit well with me. It’s easily his loosest film since The Darjeerling Limited, and as a result he kinda lost sight of a coherent narrative here. It simply has too many characters, and while they’re all decently interesting, none of the arcs are developed to a point where I felt an emotional pay-off. The postmodern/meta stuff tanks the pacing and adds little to the overall narrative. There’s an attempt to use that layer to give the film a deeper meaning in the third act, but it feels like an anticlimax. The deeper meaning is that there is no deeper meaning, we’re just putting on a show . Ok? Did Rian Johnson have input on this script? Is this Wes trolling the people who claim that he’s style over substance? Add to that that this is one of his films that relies the least on comedy, and I can only conclude that this might just be his weakest screenplay. The reason why I still like it, however, is mostly because of the technical aspects. The cinematography, set design, editing and music are all fantastic and I’m continuously amazed by how this man is able to build a complete, original world for every new film. There’s always enough quirk and detail in the frame to keep the movie alive. The acting’s also really solid, I don’t quite get the complaint from some people that it’s emotionless. While the delivery is as deadpan as ever, the actors add plenty of emotion though the tone and cadence of their voice. Overall, I think he really needs to stop worrying about topping the scale of his last film, because it’s making him lose focus as a director and writer. It’s enjoyable, but for me it’s his worst next to The Life Aquatic.

6/10

Apart from outstanding animation (love the playoff part), good music and romcom, the film depicts migration because of natural disaster, how the migrants adapt to a new place and even elemental discrimination to an extent. The fire people live in a separate area apart from other elements, and I notice that the place is very outdated compared to the city of other 3 elements and also vulnerable to disasters as well. At some point the 2 protagonist find out about the cause of leaking water in the fire district, which is motor oil, and ngl this part is a bit lacking in depth. I wish they could venture more about this problem but maybe that would be too long. Moreover, the discrimination to fire people is very straightforward, with them forbidden from many places to the city with almost no sight of fire. I love that the movie also talks about generational conflict, especially in migrant families with the dilemma of your dream vs your family responsibility. The love of the 2 protagonist is adorable too, I enjoyed it a lot. All in all, a meaningful and lighthearted film to sit back and enjoy. Oh, and Wade is such a cool guy (get it?).

My four (few months shy of 5) year old and I loved this movie! She usually won’t sit through a whole movie without wanting to play or colour partway through unless it’s something she really loves (i.e. Frozen lol) but this movie held her attention start to finish. She told me she loves the fire girl the best haha. The animation was wonderful in 3D and she even let out some little gasps of awe and excitement which was adorable :’) This was her first movie in a movie theatre and she loved the experience! As the adult, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie as well. While it may not always have the most original storyline, I personally felt it stands alone and is unique in its own beautiful ways. The story this movie tells is so touching and it opened my eyes to a new perspective and lived experience. I honestly could relate to different aspects of it as a white woman who knows nothing of the struggles BIPOC face. I believe the message of love and following your passions while trying to balance the want/need to respect and honour those who have made it possible for you to chase those dreams is a universal one. No matter your race, sexuality, economic background - we all dream, we all love, we all hurt, we all experience loss and we all have fears holding us back. I personally lost track of how often I cried and my four year old even shed a few tears as well! If you can manage to keep an open mind through this, I highly recommend it. One of my new favs from this year for sure!

[7.6/10] I go back and forth on the Ben-Leslie stuff here. On the one hand, the first half of it is near-perfect. The pair of them having to take a trip together, whilst trying to avoid one another so as to avoid temptation, is a classic setup that leads to a lot of great things. First and foremost, Leslie’s efforts to project unsexiness and platonic conversation are pretty great, from the banjo music to conversations about Johns Hopkins dorms to inviting random photographers to play third wheel.

It also leads to Ben talking about how great Pawnee is to the bigwigs in Indiana, which is possibly the sexiest and most endearing thing a man can do in Leslie’s book. The episode plays her conflictedness well, between her harried excuse to call Ann (whose half-hearted admonitions and joy when they’re ignored are superb), her clear affection for Ben, and her fear of losing a job that she cares about. It’s all very well done, and Amy Poehler and Adam Scott do great work at showing the chemistry between their characters.

Then Chris shows up and it turns into a wacky sitcom game of three’s company. It’s not my favorite use of Chris, as his blithe but pestersome qualities get to be too much here, and the entire bit is a little hackneyed. Still, that frustration and separation heightens the catharsis when Ben finally kisses Leslie, Leslie kisses Ben, and then there’s the perfect reaction to it – “Uh oh.” So well done, and such a great payoff to a season of teasing.

The B-story of April and Andy’s mini-fight from Tom’s proto-version of “Know Ya Boo” is nice enough. Tom’s entrepreneurial spirit and showboating come into play well, and Donna and Jerry doing surprisingly well at the Newlywed Show-esque game is a cute gag. The conflict between the actual newlyweds, however, is a bit easy, with the Mouserat vs. Neutral Milk Hotel argument being one of the sillier bits. Still, April going so far as to seek help from Ann, and rectifying things by covering a Mouserat song adds a nice emotional punch to the finish. And the whole thing centers around Andy and his devotion to his band, which is another nice way the show roots these things in character.

But speaking of which, the best thing in this episode is the part where Ron instructs a little girl about his libertarianism. It’s hard to articulate why this bit is so hilarious and adorable, but something about seeing the middle-aged, solitary grump finding a kindred spirit for his political views in an elementary schooler is utterly delightful. His lessons (particularly the lunch-eating) is great, and the fact that the little girl’s mom makes him recant, but that he wants an autographed copy of her essay anyway is the perfect finish.

Overall, it’s an episode that serves as the culmination of a lot of Leslie-Ben stuff, but stumbles a bit along the way to the finish line, with a nice enough April-Andy story and an all-time great Ron story in support.

[9.4/10] Such a great episode. The way it manages to split the difference between real interpersonal conflict and wacky comedy, with Leslie and Ann especially, is absolutely genius. Their fight over Leslie pushing Ann a little too hard and Ann blowing off Leslie’s job offer, has both an understandable emotional core rooted in the characters’ different personalities, and also a goofy but true enough tone to it. Their argument in the bathroom has the ring of a real fight between friends to it, even if a lot of the words are nonsense, which makes it feel as genuine as it is funny.

Plus, Snake Juice! Seeing everybody wasted is an utter delight. Ron especially is great, between his seriousness about endorsing the product after trying it, to his adorable little dance in the brilliant montage of everyone’s drunken ramblings. The training for selling the product is hilarious (especially Ron’s pronunciation of kuh-razy). Tom having to sell his stake in the Snakehole Lounge gives the whole storyline somewhere to go, but it’s mostly just good fodder for laughs.

And you know who I liked in this episode who didn’t really click with me on my first watch of this show? John Ralphio. His one-word-too-many rhymes were an amusing gag, his utter willingness to dance with Leslie at her immediate demand was great, and his slightly exasperated “a lot riding on this” when Tom wagers John Ralphio shaving his head if Ron doesn’t like the drink is a perfect line delivery. I even like Nick Kroll as The Douche here, who occasionally grates on me, mostly because he’s the butt of Ann and Leslie’s jokes.

I’m also, as always, a big fan of Andy and April here. Them going whole-hog as Janet Snakehole (which allows Aubrey Plaza to play some different notes than April usually hits) and Burt Macklin is a ton of fun in the skeezy club setting. And there’s even a nice beat for the two of them at the end, with a massively hungover Andy powering through to show April that he’s always there to be silly with her (and eventually throw up).

It also advances the Ben-Leslie story nicely. Hinging part of the fight on Ann castigating Leslie for using the rule as an excuse (even though, you know, the risk of losing a job you love is a pretty big deal) adds some flavor to it. Plus, Ann telling Ben that their whole thing is so prom is pretty fun and Ben’s reaction is sweet. There is, of course, reconciliation between the pair, and it’s a reminder that while Ann is occasionally superfluous in the show when on her own, her relationship with Leslie is one of the bedrocks of the series, and it’s always nice to see the show play off of that.

[7.3/10] The Eagleton part of this episode doesn’t do it for me. I’m all for a slobs vs. snobs story, especially one built on Leslie feeling betrayed by a former friend, but all of the Eagleton stuff is just too cartoony. Everything from public forums with giftbaskets to a pink and purple jail with scones to Leslie’s frenemy Lindsey herself are just too exaggerated to make this conflict feel real and not just a bit of ridiculousness. It turns the “good town vs. bad town” dynamic into something that feels like it’s out of an 80’s cartoon.

Still, I appreciate the tack that it’s founded on Leslie thinking Lindsey was on her side, and that she feels hurt by the broken promise and backs turned on Pawnee itself as much as she’s upset with Lindsey individually. The whiffle ball feel is a nice twist to resolve the fence issue, and Leslie being the bigger person is a nice character beat.

What really sells this one though, is the B-story, where Leslie figures out Ron’s birthday and Ron goes nuts (in true Ron fashion) worrying about what public, showy thing Leslie is going to do to celebrate. I love the way everyone gets a turn with him, from April messing with him at Leslie’s prompting, to Andy inadvertently dropping hints about a kidnapping, to Ann scaring him with stories of bounce houses and hoopla, to Chris straight up kissing him on the mouth. Ron’s increasing paranoia, and his reactions to all of this are outstanding, and it’s great acting from Nick Offerman, who really sells Ron’s disgust and fear at all of this.

The finish, however, is beautiful. Leslie providing steak, scotch, old movies, and solitude is the perfect Ron Swanson birthday party. And the fact that it ties into their relationship and the Eagleton story is great writing. Ron knows Leslie and Leslie knows Ron, and that means that Leslie knows how to give Ron the sort of celebration he’d enjoy, and Ron knows Leslie’s the kind of person who’d make her hometown better. It’s a great testament to what is arguably the show’s core relationship.

The Eagleton stuff gets a bit too out of hand for my tastes, but that still makes this one a keeper.

Love this episode. The twin storylines in this episode, featuring Leslie/Tom on the one hand and Ron/Chris/Andy/April on the other hand are each so brilliant and charming. To start with the A story, Leslie tries her hand at online dating after a particularly distressing experience with Sewage Joe (great to see these wonderful side characters pop up every now and then. More on that in the next episode too), fearing that she seems to keep landing sleazy guys and to her great horror, she finds herself a soulmate match with none other than Tom Haverford.

I've made it clear in the past that I think Tom is, among the main cast of characters, the most problematic so it says something when this A-story not only works but is hilarious start to finish and this is one of Aziz's finest outings yet as he really shines here comedically speaking. There's not too much more than him teasing and humiliating Leslie at every possible turn once he finds out that they were paired up by an online dating site and yet, it's so entertaining to watch because the episode completely embraces all of Tom's worst qualities, plays it for every ounce of comedy and at the same time, transfers the audience's total sympathy onto Leslie.

The B-story features a grilling competition between health conscious Chris and meat loving Ron. In the previous episode, there was a great moment of tension when Chris showed up to the "dinner party" with a vegetable loaf for a cake much to Ron's chagrin. So, in a way, one can almost view it as a continuity of an ongoing tension. Anyways, this storyline is absolutely fantastic too. The highlights are the visits the group make to firstly, Grain N Simple and secondly, Ron's favourite store, the Food N Stuff. The Grain N Simple scene really gets the most out of the dynamics at play between Chris/Andy on the one hand and April/Ron on the other. The hippie by the food barrel and the vegan food sample moments are highlights, as is Andy emptying a container of grain and Chris immediately walking away inconspicuously.

It's also nice to see another appearance by Kyle, who we find out is someone that even Jerry picks on. It's amusing to see the ladder if you will extended by another rung and who knows, perhaps Kyle has his own punching bag.

[9.4/10] This was the first Parks and Rec I ever watched, and it’s not hard to see why it led to my interest in the show. It does a great job at introducing most of the characters and their dynamics, both the A-story and the B-story work like gangbusters, and it’s truly hilarious.

Let’s start with the B-story. Ron and Chris having a cook off to decide whether beef hamburgers stay in the commissary is a fairly sitcom setup, but the war of culinary ideologies takes on such comedic force with its two champions. Chris’s boundless positivity, coupled with Andy’s doltish charm makes for a great deal of fun around the office and the Whole Foods knockoff where they shop. Ron’s matter-of-fact demeanor (aided by April’s flat affect) makes for a nice contrast, and the revelation of Food-N-Stuff is a hoot. Ron prevailing despite Chris’s attention to detail is a nice resolution (with Donna, Jerry, and Kyle as judges) and the whole enterprise is a lot of fun.

The A-story is great too. The notion of Leslie feeling like she only gets attention from sleazy guys – the peak of this being matched up with Tom on an online dating site – is a nice premise. It gives her time for some good heart-to-hearts with Ann, some hint-worthy interactions with Ben, and a great little bit with Tom. Her lunch with him, followed by his asshole behavior, is great comedy, both in terms of Leslie’s bewilderment that anyone could think like Tom does and then her frustration at his idiocy when he thinks she likes him. The fact that a kiss is what shuts him up (followed with a perfect retort of “you should be so lucky”) is brilliant stuff.

And it dovetails nicely with the path toward Ben and Leslie’s attraction being fulfilled. The whole wildflower bit is a little easy, but it’s still a nice way to dramatize the way that they think alike and are well-suited for one another.

Plus it’s just such a hilarious episode all around. Tom’s nicknames for various food-related items is a great sequence. The tag with Donna shutting up Tom by kissing him too is great. The guy from sanitation is pitch-perfect in his skeeviness. And Ron’s “nature is amazing” scene with the hippie at the store is silly but hilarious stuff.

Overall, this is a great episode to introduce someone to the show. It has something for all the major characters to do; it has simple but effective plots, and it’s damn funny in the process.

This episode is a default winner of my heart just because this is the episode where Andy and April get married. It's done in the perfect, carefree, beautiful, true-to-character fashion and in doing so, completely overrides every single cliche in this popular sitcom trope storyline. It's a perfect representation of who April and Andy are, as people first and as lovers second and it manages to wring out so much affecting drama within a single episode and makes the episode so much more than a wedding episode.

Andy and April have a surprise in store for everyone who attends their dinner party: they are not at a dinner party but in fact, their wedding. While everyone at the party seems genuinely happy for them, Leslie has second thoughts on it all and fears that two people who are very close to her may just be making a tumultuous mistake in their early lives. By the ending of this episode, it's clear that while she is moved by the simple but sweet nature of their wedding ceremony and their pure love for one another, she continues to have her fears that an impulse decision could spell trouble in the future. That's one of the greatest things about this episode, maybe one of the greatest of the series. Things do not necessarily wrap up in a neat little bow and it's thematically, all the more powerful for it.

Leslie is just so perfect in this episode. While Ron tells her that it isn't her place to try and correct April and Andy, she tries nonetheless even if she does not actively try and stop the wedding. Amy Poehler is absolutely sensational in this role and she manages to take the script and wring out every bit of humour while capturing the nuances of the drama too. Her performance during the wedding is absolutely fantastic because it captures both a joy and a disappointment and Amy Poehler has gotten to a point with this show where it's sailed way past Leslie being a Michael Scott copy.

April and Andy are probably one of my favourite television couples and I'm not one to generally focus too much or even care too much about television romances because I find most of them, in the sitcom format, tend to run stale at a point. I feel that way about Jim and Pam for example but April and Andy are an exception because they are exceptional circumstances for characters. In a show full of eccentric and wacky personalities, they might just be the two wackiest. The generally apathetic April and the goofball Andy to vaguely characterize them seem to find pure content in each other and the chemistry between Aubrey Plaza and Chris Pratt is so strong that they capture so flawlessly this oddball love their characters have for one another.

Everything else in this episode is perfect to my eyes too. The introduction of Orin, onscreen at least (previously Leslie voiced her disapproval to April regarding Orin being her friend) is amazing and another reminder or indicator of the sheer number of great side characters the show was able to squeeze out over the years. The interactions that Ben and Chris have with the character are hilarious in the sheer contrast in their attitudes. Ben is terrified of Orin (one of my favourite moments is the "are you asking me or telling me?" bit) whereas Chris terrifies Orin with his positive outlook on life!

I love seeing Jean Ralphio again and the sheer sleaze and arrogance he brings with him is brilliant. The very brief scene he has here provides plenty of laughs. It's also great to see April's parents and her sister again and the utterly apathetic speech she makes after the wedding and turning April into tears are just other lovely touches to this episode.

I love Ron's simple but profound interactions at the wedding. He first tells Leslie that it's not in her place to stop their wedding and after the ceremony, tells Leslie that the reason she didn't do anything drastic was because she knew it would be futile to stop those crazy kids. The dance between April and Ron is perfectly awkward and really highlights a relationship that is very strong with the show. It's so beautiful.

Elsewhere, Ann is trying to hit on guys to little success. There she sees Donna, who initially warns her off but upon seeing how helpless she is, coaches her in the dating world. As Andrew says in his review, I don't feel too strongly with Ann's love life on the show but a storyline like this really brings out some levity and humour out of that situation. Donna is particularly brilliant in this episode.

Simply, I love, love, love this episode. Virtually any episode that focuses heavily on April and Andy will at least leave me happy and at its best, like here, feels like transcendent television. The simplest of wedding gestures here is more powerful than the many grand weddings we've seen in other sitcoms. It is so true to the characters and it could never have worked in any other way.