TV Show Review - The Wire (Season 1)

Season: 1
Genre: Drama/ Crime
Number of episodes: 13
Year: 2002
Starring: Dominic West, Lance Reddick, Idris Elba, Sonja Sohn, Wendell Pierce, Seth Gilliam, Domenick Lombardozzi, John Domann, Clarke Peters, Andre Royo, Michael Kenneth Williams, Deirdre Lovejoy

Description: The Baltimore drug scene, as seen through the eyes of drug dealers and law enforcement.
The Baltimore drug scene, as seen through the eyes of drug dealers and law enforcement.

Review: “The Wire” is considered on of the most groundbreaking and realistic drama series every made, and it has been on my watch list for way too long.

“The Wire” is not a standard police series, where each episode a case is investigated and solved. Season 1 focuses on a single, complex drug and murder case in Baltimore over 13 episodes. It shows how both the police and the criminals are stuck in bureaucratic and hierarchical systems.

It’s not simply good vs. bad: the series stands out for its moral nuance. It’s not just black and white, no simple heroes or villains; both the cops and the gang members of the Barksdale organization are portrayed as complex, human characters with their own codes and shortcomings.

The start of the first season can feel a bit slow, but pushing through is definitely worth it. I heard someone describe the show as a visual novel. You have to take the time to know the web of characters; the reward only comes in the second half of the season when all the storylines come together.

The script, characters, and social criticism have depth and you really become invested in it once you’ve gotten through the first few episodes. “The Wire” shows a realistic view of justice. It’s a more layered crime drama and I will most definitely continue to the next season.

00s Movie Review - Gone Baby Gone

Director: Ben Affleck
Genre: Drama/ Mystery/ Crime
Runtime: 114 minutes
Year: 2007
Starring: Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Amy Ryan, Titus Welliver, Amy Madigan, Michael Kenneth Williams

Description: Two Boston area detectives (Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan) investigate a little girl’s kidnapping, which ultimately turns into a crisis both professionally and personally.

Review: Is a bad deed justifiable if the consequence is ultimately good? What are good intentions worth if the consequences are bad? And what then is good and bad, and do those words have any meaning at all? Such questions arise when watching “Gone Baby Gone”, directed by Ben Affleck and based on the book by Dennis Lehane. Affleck created an engaging, intelligent film.

Private detective couple Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are hired by Helene McCready’s sister-in-law to track down Helene’s missing four-year-old daughter Amanda. They discover that Helene has robbed a drug dealer and suspect that the drug dealer has something to do with Amanda’s abduction. An attempt to strike a bargain with the dealer and exchange the stolen money for the child goes horribly wrong.

Months later, Kenzie works another kidnapping case where he must find and free a missing boy from the hands of a pedophile. In the process, Patrick makes some decisions that are very difficult for him and also stumbles upon a secret that presents him with even more difficult decisions. The question is not so much whether he can make the right decision, but whether there are any at all in our modern society.

It was a good idea by Ben Affleck to keep the moral uncertainties that arise in a disrupted world without a clearly identifiable right or wrong. This keeps the story and a few plot twists interesting. I’ve always liked Ben Affleck more as a directed than an actor, so I’m happy he decided to cast his brother Casey Affleck for the lead role, instead of starrin in it himself. The younger Affleck is in my opinion the better actor of the two and he proves that in “Gone Baby Gone”. Helene McCready is played by Amy Ryan, who really shines in her role.

“Gone Baby Gone” is a really good crime mystery, that is engaging from start to finish. An overlooked film in my opinion, not many people seem to talk about it anymore.

Rating: 4,5 / 5

10s Movie Review - Assassin's Creed

Director: Justin Kurzel
Genre: Fantasy/ Action/ Science Fiction/ Adventure
Runtime: 115 minutes
Year: 2017
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Charlotte Rampling, Michael Kenneth Wiliams

Description: Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender) explores the memories of his ancestor Aguilar de Nerha and gains the skills of a Maser Assassin, before taking on the secret Templar society.

I WATCHED THIS MOVIE FOR MY 2022 MOVIE CHALLENGE
WEEK 46: A MOVIE BASED ON A VIDEOGAME
 
Review: Movies based on videogames aren’t really successful, with a few exceptions of course. This time, it’s “Assassin’s Creed”. The film has an incredible cast and it looks amazing. But its execution is a soulless misinterpretation of the game, that might even be on the list of worse videogame adaptations ever made.

The real potential of “Assassin’s Creed” lies in three unique elements, all of which were butchered. First, “Assassin’s Creed” belongs to the sci-di genre, but this is extremely poorly utilized. The basic elements are still accurate: Abstergo is a secretive company that kidnaps people from certain bloodlines, such as Callum Lynch, to put them in the so-called Animus. An imaginative device that finds in DNA the genetic memories of one’s ancestors, and creates a holodeck-like simulation in which history can be experienced. In the game, these simulations show a fine collision between history and technology. In the film Callum has zero influence on the simulation. He simply undergoes the story as Aguilar.

Second, the relationship between Callum Lynch and his ancestor Aguilar. The game always works with two storylines, where the Animus driver and ancestor are quite different but gradually grow together. This “synchronization” is hardly named in the film. It also never plays with themes of reality or identity. The scenes in medieval Spain are simply three long flashbacks that serve only as action scenes or plot vehicles.

Finally, the mysterious story is told with the subtlety of a children’s series. For example, the film opens with a piece of text, leaving nothing in the dark. Where the mystery slowly unveils in the game series, there is hardly any subtlety present in the film.

They put so much effort in the visuals of the film, but totally ignored the essence of the game’s story. And also completely wasted the talented cast that they had. I’m not a big games, but I don’t believe fans of this game like it. I just know this movie sucked.

Rating: 2/ 5
 

TV Show Review - Lovecraft Country

Season: 1
Genre: Thriller/ Horror/ Drama/ Mystery/ Fantasy
Number of episodes: 10
Year: 2020
Starring: Jonathan Majors, Jurnee Smollett, Aunjanue Ellis, Wunmi Mosaku, Abbey Lee, Jamie Chung, Jada Harris, Michael Kenneth Williams, Courtney B. Vance, Jordan Patrick Smith

Description: A young African-American (Jonathan Majors) travels across the U.S. in the 1950s in search of his missing father.

Review: First, let’s talk about H.P. Lovecraft, a very influential American horror author who in the 1920s and 1930s wrote classic stories and novels around a mythology he developed himself, in which an unfathomable and ancient evil lurks beneath the surface of life in New England. Lovecraft died in 1937, before his work became successful.  
In 2016, Matt Ruff wrote the novel “Lovecraft Country”, win which horror with an unmistakable Lovecraft touch is used in a story about a road trip through the segregated America of the fifties as a background. Here, two types of horror are captured in one worldview.
And now it’s a TV series on HBO. The screenplay is by Misha Green and is produced by big names like J.J. Abrams and Jordan Peele.
It’s a creative way of combing the horror theme of Lovecraft’s world with the terror that African Americans had to deal with in the 1950s. It’s brilliantly done. Nothing is what it seems and anything goes. It’s a surprising series, it’s bloody, exciting and it looks amazing. And the performances are also rock-solid. It’s not a series you can easily binge, it’s better to watch an episode at a time and take it in.
Even though I loved this series, I don’t think it needs another season.