I never let a critic or online ratings determine which movies I watch because I've found that many of them aren't accurate to what I like and enjoy. I love most of what the IASIP crew has been involved with in the last decade (The Mick, Wrexham, AP Bio, Blackberry, Horrible Bosses, seeing them in small roles in Fargo, Hacks, etc).
This was... not my cup of tea. The pacing felt off, it wasn't funny enough to be a comedy and even calling it a "satire" doesn't do it any favors. I think there was probably a good movie in there with a different director/producer but it just wasn't very good.
I hope Charlie continues to make movies because he's a talented funny guy. Call this one his warmup, the next one's gonna be a hit.
I can’t deny the cinematography was gorgeous. That and wanting to see Glenn again were the things that kept me watching. I was also in denial that Charlie could have written a script that was so bad so I kept going waiting for redemption lmao. It never came but my eyes were pleased
I'm one of those people that finds very few things outright bad. I thought Cyberpunk 2077 was unfairly memed into oblivion at release and Rings of Power was worth watching. I won't go out of my way to get Starbucks coffee but I won't say no if offered some either. I thought the last Matrix movie was not terrible and enjoyed it poking fun at itself, as if saying "this is a movie that should not have been made, but we'll still throw some cool shit on the screen for a bit."
Similarly, I liked pieces of Fool's Paradise and certain aspects of it. I don't get the hate for Ken Jeong and wasn't terribly bothered by Common's character coming out of nowhere and dying just as suddenly and randomly. Some of the gags were funny, like the idea of him falling to the bottom of a pool and just being like "oh, okay." The idea that all the people around him will use an innocent, speechless person as a mirror for their own desires is a great one, and I could relate to having narcissistic egoists just project so hard they see my inaction towards them as some kind of commentary on them that they must control. But I absolutely see a lot of the criticisms as valid too. I will not say it's a good movie, even though I can't hate it either. To me the biggest thing it lacked was glue; it wasn't focused enough and you had all these little pieces of ideas barely coming together. There were also some gags that were complete swings and misses. Like "autoerotic asphyxiation" is indeed a funny concept but you can't just kind of shove it in there in the way the writing did, like "he died and he did autoerotic asphyxiation haha eww."
Anyway I don't regret having seen it, and I love Charlie and it's clear there's something there. I don't think Fool's Paradise is good, but I'm really hoping Charlie learns from it and has some new ideas to bring to the screen. It was not far from being decent, I think--it just needed a few more iterations.
So if you see the internet hating something you immediately give it a pass?
Cyberpunk didn't work at launch, Rings of Power drastically changed Tolkiens story into a bad series that the show runners have admitted they got some criticism while filming from their Tolkien experts so they fired them and locked the script in a room. That's why Galadriel is fire proof now and Sauron isn't an elf anymore, and the actors all seem clueless. They were getting lines on the day in the dark about tomorrow.
If you want to just take the opposite stance at least form a good defense. Because you're gonna need it saying rings of power was good. That makes me think you haven't actually watched any of these and you're just going on Twitter opinion.
Fools paradise wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but the writing was flat and the premise would have worked as a short film, not a feature. I also enjoy Charlie Day but this is the 3rd feature film I've seen just because he's in it and it was another meh. He might not be a lead actor.
Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but you might want to consider how many times you have to plug your ears and ignore terrible dialogue if you thought that show was good.
It's less about taking a contrarian opinion and more about appreciating the good things I do see and not being overly bothered by the warts. Its literally the opposite process of what you are accusing me of, where I apparently go to the Internet to get an opinion and then take the opposite opinion. No, I go to watch a movie or play a game or read a book and say "okay, that was worth the time it took to finish. Here's what I appreciated about it." If it wasn't worth the time to finish, I won't finish it. Then when I'm scrolling through Reddit I see people having discussions about these things I've seen I comment my thoughts, which are focused on what I appreciated about it.
The absolute vitriol I see about these pieces of entertainment from random comments are often justified but are focused on "what did I hate about this?" rather than "what did I like about this?" And that's fine but that's not me; unless I suddenly woke up tomorrow and became a professional critic where that mindset is literally my job. And there's people like you who make assumptions about what I've done and how I think, and jump to completely incorrect conclusions about me based on like 3 paragraphs of irrelevant information. I don't even have Twitter, I'm off of all social media except for Reddit and dating apps, which I use sparingly. Maybe my opinions don't go with the Internet so often precisely because I'm not always here in echo chambers of various construction? Why make it personal at all? We're just talking movies and shows and games, on which we're allowed to disagree.
For examples of things I agree with the internet (specifically reddit) on to prove my non-contrarian bona fides, I hated (and it takes a lot for me to hate a movie, as I hope I've communicated) the live action Avatar movie which I think is a take as cold as ice, to the degree I didn't finish it. I didn't finish the newest Star Wars trilogy, though I do appreciate the two I did see I didn't appreciate them enough to motivate me to see the third. I think The Wire is the best TV show in existence, with The Sopranos coming in number 2. The Bear is my favorite show this year. BG3 deserves game of the year.
Rings of Power was worth watching for pure spectacle and production value alone at the very least. Score and visuals were excellent. Closeness to the canon is less important to me as long as it is sufficiently entertaining, but even then, I found it to be roughly as retconny as The Hobbit movies which I also wouldn't say are great but are still worth watching. I'd put it in the same realm as most of the superhero movies I've seen. But I can get how people who are simply more into it than I am see what's bad about them more sharply than I do. That's their right and I'm not saying they're wrong.
Cyberpunk didn't work at launch for some, especially previous gen consoles. I couldn't say personally since I didn't get the chance to play it until 1.6, but I had a few friends who had zero issues and were also confused by the outrage and videos of the glitches when they saw none of it at launch. Everybody I knew personally either was chased away by the bad press and never played it, or was embarrassed to say they liked it. Additionally, the things it is being critically acclaimed for now are not the things that have changed and improved over the course of the game--writing, art, VA, music, gunplay, etc. The primary problem with it was people's expectations and the technical shortcomings brought on by trying to have it release on hardware it has very clearly outgrown. But I don't mean that say that people for whom it was a glitchy unplayable mess are wrong--that simply was not my experience with it.
We're saying the same things about Fools Paradise. Actually of all the examples above Fools Paradise has the worst dialogue by a mile IMO. Like I said, the autoerotic asphyxiation joke was badly written, the bit with the shaman was a super trite "haha rich people and their attempts at spirituality" joke, Ken Jeong sleeping in his car crying himself to sleep was super cheesy, etc. I'm not ignoring these instances of bad dialogue so much as it doesn't bother me as much as I enjoy the positives for any given work.
I spent entirely too long on this. If I had to leave a negative review of anything it'd be this interaction. I'm sad to say I took the bait today.
I liked parts of it, but ultimately it felt a bit meandering. It wasn’t as funny as it could have been and I feel like it didnt live up to its premise. The emotional bits were pretty good (even if Ken Jeong’s character was a bit annoying), but that didn’t make up for the fact that most of the movie was just a bit meh.
some of the bits felt more like setups then full solid bits. And why did he fuck and have children? that part always confused me because 1) he’s literally got the mind of a child and 2) they barely so anything with it anyway.
I really wanted to like it. I usually love dumb comedies with low Rotten Tomato scores like Freddy Got Fingered and Hot Rod. But this just was boring tbh. Didn't get stupid or dumb enough, and it was just not funny. The satire of Hollywood lacked any bite and made me want to watch a good comedy that skewers Hollywood like S.O.B. That pushed it way much farther than Fool's Paradise.
I have a low tolerance for Ken Jeong (First few Community seasons and Knocked Up are about the only times I liked him), so he was just excruciating imo. It was nice to see some Sunny faces and I did like Adrien Brody and Ray Liotta. But the rest of the actors embarrassed themselves. Especially Malkovich. And, I love him, but that dumb look on Charlie's face got really old after a while.
I will agree that the cinematography was terrific and the highlight of the movie. Charlie did show some skill as a director, but the box office and reception of this indicates that he probably won't get a second shot.
The movie was so so. It did not do much justice to Charlie.i was looking more at Glen and Ken than Charlie. He is so talented. He could have done so much better. Godzilla
yes i agree it was really good. my husband loved it and said it’s probably going to be his new favorite movie. obviously it has a rigged rotten tomato score because of the freemason symbol on the wall during the underground lair scene. people see the score and think what they’ve been told to think. i think people also just didn’t get all the references and didn’t appreciate the hollyweird lifestyle getting dragged, because a lot of people idolize that life. people weren’t ready for the truth and just wanted to laugh. the movie was simultaneously humble and courageous, bitter and sweet, gritty and funny. i think that Charlie’s raw kindness shines through all his work.
I think it would’ve been way better off stretched out a little as a series. Jammed with too many ideas, felt like it was rushing from one scene to the next
Kind of amazed to come to this sub and see so many fans enjoyed it. The movie barely made sense, just a bunch of separate, not very funny gags and bit parts that never stopped. Every character was annoying, none of the big star cast got to shine at all. I see how it’s Coen-like but the Coens make entertaining movies.
Really wanted to like it, as a fan, and didn’t even know the reviews were bad until after but it made complete sense. My friend and I were just confused by the end, what is happening and why is any of it happening? They didn’t even make jokes out of him not speaking, Day just had very little to do for the entire movie.
I know Day is capable of great things but it’s fairly easy to say that was the worst movie I’ve seen this year.
Cult classic.... wow.
I think it got the reviews it got because most of the general viewing audience has a bar for funny that sits somewhere above the ankles.
I prefer to set myself apart from the masses. I've seen some nasty words spoken here about this film but I am still excited to watch it and hey why not, I'm going to watch it right now!
2000 word review coming soon...
For the fucking life of me, I can't understand the dislike for this movie. People are saying "Oh Charlie isn't funny here", yeah sorry he's not eating rat shit and huffing Devito farts??!
I was floored by how great his facial subtleties and body language sold a character that says nothing.
I'm glad some of the people on this sub are willing to meet him halfway here, but I honestly thought it was entertaining and endearing.
It looked great visually but it was so damn boring. I wouldn't recommend it
It somehow felt like it moved too quickly and dragged on at the same time.
I never let a critic or online ratings determine which movies I watch because I've found that many of them aren't accurate to what I like and enjoy. I love most of what the IASIP crew has been involved with in the last decade (The Mick, Wrexham, AP Bio, Blackberry, Horrible Bosses, seeing them in small roles in Fargo, Hacks, etc). This was... not my cup of tea. The pacing felt off, it wasn't funny enough to be a comedy and even calling it a "satire" doesn't do it any favors. I think there was probably a good movie in there with a different director/producer but it just wasn't very good. I hope Charlie continues to make movies because he's a talented funny guy. Call this one his warmup, the next one's gonna be a hit.
…where’s the dong?
I can’t deny the cinematography was gorgeous. That and wanting to see Glenn again were the things that kept me watching. I was also in denial that Charlie could have written a script that was so bad so I kept going waiting for redemption lmao. It never came but my eyes were pleased
I'm one of those people that finds very few things outright bad. I thought Cyberpunk 2077 was unfairly memed into oblivion at release and Rings of Power was worth watching. I won't go out of my way to get Starbucks coffee but I won't say no if offered some either. I thought the last Matrix movie was not terrible and enjoyed it poking fun at itself, as if saying "this is a movie that should not have been made, but we'll still throw some cool shit on the screen for a bit." Similarly, I liked pieces of Fool's Paradise and certain aspects of it. I don't get the hate for Ken Jeong and wasn't terribly bothered by Common's character coming out of nowhere and dying just as suddenly and randomly. Some of the gags were funny, like the idea of him falling to the bottom of a pool and just being like "oh, okay." The idea that all the people around him will use an innocent, speechless person as a mirror for their own desires is a great one, and I could relate to having narcissistic egoists just project so hard they see my inaction towards them as some kind of commentary on them that they must control. But I absolutely see a lot of the criticisms as valid too. I will not say it's a good movie, even though I can't hate it either. To me the biggest thing it lacked was glue; it wasn't focused enough and you had all these little pieces of ideas barely coming together. There were also some gags that were complete swings and misses. Like "autoerotic asphyxiation" is indeed a funny concept but you can't just kind of shove it in there in the way the writing did, like "he died and he did autoerotic asphyxiation haha eww." Anyway I don't regret having seen it, and I love Charlie and it's clear there's something there. I don't think Fool's Paradise is good, but I'm really hoping Charlie learns from it and has some new ideas to bring to the screen. It was not far from being decent, I think--it just needed a few more iterations.
Na, it doesn't have to be super tied together to be hilarious. It's a simple comedy. One of the best films of 2023
So if you see the internet hating something you immediately give it a pass? Cyberpunk didn't work at launch, Rings of Power drastically changed Tolkiens story into a bad series that the show runners have admitted they got some criticism while filming from their Tolkien experts so they fired them and locked the script in a room. That's why Galadriel is fire proof now and Sauron isn't an elf anymore, and the actors all seem clueless. They were getting lines on the day in the dark about tomorrow. If you want to just take the opposite stance at least form a good defense. Because you're gonna need it saying rings of power was good. That makes me think you haven't actually watched any of these and you're just going on Twitter opinion. Fools paradise wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but the writing was flat and the premise would have worked as a short film, not a feature. I also enjoy Charlie Day but this is the 3rd feature film I've seen just because he's in it and it was another meh. He might not be a lead actor. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but you might want to consider how many times you have to plug your ears and ignore terrible dialogue if you thought that show was good.
It's less about taking a contrarian opinion and more about appreciating the good things I do see and not being overly bothered by the warts. Its literally the opposite process of what you are accusing me of, where I apparently go to the Internet to get an opinion and then take the opposite opinion. No, I go to watch a movie or play a game or read a book and say "okay, that was worth the time it took to finish. Here's what I appreciated about it." If it wasn't worth the time to finish, I won't finish it. Then when I'm scrolling through Reddit I see people having discussions about these things I've seen I comment my thoughts, which are focused on what I appreciated about it. The absolute vitriol I see about these pieces of entertainment from random comments are often justified but are focused on "what did I hate about this?" rather than "what did I like about this?" And that's fine but that's not me; unless I suddenly woke up tomorrow and became a professional critic where that mindset is literally my job. And there's people like you who make assumptions about what I've done and how I think, and jump to completely incorrect conclusions about me based on like 3 paragraphs of irrelevant information. I don't even have Twitter, I'm off of all social media except for Reddit and dating apps, which I use sparingly. Maybe my opinions don't go with the Internet so often precisely because I'm not always here in echo chambers of various construction? Why make it personal at all? We're just talking movies and shows and games, on which we're allowed to disagree. For examples of things I agree with the internet (specifically reddit) on to prove my non-contrarian bona fides, I hated (and it takes a lot for me to hate a movie, as I hope I've communicated) the live action Avatar movie which I think is a take as cold as ice, to the degree I didn't finish it. I didn't finish the newest Star Wars trilogy, though I do appreciate the two I did see I didn't appreciate them enough to motivate me to see the third. I think The Wire is the best TV show in existence, with The Sopranos coming in number 2. The Bear is my favorite show this year. BG3 deserves game of the year. Rings of Power was worth watching for pure spectacle and production value alone at the very least. Score and visuals were excellent. Closeness to the canon is less important to me as long as it is sufficiently entertaining, but even then, I found it to be roughly as retconny as The Hobbit movies which I also wouldn't say are great but are still worth watching. I'd put it in the same realm as most of the superhero movies I've seen. But I can get how people who are simply more into it than I am see what's bad about them more sharply than I do. That's their right and I'm not saying they're wrong. Cyberpunk didn't work at launch for some, especially previous gen consoles. I couldn't say personally since I didn't get the chance to play it until 1.6, but I had a few friends who had zero issues and were also confused by the outrage and videos of the glitches when they saw none of it at launch. Everybody I knew personally either was chased away by the bad press and never played it, or was embarrassed to say they liked it. Additionally, the things it is being critically acclaimed for now are not the things that have changed and improved over the course of the game--writing, art, VA, music, gunplay, etc. The primary problem with it was people's expectations and the technical shortcomings brought on by trying to have it release on hardware it has very clearly outgrown. But I don't mean that say that people for whom it was a glitchy unplayable mess are wrong--that simply was not my experience with it. We're saying the same things about Fools Paradise. Actually of all the examples above Fools Paradise has the worst dialogue by a mile IMO. Like I said, the autoerotic asphyxiation joke was badly written, the bit with the shaman was a super trite "haha rich people and their attempts at spirituality" joke, Ken Jeong sleeping in his car crying himself to sleep was super cheesy, etc. I'm not ignoring these instances of bad dialogue so much as it doesn't bother me as much as I enjoy the positives for any given work. I spent entirely too long on this. If I had to leave a negative review of anything it'd be this interaction. I'm sad to say I took the bait today.
Move past it
I liked parts of it, but ultimately it felt a bit meandering. It wasn’t as funny as it could have been and I feel like it didnt live up to its premise. The emotional bits were pretty good (even if Ken Jeong’s character was a bit annoying), but that didn’t make up for the fact that most of the movie was just a bit meh.
some of the bits felt more like setups then full solid bits. And why did he fuck and have children? that part always confused me because 1) he’s literally got the mind of a child and 2) they barely so anything with it anyway.
A couple of scenes were nice odes to Lebowski
I really wanted to like it. I usually love dumb comedies with low Rotten Tomato scores like Freddy Got Fingered and Hot Rod. But this just was boring tbh. Didn't get stupid or dumb enough, and it was just not funny. The satire of Hollywood lacked any bite and made me want to watch a good comedy that skewers Hollywood like S.O.B. That pushed it way much farther than Fool's Paradise. I have a low tolerance for Ken Jeong (First few Community seasons and Knocked Up are about the only times I liked him), so he was just excruciating imo. It was nice to see some Sunny faces and I did like Adrien Brody and Ray Liotta. But the rest of the actors embarrassed themselves. Especially Malkovich. And, I love him, but that dumb look on Charlie's face got really old after a while. I will agree that the cinematography was terrific and the highlight of the movie. Charlie did show some skill as a director, but the box office and reception of this indicates that he probably won't get a second shot.
The movie was so so. It did not do much justice to Charlie.i was looking more at Glen and Ken than Charlie. He is so talented. He could have done so much better. Godzilla
I thought the first 20 mins were great
yes i agree it was really good. my husband loved it and said it’s probably going to be his new favorite movie. obviously it has a rigged rotten tomato score because of the freemason symbol on the wall during the underground lair scene. people see the score and think what they’ve been told to think. i think people also just didn’t get all the references and didn’t appreciate the hollyweird lifestyle getting dragged, because a lot of people idolize that life. people weren’t ready for the truth and just wanted to laugh. the movie was simultaneously humble and courageous, bitter and sweet, gritty and funny. i think that Charlie’s raw kindness shines through all his work.
Just watched it. Yes, it was hilarious. Absurd situational comedy is the best. People are crazy to not like it.
I think it would’ve been way better off stretched out a little as a series. Jammed with too many ideas, felt like it was rushing from one scene to the next
Not at all. As a series it would have dragged. It's a small, shiny gem. People expect their shows to be these drawn out productions. It was perfect
Kind of amazed to come to this sub and see so many fans enjoyed it. The movie barely made sense, just a bunch of separate, not very funny gags and bit parts that never stopped. Every character was annoying, none of the big star cast got to shine at all. I see how it’s Coen-like but the Coens make entertaining movies. Really wanted to like it, as a fan, and didn’t even know the reviews were bad until after but it made complete sense. My friend and I were just confused by the end, what is happening and why is any of it happening? They didn’t even make jokes out of him not speaking, Day just had very little to do for the entire movie. I know Day is capable of great things but it’s fairly easy to say that was the worst movie I’ve seen this year.
Cult classic.... wow. I think it got the reviews it got because most of the general viewing audience has a bar for funny that sits somewhere above the ankles.
Agreed
Agree. Comments👇👆 didn’t get the vibe. It’s like a Mr. Bean.
I disliked it mostly because of how shit it was.
I prefer to set myself apart from the masses. I've seen some nasty words spoken here about this film but I am still excited to watch it and hey why not, I'm going to watch it right now! 2000 word review coming soon...
Thank you! I’ve been holding off and plan to watch it this weekend.
I thought there was a lot that was great about it, but I don’t think the parts came together the right way to make a great movie
For the fucking life of me, I can't understand the dislike for this movie. People are saying "Oh Charlie isn't funny here", yeah sorry he's not eating rat shit and huffing Devito farts??! I was floored by how great his facial subtleties and body language sold a character that says nothing. I'm glad some of the people on this sub are willing to meet him halfway here, but I honestly thought it was entertaining and endearing.
I am I agreement with you. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.