American Gods: Review

American Gods

I hear way too much praise to this series and I don’t know why, I mean have I been watching the wrong American Gods? So I want to make my point on why this show can’t find its own ass even sitting on its hands.

I like Brian Fuller, the guy has, or had, a good eye for visuals, and the scenes on Hannibal were deep in every sense, I mean I liked to watch that series with the headphones so I could not miss a single sound and watched to like 30 cm of the screen so I could only watch the show and nothing else. But now we have American Gods, a show inspired on a not very good book (no matter what the people say) and now I see that every little criticism the show gets the fanboys jump to the rescue, but this show deserves to be called out when it fails that for me is at least 3 times per episode. And yes I am one of those people that read the book, but that only gives me more ammunition to destroy every scene piece by piece and even the foundation for it that this show destroys it by itself, so let’s begin with the discectomy.

Well the appeal of the book is that it goes by the back roads of USA and to the small towns where you can find the biggest ball of razor wire or other road attractions. And watching the show I can see that Brian Fuller has never stepped out of the Highway and hit a backroad in his life, he has never gone to a truckers dinner, or charged gas on a small town gas station, which is also supermarket, restaurant and has some things to make it more colourful. If you go and stay for a while in those places you’ll notice that everything looks slower, almost like time has stopped is that kind of peace in the air, the silence, is unique. But here you have always motion, always there is something happening and it makes no sense. Also everything should look like normal, like everyday life but with a little twist to make it look twice just to make sure you actually saw that. Like the alligator bar, in the show everything was alligators and it looked like a whole crew worked to create that set, while in the book this was a simple dinner/bar with 3 alligators as decoration, already dusty and forgotten but it was because the owner of the place liked them and though they bring luck. And that takes me to every single shot. Everything in this show looks staged and carefully detailed to the most minimal piece and that is so wrong is so many levels for this story, because the idea should be that this world is the world we live but happens things that you are sure just happened random but a person is telling you that they are doing it, and for a second you have that doubt, that not believing in your own mind. But the fact that everything looks a set takes you out, it doesn’t look like an everyday moment, looks like a play where everything is fake.

The main point of the show is that the old gods are fading because people are forgetting them and by this same reason the old gods want nothing with the new world, so when they said that Czernobog is using the bolt gun or Bilquis is using online dating is a complete denial of their premise. In the book Czernobog is retired from the slaughter house, he stopped working there when the bolt gun came, Bilquis was a prostitute, this was to show how low they fell, from being goods to that pathetic existence, but they look like they are doing OK in the show, a comfy life. Czernobog should have been in a small apartment that should look like the apartment of an old person, full of old furniture and ceramic figurines and almost no space to move because a whole life was camped into that little place. But in the show we have a big apartment that looks more like an abandoned luxury hotel than an apartment.

The show wastes a lot of time with pointless scenes, like the ones of the Ifrit or Bilquis, and gives you nothing for good scenes. I mean Bilquis is a character that has nothing to give for the story, the only thing is for sex scenes. The Ifrit could have been a better scene if you could have a moment to care for the guy who was there, I mean give the guy a proper introduction, show him taking all the samples into his briefcase let us hear how he talks with his family, before you strip him naked and have sex, I didn’t care for either of them in that scene. Bilquis should be a speck of dust a token of a story like the “Coming to America” bits but no, we need to see her naked every damned episode, why? The hell I know, she does not have a plot or adds any of value to the story. And now that I touched the Coming to America bits, there are enough stories of that in the book to keep you interested but they decided to make their own, which are really bad, I mean the story of Mr Nancy, makes no sense, if he could see the future he should have made peace with his own vanishing. Instead they could have used the story of the twins, or the one for Mad Sweeney, and the prehistoric era one made no sense, that story was about how with time and mixing cultures people forget the old gods and adopt new ones, not changing religions by force. And there are way more stories and could take a little more time and go visit Shadow’s dreams, that also is kind of wrong, because he starts on a cavern in the dark, making reference to he doesn’t know anything and then he starts to learn, also they set the Yggdrasil too soon.

Also, this show can’t find a genre that fits it, I mean, is it adventure, mystery, comedy? What is it? Because it doesn’t fit at any of those. It has no mystery, the adventures are dull and the comedy is worse than third grade jokes. I mean a Viking steps into the grass and 10,000 arrows get him at the same time, that is just dumb and ridiculous, then the battle among 4 Vikings an arm flew still holding a sword and kills another guy, was it supposed to be funny? Laura kicks a guy between the legs and the skeleton flies out of the body, that is a level of stupid even I can point out. Again the idea of the story was that do normal things and you’ll not be sure if the gods had something to do with it. The part of the Vikings on the book was that they hang a native and then they go back to their land, but years later when they came back their gods where already there in that new lands waiting for them, something simple something mundane, not all that flashy, artsy stuff. It is supposed to make you think it is normal.

The characters are way worse as every episode passes Shadow was supposed to be a good guy that did one bad thing once and ended in jail for that, and even in jail he learned the coin tricks just to stay out of trouble and pass time, also he reads a lot, a good guy so normal that his wife got a little bored of him, but here let’s make him a scammer and a low life. We should have seen a change in Laura, because being dead takes all the emotion of life, that is the point when she say that she can taste cigarettes anymore life has lost its taste, but here she is more alive than ever, and cheeky also super annoying, we lost the Zen master and we got some drunk high schooler, also if she does not believe in anything why is she judged by Anubis, that by the way looks way too good to have been forgotten, she should have disappeared or at least follow a grim reaper. Mr World should have been on the shadows at least till the end of the season, he is supposed to be the head of the men in black (not all are gods, if you believe in something it is real, THAT is the premise) so it was just the super under agency of the government. Media was meant to start like a dream that you don’t know if it really happened or you just have been way too much in that world and then move on to a more real thing. I liked that they followed Mad Sweeney after he lose the coin, but he got to it way to fast, I mean in the book he never gets close to it, I would like to see him in little scenes during the whole season trying to figure out what is happening and then trying to make his own luck, but no, it lasted like 40 minutes, before the “Comedy part” of Laura.

The show looks like it tries to be something it is not, like the kid in middle school that tries too hard to be supper mature but is still a kid. I mean the book I liked at the beginning, but it was like those dishes that you like the first bite but the more you eat the less you like, so I had to force myself to finish the book, but it took the book ¾ of it to happen, in the show happened on the first half of the first episode.

Don’t get me wrong there are things I like, like the intro, that one is nice, it could have been done better and loses the idea very fast, it remembers me when a friend tried to make an artistic/protest/social conscience video and it should have been 7 minutes long and we ended with 45 seconds. The intro is the same, like they had a good idea but it went away very fast.

The show is bad, it hides itself behind that mask of artistic and colour, but if you scratch the surface and really see it is a bad show that can’t even follow its own rules.

Do you know this girl?

Hey! Look who’s back, yes me. It’s been a long time since my last post and that is completely my fault. Yes I had a job in the slave side of the spectrum and I every day I ended dead, but that is not excuse to not write a little even if nobody is going to read it. Sometimes I have people visiting, now and then looking for girls in underwear, that I have in this blog. But that was an article, well two, and not click bait.

Some pictures have Russian letters by name so I think that at least the scammer was from Russia.

Well now I have a piece I want to write and because my FB is a minefield and I can’t basically talk to anyone well I’ll just scream to a wall or the more similar that I have that is this blog.

I thought it could be real with just a little part of my brain.

OK, if you know or not I have an interpals account, is a website where you get people to write, penpals, you can get friends or help to learn a language by practice, basically nobody talks to me there, not even the ones I send messages asking for conversation or help me to learn Russian. Sometimes I get the sporadically obvious scam where someone say “Hello friend, give me your mail and we will talk” most likely they are from Africa or Middle East and I just ignore them, and the accounts disappear in a couple of weeks, but days ago, I got a message from a girl, a pretty girl, every cell in my body told me that it was a trap, it was a scam, but even so I decided to answer, I mean what’s the worst it could happen, that ask me for money I don’t have? So I answered and we started a conversation for some days, and I never fully trusted the letters, because they felt like a template, no heart no personal touch, but every letter came with a pictures sometimes two sometimes three and one part of me wanted to be real. Until the moment she asked me for money, and I say she but I don’t know if was a girl or a guy on the other side, what I’m sure of is that it wasn’t the girl in the pictures. I said I had no money and the conversations stopped immediately.

If you know her name or who she is let me know.

There were a lot of signs, the form of writing wasn’t proper for a Russian speaker, the letters felt like a template, the pictures all came from stock photos from the internet, Facebook, or VK, totally dodging the point of giving more information or getting a face to face Skype conversation, I checked the weather when told me it had been a nice day and I saw that they had been at 12C max, and most important, a pretty girl like that started a conversation with me. For you to get an idea of how I look people have said about my looks in pictures:

-You look like a cartel enforcer.

-You look like the pain of the dojo.

-You look like you want to kill somebody.

-You look angry

-Even if you smile you look dangerous

-I will not approach to you on the street.

And that last one was said by my mother, so yes I’m the kind of guy who has to put an effort and approach a girl and show her that I’m not the big bad wolf and she has nothing to fear from me.

But now here is my social service and the reason this post got this name. I want to find this girl, the girl in the pictures, just to let her know that somebody is using her pictures to scam people. The scammer said her name was Maria Masha and she lived in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. Her e-mail was marymasha12@hotmail.com.

I don’t know how much of this information has some use or even if it is real, or all made up and the girl is not even from Russia. For all I know the girl from the pictures can be living 2 blocks from where I live and be Mexican. Or is a model, a singer or an actress and all the pictures are in her Instagram.

What I do know is that she has or had a hairless cat and a tattoo of a dolphin and a crescent moon on her right thigh.

This is the tattoo she has on her right thigh, and no I'll not post the whole picture, the girl deserves some privacy.

She also said she was a waitress and my sister in law deducted that from this picture, but could be an actress and this is just part of a play or a film.

If you know who this girl is make her know that I would like to talk to her, or at least let her know that someone is using her pictures and just leave a comment saying that she already knows.

She likes to take pictures.

Also if you have been contacted by scammers let me know and let your story there.

Well is good to be back on the writing side of society and I hope I can keep doing it on regular basis.

See y’all (Yes I’m in Texas by the time being)

and I leave you with a bunch of pictures for you to see if you can find her.

and we say goodbye with a kiss :P

Chronicle

Yes I saw Fantastic Four, the new one (Actually I have seen the 4 movies already, yes the 1994 made by Roger Corman too) but I’m not going to make a review of it, why? Because What can I say about it that has not been said yet, the movie is horrible and should never have been green lighted.

But with that in mind before watching Fantastic Four I watched “Chronicle” the movie that convinced people that Josh Trank could make a movie, so I think my review should be for this movie because is his “opera prima” that’s Latin for his best work (if you take it literally means first work, but we will stick to number one work)

So why Chronicle was so acclaimed and Fantastic Four so terrible? Did power go over his head? Did everything got out of hand because of the big budget? Or, and this is my point of view, he just plain suck and doing internet videos is his “non plus ultra” (Latin for “the best that can be achieved” Look at us using Latin twice already, I feel so smart and proper)

So without any more I give you the review of:

Chronicle

The movie starts as any found footage starts, someone setting a camera (So we start with the wrong foot) and the guy setting it have problems with his father (Seriously can this be more cliché?—Uh now we use French—) Well the movie moves along but if you pay a little attention you might see that there is no plot for the movie, is just like a bunch of internet videos all mashed up together. If you don’t believe me just make this little exercise, watch any scene of the movie and think “would I get the plot of the movie if this were the first scene?” The answer is always yes. The character of Michael B. Jordan is totally useless for the plot, the guy appears in the middle of the story then dies and it has no impact, also the character of the girlfriend is also irrelevant, just happens to be there.

So you might get what I’m trying to say, this movie is poorly written and the visual effects are fine for a youtube video made by some random guy with his friends but this was a studio film and the effects were made by people that earns their living by doing this. There is no character development in this series of videos (I refuse to call it a movie any more) even the gimmick of being found footage doesn’t work if you know a little of a camera, which is, the image and resolution changes from one device to another. When the camera gets destroyed and he gets a new one, it should have been a change on the image like in “The Wizard of Oz” or in “Oz the Great and Powerful” (God save us I’m referring to that movie as a good example) but no, is always the same image, same resolution, same frame rate, same filter, not even the format changes from fullscreen to widescreen to “tallscreen” (that’s when a person records with his/her phone in a vertical way) Who would know that and iPhone has the same picture quality than a TV station camera?

I'm almost sure that Sue Storm was added on post production and re-shoots

 

The point is that all the signs where there if you just look, but people watch it as they watch a viral video, so it got popular and then forgotten, but also shows all the problems Josh Trank have as a director and a person, because let’s see, Daddy issues, yes in Chronicle and in Fantastic Four, not knowing how to  handle a story, Chronicle has no story and Fantastic Four is horrible, not knowing how to work a female character or an actress Chronicle is totally irrelevant  and in Fantastic Four looks like he keep her out deliberately (is like this guy hates women or something). To me I think is a little better a director like Michael Bay (Man am I using Michael Bay as a good example, this guy is in trouble) that puts sexualizes women and put stock characters on the films because at least he us using female characters, and let’s face it lots of people uses stock characters and some have been applauded by it, cough True Detective cough! So it might not be the ideal to sexualize anyone but that is better than just set them aside and try to ignore the fact that the title demands you to put Sue Storm on the film.

As I said, sexualize Sue Storm is not ideal but also let's remember that some women actually like to cosplay lie this.

 So am I willing to watch another movie of this guy? Hell no, Do I hope he gets another job? If is as far from a film it can be is OK with me. That man deserves a restriction order from the film industry.