Want Woman Want

 ### **Overview**

Released in 2019, *What Men Want* flips the script on the 2000 Nancy Meyers romantic comedy *What Women Want* (which starred Mel Gibson). Directed by Adam Shankman, the movie stars Taraji P. Henson as Ali Davis, a fiercely driven sports agent constantly boxed out by her male colleagues in a male-dominated industry. After a bizarre encounter with a psychic involving some strange herbal tea and a concussion, Ali suddenly gains the ability to hear men's inner thoughts.

An honest assessment of the film reveals a predictable, formulaic comedy that manages to stay afloat almost entirely due to the magnetic screen presence of its lead actor.

### **The Good: Taraji P. Henson and the Charm Factor**

 * **A Force of Nature:** Taraji P. Henson is the absolute glue holding this film together. She brings immense energy, physical comedy, and sharp timing to the role. Even when the script relies on low-hanging fruit, Henson’s charisma makes it genuinely difficult to look away.

 * **Fun Supporting Dynamic:** Josh Brener shines as Ali’s anxious, well-meaning assistant, Brandon, and her chemistry with Aldis Hodge (who plays her love interest, Will) brings a refreshing, grounded warmth to the romance side of the plot.

 * **Fresh Perspective:** Unlike the original 2000 film, injecting an intersectional element—a Black woman navigating a corporate "boys' club"—gives the tired premise a bit more bite and structural relevance at the start.

### **The Bad: Formulaic Writing and Missed Potential**

 * **Predictable and Clichéd:** From the minute the premise is established, you can map out the entire three-act structure. It follows every paint-by-numbers rom-com trope in the book, complete with a forced third-act misunderstanding.

 * **Overstuffed Subplots:** The movie tries to juggle too many things at once—signing a draft prospect, managing an overbearing basketball dad (played by Tracy Morgan), dealing with childhood trauma, and sorting out friend groups. Because of this, none of the subplots get the depth they deserve, leading to a rushed, messy ending.

 * **Uneven Humor:** While some of the internal thoughts men have are genuinely hilarious and relatable, a lot of the jokes lean heavily into lazy stereotypes and broad, juvenile physical gags that miss the mark.

### **The Verdict**

*What Men Want* is far from a cinematic masterpiece. It is loud, messy, structurally bloated, and entirely predictable.

However, if you view it for what it is—a harmless, recreational weekend comedy meant for easy background viewing—it delivers plenty of laughs. Henson’s star power single-handedly elevates the material from a total miss into a moderately entertaining ride.

**Rating:*

* 2.5/ 5 stars

Rick and Morty Season 1-7

An honest, season-by-season breakdown of *Rick and Morty* reveals a show that has undergone a massive evolution—shifting from a raw, high-concept sci-fi parody into a sprawling serialized epic, enduring some heavy creative slumps, and eventually finding a surprisingly stable second wind.

### **Season 1: The Lightning-in-a-Bottle Phase**

 * **The Vibe:** Chaotic, energetic, wildly inventive, and deeply cynical.

 * **The Good:** Season 1 had the impossible task of proving that a nihilistic, burping *Back to the Future* parody could sustain a series. It did that and more. Episodes like *"Rick Potion #9"* (the Cronenberg universe) and *"Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind"* proved the show was willing to go to surprisingly dark and complex places. The sci-fi concepts felt fresh, and the humor was sharp.

 * **The Bad:** You can tell the creators were still finding their footing. The heavy, unedited burping in the early episodes can genuinely grate on the ears, and a couple of standalone adventures are a bit rough around the edges.

 * **Verdict:** A phenomenal start that established a revolutionary formula.

### **Season 2: The Peak**

 * **The Vibe:** Confident, tightly paced, and firing on all cylinders.

 * **The Good:** Season 2 takes everything great about the first season and refines it. The writing is tighter, the animation got an upgrade, and the emotional stakes started hitting harder (culminating in that heartbreaking season finale). Standouts like *"Total Rickall"* and *"The Ricks Must Be Crazy"* showcase a writing room at the absolute height of its powers, blending high-concept sci-fi with genuinely stellar character dynamics.

 * **The Bad:** Honestly? Very little. If you love the core premise of the show, this is the gold standard where almost every episode is a home run.

 * **Verdict:** The high-water mark of the entire series.

### **Season 3: The Cultural Phenomenon & Growing Pains**

 * **The Vibe:** Meta, cynical, highly serialized, and culturally inescapable.

 * **The Good:** This season injected massive lore into the universe. *"The Ricklantis Mixup"* (Tales from the Citadel) is widely considered one of the greatest episodes of modern animation. Episodes like *"Pickle Rick"* captured mainstream pop-culture, while *“Rest and Ricklaxation”* offered deep psychological exploration.

 * **The Bad:** This is where the fandom hit its toxic peak (the infamous Szechuan Sauce era), and the show began leaning heavily into its own "I'm so smart" meta-humor. Some episodes felt overly self-indulgent, and Rick’s invulnerability started making stakes hard to care about.

 * **Verdict:** Brilliance mixed with the first heavy hints of creative exhaustion.

### **Season 4: The Fun, Formulaic Mid-Era**

 * **The Vibe:** Polished, entertaining, but creatively playing it safe.

 * **The Good:** After long production delays, Season 4 delivered some incredible standalone gems. *"The Vat of Acid Episode"* is an absolute masterpiece of structural comedy and storytelling. The animation looks slick, and the voice acting and pacing are smooth.

 * **The Bad:** The show started to feel formulaic. Outside of a few standouts, a lot of the season blurred together into "typical Rick and Morty adventures" without the grand ambition of earlier years. It also featured some notoriously weak misfires (like the dragon or the planet-fucking episode).

 * **Verdict:** Highly watchable and funny, but felt like it was coasting on fumes compared to seasons 2 and 3.

### **Season 5: The Creative Low Point**

 * **The Vibe:** Frustrating, uneven, and bizarrely obsessed with gross-out shock value.

 * **The Good:** The season finale (*"Rickmurai Jack"*) finally blew the doors off the show's overarching lore, giving fans the long-awaited backstory of Rick Prime and the central finite curve. The premiere (*"Mort Dinner Rick Andre"*) introducing Mr. Nimbus was also a blast.

 * **The Bad:** The middle of Season 5 is widely regarded by fans as the worst stretch of the show. It leaned heavily into deeply uncomfortable, unearned incest gags (the "Thanksploitation" and "Rickdependence Spray" sperm episodes) that felt lazy and desperate for shock value. The character dynamics felt broken, and the humor frequently missed the mark.

 * **Verdict:** A messy, uncomfortable valley that made many wonder if the show had run its course.

### **Season 6: The Course Correction**

 * **The Vibe:** Reflective, serialized, and trying to fix the characters.

 * **The Good:** Season 6 was a very welcome rebound. The writers consciously chose to do some actual character work. By forcing everyone back to their original universes in the premiere, the show grounded itself. Episodes like *"Night Family"* (a brilliant thriller-comedy) and the emotional payoff of tracking down Rick Prime gave the series back its narrative spine.

 * **The Bad:** It lost a bit of the zany, anarchic comedy of the early days in exchange for continuity and emotional therapy. Some viewers found it a bit too self-serious.

 * **Verdict:** A strong, necessary pivot that proved the show could mature without completely losing its identity.

### **Season 7 & Beyond: The New Era (Post-Recasting)**

 * **The Vibe:** Top-and-bottom heavy, surprisingly nuanced, and structurally stable.

 * **The Good:** Stepping into Season 7 under the shadow of major behind-the-scenes voice-casting changes, the new voice actors (Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden) did a remarkably seamless job keeping the characters sounding right. More importantly, the writing bounced back with incredible emotional heft—episodes like *"Unmortricken"* advanced the core plot masterfully, and *"Fear No Mort"* offered a brilliant psychological exploration of Morty.

 * **The Bad:** It remains a wildly swingy, top-and-bottom-heavy season. When it misses, it *really* misses (e.g., the poorly received Numbericons movie parody), proving that the writing room still falls back on old bad habits occasionally.

 * **Verdict:** Proof that *Rick and Morty* can survive major structural changes, offering high highs that rival the classic era, even if consistency remains an ongoing battle.

4/5

The Goodies

 ## An Honest Review of *The Goodies*

*The Goodies* (1970–1982) is a defining masterpiece of British surrealist comedy. Created by and starring Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, and Bill Oddie, the series blended high-concept physical comedy, biting social satire, and absolute anarchic absurdity in a way that television rarely dares to attempt today.

### What Works: The Brilliance

 * **Boundless Inventiveness:** The trio's premise—running a freelance "anything, anywhere, anytime" agency—allowed every single episode to reinvent its own genre. One week they might be fighting giant kittens, and the next they are rewriting British politics or competing in a bizarre national sport.

 * **The Physicality and Slapstick:** Drawing heavily on their roots in sketch comedy and revue (including *I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again*), the trio committed fully to relentless physical comedy, elaborate stunts, and pioneering early special effects.

 * **Sharp, Ahead-of-Its-Time Satire:** Beneath the silliness and custard pies, *The Goodies* was fiercely political. They tackled environmentalism, apartheid, rampant commercialism, and class struggles long before it became standard for sitcoms to do so.

 * **Iconic Imagery:** From **Kitten Kong** to **Ecky Thump** (the Lancastrian martial art using black puddings), the show created indelible pop culture touchstones that have lasted for decades.

### The Rough Edges: What Hasn't Aged Well

 * **Uneven Episodes:** Like much sketch-adjacent television from the 1970s, the quality can vary wildly from scene to scene. Some episodes rely heavily on manic pacing to disguise a thin narrative stretch.

 * **Dated Production Values:** Shot primarily on a mix of studio video and notoriously tricky 16mm location film, the visual style can look jarring and unmistakably "budget British TV" by modern standards.

 * **Broad Caricatures:** While well-intentioned, the character archetypes—Graeme the straight-faced inventor, Tim the posh fuddy-duddy, and Bill the earthy, aggressive rebel—can occasionally feel repetitive across a long binge-watch.

### The Verdict

*The Goodies* remains a vital, brilliantly unhinged piece of comedy history. It is fast-paced, genuinely daring, and fueled by an undeniable chemistry between its three leads. While some of its references and aesthetic choices firmly anchor it in the 1970s, its fearless commitment to absolute nonsense makes it a rewarding watch for anyone who loves inventive comedy.

> **Rating:** 4/5 Black Puddings

> 

Woody Woodpecker in Pantry Panic 1941

 

Bizarre But True History

 

Greek-Mythology-And-Reality

 

Seagull