The Twilight Zone (2019) -- Season 1 Episode 7 (Not All Men)

Every series has its horrible episodes.  Some are more horrible than others.  One of the advantages of an anthology series is that you can skip one or two episodes without missing anything.  I think I may have found the first episode in the new Twilight Zone that’s worth skipping.

The episode starts out normally enough.  We have Annie, a new office worker who aims to please.  Dylan is a fellow office worker who aims to go out on a date with Annie.  She eventually agrees.

Cut to his house, where they’re talking about the meteor shower that’s about to happen.  Surprise!  A few land nearby.  Dylan even picks one up and takes it home.  Before you can say “Desert,” Dylan starts putting the moves on Annie, which she has to sternly refuse.  Annie leaves; when looking back, she sees him in a fit of rage.

This becomes the norm.  Men start becoming raging misogynists.  A scene in a bar goes from normal to bar fight almost instantly, but it’s just the men.  All of the women flee.  Annie’s brother-in-law murders a guy who follows Annie and her sister home from the bar.

The episode ends with a whimper.  The military comes in and finds nothing.  There are no bacteria or viruses.  There’s nothing special about pollutants in the water.  It was a placebo effect.

So, what the episode is saying that men are just looking for an excuse to be pushy jerks?  I don’t really follow here.  The effects go down gender lines.  There’s one man that appears to not be affected.  No women exhibit symptoms.  Only one man is shown to choose not to go into a rage.  So, you can just decide not to be a jerk?  Ok.  I’ll remember how easy it is.

It’s a very weak, one-dimensional episode.  All men go into a rage given the opportunity and women have little choice but to run and hide.  This makes the story very simplistic and insulting.  Even calling the episode Not All Men is a weak attempt to excuse the lazy writing.

I hope to finish the first season tonight.  I’ll reserve judgment until then.

IMDb page

 

Inside Man: Most Wanted (2019)

It’s somewhat rare to find a sequel that captures the magic of the original.  Often, then tend to be seen as cash grabs.  You get the original cast back together and have a somewhat similar story.  By the time anyone realizes what’s happened, you already have their money.  In many cases, the sequels are released straight to video.  Inside Man: Most Wanted is one such case.

I had seen the original Inside Man and liked it.  When our house was being tented, we came across this movie, which I had never heard of, and with good reason.  It had been released directly to video, which is never a good sign.  Add to that the fact that the cast and crew is all new.  There are some tenuous connections, like familial relationships, but there’s almost no connection to the original film.  Even the music is different.

It does have a similar setup, though.  Some people rob the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City.  (Instead of Nazi diamonds, though, they’re after Nazi gold.)  An expert hostage negotiator is brought in.  After a few plot twists, hostages are released and the negotiator doesn’t know who was really a hostage.

I’d go into more detail, but why bother?  The movie is like that Can I Copy Your Homework meme.  A promise was made to change a few of the details, but we all know what really happened.  They took a copycat movie and turned it into a sequel for a movie that didn’t really need a sequel.  I think that anyone involved in the original was smart enough to pass on this one.  You should do the same.

IMDb page