Reviews that didn't age well.

[Gladius Legis]

You could argue their poor review of GoT has aged pretty well. I just took fans seven seasons to realize that the NYT critics had been right all along....

Nah. GoT's first 4 seasons were as good as advertised. The last 4 seasons being trash doesn't make the NYT right, it just means the show got worse.

 

[Gladius Legis]

I certainly wasn't expecting that Arya would be the one to kill the Night King rather than Jon and/or Bran. I also wasn't expecting Jaime to abandon his redemption arc. I also wasn't really expecting Jon to get with his aunt and then kill her, although I was kind of expecting her heel-turn. I guess I also wasn't expecting Bran to end up as king. My expectations were thus subverted a number of times by the end of the show.

(I'm just focusing on the ending. I'm sure other expectations were subverted throughout the show, including Ned's death in S1.)

There's a big difference between early seasons' and later seasons' subverting expectations. The early seasons' subversion came from the assumption people have going in that the main characters will find a way out of the deadly situations they put themselves in, and GoT (and ASOIAF to begin with) said, "nope." Characters, no matter how important they seemed, facing the consequences of their actions was (and to be real still kind of is) a bold storytelling choice.

The later seasons' subversions OTOH were plot and characters twists that were never earned.

 

[Gladius Legis]

As for the topic of this thread: Roger Ebert's original review of The Godfather Part II.

 

[Guest 85555]

Late 80s was what we were talking about. Contemporary reviews, sales and charts for Queen music were lower than It's a Kind of Magic.

Appetite for Destruction biggest selling debut ever 87, U2 was on fire as well.

Queen was still around I like those albums but they weren't the cutting edge of music at the time.

91 Grunge blew up.

87-91 they weren't all that basically. Hair metal was also a thing then, Metallica blew up as well.

i first became aware of them when the Highlander came out and I saw their name in the opening credits and asked my dad who Queen was. I adored their sound the moment I heard it (if I am being 100% honest, their music is probably the main reason I liked Highlander). I remember they got a big resurgence when Wayne's World came out. I think the critics were crazy. Kind of Magic and their later albums are all good in my opinion (especially in contrast to a lot of the sounds of the time). Both The Miracle and Innuendo are albums I go back to all the time (and quite good especially when you consider how sick Freddy Mercury was at that time). On note of caution I would give is to be wary of wikipedia break downs of how well an album was received. I have seen a lot where they used just a handful of reviews to form an average and it often doesn't match my recollection of how much critics liked it. That said, the critics were often wrong about Queen, going back to their early discography.

Appetite was big for a reason. That was a very good rock album from song to song.

 

[Guest 85555]

As for the topic of this thread: Roger Ebert's original review of The Godfather Part II.

That movie is even worse now than when it first came out (and it was bad then too). Also it is just weird because the Godfather 1&2 are such a 70s movies and Godfather Three completely embodies that weird period between the 80s and 90s. It is just awful and almost ruins the franchise

 

[Gladius Legis]

That movie is even worse now than when it first came out (and it was bad then too). Also it is just weird because the Godfather 1&2 are such a 70s movies and Godfather Three completely embodies that weird period between the 80s and 90s. It is just awful and almost ruins the franchise

Are you confused? That review was for Part II, not III. Part III was and still is terrible.

 

[Guest 85555]

Are you confused? That review was for Part II, not III. Part III was and still is terrible.

Yes, I was confused lol. I read that as part III for some reason

part II is great. No objection to part II

But I looked into it and Ebert's review sins on this front are far worse than could be imagined: The Godfather, Part III movie review (1990) | Roger Ebert

 

[MGibster]

Nah. GoT's first 4 seasons were as good as advertised. The last 4 seasons being trash doesn't make the NYT right, it just means the show got worse.

I've never actually watches the series, but I've seen several scenes online. There's one scene where Bronn sneaks up on Podrick, playfully grabs him, and razzes Prodrick that despite his training an old guy like him is able to sneak up on him.

Podrick: That's a different kind of fighting.
Bronn: Yes it is.

Bronn starts to train Podrick on that different kind of fighting, tricks him into averting his eyes to the round, and punches him in the face pretty hard. On the surface, Bronn might seem like a jerk, but the actor did a great job showing Bronn cared for Podrick. He didn't punch Podrick to prove how tough he was or be a jerk, he genuinely wanted Podrick to have all the tools needed to survive.

And all the scenes I've seen have been full of good acting and writing. It looks like a great show.

 

[Gladius Legis]

I will say that the recent Coda recut/rename upgrades Part III from "execrable" to "slightly below mediocre."

Also that it's no longer called "Part III" allows me to consider it separate from the real Godfather movies as it should be.

 

[Guest 85555]

Nah. GoT's first 4 seasons were as good as advertised. The last 4 seasons being trash doesn't make the NYT right, it just means the show got worse.

I agree the show simply got worse. Not sure how much is the show versus the story. I remember it feeling like it really started to bog down with all the POV characters (walking dead was similar IMO), then went into over drive the last season or so. But those first seasons held my interest and felt like very good viewing