Mr. Robot (2015-9)

Mr Robot was a little inconsistent in the middle two seasons, but the final season delivered a highly satisfying ending. Even when the story line got a bit too confusing, the show could still drop a powerful, cathartic, euphoric episode. It started out as an avant garde show about hacktivism, a thematically relevant topic for our times. But the show became much more than that. At its heart it was an introspective character study of a troubled man dealing with mental illness. It delivered twists abound, even at the end when you thought this was it. The music supervisor nailed it every episode. The cinematography created the most stylish stills on cable. Sam Esmail's extraordinary vision was brought to life by a brilliant Rami Malek, one of the only Middle Eastern leading men on TV. Some notable episiodes:

• eps3.7_dont-delete-me.ko when Elliot contemplates suicide
• eps3.4_runtime-error.r00 is the single shot episode
• 407 Proxy Authentication Required is the 5 acts theatrical drama

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

It's not a great biopic but it's good fun. The movie shines in the musical sections, especially the Live Aid performance (which would've been really cool as a single shot if they had the ambition and money for it). But the story is lacking. The biopic is an inherently flawed genre and it shows in this movie. Freddie Mercury had an interesting and troubled life and I don't think the movie does it justice. Take his relationship with Mary for instance. She was his one true friend. She was the subject of Love of My Life. But we don't really see how their relationship evolves. After the first third of the movie, we hardly see them interact at all. And what right does she have to define him as gay? The central conflict in the movie is driven Mercury's relationship with Paul Prenter, who is blamed for driving the band apart. But I think it really should have focused on a man vs self conflict because Freddie was a complex guy. Rami Malek is phenomenal. Freddie Mercury was quite the character and Malek's interpretation of him is engrossing. And the costumes are great.

Need For Speed (2014)

It's like watching a video game, except you're deprived of the joy of holding the controller in your hands.  So actually, it's like watching other people play video games.  Of course, people do that but I just do not get it.  The movie is bound to face comparison to the closest thing to it: Fast and Furious.  But this movie is missing the fun heist element.  Aaron Paul is probably the only redeeming quality in the movie.  I would say that his talents are wasted here on a flat character that is more or less a rip-off of his righteous, conscious-ridden, act-without-thinking Jesse Pinkman.  In the run up to the culminating race, the film actually plays out as a road trip movie across the country in a fancy car.  But much like real road trips, the car ride is boring without laughs or scenery.