Movies
Despite being the full 100% on board with the theme of this episode, I still felt it was handled rather lazily. It's one of my main gripes with most Black Mirror episodes, and this is another fine example. Yes, companies are shite, the service model is meant to screw the customer and they'll do whatever makes them the most money, but I didn't need this episode for that.
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The writing is bland, the story doesn't go to interesting places, and it merely narrates the blatantly obvious. The performances are okay, but someone like O'Dowd is criminally underused. And the big takeaway here stopped being slick decades ago. But if you're looking for TV fare that aligns with some of your gripes, this is no doubt a decent option.
The start of season 6 of the infamous Black Mirror series. I've never gotten the strong appeal of this series, I tend to find Brooker's simplistic tech doom to be pandering and boring, but people do love a shot of negativity (literally referenced by this short). Nothing much has changed it seems, as Joan Is Awful is a pretty straight-forward continuation of the previous seasons.
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Not reading the terms and conditions, deep fakes, AI-generated content, surveillance ... it's all part of this story and none of it amounts to anything original. The direction is pretty bland, the presentation of the moral issues is basic, and the performances are negligible (despite some A-listers). The only reason to keep watching these is the relatively short runtime.