If Then Else (Person Of Interest Episode Review)

Some Spoilers follow...

Attracting near universal praise from critics and audiences alike, this episode will forever go down as one of the best scripted for television series ever. The episode was perfectly original, executed brilliantly (all in the space of 43 minutes), and with an unbelievably shocking ending, what more can a person want?

If Then Else, originally aired on January 6, 2015, on CBS, it has remained since to be my favorite episode of the series and of television since.

Why did I choose this episode to review?
This was the epitome of brilliant directing, producing, writing and acting of the entire series, if there was one episode to be synonymous with what Person Of Interest is, it's this episode. 
If you started with Season one, episode one and ended with this episode Season 4 Episode 11, the pay off in terms of entertainment value would be huge. 

Originally conceived and created by Jonathan Nolan (yes the brother of Christopher Nolan, who co-wrote and directed the best Batman Trilogy to date of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises) it first aired on September 22nd 2011. Now, it seems to me anything that the Nolan brothers have touched creatively over the last 15 years have turned out to be critically acclaimed works, so first going into Person Of Interest in 2011, I was excited. 

Watching this episode, made me feel the 78 preceding episodes made the build up all worth my time. (There are 103 episodes in the entire series). Admittedly, each episode is so gorgeously slick that individually they are so much better than most of the movies that come out in cinema.

Setting the backstory slightly and Wikipedia does this as concisely as possible
Person of Interest centers on a mysterious reclusive billionaire computer programmer named Harold Finch (Michael Emerson), who develops a computer system (known as "The Machine") for the U.S. government that is capable of collating all sources of information to predict and identify in advance, people planning terrorist acts. He finds that the Machine also identifies other perpetrators and victims of deadly intentions, but being considered "irrelevant" this information is deleted each night, and he realizes the Machine has developed into a super-intelligent artificial intelligence, leaving him wrestling with the questions of human control and other moral and ethical issues resulting from the situation. His backdoor into the Machine allows him to act covertly on the non-terrorism cases, but to prevent abuse of information he directs the machine to provide no details beyond an identity to be investigated. He recruits John Reese (Jim Caviezel), a presumed-dead former CIA agent, and later others, to investigate and act on the information it provides.

Other key players in this episode are 
Kevin Chapman as Detective Lionel Fusco: a corrupt cop whom Reese blackmails into being a source inside the NYPD. Finch later arranges for Fusco to be transferred to Carter's precinct so that he works alongside her. Over time, Fusco becomes increasingly loyal to Finch and Reese, as he stops being a corrupt cop, although he continues to keep a secret regarding the death of a cop involved with HR. Fusco and Carter become aware of their mutual membership on Finch's team in the season 1 finale "Firewall". Fusco is not aware of the Machine's existence. Like Reese and Shaw, Fusco is now identified as a "primary asset".
Amy Acker as Root: a genius hacker obsessed with the Machine. Root has a highly keen interest in both Finch and the Machine. Her real name is Samantha "Sam" Groves. Initially introduced as a morally ambiguous hacker not afraid to kill, she becomes a crucial ally for the team with The Machine adopting her as its "analog interface" and using her as its agent for missions of unknown purposes, as well as an intermediary between itself and individuals with whom it wishes to communicate. Among her numerous false identities, she uses the name of Augusta King, the first programmer in the world. 

Sarah Shahi as Sameen Shaw: an ISA assassin who worked for Special Counsel. Shaw unknowingly deals with the "relevant" numbers from the Machine. She later becomes an ally of Reese and Finch. She claims that she has an Axis II personality disorder, making her unable to feel and/or express common human emotions like fear or sadness. The Machine identifies Shaw as one of its "primary assets". During the course of the series, she develops a close relationship with Root. 

Also of note to mention is the opening voice-over sequence - 
"We are being watched. The government has a secret system — a machine — that spies on you every hour of every day. I designed the Machine to detect acts of terror, but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people. The government considers these people irrelevant. We don’t. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us. But victim or perpetrator, if your number’s up, we’ll find you."
Stunningly of so much relevance today with the many accusations by various intelligence organisations worldwide of monitoring all communications, it is surprising that it was ever actually allowed to air on Televisions in the USA. Initially set up as a Crime drama series in Season 1, it became one of the best science fiction (not to mention relevant science fiction) series on television in the last decade. 

The episode Synopsis on IMDB - 
Samaritan launches a cyber-attack on the stock exchange, leaving the team with no choice but to embark on a possible suicide mission in a desperate attempt to stop a global economic catastrophe.

Bear with me here, Samaritan is a rival artificial intelligence to the Machine, so this episode was as science fictiony as they come with two artificial intelligence's battling it out for supremacy, normal story of good versus evil etc etc, but this episode? Boy, was this good.

Samaritan's human operatives are protecting the Wall Street servers as the Machine's team of  John Reese, Harold Finch, Detective Lionel Fusco and Root tries to stop them.
Unusually, the Machine started a flash back simulation to 2003 at the 7 minute mark, when it's creator was teaching it how to play Chess, as a way to decide on possibilities of what to do next, living up to it's name of the episode If Then Else which is a programming language syntax. 

As a side note, the series episodes normally flashes back to relevant situations in the Machine's life to give greater context to the overall storytelling of the episode

It was at the minute 16 mark that the second simulation of the episode started, with another flashback to the chess game in 2003, after the first simulation failed with the primary goal failing and the secondary goal of its assets dying or being captured. The second simulation was another scenario that the Machine tried which again ultimately failed. 

Watching each lead character die in each simulation was heart-rending, not knowing where it will all end. 

The third simulation was at 28 minutes, and now I will mention that the last player in each simulation was Sameen Shaw, who is tasked with getting a security code to help out the Machine's team in the basement levels of Wall Street. She, in the first two episodes failed to talk down a guy with a suicide bomb vest on the train and shot him, and got arrested by a SWAT team. This time she was successful, as the Machine decides on a different path to guide the team through Samaritan's human minefield. The third simulation, was successful only to the extent of a 2% survival rate for the Machine's human assets.

Finally, the wrap up of the episode at the 36 minute mark, came with the Machine finally selecting an option to guide the team through, and switched to real time. 

The mournful, suspenseful music as the final seconds of the episode came to a close was terrific, coupled with the final sacrifice of one of the Machine's assets.

The closing sequence started with an epic kiss and that's all I'm going to say on that. 
You have to watch it! Really!

The humor in the episode was second to none, and perfectly matched the overall tone. The soundtrack for the episode was an orgasmic sensation on the ears with each simulation being matched with the appropriate background music.

Episode rating 10/10, five stars, 100%, it deserved the universal praise that it got. 

I was disappointed when the series ended on 21st June, 2016, but hey, all good things must come to an end right?

A Dog's Purpose (Movie Review)

Spoilers follow - 

unfortunately - cause everyone needs to see this movie and I have to spoil the film cause I just enjoyed it too god-damn much. 
But admittedly, you'll only enjoy it if you're an animal lover. 

Actually, that should be a warning to viewers - 
MUST BE AN ANIMAL LOVER TO ENJOY THIS FILM.

Let's see. 

What do you get when you put a 
Golden Retriever, 
German Shepherd,
Pembroke Welsh Corgi,
and a St. Bernard- Australian Shepherd mix 
together?

And, do this in a film?

You get a breath-taking, tear-jerking blend of comedy mixed in with some drama for an hour and 35 minutes. 

I should own up to something here, before I dive into the film. 
When it was in cinema, I totally over-looked it, as 
a) I had no idea that the film was made from a brilliant book of the same name (easily corrected via my wish list on Amazon, I've added all the books from the series by W. Bruce Cameron)
b) I spotted the film that was in cinema but I did not see any trailers/ previews/ synopsis for the film nor take it on, until I was told by someone in March, that she thinks I would enjoy the movie. 

Truthfully? I regretted not seeing this movie in cinema. Cause some movies are just meant to be seen in cinema. 

But, I would've come across it sooner rather than later cause a combination of loving dogs and loving movies, I doubt I would've missed it. 

As long as it's a good movie of course.

I saw this movie on Saturday 29th April, 2017 and during the movie I said to myself, no doubt about it, no question, this has to be a blog post. And here it is :)

The whole movie was centered on a dog being re-incarnated over the space of about five decades, interspersed with a fairly obvious love, hate, heartbreak, human story. 

The human element, needed to be there of course, cause that is the point of the whole movie, what is a dog's purpose in life.
There were some good moments, some outrageously funny moments, some sad moments, unfortunately it was a recipe all too familiar. 

I'll admit here, that I genuinely got all teary-eyed and choked up with each of the death scenes, if anyone had asked me what's wrong at that stage, I wouldn't have know what to say. Maybe dust went into my eye?

The first incarnation was with a lovely golden retriever named Bailey, the set-up of the story-line was intriguing with his birth to his death. This is the only incarnation that goes fairly deep into the background of who Bailey is, as a dog and as well the human owner who pops back up in Bailey's fourth incarnation. The problem was, is that this took up 50 minutes of screen time which left little time left for his journey through other incarnations. 

The incarnation with the German shepherd (named Ellie - curiously a female this time) was next, as a police dog, who gets shot in the line of duty after only ten minutes of screen time, a huge amount of unexplored potential with this dog in my opinion.

Next in line, the Corgi incarnation (named Tino, sounds like a typical Corgi name for some reason), ohhhhhh my god, I love Corgis sooooo much eek. Dang, now I'm starting to sound like a love-struck school girl. I've never met one to hug-up as yet. Bucket list checked! This is probably the only reason that I'm jealous of the Queen of England and her Pembroke Welsh Corgis, sigh wish I was her just so I could play with Corgis the whole day - Queen Elizabeths Corgis

Moving along, after another regretfully short incarnation - 12 minutes, we meet the last incarnation of Bailey, and his 5 decade journey back to his original master. A St. Bernard- Australian Shepherd mix (Named Buddy, a rather no-nonsense name for a dog), a curious mix but a delightfully shaggy drown your face in its fur kind of dog. The final incarnation of Bailey was the redemption moment of the film for the human owner from his first incarnation, Ethan Montgomery, Baily actually helped him find back his love from his high school days, awww.... heart strings being tugged kinda moment. 

Dang all this dust in my eye... sniff. 

My ratings
Dog element of story - 9/10
Human element of story - 4/10

Overall Rating - 6.5/10

Critical reactions as per the Rotten Tomatoes site - 34% - A Dog's Purpose offers an awkward blend of sugary sentiment and canine suffering that tugs at animal-loving audiences' heartstrings with shameless abandon. 
This is probably the perfect reaction to the film admittedly, it was good but some parts not so much. I wholeheartedly agree with this view.
However, audiences worldwide loved it to the extent that the Box office was $185M against a budget of $22M. 

Possibly affecting the box office take was the animal abuse allegations against the making of the film, not to go into much detail, the reports coming out from the people involved in making the film indicate that these accusations were completely unfounded. As a result it's quite likely that the campaigns against the film unfortunately worked to some degree for what was a great story to tell (no matter how fictional). It's likely however, that we'll never know what actually happened on set that day the so-called footage was shot. 

If we have to believe something though, hopefully this article has the whole truth and nothing but the truth - Third Party Investigation finds no animal injuries or cruelty. 

As long as you're prepared to overlook the poor character building for the individual lives of each dog as well as some poor acting performances from the human leads, you'll have a great time in the movie.

Overall, it's a movie that will not only make you think about why do you have a dog in your life, why does he love you so much, and if you don't have one, makes you wonder, why don't you have a dog in your life?

I suspect though, that there were some scenes cut that would've fleshed out the story better and be more tonally coherent, but that's the movie that the world has seen and we're left to wonder how much better the movie would've been.

It's a feel good movie for animal lovers (especially dog-lovers), you're going to enjoy yourself, some advice, try not to look for the deeper meaning into anything in the movie, or why did they do that or say this and you'll be good to go. 

Even though I have not read the book as yet, I highly recommend it as a gift for dog lovers, as it's generally understood that books are far better than the movies made of them.