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Reviews
The Diplomat (2023)
Excellent in so many respects but not in all
Keri Russell stars in the new Netflix series "The Diplomat" as Kate Wyler, a foreign service officer who becomes the American ambassador to the UK. Shortly thereafter there is a deadly attack on a British aircraft carrier. Unexpectedly, she learns that she is also up for the US VP role from the WH chief of staff, forcing her to make a decision whether to stay the ambassador to the UK or accept the VP role. And so the dramatic thrust is set up.
The script is really good. The Debora Cahn's writing is top notch (the creator). It's one of the more enjoyable TV series on Netflix. That said, it doesn't completely avoid clichés and story-telling crutches. For example, why is it necessary to introduce marital strife into every story is beyond me. It's a lazy crutch in terms of story-telling and thrust, and completely unnecessary.
Keri Russell in the title role really pulls it off and she's enjoyable to watch. Rufus Sewell, playing her husband, coming with a lot of experience plays the role playfully.
Most of the actors are good, but some of them are miscast and really rather ruin the show. The guy playing the British foreign secretary, David Gyasi, is absolutely dreadful. I cringe every time he comes on the screen, Rory Kinnear, another British actor, who plays the Prime Minister, is hitting false notes throughout every scene. He's completely out of tune for the role and acts way over the top. I suspect this is more of a directing issue, not necessarily his fault.
All of that said, I would highly recommend the series to those who would like to enjoy a more engaging, serious and intelligent show to watch amongst all of the garbage that's out there on the streaming platforms.
The Good Nurse (2022)
Looks way too dark and the soundtrack is horrible
It's such a crying shame that with such great actors and a compelling story the whole movie is ruined (for me) by the cinematography-which was way too dark and flat 90% of the film-and the horrendous soundtrack that added exactly zero to the experience-if anything it detracted from it. Sadly this film turned out to be a misjudged and badly rendered execution of a potentially great film. Shame on the filmmakers for not judging these things correctly and calling them out early during production and changing it.
I watched it all the way through while cursing at the filmmakers out loud for ruining such a potentially great movie LOL :))
The Terminal List (2022)
Story and execution is decent but the cinematography is terrible
A surprisingly well done series commissioned by Amazon amid all the average low-quality, boring, filler fare usually served up by them under Prime Video. The story is great (book adaptation, folks) the execution is pretty decent (Antoine Fuqua - Training Day is involved who is good at this action-packed stuff). The thing I hate most is the music and the cinematography. Really really bad.
The shots are way, way too dark, seemingly purposefully unlit. It annoys the hell out of me to not be able to see what's going on. Borderline amateurish in the name of "moody"? Total cinematic execution failure. 3 star shaved off for that alone!
The Tourist (2022)
Badly done all around -boring as hell
Another missed opportunity in my book... How do these people get these really poorly done things made? The only thing watchable in this is Jamie Dornan but even that wears thin after a short while. First of all, I hate the rusty-brown, camel-dung, muted colour, dark look. Urgh! The pacing is like watching paint dry. The directing is student film level. The characters are clichéd, shallow and poorly-rendered. The directing/acting choice of the police woman who struggles with her weight (who tried to be funny with her awkwardness) is beyond painful to watch, unbearable and god-awful. After struggling through 2 episodes I couldn't watch no longer. There are so many other things to watch that are at least half-way decent. What a waste!
Last Looks (2021)
Horrible, a missed opportunity
What a waste FFS. Bad script, bad directing, and all of it with a decent set of actors and a great potential. A bit on the technical side. This was one of the worst cinematography jobs I've seen. Simply horrible. The sound was also bad. Overall not enjoyable at all because the production quality was in the dumps.
The Power of the Dog (2021)
What a bore. Give it a miss.
Don't waste your time with this rubbish. Jane Campion has once again demonstrated just what a pretentious indulgent unskilled boring filmmaker she is. What a missed opportunity, what a waste of money and what a waste of great actors. She's even more reprehensible because she's taking money and opportunity away from other struggling wannabe filmmakers who could have made an excellent film with all this money and talent at their fingertips. Argh!
Foundation (2021)
An expensive bore
Apple made a massive mistake here greenlighting this project and spending a fortune on it. The vetting of its creators and directors should have gone further. While it looks great, has some Oscar-caliber talent (Harris), it's a pain-inducing pretentious bore that makes one quite angry at the missed opportunity. C'mon Apple, you can do better!
Queen of the South (2016)
Substandard fare filled with annoying acting and direction
I had high hopes for this show but soon was really let down. A good idea badly executed. It's filled with bad directing and amateurish acting. The actress Veronica Falcón, playing one of the major roles-hence unfortunately taking up a lot of screen time-is one actress I find most annoying with her telegraphed, bad acting. It would have been better with someone else. A lot of the show is slow-moving, one-note, predictable and filled with cliches we've seen a million times. Really, it's just a very substandard fare. There are plenty of other really engaging, good shows out there. Give this one a miss.
La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano (1998)
All over the place, indulgent twaddle - and I'm being nice
What a waste of money and opportunity. A massive waste of talent involved, from Morricone doing the music, to the cinematography of Koltai, to the acting talent... A good movie could have been made here if all of the indulgences by the director would have been cut. At times exhilarating, when peppered with great musical/visual sequences, the film is slow and boring most of the time. A disgrace really and the director should be ashamed of this pile of stinking you-know-what.
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)
Directingfail!
Disappointing. Another wasted opportunity and a sad waste of money. I was looking forward to this because of the caliber of acting talent involved and was seriously let down. This film was a classic case of making a mistake in not understanding the differences between mediums. This was a filmed play and it should not have been. The director completely failed to steer this ship in the right direction. It was full of long-winded, dialog-heavy scenes (as on stage in a theater) that may have been tolerable in a theater (because that's why you come to a theater, to watch a live performance) but was unbearably boring to watch in a movie. Sorry, Mr. Denzel Washington, I know you're a fan of August Wilson (the playwright), you made the wrong choice here with the director.
True History of the Kelly Gang (2019)
Total tosh and a waste of time
It's so sad. So much potential, so many good actors, so much money and effort. An absolutely horrible directing job. Totally incoherent, nonsensical, meandering, boring, rubbish of a film. I can't get my 2 hours back I wasted watching this total disaster. Avoid.
Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine (2020)
I wish it was better...
Look, she's trying and was really funny doing her Trump lip syncs. This one feels like a bit of a misfire and it boils down to the director. It's just badly done. Sara deserves better. Comedy is hard and it takes a skilled writer/producer/director to make something funny and entertaining. This is neither. It has very brief moments of some funny bits but it's mostly misfiring unfunny. Sorry Sara, hope the next one is going to be better. You have to very carefully select your director.
Animal Kingdom (2016)
Good show but Ellen Barkin's bad acting ruins it!
It's a well-paced interesting show that gets you hooked. Full of a cast of interesting characters and storylines, except for some boring meaningless things, but nevertheless a good show. The only major negative is the casting of Ellen Barkin into the matriarchal role (which was done fabulously by Jackie Weaver the Aussie actress in the original movie). Barkin's over-acting, demonstrating, telegraphing, and all around amateourish, bad acting drags the whole show down. God awful. I mean third rate actor who roams LA in beginner acting classes could probably do a better job. I started really hating her in this show. A huge negative for the whole show and a shame.
Succession (2018)
Getting better in Season 2 but still a bit clunky
I almost gave up when watching season 1 because of the over-improvising and the shooting style (shaky-cam galore!) both if which I found really annoying but I persisted. The storytelling got tighter, the scenes more picturesque. The shooting got better, more professional (they fired the cinematographer from S1), but I still find the improvisational style a little annoying at times. Most scenes begin with 2 actors going "ah.. ummm.. ah..." and it really takes away from a potentially good scene. There is a reason why stage plays and other TV shows/movies don't do that sort of thing! Not necessary to try to sell us the notion that the makers are sort of showing us a quasi-documentary (which it is not). Just get on with it for christsake!!
Two actors are reall, really annoying to the point where I'm ready to give up watching the show: Kieran Culkin and Hiam Abbass. Kieran plays a total prck and in a one-note irrtating way (a dead give-away of an amateurish actor) that's not performance art that's BS and an easy short-cut! Hiam Abbass whispers lines with a heavy French accent where 95% is completely inaudible and non-understandable, so why not just shut up? Don't say any lines, because the lines you're saying are 100% useless. That is NOT a good actor. That is BS.
High Life (2018)
Absolute waste of time
I think I'd actually rather watch paint dry. That way I can actually get lost in the color of the wall and meditate. This "film" is incredibly boring and pretentious.
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
An overproduced schlock with some substandard acting
The 2nd season was much better than the first. Frankly, I wrote it off after the first season and I couldn't bare watching it, thinking poor old Rodenberry must be spinning like a centrifuge in his grave. :))
The show is definitely trying to make up for the lack of imagination and great story telling (writing) with expensive surroundings, costumes and impressive CGI. When the production is overcompensating with the fluff you know it's going to be a bad show. It is. It's like a corporate TV show produced by Allergan as a small step-up from some god-awful Powerpoint presentation.
You can just see these overpaid-while-untalented corporate brainiacs come up with characters and storylines in a conference room. Atrocious.
The Klingon makeup is so terrible the poor actors can hardly speak lines in them. Hard to even make out what they say because their false teeth and copious amounts of make up makes it hard to articulate words clearly.
Most of the actors are good, though I hate the so-called "comic relief" actress Mary Wiseman playing Tilly. Just awful. Repulsive. Another incredibly annoying actor is Anthony Rapp playing the gay science dude. Horrendous. He's got two faces. One is the resting face and his other is the "worry face." Those two aside the rest of the cast is pretty good.
Last Flag Flying (2017)
Dull, slow, indulgent, skip it
I wanted to like this movie based on the cast and the potential. It ended up a big bad bore. Like watching paint dry. A totally missed opportunity and a waste of money and talent, not to mention my time! :))
The Meddler (2015)
Can I get my 1 hour wasted on this movie back?!?!?
I guess this was what they call a "chick-flick". Simply one of the most boring, going- nowhere-meandering, "what's this nonsense about?" movies of all time. Can I please have my 1 hour back I wasted on this so called movie? I'll never get it back... Gave up waiting for something interesting to happen after an hour of total boredom. A depressing movie with plenty of substance abuse, dysfunctional, and immoral relationships.
How do these silly movies get made? What a total waste. Susan Sarandon is OK but she is actually in one giant annoying role.
Stay away, plenty of other entertaining movies around...
The Man with the Iron Fists (2012)
The worst so called movie I've seen ever!
This is so juvenile and pathetic you won't believe it. This is what happens when you give someone a lot of money to make a movie who has no place making a film in the first place. I can't believe even Quentin T. was involved and astonishingly Russell Crowe! The whole thing is an excuse to go from one stupid badly done fight sequence with some music ( of course, knowing that RZA was involved directing) to another with some pathetic filler material in between. Really bad acting all around and nothing to hold your interest. This is where Hollywood is nowadays.. Shame on all of you who were involved with this piece of you know what.