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Reviews
Inside Man (2022)
Even Tucci Can't Save This Terrible Series
Stanley Tucci does consistently great work as one the industry's most watchable actors. He should have done himself a favor and passed on this atrocious series. With the exception of his death row cellmate, very well-played by Atkins Estimont who serves as a kind of Dr. Watson to Tucci's death row kind of Sherlock Holmes, the other cast members should all be on death row with quick execution dates for butchering their performances while Tucci and his friend deserve pardons for putting up with them. Tucci's character solves mysteries from his cell with his friend's help, and does so pretty well even though his cases are lame because of the show's very poor writing. The main case involves an attempted murder run amok by a non-criminal couple (a pillar of the community as the local clergtman and his wife) who let a mistaken identity child porn situation get ridiculously out of hand. It is neither funny nor credible. I would rate every performance except for Tucci's and Estimont's and Dylan Baker's somewhere between zero and less. I never put spoilers in reviews despite wanting to do so here to keep people from watching this mess, but after forcing myself to watch all 4 episodes mainly to see what would happen to Tucci as his execution date draws near I decided not to. The rest of the plot deserves a zero for stupidity and the wrong kind of silliness, as does the direction and overall script. I never thought Stanley Tucci could make a bad movie or show, and he does not do so here because he is fairly credible as a jailhouse detective. However, even he cannot save this dog which needs to be put out of its misery. I suggest paying attention to other reviews similar to mine before committing 4 hours of time better spent on better movies and series.
A Jazzman's Blues (2022)
Almost a Very Good Movie
A Jazzman's Blues both engages and disappoints. The story about racial identities and self-identities in 1940's Georgia is a great one, but somehow the cast does not quite deliver. The film is surprisingly emotionless even though the story itself cries out with emotions. Overall the cast does not work except for Amirah Vann as Hattie Mae, the mother of Bayou who is played reasonably well by Joshua Boone, the lead protagonist with a beautiful voice who grows up from being an illiterate, supposedly slow-witted teen to become a gifted jazz singer whose written love letters suggest beautiful sentiment. Hattie Mae works as a meagerly paid laundress and occasional midwife/healer by day, then as an amazing blues singer by night in her own juke point. Where the film fails is with casting Solea Pfeiffer as LeAnne, Bayou's teen love interest who moves away with her mother to Boston, where both decide to pass for white. LeAnne marries a white from a prominent small town Georgia family and returns to his hometown with her mother where both continue passing for white. Having grown up partly in a segregated rural county I found it impossible that these two could ever pass for white. Tyler Perry knows this and insults both history and viewer intelligence. The two main white characters who play the town sheriff and the mayor (LeAnne's husband) do lousy jobs trying to convince viewers they are racist. Ryan Eggold is fine as Ira, a post-World War II Jewish refugee who manages Bayou's trumpet-playing brother and both show up in Georgia strung out on drugs for Ira to heal. Once Ira hears Bayou and his mother sing he realizes that they are the real family talent. Although the mother refuses to leave Georgia, Ira is able to book Bayou and his brother into Chicago's biggest club where all all-black entertainers perform for all-white audiences. Bayou becomes a star with some good records, while his jealous brother falls further into jealous depression and addiction. For me the biggest disappointment was the so-so musical score and music scenes generally. I am a huge fan of the blues and the early jazz pioneered by black musicians, but here I was hard-pressed to find any of the numbers which did not disappoint. All in all, this should have been a much better movie given the story it tries to tell. Maybe this generation of actors simply lacks the life experiences their predecessors faced in dealing with southern racist America. It would be interesting to see this movie remade with a much better cast who can convey the emotions and feelings these actors could not do. Despite all these flaws, the movie is watchable and has its moments. The cinematography is especially good.
Lou (2022)
Well-acted but absurd plot
This movie could have been very good because the cast and acting are solid, with excellent cinematography. The story is so ridiculous, however, that no one could ever believe it and dramas don't work well with stupid scripts. Allison Janney, who plays a former CIA agent, is always worth watching and so are the other actors even though their dialogue is fairly limited. Jurney Smollett also does fine given the poor script she has to work with. It is impossible to describe how absurd the story is without including too many spoilers, so I suggest seeing this if you are an Allison Janney fan with about an hour and forty-five minutes with nothing else to do.
Prizefighter: The Life of Jem Belcher (2022)
A Lousy Movie Despite Despite The Great Story And Fine Acting
I generously give this film 4 stars because the story is terrific even though the movie messes far too much with its much more interesting actual history. I am a fan of early 19th Century English boxing and looked forward to seeing this, especially with Russell Crowe in the cast. The acting is fine, as is the casting, and unlike some critics I like the cinematography. The film also does sort of okay capturing the time's fight game corruption and brutality. However, the script is atrocious, the directing almost as bad, and whoever edited the movie should find some other line of work because scene transitions are so poorly done. All the main film characters existed and had interesting lives. Jem Belcher, England's boxing champion in the very early 19th Century, came from a long line of good family prize fighters including his grandfather Jack Slack, ably played by Russell Crowe, and his father, who is inexplicably nowhere to be seen in the movie. Jem's classic fight with Henry Pearce may have been Europe's best one ever, but its depiction here does little justice to what really happened. I often like shorter movies but this one could have used about 15 more minutes to flesh out the true main character lives. Matt Hookings plays Belcher well and Jodhi May plays his mother, who hated fighting because she grew up with it, even better. Ray Winstone, always amazingly good, gives a performance as Belcher's trainer even better than Crowe's, so those who appreciate quality acting can see this one without feeling like they wasted their time despite the film's serious flaws. With some harder production work this might have been good enough for some award nominations. Instead, I hope the Razzies bypass it for the hard-working cast's sake.