Change Your Image
goddancredmond
Reviews
Is Genesis History? (2017)
Grand Canyon
A mere 5 minutes into this "history". The lies start flying fast and furious about the Grand Canyon. All evidence is ignored in order to promote the Creation Myth.
NCIS: New Orleans: The Root of All Evil (2020)
Someone made a mistake
A mistake was made very early in the episode.
There are two possible answers as to why, and both are unusable. Either production missed it or the team missed a glaring statement from a witness at the crime scene.
Harvest Moon (2015)
How Greed Conquers All
This is perhaps one of Hallmark's poorest attempts at a holiday movie.
Though Hallmark is not known for high quality work, there have been notable exceptions, such as Betty White in The Lost Valentine.
In general, their movies are more than a bit trite but with decent morals to them. They are often along the lines of The Christmas Carol format, with the bad characters realizing that they have hearts of gold. That makes them quite suitable family fare.
This movie does not meet even that standard. The female lead starts off as the Scrooge-type. Which would have been fine if the male lead wasn't as black-hearted as she was. In fact, most all of the characters in this movie were along that line.
Both characters do change, but are parted. How they are reunited is a love story told for Wall Street.
NCIS: Los Angeles: The Livelong Day (2013)
Major Problem
I usually like this show, mainly because of the quirky characters. Some of the plots are a bit far far-fetched, but I can usually live with that.
This one went way too far in unbelievability. The writers do not have a clue as to how air brakes work. I would rate this show a Zero if that was possible.
First of all, disconnecting the "glad hand" couplers would not result in loss of air pressure in the lines. They are self-sealing. Now, it is possible that they were tampered.
Next, the compressed air generator is on-board the locomotive and will still produce air pressure.
Most telling is the fact that air brakes are not applied by using air pressure. The braking action is the result of lack of sufficient air pressure. Thus, if the compressed air system is inoperative, braking starts automatically.
Finally, there is a master electrical disconnect switch to cut power from the generator to the wheel motors. Once disconnected, those motors would also act as addition braking power.
The NCIS-LA writers owe us all an apology for their extremely shoddy research.
NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service: Life Before His Eyes (2012)
200
This is one of my favorite series. The character build-up has been slow at times, but steady. I've dreaded the lose of some of them, as they seem to become family. Kate was one of those.
This episode has one of my favorite characters, Mike Franks, in a returning role. His was perhaps the best semi-regular.
The show is really about the epilogue of a current case that plays in flashbacks through this episode. As a milestone for the series, thus the "200" subject line, it ranks as one of the best. What did amaze me was that I missed the first airing. I'm quite glad I caught it as a re-run.
Most poignant was the sequence with Gibbs and his wife.
The Blue and the Gray (1982)
Seen it all
Every cliché' in the book is used. And, worse, far more than once. If you can't guess what's going to happen in a particular scene then you haven't watched many if any movies.
A far better soap opera on the Civil War is "North and South". You will find far better acting as well as a better and more believable story line.
What's really a shame is that there is some very good talent in the mini series that is completely wasted. Even the scene when the Gettysburg Address is given is vastly overblown and forced.
That scene is indicative of the series taken as a whole. Instead of being understated as the original speech was, it and the series take on the tone of Edward Everett, the speaker who was just before Lincoln.
Edward Everett's saving grace is that his speech was only some 2 1/2 hours long. The mini-series is 7 1/2 hours in length, though it seems much, much longer.
Lincoln's famous 300 words than didn't even take 3 minutes to recite.