This show freaks me out. A little. The protagonist looks quite a bit like Ron Livingston, but unfortunately he's less edgy. Imagine a "Loudermilk" type character in the leading role, and how much fun the show could have had with that. Alas, unlike a lot of previous David H. Kelly shows, this one lacks both the quirkiness (think Ally McBeal or the excellent Boston Legal - "Danny Crane!") or edge that his previous work showed. Even the supporting cast is second tier (good, but nevertheless second tier) which is somehow the overall theme of the show - being second tier. Let's hope Season 2 will take it up a notch.
Reviews
15 Reviews
Getting worse and worse
24 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Here we are again. The writers are utterly incapable of inducing emotion into this soulless story. A miscarriage? We haven't really learned to like the mother enough to care. One of her other sons killed by a massive beast of a dragon (and due to a stupid stupid tactical error of that son) - again, we didn't know him well enough to really care. The display of a dragon to intimidate two white cloaks. Two. White cloaks. Really? All that accompanied by a bunch of empty politics yet again nobody cares about. What's worse, the CGI is also dropping to Matrix Part 3 Levels - so borderline ridiculous. Where did this all go wrong?
Gutless
19 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
This show is not only overpopulated with loads of uninteresting, confusingly named people, it's not only completely depleted of likeable characters, it has also lost all guts. Here at the end of this episode was the opportunity for this show's red wedding, and they p155ed it away. Listening to the being the scenes commentary describing this as a "great heroic moment for the character" makes it worse - there is nothing heroic about this, and it doesn't make sense. She has no loyalty to any of the traitors standing in front of her, she has the opportunity with one "Dracarys" to completely change the fate of the realm and prevent what she surely knew was going to end in a war between two powerful factions, and she has always been described as the better alternative to the king who ruled for the last twenty years. On what basis?
This is HBO for you now. Going the predictable way and stretching this thin writing out in a way that betrays the protagonist's character. It's the same studio that is destroying Final Space so they can write off write it off as a tax loss. Literally destroying - not discontinuing but taking the three seasons made off all platforms so they can never been seen again. HBO was once one of the most creative content producers - now they are all about the money. Time to cancel my subscription.
This is HBO for you now. Going the predictable way and stretching this thin writing out in a way that betrays the protagonist's character. It's the same studio that is destroying Final Space so they can write off write it off as a tax loss. Literally destroying - not discontinuing but taking the three seasons made off all platforms so they can never been seen again. HBO was once one of the most creative content producers - now they are all about the money. Time to cancel my subscription.
House of the Dragon
(2022– )
Great production value does not make up for poor writing
11 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
We're getting the sets, the locations, the extras, the CGI and the overall production value we expected from the last 4 seasons from GoT. But just as the writing of those last four seasons left to be desired does this show fail in it's story telling. There is just no emotion in this first season. There are very view likeable characters to begin with, and when they kill off one of the few of that category, you had so little time with them before that you really couldn't care less. Take the death of Matt Smith's character's wife (see how little I cared, I don't even remember the name) - this could have been an emotional anchor in this season, but we knew so little about the character that her death didn't matter at all. Same with the supposed love between Rhaenyra and her uncle - there is ZERO chemistry between them and it just doesn't register - the incest doesn't matter because it was already established as a feature of the Targaryen tribe, and there is just no emotional dimension to the act because there is no connection to or between the characters. Overall quite disappointing.
Unhinged
(I) (2020)
Terrible script
24 September 2022
Strong performance by Russell Crowe in a movie that suffers from a script that let's everybody (other than the bad guy) behave in the most incredibly stupid way thinkable. One of those where after a while you hope that the bad guy kills them all, wins the lottery and spends the rest of his days happily on a beach, drinking daiquiris all day. Stunts are okay, although physics are conveniently ignored when the weak script demands so. 90 minutes that I will never get back, just glad I streamed this rather than seeing it in a theatre and paying for the displeasure. Still needed to write 33 characters...
Hollywood Ending for an Inglewood Show
4 January 2022
This was such a disappointing ending to an otherwise great show. Other than one sad brief moment that doesn't do anything to progress the show or one of its arcs, everything else just gets covered in cloyingly thick and sweet sugar coating, and every arc just gets wrapped up way too nicely - very annoying for a show that up to that point was edgy and tried to keep things real. Watching the commentary after the last episode, the team behind 'insecure' clearly had some much better ideas for the finale and then dropped them for this rubbish. That's a real shame.
The Outsiders
(1983)
Hasn't aged particularly well
25 November 2021
I saw this when it came out in the eighties and loved it. Watching it again today, it's still brilliant for its stellar casting, laying the foundation for many great careers, and its great cinematography. The writing though, and the wooden dialogue resulting in some cringe-worthy acting, might have worked 35 years ago, but gets unintentionally funny at times watching it now. The lack of diversity is of course symptomatic of its times but also leaves a bit of an aftertaste.
Still worth a watch, if only to see some of these stars at the beginning of their careers.
Still worth a watch, if only to see some of these stars at the beginning of their careers.
Jaguar
(2021)
Gets worse very quickly
8 November 2021
Starts off as an interesting and promising new series and takes a turn into utter ridiculousness very quickly. The writing is just terrible, the acting either wooden or way over the top, and some scenes are just so stupid that it hurts watching (just check out how one of the characters is "tied up" in the last episode for instance). Don't waste your time, and Netflix, please don't renew.
And yet again incredibly lazy writing
31 May 2021
WandaVision
(2021)
Wish this was a movie
16 January 2021
I am sure this is going to take an interesting turn, and Disney did well to release the second trailer before everybody just gives up. However, the first two episodes just drag on and unless you're a fan of flat sitcom humour or a hard-core Marvel fan boy you sit through 95% of boredom and 5% of attempts to create intrigue. Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn
Now you wish the whole show was like this
22 September 2020
By far the best episode of the whole show. Unlike the main show that is mostly occupied by rather unlikable psychopaths (with the exception of Rachel and Dana) this episode has heart and guts and emotional depth. Wouldn't mind if they canned MQ and continued with DSD instead.
Bodyguard
(2018)
5 very good episodes and one final letdown
19 November 2018
This show delivers for 5 episodes (with the occasional foregivable glitch) and then manages to disappoint in the last half hour with a rushed finale including a final stupid plot twist that is so laboured and far fetched that it taints everything you enjoyed for the last 5½ hours. This is still watchable but be prepared for a disappointing ending.
Lazy writing is killing the show
9 October 2018
I don't need to list the way too many plot points in this last season where the writers just got lazy to have yet another "twist" or progress the story telling by introducing yet another stupid thing done by one or some of the characters, or some random "coincidence" that just stretches the viewers belief beyond all limits. Get some decent writers back because this could be a good show.
Visually uninteresting, strangely cold
8 January 2005
While the film tells some more or less interesting stories about some more or less interesting people, it fails to capture its audience. Despite the cast of excellent actresses and the good performances, the viewer remains at a distance and you cannot help feeling like the scientist who views a bunch of ants under the looking glass...
In addition, the Director, who also wrote the script, does not develop an interesting visual style for the film - it seems as if the dialog and the performances were enough in the Director's view to make a good movie - well, they are not. I have seen this as a German DVD edition and I'm not sure whether the transfer was very bad or whether the film was intended to look the way it did - quite often the top part of the frame is darker than the rest, usually in a way so that the actors' faces are lit normally, while the background fades away horizontally (not vertically, though). Quite irritating, in my view.
Overall, stays well behind its potential. (3/10)
In addition, the Director, who also wrote the script, does not develop an interesting visual style for the film - it seems as if the dialog and the performances were enough in the Director's view to make a good movie - well, they are not. I have seen this as a German DVD edition and I'm not sure whether the transfer was very bad or whether the film was intended to look the way it did - quite often the top part of the frame is darker than the rest, usually in a way so that the actors' faces are lit normally, while the background fades away horizontally (not vertically, though). Quite irritating, in my view.
Overall, stays well behind its potential. (3/10)
Unfaithful
(2002)
Been there, done that, don't need another one...
31 December 2004
The film has nothing new to offer - we have seen it all before. The unfaithful wife, the young attractive guy who she is having an affair with and the jealous husband who loses control when he finds out about the affair. Adrian Lyne's moral positions fit well into the second election period of George W. Bush with its apparently strengthened conservative values. If you watch the alternative ending (included in the DVD) it gets even worse. The 'explicit' sex scenes may still shock some audiences in the US (or the Middle East), but definitely not in Europe, so even this questionable appeal is lost.
It is difficult to understand how Adrian Lyne could come up with such an interesting movie as 'Jacob's Ladder' while at the same time all his other work is fairly shallow and boring.
If you're after an interesting original movie about love and passion, pick any French film from the shelve and you're better off. Don't waste your time and money on this flick.
It is difficult to understand how Adrian Lyne could come up with such an interesting movie as 'Jacob's Ladder' while at the same time all his other work is fairly shallow and boring.
If you're after an interesting original movie about love and passion, pick any French film from the shelve and you're better off. Don't waste your time and money on this flick.
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