penguinblooz Reviews

Tales of the City (2019)

Horrible. Makes no sense

[4/10 · 27 August 2019]

Almost nothing from the original shows or the books carries over into this maudlin downer. Even the once great music is so chill it is dull. The joy is no longer there. The new writers forego characters, plotlines and timelines to talk about feelings. But it doesnt make sense.

Anna Madrigal is old. But She is not a wallflower. They ruined her character in this new telling.

Why is Mouse is still living at Barbary Lane in this new telling?

The plots that this new story try to tell also makes no sense. The last hour is ludicrous and downbeat. A young woman is blackmailing her!!! Bullcaca.

Read the books. Wonderful.

Watch the first 3 stories on video.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Michael Bay molested me

[1/10 · 7 May 2010]

This movie is worse than Freddy 2.

People always complain that no one listens to critics when they give a bad review, especially to horror movies. Horrors movies are the one genre that is perhaps critic-proof because most people love to be scared. So it was a no brainer after the spate of recent remakes - Chainsaw, Friday the 13th, etc. - that Michael Bay would remake the most beloved of all the slasher flicks - Nightmare on Elm Street.

I grew up with Freddy and even had a poster. People nowadays forget but Freddy movies were huge. Dream Warriors, was a big movie, for instance. The Fresh Prince even made a song.

This new movie will soon be forgotten but it may cause kids to go rent the new one which has been re-released on Blu Ray. It had many, many iconic scenes: The goat, the arms that got longer, the blood in the bed scenes, the tongue on the phone, the bathtub scene, etc. None of the scenes in the new movie had any power, and the few that looked decent were lifted verbatim from Wes Craven's.

The movie had no logic of its own to follow. The kids never drank coffee (or even Red Bull, for goodness sake.) All the sex was removed, along with the parents. In one laughable scene, a girl falls asleep to dream about Freddy - at her boyfriends' funeral after he was murdered. Stupid.

I only saw this movie because it was showing at the drive-in and went with friends. All of us moaned and fidgeted. It was a horrible, horrible, film.

Possible spoiler here.

And Freddy did not molest children! He killed them. He was the boogey man. And yes, there is a distinction. Nancy as a hero - no more. She had to have help from her boyfriend. And the connection between Freddy and his victims in this movie means all he has to do is kill the kids he molested.

That's OK. I think Michael Bay molested me as he ran to the bank.

The Simpsons: The Burns and the Bees (2008) Season 20, Episode 8

Awesome episode - one of the best ever Simpsons episodes

[10/10 · 7 December 2008]

I was impressed with this episode. Extremeley witty and one of the best Simpsons episodes ever written. Seriously. The puns were fast and furious but even more than usual.

Kudos to the writer on this episode.

The story managed to be both topical - the dying off of Bees and provide a great story for Mr. Burns trying to impress as a billionaire. Both stories converged neatly in the end and Homer was there to muck up it up - albeit slightly.

What makes this episode so top-notch was the quality of the writing. I have never written a Simpsons commentary but had to stop what I was doing to check out the writer. I am not familiar with her: Stephanie Gillis, I think.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

No charm or personality. And that's sad.

[4/10 · 14 November 2008]

The charm and personality of James Bond is missing in this new outing - Quantum of Silence. So much so, that if one were to remove the name of the characters and replace them with any other name, you would be hard pressed to identify this as a Bond movie at all.

The direction, editing and writing is manic, busy and incoherent. The opening action scene is unexplained and the hand-held camera shot takes you out of the action; you spend more time trying to discern what is going on that you don't for a second feel a part of the action. Bond movies didn't use to do this; they never pulled away from the action. The 1970s Roger Moore films arguable had the best stunts because they were fantastic - and done without digital effects. Think about the cool car stunt scene is View to a Kill; people talked about that for weeks. There is not one stunt piece that would wow anyone on that order.

However, the makers this time focus all their attention on the stunts, but forget that we come for the character. In the quiet scenes, there is a sense, yes, that this could be a Bond movie. Daniel Craig is great in the role but he needs to be able to act. Most of the time, he does not even talk. James Bond is a great spy because he is armed with his wits as much as his arsenal of weapons, but there were few instances of that in this movie.

Bond films stand apart from standard action films because they bear repeat viewings. I have almost all Bond films at least 10 to 15 times each. Except Casino Royale. It is a great film; I own it. But it is not a movie I enjoy watching over and over. It is miles better than the new one. I am not going to watch Quantom of Silence again. The movie just made me so angry.

I hope in the new Bond film, they bring back Bond, his girls, his charm and those elements that make Bond, Bond. I think the makers in their effort to reboot the character were so worried by their character and the possibility for cheese, they removed all traces of personality.

And that's sad.