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Reviews
Star Trek: Picard: The Last Generation (2023)
Standing O
I ugly cried and then stood up and clapped at my TV. This was the greatest possible ending to the TNG universe that I could have ever possibly imagined. I have been a massive fan of TNG from the moment it aired in 1987, and I even went to a Trekky convention and met Gates McFadden back in the early 90s. I know a thing or two about this universe, and they brought their A-game with this final season and this final episode. Kudos to the cast and crew and to the producers! You nailed it! If you've been a fan of TNG for 36 years as I have, you'll ugly cry too. That's all I'm going to say about that.
Spectral (2016)
Cool concept, neat FX, terrible ADR
There are plenty of great reviews for this film here already, so I'm not going to go into details. I just wanted to comment that the ADR sessions must have been a nightmare for this movie. It appears as if they filmed this with one script, and then decided to change the script way later; after the principle photography was completed and they had already packed up. The amount of times the audible voices do NOT match the mouths is astounding. It was so bad that it completely suspended my suspension of disbelief. All I could see were all these words not syncing with the mouths at times-as if you're watching a dubbed foreign film. It threw me off, and then I couldn't stop searching for the next time that happened instead of just enjoying the movie.
Really, it seems as if they green-lit a script, and then in post, they realized that the footage was missing all kinds of necessary dialogue to make sense of what's going on, so they took random shots that they had filmed and dubbed new lines over top that do not match whatsoever.
So distracting.
I'm not even going to comment on the science aspect, because that's low-hanging fruit, and I don't think that matters really.
Other than that, it was an entertaining movie-when I wasn't hyper-aware of the dubbing problem.
Morbius (2022)
Leto phoned in his performance
Morbius could have been spectacular. The entire concept is attractive. But the execution was awful. Jared Leto seemed less-than-enthused to be playing this part. He was a poor casting choice to begin with, and he probably knew it.
It feels like it was originally a 3 hour movie that the studio forced the producers to cut down for time. The result is a mess lacking any heart whatsoever.
What a shame.
Reacher (2022)
Predictable but in a good way
I enjoyed the first season of Reacher. I was not attracted to the show at first due to the meathead muscle-bound lead, but I was wrong. It's a good show. Very predictable like an 80s series or action movie, but not in a bad way-and certainly not fully cheesy like the 80s. It has a small amount cheese but not enough to make you roll your eyes. It has some heart and a good amount of action.
Alan Ritchson (Jack Reacher) reminds me of Patrick Warburton in a way. He's not the best actor but he's not the worst. All in all, I quite enjoyed Reacher and I recommend it to anyone looking to kill 8 hours in a pleasant way.
Black Widow (2021)
Great Fun
I don't know why there are so many terrible reviews here. I thought this movie was a lot of fun. It had heart, action, adventure, and killer special effects. I had the pleasure of watching it in HDR and it was a stunning film to behold.
It is true that Pugh stole the show. She had the best lines and was the funniest. Scarlett was fantastic as usual, and kept the Avengers flame lit throughout.
I'm not sure if this strays from comic book canon or not, as I've never read the comics. But as a movie buff and MCU fan, it was a great ride.
Be sure to catch the post-credit scene, as with most MCU films.
The 100 (2014)
I had no choice
You'll hear many variations of "I had no choice" throughout this series-along with a few variations of "maybe there are no good guys".
This is not a complete review because I turned it off in the middle of season 4. Here's why:
After a few seasons, you might come to the conclusion that these characters are the dumbest people alive. The choices they make are just the worst; like, every choice. The drama is cranked to 11 at all times unnecessarily. Constant juvenile wars, with each season changing the foe and recycling the same story again and again.
Every character gets a turn or two as a mega bad guy. So there really aren't any good guys because "they had no choice". There are also a lot of unnecessary deaths.
This last remaining handful of humans on post nuclear-destroyed planet Earth are incredibly stupid cavemen that only seem to understand violence. I get that action is eye candy but this is over the top. Give us a breather, for the love of gods.
Comic relief. There is none. That, I think, is one of the problems with this series. Everyone takes themselves and everyone else too seriously. It's always serious. Always dramatic. Always loss. Never a choice. It needs breathers and comic relief. It's sorely missed in what could have been a killer series.
All that said, it was pretty enjoyable for the first 3 seasons. The acting is rather good. The main characters are likable (when they don't turn evil). The Australian actors do a flawless job at hiding their accents. British Columbia is always a beautiful setting. You can get lost in the action and I guess that's pretty cool.
But when I say all the main cast have a turn at being evil, I mean EVERY ONE OF THEM.
Anyway, that's my honest review. I wonder if anyone else feels the same.
The Comey Rule (2020)
This is a must watch!
I am not in the habit giving any films or series a 10. It is reserved for only the best performances and productions. There are very few worthy of that score. This is one of them.
I previously read A Higher Loyalty by James Comey. This production expands on that work in the most perfect way.
The casting for this mini-series is just about the best I have ever seen. Brendan Gleeson as Trump was insane to watch. There were scenes in which Mr. Gleeson just blew my mind. It was, at times, uncanny.
Jeff Daniels did such a fantastic job, as usual. Kingsley Ben-Adir was brilliant as Obama. Phillip Riccio was perfect as Jared Kushner-and I mean PERFECT.
The rest of the cast was outstanding. Each performance was spot on and incredible.
If you see some others give a low rating here, it is no doubt due to Trump's cult base rating it a 1-likely without even watching it. Let them not discourage you from viewing this masterpiece.
This mob boss of a president needs to be seen by his followers the way the rest of the world can clearly see him. I hope this opens a few eyes. And I hope Mr. Comey gets his name cleared.
Outstanding performance from all the cast, and a near perfect production from all the crew! Bravo!
The Princess Bride (1987)
An absolute masterpiece
From start to finish, this film is a masterpiece. It has everything-adventure, romance, comedy, thrills, and much more.
It has the feel of a stage production with the contrived sets and over-the-top performances, but masterfully executed.
The script is perfect. I cannot imagine anything that would have made every single word spoken any better. It also feels like the entire cast were all best friends. One can sense the camaraderie.
This is the perfect film. I was a fan in 1987, and I am an even bigger fan now in 2020-especially since the cast are coming together once again for the most noblest of causes.
This film is timeless and perfect in every way.
Bravo!
The Alienist (2018)
This second season is better than the first.
I love this show. It is rather dark and reminds me of From Hell in mood and the similar time period, but this is set in New York, rather than London. I am always happy to see productions that take advantage of Budapest, Hungary. It must be among the few few places left that has been so well preserved to stand in for the Victorian era in architecture.
This second season was less about the alienist and more about the female detective, Played by Ms. Fanning. I stopped by, in part, to comment on the tremendous casting job for the character of Libby. Rosy McEwan is going places. Her performance here was absolutely spectacular. She stole the entire show-matched only by the always stellar Luke Evans.
I hope to see a season 3 of this lovable show, but I get the feeling they're going to end it. I truly hope I'm wrong, though.
If you're wondering whether to give this new season a watch, do it. You won't regret it.
Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019)
What a terrible movie
What was the point of this awful film? It was almost 3 hours of the lousiest part of the 60s. I have been a massive movie fan my entire life but this one gave me the absolute worst feeling of movies. If you can remember having the worst flu/fever of your life and all the terrible sweaty feelings it gave you, this movie recreated that for me. It was pointless and I think designed to make you feel sick.
This does not take away from the performance of the all-star cast nor the set design and anamorphic camera work. But the writing was terrible. A pointless movie. I gave it a 4 for the aforementioned decent things. I took away 6 for the rest.
Dracula (2020)
Ridiculous
Van Helsing was a fantastic character. Well acted. She had a somehow very endearing Hungarian accent. She was captivating and mesmerizing. Dracula was well casted. Perfect, even. He reminds me of a mix of both Christopher Lee and Pierce Brosnan. Harker was another great character and well acted. As was the sea captain and the crew from episode 2. The rest of the cast in the ultimately ridiculous episode 3 was either utter crap or unremarkable. I'm glad Lucy died because I'd want to kill that stupid and wholly unnecessary character myself, otherwise.
The whole thing was pretty hokey and it seemed like they rushed shooting it. The script was at times pretty good and most other times terrible. The good guys took constant and repeated stupid risks that just was not believable. It was the worst Dracula ending I have ever seen. I expected so much more from this and can not understand how some people are rating this a 10. I gave it a 5 because of the main actors. They were excellent and they deserve all the praise. It is not their fault this quasi-sucked. I hope to see more of them in the future. All in all, I suppose if you suspend your disbelief in how any of these characters would actually deal with a vampire, it was mildly entertaining.
I won't watch this a second time.
6 Underground (2019)
What in the serious eff was that?
That was an absolute editing nightmare filled the the lid with product placements and unbelievably bad actors playing the roles of unbelievable bad guys.
The 100,000 or so ludicrous-speed cuts may induce an epileptic seizure (an actual warning just before the movie begins). The movie jumps back and forth through past and present without explanation at a furious pace-only stopping momentarily to frame a Lavazza coffee cup or a Heineken beer or any other of the plethora of sponsors. Lots and lots of ad money.
I think this movie feels as if you hooked your brain up to a computer and downloaded a lifetime of memories in 5 seconds-but the memories are useless and stupid and there are 2 hours of them.
And the completely unnecessary violence? I feel like Michael Bay was told to keep the violence to a minimum and he was all like, "Now I'm totally going to brutally murder 2000 people for literally no reason whatsoever-and I'm going to show EVERYTHING."
Did anyone else scrunch and raise their eyebrows at all the unnecessary innocent casualties caused by the "good guys"?
What was the parkour guy there for? I mean, his position on various rooftops is solely so he can parkour down to the ground when he's needed? Why is he always up there to begin with?
In all fairness, I imagine this movie might have been much better if the cut was a full 3 hours long before some exec told Bay to cut it down to 2 hours. So he left all the action scenes and removed literally everything else. I have no idea if that's true. But I hope it is, because WTF?
It's a heist movie without the planning parts. I have no idea what happened but there were loads of incredibly corny one-liners stacked up like an assembly line of cheese.
They spent a lot of money of this, though-mainly on the explosions and dismembered bodies.
The ONLY redeeming part of this film is Ryan Reynolds. As usual, he carried the movie as best he could but something tells me he was told to keep to the script more than usual. So it's not your full RR experience.
I call it a movie because it's certainly not a film. It's the kind of mindless action you can watch with your loud buddies and miss just as much of the plot as if you watched it alone.
I gave it 3 stars only because of Reynolds.
Mildly entertaining cuz 'splosions.
Unplanned (2019)
Propaganda
This film is full of proven lies and is designed as propaganda.