leftbanker-1 Reviews

A Man in Full (2024)

Great Character Development, Good Adaptation of the Novel

[9/10 · 4 May 2024]

I'm on EP05 and liking it more and more. After the completely botched adaptation of Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, I think they are getting this one right.

I wasn't sure if this was going to be a limited series, or if they planned to drag it out for another season. I was thrilled that it was over in six episodes. Think Better Call Saul, which would have been fun as one season, maybe two. Instead, they beat it to death.

Jeff Daniels is fine and most of the world doesn't care about a Georgia accent. Just about all of the characters have their own, interesting arc and are fun to watch. The best part about the novel was the kid in jail and his education in stoicism, something he learned by accident when the book he ordered was something other than he expected.

I'd never seen William Jackson Harper in anything before, but man, does he ever nail his role as the incumbent mayor of Atlanta (with some great writing behind him).

Jeff Daniels plays his part well, a man we should hate but we're rooting for him, at least most of the time. That is a difficult character to pull off for a writer. The mayor is also of this ilk and he does a great job.

The racially and ethnically inclusive cast may seem like a product of recent politics, but this comes directly from the novel.

Slight Spoiler: The end of Charlie Croker was pretty stupid, but overall, I enjoyed the adaptation.

American Fiction (2023)

Great Film with the Usual Modern Movie Error

[10/10 · 22 April 2024]

I just discovered Percival Everett and it has been pure joy. This movie is loaded with great acting and even better dialogue. The premise is stellar, something that Everett seems to crank out effortlessly. His insights into modern American society are nonpareil.

The common error in modern films is excessive run times, whether they are destined for theater release of sent straight to streaming. 1h57m? Why? Had this film clocked in in 1h30M it would have been brilliant. How many scenes do we need of his mother's problems with dementia? Answer: fewer.

I loved the interaction and conflict between Monk and the upstart, Sinatra Golden.

Knox Goes Away (2023)

Best Movie I've Seen in Ages

[9/10 · 20 April 2024]

This was one of the best movies I've seen in quite a while and left me with an even greater appreciation of Michael Keaton as an artist.

Loved Keaton, Pacino, the hooker, the woman cop Ikari and her partner, and the he-died-too-soon Muncie.

What's wrong with the film is the 1h54m runtime, or 34 minutes too much. At 1h30m, it would have been a tight thriller with a good story, at the bloated edit they used, it stalled out many times during the narrative, like the lapses in Keaton's quickly deteriorating mind.

If they want my opinion of a scene to leave out, it would be when the young father assaults the guy for looking at his daughter. It was stupid and confusing. So, what, he's father of the year now? Where was this over-protective behavior when his sixteen-year-old daughter was sleeping with a dude twice her age? I thought the son was the weakest link in the film and the less of him the better.

Leave the abortion clinic scene out.

He has two ph.ds? Sort of over-doing it.

Didn't get it: he tells the hooker she is on the list of the three people getting a cut earlier in the film them she claims not to know about that when she tries to rob him. She says that she doesn't look like his ex-wife. Wouldn't she be curious enough to get him to clarify earlier when he told her she was getting a third share? Or better yet, just cut this earlier scene out of the film as well as everything he tells her about his "cashing out."

Awkward: when the thugs are robbing him, the big guy punches him, kicks him in the stomach, and Keaton falls down into the living room. The big guy falls down the stairs, but I couldn't see how this happened, even after watching it frame-by-frame. It's sort of an important moment and a bit of clarity would have been welcomed. It's a crime drama without a whole lot of action, so let us see it when it happens. Try turning on some lights.

Coup de Chance (2023)

Neither Sexy Nor Thrilling (My Alternative Ending at the Bottom of Review)

[4/10 · 9 April 2024]

The repetitive music made the film sound like a TV ad. It was like a boombox went off without warning, startling viewers. The music overpowered much of the dialogue, like the actors were standing too close to the stage at a jazz concert, or like a street saxophone player was following them around trying to get a few coins. Pay the guy so he'll stop playing!

The wife talked herself into her infidelity way too easily.

The love-struck writer was a terrible writer as evidenced by his uninspired and unromantic dialogue. He asks a married woman out to dinner after just meeting her again in years, then he confesses his love soon after. The woman's first reaction should have been to run.

Woody Allen seems as uncomfortable in French as he is with murder. There wasn't much in the way of emotion. The husband resorts to murder with all the gusto of going to a car wash, just something that needs doing and nothing more.

Another hunter accidently killing a man a second before he was on the point of committing another murder is a probability that makes a lottery ticket seem like a sure thing. Just too stupid. I know what "coup de chance" means in French and it doesn't mean "completely random and stupid."

The ending left me wanting to scream at the screen. Instead, I rated the film down a star. Adding anything to the story would have been an improvement.

An infinitely cleverer ending would have been for the wife to discover that her lover intended to blackmail her, something the husband's investigators uncovered thus justifying (somewhat) the husband's treachery of the lover being disappeared by his hired goons. Then maybe she finds out the the partner her husband allegedly killed wasn't murdered after all.

Ripley (2024)

Plagiarism, or Homage? Dark, or Boring and Pretentious?

[6/10 · 6 April 2024]

I think this version of the Ripley story is more faithful to the book, but there is a lot in this series that simply copies the Anthony Minghella film from 1999. The way some of the scenes are shot are direct copies from the earlier film. The stairway view during the murder of Freddie, for example.

Before I started watching the series, I had some major reservations about it from the trailer. I thought Tom and Dickie were too old for their characters, and I thought the black and white seemed too film school affectation. Black & White equals deep and thoughtful. Got it. I more or less was able to put both of these doubts behind me as I started watching, but I can't help but think that the series could have been better in color and with young lead actors.

Why would Dickie's father care what his middle-aged son was up to? That ship has sailed, to put it politely.

What is with the director and stairs? For a good portion of the series, we're forced to watch people walk up and down stairs. Elevators aren't working, porters can't be found, and so we go up and down and up and down. I'm sure there is symbolism in all this, but I don't care to figure it out as I'm too exhausted. As far as the photography, it mostly gets in the way instead of telling the story. It's too much like being forced to watch your neighbor's vacation slides.

And how much of this series was spent showing Tom walking around? Walking up and down stairs? Being scrutinized by a hotel clerk? Answer: way too much.

The sparse use of story made eight episodes unnecessary.

Tom and the inspector were good, but none of the other actors took command of their roles. Freddie? What was that? For one thing, he-she-it wasn't in it long enough for us to care one way or other about the character where Philip Seymor Hoffman stole the show in the 1999 film. Marge? Ugh. Dickie? Weak, at best and he couldn't be murdered out of the movie fast enough for me.

The Power of Film (2024)

Those Who Can't, Teach at Film School

[1/10 · 2 April 2024]

Mind-numbingly boring and shallow, Professor Blabbermouth takes us into the world of film with nothing new to say while stating the incredibly obvious. If we only had to rely on what this guy says, I doubt anyone other than his immediate family would make it through this (I dropped out after one episode). There are a million film clips that prop up this bore, but they aren't enough to add up to entertainment. The first episode is completely all over the place and makes not much of a point, and the point made isn't much and hardly warranted forty minutes to tell. He should just write down his point on a 3X5 index card and let viewers watch a real movie.

The Devil's Advocate (1997)

Over-Stated, Over-Acted, Over-Written, and Just Silly

[3/10 · 31 March 2024]

All three principal actors get their shot at embarrassing moments of over-acting that were impossible for me to watch. I can only thank the lord for the mute button and fast-forward. And speaking or religion, is that what the movie is selling? Religion? Because that bag of steaming excrement has been peddled for millennia in different forms and finally people can refuse to buy into it without being burned at the stake, at least in some countries. Instead, director chose to make the gospel-spewing mom the beacon of light. I've never seen religion as anything more than darkness and ignorance.

They were on the right track with this but decided that any sense of understatement and subtlety would be lost on the public. They were probably correct, but the other version would have been a vastly superior movie. In this version, there is more like real life where there is no devil, only human conceits like ambition, sex, greed, status, and power. That would have been a lot more fun, at least for this viewer.

It's amazing how few good movies are out there. I tried to write a list of my 100 Favorite Films and couldn't get beyond about sixty. Movies aren't made for people with much in the way of critical thinking skills. Movies are mostly bland pablum made to shove down the public's throat, like stuffing a pacifier in a bawling toddlers gob.

3 Body Problem (2024)

Sorry, Done Half-Way Through EP02

[1/10 · 24 March 2024]

A strong first episode with the fate of the world in the balance. Creepy and cool beginning and loved the references to the Cultural Revolution. Scientists around the globe committing suicide for no discernible reasons. I liked the Chinese investigator and the woman scientist. I was on the edge of my seat.

EP02 dropped the scale back to personal problems. A guy has cancer. A guy has cancer when the fate of the world is in the balance? Are they joking? I couldn't stop watching this fast enough. It went from edgy sci-fi to after-school special with the click of a finger. A friend, who is several episodes ahead told me that it gets worse and there is no reason to go on. I won't.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

Landmark Film of Its Era

[10/10 · 22 March 2024]

Robert Mitchum's best role by a long shot, and that's saying a lot. I saw this at the cinema before I was even old enough to see an R rated movie (what's the statute of limitations for that?). My older brother worked at the cinema complex let me and my little gang in for free. What better way to watch this film than after two criminal acts? It took me another twenty years before I read the book. It also took me twenty years to find the movie again, maybe longer.

A great story, cool characters, and a fantastic heist. The end was sublime and as inevitable as the sun coming up. This also began my admiration for Peter Yates.

The Gentlemen (2024)

The Sum of Its Parts is Greater than the Whole

[9/10 · 10 March 2024]

If that makes any sense. What I'm trying to say while pointing Aristotle's quote into a mirror, is that this is worth watching simply for all of the outstanding individual performances. There are many other reasons to tune in, but the acting clinic on parade here is a lot of fun.

The Parts:

#1 - The Story

Of course, this story began with the film but has only a very tangential relationship with that work. Every episode has a beginning, middle, and an end, as well as a cliffhanger or something else to propel viewers onward. As with his movies, some of the stories worked for me, others didn't. Some of the conflicts were just way too facile with their resolutions. Eddie was pushed into way too many predicaments as he tried to extract his family from the business, accepting too many dangerous assignments for reasons not adequately explained, not to me.

#2 - The Dialogue

Ritchie seems to have developed his own form of dialogue in which street toughs and lowlifes converse with a sort of modern day Shakespearean banter, well above the vernacular of the average dirtbag, whether in real life or in other movies. While Tarantino was propelled into stardom for the way in which some of his characters lapse into long soliloquys, whether on their own or in a group, Ritchie's creations throw around a lot of word-a-day calendar vocabulary in their speechifying. It comes off affected at times, but more often than not his dialogue is a lot of fun.

#3 - The Characters

Bringing fun-as-hell characters to life on the screen is definitely Ritchie's strong point, or one of them. Eddie, Susie, Jimmy, Bobby, and Geoff could all walk away from this and carry their own series. It helps to have such talented actors reading you lines, and it definitely is important for actors to have great material to spin into the roles they help to create.

Compared to about 99% of what is out there in TV and movie land, this series was positively brilliant. Period.

Land of Bad (2024)

Not Good, Not Even a Little Good

[4/10 · 19 February 2024]

First, let's address the elephant in the room, and no pun intended. Russel Crow is pushing sixty and he's a USAF captain? I guess that could happen if he were the biggest screw up in military history, in which case he wouldn't be in the same time zone as a top secret mission. And he's as fat as an elephant. USAF fitness standards are a joke, but no way does he make the cut. And he's expecting a newborn? Dude, you aren't a movie star; you're a low-level military officer.

Crow puts in one of the most phoned-in performances you're ever going to see, like he couldn't even be bothered to put down the bag of Doritos for a couple weeks and drop down to a respectable weight.

The AF guy isn't HALO jump qualified? Would never happen. If something went wrong, someone up the chain of command would be crucified. So, we're off to a bad start.

Meet Joe Black (1998)

Two Tries and I Just Couldn't Watch This

[1/10 · 15 February 2024]

The first time around I couldn't watch more than thirty minutes or so before giving up on it. 2h58m? Really?

OK, he dies in a car accident, but this didn't mean he had to die in such a spectacular fashion, it would have been better NOT to show it at all. It was so over-the-top that I was expecting a bulldozer to run over him to finish the job, or a marching band like in The Naked Gun.

Why does the guy have to be super-rich? Why couldn't he have simply been middle or working class?

Why does Brad Pitt have frosted hair? Seems out of character for a nice kid.

Is he the grim reaper or a zombie? Because he talks and acts like a brain-dead zombie.

The movie starts out with a nice scene of the couple in a coffe shop-the only decent scene I saw-but then it's nothing but super-awkward moments between boy and girl.

The Beekeeper (2024)

A Favorite of Ten Year Olds

[1/10 · 1 February 2024]

Some call this a John Wick rip-off, but it isn't any stupider or make any less sense than that absurd franchise of mindless killing. I just kept hearing the Itchy and Scratchy theme song throughout this kill-fest: they fight and bite, they fight and bite and fight. Fight, fight, fight, bite, bite, bite, The Beekeeper. And were all the people in this unit also bee helpers? What if one of them wanted to have an ant farm? Would that be OK?

Seriously, how old should you be before you grow out of these ridiculous combat movies where one man takes on an army? 12? 13 tops. If there is no possibility of a bullet or even a fist striking the hero, then all of the action is devoid of tension. If there is no tension, just fast-forward to the end credits and save yourself a lot of time. The Equalizer, John Wick, and the films of Jason Statham are not entertainment fit for adults.

There were some horrific performances and huge casting gaffs in this. Jeremy Irons simply cannot do an American accent. Period. He sounded like he had a speech impediment. The FBI woman was morbidly obese, yet wore a Harvard Track & Field t-shirt. Was that supposed to be ironic?

The movie shows why no one should have a gun in their home. More folks die from their own hands than intruders.

Gone Girl (2014)

Read the Book First

[9/10 · 31 January 2024]

There are so many problems with this story:

1. Why does Nick blab on and on to the police. He even answers their questions with his high powered lawyer sitting next to him. No lawyer, even the worst, would allow this.

2. There is nothing illegal about charging too much crap on your credit card, yet they arrest Go because the crap is at her house? Doesn't make any sense. An anonymous phone tip is not enough for a search warrant, if it were, no one would be safe from random police raids.

3. He is charged with murder when there is zero proof of a murder. Blood on a piece of wood in his fireplace is not proof of a murder, or anything else for that matter.

4. A busy guy like Desi would have obviously had an alibi the day he allegedly kidnapped Amy. Of course, he would have. I don't know if you would call it an alibi since he's dead, but it seems absurd that he wouldn't have proof that he was somewhere else that fateful morning.

5. His lake house was filled with cameras. Couldn't they examine them and see than Amy only arrived a couple days earlier?

6.

Out of the Furnace (2013)

The Elements for a Great Movie Ruined by Weak Script

[6/10 · 15 January 2024]

Not much of a story in this, and it took too long to tell it at 1h56m, it should have been 1h30m. Those 26m added up to make this boring, a sin in movies. Working town America, poverty, violence, ignorance, and job loss, we get it; now tell us something we don't know.

There isn't much in the way of dialogue, at least nothing worth remembering, or that you can remember as you think back on it.

There were a lot of good roles in this by fine actors, but it just didn't add up to much in the end, and that ending was just terrible and pointless.

The whole mess simply collapsed into a tale vengeance that wasn't the least bit interesting or original.

The Bricklayer (2023)

Watching Actual Bricklaying Would Be More Entertaining

[1/10 · 12 January 2024]

For all bricklaying had to do with this movie, it could have been called the dry cleaner, or the electrician, or the high school janitor, or the bathroom attendant, or the fast food worker, or.. I think my point has been made: stupid title.

In his first shootout, he's standing up with no cover when two assassins open fire, mostly missing him but he has a wound on his stomach that looks like a bullet hole which he seals with duct tape. Then he's in a desperate hand-to-hand battle with one of the assassins who can't shoot straight, yet our hero doesn't seem to be impeded in the least by the gunshot. In the next scene, he's wearing a tight shirt with no evidence of a wound. Maybe he's a fast healer.

An elevator at a construction site falls to the ground and explodes? What is on or in an elevator that would explode? That was rhetorical because, of course, an elevator wouldn't explode but the cretins who wrote this mess just thought it was time for an explosion. You can't have too many explosions in a really terrible movie. I always say that if there is more than one explosion in a film's trailer, it's probably a terrible movie. The trailer for this bomb had four, including the magical exploding elevator.

Move forward to the fight scene in the outdoor club and things take a turn for the unbelievable. Multiple attackers, but thankfully they only come at him one at a time so he can punch and hit them with bottles. The worst part of this is that there's this epic fight going on and the other people are still dancing. It was just so silly and stupid that had I watched this in a cinema, I would have been laughing uncontrollably. Instead, I was writing about it. As he's running away from the mayhem, his female cohort pulls up and screams, "Get in!" No, I was going to check the tire pressure first. Dumbest line in the movie so far, but there's a lot more of this lousy film to go.

We need to talk about the two stars, the boy and the girl, spy vs spy. Ugh, worse chemistry than mixing bleach and ammonia.

The novelist can't be blamed for this mess (deceased), and I haven't read his book, but the two screen adaptors should be on trial...for something. I realize that horrible writing isn't a crime, but it should be.

Napoleon (2023)

Napoleon (in love)

[1/10 · 11 January 2024]

This is what it should have been called. Once again, like the Leonard Bernstein bio-pic, they've taken the least interesting thing about a historic figure and spun most of the film around it. Yawn! "Couldn't take my eyes off it." What is the opposite of that? For most of the 2h 28m, I was fussing around in a state of distraction like a restless child in church. I probably checked my email ten times before I got to the end credits.

Joaquin Phoenix is wrong for the role. Maybe twenty years ago he could have made a case for playing Napoleon but pushing fifty...not really. It reminds me of those high school movies with actors in their thirties playing seniors.

Thus far in this forum, the film has only 34 Ten Star reviews with 142 One Star reviews. The masses have spoken. If this were set in revolutionary France, the director would find his head in a basket.

As far as history goes, all that can be said was that, yes, Napoleon was a historical figure, but if anyone is looking for this era to be elucidated in anything approaching an authentic manner, you'll be less informed than before you started watching.

On a positive note, if that even matters at this point, the production values are just what you'd expect of a major motion picture. This means that all the tech folks did great, the creative types failed miserably. Hire a better writer next time. What a complete waste of money.

Get Shorty: Should Not Throw Stones (2019) Season 3, Episode 7

A Good Set-Up for the Season Four that Never Happened

[10/10 · 9 January 2024]

Written on 09JAN24 after my third viewing of this fantastic series.

It's a shame so few people watched the series Get Shorty. It has 8K ratings and 118 reviews after three seasons while a recent "thriller" released on Netflix without a single line of dialogue worth hearing, not a single interesting character, and a silly, stupid, and unbelievable plot already has 13k ratings and 209 reviews on IMDb. Granted, the new Netflix thriller has more One Star than Ten Star reviews, while Get Shorty has 49 Ten Star reviews, and the lone One Star review is positively glowing so the writer obviously hit the wrong star button.

The Manny (2023– )

Disgusting Portrayal of Life in Mexico

[1/10 · 4 January 2024]

The woman has a cook and another servant cleaning her mansion, and she can't find time to take care of her children? Her kids are completely horrible and stupid, so nice job so far on your parenting. The gags are completely unfunny and put TV back at least sixty years, you know, back before there were writers. Every stereotype about the Mexican woman and Mexican man is in evidence here, and not in a manor to suggest that changes need to be made. But forget about the lack of astute social commentary, it's supposed to be a comedy and it isn't funny in the least.

The series is rated rather high here which I imagine is because there is so little quality entertainment available for the Spanish audience.

Fool Me Once (2024)

A Real Time-Saver When You Give Up on the First Episode

[1/10 · 1 January 2024]

Here is why I stopped watching before the end of the first episode. A woman's husband is shot down dead right in front of her. She is a woman with combat experience, and she is cradling her dying husband in her arms after he's been shot three times, once right in the center of his chest. Dead, right? There's a funeral and everything. But then he shows up on her nanny cam sometime later. So, husband not dead; husband alive. Wife too much of an idiot to tell that gunshots weren't real. I didn't watch the series to see what happened, so maybe this guy is a body double. Either way, it's stupid.

As if this isn't stupid enough, she takes it out on the nanny for some reason. Then, the nanny pepper sprays the non-widow. Almost immediately, the police detective investigating the murder shows up at her house. What a coincidence!

Fast-forward to the last episode where the truth is revealed and all I could manage was a "WTF?" I can't decide which main character I liked the least, the protagonist or the detective who suffers from fainting spells like a dowager in a Marx Brothers movie who's just seen a mouse.

The production was third rate, and that's being generous. Weak direction and worse editing, too much bad music, and actors that I can only imagine were picked off the street at random.

The whole premise is predicated on her having a nanny cam. Her husband was recently murdered and she's very well off, she'd probably have a house full of cameras like all rich people, especially if they were recent crime victims.

Coach Carter (2005)

Based on a True Story...Just Like Star Wars

[5/10 · 25 December 2023]

If there was anything in this movie that wasn't a cliché found in every other sports movie, then I missed it. Maybe I was getting another beer to help me through this. I almost called this an underdog sports movie, but even that is a tired cliché.

A kid goes from barely able to read to a B- in a couple of weeks, so throw in a miracle along with that barrel of used up story lines. You can overcome any odds, at least in a lame movie scenario, so, if you want miracles, have some real, honest to Jesús miracles. Have a kid jump from one end to the court to the other, or have the kids make every shot they take. Maybe have a meteor drop on the opposing team, killing them all and the game has to be forfeited. If you're going to be dumb, double-down on stupid.

Love at First Sight (I) (2023)

Even the Title is Stupid and Unoriginal

[5/10 · 25 December 2023]

Rated this Five Stars out of pity as it was so poorly written and conceived that I can only imagine it was a high school writing project and don't want to discourage the kids.

Yawnfest and witless from start to whenever I stopped watching. So, idiot girl misses her first flight because she couldn't be bothered to arrive on time. She books another flight on business costing her father maybe a couple thousand dollars. Then she has to sprint to make that flight. What a moron.

There was zero chemistry between the two, unless you can say that boring conversation brings a couple together, or that a mutual fear of mayonnaise is a bong of the heart. She's afraid of mayo? Who wrote that?

Everyone else seems to love this movie, so don't take my word on it.

Don't Look Up (2021)

Could Have Been Absolutely Brilliant

[7/10 · 24 December 2023]

It could have been brilliant, but it couldn't figure out just what it wanted to be. Did they want a sarcastic comedy of manners playing on our moronic political leanings? Did it want to say something about the end of the world? Did it want to use this as metaphor for something else? It never really achieved true comedic greatness, although it had its moments.

The humor wasn't sharp enough and consistent enough to rate this as a great comedy. It also dragged on too long for me, maybe ditch the musical sequence that really didn't pay off in the humor department. I could have also done without the infidelity angle as it added zero to the story. There were are few too many pieces to this and leaving some of them out would have greatly improved the story.

The end really blew it, in my opinion. I was hoping for a much stronger pull towards just how this disaster scenario would play out. This wouldn't cause immediate destruction, but would definitely put the planet on a spiral towards mass extinction and destruction. They could have at least walked us through this, just for entertainment value.

Death Sentence (2007)

How Does This Rate More than One Star?

[1/10 · 23 December 2023]

Alternative headlines for this review:

No Cliché Left Behind!

And We Wonder Why We Are Such a Violent Country

This movie came from a paint-by-numbers kit, or a boilerplate MS Word program for revenge stories. They're all the same, meaning they all make the same, stupid mistakes, the first being to make a revenge fantasy to begin with. Death Wish: The New Millenia!

Here is the thing, folks, and a lesson so many of us need to learn immediately. We have something called a criminal justice system in this country consisting of three parts: police, courts, and correction. Vengeance isn't justice and shouldn't be made into popular entertainment.

Ever notice that it always rains at funerals in movies? Do they wait around for it to rain before they can bury someone? Imagine how rotten that corpse would be in desert areas? Or maybe just for fun, they could show it raining like crazy at the funeral, then the camera moves back and we see a cemetery employee spraying everyone down with a garden hose just to make it look like rain so they remember to be sad. This movie desperately could have used a joke or two. Like when he was in the tool shed picking out something he obviously was thinking of using to commit murder, maybe he goes from the shed to the kitchen picks up a teaspoon and brandishes it threateningly.

His dead son just won MVP of his hockey team. If he hadn't won the award, maybe dad wouldn't have gone on a murderous rampage because only a dead MVP deserves that. I think there's a lesson in here: there's a lot more to life than a dumb game.

OMG! All of this previous review was written after I'd only watched the first dreadful 15-20 minutes of this horrible film. It gets worse as it goes on, something that hardly seems possible. This was before the gang of thugs running down a crowded street practically begging for witnesses for the first degree murder they are about to commit. Then one comes to where he works, assaults a couple people, then issues a death threat for all to hear. This is a world without police, obviously.

Why didn't he get the kid from Home Alone to help his family out instead of the useless cops who end up dead? That question wasn't rhetorical.

Bookie (2023– )

Fun for the Whole Family, if They're all Over 18 and Warped!

[10/10 · 22 December 2023]

This is the best comedy to come around in a long time. Actually, this series deserves better praise than that because most shows are a total waste of time. I was never a big fan of the stand-up of Sebastian Maniscalco, but he hits his mark here.

Not to give away any spoilers, but when the little birthday balloon flew away, I was rolling on the floor, and it takes a LOT to make me laugh like that. Whoever wrote that bit deserves a decent bottle of scotch in their Christmas stocking.

The humor is consistently dark and to pull this off you need flawed characters, and Danny and Ray are toxic waste dumps on legs. Each episode comes with a great punchline and leaves you wanting more. Please tell me this is coming back for another season.

What would you call the opposite of a feel-good comedy? I think that's what we have here.