edward-05254 Reviews

The Noel Diary (2022)

There's No Honor In Hollywood

[6/10 · 30 April 2024]

Sigh...I feel like a broken record. I'm SO tired of Hollywood's complete lack of moral compass. Yet again, we have a male protagonist who just wants what he wants and to hell with anything else.

There's a narcissistic common thread that runs through so many of these "heartwarming" movies that completely disregards the FACT that pursuing another person's significant other...to woo someone else's mate, especially when they're getting engaged or married ISN'T charming. It's dishonorable.

Unfortunately, yet again, that is the basis for this particular film. The guy pursues after being told she's getting married.

Hey, Hollywood..."NO MEANS NO." Didn't Weinstein teach us that?

It's entirely possible that this is a cornerstone of the the utter erosion of values in today's society. Honor, fidelity, boundaries and self-LESSness are not only ignored, but ignored vigorously.

A person who tries to break up a committed couple...tries to steal what isn't his...isn't charming OR quirky...he's an ass-hat and a cad.

The Recruit (2022– )

More Anti-gun Victim Messaging By A Pandering Hollywood

[5/10 · 22 April 2024]

What's the message? Be a victim...LITERALLY, that a survivor is the same as a psychopath...that somehow it is the wrong thing to defend yourself. It's better to allow yourself to be killed, or someone you care about to be killed than to possibly harm the predator, criminal or persecutor.

This is why shows like this disappoint us by giving a steady message that a good guy cannot defend life with a firearm, ESPECIALLY if it is a "scary black rifle" which elites are busily making us scared of. Why would this be? Possibly, so they are the only ones allowed their use. They're better than us.

This is a message that Hollywood crams down our throat with great regularity. It makes you wonder whose agenda it would be that the average person believes this.

The only thing that will stop them is when the viewership starts demanding that they cease feeding us this repressive, weakening messaging. Elitists want us to believe that.

Our protagonist routinely allows himself to be diminished and, were it not for sheer audacity and, let's face it, dumb luck, would've been dead in the first 1/2 hr.

Christmas in the Rockies (2020 TV Movie)

TOO Much Suspension Of Disbelief

[3/10 · 15 April 2024]

Where do I start?

First of all, we hit the ground running with environmental agendas...my woke-o-meter went off right away...I weary of being pandered and lectured to by "Hollywood."

Then, we meet a father and daughter played by actors 4 years apart in actual age (She's 32, he's 36). How does that even happen? They don't even try to make "Dad" look older.

Now...let's get to the meat of the silliness. We're supposed to believe that a young, petite woman has a snowball's chance in hell (note the wintery reference) of competing and winning against actual lumberjacks who've years of experience in lumberjack events that she can barely perform, let alone do them at a championship level. (Note: she can't start a chainsaw or hit within a foot of a practice mark with an axe.)

Then, we're supposed to believe that there is a $50,000 grand prize AND she has a chance of winning it. Fat chance.

We do have an African-American ex-boyfriend. Culturally and geographically highly unlikely and yet, VERY woke...well done. We also check a "Hallmark box" for vaguely ethnic best friend.

The "superstar" lumberjack champion who is guesting at the event is another petite woman, complete with cheek implants and collagen-injected lips...yea, I'm buying that.

Throw in a beta male lead, an EMT mind you, who's afraid of his own shadow and needs to be told that a doe is a female deer and how fire works...plus the native girl intends to use New York pepper spray for back-country protection against predatory animals. These are just dumbbbb plot details.

If I were to deduce the mental age the film-makers assume for the viewers, I'd suppose single digits. And yet, this would be hard for toddlers to believe.

Ugh...give me a break.

Designated Survivor (2016–2019)

Great 1st Season, OK 2nd Season, Virtue Signalling 3rd Season...CANCELLED!

[5/10 · 18 March 2024]

I really enjoyed the premise in the 1st season...and Keifer was compelling and the kind of President you'd WISH we'd have...honest, reasonable, a good guy...not part of a rotten swamp. And, they resolved the initial story arc...mostly.

And Maggie Q is a terrible FBI agent who can't even hold her gun properly.

The 2nd season wasn't as interesting, but some fun situations, interesting characters, but the downward slope was evident.

And Maggie Q is a worse FBI agent who still can't hold her gun properly. (Can't they hire an advisor to give her the most basic firearm instruction even a complete neophyte gets?)

Season 3 has been all about exactly the cruddy things that divide our country. Racism, sexism and all of the pandering D. E. I. Topics that Hollywood loves to cram down our throats in an ill-advised attempt to seem "evolved." (Oooh, we even get to watch two black guys enjoying sodomy.)

Keifer remained pretty great throughout...and did the best he could with the material surrounding him.

And Maggie Q STILL can't hold a gun properly. Kind of strange for an "action star."

But, I can see why interest dwindled and died.

Meet You in Scotland (2023 TV Movie)

What A Horrible Lead Character!

[3/10 · 26 February 2024]

If clueless, stupid people who lie and are complete cowardly frauds are your cup of tea (pardon the pun), then you're going to love this one!

The female protagonist is so horribly unpleasant, I had a hard time watching it. If for the fact that I hate to jump off during even a bad movie, I would've certainly taken the off-ramp on this turd. Despite numerous opportunities to "come clean," she only chooses to double down. Only a really morally bankrupt person does this. We see it on the news all the time.

The problem with "Hollywood," is that they've lost all moral direction, so this kind of thing is considered "charming" or quirky and we're supposed to ignore that a person is without merit and makes for a horrible experience...and also ignore the improbable situations she creates and are inflicted upon us.

Take my advice, give this a miss...you'll thank me!

The Outsider (2002 TV Movie)

More Hollywood Anti-gun B.S.

[5/10 · 18 February 2024]

The thing about America's elites...Hollywood chief among them is that they have some very unsavory narratives going in order to perpetuate their dominance over the sheeple.

One of those is that standing up to evil should be condemned somehow. Sure, some of their movies show hyperbolic situations where certain remarkable characters are able to prevail through extreme violence in unrealistic situations.

The problem is, that in most of them, the average person is seldom depicted exercising their inalienable right to self-defense.

In this one, evil is turned back through, yes, guns. And yet, after guns are successful in putting down evil, the protagonist decides he will literally burn his gun in what, some misguided hope that he will never need it again?...in a wilderness, where predators, both 2 and 4 legged pose a threat to good people where law is either not present...or corrupt.

B. S.

The Christmas Shepherd (2014 TV Movie)

UNBELIEVABLE that such awful people could possibly exist!

[2/10 · 5 December 2023]

I find it hard to fathom that anyone...especially someone who finds homes for dogs would hesitate EVEN ONE SECOND to return a beloved pet to the frantic owner who has been looking for him for weeks. And to take him away from the widow and son of a fallen veteran who brought him home from his deployment?? WTF?!!!

Finders keepers, losers weepers...with someone's pet? And, at Christmas? With all that pap about having a "generous spirit" all while depriving a woman of her dog?

And the father? That HE would behave in such a reprehensible way is disgusting as well. And this child? What a horribly spoiled little s***. My daughter lost her mother when she was 5 and the experience was awful for us both. I can absolutely attest that there is NO WAY we would take that out on someone who also experienced loss.

Which brings us to the "romance." Having shown his selfish stripes with the Buddy situation and how he is instilling such selfishness in his daughter...that SHE would find that attractive? Yikes!

Oh...and let's throw in the fact that it's "charming" that Buddy pulls the "hold tag" off someone else's tree. Truly, this writer(s) has no moral compass. (It's simple: you do the right thing for the right reasons, not for personal benefit.)

What a horrible way to drag a plot out.

On the upside, karma gets Dad when he has to pay two hundred bucks for a Christmas tree...ouch.

I'll just say that this was really awful.

Ugh!

Bridal Wave (2015 TV Movie)

Hallmark...Where Infidelity Is Standard, But Charming

[5/10 · 1 June 2023]

Once again, Hallmark proves that no male character has honor. If one meets a woman in a relationship, even if she's getting married day after tomorrow, it is perfectly okay to pursue her with a full court press as long as it is done with what passes for charm.

In this particular episode of Mad Libs, we see that the cuckolded groom is part of his own demise, yet again. And yet, what has a surface veneer of family values, actually celebrates not only self-centeredness but the absolute lack of boundaries. Intriguing characters and landscapes only go so far if fundamentally, the mores are on a par with Housewives TV shows and the baser of reality TV.

A Christmas Detour (2015 TV Movie)

Why Does The Family Value Channel Think Infidelity Is Charming?

[5/10 · 21 November 2022]

Consistently, in the name of cheesy romance, Hallmark puts characters in a position where one of the Romantic leads is in a relationship and their opposite could give a damn because he or she wants them. We're supposed to buy into the idea that someone being in an existing relationship doesn't matter because true love means ignoring that. Personally, I find that rather repellant and unethical.

I like to think that Hallmark is, by and large, holding themselves to a higher ethical standard than typical Hollywood and yet, they don't really. The male lead in this movie is sarcastic and rather damaged but Hallmark calls it charming. That seems fairly par for the course here in Hallmarkland.

Death al Dente: A Gourmet Detective Mystery (2016 TV Movie)

Poor Man's "Castle"...Puh-leeze.

[5/10 · 23 June 2022]

It was really hard to ignore the blatant similarities. It was like having enjoyed the national brand and then buying the generic store brand version of something. It reminds you of the original, but not as good...and cheaper.

We've got the hard-nosed lady detective with the supermodel looks and the "charming wise-cracking consultant" who is ever-present, completely out of his element and always bickering with her while trying to get in her pants. On Castle, he always brings her a large coffee...even buys an expensive espresso machine for the 12th Precinct. Here he brings her a small. (Like I said...cheaper.)

Throw in the two goofball caucasian and ethnic "utility detectives" (complete with "exploding fist bumps"), activities focussing on the "murder board," the (also appropriately ethnic) female "coroner buddy" and the occasional appearance by a female tough-gal captain and there you have it. Here, however, it's the detective who's the one with the live-in mother and teenage daughter, not the pseudo-Castle.

It's Nathan Fillion's Castle with a food theme. I'm just trying to determine when Hollywood completely lost its creativity.

Heart of the Matter (2022 TV Movie)

Get Off the Cross...We Need the Wood

[5/10 · 18 May 2022]

Ridiculously frustrating. An exercise in self-indulgence. Ugh...what a ridiculous woman. Why does Hallmark consistently make their female characters so pathologically enfuriating. The omission committed by this doctor in question pales in comparison to the daisy chain of bad, hurtful decisions she proceeds to make, even harming a young boy, in her self-indulgence. Ugh. Pitty-pot time, anybody?

The Rookie (2018– )

Definitely Shark-Jumping Weather

[4/10 · 16 May 2022]

It's a shame the show lost its writing staff. But hey, what a stroke of luck that a bus full of teenagers on the way to Magic Mountain were available to write this season.

This episode puts the um? In dumb. If it wasn't bad enough that we were subjected to Tim's dumb evil twin, expecting us to buy that he has a girlfriend who looks like vata-from-the-hood Chen is a bridge too far...and the cringey "we'd better practice kissing" scene between the real Tim and Chen was just wrong on multiple levels.

And the woke Hollywood B. S. has been staggeringly unrelentless this season. It's one thing that Hollywood is following the leftist agenda that citizens ought not be armed, but when they extend it to police, that's just stoopid. As bad guys are coming out of vehicles with automatic weapons, experience-hardened "Rookie" John Nolan's best strategy is to stand out in the open and call his girlfriend. When he finally gets around to thinking about trying to even the odds with weaponry, he finds out that the police station gun safe is inaccessible because, get this, "the sheriff has the key." How stoopid do the showrunners really think the viewing public is? Wait...don't answer that, this is Kalifornia...we know how stoopid the viewing public is. Also, the fact that the frequent gun fights on the show are now reduced to CGI flashes of light added in post-production, because Alec Baldwin screwed up one time in a hundred year history of safe simulated gunfights in Hollywood just seals the fact that this show is a pandering runaway train of woke idiocy.

We've seen it before...shows that go on season break and never come back. If that were to happen to The Rookie, I would not be able to muster up a surprised look on my face. The music that plays towards the end of this episode starts with the words "I do believe that I've had enough..." I can't decide whether those portentious lyrics seem best appropriate from the show staff or the viewing public.

#ChensAnIdiot.

Restaurant: Impossible: Best Friends Forever (2022) Season 21, Episode 2

Everything Is About Race Now

[6/10 · 13 May 2022]

To much racial B. S. means you're somewhere between woke mob pandering and virtue signalling. Actual virtue means virtue signalling is not necessary. Let's get back to what has made the show great.

30 Days of Night (2007)

I Tried Hard To Suspend Disbelief...Ran Out of Energy

[5/10 · 6 May 2022]

Let me get this straight. Alaska. Alaska...and all they could find was one shotgun and an axe? Further, these people have NO survival skills? Alaska? Hollywood in their anti-gun lunacy goes too far, yet again.

Stoopid...'nuff said.

The Rookie: Enervo (2022) Season 4, Episode 20

Nonstop Pandering to The Woke Mob, Racism AND Fakest Firearms Action Ever? What's Not To Love?

[5/10 · 2 May 2022]

Well, the title of this review pretty much says it all, but all I can add is that ABC's dedication to having this particular show be the bleeding edge of their pandering ways is pretty disgusting. Throw in unrealistic, anti-gun action at every turn and my stomach does some turning also. The gal playing Simone, the FBI agent is compelling but completely ridiculous in the role of an actual agent.

The shark is buying BenGay by the case to take care of that sore neck from watching this show jump over. I did kind of enjoy seeing Castle's CIA cohort from that show's terrorism bombing double episode playing the annoying CIA guy here. #ChensAnIdiot.

Runaway Jury (2003)

Unmitigated tripe. Reprehensible. Hollywood Carries Water For the Anti-gun Lobby Yet Again.

[2/10 · 21 April 2022]

It is always disgusting...and staggering, to watch millionaires who wear makeup for a living pandering to a misinformed public in order to ensure that only elites such as themselves are allowed guns...for, I assure you, they nor our anti-gun politicians will give theirs up...nor the armed security forces hired to guard them. It is you that should lose your civil rights, not them.

The unveiled bias spewed in this movie is sickening. Instead of the decent folk who, by-and-large, make up the law-abiding gun owners of the U. S., they are painted as either nefarious dolts or moustache-twirling good old boys. In this movie, the anti-gun lawyer demands why the gun manufacturers don't investigate gun purchasers, failing to mention that there are already law, state and federal agencies whose job it is do that...for EVERY legal purchase. The illegal ones? Well...why do you think they call them criminals and law-breakers? Because that's what they are...and do. And yet, the punishment should target the law-abiding. Further, the 30,000 annual deaths the left trumpets, including here...are 2/3 suicides, then a goodly share of gang violence (gangs commit crimes with illegally obtained guns), leaving a small number out of 330 MILLION citizens...a statistic so small you need at least four zeroes beyond the decimal point to even articulate the percentage.

Promoting the idea, via liberal icon Dustin Hoffman, that gun manufacturers, who produce the most highly regulated, inanimate objects (you can't have one legally until law enforcement, FBI and BATFE sign off on it...even stricter for CCW permits) there exists are somehow responsible for the criminal MIS-use of their products is ridiculous...and the ACTUAL statistics don't support it. It also ignores the as many as 2.5 MILLION times guns are used to save lives annually (CDC stats...Google it), not to mention the MILLIONS of rounds expended each and every day in safe, enjoyable recreation by moms (women make up almost half of new gun purchases) , dads, kids and other decent and otherwise benign owners of what is either an enjoyable piece of sporting equipment, a way to harvest healthy protein...and yes, God-forbid, a self-defensive tool, if necessary.

On the rare occasion corporate "journalists," (who steer the media while the Bloombergs and Soro's of the world pull the strings and provide the purses) with open mind, experience the actual firearm purchasing process and enjoy the range, ethical, legal hunting and the social world surrounding responsible gun ownership, they see that this cartoonish depiction is a deceit...and insulting to critical thinkers privvy to facts rather than elitist narratives.

Love on the Menu (2019 TV Movie)

Lazy Writing When You Steal Movie Lines...

[6/10 · 3 April 2022]

"Those were expensive. Now they're practical." (from Romancing the Stone) "Tell her she has nice shoes...girls like that." (from An American President) ...sigh.

The Rookie: Long Shot (2022) Season 4, Episode 14

Cue the Shark!

[3/10 · 28 February 2022]

It's gettin' lame, guys. Not only do these cops suck at actually being cops, but the new "politically correct/pandering" anti-gun idiocy of now adding gun flashes in post (because guns are bad and Alec Baldwin, that anti-gun bonehead screwed up a hundred years of on-set gun safety) make already unrealistic gunfights all the more goofy looking. #ChensAnIdiot.

It Was Always You (2021 TV Movie)

I Seduced My Brothers Fiance'

[5/10 · 1 February 2022]

Despite its reputation for purported "Family Values," Hallmark repeatedly sends out the message that it is okay to go after somebody else's partner, if that's what you really want, even if, as in this case, it's your brother's fiancé. And somehow, that is supposed to come across as quirky and charming... even if the male protagonist is a relentlessly annoying jerk. Ugh. Hard to overlook all that.

The Rookie: Fire Fight (2021) Season 4, Episode 7

Stoopid Episode

[4/10 · 16 November 2021]

Love Nathan Fillion and by and large enjoy the show...but this episode actually had me turning it off and walking away to rest because it was so frustrating. I know that Hollywood tries to maintain the narrative that the average person is helpless. They discourage people from improvising weapons and if they do have a weapon they must drop it or somehow lose it within seconds. But to see Nolan, not just a now somewhat experienced "rookie" with police martial training (and years in the construction trades) pursued like a helpless B movie cheerleader by a hapless, "serial killer" after being caught "by surprise" buy a guy who he already suspected AFTER TURNING HIS BACK ON HIM...with a big frickin car, no less...was more than I could suspend disbelief for. It was like a weird video game where the guy ould upgrade from knife to pistol to shotgun......to full-auto machine pistol...c'mon! And Nolan just can't stop him at any point and passes by weapon after improvised weapon and misses too many opportunities to count to save his own bacon?

Yikes, guys...who wrote this swill? Oh, and Chen continues to be depicted as puerile, incompetent and unprofessional. #ChenIsAnIdiot.

London Has Fallen (2016)

Seriously?

[5/10 · 25 August 2021]

As ever, I feel terrible for any actual Secret Service agents who watch these films. Security depicted as having all the sophistication of a monkey romancing a football. We're expected to continue to believe, especially having had their arses handed to them in Olympus Has Fallen that the height of Secret Service weaponry is HANDGUNS and an OCCASIONAL Reagan-era Uzi. But, in Marine 1 and a CIA safe-house...the peak of weaponry are handguns...c'mon, that's stoopid even for Hollywood! And the President's #1 guy...a superman operator, consistently chooses his sidearm over a rifle. The purpose of a sidearm is to fight one's way to a rifle...even Hollywood should know that...so much for "military advisors" on pictures.

Anti-gun agendas have rotted Hollywood for some time now. Heroes are NOT ALLOWED to use those "scary black rifles" the Democrats are bound and determined to disarm us of, despite the fact that they are seldom used in actual crime and are used by MANY to guard their homes and families.

I don't mind suspending SOME disbelief, but the rampant anti-gun messaging permeates this one too, as we're "reminded" that civilians are but victims and the good guys are not allowed adequate firepower. Victimhood...accept it and live it, sheeple! Ugh...lib-tarded Hollywood, sigh.

Chesapeake Shores (2016–2022)

Uber Soap!

[6/10 · 1 June 2021]

Soap opera, of course...but the scenery is pretty cool. Charmingly self-obsessed characters are interspersed with some serious overacting by a couple of the sisters. Pretty much everyone has a low emotional IQ and is convinced their every feeling is a disaster or an emergency.

Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Pandering For the Antigunners...That's Hollywood! DISNEYLAND'S got better security than Fuqua's White House!

[5/10 · 19 March 2021]

I get that billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and other liberal gun grabbers pour millions into Hollywood to ensure their messaging saturates the sheeple, but am I really to believe that the White House's first line of defense is service pistols?

No rifles at all, eh? (Eventually, an old Uzi pops up...I guess Reagan's coming back?) Oh, yeah, of course oh, I forgot...good guys don't need rifles, as the gun-banning politicians insist. Which is why our protagonist refuses to pick up a rifle every time he runs past one in the hands of a dead Korean terrorist (over & over). He just needs his trusty pistol. In the military there's a very old saying about the purpose of a pistol is to fight your way to your rifle...not here, I guess. Only bad guys use modern rifles.

Could you actually TRY to make the "world's most heavily defended building" somewhat realistically defended? According to the CDC, civilians use firearms to defend lives as much as 2.5 million times per year... but the White House is this permeable? Oy.

He's Just Not That Into You (2009)

Hollywood Has The Integrity of Rodents

[4/10 · 9 March 2021]

Right off the bat, the main female protaganist is psychotically needy and has the IQ of chilled lettuce...this gives the movie an ongoing thread of awkward discomfort...that's never appealing.

Let's hope today's generation doesn't pay too close attention. This movie and its re-articulation of "commitment means everything and yet nothing," just helps to show why marriage has a high fail rate and society sucks so hard.

The messaging from Hollywood continues its slimey crawl as it demos lack of honor and no moral compass. Yikes.

Debbie Macomber's Dashing Through the Snow (2015 TV Movie)

Better strap in for a frustrating ride...

[2/10 · 1 December 2020]

Annoying from the start...the fact that any male would cut in front of a woman, with the complicity of a car rental agent to rent the car that's rightly hers...and then continues to make noises like he's doing HER a favor when in fact, he's a lousy jerk, is hard to stomach at the outset...and impossible to forget.

A large part of the annoyance factor is that our female protagonist is a vapid, bubbly ditz...and that doesn't improve.

Also, attempts at creating intrigue are lamely weak...the comedy, weaker. Heartwarming likewise fails.