rodsullivan-51394 Reviews

Civil War (2024)

Best Line? Get some sleep. You never know when you'll need it.

[1/10 · 18 April 2024]

Pointless. I've read all the other glowing reviews and I completely disagree.

The premise that America could have another Civil War is gripping. You'd think that with such an interesting premise it would be a piece of cake to make a good movie. Apparently it's not, because someone at a major studio green-lit $36 million to make this film, and got nothing for their money.

Four reporters, two photojournalists and two print reporters, set out from NYC to reach the President in DC, crossing the front lines in the process. Is there a story arc here? Do their lives have meaning or purpose? Do they have families, foibles, backstories or traits that make you, the audience, want to root for them to succeed? Not really.

The one bright spot may be Jesse Plemmons, Kirsten Dunst's real life husband, who reprises his role as a dead-eyed opie from Breaking Bad when he shoots and kills two people for not being "the right kind of Americans," but I grasp for straws here. This is simply not a good movie. As one reporter says to another, "get some sleep when you can." During Civil War might be a good time to do that.

Ripley (2024)

Brilliant Story, Screenplay and Direction

[9/10 · 11 April 2024]

Filmed in black and white, mostly in Italy, Ripley is a brilliant psychological thriller.

The story is purported to take place in 1961 but it feels like a 1930s film noir. Mysterious lead character, beautiful and suspicious antagonist (portrayed by Dakota Fanning), thoroughly believable victim, Dickie Greeleaf, and eerie settings, it draws you in, compelling you to watch the next episode, and the next.

The creator, writer and director is connected to The Silence of the Lambs, Moneyball and other hit movies, but nowhere does his talent shine through like it does here.

Once you start watching, I think you'll be drawn in too.

Scoop (2024)

The question: "Doesxit Matter?"

[5/10 · 9 April 2024]

The producer who got "The Scoop" repeatedly is asked, and asks herself the question "Does it matter?" I kept asking myself the same question. Does it matter that BBC got an interview with Prince Andrew. Does it matter that he stepped down from his royal duties? I'm not sure it does.

Andrew was one of dozens, perhaps even hundreds of men who were entertained by Jeffery Epstein and Ms. Maxwell yet after all this time, we don't know how Epstein made his billions (perhaps from The Limited or Victoria's Secret, we don't really know). We don't know why the "ruling class," of whom Prince Andrew was a minor member, befriended him, or what he got from them, or they got from him. It's all clouded in mystery, and few in the news media care to know.

All we know is that they "got" Prince Andrew and earned a boatload of awards in journalism in the process. The deeper story, the story that really mattered, is still out there, and no one seems to be looking for it.

A Compassionate Spy (2022)

Separate the Film from the People

[7/10 · 11 March 2024]

Theodore Hall was a traitor. He was a U. S. soldier who gave atomic weapons secrets to the USSR. But it's important to separate the film from the people it portrays.

The film is a documentary and hence is supposed to be educational. It accomplishes that. If you liked Oppenheimer and want to know more about the creation of the atomic bomb, and your interest in spies, communists and communist sympathisers who worked on The Manhattan Project was piqued. Hall was one of them.

Even though he knew of the crimes of Stalin, and the evils of communism in real life, he held to the ideological principles of Karl Marx. He gave the secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviets because he felt an affinity for them. He wasn't the only one. Klaus Fuchs did too.

So if you thought the security precautions taken at Los Alamos were excessive, this movie will give you an appreciation for why they were necessary.

The Hill (2023)

Winner: Best Family Film

[10/10 · 29 January 2024]

Ant film that wins Best Picture deserves your consideration. This film won the Best Picture award as Best Family film, meaning it has no sex profanity. What it does have is a good story, well told.

Rickey Hill's father is a Texas Baptist minister down on his luck. Rickey is a boy with braces on his legs, much like Forest Gump, but a strong upper body and a powerful swing. His father refuses to let him even tryout for the baseball team, but he prevails, overcomes his disability, and goes on to succeed.

Some may object to the Bible verses, the open exhibition of religion, and the belief that "when God opens a door, He opens a window." However this isn't a movie made just for Christians. It's for anyone who likes inspirational stories, religious or secular.

You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment (2024)

I don't trust the People-the designers of the study

[1/10 · 21 January 2024]

The series feels like quasi-religious propaganda. The message is "eat more highly processed vegetables and fake foods and you'll live longer." "Abandon natural, wholesome foods and you'll save the planet."

The studies were not even conclusive. One regarding biological age vs chronological age found no statistically significant difference. Despite the lack of a measurable positive result the neurologist claimed to be quite certain that another test of longer duration would show what this study did not. That's not science. That's faith.

A few of the participants who lost more muscle mass than fat were told they didn't eat enough of the bean diet. In other words "it's your fault."

This looks like science but isn't. Scientists admit when an experiment fails. In this case it seems that the producers couldn't admit failure. They had a point to prove and no amount of failed experimentation was going to sway them from proving that point.

The von Trapp Family: A Life of Music (2015)

The Real Story of the von Trapp Family Singers

[10/10 · 16 December 2023]

Rogers & Hammerstien created The Sound of Music, and it's a wonderful movie we've all seen many times, but it's not history. Here you see the National Socialists (the Nazis) as they really were-the unemployed, many of them veterans who fought in the First World War, who saw their countries-Germany and Austria-torn apart by the Treaty of Versailles.

Agathe (named Leisel in The Sound of Music) is the protagonist. She's in competition with Maria, the nanny, until Georg, a submarine captain, Catholic, and hero of the war, falls in love with her. This Maria is not the Julie Andrews version.

Their chauffeur becomes head of the Nazi Party in Salzburg. When the German Army is on Austria's border, he's the one who warns, and then threatens Captain von Trapp.

It is all very good.

Frontline: Elon Musk's Twitter Takeover (2023) Season 42, Episode 4

Good Propaganda Needs a Good Disguise

[1/10 · 17 October 2023]

Elon Musk's Twitter Takeover is designed to mold your opinions about free speech. To the producers, limiting speech is good, it's right, it's what ethical social media platforms do. To prove that controlling free speech is good the producer needed allies, people to promote that line.

The producer found them at Twitter. There were legions of disgruntled employees, fired from their cushy jobs without their bonuses or juicy severance packages. They were glad to dump on free speech. They hate it, and censoring it was, to them, noble.

The producer also found them at DHS, the government agency coordinating the censorship. Yoel Roth, the chief censor at Twitter, got lots of air time to defend himself- more than anyone else. He claimed he met with the FBI more than 20 but less than 50 times, but it never affected his judgment, and then, it wasn't really his judgment, or was everyone's judgment that working with the FBI and DHS was the right thing to do.

Who didn't the producer interview? How about the affiants, the sworn witnesses who convinced at least three courts that the Biden Administration and Twitter violated the civil rights of Americans by censoring their speech. Those people are completely absent.

Realize you are being "handled" and manipulated in a clever way, but read the real evidence in Missouri v Biden and you'll see how nefarious what they did was.

A League of Their Own (2022)

There's a lot not to like here

[3/10 · 24 July 2023]

I blame the writers. I imagine somewhere in film school they were told "you've got to have characters that today's viewers can relate to." So what they did was transplant the story from 1943 to 2022, 59 years later.

The 2022 characters curse a lot, are unfaithful to their husbands, are into substance abuse, and throw themselves at men. They're sexually liberated and possess all the vices and human failings that characters might have in 2022. In doing so, the story loses its charm without adding anything and without attracting any younger viewers.

There were plenty of subplots to explore without resorting to cheapening tactics. It could've been a great sequel to an interesting movie.

The Days (2023)

Painfully Slow

[3/10 · 11 June 2023]

I boosted the replay speed to 1.5x. It wasn't enough so I began fast forwarding 10 seconds at a time. Still too slow. In episode 2 they spend 30 minutes opening just 5 valves.

You should also know that one person died due to radiation exposure and two were hospitalized. This was no Chernobyl. Perhaps to make up for the absence of injuries and deaths they decided to tell the actors to speak slowly, walk slowly, and take forever to accomplish anything.

The script lacks technical depth too. At one point there is no power in the control room. Nevertheless, the engineers keeping asking each other if there are any readings on the gages. Just stupid.

It could have been good. It wasn't,

The Family Man (2000)

A Christmas Carol with a Modern Twist

[10/10 · 7 December 2021]

The Family Man is Nick Cage's best dramatic role. Tea Leo I'd too. If you're under 40, you may hate it. Nick, a Master of the Universe, goes to sleep on Christmas Eve and wakes up in a different world. Don Cheadle plays the role of Marley's Ghost. He makes the magic happen.

This alternate world depicts a lifestyle that doesn't exist anymore. It's a lifestyle where two people fall in love, get married, have children, live in suburbia and consider themselves lucky. They're the envy of all their friends.

They commit to each other until death, instead of until love dies. It's a world where fidelity is important. As Jeremy Piven tells Nick "The Fidelity Bank and Trust is a tough creditor...If you make a deposit somewhere else, they close your account-for good."

The good thing is that Nick and Tea get a chance-a second chance-to make everything right, to correct where their lives went wrong. It a story filled with hope.

Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)

Treated More Harshly than It Deserves

[8/10 · 23 February 2021]

Americans are uncomfortable knowing that their Presidents, particularly the beloved ones, have human faults. Bill Murray gives the best performance of his career as FDR. He must have studied and prepped for months. However because this film depicts FDR's affairs, which are well documented, it gets treated more harshly than the actors, filmmakers or screenwriter deserve.

It's an entertaining movie and even more importantly an educational one. Watch The Kings Speech too and you'll learn a great deal about FDR and Bertie, the King of England in 1939.

Flack (2019–2021)

A Hot Mess

[1/10 · 23 January 2021]

I'm filled with remorse thinking about the young women who this series targets. They're supposed to identify with these characters as role models and believe that they lead exciting, important, and fulfilling lives. Many may believe they do.

Unlike "Emily in Paris," which is cute and entertaining, Flack lacks any cuteness. Tawdry, sad, trite, and lacking in dramatic spark, it's a hot mess.

These characters are unfun, and going nowhere-and they're taking the story with them.

Sweden: Lessons for America? A personal exploration by Johan Norberg (2018)

Smashing the myth of Sweden's socialism

[10/10 · 26 December 2020]

Did you know that in Sweden there is no minimum wage? That every Swedish parent gets a voucher and can send his or her child to any school they choose?

Did you know that in Sweden health care is provided by private doctors and private hospitals, and that they are paid by patients using local (as opposed to national) government vouchers? That in Sweden Social Security benefits go up AND down depending on how the economy is doing? That in Sweden fewer people cheat on government benefits because they know they are truly "all in this together?"

Don't tell The Squad. Do watch this one-hour movie on Amazon Prime Video.

Episodes: Episode Four (2017) Season 5, Episode 4

Let the pig die-it's animal cruelty not to

[1/10 · 18 March 2018]

This painful episode of Episodes revolves around Sean accidentally wounding a pig at Matt's ranch. Rather than killing the pig, putting it out of its misery, Bev convinced Matt to take the wounded pig to the vet, causing it enormous pain and suffering. It's the worst episode in 5 seasons.