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robrmcc
Reviews
Station Eleven (2021)
Not the book but not so bad
This is definitely not the same as the book but still looks to have promise as a show that is the similar but different. It is puzzling that they have the departures from the original story that they do. The knifing that happened in the second episode would never have happened in the book for one thing. A lot of people complaining about the shifting timelines but I think that was integral to the story as it helped emphasize how the pandemic which centers the story really did traumatize the people that went through it. Something extremely traumatic like that, and it can be personal not a global catastrophe really never does go away and can mess with your perception of time and who you are. I liked it.
Away (2020)
Wow this is really bad!!
This is a typical Netflix production unfortunately. Acting is pretty good with some well known talent. Cinematography, special effects not bad at all, Story is CRAP, background research seems to be non existant, clearly did not even bother to hire a consultant with a NASA background. So if you are a reasonably intelligent person interested in NASA and science this is not for you. If you know nothing about science or NASA and just want to watch another tired, boring soap opera-ish drama where everyone cries a lot, this is for you.
Other people have documented all the ridiculous inconsistencies with how a space program works so I am just going to add a couple of my favorites. The Botanist has NEVER BEEN IN SPACE BEFORE!!! This was so moronic I really could not process it till they said it several times. THey are a team working together for 2 years and the Commander has no idea her engineer's wife is dead!!! She untethers herself and goes rogue on the very first EVA and her engineer encourages it while the command center stands around looking like fast order fry cooks at McDonalds. Her husband is the ground control guy has a stroke, but there is no backup for him. First off no family in the ground crew because you know, emotions can get in the way. And secondly, NASA has backups for the janitors on a space mission. THey would have backups for the backups on a mission like this. And it just goes on and on. What a load of drivel.
Watch Apollo 13 for a really riveting movie of how this stuff actually works. And that was 40 years ago!. Too bad the people who put this steaming pile together had not actually watched it first.
Trust Me (2017)
Yecch!!
Interesting concept at first. Writing got so stupid and so bad by the fourth episode that I could not even finish it. Can't believe it gets a 7/10. People must not care much anymore about they watch.
Game of Thrones (2011)
Wow what a dumpster fire season 8 is!!
The plot was so thin and the characters so gutted by bad writing in this season that I am not sure who even cares anymore about spoiler alerts. I thought it could only get better after episode 3 but episode 4 was even stupider.
I don't usually do reviews but I have to vent somehow. I really was not expecting much in Season 8 in spite of the hype but the atrocious writing, thin to ridiculous plot lines and poor cinematography has managed to disappoint even my low expectations.
The plot lines and characters have become so stupid they are almost unwatchable. I mean really? Daenerys is supposed to be the Super Queen? How many times can she walk like a dunce into a big Cersei trap and get all her men killed before most of them just say forget this I am not following this dunce anymore. She has now managed to stupidly get two of her dragons killed off, and by what bows and arrows!! Ha, ha, that's hilarious. Why not just fly around the boats and burn them up from behind? They can't shoot arrows through their own rigging and masts!! Not to mention there is no way arrows could ever destroy ships like that. Especially ridiculous arrows made out of iron!! They would be too heavy to even shoot, have a range of about 10 feet.
I give up. It was just too stupid to even make any more omments about it.
Sad, sad, sad stuff.
Not sure I am going to even watch the last two episodes.
A Quiet Place (2018)
Really huge disappointment -- may be spoilers
I really wanted to like this movie but it was just so dumb. How dumb? Let me count the ways.
1) They are in mortal danger, can't make a sound yet at the beginning of the movie they let their 5 year old trail along behind them like they are in the zoo. No, actually no good parent would let their kid trail along behind like that even in the zoo. Hold his hand you idiots. Take the stupid toy without the batteries jeez how did you all survive this long?
2) The monsters are attracted to noise but otherwise seem pretty stupid. Ignoring the obvious fact that they would need some kind of excellent location device such as sonar in order to navigate, so they would be able to locate you anyway, if they are that attracted to sound why not carry big sound makers with you so that if you made a sound you just throw that down the path and run like hell? Too obvious??
2) How come the monster could grab the racoon when it was just making animal noises but not the people when they were just making people noises. How come there are still raccoons if the monster things like to eat them and are so deadly.
3) Day 489. Where did that lovely huge field of corn all planted in nice neat rows come from? There would certainly not have been anyone to plant it. Start a motor get eaten.
4) They have ample power in their house. Enough to run like a bazillion lights out there. Where is that coming from 489 days after the end of the world.
5) Ditto the water. Where is that coming from? A well? Wells take pumps and motors and make noise. Municipal? After a year and a half don't think so.
6) So if they have all this electricity, why not set up a big radio a mile from your house that you can turn on with a switch in the house, then you could switch that on when you made a noise and attracted them.
7) Why is there a big f-ing nail pounded up through the middle of the stair tread? What the heck possible reason would you have a nail even bent over originally pounded up through your stair.
8) Whoever wrote this obviously has no idea how a cochlear implant works. There is no sound transmission electrical or otherwise even involved. The hearing aid sends impulses through the interface directly to the brain.
9) Oh and another thing. Any hearing impaired people I have ever been around are gesticulating like crazy all the time. Are they supposed to be using sign language because it looked like they could communicate a whole sentence with a finger up the nose.
10) and why are they always telling each other to be quiet? Like after a year and a half this is still news??
11) So she has a baby in what seemed like about two minutes. Lot of blood involved. Why was there all that blood involved? If a woman's water just broke and you got blood running like that you have a serious, serious emergency. I guess the one big yell she gave when the fireworks (in place of the more logical electrical sound generator which could have been triggered remotely) was all the labour she needed.
12) I guess the grain silo was supposed to be a safe place for the kids to hide and wait for their Dad. Complete with a beacon fire on the top, which lasted how long? About a minute. Great planning Dad.
13) And then we have the killer corn in the silo. Those kids were sinking in that stuff like a demon from hell was pulling them under. Except that corn is not like that. You can walk right over that stuff. And why did the dopey monster not sink? And why did the kids not sink when they hid under the door? And I gotta say, if by some weird quirk of reality someone did get sucked down under a pile of corn, you are not pulling them out. They are a goner.
14) So all this time they had some kind of shelter where all they had to do was pull a mattress over a hole in the floor and the bad boogie man monster could not hear them? Why didn't they just stay down there all the time?
15) Where did all that water come from that flooded the basement to thigh high level in about 5 minutes? And neither she nor he noticed this going on? Where are they anyway? Was there a second house or something?
16) The truck scene was really dumb, and the dumbest part was when it rolled down a flat road for about a mile after somehow getting out of the ditch it was in earlier. Did not see that coming.
17) And then they shot the guy. Say what?? If you can shoot these dudes why not just shoot them. They are blind!!! And not so smart. You could sit on the roof and shoot them all day long.
Stupid Stupid. Really disappointed in all involved. I really like John and Emily but this was just dumb. 8/10 rating. What is the movie going public becoming.
Red Sparrow (2018)
THis is a muddled mess.
The subject line says it all.
Apparently they require more information. The acting is poor, the direction horrible, the plot incomprehensible, the characters are all stereotypes, the writing is childish in it's ignorance and portrayals of modern espionage. The American turncoat was providing her stolen secrets to the Russians on 3-1/2" floppies like this was supposed to be the 1990's. It was a ridiculous muddled mess.
Jawbone (2017)
Excellent movie carried by strong performances
I gave this movie a 10/10 review which seems a bit silly, but really for what it is I cannot really see it being much better. Acting, writing and direction was all really very good. The story is a simple one and familiar but very compelling for all that. The main characters were very real, relate-able and likable. Made me want to know them and I find myself wondering how they all made out. Jimmy portrayed the desperation of a real addict, but at the same time a quiet dignity and determination even in the face of his own weakness and the likelihood of relapse. Really liked it a lot and I don't say that about many movies.
The Ranch (2016)
Bad, bad, bad
Can't believe all the good reviews this piece of garbage is getting. Either those are bogus reviews or this finally explains why Trump is getting so much support down there. One of the worst shows I have seen in a long time. Live audience?? I call BS on that. This is a laugh track, or a prompted audience. No way these lame attempts at potty humour could get that big a laugh. Either way the laugh track is just plain annoying. Waste of talent and time. IMDb just said I have to have a minimum 10 lines of text for a review. What kind of weird rule is that? So I will just say bad, bad, bad, bad, awful, really bad, terrible, not funny, waste of time, bad, bad, bad, stinky bad, please don't watch bad, so bad even my dog would not watch it. Used to think these were good actors, but writing is so bad it makes them look bad too. Hope they got paid lots.
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
This was a horrible movie
This was one of the worst movies I have seen for a long time. Bloated, self indulgent, lacking in story line and plot. No idea why everyone seems to like it unless they just really enjoy watching men be totally disgusting for 3 hours because that is all there was to it. And I am a man who does not mind getting disgusting once in a while. I am no prude and not easily offended but this was like watching porn. Once you see the first orgasm in the first 10 minutes its 170 minutes of all the same after that.
There was what could have been a moderately interesting subplot about a straight arrow FBI agent chasing the "Wolf" around which might have been slightly interesting in a seen that 10 times before way but it amounted to nothing.
It is a bit disturbing how Scorcese glorifies the use of drugs, degrades women to nothing more then F@#$bags as they say in the movie, shows wife abuse and child abuse with no consequences and shows all the morally conscious people as ugly, dull boring individuals. You can say he is just telling a story, but he can tell any story he wanted to and decided to tell this one, so what does that say about him?
A clear case of no one wants to say anything bad about a Scorcese movie. I really can't think of anything good to say about it.
The Tree of Life (2011)
Unoriginal and tedious
I think this is one of those strange pieces of "art" that polarizes people on one side or the other and perhaps there is some element in there that is positive as it at least encourages dialogue. As a movie however it had nothing really interesting or new to say. The message is some kind of new-age hooey resolving around a somewhat dysfunctional family., Not really dysfunctional at all for a 50's family. Hardly stuff to base a meaning of life kind of deal around. A lot of the "nature" footage that people were raving about was stock footage from the Hubble and various nature films. I would be surprised if anything new was created for the movie. I guess what I find most discouraging is not the disappointing movie, but the number of people who called this footage "breath taking" and "awe inspiring" and "left me trembling". For shits sake people get off your couch and out of your basement suite. Almost every day I can look up and see a sky that makes anything in this movie pale by comparison. I guess what I am saying is people should get out there and really see the world if they think this tarted up "nature" footage is some how genius in action.