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Marcella (2016)
Great cast fights desperately against shambolic plot
Another Brit lady cop noir series, which they do so well. Usually.
This time they hired a chimp to devise the plot twists. An experiment, I suppose, and a bold one - and it does come off better than you might expect. The animal was able to grasp the difference between groups of humans and trees, for example. So various humans reappear in all kinds of scenes, without having to grow branches or sprout leaves. That alone is commendable.
Though they are faced with the problem of connecting what's happening now with what just happened. Sometimes (and here I think the chimp was given a lottery wheel) they'll wander through a dream sequence. Or a villain will magically appear in someone's apartment; and / or for no apparent reason kill a character unrelated to anything. Or magically appear somewhere else that a victim could never have been predicted to be.
Still, all this does continually send the various bunches of humans off in different directions, so you never think they're trees. Except when the dreams are in the woods, which would be hard for anyone to make much sense of. I can't fault that.
I might give this a higher rating had I made it beyond the first season, but from other reviews that's doubtful as it seems the chimp began to lose interest almost as fast as I did.
Operation Mincemeat (2021)
Excellent drama; badly underrated here
This isn't a war film, nor a documentary. People down-rating it on either basis have it all wrong.
This is historical fiction, weaving an imaginative drama around real facts. And very well done. The settings and production are excellent, the dialog realistic, the casting and acting all first-class, and the story sensitively conceived and realized.
One might complain that some soldier's uniform patches are wrong for his division, or that a typewriter was actually post-war, or some such material detail. But to complain that the people involved in the subterfuge didn't have the personalities and relationships developed here is to miss the entire point of... historical fiction.
Take this for what it intends to be and you'll be impressed. Insist that it should have been something else and you'll just miss out.
Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Acting, direction, dialog, plot, action, production - all terrible
Acting, direction, dialog, plot, action, production - all terrible
Amazing to think people watched this as some kind of quality film, if they ever did. The actors either just blurt out their lines (Meeker) or recite them as if in front of a mirror (Rodgers).
The plot is incoherent and incomprehensible. The book must have been better. Villains simply appear at will. Nobody knows what anyone is looking for or why it would have been lost in the first place. Characters come and go to no discernable effect.
The action is just silly, cutting every possible corner and treating the viewer like an idiot.
I'd like to say that at least the 1950s views of LA are worthwhile but there aren't many.
I could go on but have spent more time on this dated and never worthy piece of junk already.
Avoid.
The Traitors UK (2022)
Fascinating plot; phenom production - top entertainment
Inventive and beautifully produced, directed, and photographed.
Claudia Winkelman is the perfect Host, with an occasional aside of humorous self-awareness. The contestants all participate flawlessly and make the whole thing work. Suspense is constant, right up to the last few minutes. At least in Season 1; I'm not yet done with Season 2.
As it appears to be unpredictable for not only the players but the producers, who couldn't know how it would all turn out but seem to have thought of everything.
The amount of planning, props, and other production work is just phenomenal. Not a detail missed. All aided by the gorgeous castle, grounds, and landscape.
With what must be a huge but nicely invisible crew making it all go. And the post-filming editing is masterful, adding everywhere to the intended atmosphere.
I have only a couple of nits. The overlaid music is too much, and the player "Oh my god" reactions often overdone. That's the only sign of over-coaching.
I'm very glad to read that there will be a third season. It must be very expensive to produce.
Rating it a 9 because it is well over 8.
The Lincoln Lawyer (2022)
Weak dialogue; formula characters; cheesy action
Weak dialogue; formula characters; cheesy action... to which add mediocre acting, poor direction, and low production values.
The somehow-related series "Bosch" was better (though "Bosch Legacy" was terrible).
We also get diddy-bop music to tell you what you should be feeling, and when things are serious, or bad guys are approaching etc. Lucky there's not a laff trak to help us there too. Especially with the lame rejoinders.
As is standard with a certain breed of directors, every emotion is telegraphed: knowing look, quizzical smile, sheepish grin, careless shrug etc. And held long enough to be sure we "get it".
Low on the acting-skill list are:
Garcia-Rulfo (the lead)
Becki Newton
Angus Sampson
Lana Parrilla
Ntare Mwine
Typical carelessness:
1) A man shoots visible holes in two office doors (after tense gun-holding scene), then calls the cops. When they arrive, there are no holes in the doors. And he supposedly almost shoots them (repeat the tense gun-holding scene) *then* almost shoots the janitor (again repeat the tense gun-holding scene).
2) A killer is shown shooting someone then immediately walking quickly away. This scene is repeated for us several times. The cops conclude that it was a professional hit because the shooter "collected his brass".
Junk. Shovelware TV.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
Foolish; Indulgent; and TEDIOUS - For young teens maybe
Ridiculous plot: good guys and bad guys materialize, vanish etc.
Ridiculous camera work: every line gets a facial close-up.
Ridiculous acting / direction: now smirk; now sly grin; now surprise; now sidelong glance; now amused; now scared...
Ridiculous timing: With death or capture impending, everyone's busy flirting or being flip or leaning into tired banter.
And everything takes forever to develop.
Not made by or for adults.
A total waste of time for anyone over age 14. Even the original TV series, though silly, was at least not so self-indulgent with all the full-face close-ups, forced banter.
Ray Donovan (2013)
Very good for 3 seasons, then melodrama; season 5 is DOA
The good part is the acting. Almost everyone is just excellent, and John Voight is the best of all, ruling every scene he's in.
The script was very good through seasons 1 & 2, with a focus on events. In season 3 if became increasingly concerned with relationships.
Maybe they changed writers and decided to coast. The tip-off is the appearance of the Paracletus priest... where they begin to ramp the agonizing, and soul-searching, and heart-to-hearts.
Season 4 was much worse, with every other scene simply melodrama - and the remaining action / intrigue increasingly dumbed-down. Villains magically know where the good guys will be, and vice-versa. Lazy, indulgent writing.
I forced my way through Season 5 Episode 1, of which I had to skip about 80%.
Season 5 Episode 2 was the last straw. Incessantly bouncing around between flashbacks and hallucinations, and larded with the by-now standard family melodrama. Maybe two minutes of it was worth watching.
Too bad.
Bosch: Legacy (2022)
The original had its faults - but this is awful
It's as if the screenwriters and directors of "Bosch" were invaded by bodysnatchers, or became zombies. The very good dialogue and top-notch direction of the original series has been replaced by extremely lazy plotting, swathes of Capital-A Acting, and Hallmark Cards action.
Now, every villain is telegraphed - with maybe a 10-sec shot holding on their face! Every reaction is overplayed, and every line over-delivered. The music tells us who's naughty and nice. Bad guys simply appear wherever they wish... the standard low-grade drama cop-outs from 80 years ago.
Even the best actors from "Bosch" are dragged through the mud here, and come across as amateurs. There are a few exceptions, though they only prove the rule. Madison Lintz somehow overcomes the no-talent direction and delivers the same on-point tightly-focused character that she did before. And a few very minor characters are right.
It's almost painful to watch and I may not even stay the course. This is "Bosch" for simpletons.
Bosch (2014)
Acting & direction superb (even Welliver is OK...)
As noted by others, this cop show is well above average. The finest thing about it is the stupendous acting coaxed from almost all of the cast. Foremost I'd rank Jamie Hector as Jerry Edgar, but every supporting actor is great.
The dialogue is also excellent; and the director / actors make sure it's delivered right.
So most scenes are a pleasure to watch.
Welliver as Harry Bosch is not quite as good, but only in comparison. He still does well with the part. I'll omit my quibbles regarding him except to say that his action sequences are unimpressive.
As for the plots... well, they're pretty good. Laziness and plotholes do creep in, with villains sometimes omniscient and way too many case of streetcorner etc interceptions that are treated as noting but would have taken a day to surveil and plan. Too bad about those failures since they do detract. Why do writers take these shortcuts and treat us like dummies?
The aerial views of LA are fun, as is trying to find the Bosch house in the hillside views.
The Closer (2005)
OK plots; great casting, acting; and direction; awful music
To be clear, even a music track as intrusive, ill-conceived, inappropriate, unnecessary, and brainless as this one is less bad than a laff track.
But in a homicide squad series you wouldn't expect the latter. So omitting that kinda fades away as any sort of justification.
Leaving with me wondering why anyone would think that twanging guitar elevator music mood riffs filling every possible silence were a good idea. These trivialize everything, defuse all tension, and treat the viewer like a moron. Making it hard to slog through each episode.
Why even bother? Well, every single person in the cast is excellent. The script is written around Sedgewick and my only small criticism in that regard it's that occasionally - knowing she can dominate every scene - she overdoes it a little . But that's OK. The others get their licks in.
The plots are OK and often inventive, though sometimes leaving loose ends even though (so far) every villain has simply waived their right to an attorney and confessed. That's neither right nor realistic, but is at least well-played.
Sadly, after and often during every scene you're in for more brain-dead music trying, at approximately a 4-th grade level, to tell you what to feel. Incredible.
Prehistoric Planet (2022)
Awful soundtrack!
Just gotta vent here: Whoever came up with the idiotic music should be fired, and banned from the industry forever. Imagine Hallmark movie x 5. I found it unbearable... had to turn the sound off and read subtitles.
Apparently IMDb now requires all reviews to be at least 600 characters long. That's a new development and may or may not contribute to quality - I've seen plenty of word-wall screeds that were a complete waste of time to read; and some short ones that make their point compactly and concisely and move on without wasting your time. I hope that what I wrote above fits that definition.
Drain the Titanic (2015)
May be of value as a tutorial on audio-visual hype
As others here note, the repetition and faux "drama" blunts the pleasure and value of seeing this, even to someone interested in the topic.
Instead of a calm and sane review of what was accomplished, and time to look over the new model, we get an incessantly ominous junk-music soundtrack, constantly tense narration, and camera work that cuts away from every remark as if to mark it as profound or revelatory.
Pretty soon, I too cut away.
Who's minding the store at National Geographic? Who sets the goals, the story-line, and the style guidelines?
Who thinks that "if some drama is good, then more is better, and too much is just enough"?
The Punisher (2017)
Ultimately boring
Pretends at high action and intensity - and there are chunks of that - but heavily padded with backstory and family stories and buddy stories and war stories and group stories and etc. Lots of capital-A "Acting" where each person stares at the other for a minute or so then lets out a grunt.
And the action - when we get it - is often silly and cliched. A speeding car is T-boned by a truck. How many times have we seen that? Which btw is difficult to get right even as a stunt and impossible in real life. Machine gun battles in which the heroes are invulnerable, or heal in 15 minutes if they catch a few rounds.
Overall a decent plot worth about 1/5 of the time it all takes. Overweight, slow, and finally just... boring. Re-watch "24" instead.
The Deep Rig (2021)
Misinformation promoting the Election Steal Big Lie
Everything here is crafted innuendo, disinformation, and gaslighting. The avowed purpose of the creators of this political weapon is to create public doubt in the validity of the 2020 US general election.
That's not easy to do given that there is zero evidence anywhere of any significant fraud, after 17 months now and150+ court cases devoted to finding such. And given that of the thousands of people necessarily involved in game-changing fraud, from election workers and officials through dozens of teams of lawyers and dozens of judges, and the judges who review those judges, all the way to the US Supreme Court - not a single one has come forward with even a claim of bribery or corruption.
The weapons at hand to these liars are video snippets (seen and dismissed by everyone) and baloney "affidavits". Such as "I solemnly swear I was suspicious / an election worker was rude to me / wore a BLM shirt " (actual examples). All of which were laughed out of the courts where they even qualified as admissible, and nearly got the lawyers sanctioned.
This is being done for three reasons:
1) Donald Trump's ego is engaged, and he has an army of thoughtless drones to scream his rage for him.
2) The Election Steal Big Lie has become a $100M+ self-supporting industry, bringing in at least $400M in 2021 alone.
3) Republican analysts publicly concluded in the 1980s that unless voting could be restricted, their party would steadily lose ground. Dems know that the opposite works for them. Those have been the classic battle lines for decades. Screaming that the 2020 election was rigged directly supports hundreds of Republican statehouse bills across the nation to decrease turnout by simply making the act of voting more difficult - under the guise of "election integrity".
The Big Lie is therefore a win-win for Trump supporters and the GOP. Garbage like this video are in direct support of it, to the huge detriment of our nation. Because of such misinformation, around 50% of Republicans now believe - on zero actual evidence - that the 2020 election was stolen.
The Election Steal Big Lie is the worst political crime against our nation since the Civil War. Here you see it on film, in action.
Mare of Easttown (2021)
Slow, overdirected, overproduced melodrama
Imagine Hallmark Cards trying to make "Happy Valley" - a far better show on the same lines. We get face shots starting too soon and held to long, for emoting. Acting that is at best competent and at worst can't overcome the direction and goes wooden and stagey. Plot points reiterated so that everyone will get it and know what's coming. Music telling us what to feel, when to be worried etc.
The current 8.5 rating on this is astonishing and far too high. Watch "Ozark" for real quality. Or "Better Call Saul"; or "Happy Valley"; or any of many others.
RoboCop (1987)
Terrible acting, direction, dialogue, and plot
A rating above 5 is incredible for this turkey. For all the metal on display it's wooden through and through. The direction in particular is awful, with every face shot starting too early and holding too long. So bad that it seems like a self-parody. If you missed it the first time, count yourself lucky.
Concerto: A Beethoven Journey (2015)
You only need to know two things...
1) As Andsnes says in the beginning here, "Beethoven is really the most meaningful music there is".
2) Andsnes expertly guides us through five of Beethoven's piano masterpieces.
Bach and Mozart were unsurpassed musical gods. But for "most {always and constantly} meaningful {to the most people}" it's Beethoven for me. And apparently for Mr. Andsnes who knows infinitely better than I.
Although I have come to that realization only because of Beethoven's string quartets, which in my extremely humble opinion form an even greater universe than his piano oeuvre. And I was for decades devoted to the latter.
So, find and enjoy this excellent production, filmed and narrated with modesty - especially considering that this man can play this entire repertoire expertly from memory! Mastery of masterpieces.
Veep (2012)
Superb acting, direction, timing, writing, camera work...
Read all the other favorable reviews here... they're right.
This is one of the very best TV series ever. I'd rate it 10 except that it obviously can't be perfect. Though as a mere viewer I don't know what they could have done better - except maybe to have less verbal obscenity, but that's an artistic choice they made.
I stopped and started Season 1 a couple of times, but slowly began appreciating what I was seeing and really like seasons 3-7. Then watched the entire series over again, because the entire cast is so excellent, and so much had gone by me the first time. You can't look away for a second without missing something clever somewhere. This is a non-stop no-misfire no hand-holding no laff-trak continuous high-energy high-quality humor injection. I will certainly watch it all again someday.
Time Lapse (2014)
Clever story; underrated
This is a >7 film by my standards so I'm giving it an 8 to help bring the rating up towards that. It isn't an 8.
That said, the story is unusual and well-done. You won't guess the outcome even with the future camera. Acting and direction are fine. There are a few plot-holes as you might expect with "time travel" but reasonably papered over.
The very final minute of scene / twist is either beyond my understanding of what they wanted to do, or they missed a beat. Probably me since the rest is stitched together pretty well. Enjoyable.
Alias (2001)
Good acting, OK plot, cheesy action, awful music
Good actors and in interesting plot, marred by the typical fake action scenes as in Timeless and Travelers (to name a few out of many). And better direction than either of those shows, at least. BUT the terrible diddy-boop electronic "music" that pounds through every escapade sequence turns it all into an unwatchable cartoon. Who makes such dumb decisions?? All that work...
Timeless (2016)
Good concept, poor everything else
The idea is good even though most of the episode plots seem to be out of The Twilight Zone.
#) The lead actors are uniformly poor. Many TV series have superb actors. "Ozark" comes to mind. Here, each seems to have about two facial expressions which are constantly posed and emphasized. Maybe it's down to poor direction but there's no indication that these guys would do better otherwise. Spencer is particularly bad; she only has "hesitant" and "bewildered".
#) OK, the direction is awful. Every emotion and reaction has to be telegraphed and filmed for about three times longer than it takes us to get it.
#) The dialog is poor, with far too much stupid banter. Man: "Watch out - that thing's big". Woman: "Typical man, worried about how big things are".
#) The action is cheesy. No chance of it being mistaken for real in any way.
#) There are many plotholes (not counting time travel of course) due to lazy writing.
#) Too much fluff where the actors get to "Act" by dwelling on their misgivings to each other; stressing over family etc.
It reminds me very much of "Travelers" in these ways. The acting here is worse but the setting music isn't quite so obnoxious.
Oh and some of the old-time sets are cool eg. A 1962 Las Vegas street scene of casinos, though these are extremely brief.
Travelers (2016)
Lightweight; cheesy; overrated
I gave up after the 10th episode. Not worth watching any more.
The good:
The basic plot is cool and well-crafted.
David Mailer gives continual standout performances as the social worker. The rest of the case is all adequate except for one or two weaker players.
Louis Ferreira is excellent and owns every scene he's in, but only has appearances in four episodes.
The bad:
Many plotholes due to lazy writing.
Incessant boopy drum music, to give you the idea that things are happening when usually they aren't.
Really cheesy effects such as magic "injections" which involve everyone briefly holding a tube against a clothed arm then passing it to the next person. Bingo - all immune to a nerve gas. Fistfights that cut away from the first punch begun and return to the bad guy on the floor, all masked by blurry camera work and chop-socky sounds.
Lazy writing and direction. Some whole episodes eg #10 are meaningless series of flashbacks. Lot of angst for Capital 'A' Acting moments.
No Time to Die (2021)
Gas giant
Negatives:
(#) Frequent patches of dragged-out melodrama.
(#) Interminable philosophizing (while enemies gather and missiles home in).
(#) Over-the-top ultra-Spectre villain plot, generously supplied with plotholes to cover every instance of not wanting to think it through.
(#) Foolish John Wick gun-fodder goon sequences where hapless enemies are mowed down.
(#) Mediocre acting by most involved.
(#) Lethargic direction doesn't help the acting.
Positives:
Some good action (e.g. In one or two brief car chases).
Very good production values; lots of money spent there.
Conclusion:
Save you money and time until - unlikely - they edit this down to a good Bond actioner. The 2.5hr running time is ridiculous for what's delivered.
Dark Skies (1996)
Good 1960s sets - everything else a waste
The high rating on this show is incomprehensible. The ONLY thing to enjoy are the good 1960s sets. The plot is formulaic and predictable except where it's nonsensical, the dialog is bland, the acting wooden, the direction poor, and the pacing awful.
You've been warned.
Winged Seduction: Birds of Paradise (2012)
Too much travelogue, too few birds
As another review notes, way too much of this video is about making the video. So many shots of legs hiking through jungle, helicopter flying over jungle, guys setting up equipment, guys looking around etc. So much yak about planning for years, overcoming difficulties, how everyone felt...
To be fair - there were a few minutes on the actual birds, and a couple good shots of them.