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Reviews
I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
Much Ado About Nothing
Wow. Bad. Really bad. Two stars because the girl was cute. Please find the team that developed this and STOP THEM before they create something else. Pretentious, boring, self-important, loathsome ... did I say it was bad? Can I bring a lawsuit to sue them for the 2+ hours of my life wasted?
You're Next (2011)
Seriously?
Why kill the neighbors when they had nothing to do with anything?
If the plan was to kill everybody not involved in the plot, why wear masks?
If the plan was to kill everybody not involved in the plot, and two of the brothers were in on it, why not just use a full-frontal assault and wipe them all out at dinner?
Why use crossbows instead of automatic weapons?
Come to think of it, why not have just have the co-conspirators arrive "late" and use a howitzer to level the house when the rest of the family is there? The heroine can remain in the dark and live happily ever after (and rich) with the pacifist brother.
Could be interesting if the first 15 minutes were the family getting wiped out and the last two hours were spent watching the siblings deal with wealth and guilt.
Two stars for special effects. Minus eight for stupidity.
The Paper (1994)
Very good, could have been great.
This film was like watching Babe Ruth take a mighty swing at a fastball and hit a towering.fly ball that's caught on the warning track. A miss by a fraction of an inch.
An A-List cast and a great premise are not given a chance to reach their full potential. If just some of the screen time devoted to the over-amped frenetic lives of the journalists were redirected to getting to know the two innocent youths in jail for murder (and their families) this could have been Best Picture timber. Just one scene of the prosecutor offering the two kids twenty-five to life for a plea that will keep them off death row could have raised the stakes to "all in" and clarified to the audience exactly what's on the table here.
Although I did find this film thoroughly enjoyable (for the most part) I kept wondering what might have been.
Transcendence (2014)
What, no air power? (spoiler alert)
This movie had my attention big-time for about the first half of the film. I was really enjoying it. But from the moment Morgan Freeman and the FBI agent decide to "contact Washington" it went downhill fast for me. I'm sorry, but if the U.S. thought this installation in the desert was some sort of global threat to civilization as we know it, they would have sent in at the very least a squadron of attack helicopters and a couple of platoons of Marines to take it down. I was even thinking a small tactical nuke might be warranted given the stakes. So when the battle at the climax involved a few trucks with mounted machine guns and mortars launched from the street I found the whole thing getting more and more unbelievable. This one should have been a lot better.
About Adam (2000)
Thoroughly enjoyable romantic fantasy-farce
Didn't expect much from this as it felt like it would be a piece of rom- com fluff I'd abandon early on. But, I got hooked mainly by the characters and the world-class acting and decided to stay with it. Glad I did.
Adam is a lovable, amoral devil who drives a classic sixties-vintage XKE Jag because it's "sex on wheels" and beds his new girlfriend (soon to be fiancée) followed by her entire family. "Down and out in Beverly Hills" is definitely in the same genre. It ends on a positive tone possibly proving Dylan was right about sex when he wrote in Tombstone Blues: "You will not die, it is not poison".
For fans of Rashomon, there's a wonderful series of interspersed scenes where Adam proposes to his new fiancée publicly in a nightclub and we get to watch each family members' reaction as we learn more about their own relationship to Adam.
This is a feel-good movie with a deep philosophical undertone that I enjoyed immensely. Invest a couple of hours in this one. It won't disappoint.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Over-caffeinated acting-school drones do what they're good at. Over-acting.
I looked forward to seeing this and wanted to love it. I really did. It looked like an intelligent, deep story.
But, it was painful to watch. I felt like I was watching a series of acting-class vignettes performed by students who paid Dylan McDermott to watch the scenes and critique their work.
Too bad, too, because the premise of the story is quite solid and interesting. An introverted teenager comes out of his shell with a little help from his friends, who have their own major issues. A shame it was all ruined by acting-class caliber performances.
Like I said, I really wanted to love it, but ...
Motive (2013)
Great Premise, Terrible Sound, Jumpy Timelines.
I really like this show, but I only watch it recorded on DVD because sometimes I have to watch it 3 times to "get" all of it. Critically important plot points are sloughed over with unintelligible dialog. That, on top of non-linear timeline techniques with no SUPERs make things very hard to follow.
Having said that, I am still a big fan because the basic premise of the show is excellent. Too many TV dramas focus on carnage and action and good guys without explaining WHY the bad guys did what they did. This show makes the WHY the focal point and does it with good storytelling.
Recommended, but record it. If you watch it "live" you won't get all of it.
Meskada (2010)
Pleasantly surprised
Didn't expect much as I caught Meskada while channel surfing on a rainy Saturday, but it hooked me from the start and I was enormously entertained for 2 hours. Very good hard-boiled detective story. Not a mystery or a whodunit as the story presents both sides simultaneously - the detectives and the criminals. I love stories where the bad guys are three-dimensional and fully developed characters and that was the best part of this film. The ending may be dissatisfying to some, but I loved it. Things are left a little messy, just like real life. Added bonus - the music is great. The subplot of the victim's mother being an influential town council member was brilliant. Perfectly plausible.