Change Your Image
JJ99ABC
Reviews
Space Wars: Quest for the Deepstar (2022)
Make it a Blockbuster Night again
If you're of a certain age, you likely remember browsing through the shelves at the local video store and seeing VHS boxes with great cover art inviting you into some fantastic sci-fi or fantasy world. For me, the sci-fi/fantasy sections were my favorite part of the store. Many of the movies you found there were low budget with silly fx (pre-CGI magic), but were entertaining nonetheless because the story was fun and the actors never took anything too seriously. You could tell everyone had fun making the movie and that sense of fun was contagious.
Fast forward to 2023. Video stores are gone, replaced by streamers and VOD, and the equivalent experience to browsing the shelves at a Blockbuster is scrolling through page after page of movies for sale or rental on your TV, phone, or tablet. One night recently, some art work caught my eye as I was swiping though pages of new sci-fi titles on the Vudu app. Space ships, a mysterious moon, a lone figure holding a phaser rifle on a red planet surrounded by monsters. For $10, I had to buy it and am now so glad I did.
Yes, this is a low budget movie, but it is such a heartfelt homage to those straight to VHS sci-fi movies I remember renting at Blockbuster. The story is original and drives the action in ways you won't find predictable. The pacing feels right. There are a few talky moments, but they make sense to tell the story. And the rest is filled with fun-filled action that will keep you entertained for 90 minutes. You will get to watch some goofy CGI alien monsters and space ship battles anchored by genuinely good performances, led by Michael Paré. This is a really fun movie and worth a purchase if you like the genre and can appreciate good story telling and action on a small budget. 9/10.
Jack Ryan: Druz'ya I Vragi (2022)
Please look at a map!
The CIA launches a mission in the middle of Russia at a mothballed nuke plant. Okay. The team runs into a bit of a pickle so Mike November calls for a "hot extract," by which I don't think he meant Capsaicin. 30 seconds later, a black CIA helicopter shows up to rake the building (in the middle of Russia) with machine gun fire. Wow. The CIA has really rapid response (in the middle of Russia). In the next scene, the helicopter drops them off at an airport in Finland having traveled all the way from the middle of Russia without setting off any radar or air defense. They then leave Finland in a 2 engine prop plane and fly to Prague. Couldn't the CIA afford a jet for them when they had armed helicopters on the ready in the middle of Russia?
The Last Ship: Fight the Ship (2015)
Action Packed
This is a textbook example for students in film school on how to direct layered action scenes with a basic cable TV show budget. At one point, there were four simultaneous gun battles/fight scenes occurring at different locations, yet the viewer never loses a sense of what is taking place or where. It's loud, frantic and there's not a lot of dialog. Executive Producer Michael Bay must have been proud.
Credit goes to Jack Bender who directed some of the best episodes of Lost and who worked on Alias, The Sopranos and Game of Thrones. A+ episode.
The Last Ship (2014)
Could not be made today
A TV show about a global pandemic set off by gain of function research on a virus? Hollywood wouldn't touch the subject today out of fear of losing its blood money from China.
This is essentially Battlestar Galactica on the high seas with a little of the Walking Dead mixed in. A US Navy destroyer stands in for the Galactica and the Russians and Chinese take the role of the Cylons. Michael Bay is involved so expect frequent glossy action scenes, pro-US military patriotism, and respect for religion. If those things trigger you, don't watch.
The quality of writing and acting varies considerably. Eric Dane nails the look and demeanor of a Commander in the USN. Adam Baldwin is good as always. And Rhona Mitra is fine as the research scientist in seasons 1 and 2. The rest of the cast is meh.
I streamed it on Hulu during the Covid lockdown and enjoyed it for what it is: not particularly deep entertainment with some interesting moral and ethical dilemmas raised that resonate more given what happened since the show was made.
The quality falls off considerably in later seasons.
Rating: B+
Grey's Anatomy: The Center Won't Hold (2020)
Naming a baby is so hard these days
Do parents of a newborn baby boy really say "hey we should consider giving him a girl's name because we don't know how he will identify when he grows up?" I'm pretty sure that only happens in Virtue Signal Fantasy Land of Hollywood writers rooms.
Grey's Anatomy (2005)
Straight Guy's Guide to Grey's
Get on Netflix. Scroll down to Season 6 Episode 16. Watch the first 5 minutes. And you are done.
Grey's Anatomy: Perfect Little Accident (2010)
Wow
The best first 5 minutes of a television show ever. There's no need to watch the rest of the episode.
Chicago Med: Derailed (2015)
Train wreck
You'd think the writers would be smart enough not to start their series off with a literal train wreck when the entire show quickly flies off the rails and becomes a figurative one. I will give the actors some credit for keeping a straight face when having to deliver some of the worst lines ever written for television.
Chicago Med (2015)
Outstanding Achievement in Writing Incompetence
Never in the history of television, has a medical drama depicted a bigger collection of emotionally unstable, narcissistic, and unlikable characters. I give credit to the writing staff of this show who have likely created perfect projections of themselves. It is truly a remarkable achievement. Besides the atrocious medicine and uniformly unlikable characters, the virtue signaling is enough to illuminate all 8 runways at O'Hare during a blackout on a moonless night. If your idea of entertainment is to be lectured and hectored by writers who know they are smarter and more enlightened than their audience, this is the TV show for you. Just about every episode features self-righteous moralizing and hackneyed "lessons" for the ignorant masses watching at home.
Jack Ryan (2018)
Deus Ex Noomi
Season 1 was great. It was suspensful, well-acted, briskly paced, and reasonably sophisticated as far as real world politics are concerned. The writers for Season 2 apparently scored a Groupon for lobotomies. I mean everything is just so dumb. Characters do things simply to advance the plot without any explanation or motivation. Noomi Rapace's character just magically materializes whenever the plot needs it. Worst of all, the writers managed to turn Jack Ryan into an uncharismatic idiot. The only reason he manages to solve the conspiracy is because Noomi's character inexplicably does him a favor off screen. Awful, just awful. I give it 4 stars because the footage shot in Colombia looks nice.