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Columbo: The Most Crucial Game (1972)
A flawed episode with some wonderful performances
In the best Columbo episodes you initially are baffled how he seems able to sniff out the murderer, but then he reveals what he picked up on and it all makes sense. In this episode there's no clear killer motive and the main thing that gets Columbo on the trail seems to be that Paul Hanlon (Culp) isn't angry about the poor performance of his team in the game. Unusual, yes but it remains a large leap. The weak motive and large logic leaps make this one particularly flawed.
However there's two great performances that make it work, first is Culp, who is a clever murderer, who doesn't try to steer Columbo unnecessarily. He simply remains cagey and elusive. The second is Valerie Harper as Eve Babcock. Who delights as a call girl, then reveals a slight Hungarian accent when Columbo pushes her too far allowing him to supposedly get the information needed to confirm his suspicions Hanlon knew the phone was bugged. It's a great single scene performance.
Overall a fun episode just struggled to buy it completely.
Ted Lasso: Sunflowers (2023)
Nice to see this characters smile instead of mope.
It's also nice to see a Donald Duck in Mathmagicland homage / reference come from absolutely out of nowhere.
I think season 1 was lightning in a bottle and the show runners haven't really figured out how to keep the show funny beyond the initial fish out of water premise which delighted initially. As a result we have therapy and anxiety and depression weighing everything down, in this very serious comedy show. Ted can't be a delightful person, the only people who act like Ted have mental health problems apparently to the creators apparently.
It's really too bad and this episode is a delightful reprieve as a result.
Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet: Quarantine (2020)
The ONLY good Covid / quarantine inspired movie / tv show
Just watch the season and marvel at how they were able to come together and create this triumph using these characters.
Les Misérables (2012)
They should have either recast the actors or redub their voices.
This is an opera where the singing is just inexcusably poor. The filmmakers captured all the singing live on set, which is a great idea in concept, terrible in execution. It might have worked if they got better singers, but that was not the case. Only the classically trained singers (Samantha Barks, the chorus) shine. Everyone else just can't pull it off. Big songs that should hit hard just fall flat...one after the other. The film consequently just drags, as the script goes from song to song in the show. Like most adaptations in 2012, it suffers from being too faithful to the source material.
I feel bad for the Hollywood cast, they seem to try their best but only Anne Hathaway sounds competent. It's just a fundamental flaw with the film. How can you make an opera with people who can't sing?
The Newsroom (1996)
This show is pretty great
This show was excellent and had me until the completely unnecessary and bizarre 8 and a half homage (the three episodes called the meltdown). The entire purpose of which seemed to be to allow finkelman to pretend to be the main character from the movie. Which was hopelessly self-indulgent ("which was the point! get it?!") and devoid of anything interesting to say.
Before that though the show lays the blueprint for one camera office politics satire which both the British and American Office have utilized (if not totally ripped off). The show features some of the best writing I've ever seen on Television, incredibly sophisticated and never broad, it still manages to be hilarious.
8.5 out of 10 (get it?)
Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
A distortion of the Truth
From start to about an hour or something in I thought the film was captivating. Then i got a sickening sense in my stomach once i started to see the whole picture the filmmakers were making. A horrible distortion of the truth.
I think there is no question Arnold and Jesse molested some children during computer class. Did they do the ludicrous Leapfrog game? most likely no, however there is no question in my mind at least a few children were molested. The film successfully casts into MAJOR doubt 50 of the 200 counts the friedmans were charged with, but what about the 150 other counts? They are totally ignored, and only 4 people. 4 of the People related to the families who accused The Friedmans are interviewed. WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER FAMILIES. And since all 4 of the people interviewed supported the Friedmans' stance that they were innocent (that one flaky guy on the couch does NOT COUNT), and since the other families are not even mentioned we are forced to assume that they were valid accusations. Why? because there is so much evidence supporting the fact that they molested the children that the filmmakers needed to keep the film interesting by casting doubt on their guilt. They chose to show you only part of the story, the part of the story that made their film interesting INSTEAD OF THE TRUTH.
The filmmakers did a horrible job of presenting the prosecution's side of the story and a terrific job presenting the defense's side. The fact that Jesse supports the movie speaks volumes.
My Personal belief is that all 3 children were also molested. That is the only way to explain their absolutely bizarre behavior. If your dad never did anything to you and was a perfect father, how would you react after you found out he had a massive stash of Child Porn involving boys? I would think i had no idea who my father really was, in short i'd react like the mother did. We are talking about GROWN MEN (older than 19 years old) here, and they acted like 10 year old children.
I say this film is horribly manipulative, a horrible manipulation of the truth to make a point that sometime the truth is hard to discern. which is an interesting point, unfortunately the obvious truth was sacrificed and I'm certain a substantial amount of people will leave this movie thinking that Jesse Friedman and Arnold Friedman are victims, rather than the horrible human beings that they are, human beings that would rape children. IT MAKES ME SICK.
3/10
Do the Right Thing (1989)
he does but doesn't
do the right thing is about a neighborhood of real people. Everyone is this movie is a person and everyone is deeply flawed. You aren't supposed to find one person as being right or wrong. Race Relations can't be simplified as black and white. I don't understand how you can think that Lee thought the destruction of the pizza place because there were no pictures of black people on the wall was justified when he shows a Martin Luther King quote at the end about the pointlessness of racial violence.
If anything Lee points the finger on black communities themselves (even with the title do the right thing). The right thing of course is not to cause trouble get killed, or burn down businesses. The right thing is to grow up and take responsibility for your life. Which Mookie does not do. He doesn't throw the can through the store because he thinks Sal and sons are racist. He throws the can through the window because he realizes that Sal and his sons are in trouble, and instead of being a man and trying to calm down the crowd like da mayor does the easiest way to save them is to turn the violence towards the store.
Mookie doesn't grow up. he does the right thing as he sees it. As a child sees it.
The Patriot (2000)
Stupidity to the Max
This movie is just so stupid. This is a movie that starts out as a pointless action movie, and then at the end tries to be a powerful epic. But instead of truly involving us in the story (like Gladiator does) it just decides to kill people the audience likes, in order to manipulate their emotions. Now, I understand that all a film is manipulation of emotions, but a good film hides that so that you actually feel bad when someone dies, not cheated. I felt cheated. On top of that the film is predictable and cheesy. I like a good cheesy film like Army of Darkness, but that knows that it cheesy, this doesn't. Now, most of this wouldn't matter if the film were entertaining, but it isn't. And the last hour of the film goes on forever. See Gladiator if you can, it is much better.
The Thin Red Line (1998)
Boring and Pretentious
My brother recommended this movie to me so I decided to see it, and I hated it. First of all, the movie is extremely boring. Even the war scenes are boring, there was no tension or suspense, it was just a slow pace. Secondly, it is extremely pretentious, it was very hollow and lacked depth. Showing shots of grass with a voice over is not profound, only painful. I turned it off after one hour.
American Beauty (1999)
An original idea marred by cliched characterers and a slow pace
Although this film has flashes of wit and insight, it fails to fulfill its promise. Ever character, other than the protagonist, is a stereotype direct from Hollywood. The pace of the film is often excruciatingly slow in a vane attempt to be give weight to lightweight ideas. There is too much filler and not enough wit. Kevin Spacey is excellent, but the rest of the cast is shackled with a shallow script.