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Reviews
The Fall Guy (2024)
I'm tired of Ryan Gosling being in every movie
Now seems like a good time for Ryan Gosling to take a break and enjoy his wonderful life. He is cranking out too many movies too close together and is wildly over exposed.
I read today that the studio that made this film spent $200 million on it. Some of the stunts are really great. But the story is lame. The characters announce their feelings. There is barely any comedy.
I don't know who the sock puppets are that are giving this movie 10 stars. Maybe they love Ryan Gosling so much that they would give him 10 stars for being in a Geico car insurance commercial.
On top of everything else, this movie is at least half an hour too long.
Poor Things (2023)
The least sexy movie with so much nudity
I really wanted to like this movie. I generally love complex and strange speculative stories. I just could not get past the lack of internal consistency in the story.
The idea of a baby"s brain being put into the body of an adult is fine with me. But the main character did not act like a baby or a toddler at all - and that just made no sense.
There is no reason to think that, even if she had been living with the surgeon for five years, she would develop such an advanced and sophisticated set of language skills. After all, her brain was only five years old.
Part of her being hyper sexual Seemed perfectly reasonable, given that we know, toddlers touch themselves, but their bodies don't respond like adult bodies do, and so it was obviously maddening to her to have the brain of a small child, but the hormones of a woman.
The story was obviously all about the cruelty and stupidity of men, and how they have treated women over the years. That part of the story was quite interesting.
At the end, I was disappointed that she didn't transfer the brain of Godwin into the body of the general.
Nope (2022)
Beyond Disappointing - Ridiculous Plot
This movie was beyond awful. The characters made no sense whatsoever.
The central premise of the movie is that there is an alien hanging out in a cloud over a remote valley in California. The brother and sister main characters have convinced themselves that if they can get good photographic evidence then they can . . . Sell it to Oprah and make $500K.
Then, despite a neighboring rancher not only knowing about this and telling tons of people and building an entire outdoor circus to show it off, with the result being 40+ people are killed, the main characters somehow think that they need to put people's lives on the line to get perfect shots of the alien?
The filmmaker character was cartoonishly dumb.
The scene where the electric motorcycle "runs into" something that causes motors to turn off was beyond dumb. If the motor turned off the cycle would have just rolled to a stop -- not flung the rider off.
The final action with the alien just happened to take place in the tiny 1 degree slice of the sky directly over the well with the camera? That, and so much else, was just lazy, lazy, lazy writing.
I won't even comment on the ridiculous "reveal" of how the main character "figured out" the psychology of the alien.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
The worst Mission Impossible movie
I loved the previous Mission Impossible movies. This one was such a disappointment.
The plot of the story was just dumb. The adversary could have killed their opponents easily at any time, and didn't need a convoluted scheme.
The chase scenes were both formulaic and silly. In an early scene the new girl/buddy is trying to drive a car while being chased and she "can't control" the car to make the proper turn but she keeps going around a traffic circle?
There is far too much CGI in the movie and it is obvious.
There are even more plot holes than usual and they're hard to look past.
The movie is way too long.
There are too much dumb fight scenes where people suddenly lose their guns and have to punch each other.
The interactions between Ethan Hunt and his team have become silly and unprofessional.
A Murder at the End of the World (2023)
Each episode is worse and worse until the predictable preachy end
I had such high hopes for this show after the brilliance of the OA.
I was deeply disappointed.
Almost everything in the first five episodes was an intentional red herring.
The plot holes got worse and worse in the final two episodes.
I wish I had not watched it.
I won't ruin the ending for you, but when you find out who did it, you will roll your eyes.
The scenery was lovely, but not worth the wasted hours of terrible plot.
The number of plot holes is hard to fathom.
Clive Owen over-acted like crazy.
Brit Marling's performance was weak, which is a shame because she was brilliant in the OA.
Black Mirror: Joan Is Awful (2023)
A dumb episode spoiled by the on-screen description and then with an idiotic plot point
To begin with, I found it quite annoying that Netflix itself spoiled the conceit of the episode by saying in the on-screen description of the episode what was happening. If you go to the episode you'll see what I mean. Right from the start I knew what was going to happen and that made me sad.
Next, one of the central ideas of the episode was just wrong. Click-wrap agreements are simply not legally enforceable when they contain bizarre terms. Apple can't take ownership of your car by slipping that into the "click to agree" terms for iOS 17.
Courts have faced this issue many times and invalidated click-wrap agreements that do not put consumers on proper notice of unusual terms. The lawyers in the episode did not behave at all like real lawyers.
For All Mankind: All In (2022)
Ridiculous plot twists felt like a bad soap opera
The idea that Margot would breach national security and give the Russians nuclear secrets because of her feelings for her threatened Russian counterpart is just ridiculous. They kissed ones for five seconds and everything we know about her character says she would've gone immediately to the FBI and then fed them faulty plans.
The Danny plot line was also painful to watch. Ditto the Antarctic daughter. She's barely out of college and spent two years no make that 15 months as a junior researcher in Antarctica and suddenly she claims to be the best possible scientist to go search for life on Mars?
The whole episode felt like a soap opera, in which nearly every character crossed or double crossed somebody else, or had a terrible secret that they had to keep hidden.
I do like how they skip the time forward between major events.
Star Trek: Picard: No Win Scenario (2023)
An awful episode from a ploy and consistency perspective
Right near the start of this episode they lost me when they showed Picard staring pensively out the window as the nebula barely moved outside. But in the very next scene we saw the outside view of the Titan tumbling out of control. Which was accurate? It can't be both.
Too many other things in this episode were simply beyond the realm of reasonableness. There was just too much handwaving.
Beverly apparently didn't tell her son about Picard until he was 18 years old when he sought out his father but then ... decided to have no relationship whatsoever with him because of an offhanded comment in a bar?
Riker was prepared to let his entire crew suffocate without making an attempt at escape from the nebula, because he wanted to leave behind a recording for his ex-wife??
The entire bridge crew was told multiple times in the previous episode that there was a biological component to the energy signature but yet nobody did even basic analysis of it, other than mommy crusher??
The Titan was able to use sub space communications to facilitate a real time video call between Riker and Troi at the end of the episode, but he could not have transmitted the message to her or just called her before hand??
The titan, while, moving on impulse power, had to make numerous course changes to avoid smashing into asteroids, but once the energy wave hit, it was able to zoom through huge amounts of an asteroid field without hitting anything?
Seven of nine shoots the changeling twice without killing it? And then let it slither into the wall?
Riker issues a few terse commands and is able to grab an asteroid and throw it at high speed while riding the energy wave?? It would have been so much easier to just tell the helmsman to use the tractor beam to grab an asteroid, wouldn't it?
And lastly, I hated the scene where Riker came to apologize to Picard for not listening to Picard's stupid plan earlier. Once they neutralized the leak, it was painfully obvious that they should have left the nebula and warped home. The writers didn't even try to explain why attacking made sense.
I thought this was the weakest episode of the season so far, but given so many other people reading this episode as nearly perfect, we obviously have different taste.
Andor (2022)
Startlingly Excellent
Andor is far more than just the best show in the Star Wars universe. It's one of the best shows on TV in years.
Characters are rich and nuanced and multi dimensional. The visuals are an order of magnitude more sophisticated, and complex than anything else on screen right now. The attention to detail is astonishing. Everything about the scenery is alien. The way that boxes open. How devices operate and communicate. I have never seen so much thought and care go into the production of a show.
The casting and acting are first rate. Thankfully, there are no big name actors. The story flows in a way that is so organic that you feel the rage building while also watching in fascination as the adversaries plan their countermoves.
Whomever dreamed up the new droid that we meet in this series . . . Is a genius. Ditto the writers who let us watch in real time as characters make emotionally driven decisions related to the rebellion that may seem small at the time, but in retrospect across lines that can never be uncrossed. At the moment, we realize it, it is too late to go back, and re-consider the wisdom of the original decision.
I hope that whoever is responsible for creating this series is given control of the entire franchise.
Glass Onion (2022)
A movie about a clever detective that has a stupid ending
The movie was fairly entertaining and clever, until the last 10 minutes. When the main female character threw the crystal fuel source into the fire, the entire building should have exploded. Instead we got an idiotically cartoonish washing of fire into the ventilation system?
And right before that, all of the billionaires friends turn on him because they like smashing things?
This movie had lots of little Easter eggs and clever touches along the way, and for it to end so stupidly was a great letdown.
The acting at the end was so ridiculously over-the-top that it was painful. I regret watching it, and in advertently, making Netflix feel like they did a good job.
A Trip to Infinity (2022)
A skin deep exploration of two very different concepts of the same name
Infinity is a mathematical concept. This documentary does a nice job of exploring it.
The question of whether our universe is finite or infinite, is a wildly different issue. Brilliant books have been written about the evidence for each possibility question and what created the universe in the first place.
Unfortunately, this beautiful documentary does not make anything other than a cursory attempt to describe the issue.
The computer graphics and music in this documentary are exceptional. But the entire thing seems to be aimed at the 10th grade audience that has never thought about infinity before.
For All Mankind (2019)
Gripping and unexpected
One of my favorite series. It starts slow but gets really good. A fine "what if" that shows how easily many things could have gone the other way but for a few decisions here and there.
The Tomorrow War (2021)
The Stupidest Movie I Have Ever Seen
Unless you are drunk, high, or recently suffering from a head injury, this movie will infuriate you if you care one bit about plot. To say it made no sense would be too kind. It was a rampage of CGI, cliches, and characters doing things that made no sense.
Foundation (2021)
A Poor Imitation of the Expanse and too much hand-waving
I loved the Foundation books when I read them years ago, but went into this series knowing it would be very different.
What I did not expect was to find a story that was fairly boring and characters that tried so hard to emote that it seemed completely artificial.
The aesthetic of the whole show tries to be like The Expanse, which is spectacular. The opening music is similar as are some of the animations.
The characters in this show are mostly cliches come to life. The mother figures aren't complex at all - they just love their strong willed daughters and nod knowingly as they make crazy decisions.
Perhaps because I was not engrossed by the characters I found myself noticing lots of things that just didn't make sense from a believability standpoint. For example, without spoiling anything, there is a scene in episode 10 where someone notices a light flashing under 50 feet of water. When she dives down to investigate it she should be out of oxygen. But then she just swims casually into the structure and wanders around and finds something and then interacts with it, all the while showing no signs at all of panic or even realization of the need to breathe.
In other scenes, people undertake extremely risky actions without even double checking the basics of safety procedures.
Many of the characters are incapable of properly tying up their foes yet they still leave them unattended. There are just so many cliches.
Some of the characters do experience growth and change, which is good storytelling. But none of the good guys do. They are all pretty much one dimensional salt of the Earth caricatures whose ever other word is an inspirational speech.
Narcos (2015)
One of the five best shows ever.
It is hard to put into words just how well done this series is. The writing is spectacular; acting is perfect; story is riveting and real. The scenery is magical. The amount of work that must have gone into creating this show is beyond belief. It seems like they rented an entire country to shoot thousands of scenes realistically.
The Beacon (2018)
Short sweet and unexpected
Very well done. 25 mins was perfect. You'll never see the ending coming.
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Confusingly bad
What on earth happened? The first movie was so good. This one was unbelievably dumb in a half dozen ways that made it unwatchable.
The most notable one being that the core concept of the movie was... Magic?
I can suspend belief to watch a superhero movie in which people have crazy powers. And I can enjoy a fantasy movie in which there is a realm of magic and wizards.
Whoever thought them to mix the two of them in this movie should be spanked. And not in a good way.
Tenet (2020)
The worst sound editing in the history of film ruins an otherwise excellent idea
It is hard to say enough bad things about how stupidly and inconsiderately the sound for this movie was created. For the life of me I cannot fathom why in one moment the sound is earsplittingly loud and then the next moment the characters are mumbling incoherently as they discuss crucial plot elements.
I have heard some people say that Nolan became so in love with his own idea and dialogue that actually hearing the lines spoken became meaningless for him.
Other people have said he made The film this way in order to intentionally require people to see it twice to really understand it. Or to have to stream it at home with closed captions.
I do not know what the true story is but I can tell you this. If 1000 people try to watch this movie without subtitles and without actively holding the remote control in their hands to turn the volume up and down at key moments, more than 900 of them will be frustrated and not understand the movie.
The fact that this movie was released in this format suggests that Nolan has surrounded himself with people who are afraid to tell him the truth. That may be a good thing when it comes to create division. But it is just plain stupid when it comes to the basics of filmmaking. If the audience cannot hear, People will be unhappy and word of mouth will be negative.
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
Magnificent
Each season of this show gets better and better. The stories are in perfect sync with the Star Trek universe. The characters are more real and emotionally vulnerable than the vast majority of TV shows in which everyone is a caricature. The visuals are beyond spectacular. As with any complex multi year show, there are a few characters that annoy me. I think that would technically take my rating from 10 stars to 9.99 stars. I hope this show continues for another 10 seasons. It's that good.
Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020)
Hilarious but also true to canon
If you love Star Trek you're likely to enjoy this cartoon series which is off the wall and over the top but in ways that made me smile and laugh repeatedly.