Change Your Image
simbartson
Reviews
Expats (2023)
Nothing to see here.
Given the casting & media hype for this tv series, you would be expecting that an interesting story would be afoot. Well, you would be mistaken in that expectation. As adult viewers, we have so many more choices today than in the era of just 3 big networks to pick from. The winners in this game have a minimum requirement to get the audience interested in their product right from the start. No one will sit through multiple episodes of dreck waiting for the plot to become clear. Tried to get into whatever story line the producers put together here, but it just doesn't work. Kidman was wooden and less than convincing in her depiction and the children seemed more like NPCs than actual characters. Give this series a hard pass. There's plenty of better material out there.
Ahsoka (2023)
Just another meh story from the SW universe
It's another meh story from the SW universe. Took forever to get any kind of plot arc built up. None of it was very interesting. Didn't feel drawn into the story at all. Maybe it was created by fanboys, FOR fanboys. Whatever.
Ooh. Let's run down the list of requirements from corporate: Got some evildoers, check. Got some heroes, check. Droids and aliens, check. Smartalect banter during battles, check. Starships, hyperspace, using the force. Check, check and check. Name drops from the original movies, check.
Wasn't particularly enthralled with any of the acting. Even the lightsaber duels seemed a bit boring. Learned that you CAN run someone right through the guts with a lightsaber and they may live. Seems that happened in a previous SW film & was definitely fatal. Also learned you can cut through stone or metal with one, but just knock down an opponent without actually causing any wound. Who knew?
Watched it all. Overall rating of 3 stars. Too bad, Disney. Maybe a second season will get better.
Asteroid City (2023)
Well, that was a waste of a perfectly good hour.
Didn't even finish the whole film. I was actually looking forward to seeing it based strictly on the cast list. It starts on a visually weird note, being displayed in a format akin to black & white TV from the 60's and just gets weirder from there. There is little to recommend about the plot or the cinematography. Scenery that appears to have been pilfered from an old hanna-barbera cartoon, backgrounds flying laterally past your eyes so fast that any attempt to follow just makes you dizzy. The story jumps around on a timeline with no apparent rhyme or reason. All the characters are introduced and explained by an orator, ala Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. If a film needs to be explained by a third party while you're watching it, it should have been rewritten before filming. Started to grind on my nerves after about half an hour. Watched for another 30 minutes, hoping it would improve. It didn't.
Poker Face (2023)
Went south after the first episode.
The first episode is above average with a unique, although questionable story line premise. Having a big name like Brody adds some degree of credibility. Our heroine's talent is never clearly explained, but seems to be restricted to people vocalizing a lie. How this is an advantage in a poker game is questionable, unless players are declaring out loud the cards they are holding. (Not likely) Using this "talent", she has raised the ire of a casino bigwig in the past & is now working as a bar server in the same casino. (??) After catching the bigwig's son in a lie about a murder committed as his behest, she's on the run from the evildoers. Standard fare.
The following episodes become less and less believable, as she meanders her way across the West playing the part of do-gooder. Not worth finishing the season, or an already scheduled season 2. But when a network has limited offerings, that's what we get.
For All Humankind (2023)
Gonna be a big no on that.
Directly from The Science Channel's news release:
In 1969, the country celebrated the landing on the moon. At the same time, the nation was mourning the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. And Robert F. Kennedy, with civil rights protesters facing violence in the streets. Inspired by overlapping events in 2020 when the first crewed NASA/SpaceX mission took flight while outrage was erupting around the brutal murder of George Floyd, FOR ALL HUMANKIND looks back to compare the contradictions of success and failure in the arenas of human space flight and human rights.
FOR ALL HUMANKIND takes a deep dive into what space exploration means for society by comparing the parallel events of 1969 and 2020. These two years - over fifty years apart - highlight the best the US has to offer in the realms of science, technology and innovation. But both years were also rife with civil unrest, as racial inequity and injustice spilled into the streets with protests that captivated the country and world.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
Waste of time, film, and resources.
So they don't have the actor who portrayed the lead character in the first film. (Which wasn't a superior film IMHO) They grabbed up a little known, seldom used, Marvel comics character and butchered his back story. Added a few random characters to fill in an exceedingly thin story, and a bunch of stuff blowing up. Racial stereotyping is prevalent throughout. Caucasians are the world's evil-doers, while black or brown (or blue) skin equates to mistreatment, victim-hood and oppression. The actors speak both the Wakandan language and English with an east Philly accent. There is no serious linkage to any other MCU characters or plot lines. How did this become a 2.5+ hour epic blockbuster? All the ratings that have pushed this to a score of better than seven must be left by folks involved with the film or looking to further some social justice agenda.