Sam-953-169285 Reviews

Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (1990)

Discrimination

[7/10 · 25 August 2021]

This movie is much more about Dinky Bossetti (Winona Ryder) than Roxy Carmichael. It is about unjustified discrimination. It is generic discrimination; it is not a racial, sexual or any typical reason for discrimination. Dinky is different and for that reason alone she is discriminated against. In my opinion, the reason for that discrimination seems too vague. You will enjoy the story if you can identify with the discrimination. In my opinion however it does not explain well enough why she is different.

At the beginning of the movie, Roxy Carmichael is frustrated by her life and leaves her husband and child in the hopes of success. The movie builds up the Roxy Carmichael character so strong that we just have to see what she is really like when she returns.

Cracks (I) (2009)

Starts typical and ends horrible

[2/10 · 31 July 2019]

This could have been a very nice story about the interactions among the students and between the students and the teacher. Most of the movie is like that, except the animosity is a bit exaggerated.

Then near the ending the movie gets unexpectedly ugly. I am surprised that so many reviews consider the ending to be normal and instead emphasize the good parts. The ending spoils it for me.

Other reviews make it sound as if the arrival of the new girl, Fiamma, occurs later in the movie. It does not; the arrival is relatively early.

Something else that is not mentioned is that Fiamma suffers from asthma. That is especially personal for me; I have had asthma worse than she does; at least for most of the movie. It is a little difficult to see her suffering (weazing and having difficulty breathing) at times during the movie.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Part 33 (2019) Season 20, Episode 14

Extremely dangerous

[2/10 · 12 February 2019]

I won't give away the ending of course, but the beginning of this episode will make many people uncomfortable. In the beginning the implication is that if a woman is in an abusive relationship for years that she is entitled to kill her husband. In the beginning there is barely any mention of the concept of imminent threat. I am not an attorney but we should be able to understand what imminent threat means without being an attorney. This episode, at least in the beginning, ignores what imminent threat means. And ignorance of imminent threat might cause some wives to think they are entitled to kill a husband just because he is abusive. They can easily go to jail for thinking that.

House of Sand and Fog (2003)

Horrible movie

[3/10 · 16 April 2018]

I can't enjoy the movie because it is so stupid. I can't believe this movie is realistic at all. As is so typical of movies, there are some legal details that we are supposed to just ignore that I can't.

I watched nearly all of it but it just kept getting worse until it became so tragic that I refuse to watch any more. If you feel cheated by movies that start sweet and then slowly become sour then totally ugly then this is that kind of movie.

Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) is so sweet. I won't say anything about the horrible things that she either does or has done to her but the beginning is very misleading. I have never noticed Jennifer Connelly before but I sure notice her in this movie.

Ben Kingsley does an excellent job of playing a man that deserves disgust. His character is Persian in this movie and you might not mind that he has also played an Indian (Gandhi) but that distracts from the movie for me.

The Temp (1993)

Another lazy writer

[4/10 · 18 March 2018]

The movie begins with Peter Derns (Timothy Hutton) talking with someone but we never see who. It is probably a psychologist but we don't know. One of the things he talks about is paranoia I think. He does have problems with paranoia during the show.

I was hoping to see some of the love and romance from Lara Flynn Boyle that she is capable of but her character Kris Bolin does not show that. Kris Bolin however is not evil and calculating; only a guilty person would be.

The movie is a mystery. It keeps us wondering who did it. There are many things that are done, such as sabotage and for some of them there are not clear answers to who done them.

Unfortunately this is another story where the writers do not play fair. I really think that if you knew at the beginning how it will end then there are times you would think it is ridiculous that the person would do what they do.

I like that Peter Derns treats Kris Bolin as an equal as much as he does.. He wants to get back together with his wife (they are separated and I think that is implied at the beginning of the movie) and behaves accordingly. I like Maura Tierney as the understanding and tolerant wife but the wife is not in the movie a lot.

Eloise (2016)

Not true

[2/10 · 8 September 2017]

This story is not true; it is total fantasy. Eloise was a real place but otherwise the story is total fiction. I don't see any reviews that makes that totally clear.

The story is ridiculous, as many other reviews say. It is also boring and confusing. It is boring in that there are portions that are like dramatic pauses that are quite lengthy and then not much happens after the pause; little or no drama. It is confusing because there are flashbacks but I have no idea of the relevance of the flashbacks. Sometimes the present-day characters are in the flashbacks but there is a thirty-year difference in time. Perhaps there is an explanation in the movie about how the present-day characters are in the flashbacks and if so then I was too bored to understand.

If you are an Eliza Dushku fan then I think you will be disappointed; there is not much material in the movie to get much of her. She cares about her brother and is sweet like that but otherwise there is not much.

The Architect (I) (2016)

No satisfaction for a Parker Posey fan

[4/10 · 21 August 2017]

Any movie with Parker Posey in it deserves a chance. I gave this one a chance. Of all the movies I have seen with her in it, this is the worst. Her character is so typical; there is nothing unusual. The part could have been played by thousands of other actresses.

The movie is about the project of designing and building a home and the interaction among the husband, wife and architect. In the movie, the husband is a successful, logical, practical financial person. She is an artist. They are highly incompatible and constantly disagree. The architect is a typical artist; he claims to consider practicality to be important but that is actually at the bottom of his priorities. He and the project (the house design) amplify the incompatibility between the husband and wife. The architecture might be creative but that is the only creative part of this movie. There is very little romance; the story is not much more than three (or four if you include the builder) people arguing. Even when she announces she is ovulating, there is no romance.

The ending is logical and not a big surprise either; in other words, not creative. And yet, the ending is sudden, as if the writer knew that there was enough material and had to end it somehow.

The Age of Adaline (2015)

Romance for women, not men

[5/10 · 14 August 2017]

In a typical romance the man is very confident and does not take no for the answer. In the real world women are upset by men that do that. As a man, I can't enjoy a romance where the man is aggressive. The character in this movie is not overly aggressive but he is more aggressive than I can enjoy.

I think another reason men often don't enjoy romances is that the guy is nearly always rich and powerful, even when it is a surprise for the woman. So that is another big strike against this movie from a man's point of view.

In the beginning they say something about doxyribonucleic acid, which is DNA. I assume they said doxyribonucleic acid because they don't want their audience to really know what they are saying; the science of what they are saying of course is nonsense. So I think they should not have even tried to explain the science.

Morgan (2016)

Be grateful the writers can't create robots

[3/10 · 2 August 2017]

This is a thriller and horror story with a science fiction flavor totally lacking in scientific value.

The world will be a dangerous place if the writers were to try to design robots such as Morgan. Fortunately they would be incapable of it. A robot such as a self-driving car must obey rules. In the case of self-driving cars, the rules are the same as for humans that drive cars. This story ignores many of the fundamental concepts that real AI designers would be familiar with and consider critical. Even up to the very end, the scientist's techniques are totally inconsistent with the reality that real robot scientists would do.

Have you heard the story of Microsoft using Twitter to teach their AI chatbot (called "Tay")? The result of that was that Tay quickly (within a day) learned to swear and behave in other immature ways. It is a true story. The point is that it was not the programming that was the problem, it was just how the program was taught.

This movie treats Morgan the robot as a complete, inseparable whole whereas in fact man-made intelligence would be a combination of many pieces (technologies) and success or failure of one would not necessarily mean the other would succeed or fail.

Arrival (II) (2016)

Scientifically deficient

[4/10 · 1 August 2017]

The acting is wonderful, Amy Adams is a joy. At least the writing gives her the material to use in that way.

If you are the type of person that is irritated by scientifically deficient stories then you will be disappointed by this. I don't know if the linguistics are believable but .... well actually when you get to the end you will think, what? The premise of the linguistic style really does not make sense. The premise jumps from linguistics to something else entirely.

You would think that if aliens journeyed to Earth and made an appearance with so much organization and preparation then they would be prepared to assist in establishing communication. In other science fiction stories, aliens study our TV shows and learn how to communicate. You would think these aliens would do something like that and/or be better prepared to communicate. They would have equipment, such as televisions, or something that would make it more convenient to communicate; just the physical communication at least. Instead this movie makes the aliens look so incapable of so much.

In real life, the countries of the world would work together better than in this movie. NASA of the United States of America has discussed the problem of communicating with aliens. There will be many experts working together to solve a problem such as in this movie if it ever exists in real life, it would not be just one person.

Some movies are wound quite tightly in the sense that you can't fast-forward over much of them (I often however fast-forward over chase scenes and such) but much of this movie can be fast-forwarded over.

The Accountant (2016)

Not a mystery

[4/10 · 24 June 2017]

At the end the movie seems to want to make a positive statement about the character (as a "a math savant" or something like that) but in fact it makes him look awful.

This is not a mystery. I thought it would be; I thought that a movie about an accountant would be a good mystery. In fact the fact that he is an accountant is irrelevant. This is about 95% action and thriller and about 5% mystery.

The IMDb description of the movie says that Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is a math savant. Ben Affleck is not believable to me as a "math savant"; he does not even try to act like one. He says his lines that are supposed to make him a math savant but does nothing more to act like one.

The explanation that Christian Wolff needed extraordinary military training is not logical to me. We all need to defend ourselves but most "savants" like him don't get the extraordinary military training that Christian Wolff got.

Anna Kendrick is cute. I like her, especially in this movie but this is the only movie I have seen her in. In this movie I think they show her (her character) on an ID card or business card and if so then I don't understand that part.

At the beginning of the movie there is a boy with problems, such as autism, but they are intentionally vague about what it is. I think I understand who the boys is supposed to be later in the movie but there are too many things like that that are too vague for me.

This is the second movie I have reviewed recently that has 9-star and 10-star reviews in the first page and then the second page of reviews have some that are less than 8 stars.

Rushmore (1998)

Not a "coming of age" story nor a romance

[3/10 · 14 June 2017]

This is not a "coming of age" story. It is a story about a kid being a brat that thinks he is entitled to do whatever he wants to do. It is about a teenage boy and an adult teacher behaving badly. "Coming of age" implies it is typical behavior but the boy's behavior is not typical.

There is not much romance or anything like that. I won't spoil the story by saying what it is but it is not romance.

It has moments; I like it when the characters are totally honest, not to be mean but just to be honest.

It does move slowly at times.

It does however mellow out toward the end. If the rest of the movie were as mellow as the end then the movie would be better. I would have liked it better and I think more people would also have liked it more.

Bastille Day (2016)

Don't think about it

[4/10 · 7 May 2017]

This is an action/adventure and police story but not a spy story. Any mystery to be solved is typical police investigation.

This is probably a great movie for those that enjoy action/adventure movies and don't want to think about it too much.

The movie is typical. The American CIA avoids working with the French police. The writers rely on that to give the movie more adventure. The French people are quick to follow the leader in protests, such that they are portrayed as not caring what it is that they are protesting. The French police are not shown doing much to solve the problem except go around beating people up.

Cries from Syria (2017)

Could have been much more powerful

[4/10 · 15 April 2017]

This documentary is full of awful death and gore and suffering. Nearly two hours of it. Every minute shows mass death. It is horrible and painful to watch.

And they make it worse with some very depressing music. It makes the reality of the misery seem like just another of thousands of violent movies. It diminishes the impact and the reality of what this documentary is trying to say.

I watched the whole thing. I read nearly all of the subtitles. People need to see this and understand. Please don't criticize me for saying that I am concerned that most people won't watch it. People need to see how awful it is for the people of Syria but I am concerned that this documentary shows too much of the suffering. It shows nothing more than the suffering.

I am against the big and powerful taking advantage and overpowering people. This documentary says nothing about why the government is doing such awful things. It teaches us practically nothing. This documentary could be much more powerful if it explained the political and financial motivations of the governments.

I am sorry about being so critical, but I want what is best for those that suffer and this documentary is not likely to help as much as it should. It hurts to see people suffer like that but we need more than the emotions, we also need the information and this documentary does not provide that.

Cop Car (2015)

Not bad but ends too soon

[7/10 · 17 March 2017]

The story at least is more believable than most. I think there are slight inconsistencies in the boy's ability to drive a car but the only clear example of that I saw was that one time they don't know how to use the brakes then just a minute later (their time; seconds for us) they use the brakes just fine.

I think there is not enough character development but at least you won't feel as if the movie spends too much time with character development. About the only character development in the beginning is that the boys use swear words and dare the other to say the same words. That is how the movie begins.

The story occurs in Colorado but only on large, dry plains and the only hills are far in the background.

There are many things that are not clear (many questions that are never answered) and be prepared for a sudden ending.

One thing that should be clarified is that in the beginning things are shown out of sequence. This is only at the beginning. They show the boys then they show someone else but part of what that someone else does happens before part of what the boys do. You will figure it out but it helps to be prepared.

Other than that it is a good story.

Snow Day (2000)

Snow plow guy is not the enemy

[4/10 · 13 December 2015]

I could have enjoyed this movie much more if it did not depend on the premise that the snow plow guy is the enemy. The idea is that the snow plow guy takes away snow days by clearing the roads of snow, so he is the enemy. Coincidentally, he is not a nice guy. In real life, most cities have more than one person driving snow plows, right? And not all of them are jerks. So it was difficult for me to get into the idea of the kids doing dirty tricks on the snow plow guy.

The romance in the story is too simple. There is not enough depth, it is more like a cliché romance. The writers try to complete the romance by making the boyfriend a big jerk and I think that was overdone. It made the comedy ugly.

Moms' Night Out (2014)

Smart people being stupid

[3/10 · 12 August 2015]

This was not funny for me at all. I think most of the humor is from smart people being stupid and hysterical.

There is also very little that seems sweet to me. The part where Allyson painted her wall is sweet.

I recommended this to my mother and she gave up on it after about a half an hour.

The only good part is Sarah Drew. Her character was not amusing but she is always worth watching.

I hope most people enjoy this movie, I hope my experience is not representative of most people but I sure don't understand why so many people think it is very funny and sweet.

Sky High (2005)

The writers are not super-heroes

[5/10 · 23 May 2015]

Super-heroes fight bullies and injustice yet the Sky High school for children of Super-heroes is not only tolerant of bullies and injustice, they practice it.

Therefore it is obvious to me that the writers do not understand what super-heroes are really like. A school for (children of) super-heroes should be an example of respect, appreciation, cooperation and things like that and the world needs good examples of that. Instead this movie shows too much of the wrong type of behavior with not enough of the desirable behavior.

There some interesting moments, especially when the principal (Lynda Carter) makes her entrance.

The Newest Pledge (2010)

Nerds are jerks and babies aren't so cute

[3/10 · 10 May 2015]

If you agree that nerds are jerks and you don't consider small children to be the cutest thing ever, then you will likely enjoy this movie.

This movie has a string dislike of the nerd in the movie. This is the reverse of Revenge of the Nerds; this movie is about revenge on the nerd. That is the theme of the movie as much as the child is. Yes, the nerd is a jerk but of course that is what the writers wanted.

There are very few instances of the women getting excited about the child. There is not as much of the child as you might want, especially not of the child being cute. The little boy is cute, there just is not enough of that.

These guys get little help from other people. They rarely if ever ask women for help. That makes this strange at lest and it might be uncomfortable for you if you try to explain to them that they need help.

The Workshop (2007)

Guys, this is unrealistic

[4/10 · 3 May 2015]

Guys, you must understand that it is unlikely the women will be as eager and open about sex as is shown in this movie. This movie is intended to promote a an openness and acceptance of sex that is less realistic in real life.

The leader insists that we must not allow others to control us and his instance is an attempt to control us. He is promoting promiscuity, which I am not criticizing but the philosophy really dwells on things like that. The thing that is unrealistic about this movie is that in real life there would be a huge imbalance of much more men interested in this type of thing.

There are people of all ages in this workshop and for the show they showed the young people nearly exclusively.

There is a little sex. A woman massages a man's penis for at least half a minute and it is very graphic.

The Last Man (2000)

Not for Jeri Ryan fans

[2/10 · 26 April 2015]

If you are a Jeri Ryan fan hoping to see her sexy, romantic, loving and/or intelligent then you will be disappointed. If you want to see a man begging to get some from her then this will be very satisfying. If you want to see her naked you will be disappointed. If you do not want to see her naked then this is very safe for you.

As others have said, Jeri Ryan and the other actors do the best they can with the material but there is not much here. It is very predictable. It is not funny or romantic. The woman does what you would expect a bimbo to do in such a situation. There is nothing profound about this story.

The Net 2.0 (2006 Video)

The audio is very irritating

[3/10 · 26 January 2015]

I assume that most of the music is Turkish. The Turkish music is nice but there is too much of it; very much too much. There is other audio added to the chase and fight scenes and such and it was all too distracting for me.

Technically it is impossible. There is so much wrong with this technically. For one thing, hacking a password is not as easy as they described in this movie. Impersonating someone for a big bank would not be easy since if it were many people would be doing it.

I am so disappointed that Keegan Tracy (formerly Keegan Connor Tracy) was in a movie as disappointing as this. I do not understand that.

Two Girls and a Guy (1997)

Lying and not lying

[4/10 · 23 August 2014]

This movie is about lying and not lying. In this movie sex is the subject for the discussion about lying. I could be more clear about what I mean but I do not want to spoil the story.

Except for the opening scenes, the entire movie happens in the apartment. It is nearly entirely the two women and the man having discussions in the apartment. Many would call it arguments but it is how some people have discussions. There is a little action thrown in that seems more for the purpose of making the show less boring than what it actually adds to the story otherwise.

There is an important message that many people might miss but I think the message could be made in about one-fourth as much time.

I get the impression that the writer was unable to provide better dialog for the women. I would have preferred that the story allowed Heather Graham to show more of what she is capable of (I do not mean sexually) instead of Robert Downey Jr.

The New Daughter (2009)

Illogical

[4/10 · 4 July 2014]

If illogical behavior is a problem for you then you will not enjoy this. The father in this story is not logical. Most parents, if their child has a medical problem, would take their child to a doctor. This father does not. There are other things that this father does not do; the only thing he does is get upset.

If you can overlook illogical behavior then this might be a great thriller for you.

There was obviously a lot of money spent making this movie but the problem is the writing. I think Kevin Costner did a great job considering the story he had.

People Like Us (2012)

Bizarre

[4/10 · 22 February 2014]

I disagree with most of the other reviews. I think it is bizarre that someone would leave a large amount money in the manner that it was. It seems to be a bad idea for many reasons, and the entire story depends on that. The whole situation about what he did with/about the money made me uncomfortable throughout the movie.

The secrets in the movie did not make the movie exciting or interesting for me.

The grandson, Josh, has behavior problems yet his mother (the sister) is a great mother. That is another inconsistency that bothered me.

I sure do not understand the end. The ending is supposed to make it all okay but I do not understand it.