This first episode was not the best start for this series. Was it really necessary to show the laziest brat in tennis first? It's really crass to fall for sensationalism over substance in this first episode. Nick Kyrgios comes across as a gifted but petulant, undisciplined emotionally weak-minded Gen Z'er. Whatever he considers to be a struggle is nothing compared to what others have had to battle throughout their careers. I can't help but wonder if he has squandered his talent and is more interested in being famous for all the wrong reasons rather than be a great tennis player. The girlfriend needed less airtime too.
Reviews
18 Reviews
Break Point
(2023–2024)
It needs a different approach to the sport.
17 January 2023
The jump cuts are annoying and the cheerleading sycophantic background commentary can be cringeworthy at times. The series needs a toned-down perspective rather than the fanfare it injects into every situation. Instead, we get contrived setups of personal moments (especially with ditzy girlfriends) and a whole episode on Nick Kyrgios throwing tantrums because he's a "misunderstood" and "troubled" boy...Oh boohoo! Give us a break!
A more subtle perspective with unguarded moments in training, traveling and the struggle to stay on form...more honest fly-on-the-wall stuff. What makes the great players great? And why are so many of the younger players not at the same level as Federer, Nadal and Serena were at their age? We need a more honest exposé on behind-the-scenes tennis rather than the over-dramatic off-the-shelf formula it presents.
A more subtle perspective with unguarded moments in training, traveling and the struggle to stay on form...more honest fly-on-the-wall stuff. What makes the great players great? And why are so many of the younger players not at the same level as Federer, Nadal and Serena were at their age? We need a more honest exposé on behind-the-scenes tennis rather than the over-dramatic off-the-shelf formula it presents.
The Ipcress File
(2022)
Amateur production with a wonky style
13 March 2022
The writing is simple, the acting is wooden and every scene is shot on an angle. I could understand the odd scene framed on an angle, but not all of them. All of the period vehicles are new and shiney, as is the clothing, the accessories, the hair. It's like the wardrobe was supplied by Mattel. MI6 agents shoot from the hip and follow unsuspecting agents a few paces behind either on foot, Vesper or car...it's a laughable mess.
The Wheel of Time
(2021– )
Wheel of Cheese
10 December 2021
I've just finished watching Episode 6 and the cheese content was high. I would even go as far as saying they pulled out a can of Cheez Whiz and sprayed it all over the Amyrlin Seat.
I blame the producers and directors creative direction. I can't think of any episode in Game of Thrones where the lactose level ever came close to this fondue of teenage angst and wokeness.
I blame the producers and directors creative direction. I can't think of any episode in Game of Thrones where the lactose level ever came close to this fondue of teenage angst and wokeness.
Ozark
(2017–2022)
First series was great but it went downhill.
13 April 2020
The first series was great, we were rootng for the family and hoping they would succeed. The second series had the Bird family starting to get ruthless and nasty. In the third series there's no one to like anymore, everyone is a ratbag.
Prospect
(2018)
Good Sci-Fi doesn't need to be big budget.
24 March 2019
This was quite a pleasant surprise. A well written story enhanced by good acting from the principles. This movie proves that good Sci-Fi doesn't need to be big budget. Pedro Pascal may be recognisable to many as the star of the first three seasons of Narcos and he plays an interesting character. Sophie Thatcher was a surprise, she definitely has a presence on screen and was perfect for the main character in this story.
The show took a nose dive with this episode.
21 March 2019
What happened? The first episode of season 3 was good and looked promising for the rest of the season. This episode was hard to watch. Michael Sheen's character is absurd and over-the-top, the court scenes are ludicrous and cringe-worthy. His character is annoying in a really bad way.. His Bronx or Brooklyn accent is also iffy (I'm English and even I can spot it). I got the impression that the swearing was amped up for maximum effect but I think it back-fired. Sometimes less is more.
This is the second episode in a row with a childish musical animation...Stop it already!
The Little Drummer Girl
(2018)
It just doesn't work.
14 November 2018
I tried to give the 3rd episode a chance but I'm fed up with the bad script, bad directing and stupid camera moves that disconnect me from any immersion. I don't blame the actors as I have seen them do great work in other shows. If someone pitched this as a new style and direction for the La Carre story...they got it wrong!
It just got really stupid in Episode 4
3 June 2018
Warning: Spoilers
I'm not expecting John le Carré style field-craft from the writers but don't insult my intelligence. When my mother is pointing out the absurdity of 3 "professional" hit-people driving around the countryside in a clapped-out van chasing a frightened cowardly traitor and all start firing full-auto into his stationary car from 30ft, you start to wonder what the writers really know about the subject they are engaged in. Why would a highly capable assassin ask another in public "where the kill is" while walking along a train station? A similar situation occurs when the cowardly traitor is running away from a chasing assassin toward Eve's car. She's gets out trying to open a gate for him while her partner (who wants to save the world) is in the back? Common sense would tell you to be in the drivers seat with the engine running ready to scream away. Instead, she's in the back ready to comfort him?...ludicrous!
This could have been a smart, quirky, espionage-type story. Instead, this series has now turned into a farcical and absurd series of stupid events.
This could have been a smart, quirky, espionage-type story. Instead, this series has now turned into a farcical and absurd series of stupid events.
Dunkirk
(2017)
A disappointing series of events
7 December 2017
Where did the budget go? We saw a few hundred men and a dozen boats and a couple of aircraft. Where was the story of the battalions fighting the rear-guard in the towns so those hundreds of thousands on the beaches could line-up to be rescued?
Survivors of two battalions fighting the rear-guard that had to surrender to the SS, were then murdered by the SS...where was that story?
There were some heroic moments in the events leading up to evacuation of Dunkirk. All we got was a few aerial dogfights and half-arsed attempts to leave a dock. Far too much time spent on a few young guys trying anything to get off a beach.
Don't get me started on the annoying soundtrack.
Survivors of two battalions fighting the rear-guard that had to surrender to the SS, were then murdered by the SS...where was that story?
There were some heroic moments in the events leading up to evacuation of Dunkirk. All we got was a few aerial dogfights and half-arsed attempts to leave a dock. Far too much time spent on a few young guys trying anything to get off a beach.
Don't get me started on the annoying soundtrack.
Halt and Catch Fire
(2014–2017)
The best show that nobody watched
17 October 2017
I've watched all seasons and really enjoyed it. I was surprised the producers funded a 4th season as I thought this show flew under the radar of the mainstream audience. Unlike some, I think the character development got more interesting throughout the seasons and covered a multitude of topics.
This show could have been in danger of becoming a geek-fest if it had run faster and concentrated too much on the tech and not the characters. It kept on track and marched to it's own rhythm.
A good last season that had a few surprises and wrapped things up well.
This show could have been in danger of becoming a geek-fest if it had run faster and concentrated too much on the tech and not the characters. It kept on track and marched to it's own rhythm.
A good last season that had a few surprises and wrapped things up well.
Fargo
(2014–2024)
Season 3 - Deep and Meaningless
22 June 2017
Warning: Spoilers
I enjoyed the first two series but this third series was a shambles. I feel that the creators literally lost the plot before shooting and decided to have fun with the public and see how far they could push the whole Fargo shtick while making it up as they went along .
Let's super-size it with our usual slow gratuitous camera shots and add annoying wrist-slashing music...and while doing that, lets detour from the plot every few episodes and have nothing to do with relevance. The public will think they're so hip for hanging in there and following the dichotomy of madness, they'll think they are so smart...that they just "get it"
What gets me is how contrived all these unnecessary elements really are. They where placed into every episode just to be different but at the same time a lot of it went nowhere and just served to pad the series out to get the allotted episode count made. It was never about the story, it was never driven by the story...it was driven by writers contriving to overindulge themselves in their own bubble of borrowed egocentric rantings. The kind of people whose whole creative mindset is derived from other peoples work on film before them, rather than something they read, imagined or experienced themselves.
Do we need another stereotypical English bad guy with rotten teeth that we have to keep zooming in on? He doesn't have conversations with other characters, his teeth tell convoluted stories instead....that'll kill some time.
Let's have a relentless ruthless Russian guy for a change....oh and don't forget his ruthless Asian side-kick who doesn't talk...how original.
Let's have an episode detour in 1950s Hollywood that doesn't have anything to do with the plot.
Let's watch two people shoot each other and then have the camera pan over them for a year and a day and end it with a cliché bullet hole dead centre in the forehead. What a surprise!
Let's spend two episodes chasing someone who isn't a threat to your organisation, in fact they're out of the picture on their way to prison...but lets break them out of the prison bus and chase them all over the winter landscape. Let's queue-up some drawn out Fargo-style hacking, stabbing and shooting and then have them stumble into a quiet bowling alley in the middle of nowhere.
In the bowling alley you'll find an old Jewish guy who seems to know everyone on the planet and likes to tell them each a story of a Soviet pogrom against his people 100 years ago. He then offers you car keys that are under the mat to escape the bad guys.
Do yourself a favour and take the keys and drive away. The whole series was utterly annoying and meaningless.
Let's super-size it with our usual slow gratuitous camera shots and add annoying wrist-slashing music...and while doing that, lets detour from the plot every few episodes and have nothing to do with relevance. The public will think they're so hip for hanging in there and following the dichotomy of madness, they'll think they are so smart...that they just "get it"
What gets me is how contrived all these unnecessary elements really are. They where placed into every episode just to be different but at the same time a lot of it went nowhere and just served to pad the series out to get the allotted episode count made. It was never about the story, it was never driven by the story...it was driven by writers contriving to overindulge themselves in their own bubble of borrowed egocentric rantings. The kind of people whose whole creative mindset is derived from other peoples work on film before them, rather than something they read, imagined or experienced themselves.
Do we need another stereotypical English bad guy with rotten teeth that we have to keep zooming in on? He doesn't have conversations with other characters, his teeth tell convoluted stories instead....that'll kill some time.
Let's have a relentless ruthless Russian guy for a change....oh and don't forget his ruthless Asian side-kick who doesn't talk...how original.
Let's have an episode detour in 1950s Hollywood that doesn't have anything to do with the plot.
Let's watch two people shoot each other and then have the camera pan over them for a year and a day and end it with a cliché bullet hole dead centre in the forehead. What a surprise!
Let's spend two episodes chasing someone who isn't a threat to your organisation, in fact they're out of the picture on their way to prison...but lets break them out of the prison bus and chase them all over the winter landscape. Let's queue-up some drawn out Fargo-style hacking, stabbing and shooting and then have them stumble into a quiet bowling alley in the middle of nowhere.
In the bowling alley you'll find an old Jewish guy who seems to know everyone on the planet and likes to tell them each a story of a Soviet pogrom against his people 100 years ago. He then offers you car keys that are under the mat to escape the bad guys.
Do yourself a favour and take the keys and drive away. The whole series was utterly annoying and meaningless.
Once Upon a Time in Venice
(2017)
A good TV Pilot...but not a good movie
18 June 2017
This would have been a perfect vehicle for Bruce Willis to star in a cable series similar to Fargo or a more action version of the Netfilx series like Flaked. The movie even ends like a TV episode with a "to be continued" hint. It would be a hit as a TV series, as a movie it lacks depth.
The F Word
(I) (2017)
A new low for Ramsay
9 June 2017
I was a big fan of the UK F Word series, it was informative and unpretentious and entertaining...it was all about the food.
No surprises that the the US (Fox) version is the opposite. This show is disjointed and gimmicky and hard to stomach. I'm surprised that Ramsay can't realise what made the UK version work and apply it to the US version. I guess the only taste he has is in his mouth.
No surprises that the the US (Fox) version is the opposite. This show is disjointed and gimmicky and hard to stomach. I'm surprised that Ramsay can't realise what made the UK version work and apply it to the US version. I guess the only taste he has is in his mouth.
Diamond Cartel
(2015)
A cheesy B-Movie
4 April 2017
It's a shame this was Peter O'Toole's last movie. Fortunately he's not in it much. We may have to question his sanity in accepting this role. If your'e a fan of the gold medallion wearing 80's crowd then this badly written cheesy B-Movie is for you. What ever happened to Armand Assante?...this movie is what happened to Armand Assante. All Hollywood producers and directors know Michael Madsen is the kiss-of-death to any movie he's been in since Reservoir Dogs. You'd have to be living in Kazakhstan not to know this...It's bad, really bad.
Queen of the South
(2016–2021)
Running out of Breath
6 August 2016
Warning: Spoilers
This series started out well but by the time it got to episode 7 it ran out of breath. It's stalling. I find a lot of US shows tend to pad the series out if they think they're onto a good thing.
We know from the opening scene in the very first episode that the main character Teresa is going to eventually run a drug cartel. We then follow her back-story journey that will eventually lead us to that point in the very first scene. By the end of episode 7 nothing seemed to have moved the story forward from the previous 2 episodes. This is a bad sign of things to come as we know certain events need to happen to drive Teresa forward toward her destiny.
We're trundling along now as the studio pads this out.
We know from the opening scene in the very first episode that the main character Teresa is going to eventually run a drug cartel. We then follow her back-story journey that will eventually lead us to that point in the very first scene. By the end of episode 7 nothing seemed to have moved the story forward from the previous 2 episodes. This is a bad sign of things to come as we know certain events need to happen to drive Teresa forward toward her destiny.
We're trundling along now as the studio pads this out.
Mad Dogs
(I) (2015–2016)
Amazon Original Series?
24 January 2016
I really like it. It's well produced with snappy writing and a good cast....just like the original British series. Ben Chaplin from the original series is actually in this version too.
Wikipedia - Mad Dogs (TV series)
"Mad Dogs is a British black comedy and psychological thriller television series, written and created by Cris Cole, that began airing on Sky1 on 10 February 2011, and ended on 29 December 2013 after four series and 14 episodes"
Which brings me back to the advertising on Amazon. This is billed as an "Amazon Original Series"....WHAT PART OF IT IS ORIGINAL?
Are we to assume that because Americans haven't seen it before, it is original?
Wikipedia - Mad Dogs (TV series)
"Mad Dogs is a British black comedy and psychological thriller television series, written and created by Cris Cole, that began airing on Sky1 on 10 February 2011, and ended on 29 December 2013 after four series and 14 episodes"
Which brings me back to the advertising on Amazon. This is billed as an "Amazon Original Series"....WHAT PART OF IT IS ORIGINAL?
Are we to assume that because Americans haven't seen it before, it is original?
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