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Isanghan byeonhosa Woo Young-woo (2022)
Wonderful! (but only if you're willing to read subtitles)
Delightful, droll comedy with great premise and acting. You root for Woo, but can also see the motivations and development of all of the other characters. All of the main figures are fully pictured as complete people with their own motives and struggles - there are no one-dimensional villains here.
I started watching this show with the sound dubbed into English. Unfortunately, the voice actress playing the main character seemed to have no real feel for the material and seemed to think she was working on a show for children. She was so awful that I started using subtitles. Hearing the original actors' voices improves the entire show. The original actors are more sincere and emotive. Also, the rapid-fire Korean gives the show a different tone entirely.
I don't normally watch foreign-language shows with subtitles, as it just seems like too much work. But this one is an exception that was worth my time and attention. Give it a chance, it may win you over.
Bosch (2014)
Brilliant! This way exceeded my expecations.
You don't have to have read the Bosch books to enjoy this series. However, this is the most well-executed adaptation of a book series that I have ever seen.
Some parts are changed and expanded and there is more depth to the secondary characters. In this regard, the show is perhaps a bit better than the books, which is really saying something, because Connelly is a good writer. Major props to Titus Welliver and the rest of the cast.
This is not populated by the usual unrealistic "pretty people" of LA. These people feel real, and they are all fine actors who were given good scripts and stories. Major credit should go to whoever did the casting for this series. There are at least 10 actors from The Wire here (some for only a few episodes), and it's great to see them back.
If you like police procedurals, this is one of the best examples of the genre you will find.
The Boys (2019)
It's just another comic book show, trying very hard to be edgy
From the description of this series, I thought it would be a subversion of the normal superhero tropes, but it's really quite predictable. And a bit too gory for my taste.
If you enjoy the comic book superhero type of entertainment, you may enjoy this. For me, the humorous bits did not work all that well. I quit watching during episode 4 when I realized it wasn't improving and that there are many better shows and movies out there.
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
Overpraised music biopic
This film probably works best for people who do not remember Freddie Mercury. If you have seen his dynamic performances and felt his charisma, then perhaps you, like I, will be constantly comparing Rami Malek and find his lack of similarity to Mercury to be a glaring problem. Freddie Mercury was not conventionally handsome, but my lord, he sure was attractive. He lit up the stage and you didn't really notice physical flaws (except maybe that overbite).
Don't misunderstand me, Malek gives a fine performance, but he lacks the undefinable "it" quality that made Mercury a magnetic force that could not be denied. There is also the problem of some moments when you can hear speech problems caused by the prosthetic teeth he wears to simulate Mercury's unusual dentition. Freddie's teeth were quite unusual but they gave him no speech impairment.
There is a long sequence of Queen doing a live performance at Live Aid. Malek's version of this is a pale imitation of the real thing for me. He accurately mimics the gestures, but the dynamic personality and the on-stage confidence is just missing. It's like watching a very good karaoke performance.
Even IF Freddie Mercury was truly an unhappy, tormented soul in his private life, that never showed up in his performances. This is certainly a watchable movie, but I was rather disappointed in it, given all the awards and hype it had.
Third Finger, Left Hand (1940)
Charming bit of fluff
Melvyn Douglas and Myrna Loy are both excellent in their roles as a couple who are fake-married. Her character made up a fictional long-distance husband for work, and his pranks her by showing up as as that husband.
It's not Tolstoy but it's a lovely little comedy with excellent performances. I used to be surprised to see Melvyn Douglas in leading-man romantic roles. But while he may not be conventionally handsome by modern standards, he makes up for that in charm and wit, not to mention excellent comic timing.
One reviewer said that it was silly to think that a single female executive needed a pretend marriage unless she was a closeted lesbian. But you that you can't judge the premise of a 1940 film by 21st century standards. The Production Code would not have allowed a film to have a lesbian character unless that she was doomed to some sort of awful end as comeuppance for her supposed "deviancy". The studios followed those rules back then. To see why a single woman might wish to feign being romantically unavailable at the workplace 'back in the day', view Mad Men. It will give you some perspective.
This is an engaging and enjoyable comedy with good performances not only from the leads but from the supporting actors as well.
What We Do in the Shadows (2019)
Just an okay sitcom
Since it's based on a hilarious movie, I had high expectations for this. It isn't awful. There are a few humorous bits that hit the mark in each episode, but overall it's disappointing.
They have added a "psychic vampire" character to the group of vampire roommates.The character is supposed to be annoying - and he is. He annoys the audience. Adding him is a peculiar choice by the writers as most of the time he seems to have wandered in from another show and tends to stop the flow.
I loved the movie version of this, so I am hoping it will somehow improve but it's neither great nor awful.
Innocent (2011)
The 'Cliff Notes' version of a great book
Scott Turow is an amazing writer because of his ability to give full, rich, textured lives to most of the characters in a book. In his fictional world of Kindle county, even the peripheral figures have great,textured back-stories. He has great insight into human nature. It's too bad that you can see almost none of this in the TV movie version of Innocent.
I watched this movie shortly after reading the book. The book was fascinating and absorbing. While the movie was competently made, it lacked most of the detail that makes Turow's books so rich and interesting. The recorded version of the book is 14 hours long, and none of that time was wasted or boring. The movie was probably less than 90 minutes, if you take out the commercial breaks. There was no way for them to compress so much character development and plot into such a small space. And in my opinion, it was wrong to try.
Unfortunately, though the movie isn't awful, I can't think of any reason to recommend it. There are some good performances, but the script is just too skeletal to do justice to this story.
I hope that the next time Scott Turow gets an movie offer on one of his great books, that he holds out for a miniseries instead.
Miracle in the Rain (1956)
So sweet it will rot your teeth
I found this movie depressing and not very well-acted. I just could not get involved in it, partly due to the artificiality of the acting. I find the positive response to this movie in the other user reviews puzzling, since it struck me as emotionally manipulative in a very obvious and heavy-handed way.
I like some of Jane Wyman's other work, but found her generally unconvincing in this piece of treacle. If you want to see Jane shine in a really good movie, try Johnny Belinda - or even the TV series Falcon Crest. At least in Falcon Crest, the characters were depicted in an interesting way.
Barefoot in the Park (1967)
As fresh as a 40 year old fruitcake
An example of a period piece that did not age well. She's open-minded! And free spirited! And he's a lawyer, which we all are supposed to understand means a fuddy-duddy. Very sitcom-ish, only without as many good laughs as a good half-hour sitcom
Their apartment is small, cold and requires a five flight walk up stairs, which Neil Simon considered quirky and cute. It's hard to believe that Simon was really from NYC since trust me, an affordable apartment in NYC with a skylight is a great find, even today, even five flights up... There is even a mention in the script of a gay couple in the building, but in the kind of tone that says, "isn't this wacky!". Oh really? Like we're supposed to believe there were so few gay people in the city at that time that a young couple would be shocked to find they were living in the same apartment building?
Worth noting are the fine performances by the supporting characters played by Mildrid Natwick and Charles Boyer - but they did not make up for the mechanical nature of much of the script.
Save your time and watch any episode from the first season of Dharma and Greg. Much better pacing, and a lot less dated. Or, if you're really interested in a good comedy with Fonda from that era, check out Cat Ballou.