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Reviews
Black Mirror: Beyond the Sea (2023)
Poorly written, mediocre acting by Jesse and the Sin City assasin
Two space explorers (mission unknown) are able to download their consciousness into a lifelike robotic puppet back on earth. Due to a tragic event, one of them loses the ability to transport back.
Interesting premise, but the writers didn't think this through.
We are told that another robot cannot be created because it was a bespoke design, just for that person.
The other astronaut is empathetic and feels for the lonely coworker, and offers to let him use his "other". But how can that be, when we were just told each robot is built for one person only?
Anyway, then it turns out the empathetic astronaut has no empathy or compassion for his wife or son which was foreshadowed (he prayed at dinner, you see).
The entanglements that follow (emotional, not quantum) are so predictable that the only satisfying payoff would have been to have an unpredictable ending. But we didn't get that. Jesse from Breaking Bad and the Sin City assassin deserved better. But come to think of it, both ended up playing their parts from those shows.
Joe Pickett (2021)
C J Box fan? Don't watch this series.
Season 1 of Joe Pickett. Terrible screen writing, poor directing, subpar editing, awful acting.
C J Box's novels are outstanding, especially the Joe Pickett series.
However, the screenwriters for this series seem to have only skimmed the novels, and have absolutely no knowledge of Wyoming, hunting, guns, or human nature.
The dialogue is terrible and juvenile -- I'd expect to hear verbal exchanges like this on a playground, not among adults.
The main characters are changed drastically from the novels. Joe seems wimpy most of the time, and walks slumped over, looking dejected.
In early episodes, Joe carries a .22 rifle which is completely inadequate to his job. He claims to be a poor shot unless the target is moving fast. In the novels, he's a poor shot with a handgun but good with a rifle.
As for editing, when Joe first receives the .22 rifle, it's a left-handed model, which suddenly transforms to a right-handed. In one scene, Joe has a very different hat (which was better than the one they normally have him wearing--a Stetson Open Road which no game warden would wear on the job). During a confrontation, Joe is using a lever action rifle the goes from uncocked to cocked to uncocked again, with nothing happening in between. And as in many shoot 'em ups, characters run around shooting wildly, wasting bullets, and from time to time they rack the slide ejecting a good round for no reason, other than to rack the slide.
Many of the actors who have been excellent in other movies and series were horrible here, like Sharon Lawrence and Paul Sparks. Both excellent actors, but delivering terribly here--likely poor directing. David Alan Grier was miscast as a former Wyoming game warden here. He's a comedian and not suited for this serious role. Not at all believable. And Nate Romanowski? Seriously? If they wanted to cast Mustafa Speaks here, they should have created a new persona with a different name.
This is a very disappointing attempt to present excellent stories, characters, and locations created by C J Box.
The Night Agent (2023)
Interesting story, poor acting, juvenile dialog, drags on.
Peter Sutherland stops a train bombing, then gets blamed and harassed by a conspiracy-theory group called "the Patriots". He gets a call from someone who narrowly escapes a murder, which leads to multiple plot twists and turns.
The story could be interesting, but it should have been a 5 or 6 episode series. Instead it drags on with juvenile dialog between the main characters, and interruptions to explain back story after back story. The relationship between the main characters develops as expected, and the professionals in the government do not behave in believable ways. Like the secret service agents on the case who stop to have a personal conversation while turning their back on the people and location they are investigating. Disappointing.
Red Sparrow (2018)
Disappointing portrayal of an excellent novel
Producers of this movie tried to put too much of the book into a movie. It would have been a great 10-part miniseries if they wanted to include all the plot elements. They tried to include all the twists, but the relationships among the characters was never developed, and the spycraft which was detailed in the book was missing.
Dominika's motivations were not well-explained, and her relationships with Nate, Marble, and Nate's coworkers were critical to understanding the plot, but all missing. Finally, important developments were changed in ways that made the plot unworkable to the very end, culminating with changing the ending in a way that renders the entire story unworkable. Very disappointing.
A final and very crucial plot element in the book, completely missing here, is that Dominika is a synesthete. She interprets emotions and motivations as colors, giving her a sense of the thoughts of those around her.
The acting was generally good, though Jennifer Lawrence was not a good choice. She does not look like a Russian ballerina.
The Peripheral (2022)
First episode was the best. Then it went rapidly downhill.
The series started with an interesting premise: A virtual reality game leads to another reality. But then the story gets muddled and includes too many unnecessary subplots which don't advance the story. Initially, interesting characters, and good dialogue. In the last half, the story is often lost in explaining jargon, and the dialogue is tedious and silly.
The locations are interesting and scenic at times. The science fiction is reasonable to a point, but too much of the story is spent explaining details that are not important to the story, but still there's so much jargon it's difficult to keep up at times.
StartUp (2016)
No likable characters. Disturbing.
"Startup" is very weak in the technical telling of a story about a group trying to start a new cryptocurrency. But much worse, each character is a seriously flawed person with no redeeming qualities, and no self-awareness. Any likable character that appears is soon dispatched in drawn-out and bloody terror.
Disturbing.
Minari (2020)
Decent acting, no plot
Like Nomadland, another critically acclaimed movie from last year, Minari is a "day in the life" study of people in a difficult situation. Which is exactly what we don't need during the Covid pandemic.
Anyone with a few years of experience knows life is difficult, challenging, and tragic. Do we need a movie to tell us this?
Besides "life is hard" the movie tries to tell us religious people in Arkansas are backwards and crazy. In the movie, a religious fanatic speaks in tongues and casts out demons in several scenes. These acts don't ring true, and seem out of place in the movie. It does not advance the plot, or would not if the movie had a plot.
All in all, and disappointing movie, given the hype. Except for the performance of Yuh-Jung Youn as the grandmother. Excellent, and only exceeded by her Academy Award acceptance speech, which was the best award speech in years.
Le violon rouge (1998)
Could have been good, except for ads
This otherwise enjoyable movie was ruined by frequent interruption of ads -- by I M D b. Hard to believe I M D b would intentionally ruin a good film by inserting ads that interrupt dialog in mid-sentence and break up scenes in awkward places. I will never ever watch another movie sponsored by I M D b or streamed on A M A Z O N P r i m e with ads. Horrible experience. I now only stream video content because the ads on TV are so intrusive -- but this experience was much worse.
Defending Jacob (2020)
Postmodernism ad nauseum
I felt cheated for having watched this to the end. It moves very slowly, painfully, through the plot, but kept me waiting for the finale. But postmodernists must have made the movie, so in this movie there is no absolute truth. Each character has his or her own truth, and is often duplicitous in action. And we, the audience, are left to invent our own "truths" about the plot as well.
The actors performed well, with a plot that is often illogical. A grand jury investigation is a plot device to foreshadow the end, but such an investigation seems unlikely given the relationship between the witness and subject.
Had I known more, I would not have wasted my time on this series.
The Laundromat (2019)
How to make a comedy of true crime -- and fail miserably
The Laundromat is a movie about a serious subject -- money laundering and the Panama Papers scandal. Some of Hollywood's best star in the movie: Banderas, Oldman, Sharon Stone, Streep. For some reason, the makers decided to try to make it a comedy, and to also throw in a morality play. The result is a horrible mishmash that fails.
The introduction consists of barely intelligible into-the-camera monologues, which is snarky and sarcastic -- a poor substitute for humor. Along the way, the movie becomes preachy about corporate tax havens and Streep tells us that the way out is campaign finance reform.
But they get most of the facts wrong, and they don't seem to understand the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. Which may be the reason they tried to make it a comedy. If the producers and writers and actors were all involved in tax havens -- they admit as much in the movie -- then why would they want to make a serious movie calling out the issues? Easier to say "reform" is needed. That way, they have no responsibility and can blame the "system" for their own shortcomings.
The Romanoffs: The One That Holds Everything (2018)
Terrible
This was the worst of the episodes. The "secret" of the entire show was evident in the first few minutes. I only kept watching because I thought I must be wrong. The acting was uninspired, and the character we are intended to feel for is actually a horrible, vengeful person. The story was at times incoherent, often illogical and poorly worked out. Troubling premises and coincidences are never explained.
Goliath (2016)
Good Acting, convincing premise, starts strong, falters in the middle, ends weakly
Goliath starts with a good premise -- out of work lawyer who wants to get back in the game, partly for revenge and partly out of concern for the client. The opposition is a big law firm representing a defense contractor.
But from there, everything is so over-the-top that even with a heavy dose of suspension of realty, it is hard to keep watching. The defense contractor is unbelievably evil -- and the big law firm even more so.
Even the protagonist we are supposed to like, played very well by Billy Bob Thorton, behaves so immorally he seems beyond redemption -- and redemption is what we want.
In the middle, new plot devices pop up to try to correct missteps before, and issues are not resolved to any satisfaction.
In the end, the central case brought forth by both parties is unconvincing, and the outcome seems so unlikely, that I regretted spending the time to watch until the end.
The performances by the main actors were very good, and we can identify with most of the characters, but the sleaze was so thick I felt the need to take a shower after each episode.
Beat the Drum (2003)
A bad movie with a good message is still a bad movie
Young Musa sees his mother, then father die. His young cousin is raped because South African men believe sex with a virgin cures AIDS.
This is a movie that wants to make a good point. It is at times touching, but is almost always downbeat, with an improbable end to make up for the suffering the audience must endure to get there. By the end of the movie, perhaps we have a better appreciation of the problem of AIDS in Africa. But is it accurate? If so, then Africa is already doomed.
Overall the acting in the movie is stilted, and the movement is far too slow, though character development is good. I wanted to see some drumming, but it was never delivered. A bad movie with a good message is still a bad movie.