I really enjoyed this. I thought that Awkwafina and Sandra Oh had great chemistry together, and the comedy in this hit just the right notes. For me, Awkwafina always stands out in whatever I happen to see her in, and it's no coincidence. She's incredibly talented and brutally funny. I think that she's criminally underrated as an actor.
Overall, this was an interesting story. However, it should've been kept to five or six episodes. There was absolutely no need to string this out into 10 episodes. It really lost purpose in the middle, and it got away from the main focus for long periods of time. In the end, the performances by Amanda Seyfried and Tom Holland were quite strong, and they carried material that otherwise might've been quite lackluster.
This was a terribly pointless film from a vile racist, bigot, misogynist, and child-rapist. Always remember that Tarantino said that a 13-year-old girl wanted to be raped. That thing is a fucking subhuman.
This started off well enough, but it ended on a sour note. It's never a good sign, when the final episode of a mini-series is roughly 10 minutes shorter than each of the other episodes. It gives a feeling of watching the leftovers. One thing that I didn't really understand was the jumbled timeline. Griselda Blanco's life story was interesting enough w/out them having to change so many details, and keep in actual events but in an alternate order. It didn't make much sense, and it certainly didn't add anything to the story. If anything, the story that they concocted was more of a rendition of Scarface than anything else. I wish that I knew why they had done this, especially when there were plenty of action involved in her real-life story. I will say that one thing I didn't care for about this series was how they made her a sympathetic figure. She wasn't, and to make her and her family victims was disingenuous and dishonest. Other than that, it was well-acted, but it just didn't flow well.
I scored this a 7/10, b/c it was an interesting idea for a film, but ultimately, it fell a bit short for me. The writer/director was seemingly making a commentary on today's society and how we disseminate, ingest, then regurgitate information into misinformation and disinformation. It showed how much of what we speak on is ignorant, ill-informed, and flat out wrong, yet that doesn't stop the message from being progressed. The film showed the point at which the information originates, then the various levels of groups that pass it along, some more educated than others, yet many lacking in basic critical thinking skills. It's a disheartening message, often made worse by those directly involved in it and their responses to outward stimuli. It was an original idea, so it was worth the watch, not to mention the fact that an ensemble cast did a really nice job.
I liked this better upon second watch. It's a compelling tale about how women are manipulated by narcissistic men. There were a number of strong performances throughout by Emily Blunt, Rebecca Ferguson, and Haley Bennett. Their work really made this film come together.
This was a really remarkable story about two women, at an age when our culture tends to send them out to pasture, achieving the unachievable. I would love to see a sequel based on the friendship between Bonnie Stoll and Diana Nyad. They seem to have accomplished a great many interesting things in their lives that would make for a well-told story.
Arya Stark is a fucking beast! W/ her hand, she shall bring death to all the subhuman mongrels. And, Cersei Lannister is NOT a victim. That was just the beginning of what that thing deserved.
I wasn't overly familiar w/ the story behind the GME stock, but I knew enough to know the players in the game. I was intimately familiar w/ Ken Griffin, however, as a researcher of right-wing extremism. I found it ironic, if not odd, that his singular role in the funding of fascism, white nationalism, and neo-Nazism in America went unchecked in this film. He has pumped tens of millions of dollars into what the media terms as "Far-Right" politicians. He's a hateful individual who preys upon vulnerable communities, and he and his family are a danger to everyone unlike him, white, Christian, heterosexual, and cisgender male. For his activities, he should be considered a domestic terrorist, but not enough people are aware of who, and how dangerous, he actually is.
This was trite and formulaic. This is the after-school special level of superhero movies. It's embarrassing that DC thought that this would kick off their new film franchise. This film was so derivative and so poorly written, it's astonishing that it was greenlit.
The first movie was all right but certainly not to the point that two additional movies were required. The grabs at money these days by media production companies and studios really comes at the expense of creativity and originalism.
This was a thoroughly unenjoyable, pointless film. It's entirely unsurprising that the sequel will be a musical.
Alexandra Daddario and Tyler Hoechlin had really good chemistry together. That chemistry is what made this film work, where it would have fallen flat, otherwise. The story isn't a revelation, and it's not particularly amusing, but it's a sweet love story. I wish that the script had been better fleshed out, but all in all, it worked well enough.
This was the finest writing for television since The Twilight Zone created by Rod Serling. Nic Pizzolatto generated a masterpiece of American television with this season of True Detective.
This film is not what it seems. It's one thing to look at mental health through the lens of stalking social media influencers, but this film goes beyond that into an area that doesn't deserve to be explored in a film of this type. Ingrid is a woman, likely with some type of undiagnosed attachment disorder, who stalks social media influencers by ingratiating herself into their lives. She attempts to make herself appear as if her life is fuller than it actually is, and she does so through duplicitous methods. For instance, [spoiler]she tells her newfound friends that she has a boyfriend, and she sleeps with her landlord in order to get him to pose as such for her.[/spoiler] It could be argued that this action fits with the narrative of the film by being symptomatic of her disorder. Fair enough.
However, she does other things that have nothing to do w/ her disorder that make her an awful human being. In one instance, [spoiler]she borrowed the truck of her landlord, and violated the agreement she had to return it, b/c she was having fun w/ a new friend. Later, she wrecked the truck, and when she finally brought it back, she had cost her landlord his ability to meet a responsibility, and she offered no accountability. She tried to pretend that it wasn't a big deal and not something she should be bothered w/. Later in the film, it's indicated that the damage was $8000, and again, she attempted to play it off. She later outrights steals the truck, which, again, could be seen as something related to her disorder.[spoiler/]
Those who engage in this type of behavior are dangerous. I felt that they focused so much on the mental health-related aspects of her behavior, they overlooked what a terrible human being they actually made her aside from that.
I found this to be only a somewhat accurate depiction of living life w/ schizophrenia. I wish that the script had focused more on the side-effects of the drugs used to treat it, b/c this is why many people stop taking them. The side-effects can cause a state akin to losing all sense of self and feeling, and one of the more prominent drugs used to treat this condition actually has a nickname for this state, b/c it's so prevalent. When Adam stops taking his meds, the script indicates that he does so due to the fact that he was unable to properly taste his culinary cuisines. Yet, that would've been a lesser effect than the actual state that he was in. The other thing was, when he began taking the meds, he seemed to perk up, become almost happy, which is not the effect these drugs have. They simply keep the visual and auditory hallucinations at bay. I really wish that the film had focused more on the actual nature of the disorder rather than the dramatization that was portrayed.
There really wasn't much to this film. The fact is, I found the ending to be particularly egregious. An on-screen graphic stated that Phil Knight has donated $2 billion to charity. What it didn't say was that he weaseled Nike away from its founding father, Bill Bowerman, supported child molesters, rapists, and murderers by giving them multi-million dollar shoe deals, and supported white nationalism, neo-Confederatism, Christo-fascism, and neo-Nazism by being a supporter of Donald Trump and hateful, right-wing policies.
The film also puffed up Sonny Vaccaro, a man who has played a significantly mixed role in American athleticism. Yes, he did help bring Michael Jordan to Nike, and he recruited Ed O'Bannon for the claim against the NCAA that eventually allowed student-athletes to receive payments while in school, but he also had a huge hand in creating the shady, often illegal activities of summer basketball camps, all-star youth tournaments, and elite prospect camps, all endeavors supported by basketball shoe companies, which Vaccaro took a big piece of the pie from. He was essentially paid to force kids to risk their eligibility to play high school and college basketball. This was his day-to-day job. He really wasn't a figure to admired.
I had no idea that I'd appreciate this movie as much as I did when first sitting down to watch it. This was a surprisingly powerful film, and Mia Isaac and Zoey Deutch were really effective in their roles. To be frank, as I started to watch this, I thought that I was going to hate it, b/c I couldn't stand the characters in the film, but in reality, this was about the journey they went on and where they arrived at the end of the film. I think that it's a solid in lesson in realizing many we see online may have personas that aren't necessarily who they are in real-life, and they're not all one-note characters incapable of change. This film made me realize that we need to take each instance of deceit on a case-by-case basis, b/c in certain circumstances, people do have the capacity to cause great change in themselves. They won't always be selfish or thoughtless, b/c experience and education can effectuate changes in us that we may not have expected.
This episode was an important corollary to our times. It showed the dangers of rehabilitating fascists, which is something a number of adherents to Left-Wing ideology believe is possible. It is not. You don't turn off that type of thinking, racial superiority, gender superiority, religious superiority, ethnic superiority, and the belief that due to their "inherent superiority," they are entitled to rule as they please, and employ any means necessary, including violence, to keep others down. This is not something you rehabilitate others from, either due to the deep-seated nature of these beliefs or the past harm they wrought b/c of them. In other words, the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi.
When the droid dropped the statue on IG-11's head, and Mando said, "That's using your head," that was severely disappointing. It sounded like a line out of an '80s/'90s action-adventure film, which is not a good thing. I hope that it doesn't portend things to come this season.
The source material for this could've been constructed much better by the writers. Frankly, I'm surprised that Dennis Lehane carried much of that workload. He's a much better writer than was presented in this mini-series. This very much had the feel of a made-for-TV movie, and given the content of the storyline, I think that it would've done much better as that type of presentation. There really wasn't enough story for six hours of a mini-series.
Taron Egerton's performance was uneven, and while Paul Walter Hauser put in his usual strong performance, the character he portrayed simply didn't have enough depth of material to draw from. There was something missing in the depiction. Both Sepideh Moafi and Greg Kinnear played interesting roles quite adeptly, and Robert Wisdom, in his limited screen time, was excellent, as usual.
I gave this a seven based on the interest of the true-crime aspect of the material, but if I were giving a rating based on how the entire mini-series was pieced together, I'd likely have given it a grade of six.
This was an interesting movie based on a true story, and both Annette Bening and Bryan Cranston really fit their roles well. The film imparted a sweet message at the end, which was, the purpose of their venture wasn't about winning money but rather building community and bringing people together.
I just finished the first two seasons, and near the end of the first season, and at the beginning of the second, I felt that watching this show was akin to watching Hercules: The Legendary Journeys back in the '90s. Of course, this was well before Kevin Sorbo turned into a white nationalist Christo-fascist and international joke. Aside from that, you had Hercules traveling from town to town each week running into a different crisis and trying to help local villagers. In fact, the show looked very much the same as The Mandalorian. Thankfully, they strayed away from this formula in the second half of the second season, and the show got back on track.
It's not great by any stretch, but it's definitely watchable, and it's still fun to see the Star Wars lore after all these years. I'll definitely stick around for the final two seasons.
I had never heard of this character before, but I'm not a big Spider-Man fan, so there was no reason for me to have heard of him. However, I found it entertaining enough. It wasn't fantastic, and the casting was a bit odd, and the story was rather formulaic, akin to that one Spider-Man movie w/ the James Franco as the Green Goblin, but other than that, it was interesting enough. I'm not certain what all the hate was about, unless it was something to do w/ a big departure from the comic book character, but it wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen, although for a major comic book film, it was rather lacking in a number of areas.
This is another of those football, family, faith, Christian bullshit movies that had no business being made, this one in particular. This film had zero direction, the football action scenes were shown in a way that was visually awful and they would play 30 seconds of one contest, then flash the score from that game as well as the next on the screen, as if it didn't really matter. My only question from this debacle was, what was Laurence Fishburne doing slumming in this movie?
Surprisingly, this was more amusing than I thought it would be. This movie was really self-aware, and I thought that made for the best and funniest parts of the film. Chloe Coleman was also really impressive in her role. I've also really liked Parisa Fitz-Henley, since I saw her in Midnight, Texas. I find her to be quite charming, and she has a very natural presence that comes across well.
I had heard such great things about this mini-series that I believe that my expectations may have been a bit too high. First off, the acting was top-notch! There were so many stellar performances in this, it was really hard to single any one particular individual out, although given that the series focused prominently on Kate Winslet's character, she did just a remarkable job. Julianne Nicholson, Angourie Rice, Jean Smart, Chinasa Ogbuagu, Sosie Bacon, Evan Peters, Enid Graham..the list goes on. All of these actors were really tremendous in this project.
I also have to commend the production for creating a female-centric police drama/murder mystery. It isn't often that we see casting such as this for a show of this type, and not only was it was quite refreshing, but it really gave this series that extra emphasis, when it came to the character-driven drama that was the other half of the storyline. It really worked particularly well in this production.
All of this having been said, what I was not impressed by was the writing, particularly how the pieces of the storyline flowed together, some of the dialogue, the apparent lack of research, and the odd character arcs. The script that Brad Ingelsby wrote came across to me as something less that he'd spent time researching the topics of and more drawing from previous television productions. On more than a few occasions, I found myself realizing that specific bits of dialogue or storyline were quite derivative of other shows. Obviously, stories are rehashed, but this seemed much more like a patchwork of pieces taken from other productions and put into this one storyline.
Due to the derivative nature of the story, some of the dialogue came across as very clichéd and out of place, as in it really didn't fit w/ the storyline. For instance, in the scene at the waterfront after Mare and Zabel’s date, Mare made a comment about she just couldn’t let go of this case, b/c it’s one of those that just “gets inside you, you know?” I thought to myself, “Really? This cold case that you’d moved on from, b/c there were no leads and no evidence, where you didn’t want any outside help, but you weren’t actively working it, either.” This is exactly the type of clichéd statement you’d hear in any generic detective drama, and in this particular case, it literally made no sense in terms of the storyline.
As for some of the characters, they came across as really incredibly awful human beings. Then, they seemingly and miraculously grew hearts that allowed them to do selfless things that put them in harm’s way? Again, this was something that just didn’t fit w/ the nature of the story, and it threw the characters into disarray, b/c there was really no need for this type of role reversal. Additionally, one of the characters who was portrayed as this small-town girl w/ no prospects, looking for trouble around every corner, we suddenly find out was a strong student w/ collegiate potential? Some of these character traits and attributes just came out of nowhere and served no purpose in moving the storyline forward.
The last thing about the writing that I didn’t care for was how the pieces around Mare were shifted. It was almost as if she were in a room w/ one door, and everyone else was in a circle that constantly rotated around the outside of the room. Every time Mare opened the door, a new character would be standing before her, and she would interact w/ them before closing the door. She would then reopen it, and new character would be standing there for her to interact w/. It was almost as if many of these individuals were simply pieces of furniture in her life, there as set-dressing, rather than as characters to drive the storyline deeper.
I believe that the one exception to this was Mare’s mother. Her interactions w/ her showed that this script could have been refined in such a way that many of the characters could have been made fuller and richer w/ more meaningful interactions w/ Mare.
The bottom-line for me was, while the cinematography looked fantastic, and it provided a genuine look and feel that really gave this story series credence, there is a big difference in looking spectacular and actually being spectacular. I believe that the director and producers very much went for a True Detective esthetic, but looking like True Detective isn’t the same thing as being True Detective.
This movie was about nothing, no one, and went nowhere. It didn't even seem to finish, as it left the storylines of two of the three main characters completely unresolved. This movie was a complete disaster. If it wasn't for the solid casting, this movie would've ranked a two out of 10.
Movies such as this always amaze me, b/c at some point, a good number of people had to be in agreement that millions of dollars would be better spent on this, rather, than say, I dunno, feeding the homeless? Fighting human trafficking? Promoting the cause of education? Really, any worthwhile cause would've been a better investment than this crap. Adam Sandler is the Donald Trump of the movie business. He makes movies in which he gives all his friends and family jobs. How do you base your entire career around that?
This was actually a pretty solid film. Being from America, I didn't necessarily understand all the regional dialect, but I got the gist of it, and it didn't detract from the story. Mostly, it was in the beginning of the film, and as the film wore on, it became clearer what was being discussed.
This film really is about brotherhood, both in a familial sense and in a community sense. It tells the story of Danny, a hardline enforcer for a New Zealand gang, and how he progressed from his difficult childhood to become the sergeant-at-arms of his crew. The film delves into his relationships w/ his brother Liam, as well as the president of his gang, Moses, who he grew up w/ in a detention center. The film did a strong job of showing how loyalties to one family can often muddy the waters in regard to loyalties to another family.
