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dwterrell
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Testament: The Story of Moses (2024)
Only Partially Based on the Bible
I rather enjoyed all the episodes of this film. I have read the story of Moses many times. This version of Moses is based on interpretations from Islamic, Christian, and Jewish sources. Therefore, if you are familiar with only one of those interpretations you may find it somewhat off-putting.
They only cover the main story beats of Mose's life. For example, they don't talk about him striking the rock twice to get water which is found in the Bible. This was the event the kept him from the promised land according to Biblical sources.
In this film they never reveal why he is kept out of the promised land. They also don't talk about the snake on a pole, Miriam catching leprosy, or the earth swallowing up people who defy God.
They cover just enough to keep it short and sweet. I recommend this film to anyone.
Ava (2020)
This week in Dr. Phil...
Imagine a Doctor Phill episode in which people start throwing tables and chairs for reasons unrelated to the episode then you've described AVA in a nutshell.
Films like this is going to be the reason I start handing out more 4 and 5's. I've read some reviews of this movie and people were catching things I didn't even notice. Why? Because at some point my brain just checked out.
A brain that is only paying attention to surface level detail may work fine in most films but in Draction films like this it doesn't work at all. I often found myself thinking about other things during dialog so I often didn't even remember what was just said.
But yet, after missing half the dialog I didn't feel as though I missed anything by movies end.
The acting is pretty decent except from common. For some reason his character stuck out like a sore thumb. I didn't get the impression he had any chemistry with anyone. He felt like a character they added during post production.
For some strange reason I liked this film more than I disliked it so it get the bare minimum 6 out of 10.
The Single Moms Club (2014)
A Decent Movie with A Heart of Gold.
Viewed: March 17, 2014 12:30PM | Expectation: 1 out of 10 | Actual: 5 out of 10 | Bias Plus: Nia Long Fan | Bias Neg: None
I went in to the Theater with the lowest of expectations. I had read nearly every review, saw every trailer, and whenever Nia Long promoted the film, if I knew about it, there was a good chance I was there listening.
Based on the reviews I had read I thought the movie was segmented in such a way that the story line dealt with the children first, then the women's jobs, and then sent them on a quest to find men but this wasn't the case. The story attempts to blend all the elements, Child Raising, Career, and Love Life throughout the entire film. No less than 20 minutes in to the film all the potential Love Interests, careers, and children were introduced in to the narrative except Jan's love interest who came closer to the end.
I enjoyed the pacing of the film as it didn't drag in one area for too long but considering you have so many leads with so many story arches Tyler Perry had no choice but to speed through so he could touch on all his major points. I think he did this pretty well. There were enough good jokes in this film to keep me awake so I was never really bored. I wish a few more of the jokes were to my linking and that may have given this movie a couple of extra points.
Due to my bias for anything with Nia Long in it whenever she was on the screen time just stood still for me. It didn't matter what she was doing, all she really had to do was smile and I would have been satisfied. She appears often and it seems to me she got more screen time in this film than perhaps her last 10 combined. I could be over stating that but her presence in this film was definitely more major than any film she has done in the last 10 years. I really enjoyed her character, her son was decent in his role as Rick, and in fact I wish they would have jettisoned two of the other ladies to give her even more screen time for the development of her character. I also appreciate the fact she didn't go with "Full Make Up" mode. She looks like a real 40+ something year old woman. She looked accessible and even though we get to mildly see her freckles there is no denying she is one attractive woman. When God made her he was on his "A" game.
As with any movie there were areas that needed improvement. Overall the story seemed forced. I don't know if it was a result of their being too many characters or Tyler really didn't have any idea how he could get 5 very different women in to one location to form a club based on being a single mother. There were other scenes in which Tyler seems to say
"I need a reason, any reason, for these two people to find each other." A perfect example of this was the scene when May leaves her purse behind. The reason May left the purse behind was very believable, but TK, May's Love Interest, after noticing her blunder seem to make no real effort to stop her from driving away. This of course sets up their meeting later otherwise there is no way TK would have found her again. In another scene another mother is basically given a Love Interest as if Tyler said, "Oh, you need a Love Interest as well, let me squeeze one in for you." There are just too many moments to mention in which Tyler was more interested in moving the story along instead of doing so in a more entertaining way.
The quality of the visuals in the movie was standard for this type of film. You won't get any surprises here. My biggest problem was with the proper use of ambient sound and music. If you are going to have an indoor science at least have some ambient sounds in the back ground to let us know the world the characters are involved is breathing. Even a horn in the back ground, a bus, plane, or something would have added to the life of this movie.
There were also times when a good musical score would have been nice to add depth to the scene. Nia Long shed about a gallon worth of tears and not once do I recall any sad theme music to drive it home. I mean really?
Last but not least, I don't understand how any man ever could screw up a kiss with Nia Long. The woman has some of the best kisses Hollywood has to offer and you mess it up? I don't understand that. The woman is a kissing genius and it's in those kinds of scenes where a man would have to be absent a pulse in order not to want to be with her. It seemed as if, and according to Nia Long , the kiss wasn't in the script. She wasn't ready for it and when TK/Tyler leaned in to kiss Nia her head snapped back like she had suffered whip lash in a car accident. She corrected this situation by completing the act and I guess Tyler figured not all first kisses go down as smooth as silk so leaving this one as it was filmed was perfectly fine.
But with all this being said, I believe it was money and time well spent. I went in expecting a train wreck and only ended up with a minor traffic jam.
Therefore, Single Mom's Club earns a 5 out of 10.
Other Movies I have given 5
Stigmata, Lakeview Terrace