woody1950 Reviews

Listening In (2022 Podcast Series)

It's Unfinished

[5/10 · 15 February 2024]

The main thing to understand is that this podcast is UNFINISHED! I don't just mean that it has an unsatisfactory ending (which it definitely does). What I mean is that it effectively ends in middle of an episode and never picks up the story again.

The podcast is pretty ho-hum right up to the point that it stops cold. There's a lot of repetition, and the story develops very slowly, to the point that it develops at all. The story and much of the behavior of the main character is pretty ludicrous. She doesn't seem to be very resourceful, and the decisions she makes are generally dumb.

She had good information that people in her building are plotting to kill her, but she stays in the building. Does that make sense to you?

Anyway, a very unsatisfying podcast.

What Happened in Skinner: The Skinner Incident (2021 Podcast Episode)

Really boring

[3/10 · 29 December 2023]

I listen to a lot of podcasts that are in this fantasy/horror/thriller category. This one was just not good. It's much too convoluted and verbose. The acting was so-so and, if the writing had been snappier, it might have come together.

Unfortunately, the plot is plodding and hard to follow. Too many characters, sloppy writing, altogether tiresome.

The story plows along with many cliched tropes. It's set on a mysterious remote island. There's a weird and really quite silly cult that doesn't ring true. Lots of tedious Scooby Doo talk about what the characters are going to do, lots (too much) stage-setting local color.

I think I made it through almost 3 episodes before bailing out. There are a lot better alternatives out there.

Silo (2023– )

Watchable, but Common is terrible

[4/10 · 5 August 2023]

This series has a lot to like. The best character is the Silo itself. The steampunk vibe is strong, and we get a sense of what it might be like to live there.

The acting is generally good, with the exception of Common, who is utterly unable to act. I cringe every time he appears on screen. The person who cast Common in this production should be forever blacklisted from the entertainment industry. Rebecca Ferguson is persuasive in her role, except for those moments when her Swedish accent shows. The other principals are fine in their roles. I was disappointed that David Oyelowo disappeared after the first few episodes, but I'm hoping he will be revived further along.

The special effects are well done, and the sets look great. The series has a complicated plot, and the pacing drags midway through. It seems like whole episodes are spent mostly retracing ground that has already been covered.

I'm going to stick with it, but I hope that it arrives somewhere by the end of the first season.

-------------- Update: the meandering plot and bad acting finally got me. I stopped watching at episode 6.

High Desert (2023)

Bad writing. Bad plot. Bad dialog.

[3/10 · 16 June 2023]

I watched the first episode with mixed feelings, but decided to give it a shot. About 15 minutes into episode 2, I said 'nope'. The dialog is very bad, and the acting, other than Arquette, is not inspiring. I felt that Patricia Arquette was working frenetically to carry this bomb, but couldn't quite pull it off.

The plotting is unbelievably contrived. I mean, Arquette appears as a dance hall girl swinging from a chandelier in a tacky "Old West" show. Really?? Not remotely believable.

Arquette's character seems to have knowledge about all kinds of dodgy stuff that she has no reason to have. In the 2nd episode, she starts spouting out detailed info about safe-cracking. Not convincing.

I think the people who are giving this high ratings are enthralled with Patricia Arquette. I get that, but one person can't carry a TV series like this.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Brilliant and great fun!

[9/10 · 21 October 2022]

I loved it! Gives vibes of Kurt Vonnegut/David Lynch/Thomas Pynchon. This movie has a great mix of imagination, humor, and clever dialog. It has emotional appeal, but is in no way sappy. I think the filmmakers took a lot of chances in the making of this film, which comes gives it a freewheeling, unpredictable quality.

The only criticism I have is that it was a little too long, and some scenes could have been eliminated or shortened

I'm sure that many people will not like this film, because it transgresses many of the formulas of filmmaking and its effects are low-budget and silly. Some people will simply not want to stick with it, but those who do will be rewarded.

Les rivières pourpres (2018– )

Sometimes good, but suffers from a lack of realism.

[6/10 · 20 September 2022]

This is series is generally entertaining, but the stories and the characters are pretty ludicrous. The situations are often fantastic and unrealistic.

More importantly, it's hard to believe that anyone would be willing to allow either of the main characters to carry be police officers or carry a gun. Niemans is a misanthrope who does anything he wants and apparently has no supervision, whatever.

Camille effectively suffers from various forms of mental illness and is barely functional. Both of them are senselessly violent at the drop of a hat.

They seem to operate in a freewheeling style that might work in Manilla, but seems absurd in France.

Irma Vep (2022)

Sadly, not very good...

[5/10 · 16 June 2022]

I watched the first episode, and it was very disappointing. The production is flawed in several dimensions: poor plot, bad dialog, slow pacing. The biggest flaw is that several of the actors are badly miscast.

Vikander does not shine in this role. She seems ill at ease at all times, and unsure of what her character is about. Vikander is a dancer, and she's at her best when she's in motion. When she sits around and talks, which is mostly what happens in this movie, she is not a commanding presence.

I will probably watch another episode to see if anything gets better, but I think the series is shaping up to be about a group of shallow, tiresome people, with no real direction.

Signora Volpe (2022– )

Pretty, but lacks credibility

[5/10 · 9 May 2022]

Emilia Fox is completely miscast in this role. At no moment is it possible for the viewer to think of her as a capable, badass spy. In addition, the script is stuffed with cliches. The spy headquarters is a glossy, high-tech wonderland where the government workers all dress like runway models. The spies are equipped with marvelous gadgets and are trained to be the equal ofJames Bond. In one scene, Fox drives like a professional stunt-car driver. The scenes of Italy are all gushy and lit with golden light.

Nothing in this series rings true. If you close one eye, and just look at the pretty pictures go by, you can just succeed in watching this.

Paris Can Wait (2016)

Memorable for its awfulness

[1/10 · 6 January 2022]

I will always remember this movie because it is one of the worst movies I've ever watched. The question that continue to come up to me while watching this film was "Why?" Why did they ever allow this movie to be made? The answer, of course, is that the writer/director is the wife of Francis Ford Coppola. Every day, much better scripts than this one get shredded and forgotten, but Hollywood paid real actors and production crew to film this. I suppose no one had the courage to tell her how misguided the project would be.

I guess that this film can serve a useful purpose if it can serve to instruct film students on the perils of funding rich people's vanity projects. Perhaps, one day, someone will make a satirical docudrama about the meeting of this movie. I would pay to see that!

Grantchester: Episode #6.5 (2021) Season 6, Episode 5

Good episode, but...

[8/10 · 24 November 2021]

This was one of the best episodes ever of this series, after a season that had been a slow burn up to now. That being said, the plot of the security truck robbery was totally absurd. The robbery didn't really make much sense. Why did they need the assistance of the librarian in hiding the money? She we the only witness, so why was the accomplice racing from the event, anyway? And why did the librarian signal the other two to come to their crime? The whole affair made no sense at all.

Wolfe (2021)

Didn't work for me.

[2/10 · 26 September 2021]

I'm surprised at the all of the glowing reviews I see here. I found this series lacking. First of all, the writing is not very good. The dialog rings hollow. None of the characters or their relationships ring true.

This series seems to be striving for the vacuous level of "glitz" that characterizes most American tv shows. The lab is ultra high tech, the tests are all amazing, the characters are like lab superheroes. I doubt that there's a lab that looks anything like this in Britain, or maybe in the world. Real labs are usually in an ugly basement and technicians don't just breeze through tests that appear in minutes.

If this sounds familiar, it's because it's the same setup that we saw in the CSI franchise, which eventually turned into a parody of a crime show.

Most British series focus more on acting and storytelling rather to rely on the kind of fairyland gloss that drives American tv. I hate to see British tv going down this path.

The Drowning (2021)

Really bad!

[1/10 · 19 September 2021]

The storyline is silly, but what really kills it is the bad acting. The female lead's acting is seriously over-the-top, and the male lead is stiff. I don't get the reviewers who think the acting is good. I stopped watching after 2 episodes.

Tenet (2020)

Terrible disappointment

[3/10 · 24 April 2021]

Attention: People of the future. I appeal to you to go back in time and prevent this movie from being made! Something went terribly wrong here. A lot of money and very good actors were wasted in making a movie that is poorly written, disorganized, incomprehensible and much, much too long.

Fargo (2014–2024)

Season 4 - Shark has been jumped

[8/10 · 23 March 2021]

This was a great series for the first 3 seasons. Now for season 4: The shark has been jumped. This season is terrible. The storyline is twisted and implausible. The attempts at humor fall flat. The dialog is very strained and awkward. The acting is mixed: Chris Rock and Ben Wishaw are good. The crazy Sicilian brother seems to have stepped in from a remake of the Three Stooges. The crazy nurse is just not funny.

Overall: terrible writing, terrible directing. Really a shame, since this series had so much going for it. Somebody made some very bad decisions this time.

35 Awr (2019– )

Mixed bag

[3/10 · 31 August 2020]

This series was very uneven in pacing and the plot was full of holes and unlikely coincidences. The ending was rushed and a bit of a train wreck. That said, some of the acting was good and the story had enough twists and surprises to keep me watching. Overall, I found it was worth the time spent, in spite of the flaws.

BoJack Horseman (2014–2020)

If I had a horse this lame...

[2/10 · 8 August 2020]

If I had a horse this lame, I'd have to shoot it. Watched part of the first episode and was deeply disappointed. Not funny. Predictable. Any 30 seconds of a Matt Groening cartoon has more humor than an entire episode of this. Maybe it gets better somewhere along the line, but I doubt it.

Knives Out (2019)

Very entertaining

[8/10 · 11 May 2020]

I don't understand the negative reviews for this movie. The dialog was brilliant. The cast was extraordinary. The setting was perfect and the plot was tight. I have no idea how people can claim to have been bored with this movie. Maybe some of the reviews are driven by politics, not esthetics.

Gone Girl (2014)

Really, really bad

[1/10 · 18 March 2015]

Some of the worst dialog I've ever seen in a movie. Bad story, flat acting. The critics who gave this good reviews should find other work.

I read the book, so I know what the story was supposed to be. This disjointed telling does no credit to the book.

I can't imagine how the director managed to get such terrible performances out of experienced actors. It's a real credit to bad directing. The only character who really clicks is the sister. Affleck looks like they already paid him, and he's ready to go home.

This movie had absolute no emotional impact. The characters were too flat and the dialog too unrealistic to have any effect. The storyline was poorly conceived.

The mostly positive reviews for this movie demonstrate, once again, how most people are not very observant or discerning about what they watch.

Falcón (2012–2013)

Interesting, but...

[6/10 · 4 March 2013]

There was a lot to like about this series, but it had issues, too. I agree with the other reviewer who complained about the English accents. This is par for British TV series set in foreign locales. They seem to think that their audiences won't like it if it's too "foreign", so they make little effort to make the characters look like the locals or even give them an accent. This is odd, because so many British actors are great in roles with foreign accents.

The other issue I had with the series is that I found it very hard to follow. Those who are intimately familiar with the novels probably knew what was going on, but I found myself at sea much of the time.

Otherwise, the photography and the locale were perfect. I doubt that there will be another season for this series, but if there is, I hope they provide a little more exposition to make it easier to follow.

Continuum (I) (2012–2015)

Really didn't like it

[2/10 · 1 December 2012]

I watched the first episode and really did not like this series. The main character seemed completely one-dimensional and the other characters about the same. The plot was instantly recognizable because it's the same plot that's been used in so many sci-fi TV series. Other shows have plowed this territory and done it much better.

This show seems to be like "The 4400" or "Minority Report", "Terminator", "V", "Blade Runner", etc, and those are just the first ones that come to mind. And this show doesn't hold a candle to any of those.

I don't understand why sci-fi writers can't come up with some more original ideas. It's a wide-open genre.

Also, the tough woman detective theme is also overworked. As always, I'm amazed that so many people like this show. Seems like a lot of mediocre TV shows succeed, while many good ones get canned.

Changeling (2008)

What a horrible movie!

[2/10 · 15 June 2012]

I do not understand how either viewers or professional reviewers could be so kind to this movie! I thought that it was one of the worst I've seen in a long time. Full of bad acting (the performances of the child actors were particularly awful) and soap-opera quality melodrama, this movie was a total disaster.

Did Eastwood get a pass from reviewers because he's old and respected? That's the only possibility I can imagine. This movie looks like a TV melodrama with its hand-held camera work and TV quality sound.

The story is over-the-top and the acting is just silly. Really, sometimes I wonder what IMDb users are thinking when they give out these high ratings!

Person of Interest (2011–2016)

Concept is silly

[3/10 · 28 December 2011]

I watched the first couple of episodes of this, but lost interest. My major problem with the show is that the concept is not believable. 1. The billionaire invents a system that records everything and can somehow intuit that something bad is going to happen, but can't tell you what. Very improbable all around.

2. The people involved expend a massive amount of effort to stop vague, undefined crimes from happening to a single person. What a silly waste of effort in the grand scheme of things. If Mr. Billionaire spent a similar amount of effort on things that really matter, he could conquer diseases or overthrow bad governments. Instead he obsesses about a single individual?

3. Reminds me very much of the "Without A Trace" series. Someone is missing for 6 hours and an FBI team is standing by, ready to make an heroic effort to find them. Sure thing...

If you're going to spend a lot of production resources and money on a major TV show, why not start with a premise that could actually be true!

Murdoch Mysteries (2008– )

Not for me

[15 August 2011]

I'm not sure where the glowing reviews here are coming from. I watched the first episode recently, and was very disappointed. The scripts are uninspiring, the dialog is wooden. That would be enough to sink this series, but the acting is really pretty terrible.

Add to that the low quality of the production values and this series really has little to offer.

The science presented in the series is moderately accurate, but not interesting enough to make up for the overall amateurish quality that pervades the program. This comes across as a production put on by a middling quality community theater production.

A good idea poorly executed. Watch for yourself and decide.

Murphy's Law (2003–2007)

Not for me

[26 July 2011]

I'm a huge fan of UK/Irish crime dramas and mysteries, but this one did not work for me. The Murphy character is a cartoon Irishman, shallowly- drawn and made of cardboard. The plots are pretty unrealistic. Murphy is like a character in an Irish joke, a jerk who can out-drink, out-seduce, out-daredevil anybody.

This series is one step above reality TV. I found myself wondering why I should care about whether Murphy gets killed or not. He didn't seem much more likable than the thugs he was out to get.

In every episode, he should, by all rights, be killed, but of course, he squeaks by every time. This series is all bravado and no brains. If you want something with a tiny amount of intelligence and plausibility, look elsewhere. For an Irish drama that's worth watching, I recommend "Single-Handed".

The Magnificent Ambersons (2002 TV Movie)

Really, sadly, awful

[18 January 2002]

Along with some of the others who've commented on this movie, I was very disappointed. The production values were high. Technical work was pretty good. The directing was the worst I've ever seen in a movie of this caliber. A&E wasted a lot of money on what should have been a good film.

I can't really fault the actors; I'm sure they did their best with director they had to work with. But the result was painful to watch.

This director appears to be a rank amateur. I think a film student could have done better. Here's an example: There's a flashback 20 years to when Isabelle (Madeline Stowe) and Eugene (Bruce Greenwood) were courting. The transitions to and from the flashback were so amateurish that we were 10 minutes into the flashback before I figured out that the timeframe had shifted! I've never seen a movie before where that was handled so badly.

The movie was so bad, that at no time was I able to relax and watch without wondering what crap the director was going to dish up next. Rhys-Meyers and Jennifer Tilly were so badly directed that they were painful to watch. George (Rhys-Meyers) character was such an obnoxious, immature, a**hole, that it was not possible to imagine that anyone would take him seriously or that Lucy (Gretchen Mol) would fall in love with him. I kept expecting the people around him to slap him silly.

Bruce Greenwood and Gretchen Mol struggled valiantly and were occasionally able to make something work, against all odds. Rhys-Meyers and Tilly were apparently out of their depth and without direction and they always pulled the movie back down. Madeline Stowe was lovely to watch, but she was doomed because she had to play off of Rhys-Meyers.

Rhys-Meyers and Tilly may have been mis-cast.

Hopefully the director, Alfonso Arau, will find another career or at least will abstain from movie-making until he goes to school and learns how it's done.