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Reviews
Road House (2024)
So bad
I didn't go into this with high hopes, but boy was I wrong about how bad it could possibly be!
The biggest issue I had with this remake/reboot/ripoff is that in the original movie, Dalton was a decent person. In this version, Gyllenhaal is a borderline sociopath. He plays the character one step above a serial killer. He's just not a sympathetic character at all.
Which brings me to the second biggest problem - none of the characters have any real depth. Jessica Williams' bar owner seems almost as shady as the bad guy. Daniela Melchior, as the doctor/love interest has zero chemistry, and Conor McGregor is cartoonish as the villainous henchman. I found myself simply not caring about what happened to any of these characters.
Finally, the story is such a basic, rich guy wants to run people off to build a resort for other rich people, that it could have been written by a middle school student. Sadly, even a middle school writer would have probably fleshed it out a bit more.
The only redeeming features were the little bits of humor mixed in, and the fight scenes weren't that bad.
The Paul Hogan Show (1973)
Wish someone would re-air this show!
I somehow discovered this show as a 12 year old kid in North Carolina in the US in the early 80s. I swear I think it aired on PBS, which also ran Benny Hill episodes at night. Although I remember laughing hysterically and loving the show, I really only remember two actual bits. One was the skits where he and Strop lived in a shack and would make toast by impaling a piece of bread on a nail in the wall and then using a blowtorch on it. The other was one of his monologues where he discussed his first date and kiss at the movies. He took a girl to a Tarzan movie and, following the romantic advice of some friends, basically botched the entire thing until he finally managed to stumble into the kiss. "I thought all me birthdays had come at once!". He told about trying to blow into the girl's ear, but forgot he had popcorn in his mouth and so blew a piece into her ear where it got stuck, and how he waited for a romantic scene to try to kiss her, but the only semi-romantic scene was where Cheetah had to give a drowning Tarzan mouth to mouth. LOL!
I'd love to see this show again somewhere, but I do also fear that it couldn't possibly live up to my memories of it.
Bama Rush (2023)
Nearly 2 hours of my life I'll never get back!
This "documentary" was an hour and 42 minutes long. Only about 15 minutes was actually about Rush. The director literally spent more time talking about her alopecia and being bald her entire life than she focused on the process of rushing.
The film follows 4 girls rushing and one girl who is in a sorority and bad mouths the system the entire time. I don't believe it's possible they could have found 5 more unlikeable candidates. One girl, Hailey, gets dropped almost immediately and spends the rest of the documentary talking about how she doesn't want to be in a sorority. But only because she found out she'd been blacklisted from every one.
As someone who has a daughter in a sorority at Alabama, I was really interested in seeing firsthand the process these girls go through. Instead, what I got was a director who obviously holds some type of grudge against anyone who is popular and part of a large group. Seriously, don't waste your time. I would have given it one star, but there was some unintentional comedy that bumped my rating up to 2 stars.
The Last of Us: Look for the Light (2023)
The finale is perfect!
Full disclosure - I've never played the video game, nor do I know much about it other than the general basis and that everyone who has played it has said that it is a masterpiece of story telling. So I don't know how true to the game the series is.
So many great series close the season with either a predictable ending, or a disappointing ending, or worst of all, a cliff hanger! The final episode of season 1 of The Last of Us is none of those.
I honestly cannot think of any other series that had such a beautiful, powerful, and yet, unexpected ending. Here's how great it was - as much as I enjoyed the season, and as much as I'm looking forward to season 2, I would be completely content if this was the end of the story! It simply could not have ended any better.
Rabbits (2017)
Interesting premise but...
I found this in a search for popular fictional podcasts and thought it sounded really interesting. It wasn't quite what I expected, but it definitely kept me interested I'll go over the good and bad aspects of the story, without trying to give anything away.
First the good. The story a really good premise. It's got some mystery and some supernatural aspects to it as well. It has some suspenseful moments without being at all scary. The main character, Carley, has a pleasant voice and does a nice job of acting. The support cast is also good.
Now the bad. And by bad, I don't mean Bad, just could be better. If you go into this with the idea that there's a definitive set of rules for the game, or a desire to know what the prize for winning is (or even HOW to win) you're going to be disappointed. You have to have an open mind and realize that the game isn't like any other type of game you, or anyone else, are used to playing. There's also a lot of quantum physics and theoretical physics they try to explain, but the majority of listeners aren't going to have a clue what they're talking about. The good news is that you don't need a working knowledge of either subject to follow the story or enjoy it, but it does sometimes bog the flow. And there's a stretch where the dialog is more of a commercial for the other podcasts from the same writer, as well as a book.
Personally, although I enjoyed the first season, I personally enjoyed the second season the most. It might be because by then I had a knowledge of how the story worked, and I didn't get too involved waiting for the game to be fully explained.
I do wish that aspects of the story were fleshed out or given more than just a cursory explanation, but it's definitely worth a listen.
The Old Man (2022)
First episode was amazing!
I hope the rest of this series lives up to the brilliance of the first episode! Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow haven't lost a step in their acting abilities. Can't wait for the rest of the season!
The Survivor (2021)
Difficult movie to watch
This was a very difficult movie to watch, and I can't honestly say that I enjoyed it. The acting, the cinematography, and the history were exceptional. But the story is, understandably, dark. Like the title implies, this isn't a story of triumph over evil - it's a story of survival.
You will understand why Harry did the things he did. And you will grieve for him. But it's so difficult to digest what he went through. I never found myself disliking him, because I can't imagine what his life was like. But neither can I invest myself in his story, because I can't imagine what choices he was forced to make.
You probably won't enjoy this movie, but you should definitely watch it.
The Battered Bastards of Baseball (2014)
Amazing and entertaining!
This isn't a story about baseball. This is a story about dreams, and faith, and family.
I'm not a baseball fan. But I am a fan of the underdog story - David vs. Goliath, USA Hockey vs. The USSR, Rudy. I can't begin to describe how much I enjoyed this documentary and how much I found myself rooting for a baseball team that ceased to exist nearly 50 years ago. All I can say is this - I don't believe I've ever given a movie 10 stars before, but this one earned every one!
The Wheel of Time (2021)
So disappointing in so many ways
First, a disclaimer. I'm currently only halfway through the 2nd episode, so there is the possibility that the series will get better, but I don't have high hopes for that actually happening.
To begin with, I read the series from the release of the first book way back in the late 80s. The series was amazing overall, although there were a couple of books that seemed to be nothing more than a rehash of things that had already occurred in the previous novels. And I remember that one of the books nothing of importance really happened. But the majority of the series was phenomenal! The characters were easy to like and the villains were easy to despise. And although by the end of the first book you knew what was ahead for most of the main characters, there were still plenty of surprises to come.
So far, I haven't found any reason to like any of the characters in the show. Whoever was in charge of casting either never bothered to read the first book, or was too worried about putting together a "diverse" cast and it bothered me from the beginning how wrong these actors were for their respective parts. Egwene is supposed to be a beautiful red haired girl. If you've read the books, you'll know how important that feature is to the story. Here they've cast a girl who appears to be Indian or Pakistani. And not only is her hair not red, she's very unattractive!
Rand, the center of the saga, at least has red curls, but he has no presence on screen. He reminds me of the guy that played Anakin Skywalker in the dreadful Star Wars prequel trilogy. He's whiny and annoying and honestly, I cringe every time I see him enter the shot.
The other characters thus far are serviceable, but none of them, other than Perrin and Moraine are close to how the books describe them. But thankfully, their appearances aren't vital to the overall story.
Speaking of the story, it has been butchered from the beginning! I'm not talking about minor differences here and there. I mean that integral portions have been bastardized or removed altogether! In the novels, for instance, during the initial trollac attack, Rand grabs his father's sword out of the fire and kills a couple of trollacs. But in doing so, both his palms are branded with the heron mark on the blade. These marks are a key portion of the prophecy and one of the first hints as to who Rand is, or will become. But in the show, this doesn't happen (at least not yet) and he doesn't have the brands.
Seeing how faithful Game of Thrones was to the major story lines of that series proves that you can produce a fantastic series without changing the important parts that made the novels so popular and powerful. Unfortunately, this series appears to be another, all to common example of a studio buying the rights to a beloved series, and then ruining it because they either didn't bother to discover why the books were so popular, or believing that they could somehow improve on the works of the original creator. And like the majority of of all those other "improved" versions, this one fails miserably!
La Brea (2021)
So disappointed!
I loved Natalie Zea in The Detour and was excited to see her in a new show. Unfortunately she's the only thing worth watching in this and she's not enough to save it.
The premise is interesting, but I could tell from the previews that it was going to be cheesy. To quote Bevis and Butthead, "The special effects aren't very special". I've seen other reviews compare the CGI to low budget SyFy channel shows. That might not be fair to SyFy, but it's not totally inaccurate.
The pilot episode was just plain bad. I doubt that I'll bother to watch any more episodes. I doubt it will make it a full season before it gets canceled.
Cry Macho (2021)
Nice story if you can get through the bad acting.
First thing first. The kid, Rafo, in this movie is just plain bad at acting! How bad? I kept thinking someone cut Greta Thunberg's hair really short and taught her a bad Mexican accent. Yeah, it was that bad!
The story was okay. I honestly thought about shutting it off during the first 30 minutes, but after that it's gets a little better. Honestly, I wish the story had more of their time in the little town in Mexico. That was the most interesting part of the movie. The rest felt like a bunch of different stories all jumbled together.
Feel free to watch it if there's nothing else on and you've got nothing else to do. But don't bother spending money to rent it or plan an afternoon or evening to watch it.
Stay Cool (2009)
Just not good!
There was very little to like about this movie. The two biggest problems were the main character, who had zero charisma, and the cringy relationship between a 37 year old man and an 18 year old high school student.
Mark Polish might be a fine actor, although I can't think of anything he's done that I remember seeing. But in this movie he was dull. I didn't feel anything for his character and I honestly couldn't care about him or his problems. His performance was the acting equivalent of watching grass grow.
The second problem was his relationship with Hillary Duff's character. First of all, why was he hanging out at the high school every day? He was just there to give the commencement speech. Does that require you to go to class when you graduated 20 years ago? Anyway, the whole "high school girl falls for an inappropriate older man" could have been entertaining and funny. Instead, even though he never acted on it, you get the feeling that he would have been happy to, if he wasn't worried about the scandal. The whole thing was creepy!
Winona Ryder was pretty bad as well, and Sean Aston's take on a gay character was far from Oscar worthy. In fact, nearly the entire cast was uninspiring, which is sad because this movie had some well known actors.
I would have rated this a 1 star movie, except that Hillary Duff actually did a good job. Her character stole the show. The music was also good, but there's no way I could give this turd more than 3 stars!
Freaky (2020)
Vince Vaughn at his best!
Simply put, this was an extremely enjoyable movie! Vince Vaughn was hilarious and the rest of the cast was solid. Definitely recommend it.
Jolt (2021)
It had so much potential
This movie had a lot of positives going for it - humor, action, an interesting character, and a fun premise. Unfortunately, what it didn't have was good writing and/or directing. The story moved along at such a fast pace that it was uninteresting and ridiculous. Lindy falls for a guy after what amounts to a walk through the city with a quick fast food dinner and a night of supposedly amazing sex. This alone is enough to turn a woman with an admitted inability to form emotional bonds into a woman willing to track down, maim and kill people who were responsible for the death of her date. Throw in a cop who can immediately recognize that she's really a good person who just happens to have extremely violent tendencies and trusts her to the point that he's willing to ignore her numerous attacks on his partner, a teenager with computer skills that not only allow her to hack into a locked phone in less than 10 seconds, as well as pull information from the internet faster than most people can open up a Google search, and Lindy's own abilities to track down the people responsible with no real leads in spite of her lack of any type of experience or investigative skills. To add insult to injury, both cops are completely willing to ignore the boatload of violent felonies she committed, because they knew she was a good person who only did what needed to be done. It just makes for a disappointing experience.
Again, it's not horrible. I really liked Lindy's character, and I would have loved to see more of her relationship with her therapist play out in the film. It might also have been interesting to see more of a relationship build between her and the cop instead of the half assed attempt we got. And would it have killed the writers to make her work just a little bit to track down the bad guys?
The movie was the cinematic equivalent of a nip slip. There's so much more that you want to see, and although you feel a tingle of excitement from what you got, that's all you are ever going to get.
The Wire (2002)
Absolutely amazing series!
Let me start by saying that I realize that I'm 15 years late to this show. For nearly 2 decades I've heard people rave about the series. But I've heard those claims about other shows that didn't live up to the hype, so I've always been skeptical about this one. I mean, even if it was groundbreaking when it was fresh, haven't we all seen more than our shares of cop shows?
Before I start gushing, let me tell you that I binged all 5 seasons in less than a week! It's ironic that much of the show deals with drugs and dealers and addicts, and the show itself quickly becomes an addiction of its own. I found myself staying up until 3 in the morning to get "just one more" episode in before I went to bed. I found myself unwilling to drag myself out of bed to even fix myself breakfast or lunch because I just HAD to know what was going to happen next.
The series starts a little slow, but by the 3rd episode I was all in. You quickly find that this isn't a good guys versus bad guys story. You may be surprised to find that you care as much about some of the bad guys as you've ever cared about any character. You'll also find that you despise some of the good guys. And then your emotions will do a complete 180 in just a few episodes.
This isn't a feel good series. There's happiness and disappointment. There's also a fair share of heartbreak. But rarely does it feel manufactured. Don't come in expecting the stories to all end nice and neat with a red ribbon on top. Like real life, you'll find that these lives are messy, and even when the characters win, there's usually a price to be paid.
I gave the series a 9 because as fantastic as it was, the 5th season dragged on more than any of the others. Personally, season 4 was my favorite, followed by seasons 1 and 3.
Vivarium (2019)
Weird. And not in a good way.
I don't really know what to say about this movie. Everything about it, from the strange beginning to the unsatisfying ending was just bizarre. Not a "Wow! This made me think" kind of bizarre, but a "WTF did I just watch?" bizarre. If you want to waste an hour and a half of your life on something pointless, do yourself a favor and count how many cars drive by your house and what colors they are. I promise you that you will get more enjoyment and enlightenment from that task than from watching this movie.
Amateur Night (2016)
Had potential to be funny
This is a textbook example of how Hollywood can screw up a really good story. This had the opportunity to be funny and entertaining and even touching. Unfortunately it didn't meet any of those goals.
I was hoping that we'd get a story that played out over a few weeks and let the characters grow into people the cared about. Instead we got a story crammed into a single jumbled night and tied everything up with a crappy bow at the end. The entire thing was just disappointing and flat. The few attempts at humor were either gross or cringe inducing in their awkwardness. It didn't elicit a chuckle, much less any actual laughter.
As another reviewer stated, it wasn't a bad movie - it just wasn't a good movie either.
The Tomorrow War (2021)
Good, solid, mindless fun!
If you're going into this movie expecting hard core sci-fi like 2001: A Space Odyssey, or Interstellar, you're going to be sorely disappointed. But if you're just looking to escape for 2 hours to action and a little bit of comedy, then this is a perfect movie to accomplish that. Think Independence Day or Aliens.
I do have a few minor criticisms though. First, I loved the comedy in the movie. It was witty and well timed. My personal opinion is that it could have used a little more of the Charlie character, and a lot more of JK Simmons.
Second, the ending, while decent, did have a bit of a cheap, easy way out right before the final conflict. I won't spoil it, but you'll recognize it when you see it.
Yeah, there are a few holes in the story, and what action movie would be complete without infinite ammo and no reloading? But again, this is a fun movie that is worth watching again.
Guns Akimbo (2019)
Surprisingly fun movie!
Will this movie make you sit back and think? No.
But will it open your mind to a different way of thinking? Also no.
But if you want to sit back and just enjoy the crazy ride, this is a good way to spend a couple of hours on a lazy afternoon!
The cast is talented. The dialog is funny. And the action is a balls to the wall, over the top thrill ride!
Again, I was shocked at how good it really was!
Without Remorse (2021)
Unwatchable garbage
I went into this knowing that it wasn't going to be just like the novel. I even accepted the fact that the bad guys probably wouldn't be drug dealers or the cartel. But what I couldn't have foreseen is how ridiculously unrealistic this would be!
Considering how accurate Tom Clancy's novels were, it's an insult to slap Clancy's name on this hot mess! From simple uniform mistakes, to ignoring that police dispatch would run the plates on a foreign diplomatic plates and allow their officers to pull over the vehicle and detain the occupants to the Hollywood staple of suppressors making firearms almost completely silent (even unsurpressed weapons were more quiet than a real suppressor would be) and many other ridiculous scenarios. Throw in the cheesy dialog and over dramatic acting, and this movie seemed more like a satirical comedy, minus the comedy, than a realistic action movie.
It would be more entertaining, and productive, to spend nearly 2 hours of your life rearranging the items in your pantry in numerical order by their UPC codes, than wasting that time on this movie!
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)
So disappointing
I grew up with Mr. Rogers in the 70s. And like most kids who did, as a teenager I started to think he was kinda hokey. It wasn't until later in life that I truly appreciated what I had understood as a kid.
Mr. Rogers was a special human being. He meant so much to me and thousands of kids like me. I was really hoping that this would be a tribute to what he accomplished and the battles he fought to get there. Instead, we got a over dramatized snapshot of a his life.
Tom Hanks did a decent job of looking like Mr. Rogers, but his attempt to mimic his speech was a little creepy. In fact, there were a few times during the movie that I caught myself comparing Hanks' Mr. Rogers to a psychotic manipulator. Definitely not the type of reaction that Mr. Rogers deserves!
The mov did have its moments though. The scene on the subway and the introduction of Daniel Striped Tiger come to mind. But overall, this was a movie that didn't need to be made.
Midway (2019)
Wasted opportunity
This movie had such potential. A majority of the history was accurate and I'm glad that the writers and director chose to let the history be the story and didn't try to cram some BS love story down our throats! (I'm talking to you, Pearl Harbor!) It was a shame that it was ruined by shoddy CGI and God awful dialog! Seriously, the Pearl Harbor scene looked like something more at home on a direct to video VHS than a potential blockbuster movie. And the dialog sounded like it was written by a 14 year old! To be fair, maybe the dialog had more to do with some of the subpar actors and their over dramatic acting, because the seasoned actors (Harrelson, Quaid, Eckhart and a few others) did a fine job.
Overall it was nice to see the history preserved in the telling, but overall it was a miss for me.
The Amazing Johnathan Documentary (2019)
So bad I couldn't even finish it
This "documentary" went downhill fast! From starting off as the story of the life of an entertainer who truly made me laugh out loud, to a bizarre competition between multiple different documentary crews, to a documentary about the guy making the documentary!
If I wanted to watch a documentary about Ben whatever the hell his name was, then this might have been good. But really, other than his friends and family, who cares?
I get that his documentary was submarined and maybe this is a brilliant telling of that story. But that's not what I wanted to see! It's like going to see the newest Star Wars or Avengers movie, and 15 minutes into it the film starts showing you the make up artists and costume designers and how they created the characters!
HUGE disappointment!
Father of the Year (2018)
Horribly bad!!!
Dear God! What a crapfest! David Spade continues his tradition of playing unfunny, unlikable losers. This is the movie that the CIA forces captured terrorists to watch, when all other forms of torture have failed.