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Reviews
The Last Thing He Told Me (2023)
Excruciatingly Idiotic Main Character
Ms. Garner is beautiful as usual. This is well lit, photographed edited, etc. But she (as the Executive Producer of this terrible production) and the writers and directors (and AppleTV+ too, I suppose) she hired to translate this novel to a series should be embarrassed to have perpetrated this idiotic mess on the public.
I've watched two episodes now and had to stop and give up after finding I couldn't stop yelling at the TV about how stupidly the main character was behaving and failing to make decisions to protect her basic well being. Her material surroundings indicate wealth, education, significant breadth of life experience, privilege (she lives on a designer appointed house boat in Sausalito), yet after being exposed to significant personal legal (and arguably physical) jeopardy for two full episodes now, she has yet to hire and retain a UNCOMPROMISED LAWYER to defend herself and her step-daughter. And she keeps going about her life as if nothing has happened and encourages her step-daughter to do likewise, even when the story hits the media about the girls father being a crook. She is informally interviewed by law enforcement but doesn't find it odd that they haven't tried to search their home for evidence of his crimes. And she keeps talking to law enforcement when they approach her without talking to a lawyer. Law enforcement have not cautioned her about this (of course they aren't obliged to unless they're going to arrest her but after repeated informal interviews they sometimes do). I know she talked to her ex boyfriend the lawyer. But he was hostile and she DIDNT actually hire him and he didn't advise her to stop talking to anyone but him as her attorney. And she crashed her missing husbands lawyers birthday party at the guys house to talk to him ... but crucially never did retain him herself or get advised to protect herself. And when he showed up at her home later and admitted to a gambling addiction, losses from which he blamed on her now missing husband ... she didn't get enraged or even say .. well I guess I'll need to hire my own attorney who represents me and my interests and those of my step daughter here. She just stupidly wanders away. Bad writing bad writing bad writing. Terrible writing. Don't expect viewers to believe characters who are just this stupid!
I could mention several other instances of just stupid clueless behavior (hiding money under a bed ... being told you're cryptically there's danger and doing nothing ... failing to notice the cops are watching you waiting for you to incriminate yourself to arrest you or reveal where your husband is ... etc etc) where the Hannah character (and to a lesser extent the step-daughter Bailey character) behave in unbelievably stupid ways that don't serve to protect themselves. But I think you get the idea.
I should also mention that the step-daughter Bailey's boyfriend seems culturally tokenish as well, having no actual characteristics of culture being portrayed by him ... but what's worse ... the depiction as it is he is uncomfortably older in appearance than the young girl he is supposed to have been dating for some time in high-school, where he is allegedly a senior and supposedly some sports god. He looks more like a thirty-year old accountant, and it just plays really weird, to be honest. Bailey ... you should be happy that weirdo is leaving and going across the continent to Duke. Let's hope he stays there ... dodged that one. Writers and producers ... try harder to cast better rather than trying to tick off boxes. Viewers care about more inclusion, but they also care about realistic portrayals or accurate life of the context being portrayed ... and people expect better than cynical box checking. That wasn't a high school kids' relationship it was weird Holloywood cynicism.
I finally had enough at the end of episode two when the writers thought it wise to put Hannah and Bailey both on a plane to Austin Texas to go on some wild goose chase like an investigating Miss Marple instead of simply going into San Francisco and hiring one of the many excellent criminal attorneys there who aren't her hostile ex boyfriend or her husbands gambling who has already told her he thinks her husband is guilty, or her husbands gambling addict libeling fraudster
Then there is the issue of Hannah's two multi-culti lesbian journalist friends. First of all ... we have multicultural check list tokenism here which if you watch you'll understand. No actual writing effort at all here. Just stick them in to check the multicultural virtue box; shameful. Next ... they're journalists Hannah. And you're talking to them about what for them is a huge story; a man accused of fraud and embezzlement has disappeared. And they're your "friends"? Hannah as you let them separate you from your step daughter to interview you separately while pretending its a "friendly supportive visit"? And you don't angrily throw them out of the house for all the questions they're asking pretending it's helping you figure out what happened? Come on Ms. Garner. You oversaw this thing. You are the executive producer and agreed to play a character who is so so unintelligent and unable to protect herself and her husbands daughter? This is just basic stuff. When someone near you is being investigated you don't talk to cops ... because they're also investigating YOU! And reporters are not your friends any more the moment you represent a story to them. Everyone knows this stuff. Don't ask viewers of a series to accept your beauty and pluck alone are going to carry this series across the finish line. The character is too stupid to accept.
If the rest of the series is going to be full of these kinds of repeated instances off stupid decision making that are required to move the story along then it's impossible for this viewer to continue. I suggest anyone with even passing intelligence give this series a hard pass.
Hello Tomorrow! (2023)
"fallout" aesthetic ... less than engaging storyline thus fer
I agree with another reviewer here that I'm pretty sure we're meant to be reminded of the "Fallout" video game series. Thus far after a few episodes it's kind of like "Fallout" before the occurrence of any global apocalypse having occurred, but it doesn't seem as if the show's creators are setting up such a calamity as a viewer expectation in this new AppleTV+ series. Unfortunately as yet the characters and storylines are less than engaging. Here's hoping we see improvement soon; the show is interesting to look at and the midcentury modern aesthetic combined with 50s sci-fi futuristic gizmos and technological advancement are appealing, but so far it's is lacking an interesting main motivating conflict or problem and it's hard to see where after a few episodes set-up such a major factor is suddenly going appear from.
NOS4A2 (2019)
Jumped the Shark Midway Thru Season Two
Construct an elaborate episode-long escape for the child protagonist from the clutches of the evil antagonist after said antagonist's evil assistant turns on his evil boss and helps the child escape by contriving in the story to have the assistant kill his boss and himself after a crisis of conscience. Then ... the kid just stops the whole process by which evil will be destroyed and merrily skips back into the clutches of the villain? I mean come onnnn! Fire this show's writers please. Ridiculous! When a horror plot works only by having the protagonists be too stupid to take an easy escape when it's available to them ... there's a word for that. And I won't type it here but you know what it is! This is the last episode of this hokey show I'll be watching.
The Piano (1993)
Beautiful Cinematography Throughout; A Promising Opening Scene; Terrible Thereafter
This movie is so bad, other than its cinematography, it's hard to believe it received so much praise at the time of its initial release, and continues to do so.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
I found none of the main characters sympathetic nor likable. Not even little Anna Paquin's character, Flora, the daughter of main character Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter); at a few occasions throughout the movie one felt the little girl Flora was consciously and with purpose trying to cause trouble for her mother and create turmoil and upset for the other main characters. Main character Ada McGrath was selfish, self-absorbed, angry, manipulative and seemingly uninterested in even communicating with anyone around her other than her daughter, and then only to express her demands, never to inquire about the feelings of anyone else. Rather than attempt to make it clear she was determined to get her piano back in some honest way, she immediately whored herself to her neighbor and cuckolded her new husband to reacquire it. Even her expression of "love" for the neighbor George Baines (Harvey Keitel) seemed only to be made as a means of effecting her escape from her arranged marriage. Husband Alistair Stewart (Sam Neill) was clueless, selfish, mean-spirited (for his own gain he traded away his new wife's treasured piano shortly after first leaving it on the beach rather than as well as committing his wife to teaching piano lessons on it within days of meeting her, after having first left it on the beach rather than make arrangements to transport it to their home!), a bit of a sicko (spying on your wife shagging your neighbor through cracks in a wall and from under the floor of your neighbor's house!), and he ultimately violently disfigured his wife in a fit of jealous rage. Neighbor Baines takes an immediate shine to his neighbor's new wife and spies a way to coerce her into his bed by trading for the wife's piano! Under the guise of wanting piano lessons he instead offers the piano back to his neighbor's wife in exchange for a long series (44 at first ... one for every black key in the piano!) of various demeaning physical intimacies and ultimately sexual favors! My how "romantic"! Ugh.
Lastly ... everyone in this movie sported such wretchedly poor regional accents that listening to the characters speak was cringe inducing. Only Sam Neill's voice could be heard without shuddering; while I'm not sure even he sounded quite right as a Kiwi, at least he sounded vaguely but authentically "of the British Empire" so you could at least mentally give him a pass. Little Anna Paquin's weird effort at a Scottish accent was all over the place. Harvey Keitel ... I don't know what the hell he was supposed to sound like but it was a mess. Even the "mute" character played by Holly Hunter spoke enough butchered Scottish accent inside her head that one wishes her inner voice was also mute.
I wanted to enjoy this movie because I remember how much praise it received when it came out. However even nearly thirty years later, and on my second viewing now, I found it even worse than the first time around, which unfortunately I guess I didn't recall before starting watching it tonight to pass the time during this year's "COVID19 / Corona Virus" pandemic enforced "social distancing" and working from home.
Summary: Beautifully Shot. Otherwise Horrid.