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Reviews
Training Day (2001)
Asinine plot
No hardened corrupt cop (Washington) would involve an outsider (Hawks) in shenanigans like those in the movie. There is almost no potential upside to it, yet massive potential downside.
Many events were too outlandish & farcical for a movie that was ostensibly gritty.
A completely ridiculous premise & execution.
Murder, She Wrote: Death 'N Denial (1995)
Poor episode
The logic behind Jessica's deduction was ridiculous. Jessica suspected the killer because of where the killer stood during a re-enactment of the crime, but the place where the killer stood seemed a place where anyone would have automatically stood during a re-enactment.
Monk: Mr. Monk and the Panic Room (2004)
Abysmal
A terrible episode.
The mystery was nonexistent. Besides the culprit being immediately obvious (which is true for most Monk episodes), competent police would have found the crawl space when examining the panic room.
The character moments were ludicrous & annoying: Monk panicking in the panic room. Monk letting Darwin trash his place. Monk putting up a for sale sign. Monk calling Darwin everything but a chimpanzee. Randy giving the Captain a loaded gun. Randy searching Sharona's place like he was in danger. The Captain not checking if the gun was loaded. The Captain acting like a fool with Darwin & not talking to others when they were trying to warn him about loaded gun. Sharona chastising Benji for defending a kid being picked on. No one but Sharona caring that Darwin fired once, randomly, which is nothing like 4 on-target shots. The culprit falling for "we can't move the recording device because it might damage the chip". Etc.
Farscape (1999)
Abysmal
Everything about the first episode of this show is abysmal: acting, dialog, costumes, muppets, sets, plot, music, special effects, characters, etc.
In other shows, cheap & at times cheesy can be pulled off well, feeling like a true universe despite budget & technical limitations, e.g., classic Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, Babylon 5, etc.
Farscape just feels cheap, childish, and cheesy.
The banter & humor are banal. The exposition dumps are completely forced. The soundtrack is completely inappropriate & uninspiring.
Avoid at all costs.
Badlands (1973)
Complete waste of time
There is nothing interesting about this movie, except for some humorous musical selections.
The only good thing about this movie is that it inspired later, much better films like True Romance.
Badlands is devoid of interesting characters, situations, cinematography, character development, etc.
A movie isn't intellectual just because it is devoid of any semblance of enjoyment. All of the supposed intellectual questions from this film (what motivates someone to be evil? to flout civilized decent society?, etc.) can be found in mainstream fare, but embedded in stories that are exciting, with enthralling characters, memorable scenes & dialogue, etc.
e.g., in the original Star Wars trilogy, the root motivations of the evil characters are just as opaque as those of the murderous couple from Badlands. Why do Darth Vader, the Emperor, Tarkin, etc., crave dominion over others? Who knows? Why would stormtroopers, TIE pilots, etc. enforce a repressive regime? Who knows? Why can't stormtroopers ever shoot straight & kill the heroes? Who knows? Why is Badlands pretentious & boring, while the Star Wars trilogy's a collective masterpiece? Because the former lacks an interesting plot, characters, dialogue, visuals, and purpose, while the latter has them in spades. Why do self-proclaimed cineasts love Badlands and hate the Star Wars trilogy? Because they are so desperate to be different that they hate popular films and love obscure films, and because they can only discern "intellectual" ideas once all fun has been stripped away. Non-cineasts, however, are smart enough to either ignore juvenile intellectualism, or can understand themes without enjoyment occluding their senses.
Arrival (2016)
Completely asinine
Arrival purports to be intellectual sci-fi, but intelligence is completely absent from this horrendous, tedious train wreck.
If advanced aliens who can see the future arrive peacefully at earth in a film supposedly about communication, intelligence, temporality, & consequences of decisions, the aliens should be sensible enough to realize that:
- hovering menacingly incommunicado over another planet isn't a smart way to initiate friendly contact
- they should wait to contact humans until they have deciphered human communications by analyzing our electromagnetic transmissions, possibly with additional information gleaned by discreet probes sent to Earth
- they should be able to shortcircuit the above by looking into the future to the time where they already know human languages & communication protocols, and therefore wouldn't even have to spend the time researching human communications from scratch
Why would aliens who can see the future need anyone's help? Shouldn't they be able to devise solutions to detected future problems?
Why is a colonel seemingly in charge of one of the most important interactions in US & human history?
Why didn't anyone berate the future-seeing advanced aliens for not preventing untold human suffering in the past?
Why would a future-seeing alien allow itself to be needlessly killed?
Why would Any Adams not tell Jeremy Renner about their future daughter's disease, and why wouldn't she do something to prevent or combat it?
How can reading a language give someone the ability to see the future? Knowing how a bird flies doesn't allow one to fly.
How could Amy Adams not know in the future that the Chinese general told her the info to secure his cooperation in the past.
Why would any non-sadist help inflict this terrible movie on others by giving it a good review?