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Reviews
The Lincoln Lawyer (2022)
Who in the world writes this crap?
This show is a glitzed-up soap opera thinly disguised as a legal drama pretending to lean on character development to hook our interest. But why do I hate these characters as soon as I meet them? Is it because the the main character, "Mickey," has labeled his two former wives "First Wife" and "Second Wife" in his cell phone? Or because "Second Wife" walks around in leopard print leggings, turquoise, and too much makeup while obnoxiously treating 40-year-old-looking Mickey like a 15-year-old boy who is just learning to hold his first job? Maybe it's because everyone in the show - the detective investigating the murder that kicks off the series, the judge who assigns Mick his cases, the husband of a victim of grand theft who is indignant that a judge delays his testimony by 18 hours - I mean every vapid character presents themselves with an air of repulsive self-importance. Yes, it is all those reasons... and more! The dialog is nauseating. Do people in L. A. talk to each other like this now? Are there any writers left who know how to write lines for characters who DON'T sound like they're mugging for an audience? (The word I'm getting at here is "authentic.") Are there actors who know how to act like normal people who do not walk or drive down the street with a soundtrack accompanying their movements? Maybe I need to look back 20 years to find such talent.
I am sure the story as told in Connelly's book was interesting. It's a shame the creators of this show drowned the elements of interest in the absurdity and idiocy of the characters they have assaulted us with. Two stars instead of one because the production quality is good and it's always nice to see Neve Campbell.
The Prom (2020)
I was hoping for at least mediocre
The first 15 minutes made me think the movie was making fun of itself. The next two hours proved otherwise. It really is just a shallow, poorly-written musical. Let me save you that time and summarize the message for you: it's unacceptable to ostracize or belittle anyone for any reason... except Christians. It's okay to mock Christians.
Green Book (2018)
Best Picture???
How did this unoriginal snoozer win best picture? A movie like this hinges on character development, and these characters were poorly developed. Someone took a true story and crammed it into a cookie-cutter film about an unlikely pair and the racist south of the 1960s. You gotta do better than that, Hollywood. And the reviewers rating this anything better than a 6 need to go watch some good films. You can start with Driving Miss Daisy.
The Walking Dead: The First Day of the Rest of Your Life (2017)
What Happened to this Show?
Seriously, what happened? The writing was outstanding for the first five seasons. It was mediocre in season 6, but in season 7 it has been nearly unwatchable. Every episode was a slow, drawn-out ordeal, each of which could have been combined into a single 45-minute show that might have been at least distracted me from scrolling through my Facebook feed. You could have watched the first three episodes and skipped to the finale and not missed anything. I held out for the final episode hoping it would bring some closure, but all it brought was more banal dialog, time-filling flashbacks, and inaction. There was a fight scene that lasted eight minutes and resolved nothing. It's possible the entire season was written by a computer algorithm.
Anyway I still give the last dozen episodes three stars for the great acting and direction, but with the writing as bad as it's been it doesn't deserve any more than that. Too bad such a good show has deteriorated into just another mediocre advertising platform.
The Princess and the Frog (2009)
Not for 4-year-olds
I mostly agree with diaclaybo22's comments, except that I loved the music and that's what warranted five stars from me. Aside from that, the story was all over the place, and much of the movie was too busy, perhaps trying to figure out where it was going. My four-year-old daughter, who loves Disney "princess" movies like Little Mermaid, Snow White, Cinderella, and Aladdin, was frightened by the demon shadows and the alligator scene (before Louis reveals his gentler side). Maybe four- year-old girls aren't the target audience, but the scary scenes from other "princess" movies have been much tamer and shorter lived than what was in this movie, and none of them have ever been too scary for my daughter. Those scenes were very in-your-face and LOUD (but that might have been particular to the venue where I saw it, the Ziegfeld theater in NYC).
Anyway, just wanted to get that out there since there are so many comments praising this film and awarding it 10 stars (really? 10 stars for a mediocre cartoon? I can see giving an animated film like Wall-E a 10, but Wall-E makes Princess/Frog look like hackery.)
The Guardian (2006)
Worth seeing despite the 'unappeal' of Kutcher and Costner
I just came back from seeing an advanced screening of this film. Like many others, I was a little apprehensive about going to see an action movie starring Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner. Thankfully, the plot is good, the story well-told, and the main characters likable. There were good reasons to laugh, cheer, and I think I even heard some people sniffling at one point. My wife was not convinced about the love story between Fischer and the girl, but that was not really central to the movie.
I was a little disappointed that the story didn't tie into a real-life rescue. In all, it was a good and entertaining story, nothing spectacular, but a respectable tribute to the U.S. Coast Guard.