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Reviews
Arrested Development (2003)
Comedy for smart people.
I love stupid stuff, too, but this show blew past most people. Understated, hilariously funny, and smart.
From the first episode, it never plowed the same ground twice. Story lines piled on story lines, with unique trajectories for each character that held up from episode to episode, and took unexpected and very funny turns.
That it was cancelled before it got to syndication numbers means far too few people will ever know about it. If you haven't seen it, track it down and stick with it.
The only thing I can compare it to is Schitt's Creek. That series took a few episodes before I liked it but it was worth it.
Band of Brothers (2001)
Second watch is just as good.
I watched this when it first came out and it's just as amazing 22 years later. It set the bar for all WW2 movies or series after it. It's as moving and expansive as Saving Private Ryan and it pulls no punches even though it was made for the small screen.
It's a must watch. You'll see your dad, grandad and even great grand dad in it as they selflessly fought to free Europe from fascism.
The interviews with the real men represented onscreen, for me, is the most moving part of the series. True Americans, each and every one of them.
Do yourself a favor and watch this 10 hours of some of the most amazing TV ever made.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
Still fresh 13 years later.
I just rewatched this for the first time in years and I laughed out numerous times.
It's highly original with cues taken from pop culture but those cues are brilliantly reimagined with inventive images and incredibly fun pacing, dialog and cinematography.
Each part is cast with the perfect actors and actresses who play their characters to the hilt. This is no holds barred fun, even for us old farts.
I just bought the soundtrack after the most recent listen and it's still fresh. The music written for the movie is great with or without the movie but they come together to make the best combination in a genre they created and perfected.
Oh yeah, it's even better after a hefty edible. Straight or high, it's a blast.
The Tomorrow War (2021)
An avalanche of cliches
I love a good sci-fi/alien flick any day of the week but this was awful. They crammed so many cliches and terrible dialog in that it defies the very laws of quantum physics.
In fact, a panel on quantum physics made up of community college dropouts still living in their mom's basement at 52 would be more entertaining than this cut and paste of every sci-fi flick from the last 30+ years, admonition that just because you can, doesn't mean you should, slop.
Take capable actors, a ton of "seen it a thousand times" CGI bad guys, overly earnest delivery, time traveling nonsense, and a script right out the hands of some movie producer's nephew who "wants to be a writer," and you get this awful waste of resources.
Everyone involved should bow their heads in shame. It was truly awful and I was high while watching it. It's that bad. So bad that a healthy buzz couldn't make me forgive its sins.
5-25-77 (2008)
For Star Wars fans and more
Johnson has finished his ode to film making, friendship and family. The missing spots from the version shown in some theaters a few years ago have been filled in with care and love.
If you want to see a movie largely filmed more than a decade ago but kept alive by passion and drive, then give 5-25-77 a look.
It makes all us first generation Star Wars a bit melancholy about our younger years when we were trying to figure out life and what we faced as we approached adulthood. Star Wars nerds should take a little trip down memory Lane and enjoy a look back.
It is at times funny, dramatic, sweet but always heartfelt.
Congrats to PRJ for finishing his dream.
How I Met Your Father (2022)
Charmless and banal.
This is what happens when very talented and experienced people decide that something like writing and producing a hit sitcom is easy.
This hits all the wrong notes at all the wrong times. The characters are flat, predictable, too often shrill, and would still be bad if it wasn't trying to fill the shoes of a dearly loved, and remarkably well done, sitcom.
It's simply bad. None of the people feel real. The interactions and characters aren't genuine in any way and the setups for laughs are as predictable as a Tim Tebow pass. Telegraphed, clunky, and misses their marks over and over again.
Jam packed with one of every group out there to cover every single demo in ways that wreak of contrivances rather than true life, this is nothing more than one long swing and a miss.
Ted Lasso (2020)
We love it.
For some reason, I feel better after watching it. It's like having a glass of warm milk and the best chocolate chip cookie out there.
Lasso's upbeat outlook is just what I need to see while trying to get along in this crazy world.