Reviews

The first three episodes were good. They set up the major story arc and got me interested in the characters. But with episode 4, things became cartoonish. It wasn't unwatchable, just not very good. The final episode featured a deus ex machina for one of the characters that really bugged me to see (no spoilers, watch for yourself and get disappointed). The ending seemed more of a set up to a second season than a firm resolution.

Rhys Nicholson is horribly miscast in this series. Seriously, ANY other actor on earth would have done a better job in the role. Inaki Godoy had all the acting chops of a high school student reading his lines from a script, and mumbled his way through too many scenes. The rest of the cast were okay, given the material they had to work with.

Some of the plot elements were resolved a little too quickly and with little explanation. Others could have been resolved with just a sentence or two from one of the characters, but got blown into crises.

In all, it was decent but not memorable. Typical Netflix fare these days, unfortunately. If they make a second season of this, I doubt I'll watch it.

This series mixes Stranger Things, a decidedly non-canonical Sherlock Holmes, and a touch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's a hodgepodge of non-sensical plots with inexplicable characters set in Victorian England but using dialog right out of 2020 USA.

It checks all the boxes: "Girl With Special Powers", "Paranormal/Occult Activity", and "Well-known Literary Figure Rewritten". What it doesn't do is hold together.

As a period piece, the scenes are well done. But there are too many other things wrong with it to make it worth the time.

Having seen the commercials for Young Sheldon over the past month, I came to watch this series with low expectations. But no matter how low I set the bar, Hollywood manages to limbo under it. Sheldon Cooper is perhaps the most annoying, egotistical character in the history of network television. And yet, someone thought a show about this character as a snotty young boy would be a winner.

I didn't laugh a single time while watching the pilot. I didn't feel any empathy at all for Sheldon, nor any of his family (except maybe a little for his mother). Plot points were so predictable they once appeared in Johnny Carson's Karnak sketch.

I will give credit to the director, who got Zoe Perry to sound exactly like Laurie Metcalf does in The Big Bang Theory. But that's not enough to carry an unfunny comedy with thoroughly detestable characters.

A truly awful episode. The characters are no longer funny, the situations are strained, and it's getting to the point where even the laugh track won't laugh. The show is now all about relationships, and the relationships have become stagnant, unoriginal, and vapid.

The shows are being fragmented into three parts now, leaving none of the parts with enough meat to create a good story. It's happened in other ensemble-cast shows, and now it's happening with BBT.

I have visions of Leonard and Sheldon stumbling upon a secret room in the basement at Cal Tech, and finding a million monkeys on typewriters, knocking out Big Bang Theory scripts.

The 10th season premier was better than the final episode of the 9th season, but that really isn't saying much.

The re-wedding plot line was dull, uninspired, and largely unwatchable. Perhaps Penny's family would have been easier to accept had the show cast better actors in the roles. The interplay between Leonard's parents and Sheldon's mother was even worse than Penny's family. Even worse was the reaction of Howard and Raj to the visit by the Air Force officer.

This show has gone so far adrift, it's lost sight of land. The writers no longer remember what made the characters funny and special, or what made the show itself smart.

In a fitting end to a terrible season, this dull and insipid episode offered little in the way of resolving plot lines and nothing in the way of entertainment. The writers have been mailing it in for the last two seasons, and this episode does not depart from that trend.

Howard kvetches about the Air Force contacting him over the gang's invention. Bernadette continues to be shrill. Penny added absolutely nothing to the show, as did Raj. Sheldon and Leonard spent the episode acting as if their shoes were too tight.

I hope the producers can find some way to breathe life into the show next season, but I am not optimistic. This show used to be witty and funny, but now it seems that the characters have nothing else to say.

This was an awful horror movie!

The plot is virtually non-existent: two kids act stupid, then everybody gets shot or eaten.

There was no real suspense, anyone could plainly see what was going to happen. Logic seems to have flown completely out the window: if the kids might have been carrying a genetic resistance to the disease, and this was so darned important, why didn't the doctor bother to tell the kids just in case someone else found them?????

The acting was wooden, the kids weren't at all believable, the soldiers were about as deep as the soldiers on Toy Story.

There was absolutely nothing to redeem this movie. My only relief is that I saw it on cable TV, and didn't pay 9 bucks to see it in a theater.

Sorry, this badly-written sequel was neither horrifying nor suspenseful: it was simply horrible.

What a colossal waste of time!

As someone else noted, this movie is trying to be "The Breakfast Club"-meets-"Ocean's Eleven", but it falls well short of the mark.

I've never encountered a film in which I was thoroughly annoyed by the central character less than 5 minutes into the plot. So, I guess "The Perfect Score" broke some new ground for me. But the central character's incessant whining about the SAT and how unfair it was to subject us to this standardized test, blah, blah, blah...well, you get the idea. If he'd spent as much time studying as he did whining, he would have gotten a better score in the first place. And did anyone else think it would be unnerving to live in a building designed by an architect who (a) apparently didn't know math and (b) resorted to cheating rather than hard work?

The movie got even more annoying as each character was introduced. The initial shot of Francesca, where the camera pans up from her panties, was just creepy. This is a high school girl...people go to jail for doing that on the Internet.

The writers had a little trouble with math on their own. Kyle was introduced as having a 3.7 GPA and 105th in his class (out of 284); his friend had a 2.3 GPA and was 175th in his class. That made little enough sense, but then Francesca was shown as having a 3.7 GPA and 34th in the class. The grading at that high school must be interesting.

I know I'm nowhere near the target audience of "The Perfect Score", so maybe my opinion doesn't mean much here. But the thing that bothers me most about it is that teen-agers, to whom this film is aimed, will see it and agree with all its sanctimony.

Nothing spectacular in Disney's latest attempt to turn one of their theme park rides into a movie. I pray that "It's a Small World" is never filmed, but I digress.

Eddie Murphy is good in the leading role, but his wife looked way too young for him. Special effects were pretty good, and almost made up for the flimsy plot.

But did anyone else notice that this movie was set in Louisiana (the ride at Disneyland is in the part of the park called The French Quarter, and the cars had Louisiana license plates) and not one character had a Louisiana accent? Not even the guy who'd lived all his life in the mansion?

Mindless entertainment, nothing more nor less. 4/10

Dr. Seuss books just don't lend themselves well to live action movies. The live action version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas was awful, mostly because the padded scenes LOOKED like padding. There isn't enough of a story in Seuss's books to make a feature-length movie, and really not even enough to make a 25-minute TV show.

But add some good animation and the music of Allan Sherman, and you have a winner. I'll be watching THIS version for many years, not the dreadful Mike Meyers version.

This is the best film I've seen in 2003, and it's set a very high standard for others in the Oscar competition.

The racing scenes were the best ever filmed. That's not saying much, since there haven't been very many movies about horse racing (Phar Lap and Let It Ride come to mind). But the director made us feel as if we were in the midst of the race, watching jockeys hurl insults at each other and then guide their mounts around the field.

The movie starts slowly, braiding three separate threads -- the lives of the main characters -- into one string; woven into the string is the narration. Eventually, the three threads are inextricably woven together into one, and woven around the horse that brings them together.

The main character represent far more than the lives they portray. Charles Howard is the epitome of optimism, never losing his hope for the future. And he is singularly serendipitous, finding value in unnoticed things: first automobiles, then Tom Smith. Tom Smith is the individualist, the loner, the go-it-your-own-way outcast; he is uncomfortable among humans, almost resentful of their intrusion into his wide-open West, and you can see his discomfort in his face in every scene. Red Pollard is the out-of-place fighter; he struggles for acceptance, for respect, and he never stops fighting even when badly outmatched. He is beaten again and again, and still comes back with a stronger resolve each time. The three men together represent America itself, and their coming together with Seabiscuit as their catalyst represents the beginning of the nation's emergence from the Great Depression, the beginning of hope.

The match race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral is more than a race between two horses, it is a quest for legitimacy. And it seeks legitimacy not just for Seabiscuit (whose owners want him recognized as the great horse that he is), not just for West Coast racing, but for the West Coast of American society, for this is the age when the West grows up and takes its rightful place.

Some movies are merely about sports. Some movies, such as Chariots of Fire and Seabiscuit, transcend their settings and come to mean more than any sport. Seabiscuit is not just about a great racehorse and the lives he touched, it is about the indomitable American spirit, defeat and triumph, failure and redemption.

10 out of 10.

I loved the original Legally Blonde, and I knew going into this movie that it wouldn't be as good as the original. My only solace lies in the thought that this could have been so much worse than it was.

First, LB2 relied too much on the Elle-Woods-Fish-Out-Of-Water plot. It should have portrayed the main character as being savvy enough to take advantage of the fact that her opponents always underestimated her. After all, she's been out of law school a couple of years already, surely she'd have learned that much, right?

Second, the plot itself was too contrived. There wasn't a single believable character in the show, and Witherspoon was just a caricature of the original movie's heroine.

But I still managed to enjoy most of the show. I even chuckled in a couple of scenes. But I winced at far too many other scenes, and the climactic speech to Congress was abominable.

I've seen worse remakes than this, but I think the producers missed an opportunity to make a good film instead of a knock-off.

I absolutely loved the original Spy Kids, but this sequel was beyond terible.

The plot was inane, but you don't go into a kids' movie expecting a great plot. The acting was just plain bad: the kids rarely showed any emotion, the adults were completely unbelievable, and Antonio Banderas looked like a man who had gotten onto the wrong plane -- like he wanted out of there, but knew he had to stay until the flight was over. The homage to Harryhausen was dopey and poorly executed. The reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark would have been lost on the target audience of this movie (that is, kids); I caught it, but my kids didn't.

Beyond all that, though, I thought the movie was just a bit jaded. The gadgets in the first movie were collectively a great plot device because the kids mirrored the audience's bewilderment at the unkown world of spies presented to them. But in the sequel, the kids seemed to take their world and its gadgets for granted, like it was a birthright rather than an amazing journey.

Studios these days seem to follow the same pattern: come up with a somewhat interesting new idea in films, release sequels of that same idea until the sequels are so bad that they go straight to video. Based on this movie, I'm praying Spy Kids 3 is straight-to-video.

If there were any justice in the universe, the creators of this movie would be rounded up and burned alive on top of all existing copies of this incredibly stupid waste of celluloid.

The ONLY good thing in the movie is seeing the twins topless, but even that couldn't make me watch this movie again.

Excellent score, and some of the best sword fights you'll see on film. The acting is adequate, but nothing to write home about. An impressive film visually, even if the plot is a bit thin. In all, it's worth seeing a few times, if for no other reason than to listen to the score.

Let me say off the top that I've been a fan of thoroughbred racing for over 30 years.

I loved this movie! Dreyfus was perfect as the addicted gambler who really wanted to stop but found what all gamblers dream of: the one day when he couldn't miss.

Robbie Coltrane was his usual superb self as the ticket seller, and his interaction with the lead was some of the best comedy you'll see.

The bar scenes were remarkably true-to-life. I could almost feel the smoke and grease settling on my skin as I watched that sorry collection of losers lament their fates, none of them realizing that they created the very fates they lament.

The depictions of the Jockey Club members seemed dead-on as well, especially when they all got jealous of the hero's amazing run of luck.

To me, the funniest part was where Trotter was asking everyone in the grandstands which horse they were backing, and then betting on the one horse they didn't choose. Absolutely priceless!

I had a few complaints about the movie, though. The whole film seemed a bit sleepy, as if the early-morning track scenes set the pace for the entire day. The crowds at the finish line weren't anywhere near as enthusiastic as they should have been at the end of the races (go to any major track any day of the week and see for yourself). The math used in calculating the winning odds didn't seem to add up (that's a real nit-pick, I know). Finally, the end of the last race seemed anti-climactic. Even if Trotter did know he was destined to win, neither he nor Pam looked anywhere near as happy as they should have been over winning a few hundred thousand dollars.

Still, this movie is great fun. Every time I watch it, it feels fresh and comfortable, and there aren't many movies I can say that about.

You could be walking around lucky, and not even know it :)

This was supposed to be a comedy, albeit a dark one. It ended up being singularly unfunny, and painful to watch. How many times do we have to see people in the bathroom? Why on earth did the writer or director think that was funny? The number of people killed or maimed or otherwise tortured was numbing. Some movies make me sorry I wasted the time watching them. This movie made me ashamed for those involved in its production.

This is one of the best films I've ever seen. Paul Scofield's performance is masterful, he commands full attention whenever on camera despite an understated demeanor. I could sense his rage at the weakness of his peers and his fear of what was to come in every line he gave. But to say that this movie was about divorce is to say that "Psycho" was about hotel keeping. The theme of this movie is integrity: how deeply do you believe the principles upon which you guide your life? How easily do you bend to popular will? And how do you do what you know down to the very essence of your existence is the right thing, when all the powers of the world would have you do otherwise? Thomas More tries forge his own way, content to let the world go astray without preaching to it. But the world was not content to let More alone. And as much as Thomas tried to resist change, the world would not let him remain unchanged. And so More paid with his own life rather than betray his deepest beliefs. How many of us could be so firm in our resolve? Not many. And that is what makes this film so powerful: it portrays a man whose own character was bigger than that of the rest of the world combined.

The Bishop's Wife is not just a great Christmas movie, it's one of my favorite movies of any kind. The story line carries the message of not getting so caught up in the world's distractions that you forget who you are; such a message could be told with heavy-handed preaching, yet this movie is funny where it needs to be and warms even the most cynical heart to its moral.

Cary Grant is superb (I firmly believe that you might see Cary Grant in a bad movie, but you'll never see a bad Cary Grant), playing the angel who knows exactly what the bishop needs, but connives to have the latter discover that on his own.

David Niven is great as the formerly idealistic preacher who has become so pragmatic as to sacrifice his own beliefs and in so doing hardened himself to the simple joys of life and love.

Loretta Young is the epitome of goodness, bringing joy wherever she goes, but there is a bittersweet quality to her as she realizes just how far she and her husband have drifted apart.

Monty Wooley plays an old curmudgeon to the hilt, representing so much of the world that considers itself too sophisticated for Christmas, yet seems to be deeply troubled that his life has strayed so far into cynicism.

Dudley makes each of them whole again, and though none of them remember him, his mark on them is readily apparent.

This movie is sweet without being sappy, simple without being idiotic, and reverent without proselytizing.