Reviews

The main problem with this rehash of the 2 Ripley classics is not the odd black and white decision (in colorful Italy!) It is the casting. Tom presents as a man in his 40s to 50s, much older than the part needs. He looks worn and weary with eye bags and receeding hairline. He huffs and puffs up those the stairs. There is little that is glamorous or sexy about him. This throws all of his relationships into disbelief -- especially with Dickie, his (supposed) contemporary and object of his desire.

Homoeroticism is a core component of the vastly better first 2 films and novel. Alain Delon is perhaps the sexiest actor of his generation, with his icy blue eyes and criminal undercurrent. Matt Damon brought the perfect blend of preppy golden boy with master manipulator. Jude Law is the best Dickie, and Gwyneth Paltrow the best Marge. Both nail the breezy, upper class marks critical to the story. The rest of the cast in the Damon classic is equally superlative.

The question then is, what were they thinking with this latest cast? Almost everyone is miscast. The casting decisions make this version dull and drab, without any of the spark of the two classics. The actors are all fine, they are just wrong for this rehash. It's like remaking Cat On A Hot Tin Roof without actors that can match the beauty and talent of Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman.

Anyway, why even try to attempt a remake of a classic? The audience is better served by watching the 2 outstanding originals. (And they're shorter!) Don't waste your precious time.

The first 20 minutes of this project are OK. It feels like a fast moving fantasy film of medium quality, with good visuals of castles, ocean voyages, and palace interiors. The acting seems forced, even by the skilled actors, but that bit of amateurish technique doesn't hinder the arc of the first segment.

Then: SCREEEEECH! All of the film's intro segment skids to a stop when the Princess gets tossed into a dark cavern with a dragon. The next hour and a half is her stumbling around in the dark, in sequence after sequence of boring and meandering attempts to escape. It was so dark and pointless I lost all interest in how the film turned out, and fell asleep several times to the sounds of 11 doing her Stranger Things cry for help (which is a MUCH better project in every way).

When I awoke there were some bad CGI segments of the dragon, and then PUFF! It was over. It leaves you wondering if the production ran out of money or something. In sum, this odd Jeckyl and Hyde mash-up doesn't work and should probably be avoided. Stick to the fantasy classics that all have great stories and consistent momentum.

This poorly conceived project by the self- aggrandizing Guy Ritchie has many of the trademark Ritchie tricks, and that is the problem. Fussy edits, slow motion shots, split screens, and the like were not new when Ritchie used them a generation ago to try to gain fame. In fact most of his tricks had been abandoned by directors as the marks of a B-movie hack without any real creativity or talent. Ritchie should have taken his cue back then.

Now we get the bag of tired tricks in an overlong series that loses its momentum very early, as in the second episode, and runs out of steam completely by the third. There is shockingly little character development, even in the major roles, and the thinnest of plots to tie together all the randomness.

And then you realize that was always the problem with Ritchie. All his fussy hand waving film gestures exist to distract the audience from the void of basic storytelling at the core of Ritchie. It all feels empty and tired, like a badly rehashed music video to a vapid 90s song. Life is too short to be forced to see Ritchie's bad crap again and stretched into 8 painful hours that go nowhere. Run!

This is paint-by-numbers, boilerplate TV detective writing. When things get boring, which is often, you can count on some hammy and phony melodrama to make things more 'tense.' The detectives quarrel, a suspect melts down, or someone escapes through a bathroom window to run off (I'm serious). The story takes forever to get moving and lift off, and when it finally does the writer interjects a bunch of flash backs to the 19th century (never a good sign) and a vague bunch of people having their own hammy melodramas, which loads the story down again. There are a lot of scenes where nothing happens. The anti-Mormon stuff is as subtle as a 2 x4, hitting the audience over the head, telling us what to think rather than allowing us to come to our own conclusions. And non-Mormons like me won't understand a lot of the odd phrases used, which also makes the plot confusing. Finally, the tip-off that the writing is subpar is an overbearing soundtrack that gets 'tense' or 'gloomy' when the story should be naturally. Despite the bad writing, story, pacing, plot, etc., the actors try hard to make us care about this big mess, so I've given this project a few stars on their behalf. Even the good Andrew Garfield, however, is betrayed by bad dialogue and poorly written scenes.

You know you're in for a fun evening when you get to see Julia Roberts turning in the best portrayal of a "Karen" character of any year since the term went viral. Setting aside her natural charisma, Roberts inhabits a deeply misanthropic woman. She hates people, and you believe this woman. Her voice, actions, an demeanor all prove her point. And it creates tremendous tension with all the other characters. Mahershala Ali is her opposite, trying to help everyone "just get along," which winds up causing just as much tension as Robert's character. Rounding out the cast are perennial favorites like Ethan Hawk and Kevin Bacon, both superb, along with the kids, all of whom add their own unique tensions to the unfolding drama. Does their situation make sense? Of course not, that's not the point. Watching top notch actors playing flawed characters in a crisis who get under each others skin -- that is the true joy of this thriller.

I enjoyed this series mostly, as it presents characters that are rarely seen on Netflix. As written, these aren't stock characters we've watched so many times they have lost their impact. They are complex: sometimes beautifully transcendent, other times childish and frustrating, yet always interesting. The three main characters, all young (and well acted) and around which the coming of age story revolves, are full of surprises and reversals. The parental characters are less well developed and frankly do not add much interest to the story or the plot. And that is a problem, for the show slows and falters when attention is not on the teens.

If the story had been cut back, reduced to a 2 hour film instead of an over-long series, and focused only on the teens, this would have been a really steller show. Sometimes a good story does not need to be extended into a series, and benefits from the rigor of editing out extraneous side plots. I'm looking forward to seeing these actors in other productions.

This series is worse than a predictable old slasher film, where the teen hears a noise and goes to check it out - in the basement! Here a a bad Nazi jeweler pulls a gun on a waiter demanding info. He's weak, sweaty, mouthy, and seated a few feet away eating oysters as he counts to 10. In short, there's ample time for the waiter to kick the gun out of his hand and live. Instead he stands still like a stooge, is shot, and killed. This kind of poor writing permeates the series, where the bad guys are cartoonishly, eyes poppingly, mouth foamingly bad, as if their Nazi uniforms had not already shouted that out. A good series should allow one to suspend disbelief; this series accentuates it, in the end the disbelief makes it boring and a waste of life's precious moments. The production values are good, but there's no amount of CGI that can pull the cover over a really bad, unbelievable, melodramatic hack job story.

In an era of films with no emotion or passion, just robotic sequels full of CGI, this was a true surprise. And on Netlix, no less, not exactly a streamer platform known for quality recently. It has a touching story, excellent acting, good direction, and a beautiful setting in Roma. Its mood is poignant, exploring a great love affair of missed opportunities, and the passion for love is emblematic of life itself, full of twists and turns, moments of being (to use Virginia Woolf's phrase), nostalgia, and yes regret. The time and space of the film is handled very elegantly. This is by far the Best Romantic Film of 2023, plus one of the most moving films of the year as well. And the fact that this great romance is between two men can finally, after decades, be considered the most normal part of the story.

This film feels like it was written in the 1950s or before, when all gay relationships were tragic and ended in violence, with a mood full of judgment, control, and shaming for anything that threatened to transgress puritanical values. Unlike Black Orpheus however, which this film seems to aspire towards, Devil is so hackneyed and inept in the way it works itself towards its tired conclusion, the tragedy isn't transcendent, it lies in the writer/ director's slow moving exploration of every queer stereotype in every fear-based homophobic film. Seriously, the film is a class in tired film tropes that became obsolete 50+ years ago. You have the morning after shame, the self-hate, the fear of being outed, the queeny older gay preying upon the 'good boy,' the sugar daddy trope, the 'concerned and confused wife' cliche, the crying closet case cliche, the soft boy trope, the toxic masculine cliche, the violent judgment cliche, etc. All of this is lazy writing and painting by numbers, not storytelling that is fresh, unique, and revelatory. The moments that ARE authentic, those defined by the Trinidad setting, sadly get lost under all the rehashed leftovers. The bright moments in this film are the talented actors overcoming the writer/director's limitations. These include the young lead, his granny, his hothead brother, and his best friend. Most of the rest of the characters are so brutishly underwritten they feel like props or furniture. This is disturbingly true for the poorer residents of Trinidad. Yuck. Stars for the actors only.

Let's say you're a director who has the most beautiful man in films to work with, one who in the previous ten years has shown his excellent expressiveness and depth of emotion working with top notch directors. In short, he's the male Elizabeth Taylor - that rare combination of beauty, talent, and brains combined. So you put him in this failed experiment of a film with no expressions, emotions, and hardly any lines. You ask him to sleep walk through it, up and down repetitive staircases, across mundane sidewalks, through shabby rooms and lobbies, past dingy rail stations, and backlots with weeds and dogs barking. In short, you try making a minimalist film. And yet you have this extraordinary creature who is anything but minimal, and no matter how hard he tries to stare blankly with those cerulean blue eyes he cannot help but make the rest of the film look ridiculous and shabby. Orson Wells maybe, but not Delon. And not even Bogart, who was no beauty but always had deep expression behind his eyes. Delon went on to make many more films, but this in retrospect was the beginning of the end for both his beauty and for his acting talent. Both become softer, puffy, unfocused from here on, as seen in the notable film La Piscine just 2 years later. He's always fun to watch, but his films, like this one, didn't rise to his extraordinary and rare level. He never got his Cleopatra or Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf peak career 'extraordinary film' moments. They had all come earlier: Rocco and His Brothers, Purple Noon, the Leopard, and L'Eclisse. As for this film, there's no harm in trying new styles, but it has not aged well. To modern eyes, stripped of whatever edginess it may have had 55 years ago, today it looks hackneyed, boring, and poorly made, a waste of the viewer's time.

Schmaltz definition: excessive sentimentality, especially in music or movies e.g., "at the end of the film the audience is drowned in a sea of schmaltz." And for those who know German, the word schmaltz means "dripping lard" which fairly sums up this film. The acting is good and in some places very good. But the story, script, set pieces, contrivance, improbabilities, and in many cases the lines these poor actors have to contend with all get in the way of what could have been en enjoyable film. Examples: 1) a poorly conceived speech on masculinity that brings the whole film to a stop its so bad and clichéd; 2) a money pit house that clearly needs years of repairs and oodles of money to get it in shape seems just fine after a good dusting and a coat of paint; 3) a beautiful chef in a small town just happens to be available after one meal cooked for a stranger. And, as if we don't get the emotional scenes that come at us like billboards on a motorway, the director gives us music to cue us that is pure over the top -- you guessed it -- schmaltz. I do like romcoms, but dripping lard coms I can do without.

This is an excellent drama not a dry documentary, so save the fussy factual critiques. They are beside the point. Dramas written for a series or film have their own rules: are they well written, is the story compelling, are the characters ones we believe in, do they change as the story evolves, do they face challenges, etc. On every level Hijack hits it out of the ballpark, and jeez do these passengers face challenges! The writer and director masterfully hold back crucial info all along the way, revealing tidbits in each episode. As a thriller, this is one of the best of the year. And as an ensemble cast, the actors are superb, each one down to the teens in economy, the hijackers, the family members, flight attendants, investigators, etc. AND Idris Elba is at his peak best here, playing one of his most nuanced and emotional roles since Stringer in the Wire. Bravo! And also to the production crew for creating such great moods of suspense, terror, fear, and fateful resignation. Its intense; people do get killed, so it might not be for everyone, but it doesn't wallow in violence for sensationalistic purposes. Everything moves the unfolding drama forward swiftly. Now that I've seen the last episode I'm going to watch it again in a binge just to savor all the little details that flew by, pardon the pun.

I stumbled on Good Omens 2 and thought I'd give it a go. I had not seen nor read anything prior. So I came to it from a pure perspective. And wow what a belabored unfunny mess. The writing is the worst culprit as it fails to create characters or a story one can care about. In fact, they are both mostly irritating in a repetitive, hackneyed manner. Gabriel's gag is a good example. He shows up naked without any idea who he is. Rather than creating comedy or deftly moving the story along, his forgetfulness scene goes on and on until my finger kept inching towards the back button on the wand. And while many of the actors are well known and mostly proficient here, they just stutter in wild eyed alarm or fear much of the time without any redeeming qualities to endear themselves to the audience. That's a bad omen. Again, it's a failure of the writing not the actors, but this series is not even remotely entertaining.

I liked the premise of a nonbinary wannabe beauty influencer who actually gets to work at a luxury makeup brand. It's now and as with any good city, its a premise that holds many avenues to explore. The diverse cast of characters is also good - you get young and immature, older and cynical, modern LGBTQ+ identities, different ethnicities, etc. The cast feels like actual life in a major metro - although more exaggerated for entertainment. Where Season 2 could improve is 1) a vow to avoid characters making the same mistakes again and again, 2) moving past those stereotypical queer clubs, getaways, and character traits, and 3) giving more time to all ensemble cast members - this season was a bit too heavy on just a few main characters. Also, it's a comedy! Hire better comedy writers - as in on par with Will and Grace. The dialog bogged down into soapy suds too often when instead it needed to get zany and wilder. As the ensemble says too often - this can be fixed! Looking forward to a sharper 2nd season.

This film has everything that is mostly missing from films in 2023: a great storyline, a great cast of characters, excellent writing, great attention to detail, nerve wracking tension worthy of the best thrillers, powerful editing, great love stories, deep tragedy, and espionage in the top tiers of government. It nods to and deepens such powerful and iconic Oscar winners as Cabaret, Schindler's List, the Third Man, and even the escape scene in the Sound of Music. What's the catch? It's all real! It all happened. The characters and their struggles, as we learn especially from their letters to loved ones, are deeply resonant and poignantly alive. The contrast between the newfound freedom of their lives in the first act, and their utter losses by the climax, is stark like few other narrative films recently, certainly unlike any film on Netflix. Even those who know the story of the Nazi terrors will be effected deeply by this film. And of course it shouts volumes about our current times. With a fast pace, never before scene film shots, historic recreations, and ironic contrasts, this is my favorite film of the past few years - a must-see instant classic.

The writing is just as bad as Idol, and the film pretends to be a comedy but offers little to laugh at. Even the actors that come from a comic tradition are decidley unfunny in this dumpster fire. Finally, the CGI is terrible. AND In the context of school, church, and mall massacres happening on a regular basis, one wonders whether the writers and director have any sense at all, any respect for their audience, or any personal values. These major problems earn it a very low score, and combined they create an almost unwatchable disaster.

Almost, that is, except for Cage. The veteran actor seemed to realize that this was his hagsploitation moment and went for broke. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in their career declines would have eaten up this terrible script too. Here we see him screaming, eyes bulging, aping the villains of yore, playibg with his pinky and copying Mike Myers' satirical spoofs of those villains, which actually were funny (Austin Powers, etc). Cage has always been a hambone prone to chewing the scenery, and this role, buried in dung though it is, makes one hope that director Tim Burton sees it and is inspired to do Cage justice with the lead role in a deliciously creepy horror film some day soon. This hope may restore Cage's career.

Meanwhile, as the lead Renfield, Nicholas Hoult is just embarassing, which will likely damage his career. One wonders how he even agreed to be in this sad project. And almost all the other actors look equally bad, as if they were forced to work on this to make a mortgage payment or pay off a bail bond.

The recent trend towards unlikable characters is on full view in this Jennnifer Gardner series. Her 16 year old step daughter is just about the most annoying character in this trend: narcissistic, self centered, rude, and without apology for any of it. One gets the sense that the character is a satirical comment on recent political figures. That might have been interesting. Even when she starts to mature, however, her mistakes and apologies are still all about herself. And it is far too late to redeem herself, or her central role in this thriller.

One wonders what a young Winona Ryder (Mermaids, Heathers) or Ellen Page (Juno) could have done with this role - imbued it with a likable sensibility that might be waifish or mouthy, but likable in the end. So, aspiring writers and directors take note: when real life is complicated, chaotic, or scary, the last thing audiences want is unlikable characters who add stress to a stressful real world. Just look at the other reviews on here. Then go do your homework on the 1930s, the Great Depression, when Hollywood turned out escapist hits by the boat full: dancing, singing, happy people on screen, even lovable crooks, bums, and prostitutes -- and kids like Dorothy, who rarely complained about Oz or that Wicked Witch. Same thing in the more recent 1980s, a repressive and stressful era that managed to give us all sorts of kids and teens who entertained us. And if a teen acted up, they got what was due very soon (especially in the horror genre). That's the point: this is entertainment. Ignore the needs of your audience, and you will get dragged.

Btw, the other roles and actors were all fine, and Garner has enough goodwill to get past an oddly written part. Towards the end it is fun to see her toughen up and take control. The visuals from the settings, especially the historic houseboat community in Sausalito and Marin County, are gorgeous.

Having lived through the drama itself, it was interesting to learn more about this bizarre episode in sports. But this dramatization of actual interviews with Tonya and the others has problems. The tone of the film shifts between pathos, violence, mockumentary, and broad black comedy - overly broad at times. And Tonya is mostly a sympathetic character in this version of events, unlike the real events, necessitated for sure by Harding's participation in the project. Finally, Margot Robbie looks 35 when she's playing a teen. It doesn't remotely work, and her film husband looks 40ish. In real life Tonya looked young and petite when she was young, and the proof is in the real footage of her at the end. It would have been better to find a younger actress for the role, and Robbie should not have allowed her ego spoil the film. This isn't the first film where older actors play high school students, but it really does create a disconnect with the audience. Lastly, one wonders if this dramatization even needed - perhaps letting Tonya tell her own story would have been more poignant than this Hollywood ego trip.

A film without a compelling story, characters, plot, or challenge is one that demands disrespect. Yes, there are some pretty camera shots, angles, and movements in this film. However, one might argue these good shots are overwhelmed by a relentless need to impress with overdone camera work; that will be a matter of personal preference. But it is worth pointing out that camera work does not make a good film. It can enhance the story, characters, plot, or challenges, but can never replace them. The actors doo their best with the script (for them I gave the film some stars), but the director might have tried too hard to be impressionistic. The film ends up being too vague, with big gaps, dead ends, and a blurry sensibility that is disconnected from the audience. Luckily, the director got this need to be arty out of his system and went on to make better films with characters and situations that are deeply moving.

I was one of those kids who never missed a Mary Tyler Moore show on Saturday nights. Beautiful, kind, humble, understanding, and willing to stand up for her values; watching the character Mary Richard's played by MTM was like watching life lessons on how to grow up and be a good person. And those were tough years. Society was in turmoil: Vietnam, Watergate, Civil rights, etc. Yet even as a kid I knew that show was gently, through humor, helping us deal with complexity.

That same dualism was part of who MTM was as a human being, as the documentary points out, particularly in a condescending Suskind interview that she handles beautifully. But it misses a great deal too. Her shows were not just funny, they were important milestones culturally. They were part of an era; they helped define that era. The 70s show became a huge hit, won tons of Tonys, and spun off so many shows it seemed at the time like MTM Enterprises had replaced MGM - they even spoofed the studio with a tiny cat instead of a Lion. Her impact was huge. But you don't really get a feel for that impact from this doc.

For instance, instead of spending way too much time on her last husband, which gets creepy and weird (like someone is trying really hard to prove something - he's a producer), more important to her legacy would have been more depth about her company, how those shows spun off, and her relationship with husband Grant Tinker, which is glossed over. (Jealousy?) Tinker was a huge TV influence, first through his wife then on his own. He deserved more in the doc.

Oddly enough, so did MTM. We endure overly long clips from the same interviewers, and too many voiceovers from celebrity fans. Better would have been in-depth clips from her career, especially her films, more analysis of her impact on television from the experts (not just friends), more background from Van Dyke, and more context about other iconic shows at that time: All In The Family, Rhoda, Maud, Sanford and Son, and the Jeffersons. And it would have been perfect to end, not with the last husband ad nauseum (2 appearances are sufficient, not dozens), but with that wonderful reunion of MTM, Betty, and Valerie on 'Hot in Cleveland,' her last scripted performance. It was a beautiful TV moment, like all of her work. The doc director treated his subject far too superficially.

There's nothing worse than a film that thinks it is clever, just as there is nothing worse than a person in love with their own cleverness. They are unusually vapid posers, insufferable bores, and desperate for attention. Sadly, French Dispatch displays all of these traits. It is billed as a comedy and offbeat. In truth, it is an unfunny bore, and just bad. Given its structure, there are few true characters, just cardboard stereotypes and that hoary old tactic to save a bad film: too many cameos. Actually the film feels like the drive-thru lane at a fast food joint. "Here's your chicken nuggets Elizabeth Moss, and your curley fries Willem Dafoe. Wait, is that a Wilson brother in the next car? Ooops too late, Henry Winkler just pulled up." The towns and shops all have cutesy French names like a pillow shop on Etsy ("look ma, I'm clever in French!") But as the forced and empty cleverness dragged on, the only pillow I thought about was the one in my bed. Zzzzzz...ennui. One of Anderson's worst films.

This is a terrible and offensive film. Under the guise of pretending to be supportive, tolerant, and modern, it dredges up every old homophobic reaction and wallows in them endlessly until it dawns on the viewer that the offensive stuff is the point. The supportive pretense is just window dressing so that the filmmakers can spend 90% of this film trying to wring laughs out of ignorance, conversion therapy, fear, bullying, and fighting. Instead of making gayness the brunt of jokes, like a dreadful film from the 1950s, it would have been far more interesting for 3 friends - one of whom has just come out - to tackle a nongay situation together and watch them change, grow, make mistakes, and in the end realize it is no big deal - their friendship is the big deal. Instead we get writing that is abysmal, characters that are mostly stereotypes, and extreme overacting like they're playing clowns 🤡 at the circus. Tbh, it got so annoying I bailed midway through. This is definitely not comic: it's a dreadful and offensive mess.

Confusion reigns with this drink, and not in a good way. The plot is too rambling and dense, the relationships are chaotic, and most of the antagonists are simply tiresome. Of the actors, Kurt Russell is in top form, Michelle Pfeiffer elevates the material she was given (not much - her character loses its mystery as written midway through), and Raul Julia is a delight in his over the top take on his role. Which leaves Mel Gibson sticking out as the bad actor in this film: nothing he says or does is sincere. The vulnerability his character is supposed to show is delivered with a smirk. His emotions ring false, as a friend, father, and romancer. Even worse is his 'good guy' act, which is betrayed by whiffs of arrogance, rage, and self loathing lurking just under the surface of his false smile. This film came before his public melt down, but it's interesting to see the seeds of that in this lousy film.

4 minutes into this travesty of a film, a charcter blurts out "What a load of crap!" And no truer words are spoken in this film. The date is set at 358 BC, which is about 1500 years too late. If you're going to spend $100 million on a historical film at least TRY to avoid embarrassing errors. It just looks foolish, which is exactly what this film is. It's not just the incompetent research and writers. The main problem is that the best part of the film has just passed. Those first four minutes are as good as it gets; its all downhill from there.

The writers have given the characters so little depth or memorable character traits, the audience just doesn't care about them. The director relies on endless CGI battle scenes that are repetitive to fill in for the cardboard characters - it doesn't work. He also dresses the lone female warrior as if she's on her way to a pilates class in cheesy togs. Well, its the infamous Brett Ratner, so his take on women - especially strong heroic women - is going to be questionable. Other films have shown great depth, heroism, and nobility in women (Elizabeth Taylor in the epic Cleopatra comes to mind); unfortunately this takes a director who actually respects women. This film seems to rob all the characters of their gods and goddesses, which were critical to even the average ancient Greek. We're to believe Hercules was just an average Joe on steroids. He was anything but; and he became a God himself. A film that makes such a fundamental error is without authenticity, without their depth, and misses the greatness in Heracles' complex mythology.

Towards the end of this travesty of a film, the female love interest blurts out "I do not matter!" And no truer words are spoken in this film. It's not just that she is an incompetent actress. Or that she is modern and out of place. Or that her experience seems to come from soap operas. She is all of these things. But the writers have given her so little depth or memorable character traits, she has no cred with the audience. And we could be forgiven if we agree: she doesn't matter. However, the larger problem is that this entire film suffers from the same issues: incompetent writing, sets that are out of place, soap opera scenes, and no credibility. And it's a pastiche of classic hero/heroine films (Spartacus, Cleopatra, Gladiator, etc) without their depth, great acting, or great stories. The pastiche lends it an inauthenic vibe, for these Ancient Greeks are mostly tarted up in Roman costumes, an era about 1,000 years later. And those CGI gladiator crowds? Also not authentic. If you're going to spend money on a historical film at least TRY to avoid embarrassing errors. It just looks foolish, which is exactly what this film is.