foulke99's Reviews

Red Eye (2024– )

5/10

23 April 2024

Surprisingly mediocre. The cast seem competent enough (and sharp's fine and all as always) but the writing -oy! And the plot lines and plot holes are enough to make you want to gnaw off your leg.

And they still want another 360 or so characters before i can post this? If there was one character in this series that one could gush about honestly for more than a fifty-five-thousand-nano-seconds, well, wouldn't that have been a welcome and surprising turn of events.

Still . . . 100 characters . . . Um ... oh ... there was this extra near thames house, i think it was, or maybe in the plane . . . Done & dusted, just about now . . .

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Little Bird (2023)

9/10

an extraordinary story & a terrific production

30 June 2023

An extraordinary story & a terrific production. I gave it a "9" - which for me is rather unusual. I just finished watching the final episode, and rarely have i felt so disappointed to see a series end as i feel now.

Highly highly recommended. The one factor which diminishes my review is the note that i must type two hundred and sixty some more characters for this review. Are they lying ... (i hope ..)

nope. Looks like they want me to ramble on . . . Well it takes place in montreal and in regina and thereabouts, and presents a rather dim view of canadian child protective services vis-a-vis the native population ...

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For Love of the Game (1999)

3/10

Ebert gave it a star and a half out of 5. He was right to do so.

4 September 2022

What's worse than a slow-moving, dialogue-dull, disastrously-written, unbelievably-charactered, mawkishly-acted baseball movie that has virtually no baseball in it?

Short Answer: A movie that is over 2 hours long, to boot!

OK. I need 600 characters, apparently, and it seems I have not yet reached that golden mark . . .

So . . . He and she've agreed to keep things super casual. He's a MLB pitcher of considerable reknown (mid-30s, at "earliest point"). She's a magazine writer (mid-30s, same) who it will turn out has a (big) secret she has failed to share ... She flies down to meet up with him (NY to Ft. Lauderdale) after having first declined the invitation, and does it with no heads-up. Lands at his door that morning, all smiles and proud of herself . . .

Wanna guess how that turns out? She storms off, and he is pissed (not at himself for having terribly misjudged her, for having fancied that she was an adult) but pissed because, well he kinda really likes her and blah blah blah.

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Sweet Girl (2021)

3/10

Incredibly poor script & mediocre acting, but Isabella's still cute

22 August 2021

3 stars is a "gift" for this movie. How many stupid plot points and how many bits of ridiculous dialogue can one movie have?

I dunno, but this flic should be the benchmark against which all others are measured. The breadth and scope of the inanity on display here is breathtaking.

Incredibly, somehow I do not regret the obliteration of my precious life-fluid which viewing "Sweet Girl" has caused. That said, Isabela's still cute (and if you want to see an excellent, excellent, excellent Moner/Merced movie - see Instant Family: Walhberg and Byrne and Moner SOAR! And the writing there is genius as well.)

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Sylvie's Love (2020)

4/10

Lies, and Liars that don't learn ... And OH! ... (Spoiler Alert)

24 December 2020

Warning: Spoilers

Nice actors, ok acting I suppose, gorgeous cinematography, lousy plot and terrible script.

Lies pervade and no one seems to learn even though they are intelligent folks and otherwise in touch with themselves. Was there a happy ending, at the end? I cannot believe I forced/let myself not stop watching before it ended.

Spoiler: Happy Ending! Was there any doubt, with dreck like this? Shame on me. For watching all the way through.

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B Positive (2020–2022)

9/10

You love it or you hate it, apparently

20 November 2020

You love it or you hate it, apparently, judging from the overall ratings and by the reviews.

I happen to love it. Good writing. Love Middlemarch from SV and Ashford is (pretty?) new to me ( ... but wasn't she in Mom - which I watched from time to time, infrequently . . . ), but I find her character and her performance both charming.

Laugh tracks, I do not care for as a rule, but this is better than most, on the irritation scale. Other complaints -- people have plenty. Look see. Not me.

You love it or you hated it, apparently. And put me in the love column (9*, rounding up 1.43* for the gloomy gusses who gave it one star: Shame, Shame, you guys. Unfair in the extreme. You don't care for it, or even really don't? Give it at least 2 stars ferchrisssakes. It's not like you're a precious treasure yourself, ya know.)

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Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine (2020 TV Special)

8/10

Too, too, funny. Top notch writing, performances and production.

27 October 2020

Warning: Spoilers

Too funny. A brilliant mix of concepts, performers and performances with a central theme of Sarah as an "Early Morning "News Show" anchor. Top notch writing, performances and production.

The classic Cooper lip-sync does not at all predominate, but there are a handful of such gems to be found and relished, much like razor blades artfully hidden in a Halloween pumpkin. (But maybe that's just a "my family" reference, and too "inside baseball".)

My favorite of these is the Access Hollywood bus, w/ Sarah as DJT and Helen Mirren as Billy Bush. Too. Die. For.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em. Netflix.

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The Beach Bum (2019)

2/10

"Quite horrible" is no exaggeration

8 June 2019

For a film ... no ... pardon me ... this is not "a film" ... it is barely "a movie" ...

Let me start again: For a movie in which exaggeration plays an essentially aimless though thoroughly out-sized role, it is no exaggeration to note that this "product" is quite horrible. It is not "simply quite horrible", for it is horrible in several - perhaps many - different ways. There is no simplicity about how this . . . offering . . . fails to deliver the goods.

That said, I'm as much of a fan of T & A as the next fool, so it wasn't a total waste. Though McConoughey's character - supposedly a genius and a charmer to boot - was a wastrel through and through and through (and on and on). As much as he supposedly grabbed and explored, life did not touch him at all.

Engagement in unengagement is not - it turns out - a sure-fire recipe for comedy gold. Who'd 'a guessed?

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Jann (2019– )

9/10

Stand-out, Knock-down success

14 April 2019

A long-time fan of Jann's from south of the border, I was pleased to see this show "on offer" the other day, so I went ahead and took the bait.

One of my very better choices. The writing is first-class, the performances top-drawer, and this show deserves to be long-run success. The worst thing about it is that there are only 2 eps. left to go on this first series. (6 eps.: way, way too few!!) That is, that's the worst thing unless the unthinkable (literally unthinkable) were to happen and it is not renewed. This is one damn funny show -- perhaps especially if you happen to be a little further on in life to appreciate more viscerally some of the writing, etc. ( I'm 65 (67?) myself, and while I haven't done "fame" (or the backside of fame), I've garnered enough experiences to appreciate some of the major arcs -- and their treatment - in this show. )

9 stars from me - and I'm no pushover. Long may she live!

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Kevin (Probably) Saves the World (2017–2018)

9/10

Wonderful Weirdness Abounds

4 October 2017

This is definitely weird. As I write this, there are 3 reviews posted, 2 of which are from Lancaster, SC - which is where I'm from as well. (And Lancaster ain't all that big.)

At least one of the other posters is a believer (most likely Christian) -- while I am not. I'm an atheist, in fact. That said, I love - LOVE - this show - the actors (all!!), the writing, the redemption. At least the pilot (here's hoping they don't fall down some hole or other). Anyway - whether it's some quirk or intention of the universe in action here ... all in all, I urge one and all to give the show a whirl. I'm betting that more than a fair number of you will find it well worth the while.

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The Night Of (2016)

9/10

That kind of special beauty

29 August 2016

You know that kind of special beauty that isn't pretty or lovely or even graceful in any traditional sense? That special beauty that isn't awesome or majestic (like the Grand Canyon's)? That special beauty that overwhelms you bit by bit in little ways - many different little ways - and which leaves you at the end of an hour's contemplation marveling a bit - then more - about how good that landscape is; how complex and skillfully constructed it is; how nuanced are its colors and patterns (dark and light and in-between; mostly dark & in-between); how masterfully its many artists fulfilled their roles; how true the canvas and how fortunate are you to have been there to partake, and to have somehow joined in the work? That's the beauty - the undeniable beauty - and the accomplishment of The Night Of.

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Signs (2002)

1/10

Execrable Rubbish of the Highest Order/Ordure

31 March 2016

Warning: Spoilers

I am wholly amazed - dumbfounded, in fact - that this film has the ratings which it does. R. Ebert (with whom I quite often agree) gave it 4 out of 4 (!!), and the user reviews here are 6.7! (!!!) Un.be.lieve.able.

While I am not willing to say that this is the worst film I ever have seen, it certainly is the worst I've seen in the past 10 or 12 years. I was holding out hope until the very end (the last 10 minutes or so), that the entire alien theme (in all its supremely flawed details) was some sort of dream sequence-y thing that the director would be able to somehow "pull off". The best that I could have expected from such a treatment (or from some other deus-ex-machina device) would have left me with a very poor-to-mediocre film experience, and even that would have taken absolute brilliance being exercised just shy of the ending credits.

But no. The aliens were what they were, and any interested reader can peruse the many reviews here which address in detail the oh-so-many flaws, sub-flaws, and sub-sub-flaws which, taken together, rendered the film all-but-unwatchable. I simply don't have the stomach to write on this at any length.

Finally, on top of this injury to the innocent movie-viewing public (Shame! Shame!), the film further insulted us with quite a bit of bad acting. (Though, in fairness, where the writing and direction is so perfectly atrocious, it may be somewhat presumptuous to assign any blame at all to the actors. Mea culpa.) Forewarned is forearmed, humans. Proceed at your peril, with this one.

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