Reviews

This has to be one of Kevin Stacey's best performances as Prot from the planet K-Pax. Jeff Bridges was excellent in a supporting role too as Prot's psychiatrist which showed a tender, caring side not really seen in any of his other roles. I learned/re-learned plenty from this movie and especially what each of us does to cope with traumatic events in our lives. Prot/Robert Porter comes home to find his wife and children brutally murdered so he creates a personna that's from another planet where relationships, love, family etc. Ate unnecessary and considered "primitive". What a creative way to come up with this character's way to cope with his incredibly traumatic experience. The writers did a wonderful job with. Gene Brewer's sci-fi novel and the whole story is so uplifting and yet terribly sad at times . It certainly got me in touch with my own unresolved pain/trauma and that was not a bad thing at all - quite the contrary actually. I watched K-Pax today and it's been years since I last saw it and would highly recommend it to anyone!

First of all, I have read Stephen King's 1,152 page uncut edition of The Stand 20+ times and loved it! Probably my favourite all time novel. I created my own visions about what each character looked like while Stephen King filled in the rest - how they thought, how they behaved and how they felt. So, the 4 part mini series in 1994 I thought was pretty good (7 out of 10) and they got a lot of the actor selections for each character right. Gary Sines was a pretty good Stu Redmond, Molly Ringwald was a really good Frannie Goldsmith, Corin Nemic as Harold Lauder was ok and Jamie Sheridan as Randall Flagg I thought was below average. Adam Storke as Larry Underwood was pretty good, Rob Lowe as Nic Andros I thought was really good and Bill Faggerbakke as Tom Cullen was excellent. I thought Ruby Dee as Mother Abigail was ok but not great. This portrayal of The Stand based on a number of reviews I read almost had me not bothering to watch this new one but I did. I told myself to go in with an open mind and open heart and also recognized that a new Director and writers were almost certainly going to want to change some aspects of the story and they did. I thought this rendition of The Stand was superb! I enjoyed it immensely and couldn't wait for the next episode! I thought virtually all the actors were perfect for The Stands's characters. The 1978 The Stand novel had pretty much all white characters so it made sense for example in the year 2020 to have some diversity so Jovan Adepo, an African American plays Larry Underwood, Brazilian Henry Zaga plays Nick Andros and Irene Bedard, a Native American woman plays Ray Brenter - they were excellent! James Marsden plays a terrific Stu Redmond, Alexander Skarsgard was an excellent Randall Flagg, Greg Kinnear does a really good Glen Bateman and Whoopi Goldberg was a perfect Mother Abigail! I could go on as several other actors did really good jobs portraying Tom Cullen, Lloyd Henried, Nadine Cross and Harold Lauder etc. Yes, they changed the story a bit, had everyone arriving in Boulder Colorado fairly quickly but then did a great job of back-stories for several characters to show what their journey to Boulder was like. I really enjoyed the story they told about Nick Andros in Shoyo Arkansa which was different than the novel including how he meets Tom Cullen (Brad William Henke was awesome) and some of the others were different too but I think very well done. I gave this version of The Stand a 9 out of 10 because I managed to connect with all the characters and found myself crying several times throughout, deep belly laughs at other times and yelling "Yes" while pumping my fist in the air a bunch of times too. If you have read the novel and want to watch this series, I suggest you do what I did - try to put aside what others (including myself) have said about it, keep an open mind and an open heart and I think you'll enjoy it.

Snowfall in my opinion is getting back to what made it so powerful and popular in Season 1. Season 4 and this episode in particular is incredibly intense and very believable. Things are heating up for Franklin's childhood friend Leon and Franklin is caught up in a very difficult dilemma.

Right off the bat I loved the idea of a brand new "alien whatever lands on Earth, we can't communicate with it and we need to visit it's home world to make contact". In episode 1 there's some good ideas but a lot of what I would consider ill-conceived, not well-thought out decisions in the plot. First of all a crew of mostly 20 something years olds? Seriously? Would a NASA or a World Space Agency of some sort send a crew like this to try to make our first contact ever with a new Alien species? No. There might be one or two really brilliant 20 something year olds not in Command positions but mostly 30, 40 and 1 or 2 50 something year olds. Secondly, would this NASA/WSA demote who was the Captain of the ship to 2nd in command and put someone else in charge? Nope. If the original Captain wasn't the person for the job, keep said person off this mission. Thirdly, in real life when the second in command proposes an idea that has an 11% failure rate would it even be considered simply to speed up their off-course journey to shave a few months off their journey? Nope again. The Captain then murders the 2nd in Command? I could continue but you get the point - lot's of unrealistic, stupid things happen just in the first episode and just keeps on going throughout Season 1. I have doubts I'll watch Season 2 but...