an_howard

I like both good western and crime dramas, and going by reviews I'd read, looked forward to giving "Longmire" a try. Such a mistake! This show is purely formula-driven, replete with cliched characters and dialogue, and even the tension between Natives and the world beyond the reservation is just a rethread of similar plots. But the most flagrant (and pitiful) sin of this series is Lou Diamond Phillips' performance. Granted, he never was never the most talented actor in Hollywood, but at least he used to try. In Longmire it sounds like he read his lines for the first time just before the camera started to roll.

All in all, I found Longmire a lazily developed show, one that provided me no reason to care one way or the other about the cookie cutter characters. If you like the idea of NCIS Goes to Dodge, you might like this turkey, but I feel generous in rating it even one star.

This new take on "Ripley's Believe It or Not" may appeal to viewers hooked on stunts and survival stories as found in abundance on Youtube or Tik-Tok, but for those looking for the kind of content that made Ripley famous, it is a major disappointment. No mysterious artifacts, no occult subjects, nothing but personal stories that can be found in any local news spotlight stories. As uplifting as these subjects can be, they fall short of the Ripley legacy.

While not my cup of tea in genres, I caught this flick with a friend who is really into Evangelical Christian doomsday themes. The storyline takes a pretty much standardized evangelical twist on the popular subject of extraterrestrials. Here, the assumed aliens are presented as actually being nefarious minions of Satan that try to dupe mankind into believing they are anything but that. The plot is actually somewhat interesting, though the "science" terminologies used in the dialogue is somewhat reminiscent of arcane 1950's scifi drivel. The film is naturally laden with lots of Holy roller overtures (understandable considering the genre), but what makes this one stand out from the others is the awful acting. And by this I mean every single person that had a speaking role. It was apparent the film makers didn't even try to cast someone with any knowledge about the skill involved, and neither did they care. This kind of disrespect for the audience is a sin in my opinion.

To put it bluntly, "The Watchers: Revelation" is a painful experience for the audience and one I never plan to endure again.

Here is a film I will have to review without having finished. It began interesting enough, with fittingly moody music. However, once the entry credits rolled by and the story began, the film work was so jerky I had to soon turn it off as I have epilepsy and wanted to avoid seizure activity. What a shame the film makers shot themselves in the foot, but if you're seeking positive reviews you have to take audience comfort into consideration.

The Stand is one King book that truly bored me. But worse than boring was the quasi-Christian preachiness of the entire storyline. This TV movie adaptation wasn't quite as bad in this respect. And even though the special effects are rather dated for contemporary viewers, I still really enjoyed Matt Frewer's portrayal as the poor demented Trashcan Man. I rate this one a 4 as an at-times enjoyable horror flick.

As "Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a Half Century".

Cheesy special effects. Plastic dialog. Corny and predictable plots. Hercules with a haircut. Ripped shirtless guy who could use a haircut. Model-perfect actresses who all share the same over-zealot make-up artist. An annoying dweeb character who is supposed to provide humor to the show and succeeds like a bikini salesman at the South Pole.

Yep, Andromeda is definitely the kind of sci-fi series that gets you thinking...thinking if given the choice of being stuck safely inside during the covid-19 pandemic with just this one tv show to watch or confronting a swarm of murder hornets, I'd have to cover myself in honey and venture outside.

"Relic Hunter" was promoted as a fun adventure series, with a female Indiana Jones-style lead. Although the premise was interesting, I was quickly disappointed by the numerous flaws: cartoonish dialog, cheesy sets, failed humor and the poor knowledge of history as demonstrated by writers. The casting of the overly self-conscious Tia Carrera as lead did nothing to help things. Pretty she is; but versatile acting skills she has none.

But the death knoll for Relic Hunter definitely came with the "smart, strong woman" and "bumbling male sidekick" dynamics between the lead characters. Some viewers that enjoy this type of formula but I find it demeaning to men and pandering to we ladies.

To sum it up, I unfortunately can't think of anything "Relic Hunter" going for it. After watching two and a half episodes I was done for good with this annoying series!

This series is so chock-full of hackneyed plots, cartoonishly delivered characters and ridiculous dialog I can't see how it has received the positive reviews it has. Mitch Pileggi's acting talents were the only decent thing this series had going for it, but one actor's talents cannot an entire series save!

Too put it simply, bad sci-fi can be enjoyable if the writers don't take themselves too seriously and make it campy. Bad sci-fi delivered as if it has substance is just bad and annoying sci-fi, which is exactly what Stargate Atlantis is. This is the worst of a television bad series - and I actually love the original film!

Has Hollywood given audiences a historically-set film of this calibre. While "Centurion" may disappoint those picky movie-goers that selfishly expect a modicum of historical accuracy, this film's stunning use of gratuitous violence and blue-tint photography more than make up for the believability factor. Add to these elements the winning inclusion of politically-correct stereotypic female characters - wolves forced into unnatural predatory man-eating mode due to unforgivably seasonal weather - and CGI-saturated battle scenes so kinetic in their production you'll be running for the Visine! A true masterpiece of the modern history- exploitation genre, "Centurion" will leave you amazed, breathless and nostalgic for the cerebral film mastery of Howard, Howard and Fine.