hetalkstoangles

To coin a colloquialism...it was all boot and no cowboy.

Brilliant production values. Very good acting all around. The cinematography is frankly, mind blowing. Every scene was directed pretty much exactly right. So what's the problem?

The story was basically stalled for half the series. The first half of the series was full of adventure, warfare, cunning and intrigue to set the stage. Ok..I'm totally in...let's have the payoff.

Then no payoff....and more no payoff...and the series ends with still no payoff.

Good job getting me to watch to the end but bloody hell, the last 3 or 4 episodes was one long, slow, cliffhanger. Not cool, man...not cool.

Nothing happened. Yeah, some stuff happened but nothing to move the plot along. Nothing was settled. The last two episodes were especially disappointing but I could kind of see this coming. There was way too much to do and not enough time to do it.

I prepared myself for this but it didn't help. It still sucked. It's not the waiting for next season thing that bugs me. It's the having needlessly wasted my time for 3 or 4 hours that bugs me.

You can only spend so much time looking out the window at a beautiful tableau. That's what this felt like. It was a pretty picture, not a story.

This movie had no idea what it wanted to be. It started as a semi dark, quirky comedy. It wasn't funny exactly, but it was light hearted enough to keep me watching. Then it morphed into a dreary drama about relationships, cherishing the time you have and the people you're with, all while wasting what little good will they earned in the first half.

Nobody was actually funny, not that it mattered because every single person on screen was sleepwalking through their part. Rife was playing an undead being incapable of emotion so that was pretty much bang on.

Jamie Kennedy was mostly annoying. When he wasn't being not funny on stage, he was being shrill and/or morose off stage.

I gave it a 3 and that's probably a bit to high but I'm feeling especially generous today.

I read the books years ago and I loved them. Asimov wrote a mind blowing, deeply engaging series of books with Foundation and managed to connect them with his equally deep and engaging Robot series.

This dreck has no connection with Asimov's brilliant books except the title and some character names. What a huge disappointment. It strikes me as odd that they would even attempt it considering that while the Foundation books were huge when they were released decades ago, they haven't exactly been a modern sensation.

Foundation just isn't a thing nowadays and the only people who would be interested, are people who loved the books, which this thing doesn't follow even slightly.

Basically, they blew their budget on SFX and forgot to hire writers who could write. They really should have used AI to pen the scripts. Odds are, a machine would have gotten a few things right.

I couldn't make it past 15 minutes. The 1st clue that this was going to be a dud, was all the review 10's. Burr and Chappelle don't come cheap so I guess they had to lay out some extra cash for reviews.

I don't mind every scene being cliche, cringe and predictable. What annoyed me, is that it just wasn't funny. Yup...I bailed early but when you have 2 of the highest paid comedians in the world starring in your movie, you better start off with some laughs.

It plays like a crappy 80's tv sitcom. It actually might be improved with a laugh track.

Hey...if you enjoyed it, I'm happy for you but my time is better spent clipping my nails.

There is lots to like about this movie...and most of it is Ryan Gosling. Much of the plot was within reasonable distance of holding together but it's almost like the Russo's were programmed by Michael Bay and they were blackmailed into putting at least an extra half hour into the movie.

There was so much that was bad and/or unnecessary. First...the body count. Every fight scene was stupidly cartoonish. Sure...Ryan got stabbed, blown up, shot and generally got his ass kicked but it didn't slow him down much and absolutely didn't prevent him from killing dozens of well armed enemies at a time. And that is the least of this film's sins.

Billy Bob was Billy Bob so that was ok. Ryan's partner in crime is apparently bulletproof but otherwise, she was ok too.

The worst was Chris Evans. He is one of the top ten least scary or believable or intimidating villains in cinema history. His bad guy was a very bad idea. I know why they cast him. "Wouldn't it be cool if Captain America was not just the bad guy, but the worst guy ever? To make it even better, we'll make him look like a 70's porn star!" Oy vey.

As for the rest...the random Tamil bad guy who becomes a good guy was completely unnecessary. The magic thumb drive that can be played and encrypted but can't be copied? Good thing nobody has a video camera in their phones because that way, they could copy the magic drive by filming the playback. Yeah...good thing that technology doesn't exist.

The endless, mindless, twitchy, annoying drone shots. My God...I still have a headache. Frankly the rest is so forgettable that I can't remember it enough to critique and I literally saw it 20 minutes ago. Especially the ending. It was extra bad. It would have been so much better if the woman would have just taken the shot eliminating that stupid mano a mano scene in the fountain. It would have dragged the movie out of cliche land a wee bit.

It wasn't horrible. I sat thru the whole thing and wasn't compelled to walk away but it was close. Definitely don't pay money to see it, but it will provide a not horrible distraction from life if that's what you're looking for.

I just finished binging The Old Man. Let me start with the good: the acting is very good. The guy who plays the young hero, might be the weakest character but the rest are excellent. In retrospect, they kept me interested. Now the not so great.

While watching it...I thought it was way above average. After thinking about it a bit...with the current sorry state of Hollywood, that isn't the compliment it might have been.

A good example of what I mean, is the 1st episode. Being a boomer myself, I liked the idea of a cagey old man besting young tough guys using guile and experience. Instead, we have an old guy (who normally moves around like an old guy) kicking the ass of young warriors. Huh?

Let's take the night fight in the country. He rams the one guy...lets the killer dogs out of his car...and proceeds to almost beat up another young warrior...and his dogs are nowhere to be seen until he's finally cuffed and dragged into the car and the door is slammed. Huh? Those dogs would have turned that guy into hamburger before he could land a finger on our hero but he doesn't call them until it's too late.

That is just one of many examples that don't make any sense to the plot...which is the weakest part of the series because the plot doesn't make sense in any context. Zoe, for instance, is well played but she adds nothing to the plot. In fact, the show comes to a grinding halt whenever she's on screen. She is a completely unnecessary love interest, implausibly shoehorned into the series.

The origin story of the daughter is obvious by the second episode. The entire show feels like slight of hand that they can get away with because of the professionalism and talent of the actors. Basically, it feels like a it's about 50% filler. They would have had a much better series if they made 4 great episodes instead of 7 mediocre episodes and cut a bunch of the characters.

It's possibly worth watching for Bridges and Lithgow. Don't be too disappointed if even their solid performances can't fill in the huge plot holes.

We have a new winner for the least creative Dexter episode ever. It was completely devoid of any emotion. Every scene was totally predictable. No suspense, no horror, no creativity, no fun, no drama...just 3rd rate, every color of the rainbow, caricatures sleepwalking.

The guy he killed was just some spoiled brat. Big whoop. This is how he chooses to get back into the killing game after a decade of repressing his inner demons? Sheesh. He hasn't even learned the lesson of not throwing body parts into the water wrapped in evidence preserving plastic.

Hands up anybody who didn't know for sure who his victim would be. Exactly. No hands.

And his son happens to show up...and along with his girlfriend who also happens to be the sheriff...he has two people he's involved with that he'll be keeping dark secrets from. Ooooo. Drama.

Gee...I wonder if there's going to be a showdown between Dexter and the mysterious someone who's disappearing the town's young women.

Nah...that would be too predictable.

Oh...and the utterly embarrassing CGI deer. Sweet hayzuz. It has been decades since I saw animation that crappy...but it absolutely suits this episode of the Dexter reboot. I will never know if it gets better because I know for sure I will never be bored enough to turn on another episode.

You can't turn your brain off enough for this to be even mildly amusing. I literally couldn't watch the 1st episode all the way thru. Lots and lots of shouting with even more shouty swearing in an attempt to distract you from realizing how unfunny it is.

Imagine Rick and Morty. Then remove the humor. All of it. It's even worse than the horrid Lower Decks. I actually managed to watch a couple of those.

Hey. Maybe it's just me. I'll check. Nope...this dreck really is terrible.

Anyone who gives it more than a 4 is lying to you. Make that a 3.

It wasn't horrible and it wasn't great. All of the characters have virtually no backstory and the acting was downplayed so much that I had almost no emotional connection to anyone or anything. The cinematography and cgi were pretty good...but that's not a very high bar.

The screenplay was so disjointed that there seemed to be little continuity between scenes.

Frankly, it came across as a somewhat above average produced made for tv movie. It's definitely not worth the price of a ticket and overpriced popcorn.

Watch it when it's released for streaming. Shouldn't take too long.

They just had to toss in a white supremacist angle...and when they already had a decent main story line going. Sure...black, latin, female cops are good but suddenly, after 6 seasons of nobody giving a crap about LT's sexuality, suddenly a couple of junior, idiot cops...are an infestation...and incels to boot.

Too bad. They had an above average show going for many years...and they flush it down the virtue signal toilet.

A solid 8 is reduced to a 4...and that's being generous.

Last season was refreshing, but all good things must come to an end. No...the show didn't end...but maybe it should have.

Season 1 was a breath of fresh air. They didn't exactly break new ground, but they did a decent job of pulling a Major league. Unfortunately, they didn't learn the lessons of the sequel...don't suck. Season 1 was light, clever, well written and mostly fun. Season 2 isn't any of those. It's predictable, cringy, stiff and not fun. It's like they fired the writers and directors from last year and hired their cousins to crank out season 2.

I gave it 3 episodes and that's it for me. Judging by the 10's in the reviews, it looks like the studio spent their cash on reviews instead of producing a quality product. Disappointing.

Every scene is written to be an awkward encounter. They substitute cringe for what were probably intended to be laughs. The only thing missing, is a laugh track.

It's not that the characters are unlikeable...they aren't interesting enough to dislike. They are all simple, obvious, cookie cutter, cliché, caricatures, without a breath of originality.

There are lots of comparisons with Collateral...and while the story is very similar...I liked this one better. There were a ton of holes in the script but it was well filmed, directed and acted...and the cinematography was excellent.

Yeah, it was low budget but everybody committed and it mostly worked.

Maybe it was my state of mind...2am on a quiet weekday...nothing going on...looking for something to watch before shutting down for bed. It was slow but I was never bored.

What can I say? I liked it. Your mileage may vary.

I'll sum up the series so far to episode 7: Battle hardened super clones are saved every episode by an annoying kid with an equally annoying New Zealand accent.

Forget what you were led to believe, this is not the Mandalorian, Clone Wars or Rebels.

I have never been a huge superman fan...or a fan of any of the overpowered supers. Some characters have charm and charisma enough to carry them forward...some don't.

There has been nothing in this one to give me much hope that this one will become interesting, and plenty of clues that it won't.

Clue 1) The whiny, somewhat super, son. Lord help me. The kid can occasionally blast stuff with laser eyes, is invulnerable to a ton of steel falling on him...and he whines that he's not super enough and his pa is a huge disappointment. His dad is frickin' Superman, and he's all "so you keep saving the world but what have you done for me lately? This is one of the weakest story lines ever.

2) Bad guy's suit isn't actually made of kryptonite, but Supe pretty much gets his butt kicked by the guy in it. Say what?

3) The kids are 16 or so years old...and it was taking off the glasses that proved he was superman. WTF? In 16 years they never saw him without his glasses on? I guess they could have been playing it for laughs but not a thing in the show up to that point indicates anybody involved has a sense of humor.

The original superman movies and even Lois and Clark, had charm. The characters could have fun. If you're going to be this dark, you better be Tim Burton or you're sunk.

I'll give it another go but the whiny outburst in the promo for episode 3, makes me bet on the side of not seeing the end credits.

The first couple of episodes, this thing had a chance. I made most of the way thru 7 episodes before I tossed in the towel.

The supporting characters were 2 dimensional, cookie cutter cliches but I would expect nothing less from a network laugh-track-a-palooza. Every one of them is a loud, obnoxious, mess...I guess so the main characters seem like the sane ones. They play more like pigtail pulling middle schoolers than thinking adults.

The lead characters were more fleshed out and were threatening to buck the trend of lecturing the audience...but nope...we couldn't have characters acting like people and treating others like people. They just had to smother us with identity politics.

For a second, we had a couple of strong, capable adults, finding their way thru burgeoning relationship where neither gave a crap about where the other came from or the melanin content of their skin.

Wouldn't that be refreshing?

Nah. Can't have a smart show where people deal with each other based on more than their inalterable physical traits.

No charm, no innovation and most importantly except for one out loud laugh in 7 episodes...no humor. I haven't check, but I'm also going to guess, no ratings.

You idiots had a real chance to make a good series here and you blew it like drunks at 2am behind a dumpster, and that's a shame.

Billy and Folake almost pull this turkey out of its death spiral but they can only work with what they're given...and they are given cap.

Too bad. It only gets a 4 because of the leads. What it deserves is a 2.

I managed to watch 4 episodes. The sunrise is less predictable and infinitely more interesting. Think about the premise for a second.

The idea is that this is a dry run for the moon...but on earth. To buy that premise at all (even at the most absurd level) you have to believe that they deserve to go, or at least are 3 of the best candidates for the journey. But nope...there's not a chance that happened so what we're left with, is 3 very uninteresting guys camping in the desert.

No reason is given how they got chosen because if there were ever characters that needed their backstories filled out, it's them.

It's just not good. A 3 is probably much too generous but I'm in a generous mood. Not a single laugh in 4 episodes and not a single likeable character. Just 3 bumbling midwits...which is really what puts the nail in the coffin of this series, and even worse occasional supporting characters.

Watch the first episode. The rest are just more of the same. If you do like it, good for you but we could never be friends.

10? Really? You're saying Good Omens is absolutely perfect? If anybody really believes that, public schooling needs to be completely dismantled because it has proven to be an abject failure.

Good Omens isn't terrible tv. It's just not funny, ironic, clever or original...all things the book is. I don't blame the actors. Everyone tries very hard...which is one of the problems. You know the material is mediocre at best, if the actors look like they're just going through the paces.

I mean, only an idiot would turn down such an easy paycheck.

No. The fault lies with the morons who accept dreck like this as entertainment. It's how kardashians became billionaires.

Oh well. It's good to know who will be first to go in the purge.

I saw Rosemary DeWitt in the excellent Song of Back and Neck...and her IMDB profile led me here. She was the best part of Arizona. The problem is...she was the only excellent thing about this movie.

It wasn't terrible, I guess, but it wasn't good either. The thing is, as I was watching it, I realized that I'm not the best judge of this movie. Some will probably really enjoy it, for instance, fans of Danny McBride. I am not a fan of McBride.

He almost always plays unlikable characters. He plays them so well that I find him unlikable. Maybe that means he's a good actor. If so, he certainly has me convinced.

Once you get past the 'oopsie' accident that sets up the premise, the movie is 95% predictable and I quickly lost interest. I had hope when Caitlin Olsen showed up but she was only there for one scene, then it was the Danny McBride show again.

It was also very, slow. There was a lot of filler. It was dragging on long enough that I skipped forward a few times. It didn't help.

It wasn't dark and it wasn't a comedy. Well...some of it was filmed at night so that bit was dark...so that bit was sort of true.

If you're sporting a bit of a buzz, you might get a light chuckle or it might make for a Netflix time killer if you're particularly bored some afternoon. I didn't like it but some other reviewers did. If you have lots of time on your hands and it's free, you might not be too disappointed...but you probably will be.

I stumbled upon Song of Back and Neck while randomly searching the interwebs for something to watch while killing 90 minutes or so. I had no particular reason to choose this movie. I hadn't heard of it and never really got into the office so I didn't know anything of Paul Lieberstein.

I ended up watching this based on the only two reviews of this movie in IMDB, and because...why not? Lucky me.

I absolutely loved this movie. Every character felt real...fully fleshed out. The dialogue fit the characters. The plot was just quirky enough to keep it interesting without taking me out of the experience.

It was utterly charming...and that's a good thing.

I never saw any of the previous versions of A Star Is Born, but I did know the basic plot. Most of the movie was pretty good. Her path to stardom was kind of rushed. Cooper sang better than I expected.

I didn't hate the movie but I didn't love it. The pacing was kind of clunky. It often felt like huge chunks of time were missing...a bit like the feeling of waking up from a short nap halfway through a movie and trying to catch up.

I was looking for this thing to wrap up well before the end credits. It felt like they had pretty much told the story and they were stretching it out.

*****SPOILER ALERT*********

The suicide based on her manager's snippy smack down, was so out of character, that it wasn't a twist so much as just jarring. It was very forced.

The manager was a complete lightweight, without nearly enough gravitas to convince the audience that he could bully a kitten, much less a hardened road warrior. There is no way Cooper's character would not have thrown him through a window.

I think Cooper did a pretty decent job of directing but he needs more work as an editor.

Not terrible but not very good either. Gaga's singing brought it up to a 6.

*****SPOILERS*****

I loved this show. The first 4 seasons were some of the best tv available. I should say, 3 1/3 seasons.

Abby's sickness and death did more than mark the, (unnecessary), departure of a good character, but it pretty much killed off what made the show great.

Whatever happened, though highs and lows, Ray was always strong. He bounced back. He managed to hold everybody together. Since moving the show east, Ray has been a sad, inconsequential shadow of his former self. Instead of the extraordinary fixer, fighting through his sadness at the loss of his wife, he has devolved into a two bit hood that anybody can kick around.

Ray Donovan has become a chump. W.T.F? There were glimmers of the former Ray here and there but holy crap, this is getting hard to sit through. He's turned into ol' yeller...basically waiting for a bullet, and it's not entertaining to watch.

He now sucks as a fixer. His family, (that he did so many terrible things to support), either uses him and/or has abandoned him. His few friends screw him over. He was always a drunk, but now he's a drunken loser...and as of the last episode I saw, he wakes up in a psycho ward.

Micky was entertaining but now he's just annoying. Bunchy has gone from useless to pathetic. Terry started fighting again...for absolutely no reason. We knew that he would after Ray warned him that his parkinson's would come back...and voila...his parkinson's is back. Not so subtle, that foreshadowing.

Lena is momentarily happy with a girlfriend...but we can't have that, so they kill off the girlfriend. Both of his kids hate his guts.

Wow. How the mighty have fallen. The show was always dark, but now it's bleak. They turned Ray into a sad pu$$y. I know the season is already filmed but I sure hope they can pump some life into this thing in the editing room.

I have tried to but I don't feel I have properly expressed my disappointment with the developments of Ray Donovan. If feels like everybody just stopped trying. Mediocre, cliche writing. Dead eyed, wooden acting. If they were trying for gravitas, they shot way past the mark and are currently falling through catatonic.

Maybe they shouldn't have pulled Ray out of the water. At least then we would mostly have good memories of the show.

Sure...I'll probably watch the rest of the season. I probably have another 4 hours of my life I can spare but it's more out of curiosity over how much more depressing they can make this once amazing show, than out of any hope of that they can pull out of the tailspin.

The concept of the original is basically the same as this remake, but it's missing one key ingredient; CHARM.

Love him or hate him, but you have to hand it to him; Tom Selleck is charming as hell. He wasn't just the best thing about the original...he was the only thing that made it worth watching.

Hernandez is ok, but he just doesn't have the charm, the easy likeability or the acting chops to carry the entire show on his shoulders.

The only thing keeping Magnum PI Redux going at all, is Perdita Weeks, but she's wasted in this role. Since they spent more time on making the cast as perfectly diverse as possible than actually writing watchable scripts, they might as well have cast HER as Magnum. Frankly, she would have had a better chance of making this show less forgettable.

I've watched the first 9 episodes. I may watch the 10th, but I'll have to be pretty damned bored to do it.

At its best, it rates a soul sucking....meh.........

I'm a bit torn about how to rate this movie. My normal schtick is to put a basic number value based on how much I enjoyed the movie, and then go back and try to figure out why.

There was some stuff to enjoy, but it really was nowhere near as good as the first. It just felt rushed and disorganized. The first one was a real movie with plot, character development, clever, inspired dialogue and a lot of laughs.

In the sequel, it seemed like the producers ordered everyone to make it just like the first but MORE, BIGGER, FASTER, BRIGHTER, BETTER... AND THEN DOUBLE IT... instead actually developing a story and sticking to a plot.

The plot, such as it was, again centered on the friendship between Vanellope von Schweetz and Ralph but they crammed so much product placement and distraction into the movie, (feeling the need to waste screen time on every meme since the dawn of the internet), that they settled for a disappointingly simple 'friends go on adventure, friends fight and they are friends once again by the end credits'.

It wasn't terrible but it did seem very light weight compared to the first. The Disney Princesses were ok but you don't get more than what you see in the trailers.

One thing that did get on my nerves was the heavy handed SJW text. I can't call it subtext since it took up more screen time than what was supposed to be the plot. Basically, every male character was bad, an idiot or both and the women were universally awesome, extremely clever, flawless and just obviously better in every way.

In the first movie, the hero was a teeny girl and Ralph was basically her sidekick but each brought something to the table.

*****SPOILER ALERT*****

In RBTI, (It really should have been Ralph Wrecks the Internet), Vanellope was being held back by the insecure man, (100% insecure compared to Vanellope's mere 30%, according to the movie), and didn't act like a good friend. But... neither did Vanellope. It was her reluctance to tell Ralph the truth about her intentions that sparked Ralph's breakdown. Ralph finds out his that one friend is going to abandon him and snaps, and does something stupid and mean.

There was a good chance for a lesson on balance there but instead, they painted normally kind and caring Ralph, as a destructive, spurned spouse. All is only solved when he gets woke and becomes happy that Vanellope was going to follow her dream which includes, literally, waving goodbye to him.

After thinking about it for a while, it has dawned on me that my major gripe stems from the realization that RBTI feels like the money grabbing second movie in a trilogy.

The voice acting was excellent but the actors were let down by a mediocre finished product.

I really wanted to like RBTI but in the end, the best I can give it is a half hearted meh.

I enjoyed the first movie but at best, this one was 'meh'.

Basically, this movie was way too long on CGI, and way too short on plot. There weren't a lot of important events but the few did occur, were telegraphed long in advance so pretty much nothing was a surprise.

In fact, the biggest surprise was that this movie had almost nothing to do with any Fantastic Beasts. Sure... we saw some interesting CGI critters, but they were treated as accessories... pretty, but not very consequential. At best, they were background, playing no role in moving along the strained story line...such as it was.

****SPOILER ALERT****

There was a very forced plot twist where Queenie switches sides for absolutely no reason other than to elicit something in the way of emotion from the audience... and it almost worked but only because there was absolutely nothing suspenseful about anything else in the movie. They pointlessly turned a complex, interesting character into a pitiful, simpering waif as if flipping switch.

The acting was universally wooden and everyone looked bored for most of it. Come to think of it, the best acting came from the CGI characters. Even though they contributed nothing to the plot, without them the movie would have been completely lifeless and colorless.

it was so transparent, by 10 minutes in, you knew exactly how the movie would end.

Even the 3D effects were ho-hum. I generally think most 3D effects are little more than a distraction but these ones were especially uninspired.

More than anything, this movie felt like filler. It was an empty shell... merely a cynical way to glean more cash from fans while they wait for the interesting movie to get made.

The first movie was fun. This one just wasn't. I'm not even sure kids will like the movie.