chron

I am inclined to like stories that are female centered. There are so many wonderful stories that need to be told. This is one of them. I am attracted to stories of female empowerment, and given the time and place, the principals in this story are far from empowered. In spite of the cultural norms, they found a way to empower themselves. It is a genuine joy to watch that unfold with so much grace and love.

In addition to the story, the acting is fantastically understated. The acting and the direction had to be impeccable to tell the story the way it needed to be told.

I am also moved by art. The graphic arts less so than the musical arts, and this story created a deeply emotional subtext by using the power that those artistic expressions brings to the human experience.

I am a high-functioning autistic male, so there was a lot that resonated with me. I love stories of female empowerment. I love a celebration of intelligent, centered, moral people who chose to live and die by their own decisions, and accept the consequences.

This movie presented those characters, who are under-represented. Kudos to the writers.

The storylines were complex, with familial relationship issues, that added to the very real, very relatable characters. I loved the love story. I loved the growth of characters, as they deal with the realities of living in the 1950s.

This was a winner for me.

If your tastes run to stuff blowing up and toxic masculinity, even for the women, then this movie is for you. I don't want to rain on your parade.

If your tastes run to a good, original plot with three dimensional characters, then this movie is going to leave you wanting more... a whole lot more.

There are plenty of good actors here. They are just crippled by the absolutely simplistic, reductionist, unrealistic, absurd, cartoon-ish violence. So who wrote this garba... oh Sylvester Stallone. It appears that he graduated from mediocre acting to horrible writing. The original Rocky was a good movie, but this shows that Stallone was a one-trick pony when it comes to both acting and writing.

There is a lot to like about this movies, but it has some issues that one should understand before giving it your time.

For the positives, the cast is superb. This has a stellar cast, and they all deliver in their acting skills. The direction is excellent, and the cinematography delivers but does not overwhelm.

This is a philosophical film. It gives a fair treatise on the ramifications of misogyny in the context of an authoritarian religious society. It exposes the risk of the status quo and the risk of change for people who aren't empowered by the culture in which they live. That can clearly be extrapolated to a lot of cultures in the world, even the so-called enlightened Western world. Humanity still has a lot to learn.

Because it is fundamentally a philosophical movie, it does have a slow pace. I couldn't help but think of "My Dinner with Andre." I want to be careful not to spoil anything, so feel free to stop reading.

I did find the resolution to the situation to be implausible, but I don't think it hurt the movie, because the resolution wasn't the point. The path to the resolution was the point. I found it interesting and thought-provoking.

As a somewhat relevant side note. I am a male, but as a feminist, I resonated with the message whole-heartedly.

This isn't a fun watch, but it is profoundly good, honest cinema. The subject matter is emotionally complex. The performances by Sarah Gadon, Alison Pill, and Mare Winningham are compelling. Lesser actors would not have been able to express the complexity of the feelings with such directed intent.

The movie isn't perfect. At 103 minutes, the movie isn't all that long, but there are some editing choices that could have made for a better pace. There are multi-minute segments that drag a little bit. Honestly, I think the movie would have been fine if the last eleven minutes were edited out.

That said, this is a good movie if you are in the mood to feel some melancholy.

First, there is a quite a bit to this movie that gave it a lot of positive vibes. The acting was good. Angela Basset and Ralph Feinnes did their job as actors. The direction from Kathryn Bigelow was chaotic to the point of sensory overload, but I suspect that was the intent, so I am okay with that.

There were some good plot ideas from writer James Cameron. I was a structurally good idea. Given that the Rodney King beating was three years before the release, it was contemporaneously topical to focus on the civil liberties problems with the Los Angeles Police Department.

Unfortunately, Cameron too a dumb story line and jumped the shark with the ending. Instead of creating tension, it turned into an eye-roller.

I only got 21 minutes into this movie. If it got better after that, I can't say one way or the other.

Within that 21 minutes, I saw glimpses of kitschy film-noir with the light cast across the eyes. The scenes before had more of a "Porky's" vibe. I have no idea what the director is trying to convey as a mood. The movie is tagged as "comedy" (it isn't) and "cerebral" (not in the first 21 minutes, anyway). Then there is a segment that is animation of a graphic novel. C'mon, what?

The actors are good, but i just could not relate to the characters. There is no "there" there.

Twenty minutes into the movie, they committed the unforgivable sin of movies. No real spoilers here because I am not going to say what the "sin" is, but feel free to stop here.

I have a high tolerance. I like "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction," but I was done with this movie after that.

First of all... too much music. It's not good. The movie had no realism, based on people I have met. The writing is just not good. The acting is Lifetime quality.

They had the right basic elements, but the execution was pretty much a failure all the way through. Everything was tropes and memes. There is no "there" there.

I think Netflix has become a dumping ground for cheaply-made, zero-creativity fare. This is another in the pantheon of time-wasting movies. I would recommend something that is somewhat similar, but has a much better execution. Time would be better spent with "An Officer and a Gentleman."

I vaguely remember this promotion in the mid 1990s, but I don't remember the fallout from it. It was a good nostalgic flashback to a different time.

This is a good story. The way in which the story is told, has some levity to it. It does have some entertainment value. However, the flaws outweigh the educational or entertainment value.

This is the most extraordinary failure of editing in a documentary that I have ever seen. There is about 80 minutes of content here, but the 4 hours of content is filled with repetitive displays of toxic masculinity flexing over and over.

I find the only redeemable character here is "the kid."

There is enough to like about this series. The acting is well done, especially the understated performance of Steve Carrell. The plot premise is certainly novel and interesting. It didn't feel like it was too far out there.

Unfortunately, it fell quite short in many other areas. The biggest problem was editing. This story could have been complete in half of the time. So many of the scenes lingered, and lingered well after the point was made.

There were also too many extended metaphorical interactions. I understand that the screenwriter was trying to convey the internal monologue of the Steve Carrell character, but I found it distracting instead of illuminating.

I like Michelle Michelle Monaghan. That is primarily what drew me to this. The plot premise seemed compelling, too. However, the execution of the plot fell well short.

Some of the supporting cast was very weak. The performance of Karen Robinson was just awful. She is a good actor in other shows, so I am going to blame direction or plot here, but it was an annoying character. Same with Matt Bomer. It seemed like the performance was phoned in.

I admit that I bailed after two episodes, so perhaps it redeemed itself but I didn't feel that the time would have been well-spent to stick with it.

We have an excess of riches with all of the streaming support, but Netflix has to do a better job of execution than this,

This is so incredibly uninspired. The writing is bland and predictable. The computer science is absolutely wrong. That is my area of expertise. I am pretty sure that the legal issues are BS as well, although that is not my area of expertise.

This is junk programming, but if you like the easy-to-watch TV stuff, this is what you will get.

There is no substantive story here. Technically, this has a lot going for it, but interest isn't one of them.

The storyline was so thin, that it couldn't sustain the time it took to tell it.

This documentary made some valid points that the balance of power lies with the institutional investor over the retail investor. Other than that, it was a proliferation of misinformation by people who don't understand markets.

Basically, WallStreetBets played a pump-and-dump in a way that was unavailable to retail investors before social media. I like that the hedge fund got a haircut on a short squeeze, but there is nothing noble here. There is no David and Goliath story. It was Wall Street getting blindsided because for the first time, social media created a meme stock.

Robinhood halted trading because they were close to not covering the regulatory requirement. This promoted the myth that Robinhood was in the pocket of Wall Street. Again, misinformation promoted by people who don't understand.

Garbage.

We know the actors are good. Timothée Chalamet is perhaps the best of his generation, and it broke my heart to see him doing a mediocre imitation of Woody Allen. So did Jude Law. So did Liev Schreiber. No wonder Woody liked it. He got to see more talented artists be him. It didn't work for me.

I like some, but not all of Amy Schumer's past material. While I am not a super-fan, I appreciate that she can push the edge and I always respect that even if it doesn't appeal. I thought this would be worth a look.

It didn't start well. I almost bailed during the first episode. None of the characters were likeable. There didn't seem to be any chemistry among the cast. It was just awkward. They hooked me at the end of the first episode, so we decided to keep going.

It takes a couple of episodes, but it gains momentum. The cast and crew start to get a working flow, and the story line moves between broad humor and serious issues.

It is worth watching, but you will have to be patient with it.

I followed the case against Purdue Pharma as it unfolded. It is a compelling story with some clear miscreants and a few heros. Unfortunately, the direction gave it a distinct "After-School Special" vibe.

Jumping around in time was well-labelled, fortunately, but made the story more difficult to follow.

The acting was okay by the leads, but some of the supporting actors had trouble being convincing. It was watchable, but not great.

The acting was good. I watched this on the strength of Elizabeth Moss. That part wasn't disappointing. Unfortunately, the director fell in love with her script, so the editing was a fail. Too many scenes went on too long.

The plot was weak. A lot was predictable. It just didn't quite work for me.

I watched the movie predominately because of Carey Mulligan. She is a wonderful actor, and does a great job on this. I also enjoyed Bo Burnham's skilled performance. Unfortunately the other actors did not do a particularly great job, and the plot was so thin.

I could not wait for the movie to be over.

This was slow-paced, weak telling of an interesting piece of American history. Grandiose music doesn't take the place of good writing and directing.

This is really a classic buddy, road trip movie. It was full of tropes and archetypal people and situations. However, it was well acted and well-done. I was pleasantly surprised and recommend it for light-hearted viewing with some poignant moments.

It wasn't a bad movie. I like Bill Murray and Rashida Jones. There were a few good moments, but there just wasn't a compelling plot. There was a compelling IDEA, but not a plot.

I was hoping for the chemistry of "Lost in Translation," but it wasn't close.

The premise was fine, but I can not imagine a poorer execution in the script. The situations were horribly-contrived - think Lifetime Channel. I love plots with strong, intelligent women, but her insights were ridiculously implausible.

I only made it an hour into it, but I am pretty sure I know how it ends.

We like nature documentaries, so we started watching this one. This is an embarrassment to whomever produced this. It is not funny. It is not informative.

The story is compelling. Not only is the story of NXIVM interesting, but the story of how to get justice through media was interesting, too.

There is an amazing amount of inside footage. That helped to create a compelling story, but it was ultimately my biggest criticism of the documentary. There is nearly nine hours of content. The same story could have been told in three.

I would recommend watching episodes 1, 4 and 9, and you will get close to the same level of depth in third of the time.