Denovot

That seems to be the question I'm left with after viewing the first two episodes. The lead female takes over acting to the extreme. Then there's the framing and close ups on said over acting that makes sure you can't miss it. And there's the script, there's only so much even a great actor could make of those lines.

The behavior of the 8 year old girl at the center of the drama doesn't help towards garnering much sympathy from the audience. Her character is just not believable and quite irritating to boot. Devon Sawa and the husband Tom do a pretty good job with what has been handed to them but haven't been able to over shadow the glaring shortcomings.

The pacing is a problem as well, especially in the first episode. They hit you with one thing after the next, never really establishing much of anything to captivate the audience. Even with the throw it all at the wall method they haven't carved out a unique story. I've only seen 2 episodes and I can pretty much guarantee the writers will have the lead locked up in the looney bin before the series is over. Le sigh.

I won't be going into plot details as there's plenty of reviews with those contents, I'll be upfront and say this is not going to be a useful review, just stating some opinions. I found this series to be the better of the two new 30 minute offerings from Starz (other being Sweetbitter). This is a brief series lasting only 3 hours so not much of an investment. I found it easy to watch even with some major flaws. There are plenty of East LA stereotypes here and some characters really suffer from lack of substance, however hearing it has been renewed I think I will still give the second season a shot.

Possible spoilers below:

I'm hoping they drop a lot of what bogged this season down like the entire Johnny arc ("undeniable chemistry" was not believable and the writing gave me absolutely no reason to be invested in the outcome of his and Lyn's relationship) and the will they-won't they on selling the bar grew tiresome as we all knew how that would end. Mari's side story was odd, they did not flesh it out enough and throwing in that cell phone video was not necessary, for what? to realize the group should be a democracy? Good job! I felt she could've had a a better angle and hope next season they work on that. I have no problem with sex scenes but with all the time spent on them you would hope they would further the plot somehow, but alas it was just filler and I ended up skipping through most of them.

I'm hoping with the second season while they re-open the bar they come up with interesting storylines as the sisters transition their lives back to their hometown. Given all the negatives I still found the show watchable (while doing laundry) but I really hope they hack off all the dead weight in this first season and improve next time around.

I decided to give this a shot after seeing constant ads, also being a New Yorker with some experience in fine dining I was interested enough. Unfortunately there were so many glaring issues with this adaptation. The most frustrating part is there are glimmers of what could've been a great show throughout, opportunities squandered at every turn. One of the main issues is our star, Tess. It's hard to distinguish if it's mainly the fault of the writer, director or actor, but all three do their fair share to poison the pot. I get they are going for doe-eyed naivety but come on, give the audience a little credit, or the character some dimension. Everything, I mean everything she looks at she's gawking as if she has just discovered there are other humans on this planet- get's old real quick. Not to mention it's just not believable. NO ONE with her behavior (won't even discuss lack of experience) would last a day in that industry. However, I'm more than willing to suspend belief for plot but this show doesn't deliver the goods. The show does not give you any reason to root for her success except that she is the obvious protagonist and well, I guess you just should. She isn't particularly hard working or respectful, she walks around in a self absorbed bubble the entire season. For a coming of age there is little, if any personal growth exhibited on her end. All of the secondary characters are painfully one note. The season would have been more interesting had they paid more attention to some of them or even made it an ensemble show, as following wide eyed Tess around all day gets tiring. Then there's oh-so-troubled-Jake and I'm-so-illusive Simone. They both seem to have these massive fronts to feign the audience into intrigue, but I'm guessing not much is behind either door. There was no resolution into the season long tension within the 3 or insight into their motivations. The writers either didn't have answers or are holding out hope for a second season, either way not much happens in the first season besides the answer to if Tess will become a permanent hire. Luckily it's a short watch and they didn't milk this plot for a longer run time. I may even give it a chance if it gets renewed, hoping they juice up the writing, flesh out the ensemble and someone slaps that look off of Tess's face.

Watching .5 seconds of the trailer will let you know not to go into this movie expecting greatness, but I thought it would be an easy breezy enjoyable 90 minutes of light hearted comedy. NOPE. To the reviewers saying "I don't understand the bad reviews!" "Don't take it so seriously!" - let's be clear- that was not the problem. In fact that was exactly why I watched it, to not have to really think and be entertained. Unfortunately it only succeeds in the not having to think department, although I found myself thinking "why?!" quite frequently.

I was familiar with most of the cast and have enjoyed their previous work but this "movie" wasted their talent. There is almost nothing redeemable about this film. Barely any backstory, nonexistent plot, characters severely lacking dimension, it does not capture Ibiza one bit (shocker it was not even filmed there) and the writing is atrocious. The actors were not terrible, but the lines they delivered were, making it painful to watch. Even by the ending I couldn't care less about the outcome of the characters because the movie gives you little reason to. Though even that would be forgivable if the ride was fun, but instead you get a stale, lazy attempt at the "30 something girl paves her own destiny" plot. Some scenes even gave me second hand embarrassment for being a white 30 something female. I just read the writer & director were working on this movie for two years which included trips to Europe to "get it right"... WHAT?! What were they doing for TWO years?

I kept watching waiting for something, anything, to change my mind, but ultimately that was a losing battle. How did they get a budget for this? It's hard to believe there aren't better scripts out there and better choices for netflix to add to their library. It failed as a comedy, failed as a romcom, it's almost like they randomly picked 3 girls at any non discriminant beachy party destination to follow around for a weekend vacation where not much of note goes on. Actually they very well may have ended up with an improved story if they did just that. Netflix needs to get it together and stop throwing anything and everything at the wall. side note- it pains me to see netflix originals of this quality when excellent TV shows frequently receive the ax.

This series deserves a whole-hearted attempt as it is a slow burner and subtitles can make that an even harder process, but before you know it you are hooked. The acting is top notch and very believable and the plot keeps your interest. If you have watched the american version and actually got through it, then you almost certainly have to appreciate this version. If you have not seen the remake, don't bother. The acting alone is enough to want to turn it off 5 minutes in. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Kind of what you would expect from a Bravo scripted series. It's filled with terribly implausible actions and all flat one note characters, however it is light-hearted and breezy viewing when you don't want to be too stimulated. If you go into this not expecting too much, looking to kill some time and not over think it, you'll probably enjoy it, at least the first season. Unfortunately things take a turn in the second, the plot falls apart and the not so stellar acting by some of the cast becomes too over the top to ignore. For instance Ezra is not selling his new found confidence and it's almost painful to watch him deliver some lines. The character worked with the writing in the first season but the second one he just could not pull off and it made the poor writing even more evident. I'm sure if the writing was different he probably could have done a better job but ultimately the combo of the two was distracting and not very enjoyable. Inbar Lavi (Maddie) was also particularly an issue, she was not selling her arc this year, where as I mostly enjoyed her at the first go around. She doesn't make you believe her characters motivations and came off extremely flat. Also after two seasons usually you're a little more sympathetic towards a character like hers but they haven't given the audience any reason to really care what happens to her and her time on screen solo was a snooze. I thought the actors that play Jules & Richard did a good job and Uma Thurman was fun but the second season unfortunately didn't live up to the first.

Corny is word I hate using but it sums up Spike Lee's attempt at- whatever it was he was trying to achieve with this reboot. Now, it was not completely terrible, it was easy to watch in the background while I worked on my laptop. However, I think I would have turned it off sooner had I been fully paying attention. The acting was overall quite bland. There weren't many fully realized characters in the cast, almost everyone was a shell of clichés. The close ups, especially towards the end were eye rolling. And that finale- I suppose I would've been disappointed if I was expecting something more.

I have a lot of respect for the arts but I didn't need to see this portrayal of another self righteous "starving" Brooklyn artist, who if they spent 5% of the time working some other job as they do pontificating about how the world NEEDS their art... give me a break. Nola is getting a steep discount from her godmother to stay in the gentrified neighborhood she grew up in, and she still doesn't manage to get the rent on time. They constantly talk about her hustle, yet she really isn't ever truly desperate or truly hustling. Now maybe that wasn't the show they wanted to make, but don't pretend putting 5 paintings on your stoop and walking some dogs to continue living solo in a gorgeous brownstone is roughing it. Gentrification is a legitimate issue, and I see the commentary Spike was going for but it fell quite short.

I'm sure some people will enjoy the show, as I said it is not all bad, just was not for me.

*CONTAINS SPOILERS* I would give this series a 5.5 out of 10. The premise is not all that creative and it plays out like I would imagine a YA novel would, but it was quite enjoyable to watch, that is until the reveal in the finale. Leading up I would say the acting was overall pretty believable and had your expected red herrings galore but it was all adding up to a decent watch. I don't know what happened at the end, it feels as if the last episode was written by a totally different team of writers, throwing out all semblance of creativity for a "GOTCHA" reveal trope.

WARNING *I will be discussing the killer in the following paragraph*

I suppose due to this being a recent import to Netflix I was not able to find much commentary on the series and after watching the finale I am quite frankly utterly disappointed. It's not that the killers identity is not "believeable" it's that there were no clues leading up to the reveal. After the killer in these types of mysteries is revealed the viewer should be able to think back to all the little bread crumbs left by the writers and say "ah ha! I missed it!" Nope, not here. This was a total out of left field, not satisfying reveal. It feels like they picked this killer simply to shock and surprise the audience which to me is a cop out. Sure they explain his motivation and I guess it adds up but what I don't appreciate is the killer was an ancillary character the entire series so they couldn't even leave clues because they made him such an non factor and did not even try to flesh out his character or his motivations throughout the series-major miss step on the writers. I chose this series specifically looking for something that wasn't going to have this cheap surprise for shock valve ending- there's plenty of other crime dramas that play out this way. Oh well- I guess add Beau Sejour to the list- ya binge and ya learn.

Not to mention the finale leaves MANY unanswered questions including other characters motivations for nonsensical behavior. To add insult to injury, it's not the type of open questions that leave intrigue, it feels as though they weren't answered out of pure laziness in the writers room, because there's WAS NO logical rationale for the characters choices so let's just not answer them. The saddest part is if they would have just sat there with the script longer and really fleshed out these characters and worked out the kinks this could have been a really great series. Unfortunately an ending like this sours the whole experience.