angelofvic

I checked out one and a third episodes of this, but it just doesn't appeal to me.

It seems like it was trying to be 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel', set in 1960s Britain, but it lacks that series' class and wit and cleverness.

Instead, 'Funny Woman' is dull and tasteless, with unimaginative dialogue and plots, and actors (especially Rupert Everett) who seem to sleep-walk through their roles.

It just lacks verve and conviction and great acting, not to mention great dialogue and sets.

Perhaps Brits will love it a lot more. As for myself, I bailed one-third of the way through the second episode. Maybe it gets better after that, but I don't want to spend any more time on it.

I found this film slow, tedious, and two-dimensional. It left out 90% of the factual history, including the breadth and scope of the Osage murders.

It was very undramatic, and seemed very self-indulgent in favor of Scorsese's long-time pals, Leo DiCaprio and Robert de Niro -- to the tragic exclusion of the Osage side of the story, which was mostly ignored.

It also insults the audience by including numerous long conversations in Osage, none of which were translated.

All in all, a poor showing in my opinion. The one bright spot is the luminous Lily Gladstone, who is the only reason I might recommend watching this lengthy but bland film.

I might have had a different opinion of the film if I had not read the book -- I can't tell. I read the book two or three years ago and I can assure you it is mesmerizing. I did not feel this film did it -- or the Osage murders -- justice.

Yes, this documentary is long, but it is fascinating, and meticulously researched.

The reason it is so long is that it starts back in the 1890s with the rising robber barons of rail, steel, and oil, and their henchmen. It then follows their incredible power grabs and sleight of hand up through the two world wars they funded (and profited from) both sides of, with the help of the European financial powers. It then moves on to their alliances with intelligence agencies and organized crime (and corrupt politicians) in order to protect their assets and businesses and power afterwards.

It's such a fascinating and eye-opening and meticulous and intricately researched documentary that I had to watch it twice in order to grasp all of the ins and outs involved, and all of the players and their families through the decades and centuries.

If you are looking to watch the film, it's currently on YouTube (although it often gets removed) and BitChute, but I personally recommend watching it on Rumble, because that site includes a 15-second rewind button, which you will doubtless need to use with some frequency to catch all the mind-boggling details of this huge and inter-related cast of characters that has been running things and pulling the wool over the world's eyes for at least a century and a half.

My only minor complaint or caveat about the film is that the British narrator mispronounces a very small handful of American names, most notably Lucky Luciano, but that name is so familiar to most people that the viewer can doubtless figure that out.

Anyway, this is one of the most eyer-opening documentaries I've ever seen, and I highly recommend it.

There is an updated version of this that is at least 20 minutes longer, and it is narrated by John Brown, an investigative attorney who has been trying to further the prosecutions against the various criminals involved.

I'm not sure what year the new version was produced. It is available to watch online. I watched it on Twitter/X, and is it also available on the alternative streaming sites like BitChute.

Well worth your time to find it, because it gives a lot more information, and proof that the crimes have continued long after the documentary was first released. No matter what your political persuasion, this is an eye-opening and must-see video.

If you liked the film 'Moneyball', I predict that you will like this movie as well.

It's a true story, it stars Matt Damon, and it's about someone who sees a sport with a different and clearer eye than most anybody else. And that makes all of the difference

There are a motley group of characters who make the film three-dimensional, realistic, and entertaining as well. All of them contribute their little piece of the puzzle, and in the end credits to the movie we get to see how things ended up for them.

I enjoyed this film a lot, and I think you will too.

I recommend checking the movie out. It's free now on Prime so why not?

This is fascinating stuff. The documentary starts out by acknowledging that Monopoly is the most successful board game in history and in the world. It then recounts the official origin story of how it got to Parker Brothers and became an overnight sensation.

But it turns out that origin story was complete hogwash, and this may never have come to light publicly had not a San Franciscan in the 1970s decided to make an "Anti-Monopoly" social-critique game, and then fought back against Parker Brothers when ordered to cease and desist.

What followed from then on led to a remarkable story about the game's real origins and who actually created it. It's fascinating stuff.

Dear Netflix -- please rethink your business model and production model and cut your productions by at least 50% or so. You'd save a whole lot of money and your stories would be cogent and get better ratings and more viewers and you'd get and keep more subscribers. And your shareholders wouldn't keep bailing on you.

I read in various reviews that the radio show This American Life told this story in less than 50 minutes. Why then did you drag it out into an 8-hour marathon that was so slow every move was predictable? I gave up on this a third of the way through the second episode, and I won't be going back, The Netflix overkill is just too much to take, making everything endlessly boring.

I don't understand this lack of good sense on Netflix's part. Get a decent film editor and use them.

OK, a political candidate who is apparently dangerous to the powers that be gets offed in the first two minutes of the film. (That's not a spoiler.)

What happens next is an endless series of drawn-out car chases, shoot-em-ups, five-against-one fist fights, and constant endless running from the law.

That's not a plot. Liam Neeson plays a G-man fixer with severe OCD. That's not a plot either. Neeson's daughter and granddaughter are affected by his OCD. That's not a plot either.

In short, more than halfway through this film there is no plot beyond what was covered in the first five minutes.

I'll pass.

I got halfway through this film and gave up on it because it failed to hold my interest in a coherent or cogent narrative.

It's 2.5 hours long and should have been cut to closer to half that length; that way, the cliché, boring, repetitive, and time-wasting parts of the story could have been eliminated.

As a taut clearly told story it might have worked, but as a half-baked and half-inane (what the heck is the ridiculous and non-credible Bill Murray character and plotline?) attempt to create a Godfather-like sweeping saga was dead on arrival.

In short, this appears to have been an Andy Garcia vanity project in which he considered himself an auteur and tried to tell an epic-sized, but in reality shallow and inadequate, story about his home city and country, but was insufficiently advised and edited. Such is the unfortunate price of hubris, I suppose.

The first episode of this eight-part anthology series is stellar, and well worth watching. It covers Messrs. Rolls and Royce, of car manufacturing fame.

This episode is the only episode of the series that is in color. It is currently available to watch on YouTube, and I definitely recommend checking it out.

Only one other of the episodes of the anthology series is uploaded to YouTube, and that one is in black and white and covers an individual Americans will be unacquainted with. You can check it out if you like; however as an American I didn't find it nearly as interesting or as enjoyable as episode one.

The first episode of this was intriguing enough to keep me interested, but I stopped 13 minutes into episode 2 because the level of sick and twisted gratuitous violence was just too much to bear and way too unrealistic.

I'm not 100% averse to violence when it fits in with a decent plot and makes sense logically (e.g., I liked 'No Country for Old Men'), but sick twisted gratuitous violence that seems to serve for nothing except shock value passing as "art" is not something I am interested in or condone.

That's too bad because the main male character is an interesting fellow, and the Emily Blunt character wasn't too bad either. Too bad it got ruined by sick and sadistic writing and filmmaking.

Rick Steves does an excellent job showing and explaining, on location, the enormously wide-ranging art and architecture all across Europe from pre-historic times through the 20th century. The series is well organized and well scripted, and Rick effortlessly ties in and explains the historical background and setting of each style and era of art.

So even if you are fairly well versed in art and art history, you will probably get a welcome and intriguing history lesson with this series, leading to several aha moments as the events described tie together some vague old gaps or questions in your subconscious.

With this series I think Rick has proved himself an excellent challenger to British documentary presenters such as Simon Schama and Michael Wood. I highly recommend checking it out, whether via the PBS website or app, Roku TV, or whichever app or service at your disposal streams PBS documentaries.

Brad Pitt is a very weak link, and miscast, in this film. He is supposed to be a French Canadian who speaks fluent French, but of course his French is terrible (was Pitt ever good at languages?) and this spoils the entire film because most of the dialogue is in French.

Even if you could get past that gigantic hurdle (difficult when playing opposite an animated French native like Marion Cotillard), Brad otherwise seems to have lost his acting chops and sleepwalks through much of the film. And beyond that, he's had "work done" that leaves his face stony and rigid.

He occasionally lets loose when the dialogue is in English and we see some of the old Brad Pitt spark, but this is too seldom.

I abandoned the film at the 36-minute mark when sex in a car is supposed to give the film some sort of interest -- in fact, the plot is so sleepy that manufactured sexual attraction between two stars one of whom is out to lunch passes for the glue that holds this weak and miscast film together. It didn't work for me.

This documentary film is an enjoyable exploration of both the ground-breaking phenomenon that was (and is) 'Company' (1970) and also Sondheim himself.

Using the.2021 gender-swapped Broadway staging of 'Company' as a backdrop and framing device, commentators as varied as original cast members, current cast members, and interim "Bobby" stars, theatre critics, Sondheim biographers, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Patti LuPone, Candace Bushnell, and Cynthia Nixon, among others, illuminate and elucidate the innovations and motivations behind this enduring and now-classic musical.

In addition to footage from the 2021 Broadway show and other revivals over the years, the documentary is heavily interspersed with footage from the unmissable 1970 documentary 'Original Cast Album: Company' filmed by D. A. Pennebaker. Now released on DVD by Criterion, if you do not already have that DVD in your collection, I very very strongly encourage you to hasten to obtain it. It is the ideal companion piece to 'Keeping Company with Sondheim', and essential for any Sondheim or 'Company' or musical theater fan of any stripe. You can get a taste of it on YouTube, where someone has uploaded the amazing 5-minute segment of Dean Jones recording "Being Alive".

I've watched three hour-long episodes of this series and it still hasn't gelled, and none of the various unconnected storylines have crossed into each other or even made any sense.

This is no way to make a series or treat an audience. I don't have time to waste on something I might spend hours and hours on and still not like.

I only watched three episodes because I like Sissy Spacek and JK Simmons. But even they aren't worth it for a series that goes nowhere and means nothing.

Like the rest of Ken Burns' series, especially those that are biographical in any way, this two-part biography of Ben Franklin is well done, well-organized, and very informative.

And as always with Ken Burns, the series gives you warm fuzzies while at the same time teaching you so much you never knew. It's this human + informational + stylistic genius that makes Ken Burns the master of his form.

There are very very few Ken Burns programs that have left me uninterested or cold, and this is definitely not one of those! I enjoyed this entirely.

This is a fascinating and eye-opening program, and very well done.

Even if you've seen a lot of code-breaking stuff like the Bletchley Circle programs and the WWII resistance coders and Enigma Code stuff, this adds new, fresh, and important layers to the field of crucial codebreakers we don't know about, and women codebreakers who were never ever given their due or even close to sufficient pay.

This program is fresh and will really grab you. Check it out.

This bio-pic, which details Flannery's deep religious faith, as well as her painful loneliness and eventual debilitating illness, offers a better understanding of the twisted weirdness, violence, and grotesque in her works.

In many of these works, the violence and grotesque spark an inwardly mysterious revelatory connection to revelation and salvation and the divine, if viewed correctly through O'Connor's perspective.

If you have read some of O'Connor's work and found it compelling but often too off-putting and weird, this film should make you think again and reconsider the deeper meaning of her compelling but very unusual and seemingly dark or "twisted" themes.

It's also great to learn about the flesh and blood person behind the iconic stories.

Highly recommended.

This isn't a great Astaire film (the script is really bad), but there are a few reasons to watch in case you want to check it out:

1. Artie Shaw's clarinet playing is spectacular, and he has several full numbers.

2. Paulette Goddard is gorgeous, sparkling, and impeccable. And her wardrobe is dazzling.

3. There is some terrific trumpet playing, with several full numbers.

That said, the drawbacks to the film are as follows: The script is terrible. The acting (other than Goddard's) is half-hearted and second-rate. Fred Astaire and Burgess Meredith are lousy together and unconvincing. The plot is mind-numbingly juvenile (in more ways than one). Fred sings a bit but nothing special; he dances a bit but nothing to write home about and by the time he does we are dead sick of the film anyway.

To summarize: If you want to hear some great big-band solo music, or want to watch the wonderful Paulette Goddard, tune in. If not, perhaps best stay away.

This six-hour long miniseries is currently viewable on YouTube, where it has been uploaded in two segments. If you want it to be an enjoyable watch, please for heaven's sake divide it into at least three or four viewings.

It's quite enjoyable taken in three or four doses of approximately equal length. Otherwise, it's too sprawling, with too many plotlines and characters, and starts to pall and seem a tad soapy or wearying.

But in three or four parts it's quite enjoyable, and one can savor the fine cast, the plot elements, and the historical changes as well. The cast includes a wonderful array of talented folks, both big and medium names. And the unknown Gregory Paul Martin, as one of the leads, is a handsome and talented revelation as a working-class Italian immigrant trying to make good.

Peter Riegert is wonderfully watchable and a delightful performer as an Irving-Berlin style Jewish composer. Faye Dunaway is beautiful, appealing, and believable as a suave actress, and rightfully won a Golden Globe for her performance. Richard Burton AND his daughter have prominent roles, and this miniseries was his final work on screen.

All in all, given the large and fine cast and the entertainment value, I'd say this miniseries is quite watch-worthy, providing you have the discipline to divide it up into three or more segments. If you try to watch more of it than that in one day, because it is so sprawling I don't think you are doing it the justice it deserves.

I rented (i.e., paid for) this movie on Amazon Prime, and had to force myself to watch the whole thing.

It's exactly like a Hallmark movie, sickly sweet and two-dimensional, slow-moving, and without much life to it. Debra Messing gives the film life for the few scenes that she is in, but beyond that I found it quite tedious. The only other life in the movie is a climactic occurrence very near the end.

These flaws were made worse by the fact that, at least on the Amazon streaming, the dubbing of the move is off, so the bad acting is made even worse by the fact that the words don't match up to the mouth movements.

Anyway, if you like Hallmark-style movies, you might very well like this, and it might be worth your checking out. If not, I'd say avoid it.

This flick is a very stylized thriller which is actually pretty interesting to watch.

It features some interesting filmmaking and fast-paced action that the viewer is caught up trying to keep up with. It also introduces audiences to Able Danger, the pre-9/11 "inside job" that long preceded the WTC attacks.

I enjoyed watching it. It does kind of go off the rails in the last 5 minutes (as if the filmmakers and actors were tired and just phoning it in), but otherwise it is a good watch if one is willing to go along for the ride.

I watched it (for free) at abledanger dot us.

The case for the Oxfordian authorship of the Shakespeare works is overwhelming at this point. By the year 2060 it will probably be common, accepted knowledge.

So much information exists that tie every single Shakespeare work to Edward de Vere that it is impossible to encompass or even know them all. New clues are being discovered all the time.

For that reason, this film is an excellent offering of an abundant number of facts about the ties between a variety of Shakepeare works and the 17th Earl of Oxford's life. Even if you are already a confirmed Oxfordian, you will probably learn something new.

The film is well presented with appealing footage mixed with statements by knowledgeable Oxfordians.

By the way, if you don't want commercial interruptions while watching, the film is rentable on Amazon Prime, etc.

Someone recommended I watch this and I'm so glad I did! Nézet-Séguin is that rare bird, a True Artist, and it is a pleasure learning about him, his life, his path, and his worldview.

Like many, I suppose, I didn't know a whole lot about him -- to me he was mainly just a name I heard on the radio during some Saturday operas, and whose conducting I liked but hadn't heard enough of to make a summary assessment.

Anyway, even if you are only marginally familiar with Nézet-Séguin, like I was, this is wonderful to check out. If you want to learn about someone who has a heartfelt devotion to his art, do watch this.

Whatever your view of Billy Graham and/or Christian evangelism, if you have an open mind I think you'll find this biographical documentary informative and worthwhile.

Graham became an evangelist in the 1940s, capitalizing on his own charisma and power of persuasion, combined with his Christian upbringing and his Bible Institute training. His success in the endeavor surprised even him.

When faced with the crossroads between fundamentalism and modern Christianity, he felt guided to retain the former, and that marked his career for the next many decades.

He began actively associating with the powerful and the influential, seeing them as further gateways to his own personal and spiritual ambitions. But he abandoned Martin Luther King by denouncing civil protests, and his long-term joining of forces with Richard Nixon blew up in his face after Nixon resigned in disgrace following the Watergate trials.

Late in life, after travelling the world, Graham renounced fundamentalism and decried the "Moral Majority" movement. But his own decades of massively popular fundamentalist crusades had paved the way for the politically active "Christian right" to blossom.

I think this documentary and its assorted commentators strike just the right and equitable balance in presenting and reviewing the life of this undeniably influential (both nationally and internationally) man.