Samba-boy

Title already is kind of self-explanatory, but Izzy, the granddaughter of Hawthorne is a self-righteous piece of work, her friend 'Quitter' (whose real name I don't care to learn) is a stupid arrogant jerk and 'Parole' (Once again, a name who I don't care enough about to actually look up) is a one-dimensional cheap shot for cheap laughs. Well, actually, all three of them are. The entire 'junior squad' sucks and where this movie trope 'Worst team you can have, underdogs saving the world' normally is a 'can't fail', it fails miserably in my eyes. The scenery is nice though, but the pacing is godawful, and it's storyline just is all over the place.

Ugh.

2021 was a year where, coincidentally, not just one but two documentaries were made about the Dutch phenomenon from the 90's, Jomanda. One was made by Ewout Genemans for RTL/Videoland, and this one was produced for Discovery Plus.

One thing I do like about this series in particular, is the addition of Tineke de Nooij and her journey to Canada to find and visit Joke Damman (Jomanda). She makes the story complete, as her work with Jomanda in the past, as well as her still strong (but in no way forcing) belief in Jomanda, her soothing and warm personality gives the documentary series a nice feeling of urgency, and also makes the story come full circle. I'd like to compliment the research done on both the amount of people interviewed (those who still support Jomanda after all these years and those opposed to her), as well as the used footage (newsreports, appearances in programs from that era), coming from both public network-sources as from the commercial networks. However, a side note has to be made, it does kinda strike me the wrong way that some footage clearly and bluntly was taken from YouTube, some videos even showing blurred-out watermarks.

Some small editing mistakes were made (some archival footage in a wrong aspect ratio, episode 4 starts with an interview that we already saw at the end of episode 3), and the long intro to the series gets a bit repetitive after seeing it all 4 episodes, but all in all I have no big things to complain.

I can only imagine what a challenge it must have been for the production crew, to correctly place the case surrounding the death of comedian and actress Sylvia Millecam (and what Jomanda had to do with it) in the right spot in this documentary. Sylvia was an amazing comedian, I'd even argue she'd deserve her own documentary on her life and her greatest achievements. That's why it's a challenge to have all those interviews with people that were close to her placed in a right pacing, without losing the sight on the bigger picture.

The amount of interviews with people that, aside from Tineke, still believe in the powers of Jomanda, could be argued as 'countering' for those people who don't believe or never did. Maybe the documentary painted a too bright and too positive view of Jomanda in those first episodes, only to have that view you could get of her crumbled in the later episodes. It's a bit too much on the nose, you know?

I'm not gonna lie, the finale of the documentary was a bit of a letdown, but they managed to roll with every chance they got (no matter how small those are), which gave some sort of closure... It was, however, in no way an ideal situation. And I genuinely felt bad for Tineke.

Sometimes, there are documentaries that just get about everything right. The research on this one is so well done and the situations that are talked about in the documentary are happening as we watch it, so much that you can't deny there is something fishy going on. I loved watching the 'Joy of Painting with Bob Ross'-shows as much as anyone else, but I never fully understood the current operations by 'Bob Ross Inc', and all the irrelevant or subpar 'crap' they are selling nowadays with the Bob Ross-name slapped on it. Watch this documentary and find out how one couple called the Kowalski's succeeded in actually robbing a man's name while on his deathbed. It's sad, really. They did Steve dirty.

First half is great. Second half it gets way too confusing and plottwistery. And the finale takes way too long.

This movie looks like they took the original Space Jam as an example and remade every scene, but added the extremeness of it by about 200%. With about 45 minutes of movie to go, the game starts, and it will take those 45 minutes to actually wrap it up. There is no training montage, before but a small compilation of scenes of Bugs and 'King' James where they get back all of the Looney Tunes from the other franchise planets because... Well, I don't know why they're on other planets, actually. They tried to explain, but it was such a weird explanation, it was the most cheap plot device ever.

So, no real training can be seen (they even acknowledge the fact that Babs is the only one who can play basketball), and a second before the game starts LeBron angers everyone by making the Tunes actually play like him (and failing). Creatively, it all feels really cheap. The best jokes are Daffy turning into CGI and saying "Oh, I feel expensive!" and Sylvester saying "It's been 25 years, I thought he aged gracefully!", that's it. This movie wasn't needed. I didn't need to watch it.

And how could they kill off Bugs Bunny with such an emotional tearjerker like that? It's like they took the scene from the original where Bugs saves Babs and gets slammed doing it, but now turned it into something where he could actually die. Bugs Bunny shouldn't die, he's a fricking Looney Tune!

Movie just sucks. Disney/Marvel shpved an unlikeable overpowered Superman-like character down our throat. She had nor has no right to be in phase one of the MCU, has entirely no reason to become the first female Marvel hero woth a standalone movie and should take down her god complex a notch or two hundred.

For once I really don't care for the average rate on here; this is a little masterpiece and I'm gonna keep it short, simple and easy to understand why.

This movie lacks everything the original 1992-movie did wrong (Tom and Jerry talking, buddies right away, annoying new side-characters in the first 5 minutes, songs that just did not have a place in a Tom and Jerry-movie, too big an emphasize on the human characters), but kept or improved everything that that movie did right (The alley cats, Droopy-cameo, a nice origin story for Tom and Jerry, especially by not making Jerry completely flawless for once). Better yet, they went out of their way and made amazing callbacks to the original 1940s-1960s cartoons, by including famous jokes in a new style, and even using Tom's original screams, nicely placed throughout the movie.

This time around, the emphasize of the story is placed onto the human characters again, but it's in good taste. Extra points for making Kayla and Terrence become some sort of symbolic, human versions of Tom and Jerry themselves. Nice touch: not only Tom and Jerry are animated 2D-characters in this movie: ALL animals are! Elephants, peacocks, doves, butterflies, a wedding couple's feline cat (and of course Spike), even a couple random dogs in the background are animated in the same, quirky animation-style. With just this little attention to detail, it becomes a movie that actually makes sense.

All in all, this is exactly the kind of movie I expected out of a Tom and Jerry-movie. Chloë Grace Moretz crushed it (her interactions with the duo are flawless), as well as the rest of the cast, including Tom and Jerry as themselves.

'All Stars & Zonen' decides to, once again, almost completely drop the events that occurred in the former series and even some of the events that occurred in All Stars 2: Old Stars. Instead, we are treated to some bland and slow humor that was funny in the 70s, starring an unlikeable cast (plus the son of the director) and containing really thin storylines. As a final kick in the groin for the people who kept watching for a trip down memorylane: the old 'Swift Boys' got their asses completely kicked by the new, younger generation of skummy, privileged and spoiled 'Swift Boys' in the latest episode.

Recently I felt really sad, after I heard that Kelly Preston sadly had passed away to breast cancer. She played an amazing Kate Newell in this movie. Jeff Goldblum and her, in my humble opinion, had some great chemistry together in 'Holy Man', just as Eddie Murphy, as 'G', really seemed to get a hold of the attention (in a good way), every scene that he got.

The flaw of this movie that I think people were most unhappy about, is that Murphy wasn't an all over the top-nutjob in it. G had his quirks, but he wasn't the entire main star of the movie. The movie revolves more about Ricky Hayman trying to survive in the world of shopping networks, in a time that the channel he's responsible for seems to be drowning. But the story, in my humble opinion, is wholesome, and it amazes me that such a well-crafted story got criticized so badly.

The jokes weren't there to make you cry with laughter, but were meant to give you a slight chuckle, a subtle smile. The eye for detail, on the other hand, is amazing. The movie succeeds in giving an extremely truthful look in the way live shopping TV was produced in the late nineties, and Jon Cryer as a shy assistant, being placed in front of a TV-camera to sell some overstock doormats while intercutting from G (who is outside, actively convincing viewers to go out and look at the grass) is just an adorable addition. Robert Loggia is great as John McBainbridge, the owner of the Good Buy Shopping Network, and Eric McCormack is able to portray Scott Hawkes as 'hip and upcoming' sleazeball Scott Hawkes.

Long story short: yes, some of the jokes got dated quick (the skit with Morgan Fairchild got some pretty ugly, dare I say creepy CGI-effects there), but the comedic banter between Ricky and G, the people in the control room, the continuous stream of stories around G's stay at the network and the chemistry between Ricky and Kate, that's what make this truly a good film. I'm still not tired of watching this movie, and I'm still saddened by Kelly Preston's unexpected passing.

I was already doubting if I should give this show an 8 or a 9. But originally I went with the 8... Until I finally noticed the main character was portrayed by the same actress that played Jessica in American Pie, which I hadn't noticed. At all. I was just completely mind blown. That acting was completely brilliant and I thought she just was some sort of actress catching a late big break. The show is shot wonderfully, it's funny in a dark way, has a lot of drama and build-up and the first 3 episodes are there for a reason. The pay-off is so, so good.

This movie was reviewed only once before, and it obviously has been reviewed by someone who doesn't care about the original soap drama at all. 'Goede tijden, slechte tijden: De Reünie' (In English 'Good times, bad times: The Reunion') is a one time only TV-movie/Christmas-special around the Alberts-family (One of the main families in the series) having a calm and quiet Christmas.

After Robert and Laura argued about a little sculpture their long-lost son Arnie has made as a kid, having the idea of putting it on top of the Christmas-tree, Laura decides to go to bed. Then she suddenly is awakened by loud noises. She goes downstairs and notices that there are people working for 'the big Christmas-party' at the Alberts' residence. Laura is confused but slowly more and more guests (Some who had left years before or even guests who had died in the soap opera, like Sylvia Merkx, Frits van Houten and even Laura's deceased baby-daughter, Lotje) arrive at the party.

In the meanwhile, Roos and Stan are waiting for Arnie to arrive at the airport. The same airport where he left on a flight to Venezuela years before, but never arrived (Arnie was missing ever since). Stan and Roos were waiting for Arnie and Laura was completely overwhelmed of the fact she would see her son again... Although the party almost got out of hand when the departed villains Frits van Houten and Martine Hafkamp arrived, and when Laura's longtime rival Linda accidentally broke Arnie's little sculpture.

Laura was still waiting for her son to arrive and when Stan and Roos were standing at the door, they had bad news for Laura... Arnie had missed his flight, so he wouldn't make it to the party. The morning after, Laura woke up, thinking it was all a dream. But it was then that she found Arnie's sculpture, glued together, as it had fallen apart in her dream the other night. But how it actually broke, that will stay a Christmas-mystery.

This TV-movie is one of the most cute TV-specials I've ever seen, at least for a soap opera. The Reunion was a little nod to the fans who were eager to see the most legendary characters from the old days together again for one more time. It's not really as exciting nor as action-filled as the normal series is/was in that days, but it made up with the nostalgic-feeling that went over it. And yes, it was a really unbelievable story, but at least it was done right. The acting was alright, they won't win an Oscar for it, but at least it wasn't as bad as reading from an autocue. There's only one minor point to it: Legendary characters, such as Peter Kelder, Daniel and mister Harmsen were missing in it, although 2 of 3 were missing with a genuine reason: Wim Zomer had just left the series and wasn't going back immediately to be in the reunion, as he had left on bad conditions after 8 years of playing Daniel (From the start), while Wik Jongsma (The actor who played Govert Harmsen) was very ill during the taping of the special.

The music for this TV-movie was done brilliantly by Ronald Schilperoort (Who also composed for the regular episodes of the show until 2011/2012), with touching themes and tunes and last but not least, a wonderful Christmas-theme of the original opening theme. The best part is that this TV-movie was recorded in the final Christmas having the old Alberts' residence, the set that was used from the beginning of the soap in 1990 (Although with a few little changes, throughout the years); Less than a year after airing this TV-movie, the set of the Alberts' residence was completely overhauled, which, in my eyes, didn't look as great as the original set.

This TV-movie/Christmas-special won't stand up to 'normal' movies nor will it stand up to the original series, and it's indeed something more for the fans, but when you know the series, you'll like this special very much. It's nostalgic and sweet. The TV-movie hasn't been released on DVD yet, hopefully that will happen at one point in the future.