Reviews

What could be wrong about a guy who has no job, no permanent address, no possessions, who everyone in the military has heard the mthology of, loves and carries out any request he asks, even from cold phone calls?

Reacher, a guy who never makes mistakes, who has a perfect sense of morality and patriotism, and goes around killing people in cold blood, after the plot sets them up satisfactorily as bad guys who need to die.

I liked the Reacher movies with Tom Cruise, even though I would not say I am a Cruise fans, but the Reacher series is entertaining, it just rubs me the wrong way in that the character is ridiculous, and the plots are just excuses for very rough scenes of violence.

Additionally, at least in my opinion the seasons have gotten progressively worse and more gratuitous as they go.

Finally, it is like a comic book or video game. I watched an episode of S3 and the blocking and dialog was exactly like a video game, and even Reacher himself, looked like he was computer generated.

Watch for entertainment if you like this kind of stuff, but for me, nothing here, here. 3/10.

I noticed this one Amazon, "Those Who Kill", seasons 1-4. Having run out of things to watch I began watching this series not expecting much.

"Those Who Kill" started out slow, but am currently starting S4 and I think this series is brilliant. It seems so different from the stereotypical American crime/detective dramas, and I thought the acting on all the characters was brilliant.

I really love the character of Louise because she is a human being and not some kind of super-hero.

Very little over-acting or gratuitous violence and blood. Denmark has made some very good series, Those Who Kill among them.

I saw the teasers/previews for this show and since I liked ( past tense ) Paul Rudd in some of his early stuff before he got so famous and commercial I figured it had to be at least OK, no matter how unpleasant I think it is watching Will Ferrill who has not a subtle bone in his flabby body.

I watched a while and it felt like watching a dramatization of the worst in humanity. That's the feeling I wished people would have gotten when they watch stuff like "The Godfather" or "The Sopranos". To me, seeing the worst behavior and crimes one person can do to another and be completely guilt free felt horrible watching this show, and reminded me of our President and his followers.

This show should be used as psychopath test - if you like this show you may have psychopathic tendencies.

Anyway, I watched a couple episodes when it came out, and today I noticed it was still in my watch list so I thought I'd see if it was really so bad as I remember it since it got pretty high ratings. It was worse.

I don't even see how these two actors could work on this show without feeling like traitors to the human race. Could not stomach even a few more minutes of watching this again. It would make a better crime documentary.

A rating of 1/10 is a number I usually reserve for movies so bad they hurt to watch and make you turn then off - unwatchable. Sadly, this is watchable, but it crawls inside your gut and makes you want to throw up.

I have to rate 1/10,

I've read the book, and I have seen the Chinese version of this.

The new Westernized version, except for the effects, moves way too fast, is poorly done and purposefully seems like a China-bashing effort.

The story opens with an exaggerated scenario of the abuses of Mao's cultural revolution, which was very bravely and admirably in the Chinese version of this story, but here is overly graphic and dramatic, and ugly - and without context - read unfair and non informative or enlightening to us Western viewers

This production takes a globally popular Chinese SF masterpiece and transposes it to England, in modern hipster lingo, and tries to move too fast that it skids and goes off the road. The visuals are good, but the screenplay is very poorly adapted.

Having just recently watched the Chinese version of this - it is so much more human, interesting and engaging - though the Chinese version is a pretty long slog - something like 30 episodes and it drags in many places and the effects are not as flashy - but I think it is much, much better done.

TBP ... well, I am interested in what people who have not read the book or been primed as to the story of plot are making of this because to me, who is family with most of it - it is going much too fast to establish characters or make us interested or care about them.

It also suffers from the same thing the Chinese version did - the many Chinese Asian characters faces were not chosen to be distinctive enough for Western eyes so it is a bit confusing and harder to follow, but not impossible.

The scenes at the labor camp zoomed by in minutes and had none of the deep impact of personal and societal betrayal and gravitas that the Chinese version did - and I would think this had to be a big deal in China for this movie to slam Mao's cultural revolution as it did. We get a accelerated vision of this that is kind of insulting to the import to China this must have been.

As China seems to open up to be more self-critical, the US is shrinking away from its history - as a general statement of my perceptions as an average older white American. It is sad to see.

The criticisms I am making are systemic and are going to be throughout the series, so I felt OK to write about this in a review even though only seeing a little over two episodes.

With all the effort that must have gone into this, it should have been better.

It takes a lot for me to rate something at 1/10 which I reserve for shows or movies that are literally unwatchable.

Well, Constellation is worse than unwatchable because you actually watch it for a while in hope that it is not as stupid as it seems at first. This show wasted 2 hours of my time before I threw in the towel.

Ghosts, hallucations, people with massive bad judgement? When a movie or TV show relies on it's characters being dumber than rocks, it's time to stop wasting your time with it.

Usually Jonathan Banks and Noomi Rapace have good judgement about what projects to associate themselves with, but certainly not here.

They throw pointless unbelievable hurdles in front of the characters to draw out what they nust suppose is suspense but it is just irritation.

They must have thrown a lot of money away on this brain dead story. There were some pretty good effects.

One silly example of how they got the science wrong is that there is a scene where a space capsule is re-entering the earth's atmosphere. To heighten the drama they film it as though it is taking off and there is massive acceleration force on the astronaut - but that is on take-off where a rocket has to accelerate to get away from Earth's gravity - not on re-entry which is more like a jetliner landing - it gets bumpy, but it does not keep you from operating the controls.

Nothing is working on the ISS, International Space Station, and of course communications are down. Everyone is hallucinatings.

Did they not read the story before they decided to make this movie?

Total waste of time for everyone. Rated 1/10.

I watched two episodes thinking this might get better, but it actually got worse.

This is something that must have gotten a lot of investment judging from the cast and the special effects, so why did anyone greenlight this story?

Jonathan Banks usually has pretty good sense as to what media to be a part of and I expected better, and even more so with Noomi Rapace.

I don't give 1/10 ratings very often. To me, a 1/10 review is an unwatchable show. While "Constellation" is not unwatchable in the beginning because it piques your curiosity, it is worse than unwatchable in the long run because it wastes the time it takes to watch a few episodes to realize it is unwatchable and assuming viewers are utter fools.

Another really irritating thing is how they draw things out with no reason other than to draw them out. For example, nothing on the International Space Station seems to work or be dependable.

I just feel bad that if you don't take my advice and avoid this sad excuse for a science fiction movie you will be wasting your time watching it before you quit in disgust.

Sorry ... 1/10.

Having seen Sharon Horgan in the series "Catastrophe" I respect and admire her writing, comedy and performance so much that I will watch anything she is in at this point.

"Bad Sisters" is a wickedly funny, brilliantly written, brilliantly acted, and brilliantly directed and just all around clever and so human - both the good and bad, that it stands out immediately.

There is no real violence, car crashes, special effects, it is all very human, the real drama and agony of what some people do to others, smoothed out with hilarious circumstances and comedy. I love this show.

John Paul, one sister's abusive husband otherwise known as "The Prick" to all the sisters is so marvelously and diabolically written and acted that I don't know if I can ever see this actor again in anything else and not hate him for being so evil in such a banal role. Two minutes of watching him constantly call his wife "Mammy" ... it's honestly, just upsetting, because he is so realistic you want to kill him yourself or see to it that he dies.

This series walks the fine line between comedy, drama and tragedy so perfectly, I have to rate it a 10/10.

Parenti used to be asked to be on the talking head politics shows, but when he began to bring up points and counterpoints to our American mythology and narratives he was not asked to comment any more.

He is so smart, and informed, and in so many documentaries as the main star or a contributor - WHY IS THERE NO Michael Parenti PAGE on IMDB for Michael, Dr. Parenti?

Noam Chomsky has a page on IMDB, why not Parenti?

In order to avoid spoilers I can't really say much about this except in emotional generalities. I waited to see this for months because it looks so interesting.

The preview of the movie is about the right pave, but the movie itself drags on so slow, and it is boring. Also Hanks is so grumpy and angry ... who wants to listen to 2 hours or an old guy scolding a robot for everything he does.

After all he built the thing, but there is no recognition of that.

Almost all the robot cliches you've ever seen in a movie are right here but not done as well. The best part of the movie by far is Seamus who plays Goodyear the dog brilliantly.

It's insulting the intelligence of anyone who is over the age or 10, so kids might love this movie.

I have always been skeptical and negative on TV/Movies that involve alternate time lines or alternative futures, and I started "For All Mankind" with that skepticism in full gear. As I watched it I began to see some more and more the intelligence and heart in the story, and understand why it was done the way it was done.

For All Mankind takes place in an alternate universe where the first footprint of man on the moon was put there by a Russian. The second was put there by a female Russian cosmonaut. This immediately puts us into the competitive frame in which the space race was run.

We get to know the astronauts, some of the had the names of real people which was interesting. We see their personal lies, and all of this mixed up with trends in history played you through the 60's through the 80's.

Replacing the truth with fiction was done in a way that did not raise much objection from me as I thought it would. It was interesting to see the women's movement play a prominent role.

What I find hard is to understand why there is so much pushback and anger from some over this series. They call it woke, or politically correct in such a way as to show that the ones who are doing are the ones who really want to turn the clock back and resent the changes in our society. They seem to want to go back to the dark ages. It's sad to see so many comments that are this way.

This is serious fiction, with some serious and important messages done in a very smart and clever way - the best thing I have seen in years. Whatever they did, wherever this came from I hope we can see more of it.

Highly recommend 10/10.

While I love the Ken Burns documentaries and have gotten so much from them, they are far more mainstream and edited to be more palatable to over-sensitive American feelings.

Ric Burns' documentary "The Way West" is brilliant and almost terrifying in its revelation of how sheltered we are from real history.

This is one of the best documentaries I've ever watch, and I even bought it - and it was hard to find too.

Notice there are no reviews of this - besides mine today. That is an outrage. I've never seen it broadcast except once, and that was probably due to its being confused with his bother's documentary.

Americans need to open their eyes, and have the guts to seek out, learn, accept and integrate our history - the good and the bad.

What all the other 10x10's are saying. This series is brilliant, it is like a serial TV hologram showing everything that is wrong with our world and how it just won't stop. Absolutely brilliant.

I was prepared to dislike "The Discovery" for several reasons. One was that one of the stars, albeit a part in the background was Jesse Plemins, Todd from "Breaking Bad" who still gives me the creeps, but now he is fat and bloated too. The other was Robert Redford who keeps promising to retire but also keeps showing up in movies that are not that great. Then there is Jason Segal who tries maybe too hard to be a serious actor, and sometimes even succeeds. Rooney Mara who I am not that familiar with but who is the real star of the movie plays a memorable character very well.

Of course there is also the story which is about a scientist ( Robert Redford ) who proves that there is life after death, or "something" after death. He does not know what, and is set up in a giant rambling mansion of a house with lots of equipment, his two sons and a crowd of hangers on, and rooms to try to find out.

"The Discovery" that the "soul" survives death has set off a worldwide pandemic of suicides. They have a suicide clock and millions of miserable, sad or unhappy people are taking their lives all through the movie.

It is an interesting story - a movie that doesn't really move very fast, or even very logically, but the quirky budding relationship between the Jason Segal and the Rooney Mara characters has some odd depth and an intimate human element in what seems like it would be a unrealistic movie.

People have expressed dissatisfaction with the ending, and I can understand that, but I didn't think it was so bad because after all how would you even think to tie up such a discovery all in a nice bow that people would understand and be satisfied with. So, all in all it was a though provoking movie that had a fairly strong human element to it.

I would recommend it if this is a theme that interests you.

I am wanting like crazy to see this movie. I keep looking for it and I keep reading about it, and seeing video previews of it, but nothing is out yet. Why isn't Amazon showing it?

What I do see is that most reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes and elsewhere are prejudicially rating this very low, and clearly the reason is peer pressure. Since the absurd "hatchet job" documentary as Woody calls it "Allen V. Farrow" was released with HBO's name on it people are afraid to say anything good about Woody or his movies, and certainly will not release them without some kind of fight. This is a whole national witch hunt - but directed at one very famous and prominent American genius of a filmmaker. It is just not right.

This is so unfair and prejudicial that I feel totally correct and justified to give "Rifkin's Festival" a 10/10 stars to attempt to do my tiny part to rebalance the ratings just a little bit. I believe Woody.

The idea that Woody after 2 investigations and another to determined if he and SoonYi were fit to adopt children would have molested Dylan Farrow while an entire household of people were told to keep an eye on him,for 10 minutes in an attic, that is so small that even if a train set was up there even a little kid could not even fit up there - it's ridiculous. 30 years later he is still being dogged but these absurd accusations. Even Mia Farrow did not hold Roman Polanky guilty for drugging and raping a 13 year old girl ... so, this is all about Mia and her festering hate and vengeance.

So, as soon as I see this movie, if I need to I will return and adjust the rating should need be, but Woody's movies are so great I doubt the occasion will arise.

In typical Ridley Scott Science Fiction fashion Raised By Wolves starts out with amazing effects, draws you in, creates a whole world that you want to know all about ... and then somewhere along the time it all gets dropped into the toilet and gets flushed for no real reason other than Ridley Scott just cannot sustain and complete a good story. There was real potential here that Scott just squandered - maybe because I guess he just doesn't have too care any more.

As another review said ... watch it for the eye candy and to kill time, but don't expect anything really good from this ... a total tragic waste. Scott needs to retire, I cannot stand his awful exploitative stuff any more.

Nice little story about self-actualization, getting out of a rut, and coupling. Kristian Bruun is great as Damon. And Cara Gee, "The Expanse"'s Camina Drummer, is wonderful, and wow, she can really sing. Morgan David Jones' as Mark is incredibly annoying, almost enough to want to shut it off. Same with Joshua Peace's Brad character. One of those little movies that is fun to watch, I enjoyed it. I'd give it a 8/10

When subject matter as serious as the Holocaust is taken on, it really demands to be taken as serious as it is, and foolishness, or lies, or misinformation should be eschewed as much as possible.

For a silly move like "The Producers" that is movie sized and has some kind of stupid point, vapid as it was, that is one thing, but to have a series that is 10 hours long and a treatment that is only there to trick people into watching longer through cheap devices, like violence or cliff-hanging is a waste of time for everyone.

While "Hunters" is not so terrible that it makes you want to turn it off immediately, maybe that is not such a good thing. As you watch it makes you think maybe you are watching something that has a payoff or a purpose, but alas not.

I'm pretty supporting of Amazon productions, and in generally they mean well even if they don't hit the mark, but "Hunters" is pretty much of a waste, and pointless.

The twist ending didn't really have any effect because by that time you are not taking the series very seriously anymore.

If you are curious check it out. After all it does have Al Pacino in it playing, in more ways than one, an old Jewish man. As for me, I regret wasting the time. 3/10

Martin Scorse's new NetFlix movie, "The Irishman" was, to a certain extent, a national event. After all Martin Scorsese, like Woody Allen, and some others are national treasures and it is not everyday that one of our national treasures puts out a virtually free movie that all Americans can see and dicussion - a national cinematic forum to make some kind of moralistic, artistic or at least patriotic statement. Instead, blah, nothing, boring, and on top of all the negatives, there is nothing to really verify that much of it or any of it was true.

This could have been a really good movie if they had just shifted the plot and conflict to be more about Hoffa, who no Americans know about, and whose history affected so many Americans. Americans should know a lot more about history but especially a lot more about this history because it has affected them so negatively. Few know who Jimmy Hodda was, and or course nothing about the lying selfish criminal scumbag liar no one can trust, Frank Sheeran.

Since the framework of the story was mostly based on a kind of nonsensical story from Frank, who is the book written about him seems to be all about Frank trying to take credit for every big Mafia crime or hit.

It seems like it would have been better to contrast the soul and crimes of Frank Sheeran with the soul and crimes of Jimmy Hoffa. Hoffa was no saint, ( or was he ) and consorted with and ultimately got run over, chewed up and spit out by the mob by using them to stand up to the 0.01% who were beating up. ripping off, stealing from the middle class of America. What else could he do? ... or we never would have heard of him or the Teamsters.

I don't think the writers of this movie were skilled enough to tell that story, so they just re-did Casino and Goodfellas.

America was traumatized by the assassinations of the 60's and 70's and as we can all see from the path of the country, the bad guys won. They took over the unions, screwed over the middle class, took their money, made them pay the taxes for the rich, made then fight their evil wars, and bought up the media and the news, bought up the military contractors, bought up the drug and pharma, and now we are all paying for it ... and dying for it, thanks to stupid sell-out, scumbags, creeps like Frank Sheeran, the Mafia, etc.

In fact you can really say pretty catagorically that this was a crappy film because it was situated so close to the rudders and currents and captains of American history - and yet missed the whole point to pander to a stupid unverified story about what happened to Jimmy Hoffa and the minutia of Frank Sheeran's evil life.

"The Kominsky Method" is, in my humble opinion, by far, the best and most significant thing Michael Douglas has ever done or probably ever will do. For the sitcom genre, it is sublime. It has all the elements of comedy and tragedy and as they say punches way about it's weight.

Alan Arkin is also very good as are a whole host of recognizable big name celebrities. The plot, the storylines the characterizations, the character arcs, the direction ... all aspects of this series converge to create something substantial and way above the normal TV sitcom.

Notable are Lisa Edelstein who I first saw on The West Wing, then House, and now "The Good Doctor" playing Alan Arkin's wayward substance abusing daughter; Paul Reiser the health-challenged "boyfriend" of Michael Douglas's daughter Mindy played vivaciously by Sarah Baker. Reiser, who must be wearing a fat-suit is about the same age or older than Douglas himself which leads to many memorable moments. Jane Seymour who plays with absolute poise and dignity the love interest of Alan Arkin whose wife has recently passed away.

Teally everyone in the show does a tremendous job to bring the vision and writing to life.

I am not sure I ever would have thought to watch this series if it had not been done on NetFlix where I could watch it without a major investment, but I am very happily surprised that I did. Thanks NetFlix, and also to Chuck Lorre who climbed way above the adolescent, but funny, Two And A Half Men.

Really fun. 10/10

That I find myself at a loss for words. I have never heard of this story of WWII and this series though probably not historically accurate, give us somewhat of an idea about what the people of the Isle of Guernsey, situated near France which was taken over by the Nazis during WWII and put their population though major misery.

The story is told with such deftness and cleverness that it is not just an interesting historical drama, but a great story of friends, neighbors, war, citizens, and family. I never thought I would enjoy this so much or get so much out of it.

I unreservedly recommend "Enemy At The Door" to anyone who imagines they might find it interesting ... and others.

First, there are facts, and there is reality. The facts give a broad bound on what occurred in a given situation, but anyone who has ever watched a trial knows that the facts can be spun in very different ways to further someone's intent.

You can tell by briefly scanning through the reviews here that there are many reviews by the same person, saying the same things, often in the same words, the exact copy ... and all of those kind of reviews I found we all 9 or 10 out of 10 reviews. That says, those reviews are fake, but it also says that IMDB has a terrible problem with trolls and sock puppets here to promote their political purposes. Whether these people are Alt-Right America haters, or Russian American haters, the one thing they certainly are is fairness and justice and truth haters.

The intent here is to smear and character assassinate a man who is dead and gone and cannot defend himself ... and should not have to. In a way this reminds me of the Woody Allen scandal where if someone were to make a movie of it, they would make it to appeal to one side or the other of the controversy, and then cherry pick the facts used to spin it to their purpose, and leave out of distort other facts.

No one knows for sure what happened, but a lot of people view this in light of the world today ... that is, where Emergency Services are dependable and just a cell phone dial away. Maybe you have to be old enough to remember walking a mile in an emergency to get to a pay phone. Another thing is the ubiquity of highway lighting we have today in almost all but the most remote areas, or the standardization of reflective warning signage. Driving out over black water in the middle of the night was a different experience in the 60's.

And accident in a car was also different. Most cars had just gotten seat belts and there were no seat belt laws and most people did not bother to use their seat-belts. Safety class was also not so technologically developed. Imagine being in an accident and how having all your wits about your either because you were tired or tipsy or both, had hard it would be to save yourself, let along look back in the dark and the water and try to see without a face mask and try to save someone in a heightened state of fear and exhaustian. Add to that the thought that your whole life might be ruined, and trying to guess what is the right to thing to do.

In the Blink, Malcolm Gladwell talks about how when your adrenalin is pumping you go mind blind, he called it, and you cannot think straight.

What Kennedy was guilty of is bad judgement of driving while drinking, and that was completely a different world back in those days. I don't even think it was illegal in my state of Texas, or it had just recently been outlawed that is what a different world 1969 was. The rest of what happened

There were 55,000 traffic deaths in 1969, in 2007 there were 41,000. It was a different world, and whatever world this movie was in it was politically biased and ugly one where the right-wing is so rich they can make hack movies like this one and attack a man's whole life because of one mistake, distorted by lies and judged by a situation that people born today cannot really put in valid perspective when faced with the immediacy of a movie.

Don't watch this movie, don't contribute money to the cause that made this movie, and do not watch movies that the actors who participated in this movie star in in the future. Stand against this kind of disgusting political manipulation, and fake news.