Reviews

I do not understand the point of this documentary.

You learn nothing about Neanderthals.

You DO learn way more than you want about the people studying them.

The weird thing is they don't even bother to ask the questions most viewers might have about the subject matter, much less answer them. Questions like how did they live? What happened to them?

Apparently the filmmakers thought Neanderthals liked to roll around in the mud.... I started laughing about it.

There are some interesting sites they visit (eg beautiful caves) but it is too little too late. The scenery plays second to the scientists roaming around in it.

I seriously don't know why they bothered to even make this. It is boring and uninteresting.

The best part was that Sir Patrick Stewart narrated it.

I watched all seven episodes so I feel okay to admit I really did not like this.

I'm a history and docudrama buff. I watch all kinds of documentaries.

So you'd think I'd like this. I have not read the book.

It was awful. My main problem is that there are no sympathetic characters. Everyone is just nasty.

In the last couple eps I started fast forwarding thru the scenes with Booth.

This problem of the nasty characters overshadows everything else. I hated the actors. I hated the writing. I hated the production.

I can't explain why I stuck with it to the end. Maybe I thought something would happen that redeemed it. But no. In fact the ending is jarring. You're left thinking "Is that it?"

What a waste of time. I give it two stars because, you know, people expended energy making it and so they should be at least rewarded for that.

Years ago I belonged to MHz Choice and watch many Scandie Noir series. Maria Wern was one of my favorites., in part because of the amazing Eva Rose (who plays Maria). Also because of the very good mysteries.

Recently I've found that the series has kept on going and it just keeps getting better and better.

The action takes place in Gotland, Sweden.. So we've got another small place that has an inordinate number of murders!

Maria is a police detective and works with a dedicate team.

Somewhere along the way a partner named "Sebastian" shows up and the sparks fly. The two characters (Maria and Sebastian) AND the two actors. (Eva and Erik) have a wonderful chemistry that to the writers' and actors' credit does not overwhelm a la "Moonlighting".

It is good and if you have a chance, worth watching it.

I've been watching a half hour comedy series on FOX called "Animal Control".

I don't usually watch comedies these days. My life is hard and funny stuff usually falls flat for me. The salad days of Friends and Seinfeld are over. Big Bang was great but got sort of tedious in the last couple of years and I stopped watching it.

I've not seen The Office or Parks and Rec (I know... I know...)

At any rate, I've been enjoying Animal Control. It's goofy and dumb but has a lot of heart and charm. The characters aren't mean to each other, which is important for me. Basically almost all the characters are nice, but strange, people.

Plus there are animals! Lots of animals!

I'm not familiar at all with Joel McHale, who is the lead, but I like him a lot. I guess he was in another sitcom that is well-liked.

The most recent episode of Animal Control ends very sweetly with McHale's character sitting on his couch, cuddling a bunch of adorable rescue cats, and realizing he may be a "cat daddy" (what do you call a male "cat lady"?). It was (as I said) charming.

There are some really funny (goofy) animal-related scenes as the cast deal with "animal control" situations.

As I said I don't really watch comedies any more and it's weird being thrown into the genre. It's so different from what I have been watching -- intense dramas that go on and on.

So I recommend this. I do think you need to give it a few episodes if you start watching it... it calms down a bit after an initial phase that has the characters being sort of "extreme" in order to (I guess) establish their personalities.

I always try to watch all the episodes in a series like this before sharing my thoughts. It's not fair otherwise.

And I'm glad I did. Now that it's over, I can't imagine not having any more of it to watch. The last episode was wonderful.

I had no idea going into this that it's based on real people.

I've not seen Band of Brothers or Pacific so I don't carry any of that baggage.

The first couple of eps were, to me, a bit boring. I almost stopped watching. But I persisted and am so glad I did. It gets much better and more intense as it goes along. Maybe it was on me, getting the hang of it. Who knows? But somewhere around episode 3 or 4 it had its hooks in me. I couldn't wait for the next episode.

The finale is wonderful.

I give this a 9 because I do think my feeling about it being a bit boring at the beginning is legit. But really, there's little to complain about. The acting is wonderful. The visuals amazing. The music is outstanding.

They were all so brave, weren't they?

I've been watching too many true crime serial killer things lately and I thought this was just one more of the same.

I was wrong.

It was not what I expected and after watching it I was sort of breathless.

Holy moly!

I did not at all remember this although clearly it was on the national news.

Here I am 24 hours later and still shaking my head.

How could a thing like this happen?

It's shocking and disturbing.

I really feel for the victims here. It could happen to any of us.

This is made very cleverly. I don't even want to say much more than that. We come to stories like this with firmly held preconceived notions.

But things are sometimes not what they seem.

I would have given this a 10 except at some (few) points it drags a bit. So a 9 but highly recommended.

I sometimes struggle with movies that jump around in the space/time continuum. And that happened here. It takes effort to figure out what is going on. It becomes exhausting dealing with the timeline jumps.

I do like Nolan's films and was ready to like this a lot.

I'm sure most of you have seen this movie already... The actor who plays Oppenheimer is very strange looking and that also took some of my attention. I am the last to judge but he's just very weird with eyes and a face that always looks surprised.

Anyway, I wasn't enjoying it all that much until it got near the ending when Rami Malek shows up and the point of it suddenly clicked into place.

It's not so much a science history movie as a political drama. Duh.

Because it is theoretically about history and a very interesting time and event, I should have just loved this movie, and I don't know what it was that made it such a chore to watch other than it told much of its story via what happens in two hearings (one public, one private). Perhaps I am getting old and grumpy.

As it got to the end and the "clicking into place" happened, I thought I should watch it again.. but at 3 hours? I doubt that I will. It is a long movie, to be sure, but weirdly the development of the bomb seems pretty fast. There's a disconnect there.

It is worth mentioning Robert Downy Jr at this point. He's wonderful as the "heavy". I miss him in the MCU movies. In fact, I miss those glory days of MCU movies... Thor and Ironman and all the rest.

You don't know what you have until it's gone.

I watched The Batman last night on Netflix.

When I started I didn't realize it was 3 hours long.

Oof!

Well. I did make it to the end. It's a good movie. I sort of mash up all the different Batmans (Batmen?). I don't really think of the fact the actors change is a problem. I like Bale as an actor so I liked his Batman.

This guy Pattinson is good. I've not watched the twilight movies so he was new to me. You get to see a whole lot of him as Batman, and a little as Bruce. He does have a presence. It's interesting to what how he physically changes as he moves back and forth between Batman and Bruce.

It's a very noir movie. More of a detective story than anything. It's quite clever in how it's done. And the Riddler role is pretty awesome.

I don't know the comics. I did watch and love the series "Gotham" and so the plot here is familiar because of that. I know the basic story already from Gotham.

I loved Gotham and throughout watching The Batman I kept being reminded of it and especially the Riddler and Penguin characters (Gotham was just so fun and campy).

I think if I'd not watched Gotham I might have struggled a bit with what is going on in the fourth act of The Batman.

The Batman is grim and dark. The fourth act comes out of nowhere and feels weirdly disjointed. I knew it was coming of course (sic) but by then you're way over two hours in and pretty much worn out.

Still there's a hint of a sequel. I would watch it.

I'm also tempted to watch some of my favorite Gotham eps again.

I recommend this movie with the caveat there's some violence and that it is long. Really long.

I avoid Christmas movies like the plague. They are often dumb, tedious, and eye-rollingly boring. The whole genre went down the drain after the first year or two when Hallmark got ridiculous about them.

But I saw this one had Frakes in it.

I'm a huge TNG fan. So after thinking about it I decided to give it a shot.

I am glad I did I enjoyed it. It's a classy movie with a good script, good acting, strong characters and fine production. It goes by quickly.

I like that the main character is fully realized. My memory of these Hallmark Christmas movies is that they were cookie cutter things that had come off an assembly line.

But I did not get that sense here.

There is one character that I found annoying (the woman with the camera) but I even warmed up to her. Maybe I'm just getting old but I enjoyed this and even cried at the end.

I recommend it.

I am so hesitant to write this as I have a personal rule to wait until I e seen all episodes. And I'm only 2 in at this point.

But what the heck, why not?

I am a tech professional so the tech doesn't put me off. It intrigues me. I'd love an AI assistant.

Anywho I like murder mysteries and so far I like this quite a bit and am looking forward to watching this unfold. It clearly will take its time and I am guessing some will be put off by the fact it is what they call a slow burn. I am. Not among those and watch a lot of Scandinavian series and feel right at home here.

I smiled when I saw Raul in it. I miss him in SVU.

So it is beautifully filmed, the location is amazing (where have we seen this place before??) and the actress who is the lead is very good - I guess she was in The Crown but I sure did not recognize her.

The music is fun.

I certainly recommend this. Glad to see it available.

The new Netflix series "Life on our Planet" is really good. I liked it a lot.

It is a mix of astonishing wildlife photography and animation - the latter being so good it is difficult to tell which is which.

The sound production is also awesome (if you watch it you'll see what I mean).

I learned stuff, which is always good. I like how it focuses on the five mass extinctions. It motivated me to do some further reading about them.

Morgan Freeman narrates it brilliantly. He speaks clearly and with passion.

I really have nothing negative to say about it. There are people who compare it negatively to Attenborough series but I've not watched the latter and so... oh well. Nor have I seen the series people mention that is on AppleTV.

So... I happily recommend this series. I liked it a lot.

I loved The King's Affection (despite its odd title).

I watched it after watching its lead actress, Park Eun-bin, in "Extraordinary Attorney Woo". It's pretty clear that Park is one of the planet's best actors. She's brilliant in this. Just like she's brillian in Woo.

The King's Affection is 20 episodes, each running about an hour. It's a historical drama based on a (I think) web comic. It is KDrama with a lot of KRomance. But there's a lot of comedy, too. And there's action. It's got everything.

So.. I am here to tell you it is really fantastic.

Korean TV is, of course, an acquired taste for American audiences.

I watched it in the original language with English subtitles.

The good: fantastic costumes and breathtaking scenery. It is an incredibly beautiful production. Fantastic acting by all involved. Really engrossing story. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful music (I'm a KPop fan). And... OMG the hats. (Yes, hats.). This might be the best historical drama I've ever watched.

The bad: there are long periods of time where nothing happens other than characters staring into each other's eyes. It feels crazy slow. Slow like you want to poke your eyes out with a stick slow. This is, I expect, normal for Korean shows like this. It is not normal for American audiences and I had to just sort of accept it.

It's gory and there are some shocking and disturbing deaths.

It has a lot of characters and I admit I had many problems keeping track of who was who amongst the secondary roles.

The slowness got in my way at first, but then I started to accept it and, also, the various stories really start to heat up around episode 10 and by 13 or so, it's flying.

I really loved this and I am so impressed with Park (who is just outstanding in "Woo") and all the actors. And gosh, I really loved the ending. A big chunk of the end of episode 20 is simply wonderful.

After 20 hour-long episodes, I wish there was more. Just like in Woo, I find myself missing the characters.

And did I mention the hats?

I am a huge fan of "The Good Doctor" which airs on US network TV. It stars Freddie Highmore as a brilliant surgeon, and who is also on the spectrum. It is based on a Korean show and interestingly during the 22/23 season there is an episode that's got a lawyer on the spectrum.

Anyway, this is a KDrama about an attorney on the spectrum. It is quirky and at times overly sentimental. It's more of a comedy than The Good Doctor.

Each episode is 60 minutes long.

I watched this in the original Korean with English subtitles.

At first I found it a bit silly. But around episode four all of a sudden I realized I was really enjoying it. There was a lot going on that included decent character development.

The lead character is played by an incredibly talented actress. Like Freddie Highmore's role, Woo is very high functioning and a savant.

But the other characters are good too. Her colleagues and her friends and family.

I don't know how accurate or reasonable its depiction of a person on the spectrum is. I decided not to worry about it and just enjoy the show for what it is.

I'm glad to learn a second season may be in the works.

After watching Extraordinary Attorney Woo, a KDrama which I loved, I've been watching The Days, which is a Japanese series about Fukushima.

It is not nearly as good as Chernobyl. Chernobyl is a masterpiece. The Days feels like a poor attempt at replicating it.

But there may be some cultural stuff going on.

During the first couple of episodes I kept being reminded of all those Samurai movies I used to love. The there's a lot of the same acting style and the social norms become uncomfortable. They are very different from western norms.

It's weird that in Woo I found all the bowing and etc charming. Here in The Days it is disturbing. The deference and inflexibility actually get in the way, I think, of dealing with the crisis.

It is very slowly paced. At times excruciatingly so. The pace picks up a bit after a few episodes but it's still a hard slog.

Maybe it is unfair to compare The Days with Chernobyl because the latter is a British production and agrees with our western tastes.

I am maybe 3/4 thru it. I am watching it in the original language with English subtitles. I intend on finishing it because to my embarrassment there's a lot about this disaster that I don't know.

Update: I finished the series and I wanted to add that I really liked the final episode. The actor who plays the lead role is really very good.

I grew up in the upper midwest and know Chicago well. I love seeing Chicago here, with all its beauty and ugliness.

This is a fantastic show. I'm totally unfamiliar with the lead, having never seen his previous work, but he reminds me of a young Dustin Hoffman. He's got that vibe that I find just irresistible.

I was surprised how quickly I fell in love with this show, its characters and its story. I am feeling grateful that I am able to watch it. It is, really and despite what some people write here, funny. Maybe it's just that it is my kind of humor but I am sitting much of the time with a smile on my face as I watch it.

I've never worked in a kitchen but (I know this sounds trite) I read "Kitchen Confidential" and am a huge fan of Bourdain's work (I miss him, still). What I see here rings true according to what Bourdain wrote.

I'd never survive a place like that. I'm amazed anyone can.

Again, so glad that I live in a world where someone made this amazing show.

I love this movie so much that I actually bought it so I can stream it any time I want. Usually I try to watch it around the 4th of July just to if nothing else enjoy the incredible speech by the President near the end (of course you know it).

It has an awesome cast, fantastic writing, amazing special effects (some of which are CGI but the majority are models), and simply outstanding direction.

It's an alien invasion movie but also a disaster flick with some of the best disaster movie scenes ever filmed.

Who could ask for more?

I seriously can't think of a single negative thing to say about it.

Sure some of the tech is kind of silly but who cares?

"... We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on. We're going to survive. Today we celebrate our Independence Day!"

I really wanted to like this.

But the plot such as it is made no sense to me. Here I sit 12 hours later and am still mystified by how the characters seemingly drive fro Dover to somewhere in the Arctic Circle (Norway?) in ten minutes. Can people in England do that? I have no idea.

I do admit the snow scenery is spectacular, although the shots of the characters walking around in what are surely freezing temperatures without coats or gloves are ludicrous.

There's also a lot of disturbing if not gratuitous violence. The Luther TV series is violent but this felt way over the top. I did watch the whole thing but I can't recommend it.

I stumbled upon this while searching desperately for something to take my mind off of politics.

I haven't read the books so I have no preconceived notions.

I felt comfortable immediately with this show. A rare thing these days. This mainly has to do with the main character, who is charming and quirky (and who adopts a shelter dog).

So the characters are compelling and attractive. Their backgrounds interesting. The two-part pilot was a decent mystery.

After some initial struggling with all the different characters and the different organizations, I just relaxed and let myself enjoy this. It sort of reminds me of Monk. It sort of reminds me of The Good Doctor. It sort of reminds me of Stumptown (sigh, I wish they hadn't deep-sixed Stumptown).

I enjoy detective procedurals and am looking forward to future episodes.

Made in 1994, a few years after he made the amazing Henry V, one can only wonder what in the world Branagh was thinking.

Both directed by and starring Branagh (as was Henry V) this movie would seem to be a vanity project. It is filled with endless closeups of Frankenstein's (Branagh's) face and far too many shots of him running around shirtless and glistening with sweat. It becomes funny, almost.

I suppose we need to forgive him, as Branagh has proved over and over to be an amazing artist. But in this project his arrogance and ego are clearly on display. I wonder now if he is embarrassed by this movie.

It is an incredible cast that Branagh put together for this film, which sort of makes it even more of a tragedy in how bad it is. There are glimpses of what it could have been (De Niro is very good as the creature).

Also--it is over two hours long. So that's a lot of glamor shots of Branagh.

I don't recommend it.

This is based on a short story. I've not read it so I don't know how it compares.

I thought it was a good movie. I don't have unreasonable expectations, I guess, about what movies on this platform should or should not be.

I thought the unwinding here of what was taking place on this island was interesting. All is not what it seems and for sure it becomes quite distressing. There are some scenes that I sort of want to forget.

At any rate the main four characters are well acted and engaging (Hemsworth is fine). The plot holds your attention (I did not find it boring). The story moves along (I appreciate it is only 90 minutes long!). The 80's music is pretty fun (I think it's 80's!).

I wanted to find a subcontext here about Big Pharma but it never really appeared. Instead what you get is that the Hemsworth character is a monster.

I recommend this, with the caveat that like with all such things it is not for everyone.

I like international works and was happy to find this on Netflix. Perhaps my first Argentinian piece.

It is not great. It was not bad enough To not watch the entire movie. It's only 90 minutes and the plot seemed to move along okay. In other words it kept my attention. There is some bouncing around on the timeline so there were points I was a little confused, but I eventually sorted that out.

I found the lead character (Kloster) truly unlikable. By the end of the movie I was having almost a visceral reaction to him.

The other two primary leads are similarly unpleasant. None of these three are at all sympathetic and so the end (which throws in a surprise) left me cold and unsatisfied.

It is interesting that in the same weekend I watched this movie I also watched Spiderhead, which is fantastic. Of the two there is no comparison. They are not in the same league.

Watch Spiderhead and if you have time to waste give this one a try.

I've been an iron chef fan since the 90s. It's corny and cheesy and usually if nothing else entertaining. I go into it without big expectations.

I do maybe hope to learn a couple of things related to food and cooking. I'm not a serious cook so that is a pretty low bar.

These 8 episodes kept my attention and it was a good way to spend a Saturday where I was stuck inside.

I admit I've always been a bit squeamish about iron chef and the living creatures that are sacrificed on air. There's one scene in this particular series that quite disturbed me. I wish I could unsee it.

The actor who plays The Chairman gets quite annoying. By the 8th episode I was rolling my eyes. On the other hand to two main "hosts" were quite enjoyable.

The "ending" I think was predictable.

I recommend this if you know going in that it's sort of silly. I don't watch other cooking competition shows but expect maybe they are more serious.

What a horrible, pointless, depressing, disturbing movie.

The plot is stupid. The story nothing close to original. There's terrible extreme horrific violence. None of the characters are even remotely likable. The ending is dreadful.

I would like these two hours wasted watching this back.

I give it a 2 instead of 1 because there is some spectacular scenery in a few parts... when the filming is not so dark you can actually make things out.

I know there must be people who liked this. I'm not sure why. Obviously for them the ubiquitous carnage is acceptable.

I should not have watched this and do not recommend it.