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jelly336
Reviews
The Blacklist (2013)
Went from terrific to unbelievably bad.
I used to love The Blacklist. But the last season has tanked.
How many times Can Elizabeth and the baby be kidnapped? And James Spader is now a wasted asset. His character is now a one-one-dimensional cartoon.
And the whole killing Mr. Kaplan is just weird and completely off the wall. It has some so predicable. Who did't see that Aram's new girlfriend was't a plant. It seems that everyone is now a plant.
I think I'm done unless things turnaround real quick. They need to can the over extended personal story lines and get back to what the show did best. Take names and kick butt..
Parental Guidance (2012)
Yawn
My expectations weren't that high and Parental Guidance failed to meet them.
Bette Midler got the very few good lines, but other than that I was in turns bored or irritated. Bored because Billy Crystal never shuts up when he's on-screen. Irritated because I fail to see how bratty kids are funny. It's just an old, tired cliché from every sitcom from the last forty years.
Especially annoying was Marisa Tomei's helicopter-mother character. It was a cartoon character with no redeeming qualities.
I found myself wishing I sneak into whatever was playing next door.
Takers (2010)
Nice hat!
Surprisingly bad.
Not able to come up with any original content, the makers stole themes and entire scenes from other movies. The two that come to mind are The Italian Job and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And believe me, Chris Brown is no Robert Redford.
The talents of Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Matt Dillon are completely wasted. After being on screen for thirty seconds, you find yourself wishing their characters would die off and someone more interesting would take their place. As for the rest of the characters, they are better defined by what they drive than any dialogue.
Perhaps the oddest element of the entire movie is Hayden Christensen's hat. It is several sizes too small and becomes the visual focal point of the scene. Why didn't someone buy one from the men's shop instead of the toddlers and boys section?
Year One (2009)
Garbage
I gave it one star only because no stars was not an option.
I made about ten minutes into the movie and was sorry I wasted that much time.
Incest jokes? Really? Not funny, just offensive.
If you want edgy, go for some nice Mel Brooks. He can slide social commentary into almost anything. The fart jokes in Blazing Saddles are intellectual fodder compared to Year One. Everyone involved in this mess should be asking for entrance into the witness protection program.
If you want frat boy, drunk humor, Yeat One may be for you.
And if so, I fear foe the future of our civilization.
The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2009)
Not an original thought to be found
As a sequel, it added nothing to the first movie. It was a rehash of the same characters and action of the first. The entire movie consisted of a nonstop delivery of F-bombs, shootouts in slow-mo and a litany of homophobic jokes. If the action scenes had been left in "real time" the entire movie would have been about twenty minutes long. But in that short time they managed to work in almost every Italian, Mexican and mobster stereotype ever conceived.
I can't comment on the acting, because I didn't see any. Every line was delivered with a bare minimum of emotion or even inflection. The gem of the entire movie was the cameo by Peter Fonda as the aged Roman. Not only were his lines delivered in a slow monotone, he had absolutely no physical movement at all. Not a twitch, not a raised eyebrow, nothing. I'm not even sure he blinked. He looked and acted like a clothing mannequin propped up in a chair.
Let's hope this is the last we'll see of the Saints.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (2010)
It makes you think
This is one of those movies that causes you to reach deep down in yourself and think. For example, I was thinking, "Did I turn off the iron? Why did I pay so much for popcorn?" I'm sure the producers were thinking, "Hey, they are so far into it now, we can throw up any thing on the screen and still make buckets of money. But let's have Daniel Radcliff take off his shirt so they won't know they've been suckered." Even if you're read the book and watched the other movies, the plot is incomprehensible. The movie consists of a bunch of action sequences strung together with no regard for the story.
At least I didn't pay to watch it in 3D.
Young Widow (1946)
Saved only by Jane Russell
I'm a huge Jane Russell fan was eager to see this, one of her earlier works. Aside from her, the movie is a total waste of film stock.
This is a sub-standard pot boiler that tries to hard to clutch at your heart strings. Bad writing and shallow acting are pretty much par through the whole movie. Especially annoying are the "buddy" parts played by Marie Wilson and Norman Lloyd. Neither is able to move beyond the stock cardboard characters they are given. And truth be told, they don't seem to try all that hard.
Fortunately, director Edwin Marin had the good sense to focus on Jane Russell and keep her costars screen time to a minimum. And Lee Garmes cinematography shows what a world class beauty she was.