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Reviews
The Gilded Age (2022)
Terrible over acting and storylines which drag on.
I really, really wanted to like this series. This was one of the times in history I would love to experience ... and I was hoping this show might transport me back to this era. It does, somewhat, in an over the top CGI of NYC during the golden age kind of way. The acting is so bad and over the top, often I feel as though I am watching actors reading from a script or acting in a community theater play.
Nobody is believable, or likeable. Having said that ... if you like Downton Abby, you'll like this. It has the exact same vibe, writing/banter and similar characters even. Situationally, we split our time between the lowly help and the privledged elite. Of course there are lots of queer and diverse folks woven into the plots as well, whom we see are persecuted and slighted throughout the show. The show jabs the viewers with constant reminders of white privledge ... lest you are able to escape it while watching tv.
The Downton playbook is followed almost letter by letter. There are lots of secrets ... tension created by those secrets ... and vile, unlikable characters whom mix and mingle with the incurable optimist goody two shoes characters. Each play their one note parts as if our of the stage play My Fair Lady, as to say with a cloying hammy aplomb. At times, I halfway expect the young-and-in-love characters to break into song.
The scenery and outfits were likely an investment made that consumed the budget. While many of the street scenes are CGI, the actual sets are beyond lavish and faithful recreations of what I would imagine the vintage reality to be. This is a thing to be thankful for as the storylines are so slow and rambling that at least the viewer can escape by chewing on the scenery.
This is a mess of a period piece and honestly, I am amazed it was renewed for a second season. The writing is as trite as the acting is sickly sweet. Everything is fairly predictable and the one-note characters lack depth or realism. Again ... imagine Downton Abby without the likability and you have Golden Age. Oh how I wanted this review to be different but it feels like a chore watching these episodes.
007: Road to a Million (2023)
Continuing to kill off the James Bond brand, this time with a reality game show.
I have no idea what the producers of James Bond are doing with this ... and likely, they don't either. One of the most iconic movie 'brands' of all time, 007 is MUCH better than this flop. It is basically a combination of The Amazing Race and Fear Factor with little to do with 007 or James Bond except for some very forced connections.
The host (er ... villian) does an okay, if not fairly campy, job of what he is being paid to do. The writers on the other hand give him a script straight out of a 1980's VHS murder mystery game. Nothing about this says James Bond. Though slightly cinematic in places, it is not matched to what fans will expect from the movies.
It is clear that the producers went way out of their way to collect a Noah's Ark of every gender, race and persuasion out there as to make sure of diversity of the cast, who are mostly either annoying or boring. It's a bit cloyingly inclusive ... and I found myself frustrated because not only did I not find anyone I wanted to root for, but I wanted to root against them all. There are big issues when you literally don't like a single member of the cast.
This is a sloppy hodgepodge of a reality game show. I wasn't ever really a fan of Survivor or The Amazing Race, so maybe this is lost on me. What isn't lost on me is exactly how un-007 this is. I can't believe the people who own the James Bond brand have resulted to this lowest common denominator of television entertainment. This is a badly done show ... and a bad idea all around.
Depp V Heard (2023)
The worst thing I've watched all year. Really, really terrible!
This was a rambling and incoherent mess of a quasi-documentary. I had no idea where it was going and I don't think the writers did either. It was almost like watching two different projects woven together. 40% or more of this was annoying tik tok clips of 20 year old people in Deadpool masks and other grating people from YouTube or tik tok clips.
Most of the clips they used from the trial are the ones everyone had seen and they would bring something up and then switch the topic after 30 seconds, no matter how important it was. It was an ADD mishmash of clips and trial moments with the same annoying people commenting throughout. They often made the tv screen look like a giant smartphone streaming clips.
This is obviously a pro-Amber Heard 'documentary' which does manage to throw in some shots at her along the way. Overall, three episodes at 50 minutes each could have easily been condensed into a single hour with no loss of content or story. Honestly, I wasn't expecting Ken Burns but halfway through the second episode, we literally wondered if this was a mockumentary lampooning an actual show in a 'so bad, it's interesting' sort of way. (It's not.)
Overall, this is time not worth spending ... you'd be much better off going down a Youtube Johnny Depp & Amber Heard wormhole vs. Learning anything exciting or new in this. It's a stinker of the ultimate magnitude. A complete and utter waste of time.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
Nostalgia done right. 2.5 hours went by too fast! Goodbye Indy!
For all the haters ... um, do you really want an all female version of Ghostbusters, or some of the other nostalgia-grab reboot junk that Hollywood has been making? If not, Top Gun Maverick and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny are your best shot at re-living your past. They really went all out in regard to pleasing Indy fans and wrapping things up. It's 2.5 hour run time gives fans a nice last hurrah, coming at the expense of profit. (Shorter films = more screenings = more profit) Credit to the studio for sacrificing in this way.
There are lots of Easter Eggs to past movies scattered throughout but what would truly have been perfect is:
1. Stephen Spielberg directing
2. A Short Round as a grown up appearance.
Okay ... one more:
3. Replace Phoebe Walker-Bridge with Karen Allen throughout.
On that note ... I really loved PWB in Fleabag. The writing and dry wit were perfect for that series. Not at all perfect for this series. She comes across as smarmy, overly sarcastic, one-dimensional and not likeable. Her action scenes were awkward and a bit clumsy. Though a brilliant comedian, she comes across miscast.
My favorite part of the movie was the first 20 minutes. Using Deepfake technology, you'd never know that Harrison Ford's scene wasn't rescued from a Raiders of the Lost Arc unused reel. He looks 30 years old and natural and for a moment, we are transported back to the 1980's ... even the scenery looks more like a 1980's Indy movie. Very well done compared to The Irishman ... only a few years apart, the movies now have Deepfake de-aging technology down to a science! Despite HF aging gracefully (we see the dude has a real 6-pack at 80 in one scene!) I almost wish the entire movie was done with Indy being 30 years old.
The script harkens back to Last Crusade. It's done much more like that movie than Crystal Skull, thankfully. I found the Crystal Skull to be dark, depressing and full of symbolism to death and dying vs. A fast, fun joyride. (As much as I don't like Pheobe in this, an insolent and impetuous Shia in Crystal Skull was much worse.) If Last Crusade was a 10 ... Dial is an 8, following a similar playbook. Anyone expecting it to be on par with Raiders and Temple are kidding themselves, but its made in the same vain with dry one-liners that did get a laugh.
Some flaws:
- Indiana is old, we get it. But, he comes across more curmudgeonly than an aging adventurer. Let's call it the Clint Eastwood Hollywood treatment. Indy wasn't a big drinker in past films ... yet here, he's always slugging down scotch and being a sad sack. Even his students don't listen to him. I feel as though they intentionally went out of their way to make him seem elderly with rumpled, baggy clothing and messed up white hair. I feel like they didn't need to make him full 80 years old in one scene and then galloping through the subways on a horse and beating up bad guys in the next. Pick an Indy!
- The story, though long and drawn out, moves fast ... but I feel like it was made a bit too precious. Unlike the other Indy props ... the dial seemed a bit like a cheesy looking, larger version of Ralphie's Ovaltine decoder pin from A Christmas Story. I won't spoil anything by saying so but, as the dial allows time travel, I was a bit surprised that a father wouldn't use it to go back in time to save their son, as it was revealed early on that Indy's son was killed in the war.
The greatest thing about the movie is that it had that old scenery chewing flash of Raiders, Temple and Last Crusade. The street parade, Indy's apartment, the boat, etc. All looked very vintage-glam and made you transported to another time ... as did the grandiose locations of Morocco, Greece and NYC. It was a quick-moving 2.5 hours. Maybe I wouldn't watch this as often as the initial trilogy films.
Maybe a bit less CGI and a little more actual location stunts would have been better. There were however a lot of cool action sequences. Mads M plays a superb villain, as always. While his physical presence isn't exactly intimidating (although his henchmen sure are!) he has that Thot sort of evil genius vibe that makes him scary and intimidating, even if a bit nerdy. Good actors like him add a lot of layers to their characters, as he did here carving out a ruthless yet pathetic foil to Indy.
Overall, I feel like people who trash this film are going to contribute to less nostalgia films being made in the same vain as the originals. This was a delightful way to wrap up the series ... if not a bit sad seeing them make Indy look so old. When you have an 80 year old actor with the body of a fit 40 year old, they could have thrown a little pepper in the hair with the salt, done away with the grey stubble and loose, wrinkled old man clothes. Bottom line, we get Indy is aging ... but why does he have to be geriatric? I enjoyed this film a lot and feel it was a suitable send off to Indy.
The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy (2023)
Kind of Schtick-y with the faux curmudgeon act but a fun show.
I am a huge fan of Eugene Levy. Even as a kid, he was my favorite SCTV actor and I coukdn't get enough of him in Splash as Dr. Kornbleauth. Schitt's Creek was one of my favorite shows and he is always kind of the glue that holds things together without being center stage as a main character. He steals the show as Jim's Dad in American Pie in only a few scenes. In this show, he is front and center as the main attraction.
While he is affable and dryly funny, the producers of the show focus too much on constantly broadcasting this theme that he is reluctant to travel. I get its the theme of the show ... but they go overboard to script him leaving poor Eugene seeming to play a characterized version of himself. This character is somewhere between Larry David's crusty nebbish on Curb Your Enthusiasm and Bill Murray's hypochondriac in 'What About Bob?'. While Levy is a master of the Jack Benny style reaction, it feels schitcky and forced.
Despite having to force belief that Levy is actually often worried about things like Venice being built on stilts and sinking, the show's cinematography is visually beautiful. It is very similar to the instagram-like photography of Stanley Tucci's show Finding Italy, although this show utilizes zoom in drone shots and ultra zooming techniques. Wherever they film, you want to be. We noticed that many of the episodes are filmed on grey sky or overcast days. This takes away from the 'perfect blue sky travel wish fulfilment' aspect of the show a bit.
Speaking of comparisons ... where does Levy stack up against Stanley Tucci or even the gold standard of Anthony Bourdain? I've always found Tucci a bit smarmy and wooden. There's not much you can do with the reactions without getting annoying when eating a lot each episode. Tucci seems to do, 'Mmmmm. Come on! ...' or 'Ohhhh. That's fantastic' a dozen times each episode, which annoys us to no end. Levy does show reverence to his server but we respect him making dry jokes as a reaction vs. The obligatory contented grunt and eye roll. Case in point when he does his suspicious curmudgeon act over a piece of salt cod in Venice before taking a bite and telling his host, 'That's actually good. I expected it to taste like cat food.'
Levy doesn't bite off as much in each setting as Bourdain or Tucci ... some of the things he does seem forced and overly dramatic. I'll leave the elephant thing alone ... but plunging into ice cold waters or retrieving floating breakfasts from an infinity pool. Eh. The producers make sure he seems skittish about being in the water while taking any sort of boat ... milk any kind of fear out of flying or swimming ... and even script the staff he speaks to. Such as when the director of a $7,000 per night luxury resort in the Maldives makes it a point to mention to the wide-eyed Levy the sharks that occasionally swim past their coral reef or the guest whose ear was bit off by a trigger fish.
It's hard not to be jealous of someone being paid to stay in a $1,000 per night resort and be pampered. As Anthony Bourdain showed us, the grass isn't always greener and this IS work, afterall. I'm not going to be jealous of Levy and his crew. Rather, I do enjoy seeing some of the 'other half' living it up knowing that a few of their spots are carefully selected by local fixers and you better believe I am going to try them when I am in that location. Bottom line is its hard not to enjoy the scenery and cinematography of this show and as far as travel shows go, Levy is a natural host. I just had hoped for a little less scripting ... the show seems too forced. The opposite is true of Tucci. In season 1, he was so wooden and boring the producers hired joke writers to jazz it up. Levy doesn't need that as his personality shine through but a little less forced by the producers would be nice. We get it ... he's reluctant.