Reviews

I had a huge urge to stop watching episode one about 15 minutes in. Russsell and Sewell are totally miscast. No way did I believe them as US Ambassadors. Add to that, clunky dialogue and unoriginal screenplay, and you realize the Brits would have made a far better series. Too bad because I admired Russell's role in The American's. Another distraction was the clipped brusque mannerisms of the other role players but especially the two Chiefs of Staff. Very artificial feeling to the story. On the plus side, the cinematography had an expensive feeling to it similar to The Crown. The Crown is a good comparison. Everything about it works.

How are we supposed to rate a movie that is too dark to even see? What gives? Even the daytime scenes are dark. Hard to make sense of what is going on. I noticed that other reviewers also complained about this. This series is a mess.

Major Plagge stood out from other Nazi's and that was the problem that the Allies never confronted head on. Why were so few Nazi's totally devoid of empathy/humanity, whatever you want to call it? The documentary tells a good story about one courageous man who found a few other good men to provide a safe haven for a few hundred Jewish prisoners who found jobs as auto mechanics even though they had to learn about auto repair starting from scratch. Plagge not only protected the novice mechanics but also their families. The SS wing of the Nazi party were particularly brutal and heartless and their behavior is chronicled here as well. Unfortunately more Nazi's acted like them instead of like Major Plagge. As the story unfolds, we come to understand why Plagge, after the war, was still conflicted and filled with guilt. Others saw him as hero but he himself did not. I found this movie because one of my neighbors told me some of his relatives were saved by Plagge. This is worth watching to see both the good and evil in our world that still exists today in a different form.

In my mind the benchmark for a satirical movie is Dr Strangelove. Don't look up, while entertaining in parts, doesn't measure up to the best satire. The reason may be that in our real world today, the daily farce we witnessed for four years is hard to capture in a fictional movie. If you watch Dr. Strangelove, there wasn't a dull moment in the entire movie. Don't Look Up has too many moments toward the movies end, where you start looking at your watch, not a good sign. Meryl Streep as President Orlean didn't look presidential at all but the problem is we had an occupant in the White House that didn't look presidential either and that was real life. It's like trying to satirize real life satire. Jennifer Lawrence was superb as the only adult in the room who can't believe what is going on around her. She represents all of us who couldn't believe what was going on around us. Jonah HIll was also good as the Chief of Staff, but the revolving door of presidential chief's of staff we saw in real life were worse. Leonardo De Caprio's character could have been handled better with some rewrites. His character seemed to jump all over the place where the Lawrence character was highly believable. A seven rating for this movie is a strong "B", whereas I rated Dr. Strangelove a 10. But then Stanley Kubrick was in a class by himself.

We watched this series all the way through as a way to get us through the pandemic while stuck at home. All of the political hot buttons were covered in this well written series except for the 2020-2021 pandemic which occured after the series had already been cancelled. But it is amazing how well the scripts hold up and how important the issues covered are still relevant today like white nationalism, racism, domestic and international terrorism, bioterrorism, political duplicity, the takeover of a major political party by extremist viewpoints. Keifer Sutherland initially is portrayed as in over his head as the accidental president, but the series depicts in a realistic fashion how he slowly grows into the job, and becomes a political animal as he reluctantly realizes he most do things for the greater good that are personally repugant to him. Maggie Q as Hannah Wells is amazing in her role as FBI and CIA jobs as a sort of superwoman who goes after the bad guys while fighting the Washington bureaucracy. She was our favorite character. Series three took on an edgier tone with appropriate language to boot, but also a more polished look. The themes were more in keeping with the period of time covered. I thought the role of Lorraine Zimmer as the campaign manager was a little over the top but maybe that is how they really behave. The disquieting subtheme is how easily the public can be manipulated with sound bytes and video snippets and how it distorts the ability of elected officials to govern in a transparent manner. All in all a very well done series of high political theater.

A gigantic talent in his early years, by 1970, the time this documentary was made, he was relying on singing hits made by others, and speeding through the songs that made his a worldwide icon. Too much of the documentary was filler material of Elvis rehearsing with his band and him trying to be funny and the band indulging his antics. After all, Elvis was the star and he probably paid them well. Elvis looked in great shape in 1970 and one has to wonder watching this, how he deteriorated so fast. His performances drew a celebrity audience and it was interesting seeing them, & his by now adult fans who still loved him. I think the televised video of his comeback was far better. Leave this one in the MGM archives.

I rented this movie because we live in Palm Springs and Senior Moment was filmed here. Also it featured an iconic collector car and the potential for an interesting script about a senior citizen finally having to part ways with his beloved car. But an awful screenplay and at times cringeworthy acting by Shatner doomed this movie to the ten worst list. The movie wasn't helped by a horrible sound track. I actually saved this movie to watch on my birthday because I am a car fan and we love all things Palm Springs. There were maybe two or three funny moments in the film but there was this strong urge throughout the movie to admit you made a mistake in renting it and changing the channel to something else, anything else.

This is possibly my least favorite good movie of the year. Given the times we are currently living in, going back a decade earlier to an equally bad time, is almost a guaranteed depressing movie watching experience. The bleak landscape of the movie doesn't help either. Frances McDormand as Fern elevates the movie and makes it watchable. Part of the problem is that she travels through rural survival of the fittest territory which reminds us of the fact it is Trump country and Fern needs to get the hell out of there, not immerse oneself in it. Living in a second hand run down van is symbolic of a country that doesn't really care much for people down on their luck. The only helping hands are from her fellow nomaders and that speaks volumes about our country.

What could have been a decent movie was let down by the confusing flashbacks, and a miscast Rami Malek. The plot was a little unbelievable too even if one follows the Roger Ebert rule of suspending thinking about plots. Denzel Washington held his own as a deputy who once held a much higher level job with the LA Sheriff's office as a first rate detective. Fleshing out the movie with personal details did not add enough to the plot either and gives us little insight into what drove Deacons demons. Jared Leto was excellent as the creepy villain and overshadows the two leads. Overall, the direction and screenplay let the actors down and make for a movie that makes you wish you had watched a different movie.

Even though I had seen other documentaries on this pandemic, this was the best crafted version, and contains new material, such as the Asian American mathematician expert on the exponential nature of pandemics who knew when they found the first coronavirus case in Seattle, that there were a lot more. It reminded me of the time we had people working on our house and one of them came to me and said they found a dead flying termite in some debris, and told me, if they find one, it means there are a lot more. We had to have the entire house tented. South Korea tented their country. We did not. South Korea listened to the scientists. We did not. This documentary lays that all out and a lot more. How the Trump administration hired a lot of kids to help procure PPE but they them no guidance and no authority. Only when a scientist accidently communicated the reality of the crisis and tanked the stock market, was Trump forced to acknowledge what the rest of the world already knew. The Center for Disease Control made serious errors with the testing rollout, and the government needlessly exposed thousands of Americans to the pandemic by not even using the pandemic playbook developed by the Obama administration. Hillary Clinton in June 2016 had warned about an inexperienced president not knowing what to do if a real crisis hit. This accounting of out response has not only tarnished our scientific reputation but our leadership reputation. And to make matters worse, if governors wanted resources from the federal government they had to personally call Trump, and then publicly thank him.

The problem with this documentary is the subject matter. Hard to watch such a such an unsavory character for 90 minutes, and knowing he passed on his very worst character traits to the current occupant of the White House. Of course without Trump, this documentary would not even had been made. Outside of New York, Cohn was not even that well known, except for his sleazy legal counsel representation on Joe McCarthy's infamous committee. New York City doesn't come off very well either back in 1960's/70's with a corrupt political class, corrupt police, a town under the control of the mafia, and a shallow cafe society. Frankly the best part of this documentary was when Cohn finally got disbarred, and he died of aids. Now we are left with the after affects of his life, which is a corrupt Republican Party supported by a team of corrupt lawyers.

The six hour miniseries is best taped, so one can zip past all of the commercials, and learn about Ulysses S. Grant and his role in American history and how he won the Civil War and presided over Reconstruction, an experiment in democracy that went badly wrong. It is not hard to imagine that had Lincoln not been assassinated, history might have turned out much differently with Grant playing a more winning hand than he was dealt. The series pulls no punches in dramatizing just what a horror the Civil War was and the tremendous losses on both sides. When Grant successfully participates in the Mexican American War of 1848, alongside other officers who would soon work for him and against hime, his career seems on an upward trajectory, but he get sidelined into an obscure post in Fort Humboldt California with nothing to do, and he becomes melancholy, and turns to drinking, which forces his commanding officer to force Grant to resign. He returns to civilian life and does poorly, until the Civil War breaks out and he is given a commission once again to lead a regiment as a brigadier general. From there it is mostly one successful battle at a time, until he is promoted to major general and given command of all of the western army. From there he successfully launched a successful attack in the heart of the south at Vicksburg, with some of the most brilliant strategic maneuvers in the history of armed warfare. For that he gets promoted to three star general and put in command of the entire Union Army. Aside from a couple of notable failures, one a major defeat at Cold Water Virginia, Grant eventually corner's Lee's Army of Northern Virginia while General Sherman takes Atlanta, thus forcing a surrender at Appomatic. A major triumph is followed one week later by the assassination of Lincoln and history makes a major course correction. Andrew Johnson is a southern sympathizer and thwarts every attempt by Grant to take control over southern whites who are slaughtering freed slaves. Not until Grant becomes president, can he put a stop to this and put down the KKK. Grant as president though, because of his lack of guile, is undermined by subordinates who are corrupt, and America is by now tired of the reconstruction efforts in the south. When Grant leaves office, the KKK is on the rise again and reconstruction is basically a failure which has lasting repercussions to this day. Grant's image is later tarnished by southern historians who attempt to rewrite the history of the Civil War by painting it as a states rights issue and not about slavery. Grant comes accross as a villain. This miniseries tries to put this story right and to a large extent it succeeds. Grant is one of those great leaders who is about as straightforward as they come. His only apparent weakness is in sticking with subordinates who didn't deserve his trust, and he made some political moves as president that were regretful like not stamping down the KKK once and for all. The comments from historians throughout the series were very helpful and insightful. The acting was accomplished and the war scenes were realistic. This was a very worthwhile effort to try and put the record straight about Grant.

This was a movie we waited until the day before the Oscars to see on Netflix. It is an intimidating 3.5 hours in length. As another reviewed said, the first two hours went by pretty quickly but the last 1. 5 hours dragged. It would have been fairly easy to snip about thirty minutes off and still leave the story intact. De Niro gives a great performance as a real life hitman who gets caught between his allegiance to Jimmy Hoffa and the mob leaders who are distressed that their Teamster pension fund piggy bank leadership is starting to push back on their demands, and doing it is a public way. Some of the movie may be unintentionally funny, as the mob language has become cliche, and is emulated by a certain president of the United States. Think "Do me a favor." I had a harder time believing Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa because Hoffa was shorter and so well known that Pacino's mannerisms get in the way of a more nuanced performance. Hoffa comes across somewhat sympathetic as he realizes he has made a bargain with the devil in his dealings with the mob. This may be the last great gangster movie but what a way to go out, with a movie based on so many traumatic real life events. All of the major hits (whack jobs) were fairly famous at the time such as the killing of Joey Gallo at Umbertos Clam House and the assassination of several mobsters in a hotel barber shop. Pesci is also excellent as the world weary mob boss who know what he has to do to keep himself alive and get people to do his bidding. He genuinely likes Hoffa but finds it increasingly harder to defend him because of his outspokeness. Whether the movie correctly depicts what happened to Hoffa, it is certainly plausible and explains why Hoffa disappeared, never to be found. One apparent truism in mob movies is no one is whacked just for the hell of it and not until all other avenues have been exhausted. They also like to use go betweens when they are communicating with others who may pose a problem. The go between, in this case played by De Niro, has a delicate balancing act in translating the responses from the mob bosses and Jimmy Hoffa. He is the ultimate mob ambassador. This is a great move no doubt, but make sure you set aside an appropriate amount of time to leisurely take in some classic performances.

Ignore the one star reviews. They go with the territory when Hollywood makes a political movie. This is one of the best. It will be compared to The Loudest Voice, but it is a movie made from the perspective of the accusers and not the accused as Loudest Voice was. Bombshell doesn't pull any punches whereas Loudest Voice took their foot off the accelerator with Ailes at times. Bombshell doesn't. It shows Ailes in all his evilness from his treatment of women, to his extreme conservative views, and coziness with the Republican party. They way they covered Donald Trump is particularly disturbing. But the intense core of the movie is the three leads, playing Kelly, Carlson, and a composite character, played by Margot Robbie. Kidmann is excellent as Carlson, and Theron is outstanding as Kelly. They are riveting on screen, and they capture the ambition of the three characters as well as their humanity, and pressure to do the ugly in order to land a prime time slot. It paints a very ugly picture of Fox News as well as Ailes. The movie reminds us that not only arewe are living in very chilling times, but speaking truth to power can have enormous consequences. The big screen treatment of this story makes a much bigger impact than for example watching The Loudest Voice on television. Roger Ailes was a brilliant but very flawed man, but what he did to women comes across so devastatingly it left this viewer with a very horrible feeling at the end. Theron becomes Kelly and that gives the movie a dramatic wallop. Because we are seeing three very ambitious women played out on the screen, it was initially hard to feel sympathetic toward them but at the end, we realize the enormity of what they had to endure and the lifelong scars left.

The Ford vs. Ferrari story is amazingly accurate for a Hollywood made movie. Like many others, I ran to Wikipedia to look up Ken Miles and Carroll Shelby. Miles was a great car racer but not well known outside of car racing circles.The movie lovingly recreates that era and throws in a first rate cast headlined by Damon and Bales, but the rest of the characters ring true. The race car scenes which grab you by the throat are realistic as hell and heart pounding. The scenes showing the introduction of the new Ford Mustang, I remember very well. There were huge crowds at the Ford dealers and the demand for the cars was tremendous. Car racing back in the 1960's was a deadly dangerous sport with very few of the safety features incorporated in today's race cars. The Ford GT 40 really was fast and could hit 220 mph on the straightaways which is what today's Indy cars do, just for comparison. Matt Damon does a great job as Carroll Shelby, but minimizes the way Shelby cut corners in how he sold his cars, and he was slapped on the wrist a few times for his car selling practices. This is one of the few movies today that I would actually buy. It is such a great story and just listening to the sounds those cars made is worth the price. There isn't much not to like in this movie and it is a good antidote to the real world we are living in today if only for a few hours. I loved this movie.

A fantastic mini-series staring Russell Crowe as Roger Ailes in a tour de force performance as evil genius Roger Ailes. The series makes a strong case that the creation of Fox News based on the strong conservative views of Ailes is the primary cause of the massive political polarization in the country. There is also a strong case to be made in this series that Ailes was a sexual predator of the first order and at times it was hard to watch Ailes in action as he took advantage of young ambitious women who wanted to make their mark in the television industry. What the series doesn't make clear is how much his wife Beth knew about Roger's infidelities. She was certainly the loyal wife right up until the end when she can no longer avoid the truth. Both of them were depicted as conservative extremists who viewed the world as black and white, good and evil. Ailes was brilliant in what he did and he had insights into the darker side of America that no one else could see and he knew how to manipulate those darker feelings. Ailes also saw something in Donald Trump and saw him as a vessel for carrying out the ideology of Ailes. The election of Trump was a triumph for Ailes but also his last hurrah, as Gretchen Carlson disclosed the evidence that could not be ignored, even by Rupert Murdoch and the 20th Century Fox attornies. This was captivating television at its best and Crowe should get an Emmy for his performance.

I intensely dislike series that tidy up all the loose ends of a mystery in the last 30 minutes of a series that lasted 8+ hours and that had little to do with almost all of episodes leading up to the grand finale. In most mysteries the cast of characters are identified early on in the series so we the audience can wonder about their guilt or innocence. No such luck here. We are left instead with a drama involving a troubled relationship between one of the lead detectives and his wife which dragged on too long and involved way too many flashbacks which often left the viewer mystified about the timeline of events taking place.

The critics review's of Green Book naturally zero in on artistic merit and other factors but I review movies based on how much I enjoyed them and artistic merit is factored in later. Green Book was the movie I enoyed the most this past year. It kept me engrossed from start to finish and at the end I felt that was two hours well spent. Acting was superb, store was fasinating, and it was fairly accurate as biographies go. Even though I came of age during the time period of the movie I had never heard of Don Shirley. His musical style does combine jazz, pop, and classical touches and it played well on the big screen in 7.1 Dolby. A great sound track of his music as well as other popular music of that era. Yes, the movie was somewhat formulaic but so what? It was both funny and dramatic and captured the spirit, good and bad, of the times. I especially liked the way the movie opened with recreated scenes of the famous Cocacabana night club in New York, and ending with the extended family Christmas dinner in the Bronx. The two leads should both get Oscars as should the original screenplay. My overall feeling is the movie somewhat downplayed the racial issues in the south, even though they were disturbing to watch. I have a feeling it was even worse that we northeners could imagine. But maybe that is what made the movie enjoyable - it wasn't a downer by any means, but reflected the good in people for the most part. Go see it. It is a great story with great actors.

The first two episodes were terrific, then starting with episode three on to the finale, it started losing its footing. The cast is first rate, and Madden deserved his award for best actor in a tv drama. As Roger Ebert once said, when you watch dramas like Bodyguard, you need to just enjoy it and not focus on picking apart all the thin plot threads. The twists and turns can also be hard to follow, so much so, that I'm not even sure they tied up all of the loose ends at the end. The finale was good and bad. One scene went on way to long, but at the end, it was a real surprise to see what seemed to have escaped all of these coppers and security specialists. The action scenes were super and the suspense held up in the early stages and in some but not all parts of the six episodes. Worth watching.

I saw this movie at a sneak preview, and I had high expectations given the hype, but sadly, this was no "The Right Stuff." The problem may lie in the main character on which the movie is based, Neil Armstrong. He is portrayed as a colorless technocrat, who is somewhat cold to his family. The movie focuses mainly on his family relationships, and the landing on the moon is somewhat secondary, therefore the movie lacks a lot of drama. This is unfortunate since Armstrong led a very charmed life as a fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut. The movie covers three of his serious incidents while flying, and he had at least three more, that could have been covered in a miniseries. A miniseries would have allowed for more in-depth probing of how Armstrong became the man he was. The main characters all suffer from superficial once overs. The astronauts were all household names but you wouldn't know it from this movie. The movie also had a hard time capturing just how terrifying some of the events were. Apollo 13 did a far better job of recounting the terror of that flight. Claire Foy as the wife was ok but she also had a degree of coldness about her. The movie also glosses over the misplaced disdain military pilots had for their civilian counterparts. The complaint was that civilian pilots by virtue of their engineering training were too mechanical and not true flyers. This was not true of Armstrong who got his pilots license at the age of 17. The movie should have started there. He was considered a brilliant engineer by his peers, and he was rightfully selected to be the commander of Apollo 11. That brilliance is not captured on screen. By the end of his career he had flown over 200 different aircraft. He was a giant. I think the movie should have brought that out.

I watched three episodes Friday, three on Saturday, and two on Sunday. Jack Ryan is an overall well crafted action thriller with a first rate cast, especially Krasinski and Peirce. The storyline has lots of twists and turns, with equal amounts of sarcastic humor and horror. There was only one forced moment that smacked of being straight out of standard issue CIA fare. Even the bad guys are well thought out with backgrounds that lend a certain sympathy. That said, the bad guys are ruthless and some of the scenes are pretty grim. It was a compelling, absorbing, and highly entertaining eight episodes. Bring on Season 2!

This was a nice travelogue. Other than that, a comedy that wasn't funny, filled with conventional car chases, gratuitous violence, a non-existent plot and bad acting by Kate McKinnon in over the top performance that made one cringe. Mila Kunis could not save this movie, and another movie that seems to think the audience likes not being able to tell the good guys from the bad guys.