Reviews

Anyone who has watched the AppleTV+ show "Constellation" all the way through knows that it contains one if the greatest and scariest closing shots in cinematic history. It's chief amongst the reasons I was looking forward to Season Two.

Yesterday Apple TV screwed the pooch by canceling this series. I suspect that they did it in part because they have just started another series with a parallel universe theme called "Dark Matter"

I haven't watched "Dark Matter" yet. But, from the promos there seems to be enough differences between the two premises that both could coexist on one network.

Until now Apple TV has consistently(?) given show runners a minimum of two seasons to find their audiences.

I'm dismayed enough that I might cancel my subscription.

To be honest the show is a bit of a slow burn - in that it takes 4/5 episodes to really grasp the ramifications of Space Travel that eventually lead to the discovery of Alternate Universes.

The final two episodes ramp up the intrigue when Jonathan Banks Characters are able to swap dimensions and the daughter begins to communicate with herself across space/time/dimensions.

Overall the ending was boffo ! The final shot is still etched into my brain.

Can #Netflix or #PrimeVideo pick this up?

Some how I expected more out of this Netflix Series.

It's as if Hallmark wrote and directed this World War II film.

At the heart of this series is the central story of a young blind french girl who's father is the locksmith for a prestigious Paris Museum during the Nazi Rise to power.

Parallel stories involve fascination with Radios and mass communication, Post traumatic stress syndrome and safe guarding a national treasure that is a fortune in large format jewels.

Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie bring credibility to to a predictable script that has a decent premise but becomes entirely too predictable in the latter half of the four episodes.

I'm told that the two actresses who played the blind girl Marie at the center of the story were actually blind.

BTW... I don't watch Hallmark Movies... But from what I know of them this would have been one of their better efforts.

I'm not going to bury the lead. Killers of the Flower Moon is crazy good. It's the frontrunner for this year's Best Picture Oscar.

Lilly Gladstone's performance as Molly is riveting... She keeps this movie centered and credible in a way that few actresses could ever match.

DeNiro is a different kind of villain. He plays William King Hale as an entitled manipulative Patriarch who thinks his selfish desires for power and his covetous need to obtain the wealth of others serves the greater good of his community.

Hale's chosen instrument to steal anothers fortune is his charming but dimwitted and obsequious nephew Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio).

King Hale sets his nephew to woo the heart of Osage Indian Molly (played by Lilly Gladstone). Lilly is the daughter of a family who's property was one of the fortunate acreages blessed with rich deposits of Oklahoma oil. Discovered early in the 1900s

Molly is a wealthy woman. But she also has sister's who will inherit part of her mother's wealth - But King Hale is playing the long game and that puts Molly's entire family in danger.

Scorsese uses the first ten plus minutes of this 3:30 minute film as a prelude explaining how the Osage tribe came to live in Oklahoma and how the oil that was found there put the people in Jeopardy.

Like most of Scorsese's movies this story is about greed and corruption and it involves gangsters. The gangsters here are not the smooth thieves of the big cities. The hard men in service to DeNiro and DiCaprio are as dangerous as they are inept. Frontier men who have principles they adhere to but will make murderous exceptions when it comes to members of Oklahoma Indians.

The Osage are aware they are being hunted for their wealth but they cannot fathom that man they consider a great white uncle has anything to do with their plight.

Scorsese's film personalizes the larger story of the Tribe through Molly's eyes.

I've given much away in this review. So let me wrap this up by lauding the actors involved.

De Niro is as solid and evil as he's ever performed. Yet you wonder if his King Hale thinks he is truly doing evil.

Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson (Americana musicians of note) both have significant supporting roles; Isbell plays DiCaprio's brother in law his southern drawl exaggerated to make him appear slow witted and dangerous where Sturgill Simpson is plays a sharp outlaw specialization is referring the right bad guys for the wrong job. Simpson in particular is showing a strong appetite for the acting profession.

Jesse Plemmons turns in a nuanced portrayal as a lawman. John Lithgow and Brendan Fraser are prosecutor and defense attorney. They are proof that when scorsese calls.... You say yes.

DiCaprio's portrayal as Ernest Burkhart is my favorite performance since What's Eating Gilbert Grape. DiCaprio character was motivated by greed and avarice was equally tempered by fear and respect for his uncle and a geuine love for his Indian Bride. He should get a nod for best supporting actor pr best actor - It was both a simple and complex character. I'm not his biggest fan - but he's very very good in this.

Lilly Gladstone is pitch perfection and holds this sprawling film together. She is a frontrunner for best actress.

I loved this movie and will watch it again as soon as it hits Apple TV.

One of the producers on this film is Jonathan Nolan; brother and sometimes collaborator with his brother Christopher Nolan. And although he's not been given any screen credit for the script on this movie it; I'm betting that his marriage to the film director Lisa Joy allowed both Jonathan and Christopher Considerable input to the script development and the eventual shape of the finished project. (From this point forward there are some mild spoilers.)

Like most Nolan films this movie deals with time shifting and memories. Hugh Jackman runs a memory clinic in the futuristic sunken/water logged Miami. He and his Army Buddy (Thandiwe Newton) help their customers do everything from find lost keys to reliving the actual feeling of being held in the arms of their lover. The technology is amazing and allows Jackman & Newton to guide their customer through the catacombs of memories in their mind and view it as a 3D representation and record a legal document for posterity. They are licensed by the state and also are called upon by local prosecutors to recover memories that could prove the guilt or innocence of criminal suspects.

Against this backdrop Rebecca Ferguson plays a fem-fatale who's featured presence in the movie is all too short. She drop's into Jackman's life; he falls for her and the she's gone as quick as she appeared. Leading him to spend the rest of the film try to find her. For me this is where the movie began to go off the rails. The hunt begins a series of disjointed sequences -- including; 1). Clients recorded memory sequence.

2). Encounters with leads generated thru from scrubbed memories sequences.

3). Leads generated from leads, leading to leads... etc.

You best be paying rapt attention here because the story pacing is breakneck speed.

To say the least Rebecca Ferguson's character is not what Jackman thought.

Jackman's fixation on her isn't healthy, but he can't help himself.

Thandiwe Newton's character could have used more development, but she did very well with little time that was allowed to her.

The very end of the movie tried to be both innovative and sentimental... but somehow seemed trite and fell flat; in keeping with the movie as a whole.