Reviews

Well done and interesting documentary. By now, everyone has seen "Catfish", "American Greed" or seen/heard some version of the horrendous stories from victims. It's absolutely shocking that people, particularly those who are financially independent, could be so easily conned by crafty people with flimsy, sketchy, and often outlandish tales of why their own wealth is momentarily unavailable. Yet, time after time, people believe the over the top takes of woe. I'm not rich, but would be very leery of anyone who wanted to pry into my finances or ask me for loans way to early in a relationship. I really gave great empathy for crime victims, but some seem to way too easily allow themselves to be manipulated emotionally, which leads to financial cons. Interestingly, Cecile seemed to revel in the luxurious lifestyle she was financing and having been caught up in the con. But I also believed that she has some mental health issues because she continued to send money after she found out he was a swindler. And my biggest question is why would a billionaire need money from anyone other than their own financial institutions? Powerful and sad. Ayleen is awesome 💥💯

Enjoyed the work. It was engaging, sad, poignant, deep, and delved into many facets in the web of relationships. I don't understand and likely won't why an accomplished, beautiful, young, intelligent, caring, kind person could allow themselves to be so completely consumed with a situation so dysfunctional. And not just dysfunctional, but a situation which could have derailed their life or even resulted in death by law enforcement. Fortunately, they didn't lose themselves completely and were able to lift up from the despair. It's one thing to love and support our incarcerated loved ones, it's another thing to totally subjugate our lives to the situation. This film is a powerful portrayal of choices.

Poor film quality left me not sure what was happening at several junctures. While darkness in certain films can be an effective device, I'm not sure whether that was the intent or that the lighting was just of poor quality. I actually believe this film could possibly be re-edited for a better result. The tone of the film seemed to very effectively capture a brooding, slow paced, drone on, and difficulty of life among people living at the edges of society. While I thought that to be true, I believe the script could have been altered to increase the pace. Acting was very effective and credible.

Good, solid first effort at a full stand up act. Some of the jokes were funny, but his follow up was often weak or seemed to be on the fly. Points about racism were well taken, but was too much of his material. DollarTree, Thanksgiving, and jail were good. I wonder though, did he watch Tone Bell's 2019 special and steak the pullout jokes? Actually, I think Lance might do better if he got more experience in comedy settings like "Saturday Night Live" or similar venues so that he could hone his craft and timing.

Overall, I liked the movie, but I expected a gay treatment of the formulaic "Hallmark" genre to be more zany, more realistic and for me it turned out to be "take cookie cutter Christmas hokey over-emotional story and simply insert gay characters. Philemon Chambers Is an absolutely stunning man, but his character seemed so misplaced and manipulated among this family. But I wasn't ever convinced that any young gay man, in an age of multiple choices, would choose to move back to a small town with almost zero prospects for a real life over what a large city like LA could offer. Perhaps a hunky, gay, single fitness instructor with model looks could sway a cross country move. Call me jaded, but not even the magic of Christmas could get me to buy into this story.

Actually better after the first 45 minutes when the rubber hits the road and the light frolicking moves to deeper situationships/entanglements. I actually did very much appreciate the openness and honesty concerning the pursuit of an open relationship. Bottom line is that as Ollie stayed, "The heart wants what it wants."

The content is heavy, dark, violent and disgusting, but it's the history that this country would prefer not be told. Great work. Sad that even today, people want to protect their own even in wrong doing by dismissing gang rape as randy good old boy behavior.

Beautifully told short that spoke volumes about perceptions, inner thoughts versus public performance, acceptance, and most acutely, the heart wants what it wants-be it friendship or a love match.

Initially, I thought it was slow and surface, but as it played on, I realized how interesting it was as another take on the times and the AIDS epidemic. In the end, the story rang quite true to me. The lifestyle was a poignant depiction of how young urban gay men lived in many cities across the country. I thought the actors were handsome, enticing and realistic, and because it was a film about an era of porn making, not porn, I didn't need a bunch of airbrushed, Falcon Studio clones to get the point. Good work.

Ricky has a great framework and done good, clean, family style jokes. I'd love see him do a much more edgy, grown up take on the world. I look forward to his future work.

The 1st episode was a decent mystery story. The 2nd was ok, very emotional d relatable, but too drawn out to be so predictable. The 3rd episode was initially visually stunning, but devolved into madness without reason. Or was this a series that was specifically targeted at the young, buff, urban, privileged, magazine attractive gay male, and thus not aimed at a general gay audience?

Great premise and good performance delivery by a Strong main cast. However, as the story progressed, it lacked depth and seemed hollow and sketchy at times. Also, the way too frequent B/C-list cameos seemed no more than a gratuitous and over-hyped way to boost the storyline. I was also overwhelmed by the level of violence, greed and depravity, with scant good, remorse, or redemption. The ironic thing for me is that of all the characters, as the story progresses, Rex (I'm not condoning his behavior) turns out to have the most integrity. Regardless of his antics, he openly proclaimed exactly who he was. This series rings true with Christ's declaration that, "The people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light." Luke 16:8. This is one verse of a passage from verses 1-9 in which he acknowledges that the worldly use shrewdness to their advantage, and that Christians should be equally shrewd yet use their skill for good. There was a lot of shrewdness, cunning and conniving in "Saints and Sinners" but 99% of it was done for bad. We've all sinned and come short, but when we know better, we should do better.

Now that I've watched both, I appreciate "The Young Pope" more. It seemed too avant garde and even too ethereal at times, but after watching "The New Pope", I realize how how "Young" was the prequel to "New", laying the groundwork that made the latter so much richer and deeper. Kudos to Law, Malkovich and the entire cast for very intriguing work. To top it off, the costumes and set designs were phenomenal.

I thought this movie would be awful and you know what? It was awfully entertaining, campy, kitschy, funny, kooky, and just what I needed for an extended covid era pick me up. Nothing cerebral to see here folks, just the most ridiculous storyline and antics. Eye candy was nice too.

This series is so very sad. Because we all live different lives, some trauma-filled, I typically refrain from criticizing others. However, when one publicizes their drama for profit, it's fair game.

At times I wasn't sure if I was watching "Cougars", "Nip/Tuck", "The Bachelorette", "Real Housewives" or "Saturday Night Live".

It's incredible that these are older women with children behaving like preteens. At their age, chasing young dudes, acting like mall rats whine pretending to be wealthy, destroying their bodies with seemingly botched plastic surgery, and applying makeup like drag queens gone wild (those eyelashes are a hoot) suggests immaturity, low self esteem and an unhealthy obsession with "celebrity".

It's entertaining and a great KiKi for an episode, but warrants not a glance beyond that.

I liked the series, but the way too frequent and gratuitous references to service in World War II were trite beyond the first few episodes. The most complex and credible character was that of Polly.

Hard to be a top notch entry in this genre when many have seen "The Godfather" series, "The Sopranos", "Boardwalk Empire", The Wire", etc.

Cillian Murphy as good, but his character came across as very one note. What was really hard to swallow is that this group would succeed when they were so undisciplined.

A mediocre, lackluster, farcical rendering of a loosely based historical period. It didn't help that the acting of the younger Borgia characters was mostly shallow. One exception was the complexity of the character, Micheletto, which was well done. Irons was great at times, but the inept script left him appearing surface and one dimensional in many instances.

This was certainly not as well-written and the storyline not as developed as Other period pieces, e.g., Medici the Magnificent", "Rome", "Victoria", "Downtown Abbey", "Ripper" and "Versailles".

The costumes and scenery were beautiful.

I liked the movie overall. It was beautiful, human, sad, outrageous and normal, Simultaneously. The storyline is an all too familiar struggle for gay men worldwide. The ending was most powerful and poignant.

Too brooding with a fairly linear and predictable storyline. It began well, but seemed to hit a soggy middle rather quickly, then proceeded to an anti-climatic ending. I wanted something remarkable or surprising but it was not to be.

After ep. 1, I thought I'd never watch again, but it got better as I persisted through the first 3 episodes. If one is really to redo a well known cult movie, it needs to bang from the word go. For me the main plot was frequently overshadowed by the subplots. Zelleweger initially seemed to be a very cheesy, awful, surface portrayal of an Angle Dickenson type compilation character from a bunch of 70s movies and tv. I never felt depth, but Anne seemed somewhat more believable as the series progressed. I did actually enjoy the final few episodes, although at times the subplots seemed to overwhelm the main story. Overall, ok, but definitely not award winning.

99 minutes of suspense and contrived plot twists, yet I felt no resolution or even clarity at the end. This could have been a really powerful story, but there were too many roads taken that led to nowhere.

A wonderful telling of rarely seen slics of Mexican life, historical and LGBT, woven together.

But the moral of the story is, deceit typically paves the way to ruin. Ignacio, a man of means, could have lived in the shadows as he desired. Yet his ego and ambition led him to dual lifestyles he could never reconcile.

Bravo for a stunningly beautiful, thoughtful and engaging film. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾