Change Your Image
carolhendry-25126
Reviews
IF (2024)
Worst example of trailer matching the movie that I've seen in a while
I wanted to like this movie a lot more than I did because of the people involved. I went to this movie with my husband and our granddaughter expecting to see a lighthearted comedy in the vein of Pixar, but (based on the trailers) ended up seeing a fairly sad movie that had all of us crying. You know when you are in a movie that starts out with warm "look how close we are" family scenes and then has mom dying from cancer in the first 10 minutes or so, you may be in for a tearjerker. Then the next thing you know, Dad is in the hospital for surgery for a "broken heart" and there's a chance he may die. What?
The movie also could have benefited from a medical consultant. I struggled with the fact that Dad was in the hospital for multiple days looking really healthy apparently just waiting for surgery (he must have the best health insurance around). After his surgery, his daughter is told he is not doing well. She races to the hospital with grandma (why she didn't appear to have been to the hospital at all on the day of surgery - who knows?). When she gets to the hospital, he is just lying there in the bed, again looking really healthy but asleep or unconscious, with no oxygen, monitors or typical paraphernalia of the really sick.
I also was amazed at the daughter being allowed to wander New York unsupervised at all times of the day or night.
I did enjoy the concept and found a few lol moments, but for me these did not outweigh the challenges.
The X Files: All Things (2000)
An episode out of the ordinary
I rewatched this episode the other day and I found that I really like this episode. I like the way Gillian Anderson explores her character- her background and how she ended up where she is. We all have turning point in our lives and Scully is at one. She's testy with Mulder, tired of his crop circles and sometimes crazy quests. She is allowed to see the road not taken with Daniel, but comes to realize that her decision to leave him and go to the FBI was ultimately the right decision. Having this also be the episode where Scully and Mulder finally show that they are having a physical relationship brings things full circle. My only quibble with the episode was the pacing was a bit slow, but otherwise I felt it was an excellent first writing and directing credit for Anderson.
The X Files: Emily (1997)
A powerful ending to the 2-parter
I found the first part of this arc "Christmas Carol" to be only a so-so episode. The plot of that episode developed slowly and featured Scully's brother who was as annoying as he was in a previous episode. I was gratified to see, however, that this episode was laying the background for "Emily." Emily is the story of an alien-human hybrid created with Scully's ova using a geriatric patient to "incubate" the girl for the purposes of experimentation. Mysteriously, Scully heard her sister, Melissa's, voice that led her to Emily. This episode deals with Scully's rescue of Emily and Emily's eventual death.
As always, Gillian Anderson gives an excellent performance, letting us understand why Scully made the decision not to let Emily continue to be treated. Meanwhile, Mulder does an excellent job of investigating exactly what happened, but not forcing his findings on Scully.
The X Files: Demons (1997)
Not one of my favorites
Overall, I am not a fan of the protracted "missing sister" storyline with all of the twists and turns and this episode is one of my least favorites of that arc. I found the flashback sequences to be repetitive, annoying, and headache inducing, especially the psychedelic flashes. I also found the pacing of the episode to be overall draggy and slow. The story line wandered all over the place from Mulder being a possible murder suspect to him being a willing subject to an experimental psychiatric treatment that left him agitated and paranoid. The only positive I see coming out of the episode is more evidence of Scully's feelings and concern for Mulder.
Quantum Leap: Ben & Teller (2023)
The plotting and writing was less than stellar
I'm not impressed with how this season is proceeding so far. The way the hostage negotiator was written and acted bothered me so much it ruined the episode. A hostage negotiator would not treat what was going on so lightly and so quickly pull the switch to rush the bank.
I also don't like the Ben - Addison - Tom triangle. Ben was the love of her life and even though the show says it has been 3 years, it doesn't feel that way to the viewer. It feels like she just ditched Ben. It doesn't help that so far they are writing Tom as such a nice guy. I hope the show wraps up this storyline soon because it will greatly take away from the show to have it be an emotional rollercoaster. .
The X Files: Squeeze (1993)
First and one of the best "monsters of the week"
I'm rewatching the x-files for the third (or maybe the fourth) time and I consider this to be one of the best episodes. Eugene Tooms is a serial killer who has a genetic abnormality that allows him to hibernate for years, but makes him kill and eat human livers when he emerges from hibernation. The flexibility of Fox Mulder's mind allows him to figure out what Tooms is fairly quickly, but the other agents ignore and ridicule him. Scully is pulled between an old friend who is a traditional, rigid FBI agent and Mulder. Despite the challenges of believing in a serial killer who is over 100 years old, she chooses to align with Mulder.
The actor who plays Tooms does an excellent job of being creepy and abnormal. I also enjoyed the side story of the retired cop who was also onto Tooms, but couldn't get others to buy in. His tears when he reads that Tooms has been imprisoned are sweet.
I look forward to rewatching the other episode with Tooms.
Invasion (2021)
Boring and annoying.
This show was sold as a sci-fi alien invasion told through the real-time intimate stories of a few individuals. The main problem, however, is that one of the main characters, Aneesha, is just annoying. Her family is on the run and she keeps bringing along her incredibly immature and selfish husband who is having an affair and insists on calling his pregnant lover every chance he gets. He moons over her like a high school boy. Aneesha's husband even went so far as to ask a stranger to help him leave his family (presumably to go to his lover) and only ended up staying because the stranger turned him down. That is when anyone with self-respect would have driven off and left his sorry a** to fend for himself. (BTW, Aneesha's kids are also annoying.)
The kids from England and the overseas soldier are interesting, but they cannot overcome the show's problems. Overall, the show is slow as molasses and way overdramatic. I am a big sci-fi fan and made it through episode 6, but "it's all I can stand and I canna stand any more."
Star Trek: Voyager: Meld (1996)
One of the best episodes of Voyager
This episode was refreshing change after the last episode ("Threshold"), which was such a stinker. In Meld, when an ex-Marquis crewman murders another member of the crew without remorse, Tuvok.tries to determine his motives by mind-melding with the murderer. Unfortunately, the mind-meld undermines Tuvok's Vulcan control over his emotions and transfers some of the murderous impulses to him.
This episode stood out to me for both excellent writing and acting. Brad Dourif plays the murderer and gives his usual skilled performance. He is chilling when he discusses how he murdered the crewman and totally believable when he gets his emotions and impulses under control after the mind-meld. Tim Russ, as Tuvok, also shone as this episode allowed him to drop the rigid Vulcan control and show his acting range. The scene where he goes to the brig to "execute" the murderer is particularly well done.
As others have commented, Voyager was an uneven show. More episodes like this would have helped a great deal.
Ahsoka: Part Four: Fallen Jedi (2023)
"Good guys" who help bad guys don't do it for me
This episode was extremely frustrating. Ashoka expressly instructs Sabine to destroy the map in the battle and, of course, Sabine disobeys. Then suddenly, all Baylan Skoll had to do was invoke the name of Sabine's old friend and and Sabine was like, "Sure, here, have the map that will let you get to Thrall and help bring back the Empire. I have no problem with that." Seriously, Sabine just fought a major battle with Hati, but is all too willing to disregard the instructions of her instructor and follow the instructions of the dark sith. I find Sabine to be an inconsistent, immature character and this show to be generally slow.
The Killing (2011)
Excellent cast and acting, poor writing, draggy plotting
A friend who watched the show told me that they could not make it past season 2 and now I understand why. The script took a basic "who done it" and just layered on random storylines, repetitive emotions (yeah, we get that the parents are grieving), red herring after red herring (but not in a suspenseful way) and so on. It got to the point that I didn't care about some of the characters and the show did not consistently hold my attention.
The other thing that bothered me was Linden as a parent. I was sympathetic to the situation with her ex who had not paid child support or been involved with his kid suddenly wanting to play a role in his kid's life. However, I couldn't be fully sympathetic since she was not doing a great job of taking care of her son. Him missing 3 days of school and being missing from her for a day should have been a warning, but no, she keeps yanking the rug out from under him about their move, has him live in a hotel, leaves him alone in the hotel when he calls her sick, etc. I found myself rooting for the ex to be involved just to get the kid some attention.
The main reason I rated the show as high as I did and watched it as far as I did was because of the quality of the acting. The overall story could have been told in a much more concise manner. One season would have easily done it.
Star Trek: Voyager: Faces (1995)
Done Better in "The Enemy Within"
The concept of dividing a character into two parts, both of which are needed for the whole, was done before, and much better, in the original Star Trek episode, "The Enemy Within." In the original Star Trek, Kirk was divided into good and bad, where as Torres was divided into human and Klingon.
What bothered me about this episode the most was that the human Torres was written as such a stereotypical idea of a weak female. Even though she was a Star Fleet officer with the training, she was cowardly and did not stand up for herself.
The other issue I had with the episode was bad dialogue. When Torres was working on the computer to try and get a signal out, she was grabbed and dragged away. When she asked where they were taken her, she was told something like, "To dinner and a hot shower." What?
I found this episode sloppy and stereotypical. I recommend watching the original instead.
Lioness: The Beating (2023)
Bad plotting and unnecessary and excessive violence towards women
This episode simply makes no sense. I understand that the ostensible reason for the torture of Cruz was to see how far she can go without breaking. However, she was an operative in play who could be called by the target at any minute and, if they met face-to-face, the brutal beating would be obvious and have to be explained. This is bad leadership as it would put the operative and potentially the entire operation at unnecessary risk, which happens in the very next episode - no surprise. The plot line was illogical and seemed to be aimed at having a scene showing a woman being beaten. I couldn't even finish this episode and will not be watching the rest of show. Additionally and unfortunately, this type of excessive, unnecessary violence against women reminds me of the treatment of the Native American woman in 1923, another show by Taylor Sheridan.
Tour de France: Unchained (2023)
An excellent view into the Tour
My husband and I have watched the Tour over the last 20 years, but this series is not just for those who've watched the Tour. While we both found this series totally absorbing, it also gave the basics for those who have not seen the Tour before so they could enjoy the stories told. The main joy of this series was watching the background stories and emotions behind the Tour. The series did not only explore the high level story of the two general classification contenders poised to win the entire tour. It also went into the stories behind other riders, their teams and their coaches. There are joys, thrills and heartbreaks, along with some excellent riding. I highly recommend and am looking forwards to season 2.
Enterprise: These Are the Voyages... (2005)
Misguided
I am sad they decided to make this the finale of Enterprise. The basic setup is that it is essentially an episode of STTNG with Enterprise embedded as a hologram experience to help Riker resolve some sort of issue. I found the switching between Enterprise and Riker/Troi to be jumpy and disconcerting and Riker appearing over the shoulder of various characters or in mirrors was creepy.
In addition to problems with the basic structure, the underlying Enterprise plot was weak. A kidnapping that was resolved in a very short time, which was followed up by an alien ship that was somehow able to track Enterprise and beam people aboard. To top that, when the aliens came aboard, an "intruder alert" was called, but only Archer and Trip were able to respond. Seriously, where was security? This failure of security response ended up causing Trip's death, which felt like a cheap emotional tearjerker moment.
Finally, coming off the previous episode where Trip and T'Pol were talking about how humans and Vulcans could have babies and holding hands, this episode went to a casual "oh, yeah, we ended our relationship 6 years ago."
To sum it up, I did not find this a worthy "ending" to Enterprise and recommend the prior episode for that purpose.
Enterprise: Terra Prime (2005)
The true series finale
This should have been the final episode of Enterprise. It was sad that the show was cancelled, but this episode would have wrapped up the series in a worthy manner.
The episode set the stage for future Star Trek and the Federation. It gave all of the main crew a chance to shine.
The episode confronts the bigotry of humanity and shows how Archer and her crew helped Earth to rise above it. To me, this aspect makes the show consistent with Gene Roddenberry's vision of the best in humanity rising to the top.
While the entire episode was special, the final scene with Trip and T'Pol was particularly heartwarming and heartbreaking. I commend this episode to your viewing.
School Spirits (2023)
I totally binge watched it!
Luckily I came across this show when all of the episodes were out because I appreciated the ability to go through all of the episodes in a couple of days. I found the premise interesting, the characters fun and well-acted and the dialogue tight. I particularly enjoyed watching the characters and their relationships develop. The show does have some different variations on the usual ghost "rules" (for example, the ghosts can't walk through walls and the ghosts can interact with physical objects, but only in their own world). The final episode was fun with a twist that I definitely did not expect. I'm looking forward to season 2!
Shrinking (2023)
Strongly recommended!
I love this show! The writing is crisp and intelligent. The roles were well-cast and each actor holds his or her own. There have been laugh out loud moments in each episode, and there have been moments of such tenderness that I was moved to tears, like the scene where Paul dances with his daughter.
While all of the characters are strong, I love watching Harrison Ford in this show. He gets excellent lines and delivers them well.
The show reminds me of Ted Lasso, which makes sense due to the overlap in creators and writers. I hope Shrinking does as well as Ted Lasso in awards and ratings and is around for a long while.
1923 (2022)
Don't waste your time
This show takes excellent actors and puts them in a show that is full of excruciatingly slow scenes and glacial plot development, alternating with scenes that dwell on violence against women to an extremely uncomfortable and unnecessary degree. We really don't need to see Timothy Dalton making the prostitutes beat each other and beating them himself more than once to know he is a really evil person. This show is all broad brush strokes and no subtlety.
I tried to watch for Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford, but I can't even watch for them. Pretty scenery will not make up for poor writing and plotting. This show is a hard pass for me.