Change Your Image
GeezerNoir
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)
Here There Be Dragons
J. R. R. Tolkien lived in and embraced a Germanic/Celtic/Nordic/Christian world. He composed a magnificent fantasy epic drawn from and lovingly given back as a gift to that very specific world. Other worlds existing to the east and south of Tolkien's world were acknowledged, but always with the caveat that they should be regarded as foreign, suspicious and potentially dangerous.
Those who cannot accept Tolkien's world for what it is should simply avoid it; and that is easily done. Anyone who would enter Tolkien's world with the intention of reshaping it to fit their own contemporary vision of how this world should be structured, while pretending to be faithful to Tolkien's spirit, should heed this warning:
HIC SUNT DRACONES! (HERE THERE BE DRAGONS!)
The showrunners of "Rings of Power" have done a good deal of reshaping and, to their dismay, the dragons have noticed.
Difficult not to notice that events which transpired over a span of at least two thousand years in Tolkien's world are now going to be played out in the length of a single human lifetime. Difficult not to notice how the showrunners have diminished Galadriel while making her the most prominent character in season one. Tolkien's Galadriel is a person known for her great wisdom, compassion and insightful counsel. "Rings of Power" Galadriel is a vengeful, sword wielding Amazon; and, to compound the insult, she is being played by an actress who is too young for the role and who either is not able to deliver or is not being allowed to deliver a nuanced characterization. Difficult not to notice that Elrond is being portrayed as a petulant, pusillanimous underling. Difficult not to notice that the majority of the characters in the show are either unlikeable or uninteresting. Difficult not to notice the chintzy costumes and the vapid dialogue. Difficult, in short, not to notice that this unfortunate foray into Tolkien's world is an unmitigated disaster!
Night Sky: To the Stars (2022)
Boring
Well this is just boring isn't it. I mean my ninety-four year old mother has more energy than Franklin and Irene. Subsequent episodes may possibly be a bit more compelling, but it's going to be one and done for me.
ZeroZeroZero: Same Blood (2020)
Kudos
Kudos, indeed, to everyone involved in the making of this brutal, disturbing, thought provoking masterpiece of a series. Amazon would have done well to have invested one quarter of the effort promoting this series that was spent promoting that dreadful piece of cartoonish dreck called "Hunters". Nonetheless it is good to know that there still are series out there aimed at a mature adult audience. One just has to be willing to hunt for them.
Hunters: In the Belly of the Whale (2020)
Totally Unbelievable
We are shown that the opening scene takes place in 1977. The woman who is accusing the man of being "The Butcher" does not appear old enough to have been in the concentration camps in the early to mid 1940s. Nor does the accused man appear old enough to have been a senior enough officer in the camps to have established himself as "The Butcher".
So that's one significant thing right there.
But there's more! We are to believe that this fellow always and everywhere has available a loaded and silenced automatic hand gun. And that he is marksman enough to kill all of the people in this scene with one perfectly placed head shot each. Even though some of them are running at a fair distance and some of them are bobbing about in the water. And we are to believe that he is evil enough to have zero attachment to his own children. Etc., etc.
There are many more almost equally unbelievable things happening in the first thirty minutes of this episode. Thirty minutes was as far as I could get before I gave up and turned the thing off. What a waste!
The Man in the High Castle: Fire from the Gods (2019)
Pathetic
What a pathetic ending. Who are all these people coming through the portal? They're not "travelers"( like Juliana or Tagomi) who might have left this wretched reality at will and have now decided to return. Travelers would not need a portal to return. So who are they; and how did they know where and when to go to come through a portal? Makes absolutely no sense. And who in their right mind would want to live in this reality? Most of the world is ruled by the Nazis or the Japanese Empire. And the European Nazis may have been OK with a separate Nazi state in North America, but you can bet they're NOT going to be OK with an independent USA. And the high command of the North American military is absolutely going to be divided on the question of North American autonomy. The military will be in chaos. And, speaking of chaos, what about the entire western United States. Who is going to take control there? The Yakuza? The BCR? Some other group? They may not have gotten bombed into oblivion, but they're not all that much better off. So North America may not be the land of milk and honey all of these clueless folks coming through the portal seem to be anticipating. I mean what with the civil wars and the European Nazis invading to seize back control. Didn't think anyone could write a worse ending than the one we got for Game of Thrones, but I was wrong!
Wonder Wheel (2017)
Big Wheel Keep On Turning
Several reviewers of this film have complained about the lack of denouement. It seems to me, though, that this apparent lack is very much intentional. In fact, I believe that the point Allen is making here is that, for most of us, the Great Wheel of Life (why do you suppose the film is titled "Wonder Wheel" and not "Death of a Coney Island Waitress" or some such thing) has no tidy denouement. It simply stops one day; and sometimes, as it obviously did for Carolina, it ends abruptly and badly. Our narrator fancies himself a budding playwright and several plays are referenced in the course of the film. However our real lives are not scripted. We each chart the course of our life by making decisions and taking (or, often, not taking) actions. Humpty, Ginny and Carolina all made some very bad decisions and acted (or failed to act) in ways that twisted their lives into downward turning spirals. At the end of the film we see no sign of resolution for Humpty, Ginny and Richie. We shouldn't. The Wheel is still spinning for them. They still have decisions to make and actions to take (or not take) until the day when the Wonder Wheel stops long enough to let each of them off.