Reviews

Between film and tv I've probably seen several hundred Westerns in my life and 'Godless' is the worst one I've ever seen.

Frank Griffin and his 31 person posse must have an early 19th Century dry cleaning wagon as part of the gang. These guys spend virtually all of the time we see them sleeping outdoors and yet I defy anyone to show me a single piece of soiled clothing. Where do they get their food? Equally important, where are they getting the hay to feed 32 horses from. Plus the enormous amounts of water horses need to survive. We also must remember that the many thousands of dollars they got from their last heist was stolen from them by Roy Goode. Shouldn't they refill their coffers and rob another mine or bank somewhere? And speaking of actor O'Connell (Roy Goode), he doesn't have the personality (he's nicely spoken and dull) for the part and also doesn't have the right dialogue to help him find a character.

Much more but let's go to the big shootout near the end of the film, which is the absolute pits of any major shootout I've ever seen: Women who have never handled a gun become marksmen and a few of them have pistols that never need reloading. Frank's men suddenly all become suicidal morons when the first shots are aimed at them in an ambush and instead of dismounting and seeking cover, wait an unconscionable long time before seeking shelter. Oh yes, the laugh-out loud scenes where the bad guys then ride their horses INTO the hotel, including going up staircases unscathed and start killing the unawares women inside (or maybe the women being shot are deaf mutes). FRANK, who NEVER EVEN MOVES HIS HORSE while his men are being picked off it or even get off it, is never even shot at!! And the two women on the roof the hotel looking down on him, knowing he's the gang leader and who are great shots, fail to kill or even shoot at him.

CH, a third rate show copies that second rate show, Law and Order. The latter became the cliche of cliche by having 95% of their shows end with the bad guys confessing to whatever crimes they committed earlier. (An older generation of viewers would remember Perry Mason, where 99% of the shows had the villains confessing on the stand.) Intellectual and creative death to watch much of P. M., L. O. and now City Homicide.

The latter also approves of the extra-legal means the detectives go to to 'prove' their cases; illegal searches, browbeating and even the occasional physical attack on presumed innocent suspects.

Just imagine yourself having these illegal actions taken based on some moron detective's "gut instinct"!

Kevin Hart was miscast as the lead; where was the upside to his performance since he seemed to be depressed 80% of the time.

Poor writing too as when he is able to garrote Billy Zane who is not only a foot taller but also physically more imposing than Hart. Another example is near the end of the show when he is revealed to be an expert pistol marksman.

As a retired lighting director/gaffer Hart's face is sometimes poorly lit; poor key light and NO fill.

Many scenes reeking of sentimentality (not sentimental).

Lag, lag, lag. Story could have been told in 3 episodes.

It's a difficult show to rate because of the high quality of the first 5 shows and the very low story quality of episode 6. Deal breaking examples of the last episode 6, of Season 1: 1. The dropping of the most important supporting character, Kai. (What happened to cause his arrest? We'll never know because he disappears from the series.

2. The Steve Zahn character Mark, is described as a very successful lawyer; he's able to buy his wife Nicole a $75k bracelet but Nicole is described as being way more financially successful than he. How then would they rent a suite with ONE bedroom. Two young women, daughter Olivia and BF Paula are sleeping on hideaway sofa beds in the spacious living room and the couple's son Quinn is squeezed into a small kitchenette. But the poor writing that called for this bed room shortage needed it to be so for future story machinations. A 1% woman and wealthy husband go low rent on the vacation suite. No way.

3. Armond is murdered by Shane (probably a felony charge of involuntary manslaughter) and not only gets away without even a coroner's inquest but is seen having his hand shaken by servile Hawaii detectives.

4. Rachel, Shane's wife is shown depth fully questioning her recent marriage over several episodes and then, without any story change being shown, goes back to the marriage and vowing to be a loyal, unquestioning wife. Shane is a major creep and the viewer wonders from first seeing him why a beautiful, intelligent, ambitious journalist would have said yes to a marriage in the first place.

5. The morose 16 year old Quinn is seen being accepted by expert native Hawaiian oarsmen when the entire 6 episodes show underlines how much the natives loathe the rich White tourists whose forefathers stole their land from them and turned them into 'slaves'.

6. Power couple Nichole and Mark, once they notice that Quinn has not boarded the plane, would have left the plane to noisily to retrieve him.

Their were other notable drops in the quality of the writing in Episode Six but I believe you will see why I gave the overall show a 3. Folks, I really believed I had wasted six hours watching this show go from exceptionally good to wretchedly bad.

Among other things, the writer/director stresses several times how the players are 'equal' and must be treated fairly. Then near the end, when the 3 finalists cross the glass bridge successfully, he has the bridge panels explode with great ferocity and causes the young woman to be seriously wounded (and later has her killer explain that it was a mercy killing... that she was terminally wounded. That's hardly fair, don't you agree?

The very old man who turns out to be Mr. Big was part of a tug of war game which was not rigged. That means if the winners (unbelievable by the way that they could win against a physically stronger team) lost he would have perished in the fall. Incongruous story mistake.

Several semi-finalists, the young woman for instance and one finalist commit suicide, the former unbelievable since she has a mother and brother she wants to save, the latter unexpectedly since he was shown through the competition to do anything to win.

I also believe it makes no sense for the VIP's to only show up at the end. Surely the millions of dollars they spend would mean they would want to see every bloody (and I do mean bloody) minute of all the games.

I also found making all of the VIP's Americans prejudicial. You mean all the world's class exploitation exists only in the 1 percenters who are American?

Homicide detectives at key scenes not wearing gloves? Jerky out of focus visual 'filler' between scenes? A DI who can't stand the sight of blood? A mature hospital nurse who doesn't answer the phone when she's at home. User reviews that give this 3rd rate show nine's and ten's? Yikes!

SPOILER: There is a reason for IMDB to consider adding a -minus star to the ten stars system extant. When a movie/tv show misrepresents in its story a law that exists in real life then a minus star should be available to be designated. "Seven Seconds" has a judge delivering a 354+ day sentence in the county lockup which he then reduces to 30 days, after the prosecution and defense sign a legally acknowledged plea bargain for an 8 year sentence in a state prison. The mini-series itself is barely watchable though it's enlivened by a style of urban dialogue the hack screenwriter's use that clearly to this viewer was heavily influenced by Richard Price. (only he doesn't get any royalties I bet) There's also some particularly heavy handed product placement shots which cheapen the story when they appear. Shame on you Veena ("Venal") Sud. P.s. Anyone know why Gretchen Mol doesn't list this piece of crap on her IMDB resume? Try and guess.

Technically a very good visual product. However the story introduces and drops characters, something a good film project doesn't do, i.e. the only survivor of Vorenus's slave investment, a young boy, is 'saved' by Vorenus, introduced to the family and then disappears. Another example is the chief of Egyptian security/army who we are told has a force of 100,000. He is pleaded with by Cleopatra's top two officials, says he "has to think about it" and then is never seen again. Then in the final episode we have the terminally wounded Vorenus, in an un-canopied WOODEN wheeled cart, making it across what appears to be an Egyptian desert under days of blazing sun and heat.....for 30 days. 30 days to cross from the boonies of Egypt to Rome! How can some of you give this atrociously written movie 4 and 5 stars. Finally, and this is directed to the folks who absolutely loved "Rome", do understand that you cannot think of it as even remotely historically accurate; Julius Caesar WAS NOT killed in the regular Roman senate building. It was under repair in 44 BCE and so on March 15, the senate met in a chamber next to the Theater of Pompey, where he was slain. We also regularly see a group of perhaps 3 or 4 senators who are suggested are the main assassins. It was more likely a group of up to 33 senators who were the plotters and assassins. In conclusion, though there's much more to be said, I would invite the people who liked Rome a lot, other than for it's porn and violence, to do some reading about its history. The reality of those times is so much more fascinating than what this mass entertainment portrayed.

Some thoughts on this dog of a movie: Cary Grant and George Clooney, both of whom could act charmingly on screen never attempted to carry a film just with that quality. Mr Franco, you don't have the restraint, judgment or charm of Grant or Clooney. Give acting via characterization a try. Poor Ms. Heard, seemingly a naif, is to be believed to be a crime reporter for the NY Times? More likely that she is a children's book reviewer limited to books for ages 3 and under. Also highly laughable was the amount of free time she had while on the Times' nickel. Cynthia Nixon had what can be described as a thankless role; that of a slavishly loyal agent who still 'believes' in Franco's cosmic talent even after he's caught publicly in a massive lie. And we're to believe that a major publisher would still back this liar after such a damaging disclosure? The straw that broke the dromedary's back for me re screenplay however was when the barely-in-control father (Ed Harris), looking like a bum, was somehow able to find out the address of a N.Y. Times reporter and tape a post-it to 'her door'. Enough. I surrender. I turn off the player and go watch a real movie, "Chicken With Plums" in this instance.

I'm in an almost hallucinatory state as I write this. Is it remotely possible that the five existing favorable reviews (as of 5/15/16) were based on a different version of "Wedding Palace" than the one I just saw? For in the bit of surrealism I watched the 'good' character arriving in L.A. to get married, Na Young, was a well proportioned but abnormally, repeat abnormally short person. In Seoul however, where the the man Jason first laid eyes on her, and where he spent face-to-face time with her on a date, she was shown to be a normal sized woman. Figuratively as well as literally this bit of poetic license is unbelievable and should come with the warning: The character Na Young is filmed sitting on 3 pre-cell phone era Manhattan directories.

I wish Gilbert and Sullivan were alive to adapt "Red Corner" into one of their operettas. Preposterous story lines, unintentionally amusing dialogue and actions that G.&S. of course, would intentionally make into comedy (unlike what the writer of Red Corner and the hack director achieved), though perhaps I should give it another star because of the dozen or so laughs I did have. You praising folks want an example of the unintentional comedy? The scene where Richard Gere suddenly transforms from media executive to action hero after a seasoned hit man impossibly bungles shooting Gere and Bai Ling in a stalled limo. The un-hit man flees the scene with Gere in full pursuit, Gere loses sight of him but continues chasing something through a maze of alleyways; the big laugh of this scene is when Gere, riding a bicycle (with handcuffs on yet) is being pursued by a motorcycle cop who is closing in on him rapidly but eludes capture when the cop, apparently riding a motorcycle for the first time, slides on something in the street and wipes out. The truly grandest comedic moment in the movie though was the big production number at the end when the court proceedings become a shambles of story rabbits being pulled out of Bugs Bunny's body. It made me think of adding Perry Mason to the stateroom scene in "A Night At The Opera". A laugh a minute.

Other hidden meanings in "The Shining": 1. In the gin commercial, the ice cube to the right clearly shows the Secret Service man driving JFK's limo in Dallas turning around and shooting the president. 2. A frozen-frame blow up of the poster to the left of the faux skier one reveals a photo of the box where President and Mrs. Lincoln were watching "An American Cousin" on the night the president was assassinated. To the extreme left you can see a myopic 2nd assassin firing a Derringer that missed Mrs. Lincoln, the second must-have target. 3. In the opening credits of "The Shining", as soon as Stanley Kubrick's name scrolls upwards out of the frame, in addition to his airbrushed photo skillfully placed in the clouds, and to its immediate left, is the right earlobe of Jon Voight, Kubrick's first choice to play Jack. 4. The original sneak prevue release, shown in a theater in Honduras, had Danny carrying a ripe banana as he fled into the maze. He gets corned by his homicidal father and obsessively eats the banana, tossing the peel in front of him. His father raises the ax, steps forward and slips on the banana peel, hitting his head fatally on a partially obscured obsidian bust of Stephen King. This ending was booed by the attending Hondurans who subsequently burned down the theater to protest the racial profiling of bananas. Kubrick then re-shot the ending we all know. 5. As a movie running 1 hour and 42 minutes, the laughs for this commentator stopped coming after 20 minutes. Picture was far too long to sustain a light-weight comedy.

SPOILERS: Unfairly perhaps, I would have much preferred Melissa, after the grievous abortion, to realize that every man in her life was a loser and to resolve to go it alone once her health was regained. I also would have rated 'Sunlight Jr.' another point but for a bad use by the screenwriters of poetic license: We know she's penniless but somehow manages to get an ultra-sound exam, see a pediatrician and to top it off, obtain an abortion. As you all too well know, medical technicians and particularly doctors aren't in it for humanitarian reasons.

Ghastly because of its non-originality. Illogical too in some scenes; Mr. Big is dozing in the back of his limo, two bodyguards in front seats. Late at night in the totally deserted ferry parking line up. Another car pulls up next to them but the moronic supposed bodyguards, just stay parked instead of peeling away or pulling out their guns and maybe even firing away. Remember folks, Mr. Big is the godfather of the yakuza. Then their car pulls forward abruptly and the driver, apparent lacking peripheral vision and deaf to boot, gets slammed by a speeding, noisy truck coming from his left. The truck, by the way, appears supernaturally since it wasn't seen in the master establishing shot earlier. Final thought: I can suspend disbelief but not my intelligence.

The writer part of the writer-director (Ron Morales) must have decided to shoot the first draft of 'Graceland' because if he had read it a second or third time he would have seen the glaring story problems that unfortunately infect the movie released to the general public. Spoilers. We learn near the end of the story that the gunman/kidnapper did the crime to avenge the underage daughter who the bad congressman hired to have sex with and who he unwittingly gave alcohol to, such alcohol causing the child to die because of a low tolerance for it. Problem here? The movie early on established that the congressman went to a bordello that specialized in underage girls. Well folks, didn't her amoral, stupid and psychotic father know where she earned her cash? Why didn't he stop her from being a whore? Oh... that's because she died after being forced to drink booze. Bad man doesn't care about the prostitution but doesn't want his daughter to drink. Yikes. 2. If dad was so sensitized to all of the young girls predicament, forcing the bad man to give them the initial ransom payment, why did he arbitrarily kill the equally young girl who was initially kidnapped. (Oh, that's right, he actually knew he was killing the bad man's daughter because Marlon was one of the architects of the kidnapping.) But why then was Marlon so surprised when the murder took place. As a co-conspirator he also must have known where his daughter was from the very beginning. Why then was he so bent out of shape since he knew his daughter was going to be released once the ransom was paid. (He also played dumb to the camera even when no one was around to observe his 'act'. Why? Well actually that's because director Morales didn't think it through.) We never see the cop affect an arrest and free the daughter after he hears a gun shot near the end. Kind of an important scene to show, don't you think? Finally, though there's plenty more, we have to assume that the bad guy, after finding his by now putrid dead child in the back of the car (in the Phillipines; sub tropic temperatures and very humid), will notify the police of this and an autopsy will show that she died days before. Remember, he confessed to his crimes, for which I'm sure he'll be arrested and imprisoned, gave up his career and lost his wife and fortune. Wouldn't he at least insist, since he has nothing left to lose, on finding out the truth? Remember that for all his depravity he deeply loved her. But finding out that she had been killed days earlier would lead to Marlon being arrested and hopefully for this viewer, sent to prison for 30 years. The autopsy would show that Marlon had to be lying about everything. (What a gutless creep he turned out to be.) Then there's the money Marlon gives to some black market organ seller. Where in god's name did he get the money from? I'll grant you this: Morales knows how to compose a scene, get fine performances from the actors and knows how to add music and edit. But the story itself? Not thought out and sub-amateurish.

I knew I was in deep, deep trouble when the director's surname-only name was emblazoned in huge lettering in the credits; he dared go where the great director's of cinema history never went. As many of you know horror films are a beginning step for many a wanna-be filmmaker. Usually lower budget and of course given the whorish ego's of some of these people, a lowering of movie-making standards takes place by making their products more violent and gross than last year's group. So what finally does Mackintosh present for the audience? An unoriginal, highly derivative re-branding of elements that go back decades. Overwrought music that 'tells' you when to be frightened, two main characters that repeatedly follow the script but do not follow the script of what two frightened people would do in real life. Example: A killer kid has the wife and husband in view behind the grate, pointing a cocked pistol at them. But bloodthirsty as these children are supposed to be he never pulls the trigger and is shot to death for his imbecilic hesitation. And does the couple rush forward and pick up another weapon? No they don't. Another example has the husband leaving his 7 month pregnant wife alone in the courtyard, where the walls could be easily scaled and goes for a second, unnecessary tour of the hotel, the whole purpose being to set up his running back to her when she screams. Finally, though there are numerous other examples of bad writing, I would ask the folks who liked this movie, which of the giggling, cannibalistic kid-murderers kept the generator running for this good sized town?

Does story believability not count for anything for folks who gave this movie a 10? I left after the following things took place on screen: 1. Prior to a visit to a Swedish prison a visitor is seen putting stiletto-like knives in the bottom of his shoes. He gets into the prison, circa 2010 (which doesn't have metal detector machines) and then walks into a large exercise yard seemingly dressed like many of the prison inmates exercising. He makes contact with the convict he plans on helping escape, clumsily knocks over a single guard and then the two of them race to a tall metal fence adorned by razor wire on the top. (Perhaps the guards in the yard and in the towers were on a union-sanctioned break and weren't allowed to pursue the escapees since no one appeared to be chasing the two.) Not wounded by the razor wire the two escape and are not recaptured. 2. Later on in the movie the cab driver who was covertly following pursuer two, who in turn had caught the one main prison escapee, discovers the escapees semi-automatic handgun on a forest's floor. How did the gun get there? Was the owner not searched by the two men who were intent on beating him to death? Why didn't the cab driver pick the gun up? After these two inanities took place I decided to not watch anymore of what I found to be a confusing movie up till then to begin with. P.S. In reading about "Easy Money" I learned that this was the second movie in a planned trilogy. Perhaps the filmmakers should have had a synopsis precede the escape to help viewers like me understand what had happened before. Having said this though, the two story lapses still stand out as un-thought out mistakes.

First Season (2010's "Aftermath": Scenery-chewing by Tompkinson that you rarely see emanating from an English actor. So hysterical that I couldn't believe he could achieve such a high rank in an English police department (or any U.S. police department for that matter). A rookie cop exhibiting such a lack of control would never have his contract renewed much less become a DCI. "Aftermath" also had ill conceived story problems, such as having a chief murder suspect's lawyer, during an interrogation, ask for a client conference only to have the off-the- wall Banks disregard the request and continue badgering the suspect. One might ask, "Couldn't an over zealous policeman do this during a questioning of a suspect?" Of course, but then, like Chekhov's rule about the rifle introduced in the first act having to go off in the second or third act, the policeman's blunder about a suspect's rights would have to lead to a mistrial when the defendant's lawyer has the confession thrown out. The good news however is that as the series progressed over the next few years virtually all of my objections above were remedied by better, more logical mysteries plus the becalming of Tompkinson's performances.

A deep love of "Vertigo" motivates director Julio Medem to jump into an almost empty swimming pool. Problem is 'V" was a second rate film to fall in love with to begin with. (Question: Did the producers have to pay royalties to the estate of Bernard Herrmann for the almost literal use of some of his music?) So what happens because of the second rated-ness of "V"is that "Red Squirrel" becomes a third rate movie before one's very eyes. Towards the end of it we learn in flashback that Lisa was seen in passing by Jay before the accident that supposedly brings two strangers together and that this brief sighting so smote him that he wrote what would become his favorite song. In the beginning Jay is about to off himself, for reasons ultimately that are never revealed, when he witnesses a motorcycle smashing off an elevated road and landing in the sand of a beach. But folks, the woman driving turns out to be Lisa (Elisa), who he had already met and fallen desperately in love with, after seeing her for less than sixty seconds. THE EXTREMELY LONG ARM OF COINCIDENCE ONCE AGAIN POISONS THE WELL. Sometime later in the movie we learn from Elisa/Sofia's brother that she was never hurt badly enough to suffer from amnesia. Even Hitchcock didn't mess up logic this much. Jay, because of his lying about E/S being his live-in girlfriend and subsequent behavior indicates that he should be in a mental hospital getting daily analysis and the appropriate medication. Perhaps too a red squirrel may have deep psychological meaning to the Spanish nation but to this North American, the repeatedly visual references to it had zero affect. By the way, a massively huge problem with Red Squirrel was that the subtitles were out of sync with the actors lips. Whoever the bottom feeder was who allowed this to happen should be horsewhipped at the grave of Luis Bunuel.

Suggestion for French director Pascal Laugier's next film: Set it in the Ile-de-France section of Paris. Have a wealthy white French doctor and his white wife set up an organization that covertly steals 3 to 6 year old Moroccan children from poor families and then places them in sympathetic upper middle-class white French families. Once placed, they will be given opportunities their birth parents can't provide. Focus somewhat on one Moroccan family whose father is a pedophile. (After all, these are lower class people who wallow in degeneracy and don't want their children to escape their place in French society; the featured family will suggest it is actually representative of this group).

This movie begins with an opening bookend and ends with another bookend. What happens in between.....all the long moments spent with the phantoms.....makes time move very slowly. I have to assume that the writer, Michael could never have received a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction since the book we see forming in his imagination would end up on a shelf reserved for melodramatic tabloid fiction. (Perhaps not even in that category since the sections having to do with Scott and Monika are ridiculously implausible; a white collar, middle aged thief who coughs up his last money, $125K to save the daughter of a woman he scarcely know, one who he meets in a cheap Roman bar.) I thought too that the accompanying musical score was almost viral in its insistent banality, hammering away every time Mr. Haggis believed the confusing story needed extra support. If you want to see how wonderfully the gimmick used in 'Third Person' can work, see "'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', a 28 minute movie produced in 1962.