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Reviews
Murder in Provence (2022)
Just Blah...
I absolutely love British murder mysteries, but I watched the first episode of this series and I thought the mystery & the related investigation were pretty boring. Just blah, really. This show is about an investigative team in Aix-en-Provence, France, and it would appear that all the characters are supposed to be French. I understand that this is a British tv show, but it seems a little weird that EVERYONE speaks English with a British accent when (I think) they are all supposed to be French people in France. Just odd really. I mean, there was no effort to make this show feel French, except that they filmed it there. So, you keep wondering to yourself, "Is this city in France occupied by nothing but British people or are they all expats or are they just lazy actors?" It's really confusing. Also, there were several scenes in the show where the main actors made fun of American habits/customs, and another scene when they commented on recent American politics. Now, if these were supposed to be French people, I would understand the negativity because the French don't like Americans, but the more you watch the episode, the more you transition to believing that these characters are British and not French. So, it came across as political narrative instead of cultural differences. It was just odd. The real mystery is trying to figure out if these characters are supposed to be French or if they are British people in France. It was very distracting. I started this review with 5 stars and worked my way down to 3, the more I thought about it.
Hotto Gimikku: Gâru Mîtsu Bôi (2019)
Don't waste your two hours.... seriously.
Wow. So many bad things to say that I don't know where to start. I was so excited to see this live-action movie from one of my favorite manga stories, but it was just horrible. If I hadn't read the manga, I would have been totally lost. The movie just jumps from event to event, with absolutely zero character development at all. The dialogue was really bad, and made no sense half of the time. Crucial events were left out, other events were changed so drastically that they were just limp. There was no emotional connection between any of the characters. This movie just grazes over the main events of a very large story, and it feels disjointed. You get each event, but not "the why" it happened or what brought them to that point. It's like someone picked out the main events from the manga, drew a timeline on a whiteboard, and said... let's go make these scenes, but they didn't add any of the details that lead up to them. So many things were left out that were crucial to the overall story. Also, the characters were nothing like what Miki Aihara created... Hatsumi Narita was a naive pushover; she wasn't stupid. Ryoki was rich, spoiled, intelligent, socially powerful... and decidedly ready to lose his virginity (the catalyst for the entire story). Their relationship was one that started with commands and orders, but slowly developed into communication, compromise, and consideration. Hatsumi learned to stand up for herself and Ryoki listened and learned from her, each developing feelings for the other along the way. That was the core of the manga: to communicate, listen, and learn with each other. None of that was in this movie. To watch this movie without reading the manga, you would think they were in a completely abusive relationship. This movie was just really bad. If you haven't read the manga, go read it to get the real story... with all the drama, emotion, and even humor that should have been in this movie.