Reviews

I expected Ken to be great at improv, but in fact, it's the opposite. He can't stay in character and he laughs the whole time. That said, the staged scenarios in this scene were quite funny, and while it totally breaks the 4th wall again and again that Ken laughs non-stop, at times that was actually quite funny and charming in a different kind of way that the actor found the scenarios so hilarious.

Sharon Stone is a great dramatic actress, and she plays this with full commitment to the scenes. That makes it good on one hand, though it's also kind of funny when actors can't help but break character, and she rarely does this and only for brief glimmers. Pretty good episode.

This episode wasn't as strong as some of the others, as Annie was mostly just going along with the scenes but not adding a ton to it. The scene where she's in the wig and does the voice was very funny though, so she strikes me as an actor who needs a scenario/character to really shine. Still fun stuff but not a top episode.

Marshawn Lynch held his own and it was fun that this episode mixed it up with a non-actor. That said, this felt more staged overall than other episodes. That's to be expected because Marshawn isn't an actor and not trained in improv, but it definitely felt less off the cuff and spontaneous. He had some funny one-liners though.

I've watched 5 of 6 eps so far (I jumped around in order so haven't seen the Kumail Nanjiani one yet), and this was the funniest so far. Conan has great comedic timing and the improv is fab. He breaks character a few times which is all the more funny.

I'm not typically a fan of movie musicals, but this one was fresh and fun and I loved the used of popular music throughout. Camila Cabello is very likeable and relatable in the lead role. You'll root for her. I felt that a few emotional payoffs were rushed in the end (the prince's sister's arc, the romances of BOTH couples). But I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

This played like most home invasion movies. The differences are that the heroine who's fighting back is a 14 year old girl, and the bad guy is King of Queens. It's actually kind of dark and gross in parts and sort of bleak. If you like home invasion stories, you'll like this. It was just okay to me, but there's actually not much that I can say critically about the movie, other than maybe I'm not a big fan of home invasion stories.

The period setting and attention to detail was very good. You could see the dustbowl dust coating their skin. Pretty cinematography and powerful acting performances. But overall, I wanted it to be better than it was, and the biggest problem was the way the story was told. There was so much narration from the sister character front-loaded that I wondered if the original cut ran too long and after the fact, the narration was added in order to cut scenes out. But the problem is that those scenes that were summarized in narration were imperative to making me care about the characters. I didn't feel truly invested into anyone until about 2/3 of the way through the movie, and even then, it wasn't as much as it should have been. And yet, it still felt overly slow and long.

This had the potential to be GREAT, but in the end, it was still pretty good. A drama version of a Bonnie & Clyde story with a bit of suspense and action.

This is a charming character story, and you love literature and the allure of the publishing world, this will probably appeal to you. It lacks too much weight when it comes to the plot, but it has some nice emotional payoffs and fun scenes.

In earlier episodes, I felt that a lot was alluded to, but details weren't always given. I thought this would all be cleared up by the end, but in reality, the series often times makes statements against LulaRoe without giving enough specifics to back it up. I'm NOT defending LulaRoe - they're clearly crooks. I'm just expressing my frustration about the way some of the info was presented. I'll give an example. One former retailer/mentor said that LulaRoe owed her $100K - from merchandise she couldn't return plus unpaid bonuses. My question is: Did they really not send the bonuses at all (like they stopped sending checks?), OR is that her calculation of what bonuses she would have been paid if LulaRoe hadn't abruptly changed their bonus policy? Specificity is important when leveling accusations, and the filmmakers should have asked that follow-up question.

Also, when the LulaRoe nephew was trying to get that same lady to invest in his pot business, the lady states that he stole an image of Google docs of cash to try to convince her to invest. Um, the guy was obviously shady, but has she never received a meme over text? I don't think most people who use text regularly would think he was sending a photo of HIS money. He was sending an image of cash, as in "invest and we'll make cash." Of course, she didn't invest (thank goodness), because that was another scam. So my point isn't to defend his shady pot business or put down the lady that interpreted a cash image as a personal photo. My point is that the filmmakers resorted to things that were misleading to paint LulaRoe in a bad light when that was completely unnecessary. That company and its owners did PLENTY to show themselves as amoral and criminal with plenty of evidence. Including the misleading stuff in the documentary just makes the REAL stuff less powerful, and that's the problem with most media these days. At times, it felt like the equivalent of Clickbait headlines.

As for some of the other topics in this last episode, it was crazy that the company issued a "No expiration date return policy" in the first place and even crazier for them to suddenly revoke it!!

I also thought the lady who wasn't a LuluRoe retailer or lawyer or journalist should NOT have been in this series at all. She was the equivalent of a nosy neighbor who doesn't have anything better to do with her time than obsess over LulaRoe online. Just strange and I don't care what she thinks. Stick to the interviews with the people involved: owners, the actual retailers (former and current), and with the former employees, because those were really interesting and revealing! Random, unrelated people aren't needed.

Overall, this was definitely an entertaining docuseries. I feel it could have done better in digging deeper into some of the stuff to separate fact from opinion/gossip, but I recommend this series overall, because these people are batty and what can I say? That makes for good TV. And the series did a great job of getting lots of insider footage and photos from events and in-office training calls, etc. They definitely dug up the dirt, so it was well done for the most part.

This episode gets even more entertaining with all the bad business operations and weird "inspirational" stuff and high-pressure tactics and social media cheese and religious/patriarchal guidelines. It's hard for me to wrap my brain around people getting involved in any MLM in the first place but then on top of that IDOLIZING the weird, flighty leaders of the company who are apparently so brilliant that they store the leggings outside in bins so they get rained on and turn moldy? And then they tell the buyers to put the moldy leggings in the freezer to try to get rid of the stink instead of replacing the damaged goods? Wow. Just wow.

And then they're pressuring the mentors to get weight loss surgery in Mexico? First of all, no one should be pressured to do that, but on top of that, these people who are raking in the money are choosing MEXICO for surgery? Why? To save a buck? To get a kickback on referrals? The bizarre irresponsibility across the boards makes for a quite entertaining docuseries. Each new episode is better than the last.

This is a high-quality docuseries. Great pacing and good interview clips interspersed with compelling footage. The story behind LulaRoe is getting a little crazier but it hasn't gotten too crazy yet (not yet criminal or overly cult-like- at least not any more cult-like than ALL MLMs). The people who are running the company are hilariously incompetent. They're using a Google Doc spreadsheet to try to track their inventory with multiple people trying to edit it at once? So much money is coming in, why don't they hire people with real business acumen instead of family members?

It's understandable how the early people who joined LulaRoe felt both addicted to the money and trapped by the terms. But it's the people who join later in the game that are perplexing to me. I guess a lot of people don't understand business and financial matters while simultaneously feeling desperate for a quick fix in life, and that's how MLMs pray on people.

So far other than the owners being weird and the fabric designs and shapeless clothing cuts being (mostly) ugly, LulaRich seems like your basic cheesy MLM company. A lot is alluded to in terms of the craziness that's coming in later episodes, but episode 1 is mostly background and setup. Interesting but not yet riveting stuff.

Really fantastic lead actors in the roles of Alice and Frank. The development between them was well done. This is a really heartwarming story with a pretty location and good period setting. The schoolmaster character provided great comedy too. Overall, this is not a dark, gritty WWII story. It always keeps it on the light side even when death factors in, but sometimes it's nice to see a sweet movie like that.

I felt the emotional payoff between Alice and Vera could have been executed better, and the "Older" characters timeline took away from the emotions in the main timeline. I really didn't need that later timeline at all. It was such a tiny piece of the story, and all emotional disclosures should have been kept in the main timeline because those are the characters we grew to love and wanted to see THEM experience any and all emotional payoffs.

Still, a really well-made WWII film for all ages.

I find it frustrating and irritating that Carrie would throw Saul under the bus after everything they've been through, AND I find it unrealistic that it has never occurred to Carrie that her child being taken away could be a manipulation? She's way smarter than that. And yet, I'm still eagerly watching each episode, because even when Homeland is bad it's still really good.

Despite its flaws, this show does a great job of hooking me in and it continues to build great momentum in the second half of the season. I'm very much into the Quinn story, and I love that Max is undercover. I find Carrie's behavior right now to be frustrating and I think she's smarter than this. The President-Elect is such a flip flopper and I find her irritating even though I started the season liking her, so I don't know what to make of that yet.

Homeland somehow manages to keep me completely engaged even though it seems to also consistently make me roll my eyes with its inconsistency. This episode is really suspenseful in parts and also sad in other parts (mostly the Quinn stuff). I like the direction the show it taking with the manipulation of conspiracy theories and such on the internet.

This was GREAT episode. It hit so many emotional points AND it had the best suspense of the season by far. Homeland does really well with tense, edge-of-your-seat realistic suspense and this episode delivers that in spades!

Episode 3 and Episode 4 have me fully invested in the season 6 story lines now. The season hasn't hit its full stride yet, but it's getting good, and I have to watch episode 5 immediately!

I'm pleased with the way Quinn is being incorporated into the story. A lot of high stakes drama with Carrie's legal battle and Saul's trip to Israel is really interesting!