Reviews

I have mixed feelings about the fact that Richard Yates did not live long enough to see his greatest novel made into a film, especially since the novel itself is about performance and performativity. I'm sad that he wasn't here to get a taste of the wide recognition and praise his work so richly deserves, but I am glad he did not have to witness the pallid, dull melodrama that was made of it. To be honest, I could not even sit through the entirety of this thing. Listen, the performances were good (DiCaprio is perfectly cast as Frank) and the movie captures the time of its setting well, but that is where it ends. The director of this movie seems to have a very superficial understanding of the novel, which I am here mainly to urge upon viewers of the film and for that matter on everyone. Revolutionary Road lost out to Walker Percy's The Moviegoer for The National Book Award in 1962, ironically enough. I enjoyed Percy's novel, but I will not ever read it again, while I return year after year to Yates, whose prose is so fine and perfectly turned that I can think of no other American writer besides Hemingway with whom to profitably compare him. Both writers do brilliantly what novelists today seem to have forgotten how to do, which is to tell first and foremost a riveting story. Both writers do this while at the same time constructing absolutely perfect and multi-dimensioned works of art. Indeed, I had read Revolutionary Road many times before deciding to teach it in a course I designed called "The Problem of Mimesis in Post-1945 American Literature," and when I read it to prepare to teach it, i.e. Read it critically, it was only then that I discovered how minutely and interconnectedly all of its parts enmesh and work, like the movement of a fine watch. Please read this book. It is an unqualified masterpiece, and it is a tragedy that it is not more widely appreciated for what it is.

Let me preface this review by saying that if Keanu Reeves had not been cast to play John Wick in this series, I would not have watched any of them. Action movies are generally not my thing. Even then, it is the premise--a man avenging the death of his dog--that keeps me coming back for more. To say the very least, I am a dog guy. With that out of the way, I want to extoll the virtues of this film, which are many. Visually, it is stunning. Set after set, location after location, everything here is a feast for the eyes. Also, too, the fight scenes are impeccably choreographed, and in general are extremely creative, the techno club and the Arc de Triomphe scenes being highlights for this punter. Also, too, the inclusion of the mercenary with his faithful attack dog provides an interesting shadow dimension to the film and offers up what is to me the best moment in the film, one which reestablishes Wick's moral center and made me want to cheer. To anyone who has the audacity to suggest that the film is over the top I say, This movie is over the top of the top! It's an absolutely audacious wild ride, filled with wit and mayhem, and though it clocks in at over two and a half hours, there's never a dull moment. Highly recommended. Keanu remains the coolest.

As a premise, this seems like it might be fun. In praxis, it's a dull, plodding, poorly acted, poorly directed, poorly written and entirely unwatchable film. Why this movie has captured the attention of the media and the public is beyond me. This is the kind of movie that back in the day would have been the third feature at the late-night drive-in, and you would have watched a few minutes of it and left. We skipped around trying to get to the scenes with the bear. They were few and far between and boring. On a final note, I was not in the least bit amused by seeing two children on screen trying to do cocaine. Was that really supposed to be funny?

This movie feels very much like it was made up as they went along, but it also seems to have influenced the writers of "Star Trek: TOS." Fans of the show will find traces of several episodes in this earlier film. I suppose it could be coincidental, but the world of sci-fi is so interconnected (the voice over here, for example, is done at the beginning by the same person who voiced the original "Outer Limits").

As others have remarked, the science of the film is hilarious and silly, but that is just part of the fun. I recommend this one to anyone who enjoys these period flicks. I thought I had seen them all, but this one was new to me and I watched it with delight. For some reason the page here fails to list Dolores Faith among the cast, who plays the "mute girl" Zeta, a sort of empath. Sound familiar? Make some popcorn and make a matinee of it. You won't be sorry you did.

This is a rather shoddy attempt to update the Chucky sub-genre. The writing and acting are below par, and the titular Talking Tina doesn't show up until quite late in the film. She's creepy looking, no doubt, but one's suspension of disbelief shatters on the rocks when she starts to talk. Her voice seems to be coming from another movie, the voice-over is so obvious and disconnected from the figure. The plot, such as it is, is tissue-thin, and the stock characters do nothing to relieve the tedium. Perhaps most offensive is the "Boss," whose perpetual yelling and stereotyped vocal inflections never vary their single note, but really the whole thing is much less than even the sum of these measly parts. Pass.

Not a bad iteration of the franchise. Fassnidge is a likable bloke and of course he knows his stuff, and by and large his crew does a good job of remaking the places into something nice and modernized. My objection to all of these shows is how often the restauranteurs don't really deserve help, being either so lazy or clueless or both. I think of all the places that are struggling because of the pandemic that could use this kind of help, and it kind of turns me off the show. But it does make for good tv, I must admit, and some of these people are really off the charts planks, like the guy with a restaurant right beside the ocean who uses frozen seafood. He's fun to despise.

At the very least I expected CGI that lived up to the original series. Nope. The special effects were on the SyFy channel level, as was just about everything else about this cash grab. From the first moment of GoT, you knew you were watching something special. Even the opening credits were a wonder. This tiresome soap opera offered nothing of the sort. We couldn't even sit through the first episode, which I've subsequently read tries to make up for poor storytelling with over the top gore. This series, far from redeeming the atrocious final season of GoT, makes even those final blunders seem worth revisiting. Hard pass.

First of all, this is not a horror movie. It uses horror elements, but I would categorize it as a psychological drama with supernatural elements, and it moves more slowly and deliberately than horror films tend to do. The plot here is simple, and intends to be. It's only a vehicle for the portrait. The complexities are lyrical and poetical. As others have noted, the film is gorgeously shot, and the imagery is wonderfully constructed. The image that frames the movie is "explained" in the end by a single line, delivered by the always otherworldly Alice Krige, who turns in a stellar performance. Indeed, in many ways this is her movie, as well as her meta-movie, and it to Colbert's credit that she, Colbert, lets her have her way with it. Colbert is an interesting director, and one to watch. This is a strong film and deserves a wider audience.

The shadow of "Blade Runner" is cast long, both figuratively and literally in this film, and borrows from it so heavily that it's not quite right to call it homage, but so blatantly it's not quite right to call it a ripoff, either. "Bladerunner" is a masterpiece; "Zone 414" is not. What it is, is a pretty decently written and well-cast movie. Always great to see Guy Pearce (of "Memento" fame), and he does not disappoint. There is an undeniable thinness to the movie, in more ways than one, but most sci-fi fans will enjoy seeing it, as I did, even if it's unlikely I'll watch it twice.

But about halfway through the movie falls apart when the main character undergoes a complete transformation that makes no sense, just to drive forward the narrative. To say more would be a spoiler, but I was really enjoying the film up until the falloff into what I will call the predictably ordinary. The science is wonky, as others have mentioned, but the sets and effects were strong and the story, while a bit slow-paced, was at least interesting. Not a terrible movie, but could have been much better with better writing.

While I will admit that this isn't "2001," it's also quite a little classic in its way, and I really don't understand why any sci-fi fan would hate on it. The cast is great, the set designs are super-cool (that you can never really parse out the lay of the base only adds to the claustrophobic isolation the movie strives for), and the basic thematic premise of human obsolescence is well-handled. The main problem with the film is--and I am going to try to express this without spoilers--that the behavior of the robot makes no sense. It delivers the damning best line of the movie to the captain, but then inexplicably goes on to ignore the very truth its self-awareness discovers and expresses. It's a huge flaw in narrative logic that consigns this film to minor status, but if you can suspend disbelief, it's a great watch.

"Westworld" was a fun campy ride with a very scary villain in the form of Yul Brenner's gunslinger. Who could forget those gleaming dead eyes? The film was a solid foundation for what would become the brilliant and beautiful tv series starring Anthony Hopkins. "Futureworld," on the other hand, is a cheesy, poorly written, poorly conceived, and miserably acted and directed mess. One major problem is the total lack of chemistry between Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner, but I doubt even Bogart and Bacall could sizzle together with dialogue like Fonda and Danner were forced to read for their paycheck. The plot, such as it is, remains completely undeveloped, in favor of what was, I take it, supposed to be a sort of Tracy/Hepburn romantic friction between the leads, one which never materialized. That the most touching and significant relationship in the movie is between the always wonderful Stuart Margolin (of "Rockford Files" fame) and a broken down robot without a face, well, that about says it all. Best to leave "Futureworld" in the past, and move on.

And some good performances, especialy from Kidman, who never has a bad day in front of the camera. But the film itself is rather ponderous and plodding, poorly plotted, overlong, and in places a bit on the corny side. The final fight scene is pretty great, but not worth the long ride to get there.

I was quite anxious to see this debut and I really can't say much good about it. The special effects are impressive, the set details are great, and that's for me where it ends. The writing was uniformly poor, the dialogue stilted or anachronistic ("Oh, dang!"), and the casting is weak. The actor playing Spock is especially wrong for his part (and what's with those fake-looking ears?). We couldn't even finish the first episode.

Ignore the middling number at the top of the page. The low rating comes, predictably, from the same sort of trump supporters that are exposed and depicted, accurately and powerfully, in this essential documentary about the storming of our Capitol on 1/6, a day of insurrection that will live in infamy in some ways more tragically than December 7th, 1941, or 9/11, since the attack came from within our own borders, by people devoted to a "president" who led them on, and who did not care whether they lived or died, as long as they served his malign purpose.

There are two plausible explanations for the existence of this film. The generous one is that it is somehow intended to be an homage to the late, great James Gandolfini, and indeed his son puts in a near pitch-perfect performance, absolutely nailing his father's physical demeanor and gestures. The other is that somebody needed the money. The writing of this thing is so bad it would be laughable if it were not degrading the memory of the original series. I won't give anything away here, but suffice it to say that there's a lack of continuity in the story line, which itself deviates massively from the original, and at least two scenes so lacking in motivation and credibility that we should have turned it off then and there, and mainly stayed with it to the end just to see now very bad it would get, and, brother, let me tell you, the end was as bad as they come. The framing device of having Chris Moltisanti speak from the grave (no real spoler there; it starts from frame one) seems to have been an afterthought, as a way of trying to make this pile of disparate nonsense hold together. As others have said, don't watch this, watch the original series again. You've been warned.

I hope the wonderful news of Jeff Bridges' cancer being in remission will cause people to revisit his canon of work. "Hell or High Water" is a taut, gripping, gritty flick, and Bridges is the primary reason why. He has that quality or ability to seemingly erase the boundary between the audience and his performance, and here he is at his best. And that is why, good friends, the Dude abides.

In the vein of Masterchef, this show offers a similar premise--home cooks compete in rounds for a cash prize--but in an episodic format, rather than as a serial. So you get the viewer payoff of a weekly winner, but what you lose is any sense of involvement with the contestants, since they change every week. Likewise, there are three rounds per episode, and it all feels rushed. Two would be better. Perhaps the result of Canadian politeness, sometimes the judges (the "wall of chefs") sugar-coat their comments at the expense of specific critique. Even Hugh Acheson laid on the syrup, and he is known for his ascerbic wit, mostly absent here. Viewers looking to learn technique will be disappointed by the pace as well. We see very little actual cooking. Mildly entertaining, this show is in the end less interesting than watching reruns of Masterchef Australia from back in the days when it was had the boys instead of the current crew, who are likeable, but exhibit some of the same tendencies as the judges here.

I feel compelled to address the review that accuses the show of "underwhelming representation." I've only watched one episode, but assuming it is typical I can't imagine why anyone would make such a claim. I won't address it beyond observing that the person who won e01 was judged on creativity and execution, and the decision had neither literally nor figuratively anything at all to do with "seasoning, style of cooking, presentation", etc. The four contestants could not have been more diverse, so much so that in retrospect I wonder whether this was intentional. The chef judges are all quite famous, and the panel is thus what it is. (They are not, as the reviewer claims, mostly "All-American," whatever that means.) But the one advantage having so many judges is that a small panel of judges are assigned to each round, and some attempt is made to coordinate the speciality of the judges with the contestant dishes being presented. Decide for yourself. The show is worth a look, if you don't have anything much better to do.

Sorry, could resist the cheap pun. But seriously, folks, this one is a real stinker. As others have pointed out, any suspension of disbelief here is out of the question, and the writing is weak. Not only is Beckinsale tiny, but the very idea that someone could be walking around randomly smashing people's heads to bits without consequence is just plain dumb. Note to Hollywood: how about treating women actors with enough respect that they don't feel obliged to get bee-stung lips the moment they turn twenty-two?

Sheridan especially is wasted casting in this mindless rehashing of Lord of the Flies mixed with Brave New World, the B&W film of the former being far more compelling than this predictable yawnfest. The only thing that gets any stars from me is the set design. As for Depp's acting, well, the less said the better.

I made the mistake of not watching the trailer before trying this one, based on the many good reviews. If you cut the dramatic music from the trailer, you get a clear sense of how amatuerish and awful this thing really is. I did not get past the first five minutes before the bad acting, bad writing, and unbelieveably bad direction had me reaching for the remote.

This movie has several things going for it, but ultimately disappoints. The central idea is a good one, and the lead actor gives a strong performance. She's likely to become more well known soon. The cinematography is strong, and the score is good, as is the direction, which owes quite a bit to Kubrick. Where the movie fails is in the writing, and to a lesser extent in the performances of the supporting cast. The dialogue is sometimes trite, and the plot is thin with holes. The end is both predictable and yet somehow even more disappointing than one expects. I don't mean to be harsh; the movie is worth a look. Just be prepared to be let down a bit by it all, in the end.

Someone actually got paid to write this movie. That in some ways is the most violently shocking thing about it. That said, I find it hard to imagine a worse film than this. It is so utterly preposterous in every way imaginable that it cannot be described without spoilers. I will say that I watched it until the mind-boggling end, and in some sick sad way I am almost glad I did. Maybe that was the strategy all along.

Maybe George and Gary and Matt will never be back, but I'm glad this show was revived. The skill levels these kids have is absolutely amazing. I was a chef for ten years and any one of them could cook circles around me. What is it about Australian children that is so different from American kids that makes them so polite and thoughful and sweet? Like the grownup Aussie version, this show is very positive in nature, and emphasizes only the best human qualities. I wish I could say the same of Masterchef US.

This short movie, if you can call it a movie, consists of a four-way split screen at about the video quality of an ordinary security system. To say that this movie is bad does nothing to describe just how pointless and awful it truly is. Nothing happens, nothing is of interest, and the end is not even an end. I realize that we live in a time when nothing means anything, but this is worse than the worst home movie. How is this thing even a thing?