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monte-hayward
Reviews
The Sinner: Part VIII (2021)
Impunity of the Entrenched. #whodunitbest
There's good whodunit and bad whodunit.
#whodunitbad is a multiple choice question: was the culprit A, B, C, or D?
#whodunitbest - I'm getting more and more confused - wait - Now it all makes sense!
#whodunitworse - the culprit is introduced in the last 20 pages or 20 minutes.
The Sinner season 4 is #whodunitbest.
Somehow, this series reveals secrets without seeming manipulative. Just this one episode, the season finale, has 16 cast members. All the personalities are memorable and many are morally ambiguous.
When you find out the killers and criminals, you will be satisfied. Watch The Sinner season 4.
What drives Harry's dogged pursuit when all have left him? Harry Ambrose is a hungry ghost.
Babylon Berlin (2017)
CPR wrong 2 ways
CPR (mouth-to-mouth) was not invented until 1954. Even if it were, it does not "revive" people. It only keeps their tissues alive until actual defibrillation can be performed.
A character in Babylon Berlin performs full CPR in 1929.
Hinterland (2013)
Opaque and Gloomy
Short answer: Watch Bordertown instead, if you want a story about a cop who moves to a rural area and solves murders.
Here there really is little character development, from DCI Mathias to the ensemble of team members. I'm rarely one that complains of slow pace, especially if the time is invested in character growth. Many scenes seem as if the writing and acting are paused; the bleak, atmospheric soundtrack forced to take up the slack.
I watched Season 1 and Season 2, episode 1. Fell asleep multiple times. In the last episode I watched, there was a cliff hanger. Maybe it gets better, but I can not seem to care enough to use my time and find out.
Rita (2012)
the flannel shirts
I agree that the smoking was foul and needless. however, my tv does not have smellivision, so i endured.
i kept wondering why the protagonist wore those checkered flannel shirts all the time.
the answer became clear near the end of season 4: a significant man in her life (the last one in a long time who cared about her) gave her his shirt.
she cold and about to be turned out into the street, and he can do nothing. so he wraps her in his red checkered shirt.
the plot reveal of the destruction of young friendship was heavily foreshadowed. cringeworthy. almost looked like it wouldn't happen. and then they did it. ugh.
rita was really blameless with the present-day husband of her friend. so often guilty, but blameless that time. past transgressions paid for indirectly.
another reviewer compared this to nurse jackie, and it rang true. however, smoking kills you slowly, unlike jackie's drugs. unexamined here is: rita never coughs or is short of breath (even Mad Men's Don Draper finally developed a cough). and - the big one - how many kids will die young because they took after their favorite teacher and started smoking? the dreamy, hopeful indie school ending does nothing to fix that or even acknowledge it.
i find the theme song an insipid earworm. glad to "skip into".
Show Me a Hero (2015)
Becoming a hero
Several characters change throughout. Nick starts out a non-hero, and the times change him.
Is it lost on viewers that segregation was happening in New York State 30 years after the civil rights movement? This is an important story, and only "boring" if you don't realize what's happening.
Bigotry defeated. Old-school high-concentration housing projects shown to be problematic - Newman's theories of distributed homes proven true. The characters are living it.
If you came expecting The Wire or a sensational soap opera, you didn't read the description.
Brothers in War (2014)
Misdirected Anger
Misdirected Anger
One-hundred sixty men, Charlie Company trained up in 1966 and deployed in 1967 for 12 months in Viet Nam.
The missing word was "why"?
Protestors met the Pan Am flight when Charlie Company came home. The anger, the judgements, the assaults were misdirected. A soldier is not in charge of "why".
The soldiers' grief was prohibited. The first Charlie Company reunion was 23 years later.
Willie McTear: "I was so disappointed and hurt, I went into the bathroom, took my uniform off and stuffed it in my duffle bag and put on some civilians."
Talented documentary film-makers have provided a tight account of chaos. Clarity was served by the decision to contain the scope to one company, 18 months months including training.
Bobby Kennedy for President (2018)
who will get us there?
"If Lincoln didn't get us there, and Dr. King didn't get us there, and Bobby Kennedy didn't get us there, what the hell is left to say, that's going to have a rude awakening, to make a nation alive, and to greet the better part of itself? But we have to keep trying. And that's what Bobby Kennedy was really about. He was trying to find a solution."
-- Harry Belafonte
fwiw, this netflix documentary was better than wormwood in that there were zero re-enactments.
many times throughout this 4-part documentary, bias was shown in the form of choice of music, narration, and sequence. it did linger on some moments and ultra-compress others. what remains is a moving and largely factual account.
Wormwood (2017)
Good Story that Needed Compression
This needed to be edited down. I value the gradual unveiling of information in the order it was revealed historically. That is how it unfolded for one affected family.
There are way too many minutes of re-enactment, especially the rendering of details that the storytellers say are missing. At times, the re-enactment footage is re-used! Additional footage comes from productions of a Shakespeare tragedy. So it feels as if the Shakespeare OR the re-enactments would have been indulgence enough. Why feature both?
I was curious. This answered some questions. Wish it had done so more quickly.
Manhunt: Ted (2017)
this is THE episode
If you can only watch 1 episode, make it this one. It stands well on its own, and illustrates how a Unabomber is forged by experiences. How dastardly that his psyche was broken down at age 16 by an infamous government experiment!
I'm tempted to show this episode to others without context. What would they think of the protagonist if they did not know his name?