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Reviews
Knuckles: The Flames of Disaster (2024)
Painful to Watch - Cameo by Knuckles
This is insulting to all fans of Sonic. This must have been written by preschoolers. The focus is on Wade and his disturbed family.
The first two episodes were funny and some good moments. This one and The Shabbat Dinner were painful to watch. This episode had nothing to do with Knuckles. He had a small Cameo in his own show. The focus should be on Knuckles and his story. The mother and sister behave very strangely and detract from the story. The writers really let us down on this series. This series would more appropriately be called "The Adventures of Wade Whipple" with special guest appearance by a minor character named Knuckles.
Matlock: The Lemon (1988)
Great Mystery and Fun Episode
This was a great episode for many reasons. First, Don Knotts is brought on as Matlock's new neighbor, Les Calhoun. His character is similar to his role of Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show." He becomes overly excited when certain events take place. I'm glad they did have him do too much of the fumbling and bumbling he did on TAGS.
The mystery is a good one. It's not clear who did it, so the viewer is brought into the story with the characters. I prefer this type of mystery where we do not know who committed the crime.
The weakest part of this episode was the courtroom. It seemed to be mostly a formality. However, that didn't detract from the enjoyment of the story.
Tom and Jerry (2021)
Exceptional - Captures the Essence of the Originals
All four of us adults absolutely loved this movie. This was the first time any of us had seen it. "Tom and Jerry" is a movie we will be watching many more times.
The animation of Tom and Jerry was top-notch. They had me believing that they were the same ones I watched when I was a kid. They included several classic elements of the originals. The piano playing scenes with Tom were some of my personal favorites. Jerry was up to his usual hijinks.
Humor was prevalent. We laughed a lot throughout this movie.
The acting was excellent. They drew me into their worlds and their acting seemed natural.
One negative aspect of this was the rap music at the beginning. I'm not opposed to it if it's well done but it didn't fit this movie.
Also, the animation of the birds and elephants was not up to par with the main animal characters.
Still, it did not detract from our absolute enjoyment of the film. This is a movie that can be enjoyed by the entire family.
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
A Cinematic Masterpiece
"Avatar: The Way of Water" is a movie that transports one to an alternate reality. The writers, directors, and all involved, created an immersive experience. I felt as if I was part of this world and became emotionally involved in the lives of the inhabitants.
The cinematography and CG are stunning! Few movies ever reach this level of realism and believability.
The acting is superb. I was especially impressed with the young actors. They were convincing in their roles. There were a few moments when Zoe Saldana was not as convincing with her crying scenes. These are easily overlooked with how spectacular the rest of the movie is.
This movie will go down in history as one of the best movies of all time. It has everything I love in a movie: action, adventure, some romance, comedy, and authenticity.
Never Been Kissed (1999)
Shallow Characters, Poor Acting Skills, Boring, Not Believable!
The story has a lot of potential but never lives up to it. I love the idea of someone getting to relive a time in history. In this story Josie Gellar, played by Drew Barrymore, is working for the Chicago Sun Times as a copy editor. She has dreams of writing an amazing story. She has a few annoying habits such as correcting improper grammar and seems to be somewhat of an outcast at the newspaper. She gets her chance for her big story when the paper has her go undercover as a 17-year-old high school student. She is 25 and this is where the story really breaks down.
Before I go further, I should mention that I love Romantic Comedies. To me some of the great movies in this genre are "You've Got Mail" with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan and "Leap Year" with Amy Adams and Matthew Goode. Those movies have humor, romance, believable characters, amazing storylines, and when they are done I always want to see more. "Never Been Kissed" falls far short in all of these areas.
The only movie I have seen with Drew Barrymore was in "E.T." so I have no opinion of her other than she was a cute, little girl in that movie. In "Never Been Kissed" she is lacking in any real acting skills. She is not at all convincing as a teenager. Her crying scenes almost made me laugh with the exception of the one in the bathroom. She talks in a monotone, nearly expressionless for most of the movie. The best part is when she explodes at the Prom and tells off all the cool kids.
The relationship between Josie and Sam, her teacher, was not at all believable. Having a teacher attracted to a 17-year-old student is creepy and illegal.
This movie fails to accurately portray high school. There is also too much gratuitous profanity and teens kissing with their tongues clearly visible. To be fair, Barrymore's acting is not the only one that could use some help, nearly every character was flat, 2-dimensional, and not believable. The one actor that I really liked was David Arquette as Josie's brother Rob. He was believable and entertaining.
The only highlight was seeing the biggest Geek, Aldys (Leelee Sobieski) at the Prom. She is absolutely beautiful.
There were a few moments that made me smile at the end but that was about it. I did enjoy everyone cheering for Josie and the fact that she did end up with Sam (even though it was awkward when she was supposedly a 17-year-old student).
I was glad this one was over.
Wildfire: The Arabian Heart (2010)
Horrendous Acting! Worst Movie you can imagine!
This has got to be one of the top three worst movies I have ever seen. It makes "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" seem like an Oscar contender. "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)" is a step up from "Wildfire: The Arabian Heart."
Acting: There is no acting ability in this. The characters are flat and do not seem natural in the least. It is as if they never rehearsed this and were just reading their lines. The responses seemed contrived and had no emotion or feeling of any kind.
Video Effects: Incredibly poor use of transitions. They had long swipes that took maybe three seconds to go all the way across the screen. Some cross-fades had the same music playing in the new scene while people were talking. Lots of cross-fades were used when a simple cut would have been sufficient.
Audio: The sound quality was dismal. The actor's voices would just fade out as they walked away from the microphone. I'm guessing they were using the built-in microphone on an inexpensive video camera. Sometimes the audio was distorted, too quiet, or sounded like they were talking in an enclosed area like a shower stall. The music seemed to play at odd and random times and usually didn't make any sense.
Video: This looks like it was filmed with an SD camcorder. They even showed a Sony DCR-TRV720 camcorder. Side note: the kid filming the girl would hold it up for a second, like he was recording, but never looked in the viewfinder and just immediately put it back down. The angles often times didn't make any sense. They would just cut away at random times and sometimes people would show up without any explanation of who they were or why they were there.
Story: I kept thinking that the payoff might be the big horse race. I won't mention why I was disappointed because I want people to read this and not skip it for containing any information that would give away the plot.
Seriously, do NOT watch this movie. I am still struggling to get back the brain cells I lost from watching this. The best part of this was reading the reviews after we watched the movie. I have never laughed so hard reading any reviews in my life. I loved the one review that ended with "The horse was pretty." I concur with that and since you rarely see any horses in this movie there should not be any reason to watch it because of that.