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batfangruskin
Reviews
Hidden Poland (2020)
What an insufferable narrator
Alright I'm super interested in learning more about Poland, but this host is horrible. To begin with, his voice unfortunately is jarring. But it's the writing that really destroys this show. The attempts at clever quips and banter are cringe inducing, presenting common knowledge as insight, pointing out the obvious, and just generally being super banal. "The water gets deeper the further out in the lake you go." "There is something to see everywhere you look." He also manages to disparage museums (elitist museum guides?), and fishermen (brings me back to my childhood when I was six and fished). And good lord do not ever let this guy comment on public art ever again.
Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)
Ok Bond send-up, unnecessarily violent and crude
Somewhat amusing part action film/part Bond parody, that cannot decide what its identity is. It is a high production value movie with a decent cast, adequate acting, nice sets and camera work, and a simple plot. However it is also shockingly violent, and even if for comedic effect there are scenes that are too gruesome in the way they are presented that it loses the funny over the top aspect that some other violent movies and shows are able to maintain. It's just gross. Add to this the extremely crude anal sex joke at the end of the film, which seems out of place even if you understand it is making fun of James Bond, and it just kind of lost us. So it's not a bad film, but one that doesn't know who is watching it, and goes back and forth between being a silly gadget filled spy send up you'd watch with the family, and one that is a bit more adult themed but lacks depth.
Make It at Market (2023)
Make More Of These!
I don't usually like watching reality competition type shows, but we love this one. With all the negativity out there this is a welcome and refreshing positive and constructive show centered on amateur artisans, craftspeople and makers. It is a bit formulaic as these shows tend to be, but instead of competition with other guests this show is about individual growth and progress. As a family of artists and makers, who have sold at fairs and markets, this is the first show like this we have ever seen and it is wonderful. Our family feels seen by this show. We've been through the ups and downs of selling at fairs, trying to figure out how to make it profitable or at least enough to break even. I hope it returns with more episodes.
The Power of the Dog (2021)
Self indulgent plotless snooze fest
I'll always watch a period movie set in Montana, one of my favorite places in the world. Unfortunately this movie has little to do with its titular setting.
I had several gripes with this movie. For one, its pace. I enjoy slow burn movies but always with the hope that even if the pace is slow, the plot progresses somewhere. This storyline just really didn't, unexpected end notwithstanding. Character development is also lacking; we don't have backstories and as the movie progresses not a lot to help us piece together the relationships between the characters or to interpret their personalities. Not very satisfying. The film score is dissonant and distracting rather than helping to establish mood or setting, and struck me as a bit film-school melodramatic. And the acting-all fine actors, but in this film most of the characters seemed slightly off the mark. You can feel them reading lines.
As someone else said, this is not a western and it's not about Montana. The difference to me between slow and boring is whether there is a meaningful story told, that engages the viewer as it works towards the conclusion. In my opinion the destination did not warrant the journey.
Flack (2019)
First season pretty good, second is disappointing
This show is different - an American PR exec who works in London managing extremely challenging celebrity clients and their constant crises. It is cynical, edgy, full of drug use and sexual references and it is clever and funny. The supporting cast is full of interesting characters and the chemistry is good. At least for the first season. For the second season all this becomes repetitive, the writing that was once clever becomes extremely predictable and full of cliches, the characters become one dimensional tropes. The worst part is that by the end of the second season, there isn't really anyone likable or compelling in the cast. For our main character, played by Anna Paquin, there just is no "there" there...she never really finds a center or discernible motivation, instead being defined only by reactions to the other characters. The show becomes simultaneously a bit boring, a bit creepy, and a bit depressing. It was honestly a relief when we finished the last episode.
Manifest (2018)
Absolutely terrible, our family bonds over making fun of how bad it is
We began watching this show because the premise was (and is) interesting. The first few episodes were intriguing - how would it be to reunite with friends and family members after five years missing? What could account for the phenomena?
Well, according to the writers of this show, you'd be treated by the government as a national security risk and be ostracized and targeted by some lame Infowars wannabes, weird hippy cult people, and who knows what else. Being lost for five years would cost the airline pilot his career, apparently, because obviously pilot error? These are just a couple of the irrational story arcs and non-sequiturs from a show that is pretty much built on them.
Very little development on the actual premise of the show has occurred heading into the end of Season 1. Our cast has been chased by the NSA and some other black ops government group, whose leaders always have their scenes filmed in some operations center with big digital maps and sat views. More characters who have "disappeared" and then returned are found by our main characters, via voices in their heads that give them instructions (called "callings"). Oh, and something about shared consciousness, where some of our characters' minds are linked and they can feel things like each others' pain. Some of the passengers have been captured and apparently tortured to discover whether their abilities can be "weaponized" by the government. These arcs just pile up unresolved and then collect dust.
The writing is some of the worst I have ever seen in a network show. Much of the small dialogue is boilerplate cliché and meaningless, and some of the more significant dialog and character behavior makes little sense. You have to cast your critical thinking hat out the window or else make a game out of pointing out the idiocies in order to enjoy it.
And the acting is cardboard, non-descript. I saw a website that said it seemed like the cast was pulled out of a Canadian soap opera and that is pretty apt. It's like the Hallmark Channel made a weird attempt at science fiction.
In 2 years of pandemic TV streaming, this might be the worst series I have seen.
The Dig (2021)
I was looking forward to this movie very much
I was very much looking forward to this movie. The prospect of a film based on the discovery of Sutton Hoo, starring Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan, sounds like the perfect combination. And it starts out promisingly, with wonderfully rich period detail and stunning scenery. It becomes clear at once that this is a movie for the patient viewer, with its deliberate English dramatic pacing. Where it began to fall short, for me, is when it became apparent that there was going to be very little done with the fact that Sutton Hoo is perhaps the most significant archaeological site in Britain and its discovery and what was learned from it is an amazing tale. Some of that could have been woven into the narrative, just a bit. Otherwise, there was very little interpretive value in the film, and while it is a drama, the stories of the main characters, which are told with a bit of artistic license, are not very compelling or interesting. The side plots of minor characters even less so. The magnitude of the discovery, to me, was not successfully conveyed in this movie, which is a shame. In the end, it is a good British period drama with solid acting, adequate writing, high production values and beautiful cinematography, that just never quite gets to the point it should and could have. For folks who are not fans of British slow burn television, it will be mind-numbingly boring.
Outer Banks (2020)
This is DUMBEST show ever but pretty entertaining
This show feels like it was written by an AI bot with only general guidance from humans. If Hallmark added "adventure" as a category to its greeting card lineup, and then someone based a TV series on one. The screenplay is full of non sequiturs. So many things the characters do make no sense. I think for many of these actors, this will be the zenith of their careers.
Having said all that, it is also very entertaining. The pace is great. It is a classic teen world where there is clear good and evil, us versus them, it is full of hilarious toxic masculinity, and the adults are either absent, abusive, incompetent or corrupt. The setting is lovely; the show is easy on the eyes. Add to all this a bit of historical mystery and it is a solid show.
The Pilgrims (2015)
Long winded, dark and fails to engage
I don't usually write reviews but this was a big letdown. I generally love PBS documentaries and Ken Burns films
In a sentence, this documentary manages to take all of the weaknesses that people might find in PBS documentaries and crams them into one show. It has an extremely long-winded, monotonous narrative that becomes somewhat hard to follow as your attention starts to drift. Sometimes the extremely dramatic shots bolster the narrative and other times they do nothing to advance the viewer's understanding of the content. The narration itself is blunt and abrasive.
The morose and moody delivery of Bradford's writings by Roger Rees (RIP), while he gazed at some fixed point off screen, was distracting (Rees' depiction made him look like he was blind).
If you were going to do a Ken Burns-style documentary in a paint by numbers fashion without the soul or the interest, this would be it. Which is a shame, because the history itself is fascinating.