Reviews

Nor as deeply intelligent. I believe that contemporary series makers (with a few exceptions) take powerful and disturbing books ad turn them into cartoons. There is far too much Star Wars razzle dazzle, wham pow here; and not enough portrayal of real human violence, real human cruelty. Pullman's subtle and elegant understanding of dust has become the rebellion of an adolescent against the adult world. I had to make myself watch the last 3-4 episodes out of a loyalty to the book. The worst I can say about them is that I was bored.

When this series so desperately needs you? Hard to believe that the writers used contemporary slang - "gross" - in a series set in magic time. Why are most of the actresses thirteen? - except for the evil women. I admit that I kept watching, hoping for more scenes with The Witcher semi-naked. He is gorgeous. But, I also kept expecting the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog to emerge from a crevice in a cave - aaaarrrrgggghhhhhh.

Scorsese has said that the trouble with so may contemporary films is that they are patched together by committees of writers. I add that those committees are all under the double whips of Management and Algorithms. Not only have Scorsese and this brilliant, fearless and seasoned cast built a world and drawn us in, they have dealt with the hard reality of aging, loss and the inexorable passage of time. There are scenes with the old men which touched me in a way that no bunch of cute guys could have. Reviewers who critique that The Irishman moved to slow probably need to get off their phone and social media. Real life can move excruciatingly slow, especially when we have the courage to occupy it fully. Thank you, Scorsese and team, for creating a movie that, by itself, redeems 100% of the schlock we are now exposed to. And, thank you for being the polar opposite of somebody who would say, "Ok, Boomer."

Then stop talking as though you are two late-for-it Valley Girls.

I don't know whether Zucherberg, Bezos and the other big dogs truly didn't know what they had set loose, but this episode of Black Mirror could be a documentary. I research and write about dopamine and addiction. As I write this, as you read this, our brains are being manipulated by powerful algorithms - algorithms designed by fellow and sister human beings. At the simplest level, you and I are being dosed with a cocaine-like drug every time we go on-line or look at our phones. And, your children and grand-children are being addicted in their schoolrooms. There was Hitler and the Nazis. Now there is some as-yet-to-be-named tech genius pushing forward into more control - and there are corporations eager to make their investors even richer with this person's work. Watch the very last scene in School Daze...and "Wake Up!"

You will see. How many broken toys can one universe contain? When will our species grow beyond the toddler stage? Strong visuals.I liked the documentary style and pace of it. I would have liked to see the early promise of a complex resolution borne out - I would have liked to see instructions for appropriate human behavior.

Acting, writing, plot, Billy Bob Thornton - Goliath is headed for every award in the book. Thornton performs his magic trick of disappearing into the character of McBride. His supporting cast is not only equally transparent, but believable. The director/producers have cast actresses and actors who look and behave like real people. As I immerse myself in the series, I'm back in Los Angeles - on the streets, in the bars, in the obscenely posh offices, on the ravaged beaches. So far, my favorite line is "I'm a crazy guy." Can't go further with that without making a spoiler, but it sums up McBride's unharnessed spirit and ferocity. Cooperman, the villain, is one of the most deeply disturbing characters I've encountered in contemporary movies/t.v. series. He's played by William Hurt with chilling and absolute authority. One of the strongest features of Goliath is that the adult women ARE adult women. They speak as adult women, not with the profoundly irritating Valley Girl accent that seems to be an epidemic in contemporary film. The young'uns use Valspeak, but for them, the tone is perfect. Ever Carradine plays Rachel with wonderful restrained sensuality. And watching Nina Arlanda, as Patty Solis Papagian evolve sent me back to my writing to work on character development. I'm a terminal workaholic and I found myself taking breaks yesterday to keep watching this brilliantly crafted series. Thanks for real movie-making. I just finished the series and down-graded my rating because of the last minute of the last episode.

The writing and acting in Transparent is stunning - with one glaring exception. Too many of the younger women in scenes set before the early 1980's talk with Valley Girl intonations, the rising tones at the end of sentences and the set jaw mannerisms of contemporary teens and young women. I've noticed the same phenomenon in other series. Perhaps it's time for younger actresses to learn standard speech patterns for when they play other than contemporary characters. Valspeak breaks the spell of this excellent series. It is much like trying to read a book in which the sentence structure is off. I wonder how directors can deal with this. If Brit actors and actresses can play convincing American characters and vice versa, why isn't this being addressed? I love "entering" a scene when I watch good movies. It angers me that this contemporary sloppiness keeps me from doing that.

I lived through the Sixties as a young woman. The dialogue in Aquarius is ridiculous. None of us talked that way - especially not with Valley Girl accents. The writers have used contemporary teen talk, made-up cop insults and the worst of Jim Morrison's yowling poetry. The costumes are absurd - the writers seem to think that all you have to do to create a hippie character is give them dirty and ragged clothes. The clash with the cops is ludicrous - nobody used the insults the mob shouts. Not only weren't the hippies all white, many of us were older. Many of us believed in and worked at building a viable counter-culture. As for Manson - who seems to have become an object of juvenile fascination - he was singular. There were serious communes all over the States. All in all, miss this shoddy piece of exploitation. If you want to know what it was like being a hippie, find an old hippie and ask them.

This is a stunningly true to life and tender movie. I had just watched Sky, in which Native Americans and their connections with a white woman were portrayed through the lens of a European romantic fantasy about NA life in America. Songs was the opposite - unsentimental, unsparing and filled with beautifully understated acting that let the story breathe. The photography was exquisite - I know that country and found myself longing to be there. The ragged weave of the story was precisely how life is lived by so many of us - no big epiphanies, no smarmed up resolutions, no miracles except for how people can hold fast to love. I thank the film-makers for their deep respect for the people and their recognition of the way the land is the base of hope for far too few of us.

I lived in 29 Palms. The only people allowed to make movies set in the Mojave should be people who live or have lived there. Perhaps the most grating (and insulting) error was "Grandma Sioux", not the character or the actress, but the fact that the Native Americans of that area are Chemehuevi. They have been there for centuries. They don't speak Sioux - mapiya is a Sioux word. I've found that too many whites - especially Europeans enamored of the romantic "Indian" behave as though all tribes are the same. It was also inaccurate to picture the Anglos as desert rats with no teeth or all kind-hearted souls. This movie was one of the worst examples of sentimental stereotyping that I've ever seen - made Dances with Wolves look hard-core. There were also errors in geography and location. Finally, at no point in the credits do the film-makers thank the Mojave itself or talk about the current threats that corporate solar power installations pose to the wildlife and sacred sites in the desert. Sheer exploitation. Honte a toi.

I'm rating the first fifteen minutes of the movie. My most crucial question is" "How come a guy with a manbun doesn't have a GPS? What's with the sun-backed shots which distract not only from the potential beauty of the Mojave setting, but from the story - oops, make that hypothetical story. I'll keep watching because I just saw Walton Goggins in tighty-whities and athletic socks, , and I'd watch him eat oatmeal, even dressed in a business suit - but I'm dubious about finding any real depth or dialogue in this flick. There are far too many clichés about the Mojave and so far, I've seen them all - in fifteen minutes. It's time for the industry to stop treating the Mojave as not much more than a back-drop for their Philosophy 101 wet dreams; live in Yucca Valley for a year on not enough money and then make a real movie.