Reviews

This soapy soap opera was assembled using rusty spare parts from a fictional family constructor kit. The days of Leave It to Beaver and A Family affirm are long gone and totally forgotten. Identity politics where all of us not only play well with each other, but also live with each other in blissful harmony and diversity, now rules the day. This show "lied to me" in terms of providing an honest product about honest and real people.

Gold Rush has become stale and putrefied. The show has aged and decayed into a drone of contrived and rehearsed smack talk between a "lucha libre" bad guy "Rudo" and a good guy "Technico." An additional contrived character, an inept pathetic clown, serves as distraction between main events.

All the elements that might make "gold mining" interesting such as wildcatting, field engineering and cutting edge photography are long gone and forgotten. Four index cards now comprise the canned script of the entire show; have a fight, a mechanical breakdown, have a foil-clown dance around, and compare "the winnings." The net result is not a Gold Rush but Moldy Mush.

OK the writers wanted to illiterate the ongoing Sumner Redstone psychodrama; but even the Redstone-idiots don't behave as idiotically as the fictional numb-nuts depicted in this fictional tripe. Billions is believable because the writers actually research both the subject-matter and the personalities they plan to depict.

I don't think many people would Identify with a biopic character that has no connection with real people or even reality. I have little room for contrived stories because film and television has done such a good job portraying flawed people such as Larry Flint, Kurt Cobain, Hunter S Thompson, Steve Jobs, Johnny Rotten, and a near endless list of of others tormented by the human condition. If over the top behavior and psychodrama was the objective then Real Housewives would have sufficed. Frankly I don't care who the actors are, stories are all about people; there is nobody to identify with here.

If "Three Billboards" were to say something meaningful they would have have been inscribed with kudos for stellar and dynamic acting performance of Sam Rockwell. I am looking forward to seeing Rockwell in films to come.

Why give this movie a rating of 1? That is simple;

The film leverages a pulp-fiction-formula now used ubiquitously in contemporary serial TV dramas. Each TV episode, or in this case each scene of the movie, has been written to either titillate, shock, or entertain.

Stringing a random bunch of contrived story elements together does not a believable story or good movie make.

A big difference in depth exists between "Fargo" and "Three Billboards." "Fargo" had a concise story and plot line. "Three Billboards," has a formula mistaken for the same.

Sam Rockwell (1) - Movie (0)

The original blade runner had gritty street-scenes that were immersive and set the stage for believing, imagining, and then becoming immersed in the context of a dystopian future. In terms of grit, nothing from the original movie survived into the current production.

The characters in the sequel are vapid (caricatures) in comparison to the original movie. Tyrell was a thoughtful genius, Roy was passionately fighting his own pre programmed mortality ,Pris could not find humanity, and Leon was locked into the anger of his past, Sebastian was captive to his own body. Then there was Rachel who was searching for personage and Decker for purpose. NONE of that kind of character developing can be found in this sad excuse for amovie.

This movie was a shell, a sham, they even had a shell of a Pris character. A total vapid, barren, antiseptic, drubbed down, and dull waste. This movie did not even have the decency to have any grit.

This show and stale bread have quite a bit in common. The characters are hollow shells with bad delivery that don't even interact with each other in any credible way. With Red Dwarf, the individual characters were interesting and sincere, the plot lines were bonkers, and the science fiction setting made the outrageous very believable.

The Oroville will never be able to deliver a quote like this; "It's time we decided who's going to take the one-man escape pod."

I think this show will be relegated to the dust heap of bad ideas; or with our luck it will carry on for a ten year run.

Since we are not entitled to seeing good content be it science fiction, or humor enhanced science fiction, cancel Dark Matter while you are at it! Oh "frack" they just did.

This film will generate anger because it throws a "deadpan" brick directly towards cultural dysfunction and mass delusion. "War Machine," and Brad Pitt, even exceeded the deadpan message of "Being There" a film from a less cynical time in history but still relevant to this day.

"War Machine" does a great job illustrating how disconnected the every-man has become in relation to reality. We live in a time where facts are now selectively chosen to support forgone perspectives rather than being absolute, universal, and irrefutable.

We live in a time where personage, perceptions, and public relations matter more than overview, objectives, conclusions, and endpoints. Reality has been set adrift.

It was a brave thing to produce this film because it speaks to a very narrow audience. Most people won't be entertained by the communication mechanism (deadpan) nor will the understand the message. Few people will be open to perspectives other than those which are preconceived. Some people are not aware and thus cannot acknowledge the wounds and damage that political lies have done to the American process and psyche.

To conclude our failed state of affairs, the affairs of a failed nation state (our nation state) I am not with him because he is certainly not with me no matter how much he tells me otherwise. The cohesion of leadership, truth, and the American way has left the building.

It is more of a shame that people won't understand this film, or won't want to. And that is how far we have fallen. Perhaps Rome fell the same way on the sword and misadventure of its own lies and delusion.

"The Son" tries to describe a west that is in transition from the mid 1800's to the turn of the 20th century. The west being a violent but contested promised land of opportunity waiting to dominated and then developed as part of the destiny of white American exceptionalism.

A single paraphrase from the show speaks to the major plot line of titillating violence to follow, "Every time I find a nice patch of land someone tries to take it away from my and my family." I envision ten episodes of Mexicans fighting Gringo's, Indians fighting and raping Whites, Whites Slaughtering Indians, Drunk-cowed Indians looking pathetic, Whites slaughtering Mexicans. Then of course we have the taboo romance between Mexican and Gringo, or perhaps the contention between a Mexican land baron and his militant son. ENOUGH!

To summarize this predictability; I am NOT INTERESTED I am not amused, as presented this show is not interesting or captivating.

I would recommend that you see "Taboo" instead of wasting your time here.

I guess this show was intended to introduce millennials to a modern day version of "The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, and/or Alfred Hitchcock Presents" Shows such as the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents had believable characters, good acting, snarky dialog, and complex and interesting plot lines. All three of the aforementioned shows were mesmerizing because they made you think about relationships and context.

404 is just lost, not found.

This TV show set my personal record for "least time tolerated." The tone of this show was so bad that I just could not stand it. Everything about this TV show is 404; the writers did not find a worthy plot, the actors could not find credibility, the soundtrack could not find a tune. This show is so bad it would be better off not being lost rather than found.

This show does a great job in making "hard" science easy to understand. Many of the science shows of today cannot explain complex topics in a simple to understand manner so they drub down the content which is a real shame. I have seen a major degradation in shows such as NOVA and journals such as "Scientific American." What is great about this show is that it explains, a very hard scientific topic, the how the human mind processes information in an easy to understand, entertaining, and accessible way. Kudos.

Addendum

The one redeeming feature of Iron Fist is the acting of David Wenham who plays Harold Meachum. Harold Meachum is a very interesting character. For this reason I have upgraded my rating from 1 star to 5.

Prior Review

Awful, awful, boring, no very boring, show with absolutely nothing going for it. In comparison I remember watching Kung Fu with David Carradine which explored issues of morality and immorality. This show is just a hollowed out version of Kung Fu shows past, it even features a Caucasian main character and an Asian sidekick (sound familiar, see the 1960's version of the Green Hornet) Thus and unfortunately this show is not Kung Fu (or even the Green Hornet of old) it is instead just plain old Dung Phooey.

In TV land being a specially entitled snowflake has all but replaced self introspection and the struggle for setting your own moral compass. If you are special you do not take responsibility for anything.

This show is a total waste of time, it has cardboard characters who lack both interest and motivation. The only moral of Dung Phooey is to live your life well by not wasting your life on this tripe.

This movie had the feel of an old and outdated Disney flick. The movie was neither bad nor good, it was interesting but just a little bit off.

If you provide the money for a film production you the right to shape how the movie gets made, what cultural values the film portrays, the tone of the film, and the substance of the story and the characters. This story had a few uplifting moments, it was filmed well, it had interesting characters, it had a weak story from a science fiction point of view, but something was foreign about the sense and sensibilities of this production. The film was "culturally foreign" because it was produced by Chinese money.

Will Chinese movies that are produced in America be able to improve?

I don't think a modern American teenager would find anything in common with this movie. The movie was culturally connected to China and thus it was totally disconnected with American realities.

Perhaps this movie would play better in China.

I am of the opinion that this film was misshaped by the lens of the funding source, in this case a major Chinese production company that has bought up a good swath of Hollywood. To draw and analogy with food; this movie did not taste "American" nor as a "foreign-film: was providing us with authentic or even good "Chinese food."

The one interesting plot line can be readily found in a very old science fiction book by Nick Sagan called "Idlewild." The other plot hook revolves around "misandry" in that the female characters are the linchpins of every "tribe or individual person" that this show encounters.

BTW "misandry" cannot be found in the IMDb spellchecker but misogynist does! How is that for sexism!

This show is not misogynistic it is "misandrist." I could easily accept a single group of celibate but beefy "Amazon Warriors," I could easily accept a highly competent woman scientist, and I could even accept a female computer. However, I cannot palate all this estrogen oozing forth all at once from everyone and everywhere and from multiple barbarian and Amazonian tribes, from magical heroines, from female AI's. Perhaps the characters will at some point in this show "bleed though their eyes or somewhere else entirely." The show is sexist from the reverse direction. The show is sexist trash.

Worse than sexism, this show relies entirely on empowered millennials who use the power of self absorption combined with magical thinking to find common cause. Like millennials everywhere the groups portrayed in this TV show have the ability to cause problems and avoid both common sense and solution points.

Death Race 2050 addresses some of the less than savory trends that are now both operative and readily apparent in our semi-functional somewhat- dysfunctional society. Technology has caused self-absorbed people to live vicariously through others and in the process have become lost in their own "virtual reality." This movie points out the fact that corporate propaganda, ignorance, feminism, identity politics,, religion asexuality, selective fact choosing,and big data feedback have caused our society to degrade and to lose a understandable- controllable overview.

Almost every line of dialogue, scene, visual (map), and character (zealot, hedonist, AI, voyeur, executive) in this movie have been crafted to explain and bring to light the current trend. Truth can be unpalatable even when presented in humorous and snarky manner. Unfortunately, the people that do not understand this movie are the people in need of it the most.

This "scripted melodrama" encourages women to stay in a perpetual state of self-absorbed, immature, petty unsympathetic, materialistic, and adolescent state of being. I remember the late Arthur Ash suggesting that people need to "chose their role models well." A face-lift on a fifty year old "teenager-hag" does not a role model make.

A real societal danger exists in allocating airtime to this show. The producers of this show have made millions on a back of American women who aspire to remain in stunted in adolescent-self-absorption. I am sure that many women think that the behavior in this scripted- orchestrated-contrived is not only real but is desirable and laudable.

I like women who faces that have not been lifted, but instead have elevated themselves into responsible and competent adulthood. Why are people seeking to live in a vicarious fantasy land.

This was one of the few truly great movies of 2016. This movie was even better than the highly predictable Manchester by the Sea.

Being a box office sleeper this movie will not get the recognition it deserves. Ben Foster and Jeff Bridges gave outstanding performances. I fear however that tripe such as LaLa land will steal the Acadamy awards.

The story was great, the performances were great, the music was terrific, the photography was good, AND the characters were so believable that you will be able to empathize with both the good and bad guys alike.

This movie presented itself as a "modern day" western complete with lawmen, Indians, bandits, bank robberies, and a posse. What is not to like.

Leah Remini does a very good job, and a real public service, in describing "Scientology Gone Bad." What is most unfortunate here is that, based on his writings, L. Ron Hubbard very well understood the issues and concerns that humanity would need to face in the future. To me, Hubbard formulated a set of ideals that Scientology as an institution seems to have abandoned.

In his book "Mission Earth," Hubbard talked about the evils of "public relations," and other forms of institutionalized conduct used to support racketeering that may result (if unchecked) in the self destruction of the earth and of mankind. He then went on to offer a set of solution points. How laudable is that? Very

Hubbard was incredibly predictive and incredibly astute in understanding why and how our current social system works. He even predicted that pandering to sexual deviance would be used as a mechanism of control and distraction. Hubbard was an absolute genius.

Based on example, Remini describes Scientology gone bad; perhaps Remini will be able to bring reform towards Hubbards laudable set of ideals.

Unfortunately, I happened to "side-eye" this show indirectly as my wife was watching and waiting in suspense for a mind bending revelation that will never come. This show exists only because critical thinking has vanished in America to such an extent that fallacies can now take the place of fact-finding and truth. A fictional General Jack D. Ripper said that " as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids." Pure water is akin to pure information, people cannot process fake and tainted information with impunity from harm. I frankly think that anyone producing an offering forth fallacious programming, such as this, needs to be charged with a Class One Felony and put in jail forever. A better hell for these people would for them to be forced to binge watch their own tripe until they squealed or begged for mercy.

The TV producer had a great idea; Find a sketchy family of irresponsible bums that the below average but truly exceptional, sovereign-codependent-American-citizen-couch dwellers could and would readily identify with.

The pitch for the show went something like this; "here is your chance to share in a world of adventure; Bring along a tent and some bug spray, and prepare yourself" to live vicariously through the goofball antics of the least competent and reliable group of people to have ever inhabited spaceship earth.

So it was written by the producers and so it was done; that the viewership of this show would enviously gawk through the rose colored glasses of "Alaskan Reality." "But herein—so according to one rose- colored surmise from Mad Men—lies the problem with fantasy—it was just a fantasy" and so goes this show.

Reading the reviews people think the "Brown Family" are the "real deal," they must have "Bush's baked beans on the brain;" Hello? Hello? Anybody home? Huh? Think, McFly! Think!

Viewers should hail a taxi in hopes that the driver will rescue them from the three plus hours they will lose watching this Kurosawa "Wantanabe" film. The photography was great but that did not make up for a topic that was fully explored previously by James Clavelle.

To quote Scorsese, "Cinema is gone." I should have been gone well before the film completed.

Perhaps, competition has been causing TV to improve and the lack of competition, formula movies, special effects, inflated-paid IMDb reviews, robots, and Chinese funding have been working in tandem to destroy the movie going experience.

If three hours of Silence was not brutal enough the coming attractions don't augur well for the future. Let's see Transformers, another robot angst movie, Split, another randomly gratuitous horror movie, and other tripe will mean that the silence of movies present will continue well into the future.

Nothing is compelling about this TV show; the acting is downright terrible, the premise is totally ridiculous. You have no sympathy or empathy for the characters who are nothing more than hollow shells. All the characters are either incredibly stupid or they are mentally ill.

In summary, Emerald City was was not watchable. The best thing about a TV series is that you can either change the channel or just turn that infernal contraption off.

Emerald City is the worst TV show of the year, and no; flying mechanical monkeys are not flying out of my butt. The flying mechanical monkeys flew out of the producers and other TV executives that have the nerve to offer this buffet of the inedible up to the public for their consumption.

Go eat that tasty lump of coal, Toto!

And finally, an anti-sycophantic Gizmodo had this to say " mostly it's as empty as the Scarecrow's brain. ....It's all hollow." Ironically the Gizmodo review even used the same work I did; "hollow."

Good reviews must be paid shillage.