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Elsbeth (2024)
Delightful
I enjoyed Elsbeth on her appearances in The Good Wife, charming, a bit scatter-brained, but very intelligent and perceptive. A delightful character to watch.
She now has her own, well deserved, show, as an attorney who's there under a consent decree to watch the NYPD.
Carra Patterson as Officer Blanke meshed well with Elsbeth and was believable as a police officer.
One mistake I noticed was that Agent Celetano, who arranged for Elsbeth to go to New York for the consent decree, mentioned the other attorney considered was Cary Agos, who died in season 7 of The Good Wife. It would be a miracle to have a dead attorney fulfilling a consent decree.
Wendell Pierce plays Captain Wagner and as usual he's perfect for that role. Very believable.
The casting is well done, the potential is there for a good series. I hope they stay away from the plots that doomed The Good Fight and the series lives up to the potential hinted at in episode 1.
A Citizen's Guide to Preserving Democracy (2024)
More disinformation from PBS
I had some hope for this program, even though it was produced by PBS. The premise of the 10 obligations of a good citizen sounds good in theory, and a long forgotten concept.
Many of his obligations are given superficial lip service. An obligation like "Being informed" basically says nothing, other than it should be required.
Haas uses January 6th as examples in a few obligations. In "Value Norms" he uses it as an example of violating the peaceful transfer of power, yet nothing on the riots on January 20 2017 and "The Resistance" during the Trump inauguration. He also used January 6th as an example of people refusing to accept the results of an election, yet he's silent on the refusal of accepting election results in 2000 and 2016.
He talks about the obligation to Put the Country First and talks about rejecting violence, again using January 6th as an example. He doesn't mention the attacks on Supreme Court Justices in 2022, the attack on the Wisconsin State House in 2011or the BLM "protests" in 2020.
Haas has some good points and ideas, his biased execution of some of those are deeply flawed and one sided.
Applying Haas' criteria to his own documentary results in a 4 star rating.
Shadow and Bone: A Searing Burst of Light (2021)
Difficult to watch
Having just started this series I'm finding it very hard to watch and follow. I never heard of this series or author, but I usually like this genre.
The acting is good, not great, but good. The worst part about it, at least for me, is the soundtrack and background noise is very distracting and often it overwhelms the dialog and plot.
It's a sign of failure when director or producer has to rely so heavily on music and background noise to set the scene and manipulate emotions. Acting and dialog are supposed to do that.
The scenery and sets are well done but viewers need to be able to hear what is being said.
Alaska Daily: Enemy of the People (2023)
A turn for the worse
Alaska Daily has been an OK show, somewhat entertaining, but basically nothing new for the most part.
I usually like Hillary Swank and she is one of the main reasons I decided to check Alaska Daily out. I've been disappointed in her in this show though. The rest of the cast is good, but Hillary is walking around with a perpetual scowl on her face. She reminds me of many Clint Eastwood movies or Elizabeth Moss in the Handmaids Tale. No real acting, just a scowl and repeating lines fed to her.
This episode was, so far, the worse of all of them. Eileen, as with many reporters invade, and ruin, the lives of other people, spinning the news to fit their narrative, then justify it with "just doing my job" then try to claim victim status when held accountable for their actions.
It's a turn from the main plot, investigating the murders of native Alaskans, primarily women, and seeking justice for them.
The rest of the cast is carrying this show.
East New York (2022)
Pleasantly Surprised
When I started watching East New York, I was expecting something far different, especially considering it's produced by CBS. I am pleasantly surprised that it actually supports the police and is far more realistic than I expected.
Instead we get a cross between Hill Street Blues and Blue Bloods. It's gritty like Hill Street Blues and I can see so many characters from Blue Bloods.
The jaded and bitter Tommy Killian (Danny Reagan) and his partner Crystal Morales (Maria Baez). The innocent and naive Brandy Quinlan (Eddie) and idealistic Andre Bentley (Jamie)
Amanda Warren is very good as Deputy Inspector Haywood. Lots of common sense, knows the laws and her job but also isn't afraid to apply that common sense when circumstances dictates and she offers justice, compassion, or understanding, more than legal consequences.
Jimmy Smits, as usual, is mostly believable as Chief Suarea. Most of the other main characters are believable in their roles and the actors are appropriate for their roles. At times the writing gets a bit clunky, but as the episodes go on, the writing seems to be improving.
It's definitely worth a watch and it has much potential.
A Waltons Thanksgiving (2022)
Where to start??
There are so many things wrong with this movie it's hard to know where to begin.
It's 5 years into the great depression, on a mountain in RURAL West Virginia. Yet the yard is immaculately groomed, the house looks like something Martha Stewart collaborated on with the staff at Better Homes and Gardens, the clothing on every character looks like it just came off the rack at Nordstroms, and the cars fresh off the showroom. Pumpkins set on a full porch made of paving stones. It's almost like the director copied a painting by Terry Redlin.
It's late fall in the MOUNTAINS, yet trees are in full foliage. Granted at the start of the movie most of the leaves are in full color, but a few days later, at the Harvest Festival, when Elizabeth gets lost in the woods most of the trees are somehow green. The, whatever it was making a sick sounding growl, supposedly a mountain lion, that gets scared away when an approximately 10 year old boy shows up to save Elizabeth
Meanwhile, at the Harvest Festival, there's a wooden rollercoaster, which with the tools at the time, would likely take a week to set up, never mind actually moving it to the location of the festival.
Then there's the modern phrases like "alternative beverages" and "he's got their backs"
The acting was bad, the writing even worse than the acting. There is almost nothing to like, nor accurate, about A Waltions Thanksgiving.
I gave it a 2 star rating because of the scenery and, for the most part, it does maintain the theme of the real Walton series of family and community.
The Handmaid's Tale: Morning (2022)
It keeps getting worse
I stopped watching The Handmaids Tale in the middle of season 4 when the writing got so bad I couldn't watch it any longer.
Well, I got bored and thought I'd give season 5 a try and episode 1 was worse than season 4, so I'm giving up on this series. It's not worth the money nor my time.
All of episode 1 seems to consist of Elizabeth Moss (June) channeling her inner Clint Eastwood. Walking around scowling and reciting lines. At least the Clint Eastwood movies were more engaging and interesting.
The plot and dialog were so mind-numbing that it was hard to follow what was going on. Though a person could walk away from the show, for a beer or snack, come back 10 minutes later and missed nothing.
9 Bullets (2022)
Decent Movie
The movie was enjoyable, it was nice to see acting for a change and not wannbe actors posing in front of a green screen and having the techno-nerds make them dance. A movie that actually has a message and tells a story of love and redemption. A movie with no impossible car chases or mega explosions that level a city (yet the hero somehow survives)
If you're looking for entertainment where a Norse god is getting drunk and crying because he killed an entity that would have destroyed the universe, or a Russian super spy whining that her daddy didn't love her enough, this movie probably isn't for you. It wasn't meant to compete with mega-budget, young-male fantasy flicks.
It is a tale about a woman with a rough past who learns to love again and work for something larger than herself.
At times it gets a bit clunky and discordant, the dialog falters at times, just like real life. The message, however, moves forward and we can see the change taking place in Gypsy.
9 Bullets is a much needed movie and message for these times.
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Wouldn't it be cool?
This must be what the writers and directors asked themselves as they were making this movie. While making a scene someone pipes up and says "Wouldn't it be cool if we added . . . " with no thought to how it would contribute to the movie.
I rarely comment on movies or shows, they have to be exceptionally good or bad, because by the time I get to review them I've seen others have already said what I was going to.
This movie is exceptionally bad. Mediocre acting, plots that move at the blazing speed of a turtle with nowhere to go, even worse special effects. Watching Wonder Woman flying is like watching reruns of the original Superman flying scenes from 1952.
The soundtack distracted from the movie, at times making what passes for dialogue hard, if not impossible, to hear. To add insult to injury the soundtrack wasn't worth hearing in the first place
The 2 best things about this movie is it's slightly better than watching paint dry and it finally ends.
Safeguard: An Electoral College Story (2020)
A must watch for every high school student for all 4 years
This film clearly explains the electoral college and gives the history behind it. The how and why it was instituted, and why it is still important today.
I thought the World Series analogy was a perfect explanation of the Electoral College. Team A could get more runs than team B through the 9 games simply by drastically outscoring team B in 3 games. Team B, however, wins the series because they won 5 of the 9 games even though the scores were close in those 5 games.
This is how a President is elected, 50 individual "games" called elections, with the candidate who gets the majority of the popular votes in each state winning that "game". (With the exception of 2 states who split the EC votes). Those who win the most games (states) wins the Presidency.
There are still some things for me to think about. For instance, the election of 1860. Lincoln did win with 39% of the popular vote, and he did have more votes than any other single candidate. The EC did work as "expected" and Lincoln got the most EC votes, thus the Presidency. However the point that the film was trying to make is that there was a 61% vote AGAINST Lincoln and that without the EC it is quite possible that a candidate winning with far less than 50% of the vote would be common instead of an outlier. That a candidate could target the 5 to 10 largest cities and get more votes than any other candidate (even in the teens to 20% of votes cast) and win the election. We see how well Lincolns win in 1860 turned out, states leaving the union (or trying to) and a civil war.
Viking Warrior Women (2019)
Not a waste of time
The documentary set out to come to a predetermined conclusion and "prove" there were women who were viking warriors. It seemed to mostly rehash previous work and no new real discoveries.
Some of the science was interesting.
My largest issue, as with many documentaries, is the music. It's overly dramatic and, not only adds nothing to the program, but it's very distracting. Frequently drowning out the dialog resulting in missed points
Aquaman (2018)
Great visuals
That's about all I can say that's original about this movie. Well, the visuals and some imaginative scenes.
Trite dialogue and a stereotypical plot line, lots of mindless action and I'd have expected better from some of the actors who were in the film.
It's a good film for a 13 year old boy, regardless of his chronological age. Something to keep him entertained for 2 1/2 hours