barryjames-mc's reviews

Don't get me wrong, I love fiction, but one has to somewhat stretch one's credulity for this show. Set in an antediluvian Judea, it's hard to not critique with perhaps what some might consider pejorative words, sadly, it is all rather difficult to believe.

The fabulous good looks of the hero, an anachronistic white American in the Middle East of 2000 years ago, or so the story goes, plays the fictional Jesus with stylish aplomb. The character is a good man, who cares for the poor, helps the needy, welcomes immigrants, is tolerant and kind, I mean who could possibly be against that? Really, who would object to that today, 2000 years later. If people chose this story as a mode de vie, surely they would agree with these empathetic tenets.

For a fantasy show, it's alright, but I'm just not buying it.

I loved the first season, it didn't need a second 2nd season. The writing was great in season 1, now it's sloppy and the stories feel poorly sellotaped together with plot developments that leave you feeling incredulous.

The young detective, Una, may be the most obnoxious and irritating character I have ever seen in a TV show, she is vile, utterly awful, and we are supposed to believe she has cutting insight into everything. She is smug, frivolous, and so utterly annoying I almost can't watch the show. Genuinely despise her character.

It's the brilliant acting of all the sisters and the banter between them that is the only saving grace (no pun intended), they are utterly brilliant, again.

All I can hope is they don't squeeze out a third season.

Some of the negative reviews seem to suggest the good reviews are a "conspiracy", unable to grasp the simple concept that we all have different tastes.

There are plot holes for sure, but the story hits you hard when you realize every character is a despicable human being, and you see the horrible cruelty, ego, and hate that fester in the human psyche. It's well acted, and the story develops impressively.

The 7/10 score reflects the plot holes, all the things that happened between Katherine and Jonathan were only witnessed by them, yet somehow the grieving mother wrote it up as if she saw every moment, and then it just became fact in the show.

But it is powerful, the emotions it instills, the wonderful way you catch yourself feeling sorry for one of the characters, only to realize they are despicable.

Well worth a watch (I am not a bot or an employee of the production company in case any conspiracy theorists are here).....(that's what THEY would say!!)

If you want lots of killing, car chases, gore, jump-cuts, action, don't watch this, you'll whine that it's boring, and a waste of time, thats fine, it's not for you.

If you love great cinema, a brilliantly developed story, a tour de force in acting, then you will love how David Fincher tells this killer's tale.

An open mind will go a long way in appreciating this movie, it is majestic in its deliverance of this sad, human story, albeit a human who is a killer, sticking to a code to avoid empathy and life, Michael Fassbender is magnificent.

It's dark, the story unfolds slowly, but that is part of the character's isolation, it's almost light relief to hear The Smiths throughout, I'd been looking forward to this for a while. It did not disappoint.

Highly recommended.

Lots of bad reviews, generally, although a complex plot, it's a good show at heart. The only thing hard to take is the Postal Inspector character, she is so irritating and annoyingly smug, she works for the postal service but acts like she is an elite agent of the CIA or FBI, why people don't just tell her to go F herself, I don't know. She ruined nearly every episode, ruins every scene she was in. The ridiculous premise of this character always being ahead of the NYPD, the FBI, without any basis for this insightful knowledge is utterly baffling, such a good director should have known better.

But, if you follow the winding plot, it's worth it, the acting is good and It would have been an amazing show without the one annoying, unbelievable character.

Quite apart from it jumping all over the place it was overall a bit of a mess. I like The Strokes, the whole spoilt rich kids being able to do whatever they like is annoying, you can always be wild and crazy when you have daddy's money to fall back on, but The Mouldy Peaches were beyond irritating, especially that vacuous 9/11 song she did, what an awful band.

There are lots of reviews wishing there was more on Karen O, I found that she was the main focus of the documentary, it was basically all about her, but she's got a great voice and deserves credit though.

Only Interpol came out of it well, they were largely humble, not spoilt rich kids who have the safety net of privilege and money to catch them if they fall.

The inclusion of Ryan Adams was disturbing, that creepy predator should not be given any publicity.

Really liked the bit on James Murphy too, it seemed a nice, albeit brief, break from Karen O and The Strokes to get some insight into him and Interpol.

Overall, a poor documentary. It seemed interminable too, felt lie 3 hours rather than an hour and 46 minutes.

First episode was great, the show had a little edge to it, Natasha Lyonne is wonderful, and I had high hopes this would be good. The 2nd episode was good too but after that it went downhill fast. The Columbo style seemed ok at first until it suddenly transformed into a Murder, She Wrote shtick, watched up to and including episode 6 and that was enough, it's like it ended up as some formulaic 70s/80s daytime TV show for the over 80s, kind of thing playing in the TV room of a retirement home. Just plain awful, dire writing, terrible cliched shlock, and just the worst kind of utterly pointless TV that would make most people cringe.

Terrible.

The gimmicky idea of "watch it in any order" is not worth it, but either way there are just too many things wrong, poor writing is just one of them. Giancarlo Esposito is excellent, he always is, but he struggles to make this work. Some of the characters aren't too bad, but........the FBI agent almost made the entire thing unwatchable, an obnoxious, smug, arrogant and vile character that has nothing to like about them. She is boring and so cliched, the flawed mother who happens to always be one step ahead, and then, in a trite, banal, vacuous piece of writing, the 'throw the files on the floor and see a picture that makes a breakthrough' urggh. So annoying. I utterly hated her character.

Then there's the Australian, no-one would include this moronic, vicious, f-up, in anything of importance, he is so exaggerated that no level of suspension of incredulity can make him believable.

It could have been better, so much better, but just too many unbelievable developments to really enjoy it. And two of the vilest, but not in an interesting way, characters I think I have ever seen in a TV show.

So, the book of this terrible dystopian nightmare is pretty much part of season one, but the show is infinitely more grim. It's up to season 5 now, we had 3 seasons of relentless misery Porn, drawn out, too many episodes and just non-stop misery. Then there's the interminable close-ups of Elizabeth Moss's face, don't get me wrong she is remarkable, an amazing actress. But it's just too much.

This show has for some time been flogging a long dead horse, it is so annoying. Maybe why it's so hard to watch is the fact there are religious extremists in the USA who would kill to have Gilead in the states. Religious fascists are real, and so it is a very disturbing show, but how much misery does one have to endure. This should have been done in 3 seasons, at most. Please, please, please , stop this increasingly unbelievable show.

The one star is for some of the original footage. The Sex Pistols were a great band, John Lydon wrote incredible lyrics (especially for how young he was at the time) and the other 3 original members were fantastic, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock, once Matlock was kicked out, it was largely over. Sid Vicious may have been one of the most talentless people in music history, and it is demonstrably obvious in this film. McLaren creates the lie that ever North American has bought into, that it was his "boy band" that he did it all as a scam, and that Sid Vicious was "punk rock'. An entire genre destroyed by lies and ego of a largely talentless man, Malcolm McLaren.

This awful movie is a messy, poorly made, rambling pile of rubbish, the revolution that the Sex Pistols started was to instigate originality, to get people to form bands and be different, to reject the boring virtuosity of the decade they were angry about. Instead of that being the legacy, the North Americans took from this film that Sid was punk, that puking up was punk, all vacuous nonsense.

It is a dire film, it looks like it had a $100 budget, it is an utter travesty.

Brilliantly shot, Cole is superb as Harry, the references to the original movie, one of my favourite all time movies, are fantastic. It looks amazing, the scenery, the clothes, it's all just so beautifully done. A great take on Deighton's character, great soundtrack and a wonderful tribute to the original director. I can't understand the haters, is it political? There are shades of modern politics, particularly the far-right Christian fundamentalist American, sounds familiar right? But maybe I'm reading too much into it. Bottom line, this is definitely the best show I've seen this year. Joe Cole is just incredible. All the nonsense about wooden acting is utter rubbish. Give it a chance, it's well worth it.

First of all, all the Brexiters/reviewers who object to people of colour and homosexuality, this show is about defeating the people you now sound like. It is not 'PC' to pay respect to those erased from history, people of colour and homosexuals, it is entirely respectful to do this, it is ignorant to be so dismissive.

Now, the show is really great, it looks fantastic, there's great acting throughout, characters to care for, and an unflinching portrayal of how evil the Nazis were, all the more reason to find the 'woke' and 'PC' comments utterly offensive.

I hope there is a 2nd season, it's a brilliant show.

John Simm is always worth watching even in something like this, it's pretty much the ITV formulaic Cop show and I did not expect too much more from it but, it just never rises above average really. One review complained about it being PC because there are black people and women in positions of power, to that reviewer I say, grow up, and accept the wonderfully diverse world we should be embracing and promoting instead of whining and being small minded (or worse) about the fact the world isn't all about white men. Two things that brought this show down were the ludicrous need to have a "medium" involved, what rational human being would have something so clearly absurd as a part of the storyline, and the poor writing in making the cliched boss standing in the way of the 'great detective', it's such a boring, overused, and hackneyed, part of the storyline.

Two things would have made this documentary way better, (1) Remove every comment by Angie Bowie, a talentless, bitter person, who is so irritating and annoying it makes the whole documentary almost impossible to watch, and (2) more information on Mick Ronson, the entire purpose of the documentary.

Mick Ronson was a brilliant guitarist and a very talented musician, there is no doubt about that, he should be remembered as such. The biggest problem with this documentary is the constant attacks on Bowie, from the repugnant Angie, to the utter waste of space and time that is Joe Elliott, Bowie had more artistry, genius, and sheer talent in the toenail of his little toe than Elliott could ever dream of having if he lived to be 500, he had the nerve to call The Velvet Underground s#^t, a man who was in Def Leppard calling the Velvet Underground S#*t is obviously tone deaf. This is a rewriting of history, it is in praise of Ronson at the cost of Bowie's reputation and songwriting, Bowie went on to write songs/albums that were genius, he proved himself. Ronson could not write songs, the focus therefore should have been the enormous talent Ronson had, surely that would have been enough?

It would have been entirely demonstrable to focus on the musicality of Mick Ronson, how he has been largely forgotten in the cannon of musical pioneers, how he really should be remembered as a brilliant producer, arranger, and musician, without playing into Angie Bowies obvious egregious bitterness and rancour and very obvious agenda.

I had to wait three years to rewatch this to see if I would have a different opinion on this doc, originally I had really looked forward to this, on 2nd viewing I still feel it was a wasted opportunity. It was cowardly and despicable on the part of the film makers to wait until Bowie was dead to attack him in this manner.

Season 1 and 2 were perfect TV, so well done, I thought Season 3 was a little weak following how brilliant season 2 was but, it was still good TV. I feel like I am the only person who likes season 4, there are many inarticulate rants mentioning "woke", "PC", and other Trumpian rhetoric over black people being portrayed in a manner that they obviously find offensive, some even said people didn't behave or talk like that in 1950, a comment that should really need some empirical evidence to justify.

There are a few things that need pointing out, (1) this is a TV show, it is fiction, it is a story being told. (2) any artist would tell you that repeating yourself and becoming formulaic is boring. So the fact this is a departure, even though it still carries the Cohen Brothers dark humour and nuances, is not an issue. The pusillanimous, backhanded references to "woke" appear to cover a more pernicious undercurrent for the dislike of the show, I understand anyone not liking this show aesthetically because it strays from the, for want of a better word, formula, but some of the reasoning behind the cavalcade of hate is plainly worrying.

Chris Rock does very well considering his bombastic standup persona is wiped from existence in his characters portrayal. Timothy Olyphant is majestic as the religious hypocrite Marshall, Jessie Buckley's Nurse is brilliant, but the stand out performance is Ben Whishaw as the true spirit of Fargo, the good heart in a world of darkness, he is exceptional and gives a tour-de-force performance.

Season Four is a great story, well acted, with great twists and turns, I admit that it is a stretch to call it Fargo, and it has upset a lot of people, if their upset was purely that they felt it a let down artistically, I'd not bother to write this review, it's the sinister language of the Trumpers that really make it hard to stomach the ill-informed critical mauling.

Dennis Kelly wrote one of the best TV shows ever when he wrote Utopia, so I was very interested to see this, now I'll be honest I've only watched episodes one and two but, after seeing all the negative reviews I had to jump in. The atmosphere is a like a dark lysergic trip, Jude Law is excellent, as are all the cast, it reminds me a little of Midsommar, but only in the context of the traditional rituals. I remember summer fetes in English villages, some had ancient traditions they would celebrate, this is like that but with a dark twist. I don't understand the naysayers who think it's slow, everything works beautifully in conjunction with everything else, cinematography, the colours and hues are amazing, the script is great, but the real star is the sense of being unsettled, the fear, the unknown, it all makes for incredible TV. Dennis Kelly is a rare talent.

A pointless bore fest, Bill Murray adds some sparkle and humour, Jones gives a solid performance but, it's dull dull dull, and utterly pointless. What a waste of 96 minutes.

An amazing film that captures the aesthetic of the stage play. A dialogue driven masterpiece that keeps one riveted from the first Scene. Beautifully acted, beautifully shot and a joy to watch.