gmd4462-623-52926's reviews

Convoluted in the extreme, with so many contrived coincidences and setups it would be laughable if it weren't so boring. The characters are all awful, excerpt of course for the black woman, with cliched backstories and no redeemable qualities. I wish they'd all died. Craig's accent is just as ludicrous as the last movie. Why couldn't they get a real southern man to play this role? Craig is just Insufferable. The movie tries to make you think it's extremely clever. Don't be fooled. It's all a lot of nonsense, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The cozy mystery genre has been utterly gutted.

Critics seem to want to paint this movie as an elegy to Trump voters rather than what it is-a true story of one boy, with the help of his grandma, rising above his circumstances. They hate it because it depicts the American dream. That's too bad. This is an inspirational story for all who feel stuck in poverty, addiction and hopelessness. Glenn Close is absolutely incredible and Amy Adams plays against type. These are flawed, unvarnished people who survive by the skin of their teeth. This IS the America that leftists in the media love to hate.

Hunger Games meets American Idol. I was rooting for Dan Stevens. Seriously the best part.

What set this series apart was the fresh, candid interviews, the tongue in cheek approach of the producers and the clever cliffhangers at the end of each episode. The show keeps you guessing until the very end. But the real star is FBI agent Doug Mathews- The most fun FBI guy EVER. He should have his own series like Joe Kenda.

This film borrows a lot from Shakespeare's imagination and adds more mythology besides. But it's worth just to see Robert Pattinson's hilarious turn as the sassy French prince.

This show is a thinly disguised hit piece on Trump. If you like unsubstantiated conspiracies and hate Trump and Christians, you'll probably enjoy it. Could have been a 1-2 hour special. So much fluff and artsy shots to fill time.

Lake Bell is a truly funny woman and this show makes me laugh out loud. It's not a new concept but Bell manages to put a hilarious spin on it.

13 Hours was absolutely riveting, no question. And it raises serious questions about the Benghazi attack, questions which have yet to be answered. But it's clear why critics are dissing it--it shows Americans as veritable superheroes in a country gone berserk. Also, the movie makes no bones of the fact that the whole "protest over an anti-Islamic video" explanation was totally bogus, and our country, protected by true blue men and women willing to give their lives, is run by a bunch of jackasses. I hope Hillary goes down for this. But three years later, no one has even been fired.

This movie doesn't answer any of those questions. But it is so emotionally involving I found myself with my fist in my mouth most of the time. Michael Bay may have his faults, but he knows how to move an audience--to laughter and to tears. There were moments that went a bit overboard—this is a Michael Bay movie, after all—but I am thankful it was him and not some anti-American, Oliver Stone-like director who made this movie. There are good guys and bad guys in the world, and Americans are the good guys. Especially in Benghazi.

Like the real mountain, this movie is stunning to look at but a little painful to watch. I kept longing for the voice-over guy from The Deadliest Catch to chime in with some compelling back story about the characters or the situation, just to ramp up the tension a little. We don't get much time to get to know the characters; most of their lines are designed mainly to give us information rather than developing their individual personalities. We are left with archetypes: the Loudmouth Texan, the Humble Mailman, the Brash Adventurer, the Careful Tour Guide, the Taciturn Journalist. And then there's the annoying Keira Knightly, on hand with her squeaky mouse voice and her runny nose, to make sure everyone in the audience has a good cry.

I wish the movie had been more about Rob Hall--his hubris and his heroism is really the heart and soul of this story. But you can't have everything in two hours, can you?

If you thought this was going to be a family show (it IS the Muppets, after all), think again. This is the Muppet equivalent of Miley Cyrus getting raunchy at the VMAs--the Muppets have grown up, and they are apparently having sex, or talking about it. Kermit and Miss Piggy have split, but Kermit's dating a hot new pig who says things like "Tell Denise what you want." Miss Piggy talks about boob jobs. Fozzie bear has a human girlfriend and goes home to meet the parents, which is truly awful, especially when the father asks what their children will look like. There's very little that is funny about this show and a lot that is downright sad, when you consider how wonderful the Muppets once were. I'm sort of glad Jim Hensen isn't around to see this.

Like the dinosaurs that inspired it, this series should have stayed extinct. There's nothing new here, nothing remotely interesting, unless you just paid to see dinosaurs eating people and wrecking stuff, in which case you'll get your money's worth. It's like Spielberg is just ripping off himself now, same big brass music, same stock characters (Chris Pratt only needs a whip and a hat to make the transformation to Indiana Jones complete), the bratty yet super smart and noble kids, the driven mother figures, the megalomaniac billionaire and the usual Spielberg villain: The Military Industrial Complex.

The writing team (which includes Michael Crichton, who's been dead for years) seems to have spent around 5 minutes on the script. It's a rehash of bad jokes and cornball clichés. I guess they figured their target audience (11 year olds?) could care less. Even Chris Pratt can't save this movie from itself--he barely cracks a smile. He looks as miserable I felt watching it.

Nowhere is it explained that, with three previous attempts at a dinosaur theme park being unmitigated disasters, who was it who actually wanted another one with even bigger, deadlier monsters and "more teeth?" Are we consumers really that masochistic? If Disney World had such a high death toll, would they be building MORE parks just like it?

Save your money. Stay home and watch the original. Still the best and most thrilling. Back when Spielberg thought the story was as important as the special effects.

I started watching this show thinking it was a true story. Halfway into the first episode I realized it was one of those Liberal TV Fantasies, where no matter what's happening in the Real World, America is always to blame. The show is more a ploy to keep the Occupy Wall Street movement going – those guys weren't really doped- up kooks! They were serious journalists and truth-seekers! The Islamic terrorists aren't really terrorists at all – they appear to be merely innocent women and children caught in a terrible crossfire and just trying to get home. (They aren't even the Middle East, apparently – the whole war has moved to North Africa)

The Enemy, of course, is still Wall Street. And the Military Establishment. And George W. Bush. America is a Bad Bad Place. We obviously deserve everything we get. Including shows like this.

OK, so this show is not high art or even art at all, but it's great fun and easy on the eyes. The plot gets hopelessly muddled, the dialog is downright silly, but who cares as long as Stephen Arnell takes his shirt off once in awhile. I do wish this show didn't take itself so seriously, would give the audience a little wink once in awhile. "Yeah, we know this is pure camp, but we don't care." (Kind of like the old Batman, if anyone remembers) However, the actors keep up the facade that the world (or Starling City) is coming to an end, and the only answer to Bad Guys With Guns and Nuclear Weapons and Other Devices of Mass Destruction is One Handsome Dude with a Bow. Exploding arrows help too.

This show had possibilities. Adam Rayner is a terrific actor with a lot of charisma, and he actually gives the show some weight and depth, which the script does not. Otherwise this show is just plain weird, unfocused, trying to hard or not hard enough. The story is paper thin and sometimes downright silly. The characters (except for Rayner's Barry) are more like caricatures. I'm surprised the Arab community isn't having a cow over the portrayal of Arabs (or "middle- eastern" types of some unnamed country.) Jennifer Finnigan has the thankless task of playing Barry's wife, a complete airhead who apparently has never picked up a newspaper and has no idea how dangerous her husband's ex-homeland is. The kids are just annoying. There is little here that is believable or even interesting. You know where the story is going from the beginning. And it takes a really long time to get there.

Matthew McConaughey is downright scary in this movie. So gaunt he is barely recognizable, yet his intensity and commitment to the role of AIDS victim turned crusader Ron Woodroof is nothing short of astonishing. Is this the guy from Sahara? Not hardly.

This was a hard movie to watch. I can't say I enjoyed it, but I was deeply moved. I'm old enough to remember the AIDS crisis, which seems like forever ago now; I remember feeling slightly annoyed at how the gay community had manipulated the tragedy for political gain. I had no idea then what brave people were doing to try to and stay alive against the actions of the medical establishment as well as the government, which was deep in the pockets of pharmaceutical companies. This movie was eye-opening in more ways than one. I wish it had been made twenty years ago, when it was actually written. Shame on Hollywood for ignoring it for so long. Props to McConaughey for bringing it into the light. He deserves the Oscar, as does Jared Leto, who never ceases to amaze in his quest to get "closer to the edge" as an actor. Jennifer Garner doesn't get a whole lot to do as one of those "composite" characters that is mainly a mouthpiece for the movie's theme. But she rocks the eighties vibe just fine.

I usually judge how engaging a movie is by how many times I look at my watch while it is playing. For Divergent, it was four. (Four! Really!) It's not boring, exactly. It's just…meh. Despite the exciting music, high-value production and characters that pant and strain and STARE intensely, there just isn't much to go on here. The book was better because it had WORDS, and Veronica Roth is a pretty good writer (unlike certain other dystopian blockbuster authors I could think of). The movie exposes the story's basic weaknesses: a paper-thin premise and too few interesting characters (when one dies I can't even remember which one it was.) Moreover, we've seen this storyline so often before that we can practically write it ourselves. But Divergent delivers in some important areas: A-list actors, a kick-ass teen male hero (with beautiful tattoos!), some pretty cool action sequences, a great soundtrack, and Shailene Woodley, one of the few young actresses who really can carry a movie by herself. Four, of course, is practically perfect in every way: teen boys, if you want to know what girls want, GO SEE THIS MOVIE. Just grow muscles, have an old-fashioned sense of honor, be protective but don't be a chauvinist, be good at EVERYTHING but also have a deep psychological wound that a girl can help you overcome. Simple.

This movie is a pleasant viewing experience as long as you haven't read the book. I was curious to see it, because I was a fan of the book but I never thought it could be made into a movie. I was right. It didn't translate well into film at all. The power of the story was in the language, the amazing writing by Mark Helprin; without that, the story is somewhat silly and shallow. When we die we all become "stars" in the sky; blah blah blah. The director makes things worse by adding a lot of supernatural elements which make things even sillier. If Russell Crowe weren't such a good actor this would have been truly laughable. Colin Farrell is a dream as Peter Lake, adorable enough to carry the whole movie. And Jessica Brown Findley is ethereally beautiful despite the fact that she is supposed to be deathly ill. Only in the movies do dying people look this good.