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Reviews
Call Me Now: The Rise and Fall of Miss Cleo (2024)
OOF...this was bad!
Going in, I thought this was a documentary about Miss Cleo. No...this is a BAD dramatization of her life, some woman pretending to be a psychic called Miss Cleo. First sign this wasn't going to be good...half the actors had names during the credit introductions that looked like drag names, like maybe they didn't want to be associated with this mess. It was filmed on video, not actual film, and each scene looked like it was the lead up to a porn scene. The acting throughout, especially the scenes with the producers/owners of the Psychic Hotline, was dreadful.
Avoid this mess! The story of Miss Cleo deserves a full documentary with actual footage from her history of performing this character and the actual fallout of the network.
Matt Rife: Lucid - A Crowd Work Special (2024)
Personable, Brilliant Improv
Crowd work is improv. Improv is scary and hard. Matt is brilliant at it...seriously, and looks so comfortable in front of a crowd, who is always judging you, and he is able to completely hold court. You have to be whip smart and have a varied diet of history, current events, politics, general gossip, etc, and Matt has all that at a young age.
I just don't get that some people hate him...he's so personable and funny. I know he's be accused of punching down at women in his routines but there is none of that here. It's super fun to watch him play off the crowd and seems to even be overly respectable to everyone involved.
Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play. (2024)
Purposeless
I'm not sure what the purpose of the "documentary" is. It's just a group of young actors (who are all quite good) work shopping the play scene by scene, but this was done after the Broadway production. I supposed this might be of interest to acting students but it really tells us nothing about the controversies of the original staging. I saw a couple positive reviews that read like we probably saw 2 completely different films.
What is DOES seem to be is a huge ego-stroker for the writer/director. What a huge disappointment as I was going to see the show in a few weeks in London but now...meh.
Alex Edelman: Just for Us (2024)
A Jew walks into a Broadway theater...
The best way to describe this is performance standup. This is a much loved Broadway "show" that everyone was trying to get their friends to go see and raving about everywhere. Alex also toured this show to a few cities but never reached me and I'm so glad I'm getting to see it here. It reminds me of the great Hannah Gadsby sets where a general theme is presented, expanded on, digressed from and told in a story manner. The callbacks are brilliant and I have never sat in my living room and howled, snorted and spilled my beverage to anyone before. This is smart performance, physical humor that eclipses all those high paid comedians who aren't really funny (they know who they are). I hope he comes up with another show and we get to journey again with him. I will introduce this to friends and watch is over and over.
Pencils vs Pixels (2023)
A Real Snooze
I feel like I've seen this before. It's clearly not new interviews and it's basically just that, a bunch of talking heads rapturously talking about what animation means to them. It even looks and feels dated.
The talkers and their talking are interspersed with clips of Disney animation including a lot of hand drawn original art which is the most interesting but, again, we've seen it in countless other Disney docs. I found myself fast forwarding a couple minutes here and there to see if it gets interesting or changes the format but unfortunately it doesn't. If you give it a shot and feel like it's not your cup of tea after a couple minutes be sure it doesn't get any more flavorful.
Fellow Travelers (2023)
Another Show Getting Review Bombed
This show is getting ratings bombed, clearly, like many controversial shows tend to be lately. Somewhere there must be a post about poorly reviewing the show to bring down the ratings. 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 6 here...
The show is based on a book about 2 men who meet during the McCarthy hearings era and fall for each other. Both work in Washington and have to keep their relationship a secret. It jumps back and forth between the 50's and the 80's, after both men have moved on. Not a groundbreaking story line but the period production work is impeccable.
This is a limited series that has actual M/M passion and doesn't hold back. It's the type of sex and passion usually only seen in heterosexual shows. I wish we had all episodes at once.
Harlan Coben's Shelter (2023)
Horrible
I have really loved some of Coben's series on streaming and was looking forward to this one as well, even though it is YA aimed. It's just terrible. It is the worst acted and most cliched show I have seen in recent years. Every character is a cliched type that you have seen in shows going back decades, including the bad attempt at creating a diverse cast with every stock character from a bad high school movie. The geeky kid, the goth chick, the basketball jock and his cheerleader girlfriend, the black kid who says he doesn't play ball then kills it on the court, the dead dad, blah blah blah. I kid you not...they are all there. OH...and the spooky old house that is a rip off of IT with a woman inside who doesn't actually exist. AVOID!
Apple Music Live: Ed Sheeran (2023)
Supurb Concert with Subpar material
There are going to be many who disagree and actually hate this review, but here goes...
Writing music with Aaron Dessner is going to get you bland pop songs (have you tried to listen to The National, his band)? While a terrific musician and producer, that is what you are going to get with Aaron. In this concert, most of the songs, all about 2 minutes in length, sound the same. Only the songs Ed states he wrote himself really stand out as different.
The concert was held at the Hammersmith Apollo in London in support of his new "Subtract" album and was performed in its entirety. Ed's vocals were stunning and clear. He introduced each song with the story behind its meaning, written during a difficult time for him. He is supported by what I assume is his band and a string section which unfortunately gets lost in the mix. A very annoying video projection is behind him which splashes blaring yellow at the start of each song. The audience clearly had their phones confiscated and were very polite and actually quite subdued.
Ed's amateurish arm graffiti is on full display as he performs in a white t-shirt and black sweats. Dude...there are really nice and comfortable clothes you could have been wearing instead. You're a very wealthy star...start dressing like one (you too Aaron).
Will Trent (2023)
Breezy Detective Series
Based on the first 3 episodes.
Stereotype characters (damaged people, fish-out-of-water, sassy black women) and everyone dislikes everyone else however I stuck with it through the first 3 episodes and it has grown on me, a self-confessed hater of the banality of network tv. The show is about a detective in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation with too much style and the ability to suss out cases quite well. Everyone, including him, is damaged in some way with most of them coming from the same orphanage. As I said, it's not too serious and of the breezy nature. The first 2 episodes were a 2-part story but the 3rd wrapped up by the end. I'll check out a few more and expect to stay with it.
Note: I did not know this was based on a series of books and those folks seem to really dislike it and is probably why I'm not mad at it. Go forth warned...
My So-Called High School Rank (2022)
High School Theater Kids Put on a Show (or at Least Try)
2 high school drama teachers write and direct a musical for their Cupertino, CA school about the pressures of being a high school student striving to do everything to set themselves up to get into a good college. The musical is called "Ranked" and deals with how schools rank their students' achievements and create a stressful, competitional environment (yes, this is a real musical that was working its way towards off-Broadway when the pandemic hit). The doc also shows the audition and rehearsal steps for two other schools, one in central California and in West Virginia. You see the dichotomy of 3 different schools and musical/drama departments in very different class areas of the country. But then COVID hits and the film switches to being about how the theater arts seniors need to finish up high school and apply to colleges.
I liked this film a lot. It reminded me of the terrific documentary, also from 2021, called Try Harder!, about high school kids competing for the best colleges, a film I absolutely loved. You can't help but wish the best for these kids and want to see where they are in a few years.
Freaks Out (2021)
Circus Freaks and Nazis
If you think you've seen that one before, you probably have.
The film follows 4 circus "freaks" with special powers who are pursued by an evil Nazi (redundant, yes, but this guy was REALLY evil). OK, one didn't really have a "power", more like a special "feature".
First the good...this movie looks GREAT! The production design is terrific. I cannot comment on Italian cinema but I was very impressed with the overall look. I was very jazzed thru the first third of the film for what it might have in store. The circus scenes were quite fantastical and fun.
However, the film doesn't know what it wants to be. If they had stayed in the circus lane that would have been a good story. But then the Nazis show up (as I guess they do sooner or later) and the film becomes WAY overly violent and graphic like a war film. The final battle towards the end goes on FOREVER. Mix the genres, OK, but show some restraint. It is also not original with some of its reveals and seems to rip off a number of other TV series and films (Indiana Jones, the Others, Umbrella Academy). At 140 minutes, it is also too long and needed a hard edit, down to 105 minutes.
Watch the first hour and then turn it off. You won't miss anything relevant to the story.
Lizzo: Live in Concert (2022)
Terrible Sound
I was excited to relive this concert, a favorite of 2022. The camera work is excellent but the audio mix and overall sound recording is horrible. Dubbed in crowd sounds during some songs...I thought we were over that terrible trend. Have those remixers ever been to a concert? Crowd reactions during some of the songs seemed inappropriate and overbearing and the surround sound mix was terrible. Very little off stage scenes were included, just a couple below stage shots between songs. Also, I didn't recognize any of the dancers from the reality show. I was looking for a couple of the girls that became favorites, particularly Jayla and Charity.
I still enjoyed the show but this was a failure of execution by the engineers.
House of the Dragon (2022)
Familiar Palace Intrigue, Questionable Casting
Based on the first 2 episodes...poor casting choices. Paddy Considine Is such a one-note schlub who would have easily been taken out long before due to some palace intrigue. Matt Smith is too famous and recognizable for his role. Has the UK and Ireland run out of actors? What made Game of Thrones so interesting is that we didn't know most of the leads and therefore were able to immerse ourselves in that world easier. Putting familiar actors in costume and historical series pull us out of the story too easily (eg. Ed Sheeren in GOT). The series does look amazing (except for a few of the long shot vistas) and has set up some good palace intrigue, however familiar. The jousting games were splendidly filmed and exciting and the costumes are amazing. Familiar GOT characters (like the hand of the king) help us quickly become familiar with this world and there are references to families we already know which also help draw us in. However, poor casting and a couple of supporting actors' acting skills are jarring.
Flux Gourmet (2022)
So Stupid...So Funny
A spoof of performance art and foodies (crossed up) and totally hilarious. The actors play it straight which, unlike Christopher Short's films, made it even more funny to me. There were so many little things that made me giggle...their obsession with a flanger, the OTHER collective (and their name) and the way they stealth around, the patron's head wear, their confessions and dialogues with a flatulent writer and the silly French names for odd foods (that I don't know if they are real or not). Clearly the other reviewers who rated the film didn't get it or were expecting something else but I thought it was just grand.
De uskyldige (2021)
Do Not See This Film...
While, in many ways, this is a compelling and excellent depiction of childhood "play" with fantastic child acting, there are scenes of animal abuse so heinous that I wish I had skipped seeing this film altogether. The film's creators could have expressed the sadistic nature of one of the kids in another fashion in which to help set the tone.
Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (2022)
3 Hours of Repitative "Duh"
3 repetitive hours of the same thing over and over. So-and-so is a cheating hypocrite. There were unwanted advances. This documentary is a whole lot about nothing and a complete waste of time. I was hoping for something more salacious to help bring down big-time religion but there's nothing here except what took down one man, and even then only a peg or 2. No talk about what these charlatans get paid. Don't waste your time...read the Wikipedia page.
Doraibu mai kâ (2021)
Best International Film I've Seen this Season
I will dispose of mentioning the plot because many have already done a nice job recapping it. I went in seeing it with trepidation seeing that it was 3 hours long but the critic awards convinced me it would be a "best of the year" film worth seeing. ...and they were right. This is a gentle, beautiful film that enthralled me for the full 3 hours. The ensemble cast is brilliant and the direction superb. I'm lucky to live in an area where we get most foreign language films released and have an int'l film festival and this is the best (I've seen 8 out of 15) of the shortlisted international films that have been released/screened so far.
Dexter: New Blood (2021)
You have to give it a few episodes
I was ready to write this off after the first 2 episodes but I gave it another look and each episode kept getting better and better until the real Dexter Morgan really returns around episode 6 and boy did it get good. Cliffhanger good with each episode. I'm glad I binged it...and now I'm all in.
The Green Knight (2021)
Gorgeous and Sumptious
Ignore the lower reviews...they thought they were seeing the Suicide Squad and wandered into the wrong theatre. This is gorgeous, striking and a feast for the eyes. There are stunning tracking shots in the first third of the film and beauty throughout the entirety. It will no doubt pick up numerous Oscar nominations and many awards for production credits and probably Cinematography, Directing and maybe even Best Picture.
The Movies That Made Us (2019)
Dreadful
Edited to within an inch of its life, this horribly narrated drivel is like a YouTube commercial for back hair remover. Terrible in every way!
Reservation Dogs (2021)
First Native American Series I Have Seen...But Doen't Hit the Mark
Taika Waititi replaced the Maori people of his native home with the Native Americans of the U. S., those living on reservations (let's take a famous movie name and riff off it, (Reservoir Dogs)). The results are better than a title-off gag but something still feels off. While there are a few humorous moments, a couple even laugh-out-loud funny, mostly the episodes reinforce negative stereotypes of Native Americans and the circumstances they live under. I am not a crusader at all but this seemed to be the impression I got. Will I continue to watch...yes. Each episode ended with a general moment of warmth that manipulated me into an aahhh feeling but I won't be brought to think that this was a brilliant stroke of art. TBS...Bobby Lee as a hospital MD was hilarious and the 2 actors who were bike-riding commentators were quite amusing.
Try Harder! (2021)
One of the Best Docs I've Seen in Years
Spend 90 minutes with a high school class at Lowell in San Francisco and see the pressure these kids, and sometimes their parents, place on themselves to succeed and get into the best colleges.
This is a terrific documentary. Totally engaging, funny and the empathy you feel inside yourself for these kids, while watching it, is palpable and I found myself getting quite emotional on a couple of occasions. I really enjoyed the AP physics teacher and wish I had had him as a high school teacher. I feel I know so much about these kids with the short time I've spent with them and would love to follow them through their higher education.
Bug Farm (2021)
Mother of crickets
Doc short. The employees at a bug farm in LaBelle, FL show you what their day is like raising meal worms and crickets. From growing to collecting and packaging for sale.
I would have liked to have spent more time with them seeing the whole process in more depth but was glad to visit and learn.
International Dawn Chorus Day (2021)
A Controversial Film Short, For Sure
International Dawn Chorus Day is held on the first Sunday in May. Started in the UK, it encouraged people to get up early on this one day and listen to the morning songs of the birds. It has since spread around the world.
This short film uses this event with the idea that, during lockdown, the birds had a zoom call instead and the execution of the idea (and idea itself) was brilliant...birds from over 20 countries have a conversation. But it was the subject of that conversation that made me hate this film. It was about political prisoners. The fact that the filmmakers usurped the conversations between birds, a glorious thing, and decided to make that conversation political, really turned me off. Yes, these stories are important and need to be told, but I hated the decision for it to be about this. I'm sure many people will be moved and think this is an important film, and they probably should, and I hope this film makes its way to many festivals so people can make up their own mind. It will be hotly discussed for sure.
I don't usually bother to write reviews of films I don't care for out of respect for the filmmakers' efforts but I have great respect for the idea and execution in this film. However, I feel cheated and very let down that it was the decision to translate the birds voices into this conversation. It has actually made me angry.
Mama (2020)
Mama and the chimpanzees
Doc short. Mama Zawadi helps care for the orphaned chimpanzees in one of the most dangerous parts of the DR Congo. We learn of her mistreatment at the hands of rebels and come to understand that she needs the babies as much as they need her.
The doc begins and ends with scenes of happy baby chimpanzees climbing all over mama but the middle has a long recounting of her treatment of capture, rape and imprisonment, which I guess you could say, makes a very dark turn for the film.