Reviews

After watching all five episodes, I was disappointed. I've seen so many dark and gritty murder mystery series recently, and this series at first seemed to be a refreshing change of pace. But it got to be such a slog by episode four that I had to force myself to finish it.

PROS *Picturesque New Zealand location *Beautiful cinematography

CONS *The acting is on a soap opera level except for a couple of the Maori actors and the young woman who played Zoe. *None of the main characters were likable to me and my wife except Ryan and the police chief. The main character, Maggie, got on our nerves after a while. *The dialog was poorly written, again on a soap opera level. Many times characters don't state the obvious just so the screenwriter can amp up the drama. *The ending is terrible. It just ends with a cliffhanger without resolving any of the plot lines.

I really wanted to like this tragic movie about the plight of an African American family in the 1960s . Such a great message. Excellent acting. Beautiful cinematography. But oh wow, it was soooooo slow. You could've easily cut 30 minutes out of this movie, and it would have been so much better. The other thing that ruined it for me was the pretentious violin music. This was one of the most intrusive soundtracks that I've ever heard. The music was almost nonstop. The director couldn't just let each scene stand on its own merit. He had to amp it up even more with overbearing violins.

This is a fluffy, feel-good movie about a midlife-crisis dad and his college-bound daughter who bond while recording three songs together over the summer after her high school graduation. The movie unfortunately wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be in the beginning. About 30 minutes of the running time is taken up with the two of them recording and performing their music, which leaves only about an hour of skimpy drama. The movie's biggest asset is character development, which kept me interested up to a point. But it drags in the middle due to a weak storyline and ends with a thud. None of the various subplots are adequately resolved, and some are completely abandoned.

The filmmakers seem to be trying to recreate the charm of independent musical movies like Once. But it doesn't quite work. The acting is good but not great. As dad and daughter, Nick Offerman and Kiersey Clemons are appealing but not charismatic. The songs are catchy but forgettable. Not a bad way to spend an hour and a half though...as long as your expectations aren't too high.

OK, I agree that this is a slow, minimalist movie. But that could have worked in its flavor. The buildings and the landscapes in Columbus, Indiana are stunning. The cinematography is gorgeous, and the music is beautiful and peaceful. At times I felt like I was meditating. If you like documentaries about architecture, I can highly recommend this film. In fact it often seems more like a travelogue than a drama.

The problem lies with the script and specifically with the character of Casey (Haley Lu Richardson). Even though she's in almost every scene and has quite a bit of dialog, I still could not get a handle on her character. Every time I thought I was beginning to understand her, she would do something weird or crazy. Is she supposed to be borderline mentally ill? I couldn't decide. Does she really want to study architecture or is she just rehearsing to be a tour guide? I have my doubts whether she can make it in college. Too many personality issues.

Richardson is an appealing actress, but I'm not sure she was the right choice for this part. Perhaps another actress could have made Casey's character more relatable. In the end neither of the main characters was likable or interesting.

I liked all of the dialog about philosophy and architecture. But too much of the other dialog was shallow.

There are two ways to review this movie. On the one hand, it is obviously a labor of love, and you have to admire director Patrick Johnson's persistence. He worked for 13 years to get this project completed. So I have to give him an A for effort. It's amazing that an amateur filmmaker was able to bring his film to the big screen. This is a worthy "student film", but it is what it is, and it should never have been released in theaters. Everything about it is amateurish, including the acting, the directing, the script, and the cinematography. For example, the director seems to think that having one of the actors stare into the camera with his mouth open for 10 seconds is high drama (and he uses this technique repeatedly). I'm not saying that there is no audience for this movie. I'm guessing that sci-fi geek's, Star Wars fanatics, and amateur filmmakers will enjoy it despite its flaws. But it should have gone straight to DVD and streaming. I felt ripped off having to pay eight bucks to see it.

This movie definitely has some things going for it. It has an intelligent script and great acting by Richard Gere and the rest of the cast. But in the end I could not get past how annoying Norman is. In real life you couldn't stand to be around this type of person for more than five minutes. Yet he is in almost every scene. To make matters worse, we don't get any backstory for Norman and no scenes with his family and friends. His private life is a total mystery. We never even get to see him sitting down for a meal with his acquaintances. All we see is scene after scene where he is trying to manipulate someone for some advantage. And ultimately this becomes so annoying and monotonous that it doesn't even matter that Norman is doing it for altruistic reasons.

I went into this movie with sky high expectations based on all the hype. But like a lot of other reviewers on this website, I was disappointed. This was one of the bleakest movies I have seen in a long time. It begins with the death of the main character's brother and then goes downhill from there. The first two thirds of the movie, which deals mainly with preparations for the brother's funeral, is slow and boring. I've had to plan two funerals after the deaths of my parents, and it's not a pleasant process. I didn't want to be reminded of all the mind numbing details that you have to go through. The movie runs long at two hours and 15 minutes, and at least ten minutes of funeral planning could have have been edited out.

In my opinion, Casey Affleck's acting is good (perhaps better than in any of his other movies) but not great. One big disappointment for me was that there is very little dramatic arc to Affleck's character. His character remains so dead inside that by the end of the movie, I had grown tired of the same expressions and reactions.

A less serious problem is the score. The music is too operatic for my taste. It is so loud and obtrusive in a few scenes that it is hard to appreciate what is going on on screen.

In fairness I need to mention a wonderful scene near the end of the movie between Michelle Williams and Casey Affleck that will almost certainly earn Williams an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. The film is worth going to see for this scene alone. I suspect that this one scene (like the bear attack in The Revenant) is responsible for leaving such a strong positive impression of this movie on the minds of many critics.

Manchester by the Sea could have been a masterpiece with leaner editing and a better story arc. But, sad to say, I can only give it a "C".

This movie isn't even good enough for TV. At best it's only for children under age ten. Most adults and teens won't be the slightest bit interested. Some of the acting is possibly the worst I have ever seen in any movie. I've seen better acting in high school plays (much better). The only slightly bright spot is the young actress who plays Ociee. This movie was made in Georgia and cast with local actors. I saw it in a metro-Atlanta theater on the opening weekend. There were only 5 or 6 other people in the theater and they might have been relatives of the cast and crew. Unless your only criteria is wholesomeness, I would recommend looking at the negative reviews here. When there are so few reviews for a movie and almost all of them are positive even though the overall IMDb rating is low, there is something suspicious going on.

This science fiction romance had lots of potential. The story is interesting. The production values are outstanding. The cinematography is gorgeous. But the two leads, Blake Lively and Michiel Huisman, ruined it for me. Lively is not known as a great actress, and she's not going to improve her reputation with this film. She has a wooden delivery, and what little inflection she does have sounds unnatural, at least to my ears. Another problem is that her cool persona isn't a good fit for a romance. Huisman does a better job of acting than Lively, but he still comes across like a bad actor in a Lifetime movie. The two of them can barely manage any chemistry on screen. I cringed every time Huisman leaned in for a kiss. Harrison Ford and Cathy Baker, on the other hand, are convincing as Huisman's parents. The script is about what you would expect from a Lifetime movie or an adaptation of a Harlequin romance. If you were hoping for something like a Nicholas Sparks movie, you may be disappointed. Even though Sparks' movies can be corny, at least the scripts are well-written and the acting is usually pretty decent.

I live in Athens, Georgia, the location where this movie was filmed and the hometown of the director, James Ponsoldt. I loved Ponsoldt's previous movie, Smashed, which by the way featured a stunning performance by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who plays Sutter's sister in this movie. So I really, really wanted to like Spectacular Now.

But what a huge disappointment. Sometimes when I watch a movie, I know in the first five minutes that I'm not going to like it. This was unfortunately one of those movies. My biggest problem was the awkward, underwritten dialog. Some scenes were almost painful to watch. I know that the awkwardness was supposed to make the movie more realistic. But if there are teenagers that talk like this, I've never known any. The dialog here, especially in some scenes, is more like improvisation than reality.

My other problem is that we are initially led to believe Aimee is a serious, bookish, "good" kid. But the way the story develops and the way Shailene Woodley plays the part, Aimee comes across as shallow, giggly, gullible, and immature, not to mention lacking in character. Having never taken a drink of alcohol, once she falls under Sutter's spell, she zips right on past beer and goes straight to regularly drinking the hard stuff without giving it a second thought, as if she's never even heard the word responsibility. Sure there are plenty of teens like Aimee, and Woodley does a good job of portraying her. But we see enough of teens like this in commercial Hollywood movies. I was hoping for a more interesting character in this independent film.

This movie didn't work at all for me. The biggest problem is the script. A good script needs characters who are interesting even if they aren't likable. But Frances is boring and her life is boring. The story rambles aimlessly on and on with little narrative arc. What you see is a series of episodes about different places Frances has lived but with little or no transition explaining how and why she has moved from one to the next.

I heard writer and director, Noah Baumbach, say that he was inspired by Woody Allen's Manhattan. But his writing comes close to Allen's only in a few places. There are two or three mildly amusing lines in the movie. That's it. I saw it in a half-full theater and heard only a couple of chuckles from the audience the entire time. And I don't think loving the movie, Manhattan, is a good enough reason to shoot in black and white. It worked for Woody, partly because the cinematography was gorgeous, but here it makes an already dull movie even more colorless.

This is not one of Greta Gerwig's best movies. She was enjoyable in a supporting role in To Rome with Love and wonderful in Maggie's Plan. But without the right script and director, she's not as appealing.

A better movie on the same subject is Walking and Talking. But if you want to see a truly outstanding drama about a young woman who doesn't have her act together, watch the HBO series, Enlightened.

Wow, my wife and I thought this movie was horrendously bad. It was the worst movie we have seen this year with no other close competition. Imagine a home movie that a middle schooler would make and add a little CGI and a lot of vulgarity. It was mind-numbingly boring, idiotic, and crude. So many of the scenes were just filler that could easily have been cut out. To us it was amateurish and self-indulgent. The actors, who play themselves, were so obnoxious that it makes you never want to see a movie again with them in it, especially Michael Cera. We watched for 50 minutes, which seemed like 2 hours of torture, and then walked out. I can't even recommend this movie to people who liked Pineapple Express. I liked Pineapple Express myself, but if that was a B+ movie, then this one is an F-. How the heck did this get a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 84%? Were they watching the same movie? I would advise reading the "hated it" reviews on this site before you spend money on a ticket.

This film is enjoyable if you don't expect too much. Wahlberg is appealing in almost every movie he's been in, and this one is no exception. Crowe and Zeta-Jones are fine in their roles too. Sure the script is a little slow in parts and there are some holes in the plot. But you can't worry too much about plot holes in this kind of movie anyway. The fun is finding out "whodunit" and seeing the bad guys get their due. The ending is a nice touch, by the way. If you like old-fashioned crime dramas, Broken City is good escapism. I've seen way too many movies in the past year or so that were a lot worse than this one.

My wife had to beg me to go see this movie. I have a very low tolerance for overly sentimental movies, and that's exactly what the trailer leads you to believe Timothy Green is. The critics are chiming in with words like "sticky sentimentality" and "mawkish melodrama." Don't believe it. If you can get past the absurd premise that you can grow a boy in the garden (not a spoiler if you've seen the trailer), then the rest of the movie is thoroughly enjoyable. And in some ways it's the opposite of sentimental.

Despite the fact that he is "made to order," Timothy is far from the ideal boy. In fact he's a misfit. Every time he tries to use one of his preordained talents, something goes wrong. Every time director and screenwriter, Peter Hedges, has the opportunity to bring a tear to your eyes, he goes in a different direction. For example, before Timothy draws a portrait of his Mom's cranky old boss lady, he takes off her glasses and lets down her hair. The portrait makes her look pretty, almost glamorous, that is until you notice the crop of hairs sprouting from her chin.

Jim (Joel Edgerton) and Cindy Green (Jennifer Garner) aren't ideal parents either. They make one mistake after another and even make mistakes correcting their mistakes. Their foibles are an exaggerated version of what I've personally seen other parents do or what my wife and I have done ourselves.

Surprisingly, the acting is as good as you would see in the average adult drama . . . none of the "I'm just here for a paycheck" performances that are typical in children's films. I don't normally like Jennifer Garner, but this is her best performance to date in my opinion. CJ Adams is spot on in the role of Timothy. If you don't have the right boy for this role, the movie doesn't work. But Adams is just right. I particularly like that he isn't overly earnest like Haley Joel Osment (Pay It Forward, Second-Hand Lions), although he does resemble Osment.

Timothy Green is a great movie for the kids and it doesn't insult the intelligence of adults. I would also recommend it for seniors.