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Curb Your Enthusiasm: Vertical Drop, Horizontal Tug (2024)
Where's the story here?
This is the 3rd of season 12 and apparently it is the best so far (from what friends, family and IMDB say). What does that tell you? There were some genuinely funny parts, but it was a struggle. What was the storyline? Golf? A new dog? Balls? Why were Ted and Cheryl even brought in? They had maybe 5 words each to say and that was it. Added zero to the story-less story. If you're going to bring them in, why not use them or fold them into the story. Did they get paid for that?? I'm a huge Curb fan, and so far this season has just been so disappointing. I wouldn't even say disappointing. It feels like a totally different show to me. Look back at the earlier seasons and compare.
The Watcher (2022)
Episodes 1-6 are an 8, Ep 7 a 1
6/7th's of this series is really good. I enjoyed the "whoduninit" aspect, and was so excited to finally watch E7 and find out who it was? Instead we got a mish mash of theories. Just hugely disappointing.
Like someone else said, they make up all this stuff that never occurred in the real life story, why not just take it one step further and make up an ending?
Loved all the actors. Don't understand a BIT of the teenage girls situations. That had ZERO to do with anything. Pull all that out. I LOVE Jennifer Coolidge. And Naomi Watts we should be seeing much more of her.
If you haven't seen it, I'd say maybe watch 1-6 knowing there is no payoff. E7 is really not even worth watching. It probably HELPS the story to not watch it!
Christmas, Again (2014)
No, no, nothing happens!
Ever see the Seinfeld episode where they're pitching their sitcom idea to NBC and they're asked what the series is about? And George goes "nothing". Jerry says "well it's about something" and George returns angrily "no, no, it's about nothing!"
That's what I felt like I was watching in this movie. Really, nothing does happen. From start to end. We have no clue what the deal is with the main character, and no idea about the girl. No character building at all. None.
Towards the end I looked at my wife and said "wouldn't it be funny if this movie ended right now?". And it did! Instead of being pissed off that we wasted 90 minutes of our evening, we both cracked up laughing.
I should say that it wasn't difficult to watch. There was a sense of realism as opposed to acting. It just could have been such a fantastic movie with some character building. But still.... nothing happens.
The Next Three Days (2010)
Terrible
I love Russell Crowe, I love Elizabeth Banks. They couldn't save this mess or a story. I couldn't figure the Crowe character out. At one moment, he's a typical type of person that adores his wife and wants better for the family. The next moment he's shooting at drug dealers for no apparent reason? Everything about this movie is implausible. Everything. I never even figured out whether she was convicted or not! What did she do? How long was her time? It's all a mess and you're left guessing and puzzled. And don't get me started on their kid. Honestly, put a child mannequin in the part and wouldn't know the difference. I think he mumbles 3 lines the whole movie, and shows ZERO emotion to ANYTHING. Then towards the when the cops magically figure everything out, wow! That's a cop you want on your police force because he deduces everything immediately. The entire movie I kept thinking to myself "Yeah, like that would ever happen!". Terrible movie, terrible waste of talent (acting, not writing). Really, don't waste your time on this one.
The Kominsky Method (2018)
Excellent comedy series with a few caveats
Binge watched seasons 1 & 2 so fast! This is an interesting comedy. Even when not funny, it's interesting. I loved it except for two minor annoying issues.
1) I think either Sandy's daughter Mindy was miscast, or her part was not written well. I find her to be irritating and she doesn't come across as having an ounce of warmth to her character nor affection for her father. I just get arm flailing neurotics in every scene she's in.
2) Can someone fix the monitor glare in Arkin's glasses? One or two times and we've got a blooper. Almost EVERY scene he's in, you can see the behind-the-scenes monitors glaring blue in his glasses. Distracting. I will say I noticed it less in S2, so maybe that's been fixed (or I just got used to it!).
The Good Doctor (2017)
Plastic, unrealistic
I like Freddie Highmore, and I think his acting is excellent in this series. What drives me crazy about the series is:
1) I have never seen such an unlikable group of actors anywhere on any show or movie. With the exception of the Claire character (and Freddie of course) , they are all cold, stiff, backstabbing wax figures. They couldn't find anyone with a genuine personality? A little bit of warmth?
2) Now I admit I've never been in an operating room, but I have been in a few hospitals including brand new ones. I don't remember seeing 55" vital monitors in any of them. I find it hard to believe that there would be like 3 of these monster monitors in an operating room. And while we're on that subject, what are the odds that during an operation, one of these monitors will turn red and alarms go off? The last one I just watched, I said to my GF "Watch... it's going to flatline". Sure enough. It's SO unrealistic.
I definitely wouldn't watch this if my GF wasn't so into it. But it is good for a laugh when someone comes into the ER skewered with like an oar or a pool cue stick.
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
Distracting dental appliance
I went through a bunch of reviews and thought I'd see this mentioned left and right so apparently it only bothered me.
My beef has to do mainly with the ridiculously large dental appliance (prosthetic?) that was fitted on Malek. At the end of the movie during the credit roll, there is some real vintage footage of Freddie. That gave us a good comparison of how his teeth were supposed to look. Instead it was like two giant chicklets on Malek. And what was so distracting, is you can see how much he was struggling with this appliance. He's constantly running his lip over the thing throughout the entire movie. Like an old man with dentures! Also the way he sucks in his cheeks in the early parts of the movie were very unconvincing. In both of these cases, less would have been much more. I found myself just staring at this poor guy's mouth struggling with this thing and it took away from the movie. Nobody else?
The story itself was good. I would have liked to learn more about who Freddie really was. What was his musical background? How did the band gel so quickly and without any explanation with Freddie's vision of the band? I feel like a lot was left out and it was just throwing in the top 10 songs in a haphazard fashion to appease the viewers.
I should also mention that while Malek's acting was good (certainly not Oscar material IMO), I don't think he was the best one to play Freddie. I constantly saw "I Robot" in him. That and the fidgeting with his mouth and cheeks.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Safety for the Witness (1958)
Wait, it's over?
That's what I said to my wife when it was over. I'm a huge Art Carney/Honeymooners fan. Carney was dull and the plot was barely existent. That only interesting thing about it was when he wrote a check to the hospital
What a stinker!
PS can't be any spoilers. There is nothing to spoil. Skip this one, trust me.
The Affair: Episode #4.1 (2018)
Tense. In a monotonous way.
If you like an entire episode of tension, complaining back and forth, you'll love this episode. Ok, we get it. Helen has issues with Noah. Hasn't that been the case for 3 other entire seasons already?
Helen is so uptight ALL THE TIME that it just makes for uncomfortable viewing. If you miss this episode, you'll have missed absolutely NOTHING from this series. Except maybe the last tenth of a second. But they'll show you that at the beginning of episode 2.
The Intern (2015)
Mildly entertaining, but zero on the believability index
I'm the weird movie watcher. I can watch a movie with a premise that is not totally believable, but certain things can spoil the fantasy we're supposed to believe instantly.
For me, this happened almost instantly where we're taken to this bustling Brooklyn e-commerce business with hundreds of employees at their desk answering calls and looking at email. All on banks and banks of spanking new, perfectly aligned Macs. Come on! Is there a company anywhere on planet earth of this size that would be using Macs like this? Every desktop, every laptop has the Apple logo. When Apple got this opportunity, they must have seriously soiled themselves at the opportunity to have the big screen filled with their products. Have you EVER heard the term "Let's Netflix a movie tonight"? Little things like this really take me out of the fantasy of a movie.
Otherwise, the movie is kind of cute. The premise of having to break into the mom's house made me think "Oh... one of those stupid, would never happen in a million years type movies.". You've got a guy like Ben that is supposed to be all proper, dresses well, speaks well, has an immaculate house, and has the proper answer for everything is all of the sudden breaking into mom's house with a bunch of unlikable zit- faced kids. For a 2 hour plus movie, that scene should definitely have been removed.
Lastly, casting, is there anyone that believes a woman like Jules would have a husband like Matt? Anyone? Neat and proper Jules married to a schmo like him? Not believable.
All in all, I'd say I endured this movie. I hated a few things, but DeNiro and Hathaway salvaged an otherwise poorly executed story.
The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip of Bob Weir (2014)
A decent look into The Other One.
I've been to roughly 400 Dead shows in my life. To me, Weir was always that guy that flubbed his lines, or shouted "Ha!" a lot. This documentary has completely enlightened me to who Bob is. It also tells a pretty good story of the Grateful Dead and Bob's relationship with Jerry. There are parts of it that will likely bring you to tears. So many unknowns about Bobby have been answered. And I must say that he seems to have a great outlook in life. His head is screwed on nice and tight. I love the way he refers to dying as "checking out".
This documentary takes you from the days before he met Jerry all the way to the present and offers a very intimate look into the artist, his music and family life. I'm glad I watched it.