Reviews

When I read the bio of the writer/director Alice Waddington (odd for a director to have a stage name), I was not surprised to find that she came to filmmaking through a history in advertising and fashion. Having worked for decades in that field myself, I can understand how she could craft a film full of gorgeous imagery and only about 30 seconds worth of plot. This is one of the worst conceived stories I've ever seen, all wrapped in one of the most gorgeous production designs. Ms Waddington is one helluva producer/art director but has no business directing a storyline. This is a non-story, and what plot there is on screen is full of holes. From point A to point Z, this story is just a long string of cliches and silly twists...and occasional singing? What??

Worse than all that, it's inexplicably BORING. You'd think we could be satisfied with the lush scenery and fanciful wardrobe, but the story is so mind numbingly dull and convoluted, it isn't even helped by the eye candy. Even the special effects are cheesy and retrograde, like Tron meets Alice in Wonderland, that my strongest emotion throughout was embarrassment.

I don't know HOW it got financed, greenlit and cast. I don't know how this cast of worthwhile young actresses agreed to star in this incoherent mess. Most advertising professionals are satisfied with short form and it's just as well. If this is an example of what we can do with two hours, we have no business venturing outside of the small screen. Bad, bad, bad. But very pretty. On behalf of ad folk everywhere, I apologize.

I've recently challenged myself to watch EVERY version of Great Expectations available on film. There are many. Dozens. It seems that someone is making a version almost every year. And after watching several, with several more to go, I have to say this one is the most disappointing. The dialogue is both dry and overwritten. Florid and yet dull! No small feat.

The performances lack credible emotion but are also overly dramatic. I blame the director because the performances are uniformly...bad.

The best versions of Great Expectations marry drama with wit (2011). Some are dark. This version is dark and humorless, but somehow lacking in drama! Yeesh. EVERY single character is either boring and flat or completely loathsome. Even Pip is unlikable!! HOW have they managed to ruin Pip??

Skip this one. The 1946 movie and the 2011 and 2023 miniseries are much better. Even the 1998 Ethan Hawke/Gwyneth Paltrow remake is better, if only for the stellar Anne Bancroft performance. For fun, you might want to watch the 1946 movie and 1989 miniseries back to back. In 1946, Jean Simmons plays heartbreaker Estella. In the 1989, she plays the tragically unhinged Miss Havisham.

This has been a wild ride, watching all of these adaptations. I recommend it, but again, skip this one. It's a bore. Even Charlotte Rampling can't save it.

Everything from the dialogue to the narration to the character names is amateurish. It plays like a cheap romance novel. I do think that the actors involved would do better if the dialogue and direction were better, but this movie is simply terrible. It does seem well funded, so the production value is pretty high. It looks pretty good though I'm not a fan of the messy, shaky camera work. Movies like this do not need a hand held camera look. It doesn't add drama; it just looks...amateurish. I wanted this to be a hidden gem, but it's basically a bad made-for-TV movie with shoe-horned profanity in it. Even the extensive use of the F-word feels phony. Amazing.

If you love movies about movie making, if you love Mamet, if you love lightning fast dialogue...and most importantly, it you have ever earned a living as a PRODUCER, you will love this movie. Honestly, if you've ever worked as part of a film crew in any capacity, you'll love this movie. It's full of inside jokes about film making and playwriting. It's a treat for any former or current theater nerd, and drama club member.

If you loved The Player, The Big Picture, Sullivan's Travels or Singin' in The Rain (all among my personal favorite movies about movie making), then buckle up and pay attention. It's been about 20 years since I first saw this little gem and I'm still finding Easter eggs throughout. I know a lot of people don't love David Mamet because his dialogue can be very stagey. I love him for exactly that reason. There is something pure and enjoyable about dialogue that would never happen in real life. It's not that the characters are smarter and quicker than normal humans. They are often dumb, self obsessed and and grotesque. Remember Glenngary Glenn Ross? Those guys weren't geniuses by any stretch, but their dialogue was endlessly delicious, like I imagine an Everlasting Gobstopper would be. No, it's not real, but it's delightful and even more so for it's distance from reality.

PLEASE DISREGARD THE TRAILER!! That is one of the worst, most misleading trailers ever made. I'm convinced that the trailer is one of the reasons this movie didn't so very well. They made it appear that this is a screwball comedy. It is not. It is layered and SMART and yes, funny...but it's not screwball. It is simply one of the best David Mamet movies out there and it's a shame that it doesn't get more attention. The dialogue is endlessly quotable and the performances are super strong. Most of them, anyway. One thing I've never understood about David Mamet is his devotion to his troupe of performers, some of whom are simply not strong enough. Ricky Jay? What, did they go to summer camp together or something? He's in EVERY Mamet movie. I don't get it. And Rebecca Pigeon. A flatter affect I have rarely seen, but at least I understand why she's there. She's David Mamet's wife. She's also an actor whose style is so mannered, self aware and stiff that I can barely stand to watch her. But watch her, I will, because I love David Mamet's writing.

--IN SHORT, Please check out this movie. It is WAY smarter and funnier than the marketing department at Fine Line Features gave it credit for. David Mamet is a MUSt stronger director than one might imagine and this is a movie that will make you laugh out loud on the 1st, 3rd or 10th viewing. Trust me.'-I took one star away because the naked misogyny and homophobia will turn some people off, but that's part of the time capsule-ness of it.

Alex Semchuck and his not so merry band of whiners have created an expose of some nameless direct sales company and have done so by breaking down, in excruciating detail, every aspect of their sales training.

Yes, folks, Alex has blown the lid off of...SALES.

This "documentary" is just ridiculous. It purports to be about MLMs, but really, it's just a bunch of rubes complaining about common direct sales techniques. There is nothing new about these techniques and, to a person of even average intelligence, there is nothing especially coercive about them. I ended up watching this whole thing because I was waiting for some expose of illegal marketing or employment practices. What I saw instead was a bunch of shockingly inexperienced adults WHINING about being forced to learn techniques that might, in the end, actually net them some income. It's clear why they were hired by nameless sales company. They say they were desperate. They SAY that the recruiting never stopped and that the high turnover rate is an indictment of something very sinister...instead of an industry wide reality of entry level direct sales. It's not a fun gig. People often leave after a short while. But what I don't understand is why every single one of these people interviewed for the film were so SHOCKED by and resistant to the notion that they'd have to do sales in this job. That's clearly what it is. Having the second interview in a STORE should have been the first (because they definitely needed one) CLUE.

Insert sarcasm and eye-roll HERE: So they're tricked into taking a sales job (*gasp*) and are coerced into learning techniques to be better at the job including "networking" (*DOUBLE GASP*) and...I hate to even use this language...staff meetings!'

They were continually told that "sales" was not important and that they were a marketing company, not a sales company. LIARS!!! How DARE they switch the terminology on such trusting individuals? How DARE they reposition sales as MARKETING?

This is NOT about MLMs. There is NO information about sales people having to shell out their own money to buy product and then finding themselves in massive debt if they couldn't sell or bring in lower level partners. In fact, Alex and company don't seem to understand in any way what a Pyramid Scheme is. They have equated a system in which there are more people filling the lower level sales jobs, and fewer people in top management with a Pyramid. I mean...by that standard, every company on the planet is a Pyramid Scheme, because all companies have more people at entry level than they do at middle management and the smallest number of people at the C-level jobs.

ALL sales based companies rely heavily on culture, excitement, and slightly misleading language to get the job done. Most clever adults can spot these techniques and avoid getting taken. But let's be honest, we have ALL been roped in once or twice by a clever sales pitch combined with an impulse to buy. That's how direct sales works. It's not a crime; it's a business.

The REAL CRIME is that streaming services like Amazon Prime are so thirsty for original content that they'll buy almost anything, even a piece of nonsense like this. Nothing is revealed here, except for the embarrassing naïveté of the people interviewed. I have to wonder what work any of them ended up finding, if this job struck at the very core of their personal moral code. I know sales isn't for everyone. It's not for me! I spent a summer selling cars, and let me tell you, THAT is a sales job that will test your faith in humanity. Selling personal health aids at Walmart isn't about to bring about the end of civilization as we know it. But what about these people who are SO DEVASTATED that they were forced to take notes, learn how to sell, learn to not call it :selling", go to professional conferences, and...network?? What happened to them, oh Lord??

I have news, kids: Entry level sucks and the only way to get out of it is to get THROUGH it. That seems to be what this not-MLM was trying to teach you. You refused the lesson, but what then? Another entry level job? It will also suck, so hang in there and get through it. The next step, just as promised, is much better.

TL:DR - Don't watch this documentary. It's not a documentary. It's a long winded, ignorant complaint. Watch ANYTHING else.

As other reviewers have mentioned, the obvious, this is such an homage to The Big Chill that it's basically a remake. And it is SO well done! The casting is perfect, the dialogue is every bit as snappy and sharp as the original. The updates for millennials are pitch perfect. Characters complaining about our current obsession with documenting every moment instead of LIVING every moment. Our habit of referencing movies and tv shows to explain experiences and feelings...instead of actually experiencing them and describing them with...words. The writer, a Jesse Zwick, has nailed the failures, idiosyncrasies and benefits of our digital age without ever coming across as preachy or self indulgent. He observes his characters (He observes all of US) without judgement. His touch is just light enough to avoid cheesy sentimentality. Imagine handling an attempted suicide with such skill and wit. He takes us along as he imagines what might have happened if Alex, played by Kevin Costner's wrists in the original, had lived. He fleshes out the awkwardness, guilt, anger, relief that Alex's friends might have felt in the days immediately following the suicide attempt . This script could have gone so wrong. It went so right. This was Jesse Zwick's first produced script and his directorial debut. Attention must be paid. I can't wait to see what else this guy has up his sleeve.

I have no complaints! I am thrilled that the director chose to not make a wall to wall "greatest hits of THAT moment" soundtrack. It would have been so easy to do and would have hit us all squarely in the feels, but choosing to keep the sound spare was a braver move. He let the writing stand on its own, and it works!

The Big Chill came out when I was in high school. I am NOT a millennial, yet I did relate to many of the issues raised in the film. My friends and I went to see the film several times in the theater and then bought the damned soundtrack. I remember us cruising around our small town blasting that soundtrack from the crappy stereo system in our equally crappy cars. Freedom! One might expect that someone with such deep seated, sweet memories of the original might hate this remake/homage. They would be wrong. I loved it.

That small town was in New Jersey. My memories and love of the state are just as strong as Bruce Springsteen's, though I moved away years ago. But as Josh says in one of his many quotable lines, "Never trust anyone who is that passionate about the state of New Jersey." He's not wrong; I'm an unrepentant Jersey Girl and I expect my affection for this movie will be as lasting (and irrational) as my love for my home state.

Give this movie a chance. If you loved the Big Chill, you will love this too.

This movie was SO bad, that a moments, I thought it might be a parody. It was ALMOST a "so bad, it's good" kind of movie, but it falls short. G m gThis is not one of Agatha Christie's better works, but this adaptation would have her spinning in her grave. Not only is the setting of the story random, it's kind of offensive. It's set on "safari" in "Africa," though no safari activities seem to take place and the "natives" (they don't bother giving them a nationality) don't speak a language. They simply click their tongues. Not as PART of the language, but as the entire language! Just...ignorant and offensive. This was the moment when I thought they might be going for comedy...but no.

The cast is a mess, ranging from Donald Pleasance to Frank Stallone (the less talented brother...), yet they all turn in shockingly bad performances. When Brenda Vacaro delivers the strongest performance in a movie, you know you're in trouble.

I've already wasted 101 minutes watching this movie and another 3 writing this review. I will give it no more of my time.

DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE.

Rita, both the character and the show, are complex, irreverent, beautiful and wildly entertaining.

This show is SO well written, especially for...a comedy? I think it's too bawdy and funny to be called a framed, but there is NOTHING silly or sitcom-y about it either. I'm so glad Netflix didn't ruin it with terrible English dubbing, as they do with so many foreign language movies and series. I don't know why they cannot find better actors to do the dubbing; it really diminishes the experience to SEE great performances but hear...amateur hour. Watching Rita in its intended Danish is harder work, but so worth it. Please give it a try.

As a producer, I should add that the production of this film is excellent. The sound design, wardrobe(!!), art direction, casting, production design, graphics, color grading and music? Flawless!! This is a WIN for all of the artists and producers responsible. The direction was not terrible, but I have to question the integrity of a director, or in this case two directors, who would feel good about clocking this movie in at almost 2 hours. The editing was fine but sluggish. Again, I blame the directors for it. My earlier review was harsh and I stand by it as a viewer, but as a producer, I have to give this movie added credit. If you dig the art and craft of moviemaking as I do, this is definitely worth watching. But again, don't expect much from the script. It is NOT good.

I went to a "Jesus Camp" when I was a kid. This was back in the 70s, before politicians had completely co-opted evangelical Christianity...or vice versa. Even so, the teachings were so anachronistic that I didn't attend church of any kind for the next 10 years. I was told that my "unsaved" friends were going to hell. That's pretty traumatizing. This was in the northeast, not the South, as many might assume. Never assume.

Other concerning details about this church/camp: While at most camps, junior counselors are called CITs, for "counselors in training," at this camp, they were called HITs, for "husbands in training" and "housewives in training". I KID YOU NOT.

We had hours of church EVERY DAY. AT CAMP!

During one hours long service, several kids, including myself were brought on stage for questioning. Each child was asked what they want to be when they grow up. Every single one said "a missionary " (met by loud cheers) except for me. When they got to me, I said "an actress!". Silence...I've gotta love that kid.

One day, I pulled an HIT aside and asked her what about my Jewish friends? They don't believe Jesus is the Messiah. And what about people in parts of the world where they've never even heard of Jesus? Would they all go to Hell?!? She was stunned. Speechless. Had she never even considered the question? Had she never met a non-christian? She said she needed to go away and think about that question. The next day (really, girl?), she came back with the answer. Here it is: People who've never had access to "the word" are spared because it's not their fault...but my Jewish friends? Well, they have access...so if they don't renounce their religion and accept Jesus as their personal savior, they were going to Hell. OMG! Criminal.

I saw this documentary when it first came out and recognized so many of the messages and manipulation. Seeing it again 15 years later, it's even more chilling because I see the damage that all of the intervening years of religious/political division have done to our country. This doc was a warning.

Religion has no business in school or in politics. It's incredibly dangerous and divisive. Keep it in the home because it's PERSONAL, not policy. I have to thank Word Of Life Camp for teaching me the dangers of organized religion, though it was clearly not their intention. I saw very young how it could be twisted into a weapon of ignorance.

I friend of mine was raving about this show a couple of years ago, but I blew it off as yet another sci fi of fantasy escapist show. I was wrong. This is a complex and wildly compelling series. It's not a costumes-and-magic live action comic book. I find those boring. This was more like a brilliant, thought provoking book that you can't put down. It's anchored in enough sharp reality to keep it from feeling silly, yet it does poke at the imagination. What if?

I can't understand why Netflix cancelled the series, but I suspect it was because dummies like me just ignored it as another in the over- saturated fantasy genre. It. Is. Not. That.

Nothing is ever truly dead. I hope Netflix or some other smart company will resurrect this show. It deserves another chance at life.

I get how this got produced. These limited series, based on a mystery/crime has been very successful on Netflix. But this one is very weak sauce. The writing is so belabored and cliché. The police lieutenant who wants to shut down an investigation because it may ruffle the feathers of a respected citizen. An older detective being dismissive and downright disrespectful of his younger partner. The detective also has a past...of course. The higher ups are worried about his mental stability. It all sounds like an unimaginative rip off of Manhunter and Lethal Weapon. There are many other examples of flat out lame thievery, but these were the most glaring.

If you want some recent limited series that actually delivery on the promise of imagination, check out Harlan Coben's work on Netflix. The best, I think, are "The Stranger" and "Safe", but he has several. And bonus: each series is only about 5 episodes, so you don't have time to get bored. They're very satisfying. Well written, well acted, and containing genuine surprises and twists. If you want more of a classic thriller (circa 1985-ish), definitely check out "Manhunter". It's the precursor to the Hannibal Lector stories. Different cast entirely, and it was directed by Michael Mann, who also directed "To Live and Die in LA" and "Miami Vice". His work is very stylized, and heavily art directed, but it's original! And who doesn't need a little eye candy now and then? Oh, and brilliant ear candy. The score and soundtrack will stay with you for a very long time.

Bottom line: there is MUCH better content out there. Much better. This was too long, too unoriginal, too flat in every direction.

This movie isn't even "so bad, it's good". Sometimes a movie is such a train wreck that watching it is an entertaining endurance challenge. This is not such a movie. I feel like this movie got a green light based on the title and a one page pitch...and then the writer ran out of ideas. A story about the last possible crimes before a neurological device stops the entire country from acting on criminal impulses is a GREAT premise! How did this device get distributed? Who stands to gain from the end of crime? Why does Michael Pitt's character have such a jacked up relationship with his family? If people are going to murder their immediate family, the audience needs to know WHY. There are so many questions that go unanswered in this movie. In fact, there is not ONE plot device that makes sense. There is not ONE storyline that satisfies. There is not ONE character worth caring about.

I'm offended that this movie was even made, it has the production value of a decent budget, yet it seems to have been written and directed by unimaginative middle schoolers. Middle schoolers with a VERY RICH PARENT.

If you're old enough to remember Pia Zadora's "Butterfly," this movie is worse than that! Butterfly was a vanity project starring the talentless Zadora and financed by her crazy-rich, super-old husband. It featured father/daughter incest Story treated with inexplicably romantic gauze-over-the-lens soft focus. Until this, it was the worst movie I've ever seen. I'd watch that tripe again to avoid seeing this again...

..So I have a couple of questions for the producers of this film. 1) Where did the money come from? 2) HOW did you get the very talented Michael Pitt to sell his soul for this dreck? Is he deep in debt? Was he blackmailed? 3) Why is it that in an industry where so many super talented women and minority writers and directors are struggling to get a break, this Megaton hack is still able to get financing? Please let this be his last picture. In addition to some of the worst directing this side of "Showgirls," this director had the audacity to clock this trash in at 2.5 hours! Grotesquely self indulgent.

Yeah, no. Don't see this movie. Not even for fun.