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Reviews
Just Legal (2005)
Breath of fresh air
This show is superb. It has the same hard-hitting moral core as the best episodes of Boston Legal, but it dispenses with much of the quirky absurdity and humor. Quirkiness is fine, and BL is a wonderful show because of it, but Just Legal offers an entirely new take on the legal profession that makes it unique among any of the many, many lawyer shows I've seen.
Who could ever think that there could be any such thing as a principled, committed, passionate, and, most importantly, NON-MATERIALISTIC lawyer? And that Don Johnson, of all people, could pull off portraying one? Yet he does, and he is brilliant at it.
Jay Baruchel is a perfect casting choice as well, bringing in just the right note of earnestness and sincerity without being precious.
This is the best TV show I have seen in recent memory. I think it brings in a note of hope and a belief in the American system of justice that is desperately needed in today's world, and I strongly urge the WB to stick with it or revive it. Even the dumbest and most jaded audience can recognize brilliant writing and acting when they see it, and a sustained push to promote this show could do a lot to establish the WB as a purveyor of truly quality programming.
As for age appeal--well, I'm 40, and college-educated. I could see it appealing to bright high-schoolers and even middle schoolers, as well as any and all adults looking for a refreshing change from dippy sitcoms, but not quite into the effort required from PBS programming. I say, have a little faith! It's a show with a very unique sensibility, and I think people may find they really like it. If it can sustain the energy of the two episodes I've seen, it's every bit as good as House, Grey's Anatomy, Boston Legal, ER, you name it--it can hold its own with all of them.
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)
What Gives?
Um....
Evidently the idea was to throw a bunch of actors into a setting and have them make stuff up. As perhaps a warm-up exercise for an improv group, I suppose this might have value; as a feature film, it doesn't. Just.....stupid. Even Steve Buscemi, whom I like, couldn't keep my jaw from dropping. I bailed out halfway through the third piece--I just couldn't take it any more. Why was this film made?
I would write less, but evidently I am required to come up with ten lines of being incensed about this inane collection of encounters between two (sometimes three?) actors (can't call them characters) who don't know each other and seem not to have anything of value to say to each other. An imposition on my good will as a viewer in trying to give any film, even a bad one, the benefit of the doubt. This one doesn't deserve it.
Elizabethtown (2005)
Bad news -- aggressively awful
Yikes. This one started out well enough, with a reasonably interesting premise and a likable enough hero. Then it slid downhill with increasing rapidity to end up a smarmy, treacly, self-indulgent, incoherent, cliché-filled mess. It's pretty clearly an early, immature, self-referential work by a director who I realize I don't care for in the first place.
Wow. I guess if you like Cameron Crowe, and his cheeseball, cloyingly sweet version of romance, or his dippy travelogue sequences and even dippier voice-over narratives, you'll find this great. I can't recommend it to anyone--particularly anyone over about 17 who has moved beyond mix tapes and the starry-eyed cutesie pie infatuation thing. Yuck.