Change Your Image
dm-92194
Reviews
Darkening Sky (2010)
Great concept but lite on action
A combination of science fiction and supernatural ideas. Alien abduction versus dreams. The gorgeous actress Danielle Keaton reminds me so much of the character, Death in The Sandman comic books written by Neil Gaiman. As a matter of fact her character name in the movie is, Beth. Same exact look and hairstyle.
Cobra Kai (2018)
S1-10, S2-7, S3-6, and S4-5
Season 1 of CobraKai is by far the best. Season 4 is teens making childish decisions and adults making childish decisions. If you love the films you'll appreciate the TV show. William Zabka's Johnny Lawrence is excellent as always and Daniel LaRusso will always be the moral heart of the show. Season 4 was a letdown. It's just teens and the adults all making ridiculous decisions.
Daughter of the Wolf (2019)
A much better movie than the reviews
I was pleasantly surprised. The movie is well made and the Canada winter backdrop is breathtaking. Excellent cinematography. Gina Corano's acting is improving with each new movie. Richard Dreyfus plays an awesome villain. He's a nasty old curmudgeon. A little side note. The wolves in this movie are all real Canada wolves. I mention this because a major problem I had with the far superior movie The Grey was the movies use of animatronic wolves. It was obvious and very distracting. So great job to the film crew for incorporating real Canada wolves.
A Christmas Carol (1984)
God Bless Us, Every One!
This is by far the definitive version of Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol directed by Clive Donner for TV. In my humble opinion this movie has the best rendition of Marley's Ghost (Frank Finlay), best Ghost of Christmas Present (Edward Woodward), best Nephew Fred Holywell (Roger Reese), and best Tiny Tim (Anthony Walters). And an excellent Ghost of Christmas Past (Angela Pleasance) and Bob Cratchit (David Warner)! Now you may be asking what about the Scrooge character??? George C. Scott's Scrooge is both memorable and melancholy. His transformation is one of the very best. But not the best Scrooge. Alas that has to go to Alistair Sim's version of A Christmas Carol (I believed it was called Scrooge) directed by Brian Desmond Hurst. Now let me make this clear. What makes or breaks a production of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol is Marley's Ghost or Jacob Marley. According to the book he should be both haunting and yet tug at your heart strings. Frank Finlay is the best Jacob Marley, bar none. Anyway that's my take and a Merry Christmas to you! God bless us, every one!
The Witcher (2019)
Season 2 is a 5 and Season 1 is a 10
This review is for Season 2. Season 1 I would rate it a 10 and that's including the confusing time jump narrative. Although it took me until episode 4 in season 1 to realize what was going on there was a payoff I appreciated. So season 1 is a 10. Now for season 2. I'm 4 episodes in for season 2 and so far I would rate it a 5. The biggest improvement for season 2 is the CGI. The monsters look tangibly there. Watch the dragon episode in season 1 and you will know what I mean. So kudos to season 2 for the awesome CGI. Now for season 1 and 2 Henry Cavill's Geralt of Rivia is the best thing about the show. He lifts the show single-handedly. He is the show. This is where season 2 suffers. When Geralt is absent the show suffers. Instead we are forced to watch characters regress after being fleshed out in the previous season. A great example of this is Yennefer. She had a great story arc in season 1 only to have her character reset in season 2. It doesn't make sense. She inexplicably lost her powers mainly to propel the plot. Just not good. Now for the main issue. Outside of episode 1, the best episode by far, the show suffers from the lack of a cohesive narrative thread. Each episode is only connected by the last 5 minutes. It's like you invest 40 plus minutes to each episode, random things happen and then at the end towards the last 5 minutes it attempts to explain how it connects and what the next episode is about. That's bad storytelling. As a matter of fact if you watch any of the first 4 episodes in any order and it wouldn't matter. There's nothing interlocking the narrative. The monsters appear just because. The cast. This season cast seems a bit off because characters are just introduced without any back story or explanation. They just show up. This happens with the introduction of the Graham McTavish's Sigismund Dijkstra character. Graham is a great actor but even he needs a better intro. Then we are introduced to a character in a dungeon whom reminds me of C. Thomas Howell's character in Soul Man. Same with the elves story line. The characters are not fleshed out. We are just told to care for them. The returning cast is great providing they have good material as with Geralt, Ciri, and Fringilla. Both Ciri and Fringilla are each given a beefier role and the show is better for it. Anyway I'm hoping episodes 5 through 8 are much better.
Hawkeye (2021)
Sokovia Accords with BvS beginning
Okay. I just watched the first 2 episodes. So far so good. Jeremy Renner is great as usual as Clint Barton. Heilee Steinfeld hasn't sold me yet. There's a small scene when Clint Barton asks her how old are you...18? And she answers, no I'm 22. He then inexplicably replies same thing. This is the problem with Heilee's approach to her character Kate Bishop. She does not act like a 22 year old. She acts like a child. Is this Disney's influence? Hopefully they correct this with further episodes. The beginning of Hawkeye completely reminded me of the beginning of Batman v Superman. When Bruce Wayne witnesses the destruction of Metropolis and how it motivates him. Kate Bishop goes through something similar. The banter between Clint and Kate is believable and it works well. The villains are somewhat cartoony for the first 2 episodes. The supporting cast is good with Vera Farmiga playing Kate's mom, sporting a terrible wig (it was so distracting) during a flashback scene. It also has Lalo Salamanca. Tony Dalton is completely miscast here. He's not suave and debonair. His acting seems too forced. Overall the production values are high as always for a Marvel Universe product. The first 2 episodes hooked me. I'll continue to watch.
Hunter Hunter (2020)
The Most Dangerous Game
Some spoilers ahead. The movie starts of great right out of the gate. We have a hunter father and daughter team as well as a doting wife. They introduce us to the antagonist fairly early. It's a wolf that does not hunt its own prey but instead follows the route of preset traps made by the father daughter team and scavenges off what is trapped. Eating away at their livelihoods. Sorry for the pun. The father sets out to hunt the wolf. The film does a great job with the homesteading aspect of life. The family is really off the grid. They live off the fat of the land. The father does a great job training his daughter in every aspect of the hunting and trapping business. There's a cool scene about brain tanning. Anyway the daughter is well trained enough to help teach her mom how to skin a deer. The movie falls apart with the daughter's death. More on that later. About a third into the movie it changes direction completely. You see the father discovers multiple dead bodies of missing women. One woman is clearly tied around a tree trunk. Definitely not killed by wild animals. A serial killer is on the loose. The real wolf. I can understand why the father did not go to the police and instead attempted to catch the killer. He wanted no police poking around his home or any possible land ownership disputes as a result of a police investigation. But not telling his wife he was attempting to catch the killer made no sense. However there are scenes that show the wife and daughter very scared of the wolf animal so maybe he was trying not to scare them any further? Anyway I'll skip other plot details and go straight to where the movie derailed. The daughter was much too well trained to be killed in that manner. Although she was 13 in the movie she was adept with a rifle, knife, and animal traps. The serial killer who was already badly injured and was on his knees strangling the wife and all the daughter did was scream. The daughter death is offscreen and we don't even see how she dies. We can only surmise it was a gruesome death because of the absolute ferocity and brutality of the type of revenge the wife exacted on the serial killer. No spoilers there. The scene was rushed to us as viewers but it must have been an eternity for the victim. That's a good thing. Anyway the daughters death derailed the entire movie. Too bad because it was at the end.
Eternals (2021)
Eternals: Gods Among Us
I have to say I had low expectations going in but I was pleasantly surprised. The movie is better than the what the critics made it out to be. It is a more somber story for sure. That would be off putting for usual MCU fans for sure. The DC references caught me off guard. Hence the title of my review. Not blatant attacks on DC like in Deadpool 2 but more subtle references. More like an homage? Very weird. The visuals are great however the movie suffers due to length and the chemistry within the actors. The chemistry is not great. Overall I enjoyed the movie.
Halloween Kills (2021)
A Good Beginning to the End
A great Halloween movie with friends and family. Michael's kills are more personal in this movie. He's taking his time and improving on his craft. Very little Laurie Strode or Jamie Lee Curtis. But lots of fun. I removed 2 points because of unnecessary subplot involving an escapee. Again the kills are brutal. Lots of fun.
The Many Saints of Newark (2021)
Not a Sopranos Anything
This is my first review. Let me start by saying I was extremely saddened and disappointed by the movie. Nothing in this movie had anything to do with Tony. It was a bunch of subplots and Tony wasn't part of any of them. I thought this was the making of Tony Soprano. What's positive? The late actor's son did a fine job of portraying a young Tony Soprano. Now the negatives. No coherent plot. It was just a bunch of scenes. There was no narrative thread anywhere. The Newark riots subplot ran way too long only to be used as a way to hide a murder. We are introduced to a new gangster by the name of Harold that has zero to do with with Tony. Why was he added? He did not propel the story and he was absolutely not germane to the plot. We get some random scene where Harold meets who I assume is famed Harlem gangster Frank Lucas that adds nothing to the film. It's just tacked on. The other actors seem to mimic the shows iconic characters and they mostly fail. The actor playing Silvio Dante was way too undersized. He captured some of his mannerisms but it seemed mostly forced to me. The actor playing a young Paulie Walnuts had to be the worst. He got nothing right. The actors playing Dickie Moltisanti, Junior Soprano, and Livia Soprano did very well. The rest of the cast was okay too. Nothing in this movie gave us any insight into the old beloved characters. This movie is a complete fail.