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Versailles (2015)
Diminishing returns
Season One of this series was so amazing, I binged it through twice back to back. Opulent, intriguing, sexy, thought provoking, dramatic. The characters and historical figures were fascinating, and all their entwined relationships, conflicts, lust, treachery and affections absolutely compelling. I loved the costumes, sets, settings. I cried deeply along with losses and was horrified at the easy cruelties on display. I couldn't wait to see season 2....and then I saw it. What a terrible disappointment. There's so much happening (and over happening) all the time it's hard to discern what's even going on or keep track of anyone. No one can shine because the writers are basically trying to make everything something at every possible moment. The next season is no better, I gave up without finishing. My suggestion is stick with Season 1 and pretend it was a miniseries and then move on without watching the rest.
Yours, Mine and Ours (1968)
A lot of fun to watch, but take is a mostly fiction
How can you not have a good time with a film like this? Very loosely based on a real life family in the 60s in California, Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda play a harried, yet hilarious couple of single parents who meet, fall in love and marry...combining themselves into a blended family of 20 with a baby on the way. The movie set up makes for endless hijinks, scheduling issues, misadventures and a bit of slapstick, and Lucy and Fonda are great in their roles. However, seeing this again as a parent makes you start to kind of hurt for what it must have been like actually to be in a family that eventually included 22 kids in real life (constant noise, barely a moment with the parents, constant shortfalls of food in the house, never a moment alone, etc). And if you like the movie, I suggest you keep it on a fictional setting and not make the mistake of looking for what the very grown kids from the real family said about their lives in recent years (I'm sorry I did because it was even more sad than what I'd been fearing). Overall, I'd recommend it as a truly worthwhile watch.
The Mallorca Files (2019)
Just no
My husband and I tried with this series because we wanted to watch some fun mysteries in a warm, scenic setting. The scenery is indeed gorgeous, but all the rest is like watching cardboard cut outs of people move around in frame and says things in word bubbles. The plots are uninteresting, the acting is wooden and the mysteries are less complex than a Hallmark production. I think we zoned out halfway through each of the 4 or 5 episodes we forced ourselves to sit through to give this a solid try. I can't believe it had more than one season, but it does. I can't even recommend it for something to leave on as background noise.
Challengers (2024)
Not sure what this is even supposed to be...
I was really looking forward to this after seeing all the intriguing trailers and having to wait for it to be released after so many delays, yet now having seen it I can't help but feel a bit baffled and disappointed. The story begins with Tashi (Zendaya), Art (Faist) and Patrick (O'Connor), three skilled young tennis players with promise to be stars of the field. Art and Patrick have been friends forever and there seems to be a hint they're both bi but haven't discovered it and have an unrealized thing for each other. They also instantly have burning crushes for Tashi. All three seem to be hotly drawn to each other and I thought, aha, this will be a bold exploration of a throuple over time against the backdrop of the stresses of a high profile sport. That would have been a good, cohesive, sexy, interesting story. But, sigh, no. The writers didn't have the courage or skill to give us that. Instead, we get hokey melodrama of Art and Patrick fighting over Tashi, Tashi sustaining an embittering career ending injury, Patrick and Art ending their friendship, Tashi inexplicably marrying Art to make him a tennis star, Patrick's career ending in the gutter (why you say? We're never told), and Tashi cheating on Art with Patrick on and off through the years. This all culminates when Art develops tennis block (no, really) and Tashi threatens to leave him unless he works through it by participating in a low level series of tournaments called the Challengers event. He gets matched eventually against a beleaguered Patrick in it for money, Tashi cheats with Patrick again (why?) and then in the last match up Patrick and Art play a lively game against each other, but end up hugging at the net before finishing with Tashi jumping up and cheering in the stands. It's all kind of vague and meaningless. Are we to understand Tashi was trying to get them together as a couple? What, for 15 years? Then why marry Art? Was she hoping to make them a dedicated threesome and now she's thrilled they've reconciled...then why didn't she actually sit down and hash this out before now when we see her have a myriad of opportunities to do so when the other 2 might have been receptive? The end seems to hint Tashi was looking for just such a result as Art having to play Patrick, but earlier she has no idea Patrick was even going to be involved, so making Art do this could not have had such a convoluted plan. Zendaya, Faist and O'Connor are fine actors and their acting skills are no less than excellent here, but they have practically nothing to work with story or writing wise. The plot just goes nowhere and and amounts to nothing. At the end I was left with regret for what might have been for this movie with a better script.
Jack Ryan (2018)
Season 1 is terrific and Seasons 2-4 are pretty meh
My husband and I had watched ads for years for this series and never made the move to try it out until last month. I think we were worried that this reimagining of the Jack Ryan universe wouldn't live up to the big screen movie Tom Clancy book adaptations we so like (yes, we know they were different than the books, we read them, but we liked both page and screen versions). Then one night we found ourselves with nothing to watch and decided why not give this series a go after all. Let me say, season 1 is absolutely fantastic in nearly every way. Dr. Jack Ryan (John Krasiniski) is a younger Ryan with a more recent military background, but he's the same relatable, intelligent research nerd CIA analyst who doesn't want to get into field work, but can throw down if he has to. And boy does he have to in this season, with the threat of a never before named terrorist cell making all sorts of shadow moves that point to their wanting to make some big attack on US soil. It's fast paced, has some interesting smaller character moments and a storyline that's complex, but followable. We binged it in a matter of 3 nights. We couldn't wait for season 2. And then season 2 happens...and it's bad. Leaden, plodding, and often incomprehensible. It has to do with a Senator friend of Jack's wanting to go to Venezuela and ask about some satellite photos that show cargo containers going into the jungle. Now, right off, my husband and I couldn't figure out how any leader of another country would even entertain a foreign envoy asking about...cargo...moving around their country? I mean, we as an audience know the fictional Venezuelan president is corrupt and up to some no good stuff, but since Jack and the senator basically have nothing but pictures of some random cargo containers moving around, what are they even pointing out. After many, many deaths, improbable rescues, stupid mistakes and Jack now operating like he's Captain America, it all boils down to some illegal mining and a corrupt government... not much else. Then there's season 3, which has Jack acting like James Bond pumped full of Super Soldier Serum and even the pretext of him being an analyst is gone. This season is a Russian hardliner nuclear threat that is so preposterous we must have stopped every episode 4 times just to look at each other and say, "is this dumb, or is it just me?" Season 4 has Jack suddenly thrust into the role of acting deputy director of the CIA, which seems laughable considering he's operated like a rogue field officer for his last 3 missions and hasn't shown a lick of administrative skill in years. Halfway through season 4 we stopped watching. The plot line is not even cohesive or fathomable, but it has something to do with Myanmar and a man named Chavez who thought he was working directly for the CIA for years, only to find out he was duped into working off book black ops that were never sanctioned by any government entity. Take my advice, Season 1 is a winner, definitely watch it, and then end things there. Watching seasons 2-4 only makes you mad at what was done to a series with so much potential.
The Idea of You (2024)
Overall, annoying
Here's this movie in a nutshell: Anne Hathaway portrays a beautiful, vivacious 40-year-old divorced mom who improbably finds herself in a genuine, passionate, happy and monogamous romantic relationship with a 24 year old celebrity who headlines one of the most popular bands in the world. When this comes to light, basically everyone around her gives her a hard time for it and complains incessantly about the impact it has on their lives (her teen daughter included) until she agrees to give up her lover for 5 years to kick the can down the road. Even more improbably, after 5 years (where I guess each of them was just miserable and alone for the whole time for no reason other than the selfishness of everyone around them) they reunite and resume a relationship again. Do writers who put huge absences in romantic stories have any idea the toll these would take on actual people? The pain, mental drain, emotional hardship? It's like they think it's cute. No one would wait five years of no contact and then easily say, welp, we're back together. That distance would wreck any original feelings anyone had and almost everyone would get tired of being alone and would have moved on. It's preposterous. Not to mention, we're supposed to be delighted that the two main characters basically sacrifice all their happiness for a huge chunk of time just so that everyone else can feel good. Nice that no one around them wanted to rally to help them stay together and work it out so everyone could have some joy. The whole thing just made me angry and depressed. Wish I'd skipped it.
The Oxford Murders (2008)
Pretty awful.
Dull, stilted, boring and incomprehensible in parts. Elijah Woods plays an advanced mathematics student in Oxford to study under the professor he's obsessively admired from afar for years. Taking up lodgings with an enigmatic elderly woman and her daughter, he soon finds the professor rather abrasive and prone to humiliating students for fun. Disappointed in finding out his idol has feet of clay, he determines to pack his bags and leave...only to see the professor arrive at his landlady's house and the pair discover she is dead. Murdered. Sounds like a great mystery set up, doesn't it? I thought so, too. But, what followed was a complete bore that was almost impossible to follow as the professor and student team up to solve the crime and the prof postulates and philosophizes about abstract math theory being the key to the crime. Spoiler, it isn't. Long story short, the prof is a longtime friend of the landlady and her daughter, the elderly woman was dying of a terminal illness and the daughter couldn't handle the situation anymore and killed her suddenly that afternoon, calling the prof for help after. The prof showing up when the student was packing was due to this, only neither of them expected the student to be there. So, the prof using all these abstract math theories to dazzle the student with while they "solve" the murder was just a smokescreen. In the end, the student figures it out, but he and the prof get to philosophizing over math again and the inference is the daughter is never revealed to anyone else as the killer and a separate man who is already dead is blamed for it. The acting is shockingly wooden, the plotting is terrible and the writing is impenetrable. Give this a pass. I wish I had.
This Is Me... Now: A Love Story (2024)
Just don't.
Undertaking a completely self funded vanity project never goes well, and this is no exception. It's indulgent, incomprehensible for the most part, poorly envisioned and even more poorly executed. I'd describe the storyline, but there isn't really one. I think it's supposed to be an allegory about her dating and marriage history...but it is so confusing I'm not even sure. I saw the documentary about the making of this, as well, and everyone seemed miserable, including Ben Affleck, the production crew, every employee and all the celebs (which numbered few in the end) J Lo managed to beg, manipulate or nag into being involved. Watch it if you're curious and in the mood to cringe. Otherwise, avoid.