williams9 Reviews

On Golden Pond (1981)

Here's a good one

[9/10 · 5 March 2024]

I was 19 in 1981. So, I saw this movie when it was new. That was a while ago but I remember I liked it quite a lot. I may have even seen it more than once with my girlfriend, probably hoping she found it romantic. I think she did. Of course, Hollywood loved it, too. A farewell to Fonda and Hepburn that couldn't have been better.

Fast forward a bit. I'm a playwright and somehow I get to meet the screenwriter Ernest Thompson. I don't see him often, but when I do he always inspires me with his wit and devotion to his craft. He lives now in the lakes region of New Hampshire and you might spot him around town. That Oscar gets him work, even now. The title has named a lot of businesses. There may be a Golden Pond Dry Cleaner. The play or movie is never far away, even if today's 19 year olds have never seen it.

In many ways, On Golden Pond is a reflection of its era. That's a good thing. In fact, I'd argue that is the goal of every writer to tell the future something about the time they lived it. If you're lucky enough to make something that can survive. There's also the stage play that gets done a lot, all over the world, telling essentially the same story. Ernest has tweaked it some, and other icons from Broadway to Community Theater have tried on the role of Norman and Ethyl Thayer and imagined for a minute that they are Henry Fonda or Katherine Hepburn. Ernest played the role at the Winnipesaukee Playhouse.

There's something about this story that lives on when the house is quiet. If you're lucky enough to live on a lake where you can hear the firewood cracking and watch the sunset, a story like On Golden Pond resonates. Even if you don't love the story, the authenticity of it rings true.

I'm going to rate it a 9 out of ten because there is always room for improvement. These reviews that score it less are projecting themselves into their remarks, trying to find something that's not here and insisting it's missing. It's not missing. It's not missing at all.

Constellation (2024)

Lots of crying

[3/10 · 25 February 2024]

When bad things happen to good people, we should care. But, you won't care much because we don't know anything about them. The first episode has some ham-fisted allusions to something terrible that we will have to wait until at least the next episode for, but who cares? We aren't given much of anything about these characters, just a bunch of crying children and crying parents and no context whatsoever except that working in space is scary. The dialogue is dominated by tiny expressions of worry and anguished faces. Long visual sequences suggested something was going to happen and then... nothing happens. We are left to wonder how Jonathan Banks ended up in this thing? Did he read the script before signing on or is it just a paycheck? Five minutes of plot in sixty minutes of worrying and whining. All you can do is hope that people on an actual space station would be better trained.

1883: River (2021) Season 1, Episode 3

Beautiful

[9/10 · 1 October 2023]

At the end of this episode, the question is asked: why make the world so beautiful and fill it with monsters? Why make flowers and hide snakes beneath? Then, it hit me. It wasn't made for us.

This is the theme of this show, in a nutshell. The randomness of death and of beauty. It really explores this pretty well. Not just in this episode, but in all of them so far. It is a little repetitive. It's a show about traveling but without a train, or a highway, or a jet engine. Where something like water is scarce. It asks you to face questions like this, and to wonder how people made it through those times and built the things we now take for granted.

Well done.

Hijack (2023)

What an incredibly poorly written script

[1/10 · 29 June 2023]

Have you seen those videos that insist you must "watch til the end!" only to get to the end and find you've wasted your time? That's the feeling you get with "Hijack." Like the plane it's on, it's going nowhere.

Let's sum up the many things wrong with this series in three bits.

1. The dialogue is terrible.

This series has got to last for ten episodes so it's got to string you along somehow. So, every character has some secret and they've got to reveal just a taste of. It's done in such a maddening, ham fisted way, you will want to punch the screen.

2, The characters are stupid.

Our hero is a BUSINESS NEGOTIATOR? Seriously?! One who just happens to have a connection to the flight? Gimme a break. What guys hijack a plane and don't seem to have a clue about what they want, have no one along that knows the first thing about airplanes and seem to have zero concern that a bullet could depressurize the plane. These morons. Wait, maybe that's plot. See No. 3.

3. The plot is stupid.

No one that has been on airplane since 2001 will believe this plot. It's so incredibly lame it's hard to believe it's not a joke. It's incredibly illogical. No security is so poorly run. In multiple countries. Do you think an air traffic controller would be able to play solitaire on his computer while working? Of course not. That's not a spoiler. It's maddening how stupid this is.

3. Much the aviation bits are inaccurate or illogical.

All kinds of examples, but the lamest one is an overhead speaker that's left on by the captain who's wearing a headset. This was clearly done so the bad guys could hear it. See No. 3.

I'm only two episodes in. It's not likely to get better.

Please. Dear writer and director, tell us how this terrible script ever got made. You must have saved your lunch money for years.

Invasion (2021–2024)

Yes, it's slow. But it's also annoying.

[6/10 · 10 June 2023]

I'm afraid there's nothing that drives me more nuts that scenes about kids being scared. What is scarier than vague and unknown screaming kids? And parents looking for their kids? Some vague story that takes several episodes to even give you a tiny bit of what it is about? And more screaming kids. You can imagine them in the writers room trying to decide what might happen next? Let's have a vague event that doesn't advance the story followed by Mom racing home to find the kids. Let's have one of the characters inexplicably wander off in less than a minute and turn of what appears to be miles away before they find him and it means.... Nothing. So few scenes advance the story. We must dig deeper into oh my gosh did you see that? What did that mean? Nothing. It meant nothing. Scene after scene of poor horror movie plots of kids and their parents making bad decisions.

Some decent acting work kept me in it as long as it did. Some good production work. But, man. Nothing happens. Fifteen minutes of story strung out over ten hours.

Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America (2021)

Worth every second

[10/10 · 24 July 2022]

What you knew, what you thought you knew, what you don't know. Who you are, who your friends are, who your neighbors are. What your street is like, what your town is like, what your country is like. These are all examined by Jeff Robinson in a simple deadpan, sobering in its seriousness. You should see it and think about it and maybe see it again. See you in fifty years.

Fever Pitch (2005)

Friend of the show

[8/10 · 21 July 2022]

I happen to know the actor who plays "Artie." So, I just want to let you know what a terrible performance he turns in. 😋

This is a great movie, except for Scott, of course. I heard about behind the scenes that the best ball player was the Yankees Hideki Matsui who hung out with the actors. Of course, they expected the Sox to lose, too, and had to rewrite the ending.

Great performances from Fallon and Barrymore. Just not so good from my friend, Scott, as Arnie. Just miserable.

Rachel Getting Married (2008)

Deeply Interesting

[9/10 · 12 June 2022]

This movie knows about women. It knows how they think and what's important to them. For all the talk you might hear differently, women do dream about what their wedding might be like. A life long plan to have a certain kind of event. Who they marry is almost beside the point.

So you imagine that before this wedding, Rachel is deciding about whether to bring her sister Kym out of rehab to attend. Of course she will. She loves her sister. Right?

Kym isn't so sure. She's not sure why she is there and she is very uncertain what her record and her past and the heft of that baggage means to her family. Everyone is repressing -- or at least they try to -- everything about what happened with Kym in a very believable "let's just try and get along, shall we?" kind of way. A facade that Kym's father (brilliantly played by Bill Irwin) tries desperately to maintain.

It takes a long time to get to the reveal but it's pretty devastating. Then things start to unravel and when Kym confronts her Mother, it comes to a boil.

Pearl Harbor (2001)

Twenty years later, this movie is still crazy stupid good.

[9/10 · 30 May 2022]

About the best you can say is that it's not terrible. The special effects are top notch. The dialogue is cheesy. The corn is as high as an elephants eye. But, I love this movie. Crazy, stupid love. The aviation is often wrong, wrong, wrong, especially when the radios work better than the most modern one. The relentless action is often more panicked than a puppy in a thunderstorm and I still love it. The love story is oh my gawd so stupid and I love it. The nurses are stunning each and everyone wearing make up at work and I love it. And, it's three hours long. It couldn't be four? It couldn't be six? So easy, so bad, and so good. The critics hated it, do it must be good. Worth a rewatch twenty years later.

Night Sky (2022)

Slow Burn

[8/10 · 22 May 2022]

It takes some time to build up the fairly obvious story. Deep characters and deep stories but not particularly important stories. It's not great but also not terrible. Sometimes compelling it takes several episodes to get into the ScI Fi part but it is worth the wait.

The Tender Bar (2021)

Not remarkable

[7/10 · 10 January 2022]

We look for characters to change in a story. But, there's little change here. We're told JR wants to be a writer from young age. He does become a writer we're told. There are obstacles to that goal but they pass by pretty easily.

Affleck's character doesn't change much. He's a decent guy and stays a decent guy.

JR has a romance that goes nowhere. Not much of a problem. There's little risk to JR if it fails.

There's a scene where JR annoys the parents by talking with his mouth full and being everything they think he is. I admit to being really annoyed by that scene.

That's about it. Meh. Not terrible and not great and nothing much happens.

Mr. Corman (2021)

Thoughtful and kinda brilliant

[8/10 · 16 September 2021]

In the first few episodes I kept waiting for this series to be funny. It doesn't go there. It goes deeper. It's compelling as you try and unravel the big picture. It can be hard to watch sometimes. The anxiety is deeply upsetting. Strange and dark, I think there's something going on and I'm going to stick with it.

Field of Dreams (1989)

It's perfect

[10/10 · 13 August 2021]

Once in a while, a film comes along that stands the test of time. It hits the notes just right, and it tells you something you didn't know but thought you did. They don't make films like Field of Dreams. There are no car chases or fist fights. The conflict might seem contrived and light. But, someone would make a film just like it every year if they knew where the magic that makes Field of Dreams special. Who knows exactly what it is?

When this movie came out in 1989, I was 27. I had a friend who was going through a rough divorce and I took her to see this movie because I promised her it would renew her spirit. I think it did, if only for a moment.

Not many films can do that. This one does.

Land (I) (2021)

If anything it is too short

[10/10 · 25 July 2021]

You must know that movies are visual and you must think that this is a movie about sunsets and stars. It is, a little because it asks the question what's the point of it all. It doesn't go to the bother of answering it much. Because the answer is right in front of you. It's in the deer you took in order to live. It's in the stream and the snow. It's in the eyes of your dog who relies on you for everything. All those things shared with a friend even at a distance. These characters are brought to the land by loss. So they strip away the trappings of society and rediscover the Earth and the moon and the stars. And the fragility of it all.

One finds what they need to go forward and one finds what they need to end.

It's hard in a visual medium to get inside someone's head the way the novel can. You will have to align yourself to what the characters are thinking from the clues to movie gives you. There are things they want you to know. It could have sat a much longer time with Eddie watching the river go by and singing that everybody wants to rule the world. More of the subtleties that make this movie special.

The kids may find it boring. It's not the Purge or Black Widow. But, it might be Star Wars. You'll have to see.

Enjoy this deeply personal story and see what it might reveal about you.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Perfect Mate (1992) Season 5, Episode 21

By far my favorite episode

[10/10 · 30 June 2021]

The Perfect Mate is perhaps a misleading title. The emotional depth of this episode is remarkable and the performance of Famke Janssen is outstanding. The deep emotion that must be dealt with is loss. These are emotions familiar to the characters of Next Generation but presented in such a remarkable and different way. I felt that the use of the Ferengi was a little clumsy here. Another plot might have allowed us to spend more time with Famke.

Great depth and thoughtful story. Well done.

Midnight Special (2016)

Is it Elton or Alton?

[4/10 · 13 June 2021]

I don't understand how this gets more that five stars. It takes almost the entire movie to figure out what it is about, and that thing means next to nothing to the characters. It makes no sense whatsoever and it goes more or less completely unexplained and I don't care. I don't care about these characters at all, and I spent most of the movie thinking that the kid was named "Elton" and not "Alton" so of course I wondered "Why name him Elton? People are going to think Elton John. Hey, Rocket Man might" - now who's not thinking about the movie anymore?

Sorry. Not a good movie. Good production values, acting, special FX. Lousy story.

Stowaway (I) (2021)

Another tragedy of the pandemic

[4/10 · 25 April 2021]

I'm sure there is a reason why this movie just sort of ends. This wasn't a traditional story line where some hero doesn't think she can accomplish a goal and then does. It kinda headed there. You would ask this question "What's this movie about?" That's because the theme is weak. Sorry. I can set aside the idea that they were rationing grams of payload but somehow having and extra 100 pounds plus made no difference in their launch. Even that some "stowaway" could have been missed and unaccounted for. We will give you one thing. But, this movie isn't about anything really.

Very nice production values. Some of the science and physics seemed wrong but OK.

4 stars just for the SPFX.

Soul (2020)

Inventive but not amazing

[8/10 · 28 December 2020]

There are at least two other movies that take on similar ideas. DEFENDING YOUR LIFE is one and HEAVEN CAN WAIT. They are similar and maybe better

I think the ending is wrong. The ends of movies are about relationships and we don't see that relationship in SOUL. After you watch it, think about what missing? What is the one thing you don't get to know? I think you'll agree missing that makes this movie just OK.

SOUL has its moments for sure, but the ending isn't right.

The Midnight Sky (2020)

It's All Revealed in the Last Few Minutes

[10/10 · 25 December 2020]

All these reviews that say nothing happens are completely wrong.

It seems everyone is looking for Star Trek or a Marvel movie.

This movie is simple and heart warming. Very well done.

Give it a chance. It's is all revealed in the last few minutes.

See (2019–2022)

Just ignore the things that don't add up

[8/10 · 21 December 2020]

There are some senseless things. Costumes that maybe don't make much sense if you are blind. Problems like walking through the woods where you don't know your surroundings well seem problematic for the blind. You just have to decide to ignore what doesn't quite add up and enjoy some of the more clever "what if everyone was blind?" things. Jason Mamoa's fighting in episode 4 is a good example. That said it's a little predictable. And the two sighted kids learn genetics a little too easily. Not great but not terrible.

For All Mankind (2019– )

Unexpectedly good

[10/10 · 8 September 2020]

A deep character study. Nicely done and unexpected; not typical science fiction.

As I've been watching, I was thinking how else you might have gone after this concept? Should it have been a Star Trek kind of show with aliens and unexplained, or ray guns and lots of explosions? But, I think this is so much more deep and more fun.

You can can see a lot of reviewers just don't get the show. I'm wondering what it is that they thought it might be? We write for our times. Even in science fiction - maybe especially in science fiction - we write to reflect the era we're living in and explore the complex and complicated human condition. Here it's done up close and frankly you have scared some people by reflecting things back to them in a way that forces us to confront some uncomfortable ideas and ask if those ideas are acceptable?

This is exactly what good television can do. It's what great science fiction can do.

It doesn't always have to be Game of Thrones, does it?

This show will find it's audience and maybe even transform some thinking along the way as it gets even deeper into the human condition.

I look forward to season two.