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Reviews
Irresistible (2020)
Is it satire or is it farce?
Mr. Stewart is a funny political pundit because he's perceptive and responds accordingly...with intelligence, wit, and authenticity. Unfortunately, he's not much of a storyteller or a director; not only does he fall into middling themes and overwrought routines but he fails to keep the characters in character -- clearly he lets the cast settle on shtick rather than honest, nicely-carved characters. As we have seen with Space Force(TV Series 2020- ), Steve Carell is a competent serious and comic actor who can be self-deprecating and amusing in a non-Office-like environment. So, why does he impose "Michael Scott" shtick in his role here? Is this what the Writer/Director Stewart wanted? Seems like he went for a plan B. Some of these actors look like they have no direction and their characters are unnecessary; Chris Cooper appears stunned most of his screen time, Rose Byrne usually knows what she's doing but not here, and Mackenzie Davis looks out-of-place, like a role was created for her at the last moment. The show is just not well-written or well-directed. Maybe it's because the writer and the director never got on the same page.
The Putin Interviews (2017)
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
If I were to rate this on candor, I'd have to put it closer to a 1 or a 2. I will give it a 4 just because Stone captured a record of what spews from the subject's mouth. I read the transcript, then I watched a bit of the show, then I looked at specific parts of the transcript. This is a "snow-job." Putin is cunning. He presents his circumstances and his views in a noble fashion here. But, these philosophies are contradicted by his actions -- his alleged killings of his perceived opponents -- some living in exile in foreign countries, no less -- by extremely dangerous and reckless means ((Polonium-210, Novichok nerve gas, etc.) causing injury to innocent bystanders (citizens of foreign and sovereign nations). So, what's his excuse? If he ordered the hits of Litvinenko, Skripal, and others, then everything he says is garbage, because he doesn't believe what he says. If he didn't order these hits, then he does not have control of the State apparatus; he would lack integrity, thus credibility, and therefore may just be incompetent. Either way, how can this fabricated persona be meaningful?
Goliath (2016)
first season said it all
Why do anything a second time if the first time said it all? I would put this show in camp with True Detective; season one was very good, season two not so good and time to hang up the franchise. It's awfully hard to justify that it's just about revenue; I mean, a reputation is also at stake, isn't it? Maybe I am wrong, but was it true only a few years ago that "you're only as good as your last picture/show?" Well, the producers of the second season have to be asking..."what were we thinking?" Season one was so good they thought they wouldn't have to do any WORK on season two? To me, seems like they really didn't care about a tight story, or actors that believed in their own characters. Parts of each episode were good, but other parts were horrible and poorly written and poorly structured. It was a goof by episode 6 but parts of 7 were pretty good with BBT waking up in the house of strangers BUT 8 was a total throw away. The show's producers lost their way...and I mean ADRIFT. Were they even reading the scripts? I have to remark on one particular scene in episode 5 that was just superb, a real gem, and it was this scene that had me watch the show to the end of the season. I would recommend Season One of Goliath, as I would recommend Season One of True Detective, but neither are superb thru and thru like Bosch.
Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show (2014)
defines it
Not many people are too interested in how TV is made, it's just expected to be made by someone; hence, the low number of people that actually were drawn to watch this documentary is telling. Having worked in TV production, I can tell you the process is a grind and often boring and often tiring. As the Showrunner for Battlestar Galactica says: when so many questions need to be answered, and, as a result, there is chaos on the set, he just says to everybody "it's not heart surgery! We're just making a TV show." And another says: in the back of your mind, you have to remember that nobody will care as much as you do about your "pretendy" little TV show.... -- you get the idea, for the most part, that these Showrunners do not lose the rational perspective that this is business. The idea that TV is pretentious is acknowledged by all these hard-working leaders of basically small businesses that put a lot of people to work. And every one of them mentions in some way or another that it is about meetings, negotiations, persuasion, and mostly money. To depict this process and the result as "art" is debatable, but who cares. It's about work and money...and having some freedom to contrive stories and characters for the purpose of entertaining their respective audiences, the content of which, for the most part, we have seen before...and will see again. That's what humans do...the same thing over and over and over again. We are rutted.
Homeland (2011)
Garbage in, garbage out.
I am surprised that this series has received such rave reviews. Damian Lewis was outstanding in the Band Of Brothers. I picked up this show because of his performance in that series and I was really looking forward to his commitment here. I had a very hard time watching this show. I spent two years in Saudi Arabia in my youth after high school and before college and made friends with many Saudis in the Saudi National Guard and in various ministries and broadcast TV; it was during the late 70s, so it was quite before all the Al Qaeda intrigue. Despite this, this show feels and looks false. I'm quite certain this is all somebody's invention and it panders to the assumptions about Arab/Muslim culture and the presumed hypocrisies (the search for young girls to fill out an Arab prince's harem, for example). Yes. This sort of "talent search" may have happened, perhaps still does, but it is by no means, regular and conventional. But this show portends that it is commonplace, which is pretty insulting. To have the US investigator requiring substance abuse in order to stay in the game is a huge error on the part of the producers -- it becomes the crutch that makes her paranoia a big question and undermines the possible truth to any situation to which she may be associated. I think the producers of this show know that they have taken liberties with reality and conjured up a big fat lie just because a naive Western audience won't know any difference. And at whose expense? It's pretty shameful.
Game of Thrones (2011)
Leaves me wanting
The real trouble with this show -- Game of Thrones -- is that if you compare it to a show like Boss -- which is about loyalty just as much as Game of Thrones, but Boss is arguably current day and therefore has an astonishing measure of "real" application to our current political environment and current core political issues -- is that it is a fantasy. Admirers of the TV/Cable show Game of Thrones are so admiring of the show -- per having read many positive reviews -- precisely because it depicts the fantasy/fantastical story presented in the fantasy book so well. But the book is a fantasy. With so many admirers of the fantasy, a thinking/questioning person begins to wonder why all this "reach" and marvel into what even the author of the fantasy contends is fantasy that quite literally has little to do with our current times -- other than the predictable traces of "human nature?" I watched the first two episodes of the series and thought okay...it's okay as a story told...but there is really very little to be learned about mankind that we cannot discern from one day's daily newspaper from a large international city -- or a single issue of The Economist; who's in trouble now...and why? I suspect the rigorous and dedicated followers of this show need to be shown a "world" that is a distraction, not a distillation, of the more concrete world in which we, the living, live...to be shown a world without the current manifestations of political ambivalence and upheaval, the forces of political expansion and contraction, and most of all, political jeopardy and the individual's political polarization. But this is why I give Game of Thrones a 2-star rating; it is no real help to any of us now...it's simply a distraction. More soberly, why aren't we all wondering why we have been invited to watch the spectacle of slow economic meltdowns of the so-called PIIGS of Europe, all predominantly Catholic nations, without learning of any public, notable financial assistance from the Vatican? Let's define loyalty, really,...and for real. In addition, the CGI is strangely amateurish and the soft-core seemingly purely "eye-candy"; plaudits for so unsubtly targeting the 15-35 male audience to boost the ratings -- just can't get more vulgar than that.