fluffy2560 Reviews

The Handmaid's Tale (2017–2025)

It's not June all year

[7/10 · 21 September 2022]

As others have written, the close ups on the characters faces are really annoying. This seems to be in all the episodes directed by Elizabeth Moss. Enough of that already. Other characters are just side salad to Moss's dominance of the show. We're poorer for it. It's now an ensemble of one.

It WAS a good show but now it's winding down. We all get that June is being transformed but to turn it into a vendetta between June and Serena as a proxy between good and evil, Gilead vs the rest of the world is a disservice to the greater allegory or stories of oppressed peoples. It's amateurish and simplistic to the viewer. Give us some credit.

What we want to see is June turned into a hero who now bloodied by dispatching Commander Waterford becomes her own victorious commander of the Gilead resistance. She should be be getting tooled up with weaponry ready to take the fight to the enemy. We want to see Gilead fall and everyone get their comeuppance in as brutal a way as possible.

Mother/Android (2021)

ZzzZZZ.....snoozefest...

[9 January 2022]

I thought it looked good being a fan of zombie/apocalyptic movies but this is just wasted opportunity.

I was siding with the androids by half way through and feeling little sympathy for the humans and particularly the lead character Georgia who seems to be playing it as clueless teenager who seems to learn nothing and lives in a fantasy world. The shots are too long and lingering, the pace pedestrian, there's too much hysteria, too much mucking around and no sense of tension. Not good enough for a solid zombie action movie.

I would have themed this as a kind of coming of age type story where Georgia becomes transformed into a leading freedom fighter. We get a hint of that but there's no satisfaction of a follow through.

It's a low end budget movie. At 1h 50m, they could cut out 20 minutes and no-one would notice. It could be better if it was re-edited .

The Outlaws (2021– )

Back to a simpler time...

[8/10 · 26 December 2021]

People have said this show is not very good but perhaps they are looking at it the wrong way.

It's a bit of a throwback of a show to simpler times but that doesn't mean it's any less engaging. It's easy to watch, you don't have to know a lot, the writing great with some excellent and funny banter between cast members and the cast is excellent.

The best thing is that in just a few short episodes, you get involved in the character's lives, even if they are relatively superficial glimpses of people with complex issues. They are minor criminals but in this show, they still warm your heart to some degree. It just works.

Christopher Walken adds a really great dimension to the whole thing. Excellent casting and it was great they were able to get him on board.

I wondered when he was going to start dancing. He was originally a dancer so his movies and parts always includes one or more scenes where that happens. I was not disappointed.

There has to be second series. If there isn't, I'd be surprised.

If Walken doesn't turn up again, be interesting to see David Soul back on the small screen doing a turn.

La Brea (2021–2024)

Flat pack TV show....

[2/10 · 28 October 2021]

I'm 5 episodes in and I'm still willing to give it a chance but I'm not sure of the wisdom of wasting 40 minutes of my life on this. The writing is amateurish at best. It's full of flat pack off the shelf characters strung together with cliched subplots. For something that (apparently) cost a huge amount to produce, there is little to show for it. But who is guilty? Someone is! The premise could have worked but no-one was paying attention.

There are so many inconsistencies and just plain mistakes - like the obvious electric wall uplighter in the "food hut" in the fort and the use of Australian registered helicopters. This kind of sloppy work occurs in a lot of TV shows - particularly ones made in Canada - why would the US military be using Canadian helicopters with civil registration? Same in La Brea - you can see it's not LA, it's outside Melbourne or somewhere. I can tell just from the vegetation. The cheapo CB radio which is supposed to be a military style hi-tech comms device. Nah, we're not buying it.

The softball game as is just ludicrous. Everyone starving, matter of survival, wild animals attacking, marauders from the fort potentially arriving and someone has the time to waste playing softball? Come on people!

If Netflix got this, they'd possibly be able to turn it around giving it some grit but I cannot realistically see it surviving season 1. Maybe just start again.

6 Underground (2019)

What is it with Ryan Reynolds film choices?

[2/10 · 26 July 2021]

I wonder what is going on inside Ryan Reynolds head. I couldn't manage more than about 30 minutes of this movie before hitting the off switch. Other Netflix movies he's been in - the Hitman Bodyguard series - have been very poorly made. This one is the same. The editing and continuity is patchy. How it got through quality control is surprising but maybe that's it - spot the goofs.

What really got me was the endless product placement - Heineken beer, Alfa-Romeo cars for example. I also noticed Aviation Gin (Reynolds has an ongoing interest in promoting that drink).

It's all noise and action at the expense of any real depth of story. Oh sorry, there is no story. It's a series of action scenes interspersed with kick-a** sassy dialogue. Or at least what they think has street cred.

Makes Guy Ritchie movies look like Shakespeare.

Stateless (2020)

Required watching....

[8/10 · 14 March 2021]

This should be compulsory watching for all Australian and any of those right leaning politicians anywhere who so easily want to dehumanise asylum seekers and refugees. The worst thing is that it's still going on over there and some of the politicians responsible were still in important areas of government.

I cannot see that anyone could fail to empathise with the characters and their situations.

The story, the acting and bleak location all pile on the atmosphere. We only get to see the depth of Sofie's schizophrenia towards the end and it begin to see why she is like that. One has to watch it all.

The main characters all do a great job.

I do however wish we'd seen follow on episode showing that people were held accountable and punished. Having read what happened in reality, it seems like no-one really was found guilty and the main person responsible for the policy of oppression became Ambassador to Italy. Some punishment.

The Undoing (2020)

Wasted Opportunity

[3/10 · 13 December 2020]

What a shame. Good cast and was OK up to about episode 4 but thereafter it was circling the plughole. I was looking for the "Sixth Sense" type shock reveal but it didn't come and the last episode truly hit bottom. Utterly squandered it. It's like they ran out of time or money and had to quickly tie up loose ends. Hugh Grant was good, liked him in this but Nicole Kidman must have forgotten how to act. All the intense faces but in the end my mind wandered and just spent the time seeing if she'd had plastic surgery. I concluded yes, probably by the stiffness, occasional vacant pouting going on and that ludicrous "young" hair do - she's 53. Doctor, professional, seeing patients, I think a little more business like effort for characterisation.

I came to the conclusion that the murderer should have been the most unlikely person in a double cross that succeeded. And I don't mean the victims husband. I mean the one dressed like Little Red Riding Hood flouncing around NYC.

I think with some reasoned editing, a reshoot here and there, then it could have worked so much better. And we could have been shocked.

Just wasted.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond (2020–2021)

Not what we expect....

[2/10 · 2 November 2020]

I love TWD and FTWD but this has lost in a fog of teen sanitised zombie cliches - It must be amateur night at the TWD/FTWD script conferences with testing by a group of 6-7 year olds.

Mix extremely annoying characters with cartoon'ish zombies and you get TWD: World Beyond. What World Beyond? It's beyond any reason they didn't pass this via some quality control.

The only vaguely useful character is corduroy suit boy Elton. You'd think they'd all have been toughened up after 10 years of being in Zombie Land where killing the dead (sorry, empties, come on) is normal.

Hope - sobbing mess Iris - "leader" with a ridiculous whale tooth spear? Nah, that'll fall of the pole in a minute. Huck - must have taken an badass overacting pill - please stop trying to be so sassy, you need to be quietly tough Psycho - come on, get a proper weapon and drop that ridiculous wooden spanner Others - ugh, I give up.

Oh and Julia Ormond appears in the titles but almost no screen time. What is going on?

Nah, forget it, I'm with the zombies.

Manifest (2018–2023)

I'm on the side of evil....

[5/10 · 22 August 2020]

Started OK then degenerates and slides into soppy soap scenes interlinked by mysterious callings that seem to have no purpose in the overall story.

I cannot work out if the actors are terrible or they just have nothing solid to work with.

There's a dreadful theme around the annoying Stone family. I think I want them all to die. I hoped when Ben left his wife, that'd be the end of the involvement of Grace. The horrible sickly sweet fawning relationships going on there make me want to vomit.

I am struggling to see a reason to go any further than Season 2. I've started doing other things while I'm watching. I've actually fallen asleep, woken up having missed large sections of plot and dialogue and not even noticed any advancement of the plot.

There's a chance to save it like Designated Survivor was given a new lease of life when Netflix took over for Season 3. That show really was much better with Netflix but then they inexplicably cancelled it. Maybe Manifest needs to go the same way. Final edgy toughened up season, kill all the characters off and then finish it.

Run (I) (2020)

Is it just me?

[2/10 · 26 May 2020]

Is it just me or is this just dull? I managed to get to episode 2 but there's nothing there worth spending parts of your life on. I thought perhaps I'm in the wrong age group to "get it" but no, it's the actual show. It could have been better - a mystery, a thriller, whatever but it's opportunity squandered as a comedy. I really wanted to like it but I just couldn't engage.

ZeroZeroZero (2019–2020)

Top Series - Shows it as we think it is...

[9/10 · 13 May 2020]

Really, once in a while a show comes along which blows your socks off. This is one of them. From the same pen as Gomorrah, the quality shows. In the genre, forget the movie L'Immortale which was a vanity piece. The story, scenery, sets, acting is first class.

I was very impressed by the subtlety of Andrea Riseborough's portrayal of Emma. From the reluctant smuggler, in the shadow of her father to her emergence as a queen of the drug world. The last episode and scenes really made it - after the brutal death of her brother - she hardly flinched at the dispatch of the duplicitous Italian mafiosa at the hands of his grandfather.

Then there's the transformation at the end to the heartless and brutalised version of herself, independent of her father is completed at the end when she's framed on the sofa in Colombia with the dead drug kingpins either side of her. The slightly maniacal smile finishes it off.

A study in the absolute corruption of people through money and drugs. No-one matters. Not even your family.

The Witcher (2019– )

Slow start but comes good...

[4 January 2020]

I'd never heard of these stories so my only exposure is the Netflix show. Once you get into it, it's quite OK. I wouldn't say Good but OK bordering on OK+. Some reviewers have said it's terrible but that's definitely not true. Henry Cavill was terrible in The Man from Uncle (awful film, but then again a typical later years Guy Ritchie movie). However he fits into this genre well and works well with whatever he's given and that's a problem. But it's not just him, there needs to be more depth to all of characters. The time travelling/sequencing made me think I was watching the wrong episode or I'd missed one out. I suppose Anya Chalotra is a star in the making but like the rest of the them, it seems to take her time and the audience to get into the swing of things. When we hear about her fertility, it gives us more insight. But like a misnamed veggie burger, where's the rest of the beef? It's no GoT and while people might want see that as a comparator, it's a bit unfair. GoT had a great turn with Machiavellian plot twists but this almost seems a romance. Anyways, it needs time and with the right writing, it could develop into a classic in its own right. I hope it runs at least 4-5 seasons and we can get the back stories and more depth.

The Wandering Earth (2019)

Very odd from a Western perspective

[4/10 · 9 May 2019]

The CGI is great and the story isn't bad but the whole thing falls down on the dialogue (or the subtitles rather) and the thin characterisation.

I was hoping the little sister gets hit by a meteor or sucked out into space or something, anything, just to stop her incessant whining. It's a disaster movie meant for entertainment not boring whinge fest - get over body count girlie, there's people to save and hang the consequences and who falls by the wayside!

The space station Dad was OK and so was the leader of the rescue mission - they should have been the leads with their interaction, not the paper thin brother and sister in a "family" emphasised whingathon.

There are political points as well - multiple Russian characters but few other nationalities noted except in passing - considering this space adventure is run by the United World Government, surely it'd be a bit more internationalised.

There's some inexplicable "comedy" routines with a half-Chinese/half-Australian character acting as an utter buffoon. Yup, wish he'd been squashed by an earthquake too. I can only think it was political. I guess it is a Chinese centered movie but really, would we fall for that kind of sniping? I don't think so!

I didn't see any black characters at all either although there were a couple of folks with turbans on - presumably meant to be folks from India. I suppose they were thinking of their trade partners for distribution rights and who people in China would be familiar with.

I think it could and should be made again with Hollywood money and a stellar AND internationalised cast.

Fleabag (2016–2019)

Possibly the work of geniuses

[9/10 · 2 April 2019]

I hated the first two episodes of Season 1 but I kept going and I'm grateful I did. This has to be one of the best TV series around at the moment. I just finished ep. 5 of Season 2 and I really laughed and laughed out loud. That hasn't happened to me watching a comedy show for a long time. Phoebe Waller-Bridge as writer and star is just brilliant and her supporting cast, particularly sister Claire played by Sian Clifford is a joy and Andrew Scott as the Priest excellent. It's just good all around and there's a feast there for everyone who likes their comedy intelligent with a dash of quirkiness. I just hope the momentum can be kept up for a well deserved Season 3.

Counterpart (2017–2019)

Performances almost close to perfection

[9/10 · 24 December 2018]

Superb cast and great script in a super location. Soon you begin to wonder who's who . It's not traditional sci-fi, more like House of Cards or even Battlestar Galactica. The sci-fi does not need get in the way of the plot. It's really a replay of the Cold War - a world of spies and intrigue hidden away from the general public.

I reserve my applause not for the fine job that JK Simmons does in doubling up on his character range but for the married duo "other" terrorist agent Claire and her "our side" agent Peter. The former played in a muted fanatical even smoulderingly threatening way by Nazanin Boniadi and the latter an utterly nuanced and manipulated Harry Lloyd.

People have said it's too slow but I'd say stick with it. It's quality.

Patrick Melrose (2018)

Stick with it....

[8/10 · 5 December 2018]

I don't know the books, never heard of them or the author but I dipped in. I absolutely hated the first episode, so self-destructive and crazy. But I stuck with it through episode 2. Only in episode 3, you see what the previous two were about. After that you need to binge it. It gets overwhelming and suffocates you when you finally understand. The cast is stellar, beautifully acted but never sentimental. The characters are superbly portrayed. It must have been an actor's dream to be cast in this mini-series. You just want to slap Patrick's father (Hugo Weaving) and give his mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) a good dunking from a bucket of cold water for being in the centre of a circle of utterly dysfunctional people feeding off each other like vampires. Benedict Cumberbatch does more than an excellent job of portraying the broken but eventually stable Patrick. The actor young Patrick (Sebastian Maltz) is excellent too. All I can say is stick with it, it's worth it.

Doctor Who (2005–2022)

Become too PC

[3/10 · 15 November 2018]

I have watched Dr Who forever but now I am thinking if I can continue watching all this PC based nonsense. The writing sucks.

I like Jodie Whittaker and I'm all for representing diversity and equality but she's simply not bringing a commanding enough performance bring it off. It's looking like she was miscast. Ok, it might be the scripts which is just ludicrously unhelpful but having seen her in other stuff, she tends to play vulnerable types.

The other Doctors were dominating characters who you have confidence in they know what they are doing. In this season Jodie's much more passive than she could be. The companions are elevated to semi-equal status which is laughable - it's called Dr Who, not "Dr Who and some random people off the street".

Thinking back at others, the one person who I think would have been very acceptable as the Dr to the viewing public is John Barrowman - he's got history with the Doctor.

I would have thought something like Thandie Newton as Missy and John as the Doc with a more aggressive and dynamic script, far less PC nonsense, more aliens and more bangs and flashes could bring it back.

Ozark (2017–2022)

Superb...

[9/10 · 7 September 2018]

Superb show with excellent story line. I've been hooked on Season 2 and had to binge watch it. The whole model family thing stuck with the Cartel, just trying to get by, smacks of improbability but it's a credit to the writers that we're able to suspend reality and moreover, realise that passive control freakery of is really just Marty (Bateman) on the verge of losing it completely. There's an interesting change in balance between Marty and Wendy (Linney) with Wendy turning out to be a real snake in the grass, even possibly more psychopathic than the obsessive Justin Bateman.

Ruth (Garner) pulls off an incredibly difficult balancing act too trying to keep her family together in the face of abuse, crazy convict Dad, dysfunctional cousins and her day job in adult entertainment.

End of Season 2 looked like a closure of the series - Wendy has become a Godmother (aka Godfather), Marty is sidelined and Ruth the trusted lieutenant. It seemed a neat and tidy ending.

I hope Netflix give us a Season 3 and the writers can pull off the same level of quality.

Get Shorty (2017–2019)

Probably the best show at the moment.....

[8/10 · 16 August 2018]

Getting towards the late summer end of year, there's almost nothing worth watching of quality. Except this gem. Superb casting and throughly enjoyable story with lots of quirky humour.

Chris O'Dowd is superb as the movie obsessed thug trying to make his way in that other cess pool of deceit and treachery called Hollywood.

But I leave my applause for Ray Romano living a duplicitous life with the vicious drug dealing matriarch of the crime gang. As the producer of trashy B movies he's living in his own real life version of the trash he sells. A different drug for the masses. But he shows his vulnerable side by actually liking his murderous girlfriend and having some morals and ethics. Satire!

It's a great show. The only other show that's equally entertaining at the moment is Better Call Saul (BCS). I might even rate this slightly above BCS. If Queen of the South with a somewhat similar female led drug gang, was a tragi-comedy, while a great show in itself, would not even get close to Get Shorty.

I've given it an 8 as we're only a few episodes into Season 2. If it keeps going this way, I would be reviewing at 9+.

The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017)

Dire.....

[2/10 · 12 February 2018]

Generic action thriller that wastes all our time. Sure I can live with the BS of the story line but what really got my back up were the utter inaccuracies from the "mountains of Belarus", the idea that Interpol is some kind of international cop fest and Coventry is anywhere important anyone wants to go. But I save my ire for the farce of continuity. This is farce in your face big time. Guys, if you are going to make a movie, try and at least pay attention to what you are doing. What were the producers, the directors, the scriptwriters and Netflix thinking? Are we really so dumb that we can appreciate anything about this movie. It's two hours of my life I'm not going to get back.

I could write a list of continuity mistakes but I'd be here all day so this will suffice:

Looks to me am pretty sure I saw the guy run over by the speed boat was shown wearing a wet suit and Samuel L Jackson kept moving between the left and right hand side of the speedboat obviously to hide the stunt driver in between shots. And weirdly, they kept moving the action around from Amsterdam to The Hague. And as for Coventry, it looks remarkably like the same film set as London in the first sequences. The cross channel ferry is shown leaving Dover and then we see some pleasure boat on a Dutch canal substituting for the ferry's arrival. Jeez, do me a favour!

Samuel L Jackson must have been paid buckets of money to waste his time in this movie - I like him but this is acting Eddie Murphy style - smartass jive talking. Come on Samuel L Jackson, you're better than that. As for Ryan Reynolds surely he has better things to do. Gary Oldman is a great actor so why is he in this drivel. Selma Heyak is nice enough to look at and tries to be fun but I really felt for the cellmate abused in the corner. It could have been done differently, abuse is unacceptable anytime, but it's quite topical now that systematic abuse of women is now so much in the news. Why anyone would think abuse like that was even remotely funny, I do not know, and the Dutch would never allow such behaviour in their prisons.

Finally, I see this movie has made it's $30M budget back about 5 times. Unbelievable. Please do this again Netflix, God forbid there's a sequel and please put some cash into decent series like Altered Carbon or bring back the British TV show UFO or remake 2001 A Space Odyssey. Anything but this kind of drivel again.

Attack on the Iron Coast (1968)

Some observations

[3/10 · 8 October 2016]

Strangely inconsistent movie that was clearly done on a minuscule budget where accuracy and continuity mean little. Lloyd Bridges is not exactly renowned for his acting style - he's in it to help sell the movie in the US. The rest of the cast are all British stalwarts.

Much of the fight scenes appear to have been filmed on derelict St Katherine's Dock of the late 60s before it was revamped to be one of the most desirable areas of London. Tower Bridge can be observed in the background in some shots. It also looks like the fight scenes were filmed in the same location or possibly around Pinewood Studios. The idea that the small St Katherine's dry dock could actually double up as dry dock for giant German battleships is quite ludicrous.

I noticed also the cast making dialogue mistakes. British naval officers would always say "Left-tenant", even it's written as "Lieutenant".

They also say they are leaving Portsmouth to carry out the raid but they pass through Tower Bridge and supporting shots look like the defunct docks where London City Airport is now.

On the other hand some accuracy which could have been down to luck - one officer checks his watch and it's an Omega brand which is a Swiss manufacturer commonly supplying the UK military for many years.

Overall the movie is one for collectors of the genre.

The 27th Day (1957)

Product of the times...

[3/10 · 15 September 2010]

Interesting little movie, a product of the times and rather short at 1h 15m. This is simply an American propaganda movie of the 1950s. Leading man Gene Barry does a workman like job as the conscience of the few chosen to carry the weapons of mass destruction. The rest of the cast provide sufficient background decoration including the always interesting Stefan Schnabel in an early role looking very Stalin like as megalomaniac leader of the USSR. With a face like that, he was made to play the Soviet heavy. Odd casting decisions here and there - leading lady Valerie French is OK to look at but she sounds bizarrely and comically like Princess Diana. I was surprised to see she was actually British as it sounded like she'd been badly voice coached. Clearly some budget problems beset this movie with quite large chunks set inside a stable/tack room at a California race track. Having set themselves a time line involving 27 days (e.g. 27th Day of the title), they had to fill the story up somehow and try and introduce a mechanism for creating romance between the leading man and woman. Worth watching as a movie of the times and as a bit of social history, but I think other movies like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" do a more entertaining (if tacky) job of providing allegories of good versus evil and democracy versus dictatorships common in movies of the Cold War.

Planet Terror (2007)

Oh dear....

[2/10 · 6 February 2010]

This is a formula movie by Rodriguez - it's El Mariachi with zombies. The all star cast does nothing to bring this movie up to standard at all. The talents of Josh Brolin, Jeff Fahey, Bruce Willis are thrown away. What were they thinking? Being a great fan of George Romero's excellent "Dead" movies, I was just expecting more considering the hype around best buddies Rodriquez/Tarantino. If there was ever an overrated pairing! How did they get anyone to pay up money for this? This is just a series of tired pastiches. OK, maybe that was what was intended but honestly, all this was done so much better and great effect in Shaun of the Dead. My advice, watch that several times rather than waste 2 hours on this nonsense. At least with Shaun of the Dead you won't be left with the feeling that you've lost 2 hours of your life that you won't get back AND you'll have been entertained. Sorry, but 1.5/10 (the 0.5 is for some of the camera work and 1 for including Marley Shelton).

The Green Slime (1968)

Oh dear...

[1/10 · 26 July 2007]

Overall, a right load of tosh. The slime creatures look like turds from a toilet cleaner commercial. The soldiers are all wearing crash helmets and there are so many unintentional goofs it's ridiculous. I smiled when a crash helmeted soldier answers the phone. How does he hold the receiver to his head with his Spaceballshelmet on? Badly of course! You can see the look on his face - oh, jeez, I wish I'd rehearsed this bit.

But it's not all bad. It fits into the genre of Them, those films where the Chinese tunnel under the earth to defeat America - Battle Beneath The Earth. Richard Jaeckel is always a favourite and good value. The Italian woman leading looks great (like an early Elizabeth Shue) and the funky sixties party when the Slime comes to light is just great. I am sure if I'd seen this at the cinema as a kid, I'd have reckoned this was a classic up there with The Blob and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Battlestar Galactica: Crossroads: Part 2 (2007) Season 3, Episode 20

Are they Cylons?

[10/10 · 31 March 2007]

After reading some of the comments here, I've got a different take on the plot for BSG. I think the so called Final Five shown in this episode are not actually Cylons at all. The flashbacks and music are actually genetic memories of home or some how quasi religious experiences handed down by the gods to help the tribe reach Earth. I'll cite Starbuck's vortex experiences as "evidence" of the latter. Additionally, why would Cylons use such a strongly Earth culture song as a means to activate the final five? On the other hand, I could just be being optimistic.

What a credit to the writers, directors and actors (especially Michael Hogan aka ColonelTigh) that they can suspend (at least my) belief. Could so many of the heroes are fifth columnists? I just don't believe it.

It's good to see we're back on track with the actual story. I felt we were wandering a bit in the middle of this season. Overall, one of the best sci-fi programmes since Stargate SG-1. Keep 'em coming!