splurben's reviews

This is a procedural medical drama; there is a difference.

This is written by someone with personal experience; it's possible the direction and production include those with similar experiences.

I loved and lost my Mom to stroke and dementia. I did so many things to try to remind her of the life she adored and with which she participated.

I was challenged with a negative 'new' partner to my Mom that didn't want me to be there.

When Music was employed to activate and enjoin the musician in episode 1 I was devastated. I have been inconsolable for days. Mom was singer, pianist and organist. I knew that she'd applied to see the the Ring Cycle in Vienna for a long time. I played many musical pieces I know she enjoyed; but, I never played a celebrated Wagner Ring Cycle recording for her.

I wonder if I could have brought some of her consciousness back even momentarily wtih the dream of her ultimate performance at Bayreuth.

This is strong emotional stuff with consideration and knowledge of the loss one experiences when loved ones are compromised.

We started this and stopped after 20 minutes, but I had an inkling that I wanted to see how it played out.

Watching this through, it is a very strong film with excellent performances. It's not just a "Meg" rip-off. There are complex characters, an unique story and elements of spirituality and culture that are inspired.

I believe strongly that many of the reviews of this film have been submitted by those that gave up after 20 minutes and didn't actually watch the whole film.

The cultural references are accurate. The deities are real and are properly recognized. The feeling of being in an uncomfortable situation in a foreign town are well portrayed.

Give it 40 minutes, don't assume you have the whole story after the first 20 minutes, you may find it's better than it's average rating!

Florence Pugh, Harry Styles and Chris Pine and the rest of the cast are hot with excellent immersive acting all around. We feel like this script is literally a pitch called "Matrix (1999) meets Suspiria (1977) meets Stepford Wives (1975) meets Far From Heaven (2002)" and nothing transcends any of these storylines to the extent that it is more than derivitive. Better hair, costumes and make-up and an over-arching theme such as trans-dimensional forces or alien intervention would have improved this scenario. When a script honours other concepts but fails to exceed them, it becomes ultimately disappointing.

Although the performances are strong. There are very many holes in the storytelling particularly in the first and second episode where it is impossible to discern aspects of plot development without prior knowledge of the story which took place decades before the preponderance of the audience was born.

A thin line of almost plot, struck from the tiniest concept of a worm, baited on a blunt hook and hoping to catch a tiny minow and yet fails at that as well.

I love pre-code Hollywood and Carole Lombard is a stunningly wonderful actress. Charles Laughton is seriously overacting this part even for a "B" movie melodrama of this era although he did make this villain thoroughly unlikable. I really wanted to care, but just didn't find it anywhere in this film. It's important to note that there was something about the play upon which this film is based (and re-made over and over again), "The Hangman's Whip" 1933 which played for one month in New York at the St James Theatre, that seemed to entrance Paramount, maybe because they got it real cheap. To see a story like this done properly, Marlene Dietrich directed by Tay Garnett and with a young and handsome John Wayne in Seven Sinners (1940) is the height of this genre.

I'm all for kids' movies that are fun and imaginative, colourful and playful -- even better when nature is involved

I am an egalitarian man.

In a bee hive, ALL of the worker bees are female, in fact, bee hives have about 15% drones (males). As well, the queen rules the hive -- female.

This film literally places almost all it's female characters in diminutive and/or subservient positions. Roles of power and efficacy are completely inverted to masculine. In nature all the bees collecting pollen are female. The male chauvinism of this script really bothers me and I feel that reversing nature in a child's mind to this extent is unkind.

In this case it seems that all the imagination has been employed to impress upon young plastic minds that only males can carry out important roles, even when that is exactly the opposite of the truly archetypal reality of bee hives.

Reversing an archetypal aspect of nature in this way is dangerous.

We had a moment with Lynda Carter, so I gave this a two instead of a one.

All canon is broken, blasphemed upon, or ignored. The effect for the lasso is ridiculous and poorly conceived. We were counting continuity errors like it was a drinking game. Curiously, no-one is credited as Continuity and YOU CAN TELL.

This was made for children.

Very disappointed.

Watched the whole thing so that my review would be utterly 0, that's ZERO, lower than one and worse than a funny bad D movie. Bad on every level. Direction couldn't evince a performance from ANYONE. Editing made you wonder if the editor was stoned, drunk, smoking crack, snorting PCP, masturbating on the console, stuffing large objects into his nether regions . . . someone please tell us how or why anyone would have stayed on this production past the first day of shooting. Props: piano hinges and laminated particle board for 'Future Cryogenic Chambers'?! What in the Hell is Bruce Willis getting for this . . . 98% of the budget?! Cause there wasn't ANY budget spent on sets, editing, production, script, props, script, ANYTHING.