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L.A. Confidential (1997)
As perfect a movie as a movie can be
There was so much that could have gone wrong with this movie: the subject matter is so downbeat, but somehow the movie doesn't feel downbeat at all. The violence is pretty intense, and yet, unlike similar movies, the violence here only occurs when the story needs it; it never feels gratuitous. The roles call for consistent bravura performances from the entire cast, and the entire cast (with the one exception of Danny DeVito, who plays his role over the top) delivers -- Guy Pearce, Russell Crow and Kevin Spacey were not yet the stars they became, and all three are extraordinary, as is Kim Basinger, who rightly won an Oscar). The setting, 1950s LA, is so realistically portrayed that at times you forget the movie was made.in 1997 and not 1957. The script is dead-on, not a line seems forced or out of place.
All in all, this movie may have its equals in Hollywood history it's really hard to imagine a movie that's better than this. It just doesn't hold up 30 years later; it feels as fresh as the day it premiered.
Matlock (2024)
Bates is great, the rest is not
A good friend of mine is a successful tv writer, known particularly for one very good program in the 2010s. He told me the other day about a meeting he had with a network executive about a new show my friend was pitching, The exec made it clear: the kind of show my friend wrote for ten years ago isn't something the networks want now. Ten years ago, plots could be intricate, story lines required attention to follow, endings involved surprises. The exec explained that now all the networks wants are shows that are easy to follow, don't cause confusion, and are the essence of predictability.
That's unfortunately the perfect description of the new Matlock. It's like watching the butterscotch candy that Matlock pulls out of her purse to convince those around her she's old: sweet, sticky, and dull. There isn't a moment of suspense, surprise, or twists. It's just a long smooth drink of milk of magnesia, diluted enough so even the most idiotic of viewers can follow the action. And such a shame, because how many actresses are better than Kathy Bates? Imagine if she was given a really great show -- that would be a real treat.
Poker Face (2023)
Great acting, terrible script
This show is emblematic of a real issue in Hollywood today -- there's a remarkable number of really great actors in tv and film now, and Natasha Lyonne is certainly one of them. She brightens the screen, small or large, with her idiosyncratic presence in everything she does. And the rest of the actors in this show are all also excellent -- not a false note among them. The problem is the writing -- there just aren't enough good writers to create scripts for these actors. Poker Face is one of the many victims of this. The first episode is so poorly written it's almost incomprehensible. The quickly introduced gimmick is clever enough -- Lyonne plays a down on her luck waitress who has the ability to always tell if someone is lying. The show goes straight downhill from there -- the plot holes are almost so large it almost feels as if the writers are trying to create a parody of a crime procedural. None of it makes sense. The dialog is cliched, the action predictable, and like all badly written shows, there's the chase scene where the sharpshooter fires his gun and misses point blank range, over and over, because, well... nothing. Just such a shame that all these skilled actors don't have anything to work with.
Rivals (2024)
Ignore the good reviews
Seriously. How could anyone enjoy what might be the most derivative show in TV history? Trying hard to be a British Dallas, Rivals is about warring members of the UK elite in the 1980s. Whether you liked Dallas, or Dynasty, this half--cocked attempt to revive their formula is simply poor. Someone seems to have said, "Look, we don't need a script. We don't need a story line. We don't want to press our actors into working too hard. Direction isn't important. Costumes don't matter. All we need to do is have a bunch of really good looking horny adults lust for each other when they're not fighting for money and power, and we'll have a show."
And that's pretty much all this show is.
And what happened to David Tennant? His presence in a program once indicated at least some degree of intelligence. No longer.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999)
Does the job perfectly
I missed all of SVU until clips of the show started appearing on TikTok. The clips were riveting enough to drive a lot of people to watch the actual program. And unlike the usual circumstance, which is that the clips represent the only good parts of the show (ie: The Rookie), it turns out that SVU is excellent. It's not high art, it sometimes seems too formulaic, but it delivers exactly what it promises: a well acted 43 minutes revolving around a truly interesting (but often unbearably sad) story, sometimes ripped from the headlines and sometimes quite original. Add to the excellent acting from Hargitay, Meloni and Dann Florek, solid direction, and an unusually high caliber of guest stars, this is a very good show. (It also has a surprisingly open-minded liberal take on social issues, especially gay and women's rights.)
Disclaimer (2024)
Be forewarned: Slow, pretentious, dull
4 episodes in and it's almost impossible to believe that the talented Cuaron directed this mucky mess. It feels more like a student's first feature: long, lingering shots of nature; long, lingering shots of faces; long, lingering shots of nothing at all. The action is so slow-paced it seems that time might be standing still.
The script is partly to blame as well. It's difficult to feel any connection to the most pretentious humans who've ever assembled in a cast. This is somewhat true to the book, but in chick-lit, it's forgivable. Harder to pull off in a movie.
Oddest is the cast: Cate Blanchett gives the worst performance of her career; she's been told to overreact to every line, making her seem completely contorted and insane. The normally excellent Lesley Manville was told that she's working in grand guignol and to faint in horror whenever she can. The young man who plays the son seems to have been instructed to manifest every possible emotion he can evoke whenever he's on screen, making him seem slightly schizophrenic. The only actor who turns in a solid performance is, rather oddly, Sasha Baron Cohen, who somehow is able to subdue the direction to overact. He basically carries the show, and keeps this from being a one-star program.
All in all, this is easily the most disappointing show of the year, given the cast and director. Unless you want to lose many hours of your life, stay away.
Suspects (2014)
Intense, stomach-churning procedural
This is one of the more interesting police dramas to come along -- it's presented almost as if it's a documentary of sorts. The camera follows its lead actors as though this were actually handing fact-based incidents; instead of close-ups of detectives reacting to events, often the camera misses their emotions as though the actors were real police personnel too busy to let the camera follow them. The result is a hodgepodge of drama: sometimes it feels very effective, but sometimes it goes so fast and so confusingly it's difficult to know what's actually happening. And all those scenes filmed as though the camera didn't have access to the action don't work; shots where you only see half of a room, or a part of an interview, can feel slightly like you're on a roller coaster and can't get off.
What's best about the show is that it really is a procedural. You get a very solid and believable feel for how crimes are solved, and that means they're often not the dramatic reveals of a fancier show, but the gritty reality of a nasty criminal.
What's worst about the show is the casting: while Damien Moloney is up to the task, as are the other minor characters, Fay Ripley comes across more as a luxury real estate agent who somehow has ended up running a police department: she looks as though at any moment she'll order a half caf, half decaf oat milk latte with a shot of mocha and show off the interior design elements of the crime scene.
English Teacher (2024)
Surprisingly satisfying
Even though he's young, Brian Jordan Alvarez has been working for a while, and although he's had some good acting roles, especially on Will and Grace, his web series was mostly lame, as were many of his other early works. Well, he's learned a lot since then. A lot. English Teacher is a solidly good show, the kind that you feel might have been produced and directed by someone with decades of experience. The show isn't perfect; sometimes the lines fall flat, sometimes the action gets muddled. But when the show is good, it's really good. Great side characters, imaginative story lines, and wonderful acting by the kids in the show.
On top of that, Alvarez is also the lead actor, which is pretty remarkable -- few people now can pull of this trifecta. He manages to come off as charming and self-effacing despite the fact that he's written all these lines for himself. It's not an easy task, and Alvarez nails it.
Nobody Wants This (2024)
So cute you'll never want cute again
The two stars of this series are about the cutest people on tv. Every line they say to each other is cute. So cute. Their relatives are all adorably cute, the Jewish ones cute in that only Jewish cute way. So cute. The waspy ones are cute in that only waspy cute way. So cute. The dialog is, you know, even cuter. Everyone the couple meets is an opportunity for them to even cuter. Even the stray dog is so damn cute you just want to hug him and tell him, Who's a cute boy?
So the issue here is, how much cute can you stand? Because if you have a high tolerance for 23 minutes of constant sugar you might like this. But if a sugar high makes you sick, then by all means, avoid this like a 18 layer angel food cake with chocolate frosting, whipped cream, and sprinkles. Really cute sprinkles.
Funny Bones (1995)
Great, unknown comedy
Funny Bones is one of those movies that if you like, you kind of love. It's just, well, different. It's not a comedy that makes you feel light-headed, nor is it one that overwhelms you with sweetness. It's pretty dark, and morose, and goes into unexpected places. But the script is wildly intelligent, and when there are laughs, there are lots of them.
What really shines through is the penetrating knowledge of human behavior, that we are all, somehow, funny, whether we know it or not, and there is humor in the strangest and wildest places.
And of course, Lee Evans gives a magnificent performance, almost an unbelievably good one. He should have won awards for this. He should have had a greater career. He is simply amazing in this movie.
Inside No. 9 (2014)
British humor doesn't always work
Nobody has turned out better television humor than the British. From what might be the best comedy show of all time, Fawlty Towers, to Monty Python to Are You Being Served to Keeping Up Appearances to Absolutely Fabulous to Coupling and on and on, the British just do humor better than anyone else. They know what makes them funny, they know how to self-deprecate, they know how surreal humor makes for the best humor.
Unfortunately, this show is not up to par. The only way you might think so is if you find this funny: in one of the spotlight jokes of the first episode, a burglar takes a little dog and hurls it against a glass door, almost killing it, but then when the dog whines, the burglar grabs an umbrella and repeatedly impales the dog to death.
Not very funny.
The Little Drummer Girl (2018)
Intelligent, well-acted but ultimately dissatisfying
Le Carre is not easy to adapt to the screen -- he's one of the most intelligent writers not just in the espionage genre, but in any and every. This show is a valiant attempt to capture one of his lesser novels, and it's a good try: well cast, well directed, outstanding sets and art direction.
Where it doesn't come together is just that: it doesn't come together. Alexander Skarsgard is a phenomenal actor but here he's been told never to express an emotion, which might be integral to the character but makes him come across as one of the least likable heroes of all time. Michael Shannon is also a reliable part of any show, but here he's an incomplete caricature rather than a fully drawn person. The others also feel incomplete with two exceptions. Florence Pugh is excellent as the heroine, but even more so is Charif Ghattas who throws the entire show off-kilter by becoming the most sympathetic of all the cast, which ends up making the show feel as though it doesn't know what it's doing: the end is ultimately unsatisfactory. The viewer has been pulled through an emotional wringer but it's unclear why.
All in all, a nice effort but not a winner.
Mary & George (2024)
An oddly bloodless show of passion
Given what the producers of this show have chosen to highlight -- the passionate love affair between King James and the Duke of Buckingham, along with countless other dalliances, treachery, lust, and basically every sin you can think of-- the show is strangely cold and distant. It's a character drama without the characters: all the participants are drawn as though from fifty feet away. We never really get into the heads of anyone, we never have a sense of their internal dialogs, we never quite get to know them outside the obvious lust for power, or sex, with which each character is aflame.
There is also the matter of historical rewriting: the show rather pretends to be based on facts, but it's really not; many of the most interesting plot developments are fictional, and much of what could have been actual, factual plot turns are left out (poor Francis Bacon comes off the worst: instead of portraying him as the fascinating and spectacular intellectual he was, here he is only a weak, ineffectual loser).
All in all, there's much to like here if you want scenery, costumes, and sets, along with some remarkable acting (especially from Samuel Blenkin and Tony Curran), but the show leaves a slightly bitter taste, as though you were expecting champagne and instead got ale.
Mozart in the Jungle (2014)
Pleasantly pretentious and then.... Ayn Rand
It would be rather hard to do a show on classical music without some degree of pretension, name-dropping, and intellectual fustiness. And the amount of that happening in this show is actually pretty okay, given that it's balanced with huge amounts of fairly entertaining, if not terribly realistic, sex, drugs, and, yes, rock and roll. And, for the most part the acting is excellent, especially Gael Garcia Bernal and Bernadette Peters, with Debra Monk shining as well -- the only problem acting-wise is Lola Kirke, who is supposed to be so beautiful and charismatic that all men fall for her the moment they see her, while she actually comes off sluggish, petulant, and charmless.
But the oddest part of this show: our liberal, sweet, musical artist heroine is a huge Ayn Rand fan -- well, that's beyond the pale -- Ayn Rand being the heroine of the far right wing, the crazy lunatics of the republican party, and, apparently, the classical musicians of New York?
Nit-picking? Yea, maybe. But Ayn Rand-love is enough of a spoiler to spoil a show.
Bodkin (2024)
So close to being really good
Bodkin starts off wonderfully -- great acting, great scenery, great direction. And Will Forte turns in a terrific performance as an overly cheery Midwestern loser trying so, so hard to redeem his life -- his acting is superb. Actually, so is everyone else's: there's not a weak link in the cast.
There is a weak link in the script, however. That superb start ends up getting drowned in red herrings and weird turns and an overly complicated plot that disintegrates by the last episode. A shame, because for at least half if not more of the show, it knowingly mixes comedy, crime and even a bit of surrealism perfectly. They just didn't know how to end it.
One other note: someone in this show really, really doesn't like dogs. If you do, you might want to skip it. Seriously? Gratuitous canine violence??
Dark Matter (2024)
Pretentious and tedious.
I admit I could only get through about two and half hours of this eternally irksome show before giving up. There may be a really good story in here but to get there you basically have to give up hours of your life watching endless, plotless, lifeless tv. Part of the problem is the writing, which isn't bad, it's just filled with every cliche known to tv (and why does every show, to indicate how intelligent a character is, rely on Schrodingers cat? The poor animal has been killed/not killed far too many times).
The other issue is the casting. No one seems quite right for their role, but Joel Edgerton, who when properly cast is good, here is playing his lead character way over the top: the only way this show would work is if his character was sympathetic, but Edgerton plays the man as a bullying, unpleasant, creep; it's hard not to root against him.
All in all, perhaps if this had been a movie, or a three-parter, it might have worked (with better casting). As an endless tv show, it doesn't.
The Edge of Paradise (2018)
Not bad, not great, but interesting nonetheless
Taylor Camp was a strange moment at a strange time in history -- a place in a Kauai where, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a group of so-called hippies managed to create a small heaven on earth, a place where everyone who reminisces about it only has lovely thoughts to express, a place where everyone got along famously, a place where everyone who was there seems to have come away feeling they were extraordinarily lucky to have been there. Makes you wish you'd been there too.
Unfortunately, there's no story here, there's no thread, there's no through-line in the documentary. It's just one interview after another, giving the impression that these are the reels that the doc will be made from. As a result, because there are so many of these moments, you never get to know any one person, you never get to rest on any one particular story. It's just a dizzying array of interview after interview. A shame, because if there had been an attempt to build a narrative, this could have been great.
Sugar (2024)
Ambitious attempt at something truly different
Sugar is certainly one of the more interesting tv shows to come around in a while -- even though the big plot twist is foreshadowed a little too much if you're paying attention, and even though the actual plot line is skimpy. What works is the acting and the direction. First, Colin Farrell is one of the few actors whose presence screams Movie Star. He takes up the entire screen when he's in it, and no matter what the scene is, and no matter how many people are in it, it all belongs to him. It's too bad he hasn't had great luck finding projects that allow him to shine like this show does. And the other actors are all excellent as well, especially the great James Cromwell, who rarely seems to appear in a bad production. Even the dog is a terrific actor.
Also wonderfully done is the homage to the noir films of the 40s and 50s, interspliced in the film in a way that instead of seeming pretentions seems exactly like they belong there. Really fun to watch and try to identify each movie.
What's weakest is the plot. The twist (every noir film has to have at least one) is inventive and fun, but the actual story line that threads through the show is weak and feels as though it was added when someone said, Hey, we forgot a plot! But other than that, which isn't a small issue, this is a show worth watching mostly because the odds are great you haven't seen anything else like it.
Shogun (2024)
Stunning cinematography, taut direction, poor story telling
James Clavell was one of the most remarkable writers of his time. Not only did he himself live an incredible life, he wrote extraordinary stories with an unbelievable range of topic and mood, everything from horror to adventure to crime. His screenplays included The Fly, The Great Escape, and To Sir with Love. (His politics, however, were unfortunate, being a rightwing libertarian. No one is perfect.)
The reason he could do all this is that the art of excellent narration was second nature to him; he was born a natural story teller. Unfortunately, this adaption of his best selling novel leaves the clear, lucid narration behind. Admittedly, Clavell had more room in his novel that this series has, but the people behind this show, rather than emulate Clavell's genius, have opted for a confusing script that is hard to follow and sometimes seems to meander off into oblivion. A shame, as everything else is here: great direction, superb acting, and above all, extraordinarily luscious sets filmed with precision and clarity: everything the script somehow avoids.
Baby Reindeer (2024)
A remarkable show, almost impossible to watch
The story of Baby Reindeer is pretty well known by now, given its surprise success on Netflix. A powerful, raw, unflinching look at sexual predatory behavior, the issues surrounding trans-women, and most of all, squalid stalking: these are not the normal subjects of a popular series. But Richard Gadd somehow makes this journey one that it's both hard to watch and hard to stop watching: the emotions here are so deep and so overwhelming that you almost feel as though you were going through them yourself. And that's probably the best compliment you can give any entertainment: it makes you live the show, rather than watch it.
Richard Gadd gives a terrific performance, playing a fictional version of himself. But Jessica Gunning makes this show work -- her extraordinary effort to make what might be the least sympathetic role on tv more than just a pathetic one-note character; without that, this wouldn't have worked so well. And it does, all work well.
Everyone Is Doing Great (2018)
Testosterone Times Two
There are few shows on TV that have been willing to explore the raging masculinity of its two lead actors more than this one. The show veers back and forth between the men having sex, almost having sex, taking drugs, not taking drugs but wishing they were talking drugs, talking about having sex, and talking about taking drugs. And yes, there are women in the show, but they're portrayed exactly like the men: creatures of the raging id. In fact, the women might be the worst written female characters of all time (if you can understand their dialogue, as for some reason they both speak in occasionally indecipherable lower middle-class Australian accents).
What does work about this show is the raw, blunt honesty. Neither of these two leads, who also write the show, are in the least bit interested in making themselves seem like decent fellows. Or decent actors (which, actually, they both clearly are). You see them screw up, mess up, vomit, and even see them on the toilet -- this might be the first show to feature a scene with a guy wiping his butt on the john). There's something so frank about what this show is doing that despite its many flaws (lack of plot, lack of cohesiveness, and the weird fact that these two guys were the huge stars of a long running show but both are somehow broke, have no roles, and one of them lives in a hovel while the other only has a nice place because his wife pays the mortgage) the show is weirdly not just watchable but even slightly addicting.
If there had only been some editing and perhaps some others involved who could have helped give the show a more even path, this might have been excellent.
3 Body Problem (2024)
Friends in Space
You have to admire the people who decided to take on this project -- the original books are not easy to collapse into a tv series, and the producers made a concerted effort to create a smart show. The special effects are excellent; the direction is snappy; the sets are beautiful.
However...
The not-so-smart decision the producers made was to abandon the books' original characters and instead recreate Friends. Yes, Friends, the basic middle-brow American tv show. Yet somehow the show runners seem to have decided to make all the major young characters part of a group of friends in England, all of them just as whiny and self-involved as in the actual show Friends. There's the beautiful one (aren't all the very smartest physicists in the world fashion models?), the faithful one, the self-involved one, etc etc, and then there's Will, who's a major character because he's dying, and they needed someone to be dying. That's his only characteristic except, of course, that he's in love with another of the Friends so he can whine about it. These people seem to spend most of their time, in the most dire moments in Earth's history, worried about who's sleeping with who, who loves who, and who is smarter.
The show is great when it focuses on issues. It's terrible when it's all about the soap opera drama between the world's smartest people (and it would be useful to see, if these young adults are all so smart, an example of their intelligence in their dialog, as instead they all talk like, well, the people on Friends.)
A shame this happened. Could have been a great show. Instead, it's a middling show with some excellent themes running through it.
Nolly (2023)
Thin story line beautifully acted
Perhaps this series makes more sense to those in the UK who have heard of Crossroads, the long-running television soap opera that starred the main character of this show, Noele Gordon. Otherwise there really isn't much here, just a few hours of soap opera intrigue and a glimpse at a woman who was very well known in the UK many years ago.
What makes this actually work well is Helena Bonham Carter, who plays Noele (or Nolly). Carter has been miscast so often in her career that she has occasionally ended up the worst performer in some of her shows. But in this role her acting chops are real, evident, and powerful: she pretty much turns the series into something extremely watchable as she is able to give her character powerful grace, depth, and sympathy. Watching Carter here is almost like a lesson in acting: the gestures, the slight grimaces, the slow smiles; everything she does here is nothing short of perfection.
For Carter alone, this show is eminently worth watching, even if like most Americans, Noele Gordon is a non-entity.
Palm Royale (2024)
What is this pleasant, happy mess?
Kristen Wiig is a marvelously talented comedian who can probably do drama just as well; there seem to be no limits to her talent. There are, however, innumerable limits to this particular show -- most of all, the show hasn't any idea what it is. Sometimes it's a drama, sometimes a comedy, sometimes it's sad, sometimes it's surreal, sometimes it's lifelike. There are shows that can pull off this multiple identity issue but unfortunately this one doesn't come close. It doesn't do any of them well.
In fact, Palm Royale doesn't even seem like a show. What it is is a collection of sketches about the lead character. There's no through line, however. Just sketches. The characters all seem to have been told nothing about their last appearance; the show feels as if it was shot in random order. Nothing makes sense. Wiig is supposed to be a climber (literally, as in the first scene) but then it's later revealed that she's possibly the heiress to the most important person in Palm Beach (played by Carol Burnett, who manages to make a comatose patient funny). Sometimes she seems flush with money, but then she's broke. Then rich. Then broke. And if she really thinks she's going to inherit a fortune any moment, why make herself a fool in from of the people she most wants to impress instead of waiting a bit longer? The show is rife with problems like this.
Also, Palm Royale is set around 1969 but the characters all talk like it's 2024 -- they use slang that didn't exist then (especially the currently ever present "like," which didn't appear for many decades to come). Worse, the amazingly talented Laura Dern is playing a feminist who doesn't seem to grasp what feminism is; in fact, all the chatter among the feminist group is far too modern. No one on the show seems to have done any research into what women at the time actually were saying or doing -- there are silly anachronisms throughout, such as the women's bookstore being called Our Bodies, Our Shelves, a riff on the Our Bodies, Our Selves group that started later in 1969, and didn't become well known until well after the famous book was published in 1970. Or, people saying "Thank you for your service," a phrase that wasn't popular until decades later. A carefully thought-out show like Madmen would never have made such a mistake.
The show is just too sloppy and incoherent to really work, which is truly a shame as the amount of talent in the cast is phenomenal. But unless the writers can start telling a coherent story, this is a sad muddle of a mess with just a few funny moments.
Red, White & Royal Blue (2023)
Horrible writing, dull direction redeemed by charismatic actors
It's almost impossible to believe that a human wrote this script -- the dialog is so flat, the action so predictable, the story so maudlin -- that you begin to think that some AI program churned out these insanely bad lines. The direction is equally off-kilter: instead of creating interest, it creates banality with its total lack of imagination and creatively,
What does work, and what makes this show worth watching, are the actors: both Galitzine and Zachary Perez do an outstanding job taking insipid lines and somehow making them work, because both men have so much charm that the screen practically drips with it. Without the inspired casting, this would have ranked as a low-level Hallmark film. With the casting, it works very well. (Except that poor Uma Thurman can no more pull off a Texas accent than the queen of England could.)