sean0888

Full Custom Garage (2014)

Excellent program.

I have only seen 4 episodes of this show so far but I am very impressed with the work, style and skills of fabricator/builder Ian Roussel. The show is very entertaining and interesting. It really is a pleasure to watch Ian at work, especially if you are a car guy and he presents himself admirably on the show.

It's a credit to the producers of the program that they chose to showcase a talented person like Ian. Hopefully the program will give many young guys coming up some inspiration to work hard and develop a range of skills that will set them up for life.

It's a shame there are not more quality reality programs like this one rather than the blithering idiots very often showcased on some other reality programs of this kind.

Daryl Hall and John Oates Live in Dublin (2015)

A Truly Magnificent Concert

This music DVD is a recording of the Daryl Hall - John Oates (and band) performance of a once only concert in July 2014 at Dublin's Olympia Theatre. The DVD includes interviews with D. Hall and J. Oates at the end. I have listed the songs performed at the end of this review.

The performances of Hall and Oates and their great band were just superb and, if the incredible feedback from the very appreciative audience was any guide, the live sound in the theatre must have been really fantastic because the recording certainly was. These guys are so good the audience went wild after the very first song and the show took off and was really rocking from there. As usual, the whole band gave 110% (because that is what these guys do) and the entire performance was just superb.

John (guitar and vocals) and Daryl (guitar, keyboard, vocals) are supported by : Shane Theriot - Lead guitar and vocals (a truly great talent)..... Brian Dunne - Drums ( a superb drummer)..... Porter Carroll Jr - Percussion and vocals (a terrific performer)..... Charlie DeChant - Saxophone, other instruments and vocals ( a terrific performer)..... Elliot Lewis - Keyboard and vocals (a terrific performer)..... Klyde Jones - Bass guitar and vocals (a terrific performer)

Shane Theriot performs some really great guitar work during this concert which is more than well worth listening to and Charlie DeChant some excellent sax work as usual.

The entire supporting band though is truly excellent and work wonderfully well together with Daryl and John to produce a rich and powerful sound.

Unlike many artists, these guys do not tour with a select team of specialist backing vocalists. All backing vocals are performed during the concert by the musicians themselves and they do it so well.

I could not say enough about how good this DVD concert recording is. Even if you just like Hall and Oates music a bit, I guarantee you will be quite stunned at how superb this concert is and appreciate how much work all the guys put in to produce a really memorable and truly enjoyable performance.

I will give the guys 11/10 for this show and that goes for all 8 of them. I certainly got more than my money's worth buying this DVD. (Rent it or buy it. You will not be disappointed).

The 15 SONGS performed DURING THE CONCERT are these:

MANEATER, OUT OF TOUCH, SAY IT ISN'T SO, FAMILY MAN, IT'S UNCANNY, BACK TOGETHER AGAIN, LAS VEGAS TURNAROUND, SHE'S GONE, SARA SMILE, DO WHAT YOU WANT - BE WHAT YOU ARE, I CAN'T GO FOR THAT, RICH GIRL, YOU MAKE MY DREAMS, KISS ON MY LIST, PRIVATE EYES.

Fargo (2014)

Season 1 - Fascinating Fiction with Some Glaring Flaws

I have only seen the entire season one which is a self contained story so my comments are restricted to that. * This does contain spoilers *

This is a nice piece of fiction even though there are some unfortunate glaring holes in the plot. But then this is Hollywood stuff and unfortunately the writers seem do this kind of thing constantly in fictional TV series.

The acting for the most part is excellent most especially from wife killer Martin Freeman and Allison Tolman(who plays deputy Molly Solverson). The performances by these 2 were just superb and the show is well worth watching just to see these 2 in action.

Instead of treating the audience as mindless zombies perhaps the writers could have been a great deal more realistic with their script. For example:

1. We are expected to believe a Duluth police officer would let a clearly suspicious person off the hook when he declined to provide his licence and registration papers while sitting in a stolen car and issuing threats to the officer. In reality the guy would have been ordered out of the car at gun point and told to lie on the ground while handcuffed and back up would probably have also been called in. In the real world armed Police tend not to let you go when you refuse to identify yourself and then physically threaten them.

2. The Lorne Malvo character is nothing but a contract fix it and contract killer but is given a false identity for one job as a Minister of religion. When captured by the Duluth police (and later released) the police check his story and identity. They make a few phone calls and then believe he is legitimate - a real Minister of a Church. Since his identity was completely fabricated this is just impossible to believe.

3. Early in the story Lorne Malvo, who is a complete psychotic, kills the local police chief in Lester Nygaard's house and with Nygaard as a witness. But he does not kill Nygaard when Nygaard is still clearly a loose end. Contract killers like this character do not leave loose ends.

4. We are expected to believe that Lorne Malvo, psycho hit man, can masquerade as a dentist (and is shown actually working on patients) for 6 months while plotting on getting at and executing a person in witness protection. This is just beyond belief.

5. At the end of the story we are expected to believe that Nygaard would confront Malvo when he sees him in a Las Vegas hotel threatening to blow his cover in the presence of Malvo's girlfriend and work colleague whereas in reality he would have no reason to go anywhere near the guy. Of course we never see how a psycho hit man with zero friends can pull a hot looking young GF in the first place. Also quite unbelievable.

6. Then when Malvo has his cover threatened we are expected to believe he would kill his girlfriend, colleague and the colleagues wife in the lift whilst not immediately killing Nygaard at the same time when he is 2 feet away in the same lift and there are no witnesses. In reality he would have disposed of Nygaard at the same time as the other 3 as there was every reason to and no reason not to. So then we are treated to days of Malvo taking the risk of being identified while tracking down Nygaard in his home town to trying and kill him when he could have done away with him in 2 seconds in the Las Vegas lift.

I do not know why writers put scripts together with such obvious over the top flaws and expect it to look credible but that is Hollywood for you.

Then finally we have to endure the beginning of each episode with the captions that this is a "true story" with the events happening exactly as depicted in Minnesota in 2006. Maybe some viewers will actually believe this nonsense when in truth the entire show is a work of complete fiction. Once again, the writers and producers are trying to treat the audience as idiots.

Without its flawed script this show would be worth a 10/10 but as is it is only worth an 8.

2 Broke Girls (2011)

A Show to Forget

Oh dear what a load of garbage this ""has developed into.

In season one it showed some possible promise but has not made the grade.

Character Blond Bimbo runs around like she is permanently stoked up with ten strong coffees and character Brunette Bimbo drawls around like she has recently swallowed a bottle of tranquilizers or two. Most of the male characters are mostly misfits of one kind or another,act like it and are equally pathetic.

The jokes are B grade and the sex jokes are sub-junior high school.

Overall though it has a lot to offer if you have a 45 point IQ or if you are attending junior high and are an up and coming jock or cheer leader. Kindergarten kids will mostly find it way below their intelligence level and are most likely to seek something way more sophisticated such as playing with Lego or dressing their dolls.

I am sure Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, Kate Winslet and other fine actresses are just busting for an invitation cameo appearance on the show.

Otherwise, good work creators and writers. We knew you had it in you. What next. A feature film perhaps? Give Adam Sandler a call.

The Artist (2011)

Just Another Grossly Over Rated Movie

Why anyone would give this mediocre and often boring and dull movie a high rating is beyond me. Yes the leading lady is really, really cute, the lead male character actor is quite good at doing what he has been asked to do but that is about it. Oh yes the period costumes and sets are quite good as is the brief dance routine at the end but so what. That does not make up for all the other failings.

Unfortunately this film is no masterpiece in either the unoriginal writing or mostly bread and butter acting and there is a limit to how interesting you can make a silent movie. This film certainly has and shows up these limitations with abundance.

I sat through this movie thinking this darn thing must get better otherwise why all the academy awards and accolades. Well it did not get much better and there are a lot of people still wondering.

I am sorry now that I wasted my time buying and watching this film. Next time I will read some of the IMDb bad reviews before falling for the trap so many film fans seem to have over this one.

Recommendation: Unless you have a high boredom threshold, or just want to watch a movie instead of going to that funeral you are supposed to attend, then give this film a very big miss.

Close to You: Remembering the Carpenters (1997)

A Lovely Moving Tribute to the Works of Karen and Richard Carpenter

This documentary is still readily available on DVD and I would highly recommend you buy it if you like the Carpenters - even just a little. It also includes some extras not shown when this was originally aired such as video of sections of the Carpenters performance at the White House when invited by then President Richard Nixon to play a show to a large audience on the evening of the official dinner given for the visiting German Chancellor, Willy Brandt. Pres Nixon's adoration for these people is interesting and the scene at the end when both the President and Mrs Nixon stood on the small stage hand in hand with Karen and Richard is really quite touching.

Much of the documentary is the quite excellent narration by Richard Carpenter which viewers will find so useful in gaining a much greater understanding and appreciation of just what made the Carpenters and their music and why they were such an international success. Interviews with names such as Burt Bacharach, writer -musician John Bettis, writer -musician John Williams, Carpenters talented guitarist (the late) Tony Peluso, A and M Records co-founder and musician Herb Alpert and others adds greatly to the story.

The show includes some live performances by Karen whose voice is just so fine and pure it virtually blows you away. Unfortunately time constraints did not permit the entirety of these live performances to be shown in most cases. This included the very moving live performance of Karen and Ella Fitzgerald singing "This Masquerade" during the last TV special performed by Richard and Karen. What a tragedy this entire performance by these two great singers was not included in full.

Richard provides an excellent summary of the background to the development/production of many of the songs that contributed to the Carpenters success and viewers will find this most interesting. Prior to having seen this documentary I did not fully appreciate just what a genius Richard really was in popular music and just how much he contributed. He was the backbone to the duo - without a doubt - and his musical arrangements and creations were and still are fabulous.

As for Karen, she is just a beautiful angel with an extraordinary singing voice that one never gets tired of hearing. Sadly one sees during the documentary a Karen that seems to get just a little thinner and thinner as times elapses until she sadly passes. The voice never deteriorates though.

Thankfully this beautiful lady lives on through her many magical recordings due in great part to her very talented brother Riichard. No doubt, in 50 years people will still be listening to that marvelous angelic voice from this delightful lady that has given, with her brother, so much happiness and joy to so many people around the world.

Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001)

Do not waste your time. This movie is 10th rate.

I have seen many French movies and for the most part these have been excellent productions to say the least. No one can make movies just like the French but occasionally they are going to make a bad one. Amelie is definitely one of the very poor examples.

Amelie is nothing less than a dreadful piece of work and how anyone can praise this piece of trash is beyond me. The writer, producers and director must have had a huge laugh at all the praise lavished on this trash. Talk about sending up and taking the mickey out of audiences all around the world serving them this excuse for a movie. Most of them fell for it though - just look at many of the reviews here.

The film is nonsense,loopy,boring,humorless and with the minimum of entertainment value. Of course when you have a main character who was some kind of eccentric weirdo nut job it is not all that surprising that you would have the basis for a terrible film. Thank heavens this is not typical of the many other products we normally see from France.

Senna (2010)

No where near as good as it should have been.

As a very keen motor racing fan who saw most of A. Senna's F1 races, (including the race where his car crashed at Imola as a result of a serious mechanical failure), I thought the film was very understated and did not do sufficient justice to one of the most outstanding motor racing drivers of the post WW2 era.

I have seen the DVD with the narrated commentary by the makers of the film. It explains why they chose the scenes they did and offers a great deal of explanation of events but none of this information was included in the film. It assumed audiences already knew quite a bit about this man.

The problems with the movie included:

1. Very minimal narration which left audiences trying to grasp what was really happening at times and lost the opportunity to tell the audience a much richer and more complete story.

2. An appearance in the film that he jumped from go-cart racing straight into F1. No one does that and he didn't either. He was driving Formula Fords and then Formula 3 cars successfully over a period of 3 years before progressing to F1.

2. Very, very poor descriptions of the man's amazing results in just 10 full years in F1 including 4 of those years in second rate cars. (see below).

3. Poor reflections of just how he managed - by pure talent - to consistently out drive his competitors so convincingly with only minimal evidence of just how talented he was. There was no reason why the film should have been limited to only 100 minutes when another 10 minutes of footage could have shown and added so much more.

4. Insufficient descriptions of just how committed he was to the safety and well being of other drivers. During the end credits you see a film of a driver stop and jump out of his car during practice and put his own life in danger to sprint back down the track (in the face of other cars) to the aid of another driver that had crashed and was sitting injured in his car across the track. This should have been part of the movie, explained and highlighted because it showed what a magnificent human being that driver was. It was Senna of course. They don't make them like that anymore - at least not in F1.

5. There were massive investigations following the Senna crash at Imola, not to mention court cases but none of this was mentioned in the film. It was clearly established that a major mechanical failure in the car (steering column) had caused the crash leaving Senna a passenger in a car racing at 330 km per hour. None of this was covered in the film (other than one minor speculative comment) leaving audiences (who did not know) wondering what had really gone wrong.

I could go on but I won't. The film underwhelmed me and is found wanting. It could have been just so much better and so much more emotional and heart breaking. A great deal of improvement could have been made with much more factual narration which would not have even added to run time.

The man's achievements at death were amazing but these were never shown to the audience. Here they are and the list is indicative of what a great race driver and champion this guy was:

A. Senna held and in most of cases below still holds the following Formula One records:

• Most wins leading the entire race... 19

• Most consecutive pole positions... 8 consecutive pole positions

• Most consecutive starts from front row... 24

• Most consecutive wins at the same Grand Prix... 5 wins in a row at the Monaco Grand Prix (1989 Monaco Grand Prix–1993 Monaco Grand Prix)

• Most consecutive pole positions at the same Grand Prix... 7 pole positions in a row at the San Marino Grand Prix (1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991)

• Most pole positions at the same Grand Prix... 8 pole positions at the San Marino Grand Prix (1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1994)

• Starts from front row in every race of a season... 16 out of 16 front row starts in 1989

• Most seasons leading the pole-position statistics... 6 (in 1985,1986, 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1991)

A. Senna also held the following records at the time of his death:

• Most pole positions... 65

• Most laps led ...2,982

-Longest distance led... 13,672 km

• Most GPs led... 86

• Most Doubles (pole and win, same GP race)... 29

• Most Front Row starts... 87

• Youngest triple world champion... 31 years,227 days

• Youngest driver to score a Grand Slam (pole, win, fastest lap, led every lap) ...25 years, 31 days

Suburgatory (2011)

It is a Comedy and this one is actually Funny

Having seen the pilot I purchased the Season 1 DVD and have seen most of the episodes. It is great seeing 5 or 6 episodes of short shows like this one in succession without advertisements and the like breaking it all up.

Heck some people over analyse things though. It's just a little TV show.

This is a simple basic comedy with some extreme characters some of which are funny and some not so, some endearing and others much less so. In fact a few of the characters (very few fortunately) are just ridiculous but this is Hollywood fiction so they create the extreme at times.

The writers set out to send up Americans and some aspects of its culture and they obviously had a lot of fun doing so. Why they went too far over the top at times I do not know because the show would work better without some of the occasional stupidity that has been allowed to creep in now and then. Obviously some episodes are better and funnier than others.

Overall this is a cute, second tier, light hearted comedy show which will really make you laugh. After all that is what a comedy is for.(It is not quite up in the same league as some of the very high rated Chuck Lorre comedies though). For the most part it is quite well acted and the 3 principal characters are quite endearing.

If you don't like a good laugh then you probably won't like it that much. Some of it is hilarious but I am sure some of the slick lines they have dropped in there will go right over the heads of some.

As far as ratings go, some of the episodes I have seen from Season 1 are so funny I would give them a 9 or 10 rating.

Give this show a go because when you get into it, for the most part, you will enjoy it. There is nothing like having a good laugh is there?

Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000)

Nonsense - irritating, dull, uninteresting, tiresome trash.

CYE is undoubtedly one of the worst shows of its type I have ever had the displeasure to watch. Yes I know Larry David thinks he is so absolutely brilliant, witty and funny. Actually he is just a balding middle aged unattractive guy who likes to endlessly babble a lot and, in fact, seems to have lost it. If he has any talent (and I am certain he does) then he left it behind to do this excuse for a TV show.

It is a load of tiresome trash and I cannot believe the networks allowed it to run so long. The Government should use it for torture instead of water boarding. It will be far more effective.

The fact that irritating nonsense like this survives so long in the US is testament to how effective the "dumbing down" of America is.

Ah - yes. That is correct. I did not like the show at all. (See what I mean about dumbing down).

But then a few people made a lot of money out of this and at the end of the day that is what it is all about. Good luck to them.

Operation Repo (2007)

Forget it. Read a book, go for a walk or do just about anything else.

How ironic. Some people like reality TV shows so now someone decides to make another show that pretends to be reality TV but in fact is totally FAKE and scripted/acted.

Basically, this would be an interesting show depicting some very strange and over the top scenes if it was truly real. The producers of the show have gone to great lengths to try and depict it as real life drama but of course it is all fake. Many of the concocted "repo" scenes are nothing short of totally ridiculous and are indicative of the lack of creativity of the writers and producers. All the "repo" scenes are scripted with actors in all parts. But of course the acting is dreadful as you might expect in a show like this. Watch a few episodes and you will see just how bad the acting is as well as recognizing that the characters are only performing a script.

Essentially the series is a waste of time. Why bother to watch third rate amateur class acting and amateur C grade scripts for a show that "pretends" to be reality. It's a performance and not a believable one at that.