kiga-1
Joined Mar 2005
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Reviews21
kiga-1's rating
This is a generic, paint-by-numbers, harmless comedy. Kristin Chenoweth steals the show having cornered the market on passive aggressive characters.
There are some funny lines, a few good sight gags (as always involving the pets.) The director keeps the pace moving, but you can't help but feel you've been served this meal before.
Everyone looks great, everyone's costumes are perfect, everyone's home has not one sock nor toy out of place. Yeah, it might be in character and, yeah, you might know people like this, but the whole movie looks like it was taken from a display in the mall.
The whole "little secret" is not very original not worth keeping worse is much ado about nothing anyway.
But don't worry: the whole movie has been cast in a perfectly P. C. manner.
If Lindsay Lohan doesn't get better about picking scripts her career will continue to go nowhere.
There are some funny lines, a few good sight gags (as always involving the pets.) The director keeps the pace moving, but you can't help but feel you've been served this meal before.
Everyone looks great, everyone's costumes are perfect, everyone's home has not one sock nor toy out of place. Yeah, it might be in character and, yeah, you might know people like this, but the whole movie looks like it was taken from a display in the mall.
The whole "little secret" is not very original not worth keeping worse is much ado about nothing anyway.
But don't worry: the whole movie has been cast in a perfectly P. C. manner.
If Lindsay Lohan doesn't get better about picking scripts her career will continue to go nowhere.
The movie is heavily influenced by "The Joker", a little bit of "The Matrix" and references to all of Coppola's earlier films.
Unfortunately beautiful images and set pieces interrupt rather than continue the story. A lot of scenes have dialogue that feels like we missed the beginning of the conversation and the acting styles are all over the map.
This was probably a much longer movie badly edited down the manageable length as various characters come and go (Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman) and others, supposedly integral to the plot seem just randomly inserted (Shia LeBoeuf)
I will give it five stars however, for the Edgar Allen Poe inspired ending (the last 10 seconds.) If this were a great movie it would be water cooler conversation for weeks to come.
Unfortunately beautiful images and set pieces interrupt rather than continue the story. A lot of scenes have dialogue that feels like we missed the beginning of the conversation and the acting styles are all over the map.
This was probably a much longer movie badly edited down the manageable length as various characters come and go (Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman) and others, supposedly integral to the plot seem just randomly inserted (Shia LeBoeuf)
I will give it five stars however, for the Edgar Allen Poe inspired ending (the last 10 seconds.) If this were a great movie it would be water cooler conversation for weeks to come.
Obviously this show was new and fresh 50 years ago, but it has badly dated. I've watched the whole 5 seasons hoping the show would eventually "get started" but to no avail.
There is no arguing the production design overall is brilliant, just wish the characters were as interesting.
1. PACING: The pace of each episode is very slow: 25 minute plots are blown up into 50 minutes which is a problem for a show with very few surprises.
2. TIME PASSING: I already know that the producers purposely avoided aging the characters over 30 years, but that doesn't excuse the fact that the characters don't noticeably evolve very much. You'd swear the show happened in real time (i.e. Five years) given how static the characters remain over 27 years.
For example in an episode 21 years after the first, Hudson is considered an old man going after a younger woman. But, since is real time it's only 4 years later, the episode doesn't work. Hudson just doesn't look, or more importantly, "sound" much older.
3. ACTING: People refer to the acting as "brilliant." To me the acting is, at best, very competent. There are very few compelling performances that make you care enough over their constant whining and complaining about their lot in life. Audiences wildly overpraise Meg Owyns, but her character never comes alive, never breaks out, she sort of comes and goes without any arc.
4. CLASS SYSTEM: Clearly people are either blessed or cursed at birth. But that theme becomes very repetitive. It's embarrassing to watch some of the servants declare they are destined for better (e.g. Pauline Collins channeling Eliza Dolittle.) The rich people needed to find things to do other than host tea parties and complain about their servants and gossip about their fellow rich people's foibles.
5. THE WAY THINGS WERE: I've been taken to task by fans of the show that I just don't understand "the way things were" and that showing the servants point of view was very revolutionary. Maybe so, but after the first season or so, I got the point and was waiting for more important things to happen...or at least to care more about the little things.
However, I'm glad I stuck with the series and watched as a history lesson, but like many history lessons it came alive very rarely.
For comparison, I've never watched "Downton Abbey" and my favorite British show is "Yes, Prime/Minister."
There is no arguing the production design overall is brilliant, just wish the characters were as interesting.
1. PACING: The pace of each episode is very slow: 25 minute plots are blown up into 50 minutes which is a problem for a show with very few surprises.
2. TIME PASSING: I already know that the producers purposely avoided aging the characters over 30 years, but that doesn't excuse the fact that the characters don't noticeably evolve very much. You'd swear the show happened in real time (i.e. Five years) given how static the characters remain over 27 years.
For example in an episode 21 years after the first, Hudson is considered an old man going after a younger woman. But, since is real time it's only 4 years later, the episode doesn't work. Hudson just doesn't look, or more importantly, "sound" much older.
3. ACTING: People refer to the acting as "brilliant." To me the acting is, at best, very competent. There are very few compelling performances that make you care enough over their constant whining and complaining about their lot in life. Audiences wildly overpraise Meg Owyns, but her character never comes alive, never breaks out, she sort of comes and goes without any arc.
4. CLASS SYSTEM: Clearly people are either blessed or cursed at birth. But that theme becomes very repetitive. It's embarrassing to watch some of the servants declare they are destined for better (e.g. Pauline Collins channeling Eliza Dolittle.) The rich people needed to find things to do other than host tea parties and complain about their servants and gossip about their fellow rich people's foibles.
5. THE WAY THINGS WERE: I've been taken to task by fans of the show that I just don't understand "the way things were" and that showing the servants point of view was very revolutionary. Maybe so, but after the first season or so, I got the point and was waiting for more important things to happen...or at least to care more about the little things.
However, I'm glad I stuck with the series and watched as a history lesson, but like many history lessons it came alive very rarely.
For comparison, I've never watched "Downton Abbey" and my favorite British show is "Yes, Prime/Minister."