Movie Reviews
River
Here we have a six-part mini-series from England that follows the investigation into the drive-by murder of the partner of John River, a homicide detective in London. He is played by Stellan Skarsgard, who is demonstrably crazy. He not only hears voices, he sees dead people, including some he never even met. He carries on a lot of conversations with them, considerably creeping out those ... Read more »
Hot Pursuit
(NOTE: I was recently hospitalized for four days. So I did what I did the last time I was there: I watched movies from the small selection they offered. This was an opportunity to take in some that I normally would have passed on. And just as last time, I found they were all movies I was wise to have skipped. At least they didn’t make me any sicker. This is one.)
Aspires to be a ... Read more »
Terminator Genisys
(NOTE: I was recently hospitalized for four days. So I did what I did the last time I was there: I watched movies from the small selection they offered. This was an opportunity to take in some that I normally would have passed on. And just as last time, I found they were all movies I was wise to have skipped. At least they didn’t make me any sicker. This is one.)
They hardly ever ... Read more »
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
(NOTE: I was recently hospitalized for four days. So I did what I did the last time I was there: I watched movies from the small selection they offered. This was an opportunity to take in some that I normally would have passed on. And just as last time, I found they were all movies I was wise to have skipped. At least they didn’t make me any sicker. This is one.)
If there was ever ... Read more »
Avengers: Age of Ultron
(NOTE: I was recently hospitalized for four days. So I did what I did the last time I was there: I watched movies from the small selection they offered. This was an opportunity to take in some that I normally would have passed on. And just as last time, I found they were all movies I was wise to have skipped. At least they didn’t make me any sicker. This is one.)
I have sworn off ... Read more »
Grandma
Lily Tomlin plays one of those goofy, out there, wild and crazy elderly woman I’m supposed to find delightfully funny, and quite often don’t. She does outrageous stuff, and what often pisses me off about characters like this is that, if she were a man, much of her antics would earn her a poke in the eye. But women get a pass, don’t they? She is a feminist, and would be outraged if I ... Read more »
Apocalypse Now Redux
There are a lot of directors who like to release “director’s cuts” of their movies, but Francis Ford Coppola is the champ in that regard. He tinkered endlessly with the Godfather movies, and apparently he was never really satisfied with this one. He has added 48 minutes to what was already a pretty long movie. Some of it is little snips and dabs extending certain ... Read more »
Truth
As journalistic stories go, this is no All the President’s Men, but that’s not really a put-down. It’s interesting and well-made, but the bottom line is, what’s at stake here is really not all that Earth-shattering. Will Dan Rather be disgraced and have to resign? Um … color me not too damn worried.
The story here concerns one of the nastiest dirty tricks ... Read more »
Person of Interest
We started watching this four-season series (with a fifth season planned) not too long ago, streaming and semi-bingeing. It has the fascinating premise that someone has invented a computer that can simultaneously watch all the CCTV cameras in the world, listen to all the cell phones, monitor all the emails, etc. From all this info it can extrapolate when and where and by whom a terrorist ... Read more »
Happy Valley
Oddly enough, this British six-part mini-series reminded me of the movie Fargo, though only in its broad outlines. Both of them star a female detective a lot smarter than anyone around her (though Sarah Lancashire in this one is not pregnant). Both involve a kidnapping by a gang of real stupid people, instigated by a cowardly asshole who has no idea what he’s ... Read more »