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The reviews on this episode are depressing.

"It was too political" says the people that try to bring politics into everything
"It wasn't sci-fi enough" says the people that watching it on that level
"There weren't enough twists" says the people who watch this show on a superficial level.
"It was brokeback mountain for tv" said the homophobic people
"They've covered some of this stuff before" says the people that think that every story has to not resemble any other story in any way.
"They wrapped it up too quickly" says the people who value the destination more than the journey (shoot me now)

I don't know what more people want from this series. The series is meant to discuss the human condition in our quickly-changing world. It is meant to provoke thought and conversation and make us think about where we are going and the challenges we will face. In that regard it very much reminded me of San Junipero - probably my favorite episode of the entire series. While not being as uplifting as that episode (which is irrelevant as I don't watch media to be uplifted) it was actually interesting that the leads in the show had actually found what seemed to be a balance where they could co-exist.

There were so many layers and things to think about - I can't believe that others didn't see it the same way. While so many of their episodes are cautionary tales I thought this did a fantastic job portraying the complexities that we are now starting to do deal with in our relationships.

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I am going to assume that anyone reading this already knows that the film is about a couple going through the divorce process (if you didn't know this you find out right at the beginning). Halfway through the film I asked myself why the film wasn't called "Divorce Story" as the story is really about the difficulty that families face when a relationship falls apart. After mulling this over for a day or so I think I realized the answer. The film isn't about divorce as much as it is about relationships. In the film the couple doesn't seem to have problems that couldn't be worked out. In the opening sequence we see that there is actually a lot that they like about each other. As the film plays on we see that there is a fair amount of baggage that each of them has.

And that's where the heart of the film is. Much of the baggage are things that the characters have carried around in silence and thus they were allowed to grow and mutate internally. The film isn't so much a cautionary tale about divorce as it is a cautionary tale about relationships. The key to the film was said by Alan Alda's character in the middle of the film: after all of this is said and done you're still going to have to work this out between the two of you. So yes, the repressed feelings ended up being spoken by lawyers at the cost of hundreds of dollars an hour. And yes, when it was all said and done they did have to learn how to get along. But the real problem is that they had not learned to talk to each other years before and they were just starting to learn how to do it when the dust settled. What if they had learned how to do so years before?

It is wonderful to see A-list hollywood actors doing adult dramas again. Adam Driver has really been on a role with some fantastic films (including the criminally unseen Paterson). This wasn't the most entertaining Baumbach movie that I've seen but it may be the most intelligent (and in some ways, the most important). The writing and acting are superb.

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This movie was recommended by a friend from work. I've been known to not particularly be a fan of love stories or fantasy movies and this movie was a bit of both. However, I'm going to use it to prove a point. As with many other forms of art, quality is quality. I can't stand country music but a good song would shine through (wouldn't it?).

Anyway, the movie does something that is somewhat rare these days: it drops you into a world that you know nothing about on an adventure that seems to have no boundaries or rules. At times it is sweet and other times it is funny but it is always mysterious. The movie is somewhat cheesy but despite being a fantasy it is always believable. Many of the reviews that I read compared it favorably to "Princess Bride".

For the life of me I can't figure out why there wasn't more run on this movie before it was released. I'm not saying that it was the second coming of the Godfather but it was a really nice movie for all ages and it had an all-star cast (Michelle Pfeiffer, Claire Danes, Robert De Niro, Peter O'toole, many others). I watched it with Rebecca and her brother and all three of us enjoyed it immensely despite having decidedly different tastes in movies.

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Before I begin, I need to get one thing straight. I watch movies because I like to see good films. I do not watch movies to kill time or feel good or to "not think for a while" as so many people say. It doesn't mean that I mind when a movie is inspirational as long as it is intelligent and gives me something to think about. The backdrops will change but quality should remain. This does not mean that I expect anyone else to watch a movie the way I do - I just want you to know where I'm coming from.

The more I think about it, the more I hate this movie.

The film is based on a real-life event where a rich southern family took in a semi-homeless black teenager. That part (and maybe only that part) is actually true. In itself, that story is amazing and incredibly touching. Too often in life we all look the other way when we see something uncomfortable on the streets.

It is this core story that is what is heartwarming. If I gave you the synopsis in one or two minutes you would be touched and your heart would be warmed. You're a better person for hearing about it. But there is a huge difference between relating the story and what was done in this movie and that is where my problem is. Just about everything that happened in the movie was contrived and superficial and meant to pull at your heartstrings.

And I know what you're saying - so what? It is a movie. If this were a novel or something like that, great. I can tolerate and even partially enjoy a movie like Serendipity that is meant to be pure sugar and meant to make you feel good. This movie had a touching core. The saccharin that was poured on top of it was at best unnecessary.

You want uplifting? Go see Precious. Now there was a film that was gritty, awful, beautiful and uplifting. It didn't need to cue the sappy music to let you know a scene was coming. The story stood on its own.

Anyway, here are the reasons why this movie was so bad.

The majority of the events never happened. Sandra Bullock didn't call the coach on the field during a game or run onto the field during practice to save the day. They didn't pick up the boy while he was walking along the street on a rainy night. There wasn't a dramatic moment where the coach fought to get the boy into school. All these dramatic scenes were standard Hollywood formulas for contrived emotions.

There was a single character in the move and that was the mother (Bullock). Every other character in the movie was either a prop (the boy) or a doormat (the husband, coach, etc). Worse, they all are expected to crown her as some queen while she insults them and ponders if this makes her a great person or not. Why? I think the answer is simple - it was meant to be a vehicle for Bullock and it was to be her show (even though, by all accounts, the real-life husband was very responsible for what happened).

Why are people so impressed with the sassy women? They should have called this movie "Erin Brockovich 2". I don't know what was more cringe-worthy: the scene where she drives into the hood and threatens some thugs with violence or where she verbally assaults the father in the stands at the game. If you met this woman in real life you'd want her dead. Can you imagine if someone called your kid's coach during a game to give advice (or worse, walking into a practice and treating the players like infants)? Would you talk down to him or your husband the way she repeatedly did? But for some reason people see it on screen and like it.

Speaking of condescending, what about her treatment towards the boy? He was essentially a pet in this movie. She ordered him to go here, there and everywhere. The big "trick" was teaching him how to play football. Think about it - he didn't have a meaningful line until the last 5 minutes of the movie and he was on screen more than anyone. I want to know what he thinks about the culture shock that he's been through. Was it difficult for him to move in with this family? What does he think of his past? We hear none of this because it is written to be a coronation of the mother.

I can see why black Americans were a little upset by this movie. Once again, don't get me wrong - it is admirable that they did what they did. But a bored and rich housewife takes on a project and they make a movie about it? There are scores of grandmothers that raised their grandkids because the parents weren't around - I can't imagine being one of those people and seeing this movie (and I can't imagine Hollywood making that movie). Also, the popularity of this film is more proof of the way we look at black Americans. We think that we need to protect them and be parents to them - you see it everyday in speech, movies, tv, etc. That is the real racism in this country.

Why the constant need to remind us that they are Christians and conservative? Besides, the message was hypocritical. Was it Christian to have academic standards to the Christian school? Was it Christian to live in that huge mansion? I think not.
Cliched. The whole movie was one cliche after another! You could see the next scene coming at every step of the way. Once again, this takes away from what the movie should have been about.

So, there you have it. If you like cheesy books written by the likes of Mitch Albom (other than "Morrie") or Glen Beck, you probably liked this. And I get that. But lets not pretend that it was anything more than a sunday night movie that you'd see on ABC (do they still have those?). Worse, lets not pretend that Bullock should have won the award. It is a crime that the leads in Inglorious Basterds or Precious didn't get it. Hell, I'd toss in the woman from Up in the Air also.

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Holy S, I can't understand the previous comments. This was one of the best 30 minute episodes of a comedy that I've ever seen. Surely there is a network sitcom that you can be watching if you want the same thing over and over again.

First, the episode was genius and in a sense reminded me of last season's first episode where they just kind of went free-form and didn't rush to get into the season. After all it is a larger story that they are telling - there will be lots of time to get to the train wreck that is surely coming. The episode also reminded me of shows like moonlighting that weren't afraid to have a theme show once in a while. If you saw the show's tag line it shouldn't have taken 20 minutes to figure out what they were going for. I was rolling towards the end of the show.

And finally... the point wasn't to show them all cute and cuddly. They aren't and that was the point. They are both dark and the episode showed how when the stars align they can be dark together and have a beautifully dark relationship that is all their own.

EDIT 5/20/2019. As I said in my review of the season premier there was a larger story to tell here. This episode set the scene for the last few minutes of the finale (not unlike how the first episode of the Sopranos last season set the scene for the magnificent ending).

I loved this movie on so many levels. One of the things that I really enjoy about watching movies made in other countries is that there is such a different approach when it comes to how a story is told. For example, in this movie you aren't even necessarily sure what the main conflict is. It isn't assumed that the male lead and the female lead are going to be romantically linked. There isn't a music bed to tell us when something dramatic is happening. With this movie I just fell into a nice groove with it and let it take me away for three hours. I swear that the movie felt shorter than many of the ninety minute movies that I've seen recently.

Of course, this means that the movie isn't for everyone. The acting is fantastic but the pacing is.... deliberate? I laughed out loud when the opening credits started rolling forty minutes into the movie. It's been twenty four hours since I watched it and I am still pondering the central themes of the movie. I've seen some people say that they didn't like the movie because they believed the central theme to be grief. It may have been for some of the movie but clearly not for all of it. Also, the movie is beautiful to look at and it provides an excellent backdrop to ponder what is happening in the film.

Anyway, I would easily put this up with Licorice Pizza and Coda as the best movies of 2021.

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I've read that Bill Murray and Harold Ramis had huge fights over how Groundhog Day was going to be created. Murray wanted a film that feature existential questions while Ramis wanted something more of a screwball comedy. It seems as though the film ended up somewhere in the middle and that both men must have gotten at least a little bit of their way. Palm Springs seems to pick up a little bit where Groundhog Day left off. The main characters are placed into a situation where they are to question (along with the viewer) what makes up a life and what it means to have a tomorrow. Is it so wrong to have a life filled with comfort? What does the person in such a role owe the others that are not in the same role? And so on.

While I enjoyed the movie I wouldn't say that it is great. The leads were excellent (Samberg is a revelation) and the story was good even though I found the science part of the resolution to be pretty iffy. The movie was fun to watch and that's often the most you can hope for.

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Whenever I watch a movie or a documentary I try to avoid knowing much about what I am about to watch as humanly possible.  Quite often I go by the score on rotten tomatoes and maybe the first line of the description.  If both seem agreeable I might give  it a go.  

I knew the basic premise of this film:  three men find each other later in life.  You pretty much know this by the title and watching the first few minutes of the film.  I also knew that here had to be much, much more than this.  And boy.... wow.  At various points of the film my wife and I would stop to discuss something because we could not wait.  There was no shortage of empathy, outrage and disbelief as the story continued to be told.   The final five minutes are absolutely breathtaking - I won't say more than that.  That said, I would have left out the last minute of the documentary because it seemed like less of a take-away than what had just been revealed.

One side note:  the way that the story is told is absolutely perfect.  The director could have easily played games and made it more suspenseful than it needed to be.  

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The tag line says that the movies is about a woman is hired to paint a portrait of a woman in advance of her wedding. I am having a hard time describing how I feel about this film. Have you ever watched a film where you just know that you're watching something really special? Maybe 2001: A Space Odyssey? I felt that I had that kind of experience while watching it. I'd have to say that it was the best film that I've watched in the last calendar year.

First, the movie is crazy beautiful to look at. Every shot and every frame feels like it was painted using the same kind of detail and precision that the artist uses to paint her picture. There wasn't a single unnecessary or lazy scene in the film. Everything from the landscape to the intimate glances were just perfect.

I also really appreciated the references to the artistic process. It never occurred to me that while the artist was trying to drink in every aspect of the model that the model might be doing the same thing in return. Or that maybe a viewer might see a portrait in a different way in a different time because they have changed. Watching the movie felt very much like staring at a beautiful painting for a couple of hours when you have only really begin to scratch the surface in that amount of time. The same is probably true of the feminist angles that the movie touched on - I don't feel nearly qualified to comment on that angle.

Finally, the forbidden relationship. Being set in the 1700's meant that a woman's fate was mostly sealed. The women had no illusions about what they were and were not allowed to do so that didn't cloud their time together. There were a beautiful few days of discovery and then both knew it would be over. The final scene was perfect. The whole movie is just lovely.

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This is from the director Penny Lane, who might be best known for making another documentary about Richard Nixon called Our Nixon (which was also fabulous). This is a film about love and the struggle to be free. It is about those that are considered to be different than "normal". The film is also about the struggle to shape our own morality and compassion.

While the film does not try to put down others I think where it really shines is showing how the religious are threatened by people who think and love in a different way. For them their way is the right way and people that think otherwise are dangerous. As an atheist I can tell you that I can't tell if someone is "good" or "bad" based on their religious belief but I can sure as s*** tell you that people that do believe in magical books almost never walk the walk. The belief in the belief is more important than the belief.

I was deeply inspired by the people that risked their personal professional lives for a greater cause. I firmly believe that humans have the compassion and the moral compass to forge a better world. One of the interesting themes in the movie that did not get a lot of air time was the disagreements that some of the leaders had when trying to grow their organization.

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By now you've probably seen the rating. Yes, that's right - I've given what is widely regarded as the best sequal of all time a "7".

This movie had very little of what made the first movie so good. In my book the most interesting part of the first Godfather was the transformation of Michael Corleone from pacifist to head of the family. "2" featured the difficulty of both running the family and trying to legitimize their business. The result, from my perspective, was a mish-mosh. The movie never did have any flow. In fact, when it ended I almost fell off my chair. There were few high points in this movie the ending certainly wasn't one of them.

The worst part of the movie were the flashbacks. I understand that part of the reason to visit Vito Corleone's childhood and early life was to contrast his style of leadership with that of the heavy-handed Michael. Other than that, I really had no interest in seeing a 13 year old future mobster. The result was an already fragmented plot being torn apart that much more to take trips down memory lane (and a 2-disk movie to boot). It seems to me that a prequel would have made more sense. The only positive was that we got a break from Pacino's constant brooding. Quite honestly, I've seen better Sopranos episodes.

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If I were to tell you that there was an epic movie that starred some of Hollywood's biggest actors (Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, James Woods) and directed by a famed director (Sergio Leone) and you didn't hear of it, would you believe me? Probably not.
So if this movie was so good, how come you've never heard of it. The answer is simple: Sony screwed up. This movie was made in 1983 and it was a movie that Leone (director of such classics as The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and Fistful of Dollars) had tried to make since he started makinig movies. The problem is that he wanted to make it his way and that originally meant a 6 hour movie. The finished producted ended up being just shy of four hours and this is where Sony stepped in. It seems that even way back then we were a country full of dolts and Sony gambled that we wouldn't sit through four hours of goodness. I probably agree with that, but if that were the case they should have either put it out in its entirety or cut bait. Instead, they cut out the middle of the movie. Hey, what movie needs a middle? That's fine for an NBA game or a NASCAR race but not so good for movies.

The result must have been a disaster. As you may have guessed, the movie was a commercial failure in this country while simultaneously being regarded as a masterpiece in other countries. In fact, I read one review where the reviewer dubbed it worst movie of 1984 and best movie of the 80's (after he saw the whole film) - how is that for impressive?

I only saw the finished product and I thought it was brilliant. It was almost four hours long and I wish it had been eight. Those of you that have seen Leone's other works will recognize his signature style. His ability to paint a picture without words (the end of "Ugly" and the beginning of "Dollars") never ceases to amaze me. It was also nice to see De Niro in a role that he was born to play and before he became a caricature of himself (see Pacino, Al).

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Every year I pick out one or two cheesy christmas movies as part of my holiday season. Last week I watched the mediocre Lindsay Lohan movie and this week I settled on this movie. More cheese, right? Um, no. This movie is good. I mean really good. Sure, there are the occasional reminders that it is the holiday season but it almost certainly is not a holiday movie (although I do expect that the christmas village scene in the middle of the movie was a wink at the audience from the director). First, the two leads have ridiculous chemistry. And it isn't the crappy syrupy kind that we see in so many other xmas movies. The supporting cast is also excellent, of course (Bonnie Bedelia should have been a bigger star). It is the rare movie that completely sucks me in and allows me to give myself up to it. I didn't want it to end. Some reviews were critical of the fact that there is a bit of a mystery in the movie. I don't agree with that sentiment. As I said earlier, this movie would have been just fine on its own if it hadn't gotten tagged with the "holiday" tag.

Finally, the best thing about the movie is that it is subtle. It didn't beat you over the head with the potential for romance. I would image that many people were disappointed in the last scene (probably the same group that hated the ending of the Sopranos) because they didn't show you exactly what happened. The best movies allow the viewer to fill in the blanks. We don't need to see everything on screen to know that something happened. That's not the point.

The worst part about the movie? I think that this movie ruined the Hallmark-ish kinds of movies for me. The movie started in a traditional way and for the first 20 minutes I had the mindset that cheese was on the way. Instead I was blown away. How do I go back to the traditional schlock? Damn you, Netflix.

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See my reviews of at christmas movies at https://ihatebadmovies.com/movie-reviews/?tx_post_tag=christmas&_orderby=wp_review_total%2Cdesc

I decided to give this show a look because I was curious about the wide difference between what the critics think and what the audience seems to think. The first 20 minutes or so were ok. I like all of the actors in the show and Aniston appeared to be doing some really good work. That said, I said to my wife "the only thing keeping this show was a music bed behind the dramatic scenes".

And then came the music bed and it went full-on network drama. This is not a compliment.

The main problem with this show is that the story just isn't compelling. It might be one thing if something like this happened mid-series once we got to know the characters. The last third of the show was completely unwatchable. As good as Aniston was at the beginning it was uncomfortable watching her cry in scene after scene.

I don't get what attracted the actors to this show. There have been soooooo many good series on cable these days - couldn't they find a better one? This is especially true of Steve Carell as he has been in some wonderful dramas.

EDIT The show did get better in later episodes as new storylines and conflict developed. That said, it's pretty safe to say that in just about every scene where someone cries or loses their s*** it's a bad scene.

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