Agenda driven and boring. Disney has been slowly killing Star Wars since acquiring it, this is one of, if not the, final nail. Perhaps it will find an audience, but so far Disney has been failing pretty hard so I doubt it.
I watched this when it first came out and was really excited for it because I’m a big sci-fi fan and MARS! I muddled through the overly dramatic drama and the “big twist” that could have been much more interesting and in the end realized that it was an earthbound drama and too much of it at that. Everyone has something major, not just life mind you, but a big deal happening to add to the nonstop over-drama of the show.
Fast forward four years and it was still sitting on my PLEX because I figured, at the time, there would be a season two and perhaps that would be more spacey. Of course Netflix being the piece of crap company they are who don’t know either good shows or how to follow through pulled the plug on this. I blew the dust off and thought, let me try this again and what happened is what always happens when the show is a dud: I found myself fast forwarding through at least half of every episode. The pandering to China with 1/3 of the show about Chinese drama and in Chinese, the totally unrealistic and pandering lesbian drama, the superhero dad that was supposed to lead the mission but now is in a wheelchair with a brat kid, the Russian dickhead in pretty much every scene and so on and so on and so on.
Aside from the normal suspension of disbelief for mediocre sci-fi (good sci-fi is first based on good science, then the rest becomes the stage on which that science is provided), you have the same old trope of a bunch of morons at NASA (who have some of the smartest and most capable people on the planet in real life) and totally unrealistic drama playing out with highly trained and vetted astronauts and it’s just over the top. I have to actually side with Netflix on pulling the plug on this show, I got through half of it a second time before I totally gave up on it and deleted it from my system.
Don’t watch this for sci-fi because it’s not. It’s a modern day drama, based on modern day issues and pandering to modern day talking points that has occasional glimpses onto the interior of a space craft and rare glimpses of outside the space craft (you know, the really cool stuff you came to see). Watch this if you want something like a soap opera with people loosely affiliated with space stuff.
Mixed emotions on this movie. On one hand, Adam Sandler isn’t actually playing his singular and tired old role and he does OK with it. This is not a stellar performance, by any stretch, but it’s good for Adam Sandler.
The movie is very “out there” and the movie moves pretty slow. I’m a big sci-fi nerd and appreciate the visual effects and some of the science, but it’s obvious that he’s losing his bloody mind with that enormous spider that appears just as it’s obviously he is losing his mind.
I’m glad I watched it but doubt I’ll ever watch it again.
While impossible to follow Band of Brothers, this is done better than The Pacific was. I like all three, but Master of the Air is very well done and much more cohesive than its Pacific cousin. I'm wondering if and when they will do this with the Navy now that we have the other three.
I really went in 50/50 but highly hopeful on this. The acting is well done, the character development is not quite as solid as BoB but pretty good and better than Pacific.
I was thinking I may at some point try to watch all three at same time, organized by date of occurrence, this would give you a massive epic miniseries covering multiple engagements in WWII.
After four episodes of this I can't watch any more. It's beyond glacially slow. Nobody is particularly likable and the plot is difficult to follow or get into. They tried to make a "dark" British cop show and ended up with this wanna-be artsy high production value series that misses the mark on everything except the actual production itself.
There is one primary reason to watch this: Sam Elliot. It's the only reason I really queued this up, because he's a good actor and a likable guy that generally gives the audience a good performance. And in this movie he's not even afraid to poke a little fun at himself as the many years spokesman for "Beef, it's what's for dinner".
That out of the way, this movie isn't going to knock your socks off. It's heartfelt and interesting but a bit slow to get to a good place to get you attached to the character in a meaningful way. That's not saying it's bad but you have to be patient for the reward. This isn't going to be a movie you are likely to re-watch every few years, but once a decade it'll be good to blow the dust off of it and watch a solid performance by one of the really cool actors.
First off, you have to appreciate that Tom Cruise has been making this series for 30 years and can still pull it off! He's still doing his own stunts at 60 and can still make the #1 blockbuster film time and again. That's saying a LOT!
The plots have been getting more and more unbelievable and outlandish, but this one actually hits home a bit more than the nuclear explosion did. While it's a bit out of the realm of reality it's not terribly far from it. Look, you have to suspend disbelief on these movies to a degree if you intend to get any entertainment value out of it.
The supporting cast are really just that in this movie, supporting. While they had bigger roles in previous movies, this one they are a bit more in the background. Everyone is looking significantly older than their first appearance in the franchise but otherwise it's a solid MI movie and I really enjoyed it. Then again, I like Tom Cruise's movies except for a couple. He's not the best actor out there but he's certainly the hardest working one and I appreciate that about him.
This isn't a great movie, but it's a good movie. It's basically Bill Burr standup in movie form so it's really centered on him. This is very anti-pc and really accentuates the generational difference between gen X'ers and those that came after them. It starts out how many of us feel now, that the current world is just sort of out of control and silly, then it reigns it in later to be a lesson in how to not give in to nonsense but still coexist with it. That's a good message many of us can take to heart.
It's a fun way to spend a couple hours, that's it.
This sat in my queue for quite some time before I got around to watching it, knowing nothing more about it than the basic summary provided. I generally enjoy movies like this, the "Hearts Beat Loud" or "Crazy Heart" type of movies that use music to bring a troubled soul to redemption.
I was not at all prepared for the twist in this movie, it's fairly significant. It's the nice thing about not really knowing too much about a movie before you watch it because you watch this movie for the first 2/3rds of it thinking you know why this man is so depressed and asking yourself why he had gone to such extremes - then they hit you with it and you are like "wow, I did not see that coming".
I'm not going to spoil this part for you because it's a big deal (and not even hide it under a spoilers blur because that's just too tempting to click on) but suffice to say that it's quite a shock and will make you question how you feel about the people in this movie immediately. It's a story that hasn't really ever been told and it is interesting to see it from another viewpoint.
The music is really quite good. It's all kind of indie/alt stuff and excellent.
I'm having a hard time getting into this, the first episode is glacially slow and you really don't connect with anyone. I enjoy British police dramas and this one just isn't hitting the mark for me as of yet. I'm going to try to push through the first season but am not really looking forward to episode two.
If you want to watch yet ANOTHER "girl boss" that easily defeats guys twice her size who are equal in ability where your hero has exactly one mood: brooding - then this is for you. There is a heavy dose of wokeness in this - which makes sense since it was created for (and then totally rejected by) Disney. It was also rejected by three other major studios before Netflix picked it up and had to change a lot of the show that was made to be a Star Wars movie into something that didn't infringe on Disney's copyrights. When it gets tossed around that much and is rejected by everyone then the odds are that it's going to be "meh".
On top of all of this they make this a two-parter. Really? How is this still going on? The Hobbit in three parts was beyond ridiculous, even the latest Mission Impossible in two parts is annoying but at least MI has the followers to make it work, this piece of crap shouldn't try to be MI.
I have been unlucky enough to watch some truly terrible TV shows, and I have to say this makes the top 5, perhaps even the top 3 worst shows ever to grace the small screen. Emma Stone…? Is this the best you got now?
This is a story about the most shallow, despicable, reprehensible, zero morals, zero ethics people who are so far beyond phony that it’s not funny in the least. You will hate everyone, and I do mean everyone, in this show. The most dislikable person is the lead actor who is also the creator, the writer and the director.
There is absolutely nothing funny about this show. Seriously, there is no comedy whatsoever, it’s about people you cannot find a single redeemable quality for and if you don’t like the players then why watch the play? For the message? The message is terrible too.
Your time is better spent vacuuming your carpet - one fiber at a time with a microscopic vacuum cleaner than it is spending even a single minute of this insanely stupid show.
The acting is on par with a play put on by three year olds.
Do yourself a favor and forget this show even exists.
Joaquin Phoenix. That should be enough to make you run for the door immediately. He has almost no acting chops, is unlikable as both a person and as a character and frankly has no business being in show business (neither do I, by the way, he's better than I am at acting).
This tries to be so epic but turns out being so grinding, historically inaccurate, pandering and while it's sometimes has some epic scenes, it really makes you pay to see them.
A body switching movie that's been told to death trying to wrap itself into the gold that is the Christmas yearly re-watch. It tries to hard to be THE Christmas movie to be legendary like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation or Elf, but it fails. It tries to one-up other body switch movies that went the way of the dodo because they've been done to the point of nauseam, yet for some reason it's pulled out of the old dusty trunk for this movie.
Ed Helms plays the same guy he always does. He has precisely one character and it's been played to death since The Office. He joins the ranks of Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Ryan Reynolds (not there quite yet but almost) and so many that just play the same person every single time.
Seriously, there are some great Christmas classics you can watch instead of this and have far more fun.
First let's get something straight, the acting in this movie is outstanding. Giamatti does an amazing job with his role and the rest of the main cast is only slightly less fantastic.
The movie, overall, is a bummer of a Christmas movie with some real highs and lots of lows. This is the other side of Christmas, the Christmas where you are alone and don't want to be or lost someone you dearly miss - it's not National Lampoon's Vacation. This doesn't make it a bad Christmas movie but it's not a typical one.
It does drag a bit at times, is fairly predictable at times, but the acting really makes this worth watching. Seeing people perform their craft to this degree is wonderful.
And this movie lacks all the tropes that just must be in every movie today, even totally thumbing their noses at the Academy Awards and their diversity requirements for nomination, instead they made a movie that is a good movie without any agenda whatsoever except to tell a story - the way movies are supposed to be. Everyone who is in this is in it because they had to be to tell the story, not forced into a script to satisfy some requirement and it's wonderful to see one of the only movies this year that does it right.
This is a good story about Oppenheimer and everything surrounding his work. The acting is pretty excellent but the movie isn't particularly captivating. I was into it for the first hour of the three and then found myself distracted by nearly anything else to have this on in the background.
I love good sci-fi and fantasy. This is not the worst sci-fi, but it’s not great either. That’s to say this is a neutral sci-fi that is watchable as a light single set sci-fi but it’s not The Expanse. Someone said it feels like a SyFy channel show and that’s a perfect description, it’s low budget with some good CGI peppered in.
They took a short story and stretched it into a series, which means that it gives them freedom to add a totally unnecessary and very forced lesbian romance, trite duplicitous characters with secret agendas, filler drama and big cliff hangers. All of this is fine but without a good story to back it then the series becomes just about these things rather than being interesting science fiction.
Add in the bad acting and I wouldn’t get too invested in this show, it won’t be around long.
It just feels like it’s going nowhere but down.
Absolutely horrendous re-hash. The dead characters aren’t really dead. We now can grow avatars as full entities. The CGI is so-so and the acting non existent so to even fathom there will be four MORE of these total wastes of time is mind boggling. I regret every minute wasted watching this LONG idiotic movie that I could have spent doing something productive like counting the fibers in my carpet or something much more interesting than Avatar Way of the Water.
I thought this would be a kind of cheesy farewell to the Equalizer character but they really ramped up the violence, gore and action on this one. They went all John Wick on this one and it was pretty good!
From the company that mostly spews out garbage comes a new movie based on now TWO other very similar movies with the same theme starring the talentless Emily Blunt. It's just not good and her acting would put her far down the "D" list if not for her popular husband. She's not as bad as Salina Gomez but she's not that much better either.
Personally, I don't understand all the hate around this final installment in the series. I thought this was a pretty good Indiana Jones movie, all in all, and I've watched them in the theater since they first came out (except this one).
Yes, the beginning has some de-aging and it's not great - but you get used to it pretty fast and I was seeing old Indiana Jones in no time. Yes Harrison Ford doesn't do his own stunts anymore but he's pretty old to be jumping horses through downtown New York. Lots of CGI in this one, but that's where we are today - you don't see hardly anything but CGI these days so why should this film be any different?
The story is pretty outlandish, but then again the first one that everyone loves had spirits jumping out of an mythical box so you have to suspend your disbelief if you want to watch shows like this.
If I were to rate this in the series as a whole:
#1: Raiders of the Lost Ark
#2: Last Crusade
#3: Dial of Destiny
#4: Temple of Doom
#5: Crystal Skull (mostly because Shia LaBouff sucked)
I get that some people, particularly with Temple of Doom, will disagree with my ranking but they are mine, not yours.
I went Into DoD with a ton of trepidation, all I heard was how bad it was in places like Trakt, but in reality it surpassed my expectations by a pretty large amount. They had a nice nod to all previous characters (except Brody, that was disappointing to me - I know the actor is dead but a mention would have been nice). I think this was a good final movie for Indie.
Having been a die-hard fan of the video games I have high hopes (but low expectations) that this show will be awesome! I felt Silo had a very Fallout feel to them and if this is at least as good as Silo has been then this will be a winner!
I'm not a huge fan of Candace Owens, personally, but she really did a good job on this documentary that shows how Netflix really manipulated the audience with their Making a Murderer series. This is not supposition, the documentary shows you side-by-side contradictions about things like testimony that Netflix made sound very damning but when you see the actual footage you can see they actually cut and paste the testimony to support their narrative that Avery was being set up when, in fact, it's plain for all to see that he was a true monster that should rot in prison.
What's particularly embarrassing is the "truthers" that are on the show just really going to the mattresses over their belief that Avery was framed by the police based purely on the extremely biased view given by Netflix and their participation in total echo chambers of other truthers in online forums. They are so convinced they are the smartest person in the room yet they have not watched the unedited courtroom footage nor read the reports and dial in on these "conspiratorial aspects" that aren't conspiratorial at all once you finally understand the full depth of their presence in the case. For example, Netflix really alludes to a vial of blood that had a needle mark in the cap and had its evidence seal broken as if this is a "gotcha" for cops using the blood to frame Avery when, in fact, the needle mark is the mark made when TAKING his blood from him and the evidence seal was broken by his lawyers in his pursuit of being released on a previous crime he apparently did not commit. What's worse is that this is so painfully obvious that even Avery's defense team dropped that entire line once the facts surfaced, but this is omitted from their version of the story and instead spun as a smoking gun. This is the type of thing this series brings into crystal clear focus.
Time and again you watch how creative editing and actual RE-WRITING of testimony occurs repeatedly in the Netflix series. They show you what appears to be video testimony about a topic only to see, from the actual footage, that they expertly cut and paste video and statements from totally different questions in testimony so that looks so seamless you would swear that's what the guy said, when they didn't say anything even close to that. And this is beyond "editing to save time" because they actually increased the runtime on many occasions just to trick you into believing their pre-determined narrative of Avery's frame up. There's even prison phone call tapes that show the producers telling Avery that no matter what comes up in evidence that they don't care, they will only show him in the best possible light.
If you watched Making a Murderer then you should, without any hesitation, watch this series. If you are a truther you will see how full of holes the entire web of lies that both Netflix and Avery have you believing in and if you felt he was guilty then you get the full picture that truly justifies your belief.
If nothing else, even if this doesn't change your mind, it's worth watch to see how easily Netflix manipulated millions of viewers for entertainment and created a controversy where none existed, ruined lives of those in law enforcement just so they could get some buzz about their decidedly pre-determined outcome. And Netflix, while guilty, is just playing the game every documentary plays with you to lead you on the journey of their choosing, even if that journey goes nowhere near the truth -but you'll believe it anyway (which means you are in for a real treat when AI deepfakes get so good that you believe them without question).
Look, if you are a truther and have no interest in being convinced otherwise, that's fine. Netflix really did an expert job at convincing you of this, but you really should entertain other documentaries that may make you reconsider that a man who brutally raped and murdered a woman then desecrated her body should be given some second chance based on little more than a fanciful tale told by an expert storyteller.
Season 3 just doesn't work. They have turned the cast, especially Martin Short, into just caricatures of their season 1 characters and it's off putting and cringey. Paul Rudd is neither a good actor nor particularly likable, his tired schtick was tired after Wanderlust when he just always plays the same stupid guy and his presence in this show is irritating and almost caused me to pull the plug on Only Murders in the Building.
There's one reason I'm trying so hard to watch this show that's becoming a dumpster fire more and more every episode and that's Steve Martin's declaration that this show is the last time he'll be acting and I've always liked him. Like so many he has just one guy he plays but that guy isn't particularly over-the-top or irritating, just kind of like a friend of yours that you like because they are silly - as opposed to the likes of Paul Rudd who is always obnoxious and tries way too hard to be funny when he really isn't, that's the friend you hope doesn't show up to your BBQ.
But let's get something straight, from season 1 until the end of time: Selena Gomez can't act, not one iota. She is, quite possibly, the worst actress to ever grace the big or small screen. She had to have made bags of money with her singing career, right? Do we need to be tortured by her insanely bad acting ever again? Please say no.
Martin Short, while generally entertaining, wore out his welcome a long time ago but is still tolerable to an extent, but the harder he tries the worse he is and season 3 is Short at his worst.
And Meryl Streep? Come on, this amazing actress who has more talent in the tip of her pinky than most actors have in their entire body is just not good here, it's not a role suited to her style of acting and I'm beyond shocked to see her not only be in this indie Hulu show but to see such piss-poor acting from her. You expect this from Martin and Short because it's just their style, but not Streep.
If you don't love Steve Martin and Martin Short then don't watch this. The show, itself, is "meh" but watching them together again for one last time is fun to watch, even if the first season was the only really decent one.
I don't like Michael Pena in most things but he did a fantastic job in this movie, not his normal over-the-top comedy skit but a heartfelt and passionate performance to tell this true story. This is a great movie and worth the watch!
I just can't get past the insanely monotone and babbling narration of this show. Zero effort was made to make him sound even remotely presentable. He stumbles over his words, babbles, provides lots of "um" and "uh" and is quite possibly the most boring speaker ever to grace a documentary. Has he not heard of post-production and cleaning up the narrative to be something of interest for anyone over the age of about twelve?
The content is somewhat interesting but random. As you watch the show you can see that it's basically all confirmation bias - there are lots of totally random videos of random things that are then narrated as though they are intentionally filmed for the sake of the topic when in reality they are all just totally random videos this guy took while walking around NYC that get thrown into the narrative as being a way to demonstrate his extremely scattered thought process.
Personally I don't understand how this show is rated so well except that the topics, themselves, are unique and quirky, the delivery is so horrible that it's like watching the most boring PBS special being narrated by someone who has a 5th grade grasp on the English language.
Take the topics and even the random video and have it narrated by someone who can actually present intelligibly and this show would be more interesting.
If you were a fan of the original Gold Rush then you'll really like season 1. Season 2 brings us full circle to the same stuff that they did before they had to leave Gold Rush, the same stupid mistakes, thinking they are a "big" operation and just being dumb.
Aside from Todd's stupid beard, you now have to tolerate his spoiled brat son who thinks he's a mogul because he had a couple summers digging gold with his dad and now has a crappy and overpriced clothing line. He drags this show down, every scene with him (especially with his ubiquitous toothpick in his mouth) will make you cringe. The toothpick thing is an obvious attempt by the twit to create some kind of "persona", between that and wearing his own clothing line for free advertising and dying his hair he's really too caught up in his own sense of celebrity and it grates.
I went from thinking in season 1 that "hey, maybe the Hoffmans are humbled now and will make this work" to realizing in season 2 that they have not and will just fail again. Todd still thinks he's king of gold mines when he's really done nothing but fail from the very beginning.
I always find entertainment in these Gold Rush shows, it's interesting to watch them gerry rig their machines to get through tough patches, but I can do without all the made-up drama and the douchebag brat son.
I really enjoyed season 1 of this show but season 2 is bizarre and out there. With season 1 I would watch the episodes as soon as I had them, with season 2 it is the thing I watch when there's nothing else to watch.
Wow, what terrible acting and storylines. It's like they throw darts at the episode plot board and just riff on what they hit.
With every Star Wars spinoff Disney demonstrates their acceptance of mediocrity in entertainment. Each spin off uses the leftovers from the previous shows as set pieces and everything is just lower and lower production value with more talentless actors and bad writing.
Mando set a gold standard in the first two seasons, Fett was OK but felt forced, Obi Wan didn't really land and Ewan couldn't resurrect it, Andor was slow and recycled too many previous Star Wars sets and now Ashoka is just a sad attempt at another spinoff, of which there seem to be a limitless supply of. With Ashoka it seems like they are trying to break the "one season special" formula and make it a slow burn to run for multiple seasons.
Disney is grasping at anything to keep their failing streaming service (and frankly, their failing corporation) alive.
As I write this I realize how much Star Wars has been spun off, especially if you include Solo and Rogue One. Disney got their hands on the franchise and turned it into a giant cash grab which worked for a minute but is watering down a beloved franchise more and more with each spin off.
KNOW THIS IS NOT ABOUT UFO’S DESPITE THE DESCRIPTION.
Everything about this documentary, from the poster to the trailer to the description, is really zeroing in on UFO’s but in reality it’s a bait and switch to talk about environmentalism. They lightly pepper in how the evil corporations are suppressing UFO technology that gives us unlimited free energy which then fixes the world before it’s too late, but that angle is to attract those interested in the UFO topic to try to boost the audience for a documentary that a lot of people would not otherwise watch.
It’s basically propaganda - and not that it’s outright lying to you about climate change but that it makes it seem like the end of the world is tomorrow and if you don’t do something right this second then you are complicit - oh and oh yea, look at this UFO.
If you enjoy extremist environmentalists feeding you their side of the facts then this is for you. I’m not an denier, I do believe we are harming our planet but this does what these extremist views always do - ramp it up to shock you into submission and I don’t enjoy that kind of propaganda, regardless of political spectrum or activism.
This mockumentary gives you 100 minutes of environmentalist interviews and twenty minutes of talking about anything related to UFO’s, but in the context of environmentalism.
