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Merlin (2008)
Watch a Few and Decide
I watched half of the first episode, and turned it off. I thought it was nothing but a kid's show. My wife reminded me that shows need a couple episodes to shake out the wrinkles. How right she was. I loved this show! How sorry I would have been if I never went back.
My nine-star rating is based on a number of things:
1) The show holds the atmosphere and plots of the traditional Arthurian stories. It stays true to the roles of feudalistic 500 AD society without apology. That brings me to...
2) There is no social preaching about today's issues, just a continual thread of what duty, honor, justice, and chivalry means; the lost ideals of our modern society.
3) There is no gore, and no unnecessary violence. It makes me happy to know a producer and director thought that important enough to avoid it, AND make it work with fantastic action.
4) The acting is quite good!
5) The humor, though sometimes childish, is well done. Good acting and writing paired with a good sense of comedic timing makes even the most sophomoric jokes funny.
6) The characters are approachable and substantive; we despise the despicable and like the likeable.
A Very Murray Christmas (2015)
Not Funny, Not Entertaining, Kinda Miserable
This show starts out with a miserable Bill Murray because a snowstorm threatens his TV show.
This show ends with a miserable viewer because it was not funny, not entertaining, and lackluster throughout.
AVOID unless you are a Murray fan, then multitask viewing this with holiday card writing, decorating, or heavy drinking.
The OA (2016)
This is Your Challenge If You Choose to Accept It
I highly recommend this show to those who enjoy movies such as PI and TV shows such as The Prisoner. If you know these shows and like them, read no further and just watch The OA. You will like it! The OA is in a word, perplexing. The show breaks many of the established rules of a series (as I understand them, anyways). The credits hit like a God Smack at the end of the first episode, nothing is explained, each episode is as long as is necessary to tell that portion of the story, and there is no character present to even hint at what is about to transpire. Patience is required but rewarded.
The OA almost plays like a Mockumentary, but I dare not give something so singular and serious such a name. It is too peculiar and fragile, much like the subject matter it relates, that is, life. Okay, the OA is not life the way WE understand it, but all the same we should not dare to laugh at life while realizing it is so mortally book-ended by non-existence and death. You will find that The OA never dares laugh at life either despite the alien peculiarities of ITS version.
People say that there is enormous power in truth. Well, The OA argues the opposite. It endeavors to establish a notion that contradiction, so immaculately consumed, strains reality to the point that something must occur... something must burst from that tension bound up within that contradiction's impossibility. Alright, that is gobbledygook I know, but just as the dream makes perfect sense on awakening and gradually falls away, so does The OA's impossible story. It leaves the viewer haunted, mesmerized, and quite disrupted while the story is told. Only afterwards, while trying to make sense of the in-explainable will the left-side of the brain kick back in and return the viewer to reality.
The OA is well written, well acted, and well sized at eight hours. There are points of the show that seem to wander and relax a bit too much, but the momentum of the first episode carries the viewer through it.
The OA (2016)
This is Your Challenge If You Choose to Accept It
I highly recommend this show to those who enjoy movies such as PI and TV shows such as The Prisoner. If you know these shows and like them, read no further and just watch The OA. You will like it! The OA is in a word, perplexing. The show breaks many of the established rules of a series (as I understand them, anyways). The credits hit like a God Smack at the end of the first episode, nothing is explained, each episode is as long as is necessary to tell that portion of the story, and there is no character present to even hint at what is about to transpire. Patience is required but rewarded.
The OA almost plays like a Mockumentary, but I dare not give something so singular and serious such a name. It is too peculiar and fragile, much like the subject matter it relates, that is, life. Okay, the OA is not life the way WE understand it, but all the same we should not dare to laugh at life while realizing it is so mortally book-ended by non-existence and death. You will find that The OA never dares laugh at life either despite the alien peculiarities of ITS version.
People say that there is enormous power in truth. Well, The OA argues the opposite. It endeavors to establish a notion that contradiction, so immaculately consumed, strains reality to the point that something must occur... something must burst from that tension bound up within that contradiction's impossibility. Alright, that is gobbledygook I know, but just as the dream makes perfect sense on awakening and gradually falls away, so does The OA's impossible story. It leaves the viewer haunted, mesmerized, and quite disrupted while the story is told. Only afterwards, while trying to make sense of the in-explainable will the left-side of the brain kick back in and return the viewer to reality.
The OA is well written, well acted, and well sized at eight hours. There are points of the show that seem to wander and relax a bit too much, but the momentum of the first episode carries the viewer through it.
Mars Attacks! (1996)
Yuck Yuck! Yuck Yuck!
There is truth in (or around) comedy. Look at any great comedy work where the world is nuts, for instance The Bob Newhart Show, Seinfeld, The Three Stooges, Arrested Development or Blazing Saddles. They all have a straight man in its world of crazy to counterpoint the wackiness. They offer a voice to react to it and argue on behalf of the audience against it... for the side of sanity. When all the characters are crazy, it is like a lecture of foolishness with no real point. Comedy, like any story genre, needs an argument for all sides of the issue. Mars Attacks! was simply loony for its own pretentious sake. Note that I say loony, and not funny. Don't waste your brain cells on this train wreck. Better off enjoying a knock knock joke.
Licence to Kill (1989)
Time to Kill...Better Spent Elsewhere
I will endeavor to spend only as much time reviewing this piece of mediocrity as you should spend watching the movie. My rating should not imply that compared to other films, Licence to Kill is really so bad, but as compared to others in the series of Bond films, this is a train-wreck. Compared to movies in general, this one merely stinks.
1) The acting all-around, excepting the regular cast is B-movie bad. 2) The script is uninspired and rather sophomoric. Again B-movie bad. 3) The character interactions are limp and unrealistic. B-movie. 4) The story is convoluted and patchwork. 5) The usual Bond stunts were so unrealistic as to be comical. B-movie.
Okay, this is merely ranting. Well, maybe venting is a better word. You will not gain any real insight into the movie with this review, but it is meant to prepare the Bond fan. You, the fan, will likely watch this movie despite what anyone says (as I did). Just don't make a big deal about it; don't invite all your friends to watch James Bond then serve this dud up. Maybe try any other Bond film, or just show "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!".