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turkeytom33
Reviews
Shardlake (2024)
Good not great, but worth a watch.
"Name of the Rose" vibes.
Only 4 episodes, based on a book from a series of novels by C. J. Sansom.
Hopefully we will get more series as I found it interesting. But it was missing something, which I can't really put my finger on, to make it great.
Acting was good. Ruby Serkis, daughter of Andy, in the cast is a point of interest.
Shardlake story arc was good.
He was professionally competent, serving Thomas Cromwell (advisor to Henry VIII), but naïve on the whole political situation and how things work in the background, till, by the end, he begins to realise the reality of the situation.
Basically this is a murder mystery, with the political and religious overtones of the times.
Palm Royale (2024)
What!?
This is a strange series. The more I thought about it, the less I liked it.
Another Apple series that is one, two (or several!) episodes too long.
You can tell the writers were struggling to fill the episodes because of some of the ideas they came up with, especially in the later episodes - Evelyn's (Allison Janney) "encounter" on the beach???; Maxine's (Kristen Wiig) "encounter" in the ocean???; to name two.
My big question before watching the series was Ricky Martin?!? But he does fine, although not sure if it was makeup or CGI (or both) to make him look like he was in his 30's.
Having the great Carol Burnett and the cameo by Bruce Dern were plusses....not they get to do too much. Also a very poignant scene between Laura and Bruce Dern.
The ending does seem to be indicating the possibility of another series? But I doubt I will watch it.
The New Look (2024)
Good, but one or two too many episodes.
Top cast in an interesting show, telling a story that not many people would know.
Saying that, I did find it dragged a bit, and could have had the number of episodes cut down by one or two and still tell the story, and possibly have more impact.
Going on my research, it seems fairly historically accurate, besides one or two major scenes that I don't believe really occurred.
Thought Maisie Williams was fantastic in this! Especially in the later episodes. More of her might have been another solution to move the story along a bit better.
One thing I did not like though - I was expecting a run down at the end of the show about what happened to the real people after the shows timeline (along with real photos of them)...but nope. I suppose that is why we have the internet!
Another thing that I didn't like was the story resolution for Coco Chanel. Last scene for her was vague but sort of implied what was to happen to her, when reality was different (especially as we didn't get a post script, as mentioned above).
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
A movie of two halves...
Interesting movie.
The first half of this movie, was well...., near terrible. Yes, I know, it was made in the middle of the war, and thus the expected propaganda of all the boys having a swell time and laughs, and getting on so well. The girls were so supportive and just wonderful for their fellas...yada yada yada.
First half 3/10.
But then, finally we get to the mission, and it becomes a great war movie.
The actual mission is done fairly well I thought, besides the obvious (check Wikipedia for the actual results of the mission).
The aftermath and what happens to Van Johnson's Ted Hamilton character comes across as realistic and not too jingoistic (besides the last scene, but that scene to is to be expected in a film made during the war).
Second half (minus last scene) 9/10.
Also noteworthy for containing an early Robert Mitchum role.
Fallout (2024)
Faithful to the games, but....
I've played Fallout 3, NV and 4 and I was very impressed by how faithful the show was to the games.
The look of the vaults, the weapons, the environment, etc..
But the main aim of the whole show, seemed to me, was to say to gamers - "Hey, look at this, just like the games, aren't we clever!", without fleshing out the plot enough.
Also, I found some of the actors a bit underwhelming, or miscast, one in particular.
On the other side, I thought Moises Arias was great in his role.
The last episode though, with the 'reveal' was quite good, and did bump up my rating.
Couple of other detractions:-
- one CGI monster was not convincing.
- it was not explained how one character managed to survive from prior to the bombs to the shows timeline. But maybe I missed the explanation?
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the series and will watch the next season. The show was certainly better than the majority of other game to show productions I've seen.
While the Men Are Away (2023)
A quirky little show. That could have been better.
If you are after a historical accurate portrait of the Women's Land Army in Australia during WW2, then this is not it. That story still needs to be told.
This is a story set during WW2 with today's sensibilities overlaid on it.
To the writers - if you are going to set the story in WW2 at least get some basic facts right. The Mayor gives a speech about the fall of Singapore and mentions kamikazes. At the time of the fall of Singapore there had been no kamikaze incidents, and the word would have been unknown in Australia.
The show is a comedy/drama combined with sexual awakening stories of the two young female characters.
Reasonably entertaining, good acting, some good scenes, but some clunkers as well.
Interesting they hired an Italian actor to play the farm owner. I suppose for the story authenticity's sake and/or boost the chances of sale of the series to Europe.
The Untouchables (1987)
Cardboard cutouts
Watched this movie for the first time last night.
I found it over the top in places (i.e. the cast on horses with the mounties on the ridge line before the arrest on the border), and the characters were cardboard cutouts....the bad guy (in the white suit), the loving wife, the hoary old sidekick, the young gun...etc. etc.
A couple of good scenes though - i.e. the pram.
I thought Sean Connery and De Niro (although he had little to do) were OK, but thought most of the other cast struggled with the lack of depth in the script.
Very average.