NotorietyH Reviews

Ugly Betty (2006–2010)

Doesn't know what it wants to be.

[4/10 · 6 March 2007]

Ugly Betty is a very frustrating show following 'Ugly" Betty Suarez's foray into the world of fashion working as an assistant to the Editor of high fashion magazine Mode.

There's enough potential for a pretty engaging television show and it is watchable. However there are many problems. Mainly that the creators and writers don't seem to know what kind of show they want to make.

There are elements of over-the-top bordering on surreal comedy, cutting satire, family drama, conspiracy drama. All these elements can't possibly work in a television show. It really stretches any suspension of disbelief when in one episode you can have a ridiculously over the top and unrealistic slapstick/surreal comedy even be followed by a situation where a father admits to his daughters that he killed a man years ago and could be deported. It's ridiculous. The over the top comedy takes from he satire, the satire takes from the over-the-top comedy, the satire and comedy take from the family drama and then to top it all off there is a huge conspiracy and cover-up plot line which takes from everything else. This makes Ugly Betty a very scrappy show that seems to be unable to decide which outfit it likes best, so puts on every item of clothing it owns, which as we all know, doesn't work. How's that for a metaphor?

Lost (2004–2010)

Lost? Lost it. *nyuk* *nyuk*

[5/10 · 12 February 2007]

I originally watched the first 7 episodes of series 1 when they were on TV and lost interest. Recently I was lent series 1 on DVD and decided to buy series two. Now after watching the first seven episodes of series 3 on Sky my patience has really worn thin with this show. I can't see myself sitting, waiting week to week for another painfully trivial piece of a sub-plot of a mystery that no one is really interested in to be revealed.

It's a shame as the characters, idea etc. are well done, but the snail's pace at which this show is progressing is almost becoming patronizing. What I find more annoying is that series 2 seems to solely exist to pad out the entire story. Can anyone tell me anything that happened in series 2 that has any real great relevance to anything going on in the show any more? The Swan hatch has come and gone without incident, all the tailies are dead bar Bernard so any investment we were gradually getting for those characters was completely wasted. We go Desmond, we got the others, but really, did we need 23 episodes to get a few measly introductions. I don't think so.

Series 3 has so far started off worse than series 2 with even more pointless padding of the story. 7 episodes in (a 1/3 of the was through the season) and now, we are getting a slight progression in the story. I'm sorry but 7 episodes for Jack to actually do Ben's operation and Kate and Sawyer to get free is just ridiculous. It should've taken three episodes at the most. I like many more people I know, have completely lost interest in this show.

Mini's First Time (2006)

Vacuous and tedious

[2/10 · 12 December 2006]

Mini is a precocious high-school student who (rather ridiculously) decides to become an escort and (even more ridiculously) happens to get her step-father as her second ever client. The two start a relationship and try to get Mini's mother committed so the two of them can be together. Through a series of convoluted plot mechanisms, involving murder, blackmail and all too obvious twists, the audience is taken on a tedious journey through a movie that isn't half as clever as it thinks it is.

The main problem with Mini's First Time is that almost every character is completely reprehensible. A fact that the writer/director tries to excuse by having Mini's last line of the movie be "Don't be worried that you had no one to identify with but me," (or something like that). No I wasn't worried, I was just annoyed that I had spent an hour and a half of my life watching a barely two-dimensional character destroy the lives of other wafer-thin characters.

Despicable, manipulative characters like Mini only work if they have enough depth to sustain an audience's interest. If we're not going to like a character, we at least have to know or at least have hint of their reasoning and justification for their actions. Movies like Pretty Persuasion, Heathers, Election and countless other movies work because we can see some of the reasoning and motive. Mini is just a vacant, underwritten and stereotypical 'Black Widow' character. The writer/director tries to add depth to Mini with a pointless, lazy and completely perfunctory voice-over, that tries to mask the fact that Mini has about as much depth as a puddle. Would it have been too much to ask that some of the boring, obvious voice-over that 'told' us what was going on was replaced with, I don't know, maybe a few scenes, or visuals to hint at maybe a theme or at least a bit of character depth? Mini's First Time should be shown in screen writing seminars and film schools to show how not to use voice-over.

The plot was obvious and hopelessly contrived. But luckily I cared so little about what happened, the painfully obvious twists and unrealistic relationships and character actions didn't bother as much as they would have in any other movie. Anyone who couldn't see the 'photo twist' coming, really needs to sit down and have a look at themselves.

As I sat and watched the movie, all I could think of is "I really don't care what happens," and neither should you. Avoid. 2(adding one purely for Alec Baldwin)/10

Dead Meat (2004)

Not a single redeeming feature

[1/10 · 4 December 2005]

I'm sorry but I cannot understand how anyone, even the director's mother could write a positive review of this film. I had to sit through this god-awful mess of a film last night and it was so horribly bad it actually offended and depressed me that a script this awful could have ever received funding.

The acting is atrocious, The camera-work and lighting inconsistent within single scenes. Big chunks of completely pointless dialog scenes whose sole purpose seemed to be to drag out the running time to feature length. It was a mish-mash of poorly executed rip offs of other horror movies like The Evil Dead, Night of the Living Dead etc. Apparently the director is a huge horror fan, which really makes me wonder how he could show a blatant disregard for most of the unwritten 'rules' of zombie movies. For one the zombies use tools, and seem far too intelligent. Also there's a scene where a big horde of zombies just simply give up and walk away.

The effects were serviceable, nothing special, but they were repetitive. If I had €1 for every time a zombie got stabbed in the eye by a stick or something similar I would have made my money back from renting this awful awful film.

There was barely enough material in this film to make a sh*tty short film never mind a full feature. I am completely dumb-founded how this film has received any positive comments on this site. It even failed miserably at falling into the 'So bad it's good' category.

I have to end this review now because otherwise I'll vomit from the bad taste this film has left in my mouth.

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

Just a quick note

[1/10 · 25 January 2004]

For everyone saying that the people who didn't like this movie are simply people looking for an action fix or to look at the visual effects and not really interested in The Matrix universe well I absolutely adored the first movie, was obsessed with it, and I absolutely abhorred The Matrix Reloaded, and point blank refused to go and see Revolutions. Never has a movie disgusted me so much, the Wachowski brothers completely destroyed the world they had so intricately created in the first movie. I 'm not going to go into any more reasons, I've ranted for far too long about this movie over the last six months or so. Sickening