johns6087 Reviews

Designated Survivor (2016–2019)

Good

[7/10 · 16 November 2016]

This show is good and I am looking forward to seeing where they go with it.

I have to admit it is still kind of weird seeing Kiefer Sutherland in a role that is not his famous Jack Bauer role in the long running hit show 24 - especially since a lot of these scenes also take place in the Oval Office/White House/FBI offices etc. But I'm getting more used to this more thoughtful, diplomatic, even "nerdy" character he is playing in this.

Once you get past a pretty hard to swallow premise, that terrorists (or was it?) have set off a bomb in the U.S. capitol building during the President's state of the union address, killing absolutely every member of government other than the titular "designated survivor" (Kiefer Sutherland as a very low run cabinet member, the secretary of urban development) and making him a very unlikely and unprepared president - the rest becomes much easier to accept, and more entertaining.

Throw in the requisite investigation with twists and turns and a possible frame job/cover-up, citizens and governors who aren't ready to accept him as president - especially after discovering the president told him he was fired the day of the attack, and a second "designated survivor" from congress who of course is at odds with Sutherland and wants his job, and you've got this series so far.

It's promising and the acting is good.

Perfect Strangers (1986–1993)

OK so it's kind of stupid but also super fun!

[10/10 · 15 November 2016]

There's nothing really special about this show, it's a typical 1980's to 1990's sitcom with not very well developed characters and a really simple premise, but the actors are so likable and the show is so fun that I just don't care.

In this case the characters are Balki Bartokomous (Bronson Pinchot), a naive and very foreign shepherd boy from Mypos (pretty much but technically not really a Greek island) who immigrates to the land of the free America, in the city of Chicago, to build a new life. This is much to the chagrin of "Cousin Larry", his (distant) American cousin who is a wannabe photographer who had no idea Balki was coming. Apparently it's customary in their family that they should just take each other in for unknown periods of time.

Cousin Larry obviously has reservations until he's moved by Balki's plight and his kindness and opens his doors (and apartment) to the foreigner. The two work in a nick-knack shop, then at the Chicago Tribune newspaper (after Larry makes it as a photographer/news man), and all along the way they go through the weekly ritual of know-it- all Larry announcing "I have a plan!" then forcing Balki, who knows what they should actually do but is too innocent and taken in by Cousin Larry's confidence to object, to get into trouble before clumsily lucking their way out of it. They also have crushes on their two upstairs neighbour girls, beautiful stewardesses, who they pursue (and finally get) during the series' entire run, even buying and fixing up a house. Obviously the plots and situations wear thin by the end (the last season was not very good in my opinion) but even then the characters and simple, fun premise stayed entertaining and just plain fun!

The only really remarkable thing about this show is how enduringly popular it was as it lasted a surprising number of seasons/years (like 10!) and huge numbers of people loved it during its run on ABC's (or was it NBC's?) "TGIF" Friday night lineup.

Definitely a family friendly show too, if that is something that concerns you (kind of why we watched it).

Baroness Von Sketch Show (2016–2021)

Junk

[1/10 · 15 November 2016]

This show is junk. None of this show is funny or has made me laugh even one time.

The show is made by a sketch troop of four women and one of them is great (Meredith), one is good, one is just OK and one is really just awful.

The sketches are not funny and just plain stupid and you can see exactly where the jokes are going to be coming from at every single turn.

It is just your typical bad CBC comedy show and I don't know why they keep making awful comedies like this. At least this is a step up from Little Mosque on the Prairie which was total garbage and had even worse acting.

It is worth watching for the two good actresses but the one girl is just an annoying mosquito and all of the jokes are so bad I just roll my eyes.

Another miss for the CBC and I don't understand why they are pretending this is a huge hit, it is not and I only know a few people who have seen it and none of them like it. I'm betting it will be cancelled quick.

Real Gangsters (2013)

Bad Movie, Fake Reviews

[1/10 · 6 November 2016]

We watched this movie for a joke because our friend and his wife told us it was "so bad it was funny" which are the kinds of movies we all like watching for a laugh from time to time, when we're tired or feeling silly or whatever and just want to vegetable out and put something on we don't really have to pay too much attention to. I'm sorry we tried!

This movie is not a "so bad it's good" or "so bad it's funny" movie at all. It is just plain bad to the point where it made us upset that this movie is allowed to exist in the first place.

It is about as much of a movie as Frank D'Angelo's "The Being Frank Show" is a TV show... this movie and that "show" only exist because he personally paid to make them happen and pays for the air time to get them broadcast. He seems like a terrible person who has no idea what his own actual level of talent is. I'm not sure what else to say about this.

Oh yeah coming onto this page to leave a bad review we were shocked both by the number of reviews this movie has and the overall positivity of those reviews! There is simply put no way any of these are real. There are so many similar glowing reviews (obviously paid for) and all of them have at the current moment 700 up votes, and 700 down votes to bury the negative (honest) reviews. There are way more reviews for this movie than would actually happen, and not to mention way more votes for this movie than people who could have possibly seen this film.

If you're going to try to cheat and game the system at least don't be so obvious about it :-)

Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)

It's Pretty Bad...

[3/10 · 6 November 2016]

OK so first of all I can't possibly overstate how much I hate a lot of the negative reviews for this movie. So many of them were/are - and should NOT be - about how the cast are female, and females aren't as funny as males, etc, etc, with a lot of misogynist hatred sprinkled in there. That drove me nuts. To read some of the comments that some of the female cast members received online - with at least one of them even having to cancel her Twitter account - was infuriating to me, period.

That said, purely rating this as a movie experience, I was not very impressed. I thought the cast did fine with what they had but it just seemed very... uninspired? I thought the opening sequence with the skinny guy (the guy from the later seasons of The Office) was really good and was quite optimistic despite what I'd heart, but after that things seemed very by the numbers with pretty thin characters and frankly bad dialogue and crumby jokes. The cameos by old cast members (i.e. Bill Murray as a ghost debunk-er) were distracting and not very good.

The effects were pretty great and the few laughs I had were good ones, but overall I was incredibly disappointed by this movie. Too bad.

Keys to the VIP (2006–2008)

Awful

[1/10 · 19 October 2016]

This show was awful.

Fake girls who obviously were just cast and think they will somehow get their fifteen minutes of fame or some kind of a TV acting credit just for coming in and standing around and pretending to react to getting hit on, probably not even getting paid any money for doing it. Fake, fake, fake.

Fake situations in a fake bar, none of these pick up attempts or girls were real.

The only real thing are the douche bag judges and douche bag contestants, all of them are definitely 100% real life douche bags. Of course the contestants know this is all fake but that doesn't matter, they would act like their douche selves either way.

This was a terrible douche bag show that only unintelligent douche bags could like.

Avenging Force: The Scarab (2010)

Garbage

[1/10 · 18 October 2016]

Whoever made this movie should be immediately tracked down wherever he is sleeping right now, then he should be dragged out into the street and shot. This total garbage pail of a movie should then be collected by movie lovers everywhere and every single copy should be burned until not a single watchable frame is left. I am not saying that lightly, this movie is such a worthless piece of garbage that it needs to be destroyed.

Not sure what else to say but I have to write 10 lines apparently so.... I guess I hate the movie because it is confusing with awful writing, the jokes are awful and there are way too many of them, the acting is bad, but mostly it just looks awful with bad video and audio quality, and it seems like it was directly as a school video project by a random kid who doesn't even care what he is making.

Terrible movie. Avoid this at all costs if you value your sanity and time.

Kevin Hart: What Now? (2016)

Not Very Good

[2/10 · 15 October 2016]

This stand up special is not very good. I think it probably is just as simple as Kevin Hart having done too much stuff too quickly and too recently.

I have liked his stuff in the past including his stand up comedy appearances and also his early movie roles. But his more recent stuff including starring movie roles in lesser quality movies and especially his stand up comedy are just not up to the same quality I'm used to seeing from him.

I hope he takes some time off to write and develop some stronger stuff instead of just churning stuff out this quickly in the future, to bring the quality up.

Prey for the Beast (2007)

Brett Kelly please Quit!

[1/10 · 12 October 2016]

Brett Kelly for the love of cinema around the world please just quit already!

I am one hundred percent serious and I am begging you right now to please stop making your awful movies. You are a terrible writer and director, proved by all your movies not one of them is above the level of "terrible"...

Why are you even doing this? Have you somehow lied to yourself so much in the mirror that you think you are actually able to write and direct and act in a movie? You suck, you just suck I don't know how else to say it.

Go and get a job a real job that will pay I'm sure more than these movies you tape on what looks like an old VCR camera with sound recorded in a tin can in a well.

I think I have been clear enough but all you do is make these garbage movies and package them to try to trick people into actually buying them when they are all ripoffs of actual movies and not good or funny ones at that.

I wouldn't even call what you do "movies"... I mean that seriously. Not trying to make you feel bad I'm just seriously saying what you do is wasting your life but also if you love cinema please realise what you are doing is ruining cinema for the rest of us... Your movies are the worst.

The Girl on the Train (2016)

Good Mystery-Thriller

[6/10 · 12 October 2016]

The Girl on the Train is a decent enough mystery-thriller in my opinion.

Emily Blunt stars as Rachel Watson. Rachel has been divorced and became an alcoholic. Like many working stiffs she takes the same train to work every single day. On her train journey, Rachel watches and ends up fantasizing about the relationship of two of her ex- husband's neighbours, Scott (Luke Evans) and Megan Hipwell (Haley Bennett).

She also can't stop thinking about her ex-husband and his wonderful new wife, Anna (Rebecca Ferguson).

Becoming crazier and less stable, Rachel spirals out of control especially once she ends up in a mysterious missing persons investigation that will frighten her and change her life forever.

Based on the best-selling novel by Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train is a lot like David Fincher's Gone Girl, though it is not as good. People would probably like this movie more had it come out before Gone Girl. The twist ending is a little predictable for my taste but the acting is good, the writing is fair, and it is a good enough way to waste a couple hours in a theater or better yet wait and watch it for free on TV :)

Satisfaction (2013)

Not Awful, Not Good Either

[4/10 · 31 October 2013]

This show was all right. For a Canadian comedy TV series it was OK. The main problem as other reviewers seemed to have hit the nail on the head about is the acting in this show. I could not stand any one of the characters in this, and it starts with the three leads. The single guy could be funny at times but the other two couldn't make me laugh with the help of a truckload of tickle monsters. And the single guy was super annoying most of the time, like grow up buddy and why is a 40 year old playing somebody my age? Canadian TV can be so awful. The writing was OK I grant it but the direction was so insane, the show was very fast and nothing seemed to connect very well. The characters would be all over the place for no apparent reason. So you end up with a series of unconnected jokes where they just hope the jokes are funny enough to make us not notice, and sometimes they were but usually they were not, again I blame that on the acting. I hope in the last episode the characters all kill each other and Gary dies of some horrible STD.

InSecurity (2011)

Not Funny

[1/10 · 9 May 2012]

This show is not funny at all in my opinion. I am surprised by the number of positive reviews there are posted here and how low the negative reviews are ranked, but c'est la vie I guess there are people out there who actually do like this show. But I really don't understand how I've never met these people who like this show in real life yet somehow it ranks at 5.3/10 here. My friends, partner and I all seem to agree it's closer to a 1/10.

I find the writing to be very tired and predictable with no laughs to be had (again for me), and the acting is one dimensional and just plain not very good.

I am glad this show was cancelled because I frankly expect a whole lot more from my publicly funded television channels than bad and tired shows like this.