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Reviews
Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020)
Not great, but a lot of fun.
Final Space meets Star Trek. No really belly laughs, but it's a lot of lighthearted fun with endearing characters.
Greyhound (2020)
Gets right to the point.
After a few minutes of the Captain's back-story we're plunged into battle. Lean and mean. It's all A-story with none of tropes about conflicts between officers, etc. And you're on the edge of your seat the whole time.
The UnXplained (2019)
Nothing new (mostly), but far more adroitly executed than most.
Shows about the unexplained have been a dime-a-dozen. But this incarnation delivers the facts with just enough fluff to make it interesting, without crossing the line into hyperbole and sensationalism. Often the segments feel TOO short and that it moved on TOO quickly. Laudable restraint by the producers/directors.
Even Shatner is restrained. Another reviewer describes his performance as "tired". I find him wonderfully low-key, which is a refreshing departure from the type of hype typical hosts try to inject into topics that, while interesting, aren't really as jaw-dropping as they pretend them to be. "Tired"? I can only wish I'll be as "tired" at 88.
At the end of the day, would I watch more? You bet! Keep 'em coming.
Solntse (2005)
Crushingly dull.
Part of the problem might be that I could only find a DVD version of this film. Combine random character mouth tics with poor resolution, while reading subtitles, and it's hard to follow who's saying what.
That aside, I found this movie incredibly slow and dull. I like foreign films. I like thoughtful, artistic films, which this is. But, I would have been playing on my phone if not for having to read the subtitles. As it was, I kept pausing to see how much longer the film had left. With 40 minutes left, I quit watching.
There's art here. But I don't like every "masterpiece" I see at the museum. This might well be one of those films. I am awestruck by Vermeer's skill, but I don't like his paintings. Same here.
So I give it a straight-down-the-middle 5 out of 10.
If I ever find an HD copy I commit to re-watching it.
Batwoman (2019)
Tries too hard in its premiere, but has potential
Being a Bat-show, this caught my eye. Getting a worse rating than Plan 9 From Outer Space meant that I HAD to check it out.
Yet, 5 out of 10.
The first episode suffers from a few problems:
It tries to cram a Batman Begins, with elements of The Dark Night (or is it Suicide Squad?) story into a TV episode, so the pacing is jumpy and rushed. Which leads to...
The editing (or is this a Director issue?) is clunky. The first episode leapfrogs through character development because of the obvious time constraints. Rather than letting the characters develop organically and naturally, the first episode just dumps out the characters in a pile. Much of the back-story could have been introduced over the whole first season, rather than shoved in our faces all at once.
Batwoman's gay. We get it. Yawn. Don't care. It might as well have been an "I Got Caught Kissing A Jewish Boy At Camp" story. Sorry. This is my review and I don't really care if the girl likes another girl. It's 2019, and I live in Canada, not the UAE. Introduce this throughout the season.
BUT...
Now that all the preamble has been crapped out, maybe the show will settle down a little and find a better pace. We'll see.
4 out of 10 for editing and pacing. 6 out of 10 for potential. Mostly 5 out of 10... so far. Maybe. Maybe not. I'm willing to give it a chance.
And there's so much other crap out there that's TRULY 1 out of 10. You're just not looking.
Idi i smotri (1985)
Almost too overwhelming.
Other reviewers have pretty much said all that needs to be said about the movie so I'll offer my experience.
I watched this with English subtitles so I don't feel like I got the 10 out of 10 experience.
I'm also not sure what rating to give it. It clearly deserves a 10 out of 10, but at the same time it's such an assault on your senses that it's almost un-watchable. And it's a long movie. I had to watch it in two parts over two evenings. I couldn't handle the whole movie in one sitting. I felt like Alex in A Clockwork Orange. Throughout the entire movie I never stopped thinking, "What the F#ck?" because everything the Nazis did was What The F#ck. Schindler's List was an assault on your heart. Come and See is an assault on your mind. The protagonist lives from one WTF moment to the next and you wonder how anyone wouldn't lose their mind. I kept thinking, "What the f#ck am I watching? What the f#ck is going on?", which was clearly the protagonist's state of mind.
The movie's message to me: The Nazis turned Belarus into an insane asylum. A madhouse.
You have to watch this movie.