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Physical: 100 (2023)
Love the fair play and admiration they show to one another!
So far, 8 episodes in, this competition had got me on the edge of my chair watching every single episode.
The games are original, very tough, and incredibly exciting to watch.
What strikes me the most it the amount of respect every single contestant has for the other ones. They are tough but at the same time are so incredibly fair towards another. I feel that in our western culture, this kind of fair competition would not be possible.
The sportsmanship and politeness is just incredible. Everyone cheers for everyone. That's what I love the most.
There are great athletes competing, men and women. They are all so great that it's hard to pick a favourite and that is just the secret of it: with every game another skill is tested. That way you just cheer for every athlete.
I admire the respect and admiration all of these players have for eachother, no matter what their discipline is. This is a top example of fair play!!
An awsome watch, I just love it.
Yesterday (2019)
Just so brilliant
No idea why this movie has got an average rating of 6,8! This is one of the loveliest movies of the last few years. Having seen it for the second time now, only makes it better. It's a gem, I would recommend it to everyone who needs a pick-me-up.
Fantastic acting, great scenography, subtle jokes, lovely characters and excellent music.
My Kitchen Rules (2010)
Everything's fake
Like many others I used to like the show, but the last few seasons have gone rapidly downhill. This is not a cooking contest anymore, it's a very bad soap opera with all the required ingredients: botox- and fillerfigured actors, nastyness and twists, jealousness and sabotage, and unbelievable plots.
Every contestant wants to stand out because of their opinion or how edgy and competitive they are, not because of their cooking. They look and act like cartoon characters.
Every line seems (and probably is) scripted, the music score is dramatic and so are the camera shots of the contestants' expressions.
Even worse: this is a cooking show, but the quality of the dishes and the culinary knowledge of the contestants is diplorable.
Do NOT spend your time on this fake show.
The Crown: Cri de Coeur (2019)
Expected too much perhaps
Still can't decide what to make of this season.
First of all I seemed to get more and more annoyed with Olivia Coleman's sour face. Compared to the first seasons, the Queen turned into such a strict, cold and miserable woman. Even when she's with Phillip, she seems to give him a polite, fake smile and when he turns away, her face turns blank again. And the way she behaves towards Charles, lecturing and belittling him etc... might be true to history but is such a drastic change in character compared to before.
Also, every episode stands on it's own. If you didn't know any better, you could watch episode 6 after episode 4 and then episode 8. I had the feeling that seasons 1 and 2 were better as a whole and - like many have said - were almost impossible not to binge-watch. In this season, I could easily pause for a couple of days before watching the next episode.
I loved Tobias Menzies and Josh O'Connor as Phillip and Charles! I also liked the actors that played minor roles, like Harold Wilson and princess Alice. Charles Dance is a solid and excellent Lord Mountbatten and then ofcourse there is Erin Doherty, the actress who plays princess Ann! Unfortunately, Helena Bonham-Carter was not convincing as princess Margaret, very hard after such a fabulous performance by Vanessa Kirby! I missed her pizzazz!
On a positive note: I learned so much more about Charles, his youth and his struggles and personal crisisses, being the crown prince. The rest of the season was quite dull, despite spectacular events as Aberfan, the moon landing and the mine worker's strike. I just didn't care and seeing the queen's sour and at the same time blank expression the whole time, didn't help either.
I've seen photos of season 4, which introduces Diana and it doesn't look promising. The actress doesn't look like Diana at all! And even though Josh O'Connor is 1000 times more handsome than Charles ever was, he really convinced me as Charles.
It's sad that the quality of this show has flattened, because seasons 1 and 2 were some of the best things I've watched.
The Family Chantel (2019)
Badly acted, fake reality TV-show
This show pretends to be all about the constant fighting and hostility between two families. It's supposed to be reality-TV, but it's all scripted.
These are not actors and it shows. It's so bad and fake that I cannot believe there are people (and reviewers) who think the situation these families are in, is real. Please cancel this nonsense.
The Ranch (2016)
Bleeding to death, what a shame
I've been a fan of this show since the first episode, but I'm struggling to watch the latest seasons. I never really liked the character of Rooster, he was dumb, chauvenistic and very immature. Ofcourse that made him very popular, as he could constantly make sexist, rude and dumb jokes. So no, I don't miss him but the show has definetly suffered because of his 'leaving'.
The last season is even darker than the previous one, and I mean that literally and as a figure of speach. In any case, the lighting budget must have shrunk big time because every single scene is situated at night, or inside in the dark, with hardly any light. This also makes the atmosphere depressing. Even the laugh track.
And boy, what a depressing season it is! Colt and Abby, newlyweds with a baby, split for a ridiculous reason. It made me dislike Abby even more, because I already felt her part in the show was becoming too big - as where it used to focus on the brothers and their father. Abby used to be the mature one, she's not anymore.
A guy I would think would die on the job, in his cowboyboots and -hat, Beau, is now retired thanks to his deal with Neumann. I don't believe for a second that a farmer who has had as much hardship as succes in his 50+ years carreer, would dull down to the point we hardly only see him sitting in his front porch or in his sofa, holding a glass of whisky. In the dark. He hardly even has a spark of cynicism in his body anymore.
The drinking is still very present, in every scene they have to hold a beer or a whisky. When it's empry, it gets refilled. They don't even ask, a new bottle or glass is offered and accepted without fuss. At any time of the day.
Dax Shepard, as much as he tries, is the most wooden character of them all. With his eyed wide open, it seems he is constantly asking himself what he's doing in this show. Unfortunately, his character adds nothing.
Mary has gone completely of track, and I used to like her. She alopes with Luke, marries him in Vegas, overdoses, gets in trouble with the law, loses her house and her friends, splits with Luke but not before she tricks him out of $1.000,... I liked the fact that she was a feisty, independant 'older' woman. She was different, but now they've changed her into a selfish, egocentric woman.
Beau's equally wooden girlfriend Maggie is suddenly diagnosed with Alzheimer's and ofcourse leaves him. Don't know where that come from, but no problem: 10 mins later she's changed her mind and is back on the ranch.
And last but not least: Cole's new ranch is in trouble because he didn't sell his cows, his new house is and stays a building site, and he still can't say one sentence without swearing. And he's still an immature collegekid instead of a responsible father. On a side note: baby Peyton is constantly carried around in an infant car seat, covered with a blanket, and has thus become irrelevant.
Does this sound depressing? It does, and it is. But that's the direction this show went. It used to be refreshingly funny, now it's a melodrama, depressing and sad and slowly bleeding to death.
5 stars are for the first few seasons, after that is just fell flat.
Will & Grace: 11 Years Later (2017)
Some shows just have to be left in the past when they were good
Like so many I was very excited when I heard W&G was being picked up, but I had some reservations because it felt like all of the story lines were told. And I was right. Eleven years later, all four are still stuck. Stuck in their lives, in their careers and in the same time of age when the show stopped.
Jack and Karen were such fun characters, crazy and over the top, but they balanced well against Will and Grace. You'd think they would mellow, being older, not ever being boring or normal, but not as wild as 11 years ago. Matured maybe, but without losing their wit and quirkiness. On the contrary, they're just plain annoying and stressful now. I sometimes wanted to shout like: O please don't be so childish and ridiculous. To me, it's just not believable that 11 years later, both of them just stayed the same, hyper and loud people. And maybe that was fun 11 years ago, but today I'd like to think that we moved away from the gay stereotype that Jack used to be.
That really goes for Will and Grace as well. They are so boring now, I don't give a hoot for Grace's career as an interior decorator. (decorating the oval room when you're just a company of 3 or 4 people, yeah right... that makes her successful). In one episode Grace even uses Will's gayness as a bribe for getting a job decorating 15 hotels. Well, if it were the other way around (a guy setting up his female business partner with a client to get a job) it would be all over the place. But hey, when you're a woman and you play the gay-card, it's not so bad - and this comes from a woman saying this. Will is no better. OK, so maybe his relationships weren't that successful, but that doesn't mean he has to constantly look for quick, meaningless affairs. I would have liked him by now to have been in a meaningful monogamous relationship (as in, you know, would have been a nice change to the series). But no.
I got tired really soon of all politics and references to today's political climate, the US president, Melania, etc etc... I don't watch comedy shows to get that thrown in my face ALL the time, and I mean this time it's literally present in almost every scene.
So yes, greatly disappointed that the producers, writers and actors didn't take the chance to make this show relevant to 2017. I aged 11 years, but the show and the characters clearly didn't. It's just not relevant anymore. Won't be watching it anymore because after 5/6 episodes it didn't get any better.
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)
An old fashioned good quality movie
When a movie still haunts me, days after watching it, I know it must have been bloody good and this was the case with The Meyerowitz stories. Dustin Hofman is one of my all time favorite actors but I wasn't prepared for him to play such an obnoxious, selfish character. For a great part of the movie, he is lying in a hospital bed having some life threatening condition. He comes out of it and STILL is the same obnoxious selfish man he was before...LOL. Although he doesn't change, his children do.
The story is told through these children, all grown up and with their own emotional baggage. The Adam Sandler part is touching, albeit a bit long in comparison to the other. In fact, the part that's about the sister is just a disgrace and doesn't learn us anything about her - it's merely a reason for the brothers to bond.
Now Ben Stiller is really good in this film, he plays the successful brother. The patience he has for his father is amazing and their lunch date is just so relatable and bittersweet. It made my toes crawl because I could just feel his inner struggle between staying polite and patient and just losing it completely. His character changes the most in this film and I really liked how constrained and calm he acted. It seemed he, as the youngest, becomes actually the leader of the siblings, the one they look up to. And no longer because he's obviously their father's favorite, but because during this ordeal he really proves himself as the smarter, more responsible one. Like fi. when he learns his brother and sister to take notes by the hospital bed.
I liked the relation between Adam Sandler and his on-screen daughter at first. But when she's off to college, she turns from this down-to-earth girl into a exhibitionist movie maker, making egocentrically porn and selling it as art. Maybe she really WAS the one and only true successor of her grandfather, and she may just turn unto the same unlikeable person he is. Just thinking about that as I write, I might have missed that point when I watched the film...
Greatest disappointment was the role of Emma Thompson as Meyerowitz's 4th (?) wife. Her character was also very unlikeable - even in the scenes with 'son' Ben Stiller. I couldn't imagine her being a wife or a mother. She was just wacky and weird and her body language reminded me a lot of the character she played in the Harry Potter movies.
In all, the female roles are just bad and not as nearly as important as the male roles, but I guess this is due to the fact that Harold Meyerowitz's character is so dominant, all females are automatically put in the background. The sons are divorced or in the middle of it, and their ex-wives are only mentioned briefly and surely never seen.
Nevertheless, I couldn't stop watching. The dialogues are so important in this film, they are quick and witty (like the old movies with Cary Grant). Scenes are long and filmed from the same camera point, so this is very different from other movies where everything must go fast and flashy. For some this might be boring, but I liked the slow speed and the time that is spent on the scenes.
Highly recommended.
Unacknowledged (2017)
Awful, wish I could rate it 0
I have watched this movie (as in movie = fiction), and felt the need to write this review to counterbalance all of the 10/10 ratings it gets here. Apparently, it's either a 10 (if you're a believer) or it's a 1 (if you're not). This is a perfect representation of the contradiction in the movie itself. This is a one-man show by Dr. Greer, all his conspiracy theories, gesticulations and crocodile tears. Unbelievable. His monologue (very contemporary filmed from all angles, as if it were a respectable documentary) is only interrupted by very short images of letters, 60 year old film archives, talk show clips and drawings. The more the merrier. Because people: the evidence is just out there!
First of all, all of the witnesses he calls to the stand are people with very questionable credentials. The fact that a witness or advocate of Greer's beliefs is a doctor, a general, a PhD or some important government guy does not impress me.
Secondly - and for me most importantly - if you say A, you have to tell us the rest of the alphabet! "They", "Them",... this so called elite, or underground group is NEVER identified. Which is typical for conspirators like Greer. According to him, "they" are represented in every corporation, media, workplaces... all over the world. With one intention: to keep "us" quiet, to not let "us" know. If only he (or someone else) would name a few people that live only to deceive us all, men/women who have to keep their job a secret all of their lives, who themselves might not even know their superiors - after all, it's all one big secret, in another dimension, right?
Lastly, what was Marilyn Monroe doing in here? Something with Kennedy who seemed to 'know more'... and then straight to the fact that, oh that's why Marilyn died - excuses me: was probably killed according to the insinuations that Greer made. Well, I'm baffled.
I'm sure that, as science acknowledges, there's a chance that mankind is not alone in this universe. Are they here yet? No.
Copenhagen (2014)
Warm, interesting movie for long summer nights
Really enjoyed this little movie. It's not a complicated nor far-fetched story line and when I read the summary before seeing the film I was wondering if it wouldn't be too simple... This movie shows that you don't need overly complicated story lines to make an intriguing film.
As the title says, it really is an ode to Copenhagen. I must visit soon, it looks like a beautiful, free and modern city. Put it on my bucket list. Really. Go there, it looks awesome.
Although some reviewers didn't like the William character, I completely believed his change in attitude and lifestyle. Tthe self-obsessed, vile man-child changing into a compassionate, protective and gentler human being is being played very well by the actor Gething Anthony. Praising the Danish actress for her role is easier because she plays a sweet, naive-but-wise, vulnerable girl. She acts great and I loved her, but I cannot says this without mentioning her male co-player.
Some things in the movie I didn't like? Sure. Obnoxiuous William having a best friend for 20 years...? That friend returning to Copenhagen after whisking off to London (why London?) all in the same day? I found this Jeremy character unnecessary. I believe William's character was strong and rounded enough without the addition of a best friend. He annoyed me, their 'friendship' annoyed me. Another character in the movie that didn't have to be added was that of Effy's stepfather Henrik. The audience already got a glimpse of her life (always out, no rules, stealing, entering without admission) to know that her home situation must be difficult. Like Jeremy, the movie didn't need Henrik to clarify Effy's character. I think it would have worked fine if it had focused on the protagonists alone and have Jeremy and Henrik be side notes like they did with Effy's uncle, or the barkeeper, etc.
I liked the ending, I was afraid it would turn out differently but it didn't. Especially liked the fact that William made the trip to Skagen and came to terms with his past... AND his future. That last shot left me with a great big, satisfying sigh. I really hope their lives went well (and yes, I KNOW it's only a movie).
Casting JonBenet (2017)
Watch this with an open mind
I saw this production last night. Although being European, the case of Jonbenet has been in our media substantially as well, from the moment it happened until this day. This is not a documentary and I don't review it as such. I find the concept of "Casting Jonbenet" very innovating and intriguing. I had to forego on all of my prejudices about what to expect of a documentary and what to expect of a movie, because it is neither.
In the beginning, I was surprised about the approach and I found the presentation of the different versions of Patsy confusing. Then, I got the point and when gradually the other characters and actors were introduced, I felt more comfortable with the concept and really got into it. If you fight this concept, you won't be able to appreciate this production, so in my opinion you should watch it with an open mind.
It was very confronting when I started to realize that all of these actors had a story of their own. Sometimes they had a connection with the Ramsey's through friends or work, sometimes they had their own traumatic experience that synchronized them with the character they were supposed to play or the crime itself. Somehow, for me, these private testimonies brought the whole case alive and present again.
You should get past the uncomfortable feeling some of the amateur actors give you, like the SM-fetishist, the Santa Clauses (what was that??), or the guy that played the creepy pedophile. Sometimes it was funny how these people went into method acting-modus, how serious they took the job. Although I must admit, with some of them I wasn't sure if they were really ordinary people or if they were acting to be an amateur actor...
The last 5-10 minutes of this production is a perfect ending to it: a long slow-motion shot of all of the actors, in one big scene, with all of the possible scenario's of that fatal night, all in one.
The last we get to see is a vision of the perfect little girl Jonbenet was, in the spotlight, all dressed up. I think that was an appropriate tribute to the poor girl who must have suffered a great deal during her short lifetime as well as in the final hours leading up to her death.
Mr. Turner (2014)
Meh
A day after watching the movie, I am still not certain about the way I feel about it, hence the 5/10. Mr Turner is a beautiful film to look at: the cinematography, the framing of the images, the colours, the are all extremely well done. I was only let down by the cardboard houses and harbour at Margate, that was like looking at a cheap operadécor. Everything actually filmed on location looks marvellous and romantic. The atmosphere in the Victorian Houses and at the Academy are also captured very well.
I don't know if it was intentionally meant by the director/producer, but never could I sympathize with the Turner character. He's rude, sometimes a pervert, but mostly grumpy and boorish. If those were indeed the main characteristics of Turner, then Spall did a great job. However, it was very hard to unsee Spall's Peter Pettigrew (Harry Potter) and I find he even uses some of the same eccentric actingtrics in this movie. He huffs, puffs and groans throughout the movie, I found it very tiresome. Neither could I see the attraction Mrs Booth had to have to this grumpy old man. There were too few scenes in the movie to justify their apparently loving relationship.
But Turner is a movie about a painter! I was so disappointed that only 10% of the time you can actually see him paint. I read Spall took art classes for 2 years, but that was waste of time and money, because you can hardly see hem hold a brush, let alone actually paint. The movie never reveals his reasons for painting, his convictions nor his passions. I don't understand his relationship with Haydon, Constanble nor the other painters, but he loves the camaraderie of the Academy. He seems to have contempt for the paintings of the pre-rafaellites, but it was a fact that he was a fan of their work. I was mostly disappointed by his mocking of John Ruskin - in a scene at Ruskin's house with his parents - which seemed to me totally disrespectful towards the Ruskins, who have just bought one of his paintings.
The movie is a sequential series of fragments. Some of them seem out of place and unimportant. For me it made it hard to warm to it. It has not made me want to know more about Turner, which usually is a sign that the movie has not enough quality, despite the beautiful cinematography.
Kon-Tiki (2012)
Very entertaining
I was intrigued by the story of Thor Heyerdahl and his Kon-Tiki expedition which took place in an era without GPS, mobile phones etc. This is sooo normal for us now, even though I myself have lived 3/4 of my life without this technology as well.
I very much liked the look of this movie, almost reminded me of the glorious technicolor movies of the '40s-'50s in which it is actually situated. You can feel the blistering sun out at see and sense the tropical heat in Fatu Hivu, the use of colour and light is outstanding, in the Pacific as well in the scenes shot in Norway. Loved it.
I understand Thor Heyerdahl wasn't the most sympathetic bloke around, but even in a movie about him there could have been made more effort in trying to get the audience to understand his motives. We see a brief synopsis of his life in Fatu Hivu, but the movie switches to it straight from his Scandinavian childhood without much explanation. Why did he become a zoologist and geographer in the first place? Unless I missed this, I still don't know why. It kind of got in the way of me understanding his sudden and uncontrollable drive to prove the theory of Tiki.
Heyerdahl obviously was a very driven, ambitious and intelligent man, stubborn and a bit of a dictator as well. Very few successful men/explorers would have survived without these characteristics, so that's fine. In the movie, they tried to show another side of him, more vulnerable, privately doubting his decisions, sometimes even being afraid (and he only shows that in private, never to other people). When the movie premiered, actor Pal Hagen was the same age as Hayerdahl when he made the voyage. When you consider this, a young man, only 33, undertaking this epic trip, that must have been a daunting command. Hagen did a great job in portraying Heyerdahl in this stage of his life. I also liked actor Gustaf Skarsgard as Bengt and Tobias Santelman as Knut.
There are a lot of scenes leading up to the actual raft trip, and some flash-back scenes as well (with one about Thor and an injured Liv trying to get help by alarming a sailing boat passing Fatu Hivu: what was that for and what did it mean for the movie... I still can't figure it out). The actual trip is more about the first 20 days when they seem to be drifting in the wrong direction; as soon as they catch the right current, next we know they are crashing into Raroia. That's ±75 days gone in a few minutes.
There are some other irregularities. The way the Kon-Tiki crew is choosing, for instance. Apart from one childhood friend, and a refrigerator salesman, there is no explanation for any of the other crew members other than that they are Scandinavian and that they have some sort of skill that Thor can use. I read that each of these men were in fact very, very skilled technicians, smart and experienced. In the movie however, they come across as amateurs, a bunch of randomly generated men, not very stress resistant. That clearly was so not the case, I was sorry that the director/producers thought it would be more interesting to create some tension between these men whereas in reality they were a well oiled team, disciplined and focused. I mean, at the end of the movie they show that Herman went to become a UN international representative for Fishing! And in the movie he was just a scared, shiftless refrigerator salesman who doubts Thor all the time and is constantly thinking they will all die at sea.
And the parrot/shark killing scene was indeed OTT, as well as the fake beards at the end (that was even ridiculous).
I liked the movie, did not love it. But it has made me interested in the figure of Heyerdahl and the many, many expeditions he did after Kon-Tiki. Meanwhile, DNA investigation has proved that Polynesians do descend from South Americans, if in percentage much less than from Asians.
An entertaining movie. I can understand its nomination for the Oscars, the look and feel of it are great, but I can equally understand why it didn't win. I'm going to try and find Heyerdahls own documentary, which DID win an Oscar in 1951.
I was sorry to not have been able to watch it in Norwegian, which I think would have made the dialogues between the actors more wooden than it now was. For commercial purposes, and English version was made.
The Last Kingdom (2015)
Yes and No - left me unsatisfied
First of all: I haven't read the books, so this review is solely based on my watching the series on Netflix.
After the first episode I wasn't convinced. It all seemed amateurishly filmed, I didn't feel any sympathy for the characters and the story was told very rushed. I mean: Uthred's adoptive Danish family is living in peace when all of a sudden they are attacked and killed by this Kjartan fella after an incident that happened 5-6 years ago? Didn't fit.
It took a while before I felt like watching the second episode and after that I kept on watching. Nevertheless, the story still develops very fast. One shot you see Uthred and Brida decide to go to Wessex and in the next frame, they arrive at the gates of Winchester. In real time, that journey must have taken weeks if not months. Nothing interesting happened in between? These time-jumps annoyed me throughout the series, but I guess that's the sacrifice for keeping the story interesting.
Sadly, this also means that the character of Uthred is hard to get. I can't understand his attitude towards women. He's the only one who is constantly followed by women: Brida, Mildrith, Iseult... none of the other Saxons or Vikings seem to have life partners - apart from Alfred - and yet he treats them so badly. He's obviously more Danish than Saxon, yet he's desperate to help Alfred and betray the Vikings. He teams up with Skorpa against the Britts and will always choose Ragnar's side. The story goes so fast that I have trouble understanding his choices and motivations.
On the plus side: the actor (Alexander Dreymon) is gorgeous to look at and he tries his best in portraying this complicated character but still: if there would have been 3-4 more episodes in this first season, I would have warmed to him more and maybe understood him better. Now I didn't know whether he is a nobleman or an opportunist, a player or a husband, a good guy or a bad guy... Maybe this was the whole point, but if so: I don't think the series benefits from it.
The best characters are the Vikings. Ubba (Rune Temte) is just sensational as the giant Viking warlord! He's ruthless, cruel, fearless, brave and majestic all in one. You can't help but feel sympathy for this 'bad guy, I was sorry he was killed off. I really enjoyed watching him. Rune Temte did an impressive job, I'm a fan.
For me, the only interesting characters are actually the Danes: Ubba, Ragnar (the elder as well as the younger), Guthrum, Skorpa, even Brida. The Saxons are pale, frail and spineless men who are more interested in plotting, deceiving and conniving than in fighting. I liked Leofric for a while, until he betrayed Uthred. That came out of nowhere! Not so hard for me to sympathize with the manly muscular, primitive, tattooed Danes...
After episode 5, I have given up the need to 'understand' Uthred, to me he's an opportunist who only wants his birthright back - which is actually strange because as well in appearance as in mind to me he is a Dane. I can't understand his need to be lord of Bebbanburg. The Last Kingdom would have benefited of more episodes to unfold his story and motivations, because after all: he is the lead character.
Didn't care about the Saxons, didn't care about the women and felt no sympathy for father Beocca whatsoever: he's as pale and a coward as every other Saxon. He is supposed to be Uthred's friend at court, someone who saves him from death penalties etc... I think Uthred would have survived just fine without him, as well.
I kept watching because it's about an interesting period in history, and if you are interested in that as well: do see this series.
I would have loved it more if it were be more elaborate in story as well as in characters. Guess I'll have to read the books now.