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Reviews
Big Little Lies (2017)
Like a better-produced Days of Our Lives
I'm half-way through episode two and am not sure I can go any further with this. It's just too soapy and like most American-made dramas, overly dramatic about things. I mean, they spend just way too much time talking about their six-year olds' days. It was boring. But I think the hardest thing were those police interviews that kept being inserted into the "drama". The dialogue was just so unreal. The friends being interrogated by the police about the murder were saying things they would never have known about the people they were talking about. It all just didn't gel well and there were too many holes, and just so boring.
The Jetty (2024)
Where did all the good BBC detective shows go.....
That's the mystery.... where did all the good BBC detective shows go? The Jetty isn't one of them, that's for sure.
I like Jenna Coleman, and if I could continue with this, she's probably the only good thing about it. But, the casting was terrible - I thought I was watching a mixture of The Press Gang (an English tv series where a bunch of kids run a newspaper) and Bugsy Malone. I know I'm getting older, but when the mother and daughter look like they're three years apart, and every copper looks 18, it's starting to be unbelievable.
Every character is miserable and snarky, and it was just too hard to watch.
McDonald & Dodds (2020)
Easy viewing and enjoyable
I love the actors in this series, as well as the supporting cast. The production is good and the scenery is even better. It can get a little silly sometimes but I overlook it because I'm not expecting anything but an enjoyable 90 minutes.
My only gripe in the storyline is that it can get a bit irritating at times when the DCI is constantly looked as this fantastic detective but she wouldn't get anywhere without the "bumbling, chip-eating" Sgt. The storyline always has her looking to him and saying "what do we think, Sarg"? It would be great if they could make her character as smart as him....
The Goldfinch (2019)
If you want to be satisifed by this story, read the book.
The Goldfinch is the only book by Donna Tartt I've read, and at 864 pages, I loved every one of them. So, for a 2.5 hour long movie, I didn't hold out much hope that this would be a good adaption, and sadly, I was right. The book is too descriptive, and includes so much necessary detail to tell the story, it really should have been made into a series by a streaming service, rather than a movie.
If I'd seen the movie without having read the book first, I'd think it a dreary movie with no substance of storyline, whereas the book has so much substance and storyline - probably more than any book I've ever read!
Ondskan (2023)
Almost not watchable, with frustrating dialogue and weak storyline
The premise has been done so many times, but mostly form the US, so I was interested to see it from a Swedish perspective.
It was like a private boys' school / Lord of the Flies, with useless and violent adults hanging around on the sidelines knowing what's happening and condoning it. It's unbelievable that the parents of what seems like over a hundred boys wouldn't know about it and put a stop to actual torture.
The dialogue was pretty weak too, and the storyline sluggish and didn't make relatable sense. Eg. Before he goes to the private school he runs a thuggish gang and is very articulate getting what he wants on the streets, and then, overnight, becomes a total mute and won't say a word and won't stand up for himself? It's just not in any way believable.
The female characters are stereotypical - from the mother, to the girl to the girl's friend, to the nurse. Their dialogue was as if an after thought, and Marja's narration - well, I muted those parts.
I watched until the end but wouldn't recommend.
The actor who played Erik was really good, though - even if his terrible posture was hard to look at.
Absentia (2017)
Another reason I can't wait US-made detective shows.... Absentia!
Why is the US made? Half of the main actors are British - and that's where it should have been written and made.
I could only watch Season 1 - and I amazed myself I made it through to the end, but I really wanted to see how farfetched the storyline and stupid the dialogue became. I mean, I cringed at pretty much every second line, and rolled my eyes right out of my head, but I finally, finally made it to episode 10! Ten! If this was British, it would have succinctly ended at episode six.
Apparently, I have more characters to fill in this box, so just take my word for it, don't bother. Put an episode of anything British on and you'll enjoy it way more than this nonsense.
Jury Duty (2023)
Oh, this was so good!!!
I hadn't heard about this show, so it wasn't until episode three I found out it was a hoax show - and that was because I Googled Ronald Gladden because he looked familiar and I didn't know why - then I read about it being a hoax! I was a little bit dismayed (because I'm not into reality tv at all) and then intrigued because it sounded like such a unique concept.
I'm glad I binged all episodes over two days because it was just the best. The jurors (actors) were fantastic, and watching such a lovely guy as Ronald be himself with everyone acting crazy around him, with their nutty stories and quirks was amazing to see.
The very last episode almost made me cry. Just loved this.
Under the Vines (2021)
I shouldn't have put off watching this for so long....
I'm Australian but am not a fan of most Australian tv dramas - they're just not well written, not well acted, just not well done.
I found myself unable to find anything to watch over Christmas and finally relented to watch Under the Vines after seeing it on the list for months and months.
I binged the entire two seasons in two days! It was fantastic! I think, probably, because it's set in NZ, has a lot of NZ actors (including Gibney) and was very humorous, particularly Charles Edward.
The backdrop was stunning, the cast was great and quirky, and the storyline kept me interested. I really loved it.
Miss Marx (2020)
Missed the Marx (sorry :/)
I could tell what they were trying to do with this film - what with the heavy and loud music and French filmmaking style, but it just didn't come together for me. Mostly, it was a quiet film, and then all of a sudden the music was hardcore and didn't fit at all. Think Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, but not done well.
I like Romola Garai in everything she's done, and I didn't not like her in this, but it was just weak writing and editing and directing. The storyline was very choppy - I mean, in one scene she was led by a poor young boy to a poverty-stricken mother laying in filth with a newborn by her side, suffering with mastitis - then cut to her doing a love scene from A Doll's House. We don't find out how Eleanor M helped with the family, if at all. We never went back to it. It was a confusing couple of minutes that didn't tell me anything.
I found myself pausing the movie and referring to Wikipedia to fill in the blanks left by this movie. Not a thing you'd normally have to do if a biopic is made well, but something you want to do after it's finished so you can learn more about the subject because the film has instilled that interest.
Watch it, though, for Romola Garai - she's always great.
After Everything (2023)
Dreadful
If you're looking for an easy escape of a movie, don't watch this. You'll want to escape this as much as anything else in your life.
The acting is as woeful as it's ever been, especially from the male lead, but there's just more of it - he's in every scene! Too much of this guy. The only half-way good acting is the female lead and she's hardly even in it, not until the end. And then there's the ending? What was that about? Shoved into the last five minutes like an after thought - maybe that should have been the title - After Thought. The funniest thing was the wig or hair piece she was wearing in the last scene - that had me in stitches! Don't watch this - just skip to the last scene. HIlarious!
After Ever Happy (2022)
Nothing makes sense - not even the title!
I saw this on Prime and my memory must have been failing me because I'd forgotten how absolutely shockingly bad the previous three were - so, not thinking, I started watching the fourth, After Ever Happy. What does that title even mean? It's grammatically incorrect, and just a dreadful title. Matches the storyline, I suppose.
Previous comments have already mentioned the "storyline" and there's nothing more to add - just like the fourth movie. And I've just seen there's a fifth? What more could possibly be said about these two people?
Here's what I really don't get.... Not many films make it to five. So someone involved in this series knows someone of influence. But the tragedy is - think about the writers and actors out there who could have made something so much better than this but don't get the chance. This is made instead. Does my brain in.
Redemption (2022)
Not a bad watch, but don't expect anything too much.
I love a good Irish/British detective drama, and some are way better than others. Redemption is probably, for me, on the lower end of the scale, but worth a watch when there's nothing else on.
I won't go into the plot here, but it's pretty standard stuff. The issue I had with it was the constant plot holes - from start to finish and by the third episode, there were too many holes to fill.
Overall, it seemed like an Irish show trying to be a US style show with some kind of issue between two gangster families but it just didn't work. Dialogue was weak and by the sixth episode I was over it and couldn't care less about any of them.
World on Fire (2019)
Season 1 - passable, just... Season 2 - just a bad production
Season 1 was something to watch when you felt like a WW2 drama that included a bit of everything, but it wasn't engrossing, and I even forgot to watch the end of the series.
Then season 2 arrived. Whatever happened in the years between I'm not sure, but the dialogue is just woeful, and the production seems like it was all done on the cheap - the desert scenes looked like they were made on a movie lot in the 50s, and I thought the gestarpo interrogation scenes were part of some comedy skit!
There were so many different story lines going on at the same time with no connection it just all felt very disjointed.
I'm not sure if it was the characters or the people playing them but they were pretty annoying a lot of the time. The only part worth watching was with Lesley Manville - and now Mark Bonnar has appeared I'm hoping it might get better.
Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama (2022)
I'm rethinking all of my movie choices from now on....
I watched this because of Michael Sheen. I'm not British, so I didn't even realise when I started that this was based on actual events, and have no idea about these people. I wish I had chosen differently, because this was terrible.
I continued watching because, well, I couldn't be bothered choosing anything else, and it was too early for bed. This "movie" definitely made me ready for sleep, because, again, this was terrible.
I can only imagine what it must have been like for the people of Great Britain to have to endure day after day "news" coverage of this first-world-problem story - thankfully this only went for 90 minutes or something, but still, this was long enough. What was Michael Sheen thinking, because this was terrible.
Grace (2021)
Who knew ITV was remaking Scooby Doo!?
Season 1 was bearable, season 2 was hardly bearable, but season 3? Goodness, me. I mean, I wasn't expecting much after the first two, but it took me a few starts and stops to get through the third season. Silly storylines, holes all over the place, and drama-school graduate level acting.
I've always like John Simm, but this ain't no State of Play, just so you know. More like Scooby Doo and the Gang do Brighton.
I've really not got much more to say about this show, but I must bore you with 600 characters to adhere to IMDB rules, so if you want to be as bored as you are at the moment reading this required paragraph, watch season 3 of Grace. You won't be disappointed :)
D.I. Ray (2022)
I wouldn't expect a season 2 - surely 1 is enough!
I love my British detective shows, but many in the last few years really don't hit the mark - this is another to add to the list, I'm afraid.
Clearly racism is prevalent in society - in all society, and we all know it. Whoever wrote this series thinks we all don't know it and need to be knocked over the head with the information every second sentence, every other glance or awkward conversation. It was too much, and it went through every episode, from beginning to end.
Such strange dialogue, bad acting, and weird directing, eg.
The dance scene in the pub - would never happen, anywhere!
But one of the contradictory things I found was the stereotyping. The makers of DI Ray are teaching us all about racism, and how it plays out in society, but here they are perpetuating it with their stereotypes of the South Asian mothers and their cooking abilities.
I'm not really sure how the actors even got through.
Slip (2023)
Unique storyline well told.
I loved this, and Zoe Lister-Jones is great in anything she's in. The storyline was really interesting and I loved the moving through the different dimensions. I'm not really getting the negative reviews on this. It's something different, is easy viewing at half an hour, and only goes for seven episodes. I'd probably class it as humorous drama, rather than a comedy, though. So don't go into it thinking there'll be heaps of laughs.
The supporting cast were great too, except I think the husband was miscast - he seemed like an overgrown teenager, and the two of them married wasn't really believable for me.
Home Greek Home (2023)
Nice ending but....
If you want to watch this, I'd suggest the first episode and then the last - don't bother with whatever was going on in between. I tried watching the second and just couldn't. Even the last episode was hard going - obviously scripted (the lost handbag? Clearly scripted. Those annoying adults sons , and that narrator!) Yep - this show really got to me.
The interior design of this place was not for me, but the ending was nice.
If you want to watch this, I'd suggest the first episode and then the last - don't bother with whatever was going on in between. I tried watching the second and just couldn't. Even the last episode was hard going - obviously scripted (the lost handbag? Clearly scripted. Those annoying adults sons , and that narrator!) Yep - this show really got to me.
The interior design of this place was not for me, but the ending was nice.
Marie Antoinette (2022)
It's lacking something....
I start watching this and wonder who is the woman peaking out of the curtains - and then I realise, it's meant to be Marie Antoinette, but of course it must be her as a grown woman, because this actress is a grown woman! But, nope - it's meant to be MA as her 14 year old self the day after her wedding. This bit of casting doesn't bode well for other choices in casting, script, etc.
But, I give it a go and have moved on to the second episode, but there's something missing. It's lacking something. The dialogue is boring and doesn't hold my attention. The costumes and set design are the only thing holding this thing together.
Heal (2017)
Mixed feelings....
This kind of documentary is usually something I'm drawn to, but I've got mixed feelings about this one. It's almost like The Secret. I thought it was going to be more alternative medicine based - vitamins, minerals, etc. But all I got out of it was if you thought positively, then all should be well.
I think the clincher of this being a show I wouldn't recommend and something I had a real issue with one of the talking heads listing a string of diseases and ailments, and then said pretty much all others he hadn't even listed weren't hereditary. I'm Australian, and to see that this is absolutely no way true, just Google Justin Yerbury - he's a molecular biologist and most of his maternal family - first his uncle, then his cousin, his mother, grandmother and aunt, then his sister, have all contracted and died from motor neurone disease. He has suffered with it for the past seven years and will succumb in the not too distant future. Tell his family MND isn't hereditary.
Outlander (2014)
Days of Our Lives in the 1700s
I read the books in the mid 90s, and got as far as A Breath of Snow and Ashes, got bored with the storyline and stopped.
When the series started, it was so good - season 1 and 2 particularly. The acting was great, the set, the music, everything. It was so close to the first couple of books, I couldn't fault it.
But what on earth is going on with season 5 and 6? Paricularly in season 6, from the background music that is straight out of Days of Our Lives, to the acting, which is just woeful. Woeful! From the main cast, to the supporting cast, it's just terrible.
The storyline chugs along without holding my interest. I'm not really interested in the wars in America, but if drama was created through the writing and acting, I would, but not with what we have here.
I think this will be, for me, like the books - I'll just leave it here.
The Spanish Princess (2019)
It's kept me entertained but I wouldn't be taking history notes.
I think we all know - and are told at the end of each episode - that liberties are taken to create a drama with this show. And, I get it. What sane person wants to watch what a couple of 15 year olds get up to on their wedding night? And then, watch a 16 year old girl "court" an 11 year old boy? No one. So, of course changes have to be made. But, I guess, maybe some stories should stay as documentaries, so the true story can be told - rather than weird re-tellings of a true story with made-ups thrown in everywhere and anywhere, eg. The Crown, and all the other Starz series depicting English royalty.
I've watched them all now and they're good for entertainment - if not quite annoying due to the incredibly far-fetched inaccuracies.
Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie (2021)
Watch something else.
I started watching this thinking it would be something different, and then continued - I'm not sure why. I hate true crime stories - there's never any answers and I don't like watching other people's misery for my entertainment.
And, yet, here I was - watching this old man (Jim Sheridan) shuffling about Ireland, mumbling about this and that. He claims to be a "storyteller" but I found him to be possibly the worst storyteller I've ever listened to. I had questions about things that weren't mentioned but should have been just to be able to follow the story properly. They weren't left out to start with because of suspense - it was just oversight of creating a good storyline sequence.
I felt terribly for Sophie and her family. It makes me very glad that my family left Cork back in the 1800s - this does nothing to make one feel good about the police or the people of the township. And, this show has not changed my mind about true crime stories. Never again.
Killing Eve (2018)
Binged it over 10 days and loved it from beginning to end!
I've only just today finished this fantastic series and loved it from the start, right up until the ending - which was expected, but still a surprise.
I've seen Comer and Oh in quote a few things and loved them even more in this, but Fiona Shaw has been a favourite of mine for years, and in this she was a standout.
I've not read the books, and I understand the tv series is quite a departure from them, but this tv series was just so good - the costumes, the glances and humour, the acting, etc. I'm just glad Netflix didn't have anything to do with the production of it - that money making corporation would have ruined it!
This was fantastic. Loved it!
Murder in Suburbia (2004)
I think I know why in 2023 I've never heard of it, when it was made in 2004....
I've enjoyed watching Catz in the few things I've seen her in, and so when this showed up on Britbox, I thought I'd give it a go. I'd never heard of it before, and so thought it was a new show - until I started watching it. Now I know why I'd never heard of it - it's terrible! It certainly doesn't stand the test of time. I can watch movies and shows from 19 years ago and don't cringe, but this was terrible. The acting by some was woeful, but it really was the dialogue that was the clincher.
I guess it's rated so highly on this site because the majority of people reviewed it 15 plus years ago? Maybe those same people wouldn't be able to watch it now. It's just so bad.