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Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)
A waste of time, resources and Rufus Sewell
A mindnumbingly insulting concept and terminally boring execution. A snoozefest. How they managed that with the gorgeous Rufus Sewell, I don't know (obviously, they made poor use of him). The folks who thought this was a good flick apparently don't care how dumb the script or the concept get as long as they get their action scenes. At least I didn't waste money on this at the theater -- but I did have to sit through it when it played on HBO and I lost control of the remote. AAAAAGH! I felt like I was losing IQ points just having it on.
Sewell is the only guy in this film who put a decent amount of effort into his acting, and he was sadly wasted here (I hope they paid him a bundle for this, because he sure can't put it into his portfolio of hits). In revenge and to clear my mental palate, I made my TV companion watch Dangerous Beauty with me the moment this abortion ended (Beauty is not only a much better film, but Sewell got a much better role).
If I could give this loser a ZERO, I would, because it deserves that. Don't bother with this unless you really prefer being mindless (and in that case, don't brag about it).
Trouble with the Curve (2012)
A role Eastwood should've tackled 20 years ago, not now
Caught this one tonight on HBO. I'm usually appreciative of Eastwood's efforts, so I kept waiting for this to improve ... but it didn't. I might've liked it more if Clint hadn't looked more like Amy Adams's grandfather instead of her father and Justin Timberlake hadn't looked at least 10 years too young for her. I had real trouble believing the men in their respective roles.
Adams was fine, though; I'm usually not a fan of hers (she's been way too perky for my taste in too many roles), but she hit just the right note in this role, highly believable as a woman holding her own at work and in the world, fending off asshats who resent competent women in the office and in her private life. Hard to believe, but I watched the rest of the film after the first 20 minutes for her, not for Clintwood. Who'd have thunk it? Otherwise, baseball fans would probably dig it, but it wasn't my cup of tea. Take a pass.
Simply Irresistible (1999)
A great movie for foodies -- and girls' night
Note: possible marginal spoilers here, but not many.
Okay, let's just get this out of the way first: if you're a guy who's not a foodie and hates dancing, romantic comedy and magical realism, you probably should go watch ESPN instead. Everyone else, listen up: this one's underrated. Sure's it's a ball of fluff, but a very enjoyable one with no pretensions. The protagonists are sympathetic, and the side characters get some pretty funny lines at times. Every time this comes on the tube, I find myself watching it again, and I'm never sorry -- it hooks you. However, I do end up wanting vanilla orchids and those damned caramel eclairs every single time!!! That's the only unfortunate trade-off, especially for foodies. But it's worth the suffering (you can search for the eclair recipe later, folks).
The first thing that tempted me to watch this film is that it features a few actors whose work I love, Patricia Clarkson being at the top of the list. I was prepared not to like Sarah Michelle Gellar in this, considering how many duds and screamers she's been in, but she was marvelously understated here, as was Sean Patrick Flannery, whom I generally like but who's been known to ham it up too much in other flicks. Not here: he's bewildered through the first half of the film after he eats Amanda's food for the first time, which is totally understandable if you love food and quite charming, actually, considering what a heel he is when the film opens. He's such a GUY throughout, especially when he gets scared after their cooking scene together! Very accurate there. And still, food and love can conquer all if he gives them a chance (no, I won't tell you -- you'll have to watch). I do love the dance scenes, though.
Clarkson and Dylan Baker make the most of what they're given, especially regarding the eclairs. Clever woman, that Lois! Gawd, I love Clarkson in rom-com. Those two are insanely funny together, especially in the elevator scene. And the dining room scenes during the big dinner are hysterical (literally, at one point). Everything resolves strangely enough by the end of the flick, which is what you'd expect with magical realism; and the mysterious crab and Shawn Colvin's cover of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" is a nice touch. Perfect.
Advice: don't think too hard when you watch this, and have some caramel-covered eclairs or cream puffs on hand when you watch, and you won't be sorry. It's not Casablanca, but it's a lot of fun.
Sanctum (2011)
In short, skip it
This was one of those 3 a.m. choices when nothing else was on that I now wish I'd avoided in favor of a static test pattern. Here's a quick summary up front: Good locations, bad screenplay, awful dialogue, wretched accents, horrid acting. Given all that, the locations just couldn't make up for everything else. What crap! Never thought Ioan Gruffudd would be a pain to listen to, but he was -- not that anyone else's speech was exactly balm to the ears. I don't mind accents as long as they're authentic and enunciation is good. Whoever thought Richard Roxburgh and Rhys Wakefield were the saving graces of the film must have been hallucinating on illegal substances, because that was SO NOT the case if you saw it straight, as I did. Perhaps the only way to watch this is with the sound and captioning off and just think of it as a series of clips from a National Geographic feature. Otherwise, it wasn't worth the money wasted on this production. I sure hope Ioan Gruffudd laughed all the way to the bank, because this thing sure doesn't belong in his greatest-hits portfolio. Awful, awful, awful. I'd give this a zero if it weren't for the location shots. Spare yourself and watch a rerun of The Abyss or Avatar instead.
Grey's Anatomy: Song Beneath the Song (2011)
Can't say enough good things about this episode
Very slight spoiler.
There are people who really dislike singing episodes on a non-singing show -- and I'm one of them. Imagine my surprise, then, when *this* episode worked. It wasn't at all what I expected. First, the plot fully justified the singing 'dream sequences': the team struggles to save Callie and the baby, and the nearly-dead Callie sings while she dreams/hallucinates as a witness to her own life and death. Second, the songs were well chosen for the plot line, they had been used on the show before for their topical lyrics, most of the actors on the show can at least hold a tune, and some (like Sara Ramirez, around whose character the episode's plot revolved) can really belt one out (and she should -- she's sung on Broadway). Third, the writers were wise to center all of this around Callie: putting Ramirez in the center was the key, because she had three songs to everyone else's one each, and she tied everything together. It made complete sense that way. I was major wowed, as I hadn't expected much going in.
Because of this episode, I can't say that ALL singing episodes are a bad idea -- but I will insist that most still don't work, because the writers and show runners don't usually try this hard to make everything work naturally, nor do they succeed. This succeeded, and it's the exception that proves the rule. And I say this as someone who never liked the singing episode on Buffy, which most folks seem to consider some kind of standard for singing episodes (I don't -- hated it completely). "Song Beneath The Song" now becomes the gold standard. And those of you who didn't like it don't like singing episodes at all anyway, as I didn't. The difference here is that I gave this one a chance, and the writers and music editors came through.
Hawthorne: Just Between Friends (2011)
Awful. Just absolutely, bloodymindedly AWFUL!
Spoiler alert! Well, you can stop being optimistic for a turnaround in this show: ain't happening. Six episodes in, HawthoRNe has plummeted into tacky, turgid soap opera. And really bad, really stupid soap opera at that. Honestly, watching this last episode I just waned to slap Christina (and the writers) hard enough to bounce her/them across the county. Grown woman, only a few weeks after losing her baby, finds out she can't have any more kids and then deliberately sabotages her remaining relationship with her brand-new husband by not leaving a party on time and going home like she should -- and instead stays behind to have a make-out session with the one guy she should break contact with for everyone's sake. Idiot, or what??! And not a *nanosecond* of this was remotely credible. DAMN, but I'm tired of scripts that make intelligent women look like they suddenly became severely retarded over a man. Must be guys writing this crap. I see absolutely no reason for the lead character to fall for the Marc Anthony character -- other than the convenience of the writers. SHOVE IT, already: I'm never watching this show again. Not even at midnight when there's nothing else on. I'll give my library card a workout instead. Enough!!!!!
Love N' Dancing (2009)
Skip it: the romance and plot are weak, and the dancing's strictly for WCS devotees
... and I dance East Coast Swing, a simplified take on Lindy Hop, which is the real thing (West Coast borrows a few moves from East Coast/Lindy and blues dance but is actually too Hollywood in its choreography and too close to the Hustle -- FEH!), so of course the dancing fell short for me. Real swing is what you dance to Count Basie, Duke Ellington, or Benny Goodman, or even contemporary big bands. My saying so will no doubt steam the West Coast fans in the audience, but hey, dance history is what it is (look up Frankie Manning and Hellzapoppin' on Wikipedia if you want to know where it all came from). Besides, the dance scenes would have fallen short anyway, for reasons cited below. But I digress.
I started off really wanting to like this movie. Honest. After all, I found the male lead appealing at first, and I'd enjoyed other dance films such as Strictly Ballroom, Center Stage, Take The Lead, and Tango Bar (I even tolerated Shall We Dance fairly well, given my usually complete disdain for Richard Gere). But no: the non-dance part of this storyline was so weak it made me cringe. OFTEN. Billy Zane was slightly less obnoxious than usual, so that was something, but not enough to offset the fact that Amy Smart seemed to be sleepwalking through the whole thing. The writing was awful. Their fight scene at home, for example, seemed sudden and oh, so contrived. So did the upset at their friends' wedding. Fake, fake, fake. You could see the consequences telegraphed a mile away. And the dance competition was even **more** Hollywood over-the-top than West Coast usually is. Mehhh. They learned ALL the wrong things from ballroom competitions.
Worst of all, Amy Smart never looked like she was really getting the hang of the sense of elasticity or stretch that underlies all variations of swing -- or that she was enjoying any of it, even a little bit. If you hate dancing that much, why do a dance movie?? Don't tell me she really liked it, because you sure couldn't tell from her performance in this film. I could barely sit through it. The actual dancing by others, however, like some ballroom competitions I've seen, was expert yet mechanical. Soulless despite all the plastic smiles, sequins, and flash moves. Wasn't **anybody** really getting into it? It's like they were still showing off but all just too cool to really show they like it. Nuts!!! I've seen much more fun and energy generated by amateurs at Lindy competitions on college campuses than I saw anywhere in this film. And I kept wanting to see real Lindy Hop, so that spoiled the rest of it for me.
If you want an introduction to WCS, I suppose this is as good as any; but if you were hoping for another Swing Kids (despite its inauthentic choreography) or Take The Lead, sit this one out -- it's not your kind of number, and it doesn't even have anyone like Antonio Banderas to save it. And Lindyhoppers should avoid it entirely. (It'll just annoy you too much. Better your should watch Frankie Manning clips on YouTube or video reruns from the Frankie 95 celebration. I'm just saying.)
PS -- I just noticed that Tom Molloy, the lead, also wrote the script. He has a lot to answer for, in that case.
The Kennedys (2011)
Makes you want to watch Thirteen Days instead
Underwhelming, overall. And the most underwhelming actors are Katie Holmes as Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and Greg Kinnear as JFK. Their performances can best be described as limp. They suffer from comparisons to the real people, who had so much more spirit and charm. I'm old enough to remember JFK, Jackie, and Bobby, and there is nothing about the performances of Kinnear, Holmes, or Barry Pepper that remind me at all of the essences of these dynamic, charismatic people. This series utterly fails at capturing that sensibility. The frequently slipping accents don't help either. Tom Wilkinson, meanwhile, is gruffly hamming it up playing Joe Kennedy, Sr. -- sometimes as a generic tyrant, but more often as Tom Wilkinson Playing A Generic Tyrant (much as John Wayne in time simply portrayed Himself Playing A Cowboy/Sailor/Soldier). I didn't find any of the acting credible: one is constantly reminded that they *are* acting. Perhaps it's the director's fault; perhaps it's really everyone's fault.
Even for those who are too young to remember the Kennedy White House years, there have been enough films and documentaries about the Kennedys that this effort still suffers severely by comparison -- particularly when compared to Thirteen Days (to which I gave 9 stars). In the latter, Bruce Greenwood as JFK and Stephen Culp as Bobby Kennedy are not only far better actors than their counterparts in this series but are also more successful at evoking the real people they represent -- not because they have better accents that don't slip, though that helps, but because they did a better job of inhabiting their roles and paid more attention to making the story real than to making believable 'copies' of the actual people. The true test is that I got absorbed in the story and action and never once noticed that Greenwood, Culp and their collaborators *were* acting. Suspending disbelief was easy.
Not so with this series. It does what I never imagined anyone could do to the Kennedy story: it renders it boring. No wonder the History Channel turned it down. Skip this.
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007)
Bloody awful
If I hadn't been at home nauseated, aching, and convalescing with literally NOTHING else on that I hadn't already seen when I (sort of) watched this, I wouldn't have made it past the first 15 minutes: those are bad enough to warn off anyone with any sense. I barely did even so (I swear this flick made me even more nauseated than I already was). Another reviewer was kinder when (s)he wrote that it wasn't that the actors were bad per se -- because most of them certainly were. Only John Rhys-Davies, who's done this kind of crap before, taken it seriously, and taken it to the bank, and Claire Forlani were making any kind of effort at all. Not the rest. Ron Perlman was hamming it up on autopilot, but at least his ham act wasn't half as objectionable to the ones put forth by Matthew Lillard and Ray Liotta, which were grossly annoying. Leelee Sobieski basically sleepwalked through this thing, reprising bad bits form her St. Joan effort of several years ago, and Jason Statham frowned and grunted his way through the film, whereas Burt Reynolds couldn't even bother to be conscious for it and stared his way through it all, projecting the most godawful monotone and excruciating boredom with the whole thing (remind me again: **WHY** does anybody consider this fossil an actor??!). Reynolds and Liotta delivered their absolute worst performances of all time in this wasted effort. What the whole mess deserves is a mercy killing. If this review process allowed me to give it a zero, I would.
Clash of the Titans (2010)
Unspeakably bad
Usually in a mediocre sword and sandals outing, there are one or two elements that are bad enough to damn a film. Here, there's not one element that could salvage it. The sets are tacky and cheap. The dialogue is puerile, weak and stupid when not actually outright insulting to the viewer. The acting is wooden enough to give splinters. The script doesn't have enough for many of the main characters to do and completely wastes the rest of the cast. The writers deserve a firing squad: if you're going to deviate *this* much from actual mythology, it's forgivable only if you produce a better piece of art because of it. That didn't happen. Here, ***NOTHING*** works and the story is butchered to no purpose other than clueless impulse and ego. And the director deserves never to work again in film in this lifetime or any other, not even as a janitor.
If Sam Worthington really wanted to make a worthy version of this film for his kids' generation, he should have read that script much more carefully before agreeing to be in the film. This one is memorable only for its sheer awfulness. ZERO points to everyone concerned -- a complete waste of time and money. Give them all a kick in the shins and be done with it. UGH!!!
The Women (2008)
Clare Booth Luce was better than this
Normally, I'm more supportive of women directors, but this really doesn't deserve it. Good actors stuck in a bad script, and it's not even witty. The original was far more clever, if slightly vicious and dated. And what on earth did Meg Ryan do to make herself so unattractive and emotionally unappealing??! (Can you say bad plastic job? Uh-huh. Forget the fat lips, girl.)
Moreover, there's not one major character (or characterization) that I find remotely sympathetic or can care about -- I want to slap them all! Don't care for the wimpy, spineless Meg Ryan character or the superficial Annette Bening character. Really don't like the Bette Midler character (or is it what Midler does with it? It's a toss-up). Hate, hate, **HATE** the Debra Messing character!! Eva Mendes? Flat. Boring. Could do entirely without Cloris Leachman: she just irritates lately wherever she is. And Jada Pinkett Smith is practically invisible in this.
Skip this. Waste of time. Enough said.
Cave Women on Mars (2008)
Just ridiculous. Enough said.
This isn't science fiction, it's camp masquerading as farce. Nothing whatsoever to DO with science fiction: bad fantasy at best. Just made for bashing on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Might even qualify for cheap satire. But sci-fi??? It's annoying enough that some databases and bookstores lump science fiction, fantasy and horror together as if they were similar. They're NOT. Science fiction requires that a real scientific idea, theory, principle or a reasonable extrapolation from same be at the heart of the plot; in short, it can be improbable, fine, but not impossible. This film is so far from meeting that criterion it's absurd. Can anyone who's read the likes of Isaac Asimov, Ben Bova, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, Gregory Benford, Robert J. Sawyer, or Joe Haldeman put this garbage in the same category?? Oh, hell no. Skip this film if you're looking for sci-fi -- that's the best advice you can get. But if you want cheesy camp in a ridiculous 1950s-throwback style, maybe this is for you after all ...
White Collar: Vital Signs (2010)
Goofy but fun!
Let's see, what did we learn this time? SPOILERS!! 1) Peter can't flirt, at least not without help -- but he can be a babe magnet sometimes anyway (much to Neal's surprise). 2) Peter's wife Elizabeth knows he can't flirt and thinks this is funny -- right up until another woman says Peter has 'magic hands.' 3) Mozzie is a great con man in many circumstances, but not when he has to talk money in front of a babe of a con woman while buying time for Neal. 4) Neal can only sort of sing, at least when he's dopey; Kurt Elling he's not (you mean there's something Neal **can't** do? You bet! And how refreshing).
Seriously: this was a fun outing and confirmed that although a few things make him nervous, Peter is nobody's fool and can improvise on the fly when he has to. Which is what one would expect from an agent smart enough to have caught Neal twice. I'm also not bothered that the Kate subplot was ignored here: it would be highly unlikely that any such subplot in real life would move along regularly, day by day, instead of in fits and starts with big time gaps in between. This series stretches credibility and verisimilitude quite enough without solving or moving along the Kate subplot too rapidly. Very cute with the not-jealous/jealous Elizabeth and Peter interplay, and the bit about how they got the devious Dr. Powell to think he was falling seriously ill was ***PRICELESS***!! Moreover, it was good to see the excellent and usually cerebral Kyle Secor again, this time taking a slightly comic turn. I really enjoyed him years ago on Homicide: Life On The Street. We don't see him often enough on the small screen.
All in all, an enjoyable episode and a nice diversion. Those who prefer programmatic progress on all story arcs should watch something else. I liked this just fine!
Ultraviolet (1998)
Vampirism as plague: intelligent and compelling drama
POSSIBLE SPOILER Brit drama rocks! I loved Ultraviolet when I first saw it a decade ago on cable and have been looking for a recording ever since (but now it's on DVD: excellent!). Contrary to popular opinion, it was NOT a regular TV series but an excellent six-part mini-series. The storyline is grim, and the characters struggle not only to do the right thing but also with what, exactly, the right thing might be, which isn't always clear. And the threat of infection, accidental or intentional, is real. Very credible storyline, and every performance is spot on.
The best thing besides the wonderful casting, writing and acting is the combination of modern vampire tales with a scientific/suspense bent. Susannah Harker plays a no-nonsense, intriguing (if endangered) scientist fighting the clock. Jack Davenport is a weary, serious, disillusioned cop who partners with her to attempt to forestall disaster.
The only thing I've seen since Ultraviolet that was as compelling, mind-bending and frightening was Torchwood's season 3 mini-series, Children of Earth. Ultraviolet is the thinking person's vampire tale, speculative fiction for grownups. It'll keep you on the edge of your seat.
A Sound of Thunder (2005)
So bad it STAYS bad
Bloody awful! There's just no other way to put it. In fact, it's **SO** bad that the only reason I'm wasting words on this is to warn off other reasonable viewers who want to be intelligently entertained. You'll lose I.Q. points watching this. Come to think of it, it's not even suitable for mindless viewing because of the irritation factor. There's no guilty pleasure in watching something this incompetent.
Reasons to avoid it:
1) Horribly scientifically inaccurate, to the point where this isn't sci-fi anymore, it's just mindnumbingly sloppy, lazy fantasy.
2) It sports FX that are cheesy beyond belief. Not even cheesy-kitsch that's a wink and a nod, like vintage Doctor Who, but just cheap and shoddy to the point of being insulting. The FX are so bad they're not even laughable. They spent about a dollar-fifty on this, not more.
3) The direction is so weak and mindless that the only way the actors could make it through to the end of shooting without becoming terminally depressed was to sleepwalk through their roles, although Catherine McCormack made some effort anyway, probably on principle and despite the director. Moreover, this isn't Peter Hyams's only bad film: his flubs vastly outnumber any barely salvageable ones, of which Timecop was the last such, and that was 15 years before this writing. he's had nothing halfway decent since (End Of Days was just as slapdash, Arnold was the only draw, and he needed much firmer direction than Hyams provided). Hyams just keeps making it more and more pointless for anyone to consider giving him more work.
And finally,
4) Ray Bradbury's stories deserve far better treatment than this. Refusing to watch this film sends that message, not that Hollywood is particularly listening.
Watch at your own risk. If you do and it turns you off movies altogether, you've only yourself (and Hyams) to blame because you've been more than adequately warned.
Defying Gravity (2009)
WHOA -- just saw ep. 13, and it's fantastic!!! Keep this show ON!!
This show started off as a sleeper, but it has a big payoff by episode 13. Once you see all the previous episodes, you realize that nobody who saw only the pilot could possibly have had any clue as to where this show was going. Forget about any idiotic comparisons to Virtuality or (choke!) Grey's Anatomy -- those are SO way off. Rather, this has building drama to it over a long, 13-episode story arc, with little flavors here and there of Apollo 13, The Right Stuff, and Starman mixed in with touches of Battlestar Galactica (minus the Cylons) and a space-science procedural. It's about drama, adversity, exploration, personal demons, mystery, wonder, courage, and sacrifice. Lots of sacrifice and courage in the face of the unknown, with insufficient data to know whether you're making the right choices. Tough decisions and real consequences, with no escape in the merciless vacuum of space. And the relationships among the travelers and between them and those they left behind at mission control are what keep them going. Nothing is static. Everything gets more complicated -- not because of any artificial search for conspiracy, like the writers and producers of FlashForward have forced onto that tortured storyline (to the point of absurdity), but because courage sometimes comes from your willingness to keep moving forward when your initial game plan has been shot to hell.
And that's the situation with Defying Gravity: what looked merely like an ambitious grand tour of the planets turns out to be something quite else; and by the time they're past the point of no return, the astronauts are way past the initial game plan, too, with only themselves and a tenuous line to mission control to count on -- and maybe not that second part so much, either. WOW. Makes you want to believe in how amazing people can still be under duress, just when everything seems to be falling apart.
This isn't science fiction like you've seen it before: it's speculative drama about comparatively near-future possibilities, and fairly true to life interactions for the travelers, with one big exception (one I wish they hadn't made: real-time communication with mission control when, in fact, the time lag between the exchange of monologues between ship and Earth is supposed to be getting longer with every passing hour of the journey).
There is SO much to like about this show that I really hope ABC and CTV in Canada bring it back, and even that ABC uses it as a replacement for its fall failures like the insipid Eastwick. Throw off all the sitcoms and ER-clones, I say, and keep Defying Gravity!!! With a truly decent effort at promotion, of course. ABC could do (and has done) far worse. For a network that inexplicably kept trash like According To Jim on for way too long, it's a mystery why ABC had Defying Gravity marked for failure from the very start and dumped it intentionally into an awful time slot (self-fulfilling prophecy, anyone?). Give it a good weeknight spot, say on a Wednesday night, and let it build that following. It's so much better than much of what's out there now.
Top Chef: Pigs & Pinot (2009)
Remember, it's *always* about the food - and Ash and Robin forgot that
Given how enamored Hollywood and American TV are of reality TV and all its 'drama,' be it real or fake (and there's a lot of fake), shows like Top Chef and Project Runway are really about their subject matter -- food for Top Chef, clothes for Runway. The subject matter is the be-all and end-all for everyone involved, and it never pays to get distracted by the rest, as a few candidates learned to their dismay last night.
Unfortunately, not everyone learned. I, too, dislike Robin for her busybody tendencies and useless talkiness (compare that to Jen, who only talks when there's something relevant to say, then lets her exquisite food do the talking for her the rest of the time); but Robin's irritating qualities pale next to the fact that most of the time, her food on Top Chef isn't very good. Similarly, just because Ash is a nice guy doesn't mean he can cook, and Mike Isabella isn't a better cook just because he has a bigger ego and mouth than almost anyone else competing. All three have an exaggerated estimate of their own skills and knowledge, therefore all have struggled.
This episode confirmed what is by now a clear pattern: the chefs who win most often, for good reason, are the Voltaggio brothers, Jennifer Carroll, and Kevin Gillespie. My prediction: they'll be the ones still standing when everyone else is gone. Even Michael Voltaggio's cheap shot trying to shake up his older brother Brian failed last night, and deservedly so. In the end, the judges focus on the quality and execution of the dishes -- and so should we, the viewers, lest we miss something important. My only complaint is that I don't get to taste any of this great stuff -- !
Miss Austen Regrets (2007)
This film screwed up differently than Becoming Jane did
I SO wanted to absolutely love this movie. I did. Don't get me wrong -- it got a lot right. It was on Masterpiece Theater, for heaven's sake, and the script generally tried to stay closer to the few facts we have about Austen's life. It had decent direction and adept, credible Brits portraying Jane and her family. And yet, there was one huge flaw that I just couldn't ignore. Miss Austen Regrets would have us believe that Jane had several offers of marriage during her lifetime but knowingly and deliberately chose to remain single and focus on her work. This is a 20th to 21st century conceit awkwardly imposed on a 19th century situation.
The few facts we have show that Jane received only one marriage proposal during her life, and that was from someone with an irritating personality. Harris Bigg-Wither was described by Jane's niece Caroline Austen and by one of his own descendants, Reginald Bigg-Wither, as unattractive at best: he was plain, if not homely, stuttered, aggressive in conversation, and almost completely tactless. Those objectionable qualities, despite his comfortable financial position, would have put off many women, then *or* now. Had he had a more pleasing personality, Harris might have tried first for a fiancée from a more prosperous family instead of proposing to Jane.
Moreover, Jane had known Harris since childhood and probably knew full well what she'd be getting into if she decided to marry him. To endure Bigg-Wither every so often at social occasions was one thing, but to marry him and have to endure that personality day in and day out would have been quite another. The simplest explanation is that Austen initially agreed to his proposal in order to be less of a burden to and/or provide for her family, but she knew him too well not to immediately regret her decision the next morning -- and thus she reneged on her acceptance in less than a day, and remained single. She probably considered that the lesser of two evils.
The truth, then, is *not* that Jane Austen turned down acceptable proposals and made a conscious decision to put her writing first and stay independent, particularly given that she *never was* financially independent, but rather that no handsome, sweet-tempered, intelligent man, with or without means, ever asked her. She may have had such men as friends or acquaintances, but none of them ever proposed. If one had, remaining single would have been a much harder decision -- but that's moot, because such a man never did ask. Period. And that's a rude truth she had to suffer for all her adult life. It's not a truth that Miss Austen Regrets chose to address, however, and that is the film's greatest failing.
Malibu Shark Attack (2009)
The schlockmeisters are back! I'm drowning in drivel! HELP!!!
AWFUL! Just bloody awful. The two previous reviewers must have watched this on crack (either that, or they're both flaks for the network): this is precisely the kind of B-movie that makes SciFi channel and USA Network SO unwatchable 95 percent of the time. Even the sharks were bad. That's on the dopey director, the excruciatingly bad script, the cheesy producers, and the network drones who lard the schedule with mindless babble like this. But face it: nobody watched Baywatch for its generally poor acting or the blindingly stupid scripts, either -- it was eye candy, the TV equivalent of a pulp novel. The only real eye candy here was Peta Wilson (the men were so stupid every time they spoke that they made me wince, which ruined the effect of the beefcake), and I hope Wilson at least made a decent buck off it: this one's clearly not going into her portfolio.
The 'danger in the water' movies historically have a few remarkable gems among them, but it's mostly a history of losers and throwaway flicks like this. The "Jaws" films had a much higher overall caliber, not just of directors, actors and acting, but of everything else that went into them. The rest of the "scary fish" subgenre (yes, I know sharks are really mammals) shown on cable channels like this are only made for USA/SciFi to be filler in between equally fake wrestling -- perfect for a summer schedule that just reeks of old, cheap USA Network (for SciFi, read idiot dungeons-magic-and-talking-dragons flicks and horror-aboard-the-spaceship instead). It's like for 10 or 12 weeks of the year, they're willing to tolerate a decent series or two like BSG, Eureka, the Stargate series, Burn Notice or Royal Pains, then they go the cheap-ass route the rest of the year and expect us not to notice.
This is just the same insult offered by USA/SciFi over and over again. They learned nothing from their experience with Battlestar Galactica, which brought them tons of adult ***and female*** viewers whom they are now insistently driving away. Way to go, bozos.
What I might enjoy more is video of the USA Network/SciFi execs and the 'pro' wrestlers getting eaten by a few real sharks so that we didn't have to watch them **OR** crap like this anymore. It doesn't matter how they spell it, SciFi or SyFy or Schmy-Fi -- it still translates to trash, and if it weren't for the occasional treasure like Eureka and Battlestar Galactica, nobody would bother with this channel EXCEPT 15-year-old boys: they're the only ones dumb enough to fall for this crap. Which is why I've spent my summer watching BSG on DVD and reruns of La Femme Nikita online instead.
Grand Canyon (1991)
It's a small subgenre, but a good one
This film was Short Cuts before Short Cuts and LA Story and The End of Violence by Wim Wenders, except that Short Cuts and The End of Violence were better. The unfortunate thing about them all is that they chose LA for the setting to make their points, as if LA were the be-all and end-all of the world, but then people in Los Angeles (especially Hollywood) are stupidly myopic about that. Still, the directors made their points and the points work and provoke thought, and LA just barely makes it as a microcosm for the various things that are wrong with the world; so perhaps we give credit where credit is due and leave it at that. The two Raymonds -- Chandler and Carver -- always did see LA accurately, if through a darkened lens, one that LA deserves. And yes, as in Grand Canyon, sometimes, perhaps often, you need to leave LA and see the rest of the country, or world, to get real perspective and genuine hope ... something those of us who live between the coasts already know, unfortunately for Angelenos. But then, you should really see all four of these films, then maybe City of Angels, for yourself and draw your own conclusions.
Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging (2008)
Don't bother: it's a typical ditzy Scientologist rant
If I could give this film a zero out of 10, I would. I'm betting the two good reviews it got here were from Scientologists, considering that they produced this crap. I don't think psychiatry is without its faults, and I think the rest of the medical profession needs to demand more accountability from psychiatry and that hard data from repeatable research will, over time, determine which psychiatric treatments work and which don't. But I want data on that, and NOT from scientologists or their supporters! They're nutcases, and their assertions are neither plausible nor backed up by peer reviewed research. This is a jeremiad riddled with assertions, nothing more, and richly deserves contempt. But it certainly doesn't deserve your time or any of your money.