johnakdogan Reviews

Sleeping Beauty: A Gothic Romance (2013)

Extraordinary, complete.

[10/10 · 26 January 2023]

Amazing show with talented dancers, unique choreography, flowing storyline, wonderful decors, costumes and makeups.

Nice mix of classic and modern dancing that may not be for you if you are on to a classic ballet. But time passed on quickly when watching it.

Only problem was; In the moonlight scene in the beginning, one of the stage lights dazzled my eyes because it was reflecting from one of the mirrors on the decor. I recommend buying a ticket from just opposite side of the stage and try to avoid buying tickets from right stalls. Maybe it was a particular problem in Nottingham but just keep on your mind.

And don't miss it!

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022– )

A weak production (without comparing with the books/movies)

[1/10 · 10 September 2022]

First of all, I am not reviewing this production based on its consistency with the books, or the LOTR/Hobbit movies. I think they are not even close to that point...

I understand that Amazon wanted to dig the gold mine with making a prequel/sequel online series 'based' on Tolkien's stories, which has a guarantied audience.

There are a few bullet points based on the first three episodes (60+ minutes each) without spoilers:

The storytelling is overwhelmingly boring, even for a Tolkien fan. There is no proper introduction for the story, and the characters. They should have written the screenplay understandable, progressing and tempting. Who is who? What conflicts are there? What are the importance of the conflicts? What are the purposes of the characters?

They wasted so much time with many tiny stories and empty dialogs. I haven't had any feeling of bonding with the characters or the story.

It looks like they are preparing the audience for hundreds of episodes of insignificant events.

Visuals are just ok, as well as acting. I only noticed some kind of fps problem. Especially CG scenes are not smooth enough. I have a high end TV and an internet connection. I am not sure about the reason of it.

Overall: Depending on how many episodes there will be, there is a high probability for me to stop watching it. Hope that I will be wrong. Fingers crossed.

The Man in the High Castle (2015–2019)

Maybe the best tv series I've ever seen.

[10/10 · 12 March 2020]

What makes it that good and unique: Story based on a novel. It starts and finishes as it should be without unnecessary extra long made up scenes.

All the characters serves the story and not vice versa. Nobody is heroized. Also well performed.

Production quality is great without any exaggerations. Details, musics, audio, costumes, places etc look just real and creative.

So do not miss this masterpiece.

Coupling (2000–2004)

A masterpiece.

[10/10 · 10 January 2020]

Perfectly designed, written, directed and performed masterpiece, you can watch again and again. Especially season 2 can be used in writing schools as a reference. I wanna keep it short. If you've never seen this show, you're an extremely lucky person to discover this amazing piece of art.

Signs (2002)

boring family drama in a sci-fi disguise.

[2/10 · 4 January 2015]

there is a thing that film makers should not ignore, which is called a scenario. if you don't have a story that doesn't have any value to tell, just don't force to make it into a movie. when they do this they only end up with a movies like 'signs'. the movie starts with some unknown signs at a cornfield. so it diverts you to imagine a nice sci-fi story behind alien communication. however at the end of the movie the mystery behind these signs still remains unclear. This movie is basically a boring religion oriented family drama with little to offer if you're waiting for a quality sci-fi story. The word 'sign' is literally used to give a moral lesson such that anything that happens on earth is a sign that god exists and everything depends on fate. And aliens are just for adding some spice to the story. it was totally a waste of time for me. BTW: i gave 2 points instead of 1 just for the sake of acting. (ps: there is no explanation why the hell those aliens came to the earth, a planet 3/4 of which is composed of water, if they melted upon contact with h2o. there is so much nonsense in this movie but whatever...)