blackcloud6-581-740291 Reviews

The Courier (2020)

Slow and not very factual

[4/10 · 6 September 2021]

I thought this movie was slow with little depth to the characters. And it was sentimental too as Wynne actually pled guilty to espionage and did t hold out claiming he knew nothing. The female CIA agent was a fake character, likely to fill the need for a strong female character in the movie. And the notion that this espionage had major impact on the Cuban Missile Crisis is a stretch. It is OK for a watch if you have nothing else to do in an evening, but it is not engaging nor as factual as they lead you to believe.

Marcella (2016–2021)

Eek ,sick, just plain sick

[1/10 · 30 August 2021]

The writers of this show need to see a psychiatrist, especially those who wrote the second season. I turned it off about 3/4 the way through the second episode. The notion of a disturbed detective could have made for a good show but this one just reaches to the depth of depravity. Avoid this show, don't pollute your head.

The Americans (2013–2018)

Should have quit while ahaed

[6/10 · 23 July 2021]

This is a good series but not great. The overall story is good and well acted Keri Russel plays Elizabeth so well that I just loathed the character; I wanted caught and locked away forever.

At first the attempt to get to like the two main characters and but hate them at the same time worked well but seemed to slip into unreality near the end. Toom much killing (spies really avoid that as it brings too much attention, and also there was overuse of the operatives) The series changed in Season Five and not for the better, but I'll not post a spoiler.

The last season started out with great promise with the possibility of an exciting double-cross in the making, but it was squandered by the weak writing to have the main characters survive to possibly have a sequel story which is usually the death of a great ending to a good series.

Breach (IV) (2020)

Oh yeah, it's bad

[1/10 · 16 May 2021]

It is so bad it was fun to watch to see how bad it could get, and it didn't disappoint. The goofy rubber monster at the end almost made me think this movie was some sort of weird spoof on Alien.

The Eight Hundred (2020)

Ahistorical melodrama... or comedy?

[2/10 · 13 March 2021]

Egads, what a movie. I though the first hour and a half was some sort of military comedy-farce, with a dialog that was mostly NCOs yelling commands. It was also the overly long part to endear you to the characters, which of course, it didn't.

The last hour actually had a story and if they focused on it throughout the movie might have been decent. But in the end it was melodramatic nationalism.

Overall it is over written, over acted, over filmed and just way over done. Everyone was stereotyped, more stereotyped than a mid-20th Century Dr. Seuss book. And for some reason, it a lot of the movie was filmed with an eerie green lighting that you see in horror movie. I kept waiting for the Zombie Japanese soldiers to rise up and charge the warehouse.

The final charge across the bridge scene is an example of the film's over-the-top-ness. The brave but hapless Chinese soldiers get mowed down by the Japanese but in the real battle only 10 or so Chinese soldiers were wounded on the bridge and their commander didn't die gloriously in the middle of the bridge recovering wounded; he was assassinated by the collaboration government a few years later while still interned by the Brits. The film makes you think the Chinese sacrificed this battalion, but in the entire fight the battalion suffered just 10 KIA and 37 wounded. But hey, #history...

Ava (IV) (2020)

So bad it's entertaining

[1/10 · 5 February 2021]

This is simply bad. Don't waste your time unless you want to watch a movie to see just how bad one can be, it's kind of entertaining in that respect. And to John Malkovich I would ask, why are you wasting your talent on this stuff?

Jericho (2006–2008)

This should burned in the nuclear fires

[2/10 · 6 January 2021]

I tried to give this show a chance but gave up after three episodes. What could have been a great story is plagued by poor writing and lazy directing. Contrived bad happenstances abound as if the nuclear war isn't enough. Affairs, bad blood between political rivals, escaped poisoner from the prison bus all come together when someone willy-nilly nuked America. And then there is the prodigal son and the know-it-all smart guy who appears out nowhere in a out of the way Kansas town who knows Morse code, had stock piled weapons, understand nuclear war etc. Gadz, too much.

The Social Dilemma (2020)

Good insight but overstated threat

[5/10 · 14 October 2020]

This is an interesting "documentary" that gives some insight into how social media works and what it is commercially designed to do. And it brings up many problems and rightful concerns about social media's effect on society. However, the latter part turns melodramatic and overstates the problem as 'existential" and a "threat to democracy." No realistic and workable solutions are proposed except for very general things like "regulations," "removing the apps" or hints at outright "bans." At the end I felt like I was oversold by zealots who have chips on their shoulders.

Note: The reason why I put the word documentary in quotes at the beginning of my review is that this film ends up doing just what they claim the social media platforms are doing: manipulate the user. The manipulation comes through a fictitious story, data presentation with showing real causation and trying to tie some real world violent events back to social media as a cause... when it is confidently forgotten that violent events preceded social media by centuries.

Ratched (2020)

Not entertaining.

[1/10 · 28 September 2020]

After three episodes I realized this was not entertaining and deciding I wanted no more of this put into my head.

War & Peace (2016)

Did Jane Austin write the script?

[7/10 · 25 August 2020]

This seemed more like a an adaptation of Tolstoy's epic by the script writers that transferred her books to the little screen. maybe the BBC should have called it War & Prejudice or Gorky Park. It seemed to focus a bit too much on the tittering girls worrying about marriage. The miniseries just felt another of the many same types of staple shows to poke at British aristocracy and little to do about Russians, except it was filmed in Russia.