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Reviews
Forbrydelsen (2007)
Just as good as Forbrydelsen I
At first I wasn't going to write a review for this but having read some of the other reviews and topics on the forums here, I feel compelled to do so after all.
This, as with Forbrydelsen I, is a highly intelligent series and you have to pay attention to what you're watching to get everything. As far as I can tell there were no real plot holes here. When everything isn't spelled out for you (like with CSI or similar shows) I can understand some people missing a few things here and there, but the series isn't to blame for that. I for one happen to like the fact that a lot of things are not conveyed through direct dialogue, if you however need an exposition dump every 10 minutes, this show may not be for you.
Secondly, I keep running into complaints about the subtitles. Now, I don't speak a word of Danish and English isn't my first language. I however didn't encounter even ONE instance where I didn't get what was going on or had to reinterpret the subtitles to fit the storyline. I watched the BBC subbed version of both FI and FII and they're both fine.
Thirdly, about the differences between FI and FII. Yes, FI had twice the amount of episodes, yes, FI followed the victims' family and FII simply doesn't. To me though this does not, in any way mean, that FI is better. I thought F1's biggest flaw was that those family scenes dragged on for way too long even though most of them didn't influence the plot (AT ALL). I also found the pacing of FII to be a lot better, at first some scenes did feel a bit rushed, but that's only when comparing it to FI. After an episode or 2 I got used to it and to me the experience was a lot better. If you however like series that sometimes seem to come to a grinding halt, don't watch FII because you'll be heavily disappointed by the continuing presence of tension.
Last but not least, I've read people complaining about the unlikeliness and improbability of the entire story. Seriously guys? There were some plot points in F1 that weren't quite probable either (Rie covering that much up for example) but they didn't feel completely unrealistic, and we were willing to accept them because they fit so perfectly with the rest of the storyline. Pretty much the same thing is going on here, the most improbable plot points are still probable enough to keep your disbelief easily suspended. Nothing is really too stretched, and nothing is too "conspiracy"-y either. Plus, it's still a work of fiction, and as realistic as it may seem, some writer thought this story up to entertain us. If you can't handle that, go watch a documentary.
All in all, I thought this was just as decent as FI. Hope this helps.
Ally McBeal (1997)
Looking back on Ally McBeal: A show for teenagers?
When I first saw this show (back in 2002) I was still a young teenager and I LOVED it. I thought a lot of the jokes were funny, the quirky characters were fresh and exciting and the often silly story lines (the cases, mostly) were as entertaining as smart. I also identified a lot with John Cage, being socially awkward yet intelligent and innovative, and Ally herself, being slightly neurotic and a hopeless romantic. I guess I kind of lost interest in the show as it reached its final season and must've forgotten about the bad stuff since I always held it in high regard.
Recently I started watching it again, and having seen A LOT of different series over the years as well as other work from Mr. Kelley I have to say, I'm disappointed. The first 2 seasons only barely still worked for me and after that it went downhill real fast. What changed? How come I connected to a show on an emotional level this well 10 years ago and now all I can see is flaws?
Well, I think those 10 years really made that much a difference. Take these 'hallucinations' Ally ha(s/d) for example. Where they were a relatively new and refreshing way to show how she viewed other people and how she reacted emotionally to certain situations in a slightly comedic way back in the 90s, now they look cheap and silly, at best (and not because of the often poor animation.) Where I could fist simply 'accept' these hallucinations occurring because of the comedic tone of the show, now I can't help but conclude this is a sign of a severe mental illness and a person like that working in a law firm is simply not a believable scenario. There's even this one episode about Ally really starting to believe in them and locking herself into her room, her friends and colleagues worry about her, and then it's all 'resolved' with no further consequences (not even a psych-evaluation) and she can go back to work no problem, just like that. These hallucinations feel like an enormous plot hole (if not a flaw on a conceptual level) rather than funny gags in between because of the semi-serious approach to them. I don't know whether problems like these are really due to experimenting with the format and the newness of it all, but I'm willing to do the show a favor and see it that way.
Of course, not only the show aged, I aged as well. And as I've grown into adulthood I am baffled by the idea this show was meant for adults. I quickly came to the conclusion that most of the characters were written as teenagers, on a mental as well as an emotional level. Ally is of course the best example of this, always doubting everything around her as well as herself, being insecure about herself, either not thinking about consequences of a situation or overthinking them... I could go on but you get the idea. The other characters have some pretty childish traits as well without something else making up for it. I get why I liked this show as much as I did when I was still a teen, but now it's just way too hard to even view these characters as believable, let alone connect with them.
Then there are the 'political' issues. If you've ever seen even one episode of a show by David E. Kelley you know what I'm talking about. Both Boston Legal and Ally McBeal are obviously very liberal shows with a high sense morality and this needn't be a problem, but it is, in many ways. I myself am a liberal, yet I take offense to the notion that all non-liberals are dumb for not being liberals or are simply evil. This notion however is a recurring theme in both shows and I think it displays liberals as closed-minded and smug. Another problem is the 'pro-woman' tone, particularly in Ally McBeal. Men are mostly displayed as either wimpy 'good guys' (Billy first 2 seasons) or sex-crazed assholes (Billy 3rd season, Richard Fish) and I take offense to that as a man.
I often get the feeling the writers really want to rub my face in what they think is morally right, and it's just annoying. I guess having grown up and having found my own sense of right and wrong really clashes with the show, another reason for me to argue it's more suited for teens rather than adults.
For me these are the real big issues with the show as a whole, the characters aren't believable on multiple levels, some aspects of the show are too 'out there' and remain unexplored and the political and moral messages are too one-sided and painfully present. There are some minor issues as well, Elaine never being funny even though she was obviously meant as comic relief, the never ending overuse of Vonda Shepard and her annoying voice, the quality of the animation, etc. etc. These are however a lot more subjective and don't affect the show as much as the rest, the show would be better without them but they don't ruin it either.
Lastly, what DOES still hold up? Well, as I've said the first 2 seasons are okay, even for today's standards. They don't hold up all that great because of aforementioned issues but they do have a lot going for them as well. The cast is great, most of the actors deliver a good, if not great, performance, the silly story lines usually don't get too silly and are entertaining enough to follow and even with their problems there are still some genuinely funny characters in the mix (Dr. Tracey being my favorite, but Richard Fish is also pretty funny at times, to name a few).
So, is it still watchable? Yes, but I'd prefer watching something else. I'm an adult now.
The Simpsons: At Long Last Leave (2012)
Well this sucked a lot
I'm a fan, not a huge fan but The Simpsons will always be on my 'love list', not matter how many crummy episodes. And yeah, sure, almost every series has at least a few bad episodes and with a series like The Simpsons (23 seasons and counting) it is to be expected not every episode will be an 8 or higher. But, well, I just can't accept a milestone episode being below a 6, and this episode was just that.
Short summary: The Simpson family discovers a secret town meeting is taking place about kicking them out because of all of their shenanigans over the years, and this of course happens. They discover some sort of off the grid semi-redneck community between Springfield and Shelbyville and try to settle down there. Marge soon admits to missing Springfield and Homer sneaks her and himself in. They get caught and are about to get kicked out again, but Marge takes the high road by saying she's not looking for people who don't take them for who they are, and they go back to the community. Soon (the next scene) people from Springfield are starting to show up there and the community starts to look like Springfield. The end.
The problem with this is that it has been done already, by themselves and a lot better if I may add. I'm not even that glad they didn't turn this into a 'remember-that-time' episode, which could have been a lot better than this garbage, if done correctly. This was just a quick attempt by the writers to whip up an episode that portrayed Springfield is willing to forgive the Simpsons... because... Eh, to be honest, I don't know. I really couldn't tell you why Springfield UNANIMOUSLY voted the Simpsons out of their town, then apparently cared again when they found out Marge and Homer didn't want to stay where they were not welcome (now that's a shocker), and subsequently all came after them.
This is beyond sappy, this is bad writing, and a great example of it. Most of the characters either admitted earlier in this episode to being glad to get rid of The Simpsons or are known not to care for them anyway. I could go on and on about the many plot holes in this story, but I'm not.
This was the 500th episode and it really, REALLY, sucked. And you know what? That made me mad. Enough so to write a review for this single episode. I didn't expect fireworks, I would even expect an episode this bad once in a while (they do have their ups and downs), but I simply didn't expect such a blatantly bad episode as their 500th.
One other thing though. They knew it was this bad. The subtitle "500th episode; the most meaningless milestone of all", and the title-card at the end (yes there's a title-card) saying "Thanks for 500 shows. All we ask is that you go out and get some fresh air before logging onto the internet and saying how much this sucked." kind of say it all. And just so you know, I did not respect their wishes on the title-card. Simply because they choose to not respect my wishes to put at least some effort into the 500th episode, instead of making this trash, admitting it's trash and have the guts to ask us not to go and call it trash.
4/10, and I believe I'm being generous
The Waterboy (1998)
Spectacular
Bobby Boucher never wanted anything more than to quench the thirst of the dehydrated athletes who treat him like dirt! But when Coach Klein tells him to stand up for himself, it unleashes a torrent of bottled-up frustration.....and exposes a talent for defense that transforms him from a meek "water distribution engineer" to the hardest hitter ever to roam the playing field! And of course, hilarity ensues.
I'll be fair and say I'm not the greatest Sandler fan out there. Some movies of his I found to be just OK, some were pretty bad. This one however shines a whole new light on him as a very talented actor and a comedic genius! His character, Bobby, is somewhat mentally challenged and has several emotional issues, and it's astounding how Sandler is able to portray both the tragedy of this character while remaining continuously funny throughout the entire movie! Needless to say this is one of the best comedies I've seen in years and a movie I'd recommend to anyone who likes a good laugh. It's funny, it's witty and it's a pretty good story too. A film for the entire family!
Eliminators (1986)
I LOVE this movie!
Sure, it's a b-movie... But! This is the absolute best of B-movies, I could think of a whole lot of 'A-movies' I find either less interesting or simply less entertaining than this masterpiece.
This movie has: - An Indiana Jones - A hot army robot-technician - A terminator - An R2D2 - A ninja - Cavemen - Romans - An evil professor who wants to take over the world
And this all combined in a jungle adventure with Dukes of Hazard kind of action.
How could this suck? I mean, yeah, the storypremise is insane, completely and utterly insane, and yeah, the movie borrowed a LOT of ideas. But this is such an over the top mish-mash of characters and situations, as a whole it's pretty unique and EXTREMELY entertaining.
If you like 80s adventure movies and are not scared of lower production value, go see this. It's absolutely fantastic.
Battlefield Earth (2000)
Wow
Wow. Just... Wow. This movie is probably the best movie I've ever seen. I read some other 'positive' reviews on this to see if there are more people out there like me, but it seems nobody really got it and most people thought of it as a 'hilariously' (didn't see anything funny in the entire movie but OK) bad movie. Well, it's CLEAR you all missed out on what could have been one of THE best cinematic experiences of your life.
The plot is one of sheer brilliance, it was adapted from a sci-fi book but no way a book could fairly display the emotion and impact the story brings us in this movie. It's an epic tale of oppression and rebellion, far exceeding the standards set by more mediocre flicks on this subject like Star Wars. This story binds us together as humans, as inhabitants of earth, it shows us that race and nationality are ultimately irrelevant issues and we should work together as one if we want to survive. Apart from the great moral it's still a breathtaking movie, with very clever dialogue, a passionate love interest and fast-paced action scenes which set Sonny Chiba to shame.
The cinematography is mind-blowing. The SFX are so well done this movie could have come out last year and nobody would have noticed. And last but not least, the camera work and editing should be an example in film school. This part of the movie, if you have an eye for it, is especially good. The creativity in use of camera-angles, slow-motion and scene cutting is why I found the Star Wars films to be only mediocre in comparison.
All in all definitely one of the best movies I've ever seen and I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys cinema on a higher level.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000)
So how about the new cast...
Good news and bad news and I'll start off with the bad.
Elisabeth Harnois as CSI Morgan isn't really a poor choice, the poor choice is her character. There were some experiments in the past with female characters for the team (first one coming to mind would be Sofia Curtis by Louise Lombard) and their characters fit in quite well. But Morgan... I don't know, perhaps it's a lack of personality, perhaps it's the 'daddy's little princess' look without any sort of rough edge, but she's just soooo bland and mediocre... Where's the pizazz?
She does bring an upside though, because now we finally got to see our previously pretty wooden and shallow character (or 'plain plot-tool' as I like to call him) Ecklie get emotional about something else than regulations, and that was great. Marc Vann's performance in s12e05 wasn't only believable, it made him human (took the writers 11 seasons to make happen, but still.)
Now, the good news. Ted Danson is great, nay, awesome, as D.B. Russell! I always was an enormous fan of Grissom, sometimes he was the only reason I still watched the show, so imagine my disappointment when he left the show. No, scratch that, imagine my disappointment when they introduced Mr Stargate to replace him! It wasn't the worst casting job in the history of TV, but it's up there. Fishburne played OK but his character... Unlikable to say the least and it just didn't work with the other characters. The only contrast he brought was that he was a lot more boring than the rest, and let's be honest, that doesn't work no matter how epic your story-arch is.
So, I was pleased to see they threw him off and replaced him with one of my favourite doctors on TV (Perry Cox and Gregory House being the others.) At first I had my doubts, I was afraid it would lighten up the show too much, but it didn't, and his character is perfect for the show. I have to note though, that if you're a hardcore oldskool CSI fan (which I can easily imagine since the first few seasons were probably the best) you may not like him. Then again you wouldn't like the last 4 seasons either, perhaps with the exception of the Warrick character being written off in an epic manner.
A few last thoughts on some of the older new cast. Kick Hodges and Henry, just boot them from the show. I don't mind a little semi-comedic relief but somehow it almost never works for me in this show, and especially not with them. Henry keeps reminding me of the cringing 'Alan' character from 2½ men and Hodges I just can't stand. I don't mind some side-characters and I like Archie (the tech-geek) for instance, or the fingerprint girl, but I like them because they never get too much attention. They have to do a job, that's what they're there for and that's what they do. But Hodges and Henry don't. There were even some episodes with them getting more airtime than the main cast, what is up with that? Last I'd like to give a shout out to doc Robbins and David who are the only 2 in the show capable of giving any comedic relief without making the show a parody of itself.
All in all, I still have hope for the show. Personally I'm more of a fan of the first few seasons since they were more serious and overall more realistic. But since that ship has sailed and I still like the basis of the show it comes down to the characters to make it enjoyable, and with the addition of Ted Danson, it is. If you're hesitant to watching the 12th season, don't be, it's definitely a lot better than the last season.
Titanic II (2010)
Very creative!
I get the bad reviews, I really do get why people would say bad things about this movie because it IS hard to see what's good about it. But once you do, once you get it's finesse and start seeing all the subtle layers... You wouldn't dream of speaking one bad word about it ever again.
First off, the camera-work is GREAT in this movie, excellent even. It's hard to notice at first but when you get further into the movie, you can see they did a really good job on the shooting.
Then of course are the special effects... Extremely well USED, almost as a medium on it's own. I'll be honest and just blurt it out: They're not top-notch to say the least. But that's what makes them so great! They really get you focused on the parts of the movie that ARE real, you'll find yourself enjoying the sets and props a lot more than you normally would, because it all feels a lot more real next to the CGI bits. The movie would not have had such a real feeling to it without these fake looking 3DFX, and I think it was VERY smart to deliberately use bad CGI to give the rest more realism.
Now, the acting wasn't 'great' as in 'pulp-fiction great' but again this seems to be on purpose. The written characters aren't real heroes, they're not even more than average interesting people, and that's where the mediocre acting brings life to these characters. These characters are all pretty bland and 'great acting' would have only made that worse, but with these actors the characters are more like those people in your high school class who weren't all that interesting. So it's a lot easier to relate, you know people as superficial as this and if they had to portray an emotion it would look just like this. It makes the movie more believable.
Finally I'll address the storyline and the directing because BOY does this movie deliver the promises made and broken with Titanic 1. I don't know what James Cameron was thinking when he made T1, but Shane van Dyke truly presented us an emotional drama with some good action into it. T1 was pretty boring overall and very predictable because without having seen 1 second of the movie you knew what was going to happen, but Van Dyke gave us suspension, and lots of it. The emotional drama part was very well written and definitely not your average love story, it was more of a 'lost-love story' (pretty refreshing next to T1) and the action parts were... well, we all knew T2 was going to sink, but it's great how modern problems were weaved into the sinking of the ship. I'd go on and on about how refreshing it is to see superficial characters (because most people ARE superficial) and how creative most aspects of the movie are, but I'll just leave it up to other viewers to see it for themselves.
All in all it was a superb movie, but you really have to dive into the story and pay attention to how seemingly 'bad' things were used to make the movie better as a whole.