Judy Hochberg

A clumsy movie with wooden dialogue

Love the movie, hate the haircut. For me, Vera Farmiga's hair puts the film in the same category as "Heaven Can Wait," in which Julie Christie sports an equally implausible haircut. They both look like poodles. But both movies are so good, and both actresses so beautiful, that they transcend these horrendous hairstyles. The opposite is "The English Patient," in which Juliette Binoche gives herself what looks like a $400 haircut without so much as looking in a mirror. In fact, she's walking around a room distractedly, scissors in hand and snipping away.

My husband and I loved the original three seasons of Borgen so much that we have watched it twice all the way through. However, I would not recommend this fourth season. It was basically seven episodes of watching two characters I love (Brigitte and Katrine) suffer horrendously, and one episode of an unrealistic turnaround, basically a deus ex machina. Sidse Babett Knudsen and Birgitte Hjort Sorensen, who play the two main characters, did a phenomenal job, as did Mikkel Folsgaard, who is introduced as a third main character. The rest of the cast was also wonderful, in both familiar and new roles. This made me really want to like the show, but I couldn't.

I'm a big rom-com fan and, for instance, enjoyed "Maid in America," also starring Jennifer Lopez. The premise of this movie was fun and I was having a good time until about halfway through the movie, when the two leads challenge each other to change their lives. J-Lo's character challenges Owen Wilson's character to become active on social media. And he, in turn, challenges her to go cold turkey on all her support staff. No driver, no cook, no hairdresser, no scheduler, no nothing. This is absolutely insane. At least in the United States, people with demanding careers try too hard to "do it all." I would kill for a full-time staff. What benefit does Wilson's character see in J-Lo coming home after a hard day's work and having to cook dinner and do the dishes? When does someone like her even have time to shop for groceries? Even online grocery shopping requires an investment in time to plan meals and place the order. As a result of this stupid challenge, when the couple goes to J-Lo's beach house she can't find the key and throws a rock through a window to get in, setting off the burglar alarm in the process. This is supposed to be funny? It made her look completely incompetent. Also, now that she has no support staff, she will have to waste hours and hours finding someone to replace the window and then supervising the work. She doesn't have that time. This plot development was such a turn-off that I bailed on the movie even though I was already more than halfway through. Save yourself some time and don't even watch the first half.

The first few episodes of this documentary were fascinating, but then it bogged down in the specific post-Nxium experiences of a few members. The problem was this emphasis is that there was no exploration of the issues that eventually resulted in Raniere's conviction, such as sexual exploitation of girls and financial fraud. The only nefarious conduct we saw was the branding (which is, of course, horrible) and harassment via lawsuit. The last few episodes were actually boring, which is the last thing we expected based on the first few. In sum, the documentary would have benefited from better editing and input from ex-members beyond the "Scooby gang."

Not as good as the original by a long shot.

Excellent cast wasted on a plot that makes no sense. I kept watching since it was only eight episodes, but it never came together.