Duane Hogans

Mark Ruffalo is a very good actor and very layered in his approach. He carries an underrated cast that includes the worst of the worst criminals, as well as a band of wannabe FBI agents. It’s all about a lot of drugs and money and who should/will get them in the end. The main problem with most of these miniseries is the number of episodes. Instead of 7, this could have been easily done in 5 or less. The series has a fair amount of flashbacks to Ruffalo’s life before his wife died. And the last episode is neatly wrapped up in about 30 minutes, before it’s stretched out another 20 or so, to bring some resolution to his current family life (unnecessary). Great bad guys and Ruffalo’s tortured soul make for an overall good watch, though.

Wow! Not good. Spike is all over the place when a vengeance up and coming rapper (played the good looking, but dreadful actor ASAP Rocky, kidnaps the wrong teenager. It takes about 20 minutes of movie’s beginning to get to this. And hopefully, it’s just me, but Denzel seems woefully miscast as a movie mogul. He kind of walks through the movie doing tough, yet sensitive Denzel, we have seen in 50 movies. Finally, the movie was about 30 minutes too long. Spike had several false endings, as the kidnapping was solved and there was nothing else to do, except have 2 musical interludes, neither having much bearing on outcome of movie.

Overrated. Certainly not worth 7.9/10. Viewers must be in awe of a respectable new show. It is, however, slow moving, told from a largely flashback perspective. Sterling Brown is very good, as usual, but his supporting characters lack gravitas and their story arcs are overly complicated. Juliane Nicholson plays a billionaire megalomaniac (much like Elon Musk), who creates a 25,000 person city, named Paradise, where a top leader dies. Show creator decided to give this character tons of power to investigate the murder. I guess, because it happened in Paradise. It’s not clear. This character also had a child that died from a disease, despite all her money and resources. Still trying to figure out the distant connection between death of official and her son. They also throw in various red herrings, like a secret service agent having an affair with official before he dies (told through unending flashbacks). The plots are many and all the place. Too bad. This series had a lot of promise. We cut it loose after 2 episodes.

Awful movie. Expected so much more from Gaga & Phoenix. Without giving away too much, let me say it was 2 hours of singing & dancing at all the wrong moments…and totally without explanation

Unfortunately Clint lost a few miles off the ole fastball on this one. Maybe it was the trite writing. Maybe it was Clint’s slow pace. The jury room dialogue was plodding and predictable. For example, they’re deadlocked at 6-6 for quite a while, yet wasn’t reported to judge for quite awhile. There also no star power, hence it became a Max original. Finally, we could see the predicable & over the top ending, coming a mile away.

Very slow moving. Was tempted to give it a 2 star, but it finally picked up in the last 20 minutes. Will not give spoilers, but there’s some over the top, unbelievable plot twists that beg credibility, although you will strongly suspect something about Bujold’s & Lithow’s characters anyway. Thankfully, it’s only about 90 minutes & can be fast-forwarded (without missing anything).

The juice is probably not worth the squeeze. Most of the endings are a letdown, compared to the drama that is built up. Every episode pretty much begins in a court room, without the audience knowing what the crime is (hence The Accused title). A series of flashbacks begin to illuminate the story that led to the opening court room scene. The essence of the show is more about a character study of the person being accused, rather than the actual crime itself. It can get pretty tedious though, going through the journey to trial’s culmination. Finally, most of the verdicts are kind of a letdown…nothing surprising & rather mundane. The viewer is left with the character study, which is fine, but not a lot of meat.

A lot of hype that could have been told in about 30 minutes. Don’t know if this was Kendricks’ first attempt at directing, but this one left me wanting something more filling. Thankfully, she was smart enough to limit this White Castle burger of a movie to 95 minutes. Since this was “based on a true story” I am sure there was more information from trial transcripts and newspapers that could fill out this hollow story with no real ending, other than the murderer was caught, released on bail & eventually caught again….died in prison. Now, that’s a movie by ITSELF, instead of focusing on a 20 minute Dating Game scene & other surely concocted enactments of killer with his victims.

Let’s take away the fantasy aspect of her not aging and all the subsequent issues associated with relationships, ethics and physical deterioration. This was one of the slowest movie flicks I have ever seen. Every, and I mean EVERY, conversation was chocked with philosophical dilemmas for Adaline and confusion for those she was speaking to. The only real drama, was how it was going to end with her handsome, but extremely boring love interest. Thankfully, I watched it on streaming and didn’t have to stick around to see the conclusion of this dog. Kathy Baker & Harrison Ford also give cookie cutter performances as the boyfriend’s intelligent, but unrealistically bewildered parents. It was all too slow and too much.

You will have to be in this for the long haul (which we were not). The movie combines real world physics, imagined doom day scenarios, super high tech video head gear and aliens trying to flee to earth. The premise is promising, but the plot jumps around quite a bit. As soon as you think you understand where it’s going, the director throws another red herring in. A lot of filler, when at its heart, it’s a twist on aliens needing to find a new home.