pd von b

I wanted to like Territory on Netflix, but by the 3rd episode it revealed its true colors - meaningless, predictable tripe. By the 4th episode I had to turn it off. Every single scene, "character" and line is utterly predictable, full of nothing but empty clichés.. so much so I found myself mouthing most lines before they happened.😅🤐🙄 There are very few redeeming characters, and the ones that could be are cardboard, just like the many who are rotten to their core. For those "5 star" watchers, that means there is ZERO character development (..not that any of them would know what that means). All these pathetic 5 star reviews are by people who couldn't possibly recognize good or even decent plot, story, script or character development if it hit them in the face. I give it 1.5 stars, and there's little doubt it deserves even that (I used 5 stars so someone might actually Read this, and be warned - so sue me).😅 Territory is so bad it makes those old nighttime soap opera series like Dallas, Dynasty and Knot's Landing seem like 5-star Shakespearean masterpieces. Territory is (more) evidence of the willingness of Netflix to stoop to new racy, violent, unredemptive lows in their 'cinematic' productions. Feel like sensing your moral compass waver, feeling empty inside and losing a few million brain cells? Territory is your ticket. Territory is a joke, everything about it is a joke, and Australians especially should be ashamed Netflix portrayed them in this light.~ pdb

The Big Fix (1978) appeared on streaming TV so I decided to re-watch it. This 'comedy thriller' stars Richard Dreyfuss back in his heyday as 60s UC Berkeley counter-culture type turned private eye Moses Wine, who's investigating a poliical murder.. that sounds watchable, right? Well I watched and I waited, and I waited, and I Waited, and I waited some more.. and wished I'd fallen asleep during this tired snoozefest. I thought I had remembered seeing it back in the day, and I THought I remembered it being pretty good and funny. It's not. The 'comedic' aspect involves Richard Dreyfuss doing his trademark smart-ass quips that were funny when he won his best-actor Oscar in the Goodbye Girl one year earlier, except here, his quips and the plot are full of boring, dated, predictable and trite clichés. Half way through it turns into a more serious thriller, where the smart-ass comedic quips seem of place. Of course, there are the usual suspects who rave on and on how THis is the best film made - EVer. Seriously, who aRe these people? It plays like a tired TV movie, one that tries to elevates the great old days of 70s counter-culture. News flash: I remember that time, and there's not much worth elevating or remembering about 1970s so-called 'culture' in America. Then I googled the director, one Jeremy Kagan...... Trust me on this, you've never heard of one film he ever made. You have heard of his TV shows, because he is a TV ditector. 1.5 stars for The Big Fix.. a trite, dated, forgettable film that really does not hold up.👎~ pdb

Lmfao reading all these 4 and 5 star 'reviews' of the collosal disaster Moonfall (2021). It simply proves that the average movie watcher has no taste, no discernment, no education, no intelligence, and no idea of reality in any way, shape or form. If you don't believe me, then check out this FACT: with a budget of $150M it made $67M worldwide. Um.. Ouch?! And, along with the paying public, the critics HATED it. ALL of them. Why? Because it's collosally ludicrous. The idea was.. interesting, the cast and some of the special effects fairly good, but it takes far more than that to make a good film, even a watchable one. Moonfall is an exercise in total ludicrosity (if that's even a word).. and here, it seems to fit! Watch Moonfall if you want to laugh AT an unintentional comedy, or to lose a few billion brain cells - your choice. Five year-olds might like it, but that's debatable. Negative 0 stars (hahaha) for Moonfall.. a film that makes the moon and everything in the Universe want to.~ pdb

Who is Erin Carter? on Netflix is mass of filmatic chaos, confusion and lies. Where to start.. Erin Carter, the lead, is a married, Latina middle school substitute history teacher, and mom of a young girl, who lives with her husband in Barcelona. Never mind that her husband is Hispanic as well, yet her name is the rather British Erin Carter, and her daughter's name is Harper..🤔 Beyond that, 'Erin' looks to be a very skinny 5'2 105 lbs, yet she constantly kicks ass vs. a plethora of bad-ass dudes and women who are constantly after her, or who are targets of her aggression. But Why? Why does she have these skills, and Why does she engage in these super badass fights (like daily), when she's a teacher-homemaker-mom and wife? Why does she constantly endanger herself and family beating up these mobsters while helping her husband's best friend cop who has a gambling addiction? We're given no back story, not until episode 4, which is half way through the series. And THat's when we find out Harper isn't her daughter at all, even though Netflix lies to us in their episode writeups that she is! So basically Netflix lies about the plot, and just asks the viewer to believe whatever nonsense they tell us. That's poor writing friends, and deceptive to say the least. Even the tennis match scene makes no sense.. the scoring made no sense, and there's a crowd cheering and clapping for every point as if it's an ATP match on the pro circuit.🤔🙄😅 As you may be getting the drift here, NONE of this makes ANY sense. I watched it while multitasking, because it's the only way to get through it. If you don't believe me, read the endless one-star reviews. As for the 5-star reviews (lolololol), I highly suspect they're plants by the producers.. One-half star for the ridiculously unbelievable Who is Erin Carter? .. Who indeed, and What was anyone thinking? ~ pdb

I've made it to episode 3 of Season 1 of the Netflix series The Night Agent, and it's pretty amateurish. Other than the guy who plays the lead, the characters aren't believable at all: their lines are flat, and it seems like the 'writers' are making up the storyline as they go along. The so-called heavies at the Whitehouse are laughable.. third-rate actors who might be more believable as soccer moms, Stepford wives and mid-level managers at a supermarket than, say, Chief of Staff, or senior FBI, Secret Service or White House staff directors. Then there are the hit men.. a husband and wife duo who act like they never made it past 8th grade, yet somehow always manage to locate the hero and heroine on the lamb anywhere they run to, almost instantaneously (even when our heroes don't know where their next hiding place will be), as if they're some kind of all-knowing, all-seeing assassin savants.😅 As mentioned, it's all more than ludicrous. And What's is up with this disturbing Netflix obsession to drop the F-bomb and and blaspheme JC literally in almost every scene? This isn't the 1st Netflix series where I've seen this proclivity.. it's low class, and it's getting pretty old and tiresome. I may watch some more, but I'm certainly not holding my breath, and I'll definitely be using the watch time to multi-task. The Night Agent, other than it's title role star, is more than disappointing.. it's amateur TV hour.~ pdb

Damsel (2024) is a Netflix child's fantasy that's child's fare for children and those with childlike minds. Damsel stars Millie Bobby Brown, who does turn in a fairly decent performance as the film's intrepid heroine Elodie.. a princess misled by some mean and nasty people to face death at the claws of the mean and nasty fire-breathing dragon that rules the land. If you can sit through all of this fantastical nonsense, the special effects are probably this films best feature but, alas, it's make-believe story was a bit too fantastically unbelievable for me to buy into. If you're an adult stuck watching this with your tween, I would highly recommend discreetly multi-tasking, like on your phone, or something, like..😅 One star for Damsel.. a film made for tweens and younger, or those with tween-age minds, and younger.~ pdb

The Third Miracle (1999) is a fascinating fictional drama about the process of canonization for someone into sainthood. Apparently this is no small undertaking, as the film informs us only three people have been canonized as American saints.. in all history. I liked this film - and I'm not even Catholic. The film begins in 1944 war-torn Slovakia with a young girl named Helen praying to a statue of the virgin Mary during an imminent bombing during WWII. The film then fadt forwards and unfolds in late-70s Chicago, where a priest named Frank Shore, played by Ed Harris, finds himself called by Rome to investigate the case of Helen (who has died in his old childhood neighborhood) to act on behalf of the church as postulator - the person who investigates the veracity of the case for someone nominated for canonization into sainthood - in this case for Helen. Shore is a priest who questions his faith, and becomes even more troubled when he encounters a strong mutual attraction with Helen's grown daughter, aptly played by Anne Heche, a non-believer who simply can't forgive her mom for abandoning her as a young girl for a higher calling to the church. And then we have Armin Mueller-Stahl who plays a stern cardinal known as the devil's advocate - a man deadset against canonization of any modern day person into sainthood. There's a lot going on here, but I found myself fascinated by the investigatory process that goes into nominating someone for sainthood. Ed Harris turns in a profound performance, in my view one of his best, and all of us know there have been quite a few. While the film does get slightly murky and vague at the very end, and I might have preferred a slightly different outcome, I found myself mesmerized from beginning to end. I give an enthusiastic and hearty 3.5+ stars to The Third Miracle (1999), an unusual sleeper of a film that I thoroughly enjoyed.~ pdb

Margrete: Queen of the North (2021) is a lousy, schlocky, completely unconvincing film. It features bad acting, a boring story, a terrible script, and non-existent direction. Adding insult to injury, it's presented as a serious historical period piece drama based on actual events, but.. it's all a big fat lie.. it's total fiction!🤔🙄😅 Another thing: Danish women are world-renowned for their striking beauty, right? If you're going to make this fictional film, Why on Earth have your lead character look like a scullery maid? The gullible 'reviewers' who've given this 5 star ratings are, well ignorant to what makes a film good.. apparently they've never seen a good film, and clearly they've no sense of history. I'm far from alone in my opinions: $10M budget, box office $252k. That's a loss on investment of 40:1 - Forty to One!!😅😅😅 Clearly the movie-paying public saw through this bilge (unlike it's 5-star rating fans).. Says it all, doesn't it? I love Denmark and the Danes for many things, but they simply can't seem to make one decent film (not one I've ever seen anyway). It begs the question.. WHY?🤔 Zero stars for Margrete: Queen of the North (2021), a film not worth watching, and one that never should have been made - certainly not like this anyway.~ pdb

Wild Oats is a 2016 'comedy' that isn't funny in the least (except to morons maybe), but it iS completely absurd, insulting, predictable, tiresome, trite and utterly unbelievable. Generally I like its two stars, Shirley Maclain and Jessica Lange, but with its awful script they couldn't begin to save this film. I'd imagine they liked the premise (a widow mistakenly receives a $5M life insurance check instead of $50k), but if they'd aCTually Read its atrocious script, it's surprising they agreed to do it. Andy Tenant directed this debacle, and while I do like some of his earlier rom coms (Fools Rush In; Bounty Hunter), this is a far cry from the acting, script, humor and wit found in those films. Wild Oats is so bad I wanted to cry, so when I couldn't stand any more I simply fast-forwarded through, watching various scenes to the end, where it had a predictably idiotic ending. What a shocker. It's hard to have aNy empathy for characters this dumb and gullible, yet who live in a world where they get a $5M 'windfall' that's a mistake. Happens every day, right? Um.. NOOOOOOOOO! "The film holds a 0% approval from 5 critics on Rotten Tomatoes." - Wikipedia The public agreed: at the box office, this piece of **** grossed Less THan $250k TOTAL (when you know it cost 10-100x that to make).. That says it all, doesn't it? Negative 5 stars (or more!) for Wild Oats, a truly poor excuse for a film.~ pdb

The Gentlemen (2019) starring Matthew McConaughhey, Michelle Dockery, Hugh Grant and Colin Ferrell is waaaaay too talkie. Who wants to watch an action flick where they talk Talk TaLK about eVerything aLL the time like a bunch of gossipy tween school girls?🤔🥱 Whereas, The Gentlemen miniseries (2024) starring Theo James, Kaya Scodelario, Joely Richardson and others.. THat was brilliant. The film was funny at moments, it's just too damned yickity-yackety. Here's the interesting thing though: Guy Richie directed (and was the creative force behind) both efforts.🤔 So what happened? I think Mr. Ritchie knew he had something good, but he rightly wasn't happy with the first effort, so he got to do a do-over. How many times does anyone get to do THat, especially in the film biz? Watch both if you must but seeing the film is entirely unnecessary, and barely deserves 1.5 stars; if you watch anything, see the 'do-over' miniseries, which gets at least 3.5 in my book.~ pdb