Reviews

Somehow this slipped my radar until recently.

Right before diving into Cardinal, I'd rewatched all 4 seasons of The Killing. In many ways, they are similar - beautifully filmed, gritty, noir detective shows, driven by the lead detective and their protege/partner. And not for nothing, Billy Campbell plays a leading role in the first two seasons of The Killing.

The first two seasons of The Killing are excellent, albeit with a very, very convoluted and twisty plot that is slightly overcooked. Cardinal is more refined and minimal. While The Killing revels in twists and reveals, each season of Cardinal is more of a slow burn. The melodramatic subplots are also less overwrought, and frankly, annoying. It absolutely drips with atmosphere, largely due to the stunning filming in snow-covered Northern Ontario. It also remains consistently high-quality throughout all 4 seasons. Generally, it comes across as more realistic.

The "top review" disclaims the series as "not for action fans". I'm an action fan. This is a detective drama with occasional (and effective) action. I didn't find it boring at all.

It's one of the best detective dramas ever made. A true masterpiece from CTV. It even has a satisfying ending.

Visually stunning, and who doesn't love dinosaurs? It's hard not to love this, but at the same time, it doesn't quite live up to its potential. It's mostly just eye candy, but it's good candy.

You'd have to be a paleontologist to discern what is historical fact, theory, or invented from whole cloth here. This is a largely fictional work posing as documentary - yet everything is presented as fact. Why? It verges on misinformation. It makes its educational benefit awfully muddled. It's definitely more focused on being entertaining than legitimately educational.

I'm not a paleontologist, but I know the animal behavior here ranges from well-educated guess/theory to mostly fictional. I don't know which is which. Have scientists actually uncovered enough fossilized evidence to determine some of these behaviors? Or are they extrapolating behaviors from evolutionary descendants?

A bit more narrative about the scientific discoveries informing what's on the screen, and discernment between fact and theory would have gone a long, long way. What prehistoric era are these dinosaurs from? As presented, it seems all the dinos in this series co-existed during the same prehistoric era. It's never identified. What did the continents look like? That historical and geographical context is largely missing.

Also had specific issue with the "pterosaurs". All the other dinosaurs are identified by specific species. Pterosaurs are a whole category of flying dinosaur. The actual species of pterosaur portrayed on the screen is never made explicit. They are just generically referred to as "pterosaurs". Hmm.

Finally, a bit surprised by the roster of dinosaurs, or rather, a few of the species that are not included. A few of the most famous and popular species get passed over - no Stegosaurus, no Triceratops, no Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus. Since these are fixtures in the popular imagination of dinosaurs, it would have been great to see them portrayed/updated.

There are no sharks in this movie until nearly an hour in. The acting and backstory has to carry the movie until that point. Does it? Not really, but the performances really aren't that bad. The dialog between Silverstone and her partner seems natural enough, and the backstory isn't awful.

Some of the movie looks filmed on blue screen or sound stage. But interestingly, the sharks are not overdone. You can take issue with the "fake", less-than-cinematic filming, but there is no over-the-top CGI. There are no preposterous action sequences. And there is some effective violence/gore, if you're patient enough.

If you love shark movies, and have patience for B-grade shark movies, it's worth watching. Especially recommended for "background" viewing. The long wait for the sharks to appear might take too much patience to singularly hold your attention. But especially if you go in expecting a B-grade shark movie - there are far worse out there, with far worse acting.

Really not that bad. Current rating of 2.6 is ridiculous - I think some reviewers are just piling on and taking pleasure in being overly harsh.

I love it. Huge Dateline fan.

Contra the "top review", I think it's an inspired telling. I was surprised by Keith Morrison's narration but it's a bold move that works better than it should. It does an effective job of creating a hybrid of the Dateline roots and a dramatic re-telling. That reviewer wanted a "traditional drama" - this is bolder than that. It's a prestige re-enactment.

For me, the dark humor and the slight camp are a perfect fit for the story. Some people may find it offensive. That's fine, but likely hypocritical unless you are personally affected by this case. There is so much entertainment filled with senseless death and violence, I think it's odd to criticize a show that is at least showing sympathetic victims and the utter immorality of a sociopath - even if with a darkly humorous take.

RZ is fantastic. Duhamel gives the best performance I've ever seen him give in anything. Judy Greer is fantastic in everything she does, no surprise she is here too.

Familiar with the story, not necessarily a fan of RZ, I put off watching the first episode. It far exceeded expectations - currently quite underrated with a 6.1 IMDB rating. I know the story very well and am still very eager for the next episode.

This is a sci-fi movie built around a special fx gimmick.

The "science"/"physics" in the movie make no sense whatsoever. It's extremely stupid. The movie gets around this by literally explaining the science with a line: "it's best not to think about it". What? This is the high-brow, much-heralded movie that was supposed to save the 2020 music theater biz?

Inception worked because its "science" concerned the enigma of dreams and consciousness. You could allow some artistic license. It challenged you a bit. But Tenet deals with very real physics, and objects, and turns them into unknowable magic. There is no sense to make. The movie literally tells you not to bother. There is a lot of sci-fi like this, and this is no more special than any of it. It might as well be Godzilla v Kong.

I can't say anything for the acting or the direction, it's such an immature-feeling throwaway movie. For some reason it reminds me of an old Christian Bale sci-fi stinker, Equilibrium. All slickness and gimmick draped over a bunch of cool-sounding nonsense you're not supposed to think about, all while taking itself very, very seriously.

Ughhhhh.

Very good. There is some real emotion in here. Always shaded with violence right around the corner.

It's a bit reminiscent of boy-and-his-dog stories. Replace dog with Dinosaur, make boy grunting caveman. Add gratuitous violence and trauma. The sense of trauma is conveyed well. The story has real drive. It's a bit narrow in scope maybe, but it works.

There is a bit less consistency at some points. When the narrative breaks from an imagined but largely authentic prehistoric era into the realm of fantasy it took me out of the story a bit. Not a major complaint, it's just a bit unexpected when it happens -- it happens more and more as the episodes progress.

I'm also not much of a fan of the art. The animation is pretty bad, few frames, not smooth. The style reminds of indie comics version of Hanna-Barbera. Others may find it more charming/cool. It has it's high points, and you do get used to it. It's no Mark Schultz Xenozoic Tales, the artwork wouldn't even work in a comic book.

But the story and the emotion hooked me despite not being a big fan of the aesthetic. It's an excellent story with a lot of emotional intelligence, despite the lack of dialogue, and with a lot of imagination.

It's not decisive, but the title alone was a bad, bad omen from the start. Ohh, edgy. Making violent white supremacist rhetoric the title of the show is a choice, but I'm not sure what informed that choice. Aside from "Ohhhh edgy".

It's not a documentary. It's some hybrid of historical re-enactment and behind the scenes of making a historical re-enactment. It's all actors, and we're explicitly told why these actors were chosen ala "this Swedish woman with Seminole ancestry will be playing a Seminole woman." That's great. I really would have been far happier with a narrator and still images of real people. Or even artist renderings. Because I tuned in for a documentary. Not fantasy with imagined mundane interactions etc.

I think Josh Hartnett is a great and under-utilized actor, and I know he has Native American ancestry, I really wish this was a better project. A good movie. Or a good documentary. Instead it is neither.

Without the first 2 episodes, I would have rated this a 7 or 8.

For the first 2 episodes, Hoback and his focus comes off as very "inside baseball" and he seems as invested and Q-curious as his subjects. There's little to no narrative, it's just hopping around between infamous Q figures and exhibiting the same amount of interest in their ridiculous internet melodrama as they do. He doesn't give us a reason to care about anything he's doing yet. He doesn't even pay attention to the words of the Q "drops". Why is Q so dangerous? What is the history of blood-libels? There's literally about 2 sentences. Hey, isn't this blatant white supremacy, anti-semitism and racism? How does this tie into the conservative and evangelical movements? Nothing. No analysis. In the very opening scene, when an early Q "drop" is read aloud, the part about Soros is even edited out though you can see it on the screen...It's downright irritating how shallow and narratively unstructured it is. It's more a documentary about Hoback making a documentary about Q than about Q, that's the only linear narrative.

That changes dramatically in the 3rd and 4th episodes, thankfully. I'm left wondering why the episodes were cut this way -- I expect it was to rush to air while interest is high. It doesn't seem there was any effort to contextualize and edit the footage with hindsight. So it becomes a documentary about Hoback's experience with Q, the order he discovered things and found people, as much as it is about Q. It would have been a much tighter and stronger doc without that. Eventually the series redeems itself, but I expect there will be far superior docs with more objective and coherent narrative in the near future.

This movie has problems.

It's not necessarily a problem, but the main characters are very unlikable. Smug, miserable, privileged white people with white people problems. My first attempt at watching the movie, it turned me off so much that I turned the movie off after about 45 mins. My second attempt, I decided it was intentional, some dark satire. I thought of the Coen Bros, whose murder stories are also full of un-likeable characters and losers. Instead of the eccentric larger-than-life characters of their movies, Gone Girl's are all cynical and beaten down by um years of wealth and success and selfishness. OK, rolling with it!

Not really feeling any sympathy for any of the characters, more of a bemused revulsion, I was kept captivated by the twists and turns of the plot. There is a big twist to the entire attitude/feeling of the movie half-way through - it didn't work super well for me, being met with a slightly exasperated yell of "come ON" and a laugh. I stuck with it, but the tonal change is dramatic and for me, lands on coming across as silly. It's accompanied by a long, cynical important monologue from a main character that I think(?) is supposed to be somewhat sympathetic. But it's all cliché. It's like a parody of feminism and the media. It lands awkwardly.

The movie continues to take some twists and turns, and they hook you, the pacing works, it hits a stride. And then the main suspense of the movie wraps up. And then it continues for another 20 minutes. You await the final twist. Ohhh where is this finally going to end up? Nowhere. It ended 20 minutes before. Just really hammering home the cynicism. I literally hated the ending. It leaves massive plot holes, abandons all the characters to their miserable lives, and made me want to throw something at the screen for the 20 minutes of reveling-in-cynicism at the end. One of those movies where eventually it just fades out abruptly and the credits quietly roll. Ohhh powerful.. Nah. Exasperating.

It's worth watching, all the acting is phenomenal, including Affleck, it's great casting for him, and Pike is supremely hate-able (superb). But the characters hardly even develop. Only the main two characters do - they're cynical and miserable and learn to embrace being cynical and miserable. One becomes more human and believable, the other, far less. Feels odd. The side characters are completely undeveloped and essentially generic, but the actors do what they can. NPH is a stand-out, always great when allowed to tap into a sinister side.

The twists and turns of the plot hit a high point about 3/4 of the way through -- at that point, despite the repulsive characters, I'm in for the ride. But it just kinda falls apart from there. Inconsistency. Long, thoughtful monologues give way to rando crap happening without a lot of attention to detail or interstitial shots. The dramatic twists are a bit over-advertised, inviting clever explanations for how it all works that are instead quickly glazed over...Ending with a tortuous 20 minute cynical wallow of an ending. I found it all a bit too pretentious, and it just sent me back to the beginning of the movie and my first impressions. I really was supposed to care about these smug, miserable, privileged people - is that who this movie was made for? A bit nauseating. It's no cynical cousin to the Coen Bros.

I really wanted to like T Genisys, but it goes off the rails. Dark Fate really doesn't. Just strong action sequences all the way thru to the end. Linda Hamilton owns her scenes. I had my doubts, just a "legacy" casting gesture? Nope. Mackenzie Davis as well. I was already a fan of hers from Halt & Catch Fire. IMO she's a great actress, very emotive, and she's great in all the action scenes. Dani Ramos isn't the most compelling character, but Natalia Reyes does a fine job as well, no complaints.

Putting three female characters as the leads might smack of lip-service to trending social issues, but this is how to do it. It's not heavy-handed, it's not calling attention to itself constantly. Believable bad-asses. Largely due to LH and MD. The scene in the border detention facility is another obvious reference to current social issues, but it similarly exceeded expectations. It's not overplayed or heavy-handed. It doesn't drag. It's just a good scene.

MD's "augmented" character is basically a stand-in for the traditional "good/reprogrammed" Terminator, or Kyle Reese in the first movie. This allows for a bit more emotional development between the characters. Just enough, they don't overdo it. Sarah Connor is exactly the same character as in T2 - tough as nails. I appreciated it.

I also appreciate that for the first time the whole concept of Skynet, of a computer network that becomes self-aware, is actually borne out in the plot. The Terminator/REV-9 can tie into internet and GPS satellite infrastructure. This is a frequent plothole in many of the previous movies, as the Terminators wander around far more clueless than you'd think, given such abilities and the whole concept of Skynet (or "Legion").

Finally, also want to give points to Gabriel Luna, who is stony-faced one moment, fluent in Spanish when needed, then pulling off a surprisingly good Texas/Southern drawl the next. Fun. Reminded me of Robert Patrick in T2, the dichotomy between stony-faced Terminator one moment then slipping into a just slightly-off impersonation of a human. Good job. Arnold is here as always of course as well, but what's to say about that, he can do this role in his sleep at this point.

From best to worst, I'd honestly put this right behind T1 and T2. It's def better than T3, Salvation, or Genisys.

Other reviewers have already hit all the key points.

Half-way through the movie the viewer is still unsure whether the movie is "mind-bending", flitting between reality and metaphorical art/poem, or just hasn't put the pieces of the puzzle together yet.

Unfortunately it's neither. The pieces don't fit. The beginning just makes no sense.

It could have embraced a poetic sci-fi vibe, which would have excused some of the heavy-handed writing. Unfortunately it eventually decides it's not a poem, and it's not mind-bending. It's just a sloppily cut, self-indulgent mess that squanders talent and any effort to create a truly memorable story.

I could never enjoy SVU because of my personal experience with sexual violence - often find it traumatizing and triggering. But love Hargitay and Meloni. This has all the charms of a L&O series but it's a bit grittier & darker and it just goes all-in on Stabler character development. Haven't enjoyed an L&O this much since D'Onofrio and Goldblum were cast members.

As compelling as the best murder doc series around. No narration, heavy-handed soundtrack or gimmicks. Although the focus is of course on the murder of James Jordan, it's also very informative about Robeson County, NC, and would be of interest to anyone interested in docs about NC.

Overall, this show is massively disappointing, but not because it's really that bad - it just has such a vaunted legacy to live up to, and had such promise that it doesn't reach.

First, the artwork is beautiful. I only wish the the other Star Wars cartoons had anime-inspired artwork like this instead of the awful, dated, digital style they have.

But the other SW cartoons succeed in spite of their artwork, the writing is that good -- and the inverse is Resistance. In spite of the beautiful animation, the show never takes off, the writing is that directionless.

In contrast to the other SW cartoons, there's almost no tie-in to the specific plot of the SW movies, with an exception or two. It's just broad strokes about life in the SW universe during the time of "The First Order", centered around a "platform"/station. There's little about Jedi. It makes this cartoon into something else entirely. It's slow and mundane with occasional action. It's basically a lighthearted drama. Similar to SW Rebels, the main character isn't very likable. But it almost works.

While Resistance tries to keep it relatively light and humorous, it's rarely actually funny -- but admirably, it's not cringe-worthy either. There are some flashes of quite clever and unexpected humor with surprisingly nuanced comedic timing, in fact. Such as when a good-guy droid tries to get a prisoner to talk by submitting them to nails-on-chalkboard sounds..only to have another of the good guys abruptly tell them to stop bc it's annoying. Not easy to pull-off.

The character development is decent, like the other SW cartoons, and overall the writing is far better than the sequel SW movies - unfortunately that's the universe that this show operates in, so perhaps it's for the best it doesn't waste time trying to make sense of nonsense and cuts it's own path.

If they made a third season, I'd come back for it. For me, Rebels only took off in its 2nd season, before becoming my favorite over the Clone Wars series. Regardless, I appreciated this effort overall - when the beautiful artwork of Resistance gets paired with the writing success and compelling narrative of the previous SW cartoons, it's going to be an absolute winner.

Huge fan of the Blues and early Jazz, am highly interested in cultural appropriation and issues surrounding race, but this movie has little to do with them. It's just a vague, extremely theatrical situational sketch. It starts nowhere and goes nowhere, just a framework to drape exceptionally talented acting performances over.And they are great, but it's not enough.

There's nothing exceptionally authentic here - it's got that overly-dramatic sheen of movies which bow to the altar of "the theater". Monologues and scene-chewing. Rather than focus on the cultural power and societal impact of the music, or of who Ma Rainey was, the focus is on rumored same-sex romances and romantic trysts among her band, which may make the film more "current" for today's audience, but little to do with her legacy or even established history. The "history" established in this movie is thru superficial scene dressing -- the "feeling" of the movie doesn't really leave the present.

The best movie about early Blues remains LEADBELLY.

This movie is unwatchable.

But so many people watched it that instantly it is announced, OF COURSE it will have a sequel.

It's absolute garbage. Hollywood seems to be flailing.

Suicide Squad was a trashy mess, universally considered a trainwreck interspersed with gratuitous ass-shots. So of course, hot on it's heels, Birds Of Prey came along and another basically unwatchable movie, Aquaman. Don't think about how bad the dialog is or how frenetic and nonsensical the fight scenes are or how ridiculous the characters are - glory in the spectacle of it all, or something? Brain bad!

Sure, Justice League is a pile of dreck - but coming soon, the secretly wonderful and surely not a dispassionate soulless trudge, the Snyder Cut!

DC makes Marvel look like Shakespeare, when in fact most Marvel movies are barely passable in the story department - but at least the editing and writing is a bit better.

Same thing happening with DC happens throughout our media culture now, eg Disney/Star Wars. Mandalorian is decent, Rogue One was borderline great - everything else has been excrement. The entire sequel trilogy is an insult to Star Wars, they are intensely stupid movies that basically ruined Star Wars. So of course, stay tuned for 73 more SW titles doubling-down on this critically slammed direction.

Success for these film studios is about nothing more than $$. These movies are scams with no cultural value.

It seems to be an unpopular opinion that The Vow is superior to Seduced..

I found it far superior and am glad I watched it first. The Vow was apparently too slow of a burn for many viewers, but I personally found the pacing well-suited to explaining the creeping indoctrination (and tortured deprogramming) of cults. I liked the focus on the intensely flawed characters who were leaders of the group and how they struggled with fighting back and their own culpability. And the attention paid to Frank Parloto and key events in the downward spiral of Nxivm were given meaningful focus. It was very nuanced and in-depth, all things considered.

Seduced... is primarily focused on the Oxenburgs, and their story is compelling. But there's less of a psychological (or indeed, legal) battle on display. The emotional scenes are gone, basically - everything is very composed and there's a simple narrative focused on India's escape.

It's highly competent and there are crucial details here, and the Oxenburgs are amazing, mother and daughter - but overall it feels considerably less thorough and like a lean addendum to The Vow rather than an alternative.

I knew this would be bad when it was announced that for some reason it was going to be a self-conscious "horror" genre movie set in a hospital.

But I thought that "Logan" had set it up really well, the introduction of the New Mutants characters at the end of Logan was satisfying and the characters were compelling. Well, nevermind that, none of them reappear here and the story isn't connected at all.

There were so many great stories told in the New Mutants comics. Deadpool was introduced there. Wolverine had epic battles with their enigmatic leader, Cable. Beloved characters died, legacy characters were introduced. They were part of some of the best multi-part crossovers in 90's comics. Nothing about this movie has anything to do with the comic book and it comes across as a really cheap and disposable effort. It doesn't seem like the director was very serious about what they were doing, nor was the editor. Thousands of people were employed in making this, spent years on it, and it's complete garbage. What a waste.

I've watched this dozens of times. It is the most important documentary series ever made. Not even Ken Burns finest work, or Errol Morris, have anything on this series.

FYI The IMDB tagline describes this as a documentary about the Civil Rights movement "1952-1965". It covers 1952 thru the early 1980's.

Surely the original film makers are retired or passed on, but it would be amazing to see a second volume or new episodes of this series. 1980-2020.

Relatively unknown story, mostly great performances. It's got a hollywood sheen and the politics are probably a bit clumsy, I take the ending with more than one grain of salt. The USA and Cuba have both made their share of disgraceful decisions. But overall a thoughtful and stimulating movie that won't leave you feeling like you wasted your time.

I do share another reviewers mystifying response to De Armas -- she's suddenly being cast in everything, and she's not good. I thought she did a good job in Blade Runner -- playing an artificial human. But it seems that's the only thing she can play. Sorry.

If you have ever watched Naruto, in which every fights scene lasts several episodes and never seems to go anywhere, you've had a taste of this show. It takes 6 episodes, constantly rehashing what we already saw in all the previous episodes, before the show simply ends with no conclusions at all. I'm sure the work of the cold case investigators wasn't pointless, but my viewing was.

This movie is ridiculously stupid and pretentious. The good reviews are baffling.

This is ham-handed poser arthouse cinema.

Marketed as based on a true story -- which is a lie. After some digging you can find an interview where Noe reveals the "real life" incident involved a "much smaller" dance party where drinks were spiked and things "went sour...BUT NOTHING BAD HAPPENED". OH OK! Noe decided to make club goers into drug-crazed raping incestual violent simpletons completely and totally as artistic license. In most interviews he asserts he just took some artistic license to avoid dealing with the real people involved. That is nothing but BS considering "nothing bad happened". This movie is based on Noe hearing about drinks being spiked at some party sometime. With a foundation that vague, it's no wonder the movie comes across like a performer who didn't prepare before they took the stage.

It ranks up there with Reefer Madness in the portrayal of LSD and drugs. If you have ever taken LSD or been around people who are on it, you will be confused. It's absolutely preposterous. They act like they are on some combination of bath salts and PCP.

The characters are terrible and nasty people. The gay characters act with the same toxic masculinity as the straight characters. Just wrong. It's over the top to the point of of ridiculousness. All the characters act like nihilistic young Republicans, carelessly offensive and unashamedly selfish. These are supposed to be professional dancers deep in the club/dance music scene -- it's preposterous. This is nothing like what the dance music world is like.

I was hoping for at least some cool psychedelic scenes to simulate the LSD use, but there's none. Noe turns the camera upside down for the last 10 minutes of the movie. No reason. Ohhhh cooool.

Three times during the movie he blasts boring, asinine, glib phrases onto the screen, like "death is an amazing experience" or "birth is a unique opportunity" -- oh really, Mr Noe? Tell us more you wise, wise man. The birth statement comes across as an anti-abortion message -- it follows characters discussing abortions, unemotionally and unflinchingly, y'know, cus that's how people who have abortions are like. Cold and heartless and open to talk about it with virtual strangers.

Midway thru the movie Mr Noe flashes his own name on the screen repeatedly, each time imitating a classic dance music label logo. It's incredibly egotistical and appropriative.

The movie has a great soundtrack with real quality electronic music, like Dopplereffekt and Aphex Twin. Someone who really understands and loves club culture curated the soundtrack. And the dance scenes before things "go sour" are cool.

Mr Noe however does not understand club culture. He made a movie that is an insult to club culture and comes across as a deeply stereotypical, conservative anti-drug movie. The only way it could halfway fly is if there was some nightmare unbelievable-but-true event that inspired it, but there's not..at all. You have to buy the idea that LSD does this to people and that club culture is just a druggy nightmare filled with hostile and dangerous people, which is how it's almost always presented. Raves=drugs=bad. Give us a break already.

Anybody who thinks this is a good "arty" movie is being taken for a ride.

I liked Season 1 overall despite some shaky plot points and throwaway lines, but Season 2 is better so far, IMO truly capturing some of the charm of TNG.. and this episode continues the trajectory.

Character development is broadening. I'm glad other people on the Bridge are finally getting some lines instead of just standing there looking cool.. The Rebecca Romijn cameo in this ep is great -- I had to check the credits to confirm it was her -- hey, good acting! That whole scene had strong TNG vibes.

Overall I like that SMG is a little hammy with her acting, generally her semi-Vulcan act is OK, but sometimes I struggle to remind myself that she was supposed to have grown up on Vulcan when the emotional scenes swing SOOO EMO...But the childhood flashback scenes in Season 2 have been helping to connect the dots.

I welcome Tig Notaro's bizarre monotone and that the show isn't afraid to be goofy in spots. I like that this show focuses way more on aliens and Klingons than any ST movie or show since TNG, the gold standard IMO. I appreciated that this episode and several others in Season 2 have seemed a bit more self-contained. Big fan overall of where it's going.