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Reviews
Anyone But You (2023)
Not memorable, nor good
Ben meets Bea. They have a hot date. Ben says something stupid to his buddy (an obligatory Black character), which Bea overhears. End of relationship, which has lasted all of about 24 hours. Fast forward, mutual friends/relatives are getting married (an obligatory Lesbian wedding, so we've covered that base), and the mutual friends/relatives conspire to get Ben and Bea back together. Of course, even though the protagonists live in Boston, the wedding is in Sydney, and apparently, Qantas or someone now has 16 hour non-stop to Sydney. Ben flies in the cheapest looking first/business class, while Bea flies in coach. Hilarity ensues on plane. In the run up to the wedding, we will see the Opera House about a dozen times and cross and re-cross the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Ben and Beas fight constantly, unable to control themselves. The friends/relatives continue to try to get them together. Sydney Harbor Patrol appears in two scenes so we can show aerial scenes of the Opera House and Sydney Harbor Bridge.
That's the plot. It's nothing new. Shakespeare covered this. Better.
I've got nothing against Sydney. I was there last month. In the past I've been at every location in the movie, including the Opera House, the Sydney Harbor Bridge (which we walked across - it's a nice walk and very safe), Bondi Beach, etc. I like Sydney and Sydney did its part. I've flown in first and business class, which look nothing like the mock-up in the movie.
The actors and script, not so much. Ben is an analyst for Goldman Sachs. We never see him analyze anything other than a shot of his computer screens showing financial charts. The fact that he's at Goldman never factors into the plot. Bea is a law student. She never seems to use any of that training. The plot does include some law school discussion, revealing Bea to be directionless, which does not improve by the closing credits.
I understood Bea's motivation for ditching Ben early in the story. While eventually Ben has some lines explaining why he ditched Bea, those lines are grafted on and have nothing to do with his character. The Black friend and the Lesbian couple are there to meet a quota, as their color/status never figures into the plot. Ben has his shirt off about a dozen times, and all of his clothing off once, which seems to be motivated by the need to show the actor's "ten-pack." Another actor, a surfing guy (this is Australia, after all) is also naked at one point, and there are considerable outtakes in the closing credits of both guys in various states of undress.
You will learn nothing from this movie, other than you ought not behave like anyone in this movie.
The one saving grace is that if the movie motivates you to visit Australia (including Sydney), that's a plus. Great country, great people. Go see the Opera House. Walk across the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Go surfing at Bondi Beach. Dine at Darling Harbor.
Death and Other Details (2024)
Good concept gets hijacked, plot gets lost
The show has ten episodes, revealed over the course of several months. Had I seen it in one sitting, while taking notes, I might have had a better understanding of what was going on.
By the ninth episode, for some unexplained reason, Viktor Sams blows up the boat. By that point, you will have been rooting for hours for the boat to sink and take everyone with it.
When the boat blew up, it destroyed the plot. Took the script right with it. Thereafter, the actors and crew had to guess at what was going on because nothing made any sense, not the blowing up of the boat or, indeed, how Viktor Sams ever put together the whole operation. Since we learn who Viktor Sams is, it is clear that Viktor's alter ego had no money when the plot started.
A giant waste of time and talent.
Players (2024)
Way over-rated nonsense
The principal characters are in their 30s, but still behave as if they were in frats or sororities in a junior college. They devise elaborate ploys so that Mack, the lead character, can have one-night stands, as if that is necessary for anyone with her looks going to a hook-up culture bar as these folks do. Moreover, the principals all complain they have no money, even though it appears they go clubbing every night.
I never felt that there was any attraction or chemistry between Mack and any of her hookups, including the ultimate boyfriend.
Basic plot is boy meets girl (long before the timeline in the movie), boy and girl have an argument at a fancy party (supposedly set at the Customs House), and then boy gets girl, outside of Yankee Stadium.
Lupin: Chapter 1 (2023)
Episode 1 and it's a mess
We watched Episode 1 of season 3. I found that the time shifts were especially annoying. I lost track of what order these should be viewed; I saw no point in jumbled narrative.
I was trying to follow the French dialog (I'm half-French) and used the subtitles to fill in the blanks when the characters resorted to mumble-French. Soon enough, I realized I should have taken notes as well as to the time frames. Too much work.
Why couldn't the writers just tell a story from beginning to end?
And plot holes? You bet. The French apparently have an elite police unit which can be infiltrated by a guy who simply shows up, says he is a recent transfer, and now he's in charge. The French Swat officers are apparently so stupid that they fall for this.
Moving On (2022)
Malcolm McDowell was fine
No comedy here. Not a single laugh. Lily Tomlin is the same as in Frankie and Grace. The movie includes lesbian, transgender, black, disabled etc characters in a check the boxes to make sure every group was represented. But, basically, while the movie addresses a serious and important issue, at no point is there a laugh.
The movie is 85 minutes long, but could have been a 30 minute episode of Frankie and Grace without losing any meaning. Moreover, it would have fit with both of their characters in that show.
Malcom McDowell and Richard Roundtree were fine, and a delight to see.
A rating of one is generous.
The Last Thing He Told Me (2023)
Ripped from the headlines of . . . Cosmo.
About every six months, my wife's latest issue of Cosmopolitan has a story, sandwiched between the story about the newest lipstick shades and the story about the latest disease to strike 19-22 year old blond receptionists, about a woman who has married someone who turned out to be not what he said. In these days of meeting on apps, the fact that she never went to his apartment ("It's too messy," he said), she never met his family (I'm an orphan," he said), and has never met any friend of his who goes back more than a year ("I'm new in town," he said).
Well, that's "The Last Thing He Told Me." Hannah is especially vulnerable about abandonment, as her Mother abandoned her. But we learn not much else about Owen's background or their dating. And Owen has a kid, Bailey, whose Mother reportedly died in an auto accident when Bailey was four.
Even though the story is set in the present, neither Hannah nor Bailey have apparently searched the internet for stories about Owen or the car crash, or old Facebook or Instagram accounts.
Owen, who is a computer geek at a company planning an IPO, disappears one morning, leaving cryptic notes and $600,000 in cash in a duffel bag. Then a U. S. Marshall shows up, dressed from his role as an extra in Serpico rather than in a suit like Tommie Lee Jones. That just screams Witness Protection, but most everyone seems incapable of asking their ever present cell phone, "Hey Siri, what does it mean when the U. S. Marshall's show up?" The cast will eventually find out that Owen and Bailey were hiding out, about 2 hours after viewers of this series figure it out.
What is interesting about the story is that it does grow on you, and you are interested in seeing how Hannah (and Bailey) figures out what to do. Of course, along the way, you have the required teenager with an attitude but perfect hair and skin, the Black friend, the Asian-American boyfriend planning on going to Duke, etc.
Every now and then, the action totally stops so that someone can tells us the back story. Episode 6 has lots of exposition.
While the solution Hannah comes up with is creative, given the story about the criminals involved, why it can be expected to work, and why it does work (we see a scene from five years later) is mystifying. We set up in Episode 6 that the mob kills off folks they don't like.
Worth watching if your choice is turning the pages of Cosmo to "Derms Like these Sunscreens for Tattoos."
From Scratch (2022)
Overcooked
Some years ago there was a movie called "Love Story," where the opening line of the book and movie were something like, "what do you say about a 25 year old who gets sick and dies. Great chick flick/date movie. They managed to tell the story in about 100 minutes.
Here, whether you've read the book, or the review, or watched the trailer/coming attractions, you know that Lino is going to be really sick. They show a shot of him going into an MRI machine, never a good sign. So we pretty knew what to expect. (It's sort of like "Ghost." In order for there to be a ghost, someone has to die.)
Rather than 100 minutes to tell the story of this love affair, eventual death of Lino, and how the family copes, they take 7 hours plus. Could be longer. It seemed longer. And the last episode is about Amy and Idalia going to Sicily. In the book, as I recall, the Sicily story is three quarters of the book, which means we can look forward to at least three more seasons of this show watching the olive harvest.
The book had a little more about the financial struggles the family faced, as do many when a devastating illness strikes. Here, after some perfunctory discussion ("I really need to keep this job on a part-time basis so I can keep my insurance") in the last several episodes there appears to be no care about finances. Sure, Amy and Lino have a great support system, with various friends and family members helping out, but flights to Sicily are not free. Staying in Sicily an extended time is going to wreak havoc with that health insurance, rent, etc.
A word about color. There are a couple of instances where folks treat Amy like the hired help, not realizing that she is Lino's wife. Amy finally snaps back, quite appropriately. His Father opposed the marriage, not so much because she's Black because Lino did not stay behind to farm in Sicily and marry a local girl. But once Amy and Idalia show up in this small town in Sicily in episode 8 gradually losing population and aging (yes, the mayor advises the vital statistics), everyone seems thrilled that some Americans, and Black Americans in fact, are going to move in. Most folks in town seem to have none of the insular nativistic views of Lino's Father. It reminded me of Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: when he returns from the crusades with Morgan Freeman, the Merry Men are thrilled a Black guy (who they call the "painted man") is moving into Sherwood Forest; centuries later we'll be able to watch "The Crown" to see how the far more educated descendants of those folks treat Meaghan Markle.
If the story needs seven hours to be told, fine. But after watching the whole series (and having read the book), it sure felt like the story was stretched to fill the 8 episodes. Regrettably, I find that all too often true in these mini-series.
The acting is fine. Both the Italian mother and Father were outstanding in their roles as poor, simple folks from an earlier time. I've seen other comments about the ages of he actors, and I was not troubled by who they were supposed to play at all.
Fleishman Is in Trouble (2022)
Tedious
The series is 8 hours, of which more than an hour is voice over narration. Though it seems like 16 hours of narration. We've all had friends who divorced, and we were treated to endless stories from one side or the other. Here the leads are folks with whom I would not be friends. The story could have been edited down to two hours and covered everything that happened.
Clare Danes was outstanding as an actress, but she is on very little of the series other than the seventh episode. And that one just dragged.
I had trouble believing Toby was a top doctor. Too much whining. Libby seems to be able to get back and girth to New Jersey faster than Captain Kirk could teleport. And at all hours.
Partner Track: Out of Office (2022)
We have a barn, let's put on a show.
Let me get this right. Ingrid's mentor is an older Asian woman. And there is a very junior Asian attorney who has Ingrid as her mentor. And none of the folks who bill at $1500 an hour have not spotted the racism?
Ingrid and Murphy have returned from Paris none the worse for wear. In fact, they don't even mention it. Just flying there and back is about 12 hours on Air Adler.
And the firm has an attorney who made it through an Ivy League school and a prestigious law school and he decides to do a racist comedy routine even though folks hire him and his firm for his rather nonexistent judgment?
Ingrid and Murphy kiss. I saw absolutely no chemistry between them and could not figure out Ingrid's motivation and square that with a partner track attorney who's got a boy friend.
The deal problem they are working on is that Min has operations in Syria and Iran which run afoul of federal law and imperil the acquisition. But we've already established that Min operates here, in New York. Do those laws not apply to Min but do apply to Lassiter?
Nick drives Ingrid to the bus in his Aston Martin. And like all New Yorkers he has no trouble finding a parking space on the street that has no meters. And then her suitcase evaporated.
Partner Track: Due Diligence (2022)
We will always have Paris
If I recall correctly, this is the episode where Ingrid and Murphy get dragged by Marty to Paris at the last minute. No suitcases. No passports. And no exposition of what they did in Paris or them getting back.
I don't see any chemistry between Ingrid and Murphy. Yet they keep getting put in situations where the writers told them they must be interested in each other. Neither impressed me as partner track material. The frat boys are just annoying, and don't appear to work much. It does not appear that Rachel actually does much actual work. The paralegal, who ought to be going through the boxes with or in place of Ingrid and Murphy , appears yo be a goof off.
The actor playing Marty is excellent in that role.
The Gray Man (2022)
Mindless violence
Not only mindless violence, but mindless violence without consequence to the leads, who can absorb explosions, stabbing and gunshot wounds but continue to function as super heroes. Bruce Willis taught us that you can outrun an explosion. Chris Evans teaches in this movie that you can be in a room in which an RPG explodes and survive (OK) without real injuries (unlikely) and with hearing intact (not possible.). Ryan Gosling proves that you can be stabbed and you can self-diagnose that the knife missed the liver and the kidney, but that having missed it causes no problems.
The movie has the requisite set piece where an agency, here the CIA, can put 50 to 100 armed mercenaries in the middle of a major European city (Prague, I think in this set piece); the same government can't get a letter from Boston to LA in under five days.
I think the plot point that got me the most was that towards the end, the CIA still has Claire held as a hostage, and Six rescues her, yet again. No violence shown as apparently the budget and the clock have run out. Where, though, does Six intend to hide her from the CIA for, say, the rest of her life? And since Claire wears a heart device which can be tracked like an ITag, it's not that hard to find her, as the movie made clear. Thus, the idea of Claire's safety which drives much of what plot there is evaporates.
Twee zomers (2022)
Binge worthy if you have Covid
I'm laid up in quarantine and found this series
About 5 hours to tell a story that could have been told in two.
Bad casting choices between the younger and older characters so we can match them up as the summer switches; I imagine it is even tougher if you are not binge watching straight through.
Not many likable characters. Other than the gang rape victim (you see the gang rape in minute 1) no one to really be sympathetic to.
No real ending. You can decide what happened.
The police investigation appears to be out of Belgium. Maybe a crime was committed there (extortion - you learn that in minute 1) but the action takes place in France in summer 2 and not all of the participants are going to return to Belgium.
Minor quibble: Romee is going to divorce Peter, and take everything. But the story establishes that they have lived in Silicon Valley for 25 years or more. Did they not hear of community property?
If you like watching entitled folks blowing up their lives, this is for you.
The Old Man: VII (2022)
Gets worse and worse
Apparently the budget did not include lighting. Too many scenes set in the dark fr no discernible reason.
We all have an elderly uncle who has a yarn to spin, but it takes forever. That's this show. We now have the spoiler that Hamzad may be Angela's father. I say may, as we might find that the baby who escaped later died. Or moved to a different planet. And the idea that Hamzad is her Father is straight out of Star Wars. Seven hours in and I'm rooting for Hamzad.
Inventing Anna (2022)
Too long with no one to root for
Much like an auto accident, you can't turn away, and you keep watching in the hopes of actually finding out how Anna was invented and why. Spoiler alert: you won't.
The two leads are Anna, who pretends to be a German heiress but is actually a social climber who in reality sucked in a whole bunch of fools into her lies, and Vivian, a reporter who is desperate to overcome the reputation she earned but publishing a poorly research article previously. Anna's annoying accent is matched by Vivian's annoying facial expressions. Anna is a sociopath tending towards psychopathy, while Vivian is prepared to trash her marriage and newborn in search of the story. Supporting characters include the lawyer taken in by Anna (played by Anthony Edwards) who has the only sex scene in the series, a scene which adds absolutely nothing to the story. There's also Anna's criminal lawyer; how he was paid to defend Anna is a mystery the 9 hours of the series decides not to tackle. (Hint: he got $75,000 of the fee Netflix paid to Anna.) There are a coterie of Anna's "friends," who are all bought by Anna's buying them drinks, dinner and gifts until she demands they cover some bill.
Despite 9 hours of the show, there is little showing the "invention" of Anna, and a trip to Germany reveals little other than Anna had an interest in clothes, much like a fair number of teenagers who do not grow up to be sociopaths or cons.
There is far too much padding of hearing Anna asking for someone to cover a bill because her credit cards didn't work. After the third time, the point has been made.
In the end, the series definitely has both a pro Anna and pro Vivian vibe, seeming to buy into the idea that the victims of Anna's cons deserved what they got. Folks like Anna belong in prison, and reporters like Vivian who bring Anna clothes to wear in court have lost all journalistic integrity. If you're like me, and have received the warning from Netflix that you've watched everything else on the service, then by all means watch this. Otherwise, you probably can find a better use of 9 plus hours.
Inventing Anna: Two Birds, One Throne (2022)
Very slow
As Nora has received back the $400,000 from her bank or credit card company, she is not the "victim" here. However, whoever is eating the $400,000 loss, whether it is the bank or Bergdorf Goodman, is the victim who can complain to the cops and DA.
Inventing Anna: The Devil Wore Anna (2022)
Going to Ibiza
How did Anna get to Ibiza without various people seeing her passport. This is post 9/11, so the name on the ticket must match the passport. And I thought Chase made the plans arrangements. And the flight attendant would have addressed folks in first class as Ms. Sorokin.
Bosch: Legacy: Plan B (2022)
Weak episode - plot holes
As another viewer noted in goofs, when someone dies without heirs, the estate goes to the State of California. It does not go to the corporation.
Here, Vance dies and he has a will, as the executives report the will has been filed with the probate court. They expect in a month or two they will own the company.
Externally, probate of a will in California takes six months at a minimum. For an estate worth billions where estate taxes are owed, it will take about two years with no bumps. It is not possible to be done in a few months.
Separately, there is no reason why Vance would have a will that does not name an heir. The heir could be Vance's charitable foundation, a distant relative, the nurse, the secretary, the assistant, the Red Cross, etc. The heirs could even be the company executives, although from the story they are not the heirs.
Separately, there is no reason why a fellow worth as much as Vance would not have a probate-avoiding trust. The trust would also name an heir.
Internally, to the script, the executives had previously speculated that upon Vance's death that purported children would come out of the weeds. Thus, there is no reason now, a few days later, to speculate that the estate will be wound up in a few months when a few days earlier they were speculating on litigation trying things up.
Let's turn to the refinery theft. Rogers is pressing his associates to install a second tap to steal more refined oil to pay back the Russians $40 million. At $100 per barrel, $40 million of refined oil product is 400,000 barrels. There is no way a refinery can lose 400,000 barrels to theft without it being noticed. And 400,000 barrels makes about 10 million gallons of gasoline (and 10 million gallons of other refined products). The gas station the Russians are using as a front can store between 30,000 and 60,000 gallons. (Maybe a Costco station takes 200,000 gallons.). That's a lot of tankers and a lot of stations.
Last, Chandler goes to Wakefield and let's him know that she knows about the oil scheme. Wakefield decides to cooperate. Nothing prevented Wakefield from telling Rogers and the Russians, and the Russians killing Chandler, Bosch, etc. A far more likely outcome of Chandler's move as Wakefield should have been more frightened of the Russians than of the U. S. Attorney.
Only Murders in the Building (2021)
Tenants vs. Owners
The writers cannot agree on whether the folks who live in the Anconia are tenants, i.e., they pay rent to a landlord, or owners, i.e., they own their apartments and pay a monthly maintenance fee to the co-op. Thus, Bunny is Chairman of the Board (a co-op thing) but seeks to evict Martin Short (a landlord-tenant thing).
Bosch: Legacy (2022)
Bosch is good
I've read all the books and watched the first 7 seasons. This new iteration is just fine.
Except for one thing. I don't buy his daughter as a cop. I don't think the actress (is it Madison Lintz?) can pull it off.
The Old Man: IV (2022)
Unbelievable
Our protagonist, Dan Chase, has spent the last 20 or 30 years off the grid hiding out with his wife. When things go south, he takes up with Zoe and ultimately kidnaps her, ostensibly to protect her. They wind up in Los Angeles in a luxury high rise where he has a staff to clean and stock it and owns an investment firm whose employees have never met him.
First, it is hard to believe that "Dan Chase" would have an alternate identity and home that depends on so many people. That's hardly living off the grid. Could he have a shack in the woods of Wyoming? Yep. Why surface in L. A., especially in a building with cameras and recorded video? Why go to a restaurant in public which also may have security. L. A. Is not London, but there are plenty of cameras recording away.
Second, there is no explanation of why folks would work for a company where they have never met the boss. Moreover, when he meets with Zach to tell him to make an investment, there is no explanation as to why he needed a face-to-face meeting. Given that he told, no, ordered, Zach to make the investment, he could have delivered that message over the phone, just like he's been doing for years. He did not have to show his face in public or to Zach when he knows Harper et al are after him and might publish his photo at any minute.
Third, there was no reason to expose his Los Angeles hideout to Zoe, who might at any moment decide to leave. The Los Angeles hideout is tied to the investment firm identity, so if Zoe simply left, or somehow got picked up by the cops, the whole house of cards would fall. Moreover, a guy who spent decades living off the grid would not suddenly decide to let Zoe in as to any of his other alter egos or addresses. He didn't survive this long by being stupid.
Fourth, the plot with Harper, and where Harper is going, is nuts. No matter how desperate Harper is to avoid stuff coming to light, Hamzad's attorney could easily have delivered the question, or she could have simply said, Hamzad wants to meet with you. How about the Starbucks in downtown Kabul on Second St?
Last, Zoe's character changes her personality. A woman worried about making ends meet and getting her son's tuition paid has morphed into a master con woman who has stopped being concerned for her kid, which, if we remember correctly, has been kicked out of school.
A series with great acting is taking a story that at best will need 4 hours to tell and drawing it out to 8 or 10 hours pointlessly, by adding nonsense that runs counter to the characters created.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Entertainment pure and simple
As Tom Cruise says in an intro to the movie, its entertainment made for us the audience. It passed my basic test: not once did I look at my watch.
However, the movie does not have much of a plot: some bad guys are about to start up uranium enrichment, and we to blow them up. We can only do this with manned airplanes, and Maverick has to train the pilots.
SPOILERS:
If you think about it later:
It was really fortuitous that Cruise and Teller crashed within a hundred feet of each other.
It was even more fortuitous that they crashed within a short distance of the enemy air base. Like less than a mile over easy ground.
Our carrier seemed to be sailing by itself, without the usual carrier group.
And the admiral in charge of mission operations did not seem to have air cover; rather, he had planes all over the flight deck, pretty much like Yamamoto in losing at Midway. The usual captain and air boss on a carrier were nowhere to be seen.
Surviving Summer (2022)
Surfing and teen drama
SPOILERS!
Ten episodes for about 5 hours, more than half of which is watching the actors and stunt people surf. The photography is great, but this is not "Endless Summer." The surfing is all backed by recent music, so we don't really get the actual sound of what it's like to be out on the water.
Summer is usually annoying. While it's clear her mother, Margot, prioritizes her career over Summer, there is little exploration of what has led to Summer's hostility to pretty much everyone.
Ari's backstory is better developed, but one wonders why someone with his issues keeps being able to win competitions. Ari and Marlon have their issues, but patch them up, unpatch them, and then path them up again.
Other than a character running and teaching at a surf school, no one seems to have a job. The family friends to whom Summer is shipped, Abbie and Tom, might be artists, but I'm not sure.
We learn, as in most shows like this, that there are endless competitions, which our protagonists are able to win or make it to "state" (I'm assuming Victoria) over their caricature opponents.
In the last episode, Surviving Summer throws up a familiar trope, with the guy chasing the girl. Think "The Graduate" or "Made of Honor." Much is made of that day's competition being on an island and the efforts Summer and Ari have to make to get to that island by ferry. (They hide out in a bathroom on an RV.) Yet when Ari finds that Summer and her Mother have left for the airport (presumably Melbourne), and he decides to chase after her, suddenly there are no geographic obstacles and her is easily able to catch up to Summer as she is about to board the plane.
The ending shows Summer back in NYC, with her surfboard, going to Rockaway Beach. My recollection of Long Island beaches is that surfing is generally not available; the waves are not right.
The Lincoln Lawyer: The Brass Verdict (2022)
Totally unbelievable ending
Spoiler Alert
Unbelievable ending. Everyone is corrupt. Cops, Judges. Other lawyers. Defendants. Tech billionaires. It's a wonder you can go out.
Minor quibble. After the judge in the habeas proceeding (played by Bruce Davidson) twice makes the point that there is no jury, he then calls for a sidebar where he talk loud enough for everyone in the courtroom to hear. The only point of a sidebar that is taken down by the court reporter is to keep the discussion from the jury, which we established was not there.
The Lincoln Lawyer: Lemming Number Seven (2022)
Plot Quibble
Spoiler Alert.
It is not at all clear how someone can fix a jury in downtown Los Angeles with a juror using a phony identity being paid off before jury selection even begins. In the downtown criminal courts building, there are numerous jury trials going on the same day, so the fictional juror #7 who has been bribed has little chance of knowing if he will be called at all, and, if called to the courtroom in which the trial is proceeding, whether he will be questioned, and, if questioned, whether he will be challenged.
In Runaway Jury, Grisham makes a far better case for how a juror with an agenda can sneak in, and, of course, notes that the plan failed in several prior attempts.
The last time I was called for jury duty downtown, I was called in for 9 days, and at no point was I ever even assigned to a courtroom.
I've served on three criminal juries; I've been called for jury duty about ten times. And I've tried about a dozen jury trials, including two federal criminal trials.
The Lincoln Lawyer: The Magic Bullet (2022)
Minor quibble
SPOILER ALERT - MINOR
There seems to be no good explanation for this case being tried in downtown Los Angeles. Murders in Malibu would be tried in Santa Monica Superior Court. An exception would exist and downtown would be the trial setting if the defendant was indicted rather than the D. A. proceeding by preliminary hearing, but such grand jury indictment prosecutions are rare. In the OJ case, the D. A. announced he would seek an indictment rather than preliminary hearing, but the outcry was so great that the D. A. dropped that plan, but OJ's case had already been transferred downtown.
It does not make much difference since the characters are able to move about Los Angeles at speeds unknown to mere mortals. In response to Bosch's frequent statement "I'll see you in thirty minutes," in the Bosch series, a commenter noted there are no points in Los Angeles any longer which are thirty minutes or less from each other.
There would, of course, be a different jury pool in Santa Monica Superior, which might have affected the outcome in OJ's case.
The constitutional right to an indictment enshrined in the. Fifth Amendment, is a constitutional right not incorporated by the 14th Amendment if the state has a similar gate keeping system in place, such as California's preliminary hearing system.