Change Your Image
grm009
Reviews
Homeland (2011)
Worst series ever.
The first season left me looking forward to the second. By the end of the second, the plot has become so preposterous and so idiotic, I'm sorry I wasted my time watching any of it. The plot meanders here and there, people get killed, accidents happen, here and there, and to what end? The answer is to keep the show going mindlessly for another season or two. I'm finished. Every American character is a government employee, except for wives and children. Every Muslim is a terrorist. The worst part of the series is the fact that whoever wrote the script obviously had no idea where he was going to go at the start. This has to be (I hope) the nadir of Claire Danes' acting career where she repeats the same horrible affectations-mouth quivering between grimace and grin, and an idiotic wide-eyed look where her corneas become dots in the middle of the whites of her eyes. I'll chalk that up to incompetent directing. The main characters- Carrie and Brody- are deeply despicable, amoral characters who have the same predictable conversations feeding each others' delusions over and over again. The worst part of it is that the producers of this pretentious garbage seem to expect that the viewers have forgotten all about their deeds and have somehow transformed them into sympathetic characters. There isn't a moment of irony, or self-reflection in the entire series. I do think I see a look in Mandy Patinkin's face where he's thinking "This turkey's even worse than Criminal Minds." Go and watch The Assets and see how it's done when it's done really well.
The Abandoned (2006)
Does not live up to expectations.
The opening credits written in a hokey font that uses the Russian letter "Я" as an "R" was indicative of the mediocre production values that would become apparent. Also, the entire premise of the movie-that the main character needs to travel to Russia and attend to the farm she inherited shows an startling ignorance of modern Russian history. No one inherits real property in Russia! All land and houses were owned by the state during Communism, and after the fall of Communism, property was not given to anyone. (Yes, there are some cases of property being privatized now, but not inherited.) Also, anyone who is familiar with Russia will be struck by the absence of birch trees in the forest scenes. But these are minor flaws, and could be overlooked, except for the rest of the movie.
The story starts out well enough with a Russian-born woman traveling from the US to Russia to look into her "property", but more, to look into her origins. The story grows darker, and the suspense is really well done, with very well-crafted frightening scenes. But, about a third of the way into the movie, the strange becomes outlandish, and the outlandish becomes idiotic. This could have been a great thriller, but it descends into an absurd horror movie. There are scenes that are truly unwatchable and I wonder about the humanity of the person who conceived them. Scary, yes, well-acted, yes, intelligent, no. It's as subtle as a sledge-hammer.
Farmingville (2004)
Fiction
I've seen this movie, and it's very well-made, very persuasive, and it is 100% propaganda. It shows the Hispanic people as being soft-spoken and hard-working and those who oppose their presence as loud-mouthed bigots. Both of these have little basis in truth. I believed this movie until I actually visited Farmingville myself. The movie leaves out the many, many negative effects of having an enormous influx of Latin Americans come to a small community. The movie neatly ignores the economic effect on the working poor Americans who now have to compete with people who can afford to work for a bit less. The movie does not show the thousands of Mexicans who line the streets and roads every day waiting for a day of work. This movie does not show the stench of urine that rises from the doorways of public buildings these people use as latrines, nor does it show the trash thrown from cars and apartment windows. It doesn't show the hundreds of people lying asleep on every bit of grass on every bit of public property in Farmingville every week day. It does not tell about the rise of violent crime on Long Island that is directly attributable to these people. The movie implies that a significant number of these people are here legally. That is false; virtually all of them are here illegally and their numbers are growing. The movie does not show the fact that women are generally subservient in this community. The movie ignores the fact that these folks refuse to pay taxes on their income,purchase mandatory driver's insurance, or even have legal licenses and auto registrations. It does not show the economic advantage these people have over the local working population because of their willingness to live in large numbers in small spaces, and because they live and work under the IRS's radar. The movie does not show that this is a mostly male population many of whom who drink late into the night. It is inaccurate to say that the movie attempts to be objective. One has to come here and see the real Farmingville in order to make a judgment about this movie. The real Farmingville has brought "offshore" labor to an already poor town with devastating effect.