currie-5 Reviews

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982 Video Game)

Fun once you get the hang of it

[8/10 · 16 December 2021]

Getting out of the pits is not intuitive so beginners keep falling back in. Once I learned how to do that, the game play was fine. I came to really enjoy playing it.

But this was the Atari 2600. None of the games were fantastic.

Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

Lacks everything the original had

[3/10 · 13 December 2021]

The songs are completely unmemorable. The story is unoriginal and boring. The characters are stock. The themes are cliche. The direction and. Miranda's acting are far too Broadway. Blunt is acceptable but an odd casting choice. It simply lacks the charm and magic of the original.

Northern Exposure (1990–1995)

Watch the first season, skip the rest

[1/10 · 20 June 2021]

In the first season of this show, you really get the sense that it takes place in a very remote small town. There are not a lot of people on the street, the general store is not well stocked and the restaurant/bar is not very busy. The interior and exterior of buildings look a bit rundown. Several characters, living in this town with not very many people, don't say much. You get the sense that this might really be what Alaska is like.

Then the second season starts. There are lots of people on the streets, the store is well stocked and the restaurant/bar is always busy. The buildings don't look so rundown anymore. People who were quiet before are now talkative. And everyone's clothing looks brand new. It's no longer a show about life in Alaska. It's now a show about a town, which could be anywhere, where wacky things happen. And there is lots of pretentiousness - poetry, pseudo-intellectual anecdotes and pseudo-spiritual ramblings.

So if you want to watch an unexpectedly good show, watch the first season, and then skip the rest.

Rating: First Season 8; the rest 1.

Proxima (2019)

Only Female Astronauts are Parents

[6/10 · 18 March 2021]

Apparently the writer thinks that only female astronauts are parents. Either that, or male astronauts don't really have relationships with their children. I don't think one would ever see a movie like this where a male astronaut's relationship with his child was the primary focus of the movie. And then, at the end of the movie, she does something really stupid that would very likely end her career and possibly put her colleagues in danger. The parts of the movie that are about preparing to go into space were interesting (though slow), but the human drama parts were annoying.

Danseur (2018)

Good subject matter

[7/10 · 27 May 2019]

The subject of the documentary was very interesting and important to talk about. It's good to see people addressing at least one instance where men also experience sexism. However, the music in the background was so manipulatively dramatic that it detracts from the quality of the film. It's annoying as hell.