robin_a-1 Reviews

Ang probinsyano (2015–2022)

Wildly Popular, Monumentally Awful

[2/10 · 14 July 2021]

It's like a nightmare that won't end. It flourishes through star power. Through the years, they have recruited so many celebrities that it's always star studded. On a positive note, at least they have been providing a lot of work even for forgotten veterans of the industry.

While we are on a positive note, let me tackle that first since there is very little. Aside from providing work for lots of people, it once in a while provides good acting from some great performers. It becomes impressive as these few actors manage to thrive through stupid story lines, unbelievably terrible direction, and silly scripts. Still, at least you get to see some stars shine even if they are in the trash bin of a show it is.

Another possible positive note: it appears to be some sort of social commentary. The main character is a policeman who struggles dealing with crime and corrupt government and police officials. It positions the populace to question corrupt government. Cardo, might subtly be teaching people to not tolerate corruption in government by standing up to it. With the monstrous present government flooded with corruption, incompetence, and public treason, it may be serving by alerting people to this reality.

Unfortunately, this positive has been muddied by terrible direction and storyline. Cardo had turned into a rebel but has resorted to crime and terrorism, often unjustified. He is still being portrayed as a hero when taking the law into his own hands even with reckless disregard for the safety of others. Some fans cheer with misplaced hero worship that even when the hero turns terrorist, he is still seen as right. Great danger here.

A massive continuing failure is the lack of consistency, logic, and common sense that pervades the entire show. Each episode is loaded with an endless parade of stupidity. We do know that some element of suspension of disbelief is expected in shows. But when the story and script is loaded with obvious implausibilities, it becomes a monumental display of stupidity.

The first implausibility is the role of Cardo as heroic wherein other police officers superior to him act as if he is the leader. They drop their personal lives to follow him and this without justification in any way. He has been outcast and labeled a criminal, public enemy number one. He is in hiding. Yet, the utterly silly story line has all the most powerful politicians and crime lords in the land are portrayed as worried as Cardo is their main enemy. Plausibility, probability, no matter what math you do, it doesn't add up.

Of course other unrealistic scenarios. They portray the police as standing around the office most of the time and not working. That now-criminal Cardo can walk into a heavily guarded police center while carrying a long firearm in a bag without being checked while walking so suspiciously is the type of lack of common sense the people behind the show operate with. Suffice it to say, that's just a speck of sand in the immense treasure chest of stupidities in this show. If I would start to list it down, I can fill up several volumes of stupidity.

Unfortunately, many serious actors have been subjected to swim around this septic tank of a show. Add to this, it is littered with so many beautiful men and women casted as police, sadly many of them can't act. Period. So, how some veterans are forced to endure this, is heroic. Like poor Susan Roces, veteran superstar. She has been turned into a perpetual insertion of melodrama. They literally insert her to cry over anything and everything. Poor waste of such talent.

One mustn't forget that about a fifth of the show is wasted on ridiculous close ups of the various characters in the scene. No dialogue, just a round robin of close ups to waste time.

Now, I can't skip the most ridiculous fight scenes. Absolutely no common sense, no logic, no realism, no intelligence. It's either they have the stupidest directors that ever walked the face of the earth or they think that their audience is stupid beyond measure. The enemy is waiting in ambush, they are dug in, hiding behind protective barriers. They are a few feet away. Cardo and his gang are standing wide open, nothing protecting them. A firefight begins and Cardo and his gang shoot down almost everyone surrounding them, even if 90 percent of their bodies are protected behind barriers. Yet, Cardo's team are not hit even if they are in full unprotected view. Of course, you have the monumentally stupid acrobatics they do to avoid being hit by gunfire. So here comes a machine gun spraying across the scene, and the way they get out of it is do acrobatics. I don't think there are enough adjectives to adequately emphasize how stupid this show it.

To fans, I sound like I'm bashing the show. Depends on your perspective. It's not that I am saying that this show shouldn't continue. If a lot of people love and enjoy it, then sure let them enjoy. But I'm just giving my review, so that maybe one day TV shows can improve. That if this show can't be improved, at least others can. That hopefully there can be good stories driven by logic and common sense and supported by realistic scripts and directed by competent directors. This show lacks all of those.

Hello, Stranger: The Movie (2021)

Sadly, a far cry from the series

[4/10 · 20 June 2021]

I loved the series. Great story, well written, well executed. Each episode richly brought the story forward. Each episode made one richly anticipating the next. Then comes this movie. Sadly, it didn't hold the magic of the series. The storyline is forced. Unlike the series where the story was meticulously pushed forward lining up the elements to establish the plot, the storyline of the movie is filled with inconsistencies and things not very realistic. It was too contrived, predictable and disappointing.

Sadly, unlike the series wherein I could not get enough. I was hoping this would end already. Unlike the series, it's as if they didn't put much effort in this. It was formulaic and predictable.

In case the fans might react negatively to this, my disappointment is not with the theme of the movie, but the execution. This just had too many silly holes in the story. Too many forced elements and details that were way too contrived.

Even little things like during the tug-o-war wherein Xavier suddenly let's go of the rope to make the other team fall. It was clearly noticeable that the whole team of Xavier let go at the same time, why would they do that? Only Xavier had a reason to let go. That's a sample of unrealistic execution, to force their storyline they sacrifice realism.

The whole Kookay - Seph conflict. To create conflict, they create an unrealistic scenario. Kookay is surprised to see her sister there and tried to pretend Seph is just a friend. The sister says she is there as she was hired as one of the speakers for the writing camp. Yet we see later it's as if she is the main organizer. At the same time, considering that a student will be going out of town for a school event, it's not realistic that the parents would not know, and would not know that both daughters would be there. Then later we see the sister and teacher talking on the beach about Kookay, yet Kookay and Seph were a few feet away in full sight and hearing, they were seated next to each other. So, what happened to the issue that Kookay is trying to hide the fact that she is in a relationship with Seph? That whole scene was ridiculously unrealistic.

Then the oh too predictable and formulaic appearance of a guest speaker who happens to be an established writer who happens to be young and handsome and becomes a third wheel in the Xavier-Mico relationship.

Anyway, that's just a few. There were too many silly and forced things along the way that made the movie lose the magic of the Series. I wish they just stuck to the series, they seem to be better with short episodes.

Northern Lights: A Journey to Love (2017)

Distracted by bad sound editing

[5/10 · 26 September 2019]

The movie would have been much better if not for the sound editing which was so poorly done. Most of the dialogue were obviously recorded in studio without any ambient sounds of the location included. So, the dialogues sounded so disconnected from each scene. It's so obviously dubbed over that it sounded flat and without any realistic feel. Movies should be done in such a way that one gets to feel that they are actually there. Scenes with foreigners sounded so dubbed by local voice talents trying to sound foreign. It sounded trying hard at times. The second issue with sound was the soundtrack. It was too loud that it was not adding to the moment, instead it was drowning each moment. It did not help also that a lot of the soundtrack was synthesized. They probably didn't allocate a budget to use real instruments. The synthesized music, especially when it came to the strings came across flat and cheap. Synthesized music lacks any emotional depth. So, you have substandard soundtrack production, then played too loudly, it was like an assault to the ears. Could I say more about the movie, nah, too distracted by the audio. Could have been better.

Penny Dreadful (2014–2016)

Fantastic

[10/10 · 20 January 2019]

Gorgeous production value! Costumes and sets were stunning! Astounding cinematography with lush visuals! Superb story telling carrying one on a roller coaster of varied emotions! Excellent cast, well acted out. I have watched it over again as it is like a rich buffet of elegant and exotic experiences lavishly created on screen. Bravo!

The Girl In the Orange Dress (2018)

Disappointing series of implausibilities.

[2/10 · 20 January 2019]

There was only one thing that I was pleasurable in this movie, the leads were captured beautifully. Everything else was a train-wreck. Bad story telling, full of holes that couldn't be ignored. Logic and common sense was largely lacking in the story every step of the way. Establishing scenes would be made for the sake of the story telling and then will be transgressed soon after. The casting of the extras were also terrible, people who couldn't act spouting out stiffly rehearsed lines, it felt like watching a high school play. Problematic situations that arise in the progress of the story are not met with plausible solutions but the with the silliest implausible scenarios. I would have given it a one star but I gave it two since the lead actor always performs well and since the leads looked good in it (except for the hideous wig the lead actress wore in the ending scenes, absolutely ghastly).

Mama Medium (2018– )

My Favorite among the reality shows about Mediums

[9/10 · 20 January 2019]

I love watching such shows. I have been following several over the years. The Long Island Medium, Hollywood Medium,Psychic Tia, Lisa Williams' shows, and many others. By far this is the one I enjoy the most. It is both interesting and fun to watch. The gifts she exhibits are more varied and her personality is more fun and vivacious. I find the lead's personality more down to earth and more real. She does have a very warm mothering personality that makes one feel like one is around a loving aunt. I also love it that there is less pretentiousness that some others have. I hope it continues for many years.

Ancient Aliens (2009– )

Good except at times when it comes out like a sensationalized tabloid.

[3/10 · 24 July 2011]

I will first profess my bias. I do believe in the general idea that we have been visited by aliens and still do based on some of the data presented in the TV series. Prior to watching this series, I have read a bit and watched documentaries on the topic and have no trouble considering this as a real possibility. Thus, this series had indeed caught my attention.

What I did appreciate was the comprehensive gathering of data and information on ancient literature, religion, culture, and archeology which reveals possible alien encounters or involvement. The show was able to present these data and point out the lack of modern science to adequately explain how these were accomplished in ancient times. It presented a good case with various resource persons to state their opinion on the matter.

Now what I didn't appreciate was the biased presentation of resource persons. They only presented resource persons who believed in the ancient alien theories and no rebutting opinions from scientists or members of the academe. In other words, the resource persons were one sided. Now that would have still been okay if they had good resource persons with good, sound credible theories. Unfortunately, they had some resource persons who were so blindly biased that they would make sweeping statements and pronounce theories so far off that their logic closely falls of the edge. I was watching the video with college students who were very interested but would on their own rebut some of the ludicrous claims of some resource persons.

Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, who seems to be the main resource person, keeps making sweeping claims that are just too far off the evidence. It is one thing to see how somethings could not be explained and then speculate from evidence that we may have had help from aliens... but to make sweeping statements that there was a targeted manipulation of our genes by the aliens is ludicrous. It is one thing to speculate that we were visited by aliens but to make statements about their intentions or what precisely they did is not just going out on a limb, but its jumping off a cliff of rational thinking. As one of the students commented, the show would be nice but Mr. Tsoukalos turned it into a sensationalized tabloid.

Also, there were a lot of statements some of the resource persons make claiming that modern science or archaeologists say this or that, yet when we research we find out that their statements are wrong. The sad thing is the show did not address that. They just took the words of their resource persons and their selective and fabricated data they spouted to fit their story.

Bottom line. Excellent presentation of artifacts and evidence. Biased presentation of theories. Some good resource persons while some just have too much of a fantastical imagination that they are nearly disconnected from logic and common sense.

Considering it was history channel, I wish they did more research and had a bit more objectivity.

I still believe in ancient aliens visiting and helping us out but not a lot of the crap some of the resource persons are fantasizing about.

Ghost Adventures (2008– )

The Worst of the Ghost Hunting Shows

[2/10 · 20 August 2010]

This is the worst among all the reality TV ghost hunting shows. First of all it is not scientific in any manner. They do not practice objectivity in investigations. They always come into a place, accepting as fact whatever hearsay of paranormal activity is reported. They come in with their conclusions and just are searching for such experiences. One example is the investigation in Bobby Mackee's place. The leader keeps on speaking of the well as being a portal of hell where demonic spirits use to come in. 1. What is his basis that the well is the portal? 2. What is his basis that, if it is a portal, that it is to hell? 3. What is his basis to say that the spirits are demonic? 4. Even more basic than that, what is his basis to say there are spirits? - Totally, unscientific sensationalism. If they were there to investigate, then one begins with questions and not conclusions. Furthermore, there is this part where he whips out the EMF meter to measure spirit activity in the bathroom area. He didn't even take a baseline reading to start with to find out if the area is inherently high with EMF. Also, in the same episode, they point out to body hair standing as signs of the presence of spirits. What is the basis for such a statement? Extremely irresponsible to neglect the more obvious physiological causes of one's skin hair standing. in other words, these people believe any story they hear, take it as fact, then enter into a location trying to find anything to justify the story. The conclusion begins before the investigation.

At least other shows have some sense of science and objectivity. Some other shows actually INVESTIGATE and even try to debunk rather than do what this show does.

Paano kita iibigin (2007)

boy cries, girl cries, they cry together, they cry alone, they cry and cry again

[1/10 · 30 March 2008]

I just watched this movie expecting a quality movie. It features some of the Philippines' biggest stars. Sadly, I was so terribly disappointed. It was terrible. I was trying to find some saving grace to this film other than it having a number of stars who I am fond of, sadly, I couldn't find any. The story first of all was so contrived. Its build up was so sloppily done that it failed to substantiate the emotions it was trying to evoke. The last 10 to 15 minutes was particularly excruciating. It was one long continuous over-over-over-melodramatic sequence of crying backed up by the most uncreative and inane musical scoring I have ever heard. Endless minutes of the lead actor crying, followed by the lead actress crying with him, then she crying on her own, then him crying again...and the ping pong of crying scenes between the two just went on and on. I was wondering what was the point of all of that. If that was an attempt to arouse sympathy for the characters it failed miserably. The only emotion it aroused in me was intense disdain for the director and the musical director. Imagine watching a 15minute poorly produced music video featuring people crying and crying, with really really poor instrumental music that just repeated and repeated.

I pity Regine and Piolo, and the ultra talented Eugene Domingo! I can't imagine that people of their creative stature took part in such a monumental piece of garbage. Sorry if anyone is offended by this review, but you have offended your audience!

No wonder the Philippine movie industry is dying. They make trash like this and hype it! Geez