jisen85 Reviews

Special Videos Unit: Video on Trial (2012 TV Movie)

Underwhelming

[2/10 · 24 October 2017]

This show missed the magic of Video on Trial, the Canadian show it was based on. Video on Trial was the highest rated show in the history of Toronto's Much Music station (basically Canada's MTV and still is even though Canada now has "MTV Canada"... it's hard to explain).

Anyway FUSE made some big mistakes when they started airing Video on Trial. Instead of airing the classic episodes starring great comics like Ron Sparks, Debra Di Giovanni, Nikki Payne, David Kerr and Frasier Young who made the show great they only aired the current later shows when the only great comic still there was Di Giovanni and she wasn't in as often. The newer comics they had were not nearly as good though they still had a couple decent ones they didn't compare to the great early episodes where all the comics were great so the episodes were laugh out loud funny from start to finish.

Then when they realized the show wasn't as good as it used to be FUSE decided to make their own version with American comics who nobody has ever heard of and if anything it was even worse than the later episodes of Video on Trial.

These big mistakes meant the show would not last long and it really shouldn't have. The real shame of it all is that Video on Trial never came out on DVD and probably never will or it would have by now.

Spartacus (1960)

I'm Spartacus!

[10/10 · 24 October 2017]

This is an excellent film but that is not at all a surprise considering it is directed by Stanley Kubrick and his movies are all incredible, at least the most famous of his movies are.

Kubrick also shot this movie after he took over for his cinematographer but because he wasn't credited that cinematographer took home the Academy Award so that is an interesting bit of trivia and I bet he wouldn't be too happy about that! Ha ha.

The fight scenes and "look" of the film are a bit dated of course but the writing and acting and direction of course are all still great and the movie holds up almost as good today.

Kirk Douglas produced this movie so he could cast himself in the title role of Spartacus and that is probably the main problem of this movie. He is 45 here and obviously too old to be playing the young gladiator/slave Spartacus but if you suspend your disbelief it doesn't matter very much. He is actually quite good in this.

This movie is worth watching just for the "I'm Spartacus!" scene alone. What a great ending.

Little Mosque on the Prairie (2007–2012)

Terrible!

[1/10 · 5 November 2013]

Little Mosque on the Prairie is awful. Why do Canadian sitcoms on CBC have to be so terrible all the time? This show was written by a public school creative writing class on "wacky fun comedy day" and acted by community theatre volunteers who weren't quite good or convincing enough to get parts as extras in a Paris Ontario production of Hamlet starring the local barber as Hamlet and by the way the local barber has a lisp and is 92 years old. Every one of these characters is so awful and the actors are so horribly sent from hell awful that I get physically sick and angry watching them spasm all over my TV screen spitting out the puerile vomit inducing garbage the idiot writers and director gave them to say. This dog vomit of a show lasted more than one episode which is proof that the CBC seriously does not care one bit about if the shows it produces are good or liked by Canadians, they just keep spending our money on whatever garbage they want especially when the star of this show, the guy playing the Muslim imam, is in a relationship with the head of CBC and ended up marrying her! That's right this awful show stayed on the air and in my mind shouldn't it be criminal that tax payer dollars were directed by the head of CBC to a show because her boyfriend was on it? It's disgusting and these people should be thrown in jail.

The Artist (I) (2011)

Very Good

[8/10 · 5 November 2013]

This was a very good movie. I think a lot of the success this movie had was due to the fact that it was done as a silent film which got it a lot of hype, most films aren't black and white any more obviously and nobody does silent much so when it did these things it got a lot of attention, obviously especially in Hollywood because they go nuts for any movie that's about Hollywood and movie making in general. It's amusing to me that the movie was all about Hollywood and set in Hollywood but made by the French. Also this movie is not a silent film! A movie is either silent or has sound and this movie was not silent for the entire film, the last scene has sound and dialogue. I know that is picky but a film can't have any sound at all in my mind if it is a silent film. I also wish there were more scenes with John Goodman and that he got more attention for his supporting role. The actor deserved the Oscar win, the lead actress was great too, and the film deserved winning for best picture, but it was also a weaker year. This movie was very good but not the status of great.