mjames-45638 Reviews

Casualty: Love's a Pain (1990) Season 5, Episode 8

Who does it like that?

[2/10 · 8 June 2024]

There are two things that matters most to a continuing drama like this, director and writer. The director is Andrew Morgan and the writer is Sam Snape. They did some good things to the show but in this case, this episode is just not one of them. Here we are seeing a poor sense of direction over where the plot should go and what's involved with. The real letdown is the screenplay, Sam Snape was not really writing down good dialogue here.

For example, Duffy checks in to see the man who brutally attacked another man when he was caught with his wife having sex. Duffy says "How are you feeling?" He then says, "Sick." If that's not enough, the really poor subplotting involves a grandfather who tries to retrieve the frisbee the boy threw whilst playing in the garden. He climbs up the ladder hoping to reach for it and then he suddenly loses his balance and crushes the boy who was below him. The ambiguity of the boy's condition leaves us nowhere to find the absolute conclusion. The characters are really misplaced including Duffy's mom, who initially refuses to help her daughter by looking after her son, Peter. She leaves him with the receptionist for the while and then the grandmother appears to take him out of the A+E unit for good. Then, she and her grandson come back to see Duffy again.

It is ridiculous to have all sorts of situations go haywire and make a right old spectacle of itself. This story is secretly awful and I hope my review will warn you off from ever watching it.

Quiz (2020)

It makes up after a lousy start

[6/10 · 27 July 2023]

Does cheating ring a bell in a quiz show? Remember what happened in the 1950s in America when the infamous scandal occurred? Quiz shows mustn't be corrupted nor influenced by the spasms of cheating and so forth. Here, is Quiz, based on the 2001 Ingram coughing incident on the TV show, Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, which frankly is also based on the successful stage play of the same name by James Graham. It is directed by masterclass, Stephen Frears.

What way does it show? Well, I admit the first 20 minutes of the drama was nothing short of dreadful. It only really got going with the mysterious Paddy Spooner, who had appeared on both the Australian and the UK versions of the format itself. He meets Charles's brother-in-law, Adrian Pollock, who was desperately trying to get onto the show but for 2 years, he still didn't get onto the hot seat. He cleverly creates a device similar to the Fastest Finger First machine featured on the show. His practice runs of doing it eventually helped him get onto the hot seat in December 2000 of what was his 4th appearance of the show as a FFF hopeful. His sister, Diana, appeared months later in 2001. Both these 2 won £32,000 each and although some of Adrian's debts were cleared, Diana persuaded her husband, Charles, to get onto the quiz and hopefully land himself on the hot seat.

Luck arrived in September 2001, close to the 9/11 atrocity, but at the same time, a little game of deception was about to be played on the game itself. Tecwen Whittock, was approached by both of the Ingrams, though sadly, we don't see enough evidence of how they got in touch with him in the first place and how did she find the correct phone number to contact him?

The intensity builds up as Charles cheats his way to a million thanks to Tecwen's coughing on what is right and what is wrong. These are some of the finest highlights of the drama itself but sadly, it is marred by some scenes that don't really work at all. Even with the scenes containing black comedy in it doesn't help the story's intelligent plot on the scandal itself, for instance, the judge taking a cough sweet whilst the trial was taking place and the American executive bowing down to the producer of the quiz show as a meeting begins.

I also found the shocking stuff like the poor Ingram family dog who was fatally shot at by an airgun not worthy of us to see because this may only sympathise the Ingram family let alone the children who looked after it well.

To me, this is supposed to be a single 2-hour or a 2 and a 1/2 hour version of the drama itself that doesn't disturb the goodness of it alone. I hope this will be re-edited and remove some bits of it including the notoriously bad running time of the first 20 minutes of the first episode itself and make this more believable than being more accurate as it ought to be.

Harry's Game (1982)

A flawed masterpiece

[5/10 · 29 June 2023]

Yes, this is a bleak portrait of the Troubles. Yes, it has wonderful music and a theme tune that strike you. But no, this isn't a masterpiece. It is a flawed masterpiece on its own accord. The accents spoken by some of its actors are a joke whilst some of its characters aren't well-presented in an acceptable manner. Plus, this plot needs more strength than ingenuity.

Without giving too much away, here are some questions for you...

1. If Harry, who is disguised as an Irish citizen, enters the Ardoyne area of Belfast, how come the Catholic taxi driver recognises an Army-type suitcase in the back without raising the alarm?

2. If Billy was supposed to run as far as his home with a wounded arm, would he really make it in time to see his wife?

3. If the British Army knew one of their military agents was going to get Harry, how on earth did they not know who the killer was in the first place?

Think before you leap is what I suggest when it comes to this overrated piece of TV history.

Geronimo Stilton (2009–2017)

A cartoon that turns into smelly, stinky cheese.

[1/10 · 1 May 2023]

If doing animation is fun for everybody, this isn't fun. It is an over-the-top, overwrought show indeed. The low point for me is the voices notoriously dubbed in English and not to mention the miscasting of Trap's voice who is screechingly annoying.

As for the books themselves, well, even if the leading character wears glasses, why can it not be the case in this TV adaptation? I am sceptical that the whole thing in fiction works because youngsters might easily get confused about the premise involved on both its books and the TV show. The other characters including the villians are kinda on the weaker side plus the leading character lacks strength and courage. (Sometimes, he acts like a coward) I rather turn my head and cough at watching this piece of animated garbage.

Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds (2021)

A dreadful movie that shouldn't be a movie

[2/10 · 15 November 2021]

Why this title you ask? It's simple, you needed perfection, skill, wit and a project that works so successfully that you only wish to turn back the clock to 30 years ago when computer animation has caused a major revolution when it comes to animation. Toy Story was the ground-breaker and since the rip-roaring success of that movie, more and more animated films relied on CGI to make it pleasurable viewing to animation addicts, children and some critics who accept this as today's norm.

Even if today's norm, we sometimes have to accept the fact that animation and cartoons on TV and film (and allsorts) have started to make us feel that we are just on a point of making us lose that loving feeling. (Personally I'll never lose my love of the Toy Story quadrology) Animation was loved by many, not the few during the 1930's with Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny plus more animated films would be registered as golden, timeless classics from the western animation of Beauty and the Beast and the highly acclaimed anime Spirited Away. Animation was pure gold in those days.

Wait a minute, what am I talking about? I meant to review this movie, Dogtanian and the Three Muskelhounds. This is actually a rip-off of the popular 1981 anime by BRB Internacional. I admit I've seen the series myself and also the sequel series too. Did I like it? For both of them, no. I didn't like the narrative, the flaws that pop up and also in one episode which I won't say of which one it was has the ultimate cliche of watching entertainment, the idiot plot.

In this movie itself, it has the idiot plot with not of the characters, not of the storytelling and not of the plot but for the whole movie itself. I wanna condemn this movie for adding in a character that does not appear in the original 1981 anime. Captain Bloodhound appears after an hour into this movie. He is actually a bloodhound (I know you're cringing) plus he has a parrot that doesn't do much. Why is this trying to lure kids into watching this pointless film version of it and why are many saying that the 1981 anime has a successful cult following when it shouldn't have to be in the first place?

I should say the Richard Lester version of The Three Musketeers is the one to watch most and also the Four Musketeers whereas both these films were actually an epic film filmed at the same time. Check it out and the same to the 1989 sequel if you wanna.

Sorry if I am being a nuisance to you if this review doesn't appease you much but if there are any other words to add about this movie, I might do so in the near future.