Reviews

Goliath: Season Three takes a turn with a better script, McBride takes on a mammoth conglomerate multiple million dollar family that tries to control the flow of water in Central California. In this case, McBride is hired to try to bring a class action suit against Paramount Farms Empire run by Diana and Wade Blackwoods who are played by Amy Brenneman and Dennis Quaid. William Hurt is back in the picture to help the Blackwoods during their crisis. In order for Thornton not to get in trouble for solicitation he agrees to represent the plaintiffs pro bono. Googy Gress plays the Distruct court judge during the season. Graham Greene acts as the casino pit boss and Blackwood's narcotics dealer. Meanwhile Patty learns she is pregnant with FBI agent who is played by James Folk. Beau Bridges also as a role as Quaid's o,der brother who learns his own family is about to steal the water from his well but ends up getting killed by his own sister. McBride and his associates learn there the Blackwood's agreement for the water supply is associated with Los Angeles mayor Marisol Silva and she ends up having to step down because of the allegations. Billy Bob was able to get the truth from Wade and ends up winning the case for the hundreds of families that were not getting any running water. Amazing that's what is happening to farmers all across the country even when there are absurd amount of rainfall and snow that's overflowing the town rivers and dams. I don't know why politics or actually politicians get to determine who has a right to the use of water that is naturally given to us all rightfully and equally to use. Overall I like the all star cast with a better script but the acting was a bit off. There is a fourth and final season to review soon.

Inside Out 2 is one of better Pixar sequels in a long time. This sequel was just as good or even better than the original. Riley is now a teenager with new emotions that include Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebin), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Pouchy (James Austin Johnson). She has been invited to summer hockey camp and Riley is trying to hard to fit in with her new friends. Riley tends to have trouble controlling her anxiety to the point it takes over from the rest of her emotions, something most adults all too much about. Tony Hale is replaced to play fear and Liza Lapira plays Disgust. Overall I loved this sequel and it has been quite some time since Disney/Pixar have brought a fairly enjoyable movie.

Inside Out is a Pixar film which we rewatched before checking out the sequel. We loved this one, the story is about a young Riley who is dealing with various emotions after the family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. As a grown up with cherish the memories of our childhood and this movie hit the right buttons. Riley is voiced by Kaitlyn Dias and her inner emotions Disgust is voiced by Mindy Kaling, Joy voiced by Amy Poehler, Fear voiced by Bill Hader, Anger voiced by Lewis Black and Phyllis Smith as Sadness. The storyline surrounds Joy trying to control Riley's emotions and to keep her happy but Sadness keeps changing the core memories, but sadness also means to cherish and to love. Kyle MacLachlan plays the dad, Diane Lane as the mom, and Richard Kind as the imaginary character Bing Bong. Frank Oz, Rashida Jones, Paula Poundstone, Paula Pell, Bobby Moynihan, and John Ratzenberger voiced various other characters in the movie. I highly recommend this family oriented film.

Dumb and Dumber To is the sequel 20 years in the making with the direction of the Farrelly Brothers. Lloyd and Harry reunite to which they believe Harry has a biological daughter. Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels reprise their roles to bring an unfunny sequel, something that should not have been made in the first place. Rob Riggle and Laurie Holden play the antagonist to try to scheme the latest invention of a famous scientist who adopted the girl who is believe to be Harry's kid. Kathleen Turner acts as the birth mother and let's the boys know that she is not either of their love child. Overall the movie was just terrible, did not need a sequel, there were no laugh out loud moments like the original. Skip this one.

Ripley is a Netflix miniseries screenplay written and directed by Steven Zaillian who brought Moneyball and Irishman to the big screen amongst others. Steven set the series in Italy during the 1960s and the cinematography was done in black and white. Andrew Scott plays Tom Ripley who is trusted to travel to Italy to get vagabond Richard Greenleaf who is played by Johnny Flynn to return home to his parents. Ripley gets to be close friends with Dickey but he has different intentions. Tom explores the countryside with Dickey's identity as he eludes from Dickey's girlfriend Marge who is played by Dakota Fanning and Chief Inspector Ravini played by Mauricio Lombardi. The storyline is captivating and when you think Ripley would get caught he somehow gets away. The original novel by Patricia Highsmith has been remade and retold several times but this one is my favorite. I would highly recommend it and I can predict it will win various awards.

The Consultant is an Amazon Prime series about a gaming company that's on the verge of collapse when a young boy shoots and kills the owner. In comes the consultant named Regus Patoff who is played brilliantly by Christopher Waltz. Patoff shows up to right the ship, his unorthodox management style brings out the competitiveness of the employees that shows how far they would go to get ahead especially with two characters Craig who is played by Nat Wolff and Elaine who is played by Brittany O'Grady. Craig is the best coder who develops a game that will eventually save the company. Elaine was Mr. Slang's assistant and after his death she promotes herself to be the marketing liaison. Together they uncover the true nature of Patoff but we never learn his backstory but we know his name converts to Regional United States Office of Patents. The series is based on the novel written by Bentley Little, produced and directed by Kai Dolbashian. Overall the show was captivating at first but dulled off by the end, I would recommend watching this dark storyline but it isn't a comedy or humorously scripted categorized series.

Goliath is an Amazon Prime series produced and written by David E. Kelley and Jonathan Shapiro. Both created Boston Legal and The Practice. Billy Bob Thornton acts as Billy McBride a disgraced lawyer who reluctantly takes on a murder case. Nina Arianda plays Patty Solis-Papagian who brings a high profile case that involves his former firm that he helped form. His firm is now headed by ex-wife Maria Bello and Willian Hurt. Molly Parker represents Borns Technology who develops a device that would be harmful to mankind during the time of war. Dwight Yoakum plays the head of the defense firm that threw Hurt under the bus and they ended up losing the case. McBride asks the assistance of Brittany Gold an escort who is played by Tania Reynolds to help with the case but she ended up backstabbing McBride but it did not hurt the case. Damon Gupton acts as Dwight's personal legal consultant on the case. Harold Perrineau plays Judge Keller, Diana Hopper as McBride's daughter, and Jason Ritter as an FBI agent. Thornton wins a Golden Globe for his performance with three additional seasons of legal drama along with his personal demons haunting him. I would definitely recommend this series.

On the Basis of Sex is the true story of young Ruth Bader Ginsberg and the fight for gender equality. Director Mimi Leder and writer Daniel Stiepleman who is Ruth's nephew delivered the early struggles of RBG during her college days at Harvard. She was an exceptional woman, she graduated from Colombia at the top of her class and she helped her husband while he was ailing from cancer. Her role is played by Felicity Jones and Armie Hammer plays RBG's husband. Although she held a degree in law she never worked for any law firm, Ruth became a professor and lead the case to change a tax code that garnered only woman as caregiver to their elderly parents. In the court case she fought for an unmarried man who is played by Chris Mulkey and won in an unanimous vote from three district judges. Sam Waterston plays the dean and Stephen Root as the Professor of Harvard Law School. Justin Theroux plays El Wuif the head of ACLU that helps prepare Ruth for her case. Kathy Bates also has a role as Dorothy Kenyon who was a judge, Feminist and political activist that supported cilvil liberties. RBG herself came on scene at the tale end of the film. The storyline was compelling and inspiring, I liked it. I would definitely recommend this movie.

Baby Reindeer is a Netflix mini series based on the true events of one Donny Dunn (Richard Gadd). Donny is a struggling comedian and working as a bartender. One day he made a mistake to be nice to a female customer who had no money. Jessica Gunning played Martha who was the stalker and created dark buried trauma upon Dunn. He goes through so much, you feel for him. Upon watching the fifth episode, we learn more about Dunn and the time he was raped by a man. Donny ends up looking for love in all the wrong places and ends up dating a transsexual person because he cannot figure out which gender he might be inclined to be with. Overall this was a dark, sad, depressing story that I thought was very good. I could definitely see Gunning and Dunn being nominated for an award.

Apples Never Fall is a Peacock series about a popular dysfunctional family from South Florida. The story is adopted by the novel written by Liane Moriarty who also wrote, produced Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers. The Delaney is a tennis family headed by Stan (Sam Neill) and his wife Joy (Annette Bening) along with their four children Troy (Jake Lacy), Logan (Conor Merrigan Turner), Brooke (Essie Randles), and Amy (Alison Brie). The story takes a turn when a girl named Savannah (Georgia Flood) shows up at their doorstep and their lives turn up side down when Joy goes missing and presumed dead. The children each have their presumed assumptions of what might have happened to their mother. By the end we learn what truly transpired. Overall I liked the actors, good storyline although the book is based in Australia but the series takes place in Florida and filmed in Australia. This was a good series but I don't of any dysfunctional family that hangs out with each other so much. I would recommend watch it once.

Mother of the Bride is a Netflix film with Brooke Shields as the mother who learns her daughter Emma who is played by Miranda Cosgrove is engaged to get married. Emma and RJ (Sean Teale) are set to tie the knot in Thailand within a month and as the parents meet for the first time. Upon their get together Brooke realizes RJ's father Will (Benjamin Bratt) were ex lovers in high school. First off, no the kids have different parents, not related to each other. The supporting cast includes Rachael Harris, Wilson Cruz and his lover Michael McDonald. Chad Michael Murray plays a scientist who falls for Brooke but by the end this supposedly RomCom was not fun to watch. I just wanted to turn it off, don't waste your time. The bad acting and awful script could have been different if it had a better director.

Outer Range: Season One on Amazon Prime stars Josh Brolin in a Yellowstone type series with a Syfy twist. Set in the outskirts of Wyoming the Abbott family discovers a giant hole on their property. We learn that Royal Abbott (Brolin) had jumped out of the hole at some point in time. The one thing I didn't understand is why he had not known about the.hole when he discovered it and why was he the only one that jumped through time. There was no reasoning why the hole existed. The only comparison to Yellowstone is the Abbott family protecting their land from the neighboring farm the Tillersons. They are headed by Will Patton who was also the antagonist in Yellowstone along with sons who are played by Shaun Sipos and Noah Reid. The Abbott boys were played by Tom Pelphrey and Lewis Pullman who is Bill Pullman's son. The mystery character Autumn Rivers (Imogen Poots) shows up on the ranch and plans to destroy the Abbott family. I sure hope season two explains some of the plots and why the hole exists.

City on a Hill: Season three on Showtime follows Kevin Bacon as he has quit his position with the FBI and provides private security to a wealthy family. Jackie Rohr (Kevin Bacon) and Jenny Rohr (Jill Hennessy) work on failed marriage but yet each cheat on one another. Jenny engages with former Father Doyle (Mark Ryder) who has been using donations from the church to fund the NRA in Ireland. Corbin Bernstein and Joanne Kelly join the cast this season as the rich family who hires Bacon to keep their secrets safe. Rohr learns Corbin has been raping young college students and he gets seduced by Kelly. In the meantime Lauren Banks who plays Siobhan has left her law firm to help fight corrupt businesses to help those in need. Aldis Hodge is in the running to become the next sitting District Attorney when his boss who is played by John Doman. Hodge learns that his father (Ernie Hudson) is dying from cancer. Matthew Del Negro snitches on his fellow colleagues and ends up becoming an investigator for the DA office. Overall all the interpersonal relationships and issues come together by the end of the series. Unfortunately this was the end of this show, it did not get renewed for another season. This season was much less darker but enjoyable with better storytelling and actor performances.

The Lost Symbol is a Peacock series based on the Dan Brown's book adaptation. The book was written as a sequel but this series was created as a prequel. Ashley Zukerman plays the young Robert Langdon who is tasked to solve riddles pointing to the lost symbol. Brown wrote the book about a symbol but it wasn't a symbol but rather a word. The story evolves around the Solomon Family headed by Eddie Lzzard. Eddie gets kidnapped by his own son who is played by Beau Knapp has gone mental trying to get to the lost symbol while using Langdon to solve the problems. Valerie Curry plays Lzzard's daughter and Langdon's love interest. I felt the whole story was centered around one family that is well off and part of the secret Mormon society. Overall the series was not as compelling or fun, it started out good with enough symbolism but ended very poorly and unconvincing. Even with Grazer and Howard backing it was not enough to continue Langdon's legacy.

Atlas is a Netflix film that stars Jennifer Lopez as Atlas Shepard a brilliant data analyst and the daughter of the first android human connection. Lana Parrilla played Atlas's mother and the creator of Harlan (Simu Lu) who becomes the first AI terrorist that wants to destroy mankind and restart history on Earth. Lopez along with Sterling K. Brown head to the Andromeda Galaxy to stop Harlan. Atlas relies on another CGI based robot to stay alive and defeated the AI army all by herself. Smith was voiced by Gregory James Cohen, Abraham Popoola as Casca a ruthless AI created by Harlan and Mark String as General Jake Booth assigned to protect from an invasion. The storyline was predictable but the most annoying part of the movie was JLo's constant cries and weeping. It was very unappealing to the point of being unwatchable. Leo Sardarian co-wrote the script and Brad Peyton directed another terrible SyFy flick. Stay away from this one don't waste your time.

Palm Royale is an AppleTV+ series that stars Kristen Wiig as an up and coming socialite in Palm Beach, Florida where rich ladies gather to gossip and complain about each other. The storyline is set in 1969 that follows a group of shallow ladies led by Carol Burnett as the head of the Dellacorte family and his nephew who is played by Josh Lucas. Josh marries Wiig and they move to Florida where Maxine (Kristen's character) does everything she can to fit in. The ladies are played by Allison Janney, Leslie Bibb, Julia Duffy, and Claudia Ferri. Each of these ladies have their secrets which are kept by Burnett in her Rolodex. Laura and Bruce Dern play father and daughter where she tries to not emulate her persona as a former socialite. Ricky Martin plays Carol's caretaker as well as the resort's bartender. Wiig and Martin end up being great friends and rely on each other. Kaia Gerber who is Cindy Crawford's daughter plays Mitzi the town manicurist who befriends Maxine but by the end deceives her. The series ended on a cliffhanger much like a soap opera and hopefully we will see a second season. Each episode of the show tells us what Maxine is up to and where the story will take her next. I would love to see Wiig win an Emmy for her role, you could feel her struggles and achievements, and along with Burnett the whole storyline is long but gets better as it goes.

Elsbeth is a CBS/Paramount TV series about an unconventional quirky lawyer who moves to New York to help detectives capture criminals. Carrie Preston who plays Elsbeth Tascioni teams up with Officer Blanke (Carra Patterson) to solve weekly murder mysteries. Wendell Pierce plays the chief of police who is also under investigation and Elsbeth set to report back to her boss in Chicago about her findings.. Each week a celebrity guest like joins the cast and ends up being the killer. These guests include Julia McDermott, Tim Gunn, Blair Underwood, Andre De Shields, Stephen Moyer, Linda Lavin, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Gina Gershon, Kate Mulligan, Jane Krakowski, and Keegan-Michael Key. Overall I like this show, reminded me of Monk but created by Michelle and Robert King. The show is returning for a second season and let's see which celebrities join the cast.

The Tick is an Amazon Prime original series about a group of quirky superheroes that live alongside normal people. This version is a parody, a silly, simi-dark comedy story about an accountant named Arthur Everest who is played by Griffin Newman who befriends and maybe imagines creating The Tick played by Peter Serafinowicz. In the first season Arthur is convinced The Terror (Jackie Earle Haley) is back and trying to take over the city. Terror was the one who killed the Fab 5 along with Arthur's father. I compare this show to be much like Greatest American Hero and Hero's. Yara Martinez played The Lint where she plays the bad guy and in the follow up season she pretends to be good in order to take over the city for herself. Scott Speiser plays Overkill with his sidekick ship is voiced by Alan Tudyk. Valorie Curry plays Arthur's sister Doty, Devin Ratray as a homeless person with powers, and Francois Chau plays Arthur's step father who was a former agent of AEGIS. The second season Tick and Arthur end up joining AEGIS which is a justice league type group filled with weird superhero's only to learn John Hodgman is trying to take over control of AEGIS. The show was simi funny but watchable, too bad there isn't going to be a third season because there many unanswered questions by the end of the series. Patrick Warburton who played the original Tick series and voiced the animated version produced this show. I would suggest to watch it if you like superhero stories.

Hunters is an Amazon Prime series about a group of Jewish holocaust survivors that know former Nazi officers had been extracted right after the Second World War. During the first season we learn about Operation Paperclip where the US government brought over 1,600 German scientists, engineers and high ranking officials to the states rather than being captured by the Russians. Set during the 70's New York City, a team led by Al Pacino, Logan Lerman, Josh Radnor, Carol Kane, Tiffany Boone, Louis Ozawa, and Saul Rubinek search and hunt down Nazis to make them pay for what they did to their own people. Wish sometimes the same would have been done to the Turks who killed 1.5 million Armenians. Dylan Baker acted as Secretary of the State but we learn he was a former Nazi officer. The group learned the Fourth Reich led by Hitler's wife, Eva who was played by Lena Olin, had planned to poison the American people with a non sugar substitute in our food chain. Greg Austin acted as a one man army to help white supremacy to create a new empire. By the end of the first season we learn Hitler is alive and living in Argentina. The first season was quite good but the second seemed corny and filled with bad acting. They put Hitler on trial for his crimes against humanity. The second and final season felt like a time dilation on a different dimension. This is something producer Jordan Peele would have come up besides the creator, screenwriter and director David Weil. Jennifer Jason Leigh acted as Lerman's aunt although her age does not seem correctly assessed during this timeline. This was Pacino's first TV series of his career and he was the biggest surprise of the storyline. Overall it started out well but it ended unwatchable.

Dead Boy Detectives is a Netflix series based on DC universe characters Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine. George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri are the actors representing these lovable characters. The story follows these two boys who were killed and their murders went unsolved. The boys instead of moving on to afterlife, they decide to stay on Earth and solve cases that involve the supernatural. The series felt like a CW show filled with characters that pertain towards the Gen Z kids. The initial episode takes place in London and thinking it was a good start but then it moves to a small town in America. Charles and Edwin help Crystal (Kassius Nelson) and winds up using her psychic powers to help the boys with their cases. Yusu Kitamura played Niko who also adds another dimension to the group. Jenn Lyon played the antagonist witch where she kidnaps kids to use their blood to be able to stay young much like the witch from Disney's Sleeping Beauty. Michael Beach is the only known veteran actor on the show who played a walrus that choose to be a human instead of being with his own kind. Andi Armagarian and Amanda Tapping were the directors of a few episodes. Overall the series felt like I was watching Supernatural, I was hoping for something better but felt this series was just checking off boxes as the series was developing. It had a good start and it was fun, but it could have been better if they had just stuck with the boys instead of adding weirdly odd gay characters.

Jean-Claude Van Johnson is an Amazon Prime mini-series about Jean-Claude Van Damme's career as a global martial-arts actor and as a secret agent with a surname "Johnson." After years of retirement Johnson is pulled back into action to have a chance encounter with his ex girlfriend Vanessa who is played by Kat Foster. His acting agent is played by Phylicia Rashad and her boss is played by Richard Schiff. JC finds out the truth about his acting agency once he got rid of the competition who is headed by Carlo Rota. The series has numerous references to JC's previous movies and characters from Timecop to Sudden Death to Double Impact and Kickboxer. Alex Carter, Moises Arias, and Bar Paly costarred in this series. Dave Callahan created and wrote this storyline and it was produced by Ridley Scott. The story was a bit over the top, silly and quite funny. Callahan has had quite a list of good list of hit movies like Shang-Chi, Spider-Man and Expendables. I thought this was a miss for him but it was funny.

Wonka is a prequel musical storyline based on Roald Dahl's characters he had created. Timothee Chalamet plays young broke Willy Wonka who is set out to embark on his mom's dream (Sally Hawkins) to open a chocolate factory. Willy discovers the greedy chocolatiers cartel gentlemen Stugworth, Prodnose, and Fickelgruber are keeping all the town's chocolate for themselves under the bowls of the church. The cartel were named by Dahl's characters from his other books and these men were played by Joseph Peterson, Matt Lucas and Matthew Baytown. They pay off the town sheriff who is played Keegan Michael-Key to arrest Willy and put him in manual labor at Mrs Scrubitt's (Olivia Colman) laundromat. He finds out Scrubitt has contracts to hold individuals in her custody for as long as she can but Willy helps them and along the way help him to open his shop. We learn that Willy stole the cocoa beans from the Oompa-Loompa (Hugh Grant) who is set out to take back what was stolen. Rowan Atkinson played the head of the church and this is the second time Rowan and Hugh have been in a movie together but don't share a scene. Calah Lane, Jim Church, Rakhee Thahrar, and Natasha Rothwell were held captive by Colman. Overall this was a pleasant fun colorful adventure that the whole family can enjoy. Paul King did a great job utilizing a few of the original movie's musical numbers and adding a few new ones to this film. Great cast, story was a little all over the place but definitely a good movie to add to your list.

All the Light We Cannot See is a Netflix four part mini series based on Pulitzer Prize winning novel written by Anthony Doerr. The storyline follows a blind French teenager Marie-Laure who is played by a real life blind actress Aria Mia Loberti as her first role ever in any production. The story is set during WWII when France was occupied by the Nazi regime under Hitler. Marie and her father Daniel who is played by Mark Raffalo escape Paris and take refuge with other family members in a seaside town of Saint-Malo, France. The Germans are lead to believe the Leblancs have a diamond that cures diseases, Lars Eldinger torments Marie to give up the diamond that she doesn't know much about. Louis Hofmann's character listens to Marie's voice that is aired throughout the countryside to send messages to the Allies and the secrets are provided by Hugh Laurie. Shawn Levy directed the series and Steven Knight helped develop the show for television. Although the show had great smart actors, their accents were the low point of the show. I did like the cinematography and the love story between the teenagers. Hopefully there will be a follow up to see if they ever meet again.

Luther: The Fallen Sun continues the story of DCI Luther as a movie on Netflix. Idris Elba returns as Luther as a disgraced detective who escapes prison to try to stop a deranged serial killer who is played by the brilliant Andy Serkis. The storyline seems to be rehashed from the original series but it was just as good. Cynthia Erivo takes over the role of head of police from Dermot Crowley. Vincent Regan played a cameo role to help Luther escape prison. I don't know if it's true or not but it seems this character will lead Idris Elba to be the next Bond. You will see what I mean if you watch this movie. This film was not as equivalent to the series created by Neil Cross but Jamie Payne did a good job putting this together, just not something I would watch again.

Luther is a BBC London based series about a badass unconventional detective that does not like to use guns to bring criminals to justice. Luther is played by the ever clever Idris Elba who has a knack for getting inside the mind of murderers. From the very beginning, Ruth Wilson who played Alice Morgan acted as the antagonist much like Hannibal. She did everything in her power to not only help Luther but together they played a cat and mouse game. Throughout the series Luther had numerous mates but in the first three seasons Warren Brown who was a former two time World Thai Champion Boxer helped solve his cases. Indira Varma acted as Luther's wife who ended up being with Paul McGann, while Dermot Crowley was the head of crime unit, and Michael Smiley acted as the tech wizard. Mary Day (Sienna Guillory) acted as Luther's love interest during season four and former DCI Mark North (Paul McGann) wanted to put an end to Luther's antics. The series had such a fantastic cast of characters played by great actors that also included Wunmi Mosaku and Aimee-Fiona Edwards. Neil Cross wrote and created the series with Sam Miller was one of the directors. The storyline was dark, in depth gore killing and very interpersonal. Although the murders are over ten years old, it felt very real and up to date, loved every minute of it.