AmbroseHoneysuckle Reviews

Ted Lasso: Mom City (2023) Season 3, Episode 11

There was a good episode in this episode ...

[3/10 · 29 May 2023]

... but it wasn't this episode.

Season 3 has been a mess. The first few episodes were decent, "Sunflowers" was good, but most of the season since "Signs" has been bloated, tedious and, worst of all, inconsistent with what we know of the characters from seasons 1 and 2. I have to think that a lot of the show's problems this season come from the departure of showrunner Bill Lawrence and the lack of an executive story editor, because the season shows exactly the symptoms you'd expect from a show that's lost its guiding hand, especially with respect to the unearned redemption of Nate's storyline and the messy soap opera that was Keeley's.

This episode gets off to a stunningly bad start. The first 10 minutes were so painful to watch, I almost shut the TV off, but ultimately I wasn't ready to give up on a show I've invested so much time into. Fortunately, the episode makes a comeback of sorts: The drama around the Manchester City game and Jamie Tartt's return to his hometown, along with the game itself, were some great TV that reminded me of what Ted Lasso used to be. Unfortunately, that glimpse was followed by a couple of unnecessary false endings that did nothing but stretch out the runtime, followed by a solid real ending to set up the finale.

I think the thing that makes me angriest about this episode, though, is that it did Beard dirty. There is nothing, NOTHING, that occurred in this show before that's consistent with this newly concocted past involving car theft and meth addiction. Beard is a quirky, intellectual guy who also loves sports and has a deep emotional side that he only lets people see once in a while. That's all he needs to be. He doesn't need a heart-tugging backstory. Honestly, his appearance in Nate's doorway was one of the funniest moments of the season. All he really needed to do was tell Nate he was rehired, give him a dirty look and leave. That also would have been funny.

Less is more!

Season 1 of Ted Lasso knew that and proved it. Season 3 has too little to say and too little of that worth saying, but can't shut up about it. Sigh.

Also, we don't need 17 music cues per episode.

I'm flabbergasted by all the 10/10 ratings on this episode. Go back and watch season 1 in its entirety, then watch this episode again. It just isn't in the same league. Parts of it are, but the whole thing? Nah.

Ted Lasso: International Break (2023) Season 3, Episode 10

Fell apart in the second half

[4/10 · 19 May 2023]

The first half of the episode was pretty tight. If they'd ended it there, it would have been a solid if unexceptional episode. The second half, though, embodied all the worst traits of the worst episodes of the season. I like Keeley as a character, but her subplot this season, with a workplace romance that's both wholly inappropriate and wholly lacking in chemistry, could not interest me less. Nate's subplot remains tainted by unearned grace. Rebecca whipsawing between insecure little girl and preachy speechmaker is two different deviations from her established character in one. And the name of the show is Ted Lasso. Why do we see so little of him doing anything at all?

One thing I've noticed about season 3 that differs from seasons 1 and 2 is the lack of an executive story editor. I think the show needs one, and I think the absence goes a long way to explaining this season's overall incoherence and runtime bloat. It might also have something to do with the newly credited staff writers, two of whom were leads on the indisputably worst episode of the season, but I don't want to lay too much at the feet of the soldiers when the captain is nowhere to be found.

Only Murders in the Building: Here's Looking at You (2022) Season 2, Episode 4

Tedious, and not improving

[6/10 · 16 July 2022]

The first two-fifths of this episode leaned much too heavily on the "humor" of Charles and Oliver being sad, attention-starved and insensitive, without providing enough new mystery to break up the tedium, to the point that I nearly quit watching the season. After I came back to it, though, it picked up almost immediately, with a couple of excellent new twists. This season took longer than season 1 to find its legs, but I think it's finally headed in the right direction.

Ted Lasso: Goodbye Earl (2021) Season 2, Episode 1

Rough start to season 2

[3/10 · 31 July 2021]

After a smart, engaging and original first season, the first episode of the second season was predictable, conventional, clumsily paced and more than a bit off-putting. It leaned much too hard on Ted's folksy-isms -- three in a row at one point, which was two too many -- and seemed to have completely forgotten that what made the first season so appealing was its sincerity. It felt like any other just-OK sitcom on TV. Fortunately, the show bounced back in season 2, episode 2 -- not all the way, but around 80 percent. Maybe this episode was just an outlier. I hope so, because for a moment there, it was looking like the show's writing had gotten relegated to a lower league along with the team.

Mad TV (1995–2016)

First it dusted SNL . . . then it became SNL

[14 January 2006]

For the first couple of seasons, MadTV was the best sketch comedy to be seen on television since the original Saturday Night Live. It was anarchic, unpredictable, off-the-wall and, most of all, fresh. The ensemble cast was great, the claymation segments were gut-bustingly funny, and even the recurring shticks, such as the "Lowered Expectations" dating service videos and "Cabana Chat," were loose enough to allow a lot of variation.

Then something bad happened.

The cast changed -- not a problem in and of itself, except that several very versatile performers were replaced by performers who were not as versatile. (The crucial element in ensemble sketch comedy is every actor's being able to play a straight role.) Much worse, the writing changed. Suddenly MadTV was succumbing to the same phenomenon that had plunged recent seasons of SNL into cringeworthy humorlessness: the Recurring Character.

You knew exactly what you were going to see every week on SNL: A Mary Katherine Gallagher sketch. A sketch with those two loser club guys. A cheerleader sketch. The same actors came back week after week and did the same characters over and over, long past their expiration dates.

MadTV was doomed when it became apparent that every one of its episodes was also going to be the same: A Vancome Lady sketch. A UBS Guy sketch. A Stuart sketch. A Swan sketch (what an offensive character, not to mention singularly unfunny). A James Brown sketch (Aries Spears doesn't even do James Brown well). A sketch featuring whoever that lady who can't sit still or pay attention to anything is supposed to be. Enough, already! The only advantage MadTV had left over SNL was that it showed two sketches in between each commercial break instead of only one.

Oh, how I long for the days when a simple dressing-down of an executive assistant by his boss could blow up into a manic exchange featuring such over-the-top lines as: "God? God is not here! Your report was so insanely disappointing, it drove God away!" Alas, it is not to be.

Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

Blahhhhhhhd

[6/10 · 19 November 2005]

The life of a vampire is entered into unwittingly, lasts forever and engenders an infinite yearning for release. After sitting through this movie, I think I know exactly how they feel. Eternal torment was never so glamorous: These supposedly loathsome demons get to live in opulent mansions, master classical piano and put on plays for jaded urbanites; no one ever calls the police, and someone else always cleans up the blood. As an wish fulfillment fantasy for folks who already believe their own lives are nothing but suffering, "Interview" serves; as entertainment for the non-self-loathing, it falls flat. And by "flat," I mean flat -- as in, some of the flattest performances you'll ever encounter in a movie of this scale. Who wants to sit for more than two hours just to admire some good nighttime cinematography?

The Apartment (1960)

Charm overshadowed by meanness

[5/10 · 12 February 2005]

There is some charm to be found in this movie, but it's overshadowed by the unctuous meanness of the philandering executives, the spazziness of Lemmon's C.C. Baxter, and the frustration of watching the latter be walked all over by the former. I've never been a fan of the humor of avoidable embarrassment, and this movie is full of it. Many of the scenes of Baxter's interactions with other characters are unwatchably painful. Or painfully unwatchable. Maybe both. And many of the jokes just haven't aged well -- maybe at one time the appending of "-wise" to all sorts of words was a funny comment on how businessmen butchered the language, but today it's stale and repetitive.

Shirley MacLaine is great. Her presence, combined with Lemmon's performance in the few scenes where he's allowed to stop spazzing, is the only thing that makes this movie minimally worthwhile. Overall, balancing the bad against the good, this is movie is just plain unpleasant.

The Italian Job (1969)

This is what all the fuss was about?

[5/10 · 1 November 2003]

After seeing -- and loving -- the remake of this movie, and reading all the reviews that said it didn't quite live up to the original, I thought that the original would have to be something pretty special. I was quite surprised, and a little disappointed, by this strangely muddled piece of work. I was halfway through the movie before I realized that it was supposed to be a comedy, not a genuine caper flick. I'm still not sure exactly what kind of person Mr. Bridger is supposed to be -- a prisoner who has free run of the prison and is treated like royalty by everyone, including the guards? And the notion that this supposedly elegant job can only be pulled off by a crew of 14 (mostly indistinguishable) people is frankly flabbergasting. It makes me long for the clarity and simplicity of "Ocean's 11." All that plus the lack of a satisfactory resolution at the end makes for too much silliness and not nearly enough payoff. Give me the remake -- which was tight, well-placed and barely plausible -- over the preposterous original any day.

Bend It Like Beckham (2002)

Formulaic but enjoyable

[6/10 · 8 March 2003]

Hey, check it out -- other countries can make predictable formula movies too! But seriously, even though no plot "twist" in this movie comes as a surprise, it's smartly written, full of entertaining little touches (especially concerning the main character's Panjabi family and their social circle) and thoroughly enjoyable. I came out grinning. Performances were good all around, too.

The Man with One Red Shoe (1985)

Great Sunday-afternoon viewing

[6/10 · 28 March 2002]

OK, it's not the most brilliant piece of art in the world, but neither is it the turkey that the video guides make it out to be. It's a cute spy-cliché spoof with good performances from Hanks, Durning, Coleman, Belushi, Herrman and particularly Tom Noonan as the deadpan Agent Reese. Super music by Thomas Newman (one of his first scores), an elegant string of sight gags featuring Belushi and a couple of corpses, and a sweet ending scene more than make up for the underlying silliness of the plot and a handful of flatly delivered lines. Good to watch on a Sunday afternoon when you need to occupy your mind, but not TOO much.

Star Trek: Enterprise: Broken Bow, Part 1 (2001) Season 1, Episode 1

Strong start overall

[7/10 · 27 September 2001]

A strong pilot, this two-hour episode does an excellent job of setting up the characters and background for "Enterprise," the "prequel" to the original "Star Trek" series. It stumbles a few times into "Trek" convention and cliché--candy-colored space strippers never seem to go out of style, and I can already foresee snickering references to T'pol as "Seven of Vulcan"--but the ensemble looks strong, the characters are well-drawn, and one can already see hints that this particular crew will have to be more resourceful, in different ways, than those of earlier (later?) series. Scott Bakula hits the right note as a captain with Kirk's brashness and daring but without his smugness and swagger, and I look forward to the ways in which the series will feature the engineer, weapons master and communications officer (not just a glorified phone operator anymore!) as supporting players. The writers seem to have picked up on the one big mistake made in "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Deep Space 9" and "Voyager": Instead of starting with a big ensemble cast and giving characters short shrift, it's starting with a smaller core of characters to which a little more variety can be added later--which I hope happens, because after about a half-dozen episodes, more variety will be needed.

Mixed Nuts (1994)

Worst. Movie. Ever.

[1/10 · 17 September 2001]

Steve Martin works for a suicide hot line, and he's sorta self-involved, and he gets a caller on the line, and he's too distracted to handle it properly, and the caller kills himself! Ha ha! How hilarious! Seriously, if you think this sort of humor is as appalling as I do, stay far, far away from this movie. Martin, as the protagonist, is not funny. Rita Wilson, as his mousy love interest, is not funny. Madeline Kahn, as his ditzy boss, is not funny. Liev Schreiber, as a local drag queen, is not funny. Adam Sandler, as a falsetto-singing ukulele player (now there's a dramatic reach), is so not funny that, if there had been anything else funny in the movie, he would have sucked all the funniness out of it. This film is an hour and a half of pain. Spare yourself.

Highlander: The Final Dimension (1994)

Barely surpasses "Highlander II"

[2/10 · 17 September 2001]

At the end of "Highlander," Conor MacLeod is rewarded with "the Quickening" for slaying all the other immortals. At the beginning of "Highlander III," it's revealed that -- oops -- HE MISSED ONE! Even more absurd than this major plot discrepancy is the casting of Mario Van Peebles as the Mongol immortal, Kane. In the original "Highlander," having the Kurgan take on a punk style made sense, because punk was in full swing. In contrast, Van Peebles' Kane is duded up in some kind of Afro-cyber-thrash fashion, which doesn't exist and probably never will and so is just plain stupid. He goes on to replicate all of Kane's stunts from "Highlander," practically scene for scene -- kidnapping the girl, driving against traffic on the expressway, doing the Michael Jordan thing with his tongue, etc. The only thing that makes this movie not a total waste of time is an unintentionally funny swordfight in which the combatants are swinging from trapezes in a Japanese cultural center. (If you have to ask . . . )

Happy Accidents (2000)

Inspired indie offering

[8/10 · 8 August 2001]

Marisa Tomei is this, shall we say, therapeutic woman with a history of loser boyfriends as long as your arm -- assuming that your hand is at the end of your arm and is holding a yardstick. Vincent D'Onofrio is this guy she meets on a park bench. He's sweet, funny, romantic, kind, prone to spacing out from time to time, apparently unfamiliar with certain common everyday objects, inexplicably terrified of small dogs ... by her standards, he's Prince Albert of Monaco. It's only once they get to the whole part where they have to declare the importance of honesty and trust that he has the guts to tell her that he's a time traveler from the year 2470.

Depending on your reaction to the above plot summary, this movie either is a lot better than it sounds or totally lives up to its promise. :-)

A lot of the dialogue is hysterically funny in a sort of throwaway way. The performances are good. Tomei's makeup is a little puzzling sometimes, but maybe it's just part of her character to use too much rouge, badly blended. My one criticism, and I don't think it's a small one, is that the camera work is occasionally awful. Like, public access television awful. It's pretty clear that the filmmakers couldn't afford to reshoot the scenes that the cameraman screwed up, so they just went with them. On the flip side, the director does some really creative things with montage during a few explanatory sequences.

The Apprentice (1991)

Gut-busting

[10/10 · 23 June 2001]

Really, this animated short is pretty dumb and random -- the hapless jester; the cackling, mocking flowers; the lurching sun with the Frankenstein voice. Nevertheless, I have never laughed so hard in my life at anything I've seen on a movie screen. "The Apprentice" was part of the Canadian Festival of Animation, back when animation festivals were huge and there were, like, four a year. How come none of them are available on video? Man, I miss those.

Sanjuro (1962)

A riot!

[9/10 · 10 March 2000]

For some reason, this flick, the sequel to "Yojimbo," isn't often listed among the Great Works of Kurosawa, but it definitely deserves to be. It's got everything "Yojimbo" has (action, cunning plans, etc.) plus one thing "Yojimbo" doesn't have: comedy! A rare case of the sequel surpassing the original.

Brutally Normal (2000)

Didn't deserve such swift, brutal cancellation

[28 February 2000]

It was smart, it was quirky, and it was unceremoniously circular-filed after, what, three weeks on the air? Maybe WB, having promoted it as heavily as "The Phantom Menace," was peeved that it failed to grab monster boffo ratings right out of the gate, but that was no reason to kill it smack in the middle of sweeps month, especially when so many great shows lag for a season or two before they take off. A simple rescheduling probably would have done the trick.

The Fifth Element (1997)

Big dumb movie -- so what?

[7/10 · 18 February 2000]

Yes, I recognize that this is a big, dumb movie, but I love it for what it is. Some of the things I love about it:

1. The fact that Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker) is so obviously intended to be a spoof on Prince, who so badly needed to be spoofed.

2. The fact that the 3-D car chase scene is accompanied by "Alech Taadi" by rai star Khaled -- I tripped out when I recognized the song! I just can't imagine that scene succeeding with any other music now.

3. The huge, unexplained pile of garbage in the spaceport. This IS what the future will be like if we're not careful.

4. That bizarre, buggy dance that the hopped-up mugger kid does after Korben Dallas takes his gun away for him for the umpteenth time. It's about five seconds of the movie that could have been cut perfectly easily, and other people probably think it would have been an improvement to do so, but for me it just adds to the glorious lunacy.

5. The flying sampan-shaped noodle stand.

6. The second alphabet in which everything is labeled. (You've just gotta be impressed with the detail of the art direction.)

7. Milla Jovovich's glossolalia (which is much more impressive, if you ask me, than the skin she shows, since that skin is matched by equal parts bone).

8. The shapeshifting alien who can't hold his face in place any longer.