nansjune Reviews

Sprung (2022– )

Solid feel good TV

[8/10 · 21 May 2024]

Sharply written, excellent characters, well acted, excellent theme tune. This is light entertainment done very well indeed.

The acting talent on show here is formidable, cast members from the wire, deadwood and the greatest live action children's film ever made as well as outstanding performances from newer actors.

This is feel good "comedy" rather than belly laugh comedy but it works exceptionally well. It's not the most original of shows and at times you'll be reminded of various other films and TV shows but it still feels fresh and leaves you smiling.

It manages all this while avoiding gross-out stuff and excessive bad language but doesn't water things down to network level blandness. Honestly a breath of fresh air in a TV landscape that is more concerned with box ticking than providing entertainment. Superb.

Weeds (2005–2012)

Love it but goes down hill and disappointing ending.

[8/10 · 25 April 2024]

A risque adult outsider comedy with cool likeable endearing characters that when you stream it today you can watch the growing puritanical influence of the American mainstream slowly water down each passing season.

I like Nancy. I like Andy. I like Doug. I like Esteban. I like Silas. I even like the unlikable character played by the women that was in Big. Shane unfortunately, I didn't like. Sometimes child actors grow out of acting and this happens here so very very badly. It was a mistake to not write him out.

Weeds is one of those peculiar American comedies that don't make you laugh, it's escapism, dramedy. It does it, mostly, very well indeed.

But as I've mentioned you watch the show slowly deflate, the writing got tired, the actors got tired, it drifts from Showtime for adults to ABC for families with mid-teenagers. Unfortunately every TV show is now ABC for families with mid -teenagers unless it's violence or LGBTQ.

Road House (2024)

This needed 3 writers? It's terrible, avoid.

[3/10 · 23 March 2024]

Against my better judgement I watched this and 5 minutes in I thought, you know what, this may be different enough to be half decent. After about 30 minutes I realised how wrong I was. The film doesn't just stop there it keeps getting worse and worse and worse until the credits thankfully finally roll.

The original is a classic piece of 80s cheese, it's sexy, it's violent, it's got personality and character. This is a John Wick remake of road house, but not the good first John Wick film, this is a John Wick 4 remake of road house. It's truly terrible, instantly forgettable rubbish.

Arguably it's actually got more plot than the original, a good reason for the baddie acting the baddie for example. But also it makes less sense than the original with Dalton morphing from an MMA fighter to Denzels Equaliser at the flick of a switch.

What else?

The "actors" are simply not up to the job, There's no character development, There's no characters, The script is threadbare, The music is lacklustre, There's no love story element, It's been de-sexed and de-nudified, The fights are rubbish, Magreggor is an annoying clown bringing his own brand of small D energy, There's needless CGI, The cinematography is nauseating, It's far too long.

Really this is a cartoon for 13yo boys. Unsurprising but disappointing nonetheless. Avoid it like the plague.

Californication (2007–2014)

Season 1 - 6 only.

[8/10 · 21 March 2024]

Love this show and I kinda hate this show.

Hank is a loveable rake who gets into all kinds of mischief and finds himself embroiled in outrageous sexual shenanigans accompanied by his agent and best friend Runkle and Runkles potty mouthed wife Marcy.

Along the way the show pokes fun at Hollywood, yes men agents, movie stars, rock stars, society, hypocrisy, the rich, pretention etc etc. It's good dirty fun.

This is somewhat spoiled by the needy doormat "wife" and po faced annoying daughter characters. Come the end of season 2 I was praying for Hank to kick his inexplicable addiction to Karen and to send his annoying spoiled daughter to boarding school in Transylvania.

There just isn't any chemistry between McElhoe and Duchonvy, this undermines the kismet manifest destiny premise for the wife character. Especially noticeable when there is great on-screen chemistry between the other leads. McElhoe also struggles throughout to play the part, the role is simply not in her wheelhouse. The daughter character adds very little to the show and is something of a cliche. It's also very difficult to look at Becka and pretend there's any DNA shared with either parent. In all honesty these two miscast characters, if you let them, could totally ruin the show for you. If they could re-edit the show to remove them it would possibly be 10\10 TV.

The series should have ended with Hank running off into the sunset with the groupie Faith at season 6. Season 7 is a total disaster. Clearly the network cut the budget to nothing and the good writers had already moved on. Resist the urge to watch it, it is atrocious.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020)

Pretty awful. Very disappointing.

[3/10 · 3 March 2024]

What a complete car crash of a film.

Clearly the public are wise to the Borat character which the film acknowledges and tries to get round by having Borat in 'disguise'. Unfortunately these costume changes are so flimsy that the viewer struggles to accept that the supposed "public" appearing in the film are being taken in by them. This leaves pretty much every setup in the film falling flat on its face.

The debutante ball was a failure, the characters went totally over the top and clearly fooled no one.

The women's society skit, again, was a failure, for the same reason.

The guilianni interview could have been great but isn't. The real world press "outrage" over his letcherous behaviour overegged my expectations and again this too fell flat.

The only sketch that almost hits the mark is the anti mask rally where a disguised Borat gets the crowd to show their true colours gleefully saluting and singing along to a q-anon inspired song.

The plastic surgery bit is completely incongruous to the "plot" and should've been left on the cutting room floor but the comedy nuggets from the doctor must've necessitated its retention in a film so devoid of laughs.

Above all a mockumentary has to be clever and it has to be original. This film is neither. Desperately embarrassing for the actors and the audience.

I had low expectations and was disappointed. Truly woeful.

Them (IV) (2021)

Arthouse nonsense or film student degree project?

[1/10 · 26 February 2024]

Biblical allegory? A pisstake of 'they live'? The dullest acid trip in recorded history? I have no idea and neither will you.

Perhaps this was made for CV purposes? Perhaps it was the condition of a will to make a film before someone could inherit $300m ala Brewster's millions? Perhaps somebody's rich daddy insisted that he see something from his kid that he's been funding through film school for a decade? Perhaps the computer broke during editing and all the good bits got deleted and they cobbled the leftovers into this?

I'd review the film but there's nothing to review, it gets one star because we're not allowed to leavea score lower than that.

Still no need to worry about spoilers, it is impossible to spoil this film.

Boiler Room (2000)

A far better and more honest telling than the wolf of wall street.

[8/10 · 11 February 2024]

Why am I reviewing such an old film?

My elderly dad is obsessed with far right "news" and watched an interview with "the wolf of wall street" himself. It was a fawning sickening piece of promotion for the convicted thief and fraudster. My dad was left believing the rantings of this thief and fraudster that 'everyone was at it' and 'he was just unlucky getting caught' and he was a 'scapegoat'. He had no concept that the thief and fraudster targeted people just like him. He had no concept that he was being manipulated by those who gain from his increasing cynicism at everything.

This event reminded me of Boiler Room which reminded me that there are 2 films based on the "the wolf of wall street". One of them is a disgusting piece of agrandising trash loved by ignorant juvenile fools and the other tells the story of the disgusting pieces of trash and what they did. Boiler room is the latter.

Boiler room is the film you should watch.

It helps that boiler room is actually a far better film with a sharp script and stellar cast. It clearly doesn't have the budget or Margot spreading her legs but don't let that put you off.

Even if you've seen the wolf of wall street you should watch Boiler Room and hopefully you will have a better understanding of why TWOWS is such an appalling film.

American Horror Stories: Organ (2023) Season 3, Episode 4

Remarkably poor acting from a lead actor in a big show.

[3/10 · 20 December 2023]

I seldom write reviews of individual episodes of television however having watched this particular episode I immediately looked up the lead actor expecting to see some kind of nepotism at play. This was one of the worst performances I have ever seen from an allegedly professional actor, it was like watching a good actor act at being a bad actor and overdoing it.

The episode itself was not particularly great, the gist being that women will act like men (indeed can be worse) when they have access to the same level of power as powerful men, which in this context amounted to it being a letter of apology of sorts to all the me too guys. This gives the episode about as much appeal as a 9\11 joke on 9\12, there's edgy and there's this.

Yet despite this the biggest issue with it was the lead actors performance. Truly woeful.

American Horror Story (2011– )

It's a very mixed bag.

[5/10 · 16 December 2023]

When it's good it's great when it's bad it's atrocious. The later seasons are mostly the latter (particularly season 11 and season 10 stinks badly too).

I can't think of another long running TV show being quite so all over the place as AHS.

Watch seasons 1,2,3,5 and 9 as those are probably the best, 4,6,7 and 8 are ok.

Season 10 was a pointless dumpster fire, in two distinct and different parts.

Season 11, which I have just finished, was some of the worst TV I've ever seen.

To clarify season 10 was just really really rubbish incomplete storytelling but season 11 was depressing, contradictory, obvious, victim porn and was extremely heavy on the preaching.

The stark drop in quality from season 10 onwards coincides with the takeover of FX by Disney. I don't know what's going on at that network but they seem to get a kick from insulting your intelligence and producing really glossy HR instructional videos using the actors and characters from formerly well liked entertainment franchises.

Plane (2023)

Great popcorn movie

[8/10 · 5 November 2023]

I don't understand where the negative reviews are coming from, probably miserable specimens in their mums basement who dissect everything to bits and who immediately fired up their ancient copy of Microsoft flight simulator to try and replicate the action.

Who cares what those weirdos think, this was a great action film that just about squeaked under our suspension of disbelief, provided you don't think too hard.

The heroes are manly men (that probably triggered some folk); the passenger cliches are all there (mouthy yank, arrogant Englishman, attractive young women who scream, etc); the baddies are bad (and their backstory probably triggered the sort who are ferociously tweeting and protesting about how the terrorists today are merely misunderstood).

This is a good quality, predictable, entertaining, clichéd, exciting action film just like Hollywood used to make that most people still enjoy. If you're looking for some 110lb beauty queen to kick the daylights out of an ex-pro-wrestler-turned-actor or you want rainbow flags or the baddies to be old white men you'll hate it but that's because you don't realise that it's not this film that's a cliché it's you who is the cliché.

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Weak, cheap, no effort. Boring.

[5/10 · 15 October 2023]

Too long by about 90 minutes, at the halfway point the director and writers decide to start the "narrative" (such as it is).

The gunplay becomes tiresome fairly early on in the film, it is so unrelenting that it becomes boring.

The film takes itself much less seriously than the first 3, actors in fat suits doing gymnastics, CGI dogs, bullets bouncing off lounge suits with a metallic clink, serious injuries healing in minutes. I would also be surprised if there was a single actual physical location used once, the whole thing looks green screened.

There is a general sloppiness on show, extras dancing in the nightclub scene, baddies obviously hesitating while the near 60yo hero gets to his mark in order to kill them etc.

The plot, such as it is, seems to have abandoned any effort at internal consistency to the rest of the franchise. Keanu phones in his "performance", he looks as bored with it as the rest of us. He's on a bum run at the moment; matrix 4, bill and Ted 3, wick 4, all stinkers. Ian McShane tries his best but he looks as tired as the dialogue.

There is not a single memorable scene in the film, not a single memorable line of dialogue. You may as well watch a kid play fortnight. Extremely disappointing. 5\10 and I'm being generous.

Frasier (2023– )

Reserving judgement but not a great start (2 eps)

[5/10 · 14 October 2023]

I'm an enormous fan of the original Frazier, it is one of the finest sit-coms ever, the writing and acting was second to none.

Admittedly only 2 episodes of this sequel have aired so far and I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for a few more but thus far I'm not impressed at all.

Things that need to improve, fast:

• Niles and Daphne's son isn't a character, he's a poor pastiche.

• the Dean of the school is a cliche and in this instance is neither used to deliver comedy or as a straight-man to bounce jokes off.

• the character played by Nicholas Lyndhurst has very few jokes and is again another lazy cliché.

• the premise of Frazier taking a job and buying a building feels forced and is a regurgitation of the original premise.

• the son character immediately jumped into "feelings" with zero comedy value.

• Frazier has lost his angst, his blundering despite best efforts, his effete snobbery has been removed. All the stuff that made him funny.

Cheers and Frazier had an edge to them, they were that sharp, slightly mean. This feels like an ABC early evening overly sanitised American 'comedy' that people may like but never really laugh at. So far this is very 2020s, there's nothing to laugh at.

Billions (2016–2023)

Watch it until Damian Lewis leaves the show.

[5/10 · 28 September 2023]

Thank heaven someone has finally put this show out of its misery.

This was a sharp, witty, clever show up until Damian Lewis had to leave for personal reasons. Thereafter it felt like the network was doing the rest of the cast a favour by keeping it going.

The final season is going very badly, the standard of the writing is atrocious, chatGPT generated? Characters have become characterisations, walking clichés vomiting movie quotes and song lyrics. To be honest I'm surprised they avoided doing the musical episode that shows sometimes do when they run out of ideas.

A wonderful show in the Lewis era that burned through viewer goodwill in the first season after his departure and in the final season degenerates into utter plop. I'm averaging out my rating as 5 for the whole thing, but really it's a 7-9 in s1-3 with a cliff edge drop after the Lewis era.

Physical: Like a Prayer (2023) Season 3, Episode 10

What in the name of jeebus was that?

[3/10 · 28 September 2023]

Having laboured through the unnecessarily complicated victim-porn side plots and backstory and suffered through the weird imaginary characters in Sheila's head in the final season we tune into the final episode to find the writers, the cast, the production crew and Apple have just said F it.

To be honest it would have been better if they had simply cancelled it. This was a studio exec saying 'you can have 50k come back with 30 minutes of footage that marketing can call an ending'.

Apple TV is really struggling at the moment. This was as rubbish an ending for a show as ever I've seen. But in fairness the show was going nowhere, it did have something, but the writers just couldn't capitalise on it. So I suppose that this is an entirely apposite ending, unrealised promise.

Zulu (1964)

Plucky natives with basic weapons take on occupying army

[6/10 · 28 August 2023]

Much like when Amy in the big bang theory pointed out that in the Lost Ark Indiana Jones is completely superfluous to the story you can today watch Zulu and see it for what it is, racist propoganda. How dare the natives fight back! You're invited to watch smugly as brown people throw themselves to oblivion against 'plucky Brits' aka the occupiers who have much more advanced weaponry. Don't they know what's good for them? Clearly they should bow before Queen Vicky and accept their status as third class not quite humans who's only purpose is to give the working classes, themselves treated like dirt by the aristos and wealthy, someone to look down on. Rule Britannia.

6/10 for showing how appalling British social attitudes were in very recent times.

Rollerball (1975)

Thoughtful sci-fi, somewhat prescient but a bit muddled.

[7/10 · 22 August 2023]

A misunderstood film that we now have near 50 years of history to judge it against.

Essentially in the "future" capitalism has run riot, rising to the level of actual warfare, until a semi truce arises amongst the world's new monopolies. The capitalist system has ultimately created a communist corporate society. Realising the nature of the successful communist society they preside over the chairmen of the various monopolies create a brutal game to underline the futility of individual effort and preserve their society, the game is rollerball.

To be honest the film is muddled, it's a warning against something but it's unclear what that something actually is. I think it probably makes more sense today than it did in 1975 in a world with books being rewritten, huge monopolies with more money than governments, private armies fighting wars on a contract basis, populations demanding less freedom and more security, a society eager to maintain the pretence of a "free market" that hasn't actually existed in anyone's lifetime.

Perhaps in another 50 years of hindsight the warning will make more sense, assuming it hasn't been erased from the corporate owned data banks. Let me know in 2073.

Quantum Leap (2022–2024)

Unnecessary, garbled, hashtag ticking, remake for whom?

[3/10 · 12 August 2023]

I was a big fan of the original, this is garbage. I can't imagine anyone who is tuning in because they were fans of the original lasting more than a couple of episodes.

Where the original had Sam and Al there's now a squad of additional "diverse" characters to meet some network diversity target. If the viewer notices your shoehorned-in walking hashtags then it's not working, in this case it's literally every single recurring character.

In the original you could believe that Dean Stockwell was a character with a vast life experience that could be called upon to assist Sam. In this remake I don't believe that the super-fit 20 something woman has much life experience beyond going to the gym and having her hoo-ha waxed. The grizzly old dude, gruff Vietnam vet is there but shouldn't be, the dude is long passed retirement age and would never be in such a job. The uber tough head of security is another hot young woman, just like every head of security I've met (cough). The tech geek is, I'm not even sure what that person is, but is it even acting when you rock up to set wearing your every day man-frock with your fav lipstick and eyeshadow?

Additionally a time travel show needs a certain level of attention to detail and this is absent even in the early episodes where I gave up, clearly the makers have decided this is tween plop and tweens won't notice stuff like fashions, hairstyles, music, props, vehicles etc being completely incongruous to the supposed time period.

In short this is junk TV made entirely and exclusively for gen-Z and younger and will likely trigger anyone who has been alive for longer than 15 minutes.

The Righteous Gemstones (2019– )

Could've been great but went ott

[6/10 · 9 August 2023]

This could have been great but the 3 central characters, the gemstone adult children, are so badly written that it's actually insulting to the viewer, coupled with the severely overacted performances of McBride, Patterson and DeVine (Jesse, Judi and Kevin) and you actually try to ignore the protagonists completely. Special mention to Kevin Baltz for joining in with a ludicrous performance as a secondary character BJ.

However Walt Goggins as uncle baby Billy is a complete joy to watch. John Goodman excels and is utterly believable as a mega church founder. Cassidy Freeman is also brilliant as the willey wife Amber.

McBride and the other writers should have leaned more towards satire rather than farce, toned down the outrageous stupidity and they would have created a sitcom classic.

I couldn't help wondering if the annoying OTT unbelievable characterisations are an attempt to not cause offence in a bible belted country like the USA. Had things been toned down a bit would it be too close to the bone?

The Tomorrow War (2021)

80s-esque kill-em-up, daft but enjoyable, good fun.

[8/10 · 22 July 2023]

The 139 minute runtime flies by and not one minute of that time is wasted, this is a 2 hour 19 minute rollercoaster ride.

I was initially put off by the reviews of this film and consequently almost didn't watch it. Amazon have knocked it out of the park.

While Hollywood are busy making angsty gender fluid victim depression porn it is heartening that somebody can still produce a good old fashioned alien-invasion-time-travel-gun-toting action flick where the good guys win.

Chris Pratt is fantastic, a likeable male actor who can be an action hero without ingesting a Ben Johnson amount of steroids. JK Simmons does his thing as scarily hard old man. Strahovski is a great fit.

There's a couple of plot disconnects, major suspension of disbelief is required, you really shouldn't think too hard about it, it's not going to win any Oscars. It's just a great uncomplicated action movie that a family with tween and younger teenage boys could watch together without any cringe family awkwardness about sex, nudity, bad language etc. Very well done.

Succession (2018–2023)

Well written, well acted, well made but...

[6/10 · 19 July 2023]

You literally want to stab every character, not in the neck or the heart but somewhere painful like the kidney or the testicle. It would be a shame if they died quickly without suffering.

For me that's what I don't like about succession, it's brilliant TV but it's kinda an ordeal. There is no-one to root for or identify with. Whoever wins, we all lose.

I suppose I'm not big on nihilism or cringe TV and succession is nihilism and cringe by the bucketful. It portrays a world where there is no hope, no joy, no love. It is world where schadenfreude, malice and money are all that matter.

This is a trend in "entertainment" that's been going for a while now, perhaps it reflects the general sense of doom and pointlessness in society. During the great depression Hollywood made musicals, today they write suicidal, why-bother, depression porn. I'm not sold on it.

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023)

Might be a parody, might be a spoof, paradoof?

[1/10 · 22 April 2023]

Wow. This is a terrible film.

You know when there's a movie in a movie, where the characters see a trailer for some made up garbage action flick that pokes fun at Hollywood action movies or some big action star. Like Lee majors rescuing Santa in the fake trailer in scrooged. This is that sort of movie, somebody actually made it.

This may actually be an entirely new genre of movie, a parody of a spoof, or maybe a spoof of a parody. I can't tell. What I can tell you is that if your old enough to see this film you're probably too old to watch this film. This is a 15 cert made for 9-11 year olds, it's mighty morphin power rangers without the Spandex. Did I mention this film is terrible, because it's terrible. Really really terrible.

Everybody is miscast:

Plaza convinces neither as a sultry seductress or a tech geek.

Grant does his east end sleazy gangster schtick, again.

Carly Lewes proves he should stick to being that guy who was in the princess bride.

Statham hits people then flexes his muscles (not exactly miscast but he does it differently here, like it was the fight choreographers first day).

Josh Hartnett is definitely in this film. Probably.

There's a black guy doing a ving rhames impression.

The writing is terrible. The acting is terrible. The editing is terrible. The soundtrack, I'm not sure there is a soundtrack. The plot is terrible. This is a terrible film.

Star Trek: Picard (2020–2023)

Taken as a whole. Perfect start trek.

[10/10 · 21 April 2023]

Proof, if any were needed, the next generation IS star trek.

After the risible "star trek" discovery I'm happy that after watching season 3 of Picard that I can once again say I'm a Trekkie.

The 3rd season of Picard is a brilliant epitaph to TNG. The writers should be commended in manufacturing ways to get all the best characters back on screen for a rip roaring last adventure. Bravo.

The final episode is magnificent and sets up hope for a new series. A series that promises strong characters that you do not have to be a tofu eating, soy drinking, virtue signalling, sexual alphabet ++ to identify with. TFFT.

Servant (2019–2023)

Yeah, okay I need a better ending.

[4/10 · 17 March 2023]

I see some pretentious millennial plonker wrote of the finale: "Great testament to not having everything defined and explained." Yeah let's leave the conclusion out of the ending.

This feels like shyalaman doing a "sopranos", how original of him to copy the gist of one of the most maligned endings in TV history. The trademark shyalaman twist to the ending of Servant is that there isn't one. Whoopdedoo.

Tbh season 4 was a crying shame, the finale episode sunk the entire show. It's like a long involved novel where the author just wraps up the story with "and they all lived happily ever after"..."except Bob and Sally. The end".

If you haven't started this, you honestly shouldn't bother, it's 3 seasons of great TV and 1 season of suckiness and a final episode that will leave you googling "what is shyalaman's home address so I can go kick his ass for waisting my time".

I would have given this an 8\10 but due to the woeful unsatisfactory conclusion I revise this to 4. Don't bother.

Tulsa King (2022– )

Get Shorty meets the scorpion and the frog

[8/10 · 2 March 2023]

Ok so there's plot holes all over the place, the story doesn't stand up to the scrutiny of basic common knowledge of the law, the characters are one dimensional and stereotypical but I don't care, it's great entertainment. It's a pleasure to watch TV that isn't preaching to the viewer or interjecting some living embodiment of hashtags to tick some award show diversity box.

Stallone never stuck me as the sort who could carry off a mobster role but he performs admirably. He absolutely dominates the screen, the other characters are satellites caught in his gravitational pull.

The "boss" biker baddie is the weak point of the story, he's just not Machiavellian or well written enough to convey the necessary menace. Other strong characters seem to pop up and then just disappear with no real follow through eg badface, the stable owners ex husband, the Brooklyn mob boss but this is perhaps set-up for season 2.

A fine television show.

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Better than the original but jumped the shark

[6/10 · 4 February 2023]

You need to suspend your disbelief like you've never suspended your disbelief before to watch this film, which for viewers with a modicum of brains is a tall order. The action is beyond ridiculous, may as well have had superman fly in at the end to help out (although funnily Amazon recommended I watch superman when the credits rolled, lol)

That said, at least there is a measure of plot unlike in Top Gun. But like Top Gun this is a blatant and shameless military PR and recruitment exercise now drenched with lashings of nostalgia.

The majority of the film is a scene by scene reworking of the original; set pieces, soundtrack, characters (where willing), locations. The script is threadbare. The acting is fine, although nobody is finding their talents stretched here.

A lot of people seem to really like it though, I don't quite know what to make of that because empirically it's not that good a film. I guess after the pandemic, multiple military defeats, political fractiousness at home, a general loss of international standing and status the American public (some of them at least) want to feel good about their country and military. It's a shame that such a fancifully absurd film is all they have to reach for.