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Reviews
Simply Irresistible (1999)
Here's what happens with a fine cast and a bad director...
The first time I saw this movie, I was puzzled - how could a movie go so wrong so fast. After watching carefully, there's a single answer: Mark Tarlov.
There were some fine performances in this movie. Sarah Michelle Gellar was everything the audience could hope for. Amanda Peet was just perfect in her role. Patricia Richardson was marvelous. In fact, most of the actors turned in far better performances than the script deserved. And the script itself was fine, perhaps a little weak, but perfectly adequate. Until her husband butchered it.
While Mr. Tarlov has a long (if not distinguished) history as a producer, this was his first outing as a director. And he botched it.
There may be very slight spoilers in the next paragraph.
There's hardly a technical area of this movie that doesn't suffer. The lighting was bad enough that it was noticeable. Actors lines were covered by sound effects, in some cases damaging the continuity of the movie. (Tarlov should publicly apologize to Amanda Peet, and to his wife, for what he did to Peet's lines in the restaurant scene.) And special effects were so heavy-handed that they took the viewer right out of the movie. The "floating" sequence was among the worst ever filmed, and as for the fog, the EPA should have cited him for air pollution. "More fog, more fog, how will they know something magical is happening if we don't have more fog?" Sheesh, the bottom of the restaurant disappears. Between the effects, the stupefying camera work, and editing that appears to have been done by a Veg-e-matic, we've got a very, very bad movie technically.
But, as noted, the actors are indeed very good, given what they have to work with. The food was beautiful, Tarlov couldn't mar that. And somehow, someone had excellent taste in selecting music for the film. So, it's worth a watch if you're in the mood to be charmed by SMG, or amused by Clarkson and Peet. Or if you want a documentary on how to make a really, really bad movie - technically.
How I Met Your Mother (2005)
Horrible, Horrible Writing
It shouldn't have been like this.
You've got a cast of talented young actors. The premise might run out of steam at some point - but we haven't reached it in a few episodes.
But in a comedy, especially one that lays claim to being about a relationship, you expect writing with some depth and characterization. Instead, we get shallowness and caricature. An actor like Neil Patrick Harris ends up mugging for the camera for lack of anything better to do. Alyson Hannigan had deeper characters to work with in American Pie.
Bays and Thomas would be better employed on someone's writing staff, contributing jokes and bits. They can unquestionably be funny - but so far, they have failed to deliver characters with more than one dimension in any of their series.
Cancel this train wreck. Let the actors get on to something better.
Flying Blind (1992)
My favorite comedy half hour
The good news about being on Fox in 1992 was - no one was watching, and you could get away with things you'd never get to do on a major network. The bad thing about being on Fox in 1992 was that almost no one watched. Which was a shame. Those few that tuned in were well rewarded.
The writing was sharp (look at what the writers and producers went on to do), the acting was brilliant (look at the cast), with incredible comedic timing, the production was...well, they had an early Fox budget, but they did what they could.
Some years later, Dharma and Greg would do another uptight guy marries into a free spirit family story. And while it was successful, it is a pale imitation of Flying Blind.
There is no show that I'd like to see come out on DVD more than this one.