diedaily77 Reviews

The Power of Film (2024)

A sublme series that rocked my world...if you are stuck on a project then watch this and write like hell

[10/10 · 6 April 2024]

"The Power of Film" is an Incredibly succinct, refined, distilled, and evidence-based look at what makes a good story on screen. If I were an inexperienced woodworker, and this series were about saws, after watching it there would not be a lot standing between me and a viable career in carpentry. His analysis reaches back to the foundational achievements of the plays of ancient Greece, but he doesn't start there or end there. He updates them using this era's most memorable films, seamlessly, but starting from today and integrating backward. I learned so much about what makes great, enduring, archetypal comedy/tragedy stories, and then so much more about doing it on screen. Depicted in detail and depth is "What makes a modern immortal film.". I know it will delight writers, directors, and even cinematographers.

Personally, I have been mulling for years on an idea for a Sci-Fi story of novel/screenplay length. The idea is good, I felt, but I was getting nowhere with the execution. I watched "The Power of Film" by coincidence and by episode three I was thinking OMG WTF. The problems I was having were incredibly simple. Obvious, timeless and ubiquitous formulas were absent and when they were spelled out to me I was suddenly, fully deconstipated. I filled half of a tablet about what was really going on in my mind, what was missing. My story had been malformed and stunted by inexperience and lack of tools. You might think: "oh, he abandoned his grand vision in favour of formulaic tripe", but it was the very opposite.

I had tried to achieved a setting, a feeling, a loose plot, a grand vision, but a ton of ambiguity dominated it because of a lack of overarching form...I was lost inside scenes. This series revealed to me what I really wanted to say, and a greater plot emerged that actually made sense. I shared this with a peer and the next day they told me "I've been thinking about your story" and started asking questions about it. I finally had answers.

If you are an aspiring screenwriter or author, and you are stuck...these episodes are capable of un-sticking you. This series is an absolutely must-see for creators and consumers both.

UFOs: Investigating the Unknown (2023– )

Must say legit, never once did they they say aliens. Very rational.

[10/10 · 26 February 2024]

I have been open to various rabbit holes. For instance, I think that Vietnam was a pretty bad idea, despite that "we" had been "attacked" in the Gulf of Ton-kin. I was skeptical that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and it turns out they didn't.

I was a little bit worried that the caves beneath Tora Bora were a massive Bin-Laden-engineered super-complex of jet aircraft controlling, tower-dropping, WMD slinging, freedom-crushing, civilian-killing death aimed at all us all us good freedum loving folks in Amurka...

But I was a little let down when that turned out to be false.

The thing I always told myself was that, having waded through all that M5M crap about Iraq having WMD's, etc., at least I never fell for the gummint UFO psy-op.

Well, I think this show is a very understated, non-alien-ascribing, fact-based, take on the issue of unidentified things that fly around in sky. I have no horse in this race, because I've been bust getting used to all the other crap in the M5M narrative that turns out to be totally false,. This show is actually very impartial and neutral and interesting. There are no quacks in it. Nobody whatsoever is arguing that these phenomena are aliens or anything like that.

It's just tight, minimalist reporting and is pointing out things that are obvious and non-controversial. You will not hear any "Greys sodomized me" or any other deranged BS in this program. It's a clean, impartial, scientific, journalistic look at UFOs / UAPs or whatever.

Having said all that, I don't think they are aliens. Not for a minute! But neither does anyone in this program. All they are saying, is that stuff i going on in the sky that is difficult to explain.

Check it out. It's very acceptable, fact-based journalism. It's not WOO at all,

Rubicon (2010)

Can't believe I nerver reviewed this....after 5th re-watch. So freaking good!

[10/10 · 15 February 2024]

This show was so ahead of it's time. It's a slow-burner. It's taut, suspenseful, hard to predict, exquisitely well acted, and replete with future and (at the time) present stars as well as several key actor veterans. It's a near-perfect suspense/drama/thriller for intelligent, thoughtful viewers who love to pit their minds against a plot. Events, facts, and histories are slowly doled out, in this series, in a manner that leaves one intrigued, and unable to predict what will happen next. I love this attribute of a show more almost any other, save for the basics: good acting, good script, good production values. Rubicon was easily able to capture my full attention because the former was impeccable and the latter was so good that no technical shortcomings ever stood in the way.

It is a fairly rare occurrence when a great budget meats a great story and can also afford great actors. This is one of those rare occurrences.

This show is in my top ten "must periodically re-watch list". I'm certain I'll watch it again in a year or two and glean from it new treats that are even more subtle than I previously imagined. I simply cannot recommend this series enough!

Chuck (2007–2012)

Funy, sexy, great cast

[9/10 · 29 September 2023]

If you're looking for a fairly evergreen series to binge watch, this is a valid choice. I can't believe that I'm only now watching it--binge style. I actually thought it was a current series, and, hilariously, when successive seasons became available, I was like "wow how are they dropping these seasons so fast, especially given the SAG/AFTRA strike?". Then again, I might have been imbibing a little bit, and seeking to get to sleep by playing some light, action-packed, sexy, TV. Well, I didn't manage to get to sleep most of the time, and that's a compliment btw. Can't say I minded seeing a lot of Yvonne Strahovski--holy, holy.

I have only major complaint about the show, or, rather the people that produced it, and that was the the first three seasons featured a wonderful end-of-show theme that featured trombone-based brass shots that was the most brilliant thing I'd heard since the spider man theme of the 70s. Some idiot decided that in season 4 that would be "modernized/updated" or whatever. Whoever that person is/was I want them to know that I they are a very bad person. Messing with the end-theme was a crime against awesomeness which I would love to know the story behind. I bet it was a story of some exec being a d-b. How could you kill those awesome trombone hits? Yes, I'm bitter about it. Deprecating that God-like brass section for some synths in season 4 was the only bad thing about this show.

Funny, light series. Highly recommend it.

Black Mirror (2011– )

Just watched s06e01, and WOW!!!!!

[10/10 · 17 June 2023]

I will be very careful not to spoil this episode because it's quite brilliant and you deserve to undergo the same levels of surprise and appreciation that I did in your viewing experience.

The setup, in the show universe, is basically that the online end-user "terms of use" agreements common to the market contain toxic clauses that allow the corporate providers to commandeer the content of their user's lives in unexpectedly drastic, sweeping and unforeseen ways.

You and I, in this real and present viewer universe, all sign (and rarely read) such EULAs whenever we access our various online apps and services and their updates. This is just our present reality, so it's not much of a stretch to empathize with the female protagonist of the episode, as she has her privacy shattered and her life, let's say, roundly and creatively exploited for the enjoyment of the masses and the profit of the provider and it's CEO.

The tragedy and comedy that ensue are so clever and engaging that as the show progressed (let's just say, past the halfway point) I was absolutely delighted with what I'd watched thus far and and absolutely convinced I knew how it would deliciously end. But it did not end exactly as as I expected and I was even more delighted by how it did.

Truly fabulous episode. Wish I could say more. Gotta watch it.

Deep Fake Neighbour Wars (2023)

I loved how intially confused I was! Hey, sue me.

[9/10 · 16 June 2023]

I mean, I read "deep fake" in the title, but I was initially convinced that Idris et al had conspired to meta-spoof the overrated "artificial intelligence" scare, and were participating in a sly, ironic TV coup with live actors. I was ecstatic! I mean, the actual real actors/shills could have actually done this show and it would have rocked as self-effacing irony!

But then I saw Greta and realized...wait, this cannot be...there is no conceivable universe in which Greta could be either funny or informal, and thus I transitioned from hysterical to apoplectic, as I began to accept that these are actually, really, true deep fakes, if indeed they are (the only convincing evidence for this is that neither Idris, nor Greta appear in the IMDB creds).

As I have no actual truck with shills, radicals and corporate-sponsored professional alarmists of any stripe, I actually thought, for a brief moment, that Greta was capable of cordiality, earthiness, and mirth! It was a bit deflating to realize that none of the portrayed actors were capable of engineering this sort of TV coup for themselves. Omg, how crazy is that--this is how good the show is!

But, I have to take a deep breath, because this show is going to be historically important and future retrospectives and debates are going to talk about it. For good or evil (and I think good, in this case) this is a thing now. We either adapt to it or we get irrelevant. Rail against it all you like, cry out for censorship and regulation (if you're shallow and short-sighted) but here we are and that will not work. Adapt your mind, help adapt the minds of others around you, and perhaps we will regain the ability to interpret the veracity of the message entirely without reference to the messenger. Perhaps the utterly failed expert/authority culture will give way to a renaissance of actual critical thought. Wouldn't that be something different!

Maybe "A. I." will actually end up saving us, turning us on to the real, actual deep fake that is the present mainstream media reality. Maybe a humorous, forward-leaning embrace of deep faking is the only honest, humanist, reality-embracing tactic that can trump so called "A. I.". I'm so down with this. I've seldom seen more honest performances from the so-called "faked" subjects of this program.

Tetris (2023)

Gosh, I hope I'm wrong, but...

[2/10 · 25 April 2023]

The acting and technical prowess of the production elements of the movie was great, practically faultless. But I don't think any thinking person would take this movie as an accurate, documentary-like, treatment of the advent of the holy game Tetris. I'm not sure anyone would find it entertaining, either, in the final analysis. Definitely it was loosely based on an exciting set of facts, and definitely the game Tetris was mesmerizing. Nut also, definitely this movie exceeded every fact and went a bit mental, propaganda-wise. It would have been great if there had been an honest (and therefore probably a little less high-brow-John-le-Carre, Tetris-Litterally-and-single-handedly-saved-the-free-world (no offence to le Carre who rocks). All in all the movie comes off as propaganda and desecrates it's own premise. Some pretty sad crap.

The Ark (2023– )

With this simple piece of advice, this series could have been good

[1/10 · 2 February 2023]

A good example of a low-budget, sci-fi attempt, would be for instance, Prospect, which generated pretty decent ratings and a couple of great stars. In contrast, every line in this failed attempt at interesting sci-fi featured breathless, adrenal, heavily over-acted, and rapidly delivered dialogue. Even if it had been great dialogue, the delivery would have been be exhausting.

Yet, if this same exact series (special effects, plot, script) had been delivered in a massively more minimalist, slow, reserved, and dead-pan manner, then I probably would have been very interested. Instead, there are no pregnant pauses, no interesting side shots, and the director has, apparently, urged every actor to hyperventilate their lines at double time. It is as as though it were imperative to introduce exposition by the ton-per-second, reveal character attributes by how worn on the sleeve they were, and leave the viewer to be given no quarter. No quarter to absorb, no quarter to wonder, no opportunity to make their own (hopefully ambiguous and intriguing) speculations about what is happening and where it will go next, nor to add anything else of their own to the watching experience.

The talent of some of the actors is apparent but wasted due to the absolute lack of a sense of pace and control in the direction.

I would give this advice to the director/producer: Delete two-thirds of the script and insert long pauses and interesting camera work in all of those spots; Encourage the actors to give a very reserved (if not dead pan) delivery of their drastically reduced dialog replete with pregnant pauses and hanging eye contact; Let the viewer think just a tiny bit, let five freaking consecutive seconds go by without pounding them with relentless, breathless, and over-acted expository, and let a not-bad prospect of a story have the chance to tell that story.

As it stands? Kudos to the ill-served actors who looked like they were being paid by 'number of lines per minute' multiplied by 'degree of hyperventilating and over-acting'. Please let the producers and directors (and SciFy) learn from this terrible effort. Slow it down. Make the dialog sparse and intriguing. Let the plot develop without megatons of harried exposition. Let your actors relax and do their thing. Let the audience have a mind.

Having said all that: there was a LOT of talent on display, all of it abused and underused. People, chill and make some decent sci-fi next time. It's not about the budget. Go watch Prospect.

The Patient (2022)

Saved by great acting

[5/10 · 4 October 2022]

Not sure about the premise, the message, the themes, but at least the dialogue (within the above constraints) is pretty well-written and the overall finished product is saved by the talent and competence of the two main leads. Would recommend you NOT watch this until you can binge the whole thing...there is just not a compelling or interesting enough of a story to wait around while it is dribbled out.

I am surprised to see that there is now a six hundred character minimum on the review now, so I'm not totally sure what do about that given that I said everything that I can think of about the show. However, I love IMDB and don't begrudge having to create some extra characters for a good cause. Cheers!

Push (2009)

Clever premise, engaging characters, unexpectedly great!

[9/10 · 30 March 2022]

So loved this film! I have no idea what the low-rating watchers were thinking. The plot was fascinating, impossible to predict, and I loved the characters, even liked the stereotype villains. If you have a curious mind, let me ask you this: What would you do if there were adversaries that could mind-read your strategies and also divine their future outcomes...and they were hunting you? Well, turns out there is at least one great solution...watch and find out what it is!

Jim Jefferies: Freedumb (2016 TV Special)

He so kills

[9/10 · 21 January 2022]

Such a variety of topics, and such killer irreverence. And killer cynicism. Emphasis on kills Kills so bad. Slowly steers from abominable to revelatory. Ends off superbly. This guy is top tier. I say this, even though I'm Canadian.

Iron & Fire (2016– )

Loved parts of it and hated the rest

[4/10 · 3 January 2022]

I really enjoyed the blacksmith parts in the first two episodes. I got turned off by the side-character shenanigans and then by some questionable work on old muskets. One of the side-character bits that spoiled it for me was when the narrator reluctantly coughed up $20 to a couple of men who were then supposed to go spend their day finding a "bucket full" of "hard-to-come-by" scrap lead, and then "busted" them for their paltry efforts. Probably this was the TV people intervening but it was just as sad to watch. Then the narrator went after a supposedly priceless musket that had problems with it's trigger assembly. He said there was epoxy. Again the blacksmithing part was legit, but he was totally eroding the original wood housing around the assembly with a blade and it was hard for me to understand why. I think the narrator himself was short-changed by the TV people.

Wakefield (2021)

Near perfect show, or are you insane? Take your pick.

[10/10 · 11 December 2021]

A very wise man once said: lives and stories, good ones at least, tend to end as they begin. Wakefield is good like that. It fascinates from the get-go (unless you're...) intrigues throughout (assuming you're not...), and then delivers big in the end (except if you're...)

I've written a fair number of reviews on IMDb, several of them enthusiastic, a few critical, but I'm hard-pressed to convey how much I enjoyed this series.

I was captured and intrigued by it immediately. I laughed out loud many times during the first episode alone, and was tempted to weep a few times too. I was kind of shocked on occasion. As the series progressed things slowed down enough to provide more background and exposition about the existing characters and themes, yet new revelations and characters, new clues and contexts, were still plentiful. This pace of discovery did not let up much throughout the entire series, even while in the end, logic presides, and the conclusion might even be regarded as increasingly inevitable.

The writing and casting of this show is preternaturally great. The cinematography and soundtrack are outstanding. I have to assume that the quality of the directing was as good or better because virtually every scene seems to work. This remains true even and especially when the action and visuals occasionally transit into the fantastical/surreal. The characters and situations, anchored and deeply recognizable in their mundane and relatable modes, are never-the-less relatable too in their gripping flights and fancies.

Binge this show!

A Bend in the River (2020)

Pretty shetty

[3/10 · 6 October 2021]

Hate to give bad reviews, and when I do I feel like I should distinguish between the badly acted and the badly written. This one was just badly written. The actors did okay with what they had to work with. The soundtrack was not terrible. The camera work didn't suck. It's just that writing. I seemed like it was written by a guilt-ridden person, which is fine, if there is something interesting about what lead to that guilt. Which, I'm sorry, there wasn't.

Mr. Corman (2021)

Slow, meandering, and eventually very intiguing and beautiful

[9/10 · 3 September 2021]

I was uncertain for the first three episodes, but interested enough to keep watching. I wouldn't say the first three episodes were bad, in any way, but a little bit of patience was needed and proved to be well worth it. There were some really lovely, absurdist, interludes (such as a scene where the protagonist and his mother fly around in a short musical number) that were unexpected and kind of wonderful. But the fourth episode, which was entirely tangential to the first three, I was entranced by. This show is open and honest--a massive counterpoint to all of the glitz/glam/wealth fantasy out there right now--and, I think, a rare attempt by anyone associated with A-list Hollywood, to apply a balm to a hurting and divided America. Kudos to Joseph Gorden-Levitt for keeping it real, taking a big risk, and creating an extremely touching and relatable show.

Miss Sloane (2016)

Smart, topical, great cast, hidden check-mate of an ending!

[10/10 · 27 July 2021]

The protagonist made this film engaging on so many levels: legal procedural, political inside baseball, public relations manipulation, professional loyalty and rivalry, big-money power play, and so forth and so on ... yet also there were very personal and even very basic levels of personal: sexuality, history, drug use, in addition to mere public gun violence.

At each of these levels, alternatively, there is also a "or so it appears!" It is difficult to write a deserving review of a film with this many surprises without spoiling it's structures for those who have yet to see it, but I think I can safely say that it delivers completely as far as what you would expect. As far as what you might not expect, it delivers even slightly more completely.

How It Ends (2021)

Enough good humor and earnest healing to override the slapstick and smultz

[6/10 · 20 July 2021]

It is doomsday so folks are living it up, making amends, looking for the ultimate good time, and what you'd expect on the final day of existence (minus the physical violence). There are lots of decent jokes, tropes, caricatures, and so forth; but, there is also an interesting s/f premise: a few apparently schizo people who have been seeing and conversing with their younger selves notice that others are engaging with these hitherto private/suppressed phantoms which opens up the dialogue greatly. Many embarrassing, moral, and developmental jokes ensue and they are generally pretty funny. Some deeper themes, as regards relationships, sexuality, and the lost/mishandled opportunities of youth ensue and get examined. These are not handled in too cringe-worthy a way (and that's actually a pretty high compliment). Overall, it's a film that knows that it walks the line between situational comedy and the super-basic-self-realization that we see is often missing in Americans today.

Undergods (2020)

Weirdly actually pretty good!

[8/10 · 7 May 2021]

I once read a John le Carré novel in which, early in the action, a spy, who was gut-shot and bleeding out on someone's carpet, was first and foremost profoundly apologetic about the mess, more than he was concerned with his own demise. Carré painted this as a quintessentially English approach to being in a state of profound distress. I must say: a fair enough stereotype, at least in those awkward cases where the carpet might be antique, and even for the aspirational masses too.

During the first ten minutes of this movie, I wasn't sure if I was watching something good. If you watch you'll see why--although the acting was really great then and throughout. Things were just so uncomfortable, inhibited, and so obviously sure to turn out badly in a predictable way. However, suddenly the movie took various hard, unexpected, and pleasantly intriguing turns. The slow start became, for me, canvas and backdrop to some actual stories. What ensued was actually pretty interesting and unpredictable.

Ultimately, despite the uncomfortably dystopian mess it drops on your proverbial carpet, this film owes you no apologies beyond the naked grotesqueness of it's own dark, forlorn, and pathological message. To me it's quite the interesting, last-minute suicide note of the languishing English soul.

My final verdict: well acted, interestingly plotted, very stark and dystopian, and it even offers a bit of futurist s/f backed up by completely convincing special effects. Absolutely worthy of a watch.

Sincerely Louis C.K. (2020 TV Special)

Wonderfully politically incorrect

[9/10 · 5 May 2021]

Delightfully irreverent humor. Very enjoyable humor unless you're messed up.

The Beach (2020)

Entrancing masterpiece!

[10/10 · 7 April 2021]

Choose your positive adjective: intriguing, relaxing, affirming, real, grounding, groundbreaking, funny, understated, thought-provoking, appetite-stimulating, nostalgic, wise, riveting. I'm just a guy from Western Canada but I have watched this four times so far and every time I feel better about it. This film is an experience.

PS. I watched it several more times and am still more and more entranced. I grew up in Western Canada and he grew up in Australia. And yet we end up with massively similar sensibilities and a totally compatible idiom. I find that to be fascinating. When I'm a bit too stoked up, I revert to this video. Anyway, I'm gonna motor.

The Dark Side of the Sun (2017 TV Movie)

The Repetitive Harping Upon the Carrington Event

[2/10 · 4 April 2021]

If you would like to hear the same observations repeated six or seven times, punctuated by five or six commercial breaks, this is the show for you.

Space Launch Live: Splashdown (2020 TV Special)

Sadly, there was a mouse in their beer.

[2/10 · 4 April 2021]

I love their mission, but I hated their show. How great a mission could have how bad a show? Questioned answered. Except I love Bob and Doug, eh?

Nathan East: For the Record (2014)

Not at All a Yamaha Commercial

[7/10 · 29 March 2021]

I noticed a shot of a Yamaha grand piano at about the two-thirds mark, and a 1-second Yamaha logo shot in the intro. Also, a couple minutes before the end (for the first and only time that I noticed) the phrase "Yamaha Musician" was used. As far as promoting Nathan East's new album: less than five minutes. It seems to me, after actually watching the film, that there were a lot of (to quote stine_pine) "famous people gushing over him, over and over and over again" because each gush was associated with a stellar performer talking about a groundbreaking recording. There were lots of fast-paced cuts from scene-to-scene, but it seemed to me that that was because they had to make room for the overflowing amount of "gushing" coming from so many world-class artists. From Clapton to Earth Wind and Fire, to Lionel RIchie, to Daft Punk. Overall, this was a more than decent doc and nobody would "rush from the theater" lol.

Land (I) (2021)

Solid, touching debut film

[9/10 · 4 March 2021]

Robin Wright directs and starts as a city woman who plunges herself into the remote wilderness, for reasons which remain mysterious until near the end of the film. Clearly trauma is a factor, but the source of the trauma is left (at least partially) ambiguous until the end of the film (and I, for one, guessed mostly wrong as to what the specific nature of the trauma was). As one might expect of a 'city girl' Robin's character is not equipped to survive in a remote, winter wilderness environment. Still she resolves to make a hardcore stand with the very limited and inadequate knowledge and experience that she has. Obviously, this is a recipe for death and disaster, yet what ensues is a sensitive, interesting and quite unexpected life-and-death drama about how this inadvisable scenario plays out. It would spoil the movie if I said more, but I can safely tell you that the second half of the movie is unexpected, non-cliche, attention-maintaining, touching, and has pretty decent payoff in the end.

BrainDead (2016)

Such a great classic

[10/10 · 18 February 2021]

I am re-watching this incredibly underrated and hilarious classic for the third time. The sci-fi premise is funny enough in its own right, but the political satyr is over-the-top entertaining. The entire cast is excellent, but Mary Elizabeth Winstead anchors all of them perfectly. Can't recommend this series enough!