zoombroom86 Reviews

Expedition Unknown (2015– )

godawful

[1/10 · 23 October 2022]

Wish I had a dollar---now, wait, one of HITLER'S SECRET STOLEN STASH OF DIAMONDS!!!!---for every time this dude yells "Oh my God!" as he "discovers" something in a cave that his producer just planted a couple minutes earlier. All he needs is some yahoo saying "Yup, I saw the Loch News monster lunching with Elvis at that Hardees over yonder...mighta been Genghis Khan there with 'em, I remember cuz he ordered the vanilla malt with fries," and it's off to the races. Perfect for showing the Josh dude driving his 4-wheeler through the mud for 2-3 minutes and doing other manly-man stuff.

Guy has the perfect name for this godawful show: Josh.

The Old Man (2022– )

Gave up on it

[2/10 · 15 July 2022]

First two episodes were good, action sequences were cool (if unbelievable), and Bridges is Bridges, which is always good. But then the show fell off a cliff. Finally quit halfway through Ep. 5. No mas. Can't believe it's been renewed for Season 2.

61st Street (2022– )

getting real

[10/10 · 30 April 2022]

Watched the first three episodes. Good solid show. I grew up in Detroit and have family in Chicago. Lots of dirty cops in both places (liars, planting drugs and guns, etc.). The stuff in the first 3 eps is spot-on.

The Last Movie Star (I) (2017)

Maybe Burt's best film

[9/10 · 7 August 2021]

A surprisingly honest and heart-warming film. I never was a fan of Burt Reynolds's Smokey movies (or any movies of that genre), but I always considered him a talented actor. I wish he'd done more character-driven films. And after watching Reynolds basically play himself in The Last Movie Star, I think at the end of his life he shared that regret, too.

Godfather of Harlem (2019– )

I don't know about dat

[2/10 · 5 May 2021]

If you're going to re-write history, at least do it with an intelligent script and dialogue that we haven't heard a million times before. Some period music would be nice, too.

Yellowstone (2018– )

horrible horse opera

[3/10 · 3 August 2020]

Even a city slicker like me can see this show is full of holes and cow pies. Is it believable that a bunch of young, good-looking, busty chickadees can out-ride, out-shoot, out-drink, out-spit, out-gamble, and out-fight all the male ranch hands in the bunkhouse? The casting is bad, the writing and plot lines are formulaic, and the acting wooden. The product placing/cross-marketing (rodeo, music, etc.) also is annoying.

The Chi (2018– )

jumped the shark

[1/10 · 27 July 2020]

Wha' happened?? The first two seasons had me comparing this show with The Wire. Now it's just a confusing mess with horrible writing, wooden acting, dropped storylines, implausible plots, and non-relatable characters. Cancelled Showtime after trying to make it through the first five eps of S3.

Warpath (2020)

horrible

[1/10 · 15 July 2020]

Cheesy special effects, acting, and dialogue. I could only take the first 10 or so minutes. I think the budget for the movie was $47.

Jamestown (2017–2019)

Sheesh

[1/10 · 29 July 2019]

So bad. So very, very bad.

That old TV series, "F Troop," the one that featured old Jewish vaudeville comics as Indians, was more historically accurate.

Hunting Hitler (2015–2020)

Hitler lives! (He's sharing a condo with Elvis in Peru)

[1/10 · 1 September 2017]

The producers of this rubbish must all have doctorates in history from Trump University. It's pathetic how far the History Channel has fallen in the pursuit of ratings and bucks. Next up: Abe Lincoln was NOT assassinated---aliens snatched him just as he was entering Ford's theatre and substituted Amelia Earhart's body for his! Stay tuned!

The Cars That Made America (2017)

Good enough, if you don't know cars or Detroit

[6/10 · 18 August 2017]

Overall, the series did a fairly decent job of laying out the story of the automobile in America, especially for viewers who know little about the car industry and simply want to be entertained. However, for car buffs and history fans anticipating an informed six-hour road trip through time, the series fell into the familiar traps of most docudramas: cheesy re-creations, an oversimplified and tabloid-style story line, and a host of inaccuracies. The series seems to me to have been rushed into production. Most disappointing was the failure---for reasons of either time or budget, or both---to take advantage of the treasure trove of archival film footage and sound recordings available at museums, libraries, and labor and automobile archives in the Detroit area. Whatever footage was used appears to have been pulled directly off a VHS copy of some old documentary.

The lineup of historians, biographers, and journalists added context to what was being dramatized. But in addition to these talking heads (and the amiable NASCAR drivers obviously trotted out for their "star" value), it would have been nice to hear from "witnesses" with first-hand or family knowledge of some of the personalities and events described. It's not like these people don't exist, especially in the Detroit area. With a little digging, the producers could have found retired factory workers, designers, executives, union organizers, etc., or their children and grand-children, as well as the offspring of auto pioneers. It also would have been a treat to see more of the actual Motor City (many of the sites associated with the story still exist) instead of whatever stand-ins in Texas and New York were used. The real homes of Henry and Edsel Ford are still around, for example, as are many factories and other historic sites.

I don't know if Car Week is now "a thing" on History Channel, or if a second edition of "The Cars That Made America" is planned. If there is a follow-up series, I'd like to see it concentrate on some of the many characters and cars either entirely left out of the first series or given short shrift, such as Ransom Olds, Henry Kaiser, Studebaker, Nash, Harley Earl and the Corvette, etc. And I hope they spend a few bucks on a reliable researcher in Detroit.