craig-471 Reviews

Law & Order: LA (2010–2011)

Like LA, an Acquired Taste

[8/10 · 2 February 2019]

I began watching this show expecting it to be pretty bad based on what I read here. The first episode did seem a bit too LA, what with starlets and the goings on in Hollywood and all. After a few episodes, the series did pick up steam and find its direction. I must admit, after Molina and Stoll became partners it really all came together.

If I have to find some criticism it would be the complexity of the crimes. I've watched all the L&O franchises but this one seems to have the most outlandish twists and turns. By the time the episode ends you are typically miles away from how it started. Not a bad thing but at times way too contrived.

Finally, did the episodes air the way they are arranged on the DVD? A major character is killed off midway only to re-appear in subsequent episodes. Really odd way to arrange the shows.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

A Long and Dull Sequel That Nobody Needs

[5/10 · 18 October 2017]

I saw the original BR in a theater when it was released. This was the beginning of bleakness in science fiction movies and back then it was new and exciting.

Fast-forward thirty some years later and nothing about it seems new and exciting at all. This sequel feels like it came from the marketing department where if a little of something made money then certainly, let's add more and try to make even more money.

Long, drawn-out scenes (like the robot love-making), meandering sequences which mean nothing (the senseless killing of the new born replicant), redundant plot turns (the orphanage - I mean, how are all these kids feed?), not to mention huge gaps in logic (how does Deckard manage to live in a Vegas high-rise complete with electricity and one would assume, water?)

We knew something was up with the matching girl-boy DNA so when that plot twist came it wasn't really much of a shock. In fact, nothing was really that exciting, perhaps because the dull pacing, "music" and acting lulled me into a near comatose state way before I could even begin to care about who mighty be the actual child of the replicants.

Let's hope this is the end of this franchise. Hopefully I will be dead before we see the next sequel 35 years from today.

Strait-Jacket (1964)

The Two Faces of Joan

[10 August 2005]

Certainly the number one reason to see this picture (number two being the total camp factor) is to see La Crawford at work, and boy does she act up a storm. This movie reads as a complete summary of Crawford's entire career as she runs through virtually her entire acting range and re-creates aspects of every screen persona she ever depicted.

See her as a suffering, self-sacrificing mother will to do anything to give her daughter a better life. She's practically Mother Teresa! Then watch her morph into a pushy, sex-starved tart trying to get something out of a handsome man - all in a matter of minutes! The scene of her trying to recapture her lost youth is uncomfortable to watch because you know it's Crawford being Crawford - a 60 year old woman acting like the seductress she played 30 years earlier on screen. It's as if she is trying to convince herself, and not just the young stud, that, god damn it, she can still do it. You will never see a better depiction of human desperation on screen. It's about as raw as it comes. It's tragic, appalling and hilarious, all at the same time, as the reality of the woman's life and her Hollywood persona collide, all filmed for your viewing pleasure. If nothing else, in this movie Joan reveals just how far she was willing to go to remain on screen, no matter what.