Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]

Reviews

12 Reviews
Sort by:
Filter by Rating:
9/10
Finally! An LMN movie with a good plot!
21 October 2024
THIS is the kind of movie LMN should be showing: the characters and their relationships to one another are quickly discernible; the plot builds with the appropriate amount of time it requires; and the movie ends neither abruptly nor with an uncertain resolution. And the title (though it can be polished a little more) actually matches the plot!

We know by the title it's about a kidnapping in the Grand Canyon, so no need to give a synopsis here. But the great thing about this movie were that it's two protagonists - Chandra (a photographer) and Brooke (a pediatrician) - find that this harrowing experience forces each of them to realize and confront other fears and insecurities they are experiencing in their personal lives. That is what make "Kidnapping in the Grand Canyon" a great watch.

One little thing that's not very believable, though, is that Nate (the kidnapper) who has taken his girlfriend, Tara, hostage in the canyon, after she rejected his marriage proposal. Although Tara mentions to Chandra that she and Nate had been dating, it's just hard to believe since the actors who portray them in real life appear to be at least 20 years apart in age. That little anomaly aside, this is a great story.
1 out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Spring Break Nightmare (2023 TV Movie)
6/10
The actors' ages don't line up with that of their roles
15 August 2024
Aside from the typical schlock of LMN movies, it's easy to see that the actors look much older than the characters they portray. Nowhere was this more present than on "Spring Break Nightmare."

The actor who plays Nick - Kayla's boyfriend- looks old enough to be her father. And Kayla, Ally, and their friends look more like college seniors than high school seniors. And Michelle - Kristi Murdock - looks a little young to be Kayla's mom. (But I do enjoy LMN movies where Murdock is cast - whatever her role.)

Not a bad movie, but the misaligned ages of the cast make the storyline a little harder to believe.
0 out of 0 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
6/10
A good thriller, but some parts make no sense
24 June 2024
Warning: Spoilers
This is one of the better LMN movies I've seen in a while. The movie did keep me on my toes and curious as to where the plot would go next, and the plot did take some exciting and unexpected turns.

There are several events in the movie that would make no sense in real life, however: the scene in which Daisy's boss' daughter shows up to her house to tell her she was fired for poisoning her mom wouldn't have just ended up with her being fired. Most likely, Daisy's boss would have pressed charges and Daisy would have been arrested then.

Also, the scene when Violet is giving Allison the makeover and Allison confides to Violet that she's "not into guys," but Daisy and Garrett don't yet know, goes nowhere in the movie. Someone as scheming as Violet would have found a way to weaponize that against Daisy.

Moreover, the scene in which Violet uses the stolen passwords to Daisy and Garrett's bank accounts to drain Allison's college fund is also unrealistic: most banks have rules that would prevent a transfer of that amount electronically without prior verbal and written authorization from the depositor. In addition, Daisy could immediately - upon receiving the confirmation text - notify her bank that she did not make that transaction, and it would have been halted.

Finally, the scene in which Violet drugs Daisy's coffee with Rohypnol (the date rape drug), lures Oliver the conman over there, and stabs him to death, then places the knife in an unconscious Daisy's hands also would be suspect. The investigating cop would have to be an amateur not to wonder why the con man would show up at the victim's house after successfully defrauding her. Also, the cop should have wondered why the killer is unconscious with a knife in her hands, and see that the angles at which she lay and the dead con man lay are not consistent with a genuine revenge killing. And even the part when Garrett tells an imprisoned Daisy that they found no drugs in her system is wrong: Rohypnol can be detected in the body for up to 60 hours - 2 1/2 days - after being ingested.

Despite all these unlikely events, I still found the movie entertaining, and give it six stars for the thrill.
0 out of 0 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Deceitful Dating (2021 TV Movie)
5/10
I finally figured out why these LMN movies are so lame
9 June 2024
Watching this movie on Lifetime Movie Network, I finally realized why these LMN movies are mediocre at best: there are so many commercials that the effective running time of the movie is maybe an hour to an hour and ten minutes, so there's no time to develop a plot. Thus, things happen so quickly that it's hard to see how parts of the plot work together.

Early in the movie, Chelsea, the oldest daughter, laments to both Alice (the dad's new love interest) and Jillian (her late mom's best friend) that her boyfriend Derrick has been cheating on her with her best friend, Rose. Both Alice and Jillian tell Chelsea not to take it. Then, in the next scene, Rose - who has never been shown before in the movie, so the viewer doesn't know who she is - gets mugged. We learn who she is in the next scene, when Chelsea visits her in the hospital. Rose mentions she thinks her attacker was a woman because she was short and had long dark hair. That immediately makes the viewer realize the villain has to be either Alice or Jillian!

Chelsea does all this sleuthing to find out Alice isn't who she said she is (but there's a reason). We also find out Alice's ex-husbabd is murdered. Yet the murder is yet another disparate part of the plot - there is no scene, or appearance of the ex-husband; the viewer is simply told.

Chelsea continues her amateur detective work, finds the true villain, gets pursued by her, until a freak accident occurs which kills the villain cold, just as the father and the other woman come to Chelsea. The movie then has a cold end.

Lame-O.
0 out of 0 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
9/10
Great season premiere, but didn't pick up where left off
21 January 2024
I enjoyed the season premiere, but I really wanted to see how Olivia and Elliott dealt with being on the hit list. I hope that will be addressed soon in the season.

Watching "Hal" try to flee over the fence brought some comic relief, in spite of his creepiness.

I also got a laugh out the parents of the missing Maddie, who said they left San Francisco to escape the crime there. Really??? So they move to NYC instead?

Finally, Churlish appears to have gone the way of Chuck Cunningham; she wasn't in the episode and wasn't even mentioned. Is she gone for good? I know her character wasn't popular with many viewers, but I felt her character needed to be developed more.

In all, a pretty good episode.
10 out of 12 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Falcon Crest: Madness Descending (1990)
Season 9, Episode 12
2/10
Frank Agretti deserved a more heroic exit
15 September 2023
Warning: Spoilers
This episode made absolutely no sense: Genele throws Frank Agretti - a man who demonstrated such personal and moral strength in the prior seasons - out of his own home? Then he goes to the police with the remains of his wife with the story of what happened, which he tells like some lunatic?

The last you see of Rod Taylor, as Frank Agretti, is of him being arrested and taken away. Frank Agretti is clearly a moral man who tried to initiate peace between the Channings/Giobertis and the Agrettis; who reconciled with his estranged son and grandson; who helped rescue Lance and Melissa from the shaft; who helped rescue young Michael when he fell into the well; and who jumped in to save Angela from Richard's plot to have her declared mentally incompetent. And THIS is how they end his character on Falcon Crest?

At the very least, they could have written Frank out by sending him back to the emerald mine in Peru; or they could have had him gear up for a fight with Genele that might lead to his demise. His character should certainly have gone away with dignity.

But, as most viewers knew by this point. Falcon Crest was on its last legs; and the writers were clearly throwing paint at the wall to see what would stick.
1 out of 1 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Falcon Crest: The Price of Freedom (1989)
Season 9, Episode 1
4/10
The series goes into free fall once this last season begins
7 September 2023
With the start of the 9th and final season, it's clear the writers were throwing paint at the wall to see what would stick. The Ortega's and the Agretti's are completely written out, and gone from the Tuscany Valley as fast as they arrived in the last season: we still don't know whether Tommy and Kelly survived the fall into the water; or whether Gabriel's condition continues to improve; what became of the rumor between Maggie and Tommy, and its impact on Maggie's newspaper, the Tuscany Herald. Also Nick and Ben Agretti are gone without explanation; no word about whether Nick was going to continue to challenge Angela for control of Falcon Crest; or the mystery surrounding the death of the guy who forged the Falcon Crest deed.

The season starts on a totally different, fanciful note: Richard has been convicted of all kinds of financial frauds and is starting his prison sentence. It's unbelievable; even in the 1980s, a case like this wouldn't even have begun trial in these short months. And Michael Sharps (Gregory Harrison) is introduced out of nowhere, as one of Richard's co-conspirators. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Even the tempo of this final season is so different from all the prior seasons; one does not feel like he is watching the same show. The writers seemed to be grasping at straws.

I actually had stopped watching Falcon Crest by its 7th season; I began binge watching the series a few months ago, and finally got to this last season, more than 30 years after it aired. It's clear, I didn't miss much. Watching this last season is torture!
6 out of 6 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Dirty Little Secret (2022 TV Movie)
2/10
Started great, then went off the rails
18 December 2022
"Dirty Little Secret" starts out good and effectively sets up the plot for how Hart's character, Joanna, became a hoarder, and the effect her disorder has on her children, particularly Lucy (Lizzie Boys). We see Lucy go on a path to discovery of what a normal functioning family looks like, and sees how a boy in her class has come to terms with his mom's recovery from alcoholism, and we develop hope that she will gain inner strength and feel empowered to lead her mother to admitting her problem and get her on the path to redemption. And the storyline does get us to the point where Lucy confronts her mother, and Joanna does show signs of realizing her problem. The viewer has hope that Joanna will be redeemed and Lizzie will prove mature beyond her years.

Then it all goes downhill from there. Everything gets weird and nonsensical. I won't give away the details, but the last 30 minutes was bizarre.

I think the Lifetime network should have a contest of its viewers to see who can write a better ending to this otherwise pretty good movie.
5 out of 6 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
10/10
Great episode; glad to see some of the earlier faces of SVU
22 October 2021
I won't bore you with the excellent plot for the 500th episode, but it was so nice to see Danny Pino, Dann Florek, Peter Hermann, and also Diane Neal (at least through flashbacks to prior episodes) on SVU again. I just wish we could also have had Munch, Alex Cabot, and Rafael Barba in this episode too!
49 out of 54 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Silk Stalkings: The Last Kiss Goodnight (1995)
Season 5, Episode 12
10/10
This was where Silk Stalkings jumped the shark.
21 October 2021
Warning: Spoilers
This was a great episode, and when I watched it when it first aired in 1995, I was on the edge of my seat for most of it.

But as this would be Rob Estes' final appearance as Detective Chris Lorenzo (and the following episode Mitzi Kapture's final appearance), it marked the beginning of the end of my interest in the series.

I was fine with Kapture's and Estes' immediate successors, Tyler Layton and Nick Kokotakis, as we got some introduction to them in earlier episodes. But at the start of the next season, when they were replaced by Janet Gunn and Chris Potter, I just could not relate to them. After a few episodes in season 5, I stopped watching.
2 out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Silk Stalkings: Reluctant Witness (1994)
Season 4, Episode 3
9/10
The subplot with Donnie Dog's Dad was hysterical
18 October 2021
I watched this episode yesterday, after having seen it almost 30 years ago. It had really great action, but the subplot where Rita acts like Donnie "Dogs" DiBarto's girlfriend as a favor to him for his visiting dad, Gussie, provided a lot of comic relief.
0 out of 0 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
8/10
Enough with the crossover!
2 October 2021
I realize Law & Order: Organized Crime is still new and that Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay played partners on the first 12 seasons of Law & Order: SVU. Those were my among favorite episodes. And while I'm happy Meloni is back, I feel these crossovers between the two shows are damaging SVU. The plots of SVU episodes increasingly are part of larger, organized crime scenarios and far less about the most common, everyday special victim. These crossovers force us to watch both shows, lest we miss important details, or see an unfinished plot. Occasional crossovers are fine, but this is really too much. SVU needs to get back to its roots.
26 out of 30 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed