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Franklie
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Reviews
Love Wedding Repeat (2020)
wasted potential
The premise is interesting.
The location is beautiful.
The actors are great.
But the characters and the situations and the dialogue are really really bad.
Characters with any smarts are few and far between. They are cartoon-ish and shallow and idiotic and unlikable.
The situations are easily avoidable or fixable or too unbelievable to be interesting.
The vocabulary is horrendous and off-putting.
The conversations seemed to be from crude middle-school minds.
Such a shame and a waste. It could have been so engaging if they'd gone with intelligence and class rather than crass gags.
Without the fast-forward option, I never would have made it to the end. Where, again, they do something annoying. After all of the stupidness, they try to fix it with a 'romantic' serious feel-good moment. Lazy. Be better. Please.
Unstable (2023)
genius to boring
Unstable starts out quick-witted with fun actors and great sets and a very interesting premise.
The first few episodes have writing that is almost all genius hilarity unfortunately sprinkled with a bit of off-putting crassness, but not crass enough that you couldn't recommend the show to just about anyone.
But then... around episode four this changes. The genius writing is gone and the 'EW' factor goes up and it's no longer recommendable to a huge swath of folks.
Why do show creators do this? Choosing class over crass makes your show palatable to a wider audience. Maybe it's too much work. Ultimately, we quit watching.
Vera: Salt & Vinegar (2024)
Can't please everyone....
It's been interesting to read the perspectives in the reviews and see how varied they are.
I miss Aiden. Joe is too uppity for me. Most of the folks who write reviews are Team Joe though.
And I miss Jac. Sadly they didn't give her character much to do in her last season.
I think the character of Kenny is brilliant. Hopefully he's able to stick around.
DC Mark just gets better and better.
My biggest pet peeve is how snarky the detectives are. Seems like that would make most suspects less likely to speak freely. And they're snarky with each other, how is that helpful in the work place? And it's just not fun to watch/listen to. But we love the show anyway.
It was nice in Season 13 to have more time spent at Vera's house.
The filming locations are wonderful.
Lots of opinions. Lots of faves and dislikes. It's been a great show. Hopefully future changes will work out well and it will continue on for another 13 seasons.
Geek Girl: Episode #1.5 (2024)
ball dropped
We had a great time watching the first three episodes of this show. The premise is intriguing. The characters are fun and likeable. The visuals are beautiful. The writing is witty. And we are super impressed that the producers were willing to keep it classy rather than filled with crass.
There was something a little annoying about the fourth episode (maybe the lying to the friend?), I don't remember what, but it wasn't enough to comment on. But then episode 5 came along. Why would her agent send her out so unprepared? What's with the lying?
Despite all of that, we're SO overwhelmed by the fact that this show has been clean, that we're still giving it 8 out of 10 and are eager to watch the rest of the season.
Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023)
casting and plot 10/10 ... but....
This was an amazing cast. It's rare to find a show where every actor fits so well and no one drives you nuts. And it was great to see some favorites, yeah, I'm talking about Vincent Regan. ")
Loved seeing bits of London and Norway (or wherever the snowy bits were filmed).
Clever well-paced writing. A few gaps in the plot and a few hard-to-believe timings are to be expected in an action film.
The routine violence in the line of duty was even clever, but the end results of the crimes and the talk of what horrible things were going to happen to future victims was WAY too much. This is when we're grateful beyond measure for the fast-forward button. For us, the Ew factor overshadowed the Cool factor.
Made in Italy (2020)
Lindsay Duncan ... always worth watching.....
Seeing Lindsay Duncan is always a treat.... She was our favorite character.... And it's kinda fun that she was also in Under The Tuscan Sun which this film echos in many ways. She was a favorite part of that film too.
Loved the scenery. It's difficult to go wrong with scenery in the Italian countryside.
Loved seeing a building refurbished and cared for again. Could have watched them do more of the house and then the gardens and and and
Definitely could have done without the F-bombs and the like. Seems silly to alienate viewers when there's no need. If this had been gritty crime, then maybe.
Vera: Recovery (2021)
SUPER annoying.... but that may be on purpose....
Huge Vera fan here.
This episode is 80 minutes of annoyance and then 10 minutes of brilliance. And that may be the point. If so, they produced a masterpiece. If they just made everyone snarky because that's supposedly the thing to do these days, then that is mindless.
Seems like every single line is snarky and judgemental and frustrating and just plain annoying. This gets old REALLY fast and is not entertaining. There's no relief from it. No breathers. No chance taken to smile for a second with the main characters. In fact you like them less and less as the story goes on. They're not even worth cheering for anymore.
Saving graces are the usual gorgeous scenery and Mark's new look.
But then, the actor speaking with Vera near the end is amazing and brilliant and heart breaking and you realize the 80 minutes may just have prepared you for this speech.
Cruising with Susan Calman (2022)
She's just fun....
Susan Calman is a joy. We're not British and first saw her on panel shows a few years ago, usually QI where she and Sandi are having a hilarious go at each other.
We watch her travels shows to hang out with her more than to see where she's going. The beautiful locations are a bonus. And her crew do an amazing job. We love it when she includes them.
Her Christmas show was the first one we watched and we're now doing our best to find all of the others. Sadly they're not all easy to find.
In a world of negativity, she's needed more than ever. We hope she continues taking us on adventures for a long long time.
Granite Harbour (2022)
Annoying, but would like to see an improved second season.
We really wanted to like this.
We're always rooting for mystery shows to be good, but this one had some of our biggest pet peeves.
One of the biggest being unlikable main characters. We liked the main character okay, but the rest were non-stop annoying. Especially DI Mallick. The police were so bad, we started hoping they were getting everything completely wrong and would be proved idiots at the end. The supposed requirement that the cops be snarky really has to go.
Despite all that, we appreciated that the script went classy rather than crass with the vocabulary and the visuals. Cinematography was great.
Would love to see an attempt at a second season maybe with more stories that are shorter. 90 minute mysteries are perfect.
James Acaster: Repertoire: Recognise (2018)
smart and hilarious
Cool and edgy and hilarious without being crude and creepy.
We absolutely LOVED and appreciated that James didn't go the gutter route with the easy laughs usually found in using mindless cringe-worthy vocabulary and in mocking people or cultures or .... He went the no crude - no rude, class over crass route. There aren't many comedians / writers / performers / anyone really brave enough to do that these days. He just doesn't need to. Plus, he gets a wider audience. This is clever fresh air observational craziness-of-life hilarity. None of the usual tripe here.
Am eager to watch the rest of the series.
Endeavour (2012)
Season Seven is a huge let down.
Somewhere along the way, you'd think Morse's co-workers would start trusting his intuition, but instead the writers have them telling him more and more adamantly that he's an idiot. THIS GOT OLD AND BORING MANY SEASONS AGO. Quit w the snail's pace melodrama and take us back to the sights and sounds of Oxford with a team that works together.
Hjem til jul (2019)
Beautiful Norway littered with horrible horrible horrible ugly vocabulary...
Voice overs were passable, but still not believable. And the English subtitles don't always match the English words.
This is a bit Bridget Jones and Love Actually w loads more crass language and graphic situations.
There is one point where someone says 'sorry for the imagery' after using a crude word and THAT's what the writers and translators should keep in mind when doing their work. Look on these words with the same disgust the characters view the toilet roll Santas in season two. We have a beautiful language that is being lost and suffocated under visions of excrement and sexual abuse and such. Leave those images behind. Move forward. Give us something actually entertaining. Bare minimum, bring back 'damn' and 'hell' instead! And 'AF', really? SO stupid. Think people!!
Laughed when during the first season she has an anti-men rant and then right afterward gets creeped on by a woman.
First season was better. Enjoyed the mystery of having all of the men/women in play and wondering which one would still be around at the end.
Loved seeing Norway. Loved the people. Hugely disappointed in the vocabulary. Won't be watching it again until a litter-free version is available.
Young Wallander (2020)
Annoyingly slow, inconsistent, and trendy...
Didn't really click... Greeny super hero saving us from 'eye-for-an-eye' mentality. Bad guys not really getting what they deserve. Trendy scenes like cheek swabs. And the camera getting way too close.
One of the biggest turn-off's was the breathy voice used by Kurt. It was distracting. We could not wait for the show to be over so that we didn't have to listen to it anymore.
Most of it was SUPER slow. Slow can be dramatic, but use it sparingly, otherwise it is mind numbing. The intro is way too long, luckily Netflix doesn't make you sit through it every episode. Music put us to sleep.
Cinematography was dark and sometimes tries to be cool but ends up annoying, example is having the business end of a gun in our faces. There were a few beautiful shots of the forest though.
Crass vocabulary, especially in the workplace, was extremely off-putting.
Police force not as smart or wise as expected given their supposed training and experience.
Seems to have not much to do with Mankell's Wallander. The timing and location and story line are off. Would have been better and received less criticism under its own name.
Yes, it should probably be in Swedish, but as English-speakers who are often doing other things while watching, we're grateful to have it in English so that we don't have to focus on subtitles. But having it first in Swedish, then voiced-over (hopefully by proper actors) would be good and solve a lot of the accent problems.
We haven't seen the original Swedish Wallander series, but have watched and re-watched the Kenneth Branagh version, mostly because it's in English and despite the subject matter being dark, the cinematography is beautiful and we get to enjoy Sweden for a bit.
And there's the biggest test of whether a show is good or not. Would we re-watch this version or recommend it to a friend? No.
Agatha and the Truth of Murder (2018)
Missed opportunity...
After two attempts, we finally made it through the whole show.
The character of Agatha is wooden and cold and unpleasant, absolutely nothing that would make us care about her. Other characters aren't much better. She could have used some Miss Fisher type spark.
The scenery and pace are a bit dreary. Would have appreciated an escape to beautiful England.
It's a run-of-the-mill mystery that has nothing to do with Agatha or her disappearance and could have been solved by her or anyone at any time.
Crude vocabulary not cool for today or correct for then.
We're HUGE fans of British mysteries and appreciate it when they portray characters, real or imaginary, as they were in real life or in the original books.
Biggest disappointment was Agatha's boring personality.
ÜberWeihnachten (2020)
Unique Christmas fare....
Echoes of 'Dan In Real Life', 'What We Did On Our Holidays', and 'Home For The Holidays', all of which are practically perfect love.
Voice overs done fairly well, but the translators have GOT to return to using 'damn' and 'hell' rather than vocab that is disgusting, especially at Christmas. We just don't need that imagery.
The relationships and situations are tough to watch and grandma's crudeness was overdone, so didn't come off as funny.
The one and only Black character was stereotypical. Sad.
BUT... We loved being in a beautiful German village for a few hours. Loved the multi-episode form. Loved the messages. Loved the imagined scenarios.
Breaking the Bank (2014)
Missing the mark a bit...
Fun mix of sentiment, comedy, and social commentary.
Very fun actors.
Sadly went with trendy overly-obvious innuendo rather than being classy. Definitely not PG.
Beautiful views of London.
Great one-liners.
French Toast (2015)
Good romcom...
Once you get past the fact that the main character is a manipulative busy body and that the dad could have saved himself the grief of the lie by tossing the diary, then you're good to go.
Beautiful scenery.
Extremely grateful for all attempts to be clever rather than crude.
Pottersville (2017)
Almost perfect comic drama.....
Think mistaken identity meets 'It's A Wonderful Life' and 'Home For The Holidays'.
Perfect level of silliness and redemption.
Loved seeing Judy Greer and Ian McShane, two of our favorites.
Edit out the few bits of crude rather than clever vocabulary and you've got a 10 that's accessible to more people.
3 Days to Kill (2014)
Bad in so many ways...
Reminded us of why we don't watch many action films or read many action books. They're so stupid and even more stupid when they're trying to make violence funny.
Vivi was an enigma that should have done the job quietly and quickly by herself.
There is nothing heroic about people who kill and maim indiscriminately. It's idiocy over ingenuity. No sense of care for humanity. Extremely unattractive.
Most of the characters were unlikable and laughable, especially the main three. Ethan wasn't even very smart.
The song choice for the father/daughter dance was downright CREEPY.
Going with crude rather than classic vocabulary added to the 'ew' factor.
It had some clever ideas, but films like these make us grateful for fast-forwarding and even more grateful for shows that put care and cleverness ahead of foolish tantrums and violence.
Huge in France (2019)
Rework the cringeworthy bits and you've got a 10.
Simultaneously painful, awful, and amazing.
Dramedy filled with loads of between-the-lines social commentary.. international perceptions, estranged fathers, show business, parenting, greed, values, peer pressure, mental health, communication skills, ...
Would have loved to see this without the vulgarity. It gets in the way and creates an unappealing atmosphere for a huge swath of the public, reducing the number of people willing to watch.
The characters, which are almost all horrid, become more sympathetic as the show progresses, but there's still a constant urge to slap most of them upside the head. Loved how the downcast assistant kept saving the day. And the actor who played Jason was amazing.
A few truly hilarious bits, as well as tragic, annoying, tense, suspenseful, funny,... Yes, there were a lot of inconsistencies, but they didn't bug us as much as the vocabulary and the leave-nothing-to-the-imagination sex scenes.
Class up the cringe-worthy bits and you've got a 10. We'd watch Gad and Brian through more adventures. As it is though, there's no one to whom we can recommend it. The smart bits are just covered with too much 'ew'.
Unicorn Store (2017)
Glad we finally watched it.......
Not being fans of unicorns or glitter or pastels, this did NOT look like our kind of movie. We're cancelling Netflix in the near future though, so thought we'd better see it while we can.
We almost turned it off during Samuel L. Jackson's first scenes, he was so off putting, but stuck with it and had a fun ride. Yes it's silly and full of inside jokes and occasional needlessly crude vocab, but it was fun.
LOVED seeing Joan Cusack and Hamish Linklater. And loved being introduced to Mamoudou Athie. All of the characters seemed spot on and covered so many bases. We even liked the vacuum cleaner ad idea. Wouldn't that be great?
Growing up and taking responsibility can be tricky even when you have a great support system. Wouldn't mind seeing more of Kit and Virgil's adventures, especially if Joan is part of the mix.
Good Sam (2019)
Exactly what it is meant to be...
Practically perfect light clean small-screen feel-good romance.
A chance to turn off our usual nitpicking snarkiness and just enjoy.
Falling Inn Love (2019)
Perfect light romance.... 10 million stars....
Yes, this was formulaic, but it was done with fun and beauty and not nearly as sappy as most others.
If we could, we'd give it 10 MILLION stars for daring to be clean in an industry that thinks it needs to be vulgar to be cool, not realizing that when you're clean AND clever, you become marketable to a wider audience, plus you make the world a better place. You add to the fresh air that's so rare and needed these days.
Yes, it had a few inconsistencies and quirks, esp on the subject of sustainability, but stick with it and a few of them work themselves out.
Mostly though, we just wanted to say THANK YOU to the producers/writers/... Thank you for being wise and giving us something we can recommend to anyone and something we'd watch again.
Well done!!
Dash & Lily (2020)
Almost really good...
Fun actors. Fun premise. Fun locations. Fun timeline.
but ...
Drama over reality... For example, several times a cellphone would have solved a predicament.
Check list of PC situations... gets old and obvious.
And the writers couldn't seem to move past using vapid vocabulary here and there. Our language has SO many great words. Stop using the ones that gross us out, well those of us who still see the imagery of words and feel cheated when a clever one could have been used instead. There's already too much ugly in the world, don't add to it. I realize this goes against my "drama over reality" complaint since in real life the language would have been gobs worse, but this film had a chance to give us a romp w/o patties and it chose not to.
Another pet peeve... Surprises. If you think about it, they're more for the giver than the receiver. If you care about someone, you don't leave them worrying, you let them in on what's what. There are other ways to produce suspense.
B Positive (2020)
Audience laughter will return once social distancing is over, right?....
Love the actors/characters. LOVED seeing Bernie Kopell.
Love the premise.
Definitely not a fan of the crass vocab choices.
And absolutely hated the intro visuals.
But we're HUGE fans of Lorre shows (at least we think this is a Lorre show, he's not on the IMDb credits) and hope this one stays around for a good long while. Hopefully choosing clever rather than cheap crude vocab and gags.
For those complaining about the laugh track... This is being produced in the time of social distancing. There is no audience. As we understand it, the natural laughs of the folks on set are being augmented by laugh tracks. As with other Lorre shows, there would be that awesome audience laughter if it were possible. It will return one day.