Reviews
True Detective (2014)
Very good, but not blow-me-away great
This is definitely one of the better TV shows I've seen in a while, but it's not perfect. Basically, it's about two deeply flawed detectives trying to solve a murder. It also deals with their personal lives. This is not an action-based police procedural like CSI or Criminal Minds. It's more like an Agatha Christie novel--slow and talky. Fortunately, that's a style I enjoy greatly.
The show peels away the layers of the mystery slowly. Details that seem unimportant at the beginning become crucial later on. There are hints at a conspiracy of "rich people" who engage in devil worship. Some questions are left unanswered and that's how it should be.
The show has high production values. The photography is beautiful, cinematic in quality. Harrelson and McConaughey both give excellent performances.
At times, though, it seems a little pretentious. Cohle gives a few too many philosophical lectures. In the end, under the shiny exterior, it's your typical dedicated-detectives-solve-a-murder-everyone-else-missed plot. We've seen this before on other shows, but the way it's presented here was refreshing.
Personally, I felt the last episode was a letdown. First, they pretty obviously teased the identity of the killer at the end of the seventh episode. Second, the confrontation with said killer was a little cliché, with the typical searching through dark corridors while being taunted by the villain. Third, the climax was badly misplaced; the killer is caught about halfway through and the rest of the episode consists mainly of Cohle bitching and complaining about how much life sucks.
Homeland Security USA (2009)
Better than the Canadian Version
This show is the American version of a show that originally started in Australia and which has since come to Canada and the UK. The Canadian version is dull and not very interesting, mainly because it shows routine incidents.
The American version is more interesting, probably because the Mexican border is way more exciting than the Canadian one and thus provides more TV-worthy footage. There are drug seizures. There is people smuggling. Because this show deals with the Department of Homeland Security as a whole rather than just Customs and Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard are also shown in a few segments; the variety makes this more watchable.
In addition, the CBP officers seem to have more personality than the ones on the Canadian show do. They have a laugh from time to time and are generally more polite even when they have to deport someone. In one episode, an officer nicknamed the "Rottweiler" is profiled. He got the nickname from tenaciously digging through databases to find information on travelers. These sorts of things aren't shown in the Canadian version.
One note though: in a season one episode, two Canadian citizens born in Iraq try to enter the US and are turned back. The voice-over mentions this detail once, but otherwise refers to them as "Iraqi nationals." I guess Canadians aren't scary enough for Americans.
NFL Rush Zone (2010)
An Advertisement for Pugilistic Dementia
First, I have to admit that I'm not a football fan. I stumbled across this by accident. I checked it out for a lark.
The premise is that the "combined power" of every NFL team "in the wrong hands" could "threaten our very existence." Supposedly every team has its own "megacore," a football, that contains "the essence" of the team's power.
Riiight...
This is definitely not one of the better cartoons I've seen, mainly because it's such a blatant, unrepetent advertisement for the NFL. League and team logos are everywhere, and every other line of dialogue has a team name or player name or something NFL-branded in it.
Border Security: Canada's Front Line (2012)
Boring and Maybe Expoitative
As the other reviewer has mentioned, this show is dull and repetitive. They show the same things over and over again (dumb Americans, Asians smuggling ethnic food, etc.). They are low-hanging fruit for customs, not professional criminals at all.
This is also very much an infomercial for the current Canadian government, so much so that it might as well be sponsored by the governing party. The CBSA officers are shown to be dutiful and diligent in carrying out their duties. They never make mistakes on camera.
At least the Australian version of this show shows incidents that are a little more interesting--there's one episode that shows people coming in from Vietnam claiming to be high-level business executives for a shoe company and it turns out they're actually assembly-line workers and illegal immigrants.
The show seems to substitute the more interesting cases with more interesting people. It seems like everyone pulled aside for questioning is eccentric in one way or another--the weakest members of the herd, the ones who don't quite fit in. In a season two episode, they show a guy trying to get into Canada with furry porn on his laptop and the CBSA officers trying to figure out whether or not it's bestiality. At times the show is almost exploitative in this regard.
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013)
All You Need is the Trailer
All the best jokes in this movie are in the trailer. Two and a half minutes of good jokes. That's it. That's all this movie has to offer.
Ron dumps his wife when she gets a better job, and he tries to both advance his career and win her back. If the movie had stuck to that, it would have been much better. Instead, the filmmakers chose to include a whole ton of random happenings that make no sense.
Ron goes blind and ends up in a lighthouse. There is a psychologist who can blow things up with his mental powers. Ron is almost eaten by a shark. For some reason, a minotaur shows up at the end. Also Brick falls in love. The movie is basically a bunch of sketches jammed together and it jumps from thing to thing without regard for continuity.
The shifts from Ron's adventures in infotainment to him trying to get his family back are particularly jarring, as they are completely different in tone. It's like watching two movies at the same time, and you don't get emotionally involved in either. In the first movie, you were rooting for Ron. Now, you just can't wait for it to end. I was checking my watch. This film is two hours long, and after about the first hour it gets boring and repetitive.
And we've seen jokes about a white guy trying to fit into a black family many, many times before in other movies.
Overall, I was less than impressed.
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
They're here... again.
The Paranormal Activity movies are all pretty boring. Everything that happens is too subtle to have an impact. The spooky stuff is mostly just strange noises and maybe an occasional light fixture swinging for no apparent reason. A lot of each movie is just you sitting and waiting for something interesting to happen. And why these people feel the need to constantly tape their every move even when nothing is happening is a mystery into and of itself.
The third instalment is also the most derivative. It is eerily similar to Poltergeist. The wife smokes pot. The girls' bedroom furniture gets sucked towards the crawlspace. Kristi behaves very similarly to Carol Ann, talking to the spirits that only she can see. The house itself looks similar to the one in Poltergeist: 80s suburbia.
On the other hand, this movie is probably the most enjoyable one of the three. The production values are higher and there is a lot more weird stuff happening thanks to better special effects. The Bloody Mary bit was a nice touch.
Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior (2011)
Like the Original... on Fast Forward
Watching this is like watching the original Criminal Minds on fast forward. Everything moves at warp speed. One of the things I liked about the original--the science--is totally absent.
The worst aspect is the ridiculous conclusions the characters jump to, which since this is TV are never wrong. Just because someone puts eyeballs on top of a stack of newspapers isn't a good enough reason to assume that one lousy obituary in that issue is relevant. "Oh, this guy had surgery at the same hospital three weeks ago and he died from a Staph infection. These cases have to be connected!"
Give me a break. Not everyone who watches is seven years old.
Forest Whitaker's acting and dialogue are wooden and dull. His character has no character. What the heck is he supposed to be?
The show is somewhat entertaining in its own right, but it can't hold a candle to the original Criminal Minds.