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Believe: Defection (2014)
And then, the writers start running out of ideas.
Telekinesis and other ESP-like traits, explained in earlier episodes as a result of a very rare gene.
I was all in; hook, line, & sinker.
But with Episode 4, they introduced the Telekinesis Energy Sensor, with sufficient range to indicate on a video display, for the Bad Guys, anytime Bo exhibits her powers.
Nahhh; THAT was beyond my ability to suspend disbelief. It was a sudden turn to cheapness, which I'll bet was a controversial move inside the writers' room.
Plus, the situations requiring Bo to save the day by squeezing out a burst of telekinesis are getting less complex, the usual bang-'em-ups, a sure sign that the writers are either running out of original ideas, or the writers from the first 3 episodes were replaced by less-original staff writers.
My other family members want to keep binging, but I'm not hopeful.
The first series to suffer this phenomenon was the Time Tunnel, in 1960-something, where only the first episode was good. At least Believe had three creative episodes.
Regardless, Bo is wonderful. How do little kids get to be such good actors. And for the first 3 episodes, William Tate was absorbing and unique. It didn't take me long to get real fond of the actor playing him -- Jake McLaughlin. But for Episode 4, his character has de-evolved, with the rest of the show, into just-another-TV-series, a similar Hollywood industrial formula.
On the other hand, it's nice to see Delroy Lindo and Kyle MacLachlan anywhere.
On a tangent, I keep thinking that Lindo is a big, scary-looking Black man, the kind of man that police love to beat the carp out of. But I think society is on the cusp of recognizing that big Black men are often teddy bears. No room for prejudice, you have to talk to a person to see if they might be a source of love or not.
I Survived... Beyond and Back: Chuck, Mike, Julie (2011)
I don't have the self confidence to give this fewer than 5-out-of-10 stars
After 10 ratings, this gets an 8? I disagree.
The content is plenty interesting, deserving of 10 out of 10 for fellow human beings concisely telling their stories, from the people that experienced trauma, their friends, the first responders, etc., honest, engaging and fascinating. And you never hear the interviewers, only the participants' answers, but the interviewers and editors get a 10, too.
So, how can the production crew screw up what could have been such an interesting show?
Every time anyone says a few sentences, they splice in a still graphic with some spooky sound effects, overlayed with explanatory text-captioning that's left up there too long, that perhaps a voice narration could have spoken inside of two seconds. The ultimate result is a show that moves about one-third the speed that it might have otherwise, but they chose to slow it down that much, interrupting everything everyone is saying with those graphical interludes. Plus, in true A&E style, they repeat, verbatim, content they already presented 10 minutes previously.
Before Episode 1 was halfway finished, I had pulled out most of my hair. The dragging sequences remind of when I was a kid I had to add filler to my book reports to meet the "size requirements," or maybe indulging in a bit of creative writing because IMDb recently instituted a 600-character requirement for reviews. But I don't completely understand why the producers of "I Survived..." felt the need to fill in time.
So, my sweety loves this spiritual stuff -- me too I guess. But I don't want to ruin her experience, so we'll leave this show on 'til the end. But after this episode, I think we'll find a different show to binge.
The Long Island Railroad Massacre: 20 Years Later (2013)
It was beyond belief. It was before the age of continual mass shootings.
A lot of us were living close to Long Island Railroad tracks, but were not directly effected by the murders, thank God. From a distance, all we could think was that this guy had serious mental illness. And then the absurd courtroom drama which dragged on too long, but only certainly proved that he really did have a serious disconnection from reality.
Problem. It's as if the people responsible for the documentary had no faith in the content of their own work. Because, they somehow felt that mixing a continual mechanical drone on top of the audio, mixing the drone on top of the thoughts of the victims, families, and officials, was necessary. If you haven't seen the documentary yet, the drone doesn't qualify as music. Maybe, to keep the audience engaged? Maybe to assure we'd share in feeling anger by subjecting the audience to the inescapable audio-analog of itching powder? Apparently, they had no confidence in our attention span or something. Maybe they thought that we needed the continual drone to hypnotize us, to keep us from changing the channel. Whatever. Otherwise, they had no faith in their own documentary, and mistakenly felt that "it needed something more."
The good news is that long, unchanging tones are easily removed with DSP -- digital signal processing. Please accept my vote in favor of doing a "remaster" of this important documentary.
World's Greatest Cities: Port Cities (2021)
Pretty good. A TV-commercial delivery device.
Sydney, Venice, St. Petersburg, Cape Town, Vancouver B. C., Rio de Janeiro, Edinburgh, San Francisco,... I might have missed a couple.
Sometime, there's a difference between titles on PlutoTV and the listing on IMDb, but this one is pretty close. IMDb says this episode, from 2021, is only a few years old, so that increases it's value. It's a long running series; more episodes are listed from the early 2000s.
No mention of Putin, but a quick history of Apartied and Pres. Mandela. Perhaps tourists can drive to the penguins in Cape Hope. Driving to see the penguins is something you can't do in North America. No mention of the homeless left on the streets in San Fran.
Photography good entertainment for a travelogue. PlutoTV delivered it as 1080p.
My Music: The Big Band Years (2009)
Good music, even if you were born in the 1960s instead of the 1920s
The reason I gave this 10 stars out of 10 is because of the sound. Accolades to the audio engineer that equalized all the music in this video.
If you try to find recordings of all these songs, there'd be huuuge variations in bass, trebles, and volume. But in this show, the audio quality doesn't vary at all from song to song. And any analog hiss or whatever noise must exist in some of the songs, but not after they were transferred into this video. I didn't notice any distortion, so I guess the audio engineer had a way of minimizing that, also. Just smooth as silk. I turned on the bass-boost on my hi-fi to hear bass like no one could in 1940, and there was plenty of treble available; thanks. This music never sounded better.
Regarding the image quality, the gray scale, for some songs, provides little more than "black and white," and I mean ONLY black and white -- lacking any grays in between, which is how it was recorded 85 years ago. It was the resolution of the technology back then. It was probably a visual spectacle back then to have any video at all. I'm sure some gray could have been synthesized for this video, but I'll bet the artistic decision was made to leave it alone, a decision respectful of antiques, no offense to seniors intended.
The image quality would certainly explain some of the low ratings. But I think it would be a little thoughtless to give a low rating for 85 year old image quality. I prefer appreciating that you can sit back and listen to all of the different songs without having to keep messing with your volume/treble/bass controls -- all the work was done for us.
One thing I don't understand. My local PBS station says this video fills a two hour time slot. I came to IMDb assuming to find the actual running time, but IMDb says the video is two hours old. That means there is no measure of the video's length without the fundraising interruptions. It could be just-a-dream to expect this video to exist as a DVD without the fundraising breaks. It's a shame it doesn't exist, because the music is provided so sweetly.
Cancer; The Integrative Perspective (2019)
There is no gene that causes cancer
What I learned, so far:
For instance, the "BRCA" gene that doctors says cause cancer and provokes women to go out and get mastectomies. 90% of women with the gene don't get cancer, proving that it's not the gene that causes cancer. What feeds cancer cell growth is environmental conditions:
. Inflammation
. Elevated blood glucose
. Toxins
. Stress / Beliefs
. Diet and Lifestyle
There are also discussions from people that had cancer and cured it by changing their environmental conditions.
You may want to take notes.
And now, I will return to the video...
Marijuana: A Chronic History (2010)
Episode should be banned from broadcast for its outdated information
According to the internet, TODAY (2021, 11 years after this show was produced):
Jamaica Marijuana Laws, Is Weed Legal in Jamaica?
Medical marijuana is legal in Jamaica. Although recreational marijuana use is not explicitly legal, it has been decriminalized and possession of up to 2 ounces or 56 grams of marijuana is punishable by a maximum fine of $5. It is also legal to grow up to five marijuana plants.
But according to "Marijuana: A Chronic History," Cannabis is completely illegal in Jamaica, "contrary to popular belief."
The show has some historical information regarding the early 1900s, but contemporary information is too outdated, which makes this show too invalid for general consumption.
I.e., in my TV listings, the History Channel made sure Not to provide the production date of this episode. If it's invalid from being outdated, they should at least let people recognize how old the show is.
Big City (1948)
It's not a bad movie if you're under 15 years old. Otherwise, you'll squirm in your seat.
Ugh; it is sufficient to watch only one (1) half hour of this soupy, too-long movie. It doesn't matter which half hour, they're all tedious.
And then, the pretty lady appeared. She looked familiar. Betty Garrett. Checked her out on IMDb; she played Irene Lorenzo on All in the Family! I didn't know she was a movie star! So happy for her.
I was in love with Garrett back in 1973. But 25 years before her TV role, wow, what a luuuvely babe!! They didn't really let her character loose in this movie, but what's there is heart-melting.
Nice to also catch glimpses of Robert Preston and Danny Thomas who apparently were also pretty young in 1948. Edward Arnold, who was never young, as a compassionate judge is as good as this movie gets. Margaret O'Brian overdose, as the plot revolves around her, again.
Maybe the drama was designed to be suitable for 14 year olds.
Unless you need to keep a 14 year old occupied for a couple of hours, recommend watching this mushy movie with the sound turned down while browsing the internet and playing Beethoven on the stereo, so it's not a total waste of your half hour.
Gunsmoke (1953)
Audie Murphy / Baby-Face
Audie's lines are tough and fearless. But I look into his eyes, and wonder where he left his teddy bear, just as I suppose we all do.
I have never seen an Audie movie with such a huge disconnect between how tough his lines are, and how sweet his face is. If everyone weren't so deadly serious, it would be satirical.
I sit there, and I just can't believe it. That's no way to watch a movie.
It's interesting to imagine the lines being delivered by a real tough, like Morgan Woodward or Clint Eastwood. Then the movie would start to make sense.
I understand Audie is a courageous war hero, and that Americans owe him as much as any veteran. Based on his baby-face, I have always found that paradoxical. My conclusion has always been that such a decent kid shouldn't have had to go into battle. Yes, it's a lesson.
Instead, my problem is with the casting director. Although Audie never lets any doubt leak through to his delivery, there is just no hiding how decent he is. It was a mistake to give him a role that's so darned tough. It just doesn't work.
Who's the Man? (1993)
Good production, good laughs
Cards on the table: I'm an old white guy. I don't know Dre or Lover.
I like some slapstick, and some I don't. For your reference, I never much cared for Abbott & Costello or the 3 Stooges, but I love Laurel & Hardy and the Marx Brothers. Dre & Lover got lots of personality and good humor. Love watching their comedy routine -- the best part of the movie.
Ice-T has a small part, must be one of his first on the screen. Would like to see him in bigger parts; he's on TV a lot lately and he's an interesting actor.
The closing credits are playing to some hip-hop. The lyrics use the "N" word, but it occurs to me that I don't remember hearing it in the movie's dialog. It's the end of 2006 and it's finally going out of style, but avoiding it 13 years ago was a touch of class.
I've got Cinemax playing on the TV. The next movie is coming on, which they rate "MV" for Mild Violence. If I were to rate "Who's the Man," I wouldn't give it any violence rating. A gun was waived around menacingly, once. Otherwise, they're too busy having fun. Bring the kids. (Apparently, the professional movie-raters disagree. Maybe society has changed a lot in 13 years. Either that, or professional movie-raters are fuddy duddies.)