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I'm giving Dark Winds a 5 because I watched both seasons to the end, which probably says more about me than the series itself. (I'm retired and don't have much to do in the evenings.) I enjoyed the awesome Western scenery; the plot and characters were interesting enough to keep me watching, and the Navaho culture presented was also interesting (I wouldn't know if it was authentic). The best character is Julie Matten, looking fierce as feisty Navaho police office Sgt. Manuelito.

The worst aspect of the series is that, when you take away the scenery and setting, it's just another violent TV cop show. The characters do not behave like real police officers (a legal or police procedure adviser was desperately needed). The first example was early in Episode 1, when Jim Chee announces that he has been assigned to Lt. Leaphorn's Navaho Police precinct. Wise old cop Leaphorn says he knew nothing of the assignment, but lets Chee go right to work instead of calling his commander for verification. The series is based on Tony Hillerman's classic novels, which I read many years ago. However, in episode one, I noticed that Chee, one of Hillerman's core characters, had been fundamentally changed, from a humble Navaho cop to an FBI agent trying to deceive the Navahos. Again, unrealistic. (These are only spoilers for the first half hour of season one.) Then in season two, an experienced officer makes a major mistake that moves the plot along but would never be made in the real world.

Another major flaw was that there were too many characters and too many subplots that were unresolved or seemed irrelevant. If you haven't seen the series and you have nothing better to do, enjoy the scenery, suspend all your disbelief, try to follow the main storyline, and cheer for the good guys to catch the bad guys.

Hope Solo has the right last name, because she has gone solo most of her life, from her unconventional upbringing to her isolation from the U. S. Women's Soccer Team and her battles with the U. S. Soccer Federation over pay equity. This documentary delves into the dualities of Solo's life. On one hand, she triumphed on the soccer field as the world's greatest soccer goalie. On the other hand, her unfiltered comments about coaches, teammates, and opponents made her professional life difficult, while her personal life was marred by drunkenness and a violent scuffle with two relatives.

Solo is unflinchingly honest about her love for her family, despite their dysfunctional behaviors, and her battles with former teammates and soccer officials. Another reviewer called the documentary one-sided because former teammates declined to respond on camera to Solo's criticisms. The way I see it, they had their chance to speak and now look like they had something to hide. Far from being one-sided, the documentary presents the many sides of a complex person.

It's Only Life After All chronicles the lives and music of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, who met in grade school, began singing together in high school, and started recording in their early 20s (the late 80s). In addition to the music, the documentary covers their lifelong friendship, lesbian sexual identities, and involvement in many social justice and environmental causes. Both women are incredibly revealing and honest, especially when Emily describes her life as a recovering alcoholic and Amy opens up about her lifelong sexual identity confusion. Also poignant are their struggles to overcome discrimination in their personal lives and musical career.

A minor quibble I have with the documentary is its implication that the Indigo Girls mainly appeal to LGBTQ people. I don't have any number counts, but I know that their best songs have universal appeal and are personal anthems for me and many of my straight friends. Another quibble is that the story jumps around in time (which seems to be in vogue for documentaries now) and wastes too much time on the women hanging out at home or practicing in the studio.

Overall, the documentary is an interesting portrait of two women who have establish an enduring friendship, activist achievements, and musical legacy.

People who wanted a paycheck remade a 40-year-old movie with more violence, more ridiculous chase scenes, more profanity, more run time, and whoever is still breathing from the old crew. One of the old-timers seems to be in there strictly for a nostalgia trip, because his character is totally superfluous to the plot. I don't need to give any plot spoilers because everything that happens is totally predictable.

Axel might be ancient, but he can still walk away from any crash, break into any building, and survive automatic weapon fire. Suspend all your disbelief and watch this movie if you have nothing better to do. But if you're seeking to rekindle your fond memories of the eighties, just watch the original BHC.

Treasure follows Ruth, the daughter of two Polish/Jewish Holocaust survivors, who journeys to Poland in 1991 to see places important to her family's story. Ruth's father, Edek, only accompanies her because he doesn't believe a women should travel alone. The best, most poignant scenes are a visit to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where Edek and his late wife were imprisoned, and a scene where a family treasure is found.

The rest of the movie is tedious, with many father/daughter disputes, including a very awkward argument in front of three people they only met a few days before. The lack of tolerance between Ruth and Edek is painful to watch. Although Ruth wants to find her Polish roots, she seems disdainful of the Polish people and culture, even the food.

The movie is inaccurately billed as a comedy/drama. I didn't expect much comedy, and most attempts at humor fell flat. The few touching moments are overwhelmed by exaggerated father/daughter conflict.

This documentary chronicles the Euro Cup football title match between Italy and England at London's Wembley Stadium in 2021. The London police and stadium officials should have watched a documentary about the 2011 riot in Vancouver after their hockey team lost a Stanley Cup final game. Like Vancouver, the English authorities were totally unprepared, despite the English history of hooliganism, for what occurred before the match: huge crowds of mostly drunken young men gathered for blocks outside the stadium hours before the match starting time. Outnumbered authorities had no choice but to let the hooligans swarm in and watch the game, while terrorizing fans with tickets.

The documentary, like the IMDB trailer, gives way too much screen time to a neck-tattooed twit named Dan, who broke in with the mob and offers no regrets for what he did. Time is also wasted on an unrepentant young drunk who was filmed dancing on top of a bus. Apparently, neither hooligan was arrested. The end of the documentary states that 86 people were arrested, but no follow-up on their cases is offered. In contrast, the Vancouver riot documentary focused heavily on the outing of rioters on social media, and their prosecution.

The documentary loses focus when it shifts to racial insults against black players on the losing English side. A separate documentary on English racism would have made more sense. No hard questions (like why were you unprepared?) were asked of stadium officials and the police. No interviews with London and National political leaders, or soccer federation officials, were conducted. The documentary supplies plenty of information but lacks a coherent focus and is often wrongly focused.

Wildcat is the story of Flannery O'Connor (Maya Hawke), a Southern Catholic writer who lived from 1925 to 1964 and was disabled by Lupus in her later years. Although the movie shows O'Connor traveling to Iowa and New York to further her writing career, most of the plot takes place in her family's home as she types away on multiple drafts of her stories while the disease takes its toll. O'Connor is shown as socially awkward, and her mother and others cannot comprehend the motivations for her fiction. Possessing a strong faith, she explores the bizarre and twisted ways in which people can be affected by religion.

Interspersed with slow-moving scenes of O'Connor's life (non-chronological) are scenes from her fiction, acted out by the same cast of characters. Where the real segues into the fictional is sometimes hard to discern. The fictional scenes provide some insight into O'Connor's mindset but, having not read her writing in many years, I was hoping for even more insight into the influences on her writing (I probably hoped for too much). The movie is a portrait of a troubled soul that will interest her devoted readers and perhaps entice others to sample her offbeat fiction.

Bob Marley was a musical icon, husband, father, rebel, Jamaican political peacemaker, and follower of the Rastafarian religion. One Love focuses mainly on Marley's family relations, two years of his life (1976-1978), and the making of the album Exodus. Other aspects of his life are touched on, with brief flashbacks used to show some of his back story. Although Marley's family was heavily involved in production of the movie, his infidelity and other flaws are not sugarcoated.

The usual biopic limitations are present, with 107 minutes not being enough to cover in depth all aspects of Marley's complicated life and character. Some of the flashbacks seemed unnecessary and the Jamaican accents were sometimes hard to understand.

Despite the limitations, One Love is an engaging portrait of a multi-faceted artist. The movie is a good introduction for people who know little about Bob Marley and there's also enough to keep his devotees interested.

The movie is a fictionalized account of Diana Nyad's multiple attempts to swim 100+ miles from Cuba to Key West in her 60s, after failing to do so at age 28. Film footage of the real events is included, along with flashback scenes based on Nyad's childhood. The swim scenes became a little tedious, but the movie held my interest because I didn't remember all the historical details.

Compelling performances are given by Annette Bening as the elderly Nyad and Jodie Foster as Bonnie, Diana's best friend and coach. Bening plays Diana as a driven, obsessed narcissist, who inspires people but is prone to making grandiose speeches about herself. She is condescending towards many of the boat crew who try to help on her journeys. Bening looks like she endured plenty of suffering to show the pain of marathon swimming. Foster plays Bonnie as a cheerful, practical, and patient women who maintains rapport with the boat crew and interrupts Diana's grandiose speeches.

Rhys Ifan also shines as the crew's grizzled navigator, who tolerates Diana and keeps her on course. Eric T. Miller is convincingly creepy as Diana's smarmy youth swim coach.

The movie has enough action and great performances to overcome the presence of an unlikeable main character.

American Fiction tells the story of a Black professor and writer nicknamed "Monk" (Jeffrey Wright), whose fiction about all kinds of people earns praise but not a lot of money. Monk is angered when another Black intellectual writes a best seller that exploits every bad stereotype about Blacks in the ghetto. Monk writes a similarly crude blacksploitation novel under a pseudonym and tells his agent (John Ortiz) to shop the book to publishers, in order to "push it in their faces." Not only is the book published but, to Monk's chagrin, becomes a hit and helps him get a movie offer. Monk is forced to reckon with the monster the book created and the charade of his double life.

Wright is superb as a complex man who struggles with his writing, his family relations, and his romance with lawyer Coraline (well played by Erika Alexander, with the the perfect combination of smart and sweet). Based on the movie's trailer, I expected the turmoil over Monk's novel to be the core of the story. The movie delivers with hilarious interchanges between Monk, his agent, and earnest publishers and critics who believe he has written an authentic Black novel.

However, way too much of the movie's time was wasted on Monk's tense relations with his sister (big-eyed Tracee Ross) and his brother (Sterling K. Brown), and the siblings' issues with their late father. Family dramas are way too common, but great comedies are hard to find these days. At times, I thought I was watching two movies at once, only one of which was entertaining.

Based on real events in 1957 and a book by automotive writer Brock Yates, the movie follows ambitious auto making and racing executive Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver), his femme-fatale wife/business partner Laura (Penelope Cruz), and his long-time mistress Lina (Shailene Woodley). Everything is coming to a head for Ferrari as he struggles to raise financing for his company and keep secret his mistress and their out-of-wedlock son. Much is riding on the performance of Ferrari's team in a 1,000-mile race through the hills and cities of Italy.

The actors do a good job of portraying the characters as complex flawed people, not heroes. The cinematography and stunt driving are outstanding, and the accident scenes are frightening. Like many movies over two hours, this one could have been cut down, with too many long lingering shots of characters' faces.

Although the movie drags in places, the action revs up when Enzo and Laura are clashing, and the race cars are zooming.

The river scenery is awesome. The boat racing scenes are thrilling. The look inside the techniques and culture of rowing is fascinating. The characters make you cheer for an underdog rookie rowing team as they battle experienced rowers, overbearing athletic boosters, corrupt sports officials, and numerous skeptics.

What then is Boys in the Boat missing? Drama. Suspense. Like many underdog sports movies, the ending (and many events along the way) is totally predictable. Not to worry though. The movie is also missing the grim gloom and violence of many modern flicks. If you watch Boys in the Boat, you can just sit back and enjoy the ride!

A U. S. mainlander is hired to coach a soccer team in a far-off land. The coach is separated from his wife, but still loves her. He's a total misfit in a foreign culture and everybody thinks he's going to fail.

No, this isn't the Ted Lasso movie, it's Next Goal Wins, which is based on a true story. A hotheaded mainlander is hired to coach the pathetic American Samoa national soccer team that has never even scored a goal in international competition. Culture clashes ensue as the coach tries to whip the team into shape for a match three weeks away. The humor is goofy and the ending is totally predictable, but that's okay. If you need a feel-good break from today's dark and dreary movies, go see Next Goal Wins.

I Am a Noise is an in-depth portrait of Joan Baez's music career, political activism, and personal life. The strange title comes from what she wrote about herself as a young girl. Baez is remarkably insightful and honest about herself and her struggles with mental illness. Especially intense is her description of the family therapy she underwent, including excerpts from therapy tapes. I didn't give this excellent documentary a 10 because the therapy description went on too long for me.

This documentary is a must watch for serious and casual Joan Baez fans and I'd recommend it for anyone who wants to hear a beautiful voice and learn about a significant American artist and political activist.

Dumb Money tells the story of a group of Internet investors who bid up the stock price of GameStop while Wall Street titans are betting on the price crashing. Although it's a movie cliche, the David v. Goliath story was interesting and somewhat suspenseful, especially since I didn't remember how the real events turned out. However, the movie is marred by a constant barrage of loud and obscene hip-hop that served no obvious purpose. The other major flaw is crude dialogue littered with f-words and s-words. Did the people the movie is based on really curse that much? I hope all the lazy writers for this movie went broke during the strike and left the industry.

BlackBerry is based on real events and recounts the creation and marketing of a device that revolutionized (for a time) personal computing and communications. I suppose that it would fall under the nebulous category of dramedy, and it is somewhat effective as a drama and a comedy. The drama involves a struggling technology firm attempting to find partners and bring its device to market before larger competitors squeeze them out. Later drama commences when the federal government begins an investigation into the company's practices. The comedic aspects of the movie feature a culture clash between the creative geeks and the suit they hire to help them navigate the cutthroat business world.