From Dictionary.com, the definition of binge watching: the practice of watching multiple episodes of a television program in rapid succession, typically by means of DVDs or digital streaming.

The TV series “Suits”, appeared on USA Network from 2011-2019. There were 134 episodes made and after binge watching all of them, over a period of weeks, there was not a weak or a bad episode in the entire series.

This series is about a top law firm in New York City, where their policy is to only hire new associates from Harvard Law School. It is the Harvard Law School premise from episode one and throughout the series that could be argued is the series’ only flaw. In the first 20 minutes of the pilot episode, the lead character Harvey Specter played by Gabriel Macht, interviews a genius Mike Ross, played by Patrick J. Adams who has a photographic memory. Mike’s memory is so profound that he passed the bar exam without going to law school. Whatever Mike reads, he not only understands but after he understands it, it is permanently memorized. The episode one interview with Harvey and Mike is one of the best scenes in the entire series when Mike Ross demonstrates to Harvey his extraordinary memory of the law. It is this massive brainpower that convinces Harvey to give Mike a shot at this prestigious law firm.

The problem is that there is no way, no matter how hard you tried to fool so many people, that any lawyer would be able to claim that they graduated from a law school even though they never attended even one class. Every other associate in the firm went to Harvard and would know who was in their class. Transcripts could be easily obtained. The Harvard faculty and administration could be contacted and this scam with Harvey hiring Mike is over in a few hours. However, it is this risky premise and continued demonstration of Mike Ross’s genius are some of the best parts of all the episodes that follow.

What is so great about this law drama series, the best I have ever seen on television, is that it demonstrates the worst parts of humanity that are revealed within all high-stress jobs. There is virtually no limit to how bad people we work with can potentially treat other people. Given that this is a high-functioning law firm, the worst parts of backstabbing and cruel insanity are all on steroids. Every episode in this series was riviting, keeping the audience at a high level of anticipation for the next major problem, obstacle, solution, or fending off the next person, hell-bent on wrecking the law firm or someone’s career.

Due to Mike Ross and his desire to help people, many cases are probono, not about making a great deal of money. Just about all of these cases are satisfying to watch, because we all want the evil people in the world to get what they ultimately deserve.

One of the best main characters in this series is Donna Paulsen, played expertly by Sarah Rafferty. Donna, who is at first Harvey’s secretary demonstrates her genius-level people skills that hold the entire law firm together in just about every episode of this series. Later in the series another secretary is hired named Gretchen played by Aloma Wright, who has people skills almost as powerful as Donna.

The other major standout in this series is Louis Litt, played by Rick Hoffman who not only provides many scenes of intense legal conflict, but many laugh-out-loud funny moments that are some of the best parts of this entire series.

Actress Gina Torres, who plays Jessica Pearson, the managing partner for 94 out of the 134 episodes is also outstanding in her role as the lead partner of the firm, calmly and expertly handling the constant conflicts, legal problems and attacks from the outside trying to destroy the firm, or force her out of the legal profession. Torres also starred in a sequel to Suits, called “Pearson” that lasted only one season, with 10 episodes.

Other standouts are Robert Zane, played by Wendell Pierce, who is the managing partner of a competing firm with many scenes of extreme legal and personal conflicts throughout this great series.

In the later seasons other lawyers join the firm, including Dulé Hill as Alex Williams, Katherine Heigl as Samantha Wheeler and Amanda Schull as Katrina Bennett and all are outstanding in their roles.

In recent years, the entire world knows about former actress Meghan Markle, who plays Rachel Zane, who married Prince Harry. Her performance throughout this series is also outstanding as the girlfriend of Mike Ross and daughter of Robert Zane.

As one of the actors in a series that ran for 9 years with 134 episodes, it had to be difficult for everyone involved when the series finally wrapped. Both lead actor Gabriel Macht and series creator Gabriel Macht have not worked since this great series finished in 2019. This could be either because of burnout or the realization of how unlikely it would be to ever work on a series this perfect ever again. Many times in show business, especially within an outstanding TV series, too many great actors just get one amazing opportunity and another one never follows. The standout TV series “The Practice” is another notable example of this phenomenon where so many of the great actors on this series, never got an acting shot like this ever again. This is very unfortunate, but the reality of choosing a career as an actor in Hollywood.

Anyone who starts to watch this series, most will find it very difficult or impossible to stop watching all the episodes – it is all that good. The series Suits, now on Netflix receives my highest recommendation.

What is hardest to understand about the new sequel to the 2008 movie “The Meg”, “Meg 2: The Trench” about a prehistoric shark called a Megalodon, is that this film is so bad that the producers guaranteed that there will never be a third installment. Why write a script this bad, and then spend millions of dollars on a sequel that ruins any chance of an ongoing franchise? All because of one bad movie, millions of dollars will now be lost on a rushed, bad idea, when all they had to do is create about three more script re-writes. The producers probably thought, it’s been 5 years since the original, let’s strike now when people still remember the last movie, forgoing any thoughts of writing a good script first.

For this screenplay, there is no real story, no connectivity, the transitions make no sense and are just excuses for action scenes with characters flying in and out and new insane creatures that come out of nowhere, including a giant Octopus and killer lizard creatures that are never explained. The plot involves some woman in their scientific party who betrays the other scientists, several whom were in the last (and much better) movie, with the exception of actress Bingbing Li. Bingbing Li was killed off for this sequel and perhaps she is the only actor who actually read the script and correctly decided to run for her life.

The motivations of the characters, the logic of what is going on, and even the special effects are all poorly offered within this film. For this sequel, there are not nearly enough giant shark scenes, and the scenes that do have the shark, are frequently too dark to see anything impressive. One reason for this is most likely because there was not enough budget to create special effects as good as the last movie, so they have way too many scenes at night and underwater, so they could save money.

Actor Jason Statham once again appears in this sequel and this time around has some karate scenes, along with young actress Shuya Sophia Cai, who stole the previous movie with her amazing cuteness. Unfortunately, there are not enough scenes with her in this sequel, but once again she steals this movie as well, even though it is stunningly bad.

We have all seen too many lucrative sequels destroyed by a bad screenplay, once again showing how mandatory and how difficult it is to create the story first, making sure it is great, before spending so many millions on a bad film that in this case, has wrecked another movie franchise.

The Rotten Tomatoes for this shark sequel are a correctly low 26% and I agree with this number and recommend seeing the first movie and miss this one.

In the history of movies, it has been rare that two highly advertised mega movies have been released in the same weekend. This time around with Oppenheimer and Barbie, the interest has been so high that the names “Oppenbarbie” and “Barbenheimer”, were created, based on the order the masses are planning to see these two new films. The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for both movies are also very high with 94% for Oppenheimer and 90% for Barbie. The 94% for the 3-hour Oppenheimer makes some sense, but the 90% for a mostly bad Barbie film, is crazy.

Due to curiously, this blog, and the insane high ratings for Barbie, I decided to waste two hours, hoping that the trailers and the news reports about this film did not show what this movie was really all about. Unfortunately, the trailers are mostly accurate, showing what is a ridiculous series of disconnected scenes, cartoon-like sets, and even some unexpected musical numbers. This film on the whole looked like it could mark some level of career suicide for both Margo Robbie and Ryan Gosling, yet another reason why the 90% ratings make no sense here.

There are some honorable attempts at providing some very good messages about life and death and how difficult it can be to be a woman – including the speech from America Ferrera, that practically steals the entire movie. None of the attempted messages and camp absurdity are enough to save a screenplay written by husband and wife, Gretta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, where it seems they were commissioned by a major studio to complete the impossible task of – “writing a screenplay about the Barbie Doll, because name recognition will auto-create the box office”. Most of the attempts at humor failed, realized from the very few laughs in the large audience I was in. Baumbach and Gerwig, who also directed this film, knew that making a movie like this straight would never work, so they went in the only direction they could, but some movie ideas are impossible to save.

Other actors that appear in this movie include, Kate McKinnon, whose great comedic talents are mostly wasted, the same for Will Ferrell, Dua Lipa, Simu Liu, Issa Rae, and Rhea Perlman.

With the release of Oppenheimer and Barbie on the same weekend, it will be interesting to see how the box office plays out, as now for well over a year, the world is past the movie theater disaster that was created by the Pandemic of 2020.

My rating for this movie is 50% and only for young girls who have had Barbie dolls, never for adults, other than those with sleeping disorders or who see this movie after smoking weed.