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IMDb member since December 2006
    Lifetime Total
    5+
    IMDb Member
    17 years

Reviews

The Edge
(1992)

Good Start but fizzled out in a hurry
This started out as a good sketch comedy. The first few shows were very good and I was looking forward to a long run. What was really funny was the Mariah Carey imitation and the take off on Beverly Hills 90210 featuring the hair fight. The Delta Burke vs William Conrad heavy weight battle was also good. Unfortunately the following shows went downhill relatively quickly. The writing became uninspired and oh so predictable as if the show had acquired a cult following in it's young tenure. Nothing fresh was being offered and the recurring skits were boring. One example is the gun family (or whatever it was called) which became a weekly feature. This sketch was not all that funny to begin with let alone being a regular feature. An example of a quick promising start then a sudden fall.

Nothing in Common
(1987)

Not funny. Poor writing. A dud.
This sit-com was based on an average uneven Tom Hanks movie. Where the movie blended comedy and sentiment the TV show tried to go all comedy. Other than Bill Macey the acting was very uninspired. It failed to establish any real relationships, for instance between the son and the father and the son and his girlfriend. What the show missed was the mother's presence which created further conflict in the family relationship. Also there was no apparent friction between the father and son. The commercials created by the ad company where the son worked were billed as being hilarious on the promos to this show. They fell far short of being funny.

Moon in Scorpio
(1987)

Confusing B movie - OK timer filler, nothing more
This is a below average movie that at best could have been an average thriller. The plot is confusing and has more holes than all the golf courses at Myrtle Beach. Britt Ekland is in a mental hospital relating her story to a psychiatrist about multiple murders on a boat.

Her story starts as the newly weds (her and John Phillip Law, both trying to play characters 20 years younger) decide to spend their honey moon on a boat with 2 of his ex Viet Nam comrades and their sexy girlfriends. There are flashbacks of some Viet Nam war action thrown in. There are a few murders at the hospital with some one investigating the murders.

Once on the boat people begin to get murdered one by one by what appears to be the ghost of a Viet Cong soldier. There are 2 people eventually left on the boat, Britt Ekland and a very sexy, spooky girlfriend of one of the other men. The 2 women left standing I suppose believe the other person is the murderer so Britt Ekland ends up killing her and that is the end of her story. The psychiatrist sort of says "well OK" walks away and hey its all over.

You can watch this movie straight through without missing a second and still feel as though you walked away from it several times for 5 minutes.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Day of the Bullet
(1960)
Episode 20, Season 5

A haunting, heartbreaking tale.
How could you rate this episode only 4.90. This told a tear jerking tale of how an intelligent well meaning child (played by a very gifted Barry Gordon) was trying desperately to do the right thing and was ignored and rebuked by the police and his father. The fear the police and his father showed toward a law breaking gangster than led to the rejection of his father, disregard for the law, and hero worship of the gangster. Without summarizing the plot the key issues to the youngster's demise after he and his friend witnessed the gangster (Mr Rose) and his cohort beating up a man were:

The police telling him to get lost after he reported the incident.

His father pushing him and calling him a liar.

The gangster slipping him a $20 bill to forget the whole issue (this at a time when a soda would have cost 5 cents). The seen at the end was awfully haunting when his friend told him to give the $20 to his father or else his father would really come down on him pretty hard.

I will always remember his reply - "Just let him. I'll tell Mr. Rose on him. That's what I'll do". He kept on repeating this. Mr Rose was his hero now. His father was a nobody.

Space Probe Taurus
(1965)

Oh yeah. Bad Grade "B" Science Fiction.
I first viewed this movie on Double Chiller Theatre, a Saturday night TV show seen in the Philadelphia area which ran in the mid 1960's. As a kid and a young teenager I loved almost all science fiction, even Teenagers from Outer Space. I found this movie dull, poorly improvised, and uneventful. It had a few cheap special effects which included a rubber alien, a giant crab which did little, and a humanistic frogman out for a swim. There were 4 typical principles in the movie: a by the book commander more suited for a cowboy movie; an attractive young lady who goes out of here way to prove she is as good as any man; a screw off who is aboard only to write a book; and a scientist who does not come off as being all that bright. This TV movie could have been made for the old Saturday matinée at the local theater. It was made with little imagination and probably just to earn a quick easy buck. The movie looked as though it was made in the early 1950's and had the feel of the old Space Cadet serial. And to think Star Trek would be only a few years away from our TV screens.

Blade Runner
(1982)

Visual triumph but monotonous movie
OK this movie has a cult following etc. but it is boring and produces limited action. Thumbs up to the special effects which are terrific and nothing short of spectacular. But otherwise it is a lifeless movie with Harrison Ford giving a droning Phillip Marlow type narrative. The characters are of little interest. There is an acute absence of humor which could have given the film some life. The plot is also muddled. I read the novel the film is based upon "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" after seeing the movie. The book is fairly interesting while dealing with a strange subject matter. The movie could have expanded on the novel by making the androids more dynamic and having some sequences dealing with what was happening on the planets they were leaving. But it chose to keep the action in a boring inexplicably rainy, oriental populated LA. Honestly movie fans, take away the special visual effects and you have a yawner movie.

Tunnel Vision
(1976)

No stars, thumbs down, bomb, turkey, dud, boo - you get the idea
This is the worst movie I ever paid to see and with the exception of "They Saved Hitler's Brain" the worst movie I have ever seen period. When this movie came out I was a big fan of SNL and SCTV and therefore was anticipating what I thought would be the funniest movie that could be produced since it did not have the restrictions the TV improv shows must deal with.

The writers must have thought we will throw in some grossness, some flatulence jokes, some cheap sex and hey we have a risky side splitting laughable comedy. The game show skits are nothing more than cheap unimaginable take offs on Let's Make a Deal with stupid grossness. The sit com take off involving the single girl and her boyfriend was just plain bad high school humor. The stun gun advertisement was suitable humor for Seasame Street. The LA subway skit was bland humor using tasteless bloodiness. The french chef walking around blind constantly uttering "there is no difference" with a french accent was, well you get my point.

The only funny skit involved Chevy Chase which lasted for a whole minute. This means you get 60 seconds of entertainment in this movie. Oh yea I've read the comments about the entire country being stoned in the 1970's and you will like this movie if you are high. Well most of the country was not stoned in the 70's. If the inept writers were stoned it must have been on drowsy sinus medicine. There were 4 other people in the theater besides myself when I saw this movie. Of course word did not get out yet about how bad the movie was.

Scrooge
(1951)

By far the best adaption of Dicken's story.
Alastair Sim definitely plays Scrooge better than anyone else. Although he is mean and miserly he also has a cynical sense of humor and a human side. In other films the actors play Scrooge as totally undesirable and unworthy of anyone's sympathy until the end. Sim's Scrooge comes across as a pathetic individual who is his own worst nightmare unable to enjoy his wealth because money is only good for the sake of possessing it.

The flashback sequences with the ghost of Christams past are great at showing that Scrooge was once a decent individual that let the dynamic but difficult life of a quickly changing England change him for the worst. The demands of a constantly changing mechanized society that can effect people's outlook on life, I believe the thrust of Dicken's story, is well brought out in the movie.

Scrooge's entertaining comical transformation at the end showed he could appreciate more to life then wealth ie: reconciling with his nephew and bride to be, making his maid's and clerk's life better.

And who can ever forget Marley's ghost.

Capricorn One
(1977)

Terrfic premise produces an average movie
The movie starts out well with the anticipation of the lift off and then the harrowing news regarding the life support system which thickens the plot. The astronauts reluctance to go along with the scam, James Brolin's hints to his wife portraying his guilt feelings, and the disapperence of Robert Waldens character increase the tension and anticipation.

The problem I had was after the reentry ordeal the movie switched from being a tense political thriller to a somewhat exciting but run of the mill chase vehicle. The original idea seemed to fizzle out.

It was not a good idea to have Sam Waterston as the comic relief. Elliot Gould phoned in his performance. Also the escape scene was not believable. The lock was picked easier than one on a bathroom.

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