tiekbane

This is not the story of a Nazi & what his goals & beliefs are. This is the story of a boy who was a victim. Forget the synopsis, this review is about the writing & direction of the episode. Ed Asner gives his usual compelling performance mentoring green reporter Billy in developing the story. And after Billy discovers that Stiker was originally Jewish, they decide to run with the story. But there is another angle to this episode. Is it news to discover such a personal background story and print it without the subjects' approval or is it just a tabloid hit piece they might sell some papers? Peter Weller gives a gut wrenching performance worthy of an Emmy. The writing is snappy, crisp & contemporary.

This is Good television.

Most of the characters were successful in their lives but were in decline for various reasons. A few of the characters were still successful, even during The Depression enough to exploit the down trodden High Society. One down trodden couple, mainly the wife (in denial) wanted to maintain the Aristocracy by hosting a dinner party for wealthy guests to maintain her own Aristocracy. Simple enough. But then the movie delves into the lives of the guests, some comedic, some poignant, some tragic. This movie will actually make you feel sorry for arrogant narcissists. The movie plays like a stage play & the acting is hopelessly dated, but it will grab you if you give it a try.

Satan takes a holiday. He's just cruising through the American western desert when some humans get in his way. Well, they shouldn't have been going so slow on bikes or parades or houses. The stupid humans brake checked him but he lived to drive another day. You might ask why The Devil decided to terrorize a small town in the desert, Well he's The Devil, daggum it & he's just looking for a good time.

Ok, The Car is a silly time waster. Totally drive-in B-movie fare. But, hey, it's a Car. The Car. The movie wastes time in the beginning building some character development when it really doesn't matter: There's a boring white guy, a drunkard guy, an Indian guy, some other guys & a wife beater. The star of the movie is The Car. They should have made the movie from the perspective of The Car, ala The Terminator. The movie plays like a Better-Than-Average TV-movie but the director & crew did a good job with what they had to work with. The best scenes are with The Car of course, including some views within The Car like you're a passenger in The Devils' Car but there is sufficient suspense with the humans to keep your interest. Using the wife beater as a hero was a nice touch as was the Indian mysticism. Some people have noted the bad acting but it's a live action cartoon after all. Do you want Shakespearian acting?

So check it out. As Killer Car movies go, it lays 3 360 skid marks.

Ah yes, the infamous Quincy punk rock show. This impending episode caused quite a stir in 1982 in Flipside & Maximum R&R with funny cartoons & outrage. The outrage eased after the airing in December 1982 because the episode was so dumb. Other commenter's have characterized it as high camp & that's exactly what it was:

The killer was portrayed by Karlene Crockette who was concurrently playing the part of Lucy Ewings' squeaky clean friend who never got invited to the kool kids' party's in Dallas. She proved herself to be a versatile actress running the gamut from prissy nerdette to punk rock killer.

The scene of the mosh pit is alone worth the price of admission with the over acting by the 'musicians' & all the fake punching sound effects. And Flys' admonishment," This is the ugliest, scummiest crowd we ever played for.... AND THAT'S SAYIN' SUMPUN!"

Quincys' self righteous speech about hippies changing the world is hilarious. Everybody knows hippies were too strung out on acid to even change their clothes (hence the term "smell like a hippy") and they all became republicans and voted for Ronald Reagan. Twice.

And the poor schmuck who played the victim didn't even get a billing. Dude, whoever you are, you died for punk rock! That's an accomplishment that few can claim.

This episode aired during season 8 (this crummy show was on for 8 years??) & is available on DVD. My fellow punk rockers, hurry up & pirate a copy of this episode before it's out of print. Anarchy rules!

Typical 80s action movie: Total cliche's & formula. Full of zoom ins, close ups, fast editing. Best friends dying, boy wants girl, boy gets girl, girl is his superior. Implausible. Confusing & contrived action with the fighter jets. A lot of music in the background. Blah blah blah. Oh yea, and Tom Cruises' typical snarky, self confident, self absorbed acting. Tom Cruise knows how to play one character: Tom Cruise. Watch the music videos. That's the whole movie. 2 stars coz it's flashy. If they had shown a nipple in the sex scene I'da give it a 3.

Vignette of five stories with a few unfinished side stories thrown in. The acting is terrible: lots of blinking, head turns, head jittering, gazing into space, lip licking, eye rolling, spurtz of dialogue: TV acting. Cliché's of lonely people finding other lonely people involving hospitals & police of course because ordinary people are boring without hospitals & police. Relationships bloom after one fleshy encounter, characters appear & disappear, etc. Look: All this wouldn't be so bad if it was made by more competent film makers. But the sappy music, Christmas themes (including an angel) and poorly fleshed out characters are just thrown at the viewer like a tv movie. Totally shallow. The viewer will never empathize with these characters, even at Christmas time. Watch a Frank Capra movie instead.

Art Carney just cant handle a dramatic role. His performance here is shallow. He appears to be adlibbing half the lines. For a road movie, he is literally walking through it. The viewer never really understands where any of the characters are coming from because the writing is so superficial & the characters underdeveloped. Characters come & go with just minutes of screen time. Therefore it's difficult to care for them or the story. The only decent scene is at the end with Larry Hagman playing one of Harry's down-on-his-luck sons. The scene is poignant & uncomfortable with father & son barely having anything to talk about but even here we don't understand why the son is a failure or why they can't communicate. Then the film ends with cliché's. And Tonto really adds nothing to the story. Final note: it's also uncomfortable watching the actors holding the cat constantly in an awkward manner. Can't recommend it.

Jack Lemmon has got to be one the worst actors in history. He may be ok in broad comedic roles but as a dramatic actor, he is a total ham. This movie is no exception with his over acting a huge distraction. In the scene in the greenhouse, he literally chews the scenery. The only reality depicted by the film is the downward spiral throughout the course of the film. But the audience never truly understands, therefore cannot empathize, why these people depend on alcohol to such an extent. The film apparently wants us to think the characters have a physical dependence on alcohol when in reality the need for alcohol is a facet of their personality. Only at the end does Kirsten express, in one sentence, a pathological reason as to why she drinks. Jack Klugman, already developing his Dr. Quincy demeanor, is almost as bad, coming off as nearly proselytizing. The film deserves 2 stars for not completely failing at telling a story about an unfilmable subject.

Marilyn McCoo is dead & some horns spliced onto the end of 'One Less Bell To Answer' have something to do with it. Turns out she's not dead & then everybody wonders why she faked her death. The resolution does little to explain that. The direction is great & even suspenseful. But it's still fun. Personal note: this episode has stuck in my head for 47 years & I finally saw it again at 55. It was better when I was 7 but thats life. Good for wasting 1 hour.

First, a caveat: I havent watched The Simpsons in over 20 years. That being said, the show hasnt changed at all & this episode is a fine example. Rapid fire dialogue that's very witty & so much stuff going on in the background, you have to watch it with a pause button. All the characters are here in one episode with all the same (rather) crude animation. Thank God they havent gone digital. If this episode seems tired then lay off the show for a few decades, then come back for a newly found appreciation.

All the negative reviewers are straight on. I will add a few more things.

They obviously were reproducing, mostly, the play with a few flourishes from the movie so the shallowness can be somewhat explained.

This deserves some credit for a few "spark"s of originality, namely a couple of lines of dialogue, good production, a modicum of update & an original song. If only they had spent a few more dollars on good writers, they could have updated the movie nicely. Let this be a lesson. You already have a good story & good songs: thats at least 1/3 of the movie.

But don't use a tranny for the lead, OK? HE needs to be a transvestite, not a real transsexual. That was just a joke!

Better luck next time, hopefully in this millennia.

Simple story: loser from Texas travels north & meets loser in New York City. Neither one has much affection for life but they find an odd bond between themselves. This is fine movie making. There isn't much dialogue, the flashbacks & vignette technique tells the bulk of the story, touching on issues like loneliness, trust & friendship. The direction is flawless. The choice of music is perfect. Audience manipulation at it's finest. The only drawback is the confusing scene where Buck attempts to meet a client. Yet during that scene the fantasy of Ratso brings some levity. Almost 50 years later this movie packs a wallop.

Another slice of (decedent) life from Paul Morrissey & Andy Warhol utilizing their patented 'fly-on-the-wall' Cinéma vérité style. Joe Dallessandro plays his usual befuddled loser who finds himself in the company of bigger freaks than himself. As with any Warhol film there is a cast of a dozen or so said freaks, half living on the edge of society & the other half the high society & the two halves meet for 90 minutes or so in movie form. The real star of the film is the editor. This film is obviously culled & spliced together from hundreds of hours of improv dialogue, like, the director told the actors 'here's where your character talks about this thing & then that thing.' Then the editor splices the few interesting scenes into a movie. It's all low budget (sad Sylvia Miles took this role after winning an Oscar nomination but thank you Sylvia!) and not especially hilarious (your mind will wander a few times) but overall it's an artifact from a bygone day that, perhaps, fleeted by too soon. Recommended, at least once.

Star Wars: A New Hope was a refreshing & adventurous movie with a rather simple story about good verses evil. The Empire Strikes Back was more of the same with more aliens until we arrive at Return Of The Jedi.

By this installment, the story takes a backseat to the action & humor. In fact, the whole movie is played for laughs. The problem is the laughs involve the interaction of increasingly ridiculous aliens with increasingly ridiculous military machines. (Didn't they learn their lesson in the first movie to NOT build military transport vehicles with long legs? No, because they're back again, this time with a model sporting silly rabbit legs.) The special effects are shockingly cheesy involving a lot of blue screen, bad stop action animation on par with the Godzilla of the 30's, and Muppets. The story has dissolved into a soap opera with Vader turning out to be Luke's father & Luke actually believing that Darth Vader has some empathy in him, when Vader is supposed to be the epitome of evil, and the discovery of long lost family ties that are never explained. (Let's just say it's a good thing Luke never lay'd Leia in the first 2 flicks.) Just when you think the rebellion is finished (what with only Luke & the Princess remaining), all of the sudden, at the end, they have a huge fleet of fighters again. Where did they get the recruits? Where did they get the financing? Who the hell is in charge?? And always, there are those stupid white-armored troops running around shooting everything who are so inept, they only manage to wing Princess Leia by the 3rd movie. Their amour couldn't stop a spit ball. By the end of the movie, you'll be wishing the new Death Star will hurry up & blow up OR the Empire will finally beat down the rebellion once & for all & make Leia Darth Vader's sex slave or something. And c'mon: a showdown with the supreme bad guy who can kill a person with psychic energy shooting out of his fingers? That's so B-movie clichéd. The dude's psychic energy turned out not to be very strong when he is killed just be being thrown down an elevator shaft by Mr. Vader himself. A real eye-rolling moment.

At least it's better than the 4th, er, that is, 1st episode (whatever) which is sleep inducing.

This movie is all talk & no action. Alice narrates through the whole movie probably as a cost saving thing. If you're going to use narration, you can just have your stars sit there while the voice over talks. Things happen off camera and we see the end result so we miss out on important details. At the end, Alice supposedly finally OD'd which we know simply because her mother is now narrating. She doesn't even have the decency to OD on camera. You know you're in trouble when a disclaimer comes on at the beginning stating that the material has been cleaned up for family viewing. They should remake it on HBO or something. If this movie was made in an attempt to deter children from drug use, the only question the kid will have for their parents is, "Daddy, what was this movie about?" It's interesting only in an historical context.

First I want to make it clear that the reason I disliked this movie is not the subject matter. I like movies about losers and loners and Solondz treated this thoroughly unlikable character with as much dignity as possible. He should be applauded for taking such a risk. I'm not even against the implausibility of the story. Everyone must surrender reality when watching movies. The problem is that it is a poorly made movie. Almost every scene is incomplete. No dialogue to summarize the importance of the scene. Scene after meaningless scene goes by, like looking at pages in a magazine. One scene is even cropped with a character in mid sentence. And a pivotal scene is totally missing: the reason Abe ends up in the hospital. That would have been a very important scene! Then, if you weren't already annoyed with the meandering story, the story goes off into a fantasy. The problem is, the characters in his fantasy are real life characters so you don't know if what you're watching is really happening or the fantasy. Then the movie ends in typical Hollywood fashion, except it seems like Solondz didn't know how to end his movie so he tacked on no less than 4 endings! You will never understand nor care why these characters act the way they do nor understand how the events in the movie changed their lives for the better of worse. By the end of the movie, everybody is sort of just standing around or staring off into space, just like the audience.

James Caan plays Frank, a professional safe cracker. He has a collage comprising images of his dream life which he must have assembled in 4th grade because what grown man makes silly collages? This film tries to be a character study, crime drama, love story and revenge flick. It doesn't fully succeed in anything. In this movie, there is sophisticated equipment, tough talk, shooting, explosions, bad cops, cityscapes, pretty beach scenes, dramatic music, etc. There is even Willie Nelson in a pointless side story that takes less then 10 minutes of screen time. All this stuff makes a stylish movie but not an interesting movie. Frank decides he wants a family, so he finds Tuesday Weld in the first 10 minutes and talks her into marrying him. Later, they buy a baby from a mobster because, presumably, Frank & Tuesday are in too much of a hurry to make a family the traditional way. James Caan affects a Brooklyn accent so thick, it's left over from the Godfather. In fact, everybody has a Brooklyn accent, even though the story takes place in Chicago! If it weren't for some bad words in the dialogue, this would play like an episode of Miami Vice. If you're happy watching pretty flickering images then Thief is an acceptable time waster but it will leave you feeling empty about it because it's characters are shallow.

This is not a movie. It's an exercise in self indulgence. Whoever made this must have thought these people were interesting with interesting things to say and that everybody in the world would be interested in hearing them say it. Well, these people were not interesting and they had nothing interesting to say. At one low point, some lady injects something into some guys' butt and then her own butt and then answers the phone and conducts a lengthy conversation! The film is very poorly made, like the producers just found a camera and began learning how to use it. Many times, the camera zooms close up, the film blurs, scenes go light and dark. They didn't edit out anything, just let the camera roll. Finally, the sound quality is so bad that half the dialogue is unintelligible. I bet nobody in 49 years has actually sat through the whole 4 hours in one viewing. At least their next project, Flesh, had some nudity. Don't waste your time with Chelsea Girls.

The acting and writing in this movie are so over-the-top that it cannot possibly have been meant to be taken serious. Crispin Glovers' wild-eyed affected performance is not to be missed. It is the pinnacle of his career. Dennis Hopper is perfectly cast as Feck, the aging biker who claims to have killed a girl in the past but that he loved her so it's OK. The psycho kid with the nun chucks is hilarious in a totally non- speaking role. And Keanu Reeves acts like, well, Keanu Reeves. This movie boasts line after line of quotable dialogue. The killers' nick name is John because his last name is 'Tollet" which sounds like toilet. Check out the reason John killed the girl. You will never get tired of this movie. A classic!

This is an amateurish movie, like it was made by high school kids in first year film class. Whereas, perhaps, some existential meaning could be taken from Easy Rider & Vanishing Point, this mess seems like they made it up as they drove along in New Mexico & spliced some scenes together & called it a movie. The dialogue appears to be totally ad-libbed, it feels like a home movie. It's as uninspired as the paint job on the car.

There are few shots of the countryside. Most of the scenes were filmed in the car, in gas stations & diners and at night.

Characters come & go adding nothing to the story. We never learn anything about them, not even their names.

There is very little dialog. The main topic of conversation, when there is any, is the car. Dennis Wilson must have checked those points and carburetors about a dozen times. The 'actors' stare blankly into space most of the time. James Taylor has the charisma of a floor jack. It's no wonder he kept his day job.

Heck, they even forgot to finish the race.

If there is a deep meaning to this flick, it seems to be to always keep your engine properly timed.

Give it a try, but don't expect much. This film literally has the soul of a shop manual.

This was made in the '70s when they still used dialog and plot. OK,OK, nobody wants dialog and plot in a porno. But this movie is an exception. It is sexy, to be sure, but the characters are actually interesting, with many avant garde touches and surprisingly political dialog. This was a french flick dubbed into English. The American actors sound as if they have Shakesperean training. Sadly, they are not credited. Not your average actor can spew lines about the elitists and proletariat, while moaning.

There are few classic pornos in this world. Education Of The Baroness (Parties Fine) is in the top 10.

Never mind the Gong Show parodies (which is hilarious and separates this porno from most pornos). This skin flick is notable for 2 reasons: Carol Connors was actually on the Gong show on TV (she couldn't act on TV and she certainly can't act in adult movies, but at least she didn't have to act in adult movies), and The Plasmatics's Wendy O'Williams plays a contestant on the 'Dong Show.' I won't spoil the scene but I will say she is very talented with ping pong balls.

Get this classic XXX movie at any cost.

This show has absolutely no humor. The characters are bland. Plots are directionless with rambling, pointless dialogue. The ad-libbing is awkward. Bonnie Hunt, herself, looks bored.

In one episode, the husband was nagging Bonnie (in a condescending manner), during the whole first act, about neglectful check-book keeping. I kept waiting for a punch line but after 8 minutes I expected to hear the husband ask for a divorce. Then Jonathon Winters ad-libbed some lines with Bonnie and the repore was so bad, I was embarrassed for him. At the end, the husband apparently forgave her for her dereliction of competent finances and they began kissing in bed. Loud, long, wet kissing. Yuck. (This has become a tradition on this show).

I tuned in the following week just to see if the show had gotten better. Nope. More rambling, more dull ad-libbing, more super sloppy kissing.

How this show can get big name cameos is a mystery to me. I hope it isn't because they need the money.

How Bonnie Hunt got yet another TV show is even more of a mystery. I confess that I don't know much about her but I know she's failed at TV headlining several times before.

Personal to Bonnie: lose the horn-rimmed glasses!

After watching this show, I feel yucky. Anna Nicole Smith is one of the most repellent 'personalities' to ooze across the TV screen in this generation. I use the term 'personality' liberally. She, nor her entourage possess even a modicum of insight, tenderness, humor or drama. A typical day in the life of Anna Nicole (and by proxy, a typical show) consists of people eating (sometimes in contests) , decorating her house, watching TV, shopping, driving around, going to the bathroom, throwing temper tantrums, sneering in a barely coherent girlish voice that sounds like she's perpetually drunk and consorting with various freaks and lowlifes. Sounds like anybodies boring life (save for the freaks and lowlifes perhaps...) but the producers of this show seem to think because Anna Nicole is super rich, it makes for an interesting TV show. Actually, it looks like the producers realized they had a problem so to enliven things, they occasionally dress her up in skin tight clothes that accentuates her rotund (and growing) physique, especially her rhino-sized butt. She eats so much food on this show that the viewer can actually see her putting on weight over the course of a few episodes.

Watch one episode. Anything more is gluttony.