Grrrim

Emmerich made a lot out of this film being 'for the environment' and the speeches dragged from the green party manifesto on the surface support that, but everything else doesn't.

This film glorifies the destruction of the environment and instead of building pathos with more relevant targets falls on more obvious and deeply crass victims such as sick children.

Emmerich, as he did with the superior [and more fantastical] Independence Day, deals with the petty lives of a few individuals whilst millions of people are dying en masse. Surely no one can empathise with a group of rich kids trying to get medicine whilst being chased by obviously CGI wolves when the world is coming to an end?!

This pettiness however means nothing to me, you expect as much from Emmerich but his treatment of an American president in this film is what sickened my in to loathing this film.

If he was real environmentalist rather than just a hack cashing in on yet another FX joyride he'd have used this as a chance to take a shot at George Bush. More than any other president in history Bush has done his best to destroy the environment and promote his friends and his own cash flows, that isn't even a negotiable fact, that's numbers.



If Emmerich wanted to help the environment he'd at least make a crack at the pretzel gobbler. Instead you get a vice-president who doesn't care and a president who barely appears then dies. Most sickening of all the vice president who works against the environment gets a promotion in the end. What does this mean to the viewer?

If he had the guts to make a social comment and the genuine regard for the environment, how about a vice-president who is an environmentalist and a president who works singularly for the profit of himself and his business friends. Then the film would actually have a bad guy and rather than dissipating at the end there would be a success for the environmentalist as the goody goody VP who gets a promotion and the baddie president gets an ice-cube coffin for a comeuppance. And don't tell me that'd be too crass. Emmerich could teach crass in the School Of Crass in Crassland.

[End of Spoilers]

Now I'm not particularly political, I like my fantasy, that's why I love films. I don't normally like political soap boxing in a film but here, if Emmerich was honest in his beliefs, it was due.

Just as everyone else has said, this is a classic!

It is a genuine tragedy that Mr T no longer works regularly. I guess there's more money in filthy mouthed, mother hating, thugs than a man who wants to help, educate and make the world a better place.

However the other comments are a bit in error, there's plenty of places to find this gem online, you just have to look around a fair bit.

I guess this tape is long since out of reproduction and if they ever figured out who owns the rights I doubt if they'd care if there was a market for a DVD release, but it is out there! So by fair means or fowl get out there and find it. It's worth it!

Be Somebody!

Finally managed to catch the very first appearance of Colombo today and I must say my respect for the character and Peter Falk is not only supported but strengthened.

Looking back 35 years it's hard to think that this is in fact the first appearance. With most characters and shows there's some level of evolution, working out the flaws and building up the depth. But this is the first time I've seen a genesis of a character so purely defined from the very beginning.

Although the dirty long coat barely has a wrinkle, along with Falk's face, the man looks like he was born for the part. It's as if the character was thrust up from the earth already carved in granite.

Most of the time when an actor is so deeply associated with a role it is a pity he was not able to explore other characters and develop a broader identity as an actor. Most notably William Shatner, a great actor in the 60s who created a defining character for the next few decades but was never able to break from that limited role and instead largely wasted his given talents in the part. However Falk in his defining role cannot be considered to have wasted his skills. Instead redefining and refining the character to the point where it becomes as much as a living breathing person as fiction could be.

It is very fact that in this first appearance Falk is so suited to the role that you realise that the actor could not be wasting his time pursuing a role he was obviously born to play.

Everything is here for an excellent murder mystery, the perfect plan, the cunning criminal and the dogged detective. Very close to perfection.

I bought a copy under the illusion that Connery right in the middle of his Bond days combined with the name Sidney Lumet would make a nice little film. Didn't expect it to be watchable but it was a heist film and they are always a laugh.

Instead I got the chance to see the most dated nugget of junk I have ever seen. Trust me considering my collection of tapes that's a feat.

Now I shouldn't really be giving this film a review as I couldn't manage the whole thing. I just could not endure the sight of Mr Connery getting back into bed yet again with Ms Cannon, the half-hearted fawning of a supposedly gay Mr Balsam [didn't know it was possible to underact a gay stereotype] and as for the direction and focus of the film I an only guess that Mr Lumet had other things on his mind.

Beyond all these the sound effects and music destroyed the film most concisely. The 'hidden camera' effects stood out so badly that I just had to keep pressing the mute button to avoid them.

Another film which badly utilises 'modern' technology but not quite as badly as this is 'The Osterman Weekend' but I managed to get through that and it didn't obscure the film as intently as this. So if you want to watch a dated techno-thriller watch that instead.

Although we were all to young to have realised it in the original screenings back in the late seventies and early eighties, it's quite obvious now in the cold light of the 21st century that this series has deeper and more meaningful layers than we able to appreciate. We have to look back on this series in the atmosphere of the time. This was a time of post vietnam depression.

Looking at this series without thinking of the book by David Morrell and the John J. Rambo character he created is something of a challenge. Although the human version went on to become far more famous in the 80s than our canine 'nam vet introduced here, the key aspect of the taciturn traveling outcast are plain to see. However as the passionate theme song of the series suggests 'There's a voice that keeps on calling me' the title character is suffering from schizophrenia, which dares to take the character and the trauma of the war's effects to greater levels than the creative team behind First Blood.

Although the Hobo here us not directly and violently tested by the brutality of a Brian Dennehy character in this series he is instead tormented by more personal internal forces. This I believe more literally relates the the suffering of vietnam veterans. After all the veterans themselves do not face armed conflict as in the book and film of the Rambo character, instead they face the stigma of the public as well as the mental torment of the horrors of the war. This I feel puts this series far above the later work from which this series later inspired.

The internal conflict within Hobo although hard to project within the space of short episodes of a series is however best felt when it is conveyed over the expanse of the entire work. Just watching one episode will simply hide the mental problems Hobo has to face. You need to see that the internal 'voices' are pushing him ever on, from people to people and place to place, never actually fitting in anywhere and never feeling like he belongs. This feeling is expressed over the series as a whole.

When you have enjoyed many many episodes of this series and witnessed the kind and gentle ways of the Hobo the tragedy of situation becomes for more heartfelt. You begin to wish that he could find some cure for his schitzophrenia, find peace and a place to settle and people who would care about him. But as you watch you know this will never happen. His torment will never end. This sadly is the true tragedy of the character and the series.

Like the John J. Rambo films this series faces many varied issues however by being more personal, Morrell's character tried to cure such worldwide problems as the Russian occupation of Afghanistan and the forgotten POWs of Vietnam, Hobo instead deals more subtly with issues about people. From day to day, from person to person. Although this approach is less 'slam-bang' than the more popular films I believe that it becomes for more poignant in it's subtlety and by doing that it deals far more skillfully and intelligently with the real issue of Vietnam veterans be they man or canine.

Ben Brooks

I bought a copy under the illusion that Connery right in the middle of his Bond days combined with the name Sidney Lumet would make a nice little film. Didn't expect it to be watchable but it was a heist film and they are always a laugh.

Instead I got the chance to see the most dated nugget of junk I have ever seen. Trust me considering my collection of tapes that's a feat.

Now I shouldn't really be giving this film a review as I couldn't manage the whole thing. I just could not endure the sight of Mr Connery getting back into bed yet again with Ms Cannon, the half-hearted fawning of a supposedly gay Mr Balsam [didn't know it was possible to underact a gay stereotype] and as for the direction and focus of the film I an only guess that Mr Lumet had other things on his mind.

Beyond all these the sound effects and music destroyed the film most concisely. The 'hidden camera' effects stood out so badly that I just had to keep pressing the mute button to avoid them.

Another film which badly utilises 'modern' technology but not quite as badly as this is 'The Osterman Weekend' but I managed to get through that and it didn't obscure the film as intently as this. So if you want to watch a dated techno-thriller watch that instead.

I loved this film, I always did. Yeah it's dumb, yeah it's over the top, yeah it's crass, but who cares if your laughing your arse off all the time?

Today I sat one of my friends down, she's 19, female, has barely even heard of Bruce Willis [really], so I sat her down just having watched another classic 'bad' film 'Cactus Jack' and I didn't give an opinion, she was just sitting about and I put it on and left her too it. It finished and what did she say? 'It was a crass over the top laughing stock, which I can mock for it's stupidity like I would a retarded child' nope. She said, and I quote 'That was a f**king cool film' 'Why have I never seen it?'

That's the problem really, it's not a classic, it's not great but it is great entertainment. Sadly the critics and pretentious idiots who happily suck up critics opinions have killed the film, killed it dead. In fact they killed it as soon as it was born and that's the simple reason it made no money.

The final reason as to why it's so cool? It lets me find out straight away if someone I know is gonna be a friend of mine. If they like it then they will be, if they don't then they are so closed minded that they will let other people's opinions interfere with their own fun. That kind of person is someone who couldn't be a friend of mine.

Thanks Husdon for dividing the world in two, people who love it and people who hate it.

Cool!

I'm currently working my way through a rather cool book by the name of 'The Complete Mission:Impossible Dossier' by Patrick J White. It's a real comprehensive and apparently well researched book which is giving me great insights into the creation and inspiration of probably the best television series ever made.

In the book it state that '21 Beacon Street' was very much an inspiration for Mission, sharing writers, however it does comment that Mission creator Bruce Geller had not even seen this series.

It is described as being some sort of primordial mix of The A-Team and Mission. Where a private detective agency is hired by an employer to perform a task of intelligence and cunning which cannot be provided by official, governmental, forces.

Now I'm just adding this for a little information on the series, since no one had put anything about it. Plus maybe it'll poke a stick in the vaults and shove out a DVD of this old series, that is, if it still exists in any format.

I don't really wanna waste my time going into detail on this film. I have neither the time nor the care for the film.

Simply put it does what is says on the tin, nothing more, maybe slightly less.

What I really wanna say about this film is....

Someone kill the boom operator. Really. I am putting out a sanction on the man. A contract. He is now a mark.

Arthur Turner needs to be eliminated.

Sometimes in a film you'll notice that little fuzzy stick and smile knowingly to yourself and point it out if you ever watch it with slow witted friends. However this film went so far as to show the film no less than eight times in eight different scenes. That I could be bothered to count.

Let this be a lesson to all film makers:

NEVER HIRE A MIDGET BOOM OPERATOR!

Well if you were expecting something good, your so dumb you deserve to be disappointed.

This ain't art. This ain't quality. This is sick sick sick nasty fun. Nothin really very much to do with the comic book from what I can tell [I'm a DC man myself]. However this film does have a use or two.

I have this ideology on life and especially films. Yeah it's easy enough to find quality. But finding qualities within bad films is far more difficult.

This film really doesn't have a lot going for it. In fact it has literally nothing at all going for it. But if you watch it, and if you watch it with an open mind, with maybe a beer or two late on a friday night, you will be entertained by it.

I watch this film when I find the need for sickening, bloody and excessive violence. Strangely enough you'll find it hard to beleive how often a man in touch with his feelings needs to enjoy such guilty sensations.

Yeah this is tripe. But hey, it doesn't bore anyone, which is a crime 'classy' films do to more than half of their audience.

Although soap is not a rare commodity in this world, occasionally some do stand out.

Having seen many many soaps over the years, and having dropped most after a few shows I can say that only a very few are both memorable and watchable.

Although this isn't the best of the three that would make up my complete list of good soap operas, I would say that it is the only one still in production.

What it takes to make a good soap opera is writing and although there are daily flaws in the writing of Family Affairs, over all it wins. It wins not only because the cast and the players are so heavily embedded within their part [hell they make five episodes per week they can't help it] but because of the perspective from which the writing takes place.

The writers Know they can't have a plane crash or and Ebola outbreak every week and so they make the smaller stories that do occur affect characters on a more intimate and personal level. Things occur to characters, the characters do appear to have lives. Admittedly on occasion just for viewing figures things go totally out of whack, but on the whole the writers do keep things based on the lives of the characters.

That's what makes this show great.

Oh and in case your wondering the other two shows are, A Country Practice [exceptional characters and writing, all under a limited budget] and Prisoner Cell Block H it was more than just a bunch of ugly chicks doing each other, it had many of the same writers as A Country Practice but with harder stories].

Hmm....

First my layman's hat:

Entertaining enough considering it's age. A nice little story, quite fun as it went along and a funny joke which did actually make me laugh out loud at the end.

It's all quite simple. Some old guy appears. He says let's go find my dad and maybe treasure. They go off to a mysterious cave. They get in trouble. Superman gets them out. Sweet!

Secondly my expert's hat:

Well after a yeah of the most expensive animation of all time [so I hear] I guess it couldn't go on. This item is obviously less extravagant thatn those Dave Fleischer was knocking out in 1942. But the style and the care still seem to be these but after a year with 10 releases I guess the production couldn't keep up with the imagination.

Dave Fleischer had obviously rubbed his gift off on the people here. The man had made literally HUNDREDS of productions by this point and his influence still shows.

Finally my plain balding head:

It is nice to see that old rubbish like this can still entertain. It is a pity they didn't have more time and money to push their imaginations forwards a little more. I bet the comics of it's day weren't in this class.

Oh and it was nice to see Superman before he had a proper outfit, x-ray vision, invulnerability, laser eyes, breath of ice, speed of the puma and stuff.

Yes indeed a classic.

First I'd like to say that this isn't a film, it's two episodes of the above average super hero TV series stitched together. Just like The Flash II.

Content wise, well if you can't get hold of the TV series this will be as close an approximation as you'll get. Little depth, little thought but hell it's fun enough when it's flicking past your eyes. John Wesley Shipp makes an amiable enough hero, and looks just as good out of the red suit as in it. The co-stars all turn up, recite their lines and hope someone higher up the entertainment food chain notices them. And as for the production team, well Bilson and the bunch never really cared about being the best or working with the best, they just wanted to put their ideas in front of people and maybe entertain them. Well as this pair of episodes shows, they're more than capable of doing that.