skorzeny

"Garfield" is one of the classic comic strips of all time, and it spawned several classic TV series and specials. This is one of them.

Okay, the idea of taking the usual gang of people and sending them to Hawaii for some fun in the sun is not a new idea for sequels. Not even the idea of having the gang get mixed up with a forgotten tribe of polynesians who worship the volcano god and want to toss people into the pit of lava as a sacrifice is new. Having the lost tribe of Polynesians be a bunch of neo-1950's beatniks and surfer dudes is possibly a new spin on the old premise, however, and the humor is up to the usual Garfield standards.

Yes, this is a bunch of corporate-created commercial fluff, but for what it is, it's still pretty darn funny.

Basically, Ludwig Van Beethoven gets the "Citizen Kane" treatment.

Beethoven dies, and his last will and testament leaves his entire estate to an unnamed "Immortal Beloved", the great love of his life. Anton Schindler, a former student and secretary to the great composer, becomes obsessed with discovering the identity of this woman and carrying out his mentor's dying wish.

Could this great love of his life be one of the aristocratic women who shared his life and his bed? One of his many cooks and servants? A childhood sweetheart? Schindler spends the entire movie searching, while the various candidates tell the story of how their lives were affected and changed by their encounters with Ludwig Van Beethoven.

Great acting, especially from Gary Oldman in a rare non-villian role, excellent cinematography, and good directing make this a movie I watch again and again. You really learn to understand something of Beethoven, not an easy man to understand. The last ten minutes or so, especially the premiere performance of his 9th Symphony, still can move me to tears despite multiple viewings.

(For a really disturbing evening of viewing, follow up this movie with Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange", with it's much darker view of Beethoven's music, hee hee!)

I haven't seen this show in YEARS. I dimly remember this as being my favorite show when I was about 4 years old. All I remember now is that Morgan the Helicopter Pilot was cute and that this show made me REALLY want a Police Truck Toy.

From what little else I can remember about the show, it was basically a cross between "CHiP's" and "Baywatch". Sort of a funky late-70's cop show set on the beach.

This is your typical oral-themed porno. The plot is simple: shy girl learns that her sister is a slut, and learns to give head and be a slut too. She uses her new-found ability to get a free haircut and please her slimy boyfriend. That's pretty much it. Each scene features a facial, and bad puns about the hairstyling industry abound. So do porn-movie cliches, such as the visit by the studly plumber, another visit from a studly exterminator, trading sexual favors for services rendered, teaching a shy girl to be a slut, and the ever-popular "girls sitting around telling stories of their sexual adventures" sequence that takes up half the film.

But, some of the chicks are hot, there isn't too much distracting dialogue, and if you have your remote control ready to fast-forward through the boring bits, you'll enjoy it.

This picture is billed as "Nutcracker: The Motion Picture", but really it's a cross between a movie and a live ballet performance. They make some use of the freedom of camera movement and more elaborate sets to enhance a ballet, but really it's just a ballet performance with no wait between set changes.

That said, this is pretty darn good. The dancing is excellent, of course, but I'd like to see the Kirov or Bolshoi Ballet (or even the Joffrey) do a film like this, rather than the Pacific Northwest Ballet. The sets and costumes (by Maurice Sendak, the famous author of "Where the Wild Things Are"), are superb...for a stage performance, but not for a movie. The overall effect is basically of a PBS special production of the stage ballet.

If you like the grace and beauty of the world's most famous ballet, you'll like this film. If you like Tchaikovskiy's amazing music, you'll like this film. If you like gorgeous ballerinas prancing around on their toes (and hey, who doesn't), you'll like this film. If you can't stand to sit through a ballet, you won't necessarily be converted by this film, however, but the ability to hit "pause" on the VCR and go get a beer might help.

One other thing. I have no idea if this is included in the theatrical or video releases, but when I saw this late at night on WGN-TV in Chicago, Tony Randall appears between acts and provides commentary. Why, I have no idea, but it looks tacked-on at the last minute.

Short, short summary: Fun costumes, hot chicks in tu-tu's, and good music. Everything you'd expect from a great ballet performance, but they could have done so much MORE with this as a movie...

This is a classic bit of American Propaganda from WWII. This was part of a whole series of "Informational Films" produced by the War Department to arouse the American People to greater efforts in their war against tyranny. This installment chronicles the history of the war between Japan and China that later became part of the world-wide conflict known as the Second World War.

Every little Chinese victory is exaggerated. So is every Japanese atrocity, especially the bombing of Chinese cities. China's leadership is portrayed as noble and enlightened. Japan's leadership is seen as a bunch of fanatical warlords bent on world conquest. Japan's invasion of China is described as "Phase Two" of a four-part plan to conquer the world, ending with "Phase Four", an attack "Eastward to crush the United States".

In reality, China won precisely zero real victories in that war. China's leader Chiang Kai-Shek was a dictatorial warlord who cared more about ensuring his own luxury and power base than about defeating the Japanese, who he was content to leave to the Americans to deal with. Japan's bombing of Chinese cities was little different from what the US was then doing to Germany, and would soon do to Japan. Japan wasn't out to conquer the world, just grab a colonial empire like they had seen the British, French, Russians, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Americans do for the last two centuries. Japan's ultimate aim was simply to get strong enough to avoid becoming a colony of some Western Empire themselves, and China was the only un-colonized area left. Japan never even dreamed of conquering or even invading the US, they simply wanted to weaken the US enough that we wouldn't be able to interfere, then negotiate a peace and return the outlying US possessions (like the Philippines) that they had already seized in exchange for a free hand in China and Indonesia.

On the other hand, Japan's atrocities in China (like the Rape of Nanking, which gets about 30 seconds of screen time in this film) WERE awful, and Japan's military leadership WAS a bunch of militaristic warlords.

By today's enlightened standards, this film is rather racist at times, consists of outright lies in others, and twists the truth to fit a predetermined conclusion the rest of the time. But one must put this film in its proper perspective. This was made at the height of WWII, when even Americans who knew something about Japan knew darn little about Japan. A famous anthropologist the US Military hired as an expert on Japan confidently informed the US government that Japanese pilots were unable to fly well due to universally bad eyesight. The Japanese knew us a lot better than we knew them, and only a few of them had any clue that we would be as outraged by Pearl Harbor as we turned out to be.

We were engaged in a great war to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, two fundamentally racist regimes. The fact that we had to resort to racist propaganda ourselves in order to defeat them is sad and regrettable, but understandable.

This is one of my favorite videos to watch. Young Julia Ormond is beautiful and gives a fine performance, and the supporting cast is simply awesome. Christopher Plummer's English diplomat is a spectacular schemer with a heart of gold, Vanessa Redgrave is a wonderful old harridan, and the Grand Duke is crazy as a mad ferret in a sack. Some great scenes (anything with Plummer or the Grand Duke) make this a fun watch, and the liberties it takes with history are fully justified from a dramatic standpoint.

This work first appeared in the US on PBS's Wonderworks show. I saw this many years ago, and enjoyed it very much. This is the story of a little girl on the run from kidnappers, and the help she gets from a friend with a walkie-talkie radio. What kid hasn't fantasized about an incredible adventure out-witting evil adults?

This show had one of the best ensemble casts in recent memory, at least for a drama series. Some fine acting from Larry Drake and others saved what could have been a fluff sex-and-rich-people yuppie drama. Some good courtroom drama is interspersed with decent character stories to make this a watchable drama. What keeps it from being a classic is a half-hearted attempt at social criticism of Los Angeles immorality that just falls flat, as well as a little more gratuitous sex and skin that is just unnecessary.

If you happen to catch it in syndicated reruns on cable, watch it. But it isn't worth seeking out on video, unless you really want to see the breakout rolls of Larry Drake and Blair Underwood.

This utter zero of a movie features Bryant "The Great Vorelli" Haliday as a scientist who invents a sort of Star Trek transporter device which resembles a nuclear-powered Blackhead extractor. Caught up in bureaucratic infighting with his boss at the government-run scientific foundation that is funding his research, he ends up accidentally "projecting" himself across town, and the process melts half his face and gives him the power to kill with a touch.

Wooden acting, bad writing, appalling special effects, and atrocious editing guaranteed this film a spot on "Mystery Science Theater 3000". Even the pointless nudity only comes from a pale, stick-thin British chick who looks better with her clothes on.

If you need something to end a bout of insomnia, this film is highly recommended. If you want a good horror flick, a good sci-fi flick, or a good action flick, skip this and rent "Aliens".

This mini-series has great writing, memorable characters, fine acting from a stellar cast, and is sure to flap even the most unflappable viewer.

The absolutely unflinching look at the lives and loves of a group of eccentric characters in the free-love environment of late 1970's San Francisco. Promiscuity and drug use run rampant, relationships and lives are destroyed and rebuilt, but gay, straight, or bisexual, we really care about the characters.

Excellent dialogue and acting, coupled with fine acting, turn what could easily have been a pornographic exlpoitation picture into a true work of art. I highly recommend it.

...it's still a load of crap.

As far as I am concerned, this movie is only notable as an early effort in the career of master make-up king Stan Winston (back when he was still listed in credits as "Stanley Winston". His huge talent is wasted on one halfway decent prosthetic hand, since the rest of the film's "horror makeup" consists of one bruised face and a lot of greasy sweaty faces. I mean, this is a movie about a guy turning into a bat, and aside from the above-mentioned hand, the only time he actually turns into a bat, it looks like they borrowed an ape mask from a bad 1950's werewolf movie.

The acting is horrid, the plot paper-thin, the script awful, the music painfully bad, the ending lame, the effects laughable (except, as always, for the hand), and the directing is atrocious. Heck, even the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode featuring this movie is mediocre.

Okay, okay, to be fair, the scene with the hospital wristband is not THAT bad, but any movie that features a woman who turns into a bat after having sex with a man who was bitten by a bat...trust me, avoid this movie at all costs. About the only thing I can say in its defense is that it isn't quite bad enough to be too bad even for an MST3K episode.

I actually bought the soundtrack CD before I ever saw this movie. The score by Prokofiev is astoundingly good...when you hear "The battle on the ice", you can practically see the charging knights.

Well, I finally saw the movie. While the acting is a bit wooden, heck, it's a 30's Soviet Propaganda film, what do you expect? This film, with its masses of German knights in their armor and helmets, practically invented the film cliche of the army of evil, faceless, remorseless killing machines.

Even today, I can still see why this was such an effective propaganda film. The German knights, throwing Russian children on the bonfire...the treacherous German, who stabs one of the heroes AFTER he has surrendered...the handsome hero, staring into the camera, and delivering serious warnings about how evil the Germans are, and how Russia will fight to the death against any foreign invader...the beautiful maiden, promising to marry whichever man was bravest in battle...wonderful.

However, the darker side of Soviet propaganda is also in evidence.

If you can find it, watch the restored version with the re-recorded stereo soundtrack. Forget the dialogue, most of it's hokey anyway. But listen to the music. Imagine the soundtrack for "Braveheart" as done by Beethoven. Awesome...

Let me start by saying that the original novel by Robert A. Heinlein is one of my favorite books. The original 1958 novel, Starship Troopers, is a classic of the genre, with great action, good plot, memorable characters, and enough political and technical ideas to satisfy any Poly-Sci or engineering enthusiast. The movie...has great action.

Admittedly, a book that is really primarily about political theory and the philosophy of warfare does not make for a good Effects-laden sci-fi shoot-em-up, so I am willing to cut this movie some slack. The acting by the cast (mostly former Melrose Place or 90210 stars) is atrocious, the dialogue hokey, and the plot paper-thin. However, if what you are looking for is a lot of explosions, some good-looking people, and a lot of effects and gore, this is probably a good bet.

On the other hand, when you look a little deeper, the film does improve in my estimation. Director Paul Verhoeven consciously was imitating WW2-era propaganda films like "They Were Expendable", and he does a creditable job of that. In Verhoeven's previous effort to make a special effects spectacular out of an idea-laden sci-fi book, "Total Recall", he also stuck only loosely to the book, but he actually came up with a better story. In the case of "Starship Troopers", he wasn't so lucky.

Verhoeven grew up in Nazi-occupied Holland in WW2, so of course he tried to make a statement about Fascist military governments. What exactly that statement IS, however, is not very clear. One minute, we are seeing some of the "excesses" of the regime (voting rights limited to veterans, swift and harsh justice, a culture of violence), the next we are shown Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser, M.D.) in a Nazi-like uniform and told he is a good guy.

My recommendation: Read the book. The movie is enjoyable, but the book is SO much better...

This is one of the best stand-up/sketch comedy specials I have ever seen. Angus Deayton is the perfect straight man, and Rowan Atkinson is hilarious. The show is a combination of "Mr. Bean"-esque pantomime and sketch comedy. Some highlights:

"A Warm Welcome" -- The devil welcomes souls to hell.

"Pink Tights and Plenty of Props" -- A hilarious sendup of Shakespearean acting and dramatic conventions.

"Fatal Beatings" -- A principal explains to a father how a student was accidentally beaten to death for stealing library books.

"With Friends like these..." -- A great satire of a wedding gone horribly wrong.

I highly recommend the video version, as the version you occasionally see on Comedy Central has many lines (and a few entire sketches) entirely edited out.

Created by Glen A. Larson, the master of late-1970's TV Sci-Fi, this is the best of the spate of Star Wars clones. On the surface, it is a cheesy space-opera epic with space battles, an army of genocidal robots, a traitorous betrayal, and a desperate fight against incredible odds. Going deeper, it is both a statement about the Cold War and a conscious allegory of Mormon theology (Larson is a member of the LDS church).

I grew with this series, and idolized Starbuck and Apollo. Still today, I can watch the series premiere (which was also variously released as a TV movie, and even in theaters in Canada, Europe, and later the USA) over and over again. There are some moments of great dialogue, the effects are pretty good (even if they tend to repeat...a lot), and the story and series concept are excellent. You gotta love any series that STARTS with the near-extinction of the entire human race.

Unfortunately, when the transition was made from the original concept of several special-event TV movies to a regular series, the conventions of 70's TV took over. Forget most of the series episodes, they tend to repeat plot ideas more than "Star Trek: Voyager" re-uses the "Space Anomaly of the Week" idea. But the original movie is a true sci-fi classic.

If you like "Battlestar Galactica", you will love this movie, at least if you can sit through the incredibly cheesy and silly title sequence. Based extraordinarily loosely on the classic early 1900's sci-fi novel, this is a story of an American astronaut frozen in crygenic sleep for a deep-space exploration mission in the late 20th Century who returns home and awakens in the post-nuclear 25th century. He finds an Earth ravaged by nuclear war (the scene in bombed-out Chicago is particularly amusing to me, as a life-long Chicago native, even if the sets look NOTHING like State Street)but with survivors carrying on in underground cities.

Earth is about to be atacked by the evil Draconians, led by a lovely but devious Princess. Sort of an S&M version of Princess Leia. Anyway, the Draconians pretend to offer Earth help defeating some "Space Pirates", but the Pirates are really Draconian fighters.

What follows are some classic space battle scenes, a lot of running around in dark spaceship corridors, and a classic love triangle between Buck Rogers, the Evil Princess, and a female fighter pilot from Earth. Buck Rogers manages to sabotage and destroy the Draconian fighters and saves the day, of course.

Along the way, we get some amusing dialogue, and some VERY 1970's sci-fi scenes, including Buck Rogers introducing Disco music to the future. The sight of his robot Sidekick, Twiky, dancing to Disco music well saying "Get Down!" still haunts me today.

However, the babes are hot, the battles exciting, the effects good (for 1970's TV), and the story easy to follow. I like it, and wish I could find a copy. I haven't seen it in years.

Great performance by Wallace Shawn and some good dialogue make this a good show. Originally aired as part of PBS's "Wonderworks" program, and based on a short novel by Daniel Manus Pinkwater. Milo is the perfect junior-high nerd without becoming a caricature, and Wallace Shawn plays his character as the pure caricature that the role calls for. And the message of the movie? Why try to be perfect? Just be yourself. If your kid doesn't quite fit in (but not in the violent shoot-up-his-school way), show them this video and they will feel a lot better about themselves. Highly recommended.

This film is enjoyable, if a bit slow. Good performance by Sandra Scream, but slow pacing and unimaginitive positions make it not a film to watch repeatedly, although the scene with Sandra Scream and Tera Heart is pretty good.

And, No, this is not the film Paul Reubens/Pee-Wee Herman was caught Watching. That was "Nancy Nurse", starring Savannah.

The plot: A spy is sent to blackmail a man who works at some vaguely-defined government lab. He decides to get a female friend of his out of jail, so she can seduce the intended target. Now, since the target is already bonking everyone in reach, this seems superfluous. However, he gets her out, by sleeping with the female warden in a very boring sex scene. The girl gets out of jail, and successfully seduces the target. A little too successfully, as they fall in love. However, the spy is also in love with the girl, and he instead blackmails his handlers into letting the girl live happily ever after with her former target.

All in all, a fairly good pornographic film.