TxMike Reviews (6,145)

Space Jam (1996)

Michael Jordan and friends.

[26 April 2025]

Hard to believe this movie was filmed about 30 years ago. I remember it from 1996, which also happens to be the year I retired, but I never had any interest in watching it. I knew who Michael Jordan was/is and I enjoyed watching him play pro basketball but to watch him in a movie, not a priority.

Well now, 2025, my local public library has this movie on DVD and I was able to watch it last night. It is well made and has many funny moments but overall, as a movie I was mostly bored. Maybe because, with the animated cartoon characters, it is primarily for kids.

It generally covers most of Jordan's life, from when he was a boy of about 10 shooting baskets in the yard at his home. It includes his attempt to play pro baseball after he retired from the NBA. And it even has a bit on the golf course, with Larry Bird and Bill Murray.

Yes, part of the charm that is there are all the well-know guests who had bit parts, like Larry Bird, Bill Murray, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Muggsy Bogues. Anyway, it is a well-made movie but for this retired grandpa, very little interest after the fact.

Étoile (2025– )

Another entertaining show from the Palladino team.

[24 April 2025]

First a definition, "In the context of ballet, 'étoile' is used to designate the leading dancer in a ballet company, often referred to as a "principal dancer" in English.

This new show just became available, streaming on Prime. My comments only refer to the first three episodes that my wife and I have watched. I will update my comments after watching more. I like much of the show, I also have some issues. Too much profanity from some characters and the France part moves so fast that the small English subtitles are hard to read in real time.

The husband and wife Palladino team are responsible for two of my favorite series, "Gilmore Girls" and "Mrs. Maisel." As I reflect it isn't so much the actual stories that are entertaining, but the interesting characters and unique dialog. The main characters are always somewhat "off center" and quirky. People we would likely not often encounter in real life.

This new show, 'Etoile", is like that too. It starts with a meeting and negotiation, New York and Paris based ballet companies. Both are in some financial trouble and it is thought exchanging stars, select dancers and choreographers, would ignite interest for both companies.

All the main characters here are very "off center" and very quirky, but the actors are talented and mostly pull it off well.

Ballet is the focus but isn't really the point. The stories, as they seem to be headed, are the characters and their interactions.

We Live in Time (2024)

As we make our way through life, are we passive or do we 'go for it?'

[23 April 2025]

Andrew Garfield is Tobias, he comes across as a mostly passive person, sometimes has a hard time just expressing himself. As the writer says he is the type of person who 'colors inside the lines.' Early in the story he has to sign some important papers, he goes out at night and gets some ink pens, is clumsy and drops them on the roadway, when picking them up gets hit by a car, full on.

The driver of that car is Florence Pugh as Almut. (Is that a common name in the UK?) She is quite opposite of Tobias in most ways. She is a decorated chef, is working on the opening of her own restaurant and is more willing to take risks as she goes through life.

They meet in the hospital after the accident, they are definitely attracted to each other, and the rest of the story is their fits and starts at building a life together.

The story is not presented in a linear manner, the director explains why in the Blu Ray extras and it makes sense.

Both actors are very good and I especially am a fan of Pugh, I believe I have seen her in 8 movies now and she always creates an interesting and authentic role, as she does here.

My wife and watched it at home, on Blu Ray from out public library. We enjoyed it, both as often funny entertainment and for the deep points about life it touches on.

Speak No Evil (I) (2024)

Be careful who you befriend when on vacation.

[20 April 2025]

This at its core is a horror movie, it runs 1 hour 45 minutes and we don't find out until right about the hour mark how seriously wrong things are. The last 45 minutes gets more and more grim.

James McAvoy is Paddy, the bad guy here, maybe a psycho? Or maybe just a very flawed man who will do anything for what he wants. McAvoy showed me what a remarkable actor he is in the 2016 movie "Split" and here he is just as effective. In fact, I will go so far as to say his performance is the primary reason to see this. Although the other actors are very effective also.

An American couple and their 12-yr-old daughter are living in London and travel to Italy for a vacation. There they encounter Paddy and his small family, a wife and a young son. Something seems "off" with Paddy but not so much that he seems dangerous.

Later the American family is invited to spend a long weekend with Paddy and his family in the English (or Scottish?) countryside, they live in a rustic farmhouse with a few animals outside.

It turns out Paddy is dangerous and his otherwise sweet wife assists him. What they want is even more than money. It quickly becomes a tense exercise in survival at any cost.

I must say it is well made overall, this is not my preferred type of movie but I found it interesting. Not special, just interesting. The subject matter is not really entertaining.

Be careful who you befriend when on vacation!

At home, Streaming on Prime.

The Jewel of the Nile (1985)

Sequel to 'Romancing the Stone.'

[18 April 2025]

During the ending scenes of 'Romancing the Stone' the hero, Jack, managed to wrestle away the precious stone from the alligator and even got a pair of alligator skin boots as a bonus. Then, as the movie ends we see Jack and Joan on the yacht, traveling down the street in Manhattan.

This movie takes up from there, with the two of them, still unmarried, talking about Greece and having fun in the waters of the Mediterranean (filmed off the French coast), the yacht prominent in the scene. Joan was getting ready for a book signing event when a mysterious man approaches her. He knows her from her books and asks her to go with him, he is about to do something great for his people in Northern Africa and he wants her to be his biographer. He has a private jet nearby.

I love 'Romancing the Stone', to me it is an almost perfect and entertaining movie. I rewatch it regularly. It has charm and beautiful scenery.

Everything the first movie was has been discarded for this sequel. Douglas (producer) and others were tired of being wet and cold in the Mexico locations for 'Stone' so asked for a change. That took them to the hot and dry regions of Morocco. Where locations in Mexico were scenic, Morocco is mostly desert and old, ugly buildings.

The story here is done in a similar sensibility as 'Stone' but with a different director it just does not approach the former movie in interest. The first 15 minutes are pretty interesting, as are the last 15 or so minutes, but the vast middle is more boring than anything.

To me a big miss and one that I will NOT rewatch periodically.

At home, on DVD from my public library.

Arthur's Whisky (2024)

Arthur died and the ladies found his whisky!

[17 April 2025]

First off, the title used the word "whisky", which implies Scotland. However it was filmed in smaller communities just outside London. (Whiteley Village, Hersham, Walton-on-Thames, UK)

The story focuses on three old friends, now all in their 70s, experiencing all the things people that age normally do. One of the ladies is married to Arthur and when he dies the friends decide to venture into his small shack out back. Among the things they find, a few small bottles of his homemade whisky. Bravely, they decide to try it.

Magically, each of them wakes up to find that they are 20-ish versions of themselves. After suitable emotions of panic, they realize it must have been the whisky. But they also find out its effect is finite, after about 6 hours they revert to their 70-something selves.

(As a science nerd, I found myself wishing one of them would experiment, starting with very small doses, to see how much they really had to consume. Sadly, they did not do that.)

Anyway, after watching the trailer I expected very little from this movie. It is quite silly in places but overall I enjoyed it quite a bit. Including their foray to visit a bucket list location, Las Vegas. I was entertained, maybe because I too am in my 70s.

If you want a "message" it is to accept and appreciate yourself, just the way you are.

It was also a bonus to see a couple of old singers in the cast. Lulu, of course, was a popular singer in the 1960s, known especially for "To Sir With Love." And we also are able to see Boy George, now in his 60s.

At home, streaming on Prime. A bit better than its rating would suggest.

G20 (2025)

Financial terrorists at the G20 summit in South Africa.

[16 April 2025]

This movie immediately reminds me of the 1997 "Air Force One" with Harrison Ford as the USA President. Terrorists attempt to overtake the plane in flight and the President is forced to personally take action.

In "G20", Viola Davis is in the role of President Danielle Sutton. As of today this movie has received almost 20% "1" ratings, which is ridiculous, but many people still strongly object to diversity in movie roles. The median rating is "6" and that is pretty much where it should be. Not great but entertaining.

My wife and I watched it at home, streaming on Prime. We found it entertaining, in spite of all the shootings and explosions which resulted in many deaths. Plus the action the last half hour was pretty much all "over the top" implausible.

But what was entertaining was the idea of a female President, a former Army soldier with much training, including firearms and hand-to-hand fighting, being pressed into action at the G20 conference in South Africa. Plus her husband and two teenage kids all end up with roles helping to fend off the financial terrorists who were trying to crash all the world currencies so that their crypto holding would make them billions. The story included a number of very current ideas, like using AI to create deep fakes of world leaders making announcements that they didn't really make.

Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

Druggie tries to get his life straight.

[15 April 2025]

Set in 1971 in the Pacific Northwest and filmed in and near Portland, Matt Dillon (24 during filming) is Bob. As the movie opens we see him go into a drug store, followed one-by-one by three others. It turns out they are a team, they create distractions as Bob sneaks behind the pharmacy counter to steal whatever he can find. On this day Nadine (Heather Graham, 18 during filming) pretends to go into an epileptic fit.

The others are Kelly Lynch as Dianne, supposedly Bob's wife, and James Le Gros (in his 20s) as Rick. They meet at a residence and divide up the spoils. All of them are druggies. As Bob explains much later, he enjoys the lifestyle, he enjoys being a druggie.

As the story unfolds something happens in Bob's life, he gets religious for a moment (he was formerly an altar boy) and promises God he will do better if he survives. That is his impetus to try to go straight, get a job, quit the drugstore robbing business. The rest isn't very easy.

I watched this at home as a Criterion Collection Blu Ray edition. The picture and sound are remarkably good. My wife skipped, not her kind of movie.

Language Lessons (2021)

Conversations during COVID times.

[13 April 2025]

My wife and I look for interesting but not too deep movies on Saturday nights, after our weekly steak and wine dinner. Looking around on Prime we found this one, as of now it has an average IMDb rating of 7.1 which is actually pretty good. We also like the two main actors who, it turns out, co-wrote the script.

So we settled in, not knowing what we would be in for. It starts off interestingly. Adam (Mark Duplass) lives in Oakland and is given by his husband a series of Spanish lessons. He paid $1000 for 100 weekly lessons, almost two years' worth. Being this was made during COVID time, the lessons are done at a distance.

His instructor is Natalie Morales as Cariño, who happens to reside in Costa Rica. They communicate via an online chat app.

We settled in and watched it for about 30 minutes and asked each other, "Are you enjoying this?" We weren't, so I forwarded it to about 3/4 into the movie and watched a bit, finding that it was much the same. So we abandoned it.

There are a number of very favorable reviews for this movie and that is fine, it is for viewers who can get into a long exchange of thoughts and ideas of two strangers. They do it well. But my wife and I don't enjoy that so I find my "rating" is not useful.

The Red Shoes (1948)

The Red ballet shoes, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.

[12 April 2025]

In the mid 1800s Hans Christian Andersen wrote a fairy tale about a young girl with red dancing shoes that seemed to take control of her and her dancing.

This movie does not attempt to follow that rigorously but tells a tale of a young dancer who with her red ballet shoes decides that dancing will be her life. Moira Shearer, a trained professional ballet dancer about 21 or 22 during filming, makes her movie debut as Victoria Page.

The story arc has her falling in love and having to decide whether dancing or marrying him will be her choice. The ending is tragic as she is unable to choose.

I enjoyed the movie, it is a bit different from what I usually watch. I am a musician but not a particular student of ballet. However, what impressed most was this restored version put out on DVD by The Criterion Collection. Old, damaged film was fully restored, and the colors re-registered so that the video is remarkable.

If any fans of this movie have not yet watched it on this restored edition then they have not really enjoyed the best version, unless they watched it in the theater in 1948.

The extra on the DVD goes into great detail, with "before-after" examples, of the restoration process and that was as interesting to me as the movie itself.

I found it at my public library.

Nova: Revolutionary War Weapons (2025) Season 52, Episode 7

Fighting 250 years ago.

[10 April 2025]

I always find these NOVA programs interesting but this one, on fighting 250 years ago, was less compelling than most of them. However it was a very important type of fighting that resulted in the young Colonies defeating England in the 1700s and gaining independence to become the Unites States of America.

As a scientist I most enjoy the scientific aspects of a program like this. I found especially interesting the comparison of the old musket rifles of the time to a modern high-powered military rifle.

In the hands of a marksman the modern rifle hit a target at 100 yards, not in the bullseye but not far away. When the same marksman shot at the same target from the same distance, none of the several shots even hit the target or its frame.

Measurements showed that muzzle velocity for the musket was barely one-third that of the modern rifle. Plus the tighter clearances of the modern rifle gives a tighter dispersion pattern.

Still, when it hit the target, the old musket could do lots of damage, as shown in extremely slow-motion film of the ball striking a gelatin block meant to simulate human flesh. So what did the British do during fighting? They marched many men and shot many muskets at relatively close range so that some of the balls would hit something.

But we all know what the result was...

Atom Man vs. Superman (1950)

Rather unexciting.

[9 April 2025]

I found a 4-disc set of DVDs of 1948 Superman episodes "The Theatrical Series Collection" released in 2006. They were the short (typically 15 to 16 minutes) serials intended to be shown before movies, one each week, presumably the Saturday matinee that kids attended.

The 1950 movie "Atom Man vs. Superman" is on one of the discs. It too is presented in short episodes, and has new characters like Lex Luthor and Atom Man.

I watched a few episodes but found them uninspiring. Even though it was released a couple of years after Superman the audio and video are not as good. And, the stories with the new characters just not very interesting. So I didn't watch all of them.

At home, on a set of DVDs from my public library.

The Substance (2024)

The expectations placed upon women to be attractive.

[9 April 2025]

The writer-director of this movie is a 40-something French woman, in a short featurette on the DVD she explains that this story is drawn from the general theme that certain expectations are placed on women, especially their looks. To look beautiful and to stay beautiful for success.

The movie was filmed in France. Demi Moore (60-ish) is Elisabeth, she has a very popular American TV exercise show. Think the old Jane Fonda shows. She gets into a car accident and is taken to the hospital where she is proclaimed healthy, no cracked or broken bones. But a very young-looking male nurse passes her a note wrapped around a USB drive, she watched it at home. There the idea of "the substance" enters her mind. It is a way to rejuvenate yourself and, after some thought, she takes the plunge.

Margaret Qualley (28-ish) is Sue who becomes the other key factor in this experiment, and certain restrictions are placed on the use of the "substance."

This is not meant to be an "air-tight" story, one could point out many flaws in the approach and decision-making but that isn't the point. To me it is meant to be an allegory, perhaps a cautionary tale of what can happen when a woman gets too wrapped up in her appearance. In the end it becomes a horror movie that is very hard to watch the last half hour or so as it wraps up.

The performances are good and the movie is well made, I just don't find it that compelling, mainly because in its horror it shows lots and lots of blood and other distasteful things. But I am glad I watched it.

Dennis Quaid has a mostly over-the-top role as Harvey, I suppose, a TV producer.

At home, on DVD from my public library.

Superman (I) (1948)

"At this theater next week."

[8 April 2025]

After Gene Hackman, who played Lex Luthor, died recently I began searching for other older Superman movies. I found the 4-disc set of DVDs of this one at my public library. It is called "The Theatrical Series Collection" released in 2006. It is stated to have a running time of 518 minutes which is just over 8 1/2 hours, some of that is because the 1950 movie "Atom Man vs. Superman" is on one of the discs. Also there are special features on the 4th disc. But the content and chapter names are what is in this movie. For film made in the 1940s the B&W video and the sound are very good.

I remember, as a young boy in the 1950s, the movie theater had short "serials" before the main feature and, while I don't specifically remember these Superman episodes, it seems that is what they were made for. These typically run 15 to 16 minutes and end with an apparent disaster, like Lois Lane getting blown up, and the closing credits state "At this theater next week." Then the next episode shows a slightly different situation where Superman comes in time to save the day.

Aside from the entertainment value of watching these original Superman episodes it is also interesting as a reflection of American life back in the 1940s and early 1950s. Men always wore a hat and suit and tie, even the thugs who captured and beat up people. They had portable phones of sorts that could be used in a car but they were very large. The roads and buildings were primitive compared to the 21st century. And the old cars!

All in all a very worthwhile collection of old Superman episodes.

The Best of Everything (1959)

Young career ladies in Manhattan.

[8 April 2025]

I managed to catch this movie on the Movies! Channel via my antenna in my attic. I was attracted to it for Martha Hyer, a beautiful actress I had a crush on when I was a boy back in the early 1960s. There was this magazine she posed in ...

The title is interesting, we quickly find out it is a reference to a newspaper ad for secretarial positions, saying the jobs give employees "The best of everything."

The focus is on Hope Lange, just 26, as Caroline Bender, a single Connecticut girl who still lived at home and commuted every day via train. She shows up for her first day at work, at the publishing company in Manhattan, and aces her typing test. But we quickly learn she has ambitions beyond just being a good secretary.

The cast is made up of several actors who went on to become big stars. Much of the focus is on the office itself and some office politics. The older men are portrayed as expecting the young ladies to submit to their sexual advances without complaint.

There is more focus on their lives outside of work, young ladies are portrayed as mainly having the goal of finding a nice, maybe well-off, man to marry and raise a family with.

In essence it is a "soap opera" type of movie, with loves gained and loves lost, and the difficulty making it as a single young lady in 1950s Manhattan.

I enjoyed it, I started my own career just a few years after that time so it was fun comparing this fictional work to my own work experience. None of it is far-fetched.

The Good House (2021)

The importance of sobriety.

[6 April 2025]

When it is all done I suppose the main message of this movie could be "The importance of recovering addicts keeping in touch with their support group."

The cast features two of our favorites over the years, both in their 70s when this movie was shot, Sigourney Weaver as Hildy Good and Kevin Kline as Frank Getchell. They live in a smaller coastal Massachusetts community (apparently filmed in Nova Scotia) and many years earlier had something of a love relationship. Now they are just old friends, she a Real Estate agent, he the owner of a construction business.

Hildy had married and now has two adult daughters, her husband had left her some years back for a man but they remained friends enough to be at same holiday meals with family.

Hildy has a history, she drank too much, so much that sometimes she had no recollection of the prior day, even if a few bad things had happened. At one point her family and friends did an intervention, she recovered but in more recent years was pretending to go to meetings, and was secretly drinking on her own, usually a bottle of Merlot from the several cases she kept in her basement.

So this is really a story about Hildy, and builds on the apparently accurate concept that an alcoholic is incapable of throttling his or her alcohol intake, so it is abstain completely or revert to being a dangerous drunk.

There is a story arc, things get better by the end of the movie which is very well done with interesting, authentic dialog and stellar performances, especially from Weaver and Kline.

My wife and I watched it at home, streaming on Prime.

My Dreams of You (2024 TV Movie)

What dreams may come ... no, not the Robin Williams movie.

[6 April 2025]

Every Saturday after our usual steak and wine dinner (of course, with chocolate cake for desert) my wife and I look for an entertaining movie that doesn't require too much brain power, but is interesting. We found this one, Streaming on Peacock, and it fit the bill very nicely. We both enjoyed the viewing.

It is about Grace and Michael, two people in different cities who don't know each other. She works temp jobs as she writes, hoping to strike it big with her novel. But rejections keep getting in her way.

Michael is a musician, he plays guitar, composes, and sings.

Somehow Grace has recurrent dreams involving Michael although the two have never met. She naturally wonders if he is a real person or just a construct of her imagination and wishes. Then she finds out what is going on, she meets the young lady at the Dream Academy, the organization that formulates the dreams that people have.

So the hook in this story has a strong magical fantasy element, due to an error Grace gets dreams she is not supposed to, and Michael says he doesn't dream.

The story weaves through a number of issues, the ideas are novel and the script is smartly written. It is a pleasant and very nicely entertaining movie. The two main actors are very good in their roles.

Ava (IV) (2020)

Entertaining caper featuring Jessica Chastain as Ava.

[5 April 2025]

I'm not sure why I missed this when it came out five years ago but now, thanks to streaming on Prime I was able to watch it.

Jessica Chastain is Ava, in a series of scenes as the movie starts we find out she was an outstanding student and athlete during her school days. As the movie progresses we find that she didn't have a loving father and she left home to join the military. She also had a battle with drugs and alcohol and as a 40-something adult has been rehabilitated.

The story here is not a novel concept, Ava works as a black ops assassin for a covert group, she is given assignments and she is expected to carry them out. However she has gotten into the dangerous habit of asking the target, "What did you do?" Wanting to know why they were on the termination list.

As a result her superiors worry that she will expose things that shouldn't be exposed and they need to eliminate her.

So the meat of the story is Ava needing to eliminate her attackers before they can eliminate her. We see the usual, highly choreographed fight scenes and we see how highly trained Ava is.

My enjoyment of the movie was Jessica Chastain. I have seen most of her roles and she has become a favorite of mine. She does a fine job in this one.

Severance (2022– )

Sci-fi, should we sever our work life from our outside life?

[31 March 2025]

A few weeks ago my wife and I watched episode #1 of the original 2022 Severance series. It was offered free as a way to try to get people to sign up for the online streaming service.

We enjoyed the viewing, we were intrigued by the concept, a new futuristic technique allows a device transplanted into the brain to effect the severance, which results in your work life and your outside lives being independent. To the point where you have no recollection of one when you are in the other.

Fortunately, shortly after we watched that initial episode we received notice that our public library was adding a multi-DVD set of "Severance, Season one."

We watched the last 5 minutes of episode #1 to refresh our memory then watched episode #2. Then, 53 minutes later, we looked at each other and said, in unison, "I don't have a desire to watch any additional episodes."

Why that reaction? The episodes are well-made, the actors are good and the characters interesting. But there is no story or, if there is one, it is so drawn out, revealed so slowly that a sense of boredom starts to set in.

Take the "work" state, they don't really know what they are trying to accomplish. They sit at a desk and look at a computer monitor with a large matrix of digits, numbers from 1 through 9 seemingly randomly arranged. Then when they see something ("you'll know it when you see it" sort of thing") then they send those numbers into a bin. There are several theories about why they do it but none of the workers know why.

Then there is the outside life, some characters encounter each other there but are not aware they also work for the same company. There is some talk about the company mistreating employees but no early indication what that might be.

So, while there might be an interesting story embedded in all that we don't have the patience to invest about 7 hours to find out.

Juror #2 (2024)

Not about a murder, or a trial, but a moral dilemma.

[30 March 2025]

Juror #2 is a Clint Eastwood movie, many think his last as director. It is set and filmed in Georgia, it involves a young man arrested and put on trial for the death of his girlfriend. No doubt he is a hot-head, many witnessed the graphic argument at the bar. A man down the road even identified the boyfriend being on that dark road next to a car, in the rain, the night before she was found dead among some rocks in the creek below the bridge.

Much later we learn about how flawed the police investigation was, it seems they decided he was guilty and gathered the necessary evidence to convict him.

Early in the movie, as the jury is being selected, we are shown flashback snippets that tell us what really happened. One man, juror #2, can expose things that would likely set the accused free but he faces a great moral dilemma.

I was immediately reminded of the classic movie "12 Angry Men" as the jury deliberations began, with several jurors "knowing" the accused was guilty and wanting to come to a quick verdict so they could get on with their normal lives but one man says they need to consider other factors.

Ultimately it is not so much about a murder or a trial, although we witness scenes during a trial. It is about moral dilemmas, about weighing doing what you know is right vs all the damage it might do. It is about perhaps living with sending an innocent man to prison for life. It ends with questions that the viewer needs to answer on their own, about what the resolutions might be.

Good movie, my wife and I watched it at home on DVD from our public library, after our usual Saturday evening steak and wine dinner. With chocolate cake, of course, for dessert.

Holland (2025)

"Maybe it was just all a dream?"

[27 March 2025]

This is mostly a Nicole Kidman vehicle, she is a producer, she stars as teacher Nancy Vandergroot, and it was filmed primarily near where she lives around Nashville, TN. Her husband is played by Scottish actor Matthew Macfadyen as Optometrist Fred Vandergroot. Set in the 1990s in Holland, Michigan with lots of references to Holland, the nation.

My wife and I watched it at home, streaming on Prime. At about the 20-minute mark she asked, "Are you enjoying this?" I replied, "Not yet, I am hoping it starts to make sense."

In general I am a Kidman fan and I told myself that she would not make a worthless movie, let's wait until it picks up.

Well it does pick up about the 1 hour and 15 minute mark, and everything we thought we knew about this family gets tossed out and new, disturbing revelations are made. But we didn't find where it went particularly interesting or entertaining.

My conclusion, they took a basic story arc that could have been turned into an interesting, dark thriller but the script and direction fumbled the idea, and what they ended up with is a movie where characters do highly improbably things and when it ends we wondered, "What's the point?"

And maybe the point is, as the closing dialog states, "Maybe it was all just a dream?"

Sorry, it just isn't a very good movie and I certainly would not recommend it to anyone I know. "Made for streaming" strikes again.

The Americas (2025– )

A glimpse of the Americas most of us have never seen.

[25 March 2025]

I suspect they got Tom Hanks to narrate this because he is such a popular actor. But frankly, who narrates is mostly immaterial. Some complain about him but to me he does a fine job. Others would have also.

To the meat of the programming. When you consider how extensive "The Americas" is - North America, Central America, and South America - no program, no matter how detailed it is, could cover everything about all of it.

So what they did here is first, select regions, like the Gulf Coast or the Andes, etc. Then second, in each region focus on a very small number of very interesting aspects. Things we, the audience, would likely never learn about otherwise.

So what we get are, for a few examples, frogs that live at high elevation and die each night by freezing, then thaw back alive the next day. Or hummingbirds with two very long tail feathers, doing its mating dance. Or a duck that has special armor on its legs so that it can dive and feed safely in very hot water.

My own favorite is the piece on the red land crabs of Cuba. At the right season millions of them come out of the ground in the forest, find a mate, incubate for 14 days, then make the several mile trek to the sea to disperse their billions of eggs. A few thousand don't make it across the coastal highway when big vehicles come along but there are so many it hardly makes a dent in the numbers.

Each episode has things, fascinating things, that we would likely never be exposed to otherwise. The script is interesting and humor is injected occasionally at opportune times. And the photography is stunning.

The last episode is a "making of" presentation, showing behind the scenes how the teams were able to track down and capture the video they did. It is fascinating in its own right.

We normally watch the weekly episode streaming on Peacock, the commercials are fewer and easier to handle.

Weird Science (1985)

Two teenagers and a computer, what could go wrong in 1984?

[24 March 2025]

Anthony Michael Hall has one of the feature roles in season three of the "Reacher" limited series. Now in his mid-50s, I watched this movie, "Weird Science", to recall what he was like as a 16-yr-old.

He plays Gary and along with his good friend Wyatt are among the unpopular nerds. Wyatt's parents are going away for the weekend and the two boys begin to fantasize - what would their ideal woman look like, what characteristics would she have? Maybe they could do something with their computer?

This of course is a fantasy all the way. I remember 1984 very well, I was in my 30s and working in a scientific job with a technical company and I recall that home computers were still very new and no one really knew what all they could do. This fantasy plays on that.

So their experiment worked, the beautiful woman came alive in the form of Kelly LeBrock (about 24) as "Lisa." Much havoc follows her appearance.

The late Bill Paxton was Wyatt's mean older brother Chet. And a 19-yr-old Robert Downey Jr. Was one of the boys in school.

While everything is fantasy the filmmaker chose to put in a life lesson, about growing up and finding out who you really are, but that is secondary.

I watched it at home on a Blu Ray version issued in 2008. I was struck by how clear and sharp the video is, plus it has a couple of interesting "extras."

Wicked (2024)

The origin story of the witches of OZ.

[23 March 2025]

This movie became available streaming on Peacock this week. My wife and I, products of the 1950s, grew up with "The Wizard of OZ" and each of us has watched that movie numerous times.

In quick summary, we love everything about this movie. It starts with a recreation of the scene in "Wizard of OZ" where good witch Glinda is thriving and happy, while the Wicked Witch is dead. Then the whole movie is a flashback of sorts, showing the characters as very young children, growing up, attending Schiz University to learn magic, and their trip to OZ to meet the Wizard in his lair.

Not heavily advertised is the fact that this is just part one of a two-part movie. The second part presumably will come out later in 2025. So this part ends inconclusively.

All the characters are well-played, including Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard. But special mention goes to the two ladies, Erivo and Grande. Both are marvelous singers and each creates an authentic character. Interestingly both are tiny, each just barely taller than five feet.

At home, streaming, after our usual Saturday steak and wine dinner. A fitting punctuation mark.

Adventures of Superman (1952–1958)

My favorite TV series from the 1950s.

[17 March 2025]

I suppose there aren't too many of us remaining, who actually watched the original TV series during the 1950s. I read Superman and Superboy comics so naturally this Superman TV series was my favorite.

George Reeves as Clark Kent and Superman was not chiseled as modern Superman actors, plus he didn't wear a costume that was as form-fitting. He was in his late 30s and early 40s during the run of the TV series. Thinking back, and watching an old episode today, the production values were nowhere near modern TV or movie productions but, as a kid, what was presented was just fine.

I was able to get the 1952 Season 1 on a set of DVDs at my public library. Presented in a 4:3 screen ratio the audio and video are very good for such an old series, in B&W of course.

Later I was able to get the 1957 series on DVD, this time presented in full color, but the same 4:3 picture ratio. George Reeves passed away not long after.

Episodes run about 25 minutes and commonly focus on some sort of crime caper that Clark/Superman, Lois, and Jimmy need to solve. Sets were cheap and dialog was straightforward, but the idea of a Superman is what made this series interesting.

We weren't wealthy and as such didn't even have a TV at home until 1959 when I was 14, when my older sister got a job and bought us one. "The Adventures of Superman" will always be my favorite original TV series.