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Hollywood has been puzzling over why LIGHTYEAR was a big failure at the box office. The media speculated it was because the film has a gay supporting character, but this is the least of the film's issues.

First, audiences fell in love with Buzz Lightyear the TOY from the Toy Story films. Absolutely no one wanted to see Buzz as an actual human being in a space opera.

Second, the plot is completely incoherent, making almost no sense at all. The film gives us a weird, time-travel mish-mosh clearly inspired by Marvel's equally incoherent "MultiVerse" concept.

What was Pixar thinking? Who green-lighted this mess? This film has sadly done a lot of damage to the Pixar brand. Here's hoping they can find their way again.

Billy Wilder's next to last film, FEDORA, was poorly received by both critics and audiences at the time. I find this strange, as I think it is very compelling and engrossing, and therefore much underrated.

I would guess the hostility came, and comes, from everyone comparing it to Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD, which covers much of the same territory. But if you can make yourself erase your memories of the earlier film, you should give FEDORA a chance. Recommended from me.

This low-budget film has been little seen over the years, though there have been home media releases from smaller companies. It is a western "comedy" with Rory Calhoun as a con man drifting into town disguised as a minister, with the intent of robbing the bank. He is aided and abetted by his talking mule (voiced by Don Knotts) with whom he also seems to have telepathic communication with, as he and the mule converse even when they are not together. But Rory (saddled with a makeup job that makes him look like a zombie) doesn't get involved much---he stands around observing as the wildly over-the-top crazy townspeople try to overthrow the town boss.

This is truly a ghastly film---it makes virtually no sense at all, the acting is horrible, and Rory Calhoun chews the scenery maniacally as if he is having fun mocking the director who was too dumb to realize this was happening. This film is about as close to unwatchable as a film with recognizable names can get.

The film has had multiple release dates listed from different sources, and therefore was apparently made somewhere between 1975 and 1978. And Don Knotts? How did he get involved in this mess? And how much did he get paid to sit in a recording studio for one afternoon? As the film has been so little seen, did he even know what the finished product was? Knotts completists, who want to see everything he ever touched, may wish to seek this out, but I would recommend to them that they pretend it doesn't exist.

At one point or another, a long-running tv series will have an episode or two that makes you wonder what the heck they were thinking! This is one of them.

After Darrin's mother accidentally witnesses Samantha performing magic, Darrin and Sam decide the time has come to confess the truth to her, that Sam is a witch. This angers the Witches Council, who fix it so Samantha can never again perform magic in front of mortals (except Darrin). Thus, old Mrs. Stephens ends up in a nursing home for being hallucinatory. Yuk yuk, that's supposed to be funny. Only it isn't.

Years after the show went off the air, Bewitched's producers and writers told interviewers that they ran out of ideas in later years, which was why there were so many recycled stories toward the end. But they couldn't recognize new ideas when they were right in front of them! Having Darrin's parents find out about Samantha could have opened up a whole new world of comic entanglements in future episodes, but this was not to be.

Consequently, as Samantha's secret stays secret after all, this episode is totally pointless.

I first saw GUS theatrically when I was a kid in 1976. I quite liked it then. But I watched it again recently; it is still reasonably entertaining, but it does show its age. Rear-screen projection is used throughout, which makes the movie look very cheap by today's standards. You can tell the performers are not really in a packed football stadium.

A couple of notes: Don Knotts has second-billing, and his name has been consistently used to promote GUS, both theatrically in 1976, and in the home media issues of recent years. But actually, he has very little to do, and he is off-screen for long periods at a time. This always surprises and disappoints Knotts' fans.

To the opposite extreme, HAPPY DAYS star Tom Bosley has a much larger role than his ignominious 12th-billing would lead you to believe. This is very odd---as he was simultaneously starring on the most popular tv sitcom right at this time, you would think Disney would have wanted to play him up. Did Bosley do something that angered the studio during filming, and was his billing placement punishment? Who knows?

GUS is worth a look as long as you aren't expecting a classic.

John Wayne's final film is regarded by his fans as one of his best, and I agree. But reportedly, Wayne didn't.

Wayne had made most of his later films with his own production company. THE SHOOTIST was not one of them, but Wayne reportedly signed on because he liked the premise. However, according to reports we have read, he demanded many script changes to make his character more "honorable" (J. B. Books was a slimy old reprobate in Glendon Swarthout's original novel), and the producers complied because they wanted him for the film so badly.

When John Wayne saw the finished product, he reportedly still didn't like it, and hoped he could move on from it, but this was not to be. It was the closest he ever came to a sub-genre he detested---the western that deglamorized the West.

There is little that can be said about this disastrous remake that hasn't already been said. Everything is wrong, right down to the wooden (and sometimes downright BAD) acting from usually reliable performers.

The studio and the filmmakers declared this to be a tribute both to Hitchcock and to a great film, but instead it is an insult. All of the PR declared this to be a scene-for-scene, line-for-line remake-----only it isn't. They couldn't restrain themselves from throwing in modern-day excesses---we get a shot of Viggo Mortensen's bare butt, a scene of Norman Bates masturbating, and Anne Heche's butch haircut does not invoke memories of Janet Leigh.

Stay with the original.

Fraggle Rock was one of the all-time great family tv shows, one which I loved as well. This particular episode was a curious misstep for Jim Henson and the show, as it does not jibe with the show's overall message of love and inclusiveness.

Mokey befriends a strange, shy, lonely creature named Begoony, who has been shunned by others in the past. She learns the hard way why he has no friends---he is insanely jealous, possessive, and ultimately scary and dangerous.

Childhood victims of bullying through time have always been the shy and withdrawn children. This episode seems to validate this attitude---it's message is very clearly, if you meet someone quiet and "different", be very very afraid!!!!

Begoony is depicted with the mannerisms and speech patterns of those afflicted with ASD. While autism was not as understood in the 1980s, it still is sad that Henson's company had to resort to the stereotype of autistic people as being psychotic.

Yes, a curious misstep for the Fraggles. When I was young, I was a bully magnet with few friends because I was quiet and "different". I loved the Fraggles, but even then, I felt personally attacked by this episode.

Possibly one of the worst thought-out episodes of Bewitched, it makes little sense, there are no laughs worth mentioning, and the story is ugly.

In this one, Endora and a witches' coven plan to take Tabitha to a witches' school where she will be raised without her parents, until Maurice steps in and routs them. Nice, eh?

Here are the problems: Endora is truly evil in this episode. There is no other episode where she is more evil than this. The viewer is left wondering why Samantha would even want to continue having a relationship with her mother after this, but the events shown here are not referenced in any future episode.

When Samantha's father Maurice comes to the rescue, we see that his powers are greater than that of the coven. This contradicts other episodes where he is cowed by his estranged wife Endora.

Overall, a misfire in the popular sit-com.

It is probably silly to submit a review for a film that already has nearly 1500 IMDB reviews, but here goes.

I was disappointed in the film for several reasons. First, for an action film, it is surprisingly slow in spots. It also gives us virtually a new origin story for Spider-Man---why does Hollywood always think that fans of originals will love big changes in the reboots?

Andrew Garfield is not as convincing as Peter Parker as Toby Maguire was in the Sam Raimi films. Jonah Jameson is not even a character in this version---he is replaced as Spidey's public nemesis by Captain Stacy (a genial good guy in the old comic books but an unnecessary villain here).

One change I did like was that Gwen learns Spidey's identity, which she never did in the comics. This worked. But new subplots about the mysterious disappearance of Peter's mom and dad when he was a boy seem unnecessary, and the Lizard is not the memorable super-villain that he should be.

Did I mention how jarring it is to see Sally Field (still beautiful) turn up as Aunt May? Overall, the Raimi films were a lot more true to the comic books than this is. This is a needless rehash with disappointing turns.

For several decades, Jack Benny was a household name; one of the most famous comedians on television and radio. It has been asked by some why his reruns are not as popular and revered as Lucy and Andy Griffith are. Jack's show is largely not seen in reruns anymore.

The answer is, the years have not been kind to Jack's formula. The majority of his shows have him bolted to a stage, cracking jokes, and bantering with celebrity guest stars (most of whom are forgotten today). There were also musical numbers and spoofs of then-current movies. This "variety show" type of comedy was popular in its day but is very stale now. The episodes that depicted Jack's everyday home life were much funnier, but even most of these had the action stop periodically so someone could sing a song, because it was believed this was what viewers wanted.

That is why this episode, with the crying cab driver at the airport, is one of Jack's best. It is non-stop slapstick from beginning to end. No monologues, no musical interludes, just laughs. It works wonderfully. Find it on YouTube. If Jack Benny had done more episodes like this, perhaps he would still be more widely seen and remembered in reruns.

Bewitched was a smash hit on television because it was something different. Tv wasn't all that old yet, and viewers had not seen anything like it. I watched it in reruns as a child as well. Seen today, it is still somewhat entertaining but it does show its age in several ways.

First, much of the scripting got repetitive. Whenever one of Darrin's ad agency clients saw something really strange, Darrin and Samantha were always able to convince the client it was all a publicity stunt---and the client always loved it without fail. Really??? Also, magically bringing historical figures or fairy tale characters to the present may have been funny the first two or three times it was done, but around the tenth time, it started getting a little old.

But the thing that dates Bewitched the most is the character of Darrin himself, a true product of the 60s. Darrin is the moral backbone of the show, a man of deep integrity who believes that if you want something, you gotta work for it; you shouldn't be able to just conjure it up. A good message to be sure, but......having Darrin come home from work and start yelling at his wife may have been funny in the 60s, but it rings rather hollow now. Plus....

.....Samantha's family for the most part are depicted as truly evil and dangerous, surprisingly so for a comedy (on one episode, Samantha's father Maurice actually tries to murder Darrin by turning him into a newspaper and throwing him into a fireplace). Yet on virtually every episode, Darrin insults and sasses them to their faces---this is supposed to make Darrin seem courageous; he is standing up to evil regardless of the consequences, even when the targets of his insults retaliate against him and hurt him. Darrin was symbolic of the 60s young idealists, who were standing up to The Man. But seen today, it makes him look very foolish, and it seems by today's standards that he brings a lot of his woes on himself. Wouldn't he have been smarter to at least try and get along with this bunch, for his wife's sake if nothing else? But this was not the ideals of the 60s.

In all, Bewitched holds up as well as it does on the basis of Samantha herself, as portrayed by Elizabeth Montgomery. Samantha had it all---she was beautiful, sexy, sweet, refined, and talented. She was every young man's dream girl. I think the show would not be remembered nearly as fondly if someone less charismatic than Elizabeth Montgomery had played the role. Nearly 60 years later, she carries the show almost single-handedly. It is too bad Bewitched ended up defining her entire career.

This slim little movie was based on a British radio mystery series, with the main character of Dr. Morelle depicted as an all-knowing Sherlock Holmes-type detective.

This film is a pretty routine mystery, no better or worse than many. But it was spoiled for me by its "comedy relief", which consists of Dr. Morelle browbeating his female secretary with all sorts of very caustic epithets and comments about how stupid and useless she is. This is a running gag and goes on for the entire film. I'm sure male viewers chuckled and laughed at this abuse of a woman back in its day, but seeing it today, it is very uncomfortable to watch.

Times do indeed change in what constitutes entertainment.

This Saturday morning cartoon started off as part of the "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" series, but later the Goolies were syndicated with most of the Sabrina footage edited out.

The Groovie Goolies were a spoof of old Universal monster movies, which were then being shown repeatedly on broadcast television. It is quite a good spoof, in my opinion, and I think the only reason it didn't become popular like "The Munsters" and "The Addams Family" did was solely because it was a Saturday morning cartoon, which limited its audience.

Today, if you find the Groovie Goolies on YouTube, they hold up quite well for their age. In some ways, they were ahead of their time---their episodes also contain rock music videos which are actually quite good---an entire decade before the MTV revolution made music videos a household name.

The Goolies did it right. Too bad they didn't become more popular.

As I write this, I seem to be the first one submitting a review to IMDB. This surprises me, as this film did have a VHS release from New World Video under the alternate title of SWEET COUNTRY ROAD.

In real life, star Buddy Knox was a one-hit-wonder rock performer with the song, "Party Doll". Many years later, he appeared in this movie playing Buddy Sutton (more or less himself), a rock star who wants to cross over into country music, but has trouble getting anyone to take him seriously in this genre...

.....and that's the paper thin plot. Put together, the story sequences would add up to maybe 15 or 20 minutes of screen time. The rest of this 95-minute film is all concert footage of country stars like Johnny Paycheck performing. On and on, concert footage, with brief interludes of "plot" edited in here and there. Good grief!

It seems this film may have been partially financed by the producers of the "Hee Haw" tv series, as several of the Hee Haw stars appear on screen as themselves (including Gordie Tapp and Roni Stoneman), and there are dialogue references to Hee Haw.

Recommended only to those who may want to see some of the country concert footage. If you are looking for a movie with a story, this isn't it---it is only pretending to be.

This is a "family reunion" serio-comedy, but sad to say, it is just awful. This family consists of people none of us would want to know in real life, so we can't feel anything for them. This is, along with CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS, one of the worst Christmas films of the 21st century so far.

So sad this was one of Robin Williams' final films. He inexplicably has 8th billing in the credits, even though he is on-screen throughout.

It is probably foolish to write about a movie that already has over 1300 reviews here at IMDB, but I want to talk about some of its PR. We have been told repeatedly that most of the people in the film that Borat encounters were average Americans, duped by Sasha Baron Cohen into making themselves look foolish in unscripted encounters. We have been told many lawsuits have been filed by those who were hoodwinked. But is this all true, or carefully planted PR stories?

I'm calling BS on most of this. We are asked to believe the supposed victims of Sasha Baron Cohen's pranks were completely oblivious to the presence of a camera filming them----or cameras! Some of these scenes are shot at multiple angles and edited together, showing there were multiple cameras. Now think about it, if suddenly cameras appeared and started filming you while you were talking to a crazy man, wouldn't you realize something was up? (I have had similar reactions to genuine documentaries too, where people do stupid things, seemingly oblivious to the presence of a camera).

That said, BORAT is still pretty funny for the most part, though I do not understand how it got by with a R rating, when films far less graphic have been saddled, or threatened with, an NC-17.

I seem to be the first one submitting a review of COLD JOURNEY. This strikes me as odd since it did have a VHS release back in the day, and I recently watched the tape of it.

Produced by the National Film Board of Canada with a cast of mostly amateur actors, the film is a character study of "Buckley", an aimless 15 year-old Cree Indian who is torn between two worlds---the ways he is learning at the white man's school, and the simple ways of his tribe, who are starting to reject him because he is becoming "too white".

The only professional actor in the film is Chief Dan George, in a cameo as "Uncle John", another variation of the old sage character he played far too often. Perhaps he was hired for name value to help secure financing for this film.

COLD JOURNEY is interesting, but very slow moving. It seems to be aimed at Cree audiences---others may be less interested. It is a worthwhile effort, and I recommend it to those who find the subject matter interesting.

REBEL IN PARADISE in a 1960 documentary about the legendary painter Paul Gauguin. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature of its year, but did not win.

It seems to be a lost film today. I have not seen it, but old sources claim it was produced by Robert D. Fraser, and directed by Ralph Luce. The screenplay was by Robert Russell, and the film was narrated by actor John Conte.

Director Ralph Luce went on to be cinematographer for an art house film called LEGACY in 1963, which was never officially released after some film festival showings, and is so obscure today it does not even have an IMDB page.

Unless you are a big fan of Dino and Frankie, there isn't much here to enjoy in this comedy-western with few laughs or excitement. The two stars play rivals fighting over stolen loot, which eventually turns into a fight over a riverboat gambling casino. Anita Ekberg and Ursula Andress play love interest. The leads all sleepwalk through their roles.....they don't even try to give performances. Didn't they even care about their fans?

You have to wonder whose idea it was to throw in a cameo by The Three Stooges! They appear briefly in the final half hour of this overlong film, seem very out of place here, and their short routine isn't even close to being their best work. This is a disappointment for Stooge fans too. Also, reliable western supporting player Jack Elam appears in a bit that lasts literally seconds on screen.

A true waste of time, money, and talent, and it is hard to believe it would have looked any better in the 60s, although who knows, perhaps it did.

This episode is not a typical TAGS outing, and it is pretty obvious the producers were experimenting, to see if the show might work with more adult content. A blonde sexpot (Susan Oliver) is lodged in the Mayberry jail overnight, and both Andy and Barney drool over her.

First, would decent men (to say nothing of law officers) instantly feel this way toward an arrested criminal? Second, Andy and Barney are clearly turned on sexually by her while the camera fawns over her anatomy. No one wanted to see the beloved Andy and Barney like this.

One of the weakest episodes of the show; the experiment was unsuccessful, and TAGS returned to its regular formula after that.

When made, the producers of this film stated they hoped it would do for horror films what AIRPLANE did for disaster movies. No such luck----this is a wholly unsuccessful spoof. The jokes are crude and unfunny, and there is enough sex and gore to rival a genuine horror film. In fact, since so many horror films are unintentionally funny, it is possible any viewers unaware of its intent might not even realize this is supposed to be a comedy.

The plot has a group of paranormal investigators descending on a reputedly haunted house, not realizing it is being used by a group of bumbling devil-worshipers. Vincent Price is their leader, only called The Sinister Man. He is genuinely funny and the best thing about the movie. Regrettably, his role is small and not enough to redeem the film.

Recommended only to Price fans who want to see anything he ever touched.

In 1981, gore fans made this cardboard thriller a hit during the early 80s slasher craze, and IMDB gore fans seem to also still be giving it positive reviews. But I digress......the film is poorly done, uninteresting, with a finale that makes absolutely no sense at all.

Melissa Sue Anderson did this in an attempt to shed her "Little House on the Prairie" image, but why she chose this is beyond me. Much has been said over the years about aging stars ending up in garbage in the twilight of their careers, and poor Glenn Ford really hit bottom with this film, to say nothing of film director J. Lee Thompson, an eternity away from THE GUNS OF NAVARONE and CAPE FEAR.

There is one scene in which a college creep hides in Melissa's closet and watches her undress. This scene, which does not advance the plot, is meant to be titillating to male viewers, I guess------it almost succeeds, but ultimately looks too posed and does not show enough skin to be really "erotic". No, I'm not saying Melissa should have done a full nude scene, but a little bit more would have been more effective to the purpose of the scene---though in fairness, it is her throughout the scene and not a body double stand-in.

The advertising campaign promised the gore fans there would be "six new ways to kill". What does that say about the people who made this film successful? Ultimately, the film is dull and confusing----few slasher movies are really "good", but there have been better than this. Really poor overall.

The show was Lucille Ball's only failure, and many people have debated why it happened. What I recall most vividly, though, was the savagery of the critics. They were absolutely gleeful to see a mighty person fall, even if it was Lucy. I recall most of them proclaiming LIFE WITH LUCY to be the worst series in the history of television. With a response like that, why would any viewer give it a chance?

But I digress.....it really wasn't all that bad. The main problem was, at her age, Lucy was too old to be playing her patented zany character anymore. Furthermore, the type of humor she had perfected had become outdated by the 1980s, and she didn't seem to realize this. These two things alone were a recipe for failure. If one wasn't comparing it to Lucy's older material, it wouldn't have seemed half so bad to everyone.

It is sad to see IMDB reviewers jumping on the bandwagon here after all these years, using words like "horrendous" and "garbage" to describe the short-lived show. It was neither. At worst, it was an ill-advised idea, but Lucy fans today still might find it mildly amusing, if they could stop the horrible words of critics from ringing in their ears.

Now that it has had a DVD release, give it a chance.

This was one of the last--if not THE last--of Sunn Classic Pictures' exploitative documentaries. I remember when it was released in 1981, with ads purporting to blow the lid off of the JFK assassination conspiracy cover-up. Regrettably I did not get to see it.

The film did a total vanishing act after it left theaters. It was never sold to television, nor has it ever had a video or DVD release. It is to be presumed a lost film at this time. Were there not so many other films, tv shows, and books on the subject out there, one might be tempted to believe that "unseen forces" successfully suppressed this movie..........