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I have nothing against the Brits. I admit it. I'm an Anglophile. The Battle of Britain actually began on July 10, 1940, and lasted until September when it gradually fell off. Were there Americans in the Battle of Britain? Yes, there were. At the end of the movie, and I doubt I'm giving away any spoilers here, there's a casualty list of the countries involved. The British Commonwealth bore the brunt of the casualties. The United States and Israel didn't take it all on the chin the way the Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Kiwis did, but we definitely took it on the chin. Technically, in 1940, the United States was neutral. Americans who joined the RAF, or RCAF, like my father did, lost their citizenship. Our neutrality laws were that strict. The Americans in the RAF became part of the legendary Eagle Squadrons whose exploits are so underrated. They're the unsung heroes of World II. Their service in the RAF was from September 1941 to September 1942. The American contribution to the Battle of Britain can't be dismissed. It should be the subject of its own movie.

I just heard this morning that Steve Irwin died. Crikey! I remember watching The Crocodile Hunter on Animal Planet a few years back. Good show. There was a controversy two years ago when Steve was feeding a crocodile with one hand while holding his son with the other. He apologized for it and said that if he had to do it over again he'd go surfing. He died doing what he loved. When he died, he got too close to a sting ray and was stung in the heart. Crikey! It's hard to believe he's gone. Steve was working on a documentary about the Great Barrier Reef when he died. His wife and children were off hiking in Tasmania when the news came and they caught a plane back to Queensland. RIP, Steve. CROCS RULE!

Monstrosity, or The Atomic Brain, as it was called on television, is one of the fifty classic science fiction movies that I have on twelve DVDs. The movie is an updated version of Frankenstein. Hetty March is a wealthy widow devoid of conscience. Her husband had died and she's taken Victor as a lover, whom she'd later later killed. Mrs. March has hired a mad scientist named Otto Frank to transplant her brain into a young body. However, his experiments with dead bodies aren't successful, and he needs to have fresh, live bodies for his experiments. Mrs. March lures three young women to her house under cover of darkness because she doesn't want people to see what's going on. She then succeeds in killing all but one of them, who escapes before the house explodes pursued by Mrs. March, whose brain was transplanted into Xerxes the Cat. My vote: * * * * * * * * *out of Ten stars.

What if a modern carrier battle group, (circa 2021), was thrown back in time to the Battle of Midway through a time travel experiment gone horribly wrong? The plot of The Final Countdown? No, but close enough to it. It's the plot of John Birmingham's The Axis Of Time trilogy. The 1980 science fiction movie The Final Countdown was the inspiration for John Birmingham's The Axis of Time trilogy. The USS Nimitz, a nuclear powered supercarrier, is briefly thrown back in time to December 6, 1941, the day before Pearl Harbor. When I was in high school, I had a history teacher who didn't like what he called "iffy history." The Final Countdown is "iffy history." The Final Countdown asks the question "What if the United States shot down the Japanese planes before they attacked Pearl Harbor?" Harry Turtledove's latest alternate, "iffy history," novel, Days of Infamy, is about a Japanese invasion of Hawaii after Pearl Harbor. He asks the question "What if the Japanese invaded after the attack on Pearl Harbor?" Back to The Final Countdown. The Final Countdown is about the USS Nimitz. While on maneuvers off Hawaii, it enters a wormhole, and is sent back in time to December 6, 1941, the day BEFORE the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The movie is good. I saw it on television in 1983. So why didn't they stick around and fight? Kirk Douglas' character was afraid of changing history.

There's a story, whether it's true or not, is open to interpretation. The story begins in 1820 when Samuel Chase, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, tried to see Andrew Jackson, the President of the United States at the time. That's the story----part of it anyway. There are people today who are hunting a treasure in the Virginia countryside. The person who transcribed the codes, had gone out west in 1820, and supposedly had stolen gold from Mexico and buried it in the Virginia countryside and left clues as to its whereabouts. The original transcriptionist died and left the code with a friend who did nothing with it from 1820 to 1885. However, there's been doubt cast on it. Then there's the legend of the Templar Treasure. According to this, the Knights Templar, was the richest order in Europe. The Templars, officially the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon, were Europe's bankers. The Pope, who'd created the Knights Templar, was in debt to the Templars. So was Philip IV of France. According to the Legend of the Templars, the Templars had a fleet of ships that brought their treasure to the New World. The plot of National Treasure, like that of the soon-to-be released The Da Vinci Code, is riddled with symbolism. The Knights Templar are mentioned. According to National Treasure, the Knights Templar become the Freemasons. The Gates family is named after the Founding Fathers: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Patrick Henry. Abigail Chase is named after Abigail Adams and Samuel Chase, and the villain, Ian Howe, is named after Sir William Howe, a British general during the Revolutionary War, and his brother, Sir Richard "Black Dick" Howe, an admiral in the Royal Navy. Is it true? Again, that's open to debate. The documents on which the story is based, are, as I said before, questionable at best.

I loved S:AAB. It was like Battlestar Galactica: TOS, meets Black Sheep Squadron meets Starship Troopers. (The book, not the sucky movie.) It was a good show that deserved better: The reason why. It had a good premise, good plot lines, and good stories. However, it was unrealistic to use fighter pilots as special forces. The 58th could either be fighter pilots or they could be special forces. They couldn't be both. By the time of TNG, they finally got rid of the unrealistic idea of having the captain lead the landing party. What Space: Above and Beyond needed to be more realistic was a group of Force Recon Marines, and that would have made it better. If it had been made today, then the attacks on the Tellus and Vesta colonies could have been metaphors the attacks on the WTC, in New York, the Pentagon, in Washington, DC, and Western Pennsylvania. The problem with it was that it was too early. It was also on at 7:00 on Sunday nights, which during football season, usually meant 7:15 or 7:30. A couple of reviewers said that this show was stupid. I don't think so. It was never given a chance by Fox. Someone should take those pinhead bean counters out, form a firing squad, and shoot them.

I remember watching this show. Rich Little was the host and Jack Smith introduced the classic segments. Desiree Goyette was a field correspondent. She, and others, literally traveled to the ends of the earth to answer viewer questions. She was also the co-host but she was basically traveling a lot. There were other field reporters for the show but she was the lead one. In one episode, she went to Blarney Castle in Ireland, to kiss the Blarney Stone. There was also a story about lions and at the end of it, Rich Little said that if you wanted to see Tarzan, always remember, the lion forms on the right. Very punny.

I never read the book that this movie's based on. It's about the Sager Party. The father, Henry, the mother Naome, and six children, starting with the oldest son, John, who leave Missouri for Oregon along the Oregon Trail in 1844. At the time they leave, Naome, John's mother, is pregnant with a seventh child. Catherine, born along the way, comes into a world of hardship. Henry dies of blood poisoning in an Indian raid. Naome, the mother, dies of pneumonia. The other members of the wagon train don't want John and his six brothers and sisters in the wagon train and order them to go back to Missouri. All the men in the wagon train regard John as shiftless and lazy. However, John refuses to turn back and is determined to get his family to Oregon. Along the way, they meet Kit Carson, and other historical characters. A couple of reviewers didn't like it. I liked it when it was on TV back in '70s. It should be remembered that back in the '70s, it didn't take very long for movies to make it to television from the movie screen.

I agree. This is one of the best, if not THE best, World War II documentaries. Although I never saw it when it was originally on back in 1983, I have seen it on DVD. The first reviewer is right. War Chronicles is about the American troops in both Europe and the Pacific. It's amazing how different the two theaters of operation were. The ETO, (European Theater of Operation), which included the Mediterranean and North Africa, was Army-centric. The Army was the primary force in Europe and North Africa. In the European Theater, it was the Army which led the invasions of French North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France, D-Day and Operation Anvil, also known as the Champagne Campaign, were operations led by the Army. In the Pacific, due to the vast distances, the Army played second fiddle to the Marines. It was the Marines who led every island invasion from Guadalcanal to Okinawa, and if the Bomb hadn't been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then it probably would have been the Marines, followed by the Army, who led the invasion of Japan in November 1945. The late Patrick O'Neal was a good narrator and explained things concisely, and with maps. The artwork, all done by military artists, are good. The footage was from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Marines.

I did. That's what this movie was. I first saw it when I was fifteen. Due to a series of solar flares, most of the people on die leaving nothing but white powder and empty clothing. A handful of survivors, including the Anders family, try to repopulate a depopulated planet. So why did the family patriarch, played brilliantly by 7th Heaven's Peter Graves, and his kids survive while his wife and so many others died? They had a gene that made them immune to the effects of solar flares. What happened to the animals? They went insane. Those who survived had to fend for themselves. When the Anders' Volkswagen bus ran out of gas, they had to siphon it from the gas tank of a car from somebody who died. Eventually, they meet up with other survivors and the rest you'll have to find out for yourselves. Too bad it hasn't been released on DVD.

If you missed this movie when it was first on in the early 1980s, then you should watch it now. It's probably out on DVD. The plot could be taken from today's headlines. However, it's not. The thought of terrorists getting their hands on a nuclear bomb seemed distant and unrealistic back in 1983. Today, it seems all too real. Three years ago, our troops in Afghanistan captured Al Qaeda documents that said it was "their religious duty" to obtain nuclear weapons. The movie was about a reporter and a cameraman who were taken hostage by "peace activists" on a tugboat in Charleston Harbor. The "peace activists" are actually terrorists. They're demanding that every nuclear detonators in the Charleston area be delivered to them to destroyed or else they'll explode a nuclear bomb of their own. Where did they get it? We don't know. We have to assume that it was stolen. What happens in the last ten minutes? You'll have to torture me to get that information out of me and even then I wouldn't tell you. Watch and find out yourselves.

I love cartoons. Always have, always will. I watched IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix for the first time last night. Nothing is original? I've been proved wrong. This series is original. It's a cross between sports movies and BattleMech series. Set in 2049, just forty-four years from now, it's about a team of IGPX races led by Takashi. The team, Team Sutomi, is managed by the granddaughter of its founder. Think of IGPX as an ice hockey game where the players don't have sticks and skate inside mechs. The best in the league, the league MVP, is Cunningham. Cunningham does whatever he can to get his team to win. Even if it includes cheating. Team Sutomi's coming apart at the seams. The rivalry between Takashi and River is tearing it apart. Sutomi doesn't want to replace Takashi because he's the best forward the team has. River begs to differ and wants to replace him. What happens next? Find out next week.

I saw it last night. Did it look like Predator? Yes. Did it look like Enemy Mine? Probably. I never saw Enemy Mine. Did it look like The Last Starfighter? No. How about Alien? Yes, vaguely. Was it a ripoff of those movies? DEFINITELY NOT! Nothing is original. One reviewer said that the took Borg costumes from Star Trek: TNG. If you remember Star Trek: TNG, and I do, then you'll know that the Borg didn't wear helmets that covered their entire heads. They had flashlights for eyes. So as not to spoil it, I'm giving a thumbnail of the plot. Marine suffers nervous breakdown. Marine is brought out of retirement to find his missing brother. Marine joins SEAL team find his missing brother and alien cyborg. Militants want alien weapons. Militants are eaten by man-eating alien bugs. Want more? Watch the movie. I ain't givin' away no more secrets.

Yep, that's what the title of this review says. Now why would I write that? Let's see. Why would I WRITE THAT? Is it because I just read in the Trivia section that principal filming of The Towering Inferno wrapped up on September 11, 1974? I think so. Nobody in 1974, not even Irwin Allen, the authors of the books on which the movie was based, and not even the screenwriter, were aware that 27 years after its release, THE REAL TOWERING INFERNO would happen, when Al Qaeda flew two planes into the World Trade Center and brought them to the ground. Steve McQueen's character, Chief O'Hallorhan, remarks that the ladders of his fire engines can't reach above the 74th floor. Chilling. High rise buildings like the World Trade Center, the newly proposed Freedom Tower, and the original MGM Grand Hotel, have a glaring flaw in their designs. One that wasn't corrected in the 31 years since The Towering Inferno was shown in theaters. That deficiency is the same as it was in 1974. The ladders of the fire engines still can't reach above the 74th floor. High rises, like the World Trade Center, don't have external fire escapes. They have internal fire stairs and elevators. In The Towering Inferno, they tried to get the people down in the elevators. BAD IDEA. Why? Because the elevator cables can break in a fire and send those inside hurtling to their deaths if the breaks fail. So to whom was The Towering Inferno dedicated to? Firefighters. In the movie, it was a short circuit that caused the fire. If it was made today, then it would probably be brought down by terrorists. That's what it's come to in this post-9/11 world. I wish I was back in the '70s right now. We were so naive and innocent. We've lost our innocence and we can't get it back.

The above, ^, is a quote by the famous Union general William T. Sherman. Saving Private Ryan shows the hell, fog, and confusion of war. What else can I say? How about Based on a true story? It was. In the brief scene with General Marshall, where he reads a letter to a Mrs. Nieland in Boston, one signed by Abraham Lincoln, it's not General Marshall, played by Dale Dye, a former Marine captain, who's reading it. It's John de Lancie, Star Trek's Q, who's the uncredited letter reader. It opens with an older Ryan and his family at the American cemetery in Normandy. He's at the grave of Captain John H. Miller, the man who saved his life, in Normandy in 1944. So what's the message of Saving Private Ryan? Since I opened this review with a quote from General Sherman, why don't I close it with one from the Book of John? "Greater love hath no man than this: That he lay down his life for his friends." Maybe I should paraphrase the epitaph on an unknown Marine who died on Guadalcanal. "When he gets to heaven, to St. Peter he will tell: 'Another soldier reporting, sir. I've served my time in hell."

The above is from the back of a similar book about the Battle of Arnhem called A Bridge At Arnhem. It was the biggest blunder ever. The ironic thing about it is this: The plan wasn't conceived by a general known for his bold strokes of genius like James Gavin. Who conceived of this ill-conceived plan? Back on September 10, 1944, the top Allied commanders met at SHAEF headquarters. It had been conceived of by none other than General Montgomery as a means to end the end the war. The plan, code-named Operation Market Garden, was to drop paratroopers in broad daylight. A big mistake. It should have been done in the pre- dawn darkness. Some have argued that the British didn't inform the Dutch Resistance. Why? When it was already compromised by the Germans? Did the planning overlook the ferry that ran daily on the Lower Rhine? Probably yes. The Germans knew about it and they weren't about to give up The Netherlands without a fight. The Allies' drop zones, (DZ's), were two miles from their destinations. Why? What was the purpose? To seize three bridges. The Grand Prize was the bridge at Arnhem itself but the British First Airborne, under the command of General Roy E. Urquhart, the commander of the British First Airborne, was supposed to hold the bridge for seven days until they were relieved by XXX Corps. But XXX Corps never arrived, because it had been effectively stopped by the Germans. What was General Browning's reaction to the failure of Market Garden? "I think we may have gone a bridge too far. Hence, the title of the book, and movie.

The above is an actual quote spoken by the British regarding our soldiers back in World War II. The American retort was: "The Brits are underpaid, undersexed, and under Eisenhower." It was a common complaint about the American soldiers in Britain at the time. Yanks dramatizes this perfectly. That was why it was stressed upon American GIs in the usual stateside training film to be polite at all times toward their British hosts. American soldiers usually found love in Britain. If they had a girl back home, and met a British girl, they'd send their girl back home a "Dear Jane" letter. This is the background of the movie. The movie shows Americans arriving in Britain. Then as it continues, it goes toward the inevitable, which is the invasion of Normandy. That's where it ends. It ends with the Americans being confined to their bases as Operation Overlord is about to begin. That's it. I'm done. If you want to know more, see the movie. I'm not about to spoil it for you. I first saw it back in 1983.

As the other reviewer said, it's a gem worth the ensemble cast. I agree. It's a good movie. I think I saw it about twenty years ago. I'm not sure. It could be more than twenty years ago. (Me with the great memory)! Anyway, it's based on war correspondent Richard Tregaskis' book about the epic, (yes, for lack of a better word, that would have to do), Battle of Guadalcanal from August 7, 1942 to February 21, 1943. About the same length of time as the equally epic Battle of Stalingrad, which was the subject of the movie Enemy at the Gates, (2002), which I also reviewed here. Guadalcanal Diary's about the first phase of the Battle of Guadalcanal, which is seen in the opening of Windtalkers, (2002). Guadalcanal was the turning point of the Pacific War on land. It was the first major battle of the Pacific War. After Midway, the Allies, including the United States, were on the offensive. Guadalcanal was the first test of a new Allied doctrine. We were going to contest Japanese expansionism. Whether or not we passed or failed, depended on the Japanese response. Fortunately, we caught the Japanese garrison with its pants down. We took them by surprise. So what would have happened if the Japanese had won? Part of the country would be speaking Japanese right now and the rest of it would be speaking German.

I'm surprised that there weren't any more movies after Conan the Barbarian. How many Conan movies did Ahnuld do? Two. It was one, two, no three. Conan the Barbarian was about the life of Conan but it was a montage of Conan and Kull stories. Thulsa Doom, after all, was Kull's enemy and not Conan's. The same with the serpent men. Conan never fought them. Conan's fights however, were with men, and in some stories, vampires. Arnold Schwarzaneggar was chosen as Conan despite the fact that he looks nothing like the character that was created by Robert E. Howard in the 1930s. Or should I say reinvented? Conan was the reinvention of an earlier character named King Kull. Both Conan and Kull share the same backgrounds. They were both barbarians and they both became king by usurping a throne. So why didn't Universal make more Conan movies with Arnold? I don't know.

I saw this movie back in 1984 on the New Hampshire PBS affiliate. It was on during a winter pledge drive. It's about Joe Pendleton, a clean cut boxer who dies prematurely, and is accidentally cremated, before the mistake can be corrected. Sound familiar? It should. It's the same plot as its 1978 remake Heaven Can Wait which I reviewed here earlier. Joe's flying to next fight when he dies in a plane crash. Mr. Jordan, the head messenger, informs Joe that he shouldn't be there at least not for the next fifty years. He tells him that he can borrow the body of a millionaire named John Farnsworth, who'd been recently killed by his wife and her lover, now Joe must take over Farnsworth's life, and make everything right. Does he do it? If I told you, I'd have to kill you. :)

What if you were suspected of being a Communist? Think about it. That's what actually happened in the McCarthy Era. Senator William McCarthy, without any evidence except for what he pulled out of his butt, accused everyone who disagreed with him of being a Communist, until he was brought down by two very brave people. One was Senator Margarate Chase Smith of Maine and the other was Edward R. Murrow of CBS News, as depicted in another movie set in that time period. This isn't about that movie. This is about Howard Prince, played by Woody Allen, who's a restaurant cashier. Howard poses as a writer to sell the scripts of blacklisted writers. How does Howard do? That's for me to know and you to find out. Watch the movie. The movie closes with Frank Sinatra singing Young At Heart and all the screenwriters who were blacklisted and when they were blacklisted. This is a black period in our history. We can't allow one man to ever again threaten his opposition into silence. Edmund Burke said it: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

I remember, vaguely, remember, seeing this movie when it was first on television back in 1983. It's the mother of all disaster movie parodies. My sister saw it in Wales and the jokes were lost on the Welsh. What's it about? Airplane!, not to be confused with Airplane II, is about the passengers and crew of a flight bound from Los Angeles to Chicago. Robert Hays, of the television series Angie, is Ted Striker, a disillusioned war veteran who's on the flight. When the pilot and copilot become sick due to food poisoning, the flight attendant asks if there's a pilot on board. At first, Ted denies that he's a pilot, and says that he doesn't want to do it. He's finally talked into it. Leslie Nielsen, as the only doctor on the flight, has his nose grow like Pinnochio's every time he tells a lie. When a passenger says: "Surely, you jest!" Dr. Rumack's reply is: "No, I'm not and don't call me Shirley!"

Kevin Hagen, Doc Baker in Little House on the Prairie, was deliciously evil on Land of the Giants. His character, Inspector Kolbek, was the nemesis of the passengers and crew of the Spindrift. He wasn't above blackmailing them to help him. The passengers of the Spindrift, Don, an engineer, Veronica, a spoiled heiress, Barry, an orphan, his dog, Chipper, and Alexander Fitzhugh, supposedly a commander in the Navy, always had a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. Was he carrying top secret documents? No, he was carrying a million dollars in cash which he'd stolen from a bank in Los Angeles. The Spindrift's stewardess, (what we'd call a flight attendant today,) was Betty Hamilton. Her pilot and copilot were Steve Burton and Mark Wilson. Besides Kevin Hagen, who was billed as a guest star, others included Jonathan Harris as the Peid Piper of Hamelin, and Ron Howard. There are some similarities to the ABC series Lost. There are also a few exceptions. For example, the pilots of Oceanic Flight 815, its flight attendants, and other personnel, didn't survive.

Good show. Too bad it was canceled. Tucker's Witch was about a couple of private eyes. Rick and Amanda Tucker run a private detective agency in the Laurel Canyon section of Los Angeles. Rick's wife, Amanda, has supernatural powers that sometimes get them into trouble. In the first episode, Amanda finds out from her mother, that she's a witch. However, in this show, unlike Charmed, skips a generation. Amanda has the powers her mother doesn't. Sometimes those powers get them into trouble so they're a mixed blessing. What happens next? I'm not telling. You'll have to find out for yourselves. No spoilers. No spoiler warnings. I'm still not telling.

What can I say about Supernatural? It's The X-Files of the new millennium. The show, suffice to say, is about two brothers. Sam and Dean Winchester, (think of the repeating rifle,) lost their mother when they were little. Whatever killed her, pinned her to the ceiling like a moth or butterfly to a piece of cardboard. Their father became obsessed finding the creature. Then it jumped to Stanford University. Sam's planning on entering Stanford law school when his brother Dean, (an homage to Jared Padalecki's previous role on Gilmore Girls, perhaps?) shows up and tells him that their father's missing. Sam's shocked. "Dad let you go on a hunting trip alone?" "Dude, I'm 26." What made think of The X-Files was the storyline. Supernatural takes its stories from urban legends like the woman in white. That's a retelling of the spectral hitchhiker, usually a girl of about sixteen or seventeen, who appears on the side of the road asking passing drivers to take her home. When the drivers ask her where she lives, she says at the end of a road. The girl's looking for her mother. So when the driver, usually a trucker, goes to the mother's door to tell her that her daughter's in the truck, the mother says something like: "Mister, Sarah died ten years ago. She's buried in the Oak Hill Cemetery." Like the other reviewer, I can't wait for more. What happened to Sam's girlfriend? I'm not telling. See for yourself tomorrow night. It's going to be repeated then.