RamblerReb

If it wasn't for Ioan Griffudd I would have little use for this show. The main character has been saved from death two episodes in a row by his love interest. The SJW bull infesting the storylines is getting thicker by the week, the daughter and the ex-wife increase in being searingly annoying with every appearance, and they killed the Fiat. The show seems to run on Idiot Plots and Griffudd's charisma. For God's sake, leave off with the Important Social Commentary, write a story that doesn't require everyone to act like a moron to work, and let the hero of the show win a goddam fistfight without having to be rescued by a woman.

I loathed TFA, full disclosure. Beat for beat rehash of ANH, blah, blah, blah, usual complaints. But it was still better than this crapola.

They're OUT OF GAS!? SERIOUSLY!? A problem that has never ONCE been encountered in a SW movie before to the best of my recollection?

We're back in the throne room from RTJ? I could hear Ian McDiarmid's diaphram-cackling in that scene.

Completely ruin the character of Luke solely for the purpose of killing him off and thereby the most important and arguably beloved character in the franchise? The screenwriter of the first film was more right than he knew when he said Luke couldn't be in the first film because everyone would stop caring about what's-her-name as soon as he showed up, except I didn't care before, either, and I sure as hell don't care now. The only remotely interesting character was Oscar Isaacs and he turned out to be an idiot.

There's a lot more of lazy fanboy-exploiting money-grubbing recycled story beats I could lament, along with the ridiculous "Leia Poppins" scene that everyone else is howling in resigned laughter about on YouTube, along with the tacked-on, totally unnecessary b-plot to give what's-his-name and Artoo, Jr. something to do, but you, dear reader, must have got the point by this time.

I saw "Star Wars" in the theater in 1977 and loved it with all the passion of which a five-year-old is capable. Now I want it dead.

I'm rooting for the Empire.

The above quote is from Roger Ebert's review of the 1999 stinkeroo "Wild Wild West," but it is eminently suited to this waste of time, talent, and filthy lucre. The kid from "3rd Rock From The Sun" is mind-blowingly miscast as the deuteragonist, the cat lady has all the world-weary sex appeal of a fatal fishing accident, and Nolan's apparent desire to deify and then blow every cop in sight is downright sickening.

The mask "holds the pain in?" What kind of idiocy are we expected to swallow? This was not just poorly written, but actually asinine, and "asinine" is not a word I use lightly, much like "gonorrhea" or "complete transmission rebuild." Plot holes and contrivances abound, so numerous I shan't trouble with them except to say that conventional wisdom tells us that the US has about a three-day supply of food on hand if the supply chain were interrupted, but Gotham has enough for three months without outside help, which Bane explicitly forbade? Including enough to feed thousands of cops trapped underground, presumably so they'll be on hand for the assault on Mordor at the end of the film? And all this is handwaved away by Detective Exposition telling another character that "they're getting food and water." Based on the fit and energetic fellows who show up at said assault, they ate pretty good down there. Let's say ninety days underground at three meals a day for 4000 guys (a woefully small number-- the real NYPD has over 34000 uniforms). That's over a million meals! How'd that work again? Even if they only got one MRE a day, that's over 350000 meals. In a city of about a million and a half (again assuming parity with Manhattan), that's a lotta food. Where'd they get it? I don't ask (or expect) much of films, honestly, but I do insist on crap making sense.

To sum up, boring, lifeless, silly, and pretentious. The socialist class-warfare claptrap the cat lady kept spouting didn't help, either. Badly written, mostly badly acted, trite, and conventional. Everything wrong with Hollywood in a 200-million-dollar nutshell. Overblown drivel masquerading as deep social commentary.

Dreck.

I did not think it possible, but Saturday Night Live has descended to the point where they have actually managed to make Hugh Laurie (the only reason I watched in the first place) unfunny. I found watching this episode so painful that I skipped through any bit that didn't have Laurie in it, and only gave it two stars because of the bit with the two Brooklyn chicks at the beginning when Laurie almost corpses and the sketch with the Christmas letter ghost-written for a dead cat. Other than that, this was another abysmal show. Hateful, hateful, hateful.

When will the pain end? How much longer must the dateless Saturday night viewing public endure this waste of airtime which could be given to so much more deserving fare like "Colonoscopy Week in Review?" When will they admit that this hopeless mess should finally slip mercifully beneath the waves? Ah, well. I suppose we shall have to wait for NBC's bankruptcy or Lorne Micheal's death, whichever comes first. In the meantime, for heaven's sake, don't watch.

This particular episode of "Magnum" is one of the most famous, almost as famous as "Did You See the Sun Rise," because it addresses one of the most notorious "missed opportunity" stories in Hollywood history. Everyone (almost) knows how Selleck missed out on doing "Raiders" because of the conflict with "Magnum," and how the writers' strike of 1980 would have let him do it, and how (dammit!) they *were even shooting scenes in Hawaii while he was there*!!! Well, this one shows what might have been.

An almost shot-for-shot (with obvious abridging and Magnumesque touches) remake of the movie, we get to see what the film might have been like with Selleck in the lead, and, for my part, I think it would have made even more money.

As for the episode itself, it is very well done, with humorous dialogue (the characters flip-flopping between self-aware expository dialogue and stilted "heroic" dialogue when they realize they're breaking character is especially amusing), good action, and effective physical comedy.

All in all, worth a re-watch if you can track it down.

I will not bother to go over the plot or other cinematic elements of this light-hearted spoof, and concentrate on the man himself, the King of Cool, Dino Crocetti.

His casual sexism, smug chauvinism, and generally patronizing attitude are refreshing reminders of the days when men were expected to behave that way, political correctness be damned. My favorite scene is when he casually breaks out a bottle of liquor **while driving** to knock back a few with Stella Stevens. The ways Dean acts would get him picketed by anhedonic prudes-- excuse me, **feminist groups**, if he were performing today. Then again, if he were performing today, we'd have bigger problems because it would mean that the zombie apocalypse has begun.

All in all, a playful time-capsule romp through the days when people just seemed to have more damn fun.

As a long-time Bruce fan (I first saw Evil Dead in the early 90's, not realizing the man already had a cult fan base), I enjoyed every scene Bruce was in, and since he was in virtually every scene in the film, obviously I enjoyed most of the film. The doctor guy was annoying, the love interest was whiny but an OK foil, the teen girl was hot but evidently found the scenery too tempting to resist gobbling up in big bites. The villains were competently played but telegraphed oily evil immediately, losing all sense of suspense there.

It was predictable and a bit preachy, and the mention of the SOA was bordering on heavy-handed, but Bruce charms and smirks his way through it and makes an otherwise forgettable bit of tripe an actual pleasure to watch. It is significant, however, that no one but him could have.

Of course, one doesn't watch Bruce Campbell for the outstanding special effects (Alien Apocalypse, anyone?), the great supporting cast (The Man with the Screaming Brain?), or the realistic, down-to-earth plots (any Evil Dead you care to name), one watches for Bruce. By that standard, this movie does fine.

First, the good: the costumes, the set design, the locations, Max Von Sydow, and Cate Blanchett.

The bad: virtually everything after Russell Crowe invades Merry Olde England.

I didn't finish the film (I watched an old Dean Martin western instead, right after the scene where Crowe starts haranguing King John and the barons about signing the Constitution-- er, the Magna Carta), so maybe it got better, but the wretched heavy-handedness was making my gorge rise.

If you stick to the bits with Blanchett and Von Sydow (not counting the awful childhood flashback scene he seemed embarrassed to be in), it's passable. Otherwise, it's a waste of time and the power it takes to run the video system to watch it.

This film would have made a fairly good romantic triangle comedy in a more modern setting, but the western aspects of the film jar against the charming comic rivalry between Hudson and Dino for the female lead's attention. The early-'70s feel of the script didn't gel with the time period. Don't get me wrong, the banter and verbal sparring made me chuckle, but it is dialogue I would expect to take place in a Manhattan apartment between three urban sophisticates.

Of course, Dean Martin's amiable charm elevates this, as it always does all his films, above what it would have been without him. Hudson struggles valiantly, but his is unable to muster the star power to compete with Martin's effortless performance playing himself again. Martin's sheer charisma forces everyone else to up their game, but at the same time mutes them in the face of his good-humored zest for life. One thinks that seeing a person playing essentially the same character again and again would become monotonous, but Martin never gets stale no matter how many times he mugs and smirks and breaks the fourth wall.

The downer ending is a bit of a deal-breaker, as I'd have preferred Hudson or anybody else to have died than who did, but it is still worth checking out for Dino completists.

I say this because he is the best part of this film. He is the only one who actually gives a performance worth watching and the only reason I gave it three stars instead of one.

Now for the rest of this godawful mess: The first film had an actually interesting and sustainable premise, namely, a formerly free system, steadily being corrupted by an increasingly bloated AI Master Control Program, with dual protagonists in the form of the fish-out-of-water Flynn and the heroic security program Tron. The film dabbles with theology, philosophy, and the nature of existence without ever becoming ham-fisted or preachy, and, while flawed, manages to tell a cracking good story in (for the time) ground-breaking style.

Legacy, on the other hand, manages to take that once-sturdy premise and twist it into some sort of muddled Hitler allegory, with no clear motivations for the heroes *or* villains, no clear explanations for exactly why Clu went bad, and, most of all, no clear explanation for just what the hell Clu thought he was gonna do in the real world. I mean, he did know the light cycles and light jets and stuff wouldn't work, right? He did realize that bullets would be perfectly capable of killing his solidified programs, right? He did know that his plan was the most *idiotic plan in the history of idiotic plans, right*?!!

Moving on to the extremely sloppy plotting, a sleazy chairman of the board and Ed Dillinger's son are introduced early in the film and never seen again. *Ed Freaking Dillinger*! Think about that for a minute. The son of the man whom Flynn presumably sent to prison at the end of the first film is introduced as working for the company of the man who sent his father to prison. He "fixes" something Flynn's son does as a (lame) prank, concocts a solution to the prank, and is *never freaking seen again*! This is only the first of many plot threads which are introduced and left unresolved in the finest Disney potboiler tradition.

I will not even get into the complete asspull represented by the "ISOs," whatever the hell they were, since I couldn't follow the gobbledy-gook Bridges was forced to spout in that scene. Let's just say that they're an anvilicious Jew analogy and leave it at that.

All of this complete mish-mash of utter crapola leads up to one of the worst, most anti-climactic endings in recent cinematic history. I took time out of the retching I was doing at Bridges' awful performance (one minute he's playing it straight, the next he's The Dude-- make up your mind and stick with one, willya?) to marvel at the sheer hateful lameness of this blatant sequel set-up.

There is so much more I could say about this waste of time, money, and opportunity, but I will end by saying that this film left my childhood memories like a Saturday night after Atilla the Hun hit town: raped and murdered.

... even though it had flaws. Oh, did it have flaws.

Despite the stilted, downright on-the-nose dialogue in later scenes between George and Cecille's characters, and some just plain unrealistic bargaining with the repo men, I liked it.

Admittedly, it was mostly because of the diegetic music, the POV car shots, and the generally understated tone of the piece. One can tell this was the product of French thinking, without a doubt. The narrative is very reminiscent of the Dogme (I know, I know, not French, leave me alone) school of film making, though the last scene, with its non-diegetic music, violates a rule or two.

In the end, however, the film uses the setting, script, and acting (for good or ill) to tell the story without reliance on plot device or other contrivance (the draft notice doesn't count because it was a real fact of life in 1969).

If the performances of some of the main actors seem uncompelling, it is because the characters themselves are uncompelling. If George's girlfriend was worth keeping, wouldn't he have kept her? If George was worth keeping, wouldn't Cecille have stayed? The emptiness of their lives is reflected in the alacrity that is shown in escaping from them.

The moral of the story is: Why don't we all just have our MG TDs picked up and be done with it?

A masterful polemic by a man who evidently quite properly despises the species he was born into.

No expense was spared in this tour-de-force of anti-mankind propaganda, complete with lovely blue kitty-cat aliens, sure to seduce younger viewers into wishing they had been born anything but human, as (with certain Cameron-approved exceptions, such as those who wish to reject their humanity and culture and join the lovely blue kitty-cat opposition) all humans are, as we all know, evil, wanton, destructive demons bent on destroying nature and beauty, preferably with the most flammable means at their disposal.

The fact that the plot may be somewhat derivative of a half-dozen or so prior films should in no way detract from the important message this film has to deliver of the basic worthlessness of all human culture up to this point (except for Native American, Asian, African and anywhere else that isn't Western European), and if you do not walk away from this film with the proper sense of loathing for yourself, your family, everyone you know, and every human being who has ever been born or will ever be born (except for James Cameron), then you are obviously a selfish wastrel bastard who hates lovely blue kitty-cat aliens, actual kittens, and the universe itself.

I caught this little movie last night when there was nothing else to watch, mostly because of Jennifer Morrison. Routh did a passable Christopher Reeve impression again, though honestly I never found Reeve to be that compelling an actor, and based on the few comedies I have seen Reeve in, I would say that Routh is actually better as a light comedian. On the one hand, if you've seen Switching Channels (an ill-advised '80s remake of His Girl Friday), you'll realize that ain't saying much, but light comedy is actually one of the most difficult things to pull off, and the fact that Routh manages to be funny at all is an accomplishment. It may seem unfair to compare Routh and Reeve outside of a Superman film, but Routh took the role and he's stuck with the comparison. Not to mention Routh looks and sounds a lot like Reeve.

The nutty couple are indeed nutty, and manage to be funny without being too annoying to watch, the supporting players (including the boyfriend from Roseanne) are competent, and Morrison was engaging and charming, quite believable as someone you'd chase to Oregon or wherever the hell.

Where this film falls down is pacing and story. The framing story of Routh sitting in the bar relating the events thus far is poorly constructed, with the story taking so long between returns to the bar that you forget the framing device and are jarred by the transition back to the "present." Too much of the film takes place after leaving the bar. Quicker pacing would have helped the end not drag so badly and leave such gaps between jokes.

Bottom line, watchable, but not re-watchable, unless your other choice is a Rosie O'Donnell movie or something similarly sickening.

I have to admit, the only reason is an interview Courtney Thorne-Smith gave back in '98 on the Conan show (plugging this film) during which she had the misfortune to have Norm MacDonald as the preceding guest. He proceeded to excoriate this film, Carrot Top, and, by implication, the film industry, modern civilization, and the nature of existence itself with admirable aplomb. See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL0WayC7jW0

It's funnier than the film. MacDonald is incredible. He actually got me to watch a Carrot Top movie based on his sight-unseen opinion of the film.

Courtney: "It's like 9 1/2 Weeks, but Carrot Top."

Norm: "So, it's like 9 1/2 Seconds?" (long pause) "'Cause he prematurely ejaculated."

Seriously, watch the interview.

This was one of the most abysmally bad films I have ever been forced to walk out on (when those ugly guys started riding the scorpions). I could feel my will to live ebbing away with every line of badly written, badly delivered dialogue. I felt like I was on a trip to the DMV. My ticket was free and I still felt robbed. I am an opponent of capital punishment, but I am willing to make an exception for whoever produced this utter crap. I could not tell you a thing about the picture, either before or after I walked out, because I am trying to block the memories out. I went straight from the theater to a bar and drank until the pain lessened. Yuck.

Once again, I admonish anyone against sending Dave to the Blockbuster alone (see my comment on "Showdown at Area 51"). Dave, being a HUGE trekker (not a trek-EE, dammit!), decided that the presence of Robert Picardo and George Takei meant that this bad boy would be a sure-fire WINNER! I needed three 22-ounce screwdrivers (poured half-and-half) to make it though this snooze-fest. The best part was when Takei, in one of the most poignant spurts of film irony ever, yells with utter conviction, "WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON BACK THERE!?" God, have we gotten some mileage out of that quote! Other than that, this film, despite the presence of Tim Thomerson, has absolutely NOTHING to recommend it. Please, please, don't go down this path. You will feel like the morning after getting roofied at a party at Takei's house: strangely violated and emotionally dead.

Do you have one of those friends who takes sadistic pleasure in bringing utterly crappy z-grade sci-fi movies back from the video store? Now you know how I was forced to have this travesty irreparably burned into the synapses of my brain.

Anyhow, you may have noted that I gave this utter dreck three out of ten. Was it the utterly unnecessary presence of TV's Matt Houston? Nope. The "I'm in it for the paycheck" performance of Gigi Edgley? Guess again! That's right, it was the totally unexpected presence of a mint '67 Rambler Rebel SST convertible right in the middle of the picture! "My God!" I shouted, frightening the dog and making Dave jump in his chair, "I have found a redeeming feature in this movie!" I actually watched the thing all the way to the end based on this fact, and I still could not tell you what the hell happened.

This is one of those films I never tire of. I watched it several times during the 80s, then laid off it for a while during the 90s (mostly due to a long stint without cable), and have recently rediscovered it since getting satellite. I am glad I gave it such a long time before going back to it, because I had forgotten the gorgeous scenery, the snappy one-liners, and the dead-on acting. Everyone is believable and several scenes, such as when O'Malley explains his theory on Eve's family genetics, verge on hysterical. The romance isn't overdone, and the language is fairly mild, with no references to feces or intercourse to be found. Even by 1983 standards, it's pretty tame.

All in all, if not an excellent film, a competent one, and eminently suited for filling up a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Believe it or not, this is the first Cary Grant film I ever recall seeing. Therefore, unlike almost everyone else who first saw one of his films like Notorious or To Catch A Thief, I never had the smooth, debonair, image of Cary Grant to contrast his character in this film against. My first impression of Cary Grant was as Walter Christopher Eckland, his least typical role ever.

That being said, boy, am I glad! I went in to this film at the age of maybe twelve with no preconceptions whatever, and I rolled on the floor all the way through. When he "made a gesture, sir," or belches in the mike, or commands Commander Houghton to "kiss my foot, Frank," I was helpless with laughter. Nowadays it is not so laugh-out-loud funny, but I still do smile and recall that first viewing, when it was new and fresh and I had no idea who Cary Grant was, only that he was the funniest actor I had ever seen. I had no conception of perfect timing, flawless delivery, or crackling wit, but, luckily, Grant could more than supply my deficiencies.

Walter Eckland is, in fact, my patron saint, because he embodies the hope that when I am an old broken-down drunk with a hole in both my boat and my bottle, without a penny to my name (and in fact $200 in hock to Old van Der Hoven), I, too, can get a hot chick like Leslie Caron. Also, he personifies the hope that I can drink my way through a case of whiskey without ever showing a sign of drunkenness.

I honestly don't know who could have played these parts better. This film is a masterpiece of casting. Colman manages to make a character who would be despised by most everyone in real life warm and sympathetic. Even his most cutting put-downs are delivered affably and without malice. He wishes to educate, not destroy, and Colman plays it dead-on.

Dated and yet timeless. Fluff with depth. A delightful paradox, well worth the price I paid for the DVD.

P.S: I bought the DVD based on the strength of the Quotes section of this IMDb listing!

I just saw this movie last night for the first time and taped it off of TCM as part of the Errol Flynn festival for April, and am I glad I did! Flynn is hilarious as the lovable cad he was born to play, and almost every gag line he has works with his flawless delivery and perfect timing. Flynn also turns out, not surprisingly when one thinks about it, to be a physical comedian on par with (I sh*t you not) Cary Grant. Another commenter notes that de Havilland's role was wasted on her, and I agree, but she still turns in a great performance. I would probably have cast Jean Arthur or even Claudette Colbert (anything to see her in a slinky silk slip again!) in the role, but Olivia has the chops, no doubt. Some folks might not have cared for all the phone conversations, but one in particular (here be spoilers) when Flynn has to make two dates for the same night without them overlapping is hysterical. Also, Flynn's ingenious use of the household butter supply brings forth the chortles.

If only the black shoe bastards had let Flynn do what he wanted and make more of these screwball comedies! What a treasure trove they would be!