robertmaybeth

When I first heard of this "Sopranos" prequel I wasn't expecting much. Even though it was said that many of the original actors were being worked into the story somehow, I thought it would be an impossible task to approach the brilliance of the series.

For once, I'm glad to say my low expectations were exceeded with plenty of room to spare. This may be because the original creator, David Chase, was involved in the production. But whatever the reason for it, "Saints" is a masterful prequel to the original "Sopranos" that captivated millions of viewers. And if anything, it is certain proof that it deserves a spin-off series.

The usual issue with prequels, even those as great as "Saints", is we already know the fates of many characters in advance. We know who has air-tight plot armor and who's expendable - and this can serve to water down the plot, because it removes much of the tension from the narrative. But in "Saints" the skillful blending of a new mix of important characters, causes this particular plot annoyance to affect the story-telling not at all.

For some reason "Saints" only has slightly over a 6 rating and that's a bit of a "crime". The acting, the story, and the masterful job the writers did with mixing old and new storylines is at times stunning. There isn't a misstep, bad character, or wasted scene in the entire production. "Saints" captures the look and feel of the original with room to spare. It seamlessly adds in new players and storylines in a way that somehow, seems to actually exceed the original series.

"The many saints of Newark" is a fine addition to the "Sopranos" mythos. And one hopes that a series, for which this film was obviously intended to pave the way for, might actually be in the works.

This documentary is what "Vietnam the 10,000 Day war" from 1983 aimed to be, but never quite attained. The visual style, narration, (by actor Peter Coyote) writing, soundtrack and editing, although sometimes shocking and always graphic, are nothing less than masterful. The series earns its IMDB rating of 9 with room to spare... flawlessly done in a way that few other TV documentary series of its kind have ever achieved. While sometimes painful to watch, it manages to encapsulate much of the Vietnam experience for future generations who's only question might be, "what was the Vietnam war all about?"

If you only watch one documentary about the Vietnam war, it should be this one.

Anybody watching this movie would be reasonable to expect wonderful things from it. Because you literally could not ask for a finer cast nor a situation more filled with opportunities for drama and comedy: a bunch of Oscar winners set in the fast-paced, life-or-death world of the air traffic controller workplace.

Sadly, the writers may have had great ideas in the beginning, perhaps, but nothing funny or even remotely interesting manages to make it to the screen. The stellar cast is simply wasted with story, dialogue and situations that just don't work. I wanted to like this movie, tried to get interested in it and couldn't.

I'm not saying everyone will find this movie as flat-out tortuous as I did so for some people it might be worth a look. Just don't say you weren't warned.

This show first aired in 1995. To me this show, about an AM radio news station based in New York city, is so consistently entertaining it is well worth tracking down 25 years later. Very little of it seems dated, obsolete or irrelevant today. Whenever I've had enough of prime time TV in the 2020's, which is often, viewing this very watchable show just takes me back to that delightful pre-political correctness era before 9/11... when actual comedy was still alive and well on television.

One of the startling things about watching this show today is how by comparison modern tv has become completely constrained, limited, and handcuffed by PC concerns. Nowadays the network's concerns about offending anyone, anywhere on the planet, have entirely sucked the fun out of television. Jokes, sexual innuendos, and sarcasm that would be smacked down by the censors today is a semi-regular fixture on "Newradio" (as it was on every comedy show of the era).

But this show isn't great just because of raunchy and inappropriate humor although that's certainly a draw for the likes of me. No, this show is great because the cast is an eclectic and perfectly balanced mix of characters and personality types. The show is anchored by Lisa (Maura Tierney) and Dave (Dave Foley) who are in an on-again off-again (mostly off) relationship with all the accompanying complications. These two are glue that holds the storyline together, along with station owner Jimmy James (Stephen Root of "Office space") an eccentric but bored billionare on an endless quest for a wife who never manages to find one.

The on-air personalities are Bill McNeil (the late Phil Hartman), and. Catherine Duke (Candi Alexander). Catherine has a disturbing habit of slapping people who annoy her, which the smarmy, arrogant McNeil manages to do at least once per episode. Among the underlings are quirky secretary Beth (Vicki Lewis), station tech wizard Joe (Joe Rogan) and the perpetually confused, addle-minded and clumsy reporter Mathew (Andy Dick). The radio station miraculously seems to function in spite of this mix of odd types; in every episode everyone spends all their time and energy on everything EXCEPT actually running the radio station.

"Newsradio"'s fifth and final season was rocked by the shocking and tragic real-life 1998 murder of Phil Hartman by his own wife Brinn (who took her own life shortly thereafter). The first show of the season was a moving tribute to Phil (whose absence was explained by his character's supposed death by heart attack). Actor Jon Lovitz was brought in as his replacement (Lovitz explaining he took the part only in tribute to his real-life friend Phil).

Notable as being one of the greatest sitcoms of the 1990's, if not of all time - if you enjoy sitcoms, this show is worth a look however you can find it.

After the masterful "Garden State" (also starring Zach Braff) that I enjoyed immensely along with everybody else, I was kind of hoping that lightning in a bottle would strike twice. And in fact, you can see what Braff was trying to accomplish here: a similar slice of life genre film ala' Garden State 2. And many of the same elements are here too: several really good actors, and some touchy feely moments mixed in with a bit of irony and poignancy. Unfortunately such a film dynamic has to be handled exactly right to work, and regrettably that just doesn't seem to happen in this movie.

The dialogue, characters, and situations never seem to come together in the way Braff was trying for - although at times it comes tantalizingly close. While the film is filled with plenty of good characters, there's never a pay-off with any of them. There are very few interesting things for them to say or do, the situations, dialogue and motivations are not very relatable, and the characters, while occasionally compelling, are hard to care about. Nothing anybody says ever raises any questions you want answered. And there's nothing in the movie to raise your interest or carry you along with the story or characters.

I hope Zach Braff has another really good movie left in him. Unfortunately this one isn't it.

Another show back from the turn of the century MTV, along with MTV's Fear, The Tom Green show, Daria, and Beavis and butthead re-runs and before Teen Mom and 2,000 episodes of Ridiculousness per day made up the programming.

The sketches are unique, original, and difficult to explain to anyone who hasn't seen an episode. Andy Dick as "Marilyn Poppins", in a strange mash-up of Marilyn Manson (Andy Dick) remaking the children's movie as a rock opera. Andy Dick's home movies from childhood, with Andy as drunken dad and young Andy played by a youthful Frankie Muniz ("Malcolm in the Middle"). And my favorite, Andy Dick impersonating Tom Green while taking "Da Brat" to the grocery store. The only thing certain about each episode is you never knew what bizarre twist Andy would throw into the episode.

Much like Dick himself, this show was at times quite raunchy and some of it was certainly of questionable taste. Not quite SNL or even Mad TV, but raunchier than both put together, that was the Andy Dick show.

The late Howard Hughes (the reclusive multi-billionare, eccentric/weirdo that never cut his fingernails, peed in milk bottles lest his urine be stolen, and employed an army of trusty Mormons to cater to his every whim, and oh yeah, was a notable pilot/engineer/movie producer) firmly believed "Ice Station Zebra" was literally the finest motion picture ever made, and for a time even had the movie on an endless loop on a projector playing non-stop in his sleeping area. And Saul Goodman (played by Bob Odenkirk in "Better call Saul" and "Breaking Bad") even names his corporation after the movie ("Ice Station Zebra Associates"). So what's it all about? WHAT could be the amazing block-buster that'll change your life plus bleach your teeth in only one viewing according to pop culture?

"Ice Station Zebra" is yet another take on an Alister Maclaine novel, this one about an American nuclear sub that is on a top-secret mission to locate some important satellite film that has come down from space to land somewhere at the north pole. Both the Americans and the Russians badly want this film and are more than willing to kill to retrieve it. So the film is a race to retrieve the film: US Navy submarine plus a complement of dodgy spy types vs. Soviet paratroopers supported (for no apparent reason) by a single flight of Mig fighters, all in competition to grab the satellite film first.

Not a bad plot overall (and if anything it does foreshadow the later, and better submarine film "The Hunt for Red October" of 1990) but the way it unravels is not nearly as dramatic as it could have been. The elements of tension and conflict are there, but are spoiled by its slow pacing overall, the static nature of the film, and the obvious on-screen cost-cutting done by the producers.

The movie takes place primarily in only two places: inside the American submarine "Tigerfish" and Ice Station Zebra itself. Too much of the movie looks colorless and drab because that's exactly what these surroundings are like in real life. More than half the movie is spent inside the (very cramped and quite dull) interior of the "Tigerfish", but once the men (because there isn't one female in this whole movie) climb out of the sub at the North Pole, it doesn't get any better. The greys and greens of the submarine are merely exchanged for the (fake) endless white expanse of "the arctic". "Ice station zebra" and its environs just looks exactly like the sound stage that it is... and this does not help the visual much.

Also the movie has an odd mix of first-class model work along with some amazingly bad effects as well. The exterior submarine model work is impressive and reasonably life-like - but the effect is somewhat spoiled by the rest of it. The viewer cannot fail to notice the cheap scale models in use to show several Russian Mig fighters on their way to Ice Station Zebra. In this scene it's a toss-up which is worse, the badly filmed and poorly made model airplanes or the cheap rear projection work of the background behind them.

The plot is only murky and mysterious until it gets explained, and then it's a bit underwhelming. And by the end, the viewer may be feeling cheated as the payoff to watching this rather clunky story unfold. All in all, I've seen many worse movies - but it's just disappointing to watch what could have been a classic turn into an over-produced, under-budgeted and slightly boring movie.

And it seems to be almost the role he was born to play - I can't imagine anyone else playing Kolchak.

This show came in the 1970's, making it the primary form of entertainment for me any my high school friends. Preceded by some rather scary TV movies (or so it seemed at the time), we were thrilled to watch this show every time it came on. Since it was television, there were unfortunately limits on how scary the show's producers could make it - but with every episode you got the distinct impression that the show could very easily be much scarier than it was. And indeed this show seemed to push the very limits of what the American censors of the 1970's would allow.

Ultimately every show usually turned out to be much less scary then we hoped it would be, and this was what kept us tuning back in every week - we wanted to see just how dramatic this episode would be. From zombies, to underground monsters, to vampires we never knew what to expect, the format being what X'Files producers called "monster of the week". Naturally Kolchak was usually unharmed after every monster encounter, of course - he was the star of the show and this demanded the thickest possible plot armor. But younger viewers, like me and my friends, found it to be just the right amount of scary. Older people though, generally found it too corny to watch for long, and corny it was - in the Haitian zombie episode, for instance, Kolchak tricks the zombie into killing itself (again) by jumping through a conveniently placed wire noose.

Coming from the "vast wasteland" of television that was the 1970's, "The night stalker" was a welcome break from boring dramas and unfunny sitcoms and I watched every episode. Unfortunately its easy to see the show had no future and unsurprising it was cancelled after one season... you can only have so many monsters-of-the-week until you run out of monsters for Kolchak to stalk!

Coming as it did during the dearth of really great films in the early 1970's, "Deliverance" is a modern classic of dramatic terror.

I mention the big reveal - Ned Beatty's rape scene by the "hillbillies" - since after 5 decades it is an open secret. Playing as it does on many men's latent fears of homosexual rape, the graphic parts of this film were actually shocking to many of the more "innocent" audiences of the day and did cause a certain amount of controversy. This film is much more than the sodomy scene of course - there is at least one trait in each of the four male characters we either strongly identify with or strongly deny. We envy Lewis his decisiveness and courage, his willingness to overcome his wish not to kill as much as we quickly deny Drew's passivity as NOT the answer here. We cheer Ed when he overcomes his own passivity to save Lewis. And I kind of found myself admiring Ned Beatty (Bobby) most of all, for having the guts to film his very demeaning scene in an era where sexuality was much more fragile than now.

In fact, in real life as in the movie, all four actors show real bravery, for shooting a movie with some quite dangerous stunts where they faced very real dangers: drowning, hypothermia, falls, I doubt a man in the cast emerged uninjured! All done on next to no budget, without even taking advantage of stunt doubles. This was from a different era of Hollywood movie making, where movie stars were "real men" instead of pampered divas, and their toughness and grit shows clear through to the finished film. As a true classic of American suspense/drama movie making, "Deliverance" is a movie not to be missed, although it does have that almost iconic 1970's American movie trait of being front-loaded with a little too much characterization before the movie takes its inevitable dark turn - although much of it is a slow building of tension to set the scene for the rest of the movie, it might seem dull for the first half hour, unfortunately.

This is a movie i wanted to like, since it has a number of stars (Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick) whose films I've enjoyed in the past. But it's a movie that's just too hard to watch. The goal of the characters is obvious enough, since it's in the title, and the light-hearted premise would seem ripe for funny situations. Alas, not much of the sort ever seems to make it to the screen. The movie spins its wheels, not knowing where to go or what to do with the premise, and the most obvious thing to exploit - the minor tension implicit with the question "how will they find their wedding dates?" and more importantly, how it will all go wrong - is never explored in an entertaining way. There's a surprising lack of any sort of tension about any of the questions inherent in this light comedy...unfortunately, since it is seemingly the sole plot device in the whole movie.

This movie misdirects at every opportunity, and wastes the talent its given. It doesn't manage to create any interest in any of the characters, even the two leads. I couldn't find enough interesting about it to keep watching, and that's too bad - the director and screenwriter should have been sent back to film school after this, really second rate effort.

Should you invest in this game? ...will probably be the first question anyone has about "Alyx". The game itself is first rate, very much worth playing, and a worthy addition to the "Half-life" series. But there is only one way to play it, and it requires VR goggles. Consider that even modestly-priced VR (Virtual reality) goggles are at least $500 (Oculus Quest is the one I bought) with Valve's VR goggles offering being almost twice that. And after having played the game, the answer to the question "Is it worth it?" is really yes and no and depends, unfortunately, on how much discretionary income is available to you for buying the goggles since you cannot play "Half-life Alyx" without them.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the most important question really might be this, Is VR c. 2020, really worth the expense? Considering what you pay ($500 and up, although almost certainly we can assume that cheaper used VR goggles will become available before too much longer) vs what you get (the VR experience c. 2020) - my answer would have to be no! My reason for this is because, while VR is certainly novel and new, it is not revolutionary enough to be worth causing yourself financial hardship to get it.

And if at all possible, do try VR goggles before you buy a set. The visual effect of VR really needs to be experienced to answer the question for yourself. And I repeat, the truth is VR right now is really nothing revolutionary. It's basically just optical trickery, which is fine, except I'd describe the effect as not too different from the old time 3D movies from the 1950's. These 3d movies required you to wear some paper glasses with red tinted plastic over one eye and blue over the other. And VR goggles are really not too different from old-time 3D. By showing one eye one perspective and your other eye a different one, and your grey matter does the rest. The result is certainly a noticeable visual effect, which makes it different from every other game you've played up to now - but paying the freight to get it may not be worth it to you.

There are plenty of images on line that will show you a very good representation of the 3D minus the goggles, and if anything the effect is kind of like watching the game action through a piece of glass a foot away, with more action happening 10 to 20 more feet away, in other words, two perspectives at once. The feeling of actual depth is there at times, it is interesting to see, and it does make gameplay more interesting. But the interface you have with the hand controllers is of necessity very slow. Navigating through this virtual world is awkward and clumsy. You cannot react quickly to anything in the game, and so almost everything that happens gives you plenty of time to react. This removes a lot of the tension from the gameplay but is probably unavoidable.

So whether this game + VR goggles is worth it to you, is something only you can answer. By the end of the game I did not feel cheated or disappointed, but just wanting more. It's obvious Valve left out a lot of stuff - landscapes, visual effects, et. al. that will surely be there when they finally come out with "Half life 3" (they have not announced it yet but the mere existence of this prequel game basically confirms HL3 beyond much doubt). I thought about this game for several months before actually getting the Oculus Quest to play it, I had modest expectations that were mostly met by this game. But if you're on the fence about it, and $500 will make a significant hardship for you, I'd tend towards the answer being NO! My reasons for that, beyond the high cost, is that virtual reality still has a very long way to go. Maybe in 5 to 10 years they will finally have something truly groundbreaking instead of 1950's 3D. But as of 2020, they are still a long, long away from anything truly revolutionary in the optics field.

I'm on my fourth replay of "Styx" and really hoping they make a third game after this. I am very picky about what games I can play, through no conscious effort of my own, and this game somehow ticks all the boxes.

I'd explain this game as a combination of the first two "Thief" games along with a few fantasy elements, all set in a pseudo-medieval world (what that primarily means, of course, is no guns). Your enemies are primarily human but there are plenty of other creatures that oppose you along the way: roabies (blind bugs with great hearing that kill you as soon as they detect you), plus giant "cave trolls" (while very large and powerful they are also rather stupid), giant flying bugs, and a couple more. Your array of weapons and powers is well balanced although rather modest, including the power of invisibility (for 10 seconds at a time) and throwing knives. There is just enough story to make the game interesting without getting bogged down in it. The maps are all very well designed and there is constant change-up in the gameplay to keep it all interesting.

If you liked Looking Glass Studio's "Thief" series, or just stealth games in general, you may like this game too.

...of former business Titan John Delorean's dream gone wrong.

Based on the true story of John Delorean's struggle to create a brand new automotive sportscar line in the late 1970's, the same car made famous in "Back to the future". The Delorean was a mid-engined, all stainless steel bodied sports car, designed from scratch by Delorean's designing team to be an alternative to the GM and foreign sports cars. Buyers were underwhelmed by the anemic performance of the dodgy Renault-Peugeot-Volvo V6 engine, and despite the innovative gull-wing doors, the car turned out to be under-performing and trouble prone (if only because too few units - 9,000 - were ever produced in Delorean's Northern Ireland plant so the bugs could be worked out of the design). By 1982 lackluster sales of the car meant the company was facing bankruptcy. Desperately trying to keep his dream alive, and how he tried to do it via selling cocaine is the topic of this movie.

The film moves along briskly, with every scene foreshadowed by the opening shots of FBI informant Hoffman (Jason Sudeikis) being grilled in a courtroom by Delorean's defense attorney. Hoffman is in a bad place himself, having been caught flying in millions of dollars worth of cocaine, and so his FBI handlers need him to bring in a really big fish to prosecute - and through a series of strange events Delorean himself falls into their net. The resulting story is told in a way I found very engaging, with some really good performances being turned in by Judy Greer (as Hoffman's wife) and a show-stopping performance by Lee Pace as John Delorean. For me, watching Pace as Delorean was the most interesting part of the movie, since his acting is so good you definitely get the impression that this must have been the way Delorean was in real life. And even though I already knew the story, I found myself sympathizing with Delorean and glad the story turns out the way it did.

I thought this was a movie that did a whole lot with very little, and although the movie could and should have been a bit better, I think this movie's worth a watch.

I'm puzzled why this movie is rated so low. After viewing many movies of this genre and being disappointed by them almost every time, (including the 1981 incarnation of this movie by the same title) I was pleased when I started this film and soon realized this was going to be a pretty good watch. And so it is - it manages to avoid the common mistakes of so many mythology movies: lingering too long on one character, getting stuck on one scene too long, not changing things up often enough during the movie. Throwing in a lot of dull details that don't add to the story, mystifying plot twists, incomprehensible dialogue, et. al.

There's plenty to see here and it's all presented at a brisk pace, combined with enough back-story and explanatory scenes to make the story watchable. The villains are often the classic foils from the mythos, such as Medusa (the monster with snakes for hair, whose gaze turns men to stone) along with some new or at least new-to-me monsters (like giant scorpions that people ride like pack animals). This is the kind of movie where you don't have to do a whole lot of questioning or thinking about - everything gets explained along the way sufficiently so you can sit back and enjoy it.

I watch this film almost every time it comes on and it's enjoyable each time. Probably worth a look.

Did Courtney have a hand in Kurt Cobain's death? There's only one person that knows the answer for sure, and she's not telling - but this documentary definitely makes you question the official story, along with a lot more dodgy things about Kurt and Courtney's volatile relationship.

This film does not profess to having any answers to the questions it raises. If anything it only deepens the mystery. What is known is that Kurt was found dead, with a shotgun wound to the head and a remarkably large amount of heroin in his system - too great a quantity, it is said, to even lift a shotgun after taking it, or to do anything but black out from it. Yet the shotgun used was found to be completely free of any fingerprints, as were the shells - and the "works" (hypodermic and rubber tourniquet, and bent spoon) had been placed neatly in a cigar box at Kurt's side after use! How could Kurt have done any of this if the sequence of events were as described by the coroner (who Courtney Love actually KNEW in a social setting before Kurt's death, immediately declared the death a suicide, and who refused to pursue the matter any further).

These are only a few of the questions raised by this, often fascinating documentary. If you're a Nirvana fan, or even if you've only heard of the "27 club" (rock stars who died at age 27), you might find this documentary worth a watch.

In this film, actor Paul Dano brilliantly portrays the emotionally tormented Brian Wilson in an amazing performance. Brian Wilson himself, is a true prodigy if not a musical genius; and he was the songwriter behind the multi-million selling records of the Beach Boys, one of the hottest pop/rock groups of the 1960's. But Wilson's seemingly God-given talent was not without cost: he was tormented not only by his abusive father, Murray, (who drove his sons Brian, Carl, and Dennis relentlessly to succeed); but also he suffers from a psychological condition diagnosed as "schizoaffective disorder" plus manic depression. The disorder causes Wilson to experience delusions, hallucinations, and impaired life function, and still troubles him today (the movie was made with his input). And Brian Wilson was dealing with all of this while an active member of the Beach Boys. His songwriting duties (he wrote almost all the Beach Boys songs) combined with the expectation that he also perform on stage with the rest of the group as well, created enormous pressure on him and contributed to several mental breakdowns. This led the Beach Boys to hire the Svengali-like psychiatrist, the sinister Dr. Eugene Landy (in a great portrayal by Paul Giamatti) who then proceeded to run Brian's life for the next few years.

The movie is done in a style I perceive as very odd in that the director for some reason, decided to use two different actors to play Brian. Paul Dano portrays 1960's Bryan while Cusack plays an older Brian. We are treated to this story device from the film's beginning as the story cuts freely back and forth between the two actors, instantly going from young Brian to old Brian and back again, with little or no transition in between.

While certainly the idea of using two separate actors to portray one character, in the same movie, is not a style that has been overdone - it turns out that's probably for good reason! Because it is an awkward and cumbersome way to tell a story. I don't know why the film makers felt they needed two actors to portray Brian Wilson; the actor switch is odd, unsettling and probably unnecessary. The first part of the movie convinced me that Paul Dano alone would have been perfectly capable of portraying "old Brian" too, and unfortunately Cusack's performance is not as good by comparison. And I have to wonder why the film makers chose to tell the story this way. It did not ruin the movie but it does detract from the drama and conflict inherent in the story, which the film has loads of: Conflict between Brian and his band mates, particularly Mike Love (the lead singer and also another family member). Conflict between Brian and Landey, who has made Brian into his puppet. Conflict between Brian's girl Melinda (Elizabeth Banks) and Landy, with Melinda realizing the hold Landey has on Brian is unnatural and wrong. The way these conflicts are resolved are the best parts of the film by far. I particularly liked the battle for Brian's soul between Melinda and the greedy and manipulative Dr Landy as she tries to wrest Brian's life out of his hands.

You don't have to be a Beach Boys fan to like this movie, although it doesn't hurt.

The makers of this film realized the essence of what made the Stooges funny: good old slapstick violence. Knowing the actors weren't hurt making this, at least not intentionally, goes a long way towards the humor. Even so, as a kid my parents wouldn't let us watch the old black and white Stooges, which of course meant I had to watch every episode later. And if you're the right kind of humor, the Stooges are still pretty funny. Who else could have invented the classic stooges moves, including the venerable 3-at-a-time slap-fests, the rebounding punches, the goofy sound effects, and the ridiculous falls that no human alive could endure unharmed?

And that's basically what you get in this movie, a vehicle for the stooges to punch, hit with a hammer, slap, kick, and in general commit mayhem on each other with occasional guest stars along for the ride. While the rest of the world has moved on, in that the plot takes place modern-day, the Stooges are still stuck in a 1930's time-warp; haircuts, clothing and vernacular are pretty much intact from the 1930's with everyone completely unaware of it... but I wouldn't want the Stooges any other way. The actors - Sean Hayes (Larry) Will Sasso (of Mad TV, as Curly) and Moe (Chris Diamantopoulos) - thoroughly understand the characters and all of them do a convincing portrayal. Admittedly this movie has a pretty weak plot to it, and the physical gags start to get repetitive towards the end, but the basic elements of a Stooges movie are here, and that's all that counts. I hope if and when the inevitable sequel comes, they try at least a little to make a slightly better plot - because if they do, this will be the perfect retro movie. for all Stooges fans.

And that's what this movie is about: what your life is like when you live in constant, never-ending, chronic pain. As a sufferer of chronic pain myself for the last 9 years (from a slipped disc that presses on the main nerve plus arthritis) I unfortunately know all about this kind of life. And the worst part is, it's not much of a life at all. I have no idea if Anniston has chronic pain in real life, but if she doesn't, she certainly did her homework before playing the role. And she gets chronic pain exactly right - living with it isn't a matter of moaning and groaning every minute of your life, even when that's what you feel. You can't do that - because if you do, everyone you love and value in your life will burn out on you, very quickly, and will disappear. So you spend much of your life hiding your pain as best you can. And, the only way you know that you are hiding it well is when friends and family forget, and try to get you to do something with them you can no longer do, because of your chronic pain. And then you see the inevitable disappointment, and the resentment, and you know they have just dropped you from another little part of their lives - and you wonder if and when they might drop you altogether.

And as Claire, Anniston manages to show her day to day life in a subtle, under-stated way, but one I instantly related to. She manages to show what it's like, living in your own bubble of pain, surrounded by the able bodied who feel nothing like you do, and get to feel how you used to feel, before your curse of chronic pain. She shows the frustration, the anxiety over medication, and the illicit activity she must do to get her medicine (in Mexico), and what it feels like to watch life go on around you, and without you to a great extent. I think Jennifer Anniston did a great job playing this role - and I'll never underestimate her as an actress again.

What the film makers must have been telling each other as production went along for this complete waste of technology to ever get made. Since there's nothing in the movie to think about - it's an intellectual void with literally nothing there but some people moving around and occasionally talking - so naturally my mind went to the thought processes it must have taken to get this turd made. What sorts of lies, exaggerations, half-truths were going around during the production for everyone to delude themselves so completely while earning the pay-check on the production crew making this thing. Ultimately though, listing what's wrong with this movie just takes too much effort for what it is: a total cinematic failure, no more no less. It isn't the first time this happened, naturally, and it isn't unique as far as the history of American cinema goes - except now we have sites like IMDB where people with no agenda nor axe to grind, like me, can tell you to do the smart thing and just stay far away from this mess. So that's exactly what I'm telling you: don't waste 5 minutes on this clinker, because all the reviews are right, this movie really is that bad!

I realized that after Mike Judge's classic comedy "Office Space" that I shouldn't expect too much from any of Judge's later movies. Judge wrote, produced, directed, and even acted in the film, and admitted that making "Office Space" as good as it ultimately turned out to be was a very draining and exhaustive task and that he was very glad when production was over. So I figured that because of the (understandably) incredible difficulty in making great movies. that Mike Judge's subsequent films probably weren't going to be in the same league. And yet, Judge's next movie, "Idiocracy" (2006) inadvertently turned out to be yet another sleeper comedy classic, such that the title has somehow made its way into the American lexicon as well!

I'm a fan of Judge's "Beavis and Butthead" along with "Office Space" and "Idiocracy" - since all three are characterized by a lot of real wit, understated humor and startlingly clever laughs. For that reason I got the idea that Mike Judge couldn't make a stinker movie or even an unamusing one. Unfortunately "Extract" was the movie that trashed that notion completely. Because as it turns out, while making a true comedy classic like "Office Space" was truly a monumental task, making a mediocre comedy is a snap - and "Extract" proves the point.

What's wrong with "Extract"? Far too much! The cast is certainly not to blame, since they are first class - with actors like Jason Bateman and Kristen Wiig and Mila Kunis, you could seemingly not go wrong - but there's literally nothing interesting for them to do in the whole movie. As a (very unconvincing) married couple, Bateman somehow gets the idea to test his wife's (Wiig) fidelity and talks a friend into hitting on her.just to see what she will do. And that's pretty much the entire plot right there. There might have been some comedic moments if "Extract" had been made with more clever dialogue, more interesting plot twists and some actual humor thrown in somehow along with a completely a different cast (while being perfectly good actors, Bateman and Wiig have absolutely no on-screen chemistry) but the writing and the dialogue are poor. So the movie spends all its screen time propping up a weak premise, with a bunch of actors that don't relate well to each other on screen, and who spend the entire time mouthing unconvincing lines...and it all makes for a surprisingly dull storyline.

For the life of me I can't figure out why this movie got made. The storyline (Husband or wife decides to use a third party to trick their partner, in order to test his or hers marital fidelity etc.) has been done many times before. and it's old and dated. But perhaps worst of all, the movie's done in such a way that you literally don't care about ANY of the characters at all... they are so uninteresting, and uninterested, in each other it shows clean through. And for a comedy there is not a single funny moment. Like I said, I never expected another movie of the caliber of "Office space" from Mike Judge - but this movie is so bad, the end result looks like Judge just phoned it in from home.

I'm still a Mike Judge fan, even after trying to watch this second-rate, drive-by comedy. But I have a lot more interest in his animated stuff than live action films. After watching "Extract" , the dialogue from a good episode of "beavis and butthead" looks like Shakespeare compared to the likes of this clinker.

The silly title is what immediately put me off from watching this film, although if I'd been a fan of Gemma Arterton at the time, like I am now, I might have seen it anyway.

At first, the title reminded me too much of the kinds of movies I've avoided in the past like "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire hunter" and "Cowboys vs. Aliens". And to me this was, and is, usually not a good thing since films that try to meld historical periods with sci fi or horror genres rarely seem to result in anything worth watching. In this case though, the movie actually works out into something entertaining.

The title says it all, and Renner and Arterton make an engaging duo of witch hunters; so along with Famke Jannsen as the heavy, the acting and plot move the story along at a brisk pace fast enough to keep your attention. So, even if unconventional film genres aren't what you normally find entertaining though, this film might be worth a look at the very least.

Maybe one of the most dramatic animations ever.

"The Secret War" takes place somewhere in the vast former Soviet Union in the winter of 1942-3 (we know this because Stalingrad is mentioned) and involves a small unit (perhaps platoon size i.e. 40-50 men) of the Red Army.

The mission of this unit is to fight an enemy that is not human, and for that reason it is "The Secret War". The enemy here is not the German army, nor is it even human, the enemy are products of the paranormal and the occult. The good thing good about this enemy is that at least they can be killed. The bad thing about them is they attack in vast numbers and are almost unstoppable, and no one knows how to send them back where they came from!

Since it would be easy to spoil this episode for the reader, which I hope I haven't already done! So that's all I'll say. This episode was so good it might almost be worth a series of its own. What the show makers have created is a tale full of fear, cold, death, heroism and bravery, an episode so dramatic you can almost cut it with a knife. Don't miss this one!

After watching season one of LD+R I'm ready to weigh in on the best and the worst. I don't feel that writing about the ones that aren't as good (as this ep for instance) is worth the bother so I'll discuss what's good about this great episode.

The story is about some sort of futuristic Marines, presumably American, off fighting a nameless, but clearly human, enemy in a far-off system. The protagonist is one female by the name of Lt Colby (Samara Wiley) who is the brand new pilot of "Lucky 13" - a troop transport space-ship, that appears to be a combination space ship/aircraft/helicopter and that also has firepower of its own (in the form of several, very cool, automatic pop-up cannons ala Millenium Falcon in "Empire"). Colby is unnerved to be told that "Lucky 13" has returned from its previous two missions with every person aboard dead - and no one can explain it. And this of course is Lt Colby's new aircraft to fly, in combat. The rest is a pretty compelling story, that easily fills the 15 minute episode; with not one wasted word or scene at all.

To say anything more would spoil it, and I will not do that to you, dear reader. It's enough to say that I think it's easily the best episode of the series so far - and if you only watch one episode I say let it be this one! I can only hope that at least half the episodes, of season 2 of "Robots" will be as good.

I can still remember the thrill of seeing Episode IV in the theatre in 1977. It was a magic year for movies - Cross of Iron, A Bridge Too Far, the Spy who Loved me, and many more amazing movies were in theaters that summer. But by far the most excellent was, of course, "Star Wars a New Hope". To watch it with a packed theater audience was a memorable experience and everyone in the theater knew, we were watching something ground-breaking and brilliant - and it was a world many of us never wanted to leave!

The follow-ups "Empire" and "Jedi" expanded on the story and also added new takes on the Star Wars universe, and were almost as good as "A New Hope" in their own way. But the important thing was we were back in the imaginary universe again and it had a life of its own. And there things seemed to stay, even after the final 3 movies starting in 1999 - we were back in the universe again, but let's face it, eps 1-3 just weren't the same experience. Whether its the poorly drawn characters, the weak story, and the failure to transfix the audience that eps 4-6 had, I can't watch any of them without the feeling that something was missing. Episodes 7 through 9 were abominations, but at least "Rogue One" offered some glimpse that things might return to their accustomed excellence - and now in "The Mandalorian" they finally have.

The characters are, at long last, finely drawn without belaboring the story line, and the action and minimal dialogue manages to speak volumes without becoming tedious (as they did in, well, every movie since "Jedi" really). The Mandalorian himself is a great, understated, and intriguing character and he is the perfect protagonist for a Star Wars story; he is about action, not lengthy dialogues, and there are no long boring scenes of Padme and Annakin, in the field of daisies boring us senseless with mawkish talk. And baby Yoda is a flawless character, being almost helpless (mostly) and in constant need of protection and rescuing, by Mando, of course.

Anyway it finally feels good to watch a Star Wars story that actually WORKS. It brings us right back to the world of New Hope/Empire/Jedi as if we'd never left. And we get hours of it. After almost 40 years, I have to say if you're a star wars fan, you could just as easily skip every other Star Wars since Jedi and feel right at home again watching "The Mandolorian" - and now there's finally a Star Wars story worthy of the mantle.