richspenc

This is another "what if we lived forever?" Twilight zone episode, like "Long live Walter Jamison", but this one is not nearly as good in several ways. Both episodes' "live forever" characters' names are Walter, I wonder if that was just a coincidence. Between the two, Walter Jamison was more interesting, intellectual, insightful, and was a lot more human. Bettecker's biggest fault in this episode is presented later on in the episode, but even in the beginning, he doesn't stop whining and complaining. I understand that he's supposed to be a hypochondriac but do we need to see him repeat everything he means three different times in different words over each point he makes in non-stop motor mouth fashioned? Such as in response to his disagreeing with the doctor about how he's not fine, I.e. "the doctor's a quack! Here I lie on the brink of death and he writes up vitamins for you! He tells me that I'm fine but he writes vitamins for you! He writes vitamins for you while I sit here with a life expectancy of 20 minutes! Might as well sign the death certificate now doc!" Then he continues to rattle on about his whispering wife, the drafts from the windows, about how his wife is wasting her time talking to that quack doctor, etc. Then he rambles to his wife about why a man has to die, why life is so short, and those things, mind you, are good comments and questions in an episode like this. They just really should've made Walter's talking a bit slower and less whiny, and cut down his repetitiveness.

Then enters this episode's version of the devil with the ability to grant Walter's wish on not dying, of course with the big catch of giving up his soul. Walter: "my soul!!?" Devil: "you won't even know it's gone". How many times have we heard that line in this particularly themed plot? A near parallel exchange was spoken in "Bedazzled" between Brendan Frasier and Elizabeth Hurly's devil. I've noticed how there are different character traits though between different film or TV show episode's versions of death or the devil. Like in TZ episode "A pitch for the angels", Death came across as a more plain, straight laced serious type of character, where here, the devil is sort of a wise cracking, 'blabbering cheerfully but with a bargain' type of character. Well, either way, they suddenly appear in the main character's bedroom ready to present their proposition.

Once Walter has signed the deal, he throws all his medications out the window and is suddenly a changed man. No more of the whiny, hypochondriac Walter which is good, but a little later on though, he really sinks low. Walter for a while becomes bulletproof and starts living a life of scamming for money such as jumping in front of buses, trains, etc., and then suing them for settlements. Then, after failing to kill himself by drinking bleach and cleanser in the bathroom, he finally explains to his wife what is really going on with him. Walter's wife here, I believe is the same actress from "The fever", as the wife of the husband with the slot machine addiction on their free Las Vegas trip. After that, the episode really takes a turn for the worse, he pushes his wife off the top their 20 story apartment building, kills her, and doesn't even feel remorse for it or even sorry for what he did. All he cares about is wanting to give the electric chair a whirl because he still can't find any excitement in his life. That whole deal just did not sit well with me. This episode set up the main character to be a hypochondriac who was scared of dying who wanted to find a way for eternal life, they did not set up a character to be a thoughtless killer who would kill his wife just because he was bored and then just shrug about it. I guess there was one line I found semi amusing. Walter's wife to Walter: "Why don't I make you some potato pancakes". Walter: "You're a potato pancake, you're as tasteless as a potato pancake".

I've read people's reviews about "Rosalie" not being a very good film due the unbelievability of it, but "Rosalie" was supposed to be a fantasy, pure escapism, which I feel gave parts of this film a very nice surreal feeling. Some reviewers called it weird and stupid, but it was supposed to be bizarre in the magical surreal escapism way it provided so well. I loved a lot of that. If they had made this film more plain and ordinary, it would not have been nearly as good.

I'll mention the film's couple of little problems which took it from a 10 to an 8. Then I'll get to the great stuff. I did not like the King's (Frank Morgan) venquilitrist dummy, he looked and acted kinda creepy. I also didn't care for Billy Gilbert's extreme sneezing character, his industrial strength sneezes, which weren't funny to begin with, got old fast

Now for the great things; Eleanor Powell was as beautiful as ever as the film's title character here just like she was in "Born to dance" and the "Broadway melody" films. Her amazing tap dancing shined up the screen here again just like in those films. Nelson Eddie showed his opera talent again just like in his films with Jannet McDonald. I disagree with some of the reviewer's comments, I thought that Eleanor and Eddie here had great chemistry and I could see their glowing passion for one another. Take for Instance the scene where Eleanor is hiding behind a tree, Eddie sees her and sneaks up to the other side of it, Eleanor lifts herself up to run her face right into Eddie's face right there gleaming right at her over those branches. There was something almost eerie about it, but in a good way. Then (after king Frank Morgan brings Eddie to the festivities from his plane which he flew from America), there was the look on Eddie's face when noticing Eleanor being carried on a platform by many dancers carrying flaming torches, which was a really neat visual presentation. That there brings me to the big festivities middle section of the film which was truly elaborate, amazing, and spectacular. It started with what looked like a carnival with stands and puppeteers, then moved over to an even more bizarre and wonderful world of fantasy and escapism. Men throwing enormous handles banging them onto huge drums. About 30 dancing girls in very large, wide (almost like authentically German or Danish looking) dresses dancing to what sounded like the melody to "Strangers in paradise". Then, opera singing beauties in very nice long white gowns along with blonde beauty Ilona Massey singing "Spring love is in the air". Then all those girls in the big, wide authentic dresses dancing faster now along with other dancing girls in white running excitedly and dancing fast and magnificently to the great overture music playing. The whole thing was an enormous, surreal, wonderful paragon. And those big beautiful fountains lined up in the background too I loved. And that wasn't all, there was still Eleanor being carried out by those flame torch carriers, her doing an amazing tap dance up and down these various sized drums, then doing her great spin dance (which she's shown in numerous films) through these plastic circles being held. The number of dancers and extras there in the last bit of that extravaganza had to be over a thousand. Very large, very wonderful, all of it.

There were also other great parts of the film such as Eddie singing outside Eleanor's window at her college, then the dance sequence where they first dance (and Frank Morgon sings), then a little later Eddie singing "In the still of the night", and then the great military part with Eleanor in army uniform leading the marching cadets in dance. Also, William Demearest shows up as sergeant, and Ray Bolger, who this not one of his best films ("Oz" and "The great Ziegfeld" were). However, I liked how Ray kissed that beauty by the plane and lifted his hand back to pay up some cash since he lost a bet, but didn't care due to having the beauty in his arms. Also, this film probably has the most variety of dancers in it since "The great Ziegfeld".

SPOILER

I loved the wedding ending too with the fanciness and music there.

The original Grease really is a classic, this is not. Here's my list of things that took the movie down some notches from the original:

The unnecessary high levels of crudeness compared to the original, especially with that innaproprietly dirty song in the classroom "Reproduction". The original Grease may have dealt with a character who spent part of the movie thinking she may be pregnant and a car scene showing the implication of her having sex with her boyfriend and him suddenly exclaiming that his condom ripped. In Grease 2 though, we get a song where everyone is so happily and loudly singing such dirty lyrics which make up most of the song. There's also the suggestive songs "We're gonna score tonight" and "Let's do it for our country". Way more sexual implementations than the first film, and the Grease movies have supposed to have been semi family films with many fans of the first being youths.

Next, the ham acting, like it seems like they're copying the first movie's attitudes and then exaggerating them in an overly goofy way. The way the T birds act in this film is a good example. Also, the way they treat new English student Michael, harrasing him even before finding out he fancies one of the T bird's crushes Stephanie (Michelle Phiefer). Then the overly stereo typical way the movie portrayed nerds. Just like in the "Revenge of the nerds" films, they make them talk in that shrill voice wearing those goofy glasses and pocket protectors. Hear the nerd's jokingly shrill voice near the beginning when asking Michael "how long have you been in America?", or where they trip him outside the bus during the opening number, or during "Reproduction" one nerdy guy says in a ridiculous sounding voice "ohh, I think I'm gonna throw up".

The songs in this film break out without reason too much, where in the first film, there's a reason for each song. And there were more better songs in the first.

Here are the few things in the movie I liked which kept me from giving the film a rating lower than 5:

There were a few good songs. I kinda liked the girls with Stephanie singing "A girl for all seasons", a nice catchy tune, the T birds' song "Prowling", and the song "Who's that guy?" while Michael is kickin it up on the motorcycle. The rest of the songs were either sub par or inappropriate.

Even though some reviewers don't agree, I kinda liked Phiefer as Stephanie. She was cute, and I always found Phiefer beautiful, even like 12 years later as teacher in "Dangerous minds". I know she had those clothes, those shades, and that bubble gum popping, but that was sorta early 1980s style.

Michael was an alright character too, he played his role straight, and was only wanting people to like him. And he wanted to start riding motorcycles, nothing wrong with that.

This movie had some good, and definitely had some bad.

"Lisa the vegetarian" is another classic from the good years. It was another episode where something big (Lisa's vegetarianism) started which would continue to repeat itself in many subsequent episodes, such as Ned and the leftorium.

I liked the kiddie park bit with the way they made fun of how sometimes small amusement park type places are lacking in quality, such as the condition of the three little pigs, their obvious speaker mouths and unconvincing voices along with the house doing nothing but barely tipping over when the wolf blows on it. I also found funny how Maggie got scratched out of one of the sheep's fur at the petting zoo when Marge couldn't find her for a moment.

The sheeps and lambs at the petting zoo part of the park are the key things that get Lisa starting up her big concerns regarding eating meat while eating lamb chops the evening after seeing the lambs at the park (I noticed how the Simpsons were never seen eating lamb chops before this episode (it was often pork chops), but they suddenly decide to make them right after the visit to the petting zoo). Then Lisa's thought balloons showing meat coming from different animals (including a joke made on the rumors on what hot dogs are really made of) and Homer mentioning bacon, ham, and pork. Then Lisa responds "Dad, those are all from the same animal". Homer sarcastically: "yeh right, one magical animal". Homer saying pigs are magical animals there was kind of a joke on his love of pork chops and bacon, and also with the roast suckling pig Homer fondly presents later this episode. Then Lisa's imagining the lamb from the park saying "Lisa, what did I ever do to yo-o-ou-ou" in a lamb's voice, and then at school while disecting worms, Lisa imaging the worm saying the same thing in the lamb's voice, and Lisa saying "why does it talk like a lamb?". Then that causing Ms. Hoover to push the independent thought alarm, along with Lunchlady Doris pushing it too after Lisa complains about her serving meat in the cafeteria. Then, the hilarious Troy McClure "Meat and you" filmstrip with funny lines encouraging meat eating and little Timmy then saying at the end of the strip "wow Mr. McClure, I was a grade A Moran to ever question eating meat". Troy: "yes you were Timmy". Then Lisa saying right after "do they really expect up to swallow that tripe!?" followed by tripe in the classroom being offered to all the students and them all attacking it. You think grade school kids would ever be shown enjoying tripe other then here when they're only seeming to do it to make Lisa look bad?

Then come the great parts of Homer's big BBQ, all the main Springfield characters attending including Chief Wiggum and the Flanders. Lisa's fierce protesting, Homer's famous runaway roast pig from Lisa bulldozing it away (with Marge yelling "Bart! No!!", "oh, sorry Bart, force of habit. Lisa! No!!"). Smithers asking Burns if he'll donate money to the orphanage with Burns responding "when pigs fly", then Homer's pig flying past his window. I also loved the ending sequence showing the pig still flying to Paul McCartney's "maybe I'm amazed". Paul singing to the pig flying itself was sort of a homage to the psychedelic cartoon images to the Beatles singing in their films like "Yellow submarine". That and Paul McCartney's visit to Apu's roof garden when they all encourage Lisa to stick to her vegetarian ways without badgering people about it, and Lisa then agreeing to do so (sorry, there'll be no more flying pigs after this episode). Also the non-alcoholic beer joke, Apu's vegetarian shirt "don't have a cow, man" (Bart reference), and Apu finding even Lisa a monster because in spite of all her protesting this episode, she'll still eat cheese and dairy products but Apu won't. Apu being a full vegan and Lisa just being a ovo-lacto vegetarian, where you eat eggs and dairy but no meat, fish, or anything where an animal has to be slaughtered to eat it.

There are a number of reasons why "Odd couple 2" took such a nose dive from Jack Lemon/Felix and Walter Matthou/Oscar's great classic 1968's original "Odd couple". This was also a nose dive from those two men's quirky gimmicks in both "Grumpy old men" films, so you cannot blame them for being old for this movie being so inferior.

First of all, this movie came out 30 years later from the original but Felix and Oscar mentioned their meeting up here being 17 years later from the time of their famous apartment roommate problems. They should have at least then made the time of their meetup and adventure here to be in 1985, that's when it was 17 years later. But no, the story in this movie is set in the present, 1998.

Second, it was a very bad move to have Felix (Lemon) throw in a couple F bombs. I realize how in the 1990s, and in the 1980s, it had become more normal and acceptable for movies to have the F word (but not as wide spread and everyday common as it is ow in the 2010s). With characters where we're so used to seeing them in more old fashioned style, it just didn't match. It's like seeing a 1990s movie with elderly Gene Kelly, and seeing him now for the first time ever spew out the F word. It would be so awkward and uncomfortable to watch because it's so unlike him and so unlike anything in the Golden Age of films where we've known and loved him and those other wonderful Golden Age stars.

Third, the writers obviosly insisted on making this an 1980s/1990s style road movie with all the similar style cliques including seamy motels, hookers, bar fights, and run- ins with the local provincial police who are always itchy to arrest out of towner's. That just will not do in a sequel to an old classic 1960s film. And their insistence on wanting modern road movie cliques got in the way of character development and their odd couple quirks and problems that made the original so funny and interesting.

Fourth, Felix and Oscar just weren't as funny anymore. Their hyjinks and dialogue lost much of that quirky wit from the original film. They had fewer funny lines overall. Aside from the mistake of cussing in this movie, lines like the following were also a drop in quality from the original film: "what's the name of this California town again? It's San something". The following good and funny lines from the original are missed in this movie: "after eating your halibut steak and tartar sauce, I gotta spend 3 hours watching you saran wrap the leftovers" and "it's 12 floors! Not 11!", and "use a coaster, hey, who threw a pickle on the floor?", "I don't wanna see you, I don't wanna hear ya, and I don't wanna smell your cooking. Now please remove that spaghetti from my poker table"" It's not spaghetti, it's linguini". The only part of this movie where it was really more like the original again, was in the very last scene when Oscar, Felix, and friends started playing poker along to the original Odd couple theme playing. If only they made more than that last moment of the film like that.

There were a few moments here and there though that were OK to watch, and I did find funny a section where Felix and Oscar were riding in a car driving so slow that runners and then walkers were still moving faster than they were. I also found semi amusing, only semi, the part near the beginning where Oscar tries landing trash bags into the dumpster by dropping them from his fifth story window.

The good things about this film was the constant non stop excitement where Jack Lemon and wife Sandy Dennis get into one wacky crazy situation after another. It keeps you on your toes and was also often amusing, certainly interesting.

Flying from Ohio to New York in 1970 for a big high paid promising job offer in the big city with all the perks. Their nonstop chain reaction of mishaps start and don't stop. First, their plane circles New York in landing traffic for two hours and then diverges to Boston. When they land in Boston, they lose their luggage. Then they barely make the train to New York. Then stand in line for the diner car on the train for two hours, then find that they've now almost entirely run out of food due to the excessive volume of people. Then arrive in New York to find out that there's a transit strike and have to walk to their hotel, and (what a surprise) it right then starts to rain. They also have to walk through tons of garbage due to there also being a garbage truck strike. When they get to the hotel, they find there's a "mix up" and their hotel room won't be ready for another day. They run into a "helpful man" who says he'll walk them down the road to another hotel that'll have a room immediately, and on the way, the man pulls out a gun and mugs them and takes Jack's wallet (of course nobody in modern times would ever fall for that "I'll show you to your hotel" bit in New York, but this was 1970 where the higher crime years in New York were just beginning. Just two years earlier in 1968 "The odd couple", Jack Lemon and Walter Matthou were sitting in Central park after dark not too afraid of anything happening, even though Walter after five minutes of relaxed sitting casually says "well, we better go, the muggers will be here soon". And 25 years earlier in 1945 "The clock", Judy Garland and Robert Walker were embracing in Central park at night in a very romantic scene with no signs in the world of any of the fears and dangers that would someday grow in that exact spot decades down the road).

The crazy chain reaction of events just continue and continue, and honestly they probably could've taken a couple of bits out, I think they went overboard with the amount of mishaps just by a smidge. The one thing, however, that was a little irritating sometimes was a little bit too much panicked blabbering from both Jack and Sandy. I totally understand some panicked talk due to the intensity of how many endless mishaps they endured. But I feel Jack could've toned down the threatening to sue talk a bit. I mean I would've thought of suing a few of those people too, but he took it overboard and could've talked slightly quieter and maybe repeated it one less time every time he took down names and mentioned his attorney. As for Sandy, she was very pretty, but she had a slightly annoying way of saying too much aloud about what was happening when things were happening. One example was when the "I'll show you to the hotel" man pulled out his gun and mugged them, Sandy starts wailing out loud as he's mugging them "oh no! We're being mugged! Oh my God we're being mugged! I can't believe we are getting mugged now!". If someone did that as they were being mugged in a more modern movie or while being mugged in real life in more modern times, the mugger usually would've just shot them, or yelled "shut the **** up or I'll shoot!" Sandy does that a few different times in this film. And the repeating things a couple too many times from both Jack and Sandy, they do that a few different times in this film.

But Jack and Sandy both have some nice quirky things about their characters too. And so many amusing events keep this film fun to watch. I also enjoyed the dog stealing their only food, a half eaten box of cracker Jacks. I liked the part where the manhole cover makes a bang and pops up right in front of Jack and he temporarily cannot hear. And when Sandy tries talking, it's funny when a few times Sandy speaks and Jack frustratingly cannot hear her. Like when Sandy says something like "I am going to see if I can find us something to eat", Jack says irritatingly "all I can hear you say is 'I..to...can..us..thing..eat'!". Also funny when Jack loses his filling and he can't speak without whistling. Then when they are not allowed to sit in church and pray because of some kind of filming going on, and Jack says "I've been denied in the past 24 hours a lot of things, but never until now have I been denied my divined rights!" Then as he's already said to numerous people already, "give me your name! I'm going to call my attorney!"

Another very good TZ ep. Becoming young again (this episode and "Short drink from certain fountain"), time travel ("Walking distance", "20 yards over the rim"), the afterlife ("The hunt", "Stop at Willoughby"), and eternal life ("Long live Walter Jamison", "Queen of the Nile") have been excellent topics that have made Twilight zone so great.

In "The trade ins", elderly couple appear to be in the future (the future from the 1960s anyway) at a museum/hospital type clinic where they see young adult bodies on display. Those bodies would actually become the old person's new body through a mind/soul transfer procedure. The old man mentions several times the intense pain he is always in through very old, dysfunction, aching muscles and joints. He looks very uncomfortable with his facial expressions and his struggling to walk and move around, which makes his pain look quite convincing. His wife, younger by about 5 years but also in her twilight years is also very enthusiastic about the body switching procedure. The problem is the finances. The old man has saved up 5 thousand dollars through his years of hard work, but the body transfer job is 5,000 a person. The old man refuses to get it done alone without his wife by his side doing it with him, in spite of his burning desire to be young again and to be out of his constant pain. (what about him just taking some good doses of methadone, oxycodone, or morphine to ease his pain. They were around in the 1960s, but since this episode was supposed to be the future well beyond the 1960s, perhaps all those painkillers had been discontinued in this future. He really looked like he was suffering that pain raw and not taking anything for it)

SPOILER BELOW

This takes us to the first of two very poignant moving scenes where the man visits a bar and a back room with card players for high stakes. His desperation gets him to insist on taking the chance. The way the man started crying and looking in such unbearable despair was hard to watch. Between knowing that he's about to lose the entire $5,000 and now realize there will never be a way out of his pain, he looked at the very end of his rope now. Then we see the card dealer and proprietor of the bar do something very unusual for a card dealer to do; he technically lost but the dealer decided, since he really felt sorry for him, gave him the full $5,000 back he walked in with (in spite of him earlier in the game saying "I'm gonna clean you out").

Then, his wife, made an ultimate noble move herself (even though later on severely regretting it). She told him to go ahead and get his side of the procedure done and transfer himself on to that 24 year old strong, fit, masculine body on display that he really wanted. She was so happy for him at the moment However, once she sees for the first time this young, ecstatic, gleamingly thrilled young man running and dancing around the room in pure joy by his new return to a strong, happy, healthy and fit young man, she goes into utter shock and then suddenly realizes how just him has taken the miracle journey on his own without her. She may still have been physically next to him, but she was no longer next to him due to the dramatically increased distance that he has just moved away from her in almost every way possible. She was now dramatically different from him, 50 years apart in age, and now him being extremely enthused about doing things that she could not really do with him now. It's true, it really had to be either both of them or neither of them. He then makes the most noble sacrifice of all; he goes back to being an 80 year old in horrible pain and at the last part of life, and he did it all for her.

This is one of my all time favorite TZ episodes. It explores the fascinating topics of how to escape the pain in your life and move to a happy, serene place, even if it is temporary. Temporary escapes are still better than none at all. Even if it's not an escape from pain, the adventure of visiting a surreal land and/or a peaceful and serene place is always something which makes things more nice and interesting. Gart is great as a 40 something Ad executive stuck in a stressful, miserable job, made that way by the combination of never- ending work pressure and a boss from hell. "This is a push business! Push! Push! Push! Push and drive! All the way! All the time! Straight on down the line!" Then at home with his gold digger wife who's only with him for the money and does not care the tiniest bit in the world what his lifestyle is doing to him. And his health is now suffering as well. And she's incredibly unsympathetic when Gart tells her he is having a great dream of Willoughby and his wishing to be somewhere like Willoughby. She tells him "this is my tragic misfortune to be married to someone who's big dream in life is to be Huckleberry Finn!"

Gart passes out twice on the commuter train coming home from work, finding himself on a late 1800s train at a station at warm, peaceful, picturesque Willoughby, warmly greeted by all including conductor saying "This is Willoughby. It's July, 1888, it's a warm one. Willoughby, peaceful, restful, where a man can slow down to a walk, live his life full measure. You oughtta try it sometime". After failing to get off and waking up in his grim reality twice, he tells himself " next time, I'm getting off".

After more stress and getting yelled at ("Push!Push!Push!" by his boss again) at work, telling his wife he cannot handle his job anymore and her reaction being her leaving him, he gets back on the commuter train and plans to go back to Willoughby, this time one-way.

Rod Sterling didn't make clear on what Willoughby really was, I think he left that up for the viewer to decide. I'm an afterlife believer, and I think that Willoughby was heaven to Gart. When he "dreamt" of Willoughby the first two times, he actually had two near death experiences on the train, but he then came out of them. They happened because his heart had gotten so run down and weak from so much termoil, which he really felt right after leaving his job each day, and his heart almost gave out twice and he had two NDEs. The third time, his heart failed completely and he passed away, and he entered Willoughby, or Heaven to stay. This is how I see it; Only Gart's soul saw Willoughby. Each time Gart's soul saw Willoughby from inside the Willoughby train, his body was still on the commuter train and was still a little bit alive. When Gart's soul was getting off the Willoughby train, it was at the exact same time his body was jumping off the commuter train. His body passed away the second he jumped off the commuter train (even the commuter train conductor mentioned that), and every moment after that, his dead body was lying on the ground while his soul was walking from the Willoughby train into Willoughby being very happy to be there. He went to a pleasant afterlife because Gart really was a good person, a good soul who put up with a lot of hardship (his job, wife, and bad health) he didn't deserve. I don't believe in heaven in the old Christian sense, we don't float around clouds playing harps. I believe that heaven can be different for different souls, for Gart's soul, it was Willoughby. For someone else's soul, it may be a different kind of peaceful land, could be mountains, oceans, it would be whatever makes that particular soul happiest.

"The fever" was not one of the better TZ episodes. It was another Vegas gambling episode. The other Vegas episode, "Prime mover", where gambler Joey has the friend who can move things with his eyes, and he starts moving dice with his eyes and helps Joey win big money. The term "One armed bandit" is said in that episode as well as in this one.

In this episode, Alfred and wife Gladys have won an all expenses paid trip to Vegas, much againced Alfred's will, who hates gambling and is very miserable and grumpy being there. Alfred sort of looks like a cross between a miserable, bitter Doc Brown and James Caan's character in movie "Honeymoon in Vegas" (who was also a Vegas gambler in that movie, sort of ironic, eh?). Alfred blows up at Gladys for placing one lousy coin into the slot machine, but then soon decides to frequent excessively a slot machine himself. However, I do understand how those slot machines can turn non gamblers into gamblers even when initially gambling was the last thing they were interested in doing (those 1950s slot machines sure looked ancient compared to today's, there wasn't any buttons to push to make it go, just the handle, and none of those musical like sounds like from today's machines, just old type-writer style noises).

Alfred certainly gets very addicted to the one armed bandit, and Gladys simply cannot pull him away. His anger grows even more intense, yelling at the machine for "stealing his money" and knocking it to the ground, getting him carried out of the room by bouncers. He then starts getting illusions of the slot machine chasing him, quite frankly shown in a ridiculous way along with the ridiculous sounding voice calling his name. "SPOILER" The last part of the episode is also shown in such a ridiculous style with the bandit pushing Alfred out the window to his death. And the particular style of how Alfred backs onto the Window and falls and the particular style of Gladys's scream when he fell was quite weird and stupid.

This classic Simpsons ep is great. The Lisa/Malibu Stacy part is really good, so is the Grampa part. The Lisa part's another of the typical righteous Lisa stories, but it has some pretty funny jokes thrown in such as Smithers being revealed to have the biggest Malibu Stacy collection, and the very funny joke of Smithers' screen when his computer's turned on with naked Mr. Burns' "Hello Smithers, you're quite good at turning me on". Smithers to Lisa: "you should probably just ignore that". Hilarious.

I also liked the senior Malibu Stacy inventor, who's become a hermit (and kept a kid's frisbee on her roof for 9 years), but still has a sweet side to her nature and really cares for Lisa's concerns about Malibu Stacy encouraging air- headed flimflam. That includes the following saying "Dont ask me, I'm just a girl. Heehee heehee", and the doll repeating Marge's "helpful" advice to Lisa's righteous concerns about Malibu Stacy by saying "let's forget our troubles with a big bowl of strawberry icecream. Heehee heehee". The company executives at the Malibu Stacy factory were not real understanding to Lisa's concerns, and I found amusing the funny film strip about the doll and repeating Lisa's doll's comment "Don't ask me, I'm just a girl. Heehee heehee", and the filmstrip narrator saying " hehe, she sure is". Then, also funny, one of the executives right in front of Marge and Lisa telling a female co worker "hey Jiggles, grab a pen and march that butt on in here" Female worker: "oh, get away, heehee" Executive: "ah, don't act like you don't like it", then female worker shutting door with her butt. Marge also reveals that Lisa did the same type of righteous complaining at the Keebler company and threw paint on the executives there. Lol. I wonder what Lisa's righteous problem was with the Keebler stuff? And Lisa's righteousness also got Bart's picture in the paper at the gay right's parade (for added laughs, under the gay rights parade article with Bart's picture, they should've added another headline saying "local boy gets beat up after parade", because Bart got beat up by Jimbo and Nelson after marching in the gay rights parade. I just made that up).

The Grampa parts were hilarious. Grandpa's rant during the family trip to the mall including Grampa saying "on Thanksgiving, we had a turkey, which we used to call a 'walking bird', and we with it we had all the trimmings, cranberries, gravy, and yams stuffed with gunpowder". And on ride home Grampa rattling on "I'm thirsty. Ohh, what smells like mustard? There sure a lot of ugly people in your neighborhood. Ohh, my glaucoma just got worse. The president's a demmycrat", so funny the way those random comments were all said one after another without giving anyone a second to respond. Grandpa's always been good at that. Other funny moments with Grampa were everyone avoiding him, Homer tripping over the phone trying to sneak behind him unseen, Grampa asking Homer "does my withered old face remind everyone of the reaper of death?" Homer: Yes, and there's more. You're my dad and I love you, but you're a weird, sore headed old cook and no one likes ya". Then Grampa getting a job, us seeing just Grampa with headphones and speaker on: "mayday, mayday, come in, please repeat yourself", then it being revealed an irritated guy at drive through at Krusty Burger: "I said I want French fries!" Then Grampa calling his 20 year old boss "old man Peterson" and saying as soon as he leaves "now we can slack off", but no one else listening. Then Grampa losing his false teeth to someone's burger and them repeating what Grampa said before losing his teeth to the burger " hey! This sandwich took a bite outta me!". It was all a funny episode.

This is the better of the two early 90s films about a love struck fiancé who loses his woman over a gambling debt or money situation. I didn't like "Indecent proposal" as much, this one's better.

Jack (Nick Cage) is lucky to have Betsy (Sarah Jessica Parker). She was beautiful back in 1992, had great curves and a beautiful golden tan. This was her pre "Sex in the city" days, a show I never got into.

The opening was both sad and kind of creepy, an understandably sad, difficult situation Jack watching his mother die right in front of him, her last words being "don't ever get married". Then, I found it creepy, re- showing his mother's face the moment she died as the first picture of the comic cartoon film credits introduction. They re-showed that picture for comic effect, which I found bad taste. I don't dislike the cartoon intros in general though. The late 1980s and early 1990s seemed to be a time when comical cartoon intros were common in PG, PG13 movies, including both "City slickers" films, "Don't tell mom, the babysitter's dead", " Ruthless people" "Mannequin", and others.

Betsy wants to marry Jack, who keeps backing out due to his mother's dying words. Jack's job is secretly taking photos of men's girlfriends/wives who are suspected cheating on them. This includes a guy who says his wife is hooking up with Mike Tyson (lol). Jack poses as a street vendor waiting for suspected parties. He's also a regular amateur card player for stakes and makes sporting events bets with his dentist/ bookie friend Sal, both things Betsy was getting tired of Jack doing.

Finally, Jack insists on going with Betsy to Vegas to marry, Betsy's delighted. They get there, have a romantic session in their Vegas Bally hotel suite, and then Jack decides to play poker and once again procrastinate the wedding. Betsy has already been getting tired of his constant gambling back home. The game is pre arranged by Tommy Corman (James Cann) who sees Betsy who looks identical to his late wife (funny comment when Tommy sees Jack and Betsy totally making out in the lobby and says "there's no way they're married"). Tommy immediately gets obsessed with her,and sets the whole game up so he can use being with her as Jack's penalty for losing his hand in the game (which he's already so sure will happen). The game was definitely set up, and even though the movie doesn't make it 100% clear, I'm sure Tommy winning was set up too. Jack and Betsy still thought that the game was random at that point and Jack just got unlucky, they knew the debt had to be paid and Betsy knew she had to go along with it. It was Vegas, gambling is gambling, and they knew they couldn't welch. But what Tommy really did was psychotic, and they hadn't learned that yet.

Betsy's reluctance to go with Tommy sure lessened when going to his lush Beach house in Kawii, Hawaii (even though Betsy grew tired quickly of Tommy talking Hawaiian, telling him "you can knock off the Hawaiian now" after only his second time of saying a Hawaiian phrase). Jack's rage shot up through everything going on. He yelled a lot, but he had a hell of a situation (even though he made a bad choice playing in that poker game).

Then Jack runs back to New York (blowing up at the frantic guy crying about his wife being with Mike Tyson, but Jack was even more frantic), then he flies to Kuaii running all over the island never quite reaching Betsy. Once he almost does but Tommy tackles him on a golf field at night then immediately turns over onto his back when the police come making it look like Jack attacked him. After the cops take Jack away only 50 yards from where Betsy was gazing out into the ocean, she says "funny, I thought I could hear voices in the wind, like in Whethering heights, and the voice sounded like Jack's".

Pat Norita (the only time I ever saw him in anything besides Mr. Miyagi in the "The Karate kid" films and on "Happy days") as Mahi Mahi, "just like the fish" Jack says. Mahi's specifically instructed to keep him away from Tommy and therefore insists on taking him anywhere but. This takes us to a funny scene with Jack visiting "Cheif Orman's" simple island shack. Jack's still yelling a lot, but how would you've felt in his shoes? Everything Tommy did to him was lowdown, sleazy, and heartless (he was never presented as a decent guy from the start when grabbing, twisting the Bally manager's nether regions when he couldn't reserve his suite). Mahi eventually learned what Tommy's done to Jack, how he set up the whole poker game just to steal his fiancé, lied to her to further convince her not to go back to him (such as telling her he lost only $3,000 instead of the $64,000 it really was), ordered him to keep Jack away from her, and then announced his going back to Vegas to marry Betsy. Mahi now felt sorry for Jack and dropped the charges of him stealing his cab.

Jack flies back to the mainland, but due to no direct flights to Vegas, he flies to Amarillo, Texas where he runs into the flying Elvis Presley skydivers boarding a plane to fly over Vegas where they're all to parachute out. Jack joins them, are there are some funny moments when he's with all them (Elvis skydiver to Jack: "pull the yellow than red cord. Jack: "what if I get flustered and accidentally pull red than yellow?" Elvis skydiver: "then you're gonna look like a well done chilliburger and they'll have to scoop you off the strip").

This was definitely one of my numerous childhood memory movies from the 1980s along with "Back to the future", "The breakfast club", "Ferris bueler", "Caddyshack", The "Karate kid" films, and the "National Lampoon vacation" films. And many others.

"Back to School" and Rodney Dangerfield went together like cake and icing. The movie would obviously not been the same without him, it would've then been another quirky raunchy college comedy.

I liked Rodney's (Thorton Melon's) tough friend Lou (Burt Young, who also played a tough "you better not mess with me" character in "Rocky"). Lou didn't hesitate to take care of a bully picking fights in a bar. Even Thornton's son's friend Robert Downey Jr. cries to Lou during the fight "where you been Lou? I've been getting my a** kicked all over this bar!" Downey did toughen up some in later years, but not always in good ways.

Thornton's son Jason was played by Keith Gordon, another one-hit wonder actor that I never remembered from any other movies. Jason complains how he only got onto the diving team and the fraternity because Pops bought his way onto it all, which was true. Before that, he was no one special to anyone really and shared a little dorm room with his only friend Downy. Jason didn't make the team due to the coach (Emett Walsh) saying he wasn't that good. Rodney has Jason dive doing the "two and a half", which does flawlessly, causing the coach to reconsider his opinion. Thorton also reminds him about his legendary dive "the triple lindy", which the coach once saw not knowing it was Thorton.

Thornton was a man with money from owning his "Tall and fat" stores ("well, you're short and ugly" Thornton tells a wise** kid who points out that he's "Tall and fat"). Thornton really did buy a lot of Jason's newfound success, including hiring a work team to do his and Jason's homework, much to Jason's dispair and his dad then retorting "kids, they always wanta do it the hard way". Also a funny joke is that Thorton hires 'the' Kurt Vahnaghan himself to write his term paper on Kurt Vahnaghan, leading to another funny joke when Thornton's told by sultry teacher Sally Kellerman that "whoever wrote that paper doesn't know the first thing on Kurt Vahnaghan".

Thorton takes a "drinks for everybody" approach at the university, according to Roger Ebert. That he does. He buys everybody's schoolbooks who's present at the college store, he hires staff to do his and Jason's homework, he hires Oinga Boinga themselves to perform live at his frat house party (and pays the police to bring the beer, much to stuffy teacher Paxton Whithead's dismay), and he dedicates a wing at the college to himself while getting dirt thrown on Paxton with the ceremonial shovel.

Thorton paying Jason's way also gets attention of the obnoxious William Zabka character, he tells Jason at the swim meet "your father already bought your way onto the swim team, I'm sure he bought off the judges too". Zabka does not play the same kind of menacing bully in this movie that he played in "Karate kid" and "Just one of the guys". Here he plays more of a yuppie snob, and Jason is actually the one that punches him, and Zabka never even hits him back or comes back onto him later about it. It was kinda like the tables had turned here on Zabka.

I also like the classroom scenes and still find them funny. The late Sam Kinneson going "Ahhhhhhh!!!! Aaaaaahhhh!!!!". The sultry Kellerman (who Thorton very keenly starts dating) who reads a romantic poem with Thorton almost unknowingly standing up in class saying aloud " yes!! yes!!!" Then the stuffy Paxton Whithead's business class teaching how to build a business from the ground up and Thorton, who has a lot of hands on experience in the business world and is rich "Tall and fat" business owner himself, corrects Paxton making him look bad at every turn. Also is the "what's a widget?" line. Answer being "a fictional product, it doesn't matter". They should've waited another 20-30 years to mention that one in the world of the internet. No longer a fictional product and widgets do matter.

One of the first, but not the last awful Simpsons episode unfortunately. However, the Simpsons did make it through 7 seasons before ever having an episode I truly thought was terrible. Unfortunately, dreadful episodes would happen again more often every year after season 8. By season 14, there were episodes where characters including Homer started babbling nonsensically for no good reason, or characters would act in almost a deliberately annoying way without adding any real wit or humor to their acting whatsoever. Think of some of the characters in Mike Meyer's "Cat in the hat" (such as the cleanliness boss or the cat himself) and you get the idea. This is what became out of a show that once had such real amusing wit, insights, and parodies in it for 7 fantastic years.

The biggest things that made "The principal and the pauper" horrible was 1), the disruption of a character that had been so well developed. A cardboard, stuffed shirt principal who disliked unrulyness and unorderliness, and sometimes Bart Simpson, well the Bart/Skinner relationship was not all bad, but more love/hate. The love/hate thing was really brought out in Skinner's temporary being fired from Springfield elementary in "Sweet Skinner's badaaasss song". Skinner's nervous relationship from his sneering, begrudging Superintendent Chalmers and his "it's always somehow Skinner's fault" attitude towards him, and his always yelling "SKINNER!!" Then there's Skinner's Vietnam history, Skinner's controlling and permanently live- in smother, I mean mother, and numerous previous Simpsons episodes developing Skinner's history with his school, family, etc. All of it which was now completely disrupted.

Now maybe, MAYBE, we could've excused all of this if they made the whole imposter story very compelling and interesting. But they not only failed to do that, but the writers did it all in a pretty awful way too. I did not care for the "real" Skinner character in this episode at all, even if the kind of character he played here was in another episode without any connection to any of this messed up story. The flashback with Skinner, or "Armanium" who Skinner "really" was now (don't expect me not to use quote/ unquotes when mentioning any of this), was not even played out in a nice way. The flashback with "Skinner" telling "Armanium" how he so desperately longs for "scrapin knees and spelling bees" and saying "if that's corny, then corn me up!" That was kind of creepy. And then just simply everything from Skinner's (or Armanium's (whatever!?)) mother's reaction, the Simpson's reaction, and all of Springfield's reactions were just all played out so poorly without any interesting or good moments with any of it. And then seeing Skinner say "up yours Springfield" was not just so totally out of character for him, but the stiff, unconvincing cardboard way he said it too just made the scene even more uncomfortable. Also the stiff, unconvincing way he said how he used to be a "no good street punk". Or seeing him put on a leather jacket and jump onto that motorcycle. Just the whole way the writers put all of it together was so completely wrong and awkward in every way.

Then the ending (I'd write "spoiler" here, but after the huge horrible Simpsons show spoiler of this episode, I seriously doubt that anyone reading this will really care now), the ending just placed the final touch of horribleness with the whole town of Springfield with Homer in the lead tying the " real" Skinner to a train and sending him permanently out of town. The "real" Skinner saying how he saved lives in Vietnam and Homer sarcastically saying "and God loves you for it. Bye, don't come back" and the whole town cheering as he is carried away. Terrible. Terrible.

Then the Springfield prosecuting judge has the entire town sign an affidavit swearing to never mention any of this again? Uh, it's too late for that now for all of us loyal Simpsons fans. A better move would've been to just have never aired this enormous mistake of an episode.

If the Simpson's team was at that point going to have any chance of redeeming themselves now after this atrocity, they should've at least made this whole episode someone's dream. But they didn't, and it's too late to do anything about it now.

This is the second episode, well more than the second time, but the second episode where the main episode theme was the rivalry between Homer and Flanders ("Damn Flanders!"). A saying commonly under Homer's breath but also funnily under Reverand Lovejoy's breath too in this ep. This is also the second episode where Ned does one of his frantic emergency calls too Lovejoy with Lovejoy murmering under his breath about how Ned won't stop bothering him about stupid little things (the background to this issue between them is explored more deeply in further down the road season 7 episode "In Marge we trust" when Reverand explains to Marge, the church's new "listen lady", about how Ned has been hounding him for years. We get a background montage of Ned's nonstop calls to Lovejoy over nonstop trivial matters, one funny one being "I swallowed a toothpick!" and one even funnier one being "I was talked into doing this dance called the bump, and then my butt accidentally touched the butt of another man!").

In this ep, where Homer so badly wants to avoid Ned that he avoids going to Ned's backyard BBQ, and going to a BBQ is something very hard for Homer to resist, especially when the smells from the cooking burgers almost literally carry him over to Ned's backyard and Homer finally walks over there and grabs a plateful of burgers without any interest whatsoever in socialising and starts stuffing himself. Then Ned presents a roast chicken, his new job opening his Leftorium (the first time and far from the last time of that place being mentioned or showed in Simpson episodes), and the wishbone pull between Ned and Homer. Homer pulls off the biggest half much to his delight and secretly wishes for Ned's " stupid" Leftorium to close as we see in Homer's wish bubble. Then his wish bubble of Ned losing his home, and then for a moment Ned's tombstone but Homer quickly decides "no, too far". That's something I liked about the Simpsons, they had their limits on how mean they were to make their characters, and wishing death on someone was a step too far. More recent 21st century shows like " Family guy" probably would've showed someone's tombstone wish bubble then had him enjoy that thought and stay with it.

As the ep continues, Bart decides to take karate, and while Homer takes Bart to his class at the mall, he relishes in Ned's empty Leftorium store, laughs about it at home, and refuses to tell other left-handed people he knows about Ned's store, including Moe who longs for a left handed cork screw, and Mr. Burns who longs for a left handed can opener. I liked the dinner table scene where Homer laughs about Ned's store being deserted, and Lisa, referring to Homer, uses the German term "schadenfreude" meaning one taking pleasure in the misfortune of others (then Lisa saying "sour grapes" was the opposite of "schadenfreude" and Homer responding "boy, those Germans have a word for everything"). Later though, when Ned's store really gets its business threatened, Homer stops laughing and is hit with guilt. Homer gathers other Springfieldians to chip in to help Ned. The ending had a good homage from the great 1940's film "It's a wonderful life".

I love the Twilight zone. And it's not as much the episodes about monsters, aliens, and space travel that really make it amazing (I always found "To serve man" overrated and far from my very favorite) It's the surreal themes such as time travel, becoming young again, escaping to a better places, entering the afterlife, coming back from the dead, and magic that really make the Twilight Zone so wonderfully outstanding to me.

In "100 yards over the rim", Cliff Roberts, his wife and small child, and a couple other families of early 1800s covered wagon travelers are starving, dehydrated, and sick. Their son has pneumonia. They're tired of not being able to find enough food, water, and protection from the elements (weather, diseases, etc.). Then, as the title implies, Cliff walks over a rim, expecting to only find further vast emptiness and nothing different from what they've already encountered, which is what he would've found if he remained in the early/ mid 19th century.

However, over the rim he encounters a world very strange and unfamiliar to people of his time. A world of utility poles, trucks, gas stations, electricity, air conditioning, clean and ample water to drink, and effective medicine. He meets John Crawford and his wife Mary Lou, who own the gas station/cafe Cliff enters in the new world of 1960 he's in. And in spite of all the traveling he's already encountered, embarks on a new sort of adventure never experienced before.

Of course, there's the expected "I don't believe this stranger who seems to be just a dehydrated delirious desert traveler" reaction from the 1960 locals, but it's all done well. Cliff looks very convincingly bewildered by all he now sees around him. How would you react to pylons, trucks, and modern amenities if you were seeing them all for the very first time ever at age 35 or 40? Bewildered first but then amazed. Getting ahold of plentiful clean water in Arizona (or the territory that was to become Arizona) and penicillin (of course once learning what it can do) would've been a miracle to 1840s covered wagon travelers. The medicines that people made and took for illnesses back in those days were usually either almost useless or worked somewhat but made you more sick in other ways. What could anyone do? It was the best people had ever been able to come up with way back then. But the penecillin Cliff obtains is for his son (and he discovers another possible surprise about his son in the future). If Cliff can get back. And back then, aside from indians, ancient war declaring indians, there was almost no civilization or any real towns out west besides other settlers (such as Lewis and Clark, this was their era). No one could've possibly imagined the world that was to one day come out there. How 100 years into the future from the 1840s would've been a world called Hollywood, with studios and films being made for people everywhere to watch. This was a great episode.

They just don't make em like they use to. After Burns getting shot inspite of carrying his own gun now after being attacked in his office by an 'unidentified assailant' (Homer: "d'oh!"), he was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, he was then taken to a better hospital where doctors upgraded his condition to 'alive' (maybe Burns was having a NDE while at the first hospital). We see Smithers wake up twice with a mouthful of cigarette butts. The first time, he dreams he wakes up. He then opens the shower door on Burns and he doesn't even seem to mind. Of course this was Smithers' dream and we know about his feelings for Burns, so I'm sure in real life, Burns would've minded if Smithers opened the shower door on him. Before Smithers wakes up for real when we see his second time with cigarette butts in his mouth, we get a "Dallas, who shot J.R." and "Mod squad" parody included in Smithers' dream.

The whodunnit plot then begins which plays out similar to a classic Alfred Hitchcock mystery case, it was very good indeed. I like the part around the Simpson table where everyone is pointing out a possible reason for each person being mad at Burns before he was shot. One funny example: Lisa: "Dad, you sorta went berserk when Burns couldn't remember your name". Homer: "BESERK IS RIIIGGHHT!!!!". Next funny jokes: (Grampa (after everyone realizing Smithers probably shot him): "Case closed, Smingers did it, I'm going to the outhouse". Lisa: " we don't have an outhouse". Homer: "My toolshed!" As Homer is hosing out his toolshed, Moe, Barney, and the boys invite Homer to help tear down Burns' sunblocker, Homer: "I'm a coming, I've had it up to here with these rickets!" (We don't see Homer's rickets again after that moment, and that was a better choice from the writers than showing Homer with rickets the whole rest of episode). Then, when the sunblocker's torn out, we get a crushed Shelbyville and Springfield cheering joke.

As well as the jokes, we progress with the investigation on who shot Burns. First Smithers is prime suspect, and he thought he did it in a drunken rage until finding out he shot Jasper's wooden leg (and Jasper not even remembering it). And I liked Smithers' joke after being arrested "I feel as low as Madonna when finding out she missed Tailhook (Tailhook was a fest where a bunch of Navy officers sexually harassed women)(if that kind of joke was made today, they probably would've used Miley Sirus's name instead of Madonna).

Later on, Homer's the prime suspect for shooting Burns after Simpson DNA is found on Burns' suite (after Chief Wiggum's bizarre backwards talking dream with Lisa and the flaming cards)(I also liked the little joke at the DNA lab where the lab tech told Wiggum that the DNA test will take 6-8 weeks until handed a case of cigarettes and then said the test will take 6-8 seconds). I enjoyed Lisa's reasoning on how the evidence of Homer shooting Burns was not as concrete as it seemed (and us seeing Homer reaching under the seat while driving when he dropped his ice cream cone, and while feeling for the ice cream, he touched something else that lead to Homer looking guilty to the police. And then Homer touched something else (something sticky) under the seat too that appeared in part of the picture of a crucial moment, with that sticky something also being connected to a saying mentioned earlier in this two-parter story).

I also liked "The fugitive" (with Harrison Ford) reference at the drive through window after arresting Homer.

Burns being shot at the end of part one when Burns leaves that town meeting alone and full of power, he sure seemed to own Springfield now. Even Snake (at the end of part one) didn't seem that bothered with trying to stop him (when Apu asks "where's that gun slinging lowlife when you need one?" Snake nonchalant: "sorry, I was in the can"). I liked Burns' bringing up Smithers' early dispute about taking candy from babies, then without Smithers around anymore, he tries it and discovers the old saying was misleading (remember episode "Rosebud" where Burns didn't have the strength to take Bobo away from Maggie).

I loved this film too, along with the other Broadway Melody films and many other 1930s and 1940s films of this ilk.

Navy sailors Ted (James Stewart), Mush (Buddy Ebson), and Gunny Saks (Sid Silvers) stop in Port in New York for a break, Ted is the only one granted a few day leave of the three. Mush and Gunny are given an order by Captain (Raymond Walburn)to deliver a letter across town to the Brooklyn Navy yard, but get sidetracked by going into the Lonely hearts club where Gunny's estranged wife Jenny (Una Merkel) is staying. Gunny's actually the strange one according to Jenny. Ted meets also Lonely hearts newcomer Nora (Eleanor Powell) while there and romance takes off beautifully as they merge into one of my favorite songs of the film "I'm nuts about you", with Mush and the beauty he meets (Frances Langford) who are also falling for each other while they're all singing and dancing, I loved it. Other favorite songs of the film were Ted and Nora's version of "Easy to love" in the park (very good, I also loved "Easy to love" sung in two Esther Williams films in the 1940s), and Broadway actress Lucy James' (Virginia Bruce's) version of "I got you under my skin" (her version came before Frank Sinatra's version, but his version became more well known). When Lucy and Ted were getting together under the order of Virginia's show director Alan Dinehart, Ted broke Nora's heart in the process since she didn't know that Ted was being ordered by Alan to go out with Lucy, Nora just though Ted had chose to ditch her for Lucy. I found sort of funny when Lucy brought her little Pekenese on board the ship, sang a quirky little tune about him, then the dog jumping into the water and the entire Navy jumping in to get it. Ted beat everyone else to it. That's why Ted was ordered by Alan to accompany Lucy.

I enjoyed the quirkyness in this film, the Captain had a comical attitude. For instance he would yell to Gunny and Mush after failing to deliver that letter "do you know what this means!!?", Gunny: "no". Captain: " Do you!!?". Mush: "no". Then Captain suddenly more calmly: "well, there you are then", then yelling again "Put Saks in the brig!!"

Jenny certainly didn't treat Gunny well, but I guess a lot of wives would be bitter after just so newly being married, the two of them first engaging in a marathon dance and then him running off into the Navy for four years. Gunny was gone so long that he never even met his 4 year old daughter.

The subplot with Lucy and Ted, with Eleanor being her understudy was OK, but Lucy's attitude got a little bit too nasty to keep her likable. I loved Virginia Bruce in "The great Ziegfeld" and her musical numbers in that film were great, especially the wonderful "You're really looking beautiful tonight". But even there, she had a temperamental side such as when she yelled and smashed Ziegfeld's (William Powell's) elephant statue. Speaking of "Powell", Eleanor Powell in this film was very nice. That first song of hers, "Rap-a- tap on wood" I liked and even found sort of amusing in one part, where it was the first time I ever heard someone say "Mickey mice". Eleanor did show her amazing dancing skills again just like in the Broadway melody" films and "Rosalie" which I also lived. And that layback then kick move of Eleanor's was amazing, and I read that it was so hard to do that very few dancers have mastered it besides her.

Also, a good number of the cast in this film was also in either "Broadway melody 36", " Broadway melody 38", or both

This is one of the all time best episodes from the great Simpsons seasons 2 - 7. This episode doesn't just have the typical great Simpsons humor and wit, but also a great mystery.

Starting with Skinner finding deceased gerbil "Superdude", Willie buries it groaning "ye looky ye gitten a decent berial, me own fatha was throon oot of the boot (boat)". Just then, Willie creates a sudden geyser of oil.

Many funny moments from then onwards: Superintendent Chalmers' "school, explosion, SKINNER!" rant. To Chalmers, it's always Skinner's fault if there's any kind of problem happening on the school grounds whether it was ever in Skinner's control or not. All of the different requests from the school about spending the oil money were amusing including Otto's double guitars, Ralph's chocolate microscopes, Willie's crystal mop bucket, Skinner's more rubber stamps, and funniest Lunch lady Doris' "kitchen staff complaining of mice in the kitchen, I want to hire a new staff", well it was the funniest until Smithers and Mr. Burns enters (disguised as Jimbo Jones) requesting to put the oil money towards the nuclear power plant, Skinner saying no, than Burns giving Skinner a thrashing Burns style (Burns' hitting somebody's equal to someone else lightly brushing somebody), which is a funny joke that's been used a number of times on the Simpsons. Then is Burns' progression of taking control of the oil and of Springfield in general until his diabolical scheme of blocking out the sun.

I like all the reasons the different Springfieldians have it in for Burns, especially of course Homer's reaction to Burns never remembering his name, first in the elevator in spite of Homer's name clearly printed on his name tag and hat. Second in Burns' office, and then when Homer sends Burns a box of chocolates (right after Burns tells Smithers how robbing oil from the school will be like taking candy from a baby). Then as Burns and Smithers eat the chocolates as each Simpson member of the photograph the chocolates were laying on top of were being revealed, Burns mentions a previous incident with each family member with each member's mentioned incident being from a previous Simpson episode (such as Bart being Burns' heir in "Burns' heir" or Maggie giving Burns his teddybear Bobo from "Rosebud"). Then when the only piece of chocolate uneaten was covering Homer's face on the photo, and Burns sends a thank-you card saying it's to every Simpson member except Homer. When Homer sees the card, we then get the one implication in the series of the f word being yelled by Homer (only the f sound being heard, the church organ sound, and the birds flying away was a good touch) and everyone outside the Simpson house standing and staring at it with Flanders saying " dear Lord, that was the loudest profanity I ever heard".

As the episode progresses, Skinner's forced to deny many people's oil money requests, and people's anger starts flying. Willie rips his shirt yelling he'll kill Burns and wound Smithers, Lisa's idol Tito Puente punches a hole in his drum, and Homer breaks into Burns' office spray painting his name on his office walls, only for Burns to have his goons carry him away and Burns still not knowing Homer's name (Homer:" oh you're dead Burns!!! ").

This great episode during the Simpsons Golden years, which ran from season 2 - season 7, is one of my long list of favorites. Otto, one of Bart's only friends (besides Milhouse) due to their things in common such as heavy metal, slacking off, not always wanting to abide by the rules but not going as far as to be a criminal like Snake or Fat Tony either.

This ep had many funny jokes. The Spinal Tap concert was a gag a minute (e.g. Band leader saying "we salute you, our half inflated dark Lord" after incompetent stage hands fail to blow up the devil balloon all the way. Then, "we were told that they know how to rock in Shelbyville" (audience boos),"but no one rocks like they do here (stops to look at "Springfield" sign on bottom of guitar) in Springfield. Then when the incompetent staff doesn't know how to turn up the houselights, "goodnight Springton, there will be no encore"). Then the audience breaks out into a riot since Spinal Tap was only on for 20 minutes, and that in itself was a reference to a real life Guns n roses concert where Axel Rose refused to preform any more that night due to a camera man in the audience, and as a result a big riot broke out in the audience.

I don't have room to write every funny bit so I'll just state my favorites. Before the concert, Homer telling Marge concerts never damaged his hearing, then cutting to Homer hearing a loud ringing and hardly hearing anything Marge was saying. Then Homer's eating in the car joke as Bart and Milhouse get out of car to go see the concert ("some of the best moments I ever had were in a car" (flashback of making us expecting something else but young Homer actually just pigging down on tons of food in his car). Then Homer after the concert realizing he forgot something, then cutting to Milhouse all beaten up lying under some chairs at the aftermath of the concert riot. Next morning, Bart brings guitar to school, Otto reveals he can really jam and he does so making them late for school, then he speeds recklessly to school. The caravan with Spinal Tap in it saying to each other "good concert last night", "yeh, quite good". That bit was hilarious due to the concert hardly being a good experience with them storming off the stage early and the riot breaking out, and second, Otto's speeding bus then knocking Spinal Tap's caravan off the road and it bursting into flames. I always find that reoccurring Simpsons joke hilarious with things unnecessarily bursting into flames, such as the Duff brewery episode where Chief Wiggum is in a Duff costume to catch drunk drivers, and is pushed off the road by Homer's car and Wiggum in the costume rolls into a tree and explodes into flames. Then I enjoyed the whole section of Otto losing his license and him being banned from driving the bus until he gets one (and starts wearing his own underwear. Lol). Next funny thing Principal Skinner driving bus, all the kids singing "hail to the bus driver", and Skinner finding it impossible to merge onto main road. Then a while later, Skinner (with 5 oclock shadow now and looking very disgruntled) still not being able to turn onto road, Ralph singing verse to " hail to bus driver" "he steps on the clutch and toilet goes flush", Skinner to Ralph: "Shut Up!!!". Then Otto being evicted from his apartment (and the landlord saying that all he had left in his apartment were a couple of Psycho magazines and a jar of mustard. Otto:" wow, I have mustard?"), then Otto playing guitar in the Simpson's garage and the tape recorder joke of Bart imitating Marge's voice (Marge: "that's not my voice" Homer: "oh, that's what everyone says when they hear their voice on tape"). That is true. Otto's similarities to Jim Morrison with his dad being an admiral and the two of them having an estranged relationship. Otto just lounging around the Simpson house (Marge: " Otto, you can't just sit around watching TV all day". Otto: "you know your right, I oughtta do a little reading, you have any Where's Waldo books"? Marge: "No. That's not what I meant. You need to get yourself another job". Otto: "I can't. All I ever knew how to do was driving the bus, now the man says I need a piece of paper to do that". Marge:" then get that piece of paper". Otto: "I tried. Oh Lord how I did try".)

Also good; Otto calling Homer Pop n fresh, poking him in belly, and Homer growling instead of giggling (also reference foreshadowing a later episode where Mr. Burns hepped up on ether mistakes Homer for Pop n fresh). Homer kicking Otto out for loafing, clogging drains, and scaring Lisa with scary stories where he claims he used to be an ax welding maniac, and Otto getting a lot more mad about Homer calling him a sponge than calling him a bum. And also great, the DMV scenes where Otto and Patty and Selma get along a lot better after they learn that he hates Homer (for throwing him out and treating him like garbage (linked to another joke in the episode where Homer says "ok, Otto can stay for a short time, but I get to treat him like garbage". Otto: " Wow, what's the catch?"), and also after Bart tells Otto he can stay in his garage (Otto:"a garage? Wow, somebody up there likes me").

What I like about some episodes of TZ are the surreal escapist appeal that really take you away to a different and peaceful or interesting place. "A stop at Willoughby" was a good example of that. This episode has some of that too, it's not as good as "Willoughby" but it has that intriguing escapist charm in the alternate dimension that the kids swim to from the bottom of their pool when trying to get away from the tension of their bickering parents. I did not like the parents much in this episode, the way they treated their kids, even yelling at them to "pipe down!" when they are only laughing and talking, and splashing a little water around. What kids don't do that? I know that to help make this kind of story effective, there needs to be an overbearing, unpleasant, nasty character, such as Gart's boss in "Willoughby" yelling "push!push!!push!!", or Gart's gold digging wife who was only with him for the money and couldn't care less about his actual feelings. So seeing the kids in this ep coming out the other side of the gateway between worlds into that tranquil and surreal lake by the peaceful looking cottage with Aunt T, it became easy for the viewer to believe that the kids would be happier there. The kids' parents were not nice, reasonable people, especially their mother. She was so spoiled and looked at her kids as nothing but an annoyance. And when they were telling their kids about how they were divorcing, and them getting irritated at their kids for acting upset? What kids wouldn't react upset to something like that? And the mother had the nerve to tell them "show us some consideration!" I did like the sequence of how the scenes of the episode played out, such as the scene where the parents were telling their kids they were divorcing, and then the kids jumping into the pool and disappearing. It was the first scene of the episode. Then the next scene where the kids and parents are all hanging outside the pool, and the viewers are probably thinking how that moment was after when they told the kids about the divorce and then them jumping into the pool and seemingly disappearing. And when they're next sitting by the pool, it appears at that moment that the kids quickly showed up again without any major issues after the parents were screaming about where they disappeared to. There are a couple surprises in the episode about what really happened in which sequence.

An interesting topic, a man who can change his face into the face he is looking at in a photograph. That makes for great advantage when being chased by a couple of gangsters or wanting to be loved by a beautiful woman who isn't attracted to "you" but is in love with a guy in a photo that you can morph into by looking at it. And the morphing only works if the picture is of someone who just died. Arch Hammer is the guy who has the mysterious morphing ability. First, Arch changes himself into a just deceased trumpet musician Johnny. When Arch sees Johnny's pianist singer girlfriend Beverly Garland at the cocktail lounge that Johnny played at, he gets a bit of a yen for her and studies Johnny's picture in the paper and transforms into him, knowing he can now spend a few minutes getting comfy with Beverly, and letting her know that "he didn't really die". Then one of Johnny's fellow trumpet players surprisingly sees "Johnny" and follows him out the door, holds out a light to him and is then told when revealing he's not Johnny "I'll take the light but you've got the wrong guy". Arch then morphs into a recently murdered gangster Virge Sterig and goes to the rival gangster who shot him and dumped him in a river. In the rival's apartment,"Virge" let's him have it and steals all his money. Virge looked like Ray Liotta and his outburst was quite similar to Ray's menacing styled outbursts in his 1980s/1990s films. Then when being chased by his rival's goons, Virge/Arch now morphs into a recently deceased boxer Andy Marshak who's bitter dad has it in for him for abandoning the family.

SPOILER BELOW

Andy/Arch gets shot by his dad and we see his face change into each character, well almost each character seen throughout the episode as he's laying on the ground dying. That particular part was not played out as well as it could've and it seems like they showed two of the guys twice and never showed one of them at all in the face changing while lying on the ground dying scene. Also, at the beginning of the episode, we see a guy Arch changes into while he's looking into a mirror, shaving. That guy is not seen again, plus it would make it five different guys all together and there's supposed to be four due to the name of this episode. The four guys are trumpet player Johnny, gangster Virge, boxer Andy, and Arch himself. Then I thought for a minute does Arch count as one of the four since he's the original, then I realized yes he does because Arch dies too at the end of the episode and the episode is called "The four of us are dying". So I don't know who that fifth guy was they showed, that was sort of a flaw. But the rest of the episode played out pretty well, and this ep was a new and interesting idea not shown before in the TZ series, and that is good.

I like the actress (Diana Hyland) that plays the girl in this episode. Diana was also in TZ ep "Two" where she and one man are the only people left after a war and are roaming the empty streets of the city together. In this ep, Diano is riding her horse in the country when chased by a mysterious screaming woman in black. Very frightened by it back at her home, we see she lives in quite a big, wealthy, nice house. Then her ex barges in, not to the likings of Diana, and definitely not to the likings of her rich aristocrat father, badgering her to come back to him. Her dad, who sort of looked like and reminded me of Daddy Warbucks from "Annie", along with Diana's present fiancé by his side, gets right on him to get out of their house and out of their lives. Due to having a listening problem, he pulls out a gun to get him out of there. I liked how when he finally left, Diana's fiancé says " I almost feel sorry for him", and her dad replies with a smile "but not quite, right?". Fiancé: "right, not quite". Dad: "I think it's time for a good, stiff, drink". Speaking of drinks, we then cut to about 25-30 years into the future where we see a noticeably aged Diana knocking back liquor and showing us how she has now become a bitter, middle aged, alcoholic. Her mom, who was in the earlier scene with Diana's dad and the whole ex and gun situation, is now also looking noticeably older and a lot more bitter than before. We learn how Diana's dad has now passed on, and that they are bitter because of how badly he spoiled them for so many years.The writers of this episode did an excellent job with makeup of making them look convincingly aged. It just makes me wonder why they didn't do this with TZ ep " sixteen millimeter shrine" when they made the main character Barbara Dean Trenton look exactly the same in her 30 years later scenes from her earlier scenes. That was the one problem that kept that ep from really being good. Oh well, the writers learned from that error in this ep. We also see that 40 something year old Diana ended up marrying the ex, who also looks a lot older, the guy that her dad chased away with a gun 25-30 years earlier. It's there where I assumed that Diana's dad had not only spoiled her, but controlled her, and it was him that forced her to be with that other yuppie fiancé instead of the ex that he chased out with a gun. We then see another scene from years ago when Diana runs from her fiancé to jump into the arms of her ex, and we learned who she really loved. I do understand though why Diana and her mother are so bitter, spending years being spoiled and controlled by someone, and then them passing away leaving them stranded can definitely mess someone up.

SPOILER BELOW

The mysterious screaming woman in black at the beginning of the ep was Diana's older self who apparently traveled back in time to scare her young self away from making the wrong choices. There are definitely better ways she could've approached her instead of screaming like a crazy woman, but that kind of is what she became, she was not too stable anymore, and was also drunk at the time since we saw her knocking back liquor right before jumping on her horse to go back into time to find her 19 year old self. This ep also did not show us how the middle aged Diana went back in time, we saw no machines or mechanisms. I suppose this was sort of like TZ ep "Walking distance" where you could just simply be walking through an invisible time change window and then you're there in the earlier time.

The second and third Die Hard movies were better than the first. I rated 2 and 3 an 8 and the first one a 6. "Three" was great with Samuel Jackson and Jeremy Irons as "Simon", the nursery rhyme cracking psycho.

The second film is great with the addition of "NYPD blue"'s tough, temperamental, no nonsense Dennis Franz. Bruce Willis is his usual tough wise cracking cop who is always either on vacation or suspension, and his marriage to Holly (Bonnie Bedella) is always on the rocks.The bad guy here is William Atherton who's hungry to have a huge Christmas Eve power trip controlling Washington DC's Dullus airport. They plug in their communications network at a nearby church, of course after murdering the caretaker there. William and his men have a soft spot for South American dictator Franco Nero (who does look like Fadel Castro, Roger Ebert was right) who's getting transported to the USA for major drug smuggling charges. William, in order to free his buddy,is willing to hold up the entire airport,leave planes circling for hours including Holly's plane, and cause a plane full of innocent English passengers (since when does an English narrow bodied plane fly to the US?) to crash (I don't like how they made the passengers and attendants on that plane so pleasant and nice when two minutes later were a fiery death).I like how on Holly's plane, smarmy,annoying passenger William Sadler, who the flight attendants can't stand, re unites with Holly after a previous incident. Flight attendant to Holly: " what did you do to him?" Holly: "I knocked out two of his teeth". Attendant: " champagne?" I liked that. I also liked a lot of the action with Willis and his enemies at Dullus, first in the baggage handling areas, there were several shootouts, and a very narrow escape from a grounded plane with fresh grenades just thrown in and Willis catapulting straight up into the air on a parachuted ejector seat.

I also liked the back and forth banter between Willis and Franz (some of it really played out like an "NYPD blue" episode). Franz did not like a badass with an L.A. badge preforming his own style of active duty in his airport. Franz tells Willis off in his office after gunning it out with a couple of bad guys, and does not care that Willis was only shooting in self defense. He tells him "you're in my little pond now,and I'm the big fish who runs it". Willis then in the control tower, fails to convince Franz and the control tower head that there's a plot going on. Then when they all see the runway lights shut off and they get a dictation over the intercom from the terrorist about his demands, everyone can now see what's really happening. But instead of Franz acknowledging to Willis he made a mistake by not believing him, he just pushes him away saying "we got a first class unit, SWAT team and all, we don't need no Monday morning quarterback!" Like he told him before, that LA badge didn't mean s*** in his airport.

There's also the annoyingly over chatty Washington D.C. press news anchor who gets the same words from each person she comes to with her microphone when she says "just give me two words", the words in response being " f***" and "off". It is annoying that while during a terrorist crisis, you don't want some bubbly news anchor coming to you chatting your ear off. She even says to Willis at one point "who-y who?" after not hearing a name Willis mentions. Overly talkative people seem to want to not just increase the amount of words they say but also embellish their words like saying "who-y- who" instead of just "who" or "givetty- give" instead of just "give". I've meet overly chatty people in real life who do that, and it does annoy some people.

I did like Willis saying while showing his ring finger "just the fax" to a pretty woman offering to take him out for a drink, after helping him fax some papers to L.A., to his Twinkie eating friend who was seen doing just that several times in "Die hard 1". I also noticed the addition of what's his name, the cop who gave Willis a parking ticket at the beginning of the movie playing his usual wise*** character.

Very good and old fashioned, and old fashioned is a good word to me. A simple 1920s small southern town where the locals genuinely feel that when a body dies and comes back, it means a roaming spirit took over the body. The locals fear it was a bad spirit in this ep. Jeff Myrtlebank shocks everybody when he comes back to life, even back then, people knew once a body died, it couldn't come back. I don't mean a soul, that does not die, I mean a body. A soul cannot take over a body unless the body itself is capable of coming to life (meaning an embryo or newborn) or else souls would be able to take over deceased bodies all the time. Anyway, Ma and Pa and little sister and Jeff's girlfriend Comfort (who initially did not feel equivalent to her name when she first saw Jeff come back) were shocked. After the initail shock, they were blessed and happy about it, that is until they noticed some new changes in him. Jeff now becomes a hard laborer (Ma: "he is always fiddlin with things now, he never rests anymore") and a good fighter now (Townsmen to Comfort's brother after Jeff whoops him: "Jeff never got the better of you before!"). Pa pays attention to details about how many eggs he eats at breakfast, even little details stop looking so little next to bigger ones I reckon. Jeff's little sister blabs to a couple of other kids her age about Jeff, who then tells their family, who gets on the phone and passes it on to others. Comfort loses comfort when realizing Jeff touching roses causes them to immediately perish. I suppose that detail might've been what caused the locals to think it was a bad spirit that took over. Just think in TZ ep "Pitch for the angels" when the devil touches those flowers and they immediately died when he was trying to convince Ed Wynn he was death. I like when right after the locals gang on him to leave town, and Jeff puts them in a corner, he says if they're not nice to him, he will bring a swarm of locusts to their crops or burn their barns. Very good old time watching.

DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ

。 ANY SPOILERS

"Jacob's ladder" is very powerful, intriguing, and dramatic. It really makes you think. Jacob is in Vietnam sitting at his camp.with rest of his platoon just shooting the s***. Suddenly the camp is seemingly invaded by enemy platoon. Everyone flips out all crazy like I never even seen before, one guy seizuring out on his back, several guys with limbs graphicly severed off. Jacob runs off into the jungle and is brutully.stabbed by what seemingly then was an enemy soldier. This is where the very eerie, ullusionary visions and hallucinations begin on screen for the audience. Seemingly, we are then flash forwarded in time to after the war where Jacob is no longer with his wife and kids as he was before the war. He's living with a girl from his post office job, Jezzie (Elizabeth Pina). He keeps getting flashbacks (frightening ones) from the war, and (pleasant ones) from his marriage and his kids including his deceased son Mackuely Culkan, who was run over by a truck while on his bike right before going to Vietnam. He starts getting very weird, spooky visions of demons, the devil, monsters, and speedy shaky heads. It was freaky. He had a real friend though in his chiropracter, Danny Ialo who was very understanding through his experiences. Jacob learned about "the ladder", an unusually intense hallucinary weed he and his platoon smoked in Vietnam, and he believed what was happening was he was still.suffering long term effects from it even years later. SPOILERS Things, we find out, can turn out to be nothing like they seem. Here is my analysis of the picture for those who have seen the film all the way through. Jacob never survived past Vietnam. First, it turned out that Jacob was stabbed by a member of his own platoon, and there was no enemy troup, they all psyched out on each other due the unusual weed's effect. When Jacob got stabbed in the jungle, he died slowly, and painfully, with serious emotional, mental, and physical pain. Everything we see after the start of the movie when he gets stabbed in all products of Jacob's awareness. It is a combination of his past memories (his past marriage and being with his sons including the deceased one), his "what could've happened" future if he made the wrong choices (everything with life with Jezzie, , his seeing his old friends and lawyer about what Vietnam did to them, and seeing the chemical scientist about "the ladder" experiment), his "what could've happened" future if he made the right choices (being back with his wife and 2 surviving sons, such as the hospital bed scene right before hearing the spooky "dream on" voice), and Jacob's nightmares and fears (the "dream on" voice, the spooky staring woman and creature under the blanket on the subway, all the demons, creatures, and fast shaking heads shown throughout the film, the almost getting run over, almost getting blown up, the freaky ride through the weird gruesome images on the hospital guerny, the back room with the man who tells him he's dead and then drills into his head (which is where it's revealed that Jezzie was on the devil's side, why else was she with them there)). Every bit of all of these experiences were all mixed together in one big pot of stew, which were in the moments between Jacob getting stabbed and him finally passing away, when he reunites with his deceased son at the foot of the stairs and ascends with him up to heaven. I believe in the afterlife. I believe that everything that happened in this film is the picture of Danny Ialo explaining "When you are scared of dying, and you are holding on, you will see demons tearing your life away, but once you have made your peace, the demons are really angels freeing you from the earth". I love that, and it is very true. That was Jacob's journey from his life to the afterlife. Danny was in a sense his guardian angel. It is sad how there are a few people wanting to now say this movie now works on the "no afterlife" thinking and everything in the movie was all in Jacob's head before fading into nothingness. I've seen the program where the directors and producers are talking about the making of the film, they were all saying that Jacob going to heaven were their implications and intentions while creating the story. Danny's philosophy no longer makes so much sense with that no afterlife thinking, angels do not free you from the earth and into nothingness. Some people, such as a few of these reviewers, want to now twist already made ideas into their own terms to fit their own skeptical beliefs. This new no afterlife thinking today is a product of the new skeptical, distrusting, superficial, spiritless society forming in 2010s America.