greg-04082

What many others have said, this is a real movie with a story and characters, plus first action action sequence direction. Wasn't sure what this would be like when I started streaming it to fill in some dead time, got halfway through before I needed to go to bed and actually WANTED to see the rest of the movie the next day. Good to see the under-used Redford in a recent role and Jenny Agutter too.

Knocked one star off for the non-stop machine pistol stuff which I'm sure influences teens, but the movie stands by itself as an action movie.

Just wanted to post a quick note about this - I read an online review that complained only kids would like the movie, like it was aimed at adults (it's from Nickelodeon studio for heaven's sakes - who do you think it's aimed at?). My kids liked the look of the trailer and they absolutely loved the movie, period (my wife took them, I didn't go). This probably cost peanuts to make and even clearing just $10 million in its domestic opening week it's probably go to turn a profit.

I helped work on this episode's holographic non-destructive testing scene with the soup bowl at the National Physical Laboratory. Tony Edwards did a nice job of putting the show together, and I remember he took us all out to a local pub after filming. Recently saw it again and was amazed to see scientists smoking pipes and cigarettes in optical labs!

Glad Amazon doesn't require enormous review length any more, since this review doesn't need it. Awful British movie industry fodder at its worst. The sound for everything outdoors is looped and audience for this, even in 1973, would be whom? No one I knew. Richard successfully bucked this stuff about 3 years later with his "I'm Nearly Famous" album when he realized his career was tanking. The Brumberger song takes the biscuit.

Too bad there isn't a zero star rating. I am not the target demo, was dragged to the movie theater by my young son to see it (he thought the movie was OK. I didn't.

1. Lots of nothing much happens 2. Lots of melodramatic music 3. The movie at 182 minutes is about 82 minutes too long 4. The Thor character ceases to become comic amusement about a third through the pic 5. Incomprehensible and repeated fight scenes 6. Exceptionally poor dialog in the screenplay

Visually the only star turns were Brie Larson and Elizabeth Olsen. The Scarlet Witch, one of the stronger themes was barely in this - Olsen should get her own movie.

I was three hours of my life back plus $68 bucks spent on tickets and popcorn at AMC.

Very well made movie, but not one I would want to see again. Danny DeVito is wonderful in this (as he is in everything), Keaton was good, Colin Farrell is miscast (not a big fan of Farrell though he was good as Witwer in Minority Report), and the plot sucked. The tone of the movie was too intense - hope Burton got paid up front.

The music and cinematography in this is excellent, but as another reviewer suggested, the movie ends up being a slog because it's too long for the material. Unfortunately, Leone had the view that longer was better:

Fistful of Dollars: 99 minutes For a Few Dollars More: 132 minutes Good the Bad and the Ugly: 3 hours

Fistful was probably the best with a story lifted from Kurosawa and a tight runtime.

For a few dollars more has interesting leads but the middle act is drawn out and difficult to follow. Fortunately it's not as bad as Good the Bad and the Ugly which is a mess plotwise.

Nicely directed (and co-written) by Hal Needham, Smokey and the bandit was available on Prime so I thought I'd check it out in honor of the passing of Burt. It wasn't quite what I expected - I always felt that Reynolds in TV interviews came across as nervous and somewhat insincere - kind of like Mel gibson. What I fund in Smokey was a nicely acted piece by all concerned, and Reynolds was exceedingly good, great timing and very believable acting. Shows you can't judge a book by its cover.

Mind-blowingly funny repartee between Norm and his guests. Letterman's and Spade's appearances are a hoot.

I don't care to ding a fellow documentary-maker, this gets a seven star rating from me. The content is there (for example I was unaware of the Ukraine political background nor Trump's ties to the Russian Mafia) but the presentation is waring after a while, especially the constant music. Worth seeing who suspect there may be an explanation for Trump's attitude to Vladimir Putin.

All movies in my view should be around 90 minutes or so tops, and this one comes in at that. Snipes at his peak, nicely directed action movie.

My twin 7 year olds love this movie - if kids like the movie, that should really be all that counts because **drumroll** it's a kid's movie! Always interesting screen visuals and some nice performances from the cast. George Lopez is great in the role - just great. This guy should be doing more films (I sound like his publicist or mother but it's true!). Not a huge fan of Robert Rodriguez but he did well with this one.

The actions scenes, particularly the out-of-control automobile and the crop duster helicopter scenes were extremely well directed. I wish all movies maxed out at 2hrs. Kudos to Peter Hyams (and Lew Grade) for this production.

Just to add what others have said. Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks showed that Grant could act, this nails it. Very very good performance. Production values are great.

All movies in my view should be around 90 minutes or so tops, and this one comes in at that. Snipes at his peak, nicely directed action movie.

Really quite excellent movie, with great film score from Miklos Rozsa, truly doesn't matter about the SFX quality in the few places they are used. Nicholas Meyer's tour de force. The actors are great.

Sean Connery in wonderful form, Nick Cage's crazy character works, Ed Harris is excellent and very good, over the top action. Some great one-liners.

When I went to screenwriting classes many years ago I was told to always remember that films is a VISUAL media and never forget that when writing scripts.

I was put off seeing this movie by the terrible reviews and only rented it because it was available in 4K on Amazon videos. The movie is a hoot from beginning to end with laugh out loud moments all over the place. I'm not going to make this a long review, but I thought the two leads were well up to the task at hand, and as others have commented, the visuals are blisteringly drop-dead gorgeous. It's overlong as are all movies nowadays, but worth your time if you aren't a sci-fi snob. Great stuff!!

Would you rather be watching some turgid SciFi flick with its inane philosophy?

Really stolid potboiler, scene chewing sessions abound. The ONLY thing that set with apart from other 70's dross in the final episodes was the interaction between Nolte and Bill Smith's Falconetti, one of the great TV villains ever.

It may not seem like it but this is an interesting curio.

Background: In 1972 Tom Jones was flying high as an international star. The McCulloch Corporation which had created the planned community of Lake Havasu town was desperate to publicize this new town through the newly opened London Bridge - it had opened just three months before this special was made. McCulloch commissioned a Los Angeles PR company to engage entertainers and filmmakers to come to lake Havasu. This special was shot in January 1972, nine months earlier production on the cult movie The Day of the Wolves had wrapped in Havasu. The London bus used in the special was purchased a year or so before by McCulloch. The whole venture was essentially a PR job to publicize Lake Havasu.

The Special: This is very lightweight fair but highly watchable because it now looks so bizarre. Tom is in full mutton chop sideburns which would have been the envy of Mungo Jerry's Ray Dorset. A theme through the production is a romantic story between Jones and Jennifer O'Neill (looking very beautiful). The Carpenters are mixed into this awkwardly, but it's still watchable. The lip syncing is atrocious throughout the production.

The production boasts that it stars Charlton Heston and Michael Landon. That's stretching it a bit. Landon and Heston were filmed nine months earlier being participants in a tennis tournament in Lake Havasu on March 27, 1971 at the Nautical Inn on the last weekend of filming of The Day of the Wolves. My guess is that In agreeing to be participants of the tennis tournament Heston and co likely signed away their likeness for promotion of Lake Havasu, hence their appearance in this special. Lorne Greene was the MC for the opening of the Bridge in the previous September, and he's also in this special. So was Jonathan Winters.

There are several dancing scenes, at least one with Jennifer O'Neill. Surprisingly these are extremely dynamic, athletic, really well choreographed, filmed and edited. Jennifer O'Neill is clearly not a dancer but turns in an acceptable performance, most of which consist of cover girl-style poses.

The film was shot on 16mm by an American DP, Stephen H. Burum, who went onto stardom DP'ing the likes of the Untouchables, St. Elmo's Fire and a host of iconic 80's movies. He, together with the same director had also shot a movie of Raquel Welch touring which included Tom Jones, hence the splicing of parts of that into the version of the special that's usually available.

The scene of Jones singing with Kirk Douglas was shot at a Pinewood Studios back lot of all places using the remnants of the set of the Fiddler on the Roof movie.

The London filming was deliberately desaturated to make it appear dreary, hardly necessary given that it was shot in January in London with it's predictably awful weather (Thursday Jan 7 to be precise).

In the scene of Jones/O'Neill watching tennis, sitting in the next seat to Tom Jones on the right is CV Wood (credited as an adviser on this production) who was the designer of Lake Havasu City as well as Disneyland.

This special is rarely if ever broadcast, my best guess because of issues associated with film ownership and the mechanical licensing rights of Tom Jones and the Carpenter's music.

I'm not old enough to have seen the original transmissions of the Quatermass series on TV, but have since seen them on DVD. There is really no comparison, this version (caught online through Britbox) of the Quatermass Experiment is below the production levels and engagement I would expect at a high school play.

The basic idea of a live version I think has merit. The problem is this feels like a production using the first draft of a screenplay that's undergone absolutely no development. I really feel sorry for the actors, none of them comes over well, a few fare worse than others. Jason Flemyng as the central character, is quite simply miscast - that this wasn't evident to either the director or producers during preproduction is inexplicable. The sets are ho-hum and the dialog trudging. For fans of Quatermass (or any decent teleplay), one to be avoided.

Actually not sure that I'm really qualified to review this - I was facing the back of my car in a drive-in and this movie was playing on a different screen which I could see. My radio was tuned to the movie my kids were watching at the drive-in. Just visually, a few things come to mind - either Vin Diesel can't act or he was woefully miscast. The action seemed perfunctory, phone-in crashes, explosions, and most irritating of all, mindless use of machine pistols (you know the kind of thing - one in each hand). Just horrible, can't believe this kind of garbage gets green lit. A true insult to the intelligence of the teenagers its aimed at.

At times I despair of films I get to see nowadays; at those times, I sit back, pop a can of beer and watch Bullitt. It's a wonderful piece of 1968 filmmaking which never gets old for me. When you go to screen writing class they constantly hammer home that film is a visual medium and not to forget that. This film doesn't forget that and we're presented with a tale which unfolds through the investigation of Frank Bullitt. The film attempts to show a realistic view of criminal investigation and in doing so is endlessly fascinating (at least to this reviewer). It's a complex tale which unfolds in a very pleasing manner. Jackie Bisset's story arc simply doesn't work and looks like it was thrown in for duration reasons, but even that can't tank this movie. Writing is great. Direction is great. Actors are great.