Reviews

I'm giving this 7 stars mostly for the first half of the picture. If you're bored by bloated, CGI filled epics such as Hollywood has been grinding out for the last few years than this evidently early swing at film noir from Britain can be a refreshing change.

In the first half you've got a lot of out of the ordinary camera work that will keep your interested, and a host of unusual characters. The star portrays a cold blooded, almost robotic killer who's mixed up with a boss who looks and sounds like a British Orson Welles and then there's Herbert Lom as the over boss who seems a bit swishy. Not to mention some other English actors who are unfamiliar and a bit unusual.

Unfortunately the film seems to sag about half way through and never quite recovers though it can still be worth hanging on to the end,

I don't understand why this flick flopped at the box office. I mean you got end of the world Roman style. You've got a villain who you could hiss from his first appearance. You've got colorful characters who deliver the lines with conviction. It's in glorious color and accompanied by great music.

OK, there are holes in it like everybody dies at the end, but hey it's Pompeii for crying out loud. And did I mention nearly non stop action. While the destruction of the city goes on for quite awhile, you're never bored by it, or by the movie as whole.

I enjoyed it greatly.

Here's a curious but interesting episode. A criminal mastermind working for a foreign government has a scheme that involves kidnapping, murder, and blackmail. The villain's thugs even try to kill McGarrett. This slightly philosophical criminal has a fu manchu mustache, wears glasses sometimes, and is pretty full of himself. Is it the return of Wo Fat? Sure seems like it, but actually the bad guy is played by a pretty good Mel Torme as a Russian spy. I wonder if the regular guy who played Wo Fat was busy or ill so they went with the substitute. Or he may have been in negotiations for his own series which he did have for a season or two.

I had never seen or heard of this mini series before viewing it. The first episode may seem a bit slow and you think everything is solved until the last minute. Then hold onto your hat cause with each following episode things get more and more twisted, there are lies onto of lies, betrayal, guilt old and new. With each episode you learn more about characters who are more and less than they seem. The acting is excellent, the story ends with a bang on top of bang after bang. It's a roller coaster ride.

I highly recommend it. And will look for more by this team. Now will I ever reach the minimum number of lines for a review.

I first ran into this series without English subtitles. Even without knowing what the characters were saying, the acting was good enough and the plots were formulaic enough, I could get a pretty good idea of what was happening. The emotional cop, the cool scientist; the investigation, the interrogations, the explanations of the mystery with flashbacks and inserts - yeah it was all pretty understandable and entertaining.

Then the series was finally posted on Youtube with English subtitles. What a revelation. There's humor like with the professor's assistant and with the cop's best friend, a medical examiner. There's a theme involving the impact and feelings of the victims, but most especially there's the relationship between the rookie cop and the genius professor. She follows her instincts and expresses her feelings, sometimes at the top of her voice. He is in the beginning only interested in the cases for their scientific puzzles, but little by little, he comes to see the emotional and ethical values in them and in the detective.

It's a match of opposites. She may not know who Isaac Newton was and he didn't watch cartoons as a kid, but eventually they come together and fill each other's empty spots.

Now a second season of the series has come out 6 years after the first one. How long will it take to appear on the internet, preferably with English subtitles, and what will it be like. She can't still be a rookie detective; they can't still be performing this dance of emotion and logic in their relationship; and why is Ko Shibaseki only listed as appearing in 2 of 6 episodes.

Curious minds wait with bated breath.

Being shot in black and white does not hurt this film. Actually it makes it more striking, not the usual post card color we're used to seeing in films shot in these familiar locations. It has a number of actors who while familiar also do rather good work. Even the quintessential New Yorker Harold J. Stone comes across as a rather threatening outlaw, especially when his face is half in shadow and Strother Martin does quite a nice bit as a town drunk. Audie and his frequent co-star, Charles Drake, are a couple of roving cow hands who fall in with bad company and pay a harsh price for it.

In some senses this seems like a throw back to some of the hard edged Westerns of the 1940's. Audie's character at times seems like the one honorable fellow in the story. All the other characters have weaknesses and flaws, but even Audie at a couple points commits less than honorable acts - shooting a horse in one scene and in another I think he shoots a bad guy in the back.

Overall this is interesting and even a little thought provoking. Glad I found it.

You know how some folks tell you a thing is really bad and you go see for yourself, not expecting much, and you're pleasantly surprised that it's actually good. Well that's what all the bad reviews of this flick did for me.

I thot I would check it out for Cuba Gooding whose career has always been a bit erratic, and much to my pleasure I saw a well made creepy thriller/horror. I feel sorry for all the actors who really do good work in this film and who may not get credit for it on account of the less than stellar reviews. Gooding, Perlman, Winstone, and the others all do as good as they've done in other, more highly praised, work. It's a low budget film, most of the story is interiors, small rooms and corridors, but what creepy scary rooms they are. At any moment something may jump out at you. Its flaws are the ending is a little metaphysical - I'd prefer more explosives and bullets and less words, and what is almost a law of nature for these sort of flicks - the dumb people who wander off alone down a dark hall, but where would horror/thriller/mystery flicks be without them. Anyway, I hope you give this film a chance. You just might enjoy it.

This episode is a bit different from the usual MM in that the body count is pretty low, but it makes up for that in its charm, its humor, and its neat twists.

Joyce in her never ending pursuit of culture is part of a watercolor painting group when much to her dismay she discovers a body on the village green.

From there on the plot involves a dotty and lecherous old colonel, a "handsome" long legged bird, a paranoid husband, and a murder that is more than it seems.

When Barnaby is shoved off the case by an elite squad, he in typical fashion keeps on investigating around the edges and soon uncovers some very hinky goings on. It all comes together in a gathering of suspects in a bank vault with millions in quid and one gun packing robber.

All in all this was a pleasant afternoon in Midsomer Flory.

One of the more interesting and odder episodes of the series. The ladies are working on the roses at one of those stately English boys school with the slightly eccentric staff and students.

There are elements of P. G. Wodehouse and Mr. Chips combined with the creepiness of a Hammer Horror film. Right after the laugh comes a shiver of suspense.

The solution is a both a surprise and bit of hard to swallow, English murderers are so well mannered, and there's a touch of pathos at the end.

Certainly a change from the episodes where the scenery is the most engaging element of the story

A mob lawyer plots to bring down 5-0 by first framing Chin Ho for murder and bribery.

We learn that Chin likes boxing, bowling, and church, and that he is a loving husband and father to 8! kids from teenagers to youngsters. That resemblance to another famous Hawaiian detective aside, he makes some bone headed moves to try and clear himself.

Finally McGarrett and gang manage to do it by something so preposterous, so far beyond the line that your jaw may drop.

The acting is okay with an interesting appearance by a young Martin Sheen, which kind of ranks with the appearance a few episodes earlier of an unbelievably young looking kid, Christopher Walken

The long running series hits its stride in a slam bang season opener.

Hot Lips Houlihan (Loretta Swit) gets offed before the first wave rolls in, and from there on the action is fast and the bodies fall.

The director shows a preference for unusual camera angles, especially those close ups of actors really emoting, while McGarrett goes mano a mano with a cold blooded killer. And Dano, he gets to spend the afternoon on the beach with the luscious Barbara Luna wearing a skimpy swim suit. That was a real hardship assignment.

After a first season that was a tad less than memory painted it, this start of a new season really gets the pulse pounding.

This isn't the only time that ol' Roger has played the Devil, but he gets a great speech here and has a whackin' good fight with Sarah.

This is one of those sad cases where the idea in a TV episode is so good you wish they had a bigger budget and more time to make it really good.

Anyway, Sarah investigates the murder of a Roman Catholic priest which involves demonic possession, WWII, and new powers for her. You may spot the twist/villain early on but it still is a fun ride to watch.

I can't understand the low ratings that so many episodes of this show receive. It's original, well acted, and sometimes moving.

This is one of the first power house episodes of H50 when the stories really began to click with good acting, writing, and a tense plot.

Yaphet Koto is a Marine barricaded with a gun and a wounded Dano in a hospital full of patients. He thinks he's back holding a hill in Viet Nam, and McGarrett is climbing the walls trying to rescue Dano before he bleeds to death.

Koto really does a great job in this one.

And for trivia collectors listen to the TV newsman as he gives a bit of Dano's background.

In earlier episodes many of the plots are hackneyed and not very exciting, this is about the time that H50 really begins to hit its stride.

To me this is one of the first classic episodes of H5O, an episode that really uses the differences of Hawaii in the plot to drive the story.

I mean the koi, the burning sugar field, and some the lines are great trivia questions : if you had ten cats and all of them were in a room, would you know if two were missing, and Mister, I have to go to the bathroom.

The actors, both the regulars, and the guest stars really fill their roles in this episode.

I've remembered this episode for over 30 years. Now if they could only figure out how to make a good movie series out this show.

Starting with when the movies first got sound, for several decades there was a genre of semi/horror films that's usually called "The Mad Scientist." Boris Karloff did wonderful work in some, and other actors shone as well.

Basically a scientist in his obsession to learn the secret of life, death, the universe, or whatever and sacrifices his honor, his reputation, his morality, his sanity, not to mention his family, friends, and assorted innocent bystanders while he pursues his obsession.

Well THE PRESTIGE takes this attitude and applies it sort of to magicians. It works, but the story adds more twists, reversals, and ambiguities than were seen in most of those horror movies. Among them being the stunning work of David Bowie as a scientist who is extremely sympathetic and warns of the dangers of obsession.

Anyway it's a well made, well acted film, that if it suits your taste you may want to watch several times to fathom all the twists of character and plot.

Oh, another usual character in those old movies was a sweet, innocent, beautiful young woman. There are a couple of such characters here but they have their twists as well. And near the end of the film, when we're in the underground cellar and the camera pulls back to show all the tanks, I kind of missed that piercing scream of horror that the young female usually gave out at such a moment in the golden oldies.

I recently started watching this series on DVD. I suppose in part it's the basic format, the interrogation, the back and forth between Brenda and her interviewee, but this series seems to give actors great scenes.

The writing is probably good as well, but in a number of past episodes I've seen actors really knock it out of the ballpark in their scenes. In this one, we have an actor who've I've seen in a few other series, such as THRESHOLD. Here he plays the husband of a missing woman and child.

As Brenda's squad scrambles to find evidence of whatever happened, Brenda and the actor play out a day in the interrogation room. The woman and child were murdered. Did the husband do it or is he a grieving innocent.

Up until the last few minutes you won't know. The writing and acting are so good.

I imagine that actors are beating on their agents to get them guest spots on this series in the hope of having such powerful roles.

Karloff often portrayed characters who were torn between good and evil - memorably in THE BLACK ROOM where he played twins, but I have never seen him do such a great job of acting as he does in this film.

It opens with him portraying an old, weak, good intentioned doctor - a sympathetic and at times pathetic character. But once he injects himself with a serum that was made from tainted blood, that of a serial murder, he changes. He is younger in appearance and action, and he is a killer, a tortured one, but a chilling one as well. It's great to watch.

While the movie has the weakness of being a cheaper B-film, there is still a lot of good work in it. The camera work with the use of light and shadow is exceptional, the music is better than in some other Karloff films I've watched, and the scenes involving blood are almost too strong to watch.

Often in these films there are times when you think they could have been much better with a bigger budget, but they still accomplish so much. The scene where the doctor's daughter goes into his lab and the door closes behind her, shutting us out for just a moment, gave me a chill as good as something from Alfred Hitchcock's FRENZY.

So catch this little known gem and enjoy it.

I may have seen this title in some list of Karloff's work, but I had never seen it before, and it was something of an eyeopener.

Even though it was made by Columbia which was not quite a major studio, and often prone to productions on a shoe string, this one has some striking work in it - right from the crane shots at the opening, and the frequent use of shots in mirrors, which ties into the theme of twins.

The picture allows Karloff to play two different characters : a charming, but somewhat trusting good guy, and a hated tyrant, a lout and what we would call now days a serial killer. With both characters there are some flashes of excellent work by Karloff.

What weakens the picture is some of cheapness in the production - the use of familiar sets, the characters dashing about in the "badlands" of Austria, the less than excellent music accompanying the action (a few times it's wildly inappropriate) and some of the accepted acting practices of the 30's.

Still if you've never seen it before it's worth studying for seeing Karloff given the opportunity to truly stretch his acting muscles - showing his strengths and his limits.

This is something of a filler episode, but a very enjoyable one. Michael York arrives at B5 believing he is Arther, son of Uther Pendragon, founder of the Round Table. Well, it's a bit of a mystery with a moving solution, and York does a fine job of conveying the nobility and pain of his character.

Many of these filler episodes have never finished story lines we think. What ever happened with Londo's one wife, the one who said the lack of communication was the secret of their long marriage. And what of Vir's wife, did she undergo a Miss Ravenel's conversion. This is another such episode. The ending has Arthur setting off on a new noble mission, one which I would hearing about, but doubt if it will ever be told.