Reviews

Dre gets involved in the messaging of Junior's school campaign and we see the first use of RIGGER when Dre defends Jr. From charges of attempted rigging of the election. It was hilarious then, bizarrely hilarious now.

And I am speaking of a recent ex-President's use of the term to malign his opponents. This only exposes him as the plagiarizing and pedestrian "late night TV" mentality he really is.

Probably misspent many a night (as have I) chewing chicken and watching Relic Hunter, NYPD Blue and black-ish reruns and wondering what awful show was next. (Renegade!)

The genius of Kenya Barris is that he was all over Dump at the time and never let up. Dump outlasted him (on the network) but KB has the last and best laugh on Dump.

This is an example of what Hollywood was doing, or becoming, in the 60s. Basically television.

The opening scenes of this motion picture were bizarrely generic. A middle aged couple leaves an apartment building for a cab ride to a restaurant all of which plays under the opening credits. It's dialogue-free and the couple turns out to be Dean Martin and a matronly Lana Turner. The silly nothings continue as Dean is interrupted, continually, by phone calls from (his bookie?) and his romantic date, with his wife, goes down the... I don't know this is where I bailed.

Hollywood was trying to squeeze the last drop of revenue from existing resources (sound stages, big name stars and supporting actors, technical and administrative support). I didn't recognize Lana Turner even after she started talking. Never a big fan but aware of her work. The middle-aged Turner was not instantly recognizable, like Joan Crawford or Bette Davis or more recently Jane Fonda or Helen Mirren. This was essentially a domestic sit-com with lies, misapprehensions and bizarre inferences (no doubt) throughout. Supporting cast upholds the resource theory: mostly contract support players from the 40s and 50s.

Post-war Hollywood was teeming with "guys" who could write this stuff, with experience dating back to the 30s, and endless reserves of pretty people who could sell the same old three-act formula ad infinitum, hour-long for dramas, 30 minutes for comedies.

It went on through the 70s before new formats began to emerge in the evolution of what we now call long-form serial entertainment. So this movie? Blech.

This is the kind of movie they call a "shaggy dog". Since Harmony Korine has been re-born as Martin Scorsese Jr. He's started to make some pretty good movies. Someone broke it down: a movie with three good scenes is a success with audiences (although they may be puzzled as to why they actually liked the experience). This movie is set up as three encounters for the Moondog, Isla and Snoop, Zack Efron and Martin Lawrence. Along the way there is a hilariously obscene tirade in front of judge (no one else noticed Ginger Lynn as the court stenographer?) and a pretty standard denouement. But it's funny if you can roll with it and accept Moondog's philosophy of the world.

Gotta say, as someone who has followed Korine's films through the thin and very thick (up until about Trash Humpers but not beyond) I did not expect to see this kind of film coming from him. He's amoral and unpredictable and that makes for a riveting ride. And now, after The Beach Bum, this movie looks like a rebirth, or a re-debut, from a completely different, assured and assertive, director. It's got sort of a mini-Scorsese feeling, bad things can happen, and I have to say this is the only thing I've seen Selena Gomez in and he had me gulping at her predicament. That's directing. He pretty much controlled the movie throughout and it was impressive from someone whose last movie I watched was Trash Humpers. Go figure. Even the idiot kid grows up.

The Beach Bum is hilarious! But that's a different thread. Oh yeah, the whole reason I added this: the scene where Gucci Mane starts talking about "my baby is hungry" is a CLASSIC and again only something a good director would attempt or pull off.

Saw this about 5 years ago at the Paramount in Seattle with organ accompaniment. It's great. Paramount (the production company) obviously wanted to get some of that Charlie Chaplin loot and so crafted this vehicle for Ms. Swanson. She's a total pro and the resultant comedy, physical, visual, cultural and cinematic plays out, as mentioned elsewhere, with Technicolor sequences an unexpected bonus. It's entertaining no matter what format you might view it in but catch it in a theater, with good musical accompaniment, if you can.

Actually I'm going to the Paramount tonight to see It with Clara Bow. The Paramount has one of the last extant house organs (full pipes, effects and percussion) in the country.

This is obviously Verbinski's salute to Roman Polanski. Polanski never veered into the supernatural or the impossible, just the psychological extremes that may give birth to monsters. While this movie is OK, even very good, for about 4/5ths of it's length it's TOO LONG and falls apart at the end with a final scene taken directly from The Fearless Vampire Killers. The long interior tracking shots with a wide lens, reminiscent of a few scenes in Chinatown. Hints of Trelkovsky throughout the facility. Are these spoilers? Don't know. Don't think so. The denouement borders on the ridiculous and deflates any interest that the mysterious goings on may have generated.

I remember watching this when it first aired. The plot ambles along, then gets complicated then gets crazy. A great cast of characters, an exquisitely drawn out resolution and it looks like Nichols and Ruth are finally going to hook up when... watch and enjoy.

As usual a succinct precis is not appreciated hence this appendix.

I just got the DVD set of this series. Having watched them all now I found the series to be mildly amusing with its sly sexual undercurrents and the conniving of its various characters. Amiable is the best description. Everyone seems to be having a good time and Ketcham and Mitch are a great comic duo.

It's a revisionist take on 20th century American culture. After Viet Nam and the civil rights upheavals of the 60s movies began a sly anti-authoritarian rewrite. This series was the brainchild of Frank Pierson who would be a big mover and shaker in Hollywood in the 70s. At least he introduced Eric Roberts to the world in King Of The Gypsies. This episode states the premise outright: Ma Ketchum wants to mate Ruth with any suitable material that comes along. They just kind of slip it in (Neva Patterson's delivery is perfect) once Ma Ketchum shows up. The entire episode is chaotic and unpredictable with Nichols and Ruth running away together with about 10 minutes to go in the episode.

By the end the premise is established: Nichols will be sheriff for "6 months" (24 weekly episodes) then once his debt is settled he's gone. And that's what happens.

So the emphasis is on droll plotting and outrageous schemes, and oh yeah, sex. The slow burning chemistry between Ruth and Nichols is what this show was really all about. Kidder wasn't much of an actress then but she didn't have to be. Her beautiful, young hippy (meaning free spirited) presence was all that was necessary to provide Nichols with all the motivation he could muster.

I'm just finishing up the first season now showing on MeTV. A previous commenter called it the "greatest children's show" ever. I'd go further and call it the greatest TV show of television's dawning era (50s through the end of the 70s). Fantastically futuristic, colorful, tight and cinematic one of the best 49 minutes ever produced in the nascent years of the medium (and rarely done well during that tenure). You Will SEE A Puppet Sweat! Comedy followed by extreme tragedy. I admit I'm watching it at 7' wide so it's awe-inspiring at times. The episodes on MeTV have been enlarged to the 16:9 format. Whatever is missing from the frame is more than compensated for by the sharp hi-res image. The fact that it's puppets? I'll let others delve into an analysis. TA:WP paid tribute. Watch these shows and see why.

It beggars the imagination to see that so many contributors feel the need to cover plot points even though a high percentage of said commenters have already amply traveled that territory.

When I saw this in 1977 it was an exhilarating example of what freedom of expression was all about. Defying every convention of "normal" films it featured individuals who did not feel the need to follow the rules, the standard behaviors, of either society or film conventions.

Yep, sociopathy. OK so we outgrew that.

Its depiction of selfishness, depravity, and disregard for norms of social behavior hasn't aged well. Sort of curdled. But if you want to see what American culture in the 70s was boiling down to this is the movie for you. And it is hilarious if you can get into the dead pan delivery and the absurd behavior. You would need a 70s mindset to do that and I'm not sure there's much of that in supply anymore.

Interesting depiction of a pictorial artist (think Frederic Remington) and his devoted companion a large, stolid Native American. This was Hollywood in the very repressed 1950s. The tender final scene really makes this seem a sub rosa depiction of the love that "dare not speak it's name", at least on network TV in 1960.

Somehow that comment is not enough leaving me 600 characters short of an acceptable comment.

Warren Stevens portrays the artist Fred Jameson, a man's man, who shoots and drinks and arm wrestles (with George Kennedy in a bit part) and paints wonderful (if somewhat anachronistically impressionist style) scenes of the American West.

Nice scene when Miss Lily opens the package Fred leaves for her to reveal something he has (miraculously) painted in a matter of hours (overnight?)

As another 21st century art object, not a "movie" which is an early 20th century concept, this delivers everything the brand name (David Cronenberg) promises. Plus it's pretty high-brow. Superior production values but I really think it'a more of a moving painting. When everyone has 4K video projection it could play silently on a wall, slowly changing from pale, wan faces to exotic biomorphics to visceral, pulsating fantasias. If you want date night (unless your date is Amy Taubin) forget it.

I just remembered what this kinda, sorta reminded me of. Quintet, Robert Altman's arty, dystopic from 1979. That wintry society was pre-occupied with the stylized rituals of the titular board game. And everyone was cloaked and draped against the cold with hats and hoods. Similar end-of-world feel.

So I watched only to see what they would do with the venerable, intrepid adventurer and scientist. They made him into a CW TV series. Manufactured suspense, gay sex with a twist of fabulous and special effects that were hardly worth the effort. As mentioned elsewhere why use the 20th century American literary character if you are going to change LITERALLY everything about him? Making this a unique character, a person of his own time and place which he is, would have made this far more successful with its target audience, presumably habitual CW viewers. The only thing the two Tom's have in common is they are both wealthy industrialists (played down in the original character) and apparently are creative inventors although all the current Tom's accomplishments are in the past unless you count the extra special detergent he's forced to create in the first episode Can't see that as one of the old books. The "adventure " seems to be a quest for pieces of a mystery. Does this show's actual audience even know who Tom Swift is?

This is a CW series and the emphasis is on glitz and intrigue. So why Tom Swift? Any inventive billionaire would have sufficed and to take a well established character and completely transform them into something else entirely seems... a reach? Done for just the name recognition? Amusing shout out to "Mayor Pete" from Tom's mother.

I saw this in the theater when it first came out. Like everyone else I was non-plussed. Now it reminds me of another movie that had a similar acceptance ordeal, The Big Lebowski. First: Tim Burton is what you call a film director and his framing of the present day story is masterful. After that it's one ambiguously delightful (or ghastly) scene after another until the end when the inevitable cartoon clash brings it to a halt. Still, a great movie if you lower expectations.

This always struck me as one of those "what if..." ideas Hitch liked to conceptualize. The opening is somewhat similar to Monroe Stahr's prescription for a movie: unknown motives compelling gripping actions.

This is definitely one of those executions and although it is low budget I think ingenuity and creativity save the day. And I love the model work with the trains! I always site this as my favorite Hitchcock film, mostly to see people's expressions.

I saw this as THE MANIACS ARE LOOSE at the Northgate Theater in Seattle in the 90s. This presentation featured two maniacs who ran up and down the aisles with glow-in-the-dark masks, and little hatchets, at the appropriate moment. The movie was typical Steckler a lot of MOS and gratuitous sadism and violence. Oh those low budget production values. I have THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL with Emergo in my bag as well. I was in the theater in 1959 when Vincent Price sent his articulated skeleton out into the audience and I screamed as much as anyone else. That was class. Steckler always reeked of desperation but I do have a soft spot for him and his films especially THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES... etc.