Reviews

'Stanley and Iris' show the triumph of the human spirit. For Stanley, it's the struggle to become literate and realize his potential. For Iris, it's to find the courage to love again after becoming a widow. The beauty of the movie is the dance that Robert DeNiro and Jane Fonda do together, starting and stopping, before each has the skills and courage to completely trust each other and move on. In that sense it very nicely gives us a good view of how life often is, thus being credible. Unlike some other reviewers I found the characters each rendered to be consistent for the whole picture. The supporting cast is also carefully chosen and they add a depth of character that the main characters get added meaning from the supporting performances. All in all an excellent movie. The best thing I take from it is Hope.

If they make it so bad, it might become a cult classic. Think 'Plan 9 from Outer Space.' It's all about the $$$. Imagination and creativity are gone - life sucks and we want to see just how much so, more of the same, pile it higher and deeper. Ya gotta wonder how many of these actors will be putting this one on their resumes?!

Whilst the premise of "Search" was interesting, indeed somewhat foreshadowing "The Six Million Dollar Man" by a couple of years, i.e., people with bio-electronic enhancements, the very premise of it limited the show to running out of steam, ultimately. After all, how many things can you search for? Jewels, people, renegade SEARCH-systems scientists, etcetera? Eventually the plot becomes formula, which becomes dull. If they could have done more character development, or given the cast a better chance to act off each other, it might have lasted longer. Still, what was done was done well, until it got boring. Wouldn't mind seeing it in reruns again, though no doubt some things would seem somewhat dated, over thirty years later. Still, it is nice to remember when this show was "cool."

Yes, it's hokey, yes, it could have used character development, yes, it was a product of its time. But the show was also fun. As far as Doug and Tony mostly landing in historically significant episodes, I've always held the rationalization that since these events had a greater impact for the future, like stronger "magnets," they'd be more "attractive" to time travelers rather than merely day-to-day existences of the majority of people. Of course you have to know what those events will be in advance, and have plenty of stock footage available to make the stories work, but all-in-all it makes for an enjoyable show. One thing to note is whenever anyone wants to sabotage the tunnel, or whenever they've got to get inside the machines, they always use the same panel from the "mainframes" on the side of the control consoles. I didn't realize that week-to-week, but seeing it more regularly brought that to my attention.

A movie and/or new series might be either very well done - or could fail miserably. As Lee Meriwether is the last of the primary Project Tic-Toc support team characters alive, perhaps a show could start from a premise of government agents visiting her in the present to get information about the original Tic-Toc, with maybe some flashbacks from the original series as she tells them about it, then moving into a new show or situation from there. I'd like to see at least one of the original cast members be given a role in a sequel like this. As the series ended in a very open-ended fashion, it would be interesting to return to a long-mothballed Tic-Toc project, have them update the components, then begin the stories anew. Gee, should I start writing fan fiction or what?

Until my thoughts above manifest, when you get the chance, watch the original. It is an enjoyable, nostalgic, blast from the past!

Some other commentators have bemoaned the historical faults, others the romantic interest. To which I say this - first off, it was a made for TV movie. What is the first role of such a movie? To entertain. Perhaps the History Channel will do a more accurate documentary, if that's what people want. As for the romance, where would the movie "Titanic" have been without the love story? Similarly, this movie needs the romantic interest to move the very 21st Century "Scholar" into a position to want to get involved with people that are more the stuff of Myth, Legend, and to a great degree, Hope. Otherwise, why should he bother? "The Journey West" is a story I'd not heard of. Now, even with this fanciful introduction, I think I'll go look it up and read it. To bring me to do this, both the movie, and other comments here, have thus been successful. Microwave up the popcorn, sit back and enjoy the show. Just don't take it too seriously, just enjoy it for the entertainment that it is.

Good movie. One is best served by the comment from G'Kar of Babylon 5: "No one here is exactly who he or she appears to be." Understatement award to G'Kar.

Kinda cross a bad LSD trip with stunning visuals and a credible ending that neatly ties the pieces as to the why of what we saw and it works very well. Watch "The Matrix" before this one - seeing the one will provide a key to the other. At least, it did for me. Well worth watching because you're given quite a puzzle to be entertained with. The director's commentary on the DVD version adds layers of insights too. All in all a good bang for the proverbial buck.

Don't ask why some things stick in one's head 30 years later, but the opening theme of "The Protectors" went like this:

In the avenues and alley-ways Where the soul of man is easy to buy, Everybody's wheelin', everybody's dealin' All the lower living are high.

Every city's got 'em, Can we ever stop 'em? Some of us are gonna try...

Dum-dumm-DE-Dum-dum..

For the cosmic two cents that it's worth.

Alphaville is an interesting French take on ideas that seem to have been of main concern in the 1960's - centralization of information and technology. Compared to, as others have indicated, "The Outer Limits" and "Twilight Zone" from earlier in that decade, Alphaville stands right in there. But, there is more to it than just the omnipotent computer to contend with. There is also the 'secret agent' aspect - as well as the lone individual beating a rigged system - a theme that would be considered again in some detail in the 1967 Patrick McGoohan series, "The Prisoner."

Finally, though the concern of computer-becomes-god was fully realized later, in the movie "Colossus: The Forbin Project." That too had its 'spy' like overtones with a unification of both US and Soviet computer systems into one supercomputer.

We are now somewhat jaded almost 35 years after Alphaville. The nightmare existence predicted has yet to come to pass. Now that we know more about artificial intelligence, how computers work and the like, it seems unlikely that an Alpha 60 or Colossus type system could be created. Not with current technology. What is dangerous, though, is PEOPLE using the existing technology for inappropriate ends.

"Information... we want information, in formation..." The Prisoner

Be seeing you, Citizen.

Yes! Steambath was one of those dramas that deserve to be out. I wonder who has the rights to this version and can it be put out on video? Well worth watching. Especially the comment on Cuban cigars in view of Bill Clinton and Monica, heh, heh, heh...grin!;

Seriously, it and 'Nourish the Beast,' were some very good early 1970's PBS dramas.