Reviews

I've been lucky enough to see five episodes of this golden age of TV pioneer. The high powered talent was only part of a top notch production. Two of those shows featured Abbott and Costello, who can be seen doing their "Who's on First?" routine and interacting with horror film legend Boris Karloff. The other three are Martin and Lewis shows, and actually made me laugh out loud more than a half century later, their work was that good. In fact, what's obvious from those shows is that there's a lot of ad-libbing going on, and the two seem like they're absolutely having the times of their life. If you find that DVD (the sleeve advertised two shows but actually contains three, all with original commercials, I found it for a dollar at a Dollar General store...talk about a buried treasure!) look for the bit part where Jerry teases two NBC studio cameramen. A true gem. And fans of old TV commercials won't be let down, either, by the catchy jingles and nice animation for Colgate toothpaste, Palmolive soap and shave cream, Halo shampoo or Fab detergent.

Not the funniest show I've ever seen, but pleasant enough. The scripts are often silly, so-so at best but the star of the show is what makes it shine--Betty White, a real "sweetheart" presented here as a young, newlywed, rather impish version of Gracie Allen. The announcer introduces each episode, even speaks directly to Betty, and at the end prompts the cast to say "Good night." (Attention game show fans: the announcer, who appears on camera a lot, is none other than legendary game show host Jack Narz of "Concentration" and "Now You See It" fame, at the dawn of his career.) At least one video dealer is selling this for a dollar apiece and marketing it as "The Betty White Show," with a synopsis on the back of her short-lived 1977 sitcom that has nothing to do with this 1953-55 first-run syndicated effort.

It's easy to get expectations too high for this movie, considering that "Meet the Parents" is now considered a modern classic, and this one has Streisand, Hoffman and De Niro, three people who've never made a movie together. (Although Hoffman and De Niro have worked together before, most notably in another comedy, "Wag the Dog.") With that type of pedigree, you'd expect a Best Picture contender, and on that level it disappoints. It's not even as good as the first one, but it's still a lot of fun.

In this one, Stiller, his fiancé and her parents (and their grandson, Little Jack) head to Florida to meet Greg's hippie-ish parents. Being on his home turf should make Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) feel more in control of his surroundings, but guess again as everything begins to spiral out of control for him, thanks partly to his well-meaning parents.

Easily the two scene-stealers are Hoffman and Streisand, who have a lot of fun acting as over-the-top sexually-active and sexually-open parents. This, of course, turns Ben Stiller's parents-to-parents introductory weekend into a Freudian nightmare made worse by control freak Jack Byrnes (De Niro) and his "circle of trust" high standards.

The movie goes further overboard with the toilet jokes this time than the first, something unnecessary considering the on-screen talent who were clearly having a lot of infectious fun making this film. In fact, Streisand clearly hasn't just let herself cut loose this way since her '70s comedies that co-starred Ryan O'Neal, yet she still isn't given enough to do. I could've lived with some scenes running longer if it meant more Barbra and fewer toilet jokes used as unneeded crutches. Hoffman, on the other hand, acts as if he could play Focker's dad forever and you actually find yourself looking forward to seeing him in the next scene.

To sum it up...the movie isn't as great as its pedigree would suggest but it still entertains. Seven out of ten...

What the Coen brothers do best, they do uniformly well, and the dialogue, character development and caper plot all click along perfectly. Tom Hanks shows us that even when he's doing something just for fun, without much serious effort, he can still be amazing to watch. The Coens have a lot of fun themselves, reversing roles (racial and otherwise; if you're not familiar with Bob Jones University, read up on it for an extra note of irony) and showing the unifying theme about the bad kharma that curses this particular enterprise and the way God, Fate, whatever you want to believe (the movie leaves it all up to you) controls your destiny and sometimes even shows favoritism. Jjensen1's criticism was unfair, apparently that person showed up expecting more action and being unfamiliar with the Coens, was woefully impatient with the character development and the slice-of-life scenes. Look for some clever metaphorical touches, like the gospel choir (and look for some R&B and gospel greats in *those* scenes), the ever-changing portrait of Marva's husband, the garbage scow headed to the dump (which the preacher also describes). Granted there is one major downfall and some minor ones. The major one: just the way the plot is constructed keeps you from caring about the characters and what happens to them, in the fascinating way the Coen Brothers usually make us do even in movies like "Fargo". There's also an issue of very foul language, granted it's important for the sake of some of the characters but still could've been toned down a bit. Overall, I would recommend this movie as a worthy Coen effort even if it's not one of their best.

"Get Smart" belongs in the annals of classic TV comedy...apparently missing it by "that much". Not only was it funny and intelligent, its use of satire would inspire later shows from "Police Squad!" to "The Simpsons". And would you believe...Agent 99 as a proto-feminist? Ironically, her character was a sendup of the typical spy-babes of the '60's, yet her intelligence and grace clearly showed her to be the brains of this outfit. Surely TV Land can find a place for this cold-war gem...

Clearly the cinematic equivalent of getting lost in a strange town and going around the poorly-run sewage plant several times. I don't see how anyone could possibly sit through this garbage without Joel and the 'bots--and even Frank and Dr. Forrester apologized while they were showing it! I could only imagine what was going through the minds of those poor souls who actually saw it at the drive-in during its brief original theatrical run. If hell were a drive-in, it would be located next to a sewage plant and "Manos" would be on screen eternally.

Film that is fun to watch, but for all the wrong reasons; search out the MST3K version if possible. Movie was obviously shot as cheap, drive-in filler, but its subtext of youthful empowerment in the '60's is rather interesting. However, the execution and payoff are both lame. That's a problem with movies about Amazing, Colossal people...once they're all grown up the writers run out of things for them to do...the closing payoff is a big disappointment, as if the film adopts a teenaged "Yeah, whatever" attitude of its own.