Reviews

Any time NASA sends up a team that has not tested themselves in weightlessness, and not made sure the crew members were stalwart and loyal to each other guarantees the mission will not be successful. The soap opera people have somehow taken over NASA and the soap opera arguments between captain and crew are beyond ridiculous, making this series totally unwatchable. This is not the first time Netflix has given us a "space" series and the plot is eerily similar. Instead of exploration, we got soap opera scenes among the crew. NONE of this resembles reality in any way. It's too serious to laugh about, and because it takes itself seriously, it is totally stupid. You sit and think about what ridiculous thing will they do next? ... and then they do it.

The writers of this movie get psychological disorders mixed up. Multiple personality or Disassociative Identity Disorder is completely separate and different from schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a thoroughly well-documented, scientific disorder. The majority of psychiatrists and psychologists do not believe that there is anything substantive or scientific about multiple personality disorder -- it sounds and looks "sexy" to the non-professional, but in every case has been shown to be mimicked by a person under the control of someone who tells them they suffer from this purported malady. Movies like this do a disservice to the public by providing inaccurate scientific advice concerning important psychological disorders.

Terrible script, unbelievable acting by Sinatra and wooden, forced tough-guy acting by a limited-range actor Sterling Hayden. Propaganda filled slant on everything covered, which is repeated over and over again, making this a camp film along the lines of Reefer Madness. Any serious assassination plotters would not allow their protagonists to stay in the same room, uncuffed and unfettered, where they almost certainly would do everything they could to stop the crime. It makes no sense. How can the criminals search the house and miss a gun in the top drawer of the bureau? Why would they not either kill or disable all the others and confine them to the basement? Nothing here makes sense and the plot calls on you to turn something as horrific as an assassination into a fairy tale in order for it to be believed. This film is a failure on all fronts and an embarrassment to the movie industry. The story is that Sinatra wanted it recalled after the Kennedy assassination. The real scuttlebutt is that Sinatra used the assassination as his excuse to eliminate the film from circulation, knowing it was his black mark in the entertainment industry, and he was ashamed of doing it.

Not a faithful adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott book. Plumfield, originally in Maine, is now apparently in the south or a border state? Jo has lost all her spunk and vitality, and the professor (a Ph.D., for that matter) takes all the money he has and gives it over, without a thought, to charlatans because they are "good investors"? What has happened to the wise, lovable Fritz Bhaer of the earlier novel?

Nothing happens at Plumfield, except Bessie the Cow gives birth and Danny, the new boy, gets into fights. Instead, the main emphasis is on the non-Alcott material: the charlatans who sell snake oil to the masses and who crack some interesting jokes along the way. It's watchable, but not a good movie. And it's certainly not an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women".

As an historical movie document, Jimmy Clanton doing one of his top ten hits ("Just A Dream", "Venus in Blue Jeans") would have made this movie come alive. So also with big stars the Cadillacs, Eddy Cochran, Ritchie Valens, and Jackie Wilson. The only one who gets to sing his hits, albeit in a toned-down way, is the great Chuck Berry, with his trademark dance moves alive and well.

Alan Freed and the plot are simply terrible. This would have been better as a concert. And we would not want Sandy Stewart singing religious fables to us. Her songs needed to be beefed up or deleted altogether. This was supposed to be early rock and roll.

They still were proving that rock and roll didn't lead to "juvenile delinquency" as most adults, some vociferously, were claiming. Pastors, ministers, and preachers all condemned the new music from the pulpit, and many adults of the "older generation" saw rock and roll as being from the fires of the pit. As a famous evangelist said, only one would win out: either Christianity or rock and roll. Thankfully, people became more rational, and we all know what happened as a result of rock and roll's early years in the 1950s.

These beach movies were not popular with teenagers at the time of their release, but with the passage of time older adults can enjoy this campy, airbrushed, sanitized sandy version of 1965. Annette and Frankie were never big teen idols or hitmakers, both scoring hits in the 1950s and then fading from sight, but they both had larger than life personalities that adults enjoyed as the years went by. Frankie and Annette were a joke to rock and rollers and the radio charts, and the singers promoted in the beach series all failed to spark any interest. William Asher, producer of the series, was best known as Elizabeth Montgomery's husband and helped create the classic TV series "Bewitched". His hand was steadier with the TV series than it was with the beach movies, but this entry is one of the best.

Annette and Frankie are cute in their all-WASPish, all heterosexual, all white, artificial beach world that never existed. This was not the real 1965 -- even at the beach -- but that's what movies are intended to do: take us out of reality and into imagination, where we can enjoy 90 minutes of life -- the way it might have been.

Awesome vehicle for Betty Grable and Robert Young. Filmed in bright technicolor, it was the quality type of musical that MGM could seldom pull off. This film is rarely seen today and gets no breaks because it was a 20th Century Fox property, instead of being in endless repetitive repeats as the MGM lesser-quality films of the era are on TCM.

Regardless, when you get the chance, this is one to sit back and enjoy. Grable is magnificent and Young is surprisingly good. The music is outstanding.

This one even starts out with a popular Christian hymn, for no apparent reason at all, and then the scene changes to ... this purported movie. Evangelicals are filling the airwaves to win converts to Jesus and this is another of their (sick) attempts at playing on people's emotions to "steer them to Christ". as they put it. Where are the kids parents? This is not a gun control film. This is a "raising your children decently" film. The irony here as we sit watching the church service at the end with all the happy Christians signing happy evangelical songs -- is that the parents are there -- in church. They have been too afraid and too uninterested in talking to their children about life and its problems. Sex? Oh my god, no. Only the heathen talk about that. Guns are to be worshipped in their proper place (not as a means to killing children). Kids' problems are insignificant and can be ignored. This is the evangelical mantra. All you have to do is take them to church three times a week and they'll turn out to be fine spiritual warriors for Christ. (I am the son of evangelical parents and can identify with this movie.) Not that the kids, however deprived they are of parental attention would act in such a manner. The movie is truly in the twilight zone when it comes to any of this. The police would be called, the parents would cry, they would ask god why they were being punished, and then they would blame their children in some way. So, rather than presenting a holy look at the wonderful world of the evangelical, we see them for what they really are -- and we see their children -- alone, bereft of attention and advice at a time in their life when it is needed most. This is a sick, sad movie, unrealistic in most parts, but resonantly true when it comes to others.

You have your minor acts, but, more importantly you have the nation's most popular singer, Lesley Gore, belting out her smash hit "You Don't Own Me" to a joyful and amazed crowd. Gore brought with her six top ten hits in a row, as of this concert, and was the best known artist at the concert. The stage presence of James Brown was phenomenal as he was breaking out in the U.S. with his first hits. The Rolling Stones did better than they feared and gave a great performance. These three acts were extraordinary, and many of the other acts deserve attention, especially since this was 1964, rock was new, many parents were berserk against it, preachers and priests sermonized it was "devil" music, and the older generation had a field day taunting this new music that dared to threaten the big bands and insipid ballads they were familiar with. Gore, Brown, and the Rolling Stones were leaders in the beginning of rock and roll and appear here in its first concert. Kudos to them and to their powerful performances that blew the audiences away. Their songs still do today.

This one will go down in the books as the quintessential comedy of wit during Hollywood's golden age. In this genre, Myrna Loy was queen and William Powell king. Throughout all the inevitable hijinks and enjoyable madness, the allure of Myrna Loy is ever present, and Powell's striving to get her back is done with hijinks that defied imagination -- but always involved a bit of wit and charm.

No other films approaching this comedic quality were ever made -- even the 2020 resurrection of Nick and Nora Charles failed before it began because they couldn't find an actress with the grace and acumen of Myrna Loy. Why try? Colorize and show this film every year as a model of sophisticated screwball comedy -- with the charm of Loy and Powell for good measure. This one can't be beat.

This one is different -- much better -- than your typical comedy fare. When I saw it on Amazon Prime, I decided to give it a chance, and it hooks you from the very first episode. The dialogue is not just funny, it is witty and has an exuberant sophistication to it. If you want to laugh and enjoy television again, you need to watch this show. I hope that a third season is coming soon. They haven't run out of fresh material yet.

Bob Hope always was. I am old now, but when I was young Hope was everywhere. In the 1960s, he headlined TV specials and told corny joke after joke. You liked his personality, but the humor was pretty trite and just plain corny.

Before I was born, Hope starred in this interesting vehicle, but he talks too much and the lines he makes funny at the beginning grow old and stale as the movie proceeds. You can only take so much of Hope before turning the movie off. This is one that starts out well, but cannot deliver the goods.