Reviews

I was eager to see currently popular artists pay homage to Queen with some great covers of the band's music. Darren Criss is a very talented guy, but in this production he was given cringe worthy skits with horribly forced dialogue to perform between the musical performances. The only excuse for a talented and versatile guy like Darren Criss to agree to read and perform awful skits like that would be to pay off a large debt that he owed to a vicious loan shark.

The actual musical performances were quite good, including that of Darren Criss. If the creators of the show had only foregone the awful skits and substituted for them more photos and footage of Queen with a voice over full of interesting band history and facts it would have been SO much better.

It happened with The Closer when Kyra Sedgewick left, and it happened to Queen of the South when Veronica Falcon and Joaquim de. Almeida left, and now it's happening to Animal Kingdom with the departure of Ellen Barkin. I'm talking about that slow (or sometimes rapid) slide downhill when the heart of the show is gone and the producers and writers are desperately struggling to keep a thing alive when the good ideas aren't coming any more.

I usually dislike TV series that are spun off from a film, but in the case of Animal Kingdom I've felt that the TV series was actually better than the film that it was based on. It's so sad that this show's producers didn't go out on a high note instead of trying to patch the hole left by Ellen Barkin's departure with the pointless flashbacks to "early Smurf".

I won't repeat all the things previous reviewers said because it's a no brainer that the script, and especially the jokes are bad and have no place in what is supposed to be a thriller. I just wanted to point out that the final scene leaves a VERY LARGE door open for a sequel. A sequel to The Predator makes as much sense as a sequel to Ishtar, Heaven's Gate or Shakes the Clown. The scariest part of the film for me was the realization that there might be a sequel. Didn't ANYBODY involved in this mess of a motion picture realize that it sucked???

I DVR'd this one despite the low ratings because the synopsis made me think that the film might offer an interesting take on the 1977 New York City power blackout. I lived through that blackout. I was at a party in an apartment near the corner of 93rd Street and Broadway in Manhattan when the blackout hit. It was quite eerie listening to the vinyl LP that was playing suddenly slow down which sounded like a sped up version of the scene in "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) in which Keir Dullea's character pulls the memory boards out of the HAL 9000 computer and HAL's voice gets slower and slower.

Unfortunately, there was very little business in the film that dealt with the blackout, and the rest of what was going on was abysmally dull. At the location where I was when the 1977 blackout hit it was party time, sort of like Mardi Gras. There was no rioting, no police helicopters scanning the scene with a high power beam of light., just a lot of jolly people and pubs trying to sell off their beer cheap before it got too warm to sell it. Maybe there were riots somewhere, but I didn't see them.

If you want to see a REAL thriller set in New York City watch "Wolfen" instead.

The headline that I wrote for this review really summarizes my take on this film, but I'll elaborate. I went in expecting to see a fairly interesting film about a psychedelic voyage of some sort. Instead. I got yet another jokey/jivey treatment of a serious subject. The movie plays like the Adam Sandler remake of "The Trip". If you want to watch an interesting well made film that takes you on voyages of different sorts through the human mind watch "Charly" (1960), "Sybil" (1976), "Altered States" (1980) or "The Cell" (2000). I gave it a rating as high as five solely on the basis of good looking cinematography, production design and for the actors' valiant effort to make it work.

I've enjoyed Robert Carlyle's work very much. His acting was terrific in films like "The Full Monty" (1997) and "28 Weeks Later" (2007). I also liked his work in the TV series "Stargate Universe" (2009 - 2011). However, when I saw that Carlyle had been cast as Adolf Hitler in this production I was a bit skeptical. Well, I must admit that I was wrong. Robert Carlyle has created an Adolf Hitler that is quite manic/depressive and scary. I don't know about the historical accuracy, but the film was quite entertaining. It did have a definite TV movie look so I gave it a 7 out of 10.

I'd like to think that during the epic consumption of alcohol at the wrap party Robert Carlyle and the actors that portrayed his inner circle were induced to don their Nazi uniforms and film a re-enactment of the stripping scene from The Full Monty for an outtakes reel. If they didn't, they missed the chance of a lifetime.

It seems to me that there is an increasing tendency to dilute procedurals with heavy doses of slapstick comedy played out by the protagonists. The reboot of Hawaii Five-0 would be a prime example of this. Can you possibly imagine wise cracking Detective Lennie Briscoe and any of his various partners on Law and Order engaging in any of the silly banter and stunts that we see in some modern day procedurals?

Attempting to balance comedic and dramatic elements is a difficult tightrope to walk. Few are successful. Alfred Hitchcock was one of the masters at achieving that balance. Amidst the most horrible of events Hitchcock could drop in a nugget of comedy tastefully and without distracting from the dramatic tension. If you don't believe me watch Frenzy.

Unfortunately, Almost Paradise doesn't achieve that kind of balance. While I thoroughly enjoyed Leverage and have enjoyed the acting work of Christian Kane, I can't give Almost Paradise a ringing endorsement.

There is a sub-genre that I've decided to call "New England Noir". Films in this category involve organized crime activity and/or heists in Boston Massachusetts and surrounding areas. I would include in this list films like "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" (1973), "The Brinks Job"(1978), "The Departed" (2006) and "The Town" (2010). The films in this category have a refreshingly different flavor and ambiance than similar films set in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Maybe it's the chowder. At any rate, I like the "New England Noir" style.

"Vault" (2019) is also in the category of "New England Noir". While Vault isn't a big budget extravaganza like The Town or The Departed, it's a very entertaining entry into the genre. The story is based on a true tale of childhood friends in Rhode Island that become involved in a heist that is WAY over their heads. The story takes place in the mid 1970's, and the funk soundtrack music definitely imparts the feel of that era and is reminiscent of the soundtrack music of "Shaft" (1971) or "Super Fly" (1972). There is also a tasteful use of the split screen technique at one point that is also evocative of 1970's films. I can't agree with the bad reviews of this film. I give it eight out of ten stars.

Imagine making a film about a woman that works as a cashier at a food court that has recently been opened inside an upscale jewelry store and calling it Breakfast at Tiffany's. Imagine making a film about a Russian immigrant that opens a pain meds clinic in the United States and calling it Doctor Zhivago. You get the idea. Neither of the ideas that I have listed here is inherently terrible, although neither one would probably be a masterpiece. The problem with these two ideas is that I have taken the title of a previously made film that was of a very high quality and a classic and grafted it onto my so-so film ideas. That is the problem with the 2015 "remake" of Point Break, a film released in 1991 about a group of extreme sports aficionados that finance their globetrotting pursuit of their hobby by robbing banks. That film was filled with imaginative storytelling and great action sequences and is the kind of film that you can watch over and over again.

Here's the thing. The 2015 version of Point Break is about a group of extreme sports aficionados that commit crimes not to finance their lifestyle, but as part of some high minded mumbo jumbo filled spiritual quest. In itself the 2015 film is not completely terrible, it just seems that way because the creators decided to graft the title of a really great and memorable film onto it and doomed it to being compared to a much better film. They should have called it Spirit Quest. I give it 4 out of 10 stars.

I approached watching the premier of The Orville with the feeling that I was going to hate it. I had read a number of negative reviews from professional critics that had previewed the show. In addition, as a member of the generation that came of age during the airing of the original Star Trek, I was prepared to be turned off by having another precious memory degraded. I also tend to have a problem with material that tries to mix comedy and drama, something that rarely works well unless you're Alfred Hitchcock.

That being said, I must admit that I have thoroughly enjoyed the eight episodes of The Orville that have aired. The dramatic situations are interesting and involving, the dialog is intelligently written and there is a perfect balance of comedy and drama so that the comedy doesn't intrude on or diminish he dramatic moments. I don't often laugh out loud when watching television, but I did at the end of episode seven when a crew member told his captors "real quick before I go. You can all suck ass, and I'm a Spaceman". I give The Orville nine out of ten stars and I highly recommend it.

I'm still reeling from watching the two episode premier. I won't rehash the criticisms made regarding the weirdness of mixing punk hair styles, hair coloring and music with an Elizabethan historical setting except to note that I agree. I found myself wincing every time the audience at the theater was shown. I kept dreading the time when Boy George or that girl with the upside down eye makeup from Bow Wow Wow would show up as audience members. Or maybe even the guy with the late 50's Cadillac fin hair from Flock of Seagulls. If they really wanted to do the 70's/80's music thing right why not go for "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" by Ian Dury and the Blockheads or "Fame" by David Bowie? I will say that the photography is gorgeous as are the sets and costumes (even though some of the costumes seem as much from a future time as the music). I just wish that Hunter S. Thompson could come back and write a "Fear and Loathing" about "Will".

In the 1990's I worked for a video post production facility that made broadcast air masters for Beakman's World. Whenever someone was needed to do quality control on a finished tape I would beg for the assignment so that I could watch this wonderful show (and even get paid for it!!!). Even though I was in my mid 40's at the time I always enjoyed the humor that the performers brought to the subject of science.

I recently (June 2013) watched "The Pirate" starring Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. There is a song in the film called "Be a Clown" that is performed by Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. While listening I suddenly realized that Lester the Rat sang a song called "Be a Mouse" on Beakman's World that used the melody from "Be a Clown".

LONG LIVE THE BEAKMAN!!!