Reviews

This episode is actually a rerun of the episode titled "Jonah", which was broadcast on the date listed here but originally shown on May 26, 1962. There were only 32 episodes in Season Six of Have Gun -- Will Travel. This listing has caused some problems for collectors who believed the listing and thought the DVD was incomplete. I've tried in the past correcting errors on IMDb, but that does not seem to be possible. The episode itself is quite good, which is why I have given it a rating of 10. But it would be ideal if this listing could be removed. Are any IMDb gods listening? For more information, you can consult the book "The Have Gun -- Will Travel Companion".

At last the great song from this movie is out on CD. Buy Newley Discovered if only for the song "Once Upon a Time".

As for the film itself, uneven is the best word for it, but memorable also comes to mind. I only saw it once, when it first came out, and I still think about it often. There is no DVD -- there was one in a non-US format years ago, but it is long out of print.

Is it a "good" movie? No. If there were a vote for movies in bad taste, it might come in #1. Is it worth seeing. Oh, yes!

The self-indulgent life story of a self-indulgent singer, songwriter, actor clearly based on Newley himself. You could make the case the Newley never wrote about anyone else, and his most famous song, "What Kind of Fool Am I?", says it all. But he had great talent, and the misfortune to obtain fame as a small child, and then lose it.

If a joke doesn't offend anybody, it isn't funny.

The Inki cartoons are offensive, no doubt about it. So is rap music. Get over it. I suspect that any sane Black person will find the Inki cartoons hilarious, and that the people who are offended by them White people who still think Black's need their patronizing protection against racist humor.

Seriously, the Inki cartoons are funny. It saddens me that, not because anybody is really offended, but because somebody might, just might, be offended, I can't buy Inki cartoons or The African Queen or Song of the South on DVD.

This episode is about race relations, a taboo subject in entertainment TV at the time, and so was never aired. It featured Nichelle Nichols as the fiancé of a Black Marine, Ernest Cameron, who encounters a White Marine guilty of racial bullying while they were in the same High School. Ernest Cameron is still angry, to the point of starting fights. The Gary Lockwood character, Lt. Bill White, tries to make peace between the two men. Lt. White's superior officer points out that he is attempting to accomplish in a few weeks what better men have been unable to accomplish in a lifetime, to overcome racial prejudice. The episode can be viewed at The Paley Center for Media in New York City.

I, the undersigned, will not buy a ticket for the 2009 film of The Hobbit unless Peter Jackson directs.

There is a long tradition in Hollywood of biting the hand that feeds them, of cheating the creators that fill their pockets. For more than ten years Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, the most popular syndicated series of the time, was told by Paramount that "Star Trek isn't making any money in syndication." Similarly, Peter Jackson has been accused of being greedy for wanting the money guaranteed him under his contract for The Lord of the Rings. Because he asked Hollywood to pay him the money they owe him, Halo has been canceled and he has been told that his services as director of The Hobbit are "no longer required". In other words, allow us to cheat you or you'll never work in this town again.

The only thing these people will listen to is the almighty buck. If enough people click on "reply" and add their names to this list, maybe Hollywood will listen. Please click "reply" and sign below.

The pilot episode written by Gene Roddenberry is excellent, but the show goes nowhere, all hugger mugger and no real story. Roddenberry's basic idea, that contact between humans and superior aliens will not be all black and white but will be filled with ambiguities, is a good one. Later writers, however, think in terms of good aliens and bad aliens. The use of female actors to play androgynous aliens was a good idea, but in later seasons everybody except Da'an overdoes it. In the third season, there are a number of scripts by Howard Cheykin, who is an excellent writer, and who wrote some memorable episodes of The Flash TV series, as well as some great graphic novels. However, he is unable to do anything here, because he is locked in to what is really not a workable story line. I have not watched the fifth season, but I have read that it throws out most of what was established in the first four. For scifi completists only.

I had heard about this play all my life, and so when it finally came out on DVD, I bought it. I wish I'd saved my money. This tale of incestuous longing, patterned after the Orestia Trilogy, must have been shocking in its day. But today the dialog seems ridiculous, the acting overblown, and the plot preposterous. Whether the Eugene O'Neill play is as bad, I can't say. There are a lot of ways the movie fails as a movie. Chapter titles. Highlighted close-ups like those in a silent film. Static camera. But the plot also doesn't work, because the murder and incest are motivated by an old man unable to satisfy a young wife -- a far cry from Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter that motivates Clytemnestra's revenge. It's soap opera, and not very good soap.

It really isn't fair to judge a 225 minute film from a butchered cut, but I was able to detect a delightful movie hidden behind incomprehensible cuts and muddy dubbing. I hope that someday the entire film is made available on DVD, and my rating is based not on the film I saw, but the film I imagine. It is hard to say exactly what makes this film so much better than the Hollywood versions of this famous tale. I suppose the most important thing is that the kids act like kids, not like movie stars trying to project "cute". Of course, it is nice that the story, or as much as we get to see of it, is true to the book. But a film is not designed, after all, to replace a book, but to be entertaining in its own right. Needless to say, this cut has preserved our morals by removing the skinny dipping, except for a one second scene that seems deliberately out of focus.

All the negative reviews of V for Vendetta say that it is anti-American. Actually, the problem with V for Vendetta is that it is not anti-American enough. America, out of willing stupidity and short-sighted greed, has replaced morality with prudishness, courage with pigheadedness, education with memorization, and prosperity with nine trillion dollars in debt – debt owed to the country formerly known as "Red China". And in return, the Chinese fill the shelves of Wal-Mart with sufficient junk to keep the sheep content with being shorn. Does anyone really think killing a few Leaders and blowing up a few buildings is going to change that?

People who go into a movie wanting to know exactly what to expect hate this film. Sometimes it is hard to tell the heroes from the villains, and you have to pay attention to understand what is going on. On the other hand, its got a lot of 10 votes, from people who don't mind the kind of mumbled dialog that got Robert Altman fired from his first job and who do like to see things in movies that they've never seen before. Not as good as Time Bandits or Brazil, it is a whole lot better than Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. So, stay away from it or go depending on whether you prefer the predictable or the unusual, the slick or the slightly lumpy but with chocolate chips. Rick Norwood, sfsite

This superb set of DVDs features some of the greatest television of all time. The second season DVD has one minor defect that I point out only for those interested in such trivia. The last episode on disk three, listed as "Treasure Trail", is really "Hunt the Man Down". The second episode on disk four, listed as "Hunt the Man Down", is "Treasure Trail". The "Wire Paladin" in both cases refers to the episode that should be there rather than to the episode that is there.

My favorite television programs of all time are Have Gun -- Will Travel, Perry Mason, Star Trek, Dark Shadows, Lou Grant, Hill Street Blues, Paper Chase, L. A. Law, Lois and Clark, Babylon 5, The West Wing, Horatio Hornblower, Sherlock Holmes, Sports Night, Firefly, and Smallville.

Shot on an impossible schedule and no budget to speak of, the movie turned out a lot better than you would expect, certainly much more true to the Peter O'Donnell books and comic strip than the previous two films. You can read the strip currently in the reprints from Titan Books, or in Comics Revue monthly. It is one of the greatest adventure comic strips of all time. The movie isn't great, but unlike most low budget films it makes the most of what its got, and it holds your interest. On the DVD extras, the interview with Quentin Tarentino, who is obviously stoned, is a gas. Some people have faulted Tarentino for associating his name with the film, but without him it would never have been made. He is a Modesty Blaise fan, and picked a good writer and director. All things considered, worth 8 stars.

I watched parts of the new DVD version of this series, which I remembered with a certain fondness from the time it was on the air. It starts out looking good -- but that is only because it constantly borrows footage from the much better made-for-TV movie by Sam Peeples, Flash Gordon, the Greatest Adventure of Them All. The movie version was released second, but made first. When you get to the part written by Ted Pederson, the only good thing you can say about it is that it follows the Alex Raymond comic strip. But why watch the film when you can read the strip, which has been reprinted many times? The dialog is rudimentary, the animation is pathetic. When it is not borrowing footage from somewhere else, the animation often doesn't even fit the action, or the action takes place off stage so they can reuse some footage that doesn't really belong. For example, in the underwater sequence, the characters walk underwater as often as they swim, so the animator can reuse walking footage. Have you ever tried to walk upright under water? The second season, which introduces a cowardly baby dragon who is supposed to be cute but is only annoying, is even worse. The dragon is a rip-off of Godzookie, the Godzilla sidekick. I'm sorry to say, give this DVD a pass. Watch the Buster Crabbe serials instead -- they may be cheap, but at least they are fun.

Flash Gordon began as a comic strip drawn by Alex Raymond. In the 1930s it was the inspiration for three much-loved movie serials starring Buster Crabbe, which George Lucas says were his inspiration for Star Wars. In the 1950s, there was a really bad live action TV version. In the 1970s, there was a camp live action film, most famous for its Queen soundtrack. "Frash Wawa, he saved every one of us..." Al Williamson drew some beautiful Flash Gordon comic books, before moving on to draw the Star Wars comic strip.

The Flash Gordon comic strip is now all reprint. My favorite Flash Gordon stories are those written for the comic strip by Harry Harrison, of Stainless Steal Rat fame, and drawn by Dan Barry, reprinted in Comics Revue.

This TV movie, also released as a Saturday morning cartoon, was written by Star Trek writer Sam Peeples, and more or less faithfully follows the early Alex Raymond comic strip adventures. The less polished, more repetitious, Saturday morning version is now out on DVD.

Batman Begins is a muddled mess. It begins with an hour long origin story, which is almost identical to the origin story in The Shadow – which is not a great film, but is a better film than this one. In this version of Batman's origin, Ras Al Ghul trains Bruce Wayne to cloud men's minds/fight evil, with brief flashbacks to the traditional Batman origin. Sadly, while Bruce impresses Ras with his ability, he never impresses the audience. He beats up a bunch of people, but we never see how he does it. He never makes any really cool moves. We just see a flurry of arms and legs and then a bunch of people have been knocked down and Bruce is still standing. Nothing about the plot even begins to make sense, and none of the cool stuff we've been waiting for and hoping for ever happens.

Rick Norwood, sfsite

Very fast, funny, heart warming, and honest. Pop culture references abound. From the previews I thought it was going to be like Ice Age -- one funny bit (in the case of Ice Age, Scrat, in the case of Madagascar, the penguins). But actually this is consistently funny, with a lot of scenes I did not expect to see in a family picture. I especially liked the bit with the cute little yellow duckie. I don't want to praise it too highly -- I think part of my pleasure was going into it not expecting anything much, and being surprised. But it is definitely a movie I'm going to see again and buy on DVD when it comes out.

The animated feature Robots is very much what you expect from the makers of Ice Age - mildly entertaining in spots. The dance on ball bearings was my favorite bit. Robin Williams delivers so many one-liners that a few of them are bound to be funny. Like so many postmodern cartoons, Robots mocks sentimentality at the same time that it relies on sentimentality to keep the viewer interested. The funniest bit is the cartoon before the movie, featuring Scrat. It is very short and ends "To Be Continued". I assumed we would see more of Scrat after the credits, but there are no credit cookies. I guess we will have to wait for the next animated feature from Blue Sky to see more of their most successful character - or maybe the DVD will have a new Scrat cartoon, like the DVD of Ice Age did.

The plot is the standard rich-guy-tires-to-screw-working-class-hero plot that seems to power half the films that come out of Hollywood. It has become such a standard that by now it amounts to boilerplate on which to hang character and incident and gags. Even rich people let their kids watch cartoons like this, which is a bit like NRA members allowing their kids to watch Bambi. Rick Norwood, sfsite

This mini-series takes everything that was original in the books and replaces it with a cliché. It takes everything that was unique in the books and replaces it with something generic. It takes everything that was true in the books and replaces it with something false. The women exist only as extensions of the men -- they are endlessly willing to sacrifice themselves or to perform menial tasks. They are fooled by tricks that wouldn't fool a ten year old and praised for completing tasks that a six year old could complete with ease. And yet, the mini-series is most popular with women under 18 or over 45. I wonder what that tells us. By the way, someone should tell the writer, who seems to specialize in ruining classic fantasy written by women, that "grasp" and "last" don't rhyme.

Rick Norwood sfsite

Fifties movies are -- well -- fifties movies. You accept them for what they are. In those terms, Li'l Abner is fun, especially Stubby Kaye as Marryin' Sam. Just why the fifties are a vast movie wasteland is an interesting subject. I grew up in the fifties, and you could be marked as a non-conformist by not wearing a tie. You got laughed at if your haircut didn't show at least an inch of neck above your collar. Naturally, all this had a chilling effect on television and movies, and so we have only a handful of great movies between the glories of The Third Man and To Have and To Have Not in the forties and Lawrence of Arabia and To Kill a Mockingbird in the sixties. Look at the Oscar winners from the fifties to get an idea of just how bad things were. And so we turned to science fiction -- Destination Moon, Forbidden Planet, This Island Earth -- and to movies based on comic strips like Li'l Abner. When you watch Li'l Abner, just remember, in the fifties this passed for pungent political satire and risqué humor. ricknorwood, sfsite

I think it is absolutely great that people are flocking to see this film. Only in America could a film like this be made. I loved it. I laughed out loud. And I think the big final speech made a lot more sense than most big final speeches in serious films. There are a lot of clichés here that (I hope) nobody will dare write into a movie script ever again. But I am totally weirded out by the number of people posting here who seem take the film seriously. And then take obviously satirical comments about the film seriously. I love political discussions. Let a thousand poppies bloom. But where is your sense of humor?

Rick Norwood sfsite

The Little Prince has gotten a bad rep, possibly because expectations were so high for a new Lerner and Lowe musical. Once you get past the beginning, it is absolutely delightful. But the heavy handed opening, with fish-eye camera lenses and a Message drummed into you that you already know and don't need to hear again, certainly puts viewers in a bad mood. Once The Little Prince arrives on earth, everything is magical. Songs like "The Little Prince" and "I Never Met a Rose" deserve to be standards. Gene Wilder as the fox is fabulous. And the tour de force performance of Bob Fosse as the snake is enough to make even devoted fans of All that Jazz sit up and take notice. If only it weren't too late to go back and reshoot the first fifteen minutes.

"I, Robot" is a lot better than you would think from the previews. The special effects are good, and the plot is not half bad. But the writing is awful, as one would expect from the writer of "Lost in Space" and "Batman & Robin". Why do people keep hiring this guy? The Hansel and Gretel thing is ridiculous, the whole parallel between prejudice against Blacks and prejudice against robots is like something out of a bad EC comic book, and the characterization is totally unbelievable and uninvolving. Needless to say, there is almost no relationship between the movie and the book. Why does Hollywood pay a lot of money for the rights to a classic novel, and then ignore all the things that made the novel a classic?

Rick Norwood sfsite

The book is so good that at least the opening of this made-for-tv movie will move you, but then, as it diverges more and more from the book, taking out all the religion and love and mathematics and putting in cotton candy cliches, it becomes boring. Still, from comments I've heard, people who have not read the book tend to like it, and if it leads even on child to read A Wrinkle in Time, it will have served its purpose. The most embarrassing change is to make the Happy Medium a clone of Mary Poppins' Uncle Albert (I love to Laugh). Nothing is quite so squirm inducing as characters on the screen laughing hilariously at things that are totally unfunny.

Beautiful words, delightful music, great acting! What could ruin such a mix. The answer, the ego of Kenneth Branagh. He is much too old for the part of a young student. His direction is absurdly literal. For example: probably the best use of the song "Heaven, I'm in heaven..." is sung by Angel Islington in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. Here the song is ruined by literally yanking the singers up on wires to a ceiling painted to resemble heaven. If a song mentions a hat, the director shows us a hat, and so on. The camera is always doing things that are distracting and annoying. The choreography is nothing but a string of literal quotes, from Busby Berkley to Fred Astaire to Gene Kelly to Bob Fosse. It never flows, just jerks from quote to quote. And while the older actors are superb, there does not seem to be an actor under 25 who can do Shakespeare...they all sound as if they are mouthing words that are not a part of their vocabulary. And the slapstick -- 'taint funny Magee. After all this, I still recommend watching the film. It is much kinder to the clowns than most productions of LLL. Branagh's great speech in praise of love is worth the price of admission. He acts sincerity so well it is almost enough to make us forget what he did to Emma Thompson. And the music is ... heaven.

There are very few silent films that I enjoy as much as a modern film. In fact, the only silent film that I would rate as a 10 is Buster Keaton's The General. But Douglas Fairbanks is certainly worth watching, if you have any real interest in film. He has so much charm, and moves so fluidly, that he captivates even when the special effects are, well, very 1920s. Fairbanks does not so much act as he dances the role. The costumes and sets, by William Cameron Menzies, are also spectacular. I have watched this movie in the earlier DVD version, and frankly it put me to sleep. First, a great deal of it was missing, and so the story was choppy and hard to follow. Second, the print quality was poor. But the new Kino Fairbanks collection is a miracle of film restoration. There is one section on this DVD that is poor quality, compared to the others. But since this is a section that I have never seen before, to see it at all is wonderful.