Reviews

I find this episode very disturbing. Now, it's a given that Charlie is written in such a way so that we are disinclined to feel sympathetic towards him. But in this episode, one of his exes, Chrissy, defrauds Charlie out of thousands of dollars by presenting this young boy and allowing Charlie to infer that the boy is his son, when, in fact, the boy is somebody else's child, whom Chrissy has "borrowed" for the specific purpose of defrauding Charlie.

But Charlie never finds out he's been defrauded, and Chrissy is never held to account for this fraudulent presentation. Indeed, Chrissy reappears late in season seven (as a hallucination) as one of the women that Charlie has done wrong. But what Chrissy did to Charlie seems to me way worse than being loved and left.

Charlie may have been a selfish, inconsiderate, drunken reprobate, but the idea that Chrissy actually commits a crime, and gets away with it, is not a creative decision I would have made.

I was a little disappointed. This film is a combined and edited version of the first part of season one of "The Adventures of Zorro". Thing is, I have just completed watching all of the episodes made available on Disney+. So this feels like a rerun. OK, for what it is. But the chances are, if you can watch this, do you have access to Disney+. If you have access to Disney+, you have access to the original series.

Sergeant Garcia may have been a model for Sergeant Schultz, of "Hogan's Heroes", they are very similar character types.

I will say, just to fill up the apparently required six hundred characters, that "The Adventures of Zorro" is one of my more vivid childhood TV memories. One of the shows I grew up with. 🤔😉😊

A conclusion I came to some time ago (and that doesn't seem to be reflected in any of the other reviews here) is that the whole story is a dream, a waking fantasy, on the part of Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell). There were no scenes where there is any objective confirmation of the existence of the Marilyn Monroe character, where anyone else could confirm any of the events between them; even the scene where Kruhulik (Robert Strauss) walks in is just the three of them, and Kruhulik is drunk, thus unreliable as a witness. Add to that the fact that Marilyn's character has no actual name, and is only referred to in the credits as "the girl", leads me to believe that the whole thing is Sherman's fantasy, that "the girl" never actually existed, that it's all a guilt-driven fantasy on the part of a 39-year-old middle-class white guy confronted with a "summer bachelorhood" in the City without his family. 🤔😉😊

I really like Orson Welles. I really like Orson Welles as a Director. I really like Shakespeare. However, watching Shakespeare without subtitles is very difficult for me, and the TCM copy has none. It's not simply the Elizabethan-era dialogue, and the challenge of keeping track of all the characters' names, but the poetic structure of the dialog as well (my hearing ain't what it used to be, either). So unless you're already familiar with the play (which I'm actually not, and I've been meaning to watch a version for awhile, thus my disappointment), you may have the same difficulty I had actually following the story. Perhaps I'll have an easier time when next they show the Olivier version. Assuming it's subtitled.

Also, Welles shoots it in that high-contrast black and white that he was so fond of in the 50s (see also The Trial and Touch of Evil); sadly, I am not as fond of it as he was. It kind of hurts my eyes; I tend to dismiss it as "NYU film school style".

So I'm going to try to struggle my way through this... 🤔😉😊

I like this episode generally, I think it's well written, and I like the episodes where they compare "our" culture with those of other planets. There is one really big plot hole in this episode that always bugs me when I watch it.

There has got to be millennia of Trill jurisprudence regarding this very issue. However, the idea that this question has come up *ever* before is completely ignored, even - particularly - by the Trill Govt. Minister. Of course, the discussion of legal precedent would have eviscerated the premise of the episode. 🤔😉😊

I found this series quite intriguing. To be honest, I watched for the first time because, well, I like looking at Lynda Carter (so, sue me). Turned out to be surprisingly appealing. (I've never read the book, nor seen the Daniel Day-Lewis movie.) Some of what I found interesting...

One: How many TV series are set during the Seven Years War (aka the French & Indian War)? I can't think of any. Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett were both set 20-30 years later.

Two: An attempt was clearly made to not portray Natives in that stereotypical manner so common previously. Not always successfully, perhaps, but the Indians were referred to by their own national names, Delaware, Huron, etc. The clearly racist British tended to call them "savages", but that's in keeping, historically. Chingachgook was portrayed by actual Omaha Rodney A. Grant, and most of the Delaware and Huron characters appear to have been played by actual Native Americans. (Hey, baby steps.) Three: It was portrayed a little too prettily, especially Lee Horsley, who was just way too pretty, particularly his hair. But, y'know, TV.

Four: I can't quite nail down where this was set. I could find no reference to a "Ft. Bennington" from that period. There is, of course, Ft. Benning, but that's in Georgia (and much later). There was a "Bennington campaign" as part of the Revolution, but, again, that was 20+ years later. From references to Saratoga and Albany, I'm surmising that it's the upper Hudson Valley, where, to the surprise of many downstaters like myself, the Hudson is very fordable. Maybe somewhat to the West and South of the Lake George area, but East of the Adirondacks.

Five: I find myself somewhat baffled by the characters of Peevey and McKinney. The characters appear to behave like adolescents, but the actors were in their mid-20s at the time. If the characters were that old, why aren't they in the militia, or conscripted by Capt. Shields? If they're actually teenagers, where are their parents? If orphans, where do they live? Where were they six or seven years earlier, when they would have been in single digits? Enquiring minds want to know.

Six: I wish the image quality were better. The focus seems a bit soft. No one would have noticed pre-HD, but... Seven: Hawkeye is presented as sort of a "white savior", protector of Natives and colonists alike. Again, 1994 TV. Some slack may be justified.

Eight: Many of the episodes deal with modern philosophical issues, particularly regarding ethics, war, and racism.

There was only one season (22 episodes). I suspect that it didn't succeed because it was a little too philosophical; this was the era, recall, of Hercules and Xena. There's not nearly as much action (read: blood) in Hawkeye. I also feel Chingachgook was under-utilized.

One odd thing, I've noticed a number of actors whom I recognized from SG-1, which was 5-6 years later. Indeed, Gavin Sanford (Capt. Shields) was a semi-regular (he played a Tok'ra). Not difficult to imagine, but notable nonetheless.

As of this writing, it's available on Tubi and CoziTV. A couple of episodes each weekend might be a comfortable frequency.

As I write this, I am about 2/3 of the way through the movie, and I just want to reiterate the others about how much fun it is, and as a Marvel old-timer who is not a current comics type (and thus a bit of a purist) but really enjoys the MCU movies, I had been just a little skeptical.

One complaint I do have: I'm watching it on FXNOW, Fox' streaming service. There are graphic artifacts, duplicate offset images and such, that seem left over from the 3D copy. I'm finding them a distraction. I don't think I've ever noticed this in other movies on TV that had a 3D versions, but that I watched on a normal television. And I've watched several. It reminds me of reading those old 3D comics without the glasses.

I guess I'd been under the impression that the 2D version corrected for that. Is this what you saw if you saw a "non-premium" format? How about disks? Or other digital sources? (Btw, whatever happened to home 3D? Never hear about it anymore.)

OK, end of rant; back to the movie. 🤔😉😊

I guess they hired him for the box office appeal. He is top billed, and has zero lines.

Somehow, the setting of this story was moved from Massachusetts in "...Ghost" to the Louisiana bayou. I dunno, maybe I missed something along the way.

These stories had become pretty one-note by this time, and have basically stayed that way through today; just repetition of "help, the monster is loose". As ever, the bad guy is the guy in the Fez, played by Peter Coe, who seems to bear a strange resemblance to Michael Peña.

Incidentally, Virginia Christine, who plays Ananka, the "strange girl", is perhaps best known as Mrs. Olsen in those coffee commercials.

🤔😉😊

Considering what is actually going on with our Government as I write this (Sept '21), I'll not comment on the story itself, it's kinda not over yet.

But what has always impressed me about this film, which I've watch quite a few times, but pretty much always on a TV of one resolution or another, is the quality and sharpness of the - and I emphasize, B&W - image; this in addition to Frankenheimer's innovative use of the widescreen format (not currently used by TCM, sadly).

I think of the period from (about) '59 to (about) '64 as the "Golden Age of B&W". The quality of the photography, the lighting, but mostly of the physical film itself, had gotten about as high as it could go (until - maybe - digital). This allowed excruciating detail that wasn't yet available with the color processes, especially considering the then-substantial cost difference. It's particularly noticeable on closeups - look at eyes, particularly irises.

🤔😉😊 .

Before I looked it up (watching it for the first time tonight), I thought Sylvia Sims was Galaxy Rose, and Justine Lord was Amos Klein. Why can't I tell these two women a part? Do they look that much like each other? I know they've both been in several other episodes, maybe they're just blurring together... 🤔😉😊

Last of the peacetime military comedies, going all the way back to "At War with the Army" w/ Dean & Jerry, killed off, I expect, by the war in Vietnam. This was a comic strip version of the Marines, and does not look all that good from the historical perspective. 1969 was the year of the Tet Offensive, which happened just about when episode 18 of this final season was aired.

Gomer never went to Vietnam. For Pete's sake, even Beetle Bailey went to 'Nam. A more appropriate last episode would have had Gomer going to Vietnam, and getting into a firefight where he heroically saved Sgt. Carter but was killed in so doing.

That's what M*A*S*H would have done. 🤔😉😊

The only thing missing from this movie is Roger Corman. And maybe Jack Nicholson in a cameo.