Reviews

There's no doubt that Rod Serling was an incredibly gifted writer and had a flair for unexpected twists in many of his stories. This episode however has a twist that ranks as one of the saddest (along with The Lonely) and cruelest I've ever seen.

Henry Bemis (a wonderful Burgess Meridith) is a booking bank teller whose only wish in life is to be left alone to read. He wears coke bottle glasses and is abused and berated by everyone in his life. His wife, his boss, his customers at the bank, everyone. He tells his boss that his wife is so against him reading things that she takes everything away from him (going so far as to ruining one of his favorite books) and he resorts to even reading the ingredients on ketchup bottles.

Then one day while reading inside the bank vault on his lunch hour disaster strikes in the form of a nuclear bomb, killing everyone but him. He wanders about, finding food, and even finding a gun where the viewer is left wondering if he'll use it to end it all, when he suddenly sees the rubble of a library. He finally has all he ever wanted: all the time in the world and books books and even more books to read. But when he bends over to pick one up, his glasses fall breaking the lenses leaving him all but blind.

This episode could have easily ended with him happily on his own reading the many books he's found, but that would have been a happy ending. The cruel twist takes a born loser who finally wins out after suffering a lifetime of cruelty and briefly gives him a few moments of joy only to snatch it away from him with shocking swiftness. I love this episode but cringe with sadness at its cruelty.

This episode, while ranked as one of the best in the series is to me, one of the saddest. Jack Warden plays a character (Arthur Curry) sentenced to (solitary) confinement on an asteroid far from earth. It's a barren desolate wasteland (filmed in Death Valley) where nothing else lives and his only contact with humans is when the supply ships come to replenish his supplies. On one of these trips he's left a crate by a compassionate captain (John Dehner) and his obnoxious crewman (Ted Knight practicing for his character on The Mary Tyler Moore show) and told to open it after the ship leaves. In the crate he finds a female shaped robot named Alicia, totally human looking, complete with emotions. At first he rejects her, but as time passes he feels actual love towards her. Yes she's a robot, but she brings him the one thing everyone in life needs: companionship and love. He's no longer lonely.

Then one day a supply ship arrives early. The previous men (Dehner and Knight) arrive to tell him he's been paroled and they have to leave in 20 minutes or they'll never make it to earth. But, he can only bring 15lbs worth of possessions. He wants to bring Alicia but John Dehner says it's impossible, and promptly pulls out a gun and shoots her in the face destroying her. Dehner then tells Curry 'The only thing you'll be leaving here is loneliness'. Jack Warden (looking at the body) responds 'Yeah'.

I guess it's a social commentary about our attachments to mechanical belongings, and how disposable those things (should be?) are? Even after all these years I'm still shocked by the reaction of Warden's character to losing a love with a simple 'Yeah'. It makes you think.

This is certainly one of the most divisive Star Trek episodes from the original series. And continues the season 3 curse of bad ones. When I was younger, I thought it had potential, some humor and I also thought the female hippies were hot. The whole concept of them calling Kirk 'Herbert' kind of made me laugh at the rebellion against authority. Rewatching it as an adult? Wow, this is pretty bad.

Skip Homeier's ears look like they were transplanted from an elephant and chewed down by a rat. Chekov's girlfriend's accent just annoys the heck out of me, and I really noticed on this one how his combover came all the way from the back of his head. His hair was longer than Raquel Welch's.

The hippies take over the ship with no problem (why the heck did Kirk let them just roam around trying to convert the crew with terrible music?) after Chekov basically gives them a blueprint on how to do it, Spock apparently falls under the spell of the guy in a skirt enough to play with them in a jam session, and then they escape in a shuttle craft to a planet of acid (no subtlety there is there?). I have to rank it near the bottom as episodes go.

We were really looking forward to The New Blood because the original show ended poorly with bad story lines. They were running out of ideas and they could have just ended it Sopranos like having Dexter head out into the hurricane. But they didn't, so they had a chance to redeem themselves by creating New Blood. Yes he was a serial killer, but he was killing serial killers that were getting away with murder. That appealed to everyone's perception of the legal system and sense of justice in seeing the bad guys get theirs in the end.

One of the great things about the character was how thorough he was in the original show. Throw that out the window in New Blood. They totally went against character by making him sloppy, and then compounded it with really sloppy writing. A forensic specialist in Boonyville NY walks around the crime scene after dozens of people have been there walking in the snow and determines it was murder??? It went downhill from there. After an obnoxious and totally unlikeable Harrison showed up we guessed the outcome weeks ago. While Dexter was doing things for the right reasons Harrison was doing them for all the wrong reasons. After the whole Miami homicide division apparently went after a red herring, an internet influencer and terrible police woman from nowhere solve the mystery??? Wow this was bad.

We're not going to watch the Harrison story (with Dexter as his muse no doubt) when they come out with it. Harry taught Dexter the code when he was still alive, having Dexter teach Harrison the code just won't work because he's imaginary. Sad, they should have left it alone.

After seeing Chapter One I expected so much more, unfortunately IT didn't deliver. The film starts out with an overly graphic bashing scene that tries hard to be topical but instead seems to be there just to dare you to criticize it's honesty. And things just go downhill from there. The Loser's Club of the first film reunites 27 years later to have another go at defeating Pennywise, but where the kids were charming and you wanted to root for them, the adults all go separate ways to have their own jump scene moments through an overly long two hour middle section of the film. The film bogs because it keeps showing flashbacks to when they were kids instead of building the characters as adults. The effect is that you never really care about them as adults, they're just an excuse to show CGI monsters that never really scare you on any level. The pacing of the film is so roughshod that it never lets any suspense build as it jumps from one scene to the next, while you keep checking your watch wondering how much more of this you'll have to endure. The middle becomes a bit of a horror film mish mash with an homage to John Carpenter's The Thing (verbatim quote and all) a little bit of Toy Story erector spider, a dash of Poltergeist's Native American mumbo jumbo added in with a couple of million years old space entity tossed in in case you needed something to understand what they're up against. James McAvoy's character is jokingly referred to as an author whose book endings suck (a nod to the book) and unfortunately this film doesn't improve on the novel. It's just an overly long series of vignettes that tie to Chapter One in an unsatisfying way.

This short is one of those rare productions where you're either going to go with it and have a good time, or you're going to be lost and (no disgrace in that) go 'What did I just watch?' It's a play within a play within a play with several (sometimes hilarious) 'in' jokes like commercials for Checkhov's Gun 'You know you're going to fire it'. Those involved in the performing arts will probably get laughs and enjoyment out of this and for those who don't understand it it's perfectly fine. It's art and open to one's own interpretation. Stranger Thing's David Harbour does a great job in several roles and it's fun to see Mary Woronov in fine form too.

This was a fitting end to this great show. For 8 seasons Jim was always a guy trying to do the right thing but sometimes for the wrong reasons. The guest stars are hilarious, Erik Estrada as a smiling leering devil only to be outdone by Lee Majors as an ogling God (Leering at Courtney Thorne Smith) as he tries to rush things so he can go play golf with Bob Hope. It was a hilarious parody of the hypocrisy of religion and it's leaders who are supposed to be morally upstanding but fail miserably. The ending of the episode was a perfect example of the running theme of the series: No matter the tribulations in life your family is your family and love will get you through things and keep you together always. A fine end to a funny show.

I am often asked, 'Why do you put jelly on your Egg McMuffins?' I always reply, 'For the very same reason I love King Kong Escapes. It's a matter of taste!'

If you're really into high tech special effects, realistic looking monsters, and elaborate sets that aren't miniatures.............this just isn't your type of movie, because this film surely has none of that. It has good guys, really evil bad guys (one who finds redemption in the end) a dinosaur battle complete with drop kicks, the mysterious Element X, and a giant robot Kong that just won't tire.

The evil Dr. Who (voice dubbed by Paul Frees) builds a mechanical King Kong to mine the mysterious Element X which is to be used to create a nuclear arsenal. Unfortunately the radiation from Element X disables his mechanical Kong, and he is forced to kidnap the real Kong from Mondo Island, and (using mind control) have him dig it up himself. Dr. Who's plans are foiled by an American submarine commander and his cohorts (who are researching Kong) and King Kong himself who escapes Dr. Who and battles the Mechni Kong in the middle of Tokyo in a showdown that just can't be watched with a straight face.

This movie makes me laugh from start to finish. Whether you're a kid, or an adult it's just pure entertainment. It tries to make you think it takes itself seriously, while totally showing you at the same time that it doesn't. It's the 'Princess Bride' of monster movies.

I am sorry to say I wasted my time and money on this movie. I own the first one (Oceans Eleven)and have watched it numerous times. Too much of the cast (Andy Garcia, Bernie Mac, Carl Reiner, Eddie Jemison etc.) are just cameos in this one. Plus Terry Benedict just comes up to these guys and says get me the money plus interest or else. In 2 weeks? Then they, in a matter of days raise a whole building 3 inches. Without anyone noticing. No cracks in the walls or anything? Then Catherine Zeta Jones just walks in and goes, "Well someone beat them to it, and here is where they used a crossbow and you will find the building has been raised 3 inches." Come on, who wrote this? Then the contortionist thief guy just happens to know the exact timing of the laser beams for the alarm system. Didn't they say it was RANDOM? That scene was a total ripoff of Zeta Jones laser dodging in that robbery movie with Sean Connery, Entrapment. If you haven't seen this yet I recommend you rent Battlefield Earth and watch it. If you think THAT sucks multiply it x3 and you have how I feel about Oceans Twelve. If you think Battlefield Earth is a cinema treasure you might just want to check this one out then.