Reviews

The first time I saw this movie was when they showed it on television when I was in high school. I couldn't tear myself away from it until I had seen it all. Charlton Heston will forever be synonymous with Moses because of this picture. Much of this picture is conjecture since, as stated early in the movie, the Scriptures don't tell many details about Moses's life up until he boldly went to Pharoh and demanded, "Let my people go." But it is a gripping picture. I do think, though that this movie should have been titled EXODUS rather than the movie that later bore that title, because it seemed that the part where Moses actually brought down the Ten Commandments from the mountain was glossed over. It seemed as if there was more emphasis on the struggle to bring the Hebrews out of Egypt than on the Ten Commandments. Call it THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, call it EXODUS. Still a gripping picture that everyone should see at least once in their life.

Nowadays, it seems that on the rare occasion that television gets a good show, they make viewers play detective trying to find it; an exercise that gets old in a hurry. This show had so many starts and stops and schedule changes, I got frustrated trying to keep up with it. So I waited until the DVD came out before I watched the whole thing. This is some good stuff here. Very indicative of post 9/11. How likely is it, though, that what is left of civilization will coalesce in a small town in Kansas? And how likely is it that terrorists will be able to pull off that clean of a coordinated attack on all our major cities? It does make for some interesting speculation and entertaining television. It also makes you think and makes you realize that we have to stay vigilant if we want to prevent this from happening in real life. Do we have the stomach for it? Think about it.

The first time I saw this, I didn't laugh too much. At the time, I was only about fifteen years old and thought that maybe some of the deeper humor was too mature for me to understand at the time. I had the same reaction when I viewed it a second time a few months ago, and this time, it was because Felix's aborted suicide attempt at the beginning of the movie kind of darkened the movie a bit. This scene made some of the things Oscar said and did to Felix later in the movie seem needlessly cruel, and their personality clashes weren't as amusing as they could have been. Had I not already known the story, I would have been worried that some of Oscar's antics to Felix might push him over the edge. As it was, it didn't make me laugh or smile like the television show with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall did. Still, all in all, a pretty good movie and it spawned one of the greatest sitcoms on television. 7 out of 10.

If one were to read the book, they would see that you have a story in the beginning, story at the end, and about 200-300 pages of it reads more like a whaling manual with some pantheistic philosophy thrown in. It's hard to really do this story justice. I thought the movie humanized the characters more than the book did. In the book, Captain Ahab is the only one who seems to have much to do or say, and sometimes, Starbuck, but even they fade into the background. The most memorable character in the story other than Ahab is Queequeg. And after the first few chapters, he doesn't have much to do, either. But in the movie, they take on a more pro-active roll. I thought Gregory Peck made a fine Captain Ahab. Better than Patrick Stewart, that's for sure. It makes you feel like you're really on a whaling voyage. My biggest complaint was casting Richard Baseheart as Ishmael. He was too old. They couldn't even make him look convincingly younger. Other than that, the movie did a pretty good job with Melville's classic. There were instances where I thought Moby Dick looked like Bruce in JAWS. Perhaps he was a forerunner? Anyway, enjoy. Not a bad movie for what it has to work with.

I'm a sentimental old fool. This movie kind of got to me. How can anyone who has ever been burned by love watch this movie and not be moved? Christopher Reeves plays as a likable fellow, and Jane Seymour plays a beautiful...okay, damsel in distress, since she's got Christopher Plummer being a horse's rear.

This is a great love story with sort of a different slant. For those of you who say that the time travel thing wasn't done realistically, all I can say is there is no way it could be. It is not possible to break the time-space continuum. If that were possible, there would be people from the future in our midst already. If we're going to include something in a story that isn't humanly possible, let's not be picky about how it's done, okay? Let's just sit back and be entertained, and let Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour show us how love is supposed to be done. (God, but that ending was so sad!) 7 hankies out of 10.

As a native of Birmingham, Alabama, I thought they did a very good job of recreating Irondale. I would almost swear that parts of this film were actually filmed there. Also, I can remember when Fannie Flagg co-hosted a local morning show in Birmingham. I used to watch it every morning while I was getting ready for school. She was also a weather forecaster for our local TV station. She sure came a long way since then.

Not much changed in Alabama between the twenties and the time I grew up there, and seeing this movie brought back memories of all those good home-cooked Southern meals. Fried okra, fried green tomatoes, fried squash, and good old Alabama barbecue. Alabama has the best barbecue in the nation.

Folks in Alabama take their food seriously, and they also take friendships seriously. I guess that's why it is so easy to read things into Idgey and Ruth's relationship that may not be there. (Lesbianism? In Alabama? In the 20s and 30s? Get real, people!!!) Anyone even suspected of such behavior in Alabama back then would have been unceremoniously lynched. So, let's try not to read too much into Idgie's and Ruth's friendship, huh? Evelyn's and Ninny's friendship is very moving for anyone who has ever had a friend that changed them, that gave them the strength to keep going when all hope seemed to be lost. And I think posters are being a little too hard on her husband. Ed seems like essentially a good man. He just falls into the same trap that most of us men fall into. We allow ourselves to get too caught up in our own little worlds to pay much mind to what makes our wives ache and thrill. (Come on, fellows, we're all guilty of that sometimes. Be honest.) Throughout the movie, Ed shows that he is devoted to his wife, even if he is totally oblivious to what is going on in her life.

This movie reminds me of STAND BY ME, because it makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time and it gives you a snapshot of a time and place that is gone forever. A gem of a film. 8 out of 10.

Christopher Reeves even looked the part. That's the first thing I thought when I saw this movie. Very impressive. The show has a sense of humor without being over the top about it like the BATMAN television show and the Joel Schumacher films. (My favorite line from the film is when a burglar is climbing up the wall of a high rise building and Superman meets him halfway up and says, "Is there something wrong with the elevator?" Very Eastwoodesque. (By the way, didn't they once ask Clint Eastwood to play Superman? Seems like I remember hearing somewhere that they did.) And the music by John Williams. Man, oh man! John Williams and Ennio Morricone are the greatest composers alive. I could listen to that driving theme all day. Coupled with those great graphics in the title sequence and you've really got something to watch and hear.

My biggest gripe is Lex Luthor. I know I'm going against the flow here, but I really don't think Gene Hackman makes a good Lex Luthor. He's a great actor and I liked him in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and UNFORGIVEN, but not as Lex Luthor. They also made him look more like a clown rather than a dangerous criminal mastermind. Wasn't Yul Brynner still alive back then? If so, they should have cast him as Lex Luthor. Hackman does seem to have fun and he gives it his all, I'll give him that much.

I also don't like the way they introduced Luthor's character. (Lex Luthor with hair? Even if it's a wig? WRONG, O GREAT AND MIGHTY KRYPTONITE BREATH!!!!!) I seem to recall as a kid reading a comic where Lex Luthor and Superman were both foster children of Johnathan and Martha Kent. Lex was a boy genius, but the Kents kicked him out of their house when he turned to a life of crime. Don't know if that was really a story or if I dreamed that, but I think it would have been very interesting if they had incorporated that into this movie. I also thought the way Clark changed into Superman was kind of lame. Jumping out a window and his Clark suit melts off and he is in his Superman costume? I don't think so. Everybody in New York City (excuse me, Metropolis) saw that. So much for a secret identity. Otherwise, a very good movie. This began a time of optimism in movies that, at least in the seventies, the movies were clouded with confusion and pessimism. I'll give this 7 out of 10.

When I first heard this was coming out in 1983, my first thought was, "Where the hell did they come up with this title? And do I want to know?" My first guess was either Bond went to bed with eight women, he went to bed with the same woman eight times, or a woman had eight...never mind. I'm not going there.

Anyway, I saw this movie because I was curious about the title. I should have guessed it was the name of a woman in this movie. Bond's women usually had some pretty wild names. I was pleasantly surprised. It kept your interest and it was funny. My favorite scene was when Bond was in a freight car on a circus train, and bear with me if my memory is faulty on this. I've only seen this movie once and that was when it first came out. Bond put on a gorilla costume, I suppose to look inconspicuous. He heard someone saying to meet them at a certain time and Bond, in the gorilla suit, looked at his watch. I thought that was hilarious. It had the usual edge of your seat action sequences, the women, and the snappy one-liners, and a sense of urgency to once again stop some madman from blowing up the world. 7 out of 10.

Tatum O'Neal had this killer stare that would probably earn her a nice long prison sentence at the very least if looks could kill. Her maturity and her shrewdness in "business" as little Addie Prey was what made her pretty much steal this show. Also, when she looked in that cigar box and noticed all her money missing and she got that stare of hers going, I knew right away that someone was in for it. I definitely did not want to be in either daddy Ryan's or Madeline Kahn's shoes at that moment.

This movie did a great job of recapturing the period it was trying to depict. Many reviewers have already said that they felt as if they were actually watching a 30s movie with the black and white cinematography and the landscape depicting depression-era America. I saw Peter Bogdanovich's interview and it tells how he went to great pains to make sure that every little detail was just as it might have been during that time. He did a super job with it. And the story was good, too. And it was kind of refreshing to see a child being portrayed as something other than a precocious cute little kid. Addie was every bit as strong-willed and cunning as Mose. in fact probably more so. She had Mose taking chances he otherwise wouldn't have taken and somehow always ended up on top of every sticky situation they got themselves into. And what director in this day and age would have the nerve to show a nine year old child driving a car and smoking cigarettes? I wasn't alive during the Depression, but my parents were, and I'm pretty sure this was the way kids acted back then. Great movie. Brings a smile to my face every time. By the way...I WANT MY $200!!!!!! Laugh out loud funny! :) 8 out of 10.

This universal truth is echoed throughout the movie in one form or another. "I reckon he had it comin'." "We all have it comin', kid." "Little Bill, you just killed an innocent man." "Innocent of what?" And on it goes. The theme of this movie seems to be that no one who can call themselves a human being can be said to be guiltless. This is further reinforced by the fact that none of the characters in this movie seem to have any redeeming features about them whatsoever. And, believe it or not, it makes for a damn good, if slightly uncomfortable story. Sometimes the truth hurts, but it must be faced.

Let's look at the characters. Gene Hacman plays Little Bill, a guy who may have been a judge in Montgomery County, Maryland before he got the job of sheriff of Big Whiskey, with the lenient sentence he gave to the boys who cut that woman (a whore, actually. See what I mean about the characters? Where do your sympathies lie with these types of people in a story?) Then the people who come to the rescue are nothing more than lowly assassins. You have English Bob, who got the hell kicked out of him just for bringing in a gun and mentioning the queen's name on Independence Day. Again, was Little Bill once a Montgomery County judge? Kill each other, but I'd better not catch you with a gun or saying something politically incorrect. Anyway...

Clint Eastwood is William Muny, a man with a past who is trying to leave it behind him. But because he is struggling to survive and take care of two young children by himself, the $1000 is too much to resist. "I ain't like that no more," he repeats throughout the movie and it sounds like the refrain of a ballad. Ned is his partner in crime. Then you have this worthless braggadocios kid who comes along and you're left wishing they would shoot him just so he would shut his damn mouth.

Like I said, it's tough to pick loyalties among such a bunch of lowlifes, but I cheer when Clint comes into the "poolhall" toward the end of the movie and says in that quietly menacing voice of his, "Who's the fellow that owns this s--thole?", because I know what's coming next. And it ain't "Let's all hold hands together and sing GIVE PEACE A CHANCE." William Muny gives Little Bill his due in spades and then rides off into a stormy night.

Clint dedicated this movie to Sergio Leone, and it is a movie worthy of his old mentor. Like Leone, the good guys and the bad guys aren't clearly defined, and it depicts the Old West as it perhaps really was. No real heroes, no cowards, nothing is glorified or affirmed. Only who is left standing when the gunsmoke clears. A great movie. 9 out of 10.

This movie should have been titled THE HIPPIES FIGHT WORLD WAR II. Between Lalo Schifrin's seventies music and Donald Sutherland's laid back personality and hippie language, I thought at first I was seeing a Viet Nam flick. But this is a pretty good caper film. (How in the world a private overstepped a sergeant I'll never know. That's another way the plot strains credibility.) Yes, a private (Clint Eastwood) was giving orders to superior officers in their quest to get 16,000 gold bars from a bank behind enemy lines shortly after D-Day. He probably got court martialed for insubordination when he got back to the states, but the movie doesn't tell us. Guess we'll never know.

By and large, this movie is amusing, but the anachronistic language and soundtrack, as well as the chain of command in this scheme, strains credibility. Telly Savalis is hilarious as Big Joe, and Clint Eastwood kind of underplays his roll a bit until he starts hatching up this scheme. Don Rickles is his usual sarcastic self, and Donald Sutherland is from La-la-land. The video box cover says that he was probably the first hippie. Whatever. If there really was a guy like that fighting with our boys during World War II, his fellow soldiers would have ragged his ass to the dogs and back. And a pre-Archie Bunker Caroll O'Connor is a hoot as the general who intercepts their scheme on the radio and gives them medals for taking initiative during combat because he thinks they're pushing deep into enemy territory.

Very entertaining if you just enjoy the ride and don't think too much. 7 out of 10.

It was like reliving those dark days in June of 1968, with the memories of a thirteen year old boy who grieved so hard, he spent that summer in self-imposed isolation, and who still grieves to this day.

It has been written or said somewhere that Robert Kennedy's assassination brought the nation to its knees. It certainly had a profound impact on many individuals in this country. For many, it seemed like the end of the world, the end of a newfound hope. This movie shows, in microcosm, how Senator Kennedy's death affected people, and it affected different people in different ways. In many ways, this movie reminded me of California SUITE, only nowhere near as funny, with the different episodes occurring to different folks in a hotel setting. But all these different stories had a common connecting thread with Senator Kennedy's speech and assassination.

This film does an excellent job in capturing the mood of the time in which the story took place. I can't help wondering if they may have actually obtained broadcast recordings from one of the local radio stations for that day and used it in some of these scenes. Would have been mighty cool if they did. I'm referring to the morning radio show with the music and such. I'm sure the Dreysdale no-hitter game was a taped broadcast. Good, but very painful. 8 out of 10, mainly because of poor voice dubbing in one of the Kennedy archive films.

Please! Don't make me vomit. I saw all I needed to see of this movie on the TV trailer. Since trailers are notorious for giving away the best parts of a film, I saw the scene where Joan Crawford said this to a cowering Christina along with the (in)famous "NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!" crap and decided that if this was the best that movie had to offer, then forget it. Besides, a movie depicting the cruel mistreatment of children is not exactly something I would try to leap over tall buildings at a single bound to see. Christina's book devotes quite a few pages to the wire hangers episode as I recall. Personally, if I had been awakened in the middle of the night by my mother with some garbage on her face, screaming like a banshee, and beating me over the head with a wire hanger and a can of Comet, the first thing that would come to my mind is that it's time for me to lay off of the late night creature features for a while. True or not, how ridiculous can you get? I read Christina's book about thirty years ago and, true or not, it is a captivating story. I'm not going to get into an argument over whether or not her story is truth or fabrication. Most of the people who can confirm or deny any of these allegations are dead. All I will say is that if Christina's allegations against her mother are true, then Joan should have been taken out and horsewhipped. If they are untrue, then Christina owes Joan's fans and the people who bought into her story an apology. That's all I have to say about that.

"TINA, BRING ME THE AX!" Yes, Tina. By all means bring her the ax. If she was as cruel as you have alleged in your book and as this movie seems to portray, then give her the ax. Right upside the head.

Whatever religious beliefs John Huston did or did not have, he treated the Scriptures with a great deal of respect. I don't see why an atheist would do a movie like this in the first place. I would think he wouldn't have wanted to touch it. But the beauty and poetry of this film is simply awesome. I would have given it ten stars, but he did take some artistic license with Scripture and he did kind of ham it up in the Noah's Ark sequence. Also, he left out the part where Noah got drunk after the flood and cursed one of his sons because they made fun of his nakedness. Otherwise, this is a beautiful film. It reminded me a little bit of HOW THE WEST WAS WON, in that he chronicled a few generations in this story, and many of the actors had little more than cameo appearances. The Creation scenes were absolutely gorgeous. I read somewhere that he didn't want to use animation drawings for the Creation, because he felt that the world was in a constant state of creation, and he had a crew film some of the wonders of the world at work. The results are stunning. The world really looks fresh and new in this film. You can tell he put a lot of care in making this film.

As a musician, I have to comment on the music in this film. It is as beautiful as the film. Too bad the soundtrack is out of print now. I had the album when I was younger and I played it nearly every chance I got. I never knew until I saw on this site that Ennio Morricone had a hand in writing some of this score (don't know which parts) but was uncredited. Instead, a Japanese composer named Toshiro Mayuzumi did most of this score, a composer I haven't heard of since.

Until PASSION OF THE Christ, this was the last of the big Bible epics and is an underrated masterpiece worth seeing. (THE LAST TEMPTATION OF Christ doesn't count because it took the Scriptures and butchered them.) 9 out of 10.

The first time I saw this film was in a movie theater in the summer of 88. We were having a family reunion and we took our kids to see this. Imagine the first viewing. As the film started, I thought I was seeing a ROGER RABBIT short as a warm-up to the main event. I don't remember ever seeing a Roger Rabbit cartoon when I was growing up, but I thought "What the heck? Even if it's new, it should be pretty good." Well, about five minutes into this little short, a director yells, "CUT!" and this little cartoon character in diapers yells, "WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH THAT TAKE!" On first viewing, this was a little jarring, seeing this cartoon in diapers using rather racy language. On subsequent viewings, it was something innovative and a little cutting edge. This was the first cartoon I ever saw that was geared more toward adults.

Animation with live action was nothing new, even in 1988, (SONG OF THE SOUTH, MARY POPPINS, AND PETE'S DRAGON anyone?) but the interaction between the cartoon characters and their live counterparts never looked so natural. Even in the more physical parts like when Baby Herman whacked his secretary on the fanny and Eddie grabbed Roger by the ears, dunked him in the sink, and slapped the handcuffs on him was pure genius. My hat's off to the actors and the film editors for this. It was very impressive. (Also the part where the gorilla bouncers threw Eddie out of the night club was very well done as well.) This movie told a good story as well and didn't just rely on gimmicks like a lot of films of this nature do. It was a standard noir detective story, very much like the time period it was set in. But I think this is the first time a toon was ever accused of murder. And Jessica was very sexy looking for a cartoon. How about Betty Boop being out of work because cartoons went to color? There are some really wonderful things in this movie.

The video I got less than a year later was always a favorite whenever we had adult parties or sleepovers for kids. People of all ages loved this movie. And Bos Hoskins (hope I got that name right) did a wonderful job with his California accent. I would never have known he was British if I hadn't researched him on this site. And it's hard for me to think of Christopher Lloyd as anyone but eccentric but likable Doc Brown in BACK TO THE FUTURE. He did a great job playing mean old Judge Doom. A noir detective story mixed in with some wacky cartoon fun. A great little ride. 9.5 out of 10.

The first time I saw this movie, I was ten years old. For the longest time, it was my favorite Disney live-action film, and, do you know what? It still is. I don't like cats but D.C. will have you rolling in the floor with his antics. Interesting cast with Haylie "Miss Bliss" Mills playing D.C.'s owner and instigator of his sleuthing with the help of Zeke Kelso (Dean Jones, who incidentally is from my home state of Alabama.) And what's this? Dr. Julia Hoffman (Grayson Hall) of DARK SHADOWS fame plays a kidnapped bank teller with The Riddler from BATMAN (Frank Gorshin) and Al Capone (Neville Brand) from THE UNTOUCHABLES television show as the heavies. There is also good old Uncle Charlie from MY THREE SONS who plays a beleaguered husband trying to keep his nosy neighbor wife out of other peoples' business. Those scenes toward the end of the movie when everyone is following each other are a real hoot. I'll say one thing for D.C. He knows how to keep an entire neighborhood on its toes. Wonderful, clean family fare. 7 out of 10.