DTVTEMP Reviews

Birds of Prey (1973 TV Movie)

Decent TV Movie - DVD and VHS had soundtrack license issues

[6/10 · 29 August 2013]

This movie was released in 1973 primarily for TV, not a theatrical release. With respect to acting, cast and production quality it was done on a very limited budget, so it is really not fair to compare it to bigger budget Hollywood pictures. One of the ways that the defunct Tomorrow Entertainment chose to save production money was to only license the 1940s music used in the film for a very short number of years (I believe 10 years). The cost savings move by shorter music licensing was hailed by the entertainment industry back in 1973 as an example of thinking outside of the box, but since the music in this movie was so very much a part of the tone and theme of the movie, this means that the impact of the VHS, Beta and DVD versions is disappointing, because the original soundtrack is not there. You have to remember that home video systems like Beta, BetaMax, VHS and DVD really did not exist until years afterwards. What did exist was expensive and not for the average consumer in 1972-1973. Video systems were bulky, reel-to-reel and required a vidicon tube camera to record. Color recording was damn expensive. It is not surprising that the executive producer had no thoughts at the time of a home release product. Home video recording and playback technology was still years away and would not be affordable or mass marketable for years. By the time it was affordable and mass marketable, the permission (license) to use the original music had expired.

The movie has some terrific flying scenes. I've flown both helicopters and fix wing aircraft and helped develop military flight simulators in the 1980s, and my hats are off in respect for the stunt pilots on this movie. This particular movie actually inspired me to work in the aerospace industry in the 1980s.

It is a decent movie with a decent plot and acceptable acting and interesting characters. Janssen and Meeker play well off of each other. Although the music is dramatically different than what was originally used, I still have this in my DVD collection. I do wish that I could find out who sang "I'll Get By" in the original soundtrack. She was a superb singer who was better than the others I have heard singing that same song.

The Name of the Game: LA 2017 (1971) Season 3, Episode 16

Eco-Sci Fi

[10 March 2002]

Although dated by any standards, this episode of the popular NBC show "The Name of the Game" still stands up relatively well. It is my hope that Universal will repurpose this content and release it to DVD.

LA 2017 differed from the other episodes of Name of the Game, in that it was a science fiction episode. The episode represents the first screenplay written by Sci Fi Author Phillip Wylie. Steven Spielberg directed the episode.

Publisher Glenn Howard is returning in his car from the Sierra Pines Conference on world ecological issues. It is a smoggy day in Los Angeles, and exhaust backs up in his car, knocking him out. His car drives off the side of the road into a dirt bank.

When he awakes, he discovers that a time warp has transported him from 1971 to the year 2017. An ecological disaster which occurred in the 1980s and 1990s has wiped out all life on the surface of the earth, interfering with the oxygen cycle and rendering the atmosphere deadly to even breathe.

Los Angeles is now an underground city of some 10,000 people. It has survived along with similar cities in perhaps a dozen locations around the world. The government has been replaced by a shareholder's democracy established by the wealthy businessmen who funded building of the original underground cities.

The shareholder's democracy is structured to favor the corporate elite. It is extremely heavy handed and is more or less a totalitarian state. Psychologists are now the police, and they are oriented towards thought control and mind control. Privacy does not exist.

This is an excellent episode. I last saw it aired on television in 1981.

The Time Machine (2002)

A Very Different Remake of the 1960 Classic

[10 March 2002]

Most of the supporting characters remain the same, but this is still a very different interpretation that adheres only in a very cursory fashion to George Pal's 1960 film based upon the HG Wells novel.

This version moves the location from 1900 London to 1899 New York City. The traveller is an english professor who has moved to NY to teach.

Gone is the character of Weena - replaced by the character of Mara.

Special effects are terrific -- but special effects do not make the movie.

The Morlocks are reminiscent of a cross between the Orcs of the recent film Lord of the Rings, and the apes from last summer's Planet of the Apes. It's a good modernization of the make-up effects, and the Morlocks are a lot less sensitive to light.

I found this movie to be less interesting and endearing than the 1960 characters.

While the traveler's obsession with time travel is humanized and understandable, I found the character of Alex to be akin to watching a very wimpy version of Pierce Brosnan.

The very dynamic character spawned by Rod Taylor's depiction in the 1960 film was more compelling, more admirable, and more heroic. It also played for more believably with Alan Young's character of David Philby, and Sebastian Cabot's Doctor.

This is a just OK film. Alan Young has a cameo appearance as a flower shop storekeeper, but this is the only endearing part of this film.

Hachi-ko (1987)

1987 Genesis Award Winner

[10 March 2002]

Winner of the 1987 Genesis Awards (awarded for films that contribute to the humane treatement of animals).

This is an excellent and tear-jerking Japanese film that dramatizes the story of Hachi-ko, a Japanese Akita dog owned by a Tokyo university professor.

Akitas are wonderful large dogs that are known for their tremendous loyalty to their masters.

This dog escorted his master to the subway station each day, when the professor took a train to the university. The dog would be dutifully waiting for his master to return on the evening train.

When the professor died one day, the dog waited forlornly for his master to return. The dog returned to the station every evening, for over a decade afterwards until the dog finally died of old age and sickness.

There is a statue to Hachiko at Shibuya Train Station. The dog's body was actually preserved and is now in a museum in Tokyo.

Black Hawk Down (2001)

Need to Read the Book First

[6 February 2002]

This is a very good movie -- however it is not as great of a movie as professional film critics have been said.

If you have not read the book ahead of time, this film may appear very, very disjointed and chaotic.

There are very good reasons for this:

1. The film depicts battle - which is always chaotic.

I like the fact that it is not quite as gorey and graphic in its depiction of violence as either GLADIATOR or SAVING PRIVATE RYAN were. The filmmakers made it accurately depict the quick horror of combat -- but they did not have long, lingering shots intended to gross you out and make you throw up.

2. The film correctly attributes events and comments to the actual different people who did and said these things.

There are so many characters, that there is simply not enough time for the audience to get to know and bond with any single particular character.

These hundred-odd soldiers from Delta, US Navy Seals, US Army Airborne Rangers, and the other US service branches who were all involved were basically all equally brave, and equally heroic.

If they had generallized more so the audience could bond with a particular character, they would have done a gross disservice to the men who fought in this battle.

Points of Note:

1. Powerful, visual cinematographic imagery, very akin to what Ridley Scott did in music and picture for GLADIATOR.

2. Accurate depiction of the very unusual issues in Somalia.

The Somali civilians tended to RUN DIRECTLY TOWARDS gunfire and fire fights, rather than running away to escape.

Even Civilian men, women and children were highly politically motivated and hostile to foreigners -- and just as apt to pick

up a weapon off a dead man and start firing as they were to be

used as a human shield by the Somali militia.

It was impossible for the American serviceman to know for sure what someone was going to do. The American soldier was left

with the very deadly and rapid choice of having to shoot now,

or risk getting killed along with his fellow soldiers in moments.

Anyone who was ever in Vietnam would recognize the double horror here. Shoot, and maybe screw something up on an international scale, or don't shoot and get killed with all of your unit.

The battle was indeed won, the mission was accomplished, and the cause of kidnapping Clan Warlord terrorists who were murdering hundreds of thousands of Somalis by confiscating and withholding food from their fellow countrymen, was indeed a just and good cause.

The war, however, was lost by the State Department and the politicians -- but it was a loss for both the US and Somalia. The battle made America and the international community realize that there was no economic justification for restoring peace and food in Somalia. It was cheaper and easier to let the Somalis kill each other. By rebelling against all foreigners, the Somalis killed off their last hope of any international hope of foreign investment and foreign aid to rebuild a nation blasted back into a post-apocalyptic stone age.

Deep Blue Sea (1999)

Rip-offs and Parodies

[9 August 1999]

This is a "B" suspense horror movie.

It contains concept scenes ripped off from nearly every sea movie I have ever seen.

The facility flooding scenes are right out of The Abyss.

One shark is killed like the shark in Jaws II.

One shark is killed like the shark in the original Jaws.

Swim scenes are right out of The Poseidon Adventure, Leviathan, Deep Star Six and the Abyss.

Opening scene is much like the catamaran scenes on Jaws II.

Saffron Burrows stripping to her underwear to face the shark is reminiscent of Sigourney Weaver's final battle scene of the original Alien.

DBS also makes light fun of Richard Dreyfuss' underwater boat scene from the original Jaws. Not bad.

The only thing I appreciated about this movie is that they did not go overboard with gore and guts. These scenes are heavily done with Computer Graphics Animation.

Unfortunately, the CG work also looks too much like computer animation. It does not look real. An obviously animated shark eating obviously animated person is simply not frightening, and blood REALLY does not look real.

In that sense, movies like the original Jaws were a lot more frightening.

Having sharks bash inwards through OUTWARD OPENING submarine hatch type doors was also not realistic. Hatches that have to be pulled closed simply do not bust open inwards like Arnold Schwarzenegger plowing through a bathroom door, because these types of watertight hatches are, by definition, larger than the holes for the doorways.

DBS uses some clever timing to place attacks at moments when the audience has just been elevated by the protagonists' success, but surprise is not the same as shock and fear.

If you don't take it seriously, DBS is more of a fun movie as opposed to a horror movie, just as CreepShow was intended to be more campy and fun and not serious horror genre.

Billing this as a "Jaws" class movie was a marketing error, and it terribly misleads the paying audience.

Deep Blue Sea is mostly guessable, because we have seen the schticks before.

If the creators were attempting to make a serious horror film, they failed miserably.

If they were attempting to do something like CreepShow, they did a fairly good job.

MARKETING FOR THIS MOVIE DID A DISSERVICE.

THE AUDIENCE NEEDS TO SET ITS EXPECTATIONS PROPERLY.

If you go to this movie expecting something serious, you will feel ripped off and cheated afterwards.

If you go to this movie expecting something more campy and fun like a rollercoaster ride, you will feel better when you leave the theater.

The Littlest Hobo (1958)

"Lassie" type movie

[24 June 1999]

Nice, old time family film in B&W that follows a very smart and shrewd stray German Shepard dog which moves from town to town by hopping boxcars and freight trains (like a hobo). The dog saves a farm animal from slaughter, helps a crippled child in the process, and teaches a small farm boy about letting go of possessions.