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Brave New World (2020)
PSYCHOBABBLE BE GONE!!!
I was not impressed. Too much psychobabble, not enough material we could understand. The previous version that featured Leonard Nimoy was a lot better.
The Foot Fist Way (2006)
COULD BE BETTER, COULD BE WORSE.
Okay, okay, I'll be the first to admit this is not another Enter the Dragon or The Karate Kid but it does not pretend to be. It is a classic case of a low budget movie with low budget actors aimed at those that like low brow comedy. The plot is simple - a loser martial arts instructor tries to somehow make a name for himself. Is he successful? Does he fly or flounder? Watch the movie and find out!!!
Campus PD (2009)
Alcohol - The Universal Problem
The college can be in the North, the college can be in the South, the college can be small, the college can be big, no matter what college you are talking about alcohol will always be present. I feel sympathy towards the campus police that have to deal with the rowdy students, the wild parties, and the inevitable craziness that goes on in such an environment.
The Giver (2014)
Getting it on with The Giver
I will admit that there several similarities with The Giver and Divergent. Both films involve "too good to be true" dystopian societies, both films involve adolescent protagonists that feel they are somehow "different", both films have a ceremony where teenagers have their futures determined, both films even have a cold-as-ice matriarch type calling the shots. These similarities (and some others) turned people off to the Giver. That is disappointing, because the Giver, despite its wearing Divergent-style clothing, has its own strengths that make it worth seeing. At first, almost everything is shown in black, white, and various shades of gray. The only exception is when the hero, Jonas, starts to see things differently, in color. Inevitably, this is a sign that he is headed for great things – he is destined to become a "Receiver of Memory", his mentor, the "Giver of Memory" will instruct his as to the way things were. Of course, the more Jonas learns the more he becomes displeased and eventually disgusted with the world around him. He learns, for example, that the practice of "releasing" someone means to kill, usually an infant that does not meet expected physical standards or an elderly person. Much to his horror he sees his father doing so to a baby. When he learns Gabriel, a baby his father had brought home, will be released he flees for his and Gabriel's life. Will Jonas survive? Will Gabriel survive? What will happen? The Giver may not have been a successful movie, but it is still fun. It is exciting, adventurous, there is even a wild racing scene like the Divergent "flying off the building scene", another similarity. If you liked Divergent, the Hunger Games, or the 1001 other dystopian future stories and movies floating around you will like The Giver.
Alien: Covenant (2017)
Broken Covenant
Alien Covenant can be best described as broken, messed up, you get the picture. It lacks originality (I'll admit it is to be expected, this IS the eighth movie in the Aliens and Aliens vs. Predator franchise), before long I was getting bored and tempted to walk out. There were major plot holes (why go to a substitute planet instead of the one you have spent, years training for, spending a lot of money for, and so on, for starters), even without them the movie just didn't have that certain feeling you were looking for. Where's the Predator when you need him?
The Circle (2017)
Cool Circle!!!
Call me the inevitable exception to the rule but I liked Circle. The story is a familiar one - something seems too good to be true, and winds up being so. In this case, it is a business called the Circle that takes intrusive technology to the next level. Miniature cameras are used to let others watch each other twenty-four hours a day, it is as if the whole world has become one big family. At first it seems like an excellent idea – people can be rescued when they otherwise would have died, criminals that had gone "off the grid" can be apprehended, life can be made simpler, more secure. Of course, there is the inevitable down side namely the obliteration of privacy. No matter where you go, you matter what you do, someone-body-thing is always watching you. There is in inevitable argument over how much surveillance is too much, is the security worth the price of freedom. I noticed this movie has received several negative reviews. I will admit this is not a conspiracy high-tech Jason Bourne style movie, there are no international assassins or cold blooded corporate executives trying to rule the world. Rather, the movie asks several questions. Is, say, the internet good or bad? Should we increase our security or put a limit on things. It makes you think.
Tarzan (1966)
The Racism Problem.
The Tarzan series and movies, for the most part, can be accused of racism and it is not difficult to see why. In the movies black Africans were either presented as vicious savages or lackeys good for little more than carrying things on their heads or running away at the first sign of trouble. The whole persona of Tarzan comes across as white superiority to the infinite power. There he is - super strong, capable of killing the fiercest of beasts with little more than a knife, or lowering the boom on the bad guys by summoning elephants with his fearsome yell. The Tarzan movies and television series were not meant to be intentionally racist like "Birth of A Nation", regretfully they come across as an unpleasant reminder of past attitudes towards race. The saddest fact was the Tarzan television series aired during a sixties, a time when African-Americans were struggling to be treated as equals and civil rights were becoming the law of the land.
Once Upon a Classic (1976)
Family Entertainment At Its Finest
From 1976 through the early 1980s, PBS broadcast the series "Once Upon A Classic". The series consisted of classic stories filmed in England, then show in thirty minute parts over a period of several weeks. In between the major series there were single episode specials.
Among the classics: Heidi, Great Expectations, The Prince and the Pauper, Little Lord Faulteroy, The Secret Garden, Robin Hood, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Dominique, The Leatherstocking Tales, What Katie Did, Lights! Camera! Action!, John Halifax-Gentlemen, Lorna Doone, Mill on the Floss, Ivanhoe, King Arthur, The Old Curiosity Shop, and A Tale of Two Cities.
Only "bad" point (if it could be called that): The series followed the book as closely as possible. As such, if the hero died in the book then the hero died in the series. A bit grim, but so is life!!!
Krippendorf's Tribe (1998)
Krippendorf Crok!!!
This movie is supposed to be a comedy, but it comes across as being funny for the wrong reasons. The professor (Richard Dreyfuss) is supposed to be the "good guy", but what is he doing? He (a) misappropriates college funds, (b) tells a bold faced lie to cover up his misdeeds, (c) involves his children in the scam, (d) gets a woman drunk to have sex with her (that's rape as in sexual assault, in case you have forgotten) and winds up televising it to the public, (d) tries to get more money from the college via the same scam, and (e), once the truth is out in the open, is saved via a lie from his daughter. Those that are after the truth are portrayed as arrogant, unfair, and snobbish who "deserve" to be fooled. The fact that the professor is in the wrong seems to get lost in the shuffle, and if there's a moral to the movie it's "don't get caught".
I do not recommend this movie, for the above reasons, for children.
Maya (1967)
Fat Elephant, Fat Chance!
This show was not that realistic.
I mean face it. Two kids riding around on an elephant in ANY country would stick out like the proverbial turd in a punch bowl.
All the police would have to do is put out an APB, issue a reward, and wait until some Indian who had no interest in helping out some foreigner sahib or his lackey friend turns him in.
Also, whoever made it seemed to have it in for tigers. The majority of the episodes always reached a climax when Maya or someone wound up killing a tiger. Okay, tigers may be man eaters, but that doesn't mean they're all bad. If you want to talk percentages, a higher rate of tigers have been killed by man than the other way around. If it weren't for things like endangered species lists, the tigers would be extinct!!!
Gloria (1982)
How NOT To Make A Sequel
This was a classic case of something that should never have been. Gloria was now a single mother, her husband had left her because she wouldn't live in some commune with him (he was mad that Reagan had been elected and wanted to turn his back on society). Right then and there I had problems with the series - come on, I say to myself, is this the same noble Michael Stivic that countered Archie Bunker's right winged philosophies? The series went on, but it just didn't have any pizazz. Whatever momentum Sally Struthers gained from All the Family was long gone. Maybe, if the series had been given another name and presented as being totally independent of All In The Family, it might have worked out. Ah well, that's show business.