Change Your Image
XweAponX
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls059217085/
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againReviews
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Relics (1992)
Ensign Kane
Reminds us a lot of "Riley" from 'the naked time/conscience of the king', so it was very apropos for him to be the Ensign to show Scotty his huge enterprise D guest room. I thought maybe the kid might have been related to the original TOS actor who played Riley... there is an uncanny resemblance.
They should have made this into a two-part episode to expand Scotty's role and to give us more information about this Dyson sphere.
It was as if there was not enough time during the episode to really get in to the Dyson sphere subject, like who made it? Pak Protectors? Why was it abandoned, it's just this thing that they come across to give us an excuse as to why they could bring Scotty back into the Star Trek universe.
They had an excellent technical reason why Scotty would still be alive but at the time, Scotty did not know that James Kirk had passed away.
Scotty should have had some interaction with Worf as well- The last time we really saw Scotty, he had killed General West (Rene Aberjonois) who was pretending to be a Klingon, so he had a little bit of recovering to do as far as Klingons were concerned.
I did not like the way that they turned Scotty into a nosy, whining complainer, but, it was true to the character.
And, of course: "it is green".
There were a lot of missed opportunities here. But, he got to solve an engineering conundrum with Geordie so I was very pleased with that. My main disappointment was we did not get to see that much of the Dyson sphere and there could have been a lot of things they could have showed us.
Especially since Rick Sternbach, who was one of the main artists for next generation, made the cover art for the "ringworld" book by Larry Niven- so he had first-hand experience in designing what we saw of the sphere.
But they really did not depict the sphere as huge as it would have appeared, when the enterprise is in orbit around the sphere, you would not have been able to see the curvature of the sphere because we are talking about something that is as large as the earths orbit around the sun, twice 93,000,000 miles, right? The surface of the sphere would have been one endless horizon...
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
Exciting flight to China
I don't know how they managed to get a lot of the shots for this movie... or if this was the real "ruptured duck" that participated in the raid. However, they did it, they made us believe.
Van Johnson portrays a more pleasant looking Ted Lawson... The real life Ted had a much more stern look.
This movie has excellent shots of life on an aircraft carrier in the middle of war, and they actually crammed a whole bunch of B 25s (including the ruptured duck, or, "a" ruptured duck...) onto the flight deck of a carrier.
And they actually had those B 25s taking off from the flight deck. You don't realize what a difficult job this was, until you see the preparations.
There was a slight homepage to this movie in the 2001 film "Pearl Harbor", but they made the situation a lot more dire in that movie. Or perhaps a little less dire in this one. And, they changed the main character from Ted Lawson to Ben Affleck.
However they did it, this film portrays the ruptured duck flying at low altitude over Tokyo, and bombing the heck out of it.
I don't know if they used miniatures and explosives or if these were real shots from the war? But it looks real.
All through the flight segment there is a real feeling that you are actually flying on the plane. I would have loved to see this movie in a theater.
This is one of the best war movies of all time, and especially one of the best that shows planes flying. And this film was made at a time when the public really needed to see something like this.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
The moment I heard the word "Selenium"
I knew there was going to be some kind of reference to Ivo Shandar. And then we finally get to meet the guy, kind of.
But I did not know where the story was going to go, the introduction does not make it clear that the person we see is actually Spengler. Which is as it should have been.
This film is a excellent tribute to Harold Ramis. Who has always been Egon.
It took me a moment to realize that the mine in this town was where Shandar was obtaining the materials to build his New York apartment complex.
With that knowledge, the introduction to the film starts making a little bit of sense.
So then I knew that we would eventually see references to Zuul and Gozer.
Those were the obvious things, but it was the way the story was assembled which was touching.
Egon was painted as a deadbeat dad, but we knew that this could not be true, and that there was some thing else going on.
And the "something else that was going on" was carefully obscured, under McGuffin after McGuffin.
Even the term "dirt farmer" that was planted on Egon was a good bit of misdirection. As we knew he would not be farming in any sense of the word. So we knew he was up to some thing that did not quite succeed according to the teaser... but the question is, what?
And this is something that gets answered bit by bit.
This is the film that should have been made in 2016 which was Ghostbusters in name only. Although I enjoyed that movie, I was disappointing that it was practically a complete reboot. We the people who have loved Ghostbusters since the original, did not want a reboot. We wanted to find out "what is happening now"?
And so we have, and we even got another film after this one.
Amazingly the original film had very primitive special effects, which were mostly practical. With a lot of animation. In this film they use modern effect techniques. But there is a lot of practical effects in this as well. Especially with the "gunners seat" in Ecto 1.
And the original Ghostbusters play a major part in the story, not just three second cameos.
Unfortunately, there was no place to put Lewis... who had a fling with Janine... and this brings up another question... it's obvious that Phoebe is the daughter of Egon... in body and spirit. So who is Trevor's father, or mother even? They kind of dance around that issue during the whole film.
I will have to watch the next movie to see about that...
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
James Mangold!
Kate and Leopold/Wolverine/Logan Mangold?
I'm Impressed.
This is one very different Indiana Jones film.
And, Problematic as Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was, I liked that film and "Mutt", and was disappointed Shia Lebouf did not reprise the role here....
However, there really was no place for him in this film. Which probably pleased a lot of certain IMDb users.
This entry begins like any normal Indiana Jones fare would, with Indy excising himself from impossible situations, but even as he does so, we know there is more to the chance encounter with Mads Mikkelsen.
And there are no "spiritual", Thuggee or Alien/Interdimensional beings baggage lugged about, only pure science. And TIME TRAVEL at that!
But the way the science fiction is treated, as mathematics in a believable way... Makes it easy to accept.
And there are plenty of MacGuffins to distract us. Mikkelsen's character had become an indispensable man for US History, but it never changes who he was and is.
Mads is surrounded by a goon squad comprised of fascists and CIA agents. But he soon frees himself from the CIA leash. We are left to wonder about his goals, up until the last minute. And when those goals do become clear, we are presented with time's arrow.
We are introduced to Toby Jone's character and his daughter Pheobe Waller-Bridge. Who started out as a real piece of trash, but then she redeems herself well. And Sallah is afforded a few scenes.
This has got all of the good things an Indy Jones movie should have and none of the excess vom we've seen in Temples of Thuggee Doom and Aliens that should have been called Aliens. I think this film is equal to Raiders and Last Crusade. Probably due to a fresh Wolverine director. So if I had any disappointments, it would be with the way the less-than-1-month old IMDb accounts treated this excellent film, because even the newspapers and critics gave it a good rating.
Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock (2009)
"The Gazelle"
That's what Anders called Ellen before they took the bullet out of his head... I don't believe that was random "word salad", it fits her, she looks like a gazelle.
And in the previous episode, after resurrection she appears uncharacteristically to be an intelligent scientist and surprise, she was the one that created all of the human form Cylons.
She actually designed them. Especially the Cavills which appear to have been designed after Ellen's own father.
So she was depicted as this person with a lot of feelings, she's actually a victim of Cavill #1.
But it takes less than one episode for her to revert back to regular petty Ellen.
And what she does here appears to be beyond mean, I'm not going to get into it, but when you watch this episode, you will see what she did. What she does. And for years I have been asking myself "Why did she do it?"
Well, there's also other stupidity in this episode, when the six and the eight from the baseship suddenly decide that they are going to "jump away" again, and of course, this was Tori's idea (Tigh immediately nails down the source of the "Were Jumping Away" pogroms)
It took me a long time to realize exactly why "the gazelle" did what she did. But when it dawned on me I had to admit, this must have been a very difficult thing for her to do.
The future of humans and Cylons is with Hera. But somehow, Caprica six and Colonel Tigh had a pure cylon baby.
Granted, that was an interesting development, but it was not the prophesied future of the human and cylon races...
Nobody ever knew what Ellen did here. Tigh suspected, but he never knew completely.
Battlestar Galactica: The Hub (2008)
Roslin's worst and lowest point.
Lorena Gale reappears as the priest who got mined in S2... The question is, is it really her or some kind of mental projection due to the jumps on a cylon base star?
We will just assume it was really her. Maybe she represents to Roslin the same thing that the Balthar and Caprica "angels" represent to Balthar and Caprica.
But even with this spiritual assistance, Roslin almost screws the duck, by trying to micromanage D-Anna (Lucy Lawless).
Helo also is at his worst by manipulating an Eight... Who actually trusted him. He could have, and should have acted quite differently.
These human failings almost cause the mission to fail, and the aftermath of the mission was a failure.
Meanwhile, the sixes and eights move that failure right along.
And then D-Anna makes a startling statement, basically, it did not matter who spoke to her first, she was going to betray everybody anyway.
This entire show is an exposition of failure of one side or the other- The instant we think there is going to be some understanding, there is self sabotage.
For instance, in season two the cylons decided to try to make nice with humans.
But then we see how they implemented this in the occupation episodes.
And then, in these episodes, what is supposed to be happening is an alliance but what we have are deeply paranoid people on both sides, with knives out ready to slice.
And the only clues given to people from either side are visions of the opera house, which they misconstrue time and again.
This whole show is an exposition which asks the question, how many mistakes are we going to continuously make until we finally figure it out? Which applies to people on earth as well as people on Battlestar Galactica.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)
I liked this more than the first one.
These Aquaman movies have become more like Pirates of the Caribbean as far as totally absurd developments... but that is why I enjoyed them.
When the characters were introduced in Batman V Superman and Justice League, they were introduced as almost Shakespearean and tragic.
These two films brought them back into the comic book style: although I liked Amber Heard's British accent and queenly mannerisms in the Zack Snyder movies, I realize now that this would not have worked for the way they changed the character in these two films. They changed her from a stately atlantean queen-to-be into a teenage girl.
They should have strove to mix those two facets together.
I totally enjoyed the imagery, this kind of stuff is what was going on underneath Captain Jack Sparrow, things that we would never have seen, there are ancient underwater kingdoms, prisons in the middle of a desert... and this is the second time Aquaman traverses a desert in order to perform a jailbreak. This time with his half brother Orm.
I was expecting Orm to come out as completely evil at one point but I'm glad they did not go that way.
Black manta, of course, was given an opportunity to be redeemed, but he refused it.
When Atlantis was first introduced in justice league, it was without all of the fantastic see creatures. But Aquaman's sidekicks, his seahorse and his octopus, these have been with him in the comic books.
This appears to be the last extended universe film. I don't think we will be seeing any more of this version of the legion of superheroes. Which is too bad because whether or not I liked the movies, and I did like most of them, I thoroughly enjoyed the characters. I can't think of anybody else who could play Aquaman as well as "Ronon Dex" (Jason Momoa's first role from Stargate Atlantis- which he plays very much like he plays Aquaman).
The Flash (2023)
Brilliant reconstruction of Michael Keaton's batcave
His involvement with this film is what attracted me to it. I wanted to see how they were going to fit the Tim Burton Batman into the Zack Snyder man of steel Universe.
And it was done brilliantly. There was no problem with the CGI in this film, it was done well. I think what would surprise people would be how much practical effects were used, because it's seamless. Especially when Kara Zor-El is beating her captors into pulp, you can't really tell what is CGI and what is her fist plunging into a helmeted Face, of course it is very sped up, but her movements look real. I suppose what they are complaining about is we have this one section where Barry-Prime and Barry-2 are in the Chronobowl and they are seeing events played over and over. My argument would be that it is supposed to look a bit unreal, because these events are occurring in universes in the next quantum from where they were, and then they are seeing mirrored reflections of even more timelines, and those events look even more unreal the farther from Barry-2's universe they get. It is all shown the way that it would have been in a comic book, which is exactly where these images originated from.
And although Ezra Miller is kind of problematic as the flash, he still stays within the character that was created for Justice is Grey. He even portrays his character twice, maybe even more.
And he is even able to parody that character by showing us the flaws with it and admitting those flaws. And because of this, we can almost like the character a little bit more, which was difficult to do in the original theatrical justice league, but was a little bit easier to do with Zack Snyder's Justice league.
And there is even an unexpected plot twist that centers around an "inevitable intersection". Although I can't get into what that is very much other than, "it's a piece of spaghetti. Or, a whole bunch of pieces of spaghetti."
I always thought that the Ben Affleck Batman was the closest to the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton Batman as far as darkness of character. Which is all based upon the 80's "The Dark Knight" concept of, "what happens to Batman when he gets old?".
Ben Affleck answered that question in Batman V Superman and Zack's Justice League, but Michael Keaton answers that question definitively here.
And it is even a way for Batman to return to the hero he used to be, by accepting his ultimate fate.
But what this film does the best is to explore the concepts of alternate realities, which have been explored in shows from Star Trek to Farscape to Stargate SG-1 to even "crisis on infinite earths", A major storyline from DC that was shown across several WB shows. Also in the dreams of Ben Affleck Batman and Cyborg- in which the flash always represents a central figure.
Sasha Calle gives us an alternate Kryptonian, that can stand up to Zod briefly and she was quite magnificent.
But this story gives us a look at alternate timelines, and Universes converging, which includes just about everybody who has ever played a DC super hero going all the way back to the serials of the 40s, and there are even slight nods to films that were never made. And this would be interesting for anybody who has studied the history of the DC franchise, because it gives us a little bit of reality for those unmade films.
I was hoping there would have been more of the Michael Keaton Batman, but we got plenty. I wish there had been more time in the film to explore all of these inevitable intersections.
I think this film is about as close to "zero hour" that we will ever get- "crisis on infinite earths" gave us a small look into zero hour, this film gives us a little bit more.
I just thought it was unfortunate that the actor who would have played cyborg did not want to be involved in the film.
Babylon 5: The Road Home (2023)
All of the voices were great
...Except for Ersatz G'Kar. He did not sound quite right, but it was still great that he was acknowledged in this.
The voice of Zathras was very close, The voices of Delenn, Dr Franklin and Garabaldi... if you close your eyes and listen, it does sound a lot like the original actors.
And the story was a very good Babylon 5 story. Of course these days we have "alternate timeline this" and "parallel universe that", we can thank Star Trek for that. But what is unique about this offering is that this is the first time we have quantum realities in the Babylon 5 universe.
What is interesting was the way this conundrum is instigated, before the power supply of a new Minbari reactor is even mentioned, I knew what they were going to say.
I almost wish that this could have been done with live action, but then we would not have been able to have those characters who have passed beyond the rim.
Ironically, they were not allowed to mention anything about the Crusade series, and there was a running gag about "Lost in (can't be mentioned)".
We got to see Shadows up close and personal, but of course they were all animated-out.
There were a few things missing, and a few characters missing, I would not mind if they made a few more of these animated B5 adventures, it would be really great for them to be able to get permission to continue the Crusade story, because we were left hanging at the last episode of that.
It took me a while to decide to watch this, but I am glad that I did. It was wholly enjoyable and fully B5.
Star Trek: Discovery: Coming Home (2022)
10-C: Strangest aliens ever, in any franchise
This is exactly what Star Trek is all about, presenting an alien race so strange, so unlike the usual humanoids, where do you start to communicate?
And they seemingly have technology so powerful, do we even dare go in there with phasers blasting?
Or do we figure out some way of talking to them?
But then you remember that there is a time limit, how are you supposed to get any of this done before whole solar systems are gobbled up?
Remember something that Mr. Spock said when a gigantic trashcan was on its way to earth with a dampening field so powerful it sent every starship to the side of the road, and when it got to earth it started "waporizing" The earths oceans?
"I find it unlikely that their intent is hostile".
To which bones replied, "oh, you think that this is its way of saying **hello** to the people of Earth?"
But we never got to see anything about that race, or why that it was interested in the songs sung by humpback whales, and what was inside of that gargantuan trashcan. But interestingly enough, humpback whales had actually gotten trapped in the San Francisco Bay during the time that they were thinking about that film. So, as well as a science fiction story, there is also some kind of contemporary message.
And that message for today is, how do people that are completely diametrically opposed politically ever supposed to communicate with each other and live with each other?
Which seems impossible when you visit any social website, but if you stop visiting the social websites and start walking around your neighborhoods, then you begin to see people as people and communication can begin.
And I believe that this message is working, people that I could not talk to four years ago are talking to me today.
All because Star Trek puts on shows, not just this show, but everything else in their entire franchise which offers us alternate ways of dealing with these issues. By transposing our issues into science fiction issues, and then showing how it could be solved within that framework, it gives us a way to solve it on old mundane earth.
This series and this particular episode also shows us how one obsessed individual could get put into a position of power where he could literally destroy everything, all for selfish personal desires.
We already gave such a person that kind of power and we were very lucky that it was ended, but we face that same threat again this year.
And Discovery is literally providing another storyline, what happens when absolute power gets given to the wrong person or entities? And are we willing to do that again after suffering through it previously?
So the overall purpose of the messaging of Star Trek is for us to start using Grey matter. And, to start making the future happen, now.
But which future do you want? Do you want the Terran empire, or do you want Starfleet? Do you want to live in fear, or in peace? Because it could tip either way.
Once again, we find that Discovery has a bar somewhere on the ship run by a Ferengi officer, ("Red") and that there is an alien sitting on a barstool who is of the same race as Morn.
And what did Quark say about things like this? "The more things change, the more they stay, the same".
Ironically, the president of the Federation is partially Cardassian, partially Bajoran, and partially human. And the president of earth is...
Star Trek: Discovery: Red Directive (2024)
A New Conundrum and Homage
I am utterly dismayed by the shellacking this show suffers, without merit. This was a very excellent 5th season opener, after the awesome 4th season introduction of the 10-C Aliens, which until that point had never even been concieved of by our planets most creative science fiction writers of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The closest we've ever gotten to the 10-C aliens in other franchises are the race from the "Three-Body" and "3 Body Problem shows", Chinese and American respectively. Which we never actually saw outside of a VR Game, ironically. And, imagine a Microscopic Particle that was fired at the Earth, which became Macro and caused the "Universe to Wink?". But in Discovery, whole stellar systems were gobbled up by The 10-C's "mining operation" - And nobody ever guessed that it was something that seemingly mundane. The 4th season took us from the end of "The Burn" through the "DMA" and we got to see some amazing things, also some very familiar things.
Once again, we saw Morn (or at least a person the same race as Morn) being served by a Ferengi bartender. And a card-counting Changling with a blinking tell in a casino hidden in a Dragon Hologram. And airlock jokes, which started in Deep Space Nine's "The Nagus" when Rom threatened to eject Quark, 20 years later the airlock jokes continue. Especially in the Season 3 finale, where we finally got to see it.
Discovery has taken us from a war with Qonos, then unexpectedly to the Mirror Universe, and then to various points in the alpha and beta quadrants chasing a Red Angel who was being pursued by a forerunner of The Borg, namely Leland aka "Control"... Thanks to the Mycelial Network and Discovery's Displacement Activated Spore Drive, which "never ceases to amaze me".
This season starts as an homage to a Next Generation episode from it's 7th season, we knew this even before the big reveal from a busted Soong-Style android's SSD.
And we are introduced to a very irritating new Captain, Rayner. This opens up more possibilities. I'm glad Callum Kieth Rennie was added to the cast this year, he was previously seen as the Cylon who was infatuated with Starbuck in BSG, and ironically, he was also a victim of the airlock in that show.
I eagerly await where this new conundrum will take Discovery, and us. I have enjoyed every episode. My only actual complaint is the dwindling number of episodes per season.
3 Body Problem: Countdown (2024)
Super-Compressed version of the Chinese show
I am recognizing most of the story elements, but where the Chinese show took 30 episodes to tell this complicated story, The Netflix producers are trying to ultra compress it.
The Chinese version had me actually caring about the few characters that it focused upon. This one, instead of focusing on just three basic characters there are several.
The story of Ye Wenjie, and this is the only character where they did not change the gender, nationality, or name of, is told in this first episode, and it matches what we knew from the Chinese show. Of course, Netflix added some extracurricular romance, which did not happen in the original. In the original story, Ye Wenjie was a woman totally unmoved by romantic interests. Originally a victim of the Chinese state and then one of their main operators. The Chinese version shows how she changed from the 60s to the early 2000's.
The other major difference is that the Chinese show was a period piece, occurring during the early 2000's, just prior to the onset of the first iPhones and other personal digital gadgetry. Nokia phones were still popular. This version of the story is completely contemporary, and so everybody is using iPhones instead of pre-Intel MacBooks, in my opinion this damages the story. That was one of the things that made the Chinese show unique is that they replicated how digital was in the early 2000s. This show, destroys that effect. They should have kept to the original period.
One of the other things we recognize is the character played by Benedict Wong, who is the cigarette chomping' cop "Da Shi": In the Chinese, This was "Shi Qiang" played by Hewei Yu.
And then the character of "Wang Miao" Has been deleted and transplanted into "Auggie Salazar" (Elza González)- she is the one that sees the countdown, and is approached by somebody named Tatania, who is supposed to be an analog of the character "Shen Yufei" - who initially appears to be speaking about "God" but in fact, they are talking about "the Lord" or, "Lord". Which I suppose you would have to watch this series in the original Chinese or read the novel to find out what that actually means. And it is not a religious reference, it is something insidious.
What has not been mentioned yet is the organization called "The Frontier Of Science" which Tatania/Shen Yufei and another character named "Pan Han" (whose analog has not yet appeared in this series) appeared to control.
I have only gotten halfway through the first episode, but I recognize these highly compressed story elements and characters based upon the original. What made the Chinese version endearing to me was that everything focused upon a small group of people... in this one, they had to hire a lot of the Game of Thrones stable of actors, and so the story has been shuffled across a deck of about 10 Game of Thrones actors.
Visually, this is done very well, but I don't like this supercompression of the story. The original Chinese Show took place across 30 episodes, and all of that information is crammed into only eight here, but that is the way that TV shows are made on Netflix or America these days. Nobody in America makes a TV show that has 26 episodes per season anymore. It went down from 26 to 16 to 13 and then to 10 and now 8 and 6. Only CW shows, sometimes still have 22 episodes per season.
It's just not enough time to tell a compelling story, 6 one-hour episodes? 8 one-hour episodes? Especially a story as complicated as "three body problem", a hugo award winning book.
And between the Chinese and American shows, these are only the first seasons, there are more books in this story. Which makes me very interested to see how the Chinese television industry does it, and how Netflix will respond...
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
"Riddley Walker"
I don't know if anybody else noticed this, the entire middle section with the kids and the plane, a lot of that was pulled from a book called Riddley Walker.
Mostly, it's the language that they speak that was lifted. It took me a few viewings of this film to understand some of what they were saying.
But they blended it in perfectly with the Road Warrior story.
Between mad max and road warrior, there was a certain level of deterioration of civilization.
Between road warrior and beyond Thunderdome, it has gotten even worse and now we have cities like barter town.
Run as a precarious balance between master blaster and Auntie.
As first we did not really know who to root for... it turned out that those who we thought were the bad guys, were not.
Auntie tries to use the road warrior to try to wrest complete control of the city from the man who set up the entire electrical grid- based upon an old beat up train engine!
A lot of humor was inserted... and also the return of the flyer played by Bruce Spence, who now has a kid who is learning to be just as rotten as his father
The story takes a dramatic change as the road warrior is sent out into the desert as punishment for not living up to a deal he had between himself and auntie
Those kids, the survivors of the plane, actually steal the film more than Tina Turner does.
This was the first movie I ever saw in THX sound, and it sounds just as good now when I watch it in my pro logic system as it did when I saw it in the theater.
The instruments seem to be floating in mid air during the title song.
Tina ended up with two huge hits that came out of this film, and she also used her costume in a couple of her own videos.
I don't get the low IMDb rating because this film got a great reaction back in the early 80s.
A film that shows how resilient the human race can actually be, when the fate of people is put into the hands of somebody like Max.
The ending actually is a message of hope- where people are rediscovering the proper uses of certain pieces of technology. For instance, Record Players...
It was about a year after I saw this film that somebody gave me the book Riddley Walker, I was surprised that it was not mentioned in the credits.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
Wait, WHAT?! Naw, this rocks!
This is the best one, although my favorite before this was Stranger tides... I always thought worlds end was too much.
I was pleased when I saw that the franchise had started back up again with the trip to the fountain of youth... especially the scene with the mermaids singing... they look so beautiful, but you know something horrendous is going to happen. And it does, to Scrumm of all people, and now he becomes a member of the crew that frequently follow Jack or Barbossa around.
This final film has no such trickery, no images of beauty that are representing things evil. We see the evil in all of its rotting glory, and we know what it is. It's one last major dilemma that Captain Jack Sparrah has to face, one he is responsible for, which he exacerbates by making a stupid move involving his magic Compass.
I will let you figure out exactly what that is, though, by watching this.
And once again we get to see Barbossa, although now he is an ally.
What I really like about the Barbossa character is that he had a slight bit of domesticity in Stranger Tides, he liked being served his meals on the deck, he liked being a bourgeois officer and privateer.
We see in this film, this tendency of his has carried on. He surrounds himself with Music and items that he never would have enjoyed as a pirate, when we first see him here, well, I can give you a clue: he is rocking out.
This was a part of Barbossa that we never knew existed... he enjoys good things. Good food, good music. And, the man is a lot more than the apple eating pirate that we have come to love as Jack Sparrow's nemesis, and sometimes pseudo ally.
But that does not make him any less dangerous, as he still has Blackbeards sword... and Barbossa has one last thing he needs to do with that sword.
After that, he has one more thing he has to do. There's one more thing we learn about him that we never expected, we start getting clues in the middle of the film.
But mostly this film focuses upon Henry, the son of Will Turner. And one other person of roughly the same age.
This is also the final ending of the romance between Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann... or is it? There is always a reason to stay in the theater until the very very end of all of the credits, because something else is always brewing, innit?
I feel badly that this was final teaser not pursued, but I hope now that it will be now that Johnny has been sufficiently "pardoned" (much like the character that he always plays- he always gets into a spot of a jam, and then some Governor or King or Lord gives them a "get out of the gallows free card"...)
Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)
Harry Potter, meet Ray Harryhausen
Much better than the 1st one.
There are a couple of spots that is very much like Harry Potter... at least image wise. I was expecting to see the sorting hat.
There's a much better story going on with this one. And, we delve into Greek mythology. And with Greek mythology, we get to see things that Ray Harryhausen animated come to life in a modern age.
Of course, Billy Batson is still an idiot.
We learn who the smart one is, "the wisdom of Solomon". Uses his wits to beat the daughters of Atlas. Who are mean "ess oh bees". Well, some of them are.
And of course there are references to Game of Thrones, look for a "dead dragon", And Billy calls it's rider "Khalesi". But she's more like a cross between Khalesi and the king of the dead...
It's just fun stuff, mindless entertainment.
In the comic books, Captain Marvel, who is what Billy Batson's actual super hero name is... and you will notice that all during this film he keeps on bringing up the question of his actual super hero name, but not once do they use Captain Marvel...
Well, it was Captain Marvel before Marvel comics had a Captain Marvel, there were even Captain Marvel serials, where they show the origins of this character and it's pretty close to what happens in the first film.
But I suppose there is some legal barrier that prevents DC from using that name.
A good graphic novel to read would be Kingdom Come by Alex Ross, Captain Marvel/Billy Batson plays a major role in that.
And Zack Snyder's DCCU has actually tapped some of that imagery in Man of Steel through Zack Snyder's Justice league... some of it even shows up in "The Flash" so I don't know if any of that will be used in these Shazam films.
But the Power of Shazam gives Captain Marvel (The DC version) his powers just like it did in the serials from the 40s.
This story had to be brought into the 21st-century and well, things are a lot different than they were in the 40s when these characters were first drawn up in comic books.
Perry Mason: The Case of the Fan Dancer's Horse (1957)
Susan Cummings > Judy Tyler
These two women do not look anything alike. Also, I had never heard that Judy had passed before the episode had even aired. She was rather good in this episode, although not looking like Susan Cummings at all... it's sad.
It all starts with an old car overturning... and Della finds a pair of peacock feathers. Oh yes, and a man on a horse, escaping from a mansion.
What was shocking here is that for 1957, they do show a lot of "Fan Dancer", and Cheri Chi-Chi's body.
But Susan Cummings was still better.
Interesting case, which includes a Japanese sword... so maybe there is a connection to Kill Bill.
You can always tell the episodes based upon Earle Stanley Gardner's books, they are always very complex.
Very enjoyable and intriguing episode, especially where it shows Paul drake using "modern" spy equipment.
The Deadly Mantis (1957)
An ambitious movie- Deserves better.
Despite stock footage of planes that did not match from scene to scene and shots of Eskimoes from a 1933 film, the film does give us a huge flying Praying Mantis that looks pretty convincing, especially in the skies over Washington DC.
William Hopper is far away from his Hard Boiled Paul Drake persona and takes up the mantle of a learned scientist, which he does well. But all eyes are on Alix Talton, the "Long Legged Model".
This woman sidekick is not attracted to Hopper like she would be, but to the military hero instead.
Which is a lot different than the woman chasing detective Drake would play in Perry Mason, who was often borrowing 50 bucks from Perry so he could take the defendant to dinner.
One thing we do not hafta worry about is CGI: that was a REAL full sized Mantis in the closing scenes. I applaud this film for the amount of sheer effort in making this creature- and giving it life! Other monster movies of the 50's would involve filming regular sized insects and composing a full sized human next to it. Or, like 20 million miles to earth, a considerable amount of stop motion animation!
But they also had to move the mantis head and jaws... and real Ichor was dripping from its mouth.
Compare the final scene of this film to the "Tanker Beetle" scene from Starship Troopers...
This film could use a remake. Too bad William Hopper can't be part of it. He left us, way too young.
Perry Mason: The Case of the Long-Legged Models (1958)
The Deadly Long-Legged Models!
This film reunites Paul Drake with his costar from "the deadly mantis"... I did not recognize Alix Tilton at first until I recently watched the deadly mantis.
I agree with some of the other people here, and also with Hamilton Burger... "Mr. Mason wants to get us caught up with all these immaterial guns". In fact, this is not the first case where there were multiple guns, The very first Perry Mason episode involved two identical guns. In that instance, Perry knew that if he handed one gun to a suspect that he would be handed a different gun in return. And in doing that helped him figure out who the murderer was.
But in this case the same thing happens, but nobody had told Perry about it, and it looks bad...
Perry tries to handle this case the same way he handled his first televised case, but where that worked out well for him then, it does not work here.
We have to remember the liturgy of things to not do when you come upon a body:
1) never touch anything
2) never take things from the crime scene
3) never lie to your defending lawyer
And in case after case, the defendants always get tripped up with those three things.
And because the defendant was not exactly honest with him, Perry gets himself into a heck of a lot of hot water with Burger, and he has to crawl out from under it.
It is not the best Perry Mason episode, but it does have some interesting things. The cars for one...
But one of the Reviewers was asking what does this have to do with "long legged models?" This was because some of the women all worked at a certain venue in Las Vegas, where they were all modeling clothing, and at least two of these peripheral characters were employees at that venue.
It's too bad there was not some homage to the deadly mantis in this case... but there is an homage to Dick Tracy.
Perry Mason: The Case of the Fugitive Fraulein (1965)
The case of the place called East Germany
This tries to be a sequel to the very interesting "the case of a place called midnight", and it fails to be as good as that episode was.
This is your basic Cold War episode where Perry Mason has to go up against the evil "East German Kangaroo Court".
I don't believe that courts even in eastern Germany or communist Russia back then were as depicted in this episode. Because nobody really knew? In America, all we really knew about Russia was what was told us by our own government. When you think about it, there were very few sources of real information about how life actually was in Russia. All that we had access to was Pravda, which gave us the official viewpoint of what Russian life was. Not the actual truthful version. Because no information ever came out of Russia, and usually people who went in to communist countries vanished. I had met people who were prisoners in Russia during that time, but I met them after the fall of the wall. The stories that they told me were not like what we were shown on television at all. We had no diplomacy with any of those countries, so on TV, we had to invent our own illustration of how Russian or East German life would be.
AND... a big AND here... We have to remember this was during the space race and the east Germans and Russia were trying to entice scientists to "come over to their side", and this episode is just one depiction of that process, where in this case it was a form of blackmail.
In fact, we don't really know how Russia or East Germany found people to come to their countries and work on their rockets, which then exploded. Oh, you didn't know? During the moon race, Russia built a rocket equivalent to our Saturn five- which had a gigantic and miraculous explosion, which ended their attempts to go to The Moon. I had watched the footage of that explosion on some documentary, where we had been given rare footage, it might be available on YouTube at this point, but I forget which documentary that was. I think it was referenced in James Michener's "Space", which was some fiction told in documentary style. And there might also have been an actual documentary called "space".
Everybody in the United States was behind the space race, and behind the moon trip, but the moment we get there, everybody loses interest. And without the space race, there really wasn't any more use for the cold war, except for posturing.
Which means that the United States did not necessarily win that little contest, nobody won. But you have to remember the importance of the space race and during this time, we were right in the middle of it.
This was during the most critical point of the space race, and both we the United States and Russia and satellite countries, were trying to get the best scientists to work with them.
And apparently the professor in this episode, was one of those geniuses who could have done a lot of good for either side, depending on where he went.
Granted, he would not have been very happy, going into East Germany- not with the situation that was set up.
This episode is very clever in that it sets up a MacGuffin - we are to follow the subject of a little girl, the professors granddaughter, and we, as we keep our eyes on her, we are missing what happens right in front of us at the very beginning of the episode.
Because the right hand is not telling the left hand what it is doing. And so we don't see what is actually going on at all until the very last moments of the episode. Sorry, I'm not even going to give you 1 inch of a clue you are going to have to watch this.
Starring the girl with the German accent who was also in "the case of a place called midnight"- we are given some pretty good imagery of what could have been east Germany. Also, the use of stock footage gives the illusion more weight.
Although not as good as "the place called midnight", which fools us into actually believing we are in Switzerland... we can believe that we are looking into east Germany.
The east German characters are just as nasty as they would have been in any Alfred Hitchcock Russian spy film.
And a number of other commentators are claiming that this episode was not very well directed. Au Contrare, it was directed very well. And the story was very well written. Because none of us saw what was right in front of us the whole time.
And that is what made Perry Mason great television for nine years.
Just watch how this episode develops we are thinking Perry can use his own cleverness to influence an East German Court. But he can't, and so there is one person, and one person only who can affect the result that we want. But who is that? How?
And then the ending drags us along until the twist becomes crystal clear. This is the case of the twice told twist, except it's the first told twist...
This kind of television writing was not very common, but it had its first examples right here. In Perry Mason episodes, like this. So, when you watch it again, give it a chance, let the story tell itself.
Perry Mason: The Case of the Silent Six (1965)
It's Hampton Fancher!
The screenwriter of blade runner.
And he has a major part in this very interesting and relevant Perry Mason episode.
Very relevant to the time it was filmed, in comparison to the real life Kitty Genovese incident in New York.
And very relevant to today's world as well.
This was 1965. The world was rocking and rolling, the Beatles were still around. The Vietnam War was acting up.
And so Perry Mason was the Star Trek of its era. Every season was Rife with episodes steeped in social commentary. Very relevant social commentary which is still relevant to this very day in many cases.
This "case" here, involves the new police Lieutenant Steve Drumm, and his friend David. Played by the guy with the cauliflower ears from the Star Trek episode with the hippies. The guy is actually a brilliant character actor who played nemesis very well, here, he is the defendant, this is one of the first times I ever saw that actor play a nice guy.
This was before he played two evil guys in Star Trek.
But the interesting thing here is the kid "Hamp", would later pen one of the most popular science fiction films of all time and then 40 years later would pen a sequel to that.
Every Perry Mason episode has the defendant, the decedent, and then the actual murderer, which Perry manages to eek a confession out of in most of the cases. As far as I know, there were only three cases where Perry did not manage to reveal the actual murderer.
Perry. Mason scrutinizes every possible "angle", this was back when you were rented an apartment house, you were also renting the furniture and everything else in there. I remember those times, this was very common. This apartment complex was a small community, and as we go through the case and Perry interviews possible murderers, we get to see all kinds of people. In today's world, Hamp would have been a member of a punk rock band. As well as the other guys who were downing "goofballs" aka reds, or downers. And then there were actresses, a book maker, in today's world, this would be a guy with instead of three telephones, he would have three computers serving websites. And then the manager of the apartment who initially is getting around on a wheelchair but then later reveals she can walk just fine, Virginia Gregg, who was in many other perry Mason episodes.
Just like any other normal red blooded American community, heh?
In the end of the episode, Hamp gives us a court room outburst, which rings in our ears: doesn't anybody care? Will not anybody help?
Hopefully this does not happen as much in real life as it used to happen back when this episode was produced.
Perry Mason: The Case of the Meddling Medium (1961)
Excellent Hitchcockian MaGuffin
Because- this not only features "Gideon the Intern", but also popular parapsychology professor Andreas Puharich.
Remember- Perry wants to "scientifically" explore if his client used ESP. So he employs several of Puharich's gadgets in this quest-
But beware! Perry also employs a Faraday Cage!
The instant he mentions this, we knew we were being beautifully tricked! But, how?
The cage features into the solution of this "conundrum", in a very clever way.
Does Perry's client really have ESP? Was Puharich the real deal or a quack?
Judging from the original broadcast date of Octo-Brr 21st, 1961, this unusual episode was that years given HOLLOWEEN entry.
And it's a doozy. All you have to remember is, it's PERRY MASON to the nth degree- just watch for his little smile, which is not as prominent as it usually is.
Look for Kent Smith and Virginia Field- Who usually plays mediums in PM. And the usual cast. Don't remember if Tragg appears, if he does it's his token cameo.
Perry Mason: The Case of the Deadly Double (1958)
Brilliant Perry Dissociative disorder ep.
My best friend was dissociative.
Everything about this episode was spot on, The language was a little bit different between then and modern medicine now, but this is exactly how it is.
Maybe this is related to "the three faces of Eve", but here, we only have 2 personalities. We have to remember in the 50s people did not believe in this disorder and it took a long time for medicine to start acknowledging that it exists.
In my friends case, there were dozens, hundreds of personalities.
What was very accurate was that one of the personalities became aware of the other. That is pretty much how this syndrome is dealt with, making each of the personalities aware of each other, and then they can cooperate.
Although in the case of Joyce Martell, she was more interested in playing tricks on her doppelgänger.
I too wanted to know more about that woman's fate after the resolution of murder.
The doctor that was depicted treating the woman had his medical language pretty much exact, including his definition of what dissociative disorder actually means.
And Perry Mason was very considerate when they needed to get the personality to appear.
We are shown a form of hypnosis, this was pretty much how therapists have treated this disease, until the onset of managed care.
My friend used to be admitted to the hospital into a private room, where her therapist along with a medical doctor, would use hypnotism, accompanied by sedatives to get the treatment started.
This is pretty much how the doctor in this episode gets Joyce Martell to appear, sans the hypnotic medication.
I have literally seen my friend reacting to allergies and then not reacting after changing.
This is a good episode to show people who have recently been diagnosed with dissociative disorder...
Another good movie to watch would be the film "identity" with John Cusack.
I am surprised I have never reviewed this episode and to think this is during Perry Mason's first season... I am not sure if this is one of the ones written by Earle Stanley Gardner. But whether it is or not, this episode is swell. It has a good blend of mystery and discovery.
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Finally saw this, it's WAY not bad
Taika is great, especially as the dude made out of rock, if not a very funny and talented Director and actor.
I particularly welcomed the return of Jane Foster, and I was a little bit surprised at the way that they brought her back. I distinctly remember Mjollnir being back in the possession of Thor and Captain America after Thor stole it from the Dark World timeline... of course, the Asgardians could have scooped up the pieces left over from Ragnarok, but where is that other hammer from Avengers endgame? Maybe it is not really a plot hole, I don't remember where that other Mjollnir got to. Did Steve Rogers return it?
And then it is always great to have the Guardians of the Galaxy involved, this was before Guardians of the Galaxy Vol3 and Nebula's transformation into one of Tony Starks Nanotech projects. I honestly liked her before when she was still partly RadioShack shelf rejects.
And compared to Ragnarok, although there is a lot of humor in this film, it does have some serious drama.
But there are a number of absurd complaints I've read in several dupe "reviews". Let's go over these, shall we?
1) It's FUNNY.
To not like a movie because it is FUNNY? That is the main complaint that I am reading, oh, this is no good because it is FUNNY. Wait, what?
There are some new gimmicks in this film, nothing was wasted. And so Thor assembles a new means of transportation through by Bifrost. Out of... Watch the movie to find out what it is made out of. But it's funny!
2) Nepotism
I also read a number of complaints regarding "nepotism", wait, what! That's a big so what! I don't care who plays what or who, or if they are the son or daughter of some cast or crew member. Yawn. And honestly, I did not know when I was watching the film.
Christian Bale almost reprises his role as the American Psycho. - at first, we believe that this person is irredeemable. But in a major, unexpected twist, well, you will have to watch the film in order to see what I'm talking about.
The film starts getting very serious toward the middle, of course it kind of slightly bothers me that Thor is still a little bit goofy after the events of avengers endgame. But then again, this is also within his character. He was handed a major loss in endgame, and this was his reaction. So, as far as I'm concerned, he is dealing with that loss, which changed him irrevocably.
This is a much different Thor than the person that we met in the first film. And The Avengers. That serious person... Which is totally expected after all the character has gone through.
And these changes were just for films, the comic book numbered in the hundreds, and the character was always ever-changing, even then.
Remember when Thor resided within a geek that had to yell "ODIN" at a hammer which would then turn him into Thor? The character has changed a lot over the course of maybe 40 or 50 years. And then some of his power was siphoned off into another character named Bloodaxe, which was a spinoff title that only lasted a couple of dozen issues- it was related to West Coast Avengers, which then became Force Works.
It's kind of like how the Hulk was always dumb and residing within Bruce Banner. And hulk has gone through a lot of changes. There was a time he was dumb when he was human, but smart when he was "The Gray Hulk"- but back then he went by "Mr. Fixit", he accompanied Wolverine in a few issues. Anybody remember The Hulk versus Thor? It is now called "the return of the Incredible Hulk"- at the time when it was originally broadcast, it was called the Hulk versus Thor, or probably simply Hulk vs Thor. And some of the dialogue from that TV movie found its way into the first Thor film.
3) CGI?
Another complaint was with the amount of CGI, which you can barely tell these days. And this complaint is made by people who don't realize that there are still a lot of practical effects and real, physical locations and objects, even in this film. I'm getting really tired of that old complaint. If we have the ability to make realistic, digital set extensions, then we should use them always. But even with a lot of digital set extensions, a lot of the detail is real physical props, and other real artwork.
I like that this movie focuses a lot on the Asgardian children, and it shows their true potential- including the son of Heimdall.
I like that this film pulls back from the inanity of Ragnarok, although this film includes some of that silliness.
I thought Ragnarok was way over the top, but I did enjoy it. But this film has that same over the top feel at least at the beginning, but it also is balanced with some heartbreaking things.
The final complaint and I see this a lot is about "the writing"
I want to ask the people who wrote those reviews, have you ever written for television? Have you ever written for Broadway or the theater?
You can't just sit down and spew unplanned stream of conscious, everything has to be planned out and mapped out, especially with television.
And it's even more difficult with a film.
And so the question I finally have is: are these reviews taking an extremely long time to post? Because I don't believe I have put anything into these reviews that are anything near as bad as what I have read recently.
Alien Nation (1988)
The French connection with Newcomers
Also, the film begins with the twist of an alien culture being suddenly dumped into Los Angeles, and it causes a culture clash.
The newcomers, the aliens, who have been allowed to take new names and work and live with regular people, have some advantages over regular people, but also a few disadvantages.
The first part of the film has a James Caan who is still getting over his partners death, suddenly partnered up with a person he normally would not even associate with- but in fact, he chose that partnership, because it would give him a pathway to investigate who shot his former partner "Tug". But something that he did out of necessity becomes something that gives him an advantage over normal human cop pairs- he understands human criminals, and his partner understands newcomer criminals.
There is a very short honeymoon between the two main characters in the film, eventually they figure out how to work with each other.
After that, we are presented with a conundrum that has to be figured out.
And that's why I say it's the French connection. It's got all of the great things that a good cop movie has, great fight scenes, big guns, great car chases. LA is a pretty good city to use as the background of a car chase, because it has those factory areas over in Long Beach and San Pedro. Also miles and miles of Malibu beaches.
And more miles and miles of scummy, crusty nightclubs like the "Encounters" nightclub in this film- Leslie Bevis, who played the alien freighter captain and occasional Quark girlfriend in deep space nine "Rionoj", is Cassandra, a very kinky newcomer who loves experiencing things with humans. And she did not like what Terence stamp did to her Newcomer boyfriend.
This film should have been longer. It has a lot of culture that can be mined and abused for humor, and in fact, when the film was turned into a television series (and then later several movies), they really got into the newcomer culture. Not to mention the families of "Sam" Francisco and Se-Ike's (AKA Poophead in Newcomer jargon).
This is one of my favorite movies with James Caan, and I had never seen Mandy Patakin before.
There are lots of great things in here, and I'm glad that this movie led to other shows with other things that we eventually learned about the newcomers.
I never had the opportunity to see this in the theater, and in fact, it looks like this film might have been made originally to be a television show pilot, due to the involvement of Rockne S O'Bannon, The creator of Farscape and other great sci-fi shows. But here, he shows that he is just as good making cop movies that have alien twists. And with just a few more added budget-dollars, a TV show pilot becomes a great theatrical release. If, in fact, the film was originally intended as a television show. As a theatrical release, the film was awarded more down to Earth gritty realism.
Star Trek Continues: The White Iris (2015)
The senior senior Trekker writes
Or rather, narrates again.
I have to say each time I watch this episode I am more and more impressed, Vic not only plays Captain Kirk, he dabbled with some of the music, and he writes most of these stories.
The fact that he was involved in writing this episode reveals a huge knowledge of Star Trek. He knows details about each of the five women that are clouding Kirks memory in this episode.
Details that we have mostly forgotten... Well, details about one of them are an untold story, because it takes place with a character from one of his earlier ships, The ship from "obsession". And that was another interesting thing to add to this story, it's just another untold story of Kirk. But each of these women have had a profound effect on Kirks psyche.
We forget that Kirk got extremely lucky in "The Paradise Syndrome" with "Miramani"- but he also got lucky with Deela in "wink of an eye"- but it is even more blatant in Paradise. And the level of that is shown in this episode, because we all know that Miramani was carrying Kirk's child.
And this episode is basically built around a character never really born. Of all of the five girls that Kirk has to interact with to get his memory back, the one that has the key to his secret password was the one that never existed as a person.
In reality that is, she does exist in Kirks mind to a very large degree. And the ironic thing here is that he never knew it.
This also brings back memories of another forgotten "woman" Rayna- and she was also "not real" in a certain sense, although to Kirk, she was very real.
This also gives us another look at the original enterprise "Holodeck", which would have been revealed had there ever been a fourth season of the original series. So in effect, this is the first "holodeck episode", unless you count the first episode where Apollo comes back.
The story happening in the background with the planet applying for Federation membership, that's not really the important story here.