b-rad Reviews

Monk: Mr. Monk Goes to the Bank (2008) Season 6, Episode 12

"Monk" 's not getting any better

[4/10 · 18 January 2008]

The episodes have been getting progressively worse over the past two seasons. Monk has become more of a buffoon, leaving the detective that he was in the first seasons farther and farther behind. He has become a walking OCD joke. And whatever happened to solving Trudy's murder? Oh, wait--we have to watch visual gags in which Monk is paralyzed by things that did not paralyze him in the first season. Stottlemyre and Disher are cartoons, a complete 180 from the competent, tough and sometime hostile cops that they were in the beginning. Natalie is not Sharona--well, volumes have been written about that. That dispute comes close to the debate among "Star Trek" fans over Kirk vs Picard. Now, with this season, it seemed like there was a bit of a turnaround, like the quality of the writing was returning to the show's roots. "Monk" was going to be about mysteries again, and watching Monk solve them, and not about visual gags involving OCD. I was able to go along with tonight's episode, until we reached the half-hour mark. *****Caution: Some spoilers******** There is a robbery at Monk's home bank branch, where he keeps a safe deposit box, with a memento of Trudy. So far, so good. The characters were introduced competently, and the plot is not so far-fetched as to require us to accept the broad contradictions of the past three seasons (55 minutes of Monk as a quivering mass of OCD jelly, then solving the case--Monk ex machina--in the last 5 minutes). But this one fell apart at the half. The robbery is an inside job, and the co-conspirator locks Monk, Natalie, Stottlemyre and Disher in the vault. OK, at this point, I was disappointed, because, in my opinion, the stories are most enjoyable when the audience is kept in suspense until as late as possible about the true identity of the perpetrator. The worst "Monk"s have been those in which we see the killer murder his victim in the teaser before the opening credits. This one avoided that. But there is a huge plot hole here: In every other episode, going back to 2002, Stottlemyre and Disher carry cell phones. So, when locked in the vault, where are the phones? Next, bank vaults are not air-tight. But this story turns on the perpetrators' hope that Monk and crew will suffocate "in 9 hours". If you worked in a bank, like I did, you'd know that vaults are vented, for just such a situation. Next question about this episode: In the advertising run-up for tonight's episode, the tag line was that Monk was cured. But that is not part of the story, and is not even hinted at in the dialog, from any character. He was not "cured". If anything, Monk was written tonight to behave pretty much like he did in the first season. That is, he has his obsessions, but he can still function. The next problem: This plot recycles elements from previous episodes. Locked in a vault--same as being trapped in an elevator in "Mr Monk and the Blackout". SPOILER: Every employee in the bank is involved in the robbery? Same as the cleaning ladies in "Mr Monk Takes a Vacation". Actually, it's the same plot as "Murder on the Orient Express", isn't it? I hate to see what was once such a good show fade like this. Tony Shalhoub must have gambling debts, he must need the money. Otherwise, I would have expected that he would have chosen to go out on a high note, when the quality of the show was still high. Just watch the old episodes, when USA has another Monk-a-thon, or on DVD, and you can see, you can see how the quality of the scripts has fallen, and how the characters have been redrawn in ways that contradict their earlier incarnations. And no, you can't explain that away by saying, "people change or grow over time". They were more believable before, and so, more enjoyable to watch. It's hard to watch "Monk" anymore, and that's too bad, because of what the show once was.

Basilisk: The Serpent King (2006 TV Movie)

More enjoyably bad fare from the Sci-Fi Channel

[3/10 · 25 November 2006]

"Basilisk" is on right now, the latest CGI monster flick from Sci-Fi, inspired by medieval bestiaries (remember "Manticore"?).

The effects are bad, the characters and situations predictable, the monster really badly drawn, but it's another one of those movies that is so bad, you can enjoy laughing at it. And if it weren't for movies like this, actors like Stephen Furst wouldn't have anything to do.

At least we get to see Yancy Butler running around in a little cocktail dress.

Now I see that there is a minimum line requirement to these comments, so I have to add more content. Let's see...

The soldier popping up out of the manhole, begging for help, only to get pulled back in, that's predictable.

The lone garbage man who sees the monster as he walks to the dumpster, that's a cliché, too.

Oh, and the producers fulfilled another horror movie requirement by having the monster attack a shopping mall. Take that, you blind consumerist sheep!

Ooh, and the monster came to life at a university museum, at a reception for wealthy patrons. Take that, capitalists! Throw in a nutty sidekick, and a hot blonde archeology professor, and we have plenty of the expected building blocks of a shake-and-bake monster movie.

Is that enough lines now?

I see that it is. Who's idea was that requirement, anyway?

The Patriot (2000)

To paraphrase Frankenstein, "Movie bad!"

[30 December 2002]

This movie did to movies about the War for Independence what "Pearl Harbor" did to movies about WWII. Yes, the cinematography was good, so the movie was interesting, visually, but lacked accuracy. And beyond the lack of accuracy, the story and characters were trite rehashes of stock characters. Where to begin? With Tavington, loosely based Sir Banastre Tarleton, the Loyalist(not regular Army) commander of the British Legion? Tavington is written more like a stock Hollywood Nazi than anything else, and everything he did was predictable. With Cornwallis, written and played like a weak fop, rather than the able career officer and politician he was? Cornwallis may have lost the final campaign of the War, due more to lack of support from Howe and the arrival of the French, but he was assigned later as Governor of India. And then there is Martin. Mel Gibson is a good actor, but he is given nothing to work with here. C'mon, who owned a plantation of that size in the Carolinas and paid freed slaves to work it? PC nonsense, shame on the author. If you want to see a dramatization of events from this war, find and rent "The Crossing," produced two years ago for A&E. It tells the story of Washington's crossing, without adding a lot of crap just to sell the story. One last note--The toy soldiers Martin's son played with and which were later melted down for dramatic effect did not exist and would not until after 1870.

The Lost World (1999 TV Movie)

Let's make another dinosaur movie

[4 April 1999]

This movie was bad, and I was disappointed, because I enjoyed reading stories like this when I was a kid. The special effects were not good. True, there were no rubber models, but they were certainly not up to the standard set by "Jurassic Park." Watching a 4-ton T-rex leaping over a huge log at 20 mph without breaking both its legs will make anyone who has even read the current literature about dinosaurs blanch. And the current explanation of the fossil record holds that large sauropods (Brontosaurs, Brachiosaurs, eg) did not drag their tails. The Apemen were poorly done, to the point of being silly. I haven't seen such bad costumes/makeup since the old Saturday morning "Land of the Lost" series. Now to the characters. The story is a typical late Victorian adventure plot of adventurers wandering into an as-yet uncharted region of the world, where creatures from several different geological eras coexist. At the time it was written, it was cutting-edge adventure literature. But today, somehow, these stories all seem like "Land that Time Forgot" with Doug McClure. The actors were competent, even if their characters border on caricatures at times. The only thing that kept me watching was the actress playing Veronica, a young woman the explorers find living in the Lost World, in a setup that would make the Professor from "Gilligan's Island" drool. Of course, her parents were proper Victorian naturalists who took her along as a child but have since disappeared. She maintains their home as a research station, until they return. Why the daughter of British scientists had a modern California accent is not explained, but she displayed her obvious assets proudly throughout the movie. Hardly worth watching, except for laughs.

The Kids in the Hall (1988–2021)

The Kids rule!

[8 November 1998]

"The Kids in the Hall" was one of the best sketch comedy shows ever produced. It was consistently better than "Saturday Night Live," both in the quality of its writing and in the quality of the actors' performance. What made the show so funny was the off-the-wall nature of the sketch ideas and the running characters. Time and time again I would watch the show and ask myself, "Where did they come up with something like that?" From Mark McKinney's Chicken Lady and Daryl, to Bruce McCullough's Gavin and Bobby (rockin' against the Devil) to Scott Thompson's 100 waiters and Cathy with a C, there was never a slow moment in any episode. The only fault was that the show came to an end.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

Rather poignant look at the Colonel as he falls behind the times.

[8/10 · 21 October 1998]

I can see where some might find the movie long and perhaps even slow. And yes, Michael Powell wanted to provide a vehicle for Deborah Kerr. Still, it's an entertaining story, and one can't help feel sorry for Blimp as he finds the times passing him by. It happens to everyone, eventually, and I thought it was a rather poignant story.