One of the refreshing features about Oklahoma! is that it can hardly be accused of making the villain(Judd Fry) a more interesting witty character than the protagonists. In fact, Judd Fry was pretty much a jerk Its characters were genuinely charming & the way they related was easilly believable, which made the way they dealt with potentially dangerous situations a great deal more instructive Good ole Aunt Eller sure knew how to diplomatically spin things to defuse a situation w/out letting on that one was developing in the 1st place. take ,for instance, the scene where Judd was about to trick Curly into stabbing himself with a hidden switchblade & she "scolded" Curly & talked him into dancing w/ her.Also, the lengths she went through during the box social to keep Laurie out of Judd Fry's clutches & the exchanges that went on b/n her & Judd. The way he was trying to play against an auction in which the proverbial deck was stacked against him without revieling anymore than he had to.How Curly would have to sell his gun to bid anymore against him & that he may be needing it...BAD. In general very brilliantly scripted. Some of the lyrics seemed surprisingly suggestive for a musical of its time, for instance Addo Annie's "Evry time I lose a Wrestling match I have a funny feelin that I WON!"! When listening to it as a teenager, I tried to read something more innocent into it & Will Parker's description of a stripper at a burlesque show in "Kansas City "because it didn't seem like the "wholesome" musicals of the 50's would "go there" One of several R & H musicals I grew up listening to & enjoying. I think there are very few if any of those musicals that most or all of us have not heard the tune or lyrics to . One I only heard of recently has been Flower Drum Song & even it had tunes that I remembered from the past "I enjoy being a Girl " for instanse sounded very familier & was made even more unforgettable by the fact that the woman doing the number was in a bath towel She said she was strictly a female female & a wrong slip of her garment would have laid to rest any doubt of it..LOL
Reviews
22 Reviews
Skyhawks
(1969–1971)
Unique Approach to Appealing to Aspiring Pilots
13 March 2004
One of the "shorts" this show had was one of the SH characters giving aviation tips to its (presumably) young viewers. Info on aviation weather, license ratings oxygen requirements at altitude ect. Seemed to assume its viewers aspired to become flyers.
A lot of airplane shows & movies seem to have been made by somebody who doesn't know an airplane from a roller skate.They sometimes have pseudo-technical jargon that's almost tatamount to jibberish. Almost like just an attempt to sound technical with enough jargon to indicate they heard some genuine terms, but using them in a way akin to Charlie Sheen/Ditch Brody's attempt at Russian in Terminal Velocity. I mean the part where Brody's being awarded by the Russians & saying "The busses don't work here I'm an @&$ h01e" I think there's some tendancy to assume genuine aeronautical terms would whiz over people's heads.
It was ironic to see a kid's cartoon seem to almost lead the way in bridging the gap between aviation & the viewers of a show about the same. A lead few aviation dramas seemed to have followed since.
A lot of airplane shows & movies seem to have been made by somebody who doesn't know an airplane from a roller skate.They sometimes have pseudo-technical jargon that's almost tatamount to jibberish. Almost like just an attempt to sound technical with enough jargon to indicate they heard some genuine terms, but using them in a way akin to Charlie Sheen/Ditch Brody's attempt at Russian in Terminal Velocity. I mean the part where Brody's being awarded by the Russians & saying "The busses don't work here I'm an @&$ h01e" I think there's some tendancy to assume genuine aeronautical terms would whiz over people's heads.
It was ironic to see a kid's cartoon seem to almost lead the way in bridging the gap between aviation & the viewers of a show about the same. A lead few aviation dramas seemed to have followed since.
Deep Blue Sea
(1999)
Don't you just hate it when they violate the protium complex?
1 September 2003
Warning: Spoilers
Or whatever Suzanne McAlister called it. Another typical Hollywood version of playing in God's domain. Another thing is-I can't help but wonder what some critic's would define as a non-stereotyped or non-cliched character in action thriller movies. Critics of action movies(some) have almost become a stereotype unto themselves. The obligatory critic of a thriller is the one always there to say the characters were cliches.Not that there isn't some truth to it, but I think there's a tendency to overlook an assumed fact.The fact that intense action & deep unique characters both require creative energy to develop.That means time & money dedicated to each. So I hesitate to be critical of a movie strong in one but weak in the other. I think given the same budget, an action thriller won't have as profound characters. Not that it hasn't been done. The Fugitive, Airforce One, the Tom Clancy movies are all good examples of movies that excelled at both.
The makers of this movie had a few things to juggle. Namely what to do about Dr Suzanne McAllister. Like was the audience going to hate her or be understanding or somewhere in between? Unlike the narcicistic Dr. in Piranha McAlliater had a defendable cause. Namely the hoping to find the cure for degennerative brain disease, which kills probably hundreds of times more people than her Mako Mutants could ever dream of doing. So for arguments sake, if her research were to lead to such a cure, it would be hard to not put that in perspective in any effort to condemn her.It's easy to believe that's she was trying to get at in her "..people we'll save." damage control responce to the confrontation
One of the things that interested me in this movie was the species of shark being portrayed. Namely the mako. Bear in mind, mako sharks in real life only get up to about 12' & about 1500#, not the 45' & 8000# achieved by the mutants in this movie.I suppose that could be a spoiler. Ironically-& maybe not so coincidentally-around the same time this movie was presumably being made, TDC's Shark Week had a documentory on mako sharks called Swift Smart & Deadly. In it marine biologists were exploring the theory that makos were smart by shark standards- smart sharks. Deep Blue Sea was about smart sharks & guess what species they were designed to look like. Oddly the "tiger" shark only had the markings of a tiger shark.It was given a mako sharks. body.Namely the conical snout, Long slender blade-like teeth & symetrical crescent tail fins. The tiger has a more typical shark profile of a somewhat wedge shaped snout & larger upper lobe on its tail fins. The real sharks the actors swam with in the short about the making of DBS look more like tiger's in body, though aren't as big & don't have the markings. Oddly, we were asked to believe that the sharks the actors swam with were blended with the mechanical & CG sharks in DBS. Though there did appear to be actual MAKO shark footage, the actors were NOT swimming with mako sharks. None of the sharks in the movie looked like the sharks the actors were swimming with. I question if the actors could have been talked into swimming with mako sharks. If They thought these sharks were scary to swim with, mako sharks are a lot fiercer looking & more unpredictable. It appeared that the shark exhibition they were with was trying to enhance the actors fear of sharks. The opposite of what most such exhibitions do. Again, it only appeared that way, & the editing of the trailor could have just given that impression
The makers of this movie had a few things to juggle. Namely what to do about Dr Suzanne McAllister. Like was the audience going to hate her or be understanding or somewhere in between? Unlike the narcicistic Dr. in Piranha McAlliater had a defendable cause. Namely the hoping to find the cure for degennerative brain disease, which kills probably hundreds of times more people than her Mako Mutants could ever dream of doing. So for arguments sake, if her research were to lead to such a cure, it would be hard to not put that in perspective in any effort to condemn her.It's easy to believe that's she was trying to get at in her "..people we'll save." damage control responce to the confrontation
One of the things that interested me in this movie was the species of shark being portrayed. Namely the mako. Bear in mind, mako sharks in real life only get up to about 12' & about 1500#, not the 45' & 8000# achieved by the mutants in this movie.I suppose that could be a spoiler. Ironically-& maybe not so coincidentally-around the same time this movie was presumably being made, TDC's Shark Week had a documentory on mako sharks called Swift Smart & Deadly. In it marine biologists were exploring the theory that makos were smart by shark standards- smart sharks. Deep Blue Sea was about smart sharks & guess what species they were designed to look like. Oddly the "tiger" shark only had the markings of a tiger shark.It was given a mako sharks. body.Namely the conical snout, Long slender blade-like teeth & symetrical crescent tail fins. The tiger has a more typical shark profile of a somewhat wedge shaped snout & larger upper lobe on its tail fins. The real sharks the actors swam with in the short about the making of DBS look more like tiger's in body, though aren't as big & don't have the markings. Oddly, we were asked to believe that the sharks the actors swam with were blended with the mechanical & CG sharks in DBS. Though there did appear to be actual MAKO shark footage, the actors were NOT swimming with mako sharks. None of the sharks in the movie looked like the sharks the actors were swimming with. I question if the actors could have been talked into swimming with mako sharks. If They thought these sharks were scary to swim with, mako sharks are a lot fiercer looking & more unpredictable. It appeared that the shark exhibition they were with was trying to enhance the actors fear of sharks. The opposite of what most such exhibitions do. Again, it only appeared that way, & the editing of the trailor could have just given that impression
RoboCop 2
(1990)
EXTREMELY Heavy Handed.(spoilers)
13 May 2003
Warning: Spoilers
I find it surprising that the horrible & shocking way the double dealing officer(Duffy?)was tortured to death by Cain is not given the same notoriety as the shower scene in psycho, the death of Bambi's mother, the burning of the church in The Patriot, the murder of Melony Mitchell in Air Force One & other infamous movie scenes. Even if you aren't bothered by the astronomical body count of this feature I strongly suggest you fast foreward through this scene or sneak peek other channels when it comes to it. If you aren't disturbed by this scene, you're probably a threat to society.
With regards to the part where Robocop was reprogrammed, as ridiculous as it may seem, I thought it was genuinely funny & disturbingly instructive The way the politicians & scientists were was very similar to what Liberals seem to be wanting our police force to be like. What really trumped any doubt the the focus group involved was reading out of a Left wing "sheet of music" was when one of the members suggested that RC be programmed to talk about the environment & the way he was programmed to only use his gun to scare people away from smoking. Interesting how Liberal Hollywood is not above making heavy handed demonstrations of the absurdity of the ideals they espouse to.
The torture scene notwithstanding, in most of it the violence was of the relatively quick death variety & like Demolition Man,it has portions that demonstrate Liberalisms" absurd extremes.
With regards to the part where Robocop was reprogrammed, as ridiculous as it may seem, I thought it was genuinely funny & disturbingly instructive The way the politicians & scientists were was very similar to what Liberals seem to be wanting our police force to be like. What really trumped any doubt the the focus group involved was reading out of a Left wing "sheet of music" was when one of the members suggested that RC be programmed to talk about the environment & the way he was programmed to only use his gun to scare people away from smoking. Interesting how Liberal Hollywood is not above making heavy handed demonstrations of the absurdity of the ideals they espouse to.
The torture scene notwithstanding, in most of it the violence was of the relatively quick death variety & like Demolition Man,it has portions that demonstrate Liberalisms" absurd extremes.
How the West Was Won
(1962)
"Why'd you make me do that?!?"Spoilers
29 December 2002
Warning: Spoilers
In retrospect, I wonder if I'm the only one who wants to "immortalise" these 6 words spoken by Civil War Union soldier Zeb Rawlins(George Pepphard) after he bayonetted a rebel(Russ Tamboulin) who was trying to assassinate General Ulysses S Grant(Harry Morgan)This line from one of my all time favorite pictures says a great deal in as few words to put a very profound issue in it's place.Many an innocent person has had their lethal hand forced & was persecuted for it as if they were the problem. As if the question was why'd they do it.Zeb's line"Why'd you make me do that?!"hits the nail on the head.The rebel forced Zeb's hand. He could have saved himself at any point by not raising his pistol.Zeb had no duty of care to make it safe for the rebel to carry out his deed. Neither should a police officer who's being fired upon or car-dragged by a suspect. Yet many police officers are feeling compelled to be laid back to keep the Duty of Care Psycho-bablers, Ambulance Chasers,Race Baiters & Political Hustlers, ect.,ect.,ect, appeased.That means their ability to protect & empower the innocent is compramised.
Someone whose house is being broken into shouldn't have a duty of care to the burgler, but the afforementioned parasites are not above going after you for even letting the burgler hurt himself!!
I suppose more people are familier with HTWWW as a phrase than as a movie title, but at any rate it & terms like "The Wild West" seem to have become synonyms for the use of violence to settle disputes.
The fact is that this movie did not go out of its way to be violent, or to flaunt how violent it was capable of being, but it didn't hesitate to be when the situation called for it. May have approached being graphic for its time. In a fight between the Prescott family & the River Pirates, Walter Brennen shot one of the pioneers at point blank range & the movie showed blood from an exit wound.No graphics of the wound itself, but the idea that an exit wound tends to be more ghastly than an entrance wound made it seem bold for its time.The fact is that all the violence condoned by the story-line was a defensible response to violence instigated by the antagonists upon those who were minding their own business.What President Bush said about the American people after 911 can easilly be said about the Prescots, the Rawlins' & other protagonists in this feature. Normally peaceful but fierce when stirred to anger. Like Harrison Ford said in Air Force 1-"Peace is more than the absence of conflict.It's also the presence of justice" That says it all.
My first exposure to this movie was its awesome score via a record of its sound track. I was born too late to see it on the big Cinerama screen, & the first few times it was on TV, it I didn't have the attention span to sit through such a long feature as a preteen.However, in later years, it started to grow on me.I was always impressed by the pageantry of its musical score, & as I took in the scope of the feature, the 2 started to dove-tail.
Westerns in general are notorious for being able to blend action adventure with intimate warm human drama, morality play, & other genres, & HTWWW take that to new heights. In all the ups & downs, it has an overriding warmth to it which it maintains despite going all over the map emotionally.You could say in that sense alone that it had something for everybody. It had riveting action scenes, augmented by Alfred Newman's powerful score, balanced by very touching sentimental scenes of love, loss & renewal of hope, with Newman's versatile repitua being equally up to the task.As well as any number of variations in between.One of the neatest is a vocal version of what some may know as No Goodbye on the LP's & heard instrumentally throughout the movie. I heard the vocallised version for the 1st time this Christmas from an extended CD version of the score. It's a very intimate depiction of the love between a man & a woman.It's not lustful or anything like that, a just very warm & affectionate of a couple holding on through the hardships of life. You'd have to by almost emotionally dead not to get at least a lump in your throat while listening to it. Especially knowing some of the scenes the instrumental version was played in.
I may post more later, but I'll cap this one off by saying what probably goes without saying.Very much a tribute to the pioneers & our heritage
Someone whose house is being broken into shouldn't have a duty of care to the burgler, but the afforementioned parasites are not above going after you for even letting the burgler hurt himself!!
I suppose more people are familier with HTWWW as a phrase than as a movie title, but at any rate it & terms like "The Wild West" seem to have become synonyms for the use of violence to settle disputes.
The fact is that this movie did not go out of its way to be violent, or to flaunt how violent it was capable of being, but it didn't hesitate to be when the situation called for it. May have approached being graphic for its time. In a fight between the Prescott family & the River Pirates, Walter Brennen shot one of the pioneers at point blank range & the movie showed blood from an exit wound.No graphics of the wound itself, but the idea that an exit wound tends to be more ghastly than an entrance wound made it seem bold for its time.The fact is that all the violence condoned by the story-line was a defensible response to violence instigated by the antagonists upon those who were minding their own business.What President Bush said about the American people after 911 can easilly be said about the Prescots, the Rawlins' & other protagonists in this feature. Normally peaceful but fierce when stirred to anger. Like Harrison Ford said in Air Force 1-"Peace is more than the absence of conflict.It's also the presence of justice" That says it all.
My first exposure to this movie was its awesome score via a record of its sound track. I was born too late to see it on the big Cinerama screen, & the first few times it was on TV, it I didn't have the attention span to sit through such a long feature as a preteen.However, in later years, it started to grow on me.I was always impressed by the pageantry of its musical score, & as I took in the scope of the feature, the 2 started to dove-tail.
Westerns in general are notorious for being able to blend action adventure with intimate warm human drama, morality play, & other genres, & HTWWW take that to new heights. In all the ups & downs, it has an overriding warmth to it which it maintains despite going all over the map emotionally.You could say in that sense alone that it had something for everybody. It had riveting action scenes, augmented by Alfred Newman's powerful score, balanced by very touching sentimental scenes of love, loss & renewal of hope, with Newman's versatile repitua being equally up to the task.As well as any number of variations in between.One of the neatest is a vocal version of what some may know as No Goodbye on the LP's & heard instrumentally throughout the movie. I heard the vocallised version for the 1st time this Christmas from an extended CD version of the score. It's a very intimate depiction of the love between a man & a woman.It's not lustful or anything like that, a just very warm & affectionate of a couple holding on through the hardships of life. You'd have to by almost emotionally dead not to get at least a lump in your throat while listening to it. Especially knowing some of the scenes the instrumental version was played in.
I may post more later, but I'll cap this one off by saying what probably goes without saying.Very much a tribute to the pioneers & our heritage
The Living Daylights
(1987)
Laid Bare The Unique Ramifications of the 00 Code
24 December 2002
Warning: Spoilers
In case any may not know the 00 in 007 is the licence to kill designation. Although Bond did more than his share of arranging meetings between the bad guys & the Almighty, most of them were sanitised under the veil of self defence. The baddies were themselves trying to do him. From that standpoint, Bond rarely went beyond the liberties that police officers or even civilians could &/or should be allowed to take under the same circumstances. I suppose there are lawyers who could make cases of bad jurisprudence. In the opening scene of Moonraker, when the baddies pushed him out of the airplane sans-parachute & he took one of their's on the way down, some ambulence chaser may argue that he killed a suspect who was fleeing--albeit via free fall LOL
What most Bond films barely scratch the surface of is the fact that Bond's sanction to use lethal force transended the self defense boundaries. Like Octopussy said in the film of her namesake, he's a paid assassine.He kills killers alright, but he's under no obligation to wait until they make an attempt on him. Sort of between war & law enforcement. Possible Spoilers Nowhere was this made more disturbingly clear than when Bond was assigned to take out Pushkin(I think--the John Reese Davis character) He was strongly suspected in the murder of several British agents, & though up to that point a trusted associate, the British government felt it had no choice but to sanction his termination. Bond was very reluctant, because he was torn between his doubts about his guilt & obeying his governments orders. He ambushed him while he was getting ready to make love to his wife.You'll have to see the movie to see what happens
What most Bond films barely scratch the surface of is the fact that Bond's sanction to use lethal force transended the self defense boundaries. Like Octopussy said in the film of her namesake, he's a paid assassine.He kills killers alright, but he's under no obligation to wait until they make an attempt on him. Sort of between war & law enforcement. Possible Spoilers Nowhere was this made more disturbingly clear than when Bond was assigned to take out Pushkin(I think--the John Reese Davis character) He was strongly suspected in the murder of several British agents, & though up to that point a trusted associate, the British government felt it had no choice but to sanction his termination. Bond was very reluctant, because he was torn between his doubts about his guilt & obeying his governments orders. He ambushed him while he was getting ready to make love to his wife.You'll have to see the movie to see what happens
The Secret Squirrel Show
(1965–2003)
Was my toon of choice at age 6
10 August 2002
Warning: Spoilers
Had to do some thinking looking back as to what about this cartoon earned my preference. It is now on the toon cable channel & being curious about what I'd think of it as an adult, I took a gander at a few episodes. I don 't know if I can say that it's more intelligent than other cartoons of its time. In many ways it's more campy & far-fetched than a lot of them. Being a spoof to the James Bond, & other secret agent features dating as far back as the Maltese Falcon, the campiness worked. At age 6 however I wasn't familier enough with all these other ones to see the connection. Although I knew about Goldfinger, & now know that the most recurring villain-Yellow Pinky-was named after him & was a cross between him & Casper Gutman from The Maltese Falcon, I'd never seen the latter at that age & didn't know that a pinkey was a finger.
Seems like most of the cartoon animals of that time(Hanna Barbera),such as Yogi Bear,Huckleberry Hound, Hokey Wolf ect. were to some extent wannabes. Wheel & deal for a meal types.Yogi Bear always trying to manipulate the Ranger for instance. SS by comparison seemed to have an edge in that he had a more established function among the characters so I saw him as rising above the toon animal archetype.Like I said before SS was at least as silly as the other cartoons of the time, but in the silliness & cliches he & his sidekick Morroco Mole(Paul Frees)were established professionals, albeit the spy profession. Instead of bugging Chief QQ(Double Q-no doubt instead of Q.Don't think there was an "M" equivelant)for a "meal ticket", Chief called on them to keep the world safe for democracy. Spoilers? Thanks to this cartoon, I found the James Bond movie Goldfinger even harder to take seriously than I otherwise would have, because Goldfinger reminded me so much of Yellow Pinky. I had to remind myself that wouldn't have been the case if I'd seen Goldfinger first.When a previous post mentioned a villian who reminded them of Casper Gutman of MF, I looked it up in IMDB to see if I could figure out which villain it was. Description seemed to fit Yellow Pinky, & upon checking out Maltese Falcon I had no doubt YP was the dude. Gutman's voice wasn't as deep, but he had the same distinctive laugh.The name was no doubt of Goldfingerian descent, & all 3 villains look quite a bit alike, & are part of a common liniage fat-but-sophisticated-villain archetypes that is far from unheard of in the spy genre.
Thanks to his brown-nosing side-kick, I sometimes refer to actor Peter Lorre as the actor with a voice like Morroco Mole!!
PS:I know Paul Frees did MM(Mel Blanc was SS), but it reminded me of Lorre...Vice Versa as I saw SS 1st
Seems like most of the cartoon animals of that time(Hanna Barbera),such as Yogi Bear,Huckleberry Hound, Hokey Wolf ect. were to some extent wannabes. Wheel & deal for a meal types.Yogi Bear always trying to manipulate the Ranger for instance. SS by comparison seemed to have an edge in that he had a more established function among the characters so I saw him as rising above the toon animal archetype.Like I said before SS was at least as silly as the other cartoons of the time, but in the silliness & cliches he & his sidekick Morroco Mole(Paul Frees)were established professionals, albeit the spy profession. Instead of bugging Chief QQ(Double Q-no doubt instead of Q.Don't think there was an "M" equivelant)for a "meal ticket", Chief called on them to keep the world safe for democracy. Spoilers? Thanks to this cartoon, I found the James Bond movie Goldfinger even harder to take seriously than I otherwise would have, because Goldfinger reminded me so much of Yellow Pinky. I had to remind myself that wouldn't have been the case if I'd seen Goldfinger first.When a previous post mentioned a villian who reminded them of Casper Gutman of MF, I looked it up in IMDB to see if I could figure out which villain it was. Description seemed to fit Yellow Pinky, & upon checking out Maltese Falcon I had no doubt YP was the dude. Gutman's voice wasn't as deep, but he had the same distinctive laugh.The name was no doubt of Goldfingerian descent, & all 3 villains look quite a bit alike, & are part of a common liniage fat-but-sophisticated-villain archetypes that is far from unheard of in the spy genre.
Thanks to his brown-nosing side-kick, I sometimes refer to actor Peter Lorre as the actor with a voice like Morroco Mole!!
PS:I know Paul Frees did MM(Mel Blanc was SS), but it reminded me of Lorre...Vice Versa as I saw SS 1st
Ripcord
(1961–1963)
Learned about skydiving from this show.
6 June 2002
Warning: Spoilers
Good tagline for this show would be"Skydiving's the solution, Ted & Jim find the problems". Ted & Jim are Ted McGeever & Jim Buckly who run a jump center called Ripcord Inc.They seemed to have a talent for being available when someone get's in a pickle that only the skydivers can bail them out of.
I was in my preschool years when this show came out, so I didn't know at my tender age that people deliberately precipitated themselves from high flying airplanes.So having that natural fear of falling from high places that we're all born with, it didn't take Ripcord long to be a serious source of dubious curiosity to me.Being in a family that rented & flew airplanes hightened my fascination with it.
There are probably few skydivers today who don't owe their tutorial lineage to those who became interested in skydiving by watching this show. The plots(possible spoilers) may not have been very believable, nor likely, but this show put skydiving on the radar screen, so in a very real way, was patriarchal to one of the most fascinating sports of all time. Though I'm more into flying, I have made about a dozen jumps, some of which were somewhat less than uneventful. Where were Ted & Jim when I needed them? LOL!
I was in my preschool years when this show came out, so I didn't know at my tender age that people deliberately precipitated themselves from high flying airplanes.So having that natural fear of falling from high places that we're all born with, it didn't take Ripcord long to be a serious source of dubious curiosity to me.Being in a family that rented & flew airplanes hightened my fascination with it.
There are probably few skydivers today who don't owe their tutorial lineage to those who became interested in skydiving by watching this show. The plots(possible spoilers) may not have been very believable, nor likely, but this show put skydiving on the radar screen, so in a very real way, was patriarchal to one of the most fascinating sports of all time. Though I'm more into flying, I have made about a dozen jumps, some of which were somewhat less than uneventful. Where were Ted & Jim when I needed them? LOL!
Ripcord
(1961–1963)
IF SKYDIVING'S THE SOLUTION, TED & JIM FIND THE PROBLEMS!
4 June 2002
If it were up to me to come up with a tag line for this show, that's what it would be. I'll say more in a later post, but the computer keeps booting me out & I want to get at least something down here.Made during a very fascinating period in skydiving's development.
Can't Buy Me Love
(1987)
Parable of circular reasoning
28 May 2002
Warning: Spoilers
Ronny Miller was unpopular because he wasn't liked & he wasn't liked because he was unpopular.That's circular reasoning on the part of his peers. By his "Ronny Miller Scam", as one of the students called it, he appeared to know that and set things up to get the feedback loop to work for him-instead of his having to work against it.
In exchange for bailing Cindy out of(spoilers?)an expensive jam(which one of the "normal' students got her into, & narcisticly shrugged off responsibility for)Ronny seized the opportunity to reverse the social feedback loop.It worked. They decided that since Cindy liked Ronny, he must be "cool" Ronny must have confused himself a bit though in proceeding to break up with Cindy, per their original arrangement,because it was evident that Cindy was who he wanted in the 1st place & that popularity was his means to win Cindy-not vice versa. Noticing Cindy's reservations about the break up & Ronny's enthusiasm for it,I wanted to yell into the TV"Dude-you GOT your girl!" Seen this movie 3 or 4 times & he keeps breaking up at that point.LOL
It's also a movie about penalising what should be rewarded & rewarding what should be penalised.Ronny reminded the Hedonistic upper class of how he & the other "nerds" bailed some of the "superiors" out in younger years, & how being irrationally stigmatized was the thanks they got.Lesson in responsibility.
I wonder how many socially disenfranchised people would like to pull a Ronny Miller Scam.
In exchange for bailing Cindy out of(spoilers?)an expensive jam(which one of the "normal' students got her into, & narcisticly shrugged off responsibility for)Ronny seized the opportunity to reverse the social feedback loop.It worked. They decided that since Cindy liked Ronny, he must be "cool" Ronny must have confused himself a bit though in proceeding to break up with Cindy, per their original arrangement,because it was evident that Cindy was who he wanted in the 1st place & that popularity was his means to win Cindy-not vice versa. Noticing Cindy's reservations about the break up & Ronny's enthusiasm for it,I wanted to yell into the TV"Dude-you GOT your girl!" Seen this movie 3 or 4 times & he keeps breaking up at that point.LOL
It's also a movie about penalising what should be rewarded & rewarding what should be penalised.Ronny reminded the Hedonistic upper class of how he & the other "nerds" bailed some of the "superiors" out in younger years, & how being irrationally stigmatized was the thanks they got.Lesson in responsibility.
I wonder how many socially disenfranchised people would like to pull a Ronny Miller Scam.
The Untouchables
(1987)
Ness prophesying his dying act, or De Palma's hindsight?
20 May 2002
Warning: Spoilers
SPOILERS:At the end of this movie, Ness(Cosner) was asked what he'd do if prohibition was repealed. He said he'd probably pour himself a drink. I saw a documentary on Elliot Ness that said that in his last moment B/4 a fatal heart attack he had poured himself a drink, & dropped dead just as he raised it to his lips. Tempting to view this as poetic justice because he was doing what he made a career condemning in others. What qualifies this is his expressed view of prohibition-as played by Cosner. "It's the law of the land". That leaves open the possibility that Ness was after the disregard for law & order that seemed to explode from disregard for the prohibition laws, rather than a condemnation of alchohol itself.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
(1988)
No More "Piddies"? No more Tweety! Root 4 Sylvester
6 May 2002
Warning: Spoilers
POSSIBLE SPOILERS. If I watch future Sylvester & Tweety cartoons, I'll be very tempted to root for Sylvester after the way little Tweety disregarded poor Eddie Valient's life for the sake of a "Dis wido piddy went to market" game! LOL. Doing it to Sylvester the cat would be one thing. At least he was trying to harm him, so it would be easier to justify the actions. Eddie was just trying to save himself after walking through the wrong door. I think a good poetic justice on Tweety would be the "Adult Swim" treatment. Tweety is put so at the mercy of Sylvester that only Eddie Valient save his butt.
Though I am largely being tongue & cheek & I thought the whole feature was funnier than all get-out, I think there is still some food for thought. Namely that Tweety Bird was a character we grew up believing we should be sympathetic towards when he's being stalked by Sly. One of the things that made the violence & misfortunes in the W/B cartoons easy to laugh at is that they were usually just desserts visited upon the trouble makers. Unlike some of the Walter Lance(Woody Woodpecker ect.)features, which I think I remember as being a little more malicious.
All the Sigmund Froid aside, I think I can pretty well mirror what the reviewers before me said. This brought mixed animation & comedy to a new level. Like Back to the Future before it-to use an old cliche- it was a laugh a minute.
In a very real way, it was a coming full circle of the classic cartoons. It wasn't just for kids, it was for adults who remembering these toons from childhood. It capitalised on many of the gags in a way that's easily funny to adults. OBTW, my understanding of many of the W/B cartoons were intended to be as adult-funny as permissible for a child-friendly cartoon for the standard of the time.
Though I am largely being tongue & cheek & I thought the whole feature was funnier than all get-out, I think there is still some food for thought. Namely that Tweety Bird was a character we grew up believing we should be sympathetic towards when he's being stalked by Sly. One of the things that made the violence & misfortunes in the W/B cartoons easy to laugh at is that they were usually just desserts visited upon the trouble makers. Unlike some of the Walter Lance(Woody Woodpecker ect.)features, which I think I remember as being a little more malicious.
All the Sigmund Froid aside, I think I can pretty well mirror what the reviewers before me said. This brought mixed animation & comedy to a new level. Like Back to the Future before it-to use an old cliche- it was a laugh a minute.
In a very real way, it was a coming full circle of the classic cartoons. It wasn't just for kids, it was for adults who remembering these toons from childhood. It capitalised on many of the gags in a way that's easily funny to adults. OBTW, my understanding of many of the W/B cartoons were intended to be as adult-funny as permissible for a child-friendly cartoon for the standard of the time.
Peter and the Wolf
(1946)
Got Me Interested in Wolves as a Kid
6 May 2002
Warning: Spoilers
Prior to seeing this as a kid, I had never seen a wolf , but I was read bed-time stories about them, & seen them anthropomorphized in cartoons.(possible spoilers) While this was a cartoon, the wolf was less anthropomorphized than in other cartoons I'd seen them in so at that impressionable age, I figured that it was a version, albeit cartoon-ised, of what wolves were like as animals.
The "hairy crocodile with long legs" image this & other cartoons of the time capitalized on left quite an impression. The ominous music accompanying the wolf, along with visual imagery, such as the wolf tracks in the snow & the way it contrasted in an otherwise cute cartoon was enough to persuade me of what put the "Bad "in "Big Bad."
Indeed one watching this mini-classic may find it hard to believe that wolves have any semblance of shyness or docility, though wolves in real life can sometimes be so cautious & docile that it becomes hard to believe they have any semblance of aggressiveness. The fact is that wolves have a wide parameter to their disposition that leaves room for both. Just like their domestic counterparts.
Again, this was a cute & funny cartoon, & the surprising result was that the things that made the wolf seem menacing were magnified by the contrast.Wouldn't have been too effective in a serious flick. In the scene where the wolf was chasing the duck, he broke through the ice of a frozen lake. In most cartoons, this would have resulted in the character bobbing up & down in a ice cube. Hee-hee! Funny!.. That sort of thing. Not this dude! He was uneffected & stayed focused on his prey. Not unlike reports of wolves in real life in pursuit of much larger prey. In one, a pair of wolves were pursuing an adult elk who knocked one of them down. That wolf rolled & righted himself renewing his attack without missing a beat. In 5 minutes, the elk was dead. It was riveting to read about & no doubt riveting for the witnesses.
The wolf, like the other characters, does do his share of buffoonery elsewhere in the feature-let's the bird make a fool of him. Just the same,Disney's effort to prove the wolf a worthy opponent for Peter were sufficient to put the wolf on my list of favorite aggressive animals. As an adult, I liked the political Incorrectness of the era the film was made in. When the bird made joking comments about Peter's pop-gun being "loaded"(after pulling out the cork to look down the bore!) I reminded myself of how stupid some of the anti-gun hysteria is nowadays. A few years ago, a girl got busted in a high school for doing a playful gun gesture with her finger. I'm tempted to say this flick brings back the good old days when guns were safe & wolves were dangerous...LOL. Hunters in it should go through the Eddy Eagle gun safety course though! Also liked the way Sterling Holloway the narrater spelled wolf in English while it was spelled in Russian.(Bonc)Well, I think I've remembered everything I was going to include. If I've forgotten anything, I guess I could cure my amnesia with another "wolf" on my head.LMBO
The "hairy crocodile with long legs" image this & other cartoons of the time capitalized on left quite an impression. The ominous music accompanying the wolf, along with visual imagery, such as the wolf tracks in the snow & the way it contrasted in an otherwise cute cartoon was enough to persuade me of what put the "Bad "in "Big Bad."
Indeed one watching this mini-classic may find it hard to believe that wolves have any semblance of shyness or docility, though wolves in real life can sometimes be so cautious & docile that it becomes hard to believe they have any semblance of aggressiveness. The fact is that wolves have a wide parameter to their disposition that leaves room for both. Just like their domestic counterparts.
Again, this was a cute & funny cartoon, & the surprising result was that the things that made the wolf seem menacing were magnified by the contrast.Wouldn't have been too effective in a serious flick. In the scene where the wolf was chasing the duck, he broke through the ice of a frozen lake. In most cartoons, this would have resulted in the character bobbing up & down in a ice cube. Hee-hee! Funny!.. That sort of thing. Not this dude! He was uneffected & stayed focused on his prey. Not unlike reports of wolves in real life in pursuit of much larger prey. In one, a pair of wolves were pursuing an adult elk who knocked one of them down. That wolf rolled & righted himself renewing his attack without missing a beat. In 5 minutes, the elk was dead. It was riveting to read about & no doubt riveting for the witnesses.
The wolf, like the other characters, does do his share of buffoonery elsewhere in the feature-let's the bird make a fool of him. Just the same,Disney's effort to prove the wolf a worthy opponent for Peter were sufficient to put the wolf on my list of favorite aggressive animals. As an adult, I liked the political Incorrectness of the era the film was made in. When the bird made joking comments about Peter's pop-gun being "loaded"(after pulling out the cork to look down the bore!) I reminded myself of how stupid some of the anti-gun hysteria is nowadays. A few years ago, a girl got busted in a high school for doing a playful gun gesture with her finger. I'm tempted to say this flick brings back the good old days when guns were safe & wolves were dangerous...LOL. Hunters in it should go through the Eddy Eagle gun safety course though! Also liked the way Sterling Holloway the narrater spelled wolf in English while it was spelled in Russian.(Bonc)Well, I think I've remembered everything I was going to include. If I've forgotten anything, I guess I could cure my amnesia with another "wolf" on my head.LMBO
The Principal
(1987)
Closest thing to a modern John Wayne.
23 April 2002
One of the things I like to ponder is what modern stars would fill the shoes of actors of the past or parts they played. For instance, if they did a remake of Bonanza, John Goodman would fill Dan Blockers shoes pretty well as Hoss, & I think Michael J Fox may be a passable Little Joe. Also of course, Cheryl Ladd did well as Grace Kelly. Some stars have been so one of a kind though that one would be hard pressed to imagine who would be up to the task. John Wayne is one such figure. While James Belushi may not quite have the physical stature of the Duke, his performance in The Principal comes the closest in my impression to reminding me of the "cut the crap" individualism of the screen legend. Public schools could probably learn a lot from this feature.
Of the many comedians of early Saturday Night Live who have gone on to movies, Belushi appears to be the one who has most successfully transcended the comedian stereotype. While Bill Murrey may do well as a comic role being serious, the few pictures I've seen James Belushi in suggest that he's more like a serious actor who's also funny.
Good feature for those of us who are tired of irresponsible youth getting a free pass.
Of the many comedians of early Saturday Night Live who have gone on to movies, Belushi appears to be the one who has most successfully transcended the comedian stereotype. While Bill Murrey may do well as a comic role being serious, the few pictures I've seen James Belushi in suggest that he's more like a serious actor who's also funny.
Good feature for those of us who are tired of irresponsible youth getting a free pass.
The Wizard of Oz
(1939)
Gives "Talking Head" a New Meaning
12 April 2002
Warning: Spoilers
POSSIBLE SPOILERS. Actually, I suppose the Wizard's manifestation could be called the ORIGINAL TALKING HEAD! Many things could be said about this movie, but for lack of time, one of the most impressive scenes in the movie when I saw it as a kid was the twister. It was the 1st non-cartoon tornado I'd ever seen. Seeing how the periferal winds were already giving the folks a hard time, I even at that young age figured the winds in that ominous vortex in the background must be REALLY INTENSE to contrast so conspicuously against the surrounding tempest. Was surprised in later years to learn the twister was NOT a dubbed in video of an actual tornado, but a very complex(for the time)stage "prop". I think it involved a large windsock. Said to be the most sophisticated & expensive Special effect in the whole feature-& in the B&W portion no less! Very seldom, if ever, b/n WOO & Twister have tornadoes been so realistically been simulated on the silver screen.
"..AND IF YOUR HANDS WERE METAL THAT WOULD MEAN SOMETHING"
27 March 2002
Warning: Spoilers
It's nice to know I'm not the only one who liked this movie, despite the fact that I don't think the movie being "roasted" was a particularly bad movie. I believe it was state of the art for its time. Just the same, it did leave itself to some reality checks like the one liner in this summary(possible spoilers) chimed in response to Exedor's comment that the bars Cal & Ruth were stuck to were magnetised.
Though the moveis viewed in the series episodes seemed to be much more corny, I must say that one of the main things I found so funny about the heckling & "improvising" is the way that it contrasted so much as 90's tolerated dialogue juxtaposed against the straight-laced 50's dialogue of the movie. I reserve comment as to whether the change over time is progress or moral decline, but the mixing of the 2 is a hilarious contrast. That's why I like the fact that the wisecracks sounded like they were on the same sound track. Many of the lines were not particularly funny in & of themselves. But the fact that they were interposed into an era that wouldn't have touched the subject matter made them funny. For example, Cal was telling his assistant Joe about his all night pondering as to whether or not to take Exedor up on his offer. He said he went through 5 cups of coffee before saying to himself-.."I gotta pee!" interrupted one of the robots finishing his sentence for him. Also, I knew Russel Johnson was in this, & I knew Professor Jokes were inevitable. Looking back, though they did roll in, it's surprising how constrained they were, apparantly careful not to milk a joke for more than it's worth.
Any criticising of the cartoony nature about the way the robots & Mike Nelson & Forrester behaived should be balanced by realising that nobody in this makes any pretence of expecting to be taken seriously. Also, I can only have so much sympathy for Rex Reason & the other actors in TIE. You would have a hard time convincing me that they didn't do their share of hilarious pratfalls & out-takes during shooting & rehearsals just to get it out of their system. The straighter the script, the greater the comic tension. Maybe not, but don't hold your breath. Anyway, guess I better"auger this baby in."
Though the moveis viewed in the series episodes seemed to be much more corny, I must say that one of the main things I found so funny about the heckling & "improvising" is the way that it contrasted so much as 90's tolerated dialogue juxtaposed against the straight-laced 50's dialogue of the movie. I reserve comment as to whether the change over time is progress or moral decline, but the mixing of the 2 is a hilarious contrast. That's why I like the fact that the wisecracks sounded like they were on the same sound track. Many of the lines were not particularly funny in & of themselves. But the fact that they were interposed into an era that wouldn't have touched the subject matter made them funny. For example, Cal was telling his assistant Joe about his all night pondering as to whether or not to take Exedor up on his offer. He said he went through 5 cups of coffee before saying to himself-.."I gotta pee!" interrupted one of the robots finishing his sentence for him. Also, I knew Russel Johnson was in this, & I knew Professor Jokes were inevitable. Looking back, though they did roll in, it's surprising how constrained they were, apparantly careful not to milk a joke for more than it's worth.
Any criticising of the cartoony nature about the way the robots & Mike Nelson & Forrester behaived should be balanced by realising that nobody in this makes any pretence of expecting to be taken seriously. Also, I can only have so much sympathy for Rex Reason & the other actors in TIE. You would have a hard time convincing me that they didn't do their share of hilarious pratfalls & out-takes during shooting & rehearsals just to get it out of their system. The straighter the script, the greater the comic tension. Maybe not, but don't hold your breath. Anyway, guess I better"auger this baby in."
The American President
(1995)
If you want your girlfriend back, embrace political correctness
26 March 2002
Boy gets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy goes PC & gets girl back. One of the problems with refering to conservative talk show hosts to show what's wrong with where the liberals are going is that one can say you're using a biased source. Rather than use accusations from their opponents,it's better to use their own defenses to show their inconsistency. Early on in this feature, President Andrew Shepherd aired some rhetoric about the opponents of gun control by characterising them as failing to see the connection b/n handguns & gun-related crime. How utterly condescending!!! The connection between the 2 is the fact that criminals are going to get a hold of handguns whether honest people are allowed to have them or not!! So who's really failing to see the connection Mr "President"?-Rob Reiner? What part of "..shall not be infringed" is not understood here? This feature clearly sympathises with the views of the liberals & emotionally blackmails the viewer who sees the other side of the issue. Sydney may not have left him for his not being PC enough, but she came back to him because he "repented" & saw the PC light, as evident in his "Legitimate counter views be damned" defense of the ACLU & banning of "assault weapons" & handguns. He insinuated that you shouldn't criticise the ACLU because of its profession to protect our liberties, conveniently ignoring evidence of taking more liberties than it protects. Because of its "intentions" we must assume it's virtuous. Elsewhere he said the people drink sand, NOT because they're thirsty, but because they don't know the difference. We're a bunch of idiots! This movie confirms everything Rush & others have said about the liberal agenda in the very way it tries to defend it! There's more I'd say, but I'm probably reaching the 1000 word limit. On the up side, The characters & relationships were genuenely charming. I loved the raport between Shepherd & his daughter, & the romance was one of the cutest I've seen. He was also an excellent diplomat. This is why I'm willing to give this movie a 5/10. The politics were atrociously presumptuous, but the interpersonal relationships made it possible to enjoy.
Final Descent
(1997 TV Movie)
Controls For Airplane-NOT Airplane For Controls.
24 March 2002
Warning: Spoilers
WARNING! POSSIBLE SPOILERS at 12:00! Collision alert! The jist of the predicament Captain "Vegas" faces in this semi OK flick is that the mid-air jammed his elevator surfaces. Unable to move them to lower the nose, Urich has to keep it at full power to keep it from stalling, forcing them to climb dangerously high. Plane "frozen" in a nose high attitude for want of elevator(pitch-nose up & down) mobility, a rescue team is called up to pour water into the front section to weigh it down so they can go down the not-so-hard way. The whole predicament & solution is asking the viewer to believe that if a control surface can't move, neither can the nose. That if the elevators were stuck in the up position, that the nose would stay up & sacrifice airspeed in order to keep it in that direction. The aerodynamic facts are almost the exact opposite. The plane will adjust attitude to seek a given airspeed. The effectiveness of controls in any given position- jammed, trimmed or held manually-is variable with airspeed in such a way that in a stable airplane it'll be effective enough to balance nose-heaviness & stabilize at that respective speed & attitude. If that speed is above stall speed at full power, it should be able to maintain that air speed providing you reduce power gradually enough to allow the nose time to come down, allowing a delicately controlled descent at about the same- maybe even greater speed. Greater because in some airplanes, the prop or jet wash blows over the elevators, making them over-effective at higher power settings & under-effective at lower settings. If the "trim" speed is below stall speed at low power settings, increasing power will only make the plane seek that speed & stall at a higher attitude. If the plane is NOT stable, the nose would not "stick" at any attitude. You would need to move actively & continuously MOVE the controls to KEEP the nose from moving!! Either way, from where I'm sitting, in a nut-shell, I see no scenario that would have made the solution in this movie a viable one. Moving the control surfaces is NOT the only way to make a plane change attitude. The control surfaces were made for the airplane- not vice versa. If what I'm saying sounds too technical, think of scenes in other movies. For example, that scene in Bat Man Forever, when 2 Face put The Club on that helicopter's "steering wheel" to make sure the chopper stays straight. If you remember, the Club is for anti-theft purposes, not turn prevention. Or that scene in twister where Hunt & Paxton put that pickup on cruise control in the corn field. So promoting weird physics is nothing new to Hollywood. Some people seemed to have believed some of these notions. Apparently the last thing a certain driver evidently remembered before waking up in the hospital bed was putting his van on cruise control & going in back to pour himself a drink!
Jonny Quest
(1964–1965)
Awesome Background Music
23 March 2002
Warning: Spoilers
I remember being even more into the background music to this show than the story line, although I was into that too. As much as I could be as a kid. I'm not sure how much was original to JQ, but I know a lot of it was done in other Hanna Barbera flicks & you could always tell something you were watching was H/B when it had one of these underscores.POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD. It was easy to become familiar with individual scores because of their repeated use. An example of one of these scores was done ,for example, during the mummies walk in Curse of Anubis. Mummy had good rythm too. Timed his step perfectly with the highly emphasised beat!LMAO! Another started off with an uneasy calm, a foreboding that something hazardous to your health was around the corner, characterized by 3 or 4 repetitions between 2 notes on the strings(violins-I think) followed by a climactic crescendo & a 4 note climb when the corner is rounded. This score was done repeatedly on this & other H/B flicks.I think one of my favorites would be what, for lack of better words I will refer to as the Tempest score, an urgent, "something major is coming down" score apparantly done predominantly with violins or stringed instruments of some kind. It harmonised with something catastrophic or tempestrious unfolding. Would be associated with with avalanches, violent windstorms, fires, pterodactyl attacks-"KILL TURU!! KILL!!!!" "G" The music was surprisingly fun & riviting, especially for what is (ostensibly) a kids cartoon.It was great action type music. I'm surprised that H/B left it on its "back shelf" in its later features. Probably thought it was becoming too familier, which may have been right. When I watched it as a kid, I thought customising background music for other series was practiced by all cartoon producers. Looking back, I think the practice was a little more unique. The only other producers(whatever H/B titles are) that I remember as having distinctly memorable "franchised" action & mood music was (I believe) called Dear Productions or something like that. It made cartoons like Underdog, Commander McBragg, Go Go Gophers & I believe, Tennesee Tuxedo. In some ways, these were even more surprising because these were typically more cartoony plots, yet the action music was distinctly catchy. OBTW, I may be wrong, but I think Dear also was involved with the Charlton Heston epic, El Cid. I think I saw Dear in the credits. Back to Hanna Barbera, I'd appreciate any info on any tapes of the underscores that may exist.
A Very Brady Sequel
(1996)
Dirty Movie or Gullible Series?
21 March 2002
Appears that my prediction of the reactions to the Greg & Marcia innuendos was fairly accurate. One could easily characterize Greg & Marcia's mutual "discovery" as turning a wholesome series into something that trivializes incest. If anything, it was gullible on the part of the TV show to ask us to assume that the "grafting" in through the parents marriage would be a seamless one. Greg & Marcia were not genetically siblings, & the fact that they were the oldest means that they would be most aware of the lack of biological origin to their sibling-hood. Especially sleeping in the same house. Kind of reminded me of Blue Lagoon-kind of. I must admit that I was relieved that they refrained from making it a full blown involvement, because the image of them as siblings was sufficiently ingrained in my mind that I was uncomfortable with it. Therefore, it was relieving that they were uncomfortable with it too. In that sense, I think the temptation was handled in good taste, & that the movie was well balanced between being in touch with its viewers sensitivities & spoofing the weaknesses of the show.
Bambi
(1942)
Disney's Most Fascinating Classic
19 March 2002
Walt Disney's "Shower Scene". In the movie genre, when the expression "The shower scene" is used, few if any won't know that it refers to the notorious scene on Psycho. I'm sure everyone here knows which scene on Bambi I'm refering to here. Since shock value is measured in part by what one would tend to expect in a feature up to the scene in question, the death of Bambi's mother would rank at least as high in the context of a Disney feature as the shower scene is in a Hitchcock movie.When she dies, any notion of Bambi being another cute cartoon dies with her. I'm tempted to refer to her as the personafication of the quintessential doe. Deer-does in particular-have a reputation for being very docile & gentle(though they are by NO means limited to that disposition)and Disney's only Principle casualty does more to personify that than probably any other deer in the movie. If she had been killed by wolves, rather than humans, the scene would have been less potentially disturbing. One of the fascinating things about Bambi is that it does juxtapose things in such a way that makes it an inherently disturbing story. Instead of raising animals up to our level-like Mickey Mouse-it brings us down to theirs, as if we were one of them. Then reminds us that we like to hunt them. Inherently disturbing because it fuels anti-hunting sentiments & potentially puts those who think hunting's OK on the defensive. This makes Bambi surprisingly provocative. I may elaborate more on a later edition, but what I want be be sure to add here is that humans are in Bambi what wolves are in Red Riding Hood, what the great white shark is in Jaws, what mako sharks are in deep blue sea, & what veloceraptor is in Jurassic Park. None(including humans) are necessarily evil, but relative to the protagonists in the respective stories, they are the Enemy Species. It's an interesting switch watching a flick where we are the enemy "beast". Like the MAN vs NATURE conflict in reverse. Personally, I think it unwise to judge the killing of a deer as worse than the killing of a cow. Deer may be prettier, but that's a dangerous criteria for appraising the value of life. However, the fact that deer have so endeer-I mean-endeared themselves to us makes them excellent protagonists in this classic.
The Terminator
(1984)
Internal Consistency Problem?
18 March 2002
Warning: Spoilers
WARNING:POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD. Very riveting. One of the holes in the plot however is the fact that when John Conners-Sarah Conners' son sends his dad back from the future to rescue his mom from Arny, he makes her pregnant with....JOHN CONNERS!! Pop had to go back in time for his son-who ordered him to go(interesting family chain of command)TO EVEN EXIST IN THE FIRST PLACE! I wonder if this should lead to a prequel. Was Sarah already in an alternate time line, already touched by time travel? No doubt, it's probably hard to do a movie or story about time travel without some internal consistency problems. For example, in movies like Back to The Future II, where Marty & Jennifer see their future selves. Seems theoretically they should have discovered that their future selves disappeared the day they went into time warp, casualties of their own time travels! All that said, use of time travel stories as metaphors of observing & experiencing variables in the impact different choices can have on our destiny can more than make up for not being scientifically correct. Especially since no body's sure if time travel itself is even possible- much less scientifically correct. Nevertheless, when I see anomalies like the aforementioned conception, I find it worth noting.
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