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Reviews
Magical Disappearing Money (1972)
Rifftrax sent you here...
1972 consumer short, starring Valorie Armstrong, who's best remembered from her stint on the NBC soap, SANTA BARBARA. IMBD erroneously credits "Pippa Scott" as the "Zucchini Witch", and the 2 actresses do look/ sound similar. But check You Tube and you'll see Valorie Armstrong from the S. B. opening credits. The anachronistic facial hair and styles are a keen source of mockery, as well as the redundancy of the witches' rants. It was a strong opening short for Rifftrax's 2nd riff of "House on Haunted Hill, which was also excellent. Relieve fond memories of that middle aged friend of your mom's who flirted with you when you were fourteen...breaded zucchini.
Minutes to Midnight (2018)
Nonsensical killing spree...Spoiler Alerts!
If you considered watching this because you're a fan of Dominique Swain...forget it! She is in the movie from @12:20-13:20...exactly One Minute! The plot is a bunch of "college kids" who go to a closed resort in the woods for New Years and get murdered by three TX Chainsaw types, though mostly just the one big, Jason-like dude.Eighties teen heartthrob Richard Grieco plays the sheriff of the "town," even though he makes no effort not to look like a disheveled, long haired drunkard. It's ok, though, as the town appears to have no people in it, other than the characters in the movie. The murders are of the usual "Friday the 13th" variety, with stock character types. Jena Sims (nice) & Heather Paige Cohen (WOW) provide the nudity, but not enough to save this mess. There is a twist at the end that makes no sense whatsoever, as there's neither a flashback nor early dialogue to foreshadow it. The reason all this was done, "to clear the (already empty) town of rotten kids" is especially silly, given that the first 4 victim were adults. Perhaps a different ending was planned and time and money constraints forced them to slap together this awful denouement. It's not nearly bad enough to be ironically entertaining (like "The Room" or "Samurai Cop"). Just a waste of time. Thank you, anyway, Ms Cohen.
Pen 'n' Inc. (1981)
Pen n Ink
This aired as a "busted pilot" on CBS. I watched because of Brianne Leary, from CHIPs. The mixture of live action with a few animated sequences was fun. A review of the cast tells you that it was a standard sitcom of the period. Leary was so charming and lovely, it was a shame she never found a starring vehicle. Matt McCoy is best known today for his Insurance commercials. He was the star of "We Got It Made", NBC's ripoff of "Threes Company." He also appeared as a psycho computer salesman on "Seinfeld." His Character in this pilot was a little too smug. He was a white collar cartoonist working for A newspaper, trying to push the envelope by doing political cartoons, over the objections of his conservative boss, who was also his girlfriend's (Leary) dad. In non-Norman Lear sitcoms, conservative-liberal differences were only discussed in terms of hair and fashion, without specific discussions of issues. This would've been a real weak spot if the show had gotten picked up.
The Twilight Zone: The Old Man in the Cave (1963)
Spoiler...What was Serling thinking?
spoiler....well acted episode, thwarted by an unsatisfying conclusion. As noted by Marc Zicree in his TZ Companion book, the villagers had every right to want to know who the old man was and how these decisions were made. The point of the episode, that they were "faithless" confused the notion of man's faith in the creator of all things with technology. Serling echoes the 1950s/early 60s liberal mindset that saw science as the answer to social problems. Look for comparisons in movies like Knock on Any Door & Convicts Four, where the filmmakers promote social work and psychoanalysis as "cures" for crime and violence. That such maladies could be cured as easily as adding fluoride to the water supply, seems childishly naive today, but reflects a utopian instinct which was formerly confined to politics. The failure of marxism/fascism to redeem mankind, birthed this secular faith in science. The belief that men should abandon their autonomy to a computer, or a computer programmer, without question, is an idea best left in the Hollywood scriptwriters imagination. Sorry, Rod, you blew it this time....