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Reviews
Prometheus (2012)
Horrible waste of time
This is another example of special effects taking precedence over plot.
The plot is basically man discovers that ancient civilizations have a common denominator. They all seem to point to the same star system.
Scientists travel to that star system and find the aliens responsible for breeding man along with some other hostile creatures.
From there the plot goes downhill.
The aliens want to destroy man and they need to destroy the aliens.
There is no reason given for the aliens wanting to destroy man but I could think of a few, especially the creators of this mess! :-)
The surviving lady scientist wants to find the God that created man since God didn't create man so she fly's off in search of God.
I can think of dozens of much more entertaining alien flicks than this garbled mess. Unless you just enjoy dark scenes and special effects, Don't waste your money.
What Just Happened (2008)
Worst movie I ever saw!
This is one of those movies that you try to watch all of the way through because you paid good money to rent it.
Sadly, this is the first movie I ever returned without watching all of it because it was worse than awful. The acting is wooden, the plot is beyond stupid and the whole thing makes me want to sue the studio to get my two hours back.
I generally like DeNiro and even liked many of Willis's movies but all I can say is they must be desperate to appear in a morbid piece of trash like this.
The movie starts off as a screening for some sort of mystery and after the scene with the dog, the screening reviewers generally pan it as a piece of garbage. Unfortunately, the real movie doesn't get any better.
The interaction between DeNiro and his ex isn't even a good divorce movie. All this movie accomplishes is makes me see how really inept Hollywood is in producing something that would make a decent drama or even comedy.
Save your money, spend it on a hamburger or something, you will get more out of it.
It Lives Again (1978)
Filmed at a real Hospital!
Not really a review but some more insider info.
The nursery and delivery room scenes were filmed on the third floor Labor and Delivery wing at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tucson AZ. I worked there at the time and one of the guys from my department played "Dr. Fairchild" as the delivery room doctor.
For a while after that, we would call the switchboard and ask them to page "Dr. Fairchild" to our phone number via the overhead paging. It became an insider joke.
It was hilarious to watch them film it as the hallway where they spend a long time running with the gurney is in the East basement and actually only about 30 feet long! They just kept cutting back and forth to make it seem so long.
The elevator that the gurney is seen coming out of is the East wing basement passenger elevator and there is no way a gurney will fit in it. They just held the door open and started pulling the gurney out and filming.
The old loading dock on the North side was the site for the "Tucson Memorial Hospital" sign seen at the beginning of the movie.
They were only allowed to film for two days and then the Catholic Sisters found out what the movie was about. They then asked the production company to leave and they did the rest of the hospital scenes in a rented hotel room in Tucson.
Bill, my co-worker who played "Dr Fairchild," had a copy of the script and we kept it in the department for a long time as we thought it was hilarious that a horror film was partially filmed in a Catholic hospital.
I had to go see it when it came out and it was great fun to remember those two days when they turned the hospital upside down with their filming.
Not a great movie but it was a "Larco Production" (Larry Cohen) and we made it a point to see anything else he produced for a while.
Harper Valley P.T.A. (1978)
Another good lightweight comedy.
Again this was one of those movies I added to my Netflix queue just to see if it was as good as I remembered. It was well worth watching again.
It's another small town movie, actually filmed in Lebanon Ohio according to the end credits.
A great send up of small town politics and social cliques that try to be something more than they really are. Yes, It's based on the song and one of the few C&W hits I will listen to.
I noticed in the movie that Barbara Eden appeared to have aged and did some research. She was 44 when the movie came out. Too bad all 44 year old women don't hold up that well. I found myself wondering more than once how she got in those tight pants though. :-) The movie appeals to the lecher in every man because of her looks but in reality she was just trying to be a good single mother and had the right to enjoy herself as well. The innocent romantic scenes with Will will please most women.
The high school scenes were realistic and as I remembered them from my high school years. Typical stuff, popular athlete won't hardly speak to anyone except the cheerleader type.
I like older movies like this because they were funny and didn't rely on a lot of vulgar language and car crashes to grab your attention. Just good wholesome humor with enough adult themes to keep you from being bored.
The hay truck dumping barn waste in the board members car and the credit of "Manure supplied by Seattle Slew" were about as adult as it got. That and the ubiquitous high school sex education film clips. (Did everybody have to sit through those in high school?) Probably not a movie you should let your five year old watch and most teenagers would think it was lame.
Well worth another look just to see how Hollywood has forgotten how to make a lightweight comedy.
Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)
Funny movie that still wears well with time.
I found this movie on Netflix and had to add it to my queue. I wasn't disappointed when I got it as it's just as funny now as when I saw it at a local drive-in theater back then.
It builds to a climax nicely with you getting glimpses of the various characters as they begin their trip across America on the "Honky Tonk Freeway, America on wheels." This was a strange comedic role for William DeVane as I remember him as Kennedy in the 1974 TV film "The Missiles of October" and felt no one could have pulled that dramatic character off as well as he did.
It reminds me a bit of Dick Van Dyke in "Cold Turkey' where Van Dyke played the local minister. DeVane's role as mayor, minister, and activist was typical for small towns so it makes his character seem amusing and real.
Howard Hessman and Teri Garr as the spoiled family in the RV was on target for the time as well. Anyone who has traveled across country with small children, (Are we there yet?) will appreciate those scenes.
The scenes of a small town struggling to survive reminded me a lot of the small town I grew up in but they handled it with the charm and humor that you often only saw in small towns. It's sad that many small towns disappeared because of the freeway system and it gives a realistic if humorous view of what they had to do to survive. (Used zoo animals anyone?)
All in all, it's a lightweight comedy with no particular message but a humorous glance at America during the early 80's. Well worth watching if you just need a bit of good cheer.
The Dish (2000)
Great Moment in History
While some of this film is fiction, it does convey the spirit that grabbed the world on July 20, 1969.
The movie is of the Parkes dish in Australia which was the one chosen by NASA to carry the live pictures of Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon.
The dramatization is great, especially the issue with the wind and the size of the dish. If the movie is correct, the dish nearly wasn't able to grab the signals because the wind was so strong.
It's a great movie of a point in man kinds history that should live forever. I remember watching the actual live broadcast in glorious B&W on the momentous day in July 1969.
I watched on CBS and Walter Cronkite who passed away on July 17, 2009 was speechless for the first time. He simply smiled and removed his glasses on this historic occasion We should all rejoice that man kind was adventurous enough to undertake such a dangerous exploration. Great movie, well worth watching again.
Thank God It's Friday (1978)
A great time to be in your 20's and a great movie to relive it!
Question from a previous comment: "Finally - did the 1970's discos really close at midnight? :-)"
Well, yes, sort of. Most of the places I frequented in Tucson AZ during this time period had "last call" around 12:30 AM as they officially had to stop serving liquor by 1 AM. There were a few that stayed open until 2 AM but it was only soft drinks after 1 AM.
This movie is a blast from my past and really brings back memories of hanging out at the dance clubs in the mid to late '70's. I never was into the drug scene and it was actually fairly discrete at most places so the movie is a reasonable representation of my Friday and Saturday nights during that era. The disco I frequented was called the "Fun Factory" and had all sorts of weird creatures as part of the decor. The dance floor was pretty small but it had flashing lights under it and the usual spotlights, strobes, mirror balls, etc. The had live bands and between sets they played long compilations of current hits on tape. They even occasionally had dance contests like in the movie!
I still have my Heishi beads and necklaces that I wore to the clubs but I suspect the leisure suits and unisex flowery shirts have long since been donated to Goodwill.
It was a great time to be in your 20's and I'm glad I got to experience it. In many ways the music was much better than today's and we had a lot of fun but didn't get into too much trouble. Every time I hear a Donna Summer song, It causes a flashback to that "fabulous" era. ;-)
Fun with Dick and Jane (1977)
Very Funny
I saw this movie in the theaters back in 1977 and it is one of my favorites.
The chemistry between George Segal and Jane Fonda is good and there are some very funny moments like when he tries to hold up an Afro-American bar and they just look at him and ask "When did they start busing the white robbers to the black neighborhoods?" The other crack that was risqué for the time is when Dick shoves the pistol in his waistband and screams. Jane sweetly looks at him and says, "Don't go off half-cocked."
Dicks career as a car thief isn't going very well as even his aerospace knowledge can't seem to help him hot wire a car. Jane points to a convertible next to the car he is try to steal and he says, "I don't know anything about foreign cars." She says, "I think you can handle this one. The keys are in it." And off they go in a 1974 Jaguar XK-E convertible. Later at the party, someone is admiring his Jaguar and he cracks, "I took one for a test drive and loved it."
Ed McMahon is great as the drunken manager firing everyone, playing off his reputation from the Johnny Carson show and connections with Budweiser as their spokesman.
It's really a very funny movie for it's time and wears well with age. The remake with Jim Carrey is nearly unwatchable. I have both on DVD and haven't been able to watch the remake more than once.
Balls of Fury (2007)
Not the Funniest Movie This Siummer
Saw this as a double feature with Superbad at the drive-in theater last night.
I kind of like Reno 911 and hoped that since Thomas Lennon, the writer of this film, was my favorite character in Reno 911, it would be pretty funny.
I suspect that the humor level is now written to appeal to the typical 12 year old loser. This movie was good for a few chuckles, the kung-foo was decent, and Maggie was well worth the view.
But it was was pretty lame by the standards of comedy movies when I was under 30. Movies like Animal House and Porky's were a gut-buster without having to resort to lame blind man walking into walls bits.
I hadn't realized how much the main character was a Jack Black wannabee and even commented to my wife during the movie that Jack Black could have pulled it off better, then I read all of the comments comparing him to Jack Black.
OK for a few grins but not something you would want to see over and over.
Used Cars (1980)
Inside jokes
The movie is a screamer. It has all kinds of inside jokes but the one that caught my eye was when "Lenny & Squiggy" uplink the commercials to the satellite.
During the early '80's, many cities had HBO transmitted via microwave to the subscribers home. It didn't take long for the techno-pirates to figure out how to build a pirate antenna. The antenna that L&S was using as an uplink was one of these pirate antennas!
A lot of the scenes for the movie were filmed at a used car lot in Mesa AZ.
I saw this at a local drive-in but had to tape it when it came on HBO. I now have the DVD as the commentary alone is worth the price.