jrinvest Reviews

We Need to Talk About Cosby (2022)

An excellent documentary with a few flaws

[7/10 · 26 February 2022]

As a grade schooler in the '60s, I owned several comedy records by Bill Cosby and loved them. In 1966 four cousins spent the entire summer with my family, and we kids endlessly repeated these routines for each other. I can recite most of them to this day.

My father developed pancreatic cancer in 1970 when I was twelve. One of the last fun things we did together before he was bedridden was attend a live Cosby performance here in St. Louis at Kiel Auditorium. Cosby was even more hilarious in person, performing some material I have never seen or heard since.

About that same time, I bought another Cosby album entitled "200 MPH." The title routine is about Cosby's love of fast cars, and total lack of knowledge about them. "Fill 'er up, that's what I know" he explains. "One time the attendant couldn't find the where the gas tank was. I didn't know where it was either. He said 'Maybe if I just pour it on the car, it'll suck in somewhere.'"

The routine goes on to explain that Carroll Shelby learns of Cosby's love of fast cars and builds Cosby a supercharged Cobra, promising him the car will exceed 200 MPH. (This routine, like many of Cosby's, is based on real events.)

At the end of this hilarious routine, the car so terrifies Cosby that he tells the Shelby American driver who delivered the car to give it to George Wallace.

For a twelve year old kid who dreamed of owning a 427 Cobra, this was the Holy Grail of comedy routines.

Fast forward to the fall of 1977. I'm in the parking lot of a shopping mall outside Amherst, Massachusetts, where I was a Junior in college. Walking to my car, I spot a vehicle I have never seen before, either on the road or in pictures. It has a Porsche emblem on its nose. Staying at least two feet away, and never touching the car, I examine it from every possible angle. Finally I lie down on the ground to inspect the exhaust system to try and learn more about what kind of engine is in the car. A pair of shoes comes into view near my head and the owner asks "Can I help you?"

"What is this?" I respond, standing up and looking at the man. It's Bill Cosby.

"It's a car." No smile, nothing.

"Do you know where the gas cap is on this one?", I ask with a grin.

"GET LOST," he tells me, with a face full of anger if not hatred.

I nodded once and walked away. Maybe he was just having a bad day, but it should have been obvious that I was a fan. BTW the car was a 928, one of the first dozen or so in the country.

After that incident, I began to notice an undercurrent of hostility during Cosby interviews on television. When the news came out about the rapes, it all fit.

As to the documentary itself, one of my complaints about it, and about some of the commenters, is grouping Cosby with the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Roger Ailes, Matt Lauer, etc.

No no no! Those other men may be guilty of being boorish, or cads, or "sexually harassing" women, or whatever, but there is a world of difference between a powerful producer pointing his finger at the casting couch and giving the would-be starlet a knowing look, and drugging a woman's drink and then raping her while she's unconscious.

As many people have pointed out, there are many, many attractive women who are perfectly willing to have sex with rich, successful, famous, influential men, either for a potential career benefit, or even just for the experience itself.

Furthermore, if normal sex doesn't do it for you, and having sex with women while they're unconscious is your particular kink, there are certainly attractive women who will gladly agree to that for a fee that is absolutely trivial to someone making millions of dollars a month or whatever.

Someone, ANYONE involved in Cosby's businesses should have recognized that fact and acted on it, to both safeguard the goose laying the golden eggs, and to protect hundreds of innocent women from irreparable emotional harm.

Second criticism of the documentary: almost nothing about WHY Cosby's son Ennis was murdered. Just like Cosby's rape proclivities, rumors have circulated for years about why Ennis was killed. I wanted to see that issue addressed in some way in the documentary.

Yes Day (2021)

Is vandalism your idea of rollicking good fun?

[2/10 · 18 March 2021]

Call this one a fail on just about every level. There is ZERO chemistry between the two parents, the kids are continually annoying and stupid, and many of the so-called plot elements make no sense whatsoever.

It's obvious that no one involved with this mess ever watched and paid attention to classic children's comedies such as the Our Gang (Little Rascals) series, or even the Three Stooges.

Should be in film classes as an example of what NOT to do when making a "family comedy."

The Twilight Zone (2019–2020)

Review of entire series, and a suggestion

[2/10 · 1 December 2020]

Some friends recommended that I sign up for a trial account of CBS programming online so that I could watch the episodes of the TV series Bull, about a man and his company that specialize in the trial science of analyzing jurors.

That was a good recommendation, so after I binge watched that entire show, I started looking at what else CBS had to offer, and discovered that they are doing a reboot of The Twilight Zone. I'd always enjoyed the original series, both as a child and later as an adult, so I started watching.

Holy mother of God, please just shoot me now. This steaming pile is the worst dreck I have ever seen, managing to combine infuriatingly preachy PC story lines with utter boredom, a combination I had not previously thought possible.

How about an episode where a woman discovers that when she uses an old camcorder, if things happen that she doesn't like, hitting the rewind button on the device not only rewinds the existing footage, but the real life events as well, allowing her to start over and proceed differently. That's a cool, Twilight Zone-worthy premise, so let's make the woman black, and have her driving her 18-year-old son to the start of his freshman year at a historically black college in the South. Stopping at a diner, the mother and her son encounter a white law enforcement officer whose sole purpose in life appears to be tormenting black people and preventing them from going to school.

Seriously? In 2020? To an all-black college? If I'd been the writer, I would have had the cop provide them a police escort to the school to make sure the kid filled out all the paperwork properly and was safely enrolled, to make it less likely that he would rob liquor stores, deal drugs, or become a Community Organizer...

Just about ALL of the episodes of this series are similarly preachy and tedious. One reviewer said this show should be called "The Democrat Zone."

The last episode I watched was an absolute mess, where they break the fourth wall and start talking to the audience. An angst-filled actress, black, of course, runs around like a blithering idiot, laughingly pursued by a "blurry man" who appears in every scene and performs scary acts of telekinesis such as making cereal boxes fall off the shelves of a supermarket set in the studio. Finally, the "blurry man" comes into focus, and it's... wait for it... Rod Serling! Thank God he's dead now and can't see what they've done to his creation...

Here's an idea for the opening episode of the next season:

The location is a rural town, where most of the black residents live in decidedly poorer conditions than the whites. A successful black man from out of town purchases a building lot there, builds a house on the property, and drills a well to provide water to the domicile.

INTRO: "A typical small town--a decidedly common rural community that could be almost anywhere in America, where working-class people know each other as they pass on the street, but where a divide exists, even though no one talks about it. "A new resident has just moved to town, buying a lot, building a house, and drilling a well. This new resident hasn't moved here from the nearest big city, or any of the small towns nearby. This man has moved here from... The Twilight Zone."

After the intro, we see the newcomer holding an open house, a party open to all local residents, to introduce himself to the community. Almost all of the town's black residents show up for the free food the newcomer has provided, and since he is serving no alcohol, they wash it down with many glasses of tap water that have come from his well.

In the ensuing days, a curious thing happens. The black people who attended the open house start acting more responsibly. The adults show up on time for work and perform theirs jobs competently, while the kids stop shoplifting and ditching school, and many are seen voluntarily scrubbing graffiti off local buildings and removing trash from vacant lots. Minor slights or insults between blacks are shrugged off, instead of escalating to violence. The local pool hall, weave, nail, and hair extension shops, as well as check-cashing services, experience a large drop in business. Out-of-wedlock pregnancy in the black community drops to zero.

The town's black residents that missed the open house get word that "something special is in the water" at the man's house, and stop by, asking for some. Eventually, everyone in the town has sampled the water from the man's well, and the black residents there have experienced an unprecedented increase in literacy, work ethic, and prosperity.

Word gets out to black gang members in the nearest urban area some 75 miles away. There's something about the water at the man's house in the small town that causes black people to "act white." The gang members sneak into the town in the middle of the night, kill the man, and burn his house to the ground. The town quickly reverts to its previous condition.

As the camera shows black youths piling out of a stolen car, robbing a convenience store, and driving off while randomly firing guns out of the speeding vehicle, the Narrator comes onscreen to deliver the epilogue:

"It's the age-old question: Nature or nurture? Is our destiny hard-coded in our DNA, or not? Is low intelligence, low impulse control, and poor future time orientation a permanent condition, or can these things all be improved by something so simple as a change in one's attitude? "It's a question that has yet to be answered--except in The Twilight Zone."

The Vast of Night (2019)

The film equivalent of the Chinese water torture

[2/10 · 8 August 2020]

Why two stars? Because the film was in focus, and I like scenes set in the 1950s with the attendant cars and clothing styles.

Apart from those two things, this movie is extraordinarily tedious and annoying. The opening scene before the basketball game sets the tone for the entire movie: people talking incessantly about the same thing over and over, until you want to scream at them to just shut up.

I agree with another reviewer that said you could get everything the movie had to offer with just the audio--this movie is basically a book on tape.

The so-called dramatic concept of the film is that a small-town radio DJ and the 16-year-old switchboard operator both hear some static on the radio and the telephone lines and immediately jump to the ludicrous conclusion that this signifies SOMETHING IMPORTANT.

If this were a 25 minute Twilight Zone episode, it would have been one of the more poorly executed storylines. At an hour and a half, it's the film equivalent of the Chinese water torture.

The Assignment (I) (2016)

This 62 year old Trump supporter thought it was a hoot!

[7/10 · 19 March 2020]

I thought this movie had a terrific and unusual premise. Bravo to Walter Hill for doing this film!

First of all, let me say that I have often found the actress Michelle Rodriguez to be annoying. Not this time. Seeing her playing a man, and convincingly at that, and then waking up to discover that she's physically a woman now (but does not think like one), put her in an entirely different light. I thought her performance was exceptional.

I only know a few people in the trans community, but I think all of them would enjoy this movie as much as I did. I love stories with a good "bad guy." This movie has two of them, both women.

I am reminded of the late Christopher Reeve (Superman) who, after he was paralyzed from the neck down in an accident, continued to find acting roles despite his condition. In one, which I seem to recall was an episode of Law & Order, he played a sympathetic paraplegic who turned out to be an utter monster. It was great. This film is even better.

Last of all, the ending was a nice touch, and I predict that you will go back and review Sigourney Weaver's earlier scenes in the movie because of it.

Spenser Confidential (2020)

Moronic with a few funny parts

[3/10 · 6 March 2020]

The plot is something that might have been dreamed up by that kid you remember from Third Grade that was always doing stupid things.

Spenser (Wahlberg) constantly gets beat up.

There's a funny scene with a dog.

Ilisa Shlesinger as Spenser's girlfriend steals the show.

Marriage Story (2019)

Should be called "Divorce Story"

[5/10 · 3 March 2020]

This movie is well acted, but marred by a couple of glaring inconsistencies. The storyline is about a woman who left LA because her acting career was going nowhere, moved to New York with her husband, became the main attraction in the theater her husband created, had a child with him at their home in New York, and then decides after eight or 10 years that she wants something else.

The "something else" is to divorce her husband, move to LA with her son, and pursue a career in television.

We watch as the husband has to cope with having the rug pulled out from under him and his life thrown in a blender, to mix metaphors. We see the all too frequent spectacle of divorcing parents, who initially claim that they have their children's best interests at heart, ending up hiring the most cutthroat divorce lawyers they can find.

One glaring inconsistency, as another reviewer pointed out, is that no actual lawyers were consulted on this script. Divorce lawyers call witnesses to get the facts on record, they don't argue cases themselves in front of the Family Court judge. Further, under the existing laws, the divorce would have taken place in New York, not California, but that would have meant no movie.

The other glaring inconsistency is the wife, who wanted out, appearing to exhibit some feelings of remorse or shame (in front of her husband) at what she has initiated. I know a number of divorce lawyers, and they have all told me straight out that they have never seen this happen with any woman who has filed for divorce.

My final complaint about the film is the young actor who plays the son. His height and weight make him appear to be eight to ten years old. However, he can't read AT ALL in the first half of the movie, and in the final scene (after he's been living with his mother and her new boyfriend in LA for a while), he is reading at a level you would expect of five-year-olds. I found this jarring, given that there is no mention of him having mild retardation, dyslexia, or any other learning disabilities.

Hunters (2020–2023)

A total mess...

[3/10 · 29 February 2020]

Wow, what a mess this series turned out to be! It started out with a bang, but soon devolved into an absolute muddle. This series at various times tries to be deadly serious, a comedy, and a "graphic novel" (comic book) adaptation.

Most annoying to this viewer was the near constant portrayal of negative stereotypical Jewish behavior: Perpetual hand-wringing, moaning and complaining, stifling angst, and incessant self-doubt.

It wasn't long before I was finding the American Nazis MUCH more interesting, and wanting to see more of what they were up to.

The so-called "preparation" the Nazi hunters make before undertaking a mission makes the plans of the old "A-Team" TV series look like works of genius by comparison.

There are also many surprise plot "twists" that make no sense whatsoever.

I ended up watching the entire series, and I'm reminded of the old saying "People would follow that man anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity."

Cop Car (2015)

Needs a more plausible script

[3/10 · 8 July 2019]

Cop Car could have been a good movie. As I'm sure everyone knows, it involves two children, about 10 to 12 years old, who are running away from home. No reason for this act is ever given. They come across an unattended sheriff's vehicle in a remote area, and decide to take it for a joyride. The sheriff returns to find his vehicle missing, and we're now well aware that he is a corrupt, dirty cop. The kids find themselves in a lot more dangerous situation than they ever thought possible.

The problem with this movie is that the script calls for these slightly preteen kids to have the thought processes and actions of five-year-olds in kindergarten, not kids in 5th to 7th grades.

SPOILERS FOLLOW First of all, did you ever run away from home as a child, or know someone who did? In all cases that I know of, it's been little kids (5 years old or so) who got perhaps a block from home before realizing their mistake. I realize that in the case of teenagers with bad home lives (real or imagined), they may make an earnest attempt to get away from their families, but in those cases, the efforts always include much more serious preparation than putting a single piece of beef jerky in a jacket pocket.

Ridiculous moments:

1. The kids have been "running away from home" for what is obviously a brief period, and one of them asks the other how far he thinks they've traveled. The other kid says "50 miles." A four- or five-year-old might say this. A child in middle school knows how long it takes to go 50 miles in a car, and would never say this in answer to how far they've traveled in an hour or two on foot.

2. Daring each other to go TOUCH the empty car (REALLY?) then deciding to STEAL the cop car. 5th to 7th graders would realize that this was something that could get both of them in serious trouble. The only way I would believe children of that age would decide to do this is if they were shown to have been "bad kids" to begin with. Instead, they just appear to be clueless, like four-year-olds.

3. What middle-class 5th-to-7th grade boy who has been driven around for years by his parents and others doesn't know the way a typical car with an automatic transmission works? These kids act like they are seeing a car for the first time when they decide to drive it.

Similarly, they don't seem to realize that you are supposed to stay in the right lane on two lane roads. It might have made sense, since the roads are so deserted, to drive down the middle and have a wider margin of safety on each side, but driving along in the opposite traffic lane for miles at a time? Again, behavior appropriate to kindergartners.

4. Guns. They can't figure out how to make loaded guns fire? Although Hollywood gives us a lot of bad or misleading information about guns, any fifth grader who has been watching television would know at least to look at the markings on the side of the AR-15 and to see if the selector lever was on "safe" or "fire."

This happens when one genius decides to put on the policeman's body armor and have his friend shoot him. Again, five-year-old behavior. A fifth grader would prop the vest up against something, shoot it, and look at the result.

The premise of this movie COULD have worked if the young runaways were running from something seriously bad, and made the shrewd calculation to steal the police car and use it to get much farther from home, then conceal it from discovery by hiding it somewhere and continuing on anonymously by some other means, and THEN get drawn into the nightmare. Instead, the kids just act like annoying, clueless idiots 100% of the time.

As scripted, Cop Car could, as one other reviewer put it, be more accurately titled "Dumb and dumber--the early years."

Quicksand (2019)

Would put a meth addict to sleep...

[2/10 · 11 April 2019]

I have had very good luck using streaming services to watch foreign-made movies and TV series, if they have IMDB viewer ratings higher than 7 on a 1-10 scale.

Not this one.

One of the cardinal rules of good storytelling is to have characters and issues that the reader or viewer cares about. There is none of that in the Swedish 6-part series QUICKSAND, now showing on Netflix.

An utterly vapid teenage girl, Maya, "falls in love" with a very rich kid, Sebastian, from her high school. Almost all of the very wealthy kids *I* knew when I was in school were intelligent, outgoing, dynamic personalities that worked hard and played hard--think of Donald Trump's children and you'll get the idea.

Sebastian, by contrast, is an annoying underachiever who is constantly drugged out, always insulting everyone, and wrecking things. What a great choice for one of the two lead roles in your story, right? His girlfriend Maya is no better, oozing helpless teen angst so thick you could lube the differential of a Volvo 18-wheeler with it.

The story arc of the series is that Maya has found herself charged with a number of Capital crimes (including Sebastian's murder) for a mass shooting at their high school, but she doesn't remember any details. We are shown drawn-out, mind-numbingly boring scenes of her in detention, interspersed with equally tedious flashbacks from before the shooting. The final episode is of the trial.

The only interesting character in this whole dreary mess is Sebastian's father, the self-made multimillionaire with the dynamic work/play ethic his son so utterly lacks. Dad should have shipped the kid off to military school at the first sign that he was a budding sociopath, probably around the first grade...

Watching this, I was reminded of stand-up comedian Steve Landesberg's take on why the Swedish suicide rate was so high 45 years ago, in 1974

Reversing Roe (2018)

Well done and factual history, but leaves out some key things

[7/10 · 13 September 2018]

Reversing Roe gives us a good history of the battle for and against legalized abortion in America. The strategies and tactics employed by the players on both sides are well presented. However, several things which I believe are extremely relevant to this debate were completely absent from this documentary.

The first of these omissions is there was no discussion whatsoever that the 1973 SC ruling seemed to invent out of thin air a Constitutional "right to privacy" and a woman's "right" to have complete control over her own body. Wouldn't those "rights" also apply to prostitution, where a woman would be able to rent her services as she sees fit, without having to fear being thrown in jail, or give the lion's share of her earnings to someone paying off the police?

The ROE decision also included "viability" of the fetus, which is an ever-moving target due to constant medical advancements.

The movie well depicts the passion that drives the leaders of both the "Pro-Life" and "Pro-Choice" movements. What the movie omits is that this passion is limited to a fairly small section of the population as a whole.

Many Pro-Life supporters publicly claim abortion is murder. But ask ANY Pro-Life politician if he or she believes that women who go to foreign countries for abortions should be prosecuted, imprisoned, and/or executed for premeditated murder, and the answer will be "NO!" Similarly, very few people who want to keep abortion legal will admit to wanting the taxpayers to fund an unlimited number of abortions for a woman who keeps getting pregnant but doesn't want any children.

Because of these realities, abortion isn't in the forefront of the minds of most Americans. In scores of national polls where voters are asked what the most important political issues are in America, abortion currently ranks around 14th place. REVERSING ROE might have you believe otherwise.

Weiner (2016)

Oh, if only the filmmaker could have hung on until November 2016!

[9/10 · 25 September 2017]

I just finished watching this documentary ten minutes ago, after first hearing about it less than two hours before. It is absolutely RIVETING and deserves every one of the many awards it has won. I am amazed that Weiner allowed the filmmaker such total access to his campaign and inner circle during his Mayoral run.

I must say that after watching this documentary, I have considerably more respect for the man now than I ever did before.

That said, the documentary ends the day after Weiner's Dem primary loss in 2013. It would have been SOOO much better if it had included his THIRD sexting go-around (with a 15-year-old girl in 2016) that ended with criminal charges, to which he pled guilty and will have to register as a Sex Offender. Sentencing is tomorrow (expected to be 2-3 years in prison.)

Perhaps there could be an addendum added to the film?

House M.D.: One Day, One Room (2007) Season 3, Episode 12

All copies of this episode should be destroyed...

[2/10 · 30 April 2014]

House: "Patient is a Hollywood screenwriter who suddenly exhibited bizarre behavior and apparently thought he was writing for Grey's Anatomy, but without the sex scenes. Differential diagnosis, people!"

Forman: "Given the quality of the writing in the past, and what we just saw, it's neurological for sure. I'd have to vote for a massive brain tumor growing at warp speed."

House: "That's good. Prep the patient for brain surgery. If we excise the tumor, great. If there's no tumor, something else was scrambling his brains and whatever we do mucking around in there can't make it any worse than it already is. Chase?"

Chase: "There are any number of environmental or outside factors that could account for this kind of behavior--blackmail or extortion, for example."

House: "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we don't have the time for you and Chocolate Drop here to go breaking into his apartment and checking his bank statements! Two more episodes like this one and this series will be as dead as disco! Cameron?"

Cameron: "I don't think the patient has anything wrong with him at all, we should send him home and tell his bosses to give him a big raise."

House: "My God, I'm glad the other writers didn't have me jump you back in the first season when your concern for humanity was merely a cute eccentricity and not the suffocating, nausea-inducing plague it's become! Don't you realize it's YOUR career on the line along with the rest of us?"

Cameron: "I'll inject my own throat with Lidocaine so I won't be able to talk, and put on really tight scrubs so the audience can see I'm not wearing underwear."

Forman: "I'll get the biggest, sharpest, scariest-looking saws and drills we've got."

Chase: "I'll get the powdered psychotropic mushrooms Joss Whedon gave me to sterilize the wound after brain surgery."

House: "Aren't you all forgetting something?"

Chase (slapping forehead): "Of course! Bullwhips and cattle prods as preventatives in case the surgery has no effect!"

House: "That's it, people! Let's get out there and save this series!"

Defiance (2003)

Comments from one of the actors...

[4/10 · 29 February 2012]

I have just finished reading the very mixed reviews of this film. This should interest some of you as I had a small part in the movie and was (I think) responsible for it being a little better than it otherwise would have been.

DEFIANCE was (I think) originally a school project for the director Doveed Linder. When I got involved, they had been filming off and on for well over a year. I think the project might have started as a short subject that the director decided to expand into a feature length (almost) film when it appeared to him that more financial backing might be there. One major cash backer was Tom Burnham, who played the part of the "Old Rancher" in the film. He got partial producer credit and I think his financial contribution was $5000. Tom has a SERIOUS collection of original Old West guns of the mid-to-late 19th century. He served as the film's Gun Wrangler (or whatever it's called), providing well over half the guns used in the film, loading all the blanks, and making sure all guns were always safe on the set. He did an excellent job of this. It pained me a little that one online reviewer thought his gunshots sounded like rocks thrown in a trash can.

Tom is a personal friend of mine and he is the one that recruited me for involvement in the film. When I was a teenager I was a (regional) champion speed shooter, including out of western-style rigs, and Tom thought I would be an asset to the project. He and Doveed recruited me in a bar. My hope was to coach the other actors in gun handling and fast draw to make them look competent on screen, but unfortunately most of the shooting scenes had already been filmed by the time I was brought in. That's why you seldom see the actor draw and fire the gun--they filmed it, but had to edit it out because everyone was so clumsy. I showed them I could shoot dynamite out of the air with rifle or revolver, and they were originally excited about me doubling for Nathan Cross (Tony Twist) doing this, to show what a fearsome gunman he was. Unfortunately, at that time my weight had ballooned to over 300 pounds and I was too fat to stand in for Tony, no matter what camera angle was used. Hollywood directors would have a coronary at the idea of using live ammunition and real dynamite on a movie set, but we were on my land and I had the proper licenses, so it would have been fun if we could have pulled it off for the final cut.

The small acting part I had was the gun dealer with the beard and big black hat who is exasperated by the incompetence of the gang they are trying to organize. However, my main contribution to the film was something else. The story was originally set just after the Civil War, in 1867. I told them I refused to be involved in any western project set in a year that was before the guns they were using had been invented. That's a pet peeve of movie-going gun guys. Many of the guns used in the movie had first been made in 1873, so I made Doveed change the caption at the beginning of the film from "Missouri 1867" to "Missouri 1874" or maybe it was 1876, I forget which. It is unlikely that in a small town so many of the men would have state-of-the-art weaponry that was only a year old, but it would not have been impossible.

The entire movie was made with almost everyone working for free and some who contributed money in return for a small acting part. BTW Mister Clay Randall was played by the director's dad. Cash was only spent for equipment rentals, film costs, processing, editing, etc. None of the actors got paid to my knowledge, and all of the locations, horses, saddles, catering, and such were donated by friends who wanted to see the film succeed. The main sound guy, who also played the guitar music and had a small acting part, worked for free as well. The final scene (filmed before I became involved) was, as many suspected, a BIG part of the budget. They brought in Eric Stanze for that, and he was not cheap. I think the entire movie cost $130,000 to make in 2001 dollars; that figure meaning stuff they actually had to write checks for.

When I saw the finished product, it was much better than I had feared. Skillful editing had made clumsy on screen gun handling look smooth and fast. My biggest beef was the same as many in that almost all the clothes looked waaay too new. That was because all the actors had to provide their own wardrobe items, and I guess nobody thought to distress the fabric until after many of the scenes had been shot. A few of us had older, worn stuff.

All in all, I had terrific fun being involved with this project, and found out that Tony Twist is a great guy to be around. As to the finished product being as terrible as some people have claimed, I'll say this: I would rather sit through ten consecutive screenings of DEFIANCE than one showing of either BLAIR WITCH PROJECT or PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.

Final fun fact: I had a party where Tom Burnham was in attendance. When people found out he was co-producing a western movie, a woman guest in her 40s asked if there were any parts available. Tom replied, "No, we've already cast all the old whores, but some of the young whore parts are still open. Have your daughter give me a call." Fun times.

Numb3rs: Guns and Roses (2006) Season 2, Episode 20

Utterly ridiculous...

[3 October 2011]

This series, like most TV Crime shows, strains credulity at times. However, this episode is the worst I have ever seen.

An ATF agent is dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. FBI has what they believe may be a recording of the shot. So Charlie wants to recreate the scene and try to match the sound signature. How to do this? By having an agent lie on the bed and fire a blank at the ceiling! Then Charlie says the sound signatures don't match, and they start talking about were the drapes drawn, was something removed from the room, etc. How about the fact that a blank fired at the ceiling won't sound ANYTHING LIKE a live round fired with the muzzle of the gun pressed against a human head? DUH!

There are all sorts of other plot elements requiring complete suspension of disbelief. The only interesting thing about this episode from 2006 is that the ATF agents in it were involved in an operation that bears an eerie resemblance to the treasonous real-life Operation Fast & Furious of 2009-2009. Life imitates art...

Paranormal Activity (2007)

Made for $15,000? Where did the last $14,000 go?

[1/10 · 29 October 2009]

The people behind marketing this movie should be sued for fraud and put in prison.

Watching paint dry is equally scary and FAR LESS annoying.

The jerky hand-held camera-work induces migraines. The sound quality is terrible. The female lead was a whiny shrew and the male lead an idiot.

I never thought I'd see a "horror" movie more lame than "The Blair Witch Project." This guy has done it.

There are some movies that are so bad they're fun, often in the sci-fi genre. This is NOT one of those. This movie could put a meth addict to sleep.

Total ripoff.