JoeBobJones Reviews

For All Mankind (2019– )

Started strong, devolved hard and fast.

[3/10 · 9 May 2024]

Season 1 was really quite riveting. It was tight, it made sense, and was plausible. A few liberties taken with the science, but that's fine, it's a show. From there? It spins downhill fast and augurs in hard.

I'm on season 4 now, and "ridiculous" keeps coming to mind. Characters are deranged, making impulsive, irrational, unprofessional choices IN SPACE, where in reality, crew would be vetted and trained ten times over. I can't even go into the absurdities, because they're just too numerous. Tonnage everywhere, contraband and people being shipped with no accountability. A baby. It has become a bad soap opera, a nighttime teevee show, filled with scientific liberties only to serve the stupid dramas and extend the show inexorably to a 5th season.

Think of season 1 as the film Stalag 17. Now think of seasons 2, 3, and 4 as Hogan's Heroes. One is serious, the other slapstick. On I plow toward the conclusion of season 4, not caring at all.

Civil War (2024)

Shallow, predictable, background free. Wait for VHS.

[2/10 · 21 April 2024]

I'm not sure who these 9 and 10 star fanboys are, but Civil War was a chore to sit through, unsatisfying and predictably cliched in its climax. It was also brilliantly marketed, because like everyone else, I went in expecting a film about a civil war destroying the United States, with the characters and chaos therein. At the least a cautionary tale, given our current political climate and subset of Americans who quite literally want a civil war. Instead, we get a film about jaded photojournalists improbably jaunting hundreds of miles across the country in an SUV, largely unmolested and unimpeded but for one scene, in search of an interview with the POTUS. The film is free of story and character development, instead flitting from scene to scene in simple plot progressions. Civil War would have benefited GREATLY (all caps) from a backstory. How the US fell into a blown war would have helped. Who the players are. How Manhattan still seems to march anlong almost normally, except for a small BLM style riot police protests here and there, and maybe a spot of terror. How did Texas and California come to be curious bedfellows. How the goddam country held up enough in a civil war to still have things like functioning gas stations.

Some films work when viewers get tossed into the action with little to no explanation as to the how and why. Here, it's an enormous stretch to have us accept this purposefully ambiguous civil war, with wildly improbable allies and whitewashed motivations in a hamfisted attempt to appeal to and/or not offend both sides of our current national polarization. I do get it. Here, both lefties and righties may be apt to claim the "good" side in this conflict as viewers. In fact, only Jesse Plemons' brief but savage walk on part hints at any actual sociopolitical motivations and xenophobia driving this whole disaster movie. But even then, we have no idea who he is or why he participated in his particularly gruesome ways, or to what ends. He seems to exist to drop the line from the trailer, "American? What kind of American are you?" This line, this dark promise from the trailer doesn't materialize into any way in the story, because there is no story.

There are a few scenes of genuine shock, jump scares and of the horrors of war. Even then, we aren't invested in them enough to much care. When one jaded main character silently wails off soundtrack like Pacino in Godfather 3, it runs thin, it feels cheap. A scene like this needs a story. This whole movie needs a story.

Other than the almost gratuitous Plemons scene, Civil War is a predictable film that felt like it was cobbled together by frat bros after taking a class called "How to deceptively market a film and make millions of dollars." Civil War isn't about civil war. It's more a video game style quest film that drags you along for the ride.

Road House (2024)

Unspeakably bad

[1/10 · 4 April 2024]

Everything about this was ridiculously bad, and not in a good way. It was as if it was belched forth from the 80s, from the worst of the 80s clichés, 80s plots, 80s characters, 80s lack of consequences. Comically dumb bad guys, spoiled coke head rich kid, disapproving dad (in prison!), the My Bodyguard-esque hired Bruiser who seems insurmountable, corrupt sheriff, all for a development. There were few films of the original era that were even watchable. This did not improve upon the genre, it made it worse. Everyone and everything about this remake is miserable. I'm just filling space now to get to the loathed character minimum. Jake Gyllenhaal does look impressive after his training for the film. I guess that is something.

Sedona (2011)

An atrocious film with some nice Sedona landscape shots

[2/10 · 19 January 2024]

Oh my god, I just watched Sedona because I once knew someone in it with a bit part. Even dodged a romantic bullet with her - Chemtrails were her entry drug, a train wreck conspiracist who fell down the rabbit hole and is now lost. Long story.

But anyway! That's not this story. Sedona? The curiosity of a single cast member alone couldn't save this wan cliche of a story, plodded through by actors who probably thought Sedona was as obvious and dumb while filming it as I did while watching it. All in the space of about 4 hours, a hardened ad agency owner throws it all away because of a car, a coffee, a pedi, and a cast of quirky characters out of central casting, Sedona style. Oh, kid lost in the desert? Don't worry, a Native American will show up 60 seconds later and start tracking. Poor Christopher Atkins is just a lump, the great Barry Corbin fixes a car, and Lin Shaye dances around dredging up magic emotions in our protagonist, a bewildered Frances Fisher. Nobody gets used to any artistic potential. Then the whole thing is padded out to feature length by about 8 minutes of end credits, including an end credit scene a-la Kingpin, but with dancing.

Somebody set fire to a million + bucks to bring this reeking steamer to life, and that's a shame. What a waste, man. Starving artists could have used a tenth of the budget to make something brilliant. A twentieth! Instead, junk like this gets made. Boo.

The Flash (I) (2023)

The best of the DC standalone films after the reborn Justice League

[8/10 · 25 June 2023]

With Zack Snyder's Justice League on top, and The Batman (with Pattinson) as the darkly best of the many Batman films, Ezra Miller steals the league in the Flash. Ezra is endearing, sometimes obnoxious, always loving, and brings the funny and charming. He's just great. This film is excellent! I went to a matinee alone with absolutely no expectations, and I'm so glad I did. I loved it. The Flash is wildly entertaining in a perfectly balanced way. Action (despite a weird CGI baby or three), compelling family drama, comedic moments, and envelope pushing super hero science fiction that juuust keeps it both plausible - keeping in mind this is a guy who can "run" the speed of light - and exciting. And these fantastic physics bring into the story arc a cast of likable new familiars that aren't just gratuitous walk ons, but integral to the Flash. And to their own separate stories, which you WILL think about after seeing this movie. It finishes on a twist. Not a cliffhanger, but a twist that leaves future casting potentially fluid, which is something these actors are ok with eventually. You can't play Doctor Who forever now, can you?

The Flash sets a new bar to the DC world standalone films, in my opinion. Much more fun than Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and every Batman but the latest one. Now bring back the Justice League, and don't beat these solo films into the dirt.

You: The Fox and the Hound (2023) Season 4, Episode 5

You has jumped the shark..

[3/10 · 11 February 2023]

All the way to London.

Halfway into season 4 of You, and it's really nuked the fridge. You has always stretched the limits of getting away with 'private in public' believability and character motivations, but that made the show fun up until last season. Now? Now this London season 4 has lazily retrograded into a maudlin whodunnit with too many conveniences.

Oh, I will finish the second half to see if it gets better, but right now it's mostly like Emily in Paris if she was a psychopath in London. Early episodes are largely shot in beautiful South Kensington, which is lovely to look at, until we get marooned out in the hackneyed country estate and the show loses its grip. Still, it makes me pine for London again, which is nice. The show is a chore, though.

The Last of Us: Long, Long Time (2023) Season 1, Episode 3

Hauntingly beautiful story

[10/10 · 30 January 2023]

The most compelling episode of television I've ever seen. Long Long Time is unforgettable. This was a beautiful story of lives found and lives saved, and it feels like a respite in what is surely to be a terrible coming storm. Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett, perfect as Bill and Frank, help to spin a love story in the midst of wreck and ruin, and everything works. I feel like I've watched a film, I feel like I've read a short story, and had a wonderful peek into this touching realness in a nearly dead world, and I've never been so satisfied with an episode of TV. Ever. This deserves all the praise it so surely will get. I will think about this episode long after the series ends.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Ridiculous plot holes and cheap contrivances to milk the franchise. Hurrible.

[2/10 · 13 November 2022]

Wakanda Forever was an exercise in tedious torture. I'm sorry, but a 19 year old built the worlds *only* vibranium detector - with no vibranium to test it on? And no one thought to copy it? Oh wait, she also built her very own Iron Man suit, which she "spent my whole working life on", in a huge warehouse in Cambridge, where real estate don't come cheaply. "There's a whole YouTube page devoted just to my sightings!" So for months, or years, she's been flying around like Stark, but it was the vibranium detector that got attention? She did these things because she was told she couldn't. God.

Then we have bad plot device number 2: ancient Aztecs who are underwater dwelling super soldiers - about a dozen of whom swimming thousands of miles on whales take down Wakanda - because centuries ago a peyote tripping mystic swam 120 meters underwater to find the magic vibranium herb, and swim back to the surface. Or whatever. And for 600 years they live undetected like Sponge Bob until the Marvel franchise came calling as an excuse to revive the magic powers of the glowing Black Panther cocktail. "How do you know if it will work?" "If it glows". Bing! It glows.

This whole movie stank, shamelessly dragging along the memory of Chadwick Boseman in a maudlin, lazy money grab, setting up more sequels with his hidden son. It lessens the entire Marvel universe, and replaces Thor: The Dark World as the worst of the MCU movie, which was at least fun. Skip it.

Bullet Train (2022)

A mess, sometimes real, sometimes comic book fantasy, and it never works.

[2/10 · 10 August 2022]

Bullet Train is perfect for fans of Everything Everywhere All at Once who can handle stylized violence. Either you'll love it, or hate it, and I hated EEAAO. It's a complete mess, at times rooted in the real world, with actions and consequences, cause and effect, and at other times purely fantastic. The bridge between the two worlds fails. What happened to the passengers, the conductors, the engineers, and the bloodied bodies? They're there when convenient, and not when they get in the way, a lazy tactic in an otherwise heavily stylized but vacuous film.

Station Eleven (2021–2022)

Post-apocalyptic theater. In that unlikely aspect, Station Eleven is very good.

[8/10 · 18 March 2022]

I loved Station Eleven in all its curiousness and end of the world tragic joys. Just finished it.

Yes, 7.5 billion people die. Yes, 20 years later, a troupe of survivors are improbably carting themselves around Lake Michigan in annual loops, perched on dead Dodge Durangos drawn by horses and spouting Shakespeare. It kind of works in all it ridiculous pretentiousness. It works, in part, because at heart I just can't stand Shakespeare, which makes all this fuss, this theater of the absurd even better. I know I know, you're supposed to love Shakespeare, but face it, it's usually a slog. But sometimes Romeo and Juliet gives us West Side Story, or Henry IV gives us Keanu Reeves hamfistedly spewing lines in beautiful old Portland. And in that, I really do appreciate the bards longevity. So, here we have the Traveling Symphony, for years roaming the wilds of Michigindiana, arguing over parts and performances and stage direction, arguing over minutiae. Really, they're perpetually moving away from The Before ... before the plague that wiped out humanity, leaving that world behind through their crazed theater.

In reality, they'd be farming and hunting, or killing each other, or both, scraping by after the spoils of civilization ran dry. In reality, a trio living for months on the 42nd floor of Oprah's lakeshore apartment building in the dead of winter with no power or water would make for some grrrross living. In reality, packs of people cut off from the world and living for years with no visible means of sustenance, looking pretty good for wear might be a big stretch.

But this isn't reality. This is theater, a slow, non-linear, 8 hour post-apocalyptic movie. And in that tale, I was totally absorbed by this show. I cared a lot for these characters, which is huge, and there is a new favorite actor on my radar screen - Danielle Deadwyler. She is extraordinary.

This isn't The Road Warrior, or The Road, but it takes a few survivors at end of the world for a strange little Shakespearean spin, and I loved it.

Midnight Mass (2021)

Exceptionally thoughtful study of religion, the human ego

[10/10 · 3 March 2022]

And our lust for permanence. So we invent god and salvation, a tool for this everlasting ego of ours, an accident of our absorbed self awareness in the otherwise random evolution in the cosmos.

Midnight Mass is gorgeously acted horror, a fresh take on our hunger for everlasting life, for salvation, for glory with god and the wildly egotistical notion that we are special, made in gods image, and we will live on with him in eternity. Reality, it seems, reminds us that the universe is often unexpected, always surprising and rarely fair. Despite our hallelujahs and songs and shouts on high, Midnight Mass irresistibly reminds us that we are just dust, borne of fire and atoms and ash, and to dust we return. Great, cerebral horror. I loved it. 10.

West Side Story (2021)

Better than the original, and the best picture of the year.

[10/10 · 11 January 2022]

I have loved the original since I first saw it at age 10, and for all the decades since. However, Spielberg nails West Side Story, the whole thing: the casting, the look and feel, and it better holds to the stage play. This is a gorgeous film in every way, I was riveted and brought to tears (both times). The cast is fabulous, and more than makes up for the weaknesses of both screen presence and chemistry of the original.

This is just beautiful.

The Rookie: Threshold (2021) Season 3, Episode 14

Excellent season finale

[9/10 · 17 May 2021]

Might just be the single best episode of The Rookie yet, from the undercover prep speech, to the tune in next season cliffhanger. Well done.

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations: Pacific NW (2007) Season 3, Episode 3

Excellent PNW episode

[10/10 · 6 May 2021]

Helped put Apizza Scholls on the national map. This episode is totally engaging, too.

Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)

Snyder's Justice League rescues the entire DC franchise

[8/10 · 3 April 2021]

I loved this movie, and compared to the Whedon version, it's like it's from another planet. Face it, not many people cared about the DC universe prior to this, and the franchise was withering. Wonder Woman 1984 was a bomb, the world is fairly indifferent to the recent Superman films (or they dislike them), Aquaman was preposterously bad, and we have a new Batman in the works with Robert Pattinson. I do think Pattinson will make an excellent and dark Batman, by the way, he's a fabulous actor, but honestly the entire DC franchise was dying, and it has become a Marvel world.

Snyder's Justice League has rebooted the entire franchise. It was a pleasure to watch all 4 hours uninterrupted, and it left me looking forward to more Justice League films. It's that simple. And I'm not even a comic book guy. Loved it.

Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss (1988 TV Movie)

Good fun, charming enough, and a fair follow up to A Christmas Story.

[4/10 · 23 December 2020]

There are more Jean Shepherd films than some folks know about, starting with a truly great pair of movies, The Phantom of the Open Hearth (1978), and The Great American 4th of July and Other Disasters (1982). These two are absolutely wonderful, low budget PBS American Playhouse prequels to A Christmas Story (1983), the classic movie that put Shepherd on the maps of millions. Squeezed in there after Xmas Story is The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski (1985), also charming and set in Ralphie's senior year, then finally this one: Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss in 1988. I won't even mention It Runs in the Family, that unfortunate entry from 1994, except to say it's better than this one.

This one barely holds up, and although it doesn't have the charms of the previous four Shepherd films, it is still sorta worth watching because it's all we have.

I'm really not sure why this particular installment was stretched out to 90 minutes, because it drags on, and it's clear it was just filling cinematic time. Maybe Disney had a slot to fill and they dragged this one out in the editing room. Ollie Hopnoodle would have benefitted from the 50 minute runtime format of Great American 4th of July, and the Phantom of the Open Hearth. This film is a bore and a chore. I get it, we want to love it because it's Jean Shepherd, and the library is all it will ever be, but honestly it's spread thin.

So, the whole movie is cobbled together, which isn't unusual for a Shep film story. But this one is drawn out too long. It's not all bad, but it lacks the genuine charms of the fantastic four Shep films that precede it. If nothing else, it's a nostalgic piece of storytelling where we get to sit back and bask in the glorious voice of Jean Shepherd's timelessly spun narratives, and we will never get another one. That much is a good thing.

The Monster (I) (2015)

So much fun.

[10/10 · 16 December 2020]

I want more Monster. This is why small indie films can be so satisfying. I absolutely wanted to tune in next week. Alas... no more Monster for me, this deliciously dark morsel is all we get. Enjoy it.

3 Days with Dad (2019)

3 Days with Dad just surprised the hell out of me.

[10/10 · 27 September 2020]

I watched this on Prime last night, and I'm damn glad I did. This film was a pleasure to watch. Ignore the 1 star review, that impatient kid needs to go wait in the car, and clearly hasn't experienced a death in the family like this one. That's what was so surprising: 3 Days with Dad is beautifully relatable if you've been there. If you haven't, it's still a fabulous ensemble piece with a spectacular cast that deftly delivers a beautifully emotional haymaker I wasn't at all prepared for. It's not exactly a comedy, but it's darkly comedic and laugh out loud funny at times. Man alive, do you need that when you're facing a dying parent and the chaos of emotions, decisions and personalities that can surround it. You need distraction. With my brothers and I it was booze, and we drank a lot of it to remain distracted when ours was dying in front of us. Dying can stink, it can be sad, dirty, wayyy too practical, and it can take a long time while these emotional bundles fly at you that you never even thought about. In short, it can be crazy, and the film touches this madness with a cast of pros who are wisely given the space to hand it over.

Director Larry Clarke has made this a largely autobiographical film that works, and has serious production value on what I suspect was a shoestring. It's remarkable in that, it has excellent music and is a very good looking movie. Clarke plays Eddie Mills, an admittedly underachieving doorman whose dad Bob is dying, strikingly played pretty raw by the great Brian Dennehy in his final role. Eddie returns back home to the noise and side eye of siblings and friends, all sprinkled on top with step mom Dawn, wonderfully played by Lesley Ann Warren as the wife of 35 years who can't do anything about the fact that her husband is dying, and I think control is her usual refuge. The siblings love and bicker. The house is loud. Jokes are made, fights are fought, and it's a near constant maelstrom of adult children sometimes verbally slugging it out. One dynamic that especially hit home is with the conservative/religious older brother Andy (Tom Arnold). I got me one of those, too. "You don't pray to anyone, you just talk to yourself. You're not deserving of redemption", or thereabouts, but very familiar. It's not like Eddie and Andy don't love each other, they do, but family can be mean sometimes, and the death of a parent brings out tensions and words that sat dormant. Andy also gives a piece of advice early on that resonated with me, because I did the exact opposite: "You don't wing it with a eulogy." I winged it, and it showed, but it was good. Eddie wings it too, and even physically gets his dad involved in the funeral, and it's also good. It's participatory. All of these little touches make for a movie that is so relatable it's like walking back into the house you grew up in.

The rest of the cast is superb, a lineup of serious pros that you absolutely can't deny, you just have to watch these people deliver this film. JK Simmons, Mo Gaffney, Eric Edelstein and David Koechner (along with Clarke, they're the brother Detectives Fusco! Twin Peaks fans rejoice), Amy Landecker, Julie Ann Emery, Uncle Rico Jon Gries, and Chris Bauer delivers a priestly smack upside the head both to Eddie and to the pacing of the film, bracing everyone to get their heads together.

All this ensemble and madness leads to the real emotional impact of the movie, to that smack to the face. It's not a spoiler to say that Brian Dennehy's Dad dies in the movie, I mean it begins with his funeral, but when the inevitable comes it still hurts. 3 Days with Dad is like one long listen to the Beatles "A Day in the Life". Remember how that song builds and builds to finally hit that note? It's a cacophony of family, friends, noise, griping, sniping, snark, love, and a last minute gotta-walk-the-dog in understandably nonsensical desperation that builds and builds to a symphonic crescendo... then WHAM. That extended final note. It's by far the most painfully beautiful part of this otherwise quick and funny film, and I surprised the hell out of myself by balling. I balled a lot. Like that famous 42 second musical note, this is what all those seemingly sitcom-like moments and noise are taking us to, and it dawned on me how quite masterfully I was carried along to this singular point in the lives of each one of those characters.

I really loved this movie. You should give it a watch.

At the Video Store (2019)

A must see for any child of the video store like me.

[10/10 · 12 March 2020]

Some films are even better the second time, and it's true with At the Video Store. My first-timer friend remarked about the wild pace of the editing, the music, the openness of the interviews, with a special nod to Final Cut 7 (a favorite of his), the people and places he knew, studded with references to the lives of millions of us. It was fun to watch it with him and get his open take.

The sadness I felt during the showing at the end of so many video stores and passions, many featured in the film, was more than simple slackjawed gee-whiz nostalgia, that's what hamburgers and hot dogs are for. At the Video Store captures a critical cultural component belonging only to a few American generations, a phenomenon that gave us access to the whole world of films at ages of growth and development when this kind of access mattered the most. So many of the stores and their resident expertise are now gone to the point of pilgrimage, and the rarity of the treasured remaining video stores is made even more beautifully evident here. This film by James Westby is important, and it's damn good.

Total Recall (I) (2012)

Quaid two point oh...

[5/10 · 3 January 2013]

"You're alone, you can't get away.... is it us?" This is actually a well done remake of a not so good film. This version has excellent futuristic biscuits, pseudo Blade Runner claustrophobia, and an excellently played pair in Colin Farrell and Kate Beckinsale. Their faux-marriage works tidily, although if you didn't know the story from Dick, you might find that her reversal is hasty and without wicked conviction. So the story is already knows: Quaid is, or is he not, a highly trained killer agent who has had his memory wiped, only to be sparked by a computer implanted vacation firm called Rekall. How he would be let near such a potentially subversive catalyst is beyond the story, and yes, he goes in for a memory vacation, just like Arnold did. The remainder of the story follows the same path, but better, and Beckinsale is truly an ass kicker. Still, Quaid follows the storybook path laid out in 1990, although with finer CGI effects and decidedly better action sequences. Yet, one waits for Quaid to awake from what we are led to believe is the Rekall spy fantasy, and you know what? He never does. It plays expectantly into the twist of the story, which is that perhaps he has never left his mind trip headset. Is the iconic end, the common factory worker Quaid winds up lost in a purchased fantasy forever, a good end? Well, that is the whole damn story, but it is an exciting journey to get to the matrix for what it is worth. Enjoy.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Score! Thief! Music! Baggins!

[8/10 · 15 December 2012]

I am a fan boy. The LOTR films are my favorite film collections of all time, including The Godfather. That said, while watching The Hobbit today on opening day, I realized how drastically important the score is to these films. Chiming back to the LOTR, the score truly drew the viewer into the heart of the film. It was the third leg of the joy and success of it, the other two being cinematography and script/acting. Now I am not complaining that this is not a copy of the Fellowship of the Ring, nor was that was I was hoping to see. The Hobbit, on the other hand, is a rather cold rendition, a rote calling in of story and plot, brutally hindered by a musical score which serves to do nothing but act as background. Howard Shore may have been under orders, or a defiant desire to create a brand new piece with little relation to LOTR musically. This musical departure was like a knife in the dark, or a shot from left field. Imagine seeing Jaws without the essential soundtrack, or Close Encounters, or Star Wars for that matter. Granted, it is a sadly focused complaint to only bitch about the score, but I'M SERIOUS, it derailed the love for The Hobbit. There were normal Jackson-esque liberties with the story, such as a completely different circumstance of Bilbo actually finding the ring (I assumed this might support Gandalf's suspicions of finding the ring in the next two films, but Jackson did lay it out in the Fellowship backstory quite clearly...) The Dwarfs are excellent, beautifully cast, and less slapstick than the book lends to. In fact, The Hobbit is much darker than the book, although there are moments of absurdity and even stooge camp. It's fun, but it is largely dialed in, dark, and seems like the first leg in an action trio instead of the first film you want to grow to love the characters and story with. Perhaps the director change from Del Toro to Jackson actually resulted into a dialed in film. There isn't much heart, but there are great action scenes. The best big bad guy of the past 20 years, the Great Goblin (Barry Humphries), is my new favorite. His quivering jowl is impossible to look away from, except his eye and expression steal the movie. We are left at a convenient spot for film 2. Jackson is going to have to work some major magic wonder in the second film to make up for the rather mundane first. The next two films, in total package, need to be better. Sorry, Pete.

Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream (2012)

Excellent. Infuriating. Frightening

[8/10 · 12 November 2012]

Short and sweet, Park Avenue is an excellent documentary about the class warfare in existence in the US. It succinctly blends figures with interviews into a fabric of one hour of eye popping financial realities for the uninitiated. The vast sums of money at work from a tiny fraction of our nation, but imbued with enormous wealth, control the strings of democracy. This one hour piece puts it together into one very powerful, useful, and important message, culminating with the fruits of market deregulation which nearly brought down the entire nation: the Great Recession and crash of 2008. Watch it. I would challenge the conservative to view this objectively and come away with the same laissez faire attitudes toward our nation.

Method (2004)

Pretentious methodical mess.

[2/10 · 21 April 2012]

Jeremy Sisto and Elizabeth Hurley very earnestly work hard to make this shockingly bad film decent, but they simply can't. It is a maudlin mess of poorly written and directed dreck from Duncan Roy. Plot summary already attached to this film's IMDb posting, I will dispense with much of the redundant plot summary, but when Hurley barks out of the shack door to drifter Sisto's character "Hey, can you mend a fey-ance?" (it is turn of the century Indiana after all, so expect heavy accents), I knew this thing was heading down state in a durn hurry. Perhaps five minutes later, gentleman callers are arranged by mail to come see the impossibly beautiful Hurley to arrange marriage. With heavy brows does our fence fixer Sisto disapprove of Hurley's mail order suitors, referred to as her brother. Do we even need to delve into the budding melodrama of this period piece? Wait! O dreaded gimmicks, worse than a triptych, first person narrative, or chapter supertitles, we are fed a steaming dish of a film within a film. My word, I don't think this kind of thing has ever been done before! Oh wait, well, you know. The only interesting things about Method are Hurley's beauty, Sisto's effort, and the infamous off screen battles between the insane director Duncan Roy and Liz Hurley. The final product, though, stinks to high heaven.

The Benny Hill Show (1969–1989)

The man was a comedy machine, prolific and perfectly flawed

[1 April 2012]

Growing up in the 70's and early 80's, Benny Hill delivered nearly as much joy as the other (rightfully) more famous British comedy show Monty Python, but to compare the two is terribly unfair. Hill was a tour de force of one: a relentless vaudevillian master of slapstick in an age when the genre had already fallen by the wayside. His skill owes to ensemble hasty vaudeville comedic theater of the depression era onward, to the Three Stooges, to Victor Borge, perhaps especially to Borge. Hill blesses his audience with seemingly off the cuff witty musical comedies, almost like it is an early comedic rap. Political satire runs rampant through his shows, at times flying from his wry mouth so quickly that I suspect even normally randy BBC censors missed half of it. And women? Well, he eternally treated young women as objects to be both desired and ridiculed, just like bald old men. Is it politically correct? Blessedly not, nor would a show like his fly through the gauntlet of pursed lipped disapproval which kills shows today. Even Married With Children would fly like a lead zeppelin in the 21st century. A little ass and tit grabbing, followed by a slap of outrage, often times on an innocent balding old man, is what audiences today could use. Benny Hill delivers a variety style of show which will likely never again see production. It is crass, it is boob-centric, it is often worse than cheesy, all of which makes it a television gem. I love this show, and I love Benny Hill, no matter how hated he may have been...

Star Trek Phase II (2004–2016)

Delightfully made with tongue in cheek talent

[7/10 · 20 March 2012]

Very short review, more of a simple yawp of praise. These kinds of fan based productions are amateur jewels made on the passion and dedication of everyone involved, even coughing up their own cash. Trek Phase 2 is filled with gloriously, and I think purposefully, skewed acting and dialogue, sprinkled with surprisingly good special effects. In fact, they are far better than the original, and dialed back for our retro enjoyment. The cast rotates in both an effort to find both cohesion, but also a dedicated group donating their time and talents. It varies, and also improves. The best part of this series is quite simply that these people are creating a labor of love. It reminds me of The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum, another fan based production which was a pure joy. Negative critics and poo-pooers of Star Trek Phase 2 should just shut their yaps, because I have no doubt that all of them, universally, are not contributing toward anything even approaching to this level, for free no less, to the ungrateful and testy internet world. Dog bless EVERYONE involved with this production, because it is simply wonderful. Thank you.