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Uncle Buck (1989)
At Times Funny Before Turning Preachy and Mean
Candy and Richard Pryor were both great comedians in the 70s and 80s who only rarely were in films as funny as they were. Candy only starred in two good films, Planes Trains and Automobiles, and his greatest one, Only the Lonely, where he showed himself to be a good actor as well as comedian.
This is easily Candy's worst film. His whole appeal is his immense likeability. But here he's a mean SOB half the time, hostile and threatening. He bullies a woman for her appearance and at one point kidnaps and assaults a teenage boy, repeatedly threatening to murder him. Gee, how "lovable" is Uncle Buck, huh?
And Candy is trapped with a co star who plays the worst silver spoon fed stuck up brat you ever saw. No one feels any sympathy for this snob when she and her classmates look down at Candy for having (the horror!) an old car.
It's a John Hughes film, so you know what you're getting: Well off sheltered suburban whites who regard anyone who is not wealthy, suburban, or white as alien or threatening or to be mocked. These suburbanites have so much money they live in McMansions the size of some apartment buildings, with several acre lawns.
This film is strictly white people only, unlike 16 Candles or Weird Science where Asians and Blacks are there just to be laughed at. The twist is that Buck is the outsider for not having money.
You might feel more sympathy for Buck if he didn't become a bully halfway through. There are absolutely ZERO laughs for the last half of the film. Instead it's the pettiest kind of revenge, played for laughs. The niece's boyfriend cheats on her, and she and Buck bond over throwing him in the trunk, threatening to murder him repeatedly by using a drill or running him over, and hitting golf balls at him.
Yes, this is supposed to be "wholesome family fun." Kidnapping, threatening murder repeatedly, and assaulting a minor, all by an adult three times his size and age. About as wholesome as a Dirty Harry film.
Definitely an ugly thing to teach kids. "Violence against your ex boyfriend is A-OK. Get your uncle to do it for you! It will be fun!"
SCTV Network 90 (1981)
Great Music and Comedy
Unlike Fridays, which had great music but mostly forgettable if not downright awful comedy, SCTV had some of the best music guests on top of brilliant satire:
The Plasmatics, Jimmy Buffett, Levon Helm, the Tubes, Talking Heads, Hall & Oates, The Plastics...how rare was it for the Plastics to be on American TV? Where else could you see The Boomtown Rats, including in a comedy skit?
Where else could you see Jackie Kennedy (seriously?) doin comedy? Carol Burnett as a guest star? Spoofs of Evita and Dirty Harry? Dr. Tongue's House of Stewardesses in 3D?
And future comedy giants, Eugene Levy, John Candy, Rick Moranis. Unlike both Fridays and SNL, SCTV was consistently funny.
River's Edge (1986)
The "True Story" That Wasn't
Much was made of this film being based on a true case, supposedly a textbook example of the apathy and brutality of kids in the 80s.
Turns out a reporter completely made that up. IRL the killer got into a fight with his girlfriend, killed her, panicked and asked his friends what to do. They didn't "refuse to report him." They weren't indifferent or blase. They were kids who were just as dumbfounded as him.
OK, so throw out the "true story" claims. They were bunk. How good is the story without them?
Just OK. There were plenty of other portraits of 80s kids that were better. Over the Edge is the best by far, followed by Suburbia. Tuff Turf is easily the worst, the most ridiculous and fake MTV version of teens of the 80s.
The acting is hit and miss. The story drags at times. Dennis Hopper is the high point of the film.
Fridays (1980)
Great Music, Third Rate Comedy
Where else could you see the Plasmatics, the Clash, Devo, Jim Carroll, and the Pretenders? Some of the best music on network TV at the time after Don Kirschner.
But as comedy it deserved its rep as a cheap knock off of SNL. The low point was Ganja Man, a guy whose idea of a joke was to yell "Yah yah yah!" and light a joint. Really, any drug reference was always a cheap way to get the juvenile studio audience to yell "Woo hoo!"
There were a few bright spots, Michael Richards in his early years and a staged fight by Andy Kaufman. Mostly it was the desperately bored teen nerds who had nowhere to go on the weekends who were its audience.
Parker (2013)
Lopez Ruins the Film
Starts off as a fairly good, if generic, crime story with revenge, action where you don't think much about how unbelievable it is.
Lopez brings it to a halt. The middle hour of the film is dull, dull, dull. She can't act, never could. She's only been in two good films, Selena and Hustlers. She's a dancer who lucked into having a very good agent with a hype machine.
Add to that Statham has the worst attempt at a Texas accent anyone ever heard. And whose idea was it to have Patti Lupone play a Latina? They couldn't find a Latina actress in Los Angeles? Really? In 2013?
At the 20 minute mark, fast forward to the last 20 minutes. Youll thank me.
Halls of Montezuma (1951)
The Antiwar War Film Your Grandpa Loved
Even playing the Marine Corps Anthem at top volume can't hide that this is an antiwar film, and a good one. The occasional soundtrack is the only thing gung ho about it.
Much of the film is on the pain of combat, the stress, fear, and horror on top of the high death toll. There are strong early performances from Widmark, Malden, Webb, Wagner, Palance, and others.
One surprising part of the film is the blunt admission of atrocities against the Japanese. An officer says early on they don't take Japanese prisoner, they execute them. And the film is filled with depictions of savage white American racism against the Japanese, one racist epithet after another, and does not glorify it.
Reginald the Vampire (2022)
Good Premise, Bad Writing
The idea and series had so much potential. So did the actor. But it was all let down by very lackluster writing.
Traditionally, vampires were homeless stumbling filthy creatures who hid in the shadows. But Bela Lugosi was such a great commanding actor we all think of vampires as wearing tuxedos and capes.
Instead of more realistic portrayals, Hollywood has gotten more fantasy filled. Vampires got more impossibly suave and cool, with powers like a superhero, and die in explosions or gushers of blood.
So going the opposite way was long overdue. This show is claiming to be a comedy. But I didn't laugh even once.
There's not much action. Instead we get a slow and not very good drama about a guy picked on for his weight.
The Day of the Trumpet (1958)
Dull and Deliberately Misleading
I give this film points only for featuring Igorot people, something very rare. Otherwise it's very slow and boring, and often false and offensive.
As an action or war movie it fails. There's about 3 minute of action total, including one ridiculous fistfight where the American officer outweighs a Filipino leader by 50 lbs and still barely wins.
The war depicted was one of the most brutal, but almost unknown in America. Up to a million dead, massacres, forced relocation, starvation, epidemics, and several notorious generals who issued orders to "kill everyone over 10 years old."
And this film whiteswashes it, makes the troops into nice guys who build a well and a school. The patriots who fought for independence for over 30 years are shown as primitive savages (with feather headdresses!) or deluded. And the average Filipino just loves loves loves Americans, the exact opposite of real history.
Clueless (1996)
Stacey Dash Actually Used to Have a Career
Once upon a time, she was actually funny too. In both the film and the first year of this series. She wouldn't turn into a professional token for right wingers for years, and then that sad little turn of events fell apart too.
Donald Faison was years away from a near decade as Turk on Scrubs. The two of them as foils are the main reason to see this series.
For the first year only. As most other reviews note, the series went into the toilet its final two years on another network, one that was clueless (yes you knew it was coming) about where the source of the humor was on the set.
Nowadays, the laughs surrounding Dash are at her, not with her.
How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980)
Surprisingly Dull
Curtin, Lange, St James, Coleman, Benjamin, a lot of star power in this, all of them in the prime of their careers. Why did this film give them such a poor script with so little to do?
Given the talented actresses, all of them gifted comedians, why is this film so unfunny? Why does every joke fall flat? Why are the jokes actually so few and far between?
And why is it so slow? Why. For a film about women, does it resort to sexist jokes about women, with stereotyped reasons for problems with the heist?
It fails as a comedy. As a heist film, it's a little bit better. You'd be better served fast forwarding past most of the first hour and just watching the heist. That, and the strip tease by Curtin or her double, are the only things worthwhile in the film.
Women Who Rock (2022)
So Much Left Out, So Much Undeserving Left In
I still give this a 6 because it does have so much. But who made these choices? How could they leave out some of the most influential women in music ever?
No mention of Buffy St Marie or Joan Baez. None of Queen Latifah or a huge figure like Lauryn Hill. No Wendy O Williams or Lita Ford or even Amy Lee of Evanescence.
Sometimes the series softens what actually happened. There's no mention of Ann Wilson and Debbie Iyall and the garbage they went through from record companies for their weight.
There's huge issues with gender in metal and rap and country, but you don't hear a thing about them in this series. Instead you get the ridiculous claim of Sinnead Oconnor as an "activist" when no one even knew what she was supposedly protesting for years and she came across as paranoid with mental health issues.
The legendary Aretha Franklin is barely mentioned. But Shania Twain gets a ridiculous 8 minutes to bloviate and put her ego on display. And there's no mention of her being long derided as pure fluff, as Steven Earle put it, just a "high paid lap dancer."
She has never done anything remotely close to rock. If you include country, why are the far more influential and talented Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Parton left out? And they were actual feminists who sang about and were activists for women's rights, not the faux feminism of Twain or Beyonce or Madonna or Whitney of monster egos but not doing a damn thing for anyone else.
The River Murders (2011)
Interesting Premise Ruined by the Worst Ending
Every review is saying this film is the worst one ever. And part of it is. The ending.
But at the start it shows some promise. The premise of one man's exes being murdered one by one, with the man unclear as to how or why, could be a good film.
The answer, that it's the man's long lost son killing them, also could be a good twist. Add to that intriguing clues, a good performance by Christian Slater, and an OK one by Liotta.
But at the end point the film becomes a bizarre cringing stomach churning bit of weirdness. An anti abortion fanatic who carries around fetuses that he's convinced are long lost siblings.
That' s a twist to alienate people on both sides, both anti people who object to being shown as murderers, and pro who object to gruesome attempts to depict a fetus as a baby.
The failure of this film belongs squarely on the shoulders of the writer.
Extreme Cheapskates (2011)
Snobs Shaming Ordinary Thrift
I think I speak for most viewers when I write that I didn't find most of this extreme and I learned valuable tips.
What's "extreme" on this show? Passing down clothes, even if you have a big family. Taking secondhand furniture that people leave on the curb, a common practice in every city and town. Turning waste into compost for your garden. Shopping at thrift stores. Haggling for a bargain. Just how sheltered, even spoiled, are you if you've never done any of these?
The show is obviously staged, with non actors being told to turn up their noses. And there's an appeal to the easily squeamish with phobias about the human body or germs. You know, the type that are horrified about shaking hands with a stranger.
Here they're told perfectly fine food hunted or gathered from the wild, or leftover from restaurants and groceries, what country people and homeless shelters routinely serve and eat, is yucky/icky/gross, the way a very picky finicky little kid or a germophobe would find it. It's not most people, but here they pretend it is.
It's too bad the producers are so intent on making empty materialism and conformity seem "normal." Not all of us fall for that.
Vietnam: 50 Years Remembered (2015)
Bland, Posing as Noncommittal, Sometimes False
This is kind of an old fashioned documentary. Trying to be non controversial, yet cheerleading in a stodgy way for the soldiers.
And yet that doesn't stop them from sometimes being deliberately false. The Gulf of Tonkin is falsely shown as a straight forward battle. No mention at all of how much of it was simply made up to justify the war and get the Resolution passed. Protests are often vaguely mentioned. Nothing at all about how mainstream they were, over 7 million, conservatives and religious groups protesting the war too.
Again and again, Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon press conferences are shown at length. No analysis. Much of this is military history, recitations of battles, body counts. No mention of how often those counts were inflated.
Other falsehoods- Troops were mistreated when they came home. That's been debunked endlessly. The Spitting Image shows how most vets reported being treated well, and many of them took part in antiwar protests. The claims of spitting were made up 20 years later, started by Rambo films.
If you want some accounts of soldiers wo were there, go ahead and watch. Skip past the rest. Otherwise it's not very good.
Red Election (2021)
So Much Conspiracy Mongering
Let's see. According to this:
Scottish independence is a commie plot.
Russia is still run by commies oer 30 years after the USSR fell.
Them commies are behind all kinds of terrorism, from Muslim to neo fascist to British nationalists.
It's the British equivalent to Trump cultists, Alex Jones followers, and Glen Beck's nonsense, all tied up in a bad attempt to be a spy thriller. The only things left out are UFOs, COVID, and JFK's death.
Really, there's so many ways to write a spy thriller without insisting that, "Deep down, all the internet nuts really are telling the truth, trust me."
Sad that this kind of looniness is epidemic in Britain too.
The Mambo Kings (1992)
Get the Soundtrack, Skip Past Most of the Film
The only parts worth seeing are what everyone wanted to see anyway, the musical numbers. As a story, it goes from mediocre to awful in parts.
Start with so many non Cubans playing Cubans. A Frenchman, a Spaniard, a Dutch woman, a Black American. But ironically, perhaps the worst accent comes from Desi Arnaz Jr who makes his father sound like a quacking duck.
Not surprisingly, the strongest performance comes all too briefly from the great Celia Cruz. Would that there were a film and story line worthy of her here. Instead we get a predictable coming to America story we've seen many times before, haphazard and unfocused. You just keep wishing the story would hurry up for the next song.
Bengal Brigade (1954)
Imperial Nostalgia
So many whites in brownface. The film seems to live in its own little bubble, partly filmed in India but without a single Indian in the cast.
And the sense of unreality doesn't stop there. Two Americans play British without even trying for a British accent. Every single English playing Indian doesn't bother trying for Indian accents, and half the "Indians" they don't even bother putting makeup on.
But they sure pile on the brown makeup on Ursula Theiss, almost as heavy as her dayglo red lipstick. They also pile on the makeup on the sole nonwhite, Syrian actor Michael Ansara, when he would be far more believable without it.
The result is this film is far from "rousing." You find yourself amused rather than offended, even while it shows all Indians as ignorant, evil, violent, superstitious, and treacherous. The one exception of course is Theiss, who plays a South Asian version of Pocahontas who just loves all them white guys.
Again, it's too goofy to be offensive. You'll be amused at Rock Hudson beating up half a dozen Indians with soggy leaves. You'll laugh at the obvious stunt doubles. And let's not forget the conveniently bad shooting of Indians unless they are loyal to the British.
IRL the "Sepoy Mutiny" was the First War for Indian Independence. It was spontaneous and by average Indian soldiers. Here it's an oh so evil plot by a scheming rajah who fools the gullible Indian soldiers who deep down really really love their white officers. As propaganda this is so clumsy.
Arlington Road (1999)
Rightwing Terrorists Are Never That Bright
As a thriller, it's entertaining in spite of huge plot holes. It would be far better if the bad guys had been obsessed for personal or psychological reasons. But then this film couldn't pander to right wing conspiracy beliefs.
IRL right wing terrorists are pretty stupid and obvious. The OKC bomber rented a truck under his own name. Ruby Ridge terrorists got their own kids killed in a standoff with feds. Jan 6 coup plotters were dumb enough to livestream their attacking cops.
But no, in this one (and I'm not spoiling anything), there is a needlessly elaborate plot that takes months and requires every single detail go exactly right.
Not believable at all, unless you already are a conspiracy nut. But entertaining if you turn your brain off.
Wicker Park (2004)
Good Lord This Was Dull
I've never seen so little happen in a major film.
Looooooong stretches of minutia, tedious, pedantic, like being forced into watching a friend stalk a girl that you have no clue why he cares about because you find her and her life so utterly boring.
The fans of this film are like that friend. You ask them why they like this film and they really can't tell you why.
"I don't know...just something about her/the film...gets to me."
For myself I was struggling to keep interested already at the ten minute mark. I kept it on in the background for half an hour and gave up.
It's so dull, and so little happened in that half hour, that I can't tell you what it's about.
Except it's super dull.
The Big Scary 'S' Word (2020)
A Good Guide to American Socialism Then and Now
Martin Luther King, Einstein, the Pledge of Allegiance, America the Beautiful, much of the New Deal, much of the labor movement and civil rights movement, all of these are socialist.
What is not? Communism. Dictatorship of any kind. Even the failures of Venezuela are half market failures, half from American blockades and sabotage. Anything smeared by MAGA types, the orange idiot, and McCarthyism then or now.
The one utterly ridiculous negative "review" shows why this film is needed. A long red baiting rant free of facts, only showing he never saw the film at all.
As a history primer this works well, with a number of famous historians included such as Cornel West and Erik Foner.
Tethered (2022)
Not For Michael Bay Fans
One of the better horror, suspense, and mystery films of recent years, and it does so on a small budget with only a small cast. Some of the denser people who insist on lots of gore and explosions downvoted this because of short attention spans and wanting only flash and trash. But it really does deserve to be rated around 8, as it was by critics and the audiences that first saw it. There is an incredible sense of tension, fear, and mystery for nearly the whole film.
Spoilers: Really? Some people actually had a hard time figuring out the ending? Do they want big flashing letters or sometime telling it to them? This was so obvious.
The boy's mother changed into the monster he'd heard in the distance. At the end he discovers her living nearby, chaining herself so she wouldn't kill anyone. He comes close, angered she lied to him and left him, kills her, and is changed to a monster himself.
I Want to Live! (1958)
Is the Story True? Mostly
This is a beloved classic drama, with a well deserved award winning performance by Hayward.
The opening claims the story to be entirely true. The negative reviews claim it to be all false. The summary claims '''mostly fictionalized." Which is it?
The bad reviews insist the film lied to hide that Graham was guilty. That's simply false. The film mostly left out her early life to make the story simpler.
In real life, Graham had several husbands, divorces, and children that she lost custody of. While the film only implies she was a prostitute, she clearly was. She was also an addict and the film leaves that out. And she was heaviy abused growing up, in and out of foster homes.
All of this to focus on her life right at the time of the murder until her execution. The execution is shown with unflinching accuracy. Even the strongest critics admit that.
Did she actually kill the old widow? The film leaves out much of a very complicated crime. Five other criminals involved in the crime besides Graham. The film simplifies this.
But did she kill the old woman? Hard to say. The only testimony against her was another in the gang trying to avoid execution himself. Graham claimed to not even be there. The other gang member claimed Graham beat her to death. Another gang member claims the one turning state's evidence actually accidentally hit the old woman too hard.
Why Graham was executed the film makes clear. She was self destructive, impetuous and her own worst enemy. The press seized her as the guilty one because it made good copy. Not even the critics of the film pretend the media weren't lurid in their coverage.
So most of the "fictionalizing" is just simplifying the story. Graham's guilt or innocence is almost impossible to know.
SAS Rogue Heroes (2022)
American Style Patriotism Instead of British
This is a series every viewer either loves or hates. As a foreigner, American, I can see why some British just hate this.
This has an American style patriotism. Think Rambo, think Top Gun. The "hero" imagines himself a "rebel." He's brash, loud, and in love with himself. American patriotic films can be pretty damned obnoxious and even include unprovoked self righteous violence.
American patriots idealize the cowboy, and most of the world hates cowboys as out of control. Many British hate the idea of rogue heroes. This series celebrates them. It's loud, smug, and thinks of itself and them as kickass. It's very American, not British.
No wonder so many British viewers hate this. Not the least for its many obvious falsehoods and inventions. The claim of being based on true stories is ridiculous.
I hated this series too. I wanted an accurate historical war film, and this is a mindless gung ho shoot em up with a set of goofy choices for a soundtrack. I wanted Saving Private Ryan, UK version, and this film is a bad Tarantino knockoff.
'71 (2014)
Let's Feel Bad for the Occupying Army
Imagine a film that showed you a German soldier trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto during the uprising. Or, for Americans, a film about a Confederate soldier trapped in Gettysburg, or a British soldier trapped in Boston during the American Revolution.
"But they were the bad guys! It wasn't their country!" you say. And a film that starts off by showing the occupier with their family, to show he's a nice guy, completely misses the point.
Now imagine the film showing all Americans during the revolution as violent fanatics, even the children. And the British soldiers are just there to be neutral peacekeepers. In reality, the British took the side of the loyalists, both American and Northern Irish, stood by and let them attack the rebels wanting to no longer be occupied by outsiders.
That's how wrongheaded the whole premise of the film is. It's technically well done, but you find yourself arguing with it every second, shaking your head at how it's blind propaganda made for British nationalists.
American Pop (1981)
Dull, Cliched, Badly Animated
First, he does not deserve credit for rotoscope. Max Fleischer does, and he did it half a century earlier.
Badly drawn. The whole point of animation is doing what cannot be done in live film. The rotoscope is done over cheap ugly film with cheap ugly drawing and just leads you to wonder why they bothered.
The soundtrack itself is also hit and miss, and when animated, comes across as very cheap music videos. You will never see a worse depiction of Hendrix.
The story idea is interesting, but quickly falls apart. We've seen it all before. None of the characters are interesting or well developed. The whole thing plays like watching a preview of multiple movies for ninety minutes.
Boring and a waste of time.