Movies

Mon - January 31, 2005

Star Trek DVDs and the Fate of "Enterprise"

I've been absorbing the "Star Trek" original series DVDs since I got the first two seasons for Christmas, and I find them to be not only a delight but also a rediscovery. All of my life, I've been watching "Star Trek" on television, and the versions I've seen were all edited by local stations so that they could stuff an extra four to seven minutes of commercials into the hour. The deletions those stations made hurt the pacing of the episodes and in many cases removed important moments that built both character and mood. I just watched "Wolf in the Fold", an episode from the second season. It was one of the great Robert Bloch's three horror stories for "Star Trek". In its unedited state, it's a wonderful thriller, with a surprising performance from character actor John Fiedler (known for playing Juror #2 in 12 Angry Men and Gordy Spangler, the medical examiner, in The Night Stalker). But the edits that TV stations made for the purpose of selling soap and used cars damaged key moments and disrupted the episode's moves to build suspense.

Of course, you could get "Star Trek" on DVD and VHS uncut, but those earlier versions came one or two episodes at a time, making any attempt to collect them an expensive proposition. Now they're in one place, and I'm grateful.

Now, as to "Enterprise".

IMDB reports that "Enterprise" may be in its last year. I can't say I'll miss it. It never did much to keep me. The tense relationship between humans and vulcans might have been more intriguing if the humans weren't always right and the vulcans always a) wrong and b) devious. I also thought that they spent way too much time going where we'd already been before, telling us why Klingons look the way we do and blah, blah, blah. And let's not forget all the early episodes where they had to find excuses to "decontaminate" the sexy vulcan woman. With three seasons of the original series, four or five good seasons from "The Next Generation" and six good movies to watch, why bother with "Enterprise"?

Paramount would do well to give "Star Trek" a rest, to give us all a little time to miss it, then bring in someone who can make it new. Nostalgia won't bring in new viewers, and it certainly won't return "Star Trek" to the heights it reached in its first season when it was nominated for Emmys in the Best Dramatic Series and Best Supporting Actor categories. I have my own thoughts on how to make that happen, which I will not share because Paramount isn't paying me to develop them. (I have my own work to do.) But fans should spend less time trying to save bad series and more time saying to Paramount, "We know the difference between good and bad. We've had good before. We want it again, and if you won't deliver it then we'll take our time and money elsewhere."

Posted at 02:26 AM

Thu - January 27, 2005

Why Does Apple Need the Right?

From Majikthise:

Republican pollster David Hill is smitten with the Mac Mini, but he predicts that Apple will need "Republican help" to get the scheme off the ground. The $500 Mini is supposed to be a computer for the everyman--but in Hill's opinion, the average Republican consumer is simply too blinkered and spiteful to see his own self-interest.

Hmm. The iPod seems to be doing swimmingly without wingers on Apple's board; and because Apple currently holds about 3% of the PC market, if they were able to get Democratic and Moderate PC users away from their Dells and Gateways, they could control a larger share of the PC market than any other manufacturer ever has. (I don't think anyone in PC history has held over 50% of the PC market. Commodore held a percentage in the high thirties during the Commodore 64 era. Where are they now?)

So, sorry, Mr. Hill, we could use you, but I don't think we need you, at least not badly enough to put Rush Limbaugh on the board of anything.

Posted at 03:28 PM

No Statuettes for Fahrenheit 9/11

Conservatives are crowing because of Fahrenheit 9/11's failure to secure an Academy Award nomination. They figure liberal Hollywood is gunshy about the film after losing the November election. They're wrong, of course. Fahrenheit 9/11 wasn't nominated for an Oscar because Michael Moore didn't put it up in the Best Documentary category, and didn't campaign especially hard for Best Picture or Best Director. (Submitting Fahrenheit 9/11 for Best Documentary would have precluded Moore from showing the film on television before the November election, and the studio probably wouldn't have committed to campaigns in the other two categories because of the extremely long odds of a documentary winning Best Picture or Best Director.) Moore doesn't need the Oscar. He has one for Bowling For Columbine, and the movie doesn't need additional hype.

Besides which, and I don't speak for all liberals, I don't take Oscar nominations all that seriously. Bitterspice said once--and I don't remember if she was quoting someone else or if this was her line--that either movies are a joke, or the Oscars are a joke. Movies aren't a joke, therefore... I mean, when Titanic and The English Patient can win the Oscar at all, or when Forrest Gump tops Pulp Fiction, or when How Green Was My Valley can beat out Citizen Kane, or when the Academy hands the Best Actor Oscar to Paul Scofield from A Man For All Seasons over Richard Burton from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (not that Scofield wasn't good, but Burton was better in a harder role), Oscar's credibility is blown. The Academy Awards night can be a fun show, a memorable evening, often silly, occasionally moving, but if you're looking for the best picture of the year, forget it. Million Dollar Baby may well be the best picture of the year, but my guess is that the Oscar will go to The Aviator because it's Scorsese's turn--just as it was Paul Newman's turn to win when he took the acting award for The Color of Money. Eastwood has already won twice--for Mystic River and Unforgiven. He may get the acting Oscar this time as compensation, but I'll bet on Scorsese for Director and Picture.

Oh, and Mr. Geraghty, speaking as a man whose girlfriend is more attractive than he is by a good margin, go fuck your mother.

Posted at 03:08 PM

Sat - January 8, 2005

My Ten Favorite Films From the 1980s

I used these in blog commentary on Matt Yglesias's site. It seems like a decent enough list. Treat is as provisional. I might think of other movies made during the 1980s that I like better than these, and, who cares? It's just a conversation starter anyway.

My list:

Full Metal Jacket
Amadeus
Ran
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Trek II
The Princess Bride
Stop Making Sense
The Shining
Tootsie

Now here's a more interesting possible list. Top five movies made by directors who only made one good movie. (Restrictive, isn't it? I was tempted to head it off with George Lucas until I remembered that I also liked American Graffiti.) If that one's too hard, try five worst movies made by great directors. My list:

1. Jurassic Park 2 (Spielberg)
2. Popeye (Altman)
3. The Arrangement (Kazan)
4. Exorcist II: The Heretic (Boorman)
5. Supernova (Coppola)

UPDATE 10:10 PM:

Top five films by one-hit directors:

1. Cool Hand Luke (Stuart Rosenberg)
2. Sling Blade (Billy Bob Thornton)
3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Peter Hunt)
4. A Christmas Story (Bob Clark)
5. The Fugitive (Andrew Davis)

It astounds me that there are so few one-hit directors. Many authors have only one good book in them. (Their remaining oeuvre is merely an effort to recapture that one period of greatness.) Film directors seem to get at least a couple in before dying--and some of these guys are still alive. Still, it's a lot harder to find a one-hit director than it is a one-hit author. I think I'll ponder why that is the next time we have a blackout.

Posted at 05:35 PM

Sun - January 2, 2005

Sideways

Do yourself a favor and see Sideways, starring Thomas Haden Church and Paul Giamatti as a couple of friends whose planned lost week in the California wine country leads to mordantly comic romantic and automotive disasters. Church does especially fine work here, turning in a performance that many actors would have found impossible because it requires a combination of cynicism and naivete. (Most actors would have gone with the cynical, borderline sociopathic side of the character, and lost the other aspects, which would have ruined the tone.) It looks like he'll be joining Tony Shaloub in having a productive post-"Wings" career.

See it. Live it. Love it. Make it the center of your being.

Posted at 11:50 PM

Tue - December 7, 2004

Last Night

I stayed up late last night reading David Mamet's unused script for Hannibal (when I say unused, that's not entirely true. There are some elements of his script that appeared in filmed version, but I would assume that many of them appeared in the novel as well). I can see why Jodie Foster walked away from the project. It has nothing to do with the quality of the writing. Mamet provided a literate script that in some important ways was better than the filmed version. It's just that it's not clear what Clarisse Starling is doing in the story. She's not really on the trail of Hannibal Lector, and her problems with her superiors seem profoundly uninteresting in comparison to what Hannibal is doing. (She had problems with her superiors in The Silence of the Lambs as well, and the deleted scenes sections of the DVD include parts where she's having one of those "turn in your gun-and-badge"-"When I see a man chasing a woman with intent to commit rape, I shoot the bastards. That's my policy" scenes. Demme had the good sense to cut those out). In both versions of the film Starling functions as either a tool or Mason Verger's or a means for Hannibal Lector to escape. She's not so much a person as a plot device. Playing her would have bored Foster no end.

One fun detail. In Mamet's version, Lector doesn't serve the brain of Paul Krendler (played by Ray Liotta in the film). He serves the brain of Starling's mentor, Jack Crawford. I haven't read the book, so I don't know if that's the way Thomas Harris wanted it to turn out or not. I must say I like it better, though it still wouldn't have been enough to redeem the film.

Posted at 02:08 PM

Thu - December 2, 2004

If you read this, you will never have to see Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor

Click here.

Posted at 04:51 AM

Wed - December 1, 2004

Oliver Stone slams DVDs

This from IMDB:

Although Oliver Stone's 19-year-old son Sean has shot the behind-the-scenes documentary for Alexander and while the video package is likely to include an examination of the actual life of the Greek conqueror and other informative material, Stone himself has indicated that he is not at all enthusiastic about the coming of age of DVDs. Video Store magazine quotes him as saying during a recent press event, "It's the end of movie-movies the way we know them. ... If you walk into a room with 5,000 DVDs, how are you going to respect movies? How do you know the good ones?," Stone asked. "It's going to the LCD -- the lowest common denominator. It's making movies into supermarket-shelf items, which is probably the best you can get at Wal-Mart. ... It's hopeless."

Oh, come now, Oliver. Movies suffer from a variety of maladies, most notably a lack of nerve and originality, a dearth of literate screenwriters, an overemphasis on the opening weekend box office gate, the expanding roster of movie ad blurbsters, and the very existence of Jerry Bruckheimer; DVDs by comparison (and by any standard really) are a positive boon. They allow a viewer to see films in a manner that approximates theater quality, encourage the restoration of older titles that might otherwise continue mouldering in cans in a vault, and often give the viewer background material that enhances both their enjoyment of that particular film as well as their understanding of how films are made.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see DVDs doing any harm to movies that wasn't already done when VHS videos were first priced to sell in the 1980s. If anything, DVDs corrected the damage VHS tapes did by presenting films in their correct aspect ratios, allowing many people to see their favorite films as they were meant to be seen for the first time in decades. As for distinguished movies mixing with the subpar, that damage was done when we substituted the old-style movie palaces with 20-screen movie space arks.

Those of us who care will separate the trivial movies from the consequential as we always do, through word-of-mouth, trustworthy reviews, and our (according to the Bush administration) lying eyes. Stone needs to stop worrying abut DVDs and start worrying about his failure to make a good movie since Nixon.

Posted at 11:55 PM

Sat - October 16, 2004

Brosnan No Longer Bond

Ianfleming.org has been very cautious with the rumors that everyone else gets so excited about, but apparently Pierce Brosnan has confirmed that he won't play James Bond in Bond 21. According to the article, Brosnan was interested, and the producers were, at first, happy to have him back for a fifth and final outing (the box office performance of Die Another Day certainly earned him another shot). Then, strangely, the producers backed away from him.

It seems a shame to me that Brosnan is going to exit this way. Of all the Bonds, he was the only one who never had a poor outing (George Lazenby would be an exception, but he only did the one). I always enjoyed his portrayal, and was hoping to enjoy one last view.

So who's next? Oh, the speculation will be a bore, and will include lots of major movie stars who have no chance. Let me give you a guide that might help you sift through the candidates.

1. The Bond producers tend to go for people familiar to them, if not to the larger audience. Lazenby was an anomaly. Most of the Bond actors were well known to the producers of the films prior to their casting. Roger Moore was almost James Bond in 1961; he decided against the role because he was co-producing and starring in "The Saint" for the BBC (no one knew Bond was going to be such a long-running hit). He was almost James Bond again in 1969, but this time "The Persuaders" kept him off. Timothy Dalton was also nearly James Bond in 1971. He auditioned for the role, but decided that he was too young to play the part and begged off. Pierce Brosnan, as all good Bond fans know, first came to the attention of the Broccoli family because his first wife, Cassandra Harris, played the ill-fated Lisl Von Schlaf in For Your Eyes Only. Brosnan visited the set one day, and Cubby noticed him immediately. Five years later, again as every good Bond fan knows, Brosnan had the part of James Bond, only to lose it because NBC decided to capitalize on his newfound fame as the next 007, and order thirteen more episodes of "Remington Steele", which made him unavailable for The Living Daylights. TV executives are slime.

2. It helps to be experienced, reliable, and not too famous. Here the Lazenby experience bears mentioning. Being James Bond is a tough job, both on screen and off. There's a lot of publicity thrown at the actor. He has to be mature enough to handle it. Lazenby wasn't, and he wound up alienating the producers and his fellow actors. That said, it's also best if the actor isn't exceptionally famous. Such actors tend to be less interested in signing long term contracts to play the part, and more likely to demand exorbitant amounts of money. The last international movie star the Broccolis pursued for the role was Cary Grant in 1960, who took a look at their budget figure and said "Okay, that's my salary, what are you going to make the move with?" Also, famous actors usually balk at the time commitment necessary for playing Bond (usually six months a year with lots of far travel away from family). Historically, Bond actors have been well-known and well-regarded, but never have been famous in the Paul Newman/Robert DeNiro A-list sense of the word.

3. A sense of humor is important. Some actors just don't have it. Take Ralph Fiennes, who was considered for the part of Bond a few years ago. In his meeting with the producers he described his Bond in terms so dark, humorless, and unlikable that he actually frightened them. Someone should have told him that they weren't interested in having him reprise his role as a brutal Nazi in Schindler's List. If being an actor to you means that your passionate intensity will never yield to anything as trifling as a joke or a smile, move on.

Now that I've laid out the basic rules for the game, here's my pick for 007: Sean Bean. Now I know what some of you might be thinking--he played the villain in Goldeneye. Bond already killed him. Now, now. Bond also killed Joe Don Baker when he played the villain in The Living Daylights. Baker has since returned to do both Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies (as Bond's CIA buddy Jack Wade). Other people have discussed Colin Salmon, who played Robinson in the last three Bond films, as a potential 007, so I see no particular barrier to Sean Bean (apart from the fact that he is Mr. Bean...bad joke I know, but you couldn't be a Bond fan if you didn't on some level enjoy puns that awful). Bean certainly has the looks, and the screen presence. He's been in big budget movies before (Goldeneye, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring). He's known to the Broccolis, who considered him for the part of Bond in The Living Daylights. He's well-regarded, especially in England, and well-known without being famous. His performance in Goldeneye demonstrates humor, darkness, coldness, and a sense of ease and play. He's a winner. Book him.

Posted at 08:11 PM

Mon - October 11, 2004

Christopher Reeve Dead

Fucking rat-bastard death.

Posted at 04:07 AM

Sat - October 2, 2004

The Conversation (1974)

Francis Ford Coppola will probably have "Director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now" etched on his tombstone someday, but after watching The Conversation I decided I liked it better than either of his showier classics. Instead of operatic staging, The Conversation gives us a tightly observed character study of a man who imagines he can maintain himself as a disengaged observer in the world only to discover that the world can not only get to him physically, but morally as well.

Gene Hackman plays Harry Caul, a man who eavesdrops on others to earn his living, yet lives in constant fear that other people will find out even the most mundane details about his life. He tries to remain detached from those he surveils, but a conversation between a man and a woman in a park fascinates him, especially after the client tells him the information contained on the surveillance tapes is "dangerous". His tapes have gotten people killed before, you see, and he is terrified that it might happen again. I find Harry an endlessly fascinating man. He is obsessed with his work and proud of his skills, yet he seems to despise his art and those who practice it (including himself), He hates that women ask him questions in an effort to seek knowledge of him, yet in conversations with them he seems desperate to beat back his own inhibitions and tell them everything (this tendency ends up costing him at a critical moment. Watch the film if you want to see why). He is terrified of being part of the world, but his conscience drives him towards it. Hackman must have had a blast working this guy out. I'm sure he knew it was the sort of role that makes a career.

The movie is told entirely from Caul's point of view (he is seldom out of shot, and when he is, it's because we're looking through his eyes at something else). But we not only look through his eyes, we listen through his ears. The sound design for The Conversation is every bit as masterful as the sound design for The Exorcist. It is truly unsettling, living inside Harry Caul's head, and the soundtrack brings that home.

Watch it. You'll love it.

Posted at 02:41 AM

Wed - September 22, 2004

Outfoxed

"We will defend to the death our right to be misinformed."
--Gustav Hasford The Short-Timers

I finally got a hold of this film through Netflix (from whom all blessings flow). As other reviewers have pointed out, the best parts of the film come from their editing together of Fox News footage. It is not just that it makes the case of a right wing bias at Fox News, but it demonstrates the methodology of Fox News' propaganda. In their campaign coverage, Fox News shows Bush in heroic settings, with soft light, and always in front of flags, while Kerry is shown in parking lots or other unflattering settings. Fox News stops its coverage to show Bush campaign speeches, but extends no similar courtesy to Kerry. Fox News anchors pick up on the Administration's daily talking points, masking their complicity by adding the words "some say". Conservative guests on Fox tend to be experienced broadcast professionals; liberals tend to be rookies in front of the camera. The key line for me came from a commentator who said that Fox News was far more dangerous than the old Soviet news agency TASS, because Russian citizens knew that TASS was propaganda, while Fox News viewers believe that they're watching legitimate news reporting.

The presence of a quasi-state run news agency in our country, owned by a billionaire friendly to the current regime, puts me in mind of what's going on in Russia, where Putin is dismantling whatever democracy the Russians had when the Soviet Union collapsed. Like Bush, he is a wholly owned subsidiary of his country's corporate elite. Like Bush, he's using his war on terrorism to justify the diminution of domestic political freedoms and continue the transfer of his country's remaining wealth to oligarchs who'd just as soon send it all to Swiss banks. True, Putin has gone farther than Bush has been able to so far, but give Bush time and a political mandate (however slim), and who knows? He would possess many of the same organs of suppression that Putin has. Bush has shown no great commitment to democracy anywhere, and as little interest in the freedom of people other than himself and his friends. Even if he did not decide to make his personal political ascendancy permanent, he could build a political infrastructure, in partnership with Ailes and NewsCorp, that would allow him to choose his political successor without interference from anything as messy and annoying as democratic self-rule.

Think it can't happen here? That's what everyone else it ever happened to thought. This taste for dictatorship and wish for kings got the Greeks and the Romans. It kept the people of the middle ages stupid for a thousand years. It took hold of the Germans and the Italians, the Russians and the French. We like to think we're different, but we have no real reason to believe we're exempt from the rules of history. The same forces that took them down can take us down, if we allow them. Here's a tip. The descent usually starts when a population is simultaneously afraid of everything and completely ignorant of what's going on around them (which is the state Fox News is designed to cause). In the middle comes the tyranny, sometimes long, sometimes short, which commits both blatant and hidden crimes. It ends with the responsible populace trying to account for all the awful things done in the name of their security, liberty, and future.

Dick Cheney says we should vote for him and his master or terrorists will hit us. Well, Dick, two can play this game. Vote for Kerry/Edwards, or years from now, when you face your grandchildren, you'll have a lot of explaining to do.

Posted at 03:00 AM

Sun - September 12, 2004

Dougray Scott as Bond?

My first response to this item was, "Who the hell is Dougray Scott?" (Lorne Greene's five stages of an actors career "1. Who is Lorne Greene? 2. Get me Lorne Greene 3. Get me a cheaper Lorne Greene 4. Get me a younger Lorne Greene 5. Who is Lorne Greene?") I looked over his credits and still didn't know who he was, but another item in the IMDB report gave me pause:

He will make his first appearance in the 23rd Bond movie after Eon Productions decided they wanted to return to a more brooding Bond in the mould of fellow Scot Sean Connery, reports British newspaper the Sunday Mirror.

Sean Connery was brooding? When? You show me a scene in Connery's seven Bond pictures (Never Say Never Again included for these purposes) when he got into a good Danish Princesque brood. The closest he got is when Bond discovered Kerim Bey was dead, and he returned to his train compartment looking vexed. The only Bond who ever answered the brooding description was Timothy Dalton, but I guess his name in the press releases as a point of comparison wouldn't seem as impressive.

I'm actually fed up with shallowly sullen heroes. One of the reasons I liked Boorman's The Tailor of Panama was that so slyly undercut Britain's most famous film export. I loved the way it sent up the faux-wish-fulfillment-dark-but-not-really-dark darkness of some interpretations of Bond:

Osnard: "Just between us, I'm MI6's man in Panama. It's dark, lonely work, like oral sex, but someone's got to do it, Harry."

That the line comes out of Pierce Brosnan really hammers its joke home. Brooding is a fashion statement in movies. It's the way to demonstrate depth and seriousness, without actually demonstrating either. Porn stars used to wear glasses to pretend that they were smart and sophisticated. Soon I suspect they'll turn to looking solemn. Brooding is a cliche that needs to be demolished. Brooding in movies has become kitsch.

I don't know. I always preferred witty, charming and graceful to grim--at least in my wish fulfillment fantasies. Glowering strikes me as unattractive, even though I do my share of it. Charm and wit made Patrick McNee a better John Steed than Ralph Fiennes was. Sean Connery was a likeable Bond at least in part because he tossed his hat on the hat stand and chair danced with Moneypenny. He seemed fun, capable of relaxation and humor. So did Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan and even George Lazenby. Timothy Dalton came to charm a little too late, and it cost him.

So please, Ms. Broccoli, let us have our charming 007. What's more boring than watching a superspy sulk?

UPDATE (a few minutes later) Ian Fleming.org linked to this interview, in which Brosnan denies that he ever said never, though he did sound, I guess, lukewarm about the prospect of donning the tux again.

Posted at 09:54 PM

Thu - September 9, 2004

Todd Solondz presents...

...another film where sex is the cause of misery, depression, and criminal behavior. The narrative devices Ebert describes in Palindromes sound interesting (though not original. Luis Buñuel did something like it in The Obscure Object of Desire), but Solondz sex=doom act was wearing on me in the last twenty minutes of Happiness. I doubt I'll be able to muster more excitement for it now.

Posted at 09:03 PM

Fri - August 27, 2004

Kevin Thomas, Super-Ho

Roger Ebert talks a lot about blurbsters, those critics whose names are usually written in very small print on movie posters who write things like "Electrifying!", "It sizzles", and "Ashley Olsen is a revelation!" and are paid fees for their encomia. The current reigning champion of these guys is Kevin Thomas of the L.A. Times. What can you say about a man who liked both Pearl Harbor and Armageddon--not only liked them, loved them? In every review, even the reviews for few films he professes to dislike, he throws around adjectives sure to get his review blurbed. His quote for The Singing Forest (which he gave 1/2 star).

"If nothing else can be said of The Singing Forest , it is assuredly fearless in defying credibility at every turn and on every level."

"ASSUREDLY FEARLESS"--Kevin Thomas, LA Times.

Cha-CHING.

For Kaante

"As a perfect heist caper gone awry it is a stale, lurid, grade-Z rehash."

"A PERFECT HEIST CAPER!"--Kevin Thomas, LA Times.

Goodbye car payment.

From The United States of Leland (2 stars).

"An ambitious and intelligent film probing that chronic contemporary phenomenon, the seemingly senseless crime, but it is ultimately unsatisfying for all its efforts and various pluses."

Braces? On the twins? No problem! Just gimme a sec.

"AN AMBITIOUS AND INTELLIGENT FILM"--Kevin Thomas, LA Times.

These are just the quotes I could pull from Rotten Tomatoes. I'm sure there are others, lurking in the reviews of other wretched films, that I can't see because I'm not willing to pay the LA Times for the privilege of looking at their entertainment section. Stuff like, "The stellar cast is wasted" and "The gorgeous set design and luminous Natalie Portman ultimately failed to engage me." I'll bet the man has had enough quotes pulled to get his kids through medical school, and if so, good for him, I guess. But between his quote manufacturing and his apocalyptically bad taste (there is no artistic theory that allows one to defend Michael Bay. It's impossible), there's no reason to take this respectable--at times, stellar and sizzling critic--seriously. I'm not saying if you ignore him he'll go away, but it's the next best thing.

UPDATE: Venice asked what brought this on. It was Thomas's review of Suspect Zero, which says that the director "understands how exciting going to the edge of credibility can be without falling off, and he has the bravura talent and imagination needed to pull off the sheer, hurtling audacity of Suspect Zero." Where he gets that from what looks for all the world like another cookie-cutter serial killer drama is beyond me. I think he needed to pay the pool guy.

"Bravura talent...exciting...hurling audactiy!"--Kevin Thomas, LA Times.

Posted at 12:33 PM

Franchise Reviews II: The Indiana Jones Films

Reviews of Movie Franchises

Ronald Curry takes 3rd Receiver Position

Oh, Diaper Gravy

On Actors and Certain Film Critics

Orlando Bloom as the Young James Bond?

Brosnan Exits?

It takes so little to please some people

Jerry Goldsmith Dies

Lucas Stalling Indiana Jones Movie

James Doohan has Alzheimers