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Reviews
Kojak: Siege of Terror (1973)
Exciting Action Suspense
What an interesting cast. Jude Farese looks like the cartoon character from "Wreck It Ralph" and "Ralph Breaks the Internet." Farese was on some various TV shows of the 1970s/80s. He usually played a thug who was confused or wanted to do the right thing.
David Proval has a big role as the police officer who gets shot as he is warning everyone at the sporting goods store to get out. He gets to make observations about life, the world, the role of law enforcement, etc. As he is slowly bleeding out.
Proval was around for many years, but his most memorable role was on season five of "Everybody Loves Raymond." For six episodes he (as Marco) was the nemesis of Frank (Peter Boyle), because he was receiving the attention of Marie. His daughter Stefania (Alex Meneses) and Robert (Brad Garrett) were also dating.
Next up is Rick Hurst, whose bowl haircut and claim to fame were as Deputy Cletus Hogg on the "Dukes of Hazzard" tv series. To me, Hurst and Chuck McCann looked and acted alike.
James Sloyan was a good actor for many years. He played four different roles in the various Star Trek TV shows. Here he is pretty strident as Jack Murzie, who wants to kill the hostages and die in a blaze of gunfire with the police.
Harvey Keitel plays the pivotal role in the standoff, as Jerry Talaba. He and his brother, Frank (John Garwood) planned the armored truck heist. Kojak brings his brother in to talk to Keitel, but it just enrages him more.
Kojak (Telly Savalas) has to make a lot of tough decisions here. Two officers have been shot by the gang, one dies. While Kojak is negotiating, the police are drilling a tunnel under the store, and bringing a helicopter and another team to the roof as a distraction.
Some good gunfights, personal conflicts, drama, and suspense. It could go in any number of directions, and most of them were negative.
Medium: Soul Survivor (2009)
Dumber than a stump
Marissa Coghlin plays the wife of a guy who died in a car accident. She thinks she met, and is married to her husband's ghost who incarnated into another guy (Max Cesella).
The truth is that the other guy murdered her husband and took his book manuscript from the car. Then he seduced the victim's widow and convinced her that he is her dead husband's spirit. Too bad Angela Lansbury from "Murder She Wrote" was not a guest star on this episode.
Eventually Allison figures it out. The sister of the guy who got murdered also gets murdered. Van Helsing TV show star Kelly Overton was having an affair with her sister's husband. After he got killed, and Max Casella popped up claiming to be the ghost incarnated, Overton checks him out. She realizes he is faking it, and she tells him. She gets killed off by Max Casella, so he can keep his secret.
Meanwhile it takes a lot of work by Allison to convince the dead guy's widow that she has been married for two years to a faker who killed her husband and later her sister. A lot to remember!
Kojak: Dead Again (1976)
Vincenzo strikes out as Security Chief
Simon Oakland could create chaos, confusion, and drama out of a bowl of cereal. Just like he was always fighting Kolchak's interpretation of journalism on the Kolchak The Night Stalker TV series, here he is fighting Mr. Proctor's plan to pay off a blackmailer.
Proctor (William Cort) owns the chain of stores that Vincenzo / Oakland works for as a Security Chief. Proctor is constantly humiliating and degrading Oakland's skills. In spite of that, Oakland is faithfully trying his best to protect Proctor's stores.
However, it turns out that his assistant Chief Andy (John Durren) is in league with the bomber, working as the inside man. The bomber is played by Roy Jensen. He is wanted for murder in Ohio, so he faked his own death.
Unfortunately for Julie Winston (Brooke Adams), she knows the bomber from back in their small town in Ohio. As Julie is walking around at a local art festival / flea market kind of event, she spots the notorious bomber, and he spots her.
She runs straight to Kojak's precinct to tell everyone that Jensen is alive and well, and stalking her. Like happens in so many other TV shows, everyone acts like she is a kook. Kojak takes her to her home out of pity, but he does not stay long. As Kojak is leaving, the bomber is arriving, so he can kill off Julie Winston.
Brooke Adams' role is short, but she makes a strong impression on Kojak. Vincenzo / Oakland has a bigger role, and he makes a great impression as a former cop with a lot of integrity. Between Adams and Oakland, they made this episode very memorable.
Game of Thrones: No One (2016)
Olympic Race with Guts Cut Open?
I enjoyed the hatred / rivalry between Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) and the Waif (Faye Marsay). I also liked the budding relationship between Arya and Lady Crane (Essie Davis). Unfortunately that was cut short by the Waif.
When Arya failed in her mission to kill Lady Crane and bring back her face to the hall of the Faceless Men, their leader Jaqen (Thomas Wlaschiha) sends out the Waif to kill Arya. Waif can change faces, and she creeps up on Arya as an old lady, and then stabs her four times in the guts. She also twists the knife in Arya's guts before Arya breaks free.
How did Arya run at least a mile with her guts cut up? She eventually makes it over to Lady Crane's dressing room closet. Lady Crane finds her, and tries to heal Arya's knife wounds. What seems like a day or two later Arya can get up and walk around. That is nothing short of a miracle. Stomach wounds are often fatal.
I did not see Lady Crane use any sorcery or magic potions, so how did she surgically repair Arya's internal organs? At a minimum, Arya should have been dying from sepsis caused by the fecal matter from her guts bleeding out into the other damaged organs.
But even if by some miracle Arya was healing by the next day, how did she survive the marathon Olympic race when the Waif killed Lady Crane and attacked Arya?
Just jumping out of the building to start should have busted her stitches loose. All the rest of the sliding under carts, jumping across rooftops, etc. Would have killed anyone in thousands of other movies / TV shows.
Yet in spite of the insane chase, Arya finds her secret place where her sword was hidden, and slices the Waif's face off. Considering that the Waif was at 100% strength and Arya should have been nearly dead, you have to think maybe Waif won and is now wearing Arya's face?
Medium: Sal (2010)
Dysfunctional Kids Again
Medium would have been a great TV series if Allison had no kids. Her husband is pretty useless too, but at least she has him around when she wakes up after a dream. I always wonder what kind of a zero would stay in bed on the many occasions when Allison is going out to visit a crime scene at 3 a.m.
The middle kid is usually the nasty bag of unpleasant remarks and bad attitude. This time it is the other two kids that create the dumb moments of crazy. Little Marie, with her gigantic bottle glasses sees a guy running by her porch door in the middle of the night. He is a killer.
Mommy Allison dreamed it all too, so Marie and Mommy know who the killer is. Problem is that the new alarm system is talking to the little spazzoid. The alarm system tells her where to pick up the gun, and to wipe it clean. Now your kid has to be a big part vegetable if she takes orders from an alarm system. Even worse, Marie lies about it to her Mom and Dad.
So thanks to Marie, the killer gets away with it. He is their neighbor, and he was hired to kill the other neighbor in order to pull off an insurance scam by the terminally ill victim. Does that make it better? The lazy ending tries to wrap it up like a positive.
Meanwhile puffy-faced Ariel is going to an interview to try to get into a top college. Like any child of Allison, she manages to create drama and disaster after "nailing" the interview. Instead of just being happy that she got into the college she wanted, Ariel meddles in the life of the ghost and his wife, the lawyer who interviewed him. Nobody ends up happy, and Ariel gets drummed out of the school. She really deserved it. Good riddance to bad garbage.
Medium: There Will Be Blood... Type B (2010)
Trainwreck of Good Intentions
Joel David Moore, who played an annoying putz for 16 episodes of Bones, and 22 episodes of Forever, pops up for four episodes of Medium. He plays the main engineer at the firm where Joe works, and becomes a bi-polar nemesis to Joe.
Moore's smug, self-important personality is what he brings to every performance. Not sure why his character is not killed off? It would have brought joy to the story.
While Joe is dealing with his demon, Allison is dealing with a trashy street kid who can dream about killings. Vanessa Marano plays the half-psychic like Bridgette plays a daughter. Lots of anger, lack of gratitude, dysfunctional communications, etc.
Not sure where they get the female actresses, but it always looks like they are combing the bottom so that nobody is prettier than the star, snaggle-toothed Patricia Arquette.
The Boys: Season Four Finale (2024)
Much Ado About Nothing
So the season finale brings some killing of recurring characters. The Prez gets arrested, the VP gets dissected. Homelumper has a couple of hissy fits. Ryan kills the woman that raised him.
Ashley takes V and is probably going to become a mutant supe in the final season. Hughie takes two fingers in the bum from the shape-shifter that he thinks is Starlight. Apparently every episode has to include some fisting.
Butcher comes back as a mutant supe monster. He won't die easy. We get teased that Butcher has the ultimate killer supe virus that Frenchie was working on. We will find out if it works next season.
All the good characters get apprehended by Homelumper's super-goons. This whole season was spent floating in stasis. Hopefully the final season will be a lot better. Maybe there will be less filth too?
Extras: David Bowie (2006)
Sad and Ironic
I loved David Bowie. Talk about a super-star that spent his life one jump ahead of the curve, and always reinventing himself as needed. I bet he felt he sold out, or was sold out, on more than one occasion. But Bowie wanted it more than he was concerned about the critics. I think that is the message in the meeting with Ricky / Andy.
Andy is finding fame and critics, success and embarassment. People who envy and are jealous want to see Andy fail. He is insecure about his success, and vulnerable.
Andy thinks he is better than the dumb guys who adore his comedy show. But the higher class folks at the VIP Club think Andy is trash. Where does he belong?
David Bowie invites Andy over, and instead of telling him how grateful he is for his new fame, Andy tells him how he has been betrayed by the BBC and forced to sell out. It seemed like he expected Bowie to understand, and feel sympathy.
But Bowie's song ridiculing Andy is really a call for Andy to man-up and step-up to the challenges of being an entertainer. I really believe that Bowie, in his character was trying to be a mentor to Andy. Tough love, because entertainment is a tough world to live in.
I was touched by this episode. It was very understated and very strong. A lot of the meaning was there to read between the lines. The injustice of success. The hypocrisy of friends and enemies too. The wisdom (in a song) from a great man (Bowie), that was not what Andy hoped for. Perhaps it was also a lesson about never meeting your heroes?
Medium: Baby Fever (2009)
Dysfunctional Allison
Another of many episodes where Allison gets dreams wrong or half-right and turns everything upside down for everyone. The idea that any District Attorney's Offices or other law enforcement office would take her seriously is hilarious.
Allison is disrupting the family of a child who was killed, by making wrong assumptions and accusations. Eventually the real threat happens, and Allison saves the child by kidnapping it. Then she gets arrested, and the mother of the child decides to let it slide. In the real world that would be a major scandal followed by a mega-million dollar lawsuit.
Can it get any more disfunctional than that? If any government agency supported a kook like Allison, they would get sued for millions of dollars regularly!
Into the mix is the totally disfunctional angry daughter Bridgette. She never smiles, and always has a scowl and glare towards everyone, and extra for her sisters. Her cute little sister Marie is better at clarinet, and the rage fires up from Bridgette.
The Boys: Dirty Business (2024)
Perverted Bat-Man
More garbage packed into another episode of "The Boys." Hughie dresses up as Spider-Man to visit the "Wayne Manor" of Tek-Knight (Batman). Tek-Knight is supposed to be the main crime-fighting partner of Superman (Homelumper), but I do not recall this character ever being on this show before.
Tek-Knight has a basement Bat-Cave where he keeps a Robin chained to a wall, and where he pegs Hughie in a sausage fest. Ashley the building manager at Vought joins them in her new role a dominatrix. Hughie gets to double up on the slime in his web-hole.
The Boys have not done much to exterminate Homelumper in the past two seasons. Mostly, they argue about random things, such as whether or not anybody trusts Butcher.
Frenchie puts his backside into a new relationship. Kikomo is busy talking to everyone with her bootleg made-up sign language, and nobody has a clue. Starlight realizes that she is stuck with who she is. Pretending that she was never a superhero is not working.
Medium: The Talented Ms. Boddicker (2009)
Annoying Boddicker & Bridgette
This episode was like nails scratching on a chalkboard. The worst guest star teams up with the worst of Bridgette.
Usually when the bratty kids are on for their five minutes of obnoxiousness per episode, you know it will get better when the story shifts back to the DA's Office. However in this episode it was the Devil or the deep blue sea. You got Bridgette or Boddicker, and either one was repulsive.
Brdgette the melon-headed brat hates her sisters and everyone else. When her sister Ariel (another brat) is going to drive everyone to school, Bridgette hijacks the car and manages to crash it in front of their house.
It would have been a good time for the car to blow up so Bridgette could have gone to "heaven" and become an occasional recurring angry ghost character.
Meanwhile some hideous critter named Ms. Boddicker (Shelley Duvall look-alike Alyce Beasley) enters the picture as yet another weirdo with the power of goofy dreams. She dreams that the bank where she works is going to get robbed. She fails to share that she is in on the robbery.
When creepy Ms. Boddicker is not showing up to talk to Allison about her bogus dreams, it is Bridgette creeping up on her sisters with her bad attitude and borderline psychotic personality. Was Allison a bad Mom or where her kids possessed?
Gran Torino (2008)
So Unlikely
Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood), is an elderly Korean War veteran who is very lonely, has no friends or neighbors that he likes, and his entire community is either dead or moved out. Clint's neighborhood is now primarily Asian, and Clint doesn't like it.
So when Thao Dong Vor (played by Vee Bang) tries to steal Clint's mint Gran Torino, the whole back story for Clint becomes totally fake. Instead of going out with a shotgun and blowing away Bing Ding, Clint decides to become his mentor. Why? What is Clint's motivation to go completely against character for a guy who tried to steal his car?? It makes no sense, except Clint wanted to make another movie that had a shot at an Oscar (and he succeeded).
So angry Walt Kowalski becomes a social worker, good buddy, and all around pal to the people that he hated for most of his life. The grumpy guy wants to do good deeds, and become a great neighbor. Why? What was his motivation?
Eventually, the more Walk Kowalski cares about his neighbors, the more he realizes that he has to stop the gang members that are terrorizing the neighborhood. That would have been fine in the days of Dirty Harry, but not when Kowalski/Clint is 80 years old.
So take it to the next step, and Kowalski figures he can help the neighborhood by goading the villains into killing him, so they will get arrested for murder. Really? Would anyone ever do that? How likely would it be that the gang leaders would get convicted?
Even if they were convicted of Clint's murder, would it end the gang? Isn't the truth that new gangsters would be sent in, or recruited? New leaders would move up the heirarchy of the gang? Would anything change at all?? History of crime says no.
Medium: A Person of Interest (2009)
Employee of the Month or Domestic Terrorist?
Sad Sack Joe (Jake Weber), who managed to turn every positive invention, idea, or career breakthrough into a trainwreck, hires a domestic terrorist as his first employee.
Joe is so excited to get a bargain deal on a great engineer! He thinks it is some kind of miracle that he found David (Kevin Corrigan) to work for him. As they sit around talking about the company goals, Joe has no idea that his new employee killed 17 people with a bomb.
Allison is getting all the dream tips, and eventually she puts it all together, as she builds a bomb from an old microwave. Somehow she is sucked into the past, and the personality of the youth that became David (Joe's employee). Sometimes this show goes into the realms of the bizarre, goofy and ridiculous.
Meanwhile the angry melon-headed kid is all for it. She never smiles and always glares at everyone she loves. Mommy accidentally blowing up the house is par for Bridgette's life goals.
Finally, when Davalos tells Allison that all her nutty dreams are worthless in this case, Allison visits Corrigan to ask him to confess. Corrigan gives her the Italian salute, and tells her jump off a short pier. He is a lot shorter on conscience than Allison expected. Overall, nothing got resolved, and Joe lost a cheap employee.
Medium: Talk to the Hand (2010)
Bizarre
So Medium Arquette burns her hand and gets skin grafts that look like a quilt pillow on her arm. She is immediately walking around with an Ace bandage over her burnt arm like it is that easy for skin grafts to mend.
Allison dreams of a young doctor who is murdered by an older doctor, but there is no evidence of this. Eventually after several dreams, Allison figures out what happened, and the accomplice is apprehended and confesses to the medical fraud and murder.
Perhaps the best part of this episode is that nasty melon-head is suddenly the top player on her middle school soccer team thanks to cheating. It fits her crummy personality perfectly. She finds the ghost of Coach Swanson (Gregg Henry) to stand next to her in every game and coach her up as the soccer goalie.
Eventually he turns on her, and tells her what a lazy selfish person she is. He explains that she does nothing to get better, just cheats by having him tell her where the shots are coming from. Coach Swanson really says everything that is true about melon-head. All the truth that her sisters and parents are afraid to say.
This girl is so rough to everyone that I wonder why she was on this show? The way she acts is mean all the time, borderline possessed.
Tooth Fairy (2010)
Bad Fit
The Rock wants to be all things to all people, and perhaps even the President of the USA at some point. He is a champion wrestler, mega action star, now kiddie show comedian.
This movie should have been done with any number of comic actors. The list of people who would have fit into this movie as naturals could be 25 or more. The Rock is the square peg in the round hole. He forces himself into it, and makes it feel weird and uncomfortable.
Everything about The Rock in this role feels and looks wrong. You can make it happen by spending millions of dollars to produce this, but it is not something anyone will remember like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or any good Christmas movie.
The Lone Ranger: Matter of Courage (1950)
James Arness as Chester
Before his breakout roles in "The Thing From Another World" or "Them", James Arness was building up his credits on TV, and here he plays a goofy, somewhat lazy deputy. Arness tries to sound like John Wayne a few times, which is funny to hear. He also complains about his income, like Chester used to do on Gunsmoke.
At the end, he tries to take the credit for capturing the bad men, so he can collect the $5000.00 reward. That was a lot of money in the 1870s. Unfortunately for the deputy (and future Sheriff of Dodge City), Arness' boss, played by Edmund Cobb, and the Lone Ranger set him straight.
Juan Duval, who played the feisty barber gets the credit and the $5000.00 reward for helping everyone when they got captured by the bad guys. Dick Curtis was one of them, and he had 241 credits on IMDb. Sadly, he passed away in 1952 at the young age of 49. Similarly, Duval passed away in 1954, at the age of 56. As of today, this episode of the Lone Ranger is 73 years old! I saw it when I was a kid.
Medium: Labor Pains (2011)
Bad Husband, Good Dad?
Interesting story, which made some very disappointing choices. Some creepy stalker type whose wife left him shows up at the police station and wants to make Allison his new best friend.
He gets a police officer to give him Allison's personal cell phone number. The idea that any police department would do that is shameful. Even less likely that random strangers can just waltz past security, and into the private offices of any Police Department.
Still more unbelievable is that the creep is waiting outside Allison's home when she is about to take a plane to Denver to interview about entering Law School. Her phone has no emergency code button? Considering all the close calls in her life, you would think so.
A minute later, she is kidnapped, and the guy spends a few days drugging her so she can dream about his wife who left him. Allison could have just said, "yes, your wife got kidnapped by the Hell's Angels and she is currently living with a gang of them in Portland Oregon... " But she tries to reason with him, like he is a normal person.
Nobody figures that Allison is missing, not her detective friends, or her wimpy husband. Thanks to a random Postal letter carrier hearing her screams, Allison is saved. Five minutes later, she is meeting with the kidnapper who is in custody, to tell him that she is dropping all the charges. Really? How insane is that?
Eventually the runaway wife is located, the killer found, and the kidnapper's baby too. Allison takes her kidnapper to the daycare where his daughter (previously unknown to him), is playing with other kids.
Is giving that little girl to a guy who kidnapped Allison, drugged her, and tried to shoot her a good thing?? That little girl's Mom got killed because she wanted to leave her husband (the kidnapper). The odds that the little girl would live to get to first grade just got much worse, thanks to Allison.
Meanwhile Jake Weber, the house-husband, was taking their baby to get tested, because whenever she wants attention she suddenly loses her ability to spell words. Melon-head the middle child is always around to make rude and sarcastic comments. Not sure why she was on this show. I just fast forward when her annoying voice starts up.
The Projectionist (1970)
More Funny Than Cancer
Chuck McCann, the master of the bowl haircut and the stupid grin, takes you on an 88 minute tour of the lonely life of a projectionist who has no friends. Wow, it takes about five minutes in to realize this is going to be a long haul. Like the three hour tour with Gilligan.
Chuck McCann manages to make anything less funny, and more boring than it needs to be. He sits in an empty theatre, night after night, imagining himself as some horribly inept superhero. McCann used to do children's TV shows, and so he merges his kiddie show antics with the half-baked projectionist's life.
The only good thing about this steaming pile is Rodney Dangerfield making his movie debut many years before he became famous. Try to find his highlights from this movie on youtube if you are a fan of Rodney Dangerfield, and skip the depressing and painful viewing of Chuck as the imaginary hero, Super-Chump.
A few years later (1975) he did a TV series with Bob Denver called "Far Out Space Nuts" which was canceled after 15 episodes were filmed, but most of them were never seen except on bootleg video.
Medium: Once in a Lifetime (2009)
Convoluted
What a bizarre episode. It starts with some guy being murdered 17 years earlier. A local kid thinks he is that guy, and knows where the body is buried. His Mom pretends to be mystified.
Like usual Allison gets her dreams all wrong, and thinks the kid is the murderer. It turns out that the kid's real father is the guy that got murdered 17 years ago. Why does the kid think he is the murdered guy?
The kid has no clue who his real father is. It turns out Mom had his father killed, and later killed the killer who was blackmailing her for 17 years. Seems like a long time to wait to end it. There is a really nasty and bizarre twist at the end, which explains why the kid knows so much about his dead father.
Meanwhile melon-head, the obnoxious rude girl is filming neighbors and posting videos on the internet. Not sure why her parents did not a) take away her cameras and b) take away her access to the internet. The mean girl is crude to everyone, and whenever she is on I hit fast forward.
Gunsmoke: How to Kill a Woman (1957)
Pointless Killings
This is one of the most confusing Gunsmoke episodes ever filmed. It really makes no sense.
Pernell Roberts, who would play Adam on Gunsmoke, is the hard case. He wants to get revenge on the station master Daggett (Barry Atwater). Dagget killed his cheating wife. Pernell was having an affair with her. Dagget tried to start a new life as station master. Pernell tracked him down.
So instead of killing Dagget, Pernell kills some random passenger on the stage coach that is coming in to the station that is run by Dagget. Pernell wants Dagget to suffer. Later he kills a woman riding the stage.
Matt Dillon shows up, and Pernell confronts Dillon, and Dillon is immediately suspicious. Dagget does not identify Pernell as the killer, because he is hiding his own murder of his cheating wife.
Eventually it all gets sorted out, in the "Everyone Dies" tradition of early Gunsmoke. The story is really convoluted and dumb. I have watched it 20-30 times since the 1960s, when I was a kid, and it took me years to figure it out (and think, "wow, that was dumb").
Midnight Mass: Book I: Genesis (2021)
Painfully slow and boring
Mostly unpleasant characters, especially the Church Lady (Samantha Sloyan) who used to be the nasty doctor Blake, on Grey's Anatomy. A minute of her smarmy witch character is like nails on a chalkboard.
Numerous reviews say this is a "slow burn" and they must be written by the same employees. Nothing is burning here, slow or fast. It is just a creeping introduction to very plain and boring characters.
Riley (Zach Gilford) killed a girl while driving drunk, and just got released from prison. He is boring and short, and his love interest, Erin (Kate Siegal) is several inches taller than him. She is the wife of the writer-director (Mike Flanagan), and she is way out of Riley's league.
Riley has no personality. His Mom (Kristin Lehman) and Dad (Henry Thomas of E. T. fame) are more interesting characters. Annabeth Gish plays Dr. Sarah, and she is another plus.
The big joke is that Hamish Linklater is Father Paul, who got rejuvenated on a trip to Israel, and used to be the elderly Monsignor. He thinks he met an angel, but did he?
The other joke is Sheriff Hassan (Rahul Kohli), the Muslim on an island full of Christians. His job is to try to isolate his son from exposure to Christianity, and to complain about Bibles being handed out at the public school, etc.
The premise that an island full of Catholic fisherman would hire a Muslim sheriff is ridiculous. You also get about 5-10 minutes of a realistic Catholic Mass in every episode.
The Boys: Wisdom of the Ages (2024)
Gore and Garbage
If acting is getting covered in blood and flesh bits, then Homelumper and Hughie should get nominated for Razzies. Lots of blood, lasers, x-ray vision, fighting, slicing, gutting. I guess Homelander is the dark side of Superman? A sad low he is.
Meanwhile Starlight's personal life gets exposed by Crackerjacks, and Starlight goes nuts on her face. While that is going on, Butcher manages to fight Plastic Man to death, and Frenchie plays the bottom game. Kimoko who used to be his girlfriend goes out exploring with Hughie, and she finds that some people have not forgotten back when she was not a nice person.
The Boys: We'll Keep the Red Flag Flying Here (2024)
Vulgarity and Gore
It seems like this show is down to just endless vulgarity and gore. There is nothing else.
Kimiko and Frenchie looked like life partners, but now they are just pals? Frenchie is the bottom boy with another guy? Butcher and his creepy personality and brain cancer are a drag. Hughie is just a loser. Starlight seems to keep him a friend with occasional benefits. All of these characters are bizarre and not very interesting.
Homelander is just garbage. There is no reason to watch him at all. It is always the same reaction to everything. He is Caligula or Nero or some other insane god-king. Van Helsing TV series had that vampire guy that spent endless episodes just killing everyone, and that is what Homelander is.
The rest of the Seven are just around to provide more ways for Homelander to poo on people. A-Train wants to jump ship but he is afraid. Aquadouche guy has sex with his octopus (Tilda Swinton), and that is pretty gross. Sage is a sociopath, and her character is over the top, just like Homelander.
The focus on Homelander's son is totally boring. Supernatural ended their last two seasons focused on Lucifer's son. Star Wars is all about the "next one" (Luke Skywalker, etc.). Now these last two seasons are going to be about Homelander, Junior (boring).
Stranger Things: Chapter Nine: The Gate (2017)
Awesome
The last two or three episodes were great. This second season was nine episodes, but it could have been five. The endless discussions about everything are ponderous.
So many discussions and meetings get drawn out to fill time. A plot step that could be five minutes takes up dozens of meetings, phone calls, and discussions. I watched this seven years later just so I could fast forward through the pointless drama.
I also fast forwarded through almost every scene with Gaten Matazarro. Just watching his scrunched-up face and annoying voice is excruciatingly painful. He is always trying to be the center of attention. What a douchebag character.
I kept hoping the demidog lizard would eat his face, especially at the end when he gave it a Three Musketeers bar. This was a rip-off of the Jurassic Park movies where Chris Pratt is always making friends with raptors. It would be great if both of them would get eaten by their favorite critters.
So really for me there were about three good episodes in this season, and the whole thing could be edited down to five episodes with less talking and more action.
The Gate (1987)
Fun Movie
The boy who is the lead character is played by a chubby, pug-nosed Stephen Dorff. He and his friend Terry (Louis Tripp) open up the gates of hell when his dog dies and another friend, Al (Christa Denton), buries the animal in the hole.
Demons come up from hell, seeking for human sacrifices so they can take over the planet. Glen, Al and Terry, now must fight to survive, and close Alexandra's hole.
The Special Effects were by Randall William Cook, who won three FX Oscars, one for each of the Lord of the Rings movies. Here the stop-action / clay-mation monsters look like they were done by Ray Harryhousen. The eye in the hand is fun to watch, the demon that gets his eye blown out by the Barbie doll is fun too. There are some fun special effects in this movie.
Al (Alexandra) is an interesting character. Terry plays a dork, and he is kidnapped by the demons pretty early in the movie. The movie is fun, except for all the close-ups of Stephen Dorff' pug-nosed face and nasal cavities. The movie would be a lot better if about 90 seconds of close-ups of Dorff looking shocked or scared were edited out.