Reviews

Maggie and OA on this show are the best crime fighting team since Sergeant Friday and Bill Gannon on Dragnet. The relationship between the two transcends a mere partnership. They can almost think alike and you can tell they are good friends. Zeeko Zaki and Missy Peregrym (what original names!) are two great actors who really bring their characters to life. On this episode they are dealing with the nightmarish possibility of a sarin gas attack. OA is a former Army Captain who knows all too well the hell of chemical warfare. The ending of this episode is a nightmare as poor Maggie is trapped in a room with sarin gas! OA desperately tries to save her and in the end it shows him crying at her hospital bed. It is almost too intense to watch.

There was a song that I heard called That's Entertainment. I heard it years ago when I was a kid and for some reason I had a moment of childhood nostalgia when Lady Gaga sang it in this movie. There isn't much else nostalgic or light hearted about this film it is as dark maybe even darker then the first. Joaquin Phoenix returns as the tormented and pathetic Arthur Fleck. He has been cooling his heels in Arkham Asylum for two years awaiting trial for the murders he commited as the Joker. He falls in love with Harley Quinn (Harlequin is another word for clown). She seems to be as disturbed as he is and the title of this film is a medical term for two people with a shared insanity. I couldn't believe that they actually made this film a musical but Phoenix and Gaga do a good job. The musical numbers range from beautiful to sick humor (where he bashes the judge's head in). The trial is played out before the media like so many today and it is so pathetic when Fleck represents himself and in the end in a shattering closing argument he denounces his Joker persona and admits he lives in a fantasy world and in real life he is just this pathetic, disturbed child man. Phoenix does a haunting job acting often with only his pained, or crazed facial expressions and Lady Gaga shows she can act as well. In the end, you don't like these two people or care what happens to them and you are torn between almost feeling sorry for them and being disgusted by them. SPOILER ALERT It looks like Fleck is dead in the end when that other inmate "does a Dahmer" on him but who knows big box office returns have amazing powers of revival.

To say the very least, this is not a happy documentary to watch. It shows how Tinsel Town dreams can turn into living nightmares. I watched this film over thirty years ago and would like to see it again. It tells the tragic stories of such stars as Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer (who made the sad mistake of bringing a knife to a gun fight) to John Belushi. It tells the little known story of Fatty Arbuckle a silent screen star next only to Chaplin in popularity whose career was ruined by the media. Maybe this movie should make us question how we put celebrities on pedestals and overlook their dark sides.

Picket Fences was always a "guilty pleasure" of mine when it was on tv. It was weird in many ways but hey it tried to be original and creative and also it had such a great ensemble cast. This episode focuses on our favorite lovable curmudgeon Judge Bone. Ray Walston was typecast from My Favorite Martian for a long time but he made a great comeback with this show winning a late in life Emmy. Judge Bone's professionalism is tested like never before when a young hoodlum shoots and kills his friend Father Barret (I really got caught up in hating the little creep he is evil with a human face and like a lot of other real life hoodlums has a mother that enables him). The good father dies in the end and Judge Bone is forced to recuse himself from the case (there is a good scene where he goes off on the punk in the courtroom literally getting in his face). The episode has a semi happy ending with the pageant going on in the good father's memory.

When I was stationed in Germany with the US Army I took a tour of the Tower of London and remembered this episode because that tower looks as forbidding in real life as it does on television. This episode explores the history of the grim tower where such famous and infamous people as Sir Walter Raleigh and Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess were held. Host Leonard Nimoy tells of the various prisoners who literally "lost their heads" at the tower. However, the main point of the episode involves Shakespeares most infamous villian Richard the III. Was he really the monster Willie played him to be or was he the most unfairly villified person in history. He has often been accused of the murder of his nephews but we will never know. The chilling part of the episode is at the very end when Nimoy tells of how the ghosts of the two little princes still supposedly haunt the place where they died.

This episode really made me angry at Maggie (who is usually my favorite character). She let personal feelings get in the way of duty and it almost cost a police officer and a child hostage their lives. This is so strange because Maggie is usually the cool headed and balanced one, she is the one that usually has to scold OA or bring him back to earth when he lets emotions get the best. I understand that Maggie was worried about her sister when she got the news she had overdosed but she was in the middle of a very important mission involving an abducted child! In real life, she would have been immediately fired from the FBI. I wanted Jubal to give her the worst butt chewing the world but he just gently scolded her that would not happen in real life. Still, I really enjoy this show.

I remember when Whoops! Came on Fox in 1992 but hadn't watched any of the episodes until now. It is a crazy mix of Married With Children and Gilligans Island with many of the six characters having a strong resemblance to those on the SS Minow. Every show has to have a Christmas episode and this is Woops one. The survivors find Santa stuck in the chimney of their farmhouse and he tells them a horror story of how he locked himself in the fallout bunker at the North Pole when the world ended but Mrs. Claus and the elves were trapped outside and he heard them screaming. It turns out that Santa has always come down the chimney and does not know how to open doors. This is one original show to be sure.

When this show premiered on Fox in the fall of 1992, it was hailed as another Married With Children (at that time the network's biggest hit). It is a combination of Married With Children and Gilligan's Island. It is a black comedy about the world being wiped out by an accidental nuclear missile launch leaving only six survivors to fend for themselves at a small secluded farmhouse (that just conveniently has plenty of food and provisions). The survivors include an uptight yuppie, a schoolteacher, a radical feminist, a dumb blonde, a homeless man and an African American (that just about covers every stereotype I think). The pilot episode sets the scene for the short lived series as they struggle to survive and vow to make a better world before their petty differences tear them apart and then they have to band together when a giant spider threatens them. This is an original show that unfortunately never found an audience and was quickly cancelled. The episodes are on youtube.

Detective Jeff Ward (played by Robert Hooks) gets emotionally involved to the maximum when his favorite teacher from his old neighborhood is murdered (he grew up in a bad place and seemed destined for a life of crime but delivers a moving monologue telling how his teacher "saved" him). This is a cliched story actually about a cop who gets too emotional in dealing with a case in which he knew one of the people involved (in real life this wouldn't be tolerated). Ward suffers a savage beating when he goes back to his old "hood" and finds out how out of touch he is. In the end, he finds out that his favorite teacher wasn't the man he thought him to be, he was a crook as well.

I recently found out about this almost forgotten tv cop show that was on the air at about the same time that Dragnet was but apparently never got the ratings it did. This was made 25 years before NYPD Blue came on the air. Frank Converse, Jack Warden and Robert Hooks are three tough New York cops trying to keep the peace. This episode features the only television guest appearance that John Cazale made as a homicidal landlord. He comes across as weird from the beginning and you suspect he is the guilty one. The episode also features an early appearance by Martin Sheen as a man struggling with peeping tom tendancies. He is innocent but you don't feel sorry for him because he is such an obnoxious jerk. There is a good fight scene between these two actors at the end.

I have always enjoyed the "God's Not Dead" franchise (especially the first one). Hollywood is usually very jaded and cynical towards religion whenever they show a religious person a film that person is usually crazy or the villian (like the warden in the Shawshank Redemption). David A. R. White once again reprises his role as Godly pastor Dave who finds himself running for Congress against bad guy Peter Kane (Ray Wise who played the character in God's Not Dead 2). Kane is probably named after the first murderer in the Bible. Wise makes him so evil and sinister you wonder if he is the Anti Christ. There are two wonderful scenes in the film where the characters have a debate on religion and the government. There is a wonderful quote from Ronald Reagan in the film where he says "A nation that is not "under God" is a nation that has gone under". These movies are cliched and corny in some ways but I still love them. By the way, Reverend Dave wins in the end! I hope this movie does well and they make God's Not Dead: Dave in the White House next.

One of the fun things about watching old television shows is that you can see a lot of stars in them when they were just getting started out in show business, for example Jack Nicholson did two guest appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (I am not kidding look it up!). This episode of I Spy is set in Mexico and it features future two time Oscar winner Gene Hackman as a mentally ill explosives expert who has escaped and is out to kill a friend of Robinson's and Scotts whom he blames for being in prison. The friend is played by Jim Backus, thats right the millionaire on Gilligan's Island and the voice of Mister Magoo. Backus was a talented actor in both comedy and drama but I am so sorry I just think of him as Thurston Howell and it is really hard to take this episode seriously. You watch it and the Gilligan's Island theme song runs through your head.

Robert Culp was a very acclaimed tv writer as well as an actor and he wrote the screenplay for a number of I Spy episodes including this one that is the first episode. It introduces us to Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott who are assigned to persuade an arrogant American athlete who decided to go over to Red China that it is time to come home. Scott has nothing but contempt for Elroy Browne (played by Hogans Heroe's star Ivan Dixon) because he called him "Patrick Henry" the first time they met. The problem with this episode is that you don't care about whether or not Elroy Browne comes home or not he is so arrogant and unlikeable. There is a memorable scene where Scott scolds him calling him a greedy fool who is doing nothing more then selling himself back into slavery. This set the tone for what was a very entertaining and ground breaking show.

Spitting image was a very popular English show back in the 1980s where they lampooned both English and American celebrities (the creators of the show even had the colossal cheek to lampoon the royal family). I first saw this back in 1987 and always remembered it wishing I could see it again. It is something of an extension of the Land Of Confusion video making fun of poor old Ronald Reagan. And to think that he and Margaret Thatcher were reportedly best friends. This show is unmerciful in how it mocks him as a total dolt who is even outsmarted by his dog. There are puppets of Nancy, George Bush, Ed Meese, Cap Wienberger and a number of Hollywood celebs coming to the White House for Reagans birthday party that almost turns into the end of the world when he tries to order a pizza and launches a nuclear strike instead. It is up to his intrepid dog to save the day. This is insane English humor at it's best.

I admired Ronald Reagan when he was President but this video spoofing him always made me laugh. Phil Collins and his band Genesis really outdid themselves in terms of creativity and imagination (although I wondered what Nancy Reagan thought of it, she was always very protective of her husband). I went and saw the new Reagan movie tonight with Dennis Quaid and they actually played this song during the movie. The English always did have an unusual sense of humor (just watch Monty Python or The Goodies) they make fun of everything in this video from Bedtime for Bonzo to We Are The World. The only chilling part of the video is at the very end when Reagan pushes the nuke button instead of the nurse button. I think that towards the end of his second term a lot of his critics were afraid that he would end up really doing that!

Dennis Quaid is one of those actors who can do comedy and drama with ease (he was wonderful in The Parent Trap for instance). He does an awesome job playing Reagan in this movie, it is the best job an actor has done playing a President since Martin Sheen played Kennedy. Quaid has Reagan's voice down so well you could close your eyes and think that was Reagan talking. A number of years ago, Oliver stone made W about George W. Bush which was really a glorified hatchet job. This movie is a good, fair and respectful portrait of Reagan from his childhood to the end of his life. There is a very strange technique used in the film because it is narrated by a retired KGB profiler who is an expert on Reagan (played by Jon Voight). This is so ironic considering Reagan is seen as the ultimate cold war warrior. Penalope Ann Miller does a great job playing Nancy and the scenes between the two are so touching. Quaid does some fine reenactments of Reagan's speeches (the "tear down this wall" for example) but I was disappointed they didn't have him do the speech he did after the Challenger disaster that was him at his best. I highly recommend this outstanding film about one of our most inspiring leaders.

Captain Phillips is based on a true story and who better to play a real life hero then our favorite movie hero who has done everything from Forest Gump to Mister Rogers to Walt Disney-Mister Tom Hanks the man who has been compared to Jimmy Stewart. Captain Phillips was a real white knuckle action movie that kept you on the edge of your seat. I wanted to mention the ending of the film where Hanks does some of the best acting I have ever seen him do. One of the biggest cliches in movies is where they show someone in a hairy life or death trap and they are rescued and it shows them acting real chill like nothing happened. That is NOT what you would be like in a situation like that and the scene after phillips is rescued Hanks does an amazing job showing the shock and the tears and it really tugs at your heart and he nailed it.

Isabel the special agent in charge on this series is a really cool character she is a ball buster the equal or better of any of her male counterparts and she is not afraid to chew you butt or make tough decisions and she sure does on this one. A scummy cartel leader is captured after his driver kills a cop and his cohorts kidnap an FBI agent and attach a bomb necklace to her neck set to go in twenty minutes unless the cartel leader is released. This episode is done in "real time" so you are on the edge of your seat as Maggie, Jubal, OA and the rest of the team race to clock to save their comrade. Isabel is the real star and in the end is forced to make a choice that might be morally wrong but saves her fellow agents life (as in all episodes like this involving a bomb it has to be with only SECONDS to spare). This episode is very original except for one cliche. Have any of you ever noticed that on a movie or a tv show when it shows someone in a real hairy life of death situation and they are saved and then it shows them acting really chill like nothing has happened. Thats how it shows the agent on this episode after they save her, in real life you would be a crying pants wetting mess! This is a great show.

This three minute short was the last completed work by the great Orson Welles. It simply shows him sitting down and reading from the journals of Charles Lindbergh. These two men have a lot in common they both achieved great fame when they were very young (Lindy with his famous flight and Welles with his War Of The Worlds broadcast and then Citizen Kane) and then both achieved notoriety as well. After Kane Welles was only able to complete eleven others films, a couple television episodes, a documentary about magic called F For Fake and this little film. He had over a hundred other projects in his life that he wanted to do but for some reason, be it bad luck or perhaps his ego he was unable to complete. Its so sad that a man who made the most famous radio play in history and began his Hollywood career by directing a film that some have called the greatest ever should end his life a bloated caricature of himself doing tv commercials, voice overs and telling stale jokes on talk shows and Dean Martin celebrity roasts. Welles in now recognized as a true genius and its a shame everyone didn't think so when he was still alive.

There was a gag article written about McLean Stevenson where it suggested having a debate with the question "Resolved was it wise for McLean to stop doing MASH when he did but first lets debate Resolved was it wise for the Titanic to steer right into the iceberg? Stevenson became a sad joke in HOllywood after all FOUR of his post MASH series tanked including this one. I remember watching Hello Larry as a kid and seemed to think it was very funny. Disney child actress Kim Richards played his youngest daughter and they seemed to have great rapport. Stevenson's character Larry Alder seemed like a decent guy. Maybe no one gave this show a chance. The original tapes are probably lost by now because the show became such a joke.

I am a retired Army Sergeant who traveled all over the world with Uncle Sam but I have always been proud to call Fairmont, West Virginia my home. It is best known as the birth place of 1984 Olympic Gold medalist Mary Lou Retton. This movie was filmed on location in Fairmont and I had a ball watching it tonight because I recognized some of the landmarks. There is a shot of a store called Adams Office Supply which is across from the museum I work at and also there is a scene involving a little league baseball game that was filmed at Mary Lou Retton Park just a short distance from my childhood home. Other then that this is just a typical Lifetime movie about two women that are as close as sisters and one of them falls for a man she thinks is a knight in shining armour who turns out to be a devil in human form who kills her. The dead woman's friend launches a brave crusade to bring this killer to justice and get her friends little boy out of his evil clutches. This is one of those movies where everything turns out all right in the end and justice triumphs. The only unusual thing is the names of the two leading actors Chrishell Stause and. Colin Egglesfield (who does a chilling turn as the bad guy he alternates between charming and terrifying).

All right I admit it, I have two college degrees and consider myself very intelligent but back in the 1990s, Mike Judge's Beavis and Butthead was a shameful guilty pleasure of mine. Judge later expanded and went on to create two other popular television series Daria and King Of The Hill but I guess this show about two moronic losers could be considered his first "master piece". On this episde, our dynamic dimwits are watching The Beverly Hillbillies and come up with an idea to dig for oil. They dig into the ground and up comes a brown bubbling crude but, surprise, surprise, it isn't oil. I won't give away the ending but Butthead keeps saying "Huh huh oil smells like turds!" Revolting and disgusting but I was on the floor!

Carroll O'Connor was an English teacher before going into acting! It's hard to believe isn't it considering the way he always murdered the poor English language as Archie Bunker. Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers were all so wonderful on the show as well but this episode is mostly Carroll O'Connor's alone and he pulls it off brilliantly combining humor and pathos. The Stivics and Edith leave town for the weekend and Archie is looking forward to some time alone but in a comic twist of events he gets locked in the cellar. Archie gets drunk on a bottle of vodka he found and rambles about his life and even tape records a will. In his delirium he has visions of his family and even tells Edith he loves her. This is one of those episodes both funny and touching, however the end is one of the biggest laughs ever as Archie thinks he hears the voice of God and it turns out to be...well watch it and see!

I have recently gotten "hooked" on FBI created by TV veteran Dick Wolf. Jeremy Sisto (who got his start on tv playing Jesus Christ in a 1999 miniseries) gives a great performance as Jubal Valentine a tough and dedicated G man who always gets hi man and who would have made Elliott Ness very proud. However, Sisto is a fine enough actor to make Jubal a very complex, multi layered character a tough but compassionate man who is also a loving father and a recovering alcoholic. He has been in some pretty painful situations and this episode is one of them where he and the other agents are racing the clock trying to find a dealer who has killed four teens by giving them fentanyl. It turns out that the yellow livered pusher is the son of an old friend Of Jubal's. Jubal finds the drugs in the kids room and his old partner actually tries to persuade him to destroy the evidence! This kids father turns out to be a real jerk who throws a fit when Jubal tells him he can get his son off with a two year sentence (he should be glad after all his son played a part in four deaths). In the end the father interferes in a shootout and his son is severely injuured and even then he shows poor Jubal no gratitude and disowns him as a friend. I felt so sorry for Jubal and wanted him to punch daddy dearest in the mouth.

The White Shadow is one of those great shows that has stood the test of time and aged like a fine wine. Like Room 222, the issues that it tackled are still relevant today like in this one involving school violence. Coach Reeves (the always awesome Ken Howard) is forced to take over a gym class, which he looks forward to like a Soldier being sent on a suicide mission. He has a run in with the school bully Lucius Robinson who is hero worshipped by his peers for all the wrong reasons. Worse leads to worse and the punk hits the poor Coach and he hits back! Reeves is overcome with guilt feeling sorry for the poor kid after Lucius claims he comes for a poor alcoholic family. The issue of school violence and corporal punishment is discussed in detail and this episode could be set in modern times. SPOILER ALERT. Coach Reeves learns a sad lesson when he finds out the punk fed him a line of bull. Lucius actually came from a loving family but is just an all around bad seed and in the end he commits a frightning act of violence that Reeves stops just in the nick of time.