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The Golden Girls: Old Friends (1987)
This is the Golden Girls at its best.
Sophia befriends a man named Alvin and she spends every day with him on a bench at the boardwalk. One day, Sophia shares a story about her late husband Salvatore, and then mentions Alvin's wife, and he doesn't have a clue who Sophia is talking about. Sophia apologizes for over-stepping, but fear at the prospect of having no memory of having a wife shakes Alvin badly, and he begins to cry on Sophia's shoulder.
If you can believe it, Sophia and Alvin was the B-story of the episode. The A-story involved Blanche accidentally gifting Rose's old teddy bear to a young girl from the Sunshine Cadets, and Rose insists that Blanche get the bear back...the young girl refuses, and holds the bear hostage. Finally, Rose takes matters into her own hands and teaches the young girl an important life lesson...and gets her bear back in the process.
The B-story is what keeps this episode going, though. Joe Seneca plays the role of an Alzheimer's sufferer expertly. When Dorothy tells Sophia near the end of the episode about Alvin's condition and his family's plans to move him to New York for more specialized care, Sophia's face betrays her emotion for a moment. She's clearly stunned and heartbroken as she begins to understand that she's losing her friend, but then she pushes past it, choosing to look forward to what little time she has left with Alvin before he leaves instead of sinking into grief.
This is an absolutely brilliant episode, like so many others in this series. 10/10.
The Golden Girls: Bedtime Story (1987)
Dorothy Needs Anger Management
While I consider myself part of the vast majority who loves The Golden Girls, this was not one of the stronger episodes.
I originally titled this review "The Obligatory Clip Show", but that's not quite true. It IS riddled with flashback scenes that aren't really connected to each other or the main plot of the episode, which was about how the girls were going to accommodate more than one guest over the upcoming weekend.
I've never been a huge fan of Dorothy. I find her unnecessarily abrasive and sarcastic a lot of the time, but one scene in this episode shows her hitting a new low.
In the scene where Rose, Blanche, and Dorothy are in a backwater train station, the girls start talking about things they've wanted to try but never have. Dorothy says that she always wanted to try a nudist camp. The folksy train station employee overhears and mutters that "some pots belong on the back burner". As expected, Dorothy snaps back immediately, but with a nasty "Don't you have a cousin you should be dating?" WHOA.
Dorothy frequently retaliates against Rose for her naïveté and ignorance, but accusing a stranger of inbreeding for the sake of laughs is NOT okay.
It's too bad, because the previous episode (and a great many others) prove why this show has endured for forty years: it's got tremendous heart and balances laughs and serious topics equally well.
Overall, not the greatest episode...but I hear a rumor of another episode at the end of Season 2 that's even worse, so I guess I've got that to look forward to.
Supreme Justice with Judge Karen (2013)
Why does a court show have a cast list?
This show may have real people in it, as they are clearly alive and exist, but this show is as fake a Rolex watch bought on Wish, and cheaper than a $3 steak.
Judge Karen (and oh boy, is she ever!) is loud, ineffective, and rude...except when the "litigants" (actors) are yelling over each other. Then she sits back and lets her bailiff yell at the "litigants" to be quiet. Byrd (Judge Judy) and Douglas (The People's Court with Marilyn Milian) rarely spoke and NEVER raised their voices. They didn't have to. Sheindlin and Milian took care of that handily.
I know that all these court shows pay the damages on behalf of the litigant who was so ordered to pay in the ruling (it comes out of their appearance fee, I believe). I also know that Judge Judy (and all the rest) are not proper judges, but are instead arbitrators, but at least Judy actually listens to the litigants and her rulings make sense (mostly).
Is this what we've come to? Now, instead of real cases, we have scripted court shows? Now, instead of real litigants, we have terrible actors? I guess this is what happens when you over-saturate the market with these types of shows: instead of a small handful of shows with acceptable production values, there's now a glut of bottom-of-the-barrel shows with production values on par with an early-90s X-rated porno. You know the ones, where it was a parody of a popular mainstream movie of the time. If you don't know, ask a Gen-Xer. Or don't. It's honestly not worth it. Just know that it's bad.
Stick with those who came first, like Judge Judy, and leave trash like Judge Karen in the dumpster. At least with Judge Judy, it makes sense when litigants get yelled at.
Airplane! (1980)
This movie has aged like milk.
"Surely you can't be serious!"
"I am serious. And don't call me Shirley."
This is probably the most iconic line from this movie, and it's about all I remembered about it. I couldn't even remember if I'd seen the movie before in its entirety, and as I usually enjoy spoof movies, I thought...eh, what the heck.
Within five minutes, I hear the first swing and a miss: an abortion joke, told by two unseen airport staffers on the public address system. It's not great, but it's not THAT bad, either...just really out of place and unnecessary (and I'm very pro-choice).
Then, we see a guy named Ted attempting to patch things up with a flight attendant named Elaine. She rebuffs him repeatedly, but he insists he can change. She rebuffs one last time and gets on a plane heading to Chicago...and Ted buys a ticket to get on that same plane. Hey, the lady said no, Ted. If you're serious about changing your ways, you need to respect that. See kids? Stalking your ex is totally fine!
Up next, Ted gets into his seat and starts blathering on about Elaine to some poor elderly lady seated next to him (although, to be fair, the old lady DID start the conversation). After an eternity of flashback showing us how Ted and Elaine met and fell in love, we dissolve back to the airplane to see Ted continuing to blather, and a slow pan left shows us that the old lady has HANGED HERSELF! By golly, isn't this movie hysterical?
A few minutes later, a young boy named Joey is brought into the cockpit by Elaine to meet the pilot, Captain Oveur. Then this conversation happens:
Oveur: You ever been in a cockpit before?
Joey: No sir, I've never been up in a plane before!
Oveur: You ever seen a grown man naked?
A pedophile joke and I don't think we're even 15 minutes into the film! This is where I turned the movie off. I've no patience for intentional garbage.
Stalking, suicide, and pedophilia should never be played for laughs. This movie is horrendously distasteful and disgusting, and the worst thing is, it didn't HAVE to be. The "jokes" are truly the lowest of the low-hanging fruit.
Leslie Nielson and Peter Graves deserved better.
The Good Life (1975)
Tom Good is the worst.
I grew up loving this show, catching episodes of it when I could on PBS.
I had never seen the show from the beginning, and how the Goods became self-sufficient in the first place. For the most part, as a teenager, I loved the dynamic between the Goods and the Leadbetters. I was never quite sure how to interpret Tom's regular weird insults (calling Jerry a troglodyte as Jerry's leaving the Good's garage after seeing their rotary cultivator converted into something resembling a mode of transportation), and now, in my 40s, I understand why.
Tom Good is an insufferable, selfish twit.
The entire show's premise is kicked off when Tom, on the morning of his 40th birthday, decides he must find "it". He's tired of working at his reasonably comfortable job on the 4th floor of J. J. M. (he's a draftsman who designs plastic toy prizes found inside cereal boxes. That actually sounds pretty nice, honestly), and wants to leave the rat race.
In a brief discussion with Jerry (who also works at J. J. M., albeit in an executive capacity on the 6th floor), Jerry lays out their history together: how they both started as draftsmen at J. J. M. At the same time eight years earlier, and how initially Jerry was frightened of Tom because Tom was a better draftsman with better qualifications. He needn't have worried, he said, as in the years hence, Tom is still working on the 4th floor and Jerry is, through no small amount of brown-nosing, sitting comfortably on the 6th floor. Jerry gives Tom some harsh truths: that Tom is a dreamer who only uses about a tenth of his ability, and if he only applied himself, he could find himself in a better position within the company. To that end, Jerry attempts to include Tom in a discussion about a new project with Sir that he thinks Tom would be perfect for. Despite the attempt at a lifeline, Tom's reaction is to laugh hysterically at the project concept. Way to throw Jerry under the bus with your insolence, Tom. Moron.
Later that night, after getting the germ of an idea and staying up until 3 in the morning writing it down, Barbara (Tom's wife) comes to ask if he's coming to bed. He proudly declares that he's discovered "it": Tom wants to leave his relatively cushy job )and the rat race altogether), and become self-sufficient.
WHAT.
Barbara spends all of about five minutes pacing about in their garden before finally agreeing to this insanity, instead of insisting that Tom get his head checked.
The rest of the series (that I've seen so far) is more of the same: Tom gets a new idea and foists it upon Barbara, who does all she can to keep up and somehow make it work. At the same time, Tom's picking fights with Jerry and his wife, Margo, rudely turning down a last, reasonable attempt by Jerry and Sir to get Tom to come back to work, and ignoring Barbara as she wears herself (and her clothes) to the bone scrubbing the rust off an iron range they procured from a local huckster.
I don't know how or why Barbara, Jerry, or Margo put up with Tom. While it's true that Tom can occasionally be charming, it's not enough, especially when he is absolutely everything Jerry said he was: a coasting, clowning dreamer who isn't willing to put in the work necessary to enjoy his life and his job at J. J. M. More fully. There's a good little exchange between Jerry and Tom that illustrates this best:
Tom: Oh, come on, Jerry, look. I cannot see the world as a giant plastic toy. How can you seriously make it your life's work?
Jerry: It isn't, it just brings in the goodies.
Jerry gets it. Tom doesn't, mainly because he can't (or won't) act his age. He'd much rather play the charming fool than be the bread-winning hero. It's one thing to dislike your job, but it's not like it's back-breaking work, and it's the very job that Tom now hates which allowed him to put away enough savings to fund his cockamamie self-sufficiency scheme in a suburban house that's fully paid for in the first place.
I don't know why Barbara puts up with him, but Tom should be far more grateful that she does. In fact, if it wasn't for Barbara's willingness to get dirty, or the Leadbetters trying to help where they can, Tom's lunatic plan would have fallen flat on its face the second day. The scene in the episode "The Weaker Sex?" where Barbara finally gets angry about being left to clean their rusty range all day while Tom fiddles about with ways to scare birds away is a perfect example of this. Tom's reaction is that of an "are you angry?" attitude with a face that shows just how clueless he really is toward his wife's silent suffering.
As characters, Barbara, Jerry, and Margo go above and beyond to make this show watchable. Tom is borderline intolerable.
My Man Godfrey (1936)
Powell is the only shining star in a muddled attempt at a farce
I recently discovered William Powell after listening to a recent "Writing Excuses" podcast and seeking out the "The Thin Man" series at my local library. I immediately fell in love with Powell's dignified humor and was pleased to see that "My Man Godfrey" and "Life With Father" were available to watch on TubiTV. While "My Man Godfrey" is not the worst film I've ever seen, it's not one of Powell's better outings...although his portrayal of Godfrey is the only reason to watch this film, as most of the rest of the cast can't quite seem to match his authenticity (although Eugene Pallette as patriarch Alexander Bullock comes close).
The Story:
The film takes place at the height of the Depression. Powell plays Godfrey, a derelict who lives in a shack down in the City Dump. One evening, Cornelia and Irene Bullock (played by Gail Patrick and Carole Lombard respectively) a pair of young, wealthy socialites, come to the dump in search of a "forgotten man" as part of the scavenger hunt they're both participating in. Cornelia finds Godfrey, and offers him $5 if he will accompany her back to the party as her "forgotten man". Insulted by her suggestion, Godfrey pushes Cornelia into an ash-pile. After collecting herself and wiping the dirt from her dress, she leaves in a huff. Irene stays behind, and manages to convince Godfrey to accompany her back to the party for the offered $5 and the added treat of sticking it in Cornelia's eye. Intrigued by the suggestion of mild revenge between obviously feuding sisters, Godfrey agrees.
At the party, Irene is awarded a silver cup for her presentation of a "forgotten man". Godfrey has the last laugh, however, as he's invited to say a few words to the elitist crowd, and takes the golden opportunity to condemn them all as "empty-headed nitwits". Godfrey leaves, and Irene chases after him, clearly taken by his apparent bravery. She offers him a job as her family's butler, and in the end, Godfrey agrees. After being quickly introduced to Angelica Bullock (Irene's mother, played by Alice Brady) and re-introduced to Cornelia, Godfrey bids them all good night and leaves the hotel.
Godfrey arrives at the Bullock mansion the next morning, clean-shaven and nattily-attired in a rented tuxedo (paid for with the money given to him the previous evening by Irene) and a piece of luggage in his hand. The plot falls apart pretty quickly once he enters the house, as Irene and Cornelia are shown to be impulsive and, in Cornelia's case, horribly vindictive. Angelica in particular is especially hard to watch, as she's the epitome of a brainless airhead. She tries, I suppose, in her own way to be something of a mother, but her utter inability to focus on anything for more than 10 seconds at a time or care much about serious matters of any sort goes the furthest to explain how and why the family is so horribly dysfunctional in the first place. The father, Alexander, is probably the sturdiest victim of the rest of the family's shameless extravagance (outside of Molly the maid, heroically played by a highly under-rated Jean Dixon). Bouncing around in the middle of all this mess is a strange mooch named Carlo (played by Mischa Auer), a sort of odd bohemian who's content to play the same tune over and over on the piano, stuff his face at family meals, or, strangest of all, imitate a gorilla (yes, really) in an over-long scene where Irene has hurled herself into an exaggerated tantrum.
The only characters who somehow maintain their dignity (or try to, anyway) throughout this mess are Molly, Alexander, and Godfrey. Despite the high-toned shenanigans that pervade nearly every scene, Godfrey maintains an utter sense of decorum which is beyond reproach. Near the film's conclusion, Godfrey determines that his time with the Bullocks is almost finished, and, like a sort of male Mary Poppins, exits the house abruptly, leaving behind a mostly irredeemable family to go...back to the City Dump? Yes, it seems that during the time he was buttling, he spent some time playing the stock market with his earnings as a butler, buying up some of Mr. Bullock's declining stock and somehow increasing their value before giving Alexander back a large portion of the money the patriarch had lost due to the family's egregious spending habits (at least, I *think* this is what happened. The details were glossed over a bit). Godfrey kept back a bit of the money for himself, choosing to funnel it into refurbishing the Dump, building a nightspot in the middle, and giving all his derelict friends jobs doing various things in the club. Satisfied with how things turned out, including having escaped the Bullock family with his hide (if not his sanity), he settles back on a couch to enjoy a pipe. Suddenly, Irene bursts in, convinced that Godfrey loves her because he had pushed her into a running shower earlier at the house (yes, really), and has decided to not only live with Godfrey in his new nightclub digs, but to marry him right there on the spot! Godfrey of course protests, but Irene won't hear of it. She produces a chaplain out of nowhere, and one of Godfrey's friends who just happened to be in the room at the time gets roped in as a witness to the whole bizarre affair. Godfrey is, of course, too much of a gentleman to adequately protest (not that Irene would listen, that silly girl), and we fade to black as Godfrey seems to resign himself to his fate.
The Conclusion:
Godfrey deserved so much better. William Powell deserved so much better. His talents were clearly wasted here, as it seemed that the intention of the director was to keep Godfrey as dignified as possible while ramping up the insanity of the Bullock house to 11, as a stark contrast to Powell's genteel nature. The farcical aspects of the plot would have been delivered much more effectively in the hands of a more skilled director, but as it stands here, it serves only as a cacophony of chaos throughout the entire 90 minutes. The ending is also a downer, as the idea of Godfrey being even remotely interested in a flighty dingbat like Irene is nowhere near the neighborhood of being convincing. The two of them had buttoned everything up between them nicely in an earlier dish-washing scene, and then everything was undone in the last five minutes, which made no sense whatsoever.
My love and adoration for William Powell has not diminished, despite this film's best efforts. The only reason I didn't rate the film itself any lower than I did was because Powell was magic in every scene he was in. This film is not that great, even by farce standards. Give it a miss and stick with "The Thin Man" series, or "The Kennel Murder Case" where Powell stars as detective Philo Vance.
Masters of the Universe: Revelation (2021)
Today's lesson: Nostalgia is a lie. Until next time, friends.
I grew up watching He-Man and The Masters of the Universe, and as an adult, I've watched too many of my childhood icons destroyed by the creative bankruptcy and pursuit of money over good story-telling of modern-day studios (I'm looking at you, Transformers, TMNT, Inspector Gadget, etc.)
What can I say? The animation is EXCELLENT (had a very Castlevania-type feel to it). Too bad the story couldn't be on par with Castlevania as well.
He-Man and Skeletor are almost immediately sidelined in this new incarnation, and now we're following the adventures of...Teela? O...kay? I have no problems with shows featuring a strong female lead, however...
1) This is a show based off a cartoon about the most powerful man in the universe,
2) Netflix already HAS a similar show with a strong female protagonist (or has everyone already forgotten about She-Ra?)
The writing is SO BAD. Now, admittedly, the original cartoon wasn't strong in this department either, and was essentially a 22-minute advertisement for the toy line. So far as I know, this current reboot has no toy line to sell, so there's no excuse NOT to have improved writing. You're writing for a fanbase that grew up on this show and has matured throughout the years. Punch up the writing! Is it really so hard to do this?
Mark Hamill as Skeletor is the only shining light in this whole thing. Too bad his talents are supremely wasted here.
Everything seemed off...like your favorite song being played off-tempo and out of key. I could forgive almost anything if the writing weren't so terrible. But...yeah. I don't know. I'm not mad, I don't feel emasculated, and I'm sure as hell not a troll. I'm just sad that those who hate it (me included) really hate it, and those who like it are okay with settling for severely substandard story-telling. Bumping my rating to a 2, because the animation style really is quite stunning. Too bad everything else dragged it down so far.
Weird observation: In the original cartoon, inevitably He-Man would re-emerge at the Palace as Prince Adam. So far as I can remember, it was never revealed precisely HOW this transformation was done. Now, in the new series, He-Man asks the Sorceress what would happen if he called for the power of Grayskull while in He-Man form. The answer is kinda left unanswered, He-Man calls for the power, and...turns back into Prince Adam?
So either Prince Adam/He-Man is an idiot for not knowing what will happen if he calls on the power of Grayskull while in He-Man form (as this would appear to be how he switches personas), OR this was truly a new, hitherto untried tactic, and now he has TWO ways to switch forms. I'm leaning toward the former.
Nostalgia is a lie. We need NEW stories. I can't remember the last time I rage-quit a show this fast.
The Shining (1980)
Kubrick is not as good as everyone seems to think he is.
I know I'm treading in dangerous waters by even considering writing down my thoughts on this film for everyone to read. But review it I shall.
Let's start with some basic story-telling rules, especially as they relate to novels and films: both (as most everyone will agree) are totally different mediums, and films based on novels should be able to stand on their own, without the viewer having to refer to the novel upon which the film is based. That said, the film bears so little resemblance to its source material it almost doesn't matter if you've read King's novel, as the film diverges almost immediately from the original plot that its only connection to the original novel is the title.
Now, onto the players, shall we?
Jack Nicholson. Let me get one thing straight right out of the gate: I love Nicholson in a LOT of his films, however his portrayal of Jack Torrance is played as perilously close to insanity right out of the gate, and thus the audience is given no opportunity to have sympathy for the character and his subsequent plummet into madness later in the film. The whole point of Jack Torrance's character is that of a man who is well-aware that his demons (in this case, alcoholism) have driven him to this desperate last chance to save not only himself, but his family from ruin. He understands alcoholism is a sickness he wants to be rid of once and for all, and taking the job as Caretaker of the Overlook is (he hopes) his last chance at redemption. That he succumbs to his demons later is what makes his character so tragic. We don't get such an opportunity in Kubrick's version. Nicholson plays Torrance as essentially nuts right from the beginning, and thus there is no arc. It's all madness all the time, and we end up feeling nothing at all when Jack finally dies.
Shelley Duvall. Hoo, boy. There's a lot to unpack here. Kubrick directed Duvall to be this ever-terrified, screaming, crying mouse almost from the get-go. Thus the viewer is met with a terribly one-dimensional character with whom we also have little to no sympathy. Based on how she reacts to almost everything throughout the film, the viewer might sit and think, "how did Jack and Wendy EVER fall in love, let alone get married and have a child?" Plus, stories have begun to emerge about how Kubrick essentially emotionally abused and broke Duvall during filming, and knowing that Shelley as a human being today is basically mentally destroyed as a result of the intensely stressful environment Kubrick established during filming ("Don't talk to Shelley" he allegedly instructed everyone on set; the excessive takes during many scenes) makes this film very hard to watch nowadays for anyone with any shred of empathy.
The rest of the film is filled with elements which jar and upset instead of truly scare. The soundtrack in particular is filled with such high-tension, shrieky strings as to make viewing the bulk of the film quite uncomfortable, but not for the reasons Kubrick hopes.
In the end, we're left with a film which is cold and distant, with no warmth at all. Like with 2001: A Space Odyssey, there are some stunning visuals here (the completely impossible layout of the hotel itself and the massive hedge maze come to mind), but beyond that, we're treated to two-and-a-half hours of scene after scene after disjointed scene that don't advance any sort of story (Jack does something insane, Wendy screams and cries, and Danny drools and talks to his finger, rinse and repeat) and that ultimately culminates in a sub-zero ending. You'd think that, for all those hundreds and hundreds of takes Kubrick went through, we'd have a better film to show for it.
King (and the Torrances by extension) deserved better treatment.