Reviews

Quite the performance from McCona however you spell his name. As a story, it's told in a very compelling way.

So much of the film is fiction though, and conspiracy nonsense. There was no effort to keep these "drugs" away from AIDS sufferers. The cures the film touts were pure snake oil, actually making the patient die sooner.

And in real life the main character was bisexual with partners from both genders. They made him into a bigoted country boy to make him more sympathetic to an audience that might blame him for his own death from having multiple partners.

Enjoy as a good film, but don't think this is real when it isn't.

All his films are awful, overblown, and full of lies about their subject:

Deer Hunter- The "Viet Cong" speak Thai. The military shown in such a ridiculous way that could only be believed by non veterans or those with no family who were vets. US soldiers shown going through tortures that never happened in real life.

Cimino was outed as having lied about his time in Vietnam. He was in the reserve in Yale during peacetime.

Sicilian- Murkily shot and filled with bad acting despite being written by the author of The Godfather classic.

Year of the Dragon- Overblown crime story overacted by Mickey Rourke with lots of in your face Asian hating racism.

And this bomb, widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made. A revisionist campaign can't hide that this film is bloated, twice as long as needed.

The story and acting make no sense. Even the most basic directing is lacking. Long scenes are hard to understand simply from being poorly recorded.

Just like his other films, Cimino can't resist twisting real history. In real life the death toll was low. Neither side was clearly all good or all bad. And the ones shown as losing in Heaven's Gate actually won.

A better film on the Johnson County War is the classic film The Virginian.

Much of the low ratings seem to be from mindless gore fans hoping for high body counts and nothing else, the kinds of idiots that think TWD spends too much time developing characters.

Most of the story is taken up by a look at a cartel leader and son, his rivals, both govts, and a crusading reporter.

The plot takes up more time than the action scenes, where gore is never gratuitous or explicit in a juvenile attempt to shock. That's a nice change compared to brainlessness like Black Summer.

He became a notorious anti Semite and vaccine conspiracy nut. Now the show can't be watched without thinking about him hiding his craziness behind that smile.

Gorka was kicked out of the Trump administration because his openly being a proud fascist was too embarrassing even for them.

So he sets up a show with the title of the US fascism movement of the 1930s.

Know what you're getting if you take a look.

All the things which he was able to do on radio failed badly on TV. The long pauses to fill up time. Juvenile insults. Saying outrageous things knowing they weren't true.

None of it was helped by him being one of the homeliest people on television. And on radio you had people occupied by traffic and all his BS didn't register as BS as easily. On TV him looking like George C Scott's uglier dumber angrier twin hurt him.

Unmissed, just like Limbaugh. He made the world a worse place, more hateful and with ignorant people proud of being anti intellectual.

"Von Daniken is a writer, producer, and former hotel manager and convicted con artist. He was first convicted at age 19 for theft, then at age 29 for fraud and embezzlement. He was a hotel manager in Davos, Switzerland when he wrote Chariots of the Gods. At age 33 he was convicted again for fraud, embezzlement, and forgery, stealing $130,000. His second book Gods from Outer Space was written in prison.

Von Daniken's books were enormously popular, selling tens of millions of copies. Royalties from his books paid off his legal fees and fines. The reaction from academics was scathing. Carl Sagan wrote, "I know of no recent books so riddled with logical and factual errors as the works of Von Daniken."

Archaeologists and historians were equally critical, with some pointing to Von Daniken's racism for claims like "Was the black race a failure and did the extraterrestrials change the genetic code by gene surgery and then program a white or a yellow race?"

Von Daniken had a definite long term impact, seen in the influence on programs such as Ancient Aliens, for which he is a frequent [source.] Ancient Aliens angered scholars enough that they put out a feature length documentary debunking it, Ancient Aliens Exposed. Von Daniken also designed Mystery Park, a theme park based on ancient alien themes that opened in Switzerland in 2003. It closed in 2006 due to low turnout and financial failure. It briefly reopened in 2010."

They just play one online, and in this poor show.

Basically, both exist to fool the unwary, the kind that think Conservapedia, Alex Jones, or Tucker Carlson are credible.

Prager "U" managed to get an edu website before they were restricted and have been hustling poorly made propaganda ever since.

Don't try and use them as sources for any paper.

Dallas Goldtooth is the standout here. His wry satire of every mystical Indian stereotype.

But all the young newcomer actors deserve praise. You really feel they are just playing themselves, early and mid teen kids trying to figure things out and making dumb choices.

Some of the jokes may make outsiders scratch their heads. But if they can laugh along to Black comedians telling their own experiences, they can do so for rez Natives too.

The most boring "horror" movie you will ever see.

Nothing scary.

No sense of dread.

Not much of a story.

The supposed twist, that Lewis Cipher is Lucifer, was obvious from the start. A waste of time.

A bomb when it came out. A few people saw it for the nude scene with Lisa Bonet.

Fast forward to it and skip the rest of the film.

For those who complain about high tuition at elite universities and having their bikes stolen and frat domination. That's the subject of the film, reimagined as a dystopian third world or ghetto nightmare.

Seriously. That's the premise. Oh, and one of these eeeevil frats is minority, and super wealthy.

Hard to care. Too ludicrous to be believable. Might be better if animated, or a short skit.

The first episode had some new and surprising humor. It was the spook at its best.

By the second episode that was already gone. Not even attempts at humor for 90% of the episodes. Just the same shots of him flying poorly. And the rest was a dull superhero story combined with a slow teacher's story.

Don't waste your time. Only the lack of competition kept it on the air back then.

How did they manage to take such talent and do nothing with it? Mifune and Chamberlain. A great historical novel.

And then nothing happens. The series spends its entire time teasing that a war will happen and then describe the war with a very brief voice over narration at the end.

You feel cheated. Don't waste your time on it.

...he wouldn't let them tell any jokes about how he's really not that wealthy. Seriously.

It's funny to watch him get humiliated so badly, almost as badly as the Correspondents Dinner.

You wind up wishing for a second roast, where they go after his racism, abuse of women, being a conspiracy nut, and his many failures as president. But he's so humorless you can bet he'll never do it.

Both he and Moore deserve credit for this series where a Native played a hero, and actually played by a Native instead a white actor in bad makeup and a horsehair wig. Moore also deserves credit for doing his best to make the character an upstanding moral example for children. LR avoided violence if possible, resorting to it only for self defense, upholding the law and protecting all people.

My mother was a huge fan of the series and both actors. Tonto was so amazing in 1949. Natives were always shown as ignorant savages deserving to be killed off. Even Hollywood's good guys like Henry Fonda and Bob Hope were depicted mocking Indians.

The LR series changed that. Tonto was a hero. He had dignity and grace and decency. He was good. After decades as a stuntman and extra, Silverheels became part of the national conversation of how does America view and treat its minorities.

Some complain he speaks in broken English. Honestly, do you know how hard it is to learn a second language as an adult? Some view him as subservient to the LR, but this is false. They were partners and friends. The second thing was amazing to see depicted during segregation days, when Indians still couldn't vote in some states.

Only half the film is on Stanley's invasion/supposed "search." The other half is a lot of introspection about his early life as an orphan abused by the man who took him in. That half slows the film down to a crawl. It's bad Dickens imitation, and not told in an interesting way.

Nat'l Geographic did present this, as they did originally sponsor the invasion force. Yes, invasion force. Stanley and his men were heavily armed, intruding in other nations' territory. A local chief leading his people to fight off slave traders is shown as evil and barbarous. Most people would say he's the good guy. But Stanley befriended the slave trader and fought alongside him against the anti slavery local natives, personally killing at least half a dozen.

Stanley also, the film made clear, was using forced labor. Once local porters joined they could not leave, and were beaten and threatened, poorly fed, living under dangerous conditions, and died at high rates. Finally they had enough and rebelled.

So Nat Geo actually showed the ugly sides of Stanley, and is to be commended for that. The friendship between Stanley and Livingstone and the later dispute back in London over whether Stanley made up his stories are where the film slows down to a crawl. It's as slow paced as those awful Merchant Ivory films. But if you enjoy them, you might enjoy this.

...Corn cob. Seriously....

Snapping a hand off cleanly at the wrist....

Shooting once at a cop car and it blows up...

A man still alive after having a pencil shoved in his ear canal...

Three fingers bitten off at once, on a nice even level...

Eye gouging an obvious rubber dummy....

Impaling a man on a picket fence, when IRL those thin slats would break, and wouldn't do more than give you a bruise...

...And one scene after another of hilarious Cat Fu. Rubber kitties held by the actors while they pretend a cat is attacking them.

These are the absurdities the film asks us to believe. It's truly a Plan Nine level of bad film making.

You watch just to laugh at how bad it gets. No one in it can act. King, at least for this film, can't write worth a damn.

Almost as hilarious are the reviews making excuses for the film. Then again, they do that for most of King's films, no matter how bad they get.

Right up there with Manos Hand of Fate and Troll II as a film you'll get loaded with friends and laugh at.

What could have been a detective show turned into a soapbox for Klugman every week. And since he was known entirely as a comic actor from The Odd Couple, this was a pretty bad case of whiplash for the viewers.

No matter who it was, a co worker, an ambulance driver, cops, a teacher, schoolmates of his kids, Quincy preached, preached, preached without end.

The most extreme case was the punk rock episode. 44 minutes of Quincy ranting "Punk rock will kill your kids!" Seriously, he ranted it turned nice kids into psychotic suicidal nihilists who wanted to kill their parents.

Punk rock fans all over America taped it, passed it around, quoted from it, and laughed at its cluelessness. "Punks" with long slicked back hair or white boy afros playing nothing even close to punk. A young Helen Hunt shown as driven to suicide attempts by the music who becomes Mama's Darling again once she quits listening.

The episode even inspired a band, Quincy Punx, and a new slang term among punk kids, a Quincy punk. Meaning a kid who acts like the cliches about punks without knowing a thing about the music or its ideas or values.

Long after the show was canceled and largely forgotten, the term is still around. The band is still around over 30 years later, and with an active fanbase. Mentioning the show still makes me and my friends smile. Join us in the well deserved mockery.

All flash and no substance. A series of MTV imitation sequences punctuated by the most violence seen on prime time TV up to that time.

In each season, the two cops killed an average of 40 to 50 people per season, at least two to three per show. IRL, all the cops in the whole state of Florida didn't kill that many people. Vice was trying to imitate Lethal Weapon, but didn't have a buddy cop pair with humor. So they lazily decided to be "gritty.'

As to the music, the show gets an extra point for a guest shot for Suicidal Tendencies. Even if they showed the audience dancing to them like bad Broadway dancers posing as punks.

Mostly the music was the likes of Phil Collins and Don Henley, two former rockers from the 70s trying to stay relevant by cutting their hair and doing bland pop songs.

Yes, the audience for this was not in their teens or 20s. Those kids went out on the weekends. It was the sheltered nerds staying home without dates or parties who thought it was cool. They, or frat boys being faddish, fell for the ridiculous fashions.

It was also people in their 30s who were the audience. They heard about that new MTV thing and imagined this show would clue them in. But as rapper Ice T said, "Miami Vice is small time, LA is the real deal!"

IOW, hip hop and rock fans mocked this show. Pop music and other fad followers imitated it for its first two years. The ratings fell pretty sharply after that, and it barely held on for the rest of its run.

How goofy is it that the villains in this are obvious stand ins for the super pacifist Amish? The same ones that refuse to kill even in self defense.

I made it halfway through this film before giving up in frustration. Nothing happens except a tractor accident. Then I read the reviews describing a snake in a tub and a spider falling down a throat. Fast forwarded to the scenes. Yawn...big deal.

Of minor interest only for having a very young Sharon Stone.

That was the term at the time. A jiggle show like CA:

1. Had bubble headed women with great bodies.

2. Found any excuse to put them in bikinis, implied nudity, tight or see through clothing, shorts, mini skirts, and no bras, with visible nipples.

3. Had forgettable plots or no plots at all, nothing that would tax the tiniest brain.

4. Were designed for males easily threatened by equal, strong, or independent women, with little girls being urged to be just as vapid and shallow as them.

CA inspired a lot of imitators. The actresses, they disappeared after show's end. Except for Farrah Fawcett, who only appeared in one season before her chauvinist husband demand she stop working on the show. She divorced him and surprised everyone by being a great dramatic actress.

You're better off getting the bikini posters or Playboy issues they appeared in. That's all you want, not the terrible episodes.

...Because it was actually pretty slow paced. The science wasn't anything that stood up for a second. The plots were cut rate Bond imitations, lots of Cold War bad guys.

As for special effects, they were cheap and cheesy. Speed up or slow down the camera, add a sound effect, and have stuntmen throw themselves into break away walls.

Lots of high votes for nostalgia and reliving childhood. I was around then and it wasn't great. But it passed the time. Doesn't hold up at all today.

Not Shakespeare, not even Gunsmoke. It was a show built around stock footage of stunts from lesser known Hollywood films.

So the show had Majors for his adolescent fans. It had a cheesecake male and female to lust after. Neither "actor" was ever heard from again after this series.

The main thing it remains known for was setting off the trend of country western fans with ridiculously jacked up that would tip over while turning. The hick version of overpriced rims on your car.