Reviews

Looking back at the movie, I wonder sometimes if this was a case of Clint acting out his own personal fantasies. In this movie he gets to be the tough as nails Gunny Highway, who has been in action in both Korea and Vietnam. There is plenty of patriotic imagery to be found throughout the film, and the film feels like a recruiting poster for the USMC. And of course there's the heavy combat towards the end of the film.

I did enjoy the film, but did not take it too seriously. The reason I didn't is because Heartbreak Ridge runs into problems when it comes to realism. As others have said, recon units are elite units with members who hold themselves to the highest standards at all times. Members of recon units are not the shoddy, lazy, poorly disciplined men seen in this film. They are consummate professionals, and would have undergone so much training and weeding out to make the accidental firing on the range unbelievable, as well as the general undisciplined behavior of the unit at the beginning.

I think the premise behind the series was a good one. Show a real life minister and his family - not a carefully polished, scrubbed, and fake image - who have to deal with all too human frailties. But the execution could've been better.

In some ways the series seems a bit contrived to me and a bit over the top, like the producers went out of their ways when it came to some elements. One example I can think of is the Catholic priest and his contacts with organized crime who just happens to be around when Daniel needs him.

I did like the scenes with Jesus. The producers certainly did a good job here, giving the audience a very different view of Jesus than what we traditionally see.

Hopefully NBC will continue with this series, and it will become an even better show. The series has a refreshing realism instead of a polished up and idealized view of the world.

Recently, I learned that a non-MST3k version of Manos: the Hands of Fate was available for sale. I was able to buy it for about $10.00 (about $7.00 + $3.00 shipping) from Amazon.com.

I wanted to see the film as it was originally presented. It looks like either the people at Best Brains did some cleanup and restoration on the film to make it more presentable, or the print used for the non-MST3K DVD version was in poorer shape. So the film appears more scratched up then the MST3k version, and the quality of the sound track is uneven.

The film does have a few extra scenes in it that had been cut from the MST3K version. (Here's the spoilers) There's a couple extra minutes in the car as Michael is busy getting the family totally lost, as well as some extended conversation between wife #1 and the Master as he's sacrificing her to Manos.

If you're interested in seeing how Manos was originally presented, or if you want to see what had been left out in the MST3K version, this might be an interesting DVD to watch. But be warned, without Joel and the 'bots to keep you company during this God-awful film, the film can seem like crawling on your hands and knees through broken glass.

What were they thinking when they made this film? It's just yet another example of how in many cases that sequels don't work. Now of course there are exceptions to that rule of sequels that do just as well, if not better than the original film.

This third installment of Smokey and the Bandit has little in the way of redeeming qualities. It seems that the studio wanted to milk the Smokey and the Bandit franchise for all it was worth, which resulted in this flop being made.

(Here's the spoiler). Other than a small cameo role right at the end of the film, Burt didn't have anything to do with this film. Sally Field was nowhere to be seen. With them missing, there wasn't much left to hold this film up. While Gleason and Jerry Reed tried their best, without Reynolds and Field the film was a house missing a large part of its foundation.

I still enjoy seeing the first film, and the second film has its moments. But not this third film.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the film. A lot of the action sequences involving the actual train were really good. But the film was ruined in many ways by what was tacked on to the film.

What happened once the train got going, a lot of that was really good. Especially with all the people at the dispatch office trying to control what was rapidly becoming a hopeless situation.

I think that what really drug the film down was all the scenes at the prison. I think a lot of the prison scenes were superflous, and contributed nothing to the story. I was left wondering what boxing had to do with a runaway train. Some parts were needed in order to give the viewer the full story, but most were not needed. Same thing with all the really cheesy dialog in the story. That did a lot to damage the film too. All the speech making that the main characters had done added nothing to the story, and made them look like a bunch of idiots.

Runaway train did have its moments. But what was good about this story did not overcome the many shortcomings in this movie. If the cheesy dialog was cut out, and the story more tightly focused, the movie might have been a really good film.

I don't mean any disrespect towards the late Stanley Kubrick. Technically, Kubrick was brilliant. The effects were brilliant, and even today with all the computer technology, the simple 1960's effects still are very competitive. The effects make the story believable. But 2001 is one of the most boring movies I have ever seen. What story there is gets lost in the flow of the movie because of the plodding pace of this film. It was such slow going I had acutally dozed off the last time I had seen the film. Others have commented that the story could have been told in under an hour. And that's true, particularly if some of the more psychadelic effects and the other fluff had been stripped away. But it would have shown just how weak the story was.

I think the show was kind of a rollar coaster as far as quality goes. It had a slow start in the first season. It really took off after the second season, and remained high up until the beginning of the final season. It dealt with just about every kind of issue that a community may have to deal with over the course of time. Racial strife, murder, love affairs, robbery, rape, incest, stalking, drunk driving, government corruption, and so on. The Sparta police force was able to deal with the problems with professionalism and a determination to do things right. Even if it wasn't easy, or struck too close to home. But then the last season and the following TV movies all seemed rather tacked on to me. I think the retooling of the show that happened during the last season was a blunder on the part of the producers. Especially with the departure of Anne-Marie Johnson and Howard Rollins from the show. I think that the show had its moments during the final season, and remained a good show throughout the entire run, but the final season and the movies didn't measure up to the seasons that came before.

A few years ago I said that ER was still one of the best shows around. But I don't feel that way now. I think the show is so far past it's prime that it's time for this horse to be put out to pasture, so to speak. Pretty much the entire original cast is gone, even Sherry Stringfield is going to leave ER soon - which will mean the entire cast who was there on the first day will be gone.

Over the past couple years it seems like ER has been declining. It's almost turned into the Abbey and Neela show.

In the past what made the show great was that it was an accurate portrayal of life in a hospital emergency room. And there were riveting episodes, episodes that drew you in totally. In some episodes you could go through just about the entire range of human emotions. There were times that watching ER was like watching a train wreck - with some stories you couldn't bear to watch but at the same time you weren't able take your eyes off the TV screen.

But that quality seems to have faded away. ER's just not the same anymore with almost the entire original cast gone. And the focus of the show doesn't really seem to be on the emergency room anymore. I think they should retire the show now while it's still good rather than letting it go on until it derails as a mere shadow of itself.

This film is disturbing and disgusting. I wonder what Arch Hall Sr. was thinking during the making of this film. (Here's the possible spoilers) Watching the girl shave first her dad - that was gross enough. Then watching her shave Eegah and then having Eegah pawing the girl - that was really disgusting. As was said in the MST3K version - the guy must've gone to the Torgo school of fondling. I watched it under the protective seal of Mystery Science Theater 3000, then I watched the uncut version. I think the only way to watch the film is with Joel and the 'Bots.

Mitchell is a classic example of the bad campy 70's film. From Joe Don Baker's lines to the action scenes, everything about this movie was awful. Worse yet, this movie was also very disgusting. Joel and the 'bots do a good job taking this film apart.

(Here comes the Spoilers)

The bedroom scene with Joe Don Baker and Linda Evans is totally disgusting. I wholeheartadly agree with the people on MST3K that it was one of the most disturbing things ever shown during their run. Watching Joe Don getting it on with a woman is not the highlight of my day.

Joe Don Baker is a pretty good actor - in supporting roles, but not as the star of a film. I haven't seen a Joe Don film yet that suggests to me that he would be good in a starring role. So, watching Mitchell was a very painful experience.