Reviews

When I saw the low rating this movie had received, I assumed it had something to do with the fact that it was ostensibly a spin-off of The Looney Tunes Show, which I personally really enjoy, but has garnered its share of haters for having the audacity to not be exactly like the Looney Tunes they remember from childhood. Now that I've seen Rabbits Run, I assume it has more to do with the fact that the movie is just not very good. Out of all the Looney Tunes movies I've seen, including the ones that were just glorified clip shows, this might be the lamest.

Before I watched Rabbits Run, I couldn't help feeling a little let down that I would not be hearing Kristen Wiig reprising the role of Lola. However, that ended up being the least of my grievances. It turns out that Rachel Ramras is actually a perfectly suitable replacement, and after a couple of minutes, I'd almost entirely managed to forget that she sounded different at all. What I should have been more concerned about was pretty much every other aspect of this movie.

Aside from maintaining the personalities of a few of the characters that were established on The Looney Tunes Show, this is not set within the same continuity as the series, which feels like a wasted opportunity right off the bat. I know that the Looney Tunes have not maintained a consistent continuity throughout the bulk of of their long career, but part of what what made The Looney Tunes Show appealing to me is that it did have its own internal canon. If you're not going to utilize that, why make this movie a spin-off of that series? Imagine if they made a movie spin-off of Friends, but then it was revealed that it would be pretending that the show's ten seasons never happened and that the actors would all be playing different versions of their characters, meeting for the first time. Maybe Joey only shows up for a quick cameo. Fans might find that a little disconcerting, not to mention disappointing. Sure, the Looney Tunes characters will probably continue to exist in one form or another from now until we're all dead, but as someone with a particular fondness for the incarnations of those characters that TLTS gave us, I can't help feeling a little melancholy that that this chapter of their history is ending on an unfortunately lackluster note.

Everything about Rabbits Run is inferior to The Looney Tunes Show, including the animation. There were some sweet moments between Bugs and Lola, but beyond that, I can't say that I had a good time watching it. They basically ditched what made TLTS unique in favor of doing a rather tedious, cheap-looking, unfunny adventure movie. I doubt that abandoning the sitcom format at this late date is going to win over any haters while fans such as myself are likely to only be bummed out that what could very well be The Looney Tunes Show's swan song turned out to be such a dull mess.

I am not prejudiced against slower-paced or art-house films, nor am I necessarily opposed to dark movies and/or movies with downbeat endings. After seeing some of the positive critical responses to this movie, I looked forward to watching "Under the Skin" and being able to look down my nose afterward at the hoi polloi who didn't "get" it. Well, I got it. It's not a hard story to follow once you know the basic premise. The entire plot could probably be summarized on the back of a postcard with room to spare. I just didn't like it.

Fans of horror movies might find this movie to be disappointing. However, it was too much of a horror movie for my tastes. This is one of the more upsetting things I've ever watched. I don't understand what the point was of this movie was, unless it was just to be depressingly nihilistic.

I've seen a few comparisons between "Under the Skin" and Kubrick, which I can kind of understand. But here's the big difference for me: Kubrick's "2001 A Space Odyssey" filled me with a sense of awe about the universe. This movie, on the other hand, filled me with dread. I can't quite say that this is a bad movie, but it's a movie that made me feel bad.

Judging by most of the reviews I've seen, this episode made an indelible impression on a lot of people when they watched it as children. You can count me among that number. However, I didn't see the entire episode or even most of it. At best, I only saw a couple minutes, and yet that was sufficient to stick with me to this day. Since the advent of the internet, I've made attempts to track down whatever it was I saw, looking through the episode descriptions of various older anthology series. The Alfred Hitchcock Hour was one I never considered, however, since I wasn't aware that it ever delved into the supernatural.

I could not have been more than three at the time. What I remember watching is this: A woman finds her little girl sitting in front of the davenport, talking to her "imaginary friends," most of whom have unusual sounding names. When the woman looks under the davenport, there's nobody there, and the distraught little girl accuses the woman of chasing her friends away. At that point, my Mom turned off the TV, probably fearing it was too frightening for me. She may have been right; the little girl's performance was unnerving, and at that age, I was easily scared; I was even freaked out by certain stuff I saw on Sesame Street (ie, Kermit chasing Grover while wearing fake teeth).

Despite the danger to my tender young psyche, I sort of wish my Mom had let me watch the entire thing. In a way, the damage had already been done; that one scene was eerily intense enough that it never left me, and I spent many years not knowing what I'd seen and wondering what happened next. I'm not sure if those decades of uncertainty were any better than the risk of an even greater childhood trauma.

One thing seems pretty certain. If I had seen the rest of the episode when I was little, it would definitely have made a much bigger impact on me than it did when I finally managed to watch it last night.

I was so excited to have stumbled upon the thing that I'd been trying to find for so long. I turned off the lights and prepared to be creeped out. But I'm not quite as easily frightened these days, and I suppose nothing could match over three decades' worth of expectations.

The ending is good, though while it might have emotionally scarred the three year old me for life, watching it now, I just found it rather predictable and not nearly as upsetting as the ending to some other episodes of this show I've seen. Some reviews I've read elsewhere suggest that voodoo is at play here- one person even referred to the doll the girl receives as a voodoo doll. Why? Because it's black? Seems like a somewhat racist assumption. I thought it was kind of cool that this little white girl would become enamored of a black doll, though I don't for a second think it was a colorblind choice; rather, when the ending comes, the racial difference helps make things abundantly clear that something magical has occurred. Anyway, if voodoo folklore involves wee folk who live under furniture and ride on frogs, this is the first I've heard of it.

Speaking of which, if this had been a half hour episode, all the stuff about the little people that only the girl could see- the part I remembered so vividly- could have easily been cut out without it affecting the rest of the plot. Also, what's with the disagreement the servants have about the ham she asked him to get from the smoke house? She insists she told him, but he insists he would have remembered. It can't be there for no reason, but it's never explained either. All of it hints at something strange going on, and is supposedly tied together in a way the audience isn't meant to fully understand, but the story feels a bit padded or disjointed as a result.

It's often been said that what is left up to the imagination is scarier than what you are actually shown. That's definitely true in this case. Thinking about the brief snippet I saw as an impressionable child was far creepier than seeing the episode in full as a jaded adult.

While I gradually came to accept 2009's Star Trek as mindless fun, I remember sitting in the theater when I first saw it and just getting this sinking feeling, like a balloon with the air slowly being released. My reaction was the complete opposite this time around. Into Darkness surpasses its predecessor by leaps and bounds. This is a movie that should appeal as much to most Trekkies as it will to general audiences just looking for a cinematic thrill ride.

JJ Abram's inaugural foray into this franchise kind of seemed to leave loyal fans in the dust in the rush to attract a wider demographic. Even before Abrams, I'm pretty sure there were complaints that Trek movies had become too much about space battles and the like and had gotten away from going boldly where no one has gone before. I feel like the writers of Into Darkness must have taken some of those criticisms to heart and set out to address them in what I think is a fairly clever way.

The people behind this film got to have their cake and eat it too: they made the most action-packed Star Trek movie ever, but at the end of the day, it's also a reaffirmation of the core ideals of Star Trek and is a lot more reverential to the canon. Having said that, however, the question still remains whether it's possible to craft a movie that is actually about seeking out new life and new civilizations rather than simply paying lip service to that concept.

Of course, not all Trekkies will agree with my assessment, but it's impossible to please everyone and fanboys are notoriously difficult to please. In my opinion, though, it's one of the best films I've seen this year.

Greetings from July, 2017. I wrote this review right after Oz the Great and Powerful came out, and now that a few years have passed and I can see a bit more clearly, I'm more than a little embarrassed at my effusive praise of this film. I haven't seen the movie since it was in theaters. I think I'd still enjoy it today, but I'd also find it easier to admit that it's not that great. I like Franco and Kunis, but they weren't the best choices for these roles. Also, it's disappointing that Disney felt the urge to make this an unofficial prequel to the 39 movie rather than basing the story more on the books. I thought about deleting my review entirely, but for the time being, I think I'll just leave it the way it is with the addition of this admission that I'm now able to confess that perhaps I don't love it as much as I originally thought I did. After this paragraph, what follows is my original review:

I feel a bit sorry for L. Frank Baum. In his lifetime he wrote fourteen Oz books- in terms of popularity, they were essentially the Harry Potter series of the early 20th century- however, nowadays, if you ask the average person on the street about Oz, the first and only thing that will come to mind will be the 1939 classic film- a film that is not even entirely faithful to the source material, I might add. I love that movie as much as the next person, but there's so much more to Oz than Judy Garland and ruby slippers.

Anybody who dares to tackle Oz as a subject faces an uphill battle, fighting against the general public's cherished memories of what is erroneously believed to be the one true version of that story. In an even broader sense, any movie made today must endure an increasingly jaded and judgmental movie-going public.

I confess I had my own doubts about this film, but those were abolished from the stylish opening credits onwards. I hasten to add that if I watch a movie based on a property I've loved in the past and it fails to meet my expectations, I won't delude myself into thinking it was good when it wasn't, nor will I be afraid to say that I was disappointed. I'm very happy that I don't have to do that in this case. "Oz the Great and Powerful" has heart and humor in abundance, and it is also a treat for the eyes, to coin a phrase. I tend to dismiss 3D as a gimmicky fad, yet was quite impressed by its employment here.

It's not a perfect movie (what is?). In all honesty, I've probably given it a slightly higher score than it merits, but in to be fair, there are also those who have given it a far lower score than it deserves. Anyone who gives this film a single star should check out the 1969 kiddie matinée version of "The Marvelous Land of Oz" or last year's "The Witches of Oz" if they want to see what a truly dismal Oz movie really looks like.

The part where the movie fell a bit flat for me was the "woman scorned" plot element. I've no dispute with this film's explanation for how the Wicked Witch became wicked, but it was I couldn't help feeling a trifle bored by clichéd manner that storyline was executed. I hate myself for it, but while listening to the fairly hackneyed dialogue between Evanora and Theadora, for the briefest of moments, I found myself almost wishing that I was watching a "Wicked" film instead.

Each member of the cast did a fine job in my book, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my favorite character of the movie: China Girl. No one but the most hard-hearted of cynics could fail to be charmed and moved by that character. I could easily see China Girl having a career extending beyond this film the way Jiminy Cricket and Tinkerbell have had in the past.

Life seems so unrelentingly stressful these days that escapism is more vital than ever, but in my case, the cinema doesn't always provide as much of a refuge from the outside world as it once did. Often as I'm sitting watching a film, no matter how good it may be, the weight of my troubles will come crashing down on me and I have to fight the urge to bolt from the theater screaming. However, I managed to spend two hours completely captivated by "Oz the Great and Powerful" without my problems intruding on my mind once. It may not mean much to everyone, but by those standards alone, I'd consider this movie a roaring success.

I doubted this film would be great, but my best case scenario was that it would at least be fun in a cheesy way. Even by those standards, I was let down. Maybe part of the problem is that I saw it on the big screen when it really feels like a direct to video movie. On the other hand, I don't think I could have asked for a better viewing experience, so I have to face the fact that the main problem is that it was just not very good.

Things like "Wicked" and "Tin Man" have shown that there can be decent alternate takes on Oz, but this was not one of them, sadly. I think the filmmakers' hearts were in the right place, but this low-budget attempt at creating something with the look of a big-budget blockbuster ended up being kind of a cringe-inducing mess.

I got a sinking feeling within the first moments as we're introduced to a CGI version of Oz that looks poor even compared to modern video games. But I don't watch independent movies for spectacle; I watch them for story and characters, and unfortunately, I found neither to be terribly engaging here. I might have cared about the plot if the movie had spent more time establishing the characters and their relationship to each other, but this presents something of a Catch-22: adding such scenes would have presumably made the movie longer and it already felt overly long. They must have padded it out beyond all reason in order to accommodate the miniseries format.

I've seen complaints about wooden acting in this film. Any deficiencies there I am willing to at least partially blame on the directing and/or script. Even most of the name actors turn in rather unremarkable performances- the big exception being Mia Sara's manic Princess Langwidere. Among the lesser-known players, I thought Eliza Swenson was the most memorable as the manipulative literary agent.

This is a movie I really wanted to like, so I wish I had more positive things to say about it. There are a couple nods to the MGM musical and a few more to the original Oz books, but I don't see this satisfying fans of either. Honestly, I would have a difficult time recommending "Dorothy and the Witches of Oz" to anyone. And I'm the sort of person who can often find redeeming qualities in movies that others might dismiss as simply terrible.

I'm somewhat shocked that a sequel is supposedly in the works. Call me a hopeless optimist or just morbidly curious, but if that actually gets made, I'll most likely end up watching it as well, hoping that it might be better than this movie, which it would almost have to be.

When the murderer (Vincent Ventresca) in this episode is confronted by Monk about a suspicious connection between him and his victim, the culprit chalks this up as mere coincidence. Monk replies that he doesn't believe in coincidences. This may be the most unintentionally ironic things ever uttered on Monk, not just because of the sheer number of coincidences that occur on the show on a regular basis, but because this episode may contain the granddaddy of them all: not only that damning evidence of the murderer's guilt exists in the most unlikely place imaginable, but that it happens to be in the possession of one of the main characters and that said character and the murderer cross paths so that he becomes aware of its existence. The odds against any one of those things taking place are staggering, and combined, it's completely mind-boggling.

I was able to figure out exactly where this ludicrous plot was going within the first ten minutes or so. Vincent Ventresca's character didn't have the worst scheme ever, but as he became increasingly desperate, by the end of the episode, he turned into a complete idiot. Even if he had succeeded in destroying the incriminating evidence against him, I would have liked to have seen him try to explain his insane behavior to the police.

The implausible mystery aside, the there are a wealth of good moments that make this episode worth watching, such as the woman at the police station who insinuates herself into the conversation between the main characters and the talk Adrian has with Julie, which is alternately funny and touching. Actually, there was very little about this episode I didn't like. As is often the case with Monk, the mystery was somewhat stupid and obvious, but the interactions between the characters more than made up for it.

While watching this episode about how a young girl's remarkable gift is overlooked, misinterpreted and ultimately psychologically bullied out of her, if you'd asked me what the moral was supposed to be, I would have guessed that it had to do with how society tends to destroy anything it doesn't understand. I suppose the actual message is meant to be "love is better than psychic powers." That's as may be, but this episode failed to set the right tone to deliver such a message. Everyone might have had Ilse's best interests at heart, but I was far from convinced that their idea of what was was best for Ilse was correct, or that their actions were appropriate.

Another reviewer excuses the teacher's behavior as simply being a product of that era. I don't know how you could see this woman's actions and attitudes as anything less than sinister, particularly her line about making Ilse just like everyone else. As for Cora Wheeler, I have my doubts that she truly loved Ilse and find it plausible she saw her more as a substitute for her dead daughter. The underhanded way in which she sabotaged Ilse's chances at being reunited with people like herself did little to endear me to her, nor did the hysterical way she clung to the confused Ilse in the end, screaming about how Ilse needed her, when the case seemed to be more the other way around.

All this is not to necessarily say that I wholeheartedly approve of child rearing techniques of Ilse's biological parents, but frankly, if a line hadn't been shoehorned in at the end that explains that the Nielsens viewed Ilse as a science experiment more than a daughter, it would be harder to condemn them as parents simply because they were a tad unorthodox. When Ilse begins speaking her name out loud for the first time, it didn't register as an uplifting moment for me, like Helen Keller saying "water" in "The Miracle Worker," but rather it had the extremely uncomfortable feel of watching someone break under the strain of mental torture. What was intended as a hopeful ending instead left me feeling saddened that something special had been lost in order to force Ilse to conform to the rest of "normal" society.

First of all, the Stooges spend almost no time in orbit at all in this film. Maybe I was thinking of "Abbott and Costello Go to Mars" when I thought this would be more space oriented. All that wouldn't matter if this had been any good.

The movie starts out with a somewhat interesting narration by a Peter Graves-like voice, giving us a history of the centuries of speculations of what shape Martian life might take. It turns out the "startling answer" to this question is that Martians look like guys in crude rubber masks that are a cross between Frankenstein's monster and the people from the "Twilight Zone" episode "Eye of the Beholder." In fact, one of them is a guy in a rubber mask. Why did his superiors go to the trouble of giving him cosmetic surgery to look human if he's going to go and disguise himself as a Martian? Mars is in a lot of trouble anyway, if their entire invasion consists of two soldiers creeping around an old man's house.

Somebody made a good point that at least the aliens speak another language instead of English, like so many sci-fi movies, but those scenes drag, as if the Martians are waiting for the viewers to catch up to the subtitles. This actually leads to one of the few humorous moments, where Moe does read the subtitles, but since this comes about fifteen minutes before the end of the movie, it doesn't help much.

Maybe the haunted house elements made me start thinking this was a lot like a literal, full-length, live action version of an old Hannah Barbera cartoon. The humor is so lame and predictable. How many times did somebody say some variation on, "I'm not dumb, you know," and then they go and do something dumb? Oh, look, somebody has just carefully laid out a bunch of pies while the Stooges are wreaking havoc in front of some distinguished army brass. I wonder what's going to happen next?

There's also a pointless romance between the professor's daughter and an army captain. They spend most of their time staring dreamily at each other. Later, you know the captain is at the door by the way the romantic music starts playing before she can even answer it, which is one of the unintentionally funny moments.

It's probably obvious I'm not a Three Stooges fan. I saw this as the second part of a double feature, and I stuck around to see if my opinion of them improved at all. I should've walked out like nearly the entire audience did. I did like that made for TV bio-pic where Paul Ben-Victor played Moe, however. I just apparently can't stand their shtick.