Reviews

This movie was a product of the times like "All in the Family". Yeah, it was a Texas small town full of greedy heartless racist amoral lustful horrible white people. Maybe the writer was projecting her Hollywood social milieu? But nothing about it was believable starting with the beautiful sweet escaped con Bubber (what a stupid name) played by Robert Redford. He only had a couple months to go on his sentence, for a crime that was never mentioned but he had to be a free man like Cool Hand Luke, a classic 60s rebel stereotype mode. But he had to get free. The first big drama was that the hardened con he broke prison with killed a man for his car and money, which of course implicated Blubber. Even though most people in Tarl, the town in question, who knew Bubber knew he was basically a nice guy, lots of people all got it into their heads Bubber was coming back to get them personally. The spiteful weak bank VP Edwin Stewart, played by Robert Duvall, was certain Bubber was going to get him because of what he did to him 20 years ago as teenagers. Meanwhile his cheating lustful wife Emily is flirting with other men at his work place. This is just one example of the cartoonish Peyton Place vibe of the film. The film is partially carried by Marlon Brando as the town sheriff, Calder. He is a good man along with his stolid wife Ruby, played by Angie Dickinson. They managed to work some small Southern town racism on the side to gin up our contempt for these "evil" Southern white people. This is what made the movie so appealing to leftist urbanites and foreigners whose inclination was to regard the whole South as evil racist troglodytes,

The script had some intelligence in it, but that was subsumed by its cynical cleverness. But it all failed at the end with a ridiculous and fatal scene in a burning junkyard. Here the locals all gathered to get Bubber, torch the place and party at the same time. The final climactic scene made no sense with one of the locals imitating Jack Ruby and gunning down the hapless Bubber, as our noble sheriff brought him to jail. This of course made no sense since Bubber did not murder a president. At worst he was suspected of murdering a strange man from another part of Texas so the movie's "Jack Ruby" connection is tenuous at best.

Prometheus was a movie that should have been much much better. It had everything it needed to do that: budget, actors, backstory and a directory. Sure it had big ideas and concepts like where did man come from, the old ET seeded earth, Panspermia concept. But like many a grand plan, it undid itself on stupid B movie maneuvers and nonsensical plot elements. Let's start with the stupid maneuvers. The Geologist and the Biologist managed to get themselves lost on in the cavern, even though the Geologist Fifield mapped the cave out with his laser imaging balls and supposedly would be able to access the map from his local computer. Then they are forced to spend the night in the cavern, so the pick the room with the proto alien organisms. They see this hideous python snake creature, slithering through the black ooze. So instead of running away, they treat it like a stray Golden Retriever puppy and try to pet it, DUHHH?? This is on par with the average cheap horror slasher movie where characters inexplicably go off and wander into dark spaces to get killed and eaten. They could have given the two hapless scientists a better story. Their machine broke down in the storm and they had to return to the caverns for protection then the snake snuck up on them when they were asleep. Such sloppy writing.

Then in a more serious scene of true horror, our intrepid driven female scientist, Dr. Shaw, climbs into a medical pod to get this alien fetus removed, a med pod conveniently for men only in spite that it is in the female commander's private pod and there are 4 women total on the ship. So she gets the pod to remove this horrid face hugging thing, then she stitches herself up it was a true well done horror scene. So instead of screaming and alerting the crew to the treacherous android David and this horrid alien, she keeps it all to herself. And for someone who just had major surgery and just stapled the incision shut, she is remarkably active and in character. Mind you later on this same alien, sans any food, in a few hours increases in size 200 fold. Then there are the more esoteric parts of the theme. This ship was commissioned to go to this planet based on ancient cave drawings found all over the world of the same star system. So this is all pre Alien, no one on earth knew about any dangerous xenomorph, This is in contrast to Alien where the Wayland Corp knew about the dangerous xenomorphs, put an a maliciously programmed android aboard the ship and they treacherously planned on sacrificing the crew to get the alien. In this case, all Weyland knew was that the earth seeding humanoid aliens came from this planet and the president of the corporation, near death, wanted to find a medical miracle to extend his life. Yet the android on this ship did act treacherously. Apparently it, David, had some daddy issue concerning the president, or people in general. So what, in the space of a couple years this emotionless android hatched a plan to destroy people he was supposed to serve on his own? This is more troubling since David was busy watching classic Britfilms like "Lawrence of Arabia" while the rest of the crew was in cryosleep. Would Lawrence, whom David was modeling, betray his own people and country? Was this some Skynet scenario? Also, according to ship's captain, this alien outpost was some sort of military base. You know, black guys who are just pilots or other nonintellectual types always have some preternatural sense of aliens two thousand years dead, even though he never left his ship. Then we are left with the big question. Why did the aliens put directions to their military base in the ancients' minds? I can buy the inscrutable aliens' inscrutable motivations that last seemed to be to destroy earth. But why 2000 years ago, which is when the aliens all died there? Did the aliens not like Jesus, which could tie into Dr. Shaw's religious beliefs? Why give our ancients DNA memory of that star system? Then they add in David's inscrutable motivation to wreck everything. Then David warns the Prometheus of the destination of the now active alien ship and its cargo. That is just plain Grade B sloppy writing. Then the final charge of the Prometheus at the alien ship as it takes off? Tra la, save the day. Then the stupid women who just couldn't run to the side as the ring shaped alien ship rolls on its edge. This is what made this an un-great film, in spite of the awesome epic scale and visuals of the ships and the alien world. The newer Star Trek and Star Wars cash grabs were cheesy takes on the classic themes and plots with a few new characters thrown in. They sold since their idiot fan base is easily led and Abram's schlock was at least more watchable than the previous installments. Like Star Trek Insurrection. Prometheus was supposed to be more and billed itself as more than just pre-teen Star Wars space opera or just more horror monster movie too. IT was supposed to bring us back to the glory days of real serious Sci Fi. So it deserves a final kick for letting us down with such shoddy writing.

The movie toyed around with all sorts of great themes and the problems of a modest modern sort of weak guy who retreats into his fantasy world. Yeah it is okay to attack corporate charades and downsizing practices that hurt employees more than just financially. That was a driving theme in the movie that was supposed to give it some meaning, which it did to a degree. Also the exotic location shots were a major plus, since chasing our elusive star nature photographer was the major plot device.

But the rest was crap. First was all the blatant product placement. No not placement, the products and brands were built into the script. Then was the plain old out of character moments when for no reason at all, he starts fighting with airport customs security, which required the intervention of a brand name rep guy.

basically, our Walter Mitty, which Ben Stiller was suitably cast as, had to find this all important picture from his roving camera man. The photographer was Sean Penn, for whom our Walter developed and processed his film but the two never met, though they worked together for a long time. So Ben/Walter has to go on this globe trotting expedition to find the camera man and get his film. Walt's bosses are sitting on pins and needles waiting for it.

That is all you really need to know about the plot element. But the conclusion will send you into hysterics. See this camera man, who never actually bothered to visit our nebbish protagonist, actually really admired Walter. So much that the final shot all of Life was waiting for was Walter sitting by himself at lunch outside. This he told Walt when Walt finally caught up with him in Nepal. Then we find out this wonderfully famous photographer, while never deigned to meet his unsung hero Walt, did visit Walt's mom.

So Walt gets terminated in the end, But the whole time, I am thinking, why didn't the Mr Wonderful Hero Photographer tell the suits at Life to not only keep Walt on, but give him a promotion? A totally Hollywood movie deserves a totally Hollywood ending! Or an ending with some grand unexpected twist, like Mitty was some bind, torture and kill serial murderer on the side.

The disaster movie genre started in the 70s with such films as the Towering Inferno. They were usually ham fisted star studded turkeys. While the plot and dialogue in this one is pretty pedestrian, over all it is entertaining without being graphic or sexual, beyond the usual damsel, or in this case, his daughter, in distress. It is a good family film that serves up the action and special effects but keeps it grounded, albeit cheesy at times. Sure, the two English brothers who saved his daughter at first then she saves them is pretty schmaltzy but not too terrible. Add the cad of a potential step father who wimps out to save himself, in order to set up a possible re-union between the Rock and his ex, played by Carla Gugino, borderline cheese too.

The Rock is so much a better action hero he-man type than his 80s predecessors like Stallone and Lundgren it isn't worth the comparison. Not that he is a great actor, but he has much better screen presence.

In all, it is a good enjoyable disaster movie and an easy watch, and safe for the kids too

This movie is a continuation of the series as it left off in the grand finale of Season 8 when the principal players all decided to get married or save their marriages by flying off to Europe in private jets Hollywood style. It is a fan movie of a show, and if you didn't like the show, you probably won't like the movie. But it is good enough to stand on its own w/o prior experience.And as you can guess, like a lot of movies of this genre, it fluffs a half hour show into something a bit too long.

The haters of this show are people who are revolted by the crass materialistic and celebrity lifestyle aspect of the show. Is this a deep movie with admirable characters overcoming enormous obstacles? NO, they can be quite shallow guys, out to score women, get high and just party first class, which rubs a cinder into the eyes of a lot of people who don't approve of that sybaritic lifestyle. But this cadre of guys from Queens, in Hollywood, plus their super agent turned studio head Ari Gold, do stick together and stick up for each other. They do have some principles, in the midst of their opportunism and hedonism, Vince is a natural womanizer who is basically a nice guy but a poor business sense and an overinflated view that confuses his movie star attributes with being a serious actor and movie maker. In this movie, he is the director of a bad remake, who then has to beg from investor, since he went over-budget. The investors wants to cut his pathetic actor brother's scenes out of the movie. Of course, he can't let his brother, or any of his friends or confidants down, regardless of the implications.

So don't expect too much from this movie. But don't whine about sexism or materialism, when there are women who have no problem playing the same game the guys are playing. It isn't a great movie, but it is watchable. Some parts I didn't like was the cracker jack feel good ending and Turtle's (Jerry Ferrara, the group's cut up and gopher, now a successful businessman) new love interest. She was played as herself by some female fighter. She was not only not attractive, she was downright unpleasant. She was there just to be the alpha female. Turtle was the least obnoxious and egotistical character, and in the TV version went out with Jamie Lee Sigler, Meadow Soprano for a season. She's far more attractive and pleasant then this pugilist. Then to the movie within the movie, "Hyde", a reimagining of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Now it was always a case that the main man star, Vince, was lazy and disinterested in anything but acting occasionally. But here he directs the movie too, as well as plays the lead. And of course, not only does the movie end up being a hit. but his chump brother gets an award for his bit part in it, a part the Texans wanted to be cut. Of course, we see only the first minute of the movie within the movie, but Ari said it was gold and it became the hit movie of that week. Billy Bob and Haley Osmet were barely tolerable as the domineering Texan investor father and son team. It was a pollyanna sort of ending for sure, which made it cheesier than the show, which had a lot of (not too)downer endings.