Category: Reviews (Page 72 of 120)

Family Ties: The Fourth Season

August 7, 2008 /

Now that Elyse and Steven Keaton (Meredith Baxter Birney and Michael Gross) have gone and had baby Andrew, there’s an instant temptation to say, “Whoops, ‘Family Ties’ has jumped the shark, time to call it a day and start dismissing the show.” As it happens, however, it’s just as easy to argue that Season 4 is where “Family Ties” really hit its stride, since it’s the year that Alex (Michael J. Fox) started dating Ellen Reed (Tracy Pollan, who would soon go on to become Mrs. Michael J. Fox) and Mallory (Justine Bateman) started dating brain-damaged biker Nick Moore (Scott Valentine). We also get guest appearances from the late River Phoenix as a 13-year-old genius who tutors Alex in non-Euclidian mathematics, Martha Plimpton as a teenage shoplifter, and Peter Scolari as a fellow architect who falls head over heels in love with Elyse. All in all, it’s another enjoyable season of the series, but “Family Ties” fanatics will likely be most thrilled to find that the set kicks off with “Family Ties Vacation,” where the Keaton family goes to London and, as Alex learns the ins and outs of Oxford, Elyse and Steven deal with a highly ridiculous plot involving their accidental possession of some spy film. Oh, yes, and somewhere in the middle of it all, Mallory falls for Alex’s roommate at Oxford. Series creator Gary David Goldberg has never been a fan of the film, but once you get used to the lack of a laugh track, it’s fun to see the Keatons out of their element.

Click to buy “Family Ties: The Fourth Season”

Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External TV, Reviews, TV, TV Comedies, TV DVD Quicktakes, TV DVDs

Making Of

August 6, 2008 /

Bahti (Lotfi Abdelli) is a talented, girl-loving, Tunisian breakdancer and pretty much the last person you’d expect to find under the tutelage of an Islamist cleric with Al Qaeda sympathies (Lotfi Dziri), begging for a chance a shot at the suicide bombing big-time. That, however, is the precise trajectory traced by Nouri Bouzid’s astute and emotionally adept, but initially slow-moving, look at the causes of terrorism.

“Making Of” starts out as pretty much a straight-up neorealist look at the issue, as we spend time observing how limited 25 year-old Bahti’s life has become and how the U.S. invasion of Iraq provides a powerful, but ideologically confused, focus for his generalized anger. Then, just as Bahti starts to be carefully schooled on the ways of hating Westerners and despising women, the film takes a sudden meta/post-modern turn as the actor Lotfi Abdelli switches from Arabic to French, goes out of character, and begins to angrily question the nature of the film to director Bouzid, and suddenly the title becomes a self-conscious double entendre. These staged segments appear to be aimed at diffusing anger among Tunisians who prefer to deny the existence of terrorism in their homeland, as well as observant Moslems who might be insulted by the film’s respectful, yet critical, look at modern day Islam. In any case, Bouzid’s film is compelling viewing, largely because of two charismatic lead performances from Abdelli as the alienated youth and Lotfi Dziri as the low-key fanatic who indoctrinates him in the ways of hate and death. With its strong stand against terrorism and outspoken humanism, “Making Of” is a thoughtful and poignant choice for Westerners curious about exactly what is being said and thought on the so-called Arab “street.”

Click to buy “Making Of”

Actors, Movie Dramas, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies, Reviews

Bill Burr: Why Do I Do This?

August 6, 2008 /

Bill Burr’s brand of humor, for lack of a better word, could be called the inner workings of the mind of the angry white man. He’s not angry, of course, but he hits on topics that could be perceived that way, like when he talks about ‘white people are evil’ movies (inspired by the swimming drama “Pride”), the overexposure of pedophiles on TV, and not being allowed to hit women. One of his best bits involves the hypocrisy of humans controlling the animal population while we procreate without consequence (“Don’t you think, after three loser kids, that you don’t have the DNA to make somebody special?”), and we dare you to not think of Burr the next time your girlfriend wants to buy jewelry at a flea market. He may not have much in the way of crossover appeal, but we doubt that matters much to him, nor should it.

Click to buy “Bill Burr: Why Do I Do This?”

Humor, Reviews, Stand-Up Comics

Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood

August 2, 2008 /

If you’re a movie buff, you probably smiled when you saw the elbow-in-the-ribs joke of this film’s title, but to illuminate those who don’t know their Hollywood trivia, it’s been said that the success of “Where the North Begins,” which provided a similarly-named canine star (Rin Tin Tin) with his first starring role, was responsible for keeping Warner Brothers from going bankrupt. “Won Ton Ton: The Dog Saved Hollywood” takes that approximate concept – a dog becoming a bigger star than most human actors – and adds to the plot a would-be actress (Madeline Kahn) who’s the only person to whom Won Ton Ton will listen. Bruce Dern plays the aspiring director whose career takes off thanks to the dog, Art Carney is the studio head, and Ron Leibman gets a lot of laughs out of his role as Rudy Montague, a very thinly-veiled version of Rudolph Valentino, but the real fun of the flick comes from the number of old-Hollywood stars who make cameos. Indeed, “Won Ton Ton” might actually beat “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” for the number of guest stars, though it’s a little sad to realize that, in 2008, only real cinemaphiles will appreciate how cool it is to see a cast which includes…wait, let me take a deep breath…Johnny Weismuller, Victor Mature, Rudy Vallee, Walter Pidgeon, Ann Miller, Ann Rutherford, Peter Lawford, the Ritz Brothers, Andy Devine, Alice Faye, Dennis Day, Broderick Crawford, Cyd Charisse, Fernando Lamas, Sterling Holloway, Dorothy Lamour, William Demarest, Jackie Coogan, Phil Silvers, George Jessel, Edgar Bergen, and even Stepin Fetchit. “Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood” isn’t a true classic of the ’70s, but when it comes to films which provide opportunities to say, “Hey, look, that’s (INSERT ACTOR HERE),” it’s in a league of its own.

Click to buy “Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood”

Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movie DVDs, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies, Reviews

The Last Winter

July 22, 2008 /

Much like M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening,” “The Last Winter” is an eco-thriller that tries so hard to deliver its Big Message that it forgets all about being scary. Set in Northern Alaska where oil pumps beneath the ground like blood in veins, the film stars Ron Perlman as Ed Pollack, the leader of a small team of oil scouts who have just discovered that not all is right with the frozen tundra. The group’s resident scientist (James Le Gros) warns Pollack that the permafrost is melting (thus making it impossible for the oil rigs to be delivered by truck), but before he can do anything about it, his fellow team members are slowly driven crazy and then killed by some unseen evil. Ridiculous on so many levels, “The Last Winter” is indeed terrifying, but not like you might think. The performances are wooden, while the long stretches of silence (supposedly meant to add to the suspense) just make it that much easier to fall asleep. Of course, when the audience is finally shown the evil that’s causing all of this, you simply won’t believe your eyes. I’m not one for spoilers, but the nature spirit that’s punishing these people for simply doing their jobs looks like Harry Potter’s Patronus. No joke. It’s literally a blue, CGI spirit in the shape of a moose, and while I applaud writer/director Larry Fesseden for attempting to comment on the world’s ecological troubles by way of a horror film, he’s better off just leaving that sort of stuff to people like Al Gore.

Click to buy “The Last Winter”

External Movie DVDs, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Reviews

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 Premium Hollywood

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑