Quoting my over five-year-old review from amazon.com:
The thing about this adaptation of Li’l Abner is that it manages to capture the light-hearted feel of the strip at the time. Unencumbered by any political or social leanings (in either direction) it gives a sense of Al Capp at his finest. When Li’l Abner and the citizens […]
What can I say about Monty Python and the Holy Grail that hasn’t already been said? Having exhausted the possibilities of television, the Mony Python troupe made the move to the big screen with this 1975 retelling of the story of King Arthur and his knights.
Now, as some of you may recall, I […]
For me, Prince of Space and Invasion of the Neptune Men will forever be linked due to their connected appearances on Mystery Science Theater 3000.* They both feature groups of children who befriend a mysterious outer space super-hero type, who helps save the world from invaders from space.
First up, Prince of Space tells of […]
Showing how important he had already become, Jiminy Cricket returns to act as presenter (and sings a great new song, “I’m a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow”) for the two stories in Disney’s 1947 “package” release Fun and Fancy Free. Jiminy is wandering about again (as he was at the beginning of Pinocchio) and comes upon a […]
Andrew “Dice” Clay doesn’t get the respect he desrves. He gets the scorn he deserves, but not the respect. Sure, he chose to play to the cruder aspects of comedy, but you can’t do that as successfully as he did without some ability. Before hitting it big as the “Diceman”, he had […]
Modesty Blaise as high-camp musical comedy? If you’ve ever read a Modety Blaise novel*, you’ll understand why fans of the comic and novel series thoroughly dislike this film. It flies in the face of the generally serious tone of Peter O’Donnell’s creation. And, yes, I usually back the side of purity when […]
Just Friends, like Waiting, is a film I bought primarily on the strength of its star, Ryan Reynolds. Thankfully, this one turned out a lot better.
It’s a romantic comedy with a twist, as they say. Reynolds plays Chris Brander, who as a young man was overweight and carried a torch for his best […]
The Great Lover is a pretty good outing for Bob Hope. It never really rises to the level of what I’d call a classic, but its a good time, with plenty to offer.
The first thing that struck me when I watched this film was the opening scene: a quiet, little parlor-room scene of two […]
I really like Dirty Work. Your ability to enjoy the film is directly linked to your tolerance level and enjoyment of Norm MacDonald’s comedy, as he pretty much shoehorns in every running gag he’s ever done (except, for some reason, the Germans). Just about everything else is here in abundance: “note to self”, […]
When I previously reviewed Chicken Little last year, I covered many of the shortcomings in this 2005 Disney CGI animated film. It lacks cohesion, gets way too caught up in pop culture jokes and has far too much music for its own good.
But, as often happens, it has grown on me since then and […]
Don’t Drink the Water is a film based on Woody Allen’s Broadway play of the same name. The action takes place in a US Embassy deep in the throes of the Cold War. The Hollander family, Walter (Jackie Gleason), Marion (Estelle Parsons) and daughter Susan (Joan Delaney) find themselves in the middle of […]
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is a brilliant film by writer/director Tom Stoppard based on his play of the same name. If you are unfamiliar with the work, the basic premise is that the film follows the activities of Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman) and Guildenstern (Tim Roth) as they weave their way in and out […]
When the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum crossed the Atlantic, the lead role of Pseudolus (originated by Zero Mostel) went to British comedian Frankie Howerd. After re-fashioning the role to fit his cheeky sense of humor, it was a huge success for him. In 1969, in an […]
The Hound of the Baskervilles is perhaps the oddest Sherlock Holmes film that is actually based on a work by Arthur Conan Doyle. It starts with the fact that Holmes is played by Peter Cook and Dr. Watson by Dudley Moore. Now, they were both fine actors when they tried and could have […]
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is my favorite film by director Terry Gilliam. In it, I feel that his growth as a filmmaker since his work on Monty Python and the Holy Grail finally came to fruition. After essentially making three films with the same focus and worldview (Jabberwocky, Time Bandits and Brazil), […]
Treasure Planet should have been a big, fat success story for Walt Disney. It’s based on one of the best adventure stories of all time, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, it has incredible visuals and it features a strong voice cast. But, in the end, it was all for naught as the film […]
On subsequent viewings, Nacho Libre comes off a lot better than it did on its first. Perhaps it was familiarity with the material, but I found myself constantly looking forward to particular moments, always a sign that a film is finding its way into my heart.
I still feel there was a lot of comedy […]
There are three main events that launched the Beatles into the world-wide sensations that they were in the 1960s. First, was their arrival in America. The shock of their unparalleled reception made all of America aware of them. Next, their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show let the country (and eventually the […]
Although the character had previously appeared on radio, the 1937 serial Dick Tracy marked his live-action debut. It was produced by the kings of the form at Republic and their mastery of the genre shows, even if it is lacking in accuracy in the details.
First of all, they moved Tracy from being a local […]
Given how much I love The Nightmare Before Christmas and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I really expected to enjoy James and the Giant Peach a lot more than I did. The problem with Roald Dahl (author of the original book) is that he had a very dark view of life and it’s […]
I’ve never been a big fan of Disney’s Peter Pan. I don’t know what it is about the film, but I always viewed it with detachment. My recent viewing has done little to change this impression. Maybe it’s the story itself that leaves me a bit cold, I don’t know. Still, […]
Caddyshack is one of the best sports films of all time. On the surface, it’s not that different from countless other sports underdog stories. The basic story of a young man trying to sort out his future through the unlikely route of sport is certainly not groundbreaking. But what seperates Caddyshack from […]
I, like many I’m sure, was introduced to The Wild World of Batwoman through its appearance on Mystery Science Theater 3000. But despite the uncut version appearing on the MST3K DVD, I had never bothered to watch it all the way through. Does it stand up un-MSTied? Sort of.
First, it’s important to […]
Star Trek: The Motion Picture brought back Captian Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Dr. McCoy (DeForrest Kelley) ten years since they had left the small screen (or five if you count the animated series).
The problem is, ST: TMP is never quite able to recapture the essence of the show. It comes […]
THX 1138 is George Lucas’ theatrical expansion of his student film Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB . It is also the film that ruined Francis Ford Coppola’s first American Zoeptrope film studio.
But the film itself is great. It is, in many ways, the anti-Star Wars: a small, personal story of one person in […]
Under the Cherry Moon
*singing*
How can i stand 2 sit through this stuff?
Must be a big fan, to watch all this fluff
Why does it fail in so many ways?
Prince could have made any film he could choose,
So why did he make Under the Cherry Moon?
It’s not like he can’t write with style or flair
He could’ve done […]
Okay…Beer League. It was originally marketed as Artie Lange’s Beer League, so that should give you some idea where this film is coming from. It’s pretty much what you’d expect; a standard underdog team trying to beat the big shots with a bunch of dirty jokes thrown in. Still, it’s really not […]
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is quirky. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is odd. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is probably the strangest mainstream science fiction movie I’ve ever seen. I love it. But I can certainly understand why […]
When Toho made the 1995 film Godzilla vs. Destroyah, they intended it to be the final Godzilla film for awhile. They had recently licensed the character for a big-time Hollywood film, so didn’t want to get in the way of that proposed new franchise. Well, the Hollywood version of Godzilla, though performing well […]
The Lemon Drop Kid is, for the most part, a typical Bob Hope comedy of the era. What gives it a bit of a zing is the fact that it is based on the works of Damon Runyon (like Guys and Dolls and Little Miss Marker). So we have Bob making his way […]
Well, that took a while, didn’t it? In watching fifty films in February, I more than caught up for my light January viewing. Unfortunately, I became somewhat addicted to the intense movie-watching schedule and as of today, I have watched 169 films, that’s more than 40 ahead of the pace. You may […]
Okay, if you were reading this blog last year, you know that my favorite film for 2006 was Cars. I gave it a glowing review, saw it six times in the theater, awarded it just about every award I could possibly think of, bought it on DVD twice on Day 1 and have more […]
Radar Men from the Moon is a late entry into the world of movie action serials and suffers heavily from an air of “been there, done that”. Radar Men from the Moon was made in 1952, when many major serial-producing studios had moved on, but Republic was still churning them out. (It was […]
In the 1940s, as World War II forced Walt Disney to shift his focus to the war effort, he began to produce “package films”, features that consisted of two or more linked stories. Fantasia falls under this category, although that was from intent, rather than necessity. Others include Make Mine Music […]
I previously reviewed Fantastic Four for thelogbook.com (the review can be read here), so I won’t go into great detail, but I will say that I still really like this movie. It’s certainly not among the greats of the comic-book-to-big-screen field, but I think it’s a fun, entertaining movie.
Particularly, I like the interaction […]