A weird, off-the-wall idea that never really takes off. Of course, the Presley estate would never allow actual Elvis music to used in this film (it would probably cost five times what went into the film in the first place), so, as far as I'm concerned, ANY film about Elvis without his voice suffers. That's what made him the King.
You could have Elvis battling a mummy AND Martians and, if he sang, people would believe it. Look at his movies! The public bought just about all of them when they were released. Letting Elvis sing would allow anyone watching the film to understand why he was who he was. (But I can't blame the filmmakers for that because this is a very low-budget film).

In the extras, the writer/director admits that, trying to submit BUBBA HOTEP in festivals, he didn't know which genre to label his film. That's another major problem: it never really decides what it wants to do. It's never particularly funny and it's never scary.
It's not hard to see Bruce Campbell as Elvis and a lot of screen time goes into explaining how the King ended up in a Texas nursing home, but too little time is spent trying to convince us that the great Ossie Davis is JFK.

By the time it was over, it felt like a dry curiosity, not a camp classic.
And I really wanted it to be camp classic.

This film has what so many movies today lack: it's expertly made, emotionally involving with wonderful performances, and it challenges its audience by telling one story (losing and finding faith) in the framework of another (an alien invasion).

Mel Gibson is superb as the former Father trying to hold on to his family even after his heart has been ripped out. After playing emotionally raw characters from LETHAL WEAPON to HAMLET, he proves he can also nail a devastated, lifeless man overwhelmed by loss.

The extras were very interesting: in the Making Of documentary, it shows how the film commenced shooting on September 11th, 2001 and the director shares his feelings about that and the loss of a family member later in the filming.

A filmmaker definitely worth keeping an eye on.

A lot of 007 fans argue over this one to this day, but I still think this is one of the best James Bond films ever made. The directing is first-rate, the action scenes electric, the snazzy soundtrack felt organic and still feels very 60's, and you had Emma Peel from THE AVENGERS as one of the best of all Bond girls.

It sounds like Diana Rigg is a bit dismissive about her action babe roles in the 60's (she complains that THE AVENGERS was not "the sum of my career") and I've seen her in some serious roles (she was great and chilling in a Brit mini-series called
MOTHER LOVE) but--come on, Ms. Rigg--you were just too smart and way too sexy for us to ever forget as Mrs. Peel and Traci!

George Lazenby had impossible shoes to fill, but I'm glad they went with a new actor (John Gavin and Adam West had been named as possible Connery successors). Lazenby's face has moments of Bond's cold killer side that hasn't been seen since (Brosnan came close a couple times in GOLDENEYE and when he kills Sophie Marceau in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH) and you believe him in the action scenes. No, he wasn't Sean Connery, but he was James Bond--especially in the final haunting scene.

Telly Savalas makes a physically-threatening Blofeld and his thuggish bid at a "legitimate heritage" reveals how nutty his supervillian really is (in the other films, they're insane only through their crimes or Bond just proclaiming, "You're insane").

I'm not sure if Director Peter Hunt was jettisoned when this film failed to perform as well as previous Bonds at the box office, but the producers should have really given him another film to do. He'd been an editor on previous Bonds and he really brought an exciting energy to the fights and chases.

OHMSS is right up there with FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, GOLDFINGER, and THE SPY WHO LOVED ME as far as my favorites go (I include SPY because it was so darn fun).

I was thinking back on albums that, as a whole, had me listening to them over and over when they came out. It just doesn't happen much anymore with popular music.

Paul McCartney's FLOWERS IN THE DIRT came out in 1989 and I really liked the first single, "My Brace Face." After I saw him in concert the following year, I bought the cassette and ended up listening to it through a very difficult year--and it really stuck with me.
(That world tour of his ended up on DVD/video, I think, but it was ruined by some bad choices: "Live and Let Die," a show-stopping pyro-show of explosions and lasers, was cut down to include Vietnam footage--a lame attempt to add relevance to a James Bond theme. Gimme a break.)

I don't know if it was McCartney's collaboration with Elvis Costello or what, but this album was a long way from the "Silly Love Songs" of the 70s (don't take that as a slight: I appreciate "Silly Love Songs" as part of my life's 70s soundtrack). There were dark, mature moments ("That Day is Done") as well as quiet appreciation for things long gone ("Put It There").
FLOWERS IN THE DIRT is a pop album for grown ups and I'm glad I found it when I did.

...but it doesn't work. And I WANTED it to work, especially after seeing INDEPENDENCE DAY the summer before. Will Smith's cigar-smoking bravado and Bill Pullam's uninspiring president made me want to see a wild and irreverent sci-fi send-up.

But there's a lot of dead air in this movie. I loved ED WOOD (and still think it's Burton's best film), but I also have a theory: Tim Burton's films are always 20 minutes too long. Every single one of them (except maybe the first Pee Wee Herman film, which is still hilarious).

There are moments of greatness here, but they come way too late. My two favorite moments were (1) how the aliens are ultimately defeated and (2), no matter what was asked of singer Tom Jones, he could do it. I loved that! But those scenes came way late in the movie and, before that, this movie was all over the place.
(Other scenes worth mentioning: the Martians' response to the dove of goodwill and what they say when they learn English).

They needed either the Zucker Brothers (with Jim Abrams) or even the Coen Brothers take a shot at the script--then it might have had some more laughs and momentum.
Great special effects though.

On the 25th anniversary year of NETWORK a couple years ago, there were several news article looking back at the film and how its impact on movies/media seemed almost "prophetic": the degrading mess of news turning into entertainment, the fourth network, etc.

NETWORK is still a powerful film and its many messages are still relevant today--perhaps more so.
I've always been a big Paddy Chayefsky fan and I consider NETWORK to be his masterpiece. He's still the only screenwriter to win three Oscars (the other two were MARTY and THE HOSPITAL). You feel that the folks behind this movie really knew what they were talking about.
The cast is brilliant: Peter Finch deserved his posthumous Oscar and Faye Dunaway was a cross between Mary Richards from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and Satan. William Holden, who originally wanted Finch's demented newsman role, brings all his world-weary cynicism that started in SUNSET BOULEVARD with him. And Robert Duvall has a few hilarious moments as, at first, the cool button-down "hatchet man" and then turning into a raving ratings monster when the Nielsens come in. Outstanding.

I would hope that someday we'll get the Special Edition DVD release that NETWORK deserves. Interviews, commentaries, whatever they've got.
We're waiting!

I'd heard there were problems with the making of this comedy and it slipped in and out of theatres without much notice. I remember seeing the trailer and thinking that the movie looked terrible.
Then I saw it was based on a Jay Cronley novel.

If you've never read a Jay Cronley novel, find one: he has a hilarious writing style that can't be transferred to a movie screen. He wrote FUNNY FARM (made into the Chevy Chase movie) and QUICK CHANGE (with Bill Murray). The perfect John Candy role can be found in WALKING PAPERS but, sadly, John's gone. And then there's GOOD VIBES, which became LET IT RIDE.

This is a funny, funny movie. It takes the seedy setting of a horse track and fills it with hilarious characters all trying to make that winning bet. Richard Dreyfus gives an energetic performance as Jay Trotter, a loser who, for one day, just can't stop winning.

Give this underrated gem a shot. If you connect with it, then it's a winning bet.

I've never been a big musical fan but who could resist a movie like GREASE?
It's rare when a movie can take a look at a time in America and manage to capture all the fun that period had to offer. Being based on a well-established musical play helped, I'm sure, but I also think all the other elements--especially that dynamite cast--really helped.

I was a teenager in the 70's when it came out and, looking back at it now, I appreciate the filmmakers' respectful approach to the period and characters while gently poking fun at the 50's. I doubt such a film could be made now: the characters would be caricatures and Hollywood would want to "right any wrongs" of the era, I'm sure.
(Check out the review by the person "offended" by the roles of girls in the movie/1950s. I'll bet every teenage girl in the 50's had more fun being a girl than that person in the 00's ranting about it. Yikes, calm down.)

I loved the extras. The recent interviews with the cast and the footage from the Hollywood premiere.
Mom and Dad had their youth in the 50's and we got to watch it on the movie screens of 1978.
Now the grandkids get to watch it on their portable DVD players.
GREASE is still the word.

In William Holden's biography, GOLDEN BOY, he was just coming off the classic film NETWORK when he was offered the lead in the first THE OMEN. He threw the script aside and said it was ridiculous: no one would believe a story where a kid is born from a dog!
THE OMEN would end up being the biggest hit in Gregory Peck's career, not William Holden's.
But he did end up in the watchable sequel.

Jerry Goldsmith delivers another great score but the crow is a poor substitute for a demonic creature like the Rotweiler in the original (in OMEN's original script, it was a German Sheperd).
I wish there were more moments of self-discovery for Damien but the kids end up sounding phony spouting lines like, "You're the son of the devil!"
I liked the idea of the excavated wall.
The sequential deaths kept things moving but chopping that guy from DESIGNING WOMEN in half in the elevator was too over-the-top to revive the creepiness of David Warner's demise in the first film.
And William Holden's character's abrupt realization of how things have gone wrong isn't nearly as developed as Gregory Peck's superb dread and grief from the original.
The ending feels rushed no matter how you look at it.

I know, I know, it's a sequel. But it's the sequel to a very powerful story and, considering the leads in this film, I ended up wanting much more.
Worth watching though.

I found CRUM while skimming through the Appalachian Lit section in the Trans Allegheny Bookstore in Parkersburg, West Virginia and picked it up.
I grew up in southern Ohio and northern West Virginia and was looking for some regional story that wasn't filled with incest, black lung, and all the other despair that seems to find its way into print. None of that had been my experience (thank God!). In fact, I thought it was very cool place to grow up.

While CRUM touches on the stifling air and dreadful boredom of that little town (what kid wouldn't feel that way about where they were from?), it also brings to life some of the interesting characters there and provides some laughs about growing up.
I've read some of the reviews here that complain about the PORKY's-style humor, but I believed it was part of the narrator's honesty, not gratuitous gross-out pandering.

As far as some reviewers' outrage that anyone would compare Maynard to Twain: is there anything in CRUM more unbelievable than Huck Finn passing himself off as a woman and getting away with it? Try to leave literary snobbery out of this.

I've passed copies of the book around to friends of mine, mostly outdoorsmen, campers, hunters, etc. It spoke to them and they loved it.
One friend always quotes his favorite line from the first page: "Across the river lie Kentucky, mysterious land of pig...."
Well, I'll let you finish the rest.