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Reviews
Invincible (2006)
Football has never seemed so dull!
*********SPOILER WARNING**********
Rarely have I ever been so disappointed by a movie, especially one I had such low expectations for to begin with. I went into the theater expecting a nice, comfortable, predictable Rudy rehashed, themed especially for my favorite city in the world, Philadelphia. I was not expecting nor did I particularly desire great cinema or stunning originality; I would have happily settled for a well-done version of a marvelously entertaining cliché. What I got was a movie that, more than anything else, seemed hopelessly unambitious; it didn't seem particularly interested in old, stand-by truisms or anything particularly resembling a story. Sure, there were a couple of scenes ripped straight out of Rudy (including one where two guys get into the "pit" and have to hit each other), but mostly it was a a meandering, moping, and unengaging retelling of one man's life in football, totally lacking in any dramatic fire. And I'm a big Eagles fan!
None of the players on the 1976 Eagles are particularly featured, replaced instead with a "general grumbling" about Papale being on the team. So, clichéd though it would be, there is not even an attempt at a "first I hate you then I respect you and finally I stick up for you and help you become an established member of the team" story line between one of the established players and Papale. There is a passing gesture at this sort of plot device, nothing more.
Instead, the story, such as it is, focuses on the relationship with Papale and Dick Vermeil. Even that lacks much dramatic tension; each week Papale is still on the team, until Vermeil calls him into his office and tells him to bring his playbook --- usually what he does right before he cuts a player --- in order to tell him he's made the team. Surprise! There is hardly any dramatic tension here, and this is the crux of the story.
The other subplots are equally lacking in any real rising action, or, in at least one case, sense. Papale's first wife left him and called him a loser, but it's OK because he nearly immediately meets a hotter girl who is a Giants fan but still a good person. Yawn.
In another subplot, Papale's dad supports him, but suggests he should resign himself to the idea that he is just a regular guy and will never be anything more. Boy, does the younger Papale show him! Not only does Vince make the Eagles, but on the day of the Eagles' home opener, his first day in Philadelphia in uniform, he "forgets" to get his Dad a ticket, as we discover when we see his father at a bar, watching the game on TV (but still cheering his son on with a bunch of other barflies --- how nice).
Finally, in the one that makes the least sense of all, one of Papale's best friends continually reminds him what a loser he is, no matter what he does. He gets through the open tryout --- he's a loser. He makes it past the first cuts --- loser. Next round of cuts --- loser. After he makes the team --- loser. After he doesn't play well in his first game against Dallas --- loser. Presumably, this would have gone ad infinitum, but mercifully the movie ended. Why does his friend despise him so much? Even the movie doesn't seem too sure --- it just seemed like it would add something to the plot, I guess, to have this "sour grapes" character there at every turn, to remind Papale that whatever he's achieved is only dust in the wind, and that soon he'll be nothing again.
One positive note: the attention to uniform detail is heroic. In 1976, the Dallas Cowboys, who normally have a stripe running over the crown of their helmets that is blue-white-blue, changed to red-white-blue to commemorate the bicentennial. The movie has the 'Boys in the correct uniform. And the Eagles are wearing that 1976 Philadelphia patch that uses the number 76 to make the crack-and-clapper in the Liberty Bell.
I only wish attention to this type of detail made it worth while. The Vet mostly looks like Franklin Field, with benches where the seats should be. Moreover, the movie's story is decidedly uninspiring --- I can't see how this movie would hold any interest to anyone outside the Philadelphia area.
Unsolved Mysteries (1987)
Stories were Hit or Miss, but the Production was always great
Unlike a lot of people who watched this show, I am not overly fond of the ghost stories, UFO stories, miracle stories, or psychic stories (and of course everybody hates the "Lost Loves" segments); it seems to me these nearly always involve the most desperately hickish people you will ever hope to see claiming that they saw this ghost or that alien. They all seem like attention grabbers, and they generally seem to me to be either 1) hopelessly gullible or 2) totally untrustworthy. However, the production values were actually pretty decent for a show of this kind (I remember their representation of aliens in a few episodes really terrifying me as a child), and the framing piece, done by Robert Stack, was always a superior bit of showmanship. That music... wow.
The "Unexplained Deaths" and "Missing" segments were easily the show's best, and I'm waiting for these to come out on DVD ("Bizarre murders" is due out in January; now word yet on "Missing Persons"). The one I remember always screwing with my adult mind the most was from the nineteenth episode (at least according to TV Tome), in which a shipwreck that happened off the coast of Hawaii in 1980 or so was profiled. The Coast Guard searched at the time, and I believe some bodies were found, but not the ship. Eight to ten years later, during their biannual sweep of the uninhabited islands in the vicinity of Hawaii (in other words, a sweep that had been done three to five times since the disappearance), one of the coast guard searchers, who had been on the original search and rescue team that looked for the aforementioned boat all those years earlier, spotted something on the coast of one of the uninhabited islands. Turns out, as I'm sure you guessed, it was that boat that had gone missing. Nearby, a grave made of a pile of stones was discovered, with a cross at its head... under the stones, the body of one of the missing fisherman. How did that boat suddenly appear on that island so much later, after apparently not having been there before? Who buried the missing fisherman? What of the only other clue --- a pad of paper found at the grave, made of one-inch square pieces, with a smaller square of SILVER paper between each piece of one inch white paper? What was that? Why was it there? If you have any information, please contact the Hawaiian coast guard, or call Unsolved Mysteries...
Here's an unsolved mystery for Unsolved Mysteries... every time I see a nice, juicy mystery like that on the show, my eyes tear up; I'm not crying, nor do I feel sad or like I want to cry, but my eyes do indeed tear up. Why!?
Anyway, if you make sure to watch the segments about things that actually happened, you will never be disappointed (I'm also fond of the ones where they pursue legends, like lost treasure or who really shot Jesse James, etc.). Beware, however, of some of the other types of stories; you will see some awfully stupid and pathetic people...
The Truth About Charlie (2002)
The Goop about Charlie
This bewildering choice for a film re-defines the word "pointless." If you need to know, this is a movie so utterly unconfident in its own validity that the DVD actually includes a copy of the original film on which it was based on the reverse side. "The Truth About Charlie" is a re-make of the classic film "Charade," starring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, and Walter Matthau. Our latter-day version features the Cary Grant part played by Mark Wahlberg (!) and the Walter Matthau part played by Tim Robbins, who for most of the film, perplexingly enough, does a laughably awful imitation of Matthau in the part of Carson Dial. Thandie Newton is passable as Mrs. Lambert (the Audrie Hepburn role); that is to say, she makes a better Audrey Hepburn than Mark Wahlberg makes a Cary Grant (go figure).
And then, of course, there are the additional characters --- a pair of French detectives and Mr. Lambert's/Lake's mother. None of them make any sense or add anything of value to the film. The mother was seemingly added simply for the final scene of the movie --- which was only possible because of a rare and predictably inexplicable deviation from the original story.
This movie is one of those rare disasters so mind-bogglingly unnecessary that it makes you really feel for the people who starved to death while the $40 million or so it took to produce this movie was being spent to film it. Hollywood, get a clue: the first two rules of re-makes are 1)never re-make a truly bad movie and 2)never re-make a classic! I'm deeply, deeply sorry I watched it at all
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Episode II: Attack of Episode I!
I've seen this movie four times now, and I still contend that nearly all of its problems are bleed overs from the disastrous decision to cast Jake Lloyd as Anakin in Episode I. Let's look at this logically.
Anakin's character is, unfortunately, woefully underdeveloped. Why? Because after one whole movie supposedly starring Anakin Skywalker had been produced, we still had no idea who he was. Why? Because Jake Lloyd was used in the first film. In the name of all things sacred, I cannot fathom why this decision was made. If Hayden had been cast in Episode I instead of Lloyd, just think of all things that suddenly get a hell of a lot better in BOTH films:
1) The romance between between Anakin and Padme could have been allowed to develop over two films instead of one (see A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back), circumventing the need for the atrocious dialogue and rushed storyline of the "love" scenes in Attack of the Clones.
2) Anakin and Obi-Wan could have developed a more "friendly," warm relationship, so that Anakin's defiance of Obi-Wan in Episode II would seem more of a typical teenage rebellion and less like he was just a complete jerk. Remember, Obi-Wan calls Anakin "a good friend" in A New Hope. I didn't see any friendliness between the two in this film, however.
3) One of the big problems with Episode II is that the scene where Anakin's mother dies lacks the emotional fire it should really have. This is due to two reasons: the first is that the actress playing his mother really turns in a performance worthy of The Gong Show, but the second is that, as I mentioned before, we don't KNOW Anakin enough to care. Why? Because he's been two different people --- it's hard to get THAT attached to someone in an hour, especially given the scope of this story. The audience should have been building its identification with Hayden as Anakin in Episode I, making the work of Episode II to tell his story, rather than re-introducing a character that should have been well known by this point.
The moral of the story is that if you know ahead of time you are going to make three films about one central character, pick someone who can play that character in ALL THREE MOVIES!!!! Maybe, just maybe, Episode III will be far enough along in the story to have shed the after-effects of Jake Lloyd, but I doubt it. That stupid little kid has ruined this prequel trilogy. Hayden's acting is cheesy, but hell, so was Mark Hamill's. Besides, he's eighteen, eighteen-year-olds are over dramatic about things. They're all like that. Give Hayden a break. It's Jake Lloyd, and Lucas's decision there, that deserves the real calumny. Oh, and Natalie Portman, hot or not, was actually embarrassing in this film.
Welcome Back, Kotter (1975)
Not the "classic" I expected
Recently, TV Land ran their marathon of "Welcome Back, Kotter", so I watched a few episodes. What stuck out most about the show was how amazingly, astonishingly awful the acting was. The episodes still had John Travolta, so I know they came from the early years, which means they are supposed to be the "good" episodes. Now, the dialogue and plotting weren't bad, and some of the jokes they tried to make might have even been funny --- if anyone on the show had a sense of comic timing. There was a lot of dead time between every line of dialogue; it seemed as if the actors needed to take a second to remember their lines, or weren't sure it was their cue to speak. It was like a bad high school production. Of course, the terribly broken pacing kills the humor. After watching two episodes, I had had all I could take. It makes me wonder how the show ever became popular.