jamesjones01-1 Reviews

Cinderella (I) (2021)

Yet another woke reboot coasting on an existing story

[1/10 · 4 September 2021]

Can Disney do anything original any more? I admit I did like one exchange (approximate, from memory):

Fairy godmother: Don't you want to meet lots of rich people who can change your life?

Ella: Yes. I was crying and singing about it just two minutes ago.

Mr. Robot (2015–2019)

Why bother?

[1/10 · 28 December 2016]

You know, I just can't bring myself to give a flying Wallenda about Mr. Robot. Endless stretches of pretentious boring dialogue in a big city that appears to be mostly deserted most of the time, and a drug-addled protagonist who's a self-absorbed sociopathic asshole.

I keep waiting for Bobby Ewing to poke his head out of the shower, or for the camera to pull back and show the protagonist in a straitjacket in a padded room with doctors clucking and wondering why he keeps blathering about a "Mr. Robot".

Or perhaps the makers of the show are trying to find out just how long they can lead on and defecate on a sufficiently large audience and have them like it. Please, Ernie Fosselius, do to this show what you did to Apocalypse Now; it desperately needs it.

Attack of the Show! (2005–2022)

Makes the local cable access channel look like PBS

[1/10 · 30 August 2006]

This show is what happened to The Screen Savers after G4 got its hands on it, taking it from a useful source of computer-related information to a show that had as its high point the shoving of a miniature web server up someone's posterior.

As G4's ratings plummeted, they moved away from their original target audience, gamers, to generic hormone-driven young men, adding eye candy to the staff and a sex advice segment. Now even the gamers who applauded the show initially are turning away in disgust. I look forward to the show's, and the network's, overwhelmingly overdue and well-deserved demise.

UPDATE: O frabjous day! AOTS is over, as is G4 as a whole. In a single lapse into worthwhile viewing, there was a Newhart-style ending with Leo Laporte telling Patrick Norton what a weird dream he had.

Joan of Arcadia (2003–2005)

Tries a new spin, but ultimately unsatisfying

[4 October 2004]

There's a fundamental problem with shows like _Touched by an Angel_: if the things depicted actually happened, nobody would doubt the existence of a non-denominational generic Christian God.

_Joan of Arcadia_ tries to get around this by making God an ever-changing Hobbes to Joan's Calvin, and by God's never acting save to give Joan things to do interspersed with vague platitudes, so that the issue is never settled, just as, in real life, there's no observable difference between "God helps those who help themselves" and "There is no God; people accomplish things that they put effort into."

Aside from Joan's Task and Cheesy Lesson of the Week, the show is a pretty generic family drama, though there's one character I like a lot--Joan's father, who strikes me as a skeptic. I wish they'd bring that out more.

Fillmore! (2002–2004)

Deadpan delivery makes this show great

[19 October 2003]

Fillmore is a police procedural set in a middle school. The way it takes itself utterly seriously and perfectly applies all the hard-boiled detective cliches makes it great fun, and sometimes even touching. This one's for adults as much as for children.

Gamera vs. Guiron (1969)

Giant turtle fights Exacto knife with an attitude

[6/10 · 6 September 2003]

Two young friends find a UFO, which takes off with them in it as the bratty sister of one assures them they'll get in trouble. Gamera helps them, but they wind up on a planet featuring kawaii but evil women from outer space who control Guiron, a giant Exacto knife with legs and an attitude, and who want to eat the friends' brains. With Gamera's help, the friends keep their brains, Guiron is defeated, and they get back home. A fun if hokey monster movie, and a great example, along with _Godzilla's Revenge_, of how the monsters had become heroes, sort of kami watching over Japan... or at least over Japanese children. Remember, "Gamera will save us! He's the children's friend!"

Stitch! The Movie (2003 Video)

I was afraid of this... (spoiler!)

[5/10 · 28 August 2003]

_Stitch! the Movie_ follows logically from _Lilo and Stitch_, and the characters are true to their personalities. Sharp-eyed children will notice a point at which Stitch could have extricated himself from a fix unaided, but didn't, but on the whole, it flows nicely...

****SPOILER FOLLOWS!!!!***** ...to a semi-conclusion that sets up the forthcoming _Lilo and Stitch_ cartoon series in exactly the way I feared it would, so that it will be a clone of certain Japanese cartoon series in which many creatures with varying powers get collected. I guess the committees and marketing types finally got their claws into L&S, and couldn't resist the thought of hordes of children collecting 626 plushes, figures, cards, and so on. I'm highly disappointed.

Shriek of the Mutilated (1974)

a shaggy, uh, dog movie

[22 January 2003]

A professor leads a group of stupid college students in search of the Yeti, but they don't find what they expect, and people start dying. It really is a pointless and gory trail up to the punch line at the end, though along the way you do get to hear the then-famous synth instrumental, "Popcorn" by Hot Butter.

Black Knight (2001)

Predictable? Yup. Fun nonetheless

[11 January 2003]

OK. It's a _Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ retread. You know that the hero will Learn a Lesson about honor and duty and save the day... ...but that doesn't keep it from being fun, and I had to like having the realities of medieval hygiene driven home. As a player and fan of early music, the consort instrumentation was to die for. The costuming was very good.

Semi-spoiler: they had two possible cliche endings to go for; I wish they'd chosen differently.

Judging Amy (1999–2005)

politically correct, statist Pecksniffian cant

[15 December 2002]

Tyne Daly plays a sanctimonious, obnoxious jerk of a social worker. Amy Brennerman plays the sanctimonious, obnoxious jerk of a daughter of the social worker, a juvenile court judge. No character with a Y chromosome comes off well here, save for the judge's assistant (and at least for a while it looked like he was getting involved with the judge, so that may change). Mother and daughter are always right (in the event of a dispute, mother is always right), and woe betide any who disagree.

Gymkata (1985)

"My people...!" So bad it's hilarious

[5 December 2002]

I first saw this movie with three friends at a theater in Norman, Oklahoma when it first came out. Aside from the four of us, the usher was in the theater, and the projectionist too. They should've gotten combat pay.

The US government goes to a gymnast to get him to train for and participate in The Game, a decathlon cum obstacle course held each year in the tiny country of Parmistan (the four of us immediately decided its major export was Parmesan cheese...). The Khan of Parmistan grants each winner a favor, and the US wants our hero to ask pretty please to let the US put some kind of radar installation in Parmistan to support SDI. Our hero agrees--after all, his dad mysteriously disappeared in Parmistan.

Our hero gets some help from the Khan's daughter, who turns out to be the only citizen of Parmistan who looks even vaguely Asian. (_Gymkata_ was filmed in Zagreb, then in Yugoslavia.) There are people who want to stop him, though--fortunately, every place our hero is in danger, there happens to be a convenient piece of gymnastic equipment that he can leap onto and kick some enemy behind. (It even comes pre-powdered so his hands won't slip--they think of everything!)

A high point of the film is the Khan himself, and his pronouncements from the balcony. We in the theater swore up and down that Mel Brooks was playing the Khan... He always uttered some non-English interjection that we promptly forgot (UPDATE: it's "yakmalla!"), replacing with "Uff- da!" when imitating him during and after the film, and followed it up with "My people!"

I recommend this in a double feature with _Phenomenal and the Mask of Tutankhamen_. Think you need an Abdomenizer? Nope--just watch these two movies.

A Knight's Tale (2001)

enjoyable, and the music was just fine...

[12 May 2002]

Of course, there are only so many plots--see Aristotle's _Poetics_ for details--and we've seen this one many times before, including _The Mighty Ducks_, for heaven's sake. But it's still entertaining and fun, and I laughed and cried in the right places.

The anachronistic elements serve to make it real to a modern audience, and in that regard I wish to particularly comment on the music. Had its makers chosen to go with the pastiche of late 19th century Romantic music that we have become used to in movie soundtracks, there'd not have been a peep...never mind that it would be just as out of place in the fourteenth century as the rock music they selected. (I'm just sorry that they didn't use the Hendrix track that they obviously had the setup for.) The songs they chose, just like Chaucer's introduction, put a modern audience in the mood that period music would have for a 14th century audience; had the soundtrack consisted of isorhythmic motets and troubadour songs, we fans of early music would be happy but the general public would not be moved as they should.