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Reviews
The Star Packer (1934)
Colorized and dubbed!
In the "Did you know?" ssection a user mentions due to a lack of copyright there are problems in obtaining a good copy of the film. Today the GRIT Channel is airing a colorized - and dubbed copy - with a male voice not belongng to John Wayne!
The Waltons: The Secret (1976)
One of the series best episodes...
Jim-Bob begins to question whether he is a "foundling" after Elizabeth stockes his imagination by saying traveling gypsies left him on the Walton's doorstep. Worried that he doesn't appear like other members of the family, he searches but does not find photographs of himself in the family photo box, causing him to ask others who might know the details of his birth, until he and John-Boy make a disturbing discovery while searching the county birth and death records.
Jim-Bob's quiet "not-happy but not-sad" mannerisms really were and are the essence of a young adolescent, now and then - when a boy or girl have more unanswered questions than answers. The closing scene no doubt brought tears to the eyes of many viewers - especially those who shared a similar experience. One of the series best episodes that earned a rare 9.0 or higher rating for any program or film.
Little House on the Prairie: Oleson vs Oleson (1981)
Disembler!
The show features a visit to Walnut Grove by an early suffragette, who manages to create chaos in every household by saying each husband should be made to sign a "sharing" petition. In reality, the women who closed their door on Caroline would have been the standard response in the 1880's to such a document, plus Caroline risking the crime of abandonment for refusing to return home until the matter was resolved in her favor.
It was out-of-character even for Caroline, considering she was always at church and knew Scripture well enough to know what becomes of disemblers who enter a town or house bent on causing family disruption.
In some ways it was a funny episode with Mr. and Mrs. O. at it again, but in other ways it was frustrating for the reasons mentioned (in today's world the petition would be called a pre-nuptual agreement).
Surprisingly Revend Alden should have explained very plainly that an outsider causing disruption to family life would not be allowed to enter his congregation, but instead Charles gives in and signs...
Rain Man (1988)
Draining
I realize in real life someone with Ray's disability does banter constantly, from the moment they awake until the moment they fall asleep, but that is not the reason I enjoy watching any film.
To hear Ray (Hoffman) go on and on and on and on was just too much for my brain to endure, and after 4 or 5 attempts to see this film all the way though, I've never been able to watch it more than 30 minutes.
I know it won several Oscars and won or was nominated for many other awards, but, the other issue is this no doubt cements into the mind of parents who are hoping for a child the reason why they should not have a child who could possibly be born with a similar disability. Of course savant behavior cannot be determined before birth, but certainly to think of a lifetime of caring for someone like Ray could be very overwhelming.
Currently there is a popular early teen book is about a girl who acquires mathematical savant behavior after being shocked into cardiac arrest by a bolt of lightning, so if you want to know more check with your library or online.
An incredibly interesting topic but just wish I could see the film all the way through (sans his selfish brother's nasty language).
Leave It to Beaver: Substitute Father (1961)
Personal Accountability
This episode reminds me of what happened one day to well-known 1980s Indiana high school student Ryan White - in his biography, he explains while in the hospital his favorite nurse (his version of Miss Landers) happened to overhear him cursing and how she roundly told him, "Ryan, we don't speak that way here." and like Beaver, an embarrassed Ryan apologizing to his nurse and his mother. Yeah, Beaver was tripped by some jerks (oops), but Beaver's response is what defines his life, not the action of the kids who years later might remember the time they were mean to a kid at school. Miss Landers was generous to receive and allow Wally to stand in for Ward, realizing Beaver had learned a lesson. As another reviewer said, a strong ending episode to Season 4...
The Fugitive (1993)
The action film of action films, but...
...members of the US Marshal Service must laugh at a few scenes. One is the sewer tunnel scene - they would never enter a sewer tunnel for several reasons. Sewer gas can have deadly consequences, and being a confined space environment, they are not trained for that type of situation. Per SOP in such a case they would watch the entrances and wait out the person (and eventually he would come out), the stubborn attitude of the person in charge not winning out over employee union safety. Real life is just not as exciting - at times...
The Andy Griffith Show: Aunt Bee's Brief Encounter (1961)
Cold Solution
Andy could've waited to pull his shotgun wedding reference until after breakfast the next morning, instead of sending Mr. Weaver off in the night on an empty stomach. Not the kind Andy we're used to seeing.
Coop and Cami Ask the World (2018)
Cheer Camp Sitcom
Someone here said the sitcom concept is tired and I agree. The C&C tween actors try hard but the show comes off as a cheer camp tryout. Yeah, it's not supposed to be real life, but that's my point. I know kid drama isn't Disney, but they should try a tween drama, instead of another tween sitcom.
Little House on the Prairie: May We Make Them Proud: Part I (1980)
Alice Garvey
I agree with the other review - the episode, in particular the death of Alice Garvey, was VERY disturbing. Perhaps because my own life and my family's life was changed by a large house fire right across the street from us when I was Albert's age, seeing Alice in the window about to be burned alive was too much for me, and when I did notice the episode was airing this evening (1/22/19) I switched channels until the terror was past.
The only way I'm able to smile - a little - was the fact that when they wrote Alice out of the show they did, lock, stock and barrel!
I could see a smokey death, so to speak, because that was used on many shows over the years, but to make it VERY obvious that she and the baby burned alive and to hear her screaming was I thought too intense for a family show. May he rest in peace, Michael Landon was known for taking creative liberties with his shows, and for certain he did here...
Little House on the Prairie: The Family Tree (1979)
Albert!
In typical Albert fashion, he resolves the crisis in his own street-wise way - excellent ending!
Leave It to Beaver: Beaver's House Guest (1960)
One of Beaver's best episodes...
In some ways Beaver transitions to Theodore in the opener of Season 4, when he learns gifts do not take the place of a loving family. I was a little confused with the slightly shifty-looking guy who called himself "Uncle," until I realized he was a guy who hangs around the house kind of uncle (he'd make a good suspect in a Perry Mason episode).
I found Chopper's sad comment (perhaps taken a word out of context), "I see how your parents are, standing close to each other." very sensitive and even intimate - no doubt the screenplay was written by a person with a good grasp of marriage, in it's best and worst moments.
Sad, too, is Beaver left sitting on his bed, angry with the fact that all that was left of his friendship with Chopper was a new baseball glove, given to Chopper by one parent vying for the best divorced parent role - though no fault of Beaver's troubled friend, who was called home because his Mother was "weepy" again, after another argument with his father (a/k/a using the child as mediator to a bad marriage).
It's another reason people who only focus on the "Gee, Dad" isms of Beaver are ignorant of the show's many unique strong points for a sitcom of it's time.
No doubt this was one of the show's best and most meaningful episodes.
Gunsmoke: The Squaw (1961)
Crybaby Cully
If Cully is old enough to walk around Dodge with a gun as he later chooses to do, he's old enough to accept his father's choice of a wife, instead of running out the door like a child on hearing the news of the engagement, yelling, "No!"
Irritating story with a violent, murderous conclusion...
Little House on the Prairie: Laura Ingalls Wilder: Part II (1980)
Mixed Signals
No one could blame Eliza Jane for getting a bad case of mixed signals. Harve certainly made her think he was interested. The sad ending is very true and something I've said more than once at someone else's wedding - "I've never been happier in my life - really I haven't."
M*A*S*H: Lt. Radar O'Reilly (1976)
Class discrimination...
Often fans think Winchester was the only snob in camp, but BJ had his moments of cruel class discrimination fun, too.
Radar like all Noncoms were from poor families, and the thought of being promoted to an Officer would be like Christmas in July for anyone in his rank, but here comes BJ, having fun to settle a poker debt.
I would think even Winchester would say, "Don't you think this to be a cruel joke when he finds out the promotion is not real?"
Often, I think BJ more the snob than Winchester - at least in Winchester's case, people expected it from him, he being from a wealthy Boston family, but BJ seemed to have the thought he's a doctor with the perfect little family by the Bay, who's here with these jerks I don't have time for...
In the end, the 4077 had its class discrimination - the Officers were all called by their rank, while the Noncoms were all given cruel nicknames or just their last name (Radar, Egor, Klinger, Rizzo, etc.)...
One of my least favorite episodes.
Leave It to Beaver: The Clothing Drive (1963)
Contractual obligation?
As others said, this episode is out of sequence.
The story was flat, though Ward and June helped to bring some life into it, June forcing Ward to be accountable for his mistake, though it is frustrating to see how out of step it is with the series time line.
Wally and Beaver had already graduated in earlier episodes, and per the previous episode Beaver was supposed to be away and touring the country all summer with his friends, and Wally no doubt already getting ready to be "up at State," so it did not make sense to see Beaver back at Grant Avenue Elementary - and suddenly acting about 2 years younger, with his hair a mess and worrying about being a poor citizen, and Wally coming home from school with his books under his arm.
I've dreaded this episode every time it comes around - why can't Universal shuffle the episode deck or shelve it entirely?
I hope someone from Universal (or at least the actors or their agents) will read this and ask this episode be pushed back to the beginning or middle of Season 6 (by the way the boys were dressed when they were walking to school, it was supposed to be Fall or Winter).
It's a shame, because a weak episode like this brings down the rest of the series, and since it's the penultimate episode, it leaves many confused over the disrupted time line. Like they say, most people judge things on a first - and last - impression. From what I once read on the show's Facebook fan page, the episode was originally not meant to be the next to last but was reordered when a mutual decision was made not to continue the series.
Leave It to Beaver: Beaver Takes a Bath (1959)
Parents were as much to blame...
Ward and June made a poor decision to leave the boys at home - it was a good time to let them stay over at Larry's, instead of thinking they'd stay home all weekend alone and not burn the house down, accidentally of course...
In fact, since both boys were minors at the time, their parents could have been cited for leaving them unsupervised.
And, the damage to the ceiling would have been much more than a "patch and paint" job as Ward said - a good portion of the ceiling would need to be removed, and the wood underneath. It was a very costly and even dangerous thing to let a young teen and a grade school child stay home alone all weekend...
Leave It to Beaver: Beaver Won't Eat (1960)
The wrong way to solve a problem...
This episode makes me laugh at the near-riot in the restaurant, but it also frustrates me to no end. First, I had to agree with Ward - a cold Brussel sprout is as appealing as a soggy sponge (ugh). As the other reviewer mentioned, June's approach to the problem was terrible, and to me very out of character for her.
As a person who'd been a Julia Child fan from her early days on PBS - what might have worked was a better food presentation. If June had invited Beaver into the kitchen instead of making him sit alone at the dinning room table, cut a couple (as in 2) now-cold sprouts in half, melted a good amount of butter in a saucepan (no microwaves yet), and heated the halved sprouts in the melted butter, and to make them taste better, melted cheese over them (Velveeta would have been even better). Then they'd be hot, and taste like butter and cheese, not cold hard nasty round things that tasted like day old cabbage.
Not sure why the writers made June so sour (no pun intended) about the whole issue, though I can understand why she said he needs to eat what's good for him, but as in most things in life, there's usually a better way to resolve a problem without forcing a kid to do something - that never works and those are the things that stay in a kid's head - until they are spoken of at the therapist's office, years later...
Little House on the Prairie (1974)
Least favorite character (hold on to your hat)...
...is Laura!
What a pain in the neck. Always causing her family grief over her dog, or her horse, or her raccoon, and on and on.
Mary on the other hand was always very practical - until Laura would push Mary to do the wrong thing, like waste the Sunday School money on Dr. Briskin's Homeopathic Remedies (a/k/a colored water with apple cider).
Then there was the music box - until she broke it and gave Nellie the chance to blackmail her, and on and on...
There's such a thing as headstrong being a good thing, but then there's being a royal pain...
Other than that, its one of my favorite shows...
My Three Sons (1960)
Contrived
As a fan of Leave it to Beaver that was at least was partially filmed outdoors, M3S was a mostly in-studio production. At times the seams of the fake walls of the plain set were clearly visible, unlike the nice surroundings of the Cleaver home.
As another comment mentioned, it's hard to understand how this very contrived show was able to continue for 369 episodes, though as TCM has mentioned, Fred MacMurray did have a lot of influence in Hollywood.
My older Brother and Sister did like the show, especially the later seasons when the boys started dating, but I was age 5 to 17 during it's run, and just could not (thankfully) get to like the show.
To me, the show reflected a lowering of viewer taste after the initial push of shows during the 1950s. The show also aired during the tumult of the 1960s, and certainly at times was about as square as any show of it's time could be.
If I were at the top floor of the CBS building, I'd have kept the show around for 3 seasons - but 12?
Gunsmoke: The Sharecroppers (1975)
Tired
As others said the episode was without direction until Ruth was sold, then it began to have the typical Gunsmoke feel of later seasons - outside Dodge, with a plot that sometimes was as mild as a Kansas spring. No doubt the show was tired, having started as a radio show in 1952, and still going in the post-Vietnam mid-1970s world of middle east terrorism.
Even actor Victor French, who was in a supporting role in this episode, had taken time off from his NBC Little House on the Prairie work to head over to CBS for this and one or two other late season Gunsmoke episodes.
I agree it was disappointing for this fine series to end this way, but it did - CBS has a history of not making the best programming decisions, with The Walton's "John Boy" mess and JR's laughable dream...
The Notebook (2004)
Ending
In real life, an autopsy would be performed, to make sure it was not a murder-suicide. The nurse meant well, but would probably be fired for willingly permitting him to enter his wife's room unsupervised, and (if it had been murder-suicide as in an overdose) the nurse possibly arrested for negligence.
Also, the film shows the depressing state of a nursing home, even one as perfect as in the film. The opening scene that shows patients lining up for their morning meds made me especially angry - people treated like prisoners, their only "crime" - growing old. I prefer the dying teen couple's outcome in The Fault in Our Stars, who (spoiler alert) chose to die at home, in their own room...
Heartland (2007)
Great scenery but lukewarm stories...
I first noticed Heartland in 2009 and liked it to a degree once I started watching every week, but to be honest more for the scenery than the stories themselves. In my opinion photography of the Alberta landscape has always been the show's strong points, but the stories themselves, well, lukewarm is the word that always stays with me.
From all the reviews read over the years, it seems teen girls are the show's biggest fans, and perhaps that's the problem. To an adult viewer like myself, the show sometimes presents itself as more a teen soap.
Heartland seems stuck on episodes with repetitive weak plots, such as "Lou made a bad business decision" or (in the early seasons) "Who's in love with Amy" - all of her suitors looking like they came off the cover of GQ Magazine.
Then there's Tim, who's constantly irritated about something, and elder Jack, who is a fine person, but has a chronic case of the grumps. I always thought Mallory was a good change of pace from episode to episode, her quirky humor something no one else in the family seems to have. Ty's a good guy and has a lot more patience with Amy than most guys his age ever would, though sometimes his career rise from teen delinquent with a shovel in his hand was a bit of a stretch to my imagination, and unfortunately not something seen in real life.
Also, I've always had a bone to pick regarding the show constantly branded as "a multi-generation saga" - I often find that hard to see in a show that's main concern seems to be "Who's falling off a horse this week, Amy or Georgie?"
In comparison, the 6-hour miniseries Lonesome Dove was the correct meaning of a saga...
Like Lonesome Dove, in the early decades of Hollywood "saga" meant very dynamic plots and characters - I just don't see that when it comes to Heartland. I'll be disappointed if I miss a favorite episode of The Walton's or Little House on the Prairie, but in the case of a Heartland rerun usually I'm thinking "Well, what else is on?"
I'm sure the writers did their best and for certain it's not a bad show, but for a show that's in it's 12th (and perhaps final) season, the stories over the years have blended together into one lukewarm series....
Cast Away (2000)
Plot Holes
First, as others said, to survive a high speed plane crash into 50 foot waves from 35,000 feet is 99.999% non-survivable, or almost pure fiction. The dangerous Miracle on the Hudson landing - in calm river water - showed how unlikely the former would be to survive. Next, what others said regarding how one scene fades to black, to resume 4 years later. Just too much of a time gap to not feel like the audience is being short-changed. At least a "stepped" sequence (1, 2, 3 years) would have been more acceptable, showing him remember or "celebrate" the anniversary date of his arrival and his descent into near madness. Then, what others also mentioned (and snickered about) was Kelly saying her child is a "handful" meaning a toddler, meaning 2 years, plus 9 months - or almost 3 years - and Chuck's best friend saying "Kelly had to let you go." She didn't wait very long, considering she only waited a little over 1 year to mourn, find another love and start a new life...