Change Your Image
tarwaterthomas
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Crocodile 2: Death Swamp (2002)
I found it mighty hard to watch CROCODILE 2: DEATH SWAMP on the Comet channel for one real reason.....
.....and that was because it had been heavily censored when I caught it on the idiot box on this Saturday afternoon. If you watch this movie on home video, the F-bomb is dropped incessantly. It's "mother---" this and "mother---" that, "f---" this and "f---" that, and "f--" and "f--" that. A fella's ears can get numb that way. Somebody should have sat Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch's asses down, hard, and explain the cinematic facts of life to them: the use of excessive profanity for profanity's sake cannot make a cheap movie like this one any better. But I must confess to having a weakness for cheaply-made creature features that have some great visual effects, and in the case of CROCODILE 2: DEATH SWAMP the visual effects were accomplished by Scott Coulter. He and his WorldWide FX crew did a fine job under the circumstances. As for the plot, it involves a gang of criminals who accomplish a bank robbery and are on the next plane to Acapulco, Mexico. Unfortunately the airliner runs into a humongous thunderstorm and the flight crew announce an emergency return to the airport. That's when the robbers hijack the plane and force the pilot and co-pilot to remain on the Acapulco course. There's some shooting, a lot of foul language is used, the co-pilot is killed, and the airliner crashlands in the middle of a Mexican swamp. Most of the passengers are killed and so is one of the hijackers. Unfortunately for the surviving passengers, the rest of the hijackers are among the survivors, otherwise there would be no movie. During the arduous trek, a crocodile emerges from the swamp and eats the pilot. Chomp chomp chomp. The bad guys empty their pistols into the croc, killing it. But guess what? That was a baby croc! Its irate mother, a much larger crocodile that's thirty feet long and left over from the first film CROCODILE (2000) starts stalking the survivors, including lovely flight attendant Mia Bozeman (Heidi Lenhart). Meanwhile, back in Acapulco, her boyfriend Zach Thowler (Chuck Walczak) hires a drunk-off-his-hiney cigar chomping tracker named Roland (Martin Kove) to find her. It becomes a question as to whether Zach and Roland can find Mia before ol' mama croc does. And there you have it. And here's a fun fact: although this fractured flicker was situated in Mexico, it was actually filmed in India! That's right, friends and neighbors, good ol' Mother India. And that includes the indoor scenes that were shot at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad, India. There's plenty of hambone dialogue to be had, profanity and all. If your ears can stand it, that is. That's all.
Flash Gordon (1980)
FLASH......GORDON.....SAVIOR OF THE UNIVERSE.......FLASH.....GORDON.....HE'LL SAVE EVERY ONE OF US.....
.....and you can tell from the theme song by Queen that you're going to be in for almost two hours of absolute hambone performances, sophomoric dialogue scripted by the legendary Lorenzo Semple Jr, and some of the most colorful visual effects ever seen (they were supervised by Frank Van Der Veer and Barry Nolan). Well, it's only fair that FLASH GORDON made it to the silver screen in 1980. The year before, BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY arrived on the silver screen in the summer of 1979. In the wake of STAR WARS, both heroes from the 1930s finally got their time. FLASH GORDON shapes up as the best space opera made in the decade of Reagan and Gorbachev, and it was the last movie I saw before departing for my first ever overseas tour of duty; I was in the Air Force and was bound for what was then West Germany. Max von Sydow is acting up big time as that unlovable Emperor of the planet Mongo, Ming the Merciless, who visits all kinds of natural disasters that includes flaming hailstones and assorted meteors, one of which smacks into the cockpit of a small airplane with New York Jets quarterback Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones) and lovely travel agent Dale Arden (Melody Anderson). After the flight crew is killed, Flash and Dale manage to crash land the airplane into a greenhouse owned by former NASA egghead Hans Zarkov (Topol), who forces them to board his rocket ship for a voyage to Mongo; Zarkov was spot on about those extraterrestrial disasters. Turns out Ming wants to shove Earth's moon into the third rock from the sun. Ming orders Zarkov's spaceship piloted by remote control through the Intergalactic Whirlpool and the Lake Of Fire before landing it on Mongo. Ming wants Dale for his very own, and Flash executed. What a pagan. But Ming's lovely daughter Princess Aura (Ornella Muti) saves him from certain death. She wants him for her very own, too! At any rate, Flash shows up on the planet Arboria and eventually convinces Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton) to get on the right side. It's going to take a bullwhip fight between Flash and Barin atop a tilting platform complete with protruding spikes while they're at the floating Sky City as prisoners of Prince Vultan (Brian Blessed) and his Hawkmen, but the partnership gets launched. And Prince Vultan jumps in on Flash Gordon's side. Our heroes had better stage an attack on Mingo City and stop Ming the Merciless, because there's only fourteen hours to save good ol' planet Earth! FLASH GORDON's ending suggests that there was going to be a sequel. Matter of fact, there was going to be a series of features in the Flash Gordon series, with the main cast members having signed on. But FLASH GORDON barely made back its $20 million budget, so those sequels were never made. There was a novelization of the screenplay, and that novelization was written by Arthur Byron Cover who also has managed a bookstore in Los Angeles. Moreover, there was a series of Flash Gordon novels that were published by Charter Books, and they were written by an uncredited David Hagberg (1942-2019) who became a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. By the way, did you know that there was a series of Flash Gordon novels published in the early 1970s under the house name of "Con Steffanson". The two authors who took turns writing under the house name were Bruce Cassiday (1920-2005) and Ron Goulart (1933-2022). Then there were the Flash Gordon serials from the 1930s starring Buster Crabbe, and the original comic strip series by Alex Raymond. I think he would have enjoyed this cinematic adaptation. I certainly did.
Scream Blacula Scream (1973)
He's ba-a-a-a-ck.....
.....and all you jive turkeys knew in the early 1970s that it had to happen. That tall drink of water William Marshall just had to reprise his role of the late Prince Mamuwalde, better known to the boys in the hood as Blacula in the sequel SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM (1973). I just had to scope this movie out because it had been included in Harry and Michael Medved's movie book THE GOLDEN TURKEY AWARDS; the two authors gave a good account of seeing this American International Pictures fractured flicker at a grindhouse theater in New York City's Times Square long before it was seriously cleaned up. The authors noted that as after they got through watching this movie, a beefy security guard slapped his billy club in the palm of his hand repeatedly and told the few sleeping customers in there to wake up and get out of there. The jumping rhythm and blues score was composed by Bill Marx who had a feel for the black musical culture. As for the plot, when that lovable voodoo queen is about to pass away, she chooses adopted apprentice Lisa Fortier (Pam Grier) as successor, and angrifies her biological son Willis Daniels (Richard Lawson) to the point where he acquires the bones of ol' Blac and uses a voodoo ritual to bring the vampire of color back to life. And how does Blacula show his appreciation? By putting the bite on that jive turkey Willis, who exclaims "I don't mind being a vampire and $#@&, but this really ain't hip! I mean, a man has got to see his face!" Blacula takes out a couple of pimps. They should have known better than to take on a brother with fangs. Trying to stop Blacula are former police detective Justin Carter (Don Mitchell) and LAPD Lieutenant Harley Dunlop (Michael Conrad who joined the cast of HILL STREET BLUES in 1981) before Blacula can amass an army of the undead. We get to see the vampire of color transform into a bat and back again through a badly-animated sequence. But I don't think the guys and gals from the hooded minded it way too much. SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM was not only a sequel to BLACULA (1972), it was part of a series of horror flicks aimed at people of color. They included THE THING WITH TWO HEADS (1972), BLACKENSTEIN (1973), GANJA AND HESS (1973), ABBY (1974), THE HOUSE ON SKULL MOUNTAIN (1974), SUGAR HILL (1974), DR. BLACK MR. HYDE (1976), and J. D.'s REVENGE (1976), just to name a few. And yeah, that was an unrecognizable Bernie Hamilton as "Ragman" and an uncredited Craig T. Nelson as a police sergeant. Nelson thought he was done with horror movies but they weren't done with him. He starred as realtor Steve Freeling in POLTERGEIST (1982) and POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE (1985), and was also in THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE (1997) with Keanu Reeves, Charlize Theron, and Al Pacino. But getting back to the movie, Blacula wants Lisa to help him get rid of his vampire curse. That's all. Not that I want to spoil things, but after this movie there were no more BLACULA films and William Marshall went on to other acting pursuits before he passed away in 2003. He was a great stage actor in William Shakespeare productions and was an opera singer. He even played the King Of Cartoons on PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE. Even if William Marshall was slumming as he does in SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM, he does more for the film. Had a lot of fun along the way. I rather enjoyed this flick. Did you?
Hawaii Five-0: Imi Loko Ka 'Uhane (2013)
This episode of HAWAII FIVE-O is filmed in the manner of a reality show.....
.....which is only fitting, because Steve McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin) and his Five-O team have to investigate the brutal death of criminal Roger Carlson and they are dogged by chat mistress Samantha Walker (Aisha Tyler) who is following those lovable investigators Danny Williams (Scott Caan), Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim), Kono Kalakaua (Grace Park), and pathologist Max Bergman (Masi Oka) who gushes over Samantha Walker like an oil well. And while the Five-O gang investigates the murder, that no-good nudnik Wo Fat (Mark Dacascos) crashes the crime site, disguised as a police officer, opens fire, and makes a getaway! The Five-O team have to undergo interviews by the airheaded Samantha Walker. Uggggh. It seems the Governor of Hawaii is looking for some public relations goodwill, so that's why Samantha Walker and her cameramen have been dogging Five-O's back trail. And why was Wo Fat so especially interested in the crime scene? The interviews bring out the worst in some people, including crime specialist Charlie Fong (Brian Yang) and shrimp maestro Kamekona (Taylor Wily) who comes off as a big ham. Then there's Steve and Danny who get into a cargument, live on camera! Steve manages to capture Russian mobster Dimitri Markoff after jumping off a hotel balcony into a swimming pool! This episode is directed by Bryan Spicer, the gentleman who gave us MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGER (1995), an episode of THE X-FILES (1998), and thirty-five episodes of this show. Spicer made his bones as associate producer of the 1980s series HUNTER. The mysterious Roger Carlson had a tattoo that turned out to be a map! Catherine Rollins (Michelle Borth) gets interviewed as well. Then there's a Secret Service agent named Kershaw (Noah Beggs) who horns in, and declares that Roger Carlson used to work for the Treasury Department, and smuggled a three-dimensional printer capable of producing plates for making $100 bills, and Roger Carlson's real name was Gary Percy, and so Wo Fat would like to get his meat hooks on the printer. And on the plates for the Benjamins. You should see Samantha Walker's stage. She's accompanied by two hunky Hawaiians in blue board shorts. They make all young and old women in the audience dream beautiful dreams and think beautiful thoughts. Steve and his team show up at an inaccessible part of Oahu, but so do Wo Fat and his goons. Of course there's going to be a stupendous shootout. And it's being captured live on camera! Hats off to those camera guys for following Hawaii Five-O around. They should get combat pay. And the capture of Wo Fat is captured on camera phone. But you know darned well that Wo Fat will escape later on, and devil Steve McGarrett because.....well....he's Wo Fat. And when Samantha Walker askes if Wo Fat is going to make it after arrival at a hospital, Steve McGarrett grumps "I don't care." And there you have it. I thought this was a good episode, done reality show style. Good stuff.
Hawaii Five-0: Olelo Pa'a (2013)
Suspend your disbelief and watch this episode.....
....because this is where Steve McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin) and his main squeeze U. S. Navy Lieutenant Catherine Rollins (Michelle Borth) have to sneak into heavily-defended North Korea and retrieve the body of fellow former Navy Seal Freddie Hart (Alan Ritchson). McGarrett is driven to do this because he removed the lid off Hart's wooden coffin only to find that the corpse is not that of his good buddy. It does not have the tattoo of Hart's true love on ye forearm. Looks like the North Koreans managed to pull a fast one, and so Steve has to accomplish his own one-man mission. Forget talking to the State Department, they will sit on their behinds and bloviate. And forget having the Navy plan the mission, it's going to take forever and ten weeks. So McGarrett is off on his own mission impossible, and Catherine insists on accompanying him. No use arguing with her, Steve-O, so save your breath. With a little help from that lovable expatriate Frank Bama (Jimmy Buffett making a cameo appearance), Steve and Catherine manage to take a sneak into Kim Jong-Un's favorite homeland. And just take a look as to who directed this episode: Joe Dante, the genius who gave us PIRANHA (1978), THE HOWLING (1981), GREMLINS (1984), EXPLORERS (1985), INNERSPACE (1987), THE 'BURBS (1989), GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1990), MATINEE (1993), THE SECOND CIVIL WAR (1997), SMALL SOLDIERS (1998), and LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION (2003). Great films all. To make a long story short, Steve and Catherine find Freddie Hart's body. How are they going to get the body out of North Korea and back to his widow and daughter. Kind of a moot point, with North Koreans capturing them. I can't help thinking about the character played by Alan Ritchson, Freddie Hart by name. There's a song that goes "Eeeeeeeasy lovin'.....so sexy looking.....I know by the feeling.....that it comes from the hearrrrrrrrt......" I know it sounds goofy, but it can't be helped. McGarrett acts like Rambo, and his Rambette gives a good account of herself. Along the way, the viewer is treated to flashbacks of Steve McGarrett and Freddie Hart on a previous mission in North Korea that ended with Steve having to leave Freddie behind, and even further back to Steve preventing Freddie from washing out of SEAL training. Well, Freddie's body makes it back home, after all. And there you have it. It should have been a two-hour movie. Just saying.
Und Jimmy ging zum Regenbogen (1971)
I remember seeing this obscurity called THE CAESAR CODE back in 1980.....
.....and it was while I was deployed with my unit in February of that year. In the cantonement area, we had our twelve-man tents, shower tent, recreational tent with video games that included one where meteors were zapped, dining tent, and a movie tent. Yes, movie tent, where when we had some free time we watched 16-millimeter films on a projector and there was a portable movie screen. A lot of those movies were of the type that would have been shown at the drive-in, and once in a while we would get some real obscurity. One of them was an English-dubbed German espionage thriller called THE CAESAR CODE which was filmed in 1971 and later made it to the United States, probably in the late 1970s. It was based on the international bestselling novel by Austrian-born author Johannes Mario
Simmel (1924-2009). I'm going to quote from the back of the paperback novel issued by Popular Library in 1976 and by Warner Books in 1986: The Caesar Code was created by a Nazi scientific genius during Adolf Hitler's nightmare reign of terror. It is the key to a devastating super weapon that could bring on global domination, and it's the object of a deadly international hunt that unites top American and Russian operatives on the same implacable team. Investigating the mysterious death of an Argentine chemist is his son Manuel Aranda. He uncovers an unbelievable web of lust and treachery that stretches from the Second World War to the perilous present (the early 1970s, that is). I was a mere lad in my early twenties when I saw the movie and found it a complete bore fest. If ever I see it again, it might make a better impression. The intriguing fish-eyed lens cinematography was accomplished by Charly Steinberger. Maybe the movie will be streamed from somewhere. Hopefully. I'd like to give THE CAESAR CODE another chance. This movie was directed by Alfred Vohrer, whose other credits include THE DEAD EYES OF LONDON (1961), THE DOOR WITH SEVEN LOCKS (1962), THE INDIAN SCARF (1963), THE HUNCHBACK OF SOHO (1966), CREATURE WITH THE BLUE HAND (1967), THE COLLEGE GIRL MURDERS (1967), THE HORROR OF BLACKWOOD CASTLE (1968), and THE APE CREATURE (1968). Vohrer continued directing feature films and television episodes until he called it quits in 1985, and passed away in 1986. Johannes Mario Simmel is probably forgotten today, but many of his novels were translated into English and issued by Popular Library and by Warner Books during the 1970s and 1980s. They were issued under the titles THE AFFAIR OF NINA B., THE BERLIN CONNECTION, THE CAIN CONSPIRACY, THE CAESAR CODE, DOUBLE AGENT-TRIPLE CROSS, I CONFESS, LOVE IS JUST A WORD, THE MONTE CRISTO COVER-UP, THE SYBIL CIPHER, THE TRAITOR BLITZ, THE WIND AND THE RAIN, and WHY AM I SO HAPPY? One of the cast members, Konrad Georg, plays a character named Martin Landau! I sure would want to see this film again, dubbed in English. Can somebody make it happen?
Walker, Texas Ranger: The Final Showdown: Part 2 (2001)
I'm watching the last ever episode of WALKER TEXAS RANGER right now on the H & I channel.....
.....because it was a good way to finish out the series which ran on CBS from 1993 to 2001. The name of this here episode was THE FINAL SHOW/DOWN and it was originally in a two-hour slot which made room for the requisite commercials. Chuck Norris (who played that lovable lawman of the modern West Cordell Walker) ended the show on his own terms rather than have the suits at the Tiffany Network do that for him. And this feature length episode was a lulu. There's a massive prison breakout at the Huntsville Penitentiary, and one of the convicts that's in the wind is that no-good nudnik Emile Lavocat (Marshall Teague) who's out for revenge against Walker for having him thrown into prison six years earlier. So for his revenge plan to work, Lavocat gathers some of the worst criminals that include Jonas Graves (Richard Norton), Ross Dollarhide (Randall "Tex" Cobb), Along the way, there are flashbacks to the old West where Chuck Norris stars as Texas Ranger Hayes Cooper, with Clarence Gilyard (as a piano player), Judson Mills (as a cowpuncher), Sheree J. Wilson (as Hayes Cooper's wife Althea), Marshall Teague (as an outlaw named Milos Lavocat), and Nia Peeples (as a dance hall singer) in those flashback scenes. In the contemporary scenes, C. D. Parker (once played by Noble Willingham) had been poisoned the behest of Lavocat. Veteran Texas Ranger Wade Harper (Robert Harper) and his way better half Betsy (Marla Adams) are shot and killed. Jimmy Trivette (Clarence Gilyard) pops the question to Erika Carter (Tammy Townsend) and she accepts, and that's after he survives an assassination attempt from Lavocat's goons. Back to the old West, Milos Lavocat and his outlaws assassinate the local sheriff and his deputies and manage to tree the town of Bovine, Texas, and that's after they slaughter Althea and their baby and set their cabin ablaze. Bovine sees a showdown that sees Milos Lavocat and the rest of the outlaws riddled with rounds. Oh, wait a minute: Althea was alive after all as she and their baby had been kidnapped. Milos Lavocat gets his ticket to the boneyard punched by Hayes Cooper. Cooper gets to be sheriff of Bovine, Texas. Being a cattleman was all well and good, but he is a lawman after all. Back to today, Cordell Walker, Francis Gage (Judson Mills), and Sydney Cooke (Nia Peeples) are in hot pursuit of Ross Dollarhide. And so is Walker. Those Texas Rangers engage in a shootout with Emile Lavocat and the mercenaries at the requisite abandoned building. Walker tosses some grenades from a passing helicopter. And the bad guys get their just desserts. I sure had a grand old time watching WALKER TEXAS RANGER during its entire run on CBS....well, except for a year spent in Iceland in 1994 and 1995. It was also during the show's run that a trio of paperback novels based on the series were issued by Berkley Books, and they were written by prolific bestselling author
James Reasoner; he's been an active author since the 1970s, and he's been so active as a writer that's he has had novels published under his own name and under a bunch of pseudonyms. I think he's even written some paperback novels that have been issued under the name of original author William W. Johnstone (1938-2004).
I don't think anybody else could have played Cordell Walker as well as Chuck Norris. By the by, Cordell, Alex Cahill-Walker, and their baby girl Angela come home from the hospital to their friends and neighbors. Followed by WALKER, TEXAS RANGER: TRIAL BY FIRE (2005), but don't go out of your way to watch it. Better skip WALKER on CW, too. My advice is to stick with the original. It's better this way.
CSI: NY: Death House (2009)
This is one of the best episodes ever of CSI NY.....
.....because this is straight out of a horror movie, and in my humble opinion it should have been fleshed out into a two-hour episode with enough room for the requisite commercials. There's a frantic 911 call which leads head investigator Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise), his favorite colleagues Stella Bonasera (Melina Kanakaredes) and Sheldon Hawkes (Harper Hill), and NYPD detective Don Flack (Eddie Cahill) to a uptown penthouse that turns out to be a booby-trapped creation, and it had been closed off since around 1920. Our heroes find the corpse of Richard Lawson (Josh Wood) who had apparently been baked to death! This penthouse had been constructed by a wacked-out weirdo inventor who had been ripped off by an avaricious financier. And all this after our heroes find a corpse that has to be around ninety years old with a lot of holes in his chest, and the causation is a spring-loaded multi-bladed knife! Don Flack and Danny Messer (Carmine Giovinazzo) give Mac and Stella a heads-up that there's water leaking on the floor below, so they have to return to the Penthouse Of Horrors because it has its own water supply and there's a nice young lady named Paula Davis (Tarah Paige) who's in deadly danger of drowning! Somehow she got in there! Which means Mac, Stella, Don, and Danny have to figure out how to get Paula out of the water trap because she's slipping into hypothermia and is about to drown! It turns out that manipulating a grandfather clock works in rescuing Paula as all that water flows into the penthouse bedroom like a river. A real wowser of an episode, and a good thing I caught it. At 2:00 in the morning. Go figure.
CSI: NY: Yahrzeit (2009)
I have absolutely, no kidding now, have to review this episode of CSI: NY.....
.....because it touches on the Holocaust and the six million Jews who died in the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Dachau at the behest of Adolf Hitler. Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) and his team swing into action when the murder of auctioneer Xander Green (Rick Marcus) leads the CSI crew to white supremacist Michael Elgers (Matt McTighe) who declares himself a fourth-generation American and who had done time behind bars for two years. Well, it turns out this character is innocent. Mac pays s visit to elderly antique shop proprietor Abraham Klein (Ed Asner who turned in a brilliant performance) who is showing his son David (Modi Rosenfeld) the ropes, and by the way, shows off a set of numbers on his arm that indicates that he had been an unwilling resident of the Nazi-run camp at Auschwitz. Mac and detective Don Flack (Eddie Cahill);investigate a break-in at Xander Green's apartment and discover a secret closet that has a Nazi flag and assorted precious items stolen from survivors of the Holocaust, including a menorah! Mac and Don raid Michael Elgers' place and discover more Nazi memorabilia; it turns out Elgers has been auctioning those items online, including a lampshade made of human skin! Mac mentions to researcher Aaron Lesnick (Scott Cohen) that his father, U. S. Army private McKenna Boyd Taylor helped liberate the camp at Dachau. And there was a videotaped deposition made by elderly survivor Hannah Schnitzler (Rita Zohar) where she recounted her planned escape to freedom along with her fellow Jews (this was during the Second World War, of course) only to be betrayed by a so-called good German named Klaus Braun to the Nazis who shoved them into boxcars on the train bound for Auschwitz. Braun's father was a Nazi. Like father, like son. Thanks to some age-progression software used on a group photo of a Hitler Youth gathering including a chunky boy in uniform, Mac Taylor finds out that Abraham Klein is actually escaped Nazi Klaus Braun! And it's thanks to a brooch that once belonged to Hannah Schnitzler, and it was situated at Klein's antique shop. Klein/Braun managed to keep his Nazi past hidden for sixty years. Until now. Looks like Braun's sorry ass is off to the jailhouse. Another videotaped deposition is of elderly survivor George Savar (Shelley Berman) who had weighed a mere eighty pounds at the time of his liberation, and he had been carried out of the camp by Private McKenna Boyd Taylor. Mac returns the missing brooch to Hannah Schnitzler, and he observes kiddish with her. Greatest episode ever of this show. Or any show for any matter. I remember an observation made one time that what happened to the Jews under Hitler's unholy rule was an extreme version of prejudice. I believe it. God, I hope this doesn't happen again. We better make sure of that. This episode needs to be required viewing for young and all.
Mercenary for Justice (2006)
Do you remember a time when Steven Seagal's movies hit the silver screen? It started with ABOVE THE LAW (1988).....
.....and continued during the 1990s? Well, our boy was doing all right for himself, especially when UNDER SIEGE was released in 1992 and he was kind enough to stop at Hurlburt Field, Eglin Air Force Base for a meet and greet with the Special Operations Wing personnel. But that came to a screeching halt when his movie THE PATRIOT (1998) was the first to go straight to videocassette. Since then, nearly all of his fractured flickers have gone straight to home video. MERCENARY FOR JUSTICE is one of them. Seagal stars as John Seeger who, with his fellow mercenaries, are tasked to aid the local population in the French-controlled Galmoral Island located off the coast of Southern Africa. What Seeger doesn't know until it's too late is that his taskmasters, CIA dirty deeds operative John Dresham (Luke Goss) and black operations mastermind Anthony Chapel (Roger Guenveur Smith) intend to seize and make money off the island's abundant oil deposits and diamond reserves. When his mission goes sideways, Seeger gets steamed. Against his orders, some of the mercenaries take as hostage the French ambassador (Rudiger Eberle) and his family for purpose of leverage and the entire family gets blown up! The French troops open fire on the mercs, one of whom is Eddie "Radio" Jones (Zaa Nkweta), and Radio is killed as a result. So the first twenty minutes of this production is basically a war movie, with tanks, helicopters, the occasional warplanes, snd troops in combat. Then it becomes a revenge affair, especially when Maxine Barnol (Jacqueline Lord) suggests that the CIA us involved. She's a spy posing as a journalist. You ever notice that in movies like this, the Central Intelligence Agency is depicted as villains? Why is that? Anyhoo, John Seeger heads to Miami and promises Radio's widow Shondra (Faye Peters) and son Eddie (Tumi Mogoje) that he's going to take excellent care of them and that no harm will befall them. Well, Seeger might not be able to keep that promise. Shondra and Eddie have been kidnapped by Chapel's mercs as a way of forcing Seeger to spring Kamal Dusan out of the maximum-security Randveld Prison on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. Kamal is the son of prominent weapons smuggler Ahmet Dusan (Peter Butler) and he's about to be extradited to the United States. Chapel doesn't want that to happen. So, John Seeger has his work cut out for him, but somehow he's got to find a way to take down Chapel and Dresham. And, by the way, rescue Shondra and Eddie. After so many double crosses, triple crosses, twists and turns, Seeger gets the job done. Have you ever noticed that Steven Seagal always plays the same kind of character: a former Navy Seal who had a run-in with the CIA, or a former CIA operative wronged by the suits what were in charge, or how about an explosives expert with an untraceable background? I have. It gets mind-numbing after a while. I had a hard time spotting Scott Coulter's visual effects. He and his crew must be that good. Plenty of pyrotechnics, though. It's just your typical Steven Seagal movie, and if you like it, there you have it. I got some enjoyment out of this, anyway. By the way, did you know that this movie's director Don E. FountLeRoy is married to Lesley-Anne Down? You do now.
The Wolf Man (1941)
Never mind WEREWOLF OF LONDON (1935).....
.....this is the movie that started it all and jump started Lon Chaney Jr's acting career. Up until then, he appeared in numerous low-budget movies and the occasional serial under his real name Creighton Chaney. Among those serials were THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1933) with John Wayne and UNDERSEA KINGDOM (1936) with Ray "Crash" Corrigan. Well, Creighton might have been content enough. That is, until some studio executive in 1935 decided that Creighton Cheney should change his name to Lon Chaney Jr. And so, Lon Jr worked steadily during the 1930s in supporting roles, until he played simple-minded goon Lennie Small opposite Burgess Meredith as George Milton in OF MICE AND MEN (1939), based on John Steinbeck's classic novel. After playing a caveman in ONE MILLION B. C. (1940), Lon Chaney Jr snared the role of a lifetime as footloose heir Larry Talbot who returns to his ancestral home in Wales, United Kingdom at the behest of his dear ol' dad Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains) following the death of his brother. Both father and son are estranged, you see, and they have a lot of making up to do, and Larry is expected to join the family business. He hits on antique shop owner Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers) and buys a walking stick with a silver wolf's head, which represents a werewolf. She keeps saying no to Larry, but they meet at night to have their fortunes told and are accompanied by Gwen's friend Jenny Williams (Fay Helm). One of the gypsies named Bela (Bela Lugosi) sees a pentagram on Jenny's palm and declares that she's going to be bitten by a wolf. Larry rescues her but is bitten by the wolf, and before Larry kills the critter with his walking stick the critter bites him on his chest. Well, not only is Larry Talbot fated to transform into a werewolf during the next full moon, the wolf that had bitten him was ol' Bela his own self! So now Larry Talbot is cursed for good! So much for working in the family business. And only silver can kill a werewolf. Police captain Paul Montfort (Ralph Bellamy) is not a happy camper, and neither is Gwen's fiancé Frank Andrews (Patrick Knowles). Although Larry Talbot dies at the end, this would not be the end for that poor Wolfman-around-town. Lon Chaney Jr reprised his role in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN (1943), HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944), HOUSE OF DRACULA (1945), and ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948). But this is the movie that started it all. And to think Boris Karloff was under consideration. And Bela Lugosi wanted to play the titular monster, too. But it all worked out for the best. Lon Chaney Jr was perfectly cast. He should have gotten an Oscar for Best Actor, and Jack Pierce should have gotten a special Oscar for Best Makeup. I'm just saying.
Civil War (2024)
For the most part, CIVIL WAR is a road movie for pretty close to an hour-and-a half.....
.....then it concludes with a rip-roaring climax that is situated at the besieged nation's capital of Washington, D. C. The setting is the former United States in the middle of a Second Civil War that has been ongoing for quite a few years with hardly any explanation as how it started. The country has been split into four separate countries: there's the New People's Army which takes in the upper Northwest; there are the Loyalist States which takes in the rest of the Midwest and Northeast, along with the mid-Atlantic States that includes the District of Columbia; there's the Florida Alliance which takes in most of the Southeast and extends westward into Oklahoma; and there's the Western Forces that include California and Texas. How those two states ever got together is never explained. You should see the Western Forces' flag; it has just two big white stars in a blue field in the upper left hand corner to go with the thirteen red and white stripes. Kirsten Dunst is almost unrecognizable and definitely unglamorous as veteran international photo-journalist Lee Smith who, along with her favorite colleague Joel (Wagner Moura), is almost killed when a suicide bomber detonates her explosive while they're covering a civil disorder in a collapsing New York City. Joining Lee and Joel is aspiring photographer Jessie Cullen (Cailee Spaney) who is one of Lee's biggest fans. Also along for the ride is veteran journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) who is as big as a China porker but is brimming with wisdom. He used to mentor Lee back in the day, and figure that now it's her turn. The quartet make plans to interview the increasingly isolated President of the United States (Nick Offerman) after he made a televised address claiming that victory is just around the corner; the idea is to talk to the Chief Executive before the most successful secessionist group known as the Western Forces arrive at the nation's capital. Our heroes boogie to Charlottesville, West Virginia with the intention of hooking up with the military forces there. They arrive at a gas station run by several rednecks who are hanging a couple of people who they claim are looters. They take Canadian currency only, which suggests that the United States currency is no damned good. The next stop is a Christmas-themed amusement park where a sniper opens fire on them. A couple of Hong Kong-based journalists (played by Nelson Lee and Evan Lai) are intercepted by an ultranationalist militant (Jesse Plemons) who brutally shoots them point blank; this guy and his sidekicks have been dumping their victims in an open pit. Next stop is a paradise of a small town whose citizens are sitting out the war, and this town is guarded by armed personnel on the roof of a multi-story building. Sammy the veteran journalist dies along the way. Lee, Joel, and Jessie arrive at the Western Forces forward operating base. They find out that most of the remaining loyalists have surrendered, but the remaining members of the Secret Service and the armed forces' senior officers are still maintaining their loyalty to the President. The three reporters embed themselves with the Western Forces as they invade Washington with some serious firepower. The Lincoln Memorial is blown to smithereens, and the Western Forces finally arrive at the heavily fortified White House; it's surrounded by a massive concrete wall ordered there by the President during his three terms in office. The Western Forces personnel venture into the White House under heavy fire, find the cowardly and craven President, and kill him. A real wowser of a movie. During the road trip, the journalists drive around a pile of abandoned automobiles, and under bridges where a couple of people were hung from a rope until they were dead. They even cruise through a forest fire. Lee Smith had already been desensitized from the photos taken during her long career and eventually pays the ultimate price, and her protege Jessie Cullen figures to reach that desensitized state. The young lass takes a photo of the Western Forces soldiers smiling as they stand over the President's corpse. CIVIL WAR was written and directed by British-born filmmaker Alex Garland, who recently announced that he was going to stick to scriptwriting. Most of the movie was filmed in Atlanta, Georgia, but it looks like the interiors were shot in London, England (probably for the White House scenes). I found this to be an engrossing production that didn't take any sides. It should have been longer, but that's just me. Great movies can still be found. This is one of them.
FBI: Best Laid Plans (2024)
All right, let's get this episode reviewed....
.....because this involves FBI Special Agents Stuart Scola (John Boyd) and Nina Chase (Shantel Van Santen) going undercover as a married couple. It starts with retired FBI agent Mike Rosen getting shot, assaulted and killed by a gang of diamond robbers while he was working as a security guard for Provident Armored (kind of a fictitious version of Wells Fargo, but never mind that). And since one of their own was homicided, we get to see Assistant Special Agent What Is In Charge Jubal Valentine (Jeremy Sisto) blustering all over the place. Two other Special Agents, Maggie Bell (Missy Peregrym) and Omar Adom "OA" Zidem (Zeeko Zaki), are on the case. There's a shootout between Maggie, OA, Stuart, and Tiffany Chase, and the diamond robbers who open fire with submachine guns, and turning New York City's diamond district into the O. K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. An arrest of Samuel Jacobson reveals that he's been a police informant, but that doesn't hold water with the Fearless Bunch of Investigators. And despite Stuart's protests and wanting to play it safe, he and Nina go undercover after all, for the purpose of trading the bucks for the diamonds, in the possession of the criminal brothers Beto Perez and Carlos Perez. Nina points to her own Man of Men, Stuart Scola, that Mike Rosen played it safe, and look what happened to him. An untimely visit by the NYPD almost goofs up the undercover operation, but the FBI gets the best of the Perez brothers. Stuart and Nina decide to take a flight together. I would have given this episode a 10 out of 10, but there was a smart remark about citizens who do the legal conceal and carry thing. I wish Dick Wolf would tamp down his liberalism. Save that for SVU.
CSI: NY: Nine Thirteen (2013)
One of my all-time favorite episodes.....
.....because Danny Messer (Carmine Giovinazzo) and his much better half Lindsay Monroe Messer (Anna Belknap) are about to experience another life-changing milestone in their incredible marriage. But first they, along with their favorite boss man Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise), lovable pathologist Sid Hammerback (Robert Joy), and fellow investigators Sheldon Hawkes (Harper Hill) and Adam Ross (A. J. Buckley) investigate the horrendous murder of a pickpocket who had fallen from Building 913's front balcony and landed on top of a taxicab. It's murder because this pickpocket was dressed like the late tycoon Arnold WENTWORTH who committed suicide way back in 1929 after Wall Street fell and he lost all his millions. Also taking part in the investigation are those two lovable NYPD detectives Don Flack (Eddie Cahill) and his partner Jamie Lovato (Natalie Martinez), and they are partners off-duty. About time Flack had some loving in his life. One of the suspects is out-of-town visitor Calvin George (Robert Baker), who had been ripped off by the late pickpocket. While that's going on, Jo Danville (Sela Ward) meets up with a young hucklebuck from Alabama named Grant Holliston (Johann Urb) who has her sister's heart beating in him; the poor guy had a debilitating heart condition until he underwent open-heart surgery and Jo's sister Leanne who had died in a car accident (thanks to a drunk driver) was listed as an organ donor. Danny and Adam return to the apartment building in question, and determine from the arterial spray that the killer was nearly the same height as the victim. It develops that Grant Hollister teaches physics at a university, so that means he's making a good living. And he just wanted to thank Jo in person. While back at the CSI laboratory, Lindsay is acting rather weirdly. Mac calls his lady love Christine Whitney to tell her she owes him ten bucks. Sheldon informs Mac that the murder weapon was a crudely-made shank made from a plastic coffee-cup lid. It suggests that the killer had done time behind bars and is out for revenge. Uh oh. And a recovered newspaper reveals that a convict named Macy Sullivan (Laura Vandervoort) had been jailed two years earlier and had since been paroled, and the name of the murdered pickpocket was Alex Henley (Moneer Yaquibi). Macy tries to flee the Big Apple, going so far as to change her hair style, but is busted by Don and Jamie at a downtown bus station. And the life-changing news for Danny and Lindsey is that a second baby is on the way! Their daughter Lucy is going to be a big sister! Lindsey had been throwing up twice, and taken four home pregnancy tests and all have been positive. Great ending to a great episode. I only wish CBS had not pulled the plug on a great show. What were they thinking?
Tracker (2024)
I watched the first episode of TRACKER and was so down on it, so I'm watching another episode on April 14, 2024.....
.....and this one deals with missing dock worker Ethan Sullivan who disappeared two weeks before he was supposed to get married. That lovable finder of missing people Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) has been hired to find the missing scamp, and is liaising with local lawman Sheriff Miller (Darien Sills-Evan's). The fly in the ointment is that Sullivan did some time behind bars, and his distraught fiancée's dear ol' dad is not too keen on letting a jailbird into the family. Tigers don't change their stripes, you see. Just for the record, TRACKER is based on a series of novels by bestselling author Jeffery Deaver who's also written the Lincoln Rhyme series, and who's been a published master of suspense and crime fiction since the late 1980s. But getting back to the story, it turns out that there's a very bad guy named Dougie Clemens who did some time in juvenile hall with....wait for it....wait for it.... Ethan Sullivan. Those two took part in a bank robbery, and Dougie sent to jail while Ethan did not. And Dougie just got released three weeks ago! Might he be looking for some payback? And Ethan's one time squeeze has been murdered. Ethan was also moonlighting at a lobster warehouse, known as the King's Warehouse. Aiding and abetting Colter Shaw in finding Sullivan is that lovable high-tech surfer of the internet Bob Exley (Eric Graise), and out hero arrives at the warehouse surreptitiously as there's a robbery in progress! He alerts the sheriff, of course. There's a gang that had been smuggling fentanyl at the warehouse, and forcing Sullivan to take part. Shaw knocks out one of the punks and rescues Ethan Sullivan, but the latter is out for revenge for having been kidnapped and framed by the bad guys who are making it look like Sullivan had been cheating on his fiancée. And the rascal locks Shaw inside a cage while going off on his own for vengeance. Shaw stops Sullivan from killing Clemens. This show is good for fans of the REACHER television series, based on Lee Child's novels. It bids fair to be more of the same, but if you like reading Jeffery Deaver's novels you just might enjoy the series. As for me, I can take it or leave it.
The Land That Time Forgot (1974)
This reviewer didn't give THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT much of a chance when first seen many years ago.....
.....so maybe it's time for a reassessment. I am watching it right now on the Comet channel at 1:47 in the morning, EST. This movie takes place in 1916, during the First World War, as a passenger vessel whose passengers include shipbuilding heir Bowen Tyler (Doug McClure) and biologist Lisa Clayton (Susan Penhaligon) are sunk by a German U-boat submarine, the U-33, under the skippership of Captain Friedrich Von Schoenvorts (John McEney). Along with a few surviving British Royal Navy officers, Tyler manages a successful takeover of said U-boat with the intention of sailing to a British harbor. But thanks to a sabotaged submarine radio, Captain Von Schoenvorts retakes the U-boat. Tyler torpedoes a German cargo vessel that would have replenished the sub with food, water, and fuel. Big dummy. Way off course and heading southward, the U-33 and its crew happen to encounter the lost land of Caprona, situated within Antarctica. They have to undertake an extremely narrow underwater passageway, but they do emerge on the other side. No sooner do they surface than they're attacked by an enormous serpent that takes a big ol' bite out of a German sailor. The expedition finds plenty of dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurs and pterodactyls flying overhead. It's a lost prehistoric world of lush vegetation that's also inhabited by cavemen. Yabba dabba doo. Not. No Fred Flintstones in that bunch. Our heroes find a crude oil deposit, and if they can refine the black gold, they can sail out of there. And they had better do it mighty soon, because there's a series of volcanic eruptions that don't bode well for Caprona and its prehistoric population. The group make contact with one of the cavemen named Borg (Godfrey James) who tells them about the black stuff that burns, and he belongs to the Sto-Lu tribe. They also find the oil, and witness a triceratops getting into it with a tyrannosaur. The tyrannosaur loses. The group flees to the U-boat, whose crew opens fire on two of the monstrous triceratops about to pounce on them. Tyler Bowen divines the secret of Caprona: the cavemen evolve by way of traveling to the northern part of the lost world. Doesn't make sense, but there it is. Anyway, the Germans get the sub working again, but there's a mutiny spearheaded by the devious Lieutenant Dietz (Anthony Ainley). He shoots Von Shoenvorts, seizes command, strands Bowen and Lisa on Caprona, but disaster strikes when the volcanoes explode and the U-boat sinks. Doug McClure returned in the sequel THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT (1977); he was also in AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1976) as a different character. What I like about this movie is that Captain Von Schoenvorts is a fundamentally decent officer of the German Navy, and not some Kaiser-worshipping nut job. He proposes that the ragtag expedition work together in order to leave Caprona in good shape. The dinosaur special effects were a little but on the shaky side; maybe some stop-motion animation by either Ray Harryhausen, David Allen, or Jim Danforth might have made this feature much better. As it is, it's still a robust adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel. And it's rather good enough. By the way, the scenes set in Caprona were filmed on location in the Canary Islands, as was ONE MILLION YEARS B. C. (1966) and WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH (1970). I just wanted to let you know.
Island of Terror (1966)
You will be forgiven for believing that ISLAND OF TERROR was made by Hammer Films.....
.....because those two Hammer stalwarts Terence Fisher (director) and Peter Cushing (outstanding screen legend) worked together on many a Hammer production, but those two made this 1966 flick for Planet Film Productions, makers of DEVILS OF DARKNESS (1966) and THE PROJECTED MAN (1967). And by the by, Carole Gray was also in DEVILS OF DARKNESS. This is a pretty good yarn of some weird science gone astray. On a remote island off the coast of Ireland, there's a farmer named Ian Bellows (Liam Gaffney) who dies without a single bone in his body. Perplexed constable John Harris (Sam Kydd) alerts the island's favorite general practitioner Reginald Landers (Eddie Byrne), but he's perplexed too, so he travels to London and seeks the help of veteran pathologist Brian Stanley (Peter Cushing). Dr. Stanley is perplexed as well, so both doctors seek the aid of David West (Edward Judd) who's up to speed on bones and bone disease. All three medicos are intrigued enough to borrow a Sikorsky passenger helicopter belonging to jetsetting heiress Toni Merrill (Carole Gray). Well, it belongs to her dear ol' wealthy moneymaker father, but never mind that. She accompanies the three docs to the island. One of the farmers is in deep shock; his horse has died boneless! And there are four more boneless corpses! As it turns out, the killers at large are a bunch of tentacled creatures dubbed "silicates", and they are the result of brilliant biologist Lawrence Phillips (Peter Forbes-Robertson) who was leading a team of oncologists who were seeking a cure for cancer. They inadvertently created these creatures instead, and they kill their victims by injecting a bone-dissolving enzyme into their bodies. And they can't be killed! Or can they? Bombs, gasoline, and dynamite can't kill them. But Strontium-90 can, when it's used to contaminate the scientifically-created critters. Peter Stanley and David West get the bright idea of injecting Strontium-90 into a herd of cattle. The silicates feed on the moo-moo cows and die. Is that the end of them! Uhhhhhh, not quite. Over in Japan, a group of technicians carry on Lawrence Phillips' work and........ I like a good low-budget movie, when it's done right. And there it is. So enjoy.
Chicago P.D.: The Real You (2022)
Uhhh, can I review just one more episode of CHICAGO P.D. before catching the latest episode of LAW AND ORDER? Can I do that?....
..... Because this episode starts off with a bang! There's a convicted murderer named Dale Lee Wilken (Peter Albrink) who manages to hijack a prison van belonging to the Chicago Department of Corrections. He wounds one of the guards named Eric Sadler in the ankle (and this guard looks like he took first place in a pie-eating contest) and takes the other guard hostage, a honeybabe named Tianna Burrows (Ashley D. Kelley). Come to find out, Tianna helped Wilken in his escape. Of course, Sergeant Voight and the Intelligence Unit crew have to go on a Wilken safari, and get that killer off the street. They inadvertently scare the daylights out of a housekeeper at the Rainbow Motel (an actual motel in Chicago) while hunting for Wilken. They find Tianna at an abandoned church building, but no sign of Wilken, and she claims that he was an abused child. She tries to blame Adam Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger), and will not help the cops find the escaped perp. So, Sergeant Voight and his team have no choice but forge on, and the next place is an abandoned mall (there's far too many of them these days). There's a shooting between Wilken and the unit members, then Wilken steals a car and shoots a little 10-year-old girl named Cloey Frasier (Celestina Harris) in the belly and she dies, leaving behind a grieving mother (Chiffona Ray). Cloey was an only child. Adam Ruzek lets Tianna Burrows know that Dale Lee Wilken was corresponding with other women and laying on some of his love rap via letter. Tianna sees the light, of course. The unit goes off in hot pursuit of Ray Henski (Ty Hubbard) and find out that Wilken did pay a visit there. Next stop is a bus terminal, and Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) finds Dale Lee Wilken hiding in the water closet and is forced to open fire, killing him in the process while the rest of the passengers evacuate safely. There wasn't a dull moment to be found anywhere. Jeepers, this was a good show. And Adam and Kim continue to move towards happiness as they make a home for little Makeyla. Love that heartwarming ending.
Chicago P.D.: Let It Bleed (2022)
I'm so caught up in this CHICAGO P.D. episode.....
.....mights well go ahead and review it. Sergeant Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) of the Chicago Police Department's Intelligence Unit is still reeling from the death of his favorite informant Anna Avalos that the last thing he and his crew need is to catch another illegal drug investigation. Well, the investigation falls into Voight's lap. Literally. There's a little boy who ate a strawberry with a white powdery substance that should have been powdered sugar. It isn't. It's yet another illegal drug. Hank Voight and the boy's distraught relative arrive at a nearby hospital in Hank's ride because they can't wait around for the ambulance. The boy is taken to the emergency room for treatment, only to die upon arrival. Sergeant Voight is off on another rampage. And this is despite Chief of Detectives Patrick O'Neal (Michael Gaston) telling it around at an awarding ceremony that Chicago is well on the road to being drug-free while congratulating the Intelligence Unit on doing their job. Hank sends brand-new member Dante Torres (Benjamin Levy Aguilar) undercover to make a drug buy, never mind that he's a mere patrol officer on loan. And Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos) is getting worried. For a good reason: the drug dealer named Enzo (Robert Lee Hart) goes off half-cocked, opens fire on Dante, misses, and flees. He's in the wind, of course. And there's a chase through a back alley and through a laundromat, and Enzo is holding hostages at an apartment. Ends with Enzo getting shot and put down like a rabid dog. The episode ends Chief O'Neal offering Sergeant O'Neal complete autonomy in taking down the worst of the worst in Chicagoland--but only if Voight shuts down his investigations of the Los Tamitos gang. Something to think about, anyway. Another great episode. Enjoy. I did.
Chicago Fire: Chopper (2014)
I don't normally review episodes of CHICAGO FIRE, but this popped up.....
.....because apparently the producers borrowed a page from the Irwin Allen playbook and this became an hour-long disaster melodrama. While Engine 51 chief Wallace Boden (Eamonn Walker) and his better half Donna Robbins (Melissa Ponzio) are awaiting the status of her pregnancy, newly-marrieds Eric Sevarise (Taylor Kinney) and his blushing bride Brittany Baker (Serinda Swan) are getting their freak on. But all that will have to be on the back burner. There's a passenger helicopter with pilot and two passengers, and it's perched on the edge of an apartment building and it's about to fall off. Part of a helicopter rotor fell on top of a lady, and Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg) and Brian Zvonecek (Yuri Ssrdarov) will have to disassemble the rotor in order to free her. Another part of the fuselage fell on top of a van, and Sylvie Brett (Kara Killmer) has her hands full as the driver known only as Gus (Jason Kennett) does not want to be treated at a hospital; besides, this character has a bag full of passports. There's something shady about this guy. Come to find out, the passenger helicopter was downed by a four-propeller drone operated by two teenage boys and they're injured. One of them is inside an electrical transformer cage and there's a loose wire spitting sparks, and the other one is lying on the floor bleeding badly and holding the damaged controls of the drone. Head smoke eater Matthew Casey (Jesse Spencer) manages to rescue the teenager in the transformer cage by dragging him out of there. All three passengers are taken out of the crippled chopper. What happened was, the drone had collided with the tail rotor. In the aftermath, Chief Boden finds out he's going to have a son, and Joe Cruz (Joe Minos) leads a Zumba class including his fellow smoke eaters and their ladies. Gus leaves Sylvie a business card. Fine episode all around. Thanks for reading my review. CHICAGO FIRE is a mighty good show.
500 MPH Storm (2013)
Friends and neighbors, when you watch a movie made by The Asylum.....
.....it's guaranteed that it's going to be a threadbare production featuring actors and actresses who used to be popular back in the day but don't get their phone calls returned by the major studios. And one of them is Casper Van Dien who was a big deal back in the 1990s when he starred in such films as STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997), and was even married for a time to an actual European princess. In 500 MPH STORM, Cappy stars as one-time meteorological expert Nathan Sims who got canned from a government project for sounding an alarm about an energy experiment that stood a good chance of going sideways. Well, guess what, it does. So Nathan gathers his wife Mona (Sarah Lieving) and their brat-boy son Johnny (Bryan Head) and they head for the foothills in the family SUV, with hurricane-force winds and flood waters that seem to pursue them. Us viewers see only the Sims family driving out of the city; we don't see anybody else. No traffic jams, no other motorists motoring to safety. And there are tornadoes a-plenty. The Sims family have a run-in with a creep who tries to carjack their ride. He doesn't succeed, of course. After holding up at a deserted forest ranger station, Nathan is persuaded by one-time colleague Simon Caprisi (Michael Beach) to return to the Apollo Project and find a way to shut off the generator before all those hurricanes merge into a "hyper cane" powerful enough to wipe out all of North America. Nathan's idea is to zap the storm with a beam of light that's powerful enough to kill the storm. After some histrionics and some delays, the titular storm is finally zapped out of existence. Yeah, finally. This movie looks like it was almost filmed in black and white, and some of the visual effects are well done when one considers the extremely low budget. Casper Van Dien does what all he can in this meager production. He looks like he spent two weeks in a drunk tank, then got dried out and made the feature. But there's not a dull moment to be found. And there you have it.
Chicago Fire: Just Drive the Truck (2014)
Let's review this episode before my IPad goes oopsy.....
.....because it starts off with a bang--literally! There are two fire engines on the way to a fire: Engine 66 under the leadership of Tommy Welch (Kenny Johnson), and Engine 81 under the skippership of Eric Severide (Taylor Kinney). Whichever engine gets there first, the first captain is in charge and the smoke eaters would rather have Severide running the show. But there's a collision at an intersection complete with controlled traffic signal, with Engine 66 slamming into Engine 81. The result is that several smoke eaters are injured, including Jason Molina (Glenn Stanton) from 66 and Randall "Mouch" McHolland from 81. Molina is in critical condition, while Mouch has an eye injury. Both are taken to a nearby hospital, of course. And Joe Cruz (Joe Minoso) is in the deep sewer, because he had been behind the wheel of Engine 81 at the time of the collision. Rival fire battalion chief Joel Tiberg (Kurt Ehrmann) bellows at Joe Cruz that he had better get himself a criminal lawyer, because he's going to need some lawyerly defense. While Molina is in the intensive care unit, Mouch returns to Engine 51 wearing an eyepatch and looking like a pirate. Arrrrrrrrrr. Trudy Platt (Amy Morton), Sergeant, Chicago Police Department shows up with a plate of brownies for Mouch, shoos the other firemen away, and commences to spoil him something fierce. To make a long story short, it turns out that both engines had the green light! Sounds like the idea of a controlled light was not such a good idea, and both companies have to share the responsibility. The staged massive fire truck collision was staged by nineteen stunt personnel! But it was the great acting and dialogue that made this here episode work. And that's all I have to say.
Major Crimes: Reality Check (2015)
As long as I'm staying up 3:00 am in the morning.....
.....might as well review this here episode of MAJOR CRIMES with the title of REALITY CHECK. Captain Sharon Raynor (Mary McDonnell) and the Major Crimes team investigate the suspicious death of contestant Donna Cochrane (Marnette Patterson) as the car she was driving in sailed off the edge of a cliff and fell three hundred feet and she died instantly. Her husband Chip Cochrane (Bryce Johnson) was riding as passenger, and their car was equipped with dual steering wheels, according to some unearthed footage. He's taken to a hospital, of course, but sneaks out of there with the help of his beloved sister Mitzy (Christina Jeffs). Andy Flynn it's feeling under the weather, so his favorite captain has him watching every episode of the reality series "American Scavenger Hunt" which pits married couples against each other. Andy comes up with another suspicious character: Colleen Dickerhoof (Brittany Ishibashi) who had been making goo-goo eyes at Chip. Then there's resident computer engineer Reggie Fluke (Joshua Bitton) who had been mighty unappreciated. The death of Donna Cochrane had reminded team member Julio Sanchez (Raymond Cruz) of the untimely death of his own wife who had died in a car crash, but somehow he manages to forge on. And yet another mystery is solved. 4:00 am in the morning, and it's time to knock it off and hit the hay. This was a good episode. Bar none.
Major Crimes: I, Witness (2013)
While I was watching this episode of MAJOR CRIMES....
.....the instrumental themes of the Warner Brothers' MERRIE MELODIES and LOONIE TUNES cartoons were coruscating through my head. I got those themes in my head. This episode called I WITNESS has those two lovable Major Crimes detectives Louie Provenza (G. W. Bailey) and Andy Flynn (Anthony Denison) having to babysit that chaotic birdbrain Lloyd Gibbs (Tommy Dewey). He's the protected witness in a murder involving a gang of robbers, and Provenza and Flynn have to stash that goofball in a no-tell motel until the trial. When those two defective detectives have to retrieve their witness the next morning, they discover that a SWAT team is about to lay siege and haul Gibbs' sorry ass off to the jailhouse because now he's the prime suspect in a robbery-murder that occurred at a nearby convenience store. As Gibbs is being hauled away, Provenza and Flynn spot a handgun falling out of his pocket. How did he have the weapon in his possession? He was under armed escort in flight, and there was a sky marshal on board! Deputy district attorney Emma Rios (Nadine Velazquez) argues for a continuance while she's accompanied by detective Julio Sanchez (Raymond Cruz) who comes up with a bull slop explanation that can bring about the legal delay. Major Crimes Captain Sharon Raydor (Mary McDonnell) is keeping an eye on her favorite ward Rusty Beck (Graham Patrick Martin), who shows up at headquarters to get in some study time with a pretty and smart girl named Kris Slater (Madison McLaughlin), daughter of an international attorney. And Gibbs' alibi turns out to be a phone sex babe who goes by the name of Shampagne (Marissa McGowan). Pretty soon the real murderer is known: a dirtbag named Scott Perry (Bug Hall). It's interesting that Julio Sanchez has a crushy-crush on Emma Rios who not only doescnot give him the time of day, she always gets his last name wrong. Meanwhile, Flynn is stressing himself out because he wants to give away his daughter at her wedding and both his ex-wife and second husband don't agree. He's trying to keep his high blood pressure down, so he swears Provenza to secrecy. Doesn't work out, of course. And poor Kris Slater is fated not to strike any sparks with Rusty Beck as he's a gay in training. That was one plot I didn't want to have in a series, but I stayed with MAJOR CRIMES all the way to the final episode which ended with Sharon Raynor's unexpected death. It was a very well done series, many of which had plenty of humor. I sometimes swear that Louie Provenza and Andy Flynn were there for comedy relief. Enjoyable..
SEAL Team: Time to Shine (2019)
I never got around to watching SEAL TEAM during its run on CBS from 2017 to 2024.....
.....but then I was doing the channel-surfing thing and came across this episode called TIME TO SHINE which was being broadcast on a CBS affiliate from Albany, Georgia. Under the leadership of Master Chief Petty Officer Jason Hayes (David Boreanaz), that lovable commando outfit Bravo Team locates a suspicious bunch of cargo from Iran, after which they are extracted off the coast of North Korea. Upon reaching the assigned Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine U. S. S. Booker T. Washington, the SEALs have to use the torpedo tubes to board the sub as there is a fault with the lock-out chamber and why wasn't it fixed before the voyage? Anyhoo, one of the seals named Sonny Quinn (A. J. Buckley) would have to be the last to crawl inside the torpedo tube when it malfunctions and traps him inside. The water keeps rising, and the boys in Bravo Team can't get him out of there even though there's a serious leak that will cause him to drown. And that's because adding to the problem, there's a (expletive deleted) North Korean submarine bearing down on them, so the submarine commander (played by Michael McGrady) has no other choice but to order silent running, and that means shutting off the air conditioning and the power to the torpedo tube that has poor Sonny inside. Which means his rescue has to be postponed, and if that means he has to drown, well, that's the way the ball bounces. The safety of the sub's crew takes priority. Well, Master Chief Hayes comes up with a bright idea to fake out the North Korean sub and send if off in another direction. The idea works, and Sonny's life is saved. Looks like I'm going to have to watch all the episodes of SEAL TEAM if this nerve-racking episode is any indication. This was a good one. Tell you what, though, I half expected Emily Deschanel to show up. But that's just me.