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Reviews
Arthur (2011)
Worst sequel...or at least tied with Chris Rock's Down to Earth.
When a remake goes bad it usually is just a water downed useless retread like Gus Van Sant's Psycho, or an honest effort that just doesn't connect such as Tim Burton's Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. Compared to Dudley Moore's Arthur, a bona-fide classic, one wonders why so little effort was put into the remake with shoddy performances, poor writing and uninspired direction. It doesn't even rise to the level of a direct-to-RedBox sequel, Arthur 3: Nephew of Arthur, if you will. And that's the big problem here, its so bad it's like a low- budget sequel along the lines of Mask 2 or Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd except those were much better films. There was one other remake like this that I can remember and that was Chris Rock's Down to Earth, a very poor reworking of Warren Beatty's Academy Award nominated film Heaven Can Wait. When it comes to comedies Hollywood can't rise to the occasion of remaking classics. The best they can do is tackle action remakes by including CGI effects that weren't available for previous versions. Which is why sci-fi remakes (Spielberg's War of the Worlds, Keanu Reeves' The Day The Earth Stood Still) that require a strong script fail despite great special effects. I'm not opposed to remakes, one is often reminded that the Wizard of Oz was a remake, but it was remade in 1939. Today, Hollywood can't rise to the occasion with scripts even when given a head start with a proved story line. All they can do is superhero films which are 90 percent CGI and 10 percent whatever you call comic book writing. Scripted comedies seem to be dead giving way to parody films and the type of lunacy by Will Farrell or Seth Rogen that if you're not drunk its not very funny. But in the case of the remake of Arthur, being drunk only reminds you of how funny the original was compared to this piece of crap.
Malibu High (1979)
Depressing film that was 20 years out of date at the time it was released!
After the good time teen comedy genre favorites The Pom Pom Girls (1976), The Van (1977), Malibu Beach (1978) and Van Nuys Blvd. (1979) - all who owe some inspiration to American Graffiti (1973) -- one would have thought that it would be the end to the teen cautionary films that started in the 30s and 40s and reached their apex at least in quality during the 50s with such directors as Ida Lupino. Low budget with plots involving drugs, sex, booze and crime the message was always the same: BAD GIRLS DIE. Malibu High (1979) is one depressing film from the beginning to end where even the nude scenes are yucky. Girl is typical mopey teen who doesn't study so is immediately shunned by all her friends and dumped by her boyfriend because its totally uncool not to study. One day she wears a mini- skirt to school and creates quite a stir among students and at least one of her teachers. This is 1979! Is this the school that time forgot? Elizabeth Montgomery changed to mini-skirts on Bewitched in 1970 and that was a freakin' family show! Mopey mini-skirt girl ends up having sex on the beach (not the drink) with the teacher to improve her grades...and what we see is some pasty middle age dude on top of teen whore and that's the extent to the good times because she turns to a life of murder and mayhem and there's no redemption for the girl or the audience. At the time the audience for this film must have been in their 40s and up. The film was showing in theaters showing much harder edged exploitation films (women in prison, revenge and rape, spaghetti westerns) and was ten years after Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider (1969) and Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969) to put things in perspective. Today an interesting curio of a 60s morality outdated by the time it was released. The aforementioned films such as The Van and Malibu Beach would become a hit with older teens and those in their 20s, as well as the teen slasher films such as Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980). Coming out in 1979 Malibu High must have seemed as silly then as it does now since it doesn't really fit any era.
The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze (1963)
A Reasonable Sequel to its Academy Award winning predecessor
Other reviewers compare this to the other Stooge films and that's okay, but this is also a sequel to Jules Verne's AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS and more specifically the 1956 film starring David Niven as Phileas Fogg and Cantinflas as his servant Passepartout. Now a few generations later, the great grandson of Phileas Fogg, Phileas Fogg III (Jay Sheffield) is tricked into re-staging the bet that made his great grandfather famous. While scheming, two bank robbers recap the original story for the viewers benefit: The original Phileas Fogg makes a bet he can travel around the world in 80 days and at the same time is accused of stealing money from the Bank of England only for the real bank robber to be caught in the end. The scheming bank robbers decide if they rob a bank, set up Fogg III as the accused, and bump him off before he completes his journey, then they will get off scot-free. And so we have a second journey around the world this time with the added handicap of not being allowed to spend any money while doing it. In steps the stooges as Fogg III's man servants who assure Fogg "we're born chiselers" and will have no problem escorting Fogg around the world without spending a dime. Whereas the original group rescues attractive Indian Princess Aouda (Shirley MacLaine), the new group rescues attractive American tourist Amelia Carter (Joan Freeman). The stooges comedy is much broader than Cantinflas and though both get top billing in their respective films, this was a Three Stooges vehicle. Similar to their other film efforts their co-stars play it mostly straight. In black-and-white and obvious back-lot locations, this is on the opposite side of the production scale of its Academy Award winning predecessor, however, it does a good job in creating a reasonable sequel.
Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost (2011)
If this wins any awards, they should go to the fans.
Fans of this serious deserve a medal for being the most patient fans on the planet. Most fans have had to resort to DVD supplements (or the Hallmark Channel) to even catch all the installments. Luckily places like Office Depot and big chain Grocery Stores carry most of the DVD's cheap. CBS hasn't been very helpful, the first two episodes were aired in reverse order and the latest two episodes (parts 6 and 7) put on a shelf for over a year while negotiating with Tom Selleck to do the TV series BLUE BLOODS. Part 6 ultimately aired with little fanfare in a terrible time slot and Part 7 finally found a decent home (and will be released on DVD August 2nd, probably). Even if you were able to catch all of them on TV the time period between films was pretty lengthy to remember some of the plot points in the continuing story line. The 6th film, SEA CHANGE, for example, the one that sat on the shelf and then given a bad time slot, brought back guest characters from all the previous episodes. Nifty idea if you watch all the DVD's in a month, but not spread out over 3 years. For the record in case you need to catch up, the story order of the DVD's (not the order they were aired or related to the book title order) are: 1. Night Passage 2. Stone Cold 3. Death in Paradise 4. Sea Change 5. Thin Ice 6. No Remorse 7. Innocents Lost. So are they worth it? Yes. They are character-driven moody dramas with just enough quirky moments to add some jokeless humor. Jesse Stone is a cop and a drunk who goes from being an LAPD robbery-homicide detective to police chief of a small town in Massachusetts. He solves all the cold cases (unsolved crimes), including the grisly ones that no one in town even knew existed, merely as a way to pass the boredom. This actually upsets the status quo of townsfolk that would rather leave their not-so-peaceful past buried. Story lines unexpectedly spill into sequel films making this a continuous story-line series.
Leverage (2008)
Response to HUSTLE fans.
Just have to say there are a few fans of HUSTLE (or perhaps they're just ex-writers of the show trying to up their residuals...you think???) that are trying to say if you like one you'll like the other. Not true. I sampled HUSTLE when it first came out and hated it. Though its a show about cons and grifters playing robin hood its like comparing two westerns just because they're westerns or comparing two mysteries just because they're mysteries. LEVERAGE advertised themselves as a cross between MISSION IMPOSSIBLE and THE A-TEAM and that description is right no the mark. LEVERAGE is fast-paced action and action-comedy fluff with a bit of high- gadgetry. HUSTLE had a snobbish air to it, sort of like BOSTON LEGAL, strong language and sexual situations that seem to permeate British dramas today (though not as bad as HBO or SHOWTIME). LEVERAGE harks back to family programming before it was hi-jacked by reality television. HUSTLE is just another attempt at trying to compete with R-rated cable shows. There are quite a few great British shows, HUSTLE if not great isn't bad either, and its okay to prefer one over the other, but its nothing like LEVERAGE so don't make that mistake.
Tron: Legacy (2010)
Major Fail if you didn't prepare by watching TRON 1 first.
First a few comments before my review of the film. I noticed in the other reviews and fan sites that those that saw part 1 understood part 2 much better, those that didn't see part 1 just threw a tantrum that they didn't need to and that couldn't possibly be the reason they didn't understand the plot...though at the same time thought there was no plot....how does that happen? Simply put, if you tear a book in half and only read the second half you're going to miss stuff, don't complain about it, you missed it, YOU YOU YOU, it's YOUR fault, not the movie. And NO NO NO the video game is not TRON ONE and is NOT the movie. How dumb to state you missed part one but you made it up by playing the video game. No! TRON: LEGACY requires knowledge of the first film, tough if you didn't see it but you didn't do your homework, major fail. This wasn't a remake, it was part two, Jeesh. You little mini-brain black holes don't deserve this film. Everyone had plenty of time to find a copy of the original, you had decades, entire lifetimes for most of you. And Disney bent over backwards to make it 3D because they knew they couldn't draw in the morons without 3D, but that's the problem, morons!!!!! MORONS!!!!! They don't deserve this film. They don't. UP YOURS WORLD!!!! UP YOURS!!!! Now my review of the film. It was pretty good.
Christy: The Movie (2000)
Not good if you've seen the original first.
If you've read all the other reviews you will notice that the first ones - the negative ones - came from people who saw the 1994 series first then experienced the 2000 PAX remake with shock and horror. The newer reviews - the positive reviews - came from people who saw the 2000 PAX version on DVD which were released prior to the DVD release of the 1994 series. People tend to like the version they saw first but if you haven't seen any certainly the series is so much better in every way - acting, tone, pace, story line, cinematography, casting, directing, orchestration. And be reminded that when the original series was canceled, a massive fan response got the show rebooted, this was their fan base. Basically the producers told them "thanks, now leave".
One can review the remake from the perspective of seeing it first or seeing it second. If you've already seen it, I can't do anything about that, but if you haven't see the series first (and best yet skip the remakes). If you've see the series (and they are magical) here's what to expect in the remake.
The first of the three PAX movies plays like a parody without jokes. Bits of pieces of the year long series are randomly tossed into the first hour so all that exists are the famous scenes poorly executed without any build up or understanding of why they are there except for viewers to go "oh yeah, I remember that scene, it was in that story about..." They are presented here as punch lines without the build up. One could say it was like watching flashbacks of the previous season, but if it were meant to be a continuation why choose actors that don't resemble the originals one iota? Apparently the casting agent didn't see the original series either. Casting a lead character a foot taller than the original. Come on. Really? Imagine if one of the Rocky sequels had recast the Talia Shire role with Cher and you'll get the idea. Yet, the actors try to do impressions of the original actors mannerisms and speech inflections and the costumes are exactly the same. And story lines and characters were changed, some characters eliminated and an entire new character added with some nonsense about a female aviator who crash lands in Cutter Grove. Just what we need when condensing a year's worth of episodes into 90 minutes is to add a new character and subplot. What a mess. And all because fans wanted to know who Christy was going to marry. Sometimes things are best left unanswered for the next two films get even worse. Was there ANYTHING I liked? It had a neat introduction where we see an elder Christy (Shelia Moore) returning to Cutter Gap and telling the story which is narrated throughout the three films. This device would have worked great to recap the story lines for the first film IF they had followed the original story lines.