Reviews

I'm not an lawyer, but they never investigated the defendant's background or psychosis. They never interviewed his friends, neighbors, teachers, etc., maybe to find find if he had anger or rage. They didn't require a psych evaluation.

So we get an empty episode where a rich kid vandalizes a man's business, bludgeons him to death and claims not guilty by reason of a "marijuana psychotic episode." - "The weed made me do it."

Ironic how Price, usually the emotionally obsessed lawyer hell-bent on conviction, just gives up on this case. He shows no empathy, turns against Samantha, has no desire to inquire into why the defendant committed murder.

But hey, it's just a TV show.

A whole episode of their standard, procedural scenes to nab a small street dealer. There is good action, but at the end of the hour, what did they get?

They spend half the episode chasing a corner dealer "Enzo," hoping to make a deal with him and an obvious undercover cop. Even the dumbest petty criminal could tell it's a set-up. How many drug dealers look all buff, clean-cut and stand there the whole time not talking?

This Torres character is about as uninspired as a mannequin. It's like the casting agents went around to gyms to find a fit, clean-cut guy who can't act.

Q: If Enzio escaped, is hiding out in a house, knows he's being hunted, then why on earth would he start shooting out the window at a squad of cops?

A: To start another chase scene so they can take 5 minutes and go to a commercial break. A chase scene where a sluggish, overweight dealer is able to outrun a group of young, trained cops for 1 mile, then barricade himself again.

Then comes Hank Voight in shining armor, kicks the back door in and shoots him. Ending it off with his usual morale lecture to Hailey.

Ok, maybe they have to start with small criminals to work their way up to the bigger ones for the entire season. Until they reach the top drug lord for the season enders.

Yet another silly TV take on the drug scene, at least the third time on this show Quincy. A series with so much knowledge of medicine and forensics but a dumb soap opera regarding the American culture.

The early seasons of Quincy had a real mystery style like Columbo (it was made by the same producers.) This episode was in the later, final seasons when it turned into a melodrama.

Whenever dealing with subjects like celebrities or drug abuse, the writers make characters absurd and ridiculous. They think "all musical artists and their fans are stupid addicts who promote drug use" so that's how they must act. Here again on Quincy you have the danger of drug use combined with imbecilic personalities.

Country singer Roger Miller and his band play for about 2 minutes then he spends the next ten telling his audience how cocaine and other drugs are a big part of his life and encouraging them. Which is probably true, but I doubt he spent half of his show telling everyone drug stories and acting like a dimwit.

Quincy and fiancee Emily are at the club to see Roger perform but are shocked everyone there is using drugs. Roger needs a "fix," so goes backstage with his manager to freebase. In her early appearance, Kelly Preston (using the surname Palzis) is Roger's adoring, idolizing fan who opens the door on him, causing an explosion that puts him in the hospital and ruins his singing career.

That scene happens so quickly, in just a few frames, that us viewers never know exactly what happened or why she keeps blaming herself.

Kelly plays the part of a stoned groupie well, but overplays it to the point of being ridiculous, staggering around like a buffoon, yet being an integral character. That was probably not her fault but likely the show's writer & producer insisting she act more silly & absurd, like a real music fan, right?

Another story of bank robbers terrorizing people in three states. However this sad tale stands out from the others because this convict, locked in a hotel room with his family, surrounded by agents and distressed about returning to prison, panicked and decided to kill his family, then himself.

Could the FBI have handled the situation differently and perhaps saved the lives of three little girls and their young mother? Could they have instead waited until the suspect left his motel room and apprehended him outside, where he would not have hurt his family? I hope they have since reviewed the case and changed some of their their tactics.

Of course, it's easy for a viewer like me to watch a program and make comments years later in hindsight, but it makes you wonder.

Chicago PD started out as a gritty police drama like Homicide and Southland. But now two weeks in a row a few very badly-written, mindless scenes have ruined each episode and have me unsure if I will continue watching.

S5.E13 "Chasing Monsters" beautiful Sofía Lama plays a DEA agent who helps to take down a Salvadorian drug lord who killed her son. After sleeping with Dawson, she breaks protocol again by getting in a car with the gang leader. In a showdown, she has her gun at his head, surrounded by Police. She shoots the man, then for no plausible reason points her gun at the cops, getting killed by Dawson. I tried to figure out why on earth they did that, there was no point. Were they attempting to make it a tragedy, a cop sleeps with another, then has to kill her the next day?

Tonight in S5.E14 "Anthem", in a very lopsided move, Dawson (Jon Seda) blows his cover in a bar full of convicts to protect the daughter of an officer, but put himself at the barrels of several guns. The way it played out, an idiot move like that would have gotten him and the girl killed.

She did get shot, but survived. Then the cops shot all the bad guys dead, and all the cops walk away unharmed. It's the most formulaic TV cop show procedure since Dragnet 60 years ago.

This may sound harsh but sometimes I wonder if NBC writers and programming department have some mental or drug problem why they make such bonehead, ill-conceived decisions. Especially the programming dept for moving air-dates around and cancelling shows because they can't make up their minds about their schedule.

Average soapy melodrama of three Veterans reuniting 30 years later is lifted by "Rick" Linklater and Darryl Ponicsan's writing and great performances by Bryan Cranston as a bar owner and Laurence Fishburne as a minister, more than main character Steve Carell.

Three former Vietnam servicemen meet 30 years later in 2003 when one of their sons is killed serving in Iraq. The three travel to Arlington and Delaware to see the body, destined for Boston. Carell's son, he is told, "died with honor serving his country."

As he mourns, his two friends learn what really happened from the soldier's best friend, a young marine escorting the body. He didn't die in battle. He was shot at a public market by a local when they went to buy soft drinks during their mission moving supplies for Iraqi schools.

After he demands to see his deceased son, he is so emotionally affected that the three decide to bring the body back home themselves, rather than let the military hold a funeral and burial.

This provides some mediocre humor in a few scenes with devious Cranston being the wild card, taking over the transportation, buying his friends their first cell phones and the three being chased by Homeland Security.

The story inspires us with the camaraderie of these three marines who survived to reminisce of their other close friend who did not. It shows the secrets of war and how our fallen heroes may have died through different circumstances than their families were told.

Such as their own friend killed in Vietnam while the other three were being irresponsible and not protecting each other. They visit his mother who thinks her son died saving them. As they sit on her couch they hide the truth. Should they reveal that her son's death may have been partly their fault or let her continue to believe what the government told her 30 years ago?

Forensic Files is an excellent program, just like Dateline, 48 Hours. But sometimes there is a story that just gets under your skin, rubs you the wrong way. Like what possesses a creep like Jason Funk to suddenly for no reason, kill this young insurance adjuster who came to his house. And take away the daughter of 2 nice people. Some sudden, random, mental sickness, or psychotic rage?

Anyway, here's what I don't get. Funk told police he was not as his house when the murder happened. He said he was on a jet-ski on the river. Later he was convicted of murder.

But when interviewed for this program, at about 22 minutes in, right before the commercial break, Funk says:

"If I would have been home that day instead of out on my jet ski, who's to say I couldn't have prevented this whole thing from happening?"

Is he just talking nuts, and why did the producers use that senseless comment on their show? It only confuses the viewer.

He WAS home that day, NOT on his jet ski. And what did he mean "who's to say I couldn't have prevented this whole thing from happening?" What does that mean. He killed her! Why would experienced TV show producers include a senseless statement like that. Maybe to try to show the audience what a lunatic he is?

This movie appeared on CBS late night TV in the early 1980's. That's when CBS reran the old NBC mystery shows (Columbo, McCloud, Quincy) and some TV-movies in their late night schedule. Those were the days before VCR's, so you didn't have much choice for late night TV.

Of all the bad 1970's B-movies, this film has the most absurd & disturbing opening scene. It's such an unpleasant scene, I changed channels the first time it was on. Several months later, they ran it again, so I reluctantly watched the entire movie.

It opens with a couple on a road trip. You barely see a black sports car approaching from behind. Suddenly their van inexplicably just plunges off the road, and in an eerie slow-motion sequence, goes down a hill and crashes into the embankment, where it explodes into a massive fireball. It is such a distasteful and unsettling scene, it's impossible to sit through the rest of this trashy movie with the bad taste that scene left you with.

The rest is average B-grade trash, only worthy for some stupid action car scenes, and for Jose Ferrer, who makes it halfway watchable. The director filmed some good car chases and stunts. But he has no heart or soul presenting the rest of the story. The remainder of the movie plays with the same distasteful, unpleasant style as the opening scene, which regurgitates in your stomach. It's too bad because the story could have been intriguing or original, but comes off as nasty.

Jose Ferrer is an angry, bitter paraplegic who blames his wife (and her occult antiques) for the crash that left him paralyzed. It was that unknown car that caused the accident. She was not hurt, but he was left in a wheelchair. She deals in antique jewelry and acquires an ancient voodoo token. When she holds it in her hand, an unmanned black sports car speeds through the mountainsides by itself, running other cars off the road, causing crashes, and then speeding away with no driver.

While she's driving her convertible with the roof down, Ferrer send his trained dobermans to jump in and attack her, hoping she'll crash and die. Instead she survives in a coma, then recovers with amnesia and a lot of plastic surgery.

Since she has amnesia, he calls her to arrange an antiques sale. When she arrives, she doesn't remember the house, or the sauna (steam room) inside. There is one brief, frightening moment from Ferrer. As he shows her the house, he changes the subject from antiques to asking her if she remembers it. Then they get to the sauna, and an evil look comes over his face. He runs his wheelchair into her, pushing her inside, then locks her in and turns up the heat to melt her plastic surgery face, with some creepy 70's synthesizer sounds playing. Meanwhile her doctor suddenly realizes it was her husband who caused her accident and races against time to save her.

There's a paradox in some bad 70's drug movies that, in the end, what seemed fun turned out to be just a bad trip.

Antonioni failed with Zabriskie Point, which began with political conviction but turned into a pointless odyssey. The star of that movie was so identical to his character, he left Hollywood, joined a cult, robbed a bank and died in prison a few years after the film.

Then there was Richard Sarafian's 1971 film "Vanishing Point" with Barry Newman. Hell-bent on an unforgiving anti-establishment theme until the final confrontation where Kowalski, outnumbered and blockaded, refuses to surrender and pulls a Thelma and Louise, as to say "I'm going down and taking everybody with me."

Jennifer On My Mind could be described as an "enjoyable flop." The most disappointing thing is its potential, how it lures you in to the 1971 scene but goes nowhere.

It's an attractive film, well shot in some nice European and Long Island locations, with a hauntingly beautiful theme and a couple very good actors. Intelligent, interesting actors who, unfortunately have to walk through this journey with nothing to do in their life and nothing to tell us except they have all this money and are just going waste their lives.

With rival films like Easy Rider and The Panic In Needle Park, the characters knew they were in deep trouble, but they were helpless and desperate. They reached a point of no return, so we watched sadly, knowing it would end.

Jennifer On My Mind has a happy feeling. It could have been a romantic comedy. It doesn't have a sad or depressing vibe to it. Jennifer & Marcus are smart, upscale kids who could easily be in a graduate program at NYU. They smoke a little pot, but in the context of traveling the world and talking like civilized, educated adults, that's not even an issue. They are not street addicts in the slums, they are sophisticated, classy people.

There is no sign of drug addiction from them or their families. The movie just throws that in because that was the scene at the time. Marcus goes to a drug dealer to buy some hash for Jennifer's birthday. It's funny a scene with the dealer pulling an entire pharmacy out of his refrigerator.

Another hysterical scene follows, as Marcus, stumbling wasted through New York escapes a couple thugs following him, into a taxi driven by a very young up & coming Robert De Niro. In his 40+ year career, I've never seen De Niro as funny as in this brief 10-minute scene. He takes Marcus to Jennifer's house, where she is being entertained by two musicians. As Marcus approaches, they give her a shot of heroin. Are we supposed to presume and believe in the short time they separated, she became a junkie? There was no plot to suggest that.

She comes to visit him one day and it appears to be a happy reunion. But out of nowhere she begins screaming & freaking out. When he goes to check, she is cooking some heroin, then walks on top the wall of the deck, outside his high-rise apartment. This leads him to throw her in his car & take off. And in a final bizarre scene, some crazy motorists on the interstate decide to terrorize him & run him off the road. The movie literally crashes & burns.

I can imagine the Steppenwolf song "Snowblind Friend" playing in the background. The epitome of the drug generation, that song is a tale of an old friend who got in with a bad crowd, became an addict & slowly demised. It would have been a perfect addition.

Jennifer was played by a beautiful, smart, sexy actress named Tippy Walker, who had a short career, and quit acting after this film. Why? Turn on, tune in, and drop out, I guess.

For most people, this may be just an average movie. But they might not understand the inspiration behind it.

I saw Sean Penn's first directorial The Indian Runner in 1991 and initially thought it was a slow, dull, lagging soap-opera. Back then I didn't know much about the art of film. Other movie watchers may not like this film The Pledge for similar reasons.

Then I watched an interview w/Sean Penn and he said his big influence was John Cassavetes, who had recently passed away. So I went back & watched some of Cassavetes' films again. His films were social dramas between friends, usually in New York, struggling with their own inner conflicts. After that, when I watch Sean Penn's first four films (as filmmaker) I can totally see Cassavetes all over his films, especially in this one. Never has his inspiration been so strong than in the way Nicholson struggles with his demons in this picture.

The scenes where Nicholson realizes what a mistake he made towards the end, and of him drinking himself to death, looking up in the sky, talking to himself in the closing (and opening) are priceless. I see Cassavetes' struggle of the human soul in those scenes, just like in the films he made, and in some of the characters he played. It really affects the way you see this film.