Reviews

This poverty sit-com tries to fit everything in for an entertainment starved audience. These are some of the dumbest people ever depicted on film. Ice Cube needs to think about real motivations and limitations before he commits it to celluloid. Watching Terry Crews and Keith David in this I was hopeful but those hopes were dashed quickly. To think those two guys have worked with truly top shelf writers and directors and now its numb-skull time. Gotta pay that mortgage. Its funny. Ice Cube is this short, chunky guy who has to be the toughest guy in the movie. Not always plausible, dude. Just putting a scowl on your face doesn't make one a bad ass. Watch some Burt Lancaster films and you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Spoiler:

The helicopter at the end was cool. Never seen a heli in the 'hood before. Loretta Devine and Charlie Murphy could've have stolen the movie but are pros and kept their characters reined in.

Would Ice Cube please do one movie without facial hair or is it some religious thing?

Saw this a little over a week ago and it is still kicking around in my consciousness. Chris Rock has made a very strong critique about how black people live. Quite a bit of it is discomforting, dealing with the lengths black folk we'll go to achieve a certain beauty standard. The entire segment on chemical relaxers should make anyone think long and hard as to what that product does to the body and brain cells of young children. Chris Rock the documentarian is not the peer of Chris Rock the comedian and that comes through often in the bluntness and heavy-handedness of his presentation of the subject matter. The negative reviews I've encountered seem to try to deflect potential audiences from the truth that Mr. Rock is getting at. Some white people are going to be uncomfortable with this many will likely be bored. They may likely say that its a black folk issue but the more perceptive ones will realize that western culture beauty bias is at the root of this situation. The whole segment on hair weaving and extension which points at Central Asia and the Far East as gaining a powerful hold over black female hair culture is arresting. Interspersed throughout the film are Q&A's with Rock's Hollywood colleagues. Some blithely give answers that border on profound self-contempt and others get the point of question's secret agenda and attempt to deflect its full intent. Even Rev.Al Sharpton does this. The film comes to a close after the big Bonner Bros. expo. It acknowledges that because of black people's(particularly the female)traditional position in wester culture that that it has been a massive strain unlike their white female counterparts to feel good and beautiful in their own skin and hair. When that occurs so often those negative feelings spread because not only does misery loves company, misery will create company. I think Chris answered his daughter's question but it will be sometime before she's ready to accept it fully.

I like the premise of this character out of work and having to get his 'grind' on. His hustle on. I mean aren't we all to a certain extent? The show references a lot of other TV gumshoes: Magnum PI Have Gun Will Travel Hawaii 5-0 Rockford Files MacGuyver and others. It doesn't rely too heavily on those references, though. Nice guest stars as well, like Ayre Gross, Ray Wise and Lucy Lawless. The episode featuring the latina villainess I really wished they'd cast Lisa Raye. I haven't liked her in anything I've seen her in but would have enjoyed watching her character blown up. Oh well. The editing, art direction and cinematography often rises to the feature film level. The cast is quite excellent and credible. I've read a few complaints that Donovan isn't big enough as a tough guy and those viewers miss the point I think. He pretty much acknowledges that he is not a tough guy but he is a well trained and highly skilled operative. He keeps his cool. I plan on catching future seasons. I suspect there may be a sophomore slump next season but we'll wait and see.

I don't get all the hate coming at this movie. It seemed to me a pleasing enough satire on the level of SHOWTIME. One way to 'get' this film is forget its a cop movie. Think of the Ford and Hartnett characters as actually a realtor and an actor who happen to chase around criminals and screw beautiful women. Nobody is taking the plot that seriously and that's kind of a good thing. There is the exception of the Isaiah Washington character who seems to be imported from a completely different type of film. There is also an odd echo, from of all things: BLADERUNNER. I realize to compare that classic to this bag of french fries may disturb some movie lovers but there were certain moments(Joe's initial interview with Antoine, the rooftop climax)that seemed to purposefully comment on the earlier film. I don't mind the idea of a sequel for these characters. The issue that a lot of people aren't getting is that Ford is a great light comic actor in the Bob Hope tradition.

No one dares makes films like this today. Casting alone would be a hazardous chore for the mind. I'll attempt to:

Elisha Cuthbert David Marciano(The Shield) Pierce Brosnan Wim Wenders(in the Fritz Lang role.

Deconstructionism is rarely successful or easy for mass audiences to enjoy or comprehend. Most would say that it's mental masturbation. I don't believe that. It does challenge and doesn't allow the audience an easy way out as seen in the film there's a performance by a female singer in auditorium. The audio of the song is manipulated in a way that lessens the singer's impact but draws attention to the idea of incidental music in all films. The concept of enhancing the context of the narrative either matching the mood or ironically going against the grain is not certain. It's just there.

Visually, it is a spectacular moving canvas. Even long static scenes are incredibly gorgeous. When the story moves back out to Capri we treated to very long distant shots of the sunny and idyllic terrain and flora. The big set piece of the disintegration of the relationship is poignant even though Godard is working feverishly to avoid sentimentalism and mawkish performances.

Steven Soderberg's FULL FRONTAL is the only film I can think of that contemporary audiences could relate to this film and it's not a great comparison.

The positives of this show are Ben Cross, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Barbara Steele. They consistently made this show highly entertaining and watchable. Fyfe and Lysette Anthony were memorable as well. The look of the show was very classy. It seemed to me at the time and now coming back to it after all these years that the producers were attempting to ride the TWIN PEAKS wave. It wasn't successful. The Victoria Winters character just wasn't strongly conceived enough. I have to say that Roy Thinnes as Trask should have been given more focus. The great Jean Simmons is wasted but its more the problem with a script that doesn't offer a lot to do.

I've read a number of these comments and its interesting the number of people who are not getting or are turning a blind eye to what this movie is about. If you haven't seen it stop reading this now.

This is the story of how a very successful prostitute commits manslaughter and drags a Federal Agent down into her amoral world by accepting his proposal in marriage. She has trysted with a number of naïve and ethically challenged men(and manipulated them)and now she's landed a cop who'll keep her out of jail. She'll dump him when the moment presents itself.

Mae West was the Britney Spears/Jenna Jameson of her time. She was the people's bawdy comedienne. There's no contemporary comparison for what she did unless there was a porn star who somehow made it to the A-list of Hollywood legit actresses. The movie definitely is risqué and arch. The society it depicts is a rough, desperate and generally hostile one. It also has the attitudes of gender and race of that time as well. Fortunately, Mae West doesn't deal out anything to others that she can't endure herself. Her persona as the shameless hussy is legendary. It is a feminist fable of sorts of using what a woman has to control her destiny.

Its worth a look if all you normally watch are Kate Hudson comedies

I wanted very much to enjoy this film. When it was released I wasn't interested in watching any westerns. I'd come back to it because I believe Mario Van Peebles has a great film in him. Unfortunately, this one is not it. It is ambitious and the multi-racial cast gives it a good go. The various skill and talent levels aren't blended correctly to make an organic, cohesive whole. A shame because its clear that Robert Hooks is trying really hard as is Billy Zane. Seeing old school players like Lawrence Cook and Pam Grier trying to make sense out of their brief story arcs was a chore. The biggest problem for me was Mario at some point decided to make it a vanity project because it started out a decent, 40's style western(albeit with nudity and some extreme violence)that morphed into a weak Clint Eastwood imitation. The contributions of rap star Tone Loc were pitiful at best but Big Daddy Kane worked harder and his work was credible. Richard Jordan and Blair Underwood are so intriguing together that they are almost in a different, better movie. There are a lot of moments like that in this film where you sit frustrated at the editing and continuity decisions made by the director and the cinematographer. What is clear is that the script is pointing to a much, much better film than what is being delivered. Oh, BTW, the word 'motherfucker' has its origins in the antebellum slave culture of North America. I've seen many complaints here about the usage of that epithet and how it shouldn't have been used during that era(1898). Research the word and you will discover its bleak and stark history. If you were a fan of the show DEADWOOD you would have noticed that the character Swearingen peppered his remarks with the word and it even popped up in the film Heaven's Gate. I have to give it up again to the Billy Zane for his spectacular death scene. I didn't have that big of a problem with the New Jack Swing musical stylings imposed on the film's soundtrack but I did take issue with the lack of banjos and fiddles.

A blown opportunity for greatness.

I'll start off by saying what incredible artisans and crafts-persons Fleischer, Segar and Co. were. They achieve a type of brilliance that even Disney(during that period)doesn't quite match. Now, that said I seriously doubt I would allow children to watch it even though I did. Its just too violent and the consequences of the extreme nature of it is played for laughs. Popeye's world in the cartoon is an impoverished one and its heavily suggested that the violence is a necessary part of that environment. I see it as part of life during an economic depression. Everything is heightened, gender roles, racial stereotypes and a sense that the rug has been pulled out from under all the characters(they change jobs a lot). Spinach takes on a weird quality and I thought about street drugs being the actual little helper that Popeye may be using. PCP anyone? Sherms? Crack? Crank?

A what if story from the Bible. What if there was this lowdown, dirty bad guy and for the briefest moment he was held at the same level of Jesus Christ. Who would the people go for and why? I appreciated the fact that this movie seems to be made specifically for skeptics and agnostics. Stipped down and hard boiled. Existential and quotidian but the spiritual still emerges and commands the narrative. The death of Christ coinciding with the real solar eclipse has immense visual power with Barabbas observing both events. From there the film keeps asking the audience is the Jesus Christ figure one that a man this hardened ever find worth following and strive to follow his teachings. There's a lot besides Quinn's performance to enjoy here. The gladiator section is extremely well done as and seems to be a bonus movie within the movie. Jack Palance in full dangerous he-man mode with his trademark scary/funny quality.