Have you had a feeling of deja vu? Watch this episode,...does it seem like you recognize the plot? You should! It's a near line-by-line remake of the Season 1 episode [Link removed - login to see] the only real difference is the Season 1 episode takes place during Mannix's days as an employee of the Intertect Agency. Boy, I have half a mind to add this to my [Link removed - login to see] list!

In any setting, the vast southern California desert alone could pass as a malevolent force. Placed into the hands of an up-and-coming young director named Steven Spielberg, that force morphs into an aging fuel tanker driven by a man Spielberg described as [Link removed - login to see] The movie itself, based on a short story, was the product of a network mandate to churn out weekly movies that basically served as time filler during the broadcasted sport off-seasons and handed over to Spielberg almost as a practice exercise for what excellence would come from him in the future. Dennis Weaver, a seasoned everyman actor, made the exercise all that much easier. Quaint and somewhat dated after 50 years (Santa Clarita has basically grown out into the northernmost portions of LA's San Fernando Valley), it's still a great little watch.

Only Stooge film to receive an Oscar nomination. And it's easy to see why! "Doctor Howard, Doctor Fine, Doctor Howard!" is the war cry that starts the medical mayhem! An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but what if that apple has its skin on the inside? And what saves those poor miners? Radium,...because why not? Just sit back and enjoy!

I know CFA takes a lot of heat for the opinions of it's owner, but in all the years I've patronized them, I've never had a bad meal and the high school kids they hire aren't there working dead-end "McJobs;" the managers actually encourage them to move on and continue their education.

A prequel that's more like Nyquil! Usually in franchises, there are two paths: good original, better second act, and out-of-steam denouement or great original and rapid slide into banality. Guess where this one falls? If the original were a serious movie, instead of a tongue-in-cheek wink towards the James Bond franchise, I would understand the dour tone of this episode. And without giving away the ending, it looks like there's more to come. Maybe this reboot will go the first route? One can only hope,...

A giddily anachronistic, feel-good movie! Like going to your local Renaissance Faire and seeing up-and-coming actors who, absent the tragic loss of Heath Ledger, went on to acting fame and fortune.
The post-tournament dinner and dance scene, turning from minstrels to David Bowie is hysterical!

I remember this show from my childhood because it originated in Philadelphia on KYW TV (then the home of the show's production company, Westinghouse Broadcasting). If you can imagine The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, broadcast in the late afternoon, and with a rotating series of celebrities in the Ed McMahon role, you had Mike Douglas. Sadly, in the show's later years, the production moved away to Los Angeles and ultimately faded into obscurity.

This episode, still one of my favorites, had so many things going on behind the scenes.
First, it was critically considered one of the best of a bad 5th season (and beyond). At this point, the mortal wounds from the departures of Barbara Bain and Martin Landau were starting to take their toll. The IMF missions were pivoting away from escapades in faux Eastern European countries mimicking the real Cold War and, instead, frequently targeting "The Syndicate" (read WASPy Mafia) in the US.
Leonard Nimoy's role of Paris - magician, sleight-of-hand expert and master of disguise - did a passable effort to replace Landau's Rollin Hand, but the revolving group of co-stars (it was always alluded that the IMF contained a broader group of operatives beyond the show's regulars), including Lesley Ann Warren and Sam Elliott, never provided the same team chemistry as Bain and Landau.
Now, about the episode: this was Japan in 1970. As we are 50-plus years removed from the episode, it's hard to imagine 1970 Japan was 25 years removed from unleashing a global conflict that ended in the only war-time use of nuclear weapons and 6 years from their global reemergence in the 1964 Summer Olympics. American business was actively engaged in trade with this new, peaceful Japanese economy. But for some Japanese, bitter war memories are behind a push to discredit America and return Japan to an isolationist society.
The mission? The IMF force must exonerate an American businessman framed for the murder of his wife, a relative of an influential Japanese isolationist. And this is where the 5th season's issues become obvious. Production costs limited the Japan settings to filming in the Japanese Gardens park in Los Angeles. While the supporting cast was populated with respected Japanese-American actors such as James Shigeta, Khigh Dhiegh's role as bad guy Toshio Masaki was just a revisited version of his role as recurring Hawaii Five-O villain Wo Fat. Critics assailed Nimoy's Paris as a kabuki performer. Nimoy's features were too European to ever pass as an Oriental native. Even worse, Dhiegh ([Link removed - login to see]

So, I originally found this on YouTube as a "proof of concept" demo about a year ago. Then I was recently able to stream watch the entire film, under the " Blood Immortal" title. The title photo doesn't do justice to this diamond in the rough movie and the production values are at the high end of indie amateur films. Imagine [Link removed - login to see] if Ayn Rand was consulted on the script.
Told in three acts, past, present and future, it sets up a world where vampires aren't the powerful apex predators of most movies. Instead, as humans consume more artificially created foods and fill themselves with alcohol, nicotine and illicit substances, these are passed on to the vampires, who find themselves searching for "clean" blood sources the way a junkie looks for uncut heroin or cocaine.
The collegiate economics lessons set as a backdrop to one vampire's attempt at a "normalized" life set up a dystopian finale that kind of falls flat.
As I stated at the beginning, this is a real diamond in the rough. Hopefully, someone in Hollywood picks up the rights to this, throws a few dollars at it and some quality actors, and puts it out in theaters.

Stop me if this seems familiar: The year is 2018 (from a 1970s perspective, of course) and corporations have replaced governments on a global scale. Rollerball is a global spectator sport, part roller derby, part basketball or hockey, and all mayhem. In the movie, stereotypes abound. Houston, the reigning champion, represents "energy" (Enron, anyone?) and their team is populated with bare-fisted, Texas manly-men. The team (and supporters) from Tokyo, display a single-minded, unified front so typical of the Japanese society at-large. And so on. At the center of all of this is Jonathan E - hero and global star of the Houston team. But, as John Houseman's character Bartholomew coldly states, the game is designed to weed out the individual and promote existence for the good of the corporations. Jonathan E. is good at what he does and enjoys the societal perks of his stardom. But he's an individual,...and he has questions. Now, he needs to retire, or be retired. The game's rules will change, and change again, until the corporations succeed. Or will Jonathan E. ?