Reviews by TrekMedic

Imagine crossing the insane nihilism of FX's "Archer" with the sublime acting of HBO's "The Newsroom" and you've got "Blunt Talk!"  Patrick Stewart, well-regarded for his serious, Shakespearean-based acting career, completely stomps on his suave persona with the messy, neurotic character of Walter Blunt.  And adding the recurring appearance of Brent Spiner is a quick nod to the TV series that marks Stewart's American career!

For anyone thinking this is yet another WWII-era movie full of hardened dough-boys bravely fighting the Nazis or Japs, you're about to be surprised or disappointed, depending on your preconceived notions. It's not too difficult to view this movie in the present day, and realize how forward-thinking the screenplay was. While the movie was played out in 1946 post-war America and subject to the same sensitivities and self-censorship, it wouldn't be hard to re-make it for our current times. As was in 1946, men are returning from battle, scarred (both physically and mentally), possessing few useful civilian skills and difficulty adjusting to an America that has changed from when they left it. Back then it was "shell-shock," today we call it PTSD. No wonder it was awarded the Oscar!

This show just started airing on the Retro TV channel in the US. I vaguely remember this as a child, airing on a local TV station on Saturday afternoons. Looking at it now, as a adult, I'm in a constant state of wincing and cringing! In comparison to EMS icon "Emergency," which spurred many of my generation to enter the world of firefighting and the burgeoning pre-hospital care service, it looks like this dreck was foisted upon many poor souls in that "Metro" city with the big tower (what, were Canadians THAT embarrassed by the show to associate it with "Toronto?")

Even worse, the show originally started as "Dr. Simon Locke," a Canadian version of Marcus Welby (the producers' pedigree did include involvement in an earlier medical procedural, Ben Casey), but quickly collapsed due to poor production standards (well-respected star actor Jack Albertson walked off the show and laughed off breach-of-contract threats, using the show as his own defense!)

If this show pops up ion one of your syndicated or "classic" TV stations, here's an all-points bulletin: avoid it at all costs!

Take the BBC's Atlantis, which is at least doesn't take itself too seriously, add incredibly bad acting from Canada's usual suspects (and a bunch of Euro C-listers), add excessive and pointless violence, a predictable plot and green-screen or possibly CGI SFX and you have SyFy's latest visual diarrhea. I forced myself to complete the first episode just to see how bad it could get. My worst fears were realized and now I want that hour back!

Gutter-level "comedy" that was painful to watch. When you bring in an elderly Adolf Hitler and try to milk some laughs as he interacts with the show's Jewish protagonist, you didn't jump the shark, you landed square in its jaws!
I honestly can't believe the FOX Group (FX/FXX) dropped Wilfred for this kind of dreck!

I'm a big fan of classic TV and eagerly awaited its airing on one of the currently-in-vogue "retro" cable channels.
But now that I'm watching it, I'm feeling a bit conflicted about Run For Your Life.
On the one hand, it has an excellent pedigree with Ben Gazzara as the lead and the entire cream of the 60s character actor set appearing throughout the series' 4-year run.
On the other hand is this vague feeling that I've already seen this show before. It seems like its a mash-up of Route 66, The Fugitive, and The Kraft Suspense Theatre anthology show. Heck, one of Run's 3rd season episodes, "Beware My Love," is a re-telling of the Kraft episode "The Deep End" (which starred a young and attractive Ellen Burstyn early in her career)!
It isn't helping matters that the episodes aren't been shown in order, so I can't appreciate any of Gazzara as Paul Bryan's character development.
I'll have to come back to this and rate it when I get a few more episodes under my belt.

As of April 30th, I've watched the majority of the episodes from the show's 3-year run (my DVR has a mind of its own!).

I can tell you this:
The good - it's a classic 60s omnibus show, full of every popular character actor of the era and a nice peek and bit players who would go on to great TV and movie careers.

The bad - after awhile, the existentialism got redundant. One of the best of the last season's bunch - "Cry Hard, Cry Fast," which was based on a John MacDonald novel.

After that, it appeared Ben Gazzara was just phoning in the character.

Taken from the series of successful TV movie. Dean Devlin, TNT and a stable of contemporary characters actors, mix in some standard sci-fi/fantasy tropes and you have a pleasant hour of television that doesn't tax your brain but, if you pay just enough attention, you might learn a few facts!

A fairly "dry" (haha) but optimistic melodrama posing as science fiction. The "faux" underwater SCUBA sequences, complete with soap bubbles passing for exhaled air, are unbelievably laughable! The disaster sequences at the end brought the movie to a too-quick and tidy end.

I watched the first four episodes (A to D) and found the show was more chaotic than sweet. The supporting cast wasn't supportive and, absent Lenore Chrichlow, they were distracting and annoying. Also knowing the relationship would eventually end (a la "How I Met Your Mother), I couldn't get the emotional buy-in for a whole season. I wasn't surprised to read this morning that NBC cancelled it. Maybe if another network picks it up, retools the supporting cast and setting, it might work later.

War is hell. And it's a living hell, as seen through the eyes of green-as-grass newbie typist-cum-tanker, Norman. The good guys aren't always the winners and the bad guys aren't always what they seem. It is also, to my recollection, the first time a movie showed Hitler's Germany, in it's death throes, utilizing (and brutalizing) the Third Reich's children - Hitler's last gasp at surviving the war, and the depiction is utterly, heinously real. This particular story isn't based on actual events, but rather the combined recounting of the men of the 2nd Armor Division. Unlike "Saving Private Ryan," where the actions of many saved the life of one, the actions of Sherman Tank "Fury," commanded by Wardaddy Collier and her crew, helped pave the way the final victory over Germany. If your heart isn't pounding in your chest by the end, you need to have your pulse checked!