Reviews by TrekMedic

The stuff of nightmares! This past week marked the 42nd anniversary of the Three Mile Island disaster (in a quirk of timing, the movie [Link removed - login to see] was released during the same week) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. As with most Philadelphians, I remember watching this disaster play out in real time, so this weekend I spent a few hours re-watching Chernobyl. Comparing the two, TMI was a minor hiccup in the reactor!

For those of a certain age, especially in Western European and North America, the Chernobyl disaster played out in a shroud of typical Iron Curtain secrecy.

Oh, what little we knew, or even suspected back then!!

"Chernobyl" the mini-series encapsulated, in exquisite detail, not only how bad it truly was (and worse, what it could've been), but to what extents the Soviet government went to hide it from the world community at large and how little the Soviets valued human lives.

In the closing credits, Soviet leader Michael Gorbachev cited Chernobyl as "the beginning of the end of the USSR." So many lies, so many deaths unaccounted for, so many nightmares.

When I saw the previews for this on the SyFy Channel, I was curious: Jamie Foxx as (Little) John suggested another Kevin Costner-like telling of the tale, but without the gleefully-sophomoric Mel Brooks-like parody. Some of the scenery and plot even suggested the anachronisms of A Knight's Tale, without the sly winks and nudges to the audience (dancing to David Bowie's "Golden Years" while keeping a straight face, anyone?)

Instead I got this: A meandering preamble by Friar Tuck suggesting this was a prequel and, quite possibly, a franchise in the making. Well, speaking of anachronisms, the King Richard-era city of Nottingham, when viewed a wide panning and as the setting for the story, looked mighty impressive for the limited engineering skills available at that time.

Well, any hopes of a franchise failed when you decide to toss every woke culture trope into the mix:

- The Crusades as an earlier version of The Gulf Wars? Hell, the English are even wearing desert-camo leather! Notably, Sir Guy of Gisbourne, long the antagonist to Robin's adventures all but disappears after these scenes. Maybe he would've returned in any sequels?
- We knew the Ottomans were an technologically-advanced society, but arrow-launching Gatling guns (or even M-240-Golfs for Gulf-savvy armament fans)?? And scenes all but lifted directly from Saving Private Ryan to boot!
- John as a Muslim Socialist? Oh, boy, that's gonna make some of Sanders' followers "Bern!"
- The Sherriff of Nottingham,....dear Lord, where do we start? An amalgam of every bloviating US neo-con and Britain First politician, whipping the populace to fund his anti-Muslim/anti-immigration war wagering (hey, isn't that the job of the King or Prince John?). The Sheriff as a survivor of the abuses of the Catholic Church AND their lay puppet to carry out whatever machinations they had in mind?

As I mentioned at the beginning, this appeared to be a prequel or the start of a planned franchise, which would explain the absence of some of the more well-known "Merry Men" such as Will Scarlett (Jamie Dornan's Will Tillman has an altogether different fate) and Alan-a-Dale.

In the end, the movie's foul stench would've caused King Richard to name the toilets "Johns" had Prince John even appeared in the plot!

Ah, well, another "what-if" that'll never come to fruition.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to believe that this was the ONLY episode where the team's leader (Daniel Briggs or Jim Phelps) didn't accept the assignment briefing. Barbara Bain's character, Cinnamon Carter, accepts the ubiquitous mission briefing instead of Steven Hill's character, Daniel Briggs. Why? Steven Hill was an orthodox Jew and, as such, obliged to leave the set by sunset on Friday in order to observe the Sabbath. Early in the season's production, this was an easy workaround but, as the show's popularity increased, production schedules got tighter and obliging Hill became more difficult. So did Steven Hill, and he was suspended from the show for this episode (his absence was explained by Cinnamon as "being on another assignment.")

The was a good movie plot somewhere in here. A searing commentary on social media and a major broadside shot at Google? A look at how Alphabet has manipulated an entire generation of young idealists looking for a quick way to pay off that French Art Appreciation degree college debt? Somewhere along the way, the plot took an eponymous turn and I was left scratching my head.

Probably the last hurrah of the "Frat Pack," it tries to recapture the inoffensive buddy-comedy charm of "Wedding Crashers" (including the buzzkill, vibe-destroying presence of Will Farrell). Like Wedding Crashers, it was an easy-to-follow plot about "a coupla-guys" living outside society and having fun while doing it. Ultimately, everyone else comes around to their way of thinking and their lifestyle prevails. The End. Not an unpleasant way to spend the day while a snowstorm rages around you!
Now, about the some of the plot details: here we are, 7 years removed from the film's release and it's amazing how much of the Googleverse, and parent company Alphabet, have changed in such a short time. Another review calls this movie [Link removed - login to see] Maybe in a whitewashed, rose-colored glasses sort of world. For a good Google-related companion piece, watch [Link removed - login to see] featuring Emma Watson.

Wow! Dark, ugly and unrelentingly bleak. It jumped on post-9/11 angst, grabbed you by the scruff of your neck and dragged you to those dark places sci-fi TV didn't talk about.

OK, don't bother to watch Dr. Strangelove until you watch [Link removed - login to see] preferably back-to-back. Why? Well, first, Dr. Strangelove will serve as comic relief after watching the stark, horrifying concepts and paranoia over a nuclear holocaust proffered by Fail-Safe and second, Fail-Safe will give you a proper frame of the reference Strangelove so giddily lampoons.
The movie itself, while dated in it's concepts, is a tour-de-force (or perhaps a tour-de-farce?) From the multiple characters played by Peter Sellers through the stellar acting by some of Hollywood's greatest! And, perhaps with the exception of Slim Pickens' over-the-top B-52 commander, all done with a sublime straight face.

The collaboration between Chris Cornell and Rage Against The Machine was originally criticized as a one-off vanity project, replacing Zac's politically-charged angst rap with the "grunge" of Chris Cornell's soul-searing, nihilistic howling. Guess what? People liked them! They really liked them and the group spawned two more albums. This one is my personal favorite, probably because, unlike their eponymous CD, which sounded like Chris Cornell was simply replacing Zac for a Rage session, you can hear Cornell's stamp on most of the songs. "Like A Stone," Drown Me Slowly," and "Doesn't Remind Me" are my favorites and the three that have migrated to my streaming playlists. Such a shame Cornell isn't here anymore to create more of this magic.

I was barely aware of them as a kid until radio started playing "I Want You to Want Me" in heavy rotation. Following the success of their Japanese tour, they went from zeroes to heroes overnight. However, none of the songs carry any of the same energy (critics accused them of dubbing the overwhelming audience noise) in their studio format,...ain't that a shame?

To this day, I've owned the 8 track, LP, cassette AND CD!

Holy cow! The stuff I'll watch when I'm stuck in a blizzard! Even the presence of Erin Karpluk couldn't salvage this Canadian retread dreck!