Author Archives: Doc

Yentl (1983)

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In my class, we are reading The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen. There is a section in there where the main character, Hannah, tells some other Jewish girls stories about movies & TV shows she has seen. One of those she mentioned in Yentl, starring Barbra Streisand. I had never seen that and I knew it was a musical so it fit right in the Genre-ary DailyView.

However, I am not sure if the film would be considered a musical. The structure of the film is different than most musicals. Despite Streisand’s character Yentl singing in some scenes, Yentl does not sing every time. In fact, there are some songs where we see her singing and, within the same song, she is not singing any more.

Yentl (Barbra Streisand) wanted to be able to study the Talmud, a main book in Jewish theology and law, but, as a woman, she was forbidden to do so. Still, her beloved father (Nehemiah Persoff) allowed her to study is secret. When he passed away, Yentl cut off her hair and donned a disguise as a man in order to be able to continue the study. Yentl met Avigdor (Mandy Patinkin) along the way and became friends with him. Yentl fell for him despite Avigdor being in love with another.

I did not know that Mandy Patinkin was in this movie. I love him from The Princess Bride so he brings a quality to this film that may not have been there for me without him. 

Barbra Streisand did all of the music in the film and her voice is, of course, stunning. The music works very well with the story that is being told. Michael Legrand won an Oscar for his work on the score.

I did have a few problems with the film. First, and most prominently, I had a difficult time accepting Barbra Streisand as a man. He voice, her beautiful face just did not speak man to me. I also wondered about the beard that this “man” never seemed to grow and never shaved.

That just is a matter of suspending disbelief, but I had a hard time believing that Mandy Patinkin, who was close up with Barbra several times, including roughhousing with her, could not tell the difference.

The film did feel cruel at times, especially toward Hadass (Amy Irving). When she married “Anshel” (Yentl’s male name), and the story had her fall for him, that felt particularly cruel and there was no pay off for that. The film really treated Hadass in a bad way.

However, the film is decent, with some powerful songs. Patinkin is great and I feel Streisand did the best she could to make her seem to be a male. 

Cry-Baby (1990)

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I loved Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street with Johnny Depp. So when I saw Cry-Baby on the list of musicals with Depp starring, I though this would be a great addition for the Genre-ary DailyView.

Boy, was I wrong.

I HATED THIS MOVIE!

There was really no story to it. The acting was horrendous. It was so stupid.

Johnny Depp was absolutely was just getting by. You can see flashes of the charisma that he will have later in his career, but this is such a terrible vehicle for him that those few flashes are hidden amongst the garbage.

The movie has 72% on Rotten Tomatoes which absolutely flabbergasts me. 

I will say that a few of the songs were catchy. In particular the song when Cry Baby was in jail. However, honestly, none of the other songs stood out to me at all.

I had just a terrible time watching this movie and I would put it on a list of my least favorite movies ever.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967)

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Another comedy/musical with a really long title is on the agenda for tonight’s entry in the Genre-ary DailyView. It is a 1967 movie that was based on a play from 1961 and a book from 1952. I have seen the play itself back on a Fathom movie several years ago when Stephen Colbert had a guest role in the musical. That was shot like a stage play though and, to be fair, I did not remember much about that film.

So I came into this 1967 film with the most basic of knowledge, which was, I guess, the title. None of the film that I watched reminded me of the musical version I saw so it works fine for the DailyView.

According to IMDB, “Twenty-seven year old New York window washer, J. Pierrepont Finch (Robert Morse), believes he can be a success in the corporate world after he impulsively picks up the book “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying“. The book promises its reader that he can climb the corporate ladder simply and quickly. The Worldwide Wicket Corporation, the business in the office building whose windows he washes is, according to the book, the perfect type of business. There he meets secretary Rosemary Pilkington (Michele Lee), who sees in Ponty (as she calls him) an unassuming man who she believes the corporate world will eat alive. But Ponty, memorizing what the book tells him, does quickly climb the corporate ladder but not by doing any real work.”

I have to say that I was much more interested in the Fathom Events version of this than the 1967 movie, especially at the start. As the film moved on, I was a little more engaged in the film because it was kind of fun to see how Finch was going to get himself out of the obvious trouble that he was in. 

The film certainly portrayed the people involved in business as incompetent boobs. Even the very top of the field were taken in by a little flattery and some machinations. 

I did like the fact that the actual book purchased by Finch would narrate the story, as Finch would read each entry. This was a neat feature.

The songs themselves were not as memorable as I would have liked. 

If I remember correctly, I enjoyed the Fathom Events one much more than this, although this did improve as it moved along.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)

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This musical started off immediately with “Comedy Tonight,” a song that I have heard many times, but had no idea was from this movie. It has been quite an education during the Genre-ary this year with songs in musicals. 

According to IMDB, “Pseudolus (Zero Mostel), the laziest slave in Rome, has one wish: to purchase his freedom. When his master and mistress leave for the day, he finds out that the young master has fallen in love with a virgin in the house of Marcus Lycus (Phil Silvers), a slave dealer specializing in beautiful women. Pseudolus concocts a deal in which he will be freed if he can procure the girl for young Hero (Michael Crawford). Of course, it can’t be that simple, and everything begins to go wrong.”

A great cast including Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers, Michael Crawford, Buster Keaton, Jack Gilford, Annette Andre, Leon Greene, and Michael Hordern do a great job with this clever, slapstick comedy. 

Zero Mostel was hamming it up the entire film. He was so committed to being over-the-top that it really worked with this movie. 

The chariot chase at the end of the movie was absolutely insane. 

Now, there were not that many songs that really stuck out, except for the opening “Comedy Tonight” and the reprise of it at the conclusion of the movie. The songs were written by Stephen Sondheim.

It was a silly movie that was fun to watch. Much more of a comedy than a musical.

EYG Favorite Comic Cover of the Week

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Week of January 17th

This week’s EYG Comic Cover of the Week comes from an EYG Hall of Fame legend. Someone who specializes in doing amazing covers. Covers that are always painting quality, and this is the first time that this EYG Hall of Famer has won the cover of the week.

Fantastic Four #16

Cover art by Alex Ross

True Detective: Night Country S4 E1

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Spoilers

“The Long Bright Dark”

True Detective season one was one of the best seasons of TV you are ever going to find. Season two was a huge step down. I did not watch season three. 

Season four has debuted on Max. I did not know it had started until I saw it on Hulu. I knew it was coming out soon, and I wanted to give this new season a chance.

Jodie Foster is the star of this season which is taking place in Alaska. Foster is a fantastic actor who has a realness to her, a natural feel. 

According to the opening text, this is set around December 17th, which was the last sunset of the year. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live at night for two weeks or more. 

This first episode started building up these characters and there are some definitely intriguing people living in Alaska. It also began the new case, with a body found without a tongue that apparently has ties to a previous one. That case had some tie to Kali Reis, the boxer-turned-actor, playing the role of trooper Evangeline Navarro, an indigenous native with some spiritual connections. 

There is something mystical going on too. It was not 100% clear what was happening. Ghosts maybe? There was a scene that reminded me of Killer Bob from Twin Peaks. Oh, and there was a polar bear. 

I found this interesting and I love the supernatural stuff here. Jodie Foster is top notch and I think this season has started off strong.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians S1 E6

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Spoilers

“We Take a Zebra to Vegas”

This week’s Percy Jackson episode felt a touch more comedic than we have had over the first five. That was an interesting tone as Percy, Annabeth and Grover attempted to find Hermes, played by the one and only Lin-Manuel Miranda. They had to go into a casino in Las Vegas called the Lotus, which leads to them to start forgetting details.

Based on the Odyssey, the Lotus was pumping forgetfulness into the air. While inside the casino, Grover forgot just about everything and went on a virtual quest to find Pan.

Meanwhile, Percy and Annabeth found Hermes, but discovered that time was passing slower inside the casino than it was outside, meaning that they missed the window to get into the Underworld. 

While this was still a solid episode, it did not feel as great as the last couple of weeks. However, it seems as if our trio is ready to head into the Underworld and complete their quest for the Master bolt. 

Not sure where the zebra comes into it though. Maybe I missed it.

Oh, and Percy is having dreams, including Hades in them. I was happy that he told Annabeth about it instead of just keeping them to himself. He’s a Greek demigod, dreams are part of the gig.

Death and Other Details S1 E1

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As I was preparing to finish up A Murder at the End of the World on Hulu today, I happened across another series that dropped today called Death and Other Details. What drew my attention to this was the thumbnail that featured Mandy Patinkin.

I then read the synopsis and it told me that Patinkin was playing the world’s greatest detective, Rufus Cotesworth and that he was investigating a locked-room murder aboard a luxury ocean liner. 

That was enough for me. I do like murder mysteries and this had a bit of a combination of Adrian Monk and Benoit Blanc. Mandy Patinkin is always excellent and I was excited to see the show.

After watching the first episode, I can say that this is totally okay… and has a chance to be entertaining, even if the first episode may not have reached that level.

Rufus was on the liner investigating another case, and the story was being told in flashbacks about a case that he did not solve earlier in his career, A mother blew up in a car bomb in front of her young daughter, scarring the girl for life. This girl, now an adult, named Imogene Scott (Violett Beane), happened to be on the boat too, and had an interaction with the murder victim that made her look like a prime suspect. 

Not sure how much I liked Imogene and that was a drawback to the show. I hope that once I get connected to her more, I’ll enjoy the show more. It was okay. 

A Murder at the End of the World E4-E7

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Spoilers

I had said at one point that I would be very disappointed if Andy, as the guest of this trip, would turn out to be the killer because it was a boring, overused trope. For awhile, I was afraid that the show was absolutely heading in that direction.

Then it turned.

The show was very intense and powerful. I really enjoyed the mystery and I found Darby to be an outstanding protagonist. The other characters all were well done. There were a few of the other characters who were just there and were not involved in the main story that was being told, but that was alright.

Admittedly, the show did turn to another old trope a its solution. The renegade AI. 

The AI known as Ray was shown to be the reason why Bill was murdered, but it was a bit of a change. Ray did not go off on his own as all AIs are destined to do. Instead, he was following what he thought was an instruction from Andy during a rant over his anger. Andy was anything but innocent here. His temper and his violent streak certainly led to the beginning of the deaths that was going on.

However, the trick of making the little boy Zoomer the person who injected Bill with the killing dose of morpheme, because Zoomer was playing a game designed by Ray. A game of doctor, much like he did in the first episode. That was a clever twist that I did not see coming. I did think about Ray early on in the episodes, but I did not go any further.

This was an excellent limited series with a protagonist, played by Emma Corrin, that is awesome and fun to watch. I love smart when it comes to characters. And Darby was very smart.

Viva Las Vegas (1964)

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How could you do a musical list without an entry from the King?

I have not seen very many of Elvis Presley’s movies, despite the fact that he made dozens of them. However, Viva Las Vegas worked as the musical for the Genre-ary DailyView and so we take a trip around the race track with the King.

Lucky (Elvis Presley) was in Las Vegas for a Gran Prix race, but he had yet to purchase the motor for his car. In an attempt to earn the money gambling, Lucky was very successful. Unfortunately, trying to woo a woman he met at the hotel named Rusty (Ann-Margret), he lost the money in the swimming pool. 

Since he had no money to pay off his hotel bill, Lucky had to start working as a waiter to work it off. He spent the rest of the movie either dating Rusty, singing, or working on his car. 

There was a conflict in the film that Rusty did not want him to race because she thought it was dangerous. Nothing came from this conflict, except that Lucky just ignored her and dismissed her. This only seemed to make her more agitated. 

There was a conflict with a romantic rival for Rusty’s affection, another driver who wanted Lucky to drive for him. This guy died in the race, I think. I’m not sure.

The story was thin and nonsensical. This movie survived solely on the chemistry and charisma of its two lead stars. Elvis and Ann-Margret we great together and their scenes, especially of the music and dancing, were very entertaining. The music was excellent, with Elvis performing several songs including the title track of the film. Of course, Elvis’s lip synch of the song during the Talent Show was one of the worst lip synchs I have ever seen. He had absolutely no expression as he sang that song. It really pulled me out of the movie.

It was not the worst film ever by far, and there were definitely entertaining parts to it. The thing is, there is just not enough to justify watching it. 

A Murder at the End of the World E3

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Spoilers

“Chapter Three: Survivors”

I watched the third episode of the FX limited series A Murder at the End of the World on Hulu tonight. It continues to be engaging and mysterious.

Another murder happened in this episode, of one of the guests who had told Darby that he had information to share with her. Rohan had confirmed that he had been the man in the mask on the tape, but before he had a chance to tell the next piece of information, the sounds of Rohan being attacked crossed the phone.

This all happened after Andy told her that he wanted Darby to leave the site. He told her that the police had declared that Bill’s death was not a murder, but an overdose. Andy told Darby that she was grieving and needed to rest. He asked for her ring back.

Yes, he is a little suss with his statements. I certainly hope he does not turn out to be the killer, because that feels too obvious. Had they started it off like a Monk/Columbo show where we knew the killer, but just try and see our heroes find out how they did it, it would be one thing. But this started off as a mystery and the host being the killer is just too much of a trope.

There are just 4 more episodes of the limited series remaining. I am excited about finishing this up soon.

Mean Girls (2024)

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I had not watched the original version of this film until a few years ago. I did enjoy that film quite a bit when I finally did watch it during the original DailyView. However, this version of Mean Girls is actually adapting the stage play that came after the movie. And, oh by the way, it is a musical, something that the promo material for this movie skipped over.

I do like musicals, and this works very nicely as a musical for this month’s Genre-ary. Unfortunately, I did not find this anywhere near as good as the original.

The story is very much similar. According to IMDB, ” New student Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) is welcomed into the top of the social food chain by the elite group of popular girls called “The Plastics,” ruled by the conniving queen bee Regina George (Reneé Rapp) and her minions Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika). However, when Cady makes the major misstep of falling for Regina’s ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney), she finds herself prey in Regina’s crosshairs. As Cady sets to take down the group’s apex predator with the help of her outcast friends Janis (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), she must learn how to stay true to herself while navigating the most cutthroat jungle of all: high school.“

Oh, and you still need to watch out for those buses.

The problem is that I did not like any of these characters. I found them all to be just horribly rotten people who I did not want to spend time with. In the original film, I never felt that way and I could see the positives from all of them. Cady, Janis and Damian were meant to be the heroes of the film, I think, but they were every bit as horrible as the Plastics. Regina George was portrayed as the Devil so much that, though those scenes were fun to watch, made her into someone that you could not feel for. I just felt so much more negative toward all of these characters this time through that I felt no desire to root for them, which was not something I felt in the original.

The music was fun, for the most part. Perhaps nothing remarkably memorable, but catchy.

I had a problem with this movie, especially with the characters. It was nowhere close to the original. 

2.7 stars

American Fiction (2023)

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This film is one I have been looking forward to since the last few months of 2023. American Fiction turned out to be every bit as good as advertised.

Author Thelonious Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), nicknamed Monk, was becoming frustrated with the public at large. His intelligently written books were not being bought, while he saw books that he considered empty and stereotypical thriving in the market.

As a joke, Monk wrote a book embracing every one of the stereotypes and all the heartless prose he was complaining about: a “Black” book. To his shock and dismay, this book was bought by a publishing company and he had to pretend to be a escape black convict to secure the deal. While this was going on, he was having plenty of problems with his family while in Boston.

This was just tremendous. It was cleverly written, extremely funny, taking every racial stereotype and just ripping them through the wringer. The ridiculousness of the plot felt real and true.

Jeffrey Wright was outstanding as the constantly gruff and angry author and the rest of the cast was great too. Sterling K. Brown was a standout as Monk’s gay brother Cliff and there were some poignant moments with Monk and Cliff’s mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams) and their longtime housekeeper Lorraine (Myra Lucretia Taylor). Lorraine may have been my favorite character of the film, bringing some real kindness and heart to the constant bitterness and fighting.

Erika Alexander was excellent as well as Coraline, the neighbor and love interest for Monk. 

Without spoiling anything, I loved the ending of this movie, as it wrapped up in a way that I did not expect and that I found extremely creative and original. 

This marked the film debut for director Cord Jefferson and he did a fantastic job on American Fiction. The story is told beautifully and these characters are all developed wonderfully well. I really enjoyed this film and I can see why it has received a lot of Oscar buzz.

4.8 stars

The First Nudie Musical (1976)

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I needed a shorter musical this morning since I was heading off to the theater today, so I had this film ready for just such an emergency. It was from 1976 and it was around 97 minutes long. It worked perfectly as I woke up early this morning. 

The First Nudie Musical was a strange title, and the strange title fit right in with this bizarre film. 

In an attempt to save the movie studio he took over from his father, Harry Schechter (Stephan Nathan) had been filming pornos. However, the ideas were drying up when he came up with something different: the first porno musical.

Harry, along with his assistant Rosie (Cindy Williams), having to film it in two weeks or lose the studio, went about the steps in creating a musical porno, despite the hurdles that were placed in their path.

How to describe this? I’ll start off with this. It is stupid. I mean really stupid. Yet, it had some real laughs to it. The story was implausible and unlikely, but it did lead to some very funny humor… and, honestly, lots of nudity.

Cindy Williams was easily the best character on the screen, getting all the best lines and most of the funniest interactions. 

The songs were mostly funny too. They were filled with innuendo and lines that surpassed innuendo and were literally sexual in nature. 

The story was really just an excuse to parade mostly naked women (and some men) around the stage and to throw in songs with sexual jokes. That was really all this was.

I did laugh quite a bit during this film so I do not think it was totally a flop. It was a film I would have liked much more as a teenager.

A Murder at the End of the World E1, E2

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Spoilers

“Chapter One: Homme Fatal”

“Chapter Two: The Silver Doe”

I was looking for something new to watch. I didn’t want to dive into more from Moonlighting or The X-Files, as I have done several of both of those series this weekend. Picket Fences is done. Fargo has one more episode. I have not been too enthralled with For All Mankind as of yet. I finished Murder House. I wanted something new.

I will be doing a Twin Peaks rewatch at some point, but this did not feel like the right time. There are several other great shows I love such as Monk, Castle but those are both multiple season runs and I am only in season 2 of a bunch of the X-Files. Having something that has an end in sight is always welcome.

So I went looking for other options, and eventually I worked around to Hulu. Hulu was being kind of wonky tonight (I think because of the frigid cold we have here right now), but I still came across A Murder at the End of the World.

I had seen this before and the concept intrigued me and I am always a fan of a good murder mystery. It is also only seven episodes, which is great. It feels like one of those shoes like Echo, The Body or Fall of the House of Usher that can be a quick, palate cleanser in-between the longer commitment of the multi-season re-watches.

I started the series hoping that it would be able to catch my attention. I will say it started a little slow, but my the end of episode one, everybody had arrived at the setting and the characters were introduced and the murder was in place. At that point, I was all in.

The basic plot is something that we have seen before. A group of people are invited to an isolated location and somebody is murdered. This trope is very common, but I did like the way this series set up the trope and tied it to our main protagonist’s background. 

Emma Corrin felt very familiar to me, but I did not recognize anything on her IMDB page (that I had watched, I mean… I recognized shows. I just never watched The Crown or Pennyworth). I enjoyed her portrayal of Darby Hart, an amateur sleuth/true crime writer who had been called the Gen Z Sherlock Holmes. She wound up being invited to a retreat with some of the big brains of the world and her former friend/love Bill Farrah (Harris Dickinson) was also in attendance, as one of the world’s aforementioned artists.

At the end of the first episode, Bill dies in front of Darby. It is believed that he O.D.’d, but Darby did not believe it. She knew something more was going on, and she sneaked into the crime scene to see what she could find.

The story is told with flashbacks back to Darby’s younger years, not only during the time she and Bill were in pursuit of the Silver Dove Killer, a serial killer obsessed with silver jewelry, but also to younger years yet, when Darby was with her policeman father, including at crime scenes he was investigating. Her observations helped him with his cases.

There are some interesting characters in the show, but there has not yet been too much development of any of the other invitees to the retreat. They have been touched on, but the depth is still to come, I expect.

There was a disturbing glance at a person in a mask on the video in Bill’s room when he died. It was a scary image and it was one that I did not expect.

The first two episodes were really good and, with only five more to go, it should not take too long to find out who the guilty party is. I hope it delivers in the long run.