I’d been on a but of a bad run for the Doc’s Classic Movies section here at EYG.  Three straight films that I had watched that fell below expectations or were just downright bad.  I did not want to continue such a streak.

I knew what I could do.

Last week, the new trailer for the upcoming “live-action” version of Disney’s The Lion King came out, directed by Jon Favreau, and everyone found themselves getting chills and goosebumps.  The reason was the teaser trailer looked so remarkable and it brought everybody back to a world that was nearly universally beloved.  The world of The Lion King.

That new version comes out in 2019, but to snap the streak of bad films, I loaded up the 1994 animated version, which is considered by many to be the greatest animated film of all time.  While that might be a bit too high for my ratings, there is no denying that this movie is in the argument.

The Lion King is a beautiful story of love and betrayal.  It is Shakespearean in design (sharing similarities to Hamlet) and transcendent in animation.  The music is both catchy and completely engaging and the characters are wonderful.  Scar (Jeremy Irons) is one of Disney’s most heinous villains, with his manipulations leading toward the murder of his only brother, the King Mustafa (James Earl Jones) and the attempted murder of Mustafa’s son, Simba (first voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas, then by Matthew Broderick) proving his evil intentions. Scar is perfectly happy to let Pride Rock go down in devastation as long as his power as king is unquestioned.

Young Simba goes off to meet his lifelong pals, Timon (Nathan Lane) and Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella), after the death of his father.  One song montage later, years have past and Simba is living the life of Hakuna Matata.

There is a great voice cast here as well including Whoopi Goldberg, Robert Guillaume, Cheech Marin, Jim Cummings, Rowan Atkinson, and Moira Kelly.

The score from Hans Zimmer is truly amazing and the songs that were written by Elton John and Tim Rice make this movie extra special.

There were extra hidden jokes that I had not heard the first time that were funnier now as an adult.  This is an emotional ride with a terrible tragedy, yet continues the circle of life.  The Lion King is one of Disney’s best animated features.  Obviously, it is a…

The streak is broken…

This is one of those films that I do not feel that I will ever revisit.

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad I saw it after all of these years, but to say that it was disturbing is a mild understatement.

A Clockwork Orange is a classic Stanley Kubrick film that plays with the ideas of violence and the responses to that violence.  Does it take things too far?  That might be true.  I have to say I am not sure how I feel about the movie.

On one hand, Malcolm McDowell gives a top notch performance, though he seems to be yelling too much for me.  You believe that this guy is a vile and vicious person and his actions are wicked.  McDowell does a great job of portraying that.  However, I never found myself feeling for Alex after the prison procedure “cured” him of his tendencies.  It felt like he deserved the pain that he was suffering with.

The cinematography is wild and weird.  The sets and the backdrops are wonderful to look at.  The overall performances are solid.  The direction is classic.

And yet, the very topic of the film makes me uneasy.  I am just not sure that it does anything for me.  Especially with the way the film ends.

There are some great technical aspects of this 1971 film, but I can think of many Kubrick films that I would prefer to see.

It seems as if I have never seen the 1980s classic Weird Science, because when I pulled it up on Amazon Prime today, I was unfamiliar with the movie.  I mean, I knew the general plot and I knew a couple of details (I know I had seen the “shower” scene before), but I realized quickly that this was almost totally new material.

The reason I knew?

I hated it.

This was everything that I dislike about this genre of movie.  Here I was thinking that I had missed something by not seeing Weird Science, but I just thought it was immature, ridiculous, sophomoric nonsense with mean spirited characters who I really did not want to spend any time with.

I was about to shut it off.  I was preparing to make this a “Putrescent” film.

However, I will say that the third act of the movie improved considerably.  I liked how the film worked itself out and how the two main characters, Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), actually showed growth and became the type of people that I did not want to smack across the face.

So many moments in Weird Science that irritated me instead of making me laugh.  It highlighted the bottom of the barrel for teens and their behavior.  I just did not like what I was watching.

As I said, the ending, while ridiculously over-the-top, showed some promise of what could have been.

This one was not a good movie and I am not sorry that I hadn’t watched it up until today.  Unfortunately, I can’t say that any longer.

How could a movie that included Big John Studd be bad?

Pretty damn easily, I guess.

Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man is a comedy/western/action movie featuring Don Johnson as Harley Davidson and Mickey Rourke doing his very best Bruce Willis imitation, desperately trying to keep his face from moving.

Seriously, why does Mickey Rourke only have one expression in this freaking movie?  He has the Bruce Willis smirk and it is on his face in every situation his character finds himself in.

The writing is terrible.  The story is ridiculous.  I guess there are absolutely no police officers in the city (except for the one Harley slept with).  The dialogue is laughable.

In order to save their friends’ bar, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro decide to rob a bank truck.  Unfortunately, the one bank truck they choose to rip off is loaded with drugs instead of money.  So, as any good heroes would, they contact the drug dealers and offer to sell these deadly dangerous drugs (they have been told that the drugs kill 1 out of 7 people that take them) back to them for money.  Hm, quite the heroic pair.  But they are trying to save their friends’ bar, so all bets are off.

Of course, their friends wind up dead and that sets off their eventual revenge part of the story.

My brain hurts after watching this.

The special effects in the third act confrontation are as bad as you are going to see.  The green screen is so obvious that I cannot believe anyone would have okayed the release of the scene.

Don Johnson and Mickey Rourke are good together so the film is not a total wash, but just about everything else is horrible.

Oh, but WWE Hall of Famer, the late great Big John Studd is here and it is good to see him.  He is decent for his short, smallish role.

Otherwise, this is a stupid buddy film that cannot ride on the charisma of Don Johnson and the frozen face of Mickey Rourke for long.

There are not that many films that feature Thanksgiving.  Even in Addams Family Values, there is only a few scenes dealing with the first Thanksgiving at the summer camp where Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) are sent.  Even so, this was a good film to revisit during the Thanksgiving Binge Watch.

Addams Family Values is the sequel to the original film which is a reboot of the old television series.  In the film, there are a bunch of plots going on all at once. The main one dealt with the black widow Debbie (Joan Cusack) trying to get Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd) to marry her.  She was after his money and planned on killing him once they had been hitched.

Meanwhile, Wednesday and Pugsley have been sent off to camp, thanks to the manipulations of Debbie.  The children are tormented by happiness, the fresh air of outdoors and camp counselors Gary Granger (Peter MacNicol) and Becky Martin-Granger (Christine Baranski).

This all came about after Morticia (Anjelica Huston) gave birth unexpectedly to a son for Gomez (Raul Julia) and the two other children were attempting to murder the baby.

The Addams Family became really dark in this movie, which was great.  The movie is very funny as the situations are taken to their exaggerated conclusions.

The writing is spot on and each character has their moments with sharp banter and razor wit.  Wednesday is especially sarcastic and delivers each line with perfect comedic timing.

Debbie is masterfully wicked and yet perhaps not the most evil person in the cast.  Joan Cusack is really awesome as the over-the-top nanny who is out to scam yet another rich bachelor.

Some times the story feels a tad disjointed as it jumps back and forth between scenes, but they are usually very funny and that excuses many problems a film may have.

I will say that, except for Christopher Lloyd, each cast member is beautifully cast.  Lloyd is a fine actor, but he always will be Doc Brown and he is too familiar here for me.  I did not see Uncle Fester, but instead I saw Christopher Lloyd in a bald cap.

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, Addams Family Values improved on the original movie because we knew these new version of the characters better.  There may have been too many stories going on, but that is not uncommon for movies.

*Snap Snap*

We move from boxing movies to spoof with the classic “Weird Al” Yankovic film UHF on the Thanksgiving binge watch.

Yes, UHF is very silly and borderline stupid, but it is, at many times, funny and there is no doubt that EYG Hall of Famer “Weird Al” Yankovic went all in on his film.

The movie’s plot is pretty basic.  George (“Weird Al”) is a loser and can’t keep a job.  When his Uncle Harvey (Stanley Brock) wins the deed to a UHF television station in a poker game, he lets George manage the station.  George puts on the strangest array of television programs ever seen.  With the discovery of janitor extraordinaire Stanley Spadowski (Michael Richards) as charismatic kid show host, Station 62 flies to number one in the ratings, drawing the ire of evil studio executive R.J. Fletcher (Kevin McCarthy).

There are many satiric shorts throughout the film including parodies of multiple movies such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Rambo, and Gandhi.  There are commercials on the station for Spatula City.  The game show classic Wheel of Fish added to the station’s lineup.

There is so much bizarreness in UHF that you simply have to toss away your doubts and have fun.

Anthony Geary (formerly Luke Spencer from General Hospital) also appears as Philo, a character who could be the oddest of the bunch.  Especially when we find out the truth about him.

UHF features “Weird Al” Yankovic’s parody of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits.  He turns it into Beverly Hillbillies/Money for Nothing.  We also get Al’s title track, the classic UHF over the credits.  I would have liked more music in the show, but what we got was great.

Sure this is silly.  But it is a good time, no matter what.  UHF is one of those films that people look back on in a cult status.

The Thanksgiving binge watch continued today with another boxing movie that was missing from my potential list of Top 10 Boxing movies (which I’ll do later this week).  Million Dollar Baby is from director Clint Eastwood and starred Eastwood along with Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman.

Hilary Swank was Maggie Fitzgerald, a woman who hoped to have Frankie Dunn, hardened boxing trainer, trainer her to become a fighter.  Frankie was not up for the challenge at first because he did not train girls.  However, Maggie’s persistence eventually won him over and he connected with her.

Maggie took to the sport very quickly.  Once someone taught her how to use her feet and to properly breathe, she began knocking people out in the first round.  She progressed quickly, becoming a sensation.

Hilary Swank was wonderful as the down-home sweetheart Maggie, who was determined to reach her goals.  She wound up winning an Academy Award for her performance in Million Dollar Baby.  Eastwood won the Academy Award for directing and Freeman was Best Supporting Actor that year.  Million Dollar Baby was also the Best Picture winner.

I did not expect this to be as emotional of a movie as it was.  The picture really hits you with an uppercut and knocks the wind out of you, all in a flash of a second.

Great action.  Great storytelling.  Real emotion.  Million Dollar Baby is way better than I ever expected it to be.  It transcended boxing and became a movie about life and loss and pain.  Truly a moving experience.

I’m just not sure how to feel about this.

I decided to watch Raging Bull because this week’s Top 10 Show featured Boxing Movies and my list was severely lacking in some major ways.  This was one of them so I chose the Thanksgiving binge watch would start with this Scorsese classic.

However, I am just not sure how to feel.

I absolutely HATED Jake LaMotta (Robert DeNiro).  I found him so unlikable that in the first half hour or so, I considered shutting the movie off.  I did not like any of the characters on the screen, including Jake’s brother Joey (Joe Pesci) or his soon-to-be child bride Vickie (Cathy Moriarty).

But I persisted with the hope of seeing this group of people suffer from their horrible choices.  That might not be the most empathic reason to keep watching a movie, but I had to find what I could.

Along the way, I started watching the ambiance and the mood being created by Martin Scorsese and the performance of Robert DeNiro.  The film is beautifully shot, with the black and white imagery and the dreamlike state at times.  The boxing matches may not measure up to the realism of today’s standard, but they are dramatic and told a story.

I saw DeNiro take this mean, unbelievably jealous, rotten abusive human being with a violent temper and send him through the wringer, self-induced as it may have been.  Jake LaMotta had a lot to be thankful for, but he was too crazy or insecure to accept that.  He self destructed completely.  The scene of him pounding the wall of the jail cell was remarkable.

So while I never came around on Jake LaMotta as a character, the film itself won me over.  The raw feel of the characters and the amazing look of the movie makes this a classic.