Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond – Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton (2017)

I like the TV show Taxi, though I rarely saw it as a kid.  I went and bought the DVD set and watched every episode of it.  I had an interest in Andy Kaufman before watching Taxi, but after doing so I wanted to see more.  I had watched the movie Man in the Moon, and was amazed at the things Andy Kaufman did.  I felt like I understood Andy Kaufman and what he was doing.  He wasn't trying to be a comedian or entertain the audience, he was entertaining himself, playing with the audience, trying to see how far he could pull his charade. I once read that Matt Groening had made the Simpsons yellow, to screw with the audience to make them think the color on their TV was off, and try to adjust it to the correct color.  It's the same thing, he wanted to do that piratical joke on the whole TV audience, because it amused him.

I spent a lot of time watching the various videos of Andy Kaufman's performances that were released on DVD and other that have appeared on the internet.  He certainly did things that no one else has done, nor probably every should do.  It's hard to say if he is even entertaining, but he never set out to be an entertainer.  I think he mostly set out to evoke a reaction from the audience, though often that reaction was negative.  And often the joke was also being pulled on the other cast members, talk show hosts and producers, who it appears were rarely in on the gag.

At the beginning of this film, Jim Carey said that the really story was what was going on behind the camera, and he was right (Even though Man on the Moon is an excellent film in it's own right).  Jim seems to have channeled Andy (and Tony) during the making of this film, and is off camera antics mimicked those of Andy, and nearly repeated them in several respects, often going so far as to make his co-workers uncomfortable with him.  He even repeated the "injury" Andy suffered at the hands of Jerry Lawler and was taking away in an ambulance.  And he repeated the stunt of having Tony Clifton show up at an event, with everyone assuming it was Jim Carey, only to have Jim Carey show up several hours later while Tony was still at the same event.

When I originally watched Man on the Moon, I felt that Jim Carey played Andy so well, that I forgot it was Jim Carey, and felt like I was watching Andy Kaufman.  Johnny Depp usually does his character equally as well, so that you don't feel like you are watching Johnny Deep.  These are some of the few actors in Hollywood that can really act.  In fact, while watching Jim Carey portray Andy, he even looked so much like Andy, I would forget I wasn't actually watching Andy.

In the end,  Andy's death tragic was especially tragic, as I feel like he was about to take a new direction, making a children's show.  I read that he gave his blessing to Pee Wee Herman, who was able to make a kids TV show, which I hope is in the spirit of what Andy wanted to do. (No disrespect intended to Paul Reuben, who is a excellent energetic and creative entertainer, who needs no help from anyone.)

American Hot Wax (1978)

I had never heard of Alan Freed before watching this film, so I didn't know of his vital role in introducing Rock & Roll to America (and his coning of the term.

I guess I had heard about this film, because it was a box office bomb, and I am always interested in seeing if these bombs had something spectacular to offer, which was overlooked (as if often the case).

I was amazed at the cast, as I had never seen Jay Leno or Laraine Newman in a film before. though they each had there place on TV. Fran Drescher, know for The Nanny, nearly a decade later, also had a big role in this film, but she did appear in a few significant films before hitting it big on TV.

While this is certainly a story that needed to be told, without knowing the significance of Alan Freed, or knowing that he introduced the world to Rock & Roll, his seems like just a routine story of a DJ putting on a show.  No big surprises, or tense moments or twists.  Watching the film, without knowing any background, it seems odd that anyone was concered that the show might not go on.

Even odder, the police and the IRS have a heavy hand fighting against the show, and seem to have taken some actions which were illegal.  Again, prior to watching this film, I had no idea of the significance of the show Alan Freed had put on in Boston, and all the trouble that stirred up, though that doesn't justify the police's actions during his show in New York.

The soundtrack to this film is spectacular, crammed with classic golden oldies.  Even more amazing is the appearance of some of the actual Rock & Roll legends in this film that Alan Freed introduced to the world.

After reading up on Alan Freed, I realize that he has some problems, as he was playing songs that he often had a license to, which appearntly was a highly questionable and perhaps illegal at the time of his DJ days.  Consdiering his vital role in introducing the world to Rock & Roll, it is disappointing to say the least that the notation of his contributions were removed from the Rock & Roll hall of fame.  Another case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I wonder if this film was given the green light to to George Lucas success with American Graffiti and the follow up success of Happy Days.

A Man Called Horse (1970)

As a kid, I had seen the commercials for this movie on channel 56, and it sounded like it was an impressive film that you must see.  Added to that, my interest in native American culture, it's kind of amazing that I hadn't seen this film yet.

But this film, like many films, has one short scene that made a big impression on the audience, and caused people to talk about that this film, but other than those 2 or 3 minutes, the film has very little to offer.

The film stars Richard Harris, who I know from playing King Arthur in Camelot, both the musical and the film.  While in the original story, which was a book, Horse was a Spaniard, being that Harris seems to play nothing other than Englishmen, the character of Horse is an Englishman, whose name is given in the film.

It's a good film in that it shows native Americans in a good light and they are more or less the center of the story, but I feel the accuracy of the representation of the culture is dubious at best.

Even more so, the accuracy of the Vow to the Sun ceremony, which attracted so much attention to this film, is also dubious.  As far as I know, there has been no confirmed record of the activities that take place during this ceremony, and I could find no record of the chest piercing and hanging has ever been a part of this ceremony.  Real or not, I  have heard that back in the times before disinfectant, any wound could become infected and lethal, so that piercing the skin would be something that I would think would be never considered to be done on purpose.


Return of a Man Called Horse (1976)
This film adds nothing to the story (the story does not continue nor develop) and just rehashes the Vow to the Sun scene, which made such a big impression in the first film.

Triumphs of a Man Called Horse (1983)
This film the story does progress, and the character of the son of Horse appears that takes up the cause of justice for his tribe.  It was interesting to see Michael Beck, whom I recognized from The Warriors, and made quite a films in the 80s, but he career never took of they way he probably hoped it would.  He does look slightly native, though through this film, there doesn't appear to be a single genuine native American actor, nor in a native American language spoken.

And as the tradition with movie posters of the time, the woman portrayed in this poster wearing a bikini, never wears a bikini in this film.

Wagon Train: A Man Called Horse (1958)
This story which proceeded the movie, seemed much better put together, and the REAL name of a man called Horse is never revealed.  Even more so, the character of Horse says he named himself, where as in the films, he was called that name by the members of the tribe, which doesn't make very much sense.

Also, in this version, the Man Called Horse is an American, which makes more sense, as it would be exceptionally rare for an Englishman to be out on the Frontier.

Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land (1983)

I cannot recall what got me on a kick looking up the history of Barney Miller, and it looking to the cast a bit, but I found out that Hal Linden (Barney Miller) stared in a TV movie called Starflight: The Plane that Couldn't Land.  Because of my interest in science fiction, I though I had to check it out.

I was pretty surprised that this film and been pretty much forgotten, as it has a pretty impressive cast, including Lee Majors, who is know for the Six Million Dollar Man and Fallguy and Lauren Hutton, who I belive to be a note worthy actress, but I couldn't recall any film that she had been in.

After watching the film, I can see why it is nearly forgotten.  It is a disaster type movie, much like the Airport movies (None of which I have ever seen, but I have seen the Airport parody film Airplane! many, many times) but set in space.

While the film is anticlimactic and every one of the dangers Starflight One faces, it is even more odd that they were able to get one of the people off StarFlight One and back to earth, the same odd problem that Star Wars: The Last Jedi had, saying the crew was stranded, but people were some how able go leave the ship, so in fact they weren't stranded.

One other very odd thing about this film is that it had a space shuttle launch in hours of Starflight One getting stranded, at least twice.  While, going from months of planning to being able to launch in a few hours is utterly ridiculous, the fact the the shuttle has a LARGE CARGO BAY, which could accommodate all the passengers, means a single shuttle trip would be enough to rescue all the stranded passengers, except for the very contrived accidents which occurred in the film which prevent the passengers from boarding the shuttle, and even more strangely having the shuttle return to earth with only a single recused passenger, merely to return again a few hours latter to make another rescue attempt.

With any film, I appreciate that the look the time to make it, and see what they were attempting and I am glad to see such a wonderful cast, but unfortunately, lacking a well thought out and well written plot makes this film hardly worth tracking down.

Shazam (2019) (minor spoilers)

First off, this superhero's name is Captain Marvel.  While I realize that in the 70s Marvel comics made another superhero with the same name, he was not noteworthy, nor very popular.  And as you may know Marvel released a movie called Captain Marvel, with the superhero in the story being female.  While I don't have a big problem with the superhero having their sex changed, as I noted above the Marvel superhero Captain Marvel is not noteworthy enough to have been made into a movie.  I haven't seen the movie Captain Marvel and have no great motivation to do so.

So, as mentioned, the name of this film is Shazam, and DC has changed the name of the character to Shazam in the comics and no longer attempts to use the name Captain Marvel.  This actually worked well in the film, as Freddie and Billy come up with a slew of ever changing ridiculous names for Billy's new found superhero identity.

First, this film Shazam was a greatly enjoyable film.  It hit most of the bases of the original story, from the comics, with a few changes going in a different direction, and having a lot of fun with the concept of a kid becoming a superhero.

Strangely, Captain Marvel only utters his catch phrase once with "Holly Moley", which was a nice touch, but I guess if he had done it repeatedly, it would have seemed a bit too much.

The costume for Captain America is great, with non of that ridiculous plastic, showing off way too much definition abs and such.  Zachary Levi fill out the costume impressively, showing us just how strong Captain Marvel is, just standing still.

Many of the DC films have protracted battles, which are completely pointless, but fortunately, this film avoided such fights.

The film plays out like a combination of Captain Marvel and the Greatest American Hero.  Captain Marvel has to figure out what his power are,just like Ralph, as he was given no instruction.  This leads to many hilarious scene, and he tries out his new abilities, and lack their off. I find the poster reminiscent of the publicity shots of the Greatest American Hero.

I have always hoped that we would get a Greatest American Hero movie, with great special effects (which were sorely missing form the TV show), but I think Shazam maybe as close as we ever get to that, with the passing of GAH creator Stephen J. Cannell, and Robert Culp.

One problem with the film, much like many of the episodes of Smallville, is that Captain Marvel abuses his powers, which is something he never did in the comics, TV series, or animated series.  In fact, in some versions, such as his appearance in Justice League, he berates Superman for compromising his morals.  So, while it was entertaining (and catering to millennials) to have him steal, use his powers for revenge and soliciting money, those are things that are completely untrue to the character.

This film is very odd in it's choice of taking Dr Sivana and basically making him into Black Adam.  Dr Sivana, much like Lex Luthor never had any superpowers and battled Captain Marvel by using brain to come up with inventions to thwart Captain Marvel.  Black Adam, who was referenced briefly, but not by name, in the film, did have the same powers as Captain Marvel, so they could engage in physical conflict.

Also, there have been several characters that never explored an orphan's absent parents.  The other who comes to mind is Peter Parker (thought they began go into that in the aborted story of the films The Amazing Spiderman 1 &2) As this movie goes into Billy's search for his mother, this whole story arch was depressing and unnecessary.  I believe it was done to give Billy a new concept of what family is, but I believe the original creators designed the character without parents to avoid clashes that would result with a child constantly disappearing to take on his super heroic duties.

As far as the Marvel family of superheros goes, I was only aware of Mary Marvel and Freddy, so I was expecting them to eventually get superpowers, but I was wondering while watching the film what about the other three members of Billy Batson's foster family.  Little did I know, at some point DC revised the marvel family to include all of the members of the foster family.  I am wondering if they will introduce Uncle Dudley or Mr Tawney at some point. I am being a bit factious by suggesting that, as both of those characters are too corny to be added.  While a foster home is a good opportunity to add some ethnic diversity, which seems to be mandatory these days, I take question with making the wizard Shazam black.  He was white in all previous depictions, and historically I find it hard to believe that a black wizard existed thousand of years ago.  Also, having him be black adds nothing to the story.

This film did cover a lot of ground, and while didn't didn't feel over-packed, there were some things that could have been saved for other films, like introducing the Marvel Family.

I was glad to see John Glover portray Dr (I guess he wasn't a doctor in this film) Sivana's father.  He was one of three actors who made Smallville a great series (until they all left, the other two being Michael Rosenbaum and John Schneider.

I would have LOVED to have seem a cameo by Jackson Bostwick, but unfortunately, there were no cameos at all in this film.  It would have been amazing to see Henry Cavill show his face, during Superman's appearance.

One other thing, the "animated" scenes during the closing credits were not to be missed!

Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

Well this movie pissed me off in so many ways. This film is rather racist.  While it is has been exclaimed multiple times that this film contributes to diversity, having a film that features only a single race, with the nearly complete exclusion of others does not quality as diversity, unless you think that films like Blacula and Black Belt Jones contribute to diversity.

Another thing is that film is called Crazy Rich Asian, but it focuses solely on Chinese in Singapore.  While I understand that a large number of people use the term Asia to refer to East Asia and South East Asia, Asia is most obviously an extremely large continent, and by making a VERY broad generalization, in includes 5 very large cultural groups who live there, with the majority of Russia there, as well as more than half the the middle east, the stans, which were previously part of the USSR, South Asia (the Indian Subcontinent), and the aforementioned East Asia and South East Asia.  There is also a small peninsula sticking of the north western part of Asia, which for some inexplicable reason is given status as it's own continent, when several of the other groups inhabit areas larger than Europe.  While I realize that Europeans are the ones who made the maps and they wanted to give themselves special status, it irks me.

Anyhow, getting beyond that, and limiting our concept of Asia to cover both East Asia and South East Asia, it is still an area that includes a dozen countries.  The Asians of this film are ONLY Chinese, so the film would be more appropriately titled Crazy Rich Chinese, or an even more appropriate title would be Crazy Rich Chinese Singaporeans.  While Singapore itself does have 4 recognized ethnic groups which it draws it's four official languages from, this film not only completely ignores the other three groups, but they are completely absent from this film.

Even more so, the actors in this film don't feel very Singaporean to me.  While they spend the majority of the film in the land of la, no Singlish is heard.  And while a great number of Singaporean Chinese can speak Chinese, the film also has its American Chinese able to speak Chinese, which while quite possible, seems like a slight to all the Chinese Americans and Asian Americans who do not speak their ancestor's language.  In the case of most haoles, not only do they not speak the language of their ancestors, but no one gives that a second thought, even if they travel to the country of their ancestors.

One thing it does okay with is that kind of  "you have just taken your first step into a larger world" kind of thing, where the Rachael Chu enters a world she didn't know previously existed.  This is the same concept that was done with Star Wars (the Jedi Knights), Harry Potter (the world of magic) Men in Black (aliens living among us, in disguise), Shades of Gray and even Futurama (the WORLD OF TOMORROW) along with many other films.  While it worked well for Harry Potter for a while, as he encountered new and amazing things which he previously had no idea existed, the world that Rachel Chu enters is not as new or secret as that (there are dozens of reality shows that focus on rich people), so that the concept barely can be carried til the middle of the film.  I don't know how this concept will be extended into the next film in a way that would make it interesting, as there is nothing left to be surprising to her.

And of course it's good to see Singapore represented in a film thought the number of scenes that show actual Singapore in this film are extremely limited.

Let's be honest, just as was pointed out in the film, "small tits", which is much like this film has a flimsy concept to go on and isn't really able to be stretched out for an entire film.

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Strangely, this poster from Japan
calls the movie Han Solo.

This film was okay, as it wasn't as infuriating as the so called 'episode' films, in that it didn't go against the grain of the entire Star Wars saga.

 Strangely, the biggest problem is this film is that it had already been done, and done better.  It's plot is vastly inferior rip off of the episode "The Train Job" of Firely.  Joss Whedon, you are our only hope...

The film had a pretty good ending / solution to Han's predicament.

It was great to see the Falcon flying again.  And the actor who played Han did a good job , but he wasn't cocky or cunning enough to make me feel he was really Han Solo.

And while did it did have it's moments, it really didn't add up to much of a film.  George Lucas said that he wanted to make films that are like a roller coaster that you you can enjoy riding many times.  Unfortunately, with all of the new films (those made without George Lucas), they don't have any great scenes that stand out, which can be enjoyed alone and make the film worth watching multiple times.  One of the most impressive things about the original trilogy was that people would go back to see the film multiple times in the theater.  That alone, should really make those films the most watched films in history.  Now a days, with higher ticket prices and larger audiences (due to a larger population) films are recorded as making more money than the original Star Wars, but I don't think they they are getting the repeat business the original trilogy got, thus have a lower number of ticket sales if put in to perspective on the population at the time of it's release.

This film introduced to new (old) concepts into the Star Wars universe, which previously didn't exist in this universe, cleavage and wheels.  While in America and perhaps Europe, women feel the need to show cleavage at all times, this is not so for the entire world, nor does.  As much as I like cleavage, it doesn't have a place in the Star Wars universe (yes, I know Leia was showing some in the Throne Room scene at the end of Star Wars, as well as it being apparent in her slave costume, but they over did it in this film. This is a bit of a problem of the Star Wars novels, as they added in earth concepts which wouldn't exist in the Star Wars universe (coffee, or a similar stimulant drink, stood out).  The other thing is wheels, which didn't exist in the original trilogy, but were on front of the train in Solo there was a wheel.  Yes, the prequels had the WA-7 waitress droid on a wheel, and IG-227 tank had wheels of a sort, but still their absence is part of what defines Star Wars as being in a different galaxy, with a culture completely separate from our own.

One other thing is the use of the word "hell", which is a abrahamic religious concept.  That was used twice in Solo, but it has no place in the Star Wars universe.  "Hell" as also used in Empire, by Han no less, but it never should have been in that movie either, as again this is a galaxy with no connection to our earth culture.
One thing George Lucas mentioned in the past is you shouldn't explain things in a movie.  One problem that keep occurring is too much answering of questions, sometimes questions that didn't really need to be answered (midichlorians anyone?) This film sought to answer a number of question that had been on Star Wars fans since the original trilogy.  One big problem is that it tried to answer all the question in a single film.  I thought several of these needed a lot more background story, so they they should have been in different film (a Han Solo trilogy).

1) Why does that Falcon has that unusual shape/gap in the front?  I figured it was some kind of docking mechanism, after all the ship is referred to as a freighter.  It must dock, and be able to store freight.  Actually, this also made me wonder why they stored the coaxium in the smuggling compartments, as would think they would have a storage hold.  I would think the smuggling compartments were something that wouldn't be revealed by Lando so easily.

2) Where were the escape pods launched from that the officer mentioned after capturing the Falcon on the Death Star.  I've always figured they had to be originally on the projections on either side of the Falcon, one of which is just above the boarding ramp.

3)I would have expected that there would have been more to the game in which Han won the Falcon. And I wouldn't have thought Han would say he won her (the Falcon) fair and square in Empire, as being Lando was cheating in the game.

4)  How did Han get together with Chewbacca?  This is a back story I have imagined a long time ago, and a bit too long to add to this overblown rant.

5)  Why did Han say he made the Kessel Run in less than 12 par secs.  This film pretty much handles that as well as explanation I have previously heard or come up with.

6) Why can Han understand Chewbacca?  This film actually made the situation worse, as it didn't explain it, but made Han be able to speak Wookie with no explanation what so ever.  It also makes it seem weird the Han never speaks Wookie in the original trilogy.  I always assumed that Wookie vocal cords could not accommodate Basic (English) sounds, and "human" vocal cords could not create Wookie language sounds.

7) The origin of Han's last name.  This wasn't a question anyone was asking, though the answer is okay, but everyone else, except for Luke / Anakin has a name without meaning in English.

It seem odd that all all of these questions were covered in one film.  I find it hard to believe that all of these events happen in the space of a few days.  It makes it seem like Han only had the Falcon for a few days before he met Luke and Obi-Wan.  I would think that he had the Falcon for years, or even a decade before he met them.  I think the original Han Solo Trilogy was more suitable for a time frame, though those stories were lacking though greatly appreciated at the time, as there was VERY little available for supplemental Star Wars stories, prior to 1991.

This film also dove into the nearly previously Star Trek exclusive territory of technobabble, with their explanation of how they could integrate the droids navigation ability into the Falcon.  If the a navigation computer (which is mentioned in the original Star Wars) were vital to entering hyperspace, why wouldn't they have integrated that into the ship when she was designed.  It does make me wonder if that also accounts the necessity of astromechs being in X-wings and Y-Wings, though other ships seem to do fine without them.

Also, there was a some huge space octopus in the middle of the kessel run. This makes no sense to have a creature living the desolation of space, but it's hard to justify the space slug in Empire either, though it at least had a asteroid to live on.  There have been several media franchise that have creature that exist in the vacuum of space, which is impossible and getting more intolerable with each recurrence.

I have head that Johnnath Kasdan, after the film was released, said that Lando is pan sexual.  Is he a replicant as well???  Also, if I screw a sex doll, would that make me pan sexual???  I wish they would leave their ridiculous after that fact concepts out of their interviews.  Adding in this ridiculous 2017's earth concept detracts from the film.  In fact, I was rather surprised to see Lando so caring of a droid, considering how dismissive he was of Threepio when first introduced to him on Cloud City, so it seems out of character.  I have no problem with LGBT people having complete freedom to do as they wish, and having such character in media. If you want to make your original characters any type race, orientation or whatever, go head, but don't take established characters and alter them to fit trendy concepts.  This goes for the new Star Trek films making Sulu gay.  I LOVE the fact that George Takei is gay and played a straight character.

Also, while Darth Maul was a great addition to the Star Wars mythos, his death in The Phantom Menace was clearly definitive, so that bringing him back is utterly ridiculous, though I realize that they wasted a good character too easily.  Still, while he was a spectacular fighter, this film makes him out to a great tactician.  Is everyone in this universe a master of every trade?  That millenial idea of being good at everything, without working to develop skills is preposterous and detracts from the stories coming out of hollywood.  Yes, I know they brought him back for the TV show Rebels, and the Clone Wars (I think), but I would hope the movies take these things a little more seriously.

I was impressed to see Anthony Daniels name in the credits, but didn't see him in the film (though a quick internet check confirmed his appearance).  Still, that makes him the only actor to be in every Star Wars film released to date.