I'm into all sorts of movies, but my all-time favorites have to be the
ones made by the infamous Z/A/Z team (brothers Jerry and David Zucker,
and Jim Abrahams). These include Top Secret!, Airplane!: The Movie,
Airplane! II: The Sequel, Naked Gun, Naked Gun 2 1/2, Naked Gun 33
1/3, Hot Shots, and Hot Shots: Part Deux. I still crack up every time
I watch the six episodes of the ill-fated Police Squad! TV series from
the early 1980s, upon which the Naked Gun movies were based. Many of
the jokes from the Naked Gun movies were taken verbatim from the Police
Squad! episodes, and if you have a keen eye, you'll even recognize some of
the background footage as being the same film from the TV shows.
I'll never understand why Police Squad! wasn't picked up beyond the
initial six episodes. How can you not love a show which
introduces a famous celebrity as that night's "guest star", only to
routinely have that person die during the opening credits? Oh well.
Next to Z/A/Z comedies, my favorite type of movie is probably action -
especially movies with rapid-fire flight sequences. True Lies (starring
Arnold Schwarzenegger, one of approximately three Republicans in
Hollywood) is incredible on a good Dolby Surround system; Bridget Fonda
was great in Point of No Return (well, ok, she's just great in general).
I hate Jim Carrey, and can't wait for his fifteen minutes of fame to
expire, which ought to be any day now.
Movies I've seen lately:
- The American President - outstanding. I'd give it a 10 if it weren't
for the underhanded anti-conservative messages.
- Executive Decision - pretty good. I'm not much of a Steven Seagal fan,
but since he died about halfway through, the flick was tolerable.
- Twelve Monkeys - like most movies about time travel, it was confusing
and inconsistent, but still quite good.
- Leaving Las Vegas - not very good. More graphic than I thought it
would be.
- Jade - speaking of graphic. Sha-eesh. Cool cinematography with
the subliminal previews during scene changes, but otherwise pretty bad.
- Diabolique - gee, Sharon Stone cast as a cool, aloof double-crosser.
What a surprise. Decent nonetheless.
- Toy Story - incredible. Loved every minute of it.
- Up Close and Personal - decent overall, although the message I
got from it was the exact opposite of the intended message, and
some of the scenes were embarrassingly cliche.
- Spy Hard - unforgivably awful, which is a shame, given Leslie Nielson's
many other accomplishments.
- Twister - much better than the lukewarm reviews. I can't wait for
this one to come out on video to watch it on my home theatre system.
- Dragonheart - this was the first movie in a long time that
made me laugh out loud during the movie at how bad it was.
- Beavis and Butt-head Do America - awesome sound (when the theater's
THX system is working properly), some great moments, all in all a
good movie.
- One Fine Day - methinks Clooney needs to stick to TV.
- Scream - started out ok, but turned into a silly bloodbath by the end.
They ought to be sued for false advertising the way they played this
movie up to be Drew Barrymore's movie and then killed her in the first
scene.
This page is maintained by
Jeffrey S. Curtis (curtis@anl.gov)
Last updated 1/5/97
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