Reviews

In one way, I'm glad I didn't find Philly until ten years after it was canceled. I knew it wouldn't last from the outset, so was saved from being disappointed when it was taken away.

I think every one of the 22 episodes was a gem; the cast was wonderful and the stories intelligently and realistically presented.

Kim Delaney was perfect as the idealistic but determined and smart defense attorney, making a difference in a seedy system.

Tom Everett Scott played her less idealistic, but equally determined partner beautifully.

Rick Hoffman played prosecutor Terry Loomis very well, but one wonders how he could remain on of the top lawyers in the DAs office when he lost so often to Delaney and Scott.

Kyle Secor as the Asst. DA and ex to Delaney was a great foil.

And Dena Detrich as the judge with a dog she brought into court supplied comic relief, but also realistic counsel to the attorneys. Much more successfully than did Robert Harper as the buffoonish Judge Haws.

I imagine after 911, audiences weren't sympathetic to legal defense. I think this show was a victim of the time it came to air.

I wanted more, that's high praise.

The person that attention should be directed to after watching "Fahrenheit 9/11" is George W. Bush, not Michael Moore. Of all of MMs documentaries, F9/11 has the least focus on its maker. This is partially due to a larger budget, but, more importantly, because Bush, the Bush Administration and Congress are the foci of the film.

Factually, the complaints I have heard are specious. I wouldn't know that Rep. Mark Kennedy (R-MN) appeared in the film except for his complaint about MM not including his statement that he had a nephew on active terrorism duty. That wasn't the question, the question was whether he had a child in the war. It has been said that MM doesn't say that Senator Johnson has a son on duty, but it is consistently stated that only one member of Congress has a son or daughter in the service. The mistatement by Michael Isakoff in "Newsweek" concerning the Saudi exodus after 9/11 have already been rebutted.

Then there are the misstatements about MMs intent. It has been said that he doesn't think we should have invaded Afghanistan. No, the truth is just the reverse. MM points out that the Bush administration didn't want to go into Afghanistan, favoring an attack on Iraq from the start. Once it was made clear to them that they couldn't ignore the country that Osama bin-Laden was in, MM points out that the endeavor was half-hearted and cut back as soon as possible. The point of the happy Iraqis before the war is to show the destruction that was wreaked on Iraq, in contradiction to the "surgical strikes" the Bush administration was propagandizing. Concerning the scenes with American soldiers during the first days of the war. These soldiers knew who they told the enemy was, it was Iraqis. That's the dirty little secret being kept, we went to war against Iraq because American pols wanted a certain ruling class to take hold, and the Bush administration didn't think the Iraqi people would do it without a military presense. The soldiers didn't sound crass or dumb, they sounded focused.

The time has passed for all Americans to take the blinders of Pentagon propaganda off and look at what has been done in our names. Michael Moore has the courage to pull back the curtain, are you courageous enough to look?

It was hard to for me to believe that, after shooting oneself in the leg, the shock and pain would allow for one to shoot himself in the chest.

But, OK (I said to myself,) let's not be a nitpicker.

Then, what is the witness to this event to do? Drive back to his friends house to ask his wife if she will be his alibi? Well, I would think he might take his buddy back to town, but filling station attendants are qualified to declare death, I guess.

The town slut that his buddy is married to is too concerned about her reputation to support him, as it turns out. Right. Wonder why he couldn't guess that and save himself a trip.

Well, what would you do next? Of course, go back, put the body in the buddies truck and push it off a convenient cliff. Everyone knows that vehicles always explode when this is done, and this one does too, though the director teases us a little about it.

Well, OK. What next? Well, the Sheriff doesn't have a medical exam done because the coroner is on vacation in that far off land, Wyoming (two or three hundred miles away.) He knew the guy was a drunk, so why question how he died? Add in that the Sheriff seems to be our hero's best friend, and one wonders why the idea that the death was a suicide would have been questioned.

That's the first four scenes, if it ever began to make more sense after that, I still might have been able to buy-in. It didn't.

In films like "Fargo" and "Pulp Fiction," the hilarity of grisly situations stem from the surprise that expected results of actions go astray. Not that the actions are hopelessly stupid to start with. In "Clay Pigeons," Joaquin Phoenix performs all these stupid acts as if he were James Bond, but Bond, at least, would let us in on the joke. Joaquin expects the audience to accept it as standard operating procedure.

Not me.

While revenge is certainly a plot mover, the McGuffin, the title tells what the film is about: people are often not what they seem to be. One-Eyed Jacks, where we see only one side of the two-faced.

The photography is beautiful, with exquisite shots of the California coast.

Brando proves that his reputation and attitude are appropriate. He knows well what movies are all about.