Reviews

"It Could Happen To You" rates a big 10 on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the best. This movie is one of the best in its genre.

If anyone wants to see a movie that will boost their spirit, this movie will do that for you.

Ms. Fonda was perfect as the sweet and innocent woman who shared the lotto winnings with Mr. Cage's cop character. I really felt as if though I was standing there witnessing everything that they were going through as if it had all really happened in real life.

That is one of the marks of a very well made movie.

I will look on this website for the writers, directors of "It Could Happen To You" and see what other movies they have created since then.

As of today the movie "Hannibal" is the number 1 movie.

That says a lot about America. Scary.

Remember just a few years ago it was "Beavis and Butthead"? And right after that it was the dark "American Beauty". Americans are a little too fascinated with their dark side. Maybe they are fed up with their lives. The humdrum.

Well movies like "It Could Happen To You" are the remedy to getting America out of its dark movie rut.

I never did like the way "Northern Exposure" ended. Why are creator's of successful television shows and movies afraid of happy and believable endings?

The end of NE with Rob Morrow had him walking through some wilderness in Alaska and stepping into Manhattan! What was that all about? A little over done on the fantasy part. To top all, he leaves Maggie behind.

Here is the way I think "Northern Exposure" should have ended. First off, Dr. Joel Fleischman fulfills his contractual obligations to Maurice and the little town of Cicely and establishes a very successful practice in Manhattan.

Of course the man marries Maggie O'Connell and they live in a nice apartment next to Central Park and have two kids. One a boy that looks a lot like Joel. The other a girl who obviously looks like Maggie. The rest of Maggie's dreams and aspirations are fulfilled marrying Joel and living the good life in the city of New York.

The town of Cicely gets a happy and dedicated doctor couple and staff who run the new clinic that was built and named after Maurice Minnifield with his gracious endowment.

Sadly, Maurice finds he has terminal cancer and the man does a complete about face with his greed and riches. So, Maurice becomes the complete opposite of the character he was on the show. He realizes he has led a successful and fulfilled life and wants to die happy and leave those who were always close to him happy. Maurice leaves his house to his close friend Holling Vincoeur and Shelly Tambo Vincoeur and their little daughter who stay in Cicely keeping the Brick in business. The Brick is now a major tourist attraction for the town.

Maurice also leaves a very generous amount for the movie making aspirations of Ed Chigliak who attends one of the best film schools on the West Coast. Ed later becomes the creator of some of the country's most successful films that have an environmental and Native American theme throughout. Films that are both suspenseful and thought provoking.

Maurice leaves another big chunk of his money to help out Disabled American Veterans. Another big part goes to Native American social concerns in Alaska and the Northwest that is overlooked by a Tribal council that is headed by Marilyn Whirlwind.

Chris Stevens with his insightful commentary and through Maurice's connections gets a job at a radio station in Seattle or San Francisco or in New England. His radio show, liked by many through out the country for raising the environmental and social consciousness of North America, becomes nationally syndicated on NPR.

Adam and Eve with their one healthy kid, are living off the land in Alaska as Adam is the head of a popular Green movement in the state. He works out of his office in his log cabin home. They do a lot of traveling through out the world raising environmental concerns and issues.

Ruth-Anne stays as the proud owner of her little five and dime in Cicely and lives well into her nineties with Walt.

See? That was not so difficult. It would have to be such an ending as this, so as to keep with Northern Exposure's positive sense of community. Now if only the rest of America would wake up.

Like the wimpy and nerdy "Ed" is supposed to be better?

I hope that all of the people who put "Freaks and Geeks" together are onto bigger and better things.

That this show was able to reach new levels of believability and humor in this type of TV show, well that says a lot about the makers of "Freaks and Geeks".

High school was exactly like this for me and like the characters in the movie "Dazed and Confused". Very believable.

I even had some guy who'd bully me around like the "Alan" character in F&G that picked on Weir and his geeky friends. We later became friends, but sadly the man would later die an alcoholic in his early thirties.

Just saw the 7 episode "Freaks and Geeks" marathon that was on this weekend. I had not seen the "Make-Out Party" episode. That was one well written and funny show.

I remember feeling a little awkward, but still having a girlfriend (my steady, at least for awhile) who looked like "Cindy Saunders" in high school, she wasn't a cheerleader, but she was still popular.

This is an excellent TV show. Funny and great to watch with its perfect mix of drama and humor. I am glad "Freaks and Geeks" is in syndication.

This is sort of a small tribute to the show.

It is too bad that this show is no longer being made. NBC should have used the "carrot and stick" approach with the creators and maybe the show would still be on. Instead, NBC gave them so much money that they just cut and ran. Sort of like "we'll give you millions and millions of dollars to do a short run series and then you guys can go". Which is what happened.

I am like some of the others here on this post who said that they did not really watch "Seinfeld". It took several weeks to catch on to the characters to get to like the show. Even in re-runs "Seinfeld" is still very funny.

Those people who say they do not like the show because it's about nothing are lying to themselves. They love it. They just cannot believe that someone could have been so successful with the show's premise.

You could tell after Larry David quit "Seinfeld" the difference in the shows humor and pacing. And I saw some movie Larry David made right after...stinkola. I think it was called "Sour Grapes". Maybe some sort of comment on life after "Seinfeld"?

It is extremely difficult to find anything on TV that even comes close to "Seinfeld". There just isn't any. This website suggests "Friends". Please. I think I just might throw up. "Friends" is just another of the cookie cutter sit-coms. After watching "Seinfeld", I cannot watch any sit-com, because it is just not the same. The others just fall way short of making any noticeable effort to put on some truly original humor.

I think that in a couple of years, one of the Turner cable stations will have the syndication rights to "Seinfeld". I hope that they will honor the show by always putting the show on from its first show to the last without skipping the order because a big part of the successful formula for "Seinfeld" was that the show had a distinct timeline. The way it is being aired now, on one day you'll see a show that aired in 1990 then the next day they have one on that originally aired in 1995. That really stinks.

Oh well. To all of you dyed-in-the-wool "Seinfeld" fans here is a little trivia I came across on the web.

An anagram for "Seinfeld" is "snideelf". One last one for "Jerry Seinfeld" is "friendly jeers".

Cheers to all of the creators, contributors, writers, producers, etc. of the greatest TV comedy ever.

You got some kids cruising in a BMW sport coupe at night on a very dark road, they hit a pedestrian. It could happen to anyone.

What? There was no such thing as cell phones just 3 years ago in 1997? Obviously, these are public school kids, because no one taught them what to do in case of an emergency.

Dial 911. Movie over.

"That's Life" (CBS Saturdays) is one of the best television shows I've seen for sometime. Heather Paige Kent is great as the lead actor "Lydia". She is also one of the prettiest women on primetime.

The working-class Italian-American characters portrayed on this show and the storylines are very believable. They grow on you, not in a corny endearing manner, but one where the viewer can immediately relate to all of the great characters and the storylines of this well written and well made show.

Ellen Burstyn and Paul Sorvino as Lydia's Mom and Dad do not look out of place on this show and they both play convincing roles.

"That's Life" will not leave you feeling like you've been pandered to the way some other new show about a genetically enhanced superwoman does. I think that show (Dark Angel) is just cheap thrills on TV. If you want that, go to a movie on Tuesday night.

"That's Life" is an excellent combination of both drama and comedy. The only thing working against it is that it is scheduled for Saturdays on CBS. So, it's worth the effort to program your machine if you have to go out next Saturday night.

Mimic is the perfect title for this movie, because it is "mimicking" the ideas from the classic and all original sci-fi thriller movie "Alien" (1979).

Don't see "Mimic" first if you have never seen "Alien", because this movie will ruin "Alien" for you.

And if you have already seen "Alien" but not "Mimic", I strongly recommend you don't bother with "Mimic" because it will make you wince at how bad a take-off "Mimic" is of the classic movie "Alien".

Obviously, "Mimic" is aimed at the movie audience born after 1979, but take it from me kids, the movie "Alien" and its equally fantastic sequel are like the difference between finding a million bucks (Alien & Aliens) or a wadded up one dollar bill you find in a roach infested gutter (Mimic).

"Magnolia" looks and feels a lot like the movies "Grand Canyon" with Danny Glover and Kevin Kline and "Falling Down" with Michael Douglas as the laid-off engineer who flips out and goes on a rampage. All three of these movies are set in Los Angeles.

"Magnolia" is a good movie, however I do have a few arguments about it. Whether the writer/director intended to or not, he portrays Anglo-Americans in his movie as being the only Americans who have serious morality issues to resolve. The life experience of Black-Americans living in Los Angeles in this movie is clearly dismissed.

This is symbolized in the movie when the writer/director reduces the Black experience in America to that of a little black kid in the movie "Magnolia" singing an incoherent rap song as the only way the kid can communicate to a white Los Angeles policeman about a crime the little kid may know about. Naturally, the white cop ignores the little kid. Later, the same policeman does not pay much attention to a suspicious looking guy in a brown jacket running through heavy rain in the kid's neighborhood.

If the black kid in this movie has anything to say, it is not as critical to the white experience of life being represented in this movie. Everyone should be well aware by now that Hollywood has always relied on stereotypes to belittle the Black experience in America. Why else would the writer/director of "Magnolia" have the little kid sing a rap song to the white cop in an obvious reference to the days of Black vaudeville?

Also, two of the African-Americans in this movie, of which there are only three (in Los Angeles?), are portrayed as disturbed or insignificant characters whose only refuge from a hard life in LA is crime. Witness the same little black kid later in the movie when he takes a load of cash from the purse of an Anglo woman (Julianne Moore) he finds passed out inside of her top-of-the-line Mercedes parked in the pouring rain. The other African-American character portrayed is a poor and obese woman who has a dead body in her closet and the other a dispassionate African-American female newscaster who is interviewing the character played by Tom Cruise.

Of course, when the main characters in this movie, who are upper-class whites, have some major frustrations to express, it's okay for them to contort their faces and blow a gasket, curse at family and strangers in public and private, or steal money from their employer (with conscience intact), or preach misogyny (without a conscience) to angry white men, as three of the main characters in this movie will do.

If anything is being said in this movie, it is that some people who reside in Southern California are amoral and tend to lead grossly immoral lives and like to wallow in their guilt. I hope that the writer/director of "Magnolia" does not feel this way about all of American society.