Reviews

Hey anyone out there like me? I grew up in Houston during the 80s and 90s but I have never, ever seen this movie all the way through. So I don't have a full review of this film since I haven't completely seen it, but I caught half of it recently on the Country Music Channel and I wanted to review the zeitgeist or vibe this movie represents, especially in relation to Houston. Plus over the years, I always had to put up with out of town visitors that would come visit me in Houston expecting a little small metro area and the fun times we all had were at a local bar/tavern with a freakin' mechanical bull.

Actually I moved to Houston from the Midwest when I was 6 years old in 1982, so this movie came out when I was still living up the north but I consider myself a Houstonian. So yeah I can't say if Houston was actually like this movie in 1980, but I can tell you I was in Houston in 1982 and while H-town was more country in the early 80s compared to the late 80s and 90s and after, it still was over exaggerated. I've seen parts of it here and there, and Debra Winger and that other brunette are hot, but this just wasn't my type of movie other then the setting was in Houston the city I mainly grew up in.

I always avoided this movie, even as a little kid b/c I knew the national perception of Houston was that we were a honky tonk town and that EVERYONE was some damn mechanical bull riding wannabee cowboy. I recently caught half of the movie (still haven't seen it all the way through) and I heard them call the characters "kickers". So that's where that term comes from!!! When I was a kid in the 80s and in high school in the 90s, there was always a clique of country/redneck types that wore cowboy outfits and they would call themselves "kickers". I had friends in Dallas who would tell me in Dallas they would call themselves "ropers". I like the name "kickers" better myself. Although you could definitely pick up an underlying racist/white trash element to these people, usually they didn't blast it. They weren't going to yell out racial slurs or beat up on anyone who wasn't white, but you could easily pick up the racial discord and big government resentment within these folks. The kickers I knew as a kid (and their parents) tended to be "honorable bigots" if you knew what I mean. They were bigots who had their own honor code, like sort of a more modern version of the "I ain't got nothing' against them, as long as they stay where they supposed to be". Overall, they were actually nice people despite this hee-haw honorable country bigot mentality.

I think I might just finally get the Blu-ray/DVD or just order this movie on Netflix and see it all the way through, H-town stereotypes and all.

No I wasn't born in the early 80s. I'm a guy that's 38 and I was born in 1975. In 1989 I remember being so excited for movies that year. Batman, Karate Kid Part III, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghostbuster 2, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, License to Kill, Back to the Future Part II, Christmas Vacation, The Wizard, there were many movies that year I really anticipated. My friends and I spent hours on our Nintendo, Sega and even that ditzy early Gameboy system.

Say Anything..., was not one of the movies I looked forward to or even remember hearing about. I don't even remember any of my friends talking about this flick. Now granted I was a young kid, but not a little kid, I was in 8th grade and 13 through most of the year, turned 14 in December. I started high school in the fall of 1989 and I don't even remember *anyone* ahead of me talking about this movie. Not. One. Single. Person. What happened? Why did I miss this supposedly great teen movie? Flash forward to the 2000s when 80s nostalgia is rampant, suddenly this film is on the top of everyone's lists as some sort of life altering game changer. Huh? Why didn't this pop up on my radar? I remember Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Lost Boys, License to Drive, but Say Anything...,just wasn't one of them. I even remember "adult romantic comedies" like When Harry Met Sally, but again not Say Anything...

Is there anyone else close to my age that never saw this movie? I've spent years avoiding this supposedly great film from the last year of the 80s b/c I've always felt like some super weirdo for being old enough and being in the right demographic to know about Say Anything...but never watching it or never EVEN HEARING ABOUT IT till the early 2000s when 80s nostalgia documentaries would air on VH1 or something.

OK I finally picked this up on Blu-ray and I'm going to finally get around watching this long admired film that slipped past my radar in a popcorn movie obsessed year of 1989. Just by the clips I've seen over the years and the cover art, there was no way in hell this film could have competed with any of the other flicks I mentioned for the person I was at that time. Go to the arcades and play the Ninja Turtle game or watch a movie about people in college in a sappy chick flick? And yes I did venture out of my usual circle of friends occasionally back then too, in the fall of 1989 and the spring of 1990 I took some classes with people older then me and did a summer camp in both 1989 and 1990 with people even 4 or 5 years older then me. NOBODY back then talked about this film. Not even the girls. It almost feels like around the early 2000s everybody decided to retcon what they watched and voted Say Anything... as THE movie that changed their lives in 1989.

Plus look at how dead this message board is. If this was truly a beloved 80s movie, it would be as jumping as Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, or Karate Kid. So if you're currently a kid of the 2010s reading this, just remember this movie is way over-hyped, not everyone watched this or even heard about this little chick flick.

I think The Goldbergs is an OK show, but that great 80s nostalgia sitcom has yet to be made. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so I know about the 80s. And this show is mediocre at best. It's not outright bad, but it's not classic TV greatness either. This show certainly is not what Happy Days (made in the 1970s and 80s but set in the 50s/early 60s) or That 70s Show (made in the 90s and 2000s but set in the 70s) were to their respective decades.

For whatever reason, it's been tough doing a show set in the 80s. I think the creators of 80s nostalgia sitcoms get way, way, WAAAY too hung up on putting in too many pop culture references and ultimately get distracted from just telling a good story that happens to take place in the 1980s.

Happy Days and That 70s Show were at their best when they stayed period correct, but did it in an understated way and stayed focused more on the characters and story, which was how real life is. In The Goldbergs, nearly everyone is "dressing 80s", the teen girls are dressing like Madonna circa 1984 and the guys are dressing like they just walked off of Miami Vice. Yes there were people that did dress like these stereotypes in North America, but that was like a small portion of the population. A proper 80s nostalgia show should take cues from That 70s Show. On That 70s Show, the characters were proper 70s clothes, but in a more understated way, not every man is wearing a leisure suit or glittery disco outfit. That 70s Show feels more like real life, how it was really. The Goldbergs, much like the failed That 80s Show from 2002 just feels like people going to an 80s themed dress up party. The best advice for this series and any future 80s and eventual 90s and 2000s shows is to not get so hung up on pop culture, have the pop culture be part of the background and tell good stories first and foremost with interesting characters.

This is how I would have started a show like The Goldbergs: I would have started an 80s show like The Goldbergs as early as 1982, but no later then 1984, and then just let it run from there. I wouldn't start a series in 1980 b/c it might not feel "80s 80s" enough for most people with all the left over late 70s vibe still around, but by 1981 or 1982 you had MTV, Ronald Reagan and enough 80s mentality and fashion to be legitimately feel like the 80s. If you go too deep into the 80s then you are catching the tail end of the decade where stuff was already dying out. Plus the heart and soul of the real 1980s was during the 1982-'85 time anyways. As great as playing Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt on that old 8 bit Nintendo was in 1989 and watching Batman in the theaters in 1989, real 80s kids know that the late 80s wasn't the meat and potatoes of the decade. The true 80s was like around 1984. Plus the Nintendo Power Glove from 1989 sucked, I don't know why Adam Goldberg is so big on that.

I would let the 80s pop culture be the background for the series not the forefront running gag of the show. I would write good stories with interesting characters that just happen to take place around 1982-'84. I would keep the fashions more understated, it's OK if maybe every once in while you have a girl dress like Madonna circa 1983-'85, but if you have EVERY girl dress like Madonna then it's ridiculous. Once the show is a hit, you can start to forget about trying to stay perfectly accurate to what year did what song or TV show came out, as long as it's within a year or two of whenever the show is supposed to take place and not wildly off.

That 70s Show had 70s fashions, but they tried to stay more realistic, not every dude was walking around in a leisure suit or glittery disco outfit. Now a series like Happy Days did get super fake as the show went on and eventually forgot about it's 1950s setting, but when Happy Days started out, it went for realism. An 80s nostalgia show should take cues from other nostalgia shows like Happy Days (1950s), The Wonder Years (late 1960s/early 70s) or That 70s Show.

If an 80s series with my formula is a huge hit like That 70s Show or Happy Days, then eventually people will even forget that it's a nostalgia show and that by this time the characters should be existing in like 1991 or something, it would just be a long running hit series about interesting characters that started around 1982-'84.

'nuff said.

In the remake, the actors are always the actors. There's Wil Smith's kid, Jaden Smith. There's Jackie Chan playing himself, just a little more somber.

In the original the actors became the characters. Daniel and Mr. Miyagi are legendary and the film is far superior to the 2010 remake which was just a star vehicle for Jaden Smith.

Who cares if a little kid gets beat up anyway? When you're in elementary school, getting into fights is not that big a deal and it's still OK for a teacher or other adult to come and stop the fight. But a high school kid getting beat up and defending his manhood is a way more interesting and powerful story. They can't even do sequels to the Jaden Smith movie now that he's grown like 4 or 5 inches and looks like some big black muscular thug. No one will believe a kid like Jaden Smith will get harassed.

Plus I never saw any Oscar nominations for Jackie Chan.

I saw this at Best Buy today and I decided to pick it up, I have never seen or heard of "Jake" before, nor played the game obviously. Jake is the ultimate player, and fantasy for many guys. Jake is supremely confident with lots game and most importantly well equipped to handle rejection. He plays the club scene a lot, and as you will see in the flick, he gets rejected plenty of times, but plays "the law of averages". If he was playing baseball he would be "batting .450". I mean if he approaches 10 women and gets rejected 6 times, that means there were FOUR times where he scored right? So goes his player thinking. You can't argue with his results. This animated film has plenty of moments that will at least a bring a smile to your face, and a few laughs too. It's not laugh out loud funny or engrossing, but it will keep you fairly entertained. Plus it's always cool watching animated people have sex.

The film does feel slightly dated, and I sensed this as I watched it. So it's no surprise coming here and finding out it's from 2003 and not '07 or '08. It's certainly not super dated like it's from 1985 or even 1995, it still feels relatively modern. But you can pick up a real 2000 or '01 feel to this movie. Like it came from the 1998-'03 era, where people still said "booty call" and "da bomb" with the total intent of sounding hip and cool with those phrases. Today old ladies walk around saying "booty call", so it's sorta lost it's cool power as it entered into the mainstream vocabulary. And Jake called one of his friends his "wing man", that's a Top Gun reference from 1986 that older teenagers and 20 somethings would have found hilarious in the early 2000s, but would probably go over the head of the current young party crowd in 2008. Thus is the fickle nature of American pop culture.

Anyways this movie is definitely worth taking a look into.

We are living in 2008, not 1989 or 1995. It used to be that Homer and Marge were these 37 year old parents with a family of three that often reminisced about their days as teenagers and young adults in the 70s. But as we live in real time, the 37 year olds of today were 18 in 1989 and college aged 21 or 22 year olds in 1993. It's bizarre beyond belief to see Homer and Marge being "grunge kids", when the heyday of The Simpsons was IN the 1990s, where Bart and Lisa grew up in that youth culture. Heck, technically Bart Simpson is a complete product of the late 80s, his "don't have a cow", buzz hair cut and skateboard obsession is all 80s. We can stretch Homer and Marge into the early 80s, possibly even 1984 or 1985, and see them listening to stuff like Asia, The Police or other early early 80s stuff instead of their usual 60s or 70s flair. But I'm sorry the 90s? Doesn't work. Will NEVER work. This is like doing a Growing Pains reunion where the Seaver parents remember being college kids in the 80s, or a Leave it to Beaver episode where the Cleaver parents remember how they were the youth in the 1950s. The Simpsons have officially jumped the shark with this episode. This was the nail in the coffin, it's over. I don't care if real 37 year olds were kids back in the 90s. Plus this episode just makes everyone feel too damn old.

The Rocky movies have always been products of their times, and Rocky V is no different. The story is unbelievably stupid, but what makes this film truly wretched for me is the corny 1990 pop cultural references. 1990 was a sh*tty, sh*tty year. M.C. Hammer, Andrew Dice Clay, New Kids on the Block, Arsenio Hall, Milli Vanilli, a lousy President with Bush Sr. and a terrible movie called Rocky V. Believe me, I'm well into my 20's and old enough to remember 13-14 years ago very clearly. 1990 was a year that wasn't really the late 80's, but it was caught in a bizzare limbo time where the 1990's was still in it's embryonic stages of development and not fully there. So what you had was lots of ugly left over neon and silly grungy fashions thrown together in a forgettable collage or mush of pop culture. And some VERY EMBARRASSING club dance and rap songs. Remember C&C Music Factory? *shudder*, ugghhh...

Back to the movie, the story picks up immediatley after Part IV, which would keep the film in 1985, but it's 1990 and his son has visibly aged 5 years as has everyone else. Whatever. After the repeated and very brutal beatings to the head that Rocky received from Ivan Drago in Part IV, Rocky now has brain damage. What a surprise? Rocky was an idiot that couldn't even read in the first movie, then he became super smart and cultured in III and IV. But at least in the first movie he was a lovable idiot, in Rocky V, Balboa is just a complete moron. Balboa has also lost all the money and fame he had in III and IV and now he's back in the poor house as a bum just like in the first movie from the mid 1970's. Obviously, Sylvester Stallone wanted to capture the heart and feel of the first movie, but he failed miserably. This is an embarrassing film, much like Karate Kid Part III. The Don King like villain and the new upcoming fighter Tommy Gunn are just flat out stupid.

This movie was released in 1990, and it never helped Rocky V that EVERYTHING in this movie looked horribly outdated by late 1991. The the other films, while contexualized in their own time as well, were more stylish and timeless. Sure Rocky III and IV screams 80's as does I and II the 70's, but they were all in a good way. Rocky V just stinks.

I missed this reunion special when it came out 2 years ago, I didn't even know that a Facts of Life reunion was even done. But I managed to catch it on the ABC Family channel recently. Well, it was odd. I had a bunch of mixed feelings watching this. First off, I want to echo another reviewer by saying that this movie did make me feel OLD. I'm a Gen Xer that was born in the 1970's, so the 80's were my childhood. So seeing these teenage girls that I remember from the 80's as now these "grown ups" in their 30's with children of their own gave me a funky out of touch feeling with reality. Extra funky when I remind myself that this movie was made some 2+ years ago, I guess it's because I'm getting closer to the age of 30 with each passing year and losing my own youth.

Natalie (the fat girl) is juggling two boyfriends and pondering marriage. She's still fat, and looking at least 45 years old. It was VERY HARD to believe that those two studly guys would fight over Natalie. Are there really two guys out there that would fight over the rights to have sex with actress Mindy Cohen? They could have cast a couple of believable loserly looking dudes who may actually want to fight over her, but hey it's a Disney movie. Two hot studly men want her. I missed Jo and Andy, and several of the other characters. But it was nice to see the characters that were included in the movie again, but the story was boring and the main plot point was unintentionally funny. This was an early 80's teen reunion movie. If they ever did a Saved by the Bell reunion for the early 1990's along the lines of the FOL film, then it would be like making Screech the main character and having these two supermodel chicks fight over Screech/actor Dustin Diamond.

I remember when I was a little kid back in 1987 I was so fascinated by "Werewolf", a very well made TV series by then newborn FOX network. The premise of the show rang familiar, a lone good guy wanders the country helping people, always on the run from the law. This brings back memories of "The Fugitive". Ofcourse, said lone good guy who was named Eric Cord also uncontrollably transforms into a massively frightening werewolf beast. This harkens back to "The Incredible Hulk" TV series.

Eric Cord is a typical college student who is told by his roommate Ted that he is a werewolf and must be killed. Eric doesn't believe him until he sees Ted actually transform into a werewolf and Eric is forced to kill him with the silver bullet that Ted gave him. Sadly, Eric is bitten, and the curse is passed onto him. Eric must then track down the head werewolf and kill him or her to break the curse. Cord is a wanted fugitive for killing his roommate Ted, and a tough as nails bounty hunter named Alamo Joe Rogan is relentlessly on his trail. Rogan grew up thinking that he could stand up to anything if he could look it in the eye,...if he could look it in the eye that is. So part of Rogan's obsession is confronting Eric's werewolf, and his own fear of the one thing in the world that momentarily scared Rogan sh*tless and made him "blink"---seeing that terrifying werewolf. The special effects by Rick Baker were OUTSTANDING for a TV series made in 1987.

The main difference with Eric Cord and Dr. Banner was that, you knew that the Hulk would never intentionally kill anyone. Even if people attacked the Hulk, he would never kill them. Toss them 20 feet through the air maybey, but "Hulk no kill". A werewolf is a different story. And with Eric Cord's werewolf, there was ALWAYS the lurking menace of his werewolf killing innocents, not just the "bad guys". And in some episodes, Eric's werewolf actually did kill some innocent people. It was clear that towards the end of the 1st season, that Eric was not as in control of his beast as he was in the beginning. (losing control of the werewolf was something his friend Ted warned him about). Unfortunately, the FOX network in all it's grand stupidity decided to cancel "Werewolf" in 1988 after just one measely season and replaced it with that idiot program called "It's the Gary Shandling Show".

The only weak spot about "Werewolf" was that it was only 30 minutes long an episode, when it really should have been a full hour long. This show preceded WB's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" by 10 years, and FOX will never live down canceling this great series.

"Star Trek Voyager" is one of the worst TV shows EVER CREATED. This show just flat out sucks. This show is so dumb and so magnificently stupid, that I can't even believe it ran for 7 long years. It's a freaking joke how terrible Voyager is. Now be careful on how much Voyager you watch though, you're sure to lose some grey matter. Studies have shown that repeated watching of Voyager has caused drastic drops in IQ levels. You have been WARNED. If you look up "moron" or "idiotic" in the dictionary, you will see a picture of a Voyager fan.

Like a lot of you here, I grew up in the 1980's (born in 1978) and I have been catching the reruns of Knight Rider on the Sci-Fi channel. I'm also pretty shocked at how goofy the show is compared to how I remembered it as a kid. Not much in this series makes sense, and hardly any of the story lines will captivate you. I can barely sit through an episode and it's only loyalty to my childhood that even has me watching the show in reruns. One thing that bothers me is that opening credit intro sequence. It's very MISLEADING to the tone and content of the series. The opening credits with KITT racing across a purple tinted desert is VERY COOL, and it implies a dark and menacing series that exists in a sinister hi-tech world. The universe of Michael Knight, "a man that does not exist" seems to be like that of Tim Burton's Batman or the recently released Daredevil, where anything can lunge out at you from dark and shadowy corners. But when you watch an episode of Knight Rider, you realize that it's NOTHING like the opening credits. Not even close. The show is more like an episode of Superfriends or Gilligan's Island. You might as well have the Skipper be the one driving KITT and calling him his "little buddy". The show fails to deliver on the evil world that is promised in the opening credits, and that is something that has always annoyed the hell out of me about Knight Rider.

What a great time the early 1990's were. It was still cool to wear some late 80's fashions like neon, tight acid washed jeans, (and unfortunately mullets), but at the same time NO ONE DARED use any 80's lingo like "radical", "fer sure" or "gag me with a spoon". And Grunge was just beginning with the youth of America.. I really love the Goth/early Grunge look of the girlfriend in this movie. I remember several girls had that look back in the early 90's.

"Pump up the Volume" gets the very early 90's down pretty accurately. And the message of this film still holds up, even if the fashions and music are dated. The teen angst is so on target in this film. This is one of Christian Slater's best films. I highly recommend it.

8/10

If you want to see a bunch of ugly long haired hippie bums playing their s****y 1960's folky ballad type music, then watch this terrible film. Here's the gist of the story---basically these hippies gather up in a place called Woodstock and get naked in the mud while they sing and play their f***** up music. To be fair I guess these dudes were cool back in the 60's.

Anyway this movie sucks, and only holds nostalgic value for the old ass Baby Boomers that were actually there. In the 1990's it was sad us seeing Gen Xer teenagers trying to give some lame tribute to the Boomers by holding two Woodstock kind of events, one in 1994 and another in 1999.

I graduated high school in 1996, so I was only a few years younger then the characters on this show. The 90210 series really brings back memories of middle school and high school for me. I grew up with these characters.

But admittedly, this show was fake and campy. It was fake back then, and it's even more stupid now. But most teen shows are pretty stupid. The only teen show of the 90's that comes to mind that wasn't campy was "My So Called Life", but unfortunately that never made it beyond one year. Though I'd take 90210 over any of it's Late 90's/early 00's succesors like "Dawson's Creek", "Felicity", or "Popular". At least 90210 never pretended to be anything but a silly teen soap opera. DC actually takes itself seriously, but it doesn't have the realism of show like MSCL. 90210, was always good fun. It still is.

This TV show to the movie wasn't bad at all. It wasn't stellar, but it was fairly interesting, and sometimes cool. I used to be very pumped to watch this show back in 1986 when I was in 3rd grade. Here's the gist of the TV series---The Alien returns to Earth and takes up a new human form, this time the body of a dead photographer named Paul Forrester. Paul/The Alien then finds his son Scott. Though how his son aged 14 years in 2 years is beyond me. The movie took place in 1984, this TV series took place in 1986, so the age difference in the kid always baffled me. For a while I thought the kid just aged quickly, being half alien and all. But it was clear that the TV series ignored some key elements of the movie and constantly says the Alien's first visit as happening "14 years ago", aka 1972, not 1984.

Anyway, this was a good show. Though why Paul/The Alien was always searching for Jenny/His wife was confusing to me. So you find the mom and then what? I don't remember all the details of the series, but I do know that it ended on a boring note. They find the mother, and the show ended bam like that. After just one year. Very depressing. I thought this series had a lot more potential, but it never lived up to it. "Starman" basically worked like "The Incredible Hulk", with Paul/The Alien and his son Scott going from town to town looking for Jenny and helping out some strange goobers along the ways.

By the way, I heard Sci-Fi Channel has started airing this series at night on the weekends. Check your local listings.

Don't waste your time watching "Star Trek: Voyager", it's one of the WORST shows ever aired on television. The series is BEYOND MENTAL and you may lose brain cells by actually watching this trash. The show has a stupid Gilligan's Island premise, lame technobabble solutions to every god damn problem (let's use Borg technology to reconfigure the isomatrix shields), and they used the most untalented, crappiest actors they could find. Oh and I couldn't stand that retard Neelix, he was worse then Jar Jar Binks.

"The Secret of My Success" is a fairly decent comedy from the '80s with Michael J. Fox as a young guy trying to move up in the executive world. But I'll be honest, the limo scene with actress Margaret Whitton is one of my favorite scenes of all time. She's got a great set of legs and some really sexy feet. When she shows them off for us in the limo scene, I am in foot fetish Heaven.

Margaret Whitton, who played the boss's oversexed wife who seduces Fox (and turns out to be his Aunt too), is a very pretty actress and she still looked good as an older woman in her 40s in the few movies she did in the '90s. Funny, she was only 36 when she did this movie, but her character is always complaining about being old so she beds the 24 year Brantley played by Fox. I always wonder what happened to this talented, and beautiful actresss. She seems to have just dissappeared from the radar.

"Top Gun" has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. It's not a great movie by any means, it ain't even a good movie. Out of 4 stars I'd give it 2. The story is cliched and weak, the acting kinda lame, but the aerial dog fights more then make up for the shortcomings of this movie. They are simply amazing!

This movie is also a guilty pleasure of mine because it has always had the rep of being a "White boy" movie. I don't know why, and I don't know why all the White guys have historically loved this film. I suppose it's because the film shows a bunch of macho White dudes struttin' their stuff in the air, I dunno. Wait there was that one Black dude pilot, but he didn't get much air time. Obviously, you've figured out that I ain't White, so it's been embarrassing that I have such a weakness for this film. Whenever it comes on, I watch it and I feel guilty for loving this. I remember years ago in the early '90s when I was a teen, some friends of mine came over and saw "Top Gun" in my movie collection and remarked that was a White boy movie. I felt bad, but I don't care, I still like it. The aerial dog fights are the DA BOMB, and the '80s hard rock soundtrack kicks ass. Kicks ass in that good old fashioned White boy way, hehe just kidding.

Like I said the story is corny and kinda weak, the acting ain't that good, and the film has always had a rep of being the biggest White boy movie around. But the dog fights are so damn fucking good that I never gived a shit what people thought. I like Top Gun and always have since it came out in 1986 when I was just 8 years old. Hey I guess I have a little White boy in me, but it's all good and nothing to be too ashamed of. :)

This show sucked, and Dean Cain was a joke as Superman. What was he 5'2? Get real. The writing was piss poor and the stories were no better. Cain looked pretty awful flying around with that fake looking costume of his.

The other actors were no better and there was far too much girly qualities about this show and not enough oomph and action. Stay away from this '90s version of Superman and stick to the comics and movies.

I got to tell you that reading some of these comments posted here makes me feel freakin' ready to check into the retirement home and get a cane and walker. I'm 24 years old and I graduated high school in 1996, so I was just a few years younger then the SBTB kids that graduated high school in 1993. Those kids were the seniors when I was a freshmen, so I never saw this show in the same way as most of you teenage kids that were in pre-school or elementary school back then do now.

You guys talk about "Saved by the Bell" like it's sooooooo retro and old school and it's as old as "The Brady Bunch" or "Gilligan's Island". I mean the show did last until '94 to show us a year of the gang in college. It ain't that old school and retro. Sheesh. I suppose I'm having a hard time dealing with getting older and realizing that generation gaps can actually run two ways, LOL. I guess if I roll it back 10 years from my perspective, I probably do think of early-mid '80s teen TV shows like "Facts of Life" in the same old school way you teenagers think of a 1989/early-mid '90s teen show like SBTB.

Anyway, this was a stupid but good show. But obviously I see this show very differently from bulk of the current teenage fanbase of SBTB.

"Christine" is a great little movie that never gets the praise and credit it deserves. This film tells the tale of nerdy Arnie Cunnigham and his only friend Dennis. One day Arnie buys an old 1958 Chevy and becomes obssesed with it. The car is alive and has a mind of it's own with a clearly malevolent personality, and after a while the car infuses Arnie with so much confidence he becomes super cool. Then car changes Arnie into a downright ass, and he becomes like the bullies that were bullying him before. Soon everyone that endangers Arnie or the car has a death mark on their head.

Much has been said about Keith Gordon's performance of Arnie, and let me continue to praise his job here. It's magnificent. Gordon NAILS the role of the unconfident Arnie Cunnigham. I think that's one reason people love his acting job here, Gordon doesn't overact or give an unreal performance of a nerd (see Urkel and Screech). While nerds have been portrayed in other movies and TV shows, usually they are over acted nerds. Most nerdy and loserly people don't act as stupid as Urkel, Horshack, or Screech. I've met plenty of unconfident losers in my day, and never have they acted as over exaggerated and silly as Steve Urkel, Screech Powers or Arnold Horshack. Keith Gordon seems to know that and he underplays the nerd role, which is why it comes across so damn real and effective. I don't think anyone's ever met a nerd as exaggerated and fake as Steve Urkel, but we've all met plenty of Arnie Cunnighams.

Loserly people DO act as scared, nervous, and unconfident as Arnie Cunnigham does in this film. And Gordon's complete 180 from nerd to cool guy is just as believable. It was amazing to watch this once unconfident loser be this super cool guy. Truly, truly genius performance. If there ever was award for "Most believable Nerd", Keith Gordon should win that hands down. Great performance and fantastic movie.

This show is soooooooo UNDERRATED. It's just a sin how underrated "The Greatest American Hero" is. This is truly a great show. The characters of Ralph, Bill and Pam are so fun to watch together. The series was side split-tingly funny, and it had a warmth and lightheartedness that the whole family could enjoy. Who didn't laugh whenever Ralph would be caught in public wearing that kinky looking red super suit? The Greatest American Hero is one of TV's forgotten gems, I wish TV Land or Sci-Fi Channel would air this great series from the '80s.

The actors from this series can still be found in public sight occasionally. You'll see Connie Sellecca and even Robert Culp pop a few times in projects here and there. Sellecca got some fame for her cosmetics line, doing a string of Lifetime made for TV flicks, and being married to the obnoxious cornball John Tesh. Sellecca still looks young and gorgeous. Robert Culp looks nice and presentable for his age.

But the star of this series, William Katt, has all but disappeared. If you research Katt you'll find that he made a career of doing endless B-movies that would make Erik Estrada envious. William Katt deserved better, he was not a lousy actor by any means, he always got a bad rap from the general public for doing Hero. Adam West, Erik Estrada, Roy Rogers, the dad from Happy Days, now those are terrible actors who deserved every bit of "has-been" status bestowed on them. But Katt was entertaining and could carry his own, the man seemed like a serious thespian (he seemed to take his Hero role seriously and played GAH strait) but he either chose to or was forced into a career of cheapo films and forgettable roles. Shame. I'm still waiting for the alternative post-grunge punk song dedicated to William Katt, somewhere someday some garage band will do it.

This was basically a pretty good show, Michael Landon played an angel named Jonathan and Victor French played his human friend Mark. Together both of them would travel around helping other people and doing God's work. That was all nice and great, but about half way through, things became really retarded.

An example of the kind of dumb stuff I'm talking about was that episode where Michael Landon saves a fat chick from eating a box of donuts by herself. That was just plain stupid. They actually devoted an entire episode to Landon talking a fat chick out of eating a giant box of donuts all by herself. The show went totally downhill from there on out.