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micky2000
Reviews
Savages (1974)
Griffith got his start as a bad guy
Andy Griffith got his start playing a bad guy in "A Face in the Crowd." Don't miss that one since it is one of the earlier films on the role of the media in politics. It also shows the way politicians use the good old boy image to mask the Machiavellian schemer beneath, e.g. Reagan, Clinton and Bush 2.
Griffith had also just played a very bad dude in "Pray for the Wildcats" where he causes the death of two teenagers because the female rejects his dirty-old-man seduction attempts.
This film sticks pretty close to the Robb White original novel (which I got in grade school in the scholastic books weekly reader program in the early 70's). I was very excited to see a movie version since I had just read the novel. The description of the effects of deadly dehydration in the desert are not realized in the movie since to be realistic would have required some serious make-up effects work.
Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Cheers for the non-heroes
Some may not like him because his character is so repellant, but Michael Hogan as Colonel Paul Tigh is one of the show's most compelling characters and a real scene stealer. If the series continues, and if the producers don't soften the tone, Hogan has the potential to make Tigh one of those characters you hate to love as Dennis Franz did on NYPD Blue. His alcoholic rage at Starbuck is a nice moment, but even better is his denial of personnel to help the new President and the refugees. He is imperious, by-the-book, technically correct, but morally suspect. This is the kind of richness of character we can hope for in a future series.
Overall the series is far superior to the original which had such cheesy production values and worse, sappy formulaic scripting. The willingness in this new series to have real moral dilemmas that sometimes lead to realistically unhappy endings for some characters is very promising.
Yes, the premise itself is old--robots turning on their masters. As Prof Frink on the Simpsons says, it's elementary chaos theory that machines will turn on their makers. So it's how the story is told that counts.