The Monitors

Time Travel IS Possible - - - do you want to explore the mind set of the end of the turbulant decade of the 1960s then watch this admittedly quirky, admittedly flawed, yet fantastic Sci-Fi Comedy. AMC Please show this wonderful film - - - it captures completely the madness and the mayhem of the 1960's and features several actors who ought to have had more films to their credit among them Guy Stockwell, Susan Oliver, Larry Storch, Avery Schrieber, the always wonderful Keenan Wynn. It also features what is perhaps the greatest portrayal of a (fictional) American President, Ed Begley as a forlorn forgotten man grimly 'holding down the fort.' The Monitors has droll black humor, terrific music and many manic moments. It is a sadly underrated film and deserves several showings on AMC (with limited commcercials -- the commercials within The Monitors are a hoot)....

Movie About the Korean War

Anyone know how I can get the movie Hold Back the Night Starring John Payne . It's about some Marines in the Korean War

Movie to Buy

About 20 years ago I saw The Golden Gate Murders on AMC. It starred David Janssen & Susannah York. It apparently was a made-for-tv movie in 1979. I never saw it again on TV to tape, and as a result have been searching ever since to buy it. However, I cannot find it anywhere! Does anyone know where I might be able to buy it???

The Best Romance Movies

We're at T-Minus One Week until Valentine's Day. Even though I'm not one of the people who into this particular holiday, it's also so big I can't ignore it. I'm therefore always at a loss as to what to do. Fortunately, there are plenty of films out there to help me get closer to understanding.

I always start with a page out of Sleepless in Seattle. Yes, it's a bit cheesy, but it's in my age range and you can't deny the film's charm. I think the take-home message is that the days of flowers and chocolates are over: If you want to do Valentine's Day right, it's either gotta be extreme, (a la the Empire State Building) or at least unique (thankfully, I haven't yet reached the level of desperation where I've considered getting a star named after someone).

What are some of your favorite can't-miss romance films, and what Valentine's Day lessons have they taught you?

Desperate -- What Movie Is This?!

Is it possible this was How Green Was My Valley? If not, what?!

It was between 1976 and 1978 on what I believe to be PBS, and I think it was Masterpiece Theater. Not sure. All Brits. A man is walking through low grassy foothills, obviously looking for something ... or maybe it's just very familiar to him but he doesn't know why. He sees what I perceived to be a very beaten up, very weathered bowler hat (or is it a porkpie?), the one with a lip all around it -- that had a bunch of holes in it and was weather-beaten, thread-bare. It sparks a memory in him. Cut to him remembering when he was a little boy, and he was in a ... cave? Shack? I want to say it was a cave. There were these British hillbillies? Deep back woods Appalachia folk? Toothless, Troglodyte, dirty types in overall type clothes -- and he's there with them, and they're doing a lot of laughing at things they find very amusing, but the boy is very uncomfortable and wants out now.

He has to pee. They tell him to go in a pot. it was white? Low wide chamber pot thingie? And it turns out that this is what he found in the low foothills as an adult, was an ancient chamber pot that was rusted with holes in it. Is this the same chamber pot he peed in, the adult man wonders? When he did, he was really scared and upset and yelled, "I want to wake up! I want to wake up!!" in a very thick English (Welsh?) accent. Cut to him in the foothills again, remembering this, wondering if it's evidence that it all really happened. My image at that point was that he was an older 50-ish or 60-ish man with the rusty pot.

I had originally thought parts of the movie, The Lathe of Heaven were also this mystery movie, but I since learned that they're separate. I don't know if my parents were flipping between two movies, or I was jusst putting two movies together. In any event, The Liverpool BritBillies is a real mystery. A couple people think it could be How Green Was My Valley, but I haven't been able to find a verbatim walkthrough of that movie to find the scene.

Can anyone help?!

My Favorite Musical

I don't know why Hollywood doesn't make more musicals nowadays. Sweeney Todd was good, but the only other one that I know of that came out last year was Across the Universe, which a friend of mine saw and said wasn't very good. My personal favorite is actually the Steve Martin vehicle Pennies From Heaven. I know it's all lip-synching but the songs are great and the dance routines are super.

Is the Campy Batman Really a Classic?

The movie is full of bad actors, bad storylines, and bad effects...