Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) – Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks skewers the legend of Robin Hood with his 1993 film Robin Hood: Men in Tights. None of the versions created are safe, and Cary Elwes is perfectly cast as the iconic hero that from its opening moments takes shots at everything, nothing is safe. Using the classic tale of Robin of Locksley coming…

Hill Street Blues (1985) – An Oy for an Oy, and Fathers and Huns

Belker (Bruce Weitz) is worrying about Robin’s (Lisa Sutton) pregnancy, and where their relationship is going. He’s thinking about marriage. But he’s also having a problem with a pair of brothers (Michael Lerner and Alex Henteloff) who seem to be screwing one another over for some diamonds, and Belker is caught in the middle. An…

Evil Dead Rise (2023) – Lee Cronin

Lee Cronin wrote and directed Evil Dead Rise a nice new spin on the classic horror franchise that promises the ultimate in grueling horror. As much as I love the originals, and Bruce Campbell, I love that the new films have eschewed some of the comedic elements and really leaned into the brutal gore and…

Batman (1966) – The Sandman Cometh, and The Catwoman Goeth

The Sandman (Micheal Rennie) is in Gotham, and for the first time in the television series, a supervillain pairs up with another master criminal, in this case, Catwoman (Julie Newmar) in this two-parter was written by Charles Hoffman and Ellis St. Joseph who also came up with the orghinal story, but exited after Catwoman was…

Batman (1966) – The Puzzles Are Coming, and The Duo Is Slumming

With Frank Gorshin held up in contract negotiations over his performance of The Riddler, the series had to create a new villain for this two-part story. Enter The Puzzler. Played by Maurice Evans, the character has a knack for aviation and Shakespeare (and puzzles) and he seems to be in Gotham City to stir up…

Extraction II (2023) – Sam Hargrave

So despite the crap shape Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) is at the end of the first film, he gets rescued, saved, and rehabilitated. In fact, Nik (Golshifteh Farahani) retires him to Austria in a little cabin by the lake, but when an unnamed man (Idris Elba) shows up and offers him a job, one with…

Extraction (2020) – Sam Hargrave

Sam Hargrave delivers a kinetic action thriller starring Chris Hemsworth from a story partly created by Joe Russo from the graphic novel, Ciudad. Hemsworth is Tyler Rake a mercenary who seems to be willing to take any mission that pays in the hopes of some day fulfilling a death wish caused by the loss of…

Hill Street Blues (1985) – Somewhere Over the Rambo, and Oh, You Kid

Furillo (Daniel J. Travanti) conducts his corruption investigation and presents his findings to the committee, though Chief Daniels (Jon Cypher) is less than thrilled about the suggestion that he may be responsible for not curtailing some of the corruption that has permeated the force. Somewhere Over the Rambo was written by Jacob Epstein, Walon Green…

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015) – Guy Ritchie

Guy Ritchie’s adaptation of the classic 60s series The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which serves as a bit of an origin story for the series characters is uneven at best. What could have launched a fun franchise, that wouldn’t equal Mission: Impossible, but could have been a delightful theatrical tentpole fumbles as it proves unable to…