Tag Archives: Comedy

Roseanne: The Complete Eighth Season (DVD)

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By the beginning of Roseanne season eight it’d become obvious that the series really should have ended a long time ago. At least around season seven. But with the main star a huge celebrity, and ABC insistent on giving her whatever she demanded, the show was eventually going to continue until it was embarrassing to sit through. To indicate how absolutely uneven and inconsistent the show had become already, the constant switches in actresses who played Becky made the show ridiculous, and unfunny. Take for example the two parter where Dan has a heart attack at Darlene’s wedding to David. In the first part of the episode, Sarah Chalke plays Becky who helps Darlene prepare for her wedding with the other Conner women for the entire episode.

In the second part, Lacey Goranson is now playing Becky, who shares literally one scene with Darlene and is never seen again in the episode. There’s even a small reception in Dan’s hospital room where all the Conner children attend except for Becky. The writers eventually tried to catch that kind of idiotic distraction in the two part Disney episode where a narrator points to the audience how Sarah Chalke will be playing Becky in the episode, to which Roseanne exclaims “Aren’t you glad you came this week?!” Continue reading →

Roseanne: The Complete Seventh Season (DVD)

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Number Seven is one of the weaker seasons of “Roseanne” since most of the season basically focuses on the less interesting characters and places a great emphasis on the endlessly irritating romance between Darlene and David. For a good portion of season seven, actress Sara Gilbert spent time acting in theater and going to college, so she’s pretty much a non-presence for a quarter of season seven, while the writers miss the boat by focusing more on Chalke’s Becky, choosing to turn her in to a mere side character who appears periodically. Instead, the writers make the misguided choice of placing a good focus on the storylines on DJ’s life.

As well as the relationship between David and Mark. The two characters garner much dysfunction and have a troubled life filled with resentment and hatred, but their arc is pointless and incredibly boring. This is time that should be filled devoted to developing Becky and Darlene, and instead there’s just a deeper and strong look at the dynamic between brothers Mark and David. To add more confusion to the mix, there’s the stunt casting of Traci Lords, who appears for a number of episodes as a walking talking plot device and disappears once the show gets back in motion with Sara Gilbert and Sarah Chalke coming back as the characters they originally played.

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Army of Darkness (1992)

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xHU2TXQWhen last we saw Ash Williams in “Evil Dead II,” he was at the butt hole end of a massive portal to hell and could do nothing but hope and pray for the best. In spite of battling the demonic menace in his deserted cabin in the woods for the second time, he unfortunately could only hope the demonic menace within this wormhole would display mercy on him. Or at least let its guard down long enough to allow Ash an escape. Little did he know he’d land in 1300 AD among a culture of people desperately in need of a savior.

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Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987)

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The sequel to “The Evil Dead” is once again what happens when Sam Raimi has little and can do so much with it. As director, Raimi finds new ways to enthrall the viewer and add a new appendage to the “Evil Dead” series without ruining the former film. “Dead by Dawn” acts as a sequel and a pseudo-remake, that recaps the original film in a brevity, and then proceeds to follow along with the journey of Ash Williams. Becoming the accidental hero in many ways, Ash is a man tasked with fighting the demonic beings of the necronomicon, not because he chooses to, but because he simply can’t escape their grasp.

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That Thing You Do! (1996)

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It’s strange. Even with the involvement of the ever charming Tom Hanks as the director and writer, and a film that features him as a prominent supporting character amidst a slew of up and coming young stars (including Charlize Theron), “That Thing You Do!” is still just an average movie. It’s simply nineties mediocrity. It’s never a remarkable musical comedy, nor is it abysmal. It’s merely a movie you watch and never plan to re-visit again unless you’re absolutely bored.

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The Sandlot (1993)

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If you’re going to crib from Stephen King’s “Stand By Me,” then you’d better do a good job of re-tooling it. Thankfully, and miraculously, David M. Evans directs one of the best coming of age dramedies in cinematic history. “The Sandlot” is a film that takes the “Stand By Me” premise and adds a baseball-centric theme to the story that becomes the crux of everything the film is built on. It’s the reason characters are able to connect, it saves characters from immediate danger, and it’s the macguffin for the entire movie. “The Sandlot” thankfully doesn’t shove the baseball Americana themes down the audiences throat, but instead focuses on the characters featured in the film as actual characters with complexities and flaws that decide whether they succeed or not.

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Tank Girl (1995)

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tank_girl_picYeah, this is why studios didn’t take comic book movie seriously for a very long time. “Tank Girl” is god awful. I’m aware her comic is very popular, and Tank Girl the character is considered something of a feminist icon of a sorts, but “Tank Girl” is swill. It’s bottom feeding swill. It tries to exude this sense of hipness and edge, but instead feels like it doesn’t take the material seriously. Lori Petty (who has the charm of a spastic Ritalin addict) attempts to play the sexually ambiguous Tank Girl as tongue in cheek but she just comes off as a clown who has no grasp on the material.

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