Star Wars Rebels: Seasons 1-2 (2014)

Star Wars Rebels did little for me at the start of Season 1, when I gave it 3 stars, but it has slowly and slightly matured, so that by the end of Season 1, I give it 3.5 stars. The story line picks up after the Empire has killed "all" the Jedi, sending Inquisitors (and later, Darth Vader) to hunt down rebels and rumors of Jedi. (Kanan Jarrus survived Order 66, begins training the camp urchin Ezra Bridger, and in time allies his team with Ahsoka Tano.) The crew of the Ghost encounters Hondo, Captain Rex, and others seen in Star Wars: Clone Wars, so the episodes become less cartoonish and more like Clone Wars. I am looking forward to the first disc of Season 2, just in. Enjoy! 3.5 stars. (12-30-2016)

Night Gallery: Seasons 1-3 (1970)

Night Gallery is a macabre trip down memory lane as I revisit the Season 1 episodes that I saw on TV back in the day. (What I'm champing at the bit to see again is the end of the second season's The Caterpillar. It may be the single most memorable episode of anything I ever viewed on the airwaves, pre-DVD.) Night Gallery's sound and graphics during the opening credits remain unsettling -- perhaps explaining why the patently more marketable Twilight Zone lasted many more seasons. Rod Serling pulled out the stops for this show to make his audience feel squeamish, starting with a literal gallery of macabre and grotesque artwork commissioned to introduce each segment. The pilot episode has 3 segments (Roddy McDowall kills his uncle and is terrorized by a painting of the family cemetery that keeps changing, Joan Crawford obtains an operation to restore her eyesight for 12 ill-timed hours, and ex-Nazi Richard Kiley faces consequences), though many episodes have 2 segments, and Season 1 includes 3 short bonus segments (more shaggy dog stories than anything). Season 1 has episodes with Larry Hagman, Burgess Meredith, Phyllis Diller, and William Windom, for old-school viewers. Enjoy! 4 stars. (12-30-2016)

People of Earth: Season 1 (2016)

I started out really liking People of Earth, giving it 4 stars out of 5, but the storyline lost some of its quirky steam during the last half of the season, so I dialed back slightly to 3.5 stars. The characters are not stellar, but they each have a chance to express their personalities and display their chemistry as an ensemble. They sometimes work at cross purposes to each other, but they also share a bedrock understanding that they are in each others' lives, no matter what, to help, or failing that, to push back until they can help. With Oscar Nunez from The Office playing a plainclothes priest and empathetic bystander who misses his jazz band from his party days, one might be tempted to refer to People of Earth as a faux-reality-style documentary like The Office, exploring the lives of a support group for those who believe they have been abducted by aliens, except for the three aliens that have been doing the abducting, as well as masquerading as humans. What is most interesting here are the real human castaways, interacting with each other, as well as with the aliens that are trying to feign humanity, which makes for the funniest stuff. All told, the humor is low-key -- Iceland, "now don't get weird" -- but the background story makes them gleam. Enjoy! 3.5 stars. (12-23-2016)

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

I finally saw the classic The Magnificent Seven when Netflix restocked it and sent it to me the week before the release of the 2016 remake (which I doubt I will have 46 years to catch, so I had better get on the stick). The 1960 movie's musical score is more than a classic, of course; instantly recognizable, it practically defines the Western as well as the American spirit. It is great to see these Hollywood stars some 20 years earlier in their careers. The story is somewhere between High Noon and High Plains Drifter for gestalt: the hired guns must prove their mettle when even the townsfolk they are defending become turncoats. The difference is that we get more than Clint Eastwood's steely eyes and sparse wordplay; this Mexican farming settlement is a community. The Mexicans and the hired guns talk among themselves and between their two groups about what it means to be a man, to be strong, to take responsibility, and to stick together. We get a sense of their personal backstory and struggles; some of them show fear. Sure, it is more dramatic and iconic to be a lone wolf (like Clint), but it is multifacetedly human to be a husband, a father, and a community leader with roots in the land. I like Silverado at least as much as The Magnificent Seven (1960), and given its cast, The Magnificent Seven (2016) augurs good viewing, too. Enjoy! 4.5 stars. (12-19-2016)

The Company of Wolves (1984)

My 5-star rating system has implicit gradations beyond whether I love a movie (5 stars), really like a movie (4 stars), like a movie (3 stars), do not like a movie (2 stars), or hate a movie (1 star). The standard movie that comes to mind for the midpoint of 3 stars is Melinda & Melinda: acceptable but no lasting impression, I am not sorry I saw it, but I have no reason to watch it again. For me, The Company of Wolves gets 2.5 stars: I do not regret seeing it, but if I had seen a trailer, I probably would have skipped the movie. Its description as a "lush and complicated mystery" about "the first stirrings of womanhood" -- Red Riding Hood for grownups -- did not quite pan out. The special effects -- good for 1984 -- are as garishly gory, but not quite as well done, as in An American Werewolf in London or in The Thing. The story meanders and is disjointed throughout, and does not get interesting unless Angela Lansbury as the Grandmother is in the scene. I would think Amanda Seyfried is much more watchable. By comparison, I give 5 stars to Pan's Labyrinth. If you are a completist for fairy tale treatments or young women in red, enjoy! 2.5 stars. (12-13-2016)