Take Out One Tiny Thing and The Godfather Part II Would Be Rated PG

Posted on August 26, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

The Godfather has plenty of brutal scenes, from the man who finds a severed horse’s head in his bed to another man being strangled to death and yet another man being shot over and over by a seemingly unending barrage of bullets.

The most surprising thing to me about The Godfather Part II is that its violence is so restrained compared to the first film. It has just as many shocking moments as the first one, but it has far less blood and gore.

I think The Godfather Part II is right on par with the PG-rated Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and it would have also been PG had it not been for one minor detail. Let’s examine the violence level in these Godfather and Star Trek sequels to see why The Godfather Part II could have easily earned a softer rating. And then I’ll reveal the tiny detail that made it rated R. Continue reading →

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Intense PG Movies

Posted on August 19, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

The modern movie rating system was established at the end of 1968 as a way to help audiences understand what kind of content they were in for. Not every movie is meant to be watched by children. The first iteration of the ratings didn’t have a PG rating. Instead, they had M, short for Mature, in between G and R.

Two years later M was changed to GP and then finally to PG in 1972. It’s interesting to think of PG as a “Mature” rating because it’s basically synonymous with innocuous entertainment. Just about every non-animated summer blockbuster is PG-13, so PG has become a little more of an anomaly when it comes to big-budget fare. But that hasn’t always been the case.

I’d like to talk about PG movies that are far more intense than their light rating might make them appear. These films adhere much more to the Mature origin of the rating than the more kid-friendly interpretation it has taken on over the years. We’ll go from the early ‘70s to the early ‘90s because those years saw many films that made a big impression on my young mind. Continue reading →

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Shall We Play a Game? Let’s See How Symmetrical WarGames Is

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

How about a nice game of guess how symmetrical WarGames is? The answer is quite simple: It’s completely symmetrical.

I grew up loving this movie, so I feel like it’s a privilege to share just how awesome this movie is. Not only is it one of the best Cold War-themed movies of all time, but it is a flawless example of Cinematic Chiasmus.

So let’s turn our keys and launch what promises to be an explosive adventure through the astonishing symmetry of the 1983 classic WarGames. Continue reading →

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10 Beautifully Sad Movie Music Themes for a Good Cry

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

I have something really special to share with you next week. It’s been a while since I did a Cinematic Chiasmus, and I’ve got a great one in store for you.

In the meantime, I have prepared a list of beautifully sad movie music themes in case you’d like to shed some tears. Continue reading →

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10 Movies About Aliens That Don’t Have Any Language Barriers

Posted on July 29, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

Science fiction is a funny business. You want to have just enough scientific realism to be believable, but you don’t want to spend the whole film talking about hardware or the linguistics problems involved in human-alien communication.

Some movies manage to turn language barriers into a strength, like E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial and The Iron Giant, while others fail spectacularly, like Mac and Me and Battlefield Earth.

And then some movies throw caution to the wind and disregard the problem altogether. And I’m going to talk about 10 movies about aliens that don’t have any language barriers. Continue reading →

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What Makes the Trailer for Aliens (1986) Perfect

Posted on July 21, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

Are you in the mood for a perfect movie trailer? Look no further than the trailer for the 1986 masterpiece Aliens:

The first time I saw this trailer was on a VHS copy of Aliens: Special Edition, which includes deleted scenes that were left out of the theatrical cut. The trailer came on just before the feature film itself, and I couldn’t imagine a better way to whet my appetite for the film I was about to see. Seriously, I can’t watch it without yearning to watch the movie itself. It’s that good.

So I’m going to talk about what makes the trailer for Aliens so perfect. Continue reading →

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Why Terminator: Genisys Is a Good Movie

Posted on July 14, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

Last week I had to choose between seeing Jurassic World or Terminator: Genisys with some friends. First-world problems, I know.

I’ve never really cared for the Jurassic Park series. I saw the first film at age 11 and even then I was unimpressed by it. I had heard it was really scary and that it might be too intense for me, but I found it frankly dull. Over the years I’ve gained an appreciation for its technical achievements, but I still don’t think it’s that great. The two awful sequels it spawned didn’t help, either.

The Terminator series is another story. I grew up being infatuated with the first two films. They both live up to their hype and have an amazing combination of ideas, character development, action, and visual style. Terminator 2: Judgment Day is my favorite of the two. Sure, the next two sequels in the series were lackluster, but when I heard someone was doing a Terminator reboot, I was intrigued.

So I saw Terminator: Genisys, and I’m glad I did. I don’t understand why reviews have been so negative for this film. It tells a compelling story and it gave me pretty much everything I could want from a story about time travel and killer robots from the future.

There are some pretty major spoilers ahead, so please watch the movie before continuing. I would hate to give anything away for you because I really like all the twists and turns this movie offers. With that caveat, let’s find out why Terminator: Genisys is a good movie. Continue reading →

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5 TV Shows Named After Their Most Useless Character

Posted on July 8, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

Irony can be hilarious. Most TV show titles are pretty straightforward: Seinfeld is about a guy named Jerry Seinfeld. The Simpsons is about the Simpson family. Doctor Who is about a Time Lord from another planet who travels through time in a living time machine and keeps dying and coming back to life with new physical and personality traits. What’s so hard to understand about that?

But sometimes TV shows have ironic titles to shake things up and throw off our expectations. We expect the main character that the show is named after to be strong and competent, but the five following TV shows are actually named after their most useless character. Continue reading →

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1996 Was the Year the Macho ’80s Action Hero Died

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

I love ‘80s action movies. To me, they don’t get any better than Aliens, Die Hard, and RoboCop, among others from that decade. Just about everything starring Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone during the ‘80s is pure gold.

The trend of big, muscular heroes who are impossible to kill continued from 1990 to 1995, with hits like Die Hard 2, Total Recall, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Under Siege, Cliffhanger, True Lies, Bad Boys, and Die Hard with a Vengeance.

But then came 1996, and everything changed. The macho ‘80s action hero died that year, and we’re going to perform an autopsy and figure out what happened. We’ll mostly be talking about the actors who were the victims of this sudden downward spiral. So let’s see why 1996 was the year the ‘80s action hero died. Continue reading →

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Unidentified Flying Oddball – What Were They Thinking?

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

I had planned on writing a Forgotten Film Gem article this week about a 1979 Disney film called Unidentified Flying Oddball. I hadn’t seen it in years, but I remembered enough good things about it that I figured it would be fun to revisit it with my wife, who had never seen it before.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan.

This is probably the longest 90-minute movie I’ve ever seen. It drags on and on. It’s a comedy without jokes, a romance without passion, and an epic without scope. In short, I have to ask: What were the filmmakers thinking?

Unidentified Flying Oddball is atrocious. It does have a couple of good aspects, so I will give credit where credit is due. But 99 percent of this film is utterly awful. Let’s see what went wrong with this Disney non-classic. Continue reading →

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