What's on DVR?

A Duck, a Turk, and some really Mad Men

“What’s on DVR?” Will be a series of mini-reviews for films/TV shows that I recorded on my DVR either because I haven’t seen or I haven’t seen them in a long time and I wanted to revisit them.

First up is “Your Highness” directed by David Gordon Green.  It was as about as funny as I expected it to be, James Franco as the noble prince was really good.  But Danny McBride is the star here and is as funny as he usually is, he has all the good lines, which makes sense since he co-wrote the screenplay.  Natalie Portman feels out of place, even though she tries to play it straight.  I see what director Green was trying to go for, but not all the jokes worked, and he has to do a lot better to top in my opinion his greatest work, “Pineapple Express”.

Next is a pair of 80’s movies that I haven’t seen since I was a kid the first is “Turk 182” from 1985 directed by  Bob Clark, the man that brought us the first two “Porky’s” and the classic “A Christmas Story”.  “Turk 182” stars a young Timothy Hutton as the younger brother of a firefighter played by Robert Urich who is injured saving a little girl from a fire, but because he was off duty and drinking the city won’t pay for his medical bills.  And after the mayor insults his brother Hutton decides to follow the mayor’s re-election trail and graffiti’s up whatever is being dedicated using the tag ‘Turk 182’.  I remember watching this a lot as a kid on cable, and I remember liking it, or maybe I just liked Kim Cattrall as the love interest.  Either way now, I found it kinda boring.  It drags and drags, the story is more compelling than the execution.  It all feels like an hour long build up to the end which I admit I still felt a tinge of nostalgia for during the final scene of the movie.  Though after watching the movie I did have a desire to watch “The Greatest American Hero” TV show starring Robert Culp who plays the mayor in “Turk”.

Next up I re-watched the 1986 movie “Howard the Duck” directed by Willard Huyck, though more famously produced by George Lucas.  It tells the story of a humanoid duck named Howard who is zapped from his planet and easy chair by a laser on earth where he is transported to and has to save the world.  It also stars Lea Thompson and Tim Robbins.  Now this was a movie I watched over and over again, probably too much as a kid.  I remember liking it because Howard was not a cute and cuddly duck from a fantasy land, he was from a real world, and he had real world problems, he was made fun of, he needed a job, and he struggled to find his place in life.  I thought he was really funny and rude, it made him stand out more than say a muppet.  After watching it now, I can see how critics and just about everyone else thought it was horrible.  And it is.  But now I would put it with mindless fun of a movie that you watch Sunday morning when you don’t want to think too much.  I still liked Tim Robbins, even though he is overly-stupid in the role.  And there is still some good line deliveries.  When my kids get older I may show it to them, who knows, maybe they’ll love it and then watch it again over twenty years later and wonder why I showed it to them.

Lastly I have finally caught up with season 4 and now started watching season 5 of “Mad Men”.  For those not watching, it’s a show set in the 1960’s world of advertising in New York.  And it follows the lives of the people in the agency, though usually centering on Jon Hamm’s character Don Draper.  And if you’re not watching this show.  Why not??  You are missing out on some great TV.  It has won the Emmy for best drama for the past four years, and you will see why watching just about any episode.  Don Draper is one of the most complex characters in television history.  I have never both loved and despised a main character in a show before, sometimes in the span of the same episode.  The show moves from the serious, to sad, to funny, to the downright surreal.  Just to give you an example of how the amazing writing of creator Matthew Weiner and company take the show, here are two lines spoken by Don Draper from one episode to the next:

“We’re flawed because we want so much more.”  “We’re ruined because we get these things and wish for what we had.” To this:

“I would have my secretary do it, but she’s dead.”

AMC is showing the show from the beginning 3 episodes at a time on Sunday mornings.  DVR them and catch up, you won’t regret it.

--Robert L. Castillo