input: This is my favorite classic. It was filmed a little west of Philadelphia, PA when I was 13, in 1957, and released the next year. Then in 1970, I found myself working the very same county as a rookie PA state trooper. I have always enjoyed checking out the different places where scenes were filmed. I knew the owner of the Downingtown Diner well, and he had a road sign out front which told all passing motorists that this was the "home of the blob". The theater scene was in Phoenixville, near Valley Forge Park and it is still showing films today!

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: St. Elmo's Fire has no bearing on life after university at all (for the majority of us common folk anyway). Why was this garbage even made? Who can really relate to this? Who lives like these characters? I truly feel sorry for the actors having to deal with such a terrible script. There are some talented young actors in this "film" that have done a good job elsewhere. It must have just been one whole joke to them on set.

I actually found this "film" insulting to my intelligence. The only joy I got from this is hoping that Sir John Hughes had a good ol' laugh when he saw a screening of this the same year his masterpiece of The Breakfast Club was released.

Don't make the same mistake I did of watching this because you enjoy 80's films. It really is that offensive to the genre.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: This isn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but I really can't recall when I've seen a worse one. I thought this would be about an aircraft accident investigation. What it really was is a soap opera, and a bad one at that. They overplayed the 'conflict' card to the extreme. The first hour or so seems like a shouting match, with some implausible scenes thrown in.

*Possible spoiler*

The 40-or-so minute 'memorial' scene (with requisite black umbrellas and rain) to fictitious crash victims was lame, and I thought it would never end.

Avoid this one at all costs, unless you revel in 'conflict'.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: "The Plainsman" represents the directorial prowess of Cecil B. DeMille at its most inaccurate and un-factual. It sets up parallel plots for no less stellar an entourage than Wild Bill Hickok (Gary Cooper), Buffalo Bill Cody (James Ellison), Calamity Jane (Jean Arthur), George Armstrong Custer and Abraham Lincoln to interact, even though in reality Lincoln was already dead at the time the story takes place. Every once in a while DeMille floats dangerously close toward the truth, but just as easily veers away from it into unabashed spectacle and showmanship. The film is an attempt to buttress Custer's last stand with a heap of fiction that is only loosely based on the lives of people, who were already the product of manufactured stuffs and legends. Truly, this is the world according to DeMille - a zeitgeist in the annals of entertainment, but a pretty campy relic by today's standards.

TRANSFER: Considering the vintage of the film, this is a moderately appealing transfer, with often clean whites and extremely solid blacks. There's a considerable amount of film grain in some scenes and an absence of it at other moments. All in all, the image quality is therefore somewhat inconsistent, but it is never all bad or all good just a bit better than middle of the road. Age related artifacts are kept to a minimum and digital anomalies do not distract. The audio is mono but nicely balanced.

EXTRAS: Forget it. It's Universal! BOTTOM LINE: As pseudo-history painted on celluloid, this western is compelling and fun. Just take its characters and story with a grain of salt in some cases a whole box seems more appropriate!

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pos/neg ans:
positive