Problem: OPTIONS:
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Answer: When people think of downtown Chicago they think of Walter Payton, Ditka and "Da Bears", Ryne Sandberg, The White Sox breaking the curse in 2005 or the immortal Michael Jordan and his six championships (and Finals MVP's) with the Chicago Bulls. Rarely in this generation do people think of the struggling side of Chicago, the ghettos, the drug infested streets and life in the urban housing projects during the 1970's.

One of television's most formidable shows ever and a groundbreaking sitcom was "Good Times", which I remember vaguely as a small child on CBS, and I enjoy regularly now on TV Land.

"Good Times" was another Norman Lear classic, the producer that gave us "The Jeffersons", the best African American sitcom of all time and "All in the Family" the greatest show of all time. "Good Times" brought out the hardships of the ghetto and the urban housing projects, and did so with charm, well written and thoughtful plots, and some wonderful acting especially by the matriarch and patriarch of this struggling ghetto family played by Esther Rolle and John Amos. The children in the supporting cast were also pretty good especially the ever popular Janet Jackson in her early years and Ralph Carter as Florida and James Evans youngest son whose character at a young age realizes that life is unfair, and he has to learn to stand on his own two feet.

The eldest of the children J.J. played by Jimmy Walker is somewhat out of place on this show and is there mainly for comic relief. His emotional age is about 11 or 12 even though he looks like a guy in his early twenties. J.J. gets annoying, and it is a credit to the often nasty James Evans (Amos) that he never tells J.J. to get his own life, get a job and get out of the house. J.J. is an aspiring painter but unlike his younger brother is never serious about getting a college degree, or more important to the family getting a job to help support a household that is just above welfare status.

Two classic episodes of Good Times was the one where the Janet Jackson character is running a fever of 104, and Florida Evans is desperately seeking good medical help for her can't afford anything but a clinic doctor who is very professional yet doesn't want to give a family from the projects any more attention than she legally has to. The other episode is the one where James Evans can't afford the rent a paltry low $104 a month. The Evans are about to get the largest of family setbacks, being thrown out of the projects with no where to go. Florida Evans goes downtown to the board of social services to try to get either a loan or a grant to help her family. But the government doesn't consider her family poor because they have over $4,200 in assets for a family of five which is unfairly but unfortunately legally over the poverty line. James and the kids want to hustle for the money, but Florida is a person of great moral character and doesn't want to do anything dishonest no matter how dire their predicament is. In the end the family does find a solution to keep their heads above water.

"Good Times" a classic show from the 1970's is about keeping you're head above water in a cruel world. James and Florida Evans both work hard in menial jobs to try to bring their children up right and avoid the social stigma of welfare. I was too young to understand the message of the sitcom as a toddler in the 70s in its first airing on CBS, but I really enjoy the reruns on TV Land in 2006. "Good Times" is one of the classic sitcoms from back in the day.
An example of a movie review. positive (OPTIONS:
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- positive).

A: This work is striking in its accurate depiction of teenage life at the time of its execution. Though this is a broad generalization, parents of that time were too self-absorbed to be real parents, and those who were home tended to be far too distracted from the real issues, where their children were concerned.

This film teaches us how to let go, even when it is painful, and does so with a sweet, melancholy, but informed style whereby Foster talks philosophically about feeling the pain of life. I loved that scene. It was my favorite scene in the movie, actually.

The transition from funeral to wedding was meant to show that life does go on, and so must we. Baio's skateboarding through a pack of goons and outrunning them was meant to show us that the troubled times will pass, and we are meant to get through them, to better times.

The whole metaphor of "moving on," and the procession of life, is present throughout the film, and serves to give us hope, in the end.

I like this movie, though I do not watch it often, as it tends to make me melancholy.

It shouldn't be viewed by young children, and probably only those raised in the 1970's-80's would want to.

It rates a 7.4/10 from...

the Fiend :.
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: .... And after seeing this pile of crap you won't be surprised that it wasn't published

!!!! SPOILERS !!!!

This is a terrible movie by any standards but when I point out that it's one of the worst movies that has the name Stephen King in the credits you can start to imagine how bad it is . The movie starts of with two characters staring open mouthed at a scene of horror :

" My god . What happened here ? "

" I don't know but they sure hate cats " *

The camera pans to the outside of a house where hundreds of cats are strung up dead and mutilated . Boy this guy is right , someone does hate cats and with a deduction like that he should be a policeman . Oh wait a minute , he is a policeman and when a movie starts with a cop making an oh so obvious observation you just know you're going to be watching a bad movie

The reason SLEEPWALKERS is bad is that it's very illogical and confused . We eventually find out the monsters of the title need the blood of virgins to survive . Would they not be better looking for a virgin in the mid west bible belt rather than an American coastal town ? Having said that at least we know of the monsters motives - That's the only thing we learn . We never learn how they're able to change shape or are able to make cars become invisible and this jars with the ending that seems to have been stolen from THE TERMINATOR . Monster mother walks around killing several cops with her bare hands or blowing them up via a police issue hand gun ( ! ) but if her monster breed is immune from police fire power then why do the creatures need the ability to change shape or become invisible ? The demise of the creatures is equally ill thought out as there killed by a mass attack of household cats . If they can be killed by cats then why did the monsters not kill all the cats that were lying around the garden ? There was a whole horde of moggies sitting around but the monsters never thought about killing them . I guess that's so the production team can come up with an ending . It was that they started the movie my complaint lies

We're treated to several scenes where famous horror movie directors like John Landis , Clive Barker and even Stephen King make cameos . I think the reason for this is because whenever a struggling unknown actor read the script they instantly decided that no matter what , they weren't going to appear in a movie this bad so Stephen King had to phone up his horror buddies in order to fill out the cast . That's how bad SLEEPWALKERS is

* Unbelievable as it seems that wasn't the worst line in the movie . The worst line is - " That cat saved my life "
Problem: OPTIONS:
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Answer:
Okay, if you've seen The Ring, you've basically seen The Grudge. It's trying to be scary by just having freaky camera work and loud sounds, but it fails miserably. The plot, if you can call it that, is weak and rather full of holes, for instance, how would the care center have known that Yoko didn't show up for work when the people who lived in the house were not there? And it's not really clear what Bill Pullman's character had to do with anything. He just kind of came out of nowhere to advance the plot. It didn't make a lot of sense what happened to the original family. Who was hanging in the room, the little boy or the dad? And was Yoko alive or dead when the care center guy found her? There were too many unanswered questions and I was too bored to think about it more.