9/22/04

It seems like forever since the summer, back in the day when I got home from work around 4:45pm and could sit back and unwind.  That of course was before school started and the kids were getting home around 8pm or after.  All of this is bad for my delicate constitution!
Well the fall t.v. season started tonight, and no I didn't bother watching one of those stupid "reality" shows.  I got a look at the first episode of NYPD Blue last night and tonight I watched the new show called LOST about a group of people stuck on a desert island after a plane crash.  Not bad at all.

Okay, so I fell asleep during the middle of CSI-New York.  Sue me.  Every single weekend, Kim's dad comes over to the house and inevitably, he'll ask us if we've ever seen CSI.  Now, of course we say nooooooo, just like we've done the first 231 times that he asked.  So, I figure I'm gonna really surprise him and watch the premiere episode of the new show, which has Gary Sinise, who I think is a really good actor---anyway, what I saw of it looked pretty good---in between hearing Kim say..."your falling asleep and missing your show!"

So I decided the other day to start breaking down an reviewing my DVD collection, vast as it might be.  I'll make it easy on both of us, and I'll go in alphabetical order.
Tonight we start off with one of my favorite action films of the 80's---
ABOVE THE LAW:  Big Steve Segal stars as Nico Toscanni (and say this about big Steve--the characters he portrayed always had great names), a "rogue" Chicago cop who is after a ruthless assassin played by Henry Silva.  One of the keys in searching for a good Seagal movie is to look at  the supporting cast.  In his good movies, he has good actors in supporting roles.  In his bad films, they try and let big Steve carry the weight by himself, and that ain't good.  The other great thing about this movie is that it was Seagal's first, so he hadn't had time to get fat and all caught up in his own mythology and bullshit.  Anyway, there's some serious ass kicking going on here, as big Steve & partner Pam Grier (??!!??) go after the mysterious Silva, with undertones of government deception and involvement in everything from Vietnam to Central America.  Its as if someone had an idea for like 4 movies, and instead just decided to throw a whole mess of shit in there.  Sharon Stone has a small role as big Steve's wife,which oughta show you just where her career was at this point.  The guys who play Seagal's partners are the same guys who played the cops in the Harrison Ford movie "The Fugitive".  Best scene is big Steve kicking ass on a bar full of drunks---you da man Steve, you da man!  I say:   *** 1/2

Later for now,

Jeff