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Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Clara who?
A couple of users have pointed out that Marty can't have seen Clara's name on the tombstone, because she got saved as a result of Marty going back, so before he went back Doc wasn't there to save her life, and she died before he got shot.
Not necessarily.
She was driving through that area on her own because Doc had not come to pick her up at the station, which he would have done if Marty had not come and warned him to stay away from women named Clara. They probably still passed through the area, and the horses still got spooked, but on that timeline Doc was already riding in the wagon and in an even better position to save Clara's life and impress her.
So it wasn't Marty going back that saved her, it was Doc going back. And before HE went back, Clara had noone to either pick her up or save her, so she died tragically and got the ravine named after her.
Another possibility is that she "originally" died the same way at a later date. It may be that people are destined to die in a particular way, only the time can be changed. Think about it: Doc originally got shot by a libyan, then he got saved by Marty's warning, then he went back a century to get shot by Mad Dog, and once again saved by Marty. So time travelers can't change the way people die, only delay it. Which of course means both Doc and George are still destined to be shot by someone...
Beethoven's 3rd (2000)
Phew!
In this movie Beethoven meets a skunk that makes him stink for about five minutes of screen time. That makes him about one of the best smelling things with this movie. (small spoiler) The bad guys make the Wet Bandits from Home Alone look good. How can these idiots be smart enough to burn a DVD?
The Time Machine (1960)
Time and time again
I saw this movie in 2002, so got a bit confused about the 1966 scenes before I remembered the film was made in 1960! So I was in effect watching the future of the past from the present.
But enough of that. I enjoyed the movie, and as others have pointed out before me it stayed pretty faithful to the book. There's a couple of changes that kind of rub me the wrong way though.
**WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD**
In the book our nameless hero went straight to a distant future, in the movie "George Wells" makes a couple of stops in the new century. During the first of these, in 1917, he finds his house boarded up and learns that it's been abandoned for years. So we know he's going to disappear, but since he's telling the story after he came back, we know from the beginning that he's going to embark on a second journey.
Second (and this is the spoiler, in case you missed the warning above), in the book our hero just flees from the morlocks and leaves the world as it has become, in the movie he and the "peaceful" eloi help each other kill the morlocks (by the rather implausible device of throwing wood down the ventilation shafts to feed the fire they accidentally started - yeah right!) and live happily ever after in the restored utopia. And these are supposed to be the good guys. No matter how you look at it, this is still cold blooded murder (genocide even), and I for one would not want to live in a world where one half of the population has killed off the other half for whatever reason.
Viper (1994)
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a.... duh... special effect!
Okay, so the morphing effect was kinda cool. But what was the point, plotwise? Was the Viper supposed to be a kind of "superhero car" complete with a secret identity?? It's been a while, but I remember at least one pursuit scene where the Viper was in "plain clothes" and then Joe had to morph it just to use the Acme Stop-That-Car Device (tm). Which btw was pretty cool too...
Flipper (1964)
All those years a go...
I remember seeing this as a kid. I don't remember the exact year, but I must have been VERY young. Why? Well, there was this episode with a Swedish (?) guest star, and while they were waiting for Flipper to save the day, the guest sang a song in her own language. Then Sandy said something like "It's very pretty, what's it about?" I was actually surprised to find there was someone on the TV who didn't understand Swedish!!
Poketto monsutâ (1997)
Run that by me again...
An action game is by its nature pretty shallow compared to other media. As the hero, you have to undertake such and such tasks, never mind the reason, for the purpose of scoring points. (I'm just waiting for Ash to take the word highscore into his mouth).
A TV series has at least the potential to be more. In this series the potential is largely unfulfilled - all it adds is a few inches of depth, a smidgeon of plot, a couple of characters and *no* background. I started watching it to see if it would answer some questions such as where these strange critters come from and why they are so important. Two seasons later I'm still waiting, even slightly more confused that at the start. The pokemon are just there, and they are at the same time 1) important enough for people like prof. Oak to devote their lives to studying them, and for almost every city to construct buildings devoted to their care and training, and 2) unimportant enough for the task of catching them to be handled by ten-year-olds.
Still, it's a charming little yarn, though I am not yet (and probably never will be) hooked enough to despair at missing an episode. Who knows, it may actually get around to answering a question one day. For example: If, as frequently suggested, there are no animals on this strange world except for humans and pokemon, does that mean all the humans are vegetarians, or do they hunt/breed pokemon for food?
Catweazle (1970)
Then the thirteenth you must find...
Poor Catweazle! All he wanted was a spell that would make him fly. While he never took off (not by magic, anyway), the series definitely did!
Ladyhawke (1985)
Great story, too bad about the ending
* * * SPOILER WARNING! * * *
It's a great movie based on (as far as I know) a pretty original idea, but as the heading suggests I don't really like the ending. Sure, after everything our new friends have been through they deserve a happy ending. I just don't buy the idea that during an eclipse it's "day and night at the same time". Okay, it is but for different reasons! It is day because the sun is high in the sky, and night because it is obscured. (Makes one wonder what would happen if our heroes went into a cave, doesn't it?) The only way the ending can work is if we assume that Etienne's transformations are controlled by the position of the sun, and Isabeu's by its light (or something else only the moon is big enough to block) - and why anyone would make a curse that complicated is pretty well beyond my comprehension.
Oh well. Apart from that I liked the movie, but it was perhaps a bit anticlimactic to have something as important as the breaking of the curse simply indicated by a character looking heavenwards and muttering "It is broken"...
Blindpassasjer (1978)
Old themes with a twist
A starship in hyperspace is the ultimate "closed room". Beside of this, the old "whodunit" theme is turned on its head as the isolated crew races against time to identify - not the killer, but the victim! Hence the working title "Hvem av oss er den drepte?" (freely translated "Which of us is the victim?")