Men In Black A Film Review By Michael Redman Copyright 1997 Michael Redman
*** (out of ****)
This irrelevant romp through a battle with goofy aliens is everything that "Mars Attacks" promised last summer and failed to deliver: it's comical and almost has a plot.
Back about the time of the Roswell landing -- or crash dummies in a weather balloon, depending on which outlandish tale you chose to believe -- the "scum of the universe" began moving to earth. Now there are 1500 disguised as humans living mostly in New York City, although anyone who has spent time in the Big Apple might have estimated a higher number. Think of it as "Casablanca without the Nazis" as Special Agent K explains.
As with everything else in our brave new world, these offworlders need to be kept track of and the public protected from itself. That task falls to the Men In Black, members of an agency so secret that even the government doesn't know about it. Agents K and J (Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith) are at the forefront of immigration control. ("Jones" and "Smith": now those are names that aliens might take.)
Disguised as humans (notably Newt Gingrich, Dennis Rodman and Sylvester Stallone) they mostly live normal lives until a viscous insectoid illegal alien arrives on an assassination mission. Mission completed, the bug goes on a killing spree while the planet is in danger of destruction.
 The almost-overlooked material is as comical as the longer more obvious scenes. J's delivery of the tenacled baby and K's shakedown of a reluctant dog are hilarious. So is the notion that the supermarket tabloids are the only ones to print the truth and the throwaway "Elvis isn't dead, he's gone home" line.
Jones' deadpan delivery is perfect for the blasť agent who's seen too much and is training his new partner in the ways of the unexpected. (After shooting off the head of a pawnshop owner who promptly grows it back and reveals a cache of high-tech weapons hidden behind the jewelry, K asks his associate "Did you notice anything strange?")
Smith, in his return to the science fiction battles after "Independence Day", is the tall handsome leading man for the end of the century. If Eddie Murphy were still making quality movies, he might have had this role. Since Murphy's career fell apart a few years back due to some bad choices, Smith fills his wise-cracking over the edge shoes admirably.
The supporting roles are filled with competent actors (Rip Torn, Linda Fiorentino) but don't get much screen time. The exception is Vincent D'Onofrio who plays the giant cockroach in ill-fitting redneck skin suit. As his face constantly slips around and scrunches up in the corners, the bug doesn't quite have the "walking around in human skin" gig down and steals every scene that he's in.
There are a few problems. The buddy bit of this buddy film doesn't come across, the film seems a bit short and some portions underdeveloped. But it's an energetic comedy and the effects are impressive without burying the humans. It's one of the few films of the genre that you won't regret seeing.
(Michael Redman as penned these words of wisdom for over 21 years and would like to congratulate Chet Chmielewski and Jennifer St. Dennis on the birth of their daughter Kathryn Claire who has nary a tentacle in sight. Electronic missives shoot directly to<EMAIL_ADDRESS>)
[This appeared in the 7/10/97 "Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana] --<EMAIL_ADDRESS>The review above was posted to the
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This is a simple pure js page to assist in solving the terminal hacking minigame in the Fallout series.
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This is a variation on Conway's Game of Life by playing MIDI notes as the simulation progresses.


[§392-23] Duration of benefit payments. Temporary disability benefits shall be payable for any period of disability following the expiration of the waiting period required in section 392-24.
The duration of benefit payments shall not exceed twenty-six weeks for any period of disability or during any benefit year. [L 1969, c 148, pt of §1]


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Bitcoin was first. It's an ancient technology. All know it.
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This package depends on the {@link com.google.api.client.http}, {@link com.google.api.client.util}, {@link com.google.api.client.xml}, {@link com.google.api.client.xml.atom}, and {@code org.xmlpull.v1} packages.
Warning: this package is experimental, and its content may be changed in incompatible ways or possibly entirely removed in a future version of the library
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Mercenary art for hire - printing, light sculpture, painting, sound installations portraiture, textile embellishment, ecollage, pastel, aerosol, more...?
Find Out MoreBorn and raised in the south-western frontier of Dublin city where the shopping centres meet the mountains. Colin honed his early artistic skills in the monastery of St. Kilians where he studied ecclesiastical art and first learnt the principles of geometry and theology, which continue to inform his work to this day.
Further education in various monasteries and universities of the Irish capital followed, an encompassing subjects from the principles of engineering to the basis of latin and of course the principles of art. Despite the renassaince flavour of this training the dedication to the medieval priciples of his early youth continued to prevail.
In the early 21st century Colin took his brand of chivalric code to the heart of the industrial revolution, the commercial hub of Birmingham, UK. A spell in the Americas introduced him to the new skills of copperplate etching, the geometric and physical dictates of which suited his scholastic mindset.
He is currently located back in Birmingham where the Pythagorean crusade continues. Colin is available spread the principles of Geometry and Theology via several media : through the manipulation of light, material, garments or through mentoring. See below for examples of his work and get in contact if you are interested.
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--- layout: page title: About header-img: "img/about-bg.png" ---
Swedish, Student-Athlete, Trilingual. Student @ Flatiron School's Full-Stack Web Developer Bootcamp.


This brower-based demo (source code) only parses the bash command top (tested on Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS), but it's forked from WebSSH2, so it can SSH into any server. I setup a demo server (<IP_ADDRESS>, username and password is demo) in case you're not comfortable SSH'ing into one of your own servers through my client. I'm not responsible for anything that people do to the demo server.
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It's been five years since Messi beat Zarra's record; he's almost doubled his numbers since
by BeSoccerNovember 22, 2014 was the date Leo Messi became LaLiga's all-time leading scorer. He surpassed the mythical Telmo Zarra's 252 goals. On the fifth anniversary of that date, the Argentinian's numbers are portentous; he is close to surpassing it for the second time.
He is one of the biggest record breakers in the history of sport. On the fifth anniversary of his hat-trick in Seville, with which he reached 253 goals, looking at his goal scoring record shows he has not slowed down one bit.
The king of LaLiga now accumulates a whopping 427 goals. He has never come down from that position and it will take many years for someone to lower him from his pedestal.
Messi needed 289 games to score those 253 goals and beat Zarra. Since then, the passing of time has clearly not diminished his talents: his average has surpassed in goal per game. Specifically, he leads 174 goals in 170 duels. Brutal numbers. Before, he scored in 54% of the matches it played; now he scores 65%.
So the Argentinian striker is only 78 goals away from adding up the 252 goals, but for the second time. In other words, if that night against Sevilla his counter had been set to zero, he would be only a dozen away from entering the 'top ten' of the competition's historic top scorers.
The podium of historical goalscorers in LaLiga counts with, besides Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo (311) and Zarra (252). He is followed by Hugo Sánchez (234) and Raúl (228). Of those who are active.
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The classification since the day he overtook Zarra
That night began a new career in which, although it may be thought that his only real competition was Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Suarez became his real challenger, despite sharing the attack.
Close to the 174 goals Messi has scored since 2014 are the Uruguayan's 137, which carries more than the 114 the Portuguese scored. Behind, Griezmann (95), Iago Aspas (79) and Benzema (78).
But as Cristiano is still active, let's look at the table including the five major leagues. Then the Portuguese would be second, thanks to his 140 goals. Lewandowski, with one more than Luis Suarez, would be the third.


ANGIE A film review by Scott Renshaw Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Geena Davis, James Gandolfini, Aida Turturro, Stephen Rea, Philip Bosco. Screenplay: Todd Graff. Director: Martha Coolidge.
There is a sub-genre of film drama, only recently identified, which has come to be known as the "chick movie." The term has at times been used to define any film which women tend to like more than men (SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE comes to mind), but in its strictest sense I define a "chick film" as one which deals with relationships men could only attempt to comprehend: mother-daughter, female friendships, and birth mother-child. ANGIE definitely falls within this framework. It's got mothers, daughters, friends, childbirth and a dose of heartbreak to guarantee maximum lacrimal viscosity, and all these things may affect the target audience. I found myself impressed by Geena Davis' performance, but bothered by the obvious and excessive manipulation which never really pays off, and by some unfortunate mixed messages.
Davis plays the title character, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn resident Angie Scacciapensieri. Approaching thirty, Angie has spent her whole life in the same neighborhood with the same best friend, Tina (Aida Turturro), and the same boyfriend, Vinnie (James Gandolfini). Then one day, something does change in Angie's life: she's pregnant. As everyone assumes she and Vinnie will be getting married, Angie begins to think about all the experiences she's been missing. She begins a relationship with flighty attorney Noel (Stephen Rea), and tries to expand her horizons. But as the baby arrives, Angie realizes that ultimately she must confront the memory of the mother who deserted her at the age of three to get her life straight.
Geena Davis' performance as Angie is easily the best thing about ANGIE, which is fine because it's also the most important thing. Most of Davis' roles to date have emphasized her comic talents, but ANGIE confirms what THELMA & LOUISE suggested: that Davis is a very gifted all around actor. She gets to work with the whole range of emotions, big and small, bright and dark, and she handles all of them with grace and sparkle. Stephen Rea is also extremely slick and charming as Noel, and the scenes between Davis and Rea provide many of ANGIE's highlights. Through its first hour, ANGIE is an interesting and appealing character drama with real promise.
The second half of Todd Graff's script suffers from two major problems. The first is that it seriously overloads on emotional high points. There were at least four separate points at which I thought that ANGIE had reached its climax, and what made that decision the most frustrating is that none of them quite provided the catharsis that ANGIE needed but always just missed. I got the feeling that Hollywood Pictures had tested several endings, found that the audiences responded to each one, and then decided to keep them all. Consequently, ANGIE loses its narrative momentum two thirds of the way through and coasts to the finish on its tear-jerking.
The second, and perhaps more distracting, problem is a rather personal distaste for what I perceived as a sell-out in the change in Angie's perspective which occurs at the end of the film. ANGIE begins as a story about a woman who feels trapped by her life trying to change it for the better through new experiences. When some of these new experiences don't turn out well, and Angie's life takes some disappointing turns, she seems to take all the wrong lessons away from those experiences. A speech Angie makes to her baby surprised me by suggesting that Angie believed her problem was thinking too much about herself, when I felt she was thinking about herself for the first time in her life. The fits and starts in the film's many climaxes left me wondering what it was that I was supposed to have learned from Angie's story.
It is a given that a film like ANGIE pulls emotional strings, and that in itself is not a failing. Manipulating our emotions is what films are supposed to do; the best ones just manage to do it so skillfully that we don't notice or don't care. ANGIE doesn't achieve that deft middle ground. It crosses its signals, piles on the pathos, and leaves its star to carry most of its emotional baggage.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 emotional climaxes: 5.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews