Reviews

After reading some previous accolades of this show, I went looking for it and was able to watch it online. I was thoroughly disappointed. The only thing this has in common with the 1960's TV series is the name it took from it as well as the names of the two lead characters, but it ends there. Even Tony Newman from the original is now Toni Newman a female, and Doug Phillips superior in the military, rather than a civilian colleague. In the original TV show the Time Tunnel was built on purpose and was a top-secret government project into time travel. Not so in this incarnation. Here the Time Tunnel is created accidentally. An experiment of the Department of Energy in hot fusion to produce clean energy creates a time storm. A sort of time warp. Only the personnel in the Department of energy laboratory know the true story and now they need to fix points in the history that have been altered, changing the current timeline. They now must go back in a limited amount of time and correct these changes. The series comes off more as a combination of Star Gate SG1 and Quantum Leap, than the 1960's Time Tunnel series. This is not a reboot by any means except for the purloined title and appropriation of a couple of character names. As a huge fam of the original series, I came here expecting the old show with updated computers, but this is not that. This is a different show entirely and should change its title and distance itself from the original. I would still love to see a reboot made based 100% off the original TV show. I would not watch this version again.

You will not see a play here. This is a documentary about Liza Jessie Peterson's endeavor to perform her play, "The Peculiar Patriot" at Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary. In so doing, she opens our eyes to the plight of minority prisoners (in particular black prisoners) in the US. The film opens with her travel to the prison. Angola is on the land of a former Southern Plantation and took its name from that plantation. The land is farmed, and cattle are raised there, for food, making the prison a self-sustaining legacy to its former status as a slave plantation. Even cotton is grown there. The difference is the black slaves have been replaced by predominantly black prisoners. The majority of drug dealing, and petty crimes are committed by white people, but the majority of those sent to prison for minor crimes instead of community service and parole, are black and latino. They work long hard hours and lose much of their youth lost in the criminal justice system. The play was intended to focus on that truth with some humor thrown in to entertain the prisoners. The prison authorities couldn't handle that truth being shown in the play and shut it down partway through the performance. But it was too late, as the prisoners' eyes were opened, and they rose up nonviolently with fists raised. This opened up conversations and dialog among those at Angola. Hopefully this film gets a wider audience and opens eyes around the entire country to criminal justice and racial inequality reforms. The best part was that this documentary was performed with both truth and compassion, without violence or angry shouts, that might turn off some segments of society. This film has the potential to do a lot of good, if we can get enough people to see it. This short film needs to go viral.

I don't quite understand why so many others reviewed this film so highly. For me it lacked a back story and character development to explain the actions of the main characters. The basic story is about a Maid, Antonia, that works in hospitality at a hotel. It's a scorching hot day, and she is running late for work. She first has to drop her son off at the bus for a 2 week stay with his father. When she finally gets to work, she is berated by one staff member after the other. First, fighting with the doorman for parking her car illegally out front, then with her boss for being perpetually late, and finally by the hotel manager for failing to keep the hotel supplied with sanitary wipes. She is given one last chance to shape up or be fired. We then see her in the employee locker room sobbing, a female coworker asks her what is wrong. She fills her in on how bad her day is going, and her life in general. Her coworker prods a bit deeper and gets her to open up that she hasn't had sex in 7 years. She gives Antonia a pep talk and tells her she has to make time to enjoy life and take care of herself. All of a sudden, the coworker gives her a passionate kiss, and then goes to take a shower, as the hot day makes her feel sweaty and sticky. From there the story shows us Antonia making her housekeeping rounds room to room at the hotel, until she comes to the last room the VIP suite. She enters and assumes it is empty and starts to do her job. She suddenly hears a glass shatter and realizes she is not alone. There is a cell phone on the bed, and it starts to ring. She is frozen standing Infront of the window as a naked man enters the room from his shower. He answers the phone and appears to be lying to his employer, that he is in the elevator and on his way to work. We then find out he is blind, as he gets his clothes ready that are labeled in brail by color. As he reaches down to the floor for his shoes he feels around and touches Antonia's feet. He then moves his hand up to explore her body. This is where I say the film lacks congruity and needs explanations. He now knows he is not alone, but instead of screaming in fear, these two strangers kiss and then have explicit sex on his bed. The film ends after the sex act as they share a cigarette. Too many unanswered questions. How does this blind man make love with no fear to a stranger in his room? Did he somehow know it was the maid? Was putting her son on the bus important only to give a reason for her being late for work? The film was lost on me.

Unfortunately, I did not care for this film very much. The actors themselves did a splendid job with what they had to work with. However, the storyline itself was choppy at best and seemed incomplete. None of the characters were happy and all had emotional baggage, but for the most part none of their issues are fully explored and they are not fully explained, either leaving gaps for the viewer to puzzle over. The story revolves around 2 brothers that inherit their father's money and cattle ranching business. The brothers are combative as they are jealous of one another. The older slim brother is well educated, but forced to do manual labor and lead a group of cowhands to keep the family business going. The heavyset younger brother whom he teasingly calls Fatso never went to college, is physically unfit to do work around the ranch, so his job is to balance the books and drum up business as his math skills are good. On one of their out-of-town businesses trips they stay at an inn run by a widow and her gay son. The older brother takes delight in teasing the effeminate son of the widowed innkeeper (who works as a waiter for his mom during diner time for the guests) and gets his cowhands to do the same. This brings both mother and son to tears separately. Fatso finds the widow upset and in comforting her he falls in love with her. His brother takes an instant dislike to the widow, and sees her as a gold digger, out for his family's money. To his dismay Fatso marries her anyway, and they move into the family's ranch. That is where the first gap in the story begins, as little if anything is mentioned about what happens to her own Inn/restaurant business. The Widow's son has dreams of becoming a doctor. Despite his effeminate nature, (we see him collect flowers, and make artificial flowers out of paper) he has a hard side as well. He thinks nothing of cutting open a pet rabbit to dissect it in his quest for medical knowledge. Fatso pays to send the Widow's son "Pete" to medical school, which only serves to convince the older brother "Phil" that he was right; the widow married fatso for his money. Phil finds ways to tease and torment the widow and she begins to drink constantly. During summer break from school, Pete returns to the ranch and the teasing from Phil and the cowhands continues. One day we start to see a lot of male nudity, as the workers go down to the local swimming hole to bathe and have some fun. Phil who has a reputation for remaining dirty and smelling foul, remains seated on his horse and watches but does not join in. We then see Pete exploring the woods. He comes upon a makeshift little fortress hidden behind twigs and branches. Inside he finds a box containing nude male muscle magazines. Pete hears some movement in the distance and quickly puts the magazines back in the box. When he comes out the other end of the fortress, he sees Phil naked in a private area of the lake, covering himself in mud, and then jumping into the lake to wash off. Suddenly he sees Pete, calls him a peeping pervert and chases him off. We are now left to ponder that the nude magazines belonged to Phil, and that he may be a closeted homosexual, and perhaps teasing Pete is just a way to draw attention away from his own lack of female companionship. Next time we see Phil he is back at the ranch seated and bradding a rope out of cowhide. Out of nowhere he summons Pete over to him, and tells the kid they started off on the wrong foot. He tells Pete to stop calling him sir and Mr. And call him Phil instead. He then proceeds to try and become Pete's friend and mentor. He teaches him to ride, as well as how to make a rope out of cowhides and so forth. Soon the two are inseparable. It is never made clear if this is because he knows that Pete may have seen the nude male magazines and staying on his good side would keep him quiet. They discuss their lives and we learn that Pete's father committed suicide, and Pete is the one that found hum and cut him down. We also learn that Phil's mentor at Pete's age was "more than a friend" If that means gay lover, or not it is never spelled out. We have been made aware earlier that Phil never deals with sick or dead animals as he is afraid of Anthrax. This is important because Pete's mother, while drunk gives all the hides Phil was saving to make his rope to some Indians. He is furious, but Pete tells him not to worry as he has some hides he saved on his own. The hides unknown to Phil came from sick dead cows that Pete dissected in the woods. The two men continue to become close, and there seems to be a lot of sexual tension between them, but we never see them actually act on it. The film comes to an abrupt end without any of the storylines completed. Phil dies after cutting his hand making the rope, that he wanted to give Pete as a gift. The Dr. Says the suspected cause of death was Anthrax. Fatso remarks that his brother never touched dead, diseased animals. Only Pete knows where the hides came from, and he never tells. As a medical student he would know the risks, but if it was done on purpose, we don't know why, as they appeared to have mended their past and become best friends, unless it was all an act. We never find out if Pete finished medical school, or if his mother stopped drinking with Phil gone and no longer teasing her. Wasted all this time watching the film to end the film with no answers.

This series was not at all what I expected. The IMDB "Parents Guide" Listed nudity as '"severe" and said there was frequent male nudity throughout. I really did not find this to be the case. Both of the hosts start the show the same way. They enter the prison and are strip searched. This only takes a minute or so and their bare butt is all that is seen as they keep their hand covering their private area at all times. The rest of the time nudity is just no shirts which is common anywhere for men in summer or after hours. So for me nudity was very mild. The rest of the shows were interviews with prisoners, guards and gang members. The hosts spent sometime as both prisoner and guard. It makes little sense that they can be on both sides and the prisoners don't care. In real life you would be labeled a snitch and killed. No one bothered these hots at all. They were shown either playing sports outside with inmates, or doing chores. Sometimes easy kitchen help, or other times as bad as cleaning toilets. But no one threatened them in any way, and all spoke freely with them. In real life unless you are big and muscular, you need to get someone to protect you. Otherwise you will be treated like a woman and made to have sex with dominant cell mates. Not only did we not see that here, there was not even a mention of male rape, which is rampant in hard core prisons. The HBO series OZ even though scripted, was more realistic than anything shown in this real life documentary.