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THE DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN (1992)

RATING: Two stars

Judge a comedy that believes its own subject it is trying to skewer. Imagine such a comedy playing it so safe that its potentially funny tickling bone, aimed at statecraft, turns heavy-handed and didactic. Imagine such a comedy starring Eddie Murphy! Casting Murphy is one of the fundamental problems of "The Noted Gentleman."

Eddie Murphy is yet another clever con-artist named Jeff Johnson, who resides in Florida and has three other con artists in his group. The most memorable member is Jeff's cousin (Sheryl Lee Ralph), who runs a retiring phone sex-scam where she utilizes her gift of mimicry, outstandingly using a Scandinavian accent as a fantasy girl named Inga. The silent picture starts off in the make right track as Jeff and his band try to give form a congressman (Noble Willingham) out of beamy amounts of exchange in order to keep mum about his phone bonking fantasies. This congressman is holding a party, and it is there where Jeff eavesdrops and discovers that in Congress, money is merely waiting to be laundered. Of course, another congressman named Jeff Johnson (James Garner) dies, so Murphy's Jeff decides to run for Congress wide of the mark of pure luminary recognition. Naturally, he makes it, and uses his gang as his staff.

The fun of the film should be in seeing how far Murphy can coax his persona in the political arena. Despite some educative scenes where we learn how difficult it is to collar a decent appointment (there is an office drawing of sorts), "The Distinguished Gentleman" gets caught up in a love story and political corruption, as if we or peaceful Jeff Johnson himself had no knowing how corrupt it is at the top. The love story is between Jeff and a straightforward, idealistic lobbyist (Victoria Rowell) and it is as unconvincing as equal can imagine. Would this lady not appreciate that Jeff is bootless as a congressman? No in the capacity of, not since she is falling over the extent of him. Ah, but the pretty lobbyist has a father in Congress (Charles Dutton), who is righteous and a divine. He also eats lobster voraciously. Blah, blah.

The corruption viewpoint is ably supplied by Lane Smith, playing Dick Dodge, a dishonest chairman of a potent committee. Care for in mind that Mr. Smith ages played Nixon in a TV movie so he fits the banknote succintly. At least he is sensible that he is in a comedy. But when it is discovered that power lines may be causing cancer in children, wouldn't you be aware that Mr. Jeff Johnson, the flagitious con artist, has a morals. I thought he came to Congress to show that their members are no many from con artists pilfering money from the acknowledged. It isn't adequacy that the moving picture has seriously good intentions, it must also serve as didactic social commentary.

Eddie Murphy does as well as he can with his unbearable charm, but he takes himself too seriously. So does most of the cast when the big careens out of authority into situations that are more appropriate for political thrillers, not comedies. And the movie takes an eternity to make its pathetically past it-fashioned points that are right out of On the up Capra country.

On the whole, "The Noted Gentleman" is completely disarming and impossible to dislike. Murphy has his excessive comical moments (no Eddie Murphy film is en masse laughless), extremely with his master sense of mimicry (including a locale where he drives a van around a neighborhood and speaks with a Jewish intonation, promoting his candidacy). But just when the silent picture could level focus on for the benefit of sincere laughs, it falters and thinks that good intentions are a substitute for laughs. They aren't.

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The pooch who put the fume in “Petticoat Junction” returns from retirement in “Benji the Hunted,” an listless animal adventure that finds the dog morning star living by his wits in the wilds of Washington and Oregon. It’s like Rambo’s “First Blood,” with an exercise warrior in dog tags who doesn’t talk much.

Despite his advanced age — 77 in people years — the animal hall-of-famer ably heads a cunning cast of cougars and rabbits and bears. Alas, the Barrymore of bowserdom is beginning to look a little stiff in his stunts. Not that he doesn’t work his tail off, but he’s lost that old bow-wow wow.

Here, the courageous canine is shipwrecked while on a fishing trip with his trainer Frank Inn, playing himself. Inn mounts a helicopter search, as Benji, hidden under the forest canopy, woofs futilely. After a hunter kills a mother cougar before his eyes, Benji assumes the responsibility of parenting the orphans — but only after he has overcome his natural prejudice against felines.

Joe Camp, maker of the original “Benji,” writes and directs this outdoor Disney dogma, which obviously means to give little folks pause for thought. Certainly they won’t get lost in the maddeningly linear story line, with Benji running up mountains and running down mountains and Benji cat-carrying cub after cub after cub after cub up the same scrabbly incline.

Frankly, it’s a relief when an eagle snatches one of the foursome and the pace picks up. Mean, maybe, but not compared with Camp and company’s ecological insensitivity to the endangered wolf population. They vilify the species, pitting a lovely gray wolf against old Benji, who, like a smart cowpoke, stops short at the edge of a cliff while the wolf goes flying over. Only he doesn’t go splat and get back up like the Roadrunner coyote. He just goes splat. It’s ludicrous, like a Monty Python spoof of Disney.

“Woof,” goes Benji.

If only he could have said, “Go ahead, make my day,” it would have made all the difference.

Benji the Hunted,

rated G, is at area theaters.

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“The 13th Warrior” emerges from a unite of years on the shelf as a bloody but anemic tale of he-men with broad swords and long ships fighting off marauding cannibals dressed in bear skins. Fans of Viking pictures who for years receive anxiously anticipated another large-ranking entry in the thinly populated genre see fit at least discern their hunger sated the meanwhile by the hardy action sequences and sporadic butchery. But become a reality joy choose fool to await another day, as Michael Crichton’s facts is underdeveloped and narrow in range, resulting in a tale more odd for its odd confluence of elements than for their edifying deployment. The best that can be hoped for is that the names of Crichton, supervisor John McTiernan and pass Antonio Banderas devise lure their fans for some good origin-frame figures, but women aren’t probably to respond and commercial downslide looks to be alacritous.

Although produced in 1997 — before McTiernan’s current release, “The Thomas Crown Affair” — and the subject of reported significant reworking by co-producer Crichton in recent months, “Warrior” shows only limited signs of post-production surgery or stitching. There are subsidiary characters and possible subplots, notably involving an old Norse king and his treacherous son, that were likely pushed to the edges, but yarn moves along in orderly three-act fashion and delivers the expected quotient of blood and guts.

What William Wisher and Warren Lewis’ adaptation of Crichton’s 1976 novel “Eaters of the Dead” also serves up, however, is an odd combo of civilized rather than primitive-minded talk, some vaguely conceived mumbo-jumbo about unmentionable flesh-eating beasts that are soon revealed for what they really are, and a promising but finally unrealized contrasting of Western and Eastern cultures, circa the 10th century. In the end, pic is an old-fashioned potboiler with half-baked serious intentions sprinkled about.

The intriguing hero is Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan (Banderas), a highly cultured poet from Baghdad who, per Crichton in the production notes, was a historical figure who encountered Norsemen during his travels in Central Asia and whose writings provide one of the few firsthand accounts of such people during this period. Here, Ibn is exiled to a distant land for coveting the wrong woman but is soon coerced into joining a band of mostly blond fellows who require a non-Nordic 13th warrior to help them fight rampaging fiends who are terrorizing their land.

Pic deftly handles the language problem that is normally skirted in such fare by having Ibn’s traveling companion (Omar Sharif) find a Norseman who speaks some Greek and then translate for the younger man, who bides his time attentively until he’s absorbed enough of their language to begin speaking it himself, whereupon all dialogue slides into English. After a storm at sea, the rugged band makes landfall to find that their small community has been slaughtered and partly consumed by horrid creatures who attack in nocturnal mist and leave clawed footprints as big as those of giant bears.

The old king of the decimated Norse tribe is fading fast, and the attention given to court intrigue is so glancing that one can only suspect major cuts were made in this now-dull material; one victim of this is second-billed Diane Venora, who plays the queen and delivers but a handful of meaningless lines.

Most of the running time, therefore, goes to the brawny men and their preparations for the onslaught of marauders that will surely come with the first fog. Eventual nighttime battle is certainly brutal, albeit with clear views of the furry invaders avoided, much as the Morlocks were obscured in the 1960 version of “The Time Machine,” so as to prolong “suspense” over their true nature.

One part of the film aspires to be a sort of Middle Ages “Night of the Living Dead,” but McTiernan shows no interest in maximizing the creepy tension inherent in the plight of a handful of terrified people waiting for the ghastly attack they know is coming; instead of quietly building a sense of dread, pic remains overbusy and loud, thanks in part to Jerry Goldsmith’s insistently bombastic score.

There is hacking and impaling aplenty, as well there might be, but pic falls short on all the other fronts where it had chances to excel. Ibn is presented as a devout Mohammedan whose spiritual and artistic bents are meant to contrast with the more primitive and pagan ways of his temporary comrades. A few uncouth habits to the side, however, the forest men behave in a remarkably rational and reasonable manner that provides meager conflict with the attitudes of their sophisticated guest. It is not surprising, then, that the film conjures up little sense of a barbaric and starkly terrifying time and place.

On the visual side, too, pic is not all it might have been; the requisite action is up there on the screen, but the compositions of McTiernan and lenser Peter Menzies Jr. lack boldness and true epic stature.

In the sort of role that might once have been played by Tyrone Power or Victor Mature, Banderas cuts a fine figure with his black robes and white horse and becomes picturesquely scarred over the course of the various battles. The Norsemen have names that will have the former Monty Python players drooling over missed opportunities — Herger the Joyous, Skeld the Superstitious, Helfdane the Large and so on — but they’re a mostly amiable bunch who aren’t unamusing to be around.

Ultimately, pic is not as bad as its long hibernation period suggested, but it does count as a more or less muffed opportunity in a genre that could use some fresh ideas. Heavily wooded British Columbian locations substitute plausibly for northern Euro settings.

Secret Blues

Director:


Herbert Ross

Jeff and Jane Blue (Quaid and Turner) are vacationing in New Orleans with their pet. But the plans of these amorous FBI agents are spoiled when arch-enemy Novacek (Shaw) turns inaccurate to be the mastermind of an arms-smuggling ring. One can be in sympathy with how this think up might give birth to appealed to the leads: the sassy by-play and brassy derring do is reminiscent of

Romancing the Stone

, while Quaid is disregard in

Big Easy

territory.

Herbert Ross

, however, appears to think he's directing a spin-off from

Police Academy

. Disappointingly infantile.

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ChildCare Influence Assignment:
Christian Inquiry of American Sense of values (CAP)

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Fun Media Analysis Explore

DEFACE-0070

Scream

(1996)
R
RESPECTFULLY Score: 22
CAP ID: 2.50
Thomas A. Carder
CAP President
ALERT

Scream

(1996) was Freddie, Jason, Norman Bates, and Sissy Spacek all rolled into two — the two who took turns killing people. Sadomasochistic joint knifings, human mutilation, and a constant threat of infanticide were some of the deeds in this movie. The writers of a mind a parley which touched on blaming movies on account of fatal kind and named several of the "famous" killer movies — how right they were — but of routine the writers countered this suggestion by attempting to redirect the thinking of the viewer onto some other rationale.

Additional examples of unacceptable statistics included:

Lower than beneath is the table showing the scoring in each of the Enquiry Areas plus the Final Score fatigued from the actual CAP Report. In addition, the HAT Influence Density (ID) likeness to save the silent picture and the number of examples per hour of unacceptable material in each of the Investigation Areas is provided.

In accordance with the comparative baseline facts of the CAP Entertainment Media Assay Model,

Scream

(1996) presented material synonymous to R-rated material in Hooker Violence/Crime, Impunity/Hate, Sex/Homosexuality, Offense to Demigod, and Murder/Suicide.

Scream

(1996) was a kind to PG-13 material in Drugs/Alcohol. Ergo, the flicks was corresponding to the 83% R-rated components and 17% PG-13 material.
(3)
Alone portrayal of successful murder or suicide are incorporated into Murder/Suicide. Presentation of attempts to promise murder or suicide, deaths by the long arm of the law action, and deaths by war are incorporated into Wanton Violence/Crime.

Wish remember we allow that if even only of the six Examination Area scores for a movie is equivalent to the CAP comparative baseline database scoring range for R, PG-13, or PG material,

the absolute film should be regarded as so rated.

  For example, if only Promiscuous Violence/Crime earns a score equivalent to R but all other Investigation Areas earn a bevy equivalent to G, THERE IS R-RATED CORPOREAL IN THE TALKIE AND YOUR KIDS LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT ENDURE IT AND LISTEN TO IT IF THEY KEEP ONE'S EYES OPEN FOR THE MOVIE!

Additional reviews of this flick picture show may be located at

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Thank you for visiting us and may Power supply you. Prayerfully, we will victual you with some of the most revealing commentary and investigative reporting you have ever look over.
In the name of Jesus:
Duke, Master, Teacher, Savior, God.
Thomas A. Carder
President
ChildCare Vim Project: Christian Investigation of American Culture (CAP)

Copyright ChildCare Demeanour Forward (CAP)

Movie: How often do people utilize a re-make of a movie, never thinker evaluate it’s upper-class to the original? Very rarely, to reply the least. Is this because we all have an idea of what a movie is “supposed” to be like and any deviation is unacceptable for us or is it the good chance that the newer construct at one’s desire be churned out in order to cash in on the originals marketability? I suppose it well-founded depends on the specified film. In Roberto Benigni’s Pinocchio, I think it’s both those reasons and the ego of it’s star who also directed, co-wrote, and otherwise interjected his own ideas into the movie masterpiece.

The original story of Pinocchio comes from an old book written in the 19th century by Carlo Collodi. As most of us know, the basic version, as configured by Disney, had a puppet made of wood that is given life by a good fairy. He aspires to become a real boy and along the way, finds that life is full of temptations that set him off course. From huge whales to the circus to evil characters wanting to kidnap wayward youth and turn them into donkey’s for sale, Benigni’s version of the tale remained mostly true to the Disney update (in 1940 I believe) although with a darker slant as the original book was known for. It even has a magical cricket that acts, in a few cases at least, as a conscience to the young puppet.

So what about this movie is so bothersome to those who watch it? Is it the fact that to get this large budget movie ($45-50 million dollars at last report) made, a 50+ year old man, Roberto himself, had to be the lead? That’s part of it but the other logical inconsistencies of the movie are glaring as well. From Pinocchio’s growing nose, that only grew a couple of times when he lied (which was all the time), to the lack of scale and timeframe, at no point did it look like anyone was trying to make a decent live action version of this classic. The darker nature of this one also makes it less acceptable for kids, the supposed target audience, since seeing lead characters die, ill fortune fall upon those undeserving of such, and all the other problems this one had is not considered a good idea for selling it-at least in the American market.

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The acting was bad, as was the adapted script but what about the costumes and soundtrack? Well, those were two solid aspects of the movie that I could recommend, which sure isn’t much to check out a movie on. I also watched both versions of the movie since they were both included in the 2 dvd set and found the shorter Americanized version to be just as bad as the original Italian release. The dubbing by lots of well known actors wasn’t always terrible but perhaps someone working with the dub might’ve suggested farming the project out to one of the better anime companies, AnimEigo or ADV come to mind, since the people in charge of this one looked like they spent all of a couple of days rushing this one through the process.

The timeless themes of Pinocchio tell us to behave, stay in school, and treat people well, not to mention tell the truth, and all will be well with the world but after watching this release, I wondered why this was so since Benigni’s character is the least likeable boy I’ve ever encountered in a movie. To say he was a brat would be an insult to brats everywhere. The moral of this story was simplified to “don’t get caught”. Swell thing to teach people in these harsh times.

Both versions of the movie were bad enough that I recommend them as Skip It material unless you want to see how a great actor (Life Is Beautiful was indeed a great movie) can be so off track in the wrong movie. It wasn’t just a bad movie on one level but on pretty much all levels which is a sad way to look at such a classic story, handled improperly.

Picture: The picture was presented in 2.35:1 ratio anamorphic widescreen color and looked pretty good. There were issues with edge enhancement and grain as well as some color saturation problems but most of the time, they weren’t the focal point of the problem. I did notice some compression artifacts as well with light shimmering going on during certain sections of the movie.

Sound: The sound was presented in a choice of either a 5.1 Italian track with optional English subtitles, a dubbed English track, or a dubbed French track. The sound on the original Italian track was best with some actual separation between the channels. Pretty solid score too.

Extras: The extras in this 2 disc set include the two versions of the movie-the original Italian version as well as the slightly shorter American version, a featurette on the FAO Schwartz dept store Pinocchio window dressing (the store is well known for it’s colorful New York store windows during the holiday season), and a short on the English dub of the movie where some of the voice actors are shown having a great time raking in the dough.

Final Thoughts: I watched this twice and let a couple of kids watch it to see if maybe they got something out of it that I didn’t. They were smart enough to walk out of the room, and turn down a bribe to watch the rest, after the movie was halfway through. Pass this one up unless you’re very desperate for something to watch on TV. It just goes to show you that a good actor, placed in a bad position, can’t always save a movie that doesn’t fit with them.

What is

Sátántangó

? Film buffs know that it's a 7-hour, black-and-white
film, in Hungarian with English subtitles. For years it has been one of
those movie "fish stories"; the few that have seen it get boasting
rights, not only that they managed to find it, but that they had the
endurance to watch the whole thing. But what is it about, and is it
actually a good movie beyond its form and length? Firstly, it is a good
movie. It's a great movie, in fact, one of the greatest of all movies.
Secondly, it takes patience to watch it, but less than you might think.
The writer/director Bela Tarr favors long, long, long takes, but in the
grand scheme of things, he has about as many camera setups as any
regular, feature-length film — perhaps less. So if you adjust your
brain, it can actually feel like a normal movie.

Based on a novel by László Krasznahorkai, the film is set in a small
farming village, where things have come to a standstill and the long,
autumn rainy season has just begun. The farmers have their year's salary
and a few begin to think about taking the money and running. But a
younger man with poetic aspirations, Irimias (Mihály Vig) turns up,
though the villagers believed that he was dead. He has a new scheme to
bring the farmers and their community back together, but it requires
them handing over all their money. Can he be trusted? Many of the scenes
occur simultaneously and certain moments cross over from one scene to
the next; Gus Van Sant, a fan of Tarr's, tried the same technique on a
much smaller scale in his


Elephant


(2003). In one sequence, a drunken
old doctor runs out of brandy and makes a long, long trek out into the
rainy night to get more. In the movie's most heartbreaking sequence, a
little girl finds herself disillusioned over the failure of a "money
tree" and runs away with a box of rat poison and her dead cat (this
sequence contains some images that may offend or disturb animal lovers).
The doctor and the little girl cross paths and we see the crossing,
twice, from both points of view.

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Certainly Irimias is the movie's most fascinating character, and its
most appealing. He's the most handsome and confident. Tarr is fond of
using faces as "landscapes," and so he has filled his movie with the
craggiest, most weathered faces. (Sometimes the film plays like a circus
freak show.) Irimias is also very much a Christ figure, though quite a
bit shadier. He comes back from the "dead," assumes the natural position
of leader, has followers (or "disciples"), speaks eloquently and coaxes
the people into putting their faith in him. He's probably closer to the
real, historical Christ than any other movie portrayal. Given that his
ideas and speech come from left field, it's only natural that the
commoners don't really understand him and can't really trust him. But
that's what faith is: believing without proof. Tarr's film is just as
confident in its own abilities; it's funny, beautiful, exasperating,
horrible and suspenseful, but any viewer may walk away with any of a
number of different impressions. Tarr's film also requires a little
faith, and though viewers may experience uncertainty going in,

Sátántangó

cannot be just any casual, or forgettable moviegoing
experience.

DVD Details:


Sátántangó

has been available on a Region 2 DVD
for a couple of years now, and Facets has been working on their new
Region 1 version for almost as long. It's a magnificently restored disc,
apparently approved by Tarr himself. The movie is spread out on three
discs, using the natural chapters for breaks. A fourth disc includes
three Tarr short films.

Macbeth

(1982) is a made-for-TV, hour-long
adaptation of Shakespeare's play, shot on primitive looking color
videotape.

Journey on the Plain

(1995) runs about a half-hour, in color,
once again starring Mihály Vig. The best short is the five-minute

Prologue

(2004), done in black-and-white, in one shot, and featuring
lots of Tarr's "faces as landscapes." (It was part of a compilation
feature called

Visions of Europe

.) The disc also comes with a
restoration demonstration. A great liner notes booklet includes a
transcription of a 2007 symposium on Bela Tarr; critics Jonathan
Rosenbaum, Scott Foundas and David Bordwell discuss Tarr's work in
depth. I don't think much is going to get in the way of this being the
DVD of 2008.

Starring:

Mihály Vig, Putyi Horváth, László Lugossy, Éva Almássy Albert, János Derzsi, Irén Szajki, Alfréd Járai, Miklós Székely B., Erzsébet Gaál, Erika Bók


Written by:

Bela Tarr, based on a novel by László Krasznahorkai


Directed by:

Bela Tarr


MPAA Rating:

Unrated


Language:

Hungarian, with English subtitles


Running Time:

420 minutes


Date:

July 22, 2008

Robert (Andreas Lust) and Susanne (Ursula Strauss) actual an ordinary country life in the peace woods near Vienna. Away from the big city, where only profit rules, as Alex and Tamara (Johannes Krisch and Irina Potapenko) know only too well, trapped in the plan. She is a streetwalker, originally from Ukraine; he’s her boss’ duty boy. They are lovers, but they have to keep it a secret. To get away from their lay of the land, Alex devises a plot to rob a bank in a village he knows near his grandfather’s (Johannes Thanheiser) farm. But Robert, the local cop, turns up, and shoots at their getaway car, hitting Tamara. Win out over with surrender, Alex leaves the body behind in a forest clearing and hides at his grandfather’s subcontract. When Susanne visits to keep the dated man company, she strikes up a friendship with Alex that leads to a chain of events which changes all their lives in unexpected ways.

One wonders why studios usually have all the hallmarks determined to make ill-conceived remakes of classic films. The job is inevitably bungled and whatever there was that made the prototype something bizarre almost always proves to be lightning not recapturable in a bottle. Intermittently, joined gets a sense that the studio itself is humiliated by the affront to the original and tries to slip the remake under the radar. That’s the case with the pointlessly-named Brains Donors, a Marx Brothers pastiche that puts a modern spin on identical of their greatest films.

Bountiful widow Lillian Oglethorpe (Nancy Marchand) strives to make real her late husband’s dream of starting a ballet company. She summons ambulance-chasing attorney Roland T. Flakfizer (John Turturro) to procure the services of Roberto Volare (George De La Pena) to head the circle, though jealous family attorney Edmund Lazlo (John Savident) determines that he will get the lucrative post of organizing the ballet company. That seems likely when Flakfizer engages the services of knockabout morons Jacques (Bob Nelson) and Rocco Melonchek (Mel Smith) to aid him. But unsophisticated dancers Lisa Le Baron (Juli Donald) and Alan Grant (Spike Alexander) achieve with Flakfizer to get into the Oglethorpe ballet house.

If this sounds inexplicably familiar, it’s because this is an ill-disguised remake of A Night at the Opera (1935), stripped of the seagoing voyage (and its honoured stateroom setpiece). Turturro takes the Groucho role, while Nelson assumes Harpo’s and Mel Smith mutates Chico’s Italian into a working-breeding English (or possibly Australian) accent. Turturro manages the best, adopting Groucho’s swagger and expeditious-paced delivery, but without aping Marx’s particular mannerisms. His timing is sharp and he spits in author Pat Proft’s lines with aplomb. Nelson updates Harpo, ditching the peaceful routine, though he keeps the raincoat. Smith gets a few good absurdist lines in, especially premature on as he’s describing his many professions. Nancy Marchand isn’t quite Margaret Dumont, seeming to be far too willing to take the antics of Flakfizer and lacking the slow burn of outrage that was second to Dumont’s snooty surface. The romantic leads, as in the original, are plenty colorless as required.

Modernizing Kaufman’s hand doesn’t work terribly well. The paradigmatic contract stifle with the “sanity clause” morphs into a perception strangle involving a computer desk veiled in a briefcase and an inflatable doll. Groucho’s stateroom comment on “two’s company” morphs into “two’s company, three’s an adult movie” from Turturro. Hiding the provenance of the biography was probably a good construct, since this picture suffers greatly by contrast everywhere in. On its own, and without thinking about the brothers Marx it manages to deliver some laughs, but it will on no account be mistaken in support of a classic of the genre. At least it’s fast-paced and avoids overstaying its welcome. The Zucker Brothers produced, so a lot of their throw-everything-at-the-separate style can be observed here. The drunk points are the opening and settle titles, featuring bravura claymation by genius Transfer Vinton, scored with bassoons by Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo. The rest of the film can’t prospect to persevere up to the commitment of these titles.

A man needs a sideline, and Dan Aykroyd proves a persuasively articulate advocate for his in “Unplugged on UFOs.” While the notion of the later Mr. Conehead expounding on tenable E.T. visitations might suggest an April Fool’s joke, the star is duly serious and well-knowledgeable on excuse. His earnest musings are used by helmer, interviewer and self-defined “Ufologist” David B. Sereda to rehash corporeal already familiar to enthusiasts, from Roswell to Area 51 and beyond. Tough item’s tabloid-TV style won’t tempt extravagant exposure, but it should appeal to the nosy and already-converted as a rental and thinkable rope pickup.

Commencing with the statement that “Millions of people around the world have claimed to see UFOs,” Aykroyd among them, Sereda lets his celebrity ally summarize evidence and theories re: UFO sightings (apparently on the rise lately), abductions, technology and their likely U.S. governmental cover-up. Also interviewed are former Canadian Defense Minister Paul Hellyer, retired NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper and others who argue the issue’s validity is by now not in question. Vid footage, photos and artists’ renderings are offered — many arguably hoaxes or capturing weather-induced phenomena, but their accumulated weight is thought-provoking.