DJ_Reticuli

Scott Bakula singing John Lennon to his sister gets me every time. Olivia Burnette is also a criminally-underused actress in the industry. She was amazing in this. Bakula playing his own father is one of the most convincing instances of an actor playing multiple parts I've ever seen since Dr Strangelove, maybe more so, because in the latter comedy & satire you didn't have a problem breaking your suspension of disbelief to just enjoy Sellers. In this episode, it works on other levels. Yes, as the other reviewer mentioned, the nutrition advice is a little dated, but in 1990 they didn't know any better with the misinterpretations of the Framingham study, overemphasis of the (at the time still-incomplete) Lipid Theory, and the understanding of inflammation still being in its infancy. Saturated fat and especially ingested cholesterol are nutritious and much better for you than sugar. The smoking and cardio stuff is still right on, though, and the father and mother's responses still works as well now as it did then.

One of the most realistic depictions of the Vietnam war ever put to film. Unquestionably the most realistic depiction of US special forces there I've ever seen. Obviously, I mean that minus the time travel stuff. They must have had some vets as advisors who were very fresh with their knowledge. The attention to detail is startling. This is an odd contrast to the episode on Oswald, because that seemed to be simple Warren Commission apologist nonsense pretending to know more about subject than it did. A number of those involved in that one later came out and said they regretted it, but The Leap Home: Part 2 is extremely weird for TV to pull off and reminds me a bit of a few of the early episodes of Airwolf that had a lot more insight into the field of espionage and covert operations than TV shows had ever depicted. I guess Bellisario was an odd duck for his time.

Two extra stars for a few clever lines, the nips, and the pretty-looking, though quickly cliched, golden-hour lighting and camera work. I did not care about any of the characters in this. The film is a mash up of elements from Metropolis, Citizen Kane, and Ayn Rand, but with some weird messaging that teeters between environmentalism and philosophies on utopia... all while trying to use Rome as a partial allegory. I think if they'd just gone full commitment into a recreation of Rome in a modern or futuristic era it might have been interesting, like Baz Luhrmann's Romeo & Juliet or Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus. I half started expecting Julius Ceasar in the future but was robbed. As for being futuristic, it barely even managed to be convincingly so. It gets worse, though, and literally ends with a remixed US pledge of allegiance recitation like in some kind of parody of a bad school play from the hippie era. I was not the only one in the theater laughing *at* the movie by the end.