MovieLoverMan

I'm an Independent who voted against Trump, so please remember that as you read my review.

A quick note: Sebastian Stan looks exactly like Wheel of Fortune's Pat Sajak did in the 1980s/90s, much more than he does Donald Trump.

The Apprentice started by showing Trump as a multi-layered real person. But then it soon switched to a one-layered cartoon caracticture of Trump. It's a major shortcoming because the writers portrayed Roy Cohn as a complex, real person. Yet they quickly switched to portray Trump as a simplistic, predictable, despicable joke of a person.

For example: 1) Did Trump really have Ivana on the floor in anger? 2) Did Trump really try to endanger his parents' fortune in their old age? 3) Did Trump really give a gift of cheap cufflinks and call them Tiffany diamond cufflinks?

Imagine what The Apprentice could have been if the writers had shown Trump as a real person with depth, conflicts, doubts, divorces, raising multiple children, evolving from real estate developer to television star to political force as he lived through the decades.

The Apprentice could have been so much more than it is. It's a major failure because the movie began with so much potential, but quickly became a lost opportunity.

I've never liked traditional twangy, nasal Country Music. I'm more a Country fan of singers who aren't nasal or twangy sounding. People including Shania Twain, Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless, Linda Ronstadt, Larry Gatlin and The Gatlin Brothers, the Oak Ridge Boys, Johnny Cash, The Eagles, etc. I grew up in East Tennessee and saw Dolly Parton singing on local Knoxville TV when she was only 16 before she even went to Nashville. Country music was everywhere here, on the radio, on TV, everywhere! This Song of the Mountains show has many performers I never heard of, but virtually all the groups perform well. I guess it's the up and coming artists or those who never broke into the big-time. All in all, this show has something for everyone to enjoy.

This is a McCloud episode that's more about chases and adrenaline than plot twists or clever writing. In other words, it's geared toward adolescent boys who like noise, adrenaline, chases, explosions and vehicle crashes! So put your mind and intelligence on pause while watching this episode!

Many events are so unlikely, that they never would have happened in real life. But like I said, your mind and intelligence need to be on pause to enjoy this episode.

The cornfield scene, where an airplane sprays pesticide on McCloud, is essentially a duplicate of the scene in Hitchcock's North by Northwest where a plane sprays pesticide on Cary Grant to try and kill him. But Hitchcock does it much better and much scarier.

This McCloud episode, with its time-consuming chase of a long haul trucker by the sheriff, debuted on TV screens October 24, 1976. The same plot idea repeated the next year in Smokey and the Bandit, which debuted on movie screens May 26, 1977.

Another obvious reference is the very name of this episode, Bonnie and McCloud. The real Bonnie and Clyde also roamed around Oklahoma, Texas, and other central US states. Starting in 1931, they robbed many banks and killed people until 1934 when Texas Ranger Frank Hamer and a posse killed them in a hail of gunfire in an ambush. So Bonnie and Clyde were killed by a Texas lawman, while Bonnie and McCloud surrender to Texas lawmen!

By the way, in 1976 I saw the actual car that Bonnie and Clyde were slaughtered in. It, and Adolf Hitler's armor-plated, bullet-proofed windows limousine were touring the country, and I saw them in Connecticut. Bonnie and Clyde's car had countless bullet holes and the seats still had their blood stains. It was horrifying and gruesome to see how they were slaughtered before they could even get out of the car or shoot back.

One other reference about this October 24, 1976 Bonnie and McCloud episode. Only nine years earlier, Faye Dunaway rocketed to stardom with Warren Beatty in the hit movie Bonnie and Clyde, which debuted on movie screens August 14, 1967.