Paul Hogan Books

I bought this DVD for my boyfriend for a Christmas present with my fingers crossed. It's impossible to describe how movie-centric he is... we've chosen vacation destinations based on movies. It was a HUGE hit! He's watched all of the extras at least once now, and he loved the creative way Criterion made the front insert look like an old newspaper. It's gritty, ahead of it's time, and Kirk Douglas is a true star! Criterion wins again (as if anyone thought it'd be otherwise!).

Ace in the Hole (Billy Wilder, 1951)

Thank heaven (or Criterion) for a release of Billy Wilder's notorious and brilliant Ace in the Hole for the home video market. As topical as it may have been fifty-six years ago, today it has an unprecedented relevance to American society. It's rare that a film's importance grows over time. This is one of those cases.

The story centers around Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas in the performance of his career), a disgraced newspaper reporter who finds himself working in the backwoods world of Albuquerque journalism, covering compelling news stories like a rattlesnake contest. While on his way to cover one such story with cub photographer Herbie Cook (Green Grass of Wyoming's Robert Arthur), he stumbles into something much bigger: Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict), who owns a service station/knickknack shop in the dusty little town of Los Barios, has gotten himself trapped in a mine collapse while looking for Indian relics in a cliff dwelling to sell to tourists. Rather than simply helping the guy out, getting one story, and going on with his life, Tatum-- desperate to get back in the good graces of the Eastern papers with a strong series of stories-- concocts a plan with the corrupt local Sheriff (Ray Teal) to keep the story alive for a week. In the process, he manipulates everyone around him, including Leo's cynical yet naïve wife (Jan Sterling).

Wilder takes the idea of the media circus to new heights here (including having an actual circus on the grounds during the latter half of the film). Ace in the Hole is a relentlessly pessimistic film in which no one cares about Leo Minosa the human being, only about Leo Minosa the story and what each person can get out of it. Leo's wife wants a way out of hicksville, as does Tatum (and, to a lesser extent, Herbie); the sheriff wants re-elected; the head engineer of the rescue team wants an exclusive on the fat contracts that come with the sheriff's re-election; even the competing papers' journalists, who are the only people in the film kinda-sorta set up as the good guys, just want the story, and their editors eventually want Tatum. After a while, news stops being news and starts being entertainment. (Note that Wilder has no illusions about this from the get-go; the first story Tatum files has less to do with Leo Minosa than the Indian curse that Minosa believes trapped him in the shaft.) This, of course, is exactly what's been happening to American culture since not long after Watergate.

Topicality, though, is not the only reason to watch Ace in the Hole. Wilder was one of those great directors, now an endangered species, who could do anything (and often did); the melodramatic Ace in the Hole was bookended by Sunset Blvd., the finest piece of film noir of all time, and Stalag 17, the movie that (loosely) formed the basis of the television show Hogan's Heroes. Imagine a modern director filming three so widely differing movies in a row, not to mention having all three of the movies, fifty years later, being known as timeless classics of filmdom. Wilder got the most out of every actor he ever cast in a movie, and knew where to put the cameras and how to film the shots so that all that acting talent could be showcased in the finest possible way. A Billy Wilder movie is filmmaking at its best, and Ace in the Hole, finally available again after languishing in obscurity so long, is ample evidence of that. **** ½

Ace In The Hole (aka The Big Carnival) was directed by my hero, Billy Wilder. He is the genius who gave us Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot - three of my all-time favorite films. Ace In The Hole, however, suffers from the over-the-top performance of Kirk Douglas who manages to play every scene with clenched teeth and boiling-point anger. His early scenes in the small newspaper office in Albuquerque are so over-played that he comes off like a man in need of a straight-jacket rather than a job. I believe it would be a more powerful film if his character were a little more sympatetic initially, thereby shocking us once his dark side is fully revealed. As it stands now, we are not surprised at the depth of his depravity because of Douglas' inability to bring some subtlety to his performance. Having said all that, there is much here to recommend...some solid acting performances and a powerful story of greed and power and how contagious corruption is. Jan Sterling stands out as the cold and indifferent wife of the man trapped in the cave. She delivers the only funny line in the movie, "I don't go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons." She can be seen in Caged and in her Oscar-nominated performance in The High And The Mighty. In closing, I would like to say that I think William Holden would have brought more subtley and dimension to the lead role. However, it is what it is and I my hope is that this review has peaked your curiosity and you will watch the film and decide for yourself.

"Don't worry, Leo. I'm your pal." That's Chuck Tatum speaking. He's a hot-shot big city reporter who has been fired from every top paper he's ever worked for. Now he's hit bottom. He works for the Albuquerque Sun=Bulletin, a small town daily which puts yard sales on its front page. Tatum needs the job, but he's determined to find that one big ticket story that'll put him back in New York. The man he's talking to is going to be that big ticket. His name is Leo Mimosa, owner of the desolate, dusty Mimosa's Indian Curios ("Gas and Oil, Drinks on Ice") in Escudero, in New Mexico's high desert. Leo is currently 300 feet underground, trapped in a cave-in while looking for ancient Indian pots he can sell for a few hundred dollars. In the next 111 minutes, covering five or so days, we're going to experience so much corruption of the soul, misplaced trust and consuming ambition...leavened by so little humanity...that we'll want to take a bath afterwards. This is one of director Billy Wilder's greatest pictures. For me, it's permeated not by Wilder's famously sardonic outlook toward humanity but by the inevitability of commonplace tragedy. That there are only one or two people we might think well of isn't so much a limitation as an element that sharpens the fascination with great story-telling combined with vivid acting.

While Tatum controls his big story, and while Leo becomes increasingly desperate, to the point of believing Tatum is his only friend, we encounter a cast of characters who are either stupid and venal or sly and venal. Top of the list is Tatum, himself. Kirk Douglas gives an utterly believable portrait of a man, excellent at his job, who can taste the big-time again and is determined to do whatever it takes to achieve it. "I'm on my way back to the top," he says, "and if it takes a deal with a crooked sheriff, that's alright with me! And if I have to fancy it up with an Indian curse and a broken hearted wife for Leo, then that's alright too!" Close behind is Jan Sterling as Leo Mimosa's wife. Lorraine Mimosa wants out...out of Escudero, out of New Mexico and out of her marriage with Leo. She's a pouty bleached blonde, callous and discontented. Gus Kretzer, the local sheriff, is corrupt and more than willing to work with Tatum to insure he gets the kind of news coverage he needs for his re-election. And there are all those visitors to the cave where Leo is trapped...gawkers, thrill seekers, whole families out to set up camp and see what happens. Food booths and a carnival keep them contented while a drill pounds away at the rock to reach Leo. It's the slow way which Tatum has maneuvered to insure his exclusive coverage of Leo's predicament can play out over the next few days. Leo literally is Tatum's ace in the hole. The conclusion is as depressing as Wilder's depiction of human character. The movie's whole set-up, in fact, is designed to make us feel uncomfortable at what we're seeing. If we've ever slowed down to get a better view of a traffic accident, if we've ever watched with fascinated revulsion as a snake swallows down a live mouse or a mantis gnaws at a struggling lizard, we have to recognize that in spirit we're also part of the crowd eager to see what happens.

What makes the movie stand apart from so much of Wilder's skilled cynicism in some of his other films, I think, are two elements. First, Wilder plays this story straight. There's no sardonic comedy or witty, misogynistic lines. He serves us up a serious, well-acted drama and then compels us to take it seriously while he makes us squirm a little. Second, he includes two characters that give us some relief from Tatum's ambition and our own unease. First is Herbie Cook, played by Robert Arthur, the young photographer from the newspaper. Herbie is a graduate of a journalism school, a little naive and so innocent-looking you want to protect him from Tatum's manipulations. Second, and most important, is Jacob Boot, played by that fine character actor, Porter Hall. Boot is in some ways our conscience, the serious, realistic publisher and owner of the Sun=Bulletin who has the quaint idea that telling the truth is important. Boot is able, although not by much, to show us that people come in all flavors, and that venality is only one of them, no more or less than trying to do the right thing also is. In Ace in the Hole, however, nothing good happens in time. As Tatum said earlier, "It's a good story today. Tomorrow, they'll wrap a fish in it." Same with people.

Some call Ace in the Hole a noir. I'm not one of them. For me, it's a powerful drama, and it transcends genre classification. We might as well call Macbeth a noir simply because Macbeth has a tragic hero, a femme fatale, death and the inevitability of fate. The two-disc Criterion release features an excellent black-and-white picture transfer and several extras which include interviews with Kirk Douglas, Billy Wilder and screenwriter Walter Newman. There is an audio commentary by Neil Sinyard, identified as a film scholar. Amusingly, the booklet insert which has essays by Molly Haskell and Guy Madden is in the form of an edition of the Albuquerque Sun=Bulletin.

Ignored, unappreciated, even despised by the majority upon its initial release, Ace in the Hole is a bold social critique that pulls no punches. This movie holds up the public mirror and tries to make people see just how much they suck.
Kirk Douglas delivers another fearless performance as Charles Tatum, a shameless big-city reporter that has been exiled from several lucrative jobs. So he retreats to a small town newspaper gig in New Mexico, in order to reestablish his career.
Tatum hates his new job, and desperately searches for the big break that will propel him back into the limelight. That moment eventually comes when a mine collapses, trapping a worker inside. Tatum takes charge of all the relief efforts, not out of concern for the desperate man inside, but for the fame that accompanies this tragedy. A media frenzy ensues.
One moment that illustrates Tatum's arrogance--other reporters try to move in and capture some of the news coverage. One says "We're all in the same boat". Tatum's cynical response was "No, I'm in the boat. You're in the water."
This movie is an excellent display of humanity's overall decline of morality. How vanity supersedes compassion. How humanity has lost touch with one another. I'm not trying to sound judgemental, heck I'm ignoring all company policies and personal job responsibilities by writing this review. Nobody's perfect. But this is a great movie, with powerful but controlled acting and a significant message.
So now, go hug a stranger. No, on second thought you better not. You'll probably get punched.

My children just loved the book. I have had it read to them numerous times and now my 3rd grader tries to read it to the youngest one. He is getting pretty good at it. Any book that can keep their interest is highly recommended.

I got several copies of this delightful story at Christmas for my Grandchildren. As soon as they each opened theirs, they begged me to read it to them. All five sat around the Christmas tree while I read. They were enchanted and had a good time talking about the environment and about friendship. They enjoyed sharing their thoughts with each other.

The Holidays are over and my Granchildren have returned to their own homes. They still talk about Paul as their number one bedtime story. Ms.Hogan has created a Childhood treasure. Someday they will be reading it to their own children.

What a great book! I really enjoyed reading it and it is sure to be a favorite of my grandchildren. This book invokes many feelings and is as informative as it is entertaining. Teaching the importance of values, family and friends and touching on some important environmental issues. I hope Ms. Hogan continues to write books of this calibur. "Two thumbs up" Ms. Hogan.

Sincerely,


Lynda Foy Knapp

PAUL PONDEROSA IS NOW MY GRANDSON HUNTER'S FAVORITE BOOK. I READ IT TO HIM THREE NIGHTS IN A ROW AND AS MANY TIMES DURING THE DAY AS HE THOUGHT ABOUT IT DURING HIS RECENT VISIT. NOW HE CALLS ME EVERY NIGHT TO READ IT TO HIM OVER THE PHONE. IF I TRY TO SKIP A PAGE OR TWO HE CALLS ME ON IT (SMART KID). I HAVE JUST ORDERED A COPY FOR HIS PARENTS AND THE PARENTS OF MY OTHER 12 GRANDCHILDREN.

I APPRECIATE THE LESSONS PAUL ESPOUSES REGARDING THE VALUE OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND FRIENDSHIP.

This is a sweet story of Paul Ponderosa and his mother, living in a forest that is being encroached upon by men with chainsaws. Paul and his forest friends work together to keep their woods safe. Many messages in this book bring out concerns about friendships, sharing and taking responsibility - good lessons for all young people, told in a suspenseful way.

my first son at age one this was his favorite toy (the characters punch out and play on the pages, you insert them) and now my next one year old, all over again, favorite toy. i laminated the punch-outs long ago so they would last, with packing tape. now i just ordered a new one and one for my baby niece.

Fans of Crocodile Dundee, and, like me, fans of Paul Hogan's T.V. Show
will like this book. From Bridge Worker to Movie Star, this story's great!

Please ask Sandra Jobson to email me about another Australian adventure happening in America in June 2000. BEV

The Naked Gun Gift Set contains all three of the films and boy you will be laughing like crazy when you get this baby home. Of course the original is the best, but the sequels are enjoyable as well. Leslie Nielsen has great comic timing and Priscilla Presley is not too shabby either. I highly recommend this awesome collection. Enjoy!

This movie it's just one of my favorites comedies. Leslie Nielsen just awesome. Tons of laughs. If you want to spend some time on your couch laughings in a boring afternoon this is the one. Excellent comedy

i love these movies! they are hilarious! u cant tell me u cant laugh once at leslie nielson's crazy antics. he's great!

This is not what I expected it to be. Its true that many scenes not appearing in TV broadcasts are shown, but then the extra scenes that the TV media puts in to stretch the show time are missing. Too bad. I'll give this away and buy each movie seperately.

The Naked Gun DVD Gift Set.

This collection features all three films in the Naked Gun series, which are The Naked Gun: From The Files Of Police Squad! (1988), The Naked Gun 2 and ½: The Smell Of Fear (1991), and The Naked Gun 33 and 1/3: The Final Insult. Three discs total. Each film has trailers and commentaries as bonuses. All films are the theatrical cuts.

This review is strictly for the box set itself, and its content. If you're looking for reviews of the films themselves, I've posted them on their respective item's pages.

-DISC ONE-

-The Naked Gun: From The Files Of Police Squad!

-Trailer

-Commentary track

-DISC TWO-

-The Naked Gun 2 and ½: The Smell Of Fear

-Trailers

-Commentary Track

-DISC THREE-

-The Naked Gun 3 and 1/3: The Final Insult

-Trailers

-Commentary Track

This set is handy because it combines all three of the Naked Gun films into a single, affordable collection. The commentary tracks are interesting to listen to if you're a fan, as well. This is a nice alternative to having to hunt down each film separately, not to mention on average it's cheaper than buying each one on its own.

Sadly, the set isn't perfect. My biggest complaint is with the lack of extras. These are the same movies that are sold separately, with commentaries and trailers as the only bonuses. When are we going to get the deleted scenes from the first film on a DVD? So far, these have only shown up in TV airings. And why is there no behind-the-scenes footage or interviews with cast and crew?

There are two different versions of this set, the DVD Gift Set version and the Triple Feature version. Both versions are exactly the same, apart from packaging. The Gift Set is larger, with each film in its own "as sold separately" case, while the Triple Feature condenses all three films to fit in a single-sized DVD case. You can't go wrong either way, but generally the Triple Feature is cheaper.

It's great to get all of these movies in one convenient spot, but I am extremely disappointed by the lack of bonus material. Hopefully a special edition release of the movies will come eventually. Paramount seems to be re-releasing a number of their older releases as special editions with bonus material, and I'm hoping this series will eventually get that treatment.

Thumbs up for the movies, thumbs down for the extras-lacking box set.

OMG, this movie is beyond belief and funnier than life itself. Leslie Nielson really perfected the role as Frank Drebin. I didn't care for the sequences that were about Frank's wife, Jane. However, Frank himself was unbelievable, especially at the academy awards, where he made a giant spectacle of himself. I really laughed when he ran off stage, saw tanya, and when she tried to seduce him, you should've seen the look on his face when he saw that she had a......well I can't say. You'd have to see for yourself. It was hilarious. This movie is timeless, and priceless. This belongs in the collection of any true comedy fan.

It was a fun movie.
It is made more so by the infamous member of the supporting cast.

I found all of the movies in the Naked Gun trilogy at wal-Mart for cheap and jumped on the chance to own them. definitely a guy flick and not too many women would be into this style of comedy.

The Naked Gun 33 and 1/3: The Final Insult is directed by Peter Segal. The film stars Leslie Nielsen and co-stars Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy, O. J. Simpson, Anna Nicole Smith, and Fred Ward. Ira Newborn contributes the musical score.

The aptly-named Final Insult is the third and final film in The Naked Gun series. Frank Drebin has now retired from Police Squad, and married Jane Spencer, the woman of his dreams from the previous two films. But marital tensions cause problems for the newlyweds, and before long, Drebin comes out of retirement. His new assignment is to go undercover in a prison, and to spy on a recently-arrested criminal with terrorist connections. He has an evil scheme in mind - one that could result in a deadly bombing at the Academy Awards ceremony.

The third and final installment in The Naked Gun series is, you guessed it, more of the same zany stuff we saw the first two times around. While not a superior product to either previous film by any means, it still makes for a good third installment. And like the first two, it's impossible to write a conventional review for this film. While there is a plot here and entertaining characters, this is more-or-less a showcase of well-written, fast-paced jokes. The writers keep the puns and gags flying at you from start to finish. Normally putting the jokes first and the characters and plot second is a recipe for disaster. But The Naked Gun series pulls it off well, and the third installment makes no exception to the rule.

Leslie Nielsen reprises his role of Frank Drebin from the first film. By this time, I think you pretty much know what to expect from him. He steals every scene he takes part in, delivering the fast-paced comedy with an unusual level of seriousness, never cracking a smile no matter how comical or inappropriate what he says is. The Naked Gun is probably Nielsen's best-known series of films, and it won't be long into the movie before you see why that is.

Like the first two, there's really not much point in going too in depth about the supporting cast and what they do. This movie belongs to Leslie Nielsen. But amongst its ranks are O. J. Simpson as Drebin's long-time, loyal partner on the force, Priscilla Presley as the now-estranged love interest, and Anna Nicole Smith as the villain`s love interest. Everyone does well in this film, but no one steals the show the same way Nielsen does.

The style in which this film is presented stays true to the first two, and that`s a good thing. Unless you knew better, it's not likely you would have suspected the series had a change in directors for its final installment. The writers throw the jokes at the audience endlessly - there's not a single scene in this movie without something to make you laugh. And with Leslie Nielsen usually in charge of delivering these cleverly-written puns and gags, with his signature serious nature, you know the laughs won't let up.

The musical score for the film is written by Ira Newborn. Easily, the most recognizable piece of music in the film is its classic opening credits theme, which was also uses as the theme for Police Squad!, the show that the film was spun off from. Newborn's score is largely a jazzy, big-band one, which fits the cop/detective atmosphere well. It only helps to make the product feel more like a spoof/satire. Much of the score is rehashed from the first two movies, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

This isn't a perfect movie, I won't kid you. The original was a comedy masterpiece. It was fresh, and easily one of the best spoofs ever made. The problem with the sequels is that they`re, to say the least, more of the same. And the jokes, while still downright hilarious, don't quite hit as hard and fast as they did the first time around. That's not to say this isn't a great comedy film in its own right, though - it is. It's far better than a lot of critics gave it credit for being.

Once again, though, the DVD presentation is disappointing. The only extras we get, as with the first two movies, are the commentary tracks and trailers. As usual, I was disappointed by the lack of behind-the-scenes footage, cast/crew interviews, and the like.

In the end, the third and last film in The Naked Gun series isn't quite the comedy masterpiece that the first one was, but it`s still a worthy addition to the Leslie Nielsen catalogue, and definitely worth your time. Although it`s not as good as the original, I`m still recommending it. If you liked the original, it's a good bet you'll like the sequels that followed.

Thumbs up

This was my least favorite Naked Gun movie. These were funny when they were hot, the others are still funny. This one however I thought was corny and overdone. The expression "It jumped the shark" is usually used when a TV show goes overboard and gets corny and tired. This movie jumped the shark and was indeed the 'final insult' to what was a pretty funny series. There were a few laughs but nothing really earth shattering. Anna Nicole is just an awful actress and looks like a cartoon character. She's ditzy and artificial looking and totally unfunny. The thing with slapstick humor like this is; it's falling-down-funny the first time, can be funny even years later but if it gets over-played it's just like that great song that the radio stations played to death. It's just not the same anymore. I guess the writers thought there can never be too much of a good thing but they were wrong. It wasn't a good thing and it was far too much for me. However, I will always enjoy the other two Naked Gun movies and I really liked Airplane and other similar movies. This one just didn't do it for me!

I have come to rely on the "New Proclamation" as my primary source for guidance whenever I get any sort of block in preparing for the Sunday sermon. We all need help from time to time to redirect our focus when we seem stuck on finding the right message to share. I like the way the collective authors of "New Proclamation" give several directions that our minds might care to follow. They do so without a doctrinaire attitude that closes doors instead of opening them. I will have to state that I found their previous edition to be a bit more helpful. There were a few times I turned to this edition only to come aware just as stuck as when I consulted it. However, it generally follows the same format and gives a person a good overall view of the theme of the day as well as a synopsis of the readings. I recommend it to anyone in the ministry who isn't afraid to listen to other thoughts before finalizing their own.

This is a dark movie, addressing the inner primal fear deep in us all. Stars Paul Michael Glaser, in a role you might be a wee bit surprised to see him portray. He plays a doctor on a grant program trying his own "shock method" to cure their "Phobia's". This is a good guy, bad guy movie that slowly sees each one of the doctors patients murdered. In the end he (Glaser)loses his grant program, and the police suspect it's him killing is patients. When he is found by his girlfriend, the doctor has killed is last patient because he could not cure him. The end is shocking/disturbing. Suspense filled, at times hard to follow, vaguely predicable. But I care not to watch it again.

This is a dark movie, addressing the inner primal fear deep in us all. Stars Paul Michael Glaser, in a role you might be a wee bit surprised to see him portray. He plays a doctor on a grant program trying his own "shock method" to cure their "Phobia's". This is a good guy, bad guy movie that slowly sees each one of the doctors patients murdered. In the end he (Glaser)loses his grant program, and the police suspect it's the doctor killing is patients, with each (Glaser) has a aliby. When the doctor is found by his girlfriend, with his last patient, dead. The story begins to unfold. The end is shocking/disturbing. Suspense filled, at times hard to follow, vaguely predicable. I care not to watch it again.

I had high hopes for this book, but was a little disappointed. I bought conspiracy x, expecting great stuff, and it met with my expectations. Cryptozoolgy didn't. First, it's set up with information divided into two parts: the gamers information, and the GM's information. the result is that you have to look in two different areas for information on different "supernatural creatures". Most of the regular freaks of nature are covered--Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, etc. I was pleased to see a few others like the Mokole. The writing is a lot more pendantic than I'd like--but that may be a direct result from being written in character, where teh character is old, stuffy, and bombastically long-winded. If your game will run into a supernatural creature, it might be worth checking this beek out. If not, I wouldn't bother.