BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

martin-intercultural Wings is essentially an homage to and a US adaptation of the timeless, classic British sitcoms which are centered on one location and populated by a bevy of memorable, sarcastic characters. Are You Being Served instantly comes to mind. By today's standards the look and feel may be a little static and claustrophobic. But everything else sparkles - the writing, acting, delivery, dialog. Not a hint of fishing for laughs here. What I also found refreshing was Tim Daly's portrayal of Joe: That extinct breed of a beautiful yet shy, thoughtful and vulnerable man. Joe alone is enough to give this show a try.

kols Crystal Bernard's Helen is an absolute wonder. Delivery, pacing, execution is as good as it gets. Helps a lot that she's given equally good dialog and staging. The rest of the female ensemble (Faye, Alex, Casey and Bunny) is almost as good in both categories. Good writing, exemplary performances.The secondary male cast is tolerable: Ray, Lowell and Antonio are often good as foils, occasionally intrusive and, rarely, just plain irritating.Then there are the misnamed brothers, the Brain who should be named Joe and the Joe who should be named Brain. Oh! that they should have been named correctly and Oh! that they should have been written as secondary foils instead of principles.The idea was, obviously, to play Brian's narcissism and egocentricity off against Joe's anal retentiveness, the name thing being part of the joke.Doesn't work on any level and both of them borderline on sociopathology in many, many episodes. Like the one in which Helen is bedridden after a particularly nasty root canal. Joe keeps running off to some kind of male bonding party with guys he doesn't give a damn about. It's obvious that it's the ritual of Males Watching Basketball on TV that he's into and nothing wrong with that, except that he keeps trying to pretend that he's tending Helen in her sickbed. When exposed, he expresses neither remorse for 'abandoning' Helen or any sense of guilt for trying to deceive her, just irritation at being caught.Easy to see what the writers were trying to do, playing the dichotomy for laughs and, while Singer could have pulled it off, it's just irritating here, to the point of wanting to put a bullet in Joe's head.Contrast that with Bernard's bedridden Helen which is a beautiful example of schtick.Brian is even worse. While the writers occasionally try to invest him with a modicum of empathy, those attempts are overwhelmingly overridden by his native egocentricity. In reality both Brian and Joe are written as borderline sociopaths, period.Again, the writers' intent is obvious; just as it is obvious that they miss the characteristic that allowed Singer in particular and Yiddish theater in general to succeed with these types: an understanding of all of their characters' innate humanity, regardless of their individual personality flaws. For some reason, while the writers get it with everyone else, they completely miss it with Brian and Joe and wind up with two totally unsympathetic characters who, thank God, are frequently underplayed, allowing the rest of the cast to shine.Despite the twin sociopaths, Wings is still a first-rank comedy on a level with Cheers, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart (the first series), Dick Van Dyke et al.When Brian and Joe are absent or secondary, it's an unquestionable 10.

magnaspud QUAGMIRE: What we need out there now is another Tim Daly.CLEVELAND: Who's Tim Daly? JOE: I don't even know who that is.QUAGMIRE: From Wings...PETER: Nope.QUAGMIRE: Tim Daly! He was on Wings! What - oh, nobody here watched Wings.PETER: Is that the one where there's a guy, and he's like a, he's a, he's a pilot or somethin'? QUAGMIRE: There's two guys. They're brothers, and they're both pilots.JOE: Hey, wasn't there a fat guy with a moustache? QUAGMIRE: That was "Roy." He's hilarious.CLEVELAND: Was this a cartoon? QUAGMIRE: No! My - oh my God, NO! No, no, it took place in an airport. It was the - it was - the thing was on for ten years! And the, and the funny repair guy was Lowell. ...It made Tony Shalhoub's career! PETER: Who? CLEVELAND: The tennis player? QUAGMIRE: Yeah, you know what? Sc*** you guys. I don't even know you. (Quagmire storms away naked from the brewery.) ...Crazy people. Livin' under a rock, don't know Wings. ...I love Wings!

boltcom After reading many of the comments here, I have to say I agree with most ofthem. Wings was an intelligent, witty comedy with a superb ensemble cast.Although I enjoyed the season that featured Farrah Forke as Alex, I felt like the addition of Amy Yasbeck as Casey was great. The episodes that featuredAmy's husband, John Ritter, were hilarious! Tony Shallob as Antonio wasactually introduced in the first season (Spring, 1992) as a waiter and remained with the series until it was over in 1997, so I don't really think of him as an "addition" . Missed Lowell, but the remaining talent continued to bring out the laughs.