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This season lacked real oomf, but, as far as setting up stories to get us in the mood again, season 6 is without highlights and spontaneity.<br /><br />This season lacked its usual Sopranos style, and if you cut out all the garbage that was filled in each and every episode this season, you probably would have had 6 episodes worth of real stories.<br /><br />Side stories like Pauly's mom, is she or isn't she? was boring and had no purpose other than further exploration of his character. I would have like to have seen Bobby express his anger more at Pauly in that carnival episode, but to no avail.<br /><br />And that's just it! These side stories had no real purpose, and lack finishing. If they are going to finish off these stories in the next 6 episodes, I'd rather not watch it, because, its not really worth seeing.<br /><br />Disappointing is to nice a word to say about this season and its finale.

This was one of the best movies I have seen. The movie relates to real life and how drugs CAN play a major part. Although this movie appears to be produced from a low budget, I found it to be exhilarating to watch.<br /><br />Some may not like the story and say the script is lacking direction. However, when a person gets as deep into drugs as these characters, there is no direction is life. I feel this movie is an accurate representation of what might happen to a person if they are faced with extreme temptations.<br /><br />Most of the cast are newcomers to the industry. However, they all pulled it off very well. Everyone seemed to do their job well and get into character appropriately.<br /><br />I think this movie might be a good tool to use when dealing with a person or loved one that is involved in drugs and appears to be spiraling out of control. This movie might just scare them enough to change their ways.

what can i say, this film is amazing. it has its flaws like every film does for example wobbly headstones in a graveyard, a clearly visible slide board during the penguins death scene, Max Shreck losing his heavy coat in a split second between shots during the image consultancy scene, batman losing his black eye makeup all of a sudden between shots so he can reveal Bruce Wayne to Catwoman, dialogue being recorded but is played back and spoken differently than when it was spoken in the first place and lastly Catwoman all of a sudden knows how to use a bull whip without any training whatsoever. these flaws are minor compared to some you would see in for example batman forever where the riddler can obviously be seen waiting for his cue or val Kilmer's hair changing between shots.<br /><br />what makes this film so deserving of an 8/10 is the great acting because the performances are absolutely amazing. Michael Keaton reprises his role as Batman and has a lot more to do in this film. He looks more comfortable in the role the second time around and is on par with the villains performances. Danny Devito is the perfect penguin. I really like the conversion of the penguin into the grotesque penguin man instead of the non threatening character from the comics or TV show because now the character has more depth and has a far more interesting story that generates from the basic need of family and to feel accepted and wanted. this gives us an evil character who we feel sympathy for because he was rejected for being what he is which is not his fault. Michelle Pfeiffer is excellent as Catwoman. she is sleet and sexy and she is also a villain we can feel sorry for because of the way she is victimised. Christopher Walken is a great secondary villain and is so interesting a character even though he is not even in the batman universe.<br /><br />the soundtrack is far better than the first and Danny Elfman gets more of a chance to show off his musical talents this time around. The sets are amazing. They are detailed, eye catching, sinister, Gothic , unique, dark and so many other adjectives can describe how amazing they look. the costumes and make up are great and obviously a lot of work went into making them and all the work pays off because the Batsuit is better, the cat suit is amazing to look at and the penguin make up and effects are so convincing.The animatronic penguins look really realistic and are played to good effect. The script is really good and the Storyline in my opinion is a plausible one. overall, because of all these factors this film deserves an 8/10 and stands as my favourite of all the batman films

I saw this movie as a child and fell in love with it. It has a sweet sensitive story. Something children can appreciate. I loved so much as a child I had to find it for my daughter. It is definitely a movie I would watch with kids. It reminds me a great deal of story's of a Disney nature like Pete's Dragon and Mary Poppins. Both because of the live action and cartoon features but on its premise. It is also a good story to show kids that if they tell the truth they can be trusted and adults will listen to them. I think all kids should see it and would enjoy it. It is such a break from the violent movies of bad taste so many kids watch these days. It has all the charming qualities so many of today's movies don't have.

The first series of Lost kicked off with a bang... literally and slowly decreased in pace. This may have put some viewers off and people who started to watch halfway through would either be bored or just plain confused. <br /><br />I would advise people new to the world of Lost to simply watch from the beginning and don't get pt off by the slower episodes. The acting throughout is excellent but why have 5 series' planned... WHY??? All this means is that there will be no answers for at least 4 years, oh well, i'll keep watching if it keeps the tension up and dialogue flowing.

I saw this at the 2004 Stony Brook Film Festival in NY and it was very warmly received. In this pre-WW2 film, a pair of German rocket scientists are working on the Scottish Isle of Scarp as war looms on the horizon. The characters encountered on the island are priceless in their creation and their portrayal. Shauna MacDonald is particularly memorable<br /><br />After getting up to speed on the "Scootish" accents, the viewer feel right at home with these folk who watch with amusement as the Germans work to link their isle with the mainland via a rocket-based mail delivery. As implausible as it seems, this film was based on an actual story.<br /><br />All in all, a memorable film that will stay with you for some time thanks to its casting, its story or its scenery.

I saw this for free, thankfully, and wish it was better than it was, but it's really the same old stuff that movie studios seem to foist on us in the last ten years.<br /><br />Ben Stiller and Jennifer Anniston play a couple who are opposites- and yet they are attracted to each other.<br /><br />If that plot line doesn't take you by surprise and thrill you, the movie won't either.<br /><br />Lots of sight gags and fart jokes. Halfway through the movie I began to realize that Ben Stiller really isn't that funny, but he tries VERY hard. And Jennifer Anniston really isn't that pretty, but her HAIR looks great. And Hank Azaria and Phillip Seymore Hoffman must have got paid a great deal of money to be in this kind of average ho-hum movie, I've come to expect more from them.<br /><br />What was interesting was that I saw this after I saw American Splendor, which is a truly funny and original movie- and I compared the two in my head, and found myself wishing that the movie executives would be forced to sit through those two movies back to back- perhaps that would knock some sense into them and<br /><br />they'd start making better movies with unknowns rather than this formulaic stuff that plays best on airplanes.

To summerize this movie: nice for TV but too small for the theatre. I enjoyed watching this movie at home but I wont watch it a second time. The concept is good, but what ends up in the movie is just a summary. The end had a 'nice' twist but is still unsatisfying. Maybe it was the intention of the director but it wasn't worked out like a it should be. But then again, it's an OK kind of movie.

Yes, it might be not historically accurate(actually only 6 soldiers of 9th rota were killed there), and yes, it has some mistakes and exaggeration(bended machine gun? come on! or the that "history lesson" about how Afghanistan was never conquered by anyone - educated Russian officer would know history much better than that - take for example British campaign in Afghanistan). And yes, it does not have multi-million dollars Hollywood-style special effects, but it's strongest point in showing soldier's life there, their relationships and their feelings when the best friends are being killed in front of their eyes. In my opinion 9ya rota really does a good job showing all those things.<br /><br />Again, movie has it weaknesses, but, in my opinion, it appears to be one of the strongest Russian movie for the past few years.<br /><br />8/10

I've read "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" when I was in high school, and found myself completely engrossed in her story, and also in the Broadway play of her life in the Secret Annexe.<br /><br />However, I'm a little perplexed about how people have perceived her diary and of her as a person, seeing her as a little saint or having a message of hope for the world. I don't think that was the original intention of her diary. She wrote it mainly for herself, even though she did make some rigorous rewrites before the occupants of the Secret Annexe were betrayed, intending it to be published someday.<br /><br />But I never saw her as a saint or as a messenger of hope...but as a very talented writer who could express her thoughts very well and very entertainingly in a diary. No doubt she was a very engaging writer, and she did possess an extraordinary talent with expressing herself fully with words. You really got to know her well through her diary. But the importance of her diary lies in the fact that it is a testament and an important historical document of the proof that the Holocaust did happen.<br /><br />It also brought the tragedy of the Holocaust closer to home, to lose someone that we could put a familiar face and personality to, at such a young age...literally having had her young life ripped away from her and from the other occupants who were murdered in the Holocaust. It's a searing indictment of the Nazis systematic murder of over 6 million Jews, and that should not be forgotten.<br /><br />But it's sad to me that her diary is being so misconstrued as anything more than that. When I look for hope, I have the Bible...the first most widely read non-fiction book in the world. God's Words in the Bible is eternal...but Anne's diary is a diary of a young girl under extraordinary circumstances, and that is it. She is not someone to be worshiped or idolized, because she was an ordinary girl with many flaws, who possessed incredible talent as a writer, and who died at age 15 from typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She was a victim of the Holocaust, and as this otherwise excellent documentary has so vividly testified, she was Hitler's most famous victim.<br /><br />Besides the Anne Frank's story...the stories from her family members and friends and survivors of the Holocaust were engrossing, vivid and powerful. I especially enjoyed Miep Gies' testimony, and marvel that she is still strong and alive today. Hannah Goslar's testimony was also very interesting. And I also liked hearing from Otto Frank. But I also agree that the moving picture of the young girl with the dark hair and the familiar big eyes at the end was particularly memorable. <br /><br />Another thing about the Holocaust that I kind of disagree with the documentary...is that I don't believe it was just a matter of discrimination...but rather something deeper and more profound, and that was just an act of pure evil. Pure evil. Nothing else but pure evil.<br /><br />Excellent documentary of Anne Frank and of the Holocaust that should be watched.

When this was first aired on Masterpiece Theatre, it had a profound effect on me. It's beautifully filmed and acted. I immediately read the book by Mary Webb, and it remains one of my all time favorites. Janet McTeer is wonderful as Prue, and I fully expected her to become a regular on the British drama scene. I guess she chose to focus on the British stage instead. <br /><br />I was hoping that with the American success of Janet McTeer years later(with Tumbleweeds) this film would again become available to us. Alas, it has not yet been released on DVD. If anyone out there is listening, please make this available again!

With a title like that, it's above and beyond my comprehension how this movie just did NOT appeal to me. Granted, there's a few decently sleazy moments and a little gore, but the way in which the movie was shot and the overall storyline just struck me as an idiotic and lazy attempt at profuse "shock" tactics... The inconsistent plot starts with a guy raping and murdering a woman stranded at the side of the road. He and his abetting brother are imprisoned up until the brother breaks out and arranges to meet his girlfriend out in the woods. He ends up forcing her into a house where they screw and he later shows her a collection of kidnapped guys in the basement. The heavily drugged captives consist of her old boyfriend who raped her, a "grabby" neighbor, and her sexually abrasive boss. He explains to her that he is going to kill them all. She winds up killing HIM and then turning her focus towards the men (or pigs) whom she tortures and kills, herself... Most of the violence and humiliation has to do with sh!t eating and genitalia destroying - all of which are far from disturbing and essentially mild. The best scene is a graphic broom handle masturbation followed by some painful man-rape... Surely, "I Spit on Your Corpse, I P!ss on Your Grave" was intended as an unofficial sequel to "I Spit on Your Grave" - based on, mainly the title, and a reference the main character gives - suggesting her mother was Camille Keaton. I personally consider that to be a wildly blasphemous assertion! This movie is a boring, amateurish mess that strives for shocks but failed miserably...

Think of the ending of the Grudge 2 with the following :<br /><br />- a man who repeatedly says the word Sunshine - a cowboy - a love story - Sarah Michelle Gellar cutting herself - and a creepy mirror<br /><br />OH AND UNDERWATER SEA ANIMALS...yay...<br /><br />not a good movie... I seriously did not enjoy it whatsoever. The poster for the movie is extremely misleading as well and I found that it was just to suck people into watching it...I can't believe i went. <br /><br />Save your time and money...go watch Saw III...a film where the writing makes you feel like there was effort put into it...<br /><br />Im Mike and Im out

This was a really interesting Halloween film. I wasnt to thrilled with the whole Thorn theory but it still makes for a good film. I liked getting to see Tommy Doyle back but sadly Donald Pleasance died right after shooting. The film had a really REALLY bad director who didnt give a flip about the series, from what I heard treated Donald bad, and wouldnt let Danielle Harris come back as Jamie. Its like he was just trying to bring down the film, but I still liked it. There were alot of cuts and music changes and if you're lucky you can get the Producers Cut which features over 40 min. of never before scenes. With those scenes it turns into a whole new movie. Check it out if you have the chance.

The cast is admirably chosen and well-balanced. This cinematography is excellent. The music is delightful as all of Burt Bacharach's music is, and is appropriate to the plot line. Making a musical version of Hilton's tale is a welcome change from a plodding re-make. We see seasoned actors who add real depth to the emotional content and significance of each scene. I cannot agree with the critics who overlooked this scintillating gem of a film. It is a treasure of the silver screen! Find it if you can - and let its magic carry you beyond the drudgery of daily worries, inspiring you to find your own "Lost Horizon".

Now this is a bad movie if I've ever seen one. In one of film's greatest years, 1999, Detroit Rock City contends with Runaway Bride and Wild Wild West for the bottom spot in a barrel of junkies. The plot is masterful. Four scrawny high school youngsters finally have their chance at seeing the hard rock theatrics of KISS for…the third year in a row. So when their tickets are toiled by an ultra-religious, chain-smoking mom, the pals scramble themselves in getting to Detroit, and I'm sure you can figure out the rest.<br /><br />Well, not exactly; the movie does go to extreme measures in explaining how the four band members (no, not Gene, Paul, Ace and Peter) go about getting these tickets: losing your virginity in a confessional; saving a smoked-out bimbo and your mom's Volvo (from the Soprano's Steve Schirripa, nonetheless); preventing a robbery in the midst of botching one for a 12-year-old's debt; and of course, stripping down to your bare essentials for MC Ron Jeremy after shuttling a full blender with bourbon-leftovers. Sounds funny, doesn't it? Perhaps Detroit Rock City does have a point with all this tomfoolery in how extreme sometimes these fans can go. And we do understand this movie is a comedy; it is supposed to be filled with slapstick. But does Detroit Rock City aim to the proper audience? It is rated R, meaning the only way prepubescent adolescents-the audience as I see it, to which many will eventually hail this one a classic-will voyeur is through illegal terms.<br /><br />Detroit Rock City also fails at giving itself the late-1970's touch. The camera's texture quality is way too clear and way too bright, missing the necessary flair from films like This is Spinal Tap and Sid & Nancy. This would've allowed audiences to feel `more at home' with the times. Simply costuming kids into pre-90's grunge-wear and settling others into `disco infernos' does not do the trick. Environment does mean something you know; I doubt Detroit looked this glamorous in '78. If there's anything positive coming from this movie it's the kick-ass soundtrack of hard late-70 to early-80's rock. Van Halen, AC/DC, you name it, it's all here. Of course we can't forget KISS, the band aptly subjected throughout.<br /><br />What the film noticeably fails to manage are questions concerning why the Knights of Satin's Service (it's really just KISS) were so frowned upon by moms around the nation. Sure, the loud rock and devilish makeup might be a part of that; encouragements for youth to explore themselves and have a good time might be fair reasons as well. But, what is KISS saying in the music we hear throughout the film towards this highly rebellious group? What separates these anthems of `rock[ing] and roll[ing] all night and partying everyday' from the rest of the music? Most likely, these questions will remain in a music communication class and not in the films that should answer them, simply because it is KISS and they rock and we must do everything in our God-forgiven power to see them.<br /><br />1.5/5 stars

did anyone notice?when miss brook went skinny dipping,she left the water wearing white bikini bottoms and yet had previously taken it all off to join cabin boy.this could have been a good film without miss brooks phony accent and a year on the island please.how come that Kelly looked always clean and ready for a FM photo shoot.what started out with premise turned in to soft porn.and billy Zane come on,you cant be that hard up for film offers.check out dead calm.also when the people took her away ,how come she scoffed her face and after all that time didn't feel like throwing up.i suggest billy find decent scripts,Kelly stick to photo shoots and cabin boy play the son of Zorro in a future sequel.

I saw this movie on the lowlands festival (23, 24, 25th of august) after a friend of mine said this is a very cool movie about the history of skating. I didn't now what to expect from this movie. Was it recorded by a couple of skaters who thought they could do a couple of cool tricks, or was it a documentary about skating.<br /><br />So i went in, after waiting for about an hour, whit out any expectations.<br /><br />This movie is really a nice piece of work about the beginning of skateboarding. It started with the zephyr team, who where a fine group of surfers. This is taking place in a not so nice area to live in. At a certain point the waves are not so good any more to surf on. So they try something else. skateboarding was a fact. <br /><br />If you were a part of the zephyr team in that time, you where one of the cool guys/girls. Because a lot of people saw an escape from the place they were living in with the zephyr team. So they were trying all there new tricks now on a skateboard. <br /><br />In no time skateboarding was popular again. There were a couple of competitions and one national competition. The zephyr team was taking part on several competition and also the national one. But what they were doing on there skateboards was unbelievable. But the jury didn't now how to judge them. So they put the whole skateboarding world on it's head.<br /><br />Anyway i can tell you the rest of the film/documentary, but you must see this one with you're own eyes. Because then you can feel the vibe of this movie. This movie got a lot of style for me, so i rewarded it with a 8.<br /><br />Greetings from gijs and the rest of Holland. See you.

A fine ironic visual gag takes place in front of the spectacular backdrop of a twirling windmill. But who are those people who rush across screen at the end: customers? relatives? One of the earliest enigmas in cinematic history perhaps. Well worth a minute of your time.

Why did I waste my time with this movie? There was not a single funny joke or line throughout. The slapstick wasn't even mildly funny. I mean really, an out of control vacuum sucking pipe? Why has the National Lampoon's name been attached to this movie? Even Christmas Vacation was better than this (I actually thought that film was very funny).<br /><br />AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!

"Written on the Wind" was an enormously successful Universal picture. It could only be done by Douglas Sirk, a man who saw the possibilities in the material he was given. Based on a popular novel by Robert Wilder and an adaptation by George Zuckerman, it had all the elements that make an excellent melodrama: nymphomania, a large oil fortune, alcoholism, incest and a mild touch of homosexuality. Mr. Sirk laid the path for what would follow later on in the soap operas genre, mainly, "Dallas" and "Dynasty", just to mention two.<br /><br />The fact is this movie was shot entirely inside a studio. Most of the decor is phony. Like a lot of those 1950s pictures, "Written on the Wind" was shot entirely in a studio lot. Just look at the scenes that are supposed to take place in Manhattan, or Miami, or even the lake are, one can see how the scenery is a painted backdrop. Mr. Sirk couldn't care less about realism as long as he could tell the story his own way.<br /><br />We recently caught a screening, part of a revival of Mr. Sirk's work, where people were laughing at some of the most dramatic moments, especially during the scenes where Rock Hudson, who plays the good Mitch Wayne, appears. There is also something graphic in the way that both Robert Keith, who plays the patriarch Jasper Hadley, and later on his own daughter, the evil Marylee, caress the oil derrick that adorns the elder man's desk, a sort of phallic object d'art.<br /><br />Douglas Sirk probably wanted his cast to give over the top performances, which makes sense in the way Dorothy Malone portrays the nymphomaniac Marylee, and to a certain degree, Robert Stack, who overacts as Kyle, the tormented heir of the story. That would probably be the easy explanation of what comes across the screen. The only one that seems normal is Lauren Bacall, who wasn't asked to make her Lucy Moore character appear to be anything but a grounded person caught hanging out with the wrong crowd.<br /><br />Together with his other Hollywood movies, "Written on the Wind" shows the genius of a talented director who gave the public just what they wanted to see: stories bigger than life that could only be seen on the big screen

On this 4th of July weekend it's heartening to see the spirit of the Declaration of Independence alive and well in the film "War, Inc." Just as our founding fathers gave the back of their collective hand to King George III, this film exposes in hilarious fashion the craven war-profiteering by the current crop of capitalistic creeps who are intent on indecently privatizing the government, to include privatizing war itself.<br /><br />The cast in this satire absolutely shines. John Cusack is wonderful as a droll, conflicted corporate assassin, and the beautiful Marisa Tomei is superb as his love interest. (My gosh, "George Costanza" was right. Marisa Tomei is so attractive!) But it is John's sister Joan Cusack who really steals the film. Her portrayal of a bossy, yet simultaneously sycophantic, personal assistant is priceless, and more than once I just couldn't stop laughing at the brilliance of her performance. She not only possesses fantastic comic timing, her face is as expressive as one could ever wish for in an actor. Dan Ackroyd, too, has a short, but very effective, cameo in the film as the head of the company which is running the war, the Tamerlane Corporation. Sitting on a "throne" with his pants down around his ankles, Ackroyd even looks like the arse clown who currently occupies one of our real thrones of power. You won't have to think too hard to recognize that person. Much of this movie was filmed in Bulgaria, which is why we are able to see so much real military equipment. (You just know that the US military would never have cooperated in making this satiric expose of war-profiteering.) I especially enjoyed the character of "Omar Sharif" as played by the Bulgarian actor Lyubomir Neikov. In one scene in which he is on the dance floor with Marisa Tomei he has a couple of lines that could summarize our entire foreign policy attitude toward the foreign leaders we install - and uninstall - in power.<br /><br />Naturally, this film won't appeal to everyone. If you believe that the on-going privatization of our foreign policy, the military, intelligence collection and analysis, prisons and the corrections system, public health, and a myriad of other government services is a good thing you may not find much to like in this film. If you believe, however, that destroying people and countries in order to add to some corporation's bottom line is an abomination I think you'll find much to appreciate in this film. Nothing could be more in keeping with the Spirit of Independence that heaping well-deserved ridicule on corrupt powers that be.

I acquired this film a couple of years ago and on trying to find some info about it I found that even the mighty IMDb didn't have it listed. That should have been all I needed to know.<br /><br />With Friends Like These is an anthology that plays like a collection of second rate Twilight Zone / Outer Limits episodes all linked together by a bus journey that never really seems to tie in with the rest of the film. Of the three stories, the only one that I gleaned any entertainment value from was the second episode in which a man (of sorts) grows out of the bacteria in a guys fridge. This episode wins points for a few spots of humour and it's bizarre premise. Other than that there is an episode with a talking car (bland and directionless) and an episode where a girl visits a very unique dating agency (my dog guessed the ending of this one).<br /><br />As has been mentioned in other comments, the 18 rating is entirely unwarranted. There is nothing to offend here. If you're after a good horror anthology check out Asylum or the Creepshow films instead.

On October of 1945, the American German descendant Leopold Kessler (Jean-Marc Barr) arrives in a post-war Frankfurt and his bitter Uncle Kessler (Ernst-Hugo Järegård) gets a job for him in the Zentropa train line as a sleeping car conductor. While traveling in the train learning his profession, he sees the destructed occupied Germany and meets Katharina Hartmann (Barbara Sukowa), the daughter of the former powerful entrepreneur of transport business and owner of Zentropa, Max Hartmann (Jørgen Reenberg). Leopold stays neutral between the allied forces and the Germans, and becomes aware that there is a terrorist group called "Werewolves" killing the sympathizers of the allied and conducting subversive actions against the allied forces. He falls in love for Katharina, and sooner she discloses that she was a "Werewolf". When Max commits suicide, Leopold is also pressed by the "Werewolves" and need to take a position and a decision.<br /><br />"Europa" is an impressive and anguishing Kafkanian story of the great Danish director Lars von Trier. Using an expressionist style that recalls Fritz Lang and alternating a magnificent black & white cinematography with some colored details, this movie discloses a difficult period of Germany and some of the problems this great nation had to face after being defeated in the war. Very impressive the action of the occupation forces destroying resources that could permit a faster reconstruction of a destroyed country, and the corruption with the Jew that should identify Max. Jean-Marc Barr has an stunning performance in the role of man that wants to stay neutral but is manipulated everywhere by everybody. The hypnotic narration of Max Von Sydow is another touch of class in this awarded film. My vote is nine.<br /><br />Title (Brazil): "Europa"

I was excited to see this show when I started seeing the promos on A&E. I've been fascinated with ghosts and the paranormal since I was a kid, and love catching "Ghost Hunters" when it's on (SciFi Channel). I've tried to watch three episodes of "Paranormal State" and only use up my time commenting on it because it's so bad and perpetuates the notion that anyone who believes in the paranormal is a gullible freak. "Paranormal State" is beyond cheesy. Cheesy "Director's Log" voice-overs that will leave you wishing for Captain Kirk. Cheesy teasers going into commercial breaks that are taken completely out of context. Everything paranormal on this show is automatically assumed to be "evil" and the work of a demonic spirit. Then come the exorcists, demonologists, psychics ... like in "Poltergeist" you almost expect the team to leave and say "This house is clear." I very much appreciate the "Ghost Hunters" approach, where they go in to disprove claims, then take away what they can ... and they are almost always reassuring to the client (if they find anything) that haunted does not equal evil. "Paranormal State" is not "so bad it's good" ... it's just plain bad. Didn't A&E used to stand for "Arts & Entertainment"? The art part has long been gone, and the entertainment factor is now waning as well.

While John Garfield seems to get the bulk of attention, the true star of Four Daughters is Priscilla Lane. Her performance is the glue that holds the large cast together.<br /><br />Her ability to interact equally well with John Garfield and the more carefree Jeffrey Lynn is at the core of the success of Four Daughters.

I watched this with my whole family as a 9 year old in 1964 on our black and white TV. I remember my father remarking that "this is how it could have happened - Adam and Eve." I vividly remember the scene when Adam finds Eve, her eyes were blackened. I asked my father why were her eyes blackened and he told because she was tired and hungry. Having not seen this episode in 45 years, I still remember it vividly - the TV transmissions back and forth with the home planet, scenes of bombs shaking the headquarters, with the final scene of the two walking off, Adam carrying his pack and Eve following. It may not have been a theatrical work of art, but it certainly left an impression on me all these years.

I rented this movie without having heard (or read) anything about it. What a shame! This movie is intelligent, witty, hilarious, fast-paced, and realistically ridiculous. The characters manage to get developed without relying too heavily on clichéd, tired stereotypes. It was refreshing to watch. I couldn't help thinking that marketing would have helped lob this not-so-mainstream movie into the starved-for-intelligent-comedy mainstream. The quality of the dialogue and the ease with which the actors execute a huge range of awkwardness, heartbreak and comedy is so rare these days--I felt that the actors must have really enjoyed participating in something this rich. How is it that National Treasure was number one at the box office for three weeks in a row--it is so weak in too many ways to mention. I guess I'm just happy that movies like "Seeing.." are still being made somewhere out there.

Scratch is a documentary about DJs and their art of scratching. From that one line description of the film you would have no idea how entertaining and educational this little film is. It is a joyous and vibrant celebration of a cool subculture which is little known. It's filled with great underground hip hop music and you get to see some top DJs (e.g. DJ Q-Bert, DJ Shadow, and Mix Master Mike from the Beastie Boys) showing off their stuff. Going into the film I wasn't sure that "scratching" can really be called an art form, or that the turntable can be viewed as an instrument in its own right. Scratch completely changed my mind on these points. What these guys do with their turntables is truly amazing--it is definitely some kind of art--and the turntable, if you know how to use it, can be transformed into an instrument that you can "play," as much as a drum or a guitar. And you even get a lesson on the basics of scratching from DJ Q-Bert (e.g. how to use the fader to get different sound effects). All these DJs in their own way were inspired to take up the art of scratching after watching Herbie Hancock perform his song "Rock It" (you remember that song, don't you?) live at the Grammys. What got their attention was not Hancock himself but his DJ and his scratching. Not only is Scratch about scratching, but it does some "scratching" of its own thanks to the creative way in which this documentary is shot and edited. There are moments where clips are quickly "rewound" and then "forwarded" several times, which mirrors (in the film medium) what happens when a DJ quickly moves the record on his turntable back and forth while using his fader (that "wicka-wicka-wicka" sound). Whether you're a fan of hip hop or not, you can count on Scratch to give you a very enjoyable night at the movies. After seeing it, I had an itch to go buy a turntable of my own. And I mean this as a compliment.

Dull, predictable and uninteresting story of a man contaminated by a chemical substance (Weller) who goes on across the country just to find his ex-wife and children; meanwhile, he kills everyone in his way only by a single touch of his hands. In his dangerous track, a doctor (Hurt) and a young reporter (Natasha) try to stop the man. The movie has a not original premise but even though could be much better. The final result is just a movie without suspense or gritting moments. Even the good cast is completely waste. I give this a 4 (four).

I saw this movie as part of a Billy Graham program. The church I attend was part of a community wide outreach to present God and Christianity to our community (Hartford, Ct. USA). I was one of the counselors who helped attendees (who were invited to come forward and make whatever kind of religious profession they wanted...and to follow up on them after the movie. As such, it did what it was supposed to do, and I personally found it to be a medium to strengthen my faith in God.I also found it to be very helpful to those I counseled. I especially like the work of Kim Darby in this movie. And the parents (the Wintons?) were , in a way, a little overdrawn....no one says to their child if they think that he or she may be the parent of an illegitimate child something like the Wintons did "oh, no, no, not thaaat." That isn't exactly what they said, but the sympaathetic audience I saw had a laugh at whatever it was they did say, and also at the son's emphatic "No, MOm, not me." Don Berghuis

"The Notorious Bettie Page" (2005) <br /><br />Directed By: Mary Harron <br /><br />Starring: Gretchen Mol, Chris Bauer, Lili Taylor, Sarah Paulson, & David Strathairn <br /><br />MPAA Rating: "R" (for nudity, sexual content and some language) <br /><br />It seems as though every celebrity nowadays is getting a biopic made about his or her life. From Ray Charles to Johnny Cash, biopics are very posh right now. "The Notorious Bettie Page" is the latest of these to be released on DVD. It features Gretchen Mol as the world's most famous pin-up model, Bettie Page and was filmed mostly in black and white with certain excerpts in color. Unlike "Ray", "Walk the Line", and "Finding Neverland", however, this movie is not going to be one to watch out for at the Oscars this year. This movie lacks the emotional resonance displayed in other biopics and most of the more dramatic moments in Bettie Page's life are either completely ignored or only merely suggested. This does not mean, however, that it is a bad movie. In fact, "The Notorious Bettie Page" is a thoroughly entertaining and fulfilling movie--a solid work of cinema. This film focuses more on Page's exciting career and the thin line between sexuality and pornography. It is filmed with fervor and care and Mary Harron's direction captures the look and feel of the time period as most filmmakers only dream about.<br /><br />Everyone knows Bettie Page (played by Mol). Whether you know her as an icon…or a simple porn star…you know her. She is a woman who had a very profound impact on American culture only by revealing more skin than deemed appropriate at that particular time. Now, most people know her as one of America's first sex symbols--a legend to many models, especially those of Playboy and other adult-oriented magazines. She lived in a time when showing just an inch of flesh below the waste could have someone arrested and Page's bondage-style photos were just the thing to push the American public into an uproar. In fact, the photos launched a full-fledged senate investigation about common decency and the difference between harmless films and porn.<br /><br />The performances in "The Notorious Bettie Page" are absolutely wonderful with Gretchen Mol standing out. Her performance as Bettie Page is simply brilliant. I understand that, when she was announced for the role, many people were skeptical. Her name is not one that immediately leaps to my mind when I think of great performances. Now, it will. She completely aced the role and drew me in with her vulnerable and yet deeply engaging performance. David Strathairn is fresh off of last year's "Good Night, and Good Luck", in which he gave one of 2005's best performances. Here, he gives yet another fine performance…even though he is slightly underused. I was shocked at how very limited his screen time was…but quality over quantity is always the most important aspect of any good movie. The only performance I have seen from Lili Taylor was that in "The Haunting" (1999). While most people ignored the movie, I found it to be an enjoyable, if not completely shallow, horror movie and I also have always thought that Taylor was perfectly credible as the emotionally-distraught Nell. Here, Taylor gives yet another credible performance. She gives a very subdued performance and delivers the perfect performance to compliment that of Gretchen Mol.<br /><br />After everything was said and done, I realized that "The Notorious Bettie Page" cannot be compared to other biopics, such as "Finding Neverland" and "Walk the Line". It is incomparable to these because it tells a story of a woman and her career, from the beginning to the end. Her personal life is briefly implied, but it is really her impact on the world that becomes the high point. We watch the film knowing that Page will eventually bare all and we know the impact that her decisions will have…but we are rarely shown the impact that they will have on her personal life. She is a woman that never looked back and could constantly reinvent herself. After all, she was an adult model turned Christian missionary. This movie does not over dramatize anything. It could have included fictitious moments of Page sobbing hysterically and begging God to forgive her. It could have shown Page running and screaming through the rain, trying to escape the ghosts of her past…and yet it does not. "The Notorious Bettie Page" tells a simple story and that is something rare by today's standards. Fortunately, it is quite refreshing.<br /><br />Final Thought: "The Notorious Bettie Page" is a relaxing movie with absolutely amazing cinematography.<br /><br />Overall Rating: 9/10 (A)

This is an extraordinary film. As a courtroom drama, it's compelling, as an indictment on the American justice system, it's frightening. For Brenton Butler the consequences of this system could be devastating. This film highlights the fundamental flaws of the legal process, that it's not about discovering guilt or innocence, but rather, is about who presents better in court. In truth, the implications of this case reach beyond the possibility of an innocent man being found guilty, or a guilty man being free. Every citizen has a right to justice, whether a perpetrator or a victim. But do they get it? The film is well paced, understated and one of the best courtroom documentaries I've seen.

Thanks to the BBC for this show. I used to suffer from an inferiority complex, I hated leaving the house, talking to new people and I had an overwhelming sense that people hated me. However after watching one episode of 4 Non Blondes my fortunes started to change. After episode 2 I started applying for new jobs, wearing fashionable clothes and I actually felt talented. When the series had finished I was running the sales department at work, banging a plethora of women and frequently won the karaoke competition down my local. If you ever have a confidence crisis and don't know where to turn then take a trip down to Poundland and pick up the DVD it's only 99p.

Talented screenwriter Alvin Sargent sadly cannot get any engaging ideas cooking in this artificial trifle about a wayward mother and her mature teenage daughter trying to make their lives work in Los Angeles despite mom's flighty behavior. Apart from several good sequences, I didn't quite buy Susan Sarandon as a flake (she's too intrinsically smart and focused to be passed off as this devil-may-care lady), and her naturally grounded personality is a bad fit for the role of an irresponsible parent. Natalie Portman fares much better as her kid, and yet there's a creepy aloofness to her work (and some of her scenes, such as the one where she asks a boy to strip, are misguided and uncomfortable to watch). Certainly not an incompetent piece, "Anywhere But Here" does have moments that work, but it isn't an embraceable film, nor has it proved to be an important one. ** from ****

In post civil war America the President, (Van Johnson), travels to Dallas and is assassinated by corrupt officials and businessman interested in installing the vice President whom they can blackmail due to incriminating documents. A gunman (Guiliano Gemma) convinced that his black friend is wrongly accused of the assassination aims to uncover the truth. Tonino Valeri directed this fascinating, if flawed film which obviously is an allegory for the Kennedy assassination. The film may wrongly present blacks as slaves working on plantations in Texas but the film is nonetheless enjoyable and presents an interesting interpretation - that Kennedy's death was the result of a coup de tat- which many Americans could not accept at the time. Oswald's murder is replayed here as the black accused of the assassination is murdered by the men responsible, on route to Fort Worth prison. This moment in the film is more melodramatic than Oswald's death with his various escorts shot down before his over the top death scene. Nonetheless this is definitely one of the more interesting and worthwhile spaghetti westerns. Worth a look!

Having seen CUBE, I've been a fan of Vincenzo Natali's work. Natali seems to have this inept ability to take a storyline, and hardly wring it our like a wet towel for all the storyline he can muster. Instead, he lets the stories themselves unfold in natural ways, so much in fact, that you may in fact believe there is this Cube were people try to escape, or in the case of NOTHING, a large empty expanse where there is... nothing! The advert had me hooked instantly. It seemed so simple! Take two characters who no one likes, and send them to a world where there is nothing. Natali does this so simply that you forget the logic that a place where there is nothing cannot exist. In fact, the world of nothing becomes something of an irony within the film. There's nothing there, but also 'something' there.<br /><br />It might be a good time to point out that the trailer is highly misleading. I was fortunate enough to actually understand that the film leaned to a more comedic side than the trailer otherwise told so. Therefore upon watching the film, i laughed every now and again, whereas someone who the advert mislead may find themselves utterly confused.<br /><br />If i may take a minute to give the film some praise, where the film excels on is the concept. It is a genius concept to have a world of nothing, and to put two characters there, NOT two brilliant minded characters, who will philosophise and work out their surroundings, but two idiots who have absolutely no clue as to where the hell they are! Another strong point is the film's cinematography, though at first this may not seem it! Where each wall, north, earth, south, west, up and down is just a white plane, a perception of depth becomes faulty. It is hard to determine where things are placed in the Mis-En-Scene. The cinematography has many moments where this actually happens, but for the most part, the camera is placed so that two characters, or an object and a character are placed in the foreground and background, allowing a sense of depth to be realised.<br /><br />However, this film does lack in certain areas. The film is relatively short, but even so, after a while the novelty of this world of nothing becomes rather dull, and you wish to find some form of resolution within the plot. We can also argue that the acting is once again, questionable. These two characters are in a sense, unlikeable, therefore we feel no sympathy at any point for these characters. However, on a flip side of that, the chemistry and friendship between the two characters seems real enough, but there is something lacking.<br /><br />Even so, i do rank this as a thoroughly enjoyable film! Do not let the trailer fool you into thinking this is another science-fiction horror film. It is much more of a comedy than that! It is indeed worth watching though, purely for the concept itself!

To me there is something so appealing and nostalgic about low-budget sci-fi. As a kid in the 50s thats all there was. In 1957 I saw "The First Man Into Space" in a movie theater with my Dad. It had Marshall Thompson starring and some other poor slob who got the title role. It is also about a space mission gone bad where the astronaut turns into a grizzly killer. Scared the Good & Plenty right out of me. The memory of those heebie-jeebies still lives within me. The Incredible Melting Man is almost a re-make only in full glorious color...that is wherever the scenes were well-lit. Just gotta love it for what it is......a little over an hour of darkly lit scenes, disgusting noises, and that eerie music. Bravo !

The wife and I saw a preview of this movie while watching another DVD and thought "Jon Heder, Diane Keaton, Jeff Daniels and Eli Wallach, it's gotta be better than summer reruns, so I ordered it from local library. Well, any episode of "Lawrence Welk" would bring more laughs than "Mama's Boy". I actually felt sorry for the actors for having to read the script in the privacy of their own homes and I couldn't imagine what it must have been like for them to have to actually say their lines in front of a camera. Perhaps, at least, maybe next time they're offered a movie of this sort, they'll "Just Say No!' A one anna two....

The only interesting part of this movie was it's jazz and reggae New Orleans back drop. It tries to be one of those movies that has two struggles the heroine has to overcome, one from the past and one from the present which she fails to do convincingly. The acting's bad and the direction is even worse. I'm not surprised at all that this went straight to video. The end result of this film leaves no one satisfied or convinced including the actors themselves.

I have read the 28 most recent comments by various people regarding this movie and was surprised that no one mentioned the fact that the first victim, shown on the bed with the "missing eyelids", as the camera pans up and away from her face, blinks! Yes, BLINKS! I recorded it as it came on HBO this past weekend and when I saw this I literally had to replay it several times, focusing on one eye at a time to make sure that I was not seeing things! Of course, after that, it was hard to take the movie seriously although there were a few interesting and intense scenes with Julian Sands. Very disappointed and give it a 4 mostly due to the fact that the 1st victim blinks in one of the last frames as the camera pulls away from the body/face. Too bad.

My name is Domino Harvery. {EDIT *dizzying* CHOP} My--my--my name is Domino Harvey. {CUT, CHOP} My name is Domino Harvey. {EDIT. CUT. Playback}<br /><br />Never have I seen a director take so much flack for his style before. By now it is evident that most people do not appreciate Tony Scott's choppy, flashy, dizzying editing technique. If I have to choose between loving it and hating it, I'd say I love it. It was borderline distracting at times, but the end result was pretty good and it's nice to see a director with a creative edge to his style and some originality (even if it borrows heavily from MTV videos).<br /><br />This stylistic edge manifests itself as Keira Knightley plays the role of cocky badass bounty hunter Domino Harvey and even her dialogue seems strangely choppy. Otherwise she plays her poorly because I pretty much hated her character and did not sympathize one bit with her, no matter how much she suffered. We follow Domino through her life as she joins up with fellow bounty hunters Mickey Rourke, Rizwan Abbasi and Edgar Ramirez. The crew become tangled up in the FBI and suddenly has a reality show contract under Christopher Walken's TV production company (what is Christopher Walken doing in every film, by the way?). I guess that is a clever film technique, because now Tony Scott is free to use as much flashy MTV/Reality Show editing footage as he likes. It becomes a pastiche of MTV culture at this point.<br /><br />It followes then that the story is told at an amazingly rapid-fire pace, with lots of raunchy strong language and gun violence. There are some funny jokes; it's all very modern and surreal at the same time. It's a mess, but it's a rather enjoyable mess. It is ultimately flawed in so many ways (the actors try too hard to make their characters "cool", for one) but it works. I give it a weak 7/10 which may seem generous when compared to the general consensus of movie-goers who graded this film — but I feel it had some good ideas and executed them well.<br /><br />7 out of 10

This movie had all the potential and makings of a great feel good, great love story...the cast is perfect, the visuals work, the original premise works, the characters work....but the story moves from one chess move to the next in a most predictable way...not one character in the movie has any depth or has any depth explained by the director. All we know about Catherine Zeta-Jones character is she is obsessed with her world....nobody is allowed in and nobody challenges her world...that much is obvious....but the remaining characters all have their own dimensions that are really never explored or exposed....Aaron Eckhart's character had so much more to offer to the story but wasn't allowed, Abigail Breslin's character is so easy to understand that her performance comes across somewhat predictable and phony....in the end everything reverts back to the forced turbulent world of Catherine Zeta-Jones which the audience never totally falls for....honestly, her turbulent world is not much more than a portrayal of a selfish, self obsessed, spoiled lady who most people would not have much time or sympathy for in the real world. The director needed to make her a hero and never does....in the end, it is Eckhart's character that ultimately wins because he wins.<br /><br />Not a lousy movie, just a movie that could have been a lot better with more depth of personalities allowed in, explained and exposed.<br /><br />Cheers

When I took my seat in the cinema I was in a cool mood and didn't plan on changing it. But this movie is a dramatic powerhouse. I was all in sweat and needed a shower afterward. So what have we? Theoretically a coming of age story of a teenage Turkish girl living in Copenhagen, Denmark. It came to my mind soon that the plot seemed pretty much completely borrowed from "Bend it like Beckham", where we had an Indian girl playing football and spoiling the wedding of her sister. Here we have it transferred to a Turkish girl spoiling her brother's wedding by doing Kung Fu. And we have a love story and a competition of course, too. After I accepted this, this really turned out to be a gripping, emotional drama and it shows off some beautiful Kung Fu (I'm not an expert, though). The lead actress Semra Turan is not only Denmark's female champion but she also delivers an excellent performance, so that it appears to be safe to assume that we have quite some autobiographic impressions here taking into account that this is her first movie and that she has no education as an actress. Rest of the supporting cast is okay, camera good, Kung Fu intense. Sidenotes: - The male Turkish audience showed respect so that they must have done something right. - The audience burst into cheers when our heroine finally fought back and attacked the boys who were gravely beating up her brother in revenge. - Xian Gao, a Chinese cinematic Kung Fu instructor/actor (Hidden Tiger, Crouching Dragon) played the lead role's master<br /><br />If you get the chance to see this in cinema do it, you'll probably have a good and intense experience and I don't know if this works on small screen as well

James Dickey is a wonderfully descriptive author. When one reads "Deliverance", one is instantly transported into the lush backwoods of the Deep South. When one watches John Boorman's film version of the book, one realizes just how accurately he captures the essence of the book. The camera is as descriptive as the narration. The characters are fully realized, and the portrayals are fantastic. I first saw this movie in 1992, after my freshman year of college. I was in a phase where I was watching movies that were all released within a couple of years of my birth in 1973. Among them were "Patton", "Papillon", and "All the President's Men"; fine films, all of them. This one was easily the class of the group. That says a lot.

I tend to love everything the great late Paul Naschy (R.I.P.) ever was in. While not all films starring Naschy are great, they all have a specific charm that can be found nowhere but in Naschy-flicks, and they are always entertaining. There is no rule without exception, however, as "El Mariscal Del Infierno" aka. "The Devil's Possessed" (1974) proves. While the film does have the specific Naschy-flick-charm, it sadly drags far too much and gets really, really dull in-between. Naschy stars as the evil Baron Gilles De Lancré, who oppresses the people and uses black magic and bloody rituals to stay in power. When Gaston de Malebranche (Guillermo Bredeston), who fought side by side with Gilles De Lancré against the British, learns about the Baron's evil behavior, he decides to turn against his former comrade in arms and help the people free themselves from the satanic Baron's tyranny...<br /><br />Directed by León Klimovsky, who is best known for directing Naschy in "La Noche De Walpurgis" ("The Werewolf Vs. The Vampire Woman", 1971), the film was scripted by Naschy himself. Naschy often scripted his own films, and one must say that he mostly did a better, more original job than it is the case here. "El Mariscal Del Infierno" is mostly built up as a historical adventure rather than a Horror film, and it gets quite boring throughout the middle. It often resembles the Sword and Sandal films from the 50s, only that this film is set in medieval times. The Satanic part was probably only added because the great Paul Naschy's name is linked to the Horror genre. The film has its good parts: Paul Naschy giving weird speeches, Paul Naschy looking weird, Paul Naschy doing Satanic stuff, Paul Naschy torturing innocent victims, etc. But sadly, most of the film concentrates on the boring hero and the good guys, and these moments are boring. The female cast members are nice to look at, but, unlike most Naschy films, this one features no nudity and sleaze. There is some gore, but it mostly looks clumsy and isn't as fun too look at as it is the case with most other Naschy films. Overall, "El Mariscal Del Infierno" is only worth a look for my fellow Naschy-enthusiasts. There are dozens of films starring the Spanish Horror deity which should be seen before this one, such as "El Jorobado De La Morgue" ("The Hunchback of the Morgue", 1973), "La Orgia De Los Muertos" ("The Hanging Woman", 1973), "El Espanto Surge De La Tumba" ("Horror Rises From The Tomb", 1973), "Latidos De Panico" ("Panic Beats", 1983), "Rojo Sangre" (2004), or any of the 'Waldemar Daninsky' werewolf films. R.I.P. Paul Naschy. Legends never die!

I give this movie a 3 as it is worse than the cult movies that deserve a proper 2. It does not make sense to you? Well, it doesn't have to. This is another vampire movie with a stupid plot, no, let me rephrase, incredibly idiotic plot, where space cowboys (complete with cowboy hats) battle a space race of moron vampires.<br /><br />Does it get any uglier than this? The only good thing in this movie was Natassia Malthe, with her stunning Norwegian beauty. God, I wish Michael Ironside and the DeLuise brothers would stop accepting dumb roles in dumb movies! I mean, at least SeaQuest was nice! I know Mr. Ironside from a lot of movies, he has acted in 164 movies at this date!! It's true that he was rarely in a major role, but still!

All those who are into the PC culture are aghast at the dogmatic Christian view of this film, claiming it contains racist ideation and/or religious intolerance.<br /><br />Those who don't care about this, but are oriented towards slick production values and competent acting are dismayed at the lack of such here.<br /><br />Those who decry both of these are apoplectic that this production was let loose on the general public, as evidenced in comments here.<br /><br />What is an interesting premise, which isn't original, but is a combination of GHOST and FROM BEYOND, is dealt with in a rather immature manner in this film, yet done with gusto. What the crew and actors lacked in sensibility, professional abilities and technical expertise is somewhat offset by the intensity they display.<br /><br />It isn't nearly as bad as many here think, and would have been fine in the hands of someone with maturity and common sense, and it is enough below mediocrity to elicit laughs and groans. However, it unfolds with enough intensity to keep interest throughout, and is close to on par with a Corman-produced entry of his earliest period of work, or the material of Arkoff or Sam Katzman. If you get it for $2 (or less) as did I, you won't feel disappointed, but will wish you could have had a say in how it was made.

While this isn't an all time classic comedy it is a pretty good little movie to watch if you catch it on a rainy Saturday morning with not a lot else going on right then.<br /><br />Harold Lloyd plays Ezekiel Cobb, an American coming home after growing up in China where his dad was a missionary.He has come home from China to find an American wife and plans to return to China to continue his father's work.Cobb unwittingly is recruited to run for mayor of his corrupt home town when the existing political machine that controls the town realizes that he would make a perfect patsy to run against the current mayor who also is the head of the town's underworld.They figure the bumbling ,stumbling Cobb has no chance to win and therefore the current mayor continues to run the town and run his schemes which makes them all rich.<br /><br />Lloyd isn't doing the physical comedy here like he did in his silent films.He does a convincing portrayal of Cobb with a reserved understated dignity.The acting was good from all involved and the story and script were also quite good.<br /><br />Being made in 1934 the film does have some rather racist language when talking about the Chinese and it also has a typical black character from that era but these stereotypes aren't nearly as mean as I've seen from other films from that time.<br /><br />Although not close to being Lloyd's best film ,this movie does entertain and Lloyd is very good as Cobb.You won't be blown away by this film but it may be enough to peak your interest in Lloyd and make you want to see more of his work.

I knew it wasn't gunna work out between me and D-wars from the moment we met. First its title was lazy. D war. Like writing out Dragon was too much for them. Also... you really can't be that blatant with your title unless your Blue Monkey. Blue Monkey can do whatever the hell it wants. <br /><br />The second sign of a rocky relationship between us was the story's insane progression. Here's the film, dreamy reporter guy reports on big snake tracks, flashes back to a time he and dad wandered into what must have been the competition for the store in gremlins and dreamy kid reporter finds a box that glows. Old shop keep reveals several terrible truths. That Bauraki a supposedly evil snake was cheated out of his chance to be a god. tells the kid that he's a reincarnated warrior and that somewhere in LA is his reincarnated lover and gives him a junk piece of jewelry. Shop keep also reveals that despite his obvious whiteness he's a 500 year old Asian. <br /><br />fifteen years later dreamy reporter remembers this perfectly and starts acting half crazy trying to find this random girl. cgi hijinks follow and in the last ten minutes my brain melts out of my nose. Why? Continue on dear reader if you have the Balls.<br /><br />so Sarah, the reincarnated lover, has her own flashbacks. I have the benefit of having an Asian best friend and in the scene where she starts to freak out and make a bunch of posters with Asian characters on them he tells me that whoever made this movie has no idea what their doing. Its a Korean legend and she's reincarnated from a Korean princess but everything is in Chinese. Later that night her dragon tat starts to hurt, she calls the police cause it looks like she's having a heart attack. See, in this mixed up crazy world they apparently handle heart attacks differently because the next time we see her she's locked in her room with a guard outside and a nurse claims she's crazy. I have a new phobia now, and its that if i'm ever in trouble the first responders will just assume i'm crazy. <br /><br />I have another point of contention with my harsh mistress, Dwar. There is a scene when Patrick Dempsey Jr (Dreamy Reporter) is in a café' with sassy black friend. In the scenes prior Miffed Near divinity Bauraki has killed an elephant, slithered through a suburb and killed one of Sarah's friends. See, people were afraid to come out after 9-11 happened but we must have all toughened up after that deciding coffee and pastries were worth risking our lives for. Business as usual, no way a giant snake will stop me from getting my caffeine on. If i stay inside and fear for my life the terrorists and serpentine divinities win. <br /><br />After being given a satisfying dragon on Helicopter battle my cruel lover Dwar treats me to a pi$$ and vinegar filled scene to end it all with. Bauraki has a fortress of his own and its right under LA i guess. They don't really say but Dreamy Reporter and Sarah get knocked out in a car crash that would kill lesser men and when they wake up, yep dragon palace. some retarded dialog later a good dragon snake god pops out of nowhere and the snakes wrestle/make love whatever. And i'm not kidding good snake out of nowhere. Maybe you think i'm blowing it out of proportion, i'm not there is no mention of this thing in the movie then suddenly... there! Few seconds later and good dragon becomes dragon god, sets Baurki on fire, Sarah turns into a ghost and goes with Dragon-god, dreamy reporter left in the middle of nowhere roll credits... thank god<br /><br />Now our relationship as rocky as it was had its good times. There was a guy that look like shredder from turtles and talked exactly like a tuskan raider from star wars. I'll call him Tuskan Shredder. He could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted to it just could never be useful. He could walk through a wall in a scene where that wasn't helpful. He could go in your dreams when that wouldn't do any good and he could light ten random soldier guys on fire but not when it mattered. He was also allergic to touching that junk jewelry. I like him cause he was hit by a car twice in the same scene and made fantastic tuskan raider noises. <br /><br />The actors for the most part were great... if great somehow meant terrible. Jason Behr, whom i thought was awesome in Roswell i slowly find out can only act one way and that's pretentious, spacey and Patrick Dempsey"ish".<br /><br />The one thing i love about this filthy prostitute Dwars is its lead actor, Bauraki. That Giant snake acted his heart out. I'd dare to say that he was better at playing a cgi serpentine demi-god of evil then John Barrymore was at playing Richard the III or Hamlet. There was emotion in every scene, stealing the thunder from his lesser mortal supporting cast. When he ate an elephant i felt like no one past, present or future would ever eat an elephant with as much feeling. He was more then an actor, he was a force of nature and he put his heart and soul into every second of this cursed project. Yes damn it, my favorite actor in this film was a cgi snake. I've got the balls to admit that, do you?<br /><br />Here's to hoping Bauraki get's more work and isn't type cast, that Jason Behr finds a range of emotion other then dreamy stare, and that i never have to watch Blue Monkey again. <br /><br />So, D-War its over. I want my CDs back and let's just be friends

Let me start out by saying that I am a huge fan of Abbie Hoffman and have read Steal this Book and Steal this Urine Test. Also am a even bigger Jerry Rubin fan. But his movie was a discusting pile of rubbish that made a very PG version of Abbie Hoffman. The director took no chances into making Abbie Hoffman interesting in this movie. They despicted Stew Albert as a F***ing cartoon chjaractor devoid of intellegence, the man was a proffesor at Berkley for christsakes. Ok they did a horrid casting job for Anita Hoffman, did a Horrible job casting for the Jerry Rubin character. I just guess the movie doesnt fit the news flashes that I have seen of Abbie or the books that he wrote. The movie just didnt fit and upset me. Oh yeah and theat is the absolute worst voice over I have ever heard of Richard Nixon. This is one of the few movies that I have ever rented that I could not sit all the way through because, I have a passion for Abbie Hoffman and his discruntled band of Yippies and this movie was just plain badly done. And it hurt me that now when people see a movie about the yippies they will see a terrible adaptation, and not get a true sense of reality. Instead they get a hollywoodized palanthra of crap.<br /><br />

It is a shame that a movie with such a good cinematography as this one had no plot to be supported by the work of Sarah Cawley (cinematography) and Adam Lichtenstein (Film Editing), and above all, no sense of what goes on in Mexico City. The movie tries to be a very realistic depiction of life in city, but it is unable to do it. It is a shame, a lot of film wasted. An American woman tries to find her brother who has been kidnaped. The first account of the story is powerful and interesting, very realistic, but it seems that there was no effort to come with a better narrative of the ordeal, especially when it comes to the issue of the attitudes of the US embassy personnel in Mexico City, when dealing with an issue like this one. Compare, as an example, with Frantic(1988), which deals with a similar issue. Something similar can be said of the role of local authorities. Compare, as an example, with Todo el Poder (1999). The movie is worth watching if you want to get a sense of the looks of the City itself, paying little or no attention to the rather weak "plot" and the many twists that require a rather extensive suspension of disbelief. Who is going to believe that a Mexican patrol from Mexico City is going to go all the way to catch the main characters to the Mexico-US border? And that this policeman is going to be able to use its radio from the border to Mexico City! Only the producers of this movie. It is worth mentioning that unlike Frida and other movies about Mexico at least in these one Mexicans talk Spanish.

Pulling in 2.6 million viewers, one has to wonder what everyone's opinions on the storyline/plot is.<br /><br />Reading the run down over at lifetime, I was led to believe that this would be an edge-of-your-seat thriller about a single mother being stalked and finally confronting the stalker. Sadly I was mistaken. While the main plot is interesting enough - Single mother run off road one night, then is stalked by same guy, the reasoning behind the stalking left nothing but a really bad taste in my mouth.<br /><br />Laura Leighton plays the victim, and she does it well. Whether it was all those years on Melrose Place or not, she does well in this movie, playing a mother who would do anything to protect her son from harm, and she's looking pretty good too these days.<br /><br />Leighton is really the only good thing about this movie. I think many people will identify with the main character, after discovering why the stalker is stalking, it will be a view-only-once type of movie.

Earth Final Conflict began like a new world, a new vision from the creator of Star trek, something fresh and unique full of great elements. A very good cast with an extremely credible Kevin Kilner as William Boone, an ex cop good begins to work as guard of some kind of ambassador of a mysterious alien race (Talons), after the dead of his wife in strange circumstances. But soon the character of Kilner joins to a group with the mission to discover what are the truth intentions of the aliens, why they seem to be so nice and care for the human race. Soon this resistance group begin to discover the sinister plans of the Talons using the humans in they own problems to survive they own destruction. As I said before, the show began great, all was almost perfect, including characters like Da'an, the original Da'an was a big mystery because he seems to be a nice creature but at the same time he has his own evil plans manipulating some people in earth. Soon came Zo'or who wasn't bad but... mark the beginning of the fall of this show because he became the first big enemy of humans, the incarnation of evil, killing what could be something greater in Da'an. The first seasons ends in a great way with the dead of Boone and the second shows a new lead character (Liam) an hybrid being of human and Kimera (another alien race) with some very interesting powers. He replace Kilner character in a good way so another storylines make it better, including the conflict with the jaridians and the atavus. But as I said lines before the evilness of Zo'or begin to take more importance so the new conflicts were less realistic as the same Talons. With time the whole great storyline of the alien roots of Liam where almost totally erased the same with other things of the previous seasons. So when the final season began the original Earth Final conflict was just an almost forgotten dreams, all the magic was missing, just to let some vain intents to keep alive the show including the return of Kilner and Liam for a few episodes. The final episode was just the evidence of how bad was the show with so many bad changes (to think the writers of some episodes didn't know anything about the first stories), it was one of the worst end I have ever seen in a TV show. A real shame because Earth Final Conflict began like something unique, fresh, the stories the cast, after watch so many show from USA, something from Canada from the mind of the creator of Star trek was wonderful but in the end all change to worse. I hope someday someone make a remake of this show, of course using nothing from season fourth and fifth (except the cast, everyone were perfect in his work). I still can dream in a better things.

I too remember seeing this film as a youngster at a local small theater that presented foreign films each week. It was the daring adventure of it all that stayed in my memory ever since.<br /><br />Especially impressionable was the scene with Noel Purcell as the old seaman, Paddy, who drank too much, saw or heard apparitions and died of fright in a cave. I always kept track of Noel's career even decades later due to my seeing him then. There's also a youngish Cyril Cusack as the leering boatman, James, with designs on the lovely Jean Simmons, shown as Emmeline grown up.<br /><br />Would very much like to own a video of this haunting film and refresh my memory of it. Where do I send my request?

So what is one to do if you are a porno star with fading looks? I know, become a pop star! This documentary - and I use the term loosely - follows the trials and tribulations of Colton as he tries to transform himself from a gay porn star into a singer of electronic (read: dance) music. I only wish Mr Ford's voice was as muscular as his arms...sorry to say his vocals are painfully thin. There isn't much interesting going on here but Mr Ford and friends are eye candy.<br /><br />See him record a song that sounds exactly like every other mindless dance tune. See him travel to New York to make "connections." See him go back to L.A. with little success. See yourself look in the mirror and ask, " Why am I wasting time watching this mess?"

If you really loved GWTW, you will find quite disappointing the story. Those who may think this is just about a romantic story and the south, will be probably satisfied with this decent TV production (altought I consider an important miscast the choice for Scarlett). But, let me say that considering the novel, nothing good could came out of this.<br /><br />I've read GWTW more than 20 times and I can really appreciate the adaptation Mrs. Mitchell did for the film. It took me some time to understand how good the ending was: Scarlett knew for sure she was going to recover Rhett, since she always got what she wanted. But there was no kiss in the end.<br /><br />Then Alexandra Ripley came to "fix" this by showing us exactly how perfect and mighty Scarlett could be, and of course, describing in detail how exactly she gets Rhett back even when she had an important affair with someone else (nothing could have been further from Mrs. Mitchell mind, I am sure).<br /><br />The story between these points is in my opinion just a long and boring ride made up to tie ends, showing off costumes and scenarios just to give us an obvious and totally unnecessary ending.<br /><br />If Margaret Mitchell could came to live again, she would die one more time at the very moment she'd find out what Scarlett became after GWTW.<br /><br />Sure it's not fair to compare this to the original but this is not GWTW fault. Isn't it? Is it any good if I don't compare it to the original? Maybe. Sorry to say I don't really care.<br /><br />I would expect little more compromise to continue someone else's (suberb) work, otherwise don't even try.

As if the film were not of value in itself, this is an excellent way to get an overview of the novel as a preface to reading it. In the summer of 1968 I saw the film in NYC; that fall in graduate school, I read the book for the first time. Some of the pleasure in reading the novel was my memory of the scrupulously detailed film. And for better or worse--and I've now read and taught the novel for over three decades--Milo O'Shea is still Leopold Bloom.

I have seen several comments here about Brando using a Southern accent, some of which felt it was a mistake. When this movie was made, racism and discrimination were very strong in the South. The Jim Crow laws were still in effect. Civil Rights was in it's infancy. Could this have possibly been a subtle social commentary, a Southern man in love with a woman of another race? The same way MASH was a subtle criticism of the Viet Nam war? Any thoughts?<br /><br />Another comment was made about Myoshi Umeki appearing "cold". Anyone who has been in Japan would understand. The Japanese people, at least in my experience, did not tend to show emotion in front of strangers. There were strict social rules, especially for men meeting single women. Americans in Japan were totally foreign to this culture, and the blunt attempts to meet women were shocking to the ladies. One trait of the Japanese was to smile when embarrassed or uncomfortable, which many American servicemen took as a sign that their advances were welcomed. Also remember that at the time represented in the movie, Japan had just been defeated, and the occupying forces were treated with reluctant acceptance. I think Myoshi Umeki gave a very credible performance of what her situation would have been. Watching her interaction with the American actors brought back several memories of my own experiences in the country. I was able to meet a pair of lovely young ladies who, after I convinced them I was not the typical American male, taught me their language and their culture during my time in their country.

This is a pretty pointless remake. Starting with the opening title shots of the original was a real mistake as it reminds the viewer of what a great little period piece chiller that was. The new version that follows is an exercise in redundancy.<br /><br />Brian Kerwin plays a 'city boy' photographer who returns to a semi-abandoned desert town populated by a scattering of underdeveloped clichéd stock characters: the lollipop sucking Daby-Doll Lolita, the 'ornery old coot prospector, the crippled vet and his Asian wife, etc...<br /><br />Kerwin's character witnesses the crashing of 'something' into a hillside and shortly after strange things start to happen as pieces of weird blue rock are scattered around. The temperature starts to rise, all the water in the area vanishes, people start to act weirdly, things explode. Kerwin's character gets in and out of his car more often than is humanly possible in one movie. The film develops no sense of place, no character development, no humour, no tension. Everything that made the Jack Arnold's original a creepy little Cold-war paranoia classic has been abandoned. It just runs through its minimal hoops and then just ends.<br /><br />The special effects aren't very special - the interior of the ship looks like bits of cling film wrapped round some ropes which were then dangled in front of the camera to frame some of the most uninspired and clumsy wire-work ever put onto the screen. The script is repetitive - everyone says everything at least twice, Kerwin gets to say "let's get out of here" at least three times during the movie, twice in one scene. Loads of things are left unexplained at the end - why do the aliens need all the heat and water for example? - not that anyone watching would care; if the film makers didn't care why should we?<br /><br />The acting is adequate - better than the script, which at times, has an under-rehearsed improvisational quality, deserves. Though often the actors look like they just want to get the thing over with as quickly as possible - a notable example of this is when Elizabeth Peña registers the briefest, token moment of "frustrated despair hands to face gesture" before following sulking son Stevie outside to watch him do "angry sulky teenager smashing something off a table" gesture. <br /><br />Continuity errors include the (GB) sticker on the back of Kerwin's jeep appearing and disappearing, a double action of the gas in the exploding car, a towns-person being in two places simultaneously - once in the Alien Stevie's POV shot then immediately afterwards in a reaction shot, Elizabeth Peña appearing to shut a car door twice... you can tell I was gripped can't you? The movie commits that greatest of errors. It's boring.

I didn't know much about this movie going in- my roommate kind of dragged me into it. I was so pleasantly surprised! The plot really grabbed my attention and held it, and the characters are well-drawn and realistic. The screenplay is very clever and funny, and the cast does great things with it. And the best part is that it managed to be entertaining without any explicit sex or violence! If this movie comes anywhere into your area you really should go see it- stand up for this little film, it is worth it!

Kevin Spacey is without a doubt one of the best actors of the 90s. After his performances in The Usual Suspect, Se7en and American Beauty, you expect more and more from him. That is why Ordinary Decent Criminal is a huge disappointment.<br /><br />Michael Lynch is the most artful criminal in Dublin who is never in a bad mood. His next heist becomes an obsession when his partners start questioning Michael's ability to plan everything perfectly, although this is the only thing he does when he isn't playing good father at home.<br /><br />I guess, it's partly my fault for not paying enough attention to the thousand plot details which sadly turn out to be the "essence" of the film. I gave the movie a chance by calling it a parody and.... well, parodies are always funny, no matter what they spoof or how they do it. So, it wasn't after all a complete parody on purpose. It's just a different con movie that desperately tries to be funny and fails.<br /><br />Unlike some of his "colleagues", Ordinary Decent Criminal depends too much on story development and logical continuity, forgetting what's the main reason, the viewer has picked this kind of movie - to be entertained. This is definitely not entertainment. It includes one of the most ridiculous scenes ever - the introduction of Michael's TWO wives. I don't know whether it's some kind of a mindless metaphor or strange, dark humor, but the chicks are sisters. Remember, Spacey's character has kids.<br /><br />Ordinary Decent Criminal is complex and confusing. You are not waiting for a funny scene. Instead, you carefully follow the dialog, because there is a big possibility of losing yourself into the boring, pale universe, the film has inhabited.<br /><br />Let's go back to Spacey. I wonder in what condition he has been, signing for that movie. It's not miscasting, but something much worse. An insult to his work in American Beauty, released an year before Ordinary Decent Criminal. The character Michael is eccentric and talkative. Spacey is almost pathetic at times. The only cure for this, is thinking of Lester Burnham and Roger Kint.<br /><br />Writer, Gerrard Stembridge should definitely re-consider his screen writing abilities and be more objective this time. Because, the dialog is very weak and the scenes are often pointless. And we are still talking about a comedy.<br /><br />Ordinary Decent Criminal is a really bad crime comedy which does not deserve your attention.

Spoilers!<br /><br />From the very moment I saw a local film critic trash this movie in a review on the 10:00 news, I wanted to see it. I don't remember who it was, or which local Omaha newscast carried the review, but the critic was very insistent that this film was way too sleazy for the average church-going Nebraskan. They showed a snippet from the scene where John Glover is about to kidnap Ann-Margret when she's swimming in the pool. Glover's character is commending her on how nice her body is and so forth, using many words that the local station felt necessary to edit out. I was hooked. There was one problem, though. I was only 13 years old at the time, and I had to wait a year until it came out on cable. Let's just say, it was worth the wait!<br /><br />If ever there was a guilty pleasure of mine, this movie is it. To call this film sleazy would be a huge understatement. The film centers around a successful businessman who is blackmailed by three small time scumbags after an affair with a young woman. Roy Scheider, who is as effective as ever, plays the poor guy who just wanted a little fling and now finds himself at the mercy of three terrific villains. John Glover's character is one of the most memorable scumbags of all time. He's sleazy, funny at times, and always on the brink of doing something crazy. Then there's Robert Trebor's (nice name, by the way!) character Leo who is clearly in over his head with this blackmail scheme. He is a whimpering, sweating, coward who runs a peep show place with live nude models. Then, you have Clarence Williams III as Bobby Shy, a brooding sociopath who everyone is afraid of with good reason. Who could forget the wake-up call he gives Vanity with the giant teddy bear?<br /><br />After dealing with the initial shock of realizing what he's up against, Scheider turns the tables on these creeps and takes control of the situation, that is until Glover goes after his wife! The conflict is played out brutally, with virtually the entire cast getting shot, raped, or blown up. <br /><br />I don't know why I love this movie so much. It really should creep me out, but it doesn't. Maybe it's because these characters are all interesting, and the story takes plenty of chances that most films today would never try. It's scary to think that the adult film industry probably has more than a few characters like Glover's running around out in L.A. looking for trouble. Just thinking about his voice is enough to make me chuckle. "Hey sport, have a nice day!"<br /><br />This film has plenty of shootouts, cool cars, great dialog (like the line in my opening statement), and decent acting. Plenty of cameos by real life porno stars. Look for Ron Jeremy frolicking around in a hot tub with two chicks in a party scene at Glover's place. <br /><br />Another thing I must add: How hot are the women in this film??? Wow! Travolta did right by marrying Kelly Preston. Yum! We also see Vanity get nude in a time before she became a born again Christian. And Ann-Margret. What else could you say about her except that she is the quintessential American Beauty. <br /><br />9 of 10 stars.<br /><br />So sayeth the Hound.<br /><br />Added Feb 14, 2008: RIP Roy Scheider!

Vampires, sexy guys, guns and some blood. Who could ask for more? Moon Child delivers it all in one nicely packaged flick! Gackt is the innocent Sho - who befriends a Vampire Kei (HYDE), their relationship grows with time but as Sho ages, Kei's immortality breaks his heart. It doesn't help that they both fall in love with the same woman. The special effects are pretty good considering the small budget. It's a touching story ripe with human emotions. You will laugh, cry, laugh, then cry some more. Even if you are not a fan of their music, SEE THIS FILM. It works great as a stand alone Vampire movie.<br /><br />9 out of 10

Pink Flamingos is a movie no word can explain. It was just as good I thought. It expands films. Starting with a "multiple" beginning, and ending with a shocking, but clever ending, Pink Flamingos is one of the best films of the year. Don't miss this opportunity to see a great film. Rent it on video or see it at a late midnight showing like I did. But just see it.

Something somewhere must have terribly gone wrong right at the time when the director was perceiving this plot. The movie, that was supposed to be the remake of one of the most loved movies in cinema, fails to deliver in every aspect of movie making. The best of the artists could also not pick up the tuning, that simply goes on to show that the movie in itself was a grave mistake.<br /><br />The editing is poor. Direction is crap. Acting is out of this world(omg)! The characters who are supposed to look scary force people to laugh on the stupidity of their dialogues and costumes.<br /><br />I wouldn't watch the movie even if someone paid me the cost of the tickets or even gave me a free burger with it.

It's not hard to imagine what the main problem for a screenwriter is who wants to have 18 equally well written characters with about the same amount of screen time in a movie that last around 90 minutes. It's almost impossible not to fall back on stereotypes and that is also what writer-director Ralf Westhoff does here. Very few of the characters can be recognized as people that you and me know in real life, many of them are just characterized with two or three attributes and stay vague. I am aware of that but still think that "Shoppen" is successful, namely that it accomplishes just what it wants to. It is a film with very well written dialogue, extremely good acting and a film that made me laugh out loud really often. I don't think that this film wants to make a deep going analysis of loneliness in our modern society, or that it wants to be moral commentary on speed-dating. It's a movie about something that exists and people and their motivation to use it. Funny and entertaining.

Yep, this has got to be one of the lamest movies I've ever seen. It's utterly tasteless, has no style whatsoever, the story is so thin that you can watch television through it, and the whole film has so many holes you could drive an oil tanker through it.<br /><br />Sure, I appreciate a good B-movie as much as most male white homo sapiens do. But this has got to be the worst I've seen. In fact it's so B that it lacks everything that makes a B-movie interesting.<br /><br />The whole movie is based around such charming artefacts as the characters beating the crap out of each other, various bodily functions and the complete lack of sanity of anything on-screen.<br /><br />It's not even funny. In fact it's quite the opposite. I found it even boring at times due to it's extreme predictability.<br /><br />I find nothing good to say about this movie. It was a waste of time watching it, and I hope others don't do the same mistake. If you also pay for it you should get a serious brainscan done.

The movie was gripping from start to finish and its b/w photography of the American heartland is stunning. We feel we are right there with them as they cross the big sky country and then into Mexico and back to America again. Near the end of the movie, the reflection of the rain on Robert Blake looks like small rivers of sweat and tears rolling down his face. In the end, we follow them up the stairway to their final moment. <br /><br />The two criminals, performed by Robert Blake and Scott Wilson, as Perry Smith and Dick Hickock could be seen on any street in any town. Hickock is a smiling boy next door and Smith, the guy with stars in his eyes from the wrong side of town. This point is made in the movie and it always surprises us that criminals are no different in appearance than anyone else. Evil, even the most vile, is part of the human condition. These two delusional men kill an entire family, looking for a safe that isn't there. Once on the run, they start writing bad cheques, carving out a trail for the authorities.<br /><br />There are many fine supporting actors. I like John Forsyth as the detective on the case, Alvin Dewey. Also, Will Geer shines in a brief but excellent scene as the prosecuting attorney.<br /><br />I have often wanted to see this movie all the way through, having only caught it in short snatches; I did finally get to it after buying the DVD. The result is the finest classic crime movie I have ever seen.<br /><br />Don't miss this brilliant movie. To me, this is what great film-making is all about.

This movie feels so EMPTY. IN every scene in the movie the maximum number of actors on the screen is like 10. Because everything was shot in front of a blue screen there are never really any extras and the movie just feels weird.<br /><br />The ACTING was HORRIBLE! It's so obvious this was in front of a blue screen because all of the action scenes you can see the actor/actress wondering around half running when they should be running for their lives.. Looking at the floor for their marks...<br /><br />Spoilers: Also you'll find yourself banging your head watching the movie. At one point at Sky Captain's home base they have like 100 planes sitting on the airstrip. They have advanced warning an attack is coming... So what do they do? nothing. All of the planes get blown up and yet again the ONLY person fighting back is the Sky Captain...<br /><br />THE ENTIRE world is under attack and he's the ONLY person ever fighting back. At the very end of the movie you see hundreds of plains taking off finally... but what do they do? Nothing... the movie is over...

Really, everybody in this movie looks like they want to be someplace else! No wonder, the casting is done not with the left hand, but rather not at all. I haven't seen anything worse than Natascha McElhone impersonating some sort of agent, carrying a gun. You don't use a spoiled city-brat-look in such a role. The only worse thing I can imagine is casting Doris Day as a prostitute. The rest of the cast is likewise awful, possibly with Hurt as the sole exception, sometimes you can see him trying, but suffering. Oh, did I mention that it is a completely insane story? Jeopardizing many peoples lives because you are divorced and want to see your family? Well, it must be because the guy (Weller) is German?<br /><br />2/10, because the photography could be worse.

"Still Crazy" is without a doubt the greatest rock comedy of all-time. It has been erroneously compared to "This Is Spinal Tap", which it has no relation to. "Spinal Tap" is a satire (and, quite frankly, not a very good one, in spite of it's "outing" of many rock clichés). Unlike "Tap", "Still Crazy" is populated by great actors, great songs and great human situations. You CARE about the people in "Still Crazy". That's all that matters. Oh, yeah, the music's pretty damn good, too, written by Mick Jones of Foreigner and Chris Difford of Squeeze. American audiences were already familiar with Stephen Rea (The Crying Game), but would only later become familiar with Bill Nighy (Underworld, Love Actually, Pirates Of The Caribbean II) and Timothy Spall (the Harry Potter movies).

As a lesbian, I am sick and tired of being portrayed in movies and on TV as a sad person, forever vacillating between suicide and homicide, but never destined to find happiness? <br /><br />If, like me, you are fed up with Hollywood's anti-lesbian propaganda, you'll breathe a sigh of relief at this delightful offering from the BBC. Nan Astley is the daughter of an Oyster-house restaurateur who "wonders why she can't feel the way she should about Freddy" (one of the local lads who has his eye set on her). She falls – and falls hard – for Kitty Butler, a male impersonator with a visiting theatre troupe. Nan accompanies Kitty to London as her dresser… <br /><br />Not everything that happens to Nan is pleasant in this story, and some of the things she does are not squeaky-clean either - but she will win your heart, and her story of love triumphant will leave you with a beautiful lump in your throat at the end.<br /><br />If you are a lesbo-hating macho man or a homophobic housewife, or some brand of religious fundamentalist who believes that homosexuals should die and go to hell, this series is not for you. But if you have a heart, and you believe in love, you will cry at the end as much as I did!

Tipping the Velvet (2002) (TV) was directed by Geoffrey Sax for BBC television. The basic plot is a coming-of-age story for the protagonist, Nan Astley, played well by Rachael Stirling. As a teenager, Nan works in her family-run oyster house. Everyone expects her to stay at home, then marry an appropriate husband, and settle down to family life. Nan expects this too.<br /><br />Everything changes when Nan meets Kitty Butler (Keeley Hawes) a beautiful and talented performer who dresses in men's clothes and captures the hearts of her audience. The audience includes Nan, who is sexually attracted to Kitty in a way in which she's not attracted to her boyfriend. <br /><br />The remainder of the film follows Nan to London and through her ups (sort of) and her downs (horrible) as a lesbian and sometimes male impersonator. <br /><br />As is typical for the BBC, every role, no matter how small, is performed by an excellent actor. The BBC has a depth and breadth of performing artists that is truly marvelous. None of the supporting actors stands out in my mind--they were uniformly good. Both Stirling and Hawes are wonderful, and their acting carries the film along.<br /><br />It's always sad to be reminded of how difficult life can be for someone who doesn't fit society's mold for what is normal. I know it isn't easy for lesbians even in the U.S., even today. Imagine the obstacles to love and happiness for lesbians in Victorian England. We've come a long way, but we still have a long way to travel.

I watched this movie after watching Practical Magic, and the older film was far superior. I liked the way the lighting, makeup, and costumes changed as Gillian changed in the story. Jimmy Stewart's mannerisms didn't do a lot for me in this film, but I suppose they did serve to highlight the reserve of Gillian's character. I was also struck by Nicky's and Gillian's mannerisms--it was as if the director wanted him to appear effeminate and Gillian to appear masculine. The gestures Nicky makes when he's showing Redlich his powers especially struck me. I've never thought of warlocks as being effeminate, so it was an interesting way of contrasting those characters.

I don't see how this show is like the OC at all. <br /><br />First of all, the OC centers around teenagers and their parents trying to get through life. North Shore is about a hotel staff who is trying to run the hotel and have a social life at the same time. Second, The OC takes place in California. North Shore takes place in Hawaii.<br /><br />And why would Fox make a show just like one of its other shows on the same network? I think this is a great show with good actors for the most part. It has a good storyline and plot. I like the events that happen and how the people take care of them and work them out. The most recent episode was surprising how the story worked out. It wasn't predictable like most stories on most shows. <br /><br />I hope Fox keeps it on the air.

Just saw this at the cinema. I haven't read the books. There is nothing new about this film at all. <br /><br />the bad guys seem to die with a couple of slashes no matter how many times our hero has been stabbed with a big sword he keeps on going looking the same (ish)! There are several action scenes but they are very fake. filmmakers seem to be under the impression that whenever they cant be bothered to choreograph a fight scene they just move the camera up close, move fast and turn the music up......... This leaves me feeling conned yet again.<br /><br />I admire them for attempting to tackle a dark storyline without the normal Hollywood cheese but I'm sorry to say the filmmakers have failed miserably. The characters are 2 dimensional. We hardly get to know them or feel for them at all. The lead has a charming farmers accent oo arrr..... though it seems he hasn't got much to say...<br /><br />Don't bother watching this unless you are bored and got it half price from blockbusters....

yes i have a copy of it on VHS uncut in great condition that i transfered to DVD and if anyone one wants to bring back the memories of a Christmas classic please emil me at dmd2222@verizon.net.i searched everywhere and i found nothing on this and i thought that i cant be the only one on this planet that has this classic on tape there has to be other people and if they do i fit in with them being that very very few that has this classic so i consider myself lucky and i have all of the muppets Christmas except one that john denver did with the muppets again i thinks its called a smokey mountain holiday im not to sure but its close.

One of John Ford's best films 'The Informer' doesn't feature any grand scenery of the American West. Instead the intense drama Ford was known for plays out on the no less rugged terrain of British character actor Victor McLaglen's face. The former prizefighter, who once faced Joe Louis in the ring, delivers an Academy Award-winning portrayal of disgraced IRA soldier Gypo Nolan on the worst night of his life.<br /><br />The plot is gracefully simple: In 1922 Dublin, a starving and humiliated man who's been thrown out of the IRA for being unable to kill an informant in cold blood, himself becomes an informant. For £20 he betrays a friend to "the Tans" and for the rest of the night he drinks and gives away his blood money in rapidly alternating spasms of guilt, denial, self-pity, and a desperate desire to escape the consequences of his actions. <br /><br />It is the remarkable complexity given to the character of the seemingly simple Gypo that is the film's most impressive achievement. In most movies a burly lout of Gypo's type would be cast as the heavy, he'd have at best two or three lines and be disposed of quickly so the hero and the villain could have their showdown. In 'The Informer' Gypo himself is both hero and villain, while the showdown is in his inner turmoil, every bit of which is explicitly shared with the audience.<br /><br />Because Liam O'Flaherty's novel had previously been filmed in 1929, RKO gave Ford a very modest budget. The director and his associates, particularly cinematographer Joseph H. August, turned this to their advantage in creating a claustrophobic masterpiece about a man at war with himself. In addition to McLaglen's Oscar 'The Informer' also won John Ford his first along with wins for Best Screenplay and Best Score.

A dying Kung Fu master sends out his last student in order to track down what happened to the previous five students who were members of the banned Poison Clan.He is to see if they are acting for good and if not he his to stop them The master also wants the student to find another member of the clan who ran off with the clans money which the master wants used for good. The earlier students were all taught in a different style snake, centipede, scorpion, lizard, toad, while the last student was taught a little in each style. All of the students end up in one town looking for the old man with all of the money,and soon everyone is battling to get the money.<br /><br />Classic martial arts film has title that even many non-fans know. I've spoken with a couple of casual fans and this seems to be the one film that sticks in their head. Its a very good movie, though I'm not really sure why this film stays with people when for my money there are other films that are better from the Shaw studio (One armed Swordmen or the Brave Archer series for example). This isn't to sell the film short, its not, since the film is structured like a mystery, our hero has no clue who anyone is and the Venoms themselves only know at best who two of the others is. We're given the identity of four but we still have to work out who the fifth really is. The film is also odd in that for a martial arts film, other than a training sequence at the start and the killing of the old man and his family for the money, there is really no action for about 40 or 45 minutes. Its a bold move to do it but it pays off since the plot and the performances hold your attention. (The film is also odd in that its the first martial arts film I think I've ever seen where there are no women. I don't think one has a speaking role and I'm pretty sure that none appear in the background. Its indicative of nothing, its just something that struck me.) This is a good solid little film that may not live up to the reputation it has in some circles, but is still a really good film to curl up with on your couch.<br /><br />Around 7 out of 10.

I am glad to read so many negative comments about the Tritter plot. Everyone I talk to says the same thing. They like House's gruff nature and his intelligence, but really dislike the vindictiveness of this continuing plot. It cuts into the real nature of the hospital story and makes everyone angry at police authority. It needs to have a more caring nature instead of the vindictiveness to everyone at the hospital. Also, there seems to be many questionable legal aspects to what Tritter is actually doing. He alone cannot freeze accounts and have the authority to stop doctors from writing prescriptions for patients. A lot of the vindictiveness he is showing also is hurting the very sick patients at the hospital and the is not a good storyline to portray. I voted the episode awful not because of the story itself, but when you insert the Trittor piece it turns me off and the rest of the plot gets hurt by it, People say they hate to watch the story lines anymore. Please change it. Get Tritter out.

Strained comedy, a sketch-like revue which was initially a vehicle to showcase one-time radio star Jack Pearl but is now best remembered as America's introduction to The Three Stooges. Actually, Larry, Curly and Moe are billed alongside comic Ted Healy as Ted Healy and his Three Stooges. Although the supporting cast features Jimmy Durante (who is completely wasted on dim material) and ZaSu Pitts, the only audience for the film these days are Stooges-addicts, and even they won't find much to applaud here. Incredibly loud and overbearing, it shows how far Hollywood had to go to reach a certain level of slapstick sophistication. *1/2 from ****

The only redeeming quality of this film is that it shows bands and their music when it was changing in NY during '81. As for the film itself it has at least three major flaws. First of all, there is narration throughout the film, which is not required at all. In the few places where there is some explanation necessary just adding a little dialogue would have gone a long way. Secondly, there was no obvious attempt to synchronize any of the audio, in fact it is quite apparent that most of the dialogue was recorded later with no attempt to match the film. The third flaw was in the ending. I will not give the ending away for those brave souls that would endure the torture of sitting through the film, but it commits a cardinal sin in screenwriting. Not worth the money or time it takes to see this, unless you are a fan of one of the represented bands.

Have I seen a worse movie? No I can't say that I have. This was pathetic. If the director is still alive: 1. He shouldn't be. 2. He should be ashamed. 3. God, how I would like to take out my 2 completely wasted hours of time on his a$$.<br /><br />To give you guys a few pointers of the "film": <br /><br />1. (I'm a male) and I would rather give myself a papercut on the opening of my urethra before viewing this again (seriously).<br /><br />2. It does have a few known names in it (Casper Van Dien, Erika Eleniak, Coolio). They don't help, and their careers in cinema after this "film" are officially over by the way.<br /><br />3. The dialog is the worst I've ever heard. "I want to ejaculate on your bozonkas."? What kind of writer did they have on this film? Was he still using hooked-on-phonics and just got his letters mixed up to make these horrible sentences?, or was he trying to get the Director killed by the few people who saw this? <br /><br />4. Watch this "film" backwards. Because I PROMISE you that you do not want to watch it forwards.<br /><br />5. This "film" would make Helen Keller get up and walk out of the theater.<br /><br />6. The set of the movie looks like an adult sized McDonald's playplace. I was just waiting for this so called "Dracula" to fall in the ball pit at some time in the movie.<br /><br />7. Also, I like that in the year 3000 they still have headsets with wires that go to their mouth. No bluetooth, no wireless headsets, no chips placed in the brain, but they use headsets borrowed from a telemarketing agency that went out of business in 1983(Nice job Set director on this one. Real professional. I hope you're currently unemployed and reading this.) <br /><br />8. I don't know who was in charge of special effects, but I could have done better in my backyard with my VHS camcorder that doesn't have a battery.<br /><br />9. I was a devout Catholic before this "film". But since viewing it, I know there is not a God, because if there was, he wouldn't have let this film be produced. I am now an atheist.<br /><br />10. I'll be honest I can't talk about the ending. Last time I tried to explain it I fell into a coma.<br /><br />Folks however bored you get, however curious(or brave) you are, however many laughs you THINK you will get out of this movie, please DO NOT WATCH THIS. It has literally ruined my life. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!<br /><br />Comment to the director: I hate you. You have ruined my life. After viewing this I feel empty inside. My wife and kids have left me and hate me because I couldn't speak or hardly move after seeing this. I lost my job, my dignity, and above all my pride. I will never forgive you in this life or the next(which is not looking good from my newfound beliefs) .

"Margaritas and Cock..."<br /><br />This tremendously entertaining film grabs you from the opening scene and never stops delivering laughs, surprises and unexpectedly touching moments. I had more fun watching "The Matador" than almost any other film from 2005. It is a wacky film with an unforgettable character, played to perfection by Pierce Brosnan.<br /><br />Julian Noble (Brosnan) is a facilitator (hit-man) who specializes in high-end corporate gigs (assassinating rich dudes). He is also experiencing something akin to a mid-life crisis. After coming to realization that he has no real friends, no permanent home and no planned future, he stumbles into a Mexican hotel bar one night and runs into Danny Wright (Kinnear).<br /><br />Danny is a down-on-his-luck family man who is on the verge of losing the big business deal that just might turn things around for him. He loves his wife dearly, especially so since they lost their young son a few years earlier.<br /><br />The two men are chalk and cheese, hardly any common ground other than that they are in the same desolate bar one night. And somehow a conversation is struck that sets in to motion a chain of events that will change their lives forever.<br /><br />The friendship they form reminded me a lot of Laurel and Hardy. One is the straight man and the other is the persistent fool who gets them into trouble. The interplay is superbly timed and finely tuned, due in no small part to the wonderful performances from Brosnan and Kinnear.<br /><br />But make no mistake... This is Brosnan's film. He imprints one of the most memorable and despicably likable characters of the decade. He could shoot your mother and apologize immediately thereafter and you'd probably forgive him. Brosnan may be cinema's ultimate charmer, but this is his most endearing and complete performance to date. I wouldn't be averse to seeing an Oscar nod for this role.<br /><br />Consider one scene where he overtly ogles a high-school girl with the impurest of thoughts and utters the line, "All blushy blushy... No sucky fucky". He does it with the familiar Bond smirk and manages to get away with it. He manages to tell a young boy, "Tell your mother to lose 30lbs and 20 years. Then get back to me" without coming across as unlikable. In fact, it makes us like him even more.<br /><br />And yet the film manages to surprise us with some truly touching scenes, most of which come toward the end when the film takes some unpredictable turns. However, when Julian thumbs through his little black book to find someone to call on his birthday, or when Danny and his wife (Davis) console each other in their bedroom one night, the film reaches an unexpected depth of emotion.<br /><br />"The Matador" is stylish and energetic. It is constantly entertaining. And it contains a career-defining role for Brosnan as the lonely hit-man looking for normalcy, friendship and a means to do at least one good thing in his life. This is an overlooked gem in 2005 and you should make an effort to see this film as soon as possible.<br /><br />TC Candler of IndependentCritics.com

"The King is Alive" is a flawed and contrived mess of a movie which comes off like a self indulgent auteur's excuse to transport a bunch of actors to a Godforsaken Namibian desert where he can play major-Dogme-domo and film his selfishly conceived, silly, overwrought drama with utter disregard for the real forces of human nature, market appeal, common sense, and even good art. In other words this is one dumbassed flick and if you don't believe that, your penance is watching it. Only for filmheads, critics, dilettantes, and the like. (D)

Having listened to and enjoyed Harvey Bernhard's Omen II commentary I was shocked to discover he was also behind this absolute piece of rubbish. It's like a really bad TV movie you might glimpse in the middle of the day when you have the flu and are too ill to reach the remote. I think at the bit where Michael Lerner is confronted by what I can only describe as a high school cast of Les Miserables my mouth hung open in disbelief. And then my mouth was going up and down because I was laughing so much. Dire. I don't know why I have to write a minimum of ten lines, I have made my point succinctly, there's nothing clever about all this modern verbiage.

I suppose I like this film as well as any I know; it is not perfect, but under the title "The Americanization of Lily" this charming and memorable semi-musical satire might I suggest have been appreciated more, and still loved by those who recognized its special Blake Edwards'-produced spirit of gentleness, clever humor and solid narrative. The improbably but delightful story-line follows Lili Smith, a fringe-type spy for the Germans in a much simpler and less black-and-white war; Lili Schmidt passing as Smith is helping her Uncle who is patriotic too, for Germany but neither cruel nor political, merely opportunistic. Lili's target is William Larrabee, a charismatic U.S. squadron leader who can supply her valuable information. The plot thickens comes when Lili falls in love with Larrabee, has her eyes opened to the consequences of her playing spy, and sees the effects of combat on wounded men at a hospital and realizes what it might mean to his men whom she has met and likes. She gets jealous of a rival for Larrabee's affections, then realizes she can no longer do what she has been doing and gives up the spy business. The logical end of the film comes when after the terrible WWI has ended, as she sings the theme song of the film, "Wishing" in a darkened theater, one by one the members of Larrabee's squadron appear, including her lover himself, indicating they have forgiven her and their former opponents; and even Uncle Kurt enthusiastically joins in the singing of "It's a Long To Tipperraree", to indicate all is well with the world again. This is an audacious and sometime brilliant story idea, written by director Blake Edwards and William Peter Blatty of "John Goldfarb" fame; and it is a delightful narrative. Larrabee's squadron, including an inebriate who keeps crashing and other lovable types populate this lively film; and the feel of this stylish and glowing film is almost epic, both in its scope and realization. Credit must go to Jack Bear and Donald Brooks for their costume creations, Reg Allen and Jack Stevens for sets, Fernando Carrere for another beautiful production design, Henry Mancini for his sensitive and appropriate musical score, and to Russell Harlan for his shining cinematography. In the beautiful footage, the principal actors are Julie Andrews as Lili, Rock Hudson as Larrabee, Keremy Kemp outstanding as Lili's Uncle Kurt, Michael Witney, Lance Percival as the inebriate pilot, gorgeous Gloria Paul as Lili's stripteasing rival, and many other fine actors in smaller parts. It is hard to say enough nice things about the pace, or the cleverness of the just-this-side-of broad comedy; this element is introduced by Edwards to leaven the horrors of actual warfare, to example the almost comic-opera approach with which men made war back in a more innocent-minded era of human civilization.. This comedy also helps prepare the way for Lili's conversion from uncritical acceptance of a duty to the German state to acceptance of the reality of what she is doing and potentially what she may be causing. This is a rare "sense-of-life" film about Lili's "Americanization", her assertion of herself in the real world and then among others before tragedy can happen. It is haunting, I find, and beautiful in many ways. I consider it to be Blake Edwards'masterpiece of directing; and under the title "The Americanization of Lili" I believe with hardly any changes it might have been recognized as the polished sapphire of a film it is by every standard I know.

I just came back from the Montreal premiere of Zero Day...and i'm surprised as hell to find a negative comment on the movie. Basically the blame is about Coccio doing an easy and overplayed social message...well, Mr-I'm-a-reviewer, it's an easy and overplayed critic of movies with a social charge.<br /><br />Not that I want to expose my life here, but I come from a small town with a similar school than these guys go. Reject & ignorance on the menu. Thing is...I understand how can young kids can be driven to do such horror. High schools have became battle fields of conformity. It's a real ugly sight. You need to fight your way into being like the others. It's hard to explain, bit a lot of people dosen't realize that high schools are becoming cemeteries of human intelligence. Meanwhile, parents are closing their eyes and smiling about how their life in their comfortable suburb is perfect.<br /><br />The real motive of the movie isn't about what is driving them. It's about this death-like calm suburb and everybody closing their eyes and trying to create this atmosphere of a perfect town. Cal expressed it well. It's a wake up call. Drama is everywhere and it can take every shape. In that case little dramas(like Andre being called a faggot for wearing a J.C Penny shirt) are shaping into being the worse nightmare of a whole town. Andre & Cal took the most extreme way to express their pain. The malaise of unconformity in an era where you need more than ever to be like the others to be accepted.<br /><br />I like particularly the last scenes where some guys are burning the crosses of Andre & Cal, like if with the pain they communicated, Cal & Andre have communicated their blind rage to their community, their refusal to think about the causes of some acts. <br /><br />It might seemed aggressive as a movie, but Coccio is meditating more than whining or enunciating. What Andre & Cal are living is a reality...and a scary one that might get to other kids. <br /><br />Disturbing movie...Home making and strong feeling made Ben Coccio do a very very disturbing movie.

Look, I've practically lost all hope in Nickelodeon after watching their newest "hit," The Naked Brothers Band show, and "ICarly" is no exception! If you haven't noticed, ICarly is now the #1 hit tween sitcom on television right now! After hearing this, I decided to watch a few episodes myself to see what the hype was about! I have one word to describe this show in general..."EFFORTLESS!!!" I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT DAN SCHNEIDER WOULD GO THIS LOW AND MAKE SOMETHING THIS CRAPPY!!! IT'S HORRIBLE!!! Let me give you the details...<br /><br />The ICarly cast starts out with a girl by the name of Carly Shay, played by Miranda Cosgrove! Carly, unfortunately throughout the episodes, doesn't really have a personality so to speak of! I guess she's supposed to be the average girl in the show!(because a LOT of people have an Army veteran for a dad, an artist for a brother, and a popular teen web show taped and produced with thousands of dollars of equipment!) and to say the most about Miranda, HER ACTING IS PATHETIC!!! She sounds like a 3 year old girl with Tourette's syndrome on a sugar-high half the time! <br /><br />Next, we have Sam Puckett(good GOD where do they get these names!?) played by Jennette McCurdy! Sam is the "CO-HOST" of Carly's web show!(Wait a minute, if Sam hosts the show with Carly, shouldn't the show be called "ICarly and Sam?" I bet Sam feels like she's been ripped off!)Sam is supposed to be the bully in the cast!(Yeah, because EVERY girl bully wears girly skin-tight shirts and pants with blonde hair extentions!) She also, I think, is supposed to be a Tomboy, too. I would find this a little funny, but it's her Cliché PUNS THAT RUIN IT!!! The "Give me a bucket of fried chicken" pun is overused WAY TOO MUCH!!! GIVE THIS GIRL A SCRIPT!!!! and GIVE HER A COFFEE because, don't get me wrong Jennette's acting is okay, but, throughout half the episodes, she looks like she's about ready to fall asleep!!! <br /><br />Next we have Freddie Benson, played by Nathan Kress. Freddie is the technical producer for Carly and Sam's show! There's not much to say about Freddie other than the fact that he's a techno geek and has a crush on Carly, which never works out! HERE WE GO AGAIN WITH THE Clichés!!! DOES IT NOT STOP!!!? Nathan's acting is also okay, but seems to get excessive sometimes! HE'S TOO BORING!!! <br /><br />Lastly, and my most favorite, we have Spencer Shay, played by Jerry Trainor! Let me make this perfectly clear; IF IT WEREN'T FOR HIM, THIS DIRT CLUSTER OF A SHOW WOULD BE MUD!!! Spencer is the one who keeps the show alive! Spencer is the older brother of Carly! If you had a little 5 year old who was both on a Caffeine high and constipated, you would have this character summed up! Spencer also earns money from being an artist!(hmmm... I wonder...) You would think that a professional artist would make promising sculptures... yeah, I just love sarcasm! HIS ART IS PRETTY MUCH UTTER CRAP!!!! I mean, what kind of sculpture name is "MERRY SNIFFMUS!!?" WHAT!!? THAT'S ABOUT AS MUCH CREATIVITY AS A HILLARY CLINTON SPEECH ON DRUGS!!!! IT'S STUPID!!!! <br /><br />THE PLOT SETTINGS AND MORALS ARE EFFORTLESS BAGS OF POOP!!!! These shows are now telling kids that stealing, lying, and being an asshole to your parents is a GOOD THING!!! IF THESE ARE THE KINDS OF AWFUL CRAPPY SHOWS THAT THEY'RE THROWING AT KIDS THESE DAYS, THEN I DON'T WANT TO TAKE PART IN WATCHING ANY OF THEM!!!! THIS IS BIGGEST PIECE OF CRAP I'VE EVER WATCHED ON TV! BAR NONE!!! NICKELODEON, "I'M THROUGH WITH YOU!!!!" END OF STORY!!!! 1/10

A truly disturbed, cannibalistic psychopath, John(Gary Kent, under the pseudonym Michael Brody) who lives in a cave, stalks campers who make the unfortunate mistake of backpacking in his wilderness. Steve(Dean Russell)and his buddy Charlie(John Batis)get into a playful argument with their wives, Sharon(Tomi Barrett, the late real-life wife of Gary Kent))& Teddi(Ann Wilkinson)over surviving in the woods camping by themselves. To prove a point, the gals decide to head for the wilderness out of Los Angeles for a camping trip disturbing their partners to the point that they soon follow afterward. Falling prey to John, Teddi is soon killed as Sharon runs for her life as the men arrive late to the wilderness due to their truck's overheating. Afraid, tired, and paranoid, Sharon receives some very unusual assistance..John's ghost children! That's right, John's children remain in the wilderness, ghostly apparitions which spy on those who exist in the woods, taking a special liking to Sharon, helping guide her to safety and her friends. Meanwhile, Steve and Charlie soon find shelter from a down pour and the darkness of night in the very cave where John lives. Cooking over a burning fire, the meat simmering is actually from Charlie's wife, Teddi! Unknowingly Charlie eats from the meat when offered by John who finds the outsiders inside his dwelling place! Anyway, soon, worried about their wives, Steve and Charlie set out to find them as morning breaks. Meanwhile, John goes a hunting, with Charlie, Steve, and Sharon in a fight for survival. When Steve suffers a compound fracture stumbling between two massive rocks over a flowing river, he will be handicapped only increasing such an already nightmare scenario, with Sharon following her ghostly young friends to potential safety..they even, at one point, plead with their father to not kill her. Charlie, unfortunately, doesn't have such friends.<br /><br />Director Donald Jones(..who also wrote it and went broke funding the film)smartly shoots the film in such a breathtaking, gorgeous location in the Sequoia National Park, in California, where those gargantuan trees tower to great heights, and I basically watch backwoods slashers for this very purpose. For some strange reason, I didn't particularly find Jones' direction of the setting very atmospheric..the dread was missing, although there are some rather disturbing attacks by John using his knife(..shot in a clever way, Jones' camera suggests more than what is actually on screen, yet, somehow, still achieves that gasp at what John is doing to victims). Within such a picturesque landscape, to see innocents preyed upon by a maniac, that kind of increases the terror. City folk attempting to spend a nice few days in a different place, to smell the clean, fresh air, enjoy the sights of a lovely view, only to find themselves stalked by a creepy predator with a very intimidating knife. Providing the back-story to why John is the monster he is, Jones allows us to witness his memory flashback in discovering his wife's adultery and reacting accordingly(..she is also a ghost in the wilderness looking for her children, wishing to punish them for "being naughty")killing both her and the lover in bed(..a refrigerator repairman). The children, sad and depressed committed suicide and now "haunt" the wilderness, still interacting with their pa or whoever they so choose. I realize such a novelty as ghost children in a backwoods slasher is unique and appreciated by some, but I found the idea rather hokey and too silly to take serious. They do help our heroine escape a few potentially dangerous situations, but it was awfully hard for me to keep from giggling uncontrollably. The music I found hideously 80's and the performances aren't mind-blowing. I mean I could react to the situation they were in, because it is indeed quite terrifying to find yourselves in an unfamiliar and hostile territory being hunted by someone who knows the area so well. I think the film is similar in many ways to DON'T GO INTO THE WOODS..ALONE!, except that THE FOREST has the aforementioned ghost children(..their voices echo when talking to Sharon, their father, or each other). Gary Kent looks like a filthy George Lucas, with tattered clothes, and humanity lost. As I mentioned above, the violence isn't as grisly as what is suggested because director Jones is able to effectively cut away from a great deal of knife penetration, yet the way he stages the set pieces leave you rather unsettled(..such as Teddi's murder, the violence mostly silhouetted on the surface of a nearby huge stone formation, her pleas for John to stop and, once stabbed several times, attempts to crawl away from her predator only to be finished off;a hanging corpse John is skinning). I've seen better and worse of this type of slasher film, it's rather mediocre, at best, with some effectively shot scenery. I don't really think it's particularly memorable, for the exception of the ghost children.

Red Rock West is a perfect example of how good a film can be with practically no budget. All you need is a smart script, good actors and loads of atmosphere. RRW delivers all these and more.<br /><br />Nic Cage plays an ex-marine, injured in Lebanon, who is down to his last 5 dollars after being refused a job on an oilfield because of his bad knee. He roles into Red Rock and is mistaken by bartender Wayne (JT Walsh, not quite as his most menacing-but still evil) for a hit-man from Texas.<br /><br />He pays him to kill his wife and make it look like burglary. Only when he gets there, just to check her out. She offers him double to kill Wayne. Cage just wants to get the hell out of town with his free money and leave the sparring lovers be. But a series of mishaps and setbacks results in him yo-yoing in and out of Red Rock, back and forth. Eventually this leads to a run-in with Lyle from Dallas (a cheeky and somehow sympathetic Dennis Hopper), the REAL hit-man from Texas who offers to help without knowing he's making the plot more complicated.<br /><br />RRW never had a big release, thus most of it's audience discovered it on video or on cable TV showings. Viewing it in such a way might make it seem like a TV movie but it's bigger than that. The slick, slowly-timed direction, moody score and howling desert wind would have all made for a great movie in theatres but the best you can do these days is watch the DVD on a big HDTV.<br /><br />The only weak point of the movie I can think of is Lara Flynn Boyle's boring femme fatale with the nasty dyke-ish hairdo. I certainly wouldn't fall for her but if you assume that Nic Cage's character is in to militant lesbians then you'll accept it nonetheless.

I actually retired from Asian horror films some time ago after becoming completely sick of seeing samey ghost story rubbish. However, I've been getting more and more into exploitation flicks recently, and so decided to give them another chance. My first port of call was highly rated director Takashi Miike's highly rated 'Visitor Q'. I'd already seen Audition, and while I didn't like it much, I do rate it as one of the better modern Asian horror films. So, I went into this with sensible expectations; and unfortunately, found only boredom. I suppose this movie is actually really clever and it just went over my head, but what it seemed like to me was simply a collection of violent and nasty scenes with little or no coherency between them. Any comparisons to the work of Luis Bunuel and David Lynch is blasphemous as far as I'm concerned; all Miike has done here is make a film; any intelligence surrounding it has been implemented by pretentious fans, desperate to find some kind of meaning. My headache set in about 10 minutes in (after a father had sex with his daughter for some reason), and it didn't subside until the movie finally ended; at least twenty four hours later, or so it would seem. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against violence in movies and in fact actively seek out the most notorious films around; but while this may be violent, it's also pointless and boring and I didn't get one ounce of enjoyment out of it. Takashi Miike may have a lot of fans, but I'm certainly not one of them; and I certainly hope this is the last time I'll come into contact with one of his films.

I must admit I did enjoy the earlier episodes, but probably because I was younger and stupid at the time. I was sorta excited about the return of family guy until I saw the "new" crap they were putting out. No surprise, it was exactly like the old crap. All the lame jokes were there including the flash backs, except this time they added a joke about a old creepy pedophile who seems to be in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE. this is just one of the annoying gags family guy lives off of, and for some reason people keep watching. its no longer funny, its just annoying. let it die.<br /><br />maybe family guy was funny at a point in time, and the cheap laughs and gags were original and fresh, but now its just not funny anymore. if you actually do find family guy funny than you must be retarded or borderline retarded.

This is far the most worst film I've seen this year from Bollywood so far. I may not lie, my wife liked this film very much. It was not Bobby Deol or Arjun Rampal what made this film become unbelievable, but it was Amisha Patel. She performs the role of a blind woman who get in trouble when she almost fall from a mountain where (luckily for her) the hero Arjun Rampal comes to rescue her (in the middle of nowhere). It amazes me here how a blind girl is aware of danger when she is about to fall from a mountain, because she cannot see her environment. From this scene I started to watch the movie very closely and in every scene there was a flaw in the acting of Amisha Patel. The way she plays a blind girl is very bad. The only way she does that is by not to look into the eyes of the person she talks with. When I saw this film, I respected Rani Mukherjee more with her performance in the movie Black. Amisha will never reach this level in performing as an actress.<br /><br />Anyway, she falls in love with Arjun Rampal. It is the cliché story. Sudden Arjun gets killed by a man who is madly in love with Amisha. Amisha is in despair, but then Bobby enters the movie. He also falls in love with the blind girl. Bobby Deol is a great actor in my point of view, but he cannot pull the film to a higher level where Amisha Patel buries it deep into the ground. I must say Bobby deserves better roles in better movies than he got so far. Bobby grew in acting from the first movie his lovely daddy gave him. He was so bad in acting in Barsaat, but when you see him acting now, you get the shivers and believe every word he says. Only a movie with high potential like a Yash Copra film has to meet his way.<br /><br />Okay, when Amisha also falls in love with Bobby, someones enters her life. Arjun Rampal is not dead! Who believes this crap? I don't. Why didn't they give his role to one of the ugly guys from the movie family (Shushant Singh or Aryeman Ramsay) and give Bobby a role in one of the blockbusters with Amitabh Bachchan? I'm sorry if my comment sounds like a cry for an actor like Bobby to give him a great role, but he deserves so much better than a movie with Amisha (bigscreen t.v. face) Patel. This movie was so awful, that I regret buying it.

Overall, the movie "Heart of Darkness" was pitiful compared to the book. Anyone who has ever read the book and had a sufficient understanding of it would be able to see the countless obvious flaws. There is an immeasurable difference between the two. It seems to me that the director was walking into a losing battle. I couldn't imagine that someone would take on the monstrous task of recreating "Heart of Darkness." The immense detail and magic of the story would be impossible to justly interpret. Conrad's story had so many layers and so much depth that it would seem pointless to try to make a visual interpretation.<br /><br />First, capturing the details of the story is unattainable. The colossal fine points created by Joseph Conrad cannot be rightfully recreated through film. Marlow's feelings and emotions cannot be equally construed in the movie. If you have taken on the enormous task of tackling Conrad's work then, you know as well as I that Conrad only wrote half the story. The additional half is a series of connections made by the reader. You, as the reader are required to be capable of inferring and connecting Joseph Conrad's ideas. As a result, several crucial details are absent in the movie.<br /><br />Also, although the movie was an adequate length, the film seemed short. It seemed that Conrad was able to pack many more details into 75 pages than the movie could pack in an hour and a half. The speed of the movie kept the viewer from getting to know the characters. Marlow was much more of a stranger. The viewpoint of the book puts you into Marlow's shoes. However, in the movie, you're almost watching Marlow from a distance. I began to think that the director was trying to utilize the same "read between the lines" method as Conrad did. However, the connections were weak. I know that if I had not read the book then, I would, in no way, be able to begin to understand the depth of the situation and the characters.<br /><br />Finally, Kurtz also seemed to be interpreted incorrectly. His role was short and the details weren't all included. It was impossible to comprehend the true Kurtz in the length of time he was shown. An important detail in the book was that Kurtz had become a god to the Africans. I didn't think that significant detail was defined. Also, in the book, Kurtz represented a soulless being. He had died inside long ago. I believe the director comprehended this detail. However, instead of recreating it, he just had Kurtz mope around and mumble everything. Moreover, it seemed like the director attempted to make Kurtz seem mysterious, however, instead, he seemed entirely unidentified.<br /><br />Altogether, this movie reminded me of a teenager cramming to finish a science project, due the next day. It appeared to have been crafted effortlessly and in hardly any time. The characters were alienated, crucial details were left out, and, overall, the central plot was lost in translation.

This is about as stupid as it gets.<br /><br />A classic case of two-dimensional characters who always act exactly contrary as to what a sane person would do in the same situation. It reminds me of a scene in "Scary Movie" where Carmen Electra flees from the killer. There are two signs, one marked "to safety", the other one "to sure death" (I am reciting from memory).<br /><br />And just like in Scary Movie, the characters always run into the direction marked "Sure Death". <br /><br />Why oh why did the girl start the fire in the teller booth AND HOLD THE DOOR SHUT ??? Did she prefer to die in the fire instead being killed by the guy? Why oh why, after cutting and overpowering the driver did they sit him in the seat and have him being watched by the wounded guy instead of plain shooting him or at the very least knocking him out? He was running over their friend and killing him a minute before, yet they have scruples ?? Why oh why a hundred things more ... <br /><br />If this movie were a road, you could not drive a single yard because of the holes. Everything is so far-fetched, it's starting to physically hurt at times.<br /><br />Add mercilessly overplaying "actors" and a small budget to that and here's what you get. Looking at the rating and the comments, I get the feeling those people have been watching an entirely different movie.<br /><br />The one thing missing really, is the infamous red toolbox from "While She was out" - a movie that is about similar in unrealistic plot and stupid behavior of the characters.

Second Nature will not go down as one of the worst tv movies of 2003, but perhaps the worst of All Time. Formulaic, derivative, and every performance phoned in, from far, far away. Everyone associated with this project should have a hard time looking in the mirror.

The vampire "craze" has, in my opinion, actually proved its worthiness of such infamous categorization. There were many sub-genre films last year from a multitude of countries. I've reviewed many and have a few more to discuss. Forgive my indulgence, but since I've recognized the trend as a phenomenon (which it is and, coincidentally, features my favorite horror staple). I'm going to now move outside of North America for a bit and introduce you to hopefully meaning films that you didn't see as of now.<br /><br />Of the many effects of Twilight is the creation of "guy" and "girl" vampire movies. I hate this sexist categorization, which has the effect of polarizing an entire generation of fans into "sides". I think men are prone to hate Stephenie Meyer's work (and its offspring) to some degree because they feel some sense of betrayal that an archetype which was always theirs is now liberated. Women may be unlikely to enjoy future "neutral" pics since they grew up with ironclad expectations that were enforced four times. We need more directors to create vampire films which either gender is capable of enjoying (unequally) if vampires are going to survive the craze and remain relevant. Cue: Thirst This Korean film was directed by Park Chan-Wook of Oldboy fame. There are two ways to dissect it. Either it straddles between gender expectations and is universally marginally enjoyable, or it is a floundering mess that doesn't decide which target audience it prefers and should therefore be viewed by no one. Don't let me convince you that the film has no inclinations. Its director is a man whose fame is story-driven action films. Its protagonist is male and has a passive-aggressive interest in his lover (more on this later). Still, his desire for a woman he has known both before and after mortal life is not contrived, and his attention is returned. There is a male slant to this picture, yet it is not so one-sided that women could not enjoy it. The same cannot be said of Daybreakers or New Moon.<br /><br />The plot follows an Emile Zola novel called Thérèse Raquin, which I have not read. According to Wikipedia, the novel is about an affair that develops between a married woman and a single man. He kills her husband during a fishing trip and begins dating her. The two of them are incapable of having sex because they picture the dead man's body between them. They are thus driven to insanity, but care for the woman's ailing mother. At the novel's conclusion, they try to kill each other, discover each other's plans, and commit suicide.<br /><br />Now, transcribe this nearly 150 year old French novel into modern South Korea and you've got Thirst. Chan-Wook doesn't embellish the story enough to elevate this to must-see. He often ignores many of his own ideas in favor of following his inspiration. I think the most memorable parts are when his scruples are unhinged by narrative. His use of the mother-in-law as the foil for their bad romance is just perfect. See it.<br /><br />The protagonist is originally a devout Christian who becomes a vampire after a faulty blood transfusion following his volunteering for a new medicine. He thus becomes the god he once was smitten with. People flock to him and view him as a grand healer. OK. That's really cool and could have provided a great basis for his relationship. Yet this idea is given little idea screen time as he changes into a realistic Christ figure who tries to maintain his virtue even though his lifestyle demands that he relinquish it. Instead of confronting the delusional people, he instead sips blood out of comatose hospital patients.<br /><br />Let's continue with the Christian allusion. The woman tricks the vampire man into killing her husband. Her overprotective mother-in-law suffers a stroke and eventually warns friends of the family of her daughter-in-law's treachery (finger waggles). The man kills her but resurrects her. The two of them invite former friends over and the woman begins mercilessly harassing the humans. The man says enough is enough and decides to drive to a beach and forces her into waiting for sunrise with him. They both die, but he atones for her crimes (and his own but the film portrays her evil more prominently).<br /><br />The woman character is a caricature, and her profession offers an explanation for her behavior. She is a housewife with no education, while the man is a priest whose mortal life was restrictive. Vampirism magnifies their characteristics. She becomes a monster like one would expect of someone without knowledge. He becomes a demigod with a spirit. His life is how atheists view themselves and her life is how religious people view those without divine intervention.

When it comes to movies, I am generally easily entertained and not very critical, but must say that this movie was one big flop from the start. I gave it 30 minutes and then rewound it. What a waste of some great talent! I was very disappointed with this movie, as it was not what I expected.