Un Gatto nel Cervello, or Nightmare Concert as it's more commonly know amongst English speaking audiences, starts as horror film director Lucio Fulci (played by the man himself Lucio Fulci) goes to lunch after filming a very gory & violent scene, however he orders steak & has a horrible vision relating to cannibalism. The grotesque visions, hallucinations & dreams continue & begin to affect his mental state, Fulci decides to seek help & contacts Professor Egon Schwarz (Dvid L. Thompson) for psychiatric help. Schwarz claims that Fulci cannot separate fantasy from reality & agrees to help him, however Schwarz has a more sinister ulterior motive as a serial killer starts to brutally kill prostitutes & Fulci thinks he might be responsible....

This Italian production was co-written & directed by Lucio Fulci who also stars in the film as a horror film director named Lucio Fulci which doesn't really feel like a lot of effort went into it, anyway Un Gatto nel Cervello is gory if nothing else & for that alone I rather liked it. The script by Fulci, John Fitzsimmons, Giovanni Simonelli & Antonio Tentori is nothing more than a threadbare excuse to edit together lots of gory footage from other Italian films. It serves it's purpose well enough I suppose & to see Fulci on screen has a certain fascination if your a fan of his or are familiar with his films, the ending is very rushed almost as if they ran out of money as it just has a policeman telling Fulci they killed the killer & that's it. Another thing about that ending when the two cops put the white sheet over the dead killer in the field & then they walk away leaving it there without any other police presence, I mean would the police in Italy just leave a dead body in the middle of a field on it's own? It moves along at a good pace & if you like your gore then you have to see this although if you don't like gore then you'll hate it with a passion, it all depends on your disposition so the choice folks is yours.

Director Fulci was never the most artistically adept filmmaker & it shows here as his footage is bland, flat & looks like it was shot for TV, the footage from the other films (7 in total) doesn't match the stuff Fulci shot & it is obvious that this has been pieced together from different films. If your looking for gore you've hit the jackpot, people are dismembered with chainsaws, put through meat grinders, faces are melted, there are a few decapitations, there are some slit throats, someones body is gorily crushed under a car, a tongue is ripped out, someone has their throat crushed as a wheelchair runs over it, there are loads of stabbings, someone has their guts removed with a hook, there's a rotten corpse complete with maggots, someone hand is cut off, someone has their head bashed in & their eye falls out, a gory death by piano wire as it slices through someones throat, there are loads of severed limbs, gallons of blood splashed around & a scene of some cats eating brains & there's more as well. Having said that some of the special effects are a bit fake & look cheesy.

With a supposed budget of around $100,000 it shows, this is pretty cheap looking, it has no visual style or artistic merit but then again why would you want those when you can see a Nazi orgy sequence & wall-to-wall gore? The acting in this is terrible including Fulci.

Un Gatto nel Cervello is a top film if your a gore-hound like me, however if your looking for something with a little bit more substance or indeed any substance then this ones not for you. This is the sort of film which divides people straight down the middle, you'll either love what it does or hate it.


SPOILERS CONTAINED IN ORDER TO MAKE A OBSERVATION.

Twenty years on from 1984, this film speaks loads about Prince's future in the music industry.

There is a scene that sums up Prince's musical output of the last 10 years perfectly, which is if you took the best two songs off his last 10 albums you would have one fantastic album!

The scene plays like this. Prince runs off to his dressing room after playing one song and the owner of the club enters the dressing room to give Prince an earful about his fall from grace during the 90's and putting out albums that only the most hardcore fans would be able to tolerate and support his artistry.

Club owner- 'You're not packing them like you used to. The only person that digs your music is yourself!'

Spooky huh! How about the musical underscore which makes Prince even more evil when he smacks Apollonia to the ground in two separate scenes! It gave me chills that that was not the only scene women where mistreated in this film.

I'm all for the comedy sparring's between Morris Day and Jerome Benton as these two stole every scene they were in. But what was funny about throwing a woman into a trash can? That was plain nasty! The other nasty bit was the chalk outline of Prince's father on the floor thoughtfully provided by the Minnieapolis police, which causes Prince to go even more loony!! FANTASTIC!!

Purple Rain is an entertaining film overall, as it is the soundtrack of Prince songs that boosts it's value by 110%. But then again the film gives us another theory on Prince and his music, as the film tells us that Prince's biggest song of the film is written by Wendy, lisa and Princes wife beating musical father!

Are Prince and the filmmakers trying to tell us that Prince stole all his best songs from his father after finding his fathers music sheets of written songs? Maybe that is why Prince started to run out of steam during the 90's because he ran out of his fathers ideas???...........Hmmmm.....


Reed Diamond plays a man suffering from amnesia who's been in a mental asylum for over a decade after he was found wondering the back roads with blood on his hands. The doctors want to test out an experimental new drug that'll return his lost memories if it works. But when the drugs give him hallucinations of a demon, he chooses to escape instead. While outside he befriends a young boy whose stepfather (Greg Grunberg) mistreats his mother, won't let her near the darkroom in his basement & acts suspicious in general.

While the general 'mystery' of the film is a tad easy to identify way before it's revealed, I found Mr. Diamond's acting to be enthralling enough to keep my attention throughout. (In the interest of full disclosure, I've been a huge fan of his since Homicide and his brief, but extremely pivotal, role in The Shield up through Journeyman & Dollhouse) Not a great film nor a good one, but serviceable enough. Although I did like it better than the previous films that I've seen from Director/writer Michael Hurst (Room 6, Pumkinhead 4, Mansquito)

Eye Candy: one fleeting pair of boobs in a hallucination

My Grade: C-


Primal Species (1996, Dir. Jonathan Winfrey)

International terrorists get a surprise when their cargo turn out to contain living dinosaurs. The army commando team now have to think fast, if they want to prevent the extinction of the human species, instead of the reptiles.

You look at the cover and you gain your first impressions of the film. That is pretty much it. The acting is only just acceptable from a few characters. The story is poor, with the whole film based on the army and the marines trying to kill the dinosaurs. This film came out three years after 'Jurassic Park'. Instead, this film looks to have come out 13 years before 'Jurassic Park'. The dinosaurs costumes are so poorly made, and i do mean costumes. There are obviously people dressed up, and this film makes no attempts at hiding this. A scene when a dinosaur runs down a corridor is created in a way, in which it looks like someone is riding the creature. The is one good thing, which comes out of this film. The short running time. At only 1 hour and 15 minutes, it doesn't waste too much of your life, but still try to avoid it altogether.

'It's like a Friday the 13th Nightmare.' - Officer (Brian Currie)


I have seen this movie more than several times, on TV. I ALWAYS watch it again...NEVER turning the channel. This movie is full of chilling surprises, and absolutely edge-of-your-seat suspenseful, without being overbearing or stupid. Helen Hunt's talent is magnificently shown in this movie! I recommend this movie to anyone!!!


This picture is a bad and blown up rip off of the Michael Pohl short film EXTINCT from 1995. While Michael Pohl's idea was original and perfect for a short film setting, A SOUND OF THUNDER's plot was poorly adapted from Pohl's story and not fit for a full length feature film one would expect from a major Hollywod studio. The tragic flooding situation that ruined the sets in Prague was just one bad link in a long rusty film production chain in this case. For a studio to release such a product... it is a shame. Especially for Warner Brothers, a studio which broke new effects grounds with shows like BABYLON 5 in 1993. On TELEVISION. Visual effects for television shows pioneering CGI in episodic television in the mid nineties were way more sophisticated than what is brought to the screen in this picture. In cases like this, sad as it may be: Can the film.


I saw this movie years ago in a group tradition of Fast Forward Film Festivals, where we would set out to rent a bunch of B-movies and vote for who picked the worst.

The night we watched this, it was voted the best, due to semblance of plot and fun costuming.

This is certainly a silly, kitschy, movie, to be watched under the full understanding that you are watching low-budget fluff. Personally, however, I wouldn't recommend additional substances ... this movie will leave it's own mark on you.

It made enough of an impression on me that I've actually been trying to get my hands on a copy for a few years.

A good choice if you are setting out to watch bad movies. This one is fun, and I remember bouncy music ...


I think this is a great, classic monster film for the family. The mole, what a machine! The tall creature with the beak, the flying green lizards, Ranthorincus/mayas or whatever they are and the ape men things the speak telepathically with them. The battle of the men in rubber suits fighting for a doll for breakfast umm! yummy! Class, what else can I say? How would they make a 2002 remake of this one?


Before I speak my piece, I would like to make a few things clear: 1)I am a chick who's not into chick flicks ('Kate&Leopold' and 'Someone Like You' are EXTREME exceptions- Hugh Jackman's ass). 2)I only picked this one up because I am a Fichtner fangirl who looked forward to see him in a bathtub. 3)I am not a Demi fan, though I think her performances in 'Immortal' and 'A Few Good Men' were sublime and have earned places in my vid library- also I think she's a little crazy (no way is she NOT still sleeping w/Brucie).

If this is a character study of an unfulfilled woman living dual lives of independence and happiness, then I'd say we have one narcoleptic melodrama. Marty: Literary agent. Makes 6-figure salary. Lives in an upscale Manhattan penthouse. Easy for her to read several hundred manuscripts and fall asleep at her desk for some highly suggested nocturnal escapism. Or perhaps stepping through an interdiemsional portal? She has the career, the looks, a cool car, a great pad, now where are the man and kids? In steps our boy Aaron- some real escapism. What are architects? They're artists who can do math, dreamers that make real money. Aaron gives Marty the dream of security and fills a void where she, obviously has no self confidence.

On the other side of the coin, there's Marie, still living out her schoolgirl fantasies while she muddles through motherhood. Her children are her career and life. But what about Marie, does she only exist through her children? In waltzes William, a Parisian stranger who helps her focus on the one thing she has lost touch with: herself.

A supposed journey of self-discovery and late a coming of age thrown in some with angst and some resentment to Marty/Marie's own mother. This gets a 3/10. All I could say is thank God for the BPL multimedia division, I wouldn't waste my $2.99 at Blockbuster on this, put it toward a Harlequin Blaze title.


There are times when, less than halfway through a movie, I start to wonder what the creators were thinking that made them decide not to burn every reel of footage and instead release a movie that has no real merit of any kind. And I mean any kind. This movie doesn't even hold up as made-for-cable porn. In fact, Heaven's Tears is completely and utterly boring, and at times a bit disturbing in its naivete. The girl, who is, as I recall, eighteen, masturbates while thinking of an older Nazi who hit her with a car--the 'bumping into her in the hall as a way of introducing ourselves' syndrome from sitcoms and Robert Zemekis films. Then, on their second or third meeting--get this--he is the shy one, the one who is resistant to the girl's sexual advances, and yet, all she has to say is, 'I'm old enough. I'm want to,' and he takes her to bed. Then, after sleeping with this girl he hardly knows, he feels completed, as if he could die right there in the bed with her and he'd have lived a full life. It's like 'Lolita' without a shred of social and personal commentary.

The cinematography is the most boring part of the movie. No interesting angles or originality at all, not even for the sex scenes, which are supposed to be the main draw for these kinds of movies. The masturbation scene is just a camera circling the girl's bed (very fake looking, as if it's on a stage), and it's interspliced with her fantasy of the man taking a shower in a waterfall. The 'I am completed' scene is just a close-up of the girl's right side (head down to her breasts) with the guy on top of her, and it's the same shot for the whole time, even though there are repetitious cuts to a fairly unrelated scene of the Nazi's older sister, who has some kind of incestuous crush on him (she's ridiculous and silly, so it doesn't matter). I think the whole thing lasts five to ten minutes, and it's neither enlightening nor arousing.


The movie had no excitement and does not have anything to hold your interest. The movie had nothing exiting,funny,dramatic or romantic about it!!! How can a movie be romantic if the girl never gets a the right guy until the last seen in the movie, than the movie ends??? Maybe part II will be romantic, but somebody else will have to risk wasting their money! I have nothing else to say other than do not waste your time!!! The movie had nothing exiting,funny,dramatic or romantic about it!!! The movie had nothing exiting,funny,dramatic or romantic about it!!! The movie had nothing exiting,funny,dramatic or romantic about it!!! The movie had nothing exiting,funny,dramatic or romantic about it!!!


No wonder this movie never saw the light of day. The timing was of the release was awful. The Gong Show had already 'jumped the shark' by the time the movie came out, so who would pay money just to see a few of the censored clips from the original run of the show? And the show clips are just a tiny bit of this pathetic, 90-minute whine by Chuck Barris about how hard his life was as host of the show. Did he really expect we would feel sorry for him and his messed-up millionaire life? Did he really think we even wanted to KNOW about his life? (Obviously so, since he later wrote his weird autobiography about his career as a CIA operative.) Did he think the gag of having everyone, everywhere audition for him would stay fresh for 90 minutes? Or the network executive hounding him at every turn? This might have worked as the plot for a 30-minute sitcom episode, but not as a full-length movie. However, it was nice to see Rip Taylor, Gene Gene, and the Unknown Comic again (although, to make the movie 'spicy,' they included only his most vulgar routines). And as someone else has pointed out, this is Phil Hartman's first significant movie part (even though it lasts only a minute). Note his name is spelled HARTMANN in the credits, which is the name he was born with. You can't miss his voice and facial expressions, even though he's much thinner and younger than in the SNL days. Ed Molinaro (Hill Street Blues) also has a tiny part; one of his first after leaving the soap world.


This movie has got to be the biggest disappointment I've ever experienced with a film. The acting is horrific, the suspense build up minimal, and the plot overall is ridiculous. I found myself rooting for the victim to just hurry up and become a victim, because she obviously needed to be put out of her misery. Anyone with rudimentary knowledge of how the world works will immediately be disgusted at the leaps we're asked to make in logic, and the so-called suspenseful buildup would be lucky to get a 3 year old to be mildly worried. I'm dismayed that a sequel is planned, because it means they'll be asking us to once again swallow a sub par plot line. If this is an example of Raw Feed's work, I think I'll be avoiding any and all future films by them.


In the early 00's, production companies had a short-lived craze for supernatural genre movies in France after 'The Crimson Rivers' and 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' turned out to be hits, so several movies were green-lit or saved from their 'direct-to-video' fate. However, France, as opposed to the US, UK or Italy, has little tradition of fantasy B-movies and it turned out quickly that 'Samouraïs', 'Bloody Mallory' or the 'Crimson Rivers' sequel were ill-advised attempts at recreating a kind of magic that had never existed in French cinema in the first place. As they flopped, producers have gone back to their usual fare: derivative farces or the umpteenth self-referential tribute to French New Wave by a former critic from 'Les Cahiers du cinéma'.

'Brocéliande' could only have been green-lit during this short window, as it serves no other discernible purpose. It's your by-the-book slasher movie mixed with vague mythological element and horror references and you'll find bimboesque female characters, a French University looking like a US campus and plot twists so lazy you don't even care because you had guessed it by yourself an hour before, even before the movie started.

These elements make all the fun of a 70's or a 80's B-movie and you expect them in a 70's or 80's movie. However, we're not in the 80's anymore and nobody warned director Doug Headline, as this tribute to the slasher movie genre is nothing more than a derivative slasher movie. Headline himself is no rookie and has been writing as a critic about this kind of pictures since the early 80's but as a first time director he shows a lack of skill and ambition that makes 'Brocéliande' a bore.

When you put together clichés from a movie subcategory and hand them to a skilled and inventive director such as Wes Craven or Quentin Tarantino, you get a 'Scream' or a 'Death Proof', movies that are imitations from old guilty pleasures but also magnify these clichés and add a great deal to them. That's called 'talent' and that's why you can't confuse these recent movies with their original inspirations shot decades ago.

'Brocéliande' takes the lazy path and only reproduces the worst elements from past movies (unfortunately for the male viewer, the gratuitous nudity is mostly missing). There are very strong similarities (presumably unintentional) between the plot of 'Brocéliande' and the reviled 'Halloween 3: Season Of The Witch', as both deal with supernatural Druidic evil rituals and some silly attempt at taking over the world on Halloween night. As even the plot of 'Halloween 3' makes more sense than this one, it means that something seriously wrong went with 'Brocéliande'.


Two teenagers in the north-east of England are desperate to raise money and buy season tickets for their favourite football team. They go through a series of 'comic misadventures' but come up smiling in the end.

The trailer for this film sells it as a comedy and includes most of its light-hearted moments. However, the tone is increasingly grim and the end result is a depressing story peopled with familiar stereotypes. The two 'heroes' have no problems with lying, cheating and stealing. Their adversaries are a callous teacher, a pantomime villain of a father, a psychotic skinhead and a well-meaning but incompetent social worker. The other female characters are a drug addicted teenager, a pregnant schoolgirl and a battered wife who seems to be smoking herself to death. There are no likable characters, and the audience can only feel either pity or contempt. Local actors Tim Healy and Kevin Whateley both play against type as baddies, but the writing and direction of their characters are so one-dimensional that they have no more than novelty value.

Chris Beattie and Greg McLane give good performances in the two young leads. However, they are miscast, because they have the wrong accent. To anyone from the north east, it is obvious that they both come from the Sunderland/Durham area, and yet we are expected to believe they are natives of Newcastle. As a Geordie myself I can assure you that the accents are by no means the same. Take the phrase 'Let the poor lad speak'. We say 'Let the pooa lad speek' while they say 'piwer lad spiyk', with two distinctly different vowel sounds. This discrepancy creates a ridiculous double irony in a scene in Sunderland football ground, where the two lads are trying to disguise the Newcastle accents they don't have, and *pretend* that they come from Sunderland - which they clearly do. In a gentle comedy this kind of criticism might be seen as nit-picking. However, the film's bleak tone makes it clear that writer/director Mark Herman is aiming for gritty realism: that means 'near enough' is actually way off.

I had hoped for humour and optimism from this film, and instead found tired old clichés. Tyneside is not a grey wasteland populated solely by losers, and in telling us it is, Herman should have known he would cause offence. It's interesting to compare the film with the same director's 'Little Voice' - also largely downbeat and populated by one-dimensional characters, 'Little Voice' at least has a talented heroine and doesn't wallow in misery to the same extent. I've heard 'Belter' ranked alongside this year's 'Billy Elliot', but that film is a vastly more enjoyable and life-affirming experience.

Incidentally, I may be just too old, but having lived on Tyneside for 42 years, I have never heard anyone outside this film use the expression 'Purely Belter'.


Anatole Litvak directed the 1959 film, 'The Journey,' starring Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, Robert Morley, E.G. Marshall, Anne Jackson, and Jason Robards.

The film takes place during the 1956 Hungarian uprising and concerns a group of travelers having problems getting out of Budapest because of political problems in that part of the world. They are put on a bus to Vienna, but the Russians, led by Major Surov (Brynner) confiscate their passports and hold them for questioning. One of the passengers is Paul Fleming (Robards), posing as an American but in reality a Hungarian freedom fighter, whom the major believes is being smuggled out of Hungary. In fact, Lady Ashmore (Kerr) is hiding him. She becomes the focus of the Major's romantic attentions.

Very good film that conveys the tension and hassle of the Cold War, and all of the performances are wonderful. Brynner is particularly excellent as the passionate Major who isn't all bad, and Anne Jackson gives a realistic, powerful performance as a pregnant woman who doesn't want her child born in a Communist country.

Good script, good director, good cast - there should be more films like this. Highly recommended.


If you have read the book - do not set your hopes high, if you have not - go read it, and never watch the film. It is strange to learn that Toby Young was actually involved a lot in the writing of the script (as he claims himself in the post script of the book). Because the film is very different from the book.

What the film seems to be aiming at - taking a rather thought provoking and entertaining piece that combines philosophical ideas with plain funny sarcasm and simplifying it so that everyone would understand it - it achieves with perfection. The film is full of bad and cheap jokes suitable for a sitcoms, and has lost any meaningful message that it could have had.

You are better off not seeing it.


I have never seen a show as good as Full House. Full House puts all of the newer shows to shame, big time! Anyone who has never seen it, which I don't see how it is possible, should see it. It is a great show for anyone of any age. Full House will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will amaze you. True, some people feel that there are some 'cheesy' aspects to the show, but, the positive aspects out weigh all of the 'cheesy' aspects. Full House ran it's first episode on September 22, 1987 entitled 'Our Very First Show' and ran it's last episode on May 23, 1995 entitled 'Michelle Rides Again Part II'.

The plot of the show is very believable. Danny Tanner (Bob Saget) losses his wife, Pam, in an accident involving a drunk driver. Danny has his brother in law, Jesse Katsopolis (John Stamos), which is Pam's younger brother, and Danny also brings in his best friend Joey Gladstone (Dave Coulier) to help him raise his three daughters. Danny's daughters are named DJ (Candice Cameron-Bure), Stephanie (Jodie Sweetin), and Michelle (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen).Joey and Jesse plan on moving in with Danny and his three girls for a few months just to help out and end up living with them for eight years; which is the number of years the show ran for.

The following is a short description of some of the characters and the actor/actress who played him/her: John Stamos (Jesse): John Stamos is a great actor. He plays Jesse. Jesse is a rock star waiting to get his big break. In Full House, John Stamos does a great job portraying his character. He looked and played music like his idol, Elvis Presley.

Bob Saget (Danny): Bob Saget is also a great actor. He looses his wife in car accident involving a drunk driver. He has to raise three girls without a having the girl's Mother. Bob Saget does a great job portraying a single parent who works full time and still has time to raise his three girls.

Dave Coulier (Joey): One word can describe Dave Coulier, funny. He is great. Playing the character of Joey was perfect for him. He does a great job playing the stand-up comedian waiting for his big break.

Candice Cameron-Bure (DJ): She is a tremendous actress. She plays the oldest sister, DJ which is short for Donna Jo. She is one of the best actresses I have ever seen. Her acting ability in Full House was very believable.

Jodie Sweetin (Stephanie): Two simple words can describe Jodie Sweetin, incredibly amazing! I wish I could say every thing that I would like to say about Jodie, but, I would use up the 1,000 word maximum just on her. She got her start in a kids show called Mother Goose Stories and when she came to Full House, she blew the audience's and creator's mind. Her great looks and absolutely amazing acting ability helped to make the show the success that it was. According to Dave Coulier, Jodie was supposed to be the star of the show. It was supposed to be where she was going to get her big break. Jodie, at five years old when the show first aired, could hit every line perfectly. She showed great enthusiasm. Most young kids can't do this. As you can probably guess, Jodie Sweetin (Stephanie) is my favorite character in Full House.

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (Michelle): Great actress. Full House is where they got their start. They received the part of Michelle because they were the only babies who did not cry while in front of a camera.

There are many more cast members that should be recognized. These are the original characters from when the show first went on the air in 1987.

The only negative thing that I can say is how Full House became The Michelle Show towards the end. I think it was to focused on her towards the end. Especially when I think Jodie and Candice were much better at acting.

Full House is a great show for everyone. It can teach you a lot. One of the biggest things it can teach you is that everyone can live a great life even if a tragedy, such as loosing a family member, occurs. Full House continues to attract new fans. With all this said, there is only a couple things left to say; Full House will never die, and, thank you, the cast of Full House, for giving everyone a show that they can enjoy.


This story of a teacher who has a relationship with a student is told in a subtle manner, something which sets it apart from most films with this plot. Mr. Lam (Jacky Cheung) has a relationship with Choy (Karena Lam, who was also so good in 'Koma') in what at first appears to be an inexplicable situation. He is married for 20 years to Ching (the great Anita Mui, in her last role before she was cruelly taken from us), and it appears to be a loving relationship. When Ching offers to care for hers and Mr. Lam's former teacher, Choy and Mr. Lam have the opportunity to be together. What makes the film so good is director Ann Hui's pacing. It takes a while to uncover the secrets of the Lamsm and it all makes sense. The movie is very dramatic and touching. You don't feel any repulsion about the teacher/student situation, something that elevates this film above many with the same plot. It is slow moving, but stay with it. Also, revel in Ms. Mui's wonderful, unglamorous but beautiful performance. She was and is someone truly special and in this film you fall in love with her one last time. It is worth the time to witness and just be there with her.


This is the first movie i've seen of John Singleton and he is a pretty good director. The movie starts out with a bunch of incoming freshman and it shows what happens to several of them. Omar Epps plays a track star with a partial scholarship and having a hard time keeping up with his work. He is friends with Ice Cube and beings dating Tyra Banks. Kristy Swanson is a rich girl who is date raped and becomes friends with Jennifer Connelly, who is a lesbian, and isn't sure about which way to go. Michael Rapaport is a kid from Idaho who falls in with a group of Neo-Nazis and their leader is Cole Hauser. Those are the three main characters and Laurence Fishburne is a political science professor who tries to help them. It's a great film and it's unfortunate that the studio had to make several cuts to the movie.


An interesting comedy, taking place on a train from Stockholm to Berlin, December 1945. One can't help to feel sorry for the poor writer/critic who quits his job and jumps on the train to Berlin. His ambition is to make a difference, and to participate in building the new unified Europe after the war has ended.

I like the black and white format of the movie, as well as the closed scenery of a train in motion.

Robert Gustafsson makes a classic 'Gustafsson-role' in this movie. If you're a fan of him, this movie is for you!

The philosopher Wittgenstein, through his saying 'One can never assume that anything is what it seems to be', is referenced several times in the movie.


Let me begin by saying I am a big fantasy fan. However, this film is not for me. Many far-fetched arguments are trying to support this film's claim that dragons possibly ever existed. The film mentions connections in different stories from different countries, but fails to investigate them more thoroughly, which could have given the film some credibility. The film uses (nice!) CGI to tell us a narrated fantasy story on a young dragon's life. This is combined with popular-TV-show-CSI-style flash-forwards to make it look like something scientific, which it is definitely not. In many cases the arguments/clues are far-fetched. In some cases, clues used to show dragons possibly existed, or flew, or spit fire are simply invalid. To see this just makes me get cramp in my toes. Even a fantasy film needs some degree of reality in it, but this one just doesn't have it. Bottom line: it's a pretentious fantasy-CSI documentary, not worth watching.


Wow, the spookiest thing about this episode was the price of houses 40 years ago. I'll preface by saying I'm not a fan of narrated episodes. If the story/actors/etc. are worth their salt, they should be able to convey the bulk of the narrative without having to read it out, reminded me of personages who can't think off the cuff but rely on teleprompters. The psychobabble was tedious and boring, but some enjoy that kind of thing, it's just not my cup O tea. They could have kept the narrative but at least made it much more believable and interesting if it was coming from a psychiatrist or maybe a newspaper reporter or something. Niggling little things like Peugeot being at the house, which has a singular half circle driveway, yet he seems to have parked his car in the tree he was standing under, because it's nowhere to be seen on the road or on the property. Sloppy editing, as she pulls into the driveway (for what seems the 100th time) exactly who are those 2 guys you see at 24m30s walking towards the car as she pulls into the driveway of the deserted house? The dolly close-ups were also overdone, like some Jr. High drama student discovering the zoom function on his camera for the first time. I could keep picking apart, but that might get almost as boring as this episode was. It kept dragging on and the true purpose seemed to be to use absolutely all the stock footage they had shot of Elaine driving the Newport convertible. I fully expected to see the Chrysler logo and a nice jingle play while a voice over told us all about the 8 track player, automatic top etc. The only good thing I have to say about his one is that it just ends, abruptly. No loose ends tied up, nothing explained or terminated. Not that many would notice, I suspect most had already changed the channel or dozed off by the end.


Yeah, what did I expect? I thought this would be a film about young adults at their turning-point in life, something like 'Sonnenallee' or 'American Pie', which I liked a lot. I wanted to see a funny film, perhaps with an ironic look on idyllic Wuerzburg. And what did I get?

Attention, spoilers ahead!

This film starts with a lengthy dialogue which gives you a good hint of what will inevitably follow: more lengthy dialogues. Sometimes I thought Moritz Bleibtreu might have forgotten his text and trying to hide that fact by improvising and just repeating what he was saying before. But as I think of Bleibtreu as one of the better german actors, I believe that this effect really was intended. I think the author wanted to show how boring talking to close friends can be - especially when they are stoned. But really, I don't need cinema to be bored by stoned friends' talk. Boring dialogues make up most of this film.

But okay, that's one thing. I can cope with that, I have seen nice films with abominable dialogues, just think of Schwarzenegger's life's work. But the next thing is that characters are cheap and flat and that the storyline is as foreseeable as anything. Just one example (SPOILER!!): Why, do you think, does someone take a garden hose to his hemp-plants deep in the forest? To water them? Of course not, usually you don't find water-pipes deep in forests, do you? The only reason this water-hose is there is that a hunter who happens to come by while the two protagonists are harvesting their dope can be drugged, maltreated and finally filled up with three bottles of Jaegermeister. I truly hated this scene, because it's really violent. Usually, I don't mind violence in films - slapstick-comedies are full of it. But in that sort of comedy there is a silent agreement between the film and you that people don't get hurt if they fall on their faces or get beaten with chairs or things like that. But if that happens in a film which is otherwise realistic enough, slapstick-scenes also seem real. In this particular scene in 'Lammbock' I really thought that this hunter must be badly injured, if not dead - the final scene really invoked in me the impression that he is left to die there, totally filled up with more booze anyone could handle. And the protagonists just walk away. It would have been otherwise if the author had consistently followed one style; the scene could have been quite funny.

Talking about being consistently - that's what I missed most about this film. The whole film seems to be a listing of small episodes that came to the author's mind. Things just happen without a apparent reason - yeah, I know, that's life, but that's not cinema, because cinema is meant to tell a story, not to show boring episodes without any significance. I found myself asking 'Where's the point?' all the time. Characters besides the two main ones are not elaborated, you never get to know why the protagonist's sister wants to sleep with his best friend Kai, in fact, she tells you but I could not buy it, not at all. I think she just was there to give Kai an opportunity to act this childish AIDS-test sketch, which you sure have seen a thousand times before, and mostly better. The protagonist's girlfriend you meet once, then she leaves Germany (what you don't even see and the guy doesn't seem to care) and finally it is mentioned in one sentence that she has met someone else in America and splits up with the protagonist. It seemed to me that the author wanted to tie up a few loose ends. He actually didn't, you never really get to know what's so bad about studying law, being daddy's son (daddy fixes everything in the end and serves coffee in the middle of the night, which to my mind made him one of the nicer characters in the whole film) and living in beautiful Wuerzburg. Even the dinner with daddy's layer-friend, which maybe was intended to show how horrible it is to have to live up to dad's expectations, seemed flat, just another nice dinner with the family's friends (except for the trip the guy is on later, but I think showing that eating dope before you dine with parents isn't healthy was not the point of this scene, if there was any). I have experienced far worse dinners in my life than this one and still finished my exams. I couldn't understand one single character in the whole film, they just seemed flat and implausible.

All this made it a not-so-good film, but not one I wouldn't watch again on television. It really had a few good scenes (most of them were not new, though, like the one with the nice and understanding policemen), some were really funny, some dialogues were nice and I like Bleibtreu's play, although he repeated his well-known stereotypes again this time. Not good, not abominable, that's what I thought after the film was half over.

But then came this incest scene and this I really found repulsive. Incest simply isn't funny. I don't even know if this was intended to be funny, some people in the audience laughed, so it could have been meant this way. This scene spoiled the whole film for me, I couldn't feel sympathy for the protagonist any more - I can't feel sympathy for anyone who f**** a helpless person, to me, this is rape and rape isn't funny. So it might have been a hint of drama or so, but the incest is never again mentioned (although we thought this could have been one reason for the protagonist to leave Germany in the end, but as it is never mentioned again, we don't know.), it is even totally unnecessary. I almost expected the sister to become pregnant in the end, which would just have added the finishing touch to this tasteless story, but not even this final cliche is fulfilled, just as nothing is really solved or thought through to the end in this film. It isn't really funny, it isn't really a drama, it isn't at all a road movie a la Tarantino despite desperate tries on violence, it is definitely not enjoyable.

Skip this film. Watch 'Final Fantasy', that's also bad, but at least with beautiful pictures and not that tasteless.


After seeing Dick Tracy in the 6.99$ bin at Future Shop I decided to give it a go with no previous knowledge and being a big fan of Mafia and Crime movies. I was very surprised to see a very fun, smart entertaining movie with solid performances throughout. The movie moves along well, it has of course another solid performance from Warren Beatty, but the real standouts of the film are Al Pacino and Madonna. I was happy to find out that Pacino was nominated for his performance as an over the top gangster trying to take down the city. Madonna was great as the damsel in distress, she really impressed me and added depth to her performance. If you go in with the attitude of wanting to watch a fun, smart movie with great acting and a solid script then give Dick Tracy a try. I don't think you will be disappointed. And Watch for the cameos from Paul Sorvino, James Caan, Kathy Bates and Dustin Hoffman among others.


Wow, this film was terrible. It is as simple as that. It is actually the first time that I walked out early, as far as I can remember. This turned out okay, though: I had a very nice chat with two most charming girls while we all waited for the rest to finally give up on that crap they called a 'movie'.

Where to start. Bad acting, bad jokes. Faecal humour, which I simply cannot stand. Sorry, but snot, pee and scat are *not* funny. You have seen the title picture? That scene actually drags on for about 5 minutes, with the two 'heroes' hitting and mutilating each other, which is supposed to be humorous all by itself. It is not.

Apart from body fluids, violence and cross-dressing, I do not remember much about this. At least not much good. I was really, really disappointed by this piece of garbage. Or let us be honest here: given that I am actually a big fan of 'british' (i.e., black) humour, I was angry.

So, want my advice? Three words: do not watch.


I watched this film in a Singapore theatre yesterday (4 February, 2006)and came away with a better understanding of what schizophrenia patients and their loved ones go through.

Ms Aparna Sen must be congratulated for not only taking on a difficult subject, but also treating the mentally challenged with a deep understanding of their predicament that is necessary to help them cope with the trauma of disorientation, hallucinations and the storm of turmoil raging in their minds.

We have had Hollywood movies on this subject such as 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest' where Jack Nicholson carried away the honours. Since then research has helped provide more insights into the problem and clearing some misconceptions about treatment. In '... cuckoo's nest,' for example shock therapy has been portrayed as barbaric, but in '15 ...' the point has been made that it is not as bad as it has been made out to be.

The other misconception is that abuse in childhood is a cause for schizophrenia. But scholars such as Dr. E. Fuller Torrey have emphasised that studies have shown that childhood schizophrenia is a brain disease and is thought to have some genetic roots.

It is now established that schizophrenia can be treated like any clinical ailment and its advance can be checked if detected early. Even in fairly advanced stages regular medication and counselling can be effective.

The same understanding shown by Ms Sen is evident in the way the actors play out their parts. In keeping with the gravity of the theme, the acting is controlled throughout with Ms Konkana Sen-Sharma's evocative silences and eyes mirroring the helpless confusion of a disturbed mind speaking louder than some of the rantings we are used to in most of the movies that have included mentally challenged characters.

Like me most of the audience in the theatre appeared confused at the abrupt ending. It leaves lot of questions hanging in terms of the plot.

Has Meethi's search ended? Why is she not found in No. 15? Were children actually playing when Meethi strode past the gates with her eyes sparkling with recognition? Can anyone sort out this jigsaw puzzle?


It's a shame that Asterix and his buddy Obelix do not get the world wide recognition that other cartoon comic characters get.

This is another funny Asterix cartoon jammed with entertainment. The animation is excellent and the voice Characterization good, even if the synchronization is a little out. The music and score fit well within the story and the slotting in of some modern musical numbers is a nice touch.

The running time seems short and while it's not the best Asterix story or the most developed cartoon, it's good clean fun. The modern (Disney like) animation will capture children, Asterix fans and new comers... Enjoy the Gaul adventure!


This is an interesting true story of Archie Grey Owl, Who dreamed of being an Indiain when he was a child until the age of 17 he was born in England then moved to Canada where he was adotped by Indiains and he writes collums in magazines and he wrote a book that caugt the attention of millions the book was of his life. But at the end he told his wife that he was not a real Indiain and she was fine with it and he died at the age of 43 two years after he went back into the wildness.


For a movie shot in 18 days and a budget less than 2 million, this little movie that could deserves a 'best we could' award. Interesting premise (aside from the usual meteor stuff) with solid perfs by a cast of familiar faces. 2 thumbs up. Advice to the other reviewer: Don't be afraid to say you liked something.


(spoiler) it could be the one the worst movie you see, you might like it like I did I really like it. Its one of those odds movie.

There is man who seen to have a had day in life. Blacks rats some how feel sorry him (which I think was a good Idea).

The killer rats become friends with man two big man come making feel unwanted so the man set the killer rat on them and floor to floor both bodies covered in big black rats not that much blood.

but think about big black rats all over body) but start to little killing people but rats are going over-bored until the rats kills his friends and girlfriends,

Ther one scene in were seating on the toilet while rats are going into the pipes leading to toilet and rat goes up his you know and come out of his mouth, (which mean the rats must off eaten everything inside in body's) I had me laughing for weeks

why did i like this movie, yes it's different of the rest, I for ONE like it when little creature takes on mankind.

if you have seen any of these movie slugs, slither, Them, spiders, snakes, tremors ,Cujo, crocodile, shark, octopus.

If you liked them and check out Hood rats,

it better then Terror toons that all I Can say! 4/10


I know it was supposed to be a long walk, but really!!!!

The costumes were a bit yuk, but still... it was the 1970's I suppose!!!

It was a bit long and dull, so give me the newer version any day!


I can understand how Barney can be annoying to some, but the hatred he gets is very ridiculous. Barney was made simply right from the beginning and simplicity isn't bad, especially for the young ones he entertains. I personally find this show to be very underrated period. Barney & Friends is a very educational show in my opinion and even 17 years after its debut (and nearly 21 years after the character's debut on home video), he proves time and time again that he still appeals to young children. Maybe less so than in the early 90's where Barney was the Hannah Montana of the time, but he's still a classic. As a fan of Barney myself, I feel that I should defend him in a way that doesn't seem like spam. The way the purple guy teaches things may be very simplistic and unrealistic, but would you rather have them hearing about war? Be thankful some one (a costumed dinosaur, but still) is there to comfort kids and let them be kids simply. In this day and age, I feel that we rush our kids to grow up and Barney is there to say you can still be a child at heart. In addition, many of Barney's lessons on current episodes about plagiarism, being honest, and yes... even death, could appeal to everyone, not just his target audience. Besides, our children need to learn to be kind and respect others for who they are, and he helps them do that. In short, Barney may be annoying to some people and I completely understand why, but cut him some slack. All he and his friends (along with HIT Entertainment, his production company) are trying to do is help kids not only learn necessary skills, but to have fun and to also look at the positive parts of life. If more people listened to their children's favorite character and viewed him through their eyes, maybe we wouldn't be so negative about him and possibly life itself.


Mr Bean was great fun, i loved it, every episode was really funny, Rowan Atkinson was perfect for this role, he's a funny looking bloke and his facial expressions were hilarious!!!

The series was so successful that they even made a Mr Bean movie in 1997, which was also pretty funny by the way!!

It's funny seeing all the adventures and situations he gets himself into, this series was a classic for sure, and i still watch an episode from time to time.

Mr Bean is well worth a 10/10 in my book, fans of offbeat comedy must check this out.


As I said, sometimes low budget is good. You get to see a good movie without a lot of the extra BS that can hide an otherwise piece of crap. Well...this was that piece of crap. If anything, I thought it had humor, unfortunately the humor was unintentional. The only half-witted acting came from Bill Smith and his part was cut out (that's a joke). There was never a Bill Smith, nor was there anyone cast who could act. Even Gerald Okamura sucked, and he's been cast in nearly 40 movies. The fight scenes were comical and made me feel like I could kick all their $%#@#$. The sound was horrible, as if all sound was recorded on the set. My 10 year old could have written a better script...BTW, my 10 year old fell asleep...no kidding. I give a B+ to editing for cutting the movie to only 90 minutes...60 minutes would have been an A+.


Oliver Stone, always ready to make politically-themed movies, makes another one here. 'Talk Radio' is loosely based on the career of Alan Berg, a radio talk show host in Denver who was murdered by white supremacists. In this case, the character is Barry Champlain (Eric Bogosian), an outspoken talk show host in Dallas who loves nothing more than to irk the people who call in. As it is, most of the people who call in are a bunch of pigheaded racists. And things may be heating up more than anyone realizes.

Bogosian's performance brings a light comical tone to an otherwise serious movie. I really liked the scene where he jabs at a redneck who calls in. Granted, I wouldn't call this Oliver Stone's greatest movie ever, but it's a good reference in an era when media gets more and more concentrated. Good performances by Ellen Greene and Alec Baldwin also help.


Okay, so it starts very unimaginatively with a narration from the lead character (Justine played by Laura Fraser - an amazing actress in her own right) but it goes on to become something miraculous. It has silly little things that you really shouldn't find funny but do every time. There is an especially memorable moment that sees your jaw dropping to the ground the first time you watch it when the male body of Jake, containing Justine's female mind, is trying to get used to her new anatomy. I wont spoil it for you, but the second time I watched it was with friends; seeing their faces was brilliant. It makes you cringe, but laugh at the same time. I am also a big fan of the music used. There is a beautiful small band that appears randomly on the street or on a pathway every now and then, but also some gorgeous, yet unknown (often the best), pop songs. It has the feeling of being written for an English cast by an American writer, which does annoy me only a couple of times. Overall, this film is hilarious. I am a massive fan of Laura Fraser's now, after being given his film for my birthday, and expect that, even though some of the cast are little-known to most, you too will enjoy every bit of it.


George Sanders playing the Saint for the penultimate time does a good job out of a good script - with the usual good RKO cast around. It's a non-Charteris story too, bristling with murders and good clean fun.

Thread 1: In New York, Police Inspector Fernack, Templar's friend is framed in a corruption scandal and disgraced - ST comes over from London to try to put things right. Nice and simple so far - but is there really more than $90,000 in the world? Thread 2: Another tale of a woman taking revenge on the people who murdered her brother, Wendy Barrie does well in bumping off some nasty men and having the Saint fall in love with her to boot. Including a baddie who was under their direct protection and in Fernack's cellar - there's a creepy shot of him (dead and staring) and them in a car when they're taking him back to where they'd got him. Paul Guilfoyle as Pearly Gates must have supposed to have been homosexual in this - witness the dressing gown at the beginning, and the later beguiling comment by ST that he was thinking of keeping him as a pet - and did too for 'Palm Springs'! Fernack was played by Jonathan Hale as usual but this time with such a beaten deflated attitude that what he really needed was a good slapping from Templar to liven him up.

The Hays Office also made sure you got the picture right, all threads are tied up with no straggly bits. Well worth watching for all of us who like this kind of thing, but if Val Kilmer's version is your yardstick then don't bother.


You know the saying 'Curiosity Killed The Cat'? Well, I have heard so much about this film, from a magazine that named this one of the most shocking movies of all time, my 1001 movies you must see before you die, my sister who saw this at a film festival, and the I love the 70's show on VH1. I just had to see this movie since it was named the grossest movie of all time, and well, after viewing this film last night, I have to say that it really did live up to it's title. My God, this movie was so weird! I thought I really did see it all with some of the sickest movies and TV shows I've seen, some things I guess will always still feel like a shock.

Well, Babs Johnson, aka Divine, has been named the filthiest person alive and a jealous couple named the Marbles are competing for that title. They want to take Divine out and be named the filthiest couple alive by kidnapping women, raping them, impregnating them, and selling their babies to lesbian couples. But it seems like Divine and her family of well... I don't know, seems to keep the title by having sex with chickens, butt lip syncing, eating dog feces, stuffing meat up their skirts, incest, and it just gets grosser and grosser.

Pink Flamingos is horribly acted, horribly made, and well, just plain horrible. The reason for the 10 rating I'm going to give it is due to the fact, well, how could you rate this film? I always rate, so I just figure what the heck? Through the grossness of this film, you have got to give John Waters some credit, who the heck would ever think of this movie over 35 years later? To the cast and crew who worked on this film, you guys are just plain nasty!

10/10


When I found out there was a movie that had both my favorite actresses Meryl Streep and Wynona Ryder, I went through the roof!But I had a hard fall after watching this lame movie and I still have the bruise.First of all the character that Jeremy Irons (an actor I still admire even after this disappointment)plays was just awful. He treated his family like crap, especially his sister, played by Glenn Close. I could not get close or sympathize with any of the characters and I'm no prude, but the sex scenes were really unnecessary or they could have been toned down. Wynona and Antonio's characters could have been developed a lot more and their romance could have been much more passionate. And what was with Meryl's character and her 'mystical powers'? Why didn't they go into this more? This film had a lot of dead ends and the bottom line is that this is a really lousy movie and there was a lot of wasted talent here.


Rudolph Maté's film from 1950 is given a revamp for the 80's, Dexter Cornell(Dennis Quaid) is a university lecturer who used to have a successful writing career, but thats now gone down the tubes along with his marriage. The initial exposition plants the notion in the viewers mind that everybody has something against him, so when the revelation comes that he has been poisoned, we are not that surprised, unless of course you are familiar with the original. Dexter after being told he has less than 48hrs to live, decides to trace back his steps with the help of one of his students Sydney Fuller(Meg Ryan), but they find they have many obstacles in their way.

The film begins promisingly in black and white, as Dexter staggers in the rain towards the local police station where he wishes to report a murder...his own, but the Huey lewis style 80's beat that accompanies this scene only serves to remove any sense of tension and tells the viewer that this is going to be pretty bad, its only a question of how bad? Sure enough we are soon using the old flashback medium, but now the film resorts to full Technicolor. There are some brief homages to Noir, as the embracing couple stand in front of a venetian blind, but there's really nothing here to recommend it, the performances are awful, Ryan in particular doing her usual dizzy blonde with a cutesy pie smile routine. The film is a lazy attempt to put some unneeded ooomph into an already fine movie premise, obviously trying to cash in one the Body Heat audience, the seeming results are undoubtedly aimed at a teen audience and to be sure, they are welcome to it. 4/10


It is incredible in that it succeeds in being terrible on so many levels. The script, the acting, the directing and the choice of cast are all appalling. The costumes, sets and pseudo-medieval language are also utterly awful. In an odd way I actually enjoyed this film, once I had accepted that it wasn't going to be any good. It seems a shame that people would spend so much time and effort producing something so poor, when really they could have made something pretty decent out of the premise (albeit not very believable!), but instead we are treated to a rather nauseating and cheesy tale of dragons and knights, that lacks any of the charm to be found in other such fantasy films. Let's just hope that The Lord of the Rings is a bit better! Oh, and David Thewlis' haircut makes him look like He-Man. It does!


Halloween is a film I have to get out and watch every time it's THAT day of the year.I even watch it sometimes when it's not the holiday!!!This film is SO great.Jamie Lee Curtis is an actress I can never stop loving.This movie might be old,but the story line still gets me right there every time,and the acting was absolutely fantastic!!!Although I have not seen the remake,I feel already that it was TOTALLY unnecessary.I think Rob Zombie should have NEVER remade such a classic.What kills me though,is to know that there are some people out there who have seen the remake without even hearing of the original.I am getting furious just thinking about it!!!!!!This movie was great,and it will always be remembered in history as a classic.


Bill Maher's Religulous is not an attack on organized religion. It's an attack on Christianity and Islam. Apart from ridiculing a bunch of Rabbis inventing warped machines to get around Sabbath regulations, he really doesn't attack Judaism and seems enraged when a Rabbi actually challenges the existence of the State of Israel. If Bill Maher followed his hypothesis to its logical conclusion, he would realize that the very creation of Israel in the Palestinian Territories is based on the so called 'holy books' of organized religion. This is evidence of his complete and utter lack of objectivity or focus in the creation of this film.

I find it really hard to believe that the man is atheist or even all that intelligent. Anyone can go up to a religious person and laugh at them and call them stupid for their beliefs but what do you have to offer them in return? Nowhere does he actually tell them why he thinks they're stupid. What makes him the 'rational' person in the room? In a way it reflects how he really isn't and in the process ends up looking just as stupid as those people.

If you want to watch a good movie/documentary about the actual evils of religion and how religion can actually be detrimental to the human civilization, watch Richard Dawkins' 'Root of All Evil?'. It is a brilliantly researched documentary, clearly outlining what it hopes to achieve and how.

Bill Maher's Religulous is not funny, poses no interesting questions nor does it provide any insight on so controversial a topic. It seems to be the rantings and ravings of an old man disgruntled with his Catholic upbringing. I almost feel sorry for him.


Eddie Murphy Delirious is undoubtedly the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life. When I saw it for the first time about 2 years ago I was in stitches for weeks after it. To date I have seen it a further 17 times and i still laugh my ass off each time. For those who dont know Eddie Murphy was a brilliant stand up comedian before he was a Hollywood superstar. There is not one dull spot in this piece of genius unlike Eddie Murphy Raw which was released in 1987 which goes flat during the middle. If you are not the sort of person who can't stand swearing then I wouldn't advise you to see it as you will probably hear swearing of some form every 5-10 seconds. I gave this a 10 out of 10 because it displays the greatest comic genius of them all at his best.


This is yet another gritty and compelling film directed by Sam Fuller in the early 1950s. This minimalist and fast-working director has something unusual for his earlier films--a cast with some stars. Richard Widmark, Jean Peters and Richard Kiley star in this film about a group of Communist agents who are trying to sneak secrets out of America--and they'll stop at nothing to succeed.

The film starts with Peters on a subway car being watched by federal agents. They know she is a link in a long espionage chain. Unknown to everyone is the wild card in the equation--a small-time pickpocket (Widmark) is also on the train and he manages to steal the secrets that Peters is carrying. Widmark thinks it's just another purse he's ransacked--only later does he realize the seriousness of what he's stolen. Now it's Widmark on his own--with Commies and the FBI hot on his trail.

Widmark and the rest are exceptional and the film is gripping from start to finish. Although she didn't get top billing, a special mention should be made of Thelma Ritter. This supporting actress had perhaps the performance of her lifetime as a stool pigeon. Seldom was she given this much of a chance to act and I was impressed by her ability to play a broken down and sad old lady.

As far as the script and directing go, they are very good--but with one small exception. At first, I loved the way Widmark and Peters interacted. It's one of the few times on film you'll see a woman punched square in the mouth! Now THAT'S tough. Later, inexplicably, they become amazingly close--too close to be believable. Still, with so much great drama and such an effective Noir-like film, this can be overlooked. See this film.


I had several problems with the movie:

(1) The screenplay -- specifically, Kim Basinger's voice over: Movies are not books; they should *show* the action rather than have a voice over *tell* us what's happening. Occasionally I find a movie with a voice over that works, but here it seemed more of a lazy way of writing the script. In fact, it sounded to me as if she was practically reading excerpts from the novel in her voice over.

(2) I felt no emotion in the relationship between Jessie and Brother Thomas and also felt that Alex Carter's acting was pretty bad. That's a significant failure for me in defining Jessie's and Thomas' characters -- with no connection between them, it seemed to me as if she just wanted a stud and that for him it was a matter of being sex-deprived. If it had been properly done, the relationship between them would have given much more context to the story.

(3) With the book, I understood Jessie's mid-life crisis. In the movie, it seemed more like just plain boredom.

On the plus side, I didn't think the movie was so bad as for me to turn off the TV . . . though that thought did occur to me.


If you've read the original novel, as I did, you will probably hate this thing.

The film version of _Absolute Beginners_ is a nightmarish conglomerate of 1980s anachronisms attempting to create a 'period piece' set in the late 1950s and failing to re-create or even pay homage to that period -- the US monstrosity of _Dirty Dancing_ does similar to 1963, except that film proved financially successful despite having equally amateurish screen writing. In addition to suffering from 'looking too 1980s', the characters have been changed, re-arranged, and downplayed to the point that the only characteristics they have in common with those of the novel are the slightest superficial looks and, of course, their names: Suze is transformed from the narrator's flighty ex-girlfriend and promiscuous negrophile who willingly plans to marry a closeted old queen for money (at her own admittance in the first few pages) into a hapless and naive 'Eve'-archetype seduced by fame and glamour, exploited and somehow scammed into a sham marriage by her boss, who surprisingly wasn't given a Van Dyke and pointy hairstyle. She and the narrator, re-named 'Colin' (after the book's author, Colin MacInnes) for the film, are also in a relationship.

Big Jill's character, a lesbian seemingly butch yet 'fop like' in her mid-20s who acts as pimp to a cadre of young and bubble-headed lesbians, and one of the narrator's closest friends, dispensing frank wisdom to the narrator, is reduced to a sort of 'named extra' with only a few throw-away lines, and tonnes of comical outfits.

The Fabulous Hoplite, a gay young man and another close friend of the narrator in the novel, is also reduced to the point of being pointless in the film, camped-up and all but ignored.

The narrator's father in the novel is a sort of sad minor character but in the film, he's played to come off as optimistic and oddly spirited despite the squalid neighbourhood, and the disarray of his marriage to the narrator's mum seems, for all practical purposes, ignored.

In its favour, the music (for what it is) is well-composed, and you have to give the production and writing crews credit for actually taking a line from the book ('...some days, they'll write musicals about the 1950s...') as their inspiration to write a musical, but in the world of bad camped-up musicals, this is among the most poorly executed in the bunch. Unlike _Shock Treatment_ or _Starstruck_ crucial plot elements are treated as afterthoughts. Unlike _The Apple_, there is a choppy and uneven flow between musical numbers and spoken dialogue.

You really can't blame it's 'too 1980s' feel on the fact that it was created in the 1980s. The film version of _Annie_ released in 1981, pays a wonderfully well-executed tribute to the look and feel of New York City in the 1930s, and _Napolean Dynamite_ manages to capture a gritty sort of look and feel of the 1980s despite being made on a low budget in 2003 (though it's not explicitly set in the 1980s, those who lived through the decade cannot deny that the film 'feels very 1980s'). Obviously, it was _possible_ to make something good out of this, especially considering the iconic status that the source novel has in the UK, but it fails most apparently in the look and feel, and also in its treatment of the source material, which is downright disrespectful.

Perhaps if you haven't read and have no intentions of reading the novel, you could enjoy this campy 1980s anachronism giving a shameful parody of late-1950s Soho London's modernist jazz set. I can definitely see what the writing team were attempting, but they definitely could have done better. With Boy George as a household name and mixed-race musicians and bands on the charts in 1986 UK, they definitely did _not_ need to bowdlerise the characters in the ways that they ended up doing. In fact, I'd go so far as saying that the writers wound up doing what both the book and film criticised harshly -- it ended up having a bunch of adults cranking out crap and treating its targeted teen-aged audience like two-bit idiots to make a quick buck off of.


'This Man's Navy' is, as other comments have indicated, a rare and well-filmed look at Navy lighter than air (LTA) activities. The LTA crews were justly proud that the convoys they shadowed never lost a ship to submarine attack. And the filming at the various NAS locations give a valuable glimpse at a type of aviation that is long gone. However, the first half of the movie is all about Beery, his relationship with his service pals, and him meeting the Tom Drake character and his mother, and getting Drake's leg fixed. Only then does the second film start. The second film is mostly LTAs in action, taking on a surfaced sub, guys get killed and much damage is caused. The look is fairly gritty and realistic, I imagine. Then we shift to Southeast Asia. Did the Navy have LTAs there? Never mind, this part is really wild, with a blimp being used to extract some downed aircrew from the jungle. And the Japs are shooting like mad. Shades of Vietnam, except the getaway is oh, so leisurely. This is a blimp we're talking about. In the end, a feel-good WWII drama about a very unusual part of the war.


A group of cats look to find their way home after being kidnapped by a greedy butler.

The Aristocats is regarded as one of Walt Disney's finest 2D animations with its charming script and cool characters, but it doesn't quite have the magic that created Snow White or the Jungle Book.

The slow opening will have younger viewers raising their eyebrows but once the cats become established into the story does the fun and entertainment begin.

The young cats create the most enjoyment with a charming young hearted rivalry, the special kind of bonding any brother or sister of any age can associate with.

Not the funniest Disney picture out there but there are some great comic moments, especially involving the Cats and the Dogs. The representation of the gangster cats is very impressive and equally amusing.

The story, after the boring beginning, is consistently entertaining and exactly what a family film should be. There are hardly any lapses and no dull moments. The journey to find home is interesting and you get a sense of exploring, not to mention two very strange British swans.

With Disney, you always get a strong meaningful message. With the Jungle Book it is where you belong, with Beauty and the Beast you explore the importance of inner beauty. However with this 1970 picture there seems to be something missing. The film has the importance and relevance of home but is not cemented enough; it seems very far fetched and irrelevant.

My sister and I found it very strange watching this as some of the central characters were voiced by the Jungle Book cast.

Despite the bad beginning and the confusion of its preaching message, this is a consistently fun family film with a good music score and some cool crazy characters that viewers of any age can relate to.


The movie 'Heart of Darkness', based on the 1899 book by Joseph Conrad is one with little to no detail and has an almost schizophrenic like plot line. If you have read the book then you know that little to none of the important 'story making' scenes were put into the movie. In the book there is so much that is left up to the imagination and I feel that that is one of the part that make the book what is it. An example would be when Marlow spent timeless hours and days, even months waiting for rivets and that entire scene was left out of the movie. Again if you have read the book then you would know that this scene in the book is one that almost describes the main, theme of futility, best. Finally I feel that the movie was too cut and dry. Not enough though was put in to the original text and how that made the story what it is today.

If you have not read the book, 'Heart of Darkness' (preferably, the Norton Critical Edition) then don't waist your time in renting or buying the movie. However if you have read the book then I think that you will appreciate the book a lot more if you decide to watch the movie

Eric 2007


This movie is a desperate attempt to ride the skirtales of the success of the Star Wars movies. The film uses recycled footage from 'Battle Beyond the Sars' which is another Roger Corman Sci-Fi Turd, but atleast this one is better than 'Battle Beyond the Stars' - there is no real acting in this film (but its a Roger Corman film-What did you expect)again the entire soundtrack was done on a Keyboard/Synthasizer, the sound effects are recycled from 'Battlestar Galactica' - there are no special effects because they were recycled/rearranged space scenes from another movie, the costumes look like something right out of 1981 salvation army salvage. --ironicaly, the little boy in this film gives one helluva performance, and he'd resurface again to star in the Sylvester Stallone movie 'Over the Top' - I give this movie 3 stars out of 10


This anime seriously rocked my socks. When the anime first opened itself, I felt it was too slow; the story wasn't quite moving forward, and Shirou was quite an unimpressive male lead. Once he learns more about tracing, and you learn more about Saber and the Holy Grail War itself, the story pans out and you can see multiple facets of it moving together. It was fantastic.

Additionally, I felt that the way the characters developed was very true to form with the way real people develop, in the real world. There wasn't any stupid completely obvious things going on; the development of Ilya and Rin was interesting to watch, but I think the way Shirou and Saber grew in their certain personalities was just interesting to watch all on its on. A few of the 'surprise' people that show up (Gilgamesh?) seemed to also be unique from the rest of the cast in one way or another, meaning we didn't have 'Generic Bad-ass A' being replaced by 'Generic Bad-ass B' as soon as A died.

Anddd, I loved the music. The opening music rocked, and the finishing theme from the final episode just...Seriously pushed forward the theme of the last episode even more. Good job, Type-MOON!


While researching Susan Harrison (The Ballerina) in reference to a Bonanza Episode, I was reminded of this gem.

This episode is the inspiration for Dylan's 'All Along the Watch Tower' (Hendrix's cover is probably as well know and is one of his best) which is one of HIS best.

Thus this episode is responsible for several 'bests' - not bad for approximately 22 minutes of television.

But this is 'The Twilight Zone'. Further comment of the series is unnecessary.

'5 Characters' is typical Serling. Intense, dramatic, barreling toward an end that is as inevitable in hindsight as it is surprising the first time you see it.

This episode is spoiled in one sentence and is too good to spoil for any who have not seen it.

But you will feel ambushed. And you will never listen to Hendrix with the same ears again.


It's awesome! In Story Mode, your going from punk to pro. You have to complete goals that involve skating, driving, and walking. You create your own skater and give it a name, and you can make it look stupid or realistic. You are with your friend Eric throughout the game until he betrays you and gets you kicked off of the skateboard team(you can pick a team to be on) and you then start your own team! There are many levels like New Jersey, Manhattan, and even School II(not part of story mode though) from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. You can unlock secret skaters like Iron Man, Gene Simmons, and another skater. You can create your own goals like SKATE letters, COMBO letters, Tricktris, Gap, and much more. You can create the goal pedestrian and write what they speak. If you get bored of doing that, you can do the premade goals in premade parks. The only thing I didn't like about this game was that sometimes it was hard to drive the cars. 9/10.


This is one of those inoffensive and mildly entertaining little movies that strive to make you to like them more. But like so many others, it's material isn't strong enough to successfully fill a couple of hours.

The pitch is promising: three drag queens drive a bus through the Outback from Sydney to Alice Springs. They run into lots of trouble - with homophobic locals, with the engine, with their pasts.

The real trouble is with the dialogue. The leads are fine (though Pearce's continual campness becomes tiresome), but the one-liners and epithets feel forced where they should be casually thrown away. Characters shouldn't laugh at their own gags.

Writer/director Elliott also feels the need to pile on the pleasingly incongruous shots of flamboyant drag costumes against stark desert backgrounds like so much cheap make-up. For a movie about self-confidence and just being yourself, it all seems very insecure with itself.


It is sad what they are letting into film festivals these days. I had to sit through over twenty minutes of this dreary short that wasn't funny at all to get a good seat for a feature film that I wanted to see at a local film festival. The festival planners paired this horrible short with a great feature. I am just glad the feature was good, otherwise I would have not been a very happy camper!

For a comedy short film it got no laughs. The title says it all.


'Scarecrow Gone Wild: He's the Death of the Party!' Need I say more? Scarecrow gone wild got four out of ten stars from me for one simple reason: aside from the terrible acting, plot holes, cheap special effects, and anti-climactic whistling, it was cinematic gold! I think that this movie could have actually been really good, had the scarecrow turned out to be the baseball coach (as portrayed by the ever-so-brilliant Ken Shamrock). But then again, they would have had to cut those AWESOME 'Return of the Jedi' electricity special effects.

While watching this movie, my friends and I were convinced that it was in fact written by one of our friends, a stereotypical teen-aged boy. This movie has topless women, miserably fake gore, and dialog that could not have talked its way out of a paper bag, or in this case, a cornfield.

If I could ask the filmmaker one thing, it would be this; 'How much did you have to pay the teenager that wrote this for you?'


Oh God,what an idiotic movie!Incredibly cheap with fake special effects(the creature is played by one guy in lame costume)and stupid plot.All dialogues are unbelievably bad and these actors(HA!HA!HA!)...they're simply ludicrous.For example I have never seen so annoying characters like in this junk(these dumb kids or pregnant woman with his husband and many more).All in all,this is a great entertainment if you're drunk.Avoid it like the plague.Am I drunk?I don't think so...


I feel dumber after watching the first 20 min,luckily i walked out and saved the rest of my brain, people should watch better films and take notes on why they are rated highly,not because of the budget of the film or the special effects, just simply good acting and getting simple things right,and MOst importantly--not being LAME--, but i guess this was produced for those Sheeple without taste and not a clue of what is ''A good Movie''don't be scared of rating films low,save your under-appreciated high scores for ''once in a life time movies''. Keep in mind that many use IMDb for trusted reviews and opinions,don't spoil the broth by sugarcoating turds Peace & love


A beautifully photographed and paced short film. It evocatively captures the feeling of this family and much of the country during the period just prior to and after Pearl Harbor.

I appreciated the visual look of the film -- naturalistic and simultaneously poetic. Great work by a great D.P., David Boyd.

Though a family film, the story never becomes maudlin or saccharin. We understand and believe the motivation that propels the young boy on his odyssey. I understand the love of the younger brother for his older brother and do not question why he sets out to do what he does. I understand that he is driven by a deep desire to be with his brother in this time of crisis. The kid is tough, and the performance by Jonathan Furr is superb as is the veteran performance by Ron Perlman.


I gave this movie a four-star rating for a few reasons. First, I felt that this movie was definitely preaching and I hate that. Still, it's my own fault for watching a Christian movie in the first place.

My friend and I rented this movie because it sounded interesting. The back of the case said something along the lines of a spiritual battle, someone opening some sort of boundary that let demons into our world and the like. Something I am very interested in, indeed. This movie almost hit the target. It was more like on the edge of the target, more on the tree than the target itself...

The basic plot of this movie is two couples are abducted by a group of terrorists to be victim to experiments. However, because their experimental serum is derived from the research of a scientist who claimed to be able to bridge the gap between the physical and the spiritual realms, the men of the couples are now able to feel, smell, hear, and see the demons of the spiritual world. In that order. Apparently the sense of taste is not present in that realm.

This movie is very clichéd. They took the title seriously as the men, while chained to the beds, demand their women look behind them because there is something there.

Although a good effort for what it was, I think the special effects could have been done so much better. The demon scratching at the woman was, in a word, hilarious. The wife was obnoxious as hell and everyone in the room practically cheered when she died. We were all hoping she'd be beaten by the other woman with the chair, though.

The message is one that I don't care to comment on, other than I think the Christian filmmakers should have found a better medium for it.

And so I give it four stars because it is not the movie's fault I am not a Christian and don't like this type of message, and I got a kick out of making comments throughout. My friend and I watching this movie seemed to resemble an episode of MST3K.


This is an excellent movie. As a Canadian who grew up with a rural lifestyle much of it is familiar , the winter, canoeing , trapping , hunting and the like. It is easy to take the familiar for granted but after watching this film a few times it has grown on me .

The story of Grey Owl is well known to many Canadians credit to director Attenborough and screenplay writer Nicholson for expanding the story.

Brosnan does well portraying a complex man , a very fine performance. Annie Galipeau is lovely in her first large role. The rest of the cast is solid.


Most of the Brigitte Bardot movies I've seen have failed to take full advantage of her captivating screen presence. Unfortunately, she was given few really good roles in movies of undeniable quality, which was a real oversight. She deserved them and was able to demonstrate her full cinematic power when they came her way. As Genevieve in 'Love on a Pillow' we had a clear exception to the trend of light, fluffy vehicles, for it was an interesting, artistic film by any reasonable measure, and in it, a 28-year-old BB was at her most alluring. 'Une Parisienne' is another, featuring an extremely captivating Brigitte in an interesting, well-crafted comedy that explores how an ambitious lady's man can be convinced to remain faithful to an incredibly beautiful young wife. There are several good performances here. Her playboy husband, Michel, is one, 'the prince,' played by Charles Boyer, is another, with entertaining efforts by a good supporting cast. As for Brigitte Bardot, the way she looks in this movie is the way I remember her as a kid in the fifties. She was 23 in 1957 and way ahead of her time, more beautiful than any other actress of the period, including Marilyn Monroe. Her curvy, coquettish sexuality, amply displayed in several bosom-baring, skintight dresses, simply jumps off the screen. She was more hip and cute than the women of America are today, nearly fifty years later. Obsessed with their careers and still desperately clinging to feminist politics, they come off like a bunch of clueless lesbians. In stark contrast, the sex kitten was sexually liberated, intelligent, and clearly independent long before it was fashionable, yet while fully understanding the power of her exceptional femininity, she used it for a higher purpose than mere self-interest -- she believed in love. A still photo simply could not do her justice. You had to watch her slender yet voluptuous form (with its 20-inch waist) lightly cross a room. You had to see that wild blonde mane, gaze into her big, brown, seductive eyes, and listen as her full, pouting lips spoke French. In a closeup at the end of this movie she winks and flirts with the camera, her beautiful orbs twinkling. What a babe! For fans of Brigitte Bardot, 'Une Parisienne' is not to be missed.


This movie is awful. At the end of it you will realize that several hours have been stolen from your life that you can't get back. The 'twist' ending is very contrived. The character development leading up to this ending is not consistent with their final actions at the conclusion. Ninety minutes of preparation-- with the premise that the Rob Lowe character will die on Christmas Eve-- is explained away in literally ninety seconds of 'No we were just tricking you.' Then the Rob Lowe character is not even upset about it! 'I will forgive you if you can forgive me,' is as upset as he gets. If someone took weeks to convince me I was about to die and then said 'No, sorry , just fooling you' I would raise some serious hell. I don't feel bad about giving away the spoiler because I might be able to save some of you out there from watching. Please save yourself and DON'T WATCH THIS MOVIE.


The performances were superb, the costumes delivered a unique feeling for the period and being a Victorian Living Historian, I was impressed with the accuracy of weaponry and attention to detail.

I wouldn't say you need any knowledge of the Kelly saga to stay with the flow of this movie but to comprehend the happenings and attitudes of the time you will require a bit of basic historical knowledge. Do not expect, as some rather silly people do, any of the characters to have the Auzzie accent as we know it, it was, at that time, a country during infancy.

OK, the story had some elements of fiction but these are required for a wider following of the film. Gregor Jordan said in the extra feature on the DVD that he wanted his movie to 'inspire an interest', and that is exactly what happened with me so this movie gets the thumbs up here.

See it and you WILL NOT be sorry


This film takes you on one family's impossible journey, and makes you feel every step of their odyssey. Beautifully acted and photographed, heartbreakingly real. Its last line, with its wistful hope, is one of the more powerful in memory.


The problem with other actors cast in the rôle of Dorian Gray is that they either looked too old for the part (Hurd Hatfield, Helmut Berger, Josh Duhamel, David Gallagher, Ben Barnes) or that they were unable to pull off the English aristocratic manner without being stilted. Dorian is the perpetual 19-year-old (or so), all milky skin and honey'd locks, as described by Wilde, so the challenge is finding an actor that has the maturity and range for the part (i.e., who can portray the naivité, callousness, and manipulativeness), but at the same time looks like someone in his late teens. And Peter Firth pulls it all off in this excellent British TV adaptation.

Gielgud as Henry Wotton, while considerably older than what Wilde had in mind, does wonders with his scenes--Wilde's aphorisms have never sounded so natural and unforced. Especially George Sanders in the 1945 version was pretty feeble by comparison (and his costume didn't fit).

Finally, Jeremy Bratt plays Basil as the most masculine and at the same time the most gay of the trio, again a fitting interpretation. In general, the film includes enough gay subtext without turning Dorian himself gay--he's all things to all people and supposedly there's no drug or sexual perversion he hasn't tried in the 18 years covered by the story, but that makes him more narcist than homosexual. He seems to equally wreak havoc on both sexes here, as he should according to the novel.

Of course the budget of this production was not very large, so everything feels a little stagey. Particularly Dorian's encounter with Sybil's brother suffers from the obvious studio look. Also, the final shot of Dorian (a puppet I suppose) in his white toad-like make-up is more hilarious than convincing and Basil's death scene is inadvertently funny. (Also, as far as I recall, Basil should have been killed seated at the table.)

But all in all, this is a very worthy adaptation. I'm sure Wilde would have liked it. The only thing missing is the sensual side. Not so much sex scenes, but Wilde's decadent world of fragrant flowers, luxurious cloths, and precious gems isn't really explored here, i.e. the aestheticism is completely missing. But like 'I, Claudius', the excellent acting makes one easily forget these shortcomings of production values.


Once a year 'comes' a movie like that and makes things easy for you. You don't have make an effort to think it is good, it's just is. You enjoy it while you watch it, and you take it home with you. I can't say it is totally flawless, but it's near. Acting - great, story -interesting and with elements of suspense. It's a small family story, pretty much predictable, but it's not the secret itself that matters. it is the way the it takes the blind girl to reach it. I was impressed by the way the director portrayed their deep relationship (the blind girl and her cousin). The only thing I didn't like that much is the actress that played the mother, she was too tough and without necessity. Keren


Its hard to decide where to begin.I bought this for a few quid and its the worst few quid Iv ever wasted. The back of the DVD had no pictures and a few lines plot summary, this should have warned me, but I usually like bad movies for a laugh so decided to give it a go. The movie is made up of three short stories,each revolving around someone who was on a particular bus at one point.(its never made clear what the significance of the bus is, or what city its set in)

POSSIBLE SPOILERS(as if there is anything to be spoiled) The first story is about a man who is persuaded, by a car, to purcahse it, against his wife's wishes.The car is sort of like a demonic Brum and takes over his life.

The second is about a slob of a man who never cleans his fridge and a monster bacteria man grows out of it.

The third about a woman who goes to a dating agency, only to discover her date isnt all that normal.

Inbetween these, we are treated to shots of the bus(or A bus anyway) while a narrator whittles on a load of garbage about relationships(really,its like he is on commission for saying 'relationships')

The movie actually has no redeeming features whatsoever.The acting, the costumes and the little Spfx are all disgusting.There arent even any attractive female cast members to admire.Simply put, this movie is a debacle.


Absolutely the worst experience I have ever been through. I think my eyes started bleeding. I actually got sick the night after watching this. I don't even consider this a movie. Movies are supposed to be worthwhile and entertaining. This fails horribly. I could not make it through the entire film, so because the ending could be greatest phenomenon in motion picture history, this gets a 1 for that small chance. Otherwise It would be a flat 0.

I can't see how National Lampoon, or let alone any organization, would sponsor this atrocity. Renting this DVD is currently one of the worst mistakes of my life. Only watch this if you want to make ever other movie you will ever watch seem great.

Without question this is the worst movie I have ever seen.


For the 1980s, this is a very dark movie. At this point, filmmakers were beginning to operate under the assumption that all films require smarmy comic relief (which, of course, is taken to the extreme today), flashy action scenes (even more overdone today), or steamy sex scenes.

Hutton and Penn are stupendous in their roles as childhood friends turned Soviet spies. Penn in particular is brilliant as hapless drug dealer Daulton Lee.

What you have here is a true thriller/drama. There is no eye candy to speak of, but the story is so compelling and the acting so superb that (hopefully) most people wouldn't miss it. There are a couple amusing scenes, in particular the one where Penn tries to get his Soviet benefactors involved in a major drugrunning deal.

Well worth watching.


I clicked onto the Encore Mystery channel to wait for the movie I wanted to see, Island of Dr. Moreau. I caught only a few minutes of Shadow Conspiracy. An old man runs to meet Charlie and grabs him by the arm. Suddenly, an Assassin in a bright rain coat taps the old man in the head (with a side arm) from across the street. After waiting for 'C' to turn around and look, the 'A' tries to shoot 'C' and clearly misses. 'C' was a much easier target, the old man couldn't have run far. Duh! There is a chase and 'C' is on an elevator 'A' is on the roof, so he tries to shoot the cable, which is parallel to the 'A'. He hits and severs the cable, impossible. Later, this time with a specialized rifle, the 'A' lines up on 'C' from maybe 50 meters, but is to stupid to notice a motorcycle coming up and taps the rider instead. How does Charlie get his parts? Does Daddy go to the producers and say 'Look, my kid needs work...' It reminds me of his stupid Sit - Com. All the actors are good except, yup ... you got it. I usually have to endue 2 or 3 minutes of that waiting for C.S.I. to come on. Let's see, what can I do for the next hour. I know, I'll trim my toenails! Much better use of my time.


Though the plot elements to 'The Eighth Day' seem like they have been done plenty of times, the film still has much of the spark, mystery, and symbolism that Jaco Van Dormal's first film had. Though not as good as 'Toto the Hero', which will always remain on my favorites list, the movie still leaves us with lots of emotions. Daniel Auteil, from 2001's flavorless 'The Closet' downplays his part, afraid to overact (rightfully so, the role could have easily been ruined if the actor was overly dramatic). However, I felt the part needed a bit more realism to it, focusing more on the character itself instead of simply the character's growth.

Don't walk into this movie expecting the dark humor and unexpected twists that you got from 'Toto the Hero' because you will be disappointed. However, the film still serves as a decent, if not flawed, movie


With the rising popularity of the now iconic Godzilla series, like with any hit cinema event, there was inevitably going to be a crowd of imitators trying to cash in on the success on the big lizard. With Godzilla came the dawn of a rising popularity of the kaiju (giant monster) genre. Many sought after success; a few gained it. One of the few that not only profited, but garnered popularity was Gamera, a giant turtle that could breathe fire in and out and fly by spewing flames from the sockets in his carapace as a means of jet propulsion. But unlike Godzilla, Gamera was marketed as a friend to all children, later fighting other monsters to save kids in peril, and thus Gamera became very popular amongst the kiddies. Unfortunately, that's about the only audience mainstream that the original Gamera series will have any appeal to. While the new Gamera movies directed by Shusuke Kaneko are marvelous, revolutionary monster movies, the original series, including the original, is nothing special.

The first Gamera movie, titled in Japan as 'The Giant Monster Gamera' was clearly a Godzilla want-to-be. Even though the movie was produced in the era of color films, it was shot in black-and-white. Why? To imitate the first Godzilla movie from the 1950s. Gamera also attacks Tokyo. Because Godzilla attacked Tokyo in the first movie. I don't know much about the Japanese version, for the version I am familiar with the Americanized version, where scenes were cut and new footage with American actors were inserted (is it coincidence that the same thing happened with the first Godzilla film?) Now whether this adds or takes away from the film, I cannot say. But 'Gammera the Invincible' is really nothing more than a ponderous bore that just plods along like the big turtle himself.

'Gammera the Invincible' is a very routine-orientated movie. The characters are from a stock of science-fiction standards, the story is inane, the monster has no real motive for attacking civilization, the acting is laughable, and so on and so forth. The only thing that differentiates it from the Godzilla series is the ending of the movie, but that's also a detractor since the plan that eventually halts Gamera's rampage is completely phony and ridiculous. Now the rest of the movie and many other entries in this genre also fit that description, but this is a direfully stodgy monster movie.

And although Shusuke Kaneko would later transform Gamera into an interesting monster with his trilogy in the 1990s, in the original series, Gamera was not an attractive screen presence. He was neither scary nor sympathetic. He just waddles around like a toddler, swaying with each step, and knocks miniature sets over. As usual, everybody wants to destroy Gamera except for a little kid (Yoshio Uchida who was lazily left out of the credits though he plays a 'central' role) who thinks Gamera is a nice turtle.

Most movies in the genre that 'Gammera the Invincible' is a part of are easy targets for criticism and this one is subject to extra pressure. Even in the company of many other Godzilla-imitators, this Gamera film is not a particularly good entry. And as far as my cinema experience goes, the rest of the movies in the series are either just as boring or worse. Like Godzilla, Gamera would be filmed in color and go on to fight monsters. And like Godzilla, he'd get cheaper and cheaper with every film until it was time to revive the series and make him serious again.

It's peculiar. Usually I recommend people to stick with the originals and pass on the remakes. But in the case of Gamera, my verdict is just the opposite. I strongly encourage people to watch the 1990s Gamera trilogy directed by Shusuke Kaneko and to skip over the original series unless interested. The new films are inventive, well-made, exciting, and above all, fun. The original series is a long stream of boredom.