DoubleML/multimodal_confounding huggingface dataset:
This is a copy of the 1948 Doris Day classic, Romance on the High Seas.

The story line is more or less same but is contemporary. Govinda plays a sharp witted fellow who replaces the husband on the trip. While Rani plays the college friend of the wife who does her the same favour. They ostensibly try to catch each other out while the actual husband and wife tries to trip each other in Bombay.

On the trip, Govinda mistakes another girl for Sanjiv's wife and spies on her while falling in love with the ravishing Rani.

Lever plays a dual role of father and son both lawyers specialising in divorce proceedings. They are pitted against each other for the warring couple.

It is a poor attempt at copying the original classics and the songs are quite appalling. The comedy is slap-stick and will not make one laugh too much.

Sentiment: negative
"Tamara" just felt like another teen oriented knock-off of the "I Know What You Did Last Summer" trend and is painfully dull. A high school outcast, who is heavily into witchcraft and black magic, is accidentally killed during a cruel prank carried out by a group of bullies who secretly bury her in the woods, vowing to tell no one. The next day, the supposedly "dead" Tamara, arrives at school with a completely new image and seduces her would-be killers and has a little revenge... This is basically a combination of "Carrie", "The Craft", and every other straight-to-video, teeny bopper turkey that hits the shelves these days. The actors are absolutely atrocious and look about ten years too old to pass off as high schoolers. There IS some gore, which is actually nothing all that interesting since the movie is so boring and I couldn't wait for it to end. If you like modern garbage than I insist you seek this one out, otherwise don't bother...

Sentiment: negative
Greetings again from the darkness. Director Alejandro Amenabar creates life against all odds in this based on a true story version of one man's struggle to control his destiny. The great Javier Bardem is fascinating to watch in his role as Ramon. His eyes and head movements leave little doubt what is going on in his mind. The dream and fantasy sequences are not overused so prove very effective in explaining why he wants what he wants. Rather than force us to answer the euthanasia question, the real question posed is , What is Love? At every turn we see people in love, looking for love or dying to be loved. The script is tight and keeps the film moving despite being filmed mostly in one room. The supporting cast is wonderful and we truly feel their pain and how each family member deals with Ramon's decision. This is a gem and deserves to be seen.

Sentiment: positive
When i saw the first octopus movie it was a laugh see the cheesy acting and appalling effects. This film seemed to make up for the acting, but not the special effects. After Jaws and Piranha, sure, why not make a film about a killer octopus? The octopus invades the New York waters, where 2 police investigators try stopping the rampaging beast before the 4th of July.

A pretty clean plot and descent happenings but the octopus was pretty much appalling, its nice to see they actually made it this time but it looked like a piece of plastic... Better on a big budget really, this film could have been a good watch. There's a continuous amount of errors where it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't research the way octopus live...

Watch this if you like cheap DVD sequels, otherwise your better watching Jaws.

Sentiment: negative
The film is not visually stunning in the conventional sense. It doesn't present a series of pretty pictures. Instead it is a visually interesting film. It forces the viewer to constantly process or perhaps imagine the context of the various shots. This sort of thing is easy to try but hard to succeed at. The film refuses to use the crutch of a genre to help the less than fully engaged viewer get what's going on. Instead the film touches on and moves through a number of different genres. The trick to loving the film is being able to enjoy this playfulness. I suspect 99% of North American viewers will just not get it. If you try to pin down the narrative of this film, or the philosophical message, or the symbolist structure, etc. you will waste your time. There are none of these. The film only feints towards these genres and others at times. The only unifying force in the film is Claire Denis's own sense of what fits together. There are so few feature length films that come close to satisfying Kant's description of what art is, namely the enjoyment of the power of judgment itself instead of simply subsuming experiences under concepts. Film usually takes the easy way out and opts for the simpler pleasure of understanding what's happening. Most film is not art. Most film doesn't come close to art. When a film does, as this one does, and is still enjoyable by a large range of viewers, it's something of a miracle. My on negative comment is that at times I find the film too simplistically buying in to the various narrative threads that run through it. The Tahiti father-son narrative, even though it's not exactly conventional, ends up making things a little to clear and simple. It dominates too much.

Sentiment: positive
If this film strikes you (as it did us and, apparently, others departing the theater) as disappointingly thin, it may be because the subject herself is mildly disappointing. The film faithfully presents us Bettie Page as she probably was: a playful almost-innocent from the rural South whose career as "the pinup queen of the universe" was for her just goofy, natural fun. Her eventual moral qualms, religious conversion and sudden departure from nude and bondage modeling are biographically accurate, yet hard to understand given how untroubled she seemed by her livelihood.

There are many reasons to see this film even so, not least of which are the amazing b&w noir cinematography of W. Mott Hopfel III (complete with old fashioned wipes and dissolves), the 1950's-faithful acting of the cast under the direction of Mary Harron, pitch-perfect performances by some of our most underrated supporting actors (including Chris Bauer, Lili Taylor, Sarah Paulson, Austin Pendleton, Dallas Roberts and Victor Slezak), not to mention the Oscar-worthy and technically difficult lead performance of Gretchen Mol.

Ms. Mol does several scenes fully naked and most others in amazing period lingerie and "specialty" costumes (gloriously assembled by costume designer John A. Dunn), yet she astonishingly maintains Bettie Page's unstudied pleasure in her lush body. To watch Ms. Mol as Ms. Page, an aspiring actress, progressing through degrees of progressively less "bad" auditions and student acting scenes is to see a truly fine actress in complete control of her craft.

The script does effectively bring us into 1950's America, where childhood sexual abuse, lawless abduction and rape, and the legal suppression of brands of pornography which today seem laughably tame, is a reality. 50's New York is evoked with seamlessly-inter cut news reel footage. 50's Miami comes alive in super-saturated, 16mm-style color. The real Bettie Page seems to scamper, smile and pose before us, and yet the effect is curiously lightweight, barely lewd and not at all dangerous.

How odd that bondage's greatest icon should be so lacking in venom, and that this technically excellent biopic should have so little sting.

Sentiment: positive
OK, the portrayal of the stereotyped 'indians' in this story is just plain WRONG. I do agree that Elvis looks rather good here, but yeah, his skin color does seem to change during the movie. I was thinking, OK,...he was never THAT tan in real life. It's some of the most obvious brown 'indian' makeup that I have ever seen. It's as bad as the 'indians' on 'F-Troop' and the old Hollywood westerns who were played by Jewish and Italian American actors and not real Native Americans!

This movie is o.k., but typically lame story and mediocre songs, like in all of Elvis' later films. He just did them because Colonel Parker had him tied down to long term movie contacts to squeeze as much money out of Elvis as possible! I keep thinking 'thank God' that Elvis stopped making movies forever not long after this movie came out. It is cool to see character actors Joan Blondell, Katy Jurado, L.Q. Jones, Henry Jones and Burgess Meredith in this movie, though.

Burgess Meredith's 'indian' makeup is absolutely AWFUL. It's The worst of the bunch for sure. What were the filmmakers thinking? Was Mr. Meredith doing this one just for the money or what? I do love certain Elvis movies, though. For example: 'Love Me Tender', 'Jailhouse Rock', 'Viva Las Vegas'. I can even stand to watch his movie with future TV co-stars Mary Tyler Moore and Ed Asner,'Change Of Habit' in which Elvis plays an inner-city doctor.

Oh well, at least Elvis made a FEW good films, but the mediocre and bad ones overwhelm the decent and good ones.

I'll always love ELVIS! Thank you, Thank you very much!

Sentiment: negative
Protégé runs in a linear fashion; expect no fast-paced action, and neither will you find yourself with baited breath because there are simply no seating-on-the-edge moments.

There is not much of a crux, so don't expect one either. I would not fault the acting - the show would have been much worst if not for Wu's acting which was the film's only saving grace. And, oh that cute little girl too.

The humour is at best, weak, and the show must as well pass off as an anti-drug campaign which employs the usual shock-tactic (esp in the scenes with Zhang) to tell us stuff that we already know - i.e. drugs break up families, heroin drives you crazy, it is not so easy to wean off, you will fall into a vicious cycle.

I know it may seem all a little harsh, but I feel that the show is far from seamless and somewhat patchy (*SPOILER ALERT*: Take for example when Andy Lau got brought to the police station: what? we were just told 'oh we have all the tapes and evidence against you since 1997', and THAT is how he got caught. Nope, no chasing-car action, just a jump-of-scene, which kind of undermined Wu's role as an undercover in the first place.) I suspect the lack of creativity is attributed to the fact that it is after all, a production of Mediacorp Raintree - a Singaporean production film company.

Sentiment: negative
Is there any other time period that has been so exhaustively covered by television (or the media in general) as the 1960s? No. And do we really need yet another trip through that turbulent time? Not really. But if we must have one, does it have to be as shallow as "The '60s"? 

I like to think that co-writers Bill Couturie and Robert Greenfield had more in mind for this two-part miniseries than what ultimately resulted, especially given Couturie's involvement in the superb HBO movie "Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam" which utilized little original music and no original footage, letting the sights and sounds of the time speak for themselves. This presentation intercuts file footage with the dramatic production, but it doesn't do anyone any favours by trying to do too much in too little time; like so many of its ilk, it's seen from the point of view of one family. But the children of the family seem to be involved tangentially with almost every major event of the '60s (it's amazing that one of them doesn't go to the Rolling Stones gig at Altamont), making it seem less like a period drama and more like a Cliff Notes version of the decade.

The makers rush through it so much that there's little or no time to give the characters any character, with the stick figures called our protagonists off screen for ages at a time - the children's father is especially clichéd - and then when they're back on BLAMMO! it's something else. Garry Trudeau could teach the filmmakers a thing or two about doing this kind of thing properly. In fairness, Jerry O'Connell, Jordana Brewster, Jeremy Sisto, Julia Stiles and Charles S. Dutton give their material the old college try, but they're wasted (especially the latter two); it's undeniably good to see David Alan Grier in a rare straight role as activist Fred Hampton, and Rosanna Arquette (in an uncredited cameo in part 2) is always welcome.

What isn't welcome is how "The '60s" drowns the soundtrack with so many period songs that it ultimately reduces its already minimal effect (and this may well be the only time an American TV presentation about post-60s America never mentions the British Invasion - no Beatles, no Rolling Stones... then again, there's only so much tunes you can shoehorn into a soundtrack album, right?). Capping its surface-skimming approach to both the time and the plot with an almost out-of-place happy ending, "American Dreams" and "The Wonder Years" did it all much, much better. Nothing to see here you can't see elsewhere, people... except for Julia Stiles doing the twist, that is.

Sentiment: negative
Once upon a time, way back in the 1940's, there lived an actress named Veronica Lake. A beautiful, talented young woman who was once in high demand for many big-budget, Hollywood pictures. Fast Forward to the late 1960's, age, alcoholism, and all-around bad luck has tarnished everyones favorite actress. Now a hasbeen, Miss Lake decides the time has come to follow in the foot steps of her peers(?), Joan Crawford, and Bette Davis, and fall back on good ol' reliable Horror. But Flesh Feast? Really? She couldn't have possibly been that washed up. To put it delicately, Flesh Feast is a lifeless pile garbage, possibly one of the top 5 worst films I've ever seen, and I've seen them all. Lake plays a scientist, who is plotting, with Nazi's, to bring Hitler back to life, with youth restoration experiments involving maggots, that's right, maggots. Unless you're a huge fan of Heather Hughes, run away and never look back!! 

I know very little about this Veronica Lake person, as well as 40's flicks, but to think that such a successful career actually became that dismal, is actually pretty sad. Flesh Feast is almost impossible to get through, and by almost, I mean absolutely. Directed by Brad Grinter, director of Nudist Camp pictures, and the man who, coincidentally brought us the greatest B-movie ever made, Blood Freak, just a couple years later. One has to wonder, is this what Blood Freak would have been like if Grinter hadn't co-directed with Steve Hawkes? If so, then God bless Steve Hawkes. You wouldn't think that a Religious, dope-blood craving, Turkey Monster could be THAT much better than experiments involving Maggots and Hitler, but it really, really is. So forget you ever heard of this one and go find Blood Freak, it's just waiting to entertain you. Fast Forward a couple years later, Veronica Lake dies of Hepititas, broke, and forgotten. The End. I hate you, Flesh Feast. 1/10

Sentiment: negative
The same night that I watched this I also watched "Scary Movie 4," making for one messed up double feature. Unfortunately for these killer tomatoes they could not stand up to the laugh riot that is the Scary Movie franchise. While I fought boredom here watching jokes that were silly and stupid, brutally dated and brutally bad, the more recent parody had me laughing out loud. How could I desire any more than that. Director John De Bello uses the basic premise that some sort of growth hormone has gone terribly wrong and turned the tomatoes into killers. But his main objective here is to slap around the disaster movie genre that was so big back in the day. The script reeks of stoner humor, and perhaps if you take illegal substances with your movie nights this could be your cup of tea. I, sober, was stuck watching a grown man go under cover as a tomato. And that one joke, that is never funny, where the discrepancy between the Japanese speaking actor and the voice over is also here. Some may giggle, I did not. They even had a Hitler joke that wasn't funny, and I thought all Hitler jokes were funny.

The narrative of this film is so splintered (for no good reason) that it is nearly impossible to explain. Tomatoes kill people, the government tries to stop it, bad jokes are told. Their aim may have been correct as their targets include the media, consumerism, and paranoia (three things that still control our lives today). Oddly enough the main selling point of this film, those gosh darn tomatoes, really don't make much of an appearance. And when they do, get this, they're played by real tomatoes. That washed up gimmick did nothing for me as I get very little out of watching a pack of tomatoes devour a body thanks to the magic of stop action camera tricks. There is also a fear of going for broke at work here that prevents this film from being truly funny. The gag of having somebody fall asleep in nearly every scene may please some audience members, but more than likely it will be seen as an invitation to join in the fun.

I might also add that there does seem to be some old fashioned human egotism at work here. Man eats tomato and that's dinner, tomato eats man and that is a worldwide catastrophe. But that is just the way the world works. In the film the produce becomes evil because of genetic modification, but in the real world our produce (see: Taco Bell) becomes evil thanks to neglect. And like those evil doin' green onions this film's shelf life expired a long time ago. There are a few good chuckles to be had. The last shot was really quite splendid, but it was nowhere near enough to save this moderate stink bomb. I'm pretty sure there is a good movie buried deep within this concept, but the script needed to be filtered through about a dozen rewrites to get there. And by "there" I mean to the level of "Scary Movie 4." **1/4

Sentiment: negative
Once a year in America, Saturday morning would give way to new cartoons, usually sometime in America. Just about the time school started.

I guess this was to make not having school on Saturdays that more bearable.

One Friday night before the premiere of the new Saturday morning cartoons, a movie came on.

"At The Earth's Core" I had not a clue who Cushing nor McClure were. Clearly they were not from the same country, so I couldn't grasp why they were traveling together.

I do recall seeing the mechanism in the fire-breathing monster's mouth.

What connects this movie for me is the opening with the molten metal and then suddenly we get the band playing as we see the factory.

How do you end a movie like this? The music again, and two bewlidered cops as the drill appears behind them.

Whatever reason, I remember watching this movie more that Friday night than I do any new cartoon that came on the following morning.

That was definitely the late seventies.

It would be during Jurassic Park mania, cicra '93, I believe, before I would see this movie again.

Yes, people in costumes. There was the fire-breather again.

Still loved the ending with the two cops.

Finally, it would be nearly another decade before I would send off for the movie on DVD.

Now I would just watch the beginning and intro.

Oh, I do love much of the movie. Of all these sci fi Jules Verne, HG Wells, ERB movies, this one stands as my fave.

What I note now is that one of the cops begins turning around a wee bit too soon, then turns back, then he and the other cop are synchronized as they turn inward once again to look behind themselves at the drill.

Perhaps for me, this movie stands as the best of the Saturday morning shows, which is why I enjoy it so much.

Sentiment: positive
A detective (Dana Andrews) with a reputation for violence accidentally kills a suspect in a murder (Craig Stevens) and then tries to cover it up. The Otto Preminger directed film has plenty of atmosphere but the story gets watered down when the dead man's wife (Gene Tierney) falls for Andrews. He was doing fairly well digging himself into and out of a big hole, but she was just too much light at the end of the tunnel for a noir film. Gary Merrill is great as Scalese, a crime boss that Andrews is obsessed with bringing down, and the tension between them gives the film its energy and drive, especially a scene in a bath house with Merrill, Andrews, and Neville Brand, and the night time rendezvous outside of Bellevue Hospital, that sets up what ought to have been the film's conclusion. High marks for atmosphere, Andrews, Merrill, etc... and the general portrayal of the underworld, though the love angle and the simplistic good cop bad cop elements don't help its cause.

Sentiment: positive
Let's see, cardboard characters like Muslim terrorists have forced a cardboard scientist to perform some exotic drug tests on some cardboard people who have been drugged and kidnapped. You'll be sure to laugh when these pathetic excuses for humanoids get their just deserts! Turns out the drug experiments have given them the ability to sense another world....the world of religious fantasy!--complete with cardboard demons who look like they are made of Papier Mache. Everybody gets dragged off to Hell except for one poor chap who goes to Heaven where he can presumably spend Eternity with the blockheads that created this Masterpiece of the Absurd. I think I'd opt for Hellfire myself. Go see something else, unless you are stoned, in which case, you might actually like it! Couldn't hurt!

Sentiment: negative
I am a longtime fan of the original of this movie (Bella Martha/Mostly Martha), and everything that makes that movie great and enjoyable to watch is missing from this one. I miss the slow pace, the build-up of characters and their style in small gestures, the dominance of lights and moods and moves over dialog. I don't think that the story itself is enough. Martha/Kate is more secluded, and Mario/Nick is not a clown. In most of the cases the things that makes one scene great in the original, its is not working in its copy here. The small alterations take away the tension. My opinion is that you should go and see the original. It'll worth the inconvenience of subtitles.

Sentiment: negative
I am currently watching this movie and I have absolutely no hesitation in reviewing it now. The acting is ridiculous. Half the cast must be retired porno actors, and to get kicked off pornos you could imagine the quality of acting.

The graphics are unlike anything I have ever seen. I think there are puppet shows with more believability. They can't even afford blanks for the guns they shoot at the pathetic excuse for monsters. Perhaps I should also note how incredibly impressed I am at the number of 'bullets' their pistols can hold. 

If asked to summarise the movie, I would say that someone had rustled up a group of complete no-hopers at the local county-fair, slapped them on an island, added needlessly intense music and let a 6 year old do the editing.

I can honestly not formulate any possible explanation for why this movie was released, recorded on DVD and costs $6 from my local video store for one day. If anything I have received the benefit of knowing that I am a lot smarter than all parties involved in this film.

I hate this movie with great intensity. Why? I wish I knew Captain, I wish I knew....

Sentiment: negative
"Footlight Parade" is just one of several wonderfully jaunty musicals that Warner Bros. produced in the early 1930's to ward off the Depression. "42nd Street" and the Golddiggers series were also produced during this era, and they made literally, millions of Americans forget their troubles for a little while, and enjoy themselves.

While most of the films produced had the great talents of Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, and Dick Powell, only Foolight Parade had the incomparable James Cagney. Almost ten years prior to his most well-known musical, "Yankee Doodle Dandy". Here he dances in that most original of dance styles, with his arms usually lowered at his side, and his legs doing all types of undulations and kicks. It's easy to see that he is enjoying himself, and that makes us enjoy him all the more.

While almost all of the musical sequences appear at the end of the film, they are well worth the wait. I believe that this film was made just prior to the installation of the production code, so some of the costumes and scenes are a bit risqué. But it's all in fun.

It doesn't matter what the plot of the film is, just know that there are plenty of laughs and a superlative cast. Besides those already mentioned, Guy Kibbee is at his flustered best here.

7 out of 10

Sentiment: positive
I couldn't make sense of this film much of the time, and neither could anyone else, based on other reviews. The opening scene of this film has virtually nothing to do with the rest of the story. In it, a photojournalist with a big mustache cancels his vacation to get away from his girlfriend. He is assigned to photograph a mountain range. It's rumored to be haunted, but I couldn't tell whether he heard that from his boss or later in the film. On his way, he meets a beautiful writer (Patty Shepard) and convinces her to join him on his working trip. Throughout the film, there is this terrible music score, mostly consisting of noisy singing that makes you want to scream "SHUT UP ALREADY!!!" What really will gall a person is that the film always seems like it's about to become good, though it never does. There is beautiful mountain scenery and some genuinely creepy atmosphere. The inn and the silent, abandoned old buildings scattered on the mountain are rather ominous. The foggy nights look real, not like someone put an artificial fog machine on the set. And the idea, while not original, had potential. But it never does improve, at least not enough to be worthwhile. Here's how it goes, more or less. They stop at this inn run by a weird innkeeper (you expect him to be named Igor) with a hearing problem. There is a scene where the writer thinks a peeping tom is in her window, but the scene is so dark, I had no idea what was going on. Whether this was poor lighting or a poor film transfer is unknown to me. In any event, we never find out know what happened. There is a scene where she wanders off during the night. Whether she is sleepwalking or mesmerized by the witches of the title is never explained. Another scene which is never explained is when their car is stolen, then found again, with nothing stolen. They wind up in this apparently abandoned mountain village whose sole inhabitant is this seemingly kindly old woman. There are other things, including a chained wild man in a cave who is never explained, an attempt to sacrifice the writer in some way (will they kill her or brainwash her into joining them?), the witches themselves, a bunch of brunette women in white robes who don't show up until the last 15 minutes of the film and whose practices and beliefs are never explained. Even the closing scene doesn't make any sense. When all is said and done, most people will be saying, "Huh?"

Sentiment: negative
This could be a strong candidate for "The Worst Flick Ever". Perhaps without the presence of John Hurt, it could be tolerated as a kid-film. However, the TRAGEDY of this entire endeavor, is that John Hurt, one of the screen's greatest actors, diminishes himself in this....I gave it two points just because Mr. Hurt SHOWED UP...I take AWAY 8 points, because he didn't run from it fast enough. As far as the rest of the cast, they are, simply, terrible. Janine Turner, as pretty as she might be, cannot act to save her soul. And the lead actor is, for all intents and purposes, AWFUL. If you can spare yourself this embarrassment, please do so. It's so bad, it almost HURTS.

Sentiment: negative
This is one of the best military films ever made. And it is great because of its focus on values. It's a great human interest story that turns on a commitment to honor, loyalty, love, and determination.

Gooding and DeNiro are superb in the lead roles. It's wonderful to see the Master Chief's racism evolve toward respect and love through Carl Brashear's determination, drive,and yes, sense of honor. The title indicates the source of their bond. I never noticed until this last time watching it how brilliant Carl Lumbly's portrayal of Carl's father, Mac Brashear, was. In a way, it's a cornerstone of the film in that it's Carl's memory of his father that helps carry him through hard times.

I am selective about what films I purchase. This is one of those rare ones that I want on my shelf. It will be seen many times in the future, I'm sure.

Sentiment: positive
This was a superb episode, one of the best of both seasons. Down right horror for a change, with a story that is way way above the average MOH episodes, if there is such a thing. A man's wife is almost burned to death in a tragic car wreck, in which he was driving. His airbag worked, her's didn't. She is burned beyond recognition (great makeup btw), and not given much of a chance to live without a full skin graft. BUT, even in a coma, she keeps dying but brought back by modern technology, and when she does die for a few minutes, her ghost appears as a very vengeful spirit. Carnage of course ensues, and also some extremely gory killings, and also, some extremely sexy scenes. What more could you ask for, you might ask? Well, not much, because this baby has it all, and a very satirical ending, that should leave a smile on most viewers faces. I just loved Rob Schmidt's (Wrong Turn) direction too, he has a great knack for horror. Excellent episode, this is one I'm buying for sure.

Sentiment: positive
I've long wanted to see this film, being a fan of both Peter Cushing and David McCallum. I agree that the romantic sub-plot was a waste of time, but the talent of McCallum shines through this juvie role. Thank heavens for Turner Classic which aired the show last week. I can imagine that there were lots of problems with children after the war, especially with the way things were throughout the 1950s. Some of the boys are a bit scary. I certainly wouldn't want to met them on a well-lit street, much less a dark one. There were some good insights regarding the feelings of a firebug as well, or as they call him, a firefly.

Sentiment: positive
This isn't a film, it's a 111-minute Evangelical Christian sermon draped over red state America's #1 sport, high school football. Another of the long, earnest messages to the converted who are then presumed to be fired up enough by the spirit to go abroad and convert their unsaved neighbours.

Dialogue like "You won the big one when you accepted Christ" loses any possible camp appeal by the disturbing intensity in director/Coach Alex Kendrick's sunken black eyes. Then there are the "parables".

Two farmers prayed for rain but only one prepared his field to receive it. Which one do you think God blessed? This rhetorical question is meant to foreshadow the miraculous climax, in the course of which Coach asks his trepidous back-up kicker, "Son, do you think God could help you make that kick?" It's the kind of entertainment we could have expected would receive faith-based funding ad infinitum, if only the Evangelical Christian Bush Administration's hegemonic pursuits around the world had convinced us all to become "devout" after their example. Behold that poor Giants coach in the apocalyptic finale, urging his team on crying "Who's with me!" while the devout Eagles on the other side were quietly going about doing the Lord's work.

So, do you think our terrified back-up makes his kick to vanquish those self-centrist Goliaths? Well, we all know zealots can't lose. Put it this way: Transfer the playing ground to the deserts of the Middle East, replace the Christian proselytizing, and this virulent nonsense can easily be repackaged as a Taliban-vs-Superpower parable, which the devout worshippers of this garbage might want to think about a minute.

Luckily they won't care, nor need to: like Coach tells his team of earnest empty vessels pregame, the answers are all right here in this Book. And the Christian Right will devour this on their way to their Rapture, that final victory they have prepared their fields for.

Sentiment: negative
Like his earlier film, "In a Glass Cage", Agustí Villaronga achieves an intense and highly poetic canvas that is even more refined visually than its predecessor. This is one of the most visually accomplished and haunting pictures one could ever see. The heightened drama, intensity and undertone of violence threatens on the the melodramatic or farcical, yet never steps into it. In that way, it pulls off an almost impossible feat: to be so over-the-top and yet so painfully restrained, to be so charged and yet so understated, and even the explosives finales are virtuosic feasts of the eye. Unabashed, gorgeous, and highly tense... this film is simply superb!

Sentiment: positive
This is a horrid disaster of a film. From beginning to end, it's filled with bad acting and even worse direction and editing. The only redeeming parts of the film are a few numbers by Streisand, because the Kristofferson parts are impossible to watch or listen to. The main problem of this film is that we never see Kristofferson's character at his peak or Streisand's character struggling. The first should be seen in decline and the second rising. The final Streisand number _could have been_ one of the greatest finales in film, if it was directed and edited properly. The single framed shot of her face for the duration of the song was a terrible mistake. Had the band, audience and wide shots of the stage been shown, this number could have been dynamic and interesting. This film must have been directed and edited by an NYU film school dropout. The only thing worse may be the wretched screenplay. The final musical number is the only redeeming part of this film, and even that is botched completely by misguided technical decisions.

Sentiment: negative
That magical moment in life, that point between the beautiful innocence of childhood, and the confusing whirlwind that marks adulthood . . . this is what this movie is all about. 

Danni (wonderfully played by Reese Witherspoon) is right at that moment in life when the movie starts. She swoons over Elvis, playing his records and wishfully thinking about love. Maureen her sister will soon be off to college, has no trouble with attracting boys, is beautiful, and seems to have it all figured out although she doesn't. She dates a local loser whos father is also after her, and just wishes she could find a decent boy and be swept off her feet. Danni like most young teenagers wishes she could be anyone else but herself because most teenagers think that who they are just isn't good enough. She wants to be Maureen but doesn't see that she is beautiful herself.

The moment adulthood begins to intrude itself upon her life is when she meets Court Foster for the first time. Court whos father has recently died has moved to their old farm to work it with his mother and two younger brothers. He has been thrust responsibility when he should be having fun. On one particular hot day he goes to the pond and jumps in only to find Danni skinny dipping. They yell and argue and Danni leaves. But they see each other a day later when Courts mother is invited to Danni's to visit old friends(Danni's Parents). Danni becomes attracted to Court, and Court to Danni. She is a tomboy and is spunky, has attitude and says whats on her mind. 

Court is 17 and Danni 14 and he knows it but they continue to grow closer with their days at the pond between Court working the farm. By the time Court kisses her one day, Danni is smitten. Danni's father tells her to invite Court to the house and he does. but things are uncomfortable for Court on his "sort of date". The silence though is broken by his meeting with Maureen who has yet to see Court. One look between the two and its all over. The looks of pain and defeat on Danni's face are both beautiful in their trueness to life and painful at the same time. The rest of the movie I will not tell but the movie has more to it than a relationship between a boy and two sisters.

The greatness of the movie is in its depiction of lifes moments both beautiful and painful and the relationship between two sisters whose love is tested by both a boy that they love, and the pain they must endure both together and individually. Danni eventually marks her entrance into the world when she sees that the world is unfair, painful, and maybe even a little less hopeful than when the movie started. Few movies can truly capture the wonder of childhood and the pain of adulthood so perfectly. This movie has since the first time I watched it stuck in my mind. Its in the my Top 100 movie list and deservedly so. I only wish more movies like this were made, because if so . . . my faith in Hollywood would be a lot better.

Sentiment: positive
Well let me just say something about these actors, they really were a good decision, and from experience, having actors really brings the dialogue to life. If you walk into this even fifteen minutes late, you'll be in for a shock, the movie will have already began. You don't want to miss the first few jokes, assuming you came to not miss any jokes.

Wow! I have never seen a movie that ended with such a final ending. Not to be harsh, I mean I loved it, but it just surprised me that it really kept going until it stopped! But i'm getting ahead of myself, lets start with the very start of it, when it began. The plot outline goes like this, there is this man, and not to give away any spoilers, (*Spoiler Alert!!*) (he hasn't had any sex ever(!) they use this plot device to set the story moving, and there are (intentionally or not, it could go either way) some funny situations had by the main characters, some containing irony, and jokes, and awkward situations, you know.

The director uses the advancements in technology by combining the film shot on the set and scripted dialog, some music, and jokes to make a funny movie, designed as a comedy, where he takes us on a journey from the opening credits to the end with an entirely full movie in between. I went into this movie expecting to see a funny comedy because of what I already knew about it, and left feeling as though i had just left a theater that just played a funny comedy. TEN STARS!!!

Sentiment: positive
as a former TV editor, I can say this is as authentic as it gets. It even led to Letterman's producer (thought to be a source) resigning (eventually) in real life. Letterman was outraged (OK, so one goofy thing is it has him throwing softballs at a tire swing on his estate; total fabrication) but the main information is hilariously true, from the silly bidding war for Letterman once he decided to leave NBC to Leno's problems with an agent who was not ready for big time, but who he let run the show (almost to a disastrous exit) out of his famed loyalty. If any of you kids don't grasp the idea of why Letterman is jealous to this day, see this tape.

Sentiment: positive
Most of this film is an alternately hilarious and brutal satire on Nazism and Fascism, made at the height of those movements' success.

Sadly, in the final moments of the film, Chaplin abandons all pretense of making art (not to mention comedy) and switches completely to propaganda. And not anti-Nazi propaganda, either, but some of the most mawkish and idiotic "progressive" propaganda ever to ooze out of Hollywood.

Never mind that nothing we have seen so far indicates that the barber is even capable of giving the speech we see him give (delivered, ironically, with a disturbing wild-eyed fanaticism); such trivialities must not be permitted to interfere with The Message.

Sentiment: positive
In 1984, The Karate Kid had some charm to it, even if it was little more than a poor man's Rocky. Alas, producer Jerry Weintraub failed to realize it was best to leave the story at the point where it had ended, and convinced Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita to make an extra effort to turn the film into a trilogy. Part III was the definitive low in the franchise, yet someone must have thought the series still had some potential. What other explanation could there possibly be for the existence of The Next Karate Kid?

Wait a minute. Next? Yep, Macchio's gone (at least he was smart enough to stop eventually), and his replacement is Hilary Swank (!), playing a troubled teenager (what else?) named Julie Pierce. Now, the girl has family issues. She also gets in trouble at school. Said school has a sadistic gym teacher (Michael Ironside). As it turns out, though, one of his students is actually a nice guy, and Julie falls for him. This gets her in bigger trouble than before, of course. Lucky for her, she is currently living with Mr. Miyagi (Morita), an old friend of her grandfather who happens to know how to get back at the bad guys.

All those factors ad up to seven clichés, and that's just a generic plot summary - imagine what the detailed scenes must be like! From beginning to end, The Next Karate Kid is a tired, flat and dull marathon of idiotic lines and set-ups. Swank does, thankfully, have the likes of Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby to redeem this disaster, but why did Morita accept to come back? He may have received an Oscar nomination for the first movie, and was quite enjoyable in the sequels, but has nothing to speak for him here - even the revival of the "wax on, wax off" gag is stillborn. As for Ironside, he is slightly better than Martin Kove and Thomas Ian Griffith in Part III, but that's hardly a stretch.

So, is this picture really that awful? Not exactly. There is one sequence that manages to achieve a weird beauty, but when the best bit in the whole film involves a group of Asian monks dancing as they hear pop music for the first time in their lives, it doesn't qualify as a recommendation to see the rest.

Sentiment: negative
It's hard to imagine that "The Battle of Elderbush Gulch", directed by the legendary D.W. Griffith, was made a way back in 1914. It is a showcase for Griffith's emerging style.

 The story centers around a group of settlers called the Cameron Brothers and their families which include a young waif (Mae Marsh) sent out from the east to live with her uncles and a young wife (Lillian Gish) who has just given birth. A group of Indians tries to capture the waif's pet dogs and are driven off by the men folk. During the confrontation the Indian Chief's son (Henry B. Wathall) is killed. The Indian chief plots his revenge and launches an attack on the small community of Elderbush Gulch.

 It is this attack, which is quite brutal and graphic for this or any other time, that forms the core of the picture. The Indians slaughter the towns folk, women and children alike and drive them out of town towards the Cameron's homestead. The newborn baby becomes separated from its mother and all hell breaks loose. Someone goes for help and returns in the nick of time with the calvary.

 The battle scenes contain some graphic violence. For example, we see a woman being scalped alive and there is also a sequence where we see a horse being shot down. I have never seen an animal being slain so convincingly on screen. Mr.Griffith was becoming a master of staging large scale battle scenes, a talent that he would use extensively in his epic Civil War drama, "The Birth of a Nation" released the following year.

 Even though it runs a scant 29 minutes, "The Battle of Elderbush Gulch" is nonetheless an exciting and historic bit of film making. See if you can spot Lionel Barrymore and Harry Carey in bit parts.

Sentiment: positive
I saw this tonight with moderate expectations - if Tartan Films have picked up on something and are releasing it the that's generally a good sign, however I'm not normally a fan of Julie Walters, generally disliking her comedy roles (sorry to any fans, but it's a personal thing - I just don't find her funny in comedy).

This was magnificent though - a great performance by all, but Grint and Walters are exceptional! Plenty of laughs, plenty of pathos, great timing and a wonderfully paced film - such a coming of age film wouldn't normally be something I'd expect to like so much but I can't recommend this highly enough - and watch Rupert Grint as he matures into a fine fine actor.

Sentiment: positive
Return of the Jedi is certainly the most action packed of the series, and is a fine conclusion to the Star Wars Saga. With Han Solo imprisoned by Jabba the Hut and the Empire building a new Death Star, the rebel alliance is facing an uphill struggle against the dark side, and only our favourite heroes can pull it off.

The Opening sequence, set on Tatooine, we see Jabba's palace, a pit of slavery and scum, and new home to Han Solo, as Luke and the gang prepare for his rescue, and with Luke's Jedi powers, they have the edge.

We also witness a tremendous triple battle at the end. Han, Leia and Chewy battle it out on Endor, desperate to deactivate the shields protecting the Death Star. The Rebel Fleet led by Lando, battle with the Imperial Fleet while they wait for the shields to go down, and Luke has a final showdown with Darth Vader. An Epic end to a Classic Saga, and it's only just of the pace of the first two.

10/10

Sentiment: positive
I went into this movie with very little in terms of expectations. I went with my girlfriend and two friends, and none of them could explain the story of the Grudge 1 to me. Well, if the first one couldn't leave an impression on them to explain the plot, then I doubted this one would be any better.

Let me summarize what the trailers let you know: The Asian lady is back and so is Sarah Michelle Gellar. Luckily for her, she isn't around very long. That decision may have saved her career.

The movie has three story lines, and none of them make sense. And even worse, none of them are developed. You almost start to understand, and then someone dies and the story gets left behind. Okay, killing people could be scary, but I was left more confused over the attempted plot development than I was frightened. They jump back and forth between all three story lines, which aren't related... OR ARE THEY?!?! *SOUND EFFECTTT*~~~ The timing of the three stories are displaced, and you can tell right at the start that the movie is going to have a twist at the end. BE PREPAREDDD. Oh Wait. Sorry, this isn't a Fight Club or Vertigo quality twist, you could see this one coming from miles away. And probably envisioned a MUCH better twist in your head... they should've hired me. Instead of the girl making her "SURPRISING" appearance, maybe it could've been Michael Jackson instead? That part of Scary Movie 4 scared the crap out of me.

The killing sequences were terribly done. Unlike horror movies of the past, where a killer pops out of nowhere, a closet or behind a door for example, and everyone in the theatre jumps (and subsequently the fat guy behind you spills popcorn down your neck)- this lacked any frightening pop ups. They zoomed in on where the random Asian woman or kid would show up, and you knew exactly what was coming. Instead of having the music get really loud, then quiet, then a pop out to psyche you out, the music actually gave you timing for the scary scene. If I know it's coming, it won't scare me.

The movie began with explaining what the "Grudge" is; when a person is killed during a fit of rage, a curse is placed on the location where she was killed. So why does the Asian lady being cursed by her mother have any significance to the story? And why is the grudge now moving countries? This movie was absolutely terrible.

All it did was leave me begrudging my friends for making me go- we should've seen one of those animated Pixar movies. It would've been scarier.

Sentiment: negative
Outstanding film of 1943 with Paul Lukas giving an Oscar calibrated performance as the head of his family bringing them back to America from Europe as the Nazi menace deepened.

The usual terrific Bette Davis maintains her reputation here and for a change was not nominated for best actress for this or any film of 1943.

Encounting treachery around them, Lukas successfully deals with the situation. He knows he must return to Europe on a clandestine mission and return he does.

Davis again pulls out all the stops with a Katharine Hepburn-like shedding of tears when they must part. Resolute, she knows that her older son, must follow him on his path to liberty.

A wonderful film highlighting American positive propaganda against a wicked foe.

Sentiment: positive