bardo training for the masses

Rating: 2/10 (27 May 2002)

*spoiler warning* Without the performance of Osment, this blockbuster would've been lackluster...It's amazing to me that moviegoers loved the ending but considered the ending of "Jacob's Ladder" a cop-out. Bruce Joel Rubin, a Buddhist, wrote the screenplay to "Jacob's Ladder" to portray the after-death bardo state, but was unable to get it produced, so he wrote a mass-market romantic-comedy version, which won him an Oscar for "Ghost." Perhaps a simplistic version is better than none ("What Dreams May Come"). For great bardo films, see "Mulholland Drive," "Waking Life" or "Dead Man." 4/10