This is a film that really makes me cringe. In 1951, MGM and Looney Toons were making some of their very best cartoons--with amazing animation, exceptional backgrounds and great stories. Then, in the late 40s, a new style of animation began to appear (such as the "Crusader Rabbit" series on TV)--animation with extremely simplistic artwork in order to save money. Unfortunately, Columbia Picture's cynical ploy worked!! Instead of the public hating the toons (as they should have), many accepted them and the Oscar people (AMPAS) actually gave this film the award for Best Animated Short--giving legitimacy for an inferior product. Unfortunately, in the dollars and sense world of Hollywood, this soon began to creep into the products of legitimate studios--resulting in rather crappy cartoons. Later, it got even worse as in addition to lousy animation and backgrounds, the stories themselves became almost unbearable for adults to watch. The cleverness and style of the classic cartoons were gone. And for this tragedy, I blame, in part, GERALD MCBOING-BOING--one of the granddaddies of cheap cartoons. The story isn't that bad but the animation is a horror and listening to the kid saying "boing-boing" incessantly is a pain.


hey ....i really do not know why this film has been appreciated so much,perhaps i missed the point.The way i see it , a lot of international film makers have made brilliant films that have dealt with 'schizophrenia' and have informed ,excited ,shocked,evoked emotion and compelled the audience to step aside from their own reality and think.........while it is true that aparna sen's endeavor was an ambitious one ,in light of all the other movies , this one falls short..... miserably......it was too slow, there were no details about anything and the ending .... was completely ...pointless......it was not open ended or anything ....just pointless.....so watch it if you want to see a good concept completely wasted.......


I've become a big fan of the Carpenters, and I didn't really enjoy this movie.

I feel it focused far too much on her anorexia and didn't let her true personality shine through. I wasn't overly fond of Cynthia Gibb's portrayal; especially knowing she decided Karen's anorexia was suicide, which it clearly wasn't. Although her family was not big on hugs and kisses, I thought the movie portrayed Agnes (their mother) as being terrible.

I did find a few scenes to be harrowing in a way, such as where she sees herself in a mirror that seems to distort her and make her look heavier; I thought the metaphor (so-to-speak) there was rather effective. When the family is playing pool and discussing her divorce and she breaks down and Richard is shocked when he comforts her and feels her frail body was pretty moving (which is probably the wrong word) as well.

Overall, I feel they needed to bring out her more bubbly, quirky side--her genuine personality. Even as the focus of the film, there really wasn't a point that caused one to understand what would lead her to anorexia (though of course no one can really know), and almost made it seem baseless. The film was more poor-singer-with-anorexia than Karen Carpenter's story, in my opinion.

I would assume that they changed her husband's name/profession and all because they couldn't get his permission to actually include him (there were some bad terms there), but that whole aspect was inaccurate with the changes. On this note, I can't recall the movie bringing out her longing for a family and kids, which greatly prevailed in her life and explains her whirlwind romance and quick marriage to her husband.

On the whole, it ends up as a low-budget made-for-TV movie that just isn't very high quality and can be disappointing if you're a hardcore fan who is hoping to see beyond Karen's disease. I feel that such a legend deserves/deserved a better film as a tribute to an amazing person and an awesome voice.


I have been a fan of the Carpenters for a long time, read the biography, watched the specials, and saw the Karen Carpenter Story. This movie really didn't show the real Karen Carpenter. In the movie she seems to be a shy and a pretty much of loner (except for one girl friend). The real Karen Carpenter was much different. She was outgoing and friendly. She had lots of friends, especially Olive Newton-John. The movie doesn't even show Karen's attempts for a solo album and her meeting Phil Ramone and his wife Itchy "Karen". Itchy knew the real Karen Carpenter in New York. When Karen was in New York, she did see a psychologist, but it was voluntary and once a day and then she would leave to go to her hotel room. Also, Karen was taking pills to increase her thyroid, so she could loss weight, but stop taking them because the psychologist recommended her not too. Also, the Karen's husband in the movie is named Bob Knight, but in real life was named Tom Burris. Also, Karen wasn't divorced from Tom, but only separated. Karen was to sign the divorce papers on the day she died. Also, Agnes found Karen naked in the closet unciousness, unlike in the movie where she was dressed in white. The music was very good. That was the only thing I would recommend on seeing it.


I am very diplomatic in my reviews, and as an academic writer, try to give creative license to TV writers trying to explicate a true story. This story, about Karen Carpenter, could have helped so many, yet due to the directing and editing, does not.

The story, in this case, is not fully addressed, unless one reads psychological journals. While Cynthia Gibb portrays a realistic Karen, it is sad that so much has been edited...Louise Fletcher portrays her mother, and does an excellent job, with limited material and dialogue. In this case, I give the actors credit for surviving this project.

Why is the audience not permitted to see causation factors?....American audiences are quite savvy, and if they have cable, usually educated.

I sincerely feel that I could have written a better story, would not have edited out the truth, and allowed the actors to project the reality.

Richard Carpenter, as director, has seriously underestimated and insulted American audiences. Karen's story is important, and it is sad we will never hear it.


This show uses a rather tired sitcom formula of the fat idiot blue collar slob with the pretty (and sometimes shrewish-seeming) wife and crazy in-law(s). With this show, it's fat unfunny comedian Kevin James as Doug Hefferman who works as a delivery driver for a parcel service. He has a pretty wife, Carrie (Leah Remini), who works as legal assistant, and senile father-in-law, Arthur Spooner (Jerry Stiller), who lives in his daughter and son-in-law's basement. Kevin James' Doug is your typical beer drinking, sports loving, TV watching slob of a sitcom husband who would rather watch the tube than deal with his marital issues. He also has a couple of idiot friends who lend extra stupidity to the problems encountered by this show's couple. Beyond the few laughs supplied by Jerry Stiller's crazy old man character this show was generally unfunny. Kevin James' imbecilic behavior usually caused the show's problems that usually resolved by his wife. This show continued a run of sitcoms with the fat stupid father/husband and their pretty wives that all seemed to run on ABC for some reason.


A show about an incredibly dumb, man-child and his shrewish hot wife. 99% of the plots revolves around Doug doing something unbelievably stupid and then comes a variable: a) either he hides it from his wife or b) tell his wife, she emasculates him and then it's up to the father-in-law (Arthur: the typecast character from Seinfeld) to aggravate the situation.

And the writers dare to say it was influenced by the "Honeymooners" (an absolute classic) and that the plots are drawn from real-life situations, unless you live in a cave, you know that's not true.

Anyway, let's just put it this way. If Kevin James had been thin, the show would have got canceled fromm the pilot. If you're 12, or you're fond of fat jokes.. be my guest, watch this show (or any of Kevin James movies for that matter).

I've noticed some posters compare this travesty to much superior shows like Friends, Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond -- I'm still wondering how could anyone do that


This is a lame comedy.

Here's why: A man and wife sitcom. Okay.

The Husband is a douche bag. The Wife is the Einstein.

How original is that?

Jerry Stiller is just the same guy on Seinfeld.

The gags are lame. No witty one-liners.

I have had enough. Stop this now.

The Last Word: Stupid. The destruction of the average white guy continues on ABC. The worst part? Kevin James is actually a funny comedian. He just isn't here. Leah Remini is great eye candy, but is unlikeable. Wasted talent is the word. Bad sitcom.


I can't help but be completely annoyed by this sitcom. It's like they didn't even bothered trying ro write good comedy, just rehash third rate jokes and hope it sticks. The worst of all this is that it's all so damm uninteresting and lacking in every way.

To make things worse leading man Kevin James has a permanent "I'm so funny" smug grin on his face that would be tolerable if only he once delivered in the comedy department, which he doesn't, he just lies there doing nothing like a big unfunny baby. Which takes me to the relationship between the Heffernan's- easily the most insincere and poor representation of a married couple on any TV show, really headache inducingly obnoxious Remini spends the whole show as if it where a violent chore to even be around her own husband. Jerry Stiller yanking the few laughs on the show is doing a 100% repetition of his role as Frank Costanza in Seinfeld only this time his hints mostly tread on water due to the inability of the central duo in recognizing a joke even if it flew by them. The episodes just drift along in a stream of nothingness, their jobs add nothing and their interaction is even worse.

This is not even a waste of talent, there is no talent here, this is a laughless creative desert.


There is not one character on this sitcom with any redeeming qualities. They are all self-centered, obnoxious or two dimensional. My husband watches it, claiming that there is nothing else on, but I would rather watch nothing.

The only sitcom that I can think of that was worse was Yes, Dear. At least that one didn't get 9 seasons.

Being overweight does not make a comic genius, and Kevin James does not have the talent of John Goodman, Jackie Gleason or John Belushi. Leah Remini may have talent, but if so, she is wasted on the shrewish wife. Jerry Stiller is convincing as an annoying old man. Maybe there is a reason for that.

This is a perfect example of why sitcoms are derided.


"When a Killer Calls" is an unusually nasty slasher flick, with some very unpleasant and unsettling sequences. The decision was clearly made to try and cash in on the remake of "When a Stranger Calls" by pretty much putting in -- almost word for word -- the phone call sequences from that movie. They seem very forced.

Additionally, the filmmaker commits the cardinal (but all too common) sin of having the heroine's friends being repulsive jerks. So for the beginning of the film, we really like and are rooting for the babysitter (a nice believable job by Rebekah Kochan), but then she's joined by standard slasher-flick teenage friends and the mood is ruined.

The flick sort of works, but it probably a lot more unpleasant than you'll be expected, so be fore-warned.


To sum it up in a nutshell, this film was disappointing and could have been shortened by twenty minutes.

The acting was sub-par, the only decent actors of the bunch being Trisha, the killer and Molly. The music was slightly lame but fitting and the special effects were much too overused. The story/scriptwriting was poor, the unnecessary torture/romantic scenes being dragged on for way too long and a disappointing ending.

The start of the film was rather slow, the fake-looking gore not much of interest. Trisha arrived at the house, and there was some premise for a good storyline.

Trisha started to receive the threatening phone calls, which heightened the suspense. This momentary suspense, the best feature of the movie began to build, but then the friends crashed the place, wrecking all potential suspense/horror in the film.

The plot then becomes obtuse from here on. Chemistry sparks between the two couples, and then the killer picks off Frank and the other girl. This scene was dragged on and unnecessary.

The killer then makes her way for Trisha and ties her up. There is an overdone torture scene which goes on for at least ten minutes too long. As the gore is done badly this is not entertaining at all, and it bores more than shocks.

In summary, the first thirty minutes of this film sound promising but then poorly written dialogue and general lack of plot ruins this film.

3/10.


i found this movie to be mostly a P.O.S.it was low budget,but that isn't the problem.the problem is,the movie is just lame.it doesn't really make a lot of sense.yes,it does explain why things happened,but that's not what i mean.there was just no reason for it all.the movie also moved very slow.the last ice age was quicker than this.also, i think they went overboard a bit in the kills.i don't mean they were too gross,but the killer just seemed to spend too much time smashing his victim over the head,or stabbing his victim. maybe i'm being petty,but i just didn't like the movie.the whole thing seemed like a lower rate version of "When a Stranger Calls" and maybe that was the whole point.but so what.for me "When A Stranger Kills" is a 4/10*


This movie had horrible lighting and terrible camera movements. This movie is a jumpy horror flick with no meaning at all. The slashes are totally fake looking. It looks like some 17 year-old idiot wrote this movie and a 10 year old kid shot it. With the worst acting you can ever find. People are tired of knives. At least move on to guns or fire. It has almost exact lines from "When A Stranger Calls". With gruesome killings, only crazy people would enjoy this movie. It is obvious the writer doesn't have kids or even care for them. I mean at show some mercy. Just to sum it up, this movie is a "B" movie and it sucked. Just for your own sake, don't even think about wasting your time watching this crappy movie.


When A Killer Calls has got to be the biggest ripoff released by Asylum so far. It's about a sexy babysitter on duty who receives spooky calls from a creepy voice who asks her repeatedly, "Have you checked the girl?" Naturally she has the calls traced by the cops (after having to perform some realistically unnecessary tasks -- hanging up when "he" calls, waiting ten seconds, and dialing *57). Sound familiar? Yeah, that's why I rented it, too.

Well, it should. And I hate to say it, but this could've been more entertaining than the big-screen crapfest that was released around the same time if not for one fatal mistake -- Rather than revelling in B-movie ripoff glory, it tried to do something original. It tried to make the lead character sympathetic, rather than having clichéd, campy fun with her. Mind you, this could've worked with a talented actress. But she wasn't. Sure, she looked good, and she screamed, and cried, but . . . oh well, whatever.

Then came the horrific ending. Not horrific in that it was horrifying, horrific in that it was BORING. The pacing up until that point (about an hour in) was campy, clichéd, and fun. Then it heads in another direction, and it veers away from just another dumb, fun slasher movie with a sexy "teenage" cast to a Hostel-esquire gore/borefest.

I guess this falls into the "Oh well, whatever" category. The lead actress flubbed a line? Oh well, whatever, I don't feel like reshooting it. We forgot to give the killer motivation? Oh well, whatever, I don't feel like rewriting it. The pacing completely changes halfway through? Oh well, whatever, I don't feel like shaving fifteen minutes off. Continuity errors? Oh well, whatever.

If you like this kind of movie (dumb, cheesy, predictable, campy splatter movie with sexy cast), then you'll be fine up until the ending. The ending is stupid, it's not fun, it's not scary, it's not campy or cheesy or quickly-paced. In fact, there was almost exactly five minutes of the character doing nothing but being tied up (and that's not a spoiler because it's on the back of the DVD) and looking around at the stuff in the room, then screaming, and . . . whatever.


this film is basically a poor take on the old urban legend of the babysitter who gets crank calls telling her to check the children, she calls the police who trace the calls and find there coming from inside the house. when a killer calls has a story so simplistic a little kid could have written it. not much suspense, it becomes clear who the killer is halfway through the film. at the beginning, when the first victim is killed it looks like a bondage fetish scene from a porn site or something. whats up with that? the film is oh so typical slasher fare with a plot about as original as a Beatles concert. even by low budget slasher standards its cheesy. don't waste your time with this. nuff said


I would have given this LESS than a 1 rating if it were possible. The entire film should have been left on the cutting-room floor. What a pathetic waste of time, money and effort! Let's see...assemble the prettiest cast you can find (which of course is in direct proportion to the amount of talent they lack)...throw together the thinnest plot you can dig up...and viola! An abominable piece of trash that the director and/or producer should be ashamed to put their name on. How much WORSE can the horror genre get? And don't use "low budget" as an excuse...I have seen many GREAT low-budget films....in fact some of the best horror classics of all time were low-budget. If you don't have the talent and ingenuity to make a GOOD horror film, then for God's sake don't make one at all!!!


This movie probably began with a good idea but that's as far as it went. When I read the cover at Blockbuster I thought it had promise but that was based on the overall idea for the movie. The movie began with a professor talking about how in the future we will be able to see creatures from other dimensions. There was no explanation of how that would happen but that's okay I thought it would be developed that in the movie. It wasn't. In the next scene we see two young men lying on tables with tubes taped to their heads. Beside each one are two attractive women. The men begin asking "Do you hear that" or "Do you see them". We conclude they think they are seeing ghosts or some other creature that seem invisible or they are hallucinating. The women do not see these creatures. This was fine for the first five minutes BUT THIS SCENE GOES ON FOR A FULL HOUR. It is briefly punctuated by flashbacks that have no correlation to the so called "plot" of the film. We are also introduced to a man in a lab coat and what appear to be Middle Eastern terrorists. What is this about? We never find out. The flash backs lead us to believe that the terrorists are forcing the man in the lab coat to perform diabolical experiments on these young people but we never understand why. At the end of the movie the terrorists finally do what terrorists do  they blow up the lab, but why? What is the point? We have no idea. This film contains so many disconnected thoughts and ideas that there are too many to enumerate but one more notable one is that fact that the man in the lab coats and the terrorist pop in and out of the room throughout the movie and not once do the young men attempt to escape or even leave the tables on which they are laying even though they are not strapped down! The makers of the movie also bring in cameo appearances by cockroaches on several occasions but again we never learn what that has to do with the storyline. Sorry but this movie was a waste of $4 and the time I spent driving to the rental store and then watching it. Take my advice. Don't rent it.


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.


Evil Behind You, was created for a specific purpose in mind, to shove the writer/directors personal views on who either gets to walk on water or who gets to dance with the devil. Sadly it would seem that the creators were so focused on making their point that they took it's power away completely by force feeding their point to the viewer.The way its message is presented Almost reminds me of the stories I've heard of the Spanish inquisition! From one real Christian to another, Avoid this like the plague, fear tactics never work when trying to send this kind of message!!

The acting was horrible,the selection of Muslim terrorists was racist and unfair(they're terrorists so they must be Muslims). The premise of this was good, the story provided a great conduit for its message, however it was the execution of these ideas that fell short making it very difficult to even separate the message from the messenger so to speak.

You'd be better off dusting off your old "Ghost" DVD with Mr Swayze to better receive this message. at least that movie didn't try to shove itself down your throat. Or if you like Good Christian movies with a powerful message, try "End of the Spear"


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!


Do not waste your money or time. Terrible movie. Bad acting, plot all over the place. Really, really bad acting. Man, this movie is just plain bad. I shut it off at 7 minutes. The script is bad, the directing is bad, it seems to me that a high school group got together to do a project for their drama class. Yes, it's that bad. The acting is not convincing at all, mind you I saw only 7 minutes of it. How this movie made it to DVD, is beyond me.

It should have been left in the editing storage room. I saw the cover and thought it was pretty cool, I sure's heck won't do that next time :_)


I am completely into this type of story line but once the movie fired up, I honestly said out loud, " I just rented a two dollar budget Christian POS". The only thing I could find to like about this film was it has a descent story but it was awfully executed. Horrible actors, horrible direction and producing.

The director and producer need to go watch the cube before trying to pull off a movie in a single room. There was absolutely nothing that kept you intrigued to the point that you didn't notice you were in the same room the entire movie. Horrible! The two main actresses were very easy on the eyes and you could tell that was the director counting on to hold your attention. But these two and their bios can speak to this, are horrible in front of the camera.

Don't rent this. Unless you are blind, because it might go up a few stars if you only listen to it.


All those who are into the PC culture are aghast at the dogmatic Christian view of this film, claiming it contains racist ideation and/or religious intolerance.

Those who don't care about this, but are oriented towards slick production values and competent acting are dismayed at the lack of such here.

Those who decry both of these are apoplectic that this production was let loose on the general public, as evidenced in comments here.

What is an interesting premise, which isn't original, but is a combination of GHOST and FROM BEYOND, is dealt with in a rather immature manner in this film, yet done with gusto. What the crew and actors lacked in sensibility, professional abilities and technical expertise is somewhat offset by the intensity they display.

It isn't nearly as bad as many here think, and would have been fine in the hands of someone with maturity and common sense, and it is enough below mediocrity to elicit laughs and groans. However, it unfolds with enough intensity to keep interest throughout, and is close to on par with a Corman-produced entry of his earliest period of work, or the material of Arkoff or Sam Katzman. If you get it for $2 (or less) as did I, you won't feel disappointed, but will wish you could have had a say in how it was made.


I did and I lost two and a half hours of my life that I can never regain again.

I honestly have no idea what the critics and fans see in this movie. And that's not because I can't appreciate "art". I love a good film with profound messages, brilliant cinematography, and great directing.

This film just isn't one of them.

My main complaint about this film is that it's so horribly slow-paced, to the point of boring its audience to death. On the other hand, sequences of dialog go by too quickly and there's not enough exposition to let people who haven't read the book know what's going on (My mother had mercy on me and explained everything before I watched it). Would it have killed them to hire a narrator? At least for the beginning and the end?

Let me break it down for you: (Spoilers throughout)

For the first two minutes you are treated to a black screen with no music, waiting for the actual movie to begin.

For the following minute and a half, you see several pictures of sunrises and savanna landscapes. Like the audience couldn't figure out how to set the scene unless they saw the establishing shot three or four times.

The next eleven minutes are occupied with the grunting monkeys. They fight, see the monolith, fight some more, pommel things with a bone. Supposedly they are prehistoric men whose evolution is being influenced by the monolith's singing. Not that you could tell if you hadn't read the book.

*Finally* we get into space. Only to be subjected to twelve minutes of ships slowly spinning to the Blue Danube Waltz (A pretty quick-tempo-ed waltz as I understand, yet here it feels absolutely agonizing). At last we get some innocuous dialog and rather cryptic exposition about the government not letting people land on the moon. We are left to wonder about this for fourteen more minutes of Blue Danube and spinning ships and neat camera tricks with anti-gravity.

Next comes four minutes of watching a ship travel over the surface of the moon and dock at a space station. We get a little more exposition in a board room scene that follows. Then we're back outside traveling at a snail's pace over the moon. A second monolith is revealed, again filling our ears with that horrible ringing (I had no idea that was an actual piece of music!). The monolith does its little light show and then the plot jumps forward.

*Seven* minutes of watching the ship to Jupiter travel. By this point in time my brains had turned into mush. Could it be moving any slower? Maybe it's "realistic" to portray it as such, but we still don't need to see five or six different shots of the same thing to grasp the concept of its "realism". Let me tell you about this "realism" thing; I cheered when the secondary astronaut character died. Not because I'm a sadist and like watching people die, but because after five minutes I was just so annoyed at the sound of his darn breathing! I'm supposed to care about this character, feel when he dies! Instead I found myself waiting for blissful silence whatever way it came.

Anyway, now we get to the most interesting part of the film-the part with HAL. Forget Dave the stick-of-wood protagonist. The real star of the show is that coldly impersonal, chillingly villainous, ruthlessly merciless bad guy of a computer. He's great. And the "Open the pod bay doors" sequence is wonderful. But it's too short. And it's not long before the director once again lapses into too-long goings on.

Four minutes for HAL to die. And die he does. Slowly, painfully, losing intelligence with every minute, voice getting lower and slower, singing "Daisy, Daisy", all with a low and constant hissing that becomes just as annoying as the heavy breathing.

Seven minutes of flying colors as Dave enters the monolith. Seven. I could FEEL my brains melting and dripping out of my ears! Seven full minutes of absolutely nothing but some guy's whacked out psychedelic version of space travel, again with that thrice-cursed chorus! We got the idea at the beginning of the sequence! Why drag it out so long? Unless he wanted to make LSD users go psychotic and have flashbacks.

I'm not even going to try to explain the ending, mostly because I don't quite get it myself. Supposedly he's in an alien research laboratory and they're teaching him deep and profound things while he watches himself getting older and older and then they send him back to earth as some kind of cosmic celestial space baby. None of this comes across in the film. For all you know, it's just a sequence of images with no purpose or plot whatsoever. A lot of the movie felt that way.

The first time I tried watching this movie I gave up halfway through. The second time I suffered through this sore excuse for a film, it was to help my sister time the sequences to see how long they lasted. It's that boring.

Call this crummy film "art" if you wish. I wouldn't. I've seen more interesting "art" in the local museum. And I am never subjecting myself to this kind of suffering ever again.


2001 is one of those movies where, if you don't like it, you are told that you don't 'get it' and need to look at the deeper meaning and symbolism. You're told that you clearly have a slow attention span, and just want to see sex, explosions, and have the plot handed to you on a platter.

Let's break down the movie shall we? Three minutes of blackness, with something that sounds like a dying hippo in the background. Then we get the opening credits. A minute of fascinating shots of the Savannah. Then a bunch of monkeys find a black rock and start killing things with bones. Cut to the first of many 20-minute shots of ships doing things while the 'Blue Danube' plays in the background. A bunch of pointless dialogue, and a group of moon scientists find another monolith.

Cut to a spaceship that's too long for the crew complement--three sleeping people, two people named Dave and Frank, who have only slightly more personality than the stiffs in hibernation. And then there's HAL, the 'perfect' supercomputer who runs the ship. Predictably, he snaps and starts breaking the First Law of Robotics. Now this is something that has potential. An evil, coldly ruthless super-mind who controls the surrounding environment and can predict your every move. And what does he do? He lets one guy float into space and turns off the hibernation machines so the three sleeping guys die, leaving Dave floating in a pod. He simply uses the airlock, puts on a spacesuit, and turns HAL off--agonizingly slowly. Then, apparently, there's some psychedelic 'evolution' at Jupiter.

Here's the movie with the pauses taken out: Apes see monolith, kill things. Scientists find moon monolith. HAL kills people. HAL dies; Dave gets a prerecorded message, and evolves at Jupiter.

This is not me 'not getting it.' This is me being bored to tears by long stretches of absolutely nothing. Sure, it's realistic, but I find I have no reason to care. No matter the message, no movie can be good without being entertaining. Frankly, every character could be replaced with Keanu Reeves, and nothing would change.


I will never get back the three hours of life this film has stolen from me.

The film is basically a psychedelic drug trip disguised as an important creative process. I'd love to know what they were on when this film was being made.

Its also the most historically-inaccurate film in existence; 2001 has come and gone without any of the events or predictions taking place.

Characters are unlikeable, design is simplistic and everything just rambles on without any sense or logic to it.

And the ending is probably the worst of it: its supposed to be thought-provoking but the only thought that entered my mind is "What the F$*K is going on?!"

I'd say for anyone looking for serious entertainment purposes, AVOID this film at all cost and choose a sci-fi movie that ISN'T stuck up its own @$$.


I didn't like this movie for many reasons - VERY BORING! It was interesting how they thought what the future would look like in this, but seriously I was very bored watching this. There was hardly any action. Although the Classical orchestra soundtrack was very nice. The visuals were very creative. Whenever this movie pops on TV, I feel like changing the station instantly. Not because it is a bad movie, just because I know what I am in for when watching this - complete and total boredom. It is a movie I saw when I was young, but I never got into the science fiction thing... because it simply wasn't real. Just like this movie - very unrealistic. I never understood half the movie anyway.


Wow, well, you know those shock things they use in hospitals to get your heart pumping again? I needed one for my brain after watching this movie. It literally took me almost 4 hrs in total to watch because I had to take a break and restart my brain to semi-normal functionality every so often. I mean this movie goes soooooo slooooow its ridiculous, to say that the script had about 10 pages of dialogue would be generous. They just don't talk!! And while talking isnt everything, and i admit there were some scenes where only the music was necessary, and the music is great, that was probably the best part, but then go listen to a symphony or something and forget about the movie. So many people give this awesome reviews, and for its time, i'd say the special effects and filmography is quite good, but as for the acting, or lack thereof, it just needed a little something more, no shootem ups or sex etc., profanity isnt even required, but a little more emotion, these guys were like stones, just sitting there with long faces. All in all, if you need something to calm yourself down, just play the movie, dont even start at the beginning if you've seen it before, just start anywhere, lay down, and relax, it'll put you right to sleep.


Very strange screenplay by Cameron Crowe (following on the heels of his "Fast Times at Ridgemont High") has little inspiration and flails away at dumb gags. At least "Fast Times" had a fair share of satire and sensitivity behind its slapstick (courtesy of a good director, Amy Heckerling, and Crowe's undeniable penchant for capturing letter-perfect teen-speak); here, Chris Penn (Sean's brother, natch) is the goof-off who makes life hell for straight arrow Eric Stoltz, and the filmmakers seem to think he's hilarious. Jenny Wright has some good moments as a mall-worker, but Illan Mitchell-Smith is lost in a head-scratching subplot about a teen who seems to be infatuated with a shell-shocked ex-soldier. Queasy, confused nonsense given a shiny sheen and a soundtrack full of pop-rock tunes, but characters one would hope to avoid. Supporting players Lea Thompson, Rick Moranis, Lee Ving, and Sherilyn Fenn are wasted in stupid roles. * from ****


Terrible. The only way I could even begin to consider it funny is if it made fun of itself. "Amazing. It's about an ass that fights crime. And he drinks/smokes! How very funny! It's funny because where most people put things in their mouth, he puts them in himself! And now he's getting sexual service from some lady! This show is so great!" That is what I would have to say if I liked the show, though I'm sure you can see the obvious sarcasm. I've noticed some people have been comparing this show to 12 oz. Mouse and Squid Billies. Why would you even try? There's nothing to compare. The other two shows actually have some decent character development. In conclusion, I hate Assy Mcgee. I twinge at the name of it.


Though the Our Gang comedies still have their followers, I've got to say that their attempt to graduate to feature films, courtesy of Hal Roach came up way short. Why did Roach have to pick the Civil War as is subject with all the attendant racism that would follow.

Dashing southern cavalier Phillips Holmes takes in young orphan Spanky McFarland and his young black friend Buckwheat Thomas after Spanky inadvertently exposes a card cheat on a riverboat. All is placid and serene in the Old South and then the Civil War comes to ruin it for everybody.

But even children can charm the worst in the world and there's none worse than those damn Yankees. They just come south and ruin it for everybody.

Criticized though it was for its southern viewpoint, Gone With The Wind did make a good case for the southern cause and the blacks portrayed even though servile which they would be out of necessity are still three dimensional characters. Hattie McDaniel would not have won her Oscar if it were not so. Butterfly McQueen's character of Prissy as silly and vacuous as she was has some dimension.

Here though is maybe some of the worst racial stereotyping ever brought forth in Hollywood. The companionship of Spanky and Buckwheat does show that kids get along, racial feelings are acquired not inbred. It's not the servility of the blacks that's objectionable, but there total acceptance of it. Right from that horrible watermelon song, sung over the title credits, the message of General Spanky is a bad one.

Yet it did get an Oscar nomination for Sound recording, probably one of the very few Hal Roach ever got out of the short subject field.

General Spanky is far from Gone With The Wind though.


OUR GANG got one chance at a feature film in its 22 year history, and this was the best that could be done? It's boring, forced and pointless, and I must respectfully disagree with the other poster on this film; the 1994 LITTLE RASCALS remake was better than this. Almost anything is. The kids are subordinate to the Civil War proceedings; it doesn't feel like an OUR GANG film at all, but like a humorless second-rate Shirley Temple clone.


Lou Costello (sans Abbott) plays a small town self-employed "rubbish collector" (and the inventor of a time-controlling machine!) who is secretly courting the niece of the town big-shot. After a spat, Lou's girl (Dorothy Provine) runs into a misty cave--why it's misty we never learn--and emerges as a 30 foot giant. Provine is certainly a good sport, and she doesn't bother trying not to look ridiculous (it would've been impossible anyway), yet the screenwriter is really cruel to this character, turning her not only into a giant but a nagging harpy as well. Provine bosses Costello around while creating havoc with the Army troops who get called in, but nothing funny is done with the transformation. Trumped by "Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman" the previous year, the film does feature Lou Costello in his final bow, but provides little else. The special effects are marginal, while the script needed funnier lines and the direction snappier pacing. *1/2 from ****


"May contain spoilers" Sadly Lou Costellos' last film has the distinction of being slightly better than Abbott & Costello's last movie together "Dance With Me Henry". This movie isn't all in all outright terrible it is an amusing career misfire. Dorothy Provine is nice to look at and makes the movie somewhat bearable. You can't blame Lou Costello for this because a major studio released it which meant somebody had to give it the "green" light. In my opinion Lou Costello was getting over problems of his own losing his son a few years earlier and the unwarranted attacks from the IRS. If you look at the last 3-4 Abbott & Costello movies you can notice the magic was gone. Check out "Dance With Me Henry" now that's a painful movie to watch.


Dorothy Provine does the opposite here: She keeps growing and growing. I didn't detect any subtext, though. "The Incredible Shrinking Man" and other movies of its ilk during the period were parables about radiation, nuclear war, and other horrors. Provine's growth is the result of an inept computer/robot.

And who operates this computer but Lou Costello! I like some of his movies with Bud Abbott. But, though this is a pretty bad movie, he does fine without him. And Gale Green is an excellent foil.

Green plays the pompous town big shot. He is Provine's father. He is intent on being elected Mayor. So when his beloved daughter starts having issues, he dumps her. He doesn't exactly dump her but gives up his battle against her longtime admirer Costello.

This is pretty implausible: Costello is the local garbage collector.

The special effects are minimal. And the subplot involving the military is lame in the extreme.


I am a huge Robert Taylor fan and I have been trying to find all of his films. This is one I did not have, but I watched it recently on Fox Movie Channel, and was very disappointed. I know he was a contract player with little control over his scripts, but the acting was as bad as the script. Victor McLaglen was even bad, and Brian DonLevy was almost unrecognizable. Considering the relations off screen between Taylor and Stanwyck, it was surprising how little chemistry there was on screen between the two of them. But the premise of the film was so ridiculous: that the President of the U.S. would order a Navy Lt to leave the service secretly to hunt down bank robbers, and report only to the President, that it made it hard to appreciate anything else about the film. The death row scenes were entirely unmoving. The only thing worse than Taylor's acting was Stanwyck's singing. She got better later in Ball of Fire-thank heavens.


Divorced single mom in picturesque seaside town finds an anonymous love letter and allows it to spur into action her dormant love life. Pet project for actress/co-producer Kate Capshaw, who gives a warm, nicely-modulated lead performance, yet this story is so slim and the direction and editing so erratic that a faint dissatisfaction creeps in. Initially, Capshaw's Helen envisions several of her friends reading the love letter to her (an interesting visual joke) but the first person they do this ploy with is Ellen DeGeneres, who doesn't play a lesbian but who comes off as one because of this gimmick. Different ideas are flayed about in the hopes that one would stick, and the continuity is extremely choppy. Supporting cast (including Tom Selleck and Tom Everett Scott, who mostly acts with his shirt off) is very good, but they can't save the final act, which is disappointing. Low-keyed, in a quirky, pleasant way, but it is blandly good-natured, nothing more. **1/2 from ****


I must be honest, I like romantic comedies, but this was not what I had hoped for. I thought Ellen Degeneres was having the biggest part, which should have been, because I didn't like the two struggling bed partners. It was awful. Poor Tom Selleck!! He had to act with someone who was that much in the picture while it should have been him and Ellen to be in most of the film. They were the only believable ones. And the only really funny parts starred them, not Kate Capshaw and that Everett guy.. Cool that mummy is coming out of the closet, I thought that was a nice surprise.

I'm just glad I saw it on the cable and I didn't pay any money renting it..


This film is about a mysterious love letter that turned 4 people's love life upside down.

The idea of the film is interesting, and the film could have been funny. However, this film is simply what a romantic comedy should not be. The characters are inadequately introduced at first, so it gets so confusing. The supporting characters come and go without adequate reasons, as if they exist just for one particular scene and then vanish into thin air. The pacing is awfully slow, that it makes 90 minutes seem more like 180 minutes.

It could have been romantic and funny, but this film spectacularly failed to do either.


First of all, Blythe Danner doesn't look anywhere NEAR old enough to play Capshaw's daughter (and in fact she isn't -- only ten years apart).

I understand this is supposed to be one of those magical, Moonstruck type supernatural romances but this is beyond the pale. Very, very weak in terms of acting, script and direction.

The only one who really shines here is Ellen DeGeneres, who makes this film watchable -- if not really believable herself as she's cast as a bit of a heterosexual sex hound. But endearing nonetheless. Actually, DeGeneres and the skin shots of the young guy Capshaw dallies with together make this watchable. But no one can really tell if Capshaw is really in love with the young guy or not; neither the script nor her acting pull it together for us and we're left to wonder how she really feels.


"The Love Letter" is one of those movies that could have been really clever, but they wasted it. Focusing on a letter wreaking havoc in a small town, the movie has an all-star cast with nothing to do. Tom Selleck and Alice Drummond had so recently co-starred in the super-hilarious "In & Out" (also about an upset in a small town), in which they were both great, but here they look as though they're getting drug all over the place. I can't tell what the people behind the camera are trying to do here (if anything), but they sure didn't accomplish anything. How tragic, that a potential laugh riot got so sorrowfully wasted.


This is a movie about people receiving a love letter. Nobody knows who sent in and nobody knows who it is for. A good cast, headed up by Kate Capshaw, Tom Selleck and Ellen DeGeneres. This, however, is a completely dopey plot. As an example, the Capshaw character, one of the leading citizens of a small town in New England, takes up with an immature college student who works in her bookstore during the summer. She chooses him instead of Tom Selleck, the town firefighter who is crazy about her. If that isn't the epitome of stupidity, I don't know what is. Just an example of how dopey this movie is. Watching Kate Capshaw jog is a pleasure, but you immediately realize that she has never jogged a day in her life. Another obviously dopey part of a dopey movie.


A movie about a mysterious love letter that puts a small town on its ear should be fun, romantic and easy-going entertainment. Instead this movie is more about things not said and not expressed, so it gets to the point where you are grateful anything is said at all, even if the dialogue is not exactly quotable.

SPOILER --

When the relationship that says the most is the one least seen on the screen (Danner and McEwan), you know you're in trouble. But those two actresses are a very welcome sight in a movie screaming for some genuine people.

END OF SPOILER

Capshaw is given the task of creating a character from not much and she is not entirely successful. Like I said above, the theme seems to be repression and I understand that is an element of life and love but I don't want to see a movie about it either, at least not this one.

I can't recommend this at all, despite the very talented cast who are left to fend for themselves.


**Possible Spoilers**	From Dreamworks and director Peter Chan, `The Love Letter' is a romantic comedy that takes place in a picturesque, New England coastal village where single mom Helen (Kate Capshaw) owns a quaint, little bookstore. One day at work, Helen happens across an anonymous letter (the `love letter' of the title) that has somehow become lodged beneath the cushions of a reading couch. Upon reading the amorous prose therein, she believes it has been written to her, purposely placed in the couch for her to find, and, for reasons of her own, thinks she knows the identity of her secret admirer. Inadvertently, however, Helen leaves the letter out where her employee, Janet (Ellen DeGeneres) finds it, believes it to be for her, and, of course, thinks she knows who wrote it. Circumstances then bring it into the possession of a young man named Johnny (Tom Everett Scott), who thinks Helen has written the letter to him. And before it all gets sorted out, you can only imagine the hilarious situations into which all of those involved have been cast; and I do mean imagine, because the way this movie plays out, the audience gets little more from it than what it brings along itself. There are two specific areas in which this romantic comedy fails miserably: It simply isn't very romantic, and it's not funny; and that is a potent combination that causes this film to misfire practically from the opening credits. Once the setting and main character (Helen) have been established, it basically goes nowhere for the next ninety minutes or so. By the time you finally find out who actually wrote the letter, and to whom, you could care less. Rounding out the cast is Tom Selleck, Blythe Danner, Julianne Nicholson, Gloria Stuart and Geraldine McEwan. It's a shame to see such talent wasted on such claptrap as this, and looking bad in the balance. Kate Capshaw, who usually brightens up the screen just by showing up, looks tired here, while Selleck appears to have just come in off a three day bender that's lasted a week. Ellen DeGeneres actually comes away looking the best of the bunch. It is said that the journey is often a more heady experience than the destination. In the case of `The Love Letter,' however, it would have been best for all concerned if everybody had just stayed home in the first place. I rate this one 1/10.


Don't waste your time. The plot drags, the characters are wooden and uninteresting, the motivations of their actions are completely indecipherable. Kept waiting for the "romantic" or "comedy" to occur, and nothing happened. Worse yet, the love letter isn't even romantic, but sounds like it was written by someone desperate to make a deadline. Did I mention that the "plot twist" which we saw coming from 15 mins into the movie was "Hollywood clever", meaning it is intended to shock, but given the Hollywood mentality- does nothing of the sort, and instead is vaguely offensive.

It's not even worth the $2 to rent. Don't bother seeing it.


I liked most of the dialogue, I liked the cast, I thought it was well acted. I particularly enjoyed Ellen DeGeneres' perfect deadpan performance.

What didn't work for me was: (1) the drawn-out affair with the younger man (too long, too seemingly out of character for Helen), (2) the seemingly endless cinematic cliches, mostly visual but including interminable voiced over re-readings of the love letter itself (its contents should have a mystery); (3) a young woman feminist-scholar and, ironically, a fireworks scene (no wonder this reminded me of that horrid How to Make an American Quilt movie); (4) the bumbling "gotcha" cop who smells "dope" everywhere (no cliche there either!); and (5) a nauseatingly romanticized small town setting.

I would have preferred the film to more persuasively explore the source of (or even glorify) Helen's bitterness, to have included much more of DeGeneres' character, to have eliminated or reduced the various intergenerational artifices, and to be a little less uncritical of small town life.

Had it been developed as a play first, those criticisms might have been addressed before committing the material to this film, which unfortunately is decidedly mediocre.


A really funny story idea with good actors but it misses somehow. The actors are older but none of them looked particularly good. They needed better make up,photography or something.It is supposed to be a love story and yet the film had more of the rough look of a street film. I liked the cast but I think the performances were rather bland. This is where the weakness of the director shows. Perhaps if Mrs. Spielberg had Mr. Spielberg directing it would have been a much better film.


The person making taffy in this movie was so realistic. That person must have been trained so well! If I were buying taffy from the store featured in this fine romantic comedy, I would demand to be served by the guy who trained the person who played the guy selling taffy.


I loved the first 15 minutes, and I loved some of the dialogue in the tribunal--which proved to be the best showcase for the director's ahead-of-its-time method acting technique--but this movie ultimately disappoints. Even when viewed purely as a metaphor of the oppressor/oppressed dynamics that were and are prevalent in the relationship between the US government and its more "disobedient" citizens, it still lacks punch and believability, and ultimately left me looking at my watch hoping the obvious ending would happen already.

And for the record: despite rampant rumors to the contrary, this movie has never been banned in the US (I can't comment on the rumors of UK censorship, but I'm suspicious). Hollywood refused to distribute it after its initial film festival showing, and I am more than willing to believe the Nixon government had some influence on this decision; however, the fact that it never appeared on American television is merely a reflection of this medium's rather careful and advertising-driven fashion of doing business. As for the present, you can have your very own copy of the DVD delivered to your door via Amazon in a few days.


Committed doom and gloomer Peter Watkins goes slummin' across the pond to take on the American justice system circa 1971 with this priceless piece of zeitgeist paranoia that leans so far left it falls over constantly. Watkins is pure tourist as he assembles this our gang tragedy with cliché freaks, hippies and black revolutionaries pitted against trigger happy cops and military and a kangaroo court tribunal made up of disapproving calcified adults making poor fashion statements. Talk about a revolution.

In Punishment Park we have radical youth versus corrupt system as dissenters convicted of crimes are given the choice of imprisonment or a three day trek across Punishment Park (Death Valley) and freedom. Of course the law enforcement officials monitoring their journey aren't about to play fair and combined with the stifling heat the fate of our protagonists looks sealed.

Punishment Park has elements of Kafka in setting as well as theme. Trials are held under a large canvas tent where shackled prisoners shout defiance at a hardcore love it or leave it group of inquisitors (such as members of Silent Majority for a Peaceful America) who snarl back. Neither group spends much time listening to the other and the proceedings sometime takes on a teen parent battle over the keys to the car look. Mostly its just one side saying what's wrong with America the other saying what's right with no one offering solutions for change. Meanwhile the Punishment Park martyrs stumble endlessly about the dessert while cops with guns act like twelve year olds. It kind of has the look and feel of some of my 70's college film making class when we were younger and knew more then than we do now.

Peter Watkins has always been on the side of the underdog and the common man against what he perceives as a corrupt powerful few. Culledon was a strong indictment of military atrocity in 18th century Scotland that still resonates. War Game is a raw sobering look at nuclear aftermath that should be required viewing for all. Punishment Park has its value as well but for other than intended reason. Watkins vision today is a textbook example of the left in full tilt counter culture 70s paranoia and given the times ( Vietnam, Kent State, The Chicago 7) such strident hysteria seemed not that great a distance from the truth. But 35 years later the fever has subsided and Punishment Park with it's unrestrained narrow viewpoint is a pretty silly ride.


Done in a mock-documentary style, late 60's subversives and supposed detractors of the mainstream government are arrested and given a choice. Upon sentencing for their wrong doings,there is a choice of going to prison for 7 years to life or spending three days and two nights in a southern California desert at Punishment Park. In the 100 degree heat, the prisoners are to trek fifty some odd miles to an American flag for their freedom. US and state law enforcers will follow two hours latter. If the dissidents are captured it means prison.

Appearing in this pseudo-documentary: Carmen Argenziano, Katherine Quittner, Mary Ellen Kleinhall, Stan Armsted, Scott Turner, Patrick Boland and Kent Foreman.


This movie should have been called "The Eyes of Alexander", and they should have done away with the Bogart concept altogether. The film started out with a lighthearted approach to Bogart's legacy and some comical moments with his surgery oriented face, but after the first 15-30 minutes it morphs into a more serious thriller, where two palm size sapphires, purportedly laid as eyes into a marble headpiece of Alexander the Great, for him, and seen by him, right before his death. So the gems are of great value not only because of their quality and size, but also because of the tie to the Greatest conquerer the world has ever known. Being an expert on Alexander qualifies me to say that this is wholly and completely a fiction, but it makes for a good movie anyway. So the film winds around some early silliness and stumbles along with all sorts of Alexander allusions in both the foreground and background (which I really liked), ending with a dated shark attack (you couldn't go to a movie in '79-'80 without some shark showing up to menace the audience). There is a yacht named Euridice (Alexander's father's young wife), a man named Alexander, Philip, Cleitus?, (it's been about 5 years since I've seen the film, so can't remember all the details), Olympias, some street names, and many others. It was fun to watch the film just to try to catch all the background details that the director (obviously an Alexanderphile himself) put in. When all is said and done, the eyes are retrieved and the camera pans in on them on a bed as the credits roll by. Kind of a neat ending. What would have been more fun would be if they went the Indiana Jones way and had an action adventure. There were many, many real artifacts that could have been used to make this more interesting, or instance, the hand-annotated (by Aristotle) version of the Iliad that Alexander kept with him all his life, even on his many journeys across Asia (would be of incalculable value if found today). Olivia Hussey (my all time favorite b-movie actress)is killed off way too early, and should have been the main actress throughout, not the girl from the Momma's and the Poppa's...though she was herself easy on the eyes. If you can find this flick, it might be worth checking out for the historical stuff and to see Olivia Hussey in an extremely funny deadpan humor bit early on, but beyond that, I'd pass on it for something more entertaining.

Yours, Nick


The Man with Bogart's Face sets it self up to mine the viewers nostalgia for the late 30's-late 40's film era. It fails miserably for several reasons. First, Sacchi, while looking reasonably like Bogart and even speaking like him on occassion and using his mannerisms, completely lacks any of Bogart's charisma or acting ability. This is really apparent whenever Sacchi is not clearly imitating a scene from one of Bogart's films. Second, the film does not have the first rate character actors Bogart was able to work with. There are no Peter Lorre's or Sydney Greenstreet's in this one, folks. Sure we are treated to performances by Victor Buaeno, Olivia Hussey and George Raft amongst others, but they just aren't of the same caliber (or aren't given enough screen time or are miscast). Third, the attempts at "modern" humor all fall through. All of the underwear jokes, having Marlowe almost *never* remove that damn hat and trench coat (even though Bogart would have), etc. just aren't funny and really pull down this film. Fourth, I've never heard a goofier theme song this side of Mitchell. Finally, the film's false reverence for Bogart (and other classic actors work) is truly irritating. Bogart almost *never* played a straight hero, on those occasions he was a hero. He played complicated characters. This movie makes Bogart out to be a trigger-happy, moralistic do-gooder. While this may have been true about some film characters, Bogart's characters rarely fit that bill. It's movies like this that make people unexposed to the cinema of the past think that all of it is hokey, "good guy beats the bad guys and gets the girl" crap with low production values.


The screenplay is the worst part of this film, as it lurches from one premise to the next, missing all the important bits that would have made a number of different stories possible. (This film is confusing, because the audience doesn't know what the story is.) I had no problem with the low-production values and the acting wasn't great, but this is telly, so it was fine. I don't mind if some scenes looked like they were done in one take. But having such a non-sensical screenplay is completely unnecessary. Did any executive actually read it before forking out the cash? Avoid this at all costs.

The prologue in particular was so poorly written, it needed a voice-over to fill in all the details that had been left out. The prologue was rushed, it wasn't clear what was happening, ie. The Russian Revolution was reduced to "Some riots are happening in Petersburg", with the next scene being soldiers arresting them. I know the basic history of the Revolution, so I could fill in the details, "those pesky Communists". The prologue is best ignored.

This could have been a thoughtful study of a person who is confused about who she is. It sets up this premise in the asylum. It could then have her struggling to identify herself for the rest of the film. No. Gone. The film assumes she is who she says she is (even though there is still no empirical evidence.) It sets up a melodramatic romance, a love so strong, it'll believe anything she says. Okay, a soppy romance. No, because it makes no sense. The love interest seems like a crazed (and incidentally, sleazy) lunatic, bursting out in wild gestures. This also doesn't work, because the film stupidly decides to tell the truth in the monologue at the end. They never got married and she returned to America. The love story collapses. Despite there being plenty of love scenes, I was never convinced of the reason that they were in love. I find rom-com romances more convincing, despite there only being one or two scenes which establish that they've even spent any time with each other.

It could have been a thriller-type thing where the film assumes she is who she says she is, and she struggles to prove her identity. No, the court case is summed up rather than dealt with. The bizarre voice over comes back, again to fill in the details of a better film.

The funniest thing to consider is what really happened. Anna Anderson was a loony who went to America and married another loony and they did crazy things together. Throughout her life, she had bouts of lunatic behaviour. None of this in the film either. There's a really annoying character in the asylum who crops up from nowhere and announces herself as a 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next/'Twelve Monkeys'-type informant. Thankfully, she vanishes, having brought nothing to the story.


Young spinster, who doesn't associate with women her own age and is eyed by gentleman from the retirement set, invites an apparently mute young man into her apartment on a rainy day. Nervous and overly-polite to hide her own sexual insecurities, she is most pleased when the boy makes himself to home in her guest bedroom...but not so happy when he begins sneaking out the window at night. Sandy Dennis is not a hapless actress, but why she was attracted to these sad-sack roles I guess we'll never know. Based on a book by Richard Miles, and about as far removed from a commercial drama as one could get, this lurid material not only attracted Dennis but also director Robert Altman (whose work is static, at best). The narrative seems almost a sex-reversal of "The Collector", a tag which may have sold the film-rights but which doesn't turn out to be a good idea cinematically. Even the film's best sequence (Dennis shopping for a prostitute to satisfy her prisoner) doesn't quite come off, with Sandy acting both ill and indignant (whose idea was this plan?). Michael Burns is quite good as the kid who uses this frumpy, pasty-sick woman just for her comfy digs, but he's handled too bashfully by Altman, with lots of strategically-placed towels and flesh-colored undies (Altman clearly wasn't ready for a mature picture with adult themes at this point). Sandy Dennis has a handful of very good scenes; she doesn't chatter away mindlessly here, she thinks before she speaks and she's alarmingly careful in her actions. Unfortunately, the role itself is a bummer, with an apparent slide into mental deterioration which seems to happen off-screen. As such, the abrupt finale is maddening, and the overall results tepid. *1/2 from ****


I thought this movie was going to be a disgrace to the series. After all, part 3 didn't measure up to part 2, and this one doesn't have Daniel Sawn. Miyagi's humour wasn't quite as witty in this one as in part 3, but it was funny enough to make the movie worth watching.

The girl's part was pretty good. She's a lost teenager who needs direction. I find the plot a little hard to believe. That the aunt would simply agree to leave her home and her niece under the care of Mr. Miyagi, a man she just met. Of course, he was a friend of her brother.

I did appreciate the monastery. One might think from some of my other reviews that I wouldn't have liked the dancing monks, but I thought it was amusing. It showed that they know how to have some fun. Now if these were monks in ancient China dancing to pop-music, that would have been another matter.

Probably the most intelligent part of the movie was when the girl thought it was stupid that the monks wouldn't kill a bug. Miyagi told her that street gangs killing each other is stupid, nations trying to destroy each other is stupid, but having respect for all life is not stupid. Miyagi has expressed such wisdom in the other films as well.

I give this movie a 4 out of 10. Sure, there were some things I liked about it. It wasn't as funny as part three, and no character could ever live up to Sato in part 2. This movie has no re-watch value. I can't imagine watching it again, but it is worth seeing once.


I had been avoiding this movie for sometime...because I viewed it as an unneccesary installment to a series that should have only had 2 parts. But, after reading some fairly favorable reviews...from some IMDB watchers...I spent $1.50 and rented it at my local video store. Need I go further...when I say....this was a buck-50 lost. This movie is one of the 10 worst movies I have ever seen. First off....I realize that noone wanted to see a 33 year old Macchio in this film.....But, why could'nt they have had Miyagi read a letter or something from Daniel-san...maybe explaining what happened to Daniel...hell, they could have at least made a quick mention of daniel or something. But, no...and to compund the already bad script....they added those stupid monks...I thought monks take a vow of silence...guess these yapping monks don't take their vows seriously...hehehe. The training the girl went through in the movie was hurried and stupid...and the paramilitary group of young males....were a confusing concept to say the least....this was far from even being a martial arts movie...with the girl only fighting briefly in the final scene....and then she didn't even come close to getting hit even once...by the male fighting her....give me a break...she would have gotten hit at least once....I guess the writers and directors thought it would be to shocking to see a girl get punched by a male in this one. I could go on and on...but, basically...I'll end by saying that this movie was just so bad....even the girl they chose wasn't nice to even look at(she was sorta "butch" looking)....I can only think of a handful of movies that I have sit through...that compare to just how bad this flick was.....DON"T WASTE YOUR TIME ON THIS ONE..........


"The Next Karate Kid" is a thoroughly predictable movie, just like its predecessors. Its predictability often results in a feeling of impatience on the viewer's part, who often wishes the story could move a little faster. Despite its lulls and its extreme familiarity, however, this fourth entry in the series is painless, almost exclusively because of the presence of Morita. He doesn't seem tired of his role, and he does inject some life and humor into the film, becoming the best reason for you to see it. Not awful, but nothing much, either.


Hillary Swank is an unattractive piece of work in this unattractive piece of work of a film. Pat Morita, desperate for work, any kind of work, agreed to reprise his role as the "Karate teacher" and bring his brand of Karate to the silver screen once again, except this time, Hillary "skank" Swank is the student.

I can just see the Hollywood writers getting excited about the idea of having a "tormented, spoiled brat" female take the role from Ralph. The film does not work on any level and it's boring on every level. There's nothing interesting here and not even a lesson for anyone to hold on to. The film was made without any thought of making money because it's just so bad.

I would gladly spit on all the actors in this film for having been involved with it and have the writers black-listed for their miserable and insulting efforts.


I can accept the fact this was the NEXT karate kid so Ralph Macchio can be happily retired from the series, and while Hillary Swank is great for the role....the plot to the movie is just dreadful.

Mr. Miyagi's old buddy from World War 2 dies, leaving his widow to take care of her rebellious grand-daughter when her parents die in an accident. The girl has no discipline yet is the hero because the local ROTC...which I'll explain in a minute, has it out to get her. You know the drill...Miyagi takes her under his wing and in the end they beat the bad guys and everyone lives happily ever after.

Its hokey, its cheesy, its the 90's....but that's not even the long and the short of it. My first case of "huh?" is why is there a "military division" in high school? I thought that stuff went out in the 1960's, especially in a public school. As much as Michael Ironside kicks booty in his role as the main heel, since when is military involved in a high school? My next gripe is that during the prom scene, the militants bungee jump to scare the crap out of people....why? The thing I noticed throughout all 4 movies was at the very end the heels suddenly turn face after all the nonsense they put the main character through (Billy in part 1, Sato in part 2, Kreese in part 3). This movie is no different. After Ned and cronies basically sabotage the senior prom, blow up Eric's car and threaten Hillary Swank the whole movie.....Ironside tells them to beat her up and they're like "um...no" If you're gonna do pathetic face turns, at least make sure the characters haven't done anything too over the top such as blowing up a hot rod.

As for the rest of the love plot between Eric and Hillary Swank....corny but nothing to melodramatic, which is a breath of fresh air from the garbage Ralph Macchio pulled in the first 3 movies.

I will say for its own movie, after watching the first 3 movies, I can accept it being more or less a spin off...but I can't accept the whole military thing, way too uncommon for it to be taken seriously. Now if Ironside and crew was a wrestling/football team and he was the coach, THAT would have been more believable.

Ironside and Morita deliver the goods, Swank is OK...the rest are the same as anything, the one highlight is when they blow up the hot rod, THAT was cool 4 out of 10


I am truly sad that this is the first bad review I've ever made for a movie...EVER.I could stand to watch this movie, and it is the second movie in all the movies I've seen that is just...a downgrade. The first is Open Water, that just had NO point whatsoever. The Next Karate Kid didn't have any mention of Daniel(correct me if I'm wrong, please.),and that ending line came as a shock. It was like, "If must fight...win." then it showed the bird flying around and the pan flute was playing, and I was like, oh. Okay, so it'll take a while for this next part. AND THEN THE CREDITS HIT THE SCREEN.

GEEZ MAN!! Hopefully, I will never have to review a movie in a bad manner again, I apologize for those of you who like The Next Karate Kid, I really, really do...


This film is so bad. I mean, who commissions this stuff? And the costume designer deserves an award for making everyone look like they had just stepped out of 1983. A bloke puts a female wig on and fights....nuff said.


They missed up the film when the tried to use some one diffrent. They should of keeped Ralph Macchio as Danny instead of changing it. And made more Karate Kids with him in it.And also many people were woundering what happen to Danny when they jumped from 3 to 5 and no four.


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.


The final installment in the Karate Kid series is predictable, poorly acted, and so bad it borders on the enjoyable. But not quite, it's just bad. In this installment Ralph Macchio's Karate Kid is absent, already having been in one too many of the episodes. The new Kid, played by Hillary Swank, is the teenage granddaughter of one of Mr. Miyogi's WWII buddies. Her parents are recently deceased and her grandmother is unsuccessfully trying to raise this young hellion. In steps Mr. Miyogi to set things right. True to formula, there is a group of neo-Fascist bullies, called the Alpha Troopers that must be put in their place and a new karate move, called the Praying Mantis. As I said before this movie is a mess, and should be avoided.


I had been delighted to find that TCM was showing this, as I love the 1992 version with Josie Lawrence, Jim Broadbent, Joan Plowright...This film had a luminous Ann Harding, a wonderful performance by Frank Morgan, but others' acting made the film more of a farce then the wonderful unfolding that the later film. Reginald Owen's Arbuthnot is painful to watch and you can't understand why his wife adores him. I found out after watching the film that it was based on the stage play where the 1992 film is based on the book. The original film also felt like it was a snippet of a larger piece and felt incomplete. Too bad it was such a let-down.


Enchanted April was one of Harry Beaumont's last movies- he only directed a few more after this one. He had made the "Maisie" movies in the 1930s and 1940s. In the opening credits, it says "From the novel by Elizabeth", and completely leaves off the author's last name... rather odd, but since it was von Armin, they may not have wanted the German association at the time... Sad to hear it was a flop when it was released, with those fun names like Frank Morgan (the Wizard) and Jessie Ralph, who played W.C. Fields' disapproving mother- in- law in "Bank Dick". Two gals in London (Ann Harding & Katharine Alexander) decide to rent a castle to host two of their friends, but things don't go the way they planned. Reginald Owen plays the husband with multiple personalities. Aside from a few funny moments, it DOES move pretty slow. Ralph is the only bright spot here, as the overbearing take-charge type, and the picture is quite fuzzy and out of focus for much of the film. The views of Italy are all obvious backdrops. The only saving grace here is that the Turner Classic version is only 66 minutes long. Too bad they didn't give Frank Morgan a larger role. This was remade in 1992 by the BBC as a British Film.


I found this to be a tremendously disappointing version of a charming story. I thought the acting was on the whole quite good. Reginald Owen did chew the scenery, as mentioned by others, but I found him moderately amusing in his brief scenes. TCM has made an Ann Harding fan of me, and I thought she was fine as usual here. Jessie Ralph had a field day as the old battleaxe, ordering everybody around, and Frank Morgan, as always, played Frank Morgan with a twinkle.

For me, the problem was the script and/or the editing--transitions were awkward, motivations were murky. The movie was just too darned short to convey the story properly! I felt completely let down, particularly since I had such fond memories of the later version.


The 1935 version of "Enchanted April" manages to be simultaneously tedious

and perfunctory. It is difficult to show the transformative magic of Italy shooting in a studio with only stereotypical Italian behavior to belabor. The transformation of the four strangers fleeing London is instantaneous in the cut from the first day to a week later. Rather than develop, the screenplay flips a switch and the

characters are different.

The husbands are boring enough in flashbacks without turning up, even if their presence does not drive the four women back into their shells and/or hostilities.

Jessie Ralph has the most fun (moving instead of entirely chewing up the

scenery) and Katharine Alexander has some poignant charm out of her

husband's shadow (and away from his hideous droning). Ann Harding is

unremarkable here (with the Production Code being enforced). She had an

appropriate line in an earlier (pre-Code) movie, "When Ladies Meet": "You're

not worth a minute of one anxious hour that either one of us has given you," but in "Enchanted April" can only look hurt, rush out, and proclaim fealty to her errant husband.


The basic story idea of ENCHANTED APRIL is excellent--two very unhappy wives meet and decide to pool their funds to rent an Italian villa for a month. To further defray costs, they get two other strangers to come along. What makes it interesting are the relationships both before and during this vacation--in particular, showing how this beautiful setting actually changes their outlooks on life. Unfortunately, this good idea is totally spoiled by two key performances in the ensemble cast that are so bad that they ruin the film. Ann Harding plays the most important role in the film in a manner that makes her seem ridiculous. Her "doe-eyed" expression and vacant stares really make you wonder if this isn't a zombie movie or she's just meant to be an idiot! And to make it worse, Reginald Owen plays a character so obnoxious and bombastic that I was very close to turning off the film--he was that awful and unbelievable. I noticed that at least one reviewer gave this movie a 10--which is very, very difficult to understand. Sure, the film has great ambiance and a good plot, but these two glaringly silly performances cannot be overlooked as they undermine the rest of the picture. Sorry, but this film was aching for a re-make!


The Comic Strip featured actors from 'The Young One's' - a student based sitcom from the 80's. Comic Strip features included parodies of westerns, 'The famous 5', and The Professionals - all a lot funnier than this. Having said that Alexei Sayle puts in a good turn as a traffic cop with ambition and the soundtrack features great music from the era. 5/10


I struggle to see the point of this movie. It is supposed to be a comedy but I didn't laugh once. The storyline is one that could have been interesting in a well made movie, but since this is acted by comics, the result is totally unbelievable (as comedies should be). The Comic strip series was very hit and miss, even withing the episodes, and it is fair to say all of the people involved have gone on to do greater things. One to avoid. I have also just found out that comments have to be 10 lines long. The whole point of these comments is to give an indication of whether the movie is worth watching: not write an essay gushing about it or taking it apart. If you like: Seinfeld, Larry Sanders, the Young Ones, Alan Partridge, Arrested Development, Curb, Red Dwarf, then you might like to pass on this. On the other hand, if you like lame jokes such as can be found in Friends and Dodgeball, enjoy watching this!


First of all, I just wanna say that I'm a very big Naruto fan. I love the Anime and the Manga stories. Also, the first movie just confirmed that Naruto is all about great fun, great action, great story, ... But then came the 2nd movie. I was very hyped because the first movie turned out great. But it didn't satisfy me one bit... The story was lame, action wasn't all that great... especially compared to the Anime series... same goes for the quality of animation. I found it very poorly... Could the story get any lamer... ANY ??? Where's the kyuubi of Naruto ?? Not once does he turn demon... I mean ... COME ON !!! My advice is... see the series ( until episode 140 , then it's just fillers ) and then read the Manga because that's still great. Ignore this movie and hope for something better in the future...

All and all I gave it a 4, just because it's Naruto...


This ultra-low budget kitchen-sink yawn is the kind of film that can only be made in the UK in that, anywhere else in the world the fact the a market would need to exist before a green-light would be given. Most probably self funded this is clearly an attempt to redress important issues but ultimately undermines its point of existence in that the question needs to be begged, who would ever put money into distributing this and secondly if a market audience doesn't exist to watch, buy or rent this film, why would anyone bother in the first place? My opinions may sound unfairly harsh on a first time director but, this is the kind of film that only goes to undermine the commercial viability and quality standards which have only just kept a British film industry in existence. Reviewed in Edinburgh. 2 out of 10.


Hard up, No proper jobs going down at the pit, why not rent your kids! DIY pimp story without the gratuitous sex scenes, either hard core or soft core, therefore reads like a public information film from the fifties, give this a wide miss, use a barge pole if you can.


Well OK, I've seen Wrath of the Ninja.

It isn't something that I would recommend to people who aren't seriously into japanese fighting movies. This is a sort of japanese fighting ninja movie, with a complex plot. It's about these 3 old ninja schools that had these 3 "Swords of Sorcery". I saw the subtitled version (NOT recommended by the way, it's easy to miss something) and I didn't really keep up with it all. It had some good scenes tough, but in general, it wasn't much to my liking.


It's perfectly ok that people dies in an animation, but there are just way too many death in this one. Start from the very beginning, the story is all around battles, fights, death, and revenge. It goes on and on for entire one and a half hour. It was interesting at the beginning, but I grew very tire after before the show was half way through. Unlike other animations, this one is lack of humor. There are not many interactions between the characters either. The good thing about it is the sword fight scene looks pretty good and the characters look nice.


I'd have to agree with the previous reviewer: This film has awesome animation, but has problems throughout the rest of the movie.

Plot holes are huge, dialog barely explains the concepts of the plot--the MAIN PLOT POINTS aren't even fully explained until the last five minutes of the film. The characters state the obvious, while failing to explain the more confusing points of the film. There are characters that pop up and have importance in the storyline that are never explained--most of them have names that are only mentioned *once*, and it is exceedingly confusing to a viewer.

Don't waste your time with this movie. Unless you are in it for a good laugh and how DUMB it is.


This movie stinks majorly. The only reason I gave it a 3 was because the graphics were semi charming. It's total disregard for a plot and the lack of even insubstantial surface character development made it seem like just a bunch of nice drawings. This is by far THE worse anime that came out of Japan. I can't believe they actually put their names on this garbage. What a rip off selling this thing for $20. If you haven't seen this don't bother. If you have, I pity you.


I kind of had somewhat high expectations for this movie. I've always thought that Tom Selleck's lesser known movies (ie Runaway and Coma), where well above the ones he had more press for. Maybe the producers should have had a little more knowledge about former major league baseball players who became stars overseas. The majority were players too good for triple a baseball, but not exactly major league matériel. I admire the idea of putting Selle's's character in Japn, versus the cliché of having play in the minors. Sad to say, this movie, much like the title of the post, is stranded at third by a movie that seems to be running on autopilot. I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel, and hopefully, the producers would learn from the mistakes. The premise is just way too unique to be left alone with this uneven flick


It's a kinder, gentler Cyborg movie with a love story. Awww. It's not as bad as it sounds. The action, when it is there, is decent and Jack Palance, Elias Koteas, and Angelina Jolie are always dependable. It's the fact that this is a sequel to the terrible Jean Claude Van Damme film, or is that the capper to the Masters of the Universe trilogy? I'm still confused about that. Either way, there was really no need for this movie. What was there a need for? Angelina Jolie. She may play an assassin robot that can explodes mid-coitus, but, what a way to go and even though this is her first movie, she still has the presence that made her an award winner.


As a sci-fi and casual Angelina Jolie fan, I thought this obviously low-budget movie might be worth a look... maybe it had a few scenes or a storyline that would make up for all its other faults. Plus, it might be interesting to watch Angelina as she was embarking on her star-bound career.

Oh how wrong I was. One thing I learned -- at 18, Angelina Jolie couldn't act. So, to make her comfortable, the producers cast this entire movie with people who couldn't act. Seeing this, Jack Palance (who can actually act) decided to overact. Watching 10 minutes of this happen is enough to burn your eyes out.

To the horrible acting and overacting add a nonsensical script, insipid dialog, bottom-of-the-barrel cinematography... in fact add bottom-of-the-barrel everything.

The story features Angelina as a cyborg programmed by her corporate overlords as an assassin. She escapes the corporate HQ with the help of her combat instructor. The corporation sends bounty hunters after them. Stupid stuff happens. The end. I would tell you more but I didn't want to waste my life watching this dreck.

I implore you -- this is not worth watching. Its not even worth thinking about watching. Save yourself the pain and move on.


This movie is a cyborg in and of itself: half nonsense/half Lifetime Original Movie.

As a cyborg, this movie has but one objective: to make you wish that you had spent the duration of the film in a dark room punching yourself in the testicles.

Unlike many people, I did not rent this movie because of Angelina Jolie(I'll explain why I rented it shortly). I am not a big fan of Ms. Jolie's, though I will say that her performance was stellar! Her blank stare and robotic acting really did have me believing that she was an android hooker. If anyone has a clip of her on 'Inside the Actor's Studio' explaining how she prepared for this role, please send it my way. I'll make sure to use it when I try James Lipton for Crimes against Integrity.

So what drove me to rent this movie? One would think that it was the hope of seeing Angelina Jolie's nipples, but it wasn't. No, the reason behind this rental rested solely on one of the images on the cover of the DVD; that of Jack Palance's face! HALF OF HIS FACE WAS ROBOTIC! When I saw that, I imagined legions of "Palances" slowly marching through a fiery wasteland, laying waste to any humans that were foolish enough to resist. In my mind's eye, every member of this Unholy Army of Palances had a red, glowing eye; a red, glowing eye that looked at humans and saw only "meat". They were to be the Architects of Oblivion...a cold, steely Apocalypse...a Nightmare from which Humanity would never awaken. It's a beautiful image that I will cherish till the end of my years.

Like most things in my life, the actual movie did not live up to my expectations. No, there was only 'one' Jack Palance, and the only visible cybernetic enhancements that he had were located on his legs. Sadly, those enhancements didn't really "enhance" anything. That is unless, you count WALKING LIKE A POLIO VICTIM as a super power. At least their was a scene where Jack--grinning like a trigger-happy Alzheimer's patient--got to shoot the hell out of some people. I was waiting for him to yell, "I'm damn tired of paying too much for prescription medication!" Unfortunately, any outbursts of geriatric rage were few and far between.

What the movie did have an abundance of was a poorly developed love story about a man(Elias Koteas, a.k.a. poor man's De Niro) and a cyborg(Angelina Jolie, a.k.a. Demon Spawn of John Voigt). Oh man, can the love between a Romeo of Flesh and a Juliet of Silicon ever be able to last?!?!?! It can if you follow Jack Palance's simple advice: "You have to TASTE each other's TIME".

Yeah, I'm not sure what that means. However, I am sure that I do not want Jack Palance to be the one to explain it to me. I sure as heck don't want him to show me! As an experiment, I suggest that you ask your significant other if he/she "thinks that we have reached a level in our relationship where we can begin to TASTE each other's TIME?"


Cybrog 2:Glass Shadow stars Elias Koteas as Colton Hicks (Rhymes with kicks!) a karate instructor who helps a Cash (Jolie) escape from Pinwheel, her creators who look to detonate her and destroy a rival company. Along the way Billy Drago and Karen Shepherd show up to displace the duo, while Jack Palance is there to deliver guidance to the duo on the run. One of the things that is quite shocking about the Cyborg franchise, is how the series has managed to have quite prolific and off beat actors in the cast. The original had Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dayle Haddon (Don't know her? Well she was in a bunch of 70's pornos) this one has Jack Palance, Elias Koteas,Billy Drago and Angelina Jolie. The third one has William Katt, Zach Galligan and Malcom McDowell. (Okay so, Cyborg 3's cast isn't that impressive.) I've never seen Cyborg 3, but I did see this on Sci-Fi channel and must admit I wasn't impressed. Actually strike that, Cyborg 2 is an often lovely looking movie, it's shot with excellent style and the visual detail make this easy on the eye. However Cyborg 1 was the same way, indeed the movie was directed with a certain amount of style, slow motion and music that made it all easy on the eye. Unfortunately like the first, this one doesn't have any new ideas or anything resembling a plot or texture. Most of the ideas are taken from Blade Runner and Max Headroom, so for various reasons the movie doesn't have much to offer beyond it's look. Another aspect is the terrible acting. Karen Shepherd and Billy Drago are absolutely terrible and Angelina Jolie isn't much better. Elias Koteas and Jack Palance come off fine but seriously Palance is playing a cyborg warrior and Koteas is a karate instructor. I guess on the positive side you can't accuse Michael Schroeder of not being ambitious with casting. Still the movie is dull and I for one lost interest in the story fifteen minutes in. Also why did they tie it in with Cyborg anyway? It has nothing to do with it's predecessor, which this manages to be worse than.

* out of 4-(Bad)


Two things are always signs that you`re going to be watching a bad movie :<br /><br />1 ) If you`re instantly reminded of other movies like THE TERMINATOR, HARDWARE or BLADE RUNNER during the title sequence

2 ) If there`s a death during a sex scene straight after the title sequence<br /><br />There`s actually a third warning sign and that`s a caption indicating lazy exposition warning the poor ignorant naive audience of the dangers of corporate greed . Guess what ? CYBORG 2 starts with a caption warning us of corporate greed in the future , followed by a title sequence that reminded me of THE TERMINATOR , HARDWARE and BLADE RUNNER followed by a death during a sex scene ! Hey you don`t suppose I`ll be watching a bad movie by any chance ?

As you can guess this is a bad movie . It`s basically a series of action scenes written around a thread bare plot of a cyborg on the run from a greedy corporate company . It`s badly written , directed and acted and most especially it`s badly lit which means it`s very difficult to see what`s happening on screen , though I`m not entirely sure this is actually a bad thing . The only interest to be had is that it`s the film debut of Angelina Jolie who plays the cyborg on the run and who says the prophetic line " They`re lovely , I wonder if they`re real ? " which is something I ask myself whenever I see one of her movies


Simply awful. I'm including a spoiler warning here only because of including a coupla jokes from the movie - there is nothing else to spoil, as it is already rotten. This dross was made during what must have been one of Sellers' "For A Few Dollars More" periods, when he'd participate in any crap for a few bucks. I'd seen this as a 15-year- old high school student in 1972, and loathed it then. No need to view it again; after 35 years I remember it now as one of the top five worst movies I'd seen as a kid. As I recall, Sellers had more of an ongoing cameo role than a lead here, but even his presence couldn't ameliorate the stale jokes, lame plot, and infantile repartee. One ongoing theme revolves around Sellers' use of his fingers: In one scene, he holds up his open hand to a group of medicos, and by folding down his fingers, enumerates the groups for which a hospital exists - the interns, the nurses, the administrators, etc. - until only his middle finger is left up, whereupon he says "...and the patients!" Har Har. In another scene, to avoid costly lab tests, he dips a finger into a urine sample and sticks it into his mouth to check for sugar, then exhorts the interns gathered around him to do the same, which they do. He then advises them that he'd placed his middle finger in the urine, but sucked on the index finger, and admonishes them to pay attention. Hee Hee. (The only reason that I remember this, and this movie, and am writing this review, is that a friend told me an even dumber version of this 'joke' today). If yu laik thiss, you gonna luv dis movey. If not, see 'Hospital', with George C. Scott (came out the same year, 1972) for some genuine, marvelous black medical humor. Better yet, read 'The House of God', by Samuel Shem, and if you can, see the movie version of it, which has never been released (please make a copy and send it to me - I'd love to finally see it).