My oh my, Oswaldo de Oliveira must have had the time of his life whilst filming this ultimately depraved and sleaze-laden Women In Prison classic. There are almost no men involved in this production and all the female stars  with the notable exception of the nasty lunch-lady  are stunningly ravishing wenches. Easily one of the most shameless and politically incorrect exploitation flicks ever made, "Bare Behind Bars" has absolutely no substantial content (or at least very few), but proudly offers wall-to-wall lesbian action, nudity and even some X-rated hardcore action. Welcome to the Brazilian all-girls exclusive "Prisão", where the inmates seemingly enjoy hiding sharp & pointy objects in their most intimate body parts, the wardens' uniforms only have buttons below the bosom-section, the dumb Marilyn Monroe resembling nurse has a very peculiar interpretation of the term health inspection and fake penis toys are referred to as the Seventh Wonder of the World. Life honestly isn't that bad in this film, as the girls are allowed to play sex games with each other as well as with the wardens and, occasionally, the prettiest ones are sold to rich lesbians for big money. Of course, eventually, a couple of courageous prisoners plan an escape, resulting in violence, torture and death. "Bare Behind Bars" is really the sleaziest and most rancid WIP-movie imaginable. I estimate that maximally five seconds is thee longest period without nudity in this film. There are many extended (and ridiculously overlong) shower sequences and pointless girl-on-girl fondling moments, but it's all shockingly boring & terribly UN-sexy. The last half hour is much more exciting and violent, but it's far too late to save the film unfortunately. As said, the women in this film (inmates as well as wardens, nurses and rich lesbian buyers) are quite beautiful, albeit speaking in terms of 70's exploitation. This means they're definitely not anorexic and their pubic regions are about half the size of the Amazon jungle. "B.B.B." is probably a must-see for all fans of the WIP sub genre, but it could and should have been much better. I very much prefer the Italian outings ("Women's Prison Massacre", "Women in Fury") that are perhaps slightly less sleazy, but feature more action, suspense and better actresses.


The biggest surprise about this movie, is the fact it was not made by Jess Franco. This is infact a brazilian movie, and a standard women in prison one as well. Three bad girls are thrown in jail. Naturally, they are submitted to all kind of degredations. They escape, and are captured again. Even though they are the heroes of this movie, justice must be done, and the girls are thrown back behind bars. This "twist" is the only thing slightly surprising about the movie. The copy I have seen, contains several brief hardcore sexscenes, that seems to have been left in the movie by mistake. The scenes are, however, performed by the leads themselves, leading to the conclution, that this movie (like many Jess Franco movies that it resembles) also excists somewhere as a hardcore movie. The movie also, unwisely, combines humour and torturescenes. A bad movie alltogether. For WIP completeists only.


If this movie was about a fictional character, the movie could stand on its own and be judged objectively. Unfortunately for the viewer, the movie is based on "facts" that are shaded very unfairly toward Ruben Carter. Many of the smaller facts were disregarded (Carter was NOT number one contender at the time of the murders, there is no proof at all that he saved a friend from a child molester in his youth), but some of the larger facts, like apparently being robbed of a decision to Joey Giardello because of "racist" judges, is inexcusable to those of us who have seen the fight on tape, and completely disrespectful to Giardello. Why Hollywood feels the need to make a hero out of someone who, at best, was in trouble and around trouble much more than any normal person should be (was arrested multiple times for beating women) is strange to me. Ruben Carter was never, by viewing his actions in the 60's and even now, when he refuses to speak to his son, a person that people can look up to. Everyone knows that Jewison can direct, and Washington can act, but why they chose this story as their vehicle is beyond me. Is Hollywood so much in need of a black hero that they need to bend the truth in all of their bio pics to make them believable? (Heres a suggestion How about Denzel playing a movie about himself? Now thats inspirational) Based on all of the inaccuracies in the movie, I would suggest passing on this one.


When I saw this movie I heard all the hype, and I heard how people said that Denzel deserved the Oscar alongside his Golden Globe and I believed he must have done an outstanding job considering Kevin Spacey was excellent. I was wrong. I realize that people say this not to anger the African American community (if they are not African Americans themselves). I always hear complaints on how African Americans are never nominated and how they should have won. Sometimes this is true (not as much nowadays) because Whoppi Goldberg should have won best actress for The Color Purple and the movie should have won best picture. The only reason this movie was so blown up the way it was, is because people see a movie about the (*SEMI-SPOILER*) hardships of an African American during a very racist time period and they automatically label it as a masterpiece.

Denzel Washington is an outstanding actor, but his role in this movie did not affect me whatsoever. I was bored with him in the movie, and his acting here was quite similar to his role in Malcolm X but not as good. The audience is supposed to leave believing this man, Rubin Carter, is a saint. People left the movies worshipping this man, this hero, and they went out and bought his book, making this hero of a man rich.

*SPOILERS* This movie tells the tale of a man who spent the majority of his life in prison mainly for crimes he did not commit. Of course the crimes he did commit (stealing mostly) was only to survive, nothing more. People felt sorry for him, even though the drug dealers and thieves probably amounted to as much for the same reasons but are looked down upon in society. Everything in this movie tries to portray this man as a saint (except for the obvious infidelity he had towards his wife and the aggression he showed the other man when he met his wife) but why wouldn't it-after all, it is his point of view. I do not like movies (especially Hollywood interpretations) that are based on "true" stories because they usually distort the "true" parts into something else, something not so true. This was his point of view and a Hollywood construction, yet everyone believed it was the truth unquestionably. Well I researched his past a bit before making any assumptions, and he was a very violent man. Not only that, there is still a possibility that he did murder those people. If you do not believe me, search for him on the internet, and read the articles some people have of him. The boxing match he claimed to have won so easily, was actually won by his opponent Joey Giardello and there are tapes to prove it. Besides that, there are many twisted and purposely left out facts in this movie. The supporting cast were the nicest people I have ever seen on the face of the Earth and their "nice and perfect" persona looked difficult to keep up.

This movie was a Hollywood version of yet another unfortunate true story that is still left to be told truthfully. Denzel's acting is stale, and the supporting cast's Mickey Mouse attitudes are annoying. The movie also begins very slow paced and is boring.


The problem with this movie is summed up in the very first scene where Rubin " Hurricane " Carter fights Emile Griffith for the world welterweight championship in 1963 . You might be surprised when I point out that Carter never fought Griffith for a world championship in 1963 though he did fight for the middlewight championship a year later against champion Joey Giardello who beat him on points with plenty to spare . You might also be shocked to know that Carter was never in fact much more than an average fighter who was well past his prime when arrested for murder so why this movie is making out that Rubin Carter would have been a boxing great if it wasn't for being WRONGLY convicted of murder I have no idea . At the very best Carter was a very mediocre journeyman fighter at best . Robinson , Hagler , Ali or Hearns he was not

Oh yes he was WRONGLY convicted of murder and just to lay it on with a trowel a very early scene has the sadistic warder from THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION telling the wronged but noble Rubin to keep calm because he knows a cruel injustice has been done but there's nothing he can do to help . Meekly Rubin forgives his captor because that's who Rubin is - A noble forgiving paragon of humility , we're only three scenes into this movie and we're weeping tears for the guy , in fact you have to wonder why such a great guy was ever convicted of murder when he was a decorated war hero with a chest full of medals and we don't have to wait too long because it transpires that the cops are racist . We know they're racist because the arresting officer states " Your black ass is going down " , but that doesn't worry Rubin because he defiantly replies " I know I'm innocent " and he is , such a pity that the twelve jurors were all white and all racist and decided he was guilty simply because he was black . Thankfully justice is served though be it belatedly when a bunch of Canadians expose this terrible miscarriage of justice and Rubin is set free . Despite having his best years taken away from him Rubin bares no hatred towards the people who set him up . Compared to Rubin Carter Jesus Christ was a bitter and twisted man . It makes Washington's performance as Steve Biko in CRY FREEDOM look like an amateur performance in a school play . Or so we're led to believe

This film is a total disgrace . It doesn't play hard and fast with the facts because there's little in the way of facts . As I pointed out he was never a contender for a world title so forget all the boxing scenes that suggest he was . You can also forget all about the racist arresting officer investigating the murder case because he's a composite character that includes at least one black detective so racism wasn't at the heart of the case . Rubin Carter was dishonourably charged from the army and never had a distinguished military career , the jurors in the case included two blacks and he was found guilty by a unanimous decision so having " a black ass " wasn't a motive for finding him guilty , he was finally released on a technicality not because he was innocent and there's umpteen other revisionist aspects to the story . If you read the FACTS ( Something the producers of this movie clearly haven't done ) of the Carter case you might not think he's guilty but you'll instantly realise that this story is entirely fictional . It's Hollywood rewriting history in the worst possible way . Okay there's an opening disclaimer pointing out that some of the characters are composites and some scenes are dramatized but people with no prior knowledge of the facts won't realise just how disgraceful this film is at changing facts into something entirely different

I have awarded THE HURRICANE three out of ten and it would have got even less if it wasn't for the good performances and some technical achievements in editing and cinematography


Denzel is about the only thing that is right in this movie.

Maybe once in an early stage this was a better movie. Someone decided to cut some action and plot points into the beginning of the movie, giving away most of the story line in about the first 5 minutes. That and ruining whatever build up in pace and rhythm the movie might have had before.

So first it confuses you and then it puts you off. The dramatization pushes beyond suspension of disbelieve.

Of course there is that feeling of great injustice and anger that movies like this potentially manage to instill in viewers. Granted, it does that so if you are looking for that ... knock yourself out.


This movie looks like it was made for TV . For years I waited for some movie to be made about Rubin Carter, because I loved to see him box at the old MSG, and to see this movie was very disappointing.I have alot of respect for Mr Washington, but he was awful and boring.There is really nothing good to say about this movie except I did like the song.


Fairly good movie, but not a true story.

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was a notorius liar, a murder and was never found not guilty. New Jersey State just didn't go for it a third time as 20 years had gone. Carter got an offer in 1976: "Pass a lie test and go free". He didn't take it. This film should never have been made, but money talks. A lot of people have unjustly spend their lives in prison and undoubtedly more blacks than white. Why choose a fake story?

Jens


This is an OK film but lacks any real depth either emotionally or in terms of story telling.

The story is based on real events and this limits the amount of action to virtually none, also no real suspense.

Washington is believable in the lead but he is sleep walking through it, there is no scope to flex any acting muscles for him or the supporting cast.

The story simply falls a little flat, even having never heard of the title character the ending was obvious but unlike other films about such injustices this one has no emotional impact, you don't really care about him and the motivations of those on the outside helping seem more academic than concerned for his welfare.

There is an attempt to inject some emotion using the boy outside who hero worships Carter but this seems forced.

It's an OK film but instantly forgettable.


From the combined ministries of Jack and Rexella Van Impe and John Hagee comes Revelation, the second in a trilogy of films about somebody's conception of the end times. I say somebody's because even fundamentalist Christians are by no means united about prophesying things to come.

I've not seen the first of these films Apocalypse in which a united world government is established and the rapture has taken place. A guy who even calls himself the Messiah named Macaluso played by Nick Mancuso has taken over the world and it's either his way or the highway.

Christians are not even united on whether there will even be a rapture, but I'm of the opinion that if the fundamentalists are right and whole lots of people that you know feel that way suddenly vanish it might give some tangible proof about the Bible being real.

But it has happened and it's happened to Jeff Fahey's family, wife and daughter, who just vanished without a trace. She could never quite get him to church and he's been left behind as a result. Anyway under the regime of Messiah Macaluso those who are not followers of his are deemed 'haters' and are rounded up and also disappear in more conventional ways.

Fahey finds himself questioning what's going on and when he does he's framed for his partner's murder and forced to flee among the haters. Who in his city include former news anchor Leigh Lewis who in the first film had been the first to denounce Macaluso for being Satan.

Mancuso's got something called a Day of Wonders where folks will be asked to participate in a virtual reality game en masse. Since we know who Mancuso is, it's something not good and its up to the believer types to throw a monkey wrench into the works.

Carol Alt and Tony Nappo play a blind and a paraplegic people respectively and when they play the game they are healed and become Mancuso's disciples. That's a mighty hard thing to give up, healing from some affliction to reject Mancuso.

David Roddis has an over the top performance as one of Mancuso's acolytes who's playing his villain in the best Snidely Whiplash tradition. All he needed was a handlebar mustache to twirl at both ends.

It's impossible to evaluate these films because believer folk will hang on every word and nonbelievers will inevitably scoff. Then it degenerates into a theological not a cinema discussion. The cast give it their best to inject reality in some far fetched notions.

There was a scene that really wasn't terribly germane to the plot where a father turns in his son for 're-education' because he caught him with a Bible. I took a look on the actor, Darrel Hicks, who played the son and found he'd also later done work on Queer As Folks. Talk about an eclectic resume.

The ending is positively biblical itself. Just think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.


Contains spoilers, for those who _do_ care

Well, I watched it, the whole thing, and I didn't like it one bit. You might have guessed that I don't believe in God, and if you do you might like it. But for me it was just plain boring, I was waiting all the while for something to happen, but nothing happened. It was all a bunch of praise and preach to me, and I don't watch praise and preach for fun.

Furthermore, the humour used in this movie is the worst ever, there were _several_ humourously intended phrases, which have been known to mankind ever since the internet was invented, can you believe they actually said things like "I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals, I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants." that is sooooo old, and this wasn't the only one too.

I can imagine some people liking the ending, in which a bunch of believers miraculously keep singing praise while they should be burning (and in my opinion they should be, regarding the performance they delivered). Also, the main character (an agnost), is heavily stereotyped as the seeing is believing kinda guy who needs proof of God. Well personally I've been in enough discussions about this to know that demanding proof of God is rather useless.

Ah well, if you believe, you might like it, if not, you might not. I hated it and I rate it at 2/10.


True, I was given a warning that this was a bad movie. I proceeded at my own peril, especially since I have rather enjoyed some truly awful movies in the past. The difference here is that "Revelation" takes itself waaaay too seriously (speaking as a Christian!) to make up for the complete and total lack of quality. The plot itself had some potential. Unfortunately, none of that potential was fulfilled. I can only describe the dialogue between the actors as tired and predictable thanks to a lousy script and lackluster acting. This only served to uncover a glaring truth: this movie features the worst directing I've ever witnessed. Safe to say, it's the worst movie I've ever seen. I'm really trying to be positive, I swear. Can I say one nice thing about it? At least it was only the length of an average children's movie. I still can't believe I sat through the whole movie! Please tell me they're kidding when they list *4* of these in a series?!?!? Best to avoid this one.


Amongst the other messages the film makers impart in their script - most of which seems to have been lifted off 'humourous' t-shirts. "I don't believe in God... Don't worry, he believes in you." that sort of thing - is the deeply nasty message that all disabled people are essentially evil. The first two people to fall under the spell of the Devil Messiah are the blind girl who has just been hanging around for no apparent reason and wheelchair bound superhacker who wrote the basic code for the evil program (and who by an amazing co incidence happens to be the half brother of the leader of the underground. Don't evil masterminds do ANY background checks on who they employ? - and why, if they are related, he has an American accent and she an English one is another mystery.) You can tell he has turned evil because he shoots his own cute little doggie. Bad cripple.

Some other random jottings of how deeply stupid this movie is:

What Time zone is this film set in? It's typical of American yahoo isolationism that it ignores the fact that the International Date Line is WEST of the USA. All of Asia, Europe and Australasia (ie most of the world) will have been in the Day of Wonders long before most people in the US would have had their breakfast.

For the nerve centre of Satan's master plan the O.N.E. HQ was insanely understaffed. This is the Center of the New World Order for crying out loud! Surely there would be someone there undermining someone's liberty or taxing someone or telling the Black Helicopters where to go. In fact no one seemed to be there at all. Where are these 5,000 people who we are told go in and out of the building every day? Especially on this day of all days. The Biggy. Security consisted of one person on the front desk who, when as a ruse the "Most Wanted" person in the world is marched past him (and he recognises her), doesn't bat an eyelid. He just mutters "Oh good you've caught her." This is deeply stupid film making.

I loved the head bad guy's over acting, every evil twitch scowl and grimace he could throw into his part he threw in. Good for him. I loved the bad lip syching of the voice they dubbed in over him. But I especially loved the scene where, amazingly, they DIDN'T dub the voice in and we heard him deliver his lines in a squeaky English accent. OK, squeaky is overdoing it, but it wasn't the deep mellow voice that was shoved in his mouth for the rest of the time.

Right at the start of the film one of the happy clappies had smuggled a disc out of Evil HQ. Our bulletproof walk-through-walls baddie gets one of his sidekicks to blow up a school bus full of kids, then gets the police to follow the radio signal back to the happy clappy hide out with orders to kill everyone, while he waits about upstairs. Why didn't he go and get it himself? He seemed to have no compunction about killing anyone else he felt like for the flimsiest of reasons.

I love bad movies. I really do. Most bad movies seem to be in the horror genre or science fiction, there seem to be something about those two fields that attracts incompetents with delusions of adequacy. Watching this deeply unpleasant piece of sh1t I have discovered a whole new area of crap to explore. The 'Christian' Science Fiction Horror movie.

Let no one be in doubt, this is one deeply stupid, badly made, illogical piece of filth - and if you think I'm going to hell for saying that, I feel sorry for you.

Best stupid line:

Standing in a room full of computers.

He: "We need to find another computer that's on the network!" (to replace the one their friend just shot).

She: (points) "How about that one?"


In 1999, I was considering a job with Cloud Ten, the company that produced and distributed the movie. The company was planning on making many mainstream Christian movies. Revelation was suppose to be their first big screen blockbuster. They made me watch the movie as part of the interview process. After thirty minutes of watching and another 30 minutes of fast forwarding the tape, I gave up on this movie. I liked the casting but the story and acting was horrible. As part of my application process, I had to write a press release for the movie. I struggled with the content but managed to promote the movie in a positive light in the vain of getting the job. I was offered a contract with Cloud Ten but I rejected the offer for the job because the movie was so bad and I didn't believe the company could achieve their goals of marketing mainstream Christian movies to the general public.

Some trivia - the Lalondes often take character names from well known landmarks throughout Southern Ontario close to their Cloud Ten office in St.Catharines Ontario. In Revelations, they took Jeff Fahey's character name (Thorold Stone) from the street name Thorold Stone Road, in Niagara Falls. In Tribulation, they took Gary Busey's character name (Tom Canboro) from another well know street called Canboro Road which runs throughout the Niagara Region.


This film is better than Omega Code and Left Behind but was still unbelievably bad. I can't believe how bad Christian filmaking is today, it's a real shame. The acting was so unbelievably bad I didn't care if the whole world was wiped out by the anti-christ or not. All the characters completely overacted especially the ones that were supposed to be really evil ones. It was laughable. Anyone who like this film should really get out more and see real movies.


I am sorry to admit that I didn't think this was good at all. I'm not the target demographic, admittedly, but if not for being with my mother, I'd have walked out of this movie. Despite an intriguing premise, the movie never really goes anywhere. There are myriad plot holes and the acting is also some of the worst I've seen in a long time. The climax was dull and unsatisfying, and likely to offend most if not all non-Christians. Religious films can be done well, but they are definitely hit (The Exorcist, The Believers, King of Kings, Ben Hur) or miss (Exorcist II and III, Stigmata). Revelation is, unfortunately, in the latter category. DON'T SEE IT.


"Revelation" ended up in my home by a fluke. Boy is someone in the doghouse for that one...it was an innocent enough mistake (with "End of Days" and other millenial thrillers out there). "Revelation" though isn't just a millenial thriller. Its a millenial thriller produced by the religious right.

Okay, its hard to review "Revelation" as *just* a movie without tipping one's hand about its religious point of view. So, to be fair, fundamentalist Christians are likely to be entertained by this film. If you happen to fall into the majority of the world's population that isn't Christian, or the even larger majority that isn't *fundamentalist* Christian, you'll get a glimpse into the eerie world of apocolyptic Christian prophecy (or, even worse, a glimpse into what happens when no gay people are involved in the making of a major motion picture).

Its clearly good guy/bad guy, black and white, good vs. evil (not a problem in and of itself). However, I think most people are at a loss about exactly *what* they would do if given the choice between 1) surrendering to the authority of an evil anti-christ or 2) putting up with the self-righteous banter of the films' good guys. Isn't there a door #3? What happened to all the Buddhists?

An over-the-top performance from a queeny John Lithgow-wannabe playing the anti-christ's right-hand man doesn't help. Amateurish elements pop-up periodically. Real life TV televangelists show up on the television throughout the film. This is where the film becomes truly unbelievable. Instead of hitting the remote control, the characters in this film actually *watch* them! Even more unbelievably, the televangelists are on the t.v. screen for more than 30 seconds without even once hitting the audience up for cash.

The "Revelation"...this movie stinks.

LeeCushing


Do not watch this movie.

I got this on DVD free in a special PS2 promotion and I am saddened that I have lost 2 hours of my life due to this film. A friend of mine didn't believe it could be as bad as I said it was and borrowed it off me. He still hasn't forgiven me.

Not even worth considering if you find it in the bargain bin. In fact, if you see it on a shop shelf then RUN AWAY! As fast as you can.


i only rented this because Carol Alt is in it (i really like her). but even her acting is dreadful. this is one of those "christian" propaganda films that is trying to be "spooky" but it just comes across as boring and stupid. and the whole virtual reality aspect of the plot and how it is used to stop Armageddon is just ridiculous and dated. the ONLY good part about watching this is seeing Tony Nappo with his shirt off. sadly, those scenes are limited. thanks to this film (my first "christian" horror film), i won't be seeing any other religious brainwashing movies aimed at the family market. my advice is to not waste your time on this dud!


Boy, I thought seeing W.C. Fields and Mae West in the same movie would really be something! However, the only thing it turned out to be was just plain annoying. I could barely get past the first 15 minutes.

West's "routine" gets tiresome in a hurry. All she does, scene after scene, is roll up her eyes and say something she thinks is clever and-or funny. Since she co-wrote the script with Fields, I'm sure she thought those lines were good, but I heard nothing humorous in them. The soft lens on her on every time is pretty obvious, too. What were they trying to cover up?

Her reputation is far better than her performance.

As for Fields, he was better off in his own films where he could ham it up on his own. He had a few amusing bits, but nothing memorable.


What this is a bad movie. Well, when you start with a Diana Palmer novel it is hard to imagine that the result would be any different.

While Joley Collins and Kevin Otto manage to rise above it and give reasonable performances, Jonathan Cake is out of his element. He is even more stiff and uncomfortable than his character calls for him to be. Although, he does manage a credible North American Accent.

Young Blair Slater also manages to be appealing despite the script.

Do yourself a favor and let me be the judge. It's not worth your time to find out if I am right or not.


Is this a horror movie?Are you sure!I could not see so cheap scares, so cheap directing, and so cheap acting.'Araf' is look like a very simple and very bad student short movie!This film totally sucks the life out of his story with an incapable cast and acting, horrible dialog, and poor production values in every area.The digital effects are look like the movies of 50 years ago.

Editing is ridiculous' Directing is very amateurish' Producing is unprofessional' SO How can we say that is a movie! 'Araf' doesn't even minimally seem to care about accuracy or authenticity.it is like some awful inside joke played upon the audience.I could slap myself silly for wasting my money. I could have bought a good cup of coffee and read a good book instead.In turkey there is ver very good movies.Please don't forget 'Araf' is not a sample of Turkish movie!


Listen. I do not like to criticize my own country's movies for we are in the birthing pains of a stable film industry, but what the hell,this movie is horrific...

Starting synopsis fresh from the newspaper, no spoiler intended during the movie. You can read safely.

The story itself starts as sexist, misogynous and anti-abortion biased. A girl had committed adultery with a married man when she went to the university, and had a baby which had to be aborted. Now she is happily married, and expecting a baby, and her aborted baby's spirit,accepted neither in heaven nor hell begins to...

STOP.

First, the "married man" isn't troubled, the GIRL is. So, it is her sin that she must bear. Second, aborted babies linger between in heaven and hell and trouble people, indicating gross mistakes in theology. Third, it is a mishmash of every horror movie, with the stereotypical stupidity form Ring, Shining, Grudge added with a small girl with long hair. THe idea itself is stillborn.


First,I have to say,this film is not a horror movie.In Turkish movie industry I can say just 'GEN' is a horror movie.'Araf' has a very very bad script,bad acting,bad imaging and especially bad directing.What were they shooting for? The crowd that recklessly spends their money because they don't care? I can only imagine how the creators of this film pitched this and still got some idiot to pick it up. And,I cannot find anything about horror in this film.Not suspenseful,not scary,not creativity,not comic,not dramatic.So what is this movie! The famous movie critics of Turkey have chosen this film the worst Turkish film of the all time.Because its really so so bad and this movie will be the shame of the Turkish cinema history.Finally I will tell you, don't waste your time with 'Araf'


Unfortunately, this is one of the worst movies i ever seen ! I think the effects was created at MS Paint and the light director was sick and do not attend any single scene shooting. The movie is dark, the colors are bad. The effects is horrible.

Technique in general is very weak.

Turkish soccer followers know what "Goal-Keeper Rüştü Make-Up". At the face of the baby is this make up applied. Brrr... It get cold.

On the other side, the script is full of sexism. It seems like abortion is only the mothers problem, but it is not!

A bit of mystery, a bit of sex, a bit of horror, religion and spice...

I think, people should watch this film to understand what "bad" is.


I suspect that some of the reason this film is currently on IMDb's Bottom 100 List (the 100 lowest rated films with at least 1500 ratings) is because of its obvious political agenda. This film is audacious and dares to create a horror film in which an aborted child comes back to literally haunt the lady who aborted it several years later. The idea, though very controversial, is unusual and could have been done well...but this film wasn't done all that well. However, it surely is not among the worst 100--nor, probably, the worst 1000. It's not a very good film but I am pretty sure what you think of it is going to be greatly influenced by your opinions about the morality of an abortion. HOWEVER, I still think it was done badly--and probably will offend people on both sides of the issue. The film just goes way overboard and is, at times, rather sick and nasty--more about this later.

The film begins with a dancer finding out she's pregnant. She has problems--she's unmarried, her lover is already married and she's up for an important lead. So, she gets an illegal abortion that is apparently botched. Three years pass and she's now happily married and pregnant again. However, oddly, she begins seeing and hearing from the dead child she aborted. The concept is daring and could have worked--but the film makers chose to just be sick. At one point, the dead kid walks around playing with what is supposed to be a dead fetus. It's graphic and nasty--and you wonder why! This is unnecessary and gross--and it's sort of like punishing the audience to make them watch it. Had the film backed off in the disgusting imagery, it would have clearly been more watchable. Another problem is that although up until the end you are never sure if the haunting is really the aborted child or just a manifestation of the guilt the lady feels about her past actions, the uncertainty and psychological aspects of the film (the best things about ARAF) are completely done away with--providing an ending that is just too well defined. Leaving the audience wondering would have made for a much, much more interesting film--one that could be debated and discussed once the film was complete. Instead, it's all telegraphed and pat...not a good ending at all.

Overall, due to bad directing and a script with too many problems (the disgusting elements alone are too great), I cannot recommend it. However, just because the film is offensive does not mean it's an altogether horrible film nor does it deserve such a very bad reputation. It's bad...but not THAT bad.


The first 20 or so minutes of this film are really hilarious. REALLY funny. The dialogue and overdubbing are so beautiful. This is the best example of bad dubbing I have ever seen. Who knows, maybe they were doing it on purpose. Either way, the words they chose to use as the script are almost like they didn't know the original story and were making it up as it went along. Telling jokes the whole time and making funny comments about everything that you wouldn't normally hear a character in a movie say. They cut on each other and talk about how they have to go to the bathroom and juvenile things like that. I doubt it translated much at all from the original.

After the funny parts at the beginning (like the opening monologue about the blue mountains), the movie goes downhill and becomes monotonous. It's like soft core. But it's sort of rude! Dracula gets these women naked and then insults them because they have small breasts or are too heavy or something. Usually you have a naked woman on the screen and everyone is excited. But Dracula is very snooty and picky! It's sort of funny, but also sort of mean. Especially since I don't think he was supposed to say those things originally.

A funny movie because of the new script. The best parts are at the beginning. The wolf man is very well done. Dracula is kind of sexy. The naked woman are too much for me. Funny then porny.


I haven't seen this film in awhile, but remember it pretty vividly. The film was obviously shot on a really low budget and without any real actors. It has a kind of "Manos" feel to it, but with nudity and even worse special effects. There are bats that are obviously on wires and some pretty cheesy costumes. The guy doing Dracula's voice sounds like an old Jewish man (I don't know where the hell they got the idea to make Dracula Jewish, considering he was Transylvanian). The only thing that I liked about this movie is that it didn't take itself seriously at all.

Count Dracula is living in an abandoned mine in the middle of nowhere. He invites a local reporter to visit him (he goes under the pseudonym of Alucard, hee hee hee, like nobody's ever heard that before). When the inept reporter gets there, Dracula turns him into a pretty crappy looking wolf man, named Irving Jackelmann (enough with the Jewish jokes already). Dracula then sends him out to catch beautiful girls for him to tie up, love up and drain dry. Dracula takes a hankering for the reporter's girl friend and ends up chasing her around his cave.

The opening ten minutes have some really awful stream of consciousness speech by the reporter involving the blue mountains, behind the blue mountains, behind the blue mountains (we get it already). Dracula's accent is just plain annoying. Irving Jackelmann also proves to be pretty bad. The chase scene, for the love of God, was only a nude woman running around the same set for an excruciatingly long time. The nudity can't save it and the jokes, although trying hard to be campy, are just plain dumb.

Avoid unless you can spare a few brain cells.


This is a really awful "comedy" film about a vampire who turns a guy into a werewolf so wolfie can kidnap girls and bring them back to a cave for his master to feel up. Even the wolf gets to have sex with a couple of them. We do get to see some naked chicks but that's about it.

It could have worked as a pretty gruesome movie if it had been played straight (don't ask me how); instead, they opted for the comedy routine, and it's about as funny as a car wreck. The finished product plays like a terrible episode of the MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER television show, where the original sound seems like it's been turned off so a group of dummies can try to narrate their own stupid dialogue over the action, in between guzzling their six packs.


A big piece of ****! But the scene with the werewolf is so ridiculous, you won't believe it! Also, consider that even in original version it's not synchro. Super low budget movie.

Actually, this is a good movie to watch when you wanna have fun with your friends. Hard to find also. A must see for the bad movies fans!


One of the first lessons of movie-watching; never waste time on a movie where the lead actor is also a producer. All too often, such films end up a someone's vehicle for themself, and that's exactly what this movie is. It's an even worse situation where the actor/producer is a very bad actor, which is what Vin Diesel is.

The problems start from the very outset of the film. There's a back story here that goes beyond it's predecessor, "Pitch Black." Things are talked about that the viewer has no clue to. Even the contrived use of a narration at the beginning of the film and the tried-and-failed "let's hear what's going on in the character's head" convenience (a la "Dune: The Disaster") can't straighten things out. The thoughts in Vin Diesel's head, it seems, ring as hollow as his performance. Even to use the word "performance" seems false.

It seems that a good deal of thought went into finding dramatic ways for Riddick to remove his goggles. From the side, the back, the front... those goggles are so important that a prison guard at one point tells Riddick that he's going to keep them after Riddick dies. Who really cares? Jeez, spend the $10 and go buy a pair of swim goggles at Target like everyone else!

This is, as far as I could figure out, supposed to be an action film. That makes it especially sad that the action sequences, particularly the fights, are shot in such a choppy, flash-flash-flash manner that one can't see what's going on. I suspect that the director had a bunch of poorly choreographed, clunky sequences and had them edited for highlights, resulting in scenes that look more like a series of still photographs than a film.

The script in this film is unbelievably bad. It tries so hard to be clever and catchy, and it ends up sounding amazingly stilted. For example, mercenaries are called "merks." The bad guys are the "Necromongers," and Riddick is a member of the race of "Furians." PLEASE, STOP. Necromongers? Furians? It all comes out sounding more like the dialogue delivered by junior high school kids playing a role playing game like a script. Diesel's delivery, flat and listless, only adds to the desire to grab some earplugs and wish that one were enjoying a summer on Crematoria...

If "Riddick" could have had one saving grace, it was the set design. The design was reminiscent of the work of H.R. Geiger in places, with good subtlety and eerie tones, bringing to mind everything from "Alien" to "Hellraiser." Unfortunately, even that peters out for long, tedious stretches of chase sequences across fake-looking desert mountains and forgettable caverns.

All in all, "The Chronicles of Riddick" is really just a couple of tedious hours of special effects desperately in search of a story which, sadly for the audience, never materializes. If one can get past all of the shortcomings of this movie, then I suppose one could enjoy it. Of course, getting past all the shortcomings would involve walking straight past the theater and doing something more interesting... like watching paint dry, or screwing a cakestand into one's pelvis.

The main problem with this film, though, is the misleading title. Two syllables were left off the end of the main character's name: "u" and "lous."


The first time I heard about this film, I was expecting a twisted thriller on space like Pitch Black. An "Agatha Christie on space" as my friend said. But it turned out very disappointing. The film was actually a failed Star Wars wannabe. It doesn't have any connection to the first film.

In Pitch Black, it was about bunch of people, HUMAN, got stuck in a deserted planet. In Chronicles of Riddick suddenly they were Necromanger, Furyans, and many other strange fancy space names. It's like giving a Star Wars sequel to the movie Alien. Does not fit.

I couldn't believe that it was David Twohy who wrote the script and directed the film. He did a great job in Pitch Black, but this film fell a long way from Pitch Black. And I still can't believe Judi Dench took part in this film.


SPOILERS AHEAD! Consider yourself warned!

Seriously, is there any science fiction film of the last thirty years, down to and including the Flash Gordon movie with the nifty Queen soundtrack, not ripped off by this one? Even Independence Day gets ripped off in a scene where hovering spaceships menace a planet.

With a nearly Lucas-caliber disregard for physics (news flash: human bodies at 700 degrees Fahrenheit, whether in the direct rays of the sun or not, would vaporize before you could say "This planet is named WHAT?"); a main character who is the walking, beefy definition of a Gary Stu (look it up) to the extent that he can tame giant, spiky rats just by staring them in the CGI-balls; a Lady Macbeth who shares a closet with the Borg Queen; dialogue very possibly stolen from a group of 12-year-olds playing ninja; and an ending that deserves catcalls of disbelief, this movie is saved -- even if, like the annoying Kyra, who you KNOW would get splatted in the first ten minutes of the movie if the Aliens were involved, it subsequently dies again -- only by the few minutes of Dame Judi Dench lowering herself to appear in it. And even then, her character is still saddled with a name ("Aereon") that would go much better on a car.

Thandie Newton's performance deserves special mention, because it helps you understand why the movie version of Beloved was such a flop. Her Dame Vaako is going straight to Star Trek supporting-cast hell, right along with Lwaxanna Troi. Karl Urban, who looked like a Harley dude in the LotR trilogy, fits in a bit better here, because people aren't expected to make sense.

One defender of this "movie" asks its critics what they themselves have ever created, particularly in film. I reply: You don't have to be a cordon-bleu chef to figure out when there's a rat in your hamburger. Especially a giant, spiky one that cuddles with Vin Diesel.


"Riddick" has got to be the worst science fiction film I've seen in a long time, at least since Travolta's "Battlefield Earth". From the frankly pretentious introduction from writer/director David Twohy, all the way thru to the mind-numbing finale, all you get is a parade of great eye candy used in the service of a muddled and incoherent story. Riddick, who was just a simple convict in "Pitch Black", is now transformed into something called a Furyan, some sort of super warrior race that was wiped out by the other races or by the big bad Necromongers (what a stupid name!) - after seeing it twice, I still can't figure that one out. It's the same ridiculous "twist" that Stephen Sommers used in "The Mummy Returns" with Brendan Fraser's character; it didn't work then and it sure doesn't work here, either. You also get Judy Dench ("M" from the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies) as something called an air elemental who can turn into some sort of foggy stuff and can glide (but not fly!) but who has really nothing at all to do with the story. The main villains, a religious sect called the Necromongers, are pitched to us as the supreme evil in the universe, a force that will destroy all human life wherever it's found (which makes you wonder why they have wives). Problem is, they seem to be more interested in a pedestrian and boring power struggle for their throne than in carrying out their "holy mission". The movie drops you right into the middle of this mess - I suppose that it was meant to be an intriguing way to start the movie but after the first 30 minutes you'll still be scratching your head trying to figure what the heck's going on. If you haven't seen "Pitch Black", then you won't understand a good half of the movie anyway.

But the real problem with this thing is the utter and unrelenting darkness of the whole thing - all the characters that exhibit any kind of humanity are killed, leaving us only with the cardboard villains or the cardboard "hero" who mouth insipid and repellent lines like "you keep what you kill" which, from the last shot, appears to be some sort of moral Twohy is trying to teach us. There's never any real suspense or sense that Riddick is in danger - he's just an indestructible cypher who you know will win the big showdown against the Evil Leader in the end. To make it even worse, this is a "director's cut" which in this case means that you get a movie that is even more boring than the theatrical release. A waste of money to make, and a waste of money to watch.


Pitch Black was above average sci-fi/action/horror movie and it had very interesting main character called Riddick. The Chronicles of Riddick manages to completely lack the first and to somewhat ruin the latter.

First I found the fantasy elements of the movie somewhat stupid. Where was all that in Pitch Black? I have nothing against fantasy films but to me it seems that the whole world of Riddick went through the looking glass sometime during those five years and it just doesn't make sense.

Second problem was that I obviously wasn't part of the target audience - the movie felt very childish with all the WWE fight scenes, illogical series of events that doesn't deserve to be called a plot, lack of graphical violence while being an action movie etc. I really wasn't expecting Riddick to return as some kids' action hero.

And then the story itself. One part David Eddings, one part Star Wars and one part pick-your-favorite-super-hero pretty much sums up this movie. As a formula that might sound even cool but not with the script of this caliber and not with the expectations I had for a Riddick movie. How can anti-hero make his job in a PG-13 film?


Chronicles of Riddick, which I just got back from seeing was perhaps one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and this is coming from someone who loves Science Fiction a great deal. This movie was horrible, it made no sense, and then when things started to make a little sense it didn't make the plot any better. Vin Disel can act... as himself, which means the way he always acts-- as the near silent tough guy. I found him much more believable in the Fast and the Furious, and much more laughable in this movie.

There were more cheesy lines in this movie than an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie and Matrix: Revolutions put together. It made me realize why, exactly, we accompany other people to the movies for... to groan together when a movie becomes too unbearable to stand. The characters, all of them, were wooden and cardboard and talked in stilted monosyllable sentences. It was like watching a cruel parody of a great epic like "Lord of the Rings" gone horribly wrong.

The special effects and camera work of the movie does little to save it, but it was at least something to focus on when I couldn't stand the acting (or lack of acting) anymore. There were some really disorientating fight scenes where the use of strobe lights was way overdone and headache inducing.

Any feminist who watches this movie will be blown away by the absurd amount of machismo in this... men posture and posture more, while the women cower in fear and wait to be saved. A minor exception is a bounty hunter girl who is featured along with the rest of her nameless crew. Dame Vaako is put in her place early by a man saying exactly that, but proves herself to be, well, a little more than a sex object as she starts to convince Vaako to overthrow the throne with her. Yay, stereotypical evil woman in tightfitting clothing. That look like they hurt for that matter. Kyra made even less sense, as in the beautiful long haired acrobatic girl who can apparently take care of herself, then still needs Riddick to come save her at least three times in the movie. Was there anything in this movie that wasn't stereotypical? *yawns*

The ending, which was an ending I actually quite enjoyed, I was already so jaded by the rest of the movie to care much.

In conclusion this is a horribly written, horribly constructed, disjointed light show with stilted dialogue and wooden performances. If you must watch this movie watch it for the few times that the cinematography breaks out of headache inducing mode and actually shines, as well as some of the special effects, because you aren't going to get much else out of Chronicles of Riddick.


The Chronicles of Riddick may seem like a cool movie but behind all the special effects, it isn't. Richard Riddick (Diesel), the anti-hero from Pitch Black is back. This time, the space fugitive with night vision is being chased across the galaxy by mercenaries out to collect the price on his head. On the planet Helion, he encounters Lord Marshal (Colm Feore) and his invading warriors the Necromongers, and when Riddick is imprisoned, he must escape and put a stop to Marshal's evil reign. The plot sounds like it has some potential but the execution was done poorly. Pitch Black was fairly entertaining but this sequel is far from entertaining and its one of the worst films of 2004. What's wrong with this film? Well first the acting isn't very good though, this isn't very surprising. Judi Dench did the best job out of everyone else though she isn't in the film for a long time. Vin Diesel didn't talk in the first one yet he does so in this film and that's not a good thing. He is a passable actor in some films but in a couple of films, his performance is really bad. Thandie Newton and Colm Feore both give bad and forgettable performances. This is one film they both should leave off their resumes. David Twohy does an okay job of directing but I'm surprised how he could have messed up this one after doing a good job on the original. The dialog in the film is bad and unintentionally funny. The action scenes are average and none really stand out either. The special effects are done really well yet sometimes they go overboard with them. The characters could have been handled better. The story is weak and it does become very silly at times. The ending was done alright but it was also kind of dumb. The main problem with this movie is that it's boring. There were hardly any entertaining moments in it. It's only two hours long but it feels so much longer. They also tamed the film, giving it a PG-13 rating. This made the film ruin the first one and made Riddick seem a lot weaker. In the end, The Chronicles of Riddick is a very disappointing sequel to Pitch Black. It's also just a bad Sci-Fi action flick in general and not worth watching. Rating 3/10, you're better of if you just skip this.


The Rosenbergs are poster children for the black and white horror of what became known as the McCarthy Era, the Communist Witch Hunts, of the early '50s. Their faces, especially Ethel's, is as recognizable to us as McCarthy's himself. Ivy Meeropol, their granddaughter, grew up with an activist father who believed that his parents were, as they said repeatedly and even at their deaths in the electric chair, innocent. Her home was filled with their images, from newspaper accounts, books, and newsreel footage stills, to pieces of art created by the likes of Picasso. But this film only makes passing reference, I feel, to the fact of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. What it does do is present us with a granddaughter's rather guileless investigation of who her family are. Her own name was changed by her father's adoption by another family since his own grandparents, aunts, and uncles--on both sides--Greenglass and Rosenberg-- would not take the two orphaned boys in. Her cousins (one of whom she meets for the first time and who weeps with shame at how his own father--Julius's brother--changed their name to Roberts and refused to even see his two nephews) are complete strangers to her. What does she find out? Does she know her grandparents better? I doubt it. She can't know why the Rosenbergs chose to die rather than betray political beliefs, friends, and their nearly religious conviction that Socialism was humankind's only hope. What she can see is what shame, fear, cowardice, infamy, and love does to a family. I think Lillian Hellman's title for her memoir of the same period names it best: Scoundrel Time. After all, the Rosenbergs' convictions and executions made Roy Cohn into a celebrity. God help us.


I'm not sure what makes this embarrassingly amateur 'symp-documentary' more painful to watch, the fact that it's mostly misplaced, vindictive pseudo-journalism or that there are many gullible America-hating minds ready to eat this trash up.

The Venona Papers (opened after the fall of the Soviet Union) have confirmed without a doubt that the Rosenbergs were not only traitors giving the Russians America's atomic secrets, they also showed that the Rosenbergs were hard-core ideologues who felt their mission was more important than theirs or other people's lives. FACT - While the USSR was killing millions of its own citizens, these two criminals were doing everything in their power to help spread communism over the earth. David Greenglass was a scum and he's probably the closest thing there is to Julius and Ethel......except he talked.

I'm sure it would be hard for any descendant of this sinister couple to come to terms with what they did, much less move on and live for themselves; in fact, Ivy Meeropol has actually put her mind in REVERSE and regresses to a point of blaming everyone but the traitors. I can't imagine anyone sitting and listening to her and her family and not wanting to get the hell away.

The title of this film should be 'How To Waste Your Life And Wallow In Pity And Hate Because Your Grandparents Were Willing Tools For Totalitarinasm'


The most manipulated, contrived show you're ever likely to see. HOW this man can sleep at night is certainly "Beyond" me! People like this exploit grieving families who are so desperate to believe that their loved one is still with them somehow, that they blindly swallow the info that he "tells" them, never questioning the fact that he does NOTHING! He asks questions, takes guesses, makes bland and banal statements that could be applicable to half the people in the room, and pretends that he is receiving the information from heaven! The saddest part is that so many people are taken in by people like this, and allow people like Van Praagh and Sylvia Brown etc to prostitute the memory of their loved ones, and make themselves very rich in the process. If you have ever paid to hear or see one of these people, or bought one of their books, then you have my deepest sympathy. Your loved ones deserve better, and so do you.


It's sad but true, this movie is just a waste of money. Don't get me wrong, I've seen movies which were far more worse. But this flick is just poorly written and badly directed. The action and fight scenes look cheap and most of the acting is poor, due to the actors or the director I can't decide. There are only two reasons to watch this movie - Steve Nicolson and Arnold Vosloo. No outstanding performances, the script is simply to mediocre for that, but both deliver their parts dependably and professional. If you like these two actors and don't expect too much, you'll be entertained anyhow. But make sure, you have enough Chips or Popcorn with you, in case that you get bored.


I have to think hard here. have I seen another action film about a train that poses a threat to the world if it is not stopped? Is there another train film where all of the passengers are threatened? Hmm, I just watched Midnight Meat train and Night Train Murders. Those certainly had some real terror on the train.

If you have seen Steven Segal's film where he tried to stop the bad guys on a train, you have seen this one. I seem to recall that Jean Claude even did one called Derailed. There was even another 2001 film called Death Train set in Mexico.

We have been trained to death and I don't think we need another. This was mildly interesting. We did have the daughter of the devil dressed as a nun. A little nunsploitation there.

There was also the cute kid angle, and the soldier who was tired of war and became a monk. Didn't Rambo do that, too?

I enjoyed Stephan Bieker, but that was the only character that interested me. There was good stunt work, lots of explosions and some good martial arts action, but that doesn't compensate for a poor script, and we've seen it all before

Secret agents for God? Give me a break.


When this movie came out in 1968, it made a bit of a stir. However, almost forty years later, it just looks incredibly dated and stupid BUT unintentionally funny as well! So for comedic value, you may want to give it a watch.

Max Frost is a very narcissistic rock star with a MASSIVE following among the youth. So popular, in fact, that he is able to mobilize the kids of America to go on strike until the voting age is lowered and they get a say in government (yeah, man--right on!). Unfortunately, his plan works too well and all the squares in Washington are sent packing and the good old US of A is now run by Frost and his hippie friends, man! So naturally, they use this power to send all the squares (aka, adults) to concentration camps and the kids run amok! Things are not that groovy, though, as the youngest members of society are left to fend for themselves and, within them, dissatisfaction begins to build and then the movie ends.

This is all meant to be some sort of allegory designed to warn us about "youth run wild". Instead of a serious message, though, it just seems overblown, ponderous and dopey,...as well as funny from time to time.


This film has the unlikely premise of a popular young musician using his charisma, youth and influence to win over the American public to a more youth-inclined culture, a one with no time or patience for adults. Basically this is out to shock and it succeeds in this respect..however there's really very little message or meaning here beyond that.


BEWARE -- SPOILERS (sort of)

The first thirty minutes of this psychadelic flower-child generation-gone wild paranoid fantasy percolates to its 60's beat. The set-up with Holbrook and Varsi as Jones' accomplices is close to ingenious. And Jones handles himself in a way that makes you believe his cohort accept him unflaggingly as their leader. But once he starts implementing his vision, things slide downhill all too fast. It is one-note, dumb, and predictable, as absolute power corrupts absolutely. But, it's a shame to tune out before the film's final scene, which is hysterical. The last line is just too good not to repeat as a classic, "We're going to put everybody over ten out of business!" And this was years before anybody could have predicted the Cambodian Khmer Rouge!

Overall, fun for film students, and fans of theatre d'absurd. People who want traditionally entertaining movies with characters whose actions actually make sense should look elsewhere.


This film was doomed from the start. The ONLY thing it has going for it is the music. The film is about a rock star who wants to become the ruler of America. He gets all of Washington (pretty much!) high on LSD. The acting is abysmal and the story is even worse. The terrible acting is a surprise considering some of the names in the film. Hal Holbrook, Shelley Winters, Richard Pryor (before anyone had heard of him), Ed Begley and even Dick Clark are in this film. But the acting is still totally awful. The entire premise of the film is ridiculous, the story implausible and the directorship poor also. I gave this film a solid 1!!!!! If you ever have a chance to see this film, DON'T!!


The writer of the source material for this film, the novel UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE, Bel Kaufman, was Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem's granddaughter. She was also the film's "technical adviser". She was my home room and English teacher at Taft High School in The Bronx circa 1960. Decades later when she was interviewed she admitted that she deliberately ignored the boys in her classes so she could concentrate on teaching the girls. Only the girls.

Ms. Technical Adviser permitted the dreadful lie that she taught in some "inner city hell" of a school. Taft at the time was located one block from the Grand Concourse that hadn't even begun the long slide to become the notorious South Bronx. Neither phrase, "inner city" nor "South Bronx" had yet been invented. In fact in the mid sixties a huge Jewish center (now the Bronx Museum of the Arts) and the Executive Towers co-op, the tall white building seen in the background of shots taken from behind home plate at Yankee Stadium, were built. It was a comfortable, middle class Jewish neighborhood. The idea that there were all these tough, armed kids roaming the halls was pure crap. The real tough kids were shipped out to other schools such as the all-boys DeWitt Clinton or a technical High School like Evander Childs. The really tough High Schools in The Bronx were located in the east Bronx or below 149th St.

Anyway, in the world of Hollywood films the dedicated teacher must be fighting their way up hill against dead head thug students from underprivileged background who, well some of them, become enlightened. We can celebrate her successes but recognize that, sadly, she can't reach everyone. What crap. That's every teacher movie (except the sensitive bullied boy/girl in boarding school movie).

The story revolves around a male teacher whom a shy, overweight girl student is infatuated with. He returns her plaintive love note to her corrected for grammar and spelling. The girl commits suicide by jumping off the roof. The male teacher is the designated villain. According to today's ethics he behaves faultlessly. If the novel and film were to be rewritten today the girl would be killing herself because she was sexually assaulted by the male teacher. Of course he is nothing but the designated villain. Whatever terrible thing would send an impressionable girl spinning to her doom is to be ascribed to the "evil" man. Whatever it would take to move the script the man is the designated villain. So very much like the man-hating castrating author of the piece. So many of the teachers in this era in The Bronx must have been like this but never so celebrated so that their confessions years later were not recorded as was Kaufman's. This generation of women, because of prejudice, went to Hunter and not Harvard, became schoolteachers and not something more glamorous or remunerative. Only a few, I imagine, were as unethical as Bel Kaufman, to take it out on their male students and make a male teacher the ethically challenged villain of their novel.

The phoniness of the novel was multiplied again by the dishonesty of the film script set in some cliché "inner city" Hell Hole High, as if a teacher's profession were ignoble unless inspiring "at risk youth" from "underprivileged" backgrounds. The book and the movie are both crap, an advertisement and not literature, propaganda and not a film. A lie from beginning to end.


In this 1941 comedy, we are presented with two intelligent, beautiful women who are seriously smitten with a man who can hardly open his mouth without lying. The story ends with a major lie, and she accepts him. Either women in '41 were much more stupid or forgiving than today, or somehow people then thought that lying was cute and funny. The movie is terrible, and any women who are attracted to this man should be sentenced to marrying a serial liar.

Dennis Morgan was a familiar figure in the '40's, and was used to comedies. But Morgan's role in this movie is a little out of character, in his being a serial philanderer and a chronic liar. It's not difficult to see his appeal on short notice, but any woman who got to know him should have been repulsed.


I understand the intentions of the producers, they wanted to show to the viewers, that there was a few kids that have been charged with murder and put to death penalty... but that is only theoretical truth, deathpenaltyinfo.org on this page you can see all the people punished with death sentence, for the crime they've committed, when they were under aged... as you can see all the defendants were 17, not 14, when they committed the crime... And by the time they were killed, years have past. 4ex, Joseph Cannon had waited 21 years for the crime he committed, when he was 17, and i'm sure he made a lot more terrible things by the time he was 38. So i think that it is bullshit, trying to soften the viewer, by showing this 14 year old putted to death, cause it will never happen in a normal country.


I remember seeing this movie on the shelves at my local video store 15 years ago. I never watched it until now (May 09) and I wish I had just not watched it at all.

The story is unimaginative and unremarkable. Completely cut and dry. I would have rather brought this news clipping up on one of those old timey news paper viewers and used my own imagination to fill in the gaps.

Juliette Lewis overdid the angry teen and was mostly annoying. Brad Pitt did the best he could with the material he was given but considering how limited he was by the role, he performed it well.

It was made for TV on a Sunday afternoon when everyone was out and they needed some crap to fill the gaps between paid programming, and it should have stayed that way.


I saw the other user comment on this movie and just had to add my own. This movie was terrible. Seeing that Juliette Lewis and Brad Pitt were both in it I took a chance and watched the film that my sister purchased in a one dollar movie bin, and let me tell you, not worth one dollar. Maybe it's because of the fact it is a made-for-TV movie, although I have found many other made-for-TV movies much more enjoyable. The story and dialog are poorly written, and the plot is unbelievable and mediocre at best. The performances were not so bad, but were not enough to carry this film. Lewis plays a girl who gets caught up in these crazy circumstances and never seems to get things right, while Pitt plays this mean nasty character who takes advantage of this poor girl. The only good thing about this film is Lewis' t-shirts which are pretty cool. Do your self a favor and skip it.


Sorry, dim-witted or not, Lewis' character knew right from wrong. She knew that she had been treated wrongly, yet she murdered in cold blood. I had no sympathy for anybody in the story. Michael O'Keefe had sex with a minor, even though he had children himself. If anyone had touched HIS kids in a sexual way, he would have wanted to kill them, yet he allowed his personal sexual needs to take advantage of a teen girl.

I don't believe in the death penalty, so the Brad Pitt character and the Lewis' Amanda deserve to rot in jail for the rest of their lives. People know right from wrong and both of these idiots are no exception.

All this nonsense about "she's just a teenager and she was abused by her mother" crap is just an excuse. I was inappropriately approached by grown men when I was a teen, but I knew NOT to do what they wanted me to do.

As played, Lewis didn't always seem so dim-witted. She made a lot of sense and didn't seem retarded. Pitt was just a user -- a complete looser -- we've seen his type in lots of other films. It always amazes me how stupid girls and women can be. So desperate for the love and approval of men, they'll do ANYTHING, sometimes even helping a lover to murder their own parents or relatives.

Too bad they are raised from the beginning to depend on males, instead of being self-reliant. When women sit back and allow men to pay for everything, they loose their EQUALITY and give all power to men. Big mistake.


The "Dead Next Door" was an OK movie for myself, but i have herd that many people enjoy the film and recommend it. I don't think the plot is very good, but i do realize that it was a low-budget movie. i did like the gore however (there is plenty of it) and the violent effects are not that bad, so if you are a gore-hound then you might want to pick this movie up.

i do own this movie and bought it for a fair price; i don't recommend paying an arm and a leg for this movie unless you have seen it and enjoyed it enough to shed some cash. if you're not one for mediocre acting then i also don't recommend this movie.


This movie can claim to be a low, low budget gore movie without any attempt to actually any talent even though it thinks it has. The plans were just too big for the director J R Bookwalter to handle, he also covers most of the other production roles from cameo to credits designer, evidently everything he touches, he has no talent to back up whatsoever. The movie has no pace, tension, shock value, nothing at all. The ideas are great but Bookwalter, one can only assume was exercising sloppiness, chose not to care much about them. 85 minutes long and it feels like three hours; the acting is truly awful Scott Spiegel turns up in a small role, ruins the scene and then years later directed From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, easily one of the worst movies ever made.

I may be a tad harsh, after all these types of horror movie aren't meant to be serious, but that's the rub, I think Bookwalter is so convinced that he was making a classic that he, and the large cast could not see that he couldn't handle the scope and the end result is so bad it's bad.

The gore parts, which is why most people watch these types of movies are good for the tiny budget, every penny spent us up there on the screen, but that is it's only saving grace. Mr Bookwalter, go and learn how to make movies before actually making one, The Dead Next Door entertained me for all the wrong reasons turning what was meant to be a serious stab at filmmaking, into a camp classic for the 'Don't care' generation. Sorry mate.


This was one of the worst pieces of crap I've ever seen. This Bookwalter person is worse than Todd Sheets and that's saying a lot. He's not even creative enough to be Ed Wood! The story, a mix between Jonestown, Dawn and Day of the Dead is just terrible, but this mish most of stupid ideas is downplayed by the stupid characters contained within it! Some of the SFX were tolerable but most of this was really just bad. One character decapitates a zombie then puts his fingers in the heads mouth! They get bit off and his pals leave him to be eaten by other zombies! The acting is beyond amateur. I wish I could remove the memory cells that contain this film from my brain! This was just bad, bad, bad! Avoid at all costs! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! Oh and how the hell did Sam Raimi get involved with this crapfest? Was he feeling generous? There isn't one original or inventive thing in this whole mess. Ugh! I need an aspirin!


There are no words to describe just how low-budget this boring piece of garbage really is. In fact, just by renting this tape I have probably spent more money than the film's producers on the film itself. (I, and the other ten people who saw this film made quite a good profit for the producer, who happens to be Raimi, allegedly; if that is true, why the hell is he wasting time with this kind of crap? A favour for a (talentless) friend?) This lower-than-low-budget snooze-fest was financed by somebody's failed garage sale. Or was a cast member's kid-brother's piggy-bank raided in the middle of the night? Who knows. And it's not just the fact that the "film" is to the most part incredibly dull: it's supposed to be like an indirect "homage" to Romero's zombie trilogy and other horror-movie greats; hence the rather trite "idea" of naming the idiot characters after real-life directors, actors, or horror-film characters. Ha-ha. Hilarious. Don't you just love movies with film-buff "in-jokes" and references? So very original and interesting But what really annoyed me is the way the movie managed to brake just about every basic "zombie rule" that there is: 1) zombie's never run - but they do here, 2) zombies do not understand languages - but they do understand English here, 3) zombies cannot be trained (like dogs) - but here they can, 4) zombies cannot be trained to be selective about whom they attack, for they are indiscriminate about whom they want to rip to pieces and eat - yet here the zombies are trained to attack their trainer's enemies, and, 5) uninfected, non-zombie humans should not be dumber than their distant zombie relatives - but in this movie the zombies aren't the main idiots. Some homage.

The humans in the film really are as dumb as the zombies. But not in a funny way. For example, there is a "zombie squad" (ha-ha) which consists only of cops who are repeatedly careless about what they do in the company of zombies and hence constantly get bitten (and turn into zombies - at least THIS zombie rule still applies). And then there is the main "plot" which reduces zombies to side characters! For some reason the "writer-director-actor" Bookwalter ("Call me Ed Wood") thought that viewers are more interested in seeing cops fight some silly little religious cult than zombies themselves. Big mistake. (Still, not that a different plot would have mattered; this film was destined to fail: its humble piggy-bank origins combined with the talentlessness of its witless creator would have seen to that.) The acting is ATROCIOUS. The dialog is so inept and dull that it would have been re-written even by the what-does-"rewrite"-even-mean Ed Wood. The only thing that was handled well is the special-effects gore. (I guess even piggy-bank money can buy enough red paint.) Another positive thing about the movie is its mercifully short length - and that's not counting the 10-minute(!) end-credits. The end-credits look like a kind of post-production celebration party by all the idiots involved, in which they indulge themselves shamelessly, and with some rather pathetic attempts at humour. For example: the movie's "accounting" is listed as "pseudo-accounting". What they forgot to do is replace "direction" with "pseudo-direction", "cinematography" with "pseudo-cinematography" (or "non-cinematography", or "some guy holding the camera"), and so on. The music was "pseudo-composed" by Bookwalter, the songs being so bad and under-produced that they can be easily mistaken for the sound of a big pile of s*** getting flushed down a toilet.


With a voice dub from the always awesome Bruce Campbell, oodles of "cult classic" comments/reviews, and a DVD release from Anchor Bay, you'd be led to believe this is truly a lost gem resurfaced. Wrong, wrong, WRONG.

Give a 18-ish man-boy (J.R. Bookwalter) two weeks worth of grocery money and let him indulge his crippled "genius" through a Super-8, and this is what you get. Every minute of this movie is saturated in ineptitude. The plot is unimaginative to the extreme, the gore is laughable, the acting is beyond HORRIBLE, and the original actors voices have been clumsily dubbed back in (why???) complete with loads of woodenness.

Looking for something more specific? How about that most of the characters in this movie have names like Raimi, Carpenter, Savini, etc., and get this- The zombie loving cult leader's name is Rev. Jones. Wow, how original; must have taken weeks to come up with that one. The "sets" are a real joy to behold too. Double-wides, abandoned houses, and a high school serve oh-so-realistically as hi-tech labs, government offices and a cult headquarters. Get the idea?

"TDND" isn't low-budget- It's NO-budget and worthless in every aspect. Bookwalter is still at it today, nearly twenty years later, and is just as talent deprived (ie- Ozone) as he was when this piece of trash first came out. Surprise, surprise.

(The 1 star- It's for Campbell.)


Saw this one over at the local electronics store for $10.99 with a recommendation on the front that it was a "worthy addition to any gorehound's DVD shelf" by Rue Morgue. So I figured I couldn't go wrong on this one. I shoulda put it back on the shelf and invested in that 6 DVD "Lone Wolf and Cub" collection instead. Where do I start? OK, the plot. Well, the plot isn't much of a plot. It's in a world where zombies are overunning society and our story centers around a group of police like soldiers called the Zombie Squad. They're guarding a facility where some scientists are working on a cure for the epidemic. Meanwhile in another part of town a cult run by a guy wearing old people's sunglasses, you know those huge black ones, is doing human sacrifices and worshipping the zombie epidemic mainly because the cult leader's son was turned into one. The cultists are causing problems with the Zombie Squad and scientists over philosophical differences and that's where trouble begins. So, that's the story really. The major characters are named after famous horror directors like Raimi, Romero, Carpenter, etc. (Side note: The box claims that this film was made with the help of a LEGENDARY Hollywood Director. This is misleading. It turns out that Sam Raimi of "Evil Dead" fame merely helped finance this pile of dung.) The acting ranges from competent to "go back to the drama club... PLEASE". I mean some of these performances are just god awful bad and it's apparent why when you look through the DVD extras. There's an audition section on there where they show that everyone in the movie were just walk on's whose only requirement in the audition was to tell an interesting story about themselves and scream. No acting out any dialogue or anything. Well, you get what you get I guess. The special effects were pretty cool in some parts of the flick and lame in others. I've read some reviews that said the effects were awesome. Believe me, they are not. They're not even really that gory except for a shot here and there. Factor in that this film was shot in Super 8, a filming format not even up to stuff with an average $300 video camera you can get today, and you get the picture.

The box claims that this film was digitally remastered. I hate to break it to the film makers but transferring the original Super 8's to DVD does not constitute digital remastering. There's also a Dolby 5.1 soundtrack but it doesn't enhance the experience. I barely noticed anything significant coming from my rear speakers. The DVD is loaded with extras but they are pretty boring. One amusing extra is the "Frightvision 2000 Reunion" clip. It shows some of the original cast members and director talking about how looking back on it again they've realized what a wonderful film they made. I guess time really does make you forget. There are maybe 15 or 20 people in the audience listening to them talk one of which is some goth guy whose face says "please shoot me now".

All in all this one isn't recommended kiddies unless you are into self-torture.


First, I have been an Hector Lavoe fan since early 70's and as a puertorican I agree with a lot of our artists that this movie is simply awful. The acting is subpar, the editing worse and the story was a bit biased. We all thought that this production was going to do justice to the life and achievements of Lavoe. Instead it is an embarrassing account of the negative aspect of Hector's life. Yes he did drugs, yes he had many trying times, but he also left a musical legacy that many of today's Salsa singers (Marc Anthony included) can't and never will achieve. This was a chance to celebrate the artist and his contributions along with Willie Colon to our popular music. Instead we have all the dark aspects that clouded his life and show old Salsa artists to be a bunch of "junkies" and bums. Also, you can clearly notice that this is a "Jennifer Lopez production" since a lot of the "actors" in the movie are blood relatives of J-Lo. This is a low blow for these artists and I can believe Jenny to ride Marc's fame as much as she can since she can't sell a movie by herself, much less a singing career. I was very disappointed in Marc and as a puertorican I can say that ever since he got together with J-Lo he has lost a lot of ground with us puertoricans and this travesty of a movie clearly shows it. You really need to know the real story here if you want to comment on this "movie". All I saw was J-Lo's face and big "rump" more times than the actual main character of the movie. I counted about forty-something appearances from Marc and over 200 by J-Lo. Way to go girl, keep riding the bronco until it drops.


Sorry but this could have been a good film, the acting was very good, but who wrote the awful script? There was just far too much bad language and I turned the DVD off half way through. I am no prude but does anyone really use the F word THAT much? If so they need help! I was really looking forward to this film because of the good reviews and the fact it was about Salsa ( having Jennifer Lopez to look at doesn't hurt either ) but it really was spoiled. I know that I am probably alone in this but for me constant bad language just grates and it spoils my enjoyment of any film. Some swearing can be justified but it got worse as the film went on. Surely there were better ways to show the decline of a man into drugs than that? For me it is sloppy scriptwriting and even sloppier direction of what could have been a really good biopic.


Now I love Jennifer Lopez. Nothing but respect. Who one their right and brightest mind would cast beloved MARC ANTHONY on the lead role ? Why oh why ? As Hector, he is nothing but a short man who disappoints us from the beginning to the end. "Hector never knew how much people loved him. And that's the thing. It's like he didn't want to know." But Marc Anthony (OH YOU SANG TO ME!) seriously should accept the fact that NOT EVERYBODY loves him or his work. He must also accept that he cannot act even if he was tortured. Best thing would be to tie him up and make him listen to all of his songs over and over. And make him watch his music videos over and over. That would be the best punishment for dear Marc. Rest of the cast is great. Everybody else has done a great job. But, the way this movie was shown, could've been better. Some films may not have the element of keeping the mind of the audience stuck to it or keep yer heart pounding and waiting for something great to happen. When movies without these elements are made, they should be shot well and need proper actors. Not someone like OH-YOU-SANG-TO-ME! The narrative could've been better. if you already know about Hector Lavoe, then this movie will just help you add slightly to what you already know. Surely, the movie has great detail. But Marc Anthony is a major turn off for me. Playing a role like that. Its not that he doesn't look the part, HE DOESN'T LOOK LIKE AN ACTOR in the first place. Now that's what you call a major casting problem. Lets be glad he was not cast in DANCE WITH ME or any of the CHE GUEVARA movies for that matter.

You could watch it for Jennifer Lopez (fine and fine performance as usual) and the rest of the cast. Movie loses major points because of Marc Anthony. But if you are a OH-YOU-SANG-TO-ME fan, then go watch it. Cause there easily wouldn't be any other movies with MARC ANTHONY playing the title role. (But that could change if J.Lo was planning to produce for the little prik)


I guess Jlo just couldn't help her self, perfect opportunity she must have thought, I'm sure her and Marc Anthony had themselves winning Oscars in their triumphant film. Who cares if the film is all lies with enough clichés to fill Madison square garden. Thankfully the public stood away from this disaster. Anyone who knows the Lavoe story laughed at this farce. Not only did she produce a totally dishonest film she single handedly ruined her husbands once flourishing career. Shame on her for exploiting probably the Greatest salsa singer of his generation. Jlo today is an actress with no career just observe the golden globes on Sunday giving out an award because Angelina Joli wasn't interested in doing it. Sean Combs has more credibility than her.


In 1963, Hector Perez was already a promising young singer in his native Puerto Rico when, at the age of seventeen, he moved to New York City to try and make a name for himself as a performer there. In no time flat, he was playing in clubs, had signed a lucrative recording contract with the Latin-flavored Fania Records, and had changed his name to the far more exotic-sounding Hector Lavoe. From the mid-1960s to his death from AIDS in 1993, Lavoe was an international sensation who helped to popularize the musical style known as "Salsa." But, as with most artists, he lived a life of self-destructive self-indulgence, marked by serial philandering and hardcore drug abuse. He also had a volatile relationship with "Puchi," the Bronx girl who became his wife and who narrates "El Cantante," the glossy movie about his life.

Despite the novelty of the milieu and an undeniable sincerity on the part of everyone involved in its production, "El Cantante" remains doggedly conventional, lackluster and superficial in its treatment of the kind of material with which we are all too familiar from previous biopics that have chronicled the rise and fall of artists of all categories and stripes. Marc Antony brings a certain ferocity and depth to his portrayal of the struggling celebrity, but real-life wife Jennifer Lopez is all fluttery overacting as the woman who stood by her man through good times and bad (mostly bad). The music is enjoyable, but I'm afraid we've all been down this road so many times before that "El Cantante" fails to stir either our passions or our sympathy for the sadly benighted couple and all that they're going through. You'd be better off buying the albums instead.


I had been looking forward to seeing this film, despite the wretched reviews. After viewing it last night, however, I can understand why so many people (professional critics especially) were disgusted with El Cantante.

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony are both capable actors who could have portrayed Puchi and Hector LaVoe as genuine human beings - complex, driven and conflicted - but instead all they're given to work with is mind-bogglingly superficial claptrap, posing as a script, which shows them as nothing more than clichés: she marries the up-and-coming singer who turns out to be a clueless drug addict and he drags her down with him or at least he does his very best to try, blah blah blah. There's not a shred of insight into their characters anywhere to be found. The onstage scenes were good (and I liked the creative way the English translation of the lyrics were displayed on screen), but this is not supposed to be a music video, it's supposed to be a full-length movie. I was not familiar with Hector and Puchi going in, but I know enough to believe they deserved better.


This movie greatest problem, is its presentation. The movie is not about Lavoe, it is about how Lavoe's wife viewed him; this, in my opinion, ruined the movie, as it became about Lavoe's wife. I did not want to see a movie about her, and her recollections and/or feelings; I wanted to see a movie where we would learn about Lavoe's successes and failures. There are also problems with accuracy of detail and chronology, which do not spoil the movie but they are errors. Marc Anthony captured Lavoe's on stage mannerisms perfectly, and even though I would have preferred to hear actual Lavoe recordings, he did sing well.


I came out of watching this film revolted to my stomach. We all know that Héctor Lavoe wasn't a saint, and his life was indeed a tragedy from when he became famous on... but the overwhelming feeling you get from all real-life sources of information and trivia that have described his life in the past is that, contrary to the despotic, abusive brute portrayed in the film, Héctor's character was way more generous, more people-friendly (I'll talk about this in a minute), pained, multidimensional than what we're fed with through Marc Anthony's interpretation. That role, Marc plays quite well, so let's not diminish his and Jennifer Lopez's acting talents on what is a flawed script to begin with (heavily biased in favor of Puchy Rosario's viewpoint of things). But this is not a movie about Héctor's life, this is, somehow, a caricature of a Tony Montana of sorts turned salsa singer.

This movie says "personal vanity project" all over it, and is more a vehicle for pushing J-Lo's talent to people's faces (more so than Marc Anthony's, even!) than a serious recreation of the man and his music. Another big blunder is the portrayal of Willie Colón, which is inaccurate to the hilt. The gossip fodder has been put underneath a microscope; in the past, Willie has been blunt and frank about his own life's mistakes, but was a far more serious, genius-like, professional influence over these facts than was portrayed of him. His is a blur here.

I do share the feeling that the movie comes across as a big movie video. Marc's pipes are undeniably good, even if his on-stage portrayal of Héctor is a bit stiff. J-Lo's sex appeal and talent oozes through, of course, but this movie isn't named "La Esposa del Cantante" for nothing. We have no notion of what drove Héctor to New York to begin with, how big the Willie Colón years really were... we're not even truly aware on how much Héctor was manipulated by those who do manipulated him in real life. And, since most real-life sources have stated that their contribution to the film was squelched to begin with, this comes across as a flashy, lopsided, expensive mess of a biopic.

Too bad the non-Latinos will only have this movie as a reference of Héctor's impact over Latin American culture and salsa proper. As it has turned out, the hardcore fans who have seen it hate the movie... and so do I, who happen not to be one.

There's an apocryphal story about Lavoe actually meeting Marc Anthony shortly before his death. At the time, Marc looked like a rocker, sort of a Latino Axl Rose. Héctor, who spared no one in the teasing department, said: "¡Qué nena fea!" (What an ugly girl!) when they met. Marc, as big a chip on his shoulder as he has proved himself to have, probably never forgave him...


Vanity project for J-Lo kind of starring her husband about one of the founders of Salsa who's hard driving life left him burned out and dead of AIDS. Told in flashback by a woefully miscast and wildly too young J-Lo this is about something, I'm not sure what. Maybe about some guy who makes music. Yes thats it Marc Anthony is in it and he sings a lot. he also gets drunk and high a great deal. And he plays a lot of music...oh yea and he throws up on J-lo (actually I think this about a woman who prattles on and on and on and talks about nothing). Think of the worst Behind the Music special on VH1 and then remove any sort of information. I watched this film for two hours and I have no idea who anyone was. J-Lo as Anthony's wife babbles on about how funny her husband was but we never see it. Everyone else wanders around doing things that are never really explained- except when they make music. The music here is wonderful. A mix of music of the period with great Salsa this is a movie that almost becomes a great music video, unfortunately the music gets interrupted for J-Lo's rambling narration or unconnected dialog scenes. This may mean something if you know who the actors are suppose to be portraying, if not you're going to be very very lost. Poorly filmed, the set ups are almost basic and unimaginative, and the scenes of New York and elsewhere were clearly filmed decades after the events take place (Marc Anthony's character had been dead over ten years when Andrew Lloyd Webber's woman in White played the Marriot Marquis.) There's a good story here and clearly Marc Anthony, who's as good as his wife is bad, is the man to act in it, but the film as it exists now is really pointless. Its not bad, its badly made so that you come out knowing less than when you went in. Frankly the only reason to see this is the music which is great. Maybe if we can find a print where the narration is removed and we just hear the songs we might have a watchable film.


Jenifer Lopez and husband Marc Anthony's latest film El Cantante about the Hector Lavoe and the birth of Salsa, is an Oscar nominated-wannabe biopic mess of a film.

The film follows the life of Puerto Rican singer Hector Lavoe, who came to New York in 1975 and became a mega star, starting the Salsa genre. Marc Anthony plays Hector and Jenifer Lopez his wifePuchi. One of the many problems with this film was that Marc did not have a strong screen presence and his performance became overpowered by the amazing performance by Jenifer Lopez who did such a wonderful job I started thinking it was more about Hector's wife than about Hector.

One effective part of the film I thoroughly enjoyed was how the story cut back and forth through an interview of Hector's wife looking back on Hector's life story. The interview was shot in black and white contrasting with the rich colors of the rest of the film.

Despite this technique, the rest of the film was hard to follow. It seemed to follow a pre-made formula of music montage after music montage inter cut with short scenes of dramatic acting, as if the director was following a manual of how to make a musician's biopic film. Also the use of fancy, rapid editing was way overused and after a while seemed only there to give it a sophisticated look.

I love long films but this two hour movie had me checking my watch frequently. Overall it was a big disappointment and I felt the only thing that was good in the film was Jenifer Lopez's performance. Unfortunately even her Oscar worthy performance couldn't save this muddled film.


Why it is worth watching this movie, is to compare it to the movie from whence it took inspiration and derivation, the British masterpiece "Scum." This is a tale of a hard young man (Penn) sent to a youth offenders institution. But that is all that there is to say by comparison to the original story. In Bad Boys the scared aggression of imprisoned young men is faux-macho, always expressed as verbal and physical rage. No emotional subtlety nor human tangibility, no invitation of discomfort to the viewer as to why a society would allow the gross mistreatment of so many young people. Bad Boys is lock stock yank jock, typically missing the point of emotional shading and realism in movies of this fare. Comparing Penn's O'Brien to Winston's Carlin... Yer 'aving a laugh intcha?


Leaving aside the tired and seedy clichés of the death row genre, which this film wallows in, and the unpleasant evocation of the crucifixion, this film is just plain inaccurate, a bit-part player's parasitic exploitation of her tiny role in a bigger story. What is missing is more important than what is here. Where is the female victim's brother who was a regular visitor and friend to the murderer? Where is Newt Gingritch, where is Pat Robertson? Both actively campaigned for commutation of the death sentence. Where is any mention of the key Larry King interview given two weeks before her death? The overwhelming impression is that this woman had one source of support and friendship, when the reality was very different. It can't even get right the nature of the barrier in the visitor's room, or the marriage-by-proxy, opting instead for the romantic death row ceremony.

This is a movie which enjoys its misery, a pornography of redemption and death. If the book has the same tendency to self-promote at the expense of the truth, then the movie is true to the book. And then neither are true to the facts.


Diane Keaton stars in "Crossed Over," an overly-sentimental film that does not even make an attempt to become anything more than a giant, television "soap" film.

Diane Keaton gives no great performance compared to some of her past work, and the rest of the cast members are boring. The direction is confusing and drags out endlessly. I was enthralled when the credits finally started to roll. So many scenes that should and could have been left on the cutting room floor weren't, so instead we are stuck with a two hour soap-fest. I find it hard to believe that the film stays completely true to the book it is based upon, which in turn is based upon real events.

I don't really have to go into how preachy and politically correct this film is. It's kind of a no-brainer. Though, I must say, I didn't expect something like "Crossed Over" to be as preachy as it was.

"Crossed Over" is another forgettable television film with good potential but an all-too-familar and boring script.

 1.5/5 stars --