polsci/sentiment-polarity-dataset-v2.0 huggingface dataset:
" soldier " , by director paul anderson , is a film in which any presence of originality is fleeting . 
the best moments of the film are in the opning scenes where kurt russel's character todd is shown growing up under strict military supervision . 
brutality through the eyes of the innocent and stripped of it every single day growing up is something that has a lot of emotional potential power behind it , and the opening scenes tap into it a little . 
then it goes nowhere with that idea . 
there is perhaps one rather fleeting scene afterwards that deals with the potential trauma of this dehumanization , and the rest of the film is just some of the biggest action movie cliches i've ever seen . 
the whole idea of the inhuman , soldier-type character gaining some degree of humanity by defending a potential female love interest and family from his evil counterpart out to kill her is done , and it's been done much better . 
i was able to predict the plot of the _whole_ story , which wouldn't be so bad if other aspect of the film somewhat interesting . 
between the action sequences , it tries to deal with the aforementioned issues of humanity through the performance of mr . russel in the film and the tiny little window to his soul that is his eyes , since his dialog is extremely limited . 
his performance in that way isn't all that bad , but certainly is not enough to carry this film . 
other performances in this film are really not worth much mention at all , and they generally are about as weak as their characters . 
but enough of this stuff about plot and character , right ? 
isn't the most important part of an action film , well , the action ? 
even in this aspect the film is a disappointment . 
in mortal kombat ( 1995 ) , director paul anderson proved that truly engaging use and choreography of action in a film can override problems with plot and produce something entertaining . 
however , he fails to repeat that in this film . 
the combat scenes , particularly the big one at the end , is incredibly unimaginatve . 
fighting and combat scenes are supposed to bring about thrills in this type of movie , a point which even an otherwise unimpressive film like starship troopers seemed to realize . 
but instead of reaching for something truly interesting to end the film with , it goes for the old , shoot-em up , one guy vs . an army type of cinema that i thought died with the military action films of the 80s . 
if the film went with some of the ideas it opened up with the introduction more seriously , it could have been a rather engaging science fiction film . 
however , it utterly failed to go in any new directions after that , making the film a big disappointment .
cashing in on the success of white men can't jump and the failure of most of their solo vehicles ( including the cowboy way and drop zone ) , wesley snipes and woody harrelson have reteamed , hoping that they can strike up the same success . 
sadly , if this dismal , cliche ridden and mind-numbingly boring action pic is anything to go by , they haven't got a chance in hell of even coming close . 
this time out , the duo play foster brothers who are transit cops . 
following several run-ins with their tyrannical boss ( robert blake ) , who is obsessed with the " money train " --a train which carries all the subway's takings--and will let nothing stop it ( now * there's * an original plot device ) , harrelson's character decides to try and take off with the cash . 
along the way , both of them fall in love with the same woman--another transit cop who also hates her boss . 
this leads to the typical sibling rivalry crap that you usually find in a film of this standard ( 'you were always the better brother' etc . etc . etc . ) , and doesn't help to add anything to the film . 
given a better script , better performers in supporting roles and a shorter running time ( the film almost went for two hours--or did it just feel like it ? ) , this film might ( and i mean * might * ) have turned out okay , but as it is , it is stocked with the worst action film cliches , whose only purpose appears to be to pad the film out to its painfully long running time . 
robert blake , who plays the evil boss , has got to be the most pathetic bad guy in film history ! 
he sounds like wayne newton , and appears to think the best way to appear evil is to have your eyes bulging as though they are about to burst out of their sockets ! 
but this is only one of money train's problems . 
if you look at the script as if it was an action film , it lacks originality and suspense . 
but if you try to look at it as if it were a heist film , it is even worse . 
the final robbery sequence is almost trivialised and the characters definitely ain't butch and sundance . 
the film isn't all bad though . 
snipes and harrelson , when they aren't using the dumb cliches that the script gives them , make an agreeable duo , and some of the stunt-work is indeed excellent . 
but good stunt-work cannot save a bottom-of-the-barrel action movie . 
if you're a really undemanding action freak , there's a chance you'll like this . 
but if you're looking for something original , or suspenseful , try somewhere else--i doubt you'll find it here .
girl 6 is , in a word , a mess . 
i was never able to determine what spike lee was trying to accomplish with this film . 
there was no sense of where the film was going , or any kind of coherent narrative . 
if there was a point to the film , i missed it . 
girl 6 , by the way , is the way theresa randle's character is addressed in the phone sex workplace ; all the girls are known by their numbers . 
the plot , such as it is : theresa randle is a struggling n . y . actress , and eventually takes a job as a phone-sex operator . 
she begins to lose contact with reality , as her job consumes her . 
also , she must deal with the advances of her ex-husband ( isiah washington ) . 
he is an ex- con thief , and she tries to keep him away , while at the same time , it's clear that she still harbors feelings for him . 
her neighbor , jimmy ( spike lee ) functions as the observer ; mediating between the ex- husband and girl 6 . 
he also functions as a point of stability , as he watches her become seduced by the lurid world of phone sex . 
the soundtrack , consisting of songs by prince , was jarring . 
it kept taking my attention from the film - not altogether a bad thing , i'll grant you , as what was transpiring onscreen wasn't that riveting . 
for parts of the middle of the film , the music stayed blissfully in the background . 
in the opening sequence and one scene later in the film , however , the music was particularly loud and distracting . 
of course , i've never really cared for prince's ( or tafkap if you like ) music . 
prince fans might love the soundtrack , but it will probably be distracting , even to die-hard fans . 
of the performances , the only one that stood out was spike lee's buddy character , jimmy . 
he was excellent as the always-broke neighbor of girl 6 . 
he should have stuck to acting in this film . 
there are several sequences that gave me the impression that he'd like to be oliver stone when he grows up . 
there are scenes shot with different types of film , which are purposely grainy , and reminiscent of some of the scenes in oliver stone's natural born killers . 
in that film , they worked to propel the narrative . 
in this film , they just made me more confused . 
there are some amusing moments , and a few insights into the lives of the women who use their voices to make the phone-sex industry the multi-billion dollar industry that it has become . 
other than that , though , nothing much happens . 
there are a few intense moments , as when one caller becomes frightening , but even that is rather lackluster . 
i'm not the biggest fan of spike lee , though i'd agree that he has done some very good work in the past . 
in girl 6 , though , he seems to be floundering . 
he had an interesting idea , a fairly good setup , and seemed to wander aimlessly from there . 
girl 6 earns a grade of d .
back in 1980s , chuck norris used to be synonym for the action films . 
he couldn't , of course , top the success and fame of big action names like sylvester stallone or arnold schwarzenegger , but sheer quantity of his films guaranteed that he was household name among shoot'em up and beat'em up genre aficionados . 
that quantity was mostly provided by cannon group , prolific production company that dominated the b-movie market in previous decade by flooding it with cheap , formulaic and , more often than not , unwatchable genre products . 
the hitman , 1991 action thriller directed by chuck's brother aaron , is one of the last among them . 
chuck norris here plays seattle cop betrayed , shot and left for dead by his partner ( which shouldn't surprise anyone , considering the fact that the partner is being played by michael parks , specialised for roles of usually very mean characters ) . 
surviving the shooting , cop is pronounced dead and hired as deep undercover agent . 
he infiltrates the underworld circles in seattle and becomes their top hitman , using his abilities to start brutal war between three major crime organisations - italians , french canadians and iranians . 
since it is rather absurd to expect great acting ability from chuck norris , at least not in this kind of movie , the biggest attraction of this film should have been action . 
well , the action in this film falls flat - it is boring , repetitive and not at all exciting . 
it is nothing more than monotonous series of scenes that contains violence too brutal even for this type of films . 
we know very little about norris' character while , on the other hand , gangsters are portrayed with more human dimension . 
in the end we almost feel sorry for them , since they are shown totally powerless against norris and his unstoppable and bloody crusade . 
during the film , somebody obviously became aware of that problem , so the screenwriter introduced the subplot dealing with the black boy who gets adopted by norris . 
that caused another problem - any questions about nature of that relationship had to be quashed with another subplot - this one dealing with lady lawyer who sleeps with the hero and gets killed after fulfilling that screenplay obligation . 
the photography in this film is dark , setting is depressive and this forgettable piece of 1980s style cinema leaves viewers without any reason to justify the hour and half spent in watching it .
we could paraphrase michelle pfieffer's character in dangerous minds and say that beyond rangoon starts with an " a . " 
that's fair enough . 
all movies , like all school children , should be given the benefit of the doubt . 
the chance to succeed . 
after all , we like to think that the right combination of talent and effort can do wonders . 
mountains can be moved , and good movies can be made . 
yeah right . 
children fail , as do films . 
as does director john boorman's latest . 
the success of beyond rangoon hinges on the believability of patricia arquette ( ed wood , true romance ) as the busty westerner-in-peril wandering about 1988 burma without a passport . 
though we can stomach the mild plot contrivances that get her there , it's a tougher task to overlook the actress . 
she's a lightweight . 
as the first scene ( with narration ! ) 
demonstrates , she doesn't have * nearly * enough range for the emotions that her character--a mother fleeing the memories of a murdered husband and son--is supposed to show . 
she may give a stronger performance than , say , keanu reeves in a walk in the clouds , by not by much . 
beyond rangoon is a very physically appealing film , thanks to the practiced craftsmanship of john boorman ( deliverance , excalibur , hope and glory ) . 
he keeps the narrative moving , no matter how muddy the story--or the heroine--gets . 
why he chose arquette remains a mystery , though . 
maybe he was thinking that the dramatic weight of the story would overcome any casting deficiencies . 
but even after an hour of half-stated political statements and murky mass killings , we * still * don't know enough of what's happening in this country to feel distressed for the characters or their situations . 
empty exoticism . 
the technical credits in beyond rangoon are a curious mix , combining lush jungle photography with bad blue-screen work . 
also odd is the obvious dubbing . 
done to make some of the foreign characters sound less foreign ? 
and , is it my mistake , or do the same extras keep reappearing as different soldiers ? ? 
doo doo doo doo . 
[ " twilight zone " theme , or opinion of movie . 
you be the judge . ]
long time buddies and neil diamond tribute band members wayne ( steve zahn , " happy , texas " ) and j . d . ( jack black , " high fidelity " ) watch in horror as third mate darren silverman ( jason biggs , " american pie " ) disappears under the thumb of his new fiance judith , ( amanda peet , " the whole nine yards " ) a controlling psychiatrist . 
they're doubly troubled when the return of darren's 'one and only love' sandy perkins ( amanda detmer , " final destination " ) returns to their home town but doesn't cause a ripple in darren's devotion to judith . 
there's only one thing wayne and j . d . can think of doing - they kidnap judith and fake her death in " saving silverman . " 
written by hank nelken and greg depaul after seeing a friend engaged to the wrong woman , " saving silverman " is directed by 'hit comedy director' dennis dugan of such films as " big daddy , " " brain donors " and " problem child . " 
it's a dismal , third-rate farrelly brothers rip off that attempts to milk humor from such inspired bits of whimsy as having darren's love interest come from a family of circus freaks and be about to become a nun . 
gross out gags include a visualization of darren getting butt cheek implants . 
 " saving silverman " is almost saved by stars zahn and black . 
these two are so comically talented they can take bad material and still deliver the goods . 
they're in " animal house " mode while the rest of the film trawls along and comes up empty . 
jason biggs can attribute his entire career to the luck of having been cast in the smash hit " american pie . " 
peet shows some physical moves but no flair for comedy here while detmer slaps a brave , sweet smile onto her face and soldiers through . 
r . lee ermey ( " full metal jacket " ) is one note in an embarrassing performance as a psychopathic ex-football coach . 
neil diamond appears at the film's climax as himself and miraculously enlivens the proceedings by belting out some of his old standards .
when a film is produced on a shoestring budget by a couple of hardworking filmmakers and when it tells the story of a genuine tragedy , the easy path for a reviewer who hated the movie is to give it a pass . 
toss out your usual objectivity , ignore how many times you checked your watch while viewing it , forget how unbearable it was to sit through , and find some meaningless way to compliment it . 
this , of course , will be of no service to your readers , but at least you'll avoid the hate mail from the movie's fans . 
thus it is with a heavy heart that i review the movie paulina ( not to be confused with the recent movie paulie about a talking parrot ) . 
directed by vicky funari as a labor of intense love - she spent the last one third of her life on film - the movie blends documentary footage with historic and fanciful recreations to relate the bitterly sad and true story of paulina cruz suarez . 
paulina was a maid in vicky's household when vicky was young . 
i got to learn the film's background when i attended a screening in which the two women who made it were present . 
for those without such context , the reaction to the film may be that it is a parody of a bad indie film . 
the acting is amateurish , the story is maudlin , and it has all the visual appeal of a bad home movie . 
grainy and overexposed , the movie , shot on 16mm film and videotape , has little to recommend it . 
confusingly composed , the movie jumps about jarringly as it tells its story . 
quite bloody at times , the story , full of horrific images , seems designed to shock and repulse us . 
why else would you include a scene with a completely nude and bloody 8-year-old paulina ? 
another scene has a teenage paulina being fondled on a bus by the man sitting next to her . 
in retaliation , she bites off part of his finger . 
this covers the both of them in a bucket of blood . 
the passengers on the bus then view the girl in their minds as everything from saint to sinner . 
one , for example , sees her as an aztec priestess holding out a large heart that she had just cut from a body . 
the lugubrious tale has paulina being raped and beaten . 
certainly she had to endure a miserable life . 
but that does not guarantee that a movie about her will necessarily being good . 
i felt trapped in the theater watching it . 
only the opportunity to talk with the filmmakers afterwards made the movie bearable . 
paulina runs 1 : 28 . 
the film is in spanish with english subtitles . 
it is not rated but would be an r for violence and nudity and would be acceptable for older teenagers .
in this year's summer movie preview issue of _entertainment_weekly_ , theresa connelly described her writing-directing debut , _polish_wedding_ , as " a child that did not quite become the child i thought it would . " 
one wonders what exactly she originally had in mind for this jumbled film , a comedy-drama that appears doomed at its most basic elements . 
the family at the center of _polish_wedding_ is the pzoniaks , which consists of mother jadzia ( lena olin ) , father bolek ( gabriel byrne ) , sole daughter hala ( claire danes ) and four sons of varying degrees of facelessness . 
it's a large family , but there's not a sympathetic one in the whole bunch , certainly not in the primary trio . 
jadzia takes pride in building and maintaining a home and family , but she's kind of a hypocrite since she's carrying on an affair with a businessman rade serbedzija ) . 
her excuse for her affair is neglect from bolek , who is such a passive wimp that one cannot connect with his sadness and frustration . 
also , how could he possibly pay so little attention to the saucy , sexy jadzia ? 
hala is a spoiled , self-centered high school dropout whose reckless sexual experimentation predictably leads to pregnancy . 
with such an unappealing set of characters , it's no surprise that _polish_wedding_'s plot complications are far from involving . 
naturally , jadzia and bolek would like hala to marry the young cop , russell schuster ( adam trese ) , who fathered the child , but he refuses to make such a commitment . 
ho-hum . 
another complication , involving the decidedly un-virginal hala being selected to crown a statue of the virgin mary , is first played for laughs and then , inexplicably , as a profound statement in the film's climax--which , ironically , is funnier than any of the film's lame attempts at humor , such as a painfully labored slapstick attempt where jadzia leads her sons in a charge to beat up russell . 
that scene is but one in a number of writing miscues by connelly . 
the jadzia-bolek conflict is resolved in an overly pat way not unfamiliar to sitcom viewers . 
the hala-russell conflict isn't resolved in as contrived a manner , but their ultimate resolution will leave viewers wondering if they had missed something . 
and then there's some atrocious dialogue , which i am sure was not supposed to be as ridiculous as they sound : " look at all these pickles . 
just looking at them gives me such great sadness . " 
as misguided as _polish_wedding_ is , the affair is something of a letdown , considering the strong performances by byrne , danes , and especially the fiery olin . 
they obviously believed in connelly and her material--a faith that audiences will be hard-pressed to share .
when i was nine , i started buying the coolest toy figures in my local department store . 
masters of the universe was the pinnacle of what i was after for action figures : they combined science fiction and fantasy , had cool names like mekanek and stinkor and each came with its own little comic book to read . 
of course , the animated series produced by filmation remains one of the most wildly successful television products in world history . 
given the tremendous success of the toys and the cartoon ( not to mention its moderately successful spin-off she-ra : princess of power ) , it was inevitable that a production company would put two and two together , come with the result of " trillions " and make a live-action masters movie . 
let's be blunt : masters of the universe is a very bad movie . 
the story is painfully dull and mind-numbingly cliched ( hands up who * wouldn't * guess he-man and skeletor take their fight into the real world ) and is acted out by either incredibly untalented actors ( dolph lundgren as he-man for one ) or good actors ( james tolkan , meg foster ) given such awful characters and dialogue that they can't help but seem terrible . 
it is extremely clear that someone making the movie wanted it to be as good as star wars . 
we have the alien bounty hunters , the desert skif technology , stormtrooper lookalikes and a musical score so reminiscent of john williams that " deja vu " is too polite a term to use in describing it . 
 " blatant uninspired ripoff " would appear more appropriate . 
tv fans might want to check out courtney cox ( monica in friends ) and robert duncan mcneill ( lt paris in star trek : voyager ) , very early in their careers and not doing to well in them either . 
so in the face of such mindless sub-mediocrity , is there anything to make masters of the universe worth watching at all ? 
yes , there is . 
one incredible good reason . 
his name is frank langella . 
langella has always been one of the underrated actors of hollywood , appearing in countless films over the years . 
here he plays skeletor , the villain of the piece . 
dressed in opulent black velvet robes and bearing a skull for a face , he is one part darth vader , one part emperor and two parts grim reaper . 
given this character , langella falls right into it with style and precision . 
skeletor is believable , interesting and manages to tread the fine line between being a homage to the past and startlingly original in his own right . 
masters of the universe . 
i remember loving it when i was eleven . 
at twenty one it's difficult to see why . 
but , as i said , it is blessed with a superlative villain who makes the entire thing worth the tedium of the remainder . 
besides , this year marks the film's 10th anniversary . 
watch it with some friends for a good laugh and celebrate .
in " gia " , angelina jolie plays the titular character , the first so-called supermodel . 
and right there you have the biggest hurdle this movie had to overcome ( in my eyes , anyway ) . 
i just don't see how the life of a model is worthy of a two hour film . 
despite this , i kept an open mind when i began watching the movie . 
sadly , though , my fears were realized . 
it's just not possible to make an interesting , full-length film about a person who spends their days wearing different clothes . 
the movie follows the rise and fall of gia ( no last name ) , a tumultuous woman who doesn't particularly enjoy the world of fashion . 
she becomes famous more quickly than she can handle , and finds herself hooked on drugs and on a woman she cannot have . 
the last hour of the film is just one scene after another of gia getting high , losing a job , and going into rehab . 
this formula is repeated several times , and i really got tired of it . 
in general , i tend to dislike movies featuring heavy drug use . 
no because it offends me or anything like that ; it just bores me . 
quite frankly , i don't see the appeal , so when a director shows me a point-of-view shot of a junkie , complete with tipsy camera angles and echoing voices , i am left somewhat unimpressed . 
the first hour of the film , though , was actually quite engaging . 
we see gia as she is discovered and moves to new york with her boyfriend . 
these early scenes were interesting . 
we're shown the fashion world through a newcomers eyes , and it was a perspective i hadn't seen before . 
the movie begins to go downhill , however , once gia becomes an established model . 
>from that point , i lost all interest in the movie and was counting the minutes before it would end . 
it all seemed so excessive . 
fine , so gia had a drug problem , does this really need to dominate the film ? 
couldn't the same effect have been had with a five or ten minute montage of scenes featuring gia experimenting with drugs ? 
or perhaps this film is meant to be a warning to aspiring models not to get into the drug world . 
quite possibly , although since i have no desire to become a model , this warning is lost on me . 
as i stated at the beginning of this review , i simply don't see how the life of a model is worthy of a feature-length motion picture . 
what do they do that warrants a movie ? 
strut their stuff for thousands of dollars an hour ? 
i suppose the same could be said about making movies about baseball players , for example , but at least somebody like lou gehrig led an interesting life . 
gia did not . 
and by the end of the film , all i knew about gia for sure was that she hated modelling , was bi-sexual , and was heavily into drugs . 
not exactly a meaningful contribution to society , as far as i'm concerned .
dr dolittle ( 20th century fox ) running time : 1 hour 25 minutes starring eddie murphy directed by betty thomas riding high on the success of the nutty professor ( 1996 ) , murphy returns in this abysmal comedy . 
he plays doctor john dolittle , who as a child had the ability to understand animals . 
however , after being 'exorcised' he loses this ability , and we fast forward to see dolittle in a crummy job surrounding by crummy people ( most notably dr mark weller , played by oliver platt . ) 
however , with a bonk on the head his ability to understand animals returns , and 'comedy' is ready and waiting to happen . 
except comedy never does happen . 
doctor dolittle , even with the excellent premise , rarely manages to raise a laugh . 
poor old murphy looks bored stiff throughout the whole movie , and his performance suffers . 
the manic murphy we saw in the 80's is gone , his more mature ( and more boring ) twin appears to be getting all the work in the 90's . 
the voices of the animals , which include albert brooks , chris rock ( the 'new' eddie murphy ) and norm mcdonald as 'lucky' the dog are marginally better , and at least they put enthusiasm in the movie . 
sadly , most of their lines are pretty dumb . 
and they're not 'funny' dumb , like dumb & dumber ( 1994 ) , but just boring dumb . 
the film even succumbs to fart jokes halfway through , in a desperate attempt to raise some laughs . 
there are a few good jokes in the script , but they are few and far between . 
if i had to choose a favourite performance , it would probably be albert brooks tiger , who has a certain charm about him . 
sadly , he's barely in the movie , and rock's really annoying hamster is given far too much screen time . 
joke wise , we are thankfully , spared the mocking and insulting type of jokes that featured heavily in the nutty professor . 
the director , betty thomas , has , well , done better films . 
she bought us private parts ( 1997 ) and the brady bunch movie ( 1995 ) which were , sadly , much better than this . 
the scenes lack any charm , she just gets the job done . 
the animals themselves , are reasonable realistic , although most of them are obviously puppets . 
there's an impressive looking tiger , however , and the lip sync is pretty good . 
you'd have no problem guessing that most of the close up's are puppets , however , with their jilted movement . 
i was hoping jim hensons workshop , who created the furry friends , would have done a better job . 
doctor dolittle , in the end , is a disappointment for everyone involved . 
murphy has done much better movies ( i . e 
trading places ) the director has seen better days , and even the creatures aren't that good . 
the target audience , aged between 7-13 , who are undemanding , will probably like it however , thanks to it's dumbed down humour . 
everyone else , however , should give doctor dolittle a miss .
disney's " air bud " tells a boy-and-his-dog story with a twist -- the pooch is quite an accomplished basketball player . 
granted , for a family comedy , it's not a very funny or successful idea to begin with , but it doesn't seem to matter -- " air bud " is surprisingly solemn . 
save for occasional moments of forced slapstick , the movie wags its tale with a straight face -- not a very enjoyable approach . 
if " air bud " had realized its own absurdity , then it possibly could have been better . 
here , we're actually asked to cheer a moment when the dog marches out to save the big game , clad in two pairs of sneakers and even a jersey . 
its number ? 
k9 . 
yeah , whatever . 
the movie opens as golden retriever buddy ( as himself ) escapes from his current owner , abusive clown-for-hire norm snively ( michael jeter ) . 
he ends up in fernwell , washington , where mopey new-kid-on-the-block josh ( kevin zegers ) is trying to cope with the move and the recent death of his father . 
buddy , kevin . 
kevin , buddy . 
once the dog proves his on-court prowess , kevin's self-esteem rockets . 
they both win places in the school's basketball team , with the animal as their mascot . 
but before they can make it to the finals , snively surfaces to reclaim buddy . 
everything plays out just as one would think : heavy on predictability , light on an actual story . 
the movie follows a calculated chain of events -- kevin's gloom fades , snively gets his comeuppance and buddy contracts rabies and must be executed old yeller-style . 
okay , that last one's a lie , but at least it would have been a quicker send-off than " air bud " 's courtroom climax -- no joke ! 
there's even a faux-cute musical montage where a reluctant buddy gets cleaned-up to " splish splash . " 
paint cans are spilled and newspapers are buried , all in the name of formula . 
the end credits note that " no special visual effects were used in the basketball sequences of this motion picture . " 
that very well may be true , and although to see a dog sink shots is quite a sight , a movie cannot exist on feat alone . 
but " air bud " doesn't seem to be interested in anything else . 
a friend of mine insists he saw buddy a while back on a segment of david letterman's " stupid pet tricks . " 
i can't think of a more appropriate connection -- this movie is a stupid pet trick .
bad movies described as " a swift descent into sinful pleasure , decay , and debauchery " are hard to watch . 
bad 2000's movies that resemble bad 1980s films are even harder to watch . 
shadow hours falls into the latter category , a mish-mashed train wreck of b-movie actors ( including michael dorn , aka star trek's worf ) , an uninteresting plot , vain attempts at capitalizing on the " underground " scenes of seedy los angeles , and really , really bad directing and horrendous music video-esque ballistic editing that was taught to me in film school right before i decided to drop out . 
the film revolves around the life of michael holloway ( balthazar getty ) who is trying to restart his life with his one-dimensional wife chloe ( rebecca gayheart ) after a nasty bout of drug and alcohol addictions . 
michael takes a job of working the graveyard shift at the local gas station and is bombarded by the ugliness and weirdness of the nightlife of l . a . one night , he meets a strange gent named stuart ( mr . buckaroo banzai , peter weller ) . 
he drives a porsche , smokes french cigarettes , and drones on about life , eventually coaxing mike into exploring the " underbelly " of l . a . together , a tour of punk bars , s&m clubs , and bare-knuckle fights . 
the film then throws in a murder mystery with a cop played peter greene , acting like he wants to get the chance at a reprisal of his role in the mask 2 . the film then simply dissolves into a cheap rip-off of dante's inferno mixed with an old stephen j . cannell television pilot . 
the pace of the film is jarring and utterly without focus . 
other horrors include the endless montages of people pumping gas and the charlie sheen , johnny depp , richard grieco-esque acting of balthazar getty . 
peter weller clearly knows his career is completely gone and doesn't give two shits about it . 
and after the cheap exploitation of bondage clubs , dance clubs , and brothels - damn , isn't anyone safe any more from the ugly eye of hollywood ! ? 
way back in 1984 , a great but crazy director named abel ferrara made his worse film and called it fear city . 
shadow hours reminds me of an almost perfect sequel . 
director/writer : isaac eaton producers : peter alevey , andrea mia , shon greenblatt , balthazar getty starring : balthazar getty , peter weller , rebecca gayheart , peter greene , frederic forrest , brad douriff , michael dorn
hav plenty , as we are told in the beginning and reminded during the film , is a true story . 
life itself is a series of true stories , but most are not movie material . 
as scripted , directed , and acted by cinematic newcomer christopher scott cherot , hav plenty limps along at best . 
its dialog is so stilted - " you know what they say , 'no women ; no cry . ' " 
- that the actors are content to read the screenplay rather than invest much energy in trying to act it . 
in the story , lee plenty ( cherot ) is a 28-year-old author and teaching assistant . 
the movie , which happens mainly over the new year's holiday , consists of a series of incidents in which various single and married women try to kiss lee or take him to bed . 
since he consistently refuses , caroline gooden ( tammi katherine jones ) figures that he must be gay . 
eventually he and havilland " hav " savage ( chenoa maxwell ) get together , proving that he wasn't gay after all , just picky . 
sexy women can sit on his lap and ask him to go to bed with them , but he will not even kiss them . 
he's a man who knows his mind , which he frequently shares directly with the audience in a series of trite and overly cute monologues . 
filled with wealthy african-americans , the story is closest in tone to love jones , which was better . 
hav plenty's story doesn't go anywhere . 
at the end it subjects us to lee plenty's new film , which is a movie of the movie we've just seen , but with even worse acting . 
 " remember folks that , as outrageous as this all seems , this is a true story . " 
hav tells the camera , but the problem is that it's not outrageous at all or even the least bit interesting . 
hav plenty isn't so much a bad film as it is a total waste of the audience's time . 
hav plenty runs 1 : 32 . 
it is rated r for profanity and would be fine for most teenagers .
phew , what a mess ! 
for his fifth collaboration with director rich- ard donner ( lethal weapon i-iii , maverick ) , mel gibson plays a motormouth , maybe mentally ill new york city cabbie , jerry , whose wild conspiracy theories are all but ignored by alice ( julia roberts , acting all serious ) , the justice department employee that he has a crush on . 
she not interested , but another person is : a cia psychiatrist ( patrick stewart ) who promptly kidnaps him . 
is one of jerry's conjectures correct ? 
 * is * the metal strip in the new $100 bill being used to track your movements ? 
is oliver stone still alive , because he cut a deal with george bush to spread * dis * information ? 
is this movie really about * any * of the crazed cabbie's theories ? 
no , no , and no . 
as it turns out , there's some other nonsense going on here , involving and revolving around jerry's background . 
 ( hint : pay attention to an early scene where jerry blacks out and flashes back , in quick succession , to images of an interrogation room , hypodermic needles , and ms . roberts herself . ) 
the * initial * premise is pretty good and is played , for a while , at a delightfully dizzying clip . 
mel is wider-open that we've ever seen him and , if his character's relationship with roberts' initially strains credibility , their combined star power is blissfully intoxicating . 
 ( the highest wattage of the summer , perhaps ? ) 
even when the plot contrivances begin to intrude , the two remain a randy dandy screen pair . 
there's a great scene in jerry's fortress , er , apartment , with alice trying to act casual as her hyperactive host tries to remember the combination to a locked coffee bean container . 
 ( which he stores in another locked con- tainer , his fridge . ) 
other hilarious moments , of which there are many , include a trio of memorable convention-breakers , where alice ditches a tail , jerry cold-cocks someone , and , later , eludes a foot pursuit , each in a uproariously unexpected fashion . 
 ( that's donner's own ladyhawke playing in the theater , btw . ) 
let's see , other pleasures include . . . 
a brilliant title sequence , a jazzy score from carter burwell , and the worth-paying-to-see sight of roberts pumping lead into one bad guy and slamming another's head into a wall . 
oh , pretty woman ! 
getting to the latter , however , requires slogging through an increasingly overburdened and ultimately unappealing story . 
the last hour of conspiracy theory devolves from tolerable to torturous to almost unwatchable . 
more stuff happens of the stupid shit variety than is worth mentioning here , except , perhaps , for a late sequence that has alice locating jerry in an abandoned wing of a mental hospital by hearing his voice carrying through the air ducts . 
and here i thought it was wabbit season . 
good god , who rewrites these movies ? 
and do they arrive in nondescript black vehicles ?
it is with some sad irony that i screened fright night part 2 on the day that one of it's stars , roddy mcdowall passed away at the age of 70 . 
mcdowall was one of the most talented and prolific actors in hollywood , having a career that spanned over 60 years and appearing in more than 100 films . 
fright night part 2 probably will not be counted among his more memorable roles . 
this is really sad considering how good the first fright night film was . 
william ragsdale and roddy mcdowall both reprised their roles as the somewhat reluctant vampire killers who seem to be the only ones that realize that vampires walk among us . 
 ( at least in the movies anyway . ) 
it has been several years since charlie brewster ( ragsdale ) and b-movie actor turned late night horror film host , peter vincent ( mcdowall ) came face to face with a real live vampire who just happened to be charlie's next door neighbor . 
charlie and peter won that battle , but apparently even vampires have relatives who get pissed if you kill members of their family . 
apparently charlie's former bloodsucking next door neighbor had a sister who was none too pleased to find out that some kid and an aging actor staked her sibling . 
so she decides to exact a little bit of revenge . 
this ends up forcing charlie and peter to battle the forces of darkness yet again . 
one of the things that made fright night such a success was chris sarandon who played charlie's stylish next door neighbor with a taste for blood . 
fright night part 2 tries to duplicate that modern style but it falls sort . 
while they are stylish , the vamps in this film just don't have the personality of the undead in the first film . 
with the exception of a werewolf who adds some much needed comic relief to a few of the scenes . 
one bright spot , speaking from a strictly sexist point of view , is traci lin , who plays charlie's very skeptical girlfriend . 
it's really a shame that her career hasn't been better since she made this film . 
ragsdale does a fair job in this film , but doesn't give nearly the performance that he did in the original . 
roddy mcdowall makes the most with what he is given , which unfortunately isn't much which is a shame because his character was a lot of fun in the original movie . 
i guess i would have to say that the first film was a superior product in every way . 
the original always left you feeling danger was lurking right around the corner , part 2 had more of the feel of a music video . 
never a good thing for a horror film . 
another minus for part 2 was the traditional scenes that leave the audience on the edge of their seats waiting for something to jump out of a shadow where very rare . 
for that matter , they were almost nonexistent . 
if i was going to watch a horror film , this would be far from my first choice . 
the first fright night , on the other hand , would be right up near the top of my list . 
if i was in the mood for a roddy mcdowall film i'd probably head to the science fiction section of my local video store and rent planet of the apes . 
either way fright night part 2 would most likely not enter into the equation .
david spade has a snide , sarcastic sense of humor that works perfectly on the tv sitcom just shoot me . 
it also served as a good showcase for him when he co-starred , opposite the late chris farley , in tommy boy and black sheep . 
lost and found marks the comedian's first attempt at going solo in a movie , and it also reveals that when spade doesn't have a reliable back-up system , his brand of humor seems more desperate than one may expect . 
david spade is not the problem with lost and found . 
he plays dylan ramsey , the sweet main character , to the best of his abilities . 
the story revolves around dylan's obsessions with his beautiful new neighbour , lila dubois ( sophie marceau , from braveheart ) , and her terrier named jack . 
dylan believes that the best way to a woman's heart is through her dog . 
and so he kidnaps jack , planning to stage a fake rescue , in hope to win lila over . 
there are three good things about lost and found . 
the first is spade . 
the second is sophie marceau , a lovely actress who's been planted into the wrong movie . 
lastly , there's the dog , who is used here in a similar context to puffy from there's something about mary . 
unfortunately , director jeff pollack finds more humor in putting jack through a cycle in the drier than he does with simply making him look cute . 
this kind of physical humor is dead . 
pollack does everything but beat the poor pooch with a baseball bat to get laughs , and this procedure is cheap , unfunny and resoundingly cruel . 
this is where i start to get fuzzy . 
also in this unusual blend is ( apparently ) a sweet-natured love story between dylan and lila . 
given the mean-spirited comedy that the movie is obviously striving for , i found this hard to swallow . 
and , why does dylan even deserve someone like lila , after kidnapping her precious dog and putting it through such pain ? 
predictably , lost and found opts for a happy ending , one that feels so sentimental , gooey , and rings so false that it sets off a siren in your head that makes you feel a bit cheated . 
david spade ( who also co-wrote the movie ) tries hard , so very hard , to make this project amusing . 
there are some choice scenes that are quite funny , but the movie is only sporadically funny . 
patrick bruel plays the stock character of rene , the pompous jerk who also wants to win lila over , with his good looks and money . 
jon lovitz and martin sheen are welcome additions in two tiny supporting roles . 
despite a few positive attributes , lost and found just doesn't work . 
if you're searching for an enjoyable romantic-comedy , you could do far better than this obvious , misguided failure that shows a blatant disregard for what it's trying to present .
9 : its pathetic attempt at " improving " on a shakespeare classic . 
8 : its just another piece of teen fluff . 
7 : kids in high school are not that witty . 
6 : the wittiness is not witty enough . 
5 : the comedy is not funny . 
4 : the acting is poor . 
3 : the music . 
2 : the poster . 
1 : its worse than she's all that ! 
10=a classic 9=borderline classic 8=excellent 7=good 6=better than average 5=average 4=disappointing 3=poor 2=awful 1=a crap classic
sometimes i wonder just what the censors are thinking . 
take this film , " naked killer " , among it's ingredients are heavy doses of violence , rape sequences , straight and lesbian sex scenes and what our system calls " coarse language " . 
but what do those intelligent people at the censorship bureau choose to remove in case someone will get offended ? 
one word - penis . 
that's it . 
in spite of everything else in the movie the one thing that the censors decide is too much is " penis . " . 
it really restores you're faith in the system , huh ? 
anyway , that's just a side point . 
when naked killer was released in the local independent cinemas around melbourne , it was advertised ad nausuem as a hip , cool , controversial thriller . 
what they forgot to mention was that it isn't very good . 
the plot involves male cop tinam ( simon yam ) , investigating a series of brutal murders . 
while getting a haircut he meets and finds himself attracted to a girl named kitty ( chingmy yau ) , who , after extracting revenge on the man who killed her father , falls in with professional killer sister cindy ( svenwara madoka ) . 
realising kitty has potential , cindy decides to train kitty in several unusual and ridiculous ways and gives her a new identity . 
however in the course of his investigation tinam ( who believed kitty had disappeared ) , runs into her again , but isn't quite sure if it's her . 
to complicate matters the actual serial killlers , princess and baby , who a former students of cindy , and have been told to kill their old master and her new student . 
from then the action ensues . . . 
all in all , this is not a well done movie . 
the script is awful , the direction all over the place , the editing is jerky and confusing and the subtitling is surprisingly poor . 
however the are a few stand alone pieces that do entertain . 
the shoot out in the car park is almost woo-like in adrenaline . 
the fight scenes are energetic and i guess it must get a few points for trying something a little different . 
let me put this way , if you like action - get something else , if you like strong women in movies - get something else , if you have do decide between this and " black cat " for your hong kong female action - don't get either . 
even for curiosity value it just isn't worth it . 
let's face it - if ever the was a movie that became popular on it's subject alone , this is it .
there isn't much good about this movie . 
not much i can say about the acting , directing , or writing that would make you consider seeing this movie . 
so i'll get my one good comment out of the way , at least joel schuemacher ( batman & robin ) didn't direct it or it would be titled " technicolor city " . 
in fact there is nothing colorful about this movie , its dark and depressingly gloomy right down to the bitter end . 
the plot has a tendency to be interesting , but all that passes while your laughing at the ridiculous things thrown into what could have been a fascinating movie . 
the plot is impossible to explain due to how senseless it gets , so i will just touch on the bare minimum . 
john murdoch ( rufus sewell ) awakes in the bathtub of a cheap hotel , only to find out he has forgotten everything . 
john must find out who he is before the " strangers " ( a . k . a . 
mind erasing aliens ) find him and use him for their own evil conspiracy . 
during the film some interesting points are raised about human individuality , and the existence of inherently evil people . 
any of these points however are completely " erased " from your mind as you watch the actors stumble through the dreadful script . 
as i mentioned earlier , nothing but the atmosphere is right in this film . 
the acting is bland , and since there is virtually no character development no one seems to care . 
the special effects are low budget and some even hilariously fake , a sign of a true " b-movie " . 
the direction is poor and there is little continuity , not that you would expect it in a movie switching realities constantly . 
lastly the script is weak and has no concept of reality , and doesn't deserve to have the word " science " in science-fiction . 
if i haven't got my point across , i'll say it more plainly : this is a bad movie . 
lets hope the next movie by alex " i wish i was tim burton " proyas is at least tolerable .