input: I love Memoirs of a Geisha so I read the book twice; it is one of the best book I've read last year. I was looking forward to the movie and was afraid that reading the book would ruin the viewing pleasure of the movie. I wasn't expecting the movie to be that bad. Some of the best part of the book was omitted from the movie and the characters were weak with Hatsumomo (Li Gong)been the worst. If I haven't read the book, this movie would be a little confusing and inexplicable. The Plot Outline of the movie states "Nitta Sayuri reveals how she transcended her fishing..." Did anyone see how or when Sayuri became Nitta Sayuri? Forget the movie and read the book.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: Believe it or not, at 12 minutes, this film (for 1912) is a full-length film. Very, very few films were longer than that back then, but that is definitely NOT what sets this odd little film apart from the rest! No, what's different is that all the actors (with the exception of one frog) are bugs...yes, bugs! This simple little domestic comedy could have looked much like productions starring the likes of Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy or Max Linder but instead this Russian production uses bugs (or, I think, models that looked just like bugs). Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy were yet to be discovered and I assume Linder was busy, so perhaps that's why they used bugs! Using stop-motion, the bugs moved and danced and fought amazingly well--and a heck of a lot more realistically than King Kong 21 years later!

The film starts with Mr. Beetle sneaking off for a good time. He goes to a bawdy club while his wife supposedly waits at home. But, unfortunately for Mr. Beetle, he is caught on camera by a local film buff. Plus, he doesn't know it but Mrs. Beetle is also carrying on with a bohemian grasshopper painter. Of course, there's a lot more to this domestic comedy than this, but the plot is age-old and very entertaining for adults and kids alike.

Weird but also very amazing and watchable.

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: THE MELTING MAN...a tragic victim of the space race, he perished MELTING...never comprehending the race had LONG GONE BY...!

A man (Burr DeBenning) burns his hand on the kitchen stove. But instead of screaming something a NORMAL person would scream, he shouts something that sounds like "AAAAATCH-KAH!!" This movie you've popped in...isn't a normal movie. You've just taken your first step into THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN, the famous late-70's gore film featuring Rick Baker's wonderful makeup effects. Baker was just on the edge of becoming a superstar, and did this at the same time as his famous "cantina aliens" in STAR WARS. For some strange reason, STAR WARS became a household name, and INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN did not.

It might have something to do with the fact that this movie is just mind-numbingly awful. From the opening credits ("Starring Alex Rebar as THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN"...that's really what it says!), to the chubby nurse running through a glass door, to the fisherman's head going over a waterfall and smashing graphically apart on some rocks, this film provides many, many moments of sheer incomprehensibility. "Why did they...but how come he...why are they...?" After a while, you give up wondering why and watch it as what it is--a very entertaining piece of garbage.

An astronaut returns to Earth in a melting, radioactive condition; he escapes and, his mind disintegrating as well as his body, begins a mad melting killing spree. The authorities quickly decide that the melting man must be stopped, but (probably not wanting to "cause a panic") want him captured as quietly as possible. So they send one guy with a geiger counter after him. Wow.

Storywise, surprisingly little happens during the movie. The melting guy wanders around killing people. A doctor searches for him with a geiger counter. Various characters are introduced, ask questions, and leave. Eventually the doctor catches up with the melting man, but is shot by a security guard for no reason, after he explains that he's "Dr. Ted Nelson." The melting man wanders off and finally dissolves into a big puddle of goo. The End.

It's so brainless that it somehow ends up being a lot of fun, despite a fairly downbeat ending. Supposedly, a widescreen DVD release is planned. A very special movie.

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: One of the better Vance films succeeds more on interesting plot and artful direction by none other than Michael Curtiz. This time around a generally hated financier is found dead - shot in the head - in his locked and bolted bedroom on the upper floor. Philo Vance, hearing of the situation while about to set off for Italy, decides to end his vacation and try to solve what he thinks is a murder and what everyone else is considering a suicide. William Powell is as affable a Philo Vance as you will find. He never seems to press and is always very smooth in what he says and does. Powell is aided by a host of very talented actors - some first-rate character actors and actresses like Mary Astor as a niece that hated her uncle, Ralph Morgan as the dead man's secretary, Paul Cavanaugh as a rival dog fancier, Arthur Hohl as a mysterious butler, Helen Vinson as the next door kept blonde, and two really good performances by James Lee as the Chinese cook and portly Eugene Palette as a wise-cracking police detective. Add into the mix a wonderfully comedic turn by Etienne Girardot as a public coroner always missing his meal. It is this depth of suspects and a story that has many plots twists and turns that make The Kennel Murder Case a fast-moving, fun mystery.

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pos/neg ans:
positive