IN: Review: This movie consists of such great emotion especially with its outstanding soundtrack that coincides with the film. Tom Cruise is one of my favorite actors because of his enthusiasm to make films and to entertain. This movie was not the best the first time I watched it, but after about 3 more times I decided that this is one of the best films that I have ever seen. It takes place in New York, and progresses on through his lifestyle. He discovers a delimma in his life with his girlfriend (Diaz). He goes through a state of depression and then an outgoing blend of imagination. This film was beyond my expectations, and is one of Cruise's best films ever!
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OUT: positive

IN: Review: No artful writeup here because it doesn't deserve one. Not an art film. Not even one of those 'hidden' gems. You know, like those movies you hear about through a friend who saw this amazing movie downtown where they show all the good independents and art films.

Just pack it into the christmas boxes, and dispose of quickly.
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OUT: negative

IN: Review: *McCabe and Mrs. Miller* takes place in the turn-of-the-century Pacific Northwest. Into a soggy, muddy mining camp John McCabe (a hirsute Warren Beatty) comes barging, full of cigar smoke and big ideas about building a proper saloon/whorehouse for the town, replete with a trio of the sorriest whores in movie history. He also comes with an unearned reputation as a gunslinger: too shameful about this to blatantly advertise it, but not exactly afraid to use it in order to assert alpha-male credentials amongst the locals. And thus he wrangles the boys into building his saloon at the rate of 15 cents an hour.

It looks to be a rather sorry operation until Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie) shows up on a startling contraption that's half-railroad car, half-automobile (where did Altman find that thing?). Mrs. Miller immediately takes on McCabe as a business partner, with the aim of classing up the new joint with proper whores and an insistence that all visitors take a bath before entering. Noting that McCabe doesn't know how to add, she also insists on handling the accounts. It's not clear what McCabe's function will be.

The plot thickens when a pair of oily representatives from the mining company show up in town and offer McCabe to buy him out for five grand. McCabe tells them to buzz off -- he's holding out for fifteen thousand. The company finds negotiation distasteful, so they hire a trio of assassins to simply kill McCabe . . . though how they think they can get away with murdering a man in broad daylight in the center of town is as unclear as McCabe's function in the whorehouse partnership. (Excusing this whopping plot hole on the grounds that the locals would be too cowed to talk doesn't cut the mustard when one considers that any reward-money offered by the local Marshal would be pretty tempting.)

*McCabe and Mrs. Miller*, purportedly "classic Seventies cinema", should be a lot better than it is. The movie tells a pretty good story; the main characters have the potential to be interesting. There are some striking scenes, especially one involving what looks to be a 14-year-old stone-cold killer. But it's really, really hard to enjoy a movie when you can hardly hear what anyone is saying and when you can hardly see what anyone is doing. Once again, this director hijacks his own movie with sheer barnyard laziness and sloppiness. According to the trivia-sheet here on IMDb, the movie's editor griped to Altman that the sound was muddy; Altman disagreed; and when everyone said the sound was muddy after the movie's release, Altman blamed the editor. (Nice.) Along with the bad sound, the movie has an atrocious look. Only Robert Altman can hire a world-class DP like Vilmos Zsigmond and make a movie that looks as if they sprayed the camera lenses with dirty dishwater. Reviewers here who praise the "dark brown glow" of this picture have GOT to be kidding me. The interiors are shot through what appears to be a dark scum. The exterior photography is even worse: it's as if Altman placed 500 fog machines behind the copious trees. During the climactic stretch, when Beatty is dodging the assassins while the local church is on fire, Altman insists on pretty much wholly obscuring the view with an animated snow-fall that reminds one of a Rankin-Bass Christmas special.

Look -- I can't watch a movie under these conditions. Get back to me when you learn how to place boom mikes, when you remove all that annoying "Altman-esque" overlapping dialog, and when you wipe the lenses with some Windex, or something. 3 stars out of 10.
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OUT: negative

IN: Review: This film should have been fun. A young Lea Thompson, a young Joaquin Phoenix... and Terry O'Quinn. In space. But it dragged on, had unlovable characters and had no target audience.

Some kids go to a space camp and are accidentally launched into space by a robot friend of theirs (named, appropriately, Jinx). The space scenes are then long, repetitive (the same accident happens twice) and either cheesy or frightening depending on your point of view. Adults will be bored and cheesed out, kids might be scared as the way this was filmed really leaves an eerie sense about it.

There is a budding romance, but unlike the shuttle -- this never takes off. Why it is included in the first place is unclear, except maybe to add extra tension between the characters - but it failed if that was the idea.

A young Lea Thompson should be quirky and attractive, right? I mean, "Back to the Future" is great. But no, she was irritating and average-looking. Not someone you'd want to date, have as a friend or even consider as a role model. Joaquin Phoenix? He's really lucky he ever appeared in movies again this performance. Maybe he can act like Mikey in the Life Cereal commercials, but he doesn't seem to know how to be a normal boy. He doesn't fit in on screen and I don't think we can identify with him at home. I actually would have been happier if he had never returned to Earth.

I don't recommend this film to anyone.
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negative