input: I tried to finish this film three times, but it's god awful. Case in point: mom and daughter drive up to the bed and breakfast,mom stops for gas, crazy gas station weirdos mad at her hubby whose running the B&B try to rape her. She escapes, heads to B&B and instead of hubby going ballistic and she wanting to call the cops, story just continues with lukewarm behavior on both their parts. Wow.

Other action logic deficits abound. Acting is also lukewarm, and the next door neighbor's warning is delivered in a really corny, badly acted moment.

Moments of intense gore/death unevenly interwoven with lukewarm scenes of time-filler interplay between characters.

Less focus on gore, more focus on mood and story would have been appreciated.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: Jesus Christ, I can't believe I've wasted my time watching this movie. I only watched because I have such a crush on Jordan Ladd. But watching this film almost put me off her. This is absolutely awful! I could have been watching Survivor Series 93 over this.

The lead guy in this was so bland and generic. I would love it if the great Mistuharu Misawa Tiger Drove '91'd his ass through a glass window. I was enraging every time he was saying "lake" and "cabin". I'd kick his ass.

Jordan Ladd, on the other hand, was absolutely wonderful. A true angel. But she couldn't even save this utter joke of a film. Sadly, she couldn't even act like she was off her nut when she took that truth drug. It looked hilarious.

I also loved the bit where Jordan accidentally spilled yogurt on her. It reminded me of a time where...nevermind.

Anayways, do watch this film because of it's awfulness.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: Whew. What can be said about Gymkata that hasn't already? This is nothing but pure halarity from beginning to end. If you want a movie that will keep you on the floor laughing, this is the perfect movie to get. From Cabot's wild-style mullet/sweater combo to Parmistan (and it's four billion assorted ninjas), everything about this film reeks of crap.

Directed by Robert Clouse, the infamous mind that brought you the mirror scene in Bruce Lee's Game of Death, he once again showcases his complete lack of directing talent. A few other faces you most likely won't recognize will appear for your enjoyment as well, from Buck Kartalian to Tadashi Yamashita, although you won't remember them or care about them after the movie is done.

Supposedly based on a book called "The Terrible Game," which, if I could find a single trace of it's existence anywhere I would be interested in reading it, to see where this thing went wrong. Instead, the book apparently is a figment of Gymkata's imagination. Probably something Clouse made up in order to sell his lame idea.

Pick this one up and Yakmallah it for yourself. It is easily one of the best bad movies I have ever seen, and that is saying quite a bit.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: Undoubtedly one of the great John Ford's masterpieces, Young Mr. Lincoln went practically unnoticed at the time of its initial release, no wonder because the year was 1939 when many of the greatest movies of the whole cinema history had been released, including the most mythical Western in the history of the genre, John Ford's milestone Stagecoach and many others, such as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington which took the Oscar in the only category Young Mr. Lincoln was nominated for, which is Original Screenplay.

It continued to be the most underrated Ford's film for many years ahead destined to gradually fade away in the shadow of other John Ford's masterpieces, but by the end of the 1950s American and European film critics and historians took a hold of a note written by legendary Russian director Sergei Eisenstein about the Young Mr. Lincoln where he praised it and acknowledged that if he would only have had an opportunity to direct any American film ever made till then, it would be definitely John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln. Impressed by such an undoubted preference from Eisenstein, critics began to see the film again but only with a bit different eyes and film's reputation has been increasing ever since.

It was far not for the first time the life of one of the most legendary American presidents was brought to the screen. Right in the beginning of the 1930s Griffith did it in his Abraham Lincoln and the same year as Ford's film, MGM released John Cromwell's one called Abe Lincoln in Illinois. Curiously enough both of them were based on a very successful Broadway Stage Play released in 1938 and written by Robert Sherwood.

As far as John Ford's films are concerned, we can easily find many references to the life and deeds and even death of mythical Lincoln's figure in several of director's works, such as 1924 The Iron Horse or 1936 The Prisoner of the Shark Island, the second one, just as Young Mr. Lincoln, utilizes as the main musical theme the favourite Lincoln's song - Dixie.

The screenplay based on a previously mentioned Stage Play and Lincoln's biographies was written by Lamar Trotti in collaboration with John Ford himself, which was quite a rare thing for Ford to do but final result was simply superb - a script combining elements of the Play with several historical facts as well as myths and legends about the beginning of Abraham Lincoln's life and law practice culminating in a hilarious but mostly heartbreaking trial scene, which is the film's highest point and main laugh and tears generator, where Lincoln defends the two young brothers accused of a murder and have to devise a manner to help their mother too when she is brought before the court as a witness and where the prosecuting attorney (played by Donald Meek) demands her to indicate which one of her sons actually committed the murder obviously obliging her to the making of an impossible choice of condemning to death one and letting live the other.

Overall it's a very touching, heart-warming and even funny film with simply magnificent performance from Henry Fonda in his supreme characterization of Abraham Lincoln and with overwhelming richness of other characters no matter how little or how big they are incarnated from the wonderful and intelligent screenplay and conducted by the ability of John Ford's genius at one of its best deliveries ever. A definite must see for everyone. 10/10

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pos/neg ans:
positive