Q: I don't want to go off on a rant here, but.....this is the worst "film" I've ever seen. Worse than The Avengers. Incompetent directing, disjointed writing, and awful acting are the only consistent elements throughout. Shot on very cheap video, it looks like a high school project, but without the emotion. The lighting frequently looks like a single Sun-Gun. The sound is slightly better than a single mic on the camera, but everything else about this thing is just awful. The plot heads off in strange directions with no foundation or later resolution, the techie elements are patently absurd, and the editing looks worse than a rough cut. It's not even bad enough to be funny. It's just bad. BTW, the packaging is intentionally misleading.

Lion's Gate owes me $4.00. OPTIONS:
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A: negative
Q: I'm not usually given to hyperbole, but after seeing over two decades worth of Academy Awards, I can honestly say that this year's awards show was the most disgraceful example of poor direction, total cruelty, and sheer stupidity that I've ever had the misfortune to witness. I'm not talking about the awards themselves- as usual, there is plenty to argue about when you tally up who won, who lost, and who never even got nominated, but the process is as it's always been and is as fair as it's liable to be. What is terribly UNfair is the treatment both the "stars" and "non-stars" received at the hands of Cates and Horvitz, in the name of "reducing boredom."

It is bad enough that for the last several years anyone who isn't Al Pacino has been "played off" at 45 seconds without any regard for what he was saying, how he was saying it, and what the emotion was behind the statement. It demonstrates nothing more than a total lack of respect, however, to herd nominees on the stage like cattle without paying them the honor of showing their faces while their names are read, to make them slink away quietly when they lose, to deny them the thrill of a walk to the podium, and to force them to read their statements with their backs to the audience. All of those things were done to the "non-stars" -never mind that the movies wouldn't exist at all without those artists and that most of them only ever get one chance to face their peers and their audience.

The stars didn't fare much better. It's becoming more sad than funny when winners of the caliber of Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood have to beg for a few extra seconds for their speeches. Chris Rock, as host, was neither as inflammatory and controversial as the Academy had hoped, nor nearly as funny as he could be. His opening remarks were almost (but not quite) as offensive as Sean Penn made them out to be, and his comments during the show were more innocuous than interesting. Of course, he could hardly be blamed when it was clear that was being kept on as short a leash as any host has. In the end, Chris Rock was something he's almost never been before: a non-entity.

Even the musical numbers were handled poorly. Beyonce sang well, but there was simply no reason why she should have been featured in three out of the five songs. Another example of utter disrespect for an artist was giving Jorge Drexler's nominated song to Antonio Banderas- even though Drexler was present and clearly wouldn't have minded singing his own song, based on his winning "speech."

The efforts of Cates and Horvitz to make the show shorter and faster may have worked to a degree, but what resulted was a show devoid of life. We've all whined about the overlong speeches given by people we don't know, about the overblown production, about the self-congratulatory quality. But this is THEIR night- not ours. What is meant to be a celebration has become an insult to the people being celebrated. Cates and Horvitz should, frankly, be ashamed. OPTIONS:
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A: negative
Q: Gundam Wing to me happens to be a good anime. A bit slow moving (especially around the middle of the series), but over all enjoyable. Now before anyone jumps on my case and calls me a "winger", I will admit that I have watched all of the original Gundam, Gundam 0080 and 0083, The 08th MS Team, and Gundam SEED.

I will admit that there were a few problems with the story telling and a few characters may seem to be "rip-offs" (i.e. Zechs Marquise to the original Gundam's Char), but this is an alternate universe show based on the original series, as is SEED.

If you wish to view this series make sure that you watch the original Gundam first, and then know that you are watching an AU series. OPTIONS:
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A: positive
Q: Dreadful horror sequel to "The Howling". This picks off with Karen White's funeral (she was killed at the end of the first film). Stefan Crosscoe (Christopher Lee sadly) arrives there and tells Karen's brother Ben (Reb Brown) that Karen was a werewolf. He's going to Transylvania to kill Striba (Sybil Danning) the head werewolf. Ben and a coworker of Karens (Annie McEnroe) join him.

A terrible script, bad direction, inept editing and truly horrendous acting by Brown and McEnroe single handedly sink this one. The werewolf effects are mostly kept in the dark--for good reason! They're terrible when you see them. Subpar special effects also--although I DID like the cartoon lightning that comes from Danning's fingers. There's also a werewolf orgy which is particularly stupid and Danning takes off her top at least EIGHT TIMES during the closing credits!

There are a few good things--I found the village in Transylvania amusing--it looks like it came from a Universal horror flick from the 1930s! There are interesting camera tricks between transition scenes; Brown and McEnroe have good bodies and Lee and Danning are good in this--but they can't save it. Really--WHY did they do this? Where that they hard up for money??? This is one of IMDb's lowest rated movies. That alone should tell you something. Supposedly Danning was horrified when she saw the movie--I can understand why! A must-miss. OPTIONS:
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A: negative