IN: Review: *SPOILERS* Four men, Ed (Jon Voight), Lewis (Burt Reynolds), Drew (Ronny Cox) and Bobby (Ned Beatty), decide to go on a rafting trip on the Cahulawassee river, before it is flooded.

They wanted to have fun, to have a nice weekend in the nature.

But when two mountain men cross their path and rape one of them (Bobby), everything begins to go to Hell in a Handbasket, and this 'nice weekend' will even cost one of the four's life...

'Deliverance', which in Italian is stupidly titled 'Un Tranquillo Weekend Di Paura' ('A Calm Weekend Of Fear'), is the Grandad of movies like 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre', 'The Hills Have Eyes', 'Wrong Turn', 'Last House On The Left' and all the other 'Evil Nature/Revenge' subgenre films, and one of the scariest, right next to 'The Hills Have Eyes'.

Based on a book by James Dickey (who appears in the movie as Sheriff Bullard), it's a chilling story on how someone can go into a situation thinking he knows everything, when he doesn't.

And the image of the dead man's hand raising from under the water, or the hands holding the rifle from the one-sheet are haunting images that will never leave your mind.

Deliverance: 9/10.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: Sarafina was a fun movie, and some of the songs were really great. Sarafina was very entertaining. I don't normally like music things like this, but the singing was not lame like it looked like on the box. The movie was useful for learning about history because it was an interesting perspective of the Soweto rioting of 1976. It showed you things from the perspective of the students in the rioting and showed you that they were real characters. Because you got to see them as real characters this makes you like them more as an audience, and makes you more sympathetic to them as totally the victims of the white government, who you can not sympathise with. The singing of the students is correct because we know from accounts that the students in the riot were singing and dancing before it became violent. The clothing of the students in Sarafina is very similar to the clothing shown in photos from Soweto. They made the movie actually in Soweto, which is why it looks very accurate in many parts. All these things make the film more accurate for someone using it to learn about aparthied. As viewers we must be critical of the way the history of Apartheid was presented. As I said before, you become sympathetic to the students - this makes it potentially less reliable and objective. Also, it changes some of the details from other accounts. In Sarafina it turns to chaos when the policeman comes into their classroom and shoots the students. The police and army were very aggressive at Soweto, but this is probably an exaggerated event. The police and army did shoot students, but there is not evidence of them going into schools and executing people like this. The fighting was more in the streets and had looting and crime. This is done in the movie probably to make you feel more sorry for the school students. The movie would have been more useful if it had some different information about aparthied. The teacher was arrested for being against the government, and the mum goes to work in a white persons house. But there is not any information about the government and why they were doing it or any details about the racist policies and laws. -By George S, Chris and Finlay
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: This is is a thoroughly unpleasant, if slickly made, movie. I tried it because it stars Richard Dreyfus and Jeff Goldblum, two good actors, and because the plot line - a mob boss is about to be released from a mental institution - sounded promising. The movie is billed as a comedy, sorta. What we have is an endless series of shots - you should pardon the pun - of people in dimly lit and elegant, if somewhat surreal, interiors, shooting each other - in the head, stomach, kneecap, foot, heart (no part of the anatomy is avoided, it seems) while uttering vague and cryptic dialogue, some of which is supposed, evidently, to be humorous in a sort of post-modern way. Goldblum's dialogue for the whole movie could fit on a 3x5 card, and he wears a single facial expression - a sardonic grin - throughout. Ellen Barkin and Gregory Hines do the best they can. Burt Reynolds does a cameo. The credits list Rob Reiner and Joey Bishop, but I somehow missed them (good move on their part). The whole thing is cold, sterile, mechanical and unsavory; an heir, I suspect, to the style of 'Pulp Fiction', 'Fargo' and 'Natural Born Killers'. If you liked those, you'll probably like this.
What is this review like?
OUT: negative

IN: Review: I got to see this just this last Friday at the Los Angeles film festival at Laemlee's on Beverly. This movie got the most applause of all the films that evening. Considering that two music videos opened first, I didn't know what to expect since they were very fast and attention grabbing, I wasn't sure I was ready for a short immediately. But to my surprise I really enjoyed this. I thought the main actor demon guy was really good. I was so impressed with his performance that I checked out his name. I was surprised to see that this was the Witchblade guy. He's gotten really good especially since then! Either that or he was given lousy roles or had been pushed by the director really hard for this short. The girl did an okay job. I guess its hard since it was her first performance and being so young. The dad did well also. There was a lot of really nice cg work for a short, both for this and the short playing next "Mexican Hat" which was also nice, but I enjoyed this the most because it had the most depth and emotion and I actually cared about the characters. The other was a very simple story. The story was quite illustrative and dark! It dealt with real topics using a more fantasy like approach to keep ADD people like me interested. We won't even talk about the last film in the block which I left. My only complaint is that I only wish I had seen more of the demon character and a little less of getting started, which is why I gave it a 9 out of 10. I also thought the end credits went a little slowly. Otherwise it was beautifully told, directed and edited. The timing was very nice with a complete change from the fast MTV editing done on everything nowadays. There will be more coming from this director in the future as well as the actor. I now will think of him as the Sorrows Lost actor not the Witchblade guy.
What is this review like?
OUT:
positive