Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer: The Sentinel features a sort of run of the mill and cliched suspense/mystery but is lifted with some good acting and taut pacing. These stories have already for the most part gone through as many permutations as we can bear, so what we're left with is how good is the acting, how smart are the setups and bad guys, how well crafted is the main plot etc etc.....so the Sentinel does a solid job given it's content. Michael Douglass and Kiefer Sutherland both maintain some good screen bravado and attitudes. Eva Longoria (first time I've seen her on screen) brings some satisfactory support. The whole affair side of the story is utterly implausible knocking it down a bit, but it deserves slack. Worth a viewing if you like the genre.

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: Hard to describe this one -- if you were a fan of Russ Meyer films back in the day, you will surely be pleased to see that Haji is still looking really hot, though Forry Ackerman has not fared so well (what is he doing still making these movies anyway? If I go up to him with a camera will he be in my movie?). It was a pretty fun premise -- a superhero whose giant mammaries are her secret weapon -- but sometimes it did not pan out for the whole length, and the jokes were on a level with your average Joe E. Brown comedy (or, Abbott and Costello if that's your thing) -- basically just bad puns. Still, I found this movie fascinating to watch, and for more than 2 reasons. Good job, but still a fundamentally flimsy production.

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: This is the story of a young woman seduced and then dumped by her older, married lover after she gets pregnant; she avenges herself against him, and his entire family, through black magic which, disappointingly, she doesn't do herself but has someone else do for her. Good production values for a Thai horror flick. But the bland script never generates suspense, the director approaches the material entirely conventionally, and the final act loses viewer sympathy for the victims by throwing logic to the winds. At one point, a character has a prime opportunity to simply shoot the villainess dead, and instead she gets up and runs away without picking up the gun. Bad writing you're soaking in it!

Some icky gore effects, including a really tasteless late-term-fetus corpse and one guy dying from having hundreds of live eels burst out of his stomach. Only recommended for genre completists who simply have to see every horror film produced in Asia in the last 15 years.

Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer:
Back in 1994, I had a really lengthy vacation around the Fourth of July - something like 17 days off in a row what with two weeks paid vacation, weekends and the holiday itself. I stayed in town during that time, hanging out at my parents' house a lot.

I didn't have a TV in my apartment so I used to watch my parents' tube. I had just finished watching a segment of the X Files when a program came on called Personal FX. I was hooked instantly. I had always been fascinated with items in our home that had come from my parents' family homes and through inheritances from relatives' estates, and often wondered about their history, value, etc.

After my long vacation, I used to go to my folks' house on my lunch-hours just to catch Personal FX.

I can remember one episode during which co-host Claire Carter announced that the New York apartment in which the series was filmed was being renovated and that once said renovations were complete that Personl FX would return to the air.

It never did! Personal FX was the first -and best - of the collectible shows. And it vanished from the air! Almost fifteen years later, I'm still sore.

Way to go, FX.