Q: Edward Montagne's Tattooed Stranger is supposed to play like a crime thriller with a little film noir mixed in for flavor. Instead, it's a poorly acted, witless look into low budget and uninspired film making. The plot is absurd and the acting excruciatingly stiff and amateurish. John Miles, who had a rather thin resume in the industry, grins and guffaws throughout, and everyone else acts with the same verve as characters in a government-made filmstrip about driver safety. The movie anticipates shows like 'Leave it to Beaver' and 'Father Knows Best' in its unnaturally wholesome view of New York in 1950. Why, the viewer doesn't even get to see anyone light up a cig until some shapely woman is interviewed in a flophouse halfway through the movie. The only thing the movie has going for it (besides its brevity) is the excellent location shots coordinated by William Steiner. The low budget of the film works in the cinematographer's favor, as the viewer is treated to well-framed shots of New York City's interiors and expansive exteriors. Unless you wish to enjoy the film for the choice of settings and camera angles, I suggest watching practically any other movie. OPTIONS:
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A: negative
Q: As a Dane I'm proud of the handful of good Danish movies that have been produced in recent years. It's a terrible shame, however, that this surge in quality has led the majority of Danish movie critics to lose their sense of criticism. In fact, it has become so bad that I no longer trust any reviews of Danish movies, and as a result I have stopped watching them in theaters.

I know it's wrong to hold this unfortunate development against any one movie, so let me stress that "Villa Paranoia" would be a terrible film under any circumstances. The fact that it was hyped by the critics just added fuel to my bonfire of disillusionment with Danish film. Furthermore, waiting until it came out on DVD was very little help against the unshakable feeling of having wasted time and money.

Erik Clausen is an accomplished director with a knack for social realism in Copenhagen settings. I particularly enjoyed "De Frigjorte" (1993). As an actor he is usually funny, though he generally plays the same role in all of his movies, namely that of a working-class slob who's down on his luck, partly because he's a slob but mostly because of society, and who redeems himself by doing something good for his community.

This is problem number one in "Villa Paranoia"; Clausen casts himself as a chicken farmer, which is such a break from the norm that he never succeeds in making it credible.

It is much worse, however, that the film has to make twists and turns and break all rules of how to tell a story to make the audience understand what is going on. For instance, the movie opens with a very sad attempt at visualizing the near-death experience of the main character with the use of low-budget effects and bad camera work. After that, the character tells her best friend that she suddenly felt the urge to throw herself off a bridge. This is symptomatic of the whole movie; there is little or no motivation for the actions of the characters, and Clausen resorts to the lowest form of communicating whatever motivation there is: Telling instead of showing. Thus, at one point, you have a character talking out loud to a purportedly catatonic person about the way he feels, because the script wouldn't allow him to act out his feelings; and later on, voice-over is abruptly introduced, quite possibly as an afterthought, to convey feelings that would otherwise remain unknown to the audience due to the director's ineptitude. Fortunately, at this point you're roughly an hour past caring about any of the characters, let alone the so-called story.

The acting, which has frequently been a problem in Clausen's movies, can be summed up in one sad statement: Sren Westerberg Bentsen, whose only other claim to stardom was as a contestant on Big Brother, is no worse than several of the heralded actors in the cast.

I give this a 2-out-of-10 rating. OPTIONS:
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A: negative
Q: A meteor hit's Crater Lake (hence our title), awakening a Plesiosaur, who proceed's to snack on the hick population (in California, that hick capital of the world.)

There's bad movies, and then there's "The Crater Lake Monster", which somehow managed to escape MST3K. Featuring grating acting, a decent stop-motion beast, and more, this is a dreadful piece of 1970's low budget exploitation/monster movie dreck.

While the movie is guilty of many crimes, the biggest one is Arnie and Mitch, two obnoxious rednecks who serve as our comic relief. They bumble around, fight to stock "banjo music",ogle women, and act like pathetic excuses of humanity. The characters are so bad, they should count as a crime against humanity. OPTIONS:
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A: negative
Q: It is nice to see Suraj Barjatya back at what he is best at.A story woven around a marriage.It feels nice to have a movie in which there is no single scene which you would avoid watching with your family. Though the story is simple and does not contain any new elements,you still like the movie,because of the presentation, performances,and actually the over all treatment. Hats Off to Suraj.. The movie is about the fact that engagement leads to love. The depiction of the changes in the way of thinking,behaving once you get engaged is excellent. Director has definitely given it much thought and actors have done it to perfection.Though the movie is slow,you don't mind it,because you kind of get so much involved with the story that you just wanna continue watching the joy of this newly engaged couple. As a typical RajShree stuff it has many sentimental scenes which are highly likely to make viewer burst into tears(specially ladies). But when you come out of the cinema hall you are very much satisfied and feel that the ticket was worth :-). OPTIONS:
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A: positive