Problem: This review is like what?

Review:A very interesting entertainment, with the charm of the old movies. Tarzan faces the greatest perils without hesitation if the moment requires it, and we all enjoy with him his success.The most insteresting for me is a man without special powers facing the problems and beating them just with human skills (he was a great swimmer and had a great shout)
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A: positive

Problem: This review is like what?

Review:I watched the Canadian videotape of this movie as "The Witching" which somehow made its way to New York State. Audio was quite bad, I had to raise it to about 7/8 just to hear it and the soundtrack often was overwhelming the dialog. Orson Welles was a mumbler, worse than usual, and some of his dialog and of others was run through an echo chamber. A ghostly figure who keeps reappearing had her voice distorted. Some closed captions would really have helped!

A group of witches or satanists (the end credits say the group was not meant to represent any real group!) have a ritual in which they get naked and cause a miscarriage by stabbing a doll. The woman who had the miscarriage and her husband move to a town named "Lilith," where he's been offered a job at a toy factory. Despite one of the AKAs of this movie apparently being "The Toy Factory," we never see it, and it's only occasionally referred to at all.

On the way to Lilith, her husband gets impatient with some of her questions about what his new boss Mr. Cato wanted to know about their religious persuasion. He drives aggressively, and causes another car to go off the road and blow up. After the police arrive, she takes a doll that fell out of the car, the second of many handmade dolls in the movie.

It turns out Mr. Cato and all the townspeople are witches, and that they are the ones who caused her miscarriage, though she doesn't realize it. They want her because she has an innate talent for necromancy, of which she was not really aware.

Some images in the movie have some impact, but on the whole the movie is not very involving. The movie does seem a bit of a mess, and this is no doubt largely due to its re- editing and the addition of new footage. The original version, according to the end credits, was called Necromancy - A Life for a Life. The magic of DVD could let us see both versions on one disc, but re-releasing this movie probably isn't a priority.
+++++++++
A: negative

Problem: This review is like what?

Review:Budget limitations, time restrictions, shooting a script and then cutting it, cutting it, cutting it... This crew is a group of good, young filmmakers; thoughtful in this script - yes, allegorical - clever in zero-dollar effects when time and knowledge is all you have, relying on actors and friends and kind others for their time, devotion, locations; and getting a first feature in the can, a 1-in-1000 thing. These guys make films. Good ones. Check out their shorts collection "Heartland Horrors" and see the development. And I can vouch, working with them is about the most fun thing you'll do in the business. I'm stymied by harsh, insulting criticism for this film, wondering if one reviewer even heard one word of dialogue, pondered one thought or concept, or if all that was desired of this work was the visual gore of bashing and slashing to satisfy some mindless view of what horror should mean to an audience. Let "The Empty Acre" bring itself to you. Don't preconceive what you expect it should be just because it gets put in the horror/thriller genre due to its supernatural premise. It's a drama with depth beyond how far you can stick a blade into someone with a reverence for a message that doesn't assault your brain's visual center, but rather, draws upon one's empathetic imagination to experience other's suffering of mind and spirit. mark ridgway, Curtis, "The Empty Acre"
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A: positive

Problem: This review is like what?

Review:This is one of the best animated family films of all time. Moreover, virtually all of the serious rivals for this title came from the same creative mind of Hiyao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli. Specifically, other great films include "My Neighbor Totoro" and "Kikki's Delivery Service." Spirited Away is quite good, but a bit too creepy for typical family fare - better for teenagers and adult. The one thing that sets "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" apart from other films by Miyazaki is that it is far more of a tension-filled adventure ride.

Why is this film so good? Because it's a complete package: the animation is very well done, and the story is truly engaging and compelling.

Most Japanese anime is imaginative, but decidedly dark or cynical or violent; and the animation itself is often jerky, stylized, and juvenile. None of these problems plague Castle in the Sky. It has imagination to burn, and the characters are well drawn, if slightly exaggerated versions of realistic people. (None of those trench-coat wearing posers) There is plenty of adventure, but not blood and gore. The animation is smooth, detailed, and cinematic ally composed - not a lot of flat shots. The backgrounds are wonderful.

The voice acting in the dubbed English version is first rate, particularly the two leads, Pazo (James Van der Beek) and Sheeta (Anna Paquin). The sound engineering is great, too. Use your studio sound, if you've got it.

One aspect that I particularly enjoyed is that much of the back story is left unexplained. Laputa was once inhabited, and is now abandoned. Why? We never know. We know as much as we need to know, and then we just have to accept the rest, which is easy to do because the invented world is so fully realized. Indeed, it is fair to say that the world is more fully realized than most of the minor characters, who are for the most part one-dimensional stock characters (e.g., gruff general, silly sidekick, kooky old miner, etc.) Highly recommended for people aged 6 to 60!
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A:
positive