input: I don't watch a lot of TV, except for The Office, Weeds, Entourage and E!'s Soup. I think I hold this show in good company.

I love the scathing review of pop culture that this show gives. Soup also helps me stay on top of what people in the office are referring to when talking about a Sanjaya or Heidi Montag (sp?).

The best part is that Soup shows clips of the highlights of these shows, which are usually the funniest or most controversial moments (c'mon, most people get hooked into watching American Idol because of the freak show that are the auditions), which is why most people claim to watch. And that means, I don't have to suffer through the other 98% of these mind numbing talk shows or "reality" shows, for one nugget of "funny" or "shock." The only reason why Soup doesn't get a 10 in my opinion are sometime the sketches are not that funny, and on an even rarer occasion, the commentary isn't always up to par. But they can't all be home runs either, if so, Soup wouldn't be on E!.

Joel's quick wit and Soup's writing team (which includes McHale) make for a great show. I happen to enjoy the laughing and comments from the crew who are off-camera. Even when they're being blatantly obvious by giving occasional courtesy laughs, it's hilarious because it IS forced. They're obviously being ironic. And that's part of what makes this show funny.

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input: Insisting that Martin Luther King's inspirational spirit resides not just in American civil liberties but inside the hearts and minds of people everywhere, Danish helmer Niels Arden Oplev transplants this belief to a 1969 Danish middle school. More specifically, it works its way into the crusade of a young boy named Frits (Janus Dissing Rathke) against his oppressively rigid and churlishly abusive headmaster Svendsen (Bent Mejding). Adapted from a true story, the performances are executed with certain aplomb and a refreshing command over its varied characters keeps it involving. A battle of ideologies between a 13 year-old and a demented disciplinarian gives way to inherent humour but awkward shifts in mood disorients despite keeping it shrewdly cynical in the same vein as a "Dead Poets Society" more than a "Matilda". It treads a familiar path but a continued and precise service to its young protagonist including a personal subplot that rounds off Frits as a young boy becoming a young man, manages to raise the film into a rousing family film with its nose right on the money.

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: I read a small ad in some horror magazine in the early nineties about Liebe des Totes (the love of the dead) or something similar. This of course awoke my curiosity so I ordered Nekromantik 1 & 2 and Der Todesking (The Death King). The Nekromantik movies are Ok, even kind of interesting and unique in their approach to the subject Necrophilia (even if they obviously are horror-opera entries rather than intended to invoke fear in the viewers mind, they are actually quite funny.)

TODESKING, on the other hand is, in my opinion, one of the best films ever made. It consist of a series of scenes depicting the many facets of death. Death as an enemy; Death as a reliever, Death as the very fysical decomposition of the body. The film is a metaphor over life. It shows how fragile life is and how short our lives are. It reduces its viewers to the childs they (we) actually are. The fact that we cannot really understand the nature of Death, and hence neither the process of dying, is the core message of the film. This is a most realistic film. Never does Buttgereit try to hide death behind white roses or whatever. No matter what moral standards you set up, death is unevitable, and will sooner or later be not a fiction but YOUR reality. This applies to YOU, Dear Reader, like it applies to the viewers of the film. Some juvenile reviewers seem not to grasp this, which is fully excused, since they of course will live forever...

This is no exploitation movie. Why? Because death does not exploit us humans. It harvests us. We grow for seven days, then we are brought back to the schopenhauerian state of pre-birth, that is Death. Buttgereit gives us his version of the oldest of tales. Whether you choose to regard it as "optimistic" or "pessimistic" is up to you. At first glance it may seem very dark. Consider though, that in order for something to live, something else must die. "Who wants to live forever?"

I believe that when Buttgereit shows a body, that are being consumed by maggots, he shows not only decomposition, but GENERATION of new life. Is it not better to die and give life to maggots and then birds and eventually become soil, than to remain the living dead zombie that is one of the the favorite pets of the genre?

When you realize this, you see Der Todesking it its right context.

Sieben Tage hat die Woche, siebenmal letzte Stunden. Seven are the days of week (weak, mortal !), seven times the last hour.

Dont fear the Reaper, Buttgereit tells us, because the Reaper takes only what is ripe. And apples that are not plucked for food will rot!

Have a good life, fellow IMDB'ers !

(And watch this film, that compares only to Ingemar Bergmans "The Seventh Seal" in terms of depth and universality)

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input: Wow...what can I say...First off IMDb says this is in the late 60s...which means Carlito would be very close to going to prison, He got out in 75 and said he was in for 5 years. They used a bunch of nobody actors, and a story that didn't even make sense. They bring back only one actor, Guzman, and hes playing a totally different guy. Why did it end with him and this Puerto Rican chick? Wheres Gale? He said he was in love with her before. Wheres Kleinfeld? He said he knew him forever...You'd think he'd have been in this one. And if this made sense, where are Rocco and the black dude in the first one? It was all just stupid...This is an insult to Pacino and the first film.

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negative