Q: Easily 9 out of 10 for a film by director we will continue to grow to admire. But don't watch this movie expecting to be "entertained." Ang Lee takes an objective look at a relatively unexplored aspect of the Civil War. What is beautiful about the movie, like all of Lee's films, is that he doesn't "side" with his characters. He creates characters, embodies them with life, problems, and ambiguity ... and endows them with a reality that often hits far closer to home than with which many are comfortable. This film has action, but it is not for the action lover since the violence is deeply disturbing and far from gratuitous ... i.e. like the characters, it is real. And as you would expect about one of mankind's most horrific wars, the violence is horrific.

But as an exploration of the greater human ambiguity that surely dwelt within the Civil War, it is a masterpiece. Was the war about slavery and an abolitionism? Lee seems quite willing to blur that line made so popular in depictions like the Blue and the Grey. Neither is about idealism, though, as seen in Gone with the Wind. It is about freedom, about the desire to have something which is yours and to fight for it. As you watch the characters, you will ask yourself "how can they be fighting to preserve slavery?" The fact is, I don't think they really are, and in that the film shows the problem of why so many were caught up in the maelstrom of the Civil War.

The fact seems clear that many of the characters we learn about are fighting out of senses of loyalty to "home" though they may never have examined what home represents or whether they truly espouse its values. The letter scenes are very moving and yet subtle. Jake and Daniel are other examples of loyalty stretched to the limits. And when the tension finally snaps, and these characters find themselves suddenly "free" ... we see the birth of new men.

All this mixed in with Lee's beautiful incorporation of humankind's environment with breathtaking vistas and frames. Lee has a style which is his, somehow European in its "art" (a slow camera, unrushed), Asian in its epic-ness and development of story, and yet somehow familiar and easily accessible to so many in North Americans.

Relax, let go of your preconceptions about what the Civil War is, what the "western" as a genre is, what a war movie should be ... and let Ang Lee take you into a world so fragile, so hard, so real that few of us can comfortably see it.

In this, Lee continues what he wrought in Ice Storm. Again, the movie is slow paced and without apparent "direction" ... a sure sign of Lee's ability to direct without "imposing" himself on the story or screen. His direction is amplified by what he brings out of Jewel (yes, the singer), a hitherto unproven actress who puts in an amazing performance.

A movie for those who love film and are not lovers of the standard Hollywood epic. OPTIONS:
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A: positive
Q: Please, be warned: this movie, though a pretty bad storyline, was one of the most gruesome movies I have seen...EVER. Just remember that before you settle on your sofa to enjoy the movie.

So, it officially begins with a party. Just your average party but there's some guy there. He's pretty into Kate...if you know what I'm saying. Memorise his face; it'll help later.

So anyway Kate goes of to find George Clooney (didn't I say the plot was bad?) and so takes the tube. That's London underground at the middle of the night, but she's just stupid like that. So the timetable says the next, and last, train will come in 7 minutes. Now Kate, dumb party girl that she is, decides that she can have a nap in the spare 7 minutes. Typically, she misses the train and finds herself locked in the London Underground. Alone. Well, almost...

So the movie just carries on from there. Blood, guts, limbs, even certain parts of the body I shall not mention are slashed and gashed and eventually amputated from the body.

In short, it's a typical horror; pretty but thick damsel in distress-type women and sick, weird psycho. Or as the case may have it, Creep.

I'd say give it a go if you're into Saw, Hostel or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre but for the rest of us, Scream with satisfy out horror needs thankyou very much. OPTIONS:
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A: negative
Q: I rented this movie when it came out on video tape and really enjoyed it. I had the opportunity to purchase it on DVD a few weeks ago and have watched it several times since. I would have to agree with others when they said Indian Summer was nostalgic film. When I watch it I wish that I could be 10-14 again. I think that is why we all like the movie to some extent. We all at times wish that we could relive our lives as children with the wisdom/knowledge of adults. Wouldn't it be nice to have all your friends/parents be young again? To not have to worry about your job, being a parent etc...??? I know that I would like to jump into a De Lorean and go back in time. While I enjoyed the film very much my all time favorite camp film though is Meatballs with Bill Murray. I wish that they could make an Indian Summer version of that. OPTIONS:
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A: positive
Q: 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. OPTIONS:
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A: negative