input: For Columbo fans, such as myself, this is the episode of episodes that made a case for why Columbo was so popular, and just how good it really was. Ruth Gordon has a field day (as ever) playing the wittily intelligent crime novelist Abigail Mitchell. Seems Abigail calls her nephew-in-law to sign some papers making him her heir. She never got over her niece's death, and is convinced her dead niece's husband (Charles Frank) did the dirty deed. To tell more would be unthinkable. Mariette Hartley has a sly role as Abigail's personal assistant. This episode of Columbo is in a class by itself. It's a truly well made television movie. I recommend it most highly.

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: OK first of all let me say that i'm still amazed of how the plot sucks,

but than again its a movie that sequels a Steven segal movie only with no Steven segal omg!!!

just random low budget action scenes really no point i 'm still amazed i burned 90 min on this crap really !!

just rent a Jacky Chan movie or go see wwf more fun and has no and presume not to have and plot!!! plz plz plz avoid it!! btw the best actor playing there is bill goldberg and that says a lot!!

and no he doesn't play very well like i said plz avoid it pfff i still cant believe i wasted 90 min and spent 10 min more writing this!! :)

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: What kind of a documentary about a musician fails to include a single track by the artist himself?! Unlike "Ray" or countless other films about music artists, half the fun in the theater (or on the couch) is reliving the great songs themselves. Here, all the tracks are covers put on by uninteresting characters, and these renditions fail to capture Cohen's slow, jazzy style. More often, the covers are badly sung folk versions. Yuck.

The interviews are as much or more with other musicians and figures rather than with Cohen himself. Only rarely does the film feature Cohen reading his own work (never singing)-- like letters, poems, etc. The movie really didn't capture much about the artist's life story, either, or about his development through the years. A huge disappointment for a big Cohen fan.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: The British Public School system did not evolve solely with the idea of educating the upper classes despite that popular and widespread misconception.It was designed to produce administrators and governors,civil servants and military men to run the British Colonies.These people were almost entirely recruited from the middle classes.When the Public Schools had begun to show their worth the scions of the aristocracy were sent to them rather than be educated at home by tutors and governesses as had previously been the case.They tended to favour the schools nearer "Town" so Eton and Harrow became particularly popular with that class of parent. The vast majority of Public Schools took their pupils from lower down the social scale.Tom Brown,perhaps the most famous Public School pupil ever,was the son of a country parson,not a belted earl. Thus in late 1960s England,a country in the throes of post-colonial guilt and shedding the last of its commitments to its former dependants as quickly as Harold Wilson could slip off his "Gannex" mac,Lindsay Anderson's "If" was greeted with cathartic joy by the chattering classes and mild bemusement by everyone else. It must be remembered that the so-called "summer of love" was followed by the "October Revolution" a non-event that left a few policemen in London with bruised heads and the U.S. Embassy with one or two broken windows,but achieved absolutely nothing. So when Mr Anderson's film reached the cinemas the disgruntled former revolutionaries revelled vicariously in what they saw as Mr Malcolm McDowell's glorious victory over an amorphous "Them" despite the fact that he was ruthlessly gunned down at the end,a fate that would have undoubtedly overtaken them had they succeeded in their attempts to get into the U.S.Embassy. The film told us nothing new about Public Schools,homosexuality,bullying cold showers,patrician sarcastic teachers,silly traditions.an all-too familiar list .It was declared to be an allegory comparing Britain to the corrupt,crumbling society represented by the school.Well,nearly forty years on the same schools are still flourishing,the British social system has not changed,the "October Revolution" has been long forgotten except by those involved on one side or the other and Mr Anderson has completed his "State of the Country" trilogy to no effect whatsoever. If by any chance you should wish to read a book about schoolboys who did buck the system rather more successfully than Mr McDowell and his friends and furthermore lived to tell the tale,find a copy of "Stalky & Co."written by the man whose much-maligned poem "If" lent it's name to Mr Anderson's film,a man born in colonial India,a man whose work is quietly being airbrushed out of our literary history.And do it before the chattering classes succeed in declaring him a non-person.Perhaps somebody should start a revolution about that.

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pos/neg ans:
negative