input: As a Hammer completist I was dreading the time when I would have to raise the courage to watch this film and the one following it, Holiday on the Buses. I had seen One the Buses the film and thought it one of the worst films I have ever seen. It was full of all the awful comedy that plagued British TV screens around the early 70's.

I am ashamed to say that there were actually parts of this film that I laughed at. I don't know if it was because I was now familiar with the characters and enjoyed some of the situations, knowing how they would react. I found Blakey particularly funny, although I could swear at no point in the trilogy does he say his catchphrase, "I'll get you Butler".

Having watched Holiday on the Buses the jokes were starting to wear thin and these three films could be compared to an early Hammer trilogy, Dick Barton, in that the second film made is the best (although this is probably the only way they could be compared).

The only people who would want to watch this film are probably fans of the TV series, who will no doubt enjoy this, and Hammer completists like myself. To the completists I would say that this film isn't that bad and I can certainly think of worse Hammer comedies.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: The Russian movie, "4," follows the lives of three (not four) strangers who meet one night in a local bar. One is a musician, one a frozen meat seller and one a call girl.

"4," I gather, is intended to showcase the dreariness and hopelessness of life in post-Soviet Russia (the characters have to make up stories to make their lives appear more interesting than they really are), but the movie is so incoherent and boring that I seriously doubt very many people will be able to sit all the way through it. There seems to be a suggestion running through the film that the shadowy Russian government is up to some shady doings behind the scenes - operating secret cloning facilities, selling decades-old frozen meat etc. - but the movie is so formless and incomprehensible that I doubt anyone could figure out what anybody's really up to here.

Despite decent acting and a few incisively directed scenes, "4" is a two-hour long endurance contest that should be avoided at all costs.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: In the U.S., very few films have been made about Rome that were not set in the time of Julius Caesar or shortly thereafter. Hollywood's sword and sandal epics mostly have a Christian theme, which makes it difficult to get into earlier Roman history (Spartacus was probably the first exception to this rule, and encountered some resistance in Hollywood because it did not have Jesus in it).

It's interesting to see at least one picture that not only takes place before the time of Caesar and Christ, but is set when Rome was only one city among many on the Italian peninsula, and had just ousted the hated King Tarquin and formed the Republic.

However, this is not a historical film; it's peplum, and while the production values aren't rock bottom, the acting and characterizations are cardboard. I can only imagine what the dialogue was like in Italian, but with wooden English dubbing it's very campy. I got a few good laughs out of it at first.

I haven't seen many films of this genre, having missed most of the Hercules movies of the 60s. It's amusing up to a point, but as the film goes on, it gets somewhat boring.

One thing's for sure: if I'd seen this movie when I was ten years old, I would have loved it. At that age, I went for anything with Romans and swordfights in it. So at least, this flick brought back some childhood memories.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: This movie is about a female rape victim/comic book writer from New York that decides to get away from all that awful big city glamor and move to a dirty, run down small town where she finds refuge in a single-wide trailer on a dirt lot in the middle of 12th and nowhere. The townspeople are mentally ill, yet so is she for inviting crazy men into her trailer. Annoying is the fact that she has the ability to do exactly the right thing to place herself in dangerous circumstance after dangerous circumstance. DB Sweeney's performance was high school at best. He's one of those kinda-cute young actors with a sweet grin. Unfortunately career has not been kind and mother nature has been right in tow. To the previous commentator stating that the acting was "so real", well I agree. Actually it wasn't acting. The two main characters really are pathetic, weak and incapable of making mature, healthy decisions. In brief, this movie sucks like no other, rent it to laugh at it. The real crime scene? The atrocious Wood paneling in the trailer - enough to make ME commit murder. And lastly, she's a artist/writer, so couldn't she afford a double-wide trailer and something other than a sun-yellow Chevy Chevette for love of god!

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pos/neg ans:
negative