input: Matthau and Lemmon are at their very best in this one - everyone else in the movie are also great. The Dialogue is excellent and very, very witty - and the scene where Lemmon's character attempts to clear out his sinuses in a restaurant have me rolling on the floor with laughter every time I see it. Anyone who happened to see the not so great sequel should not be turned away from the original. I recommend this wonderful movie to everyone - I just love it. And the fact the Jack Lemmon plays his character so straight forward with tragic overtones only adds to the hilariousness in my opinion. These two great guys made a string of movies together, but this one is the best - no doubt.

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: This PM Entertainment production is laced with enough bullets to make John Woo say, "Enough already!" Of course, it isn't nearly as beautiful as Woo can deliver but it gets the exploitive job done in 90 minutes. Eric Phillips (Don Wilson) is an undercover cop in the near future. When his wife is framed for murdering the Governor by a team using a look-a-like cyborg, it is up to Eric to clear her name. Wilson gets to pull Van Damme duty as he plays the heroic lead and his evil cyborg doppelganger. Why the Academy failed to take notice is beyond me. Being a PM production, there are tons of car chases, exploding cars (4 in the first 5 minutes!) and shoot outs. I particularly liked the van that flips in midair before it even comes close to touching an exploding truck. My other favorite bit involved a neighborhood girl coming over to perfect her karate in Don's simulator. It is merely a chance to show off some cheapo LAWNMOWER MAN effects circa 1995.

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: Being the Beatlemaniac that I am, I approached Two Of Us with a combination of fear and fascination. Having seen 'In His Life: The John Lennon Story', I was quite concerned that Two Of Us will turn out no better. The fact that Aidan Quinn and Jared Harris look absolutely nothing like John Lennon and Paul McCartney even with some make-up and proper hairdos didn't help one bit.

But I was more than a bit pleasantly surprised. It's probably thanks to the involvement of Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who directed Let It Be in 1970 and consequently probably knew John and Paul quite well, that the characters and the dialogue came across as convincing as they did. (The writing credit for Two Of Us is given to a man named Mark Stanfield, of whom I know absolutely nothing; I feel confident that director Lindsay-Hogg had more than a bit to do with the script.) Two Of Us is not a biography of the Beatles; it has very little plot, in fact, and takes place all in one day in New York City. What it does is imagine a meeting between John and Paul in 1976, while John lived in New York. That meeting is entirely fictitious, of course though it can't truly be disproved that such a meeting actually took place. But through that imagined conversation it gives us a glimpse into the personalities of these two great musicians their intelligence, their sense of humor, their different reaction to stardom, and most of all their relationship; what made them such a great team, and what broke them up.

Since it's a talk movie, nothing much except for dialogue between two characters for an hour and a half, it's likely to bore all but true fans of the Beatles; but it's a fantastic piece of writing and storytelling, and is both informative and touching. For those interested in these two musical giants, very quickly you'll get over the shock of how different the actors look from their counterparts and feel like John and Paul had come to life so intimate and convincing is the script, and so committed are the actors. Two Of Us gives you priceless insight into the lives of two geniuses, and a tale that is both sad and funny. Most certainly recommended.

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input: An entertaining kung fu film, with acting, plot and fight scenes a cut above the average chop socky. All of the cast are likeable characters and skilled martial artists. Alexander Fu-Sheng's proto-Jackie Chan comedy antics are fun to watch, and his austere companion shows particularly impressive skills. For me, the film's only glaring flaw is the size of the cast -- at times, things get a little confused as the film chops and changes between various subplots, and some of the characters are not as fully fleshed-out as one might wish.

But a kung fu film should be judged first and foremost on the quality of the action, and Shaolin Temple definitely delivers on that count. The film climaxes with a high-bodycount battle that allows each character to show off his skills against a worthy opponent.

Overall, Shaolin Temple is an enjoyable low-budget kung fu movie. Not up to the quality of a good Jet Li film, but definitely worth a look for fans of the genre. My rating: 8/10.

Misc notes: The 1987 Warner Home Video release I saw was (predictably) poorly dubbed, and lacked full cast & crew credits.

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positive