input: This film is a quite entertaining horror anthology film (along the lines of Tales from the Crypt) written by Robert Bloch (author of Psycho). It's good fun for horror fans and has an excellent cast. The movie should also be required viewing for Doctor Who fans since Jon Pertwee (the third Doctor) has an amusing role as a rude and obnoxious horror star!

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input: What are the odds of a "Mermaid" helium balloon traveling from Yuba City, Ca.(on Nov 8th,1993) and landing 4 Days later,(on Nov. 12) in MERMAID, Prince Edward Island, Canada.(Approx. 4000 miles). This is a great movie. It is based on a true story. This movie helps not only children cope with losses, but older people as well. Hope everyone will enjoy it!!! Rhonda

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input: Now I had the pleasure of first viewing Contaminated Man when it premiered on TV back in December of 2000.

An infectious disease expert (William Hurt) looses his family when an unknown disease enters his home and kills them. Now some years later he is now in Russia or someplace. I'm not sure where exactly, all I know is it takes place somewhere in that area. Anyway, because of budget cutbacks at an infectious disease laboratory, they are forced to lay off most of their workers. One of them, a disgruntled security guard named Joseph Muller (played Peter Weller, best known for his role as the indestructible Robocop) goes in there and demands that they give him his job back. He needs this job because he is divorced and he needs it to pay child support. So he goes in there, a fight breaks out, and some things get knocked over, dangerous things. It's soon discovered that Muller has been infected with a deadly pathogen. In fact it's so deadly, one drop of his blood will kill a person in matter of seconds. Soon word gets out and the disease expert (Hurt) is called in to investigate and he later teamed up with an American reporter. Now Muller is determined to get home to see his wife and son and will stop at nothing even if he has to infect the entire Russian population.

Now as I said before this film is a lot like Falling Down. We have a disturbed person (Weller here, Michael Douglas in Falling Down) who will stop at nothing to accomplish there goal even if they have to kill a few people in the process. Next we have a hero-type person (Hurt here, Robert Duvall in Falling Down) who is both sympathetic and determined to stop the antagonist.

Contaminated Man is in fact a very good film with a good story line and some very good performances.

8/10

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input: I first rented this film many years ago, and was completely enthralled by it. Just recently, feeling a strange need to revisit some of the way-too-few films that I've immensely enjoyed in my lifetime, I decided to give "Erendira" another look. And I'm glad I did, as I soon discovered that even the passage of time has not in the least dulled the shine of this film.

The story is about a teenaged girl (Erendira, played remarkably by Claudia O'hana - in some respects she resembles Winona Ryder!) who accidentally burns down her grandmother's mansion after which the grandmother, played downright hypnotically by Irene Papas, forces the girl into a life of prostitution on the road to repay the damages.

The viewing is at once fascinating and compelling - though, inspite of the basic premise, which deals with prostitution, is tastefully void of gratuitous steamy sexual content. The story revolves more around the interactions between the girl and her grandmother, and the various other colorful characters with whom they come into contact on their sojourn - which, by the way, is in the rough and tumble part of rural Mexico.

The film is very atmospheric, arrestingly enigmatic with a decided dreamlike quality. It sometimes borders on the bizarre, but not to the point of, say, a David Lynch film. It's also worth mentioning that the film is very allegorical in nature, read the comments from previous viewers below...

Often in the background you hear the sounds of a lone accordion, quiet and melancholy, adding just the right musical accents to highlight the Mexican setting. The cinematography of the rural places, many of which are in the desert, is quite superb.

The film moves at a nice pace, neither too fast nor too slow, and after every scene I felt I had to rewind the tape and play it over again, just because it makes you want to do that. For me anyway, it really is that compelling.

Hopefully you will see the film in its Spanish language version, with subtitles. I studied Spanish in high school as well as in college, and I was happy to be able to understand much of the dialogue. Por ejemplo: "El mundo no es tan grande como pensaba." ("The world's not as big as I thought" - i.e., It's a small world.)

This film somehow reminds me of stumbling upon a dusty old bottle of vintage wine, which, upon drinking, is immensely satisfying, however, you are left with some sadness upon realizing that there aren't more bottles just like this one.

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positive