Problem: OPTIONS:
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Answer: Allow me to start this review by saying this: I love vampire movies. They can suck (har har pun intended), and I'll still love them because vampires are just cool in movies. Van Helsing, considered by many to be a steaming pile of crap, was enjoyable to me because of the fact that there were vampires. You may ask: "What does that have to do with this movie?" The answer is that I intend to inform you of how horrible this movie truly is, that even a sucker (harharhar) for vampire movies like me can despise a movie like this so much.

The movie stars Van Helsing, a college professor guy who isn't at all convincing. He's a terrible actor, like everyone else in this movie, and he wrote it, to add salt to the wound. I honestly to not mean to offend him, and I'm sure everyone had fun making this movie, but watching it was actually painful. I'm not sure why I watched the whole thing; perhaps it was a morbid fascination, like watching an impending train crash: it's horrible, but you can't manage to force yourself to look away. Its main fault is that it's just so ****ing boring, and its plot is so damn ridiculous, even for a science fiction horror movie.

But, I digress. By the way, Van Helsing has sex with his mom. Of course, he doesn't know it's her at the time; he just thinks it's one of his students (which is still illegal and all, but not as disgusting and creepy).

If I were Van Helsing, I would at least pull an Oedipus myself when I found out I had done something so gross. It would've made for one entertaining thing if he just made some comment on it, but no. The point isn't even brought up at all, by any of the characters. It's as if the writer didn't even think of it. I would've at least had another character laugh at him and say "Ha ha, you had sex with your mom," which would be mildly humorous (although blatantly immature). I'm probably running out of room, so a few more words to dissuade you from ever seeing this film: there's a vampire ninja fight with an old man. It would be funny, but the filmmakers expect us to take it seriously. It's not even worth watching the movie to see how bad it is. Stay far, far away from it if you value your time at all.

I will say one thing positive about the movie: the guy who plays Van Helsing is pretty slick with that knife of his. There's like, a minute long segment where he swings around his knife and actually does some pretty nifty tricks. It would be boring in any other movie, but here, sadly, it was the highlight.
An example of a movie review. positive (OPTIONS:
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- positive).

A: I was lucky enough to catch this film finally on Turner Classic films tonight, as it is one of the films that won an Oscar (for special effects) in their yearly month of Oscar winning films.

BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS is easily a sequel film for the earlier success of MARY POPPINS. That film too was a big success, and an Oscar winner (Best Actress for Julie Andrews). Like MARY POPPINS BEDKNOBS has David Tomlinson in it, in a role wherein he learns about parenting. It is a fine mixture of live action and animation. It is set in a past period of British history (if not the Edwardian - Georgian world of 1912 London, it is England's coastline during the "Dunkirk" Summer of 1940). It even has old Reginald Owen in it, here as a General in the Home Guard, whereas formerly he was Admiral Boom in MARY POPPINS. Ironically it was Owen's final role.

The Home Guard sequences (not too many in the film) reminds one of the British series DAD'S ARMY, dealing with the problems of the local home guard in the early years of the war. The period is also well suggested by the appearance of the three Rawlins children as war orphans from the bombings in the Blitz in London. And (in typical Disney fashion) in the musical number "Portobello Road" different members of the British Army (including soldiers from India and the Caribbean (complete with metal drums yet!)) appear with Scottish and local female auxiliaries in costume.

All of which, surprisingly, is a plus. But the biggest plus is that for Angela Lansbury, her performance as Eglantine Price is finally it: her sole real musical film lead. In a noteworthy acting career, Lansbury never got the real career musical role she deserved as Auntie Mame in the musical MAME that came out shortly after BEDKNOBS did. She had been in singing parts (in GASLIGHT with her brief UP IN A BALLOON BOYS, and in THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY with LITTLE YELLOW BIRD, and - best of all - in support and in conclusion of THE HARVEY GIRLS with the final reprise of ON THE ATCHISON, TOPEKA, AND THE SANTA FE). But only here does she play the female lead. So when you hear her singing with David Tomlinson you may be able to understand what we lost when she did not play Mame Dennis Burnside.

The rest of the cast is pretty good, Tomlinson here learning that he can rise to the occasion after a lifetime of relative failure. The three children (Cindy O'Callaghan, Roy Snart, and Ian Weighill) actually showing more interesting sides in their characters than their Edwardian predecessors in POPPINS (Weighill in particular, as something of a budding opportunist thinking of blackmailing Lansbury after finding out she is a witch). The only surprising waste (possibly due to cutting of scenes) is Roddy McDowall as the local vicar who is only in two sequences of the film. With his possible role as a disapproving foe of witchcraft he should have had a bigger part. Also of note is John Ericson, as the German officer who leads a raid at the conclusion of the film, only to find that he is facing something more powerful than he ever imagined in the British countryside, and Sam Jaffe as a competitor for the magic formula that Lansbury and Tomlinson are seeking.

As for the animation, the two sequences under the sea in a lagoon, and at the wildest soccer match ever drawn are well worth the view, with Tomlinson pulled into the latter as the referee, and getting pretty badly banged up in various charges and scrimmages. As I said it is a pretty fine sample of the Disney studio's best work.
Problem: OPTIONS:
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- positive positive
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Answer:
I remember seeing this movie when I was about 7; and at the time it shocked me. I had seen a violent movie before, but I never saw a movie with the consequences and reality of violence. This movie not only shows this, but it also shows how people can change their lives and choose happiness. What this movie did and crash failed to do was to be truthful. Crash tried to show how racism was bad (and Crash actually had a built-in anti Asian bias) and to come at it from a morally superior position. Grand Canyon came at things from such a raw and real perspective that it actually ends up on a higher ground than crash. Especially when you compare the endings. The ending of crash is this supposedly neat little ending that ties everything up. While Grand Canyon simply ends on a quiet note, where you know nothing much will change in the character's lives but that's because life just goes on too, there's no suitable ending. No matter how good...bad you are. There is no ending of a chapter to begin another.