input: Erotic cinema of the 1970's was tame compared to the triple X romps of today, which is good. Because there is a good story around the naked rituals and sex scenes. Of course, I wish that they had some vampire effects which they had at the time period and the sex did get in the way of the story a little. Plus some of the accents were hard to understand at time periods, but it's worth watching the unedited version then the edited up version which is titled THE DEVIL'S PLAYTHING. But if you don't care for allot of naked women dancing and having sex, then this isn't the movie for you. However, I did enjoy it and I give it...7 STARS.

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input: It is a tricky thing to play a queen. On the one hand, the actress has to be majestic and imperious, and on the other, she has to show vulnerability in a tough situation as well as the gathering of the courage and resolution to overcome the odds, since almost all movies about queens have that basic plot line.

Emily Blunt is quite radiant as Victoria, but it's not as full a performance as I'd like, no blame to her. I can't help but feel like this is a Mills & Boon novel adaptation compared to a darker, more dramatic movie about another young queen, Elizabeth. Hence Blunt doesn't get to run the gamut of queenly emotions, at least not to the full extent, since she's, y'know, the young Victoria. To see the old Victoria, check out Mrs Brown.

Jean-Marc Vallee is an interesting choice of director for the movie. He last did C.R.A.Z.Y., which was excellent and propelled him to fame. It was quite a different movie but I remember it looking gorgeous and that's probably the main similarity between the two movies. But while Vallee wrote C.R.A.Z.Y., this one was by Julian Fellowes, and though I really enjoyed his Gosford Park, the story for this movie was much less interesting. I soon got lost with all the governmental politics. Maybe it was less engaging because there was no potential beheading of the monarchy. I'm just saying.

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input: I had a personal interest in this movie. When I was 17 and just out of high school I got a job at 20th Century Fox as a member of the Laborers and Hod Carriers Union. At the end of my first day (sweeping the deck of an aircraft carrier) I was told to bring a suitcase the next morning with enough clothes etc. for one or two weeks. When I arrived the next morning a bus was waiting and about 20 of us headed south toward San Diego. Just short of there we stopped at an army base called either Camp Callan or Camp Hahn. Once we were bunked in we went north a few miles into Camp Pendleton, the big Marine base. There, on the beach, we started building what was supposed to be a Japanese Pacific island base. It took us about a week or ten days to complete the installation, which included a water tank, gun entrenchments, sand-bagged trenches and living quarters. All this was at very high pay, sometimes 'golden time', which was triple our regular hourly wage. Our food was also first rate = prime rib at lunch, etc. - which was amazing because it was wartime and very hard to get good meat at home.

Once the job was finished I waited eagerly for the movie to come out, which was about eight or ten months later. Then I waited eagerly through two hours of the movie before my handiwork finally came on screen. Then it was no more than three or four minutes (maybe less) of the movie's heroes dive bombing the base and blowing it to smithereens. A bit disappointing, but still fun.

In spite of the disappointment I enjoyed the movie and have not seen it since. I learned later that this movie was underwritten by the government and Fox was paid on a cost plus basis, which maybe accounts for our extravagant pay and lifestyle down there. Bob Weverka

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input: I was not entirely impressed by this film. It was originally named Sin Eater and should have stayed that way considering that is all that was talked about for the last half of the film. I'm not even sure what the first 20 minutes of the film had to do with any of the rest of it. It was very slow and what was with picking Robocop (Peter Weller) as one of the main actors. That was a sad point.

All in all I would say check this out if you are into things dealing with the Catholic religion but don't expect an Exorcist or Stigmata from this film. It will surely flop after a few days and word gets out.

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negative