IN: Review: Fearful Symmetry is a pleasant episode with a few faults. The first thing about the episode is that it takes place near Mountain Home Air Force Base in southwest Idaho. Season one's 'Deep Throat' takes place near Ellens Air Base, also in southwest Idaho. I'm wondering if the air force bases are one and the same but they decided to use the real name in Fearful Symmetry. Mulder and Scully have some good dialog, always a plus. Ed Meecham, the zoo keeper, reminds me of cranky, old school teachers. They must have liked children at one time, you just can't imagine how. Just like he must have cared more for animals at one point. I liked the concept of the episode, but I felt it had some inconsistencies. If aliens are so adept at abducting humans and returning them safely, why can't they put the animal back in the right place? And the aliens are just now having problems returning the animals? I don't buy Mulder's theory of a problem with the space-time continuum. As if he's an expert on that. I also thought Jayne Atkinson's performance as Willa Ambrose was not well done. Besides those nitpicks, I still enjoyed this episode because of the intriguing concept of aliens harvesting animal DNA as well as human DNA.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: "The Mother" is a weird low-budget movie, touching at least two uncomfortable themes not usually explored in the cinema: denial of love of mother for their own son and daughter, and lust and passion in the third age.

The characters are awful: May is a disgusting old lady and I believe it is impossible to feel any kind of sympathy or sorrow for her. She confesses that she did not love her son and her daughter. She cheated her husband twice with an intellectual. She steals the beloved man of her daughter, not to protect her from a guy without moral, that does not love her, but just because she feel horny with him. She is trying to organize her life after the loss of her husband in the worst possible way, destroying her daughter delusions. Paula, her daughter, is a fragile loser, who accepts her life the way it is. Her brother Bobby is a man who lost his savings because of his wife, who insists in having her shop, a terrible business indeed. Darren is an amoral addicted jerk who does not like anybody, even himself.

The acting and direction are excellent: the actresses and actors have outstanding performances and the direction is very precise. I liked this movie, but I recognize that it is recommended for very specific audiences. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Recomecar" ("Re-Start")
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: Since the day I saw this film when it came out in 1981, it has been one of my top 3 favorites. The blurb I wrote for Amazon is below, and I'm just thrilled that it's finally coming out on DVD on 10/17/06 - the film's 25th anniversary.

The last credit in this film explains its appeal - "Thank you to the people of Manhattan on whose island this was filmed." A charming and witty romantic comedy, it is a love story written to New Yorkers (Peter Bogdanovich is a native) who can identify every location (West 12th Street, the Ansonia, the old FAO Schwartz, the Plaza, the Roxy, Chez Brigitte, and City Limits which was a country & western club). One gets the impression that the entire ensemble cast clicked as well off-screen as they do on, and this intimacy is clearly communicated. I laughed, I cried, it was better than CATS. Not only an ode to Dorothy Stratten, it was also Audrey Hepburn's last feature appearance (she had a cameo subsequent to this film) and her inner beauty seeps from the screen. Buy it, make a big tub of popcorn, and curl up with someone you love.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: For those that were interested in knowing how exactly humanity came to be encased in big red pods that make me crave pomegranate, there is the duo of the "Second Renaissance" shorts. I'm not exactly sure why they are split into two parts, especially since they're credited as one on the DVD (and are these shorts viewed on any other format but the DVD?), but they're informative even if they have a few gaps.

What really makes this first part stand out, from the second part and the rest of the animations as well, is the parallels it shows between robot uprising and civil rights. Graphic homages to slavery, fascism, concentration camps, and mass graves are mixed with verbal references to the Million Man March and humanity's God-complex. In fact, "God" is never really referenced by these shorts, instead replaced by "Man's own image".

As far as the shorts go in the collection, "The Second Renaissance: Part I" is by far the most effective in bringing out emotion. It's a sorrowful and disturbing view of the potential of humanity to become "the architect of its own destruction." Some may be turned off by some of the concepts this short rips directly out of previously established science fiction literature, but then again, that's basically what most of the Matrix series has done, and it's been a driving force behind its success.

--PolarisDiB
What is this review like?
OUT:
positive