input: A case of being in the right place at the right time. What a fascinating film. It is easy to see why Chavez is so popular with his people. He gets things done. He is accessible. And it is also easy to see why the west hates him so much. He has control of the resources of his country and gives the profits back to the people. Mostly the poor. And it easy to see how the TV stations can portray misleading images to put there case. Just like the Iraq war, or the war on Terror. Or those missing WMD's. Or how about the axis of evil. People need to wake up. And get different points of view. Stop the neo cons ruling the world. Go watch this movie with an open mind. And make your own mind up. Then I suggest you see Aaron Russo's: America: Freedom to Fascism. It is not the people of America that are the problem. It is the government.

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: If it were possible to distill the heart and soul of the sport--no, the pure lifestyle--of surfing to its perfect form, this documentary has done it. This documentary shows the life isn't just about the waves, but it's more about the people, the pioneers, and the modern day vanguard that are pushing the envelope of big wave further than it's ever been.

Stacy Peralta--a virtual legend from my early '80s skateboarding days as a SoCal teen--has edited reams of amazing stock and interview footage down to their essence and created what is not just a documentary, but a masterpiece of the genre. When his heart and soul is in the subject matter--and clearly it is here--his genius is fraught with a pure vision that doesn't glamorize, hype, or sentimentalize his subject. He reveres surfers and the surfing/beach lifestyle, but doesn't whitewash it either. There is a gritty reality to the sport as well.

There is so much that could be said about this documentary, about the surfers, the early history of the sport, and the wild big wave surfers it profiles. Greg Noll, the first big wave personality who arguably pioneered the sport; Jeff Carter, an amazing guy who rode virtually alone for 15 years on Northern California's extremely dangerous Maverick's big surf; and, the centerpiece of the documentary, Laird Hamliton, big wave surfing's present day messiah.

There is tremendous heart and warmth among all these guys--and a few girls who show up on camera--and a deep and powerful love for surfing and the ocean that comes through in every word. I found the story of how Hamilton's adopted father met him and how Hamilton as a small 4- or 5-year old boy practically forced him to be his dad especially heartwarming (and, again, stripped of syrupy sentimentality).

If you like surfing--or even if you don't--this is a wonderful documentary that must be watched, if only because you're a student of the form or someone who simply appreciates incredibly well-done works of art.

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: It says that a girl named Susan Montford both wrote and directed this "movie." No wonder she has no other credits to her name for writing or directing. She made a severe vocational error in choosing this as her career. This is one of the worst human creations of this millennium.

The fundamental thing wrong with this movie other than its ridiculous story of a woman running away from four weak thugs, is the blatant and complete lack of LOGIC.

**After she leaves the mall, she gets approached by four thugs as they surround her. Tell me, what woman would aggressively SHOVE a potential attacker while being surrounded, and insult them verbally? I don't mean after an attack had already started, because then of course it's completely normal for someone to fight back. But she shoved that guy and pretty much escalated it to the next level. No woman would do that unless she 1) had a weapon, 2) has the confidence of knowing that backup is very close, and so is relatively safe from harm, or 3) the attackers are so young, and weak looking that she's pretty sure she can take them. None of that applied in this situation, so she was just acting like someone that's asking to get raped or mugged. And by the way, when the security guard approached, as SOON as he came within viewing distance of Kim Basinger, why wouldn't she immediately either run towards him for help, or scream??

**When she drives off after the security guard gets shot in the head, she drives into a deserted part of town, and crashes. She had a good three minute lead on the pursuers, instead of simply running off on foot in a diagonal direction behind houses and climbing fences and continuing, she gets out her Red Toolbox and starts messing around under her hood. I understand she was trying to fix her car, but she should've ran.

(I didn't even mean this to be a chronological summary of the movie, because I loathe people who do that in their reviews, but it just so happens that every main sequence of this movie has something so blatantly stupid that I have to comment on it).

**Why would she carry a loud, Red Toolbox as she's trying to sneak away in the dark? When she does get caught, one of the jokers demands for her to open the toolbox. First she resists, then eventually opens it. And takes out a wrench. This scene here is so rich in subtle overtones of the complete failure of dramatic effect I have to break it down, it's one of the dumbest scenes in the entire movie. When asked to open the box, she's resisting at first as if it were her plan to somehow get one of the thugs to open it themselves out of anger after she didn't open it, in the same way that someone in some action movie might have some device that an enemy demands that person to touch/push/open/manipulate, and once that hero refuses to open it, the enemy grabs that device, only to have that device automatically dispense a chemical/shoot him in the face/render him unconscious, which was the hero's plan all along. It feels like that's what they tried to do with Kim Basinger here, as she opens the toolbox dramatically and quickly takes out a WRENCH and dispatches one of the thugs, and somehow GETS AWAY from him and the three other thugs.

**Throughout the rest of the movie, basically what you see is this suburban house wife, sneaking around the woods as she carries her Red Toolbox, taking out various tools used as weapons to KILL HER ATTACKERS.

**When she was running away, how did she end up moving BACK to where the thugs were? I think it was the scene where they had that radio playing loudly in tribute to the dead dude. She somehow crept up on them when I thought she was moving AWAY from them.

**Finally, this whole premise is so weak because the whole reason she's being chased in the first place is because from the thugs' perspective, she was a witness to a murder they committed against the security officer earlier, and so they felt they had to kill her. How ridiculous. As one of the thugs even said, they could've just left town and returned back to whatever city they drove from, no one but her had seen them anyway, and she probably didn't get the license plate. Even if these possibilities wouldn't work in their favor, how is raising hell and hunting down someone to kill them improving your chances to get away with the original murder?

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pos/neg ans:
negative