Q: "Still Crazy" is without a doubt the greatest rock comedy of all-time. It has been erroneously compared to "This Is Spinal Tap", which it has no relation to. "Spinal Tap" is a satire (and, quite frankly, not a very good one, in spite of it's "outing" of many rock cliches). Unlike "Tap", "Still Crazy" is populated by great actors, great songs and great human situations. You CARE about the people in "Still Crazy". That's all that matters. Oh, yeah, the music's pretty damn good, too, written by Mick Jones of Foreigner and Chris Difford of Squeeze. American audiences were already familiar with Stephen Rea (The Crying Game), but would only later become familiar with Bill Nighy (Underworld, Love Actually, Pirates Of The Caribbean II) and Timothy Spall (the Harry Potter movies).
A: positive
Q: First of all, I saw this movie when I was 7 years old at a Christian Scholl I attended. Needless to say that I was scared out of mind. Not because it was scary but because the content.Cmon...I was 7. Anyway, the cinematography was pretty bad and the acting was cheesy. That's very bad considering that I was only 7 and I remember that. The one thing that still haunts me is that dreadful song "I wish we all were ready" where the chorus ends with "...you were left behind". I wouldn't suggest seeing this one. I probably will, just for nostalgic reason. Besides, I'm sure the remake is much better. The best part of this movie though, has to be when everyone "dissapears"; vacant cars crashing, lawnmowers running on their own...pretty hilarious.
A: negative
Q: This movie was disappointing. It was incomplete and dull. While Alec Baldwin tried to portray himself as the Perfect fair and just prosecutor (not to mention executive producer), the movie never showed any of the defense counsels or tried to challenge the audience with an actual meaningful debate on the subject of how a country could be led down such a terrible path.

Sure, nobody wants to defend the Nazi's point of view, but THAT WAS THE POINT of the Nuremberg Trails! Four hours of simply bashing on the Nazi's.... c'mon! Thats been done already!

I really think Alec Baldwin should just stick to being Kim Bassinger's husband.

Right after the movie ended, TNT showed the 1959 movie, Trail at Nuremberg. That movie is FAR superior.
A: negative
Q: The 1963 version of "The Haunting" has been one of my favorite horror films for years, so I anticipated the release of this 1999 remake with a good deal of trepidation. It hardly seemed that any follow-up could exceed or even equal the original masterpiece. Unfortunately my worries were well-founded: This movie stinks.

I don't know what the people involved in this film were thinking. Jan De Bont, who seemed to have had a fluke when he directed the excellent "Speed," does as poorly here (or perhaps even worse) as he did with the much-hyped duds "Twister" and "Speed 2: Cruise Control." Hey Jan, stick to cinematography, would ya? Liam Neeson is adequate in his role as the doctor-pretending-to-be-a-sleep-psychologist -- I don't think he is capable of turning in a truly bad performance -- but even he cannot save a lame script and weak story. Catherine Zeta Jones proves once again (as she did in "Entrapment") that she lacks the acting ability to rise above the material that is handed to her. The female lead, who did great in an episode of "The X-Files," looks lost here as Eleanor, an insomniac hovering on the edge of sanity. And that blond guy, whoever he is, is more wooden than the laughably strange statuettes of children carved into the woodwork around the house. I don't think he changes expression once during the entire film.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

The reason the first movie worked so well is because we were never sure whether the house was truly haunted or whether the manifestations were a result of Eleanor's precarious mental state. No spirits are actually seen in the original, leaving much up to the imagination--a hallmark of other great horror films like "The Changeling" and "The Blair Witch Project." In this updated version, we of course get tons of CGI ghosts, which basically (in the face of the weak script/plot) make the movie totally unscary. The f/x aren't even that great, considering they were done by ILM. The frozen breath looks particularly fake. The effects in the underrated Peter Jackson film "The Frighteners," which I saw just before this one, were a lot better. The wooden carvings of the children, which are supposed to look creepy, just look silly (especially when they scream), and the CGI monsters are nothing to write home about. Rather than providing a relief from the bad acting, bad direction, and bad writing, the effects only add to this mess of a film.

Some particularly dumb scenes: When the three other characters break into Eleanor's bedroom, and none of them seem at all surprised to find a huge scowling demon hovering over the bed. The scene where Eleanor "sees" the former lady of the house hanging from the rafters... the acting here is particularly bad. And last, but not least, the unintentionally hilarious bit where Wooden Blond Guy utters an uninspired shout of what is supposed to be anguish, leaps up on a piece of furniture, and starts slashing away at the painting of the old, evil guy who built the house. We actually get some satisfaction in this scene, as seconds after his attack, Blond Guy is dragged over to the fireplace by the ghost of the old guy and promptly gets his head cut off by the flue. It was the only part of the movie I enjoyed.

In sum, stick to the original 1963 "The Haunting." 3/10 stars.
A: negative