input: Just okay horror film about a nice suburban family dealing with the death of their parents and the "thing" in the basement that they keep feeding people they pick up off the street. Of course there is more to it then that but to say more would be telling.

For me this just didn't come together as it tries to have it two ways both as a family drama and a horror film. the film tries very hard to walk the cutting edge between the two genres but seems more to stumble all over the place as it tries to be shocking, something it never really is. It doesn't help that the final revelation is less a scare then an "oh", as on "Oh thats it?". Maybe if I hadn't been watching so many horror films recently this might have been better or it may have just seemed it since I wouldn't have compared it to so much.

I'd take a pass

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: Mark Frechette stars as Mark, a college radical leftist. Mark is accused of killing a cop during a campus riot, and he flees all the way to the desert. He does so by stealing a small plane at the local airport, and flies it himself.

Once out flying over the desert, Mark spots a car from the air. A young woman named Daria steps out, and sees Mark circling in the plane. Mark swoops the plane very low several times, causing Daria to duck or get hit. When he lands, he becomes acquainted with Daria, who is strangely charmed by Mark's aerial highjinks.

After engaging in soulful conversation for hours, Mark and Daria get naked, and make love in the sand. But with Mark evading the law, they realize that he needs to keep running. So Mark and Daria's brief tryst is quite poignant, because it doesn't get to develop into a full-blown romance.

Zabriski Point was the Eraserhead of the early 70s. Both films have a rambling, vague quality, along with complicated meanings and characters. Frechette was as reckless in person, as his character was in this film. A few years after making Zabriski Point, Frechette robbed a bank in real life. While serving his prison sentence, Mark died an ignoble death. He was killed by a 150 lb. weight, which fell on him when he was weightlifting.

The best thing about this movie was the splendid cinematography, and special visual effects. The incredible, slow-motion scenes of debris floating in the air after an explosion, were a stroke of genius. Although not as ground-breaking a film as Easy Rider was, Zabriski Point still resonated with the early 70s counterculture. I recommend it, for those who like avant-guard films which showcase the upheaval, of the youth rebellion during the early 70s.

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: Hamlet is by far my favorite of all of Shakespeare's works. Branaugh is one heck of an actor. His portrayal of this was just amazing. His soliloquies were breathtaking. For as long as it was it is rare for a film to hold my interest, however I was engrossed in this particular piece. I recommend this to anyone both fan of Shakespeare and those not so much. This has everything the modern world looks for in its films: murder, betrayal, and deceit. Not to knock Mel Gibson's version, but Branaughs touches the whole work. This leaves no stone unturned. When you finish the film it will feel as if you read the play yourself. Um how you say "two thumbs up".

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: Since its release in 1983, "A Christmas Story", the Jean Shepherd-narrated story of his alter-ego, Ralphie, has become a true classic. "My Summer Story", however, still has Shepherd as the narrator, but it has absolutely none of the charm, and the characters are nowhere near the caliber of the original film.

"My Summer Story" is basically a mishmash of mediocre and just plain not very interesting stories, which include hillbilly neighbors and battling tops. Charles Grodin, who I normally like, is extremely unlikeable in the role of the father (more aptly handled by Darren McGavin in the original), and his character never seems anything but forced. Kiernan Culkin is a poor substitute for Ralphie, and the little brother is all but forgotten here. Only mom seems to have any worth here and perhaps that's because she beans a cinema manager with a gravy boat when he pushes his luck too far with irate housewives on "free dish night".

The stories in this are mostly inconsequential and stretched paper-thin. May appeal to the extremely undemanding but as a sequel to "A Christmas Story", it's a very poor one and not worth most people's time. 2 out of 10.

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pos/neg ans:
negative