IN: Review: Rented and watched this short (< 90 minutes) work. It's by far the best treatment Modesty has received on film -- and her creator, Peter O'Donnell, agrees, participating as a "Creative Consultant." The character, and we who love her, are handled with respect. Spiegel's direction is the best he's done to date, and the casting was very well done. Alexandra Staden is almost physically perfect as a match to the original Jim Holdaway illustrations of Modesty. A terrific find by whoever cast her! Raymond Cruz as a young Rafael Garcia was also excellent. I hope that Tarantino & co. will go on to make more in the series -- I'm especially interested to see whom they'd choose to be the incomparable Willie Garvin!
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OUT: positive

IN: Review: This movie wastes virtually every actor's talents in what could best be charitably called a "potboiler".

Despite it's action-packed 'Top Gun' opening it is all downhill from there with plenty of stereotypes and unlikely situations following each other until you try to choke yourself on your popcorn.

There are so many dead-end story lines in this movie I was guessing at one point it was made by splicing together a discarded TV series.

Quinn's Mexican drug-lord role is laughable and his 'associates' plucked right out of a 1970's Quinn-Martin cop show. Costner's character is wooden and gives us no reason to believe he actually fell in love with Mendez' wife. Nor are we convincingly led to believe the wife is aching for companionship and will jump the first hot body coming along.

Definitely a 'B' movie at best and a huge waste of time for everyone involved.
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OUT: negative

IN: Review: Let me start off by saying that after watching this episode for the first time on DVD at 10 o'clock P.M. one night, I could not fall asleep until about 3:00 A.M.

This brief review may contain spoilers.

I'm a long-time fan of The Sopranos and I can safely say this is the best episode I've seen. I'm not saying everyone should feel this way, but I do. This episode is identical to the weekend I spent with my family, watching over my own father, comatose in the ICU before he passed.

The episode begins with Tony in an alternate reality: he is a salesman who's identity has been mistaken for that of a man named Kevin Finnerty.

By the time ten minutes had gone by, I knew either Tony was dreaming, or I was watching some other show. It wasn't like the normal Sopranos and I loved it.

Option 1 is confirmed when Anthony (or "Kevin") looks into the sky at a "helicopter spotlight" and we see prodding through it, a doctor with a flashlight. We see this only for a moment and the sequence plays out until we go back to real life in a situation similar to the one I just stated.

Tony has come out of the coma for only a moment. His boys take A.J. home and Carmella, overcome by stress, breaks down in the hallway: a signature moment in the episode.

For the remainder of the episode, we cut in between the real world: the family dealing with the potential negative outcome of this coma, and Tony's alternate reality, which parallels what's going on both in his mind and in the real world around him.

Then comes the stellar point in the episode: after A.J. finishes telling his mother he's flunked school, she walks in to see Meadow sitting at Anthony's side.

She approaches Tony, and utters the best line of the episode: "Anthony, can you hear us?" In Tony's world, he enters a dark hotel room and turns on a light. He takes off his shoes and goes to the phone. He tries to dial, but he cannot--as if he were trying to say something back to Carmella, but couldn't physically bring himself to do so. Not yet.

He sits down and looks out his window. A shimmering light that has reoccurred throughout the episode now seems to call to him from the other side of the city.

"When It's Cold I'd Like To Die" by Moby marries perfectly with these last images and helps in creating an emotional roller-coaster of an episode.

10 out of 10.

P.S.: Watch the next episode. You find out what the light is. It's wonderful.
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OUT: positive

IN: Review: "Meatball Machine" has got to be one of the most complex ridiculous, awful and over-exaggerated sci-fi horror films that I have ever came across. It is about good against evil and a coming-of-age tale, with the aim of to entertain with bloody, sleazy and humorous context. Because of that the violence isn't particularly gruesome and it doesn't make you squirm, but the gratuitous bloodletting and nudity does run freely. The performances by Issei Takahashi and Toru Tezuka is the worst i have seen, if that was not enough it is also directed by an unheard of director called Yudai Yamaguchi. This movie just have it all, it is bad to the bone!, A must see for every b-movie freak!!!... Simply: an enjoying and rare gem.
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OUT:
negative