input: A film I expected very little from, and only watched to pass a quiet hour - but what an hour it turned out to be. Roll is an excellent if none-too-serious little story of 'country-boy-lost-in-the-big-city-makes-good', it is funny throughout, the characters are endearing and the pace is just right.

Toby Malone is the true star of the film with his endearing portrayal of Matt, said country boy and local Aussie Rules football hero come to the big city to try out for one of the big teams. He is supported superbly by John Batchelor as local gangster Tiny. Watch out for these two.

Highly recommended.

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: Alexandre Aja's remake of The Hills Have Eyes was one of the bright spots of 2006. Not only was it a remake of a classic horror film, but it was pretty damned good too. So, nearly a year later, we are being treated to the sequel to that remake. While original scripter Wes Craven is back as producer and co scripted, this film just fails to rise to the level set by the original and the remake. A group of military trainees stop by in the desert to check in on some scientists and find themselves run afoul of the mutant family from the first film (at least those that remain plus some new ones). There's plenty of gore to be had here. What annoys me about this film is the utter lack of characterization. The viewer does not give a damn about what happens to any of these people because we haven't gotten into them. Even the mutants had some characterization last time out and this time, nothing. Gore for the sake of gore is pointless. There has to be a reason for this to happen for it to be interesting. Nothing that happens here is interesting. And what is it lately with rape scenes in films? Here we get yet another one for no real reason. Hopefully this is one set of hills that won't be visited again.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: Someone release this movie on DVD so it can take its hallowed place as on of the greatest films of all time in ten to twenty years when critics and film historians look back on the so-called films of the 1990's and see how vapid they were for the most part, and how Lars Von Trier tried to revolutionize and revitalize the international film world with this masterpiece. As it stands, "Zentropa" (or "Europa" as it is referred to outside the US) is one of the most fascinating and artistic views of the bleakness and almost psychotic uncertainty that oozed out of post WWII Europe, namely the decimated German landscape, whose physical horrors were matched only by the damage to the psyche of its people. Von Trier brilliantly paints his vision on screen. You will feel like you are watching some lost espionage noir classic from the late 1940's with the perfectly lighted black and white scenes, while at the same time feel you are on the brink of something beyond the cutting edge, especially in scenes like the assassination aboard the train. Literally, when you see this movie, you are witnessing the evolution of an art form.

For some reason, Von Trier got caught up in his own Dogma movement shortly after this. And while his "Breaking the Waves" and "Dancer in the Dark" are classics in their own right, it is with "Zentropa" that he truly lifted the art of film making to new and exciting heights. 10/10, ages like a fine wine, and begs for a DVD release.

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: The quote I used for my summary occurs about halfway through THE GOOD EARTH, as a captain of a Chinese revolutionary army (played by Philip Ahn) apologizes to a mob for not having time to shoot MORE of the looters among them, as his unit has just been called back to the front lines. Of course, the next looter about to be found out and shot is the main character of the film, the former kitchen slave girl O-Lan (for whose portrayal Luise Rainer, now 99-years-old, won her second consecutive best actress Oscar).

The next scene finds O-Lan dutifully delivering her bag of looted jewels to her under-appreciative husband, farmer Wang Lung (Paul Muni), setting in motion that classic dichotomy of a man's upward financial mobility being the direct inverse of his moral decline.

For a movie dealing with subject matter including slavery, false accusations, misogyny, starvation, home invasion, eating family pets, mental retardation, infanticide, exploited refugees, riots, civil war, summary mass street executions, bigamy, child-beating, adultery, incest, and insect plagues of biblical proportions, THE GOOD EARTH is a surprisingly heart-warming movie.

My parting thought is in the form of another classic quote, from O-Lan herself (while putting the precious soup bone her son has just admitted stealing from an old woman back into the cooking pot after husband Wang Lung had angrily tossed it to the dirt floor on the other side of their hut): "Meat is meat."

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pos/neg ans:
positive