input: This film made for French TV deals with the tragic effect it has for a close knit family. When Leo, the young man at the center of the story is diagnosed as having the AIDS virus, announces it to his parents, they just can't believe it. The film is a character study on how this family deals with its subject.

The director, Christophe Honore, has to be congratulated for bringing this frank account to the screen. Nowhere but in France could this story make it to the movies because of the subject matter.

The news has a devastating effect on Marcel, the young brother who hears about what Leo has contracted, in spite of the way the parents want to shelter him from reality.

Yaniss Lespart and Pierre Mignard do a convincing job in portraying the brothers.

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: This movie is a great way for the series to finally end. Peter (the boy from Puppet Master III) is all grown up and is now the Puppet Master. Well, this girl comes to destroy the puppets and learn Toulon's secrets but instead she listens to the story about the puppets. Most of this movie is footage from Puppet Master II, Puppet Master III, Puppet Master 4, Puppet Master 5, Curse of the Puppet Master, and Retro Puppet Master (sorry... But I guess Paramount wouldn't let them use scenes from 1). Personally I wish Puppet Master Vs. Demonic Toys would finally be made but the way this movie ends they basically say "This is THE final movie in the series..."

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: This is one of the finest films to come out of Hong Kong's 'New Wave' that began with Tsui Hark's "ZU: Warriors of Magic Mountain". Tsui set a tone for the New Wave's approach to the martial arts film that pretty much all the directors of the New Wave (Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Wong Jing, Ching Siu Tung, etc.) accepted from then on as a given; namely, the approach to such films thenceforth would need more than a touch of irony, if not outright comedy. "Burning Paradise" put a stop to all that, and with a vengeance.

It's not that there isn't humor here; but it is a purely human humor, as with the aged Buddhist priest at the beginning who somehow manages a quick feel of the nubile young prostitute while hiding in a bundle of straw. But this is just as humans are, not even Buddhist priests can be saints all the time.

When irony is at last introduced into the film, it is the nastiest possible, emanating from the 'abbot' of Red Lotus Temple, who is a study in pure nihilism such as has never been recorded on film before. He is the very incarnation of Milton's Satan from "Paradise Lost": "Better to rule in Hell than serve in heaven!" And if he can't get to Satan's hell soon enough, he'll turn the world around him into a living hell he can rule.

That's the motif underscoring the brutal violence of much of the imagery here: It's not that the Abbot just wants to kill people; he wants them to despair, to feel utterly hopeless, to accept his nihilism as all-encompassing reality. Thus there's a definite sense pervading the Red Temple scenes that there just might not be any other reality outside of the Temple itself - it has become all there is to the universe, and the Abbot, claiming mastery of infinite power, is in charge.

Of course, fortunately, the film doesn't end there. Though there are losses, the human will to be just ordinarily human at last prevails. (If you want to know how, see the film!) Yet there is no doubt that, in viewing this film, we visit hell. Hopefully, we do not witness our own afterlives; but we certainly feel chastened by the experience - and somehow better for it over all.

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input: With the badly injured Tony in an induced coma, two things happen: Tony imagines himself leading the life of a salesman attending a business convention, while his family and friends go through hell trying to cope with the possible loss of the big man. The dream sequences are right out of an old TWILIGHT ZONE episode, as Tony finds himself transformed into an Average Joe trying to deal with a missing wallet and mixed-up identities while on a cross-country business trip. His intonation as a blazer- and khaki-wearing schnook is more mid-American and less that of an Italian thug from Noo Joisey. A nice touch. The shockingly long-haired, hippy-dippy AJ (whom Paulie calls "Van Helsing" at one point) has a nice scene with his comatose old man. The best moment has the big boys trying to talk about life without Tony, which immediately breaks down into a territorial dispute. Vito gets off a line about the new-dead Gene possibly having been a closet case, which is interesting in light of what we are about to learn about Vito.

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positive