The Z/Web Archive

The original was okay; this one's best feature is its remarkably clever name (for the dead, that's sarcasm). Yeah, it's got more cars, more chases, more women, more noise. The plot is more linear than the first one, but still dealing with guys going undercover trying to pass as street drivers so they can nail the bad guys. Frankly, the car races were boring. Gee, will the good guy win? I don't know... there's so much suspense! Okay, one or two jumps or crashes were cool, and the cars are definitely hot, but that's not enough to sustain a whole movie. Paul Walker, the only return from the first movie, proves that he's one of the worst actors on the planet (watch the scenes where he's supposed to get angry: though anger's the easiest emotion to portray, bad actors can't do it convincingly). The new people are okay, but nothing remarkable. That pretty much sums up the movie: nothing remarkable. The action is most cars revving their engines and going nowhere: I actually fell asleep during part of the movie! Mildly fun, but not recommended unless you're a car nut.

One of the better episodic films I've seen, but still a bit choppy and non-linear. The "plot" is about a number of unrelated people all gathering for a New Year's Eve party in 1981. Parts were quite funny, others tragic. Ultimately we don't really care for most of the (unlikable) characters so the whole thing's kind of a wash. Some of the irony was sweet, though, and there were a few legitimately classic moments.

Scandalous, I know, but I'd never seen this before. I've watched the opening "Dawn of Man" segment numerous times, and seen clips of other bits on TV, but never the entire movie. I'd read the book years ago and it never made much sense, so I'd hoped the movie would explain things better. It does and it doesn't. The ending is a little more linear but still just as metaphysical, and instead of reading descriptions of the unimaginable we see wild pictures of it. Overall this fits in with the grand, epic scheme of the novel and film, and when the movie's over you feel you've experienced something profound (you just aren't sure what). However, while there's a place for mystery in literature, this story is being mysterious not to make us think but because the author really doesn't know what he means. He's therefore vague and metaphysical to imply something profound, but even he isn't sure what that is. Which makes sense to an extent: as the key plot is contact with extraterrestrials, who can imagine, fully, what that would be like? Despite a few problems with the odd story, I like this movie a great deal. It's an amazing cinematic feat. The photography and pace is incredible: it's like a space voyage, slow and ponderous and monotonous, yet moving at fantastic speeds. The music is key, like a narrator, explaining everything we're seeing. There's really only a few scenes with dialog -- the rest of the film is a visual feast. I can truly see why this is considered a classic, and I am amazed Kubrick managed to get it made at all considering it is so different and unorthodox. It definitely was before its time. The special effects are simple and subtle, and work well even thirty-five years later. A terrific experience, even if a bit mysterious and the conclusion unsatisfactory.

This is a movie about the true story of MIT students who formed in a card counting club to gamble at blackjack in Vegas. They were led by their professor and the movie is the story of one young man who is trying to pay for his Harvard Medical tuition. Of course he gets greedy and wants more than the money he actually needs, and that leads to all sorts of trouble. The story is somewhat predictable, but it works. We like the main character and root for him to succeed. There isn't really a whole lot of story here -- it's mostly the thrill of the high lifestyle of Las Vegas. But it's fun and interesting, the performances are good, and the ending is typical Hollywood. I liked it.

Hilarious book about the horrors of working at a dot-com startup. Mike is refreshingly self-effacing, witty, and incredibly lazy. He's not stupid, he just doesn't like to apply himself. Out of this comedy we get some interesting insight into Amazon, the whole dot-com-gold-rush thing, and life. Excellent read.

This is a remarkable film. It is similar to Memento in that respect, though the story's more dramatic. The film almost feels unedited: we cut from scene to scene with no preamble or explanation, and the scenes, at first, don't appear to be related. More important, there is no time indicator on these scenes, and some happened earlier, some later, so everything's a mixed up jumble. For instance, one of the main characters is Sean Penn. We see him seeingly healthy, smoking a cigarette. Then he's in the hospital, on his death bed. A couple scene's later he's at home, dragging around on oxygen tank and sneaking a cigarette in the bathroom. Then he's in surgery, then in recovery, and later he's leaving the hospital. Everything's out of order. After watching for a bit we gradually figure out that he was sick, was going to die, received a heart transplant, and now has a new life. That's the chonological order of those events. But by presenting them out of order, the filmmaker teases us and forces us to think. For instance, once we figure out that Penn is going to die and we see him "dying" in the hospital we assume that's what's happening -- but in reality his life is being saved via the transplant. This technique could be used to ill effect, but in this movie it is not. After the first few minutes I was thinking this was going to be painful, but my mind quickly adjusted. The technique actually enhanced the story, similar to Memento's reverse technique making for a remarkable film. Granted, for the first half hour you won't understand much: the intersecting stories have not intersected though there are scenes that show unrelated characters relating, so you realize that there is some kind of connection between these people, you just aren't sure what it is. What's well-done, however, is that every scene is interesting, and each scene gives us more and more info about the people. By presenting us with the scenes out of order, the director forces us to make assumptions about the characters, and those assumptions are often proven wrong later, which is incredibly interesting. As far as the story goes, it's much too complicated to explain everything here, and of course I wouldn't want to ruin the film for you, but let's just say that one character loses her husband and his heart ends up inside Penn, and that connection eventually draws Penn and her together. Throw in the story of the man who killed her husband and you've got three separate lives intertwining. By presenting their connections out of order the power of the story is magnified. It's an unusual film, very well done. The only flaw I found is that the movie feels extremely long. It's only two hours but feels like three. (I wasn't the only one that felt this: others were complaining as we exited the theatre.) That's because the short unrelated scenes each seem like a new movie and the story seems to progress at a glacier pace (only a little new info is gleaned from each new scene). The director would have been better to speed things up by taking out 20-30 minutes of footage and having things happen faster. That would have made this a great film. As it is it's an excellent film, but more of an experiment than a great movie.

Sandra Bullock vehicle about a party animal who's sentenced to drug rehab (for 28 days). I'm a Bullock fan, but this was a weak concept: Bullock's too sweet to be believable as a drunk, and the script is TV movie of the week quality. Not terrible, just predictable and bland.

Intriguing end-of-the-world horror movie, about a horrible infection that turns humans into rabid animals. The tinest bit of infected blood in your system and you go rabid in twenty seconds and try to kill your own family or anyone around you. Far fetched, yes, but intriguing. The main character, Jim, wakes up in an empty hospital. He was in a car accident. Now London is empty of people. Everyone's dead. Well, almost everyone. He meets up with a few non-infecteds and they set out to figure out a new life in this new world. Fairly routine, really. But what makes this film above average is the unusual style. Boyle's filmed it with digital cameras, which gives it a grainy, documentary, ultra-real feel. The second thing he does is do some cool hyper-speed blur movement thing to the attacking creatures, which makes them both hard to see clearly (the unknown adds to the fear factor) and frightenly fast. They keep pouncing out of nowhere, and the fact that they once were human makes them really creepy. Unlike zombies, these people are still alive. They're just really disgusting. No explanation is given as to what they want (the zombies in The Night of the Living Dead wanted to eat human brains) so I don't know if they eat the people they attack: it seems like they just bite them and thus infect them. Overall the story's not the point, though. It's just a wild adventure ride. The characters are interesting, a motley crew thrown together by circumstance, and since we actually care what happens to them we follow their adventures carefully. The film is surprisingly creepy (far more than The Blair Witch Project), especially toward the end when we see the infecteds more clearly. The story's a little light, but again, this is a film all about visual style, and it that respect, it succeeds admirably. But unfortunately is not much more than that -- a fun exercise in horror.

It's been a while since I saw the first movie and though I remembered I liked it, I couldn't remember the details. That wasn't a problem, though, as film stands on its own. It's basically a zombie movie, except instead of dead people coming to life it's regular people being turned into raging maniacs by a dangerous virus. In this film it is 28 weeks after the first and Britain, which had been evacuated, is being carefully repopulated as all the infected have died off and it is considered safe to return. Our focus is one particular family: the boy and daughter were overseas when the virus hit, but return to find out that their mother was infected and only their father is left. Of course you can't watch this without the dreadful feeling that things are going to go bad, really bad, and of course they do, as the virus reinfects and sweeps through the surviving population in a devastating and terrifying manner. It's pretty exciting and plenty horrifying. It's grim and dark and doesn't show much hope, but that's in line with the first film. Recommended it you're into this sort of thing.

If this isn't a textbook thriller, I don't know what is. And I mean textbook thriller in the weakest sense. The chapters are extremely short, 2-3 pages, and each ends with a "dramatic" cliffhanger or unexpected news. Except, of course, everything's so predictable, nothing's unexpected. Patterson brings back his "Women's Murder Club" from 1st to Die and seems to think his collection of brilliant women who solve crimes (led by Lt. ___) is innovative. He takes far too much time exposing us to the inner lives of his characters, as if we care. Though nothing like this happens in the book, the technique reminds me a lot of the way a TV show will introduce us to a character's former lover we've never met through a two minutes of flashbacks and then tragically kill her off at the end and we're supposed to be moved. Extremely artificial. Worse than that, the plot of his murder story is dull. It's serious: the serial killer takes out a lot of people, and there's a lot of hand-wringing and sighing, but we really don't care one way or the other. With this kind of writing, death is trivialized. There are also a number of extremely puzzling technical omissions. For instance, the cops have a tape of the killer making a fake 911 call, but later, when they've got a suspect but no evidence to arrest him, no one thinks of doing a voice match to the tape! Overall, this is a quick read, and nothing terrible, but it's predictable, and I liked my surprise ending then the one in the book. Ho hum.

Terrific! I have not read the graphic novel and the promos intrigued me a little but not that much as it seemed like just a film about a battle. Then I watched a TV show about the author and the project and found out the story is based on a real historical battle in ancient Greece, where 300 Spartans fought an army of a million. The story sounded a bit dreary to me -- after all, I knew the Spartans died, though it seemed obvious they won in the long run. But the film, it turns out, is much more complicated than such a simple telling. There are fascinating political reasons of why a mere 300 Spartans tried to fight off the army of a million, and a big part of the story is the king's wife, who faces a moral dilemma as she tries to save the life of her husband. The story's got everything: action, a flashy visual style, intense emotion, betrayal, horror, and a touch of the fantastic (the Spartans are practically superhuman fighting machines and some of their enemies are nearly demonic). So though I only expected a good movie I got a great one. Highly recommended.

I've never seen the original, but it feels like it would have a hard time matching up to this one. Christian Bale as the flawed rancher hero and Russell Crowe as the charming villain are amazing, and the story and script really bring out the moral ambiguities of the situation. The plot is bare bones: the leader of murderous pack of outlaws has been captured and must be taken to the town of Contention to meet the 3:10 train to Yuma (which will take him to prison and the gallows). But no one wants the job because everyone fears his gang will kill to set him free. A desperate rancher takes the job for cash, but is it worth his life? Fascinating story and the ending is not what you expect at all.

Okay, here goes. First, the Good: 1) The story continues and the trilogy comes to a logical (though not particularly satifying) conclusion; 2) There's some excellent action and tension, combined with good special effects; 3) The characters are interesting and well-played; 4) The new "Terminatrix" (the enemy female Terminator) works surprisingly well, though there's no explanation of why the robot was made in female form.

Now, the Bad: 1) The plot's basically just a rerun of Terminator 2: Judgement Day for the most part (including Arnold getting clothes from morons in a bar); 2) There's nothing here as remotely innovative as the liquid metal guy, motorcycle-into-helicopter, and other amazing stuff from T2; 3) While exciting in places, this movie doesn't have the no-letup, breakneck pace of the previous films that made them edge-of-your-seaters; 4) Still includes numerous utter idiotic fallacies, such as cyborgs going nude back through time, but once they've adopted human clothing, the clothing miraculously repairs itself after they've been shot up! In another example, Arnold steals a vehicle by finding the keys hidden above the visor -- that was a human trick taught him by John Connor in T2 as an alternative to tearing open the steering column. But of course this is a different cyborg -- how could he remember what his predecessor did? Even dumber, the film later points that out in a bit where the 20-something John Connor laments that he'll have to "retrain" the new Terminator because he doesn't remember anything. Lame!

But overall this isn't as disappointing of a sequel as I expected -- it's actually rather fun. I suppose people will be split on it, though. Some will hate the ending, others will agree it makes sense. I personally liked the way they tied all the loose ends. Some have reported the action was awesome, but I thought it only okay (but action doesn't impress me that much anyway).

A fun book from Frey, with an outrageously ridiculous plot. Unfortunately the plot is revealed early on and we spend half the book wondering how things are going to be resolved, which they do at a slow pace. The plot's crazy: a secret society of seven powerful men engineer a scheme to take down a president. They set up the world's largest hostile takeover of a company and set up the president for insider trading on the stock. The main character's a young man who is setting up the takeover, not realizing he's a pawn in the larger scheme. When he finds out, he's got to stop them. Ludicrous, but I guess theoretically financially sound. Good fun.

This film gets a lot of comparisons to the recent Twisted (both have female cop leads) and usually comes out on top. I agree. It's a better film because Twisted wasn't very twisted (the twist ending was obvious a mile away) whereas this one is a little more subtle. Not much, but a little bit. They did a better job of keeping you guessing and the story after the story (the film keeps on going after you think it's over) is a nice touch. None of the characters are particularly original though the acting is decent. The film has an odd beginning as we focus on the serial killer's story; later that view is lost as we switch to the female FBI agent's viewpoint. I would have preferred sticking with the villain's perspective: that would have been something different. Still, a decent film, with a modicum of suspense.

This was a surprisingly good film. I remember when it came out I wanted to read the book before seeing it, and I thought the reviews were not kind, but it was excellent. Jude Law is awesome, Matt Damon less so, but competent (he's slightly miscast in the role). The film made me want to read the book, so I'm going to do that. I'm very suprised Hitchcock never filmed this because it's exactly the kind of story he'd love.

Terrific book, really fantastic. I wish I'd read it before I saw the film. After reading the book, I like the film less. The book is far better, though the film stands on its own in a way, but I just liked the book's approach better. It's more believable and the characters better defined, especially Tom Ripley. In the book he's really a psychopath, unemotional and scarcely able to understand what's he doing; that wasn't at all the impression I got in the film, where they did things like weaken the murder scene by making his victim fight back in such a way that we felt some sympathy for Tom. The film is typical Hollywood, afraid to commit, wanting to please everyone. Tom is one of the most unusual characters in literature the film just does not compare to the book.

Astonishingly good film, definitely one of Almodovar's best. I thought at first it might be a bit boring, but Almodovar never lets that happen, always jumping us from story to story, giving us fascinating tastes and moving us on before we get too much. There are two intertwined stories, both involving coma victims. One is about a male nurse who lovingly takes care of a young girl in a coma; the other is about a writer who falls for a female bullfighter not long before she's gorged in the ring and ends up in a coma. The two men become friends. Here Almodovar does something that I've never seen before (except in gimmicky films like Memento). He takes us on flashbacks to the relationships before the comas, but then later, we go back to those same flashbacks but a a few minutes earlier, and perspective totally changes based on the earlier conversation we didn't get to see the first time round. Very cool effect and it's efficient at giving us a lot of detail about the relationships. The result is that with all the characters we're left in suspense, never quite sure if what we see is reality. Is Benigno a creep to be in love with a living corpse or is his love pure? Or is he gay or perhaps just sexually confused? We don't know until the end (and maybe not even then). As usual Almodovar's created fascinating characters with intriguing, complex relationships, and he frames them with humor and provoking dialog. The ending is terrific, leaving us hanging with a new story brewing, making us wonder if another romance is in the air. Of course no mention of this film is complete without at least acknowledging Almodovar's brilliant film-within-a film: Benigno sees a silent film (Alicia, the coma girl, is a fan of silent films so he becomes one too) that is hilarious, profound, and outrageous. It's called the "Shrinking Lover" and is the tale of a female scientist and her lover. He drinks her experimental drug and shrinks to four inches in height, and what follows is even more audacious than the toy flipper man in Almodovar's Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!. It's wild, and yet, when you compare it to the relationships the men have with the coma women, it's subtly profound. Remarkable film.

Excellent DVD interview with Hitch, the greatest director of all time. This interview is apparently from a 1960-something TV Canadian TV show, and it included lots of great stuff from Hitch. He tells his vision of film in the year 3000 (we'll all just go and be hynoptized into living the film we experience), and reveals insights into modern debates like the issue over film violence. (Hitch claims no connection, and when asked about a serial killer who had watched a Hitchcock movie just before his third murder, Hitch said, "I wonder what he watched before his second murder?" He dismissed the whole thing and said that the killer was just as likely to have just drunk a glass of milk before his killing.) Classic Hitchcock, great video.

Wins silliest title of the year, but the movie's not bad. Extremely uneven, with some of the jokes falling flat and running too long (like the prayer scene at dinner), but overall it's relatively harmless stuff about stupid people driving race cars.

This is one of those small thrillers that has a cool concept with a neat twist at the end and could have been another The Sixth Sense but fails. The premise is simple: two guys love the same girl. One guy's the girl's best friend, the other her lover. One's safe, the other wild and impulsive. When she catches her lover with another woman, the relationship's over and she picks the best friend. But there's a twist at the end that I won't give away here. Unfortunately, the film fails for several reasons. First, there isn't enough material in the middle to keep the story moving. Once we know the main characters and where things are going, we have to endure until the twist ending. Second, much of the film is told in flashback. The film opens with the best friend character arriving at a hospital, bloody and injured, and we gather something has happened to his girlfriend. When the cops interview him, the backstory is revealed, and we find out the girl's lover kidnapped the two of them apparently intending them harm. By the time the backstory catches up with the present, we'rer ready for that twist ending. The problem is that the flashback technique implies something momentous is going to happen at the end, but we aren't given enough foreshadowing material to know how significant the ending will be. Second, the twist ending is such that, like Sixth Sense, it simply gives us a few pieces of information that radically change the way we think about everything we've seen. Unfortunately, this gets paid out so quickly at the end, there's little build-up or warning that a twist ending is coming. In this film, that's bad, because things seem too predictable. Also, the cop characters seem overly suspicious, which is confusing. It's like they are seeing something the rest of us don't. (In reality it's just bad writing -- the cops know how the script ends.) I liked the characters, though they're stereotypical, and I liked the twist ending. But the way this thing was put together it is a tangle itself, and that's not good for a story. Just watch the final thirty minutes, that's the only part that's important.

Strange film. In many ways it's strictly B-movie action shlock with overdone direction, gratutious sex and violence, and a convoluted, non-sensical plot. But it's set in South Africa, which brings a different visual palette, and there are scenes in an African village (such as a tribal dance) that one would never expect in such silliness. I'm not sure what to make of it. It's not a good film for many reasons, including that it thinks it is and is too self-concious and full of itself, but there are a few interesting scenes that make you wonder if the material itself is okay but it's just poor direction that ruins it. The director does have some skills as their are a few well-done parts, but there's nothing consistent: it's almost like the film had multiple directors or the director was learning as the film went on (there are some really amateurish cuts and shots in places). Very strange. Probably not worth seeing unless you're interested in film-making. You can learn a lot from a badly directed picture.

After a week of acid stomach during the house situation, I needed a break and a really stupid movie seemed to fit the bill. I got exactly what I wanted in this "idiot cop is helped by streetwise female taxi driver" flick. It's not great, not terrible, not much of anything. There are a few laughs, a few jokes that fail miserably, a few moments that actually work, but overall this definite B-movie territory. Still, if you're in the right mood (as I was), it's amusing and certainly non-threatening. The lead guy (Kattan from Saturday Night Live) does a decent job but is annoying; Queen Latifa rules, though. She's a real star.

Cool movie. Light, low-key story about old women living in Italy before and during WWII. Not as emotionally compelling as Life is Beautiful, but the characters were original and well-done.

From the creator of Scream and the TV show Dawson's Creek comes this black comedy, which isn't very dark or very funny. However, I still liked it, mostly because of the psychological manipulations of the evil Mrs. Tingle. She was a potentially fascinating character. Unfortunately, the contrived ending strips her of all realism, leaving us with another mindless movie villain. I don't know much about the background of this film, but I suspect studio manipulation toned down what was once a much darker script (the original title was Killing Mrs. Tingle). It's a shame, because it's an interesting concept with a lot of potential.

Time again for a needed break and stress relief. This looked like a cool Thunderbirds spoof, but coming from the creators of the semi-funny South Park I wasn't sure. Well, this film definitely had its crudity and foul language, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the South Park movie. That's because it's actually funny most of the time; even the dirty stuff was funny because it was parodying the original "tame" marionette show. The story itself is a jab against the USA being the world's police force. For instance, Team America goes in and destroys Paris in the process of stopping a handful of terrorists. But what I really liked was the poke in the eye to Hollywood, where all the liberal actors (a group hilariously known as the Film Actors Guild... I'll let you figure out the acronym) ban together to protest against Team America and violence, then end up helping the bad guy and getting slaughtered in the process. We actually get see marionettes of Helen Hunt, Michael Moore, Sean Penn, and many others get destroyed. It was very fun.

The marionette work was very impressive. At the same time it was both cheesy (no attempt is made to hide the strings) and sophisticated (the puppets eyes and faces were amazing and actually conveyed real emotions), a tough thing to do. The bottom line is this a fun film. It's hilarious, crude, and definitely socially unacceptable, which gives it a good rating in my book.

I had little idea what to expect: somehow I'd gotten the impression this was an action flick, which quickly proved wrong as there isn't even a gunshot until the ninety-minute mark. That disappointed me, but the climax sort of made up for that. The story is frightfully simple: there's a civil war in Nigeria, with rebels taking over the government and performing "ethnic cleansing" on innocent civilians. A small team of soldiers led by Bruce Willis is sent in to rescue a female doctor from a small mission that's in the path of the rebel army. But she insists on bringing the mission's Africans with her. Bruce violates his orders to help the natives escape, leading them on a trek through the jungle to safety in Cameroon 40 miles south. But following them is a troop of 300 rebel soldiers, and the shoot-em-up climax is surprisingly dramatic. That's pretty much the movie: no real surprises, no unusual plot twists, and a few moments of realistic and gritty action. But somehow it works. On paper I'd have said it was weak, but seeing it, it works. The relationship between the doctor and Bruce is fascinating, with them battling wills and exchanging thoughtful glances. Bruce's military poker face compared with the woman's passion is a great foil, and we really can't tell what either are thinking inside. What also impressed me was the acting and focus on the Africans. In many rescue films like this the mass of innocents are a faceless group (usually represented by one heart-breaking child who dies tragically) with no personality. Here we actually get to meet some of these men and women, see them struggle, weep, and carry on, and there are some really great moments between them and the soldiers. They are brilliantly humanized, like in the moment when one of the American soldiers, a black man, tells Bruce, "These are my people too." It's more than him just recognizing his historical background, it's him recognizing himself in these people. The film's slow to get going, and there isn't a lot beyond the bare plot, but it's a heroic story where the African people come across as heroes just as much as do the American soldiers. I especially liked one scene where an African woman, after her husband is shot, takes up a fallen bad guy's gun and uses it to fight. It's quick moment but it embodies the spirit of the African people (and the American Revolution). Excellent, but go with caution and don't expect much. This is the kind of film that can easily be overhyped. Think simple and you won't be disappointed.

Wild book with a crazy premise: a struggingly film studio finances a scientist's time machine project in order to go back in time to film a movie with real Vikings and have the film finished in four days. Unfortunately, the humor's dated: a lot of the satiric jabs at Hollywood's excesses fall hollow (and even worse, seem tame in today's world). Still, it's rather fun and interesting, and I love the concept of taking sci-fi and going a completely different direction.

I haven't read much Clancy as I haven't been a fan of his fragmented writing style, but this was a good book. It's one scenario of what clandestine operation the U.S. might do in response to 9-11 (the "teeth" of the "tiger"). There's a super-secret government organization that's actually privately funded so there's no connection to the government at all. But this organization has penetrated all levels of the government and thus has full access to all intelligence from all other agencies. Using this info, this organization will, essentially, kill terrorists before they can strike. Brutal and cold, but realistic. How else do you stop sucide bombers? The book devotes too much time to "debate" over the morality of this as though Clancy were defending the idea himself through his characters instead of getting on with the story, and in the end the story's thin as everything happens the way we'd expect (and desire, i.e. the terrorists are stopped). One interesting thing is that this book is set in Clancy's world and many of the characters are descendants of familiar Clancy characters (such as Jack Ryan's son). I haven't read enough Clancy to know if he always does this, but I found it interesting. A good read.

I thought this had a great premise -- two rocker dudes seek "The Pick of Destiny," a guitar pick with supernatureal rock powers that can turn anyone into a musical genius. But unfortunately the film isn't very funny and is mostly distasteful, with crass jokes and tons of bad language that passes for humor. Disappointing.

Effective thriller about a meek man who rents an apartment in a strange building. The previous occupant, a young woman, killed herself, and slowly the man becomes haunted by her. Is he possessed, insane, or just weird? We're not sure until the very end, which concludes in a hilariously bizarre sequence that I can't tell you about because it would spoil it. Really cool. The ending makes the film worthwhile, but it does get slow in the middle (or muddle). Still, it's worth watching, though it may not be for all tastes.

So so Cook thriller, with an obnoxious lead character you want to punch yourself, a chapter that's ninety percent incomprehensible medical terms, and a plot that's ridiculously obvious (I figured it out reading the back cover blurb) but "held" to the end to build suspense. Can't really think much to recommend it, other than it's still better than wasting a few hours watching TV.

Somewhat disappointing. The plot about a foreigner trapped in JFK International because a coup in his country has caused both his visa and his passport to be revoked, meaning he can't return home and yet can't enter the U.S., is too forced. It's amusing and overall well-done, but too predictable, with too much sentimentality for us to genuinely be moved. Tom Hanks gives an excellent performance, but the material's just not enough. The ending is awkward, and I didn't buy the lead character's absurd motivation to go to New York. It was meant to be heart-tugging but was laughably stupid. It didn't make sense. For such a simple task, why not have someone else go in his place? The whole film is filled with a number of awkward moments like that that just don't quite work. Still, it's not a bad film, just not a great one. With Hanks and Spielberg, one expects a little more. Above average, but not extraordinary.

I got this on DVD and had to watch it to test out my 5.1 surround sound system. Just as good as always, and the sound really puts this one over the top. One of the best films of all time.

If the events of Tuesday, the Eleventh of September, 2001, had been scripted in a film, they would have been scoffed at as unrealistic. That four teams of terrorists could manage to hijack four different American planes at the same time is unbelievable, let alone that they could manage to crash almost of all of them into major U.S. targets.
The physical events are distant from me, but like most Americans, I'm affected. I'm saddened by the loss of life and property, and horrified that people exist on this earth who find joy in such destruction, especially when they attempt to justify their actions via religion. I'm angry at their arrogance to dare do this, and even angrier at Americans who dare claim that we somehow deserved this. No nation on earth deserves this, no matter what they've done. I'm nervous at the future: I've never lived through a war (I won't count the Gulf War as a real war), but it looks like we may be heading that direction (as soon as we can identify an enemy).
The ray of hope through all this, and most touching to me personally, has been the response of nations throughout the world. In Europe, Champions League soccer matches were postponed in the wake of the tragedy, an unprecedented gesture. Weekend matches will feature a moment of silence preceeding the games. To see our allies and friends from around the globe unite in their sympathy is heartwarming; I only hope that American will respond in kind when it's our turn (not that an American baseball game would ever be postponed for another country's disaster).

In honor of the date, I guess, the Independent Film Channel has a weekend of classic horror movies. I'd never seen this one, but decided to watch it. I'm not really a fan of the slasher genre (except for the satiric or parodic); I generally find "horror" movies more funny than scary. This film, I must admit, was scary. I watched part of an IFC documentary on horror films later and director John Landis' comment about Chainsaw got it right. To paraphrase: "With a director like Hitchcock, you're in suspense knowing there's a master in control. With Chainsaw, you're quickly aware there's a maniac in control and you don't know what to think. Anything can happen." The cold brutality of the killings was startling. Without the gore and endless fake scares so typical of most slasher films, the deaths are truly unnerving. For instance, in one scene the bad guy (Leatherface) calmly picks up the screaming girl and sticks her on a meat hook. She's dangling there for several minutes, helpless, screaming horribly, while he goes about the business of using a chainsaw to cut up her boyfriend. Nice. The climactic finale is almost a black comedy: watching the ancient grandfather feebly attempting to club the screaming girl and repeatedly dropping the hammer is maddening. You want to scream, "Hurry up and kill her and get it over with!" until you realize what you are thinking, and then you feel guilty. Not an easy movie to watch; it's truly disturbing, and even after all these years is still easily a breakthrough film. Remarkable.

It's the long Thanksgiving weekend, so I leave for my Aunt and Uncle's place in Oakland. I'm bringing lots of DVDs for my cousins and I to watch!

Fun parody about a smoking lobbyist. While it's not laugh-out-loud funny, it has a lot of great moments, and I was really impressed by the unusual plot twists that did the unexpected (so many films today are totally predictable, especially comedies). I really liked the relationship between the smoozer dad and his son and the way he teaches his son to be just like him (we see the son out-arguing the mother, etc.). There's actually some very good information there on persuasion techniques. The bottom line is that the film's entertaining and fun, but not hilarious. Definitely worth seeing if you enjoy parodies.

I didn't like this as much as I expected -- perhaps the positive reviews got my expectations too high. (There's no question in my mind that the amazing No Country for Old Men deserves the Best Picture Oscar.) My dissatisfaction comes from the fact that story doesn't seem to have much of a point. The plot reminds me a lot of Citizen Kane except that there's no frame around which to find depth and meaning. Instead we merely have the story of a poor gold-digger in the late 1800s who discovers oil and connives his way to into buying oil-filled land undervalue so he can be even wealthier. The richer he get, the less morality he has. A key conflict in the story is the awkward battle between him and a local religious leader, a character so over-the-top as to be obviously flawed (he's a morally bankrupt mirror of the rich oil guy), but I found the conflict forced, trite, and wanting. Much more compelling for me was the relationship of the oil man with his adopted son who goes from beloved to pariah after an accident leaves him deaf, and the oil man's frustration at not being able to control the boy. Overall we've got a mediocre story with some fantastic characters portrayed by some brilliant actors and some incredible direction and camera-work, yet the pieces don't quite add up to the expected total. Don't get me wrong: this is a great movie, well above the average, but it falls just a step short of the greatest I anticipated. It is still well worth seeing, however, and I highly recommend it. Just don't expect it to cure cancer and change your life.

This movie is similar to Heat, but I actually liked it better in some ways. It's a simpler story, about a diamond thief who wants to have a normal life. James Caan was really good in the title role: he plays a smart but rather dumb guy. That's realistic (most crooks are intelligent), but it's a tricky task to pull off. In two or three scenes Tuesday Weld shines as his girlfriend. The movie is slow-paced at times, but it keeps building and grows more and more interesting as it goes along. It's well-directed by Michael Mann (of "Miami Vice" fame). What I liked best was how realistic all the characters were: there's good and bad within them all.

For some reason I thought I'd seen this long ago, but that was a completely different movie. I'd never seen this, though I wanted to after recently reading the short story upon which it was based. I'm not a big Carpenter fan, but this is one truly great movie. It's extremely faithful to the story, which was great, and has an excellent visual appearance, terrific performances, and special effects that surprisingly still hold up today. On top of all that, it's even scary! It also is thought-provoking: it's sure to bring up some debates on trust. Worth seeing all the way. The DVD's pretty good as well: there's a long documentary that reveals much about how they created the special effects.

I don't always like old "classic" films, but this one doesn't feel dated at all. It's in lovely black and white, filled with shadows, which makes the performances all the more dramatic. The story is set in Vienna during WWII, when it was controlled by four powers: American, British, French, and Russian. The black market ruled. The main character, an American writer of western novels, arrives because his old pal promised him a job. He gets there only to find his friend was killed by a car a few days earlier. The circumstances are mysterious, so he investigates, and what he uncovers... well, see the film. It's an interesting and unusual story, with poignant and profound moments, and some excellent thrills. Most dramatic of all is the incredible music: all performed on a zither, which has a unique and haunting sound.

This is an amazing film, probably the best film I've seen all year. I could be biased, however, because I'm writing a novel that features young teens in similar situations. The story is wonderfully simple: it's about an ordinary, clean-cut, modest girl who wants to be popular. She manages to make friends with the hottest, coolest girl in school, and under her influence, is soon doing drugs, shoplifting, and getting tattoos and body piercings. Her mother (separated from her dad) struggles with these changes in her daughter while trying to keep her own crappy life together (she's apparently in AA or something similar). The film's really about the mother-daughter relationship and how that changes as the girl becomes a teen, but it touches on so many aspects of life: adulthood, sex, popularity, friends, rebellion, independence, drug use, cutting, suicide, and more. (On an interesting side note, driving home I happened to hear Avril Lavigne's "Anything But Ordinary" which could be the theme song for this film as it explains why kids want to do these crazy things -- they don't want to be ordinary. Since Avril was sixteen when her album was released, she was probably not much older than these characters when she wrote the song.) The film's ending is abrupt and unresolved. We're given hints that tragedy may be avoided, but there are no guarantees or pat sitcom answers here, just a faint moment of hope. I liked everything about this film. The acting was astonishingly awesome, from all the precocious teens (Evie is played by Nikki Reed who was thirteen when she wrote the story) to Holly Hunter who plays the mom. Someone in this cast has to win an Academy Award or there is no justice. The story is rough and realistic, and for once we see teens and adults arguing like they do in real life, not sitcom-speak. This movie is similar to the controversial Kids, but focuses more on the loss of innocence and is less into salacious activity for the sake of a movie and more into a documentary-style capture of real modern teen life. You must see this film.

This was a cool movie. I was hesitant, as the previews I saw last spring didn't explain much, and the critics didn't like it (I don't know why). I thought it was great. The liner describes the movie as a "sci-fi film noir" which is exactly what this is -- it's more of a murder mystery than science fiction, though of course, there are science fiction elements within it. The basic plot is that a scientist has created an artificial world within a computer -- a simulation of 1937 (his childhood). When the inventor's murdered, his assistant is suspect, and he's forced to journey to 1937 to try and clear himself. What he discovers blows his mind -- and possibly yours. The ending's a bit predictable -- but the lush photography, elaborate sets, and fascinating dual characters (all the actors play dual roles, one in modern day, one in 1937) make it so you don't care. The movie starts off a bit slow and you're not sure where it's going, but all in all, I liked this much better than The Matrix. It's also simular to Dark City (which is visually interesting and has more special effects but I didn't like quite as much as this). The DVD's got a director's commentary (which I haven't listened to yet) so it's got added value (I hate DVDs that just give you the movie and nothing else).

Interesting documentary about the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), the organization put together by the big movie studios to rate films. The ratings system is not supposed to be censorship, but it effectly acts like it, by condeming certain films with ratings that mean the film won't get widespread distribution. Worse, the process is a bizarre cloak-and-dagger affair, happening in back rooms in the dark with no public involvement, and where independent filmmakers are given different treatment than big studio films. There's also damning evidence of tremendous inconsistency by the MPAA, where something is allowed in one film but disallowed in another. The part I found most enlightning was that filmmakers, who appealing a ruling of a rating, are not permitted to quote precedent! Knowing what's been allowed in previous films is the only guide filmmakers have to permissible content, so if they make a film that has similar content to another, it should receive the same rating as the older film, right? But when that fails, they are not permitted to use the other film as evidence! Crazy.

Now I do understand some aspects of the MPAA's perspective: rating a film is extremely difficult. Two different edits of a sex scene, for instance, can use the exact same footage but convey a completely different tone depending on how the scene is put together. With that it mind, how do you say that merely showing a particular body part or act is allowed or not allowed? Sometimes the implication of something is more powerful than the graphic depiction. But that said, the MPAA is totally a political organization. They are a lobbyist group and the ratings system was created to keep the government out of film's business.

I agree with the director of this film who said in a Q&A on the DVD that the solution is to get rid of the ratings and just use language description instead. That's totally the answer, though a couple categories -- Under-13 and Under-17 -- should be used as well. That way families know that films in those categories won't have too much of anything bad (the descriptive list would be included so parents could see just what is in those films), but films for adults would just be that. I just wish the director had included a solution like this as part of the documentary. Instead the doc just bashes the MPAA but never offers an answer to the problem.

Fun romp with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo as an wealthy art thief and an insurance investigator tracking him down. Starts out a little slow -- Russo and Brosnan have some sort of instant link I found more mysterious than realistic, but later, once we really believe that Russo has fallen for the thief, it becomes fascinating: does Brosnan really love her or is he just stringing her along? Ultimately the movie, like Brosnan's character, is too much in control for you to really care about these characters (or believe for a moment that something bad will happen to them), but it's a nice ride. I haven't seen the original, but now I'm going to watch for it.

This is a collection of three Nero Wolfe novellas. The first, "Poison a la Carte," is a tedious business about a poisoning at a dinner Wolfe attends. The suspects are a bewildering collection of female servers and the solution isn't particularly Wolfe-like (he basically figures out a way to trick the murderess to confess -- no brilliant deducting here). The next story, "Murder for Three" is better -- a woman returns to her vehicle to find there's a dead woman inside and hires Archie (Nero's partner) to help her -- but the ending is strange, as Wolfe unmasks the murderer (so he says) but can't prove anything. The third, "The Rodeo Murder," has a character so irritating I could hardly stand to read the story, and unfortunately the "solution" to this one turns out to be secret knowledge only Wolfe knows (cheating, in my book). Overall not great. This has tempered my enthusiasm of Wolfe novels for a while.

Comic Gulf War film about a group of soldiers who go off to steal gold Saddam stole from Kuwaiti, but end up helping homeless Iraqi rebels escape to Iran. It's like a remake of Kelly's Heroes. Some of the political issues were a little heavy-handed (preachy), and the constant military swearing (every other word) became tiresome after oh, thirty seconds, but overall it's a decent film, with some humor, action, and morally acceptable ending.

Wow, where do I begin? This is one of the best books I've ever read, yet I can't begin to explain it. PKD takes us into a future world in such a way that it seems ordinary, and it isn't until later that we realize what a complex world he's woven us into. For a while I wasn't sure what it was that bothered me about PKD books, and then I realized what it was: none of his stories include a hero. Traditionally the main character in a book is the hero, but not in PKD's world. He keeps switching character focus on us so we're not sure who's the hero or the goat. That's what happens in this book. The story is about a world where drafted people are forced to become colonists on horrible desert planet Mars, and to escape their miserable experience, they take a drug, Can-D, which allows them to temporarily be transported to a virtual earth in a perfect body and experience great pleasures and, since it's virtual, live without any moral consequences to their actions. Simple enough concept, right? Of course the drug is illegal but the colonists take it anyway and most are addicted: it's the only glimmer of pleasure in their dismal lives. Then along comes a weirdo named Palmer Eldritch, a famous, wealthy encentric who years ago left the galaxy for the Proxer System. He's now returned, and he's brought with him a new drug, Chew-Z, which is supposed to be even better than Can-D. Unlike Can-D, which creates a virtual world, Chew-Z creates a new reality, and you aren't limited to the established sets that Can-D uses (any place you can imagine you can visit). However, Chew-Z has some horrible side effects, including severe blurring of the lines between reality and unreality. That's where things get wild, as PKD takes us on a journey through dreams and madness, where nothing makes sense and yet everything is sensible.

Unquestionably, this is a book for a Thinking Person. The book resinates with the typical PKD themes of reallity vs. unreality, but this time PKD blends them in with religious experience (most Can-D users think of it as a religious experience) and brings up all sorts of theological conundrums to challenge our thinking. Unfortunately, this stuff is so deep and complex and relies on so much of the jargon of the world of the novel, it's impossible for me to explain it here. But it's incredibly interesting and wonderful if you like to think about the unthinkable. Well worth the read (and reread).

This is an odd book. First, one of the key plot points is identical with Higgins' Angel of Death. Basically, the secret British spy organization Sean Dillon works for reports their activity to a couple politicians -- one of who's a traitor (just like in Angel). Second, and much worse, all the good guys are incredibly stupid. They know who the bad guys are, and yet they keep allowing them to try to kill them (the good guys barely fight back). There's no real action until the final chapter who Dillon defeats the bad guys. Lame. The plot's interesting: just before Hitler's suicide, his right-hand man escapes to a submarine which is to take him to South America where he can revive the Nazi dream. Unfortunately, the sub sinks off the U.S. Virgin islands. In modern times, a recreational diver discovers the sub, and in it contains the captain's diary revealing the details of his passenger. It also says that his passenger is carrying a book with the names of all those secret people loyal to Hitler, information that could be used to blackmail for millions. But the diver is accidentally killed before he can reveal the sub's location, so it's a race to find where it is hidden. It's a neat idea, but predictable, overlong, and there's that problem with the good guys being idiotically stupid.

I liked the original 1960s marionette series, though I only first saw it a couple years ago when TechTV was broadcasting the reruns. I wasn't sure about a live action remake -- wasn't the point of the original that it was all done with minature sets and marionettes? But actually the film wasn't that bad. It's certainly not Shakespeare, but it's fun, the plot was decent (youngest Tracey longs to be a full Thunderbird but is too young, until his family is trapped and he's the only one left to save them), and the special effects and ships are cool. The biggest problem with the movie is that the TV series isn't that well known here in the U.S. and while you can understand the movie without knowing the series, knowing the TV show certainly makes the film more interesting. It's a good kid/family movie, completely harmless. Deserves a better rep and box office than it is getting.

I saw this years ago -- it's George Lucas' debut film -- but watched it again to see how it holds up. I don't know if this was a re-edit or updated version, but the special effects were extremely impressive and modern-looking in places. Like in the car chase seen I swear the stuff looked digital -- so either it's been recently enhanced or Lucas was a genius back in the 1970s. As far as the story goes, this is still just as bleak and depressing as ever. It's quite remarkable that this movie got made. It's set in a future where humans all take government mandated drugs to keep them docile, and the story's about one man who rebels. But it's not an exciting rebellion, since he's sluggish and half-drugged, so the story's not really an action film (except for a couple sequences) and is slow moving. The sets are and performances are the most fascinating. On this viewing I was also really impressed with the background dialog and "cinema verite" style Lucas used (much of the film we see is security camera footage), so we have things like technicians chatting about computer glitches and stuff -- fascinatingly advanced for the early 1970s and well done. The film holds up astonishingly well.

This film is about scenes: just watch for the interesting ones and enjoy them. Don't even try to understand the incomprehensible plot that shifts from one place to another at a confusing and frantic pace. Perhaps partly due to the fact that it's in Chinese, and the dubbing and subtitles didn't match at all, I couldn't follow anything. I kept getting characters confused with each other (Were there two pregnant girls and which was which?), and I had a hard time following anything. But the action sequences were cool, especially the climax of a gun battle while a woman is giving birth, and the film's direction has some real flair in places. Overall, however, I found the thing made no sense at all.

Unusual film. Like most of Figis' films, it's overlong, slow, and boring. In this case that's a surprise, since it's four films happening at once. The entire movie is an experiment: the screen is split into four screens in which multiple interrelated stories take place. Sometimes you see the same story from multiple viewpoints. Interesting idea, but since the whole film takes place in real-time, there are long periods in which nothing happens in one or more quadrants. For instance, in one, a woman waits in a limo, smoking and reading for thirty minutes. Yeah, that's entertainment. The film's multiple plots are interrelated and occasionally interesting, but the whole thing's too disjointed to be a real movie. It's an interesting experiment, but nothing more, and despite the presence of a number of big stars, it's not a good film.

Not a bad remake, actually. It's been a long time since I read the book or watched the original George Pal version. This one definitely has the special effect award, and I liked Guy Pearce in the lead, and the Morlocks were truly scary, but the film lost steam toward the end. The bizarre bit where Guy blows up the time machine and somehow erases the Morlocks from existence didn't make any sense at all to me. Watch this one for the amazing special effects: the geological time passing while he's zooming to the future is definitely worth seeing.

As a Crichton fan, I pre-ordered this from Amazon so I'd get a copy as soon as it was published. Once again, Crichton pulls a Jurrasic Park: we've got a huge corporation run by a renegade billionaire genius with an insane plan, radical technology breakthroughs that strain credibility to the limit, and of course, everything goes horribly wrong. In retrospect the story is much simpler than it appears while you're reading it. It's basically time-travel, with adventurers getting stuck in the past. Unfortunately, that's all it is. The mastermind's plan isn't revealed until the very end, and believe me, it's even lamer than a dinosaur amusement park! (What is it with Crichton and entertainment? He seems to think all multi-billion dollar technology breakthroughs will simply lead to a new entertainment medium. Very bizarre. I think the guy needs to see a shrink!) Still, the adventure's a good one: it's exciting, dramatic, and interesting. I liked the characters, and I was relieved that none of them did anything superhuman or absurd to get out of a fix. Crichton's writing style is quick and easy, but he has a horrible tendency to break his chapters into dozens of shorter subchapters, most of which are just a few paragraphs long. I guess he figures this increases tension, but it's merely annoying. Reminds me of students who triple space their three-page essay to make it the required five. Lame and artificial. There are also some obvious flaws that gives the feeling this book was a bit rushed toward the end. For instance, in one spot, a character's walking on a roof beam which is "six inches wide." This is too wide and too easy for the brute chasing her, so she moves to a narrower one: "This horizontal rafter was only a foot wide; he would have trouble." Huh? It's been a while since I've been to measurement school, but in my day six inches was less than a foot! One other thing that bugged me: a key part of the plot is the battery-operated time machines only have enough power to last for thirty-seven hours. For that section of the book, Crichton uses the amount of time left (i.e. "11:01:59") as chapter titles. Of course, the stranded adventurers can't quite get everything together to escape and thus the countdown trickles down, not to minutes, but literally seconds, before they can escape. Frankly, that's ridiculous. I understand the need to increase drama with the element of time, but what kind of scientist can predict, down the second, how much life is left in a battery? Batteries are probably the most unreliable, unpredictable technology we've got! Crazy, thoroughly dumb. Crichton's an excellent researcher, and he's got a decent grasp on technology, but his stories sound like, well, like a non-novelist doctor wrote them. If you're a Crichton fan, go for it. Otherwise, wait for the movie (which won't be as successful as Jurrasic Park, but it should be okay).

This film took a mediocre book and destroyed it. The first mistake is the pacing: the begining of the film where the whole time travel thing is established happens in like two minutes, and suddenly we're in 17th Century France, running from the British and French who are in the middle of a war. Huh? Come on, at least treat the setup with a little respect and give us a realistic foundation for the film. That pacing problem continues throughout the rest of the film as it's an action flick slash adventure movie. There's no science fiction (or science) in sight. There's no cool time travel dilemma, "should I change the past" sort of thing, or anything deeper than a pathetic romance. This film ought to end Paul Walker's career: the guy proves he can't act beyond his appearance. While it has a few interesting moments in the middle, overall this is just worthless sludge that will waste your time. If you're really interested in it, read the book, which is marginally better.

Bizarre German film about a three-year-old boy who sees the absurdity of adulthood and decides to stop growing. Set during WWII, this is not a film that could ever be made in America, especially considering the child-adult sexual themes. The Tin Drum primarily deals with the infantilism of adults as seen through the eyes of an overly mature boy, but touches on dozens of other profound themes and has some of the most visually striking images I've ever seen. Best scene? My favorite is where the boy sneaks into a Nazi rally and begins playing his toy drum and gradually turns the dull march into a rousing tune and soon has everyone waltzing to Blue Danube!

This was a mini-series that aired on the Scifi Channel. It's surprisingly good. They've taken the original Wizard of Oz story and updated it into a science fiction version. For instance, Dorothy isn't taken to Oz but the "Outer Zone" a.k.a. the O.Z. The Scarecrow isn't really a scarecrow, but the former Queen's chief scientist and advisor, only he was tortured by the new evil queen and had half his brain removed (he's now called Glitch because he's only half there). The result is that we've got a story that's familiar yet new. Pretty cool, and the luxurious scenery and decent special effects make this a keeper. The ending's a bit too pat for my taste, but this is still a lot of