romulus

You get the feeling very quickly what the moral of this story is going to be: police good, Loyalists good, Catholics bad. You can't trust Ulster Catholics, they are all IRA terrorists. Silly naïve social worker thinking she can treat Republicans like human beings! She will learn the hard way there is no humanizing them -- especially when the crown-funded BBC is making extra sure that none of them are redeemable. Omigod, a Catholic neighborhood? No no zone! Retreat! Retreat! Danger Will Policeman!

Boomer tripe. May as well have been written by Ian Paisley. Perhaps DUP and UUP are who they "consulted" with for the storylines, who must wet their pants at every episode. They certainly aren't sad that the Great Britain and international audiences are being led to believe that Belfast is like something out of the Afghan War.

The story is told with mostly poor "effects" that are barely more than HD versions of 90s Fox TV horror stories. The Pickman character has perhaps the worst New England accents you ever "hoid," extra jarring if you've ever been in New England, but certainly not consistent with someone who's family has been in the region over 200 years. The sets are simply in the uncanny valley in their "not quite right"-ness for the period. Many scenes are just cheap cliches and unnecessary gags played as if legitimately frightening. There's simply nothing quite right about this episode, and not in a scary way, but in a suspension-of-disbelief-preventing way. Pickman is supposed to live in a slum, but his apartment looks better and fancier than mine. This is simply not a good example of Del Toro's work for sure.

A comedy movie, by definition, is supposed to make you laugh. But the only thing laughable about Very Bad Things, aside from the awkward writing painfully delivered from otherwise good actors, is the idea that this is supposed to be funny. If you think people being killed, murdered, and crippled is funny, then you'll absolutely find this hilarious. You would probably find an abbatoir hilarious too.

A bad story about people with bad personalities who repeatedly make really bad decisions, and a "friend" who is apparently a raving psychopath, is all tied together with really bad writing and really awkward dialogue. You could easily say that no one comes out of this movie better off than they came into it -- and that includes the audience.

Piven, Stern, and Slater try to hold it together, but there's only so much you can do when a writer is controlling your fate (Piven's out-of-nowhere and inappropriately-timed exclamations of "GOOSED!" as an expression of despair are especially jarring). The only believable character in the whole thing is the poor stripper, and if nothing else, you'll never feel worse for a hapless stripper than the one that figures in this movie. That is, assuming you're the kind of person who thinks sex workers are human beings, otherwise, you probably think strippers dying is a laugh riot. In fact, if you have zero respect for fellow human beings, , then this movie is probably for you.

Science fiction as a genre exposes two things about a culture: our hopes for the future, and our fears for the future. What foreign science fiction does for us then is tap directly into the hopes and fears of a culture that is alien to us.

The story of Memo mixes the Mexican condition with a cautious approach to an exciting technology. While "nodes" allow people to directly connect their brains to an Internet of sorts, "sleep dealers" construct cheap, unsafe sweatshops where noders can perform dirt-cheap labor for developed nations, without leaving home.

There are plenty of eye-opening layers of apprehension for the future that are taken straight from the Mexican psyche: the construction of the authoritarian Del Rio Dam in Memo's village echoes the ongoing "water rights" controversies throughout Central America; the closed border with America echoes isolationist fears; the ability of an American corporation to send warships into Mexican villages not only with impugnity but complete openness echoes fears of American corporate-driven hegemony.

Flag-wrapped Americans will deride this movie as Anti-American at worst; cultural ignorance at best. But it is a different sort of cultural ignorance that remains ignorant of the sentiments illustrated in this well-done foreign film.

No one is safe from the bad writing, bad directing, and bad acting of Rice Girl, particularly not the pair of sibling-rivalry wannabes with famous last names, nor even the recognizable names like Morita and Haglund. It is not even "goodbad", in the John Waters or Ed Wood way. The entire wandering, reason-defying plot resembles a hazy version of Western culture that is defined by 1 part Looney Tunes, 1 part Benny Hill, and 4 parts Three Stooges, executed without the spontaneity, originality, or panache of any of them. The only character that barely makes it out of this debacle alive, despite over-the-top, jerky facial expressions and movements, is Eddie the guardian angel. From the bad accents to the poorly written and delivered dialogue to the strainfully overexaggerated reactions, every moment of this movie is painful.

The final scene has haunted me constantly since seeing it... nothing has been able to get it out of my head. The futility, the utter and complete futility... Especially after the season 1 finale where Nick sacrificed his father's and his own life specifically to protect her. This was a disturbingly messed up way to terminate the legal action aspect of the story. We've watched Veronica and Nick follow the outside trails on this case for a long time. The sudden comedown from uneasy triumph to imminent and inescapable death -- I can't handle it.

Pretty much everyone's death on this show has been utterly meaningless. (The Company guy is the only one who IMO deserved it). I don't think I can watch anymore. (I liked watching Michael execute and adapt his master plan, but I think even that will start to fade from the plot, with Mahone unraveling it rapidly.)

I expect by the end of the series, out of Lincoln, Michael, and LJ, only one will still be alive. If that. As a result, I don't really see much point in watching how that happens.

There's plenty of surface-level-comedy lines and dialogue here, especially from Ferrell and Caine. That's about the movie's only grace. Kidman's character isn't entirely believable; she's far too innocent and naive at a level that can't be explained away just from having been a witch for 30 years; but at least she's strong and helps tie things together. There's enough bit parts tossed in, played by recognizable comedy faces, as if it were a cameo opportunity for famous fans of the old show.

There are so many such elements thrown in, though, that we barely get a taste of any of them. Isabel's father is the only one that sticks around and becomes a fixture; others, such as Isabel's ironically named Aunt Clara, shows up once for a plot device and then is never seen again. In fact, this movie is heavy on quickly-disposed plot devices. After halfway through we find that Isabel is not the only witch around, and then... nothing; no one else ever finds this out and we don't see where it goes from there; it remains an unexplained secret that only the audience knows, all the way to the end.

In fact, you might think that since this is named Bewitched and has something to do with being in a show called Bewitched, that the show would be a major part of the movie. In fact it's not; the show is a barely-used plot device, of which we see disjointed (and redundant!) short scenes. I don't even think the episodes being filmed by the characters are even fully written.

Plenty of other things that deserve explanation are never explained, one particularly inexplicable apparition is explained away simply with "weird things happen when you date a witch".

The movie ends quickly once Ferrel and Kidman's characters iron out their crisis, with barely any time to relish in the outcome. Perhaps it's a setup for a sequel, but it feels more like someone decided the movie was out of time or money and wrapped it up quick.

A plot more fitting for a video game than a feature film doesn't help a

cast of actors -- who couldn't possibly be more out of place in a

vampire movie -- put together something worth watching. Nothing against

vampire movies, but being this many years since the genre-breaking

Interview, in order to provide some value to the theme, new projects

ought to at least feel more like an original story idea and less like

the result of any given Sunday's role-playing game. The movie is disappointing not only on an entertainment level, but even

on an empathic level. Anyone seriously considering watching this movie

will eventually find themselves not only not knowing who to root for,

but who the lead character should root for. But instead of being a

suspenseful and thrilling plot development, this process ends feeling

more like something out of the ending of a beach-blanket summer flick.

Sure, there will be almost token bits of grandeur, graphic effects,

gimmicky (and overshown) transformation sequences, and gore, in

sufficient detail deserving a movie focusing on them, but none in

consistent or sufficient amounts to lend anything to the feel of the

film -- each ends up feeling thrown in as if only there to satisfy

every available element of the genre, and then discarded or reused

tediously. Look for some stunning gothic costumes, but that's about all that shows

an ounce of filmographic originality in this movie.

Some should be warned in advance, that this being a John Woo film, it will lack certain accuracy to detail that may be jarring at first. In the very early scenes of the movie, Jennings tears apart the virtual innards of a computer by point-and-clicking a number of identityless shapes, in a very pretty visual sequence having no resemblance to software code or circuit design. The machine Jennings builds glows, hums, smokes, and hisses much like any other Hollywood supercomputer, and much unlike any real computer. Seattle locals will also scoff at the notion that Seattle will have developed an underground light-rail system by 2007; anyone familiar with local politics will agree that it's more likely we won't even have agreed to build such a thing by then. On the other hand, despite being filmed in Vancouver, the movie adds other details that subconsciously reinforce the notion of being in Seattle -- real street, intersection, and neighborhood names, real Washington state train destinations, real Washington license plates, even accurate replicas of Seattle police cars. But the point of this movie is not to explore 2003 (or 2007) technology, or even to accurately portray Seattle -- if you want either of those things, watch a documentary about those topics. While a lack of technical accuracy is sometimes disappointing, even techies must admit that Affleck in goggles wielding a soldering iron and a screen full of hex isn't as visually exciting as Affleck squinting at a wraparound display, dismantling an imaginary gadget in midair. And we've come here to see an action movie, not a technical training video, or a driving guide to Seattle. Paycheck delivers in that action, though it is not perhaps as action oriented as a kung-fu flick or blow-up spy tale. It bases itself largely around suspense, which is able to change and surprise, even after you have an idea how it's going to come; a bit like a cinematic Rube Goldberg invention. Paycheck adds in a dose of sociology and philosophy that will probably be lost on most of the young adult action-movie crowd. 9 of 10

Definitely masters of situational absurdity, handled with a skill not seen since Monty Python. Whether its seaborne pirates in a self-help group, an office building with no walls, or the Lady of the Lake becoming a frat boy's conquest, no situation is too weird for the UCB troupe to tackle.

UCB's sketch development is like nothing seen in this decade, with members testing their characters (and sometimes whole scenes) on the unsuspecting public, along with some various media pranks based on their sketches. "More chaos for everyone!"