silverrain-4

How bizarre!

This was one of the first films I recall seeing as well.

And I do remember how much I laughed. Like another commenter here, I do not wish to see it again as I just know it will spoil the memory for me. And like the same commenter, I too was in South Africa at the time and was only about 6 or 7 years old. However, as I now have a six-month old daughter of my own, I will try to get it for her to see, and perhaps she too will laugh as much as I did all those years ago.

Funny how we remember such simple things. I'm sure there are many, many movies that are far better, but I just remember this one in particular. Perhaps it was because my mother was in the hospital at the time giving birth to my baby (35 now) brother and I watched this to keep me occupied.

If you have youngsters yourself, rent it for them if you can. They'll love it!

I watch many movies – three or four a day, every day (don' ask what I do!). So, I inevitably watch a lot of B-movie garbage as well.

REST STOP was a pleasant surprise, if this genre of movie can be called pleasant. Although there is no point in making these gruesome movies, we're never going to stop it, as humans are enthralled by watching other people's misery. So here we are.

REST STOP is at least believable. Anyone who has traveled the US by road to any degree will have come across this type of rest stop, usually in the middle of nowhere and on secondary roads. Some of them really are creepy and I don't know why states allow them to remain open as they do attract undesirables. Even armed, I have come across a few at night that gave me the willies! I stopped at one in Utah some years back and recall that I did not see another living soul in about five hours. Therefore, the setting for REST STOP is wholly feasible. Plus, the toilets at some rest stops really do lie back one hundred yards or so and access to them can be mud-holes - go figure! If you thought characters like the baddies in this flick are not real, think again. As a 48-state professional driver for some time, I came across people and places in modern-day America that are hard to believe, especially in the North-west and Southeastern regions. REST STOP has the usual flaws inasmuch as it portrays a girl who overall has her head together, yet makes silly mistakes, especially the scenes with the police officer (there was a way out).

Still, overall, the script was pretty good, the acting above par and the movie better than most of the B-flicks that swamp the DVD market. The last few minutes of the movie is where it all falls apart. If they had spent a little more time on the ending, this movie would have warranted a higher rating. But for whatever reason, the ending is just silly and spoils the movie. Watch it – see what you think.

OK, now that the court case is over (verdict: accidental self-mutilation), we can confess. We did it as a joke, really. Our friend had said that he thought "Troll 2" was "OK," so we switched that DVD out for "From Justin to Kelly," just for a giggle. I mean, how were we to know?

And then he watched it while we were all in the next room.

The first 2 minutes were OK, and then it happened. He suddenly jumped out of his chair, running around the room, tore of his shorts and chewed off his own nuts! Then, screaming wildly, he ran across the room, right through the plate glass French windows, and made his way across the road, dripping blood and yelling wildly. He then rubbed his face rapidly across the barbed wire fence and was whacking himself on the back of the head with a medium-sized rock, screaming, "Take it away! No more, no more! Please, no more!"

Imagine our surprise when he then ran into the road and mooned an oncoming 18-wheeler - which flattened him. When we reached him, he was on the ground, oozing blood, bones sticking out from everywhere but he seemed happy. He was whispering, "Thank you God, thank you." Apart from the irreversible brain damage, severe tic and desire to eat possum vomit laced with razor blades (he says it helps the pain), doctors are hopeful that he will live out his life in mediocrity. The morphine and thorazine is helping.

Funny thing is, when we crush his fingers with pliers 'just for fun', he thinks he's on Miami Beach and breaks into the most God-awful songs about someone called Kelly! Weird.

SWAT arrived minutes after what we now refer to as, 'the incident', cordoned the neighborhood and after a few hours, managed to remove "From Justin to Kelly" from the DVD player with only a few casualties and four suicides when one of the team accidentally hit the 'Play' button on the DVD. Last we heard, the disk is under heavy guard by the DoD and is being called, "…the most devastating weapon known to Mankind."

Did you know the average IQ of planet Earth is a mere 34? When the US ripped off the British TV show "Stars In Their Eyes" and relabeled it, 'American Idol', the IQ dropped another 5 points. When they tried grubbing a few more greenbacks by making "From Justin to Kelly" it dropped another 10 points.

My take is this; any moron who not only watches 'American Idol', but then deliberately goes out and watches a movie made about American Idol, deserves exactly what they get. This is Proof Positive that there is no limit to human stupidity.

I honestly don't remember the last time I enjoyed a movie so much!

I don't know how they do it, but there is not a single wasted frame in this entire production! The script is great, the voices are perfect and the animation is a joy to watch. I suggest watching it more than once as there is so much going on in the background of many scenes that you're bound to miss many of them! Tons of fun for the whole family and the soundtrack perfectly matches the mood of the film. Get your family together, settle the kids in, pop the corn and prepare yourselves for an eye-feast of fun, frivolity and a trip to Madagascar with Alex and his 'Droogs'. Wonderful, clean and entertaining fun for everyone!

Let's hope they make more of these amazing animations. See how many movie excerpts you can spot. One is *very* subtle indeed and I had to think where I saw it. It's the one about the menu. Have fun watching and looking for it! And now, I'm off to watch this again . . .

*may contain spoilers* I watched SNAKES ON A PLANE (SoaP) as I'd read varied reviews about it. Boy, was I disillusioned. It never ceases to amaze me why Hollywood stereotypes not only the public, but its movies too. Is there no such thing as 'the general public' in the movies any longer? Why could the aircraft not simply have been populated with regular folks? The type that would actually be flying from Hawaii to Los Angeles. Why must there always be the buxom blonde bimbo? Why must there be ANOTHER blonde bimbo with a 38D chest, getting it off in the toilets? (and whose blouse magically turns from pink to blue!). Ohh, the 'Mile-High Club'. Right. That's a new one, ay? How many times has the "famous-black-singer-with-accompanying-hoodlums" ploy been overused? Boring! And, why, against all logic would snakes attack and bite the aircraft's wiring, supposedly knocking out the avionics? Snakes have fangs, not teeth. What are the odds that a fang would actually penetrate shielded aircraft wiring? Hello? Reality checks here, please. Doesn't make sense and destroys the film's credibility thenceforth.

A mere five minutes into these silly snake attacks and a girl is bitten on her nipple (snake attached) and a man has his penis bitten (snake attached). What planet are movie-makers living on these days? And just how corny can this get? From this point on, I watched through bleary eyes as the film trundled along, with me waiting for the next ludicrous snake antic. Samuel L. Jackson is Samuel L. Jackson; his acting is the same whatever role he plays. The idea is a good one, i.e. poisonous snakes loose on a commercial airliner (meaning there is no escape or running away), but, anyone who has the slightest knowledge of snakes knows they do not suddenly go on rampages, looking to bite and devour humans as soon as they are let loose. Pheromones or otherwise. They hide as much as they can avoid human contact, because as is humans' wont, they kill anything they don't understand.

The plot of 'witness-being-shipped-to-a-hearing-to-testify' is as old as dirt (as if an FBI agent would accompany him). The captain then gets bitten on his neck as he is supposedly "resetting the breakers". Huh? Whenever was someone bitten on the neck by a snake, lurking in the shadows? There is even a ridiculous scene where a passenger opens a barf bag, only to be bitten on the tongue by a snake in the bag (incidentally, all these snakes 'attach' themselves to their victims, whereas in the real world, only 2 or 3 can actually do so of the thousands of snake species). When was the word "dickwad" incorporated into the Hollywood 'Book of Movie Adjectives'? It seems every movie now has this stupid word multiple times. Why did the plane have to be a 'red eye' in a storm? Why not daytime and clear blue skies? It's all so stereotypical and repetitive.

There are a lot of movie-goers who read and write reviews here. I'm betting, given half a chance, a great deal of them could write better movie scripts than 85% of box-office releases! Why? Because we KNOW what is expected of movie audiences. We know what's corny and cheesy and what doesn't fly. How come Hollywood and Indie producers don't know this? They live in a different world, clearly. And they don't read or learn from their reviews! Why on earth would all of these snakes magically appear in place of the drop-down oxygen masks? It's childish. Of course, there's a scene where someone puts a snake in the microwave, just for the SPLAT effect. But the snake squealing? This may come as a surprise, but snakes do not actually squeal! The singer/star's hoodlum gets bitten on his ass. Wow! Hilarious, right? So now snakes have now bitten tits, penises and asses. What else could there possibly be? Jackson (suddenly part-time rocket scientist) then decides to announce that they need to build a barrier between them and the snakes. Incredible foresight, buddy. Whodathunkit? Even the ancient "sucking-out-the-poison: gag is in here. I couldn't believe it!

To add insult to injury, another scene shows a 20-foot anaconda that crushes a man and then attempts to devour him, head first. The scene shows the victim's head apparently expanding due to increased blood pressure. Anacondas are constrictors. They constrict. They do not crush. They also do not suddenly eat humans amidst the confusion on the aircraft. Such bad movie-making, really. A bit of research into herpetology by the makers would have been useful, instead of the sucking silly ideas out of their well-bitten asses! SNAKES ON A PLANE is just 90 minutes of silly, inane and boring scenes of snakes biting people on an airplane. That's it. That's what it is. If you're a brainless moron, you'll enjoy it. If you have an IQ above room temperature, you'll probably switch it off after 30 minutes. I struggled through this nonsense just to write a review, though I wish I hadn't. The final straw comes when the hoodlum, whose only flight experience comes from a Playstation 2 flight simulator game, lands the stricken 747 perfectly, and coasts to a standstill, right outside the terminal! Seems like SoaP is the sort of swill we're looking forward to in the future. Is it just me, or is 2006 a really bad year for movies? Has there actually been a decent film released this year? I think "Ask the Ashes" was the last halfway decent thing I saw. Woody Allen's 'Match Point' was also notable. There is nothing but immature, infantile garbage hitting the streets, churned out by inexperienced directors and producers. I'm not sure what genre this SoaP movie falls under, but a new one called 'stoopid' needs to be created. This is just NOT entertainment; it's movie-making at its worst.

Sadly, the average IQ of our planet is a mere 34. This garbage ensures this number will remain static. America is not known for its humor and this 'movie' is a prime example how they won this accolade. If the embarrassing expletives were removed from the 'script', this would be a silent movie. In a nutshell, this is 90 minutes of someone calling themselves a 'director', attempting to use the words f***k and motherf***er as many times as possible. Who I wonder is impressed by this, or finds it remotely humorous? Even sadder, is that there really are people in the world who do find this movie funny! I kid you not. Some viewers were actually laughing at this. What must these folks' lives be like? I do not see the point of this movie. What is it hoping to achieve? There is no humor, no script, no acting, no storyline to speak of and it's 90 minutes of potty-mouth, inappropriate lines and sordid, American slapstick swill that is in no way, shape or form, or by any stretch of the imagination, funny. Clearly, this is 'delinquents-with-cameras' fodder and it saddens me to think my poor daughter will be raised in a world where this trash exists. It's not possible to write a review about this as there is nothing to write about. It can be summed up in one sentence; 90 minutes of foul language by morons, laughed at by bigger morons. This will be 90 minutes of your life you can not get back. Instead of blowing the ticket price on this swill, make a donation to your favorite charity instead. The more idiots buy tickets to this stuff, the more these fools will churn it out and ruin the movie industry. Just say NO !

When is it the 'right' time to make a movie about 9/11? Five years? Ten? Never? If the terrorists had attacked say, an underground mine of 2000 workers and killed them all with an explosion, would there have been all the media hype? Probably not.

Despite what Americans think about terrorists, calling them 'evil' and 'callous', they forget one important fact: terrorists are extremely intelligent and will outwit the best of our best every step of the way. They also have unlimited funds. Add the fact that fanatics have no qualms about dying for their beliefs and you have an undefeatable power. They don't care what we think of them.

The Twin Towers were attacked for one reason only; visual impact.

The WTC was a famous US landmark and targeting it drew the necessary news coverage. Add the attempts on the White House and Pentagon, both also US icons, and you have a nation terrified out of its wits. This basis of terrorism is of course, terror. Considering how the US treats Arab countries, expecting non-retaliation is sheer arrogance.

The unexpected downing of the Twin Towers was an added bonus for the terrorists. They must have squealed with glee as they watched their targets collapsing. It is extremely difficult to 'aim' a large airliner at such small targets (relatively speaking) and the pilots had considerable skills to do so (pilots trained in the US). No doubt the Towers falling spoiled the terrorists' 'fun'. Once the towers were gone, so was the visual impact. All that remained was smoke. The light show was over.

We cannot imagine the insufferable losses of 9/11, but police officers and fireman will tell the same story; they were merely doing their jobs. They did not know that the Towers would fall, but the shortsightedness of this is remarkable. Consider two, 300+ tonne commercial airliners, laden with highly flammable jet fuel slamming into buildings at over 400 miles per hour. Is it not feasible that the building's superstructures would become compromised? Even so, what were we to do? Leave the buildings' occupants to fend for themselves? It was a lose-lose situation.

Many emergency personnel knew that once they entered those buildings there was a chance they would not return. This is true of any emergency rescue. These folks are not heroes in the way we have glorified them. They are simply brave souls willingly to face extreme adversity in the execution of their duties. Many of the souls lost on that day would baulk at the idea of being 'heroes'. They would claim they were simply doing their jobs.

Whatever your beliefs, we cannot deny the incomparable bravery and spirit of those personnel. We do not know the facts of UNITED 93 other than vague radio messages and telephone calls made by passengers. Dialogue had to be created. The situation was well-handled and the dialogue believable, however much artistic license was used. UNITED 93 attempts to show an objective view of what may have happened aboard the stricken aircraft. It makes no claim to accuracy.

Even though we knew the inevitable outcome, I still found myself rooting for the passengers. Yes, the jerky hand-held camera action is annoying and there was too much time given to the hijackers praying and not enough character building of the passengers. But it did show terrorist fanaticism. I doubt there was the hesitation shown by the hijackers in the movie. Fanatics do not falter. Their minds work on 'autopilot', believing firmly that what they are doing is required by them of their Gods. Who are we to argue?

Whatever your thoughts, UNITED 93 is an acceptable and believable account of events, however inaccurate. It does a very good job of portraying the confusion by both NORAD and the FAA. Scenes aboard the aircraft will keep you glued to your seat. Anyone who has ever been in a crisis situation will know that there is first disbelief, then chaos, followed by arguing as it then all goes to pieces and those involved realize that they are ill-prepared to cope with the situation. Communication always breaks down. Incredibly, it is only since 9/11 that the US' security services have begun exchanging information.

The 9/11 attack was just the tip of the terrorist iceberg. As long as the US continues to invade other lands and insult their leaders, they will be under threat from organizations far more powerful that they can ever hope to defeat. Praying just will not do.

Terrorists have infinite patience and funding and I they want to bring us to our knees, they can and will do so with ease. Inevitable future attacks will be better organized and funded and will result in the loss of tens of thousands, possibly millions of Americans. Targets are shopping malls, cinemas and any critical US installation. Imagine 200 planes hijacked at the same time, or the orchestrated blowing up of packed shopping malls at Christmas time.

We need better leaders to help defend our own borders, not interfere in the lives and beliefs of other countries; an act that has gained the US international notoriety. Bush's war mongering adds fuel to the fire and his arrogance at thinking he can defeat these terrorists continues to threaten Americans. He needs to put down his club and listen. Bush's ideas and actions are little different than those he calls the "evil ones". Murder is murder. In any God's name. Iraq is a prime example. Examine life in the US very closely. How much freedom do we really have?

The world's opinion of America and is not very high and that 'superpower' arrogance will one day be removed. Whatever it takes and whatever the human cost. See the movie and form your own opinion. UNITED 93 is not professing to be the whole or any truth. It is well handled and very watchable. Decide for yourself.

And the number shall be, sick, sick, sick! Good grief! What was I thinking? OK, so I was bored and baby-sitting, so I decided to see this re-sludge from 1976, "The Omen". It's the original Good/Evil, Jesus/Devil claptrap which is such a worn out movie theme anyway. Making movies from stuff that doesn't exist is of course open to abuse. But this? This pointless remake? What, oh what is the point? There's just so much wrong with this movie it's not worth even writing about. I'd need a novel to cover it all. The original was funny enough, but at least it was somewhat entertaining. This is just humdrum Hollywood junk, hoping to make a buck from rehashing old movies. When is Hollywood EVER going to find out what a motor drive is and how it works on cameras? Why do ALL photographers in the movies shoot film at 5 fps, even of static objects?? It's so irritating! Aren't cameras used for making movies? The script was photocopied from the original and handed to some quite well respected actors, who then just screw it all up – it's as if they're all bored and can't wait for lunch-break. And the kid who portrays Damien? Where did they get him from? Looks to me like they just used the Best Boy's nephew or any other kid who happened to walk by the set. As for the Thorns pretending to be in London, well, that's just laughable and insulting. We drive on the LEFT of the road in the UK. Hello? Such bad errors after 100 years of movie making. I guess they'll never learn, eh? Someone point out to me why this movie is deemed horror. Cheap parlor tricks like making an audience jump is not horror; it's stoopid and shows a lack of creativity. Apart from motor-drives on cameras, when is Hollywood EVER going to quit with 'hand-on-the-shoulder' scare tactic? Good grief, man, that is so, so boring, tedious and annoying. Movie makers seem to be going backwards. In this day and age, movies should be riveting and we should all leave any theatre feeling that we actually there, participating in the film. It should take us a few hours to get back into reality. Not so. 9 out of 10 movies released are blah, made by inexperienced kids with blah minds and even blaher imaginations. This may as well have been a remake of Lassie Come Home, which was more scary for sure. Dreadful movie, awful acting, terrible screen play, lousy directing, inaccurate scenes and overall, a tedious bore to watch. If you simply MUST throw away 2 hours of your life, this one will do it for you. Please, please, pleeezzz, do NOT remake the rest of the OMEN crapology. Spare us...

ALIEN AUTOPSY Let me say first off that from frame one, the mentality of this movie is lost on non-UK residents! Americans will simply be agog by the acting, the dialogue and the venue (not to mention a 1000 other things British). Awe ight, mate? Gotnoo mowtuh? What's cute about this movie is that it is MORE believable than the actual current 'Roswell Scam' which is an alien craft that crashed in the New Mexico desert in 1947. Yeah, right. And I'm the Queen of Sheba. No, really I am! The acting is typical British, the pace and settings are well thought out and the script is also very well written (if you're a Brit!). The plot is cute, i.e. a guy buys a 'Roswell' film, supposedly of the Alien Autopsy, but the film is old and it disintegrates before he gets it home. Now he's in debt for $30,000 to a local London thug from whom he borrowed the cash to purchase the 'original' film! What to do? Make your OWN film of course .... and then the fun begins. All in all, a very watchable, well-presented movie that will keep you smiling at the antics of the main character (a London 'wide boy'). For foreigners (anyone NOT British), well, just try to keep up and follow along. This is not your typical US B-movie, pretending to be something it's not. It's just a lot of tongue-in-cheek fun for a Sunday afternoon.

Anyone who lives in the US is aware that Americans are extremely good at ripping off their own; from the White House to the local gas station, they're all out to screw you with deception, misleading commercials, inflated prices, etc. Why? Because the American way of life revolves around one thing and one thing only: MONEY. If you have it, you're OK, if not, you're nothing and no-one. This is often called the "American Dream". Americans don't care who they harm or hurt in pursuit of the "mighty dollar". Watch any US cable TV for examples. US movies are not exempt from this practice and this movie, WORLD TRADE CENTER, in particular, is a prime example of yet another great rip-off, i.e. dwelling on the public's still-raw emotions of 9/11 and cobbling together a generic disaster movie, knowing full well that it WILL make it at the box office simply because of the title! Every American will probably see this movie eventually. Had this movie been entitled anything else such as "Buried Alive!" or "Three Days in Hell", it would flop en route to the box office. WTC, directed by Oliver Stone (who really should know better and rise above cheap box office money tricks) is actually NOT about the 9/11 attacks and events at all, but merely about a few select individuals who happened to be involved in the attacks, as were TENS OF THOUSANDS of other people. This should have been a gripping, riveting movie that kept us glued to our seats for two hours and which wracked us with a gamut emotions. Instead, it's another generic mish-mosh of some 9/11 scenes and a "Day-In-The-Life of..." humdrum disaster flick script. Remember the 'Airport' movies and 'Earthquake'? Same thing, different color. Remove Nicholas Cage from the movie and you've got . . . squat. For such a powerful theme, i.e. 9/11, this flick sure does disappoint and I found myself bored to tears through most it as it was so predictable with all the schmaltzy script and cheesy acting. I guess Oliver Stone too has fallen prey to the 'buck', forsaking content, information and entertainment value; the entire POINT of a movie. Any movie. I sincerely hope that one day a good movie IS made about the events of 9/11, even if it is 4 hours long. This one sure ain't it. I suspect that anyone who DID lose someone in the attacks will not be impressed that their loved ones are given the briefest mention in this two-hour 'infomentary'. This flick could have taken place anywhere in the world, in any building at any time. Picking the 'Twin Towers' as the 'theme' was simply deceptive. My condolences to the victims of 9/11, I wish this movie had offered an explanation or perhaps closure for some. I have a 14-month old daughter. I wonder if one day I will be able to let her watch a movie that accurately portrays the events of 9/11. So far, it seems not. Overall rating? Simply pooh and an embarrassment to the film industry at large.

So, I finally got to see 'The Passion of the Christ', just to see what all the fuss is about. First off, as there are no records about any of this, we cannot judge its accuracy. The Bible is no proof; it is merely a collection of stories from unreliable sources. So, did Jesus exist? Who knows. Believe what you will. Your faith is your own and you're entitled to it. Was there an Osiris? Quite possibly. Same thing. The origins of the modern Bible begin forty years after Jesus' death, so no-one knows how accurate they are. If you believe in Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit, then they must exist. If you don't, then they don't. It's quite simple. OK, that's the religious/faith aspect dealt with, now the movie. Remember, this is Mel Gibson's beliefs and interpretations and he is entitled to them. This is just a movie; other discussions belong in your church group. There are two possible interpretations for this movie. The first is that it is an accurate portrayal of the last hours of Jesus' life, based on what we know of Roman cruelty, and the second is that it is just another platform for the portrayal of violence by filmmakers. Either way, I personally see no reason for the movie other than it being almost two hours of incessant violence, and representative of Man's inhumanity to Man. If it is true, then nothing much has changed in two millennia. If Jesus were to arrive on Earth today, this is quite possibly how he would be welcomed by the religious fraternity, their entire existence being borne of violence, death, torture and murder. Argue anyone? I gave this effort 2/10 for cinematography.

Apparently this movie derives from a computer game. So? For those of use who don't fritter away time in fantasy video games, we're none the wiser. Comparing movies to books/video games is pointless as it comes to us as one or the other. Making comparisons is senseless. No movie can ever be made the same as a book, by definition. So, moving on ... Silent Hill. Hmm, another gore/slash mock horror flick. I wonder if this type of movie will ever go away and people will get a grip on reality. Probably not, as the vast majority lives in one fantasy or another, i.e. living in the past, or wishing they were someone/some place else. People are addicted to escapism. Probably because the planet sucks as it is - war, famine, politicians etc is enough to make us all seek escapism. But why gore and horror? Why not tropical paradises or happy-ending love stories? This flick (and it is just a flick) is yet another blood spill for die-hards to add to their collection. You can count on one hand the number of these flicks that are actually worth anything or can be called good movie-making. Name one. This one is no different and had me yawning from the start. Radha Mitchell looks like a shagged out Charlize Theron on bad crack. Nice though to see B-rated British TV extra, Sean Bean has done so well for himself in the US. He pops up all over the place these days. Good on ya, mate! Within 30 Min's of this movie you'll see every tired horror movie cliché in the book, and find yourself with a finger on the 'Fast Forward' button, just to skip the director's tedious 'artistic' attempt at suspense, i.e. holding shots for 5 seconds too long. Ho-hum, wherever this story came from, it's just another platform for movie makers to exercise their malnourished imaginations and splash gore on the screen. I gave Silent Hill a 2/10 as some of the FX were pretty good, to a point, then it's all just so much droll repetition. The story (what there is of it), drops us in at the deep-end and from here it's a case of figure-it-out-as-you-watch, which rapidly becomes boring. One just has to try and imagine ANY of the content of this movie in modern day America as feasible, i.e. helpful cops and a town full of bodies no-one noticed, an unbelievable past that nobody investigates, blah, blah. One line is "We can't have civilians wandering around on their own". Huh? All 'civilians' now require a police escort? I must have missed the memo. As you watch this flick you'll be tutting and rolling your eyes every few seconds as it stumbles along, trying desperately to incorporate clichés and the lame storyline. Stick with it though; it's interesting to see what happens next, i.e. new characters with no introduction, erratic scene hopping, annoying camera work (reverse panning and vertical climbs), etc. Thirty eight minutes in, my finger was hovering over the DELETE button, but, as I was waiting for a call from Tokyo, I left it running. If the town is so bad, why is there still a sign pointing towards it on the main highway, huh, huh? Silly. Like not one of the 500 million or so casual travelers will explore the town? By the end of the first hour, the script has gone the way of the town itself; disintegrated, and you find yourself realizing that the flick is indeed taken from a PC game, where it should have stayed, safely away from the general public. Alice Krige as Christabella is clearly a fan of Katherine Hepburn and tries her best to emulate her, even down to the hair-do! The zombie nurse scene will have you laughing, i.e. they all have a 36C chest. There's also an annoying 10 Min's of colorized/grainy film where they attempt to tell the story. It merely gave me a headache. The 'theme' is your archetypal, tired old demon and witches, goodness/evil, etc ploy, which is ALWAYS bizarre, inaccurate and wholly unbelievable. Two burly men, repeatedly beating a woman on the floor with lengths of 2" water pipe are likely to kill her, yes? Not so here. She escapes with a facial abrasion. PlayDoh pipes, maybe? Anyone figure out the volcanic fallout? Was Silent Hill filmed near Pompeii? How many times have you seen the old animated barbed wire/tree branch effect? Brace yourself, they play it to death here (pun intended). You're going to love the closing scene. When someone figures it out, how about enlightening us all? My interpretation is that the camera man fell asleep and the camera drifted. Seriously, if you've nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon and feel like killing time, Silent Hill is ideal. Just check your brain at the door, you won't need it.

There are no words to begin to describe how God awful this 'movie' is! From the very first opening frame to the final black screen it screams AMATEURS WITH VIDEO CAMERAS. Everyone involved in the making of this rot should be rounded up and branded, making them easily identifiable and all should forever more be prohibited from owning and/or operating ANY equipment capable of capturing an image! Also, anyone who rented this tripe should automatically be given a refund and a free trip to a park of their choice for the 84 minutes of their life that was stolen by the morons who made this. Surely the 'crew' has seen a movie before? Perhaps not. Sure looks this way. I want to know how they get this stuff into circulation. This way, we can all shoot a movie with our camcorders and rake in the cash. Anyone know how I can get my home movies of my dog catching sticks on DVD and into Blockbuster? Oh, I could call it 'horror' as it would be a lot scarier than this movie. Anyone who watches more than 30 minutes of this junk seriously needs a life, or is a die-hard movie masochist. The entire production crew should be criminally charged with; 1. Impersonating a movie, 2. Stealing the public's life timer, 3. Conning the innocent public out of movie rental fees, and 4. Operating a body without a brain. The 'plot'? None. The acting? BARF! Direction? I wish. As movie cameras become smaller, we are going to see an increase in this kind of drivel as movies can now be churned out by a couple of kids with camcorders. Who is backing these movies is what I want to know, and who is performing the bulk lobotomies on the crews?

OK, so some teens stole daddy's video camera and went next door that night to make a film about . . . well, I think it's about someone, somewhere killing teens? I swear, my 6 year old kids could do better with special effects from the kitchen, i.e. some ketchup and the script from "Clifford, The Big Red Dog", except Clifford is better. The script is, well, if anyone ever finds it, do let me know so I can line my parrot's cage with it. The 'actors' must be rejects from the local grade school pantomime. The plot is as follows: ZIP. What amazes me is that they managed to get someone to draw a cover for the DVD. It is very annoying that the public will be screwed out of $4.00 at the video store to watch this pile of festering crud. It is an insult to any form of movie making and should be struck from the records. The 'actors', no doubt will spend eternity trying to get their names removed from the credits as it will for ever more completely destroy any hopes they have of becoming actors in any real sense of the word. There was not a single aspect of this flick that warrants any form of credit. Well, maybe one: the 'director' did not use stupid jerky camera techniques designed to cause headaches to viewers. Other than this, spend your dollars on a burger and fries and read the packaging for a much better script. I also realized that the English language lacks the adjectives required to describe this movie. There just are not any words to describe how bad it is, without using expletives. Try it and see. What is really, really scary though, and I mean this, is that there are some people here on IMDb that actually thought this was a good movie. Wha'? Who are these people? Is it possible that these lunatics may be living in my neighborhood, disguised as normal people? What if my kids go over there to play? One of the comments here said that the script was 'original'! Huh? Hello? Earth? The mind absolutely boggles. Einstein was right: stupidity is infinite. I would normally just trash this junk, but I felt I had to write something just to try and save this complete crap from infiltrating the market under the guise of 'entertainment' or, Lord forbid, a 'movie'. We can only hope that the morons who fabricated this swill will stay at school and not ever, ever make any more of this stuff or try to get into the real movies. Please, for all our sakes', just quietly go away and we'll forgive you this transgression. Once. We appreciate you had some bad E or some dodgy pork, but please, slip gently into the night and never, never return.

Good grief! When I think of some of the great ideas I've had in my time for which I couldn't get funding, my heart sinks. Especially when Hollyweird shells out $140 million to help sink this incredibly droll and hackneyed rework of a classic. Why 'remake' a movie if the objective is merely to make a pig's ear of a favorite classic? Movie makers have the money and wherewithal to make anything they want these days, so how does a movie like this get made, or approved for funding? What were Russell and Dreyfuss thinking? Are they this desperate for parts? Both superb actors in their own rights, they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel by appearing in this cheesy attempt at reviving a disaster movie. It goes to show that money doesn't make a movie. Jackson's 'KING KONG' is a point in question - $200+ million for a B monkey flick that makes a mockery of one of the world's classics. With all the CGI used these days we are fast approaching a time where 'actors' will simply make a few faces on film in the privacy of their Hollyweird mansions, which the director can then later "Cut & Paste" into his copy of Photoshop. Zero time was spent on developing the characters for POSEIDON. Russell was Mayor of New York 'for a while' it seems, while Dreyfuss was apparently having problems with his Gay lover? Were Dreyfuss removed entirely from this flick, would anyone have noticed? The entire flick rides on Russell's shoulders and we see him laboring as he drags along the rest of the crew for 90+ minutes. The Plot? We find ourselves on the ultimate cruise liner (presumably fitted with the latest in navigational technology, none capable of detecting a huge wave as it approaches the ship), with a tidal wave approaching, apparently out of nowhere and from an unknown source? Wave strikes ship. Ship inverts. What caused the tidal wave? Whale fart? Eathquake? We are left wondering how a 200 foot wave suddenly overturns a 60,000 ton luxury cruiser. The ship's captain yells the usual "Hard a Port" command, presumably to surf his ship to safety on a beach 200 miles away. The captain, clearly the movie's 'ethnic minority' component makes a speech about . . well, we don't really know or care, as Dreyfuss gently weeps into his gin, Russell frets over his daughter's hormones and a short order cook magically stows away a girl with ambitions of Coming to America, from … somewhere. The scene of Dreyfuss balancing on the ship's railings, apparently about to end his life (and hopefully his part in this movie) is laughable as he spots the enormous tidal wave approaching the ship. As if this wave would be visible in the dead of night on a pitch-black ocean. Why did the ship's sophisticated equipment not detect this 'rogue' wave or Dreyfuss' bad acting? The characters are weak to the point of non-existent, the CGI is poor by today's standards and the film trundles along with one after the other of pretty lame effects and unbelievable story line, such as it was. The whole fan suction scene had me weeping as our intrepid hero (Russell?) reverses the fan to create suction so that debris can be thrown in to jam the blades. Okay. Fine. Er, why? In an inverted ocean-liner, no-one is going to make head nor tail of the layout of the ship, let alone have detailed engineering maps conveniently floating by wherever the stricken survivors happen to be. 'POSEIDON' is OK for a rainy Sunday afternoon as long as you don't expect too much or anything at all. For the budget they had, this movie should have been a blockbuster, not a gut buster. What was the point of the jerk in the movie? Who were the characters? Where did the wave come from? So many questions, zero answers. Movies should entertain us, not leaving us agog in disbelief. Sure, rent the DVD but don't expect anything special, not even in the CGI department. Instantly forgettable as an expensive washout. We can thank our lucky stars the ship sinks along with most of the passengers, saving us from POSEIDON II. Bah!

Now here's a nice little film, which, if redirected and with some decent acting has the makings of a classic. The story is believable and many people will be able to relate to it. I don't want to give anything away, but I definitely recommend you see this one, if only to form your own opinion. Just for a change, there is no silly Hollyweird endings, but it sure does give us food for thought. Have you ever thrown away anything precious to you, through sheer stupidity and complacency? If so, you'll love the message this film contains. I bet this is remade by one of the bigger houses. If so, I'll see it again. As it stands now, the acting was pretty poor and the direction left a lot to be desired, especially in the continuity department which at times is extremely amateurish. Still, it did not detract from the point of the film and the message comes across loud and clear for the most part.

OK, someone help me with this one. In this day and age, with the technology and acting talent we have, how can movies like this still hit the streets? This attempt at movie-making is a classic example of why there should be some formal rating standard for movies in order to scrap them before they are released on an unsuspecting public. A public who pays good money and are then fed this complete and utter drivel. Did the makers of this swill honestly think they were onto something good? I do not think there is a single aspect of this movie that falls under the heading of either "skill", "talent", or "professionalism". I have never seen such amateurish, stilted and wooden acting, such a lame, predictable story, or such misplaced characters who seem to spend their entire time waiting for prompts. Simply a terrible and diabolically shameful attempt at making a movie under the guise that it will somehow entertain an audience. Watch it for novelty value and to see that there are still amateurs loose in the film world. A full ZERO out of ten. If the makers of this crud read this, guys, please, please, PLEASE do not EVER give up your day jobs! Many of us like B movies, but when did Z-movies come out?

Hoo-boy! Thirty minutes into this garbage and it was switched OFF. What a load of nonsense. When are newcomer movie-makers going to realize how VOLUME controls work? It is extremely annoying having to keep the volume control in your hand because every sound in this movie is designed as a cheap thrill to compensate for the lack of story, creativity, direction and acting. I immediately rate as ZERO any movie that attempts to make its audience jump by increased volume on sounds - very, very annoying and a sign of bad movie-making. This "American Haunting" is just yet another boring, drab, badly-acted ghost story. As if the market is not already flooded with this mumbo-jumbo. Hello? Ghosts do not exist and ghosts as a movie plot is so 70's. Enough already with the ghost stories, Hollyweird. There are literally millions of topics around which to base a movie, and using the tired old ghosts theme really is worn out now. This offering here is just another one that fails to impress, entertain or amuse. Sutherland and Spacek really should have read the script before they signed up to do this. I've seen better stories and acting on STARGATE, for goodness' sake. Waste your money if you want by renting this, but for me, this kind of junk just gets erased and put on my "total crap" list. To give you an idea, I think Peter Jackson's KING KONG was better, and that's saying something as Jackson's version of KING KONG has GOT to be one of the worst attempts at movie-making ever in the history of the movies. A deserved 1 out of 10. If negative scores were possible, this scores 10 out of 10. Complete PISH!

The same country that has the intelligence to place a man on the moon, produced this mockery of film-making? Amazing. The original 1933 version and subsequent 80s remake of "King Kong" were both excellent examples of what can be achieved. But this? This is a tedious 3-hour stretch of far-fetched animation, hashed into a mish-mosh of ape meets Godzilla, Jurassic Park, spiders, insects yada yada yada I sat with my mouth hanging open. Not in amazement, but in disbelief that this movie even purports to be a remake of the original King Kong. Although I struggled through the tedious first hour, which could have been condensed into 20 minutes, I realized it was on a rapid downward spiral when pods of dinosaurs and raptors chase the film crew between 2 mountains. From there, the movie is in free-fall until it smashes into the ground 2 arduous hours later. This is merely a platform for Peter Jackson's use of animatronics, sound effects and poor acting. Why not call it "Ape meets all scary creatures ever used in B movies" - a much better and apt title I feel. Yes, many of the FX are quite brilliant, but overall, this movie for me was a terrible disappointment and I hope somebody one day redeems this fabulous story and makes a film worth watching, with decent actors and believable antics. Perhaps some radical editing may have saved it, but overall, it drones on and quite frankly, had me bored to tears with its ludicrous storyline and special effects. Whatever Naomi's negligee is made from is what we need to use for soldier's uniforms, as it is quite clearly indestructible. When Ms Watts finally does free herself from 30 minutes of the most ridiculous chases by a multitude of animals, she swans onto the screen as if the entire Hollywood make-up department had spent 3 hours on her. Simply ridiculous. I was glad when it was over.

WOLF CREEK, sadly, is another gratuitous violence flick, despite opinions to the contrary. There's nothing wrong with a bit of violence to illustrate Man's ubiquitous propensity to this ancient trait, but violence for the sake of it? Or to illicit points? It just doesn't work. The first 20 minutes of this movie could be condensed to around 5 minutes, sufficient to introduce the characters and show us that they're adrift in the Australian Outback. The plot is old and tired, i.e. nut-case kidnaps youngsters, tortures them, no-one for miles around, blah blah, yawn.

Granted, some of the violence is pretty hard-hitting, notably the first victim's ordeal and the "head on a stick" scene, but for the most part, I found myself wanting to fast forward, hoping for an interesting scene. It never came. The film relies on good stereo sound effects for impact, and this works, as it annoyingly made me jump a few times - something I abhor in movies, especially thrillers. I want my own mind and imagination to scare me, not cheap parlor tricks. There are too many unanswered questions in WOLF CREEK to make it believable, such as why the vehicles break down at the crater site and why watches suddenly stop working. Why does nobody travel on the main road until the girl runs on it, seeking help? A police search of the farms in a given radius would have revealed Mike's extensive collection of vehicles, yet the Australians claim they found no evidence. Doesn't gel at all.

Disappointing overall, especially as there are thrillers like "SAW" and "Seven" which really do keep you on the edge of your seat for 90 plus minutes. The limited WOLF CREEK budget may be to blame, but Australia has turned out excellent cellulose of late, so there really is no excuse for this cheap shot at violence and the boring "psycho killer" routine. When WOLF CREEK 2 is released, I'll take a rain check. Want a better thriller? Check something else out at the video store.

The title, 'Saw' about says it all, though not in the way you may think. This is a thinking man's psychological thriller. The plot is rock-solid, the story powerful and well written, and the acting perfectly matches the mood of the movie. Although macabre in places, this is necessary to emphasize the intentions of the main character - and the intention is very clear - value the life you have, or forfeit it.

The pace is fast and intense and you find yourself wincing at some of the scenes, but unable to look away from the screen. An excellent soundtrack and sound effects work to keep your heart thumping while these poor souls attempt to free themselves from the predicaments in which they find themselves. Not for the squeamish, but for those of us who like hunter/hunted thrillers, SAW is manna from Heaven. The second episode, SAW II is as good, if not better than the first, as the story unfolds and all becomes clear. Just when you thought you had it all worked out, think again!