Vassago

The infamous case of the brutal, uncommonly savage serial murders committed by il Mostro di Firenze, the Monster of Florence, has never seen an officially sanctioned solution and legal closure. It has, however, seen a multitude of hypotheses as to the nature of the killer, his psyche, and his possible identities.

The most common hypothesis involves the typical serial killer profile - a lone, local, sexually motivated psychopath with predilections towards violence. The most popular alternate hypotheses involve a group of culprits, direct and indirect, with the possibility of an esoteric of occult element being alleged as part of the motivation of one or more of the culprits.

(One may note that while, on the surface, the latter may sound like a concept more fit for an action film or a novel than a real criminal case, it would actually match some famous solved cases, such as the notorious crimes of Adolfo Constanzo and his Matamoros sect, or Robin Gecht and his "Ripper Crew" gang. In both cases, a strong psychopathic leader / self-claimed guru took on a group of weak, damaged followers, and, using the guises of occultism, Satanism and esoterica as a means of dominating, influencing and manipulating those followers, he gradually made them fulfill his own desires and commit hideous murders, including primitive rituals and cannibalism. And, in both cases, the followers submitted to his commands, even though the leader himself was privately motivated just by his sexual deviancy and violent psyche, and treated the occult factor as just a tool of influence and manipulation).

This documentary focuses largely on the group hypothesis as the proposed solution of il Mostro's case, with emphasis on the occult possibilities and suggestions of a detailed conspiracy being present at one or more points.

However, whether you are inclined towards the idea of a group being involved in the killings, or towards the idea of a lone murderer motivated purely by his violent psyche and acting out without anyone else's involvement, this is an intriguing, well-made documentary, which casts light on a number of forgotten and even previously unknown aspects and evidence in the case.

The most fascinating part is the extensive profile of an almost completely forgotten, yet very intriguing "new-old" suspect, rediscovered after decades of staying unremembered. He was a local man, with alleged predilections towards violence, possibly involved in another homicide. He collected memorabilia about il Mostro's case, reaching as far as 1974. He had .22 calibre weapons and ammunition of the notorious "Winchester H" type at his home. He was a skilled shooter (the killer had calmly shot out the lights of the victims' vehicle in one of the murders, quickly hitting each one with a single bullet fired from distance in the dark night). He was tall, agile and strong. He lived approximately the same distance away from all crime scenes, and he had once been a member of the Foreign Legion (a witness saw a man stalking Pia Rontini shortly before her murder; the never-identified man had a characteristic ring, whose description matched the signet of the Foreign Legion).

All in all, it is quite surprising that he had remained essentially forgotten since 1985, until now. Of course, as had happened with so many other parts of this tangled case, this "new-old" man may have had absolutely nothing to do with it, and any similarities between the case and his life may be purely coincidental.

Whatever one's view on il Mostro's case may be, the "Triangle of Death" is a most worthy watch.

(Unfortunately, a star goes away from its score, as someone involved in the sound mixing had completely messed it up: instead of normalising the music, dialogue and effect tracks, he had raised the volume of the music in a number of places so annoyingly loud - especially for one repeating, clamorous track - that it completely drowns all the voices, making the narration inaudible in several parts).

The film opens as originally as any "Deliverance" copy from the 80s: some city folk drive to a remote location, full of nature, and meet a vaguely shifty local. (I wonder if he will turn out to be hiding some evil secret in the end? What do you think, horror viewers?)

So far, so dull.

Then, however, they dive into a (goofily deep, though helpfully clear and lit) lake, enter a very well-maintained giant sunken mansion located beneath its waters (the place must cost a fortune to maintain, with devoted in-house staff and several gardeners, considering its superb condition at the bottom of the lake) and, for about 10 minutes, the film becomes engaging.

The lighting makes the best of the decent location, and there is some actual ambience. The film looks promising! There will clearly be something unpleasant that our heroic pair of explorers are going to discover. What will it be? Something exciting, probably! Perhaps even something original?

And then... our divers meet ghosts. Evil ghosts. Underwater ghosts. Dull, boring, trite, disappointing ghosts.

And that's it, that's the utterly pointless rest of the film. A ghost chase, but underwater. Instead of the "Da, ra, ra!" song from Scooby Doo, there is some forgettable "spooky" score, but the essence is the same. (The Scooby gang did at least one underwater ghost chase, by the way).

Argento's "Inferno" is a weak film, but it does have that memorable lovely diving scene, with Rose descending into the forgotten cellar, accompanied by an uneasy score.

Whoever made this film seems to have watched that scene in "Inferno" and thought: "Wow! I want to stretch this 2-minute scene into a 2-hour film! I don't know how, I don't know why, but I WILL DO IT!"

And so he did. And he never knew how.

Perhaps the film will be more engaging for divers, but I suspect that if I, a complete diving layman, could recognise how idiotically irresponsible and inept the pair of this film's "heroes" were as divers, then actual divers are more likely to be annoyed and insulted by their dangerous stupidity.

If you feel thirsty, you can give it a look. Or just watch the diving scene in "Inferno".

Robert Mazur's story of infiltrating the world of crooked finance is one of the most amazing tales of undercover operations, and the seed from which one of the most infamous scandals in modern banking grew. His book, "The Infiltrator", is a captivating narrative of that operation. You will not find a trace of either in this imbecilic, not-even-nominal anti-adaptation, which throws the story out to replace it with a cartoon about shootouts and car chases.

How does one adapt a story of a financial analyst infiltrating the muddy, labyrinthine currents of money laundering perpetrated by major banks for major criminals? There are a myriad ways.

How does one adapt it so that the average beer guzzler understands it?

Well, if one's name is "Furman", the obvious choice is to turn the story of financial infiltration into a video about car chases, shootouts, and curses, as filmed by a teenager of low intellect and lower creativity, desperately attempting to copy the already mediocre film "Blow", and failing miserably.

The "story" of this film, such as it is, goes thus: Ruzam (he is the opposite of the real Mazur, so I will not call him that), a man who seems to be 30 years older than the real Mazur was during the real operation, works as an undercover financier. He is nervous and neurotic, and surrounded by incompetent boobs. His next task involves infiltrating a major bank, filled with crooked executives. He is joined by his partner, Infuriating Moron Clown, and yelled at by his supervisor, Bitter Vulgar Woman.

The task consists of shooting, cursing, car chasing, drinking, cursing while drinking, drinking while car chasing, and drinking after cursing while shooting during car chasing.

Another partner, Half-Age Woman, joins Ruzam as well, pretending to be his girlfriend, and causing panic in his Forgotten Background Wife (Will they? Won't they? They won't).

She also constantly sabotates the mission by not informing Ruzam what she knows and what she's about to do and tell the targets. Well, at least in the real world, that would have been scandalous incompetence, bordering on criminal sabotage. Not in Furman's world, however!

On the way, Ruzam meets Larry Fish. (Actually, this is supposed to be Barry Seal, but he has less to do with the real Barry Seal than he does with a sea seal, hence I shall call him "Fish" instead). Larry curses and drinks, and gets shot during a car chase. (This scene has as much to do with the circumstances of the real Barry Seal's demise, which happened at the hands of cartel's "Cumbamba" and his kill squad, that it may as well have involved flying elephants dropping bombs on the car).

There are idiotic pseudo-tension scenes, such as bank security officers entering Ruzam's room for absolutely no reason whatsoever, standing silently for two seconds (as the music rises to a dramatic if quick crescendo), and then disappearing like a magician's flash paper. Additionally, since Furman really wanted to make a horror film and forgot what genre he was actually working on, he suddenly throws in an idiotic scene with a bloody vooodoo ritual (actually, it should be santeria, but Furman knows as much about either voodoo or santeria as he knows about anything else) - a scene which is not only incompetent and laughable (that would be the Furman standard), but also utterly pointless and completely separate from the rest of the film. The scene connects to nothing, adds nothing, is disjointed and is as fitting as adding a bag of cement to a cup of tea.

As the end approaches, Ruzam and Half-Age Woman commit criminal sabotage of the operation by warning his targets to "go back to Colombia", because they think of them as their friends and feel sorry for them. Fortunately for the saboteurs, the targets refuse and remain in place, thus ensuring the climactic ending - a fake wedding.

In reality, the fake wedding, prepared to arrest the targets, was so relaxed that the crooked bankers were giggling as the agents placed handcuffs on their wrists - they were convinced that it was a hilarious party prank, performed by hired Chippendale Clowns. Furman abandons that and instead fills the wedding with - what else? - shootouts! Lots and lots of shootouts, with lots and lots of machine guns, all filmed in slow motion!

The dreck of the "script" ("EXT. Bob curses and shoots at a speeding car, which curses and shoots back"?) is credited to another Furman, this one female. Usually, same names in a Hollywood production mean the noble tradition of nepotism - daughter, mother, long-time lover, etc. - but I was not interested enough in either of the two Furmans to check if they were indeed related, or, for that matter, if there were any other Furmans on the film's salary list.

There is one good scene in the entirety of this film - a brief apperance by an unnamed Pablo Escobar. It lasts about two seconds, it is wordless, quiet and understated, even subtle. It is even atmospherically lit, in an almost surreal, dreamy manner. In fact, those two seconds are so much better than anything else in the film that I suspect that someone other than Furman had storyboarded, blocked and directed this scene. I'm even more inclined to think so because Escobar actually looks similar to the real one, and considering Furman's penchant for accuracy and realism, I would expect his Escobar to look like old Lo-Pan from "Big Trouble in Little China".

Yet those two seconds sadly cannot make up for the rest, so spare yourself the suffering and watch any film that is more factual, more entertaining, and more competently made. Any film whose quality surpasses Furman's capabilities will do - and those include, for instance, "Manos: the Hands of Fate" or "Police Academy VII".

"Lokis" is a dark Gothic romance, a faithful (though expanded) adaptation of Prosper Merimee's famous story, and the creme de la creme of the small horror niche dealing with the Eastern variant of the werewolf - the "werebear".

Reverend Wittenbach, clergyman and bibliophile, travels into the eastern regions of Polish-Lithuanian forests - the "kresy" - in order to explore the vast library owned by a rich family of noblemen. Hosted in their luxurious mansion, the reverend learns the strange secrets of the surroundings and discovers the dark and disturbing secret of the family - there are whispers that his host, the enigmatic young count Michal Szemiot, may be something other than a man... that he was born of an unholy union of a woman and a bear...

Photographed with saturation purposely taken to the extreme in outerior takes - some scenes in open spaces resemble nothing as much as impressionistic paintings - "Lokis" relies on dialogue, imagery and the viewer's imagination in order to create an atmosphere of slowly creeping fear... the kind of fear that is always in the corner of one's eye, never pushed in one's face. This is not the kind of film for a dullard that considers the umpteenth remake with TV Guide's "Teen Star of the Month" to be the Olympus of horror movies.

The most interesting aspect of the film is its ambiguity - nothing seemingly supernatural is definitely shown as such. Do we really see a witch walking on water or merely an old woman using a secret path in the forest swamp? Is the count a werebeast or merely a man driven into insanity and murderous lust by his deepening psychosis? These questions are left unanswered, for the viewer to decide.

Currently available on DVD, "Lokis" is a worthy view to a conneisseur of the subtle and refined old school of horror cinema.

I did not think it would be possible, but this abomination was even worse than Verhacken's flick. Once again, Heinlein was completely ignored, and, even though (thankfully) Verhoeven's moronic shades of Nazism are gone, the film is still extremely poor due to its absolute lack of a plot, cardboard characters, and the fact that it is literally built of cliches and ripoffs. Additionally, it seems to have had a budget which would not be enough to buy a hot-dog and which was apparently spent mostly on acquiring the rights to some random Warrior footage from the first flick. As for the "new special effects", they must have been created after the whole budget had been spent. I think I saw the "head bugs" in a gadget shop once - in fact, if the screener I have was of any higher quality, I would probably see "Made in China" stamped on them somewhere...

The quality of acting was better in this title, however - mostly because the first one was dominated by the vomit-inducing anti-acting courtesy of two awful plastic non-actors - Richards and Busey. Even Clancy Brown and Michael Ironside couldn't save the film when they were constantly showered with splinters falling off the Wooden Two.

It reminded me of the "Critters 3" casus - a horrendously bad sequel to an SF flick which was bad enough in the first place. Compared to "Starship Troopers II", "Battlefield Earth" looks like a sedate, monumental space epic.

If only "Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendancy" was made into a film instead of the two that *were* made...

Just like wine, "Johnny Dangerously" gets better and better with every day. This clever, witty, well-acted film could very well stand on its own - but as a parody of the gangster genre, it's truly outstanding. In fact, it's quite obviously the best film of its kind... the funniest spoof of mob movies and even the respective period - although, admittedly, this position is probably easier to achieve when its main competitors are such primitive, vulgar and dull pseudocomedies as "Jane Austen's Mafia".

This movie makes Paul W. S. Anderson and Uwe Boll look talented, and their flicks appear enjoyable. Unbelievably, Fisher's "Nighstalker" manages to be, simultaneously, campy and filthy, annoying and dull, unnerving and boring, ridiculous and repulsive. There is really nothing good about it, apart from perhaps the cover and Bret Roberts - the actor who portrays Ramirez (and even he looks - expectedly - embarrassed when the hack "director", Fisher, has him play a flour-covered "vampire" weirdo, which, in Fisher's 12-year-old mentality was intended as a "symbolic" representation of what Ramirez sees in his "possessed" mind during the crime spree).

The "story" is sub-imbecilic and is not in fact even loosely based on the actual events. Fisher's "writing" skills are almost as high as those of a drug-induced 13 year old metalhead, fresh after drinking a sixpack of beer and viewing "House of 1000 Corpses" with his Deicide tape playing right into his ears. In fact, said metalhead would probably write and direct a better movie than Fisher's (well, it certainly could not be any worse!) - at least in *his* film, there would be no unnerving stroboscopic Pokemon "techniques", which Fisher loves so much.

As far as the director's "factual" treatment and "research" go, this flick's script was apparently based on Fisher's experience of trying to read a short, misspelled summary of an article reviewing a book with a chapter whose part described a documentary about comic books depicting serial killers, who happened to include Ramirez. Fisher's directing is, if possible, even worse than his "writing" - often, this flick is simply unwatchable, with its shaky, chaotic camera movement and ridiculous (and nauseatingly long) high-speed segments set to obnoxious, vomit-inducing, ear-shattering noise which Fisher apparently considers to be "music" (and which in fact did not even exist in 1985 - Night Stalker would listen to the likes of AC/DC and Springsteen, not some antitalent, late 1990s Death Metal bands).

The only potentially redeeming aspect of this movie might be the fact that, much like Ed Wood's movies (which are, of course, infinitely better, involve much more talent, decent music and superior directing), it often manages to be unintentionally funny. For instance, Fisher often makes an infantile attempt at inserting cheap "ambience" into scenes by filling their backgrounds with repeated white noise and incomprehensible mumbling done in a low bass. He intends this mumbling to be the "voice of Satan", but it sounds exactly like the Psychlos from John Travolta's

Therefore, every time I heard Fisher's "Satan", I would think "Ooh-oh, it's Travolta the Terl!" and burst out laughing. Fisher's ludicrous image of "Satan" himself - the aforementioned flour-covered bald Howard the Duck reject with sharp teeth - made the scenes even funnier.

As for the DVD itself, there were some deleted scenes (even though the whole film should have been one deleted scene), a trailer, a bit better than the flick itself (in the same sense as gonorrhea is better than AIDS), plus a commentary track from Mr Antitalent himself, Chris Fisher (at least I've read that there is a commentary, on the DVD box - I did not actually listen to it, since I have no intention to hear talentless dolts drone about themselves.)

A while ago I bought the DVD with the TV film about Ramirez ("Manhunt") from Amazon Europe, and any second of that film highly surpasses Fisher's lameness. I never thought I could see someone less talented than Paul W. S. Anderson and Uwe Boll actually find employment in Hollywood - but today I saw him, and his name was "Chris Fisher".

Certainly the best and most stylish horror of the 1990s, it placed Roman Polanski back at his roots, allowing him to once again explore the dark depths of the occult and the human psyche, and providing the viewers with the pleasure of following the new protagonist on a thrilling journey in search of... ah, no, see the film and find out what it is that Corso wants and what he ultimately discovers. Having seen and loving this masterpiece, I immediately expected hordes of dullwitted mouthbreathers throughout the world to loathe it for its elegance, stylishness, unconventionality and darkness - and they did not disappoint me. I quickly saw them attack the film, complaining (their complaints always badly misspelled, with horrendous syntax, third-grade lexicon and short, monotonous sentences, regardless of the language used) that the movie was "confusing" (please stick to your level of entertainment, an X-Men cartoon), that "nothing happened" in it (nothing certainly ever happens in their heads; as for the film, the fate of the world being chosen and sealed was but one of the things that happened), that it was "too slow" (no, my "dears" - *you* are), or that "the acting was bad" (compared to their favorite pearls of cinematic performance, such as "Scream 3" or "Jason goes to Hell"), or that there "wasn't enough action"... ...and with this complaint of theirs, we arrive at the real reason why the dullards disliked "The Ninth Gate" (other than the fact that they were unable to understand it) - it did not have enough explosions! Not enough Marilyn Manson! Not enough kung-fu fights in slow motion! Not enough Sarah Michelle Gellar! Not enough clone syrup! Well, "dears", sorry - this is a thinking person's film. Not *your* kind of movie, but ours. Now leave us in peace, allow us to enjoy Roman Polanski's vision again, and feel free to go see an Adam Sandler "comedy" or "Charlie's Angels 2" - flicks of this kind should certainly match your "intellectual level" and provide you with enough infantile "entertainment" to last you the whole afternoon.

I still place Stuart Woods's "Chiefs" among the best police dramas ever written. Since I learned that a TV adaptation of the book was made, I've always wanted to see it, and, a few months ago, I finally bought the DVD release of the series. I actually did not expect much, but what I received surprised me - and it was a positive surprise. The series is an excellent adaptation of the novel and manages to do it justice, which is a rarity... as is the fact that very little of the book's plot is omitted. Certainly, some of the details - such as Will Henry's growing obsession with the mysterious murders, and the technical sides of his investigation - have to be treated superficially, but every important subplot and aspect of the book is present in the film; consequently, the series manages to be just as thrilling and involving as the novel. Amusingly enough, the credits on the box of the DVD misled me slightly - I assumed Charlton Heston, Keith Carradine and Billy Dee Williams would be playing the three chiefs, chronologically; of course, this is not the case.

I knew "Red Dragon" would never match "Manhunter", but I had some faint hope that it might turn out not *too much* worse, and that it might preserve some of the spirit of the book, in spite of Brett Rush Hour's directing.

Unfortunately, it's on par with Gus van Sant's remake of "Psycho". It's painfully clear, too clear, that the only reason for its making were the dollar signs in Dino de L.'s eyes. It's a (bad) school play on the steroids of a big budget. Everyone, literally everyone in the film is stiff and wooden, except for Hopkins, who is hammy.

Where Brian Cox was caged evil, Hopkins is a clown. Where William Petersen was a tormented agent, Norton is a bored yuppie. Where Tom Noonan portrayed a man of a demented yet fascinating psyche, Fiennes is a bumbling cartoony villain who behaves like a village idiot and seems as dangerous as a bumblebee, while pitifully trying to look like Harrison Ford. Keitel chews his dialogue as if to say "let's get this trash done and go home already".

The dialogue is lifted from "Manhunter" and sometimes (less often) from the book, and I felt extremely bored, because every minute I knew exactly what would follow and what words would be said. The few scenes that were thrown in The ridiculous, ubercliched "Jason Voorhees syndrome" ending doesn't help much, either.

Of course, Manhunter had *a real director*, and a damn good one, too - Michael Mann, one of the few directors who have *and care for* their artistic visions; Brett Rush Hour cared primarily for the check, apparently.

"Hey, it's 2001... let's make a comedy with this date in title!" thought the makers of "Space Travesty". "Let's make it a comedy, too, and let's have Leslie Nielsen in it. Plot? What plot?!? We'll throw in some jokes and glue them together with scenes showing Leslie Nielsen making faces!"... and so they did. Oh dear. You know this movie is awful already before seeing it - and that's because its trailer does not contain a single funny scene. As you probably know, movies of this sort put all their good jokes in their trailers (vide: Mel Brooks's Dracula). The trailer for this one has nothing funny in it, and that is not because the makers kept the good jokes for the movie itself but because they don't even have one funny gag to show - the whole "film" consists of some jokes older than the Pacific, plenty of awful "sex 'n' barf" kind of "humor", and a lot of dreadful, unimaginative, uninspired, boring, inane and inept attempts at a parody ("SAL! oh, that's Italian, and there's that music from GODFATHER playing, oh how funny!"). I don't blame Leslie Nielsen for this dreck - the writer and director (or, I should say, the "writer" and the "director") are to blame for it - but it's sad to think that he hasn't appeared in a movie worth watching since "The Naked Gun 2 1/2"...

A superb, tense thriller that can be placed alongside "Donnie Brasco" (I mean, of course, Agent Joseph Pistone's book, not the dreadful movie, full of lies and awful changes, that was "based" on it). "In Too Deep" is powerful, dark, gripping and keeps you in uncertainty of what's going to happen till the very end. A very realistic experience, with attention paid to the tiniest details and legalities - this isn't your average stupid Tarantino flick where undercover cops go around happily shooting anyone they want whenever they feel like it; this feels almost *real*! I doubt if the movie was actually based on a true story of an undercover policeman (unless the "story" is the obvious fact that thousands of policemen risk their lives every month working undercover all over the world), but if anything like it ever happened, you can safely bet that it happened exactly the way the movie tells it. Highly recommended, especially for anyone interested in true crime. I hope it comes out on DVD, with extras and specials - this movie deserves it. If while reading "Donnie Brasco" (NOT while watching its stupid film version...) you ever wondered what it would be like if moved to the 1990s, "In Too Deep" will answer your questions! (By the way, have you noticed that "God" looks somewhat like a thin Suge Knight, while J-Reed looks a bit like an older version of Tupac Shakur...?)

Yes, this movie is rude, crude and cruel. But it's also funny and you can't help it! :) It's just great - well, perhaps with the exception of Murray. I can't stand this wooden guy and his annoying "acting". But even he didn't spoil the movie too much... :)

I won't be very original saying this, but that's not only the worst Batman ever made (even the TV series was better) but also the worst movie I've ever seen. They even made Bane (an intelligent, sophisticated and educated man) into a brainless zombie on steroids. Please, someone resurrect the Joker, so he can take out Clooney's "Batman", O'Donnell's "Robin", and especially Silverstone & Thurman - they're responsible in 40% for making this movie such a pile of waste. But, of course, the ones who deserve to be given a dose of Smilex are the two people responsible for killing the Batman series - director Schumacher and writer Goldsman (or whatever their names are spelled). For God's sake, bring back Tim Burton and Michael Keaton before Goldsman & Co. try to prove that they can make a Batman movie worse than "Batman & Robin" (and I'm sure they can!).

A nice, borderless movie for just about anyone - and I have but one complaing: why was Hopkins cast as the narrator? I've had enough of this guy's hammy "style" and I can't take him anymore... why wasn't Angus "The Tall Man" Scrimm asked to do the narration? Or, as another user suggested, Christopher Lee? Hey - even Carey himself would probably do a better job...

I was hoping for a decent "Alien" clone on the sea. But it turned out that "Virus" is copied from three other movies with basically nothing original added. The plot is taken from "Leviathan", the alien's concept from "Star Trek" and the Borg, and the cyborgs - from "Hardware". And all those movies are better - even "Star Trek"! There's nothing surprising that, and it would be OK were "Virus" tense and exciting. But it isn't... Frankly, it's just boring. For me a necessary element of plot in such movies is a thoroughly alien, unknown and mysterious organism, hostile toward humans. But here, with the cyborgs and most things explained right away, it's about as exciting as watching people fight a couple of toasters. The only thing worth mentioning is the soundtrack... not bad, not bad at all. Other than that, it's pretty weak. It amazes me that this movie got its own action figure series, while e.g. "Leviathan" and "Hardware", though much better, still don't...

Some time ago I began wondering who might deserve the title of the worst comedian (pseudo-comedian, actually) of the last decade. Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler were high on my list, but when I saw "The Truman Show" I decided that Carrey eventually learned how to act instead of making faces, so I left him in peace. Recently, I saw "Bid Daddy"... and now I am sure: Sandler is the worst excuse of the comedian of the last 20 years, and perhaps of the century. And as for this movie, it's terrible even by the "Sandler standards". I'm just too tired to count the reasons why it's so awful... let me just tell that the day Adam Sandler deserves to be called an actor and a comedian will be the day Ed Wood is granted 10 posthumous Oscars for his life work.

What twisted gods or forces sent Jim Carrey and Ace Ventura to this world and for what sins? Watching this "movie" is the kind of punishment that makes the worst ancient Chinese tortures seem like picnic. Were I a brain surgeon, I think if I had to perform a lobotomy on someone, I'd just make them watch "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls". I thought Adam Sandler's "comedies" were at the very bottom of the barrel of the worst movies ever made, but "When Nature Calls" must be knocking from below them... This "film" isn't funny, isn't entertaining, isn't original, and in fact it's not even disgusting (though it tries to be, I must admit that). Why do they spend any kind of resources on such trash?

Ah, another one of those thrillers where you're supposed to wonder about the killer's identity, suspecting everyone in turns. Well, I guessed the killer *in the video rental*, after I looked at the cover! And I was right, of course. Now that's a "quality" script! As for the rest - boy, where to start... The acting is either hammy (McGregor) or wooden (Arquette) and the worst thing is that this flick is so *dull* and *boring* that it makes eating tomato soup and potato chips The Great Adventure! This is a remake of the Danish original which I might choose to see one day (for free - if it's anything like this remake, it's not worth paying a penny). I doubt it can be any better, though, with the same director and writer. One star, and even that is being too generous!

Sill, silly movie. Which would be fun if it weren't so predictable. I knew the killer less than FIFTEEN MINUTES after the opening, and this is one of those films where you're supposed to learn who the killer is only in the very end. Even Robert Englund cannot save this movie with others acting so bad. And speaking of bad actors: who is that ugly girl killed in the very beginning, the one driving the car in the rain? She has to be the worst "actress" I have ever seen. She can't do ANYTHING, she can't speak, she can't sing, she can't walk, and she most certainly couldn't act even if she took 1000 acting classes. If you think you've seen a bad, wooden actress, take a look at this one... Apart from the quite good, ambient score, there is one good thing about this movie (probably especially for a non-American viewer :) - you learn a good deal about nice urban legends. The movie actually inspired me to hunt for those on the Net and then write an article on them - for this I'm thankful. :)

This was a potentially great, atmospheric thriller wasted by the scriptwriters' inanity and their ridiculous goofs regarding computers. I hate "realistic" movies that make such idiotic errors about computers and they always lose all their potential appeal in my eyes. The writers of this movie have no idea about anything computer-related, and they try to make computers one of the key points of the plot. They would probably mistake a typewriter and a TV set for a computer when faced with those. Their inanity can be seen best when the killer sends dr Hudson an e-mail with a video clip attached. The clip has its own icon and ACTS LIKE AN EXECUTABLE. It has its own code! Great Lord, does a concept of a program seem so bizarre to those Hollywood people that they cannot comprehend it? Of course, this "program-clip" is referred to as a virus, a generic Hollywood name for anything that is not from AOL or Microsoft, even though it is the precise opposite of a virus - not only does it not replicate, but it removes itself. In addition to this ridiculous, ill-informed, annoying idea, Dr Hudson uses a weird, non-operating OS that looks like a bizarre amalgam of X-Windows and CP/M (and Final III from the C64 :), but acts as neither. The pictures "download" and zoom in a strange, nonexistent way, the net access is ridiculously unrealistic... The killer manages to send totally anonymous e-mails and nobody even bothers to trace them - yeah, right. And how does Helen contact him later? She sends a mail "in the open". Just sends it. Without any recipient, without anything. And nevertheless, the killer gets it. Sigh. I would give the movie ten stars. For those computer-related idiocies, I take four stars back, and two stars more for Holly Hunter's annoying voice and the boring, cheaply artificial character of Daryll Lee Cullum, played by a wooden and unappealing actor whose name I won't even bother to remember. This leaves the movie with a final score of four stars. Oops. Tough luck, guys - hire better scriptwriters next time.

I had the misfortune of catching this on HBO. I had not seen the Chan flicks before, so I decided to take a look. I didn't expect more than a B class movie: I've heard before my friends telling of the horrendous "quality" of Chan's movies but I would not believe it; surely they couldn't be worse than some films I've seen, including the infamous Ed Wood and his "classics". Boy, was I wrong... This must be *the worst movie ever made*, period. "B" class? Let me put it that way: there are A class movies, B class ones, there is the C class and even a D class, and then there is the Z class, reserved for Troma (which I actually liked) and Eddie Wood. And THEN, way down below the Z class, there is the Jackie Chan class. To make sure, I watched two other Chan movies later - I don't and don't want to remember their titles - and those were just as bad. Chan cannot act, cannot even *appear* to act, cannot speak (he never *speaks*, he *always* shouts!), cannot choose actors (or maybe he deliberately wants all of them to "act" even more wooden than he does, even though it might seem an impossible task!) and obviously cannot spend more than five seconds thinking of the "plot" of his movies. Wait, did I call them movies? I take it back - that would be an insult to all REAL movies. Ed Wood made Oscar-deserving movies compared to Mr Chan's "creations". Those aren't even flicks. They are just an incoherent mess with no script, no directing and no acting - only some idiotic "stunts" that Mr Chan reportedly does himself (as if I cared), such as an incredible task of jumping four stairs down, with a team of paramedics on guard. Are stunts all that his audience asks for? It would seem so. As for me, I'll remain with the old-fashioned idea of a movie: script first, directing second, acting third. Effects and stunts - last.

...but there's one thing I have mixed feeling about: the way Goering is shown. I love Brian Cox and he was great as usual, making an excellent Goering (and even looking like him). But I had a feeling that someone writing the script was somehow fascinated by this war criminal and attempted - possibly subconsciously - to white-wash him. Goering was not a romantic character, a brave soldier by heart - he was a Nazi beast, a hateful fascist, and a cowardly murderer. Don't forget that. This is not a "good bad guy", and, if watching this movie you feel that this is the way he's shown here, remember that it is not the truth. Other than that, it's a nine star movie, definitely.

Hear ye, hear ye, 'tis the story of little Kevin: Kevin made a movie and it was well received all over the world. Then he made another movie, and then another... (you get the point) - and all of them were trashed in America and very well received in Europe. So, what did Kevin do next? Did he move to Europe? Did he made his next movie there? Nope - he decided to make a 101% American movie, directed practically only at the American audience (notice that Europe simply doesn't exist in this movie, it's like located on another planet), in hope of playing on its insultingly blatant patriotic ("overpatriotic" would be a better word) undertones, and succeding on this basis. What he *did* eventually make was a three hours overlong (no mistake here), boring, choppy, silly, naive ridiculous soap opera that - this time deservingly - got more trashing than all his previous movies combined. And it got that trashing from American critics and audience, the very ones that Kevin so hoped to convince he made a great piece of cinema! Kevin - it's no use trying to *make* someone like you: attempts to do that make people even less liked than before! I still can't see why "Water World" or "Robin Hood" took such beatings in America - they're very popular and liked in Europe, and besides, they're good movies. But "The Postman" is one of the worst movies ever made, making Ed Wood's work seem like The True Art. It deserves all the bad opinions it gets. Kevin - don't make a mistake like that again.

I still have mixed feelings about this movie. When I first saw it - on TV, in about 1985 - I was 9 years old. Having seen it, I immediately (together with my friend) love those fascinating, majestic fish. I started reading, learning and collecting everything I could find on sharks. I learned their Latin names, even though, obviously, I didn't speak Latin yet! I filled many copybooks with my notes, my drawings (and I *could* draw :), sketches and cutouts - everythingI still have mixed feelings about this movie. When I first saw it - on TV, in about 1985 - I was 9 years old. Having seen it, I immediately (together with my friend) love those fascinating, majestic fish. I started reading, learning and collecting everything I could find on sharks. I learned their Latin names, even though, obviously, I didn't speak Latin yet! I filled many copybooks with my notes, my drawings (and I *could* draw :), sketches and cutouts - everything I could find on sharks (And the task wasn't so easy for a 9 year old - these were 1980s and it was not USA with its superb libraries available!) I was fascinated by sharks - to this day they remain among my favorite animals and remember everything about them, even though I'm as far from biology and zoology as can be! And then I learned that most people's reaction to "Jaws" was not admiration and respect for those wonderful creatures that sharks are, but fear and hatred! I was shocked - how could anyone hate sharks? I was sure everyone would realize how false the very idea of "Jaws" was, and understand that the movie is nothing but a 100% untrue, unrealistic fairy tale with horror elements - a modern Brothers Grimm equivalent! But obviously, many people believed it and as a result, supported the criminal idea of killing sharks. What a sick thing to do, I thought! Couldn't they separate the truth from the movie? Didn't they know how fabulous and actually not at all aggressive toward humans sharks had always been? Apparently, they didn't... and many grew to hate sharks *because* of "Jaws"!

To sum it up - I would give the movie 9 stars for its value entertainment and minus 100 stars for what it did to sharks. My final verdict, then? I give it (? :) stars. As for the advice, I would tell you to read a few good books on sharks and watch a few good documentaries before seeing "Jaws", especially if your opinion on sharks is not favorable.