ville-5

The plot: a family man is accused of killing a prostitute and all evidence points to him - but his wife believes he's innocent and starts to investigate.

This is a mildly boring and never thrilling German TV film where the heroine stumbles to clichés from past similar films. The husband's innocence is never in doubt to the viewers and the real killer's identity was way too easy to guess. I was actually hoping for it to be a red herring and the killer to be the husband or someone else, but no. The actors do their job but it's all clinical work you'll see in most TV movies which evokes no emotion from the viewers.

Despite the SHAMELESS viral marketing here in IMDb I didn't find this documentary particularly interesting. The 'French Beauty' as a concept brings images of Bardot et al. to my mind, and France has had a long line of actresses who are easy on the eyes and some of them have even had the ability to act on the silver screen.

"French Beauty" aims to portray the beautiful French actresses yet it doesn't even mention Emmanuelle Seigner, Anouk Aimee, Julie Delpy, Virginie Ledoyen or the ageless Isabelle Adjani??? Only a few are actually interviewed but it is always interesting to see famous actors/actresses as themselves and whether they turn out to be anything you have come to expect from their performances in films. Tautou and Deneuve give some insightful comments into the subject at hand and the interviewees come up as genuine persons.

Fanny Ardant (for example) is in her fifties yet I thought she looked at most 30 and smashing when she appeared in Callas Forever. Unfortunately she's one of the many people NOT interviewed and she is featured extremely briefly.

What I really disliked in the documentary was how it pushed some no-name forgettable girl-woman in her early 20's as "the next beauty in French cinema." The docu makers really tried to sound authoritative when they declared that but it is a hollow and bogus statement. A sub-plot in this documentary follows a somewhat pouty self-indulgent girl who seeks her break in the movies. It doesn't come in the film and so far (August 2007) it hasn't come unless you count French B-movies as a break in the same league as all the other ladies featured in this doc. The whole segment, edited into short clips between all other beauties, made me actually think whether the whole documentary was made to just support her ailing career.

The film is a mishmash of many ideas that delivers, mostly At one point it is a "Megagodzilla vs. The Flying Dutchman", the next minute we're in a middle of government conspiracy, (coca)cola-drink addictions, a lame Scooby Doo lookalike dog clowning around and so on.

I sought this film purely because of Miyazaki, but I cannot say whether his contributions are visible. The animation is weak by today's standards but it easily compares to any Saturday morning cartoon of today. And speaking of the Scooby Doo one has to wonder whether this film rips off the animation series from the same year or is it vice versa...? The orchestral score is also rather good if a bit overwhelming at times.

The plot isn't very hard to follow even though it jumps all over the place from ghost stories to huge scifi battles. I especially enjoyed the purposefully idiotic "Boa-juice" advertisements, a drink that is served in a bottle that resembles the Coca-Cola bottle, but causes a severe addiction and isn't very healthy. Funny stuff, probably an intentional jab to the soft drink industry.

Also of note was the military-industrial complex conspiracy where arms manufacturers stop at nothing to create a need for their weapons. Parallels to modern day conspiracy theories aren't hard to find.

All in all this is a 1-hour action packed adventure feature that after the first few minutes keeps a fast pace to the end. Good luck hunting this obscurity!

Yes, this film is so bad in so many ways it's hilarious.

I don't want to delve to the already mentioned special effect or the craptastic actors / editing / everything. Suffice it to say that this film excels in absolutely nothing and looks more of a home video filmed probably in the film makers' homes and offices with zero budget.

What interests me more was the blatant disregard for copyrights: Not just the use of Superman character, but also the soundtrack which consisted of the original Superman theme with a couple themes ripped from James Bond films. The best part (for me) was the use of Giorgio Moroder's Oscar-winning theme from "Midnight Express", a film which portrayed Turks in a bad light. Were the film makers unaware of that and they just liked the song? Funny, whatever the answer is! If copyrights were not a problem, why didn't they just show a bootleg and dub it in Turkish? Of course the original didn't have actors with Turkish amounts of mustache, but I can't really come up with other reasons.

This film also raises the questions whether it had wide release in Turkey, what did Turks think of it (then and now), and whether it was aimed for children - little kids' films can be flimsy efforts and some of the criticism would thus be moot.

High-flying yuppie lawyer is terrorized by a phone operator to surrender his material and sex filled lifestyle and find 'zen' solace from the traditional family values.

The film is rather weak and the plot not even remotely plausible. Of course the clichéd screenplay instructs his wife to believe the anonymous letters, throwing him to the streets. She won't listen a word from him because that's the easiest way to make the viewer feel frustrated in the situation. On another occasion the lawyer mistakes a wad of money inside an envelope in a situation that is there for a few weak laughs at most. Of course that's just a 'MacGuffin' on a side plot that could have been left out in the editing - at 100+ minutes the film feels tad lengthy, mostly due slow pacing at times.

How the female operator could listen to any calls (from her home) or access the bank details and so forth from her office computer? Is she something more...divine? Later, the lawyer has to confront a black pastor whom he earlier dismissed from jury work because of his skin color. Moved by the sermon the lawyer cries, and starts to change his life for the better. Oh please...! The producers agenda is at most visible in these moments.

Aside from all that stuff I must credit Mr. Laurence whose portrayal of the slimy lawyer is quite good and he's not uncharismatic on the screen. With a worse actor this reviewer wouldn't have granted all those 3 stars to this film. All the other actors including Tobolowsky and Brion James haven't got much to do and play their parts unspectacularly.

Why this film isn't marked as straight-to-video or TV movie is puzzling, as it certainly doesn't warrant cinema screenings!

This is another East German foray to cowboy films. I've seen several and so far most of the films have portrayed the plight of Indians in the hands of ruthless white people with genocide in their minds. These films have underlined the capitalistic and imperialistic ways of the western world.

This film is quite a lot away from those. The few moments of violence is comical (think "Bud Spencer") and while few gunshots are fired they don't hit anyone. There's no Indians and no ideology is shoved down our throats as the earlier, though admittedly better, films did. The banter is mild, acting is intentionally comical, and an obnoxious kid is thrown in to help the protagonists. Every evil character is an exaggerated stereotype - easy for the kids to identify... All in all this is as family friendly as "Little House on the Prairie".

Quality-wise this is competently made and is quite unspectacular in any sense - any mediocre spaghetti would be a good comparison. The sets and props are mostly OK, the acting is OK, the story is weak. Because Dean Reed was apparently a major country star in his time, he performs a handful of c&w songs, some of them catchy. (hence the Finnish title Preerian Elvis, "Elvis of the prairie", quite apt I'd say) The songs are of course the only moments in the film where English is heard. Everyone speaks of course German and if you're accustomed to subtitled spaghetti westerns the language shouldn't be a problem here either.

All in all this is not a must-see, more of a curiosity. East German cinema wasn't after all widely seen in its day...

Most memorable moment: shooting pool on horseback!

The interesting parts in this film for me are the filmed landing/take-off operations and of course the footage of a ruined Berlin. These would have been a good basis for a documentary about the Airlift.

However, in a 2 hour feature these seem cut'n'pasted just for the sake of them. Sure, they bring a sense of realism to the story, yet and when we are for example shown in great detail how the radar systems in air traffic control work I was just thinking how few would actually appreciate this mumbo-jumbo which has nothing to do with the story. There'a 20+ minutes of material begging to be left to the cutting floor. The story itself is simple and doesn't warrant two hour running time.

Was the production done in a haste? For example the engine scare at the end is meant to be a terrifying experience yet it was boring at best - all due to poor editing and of course amateur acting. The latter was maybe the only choice as Berlin at the time didn't have the glamour to attract actors to maybe even risk their lives in a low-key production.

The film itself is a typical piece of propaganda of the times. We're reminded many times why the American way is the only way as Kowalski and Gerda have their rather childish conversations about democracy. A film about a serious matter - famine - isn't really good material for laughs anyway yet the Kowalski character is written to be the comical sidekick, (un)fortunately his character isn't written very well and the jokes fizzle most of the time.

If the film had pursued more of the serious sub-plot of Kowalski's hatred at his stalag tormentor this film could have offered much more. But his brutal assault is quickly forgotten and never mentioned again.

All in all this film has a B-grade feeling and what I really did like was the authentic setting. Post-war Berlin was much more hard-hitting and more insightfully depicted a few years earlier in Rossellini's "Germania anno zero", told from a German boy's perspective. This is a curiosity piece, but definitely not a must-see.

The documentary is well enough made to be entertaining from start to finish. And it's good that once again the cold war politics of the time with Kennedy and Khrushchev are told as they are a somewhat essential backdrop for the accident and what follows. Also the ex-commander of the K-19 gives his thoughts how he expected Kreml to react to all. Very interesting stuff.

The documentary is informative and to the point. The failure in the nuclear reactor is depicted in layman's terms, as are the actions of the sub and crew before and after the accident with professional actors staging them. It's easy to dismiss but also the outdoor (CGI?) shots of the sub are well made and at least I didn't think that they were unnecessary, especially at the end where two subs are side by side there's a feeling that one is watching a film, not a documentary. Whether a documentary should include such shots is open for debate...

What I didn't like in this and many others documentaries is the voice-over work. I would rather listen to the interviewee to speak in his own language and read the subtitles - it feels much more authentic than the broken Russo-English the voice over actors speak. In other documentaries where Asians are interviewed, their voices are replaced by American voices who sound like stereotypical Asian-Americans. I don't consider subtitles in any way inferior to dubbing - except maybe in children's programs whose audience may be not able to read yet.

This isn't a ground-breaking documentary in any way but as the first and only(?) documentary of the said accident it fascinates all the way to the end. I haven't seen the Harrison/Neeson movie that came out in the same year, but it would be interesting to see how much it deviates from this doc...

A bunch of Canadian Jewish dudes travel all the way to Memphis, TN to check whether Elvis was Jewish. His great-grandmother was Jewish so Elvis would also be Jewish according to Jewish law Elvis would be a Jew too.

This travelogue of sorts is a seemingly pointless documentary as the only people who is interested in Elvis's religion is only the film director and Schmelvis, a not so good Elvis impersonator who performs Elvis's songs with Jewish twist in an unspectacular fashion. The crew interviews several people around Graceland and people generally think that this is a non-issue that only the film crew is interested in. The accompanying rabbi steals the show with his edgy and down to earth views - he thinks the trip is delightful but useless as the film makers haven't prepared the trip at all with any sort of research. I agree.

While the documentary is - at best - inconclusive about the subject, it manages to entertain throughout as the film makers know very well from the beginning that they lack focus. Proving that Elvis was or was not a Jewish is really useless because his life didn't revolve around religion. If they had a scoop that some famous anti-semitic person had Jewish heritage or a prominent Jew had dubious links to Judaism.

Offbeat-character interviewing off-beat characters is what this film amounts to in the end and manages to be entertaining in its 76 minute runtime.

Jalmari Helander continues his series of short fantasy films with Fakiiri (The Fakir), and this seems more polished and more to the point than his previous films. Helander has filmed unordinary stories before with Santa Claus hunters in "Rare Exports" and this film doesn't stray from that path although this isn't as popcornish than "Rare Exports" with less dialogue and lack of clichés.

The story features a guardian angel (Jorma Tommila playing pretty much his usual character), who unlike the archetypal Frank Capra angels in films and TV shows, is rude and seemingly not very protective of his protégé, the fakir (Manninen) who does very dangerous tricks in his shows.

The film relies on this twisted guardian angel theme and in the end is really about (not) taking responsibility of your own life.

There's really nothing negative I can come up regarding this film. The cinematography, lightning, props and even the credits provide a believable atmosphere of early 20th century rural Finland, and the film is certainly not stretched in its 10+ minute runtime.

This documentary tries its best to discredit Robert Capa, who was maybe the most important wartime photographer ever.

His famous photo about a mortally wounded soldier in the Spanish civil war is claimed to be a fake. The documentary shows us a very similar photo with just a different man dying. Without ANY expert opinions from researchers or anyone else this is just innuendo. Was it really a fake? Did Capa or someone else re-create the shot? I don't know. The documentary throws questions in the air without really even trying to answer them.

In the start the narrator tells us that Magnum Photos - the photo agency Capa established and which owns the copyrights to his photos - declined to help in the making of this program, probably because of the negative (pun unintentional) portrayal. The narrator also tells that Magnum scared all the other interviewees away from this project - WHAT A JOKE! Magnum has a very creditable status and a large photo archive but this is not a Scientology organization that resorts to scare tactics! The interviewees are limited to John G. Morris - a friend and colleague of Capa who doesn't give a very insightful commentary - his part is to just identify Capa from old pictures or some (admittedly interesting) archive reels.

I happened to watch this documentary straight after a more thorough glimpse of Capa's life in "Robert Capa: In Love and War" which portrays Capa in a completely different view and gives a great perspective to compare both. While neither is a complete biography nor even tries to be such, this French documentary makes me appreciate the aforementioned US documentary even more in how it lets the Capa's old friends and work mates to tell their stories whereas this one relies almost completely on a narrative. One WW2 veteran told an especially memorable story how in a middle of a heated battle in 1944 in France he met Capa who calmly smoked a cigarette and discussed about Tolstoy's literature, and how he never again met Capa.

There are of course some points in both documentaries that tell the same parts in completely different light. I'm talking 180 degrees here...

For example there is a shot of Capa taking a bath. The US documentary has one of his friends tell us that he came in Capa's apartment to ask for work in Magnum and took the picture. The narrator in this documentary talks how "it took several hours for Capa to get into his role as Robert Capa in the morning" while showing the same picture in the background.

Another thing is Capa's death in a Vietnam. The French documentary claims that Capa was a depressive little man with a deathwish and stepping to a mine that killed him was a logical end to his life. The US documentary tells that he was just marching along with US troops and unfortunately happened to step to a land mine.

The points I give are for some interesting archive reel shorts that were not on the better documentary. This documentary could be of interest to those who want to analyze faux documentaries.

David Hamilton got it right in his last film (so far) when he omitted the plot and dialogue and focused on what he does better than anyone else - photography of scantily clad late teenage girls on the brink of womanhood. "Not a girl, not yet a woman" embodied in this film.

Although the theme carries the film, the apparently detached scenes have a fitting conclusion in the end.

The film is clearly a photographer's work. Whether we are treated with a picture of fields in early morning mist, a girl washing her hair or just her sleeping, these are professionally set-up compositions to look like a photograph. Hamilton uses soft focus everywhere, (the film is not meant to be an example of high definition cinema at all, although I'm sure the film print I saw was much better than the previous reviewer's experience) creating a hazy, dreamy look on everything and the color contrasts between the more or less tanned girls, their clothes and surroundings accentuate the sensuality of the girls and the situations between them. Many times the camera and subjects are still for long periods of time or the camera pans slowly through the scene, reminding me in some weird way of some of the works of Andrei Tarkovsky..! Hamilton even uses still photos a couple of times for no reason at all, being somewhat of a letdown for me.

The sound quality was fine and the simple piano/synth music was MOST of the time unobtrusive and supported the action on screen.

The subject is not only a male fantasy, but also a very innocent look into a girls' fantasy world as well: a worry-free perpetual Indian summer filled with sunny days and gentle breezes, flower garlands, auburn sunsets, skinny dipping without a hint of self-consciousness, ballet training and horseback riding, a touch of clumsy boys and playful sensuality (not sexuality!) amongst the girls - all done in a very tasteful manner and utmost respect at the subjects without exploiting them.

Hamilton has done a fine job directing the girls to behave in their natural feminine way without much pretense. The girls are highly photogenic when they appear to gaze into nothingness, apparently deep in their thoughts.

I cannot imagine anyone doing films like these anymore.

This is a documentary about Ali and Linda who have been married for about 15 years and have seven kids ranging from infant to late teens. The angle in the documentary is that Ali is a Qatari and Linda is/was a US citizen.

Linda has adapted to the foreign culture pretty well and turned from Christianity to Islam before their marriage and accepts almost all the restriction the Qatar society puts on her: what she must (not) wear and how she spends her time outside home, which seems to be just watching TV with her sister-in-law and all the ordinary housewife things.

Ali however hasn't strayed from the Qatar way of life: he loves his family but seems to spend more time with his friends, jogging or business trips and the kids are left completely on Linda's burden. They have even made an arrangement where Ali promises to spend every other evening with his family yet he slips from that very often.

The kids are brought up as bi-lingual Qataris who are quite aware of their mother's origin but are brought up in an Islamic fashion. The teenage son doesn't feel it's right for his little sisters to attend gymnastics classes because of the dress code. 'A woman who would walk down the street not wearing burka would be considered crazy'. Whether he's been taught this way or not is unclear as later in the doc we can see his father at a bar ogling at a lightly clothed young woman and praising the view - and immediately saying that it's great that the young woman is acting as she does, and saying that it would be strictly out of the question if his family members would act that way. Double standards anyone? That moment made me also think how great beaches Qatar must have yet no-one really can use them! There's a hint of sadness in Linda throughout the film. She feels somewhat under-appreciated by Ali and uses instant messaging daily with her mother through the internet. As she doesn't speak Arabian her children have a special bond with their father and it seemed to me that she feels herself a little bit of an outsider. For example, she converses with her oldest daughter - who's about to turn 18 - how her daughter would feel about arranged marriage with a complete stranger and Linda, who doesn't approve such things, is stymied about her daughter's reaction as she doesn't oppose the idea, stoically saying "that's how it is." It made me feel she didn't really know her daughter that well.

And when her mother gets sick Linda breaks down in front of the camera, her mother being probably the only person who she can talk about with an open heart. She's also a bit fixated about how her life was back in the states and longs back to her home country - evident from viewing old photos and in the end deciding to go see her mother.

The documentary style is quite intrusive yet the subjects seem to be quite at ease with it as the camera records several close family moments between all the members, and everyone except the older girls have their moments to let out their thoughts.

Tom mistakes Jerry for an escaped lab mouse which will produce an a-bomb proportioned explosion even with the slightest hit. Violently funny situations occur as the white bleached Jerry torments Tom by threatening to fall down or hit himself with a claw hammer, and of course he loses the bleach without realizing it, quite predictably I might add.

I'm unsure whether I've seen Jerry get this much hammering (literally) in any of these cartoons. Usually it's Tom who suffers but this time he only gets the token iron on his face and some of that hammering as well. What really struck me was that the real lab mouse - a cute and benevolent little rodent without the violent streak Jerry has - in the explodes in Tom's face and while Tom survives the blast that wrecks at least the house (or even the city?), the lab mouse apparently goes to meet its creator.

I don't know whether Hanna/Barbera acknowledged this problem in this kids' film, but this is pretty shocking to me. Nobody really don't die in these films unless were talking about Itchy and Scratchy, and even if they do, we're shown how their souls leave their body and ascend/descend to heaven/hell in some amusing way, but at least they're back in the next film.

The lab mouse never resurrected.

Yes, "Kitty Foiled" was somewhat better than this cartoon with its nonstop action and gags, but this cartoon is still above average T&J cartoon, even compared to the ones made earlier than this.

What really caught my attention was how much this cartoon borrows from the "Fast and Furry-ous", the first (and in 1952 the only so far) Road Runner cartoon combined with some elements from Sylvester and Tweety shorts.

This time the canary moves to a bird's nest located on a high pole which should be a familiar element to most who have seen Sylvester chasing Tweety.

The Road Runner references are easier to spot. Although Tom doesn't have ACME tools, he really tries to get to the nest in numerous unlucky ways à la Wile E. Coyote, until he invents wings. He also flashes the trademark grin of the coyote at the camera just before he hits that mail box...

All these non-dissimilar cartoons had of course the same central element (The Chase), but I can't really tell whether I prefer one over the others.

Best part first: this film is so bad it's good.

This film tells a story of a young bright medical student Fred who has a dark secret - he's a peeping tom! Fred feels guilty of his arousal when he sees female flesh - so he goes regularly to a shrink who guides Fred into the all-American chaste way of chaste living and the viewers are really hammered with the antiquated biblical virtues.

Of course all this psychological stuff and the storyline is just an facade. While the plot may sound like any of those idiotic teen education films from the period, it is just an excuse to show all the racy parts! The story goes like those reader's letters in the 60's adult magazines: Fred gets to meet several girls in this film, and they have several reasons to release their ample (D-cups sighted!) and juicy chests for us to ogle and most of the time they also like to stretch their arms for full effect. (which is nice) The film is riddled with bad acting and idiotic directing. Many times the actors speak their lines but what we're hearing is Fred's inane narration instead. Also whenever there's a non-dialogue moment (ie. undressing, bouncy moments and the like) some generic basement bar jazz is being played - there's three or four tunes and some were catchy enough to get my fingers tapping.

Basically there's two things that separates this from most of Russ Meyers films: incompetence in film making and lack of wanton women with truly humongous mammary glands.

Noora is a little rural girl who is paralyzed waist-down while playing with her big brother Aziz, who is just a small boy himself as well. Despite the title, the film follows Aziz in his quest to get his sister well again, because Aziz feels guilty about the accident. He firmly believes that getting Noora to a magical place in top of a mountain she will recover.

The kids play their part surprisingly naturally and well and Aziz's mental and physical struggle feels very real. Whether or not Noora recovers at the end isn't the point. The voyage there is what matters. Whether Aziz transforms into a man, finds his belief, or whatever is left for the viewer to resolve.

The film is quite competently made. I especially liked the score and that the writer hasn't packed too much dialogue in the film, instead giving more room for the cinematography - which shows pretty well what a cool misty autumn forest really is like.

This is definitely not just a kids' film.

I don't know where to start...

There's few people interviewed in this E! Entertainment styled, very superficial program. Too bad that Page, Plant and Bonham (well, him obviously) only appear in short archive footage clips from the 70's. John Paul Jones gets no exposure at all!

The interviewed are mostly their old road managers, engineers and Page's ex-girlfriends without anything insightful to add, just talking superlatives any fan could give: "Bonham was the best drummer ever", "Page was a complete guitarist" and so on. The ex-girlfriends mostly contribute in telling how they met him and what a genuine person he was and blah blah.

Studio albums are handled incredibly quickly! Zeppelin 1 gets some attention and the rest are handled in a fast forward fashion, except the 3rd album where we are momentarily stopped to awe the greatness of Stairway. Most latter albums are mentioned by their names - nothing more.

Those aside I found it pretty funny/sad how the documentary include a clip where Page tells that he attended (before the formation of Led Z) to muzak sessions where he had to play some non-stop non-inspiring music, and how he loathed that "crappy elevator music". Combine that with the fact that a documentary about one of the most influential rock bands ever doesn't have any music from Led Zeppelin. Instead some soft generic guitar MUZAK that might or might not resemble anything by LZ is playing on the background from start to finish. And when Elvis is mentioned the muzak slightly resembles his 'Suspicious Minds'.

Of course a 45-minute "A to Z" Zeppelin documentary is going to be poor. A more complete documentary would have to be much longer.

update: Having now seen a documentary "The Van Halen Story: Early Years" from the same people I'm convinced that the director/producer Mr. McLaughlin is only interested in making a quick buck with this lowlife format he has copied from those trashy E! Entertainment shows. Must have McLaughed all the way to the bank!

The documentary portrays Letizia Battaglia, a chain-smoking woman from Palermo who has been a professional photographer most of her life. She has specialized to photographing mafia victims and mafioso's but she also photographs girls "because of the little girl inside her". To photograph countless grotesque sights of murdered people you need something to balance that - "shooting" innocent girls couldn't be further from that. (sorry for the bad pun!)

She has also been active to her hometown politics where corruption has always been high. (then again whole Italy isn't a known for being corruption-free country) She pats her own back for managing to introduce a local law for preservation and restoration of century-old buildings and churches in the city when they were going to be demolished. And I agree with her: I'm not a church-goer but judging from the photography I envy the citizens of Palermo for having those picturesque and grand buildings. We really have nothing like that where I come from.

To the poster of the earlier comment: the lady is 70 but she still photographs and her mind is still fully working. The documentary wasn't that touching nor did I find any intentions for such film-making. It only gave insight how she has dedicated her life for something important in the society and how she has left her mark on the world.

Before the seeing this documentary I knew that the probes are heading to 'where no man has gone before' with a "greeting card" made of pictures and sounds for the aliens attached. I had a fuzzy idea what the looked or sounded like. Now I know.

Although it is interesting to hear the selected pieces of music, sounds of nature and wildlife and of course man's voice, it's more interesting to know why they were selected and what was omitted - and why. The NASA officials whose approval was needed to everything had silly politically correct attitude and couldn't send pornography to space - referring to the earlier Pioneer probes that had a drawing of a naked pair of a man and a woman. Think about it: if an alien contact would be made, would it be shameful to let them know how our genitalia looks like? Or would the aliens first take people to court for flashing? Ridiculous thinking, but then again, the current administration could even be more strict than back then...

Against this kind of moral up-tightness I find it pleasing that the music recordings is maybe the most universal collection ever put together coming from all continents ranging from tribal to classic to contemporary music.

One of the people on the film states that it is very unlikely the probes will ever be found by anyone. Maybe it was more important for us to have these things sent to the unknown and have a sense of unity around the globe. The film closes on sounds of greetings in dozens of languages including those from the "red" countries. I don't read poetry but that was poetic to me.

Tom is given an ultimatum once again, he's out for good if the house is not clean when his master comes back from shopping.

OK, it's pretty much like the first Tom & Jerry short "Puss Gets the Boot", except for not breaking things it's about not dirtying things: Tom cleans and scrubs while Jerry does the exact opposite. It's not too hard to guess how it'll end...

The artwork is not bad if not anything to write home about and there are a couple funny sight gags, like Tom kissing his masters finger. Whenever these cartoons brought a new character to the screen (s)he had a purpose, be it a rival cat or a love-stricken buzzard. This one has a horse that could have been something but stays in the picture for 10 seconds doing nothing - either the writers lacked imagination or the animator thougth that a hay-eating-horse is the funniest thing on earth.

On a positive side Tom has probably never had a more feline moment when he goes to sleep and stretches his feet and toes. If you own a cat you'll know what I mean when you see the moment.

Although Jerry has tormented Tom in every cartoon, in this cartoon his anarchistic malice, especially pouring the ink into the cleaning water reminded me a lot of Harpo's pranks in those Marx films, where Harpo could shred unsuspecting peoples clothes and paperwork with a big smile.

So there. It's worth a look and not that bad as I may make it sound, just average.

Sure, this short has its moments and the animation is OK. The score is also fine with music arranged on what happens on the screen. It's not the worst Tom and Jerry cartoon.

Because Tom and Jerry don't speak these cartoons have to rely on visual gags and there's the problem with this cartoon - the writing. The gags are mostly not very funny and they're stretched too long. For example the first two minutes are spent showing Tom listening to a ghost story and being spooked by it - sounds boring and that's what it is.

About the previous reviewers... What were they on - and where can I get it? The plot outline in the main page is correct. There's a short gag about Tom's nine lives being 'sucked out' of him; there's also a short chase after Tom has figured out that Jerry is just trying to scare him. The only thing I agree with them is that the cartoon is "good and fun for the kids"! :)

Having watched all Kuran's rather remarkable documentaries about atomic madness that seem to cover pretty much everything about the US a-bomb program, this last one of the series is probably the weakest.

Although I understand that Adam West falls to the same category as William Shatner in how their careers have worked out since Batman and Star Trek, the latter was much better narrator in all the other a-bomb docs.

Shatner's voice builds up a certain kind of enthusiasm in the viewer with his calm voice whereas Adam sounds like he's straining to sound more dramatic than his voice naturally sounds like. The crazy/beautiful pictures of the nuclear mishaps and explosions are an enough dramatic thriller already and Adam's voice just distracts the viewer.

This film like all the other of the series contain pretty awesome pictures and trivia of how close US came to some major megaton-scale accidents in their home turf and in Europe too. Unfortunately this film doesn't give too much information about how the accidents affect the world today with contaminated soil and radiation, and some accidents are covered with much more detail than others.

The movie follows a 10-year-old boy Benji, his two brothers and a father in a wartime France.

The father has trouble keeping his pants on with women and as the boys' mother dies at the start of the film, he starts to neglect the boys and their needs gradually as he spends most of the time womanizing and trying to work as a columnist. So the film is about relationships and human behaviour, and how kids understand these things different to grown-ups.

The actors do their job very well: Benji's role is challenging as he has lot to say but the actor is very natural and interact very believably with his hot-tempered yet intellectual father Claude and his mistresses Dora and the somewhat naive Maité.

Although this is TV film, it oozes quality in direction, acting and art direction and could very well have been shown in cinemas.

This documentary follows a bunch of orphaned Sudanese young men, who are sent to Boston as refugees because of the raging civil war.

Having come from VERY basic conditions in their nomad village, their grasp of English isn't very good, and they need to learn from the start how to live their day-to-day life in a society completely different to what they are used to.

Before their flight to Boston they are taught very superficially two things: How to use a toilet (most have never used one), and to comply if an officer tells you to stop, because "he might think you're taking out a gun". Sounds nice, eh? In Boston they're treated well but sadly their orienteering isn't getting any better. The immigration personnel isn't making a very good contact with the guys, who are already distracted with home sickness and the big change in their life.

Eventually they apply for work and are given menial jobs like standing in front of a hotel entrance and smiling to customers. Sounds pitiful but unfortunately they cannot expect much more since they are not familiar with the social skills in the western world and they really don't speak the language yet.

The documentary stops a bit abruptly, and after the Africa part the men don't talk to the camera and we don't really get to know what they are thinking about.

Despite this the documentary is insightful and lets the viewer really understand that the change from Africa to America isn't just the different climate.