Vlad_the_Reviewer

The storyline is as follows: a family is evicted from a village for being too Puritan. They end up alone is a field close to a forest and setup their new home. The baby is kidnapped by a witch and turned into a witch brew, another boy of said family is seduced by a younger witch and through a slow process killed after he returned to his family. Whilst this is going on, the family gets increasingly tensed: the elder sister feels guilty for having lost the baby under her supervision, the father for having sold mom's golden cup for badly needed hunting gear, the mom is upset for the loss of her golden cup because of emotional value, the remaining two young kids build up a mistrust against their elder sister. The family falls apart, they end up dead and the elder sister gets lured into becoming a witch herself by Satan, who hid in the shape of their black pet goat.

And that's it. You'd think it would be obvious that the influence of the witches destabilized their family, and of course such is the case, but that reason was very weakly implemented. This family could have easily been destabilized by events far less mystical. The kidnappings by the witches was just an arbitrary angle to the story. Again, in reality, nothing happened, other than a family increasingly becoming dysfunctional and a few cool shots with witches (three short scenes in total, so don't get your hopes up).

The movie is rated "R" for disturbing images and explicit nudity. I honestly have no clue what disturbing images they were aiming at. And the little bit of nudity was done so clinically, it's not worth mentioning. I hope it says a lot coming from me, because usually I complain about unnecessary nudity in movies.

More people than I have imagined seem to like jump-scares, and this is not that kind of a movie (thankfully, I despise that cheap technique). Nor is it a slasher though what happened to the baby leaves only little to your imagination. so no slashing and no jump-scaring, instead it was a slow movie trying to have a developing story towards the climax. That's the keyword here, slow.

Technically it's all fine, though I heard some complaints about the music or sound. My only complaint is the sound at the very end where the witches gather and chant their evil chants. The sound was too much post-processed, making it sound as if the microphone was too close to them. But other than that, that final scene was cool. So technically a minor glitch there is the message I was trying to bring across. Acting and whatnot was fine too.

So that's it. Another movie with great, but unused potential. My main complaint, to conclude, is that instead of being it a witch movie, it looked more like a family drama which had a few witches in it to keep your attention. I gave it a 4/10 because it needs two more notches to make it into anything but a slow paced drama.

Right, where do I even begin.

The movie is incredibly dumbed down and the script was equally flawed.

Magneto allowed himself to be captured by ordinary people, whilst he could have ended it right there and then with his super powers. Instead he surrenders (what?) which triggered clumsiness that resulted in the loss of his family. He chose a simple life at a factory to keep a low profile. Since he's raising a a family now you'd think he'd use his abilities to accomplish a better life for them and still keep a low profile. But again, common sense is not welcome in this movie.

For some reason Angel and Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler) are captured by ordinary people too. It was only to cater to an irrelevant side story, which wasn't explored anyway.

Josh Helman (Col. Stryker) was 29 at the shooting and was a colonel already... At his age he should pushing pencils to prove himself as a young Lieutenant or something. Anyway, he's Colonel here, yet earlier franchises, which represent a later time-line (!) he'll be a Major. So he'll lose two ranks in the future! It's one of the many overlooked inconsistencies.

Nightcrawler can't escape from cages all of a sudden. For some reasons top military bunkers is no problem but not metal cages. You'll immediately realize this was another entirely unnecessary approach to a story line.

Far more inconsistencies exist surrounding Wolverine's appearance, but you can read all about it on the internet. There are so many errors, it's undo-able to put them all in a review like this.

Acting wise Josh Helman didn't convince at all. It's not clear to me why he was hired to begin with. Jennifer Lawrence under-performed heavily as well. It's painfully obvious she was in here for face recognition only. She indicated she grew tired of playing Mystique already. James McAvoy (Charles Xavier) does his usual thing. Fassbender is lucky because of his awesome charisma, but frankly his performance was underwhelming too.

It looks like the director simply didn't care anymore. Sound wise, shooting, acting, he went for the bare minimum only. This is perfectly demonstrated in the character of Apocalypse; other than a promising start, nothing impressive comes from his end. You'd anticipate Apocalypse would put up more than a nice fight, as powerful as he supposedly is, yet his character remained entirely underwhelming.

Also the Auschwitz-milking remains part of the standard Hollywood formula. Action scenes lack inspiration too. It has become a bore.

I advice to wait and obtain the movie later to keep your collection complete, but otherwise don't bother.

Better of Ted is a slightly more intelligent comedy show. Don't worry, it's quite accessible if you're too tired to think. At the same time you're not treated like an idiot. It's about the wacky little adventures and mannerisms in a department of a high tech company.

The jokes aren't entirely one dimensional and are good enough to give you a few good chuckles per episode. I like the characters, two nerdy scientists, a manager, an office worker and even a higher manager, which is the awesome looking Portia de Rossi with her "power hair" to accentuate her cold heart. Those are the main characters.

It quickly becomes apparent that sex and sexual tension will be a big deal throughout the season, though the first season didn't push it to the limits. Season two however goes over the top. It became annoying fast, and besides that, the jokes were far less amusing. To me it was clear the writers were out of ideas.

The first season started off problematic in a different area: the first three to five episodes were loaded with Jewish and pro-gay references for no other reason than that a big part of the production is Jewish (and probably gay too). But somewhere as of the fifth episode or so, this annoyance was drastically reduced and often even absent. So I figure somebody intervened at some point, noticing it went out of hand.

Clever series are most welcome and this one was well on its way to be just that. But then it lost its momentum entirely. That's the main reason I couldn't rate this title beyond five stars. The second season wasn't going in any direction - it was merely dragging it out with more sex and relationship "jokes".

I never thought I'd do this, but here it goes: I didn't finish the movie, yet I'm writing a review. It was always against my policy to write a review if I didn't see an installment multiple times entirely. Here's my attempt to explain what's so bad about this movie.

Let me first say that the overall production value is good, the coloring scheme, lenses, filters, that was all quite nice. At the same time, this is where the good parts end for me.

The movie throws you back into the age of ultra-heroic spy-dom during the cold war. I've been told the movie was supposed to be campy just like many movies were in those days. However, campiness has been confused with corniness and bad jokes. Nor do I think any of the main actors cared. It's not the actors, it's the lack of direction, I'm sure of it.

Two spies, one from the west and the other from mother Russia are forced to work together after having fought each other in the opening scenes. The result of their forced cooperation is that one tries to outwit the other through futile bickering. Just like Arnold Schwarznegger in the 80's flick Red Heat. "My gun is bigger than yours." Or something like that.

Times sure have changed because nowadays our spies bicker whether a Dior dress goes with a Rabanne belt. I kid you not. An attempt to make them communicate like shopping girls ended up in a cringe-worthy performance. I think this scene has been created within the context of Hollywood's ongoing push for the gay agenda on top of attempts to emasculate the men by denying the differences of the genders. Clearly this part of the feminist lobby made it to Hollywood as well.

From here on the movie overloads us with endless bickering between the formerly competing spies.

It became clear quickly that this movie is as predictive as a movie can be. The fights à la Matt Damon's Bourne franchise is glued together with cut-scenes, cam shakes and bad zooming, merely creating an illusion of capable fighting. But it's obvious to the viewer they don't know what they're doing. Car chases are like you'd expect them to be in a predictable movie, which includes driving the car in a too narrow street, only to be held back by the walls exactly where a window of a house aligns with the side window of the car so they can escape. And that's exactly how our hero American spy planned it off-course.

The crooks and heroes are indistinguishable because the only requirement seems to be that the men need to look like dress-men. One is replaceable by the other - you won't even notice nor would you care. Not to mention the horrific attempts at speaking English with a Russian accent, or the attempts at speaking German, which produced a barely understandable Germanic gobbledygook from three thousand years ago. I don't mind a lack of pronunciation - who cares right? - but the scenes insisted on itself, and that makes it different. Also, miss Vikander's role is that of an (east) German decent, yet she is not required to speak English with a German accent; double standards and inconsistency right here, as with almost everything in the movie.

After bickering scene #53 and smugness scene #78 I couldn't take it anymore and stopped watching. There's a market for this and I wish those viewers lots of fun, but those who read my reviews know it's not for me.

I rated the movie only a few stars because I'm convinced the executive producer(s) and the director didn't even try. Enough money was thrown in to make it visually decent, but that alone doesn't work for me.

Hello viewer. I watched this movie as it was tagged with "Mystery" amongst others. I like mystery, and don't mind additional tags such as "drama" at all. I regret watching it - wasting time. I'll explain in a moment.

First the facts. The movie is about a man in his mid-life years who shaves off his mustache, yet nobody notices the difference. In fact, everybody claims he didn't have a mustache for the past 15 years. Even though we see physical evidence such as recent pictures. We even see him shaving off his mustache. From here on our star sinks into a life of confusion and mental agony.

I can't help revealing the end to outline the criticism I have. The end basically leaves us in an ambiguous state. Was it all real? Is he going crazy, first signs of Alzheimer, mid-life crisis? We do not receive any answers and that is absolutely unforgivable. Because a potential "big reveal" is all the movie had going for.

The pace is slow - to end up with nothing. With that I mean that much of the time spent is for our star to ask around if they notice any difference. We got the message after twenty minutes, but it kept dragging on. This movie could have been easily shortened by fifty percent, and it still would have retained its main narrative of ambiguity.

So there it is, one sits through this slow movie only to be left with zero answers. The plot is that you have to make up your own reasons. I'm sorry but that will simply not do.

I have two good things to say about the movie. First being the music. Philip Morris Glas' nihilistic classic music is really nice if you like classic music. For this movie it reminded me a bit of Vivaldi's "Spring". Whilst liking this, one may complain that it's too heavy, and the complaint might be justified indeed. The second thing I appreciate is the decent camera-job. The budget was "only" about five million Euros, yet we were not treated with shaky handycam like so many low-ish budget films do. Lighting, angles, lenses, it all was more or less OK. Meaning, watching the movie was mostly easy on the eye.

For the good things, I rated the movie three stars. The lack of context and answers truly infuriated me. It's not that I desperately need answers, but I have been given absolutely nothing. For example John Carpenters' "The Thing" leaves us in an ambiguous state of the fate of the two survivors. But the ending is satisfying nevertheless because no matter what, those two are in deep trouble. Also, what happened wasn't their imagination, it all was real. So no mystery there. Such context was not the case with "La Moustache".

Sorry to be this negative, but the truth is, I think, that this movie was a standard project to bait the kind of critics who love "deep" movies. And it worked; for example it won the Directors' Fortnight Award. It's not much, but that's how the game works.

Warning, this review will be very critical so read at your own discretion.

Upstream Color, kind of falsely classified as a Science Fiction, is a fantasy drama about two people affected by a mysterious blue substance which allows them to be manipulated in a trance like state. They are fed a ringworm which leeches of the consciousness of its human hosts. The victims are manipulated into handing over their valuables.

The mastermind behind all this is called "The Thief". There's an interloper though: a person called "The Sampler". He figured out how to manipulate these people as well, and does so for his own pleasure.

At a higher level this movie addresses free will, connectivity with each other and nature. It's about two people who try to better themselves. At tangible level you won't receive any answers. It's unknown what the blue substance is, which transforms the worm into a conscious-leeching insect. It's unknown how The Thief got hold on that knowledge, it's unclear how both The Thief and The Sampler control the minds of the infected people. It's unclear what The Samplers motivation is to aimlessly play with his victims. Again, at metaphysical level I could think of a few reasons, but metaphysics is not what I'm questioning. Not providing any of these answers in the slightest is cheap in my book. Especially when the director tags it as "Science Fiction" he's misinforming his crowd.

At deeper level, things do make sense to me. I understand the metaphor of the conscious leeching worm (see Spider Wasp for a good example). The pigs and their piglets, as connectors for our protagonists to behave like distressed parents when the piglets are murdered. I recognize the life cycle from water to plant to mammals to death to water again. Rinse and repeat and the mysterious blue substance is a vessel for that cycle. And I do recognize The Sampler for what he is: a binding entity between all the elements, spiritual and natural. And I do understand that our protagonists are bettering themselves by freeing themselves from their antagonists.

This movie, though unnecessarily slow, could have been very watchable for more viewers if only it would have been executed decently. The beer budget of $50,000 is not it. Even on that budget Shane Caruth (yes, him) could have purchased a few camera stabilizers. He didn't, so we're stuck with shaky-cam footage; very annoying and for me largely unwatchable, mostly because I simply don't want to. Then there are the cuts: supposedly artistic, but I rather call it frantic. For example too much zooming-in (along with shaking), cutting halfway through objects, and the usual cliché art-house pretentiousness.

Shane Caruth himself didn't improve on his acting since Primer either: it's the way he talks. Doesn't finish sentences, stops halfway and then restarts, lots of "uh", "ah" - which is his trademark by now I'm sure - and then finally he finishes the sentence (or simply doesn't). This is what art students do with their iPhone. It doesn't belong in a movie I'm supposed to pay for.

So there's that. The shaky-cam and idiotic zooming is the worst culprit of them all. In Primer, Shane Caruth admittedly made things artificially more complex by adding unclear origins of some parallel dimensions and by introducing a red herring. Now in this movie things are made more complex because of a technical awkward implementation. The sloth of the movie becomes a challenge too as implied earlier. It wasn't implemented artsy at all: we were staring at things for too long and too many dialogs were moot.

I simply can't recommend this movie to anyone unless you're a freak like me. Hence the rating of 4 out of 10, meaning it needs two full notches before it becomes decent to look at. Story wise it's nice though, but it won't save the movie. Not to me that is.

The movie is about a programmer, Caleb, who won a lottery to perform the Turing-test on a robot called Ava at the secluded mansion of his employer, Nathan. The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.

The testing is done through a series (sessions) of conversations between Caleb and Ava. When we meet Ava, I was struck by her beauty, and observing the comments online, many are as well. But this is where my first criticism starts: the movie is over-sexualized. I'm the very opposite of a feminist. But this movie heavily abused its creative license: the amounts of nudity and sexual innuendo went far beyond reason.

The second disappointment of this movie is its predictability. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but it's not hard to imagine what's really going on and how it could end up. There won't be any significant surprises. Although a plot-twist will occur, it isn't enough to bring the movie to a higher level.

The third problem I want to address are the flaws in this movie. Especially at the end - the finale if you will. Not to mention that some events were just silly. Its one of those occasions where some people are made stupid so the other looks more intelligent.

The biggest challenge of this movie is its slow pace. A big part of the conversations between Ava the fembot and Caleb are simply not interesting, i.e. the conversations don't add value. Just to be clear, having the conversations is the bread and butter of this movie, but too often the things that are said don't hold much substance. The gist has been made clear, so no need to drag it on.

So far the negatives. Of course there are the positives. First of all, the setting in general, though somewhat cramped is easy on the eye.

The second positive thing, far more important, is that this movie is is somewhat thought provoking indeed. It tries to be an intelligent movie; Ex Machina is pop-science which clearly caters to a younger audience. The viewer is not expected to be a deep thinker per se.

I'm neutral about the acting, though Ava, again, steals the show because of her overall demeanor; the right person at the right place.

I rate it 4 out of 10 stars because the slow pace holds the movie back quite a bit. And the amounts of nudity is simply too much. It's also too pretentious; it's not that smart. Finally the dialogs are mostly not very illuminating either.

You probably saw Centurion and figured this might be a nice movie as well. I have read on the Internet that this is the better movie as it was more realistic. I, being immersed in the study of the Roman empire, ignored IMDb's average score of 6.2 and had a go at it.

The Eagle (Aquila) is one of the standards a legion carries with them during war. Losing the Aquila, even dropping it, would bring a huge shame upon the unit. Legend has it that an entire legion full of fear hesitated to leave their ships. The bearer of the standard (Aquilifer) left his ship to march forward on his own. Now the legion decided to make haste as they didn't want to abandon the Aquila.

In this movie the (in)famous Ninth Legion lost the Aquila, probably because they lost a battle. The son of this Legion's commander, a Centurion himself tries to undue the shame his father induced by retrieving The Eagle. How he knows the Eagle was dropped is not explained in the movie as the entire Ninth disappeared.

This movie builds on the mysterious reasons for the disappearance of the Ninth. Losing the Aquila was the catalyst to get the story going.

A centurion enters a base in Northern England to take over command. The monologues and dialogs are pretty bland from the get-go, but I gave it a chance as the scenery wasn't bad at all. A bit like in the movie Centurion, without blue screens and pretty unspoilt. Sadly enough bland conversations turned out to be the standard for this movie throughout.

After having been introduced to the usual tropes and stereotyping, we're thrown into battle quite soon. Here my second major gripe enters: shaky cam à la handicam. It was almost unwatchable and headache inducing.

We are introduced to historical inaccuracies quite soon. First of all the "Tetsudo Formaton" used was inappropriate. Then the enemies (Picts) rushed at the Romans like madmen, but none of the legionnaires thought of spearing them. The Picts even crawled on top of the formation. Funny but idiotic. Also the transverse crest on the Centurion's helmet was incorrectly worn: it was worn only during ceremonies, not in battle. Finally the Picts is in this movie wore plenty of clothes: in reality they were almost fully naked. Once again the lesson is not to assume a movie is accurate no matter how convincing it looks.

Our hero, who fought bravely off-course, gets wounded, passes out and wakes up elsewhere in a safe Roman community. He is relieved of his duties due to his wounds. Soon our hero Centurion heals enough to undertake a tough journey which includes running, fast horseback riding in rugged terrain and fighting. He healed 100%, who are we kidding. The movie writer needed an excuse to detach him from his legion.

But then again, this entire movie is full of it. The "Seal People". They are the main antagonists. When the movie likes it, they catch up with running horses and whatnot. The usual tropes and errors, you know the drill.

We are looking at history the way (main stream) movies like it: toe cringing sentiments with sword fighting in between them. Again the shaky-cam; horrible. It was used during fights, but also when emotions ran high. It didn't add anything.

And the ending was outright ridiculous. In the end I was left with the question "why?". I know it comes from a book written a few decades ago, but why this cheapskate implementation? For example the fights had potential, therefore the shaky-cam was unnecessary. And why being sentimental the corny way? There's also the blandness. Could it be that the actors are simply overrated? Surely it's not the budget I'll tell you that; The natural approach, low on computer-based special effects, was the charm of this movie. Nor did this installment require A-list actors.

I think the truth is that this product was just a standard-issue money-making cash cow, leaning on the relative success of the movie "Centurion".

I rated it 4/10. It could easily reach at least two notches extra by (1) removing the shaky-cam, (2) less bland emotions and finally (3) implementing an ending worth while. The executive producers know, but they don't care. To them this was project "Easy Money".

This is not it guys. I'm sorry but I have to be very negative. I realize some can't stand any negativity, so I ask you to read this at your own discretion.

Let's begin with the movie. No spoilers. Just let me say it wasn't much better than the usual straight-to-TV movie. The budget was somewhat higher, but this is where the good stuff pretty much ends. Don't expect awesome sniper-stuff or anything like that. In fact, the little bit you saw was utter nonsense. I served myself and I can tell you, not even regular troops were like that; very unrealistic and unprofessional. You get to look through the scope, so let me tell you it's a made up nonsensical thing they came up with.

This movie is a drama first and foremost. It's about the inner person of Chris Kyle, his partner, his life. As mentioned before, none of it was done right, convincingly nor was I moved to care.

The movie is based on a book of a soldier who's known to 'shoot first, ask questions later'. This is what his comrades said. This makes the 200 kills suspicious from the get-go. Needless to say that his colleagues put this carefully in the media and anonymous. And needless to say that the main stream media didn't pursue this angle.

Chris Kyle is the same person who needed to ridicule Jesse Ventura in his book. He supposedly floored Ventura. Ventura sued the Kyle estate and won the case. What's interesting is that no SEAL witness could produce a consistent story even though they were there. This angered the Jury, as they explained in the media, and hence allowed Ventura to win the case.

They (the anti-Ventura SEALS) subsequently complained in the media that 'what happens inside should stay inside'. It supposedly is a unwritten SEAL code (cliché cliché). But none of them was consistent enough to mention that Kyle ignored that very same rule! In fact, he ridiculed an ex-colleague in a commercial and publicly available book. How is that for double standards? Even though Ventura won the case, he is practically out of job since then.

American Sniper is the same guy who bragged about shooting looters after Katrina. I'm sorry but bragging about it is not right.

I'm aware of the popularity of the SEALs around the globe. But because of their policy to be visible in the media (they made that choice few years ago), their ugly side shines through as well. Too often they communicate and behave like stereotypes who use too much anabolics.

Thank you and see you next time!

When I read the Executive Producers were the Weinstein Brothers, I immediately knew the movie will take its creative license beyond reason. I wasn't disappointed at that. "Based on true events" doesn't mean anything as probably most have learned by now. Key events in the story line are almost entirely made up. True key events have been completely ignored, and the usual Hollywood political agenda's are on full display. I didn't ask for any personal political insights, I didn't want pay for that.

This movie aims directly at promoting homosexuality through emotions. First we are directed to love Turing because of his accomplishment, then we are directed to feel sad for him because he pays a price for being what he is. At the end multiple tear jerking scenes were built in to help you towards that emotional state.

The clunky behavior of the genius has been depicted the way it is always depicted: somewhat stuttering, looking at the floor, no sense of humor, not understanding metaphors. All in all, stereotyping and cliché galore right here in the very first five minutes he was introduced.

Turing finds the code by sheer coincidence more or less we are led to believe. The reality is that just about every story about accidental discoveries have been debunked. Newton's apple, Archimedes bathtub, all are stories which turned out not to be true. These grand discoveries, just like cracking the Enigma Code, have been discovered by hard work and professionalism.

Poland discovered the logic behind the Enigma years before the British did. The Germans increased the number of combinations, which made the code more intensive to break. The Polaks ran out of funds to create a better decoding machine and handed over the know-how to Great Britain and France. Turing (and certainly not him alone) improved the machine the Polaks built and which they called "Bombe". Not a word about that in the movie off course. Just like in the movie "Black Hawk Down", where the crucial role of the Malayan (!) snipers to bail out the Americans has been completely ignored.

Also, Turing was never investigated for being a possible spy, nor did he kept knowledge of a spy to himself. He would have played with his life if he did that. He was under investigation for being a gay tho. The scene was also used to connect Turing with MI6 even more, but that was unnecessary; as it turned out in the end, Turing was more than happy to work with MI6 for his own schemes (which is a lie too).

The audience will learn nothing about the code itself. Not a clue on how it works (it's not even that hard!), nothing.

Code breakers are hired if they could solve crossword or cryptographic puzzles. Needless to say that the smartest person is tardy but gets to participate in the test anyway (cliché cliché), and turns out to be even faster than the great Turing himself! An oh, it's a woman! A completely made up event. Feminism at work in its fullest glory. Acknowledging her intelligence (she really was) is not enough it seems. She had to be the smarter than all men, including Turing. She already worked at Bletchley in reality. And she slapped Turing! Beating men is a sure sign of female strength in the doctrine of many feminists. That too never happened. In reality Joan Clarke was very submissive.

Turing supposedly had a say in how to use this machine strategically. He contacted MI6 to scheme with, ignoring his employer. The reality is vice versa: MI6 instructed Turing what to do. Turing had no say. A feeble attempt to make Turing even better than he already was, but the attempt was over the top. I can't imagine the viewer didn't notice.

So there it is people. This movie represents blatant promotion of multiple Hollywood agenda's, over-dramatization, over-simplification and factual incorrectness about all key events. This movie represents all that to its fullest.

A group of friends hang out at home. A comet flies by and causes a parallel universe portal. They split up, turning this movie into a who-is-who flick. Because when, say, Hugh leaves, then if a Hugh returns, it's a person from a different reality. The charm of the movie, and its intention, is that the viewer should observe details to notice changes.

The movie was shot in five evenings and one day on a beer budget. It showed. The movie was absolutely riddled with continuity errors. I'm going to make a big deal out of it, but only because of interviews with the director: he said that there were a hundred of small changes to indicate a new reality. So, as he said, it could be interesting to watch the movie six times, or even more. I did, because I'm a fanatic, but so many stuff is out-of-place, one may not know whether it's on purpose or accidental.

The acting was not good. They had to improvise, I get it. But Emily Baldoni, our main character is quite bland throughout to the point that it bothered me. Nicholas Brendon did a decent job. The rest of the cast acted mediocre at best. They were all couples but no chemistry at all.

The music was an original score and it was quite good actually. Often it stayed on the very background - don't worry, that's way it should be for this movie, and when it was noticeable it was really good and needed.

The lighting was mediocre. The shadows, the contrasts, it all was a bit off.

The character development wasn't bad at all I must say. None were convincing, but that's because the acting wasn't optimal. Yet I felt I had enough material to connect with anyone if I chose to do so.

A section about continuity errors deserves an encyclopedia. Let's not go there.

Now let's talk logical errors. There are quite a few and that's very important as logic and deduction is key for this movie. We get the gist though, but if you are good at logic for some reason, you're going to notice a lot of errors. I mean a lot. I won't say the details though. Watch it. If you don't notice then that's fine too.

So I rated the movie a 5/10. The mediocre acting (and bland Emily) didn't set me off, though it did bother me now and then. Because the rarity of mind-bending movies and the low budget I'm willing to overlook a lot. And the good original sound deserves a plus for sure. I'm also willing to overlook the mediocre lighting, even though visual cues are very important in this movie. But then again, the satisfactory character development was a plus. Nor did the armada of continuity errors set me off.

What did set me off heavily were the logical and deduction errors. Even at the end, where things accumulated, the main logic they were using (Emily, she's the smart one) was seriously flawed. Hence the 5/10.

Should you watch it? Sure, if you like mind-bending stuff. If you can stand shaky-cam and extreme low budget movies. It's not for everyone, that's for sure.

Another "I Robot" clone and almost done right. I immediately was pleased with the setting and special effects; a world destroyed by a nuclear disaster surrounded by well done Asimov-esque robots to help mankind survive. The automatons decided to go rogue though.

Antonio Banderas' accent didn't help though. So I resorted to subtitles. Now I was able to concentrate on the plot, only to be confronted by an armada of plot holes. In addition, the grand finale resembled a script of any B-action movie writer. Although this wasn't a Hollywood movie, it definitely had the signature of it throughout, which includes the executive producers. That turned out not to be a good thing, other than the availability of a somewhat decent budget.

The introduced premise was interesting, supported by the movie's own Two Laws of Robotics. The special effects were done very nicely, as well as the artistic, almost noir-ish atmosphere. All of this goodness produced an expectation of an intelligent pursuit of the storyline. But soon enough my disappointment was triggered: it does not do that at all. Besides the aforementioned plethora of plot holes, the protagonist resembled a petulant child. Ignorant on what happened around him, despite being spoon-fed with reality and direct answers. I assume the movie makers tried to express Jacq Vaucan's contempt of robots (why?), but that wasn't executed well. The bad guys were stereotypes pulled straight from a catalog. The thugs are violent, the boss is heartless. Cliché galore at your disposal.

So here it is, a movie with tons of potential, thoroughly ruined by the same traits which many mediocre movies share. I think it's a must-see movie for a Science Fiction addict like myself, but I wouldn't encourage anyone to pay for it. That will only reward the system which does the same type of damage to any movie time and again. If my fellow SF fan, or anyone else, has the opportunity to see it for free, then I would like to inspire you to watch it. Otherwise I don't think you should bother.

I get it, criteria and tastes differ heavily amongst us mortals.

The acting was fine, the right actors were on the right spot. One is better than the other, but almost none of them bothered me. Antonio Banderas did. He aged notably, for the good though! Going by his looks, he was the right person to be the tired lone experienced investigator, put on Earth to tackle something bigger than all of us. But his acting was mediocre which was somewhat masked by his heavy Spanish accent and the calm demeanor the storyline demanded from him. He spoke softly to compensate for the accent. In turn the audio editors increased the volume of his voice, which awkwardly articulated the consonants. I've seen this technique before with the same effect.

The movie is rated "R". I have no clue why. It's bit of a deep movie, probably not aimed at 10-year olds, but the level of violence was very minimal and its nature wasn't worse than what you see in many mainstream TV-series aimed at the young. No sexual content either, other than some innuendo by a pleasure robot, who didn't look erotic at all. In fact, it looked funny. Some bad language is present, but nothing that needed to be rated "R". Having said this, here's more positive news about the movie: no senseless nudity! I have nothing against nudity and sexual exploits in movies, but the scenes are forced way too often only to sell, without adding anything else. It doesn't happen here. Bravo!

To conclude, this movie I rated five out of ten stars, which is almost a satisfactory six. The massive amounts of plot holes, inconsistent and unintelligent approach of the story and cheap action ending prevents me from rating it any higher. For me, it had everything in place for a seven or an impressive eight stars. That's how dumbed down the movie eventually was. The slow pace and fine scenery masked it somewhat. But it all started to add up, giving me nothing in the end. Antonio Bandera's acting, mumbling and accent was unappealing to me obviously, but I didn't involve it in the final score. Other issues heavily outweighed this.

To move this subject to a somewhat higher level, Good looking Autómata couldn't keep up the promise it made, resulting in a hollow narrative.

Happy New Year!

ABOUT THE NETWORK

After having seen all episodes of Selling New York and Selling L.A. I noticed the staggering amount of Jewish and gay persons involved. I have learned that both the real estate business and the entertainment industry is dominated by this group in those two cities. It looks like HGTV is actively disproportionally seeking them out to appear on the show. It's really odd and I wonder why they do that.

FORMAT

The concept of the four-season T.V. series is that of a docu-soap. With each episode we follow two real estate agents facing a different challenge. This T.V. series clearly is a platform for the involved real estate agents.

REPETITION

The show has recurring themes – it wasn't even funny anymore, that much recurrence was involved. The buyers always want too much considering their budget, the sellers want to overprice their property, and homes need to be staged we are taught continuously. The agents are always under pressure to perform, we are reminded every now and then. Let me quote one potential buyer for the fun of it: "I have a three million Dollar budget, but I have a ten million Dollar taste.".

It would be easier if the buyer had a million Dollar more to spare is another popular expression. Agents were also scaring the clients to make rapid decisions because the home could be gone tomorrow. Even if the home was on the market for a very long time, it could be gone any moment we are supposed to believe. Such methods degrade the reliability of the agents quite a bit, yet on their respective websites reliability is an obsession. Gosh I wonder why.

Finally we regularly have to hear that the market is currently thin. For one or two-million Dollar homes I can imagine (in West L.A. a million is peanuts), but when the buyer has a seven million Dollar budget such a comment becomes laughable, yet we were actually told the same thing again.

I haven't learned anything useful other than that realtors cannot be trusted. Even if you never bought a home, you probably won't learn anything significant from this show.

ANNOYANCES

The most subtle recurrence were the fake motivations from many buyers and sellers. Many buyers and sellers were just in it to flip homes. They betrayed themselves often in the same episode. It's insulting to the viewer.

The biggest annoyance, and let me tell you, it's infinitely annoying once you notice it, are the staggering amounts of cut-scenes in e v e r y single episode. Entire dialogs in every scene are constructed by cut-scenes glued together! Many sentences simply didn't make sense at all. It's an attempt to build drama but it only resulted in countless non-sequiturs.

Also the reactions of the actors didn't make sense, which made many conversations odd. Again, it's because of the cut-scenes; the people on camera weren't reacting to what has been said. That part was cut away so the viewer doesn't know what the person-in-focus was reacting to originally. Think of out-of-place shrugs, unnecessarily smiles to non-existing jokes, weird shakes with the head, and so forth.

CLOWNESQUE

This show displays so much weirdness. Chris Holified, owner of Elite Aviation who tries to sell a thirty-million-Dollar home, but the renters of the property won't allow showings. I kid you not. Then there's a seller who dresses like a pirate, and on a different occasion makes funny faces behind the backs of agents who may represent future buyers. We have a Russian agent (Elise Worboroff) who likes to flaunt with her body and we have another agent who likes to flaunt with her cleavage (Rebekah Schwartz). We have a fake German Baron (Karsten Faerber as Baron von Wittenstein) who pretends to have a twenty million Dollar budget and is in need of a big home for his opulent lifestyle, just like a Baron is used to. Or so we are told.

There's 'The Fitzgerald Group'. Mamasan Fitzgerald - she truly acts like a mamasan - hires only women. She engaged them all to sell that thirty-million-Dollar home, notifying the seller, Chris Holifield, that they are all beautiful girls. Then there's Bobby Shah, an irresponsible childish realtor who's always too late for appointments because he's living his life in a tattoo shop.

Finally, everybody hugs everybody. Well, almost that is. But really, clients and agents who supposedly never met before hug immediately at the door, or where ever. It's in every episode too. If you're going to buy a home, you'll notice this is not the standard at all. Just a free tip from my end.

CONCLUSION

I rated four stars. Especially the amount of cut-scenes set me off. The presented false motivations of many buyers and sellers were a thorn in my eye too. The lack of educational value didn't help either, and the scripted wackiness was simply respect-less to the viewer. Still four out of ten stars because I like the idea of this show and it has tons of potential. Real estate addicts should watch it. Expect a reality-ish soap, and that's it.

Markopolis was a hero in my book for a brief moment. That ended after I saw multiple interviews with him and this documentary. This documentary is basically a Markopolis worship movie. Throughout we are told how big of a hero he is, that he needs to fear for his and his family safety, that he has a gun and how special he is in general. It's tiring beyond imaginable borders. Frankly, Markopolis' behaviour looks buffoon-ish. He never was in any danger. And he did not chase Madoff because he has a good heart.

It all started because Markopolis was chasing for Madoff's secret because Madoff stole much of the customers from Markopolis' employer. His employer asked if he could find out how Madoff did it.

The victims were mostly of Jewish heritage, much to the dismay of the Jewish community as it gave them a bad name for being greedy and Madoff being a Jew himself offcourse. By now about 80% of the funds have been retrieved and given back to the victims.

Like mentioned before, this documentary is mostly about Markopolis' supposed greatness. We won't learn much about the ins and outs of how things went down. The documentary should have told in what ways the governmental institutions failed. Yet this kind of information is kept to a minimum and at a very low level. There are much better documentaries out there.

I saw an interview where Markopolis claimed that only Wall Street papers were negative about this movie, as it supposedly tried to make Wall Street look bad. But having seen this documentary myself, I now must side with those papers in this very instance.

INTRODUCTION

The real housewives of Beverly Hills is a 'Reality Show'. Some major events occurred such as the suicide of the spouse of one of the actresses and the divorce of Adrienne Maloof. Other than that, most drama wasn't that spontaneous although not everything is scripted in detail. Some real life friendships were broken in most unpleasant ways as well.

CASTING/SELECTION

It becomes apparent how the casting works. Basically all stars of this show know each other. Kyle Richards knows some of the ladies because they were clients of her husband, a real estate agent. Kim Richards is a sister of Kyle Richards. Dana Wilkey, a former guest star, is a real life friend of Taylor Armstrong. And so forth. They are all connected.

SCRIPTING

I've read that the stars have only a few hours per episode to prepare. So not everything is scripted in detail. However, it has been implied that the actresses have to make their own storyline. Because of the absence of Dana Wilkey I searched for an explanation. Turns out she wasn't asked to return because she didn't make her own (interesting) storyline. That's a major hint on how things work. For a bigger part the stars have to invent their own character and keep it interesting.

PERSONAL INTEREST

Another thing that revealed itself gradually is the motivation for the actresses to participate. Money seems to be the obvious answer, but that's not all. This show serves as a platform for the women to launch their own products, shops, programs, books and restaurants or to re-launch their acting career. Yolanda Forster used the show as a platform to raise awareness for Lyme disease, which she suffers from. Later it becomes a platform to promote her two daughters' modeling career.

MODUS OPERANDI: ONE TRICK PONIES

To create drama, things were escalated often out of nowhere, so it seems. More on that later. For example Brandi calling Joyce constantly 'Jacqueline', Kyle who pretends not to see the difference between a Witch Pentagram and a Star of David and when Carlton (the Witch) complained about it she got accused of anti-Semitism. During a dinner party, somebody calls somebody a fat pig out of nowhere. Brandi Glanville's (evil) ways is legendary by now.

Also the emotions are the same. Kyle's way of looking disgruntled is her trademark. Lisa V's attempts to cry (or to faint) is laughable. Eileen Davidson's level headed demeanor has become a bore to me. Cautious hustling Lisa Rina is a bit cowardly for my taste but she's popular, I get it. In general people perform their shtick so bad, it's sometimes toe cringing. But then again, the perfection is in the imperfection in reality shows.

But some things are real, such as the troublesome relationship between the sisters Kim and Kyle. I find this truly heartbreaking and feel Bravo should not pursue this angle ever (again). Nor would I encourage Bravo to pursue Kim's (lack of) sobriety again as well.

MORE ON THE DRAMA

Basically in every season and episode, the drama was setup quite structurally. For example the show involves us in the preparation of a nice party, get-together, boat trip, meeting, you name it. The second step is giving us hints what tensions could arise at said event. The third step is the event itself and the drama that unfolds.

CONCLUSION

I think RHOBH created a lot of winners: the actresses, the Botox companies, and it created a fan-base for each of the participants. Nevertheless, I rate the show a 4 out of 10. The modus operandi to create drama was the same. I didn't see enough of the 'Beverly Hills luxury life' and the actresses were too much of one-trick-ponies.

Having seen it up to and including season 5, I would welcome less negative vibes during the episodes. Sometimes it's a little bit too much. Less on the drama, more on the grand estates, awesome walk-in closets, man-caves, cars, foods, bling, fashion, nice restaurants, lifestyle, smiles.

Some viewers seem to be under the impression that this documentary is an anti-leftist or anti-Obama video. Such is not the case. The author, Alex Jones, isn't a Republican. He's a libertarian. This documentary tells you to open your eyes - not to take Obama for granted. Jones merely addresses the Obama-hype his way.

Whilst I support the intention of this release, I do not support the choice for his interviewees. Willie Nelson, Jesse Ventura, Webster Tarpley, really, they are not the 'deep thinkers' I need. Same goes for KRS-One. More on this pop group later.

Sure, they all have something interesting to say. But overall the movie has too many flaws. Anyone who'd dissect the movie (and it has been done) could debunk many of the statements made. There's plenty of issues with the style of the documentary, i.e. editing and quote-mining.

Now back to KRS-One. At the start of the documentary he says that if one complains loud enough about a cold burger, the complainer might eventually see the floor manager. But the customer will never see the franchise taker. And exactly that is what we should learn from this documentary! Learn to look at the enablers of individual politicians. Such is my interpretation, and it is the best advice I personally could give to anyone.

This documentary focuses mostly on the financial sector. Yet the enablers of politicians are more diverse. For example without the support of the Jewish lobby, one is not going to be anything significant in politics. It's also striking that thirty percent of the judicial legislation at the top consists of Jewish people. Not to mention the Jewish background of managers of many financial institutions and the Federal Reserve Bank, again.

Alex Jones will never address this though. His sponsors are mostly Jewish owned companies. So there's that and it explains why Jones will never mention the elephant in the closet when he should. Eventually, Alex Jones is a tool like many others, so much has become clear to me.

Now years later, we have the chance to evaluate this documentary. It was quite spot on. Yes, the West has moved out of Iraq, but the troops have been replaced by mercenaries. We're still in Afghanistan and haven't accomplish anything. Now we're told we should fight in Syria and Iran. And look what is happening to Iraq; ISIS is pretty much taking over and the Western intelligence supposedly didn't see it coming. Who are they kidding?

The wars never end. See 1984, Orwell, for a deliberate never-ending war. Guantanamo is still fully operational despite Obama's promise to shut it down. Banks continue to be fully protected, only insignificant details have been changed. Whistle blowers are fleeing to China and Russia these days. Non-US citizens are chased around the world (Assange). A record breaking eight whistle blowers have been prosecuted by Obama. A record number of Generals and other armed forces officers are removed who didn't agree with his policies. And his reign isn't over yet...

I read often the argument that Obama inherited a mess. But after this many years that's not an excuse. The movie is about opening your eyes and not trusting his words. This president - Obama - did nothing, but received a Nobel prize nevertheless. Take a hint, and extend this knowledge to every upcoming politician, no matter what party he or she is in.

I give this movie a 6/10. I don't like the suggestive editing and too many statements aren't (entirely) true. On the other hand I fully support the overall message, and that is to learn to look at the enablers of politicians.

Retribution is the fourth installment of the Resident Evil saga. It's a zombie movie. A woman fights zombies and takes it up with Umbrella, an evil corporation.

The move doesn't have much going for it, despite some decent effects. Scenery was mediocre. There wasn't a budget for a decent writer though. I won't spoil it but the story-line is comparable with any b-movie.

I could more or less defend the storyline of previous episodes, but this last installment is just horrible. It has new outrageous monsters, but are engineered without much fantasy. Heck, the actresses couldn't even carry their guns. Their hands and arms were shaking in an effort to keep these things aimed properly. Really annoying for a person who pays attention to detail. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

Sienna Guillory plays the character of Jill Valentine once again. In her First incarnation she was a good cop with short dark hair and dressed like Lara Croft. In this movie she was the evil chick with long blond hair, wearing a way too tight jumpsuit with too much cleavage accompanied with an endless stream of bad acting.

In the end Jill and our protagonist duked it out. Wasn't worth it. So the camera perfectly presented Jill's cleavage at the same time. Needless sexualization is a mandatory thing in Hollywood, I get it, but I don't accept this excuse. Also Michelle Rodriquez is part of the scene again. She did what she does in almost all of her movies: her small share. Not noteworthy this time, although I realize she has her own fan-base. I like seeing her too.

And finally, our heroin had some help from some old friends: Luther and his gang. Man did they act bad.

It looks like only Mila and Michelle tried their best. What the heck was the rest doing? I have no reason to dislike any of the actors or their roles. So that's not it. I wish I could have been more enthusiastic. Their acting was plain and simple far below par.

I love the Resident Evil franchise. I was looking forward to see Retribution because I didn't think they were going to make it worse than the previous episode. I was wrong. There was no heart in this movie. I can live with the ending, though it's not a great one; A cliffhanger promising an epic next installment. Don't count on it.

My score: 4/10. I feel this is a straight-to-DVD release.

It's a complete mystery to me why this movie is rated this high. Looking at the reviews the high raters don't tell much about the movie quality but instead mention vague things like "concept" and "idea" and "big questions" and "originality". Guess they're up for a treat if they're impressed by this movie.

The quality of acting is comparable with bulk acting you encounter in series like "The Outer Limits" for example; A bunch of expendable actors reading their script and emoting according to their script. Each of them is a baby-booming old type. Actually they're not all old. They dress like old people. It's the directors attempt to handle wardrobe due to the low budget I guess. More on that later.

The scene is set in a single room in the house of the protagonist. A bunch of people listen to the ramblings of their friend they thought they knew. And then they say stuff which clearly comes off a script. And they forcibly act like they are supposed to. Whilst typing this review I'm also watching the movie once again just to make sure. I mean it, it looks like the actors never had acting lessons. Is it their fault? Often it's the director who doesn't know how to make good use of the actors. But one way or the other, it looks like stage acting by amateurs in a play meant for forgiving friends only.

It's about a guy trying to come clean with new friends he made by revealing the truth (before leaving to some other place forever): he's not aging, he is 14000 years old already! Yep, he's seen it all, done it all, been everywhere. Cro Magnums and Columbus, no biggie. So he tells all this and his friends are like: "Shall we believe him? Science doesn't know everything you know. Are you a lunatic or a caveman?" (Yeah really, those questions were actually uttered as if it's a normal reaction to a friends insane ramblings)

Don't expect anything special about effects or music. No effects and the music is standard bulk piano-play when we need sympathy for our main man. Like mentioned before, almost the entire scene is set in a single small(ish) living room with too many people. There were old people, professors and young pretty people and a wise calm Negro. No Asians or Arabs tho. It almost was a political correct movie. The cast just made me wanna puke because of it's lack of realism. It was too easy to notice how the cast was artificially assembled - that's the gist I'm trying to bring across here.

Also like mentioned earlier, the wardrobe is horrible. The clothes were bought at a second hand store. Or maybe it was lying around in the basement of Wallmart. The director should have told the actors to bring their weekend clothing. That would have crated a much more realistic effect. Now it looks just silly. More like: oh I can see you're an actor. Gosh that leather jacket and those €20 Jeans, you're the non-complex working class cool guy right? Right. And gosh, you have a sweater without sleeves over a dull beige blouse. The sweater has every color of the rainbow in it but the colors are all pale, like you washed it too often the past 20 years. I guess you're the old lady. What other hints do I have? Your grey hair and wrinkles? How stereotype. Keep wearing that.

The reality is that this movie is cheap and a cop out. A topic was created, and the rest of the movie tries (too hard) to build a story around that. In the beginning the friends of the protagonist are gullible and at the end they become more than skeptical. Exactly what the movie needs. Something to drag the movie on and something to end the movie. That's why I gave the movie 2 stars: it ends at one point.

This movie is just weird. The actors are great but the storyline and the content is very thin. An employee finds out the bank is leaking money for the past couple of weeks. After some analysis they figure out the bank is going bust. Everything else is stereotyping. That's all the movie is about. Stereo typing. This is how the movie goes:

*** Opening ***

Emotionless Assistant Human Resource Manager (Ashley Williams as Heather Burke) orders senior employee to go with her for a talk; Stanley Tucci (as Eric Dale) is being fired in a cold manner by Senior Human Resource Manager Susan Blackwell (as Lauren Bratberg). During the conversation Eric Dale's computer and mobile phone is shut down. A guard to escort the employee out is standing by already. Those cold hearted mean hedge fund corporations! Grrr!!! I think the message was clear.

*** The Shocking Discovery ***

Protegé of now fired Eric Dale researches the contents from a USB stick which he was given by said fired employee. Protegé finds out the investment bank is going down.

*** Personalities ***

Enter two more young conscientious employees. Now we have a staff of 3 young employees without a soul because the movie didn't give them any. But to indicate that Protegé is smart we're told he is a rocket scientist, but decided to work for this company because it pays better. So now we've established the discovery is made by a rocket scientist, therefore whatever he says must be true.

Enter Kevin Spacey. He has feelings. It has been established because he kinda tries to cry because his dog is dying. So we know Kevin is not a cold-hearted banker (LOL). Some character building here. (Offcourse, we can't have the great mr. Spacey crying in a movie. Are you kidding?)

Enter Paul Bettany. His character, Will Emerson, is... well he was in the movie as well.

Enter Simon Baker (as Jared Cohen). He's the link (a managing director) between Kevin Spacey and the Grand Admiral of the company. Was given a little bit personality in the movie. So he can push Kevin to do the 'right' thing to cover things up and sell as much of the assets before the company goes bust. Without mentioning that these assets are soon to be worth 0 Dollars.

Enter Demi Moore (as Sarah Robertson). She's paid to handle Risk Assessment, but she failed. So she tries to defend herself with a few sentences. During the rest of the movie she was just an object occupying space on the screen. Also, she spoke her lines at a weird, inappropriate moment. The script went horribly wrong here. I felt sorry for her.

Enter Jeremy Irons (as John Tuld). He da big man. #1. Grand Admiral. He's cool. That's his role. He realizes the world will be soon plunged in a world of hurt. But he's cool. The mastermind. That's all what he was. Being cool at a big conference table. And being cool at a lunch table.

*** Final Scene ***

Kevin Spacey, the one with the feelings, is digging a hole to bury his dog in. I suppose it symbolizes Lehman Brothers digging a hole to hide secrets in. Also, Kevin caved in and decided to play along and be immoral for as long as it takes. His team will sell worthless products. Kevin motivated his team to do so. Kevin needs the money. That's why he caved in.

To conclude. I give this movie three stars. The movie has no added value. Intellectually it has nothing to offer to anyone. Nor did the movie provide insights into anything. Don't expect to learn anything in this movie. Nor does the movie represent factual events. The three stars are for the actors because they did a decent job - though they weren't tested. Camera work and whatnot is fine. But this is where the good things end. Go see some documentaries about Lehman Brothers. For example "Inside Job" is good. Or roam YouTube about why the government didn't bailout Lehman Brothers, and feel the tension prior to that decision. So much better than this movie.

There's no reason for this movie to exist.

*** Synopsis ***

A Russian tank does its job in Afghanistan during the Russian occupation. It roams the land in search of enemies. It turns out the team-leader is a piece of scum who doesn't care much for the Geneva convention.

*** Good Stuff ***

I feel the camera work was decent. There's much better out there, but also much worse. The scenery is nicely done as well. Also, the sound is absolutely acceptable.

*** Bad Stuff ***

It has all the elements of a B-movie although some actors aren't really B-movie actors; Basically the acting was mediocre. Most actors have clearly western blood. Clear American accents as well. All in all I didn't have the feeling I was looking at Russian/Afghan soldiers or culture.

The movie is also highly predictive. Perhaps I didn't know all the time what will happen in a few minutes, but when it happened I wasn't surprised.

Often it is even plain ridiculous. Here's an example: Tankdriver says to Tankgunner that Tankgunners need to be careful as snipers often shoot them first. The Tankgunner says that often the driver is targeted first (they had a quarrel about nothing by the way so they are tensed). Three seconds later a hand grenade is thrown at the tank (crew outside). The blasting-power is that of a fire cracker. The crew is surrounded by 5 or so armed Afghani fighters. Everybody survives and manages to get into the tank. An Afghani warrior shoots a bazooka at the tank from a distance of 20 yards. Tank is driving slowly backwards yet the fighter misses. This is what I mean with being predictive and being ridiculous.

Here's another one: a hand grenade explodes at a distance of 3 inches near two dogs. The dogs run away unharmed...

*** What others said ***

I don't understand this movie has such a high rating. Perhaps military uniforms and the Afghan war against Russians has it's attraction. The desert has its own charm as far as I am concerned. But the movie is implemented cheaply. The director of the movie is clearly interested in human relations but the conversations are trivial and shallow. If not shallow, then most certainly not convincing.

*** Verdict ***

I would have loved to give this movie a high rating but I can't. Although it has tons of potential, it wasn't used. I'll give it a 4 out of 10. One point for the scenery, 1 for the sound, 1 for camera work, 1 for potential.

=== The Good Things First ===

Some compare Jason Bourne (his real name is revealed in the movie) with 007, and some even find the "Bourne-approach" better. I agree with both. From my perspective, Matt Damon is perhaps the perfect actor for his role. Stunnning Julia Stiles (Nicky) is the perfect Field Logistics Operative and Joan Allen (Landy) is the perfect CIA Senior Operative. I wouldn't trade these three actors for the world.

Matt Damon is the perfect choice because he is good looking yet isn't buffed up by steroids. He looks and behaves intelligent in all three episodes. He behaves like an average guy when possible and certainly isn't a womanizing sleaze-ball like many other hero's. He doesn't need much words to explain things, yet it's clear what he means.

Julia Stiles. In the first episode the crew gave her some remarkable make up. In later episodes she looked increasingly average. Too bad. She's pretty anyway, but the way they did the make up the first time gave Nicky a special flair. In episode 2 the "woman part" was gone somewhat. And in part three - Ultimatum - she just looks like a girl. She should have looked like a responsible young woman - not girl.

Joan Allen gives us the impression that she's a rock solid, slightly old fashioned mature woman. She's the perfect choice for her role (Landy).

Another good aspect is that no ridiculous gadgets are used. No laser beams,spaceships, time machines or anything. In fact, the CIA Directors actually need to explain the use of their funds to a political hearing committee! Standard 9 mm pistols are used, along with bottles, pens, towels, a simple rifle (with scope), rented safe houses and fixed-income cars without a built-in flux capacitor.

Also, no annoying exaggerated love scenes occur and standard Hollywood techniques like "let a guy die otherwise the story becomes too complex" are not used as well. I highly value that.

=== The Bad Stuff in General ===

The good guys are still up for a fair fight. Hollywood needs to learn that a fictive hero like Jason Bourne shouldn't engage fair battles. Let him back-shoot for the love of God! For some reason Hollywood doesn't like that. Hollywood producers and directors are known for their lack of social courage. I'd bet that if Jason back-stabs a murdering traitor, no audience is going to be bothered by that. In fact, it would have made Jason Bourne even more of a professional: a multi-million dollar trained assassin.

Also, in general, in all three episodes I didn't like the lenses and filtering.

=== The Bad Stuff in Specific ===

Shaky camera. Way too shaky this time. The Shaky camera technique is often used for two purposes: 1) To give the movie an extra level of realism. 2) To hide incompetence.

The latter, was too obvious. To me it's clear that Matt Damon can't fight whatsoever. So they hide it with an extremely shaky camera. The solution is simple, rent an expert and guide him throughout the making of the movie. The rest is up to the camera team and editing. This movie has the potential to become the most interesting spy movie, and also to become the most interesting close combat movie as well. The latter was neglected, although close combat is a very important aspect of all three episodes.

Here's another thing that bothers me: Bourne is a bad actor I feel - although his appearance shows tons of potential. The best example of bad acting is to be seen in episode one (Identity) where he sits on a bench in the park in Switserland: "Ich wil schlafen (I want to sleep)". This type of acting is typical Matt Damon. I believe the director could have directed Matt better. But I do have to say in part three - Ultimatum - this was a little better hidden. But it was especially hidden because of too much camera shaking.

=== Verdict ===

The shaky-cam has too much impact, therefore I rate this movie 5 out of 10 stars. A most promising idea was ruined by the camera job.

=== The Good Stuff ===

Though the budget was very low, for me as a SF fan this had it all, including the best character development I've ever seen. It wasn't always about the bad empire and high-tech. The people in it actually made it. We see a bunch of completely different characters. They acted very nice I feel. Some of them convinced me totally.

=== Synopsis ===

'Blakes 7' is a four-season Science Fiction drama. It's about a handful of escaped convicts, a special space-ship and even a more special on-board computer. Blake is a former freedom-fighter, framed by the futuristic government. He becomes the leader of the bunch, mainly due to his personality. He'll use the ship and the crew to fight the leaders of the universe. But as he progresses, he needs to deviate often from his main objective: enter the adventures of 'Blake's 7'.

=== Bad Stuff ===

A minor criticism is the replacement of Blake: some youngster without charisma in my opinion. He has a loud voice, but that didn't convince me he has enough authority to be the Captain of the ship. BBC should have found an older actor with more charisma. Also, there are four episodes and each episode gets weaker and weaker. In my mind only episode 1 lives.

=== Verdict ===

In my previous review I gave it a perfect 10 stars. That's not entirely fair. I'll give it now 7 stars because the weak episodes were of a too low quality and the episodes got weaker and weaker.

Drama's and movies are for entertainment primarily I believe. In that sense, this drama is a top ten feature. The acting is superb. The budget for this making is clearly very low yet the (only indoor) scenery is absolutely acceptable. One may feel cramped occasionally due to the strict indoor shots. But the storyline is intriguing and captivated me. Added to that, the Roman empire has a certain magic flair.

'I Claudius' is a single-season-13-episode drama of the rise and fall of many Roman Emperors, according to Claudius' memory. Claudius is the last Roman Emperor but whether this is a victory for this (good) man is debatable. See for yourself to find out. Also, 'I Claudius' is the one and only drama ever broad-casted in every single nation in the world.

The bad side is the historical accuracy: almost none. It's missing too many relevant and interesting aspects of the political culture in those days. If the intention of this drama was to educate me then I wouldn't have been very pleased. But education wasn't the purpose of the director at all so no problem as far as I am concerned.

I'll give it 9 stars. I motivate it like this: Entertainment Value counts triple. 10 for Entertainment, 5 for accuracy. 10*3 + 5 = 35. 35/4 = 8.75. No eight-three-quarter star exist so I round it up to 9 stars.

The Descent

Now here's an interesting movie. It's interesting because it starts so bad yet becomes so good. The first 50% is nothing else but girls doing girls stuff. I find girl stuff boring. Thinking for a moment that this is just another coed chick-flick in bra's getting butchered in a shower. When half of the movie is done the real thing starts: creepy stuff going on in the caves. Sounds...

I won't tell the rest of the story but those (initially boring) girls need to fight their nuts (...) off to save their lives and they do it well! I really love a fighting spirit. In life and in movies. Please do rent it.

=== PLOT ===

A group of coeds decide to descend into a cave to explore it for sports. When one of the girls gets stuck somewhere in the cave, monsters attack the girls. It's easy to see they want to eat the girls. Though the ladies are off course scared, they put up a good fight.

=== GOOD STUFF ===

The fighting is actually realistic. When brute muscle power is needed, for example, you can clearly see by the face that effort is taken. The scenery is dark, but it has enough (smart) lighting to see what's going on and what the monsters look like. This adds well to the tension in the movie.

Sound is not top of the bill, but when needed it does the job. As opposed to many movies where sound tries to scare people, sound is this particular movie has only a supporting role. It works out nicely.

Acting. Acting is OK. I realize it's perhaps not the best acting ever, but it fits nicely into the movie - in an enjoyable way.

=== BAD STUFF ===

Not much bad stuff to tell actually. The first half of the movie is just plain boring. It attempts to do some character building but they fail, as the true nature (spirit) of the girls is to be seen when in peril.

=== VERDICT ===

I give this movie an 8 out of 10. Although half of the movie is about nothing, the other half demonstrates the very thing I value: effort. The girls demonstrate a fighting spirit in a realistic way. Mentally and physically. Also, the monsters look hideous enough.

But most importantly, it's rare to find movies where girls or women fight real good and seeing such a movie is refreshing to me. That's why I gave it 80% though I only enjoyed half of the movie.

A Science Fiction - remake of the original Solyaris.

A psychologist (George Cloony) is sent into space to analyze the odd behavior of a space crew. Arriving at the scene we learn that the crew can see and feel the products of their imagination. Soon enough Cloony will experience the same. The product of his imagination will be his late wife. An entity as big as a planet on the background in space has everything to do with it. The entity expands at an exponential rate so the crew tries to escape with another ship. Eventually Cloony ends up in the entity and ends up in the arms of his late wife.

The director had modern technology (year 2002) at his disposal. Yet the ship is simple, nihilistic, without fantasy whatsoever. It's made of a bit of metal, metallic color, a few buttons with some integrated screens here and there. The 'entity' is a huge colored sphere with some simple lighting effects. At fundamental level there's nothing more to see Science Fiction wise.

There's also a handgun on board: a device that for unknown reasons has to work at a frequency of 90 Gigaherz to permanently eliminate the projected persons they see. The weapon looks like an ill-formed microscope with tin cans here and there. High Tech lovers definitely should stay away from this move.

The actors aren't beginners and George Cloony is a top actor in the eyes of many. None of them performed beyond the average though. The crew wasn't tested in any way. Acting-wise, there's nothing here to enjoy as well.

Any decent critic would try to write something good and bad about the movie but I can't find anything good to write about. Even the psychological part of the movie, if you will, consists of insights even a child could think of.

I rated this movie only 1 star. Because of its simplistic romantic and psychedelic approach, the way Hollywood produces all too often. Also, there was no use for this event to happen in space. Could have been in a cave near a magical drawing or something. There was no need to make this a Science Fiction movie and in fact, it didn't even try to be SF-esque. So what's the point.