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Never have I seen a show that cries for cancellation more than this piece of dreck. The acting was over-the-top bad, the cast is as miscast as it gets. Who's that Johnny Galecky wannabe anyway. The only thing he's missing are horn rim glasses and a myopic squint. Oy vey, The original Goldbergs of the 1950's was insulting enough, but this? It's That 70's show a decade later and even more dysfunctional than the last ten years. You should live so long that a show like this will make it thru the summer. This stale piece of kreplach should never have made it through the first pitch session, what were you people thinking? And when did my mother ever say "dick hair"? Come on, all those beeps. This isn't entertainment, it's excrement.

I purchased the DVD of this remarkable production with the intention of delving into the plots and cross-plots and intrigue which is what I appreciate about the genre. I was pleasantly surprised that watching it the second time I picked up on all the subtle and not-so-subtle religious overtones. It never hit me the first time how much it mimics the biblical story. Sure, I saw the David v. Goliath reference, Silas rather than Saul.. the son Jonathan, who loved David (here in a jealousy not mentioned in the Bible), and all the rest. It's not that I didn't see them, but the quality of the production, the amazing Ian McShane, who can sell poop to a fly with that mellow-as-a-good-cab voice blinded me to the substrate of the story.At first, I regretted not having a second season, but now, I feel it's a complete package. I strongly recommend this series.

First of all, I have been big fan of Julia Child ever since I sat in front of the old black/white set tuned to the local PBS Channel in Orlando Florida to watch The French Chef, and on and on till Dinner at Julias many years later. I had the good fortune to meet this wonderful lady at a book signing in Houston, Texas at the Alabama Book Stop. I brought all my previously purchased books and bought two new ones for her to sign. She and Paul signed all my JC cookbooks. I treasure them to this day.

I'll be quite honest with you, I went to see Julie and Julia with a modicum of hesitation because the trailers on TV were showing the extreme Julia not the real movie Julia. Meryl Streep's performance as the revered gastronomic giant (no pun intended!)was flawless. I closed my eyes a few times and listened to her inflection and I felt Julia was on the screen. Stanley Tucci was great as Paul Child, the diplomat husband who loved Julia with an adolescent playful puppy love quality, but always a husband, never a doormat. I was pleased to leave the theater knowing more about Julia than I thought I did.

Amy Adams and Chris Messina were good, but I found myself urging the movie forward thru their scenes so I could soak up more Meryl, like a yeast roll and a good dark rioux. And I began to wonder, why does this guy who went from eating everyday young married food to a year of rich haute cuisine(with oodles of beautiful, bubbly buttah) not gain a pound, not an ounce! I kept expecting a belly to blossom on Chris, which would have been a nice bit of comic relief, but not even a pudge.

Hoping for an Oscar nod for Meryl..

DON'T BUTTER YOUR POPCORN DEAR FANS... you'll get plenty in the show.

EWWWW.. Get out of my face Tim Roth...Tim Roth was awful. His old-man, rode hard put away damp and mildewy appearance and his pathetic attitude was a real spoiler for me. The Abonmination was an improvement over that weirdo. Sorry Tim, but you got a face that could stop a train and a body that needs a LOT of work. I loved the beginning in Brazil, having lived and worked there, I recognized the favellas immediately. My big question is what is Banner doing at the end? Hulking out in the wilds of British Columbia for kicks? I guess if I had that power, I'd green-man from time to time just to feel big and bad and swole! William Hurt follows the same driven, cycloptic militarist minded General that Sam Eliot did in 2003, inlcuding bad acting and a gruff almost unintelligible voice. And I kept looking for elf ears on Liv Tyler. She was seen so much during the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, I feel her face has been typecast as an elf. All in all, a bit of an improvement on the 2003 Ang Lee epic, but Eric Bana is a lot easier on the eyes than Ed Norton any day. Can't wait for Captain America!!!

The Gamma People is a classic mix of post WWII aimlessness sprinkled nicely with a generous dose of Hitlerian medical experimentation by a quasi dictator named Boronski. Unnoticed by the outside world save a chance happenstance of an uncoupled railroad passenger car with 2 reporters, American and British sliding down a side rail and ending up engine-less in the rail yard of the Dutchy of Gudavia, the whole town is in an uproar about the arrival of uninvited foreign guests.

A postage stamp country if there ever was one, in fact, it's smaller than a postage stamp. With a pompous Hoenzollern-like police chief, a quaint hotel, and other assorted hovels leered at by a castle on the hill (that's where Boronski lives), Gudavia holds a hideous secret. The youth of the town are being zapped by Boronski with a huge gamma-ray projector causing two types of effects, geniuses like Hugo, a Teutonic dictatorial little snit and Hedda, a musical genius, able to whip out complex Beethoven or Bach at the drop of a piece of strudel, and morons, goon-like guys who run around with their arms at their sides and mouths wide open, catching flies, and moaning their compliance to the will of Boronski and his broken pitch pipe. The Brit Lothario goes wench hunting and ends up running into one of the goonies..

The two reporters decide to visit the schloss and see what's happening in Good Old Gudavia's seat of government. The castle is ostensibly a school, with a lot of secret doors that make the coolest sound when opening and closing.. much neater than the doors on the original TOS Enterprise. There, they meet Dr. Boronski's assistant Frau Wendt, who tours the guys around the school ending up with a sculpture class where they meet Hugo and his huge goon mask, that still scares me. Here and there mysterious deaths, screams and crumpled bodies in the bottom of ravines spoil the peaceful tranquility of Gudavia,maybe you were expecting all edelweiss and shtollen ? A totally trippy festival with an awesome musical piece is used quite effectively to flesh out a who's hunting who scene in the city streets. Finally, Hedda is kidnapped and conveyed to the castle where she, Paula Wendt and the American reporter Wilson are subjected to the gamma rays, while Hugo watches, becoming more and more upset until he finally turns on the doctor pushing him off a balcony as the building begins to crumple in the intense explosion caused by the falling Boronski. Hugo and Hedda and Wilson and Paula are safe, staggering away from the castle Boronski which is now erupting like a big volcano, fade to a happy scene another festival, Hugo and Heda are happy-go-lucky young children again, free of the shackles of artificially induced genius, now just a couple of crazy kids. I think I liked them the other way.

You can read into the movie whatever you want. I look at it as a classic that fascinated me as a child, and now still does as an adult. Safe, escapist, preachy but in a nice way, and entertaining. It may be corny and cheesy but hey, I like corn and cheese.

When I was a lad, in the Cutler Ridge Cinema, after having paid 10 cents, and spent a buck at the Rexall Candy aisle.. jeez, no wonder my teeth rotted by 14! Anyway, as I was saying, Id sit in the theater among other kids my age, in plush (to me) theater seats, looking at the most marvelous blue screen.. sweeping from side to side in a grand arc, the glory of CINERAMA. The reverse embossed edge of the screen spilled the color into the front 10 rows of the seats. I saw many a good 60'z s sci fi like The Lost World, with David Hedison and Claude Rains, the original Voyage to The Bottom of the Sea movie with Walter Pidgeon as Admiral Nelson.

I saw Krakatoa, East of Java in such a theater. Then it was the quintessential volcano movie with spectacular fireworks, a monstrous tidal wave that wipes out all of Sumatra.. and Java and everything else, by the looks of it. The human story is a droll treasure hunt looking for a box full of sacs of large perfect pearls, lost when a woman loses track of her husband and now cast-a-way son. Maximillian Schell plays a crusty but benevolent captain of a steel boat called the Batavia Queen. He is money-whipped into taking a group of convicts that look like they just got up out of the pit at Devils Island.

Also are a father son team of balloonists (Sal Mineo's last film I believe) A deep sea explorer who has brought along an experimental diving bell, and a laudanum junkie ex diver played by Brian Keith and his floozy wife.."and smokers!". Ooops, I forgot the Japanese pearl divers (Toshi et el), although Sal Mineo says Tushy.. I swear.

The cheesy soundtrack is peppered with amateurish musical numbers, a pseudo-Beachboy tenor obbligato.piece.Java Girl.Even when I saw this movie the first time, I knew the plastic volcano mountain was hokey. Krakatoa was a gentle island volcano with a low slope, not the alpine Matter-cano in the film. Also it is located WEST, not EAST of Java, but that would have made a clumsy title.. Krakatoa, West of Java.. doesn't click does it? Anyway, I bought the DVD cause I collect sorry cheesy B movies like this. That it has such screen greats as Schell, Keith, Brazzi, Mineo and Baker among others, is a definite plus. Well worth the $5.99!

Writing strictly about the DVD release of this mini-series, the 16 X 9 treatment was a real nice addition to the excellent color, easy to use menu and beautiful sound that surrounds this great story. I am not a Pierce Brosnan fan, but he performs admirably the task of playing Ian Dunross, Tai Pan of the Noble House.The other characters jump off the screen in this crisp, vibrant and colorful DVD release.

The only objection I have is to the tiresome way they always have to play the full credits at the beginning of each segment of the mini-series. Why can't they have a credit chapter that only plays once? All in all, one of the better releases on DVD of an old VHS set.

I went into this film without even knowing more than the title, and I left misty eyed and eager to learn more about this remarkable story. The acting was dead-on, the casting perfect and the cinematography exquisite. Denzel Washington should get an Oscar nod for director, and Denzel Whitaker a nod for supporting actor. Nate Parker and Jimee Smollett also turned in fine performances as the other two on the debate team. Forrest Whitaker was his usual best as the president of Wylie College and father to his son. Of course, ever present is the pernicious evil of bigotry and hate that pervaded the south during that time period and still exists today. Chilling in it's portrayal, the racism is so thick you can smell it.

But, despite overwhelming odds, and all naysayers, this story is, not unlike Stand and Deliver, a true success story, where perseverance of mind conquers the unwillingness of the flesh. I highly recommend this movie to all.

I have waited years for this DVD. It is a masterpiece of restoration. The movie is more vibrant and vivid and the sound is fantastic. I guess watching it in HD helps with an up conversion DVD player.

Everybody knows the story..Ming and Klytus are watching intergalactic TV and zero in on Earth as a plaything, which they begin to destroy with burning hail and terrible storms and gales. Flash Gordon meets Dale Arden on the tarmac at a local airport to be interviewed, then takes off in a plane only to crash land outside the laboratory greenhouse of Dr Hans Zarkov.

Zarkov tricks Flash and Dale and they end up on his rocket ship which blasts into space. Zarkov is convinced that he has discovered the source of the destructive forces now raining down on Earth. The rocket ship crash lands on Mongo, and the whole bunch is captured by forces of the Emperor Ming.

The group is brought before Ming and the other planetary representatives, Hawkmen, Green Lantern Types, and other assorted alien types. Flash plays a game of football to the joy of all present, but is knocked unconscious and ends up in the sexy clutches of Mings daughter Aura who wants to rape and pillage this fine specimen of humanity, complete with black leather shorty shorts. Go Flash Go. Flash is "put to death" with lethal gas, but is actually not really dead. Aura has saved flash for her own pleasures on her personal pleasure planetoid.

They crash on Arbor where the Green Guys put Flash through a test, which Flash wins and eventually wins the hearts of all the guys..led by Prince Barin (not related to Ming, but heir to the throne of mongo anyway). Arda is captured by Ming's secret police and Klytus works on her with the bore worms. She confesses and Ming dispatches a ship to pick up Flash, but is thwarted by the Hawk Men led by Prince Vultan. Klytus is killed and the jig is up.

Ming decides to marry Dale Arden and a lavish marriage ceremony takes place. Meantime Flash is flying a suicide mission on rocket Ajax and crashes directly into the palace wedding chapel and impales Ming on the nose of the craft. Ming dissolves into pink vapor and all that is left is his gorgeous ring, which a gloved hand mysteriously picks up with an evil Ming laugh in the background.

Flash and Dale Arden are united, Zarkov is safe and Barin is the new King of Mongo. Everybody lives happily ever after, or do they? The Queen Soundtrack.. well what can I say. I hum Flash.. ahhh ahhhh all the time, it's so damn catchy.

I recommend the DVD release to everybody who has, like me, awaited this campy classic in a modern format. Like Klytus said.. we live on.. An insignificant planet in the SK system, the inhabitants call it "Euth".

Well, even Joan Collins couldn't mess this one up when it was released on DVD. The transfer is amazingly clear, colorful and beautifully restored. OK OK, so the movie is anemic at worst, and campy at its best, but hey, if William Faulkner wrote it, it's got to be good, right? Howard Hawks directs Jack Hawkins, Joan Collins, and a host of other characters. Dimitri Tiomkin score is interesting and original.

Khufu, Pharoh of Egypt, of the Upper Kingdom and the Lower Kingdom blah, blah, blah, has come back from one of his treasure gathering slaughters and has so much loot now, he wants to preserve it in a pick-proof tomb. He cajoles the people into building it for free and this works for a few years, until the money runs out, and the patriotism runs out and all of a sudden the people become slaves to the task.

The pyramid is designed by Vashtar, a Cusshite captive miracle man who can build the most ingenious labyrinths and army deathtraps devised, in exchange for a ticket out of Egypt for his people. The construction lasts for years, enough for his young son Senta to grow into a strapping young Chippendale Dancer who helps his ailing father see in the darkness of the pyramid.

Khufu needs money, so he begins to soak the provinces including the tributary province of Cyprus, who has sent their only begotten wench Nelefer as ambassador. Ambassador? She and her strapping slave install themselves in the court eventually working the way up to second wife. Nelefer wants to be #1 wifey so she concocts a way to rub out the queen with a snake charmed in by the son and heir Xenon.

The slave Maboona is sent to assassinate Khufu who is languishing at some oasis near a supposed treasure trove. Maboona fails and Khufu returns wounded and bleeding to confront his enemy, a captain of the guard who has been seduced by Nellifer. Khufu kills the creep and then dying discovers the true traitor, Nellifer herself. Khufu dies, and Nellifer is Queen after all. But there's a really neat catch. Hamar, Khufu's right hand man has sealed Nellifer's fate, so to speak, with his own, in the pyramid itself, and when the movie ends, we see Vashtar and his people in exodus to Cush, and Nellifer crying her eyes out surrounded by granite, pouring sand, Hamar (looking smart in his black Egyptian get-up) and a bunch of tongueless priests. One can only imagine the party after they all start starving.

This belongs on anybodys DVD shelf if you are a fan of sword and sandal epics, no matter how bad. So let it be written, so let it be FUN!

Looking more like Trials of Life on steroids, this well-photographed look at Earth is replete with beautiful imagery, startling vistas, unusual close-ups and oddles of animal death. I didn't buy Trials of Life for that very reason, who wants to see a killer whale torturing a seal for 10 minutes, or as in this production, see wolves hunt prey, polar bears die in an effort to stave off starving by being punctured in a nest of Walrus, or birds swooping down to kill other birds, or worst of all, a group of orphan penguin babies slowly freezing to death, eyes of ice, dying before our eyes. This is not entertainment people, this is badly produced documentary posing as entertainment.

Sigourney Weaver has a marvelous acting voice, but several hours of Ripleyesque monotone isn't pleasant. She was not the best choice for a narrator (too bad Richard Kiley wasn't still alive).

And lastly, how many times does the phrase "for the first time" have to crop up in the narration? Once, twice? How about 5 or 6 times an episode, not to mention the bad editing and preachy environmentalist closing each episode has.

Don't get me wrong. I love the animal imagery, like the weird birds in the rain forest, or the polar bear babies, or the penguin babies, or the oryx battles, but they should leave the death scenes on the cutting room floor. Yes, I know there is both life and death, but in this case, death spoils the appeal of the show.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD...Rather than give us a dark fantasy about a young girl in a quest for the truth, the director gave us a blood-soaked horrific social commentary on the struggle of the partisans against the fascistas in World War II Spain. The fantasy allegory is only briefly touched on during the movie, with wonderful snippets of movie magic, the faun is particularly effective and well-played. The rest of the time people are being shot, stabbed, cut up, blown up and otherwise killed. I would not have gone to see this movie if I knew in advance the majority of the film was so visually unappealing. Children should NOT be allowed to see this film under any circumstances. I honestly don't see what all the hoopla is about, and I couldn't see giving any applause let alone 23 minutes reportedly given at Canne.

I was fortunate while in college at the University of Florida to attend a screening of this movie introduced by the author, screenplay writer and actor, James Dickey. He stood on a corner of the stage looking every bit the part of the Aintry Sheriff he plays in the movie. His insight into the depth and breadth of the novel Deliverance made my first viewing a memorable one. Every time I see this film, I get chills down my spine. The sheer terror, and total believability of the situation that the four men find themselves in makes for scary moments. In spite of the cuts and edits the film has suffered in the intervening years, the movie still stands as a great action epic, set amidst the raw splendor of a raging river, a backward people and a dying landscape. Anybody interested in pursuing additional information about Appalachia should read Night Comes to the Cumberlands. I highly recommend this film for adults, as some scenes would be disturbing to young children.

Having been a fan of Christopher Guest since Waiting for Guffman, I was extremely disappointed in his latest "For Your Consideration". Come on now Chris, the embedded yiddish is now no more than cheap schtick that does make Jews like me chuckle but is lost on the rest of the audience. In "A Mighty Wind", the schtick was an integral part of the picture, here, it's silly, contrived and totally without any underlying humor or meaning. Eugene Levy is getting old, and tired, and Catherine O'Hara was frightening in that horrific post-collagen, face lift, botox masque that she had done in anticipation of winning an Oscar. The storytelling as in "Best in Show" was not there, nor the cohesive underpinning of Guffman or Wind. It resembled a series of outtakes that were somehow strung together without any rhyme or reason. I rarely comment negatively about a movie, but in this case, a second choice to "The Queen" which was having projector difficulties, it was a total waste of time.

When this series was re-broadcast on the old Bravo network, I managed to record several of the episodes on VHS tape, watching and re-watching the copies till the tape ran snowy and hard to hear. I longed for the day when I could watch the entire series from start to finish in crisp DVD clarity. My wait is ended, I am rewarded. This monumental series full of passion, intrigue, historical goodies, court gossip and protocol is just as fresh as the first time it was broadcast in 1974. Beginning in the mid 1800's and ending with the Kaiser's abdication and exile in 1918, this sweeping melodrama covers all the salient points of political and private machinations that led to the destruction and self-immolation of the three great houses of Europe, the Hapsburgs, Hohenzollerns and Romanovs.

Patrick Stewart (Vladimir Lenin, Sejanus in I, Claudius, Captain Jean Luc Picard on Star Trek, the Next Generation) heads a wonderful cast including Curt Jurgens(Otto Von Bismark),Laurence Naismith (Emperor Franz-Josef of Austria-Hungary), Charles Kay (Czar Nicholas Romanov of Russia, also Asinius Galus in I, Claudius), Freddie Jones(Witte), Rosalie Crutchley (Mihail, also Catherine Parr in Six Wives of Henry VIII), Barry Foster(Kaiser Wilhelm II of Prussia), and Gayle Hunnicutt(the Empress Alexandra Federovna of Russia). John Rhys-Davies (Zinoviev, also Macro in I, Claudius) and others easily recognized for various character roles in I, Claudius, Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R show their flexibility and talent and act up a storm in this, the ultimate costume drama period-piece.

The DVD set is beautifully packaged in a fold open series of 4 discs with tasteful decoration The color is outstanding, the sound almost perfect save for a few variations in volume from one episode to the next, a mere trifle.

Every teacher of European History or World History should have this set in their collection, not only for historical content but also for the inexorable march of the familial conflicts toward the ultimate conflagration and destructive event of World War I. It is surprising that the 3 houses, bound by family and blood ties could pull each other to pieces as they did. Beginning with the overbearing and domineering Sophie, mother to the soon-to-be Emperor Franz-Josef,and his doomed son Crown Prince Rudolph (The Mayerling incident is played in delicious detail), then the increasingly enfeebled Kaiser Wilhelm I, and his son-and-heir the doomed Fredrich III, eventually succeeded by the megalomaniacal Kaiser Wilhelm II who led his country to doom in World War I, and the reluctant heir-apparent Nicholas, weak and milquetoast son of the brutish Alexander III who let his country slip through his fingers, dominated by the religiously crippled and pathetically distracted Alexandra, cursed with a hemophiliac son and heir Alexis, ending with the Bolshevik triumph in Russia, the disappearance of the Hapsburg dynasty after the assassination of Archduke Franz-Ferdinand in Sarajevo and the abdication of the Hohenzollern monarch Kaiser Wilhelm II.

I highly recommend this DVD set to any collector of historical drama. It is the finest in BBC entertainment of the early 70's, and well worth the wait.

Sorry folks, this beast is too long, too crammed with special effects, too miscast and too "in your face" to be the hyped masterpiece that everybody is claiming.

Yes, Peter Jackson has slimmed up and tech'd up but unlike his true masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, his effort is forced, his attempts to exact exactitude are too obvious, his attention to detail is too, too..I don't know, just too many notes.

Some of the ideas are novel.. who would have thought of a stampede of apatosaurs in a narrow ravine with several mini-tyrannosaurs thrown in for good measure. The action in this sequence was shot so close up it's almost impossible to see who survived or died until the dust settled and everybody was asked to sound off. Personally, I find it hard to believe that anybody could survive that kind of close encounter of the Mesozoic kind.

The combat sequence between Kong, his Barbie doll and the three mature Tyrannosaurae was more believably shot until they ended up like so many marionettes, caught in a vine-like bungee ride, replete with Tropez swings. Now I ask you, would a Tyrannosaur continually snap at Ann in the predicament it found itself in? Talk about instincts.

And what's up with that insect/slug/pit of death? Come on Peter.. Shelob was awesome as a villainous arachnid.. but putting so many destructive arthropods and slugs in one place to imperil the cast was overkill. The captain HAD to come back, nobody would have gotten out alive, again, too contrived. And wasn't Lumpy's demise disgusting????? Puhleeze.

The ONLY good thing about this movie was Kong. The gorilla was totally believable, Andy Serkis was amazing once again, his animal affectations are wonderful, and the CGI was flawless.

Before I leave you dear fans, I must go off on Jack Black. How could Peter Jackson cast this impishly short, tubby, baby faced, high-voiced man-boy in the lead role was lost on me. He was a total farce and a major miscast. His character development was too avaricious, too dark, too sarcastic compared with the original character in the first film. When Jack Black said "It was beauty that killed the beast", I just chuckled.. totally unbelievable as the captor of Kong. And not one shiver out of Ann atop the Empire State Building in freezing weather? Finally, anybody that dares call this the best picture of the year, or states that Peter Jackson should get best director for this bloated comic book of a movie will get a slap from me.

Hated it. The story is simple.. good against evil, the backdrops are all stock Lord of the Rings settings. The climactic battle between the armies of the White Witch and those of Aslan clash on Pelinore Field, the mountain in the background missing the white towers of Minas Tirinth. yes, the animals are wonderfully conceived CGI, the centaurs weren't all that great, and the head centaur was downright ugly.

I love Turkish delight! My father used to buy it at the local foreign grocery in Miami when I was a kid. I wouldn't be tempted by a witch producing a whole plate of the stuff.. too sweet.

Tilda Swinton was the only saving grace of this pedantic, lumbering and altogether molasses-like movie. She captured the essence of the White Witch. The Einsteinian time travel stuff is a nice touch but I ask you this.. what happened to the whole kingdom when all four of the heads of state suddenly vanish one fine afternoon? Also, Jim Broadbent (Topsy Turvy) was underused.

Now, as to the Christian bent, it was painfully obvious. At one point, Aslan says "It is finished", a direct reference to the last words of Christ on the cross. I was less offended by the obvious references to the Gospel than by the vain attempts to conceal and camouflage the other dogma(too numerous to mention here, and frankly I don't want to go into it)

I am sure this film and its progeny will please the same crowd that paid tribute to Caesar to see The Passion of the Christ, but those of us who saw the penultimate good v. evil story brought to the screen (Lord of the Rings et al) will probably not be among the future ticket buyers.

Ang Lee has taken a short story of few words and made it into a monument of deep feeling and sensitivity that will stand as one of the finest films to deal with "the love that dare not speak its' name". Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) is a cowboy of few words, yet his body language, his face and movements speak volumes to Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal)a man ready to set up house and live happily ever after at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately for Twist, Ennis is so haunted by a childhood incident, that the mere sharing of a grope or kiss or wink in public is anathema and must be done with frequent glancing around to make sure jaundiced eyes aren't watching. The result is an angst filled anxiety roller-coaster that causes Ennis to withdraw from life into a beer bottle and Twist to wish for a different "happy ending" to his life story, house and home, warm fire in the hearth and a Marlboro man to love till the cows come home. The film is full of cherished lines and situations because neither character is a font of conversation. Ledger speaks his lines from behind clenched lips, holding back imaginary chew juice, even though he smokes cigarettes and never spits. Gyllenhaal uses those amazing bedroom eyes to convey the deep love he has for Del Mar. He takes the good with the bad, the bitter with the sweet, but increasingly bitter times lie ahead for both of them. This is a classic love story of two men who married, had children, lived separate lives, but came together to share the only real love they ever knew. The wives, the kids are all incidental to the rapids whitecap-ping constantly between Jack and Ennis. Some may find this behavior selfish and immoral, but to the end, Brokeback Mountain transcends this prejudice and shows us what was probable, but never possible because of a hateful society that surrounds the characters. I highly recommend this movie to anybody with an open mind and a heart. Bravo.

If Phillip Seymour Hoffman does not get the Oscar for best actor, there is no justice. His total immersion portrayal of the brilliant but haunted child-like genius writer Truman Capote is a living homage to the late author. I sat in a small venue, so mesmerized was I that I was leaning forward in my seat propping an elbow on the back of the seat in front of me. I was with a friend, and the theater was lightly occupied. You could have heard a pin drop in there. Even the munching of popcorn or slurping of soda was kept to a minimum, nobody wanted to miss a line, or be distracted and miss a gesture.

The laughter from the audience was genuine, not mocking and very savvy. I was in a good group that afternoon.

The angst and dread and anxiety and the conflicting emotions of pride and revulsion mixed liberally with a sexual undercurrent so strong you would feel like being in a rip-tide, yet he knows his subject matter must die in order to fulfill his destiny as the first writer of "true crime" genre nonfiction.

You can taste the drinks, smell the cigarettes, see the depression overwhelm him as he realizes he must hope for death to consummate evolution to another level of creativity.

Interestingly, the color treatment of this film cleverly intersperses with stark high-contrast lighting to simulate black and white like the gory crime scene pictures or the press and publicity stills taken for the book, In Cold Blood.

I hate to say this, but Robert Blake will always be Perry Smith to me, even though Clifton Collins, Jr. does a marvelous job translating the child-like friendliness and simmering rage inside this cold blooded killer. Blakes Smith will always seem a bit more sensitive, terrified and at the same time exhilarated and turned-on by the whole spectacle of his murderous self-immolation.

The scene showing Smith staring out a grate in the wall to watch "Andy", the best boy in Kansas, swollen with self-indulgence waddling out to the "corner", trying to beat the rope by weighing enough to break it is a great homage to the original Blake "In Cold Blood". I thought the forklift for his corpse a nice touch.

This is a marvelous snippet of time, expanded and stretching the emotional fabric of the period in Capote's life to grab our attention and keep it wrung out like a wet rag....cold and damp, creepy almost but riveting, like a bloody auto accident. You can't look at it, and you can't look away.

Totally Awesome.

Depressingly tragic with all characters plummeting into a bottomless pit of guilt, self-doubt, regret and petty crime, with the Iranian housewife and son thrown in as hapless victims in this tug of war between a pathetic ex-alcoholic deadbeat woman trying to keep up the ruse of being the successful daughter to an out of town family following the death of her father, and an old world Shah-loving Iranian ex-patriot Colonel now working as a road gang grunt and quickie-picky clerk fooling his elegant but naieve wife and faithful Reza Pahlavi-like son that he is a successful American now. The object of this disaffection is a house bought for taxes at an auction formerly owned by the alkie and now moved-in and upgraded for a quick profit by the Colonel. If this wasn't so depressing, it would be a laugh riot. Enter a psycho but loving county Mountie who was first evicting the girl, now making love to her and sharking up (literally) after leaving his wife and two kids. His character is living proof of the axiom "no good deed goes unpunished".

The action goes from drama to melodrama to tedious melodrama to out and out ultra violence as each main character is destroyed by an inexorable destiny of death. This movie is not for the faint of heart. It is a glimpse into the hell that can be when Murphy's law is working all to true.

It's one of those great but horribly disturbing films that, like an auto accident, you can't look at but can't look away either.

The movie was a great sequel to an equally great remake, but the music was BAD. Be VERY afraid of this soundtrack. There were moments when I thought a bunch of needles were being raked across my eyes during the music. Whoever made the soundtrack should be dangled by his lavalier from a lamppost on the Chams Elyses. Trying to sound very 60's eurotrash brass ensemble via early Avengers and James Bond music, the soundtrack comes off to shrill, painful and all around nauseating. The music insults the senses. Go with ear plugs and you will be happy.

By the way.. can Elliot Gould's glasses get any bigger? I would love to own a pair of those cinemas-cope peepers..talk about stereoscopic vision.

I recently purchased the DVD set of Season One with bonus stories. The structure of the navigation is a bit weird, the episodes are arranged as they were in the original series, one or two or possibly three in one show. They're Tearing Down Riley's Bar is a poignant William Windom vignette that really tore my heart out watching it for the first time on the DVD (I don't remember it on TV at all).

Changes and strange happenings....

The theme song has been altered from the original theme by adding emphasis on a different note in the melody, weird.

In this era of "add stuff to previous movies" made famous by the infamous addition of actors not previously appearing in a movie, such as Lucas with the new re-do of Episode 6 of Star Wars placing Hayden Christesen in the "ghost spirit" shot at the end of Return of the Jedi, Spielberg has now done the same thing, only more subtly. In the Joan Crawford (Claudia Menlow) piece about the millionaire dowager in the pilot who buys some poor saps' eyes for a few minutes of sight, listen carefully to the music box playing early on in the scenes. You will recognize a JAWS theme. I didn't know that John Williams even did soundtracks back when the pilot for Night Gallery was conceived. I will have to see if his name appears in any of the credits. Is the music box a Williams theme, or is it a plant to tease Spielberg fanatics, who knows..

I for one found the DVD series lacking in episodes I remember, such as "The Boy Who Could Predict Earthquakes" with Clint Howard, or "Camera Obscura" or an episode I can't recall the name of, about a man who lives in his apartment near the air conditioner, because he is DEAD and can only stay alive if he is cold. There's a power blackout and he "melts/dies". Also, the "quickies" aren't there either. I guess they were started in later seasons.

I recommend the bonus disc for the episode with Carl Reiner Professor Peabody's Last Lecture, about a sarcastic self agrandizing academic who taunts the fates by making fun of ancient gods and goddesses. It gave me a chuckle to see that episode once again.

So, as Osmond Portifoy said.. "I'll leave a light on".

Good Evening.

This piece looks like it was made by the same group that made the remarkable remake of Dune and the new Children of Dune sequel, but unfortunately, it lacks the depth or style or intellect the others do. Angus MacFadyen is simply awful as Marcus "Licinius" Crassus. I put Licinius in quotations because in an attempt to distance itself as much as possible from the posher and more dignified Kubrick vehicle, this movie resorts to new pronunciations of names, additional fictional characters and plot twists that make Kubrick's swiss cheese epic look like cinema verite'. MacFadyen, who played an equally milquetoast Robert the Bruce in Mel Gibson's wonderful Braveheart, downplays Crassus to the point of reducing him to a two dimensional roman farcic play actor playing at Crassus, while Alan Bates (may he rest in peace) does his best to underplay Agrippa although he'd like to act MacFadyen into the ground, but is too weak physically or just doesn't care. The late Sir Lawrence Olivier delivered a powerfully dignified and power-hungry patrician in Kubrick's epic complete with the much-alluded-to homosexual bent.. I bet most Romans in the patrician class were bisexual. there wasn't the guilt or soon-to-appear Christian taboos and such. And what is it about Ian McNiece that he has to butcher all names he is asked to pronounce.. he did it in Dune "AAAAH traydes" and here with his own name "Bat E at us".. The late and wonderful Peter Ustinov's Lentulus Batiatus (Ustinov pronounced it Ba-tie-a-tus, far more distinguished sounding.) was far less gross and slovenly. McNiece's Batiatus never gets out of his roman PJ the whole film. His now gargantuan porcine form (see HBO's Consipiracy, about the Wansee conference and the Final Solution to the Jewish Question, and earlier, the Baron Harkonen in Dune and Children of Dune.)blimping the garment out. You know... A Spartacus with Hayden Christensen in the title role and Natalie Portman as Virinia would have been much more entertaining.. but I jest.. WHERE IS CHARLES LAUGHTON WHEN YOU NEED HIM? QUINTILLIUS VARUS... WHERE ARE MY EAGLES?????

Capturing the Friedmans is not a pleasant film to watch. It is not a pleasant film, period. It is, however, a disturbing, thought-provoking, conversation-starting piece of documentary that leaves you with many more questions than answers. How could a well-to-do Jewish family with three healthy intelligent and outgoing boys, a well-respected, award-winning, pillar of the community father and a somewhat distant yet loving mother be upon closer inspection revealed to be a household of cover-up, denial, pedophilia, child abuse, sado-masochism and incest involving numerous children from the community? Even after watching the film, there is no right answer.

The film basically sets up two premises: Arnold and Jesse Friedman are guilty as sin and the community is correct, or Arnold and Jesse are innocent and the community of Great Neck Long Island New York is caught up in mass hysteria, witch hunting and community outrage that convicts the men before a trial can be held.

Yes, Arnold Friedman used to buy and lend and borrow pedophilic literature, but does that make him a sex criminal? Does the discovery of such literature in a private home constitute good cause to proceed with seeking out and interviewing any adolescents that may have come in contact with the man? It is evident from the film, or at least from the makers of the film that the law enforcement community, the judicial system and the community at large were very quick to convict these two men on just the word of witnesses, most of whom were hypnotized or asked leading questions to obtain the desired information. On the other hand, a history of confessed pedophilic sexual encounters with siblings and others in his past does; on the surface; damn Arnold Friedman in the eyes of that community. His wife's quick acceptance of his guilt and the guilt of his son is evidence of a deep rift that was built up over the years. Arnold enjoyed the company of his sons, his male students, and apparently his wife was only in the background to cook and clean and make the beds. In one interview, another son admits that his parents probably only had sex three times, the times immediately preceding the conception of the three boys.

So what is Capturing the Friedmans trying to do? Alert us to the community mind that in an instant could be upon us and condemn us unheard? Or show the ruthlessness of prosecutors and judges who manipulate defendants into confessing to crimes they are innocent of in an effort to avoid a huge heap of charges and indictments that could result in a much longer prison term if found guilty? Certainly it does. But the film also hints subtly or in some cases not so subtly at the possibility that what the kiddos in that home-based computer classroom were learning wasn't necessarily DOS or Windows, but a life lesson in trust, and the betrayal of that trust. But remember, not every child accused them of abuse, some said nothing went on at all, so where is the truth?

In the end, only two people know the truth... Arnold and Jesse Friedman. Arnold is dead, a suicide in prison to allow his son recieve a large insurance settlement. Jesse Friedman maintains his innocence to this day. One day, we may know the whole truth,or we may never know. I hope for the former, but fear the latter.

Well, what can I say.. Johnny Depp, looking like Alice Cooper meets the Scarlet Pimpernell meets Bob Marley and sounding like Oscar Wilde after too much absinth plays Jack Sparrow the overthrown captain of a band of cuthroats. The mutinous pirates are now led by a deliciously ruthless Captain Barbosa played to the teeth by Geoffrey Rush. They are in search of the final pieces of Cortez'zzzzzz Aztec Gold so they can lift the curse of Moctezuma and stop running around in a disheveled pirate vessel known as the Black Pearl. All it takes is some special ingredient and the curse will be lifted and the guys can go around carousing and raping and pilaging and enjoy the whole thing rather than spend eternity as unsatisfied and perpetually ticked-off skeletal spooks. Orlando Bloom plays a blacksmith Will Turner who has a bit of pirate in him and wonders why, and Keira Knightley plays Elizabeth, daughter of the Governor who knows why.

All in all good squash-buckler of a film that has little to do with the ride of the same name save one scene in Tortuga which looks remarkably like the raping and pilaging that goes on in the Disney attraction. The skeletal capuchin monkey was a nice touch. makeup gets high marks, although Depp should be hung for his excessive use of eye shadow and sparkle disco glitter..come on Johnny, who are you fooling?

Apparently the music by Klaus Badelt, was a direct RIP OFF of Gladiator, because Klaus Badelt did the incidental music for Gladiator. What did you think Klaus, no one would notice? So if you ignore the music stolen from another film, Pirates is good fun. Not a keeper, but fun just the same.