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This should appeal to Anime and Manga fans - but I haven't read this one. I did notice few similarities between Alita and Astroboy (from the 60s & 80s). In both, a humanoid robot is built - Astroboy, by a scientist in search of a lost son, Alita, by a doctor in search of a lost daughter. In both, the hero/heroine becomes aware and tries to remember his/her origins. In both (at least, in one Astroboy episode) there's a competition between the hero/heroine involving giant powerful robots in a sports arena. Most interesting, in both there's a Dark Figure, looking down from above. But maybe that's common to a lot of anime.

"Alita" will certainly appeal to Anime and video game fans.

Rosa Salazar is the heart and soul of this movie. It's fascinating to me that not a bit of the real-life Salazar's body appears in it - but every move, every emotion comes through clearly.

People have wondered about Alita's eyes - but anybody who knows Manga knows about that. The only thing is, shouldn't everybody else have the same treatment?

The final scenes hint very strongly that there will be at least one more Alita movie. It usually works out that if the first make enough at the box office, they'll do another. It's been a bad month for movies, but Alita beat out the Lego movie, so maybe there's hope.

I saw it last night in our local theater that shows "classic" movies. It's everything the other reviewers say: funny, poignant, sad, happy, philosophical.... Tevye has a running conversation with God ("Sometimes I think, when it gets too quiet up there, You say to Yourself, "What kind of mischief can I play on My friend Tevye?")

Topol has played that role so often that it fits him like a velvet glove. It's long, with an intermission ("Entre'acte" on the screen), but never dull or lagging.

The music was conducted and adapted by a young and upcoming film musician named John Williams.

Part of Tevye's story is how Tradition keeps their society intact, and how it keeps them stuck in the same roles year after year, and what happens when a younger generation breaks out of that tradition.

I'd say that this is one you need to see on the big screen - but with today's giant home screens, that's not true any more. This is one of the best, worth keeping.

This is one of the most original films I've seen in a long time. The themes are timeless, but Anderson has put them together in an original way. Anderson fans will recognize his cinema techniques (as in "Moonlight Serenade"). The score is brilliant: including Japanese taiko drums throughout - hypnotic (with one exception - a bit from Prokofiev's "Lt Kije Suite". I missed the Anjelica Huston credit - and I watched for it. It's one of the few movies I'll watch before it closes.

We meet O-Ei, grown daughter of the famous Japanese painter Hokusai. She has a younger sister, O-Nao, who is blind. (O-Ei's name was actually Katsushka Ōi, but it also appears as "O-Ei".) Hokusai is depicted as a gruff, single-minded man, living in his studio, apart from his wife and children. The blind young sister is invented - as is most of the rest of the story. But she plays a very important part.

There are great moments here. One incredibly beautiful moment occurs near the end of the film. And of course, there's a delightful scene involving his most famous print, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa".

The animation is beautifully done, in typical Japanese fashion. Not as beautifully as Miyazaki, but still, good.

The story covers a lot of ground, including the Japanese form of erotic art (shunga). Part of that thread involves an important plot element.

The musical score is very Western and modern, which could be a little off-putting. As the credits went by, I saw one of the song titles given in Spanish!.

It's a movie that keeps you involved, and doesn't let you nod off.

PS: Keep your eyes on the little dog that shows up at the beginning.

That's a charitable 4 - for effort. They tried. The special effects are quite good.

This one is loosely based on characters created by Tolkien, but they're put into situations way outside his story line.

Other reviewers have noted the goofs.

Ryan Gage's Alfrid was probably put in to provide comic relief, but I believe your comic relief character should have some likability. Alfrid is about as likable as one of the lesser orcs.

The Thorin/Tauriel sub-story was unconvincing at best. Did it never occur to the writers that a male/female relationship could be a friendship at the same level as Bilbo's and Thorin's?

Most of us who grew up with the early Gene Autry/Roy Rogers westerns will recognize the eagles as the cavalry charging in over the hill to save the day. What were they waiting for?

Spoiler!!!

The coincidence of Bilbo arriving back at his home in the Shire, just as his stuff is being auctioned off, stretches belief to the breaking point.

This film will be more appreciated by Japanese viewers. It is a detailed, pull-no-punches film about the life of Okakura Tenshin, a well-known (in Japan) art writer and collector, who died in 1913.

The cinematography is quite good - during the filming, there was a tsunami off the coast, which gave the director some good ocean shots to highlight the drama.

The time of the story is the time in Japanese history (late 1800s) when Japan was reaching out to the West for new directions in art. Tenshin fought to retain Japanese culture, and was forced out of his teaching position at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. He takes four students and goes off to a remote part of the country to found a school. The story follows him and his students through lean times, and eventually to a country-wide exhibition, where two of his students win major prizes.

Tenshin is shown as a hard taskmaster to his four struggling students. He drives them relentlessly, rarely praising, and letting them fend for themselves and their families, living off whatever fish they can catch.

There's something about this one that left me cold - uninvolved.

But first: if you haven't seen it yet, stay through the final credits - all of them. There's a trailer that's really a preview of a new X-Men movie.

This time around, Stan Lee is easy to spot. He even gets a speaking line. I wonder if they paid him scale......

After a few giant monster movies, the genre gets old. I saw nothing new and interesting about this movie's monsters. Big, nasty, powerful - yawn, been there, done that.

There's an interesting contrast between Parker/Spiderman and Wayne/Batman: Batman comes from a wealthy family (and has Michael Caine as a Number Two), lives in a mansion; Parker and his aunt are barely getting by, live in an apartment.

The spider-silk acrobatics are too far out to be believable. Each journey through the city (always conducted at altitude) takes at least 23 times his own body weight in silk thread.

On the other hand, the special effects are great. Downtown New York has been destroyed in so many movies, it's a wonder anybody stays there.

The local theater where we saw it dropped the 3D version early. I asked the manager about that; he said hardly anybody went to that one. I wonder of the thrill of 3D is wearing off.

Bottom line: I'd go for the special effects, not the story.

We saw this last week (April 2014). I wanted to go because I'd read Dune (many years ago); because I knew that the De Laurentiis version was pretty bad; and because I had no idea who this Jodorowsky is.

The documentary starts by reviewing AJ's earlier films. To say that he was then a surrealist would not be an exaggeration. Then it takes up his plan to film Dune; it follows his efforts - successful - to get the best artists, technicians and actors to work on the film.

On the list: Dan O'Bannon, H. R. Giger, Chris Foss, Mick Jagger, Pink Floyd, ....

He wanted Orson Welles to play the Emperor. He tracked Welles down in Paris - eating at his favorite restaurant - and though he wasn't interested in doing any more movies, AJ promised him that if he took the job, AJ would hire the restaurant's chef and OW could eat as he wished. OW accepted.

He wanted Salvador Dali for another role. SD wanted $100,000 an hour - so he could be the highest paid actor. AJ asked the script writer how long SD would be on screen - about 4 or 5 minutes, total. So AJ went back to SD and offered him $100,000 a minute.

AJ is a fascinating, interesting, engaging, complex man - the kind that the world could use more of.

The interviews with Giger, Foss, Dali, O'Bannon (we only hear audio clips - he died before the film was made) are fascinating (Giger is a bit older than the last time I saw his picture).

In terms of a single-minded effort to realize a dream, it reminds me of another documentary, "Tim's Vermeer" (check IMDb). Tim Jenison takes 3 or 4 years of his life to show - by doing it himself - that Vermeer might have painted "The Music Lesson" using a form of optical projection. He goes as far as building a perfect replica of Vermeer's room - in his warehouse in Texas, learning to read Dutch, going to see the original in Buckingham Palace).

All you need to know is: this is a Jackie Chan movie. That's all I knew about it when I saw it on the schedule. I guess they don't believe in advertising over here.

An opening sequence has Chan escaping from his latest caper, in a sequence that makes a James Bond opening look like a British lawn party.

The plot revolves loosely around the recovery of 12 zodiacal animal heads, taken from an old Chinese palace by invading "foreign troops" (undoubtedly British) back in the 1800s. The movie also draws attention to the worldwide market in stolen artifacts (that's in the closing credits).

If you remember Hollywood musicals from the 30s and 40s, you remember that they were largely made up of a lot of songs, having little to do with the plot, loosely tied together into a story.

The Chan movies are a lot of martial arts scenes, loosely tied together into a movie.

But Chan is one of (if not the finest) living actors in this genre. This movie, like many of his others, ends with the credits playing alongside outtakes. Among his other Guinness records, he's probably the actor with the most injuries per movie. At 57, he may be slowing down a little, but not much.

And there's always a little bit of humor - slapstick - in some of the fight scenes. He never takes himself too seriously.

He takes the fight arena to new heights: he jumps out of a plane - to catch one of the treasures - followed by three bad guys. They spend a good 4 or 5 minutes falling and fighting in the air.

During the outtakes, we find out how they did that.

If you can find it, go see it.

Like many sequels, this one falls short of the original. The first movie is set apart by its originality, and the transformation of the arch-villain Gru into a soft-hearted father.

This time around, Gru and the kids are already settled, and he's retired from villlainy. The only thing to do is bring him out of "retirement" to do battle with yet another villain, who wants to take over the world (don't they all?).

Throughout the movie, minions abound, providing comic relief (in a comedy).

But most of the action is only a little more than ordinary. Some sight gags work well, but not enough to make this sequel stand out. some scenes just run too long - the Cinco de Mayo party, for one.

There's a possibility of a third movie, and with a partner for Gru, the stage is set for something completely different. But I'll wait and see.

Shakespeare. Black & white. Two things taken together that could send people running from the theater (or into another screen, for an Adam Sandler movie).

For me, though, two things that make this a must. Obviously, we have to compare it with the Branagh/Thompson version from 1993. It's been too long since I've seen that one to remember the details, but I'd say this is an excellent version.

The first thing I noticed is the setting: there's an opening shot of a tree-lined street. Big Black cars drive up. Men in suits and ties get out. They come into a modern high-end house.

Then they start speaking Shakesperean English. After about a minute, though, it all comes together. The cast (all new to me, except Fillion) is excellent. The two leads (Beatrice & Benedick) are convincing.

The camera work is excellent. There are two or three scenes that are outstanding. One in particular: towards the end, after everyone thinks Hero is dead, there's a solemn procession. It starts with a medium shot over the back yard, then the people walk slowly into the frame, all dressed in black, single file, carrying candles.

The music score is minimal - all done by Whedon.

Benedick has a few funny scenes - I don't know whether this is based on the Branagh version, or whether it's usually done in a typical production.

Fillion, as Dogberry the Constable, is almost perfect. He handles the role - Shakespeare's comic relief - with style, not overplaying it, but filling the role with good-natured incompetence. The last time he and his colleague leave the house, there's a long shot of them getting to the car, then realizing that they've left the keys in the car.

There are very few movies I could watch more than once, less than a year or two apart, but this is one I can watch again any time.

PS: The movie was shot in Whedon's house. Does that make it a 'Home movie"?

We saw this at the 2013 Vietnamese International Film Festival in Orange County, CA. We met the director, Siu Pham.

This is an impressionistic film. The story covers 3 or 4 days in the life of a man, about 70 (Jean-Luc Mello, French), and his wife (nobody is named in the film). It opens with a series of apparently unconnected images, following the couple as they wake up and start their daily routines. You know something is not quite ordinary when you see the man, in front of the bathroom mirror, with a Bach prelude for solo cello on the soundtrack, playing along with 2 bows, on the tendons of his neck.

The next part of the story involves the man going out on a fishing boat, with a reluctant crew. Some miles out, he decides to go swimming, over the objections of the crew. He tells them he's OK, and that they should go back, so they leave him floating in the ocean. While he's out there, there's a dream sequence with a group of water-ballet swimmers.

The rest of the story follows his wife as she tries to find him. The film ends with a scene of all the characters around a dinner table - including the man's long-dead parents and children. That reminded some in the audience of Fellini's "8 and a Half". About halfway through, the film reminded me a bit of Fellini.

All in all, it's well-done film with a very unusual story line.

I remember the old days, when serials played in theaters on Saturday morning, ended with the hero falling off a cliff (or did he?), and the next installment came next week, ending with the hero surrounded by lions and tigers.

Now we have to wait years between installments.

I came to this movie cold, not having seen Part I or read the book. Most of the story, and many of the characters are well known to almost everybody (everyone that's been paying attention), so I fell into the story line.

As most reviewers said, the acting was better than the first (glad I messed it). I'd say the top nomination should go to the train repairman near the end (the guy from 20th Century Motors).

It's relevant to today, with the government taking more and more control. Maybe back in the 50s, Directive 10-NNN(?) would have seemed really far-fetched, but today ..... not beyond the realm of possibility.

It was a nice touch to have the single white star on the locomotive of the Army train. Shades of "Dr Zhivago".

For some strange reason, there are no "External Reviews. Maybe the critics are still stunned by the magnificence of the movie.

PS: Where was the Penn & Teller bit?

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni shine in the roles of the star- crossed lovers. Valeria is rebounding from a four-year affair with a man she now finds out is married. She expresses her displeasure at the man in one of the funniest scenes in the film - early on - a madcap car chase through Rome.

Aside: cars in Rome during the 1970s were a lot smaller than ours are today - even including Mini-Coopers. And this is the 8th of 11 films she and Mastrioanni made together.

Distraught to the point of suicide, she calls a crisis help line, on impulse, and is answered by a man who does his best to talk her out of it, but doesn't quite succeed. She's taken to a hospital, calls the help line again, insisting that the man she talked to come to her. When he arrives, she notices that he's a priest.

That disappoints her: her first man was married to his wife, now this one is married to the church.

Needless to say, their relationship grows, despite every effort by Don Mario to fend her off.

The rest of the story, combining humor and pathos, revolves around Valeria's attempts to get Don Mario to quit the priesthood and marry her, and his attempts to get the church authorities to let him go.

Loren is, as usual, stunningly beautiful, and considering that her character in the movie is as poor as anyone else in Italy, wears some gorgeous outfits.

One of the great throw-away lines in the movie comes when Don Maro is visiting the hospital, and one of the doctors asks him to use his influence with the government.

"The Church has no influence with the government", Don Mario says.

"If they don't, who does"?

The screening we saw was dubbed in English. I would have liked to hear the real voices - but we take what we can.

Overall, I recommend this one.

Far too many sequels fall short of the original. This is one series where "III" outdoes the first two. This one has heart, has a good story, has brilliant animation (about 95% of the final credits to to Indian animators).

It has a suitably villainous villain ("Capitane Dubois"), who has one of the best scenes in the movie: she sings the Edith Piaf blockbuster "Non, je ne regrette rien". (We saw her the other day in "Moonlight Kingdom").

The interplay between the Bear and Julien is marvelous. The animation is superb.

There's a bit of artistic license in getting the stars from Africa to Monaco, but we can overlook that.

There are many outside references (and in-jokes, most of which I probably missed). One is when the circus is rehearsing, and one of them talks about "this Canadian group" - that's the Cirque du Soleil.

I wasn't expecting much (remembering the first two, and considering what usually happens to sequels), but this is one of the year's best.

Not that we need another review - just go see it. This is one of the few movies that I could watch again.

First, the trivia: This is Kara Hayward's first movie. She was 12 when cast. So was Natalie Portman, in "Léon: The Professional". Hayward could well have a great career in film.

Next up: "PG-13, for smoking". Sheesh.

Everybody knows the basic story - but what about the film? The camera work is amazing. It opens up with a tour through Suzy's parents' home, going from room to room, floor to floor. We first see Suzy, looking straight out at the camera (us?) through her ever-present binoculars. Later, we're in the "Kakhi Scouts" camp, where we meet Scout Master Ward. As he walks to the breakfast table, the camera follows him from the side, not from ahead. There's an empty chair at the table, then we're off and running.

I thought Sam's character looked a lot younger than Suzy's. Could that be on purpose? Suzy's makeup, blue eyeliner, gives her an older look. Behind those glasses, Sam looks younger.

There's a Narrator (Bob Balaban), a bit like a Greek Chorus, who opens the story, and fills us in on some of the details, and finally interacts with the searchers to tell them where they might look for the fugitives.

Some of the scenes are marvelous (maybe a Wes Anderson trademark?). In "St Jack's Church", just before a major hurricane, they're performing Britten's "Noye's Fludde". The set inside the church is brilliant.

(The classical music selections (Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Simple Symphony - both by Britten) - are the Leonard Bernstein recordings.)

Harvey Keitel (who's doing a lot of work these years) plays "Commander Pierce", the commander-in-chief of the Kakhi Scouts, a grizzled old veteran who takes his job seriously.

Tilda Swinton (reprising her character as the White Witch in the Narnia movies) plays the character known only as "the social worker". Her job in to find Sam and put him in a juvenile facility, something everybody else doesn't really think is a good idea.

One example of the way Anderson unfolds the story: we find out that Sam's an orphan, and he's run away (again) from foster parents. The scene with Capt. Sharp talking to them (split-screen), shows them in a kitchen - leading you to think they're just plain old folks who've taken in a foster child. Later on, we see that it's really a pretty large facility, with at least a half-dozen other boys (looking mostly like James Dean in a 50s movie).

One thing to think about: The cast includes Bruce Willis, Bill Murray (of course), Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton .... and two complete unknowns, the real stars and central focus of the movie. First off, all that talent never overshadows the two stars - it's their movie, their story. Second, would it have been any better - or worse - if another group of unknowns had been cast in all those supporting roles? Did the producers figure nobody would see it if the A-list wasn't in it?

Two other groups in the cast stand out: the three other Bishop kids, and the scout troop - all first-rate actors.

Unfortunately, there's no screen credit for the dog. (A bit part, but essential to the story.)

I was moved to see is because I know a bit about the Mahabarata - we saw the Indian TV version many years ago (it ran weekly, for quite a few months).

The first surprise was the intermission, after only an hour!

I don't know how involved the Disney company was in it. The character animation reminds me a bit of Disney's "Pocahontas", but the overall animation is unsurpassed. In one or two places, actual scenery is combined with the animation - but it is so well done you have to look for it.

I think someone would enjoy this movie even if he didn't know the Mahabarata - but it certainly helps. The story glosses over some important details: why is blind King Dhritarashtra's wife blindfolded? Who is this Krishna fellow? And why is Arjuna disguised as a woman?

There are at least two scenes that I remember from from the epic that are in the movie: one when Arjuna is learning archery from Bhishma [?], and sees only the eye of the bird in the tree (now we know he's going to be a great archer); the other when Yudhishthira loses his shirt in a dice game, run by the treacherous Shakuni. There may be others.

The movie is a slice of the Mahabarata: it's Arjuna's story, how he grows into a true prince despite the best (=worst) efforts of the Kuru.

Even if the story on the screen is hard to follow, the animation is superb. I have not seen better, even from Miyazaki. This is one movie I could see again.

The story follows Mario, a young car thief, who works the freeways looking for expensive cars to steal. He sees a Bentley, and by calling a call center, finds out who the owner is. His plan is to steal the car and move on.

Along the way, he makes contact with the other owner, Rinaldo (evidently using a cell phone while driving is common in Italy), who turns out to be a mysterious figure with a sinister background.

He also strikes up a friendship with Beatrice, a woman from a call center, who ends up helping him try to expose the bad guy.

Up to this point, the three characters never meet face-to-face, only over cell phones. From there, the story turns dark, and the mysterious figure manages to stay one step ahead of them.

There's a classic scene where you want to yell at one of the characters, "Don't go in there!!" and "Get out, now!!", but of course, you know how that usually works out.

The story is told straightforwardly, without unnecessary side-trips. The acting from the three main characters is good. The "mysterious figure" is well-known in Europe, and has appeared here in a Columbo episode, a "Murder She Wrote", and a "CSI: NY", among others. The photography is quite good, letting us see the story and the countryside.

I'd give it an 8 but for a few major plot holes. It counts as a truly scary movie, mainly because we get to know and like the three main characters before things start going bad.

The tag line is "Everything will be all right in the end... if it's not all right then it's not the end."

Which is exactly what happens in this film. As the other reviewers say, the ensemble cast is truly great, with Judi Dench a standout. The stories of these seven people intertwine line a threaded yarn. Some adapt quickly to an alien environment, some more slowly, but each, in the end, finds his place in the "new world". (For one, though, it's "not here".)

The locations in India are amazing. We get a glimpse - just barely - of life in the Big City.

I think Patel's "overacting" was part of his character: the eternal optomist, reaching far beyond his grasp.

Eighty years on, the film showed at the Newport Beach Film Festival last week (April 2012). It tells the story of settlers traveling West, from the Missouri to open, unclaimed country. It shows the hardships they endured, and the lengths they went to overcome them.

One of the most dramatic scenes is when they come to the top of a cliff, some 500 to 600 feet above where they need to go. They get down by building big winches and supports, and lowering the wagons down - a dozen winches across. Not all the wagons land in one piece.

There's an Indian attack (the wagons form a circle), the Indians are beaten back, and the settlers bury their dead.

They cross desert, rivers, mountains in winter, always going on, finally reaching that peaceful valley.

That story is held together by the story of Breck Coleman, the wagon train's scout (John Wayne, age 23, in his first leading role), Bill Thorpe - a "Louisiana gambler and confidence man" (Ian Keith, a leading stage and silent-screen actor), and Ruth Cameron (Margurite Churchill, 20, a "B-movie leading lady"), with Wayne and Keith vying for Ruth's attentions.

Red Flack, the wagon train boss (Tyrone Power Sr (his son is the Tyrone Power we know) - his only taking film) complicates matters by having killed Coleman's friend a while back. Coleman finds out about that and vows to finish Flack as soon as the journey is over.

Comic relief is provided by Gus (El Brendel - well-known enough to get 3rd-place billing) - and he gets one of the funniest lines in the movie.

Coleman has two good speeches in the movie: first, before they leave, he's talking to a group of kids, who want to know if he's "killed a dead Indian". He tells them that he's lived with the Indians, and they've taught him the ways of the outdoors, and that they're his friends. The second is when they're in the mountains, it's winter, it's snowing, they've come through almost a year of hardship, and they're thinking of turning back. He gives the motivational talk - you can read it in the "Quotes" section. It worked.

Besides Ward Bond, you might be able to spot Iron Eyes Cody (the Italian named Espera DeCorti). According to the archives, this was his third movie - still uncredited. He kept getting uncredited roles up till about 1967.

All the character actors are great. This one's a movie that stands up through 80 years. The dialog is occasionally a bit stilted for today's ears, but the scenery and outdoor shots are still excellent.

This film is made as a documentary. (Available with English subtitles.) At the time, McDonald's was planning to open a store in Altamura, Italy. The citizens think it's a terrible idea. The filmmaker follows several of them as the story progresses. The town is apparently renowned for its focaccia. The townspeople can't imagine why anyone would want to eat "fast food" when their town provides such good food.

A subplot involves a stranger, Manuel, who arrives in a yellow sports car, wearing a bright red jacket (note the colors). He tries to win the affections of Ms Rosa, but annoys everybody.

The scene switches back and forth a few times between Altamura and New York, where we see the McDonalds Headquarters and Museum. There are "interviews" with many of the local inhabitants - shop owners, bakers, restaurant owners, a movie theater owner, the local chief of police.

In the end, McDonald's just cancels the deal and goes away, and Manuel loses Rosa, when he doesn't like her focaccia (one of the best scenes in the movie).

It's a good look at Italian culture. One bit through the interviews shows the city rivalry between two men from different cities. Watch through the outtakes over the final credits.

We saw it last night at a theater that runs "classic movies" from film prints.

Paulette Goddard is strikingly beautiful as "the gamin" (="street urchin"). Chaplin is superb and athletic as The Tramp. The roller- skating scene in the 5th floor of the store, where there's a big gap in the floor, and he skates around blindfolded, is as scary as any cliff- hanger. There's another scene in the restaurant, where he's carrying a tray of food, and there's so much crowd activity that he falls and recovers, without tipping the tray or spilling anything.

The scene on the assembly line was used in an "I Love Lucy" episode, where she and Ethel are on a chocolate candy assembly line, and it gradually speeds up.

This is not your old Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. This takes place in a parallel universe where Sherlock has become a master of martial arts and no-holds-barred street fighting. Any resemblance to the Sherlock we know from the books is purely coincidental.

If you see the movie with that understanding, you'll see a great action movie, with Sherlock fighting innumerable Bad Guys. Doyle's Bad Guys also inhabit this parallel universe: Professor Moriarty is a higher math professor, as well as a maniacal "take over the world" type. More sinister is the parallel Sebastian Moran.

The parallel Mycroft is excellently played by Stephen Fry. I kept asking, "Why is Oscar Wilde in this movie?", until I saw the credits.

Jude Law makes an excellent Watson. The script has him as having served in Afghanistan (yes, there was a war going on over there then).

Irene Adler makes a smallish appearance at the beginning, and Inspector Lestrade an even smaller appearance at the end.

There is gratuitous nudity in the movie, but unfortunately, it's Mycroft.

If you've read the Conan Doyle books, you know about Reichenbach Falls. So you really need to pay close attention to the last 5 minutes of the movie.

The is the first Hark Tsui film I've seen (but not the first Chinese film). It's a great film - with a Harry Potter title.

The mix of reality and fantasy is just right. The fight scenes are beautifully choreographed, and the special effects are visually stunning.

(The story gives a plausible explanation for spontaneous human combustion.) Tony Leung gets first billing in the credits, but he's really the #2 (or #3) character in the story. Detective Dee is masterfully played by Andy Lau. All the actors and actresses give first-rate performances.

The story is set around the real-life Empress Wu, just before she ascends the throne. (I have to wonder why anybody would want to be Empress - you have to wear those funny hats.) Despite the name, Carina Lau (Empress Wu) is married to Tony Leung.

I hope someone who speaks Cantonese (or is it Mandarin?) can comment on the subtitles. "Chaplain", for instance, doesn't seem right.

Everybody else has told you about the film. We saw it earlier today (July 2011) at a museum. It was shown as an addition to a scrimshaw exhibit.

The version we saw was listed as 101 minutes, longer than the IMDb data.

If you've read Moby Dick, none of the whaling scenes are new to you. This film records almost every detail. One thing that strikes me is the comparison between Stone Age man, hunting mastodons, armed with nothing but spears and raw courage; and the early whalers, a dozen men on small rowboats, armed only with harpoons and raw courage. I imagine the toll of hunters was similar in both cases.

Clara Bow's debut made it certain she would go on to bigger things. A few seconds of Clara reminded me a lot of Shirley Temple.

The story is a little weak: the last-minute - no, last-second - rescue of the heroine stretched belief, but the basic idea is, the Good Guy vanquishes the Bad Guy, wins the Girl, and they live happily ever after.