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Two people wake up to find themselves locked in an abandoned warehouse with no memory of how they got there. They are prisoners, but why? That premise sounds like something you would expect in a horror movie like "Saw," not a faith-based drama, but that's precisely the story here. In "The Reconciler," an unseen puppet master who traps people and forces them to reconcile their differences. Or die.

I am a fan of faith-based films, but I must admit that I grow tired of the steady diet of "pastors- with-a-crisis-of-faith" dramas. I want faith-based films to embrace all genres and tackle all sorts of subjects. Therefore, I applaud the filmmakers for taking a chance on a film that the more stodgy members of the audience might reject. I hope they don't. This film, directed with panache by Shawn Justice, and featuring some nice performances, particularly by the Steel twins, is well-worth a look.

A disparate group of people seek shelter in the basement of a church after an event which appears to be the Rapture occurs. I have seen quite a few faith-based End Times films. Personally, I feel the genre has been played out, but this film, directed by Cynthia L. Leon and Gary Voelker, found some new wrinkles as it let issues within the church like racism, unforgiveness and hypocrisy play out. There is a edgy honesty to the script that I found refreshing for a faith-based film. The Rapture itself was handled very well considering the budget. The film also features some good performances, particularly from Patrick Vann who plays a young skeptic who knows more about faith than the so-called Christians who find themselves left behind. I look forward to seeing more films from Ms. Leon and Mr. Voelker.

A young woman finds herself being followed by a slow moving but unstopping supernatural entity after having sex with a young man she hardly knows. After making her a target through sexual intercourse, the young man explains the rules: The entity will follow you, and eventually kill you when it reaches you, if you don't pass it on by having sex with someone else. It is a creepy premise that starts off very well. The cinematography and music are moody and atmospheric. Sadly, after such a good start, the movie falls apart in the second half. It's as if the filmmakers didn't know how to end the film. Still, it was well worth watching. I look forward to seeing another film from the director.

Jason Patric goes all Liam Neeson when his daughter disappears in this disappointing rip-off of "Taken" with a little "John Wick" thrown in for good measure. I enjoy a modestly budgeted shoot-'em-up every now and then but I found this one sad. The action, obviously, wasn't as good as the action in "Taken" or "John Wick," and I accepted that. Big action needs a big budget. What hurt here was the flat and somewhat incoherent script. A better script would have solved most of this film's problem -- aside from the casting. I felt bad for Bruce Willis and John Cusack. Have their careers fallen to the point that they would take substandard supporting roles like this just for a paycheck? It is particularly sad because, no offense to Jason Patric, I think Willis or Cusack would have brought more panache to the lead role. I suppose the producers couldn't afford them for the entire shoot....

Geez. Where to start? I guess with a plot summary. Here goes. A woman, in the midst of a breakup with her lesbian lover, gets drunk and drugged at a party and finds herself date- raped by a man who gives her the worst, yet ultimately unexplained, STD in history.

To me, the big question is why I watched it all the way through.

It is incredibly heavy-handed in its safe sex posturing. It's practically an after school special -- with excessive gore. I didn't buy the relationships, but, mostly, I didn't buy the doctor. No doctor would let a woman with those symptoms leave his office the first time without sending her to the ER. On her second visit, the doctor would have locked her in the examination office and waited for the CDC to show up. Also, her mother or her friends would have physically dragged her to the hospital. Also, no restaurant owner would allow a waitress with "pink eye" prepare food or wait tables.

Overall, too, I couldn't help but feel that the writer/director was expressing some deep-seated fear of female sexuality.

Didn't like it.

A strange supernatural barrier prevents two house-hunting families from leaving the estate of a house they visited. Whenever they try to leave, they always find themselves back at the front door. This is certainly a good premise for a horror movie. It would be ideal for an episode of The Twilight Zone, but Rod Sterling would have properly milked the implications of the premise. The two families, which seethe with tensions and secrets, seem to accept to readily their imprisonment. They don't bother to explore the most basic questions. Why specifically are they trapped in the house? Do they have any links to the place or each other? More importantly, they also have a survivor from a previous imprisonment with them. Although she had been rendered mute by the removal of her tongue, she is intelligent and certainly able to communicate, but they don't even bother to ask her questions for the most part. Still, the film manages to convey some tension and suspense. It also benefits from some good performances. However, it falls apart completely at the end. Near the end we discover that at least one member of each family had some connection to the family that originally lived in the house. Unfortunately, that ruins the film because it ends with two more families being drawn into the building. Did both of those families also wrong the original occupants? What about the two families that we trapped in the house prior to the start of this film. Did they also wrong the original occupants? It doesn't make sense that all of those people have a personal connection to the spirits in the house.

This film sat on my Netflix queue for a long time before I finally got around to watching it. Perhaps I should have waited longer. Then, perhaps, I would understand what it was all about. I know the film was supposed to be funny, but ultimately I think the joke was on me. In the film, an absurdly childish priest Father William, played by an unbelievably annoying Steve Little, is forced to take some time off by his superiors. He decides to contact his high school idol Robbie Shoemaker, played by Robert Longstreet, to take a little trip with him. Robbie agrees for no good reason. The two meander down a river on a raft purposelessly and seeming endlessly until you start praying for something, anything to happen. It does when two Japanese tourists and their black bodyguard show up. Sadly, what happens doesn't make any sense either. I have no idea what the filmmaker intended. Steve Little was simply too absurd for the film play as meaningful religious satire. I am giving the film three stars for the soundtrack. John R. Butler's sacrilegious ditty, Hand of the Almighty, is almost worth the price of admission.

Laurel and Hardy play two street musicians whose success seems limited by the snowy weather, their choice of material (In The Good Old Summertime), and location, i.e., playing in front of a school for the deaf. Their luck changes when they find a cash-filled wallet, but changes for worse again when they invite the local cop out to dinner with them only to discover that it was his wallet!

This film is not one of their classics, but is an amusing film. Laurel and Hardy display their normal interplay. The supporting cast of regulars is excellent. The film simply doesn't build to true comic hilarity -- despite ending with one of their odd "grotesque" gags. It simply finds an amiable pace and tempo and stays with it which is more than good enough for me.

Worth a look.

Vince Vaughn and Kevin James are best friends and business partners trying to enjoy a perfectly happy bromance until Vaughn catches James' wife having an affair. What to do? I was actually kind of upbeat about this film when I first heard about it. The plot had potential. The actors were good. More importantly, it seemed to be right in the wheelhouse of the good, old Ron Howard, the man who directed "Night Shift," "Cocoon," and "Splash." You know, back before he became an "important" filmmaker.

I wanted to see this film in the movies, but it disappeared too fast for me to see it there. That should have told me all I needed to know. It just didn't work. Howard just never found the balance between the comedy and the drama. Interestingly, most of the comedy was left in the hands of Vaughn rather than James. Vaughn has been struggling of late and, I hate to say it, getting a little too long in the tooth to keep playing this character over and over again. None of his comic set pieces worked. James, on the other hand, is a fine comic actor, but was given too much of the drama and he doesn't have the acting chops for it.

I was really disappointed. Had this story been shot in 1936 at Paramount, it probably would have been a great screwball comedy. It probably would have been a fun, mainstream "racy" sex farce in the 1960s. One thing is certain. Now was not the time for this story -- at least with these people involved.

Come back, Ron. I miss you.

Stan and Ollie try to spend quiet evening at home while the wives are out but find their quiet constantly interrupted by their children, also played by Stan and Ollie, who are definitely chips off the old Blockheads.

It is obvious that a great deal of time and money was lavished on this short, as evidenced by all of the over-sized props and furnishings constructed to create the illusion of the boys as, well, boys. It also seems as if more attention was given to the photography of this short as well. Technically, across the board, it was there best sound short to date.

There is essentially no real plot -- only a series of Stan and Ollie's adult diversions being interrupted by younger Stan and Ollie's childish antics. The gags, for the most part, consist of the simple slapstick at which Laurel & Hardy excelled, but the novelty of the situation gives it a fresh perspective. The humor also builds toward a large, climactic gag.

A novelty, yes, but a classic. A must see for people interested in the team.

Ollie hatches a plan to sneak henpecked Stan out for a night on the town with Mrs. Laurel's hidden bottle of liquor. Unfortunately, Mrs. Laurel, played by the always reliable Anita Garvin, overhears the plot and substitutes the liquor for a distasteful combination of her making.

Fans and critics tend to be dismissive of film, but I have always found this film to be one of my favorites of their early talkie shorts. There isn't much of a plot, but the sequences are very well-constructed and funny. The interplay between Stan and Anita is very funny. (I like her much better than Linda Loredo, who plays the same role in the Spanish language version.) I also really enjoy Ollie's solo bits on the telephone. Those people who dismiss him as being Stan's straight man should watch that scene. His mannerisms and expressions are priceless.

The nightclub sequence is very funny as the boys proceed to get "drunk" on the illicit "alcohol." The best moment is when Stan is reduced to tears by a melancholy song. The boys would go on laughing jags later in the other films, but nowhere is it funnier than in this film, which also ends effectively with a big car gag -- as so many Laurel and Hardy films do!

Others may disagree, but I consider this a classic Laurel & Hardy short.

Cop Edgar Kennedy is in trouble. Their have been forty-two robberies in the police chief's neighborhood and he'll be fired unless he makes an arrest. He gets an idea. Rather than run off two vagrants, Stan and Ollie, he convinces them to rob the police chief's house so he can arrest them in the process. It was a pretty good idea, if Stan and Ollie hadn't proved to be the most inept burglars in history.

"Night Owls" was the team's seventh talkie and definitely the best one to date. The concept itself is funny, and the slapstick gags are plentiful and well-performed. (My favorite bit is when the boys pretend to be cats.) Nor does it hurt that Stan and Ollie are backed up here by Edgar Kennedy and James Finlayson, two of their best foils. Stan and Ollie themselves seem very comfortable in this film. Their interplay has a smooth, naturalistic rhythm that one expects from the boys at their best.

This film isn't quite a classic, but it fine little film. The team had finally found their footing in the new medium of talking films.

Despite their protestations of innocence, Laurel and Hardy find themselves on a prison working on a prison road crew where they make a shambles of an inspection visit by the governor.

"The Hoose-gow" was Laurel & Hardy's sixth talkie short and a step in the right direction in recovering the energy and verve of their best silent shorts. Shot almost entirely outdoors, this film doesn't have the claustrophobic, studio-bound feel that hindered some of their earlier talkies. The sound mix must have had some level of sophistication. Look at some of the road crew scenes. The wind is whipping up the branches on some of bushes right behind them. With the microphones of the time, that dialogue must've been unusable. The dubbing was fine.

The plot of the film is simple but serviceable. Nothing new, but nice. It works its way to a nice, rice throwing battle, which, if not on the level of "Two Tars" or "Big Business," is certainly adequate. The supporting cast is good, featuring the always reliable Tiny Sanford and James Finlayson.

Not a classic, but worth watching. Up to this point, their best talkie with the possible exception of "Men O'War."

Ollie has a late night cold and Stan tries to help him get over it, much to the annoyance of the irritable landlord.

I am endeavoring to work my way through the new release of "The Essential Laurel & Hardy" which finally gives the boys the DVD treatment they deserve in the United States. I have seen all of their films many times over the years, but now I have the opportunity to finally watch them in chronological order. That, perhaps, was not a wise choice. I always found a number of their early talkies weak, and I regret having to report that here in my reviews. "They Go Boom" is another example. The staging of the film feels claustrophobic, and the situation simply doesn't offer enough opportunities for comic inventiveness. There are some good moments scattered throughout, but it overall concept is better executed later in the film "Laughing Gravy."

Not a classic. For fans only.

Stan and Ollie decide to take their wives and their gout-ridden uncle Edgar on a picnic on a lovely Sunday afternoon. It's a good plan, but they never quite get their in this enjoyable, if slight, short.

It was refreshing to see that the new dynamics of making sound films didn't keep the boys completely studio-bound. The vast bulk of this film was shot outdoors and, as a result, doesn't suffer from the same claustrophobia as "Unaccustomed as We Are," "Berth Marks," and the upcoming "They Go Boom." The film also benefits from appearance of the always reliable Edgar Kennedy, a frequent and hilarious foil. Needless to say, his gout-ridden foot will take a great deal of abuse for the film fades out!

A nice short, reminiscent of Chaplin's "A Day's Pleasure." Not one of their classics, but well worth a look.

Sailors on leave, Laurel & Hardy try to impress two girls they meet in a park in this delightful, early sound short.

After misfiring in their first two sound shorts, Laurel & Hardy start to regain their stride in this short film. There is much to commend here. The scene with the boys meeting the girls is very cute, and the misunderstanding about a lost garment was surprisingly risqué for the time. The scene at the soda shop, where the boys, broke as usual, try to marshal their resources to buy drinks for the girls is also quite amusing. The appearance longtime foil Jim Finlayson as the soda jerk adds to the humor of the scene. In the second reel, the boys take the girls out on a small lake in a rowboat which leads to a typical tit-for-tat fight with their fellow boaters. This sequence isn't as funny as similar battles in "Two Tars" or "You're Darn Tootin'," but it shows that the boys are back on the right track.

One of my favorite shorts of this period. I think it benefited from some nice dialogue that actually seemed written. In their first two films, the dialogue seemed too perfunctorily or ad- libbed. Here, for the first time, they seem to be exploring the true possibilities of sound.

Laurel & Hardy play vaudevillians headed to their next gig in another town who must deal with the cramped conditions of a railroad sleeping berth.

Many fans consider this film, their second sound short, to be their worst short. I have to agree with them. There simply isn't much too this film. The train station opening isn't particularly inspired, although their exchange with the stationmaster is amusing. The main problem is with the main action. There is simply too much of the boys trying to get undressed and comfortable in the upper sleeping berth. The sequence is probably hurt by the script-- or lack thereof. Without any memorable dialogue, we are simply left with general whining and complaining.

There were better possibilities. Early in the film, the boys inadvertently set off an avalanche of tit-for-tat violence and retribution. Unfortunately, after they initiate it, they leave it and we only get to see the repercussions of it at the end. Laurel and Hardy were masters of that form of stylistic violence -- as evidenced in "Two Tars," "Big Business," and "Tit For Tat." I would have preferred more jacket ripping and less feet in the face.

That said, the film isn't a total waste. Watching it now on the newly-released "The Essential Laurel & Hardy," did bring some smiles Since I never really sought it out since I originally saw in the 1970s, it did have the benefit of being somewhat fresh to me. Still, it is not one of their better shorts.

Ollie brings Stan home for a home cooked meal from his wife. When his angry wife leaves, they decide to cook for themselves with predictable results. A neighbor, wife to a tough cop, comes to their rescue and loses her dress in the process. The boys have to hide her in a trunk when Mrs. Hardy and the cop both return home. Chaos ensues.

This short, Laurel and Hardy's first sound one, is certainly pleasant enough. The small supporting cast is filled with regulars with Edgar Kennedy as the cop, the ill-fated Thelma Todd as Mrs. Kennedy and Mae Busch as Mrs. Hardy. The main problem is that the film is that action and staging is so subdued and contained, particularly in comparison to their late silent shorts. It would be easy to argue that Laurel and Hardy reached their prime in the waning days of the silents with films like "Two Tars," "Big Business," "Liberty" and "Double Whoopee." Those films are all comic gems. This is definitely a step backwards. This film also suffers in comparison to their late Hal Roach feature "Blockheads" which reprises almost the entire short with more assurance and better production values.

Still, no film with the boys is a total loss. If you are a fan, you will find yourself smiling, if not laughing, throughout.

Leslie Vernon, a highly-enthusiastic wannabe "supernatural" serial killer, along the lines of Halloween's Michael Meyers or Friday the 13th's Jason, invites a film crew along to document his initial spree this original horror comedy that allows you to see a killing spree from the point of view of the killer. The film crew soon finds itself rooting for the likable Leslie, well-played by Nathan Baesel, who has planned his spree to the last detail. The crew slowly moves from documenting the events to aiding and abetting them, but it has second thoughts as the reality of the events overwhelm them. They discover too late that Leslie isn't exactly who he claims to be, and he has worked out everything, including their last minute hesitations, into his meticulous plan.

The documentary approach gives the filmmakers enough distance from the events to successfully spoof the conventions of slasher genre. However, the filmmakers managed to restore genuine tension by limiting that distance by making the witnesses, the filmmakers, into participants. That's why this film succeeded where other spoofs and "found footage" failed. It delivers both narrative perspective and intimacy.

Well done.

Rob Zombie gives us more insight into Michael Meyers in this pointless and unnecessary remake of the John Carpenter classic. This film is about as worthless as Hannibal, which tried to make us the forces that caused Hannibal Lector to become the legendary serial killer he became. Sadly, any attempt to explain or humanize him simply diminished the myth. The same thing is true here. What does Rob Zombie expect of the audience? To understand him? To feel sorry for him? This is the reason why when John Ford said in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, "when the legend becomes fact, print the legend." I like the legend better. Give me the John Carpenter version any day. It has withstood the test of time.

In Absentia, a very pregnant Tricia deals with the final stages of officially declaring her long missing husband Daniel dead. Her sister Callie, a recent graduate of rehab, comes to help her in her moment of need. Together, they discover that missing doesn't necessarily mean dead, and that being dead isn't necessarily the worst thing that could happen in this taut and compelling horror film.

Absentia is a low-budget, independent film that needs no apologies. Usually, you see an inventive low budget horror film and you think, "Wow, this would be really great if they had some money." That's not true here. One doesn't get the impression that it would be substantially better if it had a twenty-million-dollar budget. This film works. Period.

What sets this film apart is the honesty of the script and the performances. The two sisters are not characters in a horror film. Their conversations never sounds like dialog from a page. They feel like real people in a real situation. In fact, if you were to strip away the "horror elements," the story itself of a woman going through the emotional roller-coaster of declaring her husband would be just as compelling. This is a horror film with an independent filmmaker's commitment to depth of character.

A must see.

Stuart Whitman plays a hard-hitting television journalist intent on taking on the mob with a rich, shrewish wife, Eleanor Parker. After he helps his wife take a nosedive over the balcony of her penthouse suite, she hits the car of the mafioso. Then, this flurry of coincidences continues as he discovers that one of the Mafiosos is dating his long lost love, Janet Leigh. Geez.

The lurid, over-the-top first act of this film caught my interest, but I only stayed with it as a morbid curiosity. The dialog was horrible. Perhaps they lifted it from Mailer's book, but literary dialog often makes for bad screen dialog. Even worse, now one in this film behaves like a real human being would behave. Stuart knows the police believe he murdered his wife, so what does he do? The night he is released from questioning, he immediately hooks up with his ex-girlfriend and sleeps with her! (This, despite the fact that he knows he is being followed the police!) The mafia don literally threatens Stuart in a room of police officers. Janet Leigh stays with him despite him calling her a whore. His father-in-law doesn't really seem to care whether his beloved daughter was murdered or not as long as her death isn't labeled suicide so that he bury her in a Catholic cemetery. I could go on and on.

The film is absurd. It deserves the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment. In the end, the most interesting thing was trying to figure out what TV shows from the '60s and '70s the supporting players ended up on.

According to this lame would-be documentary, George Harrison purportedly spills the beans about Paul's death in 1966 and his replacement by a double in his "last testament." Being a giant Beatles fan, I was willing to give this film a look on Netflix Instant View. I'm glad I didn't actually rent it because I would hate to think I had spent any money supporting this crap. The whole "Paul is Dead" conspiracy was an amusing bit of drug-addled inanity forty years ago but come on. This might've made an amusing five minute YouTube video if it didn't take itself so damned seriously. It is insulting, not only to the Beatles themselves, but to its viewers. If you're going to take the time to make a film like this, at least do a little research. There is a dizzying number of factual inaccuracies. And, at the very least, get someone who might've sounded like a fifty-something George Harrison. The actor playing him sounds like he learned everything from a few 60's interviews. Sadly, since those interviews didn't use all of the words in the script, he obviously had no idea how someone from Liverpool would pronounce the words. My George Harrison imitation is better than his, and I suck. (So does this film.)

The Riverton Ripper returns on the 16th anniversary of his death -- if he is indeed dead -- to murder seven children, who all might have received a part of his soul, if he was indeed dead. Does that sentence make sense? No? Didn't think so. Neither did the movie. After an overheated opening, the film devolved into a confused jumbled mess loaded down with heavy handed symbolism and half-baked (the condor) and ill-realized concepts (soul collecting.) Unfortunately, it seems that Wes Craven is such an icon in the horror movie genre that no one on the production side had the guts to tell him that he needed work a little more on the script. The pieces simply don't add up to a coherent whole. I would go into more detail, but I don't want to add spoilers to this review. Even worse, however, is the lack of scares or gore. Good thrills would have compensated for some of the inanity. Also, the cheapness of the production hampered my enjoyment. The town high school seemed to be devoted entirely to the Riverton Seven. I bet there are only about ten to fifteen extras combined in the school scenes. The set decoration in the houses was completely generic and didn't seem to fit the characters. Everything felt cheap and slipshod. I did, however, enjoy some of the performances, particularly Max Thieriot and John Magaro. They both deserve a better vehicle than this one.

I liked the idea. I liked the character from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." I fully anticipated, and wanted, a hilarious gross-out farce. Sadly, someone forgot to include the laughs, as they tried to get us to care about these characters. The opening was funny, depicting rocker Aldous Snow's pretentious fall, but the laughs soon dried up. This film reminded me of the flawed and ill- structured "Funny People." Both films desperately wanted to you laugh and care about the characters. Both films failed. "Funny People" was the better of the two. It had the head start of a better script and better acting. (But, come on, who really wants to see Adam Sandler in another dramatic turn?) A disappointment.