jonathanruano

She (1965) has all the elements of a very bad movie. The plot is easy to predict. Three explorers Leo Vincy (John Richardson), Holly (Peter Cushing), and Job (Cribbens) mount an expedition to find the fabled city of Kuma. Why? Because Leo had a strange encounter with Ayesha who kisses him and then implies that there is more sexual pleasure to come if he braves the desert to find her. The three explorers then venture deep into the desert where they experience adventures which come straight out of the assembly line of all formula adventure films. Thieves steal their possessions, including the camels. A raiding party attacks them and shoots Leo in the arm. Heat and thirst are additional afflictions which almost kill Leo. Then they arrive at Kuma which, if you put any thought into it, is a truly preposterous creation. How do the people in Kuma support themselves when they are no where near to any river to support their agrarian life? How does the population find and mine the materials necessary for the new buildings when there is no trade with other peoples? Also, if the people are unhappy living under Ayesha, why don't they just leave? Also we are told that Leo is in fact the ancient Kallikrates who was Ayesha's lover until she killed him for romancing another woman. While it is possible for ancient emblems to accurately depict Leo's youthful face, is it possible for the ancients to capture his modern day hairstyle as well? These are questions that never get answered in the movie. There are also no laughs in the movie either, because the preposterous subject matter is taken so seriously. While we watch this plot unfold, we are treated to some absurd dialog which is unlikely to be spoken by anyone even if they are Ancient Egyptian. It sounds a bit like a cross between William Shakespeare and an oracle from Greek mythology. Finally, if all these deficiencies are not bad enough, She suffers from indifferent acting and also a number of crude racist stereotypes. If you study the movie closely, everyone with darker skin is depicted as primitive while the white people are all "civilized."

While She (1965) was pretty trashy, I found it entertaining in one respect. I suspect that Director Robert Day wanted to depict Leo Vincy as some sort of hero adventurer. After all, he is the main character. Yet to my surprise, Leo comes across as so unlikeable, selfish, and narcissistic that you are left wondering why Ayesha (Ursula Andress) waited more than 2000 years for his return. In one scene, Leo collapses in the desert from thirst and blood loss. Ustane (Rosenda Monteros), who is very likeable and seems to truly love Leo, comes to Leo's aid by giving him refreshment and food. She also gives him some very good advice: don't go to Kuma. Leo not only dismisses such logical thinking, but ignores Ustane for the rest of the journey. Ustane then saves Leo's life again when he arrives in Kuma. But by then, Leo has such an exaggerated sense of his own self-importance that he quickly forgets about Ustane, romances Ayesha, and imagines himself as an all-powerful Pharaoh. Then another very curious episode follows. Ustane explains that she is willing to accept being apart from Leo. But Leo, instead of accepting this, convinces her to kiss him in full view of anyone who may be watching and, as it so happens, Ayesha is watching. Predictably, She who must be obeyed is furious and arranges for Ustane's execution after Leo makes feeble attempts to stop it. The execution is dramatic, but is seems like an afterthought to Leo who then goes back to romancing Ayesha as though nothing had happened. While all these events, Leo's motivations are never made clear. Did absolute power go to Leo's head and blind his judgment? Was he genuinely in love with Ayesha, even though he is prone to exploiting other women's feelings to satisfy his own sexual appetite?

As a result, She (1965) com.

I watched this movie from beginning to end and I got this feeling that the movie was more of a chore than an entertainment. Then the movie ended and my thought was, "That's all there was?"

Film critics have been divided on why Ken Russell's Billion Dollar Brain does not work. Roger Ebert believes that the movie lost track of its plot, but somehow that interpretation does not make any sense. I think Billion Dollar Brain knows exactly what it is about: it's about Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) trying to stop General Midwinter from staging a revolution in Latvia to bring down communism worldwide. Another film critic, meanwhile, thinks that Billion Dollar Brain made the mistake of trying too hard to be a James Bond movie, but somehow that explanation does not work either. Billion Dollar Brain would fail as a James Bond movie, just as surely as Casino Royale (1967) was a terrible James Bond film.

The problem instead is that Billion Dollar Brain suffers from too much padding. Ken Russell has a habit (which unfortunately gets even more developed in other films) of adding movie scenes that have nothing to do with the story. There is a boring sequence with Latvians drinking and then going out to the wintry countryside in a truck. There is another scene with a painting of a nude woman, which I suspect is in the movie for no other reason that Ken Russell likes to look at women's exposed breasts. These scenes exist probably because whenever Ken Russell is confronted with a script that can only be turned into less than one hour of film, his reaction is to stuff as many scenes as possible in order to get over the one hour mark. He succeeds, of course, but the movie also suffers in the process.

But it gets worse than that, because Russell has a notorious silly streak which must be amusing mainly to himself. The silly streak works well enough in a movie like Altered States, but in other movies it's a disaster. Tchaikovsky's boiling bath death in the Music Lovers which resembles that of his mother's comes across as a tasteless exercise in excess rather than as sincere tragedy. Mahler's meeting with Cosima adorned with Nazi emblems is just as vulgar and crass. There are plenty of scenes like that in Billion Dollar Baby which make it very hard to take the movie seriously. The Colonel Ross (Guy Doleman) character loses a lot its credibility and reality compared to the previous Harry Palmer movies and is played more for laughs. Colonel Stok (Oscar Homolka) is also portrayed more as a stereotype than in Funeral in Berlin. As a result, I found myself sitting there disliking the scenes with these characters who would have come across much better if they were played straight. Although this movie likes to veer into the realm of the ridiculous, it surprisingly does not work as a comedy perhaps because Russell's brand of humor exists in a separate universe from humor generally.

Polish director Roman Polanski's Bitter Moon is a controversial piece of filmmaking that people are either going to love or hate. When the film was released to cinemas, it bombed spectacularly and the reasons for the negative publicity are not difficult to comprehend. Many of the movie scenes are uncomfortable and painful to watch. Yet I found myself returning to Bitter Moon for a second, third, fourth, and even fifth viewing.

What draws me to the material? I think part of the allure of Bitter Moon is that the movie is shrouded in mystery even at the end. The film opens with Nigel (Hugh Grant) and Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas) walking arm-in-arm on a cruise together. Suddenly, the couple's lives take an unexpected turn when they encounter Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner) who suffers from sea sickness. They help her get better and a brief conversation ensues. Fiona says that he is travelling to Bombay, while Mimi says that he is travelling "further, much further" as ominous music plays in the background. A part of me likes to think that Mimi is referring to the afterlife.

The first encounter suggests that there will be more meetings involving Mimi over the course of the film. Sure enough, Nigel sees Mimi again and then he sees her disabled American husband Oscar (Coyote). A man filled with cynicism and bitterness, Oscar convinces Nigel to listen to his story about how he ended up in a relationship with Mimi and then in a wheelchair. The story leaves Niger repelled and captivated at the same time not least of all because Mimi's uninhibited sexuality is used as bait. Oscar knows how to exploit Nigel's weaknesses. On the one hand, Nigel is a prude who proudly declares in one scene "... at least we have some decency" referring to his relationship with his wife. Yet Oscar is shrewd enough to figure out that "decency" is Nigel's problem. Fiona simply cannot compete with Mimi when she is influenced by her husband's prudish nature to conceal her sexuality. At the same time, Nigel is such a hypocrite that (as Oscar predicts) he loses interest in his marriage which "has some decency" and falls for Mimi who has no scruples about parading her sexuality to everyone -- including the captain with the beard.

The great enigma is what are we to make of Oscar's story? The story may be interpreted as a cautionary tale about relationships. Mimi embodies such an irresistible blend of sexuality and innocence that Oscar initially imagines a relationship with her lasting forever, except that it doesn't. Sexual attraction and beauty alone cannot support a relationship, because at some point the novelty starts to wear off. There is a scene midway in the movie where Oscar sits across from Mimi and announces that their relationship is over. When Mimi refuses to leave him, Oscar engages in sadistic behavior which culminates in Mimi having an abortion and being tricked into going on a one-way flight to Martinique. After Mimi is literally out of his life, Oscar has sex with countless women over the course of two years. Crucially none of these women bother to visit him in hospital, after he gets hit by a car. The implication is obvious: the women understand that Oscar might be good for a temporary fling, but he certainly is not worth caring about.

Oscar's harrowing story, however, is open to another interpretation. The cynical American in the wheelchair may be presenting a chronology of a sex game that becomes increasingly violent over the course of the movie. The implication seems to be that Oscar early on is losing interest in normal sexual relations and needs to up the ante. As a result, everything in Oscar's story becomes part of the sex game. There is first love followed by a deliberate razor cut and acts of mild sadomasochism. Then Oscar humiliates, degrades, abuses, and cheats on Mimi because he takes sadistic delight in hurting her. After that, Mimi takes revenge by making him a cripple for life and humiliating him relentlessly. On the cruise, the sex game goes up another level and involves Nigel and Fiona.

There are a number of clues indicating that Oscar, Mimi, Nigel, and Fiona are involved in a bizarre quadrangle with an unforeseen outcome. To begin with, Mimi plays a prank on Nigel by luring him into her bedroom. Nigel kisses a hand which he assumes belongs to Mimi. The light turns on and Nigel, to his horror, realizes that he has kissed Oscar's hand. Near the end, Nigel asks Mimi, "You mean it's just a game?" to which Mimi replies, "Did I say it wasn't?" Two other clues can be found in Oscar's narrative. When one of the sadomasochistic games fails to generate any excitement, Oscar says "Not anymore" to announce that the game is over. If the viewer pays close attention, Oscar has the same refrain ("Not anymore") at the end of the film when he ends the latest sex game in a shocking way. Another clue in the story is Mimi is never arrested by the police for brutally assaulting Oscar and making him a cripple. The implication here is that the fatal assault is part of the game.

When the final credits arrive, I was still debating over which interpretation best describes Oscar's harrowing story. Was he explaining the reasons for the breakdown of a passion-filled relationship and what those reasons say about the participants? Was he narrating a sex game that was becoming increasingly bizarre and dangerous and ended up entangling Nigel and Fiona in a black widow's web of deceit and death? Are both interpretations key to understanding how Oscar and Mimi's romance went down this journey to ruin? Was Mimi's claim that she was travelling "further, much further" a suggest that the final destination of their journey was the afterlife and not the final destination of the cruise? What do the strange and increasingly bizarre sex games say about Oscar and Mimi as damaged souls and do we really understand these two people? Asking these questions and debating the answers is part of the fun of watching Bitter Moon. When the movie reached its conclusion, it was unspectacular but I could not care less. The point of Bitter Moon is taking the labyrinthian journey through strange and dangerous sexual terrain, not the ending. As a result, I think it is the enigma surrounding the movie and its characters that explains the film's enduring appeal. Despite Bitter Moon being a commercial bomb and attracting few viewers, film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert praised the movie's daring and pointed out that the subject matter was "alive." I personally consider the movie to be one of Roman Polanski's best, because as much as some of its content is repellant and uncomfortable, I find myself returning to the film again to study the dialog, the construction of individual scenes, the complex and interesting characters, and what the film is saying about sex and relationships.

"Massacre at Central High" is a thought-provoking film about violence and power. To begin with, the setting of the film - a high school - should not be taken literally, because this is the most unrealistic high school you can ever think of. The teachers and other adult figures are absent except at the end, which means the students are free to build their own constructions of political order. The police are also not present except at the end, even though the nine deaths happening near the high school should have attracted the attention of the police.

Instead, the movie is an allegory about people living under a violent authoritarian system and how they respond when they are freed from such a system. Dutch writer-director Rene Daalder's message seems to be that a people's revolution that overthrows an authoritarian system is not guaranteed to produce a democracy. Instead, people living under authoritarian rulers have only known violence and fear all their lives and lack any understanding of freedom and how to preserve it. As a result, they will revert to the violence and cruelty of the toppled authoritarian leaders and create their own authoritarian system. This theme not only has relevance to 1976 when many Vietnamese embraced a communist dictatorship, but it also seems applicable to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein and Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.

The movie begins innocently enough with David (Derrel Maury) trying to find the student lounge on his first day of school. He quickly realizes that something is wrong. The other students are too scared to give him directions, except for Theresa (Kimberly Beck). He also learned that a gang of four students (Bruce, Craig, Paul, and Mark) runs the school with an iron fist and punishes any perceived infractions by the other students with violence, vandalism, and even an attempted rape. David tries to contain his anger, but witnessing the rape attempt sends him over the edge and he beats up Bruce, Craig, and Paul. Tit-for-tat violence then escalates to the point where David devises diabolical schemes for killing all three bullies. Mark is kept alive, possibly because David secretly loves Mark's girlfriend Theresa.

Up to this point, this movie is an intelligent allegory on the psychology of violence and how it brainwashes the bullies and terrifies the victims. Yet the demise of Bruce, Craig, and Paul is not the climax of the story, because the movie then explores new terrain. At first, the fall of the bullies ushers in an era of hope and optimism. David walks around the school grounds and notices students talking to each other and playing. Then the era of hope and optimism turns into one of chaos, when a food fight breaks out in the cafeteria. When watching these scenes, I was reminded of the news coverage of Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The streets of Baghdad were full of happy people toppling the statue of the reviled dictator and searching for their loved ones. Then these euphoric scenes were followed by looting and terrorist bombings.

At Central High, some students instinctively search for ways to reestablish order while operating under the handicap of knowing nothing about democracy. They revert to the methods of the bullies, which involve the use of violence and fear, to reestablish order and thus authoritarianism is resurrected all over again because no one at the school knows any better. Spoony (David Carradine) probably comes closest to becoming the next dictator. He explains to David that the students need "people to show them the way," adding that "you have a lot of influence." His female companions Jane (Lani O'Grady) and Mary (Cheryl Smith) chime in that they are strong enough to handle holdouts, like the loner librarian Arthur (Dennis Kort), and even kill whoever stands in their way. Much later, Spoony is bathing in the sunshine like a hedonistic despot and having sex with Jane and Mary. These scenes are not simply gratuitous, but also symbolic of students occupying the vacuum left behind by the bullies and rising up in the social hierarchy. A similar scene showing Rodney (Rex Steven Sikes) inheriting Bruce's red car and vandalizing the car of a "lower class" person carries the same message. David, suffice it to say, is appalled by how the students are reverting to authoritarianism and social hierarchies and soon other murders take place on campus.

"Massacre at Central High," in sum, provides an interesting subject for discussion. Are human beings hardwired by their biology to be violent and controlling and to organize themselves into social hierarchies? Or are human beings reverting to social hierarchies and authoritarianism because of an environment that teaches them that brute force and social control are the sole means of maintaining order? The great thing about Rene Daalder's film is that it raises deep questions like that, despite being financed out of a small budget. The movie has its flaws. Most of the characters are not well-developed, except perhaps for David's, with the result that we feel little sympathy for them. This flaw can be attributed to some of the faulty dialogue and the lack of strong performances. For instance, Kimberly Beck's Theresa comes across as simple-minded and seems to exist mainly to supply some of the film's love scenes. Another problem is the film soundtrack which undermines the suspense in the key scenes. In fact, when watching "Massacre at Central High," I was more interested in the plot as an intellectual exercise in allegory and I did not particularly care for the characters. Nevertheless, I do recommend Rene Daalder's film both for its ideas and unexpected plot twists which held my interest right to the very end.

On the surface, "Thunderheart" comes across as a well-made murder mystery intertwined with reservation politics and colonialism. Leo Fast Elk (Allan Joseph) has been murdered on a Sioux reservation on South Dakota and Assistant FBI director William Dawes (Fred Thomspon) sends in FBI agent Ray Levoi (Val Kilmer) to the reservation to help solve the murder on the unconvincing grounds that he is half Sioux and can get the Sioux population to cooperate. Over the course of the movie, a deeper motivation suggests itself: the FBI assumes that fewer people will challenge their investigation if one of the investigators is Native American.

If viewed from this perspective, "Thunderheart" is an entertaining thriller. But I believe that this movie covers themes that are more important than a murder investigation. The movie is mainly a thoughtful character study showing Ray Levoi's evolution from a ruthless FBI agent to a man who makes hesitant steps towards accepting his Sioux identity. Film critical Roger Ebert described Ray Levoi this way: "He's like one of those cops who is blind to the human situation because he's preoccupied with running the rule book through his mind" and describes his dealings with the locals as "rigid." This characterization is accurate as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. Why is Ray Levoi blind to the human situation, rigid, and preoccupied with the rule book? Was the FBI training he received the sole cause? One of the achievements of this movie was to give a deeper motivation to the Ray Levoi character. Over the course of the movie, it is hinted at often subtly that Ray Levoi's rigid dealings with the Sioux are motivated by a self-loathing for his Sioux identity. In the opening sequences, one can sense Ray Levoi's awkwardness when William Dawes brings up his Sioux heritage. Later in the film, Sioux police officer Walter Crow Horse (Graham Greene) and Ray Levoi have a short conversation about residential schools. "I didn't want to be an Indian. The government boarding school made sure of that," Crow Horse relates, adding that his mouth was washed out with soap if he spoke the Sioux language. The implication of this scene is subtle, but important: Crow Horse talks about his childhood experiences at the residential schools because he senses that Ray Levoi experienced the same childhood.

Sometime later, there is an even more important scene where Ray Levoi experiences a vision where he sees himself as a boy being torn from the arms of his alcoholic father. The context for that scene is more complicated than what appears on the surface. As a boy, Ray Levoi refuses to acknowledge his father when his classmates make fun of him for being Sioux. We sense in scenes like these Ray Levoi experienced other forms of racism in his childhood which made him ashamed of his father and his Sioux heritage. As he grows older, Ray Levoi tries to erase the Sioux part of himself and assimilate into Anglo-Saxon society. Film critic Roger Ebert treads upon this part of the film almost by accident: "Kilmer's anonymity was not a trick of makeup or lighting. He plays the role unadorned, his hair cut short and neatly combed, his shirt buttoned, his tie in a neat knot. It is something inside Kilmer that seems to conceal him; he is this straight-arrow, conservative, by-the-numbers FBI agent..." I would suggest that this "anonymity" is important to the movie's opening. If Ray Levoi conceal his Sioux identity and disappear into Anglo-Saxon society, he can win the acceptance of those around him and ascend the ranks of the corporate hierarchy. Moreover, Ray Levoi's obsession with "anonymity" also explains his behavior early in the film because his tense relations with the Sioux mirrors the internal war and self-loathing within himself.

During his time at the reservation, Ray Levoi does change profoundly. His interactions with the Sioux slowly open up his heart and force him to confront his insecurities, which drove him to become this rigid and sometimes ruthless in the first place. The movie plays a trick on us. The Sioux reservation with its rusted-out locations, tombstones, river, mountains, and rolling prairies seems almost mystical and other-worldly to us. As a result, we are prepared to believe that supernatural forces (including Ray Levoi having visions which help him to make the choice between good and evil) can happen on the reservation. Film critic Roger Ebert doubts whether Ray Levoi could have made this transformation because of the FSB training, but we should always remember why he became this rigid FBI agent in the first place. He embraced this identity because of his self-hatred over his Sioux identity, which means that if he could make the leap from self-hatred to a gradual acceptance of his roots, then his reasons for being a rigid FBI agent start to disappear. Ray Levoi is not the only one who has made this difficult life journey; many members of the lesbian and gay community and neuro-diverse people also struggle with their identities which seem to be at odd with social standards and only slowly are they able to make the journey to self-acceptance. On that basis, there is something universal about Ray Levoi's life experiences. As the film comes to an end, there is a scene where Ray Levoi is looking out at an interstate highway. Ray Levoi and his car become smaller and smaller as the camera takes in the immensity of the reserve and the highway. This is one of those great movie scenes which is open to interpretation. For me, the scene shows Ray Levoi rejoining the outside world but with important difference that he is viewing this world through Sioux eyes rather than assimilated Native American eyes. Through Sioux eyes, the world seems hostile, deceitful, and very violent.

As this review suggests, Thunderheart is such a rich film that it is possible to discuss it without mentioning the murder mystery. As a murder mystery, though, Thunderheart works remarkably well and offers many twists and turns and clues much like an Agatha Christie novel. I also want to give credit to much of the supporting cast. Graham Greene delivers another wonderful performance as Walter Crow Horse who patiently performs what could only be considered as a form of therapy upon Ray Levoi. Then there is Sheila Tousey's Maggie Eagle Bear who is understandably suspicious of Ray Levoi but then overtime they learn to respect and admire each other. There is even the suggestion that Ray Levoi might have fallen in love with her, though it is so subtle that you have to really study the chemistry between these two people in order to see it. Other great actors are John Trudell playing Jimmy Looks Twice who comes across as a rebel and a ne'er do well, but if one takes the time to listen to him, he is more of a tragic figure filled with wisdom who is waging a losing battle to keep his reservation alive; Ted Thin Elk is completely believable playing a version of himself (Grandpa Sam Reaches); and Julius Drum plays Richard Yellow Hawk who turns out to be far more complicated than a disgruntled Sioux who is suspicious of white men. Two other performances which should not go overlooked include Sam Sheperd playing the cynical and corrupt Frank Coutelle who seems to have resigned himself to the idea that white men will always dictate the futures of the Sioux; and Fred Ward's performance as Jack Milton who is consumed with hate and greed but whose role in the murder mystery is not apparent until the end. Finally, Val Kilmer delivers one of the best performances of his entire life.

When viewed from a certain angle, Amadeus is a backdrop against which the protagonist (Antonio Salieri played by F. Murray Abraham) plays out his repressed homosexuality. The movie can be seen as a celebration of the creative process in music and Salieri's mixed feelings for Mozart (Tom Hulce) which range from envy to admiration. If seen along these lines, Amadeus is a brilliant movie. There are wonderful sequences where Salieri presents his own (often implausible) interpretations of Mozart's compositions, some wonderful footage of Mozart training the musicians for the opera Marriage of Figaro, and a splendid scene at the end where Mozart and Salieri are working together to compose the Requiem Mass (1791).

Yet after watching this film again, I could not help but think that director Milos Forman and screenwriter Peter Shaffer were up to some mischief with the main character Antonio Salieri. To begin with, many of the details of Salieri's life are fictional and not simply for the purposes of dramatization. The movie's Salieri is presented as chaste and someone who scrupulously keeps his hands of women to dedicate his life to art. This depiction stands in contrast to the real-life Salieri who married Therese Helferstorfer (1775) and had a son by her. Similarly, the movie's Salieri obsessively attends all the performances of Mozart's operas in Vienna, though there is no historical evidence to support this obsessive record of attendance. These alterations may be quibbles, except for the fact that they set up Salieri's personal obsession with Mozart, which is difficult to understand if viewed solely from the vantage point of jealousy and grudging admiration. What I suspect happened to the movie's Salieri was that he discovered that his feelings of jealousy and hatred for Mozart were, in fact, a form of homosexual love, but by then it was already too late. Mozart died in his bed and Salieri's experience of seeing the great composer dying filled him with guilt and remorse for the rest of his life.

Many readers will consider this interpretation to be fanciful, but let's consider this. The movie's Salieri does not have an intimate relationship with a single woman. He claims at one point to be in love with Caterina Cavalieri, but then back tracks and claims that it was only lust. But Salieri turns out not to be very lustful either, because he rings a bell rather than having sex with Constanze Mozart. The only tender relationship which Salieri has in the entire movie is with Mozart at the end, when they are working together on the Mass Requiem. There is a lot of dialogue between them which suggests that Salieri's feelings for the composer are quite tender. He tells Mozart, "You are the greatest composer know to me," and agrees to help him write the Requiem Mass. When Mozart asks Salieri to stay with him while he sleeps a little, Salieri assures him with great sincerity of feeling, "I'm not leaving you." One interpretation of these scenes was that Salieri was trying to take all the credit for writing the Requiem Mass himself, but I think there is something much deeper at work here. For instance, wouldn't it have been for Salieri to buy the Mass Requiem Mass from Mozart, copy all the musical roles onto separate sheet paper, burn the original, and pass off the composition as his own? Yet Salieri decided to join Mozart at his bedside and risk discovery because he felt something deeper and more profound for Mozart, which as a devout and god fearing man he never wanted to admit to himself -- let alone another person.

Salieri's claim that he was consumed with jealousy and hatred for "that little man" is also unconvincing for another reason. It's understandable that Salieri attended the first performance of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, because he wanted to see whether Emperor Joseph II would like the opera or yawn at it. But after Joseph II's yawn and the limited release of the opera thereafter, why was it necessary for Salieri to attend all the other performances? Salieri seemed to be drawn to Mozart's Marriage of Figaro like a moth is drawn to a flame, even though he claims to feel humiliated witnessing music that is far superior to his own. Moreover, Salieri repeats this strange ritual with Don Giovanni, where he "worships the sound," and the Vaudeville performance of the Magic Flute. Despite hating the prospect of Mozart surpassing him in the realm of music, Salieri behaves like the composer's biggest fan rather than developing an aversion to seeing another Mozart composition.

If Amadeus was a movie about unrequited love, that would explain a lot of Salieri's behavior after Mozart's death. Salieri could have joined most of Vienna in not attending Mozart's funeral, but he did so anyway. Additionally, the movie's Salieri clearly did not kill Mozart (he confesses to the murder at the beginning of the film, but then claims that God killed Mozart) which suggests that his guilt must have come from elsewhere. My theory is that the existence of Mozart gave Salieri a reason for living, even if the great composer was simply a foil of some kind. When Mozart died, life must have seemed very empty and lonely, and the performances of Mozart's music were simply reminders of the companion whom he lost.

I am not surprised in the least that the Barbie movie is trash and a truly deplorable career choice by Margot Robbie who will probably be type cast forever in Barbie-type roles.

To begin with, there is just too much pink and superficiality for this movie to inspire anything more than groans and watching your watch waiting for the whole travesty to be over. The plot is completely by the numbers as Barbie has the perfect life in Barbie World. Then suddenly she yearns to see the "real world." Where did we see that storyline before? Let's see... I know... The Little Mermaid and a hundred other movies ripping off the same plot.

But if that's not bad enough, we have to sit through dreary dialogue such as Ken wanting to sleep over with Barbie while being totally innocent of sex and the fairy god mother pressuring Barbie to reject the high heels in order to seek enlightenment, as if Barbie should not make the choice on her own without somebody prodding her in a particular direction.

Even the people who like it can't point to anything original in it. Where that 77% comes from is beyond me.

"Queen Cleopatra" represents a depressing trend in academia where emotion and contemporary biases matter more than facts. This TV series, in fact, is not a documentary, because it violates all the rules of documentary filmmaking. One of the main rules for making a serious documentary is to represent the past in its own terms and not project contemporary perspectives onto the past. Issa Islam breaks this rule most blatantly when saying: "The appeal of Cleopatra is that we imagine her, that everyone can imagine her in their own way. I imagine her to have curly hair like me and similar skin color." This quote captures everything that is wrong with the series. Here, he is basically saying that your view of what Cleopatra VII looked like is dependent not upon the evidence, but what people living in the present imagine her to look like. While I am not unsympathetic to the feelings which motivate someone to hold this view, these perspectives are anachronistic and are not the basis for a serious documentary. We can only reconstruct the past based upon evidence and, if we make speculations, these speculations cannot be based upon the absence of evidence. The interviewees admit that Cleopatra's mother is unknown, but then they make the mistake of claiming that this is evidence that Cleopatra was black. If we accept this logic, then almost anything can be true.

The anachronism permeating the series goes beyond Cleopatra's ethnicity. Key events in Cleopatra's life are presented in such a superficial way that they appear no different from events in the present day. For instance, Rome's civil war is seen by the documentary as a power struggle between men which begs the question of what makes this civil war any different from other power struggles in the 20th and 21st centuries. Maybe the documentary filmmakers think that all power struggles are the same, but I disagree because the evidence does not support this view. Rome's civil wars were the unintended result of the flaws with the republican system and the political climate of the time. Yet the documentary is so poorly researched that we never learn about that context. Similarly, Ancient Egypt's decline is handled so superficially that we do not understand why the kingdom is in such poor shape. There is no mention of major disruptions to commerce in the East Mediterranean, the rottenness built into an administration where Pharaohs ruled as gods and were surrounded by sycophants, or of the mistakes made by the previous Ptolemies. It's almost as though the filmmakers produced this TV series not because they were interested in the history of Cleopatra's Egypt, but to fulfill another contemporary need which has been alluded to in other reviews. Unfortunately, the writing of history does not work like that; it's about reimagining the past however imperfectly based upon the available evidence, not transforming a slice of the past into a marketable commodity that purportedly meets some present-day emotional need.

The documentary also does not work on the level of good story telling. As any academic would admit, the opening few sentences are sometimes the most difficult to write because you are trying to find the best way to introduce a major subject. This pseudo-documentary shows what happens when you get the opening wrong. There are plenty of depictions of Cleopatra as a "strong woman," smart, educated, caring, and knowledgeable about the Egyptian language, but nothing about why she is historically important. Would Ancient Egypt's history have unfolded any differently without Cleopatra VII? The documentary does not say. As we move beyond the opening to the story, we come across movie scenes that seem to paper over the cracks in the narrative rather than advance the narrative. For instance, we learn that eunuchs exercise a nefarious influence over the royal family and then are shown a movie scene of Cleopatra showing disgust for one of the eunuchs who has a surprising low voice for a eunuch. But we do not learn any insights about court politics and intrigue and how they contribute Ancient Egypt's decline or indeed how the eunuchs were able to gain so much influence over the Ptolemies. Similarly, we learn that Ancient Egypt was in crisis and then we have a movie scene showing Cleopatra asking for the granaries to be opened and a temple to be built to give people "hope." But once again, neither the interviewees nor the movie scenes give us much insight into why Ancient Egypt was in decline. After all, there must have been more to the decline than problems with the Nile not flooding enough. The superficial retelling of history is no small thing. It not only distorts the past, but it also means missed opportunities for generating enthusiasm about a rich and genuinely interesting period in Ancient Egyptian history.

All in all, the Cleopatra documentary deserves all the criticism it has been receiving. What encouraged me the most was the number of reviews focussing on the lack of sound scholarship. With the humanities facing a serious decline due to funding cuts and students being treated as customers, it is encouraging that there are people out there who still care about the rigors of the academic profession and presenting the past in its own terms. Many of the people writing reviews for IMDB on Cleopatra are the hope for the future.

"La Bonne" represents a larger trend where filmmakers purportedly are treating the erotic fantasies of women in a serious way, when - let's face it - the only reason why we are watching these films is to wait for beautiful women to take off their clothes and have sex.

The set up for "La Bonne" is a neglected housewife Anna (Florence Guerin) whose erotic fantasies are apparently awakened by a maid Angela (Trine Michelsen). Anna undergoes all sorts of experiences, including a rather cruel one which culminates in the accidental death of her mother-in-law. But we soon realize watching this movie that the erotic experiences depicted in this movie do not really belong to Anna or even Angela. These women are just being used by Director Salvatore Samperi to work out his own sexual fantasies. How do we know this? There isn't any chemistry between Anna and Angela and there is certainly no chemistry between Anna and the man that she is having an extramarital affair with. Sure, Anna can moan during sex and her breasts shake seductively, but she does not seem even remotely turned on by her male lover. It's not too hard to see why: the male lover is not only past middle age and unattractive, but has a cocaine addition in the bargain. Even during one of the scenes where Angela is meant to be turned on by watching Anna engaging in extramarital sex, you get the distinct impression that Angela is taking direction from Samperi and the camera man. Her behavior is not her own and her lines are not her own.

What we are left with then is a movie that purports to be artistic erotica, but is really a softcore pornographic movie with surprisingly little sex in it. There are some beautiful female bodies on screen belonging to Florence Guerin and Trine Michelsen, but we do not really get any insight into the personalities and sexuality of either woman. Louis Malle's erotic film Damage does a much better job at covering these themes with a stellar performance from Juliette Binoche. However, one silver lining in this film is the highly original and occasionally quite entertaining score by Riziero Ortolani. Some of the violin music is so good that it would be right at home in a more serious and thoughtful film.

"Darker Shades of Elise" is really a pornographic film dressed up as a melodrama. There is certainly something entertaining about watching Elise (played by Becca Hirani) cheat on her boring husband Rick (Tommy Viles) and explore her sexual fantasies with Felix (Arron Blake). Yet there is not one relationship in this movie that is genuine and heartfelt and, therefore, this movie cannot be considered a great erotic film which stretches the boundaries. Instead, this film only has some level of achievement of being a guilty pleasure by showing a few scenes with Becca Hirani taking her clothes off and having sex with different men.

If they were smart, the filmmakers would have realized that their movie could not be anything more than a pornographic flick. Unfortunately, they were not smart at all and made the fatal mistake of adding a whole layer of violence to a film that could have worked fine as a guilty pleasure. I do not always bash movies for their violence, but I do on this occasion for two reasons. First, the film appears to be suggesting that a woman who engages in extramarital affairs deserves to be blackmailed, raped, and subjected to other horrific acts of violence. Such a message is just plain sexist and has no redeeming value whatsoever. Second, the violence comes across as a cynical attempt to make what is frankly a trashy sex film appear serious and important. On that basis, most porn films are far better than "Darker Shades" because at least they acknowledge what they are and do not try to spoil the nudity and gratuitous sex with excessive violence at the end.

When I saw the Babysitter, I expected a mixture of a horror film and a comedy with very hot women. "The Babysitter" has all of these elements, but surprisingly its plot is far more intelligent than appearances suggest. This movie is also a put-on of the various elements making up popular culture -- from the new parenting style which emphasizes giving children an obstacle-free life to a teenage culture which has been rendered incredibly shallow and superficial by social media and twitter/facebook hashtags.

The Babysitter's main message is that our current pop culture is absurd and that children, like the protagonist Cole, are far better off when they are challenged and empowered. At the beginning of the film, Cole is a nervous wreck -- and we soon find out why. The dad notices that his son Cole is terrified of driving and his response is to postpone his driving lessons to another time. A short time later, Cole is dissuaded by his dad from fixing his electronic car with a giant knife because apparently the knife is too dangerous for a boy on the cusp of puberty. We also learn that the parents are tearing down the tree house and hiring a babysitter (played by the promising actress Samara Weaving) to keep their beloved Cole safe from the dangers of the outside world. This repeated cuddling of Cole was no doubt done with the best of intentions. But the result is far from satisfactory: Cole is afraid of needles, mocked by his horrible neighbor, and easy prey for bullies.

Along with bashing new age parenting, this film also makes an emphatic statement about how teenagers have been transformed into incredibly shallow and superficial human beings by social media. One teenager complains about his Macy's designer shirt being covered in blood and does not seem the least bit remorseful that he was an active participant in a murder. A second teenager exclaims, "That sucks," when told that a child could lose all his Instagram followers after he is murdered. They also talk in hashtags, like "going viral" and "black lives matters," as though reality is not more complicated than that.

This social indictment of pop culture is interesting. But "the Babysitter" also goes further that that. The teenage villains are not just representative of a millennial generation gone terribly wrong; they also mentor Cole and gradually transform him into a confident and self-sufficient adult. What is striking is that the bad guys had so many opportunities to kill Cole. Yet what they did instead was to provide Cole in their unorthodox way with a real world education that prepared him for life's challenges. The Cole that emerges from this film is not a scared, helpless, and cuddled child. He has fearlessly crashed the car into his parents' house and announces that he no longer needs a babysitter.

Therefore, I recommend "the Babysitter" not only for being a fine entertainment, but also for being surprisingly uplifting. If you observe the interactions taking place between Cole and the villains and ask yourself why these interactions are happening, you begin to realize that these villains sort of respect Cole and want to help him to overcome his fears. As a result, the film juxtaposes the obligatory gore of a horror film with an optimistic message about mentoring and empowerment.

The main criticism levelled at Basic Instinct is that it does not work as a "who done it" movie, because the evidence suggests that either of the two characters committed the murders. But I never cared about the "who done it" aspect of this movie anyway. Basic Instinct is really about how the basic instincts of two people - Detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) and Catherine Trammel (Sharon Stone) - brought them closer together. Over the course of the movie, Detective Curran slowly realizes that he does not like staying off cigarettes, alcohol, and cocaine and being a good cop. Instead, he wants at a deeper level to break free of the shackles and release his basic instincts -- which include aggression, uncontrolled rage, wild lovemaking, and much more. There are a number of important events early on in the film, which indicate that Curran is headed in that direction. He is chided by Catherine Trammel to start drinking and smoking again. His aggressive, dominatrix lovemaking with Dr. Elizabeth Garner suggests that they are not a good match. Finally, Curran becomes the object of Trammel's seductive and complex mind games.

The unfolding of this plot halfway into this movie is masterful. Sure the scene where Trammel reveals to the police officers that she is without panties is something of a climax. But even then, watching Detective Curran fall to pieces and revert back to his basic instincts is fascinating. But then the second half of the movie broke down for a number of reasons. At the half point, all the creativity and invention (which made the first half so enjoyable) had been exhausted and all that was left was a dumb-down and sleazy screenplay. Screenplay writer Joe Esterhaz ran out of good ideas and basically came up with a second and third act which sabotaged what could have been an elegant and highly intelligent psycho-drama. Lines like "f*** of the century," "that's her p***y talking," and "f*** like minks and raise rugrats" are really beneath the dignity of the intelligent actors uttering this dialogue. Equally disappointing is the unmotivated violence. I am not against very violent films in principle. But when the violence is unmotivated or lacking a convincing rationale, then it ruins the film. Why not come up with something more intellectually challenging for the actors and the audience, rather than just inserting a bunch of sleazy trash? Unfortunately, once Esterhaz' screenplay took this turn and then added all those silly "who done it" elements, Paul Verhoeven's excellent direction could not save this film from the trash heap. A pity really, because the director and screenwriter were really onto something with their premise.

After watching Siskel and Ebert's Women in Danger series, I was intrigued by how bad some of these movies exploiting women in danger were. "I spit on your grave" was worse than I can ever imagine. I am not voting on this movie, because even 1/10 is too high.

"I spit on your grave" does not have an original plot. In fact, writer-director Meir Zarchi ripped off the plot of Igmar Bergman's "Virgin Spring" and then made some alterations. However, it would be incorrect to assume that "I spit on your grave" deserves to be in the same league as "Virgin Spring." To be sure, "Virgin Spring" has a scene where the innocent Swedish girl Karin is raped and murdered and a scene where her father (played brilliantly by Max von Sydow) exacts a brutal revenge against the rapists. Rape and revenge, therefore, are common themes in both films. Yet Bergman's filmmaking does not linger over the rape scene. Moreover, "Virgin Spring" has yet another scene where the woman, who is meant to protect Karin, is wracked with guilt and despair over doing nothing to stop the attackers and worse still secretly wanting Karin to be raped. She confides her sins to Karin's father and tells him who raped and murdered his daughter in a truly powerful scene.

With "I spit on your grave," we get the exact opposite of Igmar Bergman's elegant film. Unlike "Virgin Spring," "I spit on your grave" focuses and exploits one element of the plot: the rape itself. Some of the reviewers here estimated that as much as 40 minutes were devoted to showing a woman being raped multiple times. In addition, there are scenes encouraging the audience members to look forward to the girl's rape before it starts. What Meir Zarchi and the others connected to this travesty of filmmaking do not seem to understand is that libidos are aroused by consensual sex. That's what makes the Emmanuelle movies appealing and the same could be said for Lina Wertmueller's Swept Away where the young lady turns out to like being dominated and having sex with a dirty sailor. Yet Meir Zarchi does not have nearly as much class as the directors of the Emmanuelle films. He seems to have embraced the logic that rape is sexy and that most audience members relish the opportunity of spending more than an hour watching a young woman being violated.

There is also another major difference between "I spit on your grave" and "Virgin Spring." As mentioned earlier, "Virgin Spring" is primarily a film about the human condition. We see Karin's mother worry over her daughter's long absence. We see another woman blaming herself for Karin's rape and death. We see Karin's father with visible signs of anguish on his face. We then see a moving funeral scene where the family tries to move on after burying their young child. The "Virgin Spring" is really a film about intelligent human beings experiencing complex emotions as a result of going through adversity. By contrast, "I spit on your grave," is devoid of any of this humanity. Meir Zarchi did not allocate more than an hour to the foreplay scenes and then the rape by accident. He clearly wanted the film to be about those things. Moreover, he made a conscious decision to leave out the human dimension even of the rape victim herself. We get no real insights into what the rape victim feels inside, because the director is more interested in hyping the concept of the rape itself than creating any sympathetic characters. Then toward the end, Meir Zarchi does something cynical: he films very briefly the rape victim's revenge against the rapists. This was done deliberately so that Zarchi could claim that he was not using rape as a form of entertainment at all. Yet I was not fooled by this cynical hedge for a second and neither should you.

0/10

We would all like to see a movie with the youthful Jean Claude Van Damme work, but the problem is that "Universal Soldier" is not a good film. The whole premise of the film is not new: the "Universal Soldier" is really a pale imitation of the Terminator from the 1980s and 1990s.

Of course, an unoriginal premise would not be a problem if they did something fresh with the material. After all, Terminator Part II was a very good movie. Yet "Universal Soldier" really consists of a number of car chase scenes on desert high ways and Dolph Lundgren's heavy-duty jerk firing his big guns at Jean Claude Van Damme and his female companion, Veronica Roberts (Ally Walker). Is someone trying to overcompensate here with the big guns? You be the judge. There is very little suspense generated in these chases, partly because they are not well filmed and partly because the good guys never really seemed to be in any danger. Finally, there is the big fight at the end and I don't need to tell you who wins that one.

The only element in the film that worked was Ally Walker who had some humorous and witty lines during her panic attacks, which made me smile. Unfortunately, Jean Claude Van Damme has even fewer lines than Ally Walker and is incredibly restrained and robotic throughout this picture. I realize that Van Damme has to be robotic as a universal soldier (that's the whole premise anyway), but they could have done something original with the material by showing how inept Van Damme is at understanding human emotions and behaviour. For instance, there is a hilarious scene where Arnold Schwarzenegger's terminator gets schooled by John Connor on why he cannot kill people (a robot programmed to kill people would not necessity make that leap in logic without some help). But Van Damme sadly is only there as a piece of furniture and for some pretty drab action scenes. As a result, Ally Walker almost by default nearly steals the show. One wonders in retrospect if Universal Soldier would have been a better film if it was about Ally Walker discovering the universal soldier program through investigative journalism than about the universal soldiers themselves.

"House of Cards" has a preposterous plot which is total cornball. IMDb's summary says it all: "In 1960s Paris, an American boxer stumbles upon an international fascist conspiracy that aims to create a new world order." Needless to say, the French conspirators are too small in number to take over France, let alone recolonize Algeria and build the new world order. In fact, these villains are such amateurs that the extent of their talents are to accumulate an impressive arsenal of muskets in the basement, drink champagne and talk nostalgically about keeping out "black and yellow hordes," and kidnap a poor little aristocratic boy and his depressed mother Anne de Villemont (Inger Stevens). Little wonder that it only took a troublemaker Reno Davis (George Peppard), who spent his formative years pulling fire alarms at school, to defeat the whole lot of them.

Yet on the level of seeing trouble-making George Peppard poke fun at the members of the French aristocracy and outsmart them, this film does actually work. Peppard is like that unruly school boy who irritates his teachers, pulls fire alarms to avoid taking exams he has not studied for, gets into fights during recess time, and can talk himself out of any problem. When Peppard is unleashed against a bunch of amateurish Fascists at a dinner party, then a fortress, and finally a farm, "House of Cards" is very entertaining. Peppard's character also has a heart of gold, which is barely concealed beneath his alpha-male persona. He seems to be even more repelled by violence than James Bond and only kills one villain in the entire movie. He is charming to at least three women, but ultimately has eyes for only the aristocrat Anne de Villemont. This is an American James Bond who one could imagine settling down and starting a family. Unfortunately, toward the end, the cornball plot starts to take over and we are treated to a climax with the key villain Leschenhaut (Orson Welles) which does not really work.

On balance, though, I recommend this movie largely because it's actually a lot of fun watching Peppard mingle with the French aristocracy, flout their conventions, and out-think them as well as go from rags to riches through his sheer personality.

The opening of "Death in Venice" is masterful. Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde) is portrayed as an over-disciplined and exhausted German composer travelling by ship to Venice. But then the film fails to live up to the pretensions of its great opening scene and becomes a story about nothing much in particular. I should emphasize the beautiful scenes in this movie, because director Luchino Visconti really does create a whole new world complete with ostentatious luxury. Yet at the centre of this world is a dull story.

The film is basically about Gustav von Aschenbach's infatuation with an enigmatic Polish boy named Tadzio (Björn Andresen), which is fine except that the whole movie hangs almost entirely on this single plot point. Moreover, this infatuation amounts to Gustav becoming more and more miserable as he stalks Tadzio through the plague-ridden streets of Venice, while Tadzio gives him penetrating stares which amount to enigmatic portends. What could Tadzio be thinking? It occurred to me that Tadzio was asking himself, "Why is this stranger following me through the streets of Venice?" Once those types of thoughts entered my head, Gustav's behaviour is difficult to take seriously. Then Dirk Bogarde's Gustav made things a lot worse by being dull and prissy and putting white paint and rouge on his face to apparently appear like the living manifestation of death.

While this absurd love story was unfolding, we are treated to flashbacks involving Gustav and his mercurial friend Alfred (Mark Burns) discussing art. Gustav opined that beauty can only come from the spirit and that the spirit cannot be accessed through the senses. Alfred countered that beauty can only be accessed through the senses, "evil is the food of genius," and music is the most ambiguous art of them all transformed into a science. I am not sure what the point of these discussions are, but they seem out of place in a movie like this. Equally mystifying was watching Alfred threaten to deliver Gustav to an angry mob who had just booed his symphony.

This movie is not completely lacking in interest, owing to the stylish way it was filmed. Visconti inserts the soundtrack from Mahler's third, fourth, and fifth symphonies at every conceivable opportunity, which works out pretty well. The scenes in early 20th century Venice are also elegantly filmed. We see everything from the brothels to the darkly lit corridors to the gloomy decadence of the hotels to the canals. This is a visual feast for the eyes, but sadly there is not much of a story.

The remake or re-"awakening" of the Blue Lagoon is basically based on a gimmick: waiting for Indiana Evans (playing Emma) and Breton Thwaites (playing Dean) to take their clothes off and have sex on a tropical island.

The movie begins plausibly with Indiana getting knocked off a yacht into the water, with Breton coming to her rescue with a lifeboat. Then the couple drift towards a desert island complete with palm trees and travel log beaches. After that, the plausibility ends. For starters, the only way the search party armed with helicopters could not find the couple is if they are incredibly bad at their jobs. After all, if the couple drifted to a tropical paradise by boat, then surely it is not too hard to find the desert island. Yet the search party fails completely in its mission and announces over the airwaves that its search mission has become a recovery mission, which has the effect of making Denise Richards cry. Meanwhile, other implausible things happen on the island. The couple is apparently subject to wild mood swings, since they are happy at one point and then become completely manic the next without any explanation being given.

Yet despite all of the implausible plot lines, I did not resent the movie as much as I thought I would. What I saw were two appealing actors, Indiana Evans and Breton Thwaites, trapped in a bad movie. Furthermore, they were more mature and considerate of each other during the love scenes than their predecessors, Christopher Atkins and Brooke Shields. With a more intelligent script, I could see Evans and Thwaites delivering performances worthy of critical acclaim because they each have at least one good movie within each of them. Unfortunately, the "Blue Lagoon: The Awakening" is not that film. This movie falls apart at the screenplay stage, because it is all about the sex scenes (which are too brief) and it does not give the characters anything interesting to say or do.

4.5/10

I was hoping to see an aged Indiana Jones go on some of the most extraordinary adventures searching for ruins and crystal skulls in the Amazon. But what I got instead was an overload of special effects and very little story. Steven Spielberg's latest Indiana Jones movie poses at least two major problems. First, it's so obvious that the special effects were done on a computer that they don't seem real. As a result, we do not feel that the characters are in any danger from army ants or indeed an alien civilization with crystal skulls. Second, the plot is not particularly interesting. When the first and third Indiana Jones came out, at least the stakes seemed real to us. The first film was about uncovering the legendary Ark of the Covenant from ancient times and the third was the search for the exciting holy grail. But crystal skulls? Why would anyone want to search for those? Lastly, the villains in the story do not seem very interesting. I actually like Cate Blanchet as a person, which is why it is so hard to imagine her as a credible villain. They should have put someone else less likable in that role, like Natalie Portman. So overall, the "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" was a disappointing experience.

"The Breakfast Club" is simply a story about a few teenagers who spend a whole day in detention and talk to each other. The beginning of the movie struck me as a bit ordinary, because I felt that these students embodied caricatures of the prom queen, the jock, the nerd, the goth girl, and the rebel without a cause rather than three dimensional human beings. At the early stages of the film, only Judd Nelson was able to inject new life with a fresh performance as a troubled, aggressive young man with so much anger building up inside him and occasionally rising to this surface.

Yet as the film entered its second act, a strange thing happened to me. I found myself becoming absorbed in the lives of all its young characters. These students, away from the teacher's glare, were sharing their deep personal pain and this was fascinating to watch. Lastly the final act was really a metaphor for healing as these young people consoled and healed each other with love. This psychological portrait not only makes for very good entertainment, but is quite touching. So while "The Breakfast Club" is not without its weaknesses, I recommend this film particularly for its second and third acts.

I am not bashing the Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 because I feel that it is a cynical cash grab, which it is. My issue with it does not necessarily have anything to do with how I feel about the actors. Jennifer Lawrence is a very gifted actor who can take on demanding parts.

My problem with the finale of this series is that it fails at the script level. It retains all the flaws of the Hunger Games series and then adds several more, resulting in a form of entertainment with a lot of sound of fury and special effects but very little underlying substance. The Hunger games series should have played itself out like a Marxist dialectic: the young hero Kantniss Everdeen discovering that she is part of an oppressed proletariat, incorporating communist teachings, and then leading a communist revolution to topple the capitalist elites and install a social utopia. This series should have been about the intellectual evolution of Everdeen into a revolutionary leader, determined to reshape the world in accordance with a communist ideology.

Yet the first Hunger Games, despite being OK as entertainment, lacked these characteristics. Instead, this first Hunger games played like a re-run of survivor. The second instalment was a step down from that. It regurgitated all of the predictable survivor program material, but then added that scene in the end when Everdeen realizes that the enemy is the capitalist elite. The third instalment was even worse: Katniss is not playing even second fiddle to Plutarch and President Alma Coin. She is just used for propaganda purposes. I don't know about you, but I think Jennifer Lawrence deserves much better than being put into multiple tiresome propaganda reels in order to boost the morale of the troops. After all, haven't women's rights gone a long way since the Second World War when women were sent out into the field to make the lives of male soldiers seem less miserable.

Then came the finale, with incorporates all the flaws of the previous programs and adds fresh ones. Once again, the makers of this series denigrate Katniss. Now she is put as head of a small uncover team going deep inside the capital in order to assassinate the villain, President Snow. Big deal! To add salt to her wounds, Katniss is expected to give up power voluntarily first to President Coin (played horribly by Julianne Moore) and then Plutarch (played by Seymour Philip Hoffman) who is really put on screen as a thoughtful elder statesman than anything else. The other major problem of the series is that it is not really about anything, except a group of young people strategizing about how to penetrate the capital and then going through the motions of dodging one special effect after the other. There is really no new material presented here and the worst part of it is that all of the trials and tribulations befalling these heroes are boring and predictable. The palace square is flooded with oil at one point, which would be exciting except we know from medieval history that spilling boiling oil over an army is one of the methods employed to protect a castle. Then come the attack of the ogres -- again not that exciting, because we have seen the same material in previous Hunger game movies and even King Kong for that matter. Admittedly watching Katniss brutally murder President Coin did bring some joy, since it is good to see a terrible actor put out of commission. Yet ultimately, the finale of the Hunger Games is ineptly made, morally and intellectually bankrupt, and uninspired. I suppose it is fitting for the finale to get the lion share of the blame. I have gotten into the habit of assuming that the flaws in the first, second, and third episodes would somehow be resolved in a later episode. Then when the finale comes and fails to address these flaws, the result is a massive disappointment.

The best movies are those where the filmmakers do their research. Director Cronenberg and Christopher Hampton clearly care enough about the psychiatric practice in order to study it carefully and skillfully weave theory into the lives of the characters in the movie, "A Dangerous Mind." Darren Aronofsky, likewise, clearly did his research into the inner world of professional wrestling in order to make his film, "The Wrestler." As a result, "The Wrestler" not only had compelling human stories, but we also got to understand what the lives of some wrestlers were really like with their drug use, the male camaraderie, and the physical stamina involved in one bruising fight after the other.

Yet with "Pawn Sacrifice," we get the sense that that Director Edward Zwick, the three screenwriters, and the producers are not really interested in learning anything about chess – despite the fact that this movie was about the only American to become World Chess Champion, Bobby Fischer. Instead, "Pawn Sacrifice" is solely a character study on Bobby Fischer (played quite well by Tobey Maguire) with his personality quirks and bad temper, but divorced from his chess. For instance, there are a few scenes where Bobby Fischer defeated Soviet grandmaster Ivanov. Ivanov then withdraws from the tournament by claiming that he came down with influenza. Fair enough, but how was Fischer able to defeat Ivanov? And what made Fischer's chess victory any different from the victories which other grandmasters had over Ivanov? The film does not answer these questions, because it does not even bother to take the time to explain the chess game to us. I also have the same complaint about Fischer's victory over Victor Korchnoi. Korchnoi was a master at defence and counterattack and one of the strongest grandmasters in the world by the late 1960s. So how was Fischer able to beat him? Again, this question goes unanswered, probably because the filmmakers and producers assumed that the game of chess was too boring to be worth explaining to anyone or they were not particularly interested in Fischer's unique genius for chess, which inspired a future generation of Soviet chess players like Garry Kasparov. Yet if they really felt like this, why make a movie about Fischer at all? The reason why neglecting to explain Fischer's chess games is such a big flaw is two-fold. To begin with, Fischer's brand of chess is what made him so unique and extraordinary -- not his moods or his wild conspiracy theories. Yet judging from the film, I do not yet see how Fischer's chess was any different from Soviet grandmaster Ivanov's. Second, Fischer sacrificed everything, including his sanity, to achieve a mastery over his unique craft which no one else had. So shouldn't we get a clear idea of how challenging professional chess is? Should we not be given a clear idea of the hurdles Fischer had to overcome in order to become world champion? And also why achieving this level of mastery over chess was so important that Fischer was willing to sacrifice as much as he did? These are also questions that this film has not addressed.

"Pawn Sacrifice" does have its strengths. All the performances are pretty solid, especially Tobey Maguire's as Bobby Fischer. We get to understand this man's inner demons, his intense sensitivity to noises and lights, his paranoia and anti-Semitism, and his eccentricities. These aspects of Fischer are of some interest to us, since they foreshadow his eventual and tragic psychological breakdown. Yet "Pawn Sacrifice" can hardly be considered a great film, largely because the filmmakers seem as clueless about Fischer's chess genius (which I assume is a hugely important component of the film) as the young woman who took away his virginity in California.

6.5/10

I readily admit that the first two Taken movies were entertaining not because their plots were original or good, but because Liam Neeson is such a brilliant actor that he can make even a formulaic film about human trafficking seem compelling. What impressed me the most, in fact, about the first and second Taken films was something that is not even written in the script and comes from Liam Neeson alone: the ability to project unrestrained ruthlessness and aggression in pursuit of an objective.

In Taken 3, Liam Neeson reprises his role again as the special ops agent Bryan Mills who can annihilate almost anyone while making himself impossible to kill. But this time the plot is so bad and the supporting past so dismally boring that even Liam Neeson's performance cannot save Taken 3 from the trash bin. My first problem with the plot is that Neeson's ex-wife Lanke (played by Dutch actress Famke Janssen) is still with Stuart, even though it was clearly apparent in the second movie that she was tired of her current husband and wanted to get back together with her first husband. So the fact that Lenore and Stuart were still together was one of the most ridiculous parts of this movie. What made the movie so much worse was when they decided to kill off Lenore right in the beginning of the film. Famke Janssen deserved so much better than that. And of course Byran Mills gets blamed for Lenore's murder because, if we did not have that overly predictable plot twist, we wouldn't have a film. Then Taken 3 went downhill from there with boring chase scenes, shoot em' ups, and blowing things up real good. There have been revenge films made well, when the film conveys how important it is for the main character to take revenge. But Taken 3 is not one of them.

My other objection are the unoriginal supporting actors. The villain, for example, is a Russian mob boss borrowed from a dozen or so formula Hollywood pictures. I have seen this type of character before in Maximum Risk (1996), Eastern Promises (2007), and Icarus (2010). Given how many movies have used Russian mobsters in the past, filmmakers really need to raise their game if they are serious about competing in this genre. The makers of Taken 3, however, do not even try to compete, but instead settle for a villain who devotes all of his screen time to sounding tough even in his last moments and firing a big gun. Then we come to Stuart (Dougray St. John) who delivers a one-note performance throughout as a greedy scumbag, who has his wife killed in order to collect on the life insurance. Does this millionaire who owns a mansion really need the money that badly and does he really have to take risks like these in order to add to his massive fortune and continue spoiling his step daughter rotten? Not really, this is the lowest common denominator that we arrive at when supporting characters are painted as overgrown children rather than complicated adults. Indeed, the only actor to show any class in relation to Taken 3 is Xander Berkeley who played Stuart in the first Taken and wisely chose not to reprise the role for this film. Unfortunately, Maggie Grace decided not to follow Xander's advice because she did reprise her role as Kim, who gets impregnated by her boyfriend and kidnapped by Stuart in that order. Then we have Forrest Whitaker who plays a cop who begins to question whether Bryan Mills killed his wife. My objection to this character is that we have seen cops like these in lots of Hollywood films (Tommy Lee Jones plays such a cop in the Fugitive), and the makers of Taken 3 do absolutely nothing to make Whitaker's character more interesting than the formula character of the cop who guesses that the fugitive is not the killer. The only person out of the supporting cast who delivers a good performance is Famke Janssen, but unfortunately she gets knocked off at the beginning of this movie -- which is really irritating.

Now I gave this film two out of ten, because there is one thrilling scene where Bryan Mills unbelievably uses his Porsche in order to prevent a private jet from taking off. This scene has to be seen to be believed. But aside from that implausible sequence, Taken 3 is one Taken too many.

Renowned film director Constantin Costa-Gavras has attempted to make a film about the cut-throat world of international banking, with Marc Tourneuil (Gad Elmaleh) as his main anti-hero. Tourneuil is unexpectedly catapulted into the job of CEO of Phenix Bank after its previous CEO succumbs to an advanced stage of testicular cancer. After a few jokes about testicles, Tourneuil must head off political intrigues in order to stay at the helm of the firm.

A movie like this works when there is lots of sly wit and plot developments to hold our interest and compensate for the absence of sympathetic characters. The problem with "Le Capital" is that it is somewhat deficient in these two areas, though not to the extent that I would not recommend the picture. To begin with, Costa-Gavras clearly wants to show that multinational banking is destructive to the economy and to people's lives, but he does not expand on these themes in any meaningful way. Tourneuil's comment about being ignorant of the financial instruments which Phenix Bank sells remains a loose end. Likewise, Tourneuil's significant remark that bankers are akin to children who play with other people's money until the financial system blows up remains an enigmatic portend. A great film would attempt to explore these themes more fully through the life of Tourneuil. We do not get any insight into the shortcomings of securitized assets, or the pressures that bankers come under to sell these combustible assets to capital markets, or even Phenix Bank's lobbying of governments in order to change the financial regulations in its favour. This film cannot be faulted for not having a message. Constantin Costa-Gavras is too much of the intellectual to make a film without a point, but he doesn't explain why his core message is important and he doesn't try to present that message in an original way.

The plot developments about the vicious intrigues in international banking are entertaining, but we have seen this story being told before in much more exciting ways. Normally a film about the global financial system would have bankers coming up with flashes of sly wit. There is occasionally some sly wit in this picture, particularly in the last scene ("I am the modern Robin Hood. We will continue taking money from the poor to give to the rich"), but not nearly enough in order to underscore how shrewd and unscrupulous Tourneuil and the other bankers are. This is a pity, because the cast is clearly talented. Lastly, Dittmar's attempt to screw over Phenix Bank is so transparent that it is strange that Tourneuil, being as brilliant as he is, took so long to figure out what Dittmar was up to.

Another major weakness of this film is the super model/prostitute, Nassim. Nassim seduces Tourneuil, plays with his credit card, plays an international game of tag with him, and implies that she will give into his sexual pleasures. I have no problem with Liya Kebede's performance as Nassim, but I feel that she is an unnecessary character who slows down the film whenever she is on screen. If this film focused more on international banking instead of Tourneuil attempts to have sex with Nassim, it would have been a better movie.

"Le Capital" has good performances and is somewhat entertaining, but it is often lacking in interesting dialogue and plot development and gives us little perspective into the Machiavellian, egotistical world of international banking and the financial geniuses who were so sure of their gifts that they almost sent the entire global financial system crashing down.

"Exposed" has to be one of the most unusual, different, and unpredictable films I have ever seen. Many of the reviews on IMDb fault this film for having an incoherent plot. I actually believe that this criticism is unjustified, since writer-director James Toback is really trying to make a very ambitious film on the theme of the western world "breaking down" morally, politically, economically, and every other way. Toback, playing a professor in this picture, even makes this point rather banally to a classroom filled with indifferent students. The film then pursues this theme in a very fresh and original way by exploring the turbulent life of Elizabeth Carlson, who is played brilliantly here by the German actress Nastassja Kinski. The beginning of the film shows a terrorist attack and Elizabeth looking indifferently at her literature professor in that order, begging the question of how these two scenes are related. Then over the course of a series of extraordinary (but nonetheless plausible) plot twists, we learn the answer to this question. The end of the film shows Elizabeth gazing over her dying lover in the streets of Paris as the western world, in a metaphorical sense, collapses all around her.

Aside from the mostly interesting plot, the strength of the film lies in Natassija Kinski's performance as Elizabeth. She plays this character so brilliantly that we can almost overlook those moments in the film where she delivers poor lines. Rudolf Nureyev's performance as the enigmatic violinist David Jelline is not as good, but he is still very interesting to watch all the same. Now the film is not without its weaknesses. I found the acting of most of the supporting cast to be amateurish and dull, including Toback's brief performance as the literature professor. Moreover, "Exposed" starts out a bit too slowly in the beginning before picking up tempo and becoming more interesting. Yet there were enough unexpected plot developments (including a "violin seduction" that has to be seen to be believed), classical music, and interesting characters to keep me interested right up to the end.

While in his club house, a young boy named Ralph (Lucas Evans) and his sister discover a secret letter written by Charles Merriweather which claims that a stamp album with some of the most valuable stamps in the world is hidden somewhere in Australia. Then Ralph embarks on a fantastical treasure hunt that takes him to China and then Australia. He not only encounters some very colourful characters along the way – particularly in mainland China – but he comes up against a master con artist (who tricked him out of a rare blue nose stamp) aptly named Tommy Tricker (Anthony Rogers).

This movie is made primarily for kids, which is why some of the dialogue may come across as too puerile for adults to take seriously. Yet one has to admire the imagination that went into creating this intricate plot which defies all movie formulas. For instance, there is an incredible scene where Ralph shrinks to a midget and ends up on stamp after his sister and friend perform a strange chant. But after that magic trick takes place, only the people who do not perform this ritual can put the letter into a mail box to be sent halfway across the world to Australia. Crazier still, after the letter arrives at its destination and is opened, Ralph blows up to his regular size and lands in the most inconvenient places. To craft a scene like that takes a lot more imagination than is put in most movie scripts. Director-writer Michael Rubbo also has a great eye for locations, with the result that we are treated to China's roadways clogged with cyclists, a gorgeous Chinese garden, a dragon, Tai-Chi, and Australia's cricket match.