Reviews

Ever go to a movie all full of hope and come home with your mouth tasting like it was washed out with soap?

Well this one…this "Be Cool" is one of those.

I call these movies…"need the work and the money" movies…because I can't imagine how John Trivolta and Uma Thurman would be caught within fifty miles of this "turkey" unless they just needed the work….Surly they don't need the cash? Well,.... big jets cost a lot to operate I suppose?

But anyway this sequel to a pretty good flick of over 10 years ago, "Get Shorty",.... should have been called "Way Shorty" because that is what it is…way short of the mark. It isn't funny…it isn't interesting…it is trite, it is covered in every known stereo-type known to modern film and it is too long.

Other that that I liked it!!!!

Vince Vaughn…while over the top in the too often repeated bits, was actually funny in a few areas.

Cedric "the entertainer" had a few moments and made a very on the mark statement about how the use of racial epithets just don't cut it any more…any where!!!…but I think the guy actually has some talent and clearly a brain…I'd like some one to use it in a real movie some time!

Christine Milian is pretty and talented. More of her and less of a tired looking Uma Thurman…well…I like Uma…but she must have needed the work.

Now to John Trivolta. Wow….he tries to pull off the Get Shorty thing…but Chile Palmer was more like "Chilie Pie". He is not tough…he is not smooth…he is not anything…he is a caricature of his previous performances and that only spells one of about three things to me. One he needed the cash…the big jet and all…and that is OK but have some real style and just say…"hey it was an "el stinko"…but it was an airplane note! Or two….He is delusional and thinks this really is good work…or three the producers have a picture of him and a donkey and….well….you get the point. I am not telling anyone I saw this pile of goo…but I'll do you all a favor and allow you to save $20 bucks and go eat a pizza instead. You'll like it a whole lot better.

Mike Nichols has made some really great films...my favorite is The Bird Cage...but Post Cards from the Edge was pretty good and of course "Working Girl" is a classic...but it was in 1988.

What possessed someone with the resume he has to make this "porno movie" is beyond me?

The drama...a convoluted mixed up flash back on top of flash back "hodge podge" was edited by a moron....and frankly someone paid a lot of bucks to get that cast together to make this thing.

The one scene that has some merit is the Internet chat line scene between Jude Law (Dan a obituary writer for a newspaper) and Clive Owen (Larry the dermatologist). The rest of the movie seems to be an effort to out shock that scene. It gets boring...redundant and less the scantily clad Natalie Portman in a bunch of scenes as "Alice" the stripper. I would have either left or taken a nap.

Honestly, Mike Nichols is way above this in film making. Take the "raw meat" and "raw language" out and you have some really "sick-o" losers trying to cope and you might have found a movie in there someplace.

But this...man I saw Nichols's name and this cast and I even saw some of the "four star" ratings (I usually use that as a barometer to not go to films)....but anyway...I was really excited about this film. It ...well it didn't make my all time "stink-o" for a few good things...but I could not recommend this to anyone with something better to do!

Friday Night Lights was not a very good movie. It didn't deal with West Texas football in anything like an accurate way...and frankly...it may fly in LA or with someone in the "East" that has a bunch of old and tired stereo types of the "hay seed" Texans...but folks I played for the Brownwood Lions....a bigger and frankly more famous "football factory" than Odessa Permian and I can tell you....this corn pone thing was a lame cross between Last Picture Show and Longest Yard meeting the Breakfast Club.

It is not reflective of Texas Football. It is not reflective of the "religion" that is West Texas football and the characters are shallow...thinly developed and make the whole event look like a brutal and half wit filled gladiator match. Trust me folks...it isn't and the only person in this whole movie that is remotely believable and not a well worn out soap opera character is the Permian head Coach played by Billy Bob Thorton. I'm sorry he will always be the slasher from "Sling blade" to me,.... and perhaps it is a credit to his art as an actor...that his last great performance still lingers in one's mind. His little buddy from "Sling Blade" is now the hard luck quarterback in "Lights" and except for some really lame dialogue that he is forced to say by really poor writing...he was passable in the role.

I was in attendance at the actual Dallas Carter/ Odessa Permian game in the Astro Dome in 1988 and...this rendition of the game is an insult to the Dallas Carter team and panders to the Mojo mystique of the Permian team in extreme excess. If I were one of the African Americans from Dallas Carter I would be repulsed as to how they were depicted in this movie.

But the movie will make a few bucks and perhaps someone will decide that they should do the "Brownwood Lions" story and I might get to be on Good Morning America....but if you are from Texas and "Know" what the tradition actually is in our state...skip this one and wait for the Gordon Wood Story...now that would be interesting...to a few of us anyway

I'm going to learn my lesson about John Trivolta movies...well maybe???I looked at his list of movies on IMDb and the last one I liked was "Get Shorty" in 1995 and the only one I really liked was "Pulp Fiction" the year before. Wow! Ten years of "el stink-o's"...how does he keep doing it? Why do we keep going???

I'm getting smarter...I was going to skip Ladder 49 but my grandson (who is a big firefighter fan, mainly because of the heroic efforts at the Twin Towers I think,) wanted to go.

He and I went to the matinée. I asked him afterwards what he thought of the movie and he said..."It was too loud!"

He is only 9 years old but prodigiously smart so I pressed him a bit. Did you like the actors? He said..."I didn't like the "Gladiator guy"...he didn't seem like a real fireman."

Truth is I didn't like the "gladiator guy" (Joaquin Phoenix/ Commodus from the 2000 film) either. The film is loud with lots of fire and bells and bangs and explosions and...well,... I felt it milked the deaths and injuries of fire fighters to a near absurd degree. It does amaze us regular folks as to why these men are going into buildings and great danger when everyone else is trying to get out?

But if you want to capture the "who and why" of this phenomenon....make that the point of the story and do it better. The men and women who do this very difficult and yes under paid job deserve more...they are what all heroes are...ordinary folks, with ordinary lives, and ordinary feelings, and ordinary problems that will...when the moment is at hand...do extraordinary things. Such are the things of which true heroes are made.

It was not that sort of movie! It is another Travolta stink-o...and just wait and see it on cable!

M. Night Shyamalan did one pretty neat piece of work and that was The Sixth Sense. It has proved to be lightning in a bottle, since he has blundered along trying to capture the magic in subsequent efforts and ...in a word...done it badly.

I don't blame him really...Hollywood is so starved for anything really good and perhaps original...that they will do whatever is necessary after the one trick pony has done his trick ( you know made a bunch of cash and gotten a few good reviews)...as long as the cash is right, all is well.

I got the old $20 dollar shaft on this one. I saw the trailers and I was hopeful that the master of the "twist and trick end" would not ride that trick pony to death but would instead make a serious horror or...serious something film.

This film would have made my "thing" (less than one rated) category of super losers except there were a few moments that made me begin to hope that what was very soon painfully obvious was not true. I should have known better for if a little common sense and logic were applied to what was not a trend but just blind (pardon the pun) hope of something ...even a slightly useful something might yet appear.It didn't need to be great but just worthy of the my 20 bucks.

But friends this just doesn't and didn't do it. There were kids in the theater who laughed and booed at a few scenes and I was inclined to join them but I didn't.

So rather than beat a dead horse or a tired trick ending to death allow me to make this short. If you pay real money for this you will not be a happy camper. M. Night should get a grip on his monumental ego and try to make a real movie...He is a darling right now and he can get the bucks and the folks to act. The problem is the lame story and he bares the blame for that; then second, is the lame directing and he...well you know the drill here too. Skip this one! I wish I had done so!

Jeff Bridges has always seemed to me to be on the edge of doing some really good things and not quite getting there. He was pretty good in Seabiscuit and back a ways he was good as "Dude" in The Big Lebowski, but in The Door in the Floor he is stretched and put to the test in a complicated role and he is WONDERFUL in it!

The story is at times intricate and somewhat tedious, but it holds and makes its case because of Bridges. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences feels obliged each year to give out a best actor award. Many years I think they should just say...."none of the works meet minimum standard"...but this year we won't have to worry about that, at least one role so far is head and shoulders above the rest and that is Jeff Bridges as Ted Cole in The Door in the Floor.

Kim Basinger, still a beauty at "50 something", plays his troubled wife Marion with great style and feeling.

The story is not all that original. Tragedy and dealing with it are Hollywood fare of many decades. However, this one is a bit different and entwines a boy becomes a man twist and a whole lot more. Just go see it! It is not a typical summer movie...I wonder why it came out so early ????...but it is great.

I just saw David Lean's epic work on cable for the seventh or eighth time in the almost 40 years since I first saw it.

I read with amazement some of the ridiculous statements made in this forum by morons who wouldn't know a classic if it hit them in the face like a wet towel.

But in my many years of admiration of Mr. Lean's works I have found one constant. They are timeless and they are masterpieces all that stand alone and shall as long as there are any of us left who admire mastery of cinema.

Never miss a chance to see masterful art and teach your children and grand children to do so too. I watched Dr. Zhivago tonight with my 11 year old grand daughter. She said it was wonderful. And it of course it was!

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see Michael Moore has a low opinion of President Bush and his...well associates.

So what! The man has the complete right to make this movie and have it reflect totally his agenda...come on you neo-fascists...this is still America...we allow folks to say things we don't like....or do we?

This is the best of Mr. Moore's works by far and I think it is because he feels so passionately about the subject matter and how important it is to get his side of the message heard.

If Mr. Moore's point is to point out the obvious...that Mr. Bush panders to big oil and big bucks...then duh? That is not news. If his point is that Mr. Bush has led us as a nation into a terrible war for no viable reason...and I am not sure he fully makes that case...but if that is his point...then that warrants much more consideration and thought by us all.

The point that poor youngsters do the dying and rich ones don't even serve...well that is trite too....but maybe the public needed reminding of that point?

Wars are horrible and they dehumanize all who are in them...but that is not a new point either.

If this is a consolidation of all the above points with the express intent to hold the Bush family responsible for what a mess that things are in...well it hits that dead on target.

In fairness to Mr. Moore I am not sure he ever said the film was anything else. He knows that Democrats are very diverse and out number Republicans by at least 1/3 and if he can solidify their positions and focus their anger...they cannot be stopped. I think this film will do that if it does nothing else!

All that talent and all that hype and.....well this is one of my "thing" classifications. It just doesn't have anything in it that is good.

One wonders how so many talented people could spend (eight months I hear) on something this bad? The story is all basically told in the trailers that have shown for weeks, and the surprise ending or whatever you want to call it is about as exciting as a staring contest.

So rather than waste any more of your time...do yourself a favor...don't go see this and you will be a lot happier about it and you won't feel like I did post the "thing" that;.... I wanted my money back!

All I ever ask from a movie is that it deliver what it promises. When it is self described as "hilarious" it better be funny and ...well they seldom are. This movie is a horse and rider story based loosely on a true story and it does wander into messages and causes a bit but after the goo of this last year that some called movies ...Hildago is a breath of wonderful sea air or sould I say desert!!???

The story is not complicated. A man and a horse against the elements and the avarice of human kind. It is the universal story really and I liked the good guy bad guy distinct line and the movie is, in a word wonderful. So take the kids...take grandma, she will remember the days of old westerns and smile.

Omar Sharif is great, Viggo Mortensen is a budding super star in the Gary Cooper John Wayne mold. The rest of the cast while not well known are very good.

Rest assured Viggo Mortensen is capable of bigger and stronger roles but he is very good in this one! Go see this movie and let us tell Hollywood we want more of this kind of movie.

I have written in this forum for many years and I see 150 movies a year and I pay to see them…I am just a fan. I am also a Christian and a believer in Jesus Christ. I am certainly not a fundamentalist but I believe the Bible is pretty much accurate as a history book and I believe most of what I read there.

I feel awkward trying to justify why this is a bad movie in so many ways.

1st The Bible story of the Christ involves so very much more than the last 12 hours of His life.

2nd The whole notion of making this savage and brutal execution the focal point of that life is offensive to me and I believe to most free thinking folks. Jesus is so much more than his death.

3rd His death by crucifixion was no big deal in his time. In fact it is believed by most historians that the Romans executed many thousand Jews and a significant number of them were crucified and many of them were so called Messiahs.

4th I went early in the morning and I saw the most eclectic crowd I have seen in a movie in decades. Little old ladies, Nuns, people carrying Bibles. It was clearly a church going crowd. But in the lobby you could buy a crucifying nail and a coffee mug and other paraphernalia. I wondered if someone shouldn't be setting up a dice game and shoot for a robe!

Sorry…I am trying to handle this with care. So to it.

The movie sans the horrible torture and murder scenes is…well not very good. The use of sub-titles is to me intellectual showing off and it is a distraction.

The acting is ok but I didn't see the Christ I know in this. This was a brave God/man withstanding horrors and not showing anger or disdain. The gospels paint the same picture.

Ten minutes of peace going in…ten minutes of peace going out and the rest non stop gore is not a movie! I would never want a child to see this and there were many there with their fanatical parents. I think it scared the …well it bothered me and I have seen first hand two wars and lost a son to an assassin's bullet….So all you zealots who call this the greatest show ever produced…spare me that drool. This is an ok effort at telling the last 12 hours of …well Jesus was and is a man of peace and love and He is also a God or the son thereto….seeing him slaughtered serves no purpose but to set the notion of slaughtering being justified or some other sick thing about this terrible thing being for some other good. That slaughter and torture serves no good nor should it.

The Jews are bad teethed rabble and they have a right to be upset at the damage to Christian-Jewish relations that will come from this. That is a shame. The Jews have been persecuted enough I think.

So if you must…go see this…but it isn't the best movie ever made…far from it. I gave it a five since it was a courageous effort…but that 25 million and change could have fed a lot of hungry kids in the world and I think Jesus…the one I know…would have liked that a lot better.

Richard Wright stepped from the shadow of his more famous sister Robbin and made a masterpiece of a short film.

These works are hard enough when they have dialogue and a less subtle story. But do it in mime and seamlessly make the very potent but subtle point and you have the work of a true artist. When will we see more of his work?

It is hard for me to say much bad about Anthony Minghella's work. I think The English Patient was among the best movies ever made. Cold Mountain is not that good but it is very good in its own right.

Nicole Kidman is really growing as an actor and her work grows proportionally. But the real gem in this film is Renee Zellweger. She is a lock for a lot of awards for this role.

The film is beautiful and sweeping in scope and short a few nit-picking things about a lot of sing song sessions going on when danger lurked around every corner from the "home guard"...but as I say,... that is splitting hairs. This is a wonderful movie. Go see it!

I guess it is akin to desecrating the flag to say anything bad about this film but it IS too long and painfully redundant, and I almost left twice thinking it had ended.

If this movie is Academy Award material then David Lean's entire body of work should be elevated to some near deity level! I have brought out the dreaded "thing" definition for this over stuffed turkey.

Perhaps it could have been a pretty good little movie with someone other than a moron editing it...but this "thing" is over three hours long and then it tried to end a half a dozen times and couldn't seem to decide which was best ...so hell do them all.

Ok, ok I'll settle down and give a few thoughts to this..."thing". It had some neat special effects...even if they were not all that original. The giant elephants were cool but reminded me of better done versions in Star Wars. The battle scenes were ok one time through but they were redundant to the absurd!

The acting is ok in spots considering what was there to work with and...let's say the un-thinkable here...the movie was a mess of too much time on too little substance and the ending...make that endings ...well a couple of them I actually liked but....not at three hours plus to get there!!!

So, it is not a good movie. Cut an hour out of it by a skilled editor and it might be an ok movie and straighten up a few silly sub plots and the ending (s) and you would have a fair movie.

Sorry...the king is naked as a Jay-Bird and he has no new cloak!

The problem with mega-epics like The Last Samurai, is to get it "banked" it takes a mega draw star. Tom Cruise is such a bankable star but he may be great in a Top Gun type swaggering stud role but as a staggering drunk turned hero he is not all that good.

But he is surrounded by a lot of good things. The very best is Ken Watanabe, who plays Katsumato the leader of the last of the traditional Samurai warriors. Mr. Watanabe should be nominated if not win the best supporting actor bid for this role. In short he is powerful!!

Tony Goldwyn is a well selected choice of Colonel Bagley, the over zealous commander of the american "advisors".

The music is very good. The costumes are authentic and well shown and presented and as such they may get awards too.

The Story? Well it is a bit "hero based camp", but that is what action epics are supposed to be, so no complaints there.

The location shots are beautiful and...ok...to the not so good part. That is just it you see...none of it is bad....all of it is just short of really good. The potential love story is left short. The adversary/ buddy angle starts well and ends in an incomplete fashion too. The power of the movie is Watanabe and he is really worth the price of admission and afterward I think you will say it could have been so much better. Maybe if David Lean had directed it??? Naw the direction was ok...it was just not as good as it could have been.

But go see it. It is way better than the goo we have to deal with most of the time. A seven in ten a high mark for me.

Truth is Peter Weir has made some good efforts over the years at making a great movie and in my opinion has not really made one...oh I hear the groaning and to some degree I agree...Dead Poets Society was pretty close to the mark but I don't share the general enthusiasm for The Truman Show and...well that is all past and "Commander" is now and it is a hand full.

Running two hours and eighteen minutes it passes the true test of such length movies...it passed very quickly!

There will be plenty said about Russel Crowe, and as much as I detest his too much macho off screen persona, I got to give it to him the man can play the role of a hero.

But the award winners of this piece are a really neat young fellow named Max Perkis who plays Midshipman Blakney and for a fact steals the show. His partner in this "theft" is ship surgeon and naturalist Dr. Stephen Maturin, played by Paul Bettany. I thought this role would over reach Mr. Bettany's range but I was surprised and really glad to see him reach and show he is truly a dramatic actor of merit. He and young Perkis are a one two punch that carry the load of a very large and expensive show.

The editing is seamless and the special effects are dazzling. You can laugh and cry and pull for the good guys and all the other great things required of a high seas adventure.

I mean isn't that what it is supposed to be? Sure it is and it hits the target dead center! A solid nine and I give few nines and I still am looking for the "10"....maybe next year? But this one is good and Mr. Weir deserves the awards he will get for the effort.

I saw Australian film maker's very good work "The Piano"! It was very good and she got well deserved accolades! So three years later I eagerly went to see "The Portrait of a Lady". It was a loser. Three years later I missed "Holy Smoke" but I heard it was " el stinko" too. So three years after that I see Meg Ryan in a Jane Champion film and I...well I got trapped into going to see it.

Meg Ryan said she was making a "change of image film". If she was the "Sleepless in Seattle" girl...well she can now be sleep with everybody else!!!

One wonders why an actor of Ms. Ryan's stature, would take such a role? I could make a case for it if it were a really compelling role or if Jane from down under was on a five picture super run of hits...but the lady hasn't made anything worth hoot since 1993! And this story and script is a worn out rag of a plot and try as she might Ms. Champion made this the dullest, slowest, and biggest "el flop-o" of a porno movie disguised as a action mystery anyone ever conjured up!

Meg Ryan looks pretty good in the buff but short of that there is little to like. Mark Ruffalo, as Detective Mallory, can't decide whether he is a good guy or just another loser.

I think he has some promise and maybe with the right material he and Ms. Ryan could really cause some sparks to fly. But this thing is just not the product to put that to the test.

Blood and gore abound and lots of nudity and a bit of an interesting musical score could be points to like maybe but in context they are not nearly enough. Skip this one and maybe Ms. Champion will wait six years before her next attempt and do a better job or find her lost art. Maybe she is a one shot Sally! I hope not! The one good one she made was really good. This isn't!

Rarely are we treated to a new class of cinema. Most things done in Hollywood are rather easy to classify. Most of the "stuff" made in Hollywood these days is garbage, dreamed up by lord knows who, to meet some formula that is supposed to make money. Making movies as art has been dead for decades but we old timers still hope.

And that is how I got trapped into going to a...I really hate to call this a movie but I will for clarity...a movie called Marci-X.

Scott Rudin has produced over the years many things I thought were not much but for the most part his name associated with an effort usually meant the effort, be it off center or misguided, would still deserve an honest look. It would in the end be well presented work with a touch of class.

Well folks, this..."abomination" fits a mold but not that mold. Marci-X is so bad it needs a class all of its own. To call it simply bad is a desecration to some really all time Hollywood stinkers. This...gross theft of any viewers time and money ought to be banned forever!! That is the new class. The banned forever to a nuclear waste site so no unsuspecting fool like me might accidentally see it.

But I'm on the case here so let me mention a few things.

Lisa Kudrow is better than this kind of role. Or at least I think she is. She isn't funny, she isn't even a good stereo-type. Come to think of it she hasn't done anything good since "Friends" and that is a decade ago. Maybe the biology degree will come in handy after all?

Daymon Wayans as Doctor S. is about as funny as a train wreck. I think the guy actually has some talent but he is always portrayed as an idiot of some sort. And even as an idiot he seems to reflect a unused ability that in a proper director's hands and the right part might shine through.

Richard Benjamin is not that director and as the director of this "thing" he could justifiably be stood against the wall and given his last cigarette. He also has a supporting role and is very much like Margaret Rutherford in drag.

But the true villain in this is Scott Rudin. He put up the money and as such gave the go ahead to this garbage heap and we who have trusted his work in the past will be much more careful in the future.

Want to know what is wrong in Hollywood, go see this thing. It has all the bad in what will seem like several days of torture for one to see, but perhaps it might have value as a test of one's grit. Stand this and you can stand anything!

Jeff Bridges will get the long over due Academy Award as perhaps the movie shall too. Even though there may be a few contenders in the fall releases that might change my opinion. Clearly the "Biscuit" is the leader in the club house for the gold statue next March. Chris Cooper, as trainer Tom Smith, is wonderfully understated and frankly should also be considered in supporting role honors.

Toby Maguire handles the role of Red Pollard wonderfully. This is a complicated role. Maguire plays the troubled and broken Pollard but I have got to tell you if anyone is better than Bridges it just might be Toby Maguire.

Elizabeth Banks is well cast and excellent as Ms. Charles Howard.

But maybe the one to steal the show is William H. May as Tick-Tock McGlaughlin the radio show host of a horse race program. His is a small but really funny part and it adds a wonderful counterpoint to more serious fare.

So please don't get caught up in anything other than the plain facts about this wonderful show...the plain facts are it is warm and funny and uplifting and should be seen by the whole family.

I've seen it twice and both times I joined the full house applauding the effort.

Just go see it and see why.

Blow up , crash bang, wreck cars, have loaded eighteen wheelers out run sports cars for what seemed like at least an hour chase of redundant re-shots and then have it edited by a moron and run for what seemed like five hours and you got the base for Bad Boys II!!

Martin Lawrence as psychically challanged Officer Marcus Burnett is dreadful. He was much better in Big Momma's House and that was a disaster. Will Smith as his shoot first and ask questions later partner is equally redundant and...come to think of it, he hasn't had a decent performance since Men in Black...the original one.

Joe Pantolino as Captain Howard the foil and brunt of too much Joe Pesche want to be slop and dribble is well cast as a moron that oversees a group of not funny psycotics, and there were a couple of slightly funny scenes during the at least nine hour mega torture...it least it seemed that long and was well over two and one half hours, that this...."thing" seemed to be.

I think the Houston police should have put yellow tape around the theater to indicate this as a major crime scene. I mean to call this ...gargantuan glob of goo a film is a crime within itself!

Every known racial slur and sterotype combined with dead bodies being strewn around with crude and out right vulgar abandon should have made this move ...ooop sorry about the slip...this "thing" rated "X" at least.

I asked for my money back and was given two free passes to see...some "non-road show" at this AMC theater in the future. I gave them to two kids standing out side and told them to go see anything else.

I wish I could give this thing a minus fifty but zero is as bad as I can go. It has now moved into my terrible movie list as the new king. it replaces such beauties as "The Family under the Stairs, Troop Beverly Hills, and the current leader in the club hose Caddie Shack Two, as the new worst ever movie.

The king is dead...long live the king!

So many stinkers in one summer suggests that someone will make a good summer movie and Disney did.

It is Depp in a wonderfully controlled role. Is it the rum the ..."blow to the head" or the ruse used to disarm adversaries? Who knows and really who cares. Depp is just terrific as Captain Sparrow.

It is a bit on the long side at plus two hours but the movie was fun and my grand kids thought it was just "the best".

Some have said it was scary but my aunts Cocker Spaniel is scarier then this film, but that is ok too. it is a neat and well done movie and I say it is an 8 out of ten...my best score this year I think?

"Sillywood" is completely bankrupt as far as producing anything like original or fresh or for that matter remotely entertaining fare!

This "thing" is just more of the same old goo!

If you are twelve, anal retentive, and like to spend time poking your friends in the arm for minor offenses like not spotting VW Bugs...then this is the movie for you!

It is a perfect match to that mind set and perhaps I should have known better, but the lure of Demi Moore was too great and she does look great and that is why the movie is a "2" and not a zero.

I could fill three pages of things like idiotic editing and , not funny jokes, and stale unimaginative skits and rampant abuse of every worn out cliche in the books,...but why do it?

Save the cash and bang your head against a steel door, it will be more fun.

It is loud, long, redundant, tries to pander to every demographic blip that any "Sillywood" accountant ever thought might squeeze out a few ticket sales, but you know the terrible part? It will make money and feed the monkey and the monkey will do more of this and...well, we wonder why the industry is dying on the vine?

Why do I go see these things? God only knows. Hope unto hope that there will be a spark of originality maybe?

But let me save you $20 bucks and what will seem like six hours of drudgery. Stay home and watch the grass grow!

Every once and awhile there is a movie that touches one's heart. This one reached in and pounded mine. I don't know any of the actors nor do I know anything about the Director, but what is the deal with the Academy? Is it not possible for a performance of a foreign made film to get nominated?

I know the movie won and ...frankly it was better then the US winner. It is better than most in the past five years.

It is a well told story acted by believable and powerful actors and there was not a single car chase. There wasn't a single building explosion, and there was not a single Kung Fu battle. Come to think of it that may be why it didn't get the voting from the cash driven crowd in "Sillywood".

I wish I spoke German so I could understand it sans the sub-titles, but even with that distraction it is simply wonderful.

Go see this movie and take a friend. There is some sex that might make the kids not be suitable to see it but otherwise it is for the entire family.