Reviews

This show is ridiculous. People act like the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a big deal -- It is weak sauce compared to The Love Boat!!!

In this episode Cheyenne (Clint Walker), The Brady Bunch (Florence Henderson and Richard Reed) and WKRP in Cincinnati (Gordon Jump) get mixed in a blender and it is extremely watchable. This show is a GD time capsule that will never be repeated. Check it out.

In many ways The Love Boat is outdated and cheesy and in other ways it is timeless and bulletproof. In today's age I forgot what it was like to watch a show with self-contained stories like this. It is surprisingly binge-able regardless because of the rotating cast of stars.

This two-parter was a rarity in that it was shot on location in Alaska and you really feel like you are a passenger along for the journey. Comfort food in the age of COVID.

Especially enjoyed Lorne Greene's lighthearted performance. You always end up rooting for most of the characters this optimistic show.

The filmmakers had to know that when they embarked on this project that it mirrored Brad Bird's Iron Giant in many ways.So you better be awesome, with an ace director and an ace script. Unfortunately it is lacking in both areas.

Since Iron Giant exists, why even bother with Bumblebee?

This episode will always be a special episode for me. Not because it was the best episode -- because it was far from it -- but because I was on hand for the filming of it.

I was a sophomore at UCSD and we made a field trip to Hollywood to watch the filming of my favorite show. This was that episode.

What I remember about it is sitting in bleachers that faced the living room set. Most of the other scenes that occurred in the 2nd half of the episode were either pre-taped and the producers recorded our laughter as we watched on TV monitors above our seats, or the action happened on a set behind us that we had to watch on TV.

It was an average episode but was special for me because I got to watch my favorite program filmed live. It also featured cameos by Danny Bonaduce and Gary Coleman so I feel fortunate that I was able to watch it film live.

As I remember it shot very quickly (under and hour) basically in real time except for one scene in which Ed O'Neil flubbed a line and they had to start over.

That was in contrast to the other show we saw shot that day: Nurses. That one took about 4 hours and all of the scenes with Loni Anderson were pre-taped and shown on a monitor as our reactions were recorded for the laugh track.

The highlight of that was meeting David Rache of "Sledge Hammer!" fame. "Sledge Hammer!" was one of my favorite shows of the Eighties, and he was a very nice guy, and he came over and shook all of our hands in between takes. We asked him what happened to Sledge Hammer! (which was canceled) and he responded "I've moved on to bigger and better things!" Class act.

"Mike & Pat" is the second episode of the second season of Simon & Simon, and one of the first to air at the new time slot on Thursday evening, October 14, 1982. Having almost been canceled after its first season, Simon & Simon really took off in this season, benefiting from the Magnum P.I. lead-in. However, it is hard to tell that from this episode, which is mildly diverting but a largely unremarkable outing for the Simon Brothers.

The story revolves around a dolphin that is kidnapped from Sea World one evening under cover of darkness. To complicate matters, it's mate is so distraught that it starves itself and will soon die unless the missing dolphin is returned. The bad guys plan to use the trained dolphin to transport a large shipment of cocaine somewhere, I can't say it totally makes sense. As a matter of fact, it seems doomed to fail from the start, seeing as how the kidnappers are incapable of training the dolphin despite their best efforts.

Noteworthy in this episode is the appearance of character actor Charles Napier, who has appeared in a plethora of TV shows and movies including one of my favorites, Blues Brothers. Anyways, he plays the heavy of sorts in this episode and was good as always but overall was not able to pull this one out of the doldrums. 6/10

Though Pirahna II is generally considered by many to be Jim Cameron's directorial debut because he is the credited director, he has said it really isn't his work and doesn't consider it part of his filmography.

Yes, he was the director of sorts on-set for part of the shoot (generally the first part, not the more lurid stuff with the penthouse girls). But the real reason Italian producer Ovidio Assonitis brought him on was because his production deal with Warner Bros. stipulated that he must have an American director (or in the case of Cameron, Canadian, which I guess was close enough) to offset Assonitis' sensibilities. Assonitis unceremoniously fired Cameron from the pic halfway through and shot the more racy elements himself.

Legend has it that upon seeing the final lurid Assonitis cut of the film, Cameron attempted to re-cut it in secret, but the producer found out and barred Cameron from doing this, releasing a final cut that Cameron abhorred.

There is no known "Cameron cut" of this film available, and though it is regarded as a curiosity due to Cameron's limited involvement, it really cannot be viewed as much more than that.

So I was sick all weekend, bedridden with the flu and flipping through cable when I stumbled upon the Encore Western Channel, which I watched for hour after hour. For some reason, they were playing a triple-shot of Burt Reynolds westerns: Navajo Joe, The Man who Loved Cat Dancing and Sam Whiskey.

Now I grew up in the Eighties so I missed most of Reynolds movies; last year I hunted down and watched many for which he is best known: Smokey and the Bandit (rip-roaring hilarity), Stroker Ace (yuck), Cannonball Run (meh) and Hooper (my all-time favorite, ridiculously entertaining). I thought I had seen all there was to see from ol' Burt, but Sam Whiskey pleasantly surprised me.

This isn't really a western, it's more like a heist movie set on the frontier. I think the reason some of the other reviewers were disappointed by this one was that they were looking for stagecoach robberies, breakneck horseback riding and wide frontier vistas. While there is some of that, for the most part this film revolves around a "reverse-heist;" In this case, Burt and his team played by Ossie Davis(very funny and amiable as a blacksmith) and Clint Walker (imposing hulk of a man who's gentle on the inside) are trying to return some gold to the US mint. They work out a suitably ingenious and ludicrous scheme (the cornerstone for every caper flick) and work it out.

While the proceedings are executed largely for laughs there are surprising amounts of edge-of-your-seat suspense as various curveballs are thrown our heroes' way. I have to admit I laughed out loud probably five times, which was incredible considering how miserable I felt and how much my sore throat hurt WHEN I LAUGHED. But I forgive the movie for this! I like the overall good-natured and almost lackadaisic nature of the pacing. The film keeps moving and is engaging, but by no means is it in any hurry.

So I would recommend this one to all Burt Reynolds fans, all caper movie fans and generally anyone who is willing to give a 40-year-old easygoing movie a chance.

And as an interesting side-note: As if I didn't already realize that I'd watched westerns all weekend -- I thought that actor Clint Walker looked vaguely familiar but couldn't quite place him. They I looked him up on IMDb...he played the icy bad guy in a Charles Bronson western I'd watched earlier in the weekend, "The White Buffalo." I hadn't placed him because it was such a polar opposite role for him. So in his career he's pulled a heist on the Denver Mint with Burt Reynolds and got into a gunfight with Charles Bronson on the frontier. Not too shabby.

Wow, what an embarrassment this is. I don't care if the movie was shot over 18 days for barely $1 million, watching this movie is about as pleasant as licking scrotum sweat off a cadaver. This script should never have been greenlit in the first place, writer James Gunn should have approached Dark Horse or some other indie comic publisher and done a black-and-white graphic novel. It could have been halfway decent in that format and it is a lot easier to sell the superhero stuff in comics than it is in a film without money for special effects.

My feeling is you can't make a superhero movie for a mil, I don't care how you're doing it. Never for an instant does anybody believe any of the guys in this movie have any powers. I think it would've made a huge difference if they had shown one or two shots of members of the Specials using their powers early on to establish their cred as heroes, but they don't and it's impossible for the cast to simulate superpowers, no matter how good they are as actors.

The annoying thing about this is that you give $1 million bucks and 18 days to a number of directors, they could turn out something pretty special. Kevin Smith made Clerks for $20K for crissakes, and even considering inflation that would've been maybe $60K in 2000, when this was made.

Instead, director Craig Mazin and writer Gunn have given us another bottom-of-the-barrel superhero movie, as if we needed another one of those.

It just goes to show how bass ackwards Hollywood can be--if these guys worked in any other business and this was the work they produced, they would be abruptly fired and unable to ever work again in that industry. But the movie business doesn't seem to care whether their products are any good, hence Mazin is directing the upcoming "Superhero!" and Gunn is writing other gems like Scooby Doo 2. And there are still people out there that wonder why movies suck.

Well, since you're reading this you probably are already quite familiar with "Parker Lewis Can't Lose," and like me, you're probably wondering when the heck this show is coming out on DVD. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment owns the rights to this show, and have shown how completely out-of-touch they are but not releasing it.

I have fond memories of watching this show with my family on Sunday evenings on Fox. It first aired in September of 1990, and where I lived in San Francisco it was on at 7:30 right before The Simpsons. Not only was it one of the Fox Network's early hits, but even now it holds up as a high-quality show of uncommon intelligence and humor. It also was a trailblazer in a sense, being one of the few high school-based programs airing during prime time in 1990 (pre-dating Beverly Hills 90210 by a month). The story lines were inventive, the casting pitch-perfect, and the editing and camera movements creative, enhancing the whimsical and quirky nature of the show.

It sure would be great to watch some of these episodes in pristine DVD quality with commentary from the creators of the show. I'd wager that tens of thousands of fans that would gladly fork over $40+ for a season one DVD set (the best season in my opinion). In the meantime, all we can do is google "parker lewis can't lose DVD for sale," to buy poor-quality bootlegs to satisfy our joneses. It's a shame that in an era when studios are constantly grousing about DVD piracy, they add to it by not realizing the substantial markets that exist for programs they own.

I've actually watched several episodes from this series recently, and was surprised to discover that -- far from horrible -- it's actually a serviceable bit of Saturday morning nostalgia.

First airing on Saturday morning in September of 1972, the show had a very short run of 13 episodes. Going in, I was hoping for excitement and adventure reminiscent of Jonny Quest (far and away Hanna-Barbera's finest moment, in my opinion). Alex Toth, who designed many of H-B's most popular classic characters (Space Ghost, Herculoids, etc.) did many of the designs for 2020, which lends it a cool comic-booky look not unlike Quest.

Alas, the show has a very different tone -- perhaps because of the prevailing attitude of the early 70's that cartoons should abstain from violence. The result is an almost educational show, teaching kids about the various sea creatures and rudimentary information about the ocean and diving. And initially the show comes off as very boring because of this. But I have to admit that after being bored by the first 2 episodes, I found myself becoming more and more interested in the next two. The show has some good messages, such as overcoming handicaps and preserving the environment, and deals with some decent issues most cartoons would never touch.

In some weird way, the stories and scripts are more reminiscent of live action programs than a cartoon. They are fairly adult and lack the zaniness one might expect from this era of Hanna Barbera (i.e. Funky Phantom, anyone?). In other words, it is a perfect counterpoint to the new Sea Lab 2021, which goes for sheer laughs.

I think that the other reviewers that gave 2020 negative reviews have never actually seen the show. When you think about the time period when this show was made, it's probably one of the better H-B shows. While we'll never have another Jonny Quest again, 2020 was an interesting project that will probably, like Quest, never be duplicated.

Let me say up front that I think Will Farrell is one of the five funniest humans currently walking the the face of the earth. That said, based on his involvement with "Kicking and Screaming", he is also one of the five worst judges of movie scripts! All right, maybe that's a little unfair to say, since he was in "Old School" and "Anchorman", which were both very funny movies. And I guess it's possible that at some point -- very, very early in its development period -- "Kicking & Screaming" might have shown enough promise to make him think it'd be a worthy successor to those bombastic comedies.

So what happened? I suspect that, at a key juncture, the filmmakers decided to approach it as BOTH a G-rated kids' sports movie and an adult comedy. As has happened with most such films before it (many helmed by directors far more adept than Jesse Dylan), the result is an empty movie orphan which satisfies neither audience.

And it doesn't help that the film looks like it was directed by a 12-year-old -- with spare change, on a Saturday afternoon -- who has never even WATCHED soccer before.

It's tough to call this a truly awful movie, because there are a few laughs scattered here and there, mostly because Ferrell is able to mine one or two golden nuggets from the mostly barren script. But they are few and far between. He has little help from the rest of the cast (aside from Mike Ditka), and the kids especially are a disappointment. I expect more from executive producer Judd Apatow, who scored a slam dunk with his cast for the TV show "Freaks and Geeks." I guess he used up all of his casting inspiration on that show, because this is perhaps the least memorable kid cast ever.

As you probably know by now, Ferrell plays Phil Weston, an over-his-head youth soccer coach saddled with a sad-sack team who feels he's a disappointment to his father (Robert Duvall), also a coach, but more successful. Hilarity is supposed to ensue from this premise, but doesn't. Despite the use of every single tired sports-movie cliché in the book.

The main problem is that we never care about any of characters. We never get any feel for the relationship between Ferrell and his kid, which should be pivotal because that's what gets him into coaching. The kids are broad stroked and typecast (the short shy kid, the big slow kid, the jokester, etc.) and never really figure into the story in any meaningful way. And Mike Ditka is supposed to be Duvall's nemesis...but why? Motivations are never explained. The result is a very empty movie.

Director Jesse Dylan (son of Bob Dylan) brings nothing to the party and ineptly stages a series of pratfall-ridden music videos featuring the most used-to-death sports anthems -- Vangelis' theme from "Chariots of Fire," Queen's "We Are the Champions" and Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger." And I'm no soccer expert per se, but I played for 13 years and can tell good-movie soccer from bad-movie soccer...and this is as bad as it gets! I was shocked to learn that they had "soccer advisors" on-set. I hope that's not your day job, guys, because this is some very shoddy stuff! If you're looking for a good family sports movie, check out Dennis Quaid's "The Rookie" which came out a few years ago. And that advice goes double for anybody associated with "Kicking and Screaming" who might be reading this!

Cuba Gooding Jr., purveyor of truly awful films such as "Boat Trip", "Snow Dogs" and "Chill Factor", has reached new depths with his latest offering, "The Fighting Temptations". He has now officially squandered any last remnants of goodwill he had left from his Oscar win for "Jerry Maguire" (his good movie) in 1997.

I caught this film on an airplane flight from NY to LA, and let me tell you...even then I felt like I had wasted my time! Because I could have stared straight ahead at the seat in front of me and been more entertained! Other reviewers are defending this movie by talking about how great the music is. Fine, buy the soundtrack but whatever you do...DON'T SEE THIS MOVIE! Good music does not a good movie make! Go see Blues Brothers, which is a superior movie, plus has Gospel music sung by James Brown! Who, in case you were wondering, makes Beyonce Knowles look like...well, Beyonce Knowles! The acting in Temptations is beyond awful all around (Beyonce, we hardly knew ye) the insipid plot is embarrassingly predictable (guess who wins the gospel competition at the end of the film) and this movie has the distinction of having perhaps the fakest corporate meeting in the history of phony movie corporate meetings.

Are we supposed to care about any of these characters? Gooding's character is a habitual liar that fakes his resume, leads a gospel choir because he wants his aunt's inheritance, and shamelessly hits on Beyonce Knowles. And we're supposed to care about him because...? But if you aren't looking for things such as plot, good acting or a well-written script, then by all means buy this DVD and put it on your shelf next to "Gigli", "Battlefield Earth", "From Justin to Kelly", and "Glitter", other films you must surely own.

First off, let me start by saying that I own all three Spy Kids movies and although I'm an adult male with no kids, I've seen the first one probably 5 times and the second one thrice...so I'm not a typical Spy Kids fan. However, I am a big fan of Robert Rodriguez and his maverick style of film-making, as well as his films (particularly the Desperado films, which are about as opposite from Spy Kids as you can get). Also, his DVD's are always loaded with tons of extras including commentary, behind the scenes footage, his "10-minute Film School" videos and other material. So his films are always worth the DVD purchase.

Aside from writing and directing his films, Rodriguez is also the cinematographer, editor, production designer, visual effects supervisor and producer. Oh yeah, and HE ALSO WRITES THE MUSIC!!! Because his films are made on ultra-tight budgets yet always reap massive box office, he enjoys creative freedom unheard of to anyone in the motion picture business not named George Lucas. That's how he was able to make a 3-D film for kids.

So what's the verdict? Well, when I first saw Spy Kids 3-D in the theater I was definitely underwhelmed. Perhaps I was sitting too close to the screen or maybe the picture was out of focus, but more than anything the 3-D gave me a headache and frequently I had to remove the glasses to give my eyes a rest.

But a funny thing happened when I watched it again on DVD...IT WAS LIKE SEEING IT FOR THE FIRST TIME! Thanks to the sharpness of DVD (they actually recommend you watch it on a computer monitor, which is higher quality), the 3-D effect was awesome! In fact, after watching it I put in Spy Kids 2, and that movie immediately seemed weak in comparison to the dynamic 3-D effect of the third movie.

Now some reviewers here have complained about the story, and they are right, it lacks the charm and wit of the other Spy Kids films. However, as Rodriguez mentions in the commentary on the disc, this is largely due to the fact that it originally was not going to be a Spy Kids film...He set out to make a 3-D film for kids that would progress like a video game, and decided later to shoehorn that plot into a Spy Kids film. And I think he succeeded...the movie advances very similarly to the way a video game advances through various levels of increasing difficulty. The visuals are cool and if you haven't seen it, the movie is worth checking out!

Attention all moviegoers: You may now stick a fork in James Bond...he's officially done! "Die Another Day" is the final nail in the coffin of

the once-proud franchise that produced such highly-entertaining films as "The Spy Who Loved Me," "Goldfinger" and "For Your Eyes Only. "

Time was, this series relied on wit, spectacular stunts and entertaining storylines to propel a movie. Now those successful traits have been replaced with clunky one-liners, cheesy special effects and ludicrous plotting...which, in case you were wondering, are not good things in a movie! If you enjoy these qualities, go see the slightly-superior (aargh...I can't believe I'm saying this) "XXX!" Of course, choosing between "XXX" and "Die Another Day" is like deciding between death by lethal injection or drowning, but that's beside the point!

Don't get me wrong, the classic Bond films had their fair share of outrageous stunts, but at least they were within the realm of possibility...after all, the filmmakers didn't have computer graphics to rely on, they had to have actual stuntmen perform them! But James Bond parasurfing on a glacier? Completely ludicrous, not to mention dumb!!

I saw this film with three of my friends, and we all agreed -- "The worst Bond film of all time!" And that's not like saying "The worst Indiana Jones film of all time," which isn't a bad thing to say because of the relative high quality of all of the films in that series. The Bond franchise has been churning out turkeys on a regular basis for years, so saying it's the worst of them all really means something (after all, how can you make a movie worse than "The World is Not Enough" and "License to Kill"?).

I want to collectively grab MGM executives, shake them for an hour, then make them sit down and watch "good" James Bond movies (i.e. any of the films made prior to 1987) so they can see how far they're strayed from the once fool-proof formula. It's not hard to make a good James Bond movie, but until they realize what they're doing wrong (which is everything) and fix it, I will never see a "new" Bond movie again!

XXX is like that popular girl that everybody wanted to date in high school. Y'know the one, the hot homecoming queen that is so popular you figure she's got to be great and you dream about going out with her. Problem is, when you finally do...you wonder what the big deal was because she's got no personality and is as boring as an insurance sales convention!! And not as pretty as you thought she was, either!

This movie is all marketing and technique and loud annoying German techno-metal, but there's nothing cool about it! How can that be when you're talking about a movie about an extreme athlete who becomes a secret agent? I have no idea how, but they've made it lame.

You get the feeling that the movie was spawned during a meeting of studio execs when some "genius" had the idea of a guy outrunning an avalanche with a snowboard. They just needed a way to fit it in a movie...the result is an remarkably boring and overwrought piece of dreck, and also one of the five most fake movies of all time! A heat-seeking missle homing in on a cigarette? C'mon now, this is utterly absurd!

Maybe if they had tried to make the movie a little more fun, a little more tongue-in-cheek, it might've been okay. But it takes itself way more seriously than it ought to...and the result is derivative and laughable. It's on par with the worst of the James Bond movies...which is pretty bad (ever see "License to Kill"?)! Everyone associated with this should've known better! 5/10.

This movie had every chance to succeed: A great trailer; Owen

Wilson and Gene Hackman; a John and Jim Thomas (Predator,

Executive Decision) script; a budget of $40 mil. But for all this, the

whole is decidedly less than the sum of it's parts. What

happened?

Well for one thing, Owen Wilson was all but wasted in his role as

Lt. Barnett. No chances to utilize the deft comic touch he's

displayed in Shanghai Noon or Zoolander. All he had to do in this

film was run from guys shooting at him, and while he does that

effectively, what's the point? I wish that he had been given the

freedom to do more with the role.

Meanwhile Gene Hackman essentially reprised the same role that

he had in Crimson Tide, then as a sub captain, now a ship

admiral. Though it is a role his fills well, it's not as interesting

anymore.

Also, "Enemy Lines" strains plausibility more than even the most

unbelievable flag-waving war film...the scene where he hides in a

graveyard of corpses with the enemy literally walking over him was

especially ludicrous.

And I found myself annoyed by much of director John Moore's

camera work. Obviously he's yet another commercial director,

based on the frenetic herky-jerky camera work on display here.

Can't these guys just hold the camera still and let the action

unfold, as opposed to trying to create the action with a bunch of

quick cuts and shaky shots?

I really wanted this movie to be good, and just because it's better

than most of the other films out right now, that's still no excuse for

being mediocre. It could've been much more.

Perhaps the true test of a movie's worth: I will not be buying this

one when it is available on DVD.

6/10.

I've read a few of the other (positive) comments about Osmosis Jones and I'm convinced they must've been written by WB marketing folks...this movie sucks. The audience I saw it with was largely quiet and seemed as uninvolved in it as I was. About the only thing going for it is the vocal talent (Rock, Fishburne, Pierce, Shatner) but even that ended up being disappointing.

The concept just doesn't work. There's a major disconnect between the live action sequences with Frank (Bill Murray) in the real world (which make up perhaps 1/3 of the movie) and theanimated sequences of what's going on inside his body. For me, this very cartoony anthropomorphic world of his internal organisms (the animation design reminds me of the Simpsons a little bit) just cannot possibly exist at all in the real world...yet we are supposed to believe that Frank's white blood cells look like Smurf/Bart Simpson hybrids and sound like Chris Rock...it was just impossible for me to suspend my disbelief as the film cuts back and forth between these two completely different universes.

That said, I guess the filmmakers do what they can with it, the way they visualize the city of Frank (the inhabitants refer to his brain as Cerebellum Hall, the armpits are where all of the evil bacteria and viruses hang out and veins are shown as busy highways) is somewhat clever but, again, entirely too fantastic to exist in the real world. And then when these wholly disparate worlds collide, and

the animated micro-organisms are literally travelling from one person to another AND THEN BACK AGAIN via phlegm and tears in the real world...well, that's when the impossible becomes

TOTALLY LUDICROUS.

And it doesn't help that all of the live-action actors (notably Murray, Molly Shannon and Chris Elliott) appear to just be collecting paychecks. Murray has achieved a new low here...I enjoyed his recent turns in `Rushmore' and `Charlie's Angels' but this is just plain embarrassing for him. The Farrelly brothers just must've told him to be as disgusting and slovenly as possible, which is fine I guess but that's all he has to do in this and what a waste of his talent. And the result is we just don't care about his character...he's repugnant and an idiot. So what if the Thrax (the virus) causes him to die? The audience feels no sympathy towards Murray and that is the fatal flaw of the film.

And really, I expected more of Rock...there are a couple of scenes where it looks like he was able to improvise and do his thing but for the most part the filmmakers keep him on a pretty short leash and stick to the script, and I really think that an opportunity may have been missed there. Used properly, I think Rock could do great voice-overs for animated films.

Oh yeah, one more thing...why can't a comedic film come out without some dumb film parody in it? You've seen the action in the Matrix parodied a million times already...well add another attempt (very feeble at that) to the list. It's really getting annoying, and pedestrian animated films like this one really have no new insights to add as far as that parody goes. That's what we have Simpsons and South Park for.

One final note...I had this weird feeling when I walked out of the theater...as if the film just didn't work, and I knew the movie reminded me of another, but I couldn't remember what at first. Then it came to me...remember `The Last Action Hero'? That film left me with that same feeling, because Arnold Schwarzenneggar plays the role of a movie character that comes to life in the real world. It was just totally impossible to believe and renders the film - no matter how well it's done and how well everything else is conceived - toothless. And Osmosis Jones falls flat for the same reason. Audiences can suspend their disbelief...but only to a certain point.

Just saw the special edition of this movie again last night after a few years, and I'm still amazed by it. Easily the darkest and most dramatic of the star wars films (and the best), highlights include the opening hoth battle, the asteroid belt chase and the final lightsaber dual between Luke and Vader. The special edition actually adds to cloud city, making it seem much larger and open and enhances its feeling. The added wompa creature scenes are not as effective, but do not really detract from the film.

The look of the film really sticks with you, especially on Degobah and Cloud City...great lighting, angles in the scene where Han Solo is frozen in carbonite. Best work by John Williams in the trilogy as far as music goes too..."Empire theme" ranks with "ride of the valkyries" in apocalypse now as a power anthem.

Only part that slightly bugs is when the millennium falcon is docked in the worm's stomach on the asteroid and the "minocs" appear (it goes for amateurish "startle" scares like in a corny slasher flick) but otherwise an awesome movie. A perfect 10.

"Emperor's New Groove" is one of the funniest movies I've seen in some time, which is especially surprising considering it seemed impossible for it to be good given the clumsy concept and horrible title. Disney scrapped the singing animals for once and just went for outright laughs, and they scored big in this tale of an emperor with an attitude that gets taken down a peg when he gets changed into a llama.

Casting Patrick Warburton (Puddy from Seinfeld) as the Cronk, the lackey to Ertha Kitt's Yzma was sheer genius...if it was possible to receive an academy award for voice work in an animated feature, he'd have it locked up. Though truly all of the voices are perfect in this movie, and it really does add so much to it. I know that it hasn't been as successful at the box office as some of the other recent Disney films, and that's a shame, because it deserves more recognition. I wish more movies like this were made.

By the way, for those of you who gave it a "1"...what a bunch of grouches! Someone should turn you into llamas!

Reading through the comments already posted on this film, it's pretty obvious that opinions are divided on Unbreakable, and for good reason...the movie is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it really is well-crafted, with stellar to serviceable performaces across the board and some pretty taut moments, particularly the beginning and the last twenty minutes.

On the other hand, it has a slow second act and falls short in several areas, particularly characterization, emotion and in a few key moments, plausibility. Yeah, the ending isn't even close to that of Sixth Sense, but anyone really disappointed by that had unrealistic expectations. The ending works, it just doesn't really add much to what preceded it, while the ending to Sixth Sense cast a new perspective on everything that happened in that entire film.

What really bugged me in Unbreakable was the characters motivations were largely unexplained (both for Willis' and Jackson's characters) to the point that the ending really doesn't pay off the way it is meant to, because we don't really buy it.

And as a tribute to the comic book genre, I think it fails. What makes the comic book genre so great is the how fantastic the stories, the characters, the action is. To try to ground that in the real world is like trying to take the tackling out of football. You change it's essence so much that what's left constitutes but a shadow of what makes the real thing so great.

Now the hype around Shyamalan will dim a bit, as well it should, as we wonder whether he's a one-trick pony. I bet he comes back big next time, hopefully riding on something that's different for him and doesn't rely so heavily on a surprise ending. My rating: 6.5/10

Boys and Girls is what I fondly like to call a "cop-out movie." It introduces plots without resolving them; it resorts to a five-minute

let's-show-the-characters-having-a-fun-day-together-while-playing-the-saccha rine-soundtrack instead of actually developing the relationship with dialogue or skill; and it relies on a lot of cornball shots of the Golden Gate bridge as backdrop to take our attention away from the unconvincing crap happening on screen.

Not that we really care about what's happening anyways...Forlani and Prinze portray characters that are so artificial and annoying (i wanted to wrap my hands around Forlani's straw-thin throat and squeeze to stop her incessant whining) and lack chemistry to the point that you hope somehow that somehow Arnold Schwarzennegar will make an unbilled appearance as the Terminator and gun everyone down the cast to put them out of our misery. Alas, that would be far too clever for a movie that is far too predictable and far too willing to remain consistent with the tired genre of the teen date film.

At least Jason Biggs acts like he's in an entertaining movie. Of course, he's woefully underused and serves little purpose other than to act as a foil for Prinze's dorky straight-laced structural engineering student.

I was incredulous to see that some people actually called the movie "funny" and awarded it a "10." As long as indiscriminating people keep seeing these movies, they'll keep making this tripe. But face it folks, it's a waste of money and a waste of two hours.

Not a horrible film by any means, "The Skulls" has funny moments but is not quite a comedy, has tense moments but doesn't quite make it as a thriller, and has some car chases but doesn't quite garner the action label. In short, it tries to touch all the bases but in the process more or less strikes out on all counts. But it starts promisingly enough. Yes, the title refers to a secret elitist society, and before we know anything about it, that seems pretty cool. It's once the secrets come to light that the coolness wears off, the film falls into cliches and the society's secrets end up being, well, more interesting when they were still secret. Like the society portrayed in the movie, this film is more interesting if left unseen.

In all, I enjoyed "The Castle." Very funny. The Kerrigan family may appear simple to the core, but they choose to be that way and refuse to compromise on their ideals, which is really what the movie is about I think. The cynical among us might look at them and make fun, but they enjoy their life and are tightly-knit. If more people were like these characters in real life, the world would be a better place.