Inside Man

This bank robbery plays out a little different than is to be expected. A group of would be robbers, dressed in black coveralls, hoods up, face hidden by white cloth and sunglasses, walk into a bank in Manhattan and take everybody (twenty? thirty?) inside hostage. They have everyone strip to their underwear and put on the same outfits they themselves are wearing with black eye masks instead of sunglasses.

The hostages are kept in small groups in different rooms with random people being moved at times from one room to the next, the person joining a group may even be one of the robbers. Very clever, that.

The head of the outfit is one Dalton Russell, who pulls the strings and communicates with law enforcement outside. The police detective designated to save the day is Det. Keith Frazier, whose job is complicated by the arrival of Madeleine White. Ms. White's request are to be met. So says the mayor. She has been hired by the founder of the bank, Arthur Case, to make sure that whatever is in safe deposit box 392 (a box that mysteriously is not listed with the other boxes) is either retrieved or never sees the light of day - whatever the cost.

So both, Frazier and White meet with Russell to discuss terms. Frazier realizes eventually that the robbers are playing for time and not easily fooled by things like bugs hidden in pizza boxes. White learns that Russell has already taken the contents of Case's box - proof that Case made some questionable deals with Nazi Germany while living in Switzerland along with a ring and a stash of diamonds. The diamonds are what the robbers are interested in, not touching and of the money or other valuables inside the bank.

The reason they are playing for time is because they build a cell behind a row of shelves in the supply room. When the police get ready to storm the place, the robbers are one step ahead of them - having sent their own bug into their mobile HQ. The preemptively throw smoke bombs and mix themselves among the hostages, making it impossible for police to prove who was on what side.

What is more, as nothing has been taken and nobody has been injured, the case gets shelved. No harm, no foul, right? Frazier, of course, cannot let got and returns to the bank, where Russell bumps into him. Russell has spent the last few weeks hidden in the cell they have built and now walks out with the diamonds. Frazier is there to execute a court order to open box 392, which has been emptied except for the ring and a note telling him to "follow the ring", which he does - dropping in on the mayor having lunch with White, handing them the number of the Office of War Crime Issues. At home he realizes, that the man he pumped into him dropped a single diamond into his pocket.

Quite interesting and very well cast.

7/10

28 Days Later...

A group of animal rights activists breaks into a lab to free chimpanzees, that are being used for testing. Although the cause is noble, the activists are about to unleash a epidemic on the population of Great Britain. A lab technician walks in on them and, realizing what they are about to do, warns them that the animals were infected with the dangerous and highly infectious 'Rage' virus. Ignoring this, they open one cage and the chimpanzee storms out and immediately attacks a woman, biting her neck. Within seconds, the infection sets in and the woman's eyes turn red with this it starts.

28 days after this, Jim awakes in a hospital, where he was in a coma after a head injury suffered in a car crash. The hospital is empty and - as Jim walks out, wearing scrubs - so apparently is the entire city of London. He stumbles around, calling out and really only starts to understand the gravity of the situation when he finds an old newspaper with unsettling headlines. Soon enough, he encounters the first group of infected, in a church. They run after him (them things are fast) and he is saved by two young people, Mark and Selena.

They group up and after visiting Jim's parent's house, where he finds his parents in bed, having committed suicide some time ago, they are again attacked by infected. Again, they get away but Mark was infected through an open wound. Selena beats his head in. Traveling on through the city, the two survivors see blinking Christmas lights in a high rise, where they go and meet Frank and his daughter Hannah. After spending a night in relative safety, Frank plays them a recording, informing the population of a safe haven up the country some way. The group decides to make a break for it.

When they come to the spot, the road block appears to be abandoned. Frank, in a rage, kicks against the wall of a lean to, that has a bloody body on top. A drop of blood falls right into his eye, infecting him (all this in a pretty shot from the blood drops point of view). While Frank turns, military shows up to shoot the hell out of him. Jim, Selena and Hannah are taken to a nearby, very posh house, which is the military base.

They believe themselves to finally have some sort of safety. However, they are the only ones there besides the small group of soldiers. Soon enough, it turns out that the leader, Major West, has sent out the communication picked up by Frank and had promised his men women - and now there were two. After an alteration, when some of the soldiers are about to attack Selena and Hannah, the one soldier that rushes to help the women and Jim are taken into custody and brought to the nearby woods by two soldiers. There, they are about to be shot, but Jim gets away. He hides in the bushes, noticing an airplane overhead.

While the women are very much in distress, Jim sets off an alarms by the road block, Major West sets out to take care of business himself, with the help of just one soldier. His comrade gets killed by Jim, who also cuts the car's wire, stranding the Major, who has to make his way back now on foot. Jim returns to the house, where he first frees one infected former soldier, that has been kept on a chain in the yard. After the infected makes it into the house, the virus takes his usual, speedy course, getting to all the soldiers (including the returning Major West) while Selena, Hannah and Jim make their escape.

Another 28 days later, the trio is settled in a house in a mountainous area. They have been working on stitching together bed linens and - in the last scene - spell out the word 'HELLO' to get the attention of the planes, passing over in regular intervals.

8/10

The X Files: Space

Mulder meets one of his childhood heroes, Lt. Col. Marcus Aurelius Belt (what an awesome name...Marcus Aurelius). However, first he is being contacted by one Michelle Generoo, who works at the space center, where two weeks ago the start of a new shuttle had to be scrapped mere seconds before lift off. The woman presents Mulder and Scully with an X ray that shows hints of sabotage.

They go to investigate and are allowed to stick around for the second attempt of the start, this time it is successful. Mulder's hero is the one that makes all the crucial decisions on the ground. But he hasn't been the same since his own outer space travels. Apparently, he was attacked by a ghost/shadow with a weird face, also apparent on a photo transmission from Mars. The image hunts him to this day, mostly at night in bed.

The current shuttle flights experiences trouble soon enough, cut communication, falling oxygen levels and all. The ghost face appears repeatedly, but not only to Lt. Col. Belt. Michelle sees the face before running her car off the road and the crew from the shuttle calls in 'somethings outside the shuttle', bumping against the outside wall.

While Mulder and Scully find more conclusive evidence pointing to a sabotage, the drama for the astronauts heats up and they need to be brought back to an emergency landing. The one person that can keep them save with all the troubles they are experiences is Lt. Col. Belt, whose own troubles are accelerating, as well. The agents find him one the floor, seizing, but get the necessary information out of him in the nick of time. The shuttle lands safely. In the press conference following the landing it is announced that the shuttle performed their mission 'without incident'.

Lt. Col. Belt, once again haunted by the ghost face gives up and kills himself.

Hey, isn't that...?
Ed Lauter, who was one of those character actors that we all have probably seen in something a few times before but don't know the name of, portrays Lt. Col. Marcus Aurelius Belt. Mr. Lauter passed away earlier this year.

6/10

Hotel Transylvania

Dracula, who has been living in a remote castle raising his daughter Mavis, is preparing a huge party for the girl's 118th birthday. All the monsters imaginable have been invited for the party and opening of Hotel Transylvania. The hotel is supposed to be a save haven for monsters, who have been terrified by humans for centuries.

Years ago, Dracula has promised Mavis that she will be allowed to see the world he has been shielding her from on her 118th birthday. He sends her off to a nearby village, which he had built especially for this occasion to put the fear of humans into her. His zombie employees are dressed up as a mob, coming after the newly arrived vampire. This works and sends Mavis flying home again.

In the midst of the chaos of everyone arriving, a young hapless backpacker finds his way into the castle. Dracula detects him just in time to dress him up as a monster and sneak him into the party when he realizes that he cannot get rid of the human without drawing attention. The human, Johnny, is passed of as a cousin of Frankenstein's right arm, here to plan the party with Dracula.

All the while, he tries to get rid of him without having any of the monsters suspect a human among them. The only one suspicious of Johnny is Quasimodo, alerted by his rat Esmeralda, who can smell the human. Dracula fiddles around to keep Quasimodo and Johnny away from each other and trying to get the party rolling - with games of charade and bingo. Those turn out not to be a party favorite. Whenever Johnny causes mayhem, however, the guests get really into it. Mavis and Johnny, when they first set eyes on each other, fall hopelessly in love.

Dracula still does everything in his power to get rid of Johnny and even reveal to him how he lost his wife Martha in a fire, set by a human mob who discovered that he was a monster. When Quasimodo finally reveals to the party guests that Johnny is, in fact, human, everyone is scared out of their wits. After this, Johnny leaves.

When all the guests try to check out of their rooms at the same time, Dracula, having realized that he only wants his child to be happy, even if that means letting her be with a human, implores his monster friends to forgive him and help him bring Johnny back. When a delegation leaves to drive to the airport, they come to the village during a big monster party (Halloween?) and realize that humans may not be a danger to monsters, after all. They rally up the village people to help get Dracula to the airport as quickly as possible.

Dracula returns with Johnny and a monster-human alliance is formed. Happy faces all around.

6/10

Du levande (You, the Living)

This is a Swedish film pieced together from little scenes featuring recurring characters without an actual plot to tie them together. It is a collection of very sad people that visually blend into their surroundings, which are very Scandinavian, as well - this is to say sparse with toned down colors.

Some of the characters we meet include: a middle aged woman, wearing animal prints, sending her boyfriend away constantly and lamenting the sadness of her life; a psychiatrist who after 27 years of listening to people complain, is tired and now merely prescribes pills; musicians practicing alone on their respective instruments; a groupie who is given the wrong address for a rehearsal space; and a husband and wife that are both devastated after a fight they had earlier, during which they called each other rude names.

The music here comes from a marching band, the Louisiana Brass Band, a middle aged woman singing out her sorrows in the beginning, a song at a funeral and people in a banquet hall singing some sort of traditional song, which also requires them to collectively stand on their chairs to have a drink.

The film got Roger Ebert's stamp of approval and a coveted 4 star review. He concludes his piece about it like this:

"You, the Living," is a title that perhaps refers to his characters: Them, the Dead. Yet this isn't a depressing film. His characters are angry and bitter, but stoic and resigned, and the musicians (there are also a banjo player and a cornetist) seem happy enough as they play Dixieland. In their world, it never seems to get very dark out, but in the bar, it's always closing time.

This is well worth your time.

8/10

Tales from the Crypt: And All Through the House

A woman kills her husband with a poker to the head on Christmas Eve. After she sends her daughter to bed, who is all excited about the impending visit of Santa Claus, she dregs the body out of the house to drop it into a well.

As she does so she misses the all important news bulletin warning people in the area of an escaped convict, murderer of four women, who is heavy set and thought to be dressed up as - you guessed it - Santa. And he attacks her right then and there. Luckily, she is able to fend him off and flee into the (yes, very remote) house.

In her first panic, she calls 911 but hangs up when she cannot see her attacker. Shortly after, her phone rings, but while she ponders whether or not she should answer, a tire comes flying though the window and Santa attacks her from behind.She manages to smash his head in with an ax he was carrying.

Then the phone rings again. Local law enforcement checks up on all residents in the area and she is informed that an officer will stop by in 20 minutes. Now that she has two bodies laying outside, she plans to frame Santa for her husbands death, hitting his head with the ax a few times to cover up the head wound from the poker.

Then the door to the house falls shut and she searches her husbands body for the keys while her little daughter looks out the window to see a shape in the snow where until just a minute ago the body of Santa had been lying. Must not have been as dead, after all.

Then she calls to report her husband's murder and when looking out the window realizes that the ax is no longer in his head and that Santa is no longer dead. Now she is in a real panic. She accidentally locks herself inside a closet right under her daughter's room and watches as Santa climbs up a ladder, ax in hand with the little girl cheering him on.

The last scene is the girl holding Santa's hand followed by a close up of the mother screaming.

5/10

Gimme the Loot

Sophia and Malcolm tag (that's graffiti speak, yo) a wall in someone else's hood. They are frustrated after their piece gets sprayed over and plan to do something big to have their names go down in history. They want to tag the New York Mets' Home Run Apple, a feat that has been often tried but never accomplished.

Fortunately, Malcolm knows Pedro, who works at the Mets' stadium and will let them in a few days later for $ 500,--. Problem....they don't have 500 bucks. So they both try to find ways to scrape together the money. This includes Malcolm stealing weed from a guy he used to deal from and keeping the profit. The girl he sells to has jewelry lying around in her apartment, which could go a long way toward the money they need.

Meanwhile, Sophia has her bike stolen and when chasing down one of the culprits she takes his cell. When she tries to sell it she gets ripped off. So she sells a pair of sneakers and a bag full of spay paint cans, and then she gets jumped by a trio of kids that take the money she just earned right out of her pocket.

The last resort is little miss rich girl's jewelry that they plan to steal. Unfortunately, the help they solicit to break open the lock to her apartment while she is out running, with Sophia hot on her heals to call in a warning when the girl returns, fails to do so and another smart plan goes bust.

Their final great idea is to put a bunch of newspaper pieces in between two dollar bills to pay off Pedro with. Pedro never shows up, of course.

6/10

La jetée

In post-apocalyptic Paris, the survivors of WW III live underground. There, they experiment with time travel, hoping that in the past or future they find means to assist them in the bleak present they live in.

The scientists have a hard time finding suitable subjects to send through time. They find a prisoner, who seems perfect for the experiment, as he has what they consider an 'obsessive' memory. Most consistently he holds onto a moment from his childhood, in which he saw a woman on a peer and he has a vague memory of a man dying.

After several days of experimenting, the prisoner manages to move freely in the past, where he finds the woman from his memory again and establishes a relationship with her. Motivated by the successful travel to the past, the scientists send him to the future next. There he obtains a power unit, that he brings back with him and that enables the scientist in the present to re-generate their society.

As he is now redundant, the prisoner is to be executed. The people he met in the future offer to save him by bringing him forward to their time permanently. He instead asks to be sent back to the past he previously visited. There he finds the woman again in exactly the same context of his childhood memory. He realizes that he himself is the dying man he saw as a child, his executor was sent after him into the past.

Sounds familiar?

In 1995, Terry Gilliam retold the story in the brilliant Twelve Monkeys.

This, the original 1962 version, is brilliant in its own way. Made up almost entirely of still images (once the woman is seen blinking a few times) and told via voice-over (except for the whispered German of the scientists).

8/10

Deadfall

Well, this was always going to end badly.

Two siblings, along with the driver of their getaway car, go through the middle of nowhere (somewhere in Michigan, I guess) on snow covered country roads. The idea is to get to Canada after having pulled off a heist. They are dressed to the nines and one of the siblings, Liza, is wearing a skimpy dress, counting money on the backseat. Then, the car hits a deer and skitters off the road, turning over and landing upside down, killing the driver. Liza and her brother Addison make it out without a scratch.

A patrol car happens by and calls in the accident. As Addison gets out of the car he apologizes to the cop before shooting him. The siblings flee the scene further into nowhere and the oncoming heavy snow. To better their chances of getting away, they split up and try to make it to Canada, separately.

Addison walks off into the woods and runs into a native American, who has difficulties re-starting his snow mobile. The two men start fighting which costs Addison a pinky and leaves the other man dead. He moves on from one chance encounter to the next, picking up vehicles along the way and leaving a trail of bodies for the cops, who have by now found the body of the patrol man, to follow.

Liza gets picked up by Jay, who is on the way to see his parents in a remote farm house after just getting out of jail. Barely freed for a few hours, he accidentally kills his former boxing coach and thinks the road blocks he sees set up are there for him (I assume). As he drives away from one, he finds Liza who, despite having changed into something more appropriate, stands by the road freezing terribly. In the car, she finds out where Jay is headed and after spending the night with him at a motel, she calls her brother and leaves a message with the location of the farm house of Jay's parents.

Addison, wounded by now, makes it there first and takes Jay's parents hostage and together they sit down for Thanksgiving dinner. When Jay arrives he has Liza in tow and at first the two siblings do not acknowledge each other but soon enough old wounds break open. Liza told Jay earlier that her father, the devil, was killed right in front of her and her brother took care of her ever since. The relationship between the two siblings appears to a little too close for comfort and it also seems that Addison, who was the one to kill their father, took over the role of would-be devil in his sister's life.

At this point, a police woman comes by, looking for Jay because of a call she got from Detroit. She also ends up a 'guest' at the dinner table. Ultimately, law enforcement catches up with Addison and the distraction caused by the local sheriff - the police woman's father - gives Jay the chance to overwhelm Addison (Jay is, after all, a former champion boxer and silver medalist at the Beijing Olympics). In the end, it is Liza who shoot Addison to end his torment of the family and free herself.

I thought the police woman with the daddy issues was just one complicated family relationship too many. Otherwise, quite interesting.

6/10

Love Actually

'Tis the time of year to watch Christmas themed movies. Before seeing my traditional Scrooged I re-watched the lovely Love Actually.

The film is made up of different relationship stories playing out in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Billy Mack, an aging rock star, tries to make a comeback by making a shitty single, hoping to make the coveted Christmas no. 1. The song is a cover of Love Is All Around, in which the word 'love' is simply replaced by 'Christmas', no matter the difference in syllables. His promise is to strip on national TV if the buyers get his song to the no. 1 spot. It works. He ends up spending Christmas with his long time manager, realizing that he is the closest person to him in the world.

Writer Jamie, finding his girlfriend cheating on him with his brother, goes on a trip to France to work on a book. There, he is introduced to Aurelia, a Portuguese cleaning lady. She does not speak English, he does not speak Portuguese, which leads to cute conversations. Back in England he learns her language and goes back to propose to her, with her father, her sister and her entire neighborhood watching.

Daniel has recently lost his wife and is left to help his step son Sam with his conundrum. Sam is in love with a girl he believes does not know him. She sings and to get his attention he learns the drums and performs in her band during a Christmas show. But the world works against him. His beloved - Joanna - is about to leave for the US. Daniel and Sam rush to the airport so that Sam can profess his love.

Daniel's sister, Karen, has troubles of her own. She finds a gold heart on a chain in her husband Harry's pocket and believes this to be her Christmas present. On Christmas Eve, however, she gets to open a package of similar proportions to find a Joni Mitchell CD. The heart went to Daniel's new assistant Mia, who is basically offering herself up to him on a platter.

Harry's employee Sarah, who is in love with her colleague Karl, and everybody knows it. But when the two finally get together, Sarah gets sidetracked by a phone call from her brother Michael. Michael is in a mental institution and calls his sister a lot and she will always, always, always take the call. There seems to be no hope for Sarah and Karl.

Young Colin has everything figured out. He buys a ticket to the US because he is convinced that hot women just hang around in bars waiting for someone with a British accent. So upon landing in Milwaukee he walks into the first bar he chances upon. And he was right about everything. The women in the joint fall over themselves to get him to come home with them. They offer him a place to sleep, but only have one bed between four women and he will have to squeeze in with them. The poor girls are so poor they cannot afford pajamas and have to sleep naked....

Body doubles John and Judy meet while working on a film together. They act out different scenes in different stages of undress despite being rather shy and taking their sweet time before finally going out together.

Then there is the triangle of Mark, Peter and Juliet. Peter just married Juliet, who Mark is hopelessly in love with. As a self defense mechanism he barely speaks with Juliet who thinks that he cannot stand her.

And then there is the new prime minister to Britain, brother to Karen and Daniel, who on his first day in office falls in love with Natalie, who works at Downing Street 10 until his discomfort with the situation makes him request she be moved elsewhere. After receiving a Christmas card from Natalie, he goes off in search for her. Knowing only the name of the street where she lives, he knows on every door until he finds her, leaving people confused. He even has to sing carols for a trio of little girls.

One of those films I can watch over and over again. So sweet and so funny.

7/10

Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade

Autobiografia lui Nicolae Ceaușescu (The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaușescu)

This takes some getting used to.

Contrary to 'normal' approaches to documentaries, this one does not comment. Anything. The film consists of a series of news clips, some without any sound at all, detailing 25 years in the career of Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romania's last Communist leader.

In the year of revolutions 1989, Romania was the only country of the Warsaw Pact in which the demonstrations against the regime turned bloody. Nicolae Ceaușescu grossly misjudged his people's mood, giving one last rousing speech from his balcony. Shortly thereafter, he and his wife Elena (also, his Deputy Prime Minister) fled the capitol with a helicopter. The police had turned against them, as well, refusing to follow his instructions to shoot demonstrators in the town of  Timișoara. Instead, the picked up the Ceaușescus and put them on trial. Despite Ceaușescu's refusal to accept the court's authority, after all - he insisted - he is their president and only the National Committee can try him.

The footage follows the timeline from the death of his predecessor, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, until the death of Ceaușescu himself. Clips of mass gatherings celebrating the leaders of Romania alternate with speeches. What changes most significantly over the course of time is the rhetoric.

Despite the lack of commentary and judgement on the filmmaker's part, the point is put across quite well, leaving the audience to make their own judgement.

Impressive.

7/10

Licence to Kill

Bond's friend Felix is about to get married. On the way to the ceremony at Key West, the two are pulled into an ongoing operation to arrest drug lord Franz Sanchez. In a very adventurous manner, Felix and Bond land in front of the church Felix is to be married in.

While Sanchez escapes by paying off DEA agent Killifer while Felix and his new wife are surprised by Sanchez' henchmen in the honeymoon suite. When Bond learns that Felix has been badly injured and his new wife was killed, he is out for revenge. His first victim is Killifer (Ed from Twin Peaks!), who gets fed to a shark, with his bribe money as a sendoff. M flies in to send him to a new assignment in Istanbul, Bond refuses and quits. M revokes his licence to kill and he is taken into MI6 custody, which of course he escapes. James Bond is now a rogue agent.

He teams up with a former CIA agent, following Sanchez to the Republic of Isthmus, where he poses as an assassin looking for work, earning Sanchez' trust. Bond's assassination attempt of the drug lord is foiled by agents of the Hong Kong Narcotics Bureau, which has been undercover trying to discover Sanchez' operations headquarter. Bond is again captured by the MI6 and about to be sent back to London. Yet, once again he escapes, this time with the help of Sanchez, who believes the Hong Kong agents to be responsible for his assassination attempt. Bond slowly worms his way into the inner circle of the drug operation.

The genius of the drug operation is that cocaine is dissolved in petrol and sell this 'fuel' to Asian drug lords (repeatedly referred to as 'the Orientals'). The sale runs through a televangelist named Joe Butcher (which is really kind of genius - the selling, not the name). The money making plot is the process to get the cocaine from the petrol again, the information is sold by Sanchez.

The grand show-down takes place in Sanchez' laboratory, where Bond is discovered by Sanchez henchman Dario, who betrays him to Sanchez, which leads to the final fight between him and Bond. With all that petrol around, this can only end in fire and explosions. Poor Dario ends up in a giant shredder.

I'm starting to like Timothy Dalton as Bond. The villain here is played by Robert Davi, but the (to me) significant baddie is a very young Benicio del Toro as Dario. The televangelist is played by Wayne Newton, somewhere in the middle of his plastic surgery transformations.

Quite entertaining and much more straight-forward in plot than many other Bond films.

6/10

(Fake) Grindhouse Trailers

Here are some hilarious fake trailers made for the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse double feature.

Werewolf Women of the SS
Directed by Rob Zombie. the trailer stars Udo Kier and Nicolas Cage making fun of himself as Fu Manchu.

Don't
This sports quite the impressive cast, including Jason Isaacs, Rafe Spall, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Peter Serafinowicz, and....Katie Melua? Also, the most hilarious of the trailers in my opinion.

Thanksgiving
Eli Roth made this trailer while filming the first of the Hostel films. It features some of the cast and crew, including one of Hostel's lead actors, Jay Hernandez.

Which brings us to the two fake trailers that were made into real films.

Hobo with a Shotgun
Fake trailer with mostly unknown actors (unknown to me, anyway).

Real trailer with Rutger Hauer as the gun toting hobo.

Machete
Fake trailer with Danny Trejo and Cheech Marin. This one was made not only into a film but into a franchise....with Danny Trejo and Cheech Marin playing the actual roles from the fake trailer.

Capricorn One

In the 1970's everything was a conspiracy.

One of the classic conspiracy theories and one of the more persistent ones is that the moon landing was a hoax, a film directed by Stanley Kubrick. French director William Karel took this story and made the mockumentary Opération Lune (Dark Side of the Moon) in 2002. Of course, as many people do not understand satire, many a conspiracy theorist thought this only proved them right.

Capricorn One was inspired by all of the moon landing hoax stories. The destination this time is planet Mars. Mere seconds before a crew of three astronauts it to take off, they are led from their aircraft Capricorn One and brought before Dr. Kelloway, who explains to them that the life support system installed in Capricorn One is faulty and the flight would be too big a risk for them. However, blowing off the mission is not an option, as the funding for the space program is in jeopardy and the general interest in space travel has been waning for some time now. So, everyone is led to believe that the mission went ahead as planned.

Even ground control is unaware of what is happening. One technician reports wrong readings with his terminal. He became suspicious when the TV feed reached his station before the feed from the aircraft, which is of course impossible. He discusses this with his reporter friend Caulfield (Elliot Gould, appearing to replay his role of Philip Marlowe) and when Caulfield tries to follow up with him, the technician has simply disappeared.

The astronauts are kept in hiding for months until the originally scheduled landing of Capricorn One. The plan is to have the capsule land off course to give the people in the know an excuse for not having a live feed and time enough to retrieve the trio. Unfortunately, the aircraft loses its heat protecting shield on re-entry and burns up. This means that officially the astronauts must have died during the incident. When the three realize what has happened and consequently fear for their lives during the extended cover up scheme, they hi-jack a plane and take off, due to lack of fuel in the middle of the desert. To increase their chances of making it back to civilization before being found by the puppet masters of the operation, they take off into different directions, while unmarked helicopters comb the desert in search of them.

Meanwhile, their families mourn their losses and attend memorial services. And Caulfield is the only one, who believes that something is not quite right and goes off into the desert to search for the astronauts himself. He hires a small airplane with pilot and actually finds one of them, Chales Brubaker, the only one who managed to avoid being captured.

Their only chance of survival at this point is to make a very public appearance. They do so by showing up at a very public memorial service, skipping in slo-mo.

7/10

Peter O'Toole, 1932-2013

Peter O'Toole, star of Lawrence of Arabia, dies aged 81

Burning Bright

Things I learned from watching Burning Bright.

(1) Buying a tiger as a private citizen in the US is a piece of cake. It requires barely any paper work.

(2) If you tell you college aged stepdaughter that her mother did not leave a will and conveniently forget to mention the life insurance policy that leaves money to the stepdaughter and stepson, she will take that at face value and never suspect you to do something so ridiculous as lie to her. Never mind that you just cleared out her bank account.

(3) A boy that yells out things like "No red!" and "Eat! Now!"at random makes for a realistic portrait of a child with autism. Holding your flat hand in front of his face will always calm him down.

(4) A young woman with a crowbar will tear a hole into a wall quicker than a tiger can tear down a flimsy cupboard door.

(5) If you plan on killing you stepchildren by setting a tiger free inside your boarded up house, maybe you should think about taking the gun with you when you go to hang out in the local bar.

(6) Making someone have to look for their cell will add additional excitement to any film.

(7) Hiding in a big freezer is a great idea.

(8) When you return home from your night at the bar to hopefully find your would be victims dead, don't just walk inside without first checking where the tiger is.

(9) The fact that you use a reference to a William Blake poem as a title will probably be lost on your target audience.

2/10

A Passage to India

Rarely ever do stories told in really good books translate well to the big screen. I have not read the novel A Passage to India by E.M. Foster but from the reviews I have seen, here this seems to be the case. The film was universally lauded and nominated for a staggering 11 Academy Awards (winning 2).

Visually, it is beautiful, showing India in gorgeous landscapes. The story is set within the difficult reign of the British in India. The relationship between the locals and the Brits is strained, to say the least. It is in this environment that young Adela Quested and Mrs. Moore travel to meet up with Ronny Heaslop, fiance of the first and son of the latter. Ronny is the magistrate in Chandrapore.

The British have made quite a comfortable life for themselves, practically bringing everything they enjoy with them, arranging themselves in a Club. Indians are invited to their gatherings, but are mere decoration used to show off their kindness towards the lesser classes. Adela and Mrs. Moore have no reservations toward the local population and want to meet Indians and also request to see 'the real India'.

They meet Dr. Aziz, who appears to be happy with any bone the British may through him and always acts incredibly honored when they come to call, and Professor Godbole (played - in a very un-PC move by Sir Alec Guinness), a Brahmin in the house of school superintendent Mr. Fielding. To return the favor of the invitation, Dr. Aziz suggests a picnic at the Marabar Caves, which will need a lot of preparation and a strenuous journes, but he is embarrassed by his own dwellings and cannot invite them to their house.

When the day of the picnic arrives, the party travels by train. Fielding, however, does not make it in time as he has been delayed by Godbole's prayer. He is given a ride by Mrs. Callendar, wife of Major Callendar, both archetypal of the arrogant British population who believe that the Indians need to be governed by the British and are really more of a nuisance to their daily existence.

After an unpleasant experience by Mrs. Moore, who is claustrophobic, inside the caves she decides to rest and Dr. Aziz, Adela and one guide move on the the higher lying caves alone. This is where the incident, that changes the tone of the film, occurs. Adela is stumbling down the hill and chances upon Mrs. Callendar, who is on the way back to Chandrapore after dropping of Fielding. The two women go back together, leaving the rest of the party to wonder what has happened.

Upon arrival at the train station, Dr. Aziz is arrested on charges of attempted rape. Adela, sporting cuts from falling into a cactus and delirious from the sun (one assumes), has been left in the car of the Callendars and their sort, who all pressure her into confirming the accusations they have spun. The only two Brits convinced of his innocence are Fielding and Mrs. Moore, the latter leaving India for England before she can give an official statement, a decision strongly supported by her son.

At the trial, the defense alleges that Mrs. Moore has been sent away because she would have attested to Dr. Aziz' innocence and chants of "Mrs. Moore!" are alternating with her having a heart attack on her boat to England and being buried at see.

Adela changes her story and admits to not being sure anymore about what actually happened. She retracts any accusations, setting Dr. Aziz free and becoming a local hero. Not surprisingly, he has become disillusioned by the experience and now embraces his nationality in a new way, ditching his English Sunday best for Indian attire. Declaring Adela his enemy for having put him through all this. When he sees Adela leave with Fielding he also recants his friendship with him. Fielding, the obvious good guy in all of this, feels obliged to get Adela out of the Moonsoon and off the streets, as he believes a riot could break out any minute.

A few years later, Fielding returns to India and tries to get in touch with Dr. Aziz, who believes he shacked up with 'his enemy' and refuses to answer his letters. In the end, Godbole has told Fielding where to find Dr. Aziz and tells him - contrary to what the doctor believes - he is not with Adela, but rather has married Stella, daughter of Mrs. Moore. The two make up and Dr. Aziz waves Fielding and his wife off as they leave.

The film explores the fine balance of the two very different nationalities living together, with misunderstanding and suspicion coming from both sides. There is also a critical undertone towards the British Raj as such. There are, ultimately, only very few Brits depicted than can be considered 'good' - Fielding and Mrs. Moore.

Despite the dark subject matter, the film also offers a few lighter moment, some - especially those including Professor Godbole - are downright funny.

And again about the visuals....

from Roger Ebert's review: Lean places there characters in one of the most beautiful canvases he has ever drawn [...]. He doesn't see the India of travel posters and lurid postcards, but the India of a Victorian watercolorist like Edward Lear, who placed enigmatic little human figures here and there in spectacular landscapes that never seem to be quite finished.

8/10

Battlefield Earth

Wow.

This really is unbelievably bad.

Apparently, L. Ron Hubbard and later John Travolta tried for a long time to have Hubbard's novel (or part of it or whatever) Battlefield Earth made into a film. Why anyone - even a single minded scientologist like Travolta - would want to put this piece of crap onto the big screen (or small screen, or any screen at all) is beyond my comprehension. I have not read the source material but judging from this it must be among the worst of its kind.

But let's get to the 'story'.

It is the year 3000 A.D.

Earth, once mankind's home, has been ruled for the past 1000 years by a cruel alien race from the planet Psychlo.

As they have done on countless other planets across the galaxies, the Psychlos mine Earth's metals and teleport them back to their home planet.

Gold is the rarest and most valuable metal of all.

The dwindling human population is fighting to stay alive. Hiding in pockets, in radiated areas, they are on the verge of extinction.

Initially, we meet a group of cave dwellers - mankind has moved back to living as Neanderthals - and like any larger group of humans there is that one young man who cannot play by the rules. His name is Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, referred to as 'a greener' (as in: the grass is always greener...). We first meet him when he comes home from a quest for medicine to save his ailing father. He didn't make it in time and the gods took is father in the night.

"Nooooooooooooooooo!" (in slo-mo)

He picks a fight with the group elder/leader who warns him of the gods that pose a constant danger to them. The greener insists that there must be a better life elsewhere, where they do not have to suffer from hunger and anyway, nobody has ever seen one of these gods. He takes off to find such a place. Almost immediately he runs into a couple of hunters who tell him that they can show him the gods. They take him into the ruins of a city and tell him that when the people defied the god's order to not lay eyes on this or that, they were frozen. Evidence (a): statues. The move onto a former mall to show Evidence (b): mannequins (who apparently have been especially badly behaved).

The trio is attacked by an over-sized alien, who uses a stun gun on them. It also shots the greener's horse with this device.

"Nooooooooooooooooo!"

Then they are put on the slowest aircraft in history and brought to a human processing center in....Denver.

The alien language sounds like a grunt, but for the benefit of the viewers, they communicate in English when talking among themselves, only when addressing the human animals, the grunting is used. Terl, chief of alien security, learns that he is to stay on this filthy planet that he hates so much for an additional 50 cycles and he is pissed off. So much so that when his second in command, Ker, suggests to rip off home security by secretly having the humans mine for gold.

Anyway, the greener immediately and constantly wants to run away, making a reputation for himself. The aliens consider him somewhat smarter than the inferior human race and let him flee with a small group to watch them in their natural habitat and - most importantly - finding out what their favorite food is to use that as leverage. The group goes without for food for three days and Terl tells Ker that they will only feed when they think themselves secure and when they do, they will have a celebratory meal of their favorite food. The humans, starving, finally find rats and eat them, raw. Then they notice that one of their buttons each is a camera and destroy them. This leaves Terl somewhat dumbfounded because he thought them to be much to stupid to know what cameras even are. Their little trip to freedom is cut short and they are returned to the mines.

There, the greener is put in front of a knowledge machine and he absorbs, well, everything there is to know. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. The greener can now communicate with Terl and Ker and gives his cell mates a mathematics lesson. Again, why? Nobody knows.

Anyway, with his new understanding of how everything works, the greener kicks off a rebellion and after his girlfriend from back home is captured, presented and then shot....

"Nooooooooooooooooo!" (now without sound, but again in slo-mo)

...the rebels set their plan into action. The plan entails mining for gold and letting the aliens think they will do as they are requested, making secret recordings of the plan to rip of home security, and, well, taking down planet Psychlo. Of course.

They get gold bars from Fort Knox (like you do) and present them as first pieces of evidence of their cooperation. Then they find an underground US military base (very handy, that), air-crafts, weapons (nuclear, no less), and a flight simulator (!) with which they train. They start a mass uprising during which the dome over Denver is destroyed, exposing the aliens to the earth's atmosphere in which they suffocate.

Thanks to a Psychlo teleporting device on location (of course) an atomic bomb is teleported to Psychlo where it detonates and destroys the atmosphere, wiping out the entire population. The only alien survivors are Terl and Ker. Terl ends up imprisoned in Fort Knox while Ker makes nice with the humans.

The end or, the beginning for the victorious humans.

0/10

The Campaign

The Campaign is about an election for Congress in the 14th district of North Carolina, where Congressman Cam Brady has been running unopposed for the last 8 years.

Unfortunately, he can't keep it in his pants and loses voter trust when he dials the wrong number and instead of calling his mistress he leaves a message on the answering machine of a family, who overhear it while they are saying grace. In his following appearances, he tightens the sling around his neck by saying things like, "When the family plugged the phone into their answering machine they became consenting adults."

In Washington D.C., where money does the talking, the campaign financing Motch brothers (get it?) decide that Brady is no longer a viable candidate and make sure that this time around he will have an opponent. The only viable option, however, is helpless Marty Huggins, a sweet but hapless family man that could never make his daddy proud. The Motch brothers provide him with a campaign manager who introduces himself with the words, "I'm here to make you not suck" and starts grooming Marty, his house, his family, even replaces his dogs and feeds him lines.

When Marty does surprisingly well in the first debate, Brady understands that he could indeed be a threat and the gloves are off. Both race towards a baby there for the sole purpose of being kissed. As Marty is about to kiss the infant, Brady initiates a fight and swings to hit his opponent, who ducks in time and, well, Congressman Brady punches a baby. Down go his poll numbers.

Then the campaign ads and rhetoric get fiercer and - as Marty sports a mustache - Brady accuses him of sympathizing with the Al Qaeda, likening him to another man with mustache: Saddam Hussein. Marty's reply to this is, "I am not beholden to Cam Brady's accusations. I am only beholden to one man and that is the greatest American that has ever lived: Jesus Christ, who happened to have a mustache."

After a mushy, eye-opening moment with his son, Brady decides to bury the hatchet with Marty Huggins and swings by his house, where he is treated to a number of drinks. Afterwards, he gets in the car and Marty, who has learned a lot from his campaign manager, calls the police to report a drunk driver. The video from the police car shows Brady running away from the cop, stealing the police car and running over a cow. Again, not good for the numbers.

When during another campaign, Marty accuses him of communism by citing from a manifesto Brady wrote as a 2nd grader running for class president, titled "Rainbowland", things again get out of hand and the two candidates get in a fist fight. This time, as Marty ducks, Congressman Brady punches Uggie, the dog from The Artist. After this incident and the worsening poll numbers, Brady's family up and leaves and the next Huggins campaign video shows Marty with Brady's son, showing that he is a father to Cam jr. that Brady can never be.

Brady's revenge to this is having sex with Huggins' wife Mitzi and using the sex tape in his next campaign ad. This prompts his long time campaign manager to leave and somehow gets Brady a two-point bump in the polls. After the ad airs, when Marty and Brady are at the same hunting even, Marty gets out of the car and shoots Brady in the thigh, calling it a "hunting accident", which improves his poll numbers.

In his all important meeting with the Motch brothers, Marty is informed that the 14th district is to be sold to China, with cheap laborers coming in along with factories. This they call "insourcing" and they want Marty's support and urge him to use the term in the remainder of his campaign as often as possible. Marty, realizing that he is on a slippery slope, refuses and walks out of the meeting.

This prompts the Motch brothers to throw their support back into Brady's camp and Marty's campaign manager changes sides. Also, Ms. Brady is paid to return to the campaign. A "new and improved Cam Brady" again takes over the polls. On election day, Marty presents his final campaign ad, in which he promises honesty and confesses to pretty much every bad deed he has ever done.

As voting comes to a close, we see that the voting machines were made by the Motch brothers and Marty, who according to exit polls was up by about 2000 votes loses to Brady. The two candidates have a last, honest talk before Brady makes his supposed victory speech in which he decides he would also like to tell the truth and, finally, withdraws from the race, making Marty Huggins the new Congressman for North Carolina's 14th district. In the end, he heads a committee taking down the Motch brothers.

Zach Galifianakis is his usual awesome self and Will Ferrell appears here in one of his better roles.

6/10

Firewall

Jack Stanfield works for the Landrock Pacific Bank in Seattle and his day is about to take a weird turn when a debt collector shows up at his job trying to collect $ 95,000,-- in gambling debts. Jack realizes he has been victim of identity theft. What seems like a small incident at first is supposed to be used to set him up. The fictitious gambling debt is to be used as an also fictitious reason for him to steal from his own bank.

His colleague Harry has set up a business meeting with one Brian Cox, offering both of them work. After a few drinks, as Jack gets in his car to return to his family, Cox gets into the backseat and puts a gun to his head. While Jack was at work, his family has been taken hostage at their house. As Cox and Jack return their, they are kept at gunpoint over night.

The next morning, Jack is to go to his job as usual, equipped with a video and voice feed connected to the culprits. During the day, Cox shows up again for a 'meeting' with Jack, that his assistant is suspicious of, as she didn't set it up. Cox has Jack take him on a tour through the server room where he explains his plan. With Jack's technical expertise, he is supposed to transfer millions to an account on the Cayman Islands.

After a difficult day, with Jack trying to contact somebody, anybody for help and being found out, Cox drives home his point by killing one of his own associates for not paying attention for a moment that Jack used to sneak his video camera (disguised as a pen) onto his secretary.

The family devise a plan for Jack's wife and their two children to escape by clever use of one of the son Andy's toy - an remote controlled car, that has in the past interfered with TV reception is used to interfere with the video feed that is being used to keep taps on the family. They do not make it out and - in a quiet moment - Cox again emphasizes that he has no scruples, he feeds Andy, who has a severe peanut allergy, with a cookie containing peanuts and making Jack beg for the EpiPen.

Finally, the plan is set into action, with Jack moving to different terminals in the bank as to not be interrupted by one of his colleagues, who is hot on his heals the entire time. When the transfer is made, Jack and Cox split up. When Jack gets back to the house it is empty. One of the culprits returns to finish him off, but Jack beats him to death with a stand up mixer (handy thing, that).

He flees to Harry's empty apartment and hears a message on the answering machine from his wife, reading from a script that makes it look like a message to her lover, Harry, and a confirmation that she has left Jack. When he hears someone coming in - it is Harry with Cox, still in future business partner mode - he hides in a closet (classic!) to see Cox execute Harry. Jack realizes, that this will only reflect back on him with the tale of an affair and Cox using Jack's own gun. His flight continues...

To pressure Cox into giving his family back, he takes the baddie's cell with him and calls Cox as he is re-transferring the money and telling him that he will give him the money in exchange for his family's safe return the next morning. Jack changes his plan, however, when he realizes he heard the family dog bark as he was on the phone with Cox. The little pet has a tendency to run away and has been equipped with a GPS collar.

With the help of his secretary, he manages to locate the dog, who has been thrown out of the transport vehicle for unruly behavior. Fortunately, they are close enough to the hide out for Jack to sneak up to the house and a combination of one of the culprit's reluctance to hurt his family, Cox' hurt pride and Jack's and his wife's anger, the bad guys are taken down once an for all. Cox meets his end in a fist fight, cut short by use of an ax.

An ok, fast-paced watch. Nothing to write home about but entertaining enough.

5/10

Mimic

Ugh. I hate bugs.

Don't worry, I knew what I was getting into with this as Mimic is a Guillermo del Toro film. As the man himself once said, "I have a sort of fetish for insects, clockwork, monsters, dark places, and unborn things." Dark this is, and full of bugs...big ass bugs living in the New York underground.

From the beginning...

The newly discovered Stickler's virus is spread by the common cockroach and threatens to kill off an entire generation of children. Then entomologist Susan Tyler introduces a genetically engineered bug, the Judas Breed to kill off the cockroaches. The bugs live in a hive system with only one fertile male and are designed to die out after one generation.

Then, three years later, two young boys want to make a quick buck by selling a collection of butterflies and "the weird bug" to Susan, whom they refer to as 'the Bug Lady'. She recognizes the breed as a mutant of her own creation. Together with her husband, Dr. Peter Mann, who works for the CDC, she wants to investigate in the subway tunnels.

What they find are bugs of unbelievable size, all female, and they are all out to kill them. The Judas Breed has mutated through what is known as mimicry, hence the film title, but this should have taken many generations.

In any case, stumbling through the subway tunnels are Susan, Peter, his CDC colleague Josh (who will meet a nasty end), a subway cop and an elderly gentlemen, who made his way through the tunnels looking for a boy (his grandson?), who seems to be autistic. Together, they not only have to stay alive through the bug infestation and try to make it back to street level, but they also have to kill off the entire species of Judas Breed before it can migrate out of the tunnel systems. Not everyone of the group survives, with the cop heroically sacrificing himself for the greater good, but in the end humanity prevails.

The opening credits are visually stunning and those bugs are really disgusting in any size and state of development.

5/10

The Cell

At long last, I got around to watching The Cell. This film has been on my radar solely for Vincent D'Onofrio, who in my opinion is one of the greatest actors active today. And man, does he deliver here.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Social worker Catherine Deane (played by Jennifer Lopez, who I always thought a much better actress than singer) is involved in an experimental treatment involving a billionaire's son in a coma. To get to the boy and possible reverse his condition, Catherine is taped into the boy's mind as a means of contacting him. The idea is to get him out of this world in his mind that he is believed to be trapped in. Obviously, this sort of treatment is experimental and financed by the boy's father. But as no visible progress is being made, he is ready to pack it in.

It is at this point in time that serial killer Carl Stargher (the aforementioned, flawless Mr. D'Onofrio) fall into a coma of his own, due to some rare form of schizophrenia. His latest victim is believed to be still alive at this point and there is a 40 hour window to save. Stargher keeps his victims in a glass box, fully automated, that is periodically filled with water until - at last - the victim drowns and is subsequently turned into a sort of doll.

The FBI then contacts the treatment facility and gets Catherine to tap into Stargher's mind to help them locate the missing young woman currently inside the box before she drowns. Catherine agrees and after initially contacting Stargher as a child and understanding the abuse he himself has suffered under the strict hand of his father, more than actually finding the girl, she wants to help the little boy. When one session goes wrong in a way that Catherine and Stargher overlap, FBI agent Peter Novak (the insufferable Vince Vaughn, showing why he should only be doing comedy) volunteers to participate in the experiment to 'find' Catherine again and save her.

It is he, in the end, that finds the deciding clue that helps them locate the victim and as he runs off to save the day, Catherine locks herself in with Stargher and reverses the experiment so that rather than her entering his mind, she invites the boy into her mind. But adult Stargher finds his younger self and Catherine becomes a huntress and kills Stargher - not through the arrows and sword she sticks into him, but through drowning the boy, who has suffered the same wounds as his older self.

Stargher is dead, the victim is savend and Catherine gets another shot at saving the billionaire's son by getting him into her inner world.

As strange as this sounds, the film is exciting and visually stunning in ways that I personally have only ever seen in those Hong Kong sword fighting epics.

But hey, don't take my word for it....

from Roger Ebert's review: On one level The Cell is science fiction about virtual reality, complete with the ominous observation that if your mind thinks it's real, then it is real, and if could kill you. On another level, the movie is a wildly visionary fantasy in which the mind-spaces of Stargher and Deane are landscapes by Jung out of Dalí, with a touch of the Tarot deck, plus light-and-sound trips reminiscent of 2001. On the third level, the movie is a race against time, in which a victim struggles for her life while the FBI desperately pieces together clues; these scenes reminded me of The Silence of the Lambs. The intercutting is so well done that at the end there is tension from all three directions, and what's at stake is not simply the life of the next victim, but also the soul of Carl Stargher, who lets Catherine get glimpses of his unhappy childhood.

8/10

The Irrefutable Truth about Demons

Anthropologist Harry receives a video tape showing a rant by the leader of the Black Lodge cult, including a specific threat addressed to Harry. He shrugs it off, even after another warning received from a weird woman who he runs into outside of his place of work.

Soon after, he is kidnapped by a group of weird looking cult members, that refer to him as 'slave' and chain him to the floor in a room. Lucky for Harry, the floorboards are not too solid and he can break free and run off, thus saving himself for whatever was in store for him. He stumbles into a restaurant, where his girlfriend Celia is waiting and before passing out he sees Le Valliant, the cult leader, sitting at a table nearby.

Later, as his girlfriend's place, as he is taking a bath he has a vision of her throat being cut and the body thrown on top of him, while his head is held under water. When he comes to and stumbles out of the bath, he discovers Celia suspended in a crucifixion like setting just as the police start hammering at the door.

He flees, dressed only in a towel, to a rundown motel. From there he calls his colleague Johnny for help, but the unfortunate young man does not live long after leaving Harry. After he discovers Johnny's body in an alley, covered in cockroaches,he again sees Le Valliant. To the rescue comes the weird woman, who introduces herself as Bennie. Together they get away on a bus.

But there seems to be no escaping the cult. Apparently, they had something to do with Richard's death. He even sees Celia, alive, and realizes she is a member, as well. The members always seem to find him and, finally, he is overwhelmed by the group and Le Valliant digs out his heart with his bare hands.

Through some ritual, however, Benny keeps him alive and together they go and face the cult again. And prevail after actual demons come to take out Le Valliant, whose powers may have been transferred to Harry.

Next we see them in an insane asylum, where Harry coughs up a bug and Celia returns to tell him that she killed Richard. Later, in the yard Harry reunites with Benny and they find a dead bug that comes back to life in Harry's palm. In the last scene, Celia gets in her car outside the asylum, where Richard (as a zombie? a demon?) is waiting for her in the backseat with a knife.

Weird, weird, weird.

3/10

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg

Couple Bri and Sheila dedicate all their time to caring for their daughter Jo, who suffers from cerebral palsy and has been unresponsive ever since she was a baby.

To try and keep their spirits up and their marriage together, they have taken to using dark humor and funny voices around their girl. They even make up her side of the conversations. The doctor they consulted when she was a baby (a German or Viennese, they don't quite remember) referred to her as a vegetable, because the official terms for everything that was wrong with her was too much of a mouthful.

Bri would like to have her institutionalized and even fantasizes about killing the girl. He is also slacking when she his left in his care and forgets some medicine or other. Sheila, however, is dedicating as much time as she possibly can to caring for their daughter.

Not only does the marriage suffer, visits from a couple of friends, Freddie and Pam, are also somewhat embarrassing for everyone involved. Pam is uncomfortable about being around a sick child while Freddie is overly cheerful. He tries to help by dishing out advice about putting her in a 'special school' so that they can get on with their lives. Pam wonders aloud whether it wouldn't be better for the child to die, even stirring the conversation towards euthanasia and the way the Nazis dealt with sickness. The opening for her little rant was given by Bri himself, who told them a made up story about how he had suffocated Jo with a pillow earlier.

Jo takes a turn for the worst and after Pam and Freddie leave to get medical assistance, Bri takes the girl out into the cold with him to leave her in the garden. But when the girl appears to be unresponsive he takes her back inside, saying, "I believe it is all over." But the ambulance arrives in the nick of time and Jo survives, much to Bri's apparent disappointment.

Sheila and Jo return from the hospital again the next day and discuss the possibility of finding a hospital for their daughter to stay in for a few weeks every year so that they could find time to go on vacations. But Bri is done with this version of normalcy and - instead of going to work as his wife believes - he boards a train to London.

Brilliantly acted by everyone involved.

8/10

Deathwatch

During WW I, a battalion of British soldiers stumbles through a field of fog, losing their orientation. When they come upon extensive German trenches, they kill the few German soldiers still in it except for one and take over the trenches. Obviously, they don't heed the lone soldiers warning about the place, telling them that they will turn on each other if they stay.

They are under command of one Cpt. Jennings, who orders them to defend the trenches until their own troops catch up with them. But they are unable to make contact with anyone, with only white noise coming through the radio.

The place is eerie, to say the least, and the fogs surrounding everything never lifts. They soon realize that they are stranded, not knowing where they are and unable to call for help. But their Captain insists on staying, no matter how uneasy everyone is.

Sometimes, at night, the place is surrounded by battle noises but whenever they get ready for the oncoming attack nothing happens and the noise dies down again. In the confusion that follows their trying to clean out the tunnel system by throwing explosives inside, the Captain accidentally shoots one of his own men - the first sign of them turning on each other.

On another occasion, a patch of fog, this one rather red than white, befalls one of the soldiers who is then finally ready to desert his post. When he does, he is - as deserters will be - shot by a companion. His other fellow soldiers try to help him, but he gets swallowed up by the ground before they can get to him.

This then causes the group to finally split apart, some wanting to leave immediately, the Captain still wanting to stay and establishing his role as the leader and one rather crazy man hollering at whatever is out there with him to come and get him. When the Captain orders him to cease his nonsense, he gets stabbed to death for his efforts. As predicted, they all turn on each other, with only one of them (the youngest) having any sense of moral left and only shooting out of self defense.

When all but himself are dead the earth swallows the bodies along with him into...the ground? ...hell? When he comes to he is surrounded by decaying corpses and in the distance sees his entire battalion, seemingly unharmed, including himself. When he stumbles outside he runs into the one remaining German soldier, now suddenly fluent in English when before he was only able (willing?) to communicate in French, telling the survivor that he is free to go as he was the only one trying to help him.

It all ends with another battalion happening upon the trenches and aiming at the German soldier, who lifts his head to face the camera, smiling.

The film relies mostly on the dreary and bleak atmosphere and a pretty decent cast, convincingly portraying a scared, desperate group of soldiers.

It is a bit confusing, though.

5/10

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

Harold and Kumar have problems.

Harold's work ethic has two of his colleagues dump a last minute research project on him, which may hinder the young analyst from 'partying' with his room mate Kumar. He calls his friend, who has his own issues. He is in the middle of an interview with an administrator of a medical school - arranged by his father - when he takes Harold's call. Kumar convinces his friend that he could manage to do the work and still smoke pot with him. This does not leave the best impression on the interviewer, obviously.

Harold gets home, meticulously parking his car and walks in to run into the neighbor he is in love with but never works up the nerve to actually talk to. They spend an elevator ride in embarrassed silence. Reunited with Kumar, the two smoke a joint and watch TV, when they realize - surprise! - that they are hungry. And the TV suggests they go for sliders at White Castle. They decide that this is exactly what they want to do.

They take off and get harassed by a gang of idiots living in the neighborhood (something that will be repeated throughout the night) before they make it to their car, but they bravely march on. When they make it to the White Castle of their choice it is gone and has been replaced by another fast food joint. When they require about the White Castle that used to be there at the drive through window, the guy working points them toward the nearest location of the franchise and the friends decide to make the drive.

This is when things start going wrong. First, the machine at the toll station does not register their quarters, Kumar drives through because the guy in the car behind him is getting agitated and yells at them. Harold, a paranoid, law abiding citizen, panics and throws their last joint out the window because he expects to be followed by law enforcement. Also, he makes Kumar take the next spot, which takes them out of their way.

When Kumar takes a break to pee, a raccoon crawls into the car and hides on the backseat. Kumar finds a bush to his liking and is about to go about his business, when a guy in a bad suit and with bad hair stops right next to him to do the same. This spurs a hilarious conversation about the availability of bushes in the area and the right to pick any bush to one's liking.

When they take off again, Harold gets attacked by the raccoon and they panic that follows, they almost collide with another car. Someone from the other car gets out and charges toward them but no alteration takes place because in the other car are their equally high next door neighbors. Much to Kumar's chagrin, Harold insists on being brought to the next hospital - a place where both Kumar's father and brother work. Of course, he runs into them and is berated for constantly messing up his interviews for medical school. More hilarity ensues and, luckily, it turns out Harold does not have rabies.

To score replacement dope they decide to visit a girl that has a crush at Harold and works at a nearby college. There, they do score a bag of weed but get also chased out by campus police. Somewhere along their drive through the night, they pick up a hitchhiking Neil Patrick Harris, who ends up stealing their car while they ask for directions to White Castle at a gas station.

Then Harold gets thrown in jail because he is about to cross the street despite the light being red and in a discussion with the policeman that follows, he punches the man in the jaw (the punch was intended for Kumar). Kumar, ever the faithful friend breaks Harold out of jail, where they also steal the same bag of weed they briefly had in their possession at the college.

And then they ride on a jeeter. (Don't ask.)

In want for a new ride after the jeeter runs off, they run into the gang of idiots again and steal their ride. Throwing all caution to the wind, Harold exceeds the speed limit and drives even faster when followed by a highway patrolman. They end up on a cliff looking right at the White Castle, down below them. Luckily, the gang was also fond of hang gliding and that is how the duo makes the final distance to their destination.

There, when they realize that they don't have any money on them, Neil Patrick Harris shows up again and pays for their burgers, fries and sodas because he feels bad about stealing the car. Harold, now having recovered his adventurous streak takes down his two colleagues (because of course they also end up at the same White Castle) and goes back home to finally get together with the neighbor he is in love with.

Happy ending!

8/10

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The second installment in the Hunger Games trilogy marks the beginning of the revolution, long overdue in Panem. The victors Katniss and Peeta are paraded around the districts but rather than appease the public and keep them quite, the mere presence of Katniss - unwilling token of the uprising - inspires people to become defiant. It starts with three raised fingers in district 11, as a thank you from the locals for Katniss' treatment of Rue in the previous hunger games.

To stop any unauthorized behavior the new game runner, Plutarch Heavensbee, talks President Snow into a new kind of hunger game, to get rid of Katniss in a way that would not shed any more doubts onto the government. To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the hunger games the tributes will be drafted from the previous victors - two per district, one male one female.

Once in the arena, Katniss and Peeta form an alliance with Finnick and the elderly Mae, arranged for them by Haymitch. From then on, not much goes the way President Snow intended, but very much the way Plutarch orchestrated things. Rather than quench the revolution by distracting the public with the spectacle going on under a dome, a revolution is started on a smaller scale within the dome. Katniss is apparently the least informed of everyone involved.

In the end, the dome is brought down through lightning, wire and one of Katniss' arrows and she and a handful of other survivors are lifted out of the arena. Katniss awakes in District 13, where she learns that while her mother and sister and Gale are there, as well, Peeta and one of their allies, Johanna, did not make it out but are held by the government.

8/10

The X Files: Ice

I once read that David Duchovny said that it was with this episode that he realized that they were involved in creating something special. The agents see a video of a man, visibly in distress, recording the final message from the crew of the Arctic Ice Core Project. A group of scientists has been sent to Alaska and celebrate having drilled deeper into the ice than anyone ever before (also documented on video). The final message sent is, "We are not who we are. We are not who we are. It goes no further than this. It stops right here right now." Right after he and a fellow scientist first points handguns at each other before pointing the guns each at himself and committing suicide.

The agents, together with a trio of specialists in different fields, are taken to the station by one Bear, apparently the only pilot willing to take them in unsure weather condition. It is the weather, as well, that will have the group confined to the station for longer than they like.

The group finds bodies of the entire Core Project team and some samples of the ice they brought up. The start putting the pieces together but only get ahead when Bear and Mulder are attacked by the station's pet dog. Bear gets bitten and infected with what it was that initiated the team's downfall. From way down in they ice they brought up something looking like a worm that uses a warm blooded body as a host, making the person or animal very aggressive towards their fellow creatures.

The weather, the situation, the desolation winds the group up in ways that could be a symptom of the virus or bacteria or whatever that worm thing is. By accident (one of the scientist infects an already infected sample) they realize that two worms inside the same host will fight and kill each other - thereby saving the host.

When one of the scientists is killed and everyone gets defensive, the group agrees that it must be Mulder who is infected. He was, after all, attacked by the dog. With only one live worm left, they want to insert it in the agent to 'save' him, but when Scully checks him for sign of infection she realizes it cannot be him. The agents, however, are unable to convince the rest of the group of this fact. In the physical alteration that ensues, they find clear signs that it is actually one of the scientists that is infected and she gets saved in the nick of time.

8/10

Hey, isn't that...?

Two of the scientist with Mulder and Scully are played by Xander Berkley (Red John himself) and Felicity Huffman (of Desperate Housewives fame).