Reviews

I watched this show regularly when I was stationed in England during the mid to late 1970s. Yes, it was a weird mix. It was also rather funny much of the time. Now granted, my fond memories of this show are tainted by the 30-some years that have passed since I watched it.

All I can say is that I love British humor (better than most "American" humor) and that is why I watched the show. It was part humor, part investigative consumer reporting and all fun.

Only two bits of the show stand out in my memory at this late date.

1. Ms. Rantzen had a large smile with lots of teeth. In one episode, they showed a fan mail envelope that had been delivered. There was no address or name of any type on the envelope, just a drawing of a large toothy smile. The post office delivered it to the right place.

2. Investigating a complaint about the tea served by British Rail, they held up a Styrofoam cup of British Rail tea, reheated to the same temperature as served on the trains. They then inserted a British Rail provided plastic spoon to stir the tea and pulled out a melted spoon.

Now, that may not sound funny to many Americans, but I and many others enjoyed it.

Even though much of it would be very dated today, it is one show I'd love to have on DVD.

The problem with really bad movies that seem to spoof a genre is that it is often hard to distinguish between where they are intentionally bad and where they are just plain bad. Werewolf in a Women's Prison is probably a bit of both.

First and foremost this is right smack in the middle of all the women in prison movies you've seen or heard about. Lots of semi-naked women, lesbian scenes that mostly involve fondling and as one poster said, NO SHOWER SCENE! Dang!

Secondly, this is a blood and gore movie. Lots of slash and rip, with arterial blood pumping far into the air and over everything in sight.

Put the two together with mostly bad acting, dialog that attempts to fit the stereotypes and well... you end up with either a great spoof of the genres or a really bad movie.

In either case, I enjoyed this one a lot more than I expected and laughed (and groaned) a lot more than I expected.

Victoria De Mare was so-so as the lead. Not too bad a job of acting and reasonably attractive. Certainly though not the beauty that her character is supposed to be.

On the other hand, Eva Derrick who played a supporting role as Rachel, another prisoner and Victoria's friend, did a far superior acting job and is truly a beautiful woman. Ms. Derrick has about 20 movies to her credit, looks like all in the horror/slasher exploitation genre. I'll be looking at more of her movies. So if nothing else, I'm happy with this movie because of finding her. I hope she makes it into more mainstream roles.

I was fortunate enough to get to watch this when it was first run and I was stationed in England while in the U.S. Air Force. While I missed the first season, I was there in time for seasons two and three and loved them.

Like the person who complained five or six years ago that it wasn't available on video, I too would like to complain... it's now on Video in the UK and Germany, but not here in the U.S.A. :-( If it ever does come out on DVD here in the States, you can be sure I'll be buying the set.

As for the person wondering why the British TV shows have washed out color, my guess is that perhaps it has something to do with the conversion process from the PAL format to the NTSC format. As I remember watching shows on my PAL format TV over there, the colors were much richer than we had here in the States. It might be that the conversion was done from a film print rather than video tape as well. Old film prints tend to be more washed out.

It might also have to do with the fact that the British (at least when I lived there) didn't go for the garish colors in their clothing that we Americans did. After living in England several years, I'd almost be blinded by the clothes that some of the newly arrived airmen wore. LOL

His comparison to the color in Star Trek is probably unfair though. Star Trek was done at a time when color TVs were still relatively new and they went out of their way to use very bright colors on the sets and costumes, much the way they did the first color movies.

The conversion process must have certainly gotten though as the shows I watch on BBC America are very rich.

I happened to see a promo for this show long before the pilot aired and set my TiVo to a grab it. And we're glad that I did.

My wife and I are addicted to the show. At times it's funny, other times it's sad. But it's always interesting and leaves us wanting more.

The character development is slow as we in the audience are learning the "rules" and the characters as the show moves long, just like "George" the lead character. However, we think that the casting is excellent. Five distinct personality types make up the "reapers", each with their own outlook on life, death and how to make a living (or is it dying.)

Each of the actors seems familiar, yet in looking them up here, I don't recognize much of what they've done. Then again, that seems typical of the Canadian shows and movies that we like.

Clockstoppers is everything I'd hoped for... Action, some comedic moments, good SciFi, great special effects and very decent acting.

A lot of money was spent on this movie for the effects and crew and it shows.

There's been a few negative comments from folks who seem to forget that it is a SciFi movie made for kids and families, intended to be a good story with good effects and offend no one.

Looking at Clockstoppers in that light, it is a big success. Compare it to The Matrix or 2001, and it falls short. No surprise, they weren't meant to compete.

All in all, a formularic "boy meets girl/father and son resolve differences" family movie, combined with state of the art special effects make for a great family movie night.

Ok, let me get this out of the way: This is not great cimema, earthshaking truths, a gripping plot, etc.

What Bruce Almighty IS, is a very funny movie in typical Jim Carey style which serves to entertain most of us.

Jennifer Anniston makes a great sexy and bewildered girlfriend, Morgan Freeman is well, Morgan Freeman and all of the great things that denotes. Jim Carey is Jim Carey in maybe his best role since The Mask and Pet Detective.

Even though we'd seen most of the best gags in the trailers, there were still a few reserved for those who saw the movie. The end result is that my wife and I laughed a lot and really enjoyed Bruce Almighty.

I rated the original Matrix a 10 out of 10 due to the great story, fantastic visual effects and one of the best sound tracks I've heard in a movie (and not just the musical scoring.)

So when my son invited me to the midnight showing of Matrix Reloaded(first showing on the day of release) I jumped at the chance to go. All I had to spend was the $3.00 for parking my car.

After what seemed like four hours later, the movie ended and I felt like I'd wasted that $3.00 and a few hours of sleep.

I imagine that the Matrix Reloaded will make a ton of money. It has everything that the junior and senior high school kids love: Lots of fight scenes, loud techno music (and I use the term loosely), lots of fight scenes, some bare flesh, lots of fight scenes, car chases and crashes, lots of fight scenes and some great special effects. Oh, and we can't forget all of the fight scenes. Plus just to try to claim a message for the movie, there was a lot of psychobabble thrown in as an afterthought.

It is hard to believe that the same people who made The Matrix, made The Matrix Reloaded. It reminds me of certain computer products that Symantec bought, lobotomized and then repackaged.

Aiming towards the teen target audience, the fight scenes were enhanced and lengthened to perhaps five times as long as they should have been. It was much like watching a porno... the same action over and over (usually with the same two characters) from different angles.

The only redeeming features of this movie were the special effects. Everything else was overdone, drawn out and obvious filler.

In a nutshell... Matrix Reloaded could have been cut to 18 minutes and tacked onto the Matrix, or left to start Matrix Revolutions and we wouldn't have missed a thing.

I must not be reading reviews of the same movie I just tried to watch yesterday... I saw "Bandits" with Bruce Willis (one of our favorite actors) and Billy Bob Thorton.

The wife and I watched more than two hours of this movie (at least it felt like it), chuckling on occasion but mostly trying to NOT fall asleep. Finally we compared notes and turned it off.

The only other movie that we've ever done that with was "Baby Geniuses" with Kathleen Turner, another of our favorite movie stars. That one lasted maybe ten minutes.

With a solid cast, this movie should be been at least entertaining if not good. Personally, I think "Bandits" suffers an identity crisis. It doesn't know if it's an action movie, comedy, drama or romance movie. What it achieves is being boring. It moved slower than our son when asked to take out the trash.

I'm not sure what all these other folks saw that they loved so much that we didn't see. Maybe we didn't take enough drugs or something.

I'll give this movie a 2 out of 10 only because it wasn't as bad as Baby Geniuses which I gave a 1 out of 10.

We last ten minutes into this movie, hoping that it'd get better. Some friends with similar tastes (any taste) didn't last that long.

Even Kathleen Turner (We love you Kathleen!) couldn't save this stinker.

Amazing as it seems, someone was brave/stupid enough to make a sequel.

Ok, so I have my head in the sand. We don't watch broadcast television except for the news, History Channel, etc.

So... until I saw the DVD cover at the local video store yesterday, I'd never heard of the 10th Kingdom.

However, the synopsis intrigued me and it boasted enough stars that I figured that it couldn't be too bad. So I rented it along with Bicentennial Man and a re-rent of Blast from the Past (which we loved the first time.)

The chemistry between Scott Cohen and Kimberly Williams was amazing. I don't see how anyone could not fall in love with those two in this movie. Mr. Cohen really does an excellent job of holding the movie together as the comic relief.

All in all, the production qualities were first rate, the scenery spectacular and acting at least decent at worst.

I can and will highly recommend that movie to anyone who likes any of the following:

1. A Love Story 2. Fairy Tales 3. Romantic Comedy

My only complaint is the length. 7.5 hours is too much for one sitting, though my wife made it through in one go. I had to watch the last disc the next night. This is one of the few movies I was glad to see end, but am eagerly awaiting a sequel. (If that makes sense to you.)In fact, the length is the only thing keeping me from giving this a 10 out of 10 rating.

Thankfully, while not quite as raunchy as it was built up to be, American Pie was so just raunchy enough that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

While the billing made it appear to be just another Saturday Night Drive-In/"We vow to lose our virginity by graduation/prom night/16th birthday", American Pie was truly funny and touching.

There's a heavy dose of morals and ethics in the message here which is sneakily slid in among the beautiful women and comedic routines.

I agree with Rick who previously reviewed this. The soft core "R" version is excellent. The hard core version released later is so disjointed that it is a hardship to watch. The extra hard core scenes detract from the great movie and are truly extraneous.

While originally intended to be a true hard core porno, but the first with a true big budget and quality, Bill chickened out and opted to release an edited "R" rated version instead. That version is the one that everyone loves.

Years later, he succumbed to the pressure from curiosity seekers and added in much of the footage originally left on the cutting room floor, and released the X rated version.

It's pretty obvious when watching the X rated version when these scenes appear.

If you like adult spoofs of fairy tales, quality acting, singing, costumes and sets, then by all means get the "R" rated version. You'll enjoy it.

If you're an avid collector, get both versions.

The version I own is the unrated De Sade's Justine, proudly displaying Kook Stark's name on the cover. While she's tender and lovely in this movie, there is room for an exciting and tantalizing plot which never develops.

The acting is mediocre, sets/scenery are good but the dialog is contrived making the whole thing a bit of a disappointment. There's not even enough nudity/debauchery to excite much more than a 12 year old male.