Reviews

This is probably the most incomprehensible muddle ever written. How it got optioned or sold is a bigger mystery than anything you will see in this film.

Kruger has taken a piece of every Grimm fairy tale, and thrown it together out of context in a hodge-podge that has no structure, coherency or reason. Apparently, as a child, he was capable of seeing pieces of images from the tales, but never got the point of them.

Terry Gilliam has proved that he genuinely does not care what or if his audience understands in his films. He has directed this to amuse himself, and that is enough for him.

The dialog is not just unrealistic even for a fairy tale, it's incoherent. The characters' reactions to things are completely arbitrary and are not credible even in the sense of a disturbed cartoon. Example: The Napolean-like character of Delatombe gets splattered by body parts from a kitten that gets caught up in a machine; instead of being disgusted, he peels it off and eats it. Why? No reason. Just because it looks disturbing. The movie is filled with purposeless, arbitrary details like this, that detract from any kind of believable behavior in this film.

It's impossible to review this movie, as there is no movie to review. The writer didn't care if his screenplay told a story, and the director didn't care if his audience understood it. The biggest crime in this debacle is that the screenwriter actually made money selling this. This is a quilt sewn together of pieces of better stories by better writers who had a moral and point to their tales; this "story" provides neither.

As is the the mini-series itself. Sally Hemmings was not Jefferson's "mistress". She was a 14 year-old slave of Jefferson's. A mistress, by definition, is a grown woman who willingly joins in a sexual relationship. In this mini-series, she's shown as mature beyond her years, somehow glossing over her true age, and presented as if she is lucky to be the property of the "enlightened" Mr. Jefferson.

The historical truth is that Sally Hemmings was a 14 year-old child, and had no choice in the matter. Slavery is abuse, and Jefferson abused the power he had over her to have sex with her with or without her consent. This was a 43 year-old man having sex with a 14 year-old child; whom he impregnated multiple times. He never freed her, nor the children he forced her to have. Does anyone believe that she willingly consented to intercourse with a 43 year- old white adult? That she would have, had she not been a slave?

This was at the same time he was writing letters and giving speeches about the evils of slavery. If a 43 year-old man had sexual relations with a 14 year-old girl he made pregnant, he would be given 20 to 30 years in prison and be a registered sex offender. Jefferson's abuse of his slave is presented as a romance in this mini-series, that avoids carefully the ugly truths: That Jefferson sexually abused a child, and was by definition of his act a pedophile. He could have just as easily abused an adult slave, but chose to abuse a little girl. Sally Hemming's voice will never be heard. As usual, the victim's voice is silent.

This mini-series is a true American product; a rewriting of the truth of Jefferson's sexual abuse of a 14 year-old slave he impregnated, into a Gone With the Wind romance. It belongs next to the romance that the networks made of General Custer, presenting him as a romantic hero and no the genocidal maniac he was. I give this mini-series 0 stars. It is rank and perverted.

If Sally Hemmings could be heard for 10 minutes voicing the truth of Jefferson's "relationship" to her, one wonders what the reaction would be? Would history be corrected?

Or would every tape recorder and camera suddenly stop working and be erased mysteriously? And would some persuasive American historian gently be interrupting her from revealing the sick truth, saying "Now child, you don't understand. You may have been a slave, but it was love that Jefferson was showing you when he made you pregnant. Right? You see that, right?".

This mini-series is exactly as sick as that.

The Incredible Shrinking Man, with what is surely one of the oddest titles for a film, deserves to be in any collection of "Great Movie" lists, whether it is science fiction, horror (although it is not a horror film) or in general.

The film takes a bizarre pretext, what would happen if a man started shrinking, and explores what would happen to him. It works because everyone, from the screenwriter, to the actors and the director, take it seriously. It even explores the inner psychology of the man trying to understand and eventually accept his situation, and oddly enough, actually becomes a parable for accepting death and oblivion, although I don't know if this was the intention. The man goes through the same process has someone having a terminal disease, trying to keep his dignity and humanity even as it is literally being taken away from him. The end is nothing less than transcendental, extremely odd considering the films coming out at that time.

The special effects are lovingly done, and some of them will creep you out even today, in this age where every frame is digitally enhanced. If you see this film, keep in mind the year it was made and the quality of the other films that were being made at the same time. It is nothing less than a triumph, and deserves to be in the film classics moviehouse of fame. Check it out at Blockbuster if you're looking for something different (way different) instead of the latest drek being released to video. But be prepared for different film than what you expect. Nine stars.

I'm not quite sure why they decided to take the story of a very funny and joyful comic actress and suck all the joy out of her life and story. According to this adaptation of her autobiography, Gilda was a self-destructive person with low self-esteem who never had a happy moment. In fact, she had a lot of them, which she created herself. Her romance with Gene Wilder is presented as the only bright spot in her personal life, and even that is permeated with sadness. It's as if the producers decided that since she died of cancer, her whole life had to be a premonition of it. This makes for a screenplay that has basically one level. If they had allowed the story of her life to have happy moments along with the sad ones, the ending would have been a lot more poignant. You have to have light to contrast with the dark, but here it is all the same level, strangely gloomy.

We learn nothing of the other main characters, other than that Murray can be a jerk (is this a surprise?). In one overdone scene in particular, Gilda is persistently asking him about spending Christmas together (just before they are to go on to do a...yes, you guessed it...Christmas sketch, with Murray playing Jacob and Gilda playing Mary). Murray says something along the lines of "Will you please just BACK OFF???", then turns to one of the shows producers and huffs "I swear, this is the last time..."(the last time, what? Like he has a choice in whom to appear with on the show?). Then they go on like the pros that they are, to entertain their audience, despite their personal pain. This is called juxtaposition, you see, contrasting what's going on in front of the camera with what is behind, so you get a heightened sense of irony; did you get it? The scene is just as ham-fisted as I described it. The rest of the movie is as cliched and superficial as this moment, and the lead's very good performance is wasted. We keep waiting to learn a little more about the other cast members (the actor playing Garrett Morris is almost used as a prop) and we never do. I'm not quite sure why they had to produce such a dreadful script. A lot of effort went into the casting; it's almost as if they thought that was enough. Unfortunately, it's not, and the movie is painful to sit through. Gilda (and the actress who played her) deserved better.

Three stars.

The Lonely Guy is a cute comedy; not inspired, but mildly funny in bits. The problem is the script that Martin is required to play too straight a character as the "nice lonely guy". He does a good job, but the script doesn't support him with enough consistently funny situations or dialogue (the big problem with the movie, that much of it comes off as bland. Speaking of bland (or should I say, BLAND), Charles Grodin practically walks away with most of the movies laughs as the Jedi Master of Lonely Guys, Martin's mentor in the world of lonely guys. He does it not because he is much funnier that Martin is, but just by playing the one element he has to work with in a consistent, funny way, while Martin has to struggle with a script that doesn't support him. (Additional problem: As much as I like them, was it really necessary to have Merv Griffin and Joyce Brothers in the film, if they didn't add to the scenes?)

However, if you like Charles Grodin, then this is a must-see film just for his scenes. He proves yet again that the best comedy is found in pain and truthfulness, not zaniness and pratfalls. (His scenes are the only ones I clearly remember, other than one in which Martin seems to watch his own death on t.v.; which I won't spoil for you, if you ever happen to rent it.)

Catch it on cable the next rainy night you can't seem to get a date.

Five stars. (Could have been more with a rewrite).

There are so many titles to give a possible review of Howard the Duck. The most appropriate one would be, History Repeats Itself, Again.

Once again Hollywood takes an esoteric cult classic, rips the heart out of it, disregards the core character and the elements that made it endearing, and pumps 20 mil of special effects in like embalming fluid, thinking this will ensure success. And once again, scratches its head when it bombs. What I don't understand is, where do they get the money to keep doing this, and how can I get a job making $300,000 a year to be a Hollywood Producer/Idiot?

For those unfamiliar with the character, Howard the Duck was a very unlikely everyman character that struck a chord with 80's readers of Marvel comics. Howard the Duck was an antihero in every sense; he was small, frightened, alienated, isolated, at times mean, with a unique perspective on the world of humans he referred to as "you hairless apes". Who could not relate to him? Stever Gerber wrote him as a rough cynical character, commenting not only on human failings but of the failings of Marvel Comics itself, making the character almost existential. His stories made fun of themselves and everyone about them, including the reader. However, underneath it all Howard the Duck was struggling to maintain his humanity (or his version of it), while trapped in a world he couldn't escape from. In this sense the stories were in fact less cynical than the mindless slasher/gore comics that came after. The comic books became instant collector's items, and if Sartre were alive, he would have every one of them.

Then George Lucas came along...

I really don't know what Lucas was trying to achieve. Did he really have an affection for this character and tried to realize a faithful movie version of Howard? Whatever his motivation, Lucas has become the heavy in many fan's eyes in the complete destruction of this character. The * original * comics now sale for a dollar each.

What went wrong?

Any comic reader can answer that. But as has always been, and always will be, comics readers (and writers) were not consulted and will never be consulted when their favorite book is optioned by producers who think comics are pictures to look at, with the screenplay written by writers who could not write a comic book if their lives depended on it.

First, they took a darkly cynical character and decided to make him nice. Why did they do this? "Because the audience might not like him!" I can hear the team of producers in the boardroom now. It's the same as taking Danny Devito's character in "Taxi" and making him nice so the audience won't dislike him. Without Howard's cynicism and crassness, the entire core of the character disappears. His ability to comment on our world disappears. He has become politically correct. A politically correct Howard the Duck obviates his existence; it is like describing a "solid vacuum".

Even his voice was softened to an irritating milquetoast sweetness. In the comics, he was growling, threatening, yelling, even making strange ducklike "Waaauughh!" sounds in exasperation when words failed him.

Second, they expected a mass audience to understand and accept a character that had a fan base, at most, of a few million people. This is the same mistake Hollywood makes with all cult figures; they are a cult figure because they * aren't * a "mass appeal" figure! Will Hollywood ever understand this? Do I need to ask?

The closest thing I can compare this mistake to is the twice-repeated mistake they made with movies based on Hunter S. Thompson. They made two movies that both bombed about a dislikable character the minority of people have heard of, and expected the audience to understand him and his antics without explanation.

Third, they hired a writer without an understanding of comic books. Why there seems to be an unwritten law in Hollywood against using writers with experience in comics to write screenplays, I have no idea.

Four, the plot. Howard's most appealing adventures occurred in the midst of real-life greed, paranoia, and inhumanity of man to man. The "Dark Overlord" bit occurred (I believe) after Gerber left the series and it went into a black and white format with writers desperate to keep an audience, and they introduced these elements which lost me and many others as readers. * This * is what they decided to use as the basis of the script. Rather like taking the final episodes of Star Trek in the third (and worst) season and making a big-budget movie based on them. The concept of a talking alien duck is strange enough. A "Dark Overlord" threatening the universe is a movie in itself, but here is a distraction from the Howard character, and becomes a vague nuisance (and an expensive one) that is never explained to the audience, and even if it were, is not presented in a meaningful way the audience would care about.

This was a very expensive movie. If they had locked Steve Gerber, the creator of Howard, in a room for a week with a pencil and a six-pack of beer, his script would have been infinitely better than this embarrassing drek. Even simpler than that, they could have removed

*all* of the special effects, except Howard, and done a movie based on one of his early comic books, with his personality intact, and it could have been a cult movie. But a mass movie success? Never. And that is why it fails on both levels, because they insist on it being both.

If a Hollywood producer preparing to make another movie based on a comic book reads this, do you think he will learn anything? Silly me. Hollywood producers would never read anything on IMDB.

If anyone alive at this time is interested in understanding why Howard the Duck was once appealing to so many readers, read the original books by Steve Gerber. They hold up even better as commentary on today's wacked society than they did when they were written. (And believe me, now you can get them Cheap. )

However, I doubt many people even remember the movie, much less care about a defunct cult comics character.

As Howard would say (with a duck accent), "Waaauuughhh!"

Three stars, not that it matters.

When HBO hit bottom several years ago, they played bad movies over and over again because it was all their budget could afford. They have since reformed, but at the time they showed this, um, manure so many times a day I actually removed HBO and Cinemax (they were sold as a package then) from my cable subscription.

Everything about this movie, from the "acting", directing and script is the worst you will find outside Manos: the Hands of Fate. The movie is depressing in the extreme; take a repellent character, have him confess to a long list of random murders in "flashbacks" (relayed to stone-faced deputies wearing a little too much makeup), add in lots of helpless victims and sadism, and you have this movie. It almost appears to be a booster film for would-be serial killers; the characters, slack-jawed and stupid though they are, are presented as invincible, getting away with every sadistic killing they commit, with the editing showing the victims *just* missing the chance to escape or scream for help. It's hard to tell who is more sadistic, the characters, the editors, the film-makers, or the agitated viewers who wrote glowing reports over this trash. I thought it was the film-makers until I read these reviews. Scary. There is a 2000 year-old Greek adage which translate to "garbage feeds on garbage." I didn't understand it when younger, but it is starting to make sense to me now.

This movie does not enlighten, it only dehumanizes and desensitizes.

Avoid this movie unless you never go outside, have no normal friends, and enjoy the suffering of others. One star.

This movie will tell the viewer absolutely nothing about Andy Kaufman; all it does is rehash the external accounts of his premeditated self-destruction during the late 70's and 80's. Carrey's performance is wasted in a useless script by someone who either did as little as possible to research Kaufman's life, or tried to and discovered it was impossible, or more than likely found his real life too boring to write a script about, and so we have this.

The song, Man on the Moon, will tell you more about Andy Kaufman in three minutes than this film will. He was a performer who seemed fascinated by actors' self-destructive tendencies and seemed to want to recreate them, or just had such anger toward his audience (a common trait in actors) that he wanted to alienate them more and more in his acts. We will never know, but the big question is, why would we care?

This movie gave me absolutely no insight into Kaufman's life, and whoever gave it glowing reviews read into it whatever they wanted to see.

Kaufman would either have hated this movie or loved it. My suspicion is that he would have loved it. He was a man who wanted people to know as little about him as possible, and this movie gives the audience exactly that.

Two stars. Carrey gave a great performance, but I'm disappointed in that he had the power to demand and wait for a much better (i.e., real) script, and didn't use it. It's a shame.

"Thank you vedy much"

"...For Zees Momeeent eez your life!". So speaks the European amalgam of every older American's woman's fantasy, sounding and looking like an escaped character from the cover of a Harlequin romance novel. If this is the kind of character you like, this movie is for you. If not, you're in big trouble.

The quote is read by the object of desire from one of his rare books to his latest conquest;unfortunately, "this moment" he speaks of, and several thousand more just like them, were my life for over two hours, but thankfully, I survived. (Though I did have to literally take a breather half an hour into the film. I had gone with a friend, or I would not have returned).

The reason for the pain is the dialogue, plot, situations, and camerawork, all of which is contrived beyond belief. In the beginning we are introduced to Richard Gere's suburban family and life, with absolutely no feeling that this is a family or anything more than strangers occupying the same house. The kid says all the correct cute and pithy things cliched cute kids do, Richard Gere is warm and fuzzy, and his wife makes breakfast, but there is no warmth or feeling of connection. The dialogue is so horrendous it is difficult to concentrate on the film. The scene where Gere's wife and the hunk meet is the topper; just how windy is New York, anyway? The hurricane I was once in was nothing compared to the wind in this scene, which should have induced a general weather warning to stay indoors at all costs. Instead, she gamely goes out to go shopping, and runs smack into the charming stud who is carrying a stack of 20 books (none of which strangely are blown away by the wind), and she lands on top of him bodily to the point they can barely untangle their limbs from each other. When this stranger invites her up to his flat to fix her skinned knee, naturally she agrees (!), gets fixed up, and starts fantasizing about him after she leaves. We are treated to more pointless scenes of aspirin bottles dropped in toilets accidentally, and retrieved, again for no reason that furthers the plot.

The movie is full of little throw-aways like this that I wish had been thrown away; an example is mom retrieving a huge wad of hard candy from her kid's mouth he can't seem to chew, and then eating it herself. Why? No reason, except that it is supposed to be cute...but it isn't. We are treated continually to extreme and pointless closeups of gas stoves being turned on, hot water being poured, etc., for no apparent reason other than it looks European, and it distracts from the movie. When the two finally get together as we know they will, the scene is anything but sexy, erotic, or romantic, but as contrived as the unlikely way that they meet. When she changes her mind and starts to back out, he practially rapes her until she changes her mind and decides getting raped is hot, hot, hot. This trend is repeated several times in the movie, and does not make for a sympathetic character.

Richard Gere is the best thing in the movie by far, which is a very strange thing for me to say considering that I have never been a Richard Gere fan. But I have to say he does a very good job and watching him was the only palatable thing in the film.

By the end of the film I had stopped being annoyed by Diana's character and was contemplating the mentality of the writer or director; (at least it gave me SOMETHING to do while watching it); which one of them decided to portray women in this fashion? Diana gives them exactly what they wanted, which is a confused, impulsive and rather stupid character; but is this way the writer or Director sees women? Look at their film history and you will see an interesting trend of female portrals.

This is not to say that all women (and men) who have affairs are stupid and unsympathetic; it is the way it is portrayed which is offensive.

The movie (I hate to say it), is unfaithful to its premise, and becomes a thriller half way through, then tries to resolve the betrayal issues in the end by...not resolving them. Again, how pseudo-european.

One critic called the film "very French", but it comes across more as a ham-fisted attempt at being very French, and if there is anything more painful than the effect it produces, I don't know what it is.

I would rather watch Battlefield Earth again *twice* than be subjected to this again. The scary part is, I am serious. The movie could have made a point about betrayal (and forgiveness, which is never touched on) in an intelligent way, but this isn't an intelligent script or director, and the very good actors and excellent performances are wasted, which is a shame.

Two stars for me; Richard Gere's performance makes the two stars himself.

This is one of the most ambitious films I have ever seen done; it is an extremely painful movie to watch in places, beautifully photographed, with understated direction that does not get in the way of the story.

A lot will be lost on the small screen, but if you enjoy foreign films (or films in general) you will not find a better one than this. If you are in the mood for lighthearted entertainment, do not rent this film; you will feel sad for a long time after it ends. (It is a Russian story, after all.) Images from the film are guaranteed to haunt for a long time; it reminds the viewer of the power film can have to affect an audience.

Nine stars for me.

and a thousand other adjectives apply to this film, mainly because of how many fingers were in the pie. This movie's bacground is far mroe fascinating than the movie itself. I read "Losing the "Light", the story chronicling this movies production before I saw the movie. Surely this was Terry Gilliam's most nightmarish turn as a director. The film is based on the adventures of Baron Munchausen, a fictional hero who was based on an actual person by the same name, known as the greatest liar in the world. In this film we find that all of his claims are true, that he really does get caught up in strange adventures such as visiting the moon, flying on a cannonball (two actually), capturing the hearts of the worlds (and heaven's) most beautiful women, all accomplished with the greatest ease. The story centers on the relationship between the aging Munchausen and a 10 year-old girl who believes all of his stories; the girl is the best thing in the film, but John Neville, a famous stage actor, simply does not pull off a convincing character as the Baron (his first appearance in film), possibly because what would work on the stage simply doesn't work on film. His warbly voice as the 80 year old Baron is too stagy, and I didn't feel a real connection between him and the little girl, which is essential to caring about his character. Otherwise he just comes across as a cold, self-centered character, which I'm sure was not Gilliam's attempt. Neville looks great as the Baron, but he simply looked liked a theatrical character as the Baron, not a real man caught up in his own dramatics and myths.

Eric Idle as the world's fastest man (and one of the Baron's amazing friends) is simply wasted in the film, and none of his sequences are really funny; his character is simply not given enough funny things to do, and some of his antics are actually painful to watch.

Visually, the film is stunning, but strangely choppy in places. After reading the book about its production and the constant interference Gilliam had to contend with, it becomes understandable. In a desperate attempt to control over-runs, the studio kept demanding more and more cuts to the film.

Well worth watching, however, as some of the shots are unbelievable and must have been stunning on the big screen. Read the book also, however; you will gain a greater appreciation for what a nightmare this movie really was to make, including bizarre stories concerning drugged tigers escaping the set, bets concerning who was going to the first to sleep with the then 17 year-old virgin Uma Thurman, deranged producers not concerned with trivialities like paying actors and crew, Italian scam artists ripping off the production right and left, explosives experts using far too much gunpowder (almost blowing up a horse), etc., that make Baron Munchausen seem tame by comparison. Life is stranger than fiction, at least in relation to this film.

Seven stars for me. I'm just glad Terry Gilliam survived it.

It is heart-warming to see that people are still contributing reviews for this film over 20 years since it first aired on t.v. in 1978. People considering renting it should remember that it was made for television, so don't look for Fantasia-quality animation; however, compared to other animation films I have seen it still looks great, and obviously a labor of love. The stills from certain scenes were so good they printed them as posters, which I kept in my room for a long time. Many characters were dropped out of necessity for television-viewing (it could have easily been as long as the first Ring movie), but the spirit of the book is intact; there is no unecessary carnage or bloodshed, the story is about courage, not violence, and the voice-work is unparalleled. Orson Bean was the perfect choice for Bilbo. If you rent it, watch it with the spirit of a 13 year-old, not the expectations and cynicism of an adult. If you have a 13 year-old who reads, get him a copy of the Hobbit. The film and book are head-and-shoulders above what is presently offered to children on television or in print.

In the context of a television production, eight out of ten stars for me.

This film doesn't hit you over the head with million-dollar special effects. It doesn't contain action scenes every two seconds for the easily distracted. It just rips your heart out, and makes you think long after the movie is over. It is about isolation, alienation, lost causes, and the inevitable future. In short, it is a genuine science fiction film, not a gunfight covered with techno-glitz and special effects calling itself science fiction. Star Wars is great science fantasy, but the essence of science fiction is about what could happen, and is happening, and by the end of the film we have the disturbing feeling that it is a prediction of the future that will happen without intervention.

The feelings of sadness and hope this film evokes are inextricably linked in this film, right up until the end. If you rent this movie, you will be haunted by its images long after you have forgotten other films.

Ten out of ten stars; from the writing, directing and acting, right down to the three robot drones (Huey, Dewey and Louie), there is nothing to fault with in this film.

The premise of this movie is good; what happens when a child is discovered to have a genius for something. Do his parents have a responsibility to nurture it, with or without the child's will, or should they just leave him alone? In this case the genius is in chess; it could have easily been about math or music, and been as good a movie. The point of the movie isn't about chess itself, but about promise and potential at an early age.

The direction and script, however, smother the movie in grave solemnity; if you watch The Greatest Story Ever Told, about Christ's life, the characters do not speak with the grave tones and hushed solemness that they do when they speak of the boy's gift for chess. The mother is especially annoying; every word she utters about her son, about anything, in fact, is delivered with a stone-faced stolidness and a Clint Eastwood whisper that would put even Dirty Harry to shame. One wonders how she let her hair down long enough to conceive their child in the first place.

The father is equally awed by his kid's genius at moving chess pieces, and puts up with an off-putting character played by Ben Kingsley to tutor his kid.

The movie does make its points about genius versus normal happiness, and where the line is between encouraging and pushing your kid, but it is hard to forget that we are talking about a game here. No lives will be saved or lost if he doesn't show up for a tournament. He won't even learn any useful life skills (or social skills, for that matter) by playing better chess. By the end of the film, I felt like I had learned more about Western attitudes and values than anything else; we are a country that can afford to obsess about whether our kid has the best chess tutor, rather than worrying about where our next meal is coming from (like the majority of the world does.) Our values are certainly in order. If the film had taken a look at our value system which puts the importance chess over, say, medicine or starvation, I think it would have had more to say.

(Does anyone really care where Bobby Fischer is, by the way? Why?)

Four out of ten stars. It would have been six without the ten layers of melodrama.

I forgot what a masterpiece of paranoia this movie is; only in this

case, it isn't paranoia, everyone really IS out to get you! This is

James Coburn's best performance in my opinion, as a psychiatrist

who has been conscripted to become the President's analyst, and

when he decides to quit, discovers just how disposal American

citizens are. This is my pick for THE paranoia movie of the 1960s.

That this movie came out in 1967 is incredible; it deals with

assassination carried out casually by the FBI, the CIA, the violence

that has been absorbed as wholesome by America, the escape

from violence into sex and drugs, and much, much more, all

during the time of the Vietnam War and zero tolerance for differing

views. The speech by the black FBI agent in the beginning on

how he discovered racism is especially painful, and remarkable

given the time period.

The movie is hysterically funny, cynical, black, and most ironically,

hopeful, and a must-see for any film lover. The script is terrific, but

the direction stands out in the inspired camerawork. This

obviously was a labor of love by the director/writer, and

interestingly, one of only two or three non-t.v. films he ever directed.

If you see it, you may be bored by today's sex and gore standards.

But if you remember the 60s, keep them in mind when you see

this film. You'll wonder how it ever got made.

Ten out of ten stars, because there isn't anything I can find wrong

with this film; it's brilliant in every aspect.

The idea of a movie where the dogs and cats have a secret cold war going on over who is the number one pet is mildly cute; but this movie misses the mark and is painful to watch. The film makes the oldest mistake of children's movies; it assumes that kids don't understand anything, and so dumbs the humor down "to their level." Unfortunately, this always results in a dumb movie, insulting to kids and torture for adults.

The one joke in the move is that dogs and cats are technologically advanced creatures; and yet their behavior is so stupid (especially the cats, who are supposed to be the evil menace), that you don't believe this premise for a second. The movie also makes the most obvious mistake in a movie that uses high-tech effects; it makes the technology and the effects the star of the show, not the characters. The dogs and cats have absolutely no "character" development, and we don't care about any of them. The human characters are even worse. They are presented as idiots and morons, for no reason (unless the producers believed this is how kids see adults or would like to see adults in a movie; another fallacy. Kids like to see likable adults and likable kids they can relate to.

A movie kids and adults would have liked would have put the relationships and characters first, the plot second supporting the characters, and the effects last, supporting, not taking the place of, the characters and plot. For instance, the technology of the cats and dogs is supposed to be secret from humans; half of the humor would have been in finding ways to keep it out of sight of humans in novel ways. There was no reason why the movie could not have had an intelligent script; because it was for children, the producers decided they would be just too dumb to enjoy it. These are the same producers that grew up with Bullwinkle in the 60s and the Muppet Show in the 70s, that snuck ironic and (gasp) intelligent humor into every joke; yet they forget this themselves.

Jim Henson, the founder of the muppets, alas is no longer with us. But Frank Oz is; if he had been given the script to rewrite and the move to direct, we would have had a truly funny film all ages could have appreciated, not the doggy-doo this movie is. (Most unforgivable moment in the film; assuming that kids can't appreciate clever humor but can appreciate dog fart jokes. If children could unionize, they should lodge a defamation suit against the producers of this film.) Keep your kid and yourself away from this drek; you'll be glad you did. Two stars

If you're a Carol Kane fan, and haven't seen this film, run out and rent it now (if you can find it). But don't expect the usual eccentric comic character Ms. Kane usually plays.

Filmed in black & white, this is a very atmospheric period piece about a traditional Jewish wife in turn-of-the-century America, whose husband is dissatisfied with her and wants a more modern woman. Carol Kane plays a quiet, thoughtful wife who somehow commands the screen just by sitting there and watching the selfish, thoughtless people rant and rave about her. She is a truer definition of a hero than any of the action heroes that have come out of Hollywood in the past 30 years; thoughtful, indefatiguable and irrepressible, despite the fact that she is firmly part of the traditional Jewish community where women subjugate themselves to men.

This is not an action piece; it's a character and period piece about surviving with dignity despite poverty, repression and injustice. This is the best performance by Carol Kane I have seen, not because she can't do better, but because she hasn't been given another role this thoughtful and dynamic. If she is given more roles like this in the future, she will again prove she is one of the best actresses in the country. A great film and a great performance.

Eight out of ten stars.

Recently I read online the last interview that Rod Serling gave before his untimely death. He mentioned great movies made from science fiction stories and bad ones, and one of the worst movies made in his opinion was The Illustrated Man. Three very good actors, classic story material, ruined by a bad adaptation and direction.

Rod Steiger's character is so obnoxious in this film you have difficulty watching it, much less have empathy with his tattooed character's plight and quest for revenge against the woman he submitted to having tattoo him. This mystery character and her motivations are never explained, nor is Steiger's masochistic fascination with her. The vignettes are extremely disjointed, the scenes between him and the mystery woman (who seems to appear and dissappear at will, without explanation)are irritating, and Steiger does a good job at playing an off-putting character we don't want to spend any time with.

The ending is a classic 60's vague and unexplained "heavy, man" ending, which leaves a feeling that you've just spent two hours of your life waiting for many threads to be tied up which won't be, and are expecting to get a "lesson" from this. Or not. One can understand why Serling, who wrote very tight scripts that always made sense no matter how bizarre the subject matter, was not impressed. This film barely qualifies as sci-fi, and doesn't belong in the sci-fi section at video store. It is more of a fantasy, and not the kind one enjoys indulging in. As sci-fi, or even a coherent story, it almost guarantees to dissappoint the viewer.

Three out of ten stars.