Movie Title: South Park – The Complete Third Season
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The third season of South Park is funnier than ever. This is a review of season three’s episodes and NOT on the DVD box position that has not yet been released. The season gets 5 Stars over all rating.Rainforest Shmainforest 5 Stars – This is portion one of an unofficial two parter. Gust suppose Jennifer Aniston. The boys derive sent to Costa Rica (Someone that rated this said Puerto Rico, not a accurate fan if he can’t even accept the spot apt, I’m positive he’ll revise his review when he reads this) by Mr. Mackey to voice in the kids choir “Getting Contented with Kids”. The group gets lost in the Rainforest when a reptile eats their guide. Cartman saves the day.Buy,Download, Or Stream South Park – The Complete Third Season! Click HereSpontaneous Combustion 5 Stars – This is portion two of an unofficial two parter. The mayor wants Stan’s dad to figure out why the citizens of South Park are spontaneously combusting and Stan and Kyle Crucify Cartman so that he can be resurrected. In hopes that Kyle’s dad can earn an erection. The Succubus 4 Stars – The boys become shy when chef falls in esteem with a demon sent from hell in the shape of a woman. Cartman has all kinds of gaze problems.Tweek vs. Craig 5 Stars – The boys bet on who would salvage in a fight between Tweek and Craig and then instigate the fight.

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Jackovasaurs 4 Stars – The kids peer an dilapidated urge of creatures. However, they are the most annoying creatures ever to exist. Cartman obtain “Authority”

Sexual Harassment Panda 4 Stars – A man in a panda suit comes to South Park to scream kids about sexual harassment after the town realizes there is a sexual harassment plight in the community.

Cat Orgy 5 Stars – This is portion one of an unofficial three parter. Ms. Cartman goes to a Meteor Shower Party at Mr. Mackey’s house. Cartman and Shelly fight with each other while she is baby-sitting him and Shelly’s twenty something year traditional boyfriend Skyler comes over.

Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub 5 Stars – This is allotment two of an unofficial three parter. Stan and Kyle’s dad raze up in a hot tub together naked and they do something in front of each other. Stan is stuck in Mr. Mackey’s basement with Butters, Pip, and Dougie during the Meteor Shower Party. The FBI/ATF thinks it’s a cult party and they try to rupture it up.

Jewbilee 5 Stars – This is piece three of an unofficial three parter. Kyle and Kenny go to a Jewish scout camp. This is the same night as the Meteor Shower.

What makes this an unofficial three section series is that all three episodes are on the night of the Meteor Shower, all four boys are in one of the three episodes and the FBI/ATF is seen speeding to Mr. Mackey’s house in all three episodes.

Chinpokomon 5 Stars – Some familiar looking Japanese toys brainwash every kid in America and convince the children to attack Pearl Harbor for Japanese honor.

Starvin Marvin in Station 5 Stars – The Boys succor Starvin Marvin when some missionaries invade his country. A Star Wars spoof

Korn’s Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery 4 Stars – The Band Korn befriend the boys solve a Halloween mystery in this hilarious Scooby-Doo spoof.

Hooked on Monkey Phonics 5 Stars – Two outlandish, sheltered home-school kids resolve to go to South Park Elementary.

The Red Badge of Gayness 5 Stars – Cartman decides to conquer America and change the outcome of the Civil War to gather a bet with Stan and Kyle.

Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics 5 Stars – a collection of South Park Christmas songs, hosted by none other than Mr. Hankey.

Are you there God? It’s Me, Jesus 5 Stars – Jesus is upset that no one cares about him anymore. Cartman thinks he is having a period because he’s bleeding out of his backside. He rubs it in to the other boys saying that he has hit puberty before them.

World Wide Recorder Concert 5 Stars – The boys reach up with an immoral view to accept revenge on some Unusual York kids who made fun of them. The understanding involves finding the brown tag, a ticket that when played execute you loose control of your BMs.

Not definite what if any Special Features will be included. I would fancy to spy Parker/Stone Commentaries on at least a few episodes.

This is one of the greatest seasons for south park. You could inspect these over and over, with out comercials!!!

Rainforest Shmainforest – The boys net sent to Costa Rica by Mr. Mackey to affirm in the kids choir “Getting Cheerful with Kids”. While there, the group gets lost in the jungle. Jennifer Aniston is hilarious as the choir teacher-8/10

Spontaneous Combustion – The mayor wants Stan’s dad to figure out why the citizens of South Park are spontaneously combusting. Also, Stan and Kyle tie Cartman to a gross so that he can be ressurected-9/10

The Succubus – The boys become petrified when chef falls in like with a curious woman and gets engaged to her. This is the first appearance of chef’s hilarious parents-10/10

Tweek vs. Craig – The boys bet on who would obtain in a fight between Tweek and Craig-9/10

Jackovasaurs – The kids gaze an weak rush of creatures. However, they are the most annoying creatures ever to exist-7/10

Sexual Harassment Panda – A man in a panda suit comes to south park to screech kids about sexual harassment-9/10

Cat Orgy – Cartman and Shelly fight with each other while she is baby-sitting him-10/10

Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub – Stan is stuck in Mr. Mackeys basement with Butters, Pip, and Dougie during a party-9/10

Jewbilee – Kyle and Kenny go to a Jewish scout meeting-7/10

Chinpokomon – some familiar looking Japanese toys brainwash every kid in America-9/10

Starvin Marvin in Region – The Boys befriend Starvin Marvin when some missionairies invade his country-9/10

Korn’s Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery – The Band Korn benefit the boys solve a Halloween mystery in this hilarious Scooby-Doo spoof-9/10

Hooked on Monkey Phonics – Two weird, sheltered home-school kids choose to go to South Park Elementary-10/10

The Red Badge of Gayness – Cartman decides to conquer America and change the outcome of the Civil War to procure a bet with Stan and Kyle-9/10

Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics – a collection of South Park Christmas songs-9/10

Are you there God? It’s Me, Jesus – Jesus is upset that no one cares about him anymore. Cartman thinks he is having a period-9/10

World Wide Recorder Concert – The boys advance up with a ridiculous opinion to salvage revenge on some Current York kids who made fun of them-10/10

All of these episodes are hilarious. You have to choose this.

Movie Title: A Perfect Candidate
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A fascinating documentary about Oliver North’s failed US Senate race that parallels the apex of political power held by the Religious Right in the US.

As a former Democratic campaign staffer and consultant myself, the documentary captures the trials and tribulations of any busy statewide campaign and should be shown to all political science majors seeking a career in politics. However, I recommend that you view this film more than once, because by the end of the film, it can be argued that the filmmakers put the Democratic candidate, a very wishy-washy Chuck Robb, in a poor light. The scene where he was running around a supermarket looking for a hand – any hand – to shake was as hilarious as it was pathetic. By the end of the film, I thought that Chuck Robb was a nice guy who was willing to say anything to get elected, and North was a creepy demagogue who pressed a lot of populist buttons out on the stump.

I also felt that the filmmakers successfully captured North’s ruthless and egocentric campaign manager as he struggled with the campaign and even some of the “big questions” of his life. He was the most fascinating character in the entire film, and I’m glad that the filmmakers paid so much attention to him. They had this leftie actually ** rooting ** for North’s campaign manager by the end of the film.

Although they also are wont to show North and some of the far-right characters who supported him on the campaign trail, the documentary-makers did a fine job of stripping the film of any ideological bias and freely savaging both characters. Again, a must-see for political junkies, and a worthy view for the rest of the viewing audience.

He once embodied one of the most flagrant abuses of power ever exercised by an out of touch president, but in 1994, Oliver North took to the campaign trail, in a bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Virginia. From beginning to end, North’s campaign seems to embody all the dark and hypocritical realities that American citizens suspect, but don’t generally believe, our elected officials embrace in running for office. North’s ruthlessness in plotting to use sexual rumors against his opponent, Senator Chuck Robb, contrasts sharply Robb’s naive but honest political hayseed public persona. North is willing to stoop and crow, which may sadden those who always saw him as the fall-guy in the Iran-Contra scandal. Taylor and Cutler juxtapose North’s Congressional testimony, admitting that he lied to Congress, to his “on the campaign trail” act, proselytizing to high school students about honesty. North comes off even worse than his right-wing counterparts, for while they enjoy abusing their naive opponent, they seem to know that their mean-spiritedness is a tactic, whereas North seems to enjoy the prospect of punishing Robb more than the idea of being elected.

North’s campaign advisors make just as interesting a spectacle as North himself. They are, without exception, hard-working, extremely successful people. They make their living by being the sort of people who get called to either back up, or respond to, threats, attacks, complaints, schemes, and calamities. Their bravado thickens the air of the chaos that bleeds through the entire documentary.

The most revealing moment of the entire documentary is when, upon writing North’s concession speech, his campaign advisor pauses in a rare moment of reflection and remarks that, while running for office is about building walls up between people, governing is about tearing them down and coming together. We soften towards him in the end, as his eyes well up upon hearing North deliver the speech, part of it being lifted from a poem inscribed on a coffee mug belonging to his grandmother.

Only upon reflection during the rare calm moments can the audience occasionally sense his disquiet. In high school civics I read that extremism in defense of liberty is no sin, but I now wonder if schmoozing, snarling, misleading, browbeating and back-scratching are.

A Perfect Candidate gives the audience a glimpse into the heart of American electoral politics.

Movie Title: Mars Attacks!
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Hollywood has made movies from books, TV shows, even other movies. However, “Mars Attacks” may be the first time a movie was made from a trading card.

Back in the late 1960s, Topps Cards created a line of Mars Attacks trading cards. However, these cards were pulled off the shelves after only a few months because the aliens depicted on them were considered to be too gruesome. My, how times have changed.

Director Tim Burton has taken those old trading cards and recreated them into this Sci-Fi B-movie throwback. In the process, he has created a movie that is pure, guiltless fun.

“Mars Attacks” also benefits from an all-star cast, including Jack Nicholson (in a dual-role), Michael J. Fox, Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan, Martin Short, Danny Devito, Glenn Close, Natalie Portman, Tom Jones, Annette Bening, Lukas Haas, Jim Brown, and many others. The fact that you get to watch the aliens disentegrate (and otherwise kill) many of these stars only adds to the fun. Unfortunately, Tom Jones wasn’t one of those unlucky stars. Maybe someday a sequel will be made that will rectify that.

Oh yeah…….. did I happen to mention that Congress gets vaporized? This proves that the Martians aren’t all bad!

The DVD comes with many extras, including quite a few production notes that helps you to understand how the movie came to be. This is one movie that you will want to see over and over again (especially anytime that Congress is getting on your nerves).

Tim Burton outdoes himself with this silly, but funny, spoof of 1950s flying saucer/alien invasion movies. It is absolutely zany and quite funny. There is also nothing politically correct about it, as there are no sacred cows. The film is totally irreverent of American culture and icons. Everything and everyone is fair game.

Martians have come to Earth, and they do not come in peace. Diabolical and deadly, they are bent on wreaking havoc wherever they go with their death ray guns, which serve to incinerate living beings. These bulbous headed martians with their own brand of deadly humour are hell bent on destroying Earth, while laughing and cackling maniacally.

The special effects are meant to to be reminiscent of those found in 1950s UFO flicks and in this it certainly succeeds. The cast is stellar with Jack Nicholson playing dual roles, that of President James Dale and that of entrepreneur Art Dale. Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Rod Steiger, Jim Brown, Natalie Portman, Sylvia Sydney, Paul Winfield, Pam Grier, Lisa Marie, Christine Applegate, Lukas Haas, and Tom Jones round out the star studded cast. With tongue in cheek performances, the viewer is bound to get a good laugh out of this film.

Movie Title: Smoke Signals
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I work as a psychotherapist with adolescents and young adults. I use “Smoke Signals” with them by assigning them to rent and view the movie, which is always enjoyable because it’s witty, humorous, wise, and significant. The movie poses two essential questions: 1) If someone else has mistreated, hurt, abandoned, or disrespected you, is it possible to forgive them if they’ve NEVER asked forgiveness, never done anything to “put it right,” never returned in atonement to undo the damage, and never begtun to deserve it? And 2) if it *is* possible–and it may not be–SHOULD you? Because if you do, doesn’t that just make you a willing victim by letting them “get away” with what they did, and pretending the relationship is okay again?

Victor lives in the tension of this dilemma. As a 12-year-old youth, he witnessed the effects of alcohol on his family. His father vascillated between being loving and instantly “turning” to become hostile, violent, and humiliating to the young boy. Victor finds himself becoming more deeply embarrassed by his family’s domestic abuse and alcohol use, even defiantly scolding his own father that his favorite Indian is “Nobody…nobody…nobody!”

Victor’s mother awakens the next morning to see Victor angrily smashing his father’s beer bottles on the back of his father’s picup truck (the two things he believes his father loves more than him), and the epiphany stuns the mother, who insists on an immediate end to family drunkenness. Proving Victor’s fears true, the father–forced to choose between alcohol and family–flees the family, and never returns. It is within that unchanged arrangement that his father dies, 8 years later, having never returned home.

Victor and his oddball companion Thomas make a side-splittingly funny journey south from Idaho to Phoenix together to make arrangements for the father’s possessions, confronted by the racism, peculiarities, and hostilities of the non-Indian “outside” world. Thomas, having never seen the dark side of Victor’s father, irritates Victor with incessant stories and tales about the dad’s greatness.

Victor, having been so deeply wounded and sold-out by his father’s abandonment, has become tough, fierce, aggressive…and lonely. “You can’t trust anyone!” he scolds. “People will walk all over you!” His mistrust poisons his friendships, family, and feelings about his father. He’s become just another tough guy, hardened by family violence and substance use.

In Phoenix, Victor finds an essential artifact of his father’s life: a worn-out photo with “HOME” written sloppily on it. At once, Victor begins to realize that his father’s fatal flaw was COWARDICE: the father could confess his sins to new companions a thousand miles from home, but could never return home and undo the damage he’d caused. And so his son has suffered for 8 years. Victor begins to realize that he himself is allowing his actions to damage others, and that it is cowardice, not manly independence, that controls his decision to remain distant and fierce.

Victor slowly begins to repent of his own abusive toughness, cutting his hair in symbolic repentance (traditional hair-cutting is done either in grief, or in repentence for shameful behavior). The process of discovery continues when Thomas angrily confronts Victor about Victor’s own behavior: remaining cold and distant from his own mother, acting forceful and ruthless to others, etc.

Victor ends the film by freeing himself of his 8-year hostility toward his unforgiven father, and in that final act of forgiveness we find that the greatest benefit is for VICTOR, who becomes kinder, funnier, gentler, and more confident in his friendships. The significance of forgiveness, he learns, isn’t to let someone else off the hook, but to let one’s own self off the hook of the pain caused by another, rather than carrying that pain inside for years.

In the final scene, this release of aged anger is represented by the cathartic release of his father’s ashes into a river, meaningfully shown in film montage as expanding in power from streams into torrents, much like the energy of either a person enraged or a person set free.

It is at the end of the film that we really begin to understand Thomas’ original cryptic remark at the beginning, “Some children aren’t really children at all. They’re just pillars of flame that burn everything they touch. And some children are just pillars of ash, and they fall apart as soon as you touch them.”

Not one single person yet who’s watched this film at my urging has disliked it.

“Smoke Signals” was the first movie to be written, directed, and co-produced by a Native American. It is based on the novel “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” by Sherman Alexie, who also published a movie adaptation of “Smoke Signals” as well.

The majority of the cast is from a variety of Canadian First Nations tribes (Coast Salish, Cree, Cayuga, Ojibwa), so there are different cultural backgrounds at work as well. “Smoke Signals” is a journey of the heart, an exploration of what it means to be Indian, venturing into the world outside the rez. Thomas’s stories are part Indian legend, part reweaving of the facts surrounding Victor and his father.

The story follows Victor Joseph as he goes to collect the remains of his father, who had abandoned his family and moved to Arizona (the film’s working title was “This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona,” based on a chapter of “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.” His wise friend Thomas Builds-the-Fire goes with him on a trip from their rez in Coeur-d’Alene, Idaho to Arnold Joseph’s trailer in Arizona. Along the way they rediscover their pasts and their perceptions of the world around them.

An unusual, touching film that pokes fun at the stoic Indian stereotypes endorsed by Hollywood for decades, such as the “It’s a good day to die” line. There are many notable First Nations actors (Adam Beach, Evan Adams, Tantoo Cardinal, Irene Bedard, Gary Farmer, Elaine Miles) that make this film a joy to watch. Inspired performances from all, especially Adam Beach and Gary Farmer. This is my favourite film of the last few years as it never loses its humour, mystical side, and beauty.

Movie Title: The Thing from Another World
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“The Thing From Another World” remains the best of the 1950’s black & white science fiction films, avoiding both the fake monsters of “Them,” its ideological counterpart, and the piety of “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” I still remember the first time I saw this movie and realized that here were characters who talked as fast as I did. I know Robert Altman and “M*A*S*H” get the credit for “inventing” over-lapping dialogue, but that seems a bit absurd to me after watching the conversation and group discussions throughout this film. I am teaching a Science Fiction literature class for the first time this semester and I wanted them to also watch an example of a classic 1950s science fiction film and this film was my immediate choice.

As John Carpenter reminded us in his 1982 “remake,” the 1951 version is not even remotely faithful to John W. Campbell, Jr.’s classic sci-fi short story, “Who Goes There?” Campbell wrote of a stranger visitor from another planet who could take on human appearance, so that the problem was that you never knew if the guy sitting next to you was your buddy or the monster. “The Thing” offers a monster from outer space, but with atmosphere, pacing and wit rarely seen on the silver screen. Charles Lederer gets screen credit for the script, but we know know both Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht had a hand in the writing as well (you can find Lederer’s original script on line to check out the differences for yourself), and it has been taken as gospel for years that Hawks had some hand in the direction as well (as did Orson Welles according to some). After all, this was Christian Nyby’s first screen credit as a director and he went on to direct mostly television series from “Gunsmoke” to “Kojak.” Whatever the background of the story, what is important is that this film manages to combine claustrophobia, xenophobia, paranoia and hypothermia into a first rate chiller.

The story is relatively simple. Something crashes in the arctic near a scientific station and Air Force Captain Patrick Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) and his crew fly on up to see what is going on. The station is run by Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), who may well be the haughitest scientist on the planet. Just to make things interesting Hendry has a relationship with the good Doctor’s secretarial assistant, Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan, technically the “star” of the film). The group heads out to the crash site, where they find something buried in the ice. In one of the most famous (not to mention inexpensive) special effects shots of all time, the group traces out the shape of the buried object and discover’it is round. When attempts to use thermite to thaw out the space ship only end up destroying it, the crew finds the “pilot” has been thrown clear and frozen in a block of ice, which they obligingly take back to the station and where an electric blanket used so the armed guard does not have to look at that thing in the ice serves as the deus ex machina for getting the creature out and about. Mayhem then ensues. Note: I remember people referring to the Thing (played by James Arness, who avoids monster makeup as the heroic FBI agent in another classic 50’s sci-fi film, “Them!”) as the “carrot monster” movie because the creature is more like a sentient vegetable than any animal.

Unlike “Them” where the military willingly listens to the nice elderly scientists to get the big bad giant ants, “The Thing” has a more complex socio-political sub-text. Dr. Carrington declares “Knowledge is more important than life” and pontificates about how “There are no enemies in science, only phenomena to be studied.” Offering a more objective point of view is Ned “Scotty” Scott (Douglas Spenser), a reporter who came along for the ride and stumbled onto the story of the century, who pointedly asks, “What can we learn from that thing except a quicker way to die?” Thus we have a conflict in the group between the scientists and the military men, although in the end it is Carrington alone who refuses to see the errors of his freethinking ways. But more importantly, Captain Hendry is not the true hero of the piece, and one of the great running gags of this film is that he is always trying to catch up with the plots of his crew, especially Bob (Dewey Martin) the crew chief, whether in regards to finding a way of dealing with the carrot monster or trying to get their captain to settle down with Nikki. Another great thing about this film is that the romantic subplot is one of the most unromantic subplots in movie history, having to do mostly with what may or may not have been said during a drinking engagement on a previous weekend.

This is one of those science fiction films where if you do not love it then you probably have not seen it, although you have probably seen people watching “The Thing” since it pops up in both “Halloween” and “Scream.” Not until “Alien” do we have such a superb combination of science fiction and horror, and I would still pick the simple elegance of this 50 year old film over the special effects of Ridley Scott’s film. Just compare two scenes from these films to prove by point: the chest-buster scene from “Alien” and the gieger-counter scene from “The Thing.” In 2001 “The Thing” was added to the National Film registry, which is a totally appropriate piece of timing. Finally, remember: “Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!”

THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD…the title conjures up lurid images from the countless ‘B’ SciFi flicks of the 50s, but as many SF, Howard Hawks, and Classic Cinema fans can attest, this is no sleazy schlockfest, but one of the most entertaining and exciting films ever made, by one of Hollywood’s greatest directors.

Yes, the credits list Christian Nyby as director, but Howard Hawks was on the set nearly every day, each scene has elements of style unique to Hawks, alone, and even the cast members, when interviewed, have said Hawks ran the entire show. Perhaps, as Science Fiction films were not highly regarded in the early 50s, he felt his reputation might suffer if he acknowledged his contribution; perhaps he thought it might help Nyby’s credentials if he were given credit for this masterfully crafted tale. Who knows? But rest assured…this IS a Howard Hawks film!

The story, based on John Campbell’s short story, ‘Who Goes There?’, is a nifty, claustrophobic tale of a group of soldiers and scientists in the Arctic, discovering a giant ‘flying saucer’ under the ice. When the ship blows up during the excavation, the ‘pilot’, a huge green chlorophyll-based humanoid (played by a young James Arness), is recovered, frozen in a block of ice. Bringing the ice-encased figure back to the base, it is then accidentally thawed out…and all Hell brakes loose!

While the cast lacks big-name stars, each actor is wonderful, delivering wryly funny Hawks’ dialogue at a breakneck pace. The military commander, Capt. Hendry (Kenneth Tobey), is a no-nonsense boss, respected and lovingly chided by his men, led by Dewey Martin, who constantly try to ’set him up’ with a pretty scientist he had ’struck out’ with, on a recent ‘leave’ (Margaret Sheridan). She is now at the base, assisting brilliant yet blissfully naive Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), who, naturally, assumes ‘the Thing’ is only homicidal because he is misunderstood! As the truly frightening potential of the creature reveals itself, it becomes a race against time to destroy it, before it kills everyone, leaves the base, and reproduces countless seedlings of itself to conquer the world!

The FX are low-budget, but very effective, as is the extensive use of light and shadow, sound effects, and an eerie Dimitri Tiomkin score. Unlike the benevolent ‘visitors’ of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, this alien doesn’t warn of total annihilation as the final option, should we carry our nuclear weapons into space; it’s ONLY agenda is to KILL!

This is a truly amazing film, one that has aged little, and is every bit as enjoyable today as when it was released.

As the tag line to the film warns us, “Look to the sky…”

Movie Title: Dragon Tales – Let’s Share! Let’s Play!
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This is gargantuan. I only wish that it would continue to play all 5 episodes. Unlike the 1st dragontales DVD, after an episode plays, it goes aid to the menu instead of playing all 5 continuously.

My kids appreciate this DVD, the only complaint I have is that the 5 different stories don’t play continuously, we have to play each one separately

Movie Title: Ball of Fire
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I never had the opportunity to see this classic film, neither on tv, nor on vhs format….Having watched so many times Capra’s “Meet John Doe”, also starring Cooper and Stanwyck, which I worship….I had always wanted to peep this second and last pairing of this incredible shroud couple. When I bought my dvd player, three years ago, this one was of the first movies I wanted to rob….but when I tried to, the dvd edition was already out of stock or out of print….and sadly for us, this HBO 1998 dvd edition, is being sold at very high prices at Internet Stores. So… I had lost all hopes when I had the luck of finding it at a very convenient stamp in an unknown shrimp store in Raleigh, North Carolina, while on vacation there. This fabulous, classic comedy…deserved the long wait….’cos Stanwyck is really extraordinary as cabaret stripper and singer Sugarpuss O’Shea, at first using Gary Cooper for her have selfish purposes, but in the process (not unexpectedly), falling for his naive, clumsy Professor Potts (”Pottsy” for her) . Buy,Download, Or Stream Ball of Fire! Click HereBy the device, professor Potts works on an encyclopedia project with seven fellow experts, on different areas of knowledge, all of them bachelors or widowers, living by themselves in a substantial house…with the only female presence of the elderly housekeeper, Miss Bragg (played by Kathleen Howard), who doesn’t live there (she wouldn’t dare to!!) . While researching more information on fresh slang (for their encyclopedia project), Cooper meets Stanwyck at a nightclub, where she sings with legendary Gene Krupa! (nothing less!!) immediately trying to persuade her to meet him at his home (with other fellow “users” of slang: the garbage man, the newspaper boy et al), in order to try accumulate all of the existing slang words into the encyclopedia. His seven fellow -much older than Cooper- co-workers and professors, are sort of like the seven dwarfs kind of characters, trying to play matchmaker between sexy-woman-of-the world Sugarpuss O’Shea and reluctant, prudish Professor Bertram Potts. Some of them are played by the best of character actors: Richard Haydn (his debut on cloak), S.Z. Sakall, Henry Travers, Oscar Homolka, Tully Marshal, et al.

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Also, much performances by Dana Andrews (as Stanwyck’s underworld boyfriend) and Dan Duryea, as one of his “boys”.

Hilarious scenes, very comical moments and witty dialogue, thanks to a gigantic script by the Charles Brackett-Billy Wilder team, and Howard Hawks’ deft direction.

The dvd edition is first-rate, stunning crisp and bewitching…featuring the fresh mono audio and a remastered-stereophonic one.

1941 was an well-behaved year for both actors, besides this one and “Meet John Doe”, Stanwyck starred in the very, very droll Preston Sturges’ movie “The Lady Eve”, with Henry Fonda, and Cooper starred in Hawks’ “Sergeant York”, and Oscar winning role.

This one was remade in 1948 by Hawks, as “A Song is Born” with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo, a amusing movie, but not up to the novel.

This retelling of the SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS was actually based on a script that Billy Wilder wrote before immigrating to the United States from Germany, but it was only after the success of the Disney version that a question was created for it. The enormously versatile Howard Hawks (quite literally the most versatile director in film history, the only director to have mastered and/or created five or six genres) took the script and turned it into one of the last huge pre-WW II comedies. The chronicle is simple: a group of monkish scholars living together in Unique York City are writing an encyclopedia. One of them is writing about slang, but being queer with contemporary argot begins research his topic by talking to people outside his normal range of acquaintance. He runs into gangster moll Sugarpuss O’Shea, who takes advantage of the scholars to proceed in with them in order to elope the police, who want to talk to her to implicate her guy Joe Lilac. While hardly Snow White, she certainly managed to bolt up their lives.

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The film is made extraordinary by a number of things: Wilder’s clever script, Hawks typically deft direction, a solid performance by Gary Cooper, but most of all by a scintillating job by the overwhelmingly alluring Barbara Stanwyck and a stellar collection of old character actors playing the seven dwarves. All the latter are gargantuan, but special mention has to be made of Richard Haydn (who excells even beside the others, with his fantastic overpronounciation of everyday words), Oskar Homolka, and S.Z. Sakall. There are few more scrumptious collections of character actors in any Hollywood comedy. I personally seize Barbara Stanwyck to any other actress in Hollywood history. She possessed an emotional immediacy that no other actress could approximate, and while her skills were perhaps a tad below those of someone like Katherine Hepburn, the latter never managed to match her fire and passion. And she is so sexy! I grew up watching Stanwyck on THE Stout VALLEY, so when I first started seeing her tall roles from the thirties, forties, and fifties, I was absolutely stupefied at how sexy she could be. She was pleasing, yes, but sexier than she was resplendent. And she was never sexier than she was here, with the exception of her role the same year in THE LADY EVE.

Another reason to peruse this film is the appearance of Gene Krupa in the early nightclub sequence. Krupa had, of course, been with Benny Goodman throughout the thirties, so this was very early in his career as leader of his occupy band.

Movie Title: The Cutting Edge – The Magic of Movie Editing
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I’m a filmmaker, university film instructor, and author/writer of film topics. I was enraged to hear about this DVD because, to quote it’s beget blurb “this moving program lets you in on the secrets…” of film editing I had presumed. I expected an educational presentation that would dissect the cuts and the tricks, and expose the development of a scene from the multiple takes and camera angles, and how an editor selects, massages, and makes it reach together visually and aurally. There is a itsy-bitsy of that… maybe 10%. The rest of it is talking heads about the “secrets” and the pontificating by directors and editors about how fabulous they both are. Ample Anxiety! Set me the self-aggrandizement. I assume you’ve heard the adage: “Don’t utter me, prove me.” There is far too worthy talking head about what is done, but there are no examples of scenes “in process” but only the final crop. The examples are only referential. Very disappointing. And Tarantino’s gushing and hugging his editor has nothing to do with how editing works. This is a blatant ACE promotional section masking as a documentary. Especially disappointing was the Sharon Stone crotch shots from Basic Instinct that destroys the DVD for high schools and makes it injurious for most other audiences. Even the director admits that the inclusion of these shots was NOT at the editor’s discretion, but was his intent all along, no doubt to regain at the audience’s “basic instincts.” The shots have everything to do with the yarn… but limited to do with a secret of editing… more to do with the secrets and tricks of marketing. I had hoped to exercise this in my classes, but I cannot. I am returning the two I ordered. Can’t utilize ‘em.

if you are involved in the art of film. Heed that this is the same documentary that was included as an extra in the original DVD of Steve McQueen’s “Bullitt” so if you already have that DVD, you don’t need this. Of course, if you want to expend a few extra bucks, you can secure this some documentary and a kick butt Steve McQueen movie to go with it.

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Un defraudador (Emilio Fernandez) usurpa la personalidad del CHARRO NEGRO para asaltar a quienes les ha comprado una propiedad horas antes y asi recuperar su inversion de inmediato. Pese a la extraneza de todos los lugarenos y de las autoridades, se le pone precio a la cabeza del charro justiciero, por lo qu el verdadero CHARRO NEGRO (Raul De Anda) tendra qu encontrar al defraudador y desenmascararlo para poder limpiar su nombre. In Spanish No Subtitles A swindler (Emilio Fernandez) disguises himself as the CHARRO NEGRO (Black Cowboy) and holds up those to whom he has earlier sold property, getting his money back. A bounty is established for the capture of the assumed holdup man, so the real CHARRO NEGRO (Raul de Anda) must find the swindler, unmask him and bring him to justice In Spanish No Subtitles

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El Charro Negro was amicable! You have to notice this movie! A cool performance by Pedro Armendariz & Luis G. Barreiro make El Charro Negro a “must pick up” movie!

The surprising cast includes Pedro Armendariz, Luis G. Barreiro, Carolina Barret, Alfonso Bedoya, Manul Bundia. This cast just make El Charro Negro the more startling!

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At his best, director John Woo turns action movies into ballets of blood and bullets grounded in character drama. Face/Off marks Woo’s first American film to reach the pitched level of his best Hong Kong work (Hard-Boiled). He takes a patently absurd premise–hero and villain exchange identities by literally swapping faces in science-fiction plastic surgery–and creates a double-barreled revenge film driven by the split psyches of its newly redefined characters. FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) must play the villain to move through the underworld while psychotic terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) becomes a perversely paternal family man while using every tool at his disposal to destroy his nemesis. Travolta vamps Cage’s tics and flamboyant excess with the grace of a dancer after his transformation from cop to criminal, while Cage plays the sullen, bottled-up agent excruciatingly trapped behind the face of the man who killed his son. His attempts to live up to the terrorist’s reputation become cathartic explosions of violence that both thrill and terrify him. This is merely icing on the cake for action fans, the dramatic backbone for some of the most visceral action thrills ever. Woo fills the screen with one show-stopping set piece after another, bringing a poetic grace to the action freakout with sweeping camerawork and sophisticated editing. This marriage of melodrama and mayhem ups the ante from cops-and-robbers cliches to a conflict of near-mythic levels. –Sean Axmaker

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Face/Off was harmonious! You have to know this movie! A astounding performance by John Travolta & Nicolas Cage make Face/Off a “should take note” movie!

The mind-boggling cast includes John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Alessandro Nivola, Gina Gershon. This cast just make Face/Off the more wonderful!

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