Love the way so much time is spent in building this idyllic, obviously down-in-the-dumps Hometown USA version of the town in It's a Wonderful Life only to fill it with wicked, murderous little monsters who giggle fiendishly while wreaking mass havoc. Great deal is serviceable - and at this point, you need that nostalgic edge to remind you why you liked it when you were a kid - but it's still a darn impressive little world Dante is able to concoct.

Has that awesome feel of 30's screwball, but seems to escort the idea of drama, almost putting a terrifically wacky sense of humor out of business.

At the risk of sounding obnoxious (I always do), I'd like to counter the claim made that Emily Watson's attraction to Adam Sandler was "inexplicable". Hello! Song playing over whole movie! "He needs me, he needs me, he needs me, he needs MEEEEEE!" Not there by accident!

The story itself is actually kind of endearing (a boy's circus may be lost, leaving him no money to marry the horse trainer) - but, then, so are the songs. The Marx Brros. cooked up a  lively story to tack their jokes onto - and some of the gags are some of the best: Harpo and Zeppo trying to find the money in a sleeping Strongman's mattress certainly tops the list (though Groucho trying to get on the train and Groucho trying to get a cigar from a midget would certainly qualify). Easily one of the best of its kind.

Why are these movies where people disappear so darned sadistic? (Claude Rains performance wasn't all it was cracked up to be and most of the supporting cast belonged in a musical comedy being filmed somewhere else on the lot, speaking of which, the sets are charming, sort of Old British set-ish (for complete lack of a better term); It's a film that's melodramatics sort of over-rule its genre hook - which is unfortunate but, certainly common of James Whale's - if not everybody's - monster films.)

Didn't we diss this one already back in the eighties? Deja vu!

Often kind of bizarre, this; as in we don't see identicals of this comedy in any other comedian film star slash director's work (it's the off-the-wall stuff Buster managed to brain storm and create around). But whimsical, and certainly stunning, are Chaplin's performance in front of the camera and, indeed, those marvelous facial muscles, which are endlessly inventive - but keep him uncannily (and winningly) sweet-hearted, which is perhaps the only quality he was able to hold over Buster - who often became so enraged and enflamed as to be mean-spirited (but not in the mean spirited-mean spirited way W.C. Fields was); I digress - The Little Tramp is borderline lovable - something that can hardly be said of most of today's big comedy stars. His work as a director was attuned mostly to rhythm - something the score (written to accompany the film, which is silent) helps to accentuate. Check out the boxing scene: Even silent, Chaplin's movements were all about grace - that perfect accompaniment to his personality as a Brit. Few note that he is certainly the father of British television humor - the kind of dryness that we Americans have been nuts about for years.

Matter of fact, is the way we'd describe Shipwrecked, which - though it occasionally overblows itself with melo - is a slammin' piece of adventure and high drama.

So, then, how does she become a chicken?

Jackie Cooper is faggy, and Wallace Beery is not exactly earth-shattering as Long John Silver - but I've always felt that the story of Long John Silver and Jim probably should have been a bit more rough and brutal; Like an abusive family. More to come..

Made more conscious notice of the Alice in Wonderland vibe plugging along throughout. There's also a great deal of value in Miyazaki's subtext - that of accepting changes and seeing that, as is the nature of existence, we are called upon to perform our duties and cast stubbornness behind in return for a warm, fuzzy humbleness. That we do come from merely dismissing Sen as annoying to genuinely losing ourselves in her plight suggests, very strongly, that Miyazaki will be remembered in the annals of cinema history as one of the great storytellers - animated or otherwise. How can corporate-whoremongering continue to plague animation (read: how can films like Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas continue to be made and be expected to be profitable - hand-drawn or computer-enhanced out of the question - when animated films of Spirited Away's caliber are being made just overseas?).

The self-referencing gags are fun as cracks and glances, but the enactment of the screenwriter's (William Holden) folly is so flat, you'll stare in amazement as it steadily dilutes what's left of the sweet-pea love story between the aforementioned man - and a gorgeous, wispy Audrey Hepburn.

Here's your chance to see Egoyan get downright goopy; Or, if that's sounds as unsettling to you as it does to me, please sit back and make nice use of a terrifying historical context (the 1915 Armenian genocide) as it is given the royal - and typically stunning - time shift technique. The film is obviously a personal exorcism-of-sorts for Egoyan - and a darn admirable one, I dare say - bbut really, is making a point about obscuring reality through the medium of film-as-a-product the kind of commentary to mix into a narrative about a young idealist's own experience while he comes to terms with this insanely overlooked tragic event? The bad ideas are sometimes more laughable (the big, Turkish-stereotype hat on Elias Koteas and giving him a one word direction [Atom (to Elias): "Overact, damn you!"]) than they are just head-scratching (Christopher Plummer's stretch of a redemption as he stepps out of his customs-official-as-student-of-the-human-condition role). And where did they find the actor who plays Raffi? (He's just bad). Hard though, for me not to be forgiving when a near failure from a stellar filmmaker like Egoyan is, at the very least, more stimulating than most director's successes.

Spielberg clearly didn't take great pains in disguising his plunder of this film for material that he would later call Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The whole thing teeters when it tries to milk Grant for funnies, but as an adventure film it's so wholly and wildly successful on so many surprise levels, you can almost feel the pulse of an unsuspecting audience of the period, unfamiliar with a film like this, and locked into the throes of experiencing total immersion. Why the film busied itself to take interest in the title character all at once in the third act is beyond me. I barely noticed his existence until his, uh...

How about a long article about the largely unseen depth in Gary Busey's veteran undercover agent Angelo Pappas? (Or, how 'bout not.)

The single most gratifying, electrifying and splendid film stunt I've ever seen (One, single, unbroken, 96-minute shot posing as a film). For those of you mourning Stanley Kubrick, take note: Sukoruv's film adminsters a potent camera trance not felt since the master passed on in 1999.