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New Reviews, for the week of March 3/2003

About a Boy --It’s pretty rare when I actually bother to see a relatively recent film, but, sometimes, I actually do get my head out of the sand and see something new for once. About a Boy was a movie I saw a few weeks ago, and it was quite good.
Hugh Grant plays a thirty-something bachelor who has the sort of life that many of us might believe would..... (More)

Good Times: The First Season -- During the past week, I’ve been watching the first season of the sitcom Good Times, on DVD. Good Times was one of many comedies that Norman Lear had a hand in creating after the amazing success of All in the Family, which forever changed the sitcom format from safe, innocent, and tasteful into something that was shocking, loud, abrasive, outrageous, and, at least during the 70’s, controversial. AITF itself spun off many..... (More)

Boycott -- Boycott is an HBO film from a few years ago that tells us a very important story, and an important history lesson. For someone like me, it fills in the blanks of my mind (and possibly many others), filling them with a little more context about situations that occured long before many of us were born, but still influence ... (More)

Grease -- The musical genre was in the basement during the seventies, eighties, and nineties, until the apparent renaissance of such films like Moulin Rouge and Chicago. Back in the good old days, all sorts of musicals were hits, and award-winners, and even in the 1960’s, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, and Oliver! were huge Oscar winners. But these movies turned out to be the last gasp of a popular genre -- (More)

8 1/2 -- Sometimes those classic foreign films can be rather difficult to understand or to flow with. Naturally, this could be because the international films from decades past were much different and radical compared to the classics from Hollywood. While Hollywood, then as now, had to make movies that could satisfy a relatively large audience, Europe, and other continents, had to distinguish themselves from that little town ... (More)

Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears -- I’ve not seen too many Russian films in my day, although from what I’ve heard about a number of the more famous ones, they are generally regarded to be obscure and often lengthy affairs. The Russian film version of War and Peace is apparently eight or nine hours long. Films like Solaris and Andrei Rublev are very slow, arty, and long. (I’ve never seen any of these films, although the idea that they are slow, arty, and long..... (More)

Partners Forever -- Partners Forever is an adult film starring Temptress, Alexa, Randy Spears, and a few other notables of the adult industry. The film is, well, quite ridiculous, but considering that it’s an adult picture, it at least manages to try something other than the same old bump and grind, even if those something-other-than elements seem suspiciously derivative. (More)

Nashville -- I always hate it when a film, that is regarded as a classic by many, bugs me, for whatever reason. I feel that I’m missing something, or that I am completely clueless -- or perhaps I’m just smarter than everybody else! Well, probably not......
The “classic” in question is Nashville, one of Robert Altman’s numerous films from the 1970’s that was... (More)

To Sir With Love --Normally, I do not review very many classic Hollywood films on Epinions, as I usually submit my classic reviews to my site on Suite101.com. However, I needed something to write about here at Epinions, and since I’ve already had enough classic reviews to last me until March at the other site, I figured, well, why not? This time around, I decided to review To Sir, With Love, a film from 1966, which stars Sidney Poitier in .... (More)

Imitation of Life --Imitation of Life is one of Douglas Sirk’s melodramatic soap operas from the 1950’s, and is certainly worthwhile for anyone who wants to see rich people, lurid situations, and high emotions. It has been said by some critics that Sirk’s movies are the prototype for all the nighttime soaps that followed a few decades later, like “Dallas” and “Dynasty”, and I can see their point, although I’ve not been lucky enough to see ... (More)

Wedding In White -- Wedding in White is a Canadian film from about 1972, and, despite its title, is not a walk in the park, unless your walk takes place at midnight, with muggers and perverts hiding in the bushes. The film stars Carol Kane and Donald Pleasence in a creepy, dark tale about a family, from the Maritime provinces, during World War II. The film itself is not about war, but considering the situations that these characters find ...... (More)

Three Daughters--A few weeks ago, you’ve more than likely read my review of the XXX film Appassionata, and probably thought to yourself how crazy this man was for actually trying to write a serious essay about something that is virtually impossible to look out without either smirking or recoiling in horror. Well, I can do one better than that, because now for your amusement is yet another review... of a XXX film..... (More)

Best Kept Secrets -- Months ago, I referred to all those cheap videos I purchased at the pawn shop. However, in my infinite tardiness, I’ve still not viewed all of them yet. Last night, I tried to rectify this scenario somewhat, when I watched the three-dollar video, Best Kept Secrets. This film is an old ABC made-for-tv movie from the early 1980’s, and stars Patty Duke Astin, Frederic Forrest, Howard Hesseman, and Peter Coyote. It is far from a .... (More)

My Ten Best Films (sort of) - "Last night, I was checking out the Epinions site, and went through some of these Top Ten Best Films of All Time write-ups. I always enjoy these things, just because I like lists, and think it’s funny to see what individual people put on those lists. Of course, you get a mixture of lists which include classics, and those....." (more)

I decided that I'd go out on a limb and put links to my short stories here as well........

Beware, adult content and other matters exist on the vast majority of these things.

Also, the links to the next parts of these stories will be on the bottom of the page.... copy and paste the link, as Epinions does not allow me to put html on the review pages.....

~ Love and Other Nightmares ~

“Ha! Listen to this, Anna!”
April let out her high-pitched, hyperactive laugh, directed to her roommate, who at this moment was above the kitchen sink, vigorously attempting to remove the grease from the frying pan, which had seen better days.
“What a people those Americans are!”, April continued, her eyes browsing the text inside her newspaper. “It says here, that apparently a bunch of fat people are suing a number of the fast food chains. They’re being blamed for making them fat!”
Anna dipped the frying pan into the sink water. “Oh my god!”, she smiled. “The CEO of McDonalds got his....... (more)

~ The Video Store Girl ~

The store was not particularly stylish, at least compared to the other video rental chains in town, but it had a charm of it's own.
This specific store was called Video Choice, a simple name, really, for a local store, established by someone from the area. One thing this establishment offered that the other stores couldn't was selection; while the other locales were merely distribution points from some head office thousands of kilometers away, Video Choice was truly representative of the local tastes of the community. Or at least it was truly representative of the tastes of the owner.
This was a Monday afternoon, and Pamela did one of her many typical duties as employee; she placed....... (more)

~ Untitled ~

5 pm, before suppertime. The crowded main street was clogged with cars, their drivers anticipating the rest of the evening away from their soul-scarring employments. Being a small town, Charlottetown was not known for being able to handle a myriad amount of vehicles, so even this main street was a narrow, two-lane road. This despite the fact that hundreds, if not thousands of cars, used this stretch of pavement each day......
The child was facing the path of oncoming vehicles. He was only feet away from certain disaster. Yet in his mind, things were normal.
He was only three years old. He was pedaling with ease on his tricycle, and pain was for him limited to...... (more)