Gattaca

How do you hide when you're running from yourself?
Gattaca (1997) is a beautiful movie that takes place in the not-so-distant future where genetic manipulation prior to birth brings out the best qualities of the parents while eliminating the worst, specifically, predispositions to diseases, additions, poor eyesight, etc. That is, if your parents choose to do so...

The film tells the a story about Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke), a man born naturally, a 'God-child', one who didn't benefit from advanced technology during his development within the womb, and subsequently has various conditions many are familiar with like poor eyesight, heart problems, etc. Vincent has his sights set on the stars, wanting to travel to distant planets, visit far away places (I mean really far away) but due to advanced science, he has no chance as people can now determine the status of your health, your future health, by any number of ways, a strand of hair, a bit of spittle on a cup, a flake of skin, and while biases due to genetic profiling are illegal,...

Slight improvement over previous editions
I have two topics to mention: The "special features" and the "image quality".

It is worth noting that I own the both the original Gattaca DVD and Super-Bit version for comparison.

1) Special Features:
While maintaining the original DVD's ugly menu system, this edition contains a 22 featurette on the making of Gattaca with interviews of Ethan Hawke, Jude Law, and a number of the production crew. I enjoyed this addition. There is also a new clip on gene manipulation (history, current, and future) which was somewhat interesting.

2) Image Quality:
The original DVD was only a single layer 4.5gb disk, which resulted in a grainy image with a slightly blue tint. The Super-Bit disk was disappointingly mastered, with visible dust and hair in the copy. The Super-Bit version took on a more natural tone but suffered from over-saturated browns and greens.

Finally, this reproduction seems to have a good balance between color and image...

A Triumph of the Human Spirit
"Gattaca" is an incredible example of a science-fiction movie entirely based on plot, low-key twists and development, and not on special effects. Married couple Hawke and Thurman, along with Jude Law, and the direction of Andrew Nicol prove that there is no gene for the human spirit.

Vincent (Hawke) is an invalid, a "degenerate" born of natural conception without any advanced genetic engineering. Several seconds after he is born, his parents know how Vincent will die, and his life expectancy. As he grows, his heart dysfunction limits his career choices. As a result, his parents have another child, this time genetically engineered to be totally superior. The feuding siblings prove themselves over a game of swimming chicken, but it is inevitable as Anton grows more faster than Vincent that the younger child will be the favored. As a result, Vincent leaves the home and begins a job as a janitor at the Gattaca Aerospace Center, the closest he can be to his dream: the stars. But he finds...

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Combat!: The Complete Fourth Season

A Great Series!
Only problem is the dvd # doesn't always match what appears on the DVD Menu. I enjoy seeing Kirby, Littlejohn, Doc, and Caje.

How can you not like this show?
Brings back great memories of watching this as a kid. Loved the characters and the drama. The characters drive this series. We all know the war was hard on men. This series gave us an appreciation of what that generation went through.

Excellant show
This show kept getting better each season. It is packaged in a box which holds each disc well, with good protection. Good purchase!

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Omega Doom

A lot of movies used this plot. This one is for sci-fi ppl.
The idea for this "lone warrior enters town with two rival gangs and plays upon them both", was started by Akira Kirowsawa with his film "Yojimbo". "Fistfull of dollars","Last Man Standing" and lastly "Omega Doom" all reiterate the plot because it's a mythos with some power. For one thing it moves away from the notion of a simplistic "good v.s. evil" conflict and presents us instead with the relative dyanmics of beings with different agendas struggling with one another. One could complain that they use such an oft repeated plot in "Omega Doom" but if you look at the majority of what comes out of HollyWood...a mere 4 versions of one storyline makes it pretty fresh! [: I would recommend seeing Yojimbo before seeing any of the remakes, BUT as remakes go I like Omega Doom best.The plot is a bit THIN in comparison to the others. It's not as involved or as direct to the plot. BUT the movie makes an...

Call me Mr Weird but I liked it...
I think some of this film's reviewers are so 'blown away' by films with excesive CGI, big budgets - and even bigger names - that they either won't, or cant, see the good in lesser offerings. This film makes so many sly references to other films that part of the fun is spotting them.

Take the opening where we see a foot coming down on a pile of human bones and skulls. Terminator, right? Then there's all the other stuff that people have picked up on by Sergio Leonne but why has no one mentioned Clint Eastwood and Pale Rider? The scene at the end where Hauer's character just disappears into the sunset? I mean, come on... Oh yeah, and the penultimate fight scene between the Bauhaus look-a-like droid and Hauer is straight out of The Matrix PLUS the Talking Head was like a character out of the Wizard of Oz.

To me this film had humour,atmosphere and subtlety and a cracking performance from Rutger Hauer as the thinking man's - or woman's - Schwarzenneger. I feel...

Not Supposed to be Van Damme
Nah, I don't think it's a horrible movie. Sure it lacks a lot of action that movies of the period had, but I never thought of this as an action movie anyway. It seemed to me to be more like a comic book/graphic novel meets 70's samurai movie meets spaghetti western. Despite the obvious overarching situation (apocalypse, possibility of humans returning, obvious society gone to hell), it pretty much all but ignores that and focuses on the problem at hand: ridding the robot town of the "bad guys." It ends with a sense that Omega Doom has really done nothing more than put a band-aid on the whole situation, but his actions are more along the lines of self-preservation than anything else. He just showed up for a drink and gets sucked into a fight. That's how pretty much any of the same genre starts. Someone comes along, wanting to be left alone, but some dumb schmuck picks a fight and then our hero has to teach them a lesson. Nothing is resolved, the world is still as crummy as it ever was,...

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Arlington Road

CAUTION! This is a cautionary tale, not a "feel-good" movie
This one kept me riveted throughout; I swear I didn't exhale until the last five minutes. No, I didn't see the ending coming, but it makes absolute sense given the ficton created therein (Roger Ebert is full of PRUNES when he says that it "flies apart in the last 30 minutes;" it not only works, it's the only way the film CAN end and maintain its integrity). The performances are spot-on (including Joan Cusack; hello? The woman is allowed to do something other than "zany" roles-- especially when she does so damned well with a role like this one), the plot is complex and yes, far-fetched, but pulls you in and keeps you in a stranglehold. But as I titled my review, do NOT watch this movie if you have to see good conquer evil/hope springs eternal etc.-- you WON'T LIKE IT. It is good drama, an excellent thriller, and while the nods to Ruby Ridge (NOT Waco,as has been suggested) and Oklahoma City made it timely when it was released, the events of 9-11-01 make it even more...

Ace of all thrillers!
This movie single handedly made me a huge Jeff Bridges fan. I have always loved the quirky Tim Robbins movies, so this was a double pleasure!

This is a suspencful, yet not pure eye candy thriller. There are a lot of reali life comaprisons to resistance groups spread all over the US ready to overthrow and show their disconent for the government while they end up punishing innocent people.

Bridges plays a College professor, who teaches a class on Terrorism, and little does he know that his own life is starting to follow the down spiral of the very bad things he teaches.

He becomes fast firends with the neighbours across the street as he saves their son one day. As he is enjoying the new friendship weird things keep occuring. There are suspicious things that they dont want him to see in the house, and when he tries to do his own spying to see what is going on, he finds out more than he can handle.

THis movie is really easy to spoil so I wont...

The scariest movie ever made in broad daylight
Noon. A suburb of Washington, DC, a street dotted with houses just a shade too small to be McMansions. No one is around.

Wait --- here comes someone. A boy. White, of course. About 9 years old. Dressed in jeans and high-top sneakers. Walking unsteadily in the middle of the street. Lurching, really.

And now we see why: blood dots his sneakers, makes a trail on the pavement.

Luckily, a resident comes along --- Michael Faraday (yes, he has the same name as the great scientist who experimented with electricity and magnetism). He scoops the boy up, rushes him to the hospital. Eventually, the boy's parents show up, grateful beyond measure that the rocket their son set off wasn't more powerful --- and that they have such a good neighbor.

And now we see the opening credits: distorted photos of suburban life. They look anything but peaceful. Clever movie lovers will recall shots like this in David Lynch's "Blue Velvet." Clearly, something evil...

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