Faithful to the book by Umberto Eco, this film is a lot of fun -- dark labyrinthine passages and strange characters populate this isolated setting. Sean Connery is terrific as the visiting cleric, and a very young Christian Slater plays his companion. I wasn't sure a film could do justice to the remarkable denoument of the book, but everything here is great, and makes you appreciate the Middle Ages in a less-than-romantic way.

If you like mysteries, this is a good one. If you like history come alive, you will enjoy this.

I normally watch television in spurts. I sit down when I have time, turn it on, and watch whatever is on. I have Never found a show that got me so addicted that I would actually HAVE to plan my week AROUND watching the new episodes. That is until Smallville!

After having watched almost the entire Season 1 (but having missed a few episodes), I am dieing for the DVD release of Smallville. The series is amazing, showing the early life of Clark Kent and his adolescent adventures as he makes his way to becoming superman. I especially love the romance (or lack of romance :) between him and Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk). I think she is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.

If you haven't watched smallville, you definately need to! I can sit here babbling on about how great it is for hours, but if you REALLY want to fully enjoy smallville, wait for this DVD release so you can start from the beginning! Everything makes a whole lot more sense that way.

The funny thing is I didn't know that it was filmed in my home city Vancouver until after getting addicted to it. That just made me want to watch it even more!

First off, Six Feet Under's first season was stunning, mind blowing, a dazzling piece of eye candy that will no doubt go down in TV history. Alan Ball, the show's creater is a true genuis in all shapes and forms.If for some bizzare reason you don't no about the show heres a brief summary: The show is about a family who make a living as funreal directors. They are the fisher family and live a very interesting life. Each epiosed deals with and people close to them confroting lifes daily issues in very unique and fasinating ways.*For more indepth summry see any reviews for the first season.

Now, here is the second season of Six Feet Under which is in many ways a more darker season then the first and so far the third. I think what made it the best season/show was becuse of the darker subject matter being so well blended with humorous or more light weighted things. It's still very touching, off beat, warm and funny but a few disturbing death's mixed with the character of Brenda, who goes sexual out of control keeps the viewer on teh edge of their seat. In my opinion, Brenda's sexual adventures with starngers was one of the height lights of the show. They were done in a profound and memorobal fasion that was dark but did not turn the viwver off. Brenda is by far the show's most complex and intriging charachter and in this season you really explore what she is feeling and going through. The characters all explore new meanings, problems and love. Claire gets ready for college, Ruth attends a inspiring group known as the plan, David and Keith get back together, Nate deals with his AVM, and as I mentioned Brenda begins having sex with strangers. Its very dark, very fuuny, very sad, very happy, very interesting and its one of the best things ever created- aside from the gloureous and memorizing American Beauty- this season is a must have for anyone. The sooner its released the better. When you buy this DVD you will not regreat it. The DVD will transport you to the haunting realm of Six Feet Under, a place you'll never forget!

Directed by double Academy Award winner Clint Eastwood (Best Director and Best Picture, "Unforgiven" (1992)) from a screenplay by Brian Helgeland ("L.A. Confidential"), based on a bestseller by ace mystery writer Dennis Lehane, and starring such respected, actorly heavyweights as Sean Penn ("I Am Sam"), Tim Robbins ("Mission to Mars"), Kevin Bacon ("Flatliners"), Laurence Fishburne (The "Matrix" films), Marcia Gay Harden ("Meet Joe Black"), and Laura Linney ("The Mothman Prophecies"), "Mystic River" has as unimpeachable a pedigree as any American studio film in history. And though it may not quite be the masterpiece that the early buzz suggests, it certainly makes the most of the tremendous talents at its disposal. A mournful meditation on revenge and guilt, "Mystic River" is perhaps Eastwood's most mature and moving examination yet of what has always been his great subject: the peculiarly American juxtaposition of vigilante violence and official justice.

The film flows from two linked moments of violence, which, in turn, beget other violence -- one moment that pulls three childhood friends apart and another, 30 years later, that brings them back together. "Mystic River" opens in the '70s (the period established by a transistor radio broadcasting a Red Sox game with Luis Tirant on the mound), in a working-class neighborhood, as three boys play street hockey. There's Dave, who seems a little slow, Jimmy, a reckless kid who wants to steal a neighborhood car for joyriding, and Sean, a cautious kid who frowns on Jimmy's plan. Finding a slab of sidewalk where the concrete is still wet, the boys begin writing their names only to be confronted by two older men posing as cops, who take Dave away in the back of their car, where he is kept for several days and sexually abused before escaping. Flashing forward to the same neighborhood decades later, Dave (Robbins) is an introverted husband and father who doesn't seem to have quite recovered from his childhood ordeal. Jimmy (Penn) is an ex-con who runs a corner grocery store in the neighborhood but is still crime-connected. And Sean (Bacon) is now a Boston homicide detective, an outsider in the old neighborhood, working his beat with an astute African-American partner named Whitey (Fishburne). Jimmy and Dave are still friends -- Jimmy's ice-queen wife Annabeth (Linney) is a cousin of Dave's warm but (understandibly) skittish wife Celeste (Harden) -- but all three friends are brought together when Jimmy's 19 year-old daughter Katie (Emmy Rossum) turns up missing, and later dead, on the same night that Dave returns home late covered in someone else's blood. A distraught Jimmy, not waiting for the legal system to work, has a couple of his neighborhood goons out looking for the killer, while Sean is assigned to work the case. (The parallel police and underworld investigations might be a nod to Fritz Lang's serial-killer masterpiece 'M', which would only be a beginning to the debt "Mystic River" owes to Lang's artful police procedurals.) As Sean and Whitey investigate the case, dual clues point strongly to two suspects: Dave, one of the last people to see Katie alive, and a neighborhood boy whom she had been dating.

By acclimation, "Mystic River" is Clint Eastwood's finest film since 1992's Oscar-winner "Unforgiven", and you'll find no argument here. A handsome, old-fashioned film, it's so stately, so measured, and so elegant that it acts as a formal rebuke to most other contemporary studio takes on this kind of material. "Mystic River" is a mystery spiked with deep emotion and considerable gravitas. It has a tremendous feel for its location, for this almost tribal old-school neighborhood on the brink of gentrification. It's marked by a tight vocabulary of formal elements -- sure crosscutting and sweeping pans over the film's title waterway. Most of all, it seems intentionally driven by a vast series of doubles and rhymes: two wives, two mute witnesses, two murders, two investigations, two friends whose lives go in opposite directions, two heartbreaking shots -- 30 years apart -- of Dave in the backseat of a car being taken away. And this matches the film's series of actorly one-on-one confrontations: Dave and Celeste, Dave and Jimmy, Celeste and Jimmy, Jimmy and Sean, Jimmy and Annabeth. But Eastwood's precise, conservative direction makes room for occasional visual flourishes, such as the operatic matching aerial shots that show Katie's bloodied, beaten body, found in a park, and nearby Jimmy howling as he's held back by a phalanx of cops.

As one might expect, "Mystic River" is as much an actor's film as it is a director's. Its performances are uniformly excellent, with Sean Penn's and Tim Robbins' showy turns perhaps bested by Marcia Gay Harden, whose doting but doubtful wife is perhaps the film's most tragic figure. "Mystic River" isn't perfect. Laura Linney's underwritten part makes Annabeth's sinister, ruthless late transformation seem awkward and abrupt, and sometimes Eastwood reaches a little too much for effect (or for the Oscar) when the generally understated music swells more than necessary. But these are just quibbles.

"I'm gonna find him. I'm gonna find him before the police do and I'm gonna kill him," Jimmy says as he stands over Katie's lifeless body. His insistence on keeping that promise is the source of Eastwood's most effective critique yet of American vigilante justice. "Mystic River" ends with a patriotic neighborhood parade, all the film's major characters in the crowd. It looks welcoming and friendly, but for one character it's a moment of horror and loss that brings "Mystic River" full circle. In conclusion, a powerful cast and superb direction by Clint Eastwood makes this story of violence and justice an unforgettable one. A DVD must-own when released!

I am a conservative, I belong to the NRA, and I am quite certain that Al and I would disagree in our interpretations of the intent of the Second Amendment. And if we were to debate this topic, it might even turn into a heated discussion. But ultimately I can respect Mr. Frankin's right to his beliefs on gun control without labeling him a "commie" or a Socialist. And I feel quite certain that Mr. Frankin could respect my right to my beliefs on the right to keep and bear arms without accusing me of being a Nazi. Folks, in case anyone has forgotten, this is what America is supposed to be about.

As a conservative American, I do not want to be associated with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, or, for that matter, George W. Bush and his cronies. Since 9/11, these demagogues have spearheaded a national movement of lies, deceit, fear mongering, phony patriotism, and propaganda to rally unwitting Americans behind Bush's completely irresponsible and self-serving political agenda. And as Frankin so adeptly points out, these people will shamelessly resort to name calling, distortions, verbal abuse, and guilt (e.g., "If you don't agree with me you aren't a good American") to coerce Americans to step in line with their own ill-conceived agendas. People, what we are witnessing here isn't about conservatism, and it isn't about patriotism -- it's borderline Fascism.

What really scares me is that millions of "patriotic" Americans have put on their blinders and eagerly jumped on to this impending train wreck without giving the first moment's thought as to where it is leading this country. It just doesn't seem to bother them that "W" is shackling us and our children with trillions of dollars in deficits while placing tens of thousands of Americans in harm's way waging an overseas war that has nothing to do with counter-terrorism. And if you suggest that the money being squandered on this fruitless and counter productive war effort might be better spent on efforts to revive a sick economy and putting millions of displaced American workers back on the payroll, these "patriots" angrily accuse you of being an Al Qaeda wannabe. Is it time to break out the brown shirts yet?

For my money, Frankin is right on target with this one. To my way of thinking he is a true patriot because he openly goes against the grain of the "conventional" wisdom and questions the motives and integrity of the self-anointed political pundits, as well as exposing the sorry state of our current political leadership. And lest anyone has forgotten, in a democratic society the freedom to question our government is not only our right, it is also our responsibility. The day we forget that is the day we all give up our freedom.

This book is well worth reading regardless of whether your political leanings are to the left or the right. It is an easy read, it is humorous, and it is timely. And it should be read keeping in mind the principles on which this country was founded, not one's political party preference.

I must confess I am a fan of political autobiographies. The first one I ever read was the Nixon autobiography; I've since read the various presidential and prime ministerial works past and present. Against these various tomes, Bill Clinton's memoirs, 'My Life', stacks up well. There is nothing earth-shattering and revealing here; there are some different nuances and a little more candour involved, but not a lot. After all, Clinton is still a relatively young man, and could have other political aspirations (he wouldn't be the first president to also serve in the Congress after the presidency), and of course, his wife has an active political life of her own, which I am certain was a major consideration in the tone and content of this volume.

I was fortunate to get advance reading material of this before the day of release, and got the local bookseller to permit me a purchase after midnight last night. Of course, like many people, I turned first to the part about Monica Lewinsky, who, for better or worse, will be a defining image of Clinton's presidency for the foreseeable future - history will likely be kinder to Clinton (as it ended up being for Nixon, and others who have stumbled in office), but for the present, this image holds true. There is a typical Clinton-esque mixture of self-reproach and blaming of others. Clinton's greatest ire is saved for Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor, who Clinton characterises as being the tip of the spear of a vast right-wing conspiracy including conservative white southerners who never worked for civil rights.

He discusses the icy situation with his wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea after the revelations, and how he slept on the sofa in different rooms for a significant period after the revelations. He also writes of his own self-examination and self-therapy (how does one do therapy with a president? Actually, there is some insight here, with his marriage counseling going on for a year after the incident). From visits with preachers (Clinton was never a traditionally religious man) to his own readings of self-help books and spiritual classics (one such, 'Imitation of Christ', by Thomas a Kempis, is a superb and well-known text, but not one I would have ever guessed useful for a president in this situation).

He gives some insights into the campaign trails, his early Arkansas experiences prior to national politics, and the two presidential elections, the first against the elder Bush, and the second against Bob Dole. He also takes good account of his childhood - the stories of his mother and various male figures in his early life are quite interesting, and beyond what was public during his presidential days. Even the derivation of his name - William Jefferson Blythe Clinton, has a story behind it worth reading.

One of the key points of interest of any political autobiography is the commentary and speculation the author makes on present and future situations, and Clinton's is no exception. He mentions his own assessment of the danger Iraq posed (he would have rated it no higher than number six on his list of priorities), and claims to have been more forceful in warning the incoming Bush administration about the dangers of Osama Bin Ladin. He also gives interesting perspectives on allies and other foreign leaders (John Major and Tony Blair, Chinese President Jiang Zemin, Yasir Arafat, Ehud Barak, etc.).

In all, Clinton takes some of the blame for the troubles of his presidency, but shifts quite a bit of it to others, too. He also takes credit where credit is due for some of the successes in his presidency, but on the whole, as is typically true in such writings, casts the best of possible lights on most of his actions and the outcomes. Being an extrovert with a penchant for introspection, it is a wonder that this book could be contained in a mere 1000 or so pages.

Love him or hate him (and it is amazing how few people have neutral feelings about him, as he experienced and wrote about in his book), Clinton is a figure politicians must deal with for some time to come, and historians will likely rarely tire of debating and analysing.

Angel: Season 2 was where the show started to move into its own 'formula', and the opening statement that Angel himself was not devastated by the loss of Buffy served to encompase one fact: the show was on its own.

Where the first season essentially followed the monster-of-the-week plus occasional storyline episode formula that has been tried and true on Buffy, Season 2 started to move away from that into the darker, emotionally churning state of being that we viewers have grown so used to in the third and fourth seasons.

The second season of Angel also points at the show's tendency to serve an overarching plot rather than a seasonal "Big Bad", when it ends with a trip to a different dimension instead of concluding the Darla storyline (which is completed in the third season).

But though this season has a darker, more plot-arc oriented spine, it still contains some excellent character and monster-of-the-week episodes. One of these is "Are You Now or Were You Ever?", thought by fans everywhere as being one of the best episodes of the show. Other greats include "Darla", "Guise will Beguise", and "The Shroud of Rahmon".

There are also portents of the futures of the different characters interspersed throughout the season. This is where Wesley really matured, becoming a hard-bitten leader rather than a comical sidekick. You can see his character being prepared to make the harder choices that cause him to be so dark later on in the series.

Angel himself has a hard time of it throughout this season, but then, when does he not? He grows dark, deep-set despair keeping him from both his mission and his friends. But his redemption is both funny and touching when he returns towards the end of the season.

Cordelia grows immensely during this season, primarily because of her visions. She's still "tell it like it is" Cordy, but her caring for others grows by leaps and bounds, setting the stage for the Cordelia we know later on in the third season.

Charles Gunn also joins the Fang Gang, forsaking his old 'crew' to help Angel Investigations in a slow process that is (fortunately) very believable.

Also in this season we are introduced to two new characters that will later become regulars: Fred and Lorne (the Host). The first is a slightly cooky, very intelligent woman who was stuck in Pylea for five years before returning with the Angel Investigations gang. The second, Lorne, is a truly unique character - a demon that sings, and can read a person's destiny when that person sings. Both are excellent additions to the group, and help to flesh out the dynamic between the characters.

In conclusion, Angel: Season 2 serves as a stage-setter for the third and fourth seasons' storylines and characters, and contains some truly memorable episodes as well.

Season Six, to alot of fans, was a disaster train wreck! But don't be fooled by their analysis of this season because its one of the best seasons ever of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"! This is the season that took risks, and triumphed unnoticed by the fans, except a few. This season is misunderstood by many who first viewed it and therefore they disliked it, just like they disliked the final season,(Season Seven), but it wasn't because of the stories of this season, it was the gap of broadcasting that ruined the flow of the storyline, and therefore, this season needs another glance again, without interruption, and you'll understand what the point of this season was all about.

Many say it was dark, and yes it was the darkest feeling season since Season Two, and later Season Seven, but life itself, can get dark sometimes, and this was the point the series 6th year was trying to point out. If you've noticed, every season's theme has a metaphor in them, and this year was having the Scooby Gang bracing their darkest storm that could be thrown at them.
How is that? You may say, well, I'll tell you...

Ever since the very first episode, we've grown to love these wacky fun loving kids! In the First Season, it was the introduction period, the Slayer, her Watcher and friends gathering in the library, fighting monster of the week big baddies, along with school issues every teenager at one time or another will find theirselves in, plus a trial of a Slayer. In the Second Season it grew larger, they had to battle not only school, but love hormones, a lover gone bad, new annual baddies, like Spike and Drusilla,and the death of a close one, and trials of a Slayer. In the Third Season, still it was school, a rogue Slayer named Faith, a baddie named "the Mayor", and trials of departing loves and trials of a Slayer. The Fourth Season was college life, new baddie named Adam, and a government containment place for studies of demons, and again trials of a Slayer. The Fifth Season was departure childhood, going into adulthood, and fighting a big baddie named Glory, and the death of a dear one they'd miss forever, and also introduction of a sister. And now Season Six takes them farther, somewhere that the Scoobies had never faced before....and that was "life"!

Every year they've faced bad things, but they were never in a position of being left alone, to survive on their own, and to be a grown up. Someone here mentioned that its been six years later since they started their adventures, and that they were adults now, and they needed to center their lives as adults, and that person was right. It was time to move onward, brace whats ahead, no matter what lie uncharted. We had to see how these characters would react, if they were put in a position to where they'd hit rock bottom, to see how they'd reach the top again, to see really, how much strength they really have, besides magic, or mysttical slayer powers, and thats the storm one must face, to overcome their trials with triumph.

In this season, Buffy had to quit her hopes of returning to college, and get a real life job to pay the bills, make sure Dawn doesn't get taken away from her care, and at one point, she comments that her mother was the super woman of the family on how she couldn't believe she could do all the stuff that Joyce did! Xander has to confront the word "commitment" as he gets prepared to marry the woman he loves, and Willow has to overcome her craving for magic, which she deals with throughout the season by trying to give it up. The point, they each failed, they hit the bottom of the boat, as Buffy fell into depression, had an affair with Spike, (who in this season overcomes some major points in his life too), Xander's fear of turining into his father, leaves him leaving Anya at the altar, later turning her in the way of vengeance again, and Willow, she gets the sour lemon, as she gains Tara back,(who left her because of Willow's crave of magic), but she also loses Tara in the one of the most vicious and real murders of the series, which drives Willow into becoming evil with rage, and almost destroying the world. At the end of the season, all of them faces their problems, and they begin the start of rebuilding what they lost as they hit rock bottom througthout the season, as Buffy and Spike seperate, he goes to get a soul, she tries to tear down her gap with Dawn that they made during the season, and Xander and Willow come to terms with theirselves as they each step out of the eye of their own inner demons, their storms!

Note:
This season has great episodes! There's "Bargining", "Once More,With Feeling", "Dead Things", "Normal Again", "Seeing Red", and "Villains" to "Two to Go' & 'Grave". Each actor portrailed each character to heart so much, that their feelings grabbed ahold to you, as if you were the one's who were going through them as well! Also,do know that this season is *very graphical* in some scenes, this was the most *provocative season* in the series whole 7 year run. There is a few gruesome scenes in some episodes, and some very [physical] in tone,(especially with the Spike and Buffy, and Willow and Tara romantic storylines), but they were to make a point, that was needed for the story of the season.

It's a great and wonderful, powerful season,with a powerful message that was overlooked, this season took dangerous risks, and truimphed with their goal. Also know that this season is the *only* season that centers the Slayer and the Scooby Gang around the true hard cold life that we all may face once we reach adulthood, if not already. Many fans should charish this season to heart, it was indeed an unheard, unreconized, classic season for the series! I love this season! Enjoy, you won't regret it!

All right, let's be honest. Everyone who thought that she was going to confess that she was an axe murderer who enjoyed cross-dressing and drowning newborn kittens please raise your hand. Right, no hands.

Normally, people write autobiographies to tell their version of events, and cast themselves in as positive a light as possible. That is what Hillary Rodham Clinton has done in "Living History." If you are a fan of Senator Clinton's, you will enjoy the book, not least because she offers plausible explanations for some of the less savory accusations that have been hurled against her over the last three decades or so, including Whitewater, the national healthcare debacle and those commodities trades. If you are not a fan, you will not enjoy the book for exactly the same reason ' many of the explanations are plausible. Even less appealing to the Senator's detractors, her prose is very readable (though I do wish she wouldn't use "impact" as a verb), her life has been (and continues to be) interesting and she is more charming in print than she often seems in public appearances.

Granted, some of the prose (particularly in the early years) is self-serving: "The keynote speaker at the League convention was Marian Wright Edelman, whose example helped direct me into my lifelong advocacy for children" sound more than a bit self-serving. In her defense, however, she works through the pre-White House days very quickly, so it all becomes a blur of good deeds as a child and honors as a student, right on through graduate school (student government, political activist, first student commencement speaker at Wellesley, etc.). One wonders if she ever got a B in a class or missed a lecture because she overslept. The only exception is her hair, which she treats as a running joke throughout the book.

The other running theme -- no surprise here -- is her belief in a right-wing conspiracy against the Clintons. Read that either as an accurate statement, as the Senator's paranoia or somewhere between. There is no denying, however, that mentioning the Clinton name in certain conservative circles produces the same effect of throwing an ear of corn into a pen of pigs ' both are devoured in seconds.

Whether Senator Clinton does or does not plan to run for President in 2004, or after, one intention of this book is clearly to give her an opportunity to explain herself, and thus reintroduce herself, to the American voting public. That clearly raises the question: why? Perhaps, like Nancy Reagan, she just wanted to tell it her way, or perhaps she is just planning for all eventualities. In any case, this is an interesting read, if not an overly revealing biography of a very complex and ' like it or not ' influential woman in American politics, not a must read, but certainly on the short list for consideration.

Mariah Carey's debut album will definitely go down as one of the classic albums of all time, and is still my favorite of all her releases. As with many artists' debut albums, Mariah displays her raw talent and hunger for success, more so than on later efforts. Maybe this is due to the fact that she is now established and can "experiment" more with her voice. But that inital breakthrough is sometimes the best example of an artists vocal abilities, which I think is the case with Mariah.

From the now-legendary first hit "Vision of Love" to less heard songs like "Vanishing" and "Alone In Love", this album has stood the test of time and some songs are still being played on the radio. She even raps on "Prisoner" for heaven's sake! The girl did it ALL on her debut!

Perhaps the most astounding fact of all is that she had written virtually every song on this album as a teenager! Take current teen acts from Britney Spears to Christina Aguilera to all of the boy groups - as talented as they may or may not be, they did not write their own material for the most part, let alone their whole album! I think in the past decade we have been hearing the voice and songs of a musical genius in Mariah Carey, and her debut album marks the beginning of her successful career. A masterpiece!