J. K. Moser

The Civil War interrupts Stonewall Jackson's prayers, July 5 2004

Gods and Generals is the movie adaption of Jeff Shaara's bestselling book, that simply doesn't work. The movie is way too pro-southern and by taking out most of the Winfield Hancock parts of the book from the movie, the Union perspective is left out until Chamberlain arrives. The battles are indeed accurate and well done, but overall this movie lacks the emotional punch of Gettysburg and is not really all that accurate in describing the moods of the north. This limits the ability of the movie to provide an accurate look at the Civil War. Plus, the fact that several key battles were filmed yet never show up in the DVD release earns this movie a 3 star rating. If you want a movie on the… Read more

New spin on the Star Wars universe, July 5 2004

The Clone Wars have given the Star Wars universe new life. The Cestus Deception helped to transform the clones from drones to actual people, while Star Wars: Medstar 1: Battle Surgeons Medstar 1 by MICHAEL REAVES, STEVE PERRY, looks at the consequences of battle. Impressions received from other expanded universe books as well as from the movies hint that all medical treatment is given by droids, but Reaves and Perry prove that that is not the case here. Surgeons are the main characters in this book. Even the Jedi Barriss Offee, last seen in Foster's The Approaching Storm does much more healing than fighting. Life is not just compartmentalized and the idea that clones are real people is… Read more

Bombastic, Energetic if a bit short score, Jun 30 2004

I like Alan Silvestri. I especially like the work he did on The Mummy Returns and when I heard about Van Helsing I was reseanably sure that he would be back to score the film. I bought this cd upon its release and while the score that Silvestri wrote was different in many ways from the Mummy Returns, it was very good. It was indeed the high point of the movie. Silvestri was able to bring all the diverse and sometimes amnnoying elements of Summer's films into a cohesive whole. My complaint and the reason for 4 stars is that the cd was much too short. The Mummy Returns was over 70 minutes long Van Helsing was just over 40. To me it was a bit disappointing to not get more great music.