Mars Attacks (1996) Review

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(More customer reviews)Hollywood has made movies from books, TV shows, even other movies. However, "Mars Attacks" may be the first time a movie was made from a trading card.
Back in the late 1960s, Topps Cards created a line of Mars Attacks trading cards. However, these cards were pulled off the shelves after only a few months because the aliens depicted on them were considered to be too gruesome. My, how times have changed.
Director Tim Burton has taken those old trading cards and recreated them into this Sci-Fi B-movie throwback. In the process, he has created a movie that is pure, guiltless fun.
"Mars Attacks" also benefits from an all-star cast, including Jack Nicholson (in a dual-role), Michael J. Fox, Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan, Martin Short, Danny Devito, Glenn Close, Natalie Portman, Tom Jones, Annette Bening, Lukas Haas, Jim Brown, and many others. The fact that you get to watch the aliens disentegrate (and otherwise kill) many of these stars only adds to the fun. Unfortunately, Tom Jones wasn't one of those unlucky stars. Maybe someday a sequel will be made that will rectify that. :)
Oh yeah........ did I happen to mention that Congress gets vaporized? This proves that the Martians aren't all bad!
The DVD comes with many extras, including quite a few production notes that helps you to understand how the movie came to be. This is one movie that you will want to see over and over again (especially anytime that Congress is getting on your nerves).

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IN THIS SCI FI EPIC MARTIAN SPACESHIPS ARE APPROACHING EARTH. SHOULD THE PRESIDENT BOMB THEM OR EMBRACE THEM? FROM THE OPENINGSCENE IN A TOWN CALLED LOCKJAW, WHERE A BLAZING FIRE SPRINTS THEROAD, TO THE APOCALYPTIC FINALE YOULL NEVER KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT SOPHOMORIC FUNNINESS, BLACK HUMOR, OR A GENUINE FRIGHT.

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The Night of the Shooting Stars Review

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(More customer reviews)Quite simply the best movie produced by Italy in the post-Fellini/Antonioni era. (And never mind *Cinema Paradiso*, the movie of choice for those who drink cappuccinos after lunch.) *The Night of the Shooting Stars*, written and directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, is a semi-autobiographical account of World War II shuddering to a close in the Tuscan countryside. The movie begins with the disembodied voice of a young woman, who proceeds to relate her childhood memories of war to her own child. We hear this as the camera stays glued on a static shot of an open window looking out into the dreamy blue evening. A typically fairy-tale-like Italian village is visible. This sets the stage for the impressionistic narrative that follows. Everything seems exaggerated in this movie, which is to be expected when the incidents are viewed primarily (though not exclusively) through the eyes of an impressionable six-year-old girl. The plot is simple: "San Martino (based on the real town of San Miniato between Pisa and Florence) is earmarked for destruction by the Germans. The villagers must decide whether to stay or leave. Rumors abound that the Americans are in the vicinity -- will they reach San Martino first? Or should the villagers hit the dusty roads in the countryside and find the Americans before their town is destroyed? About half stay, and half go: we follow the half that goes. There are dozens of characters who embark on the journey, so not much time can be expended on characterization. But the Tavianis cast actors of such unique physiognomy that we feel we know them at a glance. Quite often, they're presented as heroic archetypes. The camera seems to glow around the young couple freshly married with a child on the way; it closes in on the village priest so that we can see every pore of guilty conscience in his face. Larger-than-life gestures help carry the characterization along. But it's the set-pieces that astonish with their comic and/or dramatic intensity and their hyper-realism. There's a marvelous bit when the girl, watching a small-scale battle that has erupted around her, associates the combatants with the heroes from Homer that her grandfather used to tell tales about. In fact, there are so many marvelous bits that to describe more of them will ruin the movie for you, but I can't end this review without mentioning the brilliant scene involving skirmishes in a wheat field between our villagers and the local contingent of hold-out Fascists. This, more than almost any sequence in cinema, captures the horror, pity, and sadness of war, and what it can do to a community. (The San Martinians and the Fascists mostly know each other, calling out behind the rows of wheat, "I know you -- you're Carlo from Pistoia, Alfredo's cousin!" It's like the Italian version of the American Civil War.) Finally, the movie serves to remind Americans just how much we meant to other peoples on the earth, and how much they loved us. This is bittersweet for us; perhaps educational for today's crop of young Italians who almost uniformly have "PACE" flags hanging out their windows these days. Anyway, *The Night of the Shooting Stars* is a must-own masterwork, without flaw. Highest recommendation.

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From internationally celebrated directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (Padre Padrone) comes this "extraordinary" film (Los Angeles Times) about a Tuscan village struggling against Nazi oppression during the final days of World War II. It is the Night of San Lorenzo, the night when dreams come true. While watching shooting stars, Cecilia tells her son about a similar night in 1944, when she was six years old, and the residents of San Martino, her small Tuscan town, defied their Nazi occupiers. DVD EXTRA: "Talking About Cinema: Taviani Brothers" (84-minute interview by Carlo Lizzani) Also includes an 8-page booklet with essay by Italian cinema expert Peter Bondanella.

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