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The Life of David Gale, a review by Rich

The Life of David Gale





Having seen this in the cinema on release, it was a first viewing on DVD. It lost nothing for being on a smaller screen, and is a worthwhile addition to everyones collection.
The majority of main cast provide powerful performances, Spacey is at his absolute best and is at times warm and at others menacing, making you guess right through the film about his guilt or innocence. Winslet was weaker in this role, I wasn't totally convinced by her portrayal as a hard nosed investigative journalist.
The ending is predictable but nonetheless fitting, and it is one of those films that make you think long after the credits roll. The death penalty is always going to be subjective, but the question whether an innocent could be convicted and killed, whether by injustice or design, is admirably told by means of this thriller drama.
 

** Kate Winslet mini-marathon


(From Riches Random Reviews on August 2nd, 2009)

Girl of Time, a review by Tom

Girl of Time (1983/Japan) IMDb | Wikipedia Intercontinental Video (Hong Kong) Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi Writing: Wataru Kenmochi (Writer), Yasutaka Tsutsui (Writer) Length: 104 min. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85 Audio: Japanese: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Subtitles: Chinese, English

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Stars:
Tomoyo Harada as Tomoko Yoshikawa
Takako Irie as Tatsu
Wakaba Irie as Noriko
Kiyomi Ishii as Student 'B'
Ittoku Kishibe as Toshimi Fukushima

Plot:
A romantic 16-year-old high school girl in love with a classmate starts dreaming about events before they actually happen. As it turns out, the object of her love is actually a space alien affected by her own romantic views of life and because of their unified wave length...

Extras:

• Scene Access
• Trailers

As you probably know, I am a big fan of the anime movie "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time". That movie is kind of a sequel to a successful novel from the 60s (the advise-giving aunt in the movie is the main protagonist of the novel). That novel has spawned multiple adaptions in form of movies and TV series. The most famous of those is this movie.
This movie never really clicked for me. Probably because I was expecting more a story like in the anime version. But you can see many parallels between these two movies though.
I just read that there was yet another live-action movie released this year. Can't wait for a DVD release outside of Japan.

Rating:

(From Tom's Time-Travel Movie Reviews on December 9th, 2010)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: Deep Space Nine is a former cardassian space station orbiting the formerly occupied planet Bajor. The Bajorans have lived for 60 years under cardassian rule but now they are free. The provisional government has asked the Federation for support and Starfleet takes over the management of DS9. It's commander is Benjamin Sisko, who has lost his wife three years ago in the battle against the Borg and now he must raise his son alone in the middle of nowhere. His second in command is Major Kira, a former bajoran resistance fighter. The rest of the crew are both Starfleet officers of all kind of races and Bajorans. Chief of security is Odo, a shape-shifter with unknown origins.
The spiritual leader of the Bajorans asks Cmdr. Sisko to study the "Tears of the Prophets", mythical orbs that have come to Bajor of the last ten thousand years. With their help Cmdr. Sisko discovers the only known stable wormhole in our galaxy and it leads to the Gamma Quadrant, to a point 70,000 light years away from DS9, on the other side of the galaxy. And suddenly the bajoran system has been put onto the map and the Cardassians will accept any excuse to re-take it.

My Opinion: It's very clear from the beginning that DS9 will be different than its predecessor Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). TNG played on a all-Federation-personnel Starfleet spaceship, while on DS9 uncounted cultures clash: Starfleet personnel, Bajorans and the civilians aboard the station - for example Quark, the Ferengi bar owner. And most of the characters have a background story and their lives haven't been straight-forward. I really like that. Unfortunately I can't really remember what I thought about them, when I saw them for the first time back in the mid-90s, but DS9 is now my favourite Star Trek show and one of my favourite Sci-Fi shows.
I also liked the idea of the "handshake" when the Enterprise made an appearance in the pilot episode, something they will do again when the Voyager departs from DS9 in their pilot episode. But the meeting between Captain Picard and Cmdr. Sisko also showed that these shows will be different.

Synopsis: A bajoran scout ship is being attacked by a cardassian warship but the pilot can be beamed out shortly before his ship is destroyed. He seeks asylum aboard DS9 because he was a member of the Khon-Ma, a "terrorist cell" during the occupation. Kira knows him from these days and she pleads to Sisko to grant asylum. But not all Cardassians have left the station. The local tailor Garak - who is suspected to be a spy - contacts Dr. Bashir in a rather unorthodox way and informs him about a meeting between two klingon renegades and the former terrorist.

My Opinion: The first episodes of the season will be used to introduce the viewers to the characters. While the pilot was mostly about Sisko and the loss of his wife at Wolf 359, this episode is about Kira and her past in the resistance. It was an OK episode, but I really liked the introduction of Garak, who will become an interesting guest character over the years.

Synopsis: Odo tries to throw a Bajoran out of Quark's casino/bar and wants him off the station. A few hours later that man is dead and there are no traces that could explain how the murder had left the crime scene. As chief of security Odo investigates but soon becomes a prime suspects and thus having a conflict of interest. Meanwhile Chief O'Brien's wife Keiko - who was a botanist aboard the Enterprise - has nothing to do on DS9 and becomes frustrated. When Sisko's son Jake befriends Quark's nephew Nog and subsequently gets into trouble, she decides that the station needs a school.

My Opinion: This episode introduces Odo who has also been security chief during the last years of the occupation. I really like that he's a man of principles who has his own codex and who values justice above all else. It was only consequent that it was he who pointed out that only a shape-shifter could have left the crime scene without leaving a trace. The story's hole was that the doctor couldn't figure out what these DNA particles were until it grown into a whole body. After all he was second-best in his year at medical school...

(From Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon on September 20th, 2008)