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||| Andrei Tarkovsky |||
Andrei Tarkovsky

Tarkovsky's contemplative, metaphysical films, more experienced than watched, are perhaps best described in the director's own words: sculptures in time.

In the post-apocalypse, a writer and scientist hire a "stalker" to guide them into The Zone, a mysterious and restricted wasteland with fabled, alien properties. Their journey, captured by Tarkovsky as a succession of incredible images, has, since, been read as political commentary, religious allegory, and Chernobyl prophesized.

Tarkovsky's visionary biography of the 15th-century icon painter is one of cinema's most majestic and solemn experiences. In some way, it will change you.

An adaptation of Stanis?aw Lem's novel of the same name, Tarkovsky's genre-less sci-fi film, which is set mostly aboard a space station hovering off a strange planet, tangles with issues of identity, death and reality in a way that will leave you agape, in the full meaning.

Recommended by PaczeMoj

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Rat Race

By Snapman

August 17th, 2001

Before reviewing this film I must give the following disclaimer: I am a huge Jon Lovitz fan. Being such a big fan of Lovitz may have caused me to like this film more than I normally would have. That being said I still did not feel this was a good comedy, a decent comedy maybe, but not good.


This film follows the same pattern that many other comedies are taking as of late; it seems they work hard developing around fifteen to twenty minutes of scenes that are quite funny. Mix in another forty minutes of mildly funny scenes, then add another thirty-five minutes of awful filler and weak plot development. Put all that together and you have "Rat Race," as well as a number of other recent comedies.

There were a number of entertaining performances in this film lead by Jon Lovitz (of course), John Cleese, Vince Vieluf and Dave Thomas (of Strange Brew “fame”). But, just as there were a couple of very entertaining actors their were also some on the opposite end of the spectrum. Whoopie Goldberg, Rowan Atkinson, Wayne Knight and a bus full of Lucy impersonators were downright awful. Not once were they funny and more often than not they were less entertaining than watching paint dry. The scenes with the Lucy impersonators were so repulsively bad I considered walking out of the theater and waiting until the scene was over.

I hate to see such a large cast of (arguably) respectable actors and actresses waste away in a mediocre comedy. But, waste away they did and this film makes me wonder again and again why if one can put together a half dozen good jokes, why can’t they spend the time and stretch it throughout the whole film. This could have been a very funny film with more effort to fill the gaps between the big gags, but it didn’t and the film suffered because of it.

My rating: C-