umonra Reviews

The Hamster Cage (2005)

Three courses: laughter, nervous laughter and squeamishness - yum!

[8/10 · 15 October 2005]

"Smart people can teach us so much" - Candy

Candy is an outsider that's lucky enough to attend a family celebration where the main course is family dysfunction. The Hamster Cage does a great job of using that family's dysfunction to create separate courses of out right laughter, nervous laughter, squeamishness, and taboo.

The most impressive characteristic of the show is it deals with serious issues and could easily have gone overboard in some areas but holds back allowing the story and characters to keep the focus over potential shock value.

There are some great one liners in this show which also saw good performances come out through great characters.

Definitely worth a watch.

Cellular (2004)

Don't waste your time

[3/10 · 5 February 2005]

Very predictable and lacking.

At only 89 minutes it could reasonably have been summed up into a 1 hour network cop show.

The shtick with Basinger only being able to call "Ryan" is interesting for about the length of time it takes for her to convince him she really has been kidnapped.

Macy's "good cop" character is at least worth watching for the couple of scenes he gets to throw some humor into the mix. In the end though, Macy's character ends up in the show down you knew he would wind up in the first time you saw him on screen: coming to the realization that his buddy on the police force is actually a bad cop.