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3/10
Philosophical mess, Terrible story
5 August 2003
Warning: Spoilers
This movie was awful. What is wrong with Alan Parker?

****SPOILERS*****

This is a movie AGAINST capital punishment. The characters' reason for Capital punishment being horrible....Some innocent person could be put to death. What strong principles you have--not, and such great reasoning skills--NOT! Regardless, your stand on capital punishment, this movie is an inconsistent mess. The characters decide the way to get a moratorium on the death penalty is to prove some innocent had been executed- that Justice was not served. So, what do they do? They plan and carry out a murder/suicide- Laura Linney actually commits suicide while the other two video tape it (they are all members of the "DEATH WATCH" group). Then Kevin Spacey carefully places his thumb print at the crime scene. They keep the video tape out of site until Kevin Spacey is executed and then release just the part with her killing herself to the media- edited to leave Kevin Spacey out of the tape. Oh my we executed an innocent man!!! Whatever! He is not innocent! He planned and helped carry out this murder-suicide plot. They were trying to prove the system did not work, but the system used the evidence; fingerprints, alcoholism, prior charges for rape, job loss, and semen found in the victim to convict him. The story could have been told as a perspective on Fanaticism (Pro-lifers that kill), but it is clearly presented as anti- capital punishment. Very weak!

Bad movie- making: The prison is in Huntsville, Texas, the college Spacey was a professor at is in Austin (3.5 hours away). Now, when you make a movie the distances between actual cities can be whatever you want and I guess you can call the roads that lead in and around the city whatever you want (HWY-71 does not run anywhere near Huntsville). But, if you show the capital as a back drop for Austin where the college is and then later in the movie show that same capital as being down the street from the prison- you have bad movie making. One other point: why did Leon Rippey (Spacey's lawyer) have a cajun accent? Also, there was not one sympathetic character in this mess of a movie, there was no suspense, (I knew what was going to play out 15 minutes in to the movie) every character was unintelligent and inconsistent.
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Hysterical Blindness (2002 TV Movie)
6/10
Not very good
26 August 2002
The characters were simply~ Pathetic. They were not endearing or interesting and they did not invoke any emotion from the audience. The one exception and shining star was Gena Rowlands character. But, the character occupied such a small portion of the movie it was not enough to save any redeeming aspects.

The story was set around 1986 (though the Nissan Xterra in the first shot of the movie would beg to differ) in New Jersey and plays out in three location; a bar, and two separate residences. The plot is about two, pathetic, twenty-something friends living their pathetic, dys-functional lives. Having sex with random bar-flys, betraying each other and feeling, suprisingly enough - Lost.

Just a bad movie. Oh yeah, fire the editor!
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