You know the sort of thing I mean - the psychic listens out for a message … "I'm getting a name … Anne? Annie? Anna? Barry? Charlie? Dave? Eddie? Frankie? Gary? Herman?"

"Nathaniel?" Someone in the audience asks.

"Yes, Nathaniel! And He's saying … Hi? Hiya? Hello?"

As phoney as silicon implants!

I used to work for a manager who was a demon for crap like that. "Oh!" she said one time she was on the phone to me, "the spirits just spoke to me. They said KNIVES. Does that mean anything to you?"

[The whole factory was talking because in the canteen I'd been seen using Japanese Chef's knives, which look very unusual. A spirit message? Gossip in the factory!]

Strangely, the time I went to visit a friend's grave, and asked for some time off of work, [I was expecting the visit to take it's toll on me], I told my manager no more detail than that, and stone me, she DIDN'T get any spirit messages!

I wonder why not!!

All that aside, I've met genuine people. "Spooky Tracey" who scared herself by trying to "scan" me while we were talking, and who felt that I was carrying something "very nasty" with me; June, who knew WITHOUT ME SAYING ANYTHING, that I was having problems with Death [I was working in an old people's nursing home, we'd had a few deaths, and I was depressed], and of course my close friend who I will only refer to as a witch, [she doesn't like her name being mentioned online], who has produced results so many times to help me in times of need.

And frankly, it's results that count. I'll do without "scientific" explanations.

OK this is probably the last batch of reviews for a while … so let's find some REALLY good films to start with!

As far as werewolf films go, this is something special!

Jack Nicholson is bitten by a wolf. But no, the film DOESN'T deteriorate into lame computer animated effects showing him turn into a werewolf.

The wolf invades Nicholson's psyche, and he becomes wolf-like.

It's a dramatic change. Nicholson plays the editor-in-chief of a publishing house, he's basically a decent guy. Early in the film when he inadvertently touches Michelle Pfeiffer's breast he apologizes and says "you're safe - I'm married", and he really means it. The idea of being unfaithful, or even just trying for a sordid grope, is actually very alien to him.

In the publishing house, someone turns back-stabber and makes a bid for Nicholson's job. It seems like Nicholson is just going to accept it, he's not really cut out for nasty, underhanded tactics.

But the wolf bite changes everything. His senses are heightened, and he develops a ruthless, predatory streak. Within the company he fights not only to keep what he had, but to gain more money and more power. Basically the wolf in him is marking and expanding its territory.

In the city at night he has no hesitation in tearing (literally) into three muggers who think he's an easy target.

On some level he's appalled at what the wolf is capable of, but as he's told by a wise old man, for this to happen there had to be something already there, an analogue of a wolf, that the wolf bite has brought to the surface.

It's a must see!

Now this I like!!

It's not easy to add anything original to the mythology of Vampires. Arguably other than Anne Rice no-one has really done anything original for a very long time.

That all changes with this film.

A new explanation of who Dracula really is.

A new explanation of why he despises the cross.

A new explanation of why vampires detest silver.

Add Jennifer Esposito (from "Spin City"), Jeri Ryan ("7 of 9" from "Star Trek - Voyager), and veteran actor Christopher Plumber as Van Helsing - it's gotta be a winner!!

For anyone of my generation this is a genuinely scary film!

I lived through the USA/USSR cold war, I went through the going to bed wondering if WWIII was going to be declared overnight? Wondering if we'd get the warning that nuclear missiles were coming over the horizon?

The best we used to hope for before THE END OF THE WORLD was a 4 minute warning. What the hell do you do with 4 minutes?

A young Ally Sheedy stars in this story of a super-computer which starts running WWIII simulations. (It thinks the order to run the program is issued by it's creator, Professor Falken. In fact, it's just a young hacker, who crashed into the system looking to play games). The problems is, does the computer know the difference between a simulation and real life? Will NATO be compelled to go to war on the basis of a simulation?

You will never ever see such a cliffhanger in a movie! The fate of the world rests on teaching the computer that WWIII is a non-win scenario! On the brink of all out nuclear war, the hacker desperately tries to get the computer (named Joshua, after Falken's dead son), to learn futility, by playing tic-tac-toe …

This damn film honestly scares me every time I watch it!!

Geena Davis (yummy!) is a teacher living in a "nice" backwater town.

She has a "nice" life.

She's dating a "nice" guy.

She takes part in the Christmas parade.

She's got a young daughter.

It's all so damn "nice".

But she has a very murky past. 8 years previously she woke up on a beach, 2 months pregnant, wearing clothes she didn't remember buying.

She had (and still has) amnesia.

Her memories have never returned, it's called "focal retrograde amnesia". Sometimes in the privacy of her bedroom she undresses and looks in the mirror trying to guess-timate her age. 35 maybe? She has a lot of scars on her body.

Burried deep below her amnesia is her previous identity, a ruthless, lethal, highly trained special agent/killer.

A car accident and a head wound stir things up however. Her old identity is starting to re-assert …

So who is Davis "really"? Is she an assassin? Is she the school teacher? Is there any way these two personas can somehow co-exist? Especially when the assassin is geared up ready to continue her mission to root out a terrorist plot?

Great stuff!

George Clooney gives a magnificent performance, playing a character of incredible depth and complexity - and I don't hand out compliments easily, so be assured that I was very, very impressed with this film.

Way out in space, a station orbiting a strange planet is in trouble. The crew ask for help but they cant say what the problem is. A rescue mission has already vanished. One of the station's crew asks for Clooney.

Clooney (a psychologist) has a few skeletons in his mental cupboard, concerning the suicide of his lover after she had an abortion without telling him she was pregnant.

Unfortunately, setting foot on the space station gives ghosts and memories the chance to take on a very real, physical presence …

Arguably Clooney's best ever performance

On a scale of 1 to 10 this scores 11 at least.

Geena Davis (again! She gets around!) stars opposite Jeff Goldblum in the remake of the sci-fi classic.

The script doesn't hold a lot of surprises, I imagine everyone knows the plot? Scientist experiments with teleportation; a fly gets into the works when he tries to teleport himself; result is that he becomes a 6 foot tall man/insect.

Goldblum changes gradually however, it's not an immediate transformation, giving him the opportunity to get Davis pregnant first. The moral arguments surrounding abortion are compounded by the fact that the foetus may not be entirely human!

Don't watch this film for the effects, which now look rather dated by modern standards, however look out for the scene when Goldblum decides to arm-wrestle someone - and get ready to cringe!

Highly recommended.

Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell in a lightweight time-slip comedy.

Despatched to the back end of nowhere to cover a local festival, weatherman Murray and his irritatingly cheerful producer (MacDowell) are snowed in. The next day Murray awakes - to discover that he's reliving the previous day. And the next day, and the next, and the next - he's forever reliving the same day, and he's the only one who knows it.

Some of the time it can be fun - get a woman's name and then the next time you meet her (she won't remember you 'cos you're living the same day) walk up and say "Hey! I know you!"

Some of the time it can drive you insane. Murray has quite a few goes at killing himself. Technically he succeeds but then he's back again at the start of the same day.

You can do whatever you want without fear of the consequences - because every day is a new (but the same) day - the slate is wiped clean.

The question is how to stop reliving the same day, and move on … ?

It's a good laugh

What everyone remembers is Bruce Willis in a dirty T-shirt becoming a one-man assault-team and taking on the bad guys.

What a lot of people MISS is what really makes his character - he DOESN'T WANT TO BE A HERO.

Willis is drawn into the situation by chance, and he reacts to (what at first appears to be) a terrorist takeover of a merchant bank by going into action, killing anyone who gets in the way, and meantime trying to get someone in to help. What he WANTS, is to have a quiet Christmas, maybe stand a chance of making things up with his estranged wife, and see his kids again.

Given the chance he would turn around and walk away and let someone else do the action-hero bit. And that my friends is what gives his character the extra depth.

Edge-of-your-seat-excitement!

Why the Hell was I watching Riverdance? That's a story in itself, but anyways, here's what it's about …

First there's Michael Flatley, who likes stamping with the girls. (This becomes relevant later). Then there's a chaste catholic girl, (got a kind of Nicole Kidman look about her), who has to do a runner before she becomes a CHASED catholic girl, 'cos the lads are out & about! Oh, right, here's a woman dressed in red. Must be a slut then. Flatley gets hot & sweaty with her and they stamp at each other. Hang on, Flatley's stamping at the catholic girl and she's stamping back, so that's probably a "let's get married and live happily ever after" sort of stamp. Flatley subsequently FAILS to stamp at the girl, who looks none to pleased.

I guess that's the dance equivalent of "he couldn't get it up" or "he's gay" or "he can only do it with sluts"

Meantime in the shadow of the Golden Gate bridge some black guys are doing a 1920's sort of dance routine (where did that spring from?)

Slut face is back, but she's not dressed in red any more, maybe she's just having a final stamp to get it out of her system before she becomes a nun. Catholic boys and girls dance under Arabian architecture. (No genies tho'). It speeds up into something which really begs to be a sword dance. (No swords to be seen)

Something like a gospel choir do their thing.

Flatley turns his back on his marriage and takes to playing the flute. A choir turn up and wail hideously. Presumably this scares the bejesus out of Flatley because he & his missus get back together and go out on the town and under electric blue lights they stamp at each other. Flatley can't seem to shake the habit of stamping with all the other girls in the town though. What's his missus gonna say about this?

Ah, she seems OK. Maybe it's an open marriage sort of thing where you can go and stamp with other people if you feel the need.

The slut put in another appearance, maybe the whole nun thing wasn't for her? She just couldn't get the habit! Lol! Flatley and his missus are back.

Much stamping ensues ………..

And I'm sure that my interpretation is at least as interesting as whatever Flatley intended! Lol!

Don't waste your time with:

Black & White effort about a mad scientist trying to create Zombies as an army for the Nazis during WWII. (and remember, I genuinely LIKE Zombie films, it's just that this one doesn't make the grade).

Supposedly a "horror" flick about a guy who spent his nights in the local cemetery digging up bodies and using "Gray's Anatomy" as his guide to dissecting them and decorating his house with human remains. He then moved on to live victims.

Its not a horrifying. Its not even mildly scary.

Its PANTS.

There is one reason for watching ANY film with little "Miss Dynamite". Rothrock was world female world Karate champion about a squillion times, and she DOESN'T use fight doubles. Everything you see on screen is her.

Every punch. Every kick. Every jump.

Rothrock first proved that a woman can be a martial arts expert, and then went on to show that a woman can be an action heroine, all WITHOUT losing feminine appeal.

She deserves a hell of a load of respect for that.

A monster seeks out people who are scared of it (well DUH! It's a ****ing monster!) and repairs itself by tearing out bits of it's victims.

So OK, it's all good horror stock - on the run from an inexplicable monster, people dying in gruesome fashion, but the plot hasn't really been thought through enough.

The "monster" is more than an animal, it has the ability to plan, and to drive trucks, and to make use of tools, so it ain't dumb. But at the same time it can even survive damage such as losing half of it's head, (which it subsequently replaces by tearing someone else's off!) So it's not a "complex" being, it's ability to survive catastrophic physical damage is similar to that of an earthworm.

Yeah, happy I watched these films once (but once only) so moving on …

90 minutes of fast-paced eye-gouging terror in deep space!

The experimental deep space exploration vessel Event Horizon, powered by an artificial black hole, vanished on her maiden voyage. 7 years later she re-appears, and a rescue/salvage mission is launched.

The ship's black-hole powered engines (the "gravity drive") however doesn't seem to have taken the ship to Proxima Centauri as intended. All evidence points to the ship having taken a trip into one of the deeper pits of Hell and then come back again.

It's a VERY fast-paced film, worth watching even though the script and the plot aren't very deep.

And yes, I meant it, there's LOTS of eye gouging!