More reviews than you can shake a stick at (although why you'd want to shake a stick at my film and mini series reviews is beyond me)

Auto Focus has been out a while but for some reason I've avoided seeing it until this past Friday night. The short review is it's good, very good. Kinnear, who has fashioned a fine film career for himself since setting the template for snarky hosts of E's Talk Soup. He brings the goods to this performance, his Bob Crane is sleazy and almost pity worthy. Willem Dafoe is beyond creepy in this movie, he plays Crane's friend and murderer. Rita Wilson underplays Crane's first wife nicely and Maria Bello stands out as Crane's second wife. It's fitting that a movie this sexual in nature, for those of you who don't know Bob Crane was a major poon hound and woman chaser and he not only prided himself on having sex with thousands of different women, he had many of the trysts photographed and videotaped, be directed so well by Paul Schrader. Schrader was brought up in a strict Calvinist household and was not allowed to go to the movies during his youth, mush less have sex. I recommend this one but only for mature audiences.

I was hesitant to see Religulous because sometimes I find the comedy stylings of Bill Maher a bit tiresome and didactic. His stand up these days sounds to me more like a harangue than comedy but I've heard such good things about this film I finally relented.

And I'm glad I did. Maher takes on all religions in this film, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and cults like Mormonism, Scientology, and others. He's remarkably fair towards each group, he lets a person from each of the various religious sects hang themselves with their own words and they show with little or no prompting from him why their particular religion is ridiculous. His interviews with humorless Muslims, kooky Christians who believe the end times are nigh, and Jews who are trying to get around the rules about not using electronics on the Sabbath are howlingly funny. My favorite moments are his wrap up at the end of the film and his interview with the priest who clearly is not in line with Roman Catholic teachings in Vatican city.

The deleted scenes and his monologues from around the world in the special features section are hysterical as well. If you are a believer, then see this movie, what have you got to lose? It may strengthen your faith or maybe it will make you less dogmatic and judgemental. If you're a non believer then see this film, it will make you glad you left all that religious nonsense behind you.

Boy howdy, this BBC adaption of Charles Dicken's Little Dorrit was good. I had never heard of the novel and had never seen an adaption of it until they recently ran this one on PBS. It's well worth the hours you'll invest watching it. The three leads, pictured on the DVD cover, are all fantastic and so is the rest of the cast of thousands. You'll recognize many of the actors in it if you watch any British film or TV shows, and you'll see why the same ones tend to always pop up in adaptions like this, it's because all of them are good actors. I highly recommend this DVD and if they run it on PBS again, you need to see it.

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And finally, I saw this film a few weeks back on TCM:It's one of those early 1960's British ultra realistic 'kitchen sink' dramas and it's one of the films in the popular film canon that every one raves about and tells every one else they have to see it or their life will not be complete.

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I can now say I saw it and that I hated it. No one in this film was remotely likeable. I hated every one in it. Richard harris was a knuckle dragger who reminded me of asshole jocks who used to try to make my life a living hell. The woman who played his land lady/love interest was repugnant, bitter, and unloveable, it was a mystery to me what Harris's character saw in her. She was mean, cold, and quite a huge bitch. I almost cheered when she died at the end of the movie.

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The only thing I liked about this film were the rugby scenes and I had no idea what was going on in them since I know nothing about rugby. If you like depressing films that are shot in mono enhanced black and white then this movie is for you. If you like films about guys who dig being abused by their land lady's and who then rape their land lady while her kid's play outside, then this is your film. If you like overrated movies about rugby and the British class system, then this is your movie. It sure as hell wasn't mine, I hated, hated, hated it.