Vid reviews, couple of interesting ones today so lets get into it.

One Night At McCool's - stars Liv Tyler, Matt Dillon, John Goodman and Paul Reiser

Wasn't sure what to make of this sitting on the shelf, and reading the blurb gives you no idea at all really, just that there's these three people who's lives all connect "one night at McCool's". Great, must be something I'll have to watch, suuuuuurrrree. But curiousity got the better of me and I took it home.

Not even five minutes in and I'm hooked, this is brilliant. Its part dialoguey, part visual, and all implied. What we have is Randy the bartender, Carl the lawyer (and Randy's cousin), John the detective, and one beautiful woman Jewel - ok beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I stole this word of the guy who wrote the blurb. Liv's ok, not really my cup of tea, got some funny shit going on with her teeth, and well she's too tall lets face it. So, this "beautiful" woman is seen having a row with her boyfriend, bar tender comes to the rescue, she can't be alone after the ordeal so he invites her home to his house, they have sex. Cooooool, gotta find me one of those arrangements.

Without spoiling the story, someone turns up dead and John the detective is called in to investigate, meets the "beautiful" woman and is entranced. Meanwhile across town, Carl the laywer is in therapy because he's can't get the "beautiful" woman out of his head that he met the night before. And of course Randy the bartender is now in a relationship with said "beautiful" woman, lucky stars? You decide. The story is half narrated, half shown through flash backs by each of our hapless heros, and of course each has his own take on what they saw. Slowly but surely everyone becomes inextricably intertwined and its bound to go pear shaped.

Its a dark comedy of sorts but in saying that its very light hearted, and its got a good bit of spunk to go with it. The cameo's are an absolute diamond as well, Andrew Dice Clay's appearance could should and would have been longer, Michael Douglas as the bingo-addicted hitman you just can't go passed for class, and Reba McEntire as a therapist? Hhmm, interesting. For those of you who don't know Reba, she's a country singer, quite popular apparantly.

Its well acted, well executed, total kudos to the cast here, they all do a brilliant job. Actually since "Something About Mary" you can't fault Matt Dillon's funny side. I'm giving it 4 stars.

K-Pax - stars Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges

Kevin Spacey is brilliant, no other word for it. I put him up there with Robert Deniro, they just don't make bad movies. Ok they might sell out from time to time, but hey, they're human. The ONLY reason I picked this up is because he's in it. For anyone interested in seeing Kevin's better work, check out "Pay It Forward", "The Negotiator" and of course the movie on everyone's top ten list "The Usual Suspects".

K-Pax finds Prot (pronounced Prote) caught up as a seemingly innocent person in a bag-snatch. He was just helping out a lady who'd been knocked down, but when the police ask him his story and he starts telling them how this doesn't happen on his home planet, well there's only one place for him to end up really.

Enter Dr Powell, respected psychiatrist at the institute where Prot is being held, its his job to sort out this guy's story. He's has theories as to the problem, but then starts doubting his own explainations, as what Prot is telling him appears to be the truth.

The film is pretty cliche, I mean anyone that's seen Starman has seen it all before - and how interesting to see Jeff Bridges on the other side of the psych desk. Coincidence? Who cares. You've also got the psych ward that Prot is in, and his presence miraculously starts helping out the other patients. This thing is all hollywood, there's no neat little twist, nothing that makes you go "oh, didn't see that coming", but for what it is, its pretty well done. You could bundle a bunch of influences into this, we're talking part "ET", part "Starman" and part "Patch Adams", like I said its all been done before. Still having said all that, I didn't mind it. Oh and here's an interesting little tidbit, one of the patients suffering obsessive compulsive disorder is in fact David Patrick Kelly, probably more famous for his role as T-Bird in "The Crow" - nice swing Dave! I'll give this 3 stars.

Lantana - stars Anthony LaPaglia, Geoffrey Rush, Barbara Hershey...and everyone from Blue Heelers, Stingers and all those other Aussie shows.

To tell the truth I really didn't want to see this, absolutly dreading it in fact. The preview, if you haven't seen it, looks so bleak and dark and sob-story-city. But how pleasantly surprised was I, it was very good, so good I watched it right through to the end...

No seriously, before you know it you're thrown into a world of murder, adultery and intrigue. The psychiatrist who can't handle her new patient and is stuggling with her marriage, the loving father and cop who's shagging some bird from dance class and the neighbour who keeps tabs on their affair. Trillions of other characters get thrown into the mix - ok maybe not that many - but each one of them slowly starts to cross paths and you can't help but smile and go "ooooohhhhh, this'll be interesting".

The movie really sneaks up on you without jumping on your bag and riding you into the ground, you feel that something big is just around the corner...and then it backs off again. It is quite slow-paced at times, but I don't think that should stop you seeing it. My favourite cameo was definately Glenn Robins, I can't help but anticipate that he's going to say something funny, yet he remains really serious and intense which of course was his job, but you just think "oh look, he's smiling, cool, now say something funny". He did ok, I wouldn't have put him in the role personally, but I think that's what spiced it up a bit.

Not much more to tell, its a nice quiet blood-bath in suburbia, it can have three and a half stars.

BH