The Mortal Storm - 1940 *****

'The Mortal Storm' is a powerful and utterly heart-breaking film about the destruction and pain people can cause others because of their small mindedness and routine precision with power and gain. James Stewart acts wonderfully as a German who refuses to go with the crowd and leave his small town where he has grown up and support the Nazis. He then falls in love with a beautiful Jew whose father, a professor at the local university does not agree with the current political situation and is eventually captured by the Germans. This leaves the couple in a horrendous situation - do they stay together and defy the odds or break apart to save themselves?
Beautifully shot and mesmerizingly painful to experience, Frank Borzage is a true master of his art and has painted a sumptuously powerful picture that needs to be seen.

Cattle Call - 2006 *

Except for the very funny 'Vacation' movies, National Lampoon is a bit of a damp squib. It's just a vague name that people associate with comedy when in actual fact the company send to churn out the most awful junk imaginable.
'Cattle Call' is no exception. It's quite literally horrendous with such an embarrassing story that it will make you weep. The idea of 'auditioning' women to be your girlfriend without them knowing just really annoyed me! It seemed utterly sexist and chauvinistic. It wasn't funny either.

(HORROR) The Amityville Haunting - 2011 **

Another chaotic mess by the affably named 'Asylum' film company. Basing itself around lost footage found of a family's slow descent into madness and mania in the by now infamous 'Ocean Drive' house that was home to the Amityville killings. Of course it wasn't filmed in the real house, it looked nothing like it in fact, the actors were painful, especially the ex-army father who insists on everyone calling him 'sir' and the aggravating boy who wanders around sticking his video camera in everyone's face and repeating the same questions over and over again,
It's a horrendous movie.