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This is a pleasant if little film about a young girl who, while awkward and friendless, has a secret crush on the prince of Luxembourg, and hopes to impress him by trying out for the high school basketball team. I don't know how ridiculous that sounds if you haven't seen the movie, but it's not the film's plot line that's charming, but rather the great performances of the young cast, especially Zoe Moore. Moore stars as Nelly Sue Edelmeister, a half German, half Jewish-American girl who belongs to Berlin's growing Jewish population. She doesn't care much for religion, though, and spends much of the film trying to get out of having a Bat Mitzvah. Her real interest is science. She dreams of one day being an astronomer and the movie has a few great special effects shots in which Nelly imagines she's walking among the stars, forming new constellations that uncannily resemble her unattainable dreamboat, Prince Edoard. Later in the film she realizes that the prince is for the birds, when she slowly falls for new-kid-in-town (and basketball expert) Max Minsky. Though the performances were nice, the movie still felt really derivative at times. The whole "genius nerd tries out for sports team to impress an older member of the opposite sex" was perfectly captured in 1986's LUCAS. I also must wonder why the filmmakers chose to cast Adriana Altaras as the "American" mom. According to the IMDb, she is Croatian and grew up in Italy and Germany. The scenes where she had to speak English were extremely hard to buy. She's probably a fine actress, but why cast somebody as a New Yorker if they can't even really speak English? Another gripe I had with the film was the film's soundtrack. At first I thought it was really nice. I then realized that I enjoyed the soundtrack a little TOO much, and now I know why: It's melodically and instrumentally similar to Mark Mothersbaugh's work for Wes Anderson and Yann Thiersen's work in "Good-bye Lenin", both two of my favorite composers. The melodies were just different enough to avoid plagiarism, but the similarities were uncanny. Overall, a cute little movie with a star in the making, but not the most original piece to come along. It is indeed quite nice to see a modern depiction of Jewish families in Germany, and the family friendly tone of the movie makes it one foreign film worth bringing the kids to see.

This film is a nice idea gone afoul due to formula filmmaking 101. The comparisons to Sixth Sense are unavoidable: we've got the creepy visions, the `weird' little boy, the `dead people' walking around, seemingly only visible to the protagonist, and of course there's the `a-ha! She's one of THEM!' twist towards the end. The Gathering, however, goes wrong exactly where Sixth Sense got it right. We actually cared about the little kid in Sixth Sense. There were some real family issues there, on top of the supernatural spooks. In this story, we don't even get to know the boy. He's just there to move the plot along. Sure, we know ABOUT him, a-la the cliché `he's been like that ever since his poor mother died..` but we don't have any idea what he's going through, and therefore, we could care less what happens to him. The use of the English countryside is one of the film's assets. It's nice to see a thriller that isn't in a U.S. high school, or in a deserted Manhattan subway station. However, the people in this film do not seem any more real than the characters in `scream'. They may be British, but they are only here to fulfil their duty, and that entails being naïve and frustrating to the audience, leaving our American heroine as the only screen presence with any common sense. This reminded me a bit of `the Omen', another film where the British setting and actors are simply a background to the troubles of (the late great) Gregory Peck. The Gathering, even at its best, cannot ever measure up to films like Omen or Sixth Sense. It seems that the reason for its failure is that it simply tries too hard to measure up, never finding a note of originality.

INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM is Steven Spielberg's worst film. Well, perhaps HOOK is Spielbergs worst movie, or maybe THE LOST WORLD. Here's a directer whose imagination can make us laugh, cry, or be thrilled, sometimes all in the same movie. Yet brings to every sequel a feeling of claustrophobia mixed with unexpected boredom. I include HOOK here not only because it was a complete mess, but because it is, indeed, a sequel.

Like all of Spielberg's sequels, INDY 2 takes place largely indoors. The first scenes (unlike the terrific RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARC) show INDY in a nightclub, then he continues to the backseat of a car, and then boards an airplane, all at night! Likewise, both HOOK and LOST WORLD were filmed largely indoors, and in stuffy, nighttime scenes that seem to be shot in a studio. HOOK's Never-neverland never looked like it was really outside, even (or especially!) when the scenes took place in the daytime.

But back to INDY 2. During the all too short journey to the TEMPLE, there is absolutely no character development, nor is there any progression of the plot. Indy was not assigned to this job, nor does he need to bring along Willie Scott at all. Indy knows nothing about her, and this is still true by the end of the movie. Once the film enters the TEMPLE, there are very few scenes where daylight can be seen. There is even a scene near the end, where the slave-children run out of their prison into the courtyard, and they have to shield their eyes from the sun. The audience has to do this too! In an adventure film, there should not be such a scene. Anyway, I still respect Mr. Spielberg's work, and I love many of his movies. Minority Report was a delight, as were his earlier Sci Fi movies. His historical films like Private Ryan and Amistad were also well made, as was, of course, Schindler's Liste.

So, my message to Spielberg is this: You don't need the money anymore, so make movies that are original and good. Stick to your guns, like you did with JAWS II-IV, and avoid making pointless sequels that don't live up to the originals, and keep breaking new ground. It's what the fans want.