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I had total confidence that Peter Jackson would nail this film and I was right all the way. How he was able to create a film that both honors the original and builds upon it is staggering.

The first thing that I’d like to address is the over-exaggerated complaint that the film is too long. No one complained about length with LORD OF THE RINGS. Millions of people have bought extended editions of those films. Critics have planted the seed that the film is too long and audiences are either staying away because of it or are going in antsy to start off with. Jackson earned some filmmaking capital with the RINGS series and what we get with KONG is the extended edition right away. With FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS, Jackson had to cut a lot of the character moments, which hurt the film. The extended edition of that film turned the film from a three-and-a-half star film to a solid four-star affair. We get the whole deal with KONG on the big screen, which is where this film was meant to be seen.

For anyone into popular music, this is the film where the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club got its name. And what an iconic club it is.

Marlon Brando stars as the leader of the Black Rebels, Johnny Strabler. The gang of 40 or so ride into a small town for a motorcycle race where they are kicked out. In another small town, they race around causing trouble and making a spectacle of themselves. Sheriff Harry Bleeker (Robert Keith, WRITTEN ON THE WIND) tries his hardest to make peacemaker between the gang and the townspeople. Johnny takes a liking to the girl who works at the diner named Kathie (Mary Murphy, THE DESPERATE HOURS). However, when biker Chino (Lee Marvin, CHARADE) gets in an altercation with townsfolk, tensions start to bubble.

Trust me, this film has a pretty standard melodramatic plot, but presents it with a satirical twist that is off-putting and totally engaging. Maria Coughlin (Adrienne Shelly, THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH) is your typical early ‘90s high school student with her big hair and florescent clothing. She tells her parents that she is dropping out of school and that she’s pregnant.

Like I said it’s like a soap opera and it only gets more dramatic. As things develop, Maria ends up becoming a slave to her mother, Jean (Merritt Nelson, HENRY FOOL). Meanwhile, we meet Matthew Slaughter (Martin Donovan, SAVED!), a talented young engineer, who is slightly off and angry with the dishonesty and lack of depth of the modern world. He lives with his father Jim (John MacKay, KRUSH GROOVE), a gruff obsessive-compulsive, who is always on Matthew’s case. Soon Matthew and Maria meet, developing a strange bond.

Clint Eastwood directs one of his all-time best films in this Western metaphor for the feelings Americans felt after the Vietnam War and Watergate scandal.

Josey Wales (Eastwood) is a Missouri farmer, whose family is brutally murdered by Union troupes during the Civil War. Wales joins a band of irregular rebels fighting against the Union and when the war is over refuses to take an oath of loyalty to the government. His feelings of resentment are well founded in that the oath is really a trap.

With injured young rebel Jamie (Sam Bottoms, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW) in tow, Josey goes on the run from bounty hunters and Union soldiers who want to hunt him down. Hot on his trail are Fletcher (John Vernon, ANIMAL HOUSE), a former rebel who sold out his fellow rebels, and Terrill (Bill McKinney, THE GREEN MILE), the murderous Union soldier who killed Josey’s family. Along the way, Josey picks up a group of tagalongs, which includes wise old Indian Lone Watie (Chief Dan George, HARRY AND TONTO), fiery Indian squaw Little Moonlight (Geraldine Keams), straight-talkin’, no-nonsense Kansas farmer Grandma Sarah (Paula Trueman, MOONSTRUCK) and Sarah’s slow, but beautiful granddaughter Laura Lee (Sondra Locke, EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE) among others.

Developer HiTech Creations has released the new expansion to ACES HIGH II, titled COMBAT TOUR. The expansion breaks new ground in online gaming by combining intense air combat simulation and military role-playing in a completely mission-based team format. COMBAT TOUR is in closed testing and release is planned for the first half of 2006.