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Christian Bale does an outstanding performance in this movie, like he almost always does. This maybe the reason he is now destined to become the next Batman movies named “Batman Begins” slated to come out in 2005. The action sequences in this movie are good, and some of the action sequences will warrant their own praise. Christian Bale follows a similar line as Keanu Reeves; Bale drops his dose of the medication to stop his emotions from arising, and thus experiences emotions for the first time in his life. He then keeps missing his doses on purpose, experiencing more unrest within himself and finding out that the system he lives in, is not in the benefit of mankind.

The movie tries to be a dark movie, with everything including kids acting like zombies. The ending may not suffice for many people, where the death of one person leads to a complete revolution. The movie includes some violence and some very interesting stages with either very bright or very dark settings, both achieving the purposes for the scene in question. I just found the “bad guy” the movie not up to par, not even close, to Christian Bale. It takes a strong bad guy and a strong good guy to have a strong duel. When you watch the ending, you will see what I mean; it is evident that Bale is going to give someone a good beating. Overall, this is a good movie to keep if you love action, or love movies like The Matrix and Dark City.

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The movie has some very interesting characters, and some characters which were not needed. Catherine Zeta-Jones is one of those unwanted characters, in my opinion. Why would she be needed in a movie when all she does is act like she is desperate for guys, and she has no strong lines or things to either show or portray in her character. As a matter of fact, her character has no significance at all, and is less important than any of the other characters shown in the movie. Why Spielberg would cast her into the movie leaves only one answer; he needed some big name besides Tom to be in the movie. It was maybe because Bernie Mac was supposed to be one of the characters in it, and when he could not be in it, he decided to get someone else, and along came Catherine.

The movie builds the story line very nicely, and Tom Hanks acts in a very realistic manner. This movie may have some similar emotional effect on the audience like Cast Away; even though these two movies have little in common, they do portray a traveler in a strange land [for them] where they have to survive until they move on to where they want to go. The ending of the movie is nice just like the rest of the movie. Even though it is a bit hard to imagine a traveler learning to speak English well enough to communicate with almost anyone within a short span of time only from travel books, the movie does portray a bit of reality from the strong portrayal of Tom’s character. Overall, a good movie to see; if only the dvd version has all the Catherine Zeta-Jones scenes deleted [except the one when Tom tells her the exact purpose of his visit to the US], I would pre-order the dvd. Maybe I still would get the dvd, since overall the movie is too good to be put down because of a single character. This is a good movie to see with almost anyone at the theatres now.

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You get to see the same advertisement endorsement segments on programs that are making people “millions.” These people would love to tell you that they have earned, and how you can make money also by subscribing to these programs.

Donald Lapre comes on the tv endorsing stupid vitamin pills [claiming them to be "the greatest vitamins in the world"] on channel 9. Wow, a few years ago Donald Lapre was endorsing other programs, claiming he made so much money off them that he is happy to share it with others. Maybe he had so much money now he is trying to endorse something else? He now claims he has developed these new vitamins unlike anything this planet has seen. Oh wow, everyone else is stupid and he has come up with something that is revolutionary. Yet he cant market it himself, make millions off it. Why? Because he is nice enough to share his riches with us and wants us to make millions and thousands while he only gets the measly purchase fee for these? Wow, the only other person so generous was Donald Duck when he gave his sandwich to Mickey Mouse out of sympathy. Donald Lapre says “I’ve been helping people make money for over 15 years, but I have never been so excited about any other program like this.” I remember him saying the exact same crap in 1999, and in 2001, and in 2002, and in 2003.

They show these people earning more than a thousand dollars a day who used these programs. If you combine all these programs and the frequency of the people earning thousands and millions, it would seem that more than half of eh country is rich. Last time I checked, that was not the case. Why would people, making thousands and millions, come on tv to ask you for 29.95 and 39.95 [$35.00 for Donald Lapre's program] to purchase the details of these programs, when they are themselves making 100 times that amount? Either they are stupid, or they think the viewers are stupid. You can decide by yourself. One of the things that interest me is when these people hold the checks while they are talking about they are talking about how much they have been earning over the past 6 months. None of the checks they show you have been cashed. That is interesting; they hold onto the checks for 6 months to show it to you? Even more interesting is the fact that they never show you the checks from a close up.

I hate watching tv so late; its a waste of resources.

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To win his trust and keep her own life going, she starts telling her new husband [played almost realistically by Dougray Scott] a story which keeps going on and on, transforming and changing from one story to another. As a twist, she always stops short of finishing a story at dawn, making sure her husband is seduced enough, even though he is extremely mad about it, to let her live another day so that she can continue the story. She keeps doing this repeatedly, and through the stories, she tells her husband of different kinds of wisdoms and lessons one can learn from mistakes and experiences. Near the end, her husband comes to realize this and decides to take another chance again.

The whole movie is a lot more than the summary above, including the attempt by the ruler’s brother to take over the kingdom, with a fight near the end that combines the wisdom the Vizir’s daughter taught her husband through all the different stories. All the tales in the movie are told in a fabulous manner, with special effects and landscapes that will leave you wondering as to why this movie did not appear in theaters first. It is a family movie, though the idea of having wives to kill them every morning may not appeal to kids and many people [even though it never gets to happen, thanks to the Vizir's daughter]. All the characters in the movie have a fantasy character to them, which they portray to the viewer very realistically. Anyone who is fond of the original tales and the books will surely find this to be the most realistic adaptation of those tales ever made. The original tales had 1001 stories. This movie takes on only a few of them, given the time limit a movie is supposed to abide by [the running time for this movie is around 175 minutes]. Even then, you will not be bored and can easily watch this movie anytime and be pleased.

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This is a very good read for almost any employee or employer to improve their own communication and management skills [even if they are not managers at a company], and these techniques can be utilized in daily life also when interacting with other people. It is basically a set of rules and steps one can take or employ to communicate with your co-workers and get things done to achieve the results you want, or results that are beneficial in a general sense. Even though the book was written more than 20 years ago, the management skills mentioned in the book are not only valid today, but they are written and explained in such a manner that it is hard to consider a time when they may become obsolete.

Overall, a good book to read if you want to improve your management skills or communication skills with your co-workers. The font used within the book is a bit bigger than the normal small font used in books, so you should be done with the book within a day or two if you like reading stories or books written in a narrative form or something close. The authors have written almost 85 books combined, many of them together, on a number of different topics regarding work place, customer service and managing your place in business and business relationships. Thus, you can expect very professional advice embedded within the story in this book.

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The book indirectly indicates that the religion was directly affected by these plants, with all the priests [also called Prophets by some today and in the previous ages] using these plants [by either inhaling them or eating them through different mixtures] to be hallucinated and see things and think about the world in an entirely different manner. There are detailed steps as to how the priests used these plants to prepare for ceremonies and to prepare the ceremonies, and how these plants were called different names throughout different religions. The basic analogies of these plants in different religious books and ideas is discussed also, giving the reader some concept as to how these plants were viewed and how majority of the terms and conditions and many famous books were simply references to the Soma plant.

The book is, however, mostly based on ancient textbooks that are not present, as mentioned above, in written form today in their original excerpt. The author uses references which talk about these ancient texts, and uses these as being the majority of his evidences. However, Spess used several dozen references besides ancient books, references that you can today check out at the libraries to verify the accuracy of the information. The whole book portrays all the information about Soma and its importance and effects in a very narrative manner repeatedly, telling us how the priests and tribes used to prepare these plants and then use them for ceremonies.

The book fails however, in my opinion, to go into a concrete reason and evidence as to why these plants were used and whether these plants were the main reason people came up with the concept of religion. Many people will find this book to be the book of their lives, giving them the answers to some questions such as the origins of religions and the background behind prophets and their powers to see god and angels. For other people, this book will leave a lot of questions, though not the books intended purpose, hoping for more evidence and more explanation of this bizarre yet very true reason.

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The movie includes no commentary; only the sounds of the sceneries being filmed, and a background score that changes for every scenery, every country and every theme. Visually stunning landscapes that are natural in this world, are the norm throughout the movie. You can see some of the snapshots of the movie stills on the Baraka movie site itself to get a very small glimpse of what this movie has to offer. This is a brilliant movie that you can also own as a part of your permanent favorite collection. From the very second it starts, Baraka keeps you hooked with all the images of nature, an animal in the start [which was just amazing], people of different cultures in the middle of their prayers and daily lives, landscapes, mountains, oceans and more. You will probably not notice how the time passes as you see this movie; when it ends, you will probably want more.

Movies like this should be made more often than the usual pace [every few years, surprisingly], Not only is our knowledge about our world necessary, it is also fundamentally required in our understanding of everyday life and how to lead our life with respect to our surrounding. When we have an idea of what our relationship is to others around us, we can have a better understanding on how to cope together with other species and planet earth. the movie took 7 years to make, which is evident with all the precision every shot in the movie is taken and how everything is shown in its normal posture, without any change at all. Everything is natural; nothing is changed or touched or no one is told to do anything to make the movie better; it is all natural. This is a movie you can see anytime, whether to see before you sleep or to see during the day as a feature presentation. Be warned, though; if you see it before you sleep, you may either sleep a lot since you will be really relaxed, or you may not be able to sleep as you will be thinking about nature and this world the way you never thought before.

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Although Jackie Chan brings humor and freshness to the movie, the overall movie depended on him doing his regular stunts [some in this movie] and his fighting skills to keep the movie going. From the amount of work done, you could very well think Jackie was Fogg and Steven Coogan [playing Fogg] was the valet. Some of my friends [some of the same bunch as before] kept saying throughout the movie that it sucked, and that they wanted to see The Day After Tomorrow. We went and saw that movie [second time for me]. They preferred it to Jackie Chan’s new flick, though we were all cracking up over some guys who couldn’t stop laughing like crazy when they saw Americans crossing over the Mexican border into Mexico. One of the guys who was about to die laughing said “Yeah right, no hablo espaneol! Not in a hundred years!” while laughing at the same time, sounding something like a monkey eating bananas and yelling at the same time. One of the guys around me yelled “RACIST” while laughing at the same time, which made sure no one laughed again over the border issue. It was hilarious and weird at the same time.

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