Romper Stomper & Altered States

I'm not entirely sure why I had another crazy Nazi youth gang movie in my queue so soon after The Believer, but Romper Stomper was much worse than that one, as this just had a good performance from Russell Crowe and Daniel Pollock, who unfortunately killed himself before this was released. They were both good, although really, I prefer my Nazi youth gangs of today movies to be a little deeper than this. American History X and The Believer at least had some interesting ideas behind it. I'm not entirely sure this had anything behind it except that Nazis are bad, mmkay? And that you should never, ever mess with the Vietnamese, because they will keep coming and coming and coming until you wish you had never decided to support the French and then fake an attack on your ships in the Gulf of Tonkin and then bomb Cambodia. Really, just stop and think.

Altered States. "The purpose of our suffering is only more suffering." Unfortunately, that was also the purpose of the movie. Interesting, but ultimately crap. Nice visuals, but not for a story that makes any sense. But Blair Brown was hot, but the movie was crap. Too bad for her that the rest of the movie wasn't worth it, unless you want to see William Hurt morph into a strangely shaped blob. Or Bob Balaban with lots of hair, or Drew Barrymore in a tiny role, or John Larroquette and George Gaynes in small roles. So basically, don't see unless you are on drugs. I was not on drugs.