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For the record, I am a Curly fan through and through. But I do have to say that in reality, Shemp wasn't really that bad. Yeah, he might have lacked the same kind of slapstick that Curly had, but in his own way he was hilarious. At least he wasn't as bad as Joe Besser.<br /><br />In BRIDELESS GROOM, Shemp plays a music professor (Stooge? A professor? Yeah right), who recently inherited a half million dollars from a dead uncle, and Moe & Larry have to prepare him to marry a woman by six o'clock that night, or no money.<br /><br />This was one of the Stooges' first skit with Shemp, before they started recycling their material. Perhaps it isn't surprising that Shemp was part of the Stooges before Curly came into the picture, so he seemed natural at this. The slapstick gags are hilarious, especially this one scene with Moe and Shemp in a phone booth. Essential Stooge short to be honest.
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This was the typical women prison movie. I thought the women were very sexy and the outfits were great. All the camera did was focus on the women and the women were always in provocative poses for the camera and they were always scantily dressed(which I loved). This is your basic prison/breakout movie of the 70's. All I can say about this film is that it's extremely cheesy, but the women are gorgeous and their butts are great!
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For those who have enjoyed the Asterix books and films, you'll LOVE this film! Yes, I will admit that it does mix some of the books and films, but the characters are brilliant and it's not just people showing off their CGI left, right and centre. I've already seen it several times and laughed my socks off at it.<br /><br />Of course it contains the main heroes Asterix (Astérix), Obelix (Obélix) and Dogmatix (Idéfix), but this time they have someone new to... deal with.<br /><br />With a sense of humour like that, the Gauls will go on and on and on. Bless 'em.
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Dig! I would say to anyone even if you don't like Metallica to see 'some kind of monster' it is a spinal tap type documentary about one of the biggest bands in the world acting like mental kids during a breakdown of sorts. It's fun and fascinating. Along the same lines comes dig! A film about 'the Dandy Warhol's' and 'the Brian Jonestown massacre' two Portland bands who start off a kind of music scene in there home town only for one of the bands to become huge and one to fall by the wayside into the musical history books. Right from the start the two bands pull in opposite directions just on their ability to make decisions whether good or bad. Filmed over seven years and at times painful to watch we see the dandy's meteoric rise to fame (thanks to that vodaphone ad!) and the Jonestown seminal fall from scene instigators to bickering wannabes. As the bands become more disjointed the friendships are stretched tension tight and at several points snap into arguments and even on stage fights. All of this is half funny and half tragic and believe it or not is perversely watch able. Like I said at the beginning you can watch the Metallica film even if you have no interest in the band. Dig! on the other hand is slightly different and is more enjoyable and a whole lot easier to watch if you have a passing interest in either band. Still a good film and more a testament to not be in a band than encouraging that as a career path. Dig! Is a mad ride on rock and roll's coat tails and a fine example of the pitfalls and pleasures of being or wanting to be famous.
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Diego Armando Maradona was, and still remains as the best football player, the game has offered. Not just an athlete, but an artist. This documetary if the 1986 World Cup will forever live in the memories of every football fan around the world. Because of his tremendous and unbelievable goal, which he scored against my own country(england). There's absolutely no point of diminishing this star. Although I dont undersand spanish, I can appreciate the argentine narrator. He actually cries of happiness, and can barely express his emotion..... Anything I wrote can be senseless and difficult to comprehend, but readers.....you have to watch this to know what I mean.
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This is a great story. Although there are some Jimmy Stewart cornball parts, for the most part it is a compelling tale about an individual with a compelling drive, vision and sense of adventure - to say the least. The bottom line is it is one of my favorites to watch and I've done so probably dozens to times -- that is until someone stole it our of a bag I brefly left on a plane on a flight to California!<br /><br />Some have commented about too many flashbacks but I don't know a better way to keep a long flight interesting. For those of us who actually fly, flight can be hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror. I wouldn't have wanted to see the flight shortened at all. The oppressive need for sleep and the drone and surrounding loneliness is part of the story.<br /><br />There are many parts that I particularly like including the takeoff from Long Island and landing at night in Paris (Wow, things have really changed with us and the French since then!). The airplane building scenes and the record-breaking flight from San Diego are interesting as is the incident over the Atlantic in ice (which I understand is not completely true but did happen on the San Diego flight).<br /><br />One gets the sense that one of Lindbergh's biggest assets are his enlightened supporters as well as his persistence.<br /><br />Some of the lines that ring in my head now and then include "Pull the chocks!" on the takeoff scene and "I hope I don't have to use it that way" when describing the submarine-like "periscope" to the lady who lent him a mirror so he could better see his overhead instruments.<br /><br />This movie is not for everybody but it certainly is for me. I hope they make it on DVD soon so I can replace my stolen version!
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Boy Oh Boy, does this movie stink. This movie is one of the worst pieces of trash I have ever seen in my whole entire life. Please, even if your life depends on it, DO NOT, and I repeat: DO NOT under any circumstances, view this horrid piece of garbage. Only watch this thing when it comes on as a MST 3000 Episode. That was the only way I could sit through the whole thing. If I had to watch it without that show, I would've stopped watching it before it was over. It does have one use: A Cure For Insomniacs!!!!!
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The Royal Rumble has traditionally been one of my favourite events, and i've been a wrestling fan for a good few years now. The other shows may have better matches, but i've always found the actual rumble match to be full of excitement.<br /><br />I'm not going to reveal the winners of any match as i don't see it as fair to ruin the results on a review. I will comment on the quality of them though.<br /><br />We have the standard 4 matches, and then the big rumble event. Two from Smackdown and two from Raw.<br /><br />Shawn Michaels and Edge open up for Raw. This proves to be a good match from two talented guys. This is a match i'd recommend watching. It's hard to sum up without giving away the winner.<br /><br />Next we have the usual Undertaker against some big nasty monster, be whoever it is. Giant Gonzales, Yokozuna, Kamala... well this time it's Heidenreich. Its also a casket match. Typical Undertaker fare. Watch if you're a fan. I have to admit i am, purely for the entertainment factor. It can hardly be regarded as a classic wrestling match.<br /><br />The next two matches are the title matches. For once Smackdown manages to upstage Raw. Their title match is pretty thrilling and enjoyable, but with a anti-climax and let down to end it. Raw's match is a pretty dull and boring affair, which is a pity as i'm a fan of both guys involved.<br /><br />Now to the main reason i love the event, the rumble. It's a pretty good one this year. Coming up to the event we all had a pretty good idea of who might win, and it may not prove a big surprise, but hey, its very enjoyable. There are the usual diverse ways of people being eliminated. There is the token guy who doesn't make it to the ring, the entrant who is ridiculous and we all want to see vanquished, and someone gets eliminated by a previously eliminated combatant. It has its usual highs and lows, and i loved the ending, in particular the Vince McMahon entrance.<br /><br />I'd recommend this show. Not the WWE on top form, but its still good. Add it to your collection.
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Full House is a wonderful sitcom that is about a dad, Danny Tanner, whose wife had just died in a car crash. So Danny asks his brother in law, Jesse Katsopolis, and best friend, Joey Gladstone, to help raise his three girls, Donna Jo 'DJ' Tanner, Stephanie Tanner, and Michelle Tanner. This is my favorite show ever, and I can watch it all day long. And something on Full House is always making me laugh and there are sad parts also. There is never a dull moment in Full House. The main characters are played by, Bob Saget(Danny Tanner), John Stamos(Jesse Katsopolis), Dave Coulier(Joey Gladstone), Candace Cameron(DJ Tanner), Jodie Sweetin(Stephanie Tanner), and Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen(Michelle Tanner).
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Two years before he wrote and directed "Arthur", Steve Gordon had a minor hit with his screenplay for this crackpot comedic vehicle for Henry Winkler, then TV's "The Fonz". A 1950s college thespian (and all-around jerk) woos a co-ed and gets married without any employment prospects on the horizon; to make ends meet, he turns to the flamboyant world of wrestling, eventually becoming a "Gorgeous George"-like celebrity. Turning likable Winkler into an obnoxious goof-off probably sounded like an interesting idea at the time (and a sure way to separate him from his television alter-ego), but the jokes and situations are often wrong-headed and mean, staged rather sloppily by director Carl Reiner. Particularly crude is a wincing bit involving Hervé Villechaize (of "Fantasy Island") putting the moves on Polly Holliday (Flo from "Alice"). As Henry's beloved, Kim Darby looks a little out of her element--particularly when surrounded by all these TV hams--rendering the romance aspect of the script inconsequential. *1/2 from ****
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The acting was horrible and they got both of the sports wrongggg.......not only did they get the figure skating rules wrong, but also they rules of GIRLS Ice Hockey. In GIRLS ice hockey you cannot check. You also don't BLOCK for someone. Not all they girls are disgusting gross mean and big. I play hockey and I'm only 4'11 and have been asked to go to schools like the one in the movie. Also not all hockey players hate figure skaters. A lot of current girls hockey players were once figure skaters themselves. Also we skate A LOT faster then the ones in the movie. I was embarrassed by the movie it gave people the idea that we suck.......although i must mention that it is difficult to transition between the sports because of the toe pick on the figure skates.....also some of those twirly moves KAtelin was doing on the ice you couldn't do in a regular hockey game. She basically tripped the person, which is illigal. Its also unrealistic that she would get a HOCKEY scholarship when she figure skates. That really made me angry that scholarship would normally be used to someone who could benefit the team.
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Anna (Ursula Andress) is brought in as an official R.N. by ex-lover Benito Varotto (Duilio Del Prete), ostensibly to nurse an aging widower, Count Leonida Bottacin (Mario Piso), back to health after a heart attack. But Benito is actually leading a group of heirs and businessmen, including American entrepreneur Mr. Kitch (Jack Palance), with ulterior motives, reflected by what Anna hopefully will actually accomplish with the Count. He has a history of, well, liking women, and would be actually a bit more "vulnerable" as he is cured. The bad guys get derailed as Anna does not go along and grows closer to the Count. The ending might be said to be ironic, but it is probably better described as predictable. <br /><br />But so much for plot--this film is totally an erotic comedy, from start to finish, and oh how good. There are many nude scenes, including ones of Anna and Jole, one of the malevolent heiresses, played by Luciana Paluzzi. Both Ursula and Luciana are noteworthy continental ex-Bond women, and thus fulfill the fantasies of male viewers. As she did in Thunderball (remember Fiona Volpe), Luciana plays a femme fatale, sort of, although less elegantly.<br /><br />Perhaps the best scene is Anna's (slow) complete strip and jump in bed with the young Adone, the "other patient" (who incredibly is resisting), in an attempt to find out what he knows about the plot. But even at this point she is already two-faced (for the better), for she has decided not to go along. However, Benito is more than a two-timer with women, having had lengthy flings in the past with both Anna and Jole, and the rival best erotic scene follows an invective-filled (to put it mildly) argument between him and Jole. This is a standing-up encounter in which Luciana is down to black panties only. Another nice one is Ursula swimming fully naked in the estate's pool. The Count is free, as the client, to put his hands wherever he wants to on Ursula, and he takes advantage. Hey, somehow I've gone back to the actresses' names in my descriptions. Erotic scenes involving other women include an amusing naked wine cellar chase. "The Sensuous Nurse" is compact, 77 minutes, but it doesn't need to be--it is enjoyable without interruption, start to finish. Definitely recommended.<br /><br />
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Colorful western.<br /><br />Wyoming cowboy James Stewart moseys on up to the Yukon Territory to dig for gold, sell his steers, and try to get a date with pretty saloon-owner Ruth Roman if he can shake the tail of crooked sheriff John McIntire who wants Stewart's cattle. Beautiful cinematography in a collaborative effort by William Fritzsche and Bill Daniels. Good Technicolor adventure from Universal-International, directed by Anthony Mann.<br /><br />Also starring Corinne Calvet, Connie Gilchrist, and Walter Brennan as Stewart's sidekick.
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This show was laughably bad. The writing sucked, the dialog sucked. The guy who played Craig couldn't act his way out of a paper sack. Being it was on Thursday night, this was definitely great to watch with some beers. Cool music, bad acting, poor writing, all came together for my entertainment.<br /><br />It was a drama/unintentional comedy. I don't care what happened to any of the characters, they were all boring and stupid. The first five episodes were the worst, since they couldn't reveal who the victim was, they had to write the dialog around it, which was terrible. I mean, the eulogy at the funeral was ridiculous. Actually, all the scenes that occurred in the present were utterly horrible.<br /><br />So, let's review. Everything happening in present time sucked. The flashback scenes, only the writing, dialog and Craig's acting sucked. The music ruled though.
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I first saw APOCALYPSE NOW in 1985 when it was broadcast on British television for the first time . I was shell shocked after seeing this masterpiece and despite some close competition from the likes of FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING this movie still remains my all time favourite nearly 20 years after I first saw it <br /><br />This leads to the problem of how I can even begin to comment on the movie . I could praise the technical aspects especially the sound , editing and cinematography but everyone else seems to have praised ( Rightly too ) these achievements to high heaven while the performances in general and Robert Duvall in particular have also been noted , and everyone else has mentioned the stark imagery of the Dou Long bridge and the montage of the boat traveling upriver after passing through the border <br /><br />How about the script ? Francis Ford Coppola is best known as a director but he's everyway a genius as a screenwriter as he was as a director , I said " was " in the past tense because making this movie seems to have burned out every creative brain cell in his head , but his sacrifice was worth it . In John Milius original solo draft we have a script that's just as insane and disturbing as the one on screen , but Coppola's involvement in the screenplay has injected a narrative that exactly mirrors that of war . Check how the screenplay starts off all jingoistic and macho with a star turn by Bill Kilgore who wouldn't have looked out of place in THE GREEN BERETS but the more the story progresses the more shocking and insane everything becomes , so much so that by the time reaches Kurtz outpost the audience are watching another film in much the same way as the characters have sailed into another dimension . When Coppola states " This movie isn't about Vietnam - It is Vietnam " he's right . What started off as a patriotic war to defeat communist aggression in the mid 1960s had by the film's setting ( The Manson trial suggests it's 1970 ) had changed America's view of both the world and itself and of the world's view of America <br /><br />It's the insane beauty of APOCALYPSE NOW that makes it a masterwork of cinema and says more in its running time about the brutality of conflict and the hypocrisy of politicians ( What did you do in the Vietnam War Mr President ? ) than Michael Moore could hope to say in a lifetime . I've not seen the REDUX version but watching the original print I didn't feel there was anything missing from the story which like all truly great films is very basic . In fact the premise can lend itself to many other genres like a western where an army officer has to track down and kill a renegade colonel who's leading an injun war party , or a sci-fi movie where a UN assassin is to eliminate a fellow UN soldier who's leading a resistance movement on Mars , though this is probably down to Joseph Conrad's original source novel<br /><br />My all time favourite movie and it's very fitting that I chose this movie to be my one thousandth review at the IMDb
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An innocent man (Steve Guttenberg) has a one-night stand with his boss's wife (Isabelle Huppert). She spots a woman (Elizabeth McGovern) being attacked outside but she can't call the cops because it would blow her marriage to Gutenberg's boss (Paul Shenar). So Guttenberg, honest citizen that he is, when he discovers that another woman was attacked and killed nearby only half an hour later, comes forward and claims to have witnessed the first attack, merely intending to pass on the information given to him by Huppert. Well -- never bear false witness against thy neighbor, as they say.<br /><br />This simple attempt to help the police nab a murderer turns rapidly twisted. When he meets the first near-victim, McGovern, she immediately twigs to what happened, but agrees to keep quiet for the moment. But then Guttenberg finds himself in court, supposed to identify the heavy (Greenquist) and we discover through cross-examination that he is NEAR-SIGHTED and can't identify objects at a distance, let alone faces. (Not that it matters because, after all, he never saw the creep in the first place.) The plot gets practically labyrinthine. Guttenberg winds up the chief suspect when Huppert is murdered too.<br /><br />He barely escapes arrest and holes up with the now-sympathetic McGovern. Guttenberg and McGovern hatch a plan to trap the murderer. She will serve as bait. They'll follow the flagitious creep into one of his seedy haunt and McGovern will act like the doxy that the murderer is attracted to, just to get him to try to kill her. But everything will be okay, see, because not only will Guttenberg keep a close watch on her, and not only will he alert the police a few minutes after she enters this dive, but she will keep a can of mace handy -- just in case.<br /><br />I ask you, the alert viewer, does this scenario unfold as planned? Elizabeth McGovern has a quirkily interesting bone structure. She seems all mandible and tiny mouth at times, but she's vibrant. Steve Guttenberg has hair on his brawn and that's about it. Otherwise he's as helpless as the character he plays. If Isabelle Huppert can act, it isn't evident in this film. The killer is so formed and so groomed that he looks like he's wearing one of those masks of deformity in that Twilight Zone episode about greedy heirs.<br /><br />Didn't the director, Curtis Hanson, go on to make "L.A. Confidential"? That was a nicely done piece of work. Here, everything seems clumsy and contrived, down to the small bit parts. Just before the inevitable violent climax, a uniformed police officer is introduced to delay McGovern's rescue, and the scene is embarrassing to watch. Dick Olsen has a bit part as a late shopper. He's a neat guy and always reliable. Paul Shenar as the cuckolded hubby has a striking face that seems made for the stage and he does a fine job too.<br /><br />That louche joint where McGovern attracts the attention of the murderer, where she plays pool with a couple of hairy apes, was shot at a bar in Carolina Beach, in North Carolina, not far from where I lived. The way the interior is set up, it's clear that this is supposed to be a dangerous and dirty dive. Actually it appears rather more elegant on screen than it did in reality.<br /><br />Overall, this is Hitchcock territory and it brings tears to the eyes to imagine what he would have done with this story.
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Basically, a dentist husband-wife team and their 3 daughters deal with infidelity. The premise is interesting, the acting is good, and the music, although sometimes abrupt and without direction, is pretty cool.<br /><br />The problem is the plot. The husband dentist drops his wife off backstage at an opera before the show (she has a minor role) and then walks back in to give her something, but sees her with another man. The rest of the movie deals with his angst about this episode, his visual hallucinations and a macho alter-ego (Denis Leary, a former patient of his) and his fear in confronting his wife lest he will have to "do something about it." I won't tell you the ending, but let me say that the film goes nowhere and the ending is like a sputtering whimper. The motivations of the characters are missing: Why is she cheating on him? He's a dentist, decent looking, good father. The film doesn't say. Who's she doing it with? Don't expect any answers on that either. Why does he want to keep the marriage going in spite of all this? Who knows. What purpose does all the kids vomiting serve? Where is this film going? Good performances by Campbell Scott and Hope Davis (and Denis Leary as comic relief)are completely wasted by this stilted nonsense which doesn't know if it wants to be American Beauty or a family film. A root canal is more interesting. Avoid it.
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This film follows a very similar storyboard to The Warriors, only with less intensity and rather poor acting which is nothing to write home about.<br /><br />The story in general is not that bad, based around a small Aussie gang who are trying to get out of the city when one of their members is framed for the rape of another gang's girl. They then have to fight their way through the streets whilst they are been hunted down by a number of rival gangs. On could assume that the writers have taken a page out of The Warriors book and re-written it, but as mentioned above - with not nearly as much intensity.<br /><br />The acting as a whole is not very good in my opinion, and it's clearly obvious on many occasions that they are indeed acting... the fight scenes make up for this however but then the poor sound effects that go with them bring it back down.<br /><br />This film has nothing on Once Were Warriors.<br /><br />Low budget, alright story, poor acting, nothing to write home about.
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On a distant planet a psychopath is saved from execution by a space monk. He releases a few fellow inmates and breaks out of the prison in a spaceship. They dock onto a ludicrously enormous spacecraft that is orbiting a supernova star. This massive craft is populated by only three people, presumably because the budget of the film did not extend to hiring many actors. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the three goodies end up in a game of cat and mouse with the baddies.<br /><br />The psychopath in this movie is curious in that he is annoying. 'Annoying' is generally not a term one would use to describe a lunatic - unhinged, frightening, dangerous maybe but not 'annoying' but he is. The three people manning the giant ship are seriously unconvincing as warranting such important roles - this ship is practically the size of a city! Considering that the film is set approximately 50 years in the future, it is somewhat optimistic that such a huge man-made craft could exist, never mind the fact that it is used for such a relatively mundane task. Despite the vast size of the spaceship, the crew all have appallingly kitted out, tiny rooms and the dining room consists of what appears to be a plastic table and chairs. But there are a lot of corridors.<br /><br />The film is fairly well acted and it works as an averagey sci-fi thriller. But nothing great.
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I couldn't agree more with another reviewer that mentioned Jodorowsky.<br /><br />Barney seems to be utterly boring and uninspired "content-wise". He can produce eye-candy (and I like candy), but its pretentiousness and fundamental artistic emptiness just diminishes all the joy. <br /><br />I am afraid that many people don't distinguish between similar (but really only on the surface) works of Jodorowsky or even more linear film-makers like Tarkovski or Kubrick (I love 2001 Odyssey and was never bored through the ending scenes...) That kind of art as M.Barney's makes adds confusion and fends off the viewers that could otherwise start to appreciate experimental cinema. Typical empty post-modern "conceptual" art. And check his interviews. I just don't buy it, sorry. And so boring. <br /><br />I was never bored seeing Alejandro Jodorowsky's movies, while Drawing Restraint 9 was an utter disappointment. Especially while it offered the possibilities to be something, to actually tell something in a non-linear unorthodox way (like the beginning and the great choreographed dance and preparations for the ship to sail out. Ships "meeting" on the sea... Ideas of feces as an object of value(if it was feces). Those "pearl" divers... Everything could construct a great surreal movie with some content. But it didn't. ANd those horrible pretentious scenes of dressing up and fake tea ceremony... How vain and fake and philosophically pretentious but empty can it get?<br /><br />I has some great picturesque scenes, but the whole movie became so boring and pretentious and utterly empty and fake that it made me physically sick.<br /><br />And it doesn't have good tempo. I like slow pace movies, but this was just boring in some scenes - because it was pretentious and fake - so I was just forced to witnessed prolonged scenes of artistic vanity...<br /><br />That kind of movies just kill the art and spirit in my view. <br /><br />I want more Jodorowsky!!!
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I loved this movie the first time I saw it. It gives such detail of what executives involved in the news industry will do just to get a story on the air: notably Jane Craig rushing Kenny to finish editing the piece to get it off, and then Joan Cusack struggling to get it in, and William Hurt, who according to Jane commits an incredible breach of ethics, fakes his tears during his date rape interview, a flaw that is pointed out by Aaron. Another high point is when Tom uses Jane for his own benefits, and then turns around and sleeps with Jennifer. The script is brilliant, and the directing is almost as good. All three main actors were great in the portrayals of their characters, Especially Holly Hunter, and Albert Brooks, whom is the funniest in the film. William Hurt is also very good. This deserved at least three Oscars, best actress(holly hunter), best supporting actor (Albert Brooks), and best picture. I liked the last parts of the film where it shows them reuniting 7 years later.<br /><br />8/10
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What an unfortunate mess is "Shiner." I wanted to like this over-the-top, anti-film aspirant, and in fact found a number of moments with powerful resonance. Sadly, those moments are few and far between. While I appreciate some of what Calson was attempting, any advantage aspired to by bare bones, no budget cinematography was destroyed with some truly atrocious editing that benefited the movie not at all.<br /><br />While bad acting abounds in low budget (and big budget) cinema, Shiner has some remarkably bad performances that are nearly painful to watch. In particular the "straight" couple Linda and Young Guy. These are the two most poorly written characters offering almost nothing to the story. The acting is so abysmal and neither actor seems capable of resisting smirking or cracking up as they drearily drop their lines with an appalling lack of skill. The choppy editing almost lends the feeling that these roles were entirely gratuitous and dropped in to avoid the films being stereotypically cast as an oddball gay film. It would have been better off as such.<br /><br />With all that is going wrong for it, there are several performances that seem to capture what Calson was hoping to get. In particular the story centering on Bob and Tim. These are the two most richly drawn characters and offer the most rewards with genuinely captivating performances by Nicholas T. King (Bob) and David Zelinas (Tim). Tim is a boxer with some serious issues. Remarkably low self esteem is disguised by an almost cartoon like arrogance that he wears like armour plating. Obsessed with Tim, the seemingly harmless yet ultimately creepy Bob, stalks the boxer in classic cat-and-mouse fashion. When the tables are turned and hunter becomes the hunted, the resulting in the film's only genuine emotional catharsis. In a film so artificially hard-edged (that's a compliment) one character MUST have that revelatory break through (or breakdown, as the case proves here) and the final confrontation between Bob and Tim provide Zelinas and King opportunity to display some real acting chops.<br /><br />As played by Scott Stepp and Derris Nile, Tony and Danny seem to be the focus of the movie, and despite some bravado moments of their own (including one truly disturbing scene revealing the sex/violence obsession), but they can't seem to escape a cartoon-like artifice and it's difficult to look at - or beyond their seeming one note symphony and find anything other than the obvious.<br /><br />Ultimately this same raw material could (and should) be used to tell this story in better fashion. Alas, there really isn't much to recommend this yet, the performances by Messrs. King and Zelinas, really do offer something special and a glimpse of what might have been and are ultimately worth seeing.
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You know how sometimes you can watch a crappy movie with friends and laugh at all the shortcomings of the movie? Well this was beyond that. I bought the DVD at Tower Records because it was like $3.00 and I'd heard this was a movie you could laugh at. It is really nothing short of pathetic. About 30 minutes into the movie, my friends started asking me to turn it off. Around 45 minutes they begged me. After an hour, we compromised to fast forward to the end, so we could see how the conflict was resolved (and because we had been watching the whole time for Matt Walsh). Seriously, don't watch this movie. It is beyond painful.
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Im a die hard Dads Army fan and nothing will ever change that. I got all the tapes, DVD's and audiobooks and every time i watch/listen to them its brand new. <br /><br />The film. The film is a re run of certain episodes, Man and the hour, Enemy within the gates, Battle School and numerous others with a different edge. Introduction of a new General instead of Captain Square was a brilliant move - especially when he wouldn't cash the cheque (something that is rarely done now).<br /><br />It follows through the early years of getting equipment and uniforms, starting up and training. All in all, its a great film for a boring Sunday afternoon. <br /><br />Two draw backs. One is the Germans bogus dodgy accents (come one, Germans cant pronounced the letter "W" like us) and Two The casting of Liz Frazer instead of the familiar Janet Davis. I like Liz in other films like the carry ons but she doesn't carry it correctly in this and Janet Davis would have been the better choice.
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What a movie! I have always liked the Asian style of shooting, and this movie does not disappoint at all! Photography is breath-taking, ranging from amazing landscapes to whirls of colours. The main actor is really realistic in representing the painter (whose paintings are astonishing). The ending is also very well chosen, very poetic. The only remark is that they should have maybe shown a bit more deeply the connection between his inspiration and his abuse of alcohol and women. But altogether this is an excellent film!
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- Bad Stuff: This movie is real crap. Bad stunts for one thing, they looked so fake I thought this was "The Twilight Zone". The flashbacks are pretty much useless. One part of the movie he thinks taking his anger out on a window will make his life better. I wanna know the casting director and if he was high because the acting, even from the adults was horrid. A kissing scene in this movie even sucked. This movie killed the book. The book was great. I highly do not recommend this movie. Not even for educational purposes. <br /><br />- Good Stuff: I don't know what I can say really. There is some suspense parts that get you going, but they are quickly shot down by the bad stunt work and acting. <br /><br />- My Verdict: Do not watch.
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OK Hollywood is not liberal.<br /><br />Obviously I'm lieing because it is. Im a conservative but the politics i will leave out of my opinion of the movie. This movie was anti bush, anti middle east , anti big oil propaganda but that is not why it was bad.<br /><br />Fist off i will give credit where credit is due. i saw this film opening night because i happen to like these kinds of films and am a political science major in collage. The cinematography was excellent and the acting was as far as i could tell very good.<br /><br />The plot was impossible for me to decode however. I have been tested and have an IQ of 138 but no matter how hard i tried there was no way i could piece together the story line of the movie and what characters where doing what.<br /><br />The story and scene sequence was totally incoherent and poorly organized.<br /><br />Unless this is one of those movies that is meant to be watch many times to get the full depth pf the story, which it very well may be, i have no idea exactly what was going on.<br /><br />Which makes sense because if you want to make a political argument and not receive any criticism then make your argument impossible to critique! If you cant dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with Bull S.
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Kalifornia is a movie about lost ideals. A journey on the darkest road ever. The road of no return. The plot is about a couple that set out to find a better life in California. The man (David Duchovny in his best role up to now) wants to write a book about the famous crimes that have happened in America and his girl - who is a photographer - is going to take the pictures. So they set out on a trail of famous murders not knowing what awaits them on the way. To share the journey expenses they decide to find another couple and they put an ad. But the couple that answers it is not just ANY couple. It is one of the strangest couples ever. The girl is a naive, frail creature that dreams a lot and loves cactuses. The man is exactly the opposite. A cruel ruthless murderer. We learn that early in the film and we follow him along the journey to Kalifornia (not with C as usual, but with K, presumably symbolizing the word killer), along his journey of betrayal, murder and finally defeat. All the leads, Duchovny, Pitt, Lewis and Forbes give really good performances and you have to take into consideration that when this movie was filmed not even one of them was a star. The photography is amazing, with darkness covering the greatest parts of the movie, and the music suits the dark character of the film. On the whole this is a really good movie. Don't miss it. You'll think again before taking some stranger in your car to share the gas with!
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gone with the wind and scarlett are two different films they were never meant to be compared obviously the original actors in gwtw are all passed away and deserved their own separate award and praise i loved gwtw and never really expected a sequel to be made or ever live up to half the praise of gwtw but to my shock scarlett was just as well written directed and acted as gwtw scarlett in its own right deserves just as much award i now can honestly say i don't know which i like better i think the script for scarlett was a- number 1 perfect' as a sequel. Bravo! writer director producer and all actors Bravo! AS sequels rarely live up to their name sake this one runs equal to its predecessor. To those who don't like it you miss the point and a great ending to phenomenal beginning
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Best fan boy movie I've ever watched save "Free Enterprise."<br /><br />In some ways it reminded me of an early Kevin Smith film.<br /><br />If you do any kind of role playing, this movie will likely have you laughing often at its insatiable fun. Don't expect a big budget here, the acting is also questionable at times, but it really adds to the fun of the atmosphere they create. The script is truly humorous with a lot of witty moments worth experiencing.<br /><br />The bard that always gets killed had me rolling. The sexually confused player also had me smiling a bit too. But in the end... It was just a great movie showcasing some better moments in the lives of a few geeks having a great time with role playing.<br /><br />If you are bored, and ever got into role playing, this will do nicely for a distraction. A real unexpected treat.
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Romantic comedies can really go either way, you know? You'll see one that's really sappy, and you'll think you want something more realistic. Then, you'll see one that's realistic, but it might be too dull to keep you interested. Or maybe you'll see one that does everything right, but just fails to make you smile. Romantic comedies are tough movies. You go into them with a lot of expectations, and usually, whether you like it is simply a matter of whether the filmmakes was anticipating your expectations or those of the guy or girl next to you.<br /><br />Of course, if you've got a girl next to you, and you're a guy like me, it probably doesn't matter all that much whether the movie's any good, you've got other things on your mind. For you, I say, "Go get her, Tiger!" For the rest of us, I say, "See _A Guy Thing_." It's a lot of fun.<br /><br />Because _A Guy Thing_ knows you're going in to this movie with expectations, so it doesn't pretend that its "Guy about to get married meets the woman of his dreams, and it's not his wife!" plot is going to make everyone happy. Sure, maybe you like it, but maybe it doesn't ring true, or you think it's cruel. _A Guy Thing_ covers that. What _A Guy Thing_ does is fill the screen with the best supporting cast I've seen in a long time, so if you don't the main plotline, you've still got something to make you smile.<br /><br />Whether we're talking about the seasoned veterans of big and small screen, like Larry Miller (Pretty Woman, Best in Show), James Brolin (Traffic), Julie Hagerty (Airplane!), David Koechner (Saturday Night Live and Conan O'Brien regular, Dirty Work, Austin Powers II) or Thomas Lennon (The State and Viva Variety), or new faces like Shawn Hatosy (The Faculty), or Colin Foo (Saving Silverman), we're talking about a bunch of very talented and skilled actors who know exactly how to take advantage of the film's inspired characterisation, steal the show, time after time, and still frame the piece with an energy and a joy rarely seen in romantic comedies these days.<br /><br />And that's not to detract from the actual romantic throughline and the stars that carry it along, because it's very sweet and terribly well done. Jason Lee (Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, etc.) is touching as the young professional whose life may be spinning out of control, and Selma Blair shows an understated brilliance in portraying the aspiring socialite and sophisticated career woman every guy wants to marry except for the guy who actually is.<br /><br />A lot of the success of the movie, though, falls on Julia Stiles, the right girl in the right place at the wrong time, and she wears it well. Not since, gosh, I don't know when, have I seen an actress in a romantic comedy that has made falling in love with her so easy. Of course, it's all in the closeups, the voice, and the subtle smiles, but it's magical, and it's one of the big reasons why we go to the movies in the first place.<br /><br />But Julie Stiles's slightly offbeat sophistication would be lost were it not for the fact that the rest of the cast is so incredibly dead-on in their classic simplicity. This is a movie that paints a broken world of irreconcilable stock types, makes them fall over each other to make you laugh, and then comes through with a great deal of heart.<br /><br />A Guy Thing is a movie you've definitely seen before, and the filmmakers clearly knew that when they set down to make it. We haven't really seen any new romantic comedies since Shakespeare; the relative success of this one or that one is entirely dependent upon the execution of the classic story of boy meets girl. A Guy Thing does embrace that with a bit of a metacinematic edge, often taking the scenes into the absurd in order to give the audience a chance to acknowledge the powerful emotions and ancient plot devices at play.<br /><br />For the record, it also even manages to poke fun at the rather traditional structural notions of sex and gender that form the center of every romantic comedy, so even the feminists out there might get a kick out of it.<br /><br />And guys, I think we can all agree that we wish our friends are as cool as Jason Lee's friends in this movie. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but when you try to explain to your girlfriend why the pharmacist and the clothing store clerk are among the coolest dudes in cinema, I suggest you just say "It's a Guy Thing," and leave it at that.
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In his 1966 film "Blow Up", Antonioni had his hero question truth against a backdrop of British youth protesters. By setting such questions against a fabric of hippie youth movements, Antonioni questioned, intentionally or not, the effectiveness of these organisations. How can you fight for a cause when what you think is true may actually be a lie? On the flip side, the film said that we must fight and actively challenge what we see precisely because others may be deceiving us with false images and false truths. Though the hippie aspects were the most tacky parts of "Blow Up", they created a nice texture and gave the film more meaning than it might otherwise have had. It was a very cautionary and mature little film.<br /><br />With "Zabriskie Point" Antonioni throws away all the ambiguities and subtleties of "Blow Up" and goes full blown hippie. The result is a film awash with bad metaphors, stupid ideas and heavy handed storytelling. How could somebody, who across his career displayed such restraint and intelligence, make something so silly? <br /><br />The film opens with a nice series of close ups, as we watch a group of radicals discussing the meaning of revolution. Suddenly one man (Mark) gets up and leaves. He hates the rigid and ordered nature of revolution. He recognises that, though revolutionaries fight for freedom, to bind oneself to such a militant cause is to effectively give your freedom away. And so like Jack Nicholson in "The Passenger", Mark just wants to be free.<br /><br />As such, Mark buys a gun and goes solo. He takes orders from no one. When police raid his university campus Mark shoots a guy and runs away. He then flees to a nearby airfield, steals a small private plane and flies out to the desert. Antonioni treats the desert as a peaceful utopia, and contrasts it with the ruthlessly capitalist cities, with their billboards and hollow modern appliances. He sees the desert as a sort of Garden of Eden.<br /><br />In the desert, Mark meets Daria and quickly falls in love. Antonioni then gives us a ridiculous sex scene in which hundreds of hippies have sex in the sand. Free from the constraints of modern life, these tree-huggers and student radicals can now celebrate their individualism by humping in the sun.<br /><br />The film ends with Mark dying and Daria fantasising about blowing up the mansions and stately homes of the rich capitalists who killed him. It's Antonioni's challenge to his audience. Pick up the guns, pickets and explosives, he says. Tear the walls down before they cage you in!<br /><br />Of course the film had no effect on its audience. They recognised "Zabriskie Point" as being just another self centred commercial attempt at being radical. A sort of commodified radicalism. It felt untruthful and tame.<br /><br />Thematically the film is pretty stupid. Antonioni basically says that if you are unhappy with the modern world, and the fat cats who exploit you, you should either flee to the desert (Mark) or actively fight the system (Daria). That's all well and good. But though artists constantly warn us of such dystopian nightmares, they're all mostly unable to show us how to effectively administer change. Like the end of "Fight Club", nihilism and violence achieve nothing. In the real world, social change tends to be instigated by humble inventors, spurred ahead by minor technological advancements. I mean, what liberated women more than contraceptives?<br /><br />3/10 - A very bad film. The problem is, Antonioni does not really believe in rebellion. He is a quiet and contemplative man. An introvert who seems to have made an extroverted film simply to garner more adoration from the counterculture who embraced his earlier film, "Blow Up". As such, "Zabrinskie Point" comes across as a very pretentious and stupid film. It's essentially a 50 year old man say "Look at me, I'm a daring rebel!"<br /><br />There are many films in which the audience is encouraged to fight "the system", but they all fall into one of four categories. In the first category you have films like "Network", "Cool Hand Luke", "Cuckoo's Nest" and "Spartacus". These all show that the lives of freedom fighters all end in failure, though in each case the "spirit of revolution" survives. The message is that you can not effect change, but by dying or failing, the optimistic notion of change survives through martyrdom. Essentially we must keep on failing rather than give up hope.<br /><br />Then you have films like "Fight Club", "Zabriskie Point" and "Falling Down", which simply encourage you to explode. Tear it all down. Blow it all up. Everything is a lie, so you might as well go out guns blazing. These films are borne out of angry, reactionary feelings, rather than any sort of common sense.<br /><br />Then you have the "flight rather than fight" category. Terrence Malick and Antonioni are the masters of this genre. Films like "The Passenger", "Red Desert" and "Badlands" show human beings running from worlds they do not like and forging islands or peaceful havens for themselves. Both directors are pessimists, in that Malick has his islands destroyed and Antonioni has his islands offering no sense of happiness or solution.<br /><br />Then you have the fourth category. Films like Donnersmarck's "The Lives of Others", Ashby's "Bound For Glory" and Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange", treat artists as a force of change and rebellion. In these dystopian worlds, in which everyone is content to be a slave to the state, it is the unbridled creativity and freedom of will of the artist/criminal who keeps the system in check. By simply existing outside of the herd, you create waves. Your comments, actions and critical eye, challenges the status quo. As such, Donnersmarck's film has novelists and artists undermining Nazi Germany, whilst Kubrick has Alex the artist/criminal fighting Nazi droogs, painting the town in blood and sperm.
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That's a bad, raunchy, predictable, tacky, salacious soap opera? "The Best of Everything" is just such a guilty pleasure for me, something along the lines of "Valley of the Dolls". I mean, "Best" has everything. Somebody gets pregnant out of wedlock (when's the last time you heard THAT phrase?), there are affairs everywhere, drinking, backstabbing, jealousy, and even a tragic but not altogether unexpected death.<br /><br />Caroline Bender (Hope Lange) and Mike Rice (the delicious Stephen Boyd) are the centerpieces of the goings-on. Their chemistry is immediate and is the glue that keeps this film from becoming too fragmented.<br /><br />Suzy Parker, the off-the-chart gorgeous ex-fashion model, appears as Gregg Adams, an aspiring stage actress, a role that, according to any biography I've ever read about her, was apparently not much of a stretch. But Parker does a surprisingly credible job here, more than holding her own in a couple of scenes opposite Louis Jourdan who plays David Savage. Jourdan probably took this role for the money and the special screen credit because he was clearly headed down the aging star/has-been road.<br /><br />Diane Baker is fine as naive, gullible April Morrison, Martha Hyer as Barbara Lemont has a particularly juicy storyline, and film legend Joan Crawford chews her usual serving of scenery as Amanda Farrow, another role, like Jourdan's Savage, that Crawford likely took for the paycheck.<br /><br />There is some obviously dated dialog and plot devices (this IS 1959), and the predictability of the soap opera genre. But if you like a good soap as I do, "The Best of Everything" will more than satisfy you.
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Writer-director Tony Piccirillo adapted his own play about a straight man, recently widowed, learning in the last three weeks he is HIV-positive; he tracks down the one homosexual partner he ever had, brings him to an apartment and ties him up, forcing a blood test on the guy and promising bloody revenge if the results come back positive. Intriguing idea sounds better on paper than it plays out. James Marsden's captive is realistically cynical and snotty, but the actor's own artificial mannerisms are disconcerting--it's like watching a roadshow version of Tom Cruise. Scott Speedman has to work harder with the more challenging role, but his personality-turn from shy guy to kidnapper-on-the-edge isn't convincing, and neither are the conversations the two men have. Marsden's gay party boy isn't apathetic, of course--he's momentarily sympathetic to Speedman's plight--but he doesn't react or behave the way any homosexual man would in this circumstance. The movie isn't a cop-out, exactly, but it is a fraud, handicapped further by the bad editing, the poorly-conceived flashbacks, the low-budget production, and the big finale which smacks of silly pretension and soapy melodrama. *1/2 from ****
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Perhaps it's just me, but this movie seemed more like sequel or follow-up than the separate project. Why? When it was filmed (just few years after the war) most of the viewers probably knew why Rommel was so famous, why his death was so important to Allied, why he was Hitler's favorite general, but now, 50 years later, it isn't so obvious anymore.<br /><br />"Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel" is a decent war movie, but it's just isn't in any way explained how Rommel did get his nickname, what was he doing that Allied considered him as their best general, why their soldiers were so afraid of Afrika Korps? That's what is missing in this movie - we see his fame, his character, his way to treat soldiers and enemies, but f.e. we also see that Hitler was complaining about his achievements in Africa, calling him coward, etc. So, we're missing the big picture here - it is "The Story of Rommel", but unfortunately the "Desert Fox" part is missing.
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Just another film that exploits gratuitous frontal male nudity; awful acting, plus, the lovemaking scenes are the most un-sexy I've ever seen (and this is not about me not linking the idea of two young men making love, since I'm gay).<br /><br />Again, as in Mil nubes de paz, Julian Hernandez directed an incredibly pretentious film with a story that makes enough argument for a short film of about five minutes but manages to make a 2 hour film with it... And this time, there isn't even the issue of racism and commodification in the Mexican gay community to talk about! God gracious have mercy on us!
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A comedy of epically funny proportions from the guys that brought you South Park, and most of the guys from Orgazmo. This vulgur, obscence movie has utterly disgusting, eggotistical, and satirical content. It portrays incredibly cruel treatment of humans and animals. I LOVE IT!!!!! This is some funny stuff. Really funny. Two loser friends create a game in thier driveway, which explodes into a national sensation. Corruption and greed and blackmail turn the sport sour, and its up ta Coop ta fix it. And along the way, you will laugh. Alot. That's all there is. Enjoy!!!!
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A fun romp...a lot of good twists and turns! (and we were not even baked!)<br /><br />Didn't know this movie even existed until watching the extra trailers on a Monty Python DVD...(oddly it was there along with The City of Lost Children, and The Adventures of Baron Munchauhsen)<br /><br />The plot keeps you wondering throughout.<br /><br />The acting was awesome...Hank Azaria shows his talent again, Bill Bob is Billy Bob...(wecis?)<br /><br />Definitely worth watching.
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I thought it was brilliant! It was great watching the presenter tracking each one of them down. Dwight Schultz still looked the same, he had hardly changed in looks, neither had Dirk Benedict, he still looked just as dishy! I thought that Mr T looked thinner though, but it was still great to see how he looked after all this time. I thought that it took some doing tracking down the other members of the cast, such as the one who played Decker, and the lady who played Amy. It was just a shame that Mr T could'nt make the actual reunion. Also it was a great shame that George Peppard had died, thereby leaving a gap so to speak. I only wish now that I had taped it to keep. Let's hope that they repeat it again.
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When I tuned in to my local PBS station last night to watch "The War That Made America". I was expecting a dull documentary, instead I got a very good and believable reenactment of the major events of the time. Now I see the reasons for the American Revolution, and the part the Indian wars played. Larry Nehring IS George Washington, and he is perfect for that part. The narrative to the camera, also work fantastic. I'm looking forward to next week, to see the rest. It's good to see PBS really using the HD format to bring the 1700 right in to our living room.<br /><br />I hope Larry Nehring is seen more in the future, since he is such a talented actor.
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If you are like me and observed the original "Benji" phenomenon from afar, finally seeing the movie for the first time 30+ years later, you may be shocked to discover how truly awful it is, and more mystified than ever about its popularity back in 1974.<br /><br />My judgment is not entirely objective as I tend to have a favorable bias toward children's films and for that reason cut them considerable slack. On the other hand I have always hated this particular dog, a feature on the last couple seasons of "Petticoat Junction". Never a great show, the dog-less early episodes were at least a nice showcase of beautiful actresses and the introduction of the dog cut into their screen time.<br /><br />Benji is an 86-minute mega-dose of the dog, following him on several daily circuits through the town of McKinney, Texas. If this sounds boring you would be advised to give "Benji" a wide birth and to never let your remote control fall into the hands of a "Benji" fan (if there are still any out there). <br /><br />Unlike "My Dog Skip", "Monkey Business" or "Because of Winn-Dixie" the human actors in the cast are extremely weak. "Big Valley's" Peter Breck plays the standard stern father and just seems to embarrassed at the idea of appearing in something this lame. <br /><br />If one of your children (of any age) appears to be finding "Benji" entertaining you should consider cutting back on their medication.<br /><br />Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
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Some of the best movies that are categorized as "comedies" actually blur between comedy and drama. "The Graduate" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", which were made also in the late 1960's are perfect examples. Are they comedies with dramatic undertones, or dramas with a lot of humor? In many respects, "The Odd Couple" falls into this same category of being both comedy yet highly dramatic with deep underpinnings about human nature. Much of what happens may be funny to the audience but the characters are not laughing.<br /><br />Despite the rather light-hearted TV show of the 1970's, the original "Odd Couple" is not merely about a neat guy and messy guy who are forced to live together because of their marital situation. It's really about two opposites who must face why their marriages fell apart and how their detrimental idiosyncrasies reveal themselves outside of their marriage. Neatness, the characteristic of Felix Ungar (Jack Lemon perfectly cast) and messiness, the characteristic of Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau), are only the beginning and somewhat superficial. As the story unfolds, we find there is a lot more to these men than simply neatness versus messiness.<br /><br />Briefly, the story is really about Felix Ungar, who has to face an impending divorce from his wife Francis, who we never meet but is an important character throughout the story. On the verge of suicide, Ungar goes to the only place he knows: the apartment of Oscar Madison where a group of poker buddies hang out every so often. We learn that Ungar is not only a member of this "poker club" but the group knows what's happening to him and try, in their inept way, to help out. Madison figures the best way to help Ungar is to let him move in with him until his suicidal tendencies wear off.<br /><br />Unfortunately for Madison, he doesn't know what he's getting himself into. Madison is a carefree happy-go-lucky if rather irresponsible slob who's refrigerator was last cleaned probably when Herbert Hoover was still in the White House. Madison's idea of serving snacks is grabbing moldy cheese and sticking them in between two pieces of bread, and then throwing the contents of a bag of chips on the table. On the other hand, he enjoys booze and women, in short having a good time. <br /><br />Ungar is not only altogether different, he is diametrically opposite. He is not only an obsessive neatness nut that finds more joy in disinfecting the apartment than meeting women but he knows more than most women do about cooking and fine eating. At one point, he calls his ex-wife, not to talk about reconciling, but to get her recipe for meatloaf. At another moment, Ungar was going to spend the rest of the evening cutting cabbage for coleslaw. When Madison seems unimpressed, Ungar finally confesses he was only doing it for his roommate because he can't stand coleslaw. Who is this guy? But he has another endearing trait: Felix is also a hypochondriac. He obsesses about his health to the point where he makes strange noises in public places claiming he's helping his sinuses. He seems to have every health condition in the book. And if they made up more, Felix would probably have them. Ultimately, he is overly self-absorbed.<br /><br />Running throughout the movie are references to marriage. At one point when Madison is trying to convince Ungar to move in, he says, "What do you want, a wedding ring?" But little does he know that it is not the neat guy who can't deal with the messy guy, but the other way around. Their friendship becomes an inadvertent hellish relationship. And the climax occurs when Oscar invites two lonely British sisters for a get-together with both comedic and tragic results. This is one of the best comedies of its type ever written and not to be missed, with superlative performances by Walter Matthau and Jack Lemon in roles that are hard to imagine better played by anyone else. It is unfortunate that writing of this caliber is sadly lacking from most comedies being produced today.
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A gritty Australian film, with all the elements for success. Two Hands represents the ability of Australian film makers and actors to produce top-quality, popular material. The film has a fresh angle, and uniquely incorporates drama, suspense and comedy.<br /><br />I found this film thoroughly enjoyable on so many different levels - but can also appreciate that it might not be everyone's 'cup of tea'. The film carries a distinct Aussie humour, as it portrays the seedy underworld of Sydney, and explores the lives of a young man (Ledger) and young woman (Byrne), swept up in the local crime scene.<br /><br />Two Hands deals with the theme of good and evil, both on an interpersonal and personal level and looks at the issue of consequences for 'our' actions.<br /><br />The camera work is snazzy and the dialogue humorous. With Bryan Brown who plays Pando and Heath Ledger as Jimmy, battling it out on-screen in the most bizarre situations - this Aussie film is certainly not short of acting talent.<br /><br />This subtle action/comedy has become somewhat of a cult favourite, and one of mine also.
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The movie is truly poignant, unique and uplifting. The story is universal in that it's a battle between good, evil and the world between. THE MOST IMPORTANT thing is that its rating is wrong, misleading, and a travesty. Blockbuster has it rated as though it were an X rated movie. The truth is is that it is closer to G than PG and should be seen by children who can read the clear and simple sub-titles.
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"Laughter is a state of mind" says the tag, and I hesitate to comment on Barry Levinson's. What could he have been thinking during the making of "Toys"? When he watched the rushes, did he see a successful, funny fantasy? If so, then he's working on a different plane than I. This is an excruciating picture, one in which the production design is 90% of the thing (and even the cartoon colors are a disappointment). Robin Williams and (most especially) Joan Cusack are humiliated as brother and sister of a toy mogul who are bypassed as inheritors of the factory when their dad dies. There's nothing remotely funny (satirical or slapstick-wise) on display here. It is uniformly draggy, ugly, and one of the very worst "big" movies ever made. NO STARS from ****
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Though the Our Gang comedies still have their followers, I've got to say that their attempt to graduate to feature films, courtesy of Hal Roach came up way short. Why did Roach have to pick the Civil War as is subject with all the attendant racism that would follow.<br /><br />Dashing southern cavalier Phillips Holmes takes in young orphan Spanky McFarland and his young black friend Buckwheat Thomas after Spanky inadvertently exposes a card cheat on a riverboat. All is placid and serene in the Old South and then the Civil War comes to ruin it for everybody.<br /><br />But even children can charm the worst in the world and there's none worse than those damn Yankees. They just come south and ruin it for everybody.<br /><br />Criticized though it was for its southern viewpoint, Gone With The Wind did make a good case for the southern cause and the blacks portrayed even though servile which they would be out of necessity are still three dimensional characters. Hattie McDaniel would not have won her Oscar if it were not so. Butterfly McQueen's character of Prissy as silly and vacuous as she was has some dimension.<br /><br />Here though is maybe some of the worst racial stereotyping ever brought forth in Hollywood. The companionship of Spanky and Buckwheat does show that kids get along, racial feelings are acquired not inbred. It's not the servility of the blacks that's objectionable, but there total acceptance of it. Right from that horrible watermelon song, sung over the title credits, the message of General Spanky is a bad one.<br /><br />Yet it did get an Oscar nomination for Sound recording, probably one of the very few Hal Roach ever got out of the short subject field.<br /><br />General Spanky is far from Gone With The Wind though.
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I saw this film at a special screening. At first I thought the movie would be like a typical Amanda Bynes movie, but I was wrong. The movie is based on the Shakespeares book "The Twelth Night" This movie tells the story of a girl who lives to play soccer. Well when the girls team is cut she has to go to great lengths to get on the guys team at a different school to get revenge on the egotistical guys team at her old school. On her way she gets caught up in a long tangled web of love, lies, and deception. This movie is this years Mean Girls. I think it shows some great new actors abilities and there are defiantly some big stars to be featured in this movie.
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Oh it really really is. I've seen films that I disliked more, due to whatever reason, but never have I seen a film that just fails in every single aspect of film making. It even fails to fail at film making, in a Way the Hercules in New York could be said to do. It's not the film I like the least, but it is the very worst film I've ever seen.<br /><br />The acting is the first thing that strikes you. I've never seen a worse acted film outside of pornography. In fact I've plenty of pornographic films that are acted a damn site better than this. It really is awful.<br /><br />Technically, it's terrible. The camera-work is amateurish. The editing is nonsensical. I presume they couldn't afford proper sound equipment, and this meant that every scene in a car (and there's a lot of them) has them driving at about three miles per hour and every scene set outside by the same patch of woods (and there's a lot of them too) is actually dubbed from a studio, again lending more to the bad porn vibe.<br /><br />The plot is nonsensical, as many have pointed out. I'll defend vampires walking in daylight by the fact that despite it being popularized by Nosferatu, this was never originally an intrinsic part of the vampire mythos.<br /><br />Speaking of vampire mythos, the writer had evidently read Carmilla, or at very least seen The Vampire Lovers. I'm not sure how I feel about this, swaying from impressed that a movie this dire has at least some aspirations to a Gothic novel I'm very fond of; or annoyed by its at best sledgehammer references and at worst total desecration of source material. At very least 'the General' is an insult to Peter Cushing though.<br /><br />It gets two stars however, merely because I can't bring myself to vote one star for a film that has, or at least purports to have, both vampires and zombies in it. Incidentally I watched Lifeforce (another film that tenuously has vampires and zombies in it) on the same day as this, and despite being a rather flawed film itself, really comes out a masterpiece compared to this.<br /><br />So in the end, this is not a film so bad it's good, or so bad it's in any way enjoyable, even drunk. It's just a mess, and worth no-one's time watching.
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Even if you could get past the idea that these boring characters personally witnessed every Significant Moment of the 1960s (ok, so Katie didn't join the Manson Family, and nobody died at Altamont), this movie was still unbelievably awful. I got the impression that the "writers" just locked themselves in a room and watched "Forrest Gump," "The Wonder Years," and Oliver Stone's 60s films over and over again and called it research. A Canadian television critic called the conclusion of the first episode "head spinning". He was right.
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When I first picked this film up I was intrigued at the basic idea and eager to see what would happen. I'm a fan of animation and love it when it's successfully merged with live action footage. However, the animation in this film was about all I enjoyed. Although it must be said that the actors' performances were excellent. The visual look - including the animation - gave a wonderfully unnerving air to the piece. However this was quality of unease was lost amongst the overblown imagery, both visual and in the script, that you were practically hammered over the head with. Most annoying about this was the relative lack of importance to the plot. It seemed that the plot was shoe horned in at irregular intervals giving a stuttering effect that detracted massively from the flow of the piece. The voice overs from Felisberto - especially the one at the end - very much felt like a desperate attempt to fill in gaping holes in the plot which had been ignored in favour of side issues such as the whole ant thing (and even that wasn't properly addressed). I'm afraid the whole piece came across as, at best, a 'reasonable first attempt', by a teenager who has spent far too much time reading DH Lawrence. Not what you expect from seasoned film makers at all.
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People call a 976 "party line" to talk dirty to strangers, and perhaps meet up for a sexual liason. A deranged, somewhat incestuous sister and occasional transvestite brother use the line to find people to kill, usually married men, but they don't discriminate! A pair of sixteen year old girls also call the line for fun, pretending to be older, of course. One of them works as a babysitter for a married man who's hot for her (or anyone).<br /><br />Meanwhile, a vice cop is borrowed by homicide when he's the first to discover one of the siblings' victims. He's teamed with a female assistant of the District Attorney.<br /><br />Nothing too special here. Richard Roundtree has little more than a cameo as the police chief. One of the dirty-talking sixteen year olds is played by an actress who also voiced Peanuts character Peppermint Patty! According to the IMDb, the other died quite young, just several years after this movie: sad.
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I understand that this movie is made for kids and as a parent I have sat through many movies that don't particularly hold my interest, but I can appreciate from a constructive point of view in how it is being received by my children. Parents are supposed to be encouraged after all to take part in their children's activities and to monitor the quality of the entertainment that they view so there should be something that appeals to an adult audience on some level even in children's movies. Disney has always understood this which is why it is so hard to fathom how it could allow such a complete piece of drek to bear their name.<br /><br />Technically, the sound editing is horrible and all dialog sounds over-dubbed and unnatural. Personally I hate that, but it was doubly awful considering the dialog itself seemed as though it was written by a 12 year old for a school project. The "acting" reminded me of a school play and none of the child actors had any range of emotion in their voices. Thankfully it was a very short movie.<br /><br />Now, before I come off like a video-geek measuring a kids movie with an adult yard stick, the one thing that can save even the worst children's movie is a positive message. Far be it from me to determine how a message has to be delivered so long as the right one is. Let us take a walk through this film to see what messages are given: <br /><br />If you are lost, don't worry, you will inevitably find your way home.<br /><br />Approach wild animals without any fear.<br /><br />You can win any competition just because you "know" you can.<br /><br />and my favorite, the final message left in the film: <br /><br />It's okay to disobey authority figures and do what you think is right.
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I agree with the previous comment, what a disappointment. Rented it thinking it was going to be a good movie since Mira and Olivier where in it. I was surprised by their performance, expected more since they're good actors.<br /><br />Thought it was a slow beginning but it got worse. I even laughed at some bad stunts!! when is supposed to be a mystery movie. You can even guess who is the killer beforehand!!! <br /><br />For real what happened?? <br /><br />Sorry to say but don't even bother you'll waste time and money.<br /><br />Boring!!!
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| 8,516
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What can be said about such a pathetic movie ? <br /><br />- Very bad acting ! The main actress seems to know only one facial expression : fear mixed with weakness. Like a poor beaten dog... The other actress (the one who plays the evil) looks like the female double of Ozzy Osbourne, with an awful red wig. The other actors are so pitiful that they don't even worth being described. <br /><br />- There's absolutely no plot. The story begins with possibilities but goes nowhere : we don't know anything about the meaning of "11:11", nor who Rayden really is, excepted the simple "she's evil" or "she's a child of Apocalypse"... which is not an explanation. We don't know why the parents have been killed, what kind of danger is growing and why Sara was chosen. As the film goes on, we just watch pseudo-scary scenes, with a bad music. Moreover, the end doesn't tell anything : we just see two possibilities as if one of them was a bonus scene or the director's cut... There's no plot, so no possible interpretation. <br /><br />- "11:11" is just full of clichés ! It is so obvious that i couldn't help laughing. For example : the deserted library or the bathroom scenes, ghost silhouettes walking with a blast of wind, ... there's even the fashionable "little scary girl" as in "Dark Water" or "The Ring". Of course, the main character is bullied at school and looks like a stereotyped Gothic girl (dark hair, red lips, skinny, black clothes). Is it an obligation to make her credible ? I don't think so. The psychology of Sara is so few developed and so typical that it doesn't make her credible, nor endearing.<br /><br />- Terrible direction : as i said, nothing original, everything has already been seen a thousand times and is used here without any real purpose. <br /><br />- There are some funny incoherences. For example, i don't know if "ghost science", "paranormal course" or whatever is taught in American universities... In Europe it is really not the case : teachers talking about negative energies or using "unmaterial" creatures sensors... ridiculous. Also : how can you watch a movie shot in the sixties with a Super-8 camera on a computer screen without spending hours of your time for a digitalization (in the movie they watch it immediately on the computer screen) AND how can you, on this old film, isolate a tiny detail then zoom in and see a perfectly identifiable face ? I wonder if the director has ever tried to digitize an old analogical film...<br /><br />Eventually, "11:11" just worths being watched if you like to laugh at silly movies, or maybe if you want to fall asleep on your couch... But it's an expensive way to fall asleep !
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| 6,498
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I own a vacation lake home not far from Plainfield, WI. Ten minutes from the Gein property to be exact. I've seen his land, the cemetery where he is buried and where he did his digging, and I've shopped at the hardware store that was formerly owned by the Worden family. While visiting relatives in California, we decided to rent this movie. It was disgusting. The true story of Ed Gein is so disturbing and creepy, why the creators of this piece of trash decided to make up their own story is beyond me. The actor playing Ed is a very large man, Ed was a very small, meek, and shy man. That is part of what makes his story so frightening. He did not have a helper to dig up the graves and anyone who owns land in the area knows that it is mostly sand with a little dirt in it. You won't break much of a sweat digging a hole. They didn't have to hire an actor with the physique of a wrestler, just do your research. And if the writing wasn't bad enough - there are NO mountains in Wisconsin, and I'm pretty certain that 911 was not available in 1957.
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| 1,262
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I and my brother are very big Asian movie fans, so when finding this movie hidden in a shop, I bought this one on DVD, because it sounded very promising and I couldn't wait to watch it. So I watched this movie with my brother and I must say, in the beginning it was very promising. Both of us really loved this brutal ball scene in the first scene. But i guess that was all. There are some interesting fights, but it is not a action movie, as it claims to be. Instead it's a love movie... with the cliché of love so extremely played over the top, even Shakespeare would vomit on this title. Sorry for my language. By the way: The characters act like being picked up from the street and given 100 for playing in this movie.<br /><br />Well, I and my brother watched it to the end, because we thought, it can only become better. But, heck, it never did. This movie challenged place #1 on my and my brothers "worst movies ever seen"-list, only followed by "Fantasy mission force" - do not watch this either.
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| 4,226
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Normally I wouldn't go to the trouble of commenting on a horror movie sequel, because it's usually assumed that they're BAD, and if you watch them with a healthy disrespect, they can be very fun and enjoyable to taunt/laugh at. However, this chapter of the ongoing Halloween saga came close to gumbing up everything the original stood for. In the very first movie, Dr. Loomis said (very pointedly I might add), that Michael Myers was evil, and this tries to explain why (doing a bad job of it I might add). In my opinion, he was much scarier when he was just a blood hungry freak. The whole goth/cult thing was unnecessary and a desperate attempt to throw a new curve into the Halloween equation. The result was a boring, predictable movie that was not scary and not bad enough to be funny.
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Watching "Ossessione" today -- more than 6 decades later -- is still a powerful experience, especially for those interested in movie history and more specifically on how Italian filmmakers changed movies forever (roughly from "Ossessione" and De Sica's "I Bambini Ci Guardano", both 1943, up to 20 years later with Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini). Visconti makes an amazing directing début, taking the (uncredited) plot of "The Postman Always Rings Twice" as a guide to the development of his own themes.<br /><br />It strikes us even today how ahead of its time "Ossessione" was. Shot in Fascist Italy during World War II (think about it!!), it depicted scenes and themes that caused the film to be immediately banned from theaters -- and the fact that it used the plot of a famous American novel and payed no copyright didn't help. <br /><br />"Ossessione" alarmingly reveals poverty-ridden war-time Italy (far from the idealized Italy depicted in Fascist "Telefoni Bianchi" movies); but it's also extremely daring in its sexual frankness, with shirtless hunk Gino (Massimo Girotti, who definitely precedes Brando's Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire") taking Giovanna (Clara Calamai), a married woman, to bed just 5 minutes after they first meet. We watch Calamai's unglamorous, matter-of-fact undressing and the subtle but undeniable homosexual hints between Gino and Lo Spagnolo (Elio Marcuzzo - a very appealing actor, his face not unlike Pierre Clémenti's, who was shot by the Nazis in 1945, at 28 years old!)...In a few words: sex, lust, greed and poverty, as relentlessly as it had rarely, if ever, been shown before in Italian cinema.<br /><br />All the copies of "Ossessione" were destroyed soon after its opening -- it was called scandalous and immoral. Visconti managed to save a print, and when the film was re-released after the war, most critics called it the front-runner of the Neo-Realist movement, preceding Rossellini's "Roma CIttà Aperta" and De Sica's "Sciuscià". Some other critics, perhaps more appropriately, saw "Ossessione" as the Italian counterpart to the "poetic realism" of French cinema (remember Visconti had been Renoir's assistant), especially Marcel Carné's "Quai des Brumes" and "Le Jour se Lève", and Julien Duvivier's "Pépé le Moko". <br /><br />While "Ossessione" may be Neo-Realistic in its visual language (the depiction of war-time paesan life in Italy with its popular fairs, poverty, child labor, prostitution, bums, swindlers etc), the characters and the themes were already decidedly Viscontian. He was always more interested in tragic, passionate, obsessive, greedy characters, in social/political/sexual apartheid, in the decadence of the elites than in realistic, "everyday- life" characters and themes, favored by DeSica and Rossellini. In "Ossessione" we already find elements of drama and tragedy later developed in many of his films, especially "Senso" (Visconti's definitive departure from Neo-Realist aesthetics) and "Rocco e Suoi Fratelli"...Even in his most "Neo-Realist" film, "La Terra Trema", he makes his fishermen rise from day-to-day characters to mythological figures.<br /><br />"Ossessione" is a good opportunity to confirm the theory about great artists whose body of work approaches, analyzes and develops specific themes and concerns over and over again, from their first to their last opus, no matter if the scenery, background or time-setting may change -- Visconti may play with the frame but the themes and essence of his art are, well, obsessively recurrent. "Ossessione" is not to be missed: you'll surely be fascinated by this ground-breaking, powerful film.
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As a girl, Hinako moved away from her small village to Tokyo, leaving behind her two best friends, Fumiya and Sayori. She returns as a young woman, surprised to find that Sayori died when she was a teenager. She reunites with Fumiya and they are horrified to learn that Sayori is mysteriously being resurrected via the island of Shikoku. Oh boy. I rented this because I like Asian horror and I think Chiaki Kuriyama a nifty actress. Unfortunately, if I had to describe Shikoku in one word, it would be "fruity." This movie is silly, boring, poorly filmed, unimaginative, and most of all, unscary. Kuriyama has minimal screen time as the resurrected Sayori, and her character is given little to work with.
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Does anyone know the exact quote about "time and love" by George Ede aka, Father Fitzpatrick in the move, It had to be you? He was talking to Charlie and Annna in the church as they were leaving? If not I will have to rent the movie. This was a great movie. I also loved Serendipity! Great love story for the soul! <br /><br />I met my one true love (my Soulmate) and although I had the experience to meet him when I had least expecting it, I wasn't ready for that kind of emotional relationship. <br /><br />Altho, we did marry, I wasn't mature enough to give as much as I thought I would. I got complacent and took his love for granted and he withstood it for 7 years. <br /><br />He finally left with resentment but we are still hurt and angry & in disbelief about the way it turned out. I had some very hard lessons to learn and we have now been apart 3 years.<br /><br />This movie meant a lot because I am still waiting on reconciling with my one and only true love. I can NOW appreciate that distinct feeling inside of me and the quote of Father Fitzpatrick rang true for me.<br /><br />I know when he has healed enough to trust me again, we will remarry.<br /><br />Don't EVER GET COMPLACENT AND TAKE TRUE LOVE FOR GRANTED! IT HAS BEEN THE HARDEST LESSON OF MY LIFE. <br /><br />Also the music in this movie is OUTSTANDING and MEANINGFUL! This movie is DEEP and spiritually uplifting. TRUE LOVE is worth waiting for, if it is meant to be, it will, no matter what, IT WILL HAPPEN! Nothing is impossible, even when it's the second time around! Thanks!
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My take on this, at our local festival where people would see me so often they thought me a better source than I may actually have been, began with a head shake: "Well, I can't summarize the plot, but it's a really superb character study of an extremely scary man." Then, slight embarrassment, I ran into someone who actually knew what had gone down, that is, from whom Trebor unwittingly gets his new heart. It'd been my last film in a long, long day halfway through the festival. Maybe I'd dozed. The better a film is the more likely it triggers daydreams that send me really dreaming. Don't know. Did know there was an O'Henry twist achingly just beyond my ken as things finished. And knew it had to do with the heart, hence the quietly hilarious talent search. My plot-loss remark had more to do with intricacies of Trebor's connections in France, his relation to the dog woman and so on, stuff I'd been wide awake for. Denis barely glances at details that might have anchored another director's treatment.<br /><br />But I write these things too often from memory, especially festival films, films whose DVD I don't have at hand (Le Lait de la tendresse humaine is one of many examples.), and plot kinks fade much more quickly than broader impressions. Still, or already, L'Inrus in my memory is beyond all else a character study of a sort of dark-side superman, a super fiend not ensconced in genre or historical trappings but active and plausible, relatively soft-spoken, driven but patient, right among us. The scar, once he attains it, makes him, just visually I mean, in image, a sort of hybrid Frankenstein monster, mad doctor and creation all in one. The actual doctors are his tools. If he doesn't extract and install the heart himself, it's only because it's not possible. He's the force, always, the parasite consuming everyone he touches and finally himself. What else is he? To suggest that he's us, the First World versus the Third, seems too simple since he feeds no less on his fellow First Worlders, on all of us.<br /><br />Denis's camera's eye - when it looks at things I know - goes usually where mine would, so I tend to trust her when she looks at things I don't know. Snow trekking, too-fast bicycling, and forest darkness I've known in small ways, but the South Seas not at all, so I made better entry into L'Intrus, both France and the crystalline isles of its finish, than into Beau Travail. L'Intrus is, for me, a very comfortable discomforting film. It's a sequence of places portrayed familiarly, with a intimacy that allows us to know them whether we've seen the reality or not. A single image, Trebor cycling, his massive weight on the thin racing frame, the sounds of violated air and shrieking tires, the asphalt ribbon, the dark-in-bright-sun evergreens, cued me that the film would be linear, a road trip, a single will-driven thrust.<br /><br />Despite Trebor's personal power, he's a human failure. No matter who he's with, he's alone, though apparently he hasn't always been. His body aborts life twice, first to need the new heart, then despite it. L'Intrus is tragedy. Trebor is hubris.<br /><br />I'm navigating perilously the thread of what I remember. Let's leave it at that.
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The plot is rocky. The acting is somewhere south of a Jr. High School play. The cinematography is not bad but it looks like it was cut with a machete. I couldn't decide of this was an intentionally hokey flick or if the people behind it actually thought they were making a good film. Think Death Valley Days meets Mayberry RFD. People running around in a 'lawless' modern town wearing quick-draw 6 gun rigs. It has more than its fair share of 'cutsey' stuff. Picture the Good Guys pulling up to an old farm house, and parking the Ford Mustang right in front of a hitching rail. Picture the clerk in a hotel watching an obviously western (hemisphere) movie sporting a Japanese sound track but with English sub-titles. It's all really strange but might be improved if watching it while partaking in a little peyote. It's a real curiosity with modern parallels to every western movie cliché you can think of. There's even a modern version of the good hearted dance-hall girl, AND a twanging Jew's-harp in the soundtrack. Really! If someone brings this to your home for a Saturday night movie session, tell 'em your DVD player died.
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The fun that was present in the other 'movies' has all but disappeared with this third effort, which means the rubbishy production values show through more than ever. Another 2-parter ('The Chinese Web') cobbled together, this one suffers from too much padding, not to mention weak Spidey action taking place in such uninspired locations as a car park, apartment and printing press. Nicholas Hammond is as endearing as ever, struggling valiantly against the drab production and lame performances of the rest of the cast. The plot, in which Peter and Spidey help a Chinese official defeat charge of corruption during World War II by locating three marines who could testify as to his innocence, doesn't exactly scream 'comic book sprung to life', does it?
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This series and Elon Gold were being HYPED as "the next big thing" in sitcoms for NBC. Well, they weren't. Dennis Farina was terribly miscast as the father in-law. He just seemed so uncomfortable and out of place here. The term, "Private 'convo' time!" was supposed to become the "Dyno-mite!" catch phrase of the 21st Century. Well, it wasn't. People were asking then, as they still are today (When his name comes up.), "Who the hell is Elon Gold?" I saw him on an episode of "The Mentalist" this evening. I mentioned his name, and my girlfriend asked, "Who?" Not funny. Total waste of airtime. NBC had really HIGH hopes for this show, but it just fell flat.
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With the mixed reviews this got I wasn't expecting too much, and was pleasantly surprised. It's a very entertaining small crime film with interesting characters, excellent portrayals, writing that's breezy without being glib, and a good pace. It looks good too, in a funky way. Apparently people either like this movie or just hate it, and I'm one who liked it.
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People with an aversion to gore may find some scenes hard going, but The Thing is far from being simply a horror classic. The fact that the extraordinary special effects stand up against most modern day CGI is only a small part of why this movie is, finally, rightfully regarded as a masterpiece. Technically brilliant in its camera-work and editing, superbly scripted and acted, one of the best openings, one of the best endings, tension and paranoia sustained throughout (with countless viewings), an excellent soundtrack, and open to multiple readings and analogy, there simply aren't enough superlatives to do this film justice. Absolutely essential viewing.
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If it's an art and essay film, there is not enough art, not to mention essay.<br /><br />If it is a thriller, there is not enough thriller.<br /><br />If it is a teenage drama, there is not enough drama, and as far as teenagers are concerned, there is not enough NOFX and too much Nino Rota.<br /><br />I thought it could be a trailer for Tony Hawk's forthcoming movie, but there is no Tony Hawk, so I guess I'be been cheated: it's not Tony Hawk biopic.<br /><br />If it's an action movie, it lacks explosions, which would have added some interest to it, or at least would have make jump the sleeping ones into their chairs.<br /><br />Most of the characters seem to be dead inside, but it's not a zombie movie. In fact, if it is a movie, there is not enough plot. If it is not a movie, it lasts too long to be a music video.<br /><br />If it's a music video, well... it's an album I will not purchase
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I have bought the complete season of Surface. watched it in 3 days! I was so captured by the the plot, theories and basically everything about this show. The actor who plays Miles is great. Mile's sister, mother and father acted like real life family would. You could connect on so many levels it's fascinating.<br /><br />I find animals are so wonderful, you can almost connect with them as a parent is to a child. It would be something if a creature of this sort of nature truly exists.<br /><br />Am sadden, that Surface is not having a second season or at least four more shows. I have so many questions that need to be answered and hopefully maybe they will create more or maybe in a book.<br /><br />Love the show very much. For those who haven't watched Surface, if you like sci-fi you need to watch this!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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The film is about a young man, Michael, who cares for the elderly. One day he decides to kill some of the relatives of his clients. Around the same time he decides to model his killing after the Zodiac Killer of the 60's. He gets in touch with the author of a book about the Zodiac Killer and they form a friendship. Michael has a gun (aparently the only gun, as it seems to be in the hands of some of the other actors, only not portrayed as the same gun.) and he goes out a-killin'. Original. <br /><br />This is a great film if you like B movies. I thought the idea of the movie was good, but the editing and the acting really drowned the plot. I thought the 'blood' was just too fake, the lighting was horrible in some places, and the dialog was just too standard. The movie was shot on video, which is okay, but the editing of the film just made for some weird 'Plan 9' scenes. Not a bad movie for fans of the B-movie genre, but if you want something with a bit more polish, move on to something else.
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In this era when almost everything makes it on to DVD (I'm expecting to see the My Mother the Car collection any day now) this film has been unfairly neglected. There are innumerable stupid comedies from the 60's as well as many other eras that have received at least a cursory DVD treatment. This one wasn't even released on VHS to my knowledge, despite the talents involved in the making (Arthur Hiller, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, Murray Shisgal (notable later for co-writing Tootsie), even Dustin Hoffman in his debut). It's obviously a product of the sixties but so is just about everything else from that era. All films reflect the tastes and customs of the times in which they are made. This was released the same year as The President's Analyst, another absurd masterpiece. That film was finally released on DVD and has developed a cult following. This film has many memorable bizarre, goofy, wacky moments. Sure, it's painted in broad strokes and has silly go-go music throughout but that's part of its charm. It creates its own absurd universe. If whoever is in charge of DVD production for Columbia Pictures releases (I believe Columbia released it) takes polls for new releases this gets my vote.
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i love bad shark movies. i really do. i laugh hysterically at them. and the scifi channel was having a marathon of them, culminating in the premier of their new original picture, hammerhead: shark frenzy. based on the previews, it looked like it was going to be HIGHLY amusing. essentially a remake of benchley's creature, really. it was prefaced by a showing of shark attack 3: megalodon, which is shark movie hilarity at its best. i was in the mood; i was ready to go. bring it on, hammerhead-mad-scientist-man! oh, god, was that movie wrong.<br /><br />wrong, wrong, wrong.<br /><br />sick. twisted. MESSED UP.<br /><br />this is theoretical reproduction at its very worst, my friends. when a drugged-out girl is brought out of suspended animation and strapped to a table screaming her head off because the shark-human hybrid fetus the absolutely insane "scientist" deliberately implanted in her womb wants OUT... Jesus monkeys. that's what i call disturbing.<br /><br />that's really how the plot works: hmmm, thought the mad scientist. my son died of cancer, but i brought him back to life by combining his dna with that of a hammerhead shark, because sharks don't succumb to cancer and further hammerheads reproduce via placenta. oh, look! a perfect amphibious being! i've created the next evolution of the human race! I KNOW! let's make him reproduce! but darned if all those shark genes have't made my son bloodthirsty; instead of raping the hot babes i keep sending into his little jungle paradise, he keeps eating him. but check this out! among the random people who have, by way of some unimportant plot twist, ended up on my research island, is the woman to whom my son was engaged before he died! i bet he'll do HER! all this leads up to an extremely touching and heartfelt reunion: woman: you're going to impregnate me? mad scientist: no. he is. (indicates thrashing shark-person in tank) how sweet.<br /><br />DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE. ever.
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Superb story of a dedicated young teacher who sets out teaching minority children in an area off South Carolina.<br /><br />Jon Voight is just tremendous as the headstrong, dedicated, idealistic teacher who faces this challenge despite a principal, who believes in stern discipline and has little regard for modern educational techniques as well as a crusty old school superintendent, played with relish by the late Hume Cronyn. Madge Sinclair is the principal who loves her babies.<br /><br />As I'm a retired teacher, I could in some ways relate to this excellent film. The ignorance shown here as well as the lack of cooperation with officials is also quite apparent in urban areas.<br /><br />Voight realizes that these children need far more than the traditional teachings of a classroom. He has them go out and experience life by themselves by learning outdoors.<br /><br />The end is a definite downer but so true to life.<br /><br />Amazing that such backward students had a zest for learning and were well disciplined. I guess that answers my question. The behavior was there and they were motivated to succeed despite their environment.<br /><br />The ending will just tug at your heart. It was memorable and so well poignant.
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Undoubtedly the funniest movie I have ever seen. It's definitely worth the fourteen minutes it takes to watch. I will never look at my kitchen appliances the same way again. Bob Knickerbocker deserves an Oscar. "Relax, kid. It's only a movie"
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<br /><br />This movie sucked! The first one was way better. No one from the first has returned in this dumb sequel and in some way that is a good thing because of the bad acting but the characters in this film are not even better. Killjoy in the woods? Come on! Give me a break! I'm suprised killjoy's friend the Blair Witch didn't show up to make a cameo. Bad acting, bad story and just plain out silly and boring. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME!
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A fantastic cinema experience. I really enjoyed seeing this truly magnificent film in the theater when it came out. There is nothing to add, except that is a terrible shame that sir Albert Finney still isn't accepted by the AMPAS (American Academy). After roles in such films as Tom Jones, Murder on the Orient Express, Under the Volcano (to name only few - for these he was nominated for the Oscar), The Dresser is arguably his highlight, yet...<br /><br />I know, Oscars are just popularity contest, but if Americans like British actors and actresses ("and the Oscar goes to" Jeremy Irons, Daniel Day-Lewis, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Glenda Jackson etc. - and they all deserved the award!), why they always left sir Finney with empty hands?<br /><br />On the other hand, they gave it to John Wayne and Marisa Tomei (in Cousin Vinny). I don't know, should I laugh or cry.<br /><br />If you have seen the two leads in The Dresser, you won't forget what is the art of acting. Watch this film and enjoy! I recommend it to everyone who loves art.<br /><br />I give 9/10 for this excellent film (1 point missing for non-cinematic material, after all it is "just" a theater)<br /><br />Note: My criteria is much stronger than this on IMDb (10 only for the cinematic masterpiece that should/could last forever).
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While the design and locations and photography are strong assets in this film; it is a turgid and melodramatic affair which demonstrates the limits of cinema to convey truth.<br /><br />The case is the use of the soundtrack music: a mix of Gustav Mahler and Andrew Lloyd-Webber that plays constantly and loudly, and would have made Max Steiner grimace at its over use as it instructs the audience how difficult; how ecstatic; how tortured it is to be an artist. And then it really counts the story elides the details at the end.<br /><br />This heightened and kitsch exploitation of emotions was once well ridiculed by Peter Ackroyd about a Yukio Mishima book: This is not writing, this is Barbara Cartland. Precisely the same critique can be made of this film: a deceptive, mawkish vanity project.
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| 8,946
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I rented this movie under the impression that it was "Scarecrow 3:Dark Harvest", thinking it was a continuation in the Scarecrow Slayer series (another extremely laughable and all together awful series of movies). I wasn't disappointed though. It was just as awful, if not worse, than what I expected. I was laughing throughout the entire movie. Every piece of bad acting, poorly shot and cut footage, and terrible special effects is what makes this movie worth renting.<br /><br />The special features include a pathetic view into the cast and crew's six months of filming.<br /><br />Favorite line, "The sins of my forefathers! They've trickled down to this very moment of time!"
| 0
| 7,260
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The reason why this movie isn't any better known and more appreciated to me seems because of its subject. Because of its controversial subject this movie never got a proper big release and still remains a fairly unknown one to this very day. Not that it's subject is that controversial now anymore though.<br /><br />Basically in essence it's a movie about a white man befriending a black man. The friendship does not seem forced or unrealistic but the way it gets portrayed in this movie makes it all feel very real. We see these different ethnics mingle in with each other, as if it's just completely normal. Unfortunately of course back in those days it really wasn't regarded as anything normal. Seeing a black man talking to a white girl and just having fun with her as a friend must have been an hard thing to watch for instance for some proportions of its 1957 audience.<br /><br />You can really understand why Sidney Poitier has always been and still is being respected so much by the Hollywood society and the black-community in general. Of course it's one of the reasons why he also received an Honorary Award at the Oscar's, in 2002. In his movies he often fights against discrimination and prejudiced issues, with of course "In the Heat of the Night" as the best example of this. A real role model, that certainly has inspired many Afro-American actors, to this very day. But on top of that, he also was a great actor. Yes, he is still alive but he has pretty much retired completely from movies now it seems, since his last credited role is from 2001.<br /><br />This movie was Martin Ritt's directorial debut and he also wasn't given too much movie to spend on his movie. The studios were probably also a bit reluctant mainly because of its concept and/or because it was Ritt's first movie. Or perhaps it was simply due to the fact that MGM just wasn't that big anymore and it had left its best days behind them. Ever since the '50's on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer sort of had the reputation of making not too great and cheap movies, while in the early years before that it was really one of the biggest studios with lots of stars and acclaimed directors attached to it, who made many award winning classic movies. Luckily for them their reputation is starting to change again and whenever the MGM-logo appears at a movie people are no longer expecting a lesser-movie anymore.<br /><br />Anyway, even with its restrained budget and limited resources they managed to make a great movie out of this one. The movie is very simple, with only a few characters and a simplistic plot in it. The movie however still manages to capture you with its story and subjects, without ever starting to become preachy or anything about it. It makes the movie an effective one as well with its subjects.<br /><br />Really a movie that deserves to be seen.<br /><br />8/10
| 1
| 18,967
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Imagine the worst thing that could ever possibly be conceived by human intellect. Now imagine something infinitely darker - I mean, worse, than that. Then multiply that by the quantity of the suckiness possessed by the Star Wars Holiday Special. This movie is by far worse than that.<br /><br />"Dracula 3000: Infinite Darkness", starring such illustrious and reputable actors such as Coolio and Langley Kirkwood (as the film's "horrifying antagonist", Count ORLOCK) is equatable to eating one's own feces exclusively for one's entire life, condensed into approximately one hour and twenty minutes. To be frank, there is no way to approach a review of this cinematic tragedy - riddled with Communist propaganda, promotion of drug use, futuristic anachronisms, and quite possibly the worst special effects since the (original) "War of the Worlds".<br /><br />The hammer and the sickle of the Soviet Union can be seen proudly displayed throughout the dingy sets they dare call a spaceship. Lenin can be observed on several posters throughout the "film". And of course, religion has been abolished for two centuries by then. So they don't know who this "God" is, even though they have no reservations about using His name in vain. But of course, in the Socialist Republic of space (presided over by interstellar President Baker), death-stick like drugs are legalized and quite common. Yet handicap mobility seems even worse off than it is today (they don't even have a wheelchair ramp).<br /><br />Racial tension still festers throughout the galaxy in quite a familiar/predictable fashion. We receive great commentary on ethnic division through lines such as "is Dracula a brotha?", "us brothas gotta stick together", and "once you go black, you don't go back." Speaking of the token black characters, one is played by Coolio. Playing a stereotypical stoner, Coolio becomes possibly the most annoying and ridiculous vampire ever. Oh wait, SECOND most ridiculous vampire ever. That prized title goes to our friend COUNT ORLOCK, from PLANET TRANSYLVANIA, in the CARPATHIAN SYSTEM. These two make quite a pair, between Coolio's attempts to cripple a paraplegic, strange attempts at making high-pitched animal noises, a hairstyle 1004 years old, and GIGANTIC stretches of completely worthless dialogue; and Count Orlock's twenty dollar generic Halloween-style vampire costume, exploding coffins, or confusingly inane back story.<br /><br />One wonders if they did not simply give Coolio the opportunity to get "as high as a kite in space without gravity", let him interact with the other "actors", and just went from there.<br /><br />Count Orlock's motivations are also somewhat in question. Does he want "infinite darkness", as the film's subtitle would have you believe? Does he want to eat the crew? Or does he want *Coolio* to "kill them all"? Or does he desire to give handicapped people a chance in such an inhospitably future? It doesn't really matter, because none of this film's plot makes sense anyways.<br /><br />The highlight of this movie has to be it's ending. More for the fact that it means the movie is over than by any merit of the abrupt trainwreck of a climax they phone in before the credits. Instead of facing Count Orlock off in some sort of duel (the closest we get is a shot of Orlock flailing around at breakneck speeds in front of our protagonist, who dies shortly afterwards), our heroes beat him by cutting off his arm in an ordinary door. Orlock then proceeds to collapse, screeching in pain at a totally mundane yet understandably painful injury. This is by far the most fun you'll get from this movie. Watching a vampire's contorted face as he cries in pain will have you on the edge of your seat - with laughter. Almost worth the four bucks for that alone. Of course, right after that we're treated with one of the film's worst one-liners, the mandatory allusion to sex, and perhaps the most ABRUPT EXCUSE FOR AN ENDING *EVER*. They're driving into the sun, and their ship literally just blows up before they even come remotely close to impact. I think they just outdid the Wachowski bros. for the worst finale ever.<br /><br />I can only sleep at night because we know that a sequel is impossible. Secure in this fact, we can safely say that this is the WORST MOVIE EVER CREATED, and one which will never be exceeded in low quality, lower budget, and lower-est acting talent.
| 0
| 1,954
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A seemingly endless movie that really deserves a zero rating. The premise seems simple enough: Yentl, a girl interested in studying the Talmud, wants to go to school. But only boys are allowed to study, so after her father's death she decides to disguise herself as a boy to get in. She does and becomes close friends with Avigdor, who is to be married to a beautiful woman named Hadass. Hadass' family learns Avigdor's brother committed suicide, and the wedding is called off. Yentl, now calling herself Anschel, is then selected to marry Hadass. She does but it is never consummated. Yentl/Anschel and Avigdor go away for a few days, and Yentl/Anschel reveals her secret to him. The movie ends with Avigdor returning to (and marrying?) Hadass, and Yentl going to America to continue her studies although she will have to continue to do so in disguise.<br /><br />The plot above seems interesting at first for a movie over 2 hours long, but there are several things that ruin it. For starters, there is the constant SINGING. (I can already hear the critics shouting.) Yes, I know this is a musical so there are supposed to be lots of songs and dance numbers. But the movie could have been improved if it were directed and played without them. The songs become tedious after a while, and there isn't as much dancing as one would expect. Many of the songs are forgettable, with no real memorable lyrics, and those with any significance could easily have been substituted by a voice-over. Only one song stands out from the rest, "Papa Can You Hear Me". It is obvious that most of the others were deliberately placed so Streisand could simply have a reason to show off her vocal abilities every five to ten minutes. Chances are anyone who will see this film will already know what a superb singer and actress she is, so the songs really aren't necessary. <br /><br />Second, Streisand's makeup, which can be seen during her scenes as a man (the lipstick, enhanced lashes, and traces of blush are all obvious) makes it hard for the audience to believe in the Yentl/Anschel character, that she is actually serious, and fooling her new friends, colleagues, and even Hadass, into believing she is a man. Yet we are asked and expected to believe that very thing. There seems to be a contradiction, as her character talks, or rather sings, of how she doesn't think she can pull it off, but is surprised that everyone seems to be fooled because she is wearing men's clothing. This means that we are then expected to believe the other characters are so naive they can't see the other differences, such as her actions, which are clear giveaways. The facial differences alone cannot be included, as other characters in the film mention that some of their male relatives or friends didn't have a beard or other facial hair. Nevertheless, in the 1900s, if a woman dressed as a man, but wore as much makeup as Streisand's character did, and still tried to pass herself off as a man solely because she wore men's clothing, it would have been deemed unacceptable and caused an outrage. Chances are she would probably be forced to leave the town, or even the country. Therefore the "feminine" makeup on Streisand does not lend to the character's credibility, and only weakens the plot. If it was only applied to make Streisand look more beautiful, it should have been scrapped. <br /><br />Thirdly, when Yentl/Anschel herself reveals who she truly is toward the end, we are then asked to believe that the other characters are not as smart as Streisand's and only when they learn the "truth" do they become a little wiser. By now it becomes more and more apparent that the whole plot is so far fetched that it is nothing more than a custom-made vehicle for Streisand to fuel.<br /><br />Lastly, there are those who are fans of Streisand who will find no fault with this film, its plot, or the songs. To those I must respectfully disagree. While she has excellent vocal and acting abilities, I am not a "fan" of her style of singing. However, I have enjoyed many of her other features including musicals. There are even some songs of hers that I like, so I am not a "hater" nor have set out to bash her. I have written this review from an honest perspective, from someone who has tried their best to watch this movie - several times even - and has noted the problems within. If Streisand was interested in creating a great or even believable film, she could have done so here by not injecting her need to show off and prove how talented, beautiful and smart she is at nearly every turn. This movie does nothing more than hurt her abilities, make her appear self-absorbed, and thus turn the film into a laugh-fest unworthy of her fans or audience.
| 0
| 12,219
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Well, since it's called Porno Holocaust and directed by Joe D'Amato, I went into this film expecting sleaze...and while I somewhat got it, Porno Holocaust was a massive disappointment as it's just so damned BORING. The title suggests that the film will feature porn, and that's not wrong - Porno Holocaust is pretty much just porn, and most of it is just the same stuff over and over again, I was fast forwarding before the end. The first sex scene is between two women and it got my hopes up, but after that it just degenerates into normal porn, and the rest of the film (for the first hour!) is made up of talking, and you can imagine how much fun that is to sit through! The plot focuses on a deserted island where, believe it or not, something strange is going on. Naturally, it's not long before a group of people - made up of a few men and some scientists, who all happen to be sexy women, land on the island. They have sex a few times and some strange things happen, then over an hour later they're attacked by a mutant zombie creature with an eye for the ladies...<br /><br />This must have seemed like a good idea for an original porno - a zombie who likes to get it on, but unsurprisingly it doesn't work well at all. The film clocks in at just ten minutes short of the two hour mark, and that is far too long for a film like this. I have no idea why Porno Holocaust is as long as it is; if they'd just snipped one minute out of every sex scene, the film would have been under ninety minutes, and that would have made it much more tolerable! The zombie takes what seems like an eternity to appear (it's quite a long time before there's a sex break long enough for them to actually travel to the island in the first place), and when it does finally appear, it's a huge disappointment! I realise that this is low budget B-movie trash, but D'Amato surely could have tried a bit harder and come up with something better than this! I'm not even going to bother mentioning the acting, atmosphere etc, there's no point. Porno Holocaust is basically just your average dull porn flick with a slight sprinkling of horror, and I can't recommend it!
| 0
| 2,493
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What made me track this movie down was the viewing Vampyres, I thought I have to get the other movies this guy (Larroz) has made, I was sorry I tracked this down,it is a weak attempt at an occult/satanic type movie laden with sex and only sex(with ugly actors and actresses, this is an excuse for sleaze. The only redeeming factor was the setting and atmosphere, avoid this one, too much hype surrounds it, not worth the effort of finding it, this refers to the welcome to the grind house edition. I hope he has some other movies which lives up to Vampyres, Oh and the goat scene was very boring, I understand that this is what carries the hype.
| 0
| 6,920
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Predictable parody, just about failed to impress throughout it's looooooong eight minutes. The only thing that made it worthwhile was the DO NOT COLORIZE line at the end credits. Shame something more entertaining wasn't put on the DVD, like Jonathan Ross' enjoyable profile of Romero on 'The Incredible Strange Film Show.'
| 0
| 3,885
|
I saw this movie in a theater in Chicago and should have enjoyed it, since I love Nemesis
but if the first half an hour is skillfully done, the rest is just sub-Predator video fodder, a long chase through those post-modern empty factories Pyun affectionnates. My girlfriend fell asleep. I still like Pyun though, but not this
| 0
| 3,752
|
I was impressed by the beautiful photography in this film, which was shot on location in Alaska. Although technically a melodrama, we see lots of activities Eskimos are involved in, such as hunting, dancing, building igloos, etc. And their customs, such as offering their wives to visitors, are routinely in the story. The hunting sequences were sometimes from stock footage, as it was easy to recognize some rear projection scenes of animals, but even these were fascinating. Spear fishing for salmon, hunting for walrus, caribou and even a polar bear and a whale made it seem like a documentary at times. There was no cast listing, which reinforced the documentary flavor. The film-makers tried to make it seem very authentic, with the natives speaking only in an Eskimo language that was either translated by someone on screen or by intertitles. The introduction stated that except for the white traders and the Royal Mounted Canadian Police, there were no actors in the film, but this was not strictly true. The two leading characters, played by Mala and Lotus Long, were Eskimos by birth, but were professional actors with credits for earlier films and you could see sometimes they had makeup on. But they were excellent in their roles and they went on to have Hollywood careers. All in all, the film is definitely worth a look.
| 1
| 17,079
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This one was truly awful. Watching with fascinated horror, I kept on asking "why have they done this?" That is, taken all the scenarios out of "The Day after Tomorrow", "The Perfect Storm" and "Twister" and remixing them in a three-hour miniseries, directed by long-time junk TV director Dick Lowry, with every disaster movie cliché known to man and not an ounce of real suspense. Many of the cast were unknown Canadians and location filming was done in Canada, Winnepeg doubling for Chicago, so no doubt tax breaks had something to do with it. Although some ambitious special effects were attempted, the execution is so poor no decent spectacle is achieved. The actors may be a competent lot; the script is so bad no-one had a chance to show it, except perhaps for Randy Quaid as Tommy the Tornado chaser, who went right over the top and was quite amusing.<br /><br />Believe it or not, the producers have since made another one of these Canadian disaster turkeys called "Category 7 the End of the World" which was very tastefully shown on CBS in the US a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina. How could the network of Ed Murrow and Walter Cronkite do such a thing? In prime time? PT Barnum "nobody ever went broke underestimating public taste" is proved right once more.
| 0
| 9,933
|
The film is a pathetic attempt to remake Ingmar Bergman's "Autumn Sonata"(1978) starring Ingrid Bergman,Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson.It did not take me more than 5 minutes to figure that out.<br /><br />It is time Film journalists like Khalid Mohammad took out time to do some creative thinking. It makes me sad when potentially good film-makers waste their talents by making substandard remakes of Hollywood and European films.<br /><br />You've got to give the film-maker something though. The film he picked for copying is one of Bergman's classics, and easily one of the finest instances of the portrayal of a strained human relationship in European cinema.
| 0
| 8,113
|
Gentleman Jim not really a boxing film. It is a vehicle for Errol Flynn as Jim Corbett. But having said that, the boxing scenes are a real eye-opener to the modern viewer. There are no 12 round, points decisions here.<br /><br />Errol Flynn plays the Irish bank clerk who gets a shot at the heavyweight world title. Flynn is well suited to the role of suave but unpredictable Corbett. His opponent John Sullivan is still better however, a bruiser of the old school played by Ward Bond.<br /><br />The theme of the film is a man pushing for his big chance. Corbett leaves his mundane life behind and builds a new persona as Gentleman Jim. Jim is a chancer who can adapt to any social environment. He is a liar and an egotist. Sullivan the heavyweight boxing champion is portrayed as a simple brute but his honesty and sportsmanship gives a certain contrast to the main character.<br /><br />There is action and excitement aplenty and a wonderful ending with the requisite redemption for all. And Errol Flynn gets the girl.
| 1
| 21,252
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Very, very humdrum movie fare here with Stella Stevens taking directions from someone in disguise(it didn't take me long to guess who it was) in Old Nevada Town outside Vegas for a money heist in the Circus Circus Hotel in Las Vegas. Stevens leads her girl gang of three, and they find out that they must act much quicker than had been anticipated. Despite some neat looks at Las Vegas in the 70's, very average yet credible acting from most involved, and a plot line with potential, Las Vegas Lady lays one big boring egg. It seems forever for the film to kick into gear,and when it does it just sputters here and there and never really speeds up. I was somewhat disappointed with this film. Sure, I wasn't expecting anything great, but I at least thought this might be one of those neat exploitation films from the 70's or something like it. Not even close. No one dies. There is a lame gunfight between creaky Stuart Whitman and officious George DiCenzo, one year prior to his grand performance as the prosecuting attorney Bugliosa in Helter Skelter. The gunfight has all the suspense of watching a waterfall. There is one punch and one head hit with a blunt instrument. Beyond that nothing in terms of action. And as for the girls, don't expect much there either. Stella and her girls(both very mediocre yet pretty talents, get in a sauna and a bath. What do we see? Nothing but a fleeting side profile. Stella wears these nice open blouses accentuating her real talents, but I wish she would have been a bit more open with her performance. That way I could write one thing that would recommend the film. Alas, it was not to be, and I have little to say in this film's favor. It isn't a horrible film in any way, it just has nothing going for it either. YAWN.
| 0
| 7,551
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If Hollywood had the wellbeing of the audience at heart we would see 20 films a year with the kind of wholesome fortitude that is behind this film. There are several experiences of personal growth in this movie and while the characters ARE still very human even the lessons learned are not that greed will profit you, or do-unto-others-whatever-you-want-as-long-as-you-are-okay-with-it, no, this is what our sad, desensitized lives need, more sense... more love... more do-unto-others-as-you-would-have-done-unto-you... more HOPE. (thanks Ursula!) This movie has an intelligent wit, not "yo' mama" cracks that run rampant in the so-called comedies. People need to feel good. This movie will make you feel good and possibly inspire you to better your life, and the lives of others. sidenote Every person counts in ticket sales. This is a truly independent film. If you want more quality films you have to support them.
| 1
| 23,404
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This film's a big bore. It has a plenty of Predictable plots & endless sentiments from the start. It starts good with a classy number but seems lost midway.<br /><br />Surya & Jyothika's on screen chemistry works out really good & a good part by Bhoomika. Why include Vadivelu in it? He disappears totally after a good half an hour!. Santhanam proves his wit again by timing comedy.<br /><br />AR's tunes sure will last for sometime. But he could have done better. What ever be the drawbacks still it's worth watching once if you feel alone at home or looking for a good time-pass.
| 0
| 9,296
|
Rudy Rae Moore is getting out of prison and getting revenge! Often referred to as the Godfather of Rap, he should also be the Godfather of great movies. The non-stop action will keep you on the edge of your seat and will leave you begging for more. Luckily, Rudy comes back as Dolemite in Human Tornado, so sit back relax, and have the rewind button ready because you won't believe your eyes!!
| 1
| 14,304
|
The one-liners fly so fast in this movie that you can watch it over and over and still catch new ones. By far one of the best of this genre.
| 1
| 17,046
|
I saw this film as a kid about 30 years ago, and I haven't forgotten it to this day. I couldn't say whether it's a good picture. But in those days I instantly fell in love with Jean Simmons. The memories concentrate on the very erotic feel of the movie, but I still remember the plot. Simmons was very young then, and there is another film that gave me the same feeling: David Lean's GREAT EXPECTATIONS. And again it was the young Jean Simmons. It's a pity that BLUE LAGOON is not available on video; I'd like to correct my memories...
| 1
| 18,050
|
This recreation of the infamous 1959 murders in Kansas, based on the Capote book, is starkly filmed by Brooks and cinematographer Hall in black and white, giving it a documentary feel. There are good performances from Blake and Wilson as the killers and Forsythe as a cop who pursues them. The scenes leading up to the murders, filmed at the actual house where the crime occurred, with a soundtrack of whistling winds, are quite intense and chilling. Brooks directs with a lot of verve and uses several interesting transitions between scenes. The only complaint is that it is a bit overlong, with the denouement dragged out and somewhat preachy.
| 1
| 15,281
|
A young woman nicknamed "T.N.T." for being virtual dynamite in a fight and a knockout in terms of looks to boot, goes to the most lawless part of Hong Kong in search of her missing brother Stag Jackson. When she learns he has been murdered, she decides she will bring the killer to justice in a fashion only she can.<br /><br />Sounds good, doesn't it. Well, there's really nothing wrong with the basic premise as a starting base for a martial arts/blaxploitation action thriller, which is what this aims to be. The leads actually prove pretty good too with Jeanne Bell fitting nicely into the role of "T.N.T." and Stan Shaw doing well as the ambitious, power-hungry Charlie. Where this fails miserably is in terms of the fighting action it offers up. The fight scenes are totally and completely unconvincing and/or sometimes so completely over the top it reaches the point of ridiculousness which doesn't at all help when the basic focus of your movie is a Kung Fu action heroine. Also the poor lighting, actors sporting accents making them hard to understand, the confusing camera-work and the sometimes poor sound doesn't help this obvious low budget effort out either any. This does deliver in one area which may delight some fans, it does offer up plenty of the T in "T & A", in fact practically every fight scene in the film is proceeded by some type of nude scene and Jeanne Bell actually does have one extended fight scene in which she is completely topless.<br /><br />In the end, this fails to be something you want to revisit because the fight scenes are so pathetically, laughingly bad.
| 0
| 2,371
|
I'm giving ten out of ten it's one of the best movies ever. Absolutely smashed, stunned and dazed by the whole picture, marvellous playing of Jason Statham, Ray Liotta and all the crew, amazing plot... Just look into yourself and pluck up your courage to admit-it touched your soul, because it's strange, but there are all the answers you've been ever looking for... The very best, mr. Ritchie! THE VERY BEST EVER. Those who were looking for a simple figtings and skirmish keep yelling they are disappointed. But there are lots of shallow movies in Hollywood nowadays, you can't remember what it was about the next day you had seen it. On the contrary, Revolver is unique, I could have hardly expected it's possible to portray such a clear and genius picture of myself, of everyone who was to watch it. Absolutely unsurpassed, astounding, dazzling... One can get insight watching this, I have no doubt about that. Actually, no words can express my admiration... I'm still wondering how it was possible to shoot such a movie after years of giddy Hollywood rubbish we had been watching. Thank you from all heart, it's simply the best.
| 1
| 23,572
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Debbie Vickers (Nell Schofield) and Sue Knight (Jad Capelja) want to become one of the cool girls in their high school. Uncool and ugly girls had two options, be a mole or a prude! Debbie and Sue imitate them by using their cheating practices in an exam. Two of the cool boys, Garry (Goeff Rhoe) and Danny (Tony Hughes) ask them for their answers and they all get busted. After a bawling out from the headmaster (Bud Tingwell) the cool girls meet them outside in the playground and confronted them about whether they "dobbed" on them all. As Debbie and Sue hadn't the cool girls invited them to the "dunnies" for a smoke. They then start to hang with them on weekends at the beach, watching all the boys surf. Sue ends up going out with Danny and Debbie with Garry. A lot of usual teenage action takes place including sex, drugs and rock and roll. Garry has an eventual overdose of heroin which makes Debbie face the inequalities of life and she decides to learn to surf instead of just watching the boys. They are not happy but watch her, calling names, and eventually Debbie masters the board. A cool early 80s Aussie film.
| 1
| 23,258
|
Wow! Wow! Wow! I have never seen a non-preachy documentary on globalization until I saw MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA. This film has zero narration and combines verite footage with sensitive interviews with four teenage workers in China who live inside a factory compound. They play with toys, jump rope, and dance. Yet, the majority of their days and nights consist of work, work, and work -- but the footage of their work is illuminating and mesmerizing to watch. The owner of the factory in China is amazingly open, so much so that he hits home the effects of globalization while he "punishes" the workers. Astutely following Mardi Gras beads from China to the Carnival, the film reveals how the local is connected to the global through humor and interesting, compelling footage from both cultures. One of the most interesting parts in this film is the cross cultural introduction of factory workers and Mardi Gras revelers to each other through pictures. Here, the film comes full circle and shows how images can be a point of communication and transformation. The film is never preachy, is not guilt driven, and allows everyone's point of view to be present. At the end, we -- the viewers -- make up our own conclusions about the complexity of the film, and globalization.
| 1
| 13,984
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The only thing good about this movie is the artwork on the promotion poster by H. R. Geiger. Anti-nuke protesters who all looked like punk rockers of the late 1970s, and somehow became non-violent, (except for their leader, "Splatter") occupy the cities. Fraternity boys descend on the punkers to do some violence on them and turn them into victims. Bad acting and bad plot then descends on the real victim, you, the viewer. I gave this a "2" because a few sexual scenes at least give it MST3K potential.<br /><br />
| 0
| 2,323
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