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I've been on a bad run of films. This is a clinker about an arson plot and a psychopath. Tom Skerrit, whom I really enjoy, was pretty young here. He is a builder with a passion, but he has a partner whose profit motive includes over-insuring and burning. Into the mix comes an agent, who is drowned, his daughter, and her nut-case boyfriend. James Mason plays the insurance investigator. Any idiot, given a little warning, would know something was rotten in the nation of Australia. Still, they bumble their way. The most interesting thing to me was that the huge hotel that was going to be built, never got beyond being a bunch of sticks. Low budget, I guess. The plot could have been interesting. Maybe they should have hired a film editor (the did?). Half the time you don't know where the characters are, but I guarantee a five million dollar payoff would have probably made a close watch on the structure mandatory. It doesn't work. Although there is lots of neat fire.
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I wanted to read the other comments before leaving my review and the majority definately rules: This movie is aweful! From the acting to the non-realistic animation to the countless errors. I was actually hoping that the flaps would have been extended by a stretch of the imagination (can't extend flaps without engines). The landing gear cannot be lowered unless you have electricity. That tiny little fan that was going was not sufficient by any stretch to lower the landing gear. The one thing I thought was quite peculiar is when they landed, the back wheels touched down and then the nose one broke off, thus suspending the plane with both back tires in the air. How did the captain apply left and right brakes to tires that weren't touching the ground? Did they forget the spoilers? Word to the director: Find out *all* you can about planes before attempting a "plane" movie. Sorry for the technical rant, but I give this movie 1/10.
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I have never seen anything as awful as this movie for quite some time. The movie was boring, long long and awful plot. The special effects sucks like hell - It's like watching a movie back in 1999. It's a total waste of an hour and a half of my time. Matthew Settle's performance was quite bad. I saw him in Band of Brothers playing Lt.Speirs, he wasn't THAT bad. In fact not bad at all. But in this film, his acting wasn't convincing enough, it was quite bad and there wasn't any chemistry between the rest of the crew either. Plus, his eyes seems empty like he's not feeling it. It surprised me, really, because he was good in Band of Brothers.<br /><br />Anyway, don't even bother to watch this movie. It's a big big BIG waste of time. Even if you had to kill an hour or two, get something else to do besides watching this movie. Trust me, you'll regret it!
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It must be so difficult to tell a story where not much happens, yet still grip the viewers attention. I think this short film achieves this with effortless quality. Rutger has an amazing voice that is very soothing, wise and fatherly, (I'm not gay) it reminds of the qualities that Robert Redford has in narrating. The end is very sad, but beautiful. One wonders how long Harry has left, will he be lonely and will he get to say his goodbyes? Also one gets annoyed at Mr Hauer for not getting involved in more work of this caliber. Lets hope he continues to do fine work in Holland and stays away from Hollywood.<br /><br />Worth Watching
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You get a gift. It is exquisitely wrapped. The box it is in is hand crafted out of the finest wood and shows skill down to the smallest detail. That is then wrapped in gorgeous paper, handmade and hand-painted by the most talented of artists. The whole thing is wrapped in ribbons made from fine silk lace. It is a sight to behold.<br /><br />Then you cut the ribbon, rip off the paper, open up the box, and find...nothing. That's TOYS. You either enjoy the packaging, or forget about it.<br /><br />The film isn't without its point and purpose: War is a not a good thing. Well, isn't that original! The moral is so obvious that it is almost embarrassing to even point it out. And even that feeble insight is undercut by a story in which elements of war -- war toys in particular -- are clearly a bad thing, until they need an exciting climax and the film simulates a war using innocent toys. It's like someone preaching a stern, condescending sermon, only to end by saying "Just kidding."<br /><br />But even as an empty box, the film fails close scrutiny. Yes, it is a sight to behold with some remarkable, striking images. The sets are imaginative and the cinematography catches the colorful scenes with skill. But the images are cold and emotionally sterile. Like the screenplay, the look of the film is joyless and at times aesthetically barren and surreal. It is a film that wants to praise toys as wonderful and special things, yet shows them to be creations of a world that is empty and cold. The film strives to be funny, in a morose sort of way, but the humor is forced and artificial. Robin Williams, as the beleaguered heir to a toy manufacturing empire, tosses in his ad-lib shtick, which only seems alien to the bizarre, coldly structured world he is inhabiting. Indeed, the topical references and tasteless sexual innuendo that are scattered throughout are jarringly contradictory to the childlike fable the film is vaguely trying to be. For this film to work, or make sense, it needs to be set in its own universe, an Oz far removed from Kansas. Every time the jokes jerk us back into reality, the toyland of the film increasingly becomes an obvious sham.<br /><br />It is said that this was director Barry Levinson's pet project, one that he had been striving to get made for ten years. It is sadly obvious why he had trouble getting backing. Like most pet projects that finally get made (RADIOLAND MURDERS, RADIO FLYER & BATTLEFIELD: EARTH being great examples) it seems to be a blind spot in the filmmaker's field of vision. Perhaps Levinson directed and redirected TOYS so often in his head that he no fresh vision for it when he finally got on the soundstage. He had already perfected it to death.<br /><br />Many of the toys featured in the film are clumsy, mechanical, wind-up monstrosities. So is the film itself.
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***LIGHT SPOILER ALERT*** The story sounds good and if you've read the novel, then you're probably expecting a deep and intense movie that could offer some insight for some interesting and insufficiently explored human relationships.<br /><br />True enough, the script tries to do that, the director tries to do that, but the main cast fails miserably. Maria's acting is so dry that lacks any feeling whatsoever, her most intense moments seem almost comical. Sometimes she seems to be nervous due to the camera. Her only really feeling scene is near the end where she gets dumped by her girlfriend.<br /><br />Ioana seems even more tense than Maria and even worse, she doesn't seem natural at all. Maria had the attitude, even if it was artificially pushed towards being obvious, but she had it and her character received some credibility. And to make matters worse, we don't have an insight on her: where does she come from, how come she got involved in the lesbian relationship, how did the relationship evolve? We only get some bits from her parents and their relationship just seems to 'be' there: it has a content and and end, but no beginning. Just like her partner Maria, she has only once scene that is truly touching, the scene where she dumps Maria's character Kiki.<br /><br />Tudor is the only person in this movie (aside from the landlady, great acting there) who manages to prove some acting talent. He has his character's attitude and it fits him. Only once or twice he seems to falter (the scene at his parents' meal, he tries to be obvious when it wasn't necessary at all).<br /><br />I love the story, Tudor Chirila is OK there, the landlady actually acts and Puya delivers his couple of lines with style, but this doesn't save the movie. Too bad, the entire setting had huge potential and the Romanian cinematography could've used a movie on this theme.<br /><br />Oddly enough, the incestuous relationship between brother and sister seems to have more credibility than the no-background no-feeling (well, Maria's spoken interludes are a nice try in this direction) lesbian relationship of Maria and Ioana. I'm quite sorry for spending money on a ticket, I'd rather had watched it from the comfort of my room.
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The extraordinarily adorable Suzy Delair plays a statuesque performer obsessed with succeeding in the theater. Her husband and accompanist, played by Bernard Blier, is a composed but jealous man. When he finds out in a less than preferable way that his flashy wife has planned a rendezvous with a lecherous old businessman with the intention of advancing her career, he loses all control and threatens the businessman with murder. Now, at that point, I must stop describing the film to you because it skates on such thin ice with its twists, revelations, ambiguities and suspense that to imply any of it would endanger it. I am not sure how good or bad that is for this French police procedural emanating from the song- and-dance community, though it is certainly interesting that what we do know throughout is who did not do it. We just don't know who did.<br /><br />The story depends upon the procedure of following clues, where ideal alibis fail and where cautiously created fabrications and deceptions disintegrate. Interestingly, this is a suspense film in which suspense is generated in spite of the knowledge one would traditionally think too much too soon.<br /><br />Quay of the Goldsmiths is the least dark of Henri-Georges Clouzot's films. It's nowhere near as sinister as the shocking Les Diaboliques, as tragic as the riveting Wages of Fear or as eery as Le Corbeau. Maybe it is due to the vibrance of the dance halls and theater settings of 1940s France, which all work as the milieu of this crime thriller.<br /><br />Clouzot both understands and approves of his characters, even the more rotten ones, where he has more of a vindictive streak with his other films. Where he may have had understanding for the scheming women in Les Diabolique or the truck drivers who sink to the level of risking horrible death in order to oust themselves from miserable life in The Wages of Fear, there isn't necessarily support or agreement on the part of the filmmaker, for these are characters who plainly made the direct decisions that determine their fate. All the characters in this more settling film have scenes and moments that endear us to them, even the harsh, cold detective played by Louis Jouvet, who worries about his young adoptive son amid all the trouble and despair that happens in his life at any time with the drop of a hat.<br /><br />There is humor and unabashed sexiness, the latter mostly on the part of Delair, that neutralize the pressure to a degree. Clouzot was quietly practicing his craft, patient till he made his unrelenting later films, in which he would permit his audiences no pardon from the tension.
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This movie is one of the worst remakes I have ever seen in my life! The acting is laughable and Corman has not improved his piranhas any since 1978. 90% of the special effects are lifted from Piranha (1978), Up From The Depths (1979) and Humanoids From The Deep (1979). It makes Piranha II: The Spawning look like it belongs on the American Film Institute List.
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The remarkable, sometimes infuriating, often brilliant films of John Cassavetes occupy a unique position in American cinema
Low-budget, partly improvised, inspired by cinéma verité documentary, and related to underground film, they have nevertheless frequently managed to reach a wide and profoundly appreciative audience
<br /><br />After drama studies, the young Cassavetes quickly made his name as an unusually unrefined, intense actor, often appearing in films about disaffected, rebellious youth such as "Crime in the Streets" and "Edge of the City." <br /><br />Setting up an actors' workshop, he worked to transform an improvisational experiment into his feature debut
The result, "Shadows," taking three years to complete and partly financed by his performances in TV's Johnny Staccato, was a breakthrough in American cinema
About the effect of racism on an already fraught relationship between two black men and their sister, two of whom pass for white, the film is impressive for its irregular, seemingly formless style and naturalistic performances
Plot was minimal, mood and emotional apparent truth were everything
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This is a great movie from the lost age of reactionary made-for-television drama. My all-time favourite actor, Robert Culp skillfully plots a trajectory through uptight liberal fairmindedness and faith in the system, kneejerk conservativism and fear of crime, and homicidal psychosis. The teens are a collection of pure sneering evil stereotypes, and the eventual message of this film makes episodes of Dragnet look evenhanded by comparison. But what really shines in this is the great pace of the movie, building the fear and paranoia by degrees, as well as the feel of the whole California setting. The cars are really great as well, as I recall. I give this film a 10, and I defy anyone to watch this film and not enjoy every minute. Remember, just because it's made-for-television doesn't mean it isn't great art.
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De Palma's technique had hit its high maturity by the time of this film, which is a wonderful showcase of his classic techniques, though unfortunately, as with many of the films written by De Palma himself, the story serves the meta more than the interests of putting forth an emotionally compelling tale. <br /><br />The story opens with a CRAZY scene in which Angie Dickinson masturbates in a shower while she looks at her husband. She is then grabbed and raped while he husband stands obliviously near-and the whole thing is revealed to be Angie's fantasy as he husband is pumping mindlessly away at her in bed. She has a short scene with her son, a dead ringer for Harry Potter, which concludes with a joke that "she'll tell grandma that he is playing with his peter." She then goes to her therapy session, where she complains about her dead marriage, before attempting to seduce her therapist, Michael Caine. He refuses, and she is hurt and feeling unattractive and unfulfilled.<br /><br />Then begins a bravura 22-minute nearly wordless sequence that is perhaps the highlight of the film. Among the many things De Palma gleaned from Hitchcock is the understanding of film as a purely visual medium of telling stories
and in typical De Palma fashion, he turns this into a way to show off his formidable skill. The problem, for me, is that in this instance one begins to feel that scenes are being needlessly protracted simply to further show off the director's skill. <br /><br />The sequence begins with Angie at an art museum. She watches strangers, all involved in sexual or family activities, then begins to get turned on to a man sitting next to her. De Palma very skillfully tells an extremely complicated narrative without a single word about Angie's attraction, embarrassment, retreating, and finally finding and submitting to the stranger in the back of a taxi cab, all set to a wonderfully lush score by Pino Donaggio, who also scored Carrie.<br /><br />In the second part of the sequence Angie has slept with the guy, and gets up to return to her husband. Again De Palma crams a ton of narrative in without a word of dialogue uttered, as Angie realizes that she doesn't have her panties, that her husband is already home and no doubt wondering where she is, that she has probably contracted a venereal disease, and that she has lost her engagement ring somewhere in the shuffle. It's all very admirable, but one begins to feel a little strung along as we are forced to do things like take a long elevator ride down from the seventh floor, then up again, almost in real time.<br /><br />...Spoilers from here on out! When Angie reaches the seventh floor again, she is killed by a big woman with blond hair. The woman hacks away at her until she reaches the ground floor, when the door opens and Nancy Allen sees her there. There is a wonderful slow-motion sequence as Nancy reaches into the elevator, Angie reaches up toward her, and the killer's blade is held poised to slash Nancy's hands. Then follow some electrifying shots as Nancy looks up and sees the killer in the elevators convex mirror. It's all good, and by the time we have some dialogue again, you think; "Woah, that was just 22 straight minutes of purely visual narrative!" Or maybe you don't, but I do.<br /><br />A younger Dennis Franz has a great part as a sleazy and tough New York detective who would rather that everyone else do his work for him. He Interviews Michael Caine, making the outrageous implication (though it passes as commonplace) that Angie WANTED to be killed. Angie's son is there as well, and he hooks up with Nancy, and they set about to spy on Caine's therapist and find out who the killer is.<br /><br />Once again there is a strong tie to a Hitchcock film, in this case Psycho (just as Obsession is a re-working of Vertigo). You have a woman who we are supposed to understand is secretly a slut, who gets killed in the first 30 minutes in an enclosed space, in this case an elevator rather than a shower. Then the relatives of the deceased conduct an investigation, which reveals that the killer is a man who dresses as a woman to kill. De Palma even throws in a doctor at the end who explains the psychology of the whole thing. <br /><br />It is very interesting, but at the same time a viewer can begin to feel a bit jerked around, and that is my primary reservation about this film. It is definitely essential viewing and showcases some of De Palma's greatest setpieces, but that feeling that the story is running a solid third behind the need for De Palma to show off and his somewhat unseemly sexual fantasies makes it hard to look back on this one with whole-hearted affection.<br /><br />--- Check out other reviews on my website of bad and cheesy movies, Cinema de Merde, cinemademerde.com
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It couldn't have come out at a worse time--just as the nation was entering the Reagan years, the boom-boom 80s, the time of no regrets, no concerns. It got no word of mouth, and opened poorly. The studio ditched it. But Hair is possibly the best musical ever made--with Forman directing and Tharpe choreographing, it's a startlingly beautiful, well-acted, well-written triumph that few people remember. The casting is perfect, the musical numbers unforgettable, and even the downer of an ending doesn't diminish the film's indomitable spirit.<br /><br />If you haven't see this movie, you haven't seen the best musical of all time. Seriously.
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"Checking Out" is a very witty and honest portrayal of a bizarre family that happens to be Jewish. Judaism plays virtually no role in the film, but American Jewish culture & behavior gets thoroughly sent up... it a loving way. I wish the movie dealt with the religious perspective on the topics it explores, because I think that would have been interesting. <br /><br />I've never been a Columbo fan so I wasn't familiar with Peter Falk - he's a lot of fun to watch. It's great to see Judge Reinhold, Laura San Giacomo & David Paymer again - why don't they work more? They're all hilarious. The script is terrific with a lot of memorable one-liners I'll be sure to use with my own family. Watch for Gavin McLeod (Captain Stubing!) as the doorman.
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I claim no matter how hard I seek I'll never find a better movie version of "Othello". If you love Kenneth Branagh's magnificent masterpieces "Much ado about nothing" (1993) and "Hamlet" (1996) as much as I do I'm dead certain you'll also find Oliver Parker's "Othello" irresistible. Laurence Fishburne has been in a various splendid roles during his career. He was quite terrific in "Boys n the hood" (1991) - I've always considered his amusing role of Furious Styles as his very greatest achievement. That was, of course, way before I saw this.<br /><br />He plays the part of Othello and he is probably in the most challenging role of his whole career but he does a brilliant, fantastic job. Irène Jacob is absolutely charming Desdemona and Kenneth Branagh is just simply phenomenal in a most fascinating role of the story's crooked, manipulate villain Iago. Marvelous "Othello" is part of the absolute elite among Shakespeare's ingenious works. It deals with his favorite topics: crookedness, envy, deceitfulness and jealousy. This movie adaptation is certainly one of the finest films I've seen that's based on William Shakespeare's plays.
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"Confirmed Dead" is an important episode in the series, as it introduces four new characters: the rescue team that Naomi contacted before getting a knife in her back by Locke. However, as the quote in my one-line summary says, their true purpose for being on the island may be something else entirely. All the new characters appear intriguing (especially Miles, some sort of psychic / exorcist), but at this point it's still too early to make solid judgments. I felt that this episode was a slight step down from "The Beginning Of The End" (no flash-forwards this time; short-term flashbacks instead), but it still has its stunning moments and picks up steam near the end. *** out of 4.
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I saw this movie with my family and it was great! This film is more than just a documentary (that offers not more than cold facts) with long mono/-duologue's and lots of charts...The complete "power" of this movie comes from the impressive pictures being filmed under water, in the air or the Arctic.With watching this movie you can learn more about our planet than with just reading a book, it shows that WE are embedded in the circular flow of life. This movie is not only for "environmental fanatics" although people that want to look a good movie with a message should watch it. This movie taught me that we are not only living on the earth...we live with and through the earth and all plants and animals grow and die with us.
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The best independent film of 2001 - I went to see The Wind at the recommendation of friends who caught it at Dances with Films Festival in LA last summer - it's a great, scary, well made film. The score was amazing. Can't wait to see his next movie!
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If The Man in the White Suit had been done in America, can't you see either Danny Kaye or Jerry Lewis trying on Alec Guinness's Sidney Stratton on for size?<br /><br />This is one of the best of Alec Guinness's films and certainly one of the best that Ealing Studios in the United Kingdom ever turned out. It's so perfectly fits within the time frame of the new Labour government and the society it was trying to build. It's amazing how in times of crisis capital and labor can agree.<br /><br />Alec Guinness this meek little schnook of a man is obsessed with the idea that he can invent clothing that will never need cleaning, that in fact repels all kinds of foreign matter the minute it touches the garment. <br /><br />He's a persistent cuss and he does succeed. Of course the implications haven't really been thought through about the kind of impact clothing like that will have on society. In the end everyone is chasing him down like they would a fugitive, almost like Peter Lorre from M or Orson Welles in The Stranger or even Robert Newton in Oliver Twist. <br /><br />It's the mark of a great comedy film that a potentially serious situation like that chase as described in some of the serious films I've mentioned can be played for laughs. Poor Guinness's suit is not only white and stain repellent, but it glows like a neon sign.<br /><br />Other than Guinness the best performances are from Cecil Parker as yet another pompous oaf, Joan Greenwood as his siren daughter and Ernest Thesiger the biggest clothing manufacturer in the UK> <br /><br />Come to think of it, did Paramount borrow that suit from Ealing and give it to John Travolta for Saturday Night Fever?
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When I first heard about this series on AnimeTV,I have to say that out of all the shows that I have seen,this one tops it all off. I had to see this show,and that is what I really did. When I got the first volume of this show,it was the best. I really liked the animation,and all the fight scenes were awesome. I have to say that my favorite characters in the show were Saber,and Archer and of course I also like Illya. And of course,all the episodes on the volumes were interesting,and very cool. Another thing I have to say about the series is Michael McConnohie(famous for Transformers,and others) playing the voice of Berserker. He does have a cool character. And I even watched the entire series all over again before watching the final volume. So if you to see something good,then see this show,it's the best.
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Oh I remember watching this show at 4:00 p.m. during my junior high days. It was not a pleasant experience because I remember watching it when I made my homework.<br /><br />Still, the show caught my attention when Alex displayed her special powers and dealt with the typical junior high problems.<br /><br />But the show wasn't all about adventures and special powers; it was more of an educational effort for a younger audience in order to get more interested in school and biology overall.<br /><br />The lead actress (can't remember her name and I'm too lazy to copy and paste from the main details) delivered a fantastic performance. She made the show watchable.<br /><br />They just don't make shows like this one anymore...
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Vampire cyborgs rule the world and use the blood of humans as fuel, however there is going to be a shift of power thanks to a renegade android (Kris Kristofferson) and a warrior woman (Kathly Long) as they face off against Lance Henriksen and Gary Daniels (Who play the cyborgs in this ridiculous movie) Of all the questions left unanswered by this dreadful movie, the most poignant is Who's idea was it to cast country singer Kris Kristofferson as a cyborg warrior who is able to give as good as he gets. No, don't get me wrong I could see Kristofferson as a vigilante or something but not as a cyborg. Strangely one suspects that this was written for Dolph Lundgren, however Lundgren must have had the wisdom to not do it. However despite the disastrous casting, Kristofferson is easily the most enjoyable thing about the movie. He gives a performance far more human then the inexpressive Kathy Long. (And Kristofferson is playing a robot) despite the miscasting, Kristofferson provides the few moments of interest. Lance Henriksen is slumming and Gary Daniels is wasted but basically Knights is baffling failure. You stand back in horror wondering who the hell thought that this was even a good idea on paper. (This is a movie where a dismembered Kristofferson is fighting robots in a backpack) Worst of all it ends in a what if sequel, thankfully this has yet to materialize although I still have nightmares at the proposition of the likelihood of such an event.<br /><br />* out of 4-(Bad)
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I thought of this movie when i watched pluto nash...why..because both movies have randy quaid playing a retarded robot, this movie made years earlier but probably written by a screenplay writer that drank the same biotoxic coffee or something like that...Whoa...AVOID AT ALL COSTS even to pay tribute to the late great Andy Kaufman is hard to do here...find another film or just watch taxi reruns on latenight tv...his latka gravas character is so much more loveable...TANK YOU BERRY MUCH
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Accepted...let's see. The only reason why i had chosen to see that movie was the hot dog shown in commercials when Shrader(sp?) said, "ASK ME ABOUT MY WEINER". After that i HAD to see that movie and i watched it with a couple of my friends...and WOW amazing. One of the best films of the year. THe entire movie i was laughing like crazy! The plot in this story is that Bartleby (Justin Long) doesn't get accepted into any of the schools he applied, so he makes another fake college for him and his friends so that he can fool his parents that he DID make it into college. So he makes the finishing touches and he fools his parents...until, more students look at the website and see the clicker (ACCEPTANCE IS ONE CLICK AWAY) and all these rejects come to this school. They face many problems and they just cant seem to get anything right 10/10 LOVED IT NOW WATCH IT
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Catscratch is the best thing to come out of Nickeloden, including Wayne Knight. This show doesn't just appeal to Maoris and PI's. some people love it, and they're all aussies. At first glimpse I admit it seems a little crude, but it grows enormously on you. Also, to correct something that one of the other critics has said In_Correct (Tv.com) doesn't say "Does that mean you're homo now?" he says "Does that mean you're homo, owww?" This is his phrase in the show. Mr. Blik is, i think,the funniest of all like Peww-Weww's Playhouse<br /><br />Firstly, I'll admit that the early episode were a bit good. But after a while the episodes became great! And just when the series had found it's surreal, whacky ...Nickelodeon cancels it!<br /><br />I know Nick is meant for kids, but every once in a while a brilliant show appears that can be enjoyed by teenagers and adults. These shows include Mr. Bean the Animated Series, Charlie Brown, Pelswick, Rocko's Modern Life (at times), and Invader Zim. All of these must have been considered too good, with the exception of CatDog, 'cause Nick felt the need to cancel them.<br /><br />What I like the famous final episode, where Gordon fight a duck.<br /><br />I'd also like to see a DVD, with plenty of audio-commentaries and behind-the-scenes docos, and including the final episode.<br /><br />But of course, what I'd definitely like to see is the show come back on the air. Wake up NICK!<br /><br />I wish there was a list somewhere on the internet with all the gag closing-credits. That would be great.
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I am a Christian, and thought this movie was pretty good! :) While the acting wasn't Academy Award caliber, I thought it was good, considering the cast has had limited acting experience at the time this movie was made.<br /><br />The Gospel message and the transforming power of Jesus Christ was explained wonderfully. The message that the director was trying to get across (which is THE important thing, not how the characters dressed!) definitely got through. The theme of having the main characters involved in illegal drag racing was a good idea, too (cool muscle cars, btw). I think this movie will definitely reach out to a lot of young people.<br /><br />I would definitely recommend this movie, it is a great witnessing tool! :)
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I've read a lot of comments about the film and how it's so hard for people to believe that it is a sequel to Henry Fool, and even though it technically is, I think that Fay Grim needs to be looked at as an entirely different film. Just because it is the sequel doesn't mean that it has to be a direct continuation of the first, and I enjoyed that so much about it. The whole point of the film was to change direction from the first, which makes sense because the movie isn't called Henry Fool 2, it's Fay Grim. All that aside, the film, I thought, was so well made and thought out that it actually surprised me. I was expecting to rent another nearly-released-straight-to-video film and have to endure 2 hours of bad editing and an almost hard to follow story-line (aka parker's last direct to video feature the Oh in Ohio) but this was so surprisingly well focused that it almost doesn't seem so, which I absolutely loved. There are so many nuances in the film making and writing that I crave to see in films, but never do. The cinematography was brilliant due to it's simplicity and truly making the film seem 'Grim' throughout - in terms of setting. The writing was so well put together as well, whoever said this movie isn't as witty as Henry Fool needs to watch again and actually listen; I almost can't even begin to explain how actually hilarious it was, and pertinent. And well, Parker Posey, who could complain? The scene in which Fool and Jalal were talking in the dark was so captivating and emotional. And I thought the spy-ness throughout the film was just so hilarious and spot on (in hindsight because i do agree that at times during you kind of felt lost). The main thing that struck me so powerfully about the film, and i believe the point of the film, was Parker's love and naivety about Fool, which was so endearing and turned, yes very quickly, from denial to outright passion. The last five minutes of the film were perfect. Obviously there were things that weren't excellent, but nothing is perfect; some of the acting was poor, and at times I did think that some of the new back story and dialogue about terrorism got a little hard to follow and out of hand, but in the end you got it and didn't even mind that at the time it may have slipped from your comprehension. (This may also have to do with Goldblum's tendency to talk extremely fast) On the whole I would say that it was probably one of the best films I've seen this year; stylistically pleasing, clever and witty writing, performances that were so impressive I now have gained new respect for some of the actors, and a truly touching film, and don't forget, a complete departure from Fool. Which was the point.
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This film is a good start for novices that have never watched a 'Silent Film' and for those who believe that quality Cinema started with their generations efforts. They are doing a disservice to themselves by not expanding their horizons. The 'Silent Film' is a art-form of acting in pantomime that is different from the sound film and the stage, it can stands on it's own merits.<br /><br />THE BELOVED ROGUE (1927) United Artists is a fictionalized history of the relationship of French Poet 'Francois Villon' and 'King Louis XI'. Through 'Villons' prodding 'King Louis' will defeat his nemesis 'Duke of Burgandy' minimize the Feudal System and establish the KING as head of the State and the beginnings of modern France.<br /><br />The cast is exceptional, lead by JOHN BARRYMORE (yes, Drew's GrandFather). For those who only remember him for the decaying actor 'Larry Renault' in DINNER AT EIGHT (1933) or the ham in THE INVISABLE WOMEN (1940) this will be a revelation. Fit, trim with the 'Great Profile' still in evidence he commands the screen. Co-Starring in his first American film is CONRAD VEIDT with his 'cadaverous spider' interpretation of 'Louis XI'. This is a duel of acting titans, each not giving the other a inch. On a trivia note is Character Actor and Dwarf ANGELO ROSSITTO in his first film, his last, MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME (1985). There are other character actors who would continue in sound that are easily picked up on. <br /><br />United Artists spared no expense in this handsome production supervised by WILLIAM CAMERON MENZIES. Costumes, Props and Sets are well done and not exaggerated like in a DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS productions. There is a touch of reality here. The copy on DVD that we watched from 'Delta Entertainment' came from a good master. Though not 'restored' its musical soundtrack was clear and the print only suffered from nuisance black-spots (dirt) and drop-outs. The only major damage at the end of the last reel from water. 'Kino' also has a edition which may be of a better quality since they do major restorations on their prints. Best check with them. In our opinion this is a 'must have' particularly if you have no 'silents' in your collection. This is a good place to start.
| 1
| 21,654
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Once I heard that the greatest and oldest preserved Germanic heroic poem was transformed into a film it almost became my obsession to see it. The first glints of its appearance I caught never disappointed me. A futuristic interpretation With Lambert our favourite highlander and Mitra, tomb raider to be,in leading roles seamed appealing, though some doubts came to life (an important female character in Beowulf?)... Two hours ago I saw the film. After I had read the director's name my world fell apart. As I said - from that point on, there was not many surprises. First and foremost, the film has NOTHING to do with the original Beowulf if we disregard a couple of violently and pointlessly stolen names. If they had not stolen the names and declared it to be a new story, it might have passed as an f-class action stupidity with nice costumes and scenography. This way it is simply a crime! An attack on a legend and its ideology as well as on common sense. Ok let me be positive for a second... apart from the general electro-goth atmosphere which is nice it also has good music. That was it for both the positive part and this comment.
| 0
| 5,125
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I suppose I'm supposed to take something like this with a grain of salt. These laboratory movies (and, yes, they spend a lot of time in the laboratory), always fail in one dimension: there is an understanding that single people fooling around have uncovered secrets beyond the comprehension of anyone to this time. Of course, they pay a price because their experimenting has the same shortcomings that Dr. Frankenstein's did. There is always something they didn't anticipate. There are so many things from pure science to fashion for young ladies to outrageous cover ups that don't work here. The young woman is certainly fetching and the doctor can't help himself, but he could have been a little bit discreet or even made an effort to shelter what he was doing. Things go wrong and because of this intellect, she gains tremendous power, including an understanding of how she came to be. Rock Hudson looks pretty fit here. He never quite makes it in this role, however. It wanders all over with lots of clichés and silliness which diminishes the basic issue. Once she has her revenge a more suitable thing would be for her to wander off and allow him to seek her out and destroy her in some grand way.
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| 8,804
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If asked how I would define the word " Shallow " I would reply " Watch a Jerry Bruckheimer production " . If asked how I would define the phrase " Wasted potential " I would reply " Watch a Jerry Bruckheimer production " . Bruckheimer productions are nearly always sure fire hits at the box office but nearly always receive critical pannings from the critics . Off the top of my head I can only think of AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN and BLACK HAWK DOWN getting a lot of critical acclaim . <br /><br />CRIMSON TIDE too received some begrudging acclaim from critics , it`s certainly one of Bruckheimer`s better films which alas isn`t saying much . The problem I had is the scenario that sets up the story : The Russians are fighting the Chechens and the conflict spreads through the whole of Russia leading to an ultra nationalist Russian to take over a nuclear missile base and threaten the West if they interfere . Maybe the ending of the cold war had everything to do with it but I found this set up very unconvincing . It`s not helped by some errors in geography like the French carrier Foch being in the Med ( Wouldn`t the Foch be better positioned in the black sea ? ) or that the expositional newsreel consists of familar footage featuring conflicts from the Balkans , the first gulf war and even Vietnam . Once again the adjective " Very unconvincing " crept into my mind . The story does improve somewhat when the story proper - A battle of wills concerning orders between a nuclear submarine commander and his number two - gets underway . Director Tony Scott does his best as do the cast , but the problem still lies in an unconvincing scenario . The worst thing is that if this had been made in the mid 1980s when WW3 was a real possibility - Nay probability - this film would have terrified me , but after the cold war ended so had the dangers of nuclear war which means CRIMSON TIDE has little impact .
| 0
| 4,663
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Put the film down and back slowly away. The acting rivals a highschool play, the plot is treadworn, and the production values are slightly higher than community theater. The goofs are so plentiful that it becomes a laugher. Rooms are switched around, the dead move, dogs are used for wolves, men shot point blank with .45 caliber pistols are able to walk and ride snowmobiles, blouses button and unbutton without human touch... this is a baaaaaaaaaddddddd movie. I nearly passed out when I saw the average rating. There is no accounting for taste. BTW, there is no nudity.
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| 1,624
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I just watched this movie with a few friends they said I had to see it but from the beginning i knew it was going to go from bad to worse. So I can only give this movie a 1 because the effects that were used were so poorly used and thought out that anyone can see that there were no "real" ghosts. I feel the worst part was this so called "old haunted house" contained a whole bunch of new items and a few "convieniently placed items" I could have thought up effects that would have looked much better than a chair being flipped over by an unseen ghost (or should i say wire). Then later when they review the tape of the chair flipping it flips in a different way. Uh Oh thats a big continuity error. If this was a truly good movie then they would have caught that and all of the other "old house" items. This movie is like a rip off of house on haunted hill and the Blair witch project all rolled into one poorly thought out and assembled movie. I would be ashamed to put out something with that bad of acting, effects and cheap video shots of the girls chests and how convenient the camera falls when something "paranormal" happens. This movie is an insult to people who are out there actually looking for ghosts and getting real ghost footage on tape.
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| 11,885
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This movie was pretty bad. Sci-fi is usually my favorite channel so I watch all the original movies that play on it. I really don't know if this movie can be called original. Starting a zoo/theme park on a remote island sounds pretty familiar. What was it, oh yeah, Jurassic Park. But this has Sabertooth tigers instead.<br /><br />The movie starts out with a few stereotypical college kids on an island doing some kind of treasure hunt. One of them ends up dieing a rather gruesome death with some of the worst special effects I've seen. The blood looked a lot like ketchup. Also at the beginning there is a scientist who wants to make as many saber tooth tigers as possible for people to enjoy. 3 of them have already escaped and are going around eating the tourists, or the people invited to the island to see the tigers first hand. Again, sound like Jurassic Park. Probably the coolest thing was the 1000lb saber tooth who crawled around on his front legs killing the mad scientist with a tooth statue of sorts that somehow shrinks and goes through the guys neck. Funniest death I've seen on TV.<br /><br />The acting is extremely cheesy, the special effects are horrible. The CG tigers could almost pass for clay models, and even some of the sounds were off. For instance, when one of the college students is trying to escape, he uses an ax to break down a door, the ax goes into the door and about 2 seconds later you hear the sound. This movie was pretty bad. The cheesy deaths were quite funny though.
| 0
| 7,739
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I have seen a lot of movies in my life, but not many as bad as this. It is a movie that makes fun of fat people, has no real story, has bad actors, is not funny and much more. Is this a movie that you would like to see? I guess not!<br /><br />I guess that the makers of the movie was trying to be original and creative, but it looks like it was made by a 12 year old child with absolutely no cinematic skills at all. The so called funny parts is as funny as throughing pies in the faces of people, or breaking wind. Of cource if this is the kind of humour that you like, then this is the movie for you!!<br /><br />Dont waste your money on this movie!
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| 1,237
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Now, I'm one to watch movies that got poor reviews, and say, "Hmm... this isn't so bad!" I loved The Cable Guy, and thought that My Big Fat Independent Movie was great. Keep in mind, I really didn't start watching this with high hopes, but I figured that maybe... just maybe... it would be bad in a kind of way I could laugh at it. I was wrong. At no point at all during my suffering through this "film" (And I use that term sparingly) was I even close to being mildly entertained. To start, Shaq makes Quentin Tarantino look like Marlon Brando when it comes to acting. I hate rap music, but as far as I could tell, an Amish priest would probably make a better rapper than him. The main character is simply annoying, and not a character that it's easy to like. Quite frankly, I would rather eat a greasy turd out of a Harlequin fetus' bloody sores than watch this again.
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| 10,830
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I really enjoyed "Doctor Mordrid". This is a low-budget film, which may be off-putting to some, but I have no problem with it. I admire it even more for that, considering it's WAY more entertaining than the drivel that Hollywood churns out every year. Too bad this didn't get a theatrical release; I don't know about anyone else, but I would have went to see it in theatres. `Doctor Mordrid' is a very entertaining science fiction film that just about anyone can enjoy, especially if they're into sci-fi like I am. I don't see why this is a R-rated film; only one f-word is said, and there are no gruesome death scenes, nor is there any blood at all. The timeless rivalry between sorcerers Anton and Kabal (Anton wanted the use his powers to save the human race, while Kabal wanted to enslave them), gave the story a sense of enchantment, while the mythical plotline added charm to the story itself. Basically, this a film that's just plain fun to watch. There is one unintentionally funny thing in this movie, though: seeing Jeffrey Combs keeping a straight face while wearing that silly blue cape and suit. That makes me laugh every time I see it. But I digress... Anyway, the acting is great; the main protagonists (Anton, and his lady friend, Samantha), are very likable; Anton is sympathetic, and hospitable, and Samantha is friendly. Plus, the settings were wonderful. The floating island in the other dimension was very cool setting; we're only given a glimpse of it twice, though; it would have been great to see more scenes take place here. The main setting was also very neat; Anton's apartment is very roomy, and he has some cool devices, especially the monitoring system he uses to keep track of the world's occurrences. He even has a pet raven that he keeps in his apartment named Edgar. Overall, this a great film; it was fun to watch, and the main actors put a lot of feeling into their roles. If you can find anywhere that rents `Doctor Mordrid', you should rent it (or, in my case, buy it. It was definitely money well-spent)!<br /><br />My Rating: 8 stars out of ten.<br /><br />
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| 20,061
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I don't think I'm spoiling anyone's experience of this film by telling you not to see it if you have anything better to do, like clean under the stove. It gets dirty under there and you've gotta clean it sometime. <br /><br />I think the movie suffers from a lack of sex and violence, though there is one car chase stunt that looks so dangerous it could only have been filmed in a country where life is cheaper than beer. "Gargoyle"'s heart is in the right place, but its aspirations are conservative. It is at least not pretentious. But I had a great time acting in it, playing the perennial idiot in the horror movie who says "What's down this hole?" and dies for his hubris. Plus I got to meet Michael Pare. Every film junkie should work with a B-movie staple at least once before death. And Romanians are the loveliest people I've met. Literally the loveliest. Walk down the street in Bucarest: if 7 of every 10 women aren't absolutely beautiful, you're walking down a street I didn't come across; and be consoled by the fact that at least 5 of the 10 are available for drinks.<br /><br />Part of the film was shot in Casa Radio, an abandoned, unfinished Classic Communist Bloc-cum-Georgian Nightmare edifice originally intended to house KGB propaganda ministries, i.e. Radio Not-so-Free Europe. The building's five stories tall and takes up a city block; best of all, while its facade radiates Big Brotheresque state solidity, it resides near the city center like a post-apocalyptic ruin in a jungle of burdock and hemp peopled by dozens of Gypsies and scores of wild dogs. Construction on Casa Radio was suspended when Caucescu and his wife were executed on TV in 1989, and still there are gaping holes that drop from the sun-baked top floor (offering surreal vistas of a modern quarter-mile stretch of concrete roof, decorated with jutting rebar and old car parts, overlooking a crumbling ancient city) all the way down to the damp, creepy sub-basement (which doubles in the film for the Gargoyle lair.) No American-style guardrails or warning signs for Bucarest. <br /><br />Since the demise of the Soviet Union, Casa Radio has hosted several non-union film shoots, including "Highlander III". It is attractive to producers because it's a cheap location, massive in terms of scale and available space, bizarre looking, and free of insurance headaches as it's still state property. Plus no one complains if you don't clean up after your production: anything left onsite is interpolated into the resident Gypsies' construction of their shanty town in this actual urban jungle. <br /><br />An assistant director was bitten bloody by a wild dog during the shoot of "Gargoyle". The apples provided by catering were pressed into service by cast and crew as projectiles in order to keep the prowling dogs at bay. I too was bitten by wild dogs in Bucarest, once in a bar (!) and once in a city park. I also survived two car wrecks in two weeks, both in taxis and neither of which was seen by the drivers involved as grounds for stopping the cars.<br /><br />GEEK NOTE: The Sci-Fi Network or Channel or whatever was one of the backers of this film (the smaller the budget, the more producers on set), so it's a little weird that nobody had a problem with the original title, "Gargoyles", until it was almost time to show it on the network, even though Sci-Fi already had an unrelated series of that name. The title was changed sometime relatively close to release, as I have a color-corrected copy labeled with the former title.
| 0
| 5,064
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Some of the filmmakers who are participating in this series have made some really great films but they sure as heck are not showing much skill with this series. Particularly the writing. OK, the first season was somewhat better but these new episodes they are creating just stink. I'm a huge fan of horror and in my opinion the vast majority of these episodes are total garbage. Nothing new or genuinely interesting. Few of them are visually creative. It's just typical fabricated Hollywood crap, uninteresting, childish, poorly conceived and in some cases, flat out laughable. Much like Tales from the Crypt the only good thing this series has been offering is great nudity! Other then that this series blows hard. I get the impression sometimes that they hired a bunch of eighth-graders to write the episodes. Maybe they did.
| 0
| 10,542
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"Plan B" is strictly by-the-numbers fare except for one thing. I surprisingly found it to be rather insulting.<br /><br />Jon Cryer is the "star" of this film and plays his usual, smarmy, egotistical, snotty character that was actually endearing in "Pretty In Pink" and has NOT been amusing ever since. Grating doesn't even begin to describe his performance. Ricky (Mark Matheisen) is a muscular, blonde, struggling actor who (gasp!) is only worried about his hair and getting laid. Talk about a stock character...ugh. At least the other three characters are somewhat engaging. Lisa Darr and Lance Guest play a grounded, optimistic, caring couple who are struggling to conceive. Since they are not whiny drama queens, however, their roles are apparently considered boring and they aren't given enough screen time. Sara Mornell rounds out the cast by playing Gina, your usual nice and good-looking young woman who just can't seem to find the right partner in love. I've seen this character a million times before but at least her performance overcomes some of the shortfalls caused by the predictability of her situation.<br /><br />What startled me about this film was its juvenile promotion of stereotypes. They introduced a Russian character for the sole purpose of mocking him and making fun of the way he talked. He was portrayed as being wild, ignorant and amazingly shallow. They were just getting warmed up though for the usual nonsense about gays. Gina decides to be gay for a while since she isn't having any luck with guys. Honestly. That wasn't that bad except they really went overboard when Gina brought a lesbian to a Christmas party her friends were throwing. Her lesbian date had very short hair (like I'm sure all lesbians do). She also got quite upset (like I'm sure all lesbians do) when Gina had the nerve to put on lipstick(!). Finally, her date goes around the party hitting on just about every woman there and mouths off when Gina expresses her disappointment. Of course, we all know how gay people can't stay faithful for so much as a couple of hours much less months or even years, right? (Please note the sarcasm in that statement. Thank you.)<br /><br />This film was based on a tired and predictable premise to begin with but Cryer's unlikable performance combined with the idiotic stereotyping sinks this movie to the lower depths of cinema. 2/10
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| 797
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I would say this is a background movie. Play it the background as your tending to busy work (laundry, checking email, etc). I thought this was a film that was done before Amy Adams became successful after Enchanted. Wrong! It was done in 2009! The screenplay/script is pretty awful. I love musicals but the singing is just average and doesn't move the plot along. Ughh. It almost seems like it's a made for TV movie based on the cinematography. Am I watching a TV show? <br /><br />Even the secretary breaks out into song. What the f@#$ is going on?! Actually she seemed to have the best voice. Amy Adams was so great in Enchanted. Lead actor is average. Disappointed for sure. This movie would have been good for lifetime, but that's about it. :(
| 0
| 10,743
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In A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die, Clay McCord (Alex Cord) is an unhappy outlaw with a ten thousand dollar bounty on his head and degenerative epilepsy.<br /><br />Realizing his days as an outlaw are numbered, he wants desperately (though somewhat reluctantly) to take advantage of an amnesty being granted by rough and tumble territorial governor Robert Ryan, (excellent performance) who badly wants McCord to renounce his ways and accept the amnesty as an example to others while in the bandit hub of Escondito, outlaw Mario Brega plans to kill McCord to stop that from happening.<br /><br />Also starring Arthur Kennedy, Aldo Sambrell and a slew of other familiar European faces, this is co-written and produced by (American) spaghetti western pioneer Albert Band, also responsible for the pre-Leone film Gunfight At Red Sands.<br /><br />Though the solution to the main character's "epilepsy" is lifted straight out of Howard Hawks' El Dorado, the script is solid, pretty fresh and unpretentious. This has a great balance of action and story and Alex Cord is great in it. He really should have been a bigger star.<br /><br />In defense of the shorter (well dubbed) English version: personally I'm past that age where the longer version is always the better version and the ending where McCord is ironically gunned down by grimy bounty hunters after his pardon, is needlessly nihilistic and completely destroys the film's message about hope and redemption.<br /><br />Call me old-fashioned, but I rooted for McCord and felt he earned that happy ending!
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| 20,431
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Yesterday I watched this tv production, and I was very disappointed.<br /><br />I didn't have big expectations when it was a tv production, but the complete movie was pain with no ending. I felt it lasted for 3 hours, but it was just me who was bored to death. Every minute was a long struggle and I really fought hard to stay away from the "turn off"-switch.<br /><br />The movie is about a doctor (Dr. Verghese) who gets a lot of AIDS-patients, and most of them die during the movie. It is hard for Verghese to live with, so his family gets punished with his frustrations. However this movie has problems showing both sides, it mostly focuses on his conversations with the patients, and sometimes we see flicks from his home, but we don't get much. The difficulties to show more than one part of Verghese's life doesn't get any better with the poor acting from Naveen Andrews, a man I (hopefully) can't see in any good future movies.<br /><br />I believe it got 7,6 because of the subject (taboo?), but I'm sure that there are better movies about this subject on the market. Stay away from this movie, it does not deserve more than 3/10.<br /><br />
| 0
| 10,356
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The John Van Druten Broadway hit is brought to the screen with a maximum of star power in this romantic fantasy about a modern-day witch who beguiles a successful Manhattan publisher. James Stewart may get top billing, but it is Kim Novak who steals the show as one of the most alluring witches ever to cast a spell on the movie screen. The lead pairing is, in fact, one of the movie's few weaknesses: the gray-haired Stewart seems a bit old for the role, and while it is easy to see why he falls hard for Novak, it's a little harder to understand what she finds attractive about him, as they seem mismatched in temperment and outlook. (It is one of the story's amusing conceits that witches and warlocks are portrayed as Greenwich Village beatniks and bohemians.) Curiously, the Stewart-Novak pairing would generate a lot more heat in "Vertigo", released the same year as this film, but then "Vertigo" had a compelling suspense story, and the benefit of Alfred Hitchcock's direction.<br /><br />The film's comic moments are mostly provided by the stellar supporting cast, including a young Jack Lemmon (as Kim's warlock brother), Elsa Lanchester (their ditzy aunt), and Ernie Kovacs (!) as a befuddled writer. Hermione Gingold even shows up in a hilarious cameo as a sort of Grand Witch. There's lots to like in this movie--wit, romance, and a great cast--that is, if you can possibly take your eyes off the enchanting Miss Novak. I have seen the movie a half a dozen times, and I never can.
| 1
| 21,584
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I really don't know why I agreed to watch this movie, but like a complete fool I did and for that I deserve to be shot! I had seen the original Killjoy, well I say I have seen it.... I started watching it but found it that bad that I ended up watching it in 4x speed to get it over with and get rid of the annoying dialogue, but I said I would watch it and I did even if it was in 4x speed.<br /><br />To cut a long story short Killjoy 2 kicks off where Killjoy left off. By this i don't mean the plot, I mean the complete and total bag of dirt known as acting and cheapness. I have nothing against low budget movies, in fact I kinda enjoy them, they are something different from Mega budget blockbusters, but this film is just terrible! The acting is diabolical and the script... well i think you could of given Stevie Wonder a pen and paper, and he would of produced something much better! This movie is just annoying, not to mention the annoying laugh the clown has which is so obviously dubbed! I didn't make it through this movie anyway, about three quarters of the way through it was time to turn it off and throw it through the window. It may of been a rip off to buy as a DVD but as a frisbee it was a mega bargain! <br /><br />Please for the love of mankind itself DO NOT watch this muck, it is possibly the worst thing I have ever seen and considering some of the muck I've seen thats saying a lot! <br /><br />My rating on this movie would be.... Nailgun to the head/10
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| 4,459
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Not a terrible film -- my 10 year old boy loved it, and he would be the target demographic, so I guess they hit the spot. Pretty dull for an adult though.<br /><br />Hard to relate to animated lego characters, even mod high-tech ones.<br /><br />I thought the choice of the three great virtues of the Bionicle world was a bit odd -- unity, duty, and destiny. Am I the only one who thinks those sound just a bit fascistic? Especially destiny. What about freedom, equality, justice, etc.?<br /><br />Oh well, it will sell Lego. Kind of dull for a movie, but not bad for a 74-minute advertisement. Could have been a lot worse.
| 0
| 7,508
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We went into this movie because my husband had enjoyed the original version of `My favourite Martian'. We had our 6 year old daughter with us. She wanted to leave halfway through the movie which was fine with both her parents! The parts we did see were only occasionally humorous, mostly either too silly or gross. I would expect that this movie might appeal to kids between 9-12, if that. It's definitely not suited for younger children. From what I've heard the original series was by far superior and if you are going to "relive the past" you'll probably be disappointed.
| 0
| 5,629
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This movie was cheesy and it was more than that. It was about this guy who gets a curse on him and he turns into a gorilla. I had to see how bad it was because of the title. Before this guy turns into a gorilla, he gets married. I was a little upset because she wasn't a bride of a gorilla: she is now the wife of the gorilla. She should have married him when he was a gorilla then the title would have made more sense. There are all these people in the middle of the jungle too and they all want to leave. This isn't just a B movie, it's more like a Z movie. I didn't even see any bananas for a wedding gift. Oh, right he wasn't cursed yet.
| 0
| 8,117
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You like beautiful girls? Yeah me too. What is there bad to say about beautiful girls/women? Nothing imo, so why would I give this movie only 2 stars out of 5, although it got the "talents" of Chiaki Kuriyama and Aya Ueto? <br /><br />If I really wanted to watch beautiful people, I'd watch MTV or something that's why. This is a movie, a so called action movie nevertheless. So by definition it does not even really need a plot right? I'm not agreeing 100%, but let's say yes to that. So what does it need? 20 minutes footage from part 1 (I might be exaggerating a little bit, but it felt like more than 20 minutes ...)?! That would be "No". But then again you never know, the people who watched part one might not know what they ate this morning for breakfast, so hey let's remind them ... hey maybe remind them even twice? Just to be sure they won't forget ... at least until the credits roll, of course!!!! <br /><br />So forget about the story, about character development, about real emotions, about the "acting" (and no, I don't think women in skirts walking and/or fighting is accountable for acting!) ... what does that leave? Yes the action scenes. The action scenes are not bad and that's the reason I gave the movie 2 stars instead of 1! I was giving this movie a chance, but it was a waste of time ... You have better things to do/watch, believe me ...
| 0
| 4,609
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Who could possibly sympathize with these two obnoxious protagonists? What's intended to be a light, frothy comedy about neighbor children who can't give up their childhood game of dare even as they age well into adulhood, comes off more as an exercise in cruelty and petulant self-indulgence. As children, the pair are unbearably precocious; as adults they're intolerably immature. It's a bad combination.
| 0
| 9,606
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Since its release in 1983, "A Christmas Story", the Jean Shepherd-narrated story of his alter-ego, Ralphie, has become a true classic. "My Summer Story", however, still has Shepherd as the narrator, but it has absolutely none of the charm, and the characters are nowhere near the caliber of the original film.<br /><br />"My Summer Story" is basically a mishmash of mediocre and just plain not very interesting stories, which include hillbilly neighbors and battling tops. Charles Grodin, who I normally like, is extremely unlikeable in the role of the father (more aptly handled by Darren McGavin in the original), and his character never seems anything but forced. Kiernan Culkin is a poor substitute for Ralphie, and the little brother is all but forgotten here. Only mom seems to have any worth here and perhaps that's because she beans a cinema manager with a gravy boat when he pushes his luck too far with irate housewives on "free dish night".<br /><br />The stories in this are mostly inconsequential and stretched paper-thin. May appeal to the extremely undemanding but as a sequel to "A Christmas Story", it's a very poor one and not worth most people's time. 2 out of 10.
| 0
| 8,208
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I think this is the best Norwegian movie I've ever seen. It's about 40-year old Andreas who gets hit by a subway-train, and suddenly finds himself in a strange city, however, everything here has been made ready for him. He has got a job, a house and clothes. At first, this city seems perfect, no death, no pain and no problems. Everywhere there are men in gray suits who cleans up and fixes everything that doesn't fit into their definition of perfect. However Andreas can't really seem to fit in and starts to long back to his old world, and tries with all means to get back. <br /><br />The thing that impresses my the most in this movie is how they way of making the city seem so surrealistic, even though I have seen a lot of these places in real life they seem so distant. Another thing that contributes greatly to the is the performance from the actors. Trond Fausa Aurvaag is just the perfect guy to play the confused and bothersome Andreas. And all the other characters are also doing a great job by playing apathetic (sounds like a hard job, doesn't it?). The strong difference between Andreas and the others leads to very amusing situations as well. <br /><br />All in all, this is a fabulous movie. The plot may be a little confusing, but the movie has such a great atmosphere I would recommend that everyone should go see it. <br /><br />And I wouldn't recommend listening to "ccscd212", as it seems he has seen too many commercial American movies and seems to have became too used to just getting served the moral on a silver plate. The way I see it there is not much in this film that tries to tell us about suicide being right or wrong. I consider it more of a warning of a direction our society seems to be taking. But sure, everyone can see a film in their own way.
| 1
| 21,105
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This is a fine drama and a nice change of pace from today's more hectic and loud films. It is another solid based-on-a-true store, which still means much of it could be made up for dramatic purposes. Frankly, I don't know but I liked the story.<br /><br />The story is about a young man back in the Fifties who gets interested in rocketry and wants to enter that field instead of working in the coal mines as everyone else, including his father, does in this West Virginia town. The big problem is the conflict it causes between the boy and his father, which I think was overdone. I would like to have a little less tension between the two.<br /><br />The young man, still a boy, is played by Jake Gyllenhaal, one of his first staring assignments, I think. He's likable, as are his school buddies in here. It's nice to see nice kids in a modern-day film. The two other key actors in the movie are Chris Cooper (the dad) and Laura Dern (the kid's teacher who encourages him all the time.)<br /><br />The cinematography is decent the 1950s soundtrack is fun to hear. Once again: I wish there more of these kind of films made today.
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This may contain ***SPOILERS***<br /><br />Where to start on this particular empty wasteland? Well it would have been nice if they actually had a plot. Acting talent, decent dialog, suspense, humor, hey even gratuitous sex would have helped this flick. Unfortunately there was only a lot of gore, (even that wasn't done well), shooting automatic weapons and missing.<br /><br />There seemed to be no reason to attach the basic premise, a Native American cursed to protect the bodies of the tribe he murdered, with his being tracked down by a Federal Special Ops team who dressed in civvies(?). Most of the time involved violating one of the basic rules of conduct in a Horror movie, separating from the group so you can be picked off one by one. You'd think this team would know better, especially because they are actually the third team sent to investigate, the other two teams disappearing without a trace. When they finally realize they're being picked off they make one of several stands and fire their weapons only to hit the trees a whole lot. Tree shot scene repeats endlessly in this movie to save money.<br /><br />When they're not shooting trees they're tracking this spirit who leaves no trail, (who knows how they're tracking it), and spouting a lot of macho BS. By the way, did I mention that most of this team are women? Interesting listening to them talk tough. Not very entertaining, but interesting.<br /><br />All in all, You can find better movies in the bargain bin at Kmart.
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Beverly garland was born in the wrong time. She was an actress ahead of her time, bringing power and grace to even such lame flicks as the Corman films she starred in. In Gunslinger, she's the town sheriff's wife. He gets offed, so she takes over his job to pursue his killers. She's better than the material she's working with, by far. The movie is gray, stilted, and mostly boring. There's some(unintentional)humor with the tire tracks everywhere, people running behind one building to emerge suddenly in front of another (I've heard of false fronts, but this is ridiculous!), and the truly stupid plot line of the newly widowed sheriff falling in love with the guy hired to kill her. Even if she hadn't loved her husband, it had only been something like a week or two since he'd died! And she ends up shooting the guy to death in the end, anyway. No luck with men, this one.<br /><br />The villain of the piece is another woman, the saloon owner. She's scheming to buy up a bunch of land just in case the railroad goes through and makes her rich. Her plan of action if it doesn't is pretty lame-she'll just steal as much from the town as she can and skedaddle. Hell, it's just her and her hired gun at the end against an entire town. Are you telling me these people aren't armed? Look what happened in real towns of the Old West when bank robbers came in to rob the bank, then were cut down in a hail of bullets by the armed and dangerous town folk.<br /><br />There'a a lot of pointless talking and riding around, interspersed with a few lame shoot outs. The ending is as grim as usual in a Corman flick, although thank goodness it lacks the moral proselytizing at the end that was in It Conquered the World. The sheriff turns over her badge to Sam Bass and rides off into the sunset, although the movie was so gray that you never saw the sun.
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awful, just awful! my old room mate used to watch this junk and it drove me crazy. the book is one of my favorites and its a shame that some people will never know what it is really like because their first impressions are from dribble like this. they changed so much it is hardly recognisable. which baffles me since the book reads like a soap opera anyway, providing enough fodder for modern day entertainment. it's like one of those Lifetime movies that say "based on a true story" but are completely fictional. there is none of the emotion or depth of the book, just mindless melodrama. if you are a high school student looking for a way to get out of reading, i suggest you try another version.
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I'll make this brief. This was a joy to watch. It may or may not have been more effective if the characters had resembled their real life counterparts, but aside from this minor observation I found the fantasy animal characters to be most enjoyable. The visuals were most stunning except for the second-rate CG scenes, which could have been left out. I dislike computer generated animation anyways, it defeats the purpose of a biopic such as this one. Watch it, you will appreciate it too!
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I f you thought Sam Mendes' first film, the much heralded American BEAUTY was a movie with style to spare, wait until you see his highly anticipated second effort, the unrelentingly grim 30's gangster melodrama ROAD TO PERDITION. Some critics have hailed this new movie as a worthy successor to THE GODFATHER, a rash judgment made by several reviewers taken with Mr. Mendes' extraordinary technical prowess. If the mechanics of movie making are what make a picture great, then yes, ROAD TO PERDITION is a distant cousin to THE GODFATHER in terms of what it achieves in cinematography, editing, music scoring and sound. What it doesn't have is a resonance that all great stories and some very rare movies have that stay with the viewer long after the experience of reading or seeing it is over. As with American BEAUTY, there is a cold, distancing feel to this movie, despite some very tense scenes involving paternal love, loyalty and betrayal.<br /><br />This story of a hit man (Tom Hanks) and his relationship to a surrogate father - figure who is also his boss, an elderly Irish mob leader (Paul Newman) , seems to have been culled from innumerable gangster movies of years past. The father /son motif that hangs over this picture is so heavy handed in its treatment that there is not much room for spontaneity ; the entire enterprise has been very carefully wrought , and nearly all the dialog is delivered with an air of great portent : this is obviously a gangster film , hence the requisite amount of violence and bloodshed , but the film is nearly devoid of any humor to speak of ; only in scenes involving a young boy driving a getaway car in a cunningly edited montage is there any sense of lightheartedness to leaven the pervasive sense of doom.<br /><br />That being said , I have nothing but the highest praise for the stunning look of this film ; indeed , it is not an overstatement to say that this is one of the most beautifully photographed and designed movies I have ever seen. Veteran cameraman Conrad Hall will very likely win another Oscar for his work here . The production 's sets and costumes are just as exemplary ; in fact , the entire film is a technical marvel. Mr. Mendes continues to astonish with his vivid use of color, and he and Mr. Hall again make very dramatic use of red blood splattered against pale colored walls , all the more effective and disconcerting due to the preponderance of blacks, blues and grays that dominate the movie's color scheme.<br /><br />If I have failed to duly note the acting , it is not because the actors do not purport themselves ably ; everyone in the film is top notch, with special mention going to the two malevolent bad guys : Daniel Craig is the classic "man you love to hate", the spoiled, impulsive son of Newman's gangster father ; and an almost unrecognizable Jude Law as an especially slimy miscreant who goes on pursuit of Hanks and his son and figures very importantly in the film's riveting second half. But acting in a movie this dazzling is bound to take a back seat to the photographic fireworks on display here. If a Rolls-Royce was a movie , I've no doubt it would look like ROAD TO PERDITION.
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Well, it wasn't a complete waste. Armand was as usual very good in the movie,,,the whole turks vs German thing was kind of strange because I remember seeing Bulgaria at the beginning of the movie...dint' bother to go back and check...the central theme is about the serial killings with the whole gang warfare loosely woven in. Never saw a movie where the characters looked Italian, supposed to be Turk, taking English(American accent and euphemisms) with German words. The climax was the most intriguing part and there are parts of it that still did not make sense to me. In any case, if you have nothing else better to do, you can watch this movie..
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Darling Lili is fantastic! Its by far one my favorite films! It certainly didn't deserve the poor reviews it received. Julie Andrews, playing the title role of Lili Smith (Schmidt) is the best part of the whole movie. She is entrancing and spectacular! As Julie Andrews is my most favorite actress and singer by far, I was most definatly not surprised by how stunning she is. This movie is just...great (I'm running out of adjectives!), it's magnificent, marvellous, amazing, funny, terribly romantic, sad, and just an all-out thrill and its all thanks to Dame Julie Andrews!And to her husband, director Blake Edwards. Oh, yeah Rock Hudson was ok, too :)<br /><br />Julie Andrews is the beautiful and well-loved singer, Lili Smith. Rock Hudson portrays Major Larabee, who quickly falls for Lili, and she with him. But their affair was not coincedental. There meeting was planned by the German Government (I'm not sure if that's exactly what you'd call them, but you get the point), because the warm, happy, singing entertainer Lili is actually a German Spy. Lili is told to seduce Major LArabee in order to get information of the new Top Secret Opertaion (later know as "Crepe Suzette"). Though Lili is on a solemn mission, she falls in love with Bill (Major Larabee), for real, making her original quest challenging. But Lili pulls through and completes er task, after she finds out something that is not really true about Bill. The ending will remain unsaid by me as it is wonderfully layed out. If anything, you'll thoroughly enjoy this movie, I most certainly did!!!!!!!!<br /><br />
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Jake Speed is a film that lacks one thing a charismatic lead. Unfortunately that's something that really taints the entire movie and it's a shame because at heart it is an enjoyable action movie with a witty enough script and an interesting, if derivative, premise. Although it's genesis probably can be traced back to the success of the Indiana Jones trilogy the film actually plays a little more like 'Romancing the Stone' albeit in reverse. It's not an author of romantic adventure fiction being led on an adventure by a character very much like one of her creations it is an adventure fiction character (who happens to chronicle his own adventures) leading an ordinary woman on one of his adventures.<br /><br />When a young woman goes missing in Paris, her sister Margaret (played by the appealing Karin Kopins) gets embroiled with pulp hero Jake Speed (Wayne Crawford) and his sidekick Dennis (Dennis Christopher) who both turn out to be real and very flawed individuals in an adventure that takes them into the heart of a civil war torn African state and ultimately into the clutches of two brothers the deliciously evil Sid (John Hurt) and his ridiculously camp sibling Maurice (Roy London). That's the plot it's not labyrinthine and it's not complicated but the story that it tells doesn't require great depth.<br /><br />The action sequences are appealing to begin with and it's certainly true that the heroic trio are put through their paces (whether caught in battles between government and rebel forces or being dropped into a pit full of lions) and there are certainly some quite funny lines. However the film does seem to struggle to find an ending and unfortunately the action sequences that are quite appealing to begin with go nowhere and ultimately become a bit bland and irksome. This, however, may not have been such an issue if it was possible to like Jake Speed but due to Wayne Crawford's performance it becomes harder to really care what happens. Now I don't know if he was stretching himself a little thin as he was also the producer and writer of the movie or whether he's simply not a good actor (as I haven't seen him in much else) but he never really convinces as a roguish mixture of Doc Savage, Indiana Jones and Jack Colton.<br /><br />This is a shame because most of the other characters play their roles well Karen Kopins is funny and convincing and her character shares some nice banter with Jake (unfortunately it never convinces). Dennis Christopher is perfect as the archetypal sidekick and John Hurt plays the part with camp relish almost as if he were in a sixties episode of Batman. He strides about his few scenes growling in a ridiculous cockney accent putting in a performance that almost belongs in another film. Sid is no Moriarty (he is presented as Jake's nemesis from a number of his previous adventures / books) but he is always fun to watch.<br /><br />Jake Speed tries to channel the same fun B movie spirit as 'Night of the Comet' (a film produced by Crawford a few years beforehand) and almost succeeds but misses which is a shame because Jake would have been good to watch in a few more adventures and may have been served better by a television series.<br /><br />I would recommend this out of curiosity appeal but ultimately it leaves a bitter taste because most of the elements were there to make something genuinely good.
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Last Christmas, I was lucky enough to receive one of the 1200 Ultimate Bourne boxed sets from my Better Half but put off watching the final part of the trilogy until yesterday. Given how many recent trilogies have stumbled over the finishing line instead of striding triumphantly through it, I was somewhat wary of approaching "The Bourne Ultimatum" but I really shouldn't have been worried. The electric actions sequences and bruising fight scenes mix effortlessly alongside the intelligent story-lines to make this one of the very best action thrillers I can recall seeing and a sublime end to an excellent series.<br /><br />Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) returns after an apparent leak about Operation Blackbriar - a new program based on the old Treadstone project - to the journalist Simon Ross (Paddy Considine) at the Guardian. Determined to uncover more about his half-remembered past, Bourne picks up the trail once again but others at the CIA including Deputy Director Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) believe that Bourne himself is the leak and start to pursue the rogue agent with renewed vigour. Can Bourne finally find the answers he has been looking for or will his old employers silence him for good? <br /><br />Personally, I felt slightly disappointed with "The Bourne Supremacy" as it ditched the trademark realism of its action scenes and focused on being a proper spy film. Not to say it lost it altogether but compared to the fantastic "Bourne Identity", it seemed more like a slow-burning spy novel rather than an action-thriller. No such worries here - every car crash, punch, kick and gun shot is heard and felt with visceral delight but thankfully, it still retains a wonderfully intelligent and gripping spy story at its heart to base the action around. It also brilliantly ties together the two earlier films, providing a suitable bookend to the trilogy as things are explained and expanded until the full picture is exposed. Performances throughout are nearly faultless - even Julia Styles begins to offer something more than book-wormy eye-candy. The only real downer is that this, like the other Bourne films, has little to do with the original novel but unless you're a die-hard Ludlum fan, this isn't really any real reason to dislike a movie like this of the very highest calibre.<br /><br />Nothing pleases me more than a movie that takes me pleasantly by surprise and despite my fears, "The Bourne Ultimtum" is a cracking movie filled with enough bone-crunching action to satisfy the meat-heads as well as a plot that never threatens to let go of your attention for a single minute. Even at the final reel, you're never entirely sure whether a happy ending is assured but whether you are a fan of the series or not (and if not, what more do you want?), this is one film you really should track down as soon as you possibly can. No wonder this series forced the producers of the Bond movies to throw out forty-odd years of movie history in order to start again. Bourne is a modern spy hero and made recent Bond films look more like Austin Powers in comparison until "Casino Royale" gave the Bond series the reboot it desperately needed. Missing out of the Jason Bourne movies is a crime worthy of rendition - go and get yourself a copy of the DVD. Not the Ultimate Bourne collection though - limited edition, I'm afraid!
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Back in 2002 when Matthew Lawrence did The Hot Chick, I also saw Drumline that day. Drumline wins by default! If The Comebcaks had been released in March (as planned) the same time TMNT was released, TMNT would've won by default! <br /><br />Granted, Matthew Lawrence did a fine job portraying a quarterback. He didn't have to resort to uttering dirty words which is a plus. But when he started playing with his private parts as well as another football players and touching a girl's boob, those were the minuses.<br /><br />But the biggest minus that ticked me off is that every football player got to participate in the mock music video, except Matthew Lawrence (insert The Price Is Right's losing horns)! Another blown musical opportunity for him, just because he's shy about doing music.<br /><br />In the past, Matt has disappointed me many times (Super Human Samurai Syber Squad) where he came so close to having a musical moment, but ended up failing.<br /><br />Sure, Joey had a singing career with two albums to his belt and Andrew's starting a music career of his own. But it's very rare to find a Matt musical moment. The two that stand out would be on Brotherly Love where he played the guitar and sang "Pigeon On Your Car" (Art Atrack), which he wrote by the way, and that romantic Boy Meets World moment when he sang "This Dame" (As Time Goes By).<br /><br />Matt, you've played jocks too long. Why not make a musical comeback. You have a good voice and I miss your musical side.
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At the least some of the sitcoms that churn endlessly out of the US are honestly bad. This junk, however, portrays a "heart warming" parenty side to a clothes horse. Acting laughably "learnt" with glances and phrases delivered in the "I'm SO important and thin and beautiful" fashion. In the episode I just sat agog through, someone's "job" was at risk simply because a colleague had "placed" a phone call, slagging her capabilities off ... !! Really, this is the lowest of the low. What kind of damage does this foist on the watching masses, seeing only glitzy glam-puss people parading around "working". Utterly sick making. When the titles rolled, I thought, oh well, it provided jobs for the boys. You know who you are.
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In the opening sequence of "Where's Poppa?", George Segal rises from his bed one morning, shaves, showers, puts on a gorilla suit and goes into his mother's bedroom, we realize later, to give her a massive heart attack that will kill her and get her out of his life forever. This is about the level of humor one can expect from most of this picture: insanity, blended with what might be taken as morbid daring.<br /><br />Segal plays a New York attorney who lives with his supposedly senile mother (Ruth Gordon), whose life is further complicated when, while hiring a nurse to care for the old bag, meets the girl of his dreams, the pleasantly prim Trish Van Devere, decked out like Florence Nightingale. His dilemma: how to integrate the lovely nurse into his and his pesky mother's life.<br /><br />Segal's performance is about the only thing holding the picture together. His frustrations, his reactions, his comic timing is almost peerless (whatever happened to that guy?); where the film fails is in other areas. Ruth Gordon's characterization is dreadful as the mother. At the beginning, you can't figure out if her character is senile or just being deliberately vague to keep her son from moving out. By the end, it's clear she's just nuts. When Segal brings Van Devere home to meet her, Gordon's eyebrows furrow and she gets a mean, sinister look. She wants the intruder in her son's life removed; she's calculating. This is not the mode of a senile person. You're not getting a consistent performance throughout the picture, which is probably the director's (Carl Reiner) fault as much as Gordon's. Ruth Gordon's old lady in "Rosemary Baby" is much more successful because with the kind of ingratiating, cloying person that Ruth Gordon generally plays, the audience responds to her as annoying. But when Mia Farrow is too timid to fight back, Gordon becomes more cloying, her fangs dig deeper and deeper and we're frightened for Farrow; this kind of imposition is genuinely terrifying. Here, we're being asked to laugh at what we'd normally find annoying, and if Gordon played it as helplessly nutty all the way, we might. But she's selfish and mean as well, and it dampens what little humor there is.<br /><br />There are a few good laughs, though. A courtroom scene with Barnard Hughes as a military officer and Rob Reiner as a counterculture punk is fairly hilarious, and Vincent Gardenia does a nice turn as a Lombardiesque football coach. There's also an inspired bit where Segal's brother (Ron Liebman), having been stripped naked by muggers on his way to Segal's place, asks him for something for to wear home- and he gives him the gorilla suit.<br /><br />But of a lot of the script is poorly conceived and simply doesn't make sense. Why is a New York lawyer with his own practice even living at home in the first place? Why does Segal, if his mother is senile, try to reason with her logically: "If you spoil this for me, I'll punch your f---ing heart out." Why does Liebman keep cutting through the park if he knows he's going to get mugged? Why does he take a taxi after leaving Segal's with gorilla suit? Why wasn't he taking taxis all along? A funnier bit would have been Liebman, as the gorilla, terrorizing the muggers. Why does Van Devere keep coming back- after her first husband was a kook, why does she want to get involved with this bunch? I suppose if I put this to Carl Reiner, he'd say, 'These are crazy people, they don't have to make sense.' Which is a convenient way to excuse a lousy script that's full of holes. The characters' moment-to-moment behavior may not have to make sense, but their motivations do, and that's where "Where's Poppa?" falls apart; the situations are created just to have the gag, and the gags are mostly one-shots, they don't build to anything.<br /><br />Carl Reiner is the most guilty in this whole fiasco. How he has acquired this vaunted reputation as a pillar of comedy puzzles me; basically, his career has been to hold a microphone in front of Sid Caesar and Mel Brooks while they talk in funny voices. His son Rob has ten times the skill and intelligence as a director. In show-biz terms, Reiner pushes buttons; a monkey could do his job. And that is most apparent in his framing of the action. Why is all of New York shot in tight and in close-ups, but the scenes in the country are all distant and panoramic? That's the mentality of Carl Reiner's direction, claustrophobic for the city, spatial for the country. In the final lunatic scene at the old folks home, the camera is so far off, you can't even make out what's going on. The abrupt ending suggests a resolution that Segal could have easily arrived at ninety minutes ago; it also suggests Reiner couldn't figure out how to end the picture. So he just cut it, as another example of "craziness". Reiner seems to think dumbness equals craziness, and craziness without logic is always funny. It isn't, and the creators of "Where's Poppa" are as demented as Ruth Gordon putting Pepsi in her Fruit Loops.
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This movie is some of the worst crap I have ever seen. I literally got a sharp pain in my head while watching this movie. The CGI was awful, and the story was just a waste of ink. Dean Cain's character was Mr-Super-Intuitive-I-can-figure-out-anything, except he can't seem to work his own helicopter correctly. The biggest problem was the split screen camera work. I felt like I was watching the Brady Bunch or something, only it wasn't different people in the boxes, just close ups and different views of the same thing. I can only figure that the actors really needed the money, because this movie wasn't worth the film it was shot on.
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This is an entertaining surreal road movie. It was written by Joseph Minion, who also wrote After Hours, Martin Scorsese's excellent surreal film. The film follows the adventures of a ten-year-old kid named Gus, who drives a red Ford Mustang across some fictional states with names like Tristana (A tribute to Luis Buñuel's film, perhaps?), Essex & South Lyndon, in search of eight elusive Motorama game cards from various Chimera Company gas stations. The film has a surreal feel to it because a lot of the things are unusual, like the money for instance, which is like blank paper with numbers on.<br /><br />Most of the characters are nasty to Gus on his trip. They tattoo him, punch him, but this doesn't stop the kid on his relentless quest. Some oddball actors like David Lynch incumbent Jack Nance, Meat Loaf & Flea also make appearances. Jack Nance plays a motel owner, who when he first meets Gus tells him, "If you see any squirrels, give them to me". This is a movie where a man and his wife abandon their young children because the man owes Gus $100; and a mother encourages her son to raise his voice louder while speaking rudely. If you're a fan of Twin Peaks and surreal movies, you'll like this. An odd little gem of a movie.
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The final pairing of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald is basically a complete misfire.The script is weak and has been presented badly.The film just has no life in it.Eddy and MacDonald would have been better off just making a filmed concert for their final pairing.There's nothing wrong with their singing,its just everything else in this turkey thats overcooked.
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This begins a series (which I'll hopefully keep up every week-end) of films that came out during my childhood in this case, it's one I've only managed to catch now. It was clearly intended as the last word on the subject, which basically had been debased to the level of hokum over the years; however, in its uncompromising striving for a serious-minded approach (a sure measure of which is that the protagonist is never once referred to by the name he's been known all this time the world over!), the film-makers rather lost track of the fact that the thing was intended primarily as entertainment! Consequently, we get a decidedly staid representation of events with more care given to meticulous period reconstruction than in providing a functional thematic environment for its mythic jungle hero! Even so, Christopher Lambert rose to stardom as did another debutante, Andie McDowell, playing his love interest (named Jane, of course) with the title role, which he handles creditably enough under the circumstances. However, Ralph Richardson (to whom the film is dedicated, this being his swan-song) steals every scene he's in as Tarzan's natural grandfather who, in spite of showing obvious affection for his long-lost kin, can't bring himself to forget tradition in an effort to understand his predicament; the hero, in fact, is much more comfortable interacting with primates (even contriving, after having gone back home, to save his adoptive 'dad' from captivity). The film is otherwise very good to look at (with cinematography by Stanley Kubrick regular John Alcott, no less), features an appropriately grandiose score as well as remarkable make-up effects (by Rick Baker) and, while essentially disappointing as a Tarzan outing, retains considerable value nonetheless as a prestige picture of its day.
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Surreal film noir released soon after the "real," genre-defining classics "The Maltese Falcon," "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice." Welles films shouldn't be evaluated against others. He was playing by different rules. In fact, he was playing. This starts where other femme fatale films leave off, so the vaguely logical (but interesting) whodunit is embellished with a display of Wellesian scenes (typical rapid-fire style), dialog (lots of "hard-boiled" philosophy), and unusual acting (good Hayworth presumably intentionally one-dimensional). To Welles "genre" may have meant "formula" but he seemed to like using "mysteries" as backgrounds for his "entertainments."
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Following which, the touted update goes and shoots itself through the head. Rather apt, considering the sorry state of this movie, a sequel to a film which patently didn't need one.<br /><br />What really irritates about Robocop 2 is that the makers obviously didn't understand why the original was so good in the first place. Robocop (7) was a witty, vibrant satire of bad action movies. Robocop 2 is just a bad action movie.<br /><br />Thin on dialogue, particularly towards the tedious, shoot-out finale, it attracts little interest and possesses none of the energy or spirit of the original. The spoof ads, now a little tasteless ("Warning: continued use will cause skin cancer") seem merely there as an afterthought. And calling a new designer drug "Nuke" is nowhere near as subtle or as funny as the original's family board game, "Nuke em!"<br /><br />The stop-motion animation the weakest element of the original is used more extensively, while this humourless sequel fails to include a credits sequence, which makes it look even more cheap and hurried. Ah, humourless? You might say. But what about the funny mayor, or the way Robo is reprogrammed to spout platitudes? Yes, these are attempts at light relief, as is Robo tightening himself up with a screwdriver ("we're only human") for the film's punchline, but none are likely to induce laughter. Like the rest of the film, they're staid and moronic attempts at entertainment.<br /><br />The third and final film in the series (imaginatively titled Robocop 3; 5) saw Peter Weller leave, to be replaced by Robert John Burke, who does well in a undemanding role. With toned-down language and violence, it was an obvious plea to the kiddie market, a Robo action figure much plugged throughout. With it's social conscience too overstated, and Robocop's new-found arm attachments and jetpack getting too silly, the final film was never destined to be a masterpiece. Yet fluid direction by Fred Dekker and a flowing pace make this one enjoyably throwaway viewing.<br /><br />Robocop, then, is the film proper. Robocop 3 is the sequel which you could watch if there was nothing better on. Which leaves the second movie hanging in the middle, an unwatchable dirge of a picture. A franchise vehicle that has nothing to say, save for the pound signs that rung up. Irvin Kershner is no Paul Verhoven, just as comic artist Frank Miller and partner Walon Green aren't the writers that Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner were. A tragic waste of a good, if limited, concept. 4/10.
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heres a fun fact, I was the baby in the movie, the one in the crib. :) I am 19 years old now. my parents took me to try out for the part, we lived in Texas at the time.I think I only made like 80 bucks for it, but i wasn't in it very long. My parents said i would cry when i was supposed to be happy and would be happy when i was supposed to cry. I was all mixed up. Strange and funny fact i suppose.. and no I am not a child actress. I am livin' in San Antonio, workin' at a walgreens. I graduated here in Texas but I lived in Maryland most my life. This Movie is a great movie, though, good concept. I have seen it several times in my short 19 years.
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Contains spoilers. <br /><br />The British director J. Lee Thompson made some excellent films, notably 'Ice Cold in Alex' and 'Cape Fear', but 'Country Dance' is one of his more curious offerings. The story is set among the upper classes of rural Scotland, and details the strange triangular relationship between Sir Charles Ferguson, an eccentric aristocratic landowner, his sister Hilary, and Hilary's estranged husband Douglas, who is hoping for a reconciliation with her. We learn that during his career as an Army officer, Charles was regarded as having 'low moral fibre'. This appears to have been an accurate diagnosis of his condition; throughout the film he displays an attitude of gloomy disillusionment with the world, and his main sources of emotional support seem to be Hilary and his whisky bottle. The film ends with his committal to an upper-class lunatic asylum. <br /><br />Peter O'Toole was, when he was at his best as in 'Lawrence of Arabia', one of Britain's leading actors, but the quality of his work was very uneven, and 'Country Dance' is not one of his better films. He overacts frantically, making Charles into a caricature of the useless inbred aristocrat, as though he were auditioning for a part in the Monty Python 'Upper-Class Twit of the Year' sketch. Susannah York as Hilary and Michael Craig as Douglas are rather better, but there is no really outstanding acting performance in the film. There is also little in the way of coherent plot, beyond the tale of Charles's inexorable downward slide.<br /><br />The main problem with the film, however, is neither the acting nor the plot, but rather that of the Theme That Dare Not Speak Its Name. There are half-hearted hints of an incestuous relationship between Charles and Hilary, or at least of an incestuous attraction towards her on his part, and that his dislike of Douglas is motivated by sexual jealousy. Unfortunately, even in the swinging sixties and early seventies (the date of the film is variously given as either 1969 or 1970) there was a limit to what the British Board of Film Censors was willing to allow, and a film with an explicitly incestuous theme was definitely off-limits. (The American title for the film was 'Brotherly Love', but this was not used in Britain; was it too suggestive for the liking of the BBFC?) These hints are therefore never developed and we never get to see what motivates Charles or what has caused his moral collapse, resulting in a hollow film with a hole at its centre. 4/10
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Movie industry is tricky business - because decisions have to be made and everyone involved has a private life, too. That's the very original thesis of this feeble attempt at making an 'insightful' film about film. And indeed, no better proof of the industry's trickiness than seeing Anouk Aimée and Maximilian Schell trapped in this inanity. The insight consists of talking heads rattle off bullshit like "should I make a studio movie that pays a lot or should I make an indie item and stay true to my artistic self?" "Do the latter, please." Or: "our relationship is not only professional, it's private as well. It's a rather complex situation to handle, isn't it?" "Yes, it is, my dear." Between the insipid dialogs one gets glimpses of palm trees, hotel lobbies and American movie posters (no sign of non-American film presence on the Croisette). Recurrent slumber sessions are inevitable, making the 100 minutes of the film feel like ages. Jenny Gabrielle is spectacularly unconvincing in justifying her own presence in the frame.
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| 10,570
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This animated short is a remake of one of Tex Avery's earlier shorts for Fred Quimby at M-G-M (Dog Gone Tired). An escaped convict (here just known as Joe)who just broke out of 'Alka Fizz Prison' tries to keep one step ahead of Droopy (known here as Sgt.McPoodle of the Mounties),but always manages to run into him,one way or another. This is easily one of the most side splitting,funny shorts that rolled out of the M-G-M animation studio. It manages to get most of it's laughs from the shocked reactions Joe has whenever he encounters McPoodle (including some equally deranged sound effects-i.e..car horns,screaming,elephants,etc.). As with any Avery M-G-M short,frantic,kinetic pacing is to be expected (along with some nice, surreal sight gags-i.e.Joe trying to run away from McPoodle & actually running off the side of the film). Pop this one into your DVD player & laugh yourself silly.
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If I could say it was better than Gymkata, I at least felt my money was not totally wasted.<br /><br />Then I saw Steven Segal's On Deadly Ground.<br /><br />This movie should see a resurrection though on MST 3K. If Santa Claus Conquers the Martians could make Tom Servo's head explode, one wonders what mayhem this movie could cause.<br /><br />There is a very good reason why Kurt Thomas never had a movie career.<br /><br />The writers of this dreck should be forced to wear placards every day of their lives that say "Bitch slap me! I was a writer on Gymkata."
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In spite of its impressive cast and crew pedigree Gingerbread Man crumbles early and often. The plot is unrealistically convoluted, the actors sport bad accents and director Robert Altman's participation amounts to collecting a pay check. Once again he has assembled an impressive cast (Like Woody Allen, everyone wants to work with Altman)that this time around to the letter is miscast. But that's only part of the problem.<br /><br />Kenneth Branagh is Rick Magruder a high powered Georgia lawyer who in the film's heavy handed opening scenes manages to get himself preposterously seduced by a mysterious catering company waitress who convinces him she is in grave danger from an ex-husband and a loony dad. With red flags everywhere the astute lawyer plods on even managing to get his children in harms way. Fights of gun and fist follow along with a requisite car chase and if that's not enough there's a hurricane thrown in for the ridiculous finale.<br /><br />Branagh plays MacGruder with a mealy and unconvincing Southern accent. Running around in a trench coat in all kinds of weather he's blind to the obvious in order to keep the story going. Hipster Bob Downey Jr. is every bit as bad as a P.I. but with a little more emphasis on the bad accent. Robert Duvall as the old man is Boo Radely all growed up en crazier than a bed bug serving some thick slices of ham but at least his twang is plausible. The female leads (Embeth Davidtz, Darryl Hannah, Famkhee Jansen)are lean leggy and unemotive. Even the celebrity lawyers doing cameos (Vernon Jordan) are wooden with the few throw away lines they have.<br /><br />In addition to paying little attention to his actors, Altman's mise en scene dripping with Spanish moss is murky and shapeless, his action scenes comic book. It lacks his offbeat touches and observations (he does inform the viewer that the Stars and Bars still wave in Georgia)that make a well done Altman so unique. Unfortunately, Gingerbread Man is Altman at his worst, even if the pay is the same.
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| 1,089
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OK, my girlfriend and I rented the DVD and about 30 minutes into the movie, we'd exchanged a lot of "ehhh, what IS this movie about and more importantly, do I care to find out what it ends with" glances and decided we either needed drugs to keep us interested in the "plot" or just end the pain right there and then and watch something else. We opted for the latter.<br /><br />I liked "But I'm a Cheerleader" a lot, but Mango Kiss is too silly and surreal for my taste, sorry! I definitely prefer "D.E.B.S", "Better Than Chocolate", "Fucking Åmål", "Goldfish Memory" and "Fire".<br /><br />-Sorcia
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There is an episode of The Simpsons which has a joke news report referring to an army training base as a "Killbot Factory". Here the comment is simply part of a throwaway joke, but what Patricia Foulkrod's documentary does is show us, scarily, that it is not that far from the truth. After World War Two the US Army decided to tackle a problem they faced throughout the war; that many soldiers got into battle and found themselves totally unable to kill another human being unless it was a matter of 'me or them'. Since then the training process of the US army has been to remove all moral scruples and turn recruits into killing machines who don't think of combatants as people. To develop in them a most unnatural state: "The sustainable urge to kill".<br /><br />First off, this isn't an antiwar movie as such. Whilst it certainly paints war in a very bad light, Foulkrod focuses rather on an aspect that doesn't get as much media attention as, say, the debate over the legality of a war or it's physical successes or failures; the affect the process of turning a man into a soldier has on that person as a human being. It's the paradox that to train someone to be a soldier to defend society makes them totally unsuitable to live as part of that society themselves, and whilst most of the examples and interviewees are from the current Middle East conflict Foulkrod makes the links to past conflicts, especially Vietnam, painfully clear. This isn't about any particular war, it's about the problems caused by war in general.<br /><br />Structurally the film seems to be split into three sections; how recruits are drawn into the army and the training they receive, how they are treated once they are in combat, and what happens once they leave the army. Once this point is reached you realise that the main target of this film is actually the policies that are inherent in the armed forced, policies that are put into place to make soldiers into an affective combat force but removing all humanity from the individuals. Those interviewed tell the camera how the recruiting process seems so clean and simple, how word like "democracy" and "freedom" are banded around, but once the training begins they become "enemy" and "kill" and "destroy". How once in action soldiers don't care what they are ordered to do, as they are ingrained with the idea that as soon as they carry out an order, whatever it may be, they are one step closer to going home. They have no political or social ideals to fight for but fight and kill as that's what they've been trained to do.<br /><br />But The Ground Truth's main goal is to highlight the way the US Army discards those who have fought for their country once they return home. There is no real rehabilitation given to soldiers returning, and many are forced to go home unable to cope with what they have seen and done, and most policies in place seem to be to make sure the army has no legal responsibility whatsoever for psychological affects their soldiers pick up. This is the final indignity, that once they are used they are cast away.<br /><br />If there is a flaw in the film it is that Foulkrod doesn't attempt to show another side to the argument. You would get the impression that every single soldier who ever went to war would come back with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. It would have been interesting to see those of a
less liberal upbringing give their opinions of how the army handles training and policies. There is never a chance for the other side of the argument to make itself known.<br /><br />But other than that this is an expertly crafted documentary, and Foulkrod's use of stock footage and music is perfectly utilised to get across a side of war that too often get s passed by when discussing the fallout of war.
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In Russia, the ordinary teenager Vera (Natalya Negoda) lives a leisured life with her drunkard father and her simpleton mother, without working and waiting for the calling for a technical course of telephone operator. Her brother Victor (Aleksandr Negreba) lives in Moscow with the family of his own and occasionally visits his dysfunctional family and Vera, being always motive for arguing. When Vera meets the student of university Sergei (Andrei Sokolov), they fall in love for each other and decide to get married. Sergei moves to Vera's house, but lives in conflict with her father. This relationship leads the family to a tragedy.<br /><br />I have just seen "Malenkaya Vera", and I liked a lot this deep family drama. I am not familiarized with the life style in the former URSS, but there are some unusual behaviors that I found very interesting. The first one, when Victor tells Vera that she was conceived not because her parents wanted to have her, but because they wanted to move to a larger apartment. Another one, when the family goes to the beach in a truck. Many difficulties of Vera's family and their friends, the repression in the park and other situations pictured in the movie are common in Third World countries. This low budget movie is very well-directed, and the story is very profound and real. The cast has great performances and the actress Natalya Negoda is very beautiful. In the cover of the Brazilian VHS, released by Sagres distributor, there is information that Natalya Negoda was the centerfold of Playboy magazine. I am not sure how precise are the subtitles in Portuguese, since many long sentences spoken in Russian are limited to short translation in few words. My vote is seven.<br /><br />Title (Brazil): "A Pequena Vera" ("The Little Vera")
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This film gave me probably the most pleasant surprise of any I've ever seen. It was not a big-budget production and its premise, middle-age amateur jazz musicians get an unexpected professional engagement at a Catskills-like resort, seems rather modest. What's not modest is the film's success. This is a little slice-of-life movie that is most entertaining throughout. Director Frank D. Gilroy also wrote the script and it's full of interesting subplots and unexpected twists.<br /><br />The actors are journeymen who do a solid job. The biggest revelation to me was Cleavon Little. He plays a professional musician who is hired to fill in for an ailing band member. His attitude immediately clashes with the others. While they see it as an opportunity for big fun and a once in a lifetime thing, he sees it as his job and not a particularly interesting one. This leads to conflict but when the group gets in trouble, he steers them through. Little, who died too young, really showed me he was a fine actor with this film.<br /><br />This movie is a true sleeper, the kind that a film fan always hopes to discover. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
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Sure, the plot isn't Oldboy. It seems the only "great" movies these days are amazingly shocking or high-budget/hyped in some way.<br /><br />Spin Kick is a drama/comedy about a group of people who decide to pour their hearts into tae kwon do. Regardless of what you expect from this film, you're guaranteed to feel moved by the work, pain, and expectations that the characters force themselves to experience. Though comedic at times, many moments and characters are rendered beautifully: there's the old guard character who takes things too seriously, the hoodlum turned good-guy who just wants a second chance at life, the meek team-substitute who would die happy if he just won once in his life, and many other well-rounded characters with their own problems-- but most importantly, their own their hopes and dreams. While the plot and the goals of the movie are simple, these aspects of the movie merely highlight the development of the characters as they overcome their personal and inter-personal struggles. <br /><br />In short, this film will leave you feeling fresh, determined, and satisfied.
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Lucy Alexis Liu and Cillian Murphy are both excellent actors, who can certainly rise to any acting challenge put to them.<br /><br />Unfortunately 'Watching the Detectives (2007)' offers only one to both actors and audience alike: not to fall asleep during a mind-numbingly boring, very predictable and unimaginative story.<br /><br />'Watching the Detectives (2007)' tries very hard to be funny, but the comedy is forced, extremely poorly directed and embarrassing to the verge of complete ridicule.<br /><br />After a third of the film still nothing that may capture even the most willing audience, like the director's friends and relatives, is even hinted at, not to mention actually happening.<br /><br />I'm pretty sure everybody who liked it faked it or had to fake it like Neil's ex-girlfriend did when he showed her an old B&W film she couldn't care less about. 'Watching the Detectives (2007)' is nowhere near category B, it falls somewhere between Q & R, like -Questions? and -Repress the questions! The director knows what he's doing! Well, if his goal was to bore the viewer to death, he has done a very good job!<br /><br />'Watching the Detectives (2007)' was a complete waste of time for Lucy Alexis Liu and Cillian Murphy, bur PLEASE don't let it be a waste of your time!<br /><br />Rating: 0 out of 100.
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| 8,684
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Set in Hungary in November 1956, this is the story of a group of foreign nationals who were trying to leave the country at the time of the Uprising.<br /><br />Once the airport is closed, the titular journey begins on a bus taking them to Austria. As would be obvious, they are stopped on their way which is where they come up against the almost faultless Yul Brynner whose military power as a Red Army Major was marked with loneliness, his internal struggle between right and wrong, his search for the truth and his need to feel emotions for other human beings. He was saddened by the fact that his job had alienated him from his friends and enemies alike and he yearned for social contact.<br /><br />Robert Morley plays the quintessential stiff upper-lipped Englishman who, no matter how serious the role, manages to maintain an almost light-hearted logical outlook on life while Jason Robards has a stunning movie debut which enforces the reason why he had so many roles throughout his career. Deborah Kerr, as the leading lady, exhibits the grace and femininity we have come to associate with her yet manages to bring over the strength and resolve required for her character.<br /><br />The film deals with a very tempestuous time in European history but it never ceases to remind us that there is good in all of us and you can never completely judge a book by the cover. Fabulous scriptwriting ensures that for all the seriousness of the subject there can still be great one-liners and comedic instances that add to, rather than detract from the movie. The chemistry in the cat and mouse game between Kerr and Brynner makes you understand why they appeared in more than the one film together.<br /><br />All in all, a thoroughly engrossing movie which I would definitely watch again. 8/10
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Russ and Valerie are having discussions about starting a family. The couple live in a posh apartment and run an auction business that deals with valuable collectibles. At the same time, a dedicated adoption agency owner takes a mini vacation and leaves the orphanage in the charge of his father (Leslie Nielsen). Father Harry is in the rental business and he gets the brilliant idea to "rent" some of the children of the orphanage to couples like Russ and Valerie. Harry, who becomes aware of the couple'e dilemma, offers a family of siblings for a 10 day rental period! Brandon, Kyle, and Molly move into the apartment with their temporary parents, with amusing consequences, as the new caretakers are inexperienced with kids. But, where is the possibility of a happy ending? This is a darling family film. The actors, including Nielsen as the wheeler-dealer and Christopher Lloyd as the kind apartment doorman, are all wonderful. The script is snappy and fun and the overall production values quite high. Yes, if only life could be this way! Orphaned children everywhere deserve a chance to prove that they are lovable and can give so much joy to the parents who are considering adoption. If you want to show a film to your family that is rooted in good values but is also highly entertaining, find this movie. It is guaranteed to have everyone laughing, even as their hearts are melting.
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Hobgoblins... what a concept. Rick Sloan was a master with this film. He had the brilliance to produce a film with actors that couldn't act. On top of that, he chose to write a script based on some sort of bad acid trip gone serriously wrong. Put it together, you end up with a film that sucks more than a warehouse filled with suction cups and vaccum cleaners. This movie was very painful. The pain it caused is about equal to the pain caused by having your genitals carved out with a spoon, and then having the entire wound covered with salt and Hydrochloric acid.
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| 3,194
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Casting unknown Michelle Rodriguez as Diana was a stroke of genius. She's perfect. Her acting inexperience actually works in her favor. We've never seen her before so it really feels like her story. She also brings across genuine toughness. This works against her though, because we never doubt her. You never have to cheer for her to win because she never goes up against any fighter we don't think she can beat. So as a boxing movie, it fails.<br /><br />Then again, this isn't really a boxing movie. How do you make a movie about a girl who wants to be a boxer that isn't a boxing movie? You don't. But Karyn Kusama has anyway. Like many indie films, "Girlfight" defies classification or genre and stands on its own as folklore that could darn near happen in real life.<br /><br />Diana is doing poorly in school. She beats up people she doesn't like (all the other girls in her school for example). She doesn't fit in. Her father is forcing her kid brother Tiny to learn to box so he can defend himself when things get tough. He gives Tiny money for his boxing sessions and gives Diana nothing, as if she has no need to defend herself, nor anything worthwhile to make of her life. Tiny wants to go to art school (cliche', yuck), so he gives up his boxing allowance to Diana, who actually wants to box. Things get complicated when Diana falls for another boxer, Adrian (Santiago Douglas), who's looking to turn pro. From there the story winds down toward the inevitable...the two meet in the amateur title fight.<br /><br />What left me cold was that I never found any of this all that interesting. It's all just a bit too believable. Kids with tough lives growing up in rough urban areas fall back on sports. A lot of professional boxers have risen from these circumstances. The mental and physical toughness this upbringing requires lends itself to a game like boxing, where anger is your friend. So this time it's a girl. Big deal.<br /><br />Or there's another position to take: finally, a boxing movie about a girl. Women's boxing has been around a long time. The brutality we usually see in boxing films is replaced here by discussions of people's their lives and their feelings. The whole fighting thing is used as a platform from which to paint a larger picture. Respect. Overcoming adversity. Self-discovery.<br /><br />I recommend "Girlfight" because it has a good spirit and is an example of some great work by a first time director. The dialogue never rises above soap opera quality, but the story itself actually changed my view on some things. Yes, the world now seems like a better place. A film did that.<br /><br />Grade: B-
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| 16,179
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The only thing romantic about this movie is the pain and anguish of romance. If you are expecting this cinematic adaptation of another Nicholas Sparks novel to follow the surefire formula of previous films, such as "Message in a Bottle," "Nights at Rodanthe," and "A Walk to Remember," think again. Nobody dies from an accident trying to save somebody else and the romance here doesn't transform these characters. If anything, it makes them even more miserable than they were.<br /><br />A soft-spoken Special Forces Army Sergeant, John Tyree (Channing Tatum of "G.I. Joe"), has a memorable two-week fling while on leave from the military with an impressionable college girl, Savannah Curtis (radiant Amanda Seyfriend of "Mamma Mia"), who is spending spring break in South Carolina. Savannah doesn't drink, smoke, but she tells John that her head is filled with profanity. Inevitably, John and Savannah topple madly in love with each other and launch an endless exchange letters of love letters that are sleep-inducing by any standard. Tyree is off in the world serving the military in some godforsaken corner of the globe while she is away at college perusing his letters in class. Just as they are getting hot and heavy between them, suicidal terrorists crash planes into the World Trade Center. John reenlists along with his buddies in a wave of patriotism without discussing the option with Savannah.<br /><br />Meanwhile, another guy, shaggy but likable family friend Tim (Henry Thomas of "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial") who has a motherless, autistic child named Alan becomes the object of Savannah's sentiment. She is the kind of girl who helps build houses for the less fortunate and wants to start a summer horse ranch for autistic children. She delays what seems forever before she finally contacts Tyree with the eponymous letter. Indeed, she dumps him for a man with a disease! Later, she confesses to John that she knew the sound of his voice would have broken her resolve to marry Tim, so she doesn't make that fateful call. Predictably, John agonizes over Savannah's lack of communication. During a routine mission, our hero takes a couple of terrorist bullets in the back and winds up in Germany. While all this is transpiring, Tyree is trying to come to terms with his own coin-collecting father, Mr. Tyree (Richard Jenkins of "Step Brothers"), who suffers from Asperger's Syndrome. It seems that his father is on his last legs after John gets out of the hospital. The lead female character lacks a shred of respect and her betrayal of Tyree amounts to a pretty low blow. Tyree, his father, and Tyree's commander, Keith Robinson, are the only sympathetic characters in this long distance epistolary romance. <br /><br />"Dear John" gives new meaning to lethargic love stories. Yuck!
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| 4,352
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The premise of this film is the only thing worthwhile. It is very poorly made but the idea was clever, if not entirely original. It's a shame the other aspects of the film weren't better. The acting is especially bad.
| 0
| 4,084
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Things I learned from "The List".<br /><br />A decent cinematographer, a hot girl who can act and Malcom McDowell couldn't stop this movie from sucking.<br /><br />Blockbuster won't give you your money back.<br /><br />Even when he reads the script and says "Ugh! Really?!", Malcom McDowell still tries.<br /><br />Chuck Carrington desperately needs acting classes.<br /><br />Hire a writer.<br /><br />Jesus hates me too and punished me by making me pay $ 5.50 to see this movie.<br /><br />When making a movie, you don't need an ending. Just leave everything unexplained, unresolved an uninteresting enough so that the audience falls asleep BEFORE the ending. Genius.<br /><br />Any random landlord can cure death just by drawing a cross on a window. So make friends.<br /><br />Your maid can sing you back to life.<br /><br />Chuck Carrington still needs acting classes.<br /><br />Your roommate will hate you and make fun of you if you bring home this movie.<br /><br />Apologies will not be accepted.
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| 7,859
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Jim Carrey is a particular brand of humour and I personally think he's a great actor (Eternal Sunshine, for example).<br /><br />However, this movie is presumably intended to be nothing more than a Jim Carrey vehicle, so be aware straight off that if you don't think his style of comedy is funny, you will sit stony-faced throughout this film, as it has NOTHING else to recommend it.<br /><br />Even if you do like Carrey's comedy, I am not sure you will find this film amusing. I went to see it on a Saturday night at 10:30pm and the audience was definitely ready to laugh. They giggled throughout the trailers, which weren't particularly funny, but when it came to the film, stony silence. I think it raised about five genuine laughs.<br /><br />The problem with the movie is it doesn't know what it wants to be. It can't make up its mind whether it's going for slapstick or serious. If it were stupid throughout it could be forgiven but (I'm guessing) it's also trying to make a point about the relationship between the two central characters.<br /><br />The strong point of the film is the hold-ups, and there was plenty of potential here. But these didn't start until about halfway through and remained largely undeveloped. Meanwhile, you have to sit through the first excruciating 40 minutes as the couple's life deteriorates.<br /><br />Four separate groups walked out of this film while I was there, and if my flatmate hadn't asked me to keep away from the house (his girlfriend having just returned from a month-long vacation!), I would have done the same. And in my entire 25 years of movie going, I have done that just once before.
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| 10,648
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With the fairly recent release of Carlos Saura's 'Fados' in the United States (albiet a limited art house only release),it's high time for a re-release of this fine documentary on Amalia Rodrigues. This film is a treasure chest of vintage film clips of Amalia on Portugese & American television,as well as various other film clips,including one of her & her Mother that could easily reduce the most macho man to tears. I first saw this fine documentary a few years back,when it received the unjustified "art house" release (it deserved far better). Fortunately, various recordings exist of Amalia's best recordings on various "budget line" recordings (which are generally available in places such as K-Mart,or Best Buy),or if you do a little searching,one can fine some of the original releases,either on E-Bay,or one of those distribution services that specializes in pricey European imported CD's. There are at least two versions of this documentary in circulation (the original Portugese version,with no English subtitles, and the U.S. version in Portugese with English subtitles,except the European version cannot be played on most U.S.DVD players,due to the PAL colour line system). Not rated by the MPAA,but contains nothing to offend.
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| 17,875
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People say that this film is a 'typical teen horror movie'... well it's a horror movie with a teenage girl in it.. what do you expect! It's a good film, I counted 3 actual screams in the audience whilst the film was on and it was a very jumpy scary film. I wasn't bored in the film at any point and I was even on the edge of my seat at one point. The only thing that was slightly bad was that it was a tiny bit slow in getting into the actual storyline but this all led up to why she was where she was and why what happened, happened. The acting was good, the scenery was good and the storyline was good too, I hope to see a 'When A Stranger Calls 2' in a few months! Good film!
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| 24,005
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Unbelievable. "Philosophy". "Depth". "Genius". "Masterpiece". People must have seen another "Oldboy" because the one I've seen was a badly written, poorly conceived, over-the-top-acted, sordid piece of "Kraapola" which, even ignoring for a moment the ludicrously violent scenes which makes it unsuitable for the eyes of a child, could barely satisfy the imagination and the thirst for plot consistency of a seven years old.<br /><br />The "depth" of this sorry concoction was exhausted in one little piece of wisdom, "Laugh and the whole world will laugh with you, weep and you'll find yourself alone", the type of boring fortune cookie saying which a great author, be him Shakespeare or, more to the point of IMDb, Kurosawa, would have thrown in the garbage can with no second thoughts. Where this movie should have landed too, if we wouldn't live in an era in which the cheaply shocking and the perversely disgusting are confused with what used to be named once "great art". In short, yuck.<br /><br />2 out of 100. It's not 1 out of 1000 only because of some occasionally expert camera-work. In no way enough to save this infantile failure from worthlessness, though.
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I never heard of architect, Louis Kahn, until this documentary. In this almost two hour documentary which goes very quickly, his son, Nathaniel Kahn, explores his father's life from Estonia to the slums of North Philadelphia to the University of Pennsylvania in West Philadelphia where he studied and taught. He travels to Bangladesh, Israel, Connecticut, Trenton, and La Jolla, California as well as New York City to explore his father's creative genius. Personally, Louis Kahn had three families including his wife, Esther, who refused to give him a divorce and their daughter Sue Ann. Nathaniel includes his family members. Louis also has another half-sister Alexandra Tynge from his father's previous relationship with Anne Tyne, a fellow architect. Louis' passion was his art.
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This movie had a IMDB rating of 8.1 so I expected much more from it. It starts out funny and endearing with an energy that feels spontaneous. But before the movie is half-way through, it begins to drag and everything becomes sickingly predictable. The characters in the office were delightful in the first third of the movie, but we get to know them a little too well; they become caricatures, not real people at all. This is the same story I've seen hundreds of times, only told here with slightly different circumstances. The thing is, I could stomach another predictable love story if only the dialog weren't so stale!<br /><br />The only thing that could be worse is if the characters had inconsistent and unbelievable motivations, and unfortunately that was also the case with Dead Letter Office. Hopefully this movie will end up in the Dead Movie Office soon.
| 0
| 933
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An American woman, her European husband and children return to her mother's home in "Watch on the Rhine," a 1943 film based on the play by Lillian Hellman, and starring Paul Lukas (whom I believe is repeating his stage role here), Bette Davis, Lucile Watson, George Coulouris, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Donald Woods. An anti-Fascist, a worker in the underground movement, many times injured, and wanted by the Nazis, Kurt Muller (Lukas) is in need of a long vacation on the estate of his wealthy mother-in-law. But he finds out that there is truly no escape as one of the houseguests (Coulouris) is suspicious as to his true identity and more than willing to sell him out.<br /><br />Great performances abound in this film, written very much to put forth Lillian Hellman's liberal point of view. It was certainly a powerful propaganda vehicle at the time it was released, as the evils of war and what was happening to people in other countries reach into safe American homes. The movie's big controversy today is that Paul Lukas won an Oscar over Humphrey Bogart in "Casablanca." Humphrey Bogart was a wonderful screen presence and a fabulous Rick, but Lukas is transcendent as Kurt. The monologue he has about the need to kill is gut-wrenching, just to mention one scene.<br /><br />Though this isn't what one thinks of as a Bette Davis movie, she gives a masterful performance here as Kurt's loyal and loving wife, Sara. Her acting tugs at the heart, and the love scenes between Kurt and Sara are beautiful and tender.<br /><br />The last half hour of the film had me in tears with the honesty of the emotions. Lillian Hellman is not everyone's cup of tea, but unlike "The Little Foxes," she has written some truly sympathetic, wonderful characters and a fine story given A casting and production values by Warner Brothers. Highly recommended.
| 1
| 13,633
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I see that C. Thomas Howell has appeared in many movies since his heyday in the 80s as an accomplished young actor.<br /><br />I bought this DVD because it was cheap and in part for the internet-related plot and to see how much older C. Thomas Howell is; I do not recall seeing him in any movies since the 1980s.<br /><br />In just a few words: what a very big disappointment. I give some low budget movies a chance, but this one started out lame. Within the first 15 minutes of the movie, this elusive woman is chatting with an Asian guy in a chatroom. They basically stimulate themselves to their own chat, she then insists on meeting the participant in person. She meets him, has sex, ties him up and then murders him in cold blood. The plot then deteriorates further.<br /><br />The plot is thin and flimsy and the acting is very stiff. Do not bother renting it much less purchasing it, even if it is in the $1 DVD bin. I plan to take my copy of the DVD to Goodwill. I am truly amazed that any of the prior reviewers here gave this movie a bad rating.
| 0
| 11,388
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The production year says it all. The movie is a marauding mess of politically correct leftwing feministic selfappreciating drivel, of a so heavyhanded symbolic variety that comes across as ridiculous today. Every scene has the purpose of shedding light on one of the burning issues of society, mainly the role of females in the working community, the role of women vs men, women as sex objects, consumerism, politics, war, etc. Every scene is commented upon by the inner dialogue of one of the main actresses, or by turning the scene into a surrealistic joke. I have no reminiscence of any plot, or who the main characters actually were. It is the sort of movie, where consumerism is mocked by having a couple make love in a furniture store sales window while the sales agent delivers his speech, or where a revealing interview of a stage actress turns into a fullblown striptease act, for "of course" the offensive gentlemen of the press is the equal to a raunchy club audience. Then we move swiftly on, as we need to see war erupt in a peaceful forest, we need to see multiple inflammatory feministic public speeches being drowned in the (male) blowing of cars horns or rioting crowds, and of course we need to see cinema newsreels of Stalin and all the other usual suspects. You get the idea. But all this does not matter at all. The movie is an unsurpassed piece of eyecandy for any (male) Ingmar Bergman aficionado. A movie boasting leads Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson and Gunnel Lindblom at the height of their beauty makes this reviewer surrender completely and just drivel and also delight in watching them so generously use their acting skills in a movie I had never heard about before today. It is hard to believe how especially the face of Bibi Andersson owns the screen every single time she appears. The cinematography is gorgeously orchestrated bw, often revelling in an overexposed (?) dimensionless whitishness, and you just never grow tired of watching the performers. How absurd, that a movie made with so much consideration for the feministic agenda, tirelessly advocating that women should not be viewed as merely an object of desire, has nothing better to offer the 21st century viewer than a parade of stunningly beautiful babes. As mentioned, I am not complaining. I could rewatch it tomorrow.
| 0
| 4,319
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This is a joke, right? This can't be a real film? It's not even a real video? Give any Harvey Milk High School kid a video cam and they could make a better movie than this. The film maker's can't be serious... right? Is this satire? Comedy? Drama gone horribly wrong? The script is about as single-minded and dull as is conceivable. Ten monkeys locked in a room with a laptop could come up with a better screenplay. The dialogue isn't clichéd. Clichéd dialogue might elevate this holiday mess to something akin to camp fun - but it doesn't and it isn't. Worst of the worst - a landlady wanders into a dramatic scene in a private apartment dressed a bathrobe carrying a frying pan like something out of a "Honeymooners" episode. Whaaa??? I have seen better acting from middle school drama clubs. One of the leads is an attractive lunk, the other is not. Both can't even manage a convincing kiss. So much for romance. The supporting players are jaw-droppingly over-the-top.<br /><br />Everything is underscored by a nauseating soundtrack and the sound seems to have been recorded in a back room toilet. Most of the dialogue is (mercifully) unintelligible.<br /><br />This stale cinematic fruitcake isn't even worthy of being the next ROCKY HORROR or a gay holiday installment of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000. It's just plain bad. In every way. VISIONS OF SUGARPLUMS will not dance in your head - they will trample your every expectation. Have an eggnog and stare at mindlessly at the neighbor's holiday lights - it will be time better spent.
| 0
| 12,045
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Can I please say first of all, that I felt so strongly about this movie that I signed up to IMDb specifically to review it. And my review? This is easily the worst movie I have ever seen.<br /><br />The synopsis of the movie sounded interesting- Nazis, occult, time travel, etc., but the movies plot failed to properly bring all these elements together. Remember the episode of South Park that featured manatees writing Family Guy using 'idea balls'? Did these manatees also write Unholy? Its like the writer wanted to include all these different ideas, but had no idea how to link them all together, and then to make things make even less sense, included a Donnie Darko-esquire time travel theme to the ending, messing up the chronology.<br /><br />I could tell from early on that this was a bad movie. Special effects were too low budget for anything better than straight to DVD. The acting wasn't great, but in fairness I've seen worse. I will praise the Nazi paintings, they were creepy, but the evil Nazi butcher guy was just comic.<br /><br />I don't have a vendetta against this movie or anything, but to be honest, I'm not even into the horror genre. But this movie cannot be described as a thriller or a drama. If this story had been well told, this would have been a good movie. But it has been over hyped. Waaaaay over hyped.
| 0
| 694
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