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Sunshine is a European import set in Hungary between 1880 and 1980, it's the epic story of Hungarian Jews, the Sonnenschein family. This name literally translates to Sunshine. The family has humble beginnings, then is prosperous, becomes upwardly mobile, changes it's name, and hopes to assimilate into Hungarian society so successive generations can advance professionally. The story is told through the eyes of the eldest son in each of three generations; Ralph Fiennes plays these three roles. For those who missed the WW-II and the Holocaust in Europe, the Sonnenschein' approach to life doesn't work out very well.<br /><br />Sunshine is being acclaimed as an artistic success, but it is an opportunity missed. The story line, dominated by world history, is predictable and transparent; this is reinforced with voice cover narration and newsreel footage. The family 'plot' lurches from one predictable event [ie. the Hapsburgs, WW-I, WW-II, Fascism, Communism, etc.] to the next with little continuity, depth or detail. The Jewish assimilation theme is unfocused, and important sub-themes [the 'secret' diary and family philosophy] that could have given the family character and credibility are l ost until the very end. Alternatively, the filmmakers provide generation continuity using common themes of incest / infidelity.<br /><br />Ralph Fiennes exhibits flashes of brilliance but his performance is far from award winning material. The "3 for 1" casting format is a viewer distraction and feels more like a cheap cinema gimmick than good theater. Sunshine is basically Hungarian "History Channel" material. It has the look and feel of Winds of War morphed with Forrest Gump morphed with Something About Sex.<br /><br /> | 0 |
In Thailand, the Americans Connor (Colin Egglesfield) and his girlfriend Amanda (Meredith Monroe) quarrel in a Muay-Thai fight, and Amanda leaves Connor alone. She asks the direction of the hotel to a stranger, indeed the mean vampire Niran (Don Hetrakul), and she is bitten and kidnapped by his gang of evil vampires in motorcycles. Connor joins to a clan of "good" vampires leaded by Sang (Stephanie Chao), trying to save Amanda from the claws of Niran.<br /><br />I expected that "Vampires: The Turning" were a good movie. The locations and the cinematography are beautiful; the very heavy music score is excellent; Stephanie Chao is gorgeous and attractive; but unfortunately, the screenplay and the director are terrible and the very loose costume of Meredith Monroe does not help her fallen breasts. The story is very short, and the unknown Marty Weiss uses long scenes with motorcycle race, fights and boring flashbacks to complete a minimum running time for film. My vote is four.<br /><br />Title (Brazil): "Vampiros: A Conversão" ("Vampires: The Conversion") | 0 |
This movie is a perfect example of an excellent book getting ruined by a movie. Jacob Have I Loved is quite possibly the worst film that I have ever seen. There is no storyline, plots disappear, and the editing is awful. To top it all off, the music is straight from a synthesizer and sounds unbelievably terrible. Bridget Fonda's acting is decent, but everyone else's acting is totally amateur. I would suggest this movie to someone who is studying to be a producer as a study on how not to produce a movie as it is chock full of bad cut-scenes, bad transitions and acting that should have been re-shot! Read the book and don't waste your time with this film. | 0 |
The gate to Hell has opened up under Moscow. A priest, played by Vincent Gallo, goes to the city to find a friend who has gone missing in the tunnels under the city in an attempt to find the gateway. Wandering around underground he and his colleagues have to deal with the tunnels inhabitants both human and demonic. Good idea with a good cast of second tier actors goes nowhere much like the tunnels that are its setting. I've watched this twice now and I still have no idea why this is suppose to be scary when not a heck of a lot happens other then people talk about the evil and we see shadow forms. Nothing is clear and honestly I didn't see the point of it all other than provide a pay check for those involved (Second billed Val Kilmer is in a couple of fleeting scenes that don't amount to much other than to allow him to be billed as in the film.) The idea is really good, the performances are fine, the script goes nowhere. Take the advice of several of the characters in the film and don't cross the river to see this. | 0 |
This film is definitely an odd love story. Though this film may not be much to shout about, Nicole Kidman carries the film on her own the rest of the cast could quite easily be forgotten, though Ben Chaplin does do quite a good job of Hertfordshire Life with shots of St Albans & Hemel Hempstead town centre depicting the true essence of the area. What starts outlooking like a regular episode of the popular British TV series"Heartbeat" soon turns into a gritty gangster getaway action flick.Nothing truly memorable happens in this simple small film and thus ends-up as fairly decent weekend entertainment. A good one to watch, and if you like the hero john are lonely thirty something you may find something to identify with in his character. | 1 |
I ve finished seeing the movie 10 minutes ago..WoW i still cant believe what i've watched.<br /><br />This is absolutely the worst movie EVER. If i would list all the flaws in the movie , this review would take me a lot of sentences.( very funny flaws, because of being that bad though)<br /><br />You got to be Amazed with the skill of the commandos assigned to rescue the plane. they didn't even know how to move.<br /><br />Ice-t is so bad actor... and the thing i don't understand, is how the production wanted him to be like a hero, but he's a zero..<br /><br />of course the major flaws will be the landing of an 747, needing only 3 or 4 tips from a guy in transmission to land the plane...amazing.. as well as the dead bodys that had almost no blood at all..<br /><br />But i strongly recommend of watching this movie, as its very interesting to see how bad can something get | 0 |
Taut, topical political thriller, taking square aim at the controversial US policy of rendition, another appalling Orwell-ian phrase (collateral damage, anyone?) for the illegal interrogation even torture of terrorist suspects by-passing due legal process. The inhuman interrogation is overseen by the Egyptian Chief of Police, himself the target of a fundamentalist suicide - bomb plot, thus entwining the two main plot-lines of the movie. Both work very well, the bombing set-piece graphic and chilling in its realism, with its denouement revealed in a stylish Tarantino-type flashback and the torture scenes on an innocent man also unflinchingly portrayed in all their gory detail. The film scores telling points about the use of torture as a credible means of intelligence - gathering in the war against terrorists and against the unpoliced faceless bureaucracy (here personified by a suitable cold-steeled Meryl Streep, as the CIA boss who casually gives the order for rendition) which can ruin innocent lives. Never mind Kafka's fiction, think more the recent killing of the innocent Brazilian in London in 2005, with the Head of the Metropolitan police still in his job and no-one tried for the poor man's murder. The acting is excellent throughout - the two key roles of the innocent man and terrorist bomber are realistically and tellingly played by the unfamiliar actors Omar Metwally and Moa Khouas. Similarly Yigal Naor as the intimidating Chief of Police and Zineb Ouhach as his idealistic lovelorn daughter ring true with their performances, their lack of familiarity (at least to me) adding to their characters' credibility. Of the bigger Hollywood names present, Gyllenhaal's stature grows with succeeding films, here playing the initially detached but later conscience - stricken and anguished Government man who does the right thing in the end. Witherspoon plays her distraught wife part mainly in one key but is believable all the same, while David Fabrizio and Alan Arkin convincingly show up self-serving senators and their lackeys who'll only go so far to help you until their career prospects are jeopardised. There are a few weaknesses plot-wise; there's little dramatic need to create the "suspense" surrounding El-Ibrahimi's escape and Streep's character is perhaps too obvious a bogey-man/woman. Worst of all is the meaningless inclusion of Gyllenhaal's on-the-spot girlfriend, around merely for decoration and a brief gratuitous love-scene. On the whole though, an engrossing thought - provoking cinematic experience. | 1 |
A wounded Tonto standing alone to protect three innocent lives. A devious woman masterminding a deadly plot. Racial tension. Smart Indians.<br /><br />These are things we rarely if ever saw in the TV series, but this movie adds them all into the mix. While this is most certainly a Lone Ranger movie, it mixes up the formula just enough that those who grew tired of the series would probably still enjoy it. Definitely recommended for any fan. | 1 |
The most attractive factor that lies in this masterpiece of a film is not the beautiful lead actors. It isn't their outstanding acting and sizzling chemistry either.<br /><br />To me, it is the mis-en-scene of the entire movie. The settings, the lighting, the props... all add to the mood for love between the main characters. A whiff of smoke from Chow's cigarette tells us his state of mind, the ever-changing tight-fitting cheongsams of Lizhen reflects the constraints of decision-making, the ruins of Angkor Wat ties in with the deteriorating relationship of the two leads.<br /><br />The excellent use of mis-en-scene gives the film just the right amount of feel needed to flesh out the complicated nature of the characters' relationship. The film leaves the audience fruitlessly yearning for more. | 1 |
This is one of Joan Crawford's best Talkies. It was the first Gable-Crawford pairing, and made it evident to MGM and to audiences that they were a sizzling team, leading the studio to make seven more films with them as co-stars.<br /><br />The film convincingly depicts the downward slide of a brother and sister who, after their father loses everything in the stock market crash, must fend for themselves and work for a living. Life is hard in the Depression, and soon even their attempts at finding legitimate work prove futile, and they resort to underworld activity. <br /><br />Joan Crawford is excellent as the socialite-turned-moll. She's smart, complex, and believable. She even tempers the theatrical stiffness of the other actors' early Talkie acting style. Clark Gable is a diamond-in-the rough, masculine and gruff as the no-nonsense gangster who becomes involved with Crawford's character. The same year he would play a similar and even more successful role opposite Norma Shearer in "A Free Soul", securing his position as top male sex symbol at MGM.<br /><br />If you like Crawford in this type of role, don't miss "Paid", which she did a year earlier, which is also among her best early Talkie performances.<br /><br /> | 1 |
This Documentary (Now available free on Video.Google.Com) is a fantastic demonstration of the power of ordinary people to overcome injustice. Everyone must see this.<br /><br />Chavez was elected in a landslide vote in 1998. His platform was to divert the fantastic oil wealth from the 20% middle class to the 80% poor. He banned foreign drift net fishing in Venezuelan waters. He sent 10,000 Cuban doctors to the slums to treat the sick for free. He wiped out illiteracy and set up new free Universities. <br /><br />But it was his 30% tax on oil company profits that got him in trouble with the Bush administration. In 2002, while Irish film makers Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain were interviewing Chavez inside the Presidential Palace about his social programs, a CIA backed coup was launched. With the cameras rolling, Chavez was captured and flown out of the country. It was announced on national TV that he had 'resigned'.<br /><br />But the poor of Venezuela didn't believe the media. They went to the Palace in their millions and demanded that Chavez be returned. In the face of such overwhelming numbers, the military turned on the coup leaders and the plotters fled to the US. Chavez was rescued by military helicopter and returned to jubilation. | 1 |
This is not the worst movie I've ever seen. I did not feel like I wanted to remove my eyeballs forcibly after watching Galaxina. It just is not good. The jokes are almost funny, but fall short. All of them. The few gags that come close are beat back down by repeating them over and over. The production values are, well, non-existent. The sound is bad, the lighting is bad, ... it just seems cheaply made; overly so. The dialog ... well, often it is missing - many awkward silences; they are all just standing around, and it seems like someone should be saying something. The film even seems ambivalent about what it wants to be - it is not always clear that it was intended as a comedy - like maybe that developed after shooting started. It feels like someone's film project that they threw together the night before it was due, and if they had put two weeks into it, it could have been good.<br /><br />And I'm easy to please. I thought "Mom and Dad Save the World" was a hoot. I like "Pluto Nash". "Mystery Men" is one of my favorite movies. "Spaced Invaders" is well nigh unto a classic. This turkey just doesn't do it. "Space Truckers" was more believable.<br /><br />Avery Schreiber, who can be very funny, tries too hard. His part calls for a straightman, and he plays it leaning toward sitcom. Dorothy Stratten is OK in her role, but not particularly noteworthy.<br /><br />Oh, yeah, the "My watch is always slow." line was funny. I'll give this movie all the kudos it can get, it needs it.<br /><br />The space vehicle models are not bad, but they are few and are not used effectively. The space scenes are vague. No sweeping passes, no close up detailed fly-bys, not even appropriate action scenes when they dock. (The Infinity does crash land very oddly at one point.) The flight dynamics are terrible; worse than anything you've seen, they're jerky, not smooth. The initial battle is stilted and static; even though the two ships have just shown that they can maneuver in their jerky fashion, they trade (slow) shots at close range in a manner that is more reminiscent of a 16th century sea battle, except not as exciting.<br /><br />The aliens - imagine if all of Star Wars was the cantina scene. That many rubber masks could get dull rather rapidly, no? A few are used as sight gags that work OK the first time, but not the fifth.<br /><br />Mercifully, if you attempt to watch Galaxina, you are likely to fall asleep. (I got busy doing something else and missed the last ten minutes, and did not feel like it was worth replaying it. If that doesn't say "It sucked", I don't know what does.) Sadly, there is a lot of potential, and this could easily have been a good movie. It would be easy to remake this and have a decent film.<br /><br />MadKaugh | 0 |
Decent but overrated dramatic thriller, film attempts to depict the spiraling out-of-control inner demons of a tormented artist. The problem is, not a single relationship illustrated on screen is believable, and plausibility appears to have been thrown out the window. The title character is so difficult to relate to making it's rather impossible to imagine any of the on- screen characters emotionally invested in him either. The conclusion is also fairly predictable; there are certainly enough clues provided from the get go to indicate exactly where the story is headed. Choosing to entirely suspend one's belief in the situations or the relationships, the film itself is well acted (especially by the leads) and manages to create some nice tension as the story unfolds. As a metaphorical feature there is some food for thought, and had the script been stronger, there's certainly potential here that could have been put to better use. | 0 |
Let me start by saying that there's really no reason to watch this movie. I only sat through it because I was trying to kill some time before going to work.<br /><br />Basically, it's your typical sophomoric "comedy" aimed at the teenage set. There's nothing remarkable about it other than the complete ridiculousness of the story, not to mention that there are plot holes big enough to sail a Carnival cruise-liner through. Obviously this isn't supposed to be a realistic movie, it's supposed to be funny. Sadly, it mostly fails on that count as well. I must admit that I laughed a few times, but mainly in a "holy sh*t, I can't believe how stupid this is" kind of way.<br /><br />If you never see this movie you're not missing a thing. | 0 |
If you decide to watch Wild Rebels, don't expect anything deep and meaningful. If you're looking for a film that explores the relationships and structure of a motorcycle gang, Wild Rebels is the wrong movie. If you're looking for an expose on the breakdown of the American educational system and the problem of juvenile delinquency, Wild Rebels is the wrong movie. If you're looking for a movie that examines how undermanned rural police departments are when facing a well-financed, well-organized gang, Wild Rebels is the wrong movie. But if you're looking for an absurd movie filled with scene after scene of unintentional humor, horrendous acting, a paper-thin plot, and community theater style production values, Wild Rebels is the right movie.<br /><br />Wild Rebels is the story of a down-on-his-luck stock-car driver named Rod Tillman (Steve Alaimo). After a fiery crash (which Rod walks away from completely unscathed despite having only a cotton pants and a London Fog style jacket for protection), Rod decides to give it up. With no plan for his future other than to wander aimless through the back-roads of the South, he stumbles on the Satan's Angels motorcycle gang (a gang being three of the stupidest guys to ever zip up a leather jacket and a woman they seem to share). This group of hoodlums spends their time terrorizing a rural town in Florida by committing such atrocities as stealing a newspaper from a neighbor's mailbox. These bumbling idiots need someone to act as their driver during some larger crimes they have planned. Apparently, these three Einsteins can only drive vehicles with two tires, not four. So they recruit Rod to perform feats of daring that only an experienced stunt driver would be capable of like keeping the car in the middle of a gravel road during a low-speed chase. Eventually, they hold-up a bank, get into the aforementioned low-speed chase, and have the lamest gun battle with the police ever put on film. I could go on forever, but you get the idea.<br /><br />I hate the term "so bad it's good", but that seems to aptly describe Wild Rebels. | 0 |
I saw a preview of Freebird at the Isle of Man TT as i had heard about it in a couple of motorcycle mags. Although i was over mainly for the racing, the lure of seeing Phil Daniels in a motorcycle movie (yes i love Quadrophenia like everyone else) proved enough to get me away from the beer and partying. At last! we've done it! us British have actually made a great motorcycle film (and no it's not like Torque) this is up there with the best of British comedy. Mark my words, this is Phil Daniels best screen performance, and as far as Geoff Bell is concerned, there's a new British legend making his name felt. I loved Gary Stretch in Shane Meadows' fantastic Dead Mans Shoes and here he gives a quietly touching performance that he can proudly add to his growing film reputation. This is a film not just for us Bikers, but I think for everyone (even my girlfriend loved it). I hope it gets the same brilliant response on the mainland as it got at the Isle of Man. I'm not going to go into the details of certain classic scenes that this movie has, (watch out for the shop), as it would spoil the fun, but i would say, go see, enjoy, and have one of the best nights in the cinema you've had in a while. I really think this could well be a cult classic. As they were saying at the TT... C'Mon Freebird! | 1 |
This without doubt one of the funniest and most entertaining movies I have ever seen. I really enjoyed the characters in the movie. They are all wonderful bizarre in them selves. It's quite something I have never seen before in any movie.<br /><br />The story is almost non-stop from beginning to the end. There are no boring moments. I was totally captured by the movie. And I thought the acting was great.<br /><br />So if you want to see a fun movie. You should look for The Green Butchers. A great movie.<br /><br />I give it 10/10 | 1 |
From a plot and movement standpoint, this movie was terrible. I found myself looking at the clock in theater hoping it would end and relieved after 80 long minutes that it mercifully did. Basically, five characters appear in the movie, A Son & Father, son's girl friend, and two male characters of the son's age who appear and then disappear without context or explanation. The movie and scenes seemed to suggest homo-eroticism, but nothing ever actually happened to reveal this one way or another. There were a couple of brilliant scenes. At the beginning of the movie, the son's girl friend shows up at a window outside his room and they engage in an odd conversation. The photography and acting lent an incredible seductiveness to the interaction between the two, ending with her admitting to having another man who was "older". End of that story. | 0 |
Quite simply the best reality show ever made. The first two seasons (the only ones that matter) are on Hulu. I challenge anyone to watch the first three episodes of season 1 and not like it. I guarantee you will finish watching the season. Then I guarantee that you will watch season 2. <br /><br />Other quick reasons to watch it: 1. Anderson Cooper is hilarious 2. The locations in Europe are awesome 3. The games are mentally challenging 4. It's very interactive 5. In one episode a player responds to another player's desperate, "I'm trying as hard as I can!" with an equally desperate, "Not necessarily." <br /><br />Can you figure out...Who Is The Mole? | 1 |
Surface is one of the best shows that I have ever seen. NBC is so stupid for canceling a great show like this and worse of all only leaving it half complete. NBC or someone else should give Surface at least one more season just so it can be completed. It's as if NBC gave you a book to read and half way through it they decide to take it away from you and then you can never find out the ending. I just want to see what happens to everyone and most importantly see what happens to Nim. I think I can say this safely about most Surface fans is that we want to save Nim! Nim has taken all of our hearts away and then NBC just cuts them in two. Come on NBC, just give Surface one more season! | 1 |
It's not difficult, after watching this film, to see why post-silent Soviet cinema is held in such little critical esteem. Don't get me wrong. THE CRANES ARE FLYING is, for the first half at least, supremely entertaining, boasting a lightness of touch completely unexpected from its country of origin; a fresh, brisk, spacious technique that eventually irritates as much as it initially charms; two stunning subjective set-pieces; and a romantic verve that flirts with, but never quite topples into, Lelouch territory. It's just that , in its subsuming of vast social, national and world events to a love affair, it is essentially no different from a conventional Hollywood movie.<br /><br />Of course, in a Soviet Union that emphasised the state above all else, and in an era (World War Two) that suppressed individualism and liberty to uphold murderous symbolism, this foregrounding of two appealing young lovers is a relief. And the thematic similarities - all consuming love rent apart by war - with two of the most wonderful of all films (SEVENTH HEAVEN, LES PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG) also adds to its potential loveability.<br /><br />The story is simple enough. Boris, a young factory worker from a bright medical and artistic family, and Veronika, a student, conduct a breezy relationship at night, their only free time. Boris's cousin Mark, a composer, also has eyes on Veronika. When the Nazis invade Russia, Boris secretly volunteers, to the chagrin of his family and lover. He promises to write to Veronika, but never does, thinking maybe she hasn't bothered to see him off, or perhaps the mail is simply unreliable. Veronika's parents die during an air raid, and she moves in with Boris's family, helping out at the hospital where his father tends wounded soldiers.<br /><br />Distressed by Boris's silence, Veronika is also assailed by the attentions of Mark, who has gained exemption from military duty by bribing a local official. She is eventually worn down, and marries him, to the disapproval of her adopted family. Boris, meanwhile, is killed in action. Veronika, disgusted with herself and an adulterous Mark, refuses to believe this, and awaits his return, fostering a young orphan bearing his name.<br /><br />The title refers to the birds the couple see at the height of their love, symbolic perhaps of its transcendant, epiphanical power. But this is illusory - the cranes fly in a V formation, and this shape pervades the entire film, through the geometric shapes of buildings, interiors, exteriors, groupings of people, composition, camera angles, the heroine's name - or by editing in which feet walking southwest in one story are met by feet walking southeast in another. <br /><br />This serves to fatally trap the lovers who have no control over their destinies, and also suggest the Stalinist power that is never, specifically, mentioned in the film. Although the pair seem to be free in space, whether literally in an unpeopled environment, or privileged in generous close-ups, they are always ironised, minimised, torn apart - by circumstances, families, by crowds (see the brilliant, if obvious, sequences where Veronika is engulfed by tanks, or the pair fail to meet in a huge crowd), or simply by the film's structure, which is constantly distancing, through paralellism, their closeness. Although at the beginning, the lightness and brightness of style suggest a beautiful romantic idyll, it is constantly being broken by strange edits or camera angles of distracting snatches of music.<br /><br />What is most remarkable is how these blocks to romance are achieved by abstracting rather than emphasising historical forces. The whole film, but especially the war itself, is strangely unreal and dreamlike, we are never shown its harsh, brutal actuality, just its effects on the lovers. In fact, it is transformed into a majestic spectacle, devoid of nasty Germans. <br /><br />On the home front, the air raids create delicious effects of light and shade, or ruins of almost Gothic decadence. In the bunker, the threat to the Soviet empire is less important than Boris's perceived indifference. The empty, oneiric Moscow spaces the lovers initially, than Veronika with her mother, walk though are less actual locations than emotional spaces. <br /><br />When Mark tries to force himself on Veronika, the air raid is less a destructive reality than a symbolic release of sexual and emotional frustrations. This is a brilliant sequence, filmed with silent, Expressionistic terror, in which the screen seems to burst with hysteria and violence, all the more compelling for the earlier scenes' wistful gentleness.<br /><br />It's not much different at the front either, where fights over girls' honour are more urgent than tactics, Nazis or despair. The movement of Boris and his wounded comrade into a final space is a further abstracting of the experience of war, its setting in a forest giving it a sexual dynamic; and Boris' final, pre-death flashback is an extraordinary mixture of dream-wish fulfillment and heightened anxiety, in which what is wished for becomes menacing and grotesque.<br /><br />From this point on the film becomes a little less interesting, slightly more obvious. One more grasp for Expressionist overload - Veronika's attempted suicide and her rescuing the infant - is clumsily handled; and her sombre guilt casts a paralysing shadow over the whole film. The use of deep focus, at first ravishing, soon becomes wearing, devoid as it is of any of the moral force or meaning Welles brought to its use in CITIZEN KANE. After what seems a quietly sly critique of totalitarianism in favour of the individual is cruelly betrayed at the end, when individual suffering, as so often in Russian art, transmutes into symbolic (i.e. sexless, dehumanised) hope. A pity. | 1 |
The only redeeming quality of this overlong miscast melodrama is the scenery of southern France and the voice of Nana Mascouri singing the theme song. Stephanie Powers is miscast and betrayed by a phony accent. As has been pointed out, she is too old to play an 18 year old and looks far too young as a grandmother with a college age granddaughter? Lee Remick is good although she also is ageless in her later years. The talented Joanna Lumley is under utilized and also manages to look forever young when her middle aged son (Robert Urich) finally marries Grandma Stephanie Powers. Stacey Keach's ceaseless arrogance makes you wonder what these women saw in him. Don't know how any viewer could relate to his excessive portrayal? The most credible performance is given by Ian Richardson, who makes the rest of the cast look like rank amateurs. It strains credulity that the handsome male suitors in this epic would remain ever single while they patiently await the subject of their affections to finally consent to accept them. Can anybody believe that handsome Robert Urich would remain single for decades waiting for Stephanie Powers to finally accept his endless marriage proposals? The WW2 engagement between the Wehrmacht and the Marquis is laughable. To begin with, the Germans did not occupy the Provence section of France until late in the war, it was controlled by the Vichy French puppet government. We see the French resistance staging a daylight raid on Mistral's villa to steal sheets after which they all lounge under a bridge waiting for a lumbering truckload of Nazi troops to surprise and annihilate them? If you want to see a well acted mini-series set in a foreign country, don't watch Mistral's Daughter. A far better alternative would be The Thorn Birds. | 0 |
It's interesting to see what shape Pierce Brosnan's career was in before Bond arrived on the scene. In this "tense" thriller, Pierce Brosnan plays the gentle Patrick, who works leading ghetto kids on "confidence courses". He romances a woman, who has a bog-standard mop-top mid-90s kid called Eric. The woman's drunken ex-husband soon arrives on the scene and begins to mess with Pierce.<br /><br />At one stage Pierce is innocently making "vegeburgers". The husband enters. Pierce resumes making vegeburgers. The husband then assaults Pierce. Little chunks of half-eaten vegeburger call fall from Pierce's mouth. The fight abruptly ends without showing the outcome. This is as good as the film gets.<br /><br /> | 0 |
PREY <br /><br />Aspect ratio: 1.37:1<br /><br />Sound format: Mono<br /><br />A lesbian couple (Sally Faulkner and Glory Annan) living in a remote country house are driven apart by the arrival of a young man (Barry Stokes) who turns out to be a flesh-eating alien, the vanguard of a massive invasion...<br /><br />Despite its shoestring budget and leaden pacing, Norman J. Warren's follow-up to SATAN'S SLAVE (1976) amounts to a great deal more than the sum of its meager parts, thanks to a surprisingly complex script by Max Cuff (apparently, his only writing credit): Faulkner and Annan indulge an obsessive relationship whilst living in isolated splendor within the English countryside (rendered alternately beautiful and ominous by Derek V. Browne's eye-catching cinematography), though Annan's discovery of bloodstained clothing in an upstairs room marks one (or both) of these doe-eyed lovelies as psychologically disturbed, which may explain the absence of their respective families, some of whom appear to have lived in the house at one time or another and 'left' under mysterious circumstances. Stokes' unexpected arrival throws the relationship into disarray, partly because Faulkner has a pathological hatred of men and partly because Annan is attracted to him, creating tensions which result in a climactic whirlwind of violence. There's an extraordinary, multi-layered sequence in which Faulkner attempts to 'emasculate' their clueless visitor by dressing him in women's clothing, though Stokes' alien mentality allows him to rise above the intended mockery.<br /><br />In the early scenes, at least, the relationship between Faulkner and Annan is depicted with uncommon grace and dignity, but this heartfelt sapphic liaison quickly devolves into crowd-pleasing episodes of sex and pulchritude, culminating in an explosion of horror when Annan allows herself to be ravished by Stokes following a violent argument with Faulkner. The closing sequences are (quite literally) gut-wrenching, especially Annan's final scene, which appears to have been clipped for censorship reasons in 1977 and never fully restored (what remains is still pretty vivid, so brace yourselves!). Excellent performances by the three leads, bolstered by Warren's unobtrusive direction, which takes full advantage of the stunning woodland locations, thereby compensating for the film's budgetary shortcomings. Originally released in the US as ALIEN PREY. | 0 |
For his first ever debut this film has some riveting and chilling moments. In the best horror film fashion the pit of your stomach tightens every moment during this film. The ending is superb. The makers of Blaire Witch obviously watched this film it's ending wasn't an end but a beginning of the end. A great movie and only a piece of Japan's great as far as scare factor a perfect score it makes you think and scared out of your mind. | 1 |
A friend once asked me to read a screenplay of his that had been optioned by a movie studio. To say it was one of the most inept and insipid scripts I'd ever read would be a bold understatement. Yet I never told him this. Why? Because in a world where films like "While She Was Out" can be green-lighted and attract an Oscar- winning star like Kim Basinger, a screenplay lacking in character, content and common sense is no guarantee that it won't sell.<br /><br />As so many other reviewers have pointed out, "While She Was Out" is a dreadfully under-written Woman-in-Peril film that has abused housewife Basinger hunted by four unlikely hoods on Christmas Eve. Every gripe is legitimate, from the weak dialog and bad acting to the jaw-dropping lapses of logic, but Basinger is such an interesting actress and the premise is not without promise. Here are a couple of things that struck me:<br /><br />1) I don't care how much we are supposed to think her husband is a jerk, the house IS a mess with toys. Since when did it become child abuse to make kids pick up after themselves?<br /><br />2) Racially diverse gangs are rare everywhere except Hollywood, where they are usually the only racially balanced groups on screen.<br /><br />3) Sure the film is stupid. But so are the countless "thrillers" I've sat through where the women are portrayed as wailing, helpless victims of male sadism. Stupid or not, I found it refreshing to see a woman getting the best of her tormentors.<br /><br />4) I LOVED the ending! <br /><br />5) Though an earlier reviewer coined this phrase, I really DO think this film should be retitled "The Red Toolbox of Doom." | 0 |
I will give it a 3 just because it showed history that we need to know about, to prevent it from happening again. I agree with the comments from the gentleman from UK. The movie was pretty terrible. All cliché, no real plot. Historical and technical inaccuracies abound. Look up the technical specs on DE 529, or any Everts class Destroyer Escort, and you will see what I mean. I now its black history month in the US, and Im going to be called a racist just for saying this, but the history of this ship is not that great. They did some escort work, chased a "submarine" that turned out to be a hulk that they rammed. Sorry, but black people did a lot more in WWII then this silly movie gives them credit for. This movie makes them look like whiners. Let the name calling commence, I can handle it. | 0 |
First of all, I liked very much the central idea of locating the '' intruders'', Others in the fragile Self, on various levels - mainly subconscious but sometimes more allegorical. In fact the intruders are omnipresent throughout the film : in the Swiss-French border where the pretagonist leads secluded life; in the his recurring daydream and nightmare; inside his ailing body after heart transplantation.... In the last half of the film, he becomes intruder himself, returning in ancient french colony in the hope of atoning for the past. <br /><br />The overall tone is bitter rather than pathetic, full of regrets and guilts, sense of failure being more or less dominant. This is a quite grim picture of an old age, ostensibly self-dependent but hopelessly void and lonely inside. The directer composes the images more to convey passing sensations of anxiety and desire than any explicit meanings. Some of them are mesmerizing, not devoid of humor though, kind of absurdist play only somnambulist can visualize. | 1 |
This film revolves as much around Japanese culture as it does the lives of one modern Japanese family. Physical contact is frowned upon for those over 7 (especially in public) hence all that bowing instead of hugging even when you are close friends/ relatives. Ballroom dancing involves putting your arms around someone else and that in public too! Never the less Ballroom dancing is (on the quite) immensely popular. People who do Ballroom dancing in Japan are viewed a bit like nudists in the west... many more would like to than do but are inhibited by the culture. A delightful family film, which any amateur dancer would enjoy for the dance sequences alone. I understand that it was more popular than Titanic in Japan. I guess the Japanese are just like the rest of us - they like to be hugged too. | 1 |
I don't believe I've seen a horror movie this bad since...hell, I don't believe I've ever seen a horror movie this bad. The acting alone was enough to make one cringe. The bad acting went way beyond horror film cheesy. It was just plain awful. And did you check out those god awful special effects? When the demon (which looked more like a cheaply constructed puppet) came out of the wall I couldn't tell if I was supposed to be frightened, or laughing my ass off. As a huge fan of the horror genre, this film was more than mildly disappointing. I couldn't help but notice the director is from Portland, OR, which just happens to be my own hometown. I must say I'm deeply ashamed. If I could, I'd give this film a negative 500. | 0 |
Butch the peacemaker? Evidently. After the violent beginning with Spike, Tom and Jerry all swinging away at each other, Butch calls a halt and wants to know why. It's a good question.<br /><br />"Cats can get along with dogs, can't they?" he asks Tom, who nods his head in agreement. "Mice can get along with cats, right?" Jerry nods "no," and then sees that isn't the right answer.<br /><br />They go inside and Butch draws up a "Peace Treaty" (complete with professional artwork!). Most of the rest, and the bulk of the cartoon, is the three of them being extremely nice to one another What a refreshing change-of-pace. I found it fun to watch. I can a million of these cartoons in which every beats each other over the head.<br /><br />Anyway, you knew the peace wasn't going to last. A big piece of steak spells the death of the "peace treaty" but en route it was nice change and still had some of usual Tom & Jerry clever humor. | 1 |
My mate and I chose to watch this obvious piece of junk purely based on its tagline
After nearly 30 years of lousy and rudimentary teen slashers, I can't believe that only just now some nerdy horror brainiac come up with the brilliantly witty slogan "They Axed for it"! Other than that, "Miner's Massacre" is just as random, annoying and forgettable as all the rest out there
. Perhaps even more! The script contains all the typical clichés and features all the dreadfully stereotypic characters you wish a horrible and painful death to. The gore effects are computer engineered and thus beyond pitiable and the obligatory "big" stars (Karen Black, John Philip Law and Richard Lynch) are entirely wasted in spite of their top billing. Cursed mines and abandoned ghost towns form an ideal horror setting the creators of "My Bloody Valentine" already figured that out in the early 80's but his dull film simply hasn't got any innovative ideas or even remotely surprising elements to offer. Bunch of greedy twenty-something losers, which refer to themselves as friends even though they clearly can't stand each other, desecrate an ancient mine in search of the gold that is allegedly hidden there. Of course they unwarily resurrect the zombie miner this way and he just 150 years of rest in order to prepare for a massive teen massacre. Yay! The cast is exceptionally irritating in this one. The girls all have impressive racks but refuse to show anything. Instead, they all prefer endless whining and the taking of needless risks. The dim-witted blokes clearly just serve as screen fillers. In her barely five minutes of playtime, Karen Black still manages to make an utter fool out of herself by depicting the most prototypic and hysterical local nut woman ever. The zombie has a stupid and very unconvincing face, but he looks okay and reasonably menacing when shown in the distant shadow of the moonlight whilst swinging around his pick-axe. Since the best thing about "Miner's Massacre" concerns the aforementioned tagline and you can read that on the box in the video store itself, there's very little else to recommend here. Director John Carl Buechler scored a few modest hits during the eighties, like notably the original "Troll" and a fair "Friday the 13th" sequel, but it's obviously time to retire now. | 0 |
Has anyone been able to buy this movie? My Uncle "Hutch" was a Real (not Reel) pilot who is seen tossing his wings in the air and then snatching them with his fist as he was awarded his pilot's wings. <br /><br />He's only on screen a few seconds but my family would love to have the movie. He was killed in a dogfight over Italy, he was only 24 at the time. Do we know the film studio that made it?<br /><br />Or has anyone seen it at a video store, like Blockbuster? I wish they would make entire catalogs of these old movies available as it is so cheap to make DVD's these days.<br /><br />Please email me at nfny40@yahoo.com if you know where I can buy a copy. Thank you. | 1 |
This is one of those movies the critics really missed the mark on. This movie is practically McHale's Navy for the 90s or Police Academy at sea. Grammer proves he can play roles other than Frasier as he outwits and outfoxes the Navy in order to get his own sub. Rob Schneider is as wormy as usual, the same in every role he plays, and Lauren Holly is the local sexpot albeit with a brain. Ken Hudson Campbell is as funny as usual with almost every line a catch phrase. The movie has a wonderful intelligent plot and a non-predictable script that still surprises me every time I watch it. Many of the Navy phrases and terms go over my head, though, but it's a small obstacle for the sheer accuracy and realism of the movie and its characters. | 1 |
I was excited to see a sitcom that would hopefully represent Indian Candians but i found this show to be not funny at all. The producers and cast are probably happy to get both bad and good feed back because as far as they are concerned it's getting talked about! I was ready for some stereotyping and have no problem with it because stereotypes exist for a reason, they are usually true. But there really wasn't anything funny about these stereotypical characters. The "fresh of the boat" dad, who doesn't understand his daughter. The radical feminist Muslim daughter (who by the way is a terrible actress), and the young modern Indian man trying to run his mosque as politically correct as he can (he's a pretty good actor, i only see him getting better).<br /><br />it is very contrived and the dialog doesn't flow that well. there was so much potential for something like this but sadly i think it failed, and don't really care to watch another episode.<br /><br />I did however enjoy watching a great Canadian actress Sheila McCarthy again, she's always a treat and a natural at everything she does, too bad her daughter in the show doesn't have the same acting abilities! | 0 |
I tried. God knows I tried to like this Swiss Cheese of a movie, but the story was too full of holes, some big enough to drive a horse drawn carriage through. The acting overall was even and the characters endearing enough that you regretted they died off like recently sprayed roaches, scattering off to die their own gruesome deaths. Overall, however, it was not really very scary. Afterall we have seen spooky quickly moving figures in the background since "The Brood" why back when / and it was scary then just briefly. This film just never resolved the basic plot points and thats the writer's job. Naturally you would expect the director to pick up on the fact that the story did not make sense. Like who's was the secret room behind the wardrobe, why did the blood hungry ghost not die when she received the nails as prescribed by the book they read earlier? Why did the computer say "game over" for Frankie's character even though he lived? The list goes on and on. I don't really feel comfortable recommending this film as its makes you feel like you wasted your time and there was not enough payoff in truly scary moments. | 0 |
it's unfortunate that many of the other detractors of this film seem influenced by prior biases. (i.e. anger at the gay characters, thinking french thrillers are bad, etc.) i will admit that i'm unfamiliar with the novel, but as a film, after about 45 minutes, i was rolling my eyes. hopefully i can explain in writing my complaints eloquently enough before i get sick of spending anymore time on this film over the 2 hours of its running length.(2 hours that felt like 3) don't get me wrong, i can sit through hour and a half silent films, 3 hour epics, i don't have a short attention span, nor am i so jaded by the mtv generation that i cant appreciate a subtle and slowly building film. here goes, my grocery list of complaints. first off, the ending. yes, it had a scooby-doo-esquire, character explains everything at the end. now i actually think for this movie, this was necessary.. the film had so many plot-twists, emotional revelations, new facts surfacing and being discovered.. one reviewer said it well: "..yes, it is a very logical story, but without the very essential back story (their childhood stories, the relationship amongst the 3 parents, the relationship amongst the two lovebirds and the son of the Big Man), it just doesn't feel right. I felt cheated " i won't throw in too many spoilers here, i could name specific revelations that i thought were unnecessary, but according to the reviews on here, there's a lot of people who seem to really love this, so i don't want to give anything away. i personally, can't stand soap operas. the complexity, and twists and turns, for me, snuffed out ANY impact the final revelations could possibly deliver. By the end, i seriously didn't care! there weren't any gaping plot holes necessarily; this seems like it could make a great book, in WRITING it is perfectly logical, but if i'm supposed to believe this is REALITY, something doesn't sit right with the pieces that have been haphazardly inserted. too often i felt crucial characters we were never able to get to know were thrown in to further complicate the plot, increase the emotion, and develop the mystery. the acting i had no complaints about, the directing, eh, not bad, but the plot, and especially its development, SEVERELY lacking. sorry to those that felt this was a perfect thriller, but i couldn't get into it. i gave this a 3 simply because i don't want to seem completely unfair, and it did have moments of slight intrigue and excitement. <br /><br />*MAJOR SPOILER* and i have to mention it.. but when the father is making his revelation to alexandre and JUST when you think the plot couldn't fit in another twist.. "your father didn't die in a hunting accident".. I ALMOST DIED.. when was the father at all developed or even really mentioned much in the back story?!! are you serious!! like the already complex plot involving characters from all the families and their relationship to one another wasn't enough!!? does the protagonist NEED another emotional whallop more than he has already been fed?! sorry i had to throw in such a spoiler, but that just bothered me as much as i've ever been bothered in ANY film. | 0 |
In the beginning, with the careful, remote location and sweeking metal sound, I thought of the opening scene in "Once upon a Time in the West". When it gets to the city, then it begins to feels like "Kitchen Stories", or "Drifting Clouds", even possibly "Grimm".<br /><br />Then it turns out that this is more similar to "Joe Versus the Volcano" in theme (not style). And the movie executes from beginning to end the same, understated style. Letting you observe, take in the steel, blue-grayish tone of the suites, dresses, wall color, furniture, bedsheets, mirrors, cars, music, background sounds and even people's expression. Then near the end, there is one shot of a completely different tone - warm orangeish-yellow with soft music and ocean splashing, children and laughter.<br /><br />But maybe the observation is too long for me, I would much rather to see the alternative side or what happens to the character after the ending shot. Still beautifully done. | 1 |
Messiah was compulsive viewing from start to finish. The story centred on apparently random murders of men in London in various gruesome ways. DCI Red Metcalfe (Ken Stott)has to find the truth which, to his surprise, is a little closer to home than he might think.<br /><br />Gripping drama and Ken Stott was brilliant. Hopefully we have not seen the last of DCI Red Metcalfe. | 1 |
It was almost worth sitting through this entire god-awful "film" just to know that I can never experience anything as bad as this again. Acting - 0, script - 0, fight scenes - 0, male lead - 0 (cheddar bob from eight mile as a suave war hero who gets the girl), Nadia Bjorlin - 10 (She is gorgeous and not a terrible actress). This is the criteria I used to average it out to a two. I lost count but I believe ever movie cliché, ever, is in this movie. When the driver that supposedly killed her father miraculously shows up at the end to race against her, from out of nowhere it cemented the previous statement. Plus he just shows up for no reason. He was never even mentioned before. I don't know what else to say here. Just watch it when it comes out on TV in a couple years. At least that way some of it will be edited out for commercials. | 0 |
I didn't know Willem Dafoe was so hard up for bucks that he'd disgrace himself with such shocking hamming in this monstrosity. Hell: I'll donate that money that I was going to send to Ethiopia if he's that desperate. I have never seen such a pathetic and disgusting film for a long time...who paid for this? They are either pulling some tax scam or insane. A 5-year old would be ashamed of the plot, and I'd rather get cancer than sit through more than the hour I suffered already. Everybody involved should be locked up for a year in the sodomy wing of a third world prison. Avoid at all costs. I'd give it minus 10 if possible...unbelievable. | 0 |
"Kolchak: the Night Stalker" is a hugely entertaining TV series in which a pushy, sarcastic, forty-something reporter is repeatedly drawn into mortal combat with supernatural (and occasionally extraterrestrial) forces. Based on a very popular pair of TV movies featuring the Kolchak character, this series died a quick death in the mid-1970s due to low ratings, but it nevertheless maintains a strong cult following today. But will the average modern-day viewer be able to dig Kolchak and his weekly clashes with the undead? <br /><br />That's actually a tough question to answer fairly. Detractors of this series tend to argue that it's formulaic and hopelessly dated. On the other hand, fans argue that it's cleverly written, well-acted, and sometimes genuinely spooky. And me? I've got a foot in both camps. I thoroughly enjoyed watching all 20 episodes of Kolchak on DVD recently, though I can plainly see that the series has major flaws.<br /><br />I'll address the question of Kolchak being "formula" fiction first. Now, I think we can all agree that most TV shows have formulas - just about every episode of Columbo unfolds according to the same pattern, for example. Repetition is not necessarily a bad thing in itself; in fact, critics have long recognized that audiences often enjoy, and actively seek out, repetitive entertainment. However, the problem with Kolchak is that its formula is simply TOO rigid - it's too repetitive even by the most generous standards.<br /><br />In almost every episode, Kolchak investigates a murder, and figures out that it was committed by some form of monster. He tries to publish a story about said monster, but his editor Vincenzo blocks him, always on the grounds that Kolchak doesn't have sufficient evidence to support his claims that supernatural forces are at work. And, alas, Kolchak is also obstructed by the police. So, in the end, Kolchak does some independent research on the monster, figures out how to kill it... and then kills it. Without ceremony, or reward, or writing a big story about it.<br /><br />You can see where this ever-so-strict formula might get tiresome, right? I'm particularly mystified by Vincenzo - if Kolchak's always raving about monsters, and Vincenzo never believes it... well, then, why doesn't Vincenzo fire Kolchak, or have him committed? That's what any normal boss would do. But the series eschews such realism and prefers to keep Vincenzo and Kolchak as comical antagonists. As a result, many of their scenes together are profoundly unbelievable - though they are also quite funny.<br /><br />The very best episodes of Kolchak manage to vault over the limitations of this formula, however, usually because they contain some kind of unexpected twist. These select episodes are good enough that I think they're largely immune to typical criticisms of the series. Some of my favorites include: <br /><br />Horror in the Heights - an episode that's noteworthy for being grimy, inventive and socially aware. Kolchak's dialog has an unusually sharp and cynical edge. Though it adheres closely to the Kolchak formula, the script (written by Hammer Studios veteran Jimmy Sangster) is remarkably literate, and it delves deeply into the monster's backstory.<br /><br />The Devil's Platform - a possible inspiration for the "Omen" films, this episode stands out to me because the villain - a very young Tom Skerritt - tempts Kolchak with a satanic contract full of goodies (and, in so doing, reveals a lot about the reporter's character.) <br /><br />Firefall - this episode appears to have a bad reputation among fans, but I enjoyed it because it's got a great red herring and a really creepy, almost unstoppable-seeming monster.<br /><br />Though I've singled out these three episodes for praise, I'd say that most of the stories are entertaining at the very least. For my money, there are only two complete turkeys in the 20-episode run: Primal Scream, which is about monkey-men running rampant in Chicago, and the Sentry, which features the dumbest-looking creature makeup in the history of filmed entertainment (and this assessment is coming from a lifelong Doctor Who and Godzilla fan!) <br /><br />On balance, then, this is a good series. A little repetitive, a little cheesy perhaps, but it has elements of greatness. Even during the weaker episodes, Darren McGavin's wonderful performance as the caustic, world-weary, endlessly funny Kolchak truly shines. He carries the series effortlessly, in a way that, for example, Sarah Michelle Gellar never managed on "Buffy." McGavin was one great character actor, and this series is worth watching for him alone. | 1 |
Now infamous Western that was (at its time) the biggest budgeted disaster in Hollywood history. I was "lucky" enough to see the full 220 minute version at a theatre in 1990. It was truly staggering how BAD the film was!<br /><br />They had a great cast, a story based on a true incident (a fight between foreigners and Americans in the 1800s), magnificent scenery...so what went wrong? Three words--director Michael Cimino. He was so full of himself after "The Deer Hunter" he went out and made this god awful Western. He's not totally to blame. His previous film "The Deer Hunter" was considered a masterpiece and United Artists gave him free reign to do anything. They let him all alone...and everything went wrong. The cost went barreling out of control and Cimino insisted on redoing sequences again and again until they were perfect.<br /><br />First off, the sound is horrible. Entire sequences go by and you can't make out a word the characters are saying. For instance, Jeff Bridges' character is introduced during a dance sequence, but I STILL have no idea who he was! The dialogue in his introductory scene is incomprehensible! That's the director's fault--he should have made sure the dialogue could be heard. Some scenes are shot with so much dust flying around you can barely make out what's going on. The story line doesn't make a whole lot of sense and Cimino took great liberties with the facts--in the real story only one person was killed--Cimino turns it into a massacre. There is some admittedly beautiful sequences here totally destroyed by lack of story and incomprehensible dialogue. Also the bad sound was not the fault of the theatre--all the prints sound that way.<br /><br />This garbage effectively closed down United Artists and was the end of Cimino's career. A textbook example of a director so full of himself he doesn't realize what he's doing. Jeff Bridges has said this is the worst movie he ever did. This is from a guy who made "Tron"! A definite must-miss.<br /><br />There is a pretty good book called "The Final Cut" which details the whole disaster. This gets a 1. I wish IMDb had negative numbers--this deserves it! | 0 |
This would have to be one of the worst, if not the worst, movie I've ever nearly seen. (I couldn't watch it all the way through). Purely and simply it's gratuitous violence just for the sake of it and the ridiculous story line only adds to the lacklustre and incompetent filming. Sick. And only suitable for those with a love for manic mutilation. After murdering several hundred men, women and children, Seed is finally caught after effortlessly killing several more police officers that finally get a tip as to his whereabouts. He's sentenced to death by electric chair and miraculously survives! Buried alive, he digs his way out and plots revenge against those that put him away and flicked the switch. Needless to say, more gruesome murders ensue... | 0 |
In one of the many Bugs Bunny-Daffy Duck cartoons, Elmer Fudd is out hunting, and Daffy tries to get him to shoot Bugs. Needless to say, Bugs has his own agenda. Moreover, "Rabbit Seasoning" makes interesting use of word order and pronouns (warning: it just might hilariously and royally mess up your speech).<br /><br />I think that probably my favorite aspect of this cartoon is the costumes worn by Bugs and Daffy. One of them seems like it would have been risqué for 1952 (especially in a cartoon), but they pull it off perfectly, as they always did. All in all, this just goes to show what geniuses the people behind these cartoons were. | 1 |
You'll feel like you've experienced a vacation in Hell after you have sat down and watched this horrible TV movie. This movie is an exercise in over-acting (very bad over-acting) to situations that made out to be more than what they are. I won't give away the plot, but once you realize why the people in this film are running from the native man in the film you will demand the two wasted hours of your life back. The only plus is seeing Marcia Brady running around in a bikini! | 0 |
I have watched two episodes so far, I really like it. Even though I am no longer in college, it makes me miss the wonderful college life. I wish that I spent a little more time socializing. I kind of identify myself with rusty. When I was rushing a fraternity, my big brother was not like Cappie at all, I wish that I had a big brother like him. So if a show like this can actually make people to identify themselves with the characters, then it is a pretty good show.<br /><br />It is more realistic than American pie with less explicit sex jokes. Can we also call this a younger version of "desperate wives?" some of the writers must be Greeks themselves, the story seems to reflect somewhat of the real fraternity and sorority life. It was shot in high definition. And they actually filmed outside instead of inside of studios. so the picture quality is very good. They could easily make this a good film. Unlike a movie which can only last a few hours, I can have about 45 minutes of fun watching it free on TV weekly.<br /><br />The casting is excellent, the actors are about the right age, and they are new and fresh, so that makes them more real. This show practically is about everyone. There are Asian and black frat boys and sorority girls in the show as well. It is almost a little shocking that they had a little story about two guys in the fraternity had sex in first episode, then tried to hook up again in the second episode. I don't think that I have seen anything like this on TV before. This show somehow reminded me about a Warner bro's TV show of teenagers called "Young Americans" which got canceled in early 2001. In that show, a girl who dressed like a man kissed a guy, and that guy thought that she was a male homosexual.<br /><br />Greek life can be fun, but on the same time, students have to study for exams, etc; by the time when people actually have some free time in their lives, There is no fraternity of sorority for them to join any more. I don't know how long this show will last, sooner or later, those people will have to "graduate" college, too. Maybe they will find some new actors for another 4 years of fun college life! | 1 |
I greatly enjoyed Margaret Atwood's novel 'The Robber Bride', and I was thrilled to see there was a movie version. A woman frames a cop boyfriend for her own murder, and his buddy, an ex-cop journalist, tries to clear his name by checking up on the dead woman's crazy female friends. It's fortunate that the movie script fixes Ms. Atwood's clumsy plotting by focusing on the story of these two men, victims of scheming women...<br /><br />Heh. Okay, you got me. If these guys are mentioned in the book, and I'm pretty sure they're entirely made up for the movie, I'll eat the dust cover of my hardback copy. Apparently, the three main female characters of the novel aren't enough to carry the movie. Zenia's manipulations aren't interesting unless we see them happen to a man, and a man's life is screwed up. Roz, Charis, and Toni tell their stories -- to a man. Because it's not important if a man doesn't hear them.<br /><br />I liked the characters in the book. It hurts to see them pushed off to the side for a man's story. I normally do not look for feminist angles on media, and I tried to enjoy the movie as is. If I hadn't read the book, I might have enjoyed the movie a lot more. So if you like the cop and the ex-cop, and you want to read more about them, you're out of luck. Read the novel, if you want to enjoy luscious prose and characterization subtly layered through a plot. It's the same plot: the movie excavated it, ironed it, and sprinkled it with male angst. It's like Zenia's revenge on Margaret Atwood. | 0 |
The real story (took place in Kansas in 1959) of a murder (Perry and Dick, two ex-convicts who broke into a remote house on a rainy night to steal and kill everyone they met). Richard Brooks directed the chilling and disturbing Capote's book about the reasons that drove these kids to the crime (Are they Natural Born Killers ?). The crime scenes are very brutal and haunting because of the lack of senses and reasons for what we witnessed. Stunning black & white cinematography from Conrand Hall, excellent country - road music score from Quincy Jones, amazing performances in two principal roles from Robert Blake and Scott Wilson and first time in a movie a sad comment about capital punishment at the last moments before their deaths. Jones, Hall and Brooks (as director and as writer for adapted screenplay) are Academy Award nominees. Gripping, superbly directed and frightening, one of the best films of this decade | 1 |
Being a Bills fan, I originally found it annoying that they made a movie about the Bills and the losing of four superbowls. But once I began to watch, I felt really connected. It was actually nice to see the "Bills" win the superbowl, and I must say, that for a TV movie it was actually very well done. Gil Bellows as the QB, and Jon Voight as the old-school Coach did a very fine job. 8 out of 10 | 1 |
Tipping the Velvet (2002) (TV) was directed by Geoffrey Sax for BBC television. The basic plot is a coming-of-age story for the protagonist, Nan Astley, played well by Rachael Stirling. As a teenager, Nan works in her family-run oyster house. Everyone expects her to stay at home, then marry an appropriate husband, and settle down to family life. Nan expects this too.<br /><br />Everything changes when Nan meets Kitty Butler (Keeley Hawes) a beautiful and talented performer who dresses in men's clothes and captures the hearts of her audience. The audience includes Nan, who is sexually attracted to Kitty in a way in which she's not attracted to her boyfriend. <br /><br />The remainder of the film follows Nan to London and through her ups (sort of) and her downs (horrible) as a lesbian and sometimes male impersonator. <br /><br />As is typical for the BBC, every role, no matter how small, is performed by an excellent actor. The BBC has a depth and breadth of performing artists that is truly marvelous. None of the supporting actors stands out in my mind--they were uniformly good. Both Stirling and Hawes are wonderful, and their acting carries the film along.<br /><br />It's always sad to be reminded of how difficult life can be for someone who doesn't fit society's mold for what is normal. I know it isn't easy for lesbians even in the U.S., even today. Imagine the obstacles to love and happiness for lesbians in Victorian England. We've come a long way, but we still have a long way to travel. | 1 |
My Mother Frank begins as a warm, amiable comedy about a middle-aged Catholic woman (Frank, short for Francis, played by Sinead Cusack) who shakes herself out of the doldrums by enrolling as a student in her son's university. Most of her friends and family are horrified, not least her son (Matthew Newton), who is busy falling in love with his best mate's girlfriend (Rose Byrne). Meanwhile Frank has raised the ire of her disapproving English tutor (Sam Neill).<br /><br />Matthew Newton is utterly disarming as David; relaxed and natural in the role, even when the character's uptight. He generates valuable goodwill, steering the audience through some of the film's more awkward, broad comedy moments. Not long after the half-way point, first-time writer-director Mark Lamprell expertly steers his film into darker emotional territory and gives Cusack a real chance to shine.<br /><br />The supporting cast is full of familiar and welcome faces (Lynette Curran, Sacha Horler, Nicholas Bishop) and all the principals (including a more animated than usual Sam Neill) are excellent. While it meanders a little towards the end, My Mother Frank delivers more than it promises and is a genuine Australian crowd-pleaser. | 1 |
The casting (and direction) in Undercurrent is more insipid than inspired in this noir clunker that fails from the outset to get off the ground. Robert Taylor's wooden style poses a roadblock almost immediately for the highly affected Kate Hepburn and it's bad chemistry from the outset.<br /><br />Naive and innocent Ann Hamilton (Hepburn) falls for handsome airplane manufacturer Alan Garroway (Taylor) and rushes to the altar with him. She soon finds out there is a lot she does not know about him. As Alan becomes more remote she delves further into the murky past and Ann soon finds herself living a nightmare instead of the American dream.<br /><br />Undercurrent resembles a few Hitchcock plots but Vincent Minnelli rapidly establishes he is no master of suspense. Hepburn is no shrinking violet and she is a hard sell for a character more suited to the reticent styles of Teresa Wright or Joan Fontaine. Minnelli never really succeeds in getting Kate to defer in desperate fashion to Taylor's limited abilities as an actor. Her attempts come across as silent Gish while Taylor's wide descent into madness takes on restrained Bela Lugosi. Robert Mitchum completes the miscasting as the sensitive brother. Talk about piling on.<br /><br />Cinematographer Karl Freund provides some highly stylized noir interiors but Minnelli and cast utilize the atmospherics meekly and the tension remains tepid. With Minnelli far from his forte (musicals) and Hepburn's victim role fitting her like a bad suit Undercurrent drowns all involved. | 0 |
Race Against Fear has to be one of the most moving TV movies I've seen for a long time. All of the performances from the main actors were superb, especially that of Ariana Richards (Mickey Carlyle), William Bullimer (Coach Kurt Ansom), and Susan Blakely (Margaret Carlyle). Ariana in particular put on an extremely emotional performance, with facial expressions to match. She portrayed the emotions that Mickey was feeling perfectly, and you could easily believe that she really HAD been raped, so realistic was her performance.<br /><br />RAF is an incredibly realistic movie, due to the moving performances from the cast. Bullimer came across as a rapist incredibly well, and you hated him more and more as the movie progressed. Blakely also put on an emotional performance as the mother of the raped girl (Mickey Carlyle), and you felt increasingly sorry for the Carlyle family because no-one believed them about the rape.<br /><br />All in all, RAF is a great movie. It is both moving and full of suspense, as you are continually unsure if Ansom would be prosecuted for the rape, due to the lack of witnesses, evidence, and belief in the claim. I thoroughly recommend seeing this movie. | 1 |
This musical is decidedly mixed, and none of the elements really fit together, but it somehow manages to be mostly enjoyable. The plot contains some of the elements of Wodehouse's novel, but none of its virtues, though he co-wrote the script. The songs, though charming, have nothing to do with this particular film, and are unusually crudely squeezed into the plot, even by pre-Oklahoma standards. Burns and Allen do their usual shtick quite competently, but it misses the tone of the rest of the film by about forty IQ points.<br /><br />There are a few high points. Reginald Gardiner does good work when he remembers that this is a talkie, and stops mugging like a silent actor. And there are a few bits of writing which could only have been written by Wodehouse, though most of the film feels like the production of one of the Hollywood meetings he later parodied. | 1 |
Liked Stanley & Iris very much. Acting was very good. Story had a unique and interesting arrangement. The absence of violence and porno sex was refreshing. Characters were very convincing and felt like you could understand their feelings. Very enjoyable movie. | 1 |
Okay, so Ghoulies 4 is kind of bad. And it doesn't really even have the ghoulies in it. And the acting is bad. The storyline is stupid. But I forget to mention how funny this film is. It is so campy, and so ridiculous it is too fun not to enjoy. There are only 2 ghoulies in the movie, and they don't really seem to be in relation with the Ghoulies in the other film. But they are pretty funny. And funny thing, that Jonathon Graves returns for this one. If you saw the first, he was a character in that. In my opinion, this is better than the first. There are some classic scenes and some classic lines, one which is in a grocery store. "Attention K-Mart Shoppers!" Watch this if you enjoy bad movies. It's so bad it is good. And did I mention Barbara Alyn Woods is hot? | 1 |
This film simply has no redeeming features. The story is incomprehensible, and the script is gross, sadistic, and stupid. The sex scenes are a joke, as is the inevitable car chase. The music is awful. The acting is limited largely to growling and smirking. A half star dud. Shame on DirecTV for putting it on pay-per-view. In a theater, people might well have thrown soda at the screen. | 0 |
I won't say this movie was bad, but it wasn't good either. I expected something good but I guess Hum Aapke Hain Kaun was much better than this. This was completely old fashioned. At every stage of this movie, I hoped for some twist and what do I get? The girl gets burned and wins her aunt's love. <br /><br />Despite of being engaged, they have to take permission for every little move they make. They are so darn shy even after so many meetings. I expected the aunt to be much more brutal than that. All she did was crib madly. <br /><br />Hey, we have kids too, but we don't watch them and have tears in our eyes always. This movie is a dream. Happy family, one cruel woman, good in-laws and a man who loves her to death. In HAHK Anupam Kher was the poor bride's father and now it's vice versa. And I somehow knew that Mohnish Behl would be in this movie. Anyway I believe I wasted my time. I give it a 2/10. | 0 |
When I first saw this movie,I also expected "our boys" to be cute,and more like an extended version of the TV show. I didn't "get it" back then. But,years later,at a party YEARS later,at a 70s' type PAR-TAY,where certain substances had been smoked,inhaled,and with plenty of tequila,"HEAD" was on late at night.We watched it,and finally realized what "HEAD" was all about. It spoofed their own show,as shown in one song that called themselves,"a manufactured image". As Davy Jones wrote in his autobio,"They Made a Monkey out of me",he openly admits that everyone in the film,had been up all night smoking weed.They made fun of themselves,society,everything! Great film! Tho,as a 52 yr old granny,I no longer "induldge", I STILL watch this film when I want a good LOL!!! | 1 |
Alicianne (Laurel Barnett) becomes a live in babysitter for young Rosalie Nordon (Rosalione Cole) who has recently lost her mother. But Rosalie misses her dead mother a lot and continuously visits her grave (conveniently located in a cemetery right behind the house) late at night...where she also meets her "friends"...<br /><br />This starts off good with a truly eerie sequence in the cemetery...then falls apart. The story is thin and there is TONS of padding to make the film 85 minutes long. The acting is terrible across the board (with Cole easily being the worst). Badly directed with some of the WORST editing I've ever seen in a motion picture. Scenes (and sound) are just cut off with no rhyme or reason. Also the film has terrible (and obvious) post-production sound.<br /><br />As for blood and violence--forget it! There's very little and what there is looks incredibly fake. I've NEVER seen such fake-looking blood--looks like ketchup! Boring, pointless--a rightfully forgotten drive-in movie. You can skip this one. | 0 |
Mardi Gras: Made in China provides a wonderful, intricate connection between popular culture, nudity, and globalization through the making and tossing of beads. I saw this film at the International Film Festival of Boston, and was expecting a dry introduction to globalization, but what I got was a riveting visual display of shocking footage from both China and the United States. The eye-opening film is humorous, in-depth, serious, non-patronizing, and it leaves you wanting more as the credits role. It is worth comparing to Murderball -- it's simply that well done. The young women workers in China have various points of view, and the owner is amazingly open about the discipline. The revelers during Carnival are the highlight, but only because this excellent film provides in-depth context inside the factory in China without narration. Bravo to the filmmaker for getting inside and finishing the film! I would have never thought about the connection between beads, China, and New Orleans; now I think about the human connection between almost every object, but also the role of globalization, inequality, and fun. More importantly, I can make these connections without feeling a sense of guilt after watching this film, unlike other films on globalization that I've seen. | 1 |
Left Behind is an incredible waste of more than 17 million dollars. The acting is weak and uninspiring, the story even weaker. The audience is asked to believe the totally implausible and many times laughable plot line and given nothing in return for their good faith. Not only is the film poorly acted and scripted it is severely lacking in all the technical areas of filmmaking. The production design does nothing to help the credibility of the action. The effects are wholly unoriginal and flat. The lighting and overall continuity are inexcusably awful; even compared to movies with a tenth of the budget. However none of this will matter in that millions of families will no doubt embrace the film for it's wholesomeness and it's religious leanings; and who can blame them. However it is unfortunate that they will be forced to accept 3rd rate amatuer filmmaking. | 0 |
Both Disney and Bill Paxton did a fine job in conveying a story that is based in fact. You do not have to like the game of golf to appreciate the story of one man's struggle to overcome the odds. It could have been based on any sport or simply on any other situation which involves competition, though this one just happens to be related to Golf. The only problem I have with the story is that I would have liked to see a bit deeper into each of the main characters, esp. Mr. Ouimet. Mr. Francis Ouimet is a typical young man of his times, turn of the century America, where "class lines" are well delineated and woe be it to anyone who deigns to try to rise above his "class" standing. I did a bit of historical research and my biggest question was indeed answered, to my satisfaction. Although the circumstances are a bit different than those portrayed in the film, I came away with a feeling of content. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, I believe you will too. | 1 |
John Carpenter shows how much he loves the 1951 original by giving it the utmost respect that he possibly could, the only difference here is that Carpenter chooses to stick to the paranoiac core of John W Campbell Jr's short story. The secret to this version's success is the unbearable tension that builds up as the group of men become suspicious of each other, the strain of literally waiting to be taken over takes a fearful hold. Carpenter manages to deliver the shocks as well as the mystery needed to keep the film heading in the right direction. Be it an horrific scene or a "what is in the shadow" sequence, the film to me is a perfect fusion of horror and sci-fi. The dialogue is spot on for a group of men trying to keep it together under duress, and Carpenter's score is a wonderful eerie pulse beat that further racks up the sense of doom and paranoia seaming thru the film. The cast are superb, a solid assembly of actors led by Carpenter fave Kurt Russell, whilst the effects used give the right amount of impact needed. But most of all it's the ending that is the crowning glory, an ending that doesn't pander to the norm and is incredibly fitting for what has gone on before it, lets wait and see what happens indeed, 10/10. | 1 |
If the scale went negative I would be happier. Seeing Sushmita Sen was nice, and Nisha Kothari has a bright future but the producer and the director ruined any and all enjoyment in this story. The choice of angles, choice of lighting and well everything distracted from trying to remember what is the story. Oh, if the songs and dances haven't caused you to rip your ears off your head, first. The film could have been made twice at 1.25 hours, and been pretty good, kinda like "Seven Samurai" but the director and writer didn't go that direction, even if the "townsfolk" finally find their backbone and want to help. This movie fails on so many levels: editing, writing, photography angles, style, lighting, script - name any aspect of this film - it was BAD - probably the food from the caterer was bad too. I have never in 6 years of watching Indian (Bollywood) movies seen something this badly made. | 0 |
After a fairly lengthy partially pixelated nude shower scene, we're off to the races for this "Blair Witch Project"-esquire horror film about three girlfriends venturing to a desolate cabin deep in the woods to get away from their hectic lives for a girls' weekend out and smoke pot. They meet two guys who seem friendly enough, so they drink and tell ghost stories, until late in the movie some of them get picked off.<br /><br />This is a fairly slow movie, with needlessly drawn out 'suspense' scenes, the bad acting can't carry the myriad of scenes where nothing happens but mindless banter, and the movie as a whole is a dud, a deathly-boring dud at that. Nothing at all happens until the last half hour and when it did I was to numb to really care.<br /><br />Eye Candy: Ashley Totin shows T&A; Evy Lutzky gets topless briefly; and Jennifer Hart shows her right tit <br /><br />My Grade: D | 0 |
The beginning voice over sounds like 'The Wind' could be quite an intriguing movie, but as the story unfolded I knew it was downhill from there. The major things about this movie that blew were the terribly bad acting jobs all the main characters did, (except for a few scenes involving the inner turmoil of Mic), there was a total lack of character development and absolutely no point to the plot - What were the writers thinking?<br /><br />Michael Mongillo won 2 'horror/sci fi' awards for 'The Wind'. HUH? What was so scary about this movie? NOTHING! Except for the resident evil 2 video shots, the rest was more of a 'made for t.v thriller' - it wouldn't even have to be edited. If you want a far better movie about 'murder among friends' rent "Shallow Grave" instead.<br /><br />'The Wind' */***** | 0 |
Another wonderful Patterson book made into an incredibly awful movie. If the big budget movies don't work then why make a low budget made for t.v. movie that's 10 times worse! I am desperate for a good movie that will do ONE of his books justice! | 0 |
This was the most visually stunning, moving, amazing and incredible story I've ever experienced. Quite frankly, even those adjectives just cannot describe it. I can't just choose one scene that stood out for me. I suppose if I had to list a few it would be the reactions of the fireman to the crashing sound of jumping victims; the reaction of people trapped in the elevator, who were unaware of what was going on, as they finally emerge to the horrific scene; the shock and disbelief of the onlookers; and finally the silence. <br /><br />On that day, and even now, I am reminded of Star Wars (1977). Obi-Wan says, `I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.' It is amazing how it is so accurate in its description. There was truly a disturbance in the Force.<br /><br />This documentary vividly reveals this disturbance. The feelings are so incredibly visual. The anger, the frustration, the shock, the fear, the exhaustion, and the realization of its very magnitude. It's all there. Not a thing is missed.<br /><br />This is a powerful and most moving documentary and well deserving of the Emmy. Not just because it documents 9/11 but because it is simply everything it should be. <br /><br />If you plan to watch, be sure to grab a box of tissues. You'll need them. I know that I did. | 1 |
What a turd! I like John Leguizamo but man this is bad. I thought spawn was the worst movie he had been in, but I was wrong. I like all types of comedy from stuff like Ace Ventura 2 to american werewolf in London. This is a piece of trash. | 0 |
The Dukes of Hazzard is quite an achievement a $53m film that's worse than any given episode of a downmarket 25-year old TV show. The plot is serviceable enough but the mindless fun is rarely to be found and the casting is pretty atrocious: Johnny Knoxville is more passenger than protagonist, M.C. Gainey's Sheriff Roscoe is a bland thug, Michael Weston's Enos tiresome, a seemingly ideally-cast Willie Nelson just seems to be waiting for the check to clear and Burt Reynolds, stuck in some purgatory where he's doomed to relive his old movies as a bit player, is a curious choice for Boss Hogg to say the least but does have one good moment with a heckler and a hundred dollar bill. You know a film is in trouble when Seann William Scott and Jessica Simpson are the most charismatic screen presences
But worse than the script or the casting is Jay Chandrasekhar's hopeless direction: seemingly born with no conception of comic timing, unable to do much more than basic two-shots and seemingly clueless as to how to shoot a car chase let alone the couple of decent stunts in the film, he seems determined to sap the film of any signs of life before they materialise. There are a couple of neat post-modern moments revolving around the Confederate Flag and Daisy's stereotypical role in every episode, but no film that makes you pine for the days when Hal Needham was directing this sort of thing (and badly) can be a good thing. | 0 |
Any movie that portrays the hard-working responsible husband as the person who has to change because of bored, cheating wife is an obvious result of 8 years of the Clinton era.<br /><br />It's little wonder that this movie was written by a woman. | 0 |
I just recently discovered this fantastic series and I just can't seem to get enough of Garner's laid back PI. The shows continually display excellent level of writing and suspenseful episodes.<br /><br />This episode, Sleight of Hand, is a little different. Forsaking humor in favor of a more serious turn for Rockford as he searches for his missing girlfriend.<br /><br />The mystery is great and it's unraveling is convincing enough. It's based on a book (can't remember the name) and it could easily have been stretched to a feature length episode. Garner excels here as Rockford gets tough and really means business. This has a "noir" feel to it all the way, the dark lighting and overall mood echo the great dark thrillers of the 40's and 50's.<br /><br />Really good episode in a Class A series. Easily deserves a 10. | 1 |
I can't believe I rarely ever see this title mentioned by all you eighties horror freaks and I definitely won't be joining all my fellow reviewers here in saying that 'Bloody Birthday' is awful viewing. On the contrary, I enjoyed it very much and I was pleasantly surprised by the ingeniousness and surprise twists it offers. Don't just refer to this film as being 'another 80's slasher' because the victims here are rather unlikely and so are the killers. We're introduced to three cherubic-looking youngsters who were all born during a solar eclipse. At the moment they were delivered, planet Saturn was blocked by both the sun and the moon and, due to this, the kids are emotionless and seemly without conscience. This really starts to show around their tenth birthday as they go on a merciless killing spree.<br /><br />Granted, this stuff is incredibility far-fetched and even slightly offensive but, seriously, who cares? Unlike many other horror films from this period, it at least attempts to bring something original and imaginative. For once, the kids' acting is good and the entire film has a creepy atmosphere and grizzly music. The murders sequences are grim and tense, and it's always eerie to see them getting committed by angel-faced kids. I don't know who hired the 3 kids but they did a good job. Especially the girl and the kid with glasses are highly memorable. The bleak images of the heartless trio remind you of classic highlights, such as 'Village of the Damned', 'The Bad Seed' and 'Children of the Damned'. This film is nowhere near as memorable as these milestones but great fun and not one horror lover will regret watching this. <br /><br />Bloody Birthday was written and directed by Ed Hunt. Not particularly the greatest genius in cinema, but a pleasantly deranged fella who also brought us immensely entertaining cheesefests like 'The Brain' and 'Starship Invasions'. If all this isn't enough to convince you yet, Bloody Birthday has a lot of nudity. And not just any nudity, but a topless dance-act by MTV-VJ Julie Brown. Oh, and keep your eyes open for a completely redundant cameo by Joe Penny, later the star of TV-series 'Jake and the Fatman'. Check it out!! | 1 |
Revisiting old films that you thought were average isn't necessarily a good thing. They sometimes get worse. Championed by the Fangoria camp (in Gorezone they labeled it "the scariest film since Texas CHAINSAW"
um, no), LUTHER THE GEEK inexplicably developed a cult following as an "intense" horror picture. Actually, it is just an average stalk and slash
uh, bite film that briefly sets itself aside from the pack by featuring a killer who clucks like a chicken. Yes, clucks like a chicken. To the filmmaker's credit, at least they didn't make the killer sound like a duck a la THE NEW YORK RIPPER. That would just be silly.<br /><br />Narrative logic is completely abandoned in LUTHER THE GEEK. I'm not saying that slasher films are abound with reason, but at least in HALLOWEEN Michael Myers escaped. Luther is actually paroled after a lengthy scene where people argue he is reformed, even though he clucks like a chicken and has razor dentures (which he apparently fashioned in prison). It is the kind of film where a couple sees a bashed in door and the girl dismisses it by saying, "Oh, my mom must have forgotten her keys. She forgets a lot of things since my dad died." The kind of film where the hysterical mother runs into a cop looking for Luther and tells him, "The killer is in my house!" So what does he do? He grabs her and literally drags her back to the house and says, "Just show me where he is and I'll do the rest." Why not call back up? <br /><br />It is too bad the film is filled with such horrible action and dialogue because the Luther character is actually pretty interesting. Most of the credit goes to Ed Terry, a dead ringer for Tom Noonan in MANHUNTER, who gives the clucking Luther a genuine air of menace. In the hands of a right director, LUTHER THE GEEK could be on the same level as SONNY BOY or SANTA SANGRE and be a true cinematic oddity. But Albright is not that director and merely places the fascinating character of Luther in tedious slasher trappings. | 0 |
This was one of the biggest pieces of crap I have ever had to watch. I mean, seriously. How would anybody else feel if they were in Woody Harrelson's shoes and your wife was even CONSIDERING it would be a good idea to sleep with the other guy even for a million bucks. After all, she was the one talking about it in bed and saying how it would be good for them since he can build his house or whatever with that money. Woody never fully agreed to it until she talked him into it. How CAN you trust her? Who the hell would actually even consider that if they were married? I don't care how desperate they were. That's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life. Then, he flips out on her. Apparently, he had no right to mistrust her, other than the fact that his wife just slept with another dude who is extremely rich and handsome. Oh and wait, then he's supposed to apologize to HER after she files for the divorce so she can be with the guy she slept with. Of course Woody has no right to say anything to her or mistrust her especially after she still has Roy Hobb's card in her wallet. Then, at the end of the movie, she's apparently so in love with Woody still and misses him so much, that she was not going to leave Hobbs until he made some ridiculously stupid story up to try to hint to her to leave, and she bleeping thanks Hobbs???? Are you bleeping kidding me? Was she under contract as his sex slave or something?? I mean what the bleep?? Oh and wait it gets better. She bleeping kisses him passionately before she gets out of the car. Yea, she's not a whore. Oh, thank you for letting me go, let me go make out with you one last time for good ole' sake. Smooch smooch, smooch even though I'm still married to a guy I left for a rich guy. I have never seen such a piece of crap in my life. How the hell are we supposed to feel good after that horrible ending? What was this movie supposed to represent? NOTHING CAME OUT OF THIS! This was the most pointless movie I have ever seen in my life. Two pathetic desperate people. If I were Woody, I would tell her to go drown herself in that body of water they were near. Apparently, he had no self respect. What the hell was Roy Hobbs thinking by taking this horrible role. I feel like puking after watching this. This movie was so bad, it was seriously laughable. I want those two hours of my life back that I wasted watching this piece of ****. | 0 |
Reviewed at the Sept 12, 2006 2nd screening at the Paramount 1 theatre during the Toronto International Film Festival. The film had World Premiered the day before at the Elgin Theatre VISA Screening Room.<br /><br />The basic plot involves Morgan Freeman playing a one time popular actor who is on the downward slope of his career and who is taking on roles that may be beneath him, but which he still does with a positive attitude knowing that he needs to pay the rent etc. The downward slope is indicated by his being a long time between roles with previous flicks in bargain DVD bins and his being chauffeured by a not too sure of himself production assistant who drops Freeman off at a local community market where he is going to do research for a role as supermarket manager. He soon discovers the real-life market is run by a iron-willed "10 Items or Less" checkout line clerk played by Paz Vega. When Freeman's ride never returns and Vega needs help in prepping for an interview the circumstances cause them to join forces in a ride across town to get Freeman back home and to get Vega a job that'll get her on a more upwardly mobile career path.<br /><br />While the film was enjoyable, it felt like it was still a sketch or a work in progress. There were two extended musical sequences (One with Vega & Freeman teaching each other children's songs in the car, one that literally plays like a Paul Simon music video) that felt like padding to bring up the time and even then the film was only about 80 minutes long.<br /><br />It's a good thing Morgan Freeman is as well liked as he is because without him this would have been too little. Sure it was funny in parts and Paz Vega is a delight as well, but there was just not enough here to say it was a complete film.<br /><br />They lost me when Morgan Freeman started talking about stopping the car to ask for directions and Paz Vega said she never does that. Who ever heard of a guy wanting to ask for directions and the woman saying no!? In the real world it's the exact opposite.<br /><br />Make sure you stay for the outtakes in the credits. The bit with a Target Store saleslady teaching Morgan Freeman how to hustle sales is just hilarious! An early bit where Freeman's chauffeur insists it is Freeman's voice on a "Books on Tape" reading was also pretty funny.<br /><br />The director/writer Brad Silberling and actress Paz Vega were there for a brief Q&A after the screening. Silberling answered one question saying that the script was not written specifically for Morgan Freeman and that once Freeman took the role he actually changed very little of what was there. Quite a compliment for both Silberling's writing and also about how Freeman can just slip into a role and make it feel entirely like he was born to play it. | 1 |
I found this episode to be one of funniest I've seen in a long time. The south park creators have done the best spoof of a Romero film I have ever seen.They have truly touched on Romero's underlying social commentary that he has made with each one of his films. I would love to know what George Romero's opinion was on this episode I'm sure it was purely positive! Keeping his true vision for his zombie epics fully intact! Most spoofs deal with the pure gore without making the viewer think as Romero tries to do with his films. I think that if a zombie outbreak did happen we may actually worry about our property values before our lives as shown in this episode! | 1 |
Now all the kids and teenagers of Springwood, Ohio are all dead expect for one teenager (Shon Greenblatt) is still alive. Freddy (Robert Englund) is letting him go and the teenager doesn't have much of a memory, when he's arriving in a new town. When a tough female psychologist (Lisa Zane) tries to break though the new patient. She's finds out, where he's from. She brings him along to Springwood to spark some memories but three teens (Lezlie Deane, Breckin Meyer and Ricky Dean Logan), who unexpected came for the ride. Once they arrived in Springwood, the psychologist has some memory that she did lived in that town before as a child. While Freddy knows the true secret of her true identity.<br /><br />Directed by Rachel Talalay (Ghost in the Machine, Tank Girl) made a grim but somewhat oddly different sequel with some visual style and funny moments for this horror/fantasy/thriller. Yaphet Kotto (Alien) has a supporting role as a Psychologist expert on dreams. This has some ingenious visual effects (Not everyone will love the climax, especially in 3-D) and some good style in its storytelling. This one did out gross some of the film's series at the box office.<br /><br />DVD has an strong anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) transfer (also in Pan & Scan) and an strong-Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. DVD has the original theatrical trailer, Jump to a Nightmare opinion and Cast & Crew information. The "Elm Street" Series Box Set, the eighth disc has interviews with the the cast & crew of this sixth film. The sixth film is also in 3-D for the film climax but you could watch it at 2-D also. This is the last of the "Elm Street" films until Wes Craven resurrected Freddy into a different, darker style in "New Nightmare" and the silly but surprisingly enjoyable spin-off horror film "Freddy Vs Jason". Watch for Robert Shaye (Co-Owner and Co-CEO of "New Line Cinema"), Roseanne Barr, Tom Arnold, Johnny Depp and Alice Cooper in amusing cameos. Written by Michael De Luca (John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness). From a story by the director. (*** ½/*****). | 1 |
Writer-director Brian De Palma is best known for his string of films that have been called, somewhat unfairly, "Hitchcock imitations." Contrary to popular belief, De Palma doesn't rip-off Hitchcock; he borrows story or character elements that may have been seen in a Hitchcock film and then expands on them in a more violent, modern way. Like Hitchcock, De Palma is known for mixing blood-soaked death with macabre humor.<br /><br />"Dressed to Kill," made way back in 1980, is, perhaps, De Palma's most well-known Hitchcockian film, and it's probably his best as well. The story involves a cross-dressing serial killer stalking both a burnt-out housewife (played by Angie Dickinson) and a street-wise hooker (played by Nancy Allen).<br /><br />Yes, it will remind you distinctly of "Psycho," but De Palma's flick is just as technically ingenious and darkly creative. The museum sequence is particularly well-scored and edited; the elevator stab scene is also one of the most uniquely shot murders ever put on film. "Dressed to Kill" may not be a complete original, but I'd say it's definitely worth your time. Rated R. 105 minutes. 9 out of 10. | 1 |
...that maybe someday people will wake up to. People who can resist the urge to separate each and everything, and who see the 60s for what they were. People who can see that it was the individuals who made those times; not the other way around.<br /><br />The "Forrest Gump" comparison is a good one. Both films look at the 60s, but "Four Friends" is about human beings, as opposed to caricatures. FF delves deeply into the very thing that FG (quite successfully!) tries to condense and classify as nothing more than a backdrop. But while "Gump" files the 60s away in an attic like old toys in a box, "Four Friends" picks up and embraces each toy, thus blurring the lines between what you hold dearly and what you are.<br /><br />If you associate romance with shoe polish, you'll hate this film. | 1 |
This was something I had been looking forward to seeing. The Ultimate Avengers movies had both exceeded my expectations and since Iron Man has been one of my favorite Marvel characters I thought that this same production team would be able to do some really great stuff with an Iron Man solo title. But the final film was unsatisfying. I wasn't expecting them to spend most of the movie paying tribute to Iron Man gray armor. The red and gold armor is seen for maybe ten or so minutes all together. Not a major complaint but not what I expected from the ads and box. The worse thing however was the story, the acting and the cell-shaded CGI animation for the monsters and Iron Man armor that was not convincing. It didn't blend in well with the cell animation at all. Even on it's own it seem stick-like and lifeless. Tony Stark's character arc, as incredibly slow as it takes, is so forced and unconvincing. I wanted to see this movie because I love Iron Man but after forcing myself through the film I wondered if they couldn't have come up with something that had been as good as the Ultimate Avengers movies. | 0 |
A previous IMDb reviewer has stated that 'Rafter Romance' is a 'rip-off' (that's the other reviewer's term) of a German musical called 'Me By Day, You By Night'. Apparently that reviewer is unaware that *both* of these films have borrowed their premise from 'Box and Cox', an English play written by John Maddison Morton in 1847. This play deals with two tradesmen who rent the same room from an unscrupulous landlady, each man believing himself the sole tenant. Because the two men have different work schedules, the ruse is not discovered straight away. This play was once so popular in Britain that 'to Box and Cox it' became a common term for an arrangement in which two people willingly shared accommodations meant for only one person.<br /><br />The innovation of 'Rafter Romance' (and its predecessor) is that the two tenants are now a man and a woman, who inevitably develop a romance. As is usual in these cornball movies, the guy and the gal detest each other until they fall into each other's arms. Hoo boy.<br /><br />The landlord in this film is played by George Sidney, a character actor who specialised in playing Jewish stereotypes that were meant to be sympathetic. George Sidney was never as annoying as the odious Harry Green (the Jewish equivalent of Stepin Fetchit) but Sidney's depictions of Jewish characters are still exaggerated and embarrassing to watch.<br /><br />The single most notable thing about 'Rafter Romance' is that, to my knowledge, this is the earliest Hollywood film to make reference to Hitler and the rise of Nazism. At one point in this movie, landlord Eckbaum (Sidney) discovers his teenage son Julius engaged in chalking swastikas on the walls. Eckbaum and his son are clearly meant to be Jewish. Admittedly, nobody in Hollywood in 1933 had any real idea of what Hitler was planning for the Jews in Europe ... still, it's surprising to see a film depicting a Jewish teenager who thinks that swastikas are a joke. His father is, quite properly, angered by this display of the Nazi symbol.<br /><br />A very shameful aspect of Hollywood history is the documented fact that all of the major Hollywood studios continued to do business with the Third Reich as late as 1939. Hollywood's leading ladies were medically documented as 'Aryan' so that their films could be distributed in Nazi Germany and Austria. For the same reason, Hollywood's leading men were documented as 'Aryan and uncircumcised'. Except for Darryl Zanuck at Twentieth Century-Fox, all the Hollywood studio executives who colluded in this policy were Jewish ... but clearly had no objection to doing business with Hitler. I'm surprised that 'Rafter Romance' contains a scene depicting swastikas unfavourably, as this sequence would have rendered the film Verboten in Germany and Austria. (Maybe the scene was cut out for German release: it isn't crucial to the movie's plot.) Apart from this, the movie contains nothing notable. Robert Benchley does his usual unfunny befuddled characterisation: I've never understood the appeal of this man. I'll rate 'Rafter Romance' 4 out of 10. | 0 |
This movie sucks ass. Something about a heatwave in some European country, complete trash. There's nothing going for this movie whatsoever. maybe 30 seconds of sex but that's it. There is a very annoying chick who hitches rides with people and really pisses me off. This movie is complete rash and you shouldn't subject yourself to watching it. I regret it it's very boring. I would rate it zero but i can't. No body in their right mind should see this. i'm sure you'll regret it completely i did. How could they think up something this bad. Even Mystery men was better. MYSTERY MEN. That sucks. That movie wasn't worth being made. complete waste of time. The characters in this are very hard to understand and i good very very very bored. | 0 |
Let me start by saying how much I love the TV series. Despite the tragic nature of a middle-aged man seemingly unable to pursue his dreams because of his overbearing, manipulative father, it was incredibly light-hearted and fun to watch in practice. In my opinion, it is without doubt one of the greatest British sitcoms of all time. The TV series has my 10 out of 10 rating without reservation.<br /><br />This movie spin-off on the other hand is a true tragedy in every sense of the word. Hardly any of the essence of the TV show is transferred successfully onto film. This movie has a very dreary, depressing tone that almost moved me to tears on several occasions. Seeing Harold being beaten up in a pub (and not in a comical way) is not my idea of comedy but is most definitely one reason why fans of the TV series will not like this movie. The movie was painfully unfunny except for the scene where Albert bathes in the sink and is seen by a neighbour.<br /><br />The romance between Harold and Zita is completely out of tone and it makes me wonder whether the producers of this movie ever bothered to watch the TV series. In the TV series, Harold always went after respectable girls, not strippers.<br /><br />Albert's reactions to the remarks made against him by Harold's girlfriends were absolutely priceless in the TV series. In the movie, Albert says virtually nothing when such an opportunity rises.<br /><br />Most movie spin-offs of British sitcoms tend to be quite dull, with the notable exception of the ON THE BUSES films (which in some respects were actually better than the TV series itself!). But, STEPTOE AND SON has to rank right at the very bottom of the pile, even below GEORGE AND MILDRED.<br /><br />My advice - skip this one and see the second spin-off, STEPTOE AND SON RIDE AGAIN instead. It has a much lighter tone, is more faithful to the TV series, and is actually very funny. | 0 |
I have recently found this film on one of my husband's VHS tapes (the blank variety which he uses to record stuff from the telly). The film looks as if it was last shown in the eighties and I don't remember having seen it since. It has not (to my knowledge) been released on DVD or VHS although I shall browse around for a copy.<br /><br />The film tells the story of three young people: two girls, one on the edge of puberty and the other much younger, and a young boy who go to live with their mother's brother and his young, mute Irish wife. His wife also has two brothers who live with them. The children's uncle is an unpleasant control freak who forces his young wife to wear a silver collar whilst she watches a marionette show put on by him and her brothers in his toyshop.<br /><br />The eldest girl and one of the Irishmen (the younger) develop a love for each other whilst they live in the same house. The girl helps her aunt out in the shop whilst her brother helps his uncle to make things in the workshop.<br /><br />There are a lot of very disturbing elements to the film. There is the uncle's treatment of his wife as some kind of dumb (literally) possession (illustrated by the collar) whilst the Irish indulge dancing, drinking and somewhat forbidden love. Interestingly, though, I have seen far more explicit themes played out in other movies made in Hollywood today.<br /><br />Makes you wonder whether the British film industry and the BBC have some kind of hidden agenda going on.<br /><br />Still, despite it not being a children's movie, there are a lot of playful, magic moments in it and the one Irishman does some beautiful paintings. | 0 |
OK now, lets see. What was funny in the first movie? I know, people with funny accents, people falling into the water, silly boat crashes and funny comments between the two teams. In this movie they have twisted the accent part to the max, no good. A whole a lot of people are falling into the water for uncertain reasons, no good. Boatcrash, check. Funny comments between the two teams, they tried but failed. Also, there are too may personalities they are following in this movie. This film should be about what is happening on the water, not on land. I am sorry to say that there is too far between the funny parts and the sponsors of the film are exploited to the max. No good. All in all, I give it four out of ten since it has some funny parts. | 0 |
These days Spielberg's "The Color Purple" is mostly remembered for being nominated for eleven Oscars and winning zilch. What's even more alarming is that Spielberg himself wasn't even nominated for Best Director. Needless to say, the film-makers deserved more acclaim than they were accorded.<br /><br />The story concerns the trials and tribulations of Celie Johnson (Whoopi Goldberg), an African-American woman dominated at first by her incestuous father and then by her abusive husband. The film spans several years and focuses mainly on Celie's relationships with the women around her. It's told from a decidedly female perspective but you needn't fear that it's a saccharine 'chick flick'.<br /><br />The story is an interesting one, livened with humour at times although the central character's struggles are paramount. Some may not appreciate the change in tone towards the film's end but I didn't mind even though similar content in a lesser film would likely have me rolling my eyes.<br /><br />The film received three Oscar nominations for acting: Whoopi Goldberg (Best Actress), Oprah Winfrey (Best Supporting Actress) and Margaret Avery (Best Supporting Actress). I think that Goldberg and Winfrey were certainly deserving and Danny Glover was unaccountably stiffed.<br /><br />As already mentioned, Spielberg didn't receive a Best Director nomination for his efforts. Such an omission beggars belief, since Spielberg's direction here is top-notch. I'm not especially crazy about Quincy Jones's score but it's not below average by any means.<br /><br />In the end, the story is a satisfying one, well-told by a master film-maker working from Pulitzer Prize-winning material. Give it a try and you'll probably be as baffled as I am about how it could be so poorly treated on Oscar night. | 1 |
Yakitate! Ja-pan (translated as Fresh Baked! Japanese Bread) is the story of a young man named Azuma Kazuma and his journey to make the perfect Japanese Bread or Ja-pan, for Japan, and for the Japanese, that will be recognized the the whole world.<br /><br />Of course, that's just on the outside. In reality, Yakitate! Ja-pan isn't really about the bread, but the reaction that come after eating the bread, and the pun that comes with the reaction. The series is lovable because of these puns. From popular anime titles like Naruto, Detective Conan, and Dragon Ball to blockbuster movies like The Matrix and Lord of the Rings. It's all there.<br /><br />So what makes this title different from other titles of the same genre like Cooking Master Boy or Mr. Ajikko? Well, unlike the others who use cooking for world domination, Yakitate! Ja-pan is purely comedy. Sure, there are times that the story turns to drama, or even murder, but the comedic atmosphere makes you laugh at them. You'll be laughing at their own view of heaven. Just watch it.<br /><br />Just remember that this is also fiction, although some of the bread made here are based on real bread, eating the home made Japan #2 won't turn you to a Super Saiyan or turn your body to rubber. | 1 |
"La Maman et la putain" is the beautifulest film of all time. And what's most moving about it may be the relation between reality and art the movie deals with, which is directly inspired by Proust's "A la Recherche du temps perdu".<br /><br />Indeed, "La Maman et la putain" and "In search of lost time" apparently tell the same story : the one of the failure of love, which repeats itself endlessly. The first woman's name is always Gilberte, and the second woman appears like a twisted and deformed double of Gilberte : Veronika is like a "whore Gilberte", beautiful like the night, whereas Gilberte was pure, and "beautiful like the day". After the failure of the first love, a second love begins, but this one is like already doomed by the first one. Veronika takes the place of Gilberte, in Alexandre's life and in the movie. She progressively eclipses her, first by time to time, Gilberte's still coming when Alexandre waits for Veronika,then totally. That shows it's the same sad story repeating itself, the same "unfaithful woman", like Alexandre says, who appears endlessly - and unfaithful is for Proust the higher point in love, which makes it exist, but which also underlines its illusions.<br /><br />Art is what causes the passage between what's outside - the illusion of love - to what's inside, which is the truth, and is a learning of this truth. For instance, when Veronika notices the strange way Alexandre makes is bed, he answers that he saw it in a movie, and then, that a movie, "it's made for that, to learn how to live, how to make a bed". Alexander wants to live like he was in a film, he wants his life to be art. <br /><br />This conception of art comes from Proust, with whom Eustache shares the same rejection of "political art" and realism in art. "La Maman et la putain" fights against a conception of art "principaly political" - see for example the ironical review of a political movie by Alexandre. Like Proust says : "Art doesn't care for all this proclamations, and only exists in silence." First of all, art is introspection. And that also why realism or naturalism is rejected : art needs to transform reality to exist. Proust writes : "I discover the illusion of realism, which is a lie". That's why "La Maman et la putain" doesn't hide its artificiality, underlines by the way the actors "say" their text : "the more you seem artificial, the higher you go", said Eustache.<br /><br />Eustache and Proust both share this idea that the artist is a "translater" of a inner truth. But, Alexandre failed where Eustache succeed. "La Maman et la putain" tells us the failure of a character to be what he truly is. You can sens the tragedy arise when you go further in the movie, which becomes saddest. You can see it in the face of Alexandre, who looks more and more like a living-dead. You can see it by the fact that the scenes become longer, and that after a while, nothing happens outside. At the end of the movie, when you see Alexandre writing, and Veronika asking if he's writing his life,you can guess that he's not, that even literature failed. The end of the movie shows the symbolic death of Alexander, who is smashes by the heaviness of reality. And in this tiny nurse's room, Alexandre looks more like Albertine than Marcel.<br /><br />To explain this failure, we can say that Alexandre is a Balzac's reader. In "Forme et signification", Jean Rousset explains that, in Proust's, the readers of Balzac, who are Swann and Charlus, are unable of any artistic creation, because they're stuck in reality, which they mistake with art. They see reality in art and "are not aware of the transformations that necessarily exist between the life of an artist and his work, between reality and art". And that's exactly Alexandre. He claims for instance that he "loves a woman for parallel reasons, because she played in a Bresson's for example". He's like Swann, who falls in love with Odette because she looks like a Botticelli's woman.<br /><br />"Life is perhaps not my vocation". This thought is indeed by Eustache, who committed suicide, even if it's said by Alexandre. Nevertheless, there is a difference between Alexandre and Eustache : if Eustache is absolutely Alexandre, Alexandre is like a double without art, a horrible vision of the artist, which crystallizes his fears.<br /><br />By fallowing Veronika at the end of the movie, Alexandre is condemned to illusions. It's death that remind me the last frames of the movie, in the face of Jean-Pierre Léaud as well as in the endless pucking of Veronika. Or maybe it is already hell that describes the end, like in Sarte's "Huit-Clot", and absolutely not like in the final liberation of "Le Temps retrouvé". If Eustache had read Proust, Alexandre could never have finish the book , always perturbed by life and Veronika when he tries to read it at his apartment or in the cafés. "La Maman et la Putain" is like a inverse double of "In search of lost times", which tells how Alexander doesn't become an artist, whereas "A la Recherche du temps perdu" tells how Marcel becomes a writer (Genette).<br /><br />If, like Baudelaire says, an artiste tells "reality at the light of his dream", it is his nightmare that Eustache tells us in "La Maman et la putain". | 1 |
It has been said that Deanna Durbin invented teenagery. This first film was one of the best. The humorous story presented a delightful 14 year old Deanna, a little beauty with a gorgeous voice, as the "Miss Fixit" in a family split by divorce. For plot summary, see other IMDb entries, but quickly Deanna and her two older sisters plan to go to America from Switzerland to prevent their father from remarrying. With an excellent supporting cast especially Barbara Read and Nan Grey as the sisters, good direction and editing, the film succeeds in captivating one even on subsequent viewings. Of Deanna's three songs, only "Il Bacio" is from the classical repertoire, but when she sings it in that police station scene, the film's place in history is assured. At least it was for this viewer who at the age of 15 was smitten for life with both Deanna and classical music. One of the many nice touches that occur throughout THREE SMART GIRLS is the brief glimpse of the drunk stretching his neck for a final glimpse of Deanna as the cops hustle him by! One unfortunate result of the success of this film was that subsequent writers for Durbin vehicles became locked into the "Miss Fixit" theme, which quickly became stale. Deanna herself never did. Her stature as an actress is more questionable than her charisma, which she certainly had. It seems to me that, like many another film personality, she substituted "naturalness" for the histrionic ability that she lacked. The ploy worked well for 21 feature films. | 1 |
I saw this movie at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival.<br /><br />Based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated is the directorial debut of actor Liev Schreiber. Schreiber also wrote the screenplay. In the movie, Jonathan (Elijah Wood) obsessively collects items from his family, from toothbrushes to retainers to scraps of paper which he then seals in ziploc bags and pins to a wall in his house to record his family history. But the space for his grandfather is conspicuously bare. All Jonathan really has of him is a piece of jewelry and an old photo of him with a woman who hid him from the Nazis during the Second World War. Jonathan decides to undertake a quest to Ukraine to find the woman, thank her, and learn more about his grandfather.<br /><br />His quest is aided there by a couple of characters who run a tourist company for Jewish people, including a young man obsessed with western culture (Eugene Hutz), his grandfather (Boris Leskin), who thinks he is blind and who may have memories and demons of his own from the war, and his grandfather's temperamental seeing eye dog.<br /><br />The screenplay effectively combines both humour and drama as the three characters travel through the countryside looking for Jonathan's grandfather's town, driving deeper and deeper into the memories of the past. The best performance probably comes from Eugene Hutz, playing Alex Jr., who starts the movie as a tracksuit-wearing, break dancing slacker just out to have fun but evolves into something more as not only Jonathan, but all the characters gain their own illumination.<br /><br />Liev Schreiber, Elijah Wood, and Eugene Hutz attended the screening and did a very humorous Q&A after the film: <br /><br />- Schreiber was very close to his grandfather, who was a Ukranian immigrant, and who died in 1993. This caused him to start to write to get his memories down on paper. Meanwhile, he was asked to do a reading of Foer's short story, The Very Rigid Search, which was an excerpt from the still unpublished novel. Schreiber was blown away by the quality of the writing, saying that Foer had done in 15 pages what Schreiber tried to do in 107. Schreiber approached Foer and they talked about their grandfathers, culture, movies, and the nature of short-term memory in America; in the end, Foer agreed to let Schreiber adapt the book.<br /><br />- Schreiber's own project was intended to be a road movie, but the book has parallel narrative that is an imagined chronological history of the town of Trochenbrod that spans 500 years; given his budget and limitations as a filmmaker, he said he'd leave that to Milos Forman and take the road trip instead. This imagined chronology was what moved him to make the movie in the first place, the idea that "a past lovingly imagined was as valuable as a past accurately recalled".<br /><br />- Schreiber said the movie was a series of happy accidents. After searching unsuccessfully in Ukraine for an actor, he was walking through the Lower East Side in New York, when he saw a poster of a woman centaur, topless from the waist up, with an insane cossack sitting astride her. Under the poster said the name Gogol Bordello Ukranian Punk Gypsy Band.<br /><br />Eugene Hutz then took over the story. He had never pursued acting as music was his first passion. One day, a friend gave him the book, and he thought it was written in a manner similar to how he writes music; screw sentences/syntax, language is my own.<br /><br />Later, they got a call from a production company, looking for eastern European music that was medieval but modern. Hutz met with Schreiber, and he soon found the movie was based on the book he just happened to be reading. Not long after that came up, Schreiber asked Hutz what he thought about Alex and whether he could do the character by any chance.<br /><br />- Foer and Schreiber talked about the film in the fall of 2001, shortly after the events of September 11. Both were in Europe at the time and they talked about the derogatory comments they were hearing about Americans, which led Schreiber to want to try to find an articulate American who would defy the stereotype that Europeans have of Americans. Someone who was awkward, vulnerable, flawed, innocent, and looking for history beyond the borders of his own country. Schreiber started thinking about who that was, and Elijah came up.<br /><br />One of Schreiber's inspirations as a filmmaker is Emir Kusturica (I think that's who he said, who also directed a segment in another festival movie, All the Invisible Children) who said "you don't look for the actors, you look for the people." Schreiber said there is something about who Elijah is that he has a generosity of spirit and a sincere goodness as a human being, that came across on film. Schreiber said that the eyes are important when trying to articulate a character who is an observer, and that if "eyes are the doors to the soul, Elijah's are garage doors." <br /><br />- Elijah Wood had fun with a question about the similarities between his character Kevin in Sin City and Jonathan in this movie as both are sort of a blank slate on which emotions are projected. Wood replied that Jonathan may seem still and seemingly emotionless, but it is all about his observations, about his experiences with other characters and the environment he was in.<br /><br />- On the differences between directing and writing: Schreiber said he likes writing a lot more and jokingly described directing as "hell". After his grandfather died, Schreiber started to think about how to preserve some sense of history and himself; is he content driven or not, or just good at interpreting other people's work? He said he loved the exercise of figuring out what is emotional to you, important to you. | 1 |
Lead actor Yuko Tanaka fulfills so much in the exceptionally meditative "The Milkwoman," a tranquil canvass on missed chances in the life of a 50-something woman, charting her routine with sincerely poignant motives. Played out in the picturesque, tranquil town of Nagasaki, Akira Ogata's unconventional romantic film, so to speak, is less a straight-out melodrama than a deliberate introspection of its characters' surrender to their current lives as a result of a tragic past that forced them to a choice they did not call for.<br /><br />Perfectly embodying the requisite world-weariness subjected to a spiritless routine, Tanaka plays Minako Oba, a middle-aged woman who, before her work shift at a supermarket, takes it upon herself to deliver bottles of milk among the residents of the hilly Nagasaki. One of the houses she constantly passes by to make such a delivery is that of Kaita Takanashi (Ittoku Kishibe), a local government employee caring for her terminally ill wife (Akiko Nishina). Minako and Kaita were high school sweethearts who, courtesy of an ignominious event concerning their parents, separated ways since then.<br /><br />Opening his film with the foreboding narration of a young Minako vowing never to leave Nagasaki, Ogata does as such with the narrative, patiently sticking with Minako as he, deftly aided by Tanako's understated yet highly effective performance, follows her -- whether she's having chitchat with her aunt (Misako Watanabe) on being single, or when she jogs up and down the countless footsteps of their hilly town to distribute milk -- as she and Kaita gradually overcome the hindrances that kept them apart for years. Such unhurried development may not suit viewers weaned on fast-paced narratives but for the rest, it's a heartfelt introspection that affects powerfully and emphatically. | 1 |
This film is worthwhile despite what you may hear. The performance of Marie Dressler (I hope I am spelling it right) as a drunken old sot is reason enough to see this film. It is an amazing performance. She is in a drunken stupor in three scenes for a good long while and she never does the same thing twice. You can actually smell the alcohol when she is done. Amazing. And Greta of course speaks her first lines on film and shes great. The Eugene O'Neill story is solid and like most O'Neill stories, very deep and intense. This is not light entertainment but if you appreciate those great character actors from the 30's and 40's you will like it. Some of the film is technically fuzzy but all in all worthwhile. | 1 |
Pure Orson Welles genius makes this one of the greatest of movies. Welles is drawn into a murder conspiracy only to be set up as the fall guy, which is what he refers to with the sarcastic comment "big dummy that I am." Plot is so complex that I still don't know whether the victim knew that his life was about to be lost. The shootout scene in the carnival hall of mirrors is one of the most amazing ever filmed. That scene alone is worth the price of admission. This is the only time that Rita Hayworth ever played a complex yet believable character. No one but Welles would have had the nerve to cut her hair and dye it brassy blond. No one should miss this picture. | 1 |
Remake of the classic 1951 "The Thing From Another World". 12 men are in a completely isolated station in Antartica. They are invaded by a thing from outer space--it devours and completely duplicates anything it chooses to. It starts off as a dog but gets loose--and has a chance to duplicate any of the men. Soon, nobody trusts anyone else--they're isolated--the radio is destroyed--their helicopter likewise. What are they going to do?<br /><br />The 1951 film had the thing just be a big, super human monster. That movie was scary. This one is too--but the story is different (and based more closely on the source material--the novelette "Who Goes There?") and it's scary in a different way. The movie starts right off with Ennio Morricone's extremely eerie score setting just the right tone and--when the Thing gets attacked--the amount of gore is astounding. There's blood and body parts flying all over--arms are bitten off, heads detach and--in the strongest one--one man is devoured face first by the Thing. The gore effects are STRONG and real nightmare material. I don't scare easy but I had to sleep with the lights on when I saw this originally back in 1982. Rob Bottin's effects are just incredible--how this picture got by with an R rating is beyond me!<br /><br />It also has a very creepy feel--gore aside, it is very suspenseful. You're not sure who is what and Carpenter's direction and the score really build up the tension. One complaint--no one is given any distinctive personality traits. They actors just remain straight-faced and say their lines. That's annoying...but the movie still works.<br /><br />This was a critical and commercial disaster in 1982--it competed with "E.T." and MANY critics complained about the amount of gore and there being no female characters in the movie. It's now considered one of John Carpenter's best. A must-see...for strong stomaches. NOT a date film!<br /><br />An amusing note: When this was released Universal sent a note along with all prints of the film. They suggested to theatre owners that they play the film in an auditorium near the rest rooms. They were afraid that people would be so sickened by the violence that they'd have to be close to a facility to throw up! | 1 |
Henri-Georges Clouzot's film is quiet an example of the french transition cinema. A film between the realism of the postwar cinema and the full-of-magic and symbolism nouvelle vague. With some spots of the American classic films (but not imitating it) the director tales us a story about love, crime and the importance of points of view. We can find great actors too (Suzy Delair is impeccable).<br /><br />Is interesting too, how we can find aspects of this film nowadays. Quai des Orfèvres inheritance is palpable in Woody Allen tradition. Plunging a crime situation in a picturesque environment. The naive ending is also typical in Steven Spielberg's good-ending films. And finally I would like to point out, the deja voo sensation during the photography session between Jenny Lamour (Suzy Delair) and Dora Monier (Simone Renant) in which the first one confess that she thinks her husband is being unfaithful and exactly with the woman who is photographing her. That scene is exactly the one between Natalie Portman and Julia Roberts in Closer (Mike Nichols, 2004). | 1 |
"A wrong-doer is often a man that has left something undone, not always he that has done something."--Emperor Marcus Aurelius <br /><br />The DVD release of "Watch on the Rhine" could not come at a better moment. It restores to us a major Lillian Hellman play stirringly adapted to the screen by Dashiell Hammett (Hellman scholar Bernard F. Dick's audio commentary affirms his authorship). It presents a subtle performance by Bette Davis, who took a subdued secondary role long after she'd become the workhorse queen at the Warner Bros. lot. Equally significantly, it reminds us that World War II had a purpose.<br /><br />Sure, you say, like we needed that. We've heard Cary Grant sermonizing in "Destination Tokyo" (1943) about Japanese boys and their Bushido knives. We've watched jackboots stomp the living hills in "The Sound of Music" (1965). We've toured an England callously occupied by Germany in "It Happened Here" (1966). Yet, truth to tell, we still need the message spread.<br /><br />I have an 81-year-old friend who curses Franklin Roosevelt regularly. He feels that FDR connived the U.S. into a foreign fight we didn't need, and thereby caused the death of his favorite cousin. He's encouraged in his demonizing of Allied leaders and the trivializing of War Two by Patrick Buchanan.<br /><br />The political columnist has freshly released a fat book heavy with detailed research which claims that Adolf Hitler would have posed no further menace to Poland, Europe, or the world if only the Third Reich had been handed the Free City of Danzig in 1939. Buchanan holds that if those selfish Poles hadn't confronted the Nazis, drawing in foolishly meddling Britain and giddily altruistic France, no war would have engulfed the West. He believes that without the rigors of Total War, no one in Germany would have built gas chambers to provide a Final Solution to the Jewish Problem.<br /><br />Some commenters on this site feel that "Watch" sags under the weight of stale propaganda. Maybe. However, neither my friend nor Pat Buchanan seem to have gotten the film's point: Some people hurt and kill to grab other people's land, goods, and liberty; such people dominated the Axis Powers and "enough" didn't appear in their vocabulary.<br /><br />Paul Lukas deserved the Oscar he won. He and Bette Davis put convincing passion into their portrayals of refugees who fight oppressors. They give emotional punch to the intellectual case for stepping off the sidelines, for actively facing down torturers and murderers. Bernard Dick notes that Hellman didn't care for Lukas as a person since he stayed apolitical. Of course, as a Hungarian he had seen first-hand Bela Kun's bloody "dictatorship of the proletariat" replace an outmoded empire and then topple to Admiral Horthy's right-wing tyranny.<br /><br />In a marvelous cameo role added to the play by Hammett, Henry Daniell sardonically depicts a Wehrmacht officer of the class that disdains the brown shirts he serves. His Phili von Ramme would doubtless stand with Field Marshal Rommel in 1944 during the Plot of July 20th against Hitler. In April 1940, however, he pragmatically abets the Nazi cause, although he insults Herr Blecher "the Butcher" and scorns the Rumanian aristocrat Teck de Brancovis for trying to peddle information on an Underground leader.<br /><br />Teck, a pauper and possible cuckold, wishes cash and a visa to return to Europe where he can resume the shreds of a life that had come undone with the empire-shattering Great War and the greater world-wide economic Depression. He has no political convictions, no scruples about trading a freedom fighter for his own tomorrow. Mercury Theater graduate George Coulouris lends this burnt-out case's Old World cynicism an edge of desperate menace.<br /><br />Lucille Watson gives winsome vitality to the grasping man's hostess, a domineering old gal who knows her mind and gets her way--but who doesn't adequately appreciate her children and their achievements outside the home she controls. She and her pallid office-bound son belong to the American version of von Ramme's and de Brancovis' privileged kind. However, this family hasn't seen ruin and never will. They're moneyed people who could silently advance evil simply by not opposing it.<br /><br />This mother and son might easily make choices which would reflect that complaisance toward National Socialism and Fascism which flourishes today in my friend and in pundit Buchanan. "Watch on the Rhine" has a manicured period look. Its dialogue reflects its erudite origins on the stage rather than sounding fresh from the streets. Yet Hellman and Hammett's film has gut-based power. Audiences still need to hear and heed its call to arms against grabbers relentlessly on the march. | 1 |
Creakiness and atmosphere this film has, but so unfortunately does the print I just viewed. Raymond Massey provides a laid back Sherlock Holmes, almost comically so in early scenes in his bathrobe, which he trades in for a laborer's garb to investigate the creepy mansion of Dr. Rylott (Lyn Harding). What wasn't clear to me was why Rylott would have wanted his stepdaughters dead. If as in the case of Helen (Angela Baddeley), he didn't want her to run off to get married, he would have accomplished the same thing by having her dispatched.<br /><br />Other curiosities abound as well. After setting an early wedding date with Helen, the fiancée is no longer heard from for the rest of the picture. The presence of a band of gypsies at the time of Violet Stoner's death provides merely a diversion, and what could have been an interesting murder tool, a poisonous snake, is diluted by the fact that it was not a cobra, the musical renderings of the Indian man servant notwithstanding.<br /><br />Athole Stewart competently portrays Holmes' aide Dr. Watson, though he takes some getting used to if Nigel Bruce is more your cup of tea. As Rylott, Lyn Harding is sufficiently menacing, a trait that would be put to good use as Holmes' nemesis Professor Moriarty in two later films - 1935's "The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes" and 1937's "Murder at the Baskervilles".<br /><br />With repeated choppiness and an unsteady camera, it's surprising that the story line isn't more disrupted than it is. It's integrity is generally maintained, even if one stretches a bit to fill in the gaps. I guess that would be my main complaint with the film, as mentally bridging some of the jump cuts in the picture proved to be a real pain in the asp. | 0 |
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