id int64 0 25k | interval listlengths 2 2 | len_words int64 6 2.21k | len_tokens int64 8 2.75k | text stringlengths 32 13k | label int64 0 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2,505 | [
1200,
1300
] | 914 | 1,240 | * Some spoilers *<br /><br />This movie is sometimes subtitled "Life Everlasting." That's often taken as reference to the final scene, but more accurately describes how dead and buried this once-estimable series is after this sloppy and illogical send-off.<br /><br />There's a "hey kids, let's put on a show air" about this telemovie, which can be endearing in spots. Some fans will feel like insiders as they enjoy picking out all the various cameo appearances. Co-writer, co-producer Tom Fontana and his pals pack the goings-on with friends and favorites from other shows, as well as real Baltimore personages.<br /><br />That's on top of the returns of virtually all the members of the television's show varied casts, your old favorites as well as later non-favorites.<br /><br />There was always a tug-of-war pitting quality-conscious executive producer Barry Levinson, Fontana, James Yoshimura and the rest of the creative team against budget-conscious NBC execs, who simply wanted a another moronic police procedural like "Nash Bridges," which regularly beat "Homicide" in the ratings. The pressure told as the show bounced between riveting realism that transcended its form, and sleazy sensationalism that demeaned it.<br /><br />Unfortunately for this movie, Fontana, co-writers Yoshimura and Eric Overmeyer and director Jean de Segonzac simply threw in the towel. They took the most ludicrous story are from the series, topped it with an unlikely and artistically unfruitful new plot line, and laid the burden of carrying the whole mess on one of the weaker cast members.<br /><br />Briefly, some time has passed since the last episode of the show. The former heart of Baltimore's homicide unit, Yaphet Kotto as Lt. Al Giardello, is now a Kurt Schmoke-like candidate for mayor, and Schmoke himself makes a cameo appearance. But this promising start immediately and improbably takes a tragic turn.<br /><br />The spotlight shifts to Giancarlo Esposito as Giardello's son Mike. A handsome man who has done good work elsewhere, Esposito was one of the pretty faces brought in late to supposedly enliven the TV series. But the question for viewers always was: is Mike that uncomfortable as Gee's son, or is Esposito that uncomfortable in the role?<br /><br />To be fair, Esposito doesn't get a chance to play out the main story without interruption. That's because the writers choose this moment to revive another storyline that spat on the intelligence of the show's loyal voters.<br /><br />An apparent snuff streaming video was promoted, and then seemed to actually take place, on the Internet. After some red herrings, the detectives arrested a repellent suspect. But Zaljko Ivanek's harassed and overworked Deputy States Attorney forgot to file motions in time, and the suspect was released, only to be murdered later.<br /><br />Let's summarize: he forgot to file the paperwork because it wasn't the most sensational case of his career, because the mayor, the attorney general, the governor, the entire Maryland Legislature, the U.S. Attorney General, NBC, Court TV, the BBC, AP, Reuters, People, The Sun, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the LA Times, Time Magazine, The Times of London, The Economist, The Johannesburg Mail and Guardian, L'Osservatore Romano, Le Figaro, Paris Match, L'Equipe and Computer World weren't calling every 10 minutes to ask about the status of the case.<br /><br />Nevertheless, the old gang of detectives and associates flocks back to Baltimore to help out. There's quite an array of talent on display. Unfortunately, with the limited amount of dialogue to hand out, some of them are merely on display.<br /><br />Two of the strongest actors, Clark Johnson and Melissa Leo, are criminally underused, while time wasted on Jon Seda and Michael Michelle could be better spent on commercials. The writers do seem to satirize this, presenting Jason Priestley as the latest big-deal detective. On the other hand, they give easy-come, easy-go Michelle Forbes a very affecting scene.<br /><br />There's some other sly casting, with actual Lt. Gary D'Addario, the center of the book that gave rise to the show, playing another detective. Guests drop in from other shows, like Whitney Allen doing her deadpan and clueless "Miss Sally" from the children's show beloved by the inmates on Fontana's "Oz." Dina Napoli of WBAL TV turns up as herself. <br /><br />Even when entertaining, though, these guests can be distracting. Ed Begley Jr. actually advances the story in his brief appearance, playing Dr. Victor Ehrlich from Fontana's "St. Elsewhere." He's still a vivid character, and fits in a hospital setting. Then you remember, didn't St. Elegius turn out to be an autistic boy's fantasy?<br /><br />The most useful cameo reflects corporate synergy. This movie was made when Court TV bought re-run rights to the series. That network contributed legal waif Helen Lucaitis, who had interviewed the Homicide team and later appeared on "Oz." The TV correspondent does an efficient job summarizing the news, that is, plot points for latecomers.<br /><br />Although she's so thin that she disappears when she turns sideways, Lucaitis also adeptly handles a bit of physical comedy with Esposito. He shows more juice in his scenes with Lucaitis than with any of his usual colleagues. Perhaps those two should have done a spin-off.<br /><br />As the movie winds down, the cream of the cast rises to the top. Although they are saddled with a loser script, Andre Braugher and Kyle Secor overcome it. Their performances remind viewers what made Homicide, for considerable stretches, the best show on the air and one of the best television productions ever.<br /><br />It's fun to watch top pros do their stuff; it's just a shame this movie doesn't give them more of a chance. Die-hard fans may want to see this movie anyway, but you can live without it. | 0 |
3,251 | [
1200,
1300
] | 978 | 1,235 | I saw this on sale - NEW - at my local store for $6 and said "hey! an action film with that guy from Bloodsport and Enter the Dragon, directed by the guy who did Enter the Dragon - and it's cheap!" So I bought it. Oops! This is possibly the worst film I've ever seen, and I've seen some doozies.<br /><br />You know how movies which are intentionally campy, like Evil Dead II and Dead-Alive, are AWESOME? You know how movies that are supposed to be serious but turned out so awful that you have to laugh out loud, and watch them again, like Lionheart (an old Van Damme film) or John Carpenter's Vampires, are pretty cool? This film, Ironheart, manages to be NEITHER of those. I don't know what the filmmakers were thinking, but it looks as if this movie was made with no time to shoot, no budget for anything, and no script to speak of. (While I'm on the script note, I should point out that Bolo Yeung has NO LINES in this movie - the only reason he gets first billing on the box is the fact that he's the only actor in the film that you'll ever recognize (unless you're a Jackie Chan fan, in which case you'll recognize the bad guy - and you'll want to call him Giancarlo!).)<br /><br />What's also sad is that this film is from '92. By that time, T2: Judgment day had come out, so you know that the era of 80s campiness was over... but not quite. After this, you'll think 80s Chuck Norris films, high-school comedies, and Jason/Freddy sequels were works of sheer genius. <br /><br />Things to know:<br /><br />1) Nobody in this film can act for beans. The closest you get is Richard Norton looking appropriately rich and cocky, and Bolo Yeung looking appropriately mean ... and cocky. Everything else is dreadful.<br /><br />2) The martial arts scenes are forgettable - just many instances of white guys with lots of muscles taking off their shirts, yelling, running at Britton Lee, getting kicked by Britton Lee, getting punched by Britton Lee, then falling down. Even the final showdown against Bolo is disappointingly short, and about as creative as the design of my running socks (and equally stinky).<br /><br />3) The rest of the action is pathetic, too: the guns look like they came from the toy department at K-Mart, and indeed they fire with the sound of a capgun. When someone gets shot, they bounce around a little bit, then lie still with splotches of brownish-red liquid on their clothes. Britton Lee apparently gets shot in the side, but you don't see it at all, then later that day you see the wound ... I've had paper cuts that were worse than that!<br /><br />4) Of course then the girl dresses the wound, then they kiss, then next thing you know they're lying in bed talking after sex. Huh? What? Believable development of the love interest, as well as any kind of character development at all, are overlooked completely in this film. Remember how Bruce Lee's characters didn't need to have sex with anybody to be cool?<br /><br />5) The car chase is by far the worst I've ever seen. It looks like the director was sitting on the curb with a hand-held camera as the two cars weaved down the road doing, oh I don't know, about 30 miles an hour? Don't try this at home, kids, these people are professionals! Hah!<br /><br />6) Really bad writing. Here's a scene for you: Lee is being followed, so the girl follows the followers to "warn" Lee, but her car is too slow. So by the time she catches up, Lee and the bad guys are out of their cars and there's a gunfight in progress. Lee has killed two bad guys, but the third is shooting at Lee when the girl almost runs Lee over, so the bad guy runs away. (Huh?) Then the girl's car stalls and she can't start it. She tells Lee she's involved now and she's coming with him. He points out to her that they can't leave her car there because the bad guys will trace it to her. She somehow convinces him that he should decide how to deal with this problem - so he shoots the gas tank and blows up her car. (And remember, later that same night they have sex.) Huh?!?<br /><br />7) If you look closely, in more than half of the nightclub shots, the dancers are very much out of sync with the music. The dancers are also all way too co-ordinated with each other (apparently in the '80s all people at dance clubs took dancing lessons). There is a girl in the DJ booth with a microphone, but she never does anything except dance. The bouncers tell people who are fighting to "take it outside" - without moving their lips. In one scene, the only bouncers Lee and Stevo pass by are just inside the entrance, but with their backs to it! Also, apparently, if you're a major character in the film, you can go straight to the head of the line.<br /><br />8) Lee notices the first time he is being followed, but he doesn't notice the second time - even though it's the same guy in the same car. The girl, however, notices. Bad guys get followed twice, but they never notice.<br /><br />9) Lee is worried the bad guys will trace the girl's car back to her, even though they have already seen him show up where she works twice. The girl proceeds to leave her child at work, in the care of a friend, while she is off having sex with Lee. DO NOT learn parenting from this film!<br /><br />Can't think of more gripes right now ... you get the idea ... Ironheart is so bad, it ain't even funny, it's SAD. | 0 |
3,328 | [
1200,
1300
] | 992 | 1,254 | (Caution: several spoilers)<br /><br />Someday, somewhere, there's going to be a post-apocalyptic movie made that doesn't stink. Unfortunately, THE POSTMAN is not that movie, though I have to give it credit for trying.<br /><br />Kevin Costner plays somebody credited only as "the Postman." He's not actually a postman, just a wanderer with a mule in the wasteland of a western America devastated by some unspecified catastrophe. He trades with isolated villages by performing Shakespeare. Suddenly a pack of bandits called the Holnists, the self-declared warlords of the West, descend upon a village that Costner's visiting, and their evil leader Gen. Bethlehem (Will Patton) drafts Costner. After much misery and numerous efforts to break Costner's spirit, he escapes, thus ending a lengthy section of the movie that could have been told better in a three-minute flashback.<br /><br />We now finally get to the major premise: the escaped Costner finds an abandoned mail truck and delivers the letters to the nearest town, hoping to get some food under pretense of being a postman. A number of the village people led by young Ford (Larenz Tate) want to get in on this postman act, which does not sit well with Bethlehem and his bandits, and Costner finds himself the unwitting and unwilling leader of a band of postmen at war with the Holnists.<br /><br />The idea of The Postmen versus The Bad Guys is not as ridiculous as it sounds. The Holnists depend for their livelihood on the fact that the villages they prey on are isolated from one another; the Holnists can destroy any one village, but could not stand against all their victims united. To unite, the villages must communicate with one another, and a working mail system would thus be a big step toward putting the Holnists out of business. So it really makes a lot of sense that Bethlehem would get medieval on our heroic mail carriers. Unfortunately, Bethlehem's eventual defeat is not the result of the villages uniting against him, but instead your old standby cliche, the one-on-one brawl between him and Costner. Nor is there even any real attempt by the communities to use the mail to work together to solve their problems; all the mail seems to be the standard "Hi, Aunt Debbie" stuff played for maximum sentimental value.<br /><br />THE POSTMAN is one of the most predictable movies, shot for shot, that I have ever seen. Now, I don't purposely try to ruin movies for myself by straining to figure out what's going to happen next. But here we're talking about the kind of predictability that requires no effort; I just knew what was going to happen next whether or not I wanted to know. After a lion is prominently showcased eating people, a Holnist bandit seeking the escaped Costner ventures into the bushes after a noise, and we are then "shocked" when the lion eats him. A bunch of unoffending villagers are rounded up and shot by a firing squad, and one of the villagers sings out some Famous Last Words right before being shot, to my immense lack of surprise. A covered statue is unveiled to show exactly what everyone knew was going to be there: Costner bending to pick up a letter from a cutesy kid we saw earlier in the movie. A man tells Bethlehem that no sir, you can't just take my wife; Bethlehem runs the unsuspecting sod through, though he is the only person in the theater who is unsuspecting.<br /><br />But it is rank, cloying sentimentality that really undoes THE POSTMAN. Olivia Williams, playing Costner's lover Abby, is worst served. She pours her heart into the material and gives her very best effort to make it sound natural and sincere. She tries so hard, it's heart-breaking. But nobody could ever have made the lines "I have a gift for you, Postman . . . You give out hope like it's candy in your pocket" sound like anything but the syrupy pap that they are. Another example is the scene where a mounted Costner thunders past a little boy, ignoring his proffered letter, only to turn around, stare at him for what seems like five minutes, and then thunder back to pick up the letter. Why didn't Costner just pick it up the first time? No real reason; it's just an artifice that tries and fails to give us a feeling of elation by dashing the kid's hopes and then restoring them.<br /><br />Schmaltz and predictability unite at the end as the statue of the Postman is revealed. I sat thinking, "Please don't tell me they're going to show the statue and then cut back to the scene with the cutesy kid. Surely that is too saccharine, too obvious for even this movie." Then, alas, the music swelled and we did indeed cut back to the dreaded little boy smiling as his letter to his maiden aunt is whisked away, and I held my head in my hands and thought, "Somebody shoot me." It felt like having thirty pounds of apple pie rammed down my throat.<br /><br />Gen. Bethlehem is a more humanized villain than normal. Your standard-issue post-apocalyptic villain is the meanest, toughest S.O.B. in the valley. Bethlehem is shown to be a little nothing of a man inside, who tries to make himself feel important by beating up on others. Although some menace is thereby sacrificed, Bethlehem is credible in a way most villains aren't. Unfortunately, Will Patton overacts. And although we are told early on that Bethlehem utterly destroyed his last challenger in five seconds of hand-to-hand combat, Bethlehem's actual fighting skills shown at the end of the movie are absolutely ludicrous.<br /><br />The acting is otherwise pretty good. Costner has done better, but his Razzie was an overreaction. As mentioned, Olivia Williams is very impressive. Larenz Tate as Ford does a sincere and credible job. James Newton Howard's score is competent, though short of the epic standards the movie was going for. But it's not enough to save this film.<br /><br />Rating: *1/2 out of ****. | 0 |
3,361 | [
1200,
1300
] | 952 | 1,211 | The Play Macbeth was written by William Shakespeare between the years of 1604 and 1606. Ever since then, many other versions of the play have been produced, including remakes completed in 1948, 1971, and 2006. Akira Kurosawa even directed a Japanese version of Macbeth in 1957 entitled, "Kumonosu jô." The play starts out with King Duncan hearing about the success of two of his generals, Macbeth and Banquo, in a recent battle with the Irish and the Norwegians. After a quick promotion from Duncan, Macbeth instantly gets an uncanny feeling for lust, greed, and power and does everything in his power to gain access to the crown: even if it includes murder.<br /><br />Geoffrey Wright tried creating his own version of the famous play in 2006 by setting it in the modern Melbourne underworld. Just imagine a lowly Macbeth slaying hundreds of soldiers with an AK-47 and rapping his own rendition of, "Low" at the same time. Just kidding about the latter, but one thing he does do is utter the traditional Shakespeare. And he keeps it going throughout the whole movie. That's right! Shakespeare meets ghetto. It's all you could ever hope for! Not
The newest Macbeth is rough and violent enough to match up with any other modern day action film, but it lacks decent acting, the right lingo, and a good technique of camera work.<br /><br />The modernized movie starts out with Macbeth (Sam Worthington) who works as a hit man/drug dealer for Duncan (Gary Sweet), a drug lord from Melbourne, Australia. After being promoted to the Thane of Glamis by Duncan (as the three witches had predicted), aspiration starts to take over Macbeth as he sets his eyes on the throne. After promoting Macbeth, Duncan invites himself over to Macbeth's house for a night of drugs and alcohol. Before the festivities begin, Lady Macbeth (Victoria Hall) talks Macbeth into killing Duncan to take power over the throne. After the bodyguards are drunk and everyone's asleep, Macbeth sneaks into Duncan's room and stabs him to death. After his murder, Macbeth takes all of Duncan's belongings including hid title and crown. Just as soon as he thinks he's got what he wanted, he finds out that it will take more than bribery and running away to solve his problems. <br /><br />One major flaw of the movie was the acting. A once seemingly flamboyant and empowered Macbeth suddenly turns into a sissy. And he looks like a sad puppy dog throughout the entire film. I don't really know if this was Worthington's or Wright's fault, but either way, one of the two should have realized Macbeth was a king, not a knot on a log that took everything his wife had to say literally. Like I said earlier, Macbeth should have been rude, arrogant, and spiteful. But when his character changes over to a drug lord, he changes personalities as well I suppose. On the other hand, Lady Macbeth really knew how to nip it in the bud when it came to recognizing and personifying her character. She didn't seem quite as spiteful as she was in the play or the 1971 version, but she reminds Macbeth that compared to murder, anything else he could possibly do, wouldn't quite match up. <br /><br />Another thing I found distasteful was all the nudity. This fluke HAD to be Wright's fault. The witches didn't do a bit of acting, unless you call parading around in your birthday suit acting. At one point in the film, I started to wonder if I was watching Macbeth or Unique Positions Vol. 2. <br /><br />Don't get me wrong when I say I find the Shakespearean dialogue out of place. It's spoken flawlessly, but when it's spoken by an Australian gangster, it's just really weird. When Macbeth starts to kill people off, he first lets them know by talking to them in Ye Olde English. Macbeth contains plenty of action, blood, gore, and nudity to last anyone a lifetime. You forget all the positive facts though when you start to think to yourself, "Okay, what in the heck did he just say in that last sentence?" At some points in the movie, I don't even think the actors themselves knew what they were saying. The new age-ness of the movie could have easily been pulled off it weren't for the, "Thou's" and the, "Thee's". <br /><br />The camera work was just simply fair for me. One thing I could not stand was the constant pacing back and forth between characters. The camera technique used gave off that Blair Witch sort of vibe and made me throw up a little in my mouth. Matt Reeves tried to attempt the same concept of camera work in, Clover field but it just doesn't work. It makes me want to get out of my chair and look around for the little barf bags they have conveniently planted on every seat in the airplanes. <br /><br />Looking back on it all, the gangsta' Macbeth holds one positive: plenty of action. Other than that, the movie contains nothing more than uninspired acting, correct English usage, and stomach-turning camera work. The soundtrack holds one or two of the same songs, but each song is edited or remixed differently for every scene. There is never a variation of interesting or captivating media used. From now on out, directors should leave the dangerous drug underworld to Al Pacino and Robert Deniro. Future renditions of Macbeth should be created just as Shakespeare intended the play to be 400 years ago. I would recommend using medieval clothing, Ye Olde English, swords and shields and a soundtrack prepared by Enya. But either way, the modern Macbeth makes you yearn for some good 'ole folk music, a camp fire, and a bustier. | 0 |
4,068 | [
1200,
1300
] | 992 | 1,245 | Master of Italian horror Dario Argento is called a lot of bad things by non-fans. And is deserving of absolutely none of the backlash. In fact, every time I hear something bad about Argento- I think they're really talking about Michele Soavi. He just doesn't get the same amount of attention because his films were never as successful in theaters. In fact, his best film - 1994's Cemetery Man - was probably his least successful. Or just didn't get the attention he felt it deserved, because after that, he left film and went into directing television. He's never gone back. So people really don't know how inferior his other films are because by the time they've seen them, they're already fans of the Italian horror aesthetic. Which means you have to accept the fact that they make almost zero sense and are usually very unattractive films. This is where The Church stands out from the pack. Because visually, it's so cheap and ancient-looking, you can smell the dust. But it has its' charms too, though they are few. The camera-work is truly arresting and the music score is hugely elaborate and grand.<br /><br />Since Argento is the reasons people have seen Soavi's work all, I don't know anyone who caught The Church before Argento's Suspiria and Deep Red. Soavi is a bit of a hack. Sort of like an Italian Mick Garris- the utmost example of a director preferring style over substance. The flaws of The Church are constant and plenty. The film opens with a somewhat interesting prologue showing knights on white horses charging through a peasant village akin to those you see in any Robin Hood adaptation, in some long-ago century. These scenes are intense enough, energetic, and get quickly to the point. Then, we cut to the present, where the film's style takes over. Yeah, the movie is okay to look at. And for about 35 or so minutes in the present, 1980's wherever-Italy, the movie is just interesting enough to get us to the slowly revealing horror elements. So now we know the purpose of the film is the build up of it's horror. And it's a decent build up, for the most part. But as the movie approaches the halfway point, we realize the movie's driving by, and... nothing is happening.<br /><br />The plot is very simple. I think. Two people working in a church, one as a cataloger of books and the other as a restorer of the building's wall artwork, discover a scroll / scripture that the man thinks will lead them to some kind of buried treasure or priceless artifact that he can sell and get rich off of. So he follows his 'map' only to uncover a force underneath the church that has him hallucinate, while he's slowly becoming a demon who will make everyone else hallucinate. So while he is doing his demon-work, someone he passed the force onto kills himself in a manner that traps everyone in the church while the demon 'contagen' spreads onto everyone, leaving a Black preacher and the little girl who sneaks out of the church every night to go clubbing as the only 2 people who can stop the plague from spreading beyond the church walls. That probably sounds action-packed and Soavi's style is far more lethargic than Argento. But never before have I seen an attempted surrealist film this agonizingly boring. I kid you not. Absolutely nothing happens in the entire film! I've seen expressionistic (or impressionistic, I'm no film school super-grad) films before, but most of them actually show things happening (John Carpenter's Halloween for one).<br /><br />It follows pretty closely in the footsteps of Lamberto Bava's Demons films (since Argento co-produced). We're shown to a location where a bunch of people gather, one turns into a demon, all the others are isolated, that person infects everyone except a couple survivors, then the demons either get out- infecting the world, or the survivors get out when the demons die. This film puts all those same elements in place. Except, unlike Argento's work, nothing happens. Okay, a few things do happen. But only one bizarre sequence has the panache of Lamberto's much more fun Demons films. A random woman's neck is impaled by a demon using a section of fence he rips out of the floor. What's bizarre about that, you wonder? It happens in front of about two dozen people. What do they do? Nothing. She dies, her head trickles blood in closeup. But all those people don't even notice, though it happens in plain view and no less than 8 feet away from them. Maybe 4 people notice the demon running up to stab anyone he can as he runs toward her, so they duck out of the way. She's killed and in the shot after she dies, everyone is just sitting around, being quiet while a boy plays a saxophone. I kid you not. That's what happens. That's more than logically incoherent- it's plain stupid.<br /><br />The scene is suggesting that the woman just sort of disappears and no one saw her death. They all just up and forget about it. And this 15-second thing is absolutely the only event that takes place in the movie. I'm not saying it's the only violence, gore, or murder we see. It's not. It's just the only thing we can tell is happening. For example, in one scene a beautiful woman sees herself in a mirror looking old and ugly. She starts clawing the skin on her face off, but when she reappears minutes later- no scratches. People are devoured by fish and their faces are squashed by subway cars. But later they turn up as totally unharmed members of a possessed cult, in a scene that commits the ultimate horror heresy- copying a famous scene from Roman Polanski's 1968 masterpiece, Rosemary's Baby, the greatest horror film ever made, shot for shot. Even if Argento did that, I would be furious! | 0 |
4,129 | [
1200,
1300
] | 990 | 1,206 | This movie was so bad I don't know where to begin, apparently neither did the filmmakers. It starts off with a guy in his mid thirties to late forties watching TV. The news tells of a corn maze that's open for Halloween. He has a "vision" of God knows what and rushes off the save his kids who are walking into a cornfield maze and are somehow linked to this "vision" How you ask? I don't know, and as I said before neither do the filmmakers. They're simply visions of people's feet. How did he get these "visions"? It's never explained, we're just supposed to go along with it. He enters the maze to find his two daughters who are lost inside, and twice the girls he's looking for walk right past him, one time they actually run into him. What does he do? Does he chase after them? No. He stands there like an idiot calling for them when they just ran past. Do the girls stop? No. They run off then ask "Was that Dad?" Then someone dressed as demon jumps on the "star" (the Dad character) he beats him up in a pathetic fight only to find out he's a worker at the haunted maze. The police are called and after finding the "star" (which is a really bad term to use) they cuff him. They cuff his hands in front of him, so that he can find something to pick the lock with, which he does. First off, anybody who's ever been arrested knows that cops cuff your hands behind your back, and secondly why does this "average guy" seem to know how to pick the lock on handcuffs? Well he eventually gets away from the cops who give up and leave after a the "star's" wife sets off the siren in the police car as a distraction. By the way, it's now night time and all the workers running the maze have seem to have left once the sun went down. Leaving a man who attacked one of their workers and two missing children in the maze. Considering it was a slow night that these are their only customers, why not. Besides the cops apparently have better things to do as well. By the way, the "star" who goes by the name of "Walker", we figure out it's his last name, a name in which his wife even calls him by. Somehow he knows there is something buried in the middle of this cornfield maze and starts digging. I say 'somehow' because I couldn't figure out why he started digging in the first place. He finds a locket, what does it mean? Nothing to anyone who watches this, but to him it's some sort of clue to a crime. Somebody killed their kids in his "vision" and I guess that's what he's going on, real detective work. And by now he knows there's a killer loose in the corn maze, one he somehow knew was there from the start of the film, which is why he's looking for his girls. Every time we see the killer, or rather the killer's feet, we hear a weird robotic sound, like a sci-fi reject toy that changes a persons voice to sound mechanical. Why do we hear this sound? Is it in anyway related to...anything? Again, who knows? Certainly not the filmmakers. The peak of all the bad acting and bad dialog was when "Walker" yells out "Hey you, Mr. Bad Man...I'm gonna get you." Another time his wife is attacked by the "Bad Man" at the entrance to the corn maze, which like I mentioned before is oddly empty of any employees or policemen. The "Bad Man" calls "Walker" on his cell phone to tell him that he plans on killing his wife and kids and him as well. "Walker" can only reply with "Hey. HEY!" before dropping his phone and running off. With no one on the other end to talk to, the killer drops his phone too, he drags the wife a few feet then leaves her alone for the rest of the film, losing the first opportunity to hold true to his treats. If this script wasn't written by a child I'd be surprised. Opps it wasn't. It was written, directed, and produced by the same guy. And not only that, he also did so much of the crappy camera work as well, where we get random shots of feet walking through the muddy maze and meaningless shots of the cornfield, that waste 90% of the film time. In the end "Walker" uses the cuffs to cuff the "Bad Man", who also seems to know how to pick locks with the same metal object that "Walker" had picked it with. Apparently there are lots of small metal objects just laying around this cornfield. But after the killer insists he's still going to kill the kids "Walker" kills the "Bad Man", and everything is right with the world again. Now in reality this makes "Walker" a murderer, he's killed a man who "Supposedly" murdered his own daughters and was trying to kill his. He knows this, not because of proof, but because of his visions. He never found a body, nobody else knows this guy was even in the maze. And the locket? He gives it back to the ghosts of the two dead girls. No proof. So he kills a man without any tangible reason. I can't imagine what the filmmakers were thinking with this one. It must have been a way to cover up a misappropriation of funds for the production company. I would rather watch the Blair Witch Project five times than see this film again. The actors should be ashamed. The director/producer/writer/cameraman should also be ashamed. In fact the entire production company should be ashamed. If there is anyone associated with this film, please reply. What were you thinking? | 0 |
4,618 | [
1200,
1300
] | 912 | 1,223 | The following "review" is one from the wrong side of the tracks, meaning two things: You will hear nothing but praises coming from me and don't be fooled by my rating. I also could tell you that this review contains no spoilers, but technically... that's a lie.<br /><br />Well,... Screw the review. I'm just going to ramble a bit. It has been a while since I had so much fun with such a bad film. And if you cannot enjoy this piece of utter drivel, then you simply have no sense of humor. First off, this movie was meant to be taken seriously, and that's the main aspect were the fun is coming from. The story? A doctor's son is terminally ill. Daddy-Doctor decides that a hart-transplant must be the only way of saving his son. So, in true mad-doctor-style, he decides that the heart of a gorilla will do the trick. Of course, the gorilla-heart is "much too potent for a human", so sonny-boy transforms into this hideous Ape-Man that immediately breaks free and goes on a killing and raping spree (because that's simply what any horny beast would do, isn't it?). The make-up of our Ape-Man is hilarious. There's simply no other way of putting it: The guys' face looks like a turd! I'm talking human excrement here, the solid brown kind! Beautiful! The gore in this flick is wonderful too: Aside from real footage of an open-heart surgery, we also have incredibly fake (but quite nasty) looking blood & gore effects: a decapitation, an eye-gouging, a throat-ripping, the scalping of someone's skull,... It's hilarious, and indeed it's quite incomprehensible why NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES ever made it to the notorious UK Video-Nasties list, because all of the nasty things portrayed in this film are simply too ridiculous to be taken seriously. Oh, and there's only one bloody ape running around in it too, by the way. So, needless to say that LA HORRIPILANTE BESTIA HUMANA is a much more accurate title for this terrifying and convincing tale of science gone horribly wrong.<br /><br />When not trying to shock with poorly staged acts of bloody violence or random portrayals of female nudity, this movie manages to be highly entertaining with ingredients like nonsensical dialogues, cheap cardboard sets, plot stupidity and incredibly bad acting. Just a few random examples, maybe? About the sets: One can clearly see that the set-designers just used the same walls, doors, windows (etc.) over and over again to be build various different interior sets (e.g.: One side of the hospital room - the window side - where the unconscious wrestling girl lies, looks suspiciously similar like the window side of the basement-laboratory from where Ape-Man escapes; The set-designers also took one of the side-windows from the laboratory, made it a bit larger and just placed it in the conference-room of the hospital; All the walls in any building are the same grey-ones;...). Then there's the setting of the park. Clearly shot in a studio, you can see (on several occasions) that the grass is loose. Whenever there's some struggling/fighting/raping going on, the grass just shifts and shuffles and you can see the grey concrete from the studio-floor beneath it.<br /><br />Just a few random lines that come out the actors' mouths: <br /><br />-- In the conference-room where all the doctors are debating the disappearance of Unconscious Wrestling Girl (a disappearance that would of course mean bad publicity for the hospital), Daddy-Doctor intelligently utters "We find ourselves in a situation that is difficult".<br /><br />-- During that same debate a colleague-doctor cleverly remarks "A sleepwalker! Any sleepwalker gets up.", hereby providing a solid excuse for the disappearance of Unconscious Wrestling Girl.<br /><br />-- After our investigating detective, through the amazing process of his own logical deduction, concludes and tells his superior that the murderer must be a half man/half beast, his superior answers that it's absurd, adding the line "It's more probable that of late, more and more, you're watching on your television many of those pictures of terror"... Truly one of the best lines of the movie.<br /><br />Other sources of laughter: <br /><br />-- The two scenes were Daddy-Doctor and his Igor-like assistant kidnap the gorilla from the zoo and Unconscious Wrestling Girl from the hospital - these well thought-out acts of abduction are like taking candy from a baby.<br /><br />-- Daddy-Doctor speaks to God a lot, doesn't he?<br /><br />-- Sonny-boy calling Daddy-Doctor "Papa" on more than one occasion.<br /><br />-- An old lady screaming "Aaargh!!! A dead man! A dead Man! A Dead Man!! A DEAD MAN!!!".<br /><br />-- The plot periodically stops to wallow in scenes of women wrestling, only to go on again and do nothing with that concept. Sure, Daddy-Doctor replaces Sonny-Boy's gorilla-heart a second time with that of Unconscious Wrestling Girl, but do you think something spectacular happens after that? Like Ape-Turd-Man growing breasts or something, trying to rape men this time? Our leading living wrestling beauty (Norma Lazareno) doesn't even go into a climactic wrestling contest with Ape-Turd-Man near the movie's finale... But Ape-Turd-Man does start to show some motherly love near the end... almost (and I say "almost") in true KING KONG-style (i.e. the top of a building and people on the ground pointing and screaming).<br /><br />Okay, I think that's enough now. I chipped in more than my two cents here. Vomitron's Rational Rating for this sleazy piece of hilarious dreck: 2/10. Vomitron's rating From the Wrong Side of the Tracks: 8/10. Go see this film, people. It is well worth it! | 0 |
4,857 | [
1200,
1300
] | 972 | 1,213 | My qualifications for this review? I own all the Alien and Predator movies & I have and have read almost all the books I can find that are related to this series.<br /><br />I can safely say, this movie is a Stinker. Save your money & don't waste your time. If you like mindless action, mindless gore, no plot to speak of & like being taken by Hollywood, see the movie.<br /><br />If you are a serious Alien series fan, send a message to the over stuffed, over paid suits in Hollywood & 20th Century Fox & don't give them a penny.<br /><br />This movie has so many plot holes in it you could sieve pasta through it. Read the other negative reviews to get the big picture, it has all be said accurately, so I don't have to repeat them.<br /><br />The characters in this movie are cardboard. You want them all dead. And, the movie doesn't disappoint, almost all of them die. Even the hot, bubble headed blond. Do you feel sorry for her? Nope. No plot, no character development....who cares. The Predators are now idiots too. They scan everything but their own dead warrior. They are suppose to be a high technology society, right? In the Predator movie, they scanned the soldiers and the girl to determine who was armed. Trophy kills. In AvP, they scanned Charles Weyland and let him go because he had Cancer. Major Plot hole!<br /><br />Also, the R rating is because they have kids in the movie that get a face hugger, lots of gore and violence and there is one hospital scene where a very large pregnant women is injected with chest bursters. She is implanted by the Hybrid Alien with 4 or 5 eggs in a mouth-to-mouth love scene-orgy and they all hatch in, say, 30 seconds. Sensational gore a plenty, nothing more. These scenes are laughable, not serious. It is almost like the violence happens and the Alien looks at the camera and waits for applause, a thumbs up or a nod of some sort.<br /><br />The Aliens in this movie are all on performance enhancing drugs. They develop fast and spread quickly all over the town, tons of them, everywhere in record spawn time. Pathetic because it does not stick to the series story line and adds nothing to the Aliens, Aliens Predator continuity.<br /><br />I have noticed the positive reviews are written by people who love the gore. Laughable. As a movie, as a continuation of the Aliens franchise and the development of the Aliens vs Predator franchise, this movie is a cheesecake cliché at best. If you have faithfully followed this series, all the rules are broken and the Aliens and Predators are reduced to comic book characters.<br /><br />There is not one fantastic, memorable action scene. There are almost no special effects worth remembering. There are no brand name actors. The plot is as thin as onion paper that ultimately ends with a, "We have two choices to get out of this mess...The Hospital or the center of town!". I just about wet myself. The center of town means everyone is going to get nuked by Big Brother who somehow knows the town has been infested because they have an AWAC in the air that can see the infestation on a radar screen in special effects Red Spots. I just about fell out of my chair. Special effects red spot alien radar on an AWAC over middle America. I am splitting my gut laughing.<br /><br />Having to get to the Helicopter Pad made me choke on my popcorn. Has anyone played a game called ZOMBIES!? You have to get your playing pieces to the Helicopter Pad to win. I almost wet myself laughing.<br /><br />The ending is enough to make you shake your head in wonderment. Who did 20th Century Fox hire to write this script!? OH, OH, ask me.... a Grade 5 student. There really can't be any other answer. Oh, yes there can be another answer... Low Budget Cheesecake Sci-Fi.<br /><br />The ending? "Col. Stevens takes the Predator pulse rifle to Ms. Yutani (Francoise Yip). She tells him that the earth is not ready for the technology it represents. Col. Stevens knows Yutani doesn't want the technology to use on earth." You are kidding me, right? Ms. Yutani? Who is Ms Yutani? (forshadow:Weyland-Yutani: The Corporation) She is in the movie exactly 2 seconds and yet, in her infinite far east wisdom, she says the world is not ready for the technology. Seriously??!! The Brothers Dweebs (Strause) as directors? Who is responsible for this hemorrhage-abortion of a movie? They are the Doug and Bob McKenzie of directors and yet Fox entrusted the flailing Alien franchise to them. They are touted as special effects experts and yet the movie is all low budget special effects. Hmmm, I see a pattern. Laughable.<br /><br />This movie is only made to empty your wallet. It serves no other purpose. It has no plot. It has no main characters worth mentioning. It is disjointed. It does not adhere to any of the character principles established in previous movies. It does nothing to advance the franchise. The special effects are lame, minimal and low budget. And, it has no ending to speak of. It is low budget and strictly designed to take your hard earned money. Nothing more.<br /><br />Save your money. Either watch it on TV where it will very quickly end up. Buy a bootleg or miss this bleeding ulcer altogether. There is a reason why Fox did not Preview this movie to the critics. The critics would have eaten this mess alive and no one would have gone to the theaters to see it. JR Giger, the original creator, is at this very moment, leaning over a toilet spilling his lunch.<br /><br />20th Century Fox, this movie is a stinker. It is as bad or worse than Alien 3. You insult us. <br /><br />Flush now... | 0 |
4,929 | [
1200,
1300
] | 971 | 1,282 | May 2nd: someone clicked 11 NOs, and then proceeded to do 15 more on my previous 15 comments: almost as funny as this turkey!<br /><br />May 1st: <br /><br />As I write this, I'm still very much under the impression of what must be the funniest thriller I've ever seen. I've got a major case of the giggles, but I'll try and calm down. (It's kind of hard to write when your nose spills snot and the mouth ejects sporadic drool onto the keyboard.) <br /><br />A pair of young women who just returned from a vacation take a ride on a shuttle bus. A couple of young guys join them. But the bus isn't really a taxi service: it's a kidnapping vehicle. (Don't snicker!) Its driver has been part of an organized "white slavery" gang who snatch young women from airports, and they've been doing it for FIVE years. (Don't laugh.) Five years on the SAME airport, without the police or even the FBI ever getting any wind of it. (No giggling, please.) Apparently, dozens of women go missing on in the same exact place for years and years - and yet no-one notices a trend. Is the FBI that incompetent? The world of "Shuttle" seems to consist of three types of people: easily kidnappable blonds, dumb/comatose/invisible FBI agents, and omnipotent psychotic gangsters (who hate sexy blonds with tattooed behinds).<br /><br />The driver has barely stayed alive on this one mission, and yet he's done this for - I repeat - FIVE years, without being killed or losing one of his limbs. (Stop laughing...) Did I mention that the driver is immortal? Need I mention it? We all know that movie psychos have immortal DNA. You can stab them, bounce them against the walls of a bus repeatedly, caress them softly with a hammer, prick nine-inch nails into their ears... Hell, you could stick a hand-grenade into the average Hollywood psycho's mouth, and he'd still escape with only minor scratches. No, the driver is not Satan or even a minor demon, but just a regular Hollywood psycho with better survival abilities than the biggest, meanest sewer cockroach.<br /><br />The basic plot outline: A guy loses all the fingers on one hand in a silly scene. (A magical bus that reads and obeys minds!) The passengers try to escape. They fail. They get hurt. They sulk. They argue. They try to escape. They fail. They get injured. They argue. They try to escape. They fail. They get injured. They try to escape. They fail. They try to escape. The kidnappees manage to snatch the gun from the driver! Alas, they do not kill him because the Golden Hollywood Rule Of Gandhi-like Pacifism prohibits them from doing it. (No giggling.) One of the other passengers turns out to be part of the gang! (Stop laughing.) He is played by an actor who studied in the Rob Zombie/John Travolta School Of Over-Acting & Silly Mugging. He threatens rape. Later on, one of the gals hits him with a crowbar over the head, about a dozen times... very hard. Only seconds later does he regain consciousness. Yep, he survives. (Immortal, remember?) He gets killed a little later. (No idea how, though! He is not supposed to be killable.) The kidnapees argue. They try to escape. One of them escapes! Alas, the psychos are just far too God-like in their powers not to re-capture their prey. The game starts all over again: the passengers try to escape. They fail. They sulk. They stare into the void. They get hurt. They try to escape. They fail. They get hurt...<br /><br />You get the picture.<br /><br />Frankly, I believe that a drugged, heavily disorientated, inebriated snail would have escaped these nincompoop captors with ease. There were so many opportunities. At one point these bumbling psychos (remember: FIVE years!) even send one of the kidnapees into a grocery store! She leaves a message to the police. However, yeah... you guessed it: this fictional fairy-tale U.S. city has no police.<br /><br />And just as you thought the movie couldn't get any dumber - not even if Luc Besson and Brian De Palma joined forces to lend a hand with the script - it does. The girls are kidnapped in order to be sent to some remote island(?), and this is achieved by transporting them as cargo. Apparently, this fictional America has no FBI, no police - and no border customs either. It does however have immortal criminals with more luck than twenty lottery winners. One blond had her billionth chance to kill the driver, and yet she failed. How is it that victims in these dumb thrillers NEVER try to finish off their immortal adversaries once they have them down on the floor and injured? I guess I answered that one myself: they're immortal! So why bother trying, she must have thought...<br /><br />So why was one blond gassed to death and the other one boxed and shipped alive (complete with a kitty-litter box, and the funniest photograph since Demi Moore's primary school pictures)? Could it be the tattoo? I think they killed the prettier one, but that's just me. Was her tattoo that ugly? <br /><br />Could it be that I don't care? Why should I search for logic in a movie made by imbeciles (for imbeciles)? Besides, how can I even think straight when I'm laughing so hard half the time?!<br /><br />Naturally, this being a 21st-century horror/thriller, the mobile phone doesn't work... Perhaps this invincible gang control not only the FBI, the police, and the customs, but satellites in space too.<br /><br />Do I have to spell it out? There are far easier ways to kidnap people. And far more intelligent people who should be making movies. Give an idiot a camera and he'll lay an egg every single time... That sort of answers the eternal riddle of which came first: the egg or the bird-brained director. | 0 |
5,590 | [
1200,
1300
] | 899 | 1,226 | Academy Awarding actor Sidney Poitier of "Lilies of the Field" reprises his role as Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs from the 1967 Oscar winning Best Picture "In the Heat of the Night" for veteran director Gordon Douglas' tired, uninspired sequel "They Call Me MISTER Tibbs," with nobody the equivalent of Rod Steiger with which to swap dialogue. Clearly, both "Bullitt" scenarist Alan R. Trustman and Robert D. Webb of "Cape Fear" were off their game when they penned this predictable police procedural potboiler. The dialogue is drab and none of the characters are interesting, not even the chief suspect. Absolutely nothing remotely exciting, suspenseful, or surprising occurs in this tame whodunit. Meanwhile, things have changed considerably since Virgil was last seen in "In the Heat of the Night." He worked as a homicide detective for the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Police Department. In "They Call Me MISTER Tibbs," our hero works for the San Francisco Police Department. Moreover, he has a wife, Valerie (Barbara McNair of "Change of Habit"), and a family, a young rebellious son, Andy (George Spell of "The Naked Kiss"), and a younger doting daughter, Ginger (Wanda Spell of "Hickey and Boggs"). Tibbs drives a medium blue Mustang and his wife holds down the house and hovers over their two children since he doesn't have as much time to spend with them. Literally, there are no surprises in this pedestrian murder mystery. Indeed, the best thing about "They Call Me MISTER Tibbs" is Quincy Jones' terrific orchestral soundtrack with a memorable opening theme, more memorable than this forgettable crime thriller deserved.<br /><br />Everything begins sensationally enough with a struggling prostitute, Joy Sturges (Linda Towne of "The Adventurers"), being bludgeoned to death in the bedroom of her downtown apartment by an unseen assailant. Apartment handyman Mealie Williamson (Juano Hernandez of "Intruder in the Dust") enters Joy's apartment and finds her strewn on the carpet dead with a bloody forehead. He picks up the statue briefly and then puts it back on the floor and reports Joy's death to the superintendent of the apartment, Rice Weedon (Anthony Zerbe of "License to Kill"), and Weedon gives Mealie and fistful of dollars and sends him packing. Afterward, Weedon anonymously notifies the SFPD that popular minister Logan Sharpe (Martin Landau of "Nevada Smith") beaten Joy to death and was seem leaving Joy's apartment. Captain Marden (Jeff Corey of "True Grit") assigns Tibbs to handle the case; it seems that both Tibbs and Sharpe have known each other for 18 years. Naturally, Tibbs' wife Valerie cannot believe that the well-known, politically active evangelist could have committed such a crime. Just to give the movie context, it should be noted that when Tibbs and the police study the crime scene, they mention the word 'semen,' no doubt a controversial term to mention in an early 1970s movie.<br /><br />Tibbs questions Weedon whom he suspects is either a drug pusher or a pimp. Weedon explains that he has no records on Joy Sturges because she was subletting the apartment from another realty company. Tibbs visits the realty company and realtor Woody Garfield (Ed Anser of "JFK") flees and drives off, essentially doing an O.J. Simpson until he crashes his car after a lengthy but tame pursuit. When Tibbs proves that Woody didn't kill Joy, he allows him to leave, with his disgruntled wife, Marge (Norma Crane of "Penelope"), prepared to file for divorce after the revelation that he paid a hooker to stay in an apartment.<br /><br />Tibbs tracks down handyman Mealie and clears him of the crime, and then he goes after Weedon. Luckily, for Tibbs, our hero catches the evil Weedon in the middle of a narcotics transaction. One of Weedon's henchmen assaults Tibbs, but Tibbs dispenses with him briefly before he embarks on a long foot chase after Weedon. Eventually, he corners Weedon in an underground parking garage and they shoot it out. Guess who wins.<br /><br />The scenes in the Tibbs' household are more interesting than his investigation. Andy runs rampant, striking his sister, and smoking in the garden. Our hero wants him to clean up his room. When Andy refuses, Tibbs pops him three times on the jaw. These child rearing scenes could probably never be handled today as they were back in 1970. At the end of the movie, as if to solidify the family sequence, Tibbs is seen walking off with his wife and kids. There is on confrontation between Valerie and Virgil about the welfare of their children and how his long hours at work has affected them.<br /><br />Director Gordon Douglas directs in competent fashion. Surprisingly, for a film released in 1970, the filmmakers never play the race card. In one scene, when Tibbs searches a billiards parlor owned by an African-American, we see a mixed breed of races scowling at the hero when he finds Mealie and leaves with him in tow.<br /><br />Altogether, "They Call Me MISTER Tibbs" is a poor follow-up to "In the Heat of the Night." Mind you, Poitier delivers another fine performance with nuance, but everything looks prefabricated. All of the sets look fake and there isn't much physical violence: one underground parking lot shoot-out that doesn't last long and a fight. Beyond Jones' seminal jazz score, the only surpriseand it really doesn't qualify as a major surprise more like a convenient contrivanceis the ending. Donald Medford's "The Organization" followed "They Call Me MISTER Tibbs" as the second, more action-packed sequel. | 0 |
5,613 | [
1200,
1300
] | 912 | 1,204 | "Happy Days" was produced and broadcast from the mid-1970's to the early 1980's and seems to get more ridiculous with age. At the time of its broadcast, most viewers who grew up in the 1950's were in middle age with families, and the scenes at Mel's Diner probably brought an artificial nostalgia to them. The Fonz was of course the coolest of the cool (although the actor Henry Wrinkler to this day has never learned how to ride a motorcycle). Richie Cunningham was the all-American blond-haired kid who would probably be elected student body president. Potsie was Richie's best friend--the star of the show has to have a best friend, I guess. And Ralph Malph was the bumbling sidekick to the Fonz, if not the entire group. I loved it when the Fonz would beat up on poor Ralph Malph. And there was Mel, the middle-aged lug who ran Mel's Diner. And of course who could forget the appearance of Mork? Was this really the 1950's? Ironically, films produced during the 1950's, such as "Rebel Without a Cause" and "The Wild One" have gotten better with age and portray the period more honestly than this show which was produced 20 years after the period it portrays.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the TV show "Happy Days" is not in the same league as "Rebel Without a Cause" or "American Graffitti" for that matter. "Happy Days" may have captured some aspects of the 1950's with its burger diner, juke boxes, cool cars, and tacky plaid shirts, but it is more a nostalgic idealism done strictly for laughs rather than an honest portrayal. "American Graffitti" had something to say about young Americans in the 1950's whereas "Happy Days" seemed more about what middle-aged people of the 1970's wished the 1950's had been like. The result was a kind of watered down fabrication that really has nothing to do with the 1950's. "Happy Days" is, at best, a comedy-fantasy with some of the artificial culture of the 1950's as its backdrop. As pointed out by another reviewer, the all-American kid Richie Cunningham would probably have been chastised for befriending the likes of a drop-out like Fonzie. And Mel would probably forbid Fonzie from entering his Diner.<br /><br />A quick history: "Happy Days" was originally a pilot called "Love in the Happy Days" that was rejected for broadcast. Comedy pilots that had themes concerning sex and romance that did not make it to pilot airing sometimes appeared on the infrequently broadcast show "Love American Style" which was often aired in place of baseball games that had rained out or other unexpected programming cancellations and/or alterations. In short, "Love American Style" was a throw-away show that contained all these one-episode comedy pilots that never made it to a slotted debut. "Love in the Happy Days" did appear as a "Love American Style" show sometime in the early 1970's, but at the time TV executives could not foresee how a show about 1950's young people would be popular, particularly during the hey-day of comedy shows centering around middle-aged people, such as The "Mary Tyler Moore Show" (and its subsequent spin-offs such "Rhoda"), "The Bob Newhart Show", and "All in the Family". (How things have changed since now most TV sitcoms are about young people and the industry avoids most shows about middle-aged people like the plague!) <br /><br />Subsequently, one of the young stars of "Love in the Happy Days", a child actor from "The Andy Griffith Show" named Ron Howard, got the chance to star in a film about young people taking place in 1959 called "American Graffitti" directed by the relatively unknown George Lucas whose previous "THX 1138" had bombed miserably at the box office. Even when it was premiered to movie executives, again the studios could not see how a movie about young people in the 1950's could become popular because it didn't "fit" with what had been popular in the past, although they didn't realize that much of the movie-going audience had been young in the 1950's. As everyone knows, the movie was a huge hit, and studio executives recognized that they had completely misjudged their audience. Somewhere during the theatrical run of "American Graffitti", TV executives realized they had a comedy pilot in their vault that was a lot like "American Graffitti". They brought it back with the original cast, plus Henry Wrinkler as "The Fonz", re-titled it "Happy Days" and the rest is TV history as it became one of the most popular shows of the 1970's.<br /><br />"Happy Days" now seems ridiculous. The characters are flat and cardboard, never being more or less than what they superficially are. The issues they deal with are trivial. And their reactions appear mindless and even silly. Nowadays, the character of the Fonz seems to be a caricature of, well, The Fonz. Was the idea to be a kind of parody of Marlon Brando's character in "The Wild One"? Looking on the show with fresh eyes, I feel the producers really missed out on a great opportunity to present the 1950's with depth and realism that still could be fun and entertaining. Instead the producers decided on cheap laughs for quick bucks. This is definitely a show that has not withstood the test of time. "American Graffitti" has many of the outward appearances of "Happy Days" but it had an edge. It had an honesty about the characters and their issues. "Happy Days" took the look of "American Graffitti" but failed to take its heart. | 0 |
5,796 | [
1200,
1300
] | 952 | 1,216 | The commercials for RAT RACE made it look too juvenile for me to enjoy, but since my boyfriend adores this movie (and the soundtrack), I finally relented and watched it with him tonight. I make him watch David Lynch films and all sorts of obscure indie stuff (I recently forced URBANIA on him), so I felt I owed him an innocuous Hollywood product.<br /><br />I didn't want to hurt his feelings, so I saved my bitching for y'alls. Yeah, RAT RACE has its moments, but a great deal of it irritated me. Let's start at the beginning. RAT RACE was marketed as a "family film," so I was a little surprised to discover that the first scene centered around a porno movie. (I can hear it now: "Mommy, what does AFRO WHORES mean?") This scene has no purpose in this movie other than to cram some naughtiness into a PG-13 movie.<br /><br />And while we're still on the segments in the casino, it's pretty convenient that all the characters happened to play, within the same time frame, the slots that held the gold coins. What would have happened if they didn't? Would those millionaire gamblers just sit around and wait? And how did they get those gold coins in the slots in the first place?<br /><br />But I'm belaboring a plot point that's necessary for the movie to exist, so I'll press on. About Whoopi and her long-lost daughter: they're meeting for the very first time, yet throughout their whole ordeal they don't discuss with each other anything about themselves. Why make their relationship such a presumably complicated one? Couldn't they have just been, say, a mother and daughter on vacation together? Why the business concerning a long-ago adoption? And why portray the daughter as a hard driving career woman chained to her cell phone who never again needs contact with her business? Did the screenplay just forget about this subplot and character trait?<br /><br />This illustrates the main weakness of this movie - the characters are inconsistent and interchangeable; it's exhausting when everyone is equally zany and with no identifying traits. And another thing - the events aren't plausible. Oh, sure, the characters can do some quirky things, but the characters themselves have to be believable. Take THE NAKED GUN (another Jerry Zucker movie) for example. Frank Drebin has some pretty exaggerated moments, but everything he does is, in theory, possible in his world. (Jane is also funny, but it's a different kind of funny, which makes all the difference.) A character in RAT RACE defying natural laws by leaping onto a speeding train destroys any plausibility the movie may have; these clearly aren't real people, so why should I care about them?<br /><br />Another problem I have with RAT RACE is a moral one. The characters obtain their modes of transport almost totally by theft. I know, I know, this is just a silly comedy, and the same actions didn't bother me fifteen years ago when I saw MILLION DOLLAR MYSTERY, but there's a lot of lawbreaking in RAT RACE, and it bothers me now. And I won't delve into the whole airport-sabotage sequence other than to wonder if the screenwriters didn't consider the real-life implications of such an action; was that scene funny before 9/11?<br /><br />I'll skip over the distasteful bits concerning the heart, the drugging of one's family and the Nazis (whose buildup and payoff worked better in an episode of "Seinfeld"), and move on to complain about the acting. Rowan Atkinson started out annoying and ended insufferable; I don't know when I liked a comical character less. And the three Oscar winners need new agents. Whoopi came off best, but she didn't have much to work with (loved the copper perm and purple lipstick though); Kathy Bates' part was shrill but mercifully brief; Cuba, was...oh, man. Cuba, babe, please fire your agent! Following INSTINCT and CHILL FACTOR, this is your third strike (be glad I haven't seen PEARL HARBOR or SNOW DOGS) - it's time to give your '97 Best Supporting Actor Oscar back to its rightful owner (Edward Norton, for PRIMAL FEAR). An actor of your stature has no business running half-naked through the desert and being checked out by a transvestite Lucille Ball impersonator. Do you even read the scripts to your movies anymore, or are you reaching into a bag and pulling your next project out at random?<br /><br />There's other small points that bother me (how did Grisham and the hooker get to the loot so fast?), but, basically, RAT RACE amounts to little more than your basic batch of character types being hindered by arbitrary obstacles on their way to a rather underwhelming and inexplicable ending. They give the money to charity? What kind of ending is that?!? Yeah, it's the "noble" thing to do. Never mind the probability of cross-promotion/licensing whores Smash Mouth (do they ever say no to selling out?) putting on a benefit concert in the middle of the New Mexico desert, but who would honestly do such a thing? Yes, they say it's the journey, not the destination, that makes a trip worthwhile, but there's no journey without a destination. If there was ever an example of a "wrong happy ending," this would be it. What a bummer end to a movie that, despite my nitpicking here, I did enjoy parts of (I confess to enjoying the bit with the cow and some of the Lucy stuff along with the character with the tongue piercing - at first I thought his indecipherable speech would run me up a wall, but he grew to be my favorite).<br /><br />But as far as my boyfriend knows, I found RAT RACE quite funny and charming.<br /><br /> | 0 |
5,863 | [
1200,
1300
] | 950 | 1,208 | Navy Seals is an ignorant, racist and complacent movie which thoughtlessly uses the Middle East conflict as the backdrop for an action flick concocted for a comfortably sheltered American Mid-West audience. The conflict, as well as those involved, is used simply as cannon fodder to glorify the photogenic young Americans who proudly kill Arabs for the good of 'freedom'. But what is worse is that the film's action scenes are sloppily handled and unexciting, which prevents Navy Seals from working even as a mindless shoot-'em-up.<br /><br />Charlie Sheen's character (Hawkins) is disgusting, obnoxious, ignorant, reckless and, above all, racist. He refers to the Middle East as a 's**t-hole' and to its inhabitants as 'rag-heads'. Throughout the film, the Navy Seals' characters are glorified through the use of the Lebanese natives as cannon fodder. They indiscriminately massacre these people with a consequence-free attitude. There is even the tasteless murder of a young Lebanese boy who is shot by Hawkins; Hawkins makes fun of his language before shooting him whilst making another humorous quip. Besides being tasteless, this should be unacceptable. The film's extreme (though predictable)pro-American stance is also revolting. This can be seen when the Lebanese-American female journalist informs Hawkins that terrorists cant be made to talk because 'they are religious zealots.' Hawkins then retorts with 'yeah, and we are the Navy Seals!' The implication is obviously that zealots are meaningless next to American military might. Moreover, even after insulting this journalist's racial heritage and treating her like a sex object, the script demands her inability to resist this disgusting thug and she still ends up sleeping with him - because he is an All-American Navy Seal. This marginalizes the journalist's character by making her submissive to the 'superior' pro-American attitude of Hawkins despite his insulting behaviour toward her. Beyond ethics, this plot twist also has little credence as drama. <br /><br />The screenplay is also amateurish. Most scenes are simply strung together without any thought for mood, plot or character development. The 'music video' scene at the golf course, for example is just shoddily edited eye candy. And the two scenes where Charlie Sheen plays the reckless hero are also pointless. In one he jumps off a bridge from moving car just to show his mates how tough he is, and in the other he chases down a tow truck on a push bike and drives his car-off it. Neither scene has a follow-up anti-climax, both are highly improbable, and neither has any bearing on the plot as a whole. They are just candy designed as a vehicle to showcase Hawkins' cheap all-American heroics, and are poor substitutes for character development. Most of the other plot development scenes are also badly filmed and poorly scripted as - in fact this affliction affects the entire movie. Apart from the African American Navy Seal and his wife as well as the characters of Michael Biehn and Charlie Sheen, every other member of the team seems unknown to the audience, so that when the climatic scenes roll around there seems to nobody to root for and anybody's death to lament.<br /><br />In such a film, the action sequences can potentially rescue the production. But here they don't. These are badly directed, badly lit, and showcase badly performed stunts. In fact, their direction is so poor that they are almost incoherent to the viewer, resulting in not only the scenes being incomprehensibly hard to follow, but also in a complete lack of fear and suspense. Poor lighting only adds to their impotence. The explosions look fake, gunshot wounds unconvincing and one of the more daring stunts, involving crashing a Mercedes over a tank, looks just like a stunt which has been staged on a backlot and then poorly edited.<br /><br />The ending of Navy Seals places the coins firmly on the eyes of this production. First there is the obligatory slow-motion 'running-away-from-the-big-explosion-that-should-have-killed-me' scene with Sheen carrying Biehn on his back. This was obviously the default scene intended to be the star of the movie's trailers. Then there is the ending itself when the remaineder of the Seal team, wounded and floating in the ocean, are rescued by a submarine. This submarine had in fact turned for home long before, but of course it had miraculously returned in the nick of time. Topping it all of, despite the Seals' violent and stressful ordeal, and despite the fact that numerous of their colleagues had just been killed, with a number of them still bleeding acutely, they all manage to laugh heartily while blessing America vociferously. Predictable? You can just imagine this ending while watching the opening credits.<br /><br />This movie indulgently uses the Middle Eastern conflict as a vehicle for the macho All-American tendencies of the movies' photogenic young leads. Arabs are treated condescendingly and dismissively, and their slaughter in the movie is used as a fulcrum to glorify the use of American military might against an 'inferior' minority group in a consequence-free environment. The events of 2001 have pointed out that such smug and overconfident trivialising of the conflicts of such minority groups is certainly not a consequence free passtime. The Middle East can no longer be written off as a s**t-hole full of rag heads knocking each other off (to quote Charlie Sheen here); it is now a place in which involvement can lead to severe consequences. Today we are reminded that the consequences of such arrogance can manifest themselves quite close to home. Therefore, in the very least Navy Seals looks pretty foolish these days; but this is to be kind. This is a highly ignorant movie, whose production values and professionalism are equally suspect. Navy Seals is, ideologically and artistically, a complete insult to the intelligence of its audience. | 0 |
5,989 | [
1200,
1300
] | 956 | 1,232 | by Dane Youssef<br /><br />I was kind of looking forward to this one. I enjoy Eddie Murphy and I love it when a star hand-makes a vehicle for themselves or when someone who writes decides to mark their own directorial debut. But when the star's head gets too big for the rest of his body, there's always a danger of a big-budgeted Hollywood vanity production.<br /><br />Will the filmmaker keep it real
or will he just waste amounts of money (the studio's, ours) and time (the studio's, ours & his own) patting himself on the back for an hour in a half? Sadly, it's the latter here.<br /><br />Another thing I really like is when someone breathes new and fresh life into an exhausted and dried-out genre. None of that here. The warring nightclub movies have become so worn-through that even the parodies of it are dreary and done to death. <br /><br />Murphy does neither. He does the most clichéd: He plugs into a routine conventional formula gangster picture and plays it as seriously as if it were "The Godfather." It's like a script where the next draft, they put in the jokes and the new ideas. But it seems like someone with clout just looked at it and went: "No
this is fine."<br /><br />Probably Murphy. He is credited all over this. In the opening shot of beautiful white satin sheets, his name headlines across the credits about five times.<br /><br />THE PLOT: A young orphan saves Pryor's life and Pryor adopts the little ragamuffin. <br /><br />20 years later, Pryor's dump has become a first-class hot spot. They're pulling down big money and a gangster wants their action. He's even got a dirty cop in his employ. But Pryor comes up with a scheme, a la "THE STING." <br /><br />Murphy's screenplay plays like an unfinished first-draft that nobody had the pair to call him on. The actors aren't really allowed to stand-out much, if at all. Even the almighty Murphy seems to be on auto-pilot. <br /><br />Pryor shows class and gentlemanly manners as Sugar Ray (perhaps it would have been better to name his character BROWN Sugar Rayfurther evidence that this one needed a polish), but everyone here is basically just on vacation. <br /><br />The Oscar-nomination the movie received is richly deserved (Joe I. Tompkins' Best Costume Design), but the production values are the only part that makes the '30's feel authentic. <br /><br />Some sets look somewhat fake, but this is supposed to be a comedy of sorts. It's rare one movie gets nominated for both a Razzie and an Oscar (unless it's one of Lucas' new "Star Wars" chapters).<br /><br />It's 1938 and everyone is talking like it's 1988, particularly the comedians. This is a prehistoric white man's formula. And with all these black comedians and satirists, you expect them to skewer the genre or at least bring new life to it. Nope. Murphy is pretty much just coasting here.<br /><br />The great Roger Ebert summed it up perfectly when he remarked in his review: "Murphy approaches his story more as a costume party in which everybody gets to look great while fumbling through a plot that has not been fresh since at least 1938." <br /><br />Jasmine Guy is perfectly cast and seems to be indulging herself in her role and Michael Lerner has all the looks, evil and mannerisms of the prototypical mob boss down pat. And there are moments where Pryor gives you an idea of what a more interesting leader and authority figure would sound like. He gives every scene he's in a feeling of dignity.<br /><br />Would it have been too much to ask that Della Resse sing? Or at least quit embarrassing herself with all her "Kiss My Ass talk?" <br /><br />And the late Redd Foxx doesn't get to leave much of a swan song here. He has some back-and-forth with Resse which could have been some great stuff. Nope. Murphy wastes another opportunity again here.<br /><br />Murphy's Quick is charismatic and likable. But those moments are few and far between for sure. Murphy has never looked better and never been duller. His character made me laugh twice throughout the whole movie.<br /><br />Stan Shaw's boxer with a horrible speech impediment isn't just painful and embarrassing, it's annoying. There's more to comedy than simply showing something unpleasant. You have to incorporate some kind of light touch and funny situation. Watching him strain even the some of the easiest words just makes us feel sorry for him and annoyed with Murphy.<br /><br />Can Murphy write a screenplay? Well
there was "Raw," but that was really stand-up material. He wrote the outline for "Boomerang" and "Coming to America" for sure. But her didn't have the last word there. Maybe a team of ER-like script doctors could've revived this one.<br /><br />Murphy's direction is so slow and quiet, you'd swear he was asleep at the wheel some of the time. He has too many static shots and doesn't seem to know how to build and release suspense. On some level, I think Quick is the real Eddie Murphy. Angry, young, hot-headed and ambitious. But occasionally charming. Now if he were only funny sometime.<br /><br />There's a scene in which Murphy has a femme fa-tale in bed who plans to make love with him and kill him. You can probably guess how it turns out. Like everything else in the movie, this could have been better, but
<br /><br />"Surprisingly," Murphy has not directed another movie since (he got a Razzie nomination). And he no longer writes the finished draft for his films either (he WON the Razzie for writing this!) <br /><br />It's great to look at and the music is beautiful, and there are a few really nice scenes. But that just falls under the category of "gems among all the junk." Not enough of them.<br /><br />Couldv'e been. Shouldv'e been. Wasn't. Oh, well.<br /><br />by Dane Youssef | 0 |
7,144 | [
1200,
1300
] | 988 | 1,261 | No one is going to mistake THE SQUALL for a good movie, but it sure is a memorable one. Once you've taken in Myrna Loy's performance as Nubi the hot-blooded gypsy girl you're not likely to forget the experience. When this film was made the exotically beautiful Miss Loy was still being cast as foreign vixens, often Asian and usually sinister. She's certainly an eyeful here. It appears that her skin was darkened and her hair was curled. In most scenes she's barefoot and wearing little more than a skirt and a loose-fitting peasant blouse, while in one scene she wears nothing but a patterned towel. I suppose I'm focusing on Miss Loy's appearance because she is by far the best if not the only reason to tune in to this creaky antique and to keep watching. You sure won't be attracted by the dialogue, which is hopeless. In one typical passage, Nubi gazes out the window at the departing caravan and waxes poetic: "Always the gypsies, they sing. Weird and sad. When the big sun have breath of fire that burn, and when the pale moon look from behind cloud and breathe air cold as death, they sing." Poetic, or what? Lovers of purple prose will have a field day. I can't help but wonder, though, if in her later years Miss Loy preferred not to recall her involvement with this project.<br /><br />Like so many early talkies this one was an adaptation of a recent Broadway success. The stage version opened at the 48th Street Theatre in November of 1926 and ran for over a year. The play provoked a famous episode involving the humorist and theater critic Robert Benchley, who was known to have an aversion to characters who spoke in thick dialect or pidgin English. According to a much-repeated anecdote Mr. Benchley squirmed uncomfortably through the opening portion of this show. The Spanish village setting (moved to a village in Hungary for the movie, for some reason) gave the actors leeway to practice their accents with varying degrees of success, but Benchley's patience reached its limit when, during a family dinner sequence, a door burst open and an actress dressed as a gypsy girl dashed into the room shouting "Help! Help! He keel me!" She then threw herself at the feet of the mistress of the household and exclaimed "Me Nubi! Me good girl! Me stay here!" At that point Mr. Benchley rose and announced to his companion: "Me Bobby. Me bad boy. Me go now," and left the theater.<br /><br />The film version offers numerous examples of unintended humor but never comes close to Benchley's level of wit. The melodramatic plot concerns the Lajos family: father Josef, mother Maria, and son Paul, a student at the nearby college. We would consider this prosperous family "upper-middle class" as they are landowners with servants and all the comforts of life, but their comfortable existence is abruptly thrown into turmoil when a gypsy caravan arrives in the village and their home is invaded by, yes, Nubi the nubile gypsy girl. She arrives at their door during the storm of the title-- symbolizing stormy emotions, I daresay. The girl is fleeing an abusive relationship and begs for sanctuary. After considering the matter the Lajos family agrees to hide her from her angry lover, who shows up shortly afterward but is turned away. Nubi becomes a servant in the household. Kindness motivates the family's decision to take her in, but soon enough that conniving little good-for-nothing Nubi has paid them back by seducing every able-bodied male in the vicinity, starting with the Lajos' servant Peter, then working her way up to son Paul. Nubi breaks up Paul's relationship with his fiancé Irma (played by Loretta Young, still a teenager), causes him to flunk out of school, and then prompts him to buy her jewelry by stealing the savings of the family's maid Lena (ZaSu Pitts). Lena, for her part, is still mourning the loss of her own fiancé Peter, seduced and tossed aside by Nubi when she turned her attentions to Paul. Ultimately Nubi sets her sights on the pater familias Josef, and I suppose if the running time had been longer she also would've gone after Uncle Dani, Maria, the village priest and God knows who else.<br /><br />I guess it goes without saying that a scenario like this one easily lends itself to parody, but during its first half THE SQUALL nonetheless exerts the undeniable fascination of a daytime soap: we watch, hypnotized, as the Bad Girl works her spell on the men-folk and wreaks havoc like an irresistible force of nature (almost like-- a storm! Ah-haa, another metaphor!). But as the plot machinations grind on the campy fun fades. During the later scenes Nubi is de-emphasized and the focus switches to the dysfunctional dynamics of the Lajos family, and after awhile these people get to be a real drag. The son in particular behaves like an absolute heel, yet the parents never acknowledge this or face up to their own shortcomings; everything, we're told, is the fault of Nubi, that no-good tramp.<br /><br />The men of the cast are dull. Aside from Miss Loy the only actress who can handle performing in talkies is ZaSu Pitts, terrific as usual. The mother of the Lajos household is played by Alice Joyce, a longtime silent star who was out of her element with speaking roles, and who retired soon after this. Loretta Young's fresh prettiness provides a nice contrast to Nubi's dusky allure, but her line readings are so awkward it's kind of endearing. No, there's only one reason to watch this flick, and that's Nubi herself. I can't think of another actress who could've played this silly role and managed to come off half as well. I'm not an objective observer, however. I have a desperate crush on Myrna Loy and will watch her in anything, even THE SQUALL. | 0 |
7,350 | [
1200,
1300
] | 968 | 1,201 | Despite decades of tax incentives, in terms of international visibility the Canadian film industry still lags behind most central African and Islamic states (surprisingly few Canadian films are released outside their native shores), and Nouvelle-France aka Battle of the Brave is another example of why. More than any other country, commercial Canadian cinema seems unable to develop an identity of its own and is stuck in pale imitation of other countries' failures. On paper this historical drama could look vaguely promising. There's certainly a rich vein of untapped material in Canada's history as the French and English warred over and bought and sold the colony, though none of it makes the cut here unless you count the odd blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene of characters saying "Wolfe is dead" or "Nouvelle-France is no more" before getting back to the soap operatics. But while this isn't a history lesson, it isn't a drama or the epic adventure the new title promises either: there is no battle in the film unless you count 10 seconds of shelling by a half-dozen re-enactors and one collapsed shed. The town square that is all we ever see of Quebec is a rather obvious flatly lit studio interior, giving many scenes an old TV miniseries look, as does director Jean Beaudin's reluctance to offer much in the way of long shots or even exteriors. What you do get for your money is a simple but drawn-out Harlequin romance about doomed lovers constantly separated by events beyond their control where the biggest surprise is that Fabio doesn't turn up in the cast. It's the kind of film where whenever two characters are about to make the beast with two backs the camera pans over to a convenient raging fireplace or waterfall.<br /><br />An Anglo-Canadian-French co-production that doesn't so much unite once-warring nations as throw any country with a decent tax break into the stew, this massive box-office disaster was clearly intended to be Canada's Titanic - though someone neglected to tell the producers they meant the film, not the ship - but turns out more like Revolution done on the cheap without the battle scenes, crowds or the few moments that threaten to briefly work in the face of overwhelming odds. The Montreal Mirror described it as "so bad that one can't even find the strength to mock it." That's rather unfair, because while for most of its running time the film looks like a below-par 80s miniseries, the last half hour suddenly becomes very funny, with characters accidentally putting their legs in bear traps, dastardly husbands declaring "You'll never see your handsome lover again, cuckold's honor! You'll pay for this, both of you!" and our heroine accused of murder and - gasp! - witchcraft in a trial funny enough to have been in Demi Moore's version of The Scarlet Letter. Throw in caddish British governors, devious slaves and Celine Dion singing at the end and you've got something that at times almost feels like the kind of film that Timbo Hines was aspiring to (and still managed to miss wildly) with his legendarily inept period version of War of the Worlds, albeit without the staggering technical incompetence.<br /><br />Leading man David La Haye's versatility seems limited to the number of other actors he can look like throughout the course of the film: he starts out looking like Andy Garcia, briefly adopts the Al Pacino Revolution look, flirts with the clean-shaven Tchéky Karyo style before turning into a younger Ted Danson as his character ages. While his opening scene where he reacts to news of his father's death with an expression that looks like he's waiting for the director to tell him he can go home now promises a feast of bad acting, in reality he gives the impression more of a mediocre supporting actor who's lucked into a lead at the last minute when whoever was originally cast finally read the script and bailed. He shows willing and gives it a go but the grace and charisma the part needs just isn't there. Billie Piper lookalike Noemie Godin-Vigneau's leading lady doesn't exactly set the screen alight either despite occupying center-stage as the peasant girl who is the prey of giggly Vincent Perez's corrupt and perverted Intendant Le Bigot (that really is the character's name), the duplicitous goateed drunken lackey Sebastien Huberdeau and, saddest of all, Gerard Depardieu's bedridden revolutionary dirty old priest in a manky grey-haired wig. It's a truly pitiful sight to see a once great actor at the absolute rock bottom of his game as he shuffles through the motions looking like he's not just lost the will to act but the will to live along with it. He clearly couldn't be bothered to stick around for the English dubbing sessions (or even a couple of long shots where he is very noticeably doubled). Small wonder he talked of retiring around the time of the film's brief release.<br /><br />Some brief comic relief is provided by Jason Isaacs in his default Patriot mode who overplays Wolfe of Quebec rather like an asthmatic Alf Garnett/Archie Bunker played by Timothy Dalton on speed while Tim Roth's William Pitt stands on the sidelines with the occasional bemused smile of one who's being put up in a rather nice hotel with excellent room service and plenty of days off, though like Colm Meaney's Benjamin Franklin they're both in the film for less than three minutes. (Voltaire and Madame Pompadour pop their heads around the door for a couple of minutes as well but fail to make any impression, comic or otherwise.) The supporting actresses are generally better: Juliette Gosselin and Bianca Gervais as the heroine's real and adopted daughters and a strikingly beautiful Irene Jacob looking for all the world like a young Fanny Ardant are all refreshingly good and deserve much better. | 0 |
7,366 | [
1200,
1300
] | 981 | 1,239 | Why would Burt Lancaster allow himself to play a poor schnook who is ultimately undermined by femme fatale Anna Dundee, played by Yvonne DeCarlo in 'Criss Cross'? The same reason why Robert Mitchum allows himself to be cast as another loser who falls for femme fatale Faith Domergue in the 1950 noir, "Where Danger Lives". Perhaps they both felt it was a good way to show that they had 'range' as actorsthat playing against type, the usual 'tough-guy' role they were known for, would enhance their image as actors who could play any role. But the problem was that roles like Steve Thompson, the pathetic love-sick milquetoast in 'Criss Cross', did nothing to enhance Lancaster's career. Not only is Lancaster completely miscast in the one-note role of Thompson, but there's something inherently unlikeable (and may I say, pathetic) about the film's protagonist in the first place.<br /><br />'Criss Cross' is an interminably slow-moving film. Among the many unnecessary scenes in the film is at the beginning: the flashback which chronicles Thompson's confrontation with Dan Duryea's Dundee at the nightclub. Everything that occurs in that initial flashback is explained later in the picture: the illicit affair between Steve and Anna, Steve's strained relationship with Martinez the cop and his bad blood with Dundee. If Director Siodmark felt compelled to begin the film with a flashback, why not keep it under three minutes? I think it would have been more effective.<br /><br />In 'Criss Cross', it takes quite awhile before the protagonist commits himself and steps out of the 'ordinary' world of Act One. That's the scene where he's "passing by' and 'runs into' Anna at the nightclub. And notice how Siodmak spends so much time cutting back and forth between Anna dancing and Steve staring at her? In addition to the cross-cutting, he also spends a great deal of time focusing on Esy Morales and His Rhumba Band than moving the story along.<br /><br />Up until the crisis of Act Two, the story plods along with Thompson having various uneasy encounters with Anna and then drowning his sorrows at his usual watering hole. At the midpoint of Act Two, he learns that Anna has run off and gotten married to Dundee. It's becoming more clear at this point that one of the film's central weaknesses is that Dundee is never on screen throughout most of the second act. There are no confrontations between Thompson and Dundee during this time and we're left with the rather unexciting machinations between the two lovebirds. As it turns out (and Anna 'explains' this later to Steve), the reason why she left was not only because he disappeared for eight months but she also felt pressure from Steve's mother as well direct threats from Martinez the cop who implied that he would see to it that she ended up in the Women's House of Detention. Anna goes back to Steve because she realizes she made a big mistake with Dundeeit turns out that he's been beating her and she's now scared of him.<br /><br />One of the silly refrains uttered by more than one character in Criss Cross is that you can never hijack an armored car. But everyone acts so surprised when Steve points out it can be done if it's an 'inside job'! You would have thought that Dundee would have known about Steve's 'profession' as an armored car driver and propositioned him beforehand. But of course Steve needs to make the proposal so that Dundee won't kill him after discovering his affair with Anna (if they're so afraid at getting caught, why do Steve and Anna meet at his apartment where Dundee can so easily find them?). I really got a kick out of Finchley (played by Alan Napier), the 'brains' of the operation. Dundee is so dumb that he has to hire this alcoholic ex-professor type who plots out the heist on a map. Oh there is the matter of procuring the ingredients to construct the gas bombs used during the robbery and of course Finchley is good at that too!<br /><br />The only really well done scene in the entire film is the armored car robbery. The editing was quite good as it depicted the rising action of a heist gone bad. As the gas bombs go off, the brutality of the gang is shown in high relief when Dundee murders the innocent Armored Car Guard.<br /><br />The climax of the film is as drawn out as the rest of the film. Why does it take so long for one of Dundee's goons to kidnap Thompson? There's that nurse, then the goon is waiting outside, then he comes in and pretends that he's a friend, Steve falls asleep and finally after he awakes, the goon kidnaps him.<br /><br />When Steve finally meets up with Anna at the house, we wonder how Anna got her hands on the cash. Did she somehow steal it from Dundee after the heist when he went out to dinner? It's never explained. Even worse, Anna suddenly becomes the evil femme fatale out of the blue. Before, her selfishness and attraction to Dundee can be explained by her perceived rejection at the hands of Steve and Martinez's threats. But after going back to Steve because she fears Dundee, she inexplicably turns on him when he is most vulnerable. Just as there is 'instant coffee', you have 'instant femme fatale'.<br /><br />In "Film NoirAn Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style" by Silver and Ward, the authors hail 'Criss by Cross' as "one of the most tragic and compelling of film noir". I beg to differ. In order to have tragedy you need characters that have great depth and in order to be compelling you need a story that's plausible. Criss Cross has neither. It's an overrated "B Movie" that somehow has found itself in the pantheon of art house noirs. Once again, the herd mentality has triumphed in evaluating the pictures of yesteryear. | 0 |
7,528 | [
1200,
1300
] | 988 | 1,229 | For most people, RoboCop 3 is the film that really is the big disgrace for the Robo series. It has few fans, and most people hate it for it's shameless commercial PG-13 approach. Now, I'm not going to say that RoboCop 3 is any good. Frankly, it pretty much sucks. But as far as being a properly shot and executed film, it surpasses this piece of circuit chaos. Yes, the truth of the matter is that RoboCop 2 is the worst of two bad and unnecessary sequels to a near-masterpiece. So what if RoboCop 3 turns Robo into a cartoonish super hero in a ultra mainstream production for kids to enjoy - at least it's doing it openly. I don't know where RoboCop 2 begins and ends, I don't know what or whom it's about, I don't understand what's going on in it, I don't understand which jokes are deliberate and which aren't, I will go insane if I try to understand the characters, I see nothing of any value in anything anybody is saying, I can't believe anybody looked at the shooting script and figured it would work and I can't believe that Irvin Kirshner saw the finished result and figured that he liked what he see. He probably didn't by the way, neither Miller, nor Weller nor Allen did. It's not hard to see why.<br /><br />Now, RoboCop 2 has it's fans, I know this. Mostly they belong to this league of absolute anti-pretensions, dismissing anybody who expected any depth, or subject matter from the first film, as academic Roger Ebert Sith apprentices. It's just a lot of fun, a good piece of action and great entertainment, the argument goes. Yeah well, I guess if you just don't listen to what any of the characters are saying you could fool yourself that we might as well have Arnold in the suit instead of Weller. Don't get me wrong, I like a good action film, with pure entertainment value as it's only - most satisfying - virtue. But RoboCop 2, sir, ain't no such thing.<br /><br />Look at the first couple of scenes. This horrible actor makes Robo repeat that he's just a machine, and then goes into this operatic speech about how he could never be a man, where-after Murphy's wife (who's suing OCP for robot-stalkings) walks in out of the blue and have this sad little moment with him, and then is never heard of again! I surely would like to go in to this film scene by scene, because every one has these kind of absurdities in them. It's like a twelve year old fan boy has done the screenplay, the characters act totally random and first say this, then say that. OCP wants to stop crime with a new Robo, especially this drug called "nuke" but then it seems they really just want to become this big capitalist empire and control the entire city politics are abandoned I guess, understandable given the comic relief mayor, The villain (played by Tom Noonan, who did a better version of this in Last Action Hero and that's saying a lot) is an addict, but is still used for this machine. The woman behind it all has an agenda which is impossible to understand.<br /><br />Speaking of twelve year olds, this film has the infamous role of "Hub", this mad kid who swears and kills people, played by a child actor. I'm not going to be all moral about it, it's a free world and if you want a psycho kid in your action movie, go for it. I don't know how much of Frank Miller's original vision was put into this, but the credits at least acknowledge him as conceiver of the "story". And, if I zoom out, I could see this as being quite a cool character. It's grim for sure, to have a maniac killer kid but then again this is the world of RoboCop and who would be surprised? This whole business with the OCP trying to become this giant monopoly over everything, is properly dystopian and good as well. Also, the idea of RoboCop getting in touch with his wife and kid, having them embedded into the story somehow - would also be great, and as far as I can see a natural and logical step if they now had to make a RoboCop sequel.<br /><br />But, of course, these are just ideas. As many people have already said, the screenplay is 100% mess. The kid has one scene (the torture scene) where it's hinted that he in fact is just a stereotype messed up kid, and then we have this unimaginable scene where he is dying and gets all soft and friendly towards ol' tin head. Why doesn't he just take up his uzi and try to take him down with his last breath? Isn't that what his character would do? Does he give his life a little second thought there on his death bed? Not necessarily, given that his last words are "it sucks", so why? It really makes no sense, and this can be said about everybody, no everything, in this film. IS there a strike in the police force? IS RoboCop machine or man? What's the deal with turning Robo into this community service machine for 10 minutes? I mean, sure, it's pretty funny I wouldn't deny that. But why build it up, and then discard it? And why the hell is Allen so criminally underused? and what is it Weller has an obvious urge to express with his character and yeah, well, the threads are many and the mess is enormous.<br /><br />This review is just as messed up as the film. The only reason I give an extra star up there is because of the actors from the first film, I'm sure they had good intentions with it. I mean it's something somewhat stable, some kind of anchor in this sea of bad movie making. | 0 |
7,556 | [
1200,
1300
] | 989 | 1,248 | "Oh, you pilots are such men." "They don't call it the cockpit for nothing, honey." Dialogue like that is just one of many reasons why The Concorde
Airport '79 (or, if you saw it in the UK where it dragged its heels getting released there, Airport '80: The Concorde) was the last and by far the least of the series. The disaster movie was in dire straits in the late70s, what with The Swarm having offered much unintentional hilarity and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, When Time Ran Out and City on Fire simply offering much boredom, and the desperation to find a new spin on the genre is all too apparent here. This time it's a conspiracy plot, with Susan Blakely's news anchorwoman discovering billionaire boyfriend Robert Wagner has been selling arms to terrorists and the North Vietnamese. Naturally, she decides to tell him everything rather than make the story public, but, he fobs her off by explaining "I'm a very rich man. I have everything in life I could ever want. Why would I jeopardise that by doing something so incredibly stupid?" Just in case she doesn't buy that line, rather than, say hire a hit-man to kill her on the ground, he decides to do things the smart way by planning to destroy the Concorde while she's flying to Moscow via Paris. "I've done a lot of things I've been ashamed of, but I am not a murderer," he insists indignantly on his way to reprogramme a guided missile to destroy the plane. So, nothing incredibly stupid there. And when that fails, he sends a jet fighter after it. And when that fails
<br /><br />Don't even think of looking for anything resembling logic here: this is real bottom-of-the-barrel stuff that even the studio gave up on and marketed as a comedy in the US after critics laughed it off the screen. Where the previous three entries all had the look of glossy big-budget entertainments, this small-screen friendly effort (the only one not to be shot in 2.35:1 widescreen) doesn't even manage to make the Concorde look good, which is quite a feat. TV veteran David Lowell Rich presumably got the directing gig because he was fast, cheap and had previously directed TV movie SST: Disaster in the Sky where Peter Graves' supersonic airplane found itself unable to land due to sabotage and Senegalese flu (which was not, intentionally at least, a comedy despite the presence of a young Billy Crystal in the cast) and seemed like the natural choice for what looks like a $14m TV movie that somehow escaped into theatres when no-one was looking.<br /><br />Cast like a bad episode of Hollywood Squares, stars are in very short supply this time round, and most of the few vaguely familiar faces seem to have been rounded up from rehab clinics and busted sitcoms. Alain Delon gives the Hollywood career that one last shot as the pilot, "Happy Fish" (don't ask) George Kennedy moves from the executive suite to the co-pilot's seat in the hope of reminding people of the other movies, while the rest of the ensemble includes a couple of veterans of The Towering Inferno (Wagner and Blakely), a soft-porn star (Sylvia Kristel, trying to go respectable), an Ingmar Bergman regular (Bibi Andersson and she's the one playing the hooker!), David Warner's navigator on a diet having nightmares about being chased by bananas, the voice of the Devil (Mercedes McCambridge), Charo and her Seeing Eye Chihuahua ("Dohn miscon-screw me"), Martha Raye and her weak bladder, Jimmie Walker playing the sax in his seat and smoking weed in the john (in the few moments its not occupied by Martha Raye), Cicely Tyson kissing her credibility goodbye as the obligatory mother with critically ill child and a frozen heart in the overhead locker, airline owner Eddie Albert and trophy wife Sybil Danning occupying the best seat in the house, Ed Begley Jr in goggles, and the Russian Olympic team and their lovable coach Val Avery and his deaf daughter (ahhhh!) on a goodwill tour of the States (who knew about the boycott?). Just to add a touch of The Simpsons to proceedings, Harry Shearer voices one news report in the same tones he'd later use for Smithers.<br /><br />Highlight? Despite the impromptu wedding ceremony during a crash landing, it just has to be George Kennedy diverting a heat-seeking missile by opening the window, sticking his arm out (at nearly twice the speed of sound!) and firing a flare while the plane is upside down! And then Alain Delon turns off the engines so there won't be a "heat source" for the missiles to home in on
Yes, someone actually got paid for writing this, and that someone was future Oscar winner and screenwriter of Munich and The Insider Eric Roth (hey, everybody has to start somewhere), although in his defence it was producer Jennings Lang who came up with the plot. Still, what do you expect from a film that credits stunt balloonists and ends with a shot of the Concorde flying off into the sunset? Amazingly, in one of those won't admit defeat moments studios used to be prone to, Universal shot another 20 minutes or so of footage a couple of years later to include in the network TV showings (not included on the DVD). Sadly its box-office failure led to the fifth entry in the series, the laugh-riot that would have been Airport 1984: UFO, never getting off the ground. Even more genuinely tragically, it was the Concorde used in this film that crashed in France 21 years later.<br /><br />(Oh, and if you're wondering what Charo says to her Chihuahua in unsubtitled Spanish when it's not allowed on board, it's "What do you think? Don't worry. When the revolution comes, I promise you will fly on anything you want. I promise. What a shame, my love. What do they think they are?") | 0 |
7,753 | [
1200,
1300
] | 989 | 1,242 | It is impossible to avoid comparing Zhang Yimou's `Hero' to Ang Lee's `Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.' They were both big-budget Chinese kung-fu films with breathtaking cinematography of Chinese landscape and a cast of super-stars. But aside from the obvious, there is in fact nothing else to compare. `Hero' fails to deliver on almost every level that really matters, proving that big-name stars, beautiful scenery, and action effects are no replacement for a director's artistry and vision.<br /><br />All the marketing hype preceding the premier of `Hero' has done nothing more than make its failure a spectacular one. Much anticipated, `Hero' drew movie-goers in throngs when it first opened at theaters in mainland China and Hong Kong, making it an instant box-office success. However, though the script pleased government censors, Chinese audiences went to newfound heights of caustic criticism and sarcastic wit to express their disdain. On-line critics, both professional and amateur, proclaimed the film `ideologically disturbing,' `from the viewpoint of deep servitude,' written `either by an amateur historian, or someone with ulterior motives.' One article was simply titled, `Hero, you make me sick!'<br /><br />The deepest failing of the film is in its plot, which is not only morally reprehensible, and based on unforgivable historic fallacy but - worst of all for a film - is boring! All blockbuster epic films are known to take some liberties with the facts of history, but `Hero' goes beyond artistic license into unforgivable ignorance when it attempts to glorify an emperor that was as brutal as Stalin or Hitler. `Hero' does not make up for this lack of moral compass by being entertaining or fun. Instead, it is makes a woefully poor attempt at being `deep' and merely manages to be pretentious and preachy.<br /><br />Though historians agree that the First Emperor of China was ruthlessly violent, Mao Zedong was known to have admired this ruler - no surprise, given Mao's own tyrannical rule. Likewise, the Communist government in Beijing sees the allegory that can easily be drawn between the First Emperor and its own iron-fist methods, so they were particularly pleased with this latest work by Zhang Yimou. Tony Leung, one of the stars of `Hero' remarked during an interview to promote the film that the Beijing government had done the right thing in 1989 by crushing the student demonstrations, because it was needed to maintain `stability' in China. For these remarks, Tony Leung received shocked criticisms in his home city of Hong Kong, but he merely stated out loud the underlying message of the movie.<br /><br />Director Zhang Yimou has stated that his goal was to surpass the values of loyalty and revenge that are traditional in kung-fu novels and movies, to reveal a higher wisdom. Unfortunately, his version of `wisdom' turns out to be: THE OPPRESSOR IS RIGHT. In China, where thousands of years of historical reality have rammed this message through, art was the last sanctuary where the individual could actually find freedom from such tyranny. The great popularity of the kung-fu novel can be explained by its ability to provide an escape into an alternate world: one where kung-fu warriors roamed the country seeking adventure and fighting for justice, free from fear and winning against all odds with their super-human skills. Only in the novel did the individual ever win over institutionalized power in China, and only in the novel did the oppressed find their champions. Going against this tradition of the kung-fu hero, Zhang Yimou has not gone upwards towards a higher truth, as he had hoped, but downwards, to the level of government propaganda. It's no wonder the government was so pleased.<br /><br />Some film lovers may secretly wonder, `All moralistic judgments aside, is it at least entertaining?' Fortunately, the answer is a resounding `No!' Because the same tale is told over and over with only slight variations, it becomes tedious to watch. Moreover, the three conflicting versions of the same story serves only to confuse the character development, since it leaves precious little time for the viewer to feel any sympathy for any of them once the `real' version emerges.<br /><br />The film is not without its beautiful images. However, all the scenes fall flat because they do not connect to or enhance the storyline. The use of different colors to distinguish the separate versions of the tale comes across as simplistic and contrived, and the cinematography appears self-consciously rather than truly beautiful. Great for a trailer, but a disappointment once you are there to watch the entire film.<br /><br />For those in China who showed disdain for `Crouching Tiger's' unrealistic kung-fu, much was expected from `Hero.' Jet Li, who plays the title role, is a real kung-fu artist who held national titles before beginning his career as an actor. His previous movies have revealed limited acting abilities, but many hoped that Zhang Yimou could use Li's lithe body movements to full effect while casting him properly in a role that would not task his acting abilities. But it was not to be. `Hero' attempts to go beyond the kung-fu genre, so there are not many fighting scenes, and Jet Li is expected to perform a difficult piece of acting: an inner transformation leading to profound wisdom and self-sacrifice. As the casting director ought to have expected, Li fails miserably. Meanwhile, the only fighting scene that reveals any true kung-fu skill is the first one of the film, between Li and and Donnie Yen. All the scenes that follow are a disappointment, so `Hero' fails to satisfy, even on that level.<br /><br />Though most audiences outside China are unlikely to be aware of the historical mangling of the story of the cruel First Emperor, it seems even more unlikely that they would accept Zhang's version of `Chinese wisdom,' which is anything but. Perhaps the only time an audience coming out of a screening of `Hero' was seen smiling - instead of yawning or frowning - was at the special screening for Chinese government officials.<br /><br /> | 0 |
7,817 | [
1200,
1300
] | 948 | 1,206 | My first impresson of the Saikano: Live Action movie trailer (viewable on YouTube), was "Wow, this could be perhaps one of the few better live-action anime adaptations."<br /><br />This time I was just wrong! Simply put, the live-action Saikano movie was a puzzle missing a number of pieces; put together just enough to get the vague image of it all.<br /><br />*STORY* <br /><br />The movies story vaguely follows the anime and manga, but the movies story is just the frame of a car, rather than a complete automobile. It seems that many parts of the story originally in the anime were left out, altered, or completely changed. In fact the ending is completely different from the manga or anime endings. <br /><br />Characters especially; many left out or had a different feel. The connection between Fuyumi and Shuji is reduced to that of Shuji knowing her because she's the video store lady. Chise's character felt too strong already and only uttered the infamous I'm sorry a few times in the movie. Same can be said with Shuji. We lost the shy uptight yet tall male lead, the song he hums, and his frequent action of calling Chise silly. Other characters like Tetsu and Akemi had a different, toned down feel to them. Perhaps the dropping and toning down of other characters was to focus a lot more on Chise and Shuji, which it did. Way too much. Expecting a lot of sweet action scenes like those in the trailer? Well don't! Those in the trailer plus a few minutes, is the only amount of action you will get. So much of the movie is talking that while I was browsing thru the movie before watching it all, I thought I had gotten a regular Asian romance drama. <br /><br />Pacing was way too fast. In the film, we see the famous scene of Chise armed with small wings and a chain gun arm, in just a little less than nine minutes of beginning it. There is very little time to get to know the characters and connect with them. What they should have done was split it into two movies, or even a trilogy. If it had been not as many things would have to be changed or dropped.<br /><br />But again the movie behaves like a frame. The anime was more of a complete automobile because even if all those little details and such are minor they can really add up.<br /><br />*PRODUCTION*<br /><br />-Visuals- Visuals were disappointing. So much of the special effects turned out looking quite cheesy especially the CGI. Sadly, they were like those found on Sci-Fi channel movies. They are bearable and this movie isn't for the effects.<br /><br />-Music- Music was average. Much of it was orchestral background music except there were really no themes. The film has dropped the addicting song that Shuji in the anime was always humming. A noticeable piece of music though is the ending song, heard in the trailer. Not a bad and somewhat beautiful song. Its a shame that it was not integrated into the movie as itself or an orchestrated version of the song.<br /><br />-Casting- Saikano's casting was also so-so. The main star was Chises actor Aki Maeda, who is most famous for her role in the Battle Royale films. The actor that played Shuji was pretty good but they took away the glasses from the original character. Oh yeah and Tetsuo looks like Lupin the 3rd.<br /><br />Unlike what I've heard from a few others, the acting in the live-action Saikano was not that bad. I rather feel at fault is the way the story was laid out and cramming the series into just a two-hour film.<br /><br />*What can be learned from the live action Saikano:*<br /><br />-CGI- I really wish the CGI in Saikano hadn't been that bad. But even with just that, we could have gotten a few more fight scenes! Probably the most anticipated live-action anime adaptation Neon Genesis Evangelion most likely wont suffer since they currently have WETA Studios assigned to do the effects.<br /><br />-Modernism- Fuyumi owned a video shop. Chise used a audio cassette player to listen to music and gave Shuji a mix tape for his birthday. Why? This movie is made in 2006! Not only that in the movies reality they can create such a thing as Chise so it cannot take place in the 90s! The future is an age of CDs, DVDs, and MP3 players. Hopefully in Evangelion, Shinji will have a Sony Walkman MP3 player. NOT one that plays cassette tapes.<br /><br />-Story & Pacing- As mentioned earlier, the Saikano movie moved too fast and forced the story to drop out many details. It was a smart move upon ADV Films and whoever else, to make Evangelion into a solid trilogy thus allowing more time to retell the story as true to the original as possible.<br /><br />-Characters- Leave most of the character designs alone and let those classic quotes be said! What if the live action Evangelion didn't have Asuka's "What are you, stupid?!" or Shinji's "I mustn't run away!" Sometimes as small as they seem, those frequent quotes add and are who the characters are.<br /><br />*CONCLUSION:*<br /><br />All in all, the live action Saikano movie had potential. It really did. Those you who aren't fans and see this movie: you will be reluctant to start the anime or manga (so don't watch the movie first!) People who saw and liked the anime/manga, don't get your hopes up on this one. Studies show you most likely will be disappointed. It was still fun to see the anime come to life in the live action adaptation but it could have been so much more.<br /><br />Reluctantly, I give the live-action Saishu Heiki Kanojo (Saikano) a 2 out of 5. <br /><br />As Chise says, "I'm sorry" <br /><br />~NekoTakuto | 0 |
7,930 | [
1200,
1300
] | 994 | 1,213 | "There are some things you just don't do" so says the tag-line of this, a 2003 David Zucker comedy about a young man caught up in one horrendous situation after another entitled My Boss's Daughter, and it's the tag-line which should speak for both the people that made this junk as well as those contemplating watching it. There are indeed some things you just don't do, with the placing of mostly all of the sort of content to be found within My Boss's Daughter counting as wholly items you just should not do to the medium of cinema by including them in your picture. My Boss's Daugther is a sordid; creepy; grotesque experience, a clunky and heavy handed piece which is infantile beyond words and disgusting beyond expression. To see it is to endure it, to endure it is to survive it and to survive it is an accomplishment all by itself if any of the cast; writers; extras; Hell, even the guys that worked as runners on the set, aid in producing anything as Earth-shatteringly poor as this again, then it'll be either because they've been sent here by the devil Himself to destroy the medium of film or, it'll be because they've most probably garnered employment on behalf of the Friedberg/Seltzer mob.<br /><br />My Boss's Daugther, (which I'm pretty sure ought to be titled "My Boss' Daugther", grammatically speaking), revolves around its hapless male lead, named Tom Stansfield (Kutcher), and a night in at his boss' house as he chases that seemingly elusive 'goal' that is his young, blonde daughter Lisa Taylor (Reid) - someone whom works within the same department as he does in a towering Chicago office block whilst under the strict eye of Jack Taylor (Stamp). Tom spies Lisa early on, she's taking the subway to work with all the other shmos despite the fact she owns a car and that her father is the boss of the damn company. After trying to talk to her, but having his attempts foiled by a puking baby and a dog for the blind more interested in Tom's crotch than anything else, he finally gets his chance in the office when talk of an after-dark party elsewhere arises and that he ought to come round to her house to visit her - and yes, she does still live with her father. Think Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho with the gender roles between Norman Bates and his mother reversed and then played for laughs.<br /><br />The distinct establishment of character is made painfully apparent in the opening scene in which Tom sits on the subway train and travels to work with his yuppie cohorts. They are a ruthless and smarmy bunch, whom it's made apparent swipe the briefcases of those unfortunate enough to get them stuck in the door in the ensuing morning rush, without ever returning them. One day it happens with Tom there, and his wish is to return it, thus pounding into us that he's-not-like-other-guys(!) This, as he first sees Lisa down the carriage and is somewhat shy to approach her as the other men treat the whole situation as if it would be a breeze if they were in his position. This rather obvious and flat-footed attempt to try and get us to 'side' with Tom sits uneasily with what it supposedly takes to earn a place amidst these co-workers in this company.<br /><br />It is, however, as close as My Boss's Daughter comes to any level of film-making. From a seemingly harmless premise of a boy meeting a girl and wanting to get to know her arrives the comedy from Hell. Tom's arriving at the house will not see him invited to the party, instead he is charged with house sitting Jack's pet owl and generally keeping out of mischief whilst maintaining a spotless house. It's been established Terrance Stamp's character means business in the strictest of manners, firing people for the smallest of things such as the making of a bad cup of coffee. It's not that Jack is a shrewed businessman, he's a cleanliness freak; obsessed with control and a borderline sociopath in his placings of bear traps in the garden so as to keep the children next door off his land. You can imagine, that when we're let into his large and exquisite house with the orders that nothing should go wrong, there's obviously going to be trouble.<br /><br />The film has fun with this premise of danger for about ten minutes. The first time someone uses the worktop to crack open a beer thus marking the pristine top, you may smirk, but by the time half the house is wrecked and Michael Madsen has shown up urinating all over the rug, you've got your head in your hands. Each joke in the film is set up in an almighty clunky manner before it is played out in a way that is closer to slow and excruciating than slick and faultless, the only thing missing as it follows through to the next gag is the sound effect of someone incorrectly changing the gears to a car as it clunks and creaks onto the next pratfall. Inbetween the gross-out wackiness, the film takes time to roll down a route of yucky, saccharine driven romance as Lisa and Tom bond whilst talking of in-workplace and out-of workplace persona's, and that maybe they have more in common than first thought. By the hour mark, the film's opted for gross out gags and hate filled jibes more than anything when there's an entire scene that exists purely to target paraplegics and a dumb subplot to do with a head-injury sporting neighbour on a blind date in which some truly unwatchable sight gags are unfolded. Throughout, Stamp's character enjoys putting people down and asking if the simplest of tasks are too difficult for them, to which the common-place reply ought to be whilst channeling Jack Taylor: was reading the screenplay first too complicated-a concept for you, Stamp? | 0 |
7,948 | [
1200,
1300
] | 986 | 1,209 | The Kindred opens to shots of a Porsche racing along a highway, it catches up with an old pick-up truck and gets held up. As it speeds past the pick-up the driver (Benjamin J.Perry as Ben Perry) shouts obscenities and honks his horn. Distracted he doesn't notice an obstruction ahead and crashes his Porsche. He is quickly freed from the wreckage and is taken to hospital. On the way the Paramedic (Randy Harrington) trying to save him suggests that he probably won't make it. Then the Ambulance is attacked and forced off the road by a van. The driver of the van, Jackson (Jim Boeke as James F.Boeke) beats the Paramedic up and steals the patient. The Ambulance driver, Harry (Charles Grueber) makes no attempt to stop him. Once the injured man has been placed into the van Jackson turns his attention to Harry whom seem to know each other. Harry asks Jackson not to hit him because he broke his jaw 'last time'. Jackson punches Harry to the floor and throws a bundle of money at him. The film then makes it perfectly clear we are in San Fransisco by showing a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge. Sharon Raymond is woken up by a phone call for her boyfriend Dr. John Hollins (David Allen Brooks) to inform him that his Mother, Amanda (Kim Hunter) who has recently had a heart attack has regained consciousness. Hollins works for a company called the 'Geneticell Corporation' and is delighted at the news and heads off to see her. Once there she asks him to go back to his old childhood house in a small town called Shelter Cove and destroy all of her notes and experiments, especially the 'Anthony journals' which Hollins has never heard of, she also claims that he has a brother named Anthony. Back at Geneticell, Hollins talks with a Dr. Phillip Lloyd (Rod Steiger) about his Mother as they had both worked together before they had a falling out with each other, and questions him about her research and if he knows of anyone called Anthony. He claims he knows nothing. When Amanda dies after a visit from the sinister Dr. Lloyd, Hollins decides to carry out his Mothers request and try to find out who Anthony is. While paying his final respects at the funeral a woman named Melissa Leftridge (Amanda Pays) introduces herself to Hollins and says she was a big admirer of his Mothers work and research after she helped her. Because Melissa seems to know so much about his Mothers work he invites her to the house as she may possibly be able to help find some answers to various questions he has. Hollins, Sharon, Melissa and three lab assistants, Brad Baxter (Peter Frechette), Hart Phillips (Timothy Gibbs) and Cindy Russell (Julia Montgomery) plus a girl with a watermelon(!) named Nell Valentine (Bunki Z, great name what were her parents thinking!?). They get down to business straight away but find little of any interest. For some reason no one at this point thinks to look in the basement, which is just as well as there's something down there, something large, slimy and has lots of tentacles. First it kills Duke, the dog. Then it moves on to larger prey. When Hart is attacked by something in a barn Hollins decides he must destroy all traces of his Mothers work and whatever Anthony is. Jointly co-written and directed by Stepehn Carpenter and Jeffery Obrow, Carpenter also acted as cinematographer and Obrow as producer. This is a pretty poor film in my opinion. The script is credited to five(!) writers, Carpenter, Obrow, Earl Ghaffari, John Penny and Joseph Stefano and with five people working on it I'd like to think they could come up with something a little bit better and more coherent than this. Nothing is explained that well, why did Amanda create these monstrous sea creature/human hybrids? What is Dr. Lloyd's interest and his motives? Why does he steal bodies from the back of Ambulance's? Why does he have a basement full of mutants? Why do none of these so-called genetic scientists think to check the basement out? Could Melissa act more suspiciously even if she tried? Why are none of the characters given any background? Why do people keep mentioning a substance found in sea creatures called Hemocynine when 99.9% of the audience isn't going to have clue what their on about? There is also a serious lack of blood and gore, only one person dies on screen, just one! And all the scientists survive in a vomit inducingly mushy 'happy ending'. This is a horror film guys, all we want to see is the slimy monsters kill and eat people in various gory ways. The one on screen death is actually quite cool, someone has slimy tentacles inserted under their skin, in their ear and up their nose in the films only decent horror sequence. To try and up the gore quotent there is a scene where Dr. Lloyd is experimenting on a skinned animal but it only lasts for a few seconds, and in the context of the rest of the film doesn't mean a thing. Melissa also turns into a fish, don't ask. There's no nudity either, which isn't a surprise. The film looks professional enough with decent production values but is just so dull and plods along at a snails pace, we don't even get to see the giant monster in the basement until 15 odd minutes before the end which is far too little far too late, when it does make an appearance the effects are OK and that makes it even more of a shame that it wasn't used more. Overall I was very disappointed and I was expecting a lot better. A horror film with only one on screen death and only three in total, what's the world coming too? | 0 |
8,095 | [
1200,
1300
] | 923 | 1,265 | "San Francisco, Oh you marvelously desolated town, Thank You, God, for destroying it, and making bricks fall on our collective heads, and for pummeling into oblivion tens of thousands of Your innocent, obedient sheep, oh Lord, who art so merciful in thy Heavenly ways..." These should have been the lyrics to the title song of this oh-so inspiring and utterly mindless film.<br /><br />The movie starts well enough, with Gable discovering a Cinderella with a highly annoying but much-appreciated operatic voice, and she soon shoots to stardom. One of the many problems with our Cinderella is that she is played by Jeanette MacDonald, who, if one "takes the time" to look through all that make-up and 30s glitz facade, realizes that she is kind of ugly. Too ugly to be playing THIS role, anyway. Yet Gable and everyone else fawn all over here as if she were some damn beauty or something. Another problem with Cinderella is that her character is so utterly humble, wholesome, innocent, God-loving, kind, and generous - enough to make you vomit for a full hour. MacDonald plays her (admittedly one-dimensional) role with the sort of "ahhh", "oh", and "ooh" that serves to annoy rather than make her sympathetic.<br /><br />Tracy has been better, and had better roles, than playing this clichéd, heart-of-gold, God-loving, non-child-molesting priest (who boxes in his "free time" - as if priests have anything to do - how cute). Even the ever-reliable Gable is not up to his usual standard; he is far too animated, and his character is far too selfless for someone who is supposed to be an ambitious Western "scoundrel" (though this, obviously, is the script's fault).<br /><br />The plot is basically this: Gable and his rival Holt play ping-pong with Cinderella - using her as the ball. How? Well, first she is working (singing) for Gable, then she works for the square Holt, then she goes back to Gable, only to return very soon to Holt. (And, of course, both want to have her as girlfriend/wife.) And if the earthquake hadn't interrupted this table-tennis plot, it's a safe bet that she would have been bouncing back-and-forth another ten times, the wishy-washy little princess that she is.<br /><br />There are many, far too many in fact, musical numbers. It's almost as though they tried to make the first "disaster-movie musical" ever. How silly. The stuff she sings in Gable's "joint" is okay, but when she starts belting out those high-pitched, annoying whines during the opera segments, that is when I felt that my ears were unprovokingly and unjustly attacked by enemy sound-fire. In fact, there is an opera number that lasts 6 DAMN MINUTES. 6 may seem like little, for those who haven't had first-hand Vietoperanam experience with such horrors of audio torture, but it's like with dog years; a dog's year is equivalent to seven human ones. A minute of opera is equivalent to 100 minutes of Chinese torture (or a dog urinating acid on your leg).<br /><br />I thought this was a disaster movie, but it's more like a near-disaster movie. (I read that some of the dialog in this film was written by a SILENT-ERA FILM DIRECTOR. Jesus...) The melodramatic, and only occasionally amusing, proceedings get interrupted by the real star of this movie (namely, the earthquake), only after well over one-and-a-half hours. When Joe the earthquake finally does shake up the city, and our clichéd characters in it, I almost felt like saying "Thank God, death and destruction are finally here!". Unfortunately, Joe comes too late into the movie to save it from its increasing mediocrity; the scenes of devastation are very good, but even the earthquake part of the movie gets ruined (pun) by a highly annoying, religious ending. You see, Gable, who professes to be an atheist all along (without actually using the word itself), finally finds MacDonald alive - after having searched for days - and suddenly he is converted into a believer because Cinderella is alive?!! How stupid! All that tells me is that Gable's character is a weak-minded moron.<br /><br />The movie ends on a very dumb note, indeed. Gable, having said "thank you" to God for "saving" his girl (and he does his on his knees) "finds" God (sees the light), and the movie's little old devil Gable converts himself into a believer. How very God-fearingly American an ending...<br /><br />Of course, no one thought of asking this "God" why the hell there was an earthquake in the first place! The sad and unintentional irony is that Gable in the end becomes a "sucker"; all along he had made fun of "suckers" who fall for the holiest scam of them all - namely religion - and in the end he himself becomes one. Now that's what I call a triumph of the human spirit! Another irony is that the ending was supposed to have improved Gable as a person, but I see it quite differently; on the contrary: it took only one big Joe to turn Gable into a God-fearing, meek, little, obedient believer - who joins the world's sheep family. And as if this intellectual downfall of Gable's wasn't pathetic and disappointing enough, this first-ever "earthquake musical" ends with a truly hair-raising (take this word as you will), noble, and hope-inspiringly beautiful mass-choir scene: dozens (or hundreds) of earthquake survivors and proud, proud citizens of Frisco spontaneously (or did "God" perhaps arrange it?) sing all together the title song in hope for a better, brighter, Joe-less future. Hallelujah! If you are a "sucker" for Hollywood sentimentality, do not skip this movie. | 0 |
8,742 | [
1200,
1300
] | 982 | 1,263 | I just realized why the colors and sets in "Sakuran" were so flashy and gaudy, and just painful to look at. The story is about a high-class prostitute known as an oiran in Japanese. Their kimono were always flashier and gaudier than other kimono so that the oiran would stand out. But the director, Mika Ninagawa, had to make sure that the director stood out even more than the main character, or even the story. <br /><br />What Anna Tsuchiya did in the movie just gave me the creeps. You couldn't call it acting. It was nothing more than catering to her flipped-out, high-school-girl fan base. Hey Anna, good luck on that one as you get older. Yeah, right, an oiran as a crude and vulgar, prone- to-violence, biker chick. Didn't we already see you portray this character in a more appropriate movie?<br /><br />The story was painfully boring and predictable. What is the story of "Sakuran"? An obnoxious little bitch ever remains true to her self which is just that: an obnoxious bitch. She finds that, inexplicably, men are attracted to her and that she has an unexplained ability to manipulate men and becomes a successful, high-class prostitute even though she talks and behaves like she's a member of a female biker gang. This so-called seductive ability of hers is talked about but we never see it in action, probably due to the ineptitude of the main, pretend-phony-biker chick, I mean "actress." <br /><br />The main character of the movie makes a wealthy and powerful man angry at her because she keeps him waiting while she services a much more lowly customer. Not very oiran-like, is it? How could such a woman ever become an oiran? Oh, because the previous oiran got herself killed and the house needed a whore that could demand a high price. Who would pay a high price for a slut so cheap? Rumors get around. How could there be no repercussions for what she did to the powerful guy? Because the screenwriters are dolts. They just made up a bunch of crap.<br /><br />Then an even more wealthy and powerful guy falls for her (why?) and she throws him over for a penniless guy who is generally cold and distant toward her but respects who she really is (which doesn't make sense. How can anyone respect someone so worthless?).<br /><br />Speaking of crap, it's like the director squatted down and took a huge, psychedelic-colored dump on the aesthetics, culture, and society of the Edo Period. What of such things as sabi, mono no aware, wabi, subtlety, elegance, a rigidly hierarchical society? All shat upon by a director who comes off as a senseless, nouveau-riche parvenu. The amazing thing is that so many other Japanese, in watching this movie, squatted down around the director and took steaming spoonfuls of this blazing-colored stinking crap and exclaimed how tasty it was.<br /><br />Argentinean tango music with violin and bandoneon as backdrop for the Edo Period when Japan was totally isolated from the international world (except for the 3.7 acres of Dejima)? Why not just have Anna, the bad-ass-biker oiran, answer her cell phone and the rich and powerful daimyo character drive off in a hissy fit in his red Ferrari? The music we had to listen to was jarring and anachronistic (the same as the art design). <br /><br />Near the ending, I liked that there were only two or three tiny flowers on the shrine cherry tree. But, earlier, the second she said she would leave the quarters when it bloomed, we all knew exactly what would happen. How boring, to telegraph the ending so clearly. But what's the point of the old tree blooming? That rich and powerful guy already made the pleasure quarters bloom in cherry blossoms like the mountains of Yoshino in spring. That didn't impress her at all? No, of course not. I already know that about whores. The guys that treat them nicely get kicked in the balls. Maybe it bugs the whores to have people idealize them when they themselves know the truth of who they are: just cheap and worthless.<br /><br />Considering the director's obsession with goldfish, the second to last scene should have been of a goldfish bowl on a verandah accidentally knocked over. Two fish tumble into a stream which carries them off to escape beyond the walls of the pleasure quarters, belying how goldfish are stuck in their bowl and can't survive outside (just like the denizen's relationship with the pleasure quarters). Otherwise the talk of the fate of goldfish has no meaning.<br /><br />In the final scene the cherry trees were full in bloom, but the brevity of the blooms is one thing special about cherry blossoms. I couldn't help thinking that soon enough dusk would wipe away all the soft pink color and warmth from the scene. The sky would go quickly from hints of shadow, into an ever- deepening gloom, and night would fall. It would become cold, very cold. And dark. That really wasn't a happy ending, was it? Romantic love (in the Edo Period?) could survive in the face of terrible poverty and being ostracized for about as long as those cherry trees bloomed. Maybe a few days, unless it rained sooner. But the unconsummated romantic love we see here? It's existence in this period is incomprehensible.<br /><br />Anna Tsuchiya walking in the shoes of an oiran? She couldn't do it. Literally. Check out the scene of her "promenade" where she seems to have the correct footwear on but she has to hold on to some guy's shoulder to keep from tumbling on her ass.<br /><br />I was going to give this movie two stars for the art direction but then I realized what that was all about: sick dominance on the part of the director. Those colors and sets are just the way the director has of screaming, "I'm the most important one here! Me! It's all about me!!!!" | 0 |
8,962 | [
1200,
1300
] | 976 | 1,292 | During an eight-year stretch of the 1980s when Charles Bronson made nine films, only one was released by a company other than the Cannon Group: 'The Evil That Men Do,' a TriStar Films pickup from Sir Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment firm. Bronson was already in the thick of his collaborations with director J. Lee Thompson, which ran through numerous actioners until 'Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects' in 1989.<br /><br />Expectations should run pretty high with Bronson and Thompson working for a better-funded outfit like ITC, but 'The Evil That Man Do' is a great disappointment on many levels. While still from the low budget, B-movie mold of the 1980s, 'Evil' has tantalizing potential for a great film. Everyone in the production department, however, took an easy way out and sold hack work undeserving of Bronson's imprint. 'The Evil That Men Do' had a concept and technical resources that could have been used to make one of Bronson and Thompson's best films, but instead will go down as one of their most average.<br /><br />This 1984 political thriller/actioner opens in brutal fashion with Clement Molloch (Joseph Maher), a British doctor, holding his special training class for political leaders in Surinam. The gray-haired, passive Molloch is an expert on torture methods who is employed by numerous political regimes. In the opening seven minutes, we witness Molloch using electrical current to inflict unbearable pain on Jorge Hidalgo (Jorge Humberto Robles), a dissident journalist. As you may expect, the scene is awful to watch and was cut from the original VHS release.<br /><br />Hidalgo was none other than a friend of Holland (Bronson), a retired assassin who is enjoying life in the Cayman Islands. Holland was approached by the journalist years before to rid humanity of Molloch, but turned the offer down. A Mexican professor named Hector Lomelin (José Ferrer) visits shortly after Hidalgo's death to talk Holland into finishing the job, bringing videotapes of testimony from The Doctor's victims. While in denial at first, Holland eventually agrees to the dirty work, targeting Molloch and his doting sister Claire (Antoinette Bower) in Guatemala.<br /><br />Holland enters Guatemala City with help from an adviser, Max Ortiz (René Enríquez); he poses as a tourist with Hidalgo's widow Rhiana (Theresa Saldana) and young daughter Sarah (Amanda Nicole Thomas) in tow. As with most of Bronson's later output, his character knocks off Molloch's henchmen one by one, crossing paths with a sleazy American diplomat (John Glover) and his supporting hit-man (Roger Cudney) along the way. A brutal ending takes place in the crevices of an opal mine, where The Doctor gets just deserts from several of his victims.<br /><br />'The Evil That Men Do' is based on a forgotten novel by R. Lance Hill and jumps at American political dealings in Latin America during the 1980s. Indeed, 'Evil' is hard-boiled in every sense of the term, as it uses sensationalism and doses of brutality to cover up huge weaknesses in plot and character development. For every plus this film has, there are three or four minuses, resulting from shod craftsmanship.<br /><br />While 'The Evil That Men Do' has a great concept, the film is never truly more than an excuse for Bronson to wipe out foreign-based scum. In the style of bad pulp fiction, 'Evil' is filled with cardboard characters that we never get to know or understand. Holland, despite being played strongly by Bronson, never talks about his inner feelings or explains what motivated him into becoming a killer for hire. Rhiana, a terribly weak part for Theresa Saldana, is disgusted by Holland for much of the way but later feels an affection for him. Where does her love come from, especially after watching Holland kill several people and wanting to go home just a few scenes before?<br /><br />The most interesting characters are actually Molloch and his sister Claire, because so many questions can be asked of them. Naturally, we never find out what has brought them so close together, how and where their torture dealings started, what Claire's exact role in their business is
These plot holes can go on forever, especially with the paint-by-numbers storyline that seems to make things up as it goes along. Why is Hidalgo's daughter brought into such a dangerous situation, other than for her to be conveniently taken hostage by Molloch? If Molloch's bodyguard Randolph (Raymond St. Jacques) clearly saw Holland and Rhiana in the cockfight arena, why is he so friendly with them in a bar afterwords? Is his memory that short? And what really was the purpose, other than cheap theatrics, of Holland throwing Molloch's chauffeur Cillero (Jorge Luke) off a window ledge when the murder could have been handled more discreetly in Claire's apartment?<br /><br />The overall acting is decent and somehow Bronson gives one of his strongest performances. J. Lee Thompson's direction is lacking at points, but may have been compromised by limited time on site. Besides Evil's filming in Mexico, the presence of ITC is clear through better production values, cinematography, and music. Rural locations are well-used to convey the hot and dusty atmosphere of Latin America and cinematographer Xavier Cruz provides rich color and clarity. The orchestral score by Ken Thorne ('Murphy's War') is refreshing in an era of synthesized junk. Oddly enough, these positives only add to the frustration of a good movie that is screaming to come out. Peter Lee Thompson's editing is better than usual, although with more laughable continuity errors.<br /><br />'The Evil Than Men Do' was perfect grindhouse material for the early 80s and I find it hard to recommend for 21st century action fans. The DVD from Columbia TriStar Entertainment is an okay presentation, offering widescreen and standard format with four-language subtitles. While the video quality is well above average, 'Evil' was originally recorded in plain mono audio. The theatrical trailer is offered and actually has a grindhouse feel, with eroded color and fuzzy sound quality.<br /><br />** out of 4 | 0 |
9,561 | [
1200,
1300
] | 897 | 1,235 | Franco Zeffirelli's ("The Taming Of The Shrew," "Romeo And Juliet," "Jesus Of Nazareth," "Othello") third stab at transferring Shakespeare to the screen works very well, with the casting of Mel Gibson ("Mad Max," "Lethal Weapon" and pre-"The Passion Of The Christ" notoriety) in the role formerly owned by Sir Laurence Olivier (and rightly so; see my review on his "Hamlet," arguably the best interpretation of one of the Bard's timeless (and most quoted) tragedies) and redone 5 years later by Kenneth Branagh as a full-bloodied treatment, explaining its 3 hour 22 minute running time, combined with a dream cast (and a lot of little additions, which were well-chosen and expertly done by the contemporary master of William Shakespeare, Kenneth Branagh, the director of "Henry V" and "Dead Again." Joining the "Lethal Weapon" star are Glenn Close ("The Big Chill"), Paul Scofield ("A Man For All Seasons"), Alan Bates, Ian Holm, Michael Maloney (who would be cast as Roderigo opposite Kenneth Branagh and Laurence Fishburne in Oliver Parker's "Othello" (see my review of Olivier's "stage" version of the tragedy, though he only starred in it) and who Branagh would cast as Laertes in HIS 3-hour version of "Hamlet" (a proper homage to Sir Laurence Olivier and his classic version of the play; see my review on that one as well) 5 years later), Nathaniel Parker (who would be cast as Cassio in his brother's version of "Othello" 4 years later) and Helena Bonham-Carter, who would be cast in "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" 4 years later. <br /><br />Zeffirelli intended this movie as a homage to Sir Laurence Olivier (who had died 2 years prior to this movie) and it works pretty well, for the most part. What I was slightly uncomfortable with was Zeffirelli's misplacing a lot of lines and in one scene, he gives one of Hamlet's lines to the Ghost. Also, Helena Bonham-Carter DID NOT convince me as Ophelia. She was too dull and unreal, whereas Jean Simmons (who had immortalized the role in Olivier's version) and Kate Winslet (who did an acceptable job in Kenneth Branagh's uncut, epic revisionist reworking of "Hamlet") were good in the role, with Jean Simmons being the BEST Ophelia ever, that's why she was nominated for Best Actress in 1948 (she didn't win-what a shame). Ian Holm said his lines too quickly, not slowly as I expected him to, in a scene with him, Laertes and Ophelia. But then again, I'm more used to Felix Aylmer and Richard Briers' interpretations of the role and I think that they did better jobs than Holm in their respective versions of "Hamlet" (both done by great directors, actors, text-editors, producers AND stars of all their versions of the Bard's work) as Polonius. <br /><br />The rest of the cast, however, was excellent. The scene where Hamlet confronts his mother was very well done, but Olivier and Branagh heightened the scene to better lengths to create even more emotional intensity and suspense that the scene required. <br /><br />I recommend this version just to pass the time, but it's ideal as a teaching tool for 12th-grade English teachers (I recommend showing Olivier's version first, then Branagh's and finally this version). Despite the film's "PG" rating, there was really nothing objectionable in the movie. Only what the play called for. <br /><br />The Best Versions Of "Hamlet" Are: <br /><br />#1 Sir Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh. Both were so good that I can't decide which one was the best. See my reviews on these versions for more information. <br /><br />#2 Franco Zeffirelli. This one was alright. It started out alright with a scene not in the play, but should've then progressed to the actual beginning of the play, where a guard cries out "Who's there?" "Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself!!" That scene scares the hell out of you because you're sitting quietly and then-bam!!, you almost jump out of your skin. In short, that scene sets the tone for the rest of the play. HUGE blunder on Zeffirelli's part to omit that scene. It also misplaced a lot of lines (and cut others that I think should've been put in), such as the line where Hamlet says to Ophelia "Get thee to a nunnery, why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?"; that line was supposed to have occurred in THAT scene, NOT where it was placed in the film (after the "To Be Or Not To Be" soliloquy. This version struggles between cutting out too much or too little from an excellent piece of literature. Kenneth Branagh would remedy that 5 years later with his uncut version of the tragedy, making HIS version a more fitting homage to Sir Laurence Olivier, as several of the actors (aside from him) had performed "Hamlet" on stage/or on film many times on different occasions. However, Zeffirelli's take on "Hamlet" IS faithful to the play and THAT's what I was looking for. The setup for the final act duel was the same as in Olivier and Branagh's versions, only that the denouement in Branagh's version was more violent than the denouement of the previous two faithful versions (more in line with the play; Olivier toned it down...and it worked equally well) and stuck more closely to the play, with Branagh throwing in a few harmless touches of his own...to very good effect. <br /><br />This version is Not Rated. | 0 |
10,109 | [
1200,
1300
] | 980 | 1,251 | As an ancient movie fan, I had heard much about the controversial movie CALIGULA assessed ambiguously as one of the most realistic epics by some and as one of the most disgusting porn movies by others. I decided to see it in the entire uncut version to evaluate it myself hoping to find something positive that would make justice to the many accusations towards the film. I sat down in my chair one autumn evening and started to watch. The beginning quotation from the New Testament shocked me a bit and raised the first controversy in me...why to entail a sentence from the Gospel by Mark in the movie about pagan Rome? But the prelude pastoral scene with a young half naked couple (Caligula and Drusilla) running hopelessly through meadows seemed quite sentimental. The music which sounded memorably whilst the credits also provoked me in the positive sense. Yet, the negative feelings raised in me quite soon, particularly at the death of Tiberius. The cruelty seemed very intense and sexuality exaggerated. However, it was not that horrific to the middle. During the second half of the film, I felt as if I watched no historical epic but an extremely disgusting porn. In the end, I said to myself "This is one of the movies that one may really hate" ... I am aware that a movie may be controversial but I had never expected that CALIGULA would go that far in removing all limits of taste. I hate this film due to many reasons, but particularly one.<br /><br />CALIGULA does not serve a purpose of an ancient epic (which it claims to be), but Bob Guccione, the director and the founder of Penthouse pornographic magazine, aims at combining film art with porn. That is, I think, the most serious matter the film may be accused of. Movie is an art that should be reigned by taste, by message, by some feeling of epic grandeur whereas this movie kills all limits of good taste. CALIGULA shows the most bestial side of human being in the most wicked, decadent manner. Some scenes are so disgusting that I don't think there are any people whose psyches will not be affected by them. Some say that the Rome under Caligula's reign was so brutal. Yes, it is true. Corruption bloomed at that time, various sexual deviances were preferable to Roman citizens. Yet, I do not think that it is right to focus on these deviations so strictly and make it constitute an emphasis of an ancient epic. I believe that it rather proves the bizarre psyches of the producers and their strange tendencies... <br /><br />HUGE HISTORICAL MISTAKES: The screenplay by Gore Vidal is notorious for inaccuracies. It is noticeable, for instance, with the figure of Proculus (Donato Placido), a historic Roman senator. Yet, the film shows him as a simple soldier on whom Caligula forces his most decadent ways of tortures and rapes. Moreover, Livia was not Proculus wife raped by Caesar on her wedding. What lies behind changing the stories of historical characters into the stories filled with unbelievable vulgarity and violence? Another example of historical travesty is the figure of Caesonia portrayed by Helen Mirren. She is presented as Caligula's wife together with Drusilla, his sister. In fact, Caligula married Caesonia long after the death of his sister. The sexual abuse on his new wife in the temple is a hilarious scene with no historical bases. I also hated the moment with the killing machine - a pure imagination of the director that has nothing to do with historical facts. <br /><br />TECHNICAL ASPECT AND CAST: From the technical point of view, the film is nothing special. The cinematography cannot boast to be exceptionally fine and the sets together with costumes are as well nothing outstanding. Yet, the only strong point of the movie are the performances, particularly the one by Malcolm McDowall as Caligula. He does a perfect job in the main role portraying madness and cruelty of the emperor. McDowall raises the value of the film. If everything bothers you in CALIGULA, you may at least admire his performance. I also fancied Helen Mirren as Caesonia and Teresa Ann Savoy as Drusilla (yet the film is based on a gossip by Suetonius that Caligula made love to his sister). Sir John Gielgud as Nerva and Peter O'Toole as old Tiberius are also memorable. O'Toole does his finest piece of acting in the Capri Grotto sequence portraying the decadence and the exhaust of the old emperor. Yes, I admit that THE ONLY THING I like about CALIGULA are the performances. Therefore, I don't rate the movie 1/10.<br /><br />LAME CONTINUITY: The historical inaccuracy of the film also goes in pairs with poor continuity. Let us analyze just the beginning: Caligula comes to Capri Grotto where he sees the awful pleasures of old Tiberius. Then, after about 15 minutes, the action moves to Rome where a black bird near Drusilla and Caligula's bed constitutes a bad omen. And immediately the characters are again in Capri where Nerva (John Gielgud) is dying...? <br /><br />All in all, I don't recommend to see CALIGULA to anyone. If you want to know the story, read Robert Graves' gorgeous novel I, CLAUDIUS and CLAUDIUS THE GOD or watch Herbert Wise's mini series with the magnificent performance by Derek Jacobi. CALIGULA is a sick film the most serious crime of which is the destruction of art. It is, in its most part, a porn movie that should never be called an epic.<br /><br />There are movies that are truly artistic and sharpen people's taste of beauty,<br /><br />there are movies that are average entertainment; yet they have something to offer,<br /><br />there are movies that show extreme violence; yet they still convey some moral,<br /><br />there are, however, movies that show sickness and decadence for their own sake and consequently harm people's minds,<br /><br />CALIGULA unfortunately belongs to the latest group | 0 |
10,847 | [
1200,
1300
] | 994 | 1,279 | The bearings of western-style Feminism on the various subcultures of India have hitherto remained largely non-existent, the two entities belonging to alien realms and threatening (in the name of tradition) never to coincide. Art imitates life (or so the claim goes) and popular Hindi cinema is no exception, reflecting an underlying misogyny which, regrettably, forms the foundation of much of the collective Indian culture. But why? What is it about the female gender that has rendered it so hateful to the culture that women are routinely subject to the most unimaginable horrors, including rape, murder, infanticide, imposed illiteracy, infidelity, and the subjugation of spirit that goes under the name of 'dowry'? Rajkumar Santoshi's latest offering, "Lajja", asks the same plaintive question, linking the atrocities committed against women through three separate chapters/episodes which comprise the journey of shame endured by its protagonist, Vaidehi (Manisha Koirala).<br /><br />Direction on Santoshi's part is not up to par with the level the story demands. He fails to achieve the necessary sensitivity in depicting the saga of sadness and confronts the issue of misogyny from the side, instead of head-on. Santoshi has recently said that he did not make the film for an international film festival, but rather for the masses of his country. Regrettably, the tackiness shows, and the film too often delves into the action-blood-gore genre that Santoshi specializes in. The film suffers from its jerky, episodic pace and its ending is rather too contrived.<br /><br />The female cast is given much kinder and more rounded characterizations than their male counterparts. The protagonist is played sensitively by the luminescently beautiful Manisha Koirala who proves in Lajja that she is one of our time's more competent leading ladies, and given a proper role and set up, emerges with a truly commendable performance. One wonders how brilliantly she may have shone had the film been made by a director with the appropriate creative intention and appreciation of the issue at hand. Mahima Choudhary puts in a laudable performance and continues to show that she is an untapped talent. Cast as Janki, Madhuri Dixit performs with a never-before-seen fervor and felicity for what truly deserves the name of 'acting.' The role of a street smart performer who finds solace in alcohol and the promise of an unborn child stands as the greatest risk in her cannon of song-n-dance roles which have maintained her marquee status over the past decade. Which leaves the final and most disturbing performance in this would-be feminist saga, that of the ceaselessly talented Rekha. Lajja is Manisha Koirala's film, there can be no doubt about that, but it is Rekha who dominates the proceedings in a performance that digs into your bones and sends echoes of terror through the vestibules of your heart. Rekha dazzles as Ramdulari, foregoing vanity and complacency to deliver a performance that is so replete with authenticity and ingenuity that emotional nudity becomes the mantra of this portion of the film. Comparisons are indeed odious, especially when rendered opposite one of the world's great leading ladies, but in the gracious presence of this reigning screen legend the others fade in her shadow.<br /><br />"Lajja" has none of the sophistication of proto-feminist dramas like "Zubeidaa", "Pinjar", or even the Hell-Queen celebration "Laadla": it fulfills its feministic goals in two early moments:the loud tirade in which Mahima berates her in-laws for their abuse of her father who has committed no other crime than given birth to a girl. She erupts, leaving the wedding procession in shambles. Seeing her father devastated, she begins to weep, blaming herself for the chaotic destruction in front of her. She bemoans, "Why did I say anything? I have ruined everything! It is all my fault!" Her grandmother, witnessing silently the abuse she bore, comforts her by saying, "Why are you crying? There is no reason for you to be crying. You are not at fault for anything. The fault is mine. The fault is of every woman who came before you, because if we had had the courage to say in our day what you have said today, there would have been no need for you to say anything today." In this scene the importance of the Feminist Legacy is laid plainly in sight through words.<br /><br />The other, more subtle moment comes very early in the film when Vaidehi (Manisha) has fled from her abusive husband to the refuge of her parents' home in India. To viewers of western societies, it may seem perfectly reasonable (indeed, natural) that any abused woman would seek the protective guardianship of her parents; this, however, is a societal taboo in many eastern cultures, India among them. Once a woman has been married, the identity she assumes is that of her husband and his personal assets (family, business, children, etc.) For her to turn her back on these responsibilities is a grave social sin, one which truly has no equivalent for the western woman. She is thereafter regarded as tainted and as 'damaged goods', one whose value has been nullified entirely by her own actions and her refusal to submit to the role she has been given. She is not so much an individual as she is an emblem of familial honor. Her father rebukes her for her actions, concerned that his familial honor will be tarnished irreparably by the daughter he had already transferred to another man. His primary concern is that of the impending marriage of Vaidehi's younger sister, a prospect made far less likely with a divorced elder daughter in the same household. He tells her in no uncertain that she must return to the man to whom she lawfully belongs, however violent and sadistic he may be. He levies against her the age old adage that, "The honor of every home lies in the hands of its daughter." Quietly and pensively, she replies, "Yes, the honor of every home lies in the hands of its daughter. But there is no honor for the daughter herself." | 0 |
11,239 | [
1200,
1300
] | 918 | 1,241 | Arnold fans will holler in joy, fans of brainless action will holler in astonishment, and Catholics will just holler.<br /><br />Illogically written by Andrew W. Marlowe and ham-handedly directed by Peter Hyams, *End of Days* gets The Terminator out of his open-backed hospital gown (Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to the big screen after his heart operation), whilst blowing things up in Mysterious Ways and blaspheming Biblical verse to give Catholics something more to whine about.<br /><br />It is 1999 and doom-sayers the world over live in trepidation of their computers going fritz and losing their downloaded porn. Even as the technological stank of Y2K muttons the New York streets, ex-cop turned alcoholic security guard, Jericho Cane (Schwarzenegger, with the perfunctory "dead-wife-and-kid" back-story for Loose Cannon effect), must brave theological waters to save 20-year-old virgin Christine (Robin Tunney) from being conscripted as wait for it The Bride of Satan. Dun dah daaaarrrh! Stupidity ensues.<br /><br />For every anti-hero, there is his anti-Christ. Gabriel Byrne is the devil here and he's out to party like it's 1999, on a mission to impregnate Christine with the Anti-Christ between 11 pm and 12 midnight, December 31, 1999 ironically, in the hour that all porn will be lost thereby bringing about the End of Days. Being able to read minds, conjure hallucinations and employ limitless magic, it doesn't occur to Satan to expedite the impregnation process by appearing months in advance and courting Christine as a teen model and then closing the panty raid easily at the appointed time; instead, he appears on December 28th like a Keyser Soze Terminator and wonders why she doesn't welcome him with open thighs
(See above comment re: stupidity.) Here is a movie where nothing makes sense the moment it is uttered, let alone after contemplating its veracity or mythology. A priest (Rod Steiger) tells Jericho that '666' is really '999' upside down with a '1' in front of it. So wait - *Prince* is the Anti-Christ?<br /><br />Satan Soze pursues Jericho and Christine (J and C get it?) around town, at no point doing anything which would actually precipitate their capture. In one scene, Satan recreates Jericho's wife and child to tempt him into revealing where he hid Christine. But if he can see so deeply into Jericho's mind in recreating his family with enough nuance to inspire nostalgia, why can't he see where Jericho hid Christine not ten minutes ago? <br /><br />Satan can make an assassin talk without a tongue, yet he can't make that assassin unjam a semi-automatic weapon. And when Jericho shoots Satan at point blank range, Satan is courteous enough to open his shirt to reveal the wounds closing, so Jericho won't worry unduly about Satan's health - not sanitary to go about with open bullet wounds
Matter of fact, instead of simply possessing Jericho himself to get close to Christine and rape her, Satan expends so much unnecessary energy on side-projects (crucifying the tongue-less guy, blowing up Jericho's partner (Kevin Pollak) and then saving him, and then blowing him up again, ridiculously battling Jericho when he could snuff him out with the effort of thought) that we wonder whether a more efficient assassin/lover shouldn't be put on the case say, Antonio Banderas.<br /><br />What I find most precious about *End of Days* is Arnold's valiant attempts at The Method: "sad" means scrunching up his eyes and not blurting out anything in a foreign accent; "depressed" means raising a bottle to his lips and not blurting out anything in a foreign accent; "deathly scared" means widening his eyes and not blurting out anything in a foreign accent. There's definitely a pattern here, if we could only decipher it.<br /><br />In the end, the devil is dispatched not by the holy men whom Catholics pray to for deliverance from apocalypses such as these, but from the atheist Jericho. While the timid men of an impotent god exhort "faith" and quiver in their cells doing nothing about Satan actually walking amongst them, the Prince of Darkness is thwarted by a nullifidian with a big gun and a foreign accent. Which clearly says something that Catholics blindly refuse to hear: that even if the Devil were to exist, those who have been indoctrinated to unconditionally and irrationally fear him would be unable to conjure a belief in his downfall, let alone act towards it. Further, they might not truly WANT him defeated, for only through his contrary polarity does their god's existence become tenable.<br /><br />For it is written in the Book of Revelations: "And the Prince of Darkness shall descendeth upon the Earth without any solid game plan, and impregnate a virgin on a date which won't have any significance until the Gregorian Calendar of the 1500s adopts the day numbering which will put it in sync with the equinoxes and the Anno Domine syntax which will annoy sensible people for millennia, by which time, Christians will have forgotten Christ's actual birth date and appropriated the pagan Saturnalia festival in its stead. And the Prince shall effect a Revolution through tight purple pants and ambiguously-lesbian band members
" I can believe the people being drained of blood and crucified, and the alcoholic built like a Mr. Universe; I can believe that a giant, supernatural monster can't kill a guy armed only with a foreign accent; I can even believe that the devil needs to perform some hokey thirteenth century Celtic Druid ritual as foreplay - but what I cannot believe is the 20-year-old virgin in New York City in 1999.<br /><br />Especially around Prince... | 0 |
11,667 | [
1200,
1300
] | 975 | 1,256 | This is, per se, an above average film but why in the name of Bog was it made? It's impossible to treat it as a thing unto itself because it is an almost shot-for-shot remake of an Alfred Hitchcock classic of 1960. You can't watch it without the 1960 film nudging into your consciousness.<br /><br />What does the word "credit" mean? How can we credit Van Sandt and his associates with anything except deciding to use different actors, slightly different sets, and color?<br /><br />Anne Heche is attractive but lacks Janet Leigh's stolid determination to become a respectable middle-class woman. And Heche is younger than Leigh, who brought to her fruitless attempt to marry and settle down, the desperation of a woman facing forty. And Heche doesn't project anxiety the way Leigh did. The scene with the CHP officer looking in her car window illustrates the weakness in the role. In the original, the officer asks, "Is there something wrong?" Leigh: "Of course not. Am I acting as if something were wrong?" The officer hesitates before replying: "Well, frankly, yes." That exchange is omitted from the remake for the simple reason that Heche isn't nervous enough.<br /><br />The worst change, without a doubt, is the substitution of Vince Vaughn for Anthony Perkins. It may not be Vaughn's fault. Who could match Perkins in the role? Perkins is twitchy, bird-like, long-necked, cloaked in an externally charming exterior that masks an inner vacuum. His every move (eating candy corn, with his adam's apple bobbing) and every utterance, the faint laugh, the arid chuckle, is spot on. He just can't be improved upon. Vaughn brings to the role the presence of a short-haired beefy guy who was just discharged as a Lance Corporal from the U. S. Army. To suggest his psychosis all he can do is superimpose a maniacal giggle on top of what appears otherwise a perfectly normal Norman in speech and manner. (Unlike the original Norman, Vaughn doesn't even stumble over the word "fallacy" because it resembles "phallus".) He could be just hanging around the motel waiting to hear about his application for a football scholarship to UCLA.<br /><br />The direction deserves a few comments. I don't see what it adds to the story when we see Norman masturbating while peeping in on Anne Heche. I don't OBJECT to it. I wonder why it's there, just as I wonder why the rest of the movie is there.<br /><br />And, I suppose in order to impress us with how much color adds to the visual experience, Van Sant seems to have missed a bit of Hitchcock's more subtle stuff. Heche is given underwear of all different colors -- green, pink, orange, and -- mango? Is that a color? If so, what the hell color is it? Never mind. The point is that in the original, when the traveling camera first peeks through the window of the Phoenix hotel it captures Janet Leigh in bed wearing a pure white half slip and a white bra. Later, after she has stolen the money, we see her in her underwear again -- this time both her slip and bra are black. Tis a small thing, but Hitch's own.<br /><br />At that, the idea of shooting in color might not have been bad except that the black-and-white shooting of the original was superb. The color and odd lighting effects in this version turn the ordinary, dull, and subliminally ominous motel into something that looks like it belongs in the seedier part of Las Vegas.<br /><br />Most of all, the 1960 film was shocking in more ways than one. I can remember seeing it in a drive-in in San Diego and staring aghast at the screen when it became clear that the central character was actually DEAD -- half-way through the movie! Nothing like it had ever been done before.<br /><br />That murder in the shower, in both movies, was a big improvement over Robert Bloch's original novel, by the way, in which the author writes something like, "The murderer then entered the bathroom and cut off her head with a knife." I'm not making that up. Well, not entirely. Even here, Van Sant's movie gives us excess. There is more blood and more bare flesh. And where Hitchcock closed in first on the blood circling the bathtub drain and dissolved to Marian's blankly open eye, then pulled the camera back slowly to reveal her face, he rotated his camera from a slight tilt to the proper vertical, giving the viewer a sense of not just disbelief at the murder, but a dizzying disbelief. Van Sant doesn't tilt his camera a delicate 10 or 20 degrees as Hitchcock did. He practically twirls it on its axis.<br /><br />It won't do to call this a bow to Hitchcock because it's not. It's a pecuniary plundering of Hitchcock's material (already ripped off in "Psycho" I, II, III, IV, and "Psycho: The Beginning Years", and "Come Into My Parlor: Mrs. Bates' Revenge," and "Hand Me That Knife, Would You?: The TRUE story of Norman Bates.") A rehashing of and grinding away at truly original stuff, a crumenal act if not a criminal one. And that's not to mention the many homages in other films, especially the French, such as the notorious "ocean of boredom" scenes between Marcel Brulee and Jeanne Gateau in the much-admired "La Mere de la Nuit." (Maybe I'd better add that that last sentence is a terrible attempt at a parody of academic critics. And when a chicken's guts grind corn, it's a "crumenal" act. I won't go on except to say these gags, shabby as they are, are more fun than the movie.)<br /><br />So who was it made for? I'd have to guess. Kids who are too young to know about the original and who don't like movies in black and white? Kids who are hoping to see another ordinary slasher movie? Chimpanzees? | 0 |
12,074 | [
1200,
1300
] | 1,005 | 1,259 | Any evening with Jonathan Ross now means to me his wit in first hassling and upsetting with carefully chosen words a 78 year old man by phone and then suggesting he and Russell Brand should house-break and masturbate him while he slept as a way to say sorry for making obscene phone calls to him. Kinky! And illegal. For a really big laugh maybe next time he should try it on someone he knows well, like his Boss? Or a follower of Abu Hamza? Would he be amused if someone did it to one of his daughters?<br /><br />Over all the years I've perhaps seen less than 30 minutes of BBC Star Man Ross's chat show because I find him so loathsome, some of the guests I saw were OK though - probably most of them who ever appeared were OK for all I know. As a chat show it seems pretty poor though what's so chatty about asking Tory leader David Cameron on this TV programme whether he ever masturbated to photographs of Margaret Thatcher? He chatted up Gwyneth Paltrow by simply asking her if she wanted to f*** him. However, Ross's yob mentality was finally totally exposed with the above revelations, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to warn the few decent folk around the world who might not know just how vile this man is and to steer clear of him and his - unless you think all comedy should be "edgy" ie obscene/vacuous. We're not yet all the same here, although BBC and Channel 4 are jettisoning all standards.<br /><br />In October 2008 Ross with fellow tosser Russell Brand made a series of premeditated sexual obscene phone calls to Andrew Sachs' answer-phone (Manuel from Fawlty Towers), had it broadcast as intended on BBC national radio against Sachs' request and then tried to get Sachs' granddaughter to burn the evidence in case they got prosecuted. A significant number of people over here (probably most of them non BBC license fee payers) found it hilarious and/or that the national scandal had been overblown, but many people apparently still knew right from wrong and 42,851 eventually complained to BBC about the incident. Many unrighteous media fools and others snickered about these 42,851 never having heard the radio programme (and never wanting to) - using their argument they presumably also consider an event such as the Holocaust justified because at the time relatively few people complained to the media, and none of us here now should be horrified by it because we weren't there. The 2 BBC producers initially involved in passing it for broadcast thought it was "very funny and brilliant" comedy and only 2 people complained about Brand's radio programme at the time - which I'm afraid only indicated the moral level his 400,000 weekly listeners had sunk to with the help of BBC expertise. Highly moral BBC tried and failed to use it in mitigation in the later OFCOM investigation. Roll over Aristotle, tell Lord Reith the news! Sachs' agent complained to BBC but was ignored by them until a Tory national newspaper got hold of the story. The penalty for any ordinary pervert doing this would normally be sacking and prosecution, maybe even prison, but while Brand and the Head of BBC Radio 2 were both eventually ordered to resign the multi-millionaire Ross was given a 12 week holiday by BBC's Boss (I suppose that he asked Ross's permission first though if he could dock Ross's pay by £1,500,000, to prevent him from suing) to come back to this programme afresh in 2009 before his contract runs out. All that time to think of more smut and/or more insulting witlessness for his 4,000,000 viewers to admire - but at least he could still chortle his way to the bank as usual to keep his spirits up. Some people think that his position will be untenable and he won't be able to carry on. I think his skin is so thick because the stakes are so high that he will come back unbowed and re-energised with pent up vitriol. (Update 23.01.09: I've just watched the first 5 minutes of his new series - the "most enormous cock-up" - to use his referential phrase - is continuing to allow this sniggering unrepentant law-breaker to take the public's money like this.) But who knows: maybe in the future after the slimy British film & TV industries have comforted him for the moral stance taken by the 42,851 and showered him with awards he will become a Sir for his services to Perversion by the perverts in Government. At the least I hope this pair of edgy deviants sign up with other perverted commercial TV and radio stations and stay there, so I won't be paying for their flouting the law and spouting illegal obscenities in the future. In 2009 OFCOM fined British TV license-fee payers £150,000 for this "sorry" affair - Thanks Ross for offering to pay! Not.<br /><br />To the apologists: Get a life/sense of humour/sense of proportion! It's not the end of the world having a pair of talentless perverts as your heroes and there's far more important things to worry about in this world, like the price of real cheese! To sum up family man Dross: a comedy genius to apparently millions of people (especially himself), merely a nasty obscene phone caller receiving an obscene wage packet from an obscene multimedia company to others. So much for our society of Political Correctness and Respect! As you should've guessed, it doesn't apply to the rich and famous and never will, but only to the poor. To sum up BBC: Stumbling blindly on from Huttongate, Campbellgate, Dykegate, Springergate, Crowngate, Phonegate now Rossgate I hope its next crisis will be Abolitiongate. I also hope anyone who thinks comedy should be always challenging and pushing back boundaries ie offensive aren't challenged or offended by my opinion of this particular law-breaking pervert, his perverted programmes and his current perverted employers. | 0 |
12,425 | [
1200,
1300
] | 942 | 1,232 | Dear Mr Ram Gopal Varma, I don't know in which capacity I am writing this letter to you. I am a never-say-he's-finished Amitabh Bachchan fan, having sat through his cock-chasing act in Jaadugar. I also demand some important designation in The Godfather fan club, having watched the Coppola classic more times than you have delivered flops from your Factory. And, of course, I have been a big admirer of yours, right from the time you had Nagarjuna wrapping the cycle chain around his knuckles in Shiva.<br /><br />When you announced Sarkar and called it your take on Godfather, all one wanted to know was the date the first look would be out, the Sunday the promos would go on air, the Friday the film would be released. It was sheer wish fulfillment at work knowing that you, and not someone hovering between the mustard fields of Amritsar and the tulip gardens of Amsterdam, had taken up the task of recreating the Puzo pages on the Bollywood big screen.<br /><br />Your cast couldn't have been more you working for the first time with the legend, casting Abhishek as his screen-son, giving Kay Kay a role he has deserved for years, bringing back forgotten faces like Supriya Pathak and Rukhsar, and picking complete non-actors like Katrina and Tanishaa to join the list
Before July 1, you had made Sarkar the most-awaited film ever for any Godfather freak who worshiped Bachchan.<br /><br />The opening credits stoked the hope that your stunning sepia-tinted promos on the telly had kindled. But now, you labeled Sarkar your tribute to Godfather instead of the word "inspired" which you had been using all along. Probably you don't want the two creations to be compared but when the medium is the same, then a Kaante would be compared to Reservoir Dogs and a Reservoir Dogs to a City On Fire.<br /><br />Also, when your first and last sequences the heart of any screenplay treatment are all about the establishment and the transfer of power, you can't keep the Nagares and the Corleones apart, even if you replace the American mafia moves with Maharashtrian political power play.<br /><br />But you got it wrong, Mr Varma
You wanted to show Amitabh in his 70s avatar, as rustled up by the pens of Salim-Javed. You wanted him to lurk around larger than life. You wanted him to be his own brand(o). Then how could you steal his voice in the name of using silence? How could you keep him rooted to his chair in the hunt for interesting camera angles? How could you leave him stranded without his voice and stature, the two things that have made his B so big? Coppola's Godfather cameraman Gordon Willis masked Brando's eyes throughout the movie because it didn't have the power to match that drawling husky voice or that sudden snap of the fingers. But you tried to repeat the Malik act from your very own Company. But Bachchan is no Ajay Devgan his forte doesn't lie in the stagnant stare and the suffocating silence. You made the man look like a comatose patient, who's reminded from time to time to look at the cue cards and mouth those predictable one-liners. For that, Agneepath's there, any given Saturday.<br /><br />Which Bachchan fan would go and watch Kay Kay Menon stealing the thunder from under his nose in the scene where Sarkar asks Vishnu to leave his house? Which Amitabh aficionado would go and watch him focus on achaar and carom, in a film that talks about power with a capital P in the promos? We can't handle so much in the name of restraint and understatement! You don't even allow the camera to rest on him for five seconds when he learns that his son wanted to kill him. Give me the old-school camera-only-on-Bachchan style, any given Saturday.<br /><br />Kudos to you, of course, for making an actor out of Abhishek, first in Naach and now in Sarkar. You also allow him to show Mallika Sherawat that he can run as well as his father. Even in the short prison sequence, you really make the Bachchans come out of the text, an opportunity Shaad missed in Bunty Aur Babli. Wish the film could have been more a father-son story rather than a chaotic conflict between caricatures in the name of characters, who pop up like the ad windows on the Internet.<br /><br />You also let the women more into the script than Puzo and Coppola did and again, you deserve all the Brownie points for squeezing them in so effectively. Pathak is a welcome return as the mother in the middle, Tanishaa lovable as the lovelorn girl, Katrina a revelation as Abhishek's confused lover and Rukhsar's silence speaks volumes.<br /><br />But sub-plots do not a classic remake. When your free-flowing camera tries to make every frame look hatke and your loud background score irritates incessantly, we keep getting reminded that we are in a Factory. Well, maybe not a Nino Rota score but Sarkar certainly deserved better than those Govinda, Govinda chants and uncalled-for flute interludes.<br /><br />Mr Varma, some of your Factory directors tell me that you are involved with every project, from overseeing the shooting schedules to supervising the editing sessions. Perhaps, in the middle of all the various storyboards, the Bhiku Matre scream is being muted by the Subhash Nagare silence. Perhaps, you need to bring the shutters down on the factory and work on a single homemade product. Otherwise, your products would remain products, to use and throw, not treasure. And movie buffs like me, for whom there are no hits and flops, only good cinema, would rather choose a film without Factory finish, any given Saturday. | 0 |
12,689 | [
1200,
1300
] | 920 | 1,213 | 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 |
12,832 | [
1200,
1300
] | 968 | 1,235 | Spoilers. This review has been edited due to word limit.<br /><br />`The horror. The horror.' Marlon Brando, Apocalypse Now (1979) and Apocalypse Now Redux (2001)<br /><br />The sentence which is as famous as `Here's looking at you, kid,' or `Are you talkin' to me?' or `May the Force be with you,' or `I'll be back,' means a little more than some one-liners. When it is spoken it lingers in the air with an importance and meaning that does not go unnoticed. What might drive some viewers nuts is that they may never find an answer to the horror unless they re-watch the film and try to pay close observation to every single frame.<br /><br />What, exactly, does this line of dialogue mean? The horror spoken of is the reality of war. The reality of moral men being so easily corrupted that they turn on their inborn instincts and kill fellow beings without any sign of guilt. When Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen) stands before the dying Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) at the end of the film, `The horror.the horror.' is the realization of Willard's corruptness. He has mercilessly killed a man in cold blood as part of his assignment. This isn't a typical Hollywood ending. In most cases a character gains something, whether it be emotionally, physically, mentally or all three. But Willard both gains and loses. He gains the knowledge that he has lost his morals. And that is a shocking ending.<br /><br />`Apocalypse Now' is Francis Ford Coppola's tribute to the artistic side of filmmaking. This film is wholly different from `The Godfather.' It is hallucinogenic, visually dazzling, and an ode to the guilty side of human nature. At first it seems realistic, and then it becomes strange, and then symbolic, and, by the end, original in its own unique perspective of the spiritual side of warfare. This is not as much a film about the Vietnam War as it is a film about the war within us.<br /><br />At first it does appear to be another war film. Captain Willard (Sheen) is assigned by an Army Lieutenant (a young Harrison Ford) to assassinate a renegade American Colonel named Kurtz (Brando), who is hiding out somewhere in Vietnam with a hoard of troops who more or less act as his slaves.<br /><br />Willard carries out his mission `with extreme prejudice,' heading out on a boat along with four soldiers, including the boat captain, Chief (Albert Hall), Chef (Frederic Forest), and a very young `Larry' Fishburne (who later went on to appear as Morpheus in `The Matrix').<br /><br />"Apocalypse Now" is in a many ways a modern update of Homer's Odyssey. As our main character, Willard, carries on his journey, he meets an array of original and strange characters, including Lt. Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who has a strange fetish for surfing, and a stoned photographer (Dennis Hopper), whose lively gestures and mannerisms can be compared to those of the very much lesser Jeremy Davies in "The Million Dollar Hotel," one of the worst films I have ever seen. Davies failed to make any connection with an audience; Hopper does. He is like the poetic vibe between Willard and Kurtz; he is like an interpreter going back and forth and speaking in foreign languages. In this case, he is translating Kurtz to Willard, although I'm not so sure Kurtz needs a translation of Willard.<br /><br />Many films are lucky enough to have one or two memorable scenes or lines. "Apocalypse Now" has many. Kilgore descending upon a Vietnam village playing Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" remains one of the most remembered scenes in all of film history. There is sharpness to it, a brutality to it, an ironic tone to it, and also a sense of playfulness. When Kilgore kneels down on that beach and says, `I love the smell of napalm in the morning.it smells like victory,' we all crack a smile.<br /><br />I won't lie to you: `Apocalypse Now' is a strange film. It isn't exactly the easiest thing to analyze. The end may frustrate some viewers if they don't understand Marlon Brando's significant speeches. But what it all comes down to, what really matters, is that this film is about the dark nature of the human psyche. The horror is the realization of war and its effects, not the war itself. Kurtz says, `You have a right to kill me. But you have no right to judge me.' Brando's character, Kurtz, is left to the audience to judge. To many naïve viewers he may appear as a crazy loon whose power got to his head. But that isn't what Francis Ford Coppola is trying to get across. By fighting in Vietnam, Kurtz has realized just how great he had it, and how bad some others had it. By walking through devastated villages he eventually comes to realize that we are the naïve ones, living our lives in a fool's paradise. We are totally naïve to our surroundings and possible misfortunes until they hit. By seeing how unlucky some Vietnamese are, Kurtz realizes just how easily he could be struck by something. Just how easily he could end up like the people around him. And he also realizes that the people who did this are people who have abandoned their morals and left them at the door. Many people think the horror is one thing. It is two. For Kurtz, the horror is the reality of how naïve he was and the reality of the war's impact upon men. And after Willard murders Kurtz, and hears Kurtz's dying words, he realizes it too. He realizes the effects of war. To see so many soldiers with no sense of right or wrong makes him realize the horror of what war can do to a man. And what it has done to him. The horror.<br /><br />5/5 stars -<br /><br /> | 1 |
13,592 | [
1200,
1300
] | 972 | 1,264 | Once again I must play something of the contrarian. Most of the reviews for Ab Tak Chappan have been extremely positive. Mine is positive, but only slightly. A 7 out of 10 is equivalent to a "C" letter grade from me.<br /><br />It seems that a lot of the praise is rooted in two factors: One, that Ab Tak Chappan is more realistic than the typical Bollywood film, and two, that it is trying to do things differently.<br /><br />The first point I couldn't care less about. I'm not looking for realism in films, and so I do not score higher for a film that shows a story and characters closer to how I believe the real world to be--I'm a big fan of surrealism, fantasy, absurdism, and so on, although I do not dislike realist films merely for the fact that they're realist.<br /><br />For the second point, I agree that it is commendable to try to do things differently. However, I don't think "originality" versus formulaicism makes for a better or worse film in itself. A film can be "original" and poor, just like a film can be formulaic and excellent. What matters are how well the film does whatever it sets out to do and how enjoyable or aesthetically rewarding that is to the viewer.<br /><br />Ab Tak Chappan is based on the true story of a Mumbai cop named Daya Naik. Naik was an "encounter specialist". Encounter specialists, who could be said to be early instantiations of real world "Judge Dredds", are trained to operate like the criminals and gang members they pursue, and they're basically given a license to kill--effectively acting as policeman, judge, jury and executioner in a matter of moments. Ab Tak Chappan follows the story of Sadhu Agashe (Nana Patekar), the encounter specialist based on Naik. We see him at work, interacting with his fellow encounter specialists and engaging in violence. We see him at home, trying to live a normal life in his less-than-luxurious surroundings. We see him trying to adjust to a new "commissioner" halfway through the film. And we see his odd relationship with a notorious Indian gangster, Don Zameer Zafar (Prasad Purandhare).<br /><br />All of this has the potential to make a fabulous, gritty film. I agree that it's nice to forgo the typical Bollywood musical numbers and romances--not every film needs that stuff; Ab Tak Chappan producer Ram Gopal Varma is famous for leaving music and romances in the background or by the wayside in many films that he's directed or produced. Additionally, Ab Tak Chappan has some good performances--Patekar almost gives off a Death Wish (1974)-era Charles Bronson vibe. It also has admirable cinematography--the hand-held stuff near the beginning of the film was particularly effective, for example. It has a great score that mixes more of a moody Hollywood-sounding action/crime score with traditional Indian instruments and modalities. The violence is well done and gritty.<br /><br />There is also decent exploration of subtexts, including the morality of (having) encounter specialists, the idea of following orders, and so on. The encounter specialists are shown having to largely divorce themselves from ideas of right and wrong. More poignantly, the film questions the merit of blindly following orders. Parallels are drawn between the encounter specialists following orders and, say, members of a country's military, and we're shown what a corrupt situation this can lead to.<br /><br />But (you just knew there was a "But" coming, didn't you?) director Shimit Amin and his scriptwriters have created a story with far too many characters, far too much sprawl, and that moves a bit too slow. All of these problems may be due to Amin and crew looking at the Godfather films, which Ab Tak Chappan has some (at least superficial) resemblances to, although from a policeman's perspective.<br /><br />Most of the encounter specialists we do not get to know very well--these are shallowly drawn characters to say the least, except for Agashe and Jatin Shukla (Nakul Vaid). For one, Narayan, I didn't know who he was until at least halfway through the film. His name is mentioned a number of times, but I'd only get glimpses of him until the scene would change. Then everyone would change clothes by the time they appear again and I'd have to start all over figuring out who Narayan was.<br /><br />The same thing happened with Agashe's first commissioner. The film was already far into the new commissioner before I could figure out the relationships. It seems like there are new characters in every scene. We never learn the stories of most of them. While that might have some artistic merit in that the encounter specialists are mostly killing people they do not know anything about (because they're mostly doing so on orders), since we do not learn much about most of the encounter specialists, either, it's difficult to find characters to care about, and that doesn't exactly make for a gripping film.<br /><br />The primary villain is Zameer. But until about halfway through the film, there's no indication of this. He doesn't get much more screen time than the other villains parading through the film, and he's literally "phoning his performance in"--he's in another location (Dubai), communicating only by telephone for the majority of the film. We don't actually see Zameer doing much. To an extent, the film depends on a couple "twists" that necessitate not showing Zameer doing a number of things, but we could see him do other things, and a lot of the other villains could have been left out.<br /><br />That would have tightened up the film a bit, making it more focused and about a half-hour shorter, both of which would have benefited its impact. This is not an action-packed film by any means. For at least the first 45 minutes or so, I found myself admiring Ab Tak Chappan's considerable style, but saying, "Okay, get on with the story already". | 1 |
13,775 | [
1200,
1300
] | 913 | 1,242 | 1904. The North African nation of Morocco is hanging onto a tenuous Independence, as the various European powers - France, Germany, Britain, Russia, Spain, and now the United States - are vying for influence in the region. The Sultan (Marc Zuber) is a weak puppet; his uncle, the Bashaw (Vladek Sheybal), who is being manipulated by the French and Germans, is the real power behind the throne. Enter Berber Chieftan Raisuli (Sean Connery), the leader of the Rif tribe and "the last of the Barbary Pirates", who kidnaps an American missionary, Eden Pedecaris (Candice Bergen) and her two children and takes them hostage. Back in the US, President Theodore Roosevelt (Brian Keith) threatens to go to war over the issue: "Pedecaris Alive or Raisuli Dead!" - seeing the issue as the perfect way to exercise his "Big Stick" diplomacy, though Secretary of State John Hay (John Huston) is not so confident. However, the Raisuli has less sinister plans for the Pedecarises, who are more than capable of handling themselves in any event.<br /><br />John Milius's great historical film, based VERY loosely off of a true story (i.e. Pedecaris was a middle-aged man), is a wonderful bit of escapism. It has some amazing action scenes, a witty, well-written script, a fine cast enjoying themselves with the material, and does not overstay its welcome like, say, "Pirates of the Caribbean" or the "Lord of the Rings" movies. It's not really an "epic" film in the strictest sense, but it's one of the best pure action movies ever made.<br /><br />While the historical context is shaky, the storyline is interesting, and as some reviewers point out, it is even more pertinent today than it was when made. As President Roosevelt says, "America is like a grizzly bear" - fierce, strong, but a little blind and reckless at times. At the time of the film's setting, America has just been propelled onto the world stage as superpower, following their resounding victory in the Spanish-American War - and Roosevelt seizes this incident as a way to prove America's worth. In real life, it didn't quite work out that way, but allegorically it works well. While written from a right-wing perspective, Milius's screenplay is pretty accurate in assessing America and its place in the world. He admires Roosevelt and his method of "big stick" diplomacy, and correctly recognizes (in the words of Roosevelt) that while America may be feared and respected, they'll never be truly "loved" by the world, no matter what they do. And there are some scenes - like Roosevelt's target shooting of European leaders and the almost-comic surprise attack by Marines on the Bashaw's palace - which show America's reckless and violent side, while others - the climactic showdown with the Germans - show their heroism.<br /><br />The historical/political context of the film is, of course, merely meat on the bones of what is essentially a rousing action/adventure film. There are some brilliantly done action scenes, such as Raisuli's rescue of the Pedecaris's from double-crossing tribesmen, which features some of the best swordplay in any film. The opening entrance of the Raisuli and the aforementioned march and attack of the US Marines are brilliantly done bravura set pieces. And the final battle, which combines elements of "Lawrence of Arabia" and "The Wild Bunch", while a major historical fantasy (a three-way battle between Germans, Americans, and the Rifs), is a superbly staged, adrenaline-pumping sequence.<br /><br />The excellent cast gives some wonderful performances. Everyone seems to be having a fun time with the film, and it shows. Sean Connery is surprisingly convincing as a Berber with a Scottish accent, but manages to pull off his interesting, well-drawn and chivalrous character who comes to respect his hostage and abhors modern, uncivil warfare. Candice Bergen, an actress whom I've never been fond of, gives a fine performance as the feisty Eden Pedecaris, who is every bit as tough as her captor. Brian Keith is an amazingly convincing TR - you really feel he must have been like this, an athletic, blustering, yet practical and intelligent man with an admirable sense of self. The scenes of Roosevelt boxing and target-shooting while discussing foreign policy are some of the greatest "bad ass" moments in movie history - and who can forget lines like "Why spoil the beauty of the thing with legality?" John Huston provides solid support as the weary, cautious Hay, acting as a perfect foil to the much more impetuous Roosevelt. <br /><br />Among the fine supporting cast, the best are Geoffrey Lewis as Samuel Gummere, the cynical Ambassador caught in the middle of the political intrigue, and Steve Kanaly, as the gung-ho Marine Captain who cheerfully advocates (and carries out) "Military intervention!" as the blunt and simple solution to the whole complex situation. Other familiar faces such as Vladek Sheybal, Nadim Sawalha, Roy Jenson, Larry Cross, Marc Zuber, and Darrell Fetty also do fine work, no matter how small their role. Spaghetti Western fans will recognize Antoine Saint-John ("A Fistful of Dynamite") as the German general and Aldo Sambrell as one of Raisuli's tribesmen.<br /><br />"The Wind and the Lion" is, all around, a wonderfully done adventure film. It has something for everyone: wonderful gun- and swordplay, a lot of humor, a tough, feisty heroine (and her two cute children), a nice (if unconsummated) romance, and an interesting (if fanciful) political/historical context. It's not a masterpiece, but hey, it wasn't trying to be. I give "The Wind and the Lion" a stirring nine stars and my highest recommendation. | 1 |
13,945 | [
1200,
1300
] | 961 | 1,286 | Hearkening back to those "Good Old Days" of 1971, we can vividly recall when we were treated with a whole Season of Charles Chaplin at the Cinema. That's what the promotional guy called it when we saw him on somebody's old talk show. (We can't recall just whose it was; either MERV GRIFFIN or WOODY WOODBURY, one or the other!) The guest talked about Sir Charles' career and how his films had been out of circulation ever since the 1952 exclusion of the former "Little Tramp' from Los Estados Unidos on the grounds of his being an "undesirable Alien". (No Schultz, he's NOT from another Planet!) <br /><br />CHARLIE had been deemed to be a 'subversive' due to his interest and open inquiry into various Political and Economic Systems. Everything from the Anarchist movement from the '20s (and before), the Technocracy craze to Socialism in its various forms were fair game for discussion at Chaplin's Hollywood parties; which of course meant the inclusion of the Soviet style, which we commonly call Communism.<br /><br />COMPOUNDING Mr. Chaplin's predicament was both confounded by one little detail. He had never become an American Citizen.<br /><br />ANYHOW, enough of this background already! <br /><br />SUFFICE it to say that he had become 'Persona Non Gratis' in the United States of America. .It was high time to get the old films out of the mothballs and back out to the Movie Houses. It'd sure be a great gesture by us easily forgiving and quickly forgetting Americanos.<br /><br />IT would be a fine gesture to the great film making artist; besides, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences was planning to honor Chaplin with a special tribute at the 1972 Oscar Show. This would surely be a tearful yet joyous packaging of pathos a plenty for having America invite Charlie back and have him come and receive a special Academy Lifetime Achievement Award in front of a World-wide Television Audience numbering in the Millions. <br /><br />BESIDES, that would be a natural for promoting the Chaplin Season at the Theatre! (Remember, the Little Tramp was as astute as a Bu$ine$$ Man as he was as a Film Maker!) THE program consisted of showings of MODERN TIMES, CITY LIGHTS, THE GREAT DICTATOR, MONSEUR VERDOUX, A KING IN NEW YORK and finally THE CHAPLIN REVUE. We remember being very excited in the anticipation of the multi date film fest.<br /><br />IN our fair city of Chicago, it was booked for the Carnegie Theatre on Rush Street. The festivities lead off with MODERN TIMES and all of the others would be shown one at a time, each staying for whatever period was necessary in order to satisfy the public's desire to view each picture. As we recall, the very last on the schedule was THE CHAPLIN REVUE.<br /><br />IN RETROSPECT, we look back and wish that they had begun the run with REVUE; as there were undoubtedly legions of moviegoers (much like ourselves) who knew very little about his accomplishments in motion pictures, except for those Keystone, Essanay and Mutual Silent Shorts that were being shown as regular feature on so, so many Kiddy Shows all over the country. Oh well, once again, no one consulted me!<br /><br />CONCENTRATING on today's honored guest film, THE CHAPLIN REVUE, we found that it was actually three separate pictures; carefully bound together by the use of narration by Chaplin (Himself), some lively Themes and Incidental Music (once again written by Chaplin) and some happy talk and serious narration (Ditto, by Chaplin.) He opens up the proceedings by making use of some home movie-type of film depicting the construction of the Chaplin Studio in Hollywood, as well as some film taken of some rehearsal time, showing Director Chaplin demonstrating just what he wants to a group of actors.<br /><br />THIS segment was well done and well received by the audience. Both the building humor and the rehearsal were amplified by making them seem accelerated. (The rehearsal naturally, the building by use of speeding up the camera's photographic process. The old trick makes it appear that the buildings were almost building themselves.<br /><br />THIS amalgam of shorts incorporated three of Chaplin's short comedies from his stint with First National Pictures.; roughly that being 1917 to 1923. The choice was well thought out and gave us a wide variety of subject matter and mood.<br /><br />FIRST up was SHOULDER ARMS (Charles Chaplin Productions/First National Pictures, 1918). As the title suggests, it is a tale of World War I. Released in October of 1918 with about a month to go before the Armistice Day of November 11, it was a comedy of comical Army gags and a romance between Private Chaplin and a French Girl (Miss Edna Purviance). The levity is fast, physical and in the grand old tradition of ridiculing the Enemy, the German Army.<br /><br />DISPLAYING an excellent example of the old adage about Children and Dogs bringing folks together, the next film A DOG'S LIFE (Chaplin Productions/First National, 1918) traces the parallel lives of Chaplin's Tramp and a newly adopted stray, Scraps. The movie story involves families, two of them. One Homo Sapiens, one Canine and both supplying us with some big surprises.<br /><br />AS the finale, we have THE PILGRIM (Chaplin/First National, 1923) was a good choice to have as the finale. It was bright, light and tight. It was an excursion into the area of the Western Spoof, Comedies of such type having been done since by every comedian and team. The "Pilgrim" in the story is not of your standard Thanksgiving Variety; but rather a "dude" or "Tenderfoot", who has ventured out West. The Tramp is not only that guy; but his character is an escaped Convict who is mistakenly thought to be the new Clergyman of a Western town's Church!<br /><br />OUR Rating (that is Schultz and Me) is ****. (That's Four Derbies)<br /><br />POODLE SCHNITZ!! | 1 |
14,011 | [
1200,
1300
] | 956 | 1,245 | "The Moon Is Blue" director Otto Preminger tackled even more taboo subject matter in his controversial 1955 release "The Man with the Golden Arm." Whereas he had incensed the Motion Picture Association of America with his use of the words "virgin" and "mistress" in his mild 1953 comedy "The Moon Is Blue," Preminger went far beyond what any movie had attempted with "The Man with the Golden Arm" since Dick Powell made his law and order epic "To the Ends of the Earth"(1946) about thwarting the international traffic in narcotics. Based on Nelson Algren's novel that won the 1950 National Book Award, this gritty, uncompromising, 119-minute, black & white melodrama deals with heroin addiction. Initially, when Preminger's film came out, the Motion Picture Association of America would not issue its seal of approval because the filmmakers depicted addiction to narcotics. This groundbreaking film qualified as the first major motion picture to handle narcotics from the dope fiend's perspective and actually showed the paraphernalia that junkies wielded to shoot up heroin. The Production Code stipulated that filmmakers must refrain from showing characters using illicit narcotics. Nevertheless, United Artists released this unique Frank Sinatra picture and it grossed over $4-million dollars. <br /><br />The critical and commercial success of "The Man with the Golden Arm" eviscerated the Production Code. As a result, the MPAA amended the Code so that filmmakers could delve into other taboo subjects, such as drug abuse, kidnapping, abortion and prostitution. The film received three Academy Award nominations. Oscar nominations went to Sinatra for Best Acting, Joseph C. Wright and Darrell Silvera for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White and Elmer Bernstein for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. Indeed, Elmer Bernstein made a name for himself with his jazzy score. The producers had thought about casting Marlon Brando in the title role, but Sinatra beat Brando to the punch. Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak, Arnold Stang, Darren McGavin, and Robert Strauss co-starred with Ole Blue Eyes. McGavin was particularly memorable as a sleazy heroin dealer, while Eleanor Parker played the protagonist's wife with a dark, deep secret of her own that comes as quite a shock. <br /><br />"The Man with the Golden Arm" refers to protagonist Frankie Machine's ability to manipulate a deck of cards. Frankie deals cards for Zero Schwiefka (Robert Strauss of "Stalag 17") but he has been out of Chicago for the last six months in a federal narcotics hospital recovering from heroin addiction. Not only has Frankie licked the habit, but he also has learned how to play the drums and plans to embark of a music career. Optimistic as Frank is about his future, he finds himself facing his past all over again when he returns to his old stomping grounds. Schwiefka wants him to deal for him again, and Nifty Louie Fomorowski (Darren McGavin of "Counter-Attack") tries to induce him to resume his heroin usage. Meanwhile, Frankie comes home to his invalid, wheel-chair bound wife, Zosh (Eleanor Parker of "Escape from Fort Bravo"), who manipulates him with guilt. Frankie was drunk when he had a car accident and Zosh wound up in a wheel chair. Frankie shows up with high hopes and a drum set, but Zosh sees no future for him as a musician and urges to go back to work for Schwiefka. Frankie plans to visit a music promoting and one of his own friends, Sparrow (Arnold Stang of "My Sister Eileen"), shoplifts a business suit from a department store for Frankie. After Frankie refuses to work for Schwiefka because he is going to see musical agent Harry Lane (Will Wright of "The Wild One"), Schwiefka turns both Frank and Sparrow into the police. Meanwhile, Schwiefka gets Brach's Department Store to drop the shoplifting charges. The suit was worth $37.00. Frankie agrees to resume dealing for Schweifka and the hustler bails him out. Not long afterward, despite his resolution to shun heroin use, Frankie breaks down and pays Louie the $2.00 for a fix. <br /><br />Eventually, Frankie meets Harry Lane and Lane warns him that he is catches Frankie shooting up that he will have nothing to do with him. What poor Frankie doesn't know is that Zosh has recovered her ability to walk, but she uses his guilt about the accident to hold on to him. Zosh is also jealous of her downstairs neighbor, Molly Novotny (Kim Novak of "Picnic"), Frankie's former sweetheart who hustles drinks at a nearby strip bar called the Safari Club. When Zosh complains about headaches that Frankie gives her practicing on his drum set, Frankie moves them downstairs into Molly's apartment. Schwiefka and Louie are planning a big poker game with Sam Markette (George E. Stone of "Guys and Dolls") and Williams (George Mathews of "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral"), two big-time gamblers who have heard about Frank and his legendary 'golden arm.' Schwiefka and Louie persuade a reluctant Frankie to deal for $250. After an early winning streak, Frankie starts losing and he cannot reverse his bad luck. In fact, Frankie spends about two days dealing. Exhausted, his nerves shot and desperate for a fix, he falls apart on the second day and Markette and Williams catch him cheating. Louie refuses to give Frankie a fix, so Frankie knocks him out and ransacks his apartment for the heroin.<br /><br />Preminger pulls no punches in "The Man with the Golden Arm," and the film is pretty disillusioning. None of the characters here are remotely sympathetic. Essentially, they are either hustlers or hustled. Sinatra gives another dynamite performance as does McGavin and Parker. To be sure, "The Man with the Golden Arm" has lost much of its impact in the intervening 50 or more years, but it still ranks as a landmark film. | 1 |
14,577 | [
1200,
1300
] | 955 | 1,297 | 'Heaven's Gate' is not a masterpiece, which apparently was what it needed to be upon first release to justify its great cost, and, more importantly, the continued uneasy reliance of Hollywood on the Auteur model of film-making. Yet 'Heaven's Gate', seen today at last on DVD in a cut of 229 minutes, is a superb film. It is a touch lethargic in pace. But at least it is paced. Quite apart from the incompetence of construction that marks many films today, there have been many films which, deliberate in form, have been severely damaged by being hacked down with no care for rhythm so the films become shapeless and confusing. Beyond this, the criticisms leveled at the film have become in retrospect quite lame. If the good guys and bad guys are too obviously pronounced for a serious film, and yes Sam Waterston's mustachioed, fur-clad villain is comic-opera (and not in the multi-leveled manner of Bill The Butcher from 'Gangs of New York'), and yes, the townsfolk do seem a touch 'Fiddler On The Roof' on occasions, then a few dozen serious films made since then, including 'Titanic' and the graceless 'Cold Mountain' (which bears certain similarities and is a notable failure in convincing qualities compared to this film) can be castigated for exactly the same reason. <br /><br />Also despite accusations, the film has a plot, quite a well-essayed plot at that. It simply does not bow to standard-form 'epic' quality, by providing Titan heroes, rafts of sub-plots and confusion. It experiments with telling in a manner more like much smaller, modest films, by carefully-caught moments of character interaction, and well-textured pageant-like explosions of communal action, as with the opening at Harvard and, most specially, the wonderful scene where the Johnson County folk, following the lead of a brilliantly physical fiddler, make celebration on roller-skates.<br /><br />'The Deer Hunter' was a critical and commercial success but abandoned the first half's inspired, mosaic-like accumulation of detail, and I think in a manner similar to criticism of Robert Penn Warren's novel 'All The King's Men' and its dictionary of Jacobean stunts, if Cimino had not had such a strong grasp of the conventions of Hollywood epics, he might have made a special rare work of art based in honest visualisation of people within their milieu. In contrast, 'Heaven's Gate' succeeds in screwing its narrative momentum and tension upwards in a slowly expanding arc, until the finale explodes, whilst not abandoning the mosaic approach.<br /><br />The central romantic triangle, for instance, resists standard inflections; a decent, intelligent, but psychically defeated man, James Averill (Kris Kristofferson) competes with a hot-shot but identity-challenged young gunman Nate Champion (Christopher Walken) for the hand of a young Madame, Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert); there is no self-conscious bed-hopping, no slaps in the face, recriminations, or typical sad-sack moments, but more a sad and distanced decision by Ella to choose the younger man whom she loves less because he is ready to make the commitment. Ella emerges as the film's true hero (Huppert's performance, though initially awkward, is really quite excellent, balancing a dewy emotionalism with a hard-hammered spirit), attempting first to rescue Nate and then mustering the resistance party of immigrants into an enterprising defence. Subsequently, Averill is stung into action as friends die. Indeed, in the process of overcoming so many traps of cliché and style, 'Heaven's Gate' successfully and willfully throws off the defeated outsider-heroes grace note of so many '70s Westerns and portrays an eventual, vigorous, cheer-the-heroes rallying to a compromised but still relished victory. <br /><br />The social conflict of so many '70s Westerns at last hardens into a fully-fledged war; where capital attempts a crushing final victory over the miscreants who stand in their way, suddenly they find a massed and more-powerful people's army, led by the man who played the thoroughly-destroyed Billy the Kid a decade before. This is what led the film to be described as the first Marxist Western, but really it simply deflowers a theme of the genre extant well before the '60s. Such various and classic old-school works as William Wyler's 'The Westerner', and even 'Shane', tell awfully similar stories. It is simply here that the romantic myth of the gunslinger has been replaced by the romantic myth of the people's revolt. In a spectacular, exiting, but realistic and thus chaotic finale, the marauding Cattlemen's encampment is attacked, ringed by dust clouds punctuated by fallen horses, writhing bodies, and gunfire. Averill puts his classical education to work finally by stealing a Roman trick and bringing the Cattlemen to the brink of annihilation before they are rescued by the Cavalry (another distinctly seditious touch, but surely not so offensive after 'Little Big Man's unrelenting depiction of Native American massacres). Really, it's hard to think of a more heroically American vision of grassroots resistance. The film's only real dead spot stands as an unnecessary coda indicating Averill's eventual relapse, a rather potted piece of tragedy. <br /><br />Despite then certain failings and a slow mid-section, 'Heaven's Gate' is a supreme piece of work, a genuine attempt to create a contemporary Western and a new kind of epic. If one has to still join the chorus that reckons Cimino was absurd in his behaviour on set and expenditure, it is regretfully. When, today, flops like 'The Adventures of Pluto Nash' and 'K-19 - The Widowmaker' see nearly a hundred million dollars sink down the drain, and yet a tag of infamy still hangs on this film, one ponders what exactly its grim death signified. The attempt at original style, the bawdy sexuality, the very hard-won sense of detail, the breathtaking rigor of the film-making and what is being filmed, all throw into contrast what is sorely lacking in so much contemporary Hollywood product. | 1 |
14,703 | [
1200,
1300
] | 972 | 1,220 | 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 |
15,271 | [
1200,
1300
] | 945 | 1,252 | SPOILERS AHEAD <br /><br />15 PARK AVENUE: My Humble take on this film <br /><br />Now, for a viewer of cinema having tastes as severely limited as mine, niche films like 15 Park Avenue ought to be palatable to my sensibilities. With this thought, and a mild sense of embarrassment that I hadn't watched the complete film earlier, I watched this film last Saturday. There are some starting similarities with other works like the legendary Mulholland Drive (David Lynch) from which, this film borrows at least 3 concepts:- <br /><br />a) That (at least some) truths are relative b) The first scene of Shabana and Konkonam going around in a car as the opening credits roll, is uncannily similar to the car ride that Betty and Rita undertook in Mulholland Drive. In both cases, the object of inquiry happens to be a place which is probably mythical in both cases and perhaps more openly symbolic in Aparna's film c) The incident revolving around the mad beggar woman is again extremely reminiscent of the whole 'occurence behind Winkies' involving a bum but while that scary creature is an embodiment of something and that that 'something' as well as the character per Se is seamlessly linked to other works of Lynch (notice carefully the disheveled long hair), the effect of the beggar woman in 15 PA appears to be a tribute and therefore insignificant in the context of the film and its message <br /><br />The other films from which 15 PA also borrows is Blow Up (especially the last scene is a throw back to the truth Vs. perceived truth poser presented towards the end of Antonioni's masterpiece). Of course, the professor and schizophrenia angle also bring to the mind, "A Beautiful mind". Although, admittedly the subject here is high brow physics and Shabana, who professes it, inadvertently ends up being the brilliant antithesis to the delusional hallucinations of Konkona's character through those very prophecies. In an outstanding scene in the movie, some of these elements are juxtaposed with each other and that scene cuts back and forth from the 'real' world of Shabana, where Quantum Physics and the Theory of Relativity justify the finiteness and composition of the universe, to the artificial edifice of the 'make believe' world of Mithi But for all their differences, the sisters are alike too. Both are incapable of forming long lasting relationships- one out of choice and the other out of nature. So, Mithi's pain at being rejected in love by Joydeep is in harmony with the inability of Shaban to form a special bond with either Kunal(Dhritiman) or Sanjeev (Kanwaljeet). But I'm getting ahead of myself. Viewers generally tend to view this film in one of the following two ways:- <br /><br />Hypothesis 1: "It was Shabana all along" There is a certain section of the audience who think so. But that explanation is not only too far fetched but also contrived as that would mean she was dreaming up so many other characters too (i.e. all those characters whom she visualized as visualizing Mithi along with her) <br /><br />Hypothesis 2: "There WAS a REAL Mithi and the ending is a metaphor" This POV says that the film's essence is summarized in one dialog in the film, when in response to a statement by Joy (Rahul Bose), that Mithi is looking for something that she will never find, his wife Laxmi (Shefali Shah) philosophizes that we all are looking indeed for that illusive utopia, the end of the rainbow wherein appears to lie the mirage of happiness and contentment <br /><br />There are other more minor possibilities which have not been embraced that much by our knowledgeable audience like:- <br /><br />Hypothesis 3:" Shabana and Konkona are alter egos of the same person" Hypothesis 4: "Shabana too is a figment of Mithi's imagination" Hypothesis 5: "The old, haggard, perhaps mad, beggar woman is the real protagonist of the story" <br /><br />Are these hypotheses worthy of even being tested? Well, your guess is as good as mine <br /><br />"Why 15 Park Avenue?" Contrary to the popular perception that she was thinking of the Park Avenue in NY, I believe that she got the name from the brand name of a semi popular bathing soap. Remember, her stating Jo Jo's profession as "Prime minister of Shikakai", which as you may be knowing is a popular ingredient used in manufacturing Shampoos. The prefix '15' is used as it was on 15th December that Mithi got engaged to Joydeep and after his walkout, she remains forever in a time warp. The film has its fair share of flaws- lack of use of a strong background score, which in films like these can really augment the narrative, some sloppy dialogs unabated by some forced dialog delivery. Inconsistent performances (Shabana and Dhritimaan are excellent though IMO) by a few of the cast members albeit many members of this ensemble cast have been wasted. Shefali Chaya's sudden insecurity about her husband seems to be an unimaginatively introduced dimension in the plot. I give it 7/10 as it made me think but not any higher than that because I can easily fathom its sources of inspiration and having experienced (and for the most part, thoroughly enjoyed) those previously, I have already thought on similar lines earlier. So, the experience post 15 PA is bound to be sans a certain degree of novelty. Where am I coming from? I gave 9.5/10 to '36 Chowringhee Lane' (though rumors still persist that one Satyajit Ray ghost directed it), 7.5 to 'Paromiter Ek Din', 7 to 'Mr and Mrs Iyer' and 5 to 'Paroma'. On an existential level, it failed to invoke my interest, not even as much as say a 'Truman Show' | 1 |
15,329 | [
1200,
1300
] | 985 | 1,232 | This is a simple episode ad so far after watching all of the Season 11 episodes (with the exception of the Imaginationland trilogy) this is the one that made laugh the most, definitely is my favourite so far of Season 11. So basically Cartman sees at a toy store a kid who has the Tourette's syndrome and a new idea comes to Cartman. You can imagine, now Cartman has Tourette's syndrome and is great since Kyle once he knows about this is like "he's faking". Cartman is certainly on fire, saying whatever he wants to the teachers, to the principal, to anybody. On the other hand we have Kyle who now is the intolerant one, basically for saying that Cartman was faking he was taken to meet children with Tourette's syndrome just to let him see that Tourette's syndrome is for real and is great since Kyle is like "well maybe someone is faking to have Tourette's for fun", in short Kyle could not explain that Cartman was faking. Probably my favourite scene of this episode is when Cartman is with Kyle's family but right after this scene another kid fins that Cartman is simply faking, the kid with Tourette's who was at the toy store, Cartman basically said to that kid this: "isn't having Tourette's awesome". But to be saying whatever he wants and be for everybody a brave boy is sort of just the beginning for Cartman, his master plan: going on National TV to say anything he wants ("people will call it brilliant TV, they'll probably give me an Emmy"- fantastic, in this episode the word "s***" is used 26 times and certainly that's not all. South Park won an Emmy like a month or so before this episode aired). But here there's a twist, Cartman basically removed all the bricks of the wall, he says now everything without thinking so we hear from Cartman that he wet his bed last night, now is not fun for Cartman and he is like "I can't control what I say" and certainly the person who was with him is like "well of course you can't control what you say, you have Tourette's" so Cartman is like "my Tourette's has gotten worse, before I just blurted out cool stuff about Jews being lame and stuff but now it's gotten really bad". There is also stuff about Chris Hansen and To Catch a Predator, actually what happened with a pervert here happens with a lot more perverts, Kyle and Thomas were behind that to stop Cartman, Kyle ends being Cartman's saviour! Fantastic!<br /><br />TSA VOICES CONCERN Over "South Park" October 3rd Episode <br /><br />On Wednesday, October 3, the cable network Comedy Central will air an episode of the animated series "South Park" in which one of the young characters, Cartman, "gets" Tourette Syndrome. Given the nature of this program, we fully expect it to be offensive and insensitive to people with TS and garner numerous calls and emails from our members and the TS community.<br /><br />We have already taken some pre-emptive strikes, such as requesting that Comedy Central air our Public Service Announcement (featuring comedian Richard Lewis) during or after the show. In addition, once the episode airs and we are able to see exactly how TS is portrayed, we will be able to respond with specific issues and problems we have with the show to the writers.<br /><br />"We are actually surprised it took the creators so long to use TS as comedy fodder in this program, since no disability, illness or controversial topic is off limits to them," said Judit Ungar, President, TSA.<br /><br />"We always see portrayals of TS (good and bad) as an opportunity for awareness and education, and a show of this magnitude and popularity is certainly no exception and provides a way for TSA to spread factual information about the disorder," said Tracy Colletti- Flynn, Manager of Public Relations and Communications, TSA.<br /><br />We will be posting an official statement on this site with TSA's reaction to the program after the show airs.<br /><br />TSA RESPONDS to "South Park" Episode <br /><br />Unfortunately, as has been the case with far too many media portrayals of people with Tourette Syndrome (TS), the season opener of South Park ("Le Petit Tourette," 10-3-07) served to perpetuate even further the outright myth that most of those affected by TS have involuntary outbursts of foul language. In point of fact, fully 85-90% of people with TS never experience this tragically socially stigmatizing symptom (medically termed coprolalia). For viewers less familiar with the symptoms of this neurological disorder, the misleading take away message couldn't have been clearer unless you curse, you don't have TS. <br /><br />Despite our pre-airing trepidations, we do concede that the episode was surprisingly well- researched. The highly exaggerated emphasis on coprolalia notwithstanding, for the attentive viewer, there was a surprising amount of accurate information conveyed. The scripted input from parents, a neurologist, peers and the therapy session with the "TS children's support group" all served as a clever device for providing these facts to the public. "No doubt this South Park episode did generate increased national awareness about TS. Nevertheless, we are very concerned that school children with TS will be mocked and even bullied by insensitive peers who may have seen the program," said Judit Ungar, TSA President. "We realize that for over a decade the writers' satirical parodies have spared no group be they celebrities, the disabled or political figures. The fact that TS was the subject of a popular TV show attests to the fact that the public is so much more aware of the disorder. Obviously, this increased awareness we've worked too hard to accomplish can at times prove to be a double-edged sword." <br /><br />TSA contacted the program's executives prior to the airing, and we will be in touch with them again. Perhaps we'll succeed in turning this into an opportunity for positive TS awareness. | 1 |
15,354 | [
1200,
1300
] | 980 | 1,299 | "The Egyptian" is set during the reign of one of the most fascinating figures of the ancient world, the Pharaoh Akhnaton, who, thirteen centuries before Christ attempted to introduce a monotheistic religion, Atenism, to ancient Egypt. The main character, however, is not Akhnaton but rather the fictitious Sinuhe. As a baby, Sinuhe is found mysteriously floating in a basket on the river Nile and adopted by the physician Senmut and his wife. When he grows to manhood, he follows his adopted father into the medical profession, initially working (as his father did) among the poor of the city, but he comes to prominence after he and his friend, the ambitious young soldier Horemheb, save the Pharaoh's life while on a hunting expedition in the desert. Sinuhe is appointed Court physician, but becomes obsessed with the Babylonian courtesan Nefer. Sinuhe not only ruins himself in a vain attempt to win her love, but is also disgraced when his neglect of his duties means that he is unable to save the life of Akhnaton's daughter.<br /><br />Sinuhe flees into exile, where he achieves success as a healer in neighbouring countries, but returns to Egypt when he learns of a Hittite plot to invade. Although Akhnaton readily forgives him for his previous offences, Sinuhe finds the country in turmoil. The Pharaoh's attempts to introduce a new religion have led to civil strife between his followers and those of the priests of the old polytheistic faith, and he is too pacific by nature to take any steps to confront the Hittite threat. Sinuhe becomes embroiled in a plot by Horemheb, now the general of the Egyptian army, and Akhnaton's sister Princess Baketamon to overthrow the Pharaoh and replace him with a more effective monarch.<br /><br />The film's weaknesses arise mostly from its two romantic subplots. In the course of the film, Sinuhe is revealed as the long-lost son of the previous Pharaoh and half-brother to Akhnaton and Baketamon. It might therefore surprise a modern audience that she should fall in love with him; marriage between brothers and sisters were not necessarily considered as incestuous by the standards of Egyptian royalty, but the standards of 1950s cinema audiences were generally less liberal on this point. In any case, the Horemheb-Baketamon-Sinuhe love triangle is an unnecessary complication and detracts from Baketamon's role in the film, that of the voice of cold-eyed, cynical Realpolitik.<br /><br />The Nefer subplot, which takes up most of the first hour of the film, is overwritten and excessively melodramatic. Nefer is morally worthless but fascinating, and the role needed an actress of great beauty and also great dramatic skill to make her credible, especially as Nefer achieves the difficult task of winning Sinuhe away from a woman as lovely as Jean Simmons (who plays Merit, Sinuhe's rival for her affections). It is therefore unfortunate that the role went to an actress as comically inept as Bella Darvi, whose only qualification was that she was the mistress of the producer, Darryl F. Zanuck. Darvi was not only a wooden actress, but also spoke with a thick foreign accent, made even more incomprehensible by a lisp. She was not even particularly attractive by comparison with the two legendary Hollywood beauties in the film, Simmons and Gene Tierney who plays Baketamon.<br /><br />The film is better when it concentrates on its main political and religious themes. The other actors are better than Darvi, although Peter Ustinov as Sinuhe's servant Kaptah makes the same mistake as in "Spartacus", that of trying to bring comic relief into a film that does not need it. His voice, anyway, was far too patrician for a "comic servant" role.<br /><br />Edmund Purdom, a little-known British actor, was thrust into the main role when Marlon Brando pulled out at the last minute, but more than adequately fills the great man's shoes, even though his style of acting was quite different. He copes well with the challenge of showing the changes in Sinuhe's character, from unworldly idealist, to lovesick fool, to embittered cynic to the enlightened visionary of the final scenes. Victor Mature was never the most expressive of actors, but he is well-suited to the role of Horemheb, a practical, down-to-earth man of action. He is better here than he was in his other epic from 1954, "Demetrius and the Gladiators". Simmons is luminously beautiful as Merit.<br /><br />Michael Wilding (hitherto best known to me as the second Mr Elizabeth Taylor) plays Akhnaton as a would-be philosopher-king who ends as a sort of holy fool. His inability to make difficult decisions makes him an unsuitable ruler, but he has a prophetic vision of peace and justice which lend him an air of moral greatness far beyond those who hope to replace him on the throne. Although Aten had more in common with the Supreme Being of the Deists than with the Old Testament Jehovah or the Trinitarian Christian God, there is a quite deliberate attempt to draw parallels between Atenism and Christianity. In the film the Atenist symbol is the "ankh", doubtless chosen because of its resemblance to a cross, but in reality it was a common Egyptian hieroglyph for life, not unique to Atenism. Akhnaton's language often has a Biblical ring to it; his comparison of himself to "wind whistling in the desert" recalls John the Baptist's "voice crying in the wilderness" (hence the title of this review). Sinuhe's finding in the river parallels the Old Testament story of Moses.<br /><br />At the end of the film Sinuhe, who has become the inheritor of the spirit of the dead Akhnaton, achieves a moral greatness of his own. The message of the film is that, while we may need practical men of action like Horemheb, we also need visionaries and thinkers who are prepared to ask the question "why?" For all its faults, "The Egyptian" is a film which is idealistic and humane in its approach to both religion and politics. 7/10 | 1 |
15,406 | [
1200,
1300
] | 936 | 1,250 | Renee Zellweger is a Kansas housewife whose domineering husband is mixed up in drug trafficking. Two professional hit men -- Morgan Freeman and his son, Chris Rock, murder the husband in his dining room. Zellweger, unobserved by the killers, witnesses this and undergoes a dissociative reaction, assuming the personality of a nurse -- the eponymous Betty -- who is a character in her favorite soap opera. Believing herself to be the TV character, Zellweger takes off in her husband's car, which has a load of dope in the trunk, and travels to LA where she hopes to link up with another character in this mindless afternoon drama, "Dr. David Ravell", Greg Kinnear. Not realizing she is being pursued by the two hit men, she drives to LA where she manages to link up with Kinnear and is actually written into the show as a nurse named Betty. A handful of men in the know, including the local sheriff, catch on to what's happening and also seek Zellweger in LA. The ending is believable and poignant.<br /><br />If that sounds crazy, it's because it is. And it's the writer's responsibility, John C. Richards. The curious thing is that Richards and the director, Neil Labute, with considerable help from the performers, just about pull it all off. This isn't a plot that has been cast in a familiar mold. Nope. I give it bonus points for sheer originality. Somebody went out on a limb. Somebody took a chance on a movie that was NOT a copy or remake of something that had made money ten years or fifty years ago. I imagine the people involved, down on their knees every night, praying fervently. I don't know if the film was remunerative but it's mostly successful on its own aesthetic terms.<br /><br />It's what might be called an "initial premise" movie. You start off with a single transformative event, in this case the murder of Zellweger's husband and her adoption of a genuinely new personality, and follow the resultant logical paths realistically. "Groundhog Day" is another, better and more intricately plotted, example. "Nurse Betty" has its logical cracks, where the incidents give up their plausibility. Eg., at a party in LA, Zellweger finally runs into Kinnear, the guy who plays her ex-fiancé on TV. She's stunned (because, after all, she thinks she's Betty, who lost her fiancé long ago). She approaches Kinnear and a couple of his colleagues and introduces herself as "Nurse Betty", the character. She addresses Kinnear by the name of his TV character, "David Ravell." The group are puzzled at first, then convince themselves that she's an aspiring actress who insists on staying "in character" during the conversation -- and afterward, too, after Kinnear has become fascinated by her and the others bored. Kinnear drives her home and even when she kisses him goodnight, she's still in character, leaving Kinnear wide-eyed with astonishment at the relentless way she captures the character of Betty. On the next date, Kinnear returns her love. That development, the relationship between Zellweger and Kinnear at this point, is a crack in the logic, the kind that's absent from "Groundhog Day." By the end of Night One, Kinnear, like any other person, would realize that Zellweger is a few clowns short of a circus.<br /><br />The rest of the film, which includes many digressions, succeeds beyond expectations. The relationship between Morgan Freeman and his insolent, nihilistic son is marvelously spelled out. Morgan is flawless in his exasperation. He manages to fall in love with the image of Zellweger as he unearths clues to her whereabouts and activities, and at the end he can't bring himself to shoot her. She's too sweet to shoot. After her transformation into Betty, she left a note behind in Kansas. "I want to help all life, whether it be animal, plant, or mineral." Who could harm the author of such a preposterous connative statement? His admiration of her comes as an epiphany, as he stands near one of the floodlights at the rim of the Grand Canyon. Zellweger, dressed as Dorothy, or maybe the Good Witch of the East -- well, characters that, like Zellweger, are from Kansas anyway -- appears to Freeman and he embraces her and kisses her tenderly. It's a scene that's at once eerie, romantic, and a little spooky. I once stood at one of those lights and threw some shredded paper into the updraft from the dark canyon and found myself surrounded by a thousand swirling bats who had misperceived the fluttering shreds as moths.<br /><br />Right. Where was I? Okay. I was trying not to run out of space. Zellweger's performance deserves plaudits. Everything she does, every movement, every utterance, is naive and tentative. She really IS a likable character -- and that despite the fact that she's no glamor girl by Hollywood standards. But -- what an actress. Compare her performance as the bumptious 19th-century hick in "Cold Mountain." Just the opposite. But then everyone is up to snuff in this enjoyable film. Allyson Jannings does a fine job in a minor role. Watch her when she tells Greg Kinnear that she's considering killing off his character in the soap opera in a drowning accident. Kinnear is one of those narcissists who wears the kind of ten-thousand dollar thin black leather jackets that were popular at the time. He chuckles and says, "Oh, one of those castaway deals, right? Okay, how do I get back?" Jannings doesn't answer. She just smiles at him with those enormous blue eyes and tilts her head mockingly.<br /><br />Not a masterpiece of film-making but a good, original, professional job by everyone concerned. | 1 |
15,428 | [
1200,
1300
] | 985 | 1,289 | "Only the Valiant" qualifies as a gritty good western. This Gregory Peck cavalry versus the Indians oater is a solemn suicide mission without a trace of humor. Veteran director Gordon Douglas has helmed a grim, harrowing outdoors epic with an ideal cast of tough guys under considerable pressure; even Lon Chaney, Jr., registers superbly as a powerful Arab trooper. Ostensibly, "Colorado Territory" scenarist Edmund H. North & "A Place in the Sun" scribe Harry Brown drew their screenplay from western film maker Charles Marquis Warren's taut novel about a group of die-hard cavalrymen cut off from any escape route who must prevent murderous redskins from launching a devastating raid against helpless white settlers. North and Brown stick to Warren's novel for the most part and the last minute revelation--when it seems that there is no way that our heroes can survive another onslaught of Native Americansis a corker! This turn-of-the-century tale develops an effective claustrophobic feeling in the second half of the action. Douglas and company take studio bound sets and make them look convincing during the nocturnal hours. The crisp black & white photography of "Going My Way" cinematographer Lionel Linden imbues this western a grim look that accentuates its tension and atmosphere. Actor Michael Ansara, who later played the chief villain in "Guns of the Magnificent Seven," is extremely effective in a small role as the hated Indian leader Tucsos.<br /><br />"Only the Valiant" opens with over-voice narration by Army Scout Joe Harmony. "This is my stamping ground. I'm a scout for the Army. Had my work cut out for me for a long time. Behind that pass there is the whole 'Pache nation. (There is a graphic of the territory with the Flinthead Mountains stretching across the screen with a bottleneck pass.) They used to come swarming out of the pass killing everything in sights. Then we built a fortFort Invincible. It plugged up the pass, just like a cork in a bottle. Things was fine for a while. But them 'Paches is pretty smart. One day the bottle blew the cork plum apart." We are shown the burning remains of Fort Invincible with a dead man pinned to a stockade wall and a lance sticking out of his belly. Captain Richard Lance (Gregory Peck of "12 O'Clock High") and his men boil in on horseback and capture Tucsos (Michael Ansara), and Joe Harmony (Jeff Corey of "True Grit") wants to shoot him on the spot. Harmony points out Tucsos is "the fella that started this whole business." Captain Lance intervenes, "The Army doesn't shoot prisoners, Joe." Predictably, Harmony is aghast at this prospect. "He's no common injun. He's just as near to a god as a fella can get. If you shoot him now, things will quiet down. Without Tucsos stirring them up, the rest of those Indians will get reasonable, just as fast as they can. You take him in alive, you'll have every 'Pache in the territory coming after him. We have had three years of this, you can stop it now." Just as predictably, Captain Lance refuses to kill Tucsos and Lance's decision to take the Indian back sets things into action.<br /><br />Colonel Drum (Herbert Heyes of "Union Station") surprises Lance when he tells him he should have shot Tucsos. As it is, they need to get Tucsos to another post. Everybody from the troopers to Joe Harmony knows that taking Tucsos to Fort Grant is asking to die. The Apaches are poised in the mountains and the fort is under strength. Meantime, we are introduced to the daughter of Captain Eversham, Cathy Eversham (Barbara Payton of "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye"), and young Lieutenant William Holloway (Gig Young of "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?") and they play a part in a major narrative complication. You see, Lance and Holloway both want to marry Cathy. Clearly, Cathy wants Lance. Colonel Drum refuses to let Lance take Tucsos to Fort Grant because Drum cannot spare Lance. Drum changes the orders and Holloway is given the mission at the last minute, and everybody is shocked. Lance has never changed an order. Furthermore, Lance saw Cathy and Holloway kissing in public, and everybody thinks Lance has reassigned Holloway out of jealousy. Indeed, one officer observes that rewriting orders is about a possible as rewriting the Bible. Predictably, Tucsos escapes and the surviving troopers and Harmony bring back a dead Holloway.<br /><br />Although Drum expects a relief column of 400 troopers to arrive any day, Harmony points out to Lance that Tucsos will attack. Tucsos has seen the fort and knows their lack of strength. Lance requests to take 6 or 7 men of his choosing to man Fort Invincible and prevent Tucsos from assembling a war party. The bottleneck in the mountains keeps the Indians from riding through in strength; instead, they must come through one-at-a-time. Lance believes his men can thwart them until the relief column arrives. Drum gives him permission and Lance picks the worst men. All of them hate him and would willingly kill him.<br /><br />"Only the Valiant" exemplifies the new breed of military western after World War II. This is not a gung-ho John Ford cavalry western. Indeed, Lance's own men want to kill him and this foreshadows the attitude of troops during the Vietnam War when they fragged their own officers. Lance bears the onus of allexcept the few who know about the circumstances that brought about the change of orders putting Holloway in charge of the detail. The black & white photography enhances the dire nature of this western. "Only the Valiant" amounts to a last stand western until the last minute reprieve. Reportedly, Peck hated this movie, but then this is not a spit-and-polish western in Technicolor. If anything, "Only the Valiant" lives up to its Warner Brothers origins. It is small but significant and it is grubby with loads of drama and unsavory characters, virtually a "Dirty Dozen" western. | 1 |
15,443 | [
1200,
1300
] | 978 | 1,234 | "Stripperella" is an animated series about a girl named Erotica Jones (voiced by Pamela Anderson) who lives a double life as a stripper at a gentleman's club known as "The Tender Loins" and as a sexy crime-fighter known as Stripperella, a.k.a. Agent 69 who works for a government organization. As Stripperella, Erotica fights crime and the forces of evil such as a plastic surgeon who gives women breast implants that either explode or make them fat and Cheapo, a criminal who steals from 99 cent stores and makes his two henchmen share a gun. The creator of the character and the series is Stan Lee of Marvel fame (and creator of Spider-Man).<br /><br />Back in late June of 2003, Spike TV (then known as The New TNN) premiered a Thursday night block of three animated shows. Those shows were "Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon"; new adventures of classic kids show characters Ren and Stimpy for adults done by original creator John Kricfalusi, "Gary the Rat"; about a lawyer who is turned into a human sized rat starring Kelsee Grammar of "Cheers" and "Fraiser" fame, and "Stripperella"; the adventures of a stripper who doubles as a superhero voiced by Pamela Anderson and created by Stan Lee. I remember seeing all three of the premiers. I was anxious to see Ren and Stimpy as I love the original show. I was a little let down. It was alright but it seemed to take things a little too far; seeing the two have gay sex together was a bit much. Though Gary the Rat wasn't bad, the best of the three was easily Stripperella. The animation was really good, it had an awesome intro song, it had some good talent behind it, and it was funny as hell! The show was just so silly, I don't even know how to begin explaining it! After four of five weeks (if not a little less) the animation block disappeared, which was weird because I know it got good ratings and it was advertised everywhere. I was disappointed to see Stripperella go but several months later I found out about new episodes that aired at like 1:00 AM. I only got to see one and though it was funny as hell and I was glad to see the show back after all that time, something seemed a bit off....<br /><br />In the beginning of it's short run, "Stripperella" had great animation. It was dark, moody, realistic, and somewhat sexy too. The Stripperella costumed looked good too, the character was drawn well. After the long hiatus and during the rest of the episodes, the animation was very different. Instead of dark and realistic look it originally had everything was now really colorful and cartoonish. Stripperella received the biggest changes though. Before she had normal long hair, now she had hair bigger than Peggy Bundy's (Married with Children) if even possible. Also, the eye mask actually shows her eyes now; before it was just white you saw which was cool since it was more superheroish. Also, the upper part of her costume was kind of a vest-type thing with a collar and her costume was dark blue; that changed to her costume being a bluish-violet color and her upper costume being really crappy looking in comparison. In short, the show was a cartoon and very over the top silly beforehand, but the second-half it became more cartoonish looking and though still laugh-out-loud hilarious, it became more zany as well; for example, there was a later episode about a were-beaver...yes, a were-beaver. <br /><br />Anyway, instead of complaining about the mid-series changes, "Stripperella" only ran one season but it was a very good show. Like the Tales from the Crypt film "Bordello of Blood", it may be really campy but it's really fun. As long as your not a prude you'll find yourself laughing repeatedly at this show. I haven't seen every episode because I haven't got the DVD yet for two reasons: #1. Paramount released and they have this screwed up policy about not including any extras on nearly all released TV shows, even though this was the entire show (I would have liked to see some commentary's maby explaining the animation change and interviews with Pamela Anderson and Stan Lee) and #2. the awesome Kid Rock song during the opening was replaced. Now I'm not a fan of his, but that intro sang WAS the theme for the show! If your not going to pay to have any extras at least pay to have the original intro song you jack-asses. The show also had a few interesting guest stars such as John Lovitz as Cheapo and Mark Hamil as the plastic surgion who hates models. Also Tom Kenny (SpongeBob) was on the show as the owner of the strip club in most every episode. Stan Lee has a cameo in one episode too.<br /><br />The Breakdown: <br /><br />PROS: Had a great look to it at first, FUNNY AS HELL, a very fun show, great voice talent for the most part, Chief Strogenoff (watch the show and see some of the stuff he does), and was easily the best of the three animated shows mentioned earlier.<br /><br />CONS: The mid-series animation change and the crappy DVD described earlier. Aside from the fact that some of the humor could be kind of dumb at times I have nothing really negative to say about this.<br /><br />OVERALL: Stripperella is a huge guilty pleasure of mine and it's a shame it only ran one season. It was a very funny, sexy, actioned packed cult series that I hope to see air on Adult Swim someday with the original intro intact and possibly give it another season like Family Guy. Check it out even if it is on the lousy DVD. You will laugh yourself silly.<br /><br />Rated TV-MA: Crude and Sexual Humor and Nudity, Runtime: About 25 minutes per episode, Score: 9/10 | 1 |
15,558 | [
1200,
1300
] | 992 | 1,282 | Clayton Moore made his last official appearance on screen as the Masked Man in director Lesley Selander's epic adventure "The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold," co-starring Jay Silverheels as his faithful Indian scout Tonto. Selander was an old hand at helming westerns during his 40 years in films and television with over a 100 westerns to his directorial credit. This fast-paced horse opera embraced a revisionist perspective in its depiction of Native Americans that had been gradually gaining acceptance since 1950 in Hollywood oaters after director Delmar Daves blazed the trail with the James Stewart western "Broken Arrow." Racial intolerance figures as the primary theme in the Robert Schaefer and Eric Freiwald screenplay. Having written 13 episodes of "The Lone Ranger" television series, Schaefer and Freiwald each were thoroughly familiar with the formula, but they raised the stakes for this theatrical outing. Our vigilante heroes ride to the rescue of Indians who are being murdered by hooded white hombres for no apparent reason. The mystery about the identities of these assassins and the reason behind their homicidal behavior is revealed fairly early so that you don't have to guess what is happening.<br /><br />Although the violence in this Selander saga appears tame by contemporary standards, the fact that the Lone Ranger shoots a bad guy to kill in one scene rather than wound and that a dastardly dame slays a double-crossing accomplice by hurling a tomahawk that sinks into his back between his shoulder blades was pretty audacious. The television series never went to this length, and when the Lone Ranger wielded his six-gun, he shot the gun out of the villain's fist rather than blow him away. The other discrepancy here is the Indians lynch one of the raiders and torture him for information, but they are never brought up on charges from abducting this henchman. Douglas Kennedy didn't have the villainous statue of Lyle Bettger who menaced the Masked Man in director Stuart Heisler's "The Lone Ranger," but he acquits himself well enough as a cowardly outlaw who kills one of his own henchmen without a qualm when the miscreant threatens to divulge his name and the identities of his cronies to a band of vengeful Indians.<br /><br />"The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold" opens with a recap of the masked protagonist's origins as an ambushed Texas Ranger and his transformation into the Lone Ranger with Tonto serving as his sidekick. This opening two minute refresher is an excellent way to get a series-oriented character off to a start so that everybody, including non-Lone Ranger fans, is on equal footing. The primary plot about a gang of ruthless white wearing hoods and callednot surprisinglythe Hooded Raiders begins with them killing Indians and stealing medallions worn around their necks. The Lone Ranger and Tonto arrive too late to intervene, but they find a baby hidden nearby. Taking the baby and the dead Indian, they ride to a nearby Spanish mission supervised by Padre Vincente Esteban (Ralph Moody of "The Outsider") and turn the infant and body over to him. Initially, the Padre has to assure an Indian maiden, Paviva (Lisa Montell of "Gaby"), that the masked man means them no harm and is their friend. Padre sends Tonto off to town to fetch the doctor, Dr. James Rolfe (Dean Fredericks of "Gun Fever"), and Tonto promptly runs into trouble in the form of the paunchy town lawman, Sheriff Oscar Matthison (Charles Watts of "Giant"), who abhors Indians. Tonto tries to see the doctor who is treating prisoners in the sheriff's jail and Matthison's men start to rough him up when Rolfe intervenes and rides back to the mission.<br /><br />Eventually, the Lone Ranger and Tonto are able to capture one of the Hooded Raiders, but an Indian Redbird (Maurice Jara of "Drum Beat"), and his fellow braves abduct the henchmen and take him back to their village. They stake him out and shoot arrows at him to loosen his tongue. Chief villain Ross Brady (Douglas Kennedy of "Hell's Crossroads") and his cohort William (Lane Bradford of "Devil's Canyon") ride out to the village and Brady uses his Winchester to kill his captured henchman. Little does Brady know that his henchman talked. The Lone Ranger and Tonto arrive not long afterward and reprimand Redbird for his perfidy. Redbird tells them what the man said before he died and the Lone Ranger decides to adopt a disguise so that he can learn more. He masquerades as a gentleman bounty hunter with a mustache and faux Southern accent.<br /><br />Despite its concise 83-minute running time, "The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold" lacks neither excitement nor surprises. Selander keeps the action moving ahead at a full gallop. The dialogue is largely expository rather than memorable as Schaefer and Freiwald push the plot ahead more often than spring surprises, but there is one major surprise that ties in with the good Indian theme. There is also a scene where the Lone Ranger pushes his own credo about justice available for everybody under the law at a time when Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren had embarked on the high court's landmark decisions that recognized and mitigated against the conditions surrounding racial segregation, civil rights, separation of church and state, and police arrest procedure in the United States. One thing that differentiates "The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold" from its predecessor is its epic scale with flashbacks to the age of the Spanish conquistadors with a slight bit of science fiction involved in the form of a destructive meteor. Generally, Lone Ranger stories confined themselves to the 19th century without dragging in European history. No, the Lone Ranger wasn't the first movie to deal with Spanish conquistadors. Robert D. Webb's "The Seven Cities of Gold" (1955) concerned the Spanish searching the southwest for the eponymous places, but Selander's western beat Gordon Douglas' "Gold of the Seven Saints" (1961) to the screen. | 1 |
15,678 | [
1200,
1300
] | 971 | 1,208 | Inarguably one of the most interesting filmmakers of the last 50 years, Werner Herzog has been pushing the boundaries of cinema perhaps more so than any other commercial filmmaker. I've been acquainted with Herzog for a few decades now and I've never not been impressed by both the man and his work. Last year I went to see Rescue Dawn and was somewhat surprised at how relatively mainstream the film was, yet couldn't help but imagine Herzog taking his actors and crew into the actual jungle to not only make the film, but to live it. No other filmmaker is as crazed about the purity of the film-making process and the subsequent lore from such productions as Fitzcarraldo has been forged into cinematic legend.<br /><br />Today I sat down to Fata Morgana, a 1969 Herzog film that could be described as an allegorical filmic postcard. Without researching the actual locations, I'm assuming it was shot somewhere in Africa, both coastal and desert, a region that could have once been the cradle of infant man, infant civilization, infant life on earth. It is these origins, the biblical notion of the Garden of Eden and the Apocalypse that Herzog is concerned with, as is voiced by the narration dispensed throughout the 79 minute run time.<br /><br />Watching FM I couldn't help but feel I was a passenger on a profound journey. In the opening sequence, the title is translated as "Mirage" and Herzog juxtaposes this translation with multiple repetitions of commercial jets landing on an airstrip. These images are perverted, their 3-dimensionality crushed flat by a long lens, piling layers of exhaust, heat waves and light aberrations all on top of one another. The effect left me to conclude: things are not as they seem.<br /><br />FM is divided into 3 very distinct chapters: 1) Creation, 2) Paradise and 3) The Golden Age. Chapter One, opens with countless, languid images, where bleak, barren landscapes scroll by, dead animals rot, broken shells of crashed airplanes and abandoned cars slowly disintegrate in the desert sun. The people populating this inhospitable landscape are ragged, unsmiling and apparent prisoners of the desert. The narration talks of a time before life, a time where the canvas of earth was blank and all that existed were the heavens. While the narration hearkens to a simpler, purer era, a portrait of a young boy holding a fox-like animal by its throat evokes a chilling depiction of man's cruel, ruthless attempt to enforce a dominion over nature.<br /><br />In the next chapter we are introduced to more of the same, yet the images and people are more animated and seem infused with a modicum of life and vitality. We listen to a goggled biologist talk about the difficultly a monitor lizard has hunting for prey in such a lifeless environment. As he holds the squirming monitor, its tongue flicking at flies, he also describes how difficult it to capture these creatures in the searing 140 degree heat. The parallel is duly noted and Herzog continues to explore this concept through repeated, candid portraits of individuals battered by the sun, the desert and the laborious efforts required to exist in this harsh realm. He also pushes forward the theme that if not in control, man asserts his control over his environment and not always in the most pleasant of ways.<br /><br />The last chapter takes us out of the desert's blast furnace and into the more familiar Herzog territory populated by eccentrics and absurd behavior. No one seems to have a more effective symbiotic relationship with the oddballs of the world than Herzog -- possibly this is where he feels most at home. Much like Errol Morris, Herzog chooses to place his camera in as seemingly objective a position as he can before he lets the film roll. The subsequent flirtation Herzog has with his subject is the result of him being able to continue shooting well beyond the point when most directors would have yelled cut. As Morris does, this extended roll pushes past the "on" moment the subjects feel obliged to offer and through their discomfort of being pushed into overtime, their facade gives way to something real. The most humorous portrait in this chapter is of the 2 person band playing an odd, polka-like song that Herzog recycles throughout this chapter. The drummer of the band wears the same goggles as the biologist, as does another guy doing a magic trick, begging the question: what's with the goggles? They definitely add some levity to the film, but one has to wonder if they hold any deeper meaning or significance, or is this just another example of Herzog's playfullness.<br /><br />The narration aside, Herzog utilizes folk and blues music as the experimental documentary's soundtrack. Leonard Cohen grabs the most screen time, two of his beautifully melancholic songs "So Long Marianne" and "Suzanne." perfectly accompany the scrolling landscapes, adding to the convincing feel that we are truly along for the ride. By the end of the journey, Herzog comes back to one of the many shots that recur throughout the film: the distant framing of a lone vehicle traversing the endless desert engulfed by a water mirage that fills the horizon. Despite the overall bleakness of FM, the crescendo of the film and the mirage motif leave you with a hopeful spirit, belief that against all odds, life will persevere and possibly even flourish.<br /><br />Having finished writing this post, I referenced FM to discover that Herzog shot it in Saharan Cameroon only weeks after a bloody coup. True to his legend, Herzog and his crew were arrested, beaten and imprisoned. While imprisoned, Herzog fell ill with Schistosomiasis, a blood parasite. It's truly hard not to love such a hypnotic and austere film as Fata Morgana; knowing the filmmaker was willing to die to get it made only makes you respect it all the more.<br /><br />http://eattheblinds.blogspot.com/ | 1 |
15,885 | [
1200,
1300
] | 984 | 1,236 | This comment discusses "North and South Book I" dealing with 1842-1861 period<br /><br />The 19th century history of the USA is mostly identified by people with the Civil War (1861-1865). This is a reasonable opinion because that was Civil War which put the Union under the severe test; that was the Civil War which made Americans realize how precious it is to live in peace; finally, that was this period which at last brought the end to the shameful system of slavery. <br /><br />From the birth of motion pictures, there were people who adapted that time onto screen. D.W. Griffith, in the early 1900s, made his unforgettable BIRTH OF A NATION. Yet, the most famous film about the north-south clash is still, I suppose, GONE WITH THE WIND (1938). Unfortunately, fewer people know the magnificent TV series based on John Jakes' novel, "North and South." It is the very best TV series ever made and the time spent on watching it is really precious. I taped it on my video from Polish TV many years ago and have come back to it with great pleasure many times since then. Why? <br /><br />Firstly, the entire story is deeply rooted in historical reality. The two families, the Maines from South Carolina and the Hazards from Pennsylvania, represent two entirely different ways of life. In spite of that, friendship unites them. Yet, what they experience is the struggle all people do: friendship attacked by "truth" of "political correctness", love attacked by hatred of "legal spouses", gentleness by strength of "social heroes". Orry Maine (Patrick Swayze) is my beloved character - someone who finds love and who is quickly deprived of her; someone who cares for friends but political fanatics step in the way and ruin much. Finally, he is someone who can see the tragic future for his land but there is nothing he can do about the south's inescapable fate. His friend, George Hazard, is similar in most aspects but sometimes he appears to have a stronger character. It is him who shows Orry that although there are tragedies, he must get up from despair and live since life is the most precious thing we have. Although they represent two different lifestyles, their friendship occurs to be stronger than any prejudice, politics or conflicts.<br /><br />Other characters are also particularly well developed. There are villains, like Justin LaMotte or Salem Jones who are really wicked but most of the people are ambiguous as the nature of humanity has always been. Charles Maine is, at first, full of rebellion, prone to fighting, later, however, he learns to be a true southern gentleman for whom southern pride is not courageous words but foremost courageous deeds. Virgilia Hazard represents the most fanatical side of abolitionist movement striving to condemn slavery and punish the owners of "black breeding farms." Her marriage with Grady appears to be a symbol of equality but also a symbol of saying "NO" to the politics of the south. Two interesting characters are Orry's sisters, Brett and Ashton - sisters in whose veins runs entirely opposite blood. Brett, in her gentleness but also naiveness, believes in absolute fidelity. She marries Billy, even though he is a northerner, because she truly loves him. Brett is the representation of all that is precious in any young woman. Ashton, however, is a vamp, a tigress, a woman who does not hesitate to do the most wicked things. The clear picture of their world views clash is their chat about men and family...unforgettable moment and how universal! Most characters head for their values...yet, war breaks out and they'll have to put aside a lot...<br /><br />Secondly, the performances... someone said that not all people act naturally. I wouldn't say that. I'd rather say that all cast do very good jobs in their parts from the main characters who are portrayed by younger staff to the guests that consist of famous stars, including Liz Taylor, Robert Mitchum and others. Patrick Swayze as Orry does a great job. I consider this role one of his best ones. Lesley Anne Down as Madeleine is also very memorable. Her part, perhaps, entails too much suffering but she manages to express all sorts of feelings really well. Kirstie Alley is very appealing and truly memorable as the abolitionist Virgilia Hazard. Phillip Casnoff is worth consideration as horribly ambitious Elkanah Bent as well as David Carradine as a monster husband, disgusting Justin LaMotte. And, in contrast to him, a mention must be made of Jean Simmons who is truly excellent as Orry's mother whose heart beats for the glory of family life and concord of union. <br /><br />Thirdly, memorable moments of "North and South" leave an unfading trace in one's mind. Who can forget the first meeting of Orry and Madeleine - what charm, what gentleness there is in this scene! Or is it possible to skip the moment when Madeleine's father dies? I found it really powerful, there is a real drama in this moment, a drama of a woman being left by someone who really loved her. I also liked Churubusco sequence and George Hazard so worried about the life of his dearest friend, Orry. Then his meetings with Constance are terrific. Virgilia's speech in Philadelphia is a masterpiece of performance. And the final moment of the first part: although North and South may separate, their friendship will never die. Orry and George symbolically join hands as the train moves on. Simply, there are so many beautiful and powerful scenes that it's impossible to mention even half of them here. And these gorgeous tunes by Bill Conti and shot in brilliant landscapes. The music in "North and South" is very touching and memorable.<br /><br />What to say in the end? "North and South" is a real must have on DVD, simply an amazing TV series about the victory of all that is precious in us: love, friendship, loyalty, honor, truthfulness, absolute fidelity. 9/10 | 1 |
15,919 | [
1200,
1300
] | 946 | 1,231 | The 1970s are often regarded as a golden age of British television comedy, a period which saw numerous classic sitcoms as well as sketch shows such as "Monty Python's Flying Circus". The period was, however, emphatically not a golden age of British film comedy, and what worked well on television rarely transferred successfully to the big screen. The most triumphant exceptions to this rule were provided by the Pythons, but their best films ("Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian") were very different in conception to their TV show.<br /><br />The main problem with adapting sitcoms for the cinema is that concepts devised to fit the BBC's 30 minute slots (25 minutes on ITV, which has to find room for commercials) do not always work as well when expanded into a feature film three or four times as long. Few people will remember the film versions of, say, "Up Pompeii!" or "Steptoe and Son" with the same affection as the television versions. In the case of many classic TV comedy shows ("Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em", "Yes, Minister", "Fawlty Towers", "The Goodies") no attempt was made to film them at all, for which we can be grateful. Characters such as Michael Crawford's Frank Spencer or John Cleese's Basil Fawlty can be hilarious in half-hour doses, but I doubt if they would remain as funny over two hours. One comedy programme (albeit a dramatisation of a comic novel rather than a sitcom in the normal sense) which might have worked in the cinema was "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin", but any hopes of a film were dashed by the tragically early death of its star Leonard Rossiter.<br /><br />"Dad's Army" was one of the few television sitcoms of the period which was turned into a decent film. (About the only other one I can think of was "Porridge"). This was possibly because it had an unusually large number of well-developed characters and derived most of its humour from the interactions between them. The original sitcom ran between 1968 and 1977 and told of the misadventures of a Home Guard platoon in the small seaside town of Walmington-on-Sea. (The Home Guard, initially known as the Local Defence Volunteers, was an auxiliary militia during World War II made up, for the most part, of men too old to serve in the regular forces). The film version is a three-act drama. Act I deals with the formation of the platoon and the recruitment of its members. In Act II they cause havoc during an Army training exercise. In Act III they succeed in capturing a group of Nazi airmen whose plane has been shot down.<br /><br />The three key players in this drama are the platoon's commander, Captain George Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe), and his two subordinates Sergeant Arthur Wilson (John Le Mesurier) and Corporal Jack Jones (Clive Dunn). Mainwaring, who in civilian life is the local bank manager, is a fussy little man, peering at the world through a pair of thick spectacles. It is he who takes the initiative in forming the Home Guard unit and who appoints himself its commander. He is pompous, officious, with an exaggerated sense of his own importance and of his own powers of leadership, the sort of man who does not suffer fools gladly. (And in George Mainwaring's world-view the term "fool" covers most of the rest of the human race). He does, however, have his good qualities. He is motivated by a genuine patriotic idealism and is capable of great physical courage, shown in his encounter with the Germans.<br /><br />Wilson is Mainwaring's deputy at the bank. The two men are very different in character, something emphasised by a difference in appearance, Wilson being tall and thin whereas Mainwaring is short and stout. He comes across as being both more intelligent and better educated than his boss. (His accent suggests he may be a former public schoolboy). Nevertheless, he has ended up playing second fiddle both in civilian and military life, probably because he has the sort of passive personality which leads to pessimism and defeatism and an inability to take anything altogether seriously. Jones is an old soldier who now runs the local butcher's shop. (His promotion to Corporal is due mainly to his ability to bribe Mainwaring with black market sausages). His enthusiasm for his new role is matched only by his incompetence and ability to cause chaos. Although his catchphrase is "Don't panic!" he is prone to panicking at any given opportunity.<br /><br />Several other members of the platoon are featured. Private Fraser, the dour Scottish undertaker, is even more of a pessimist than Wilson. (Catchphrase: "We're doomed, man, DOOMED!"). Private Godfrey is a gentle old man whose main concern is the whereabouts of the nearest lavatory. Private Walker is a sharp Cockney spiv and Private Pike (another bank employee) a spoilt mummy's boy. (Pike's mother is Wilson's mistress, although Wilson tries to keep this liaison secret from the disapproving Mainwaring). Two significant outsiders are the mild-mannered Vicar and the ARP warden, Mainwaring's detested enemy and quite his equal in pompousness and officiousness.<br /><br />There are occasional bawdy doubles entendres ("Keep your hands off my privates"- Mainwaring is ostensibly referring to those soldiers who hold that rank), more so than in the television show which was surprisingly free of innuendo. (Its creators, David Croft and Jimmy Perry, would later go on to create comedy shows such as "Are You Being Served?" and "Hi-de-hi" which were notorious for suggestive humour). The film does, however, preserve much of the mixture of gentle wit, nostalgia and sharp characterisation which made the TV series so successful. 7/10 | 1 |
15,977 | [
1200,
1300
] | 966 | 1,293 | This enjoyable Euro-western opens with a scene that predates a similar scene that Sergio Leone wanted to shoot for "Once Upon A Time in the West" but couldn't persuade Clint Eastwood to appear in. Three tough-looking gunfighters ride into a town. One is dressed like the Man with No Name in a poncho. Another is dressed like Colonel Mortimer from "For A Few Dollars More," and the third is garbed like Django, except he rides a horse instead of pulls a coffin behind him with a machine gun in it. Our hero meets them in Main Street behind a wagon loaded with three coffins. "Any Gun Can Play" is a spaghetti western with an in-joke on spaghetti westerns since the hero here wipes out the three killers. Aside from a little too much comedy, especially in the acrobatic fight sequences, this is an above-average oater.<br /><br />The notorious Mexican outlaw Montero (Gilbert Roland of "Barbarosa") and his gang of trigger-happy pistoleros rob an army train transporting $300-thousand dollars in gold coins across the frontier. Director Enzo G. Castellari of "Inglorious Bastards" stages the hold up from a variety of camera angles that thrust you into the forefront of the action. The bandits seize the locomotive along with the coach carrying the gold and separate it from the rest of the train that houses the U.S. Cavalry. While Montero and his gunmen keep the Cavalry pinned down, Pajondo (Pedro Sanchez of "Sabata") commandeers the locomotive, kills the engineer and his crew and trundles it away, leaving the other pistoleros behind to fend for themselves. Essentially, Pajondo double-crosses Montero and steals the gold for himself. Later, Montero catches up with Pajondo at the Rio Grande. Before the bandit can reveal the whereabouts of the loot to Montero, however, a Cavalry sergeant shoots Pajondo dead. Before he dies, Pajondo tells Montero about a medallion that serves as a clue about where he stashed the treasure. The irate Cavalry captain (Ivano Staccioli of "Commandos") imprisons Montero, but he cannot loosen the bandit's tongue even after he uses his whip on him. Infuriated by Montero's reticence, the captain threatens to have the Mexican shot if he doesn't talk. Meanwhile, the jailers let a priest speak to Montero, but he really isn't a priest. The six-gun toting Stranger (George Hilton of "The Ruthless Four") masquerades as a man of the cloth and rescues Montero from a firing squad. Unfortunately, before Montero is rescued, Clayton (Edd Byrnes of TV's "77 Sunset Strip") takes the medallion away from him and keeps it for himself. Clayton is the bank representative that was sent to safeguard the gold. He is horrified that the Captain wants to shoot Montero. Clayton's career at the bank hinges on his ability to recover the gold. The Stranger stages a fire at the fort to distract the firing squad and Montero takes the Captain as hostage and tries to escape, but the Stranger shoots him off the horse. Before the authorities can verify that Montero is dead, the Stranger claims the body for the handsome reward he will receive and he rides out with the Captain's gracious thanks. No sooner have they left the fort than Montero's men show up to rescue him from the Stranger. From this point on, the Stranger, Montero, and Clayton forge short-lived alliances among each other as they search for the gold. Castellari and scenarist Tito Carpi, who has penned a number of spaghetti westerns such as "A Few Dollars For Django" and another Castellari oater "Seven Winchesters for a Massacre," rely on clever humor and surprise reversals to keep the action fresh and fast-paced. One cool scene has Clayton seated at a table about to eat his meal when he hears some suspicious sounds from behind him. Clayton pours his drink on the table and sees the gunmen behind him with holstered six-guns.<br /><br />"Any Gun Can Play" lives up to its title. In fact, many guns do play, and at least twenty or more corpses pile up before fade-out. This western isn't so much a parody as it is a knock-off of Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." Mind you, bad guys and good guys fall as frequently as ten-pins in a bowling alley, but their deaths aren't depicted in the brutal fashion of a Leone western. "Any Gun Can Play" doesn't take itself as seriously as the aforementioned Leone masterpiece. The three leads jockey back and forth for supremacy. Each has a piece of the puzzle that will lead them to the treasure, but they refuse to share their information until the shoot'em up finale. Lenser Giovanni Bergamini's colorful widescreen photography is spectacular, especially the opening shots of the train chuffing along railway tracks with distant mountain peaks rearing up dramatically in the background. Another great shot occurs when Montero tests the Stranger's imperturbable calm. This scene happens after the Stranger has rescued Montero and the Mexican's minions arrive to save their chieftain's bacon. Confiscating the Stranger's six-gun, Montero takes aim at the poncho-clad tough guy and empties the revolver, placing his well-aimed bullets harmlessly in and around the unflinching gunslinger. Bergamini, who photographed Castellari's World War II thriller "Inglorious Bastards," frames the scene with the Stranger in the background and his pistol in Montero's hand in the foreground for a pleasing, three-dimensional style shot. Meanwhile, Francesco De Masi's lively orchestral soundtrack is as memorable for its own idiosyncratic melodies as Ennio Morricone's soundtracks were for the Leone westerns. The opening song is reminiscent of a 1950's Hollywood western with its catchy lyrics and guitar riffs. Although it isn't a major spaghetti western, "Any Gun Can Play" is always entertaining nonsense with interesting plot twists and good performances, especially the indefatigable Gilbert Roland who was 62 years old at the time! | 1 |
15,981 | [
1200,
1300
] | 852 | 1,203 | Based to some extent on writers, David Croft and Jimmy Perry's, own experiences as Butlins Holiday Camp entertainers in the UK during the same timescale the programme follows, "Hi-De-Hi!" epitomises the 'slapstick, postcard humour" of post-war Britain. Set in the fictitious seaside town of Crimpton-on-Sea, "Hi-De-Hi" chronicles the comedic goings on within the Maplins Holiday Camp - one of many dotted along the British coast owned by the mega-rich, but never seen (on screen) Joe Maplin.<br /><br />Although the actual show began in 1980 with the pilot episode and ran until 1988 when the BBC deemed it too tame for it's cutting edge comedy department, seasons 1-5 focused on 1959 while seasons 6-9 spotlighted 1960 - a time when the old style British Holiday Camp began to fall into decline. During the first 5 seasons, Jeffrey Fairbrother (played brilliantly by the late, great Simon Cadell) was the camp's entertainment manager; a well meaning, yet slightly pensive ex-university professor breaking free of his upper class background and venturing into the "real" world to head his team of entertainment staff who were in stark contrast to his own laid-back personality. From season 6 onwards, Fairbrother was replaced by Clive Dempster (played by David Griffin when Cadell quit the show at the height of it's popularity), an ex-RAF war hero who, in many ways, was similar to Cadell's character in background, but more a scoundrel than a gentleman.<br /><br />However, the real stars of "Hi-De-Hi" throughout the nine seasons were Ted Bovis (played superbly by Paul Shane), a stereotypical working class, ale drinking, bawdy comic - someone who could never resist an opportunity to fiddle the campers; Gladys Pugh (played by Ruth Madoc who's currently experiencing a career comeback with appearances in the hit BBC Comedy, "Little Britain"), chief Yellowcoat (what the entertainment staff were called because of their bright yellow jackets) and sports organiser - but more importantly, the one person who saved Jeffrey Fairbrother and Clive Dempster from embarrassment by covering up their inexperience in running a holiday camp; Peggy Ollerenshaw (Su Pollard), the slightly dopey, yet lovable lowly chalet maid with a burning ambition to become a Yellowcoat, and Spike Dixon (Jeffrey Holland), Ted's innocent protégé learning more about 'show business' than he hoped for.<br /><br />As usual with a Croft & Perry production, the assembled cast of characters were a bunch of misfits played superbly by the actors involved. Mr. Partridge (played by the late Leslie Dwyer, who was in his 70's by the time he left the show), the alcoholic child-hating children's entertainer; Fred Quilly (Felix Bowness), a former champion jockey with a dubious past; Yvonne & Barry Stuart-Hargreaves (Dianne Holland & Barry Howard), the snobbish former ballroom dancing champions who were in the twilight of their careers; and Sylvia and Betty (Nikki Kelly and Rikki Howard), the two main girl Yellowcoats who were always looking for the type of fun Joe Maplin would never allow in one of his camps.<br /><br />"Hi-De-Hi" typified the slapstick era of the late 50s with it's saucy and, to a certain degree, vulgar "tongue-in-cheek" humour (jokes about people sitting on toilets and anecdotes about 'women with big knockers' were the order of the day). But despite it's whiff of "Carry On" funniness, it was always so innocent and became something of recommended family viewing back in the 80's. Of course, the critics of the show remarked that the show had outstayed it's welcome by a good couple of years, but I disagree. While the early seasons focused mainly on bawdiness and slapstick humour, the latter series of "Hi-De-Hi" saw more thought put into the scripts and the main characters (especially Spike Dixon & Gladys Pugh) were able to grow with more sensitive story lines. That said, there were a few criticisms of the show. Clive Dempster was no Jeffrey Fairbrother, and the former didn't quite have the on-screen chemistry with Gladys as Jeffrey did (I personally think it would've been more believable if Gladys had married Jeff); five seasons dedicated to 1959 and four to 1960 caused more than just a few continuity errors (the disappearance of old faces and introductions of new characters weren't explained properly, especially with the Yellowcoats who came and went with much regularity; and the character of Gladys Pugh, who, in the pilot episode was made out to be a free-loving man-eater that was suddenly transformed into a naive virgin like character! Also to mention quite pedantically, most of the 1959 holiday season was covered in season one, so to stretch the rest of the year out in five further series was something bordering unbelievable. Still, the show wasn't meant to be meticulously looked upon, and the comedy more than outweighed it's flaws.<br /><br />All in all, "Hi-De-Hi" was probably one of the last comedies from the BBC's golden period, and even if it never managed to rival such British comedic mainstays as "Only Fools & Horses", "Porridge" or even "Last Of The Summer Wine", "Hi De Hi" will be best remembered as a comedy the whole family could enjoy. If you haven't already checked it out for yourself, I implore you to do so. | 1 |
16,376 | [
1200,
1300
] | 936 | 1,232 | I do not think I am alone when I say that 2005 has not been particularly kind to the horror genre. While "Cursed", "Hide and Seek", "The Ring Two", and "The Amityville Horror" all showed glimpses of interest and potential, there have been more misses than hits. For proof, see: "White Noise", "Boogeyman", "The Jacket", "Mindhunters", and "Alone in the Dark". Imagine my surprise when "House of Wax", tightly written by siblings Chad and Carey Hayes, turned out to be... well, a surprise.<br /><br />Carly Jones (Elisha Cuthbert) is a young woman, traveling with her trouble-making brother, Nick (Chad Michael Murray), and boyfriend, Wade (Jared Padalecki). They are, along with Paige (Paris Hilton), Blake (Robert Ri'chard), and Dalton (Jon Abrahams), hoping to score tickets to the final football game of the season. Along the way, they run into some car trouble, and are forced to enter a desolate town where nothing is what it appears to be.<br /><br />Upon hearing of this, a remake of the classic Vincent Price B-movie, I rolled my eyes. I did not even want to think about what disaster freshman director Jaume Serra had cooked up for his audience. In a time when most high-profile horror films are disappointments, latent with bad writing, static direction, and amateur acting, I consider myself lucky that Serra and the Hayes brothers took it upon themselves to make a good, old-fashioned, spook fest. Unlike the disappointments that I named before, this flick pulls no punches, and uses every cinematic trick in the book to give everyone exactly what they came for.<br /><br />I am happy that the Hayes' actually took the time and effort to create likable and believable characters, thus making the events that much more urgent. It also gives the young actors portraying them something grip on. As she did in "The Girl Next Door", Elisha Cuthbert proves to audiences what a skilled actress she really is. In the 2003 remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", Jessica Biel silenced naysayers by delivering a raw and emotional performance, one that put the viewer right there with her. Here, Cuthbert does the same. Chad Michael Murray ("A Cinderella Story"), in one of his first more mature roles, is no slacker as Nick. Murray exudes charisma and a hard edge, as well as some impressive athleticism on top of it. Murray and Cuthbert gel perfectly, and have tangible, familial chemistry.<br /><br />More so than anything else, the press and the American public have made a field day about Paris Hilton's major acting debut. As I expected, Hilton does not embarrass herself. In fact, she is just as good as anyone else in the movie (do with that what you will). Like Cuthbert and Murray, Hilton has screen presence. She is sexy and playful. I cannot think one of reason why she's gotten the worst of the film's harsh reception, other than they are simply picking on her. Jared Padalecki (TV's 'Gilmore Girls') memorably manages to overcome his underwritten role. Robert Ri'chard (TV's 'Cousin Skeeter') and Jon Abrahams ("Meet the Parents") do not have much to work with, but get the job done. With only one scene, Damon Herriman ("Soar") makes an unforgettable impression, and his presence hangs over the rest of the film. Finally, Brian Van Holt ("Basic") is superb and threatening in a dual role.<br /><br />Once more, kudos must go to the screenwriters for avoiding clichés whenever possible. Despite popular opinion, "House of Wax" is quite unpredictable for a majority of its running time. Take this for example: It seems as if the killer is down for the count and Carly bends down to retrieve something from his pockets. What do you expect to happen? See the movie, and you will understand what I mean. It is also refreshing to see a horror film in which the characters show even a modicum of good sense.<br /><br />Unlike most horror scores, John Ottman's exhilarating work never distracts. However, as with Dark Castle's other releases, the visual aspects of "Wax" are award-worthy, and lift the film above its genre trappings. The talents of cinematographer Stephen F. Windon, production designer Graham Walker, art director Nicholas McCallum, and editor Joel Negron highlight the ghoulish imagery. Speaking of imagery, I believe that the gore hounds will be thrilled with the many makeup effects and tricks in store here. Each death scene is more stomach churning than the last. Considering his past in music videos and commercials, it is obvious that Jaume Serra has a great eye for style. His "in-your-face" approach is a great asset to this film's success. Just when you think the camera will turn away, it does not. He is also particularly good a building thick layers of dread and atmosphere. One standout shot is our introduction to the killer, as he slowly emerges from a trap door.<br /><br />In a case like this, I would usually admit when I am in the minority (Shut up, okay? I liked "House of 1000 Corpses"!). In this case, I firmly that the detractors have gotten it wrong. I am not sure why people are so hard on this film, considering it's much better than recent genre entries. Maybe they're afraid to admit that a horror flick starring Paris Hilton could possibly be worth watching... Who knows? This is a horror film, and a commendably stylish and effective one at that. As a lifelong horror fan, all I can say is that I thoroughly enjoyed "House of Wax", in all of its lurid and sadistic glory. I safely consider it a great accomplishment in modern horror, as well as (along with "Sin City") the first completely satisfying release of 2005. | 1 |
16,469 | [
1200,
1300
] | 943 | 1,210 | The 1973 musical version of LOST HORIZON is the most wonderful endearing and campy musical films of ALL TIME. The 1973 musical remake of the James Hilton novel about mythical SHANGRI-LA! is a real special gem. Music by BURT BACHARACH and lyrics by HAL David. A strange mixture of straight drama, adventure and musical sequences. It has the distinction of being the ONLY anti war musical fantasy ever filmed. <br /><br />This film was a critical and financial disappointment in the United States, but made a lot of money overseas. Only in America did it fail. Highly different and unique in it's approach as a film musical, it deserves far better credit than it's given. As a story, LOST HORIZON is an incredible adventure and both the 1937 Frank Capra film and this 1973 musical are faithful adaptations of the James Hilton novel. What I like about the 1973 version is the freedom in which the musical numbers are presented. The film has a prestigious cast and a gifted director and cinematographer. This is a BURT BACHARACH Shangri-La and it's a wonderful place. Songs like THE WORLD IS A CIRCLE, SHARE THE JOY and LIVING TOGETHER, GROWING TOGETHER evoke a happiness that Hilton wrote about in his novel. Why shouldn't Shangri-La be a slightly goofy place? The two love songs, I MIGHT FRIGHTEN HER AWAY and the deleted I COME TO YOU are the sensitive spots in the picture. There's a peacefulness and soft spoken quality in both these songs that is very much keeping with the philosophy of the story. Moreover, THE THINGS I WILL NOT MISS is a good duet with a strong melody. It's a nice exchange of different types of perspective and who can fault with Olivia Hussey and Sally Kellerman stomping, singing and dancing on tables? They're a wonderful team and the number is well staged. <br /><br />I always found it interesting in this story how the High Lama kidnaps someone from the outside world to take his place in Shangri-La. The character of the High Lama is a gentle soul but somewhat radical in his view of mankind as a whole. He has no hope for the world outside of Shangri-La. If this film were to be remade today, it would be interesting to see more emphasis put on the leading character, RICHARD ONWAY'S conflict with what he left behind in the outside world as opposed to what he's found in Shangri-La.<br /><br />Of course, for the film to be believable, the character of RICHARD CONWAY must be presented as suffering amnesia at the end, like he was in the book. Neither film versions of LOST HORIZON were faithful to the novel in that regard. Did Conway find Shangri-La or was it imagined? Did they all die in the plane crash? Every man has his own idea of what his Shangri-La would be. The conflict with Conway wanting to believe in Shangri-La and returning to his old life in the outside world is powerful. I like the melancholy on the faces of Kellerman, Kennedy and Van as they watch their friends leave the mystical valley. Interesting how Conway doesn't want to leave paradise, but is being pressured out by his brother. Both versions of LOST HORIZON work in different ways, but both are successful in probing James Hiltons ideas of a hidden valley where money has no value and moderation is the rule. So in a sense it's anti capitalism in it's theme where as money and materialism is not the motivation. Human kindness, decency, compassion, courtesy, etiquette and living harmoniously with each other is the rule. <br /><br />LOST HORIZON has a much stronger story than most musicals. It attempts to answer the basic fundamental questions of life and one can hardly fault it for not succeeding. One has to remember that LOST HORIZON in 1973 was post CABARET. It was no longer fashionable for characters to break out in song in a musical, much less to be dubbed by other singers. LOST HORIZON was an easy target for jaded critics. The expectations for it were high, almost unreasonable. There were two targets to be hit, the producer, ROSS HUNTER and BURT BACHARACH and the critics were out to get both of them. Ross Hunter had enjoyed decades of financial success as a producer and LOST HORIZON was his follow up film to his 1970 blockbuster AIRPORT That film was Universals biggest moneymaker up to that time and the success of that picture triggered a decade of disaster films. For years AIRPORT was the most watched film ever to be shown on television. It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture. At the time, Burt Bacharach and Hal David were the most successful songwriters in the country. The unabashed sentimentality of LOST HORIZON hardly had a chance in the wake of the breakdown of censorship in films like EASY RIDER, MIDNIGHT COWBOY and THE GODFATHER. Sex and violence was a new frontier in the late 60's and early 70's Audiences were flocking to films with content that they were not use to seeing on the screen. Lavish musicals were no longer well received no matter how well they were made. Today LOST HORIZON can be enjoyed and appreciated on several levels. It's the ultimate escapist film with a strong story, wonderful music, an expensive budget and some quirky humor. It's unconventional in the sense that the music is not introduced until 45 minutes into the film. It changes course mid way when the mystical valley is introduced and why not? LOST HORIZON '73 is a heavenly film that deserves rediscovering. A lost and legendary treasure deserving far better than it's reputation. | 1 |
16,492 | [
1200,
1300
] | 1,005 | 1,276 | If you've seen the trailer for this movie, you pretty much know what to expect, because what you see here is what you get. And even if you haven't seen the previews, it won't take you long to pick up on what you're in for-- specifically, a good time and plenty of laughs-- from this clever satire of `Reality TV' shows and `Buddy Cop' movies, `Showtime,' directed by Tom Dey, starring Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy.<br /><br /> Mitch Preston (De Niro) is a detective with the L.A.P.D., and he's good at what he does; but working a case one night, things suddenly go south when another cop, Trey Sellars (Murphy), inadvertently intervenes, a television news crew shows up and Mitch loses his cool, which results in a lawsuit by the television station that's going to cost the department some big bucks. Except that they may be able to get around it, thanks to Chase Renzi (Rene Russo), who works for the station and likes what she sees in Mitch-- enough to pitch an idea to her boss for a `Reality' cop show, that would feature none other than Mitch Preston, whom Chase sees as a real life `Dirty Harry.'<br /><br /> Her boss likes the idea and gives Chase the green light. Now all she has to do is convince Mitch to participate, which shouldn't be too hard, since the station has agreed to drop the lawsuit if he will do the show. But Mitch is a cop, not an actor, and he wants nothing to do with any of it-- that is until he has a heart-to-heart with his boss, Captain Winship (Frankie Faison), who puts Mitch's future into succinct perspective for him. And just like that, the show is on. Oh, yes, there's one more thing; for the show, Mitch is going to need a partner. And who do you suppose they're going to come up with for that? Let's put it this way: Trey Sellars is more than one of the usual suspects.<br /><br /> This is Dey's second film as a director, his first being `Shanghai Noon,'-- also a comedy-- and he's definitely showing a penchant for the genre. From the opening frames he establishes a pace that keeps the story moving right along, and he allows his stars to make the most of their respective talents and personal strengths, including their impeccable timing. With stars like De Niro and Murphy, Dey, of course, had a leg up on this project to begin with, but he's the one who keeps it on track, demonstrating that he knows what works, achieving just the right blend of physical comedy and action, and employing the subtleties of the dialogue to great effect. <br /><br /> There isn't a more natural actor in the business than De Niro, and he steps into Mitch's skin like he was born to it. And after years of doing hard-edge, cutting drama (in which he turned in one remarkable performance after another), with such films as `Analyze This,' `Meet the Parents' and now this one, he has firmly established his proficiency for doing comedy, as well. Mitch is not an especially complex character; he is, in fact, something of an `ordinary' guy, but therein lies the challenge for the actor-- to make him believable, to make him seem like the guy who could be your neighbor and just another member of the community. And on all counts, De Niro succeeds. He's Mitch, the guy you run into at the grocery store or the bank, or say `good morning' to on your way to work; who likes to watch the game on TV and has a life, just like you and me, who happens to make his living by being a cop. It's the character Mitch has to be to make this film work, because it makes the `ordinary guy in extraordinary circumstances' angle credible. It's one of those role-- and work-- that is often wrongly dismissed out-of-hand, because it looks so easy; and, of course, this is what makes De Niro so exceptional-- he does make it look easy, and he does it with facility.<br /><br /> As Trey Sellars, Eddie Murphy turns in a winning performance, as well, and it's a role that fits him like the proverbial glove. Trey is a cop, but also an aspiring actor-- and a bad one-- and it gives Murphy the opportunity to play on the over-exuberant side of his personality (reigned in enough by Dey, however, to keep him from soaring over-the-top into Jim Carrey territory), which works perfectly for this character and this film. From his melodramatic take on a part during an audition, to his throwing out of one-liners-- delivered by looking directly into the camera (which as far as he's concerned isn't even there) while filming the `reality' show-- Murphy's a riot. And he has a chemistry with De Niro that really clicks (which is not unexpected, as this is another of De Niro's many talents; his ability to connect with and bring out the best in his co-stars, all of whom-- evidence will support-- are better at their craft after having worked with him, including the likes of Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken and Ed Harris, just to name a few). Most importantly, this is a part that allows Murphy to excel at what he does best, and he certainly makes the most of it.<br /><br /> Russo makes the most of her role as Chase, too, a character who isn't much of a stretch artistically, but whom she presents delightfully, with a strong, believable performance. And William Shatner (playing himself) absolutely steals a couple of scenes as the director of the show.<br /><br /> The supporting cast includes Drena De Niro (Annie), Pedro Damian (Vargas) and James Roday (Camera Man). Well crafted and delivered, `Showtime' is a comedy that's exactly what it is meant to be: Pure entertainment that provides plenty of laughs and a pleasant couple of hours that will have you chuckling for some time after. It's the magic of the movies. 8/10. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> | 1 |
16,621 | [
1200,
1300
] | 973 | 1,276 | This is one of those films where it is easy to see how some people wouldn't like it. My wife has never seen it, and when I just rewatched it last night, I waited until after she went to bed. She might have been amused by a couple small snippets, but I know she would have had enough within ten minutes.<br /><br />Head has nothing like a conventional story. The film is firmly mired in the psychedelic era. It could be seen as filmic surrealism in a nutshell, or as something of a postmodern acid trip through film genres. If you're not a big fan of those things--psychedelia, surrealism, postmodernism and the "acid trip aesthetic" (assuming there's a difference between them), you should probably stay away from this film. On the other hand if you are a fan of that stuff, you need to run out and buy Head now if you haven't already.<br /><br />Oddly, the film has never received much respect. That probably has a lot to do with preconceptions. After all, it does star The Monkees--Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork--and The Monkees were a musical group of actors put together by producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider to be a kid-friendly, bubble-gummy Beatles for a television series. In their era, they had as much respect as, say, Menudo, New Kids on the Block, The Spice Girls, and so on. As a fellow IMDb reviewer rightly notes--"Perhaps people in 1968, thinking of the Monkees as a silly factory-made pop band rip-off of the Beatles, refused to see (Head)".<br /><br />The Monkees and Head have never been quite able to shed that negative public perception. It's a shame, because there was a lot of talent, both musically and otherwise, in The Monkees. It's probably odder that Rafelson, who directs here and co-produces with Schneider, and Jack Nicholson (yes, _that_ Jack Nicholson), who wrote the script and also co-produces, decided to take The Monkees in this unusual direction. It's as if New Kids on the Block suddenly put out an album equivalent to Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (1969) or Atom Heart Mother (1970). In fact, the songs in Head, written by The Monkees and frequent collaborators such as Carole King and Harry Nilsson, have a Floyd-like quality, somewhere between the Syd Barrett era and the immediate post-Barrett era. This is much more prominent than any Beatles similarity. Some people have complained about the music in the film, but to me, all the songs are gems. For that matter, some people dislike Barrett era (or other) Floyd, which is just as difficult for me to empathize with.<br /><br />But what _is_ Head about? The basic gist is just that The Monkees are taking a trip through various film genres--there are war scenes, adventure scenes, horror scenes, comedy scenes, drama scenes, western scenes, sci-fi scenes, romance scenes, and on and on. Except, in the film's reality, this turns out to be happening primarily (if not exclusively) on a studio lot. At root, we're watching The Monkees shoot a film. Of course all of the scenes in the various genres have something surreal and self-referential about them, and they, and individual shots within a scene, tend to lead to one another using dream logic not dissimilar to the Monty Python television show. As a dream, Head tends to vacillate between a good dream and a nightmare, while often being one that would cause you to laugh in your sleep (something that I frequently do, by the way).<br /><br />Technically, Rafelson uses a wide variety of techniques to realize the above. There are scenes with extensive negative images, there are a lot of very fast cuts (including a great sequence that features Davy Jones and Tony Basil dancing alternately in a white and a black room, wearing a combination of white and black reversed in each, that occasionally toggles back and forth as quickly as two frames at a time), there are a lot of bizarre segues, there is an animated cow mouth, there are odd editing devices, and so on. For my money, I wish this stuff wasn't just a relic of the psychedelic era. This is the kind of artistic approach I relish. It seemed like a good idea back then and I still think it's a good idea. I'd like to see films like The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou using (2004) using these types of extended techniques. Now that would make that film surreal.<br /><br />Interpretationally, some folks who aren't so in tune with the acid trip aesthetic have complained that it's basically b.s. to offer meanings for something intended to not have any. I disagree with such a pessimistic/nihilistic view; Head was intended to have a lot of meaning(s), and it's not just films without conventional plots that have multiple interpretations. Nicholson, Rafelson and Schneider have a lot of interesting things to say about The Monkees--the film postmodernistically comments on their manufactured status; pop stardom--way before Pink Floyd, Head conflates pop stardom and violence, from images of war to images of fans cannibalistically dismantling their idols; and naïve U.S.-oriented ideas of international perceptions and respect--well-armed foreigners in a desert surrender to Micky Dolenz just because he's an American, then later they blow up a Coke machine (again in the desert) for him because he's thirsty and can't gain access. The film comments on many other topics--from big Industry to police, surveys, spectatorship (especially in relation to tragedies), and on and on. Head is full of ideas, appropriately enough, with intelligent, multifaceted things to say about them.<br /><br />Head deserves to be considered a classic--it's basically shooting for the same vibe as The Beatles' Yellow Submarine. Both premiered in November of 1968, interestingly enough, and both were intended as something of a summation of the psychedelic aesthetic. Yellow Submarine wasn't quite successful. Head is everything Yellow Submarine should have been. | 1 |
17,157 | [
1200,
1300
] | 941 | 1,258 | The greatest compliments to the other commentator here at IMDb who asked himself why this series didn't "get stuck" in its time to last a lot longer like many other series in the 80s did.<br /><br />It is not true the series would have gotten worse if further continued.<br /><br />I will at the end of this my comment post some thoughts about the other movie realizations, rather: attempts of the Robin Hood legend.<br /><br />First of All, Robert Addie (Gisburne), you are among us all, you live forever.<br /><br />Nothing is as fun as the entire two, if one wants, three seasons of this absolutely unique series. And at the same time absolutely agreeing with the mostly new and revolutionary findings of Terry Jones' history documentations about Egypt, Greece, Rome, Konstantinopel, the Goths and Barbarians, and the middle ages and crusades (...yes, THE Monthy Python-Terry Jones):<br /><br />If you have seen those brilliant and funny Jones-Docs you will better, much better understand all the historical background stuff Carpenter, the writer of the Robin of Sherwood-series (which happens to be the brother of John Carpenter, who made "The Thing", their third brother makes music), intended to tell us.<br /><br />The writer of "Dick Turpin", "Catweazle" and the first two seasons of "Robin of Sherwood", called "Kip" Carpenter, is my movie overlord. He's better than all those others who criticize his "sword-and-sorcery" element or "defectiveness" (taken from the Robin of Sherwood Webring) of this series (that I can not see) or have other non-fundamented criticism of which there existed a lot back then and still now.<br /><br />That's why, when you get to know this "Robin of Sherwood" better, you'll be severe. You will at first loathe the third season. Not only that: I did myself go thru this, and on top of it, I have only taken up the first two seasons into my deepest heart - DESPITE the fact that Praed, the actor of Robin, left this series, because after the series had enormous success, he was offered a probably better paid role in an absolutely ridiculous Canadian series called "The new Adeventures of Jules Verne" - already the title reveals the emptiness of the whole project. Praed went for money, and not for fame, he didn't stick with his gang and kin, I mean: as actors.<br /><br />Actors who personally represent the afterwards "really", in our present time famous and legendary faces and characters of the Robin-Legend. The potential of this series could and should have been let blossomed a lot more without any degrading niveau of content and historical message and rebellious accuracy regarding current political issues.<br /><br />Again, obligatory to say: A change of the main role was forced by Praed's stupid decision of leaving Robin of Sherwood for a silly remake-series of the Verne-tales and brilliantly woven into the filming of the story. Still it is in some aspects a catastrophe.<br /><br />Anyway: If one is informed about this, and that Connery was maybe really advertised by his father, but that the young Connery DID NOT AT ALL "chase Praed away", how I prejudicially thought in the first place, then one can absolutely enjoy the 3rd season. Sad here is that the script was not anymore written by Superman Kip Carpenter, so we don't have anymore that critical and free-thinking historical background like i.e. in "The Witch of Elsdon", or in "The King's Fool", two episodes of the first series that is A) funny, B) historically educating and C) brilliantly acted. ===<br /><br />"Don't trust the Lion!"<br /><br />Unlike many other characters that wished him dead for the sake of their own gain of power, Richard Lionheart, as shown in RoS and as in real history, was a greater authority than John or others, but used it only for his wicked idea of the crusade and the war against Normandie in France. He slaughtered and had slaughtered much more than tens of thousands of Christians, Muslims and Jews in the "wholy" crusades, and his soldiers even devoured the children they slayed out of hunger or poverty. On top of that, after his capture by the Saracens (muslims) in the crusades, Britain was squeezed out for his ransom, 100.000 marks (at that time, 11th century, comparable to approx. 30 Billion - 30'000'000'000.- Dollars of current value), to get him safely back, and then he just visited England for a month to return to Normandie (in France, where the Norman Invaders went first) for the crusades (one learns that in the episode "The King's Fool"). For this new crusade, possibly kind of a revenge for his capture, Richard Lionheart again "drains the country of money" (cited out of Clive Mantle's mouth, when he lectures Robin in being critical with even the King). Robin criticizes this warfare unsocial ruling of Richard's, he addresses Richard himself, telling him "The poor gave everything to set you free, how CAN you ask more of them?" - Richard: "...Give me your courage and strength, not your words!" ...Later, in private, Richard orders the assassination of Robin...<br /><br />So, the crusaders were the real "barbarians".<br /><br />P.S: Already when I watched Kostner in 91, I got upset, because after-wards, I found out in history course in school that Richard was not that good just man as displayed by Sean Connery in his appearance at the end of "Prince of the Thieves". Well, as Terry Jones would put it: It is a lie, a treacherous lie!" Sean plays humorist and charismatic, and his son does a better job than expected in the third season of "Robin of Sherwood".<br /><br />Again: Praed is, according to my info up to now, the one who left Sherwood for a stupid Verne-series nobody with brains will EVER remember or want to remember. | 1 |
17,235 | [
1200,
1300
] | 994 | 1,269 | Universal studios. The name conjures up so many memories to horror fans of beautiful matte paintings...er...landscapes, fog-enshrouded countrysides, full moons, howling wolves, taverns and torch wielding mobs. Yet, it is quite strange looking back on those films, how little the era which produced the true classics lasted. The '30's had it's masterpieces, but those were mostly from the same directors and many of their films are mostly of historical interest today. The '40's produced more mindlessly fun matinée films than it did high art, and most fans agree that the classic era of the Gothic horror films ended in 1945 with 'House of Dracula', bumped around with the Abbott & Costello comedies, and was officially dead by the 50's and the coming of the Atomic Age.<br /><br />So it's strange that perhaps one of Universal's finest Gothics was made in the '50s! That alone makes the film an oddity, since costume dramas were on their way out EVERYWHERE. It may not be comparable to the all time classics like the James Whale films and 'The Wolfman', but damn does it condense all the fun elements of those films into one delicious treat! Get ready for nothing but pure entertainment! Since various social mores had changed, the film also indulges in violence that would not have been allowed in earlier eras; there's no blood, but we see characters shot and stabbed directly, and there's even a burning torch to the face!<br /><br />The film may not really be a horror film, but it sure has the atmosphere, look and feel of one! It begins in the dead of night with howling winds(and wolves) as two men seal the tombs of two apparently dead young lovers, BUT WAIT! One of them is not dead, but he can't move! He's trapped, but talking silently in his own mind, unable to communicate! What is his story? Now THAT is how you start a horror film....<br /><br />English businessman Sir Ronald Burton(Richard Greene, giving one of his best performances)sets out under the alias of Richard Beckett to investigate the disappearance of two friends of his who disappeared at the castle of one-eyed Austrian Count Von Bruno(Did Sacha Baron Cohen see this?). It seems many years ago Von Bruno posed as a god to the natives in Africa to steal ivory, he was exposed by Burton's men, and the natives disfigured him. Now he is lusting for revenge.<br /><br />The film has all the clichés, a Jonathan Harker-style ride to the castle, an inn full of wary villagers, death traps, and a hulking manservant(Lon Chaney Jr.). The torture chamber scenes are genuinely suspenseful, including a panel in the floor that activates a dungeon door(which makes for an ingenious getaway scene later on), a hunting expedition involving an imported panther(!!!??)and even an alligator pit! And then there's the Romeo & Juliet-style fake death that leads to the film's prologue....<br /><br />The plot is cliché and the world-view is black and white. But it's still incredibly entertaining, with director Nathan Juran making every scene pile on the atmosphere and seem fresh and new. there are several plot-holes, too. Why does Ronald attempt to leave the castle so early? And he never does solve the mystery of what happened to his friends even though it's obvious, but he doesn't know that when he gives up, and he seemed so sure earlier. Weird.<br /><br />All of the actors are great. Despite being a rude upperclassman, Richard Greene makes Burton one of the most likable protagonists I've ever seen in a horror film. Rita Corday is excellent as the Count's 'peasant wife' who becomes Burton's love interest, she may have the stereotypical 'falling in love with just a glance' problem of all film heroines of this era, but her portrayal of a long-suffering woman in a loveless marriage to a sadistic monster is very convincing, she also shows a suspicion and wit few film heroines of this era do, even seeing a forced attempt by Burton to quiet her(And to paw at her necklace, although it is simply to analyze it as it has an important clue) as a rape attempt, yet she never seems nasty in her paranoia, the audience sympathizes with her. Even though he fails to make Von Bruno seem truly foreign and otherworldly(he is a villain in a horror film after all), Stephen McNally gives a truly chilling performance as the sadistic nobleman. When he reveals his burnt eye, and laughs maniacally, it is truly scary. Lon Chaney Jr. is also great as his mute henchman Gargon.<br /><br />But the best performance is undeniably by Boris Karloff as the mysterious physician Dr. Meissen. He has little screen time at first, but steals every scene he is in. It is a performance that is both creepy, sad, mysterious and ultimately, heroic. As he leers evilly as he applies leeches to one of Bruno's henchman, spies on our hero and speaks in that famous 'You know I'm up to no good' voice only Karloff could make, you wonder whether if he is a hero or villain, always skulking about. And although he does function as the main agent of our hero's escape, he still shows human frailties such as greed and fearfulness for his own life, even cold-bloodedly poisoning a man for Burton's benefit before he even gets Burton to agree. His plan to help our hero & heroine escape also puts them directly in the clutches of Von Bruno as he arranges an amazingly sadistic(If unbelievably flawed)death for them that had to have inspired similar scenes in Corman's Poe series. He may not have much screen time, but this is easily one of Boris's best performances.<br /><br />While the ending may seem abrupt and anti-climatic for some, half the fun is getting there, and there's much excitement to be had. Kick back and relive the days when Heroes were heroes and Villains were villains. It's no masterpiece, but it's escapist fun at it's best. | 1 |
17,254 | [
1200,
1300
] | 1,002 | 1,278 | Without question, film is a powerful medium, more so now than ever before, due to the accessibility of DVD/video, which gives the filmmaker the added assurance that his story or message is going to be seen by possibly millions of people. Use of this medium, therefore, attaches an innate responsibility to the artist, inasmuch as film can be educational, as well as entertaining, which dictates that certain subjects should be approached accordingly and with a corresponding sensitivity and sensibility. A film like Spielberg's `Schindler's List,' for example, is important, in that it keeps alive the memory of that which must not be forgotten, and as history tends to repeat itself, Spielberg's film can be viewed as a valuable tool in preventing a recurrence of that tragedy. In that same vein, this film, `Focus,' directed by Neal Slavin, is important, in it illuminates the problematic reality of anti-Semitism, which for years beyond number has affected millions of people, is still unimaginably prevalent today, and like any manifestation of bigotry, will perpetuate itself if left unchecked or ignored. Born of a xenophobic strain, it's a disease infecting society which, unabated, could be terminal; and with it's penetrating insights into the condition, this film is an effective vaccine that just may at the very least help stem the proliferation of it, and hopefully may act as a step toward eradicating it altogether.<br /><br />Lawrence Newman (William H. Macy) served his country in the Great War, and has since lived a quiet, conventional life in New York. He's had the same job as a personnel director for some twenty years, and owns the house, located in an average, middle-class neighborhood, in which he lives with his mother (Kay Hawtrey). Lawrence is the kind of guy who gets by just fine by minding his own business and refusing to involve himself with matters that are not (he feels) his concern.<br /><br />All of that is about to change, however, as with the advent of World War 2, Lawrence, along with the owner of the corner market, Mr. Finkelstein (David Paymer), inexplicably finds himself a target of the neighborhood xenophobes, who have aligned themselves with the `Union Crusaders,' a national organization currently taken to channeling their fears and hatred upon Jews, or anyone who even `looks' like a Jew. And suddenly Lawrence finds that he can no longer just stand on the sidelines and watch the game being played; because now, he IS the game, whether he wants to be or not.<br /><br />Working from an intelligent, well written screenplay by Kendrew Lascelles, which he adapted from Arthur Miller's novel, Slavin presents a chilling scenario that incisively examines the effects of bigotry upon those against whom it is leveled; and when one considers the fact that this is not merely a hypothetical situation, but a depiction of reality, it becomes all the more disquieting, even unnerving. And what makes the film so effective is Slavin's obvious grasp of his subject, and his studied presentation, which is thought-provoking in it's subtlety. In the opening scene, Slavin establishes Lawrence's `character,' and very soon afterward reaffirms it in another scene, which affords the audience the opportunity to observe and assimilate how Lawrence's mind actually works; the thought processes that direct his life. With that in place, then, Slavin is able to take his audience along with Lawrence as his problems gradually begin to unfold. By so doing, he effectively illustrates how the problem evolves, rather than merely stating the problem and addressing it head on, which heightens the viewers emotional involvement, and ultimately enhances the impact of the film. <br /><br />Slavin makes an important statement with this film, which is not only an indictment of bigotry, but carries a cautionary message about apathy, as well. And to his credit, he never hits you over the head with it or engages in subjective finger-pointing to make his case; instead, he proceeds carefully, taking great pains to be as objective as possible with all that he is submitting for your consideration. His approach is that of a cinematic diplomat; and it's an approach that serves Slavin-- and his film-- quite well.<br /><br />As Lawrence, William H. Macy-- one of the best character actors in the business-- gives an amazing performance, establishing the credibility and believability of his character with a sensitive, honest and introspective portrayal. He never attempts to circumvent the personal flaws of Lawrence's nature, but uses them, instead, to create a character that is decidedly three-dimensional, which not only makes him convincing, but serves to reaffirm the integrity of the portrayal. What makes it so compelling is Macy's ability to convey the process by which he examines his own conscience, which successfully enables the viewer to share in the experience of his personal epiphany. In the final analysis, it's the strength of Macy's performance, more than anything else, that makes this film so significantly distinct. <br /><br />Another of the film's strengths is the performance turned in by Laura Dern, as Gertrude Hart, a portrayal that effectively complements Macy's work, as well as that of Slavin. Dern lends tremendous substance to her character, capturing her physically as well as emotionally, and her colorful zeal crates a striking contrast to Lawrence's reserve that works extremely well, for her character as well as the film itself.<br /><br />And just as Sean Combs recently (in `Monster's Ball') made a good case against dismissing out-of-hand the acting endeavors of an established `rock star,' Meat Loaf Aday gives a powerful performance here, as Fred, Lawrence's next-door neighbor. It demonstrates, too, that a true artist will produce, regardless of the kind of canvas he's given to work with.<br /><br />The supporting cast includes Michael Copeman (Carlson), Kenneth Welsh (Father Crighton), Joseph Ziegler (Gargan) and Arlene Meadows (Mrs. Dewitt). The kind of film that makes a filmmaker proud of his craft, `Focus,' offers a memorable experience that hopefully will prove to be enlightening, as well, to those unaware that such conditions have existed, and still do-- even in this, the land of the free. 10/10. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> | 1 |
18,112 | [
1200,
1300
] | 988 | 1,225 | Haha, what a great little movie! Wayne Crawford strikes again, or rather this was his first big strike, a deliriously entertaining little ball of manic kitsch energy masquerading as a psycho killer movie. It's actually a **brilliant** satire on post-hippie American culture in flyover country, though the movie was actually filmed independently in Miami. It defies any kind of studio oriented convention or plot device that I can think of: SOMETIMES AUNT MARTHA DOES DREADFUL THINGS may not be a very technically adept movie, but it is a wonderful little slice of Americana, made on the cheap by people who were honest, ambitious, imaginative and had balls made out of steel. It took guts, nerve and guile to make this movie, which amazingly appears to have stood the test of time. This movie is fresh, vital, alive, unforgettable, and charmingly weird enough to recommend to just about anyone with a sense of humor.<br /><br />I dug up last year during a period of time when I was fascinated by "star" Wayne Crawford (here billed under his pseudonym Scott Lawrence), a maestro of what can only be called regional film-making, usually of the B grade variety. He's a writer, producer, director, and actor all in one, probably best known for the 80s teen apocalyptic favorite NIGHT OF THE COMET. Here he plays Stanley, the pants wearing half of a couple of truly marvelous characters, apparently homosexual spree killers on the lam after knocking off some old lady in Baltimore for her jewelry. Unsung screen legend Abe Zwick is completely convincing as Paul, who poses as Stanley's Aunt Martha, the cross dressing brains of the outfit who has conned Stanley into thinking he's committed murder to ensure his loyalty. Martha looks about as feminine as the sailors from SOUTH PACIFIC's supporting choir in their coconut bikini tops, yet somehow nobody seems to notice -- or care? -- that she is a he, has no visible means of income, seems to spend all day fretting about where Stanley is, and scurries around the neighborhood in her bathrobe carrying a butcher's knife. Only in America ...<br /><br />As the film opens the two of them have just arrived in Florida and set up residence in what looks like Ward Cleaver's old house, a garishly lit & designed television home that is so cliché as to be surreal. During one memorable scene Martha and an unwelcome house guest sit on the couch, talk problems and drink cans of Budweiser in what is one of the most mesmerizing, subversively ordinary sequences I've ever seen outside of a John Waters movie. Then there's Stanley, always getting into trouble as he is a mop topped hippie with an STP patch on his vest who drives a psychedelic painted van that's about as subtle as the Batmobile, drinks his milk straight from the carton, snorts drugs with blond bombshell bimbos, and hoards donuts in an old cigar box for a quick snack. Opposites attract, I guess.<br /><br />But Stanley also has a thing about not liking it when the young ladies he gets stoned with try to remove his pants, and it always seems to be up to Aunt Martha to get him out of the trouble that inevitably results. The bodies pile up, a nosy junkie blackmails them into using their house as a flop, Stanley's birthday cake gets squashed, and everybody meets down at the local pizza shop before heading to the wood shed on the back property for a hookah hash party where the girls dance in their underwear. Things get out of hand when one of the neighbors tries to get a bit too chummy with Martha, who naturally prefers to keep people at an arm's length when they rudely invite themselves over for a nice chat. And this is a woman who carries not just a butcher knife but a loaded .38 in her slip. Eventually the strange duo find themselves stuck with a body, a baby, and no place to go, and end up taking refuge at an abandoned movie studio where no doubt the technical crew borrowed the equipment used to make the film. I just hope they politely asked for permission first and cleaned up after themselves.<br /><br />A word of course must be said about Stanley and Martha/Paul's relationship, since to dance around the fact that the two are at least suggested to be a homosexual couple would be to miss the primary gist of the plot. We never see the two of them get intimate and indeed even though Stanley mockingly refers to being "balled" in one scene, their relationship is more symbiotic than sexual. It certainly isn't a "gay" movie, with abundant female nudity and an air of 70s misogyny that cannot be denied either. Stanley & Paul never consummating their implied sexuality on screen, even though the movie certainly would have had the guts to do so if it were important. It isn't, the story isn't about their sex, it's about the bond they share, and how weird it is. Not their being gay, but their being the distinct individuals they are, who are two of the strangest movie creations ever to inhabit my TV set.<br /><br />The film is unique. It was made for only a few thousand dollars on what look like borrowed studio sets, the occasional location work, and an couple of public locations they managed to sneak a camera crew into when nobody was looking. The dialog is completely bizarre, mundane and delightfully esoteric. It's a movie that will take you by surprise, not everyone will like it but for those with a taste for low budget American horror/thrillers like THE NIGHT GOD SCREAMED, HELP ME! I'M POSSESSED, BLOOD & LACE and CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS, you've got yourself a winner here.<br /><br />8/10: Usually I'd say something like "Deserves a DVD restoration" but somehow I think doing so would ruin the movie's tacky ambiance. And Wayne Crawford, you, sir, rule. | 1 |
18,239 | [
1200,
1300
] | 971 | 1,237 | The main achievement of this film is that though racially unipolar, the film still manages to carve out a tableaux of war portrayals that leave a lasting identification with whoever may view it, and whoever was present at this time. Though good films may have the ability of universalizing their subjects, which is often a hard thing to do; great films have the ability of universalizing their unipolar subjects, which is what this film does.<br /><br />Instead of carving a context of unity, the film depicts the Japanese in the sick finality of the Phillipines war-front in February, 1945, making signs for pacifism or war, but rather making signs of the feelings, death, destruction, victory and sickness of war with the bloody hands of the defeated.Far different, and superior, to films such as Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket, both which needed a satirical methodology of trivializing and depersonalizing the American troupes, and using all races as one struggle, which is fine, yet not as grand as a film that uses one race and view, which would look fascist if created in America, to convey the horror of war and show what it is really like.<br /><br />The only way the main character makes it through this movie to the end, is by being sick, thence inedible; hence through this character, through his sickness, his saving face, we see the end of WWII in the Phillipines in February of 1945, and the way in which the Americans, Japanese and Phillipinians came together in bloody acts of warfare where you live to die.<br /><br />The film is patently influenced by a neorealist way of filmic portrayal, which is original and beneficial to a viewer, whether then or now, for the neorealist techniques it employs conveys all the horrors of war in pictorial form, whether a showcase for pacifism or 'militaristic responsibility'. Like Germania Anno Zero, by Roberto Rossellini, a story emerges from the environment and the conditions associated with it.<br /><br />The film's opening, with the two-way discussion between the two Japanese soldiers, prefigures and reechoes the events. Through this opening we feel that the struggle is human against human, and human with human; it shows that they relied on each other to face the enemy in the past battles, but now, in this opening, or 'pivot' of the experiences of the Japanese in the Phillipines, new information is relayed to the main character Tamura, giving a presentiment of a cannibal reliance on one another if they wish to survive.<br /><br />The jungle is gritty, wet and thick, and the sky is not infrequently cloudy and pouring. We wade with the stragglers though puddles and marshes, as sick as the land around them. Nameless cadavers are strewn everywhere. Every now and then one can not tell if they are bodies, rocks or corn. Apparently there is no difference here, all is dead and sick. All is dying. All they have lest to feed upon are rare monkeys and dead bodies of fallen comrades and/or nameless enemies.<br /><br />Often Tamura meets a fallen other near death. Though crushed in spirit, and crushing his, some offer up their bodies for him to eat, but he refuses; he still, like Hiroshi Kawaguchi as Nishi in Giants and Toys, will not droop into the death of dignity and Japanese morals; for this is all he really has to hold up for his survival, a dignity of self. Hence, when Nagamatsu is dissecting a soldier for consumption, he shoots him because of it. Tamura may be used to the killing, but to the sickness of killing and pillaging he can't decipher. He is neither a good man or a bad man. He wishes to survive, but will not go the extra mile beyond simple straight-war-killing. His self belonged dead on the battlefield, he isn't happy here to wade and wipe the weak for his survival.<br /><br />The sickness he carrys he sees everywhere, in everyone; and sadly he lacks the ethical rationale of thinking either thinking entirely about others, since he can't give up his body for them since of his contagious malady, or thinking entirely about himself, since he sees the sickness in everyone, though still killing them even if they do no harm. Seen in his attack on the two Philippians's in the hut. He can't see anyone. No one can see anyone. The only see an aversion from malady and an adversion to health, the heart of survival instincts.<br /><br />Often, an arm appears pointing to the left of the screen, towards what must be hope, for there, in that far Thule lies their freedom. Yet it is blocked by American soldiers, leaving the Japanese stragglers to slowly die in this disconsolate dirt. Even a church tower appears, reflecting the light off an unseen sun. But on closer inspection crows flutter wildly about it; religion too is an air of poison.<br /><br />Nobi, the Japanese title of the film, gives more evidence to the themes, or feelings of the film: the servitude to fate, the heaviness of existence under leaders and lives controlled by others. Its proper Anglophone translation has a subject of heavy debate among historians, as non-Koreans translate it as "slave" and "slavery", while many Koreans argue that nobi was not a slave system, but a servant class system that does not meet the criteria for slavery. A way to typically to escape wrenching poverty. This improves upon the war theme, and symbolism of soldiery.<br /><br />Isn't it important at the time period to ask ourselves what the purpose is of what will become our won history? Should we be comfortable of letting it unroll without conscious effort for change? Is it not who we are fighting, that age old history question, but rather why are we fighting? Fires on the Plain is with Eiji Funakoshi, Osamu Takizawa, and Mickey Curtis; based on a novel by Shohei Ooka. In Japanese with subtitles. | 1 |
18,278 | [
1200,
1300
] | 991 | 1,269 | I was recently given this film on DVD as a gift, and was unsure at first if it would appeal (although one of my favourite actors has a leading role). In fact, it's on its way to becoming a favourite.<br /><br />First of all: thankfully, it's *not* the same as the book, the ending of which I think is excessively melodramatic. Secondly: it's one of the best films I've seen about the First World War. "What?" you may ask. "It's not a war film!" True: we see no battles or bombardments, no trenches, no gas. But it shows the cost of war, the damage done to the lives of the men who fought in it, and the impact this had on those close to them.<br /><br />We first see Helen (Sarah Miles), a baronet's widow, awaiting her release from a mental hospital. All the women in the film appear to be widows: some from the war, but Helen's much-older husband, Sir Thomas (we see him later in a photograph) was taken ill and died while she was at a party, hence her guilt-stricken breakdown. She is lost and lonely. The wire around the hospital grounds evokes POW camps and the trenches: like many of the men in the outside world, Helen is suffering from a kind of shell-shock.<br /><br />Out of hospital, she has to find her feet in the outside world again: a world we experience through her eyes as bleak, desolate and unfriendly. Her mother is unable to provide her with any real support. Herself a widow, she has put up her own emotional defences, behind which she hides to avoid dealing with her daughter's distress. (Like many people, especially in that time, she seems to find mental illness embarrassing.)<br /><br />Ledbetter, the hired driver, becomes a supportive presence, and helps Helen begin to adjust to life again, but she does not realise that he is becoming dangerously obsessed with her. This is a superb performance by Robert Shaw. Ledbetter is a former regular soldier, an ex-sergeant-major who runs a boxing club and has set up his own car-hire business. Superficially, he seems tough and strong, dependable, but there are cracks beneath the surface: he has not really adjusted to civilian life. He invents (for reasons he later explains) a family and home life he does not have; he has brutal outbursts with colleagues, and affection-less sex. Getting close to Helen a woman whom, even with the greater post-war social freedom, he could not realistically have hoped to marry exposes psychological fault-lines that tear him apart. These days, one might diagnose PTSD.<br /><br />The same is true of the other man in Helen's life, aspiring politician Captain Hugh Cantrip (Peter Egan). He is ambitious, handsome, but also very young. Tellingly, his girlfriend, Connie (Caroline Mortimer), mothers him, combing his hair and making sure he has a clean handkerchief before he goes out. He is known to both Ledbetter and Helen: the former had served under him during the war, and Helen had met him in political circles and had thought him a "popinjay". However, he and Helen now begin a relationship, with Helen intending to support his political career, financially and emotionally. Peter Egan, fresh from his stage success as Stanhope in R C Sheriff's 'Journey's End', makes Hugh more than an immature cad. There is a revealing, understated scene in the back of the car between Helen and Hugh, in which they quote Brooke's 'The Old Vicarage at Grantchester'. She asks, of his war experience, "Was it very bad?" He cannot answer. She says: "Well, you're back now." But his softly-spoken reply "Am I? Sometimes I wonder
" is the key to his character. As light and shadow flicker across his face, we know that there are some horrors that cannot be put into words. The disproportionate casualties suffered by junior officers of his sort straight out of school or university and expected to lead from the front are well-known. In a nervous speech (during which Helen reassures him) to local political folk at a dinner-party, he reveals that he will stand as an Independent, no longer as a Liberal (the party which had taken the country into the war). His emotional life is as damaged as Ledbetter's. He cannot easily extricate himself from Connie, who depends on him emotionally and financially: reading between the lines, she is probably a war-widow (perhaps of a former comrade?) with a child, whose drawings we see on the wall of her home.<br /><br />***SPOILERS***<br /><br />The crisis between the trio builds slowly, with a frightening scene between Helen and Ledbetter in the car, and Ledbetter listening in to Hugh and Connie when he is driving them, as Hugh tries to persuade Connie that, even as his relationship with Helen develops, they can continue theirs; that he will, at least, continue to support her. Jealousy, obsession and his belief that he must protect Helen from a duplicitous gold-digger lead Ledbetter to confront her and Hugh violently in her home.<br /><br />The ending is entirely different from that of the novel, and is better for it: it is dramatic, but less melodramatic, and maintains an unsentimental tone. We began with one character recovering from a mental breakdown; we end with another suffering one. Helen, one senses, is now wiser and stronger than both the men, who have been unable fully to adapt to the so-called 'land fit for heroes' to which they returned from the nightmare of total war. The new ending is open: one feels that she, at least, will cope with whatever lies ahead, without illusions. In this, it reflects well the reality of the time, in which women (Helen, Connie, and so many others) had to pick up the pieces of a world in which too many men had died or had come home with varying degrees of mental and physical damage. <br /><br />"Well, you're back now." "Am I? Sometimes I wonder
" | 1 |
18,424 | [
1200,
1300
] | 967 | 1,217 | Shepitko is the wife of Russian filmmaker Elem Klimov, who directed the more commercially known 1984 film COME AND SEE, generally regarded as one of the most realistic war films ever, bar none, notable for its searing poetic intensity, but I believe it lacks the inner complexity of this even greater Russian film, which examines not just the graphic outer horrors, but she finds truly inspiring images focusing on individuals or small groups of characters that reflect the absolute insanity taking place inside these human beings, the ending of which is simply awe-inspiring. Bullets are flying and bodies are dying in a gun skirmish over the opening credits, where the intensity of the film never lets up throughout the duration, focusing on grim faces, worn out soldiers with next to nothing to eat, a terrified population under occupation, starving children with petrified mothers, all cast in an immense landscape of endless white snow. Like CRANES ARE FLYING (1957), this features a Russian army in retreat, a traumatizing shock early in the war when they were nearly wiped out. The Russian countryside has been overrun by German Nazi's who are terrorizing the citizens, stealing what food they have, forcing them under duress to become their informant eyes and ears. What Russian soldiers are left hide under cover of forests, but are forced to send food expeditions to neighboring farms. This film follows two soldiers that from the outset are on a near impossible mission, as there's little food left anywhere in the dead of winter. One is healthy and fit, Vladimir Gostyukhin as Rybak, while the other, Boris Plotnikov as Sotnikov, is slowed down by a tubercular sounding cough and eventually a bullet in his leg that nearly leaves him for dead, but his partner heroically rescues him. As they step through knee deep snow drifts, crawling at some points with insufficient protection against the harsh elements, like so many other Russian films, nature itself becomes their toughest foe.<br /><br />Spoilers!! Everything is reduced to a matter of survival. When they reach their destination, the farm has been demolished and left in a state of rubble, pushing forward into German occupied territory where the next farm is manned by an elderly Soviet collaborator who fears Nazi retribution. The partisan soldiers think him a coward but move on, where they are eventually captured and brought to a Nazi camp in a nearby town and held as prisoners, along with a proud and protective mother (Lyudmila Polyakova) who helped hide them. Tarkovsky stalwart Anatoli Solonitsyn appears as Portnov the interrogator, a Russian teacher from a nearby academy turned Nazi sympathizer. Russians torturing and executing fellow Russians is the depth of war depravity and Solonitsyn is brilliant in the despicable role he's perfectly suited for. From what we can see, as Nazi officers chat jovially in close proximity to one another, he is an outsider even among this group, seen instead as a kind of gruesome black-cloaked undertaker who routinely sends men to their graves. The audience is not spared from witnessing acts of torture on Sotnikov, who offers nothing but contempt, while Rybak speaks freely, hoping to save his life, but both are condemned to die, though Rybak is offered a chance to serve the German Reich as a police agent. The mother, the elderly collaborator, and a child are added to this group, spending one last night together alive where together they discuss the merits of a soldier's mission, of being a patriot, a mother, a coward, or a collaborator. Each seems individually driven by a desperate need to survive, but Sotnikov offers himself as a selfless example, attempting to confess his guilt to spare the others, where the aptly chosen title reflects his spiritual redemption.<br /><br />By the next morning, Portnov seems mildly amused, mocking them at their sudden willingness to talk, but spares no one except Rybak, who changes sides to keep his life, rationalizing in his thoughts that if he's alive, at least he has a chance to escape. But there is no escapenot from this torment. What happens is shown with exquisite delicacy and poetic grace, as we witness the treachery of war without a single shot being fired, as the execution by hanging is turned into a public spectacle, where the villagers at the point of a gun are forced to witness. The pace and harrowing intensity of this film is relentless, as there is never a moment without impending menace, gorgeously shot by Vladimir Chukhnov (who died in the same car accident as Shepitko), featuring perfectly composed landscapes and plenty of camera movement, much of it at close range using portraitures, especially that of a fierce young boy at the end who eyes the condemned men, who makes a surreal connection to the next generation without any words being spoken, accentuated by the psychologically horrific music of Alfred Shnittke which resembles the transcendent yet furiously disturbing monolith music from Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968). The sound design of this film is highly advanced and uniquely modern, where the use of off screen sound continually exposes the raw nerves of each moment, dogs barking, wind blowing, bullets firing, nearby Nazi's chattering in untranslated German or laughing sadistically at their helplessness, which only ratchets up the hideous tension to insane heights. In many ways resembling Dreyer's THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928), utter insanity is exposed here, the relentless realization that you have no choice, yet you are forced to make one anyway. The nightmarish inner thoughts at the end are expressed wordlessly, where the nobility of the dead speaks volumes, where voices continue to reverberate inside the heads of the living like an explosion of neverending echoes, yet only silence fills the crisp wintry air with a mournful reverence and a profound sense of loss. | 1 |
18,426 | [
1200,
1300
] | 980 | 1,226 | Even if Voskhozhdeniye was your favorite film it would only be possible to watch it, at most, every ten years. Its just too emotionally strenuous.Widely regarded as Shepitko's finest film, THE ASCENT is the story of partisans operating in the Byelorussian forest in the dead of winter in German occupied Soviet Union.<br /><br />While assaulting the audience with the sheer physicality of the wartime experience, particularly the privations of cold and snow, the actual struggle for survival against both nature and the fascists, there is always a subtle, barely inferred sub-text of moral judgment and the question about whether a man can be moral or immoral in one context but otherwise in another.<br /><br />A partisan group hiding in the woods is attacked by a German patrol and loses their food supplies. Two men, Rybak, who knows the area, and Sotnikov, a Jewish schoolteacher, are assigned the task of going to a small village for food. They find the village burnt to the ground with nothing edible and nothing more than charred timbers and foundations in which in one cubby hole there's a children's mirror hidden. The overwhelming feeling is that whoever brings the brutality of war to a land and a people become truly cursed. I thought of the war that the Americans and British brought to Iraq and about how bringing the horrors of war to people is the act of a degenerate nation.<br /><br />The two move on to a nearby larger village where they obtain, under duress, a lamb from the collaborator headman. The German's arrive and the two partisans escape under fire. Sotnikov is hit in his foot and holds off the German's as Rybak gets away with the lamb. Sotnikov becomes so desperate that prepared not to be taken alive he removes his boot in order to put a bullet into his head. Just then Rybak returns and drags Sotnikov out of the line of fire.<br /><br />Rybak drags Sotnikov through the forest, bloody meter by meter all done in one long take. Each meter is an agony and yet he still pulls him through deep snow, up ridges, across depressions, over black bush stumps which crack as they snap under the weight of the men. There are several similarities to the cinematic vocabulary of Tarkowsky here - the long takes documenting a process, the effect of using repetition, and the resulting emotional stress which builds the longer the shot goes on. In the background, unnoticed because of the action, there hangs a question- did Rybak commit an immoral act by going back for Sotnikov? Whether under the moral standards of Marxist-Leninism or merely the common imperative of the survival of the group, wasn't his duty to get the food back to his starving band and leave Sotnikov to cover his escape? To sacrifice one man in order for the group to survive? Which leads to the question - Can a man who is immoral under one philosophical system be expected to be moral under a different moral system? The partisans come as if another curse of war to a farm house containing a woman with three small children. She is embittered by the scourge of war and barely hanging on with her three children. They are barely rested when more Germans show up. They make their way to leave and are directed to the loft to hide.<br /><br />Sotnikov's cough gives them away. When a German pops his head in to have a look and no one responds he threatens to fire across the loft and Rybak's nerves break and they are captured. Now who has the moral responsibility here? Sotnikov for coughing or Rybek for cracking? The two partisans and the mother are trussed up and taken to a nearby town passing ominously under a wrought iron arch at the entrance. They find the headman and a small girl already in custody. They are interrogated by a turncoat Byelorussian played by Tarkowsky favorite Anatoli Solonitsyn. Sotnikov keeps his head during interrogation and torture and only asks what the interrogator's prewar profession was? He doesn't answer but from his ease standing behind a desk the likely answer was 'schoolteacher'.<br /><br />Rybak on the other hand begs for his life and even offers to join the police. The previously unnoticed character defect, making a 'wrong' moral decision, the ambiguity (sentimentality) of which disguised it from judgment, now becomes obvious, unsettling and very ugly.<br /><br />The five sit in a dark cell. They are all scheduled to die the next day. From here the elements of a Christian parable become stronger. Genuine Rembrandt lighting and compositions are used as other Old Master poses of Christ are represented. He decides he can save everyone if he takes on the guilt for everyone. He must be kept alive until morning so he can save everyone. He asks the mother for forgiveness and the headman knowing what is taking place doesn't feel such despair at dying uselessly as he did before.<br /><br />Morning comes. The Germans don't care if Sotnikov takes on all of the sins of his companions or not. They will all be hung. They trudge up a steeply inclined street which is a virtual Via Dolorosa. A bench is taken up to the site of execution which is the gateway to the town. Five ropes hang from it. The bench only stands three, so Sotnikov stands on a tree stump which Rybak kicks out from under him. They all are hung.<br /><br />As Rybak descend the road with the Germans, someone in the crowd calls him a Judas, an unnecessary allusion, Shepitko's only misstep. Rybak imagines several times being shot in the back trying to escape, dying an honorable death and tries, unsuccessfully, to hang himself in the shithouse, but leaves with the Germans as the beaten dog he is. However if Rybak was morally right to go back and save Sotnikov's life, is he wrong to try to save his own life? | 1 |
18,565 | [
1200,
1300
] | 995 | 1,282 | In a style reminiscent of the best of David Lean, this romantic love story sweeps across the screen with epic proportions equal to the vast desert regions against which it is set. It's a film which purports that one does not choose love, but rather that it's love that does the choosing, regardless of who, where or when; and furthermore, that it's a matter of the heart often contingent upon prevailing conditions and circumstances. And thus is the situation in `The English Patient,' directed by Anthony Minghella, the story of two people who discover passion and true love in the most inopportune of places and times, proving that when it is predestined, love will find a way.<br /><br />It's WWII; flying above the African desert, Hungarian Count Laszlo de Almasy (Ralph Fiennes) is shot down, his biplane mistaken for an enemy aircraft. And though he survives the crash, he is severely burned. To his great good fortune, however, he is rescued by a tribe of nomads and winds up in a hospital. But existing conditions are governed by circumstances of war, and Almasy soon becomes one of many patients being transported via convoy to a different facility. Upon reaching Italy, he is too weak and ill to continue on, and a Canadian nurse, Hana (Juliette Binoche), volunteers to stay behind with him at an abandoned monastery.<br /><br />Hana soon discovers that her charge is something of a man of mystery, as Almasy remembers nothing of his past, and not even his own name. Thought to be English, the only clues pointing to who he is are contained in a book found in his possession after the crash, but even they are as cryptic as Hana's patient. Slowly, however, under prompting from Hana, Almasy begins to remember bits and pieces of his life, and his story begins to unfold. And his memory is helped along even more by the appearance of a mysterious stranger named Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), who suspects that Almasy is the man he's been looking for-- a man with whom he wants to settle a score. But, burned beyond recognition, Almasy may or may not be that man. Meanwhile, Almasy's memories continue to surface; memories of a woman he loved, Katherine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas)-- as well as memories of Katherine's husband, Geoffrey (Colin Firth). And, crippled in mind and body as he is, those memories become the only thing left to which he can cling with any hope at all, even as his life seems to be slipping farther away with each passing moment.<br /><br />In addition to directing, Anthony Minghella also wrote the screenplay for this film, which he adapted from the novel by Michael Ondaatje. The result is an epic saga presented in the tradition of Lean's `Doctor Zhivago' and `Lawrence of Arabia'; a magnificent film that fills the screen and the senses with unprecedented grandeur and beauty. Simply put, Minghella's film is genius realized; crafted and delivered with a poetic perfection, watching it is like watching a Monet come to life. From the opening frames, Minghella casts a hypnotic spell over his audience that is binding and transporting, with a story that has an emotional beauty that equals the engagingly stunning and vibrant images brought to life by John Seale's remarkable cinematography; images that virtually fill the screen as well as the soul of the viewer. In every sense, this is a film of rare eloquence, with a striking emotional capacity that facilitates an experience that is truly transcendental. Nominated in twelve categories, it deservedly received a total of nine Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actress (Binoche) and Cinematography.<br /><br />If one had to choose a single word to describe the `essence' of this film, it would be `excellence.' Even an extraordinary film, however, does not receive nine Oscars without performances that are extraordinary in kind; and the performances given by Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas here transcend the term `Oscar worthy.' Nominated for Best Actor for his portrayal of Almasy (Geoffrey Rush was awarded the gold for `Shine'), Fiennes has never been better, achieving an emotional depth with his character that is nearly palpable. Private and introspective, Almasy is not by his very nature an individual to whom the audience will be able to form an intimate connection; Fiennes, however, finds a way to open that emotional door just enough to let you in, enough so that you taste the honest passion welling up within him. And it works. Almasy does not seek your friendship; he will, however, gain your compassion.<br /><br />Kristen Scott Thomas, too, received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress (Frances McDormand received the award for `Fargo') for her portrayal of Katherine, a woman whose stoic countenance masks the emotional conflict raging within her, born of the forbidden passion that enslaves her and yet to which she gives herself willingly, casting off her shackles of repression to embrace a love so strong it threatens to consume her. The reserve Katherine must maintain evokes the empathy of the audience, as Scott Thomas successfully mines the emotional depths of her character to the greatest possible effect. It's the kind of performance that draws you in and holds you fast, taking you as it does beyond that curtain of hypocrisy that dictates what must be if only for the sake of appearances, and allows you to experience a true sense of unbridled passion. Understated and shaded with subtlety, it's terrific work by Kristin Scott Thomas.<br /><br />Binoche gives a stunning, affecting performance, as well, as the kindhearted nurse, Hana; it is her humanity, in fact, which defines love in it's purest sense and offers a balanced perspective of it within the context of the film. Her relationship with Kip (Naveen Andrews) affords us a glimpse of passion of another kind, which contrasts effectively with the intensity of that between Almasy and Katherine. `The English Patient' is a film that will move you and fill you emotionally; one you will not want to see end. 10/10. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> | 1 |
19,221 | [
1200,
1300
] | 967 | 1,259 | Danny Boyle was not the first person to realise that zombies can run like the clappers. That honour belongs to Lifeforce, which is, of course, the greatest naked space vampire zombies from Halley's Comet running amok in London end-of-the-world movie ever made. Tobe Hooper may have made a lot of crap, but for this deliriously demented epic sci-fi horror he deserves a place among the immortals. Plus it offers space vampire Mathilda May, the best thing to come out of France since Simone Simon, spending the entire movie naked. Which she does very, very well. Just bear in mind that while she is the most overwhelmingly feminine presence anyone on Earth has ever encountered, she's also "totally alien to this planet and our life form and totally dangerous." It's a pitch meeting I'd have loved to have sat in on: Astronauts from the British space program find three naked humanoid alien life forms inside a giant 150-mile long artichoke/umbrella shaped spaceship hidden in the tail of Halley's Comet filled with giant desiccated bats and bring them back to Earth with near apocalyptic results as they proceed to drain the population of London of their lifeforce amid much nudity, whirlpools of thunder and spit your coffee across the room direlogue ("I've been in space for six months, and she looks perfect to me." "Assume we know nothing, which is understating the matter." "Don't worry, a naked woman is not going to get out of this complex."). Oh, and we'll get the writers of Alien and Blue Thunder to write it with uncredited rewrites by the writer of Mark of the Devil, The Sex Thief and Eskimo Nell and the director of The Jonestown Monster. Sounds like a winner, here's $22m have fun. And they do, they do.<br /><br />True, there's enough promise in the raw material to have made something genuinely creepy and thought-provoking (at a time when AIDS hysteria was approaching its height, a sexually transmitted 'plague' offers ample opportunity for allegory), but in the hands of the Go-Go boys at Cannon, what could have been another Quatermass and the Pit quickly turns instead to be more Plan 10 From Outer Space. It's full-to-bursting with delirious inanity, be it Frank Finlay's hilarious death scene ("Here I go!"), Peter Firth's grand entrance ("I'm Colonel Caine." "From the SAS?" discreetly shouts Michael Gothard across a room full of reporters: "Gentlemen, that last remark was not for publication. This is a D-Notice situation" he replies to the surprisingly obliging pressmen), the security guards offering Mathilda May's naked space vampire a nice biscuit to stop her escaping, reanimated bodies exploding into dust all over people, the sweaty Prime Minister sucking the life out of his secretary and London filling up with zombie nuns, stockbrokers and joggers as the city gets its most comprehensive on screen trashing since Mrs Gorgo lost junior at Battersea Funfair and went on the rampage. And that's not mentioning the "This woman is a masochist! An extreme masochist!" scene or the great stereophonic echo effect on the male vampire's "It'll be a lot less terrifying if you just come to me" line while a lead-stake wielding Peter Firth adopts his best Action Man voice to reply "I'll do just that!" In one scene alone you have a possessed Patrick Stewart embodying the female in our deeply confused astronaut hero's mind, Steve "I-never-got-over-playing-Charlie-Manson" Railsback and his amazing dancing eyebrows in full-on "Helta-Skelta!" mode trying to resist the temptation to kiss him, the inimitable Aubrey Morris (the only man who makes Freddie Jones look restrained) playing the Home Secretary Sir Percy Heseltine as a kind of demented Brian Rix, Peter Firth (one of those actors who always looks like he must have been a Doctor Who around the time no-one was watching it anymore) hamming up the blasé public school macho in the hope that no-one will ever see it and the peerless reaction shots of John Hallam as the male nurse who keeps on opening the door mid-psychic-tornado to bring in more drugs. As if they needed any more in this film. It's just a shame that Frank Finlay's mad-haired scientist who isn't qualified to certify death on alien life forms (a role originally intended for Klaus Kinski) missed out on the action in that one.<br /><br />No matter how mad you think the film is, it still manages to get madder still, whether it be a zombie pathologist ("He too needs feeding") exploding all over the Home secretary's suit, Patrick Stewart's blood and entrails forming a naked Mathilda May or the space vampires turning St Paul's Cathedral into the world's biggest laser-show to transport human souls from the London Underground to their geostationary mother ship. I loved every gloriously insane moment. In it's own truly unique way, this might be the greatest film ever made.<br /><br />The DVD offers the original 116-minute version that opened in the UK rather than the heavily edited 101-minute US version, which not only offers much more hilarity for your dollar, but also fully restores Henry Mancini's score to its original glory (the US version covered a lot of the gaps with additional cues by Michael Kamen and James Guthrie). Although a somewhat surprising choice at first sight, Mancini cut his teeth on many of the classic Universal sci-fi horrors of the 50s and his score is quite superb, with a terrific driving main title that offers a rare reminder of just how interesting he could be away from Blake Edwards. Sadly there's no more than a trailer by way of extras, though it would be nice to hope some day for a special edition with some of the deleted scenes from Hooper's originally intended 128-minute cut: from what's on display here, these might just offer even more comedy gold! | 1 |
19,224 | [
1200,
1300
] | 992 | 1,227 | Lifeforce starts in outer space where the HMS Churchill tracks Haley's Comet & it's equipment detects a 150 mile long alien spaceship in the head of the comet, unable to contact Earth because of interference Colonel Tom Carlsen (Steve Railsback) decides this is the one & only chance to investigate it. Going outside in spacesuits Carlsen & some of his crew enter the mysterious spaceship & find the remains of a bat like race of creatures & three perfect looking humanoids, two men (Chris Jagger & Bill Malin) & a beautiful woman (Mathilda May) all of whom they take aboard the Churchill. Thirty days later & back on Earth the Churchill is detected on radar, a rescue mission is sent up only to discover the spaceship is burnt out & all the crew supposedly dead. The rescue team do find the three humanoid aliens though & take them back to Earth where in a space research center in London they come back to life & start to literally suck the lifeforce out of human victims who then in turn need to do the same to stop themselves turning into dust, things look grim as the epidemic spreads throughout London...<br /><br />This English production was produced by the notorious Menahem Golan & Yoram Globus who during the early 80's were responsible for lots of cheap low budget action flicks under their production company Cannon usually starring Chuck Norris & they wanted to move into the big time & signed director Tobe Hooper up on a three film deal (which were this Lifeforce, the Invaders from Mars (1986) remake & The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) a sequel to Hooper's own classic) all of which flopped & basically bankrupt both Golan & Globus & Cannon was no more. Anyway, despite being a commercial flop at the box-office I have to say I think Lifeforce is a highly enjoyable, if rather silly sci-fi horror. When originally released into theatres back in '85 Lifefore was cut down to 101 minutes by Golan & Globus but over the past few years the longer 116 minute cut has all but replaced it on DVD, VHS, Laserdisc & TV although apparently Hooper's original cut of the film ran for 128 minutes so there's even more footage out there somewhere. I will be basing my comments on the longer 116 minute cut, the script by Dan O'Bannon, Don Jakoby & uncredited rewrites by Michael Armstrong & Olaf Pooley was based on the 1976 novel 'The Space Vampires' by Colin Wilson & has many extraordinary ideas, it's scope is truly ambitious & one felt that it ends up being a bit of a mess but a hell of an entertaining one. It moves along like a rocket & at heart there's a really interesting story here although the film gets itself into a tangle. There are also some hilarious moments in Lifeforce, the scene when the security guard tries to convince the naked female Vampire to surrender by offering her a half eaten biscuit is a true camp classic, the horribly overwrought hypnosis scenes including the one where Railsback ends up kissing Patrick Stewart & many, many more besides. I don't know, call me weird but I just thought Lifeforce was tremendous fun & highly entertaining in just about every way, from silly character's, odd dialogue, strange ideas that never quite come together & some terrific visuals Lifeforce certainly isn't a film that will bore you.<br /><br />Director Hooper had just about more money here to play around with than he ever has (double what he had for Poltergeist (1982) even) & he uses every bit of it to bring this spectacular film to the big screen, John Dykstra the guy responsible for Star Wars (1977), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) & more recently Spider-Man (2002) was brought in to handle the visual effects & generally speaking they look fabulous. The sequences set in outer space with spaceships in particular look great, there's also some really good visual effects back on Earth including the destruction of London as 100's of blue souls fly around everywhere. There's some nudity but not much gore, there are some withered corpses, a few gunshot wounds, the skin on someones hand peels off, blood spurts from someones eyes, nose & ears & there's a severed arm as well as some zombies. The special make-up effects are also generally very good. I wouldn't say Lifeforce is scary as such as it's more of a sci-fi film than horror, I loved the way Hooper shoots the outer space sequences as he keeps rotating his camera to effectively capture the feeling of weightlessness & that there is no 'solid' floor as it were.<br /><br />With a supposed budget of about $25,000,000 it made less than half that in it's theatrical run & hasn't set the world alight on video or DVD either which is a shame because although it's a bit of a mess it's very enjoyable to watch. Shot on location in England. Well filmed in 2:35:1 widescreen, the 4:3 cropped image is horrible & cuts huge chunks of information from both sides of the screen, this is most noticeable during the opening scenes set in outer space where sometimes it's hard to make out what's going on & the sense of the vastness of space & the alien spaceship is lost. The acting is OK in a very silly film, Patrick Stewart replaced Sir John Gielgud, Nancy Paul replaced Olivia Hussey, Frank Finlay replaced Klaus Kinski while Anthony Hopkins turned the role of Caine down.<br /><br />Lifeforce is a bizarre film, no two ways about it really & anyone looking for something simple & straight forward should look elsewhere. Anyone looking for something a bit different in the sci-fi genre than give Lifeforce a go as it's one of those so bad it's good films with some impressive effects & it isn't your average run of the mill film by any means. | 1 |
20,497 | [
1200,
1300
] | 976 | 1,255 | I really wanted to be able to give this film a 10. I've long thought it was my favorite of the four modern live-action Batman films to date (and maybe it still will be--I have yet to watch the Schumacher films again). I'm also starting to become concerned about whether I'm somehow subconsciously being contrarian. You see, I always liked the Schumacher films. As far as I can remember, they were either 9s or 10s to me. But the conventional wisdom is that the two Tim Burton directed films are far superior. I had serious problems with the first Burton Batman this time around--I ended up giving it a 7--and apologize as I might, I just couldn't help feel that Batman Returns just has too many small direction, plot and script problems scattered throughout to justify a 10.<br /><br />But Burton _almost_ trumps the problems with sheer force of style, and even though there are a lot of small flaws, Batman Returns is still a great film, especially if you're a Burton fan, as Batman Returns has just as much in common with The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Edward Scissorhands (1990) as it does with anything else in the Batman universe.<br /><br />The film begins strongly, with the Cobblepots having a baby. We see their dismay--people walk out of the birthing room with horror on their faces, ready to vomit. Later, they have the baby in a small cage. Finally they take it out for an evening stroll and dump it in the Gotham City River. The baby ends up becoming Batman villain The Penguin (Danny DeVito).<br /><br />Meanwhile, Max Shreck (Christopher Walken) is the film's "evil capitalist", comparable to Grissom (Jack Palance) in Batman. He is planning on duping Gotham City in various ways, and we see him emotionally abusing his secretary, the timid Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer). When Kyle discovers one of the nefarious plots, Grissom tries to get rid of her, but she is rescued by cats, becoming Catwoman.<br /><br />While all of this is going on, The Penguin, who has long been only rumored to exist and who is thought to be dangerous, begins a scheme to be presented to the public as a good guy, despite having less than benevolent, ulterior motives.<br /><br />Before re-watching Burton's Batman films this time, I didn't remember just how little the films are about Batman (Michael Keaton). It's almost as if Burton didn't feel the character was interesting enough to focus on. The focus here is much more on the villains, especially The Penguin. Batman doesn't appear very often, especially in the beginning of the film, and surprisingly often, we're watching him watching The Penguin.<br /><br />Although some viewers necessarily count the above as a flaw, I can't say that I do, even if I'd like to know more about Batman and follow his story more. The villains' stories are interesting, too, and as an "origin story" for two major Batman villains, Batman Returns is already more than complex in terms of plot.<br /><br />However, there are some character problems that I do count as a flaw. The Penguin has a cadre of circus performers who do his bidding, but even though they're frequently on screen, we never get to learn anything about them. Burton has a core of characters as intriguing as those in Tod Browning's Freaks (1932) available, with actors as interesting as Vincent Schiavelli, but he just doesn't have the space to use them.<br /><br />For that matter, he hardly has space to explore Catwoman. The film plays as if Catwoman may have been as developed and featured in as many scenes as The Penguin, but that cut of the film would have been 4 hours long. So the bulk of the Catwoman scenes had to be excised. Of course, all of this barely leaves any room for Batman. Burton has Batman turn very dark in the public's eye in this film, and unusually, he never bothers to resolve this. As far as we know, at the end, Gothamites still think that Batman is a murdering lunatic. That's an interesting development, but unfortunately it ended up being dropped between this film and the next.<br /><br />As for the script, although there are minor problems including some non-sequiturs and bizarre decisions (in terms of logic) made by characters, it's clear that Burton and writers Sam Hamm and Daniel Waters are not exactly trying to tell a traditional story. A lot of the dialogue is pun-oriented, but often this is fairly subtle and/or complex (of course, sometimes it is very blatant or transparent, too). It helps to look at Batman Returns as a more "poetic" film, as I believe was the intention. This also carries over into more general plot and directorial decisions--plenty of odd character actions, including from minor characters, are done in service of a general mood or style, and that style works very well.<br /><br />"Dark" is the easiest way to sum up Batman Returns in a word, and whether that's a positive or negative depends on your disposition. Anyone who knows me knows that I love dark. So for me, Burton's style largely transcends the flaws in the plot and the script. In many ways, Batman Returns is like an insane, campy horror film, with beautifully eerie production design. Like Batman, Burton is still making many references to other films, but instead of Vertigo (1958) and Star Wars (1977) (well, there's still a slight Star Wars reference), he invokes films like Nosferatu (1922) (including that "Max Schreck" was the name of the actor who played the Dracula-like character there), Motel Hell (1980), the aforementioned Freaks, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) (which has a surreal, dark edge to it) and zombie films--made most explicit in The Penguin's final scene.<br /><br />In terms of visuals and general atmosphere--and that includes the general "feel" of the story, the characters and so on--this couldn't be a stronger 10. | 1 |
20,735 | [
1200,
1300
] | 983 | 1,231 | I was -Unlike most of the reviewers- not born in the 80's. I was born on may 14th 1994. Despite this, my life was very much in the style of the 80's. When other kids had playstations, I was playing Zelda on my NES etc. Now, this movie holds a special place in my heart already despite me being only 15 years old at the time of writing this review. I, because of my 80's style early Childhood, watched many TV shows and saw Many movies that other kids didn't see, and this movie was one of those, and one of the greatest too.<br /><br />It starts off in the Los Angeles home of Alvin Seville, Simon Seville, Theodore Seville and David Seville. David, the Chipmunk's adoptive father, is in a rush to get to the airport as he is going on a business trip around Europe. His taxi is almost there and The Chipmunks help him pack. While they are talking, Alvin expresses his will to come with Dave and to see the world (Even though, technically Dave is only going to Europe, so to Alvin, apparently only America and Europe qualify as ''The World''). David is leaving the Chipmunks in the care of Miss Miller, much to the displeasure of the boys. Soon Dave is off to the airport and the Chipmunks are left at home with Miss Miller. Later, at a local Café the Chipmunks are playing a game of ''Around the World in 30 days'' against the Chipettes(Brittany, Jeanette and Eleanore). After losing the game to Brittany after having his Hot air Balloon eaten out of the sky by a crocodile, Alvin get's in an argument with Brittany about who would really win a race around the world. Two diamond smugglers sitting at a nearby table, Klaus and Claudia Furschtien overhear their argument and, needing a safe way of transporting their diamonds over the world, decide to fool the children into delivering them for them. They set up a race around the world, where each team will have to deposit a doll in their own likeness (Secretely filled with diamonds) at drop offs around the world and receive a doll in the opposing team's likeness (secretely filled with the payment for the diamonds) to ''varify that they were there''. The winning team would then receive a 100.000 dollar reward. They do this because they believe that Jamal (An Interpol agent who has been hot on their heels for some times now) would never suspect them because they are just kids (However, this seems to be redundant, because on their travels, the kids do not have to go through any security checks and are never even questioned about the dolls, I suspect that neither would Klaus or Claudia if they had taken the diamonds there personally.) And so begins a great adventure. This film is a classic and I see no reason why anyone would not like it. It features great animation and top-notch voice acting, not to mention the Kick-ass music (Pardon my french :P). My favorite song is without a shred of doubt ''The Girls and Boys of Rock and Roll'' An amazing rock song that cannot be topped. It's also my favorite moment in the film. Other notable songs include ''Getting Lucky''(Kind of Suggestive for a kid's film eh?) and ''My Mother'' as well as ''Wooly Bully'' and ''Off to see the world'' Not to mention the main theme of the movie heard during the opening credits performed by the Royal London Philharmonic Orchestra. The scene with ''My mother'' still brings a tear to my eye. In relation to the song ''Getting Lucky'' I first didn't think anything of it, but when I grew older and learned about life, it became clear that that song was a little bit suggestive. That song, along with the fact that the animators insist on the audience knowing the color of the Chipettes panties. This is especially apparent in the scene in Egypt when the Chipettes are being chased by the Arabian Prince's men, when Eleanor leans over the side of the hot air balloon basket and her skirt defies gravity completely. While this does nothing to draw from the overall quality of the film, it's one of those unexplained things like why nobody in the world seems to mind that there are 4-feet tall Chipmunks walking around and speaking in incredibly high-pitched voices and treat them just like they would any human child. Anyway, A bit after that scene, the Chipettes discover the diamonds in the dolls and decide to go find the Chipmunks and get home. The Direction of Janice Karman perfects this movie as she and her husband, Ross Bagdasarian Jr. know the characters better than anyone. They even do the voices of the Chipmunks and the Chipettes. Ross doing the voices for Alvin and Simon (as well as Dave) and Janice doing the voices for All the Chipettes and Theodore. Speaking of male characters that are voiced by female voice actresses, Nancy Cartwright (The voice of Bart Simpson) makes an appearance in this movie. She plays the part of the Arabian Prince, a very small, but important role. The ending is of course, a happy one. The Crooks have been caught, the loose ends tied and The film ends when the Children, Dave and Miss Miller are driving into the sunset, Alvin complaining about not having gotten his 100.000 dollar reward for winning the race, which annoys Dave until he finally yells ''ALVIN!'' and the screen fades to black<br /><br />Classic ending, by the way. I hope you found my review of this movie useful, and if you haven't seen this flick, give it a watch, It's worth the money. This Nostalgic classic from the 80's gets a solid 10 out of 10. <br /><br />''Headin' for the top, Don't you know! we never stop believing now'' | 1 |
21,001 | [
1200,
1300
] | 971 | 1,279 | You don't review James Bond movies, you evaluate them, rate them according to how well they meet expectations. There are certain things one has come to expect, even demand of a Bond film and each individual effort either delivers or it doesn't. So, here are ten elements that make a Bond film a Bond film. And even though NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN is not technically part of the official Bond filmography, the mere presence of Sean Connery returning as 007 makes it something more than merely an honorary member of the series. Anyway, here's how it rates on a scale of 1 to 10: <br /><br />Title: NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN: The clever title has no apparent link to the actual storyline, but is instead an in-joke reference to Sean Connery's vow to never play OO7 again after having been lured back once before for DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. Whatever the case, it is a catchy title. 8 points.<br /><br />Pre-Credit Teaser: Perhaps trying to avoid any obvious parallels to the official EON series of Bond films, there is no Teaser; the opening scenes are just shown behind the credits. And even that is disappointing: yet another "oh-no, Bond has been killed" fakeout. 4 points.<br /><br />Opening Credits: Other than a screen full of tiny 007's, they didn't even bother trying to jazz up the credits with graphics or split screens or interesting camera angles. 1 points.<br /><br />Theme Song: As written by Michel LeGrand and sung by Lani Hall "Never Say Never Again" would make for a perfectly pleasant part of a particularly long elevator ride. As a Bond theme, it's merely okay. 6 points.<br /><br />"Bond, James Bond": Appropriately, since this film sees Connery being lured back into service as Bond after a decade's hiatus, the story begins with 007 facing the question as to whether Bond/Connery is still up to the job. Happily, Connery more than proves himself ready for Bondage again. Though he is a bit grayer, sporting a bit more girth and wearing a slightly more obvious toupee, he seems to have no trouble slipping back into action. All in all, it is one of Connery's best, and most relaxed, turns as the character. 9 points.<br /><br />Bond Babes: Even in the best of the Bond films, the female characters aren't given much dimension; they exist largely as necessary props for Bond's use. Future Oscar-winner Kim Basinger is granted a great deal of leeway in creating her character of Domino Petachi and the film benefits from this. She does a nice job -- and she's not bad to look at either. 8 points.<br /><br />Bond Villain: The reports of his death being obviously exaggerated, Blofeld is back -- at least, for the moment -- showing he has more lives than his prized pussycat. One-time Jesus portrayer-turned-stereotypical villain, Max von Sydow isn't given a lot to do in the role, but is a silky presence nonetheless. But he is overshadowed by a wonderful performance by Klaus Maria Brandauer as Maximilian Largo. After a string of banal Bond villains, it is so refreshing for Brandauer to gave a performance that is both subtle, yet colorfully evil. Funny without being campy, ruthless without seeming cartoonish; his Largo ranks right up there with Auric Goldfinger as one of Bond's best villains. 10 points.<br /><br />Bond Baddies: Fatima Blush! What can I say? As played with all the bold style of a particularly flamboyant drag queen, Barbara Carrera breezes through the film, displaying a mix of self-amused evil and more than a tad of pure psychotic insanity. Bond has crossed paths with a variety of femmes fatales, most of whom have been so easily disposed of that they existed more as amusing eye candy than as characters. But few dared to exhibit such a flare for the dramatic or such fierce determination. Even her untimely demise is spectacular, even by Bondian standards. 10 points.<br /><br />Sinister Plot: As a remake of sorts of THUNDERBALL, the film does seem a bit been-there-done-that: nuclear missiles are stolen and major real estate will go kaboom if all the countries of the world don't pay a multi-kazillion dollar ransom. But at least producer Kevin McClory was lucky enough to find himself forced to remake one of the weakest Bond adventures. By comparisons, this effort blows THUNDERBALL out of the water. And despite the absence of many Bondian trademarks, the film succeeds on its own. 9 points.<br /><br />Production values: The film starts out with an uneasy style, like a TV movie trying to be more than it can. But as the story progress, the film gains momentum and a sense of purpose, making it a superior adventure. 8 points. <br /><br />Bonus Points: There are several odd changes that sets this Bond film apart from the official series. Miss Moneypenny is hardly acknowledged; as played by Edward Fox, "M" is a cranky old grouch with no respect for the "Double Os," a foreshadowing of how Judi Dench would later play the part; and "Q" suddenly has a cockney accent and is all buddy-buddy with Bond. And there is a curious sense of nostalgia throughout the film, such as replacing Bond's Astin-Martin with a vintage Packard and a tango dance number that is cleverly inserted into the story. And a big rescue near the end is on horseback, an homage to THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, which was itself a tribute to the Bond films. 5 points.<br /><br />Summary: NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN is a mixed bag. In the really important areas, it more than holds it own thanks to hero Connery, villain Brandauer, assassin Carrera and damsel-in-distress Basinger. But the devil is in the details; as seemingly unimportant as the opening credits, theme song and such seem, the film is lacking because of their absence. It all comes off as a faux Bond film; a very good substitute, but a substitute nonetheless.<br /><br />Bond-o-meter Rating: 78 points out of 100. | 1 |
21,004 | [
1200,
1300
] | 985 | 1,299 | "Empire Strikes Back" director Irvin Kershner's "Never Say Never Again," a remake of the 1965 James Bond movie "Thunderball," doesn't surpasses the Terence Young original, but this non-Harry Saltzman & Albert R. Broccoli film is well worth watching if you call yourself a 007 aficionado. Nevertheless, despite its shortage of clever gadgets and the lack of a vibrant musical score, "Never Say Never Again" rates as an above-average, suspenseful doomsday thriller with top-flight performances by a seasoned cast including Sean Connery, Kim Basinger, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Max Von Sydow, Barbara Carrera, Edward Fox, Bernie Casey, Alec McCowen, and Rowan Atkinson. The film bristles with surprises galore from the invigorating title credits sequence throughout its generally exciting but lengthy 134 minutes. Unlike the franchise James Bond sagas with their breath-taking moments of spectacle, "Never Say Never Again" provides few of these scenes because of its prohibitive budget. Indeed, the film features only three gadgets: an explosive ball-point pen, a wristwatch with a laser, and a souped-up motorcycle. Aside from the flavorful Lani Hall opening theme song, "Ice Station Zebra" composer Michel Legrand's orchestral music score leaves much to be desired. Legrand replicates none of those snappy, jazz cues that made John Barry's music for the regular Bond franchise so memorable. All in all, "Never Say Never Again" seems to fit more into the first two Bond movies"Dr. No" and "From Russia With Love"and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in terms of its more down to earth approach to the subject matter.<br /><br />"Never Say Never Again" presents Sean Connery's James Bond as an older 007 who has seen his day and has been taken off active service to teach. Ironically, Roger Moore was a year older than Connery and Moore's Bond movies treated 007 as an active, young guy. Sean Connery seems to be responsible for making 007 a more mature secret agent and a number of changes take place in the Lorenzo Semple screenplay that emphasize Bond's age. Initially, Connery had lobbied to play Bond without a hairpiece, but mercifully wiser minds prevailed and Connery sports a hairpiece. He looks tanned and fit and appears in better condition than he did twelve years earlier when he was rushed into "Diamonds Are Forever" at the last moment to replace John Gavin. Connery had been working on another movie and had gained weight for the role that he was unable to remove in time for "Diamonds Are Forever." At 52, Connery still has a youthful vigor here despite the contrived demands of the script.<br /><br />The action unfolds with 007 single-handedly trying to rescue a kidnapped woman on a remote desert island. He dispatches several guards armed with machine guns and frees the woman, only to have her stab him with a knife in the side when he isn't looking. It seems that this entire sequence was an exercise designed by M (Edward Fox of "Day of the Jackal") to test Bond's ability. The new M doesn't share his predecessor's use of field agents. M decides that Bond needs to clean out his system of all 'free radicals' and has 007 packed off to Shrublands. While at the country clinic, Bond notices suspicious activity between a nurse and a patient and gets noticed watching them. The nurse is none other than SPECTRE assassin Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera of "The Island of Dr. Moreau") and she is in charge of making sure that nobody sees USAF officer Jack Petachi (Gavan O'Herlihy of "Superman 3"). Petachi is part of a SPECTRE plan by millionaire businessman Maximilian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer of "Out of Africa") to black the world powers by stealing two nuclear warheads. The villains implant a duplicate eyeball into Captain Petachi who has access to the highly sophisticated computers and can order the arming of weapons. After he steals the weapons for SPECTRE, Fatima Blush runs him off the road by tossing her pet snake in his lap and then attaches an explosive to his wrecked car and blows him up. Indeed, the first part of "Never Say Never Again," apart from the SPECTRE planning conference, belong to Fatima as she supervises Petachi's stay at the clinic and then repeatedly tries to kill Bond, one at sea with sharks and later in a motel suite with an explosives device.<br /><br />Eventually, Bond meets the beautiful blond Domino (Kim Basinger of "Mother Lode") and sneaks into Largo's charity banquet at a Monte Carlo casino where the two face off in an elaborate video game called 'Domination' to see who will rule the world. Bond bests him and Largo hates him doubly now because 007 is his only rival to Domino and a thorn in his side that not even Fatima seems to be able to remove. Bond and Fatima have it out after a motorcycle chase when he returns the favor and blows her up. Their earlier encounter in the Bahamas when she attached a device to lure a shark after him is pretty lame. Like in the original "Thunderball," the villains recover the hijacked nuclear warheads at sea, but just the warheads themselves.<br /><br />Bond flies to the Bahamas where he meets his diplomatic liaison, Nigel Small-Fawcett (no lesser than Rowan Atkinson of "Mr. Bean" fame, who is worried that Bond may kill somebody and ruin the island paradise. Of course, Nigel Small-Fawcett serves as the film's source of comic relief. The C.I.A. sends Felix Leiter (Bernie Casey of "Guns of the Magnificent Seven") to back up Bond. This is the first time that an African-American portrayed Leiter. Bond encounters his share of problems, involving saving Domino from Arab slavers, while Leiter and he save the world. "Never Say Never Again" is a richly respectable James Bond thriller with many neat touches, but it never generates the air of danger that the franchise Bond films have. Indeed, "Never Say Never Again" looks like a dignified Masterpiece Theatre take on 007. | 1 |
21,133 | [
1200,
1300
] | 982 | 1,218 | After two brief scenes that at first seem unrelated to the rest of the film, we see a dark-haired, obviously rich beauty in the back of a limousine. Her driver stops at an odd location on Mulholland Drive, which is a twisting, thickly wooded two-lane road full of mansions overlooking Los Angeles. Just as her driver and another man in the passenger seat turn around to kill her, two drag racing cars from the opposite direction come crashing into the limo. Only the dark-haired woman survives. She works her way down the ridge to Sunset Boulevard and hides in a vacationing woman's apartment. Shortly after, Betty (Naomi Watts), the vacationing woman's niece, shows up at the apartment and runs into the dark haired woman, who now has amnesia. The bulk of the first part of the film is Betty and the dark haired woman trying to figure out who she is, why people were trying to kill her and why she had thousands of dollars and a strange key in her purse. This is interspersed with oddly surreal threads about Hollywood producers and directors, with occasional forays into a land of hoodlums and prostitutes.<br /><br />The above may sound a bit complicated and disjointed, but that's not the half of it. The film is constructed so that the meaning will always be open to interpretation. It's basically guaranteed that you will not understand this film and you will not have very much confidence arriving at your own interpretation the first time around. Even if you have a lot of experience with like-minded films--such as Memento (2000), Donnie Darko (2001), The I Inside (2003) and The Butterfly Effect (2004)--you may not understand it on a second viewing, either. The studio was aware of this to the extent that they had director David Lynch write "10 clues to unlocking this thriller" and they put it on the back of the chapter listing insert in the DVD. Lynch being of a particular disposition, these clues are almost as cryptic as the film itself. It doesn't help when trying to figure it out in the early stages that the structure is extremely complex. It takes a very long time to figure out what parts are supposed to be "real" and there is a complex nesting of flashbacks in some sections, with only contextual clues that they're flashbacks.<br /><br />But is the film worth watching, or worth trying to figure out? That depends on your tastes, obviously. On a surface level, the film is certainly attractive if you are a fan of surrealism, although it will tend to seem a bit slow and overly disjointed to some viewers. But those qualities, and many other surrealist aspects of the film, are typical of Lynch. A prime Lynchian moment is the old couple in the beginning bizarrely smiling almost as if they're alien pod people trying to put on a front. If you're familiar with that style and like it, you'll find much to love here, although in many ways, Mulholland Drive is fairly understated for Lynch. It's also worth noting, for viewers who'll primarily be interested in it or who enjoy it just as much as other aspects, that Mulholland Drive has a quite steamy lesbian scene. It's not gratuitous, although I have no problems with gratuitousness, but is instead an important hinge in the film.<br /><br />Like all of Lynch's films, it's easy to become enraptured in his unique approach to every aspect of filmic art and his attention to detail. Any serious student of film (including "armchair students"/"cinephiles") should study Mulholland Drive; many will love it. Lynch doesn't let anything pass unmanipulated. He includes brilliant color schemes (such as the plethora of reds and pinks) with important symbolism. He makes unusual use of sound, such as the ringing telephone carrying over into the section of score that follows it (when Betty first arrives at the airport). He directs his actors to deliver their lines in a plethora of bizarre ways, such as his characteristic odd pauses. He lets his odd and surprising sense of humor poke through, such as the name "Winkie's", and the "Hot Dogs--made for Pinks" sign that provides a clue to some of the color symbolism.<br /><br />Lynch's attention to detail in production design provides important, subtle clues throughout the film to help one unlock the meaning. It's interesting to note that Lynch even apparently demands that the DVD programming be unusual--there are no chapters on the disc; you must either watch the film in real time or fast forward or rewind to get back to particular points.<br /><br />If the surrealism and veiled meaning of the film are attractive to you, or if you're just fond of "puzzles", then Mulholland Drive is well worth watching for that aspect. There is a fairly accepted interpretation of the film, at least on a broad, generalized level. I won't recount the standard interpretation here--it is worth researching, but only after you've seen the film a couple times and have reached your own conclusions. Many articles and monographs have been written on the film and interpretations; there are even websites dedicated to it.<br /><br />For my money, however, although I generally love Lynch and find many things about Mulholland Drive attractive, it is not quite a 10 for me, at least not yet (I have a feeling that my score could still rise on subsequent viewings). To me, though, the "twist" aspect of the film is done much better in other works such as The I Inside and The Butterfly Effect. Mulholland Drive is more attractive to me for its surface surrealistic touches, but the plot doesn't carry them as well as some of Lynch's other films.<br /><br />Still, Mulholland Drive is certainly recommended for the right crowd. If you're serious about film and do not mind having to think about what you watch (as if those two would not necessarily coincide), you shouldn't miss this one. | 1 |
21,138 | [
1200,
1300
] | 951 | 1,248 | Spoiler Alert - although this is a plot almost as impossible to spoil as it is to completely explain.<br /><br />'Mulholland Drive' is by far the most successful expression of David Lynch's cinematographic style and vision since the first season of his 'Twin Peaks' TV series. As Lynch enthusiasts know, his is a style and vision uniquely blended from film noir, horror movies, surrealism, and parapsychology with a healthy dose of postmodern self-consciousness and black humor thrown in for good measure. All these elements are richly at work in 'Mulholland Drive,' making for a riveting, hair-raising, and highly satisfying film experience especially if one does not become overly obsessed with trying to make all the plot pieces fit into a logical, mystery-unraveling whole.<br /><br />The film features wonderful performances by Naomi Watts and Laura Harring in the lead roles of young women whose lives intersect in various ways amid a Hollywood setting that is itself an hallucinated blend of contemporary reality, retro '50s nostalgia, and satirical self-aggrandizement. Their seemingly random initial meeting occurs after the film's opening scene, in which Harring's character escapes an attempt on her life thanks to a fortuitous, not to mention horrific, automobile accident. Staggering down the hillside from Mulholland Drive to Sunset Boulevard (the two most archetypal of Hollywood thoroughfares), she finds her way to the very apartment that Betty (Naomi Watts) is about to sublet from her 'Aunt Ruth,' a purportedly successful actress who is off to Canada to begin a new movie. As we later learn, Betty had herself arrived from Deep River, Ontario, shortly after winning a jitterbug contest.<br /><br />A highly energetic and stylized flashback to the contest forms one of two pre-credit prologue sequences that frame Betty's descent from the clichéd would-be-starlet's bright-eyed innocence to the debauched madness of spurned lover and going nowhere bit-part actress. Unable to remember her own name, the Harring character adopts the name 'Rita' from a movie poster for the film noir classic 'Gilda' that adorns Aunt Ruth's apartment. (Actually, it turns out Aunt Ruth has long since deceased and whose apartment we're really in is a good question to be resolved in future viewings.) Anyway, Betty determines to help Rita find out what happened and to discover the source of the rolls of cash and a mysterious blue key that the women find in Rita's purse. The two women begin to piece together clues that would seem to lead to Rita's true identity. They also, by the way, become lovers, at one point radiating such an incendiary chemistry that I cannot recall its equal in mainstream treatments of Lesbian lover affairs (if a Lynch movie can ever be designated 'mainstream').<br /><br />At the local Winkies restaurant (a recurring location fraught with dream-like significance behind its grubby realistic facade), Rita's attention is caught by a waitress's name-tag reading 'Diane.' This leads her to a recollection of someone named 'Diane Selwyn,' whose apartment the two women soon visit and, at Betty's insistence, break into. I won't reveal what they find within, but suffice it to say the scene is rendered with vintage Lynchian creepiness. Subsequently, Rita wakes in night sweats speaking Spanish and hurrying Betty to an all-night magic show/theater called 'Silencio,' where the arts of illusion and lip/instrumental- syncing are practiced with manic intensity and where the Blue- Haired Lady, as she is noted in the end credits, reigns as the presiding Muse. Framed by the blue-lit, red-curtained Silencio Theatre, the blue-haired lady occupies the last shot in the film, perhaps a symbol for the controlling artistic imagination rather like Steven's "man with the blue guitar" as filtered through bad- drug surrealism.<br /><br />During the Silencio sequence, and as Rebekah Del Rio cameo lip-syncs her own powerful Spanish rendition of Roy Orbison's 'Crying'), a shattering epiphany occurs when Betty opens her own purse to discover a blue box with a keyhole that obviously matches the key in Rita's purse. Even if we do not delve too deeply into the Freudian sexual symbolism of purses, the moment is a singularly Hitchcockian one in that the matching of the key and box leads to a complete inversion of what we thought we knew and into a whole new set of character relationships and meanings. Not the least of these reversals is the discovery that Betty is the sought-for Diane Selwyn and the spurned lover of Camilla Rhodes (i.e. Rita). Camilla in turn is a Latin femme fatale movie star to whom Diane is indebted for the few minor roles she has managed to secure and, more significantly, to whom she is emotionally subjugated.<br /><br />After these and other discoveries in the last third of the film, the problem of accounting for the first two thirds of the movie is not so straightforwardly resolved as in 'Vertigo.' While bits and pieces of imagery and dialog suggest that much, if not all, of the earlier material is projected and displaced from the fevered subconscious of Diane herself, other bits and pieces suggest the perhaps supernatural intervention of a cast of characters drawing direct inspiration from 'Twin Peaks,' including Michael J. Anderson reprising his unearthly dwarfish powers and a Bob- variant who hangs out behind Winkies and is the ultimate repository for the blue box and its id-like associations.<br /><br />However one fits the pieces together, though, the whole of 'Mulholland Drive' is much greater and more mysterious than the sum of its parts. Lynch takes us on a wonderfully inventive, provocative, and pleasurably disturbing mind trip. What's more, the film's cinematography is stunning, the soundtrack filled with evocative atmospherics, the acting superb, and the directing /editing masterful. This may well have been the unacknowledged Best Picture of 2001 among major American releases. | 1 |
22,242 | [
1200,
1300
] | 959 | 1,239 | Remember - before there was Sidney, there was Dudley.<br /><br />Dudley Digges is barely recalled today - because his heyday as a fixture in sound movies was the late 1920s and through the 1930s. Except for one major performance: the ship's good natured, if tipsy doctor in the 1935 MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, most of his films are barely revived. More's the pity because he was a wonderful actor. In 1931 he played Casper Gutman (the original actor to play that villain) opposite Ricardo Cortez's Sam Spade in the first THE MALTESE FALCON. Similarly, about the same time, he played the recording angel in Leslie Howard's version of OUTWARD BOUND - the same role that Sidney Greenstreet tackled in BETWEEN TWO WORLDS a decade later.<br /><br />Digges could be likable and lovable (that ship's doctor again), or detestable (in CHINA SEAS, as the judgmental First Mate sneering at poor Lewis Stone but then proving he's as big a coward in a moment of crisis). He held his own against Paul Robeson in THE EMPEROR JONES. He is the Chinese freedom fighter working with Gary Cooper in THE GENERAL DIED AT DAWN. Digges could do anything. <br /><br />Here, he is Mr. Thompson, the hypocritical and thieving warden of a reform school that Frankie Darro and his friends are sent to for committing a robbery and injuring a Greek-American store owner (it is the latest incident for most of them). Digges is as bad here as in CHINA SEAS, but it is a close thing to totally dislike him. He's able to somehow transcend his roles...more later about that.<br /><br />Darro has a gang of urban delinquents (including a Jewish boy and "Farina" from "OUR GANG"). As pointed out in another review, it is a prototype of the Bowery Boys. We see them shake down car owners to pay them to "watch and protect" their autos. When one guy won't do it, they calmly wreck his car. The snatch and grab robbery at the store of the Greek-American is also rather graphically shown - his skull getting fractured when pushed. <br /><br />The boys are rounded up and brought before stern but decent judge Arthur Byron, who realizes that he can't leave the kids with their parents: the parents are unable to watch them, or are incompetent. Unfortunately there are three racial stereotypes in this sequence: a Jewish father who is more concerned with his business than with his son, Farina's stereotype "Yassum" father, and the an Italian father whose willingness to cooperate gets his son out of going to the reform school.<br /><br />Once there the boys find the regime oppressive. Occasionally one of the guards or the nurse (Madge Evans) tries to speak up for them. But Digges has no time for coddling. His is a regime determined to break the boys so they behave themselves. Unfortunately, Digges and his bookkeeper partner are greedy. They have been serving inferior food to the boys and pocketing the profit. <br /><br />One day a new official comes from the state to look at the reform school. It's Jimmy Cagney, who is a hack ward heeler whose gang got the vote out for Edward Maxwell. As a reward (he could not get the Park Commissioner post) Cagney was made an Assistant school inspector. He is supported by his hanger-on pal and factotum Allan Jenkins (in his first Warner Brother film). <br /><br />The irony is that if Digges were a bit more careful, Cagney would probably have let him continue running things. But Cagney arrives to see Darro brought to Digges for fighting. The Warden and Darrow have had problems about respect earlier, and Digges now intends to punish Darro who flees - but get seriously injured by Digges' barbed wire fences and his free use of a whip. Cagney stops Digges and lets Evans treat Darro's injuries. And she explains the reality of the situation to Cagney, and her own idea of real reformatory reform of the boys by building up trust in them with responsibility.<br /><br />The film follows this to the end, showing that Cagney and Evans are on the right path, turning the reformatory as a "republic" for the boys to run properly. This leads to conflict with Digges, whose profiteering is reduced as he is no longer getting supplies. But the scheme is derailed when Cagney himself finds he may be in serious trouble with the law. Digges sees his opportunity and fully takes it. But then he goes too far...far more than he ever bargained for.<br /><br />The 1930s had many films showing kids taking steps to right wrongs and change things. Darro appeared in such as WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD. Cecil B. De Mille did THIS DAY AND AGE, where the kids teach a lesson to a gangster played by Charles Bickford that scares the hell out of him. So it went in the 1930s. THE MAYOR OF HELL reaches a similar intensity of vengeance and juvenile justice seeking. But that's the one problem of the film. Digges' character is a knave and hypocrite, so we never really cheer for him, yet if he wasn't a thief we might go along with his view (even if it is counter-productive). The scenes at the start of Darro and his gang preying on people actually make the harshness Digges would follow seem fairly understandable (even if his thieving ways are not). Also he has one moment when he's justifiably angry at Cagney - at that point in hiding from his own clash with the law - giving orders over a phone from long distance to a befuddled Digges. When Digges learns what's actually happened he is justifiably furious at Cagney lecturing him about proper behavior. It is the closest thing to making Mr. Thompson sympathetic in this fine movie. | 1 |
22,482 | [
1200,
1300
] | 980 | 1,248 | One has to be careful whom one tells about watching 12-hour long films. It could become easy for people to assume that this is some kind of regular occurrence - in fact, even in the world of 'arthouse' cinema, such mammoth running times are extremely rare, for obvious reasons. This is one thing that Hollywood and art cinema share in common: the generally accepted running time of 90-120 minutes, with a minority of movies that dare to approach, but rarely exceed, the three-hour mark.<br /><br />For this reason, a film like Out 1 (runtime: 729 minutes) is a challenge for even the most hardened cinephile, and it goes some way in explaining why it has only ever been screened on a handful of occasions and remains extremely hard to find.<br /><br />Originally devised as a TV series by maverick Nouvelle Vague director Jacques Rivette, it raised little interest from the French networks, and wound up being given a brief theatrical run instead (Peter Watkins was forced to do much the same with his brilliant nuclear war pseudo- documentary The War Game, although that had more to do with state censorship than issues with running time). Shown a couple of times in 1971, Out 1 has re-emerged at a handful of Rivette retrospectives over the last two decades, and many who have seen it, including esteemed US critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, have acclaimed it as one of the greatest films of all time.<br /><br />Is it? Well, yes, if you like Rivette. That alone is a big 'if', as Jacques Rivette has never been a commercially successful director. Only two of his films were hits (Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) and La Belle Noiseuse (1991), both superb), and many remain difficult to find on DVD today (Out 1 only recently became available over the internet after a rare videotape was uploaded). Nevertheless, he is greatly respected within the film community, and with good reason - his playfully surreal narratives, sense of pacing and use of improvisation set him apart as one of cinema's most unique and satisfying film-makers.<br /><br />Out 1 deals with a theme that re-occurs throughout Rivette's work: the nature of acting, particularly in the context of theatre and improvisation. His fascination with acting make Rivette's films a far more collaborative process than many of his contemporaries, as the improvisational aspects allow actors to have a far more active role in determining how the film comes together. Out 1 is roughly divided into four major narratives, gradually intertwining and blurring as the film develops: two consisting of acting troupes, each trying to devise post-modern theatrical adaptations of Aeschylus plays; the other two individual petty thieves (played by Nouvelle Vague icons Jean-Pierre Léaud and Juliet Berto) pursuing eccentric methods of making money; and an overarching plot involving a mysterious Balzac-inspired conspiracy centred around an organisation known as 'the thirteen'.<br /><br />As with any Rivette film featuring a 'conspiracy' narrative, the mysteries and secret organisations are little more than a red herring. As the characters are slowly explored and revealed and their plans and interpersonal connections break down, the film becomes increasingly symbolic of post-1968 ennui and the decline of the ideals of that era. For a film made in 1971, these were remarkably prescient themes; another French director in Jean Eustache would tackle this topic equally satisfyingly in his 1973 masterpiece The Mother and the Whore. But this is not the limit of Out 1's scope. <br /><br />Comprised of eight episodes of roughly 90 minutes each (the beginning of each episode has a brief, abstract black-and-white still montage of the events of the previous chapter), Out 1 is no less watchable than any quality TV series, and may even be better experienced on a one-episode- at-a-time basis. This is not to say that it doesn't remain challenging even when viewed in segments. Like most Rivette films, it uses the first few hours to simply establish the characters before embarking on the plot, of sorts, and some of those early scenes (particularly the sequences depicting the actors' heavily abstracted 'exercises') seem interminably long. These scenes are important, however, not just as an exploration of the improvisational acting methods that play both a literal and a metaphorical role in the film, but as a method of adjusting the viewer to the somewhat languorous pace of the film. Paradoxically, long takes make long films far more tolerable for an audience, and this understanding of pacing has led Rivette, along with more modern directors like Michael Haneke and Béla Tarr, to create films with less commercial running-times that nevertheless retain the capacity to leave viewers enthralled.<br /><br />In a film that is in many ways about acting, the acting is fantastic. Many famous Nouvelle Vague faces appear, including the aforementioned Léaud and Berto, the outstanding Michel Lonsdale and Rivette regular Bulle Ogier. Even another legendary director in Eric Rohmer has a great cameo as a Balzac professor who appears in a pivotal scene. The people and architecture of Paris c. 1971, though, seem to have an equally significant role - the city landscapes, crowd scenes and interested onlookers freeze Out 1 in time, a document of a place at a point in history.<br /><br />After a little more than 720 minutes, the film ends on an impossibly brief, enigmatic note; yet, the exhausting journey that the viewer has taken is so full of possibilities, intricacy and spontaneity, that one would be forgiven for wanting to start all over again from the beginning, or see the next twelve hours in the lives of these characters. For those who have watched many kinds of cinema and think they have seen everything the art form has to offer, Out 1 is a reminder that cinema has the potential to be so many more things and diverge in so many more directions than current conventions allow. For film-makers, film critics and artists of all disciplines, this is something to be cherished. | 1 |
22,490 | [
1200,
1300
] | 963 | 1,207 | I just saw "A Tale of Two Sisters" last night and really enjoyed it. I've been a big fan of Asian horror films recently and think that this is a strong entry from South Korea. There aren't many jump out at you scares as in the usual American horror film, but the director does maintain the off-kilter and foreboding mood very well, especially in the awkward character interactions with each other. Most of the scares are more conceptual and plays on everyone's "there's something under the bed" fears from when they were a child, but in this case, it's the closet and the sink. I also liked how the director was able to capture just how dysfunctional this household is through scenes such as the first dinner that the characters have together. He's also good at revealing people's inner life and fragility through simple scenes such as the stepmother wiping off her make-up in the mirror or her sitting in front of the flickering TV. I think this film is mainly an exploration of guilt and the consequences of living with that guilt hanging over you.<br /><br />MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD (DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT WANT THE TWISTS OF THE MOVIE REVEALED) I was following the story pretty well, but did start getting confused during the bag dragging part. However, I think the flashback at the end definitely tied everything together. The film is very much like "The Machinist" in the way two of the character's joint guilt eventually leads to mental breakdowns and delusions.<br /><br />Here's my interpretation of the film. The Su-Yeon that we see after the girls supposed return to the house is either the delusion of Su-Mi or the actual ghost of Su-Yeon that only Su-Mi can see and interact with. The initial stepmother that we see is, in my opinion a delusion of Su-Mi. There is a real stepmother, however, and she first appears in the film when she's wearing the gray pantsuit. I believe it's the real stepmother that the father is talking to on the phone throughout the first part of the movie and she doesn't appear until he pick her up and brings her to the house. The stepmother before that point is imagined by Su-Mi (perhaps part of her split personality?) That explains the bizarre dinner party sequence when the stepmother's brother looks at her like she's crazy and doesn't remember anything that she recounts. I think it was Su-Mi acting out her stepmother part of her split personality. The film shows this later in the bag dragging scene and scenes such as the stepmother wiping her make-up in the mirror, which is revealed later to actually be Su-Mi wiping her make-up in the mirror.<br /><br />I think the ghosts in the house aren't entirely imagined by Su-Mi, and are either of Su-Yeon or the mother or both. In the final flashback, it is revealed the Su-Yeon was wearing the green dress and had the hairpin in her hair when she died. This is the green dress that they showed before on the ghost sitting at the dining room table while the stepmother was looking under the sink. Also, it's the hairpin that Su-Yeon was wearing in the flashback that appears on the floor when the stepmother is looking under the sink.<br /><br />The real stepmother, in the end, gets punished by the ghost of Su-Yeon who comes for in a scene a little bit like The Ring. After that, the flashback scene ties it all together in terms of how both the stepmother was mainly responsible for her death, while Su-Mi unintentionally played a supporting role.<br /><br />I wonder if the "mother" that Su-Yeon sees when she goes up to her room to cry, in the flashback, is a ghost already. Perhaps by that point the mother had already killed herself in the closet. That's left ambiguous.<br /><br />Other things that are suggested, but not clearly explained in the film is that it seems like the stepmother, at some point, was a nurse, perhaps taking care of the mother and somehow may have contributed to her death too. It's not clear when her relationship with the father began and whether it caused the mother to kill herself. It's also suggested that the mother had mental issues too, requiring a nurse. The stepmother alludes to this when she tells Su-Mi, you're beginning to take after your mother. I don't think she meant just physically.<br /><br />Also, if we accept that the initial stepmother that we see is actually Su-Mi, then there's the suggestion of incest too, since the father sleeps with her. Is that why Su-Mi freaks out and shouts, "Don't touch me" each time the father reaches for her in a later scenes? Is that the "filthy things that you've done" that she alludes to in a later conversation with the father? This film is interesting in it's capacity for different interpretations. A few of the scenes, however, were kind of derivative, such as the woman in the black crawling around scene, which reminded me of the herky-jerky movements of Kayako in the Ju-On/The Grudge films. Also, the final scene where the stepmother finally gets her just desserts is reminiscent of The Ring. Furthermore, just the idea that some characters may be ghosts is taken from "The Sixth Sense" or "The Others".<br /><br />Overall, I enjoyed it, however, and it will be interesting to see how the Hollywood remake (that's already in production) turns out. I have to be honest, I liked both "The Ring" and "The Grudge", so I'm not one of those snooty types who insist that remakes can't be good too. One remake that I'm really excited about is "Dark Water" coming out this summer. I haven't seen the original Japanese version yet, but both films are definitely on my to-see list. | 1 |
22,569 | [
1200,
1300
] | 992 | 1,299 | Warner Brothers tampered considerably with American history in "Big Trail" director Raoul Walsh's first-rate western "They Died with Their Boots On," a somewhat inaccurate but wholly exhilarating biography of cavalry officer George Armstrong Custer. The film chronicles Custer from the moment that he arrives at West Point Academy until the Indians massacre him at the Little Big Horn. This is one of Errol Flynn's signature roles and one of Raoul Walsh's greatest epics. Walsh and Flynn teamed in quite often afterward, and "They Died with Their Boots On" reunited Olivia de Havilland as Flynn's romantic interest for the last time. They appeared as a couple in seven previous films. This 140-minute, black & white oater is nothing short of brilliant with dynamic action sequences, humorous romantic scenes, and stern dramatic confrontations between our hero and his adversaries. One of the notorious errors involves Colonel Philip Sheridan who is shown as the commandant at West Point before the Civil War. Indeed, Sheridan was a lieutenant at this point. In fact, the commandant was Robert E. Lee as the earlier Flynn film "Santa Fe Trail" showed. Another historical lapse concerns Lieutenant General Whitfield Scott; Scott was not the commander of Union troops throughout the Civil War. Warner Brothers presented Custer as a drinker (probably because Flynn had a reputation for drinking), but in real life Custer neither drank nor smoked. Nevertheless, these as well as other historical goofs do not detract from a truly splendid film.<br /><br />"They Died with Their Boots On" opens with Custer riding into West Point Military Academy arrayed in a fancy dress uniform with an African-American carrying his luggage and tending his dogs. After the sergeant of the guard realizes that he has turned out a honor guard for a future plebe instead of a high-ranking foreign general, the sergeant turns Custer over to a ranking cadet Ned Sharp (Arthur Kennedy of "City for Conquest") to take charge of him. Sharp plays a practical job on Custer by installing him in the quarters of Major Romulus Taipe (Stanley Ridges of "Task Force") who promptly runs Custer out. Naturally, the volatile Custer attacks Sharp in a public brawl. General Phil Sheridan (John Litel of "The Sons of Katie Elder") is prepared to dismiss Custer from West Point for conduct unbecoming. As it turns out, Sheridan cannot expel Custer because Custer has not enrolled. Once he enrolls, Custer establishes a mediocre academic reputation with alacrity to fight and accumulate demerits galore. When the American Civil War erupts, West Point graduates cadets who have not completed their education and rushes them into combat. One of the last cadets hustled off to war is Custer. Avid as he is to get into the fight, Custer encounters his future wife, Elizabeth 'Libby' Bacon (Olivia de Havilland of "Santa Fe Trail"), and they pledge themselves to each other, despite Mr. Bacon (Gene Lockhart of "Carousel") who detests the sight of Custer. It seems that Bacon ran across Custer at a saloon and insulted one of Custer's friends and our hero reprimanded Bacon.<br /><br />Meanwhile, back in Washington, Custer desperately seeks a transfer to a regiment, but Major Taipe has him cooling his heels. Custer befriends rotund Lieutenant General Winfield Scott (Sidney Greenstreet of "The Maltese Falcon") and they share an appetite for creamed Bermuda onions that becomes one of Custer's characteristics. Not only does Scott see to it that Taipe assigns Custer to the Second Cavalry, but also Custer appropriates Taipe's horse to get to his command. During the Battle of Bull Run, 21 July 1861, Custer disobeys orders from none other than Sharp, strikes his superior officer and holds a bridge so the infantry can cross it. Wounded in the shoulder and sent to the hospital, Custer receives a medal rather than a court-martial. When Confederate General Jeb Stuart threatens the Union Army at the Battle of Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, Scott is shocked by the chance that the South may triumph. When a brigadier general cannot be found, Scott goads Taipe into promoting the first available officer. A mistake is made and Custer is promoted. Incredulous at first, Custer embraces the moment and cracks Stuart's advance. After the war, Custer idles down and starts boozing it up with the boys at the local saloons. Sharp shows up as a crooked railroad promoter and with his father they try to enlist Custer to serve as the president of their railway so that they can obtain funds. Eventually, Libby intercedes on his behalf with General Sheridan, who was in command of the army, and gets him back on active duty as the commander of the 7th Cavalry. When he takes command, Custer finds the 7th cavalry a drunken lot and is not surprised that Sharp commands the liquor at the fort. Meanwhile, Custer has his first run in with Crazy Horse (Anthony Quinn of "The Guns of Navarone") and takes him into custody. Of course, Crazy Horse escapes, becomes Custer's adversary, and they fight.<br /><br />Once Custer has quelled Crazy Horse and the Indians, Sharp with Taipe as a government agent conspire to destroy a peace treaty with the Sioux and other Indian nations. They also see to it that Custer is brought up on charges for striking Taipe in a saloon brawl. On his way to Washington, Custer discovers the perfidy of Sharp and Taipe who have drummed up a gold strike in the sacred Black Hills. Settlers rampage in and the Indians hit the warpath. Custer sacrifices himself and his 600 men at the Little Big Horn in a slam-bang showdown against 6000 redskins. "Stagecoach" lenser Bert Glennon captures both the grit and the glory. The long shot of the 7th Cavalry leaving the fort at dawn is spectacular. As an added premonition of Custer's imminent demise, Libby faints after he leaves their quarters for the Little Big Horn. "They Died with Their Boots On" benefits from a top-notch Max Steiner score that incorporates the regimental tune "Gary Owen." | 1 |
22,587 | [
1200,
1300
] | 921 | 1,249 | "Quitting" may be as much about exiting a pre-ordained identity as about drug withdrawal. As a rural guy coming to Beijing, class and success must have struck this young artist face on as an appeal to separate from his roots and far surpass his peasant parents' acting success. Troubles arise, however, when the new man is too new, when it demands too big a departure from family, history, nature, and personal identity. The ensuing splits, and confusion between the imaginary and the real and the dissonance between the ordinary and the heroic are the stuff of a gut check on the one hand or a complete escape from self on the other. Hongshen slips into the latter and his long and lonely road back to self can be grim.<br /><br />But what an exceptionally convincing particularity, honesty, and sensuousness director Zhang Yang, and his actors, bring to this journey. No clichés, no stereotypes, no rigid gender roles, no requisite sex, romance or violence scenes, no requisite street language and, to boot, no assumed money to float character acts and whims. <br /><br />Hongshen Jia is in his mid-twenties. He's a talented actor, impressionable, vain, idealistic, and perhaps emotionally starved. The perfect recipe for his enablers. Soon he's the "cool" actor, idolized by youth. "He was hot in the early nineties." "He always had to be the most fashionable." He needs extremes, and goes in for heavy metal, adopts earrings and a scarf. His acting means the arts, friends--and roles, But not the kind that offer any personal challenge or input. And his self-criticism, dulled by the immediacy of success, opens the doors to an irrational self-doubt, self-hatred-- "I didn't know how to act" "I felt like a phony"--and to readily available drugs to counter them. He says "I had to get high to do what director wanted." So, his shallow identity as an actor becomes, via drugs, an escape from identity. <br /><br />Hongshen's disengagement from drugs and his false life is very gradual, intermittent--and doggedly his own. Solitude, space, meditative thinking, speech refusal, replace therapy. The abstract is out. And a great deal of his change occurs outdoors---not in idealized locations but mainly on green patches under the freeways, bridges, and high-rises of Beijing. The physicality is almost romantic, but is not. The bike rides to Ritan Park, the long spontaneous walks, the drenching sun and rain, grassy picnics, the sky patterns and kites that absorb his musing are very specific. He drifts in order to arrive, all the while picking up cues to a more real and realistic identity. "I started to open up" he says of this period in retrospect. And the contact seems to start with his lanky body which projects a kind of dancer's positioning (clumsy, graceful, humorous, telling) in a current circumstance. If mind or spirit is lacking, his legs can compel him to walk all night. <br /><br />Central to his comeback is the rejection of set roles. To punctuate his end to acting and his determination to a new identity, he smashes his videos and TV, and bangs his head till bloody against his "John Lennon Forever" poster. He has let down his iconic anti-establishment artist---but he's the only viable guide he knows. He even imagines himself as John's son (Yoko Ono), and adopts his "Mother Mary" as an intercessor in his "hour of darkness" and "time of trouble." (the wrenching, shaking pain in the park--hallucinatory and skitzoid ordeals) "Music is so much more real than acting" he says. And speaks of Lennon's influence as "showing me a new way." In the mental institute, the life-saving apples (resistance, nourishment) reflect Lennon's presence, as does Hongshen's need to re-hang his hero's poster in his redecorated room.<br /><br />If Lennon's influence is spiriting, Hongshen's father's influence is grounding. Although father and son are both actors and users (drugs and drink), it is Fegsen's differences from his son that underwrites his change. For the father is more secure in himself: he accepts that he's Chinese, a peasant in a line of peasants, a rural theater director. And he exercises control over both his habit and his emotions. It's this recognizable identity that drives Hongshen to treat him like a sounding board, sometimes with anger and rage, sometimes with humor (the blue jeans, Beatles) and passivity. In his most crazed, and violent exchange with his father in which he accuses him of being a liar, and a fake, he exposes more of himself than his father: "all the acts I acted before were bullshit... life is bullshit." And to Hongshen's emphatic "you are NOT my father," he softly replies, "why can't a peasant be your father?" <br /><br />Under these two teachers and with much additional help from his mother, sister, friends, inmates at the rehab inst., he makes some tangible connection to a real (not whole) self. As the long term drug effects recede, so does his old identity. Indebtedness replaces pride, trust distrust. Integrity banishes his black cloud. All his edges soften. "You are just a human being" he repeats endlessly after being released from the strap-down incurred for refusing medicine. Back home, lard peasant soap is fine with him now. And his once "rare and true friendships" begin again as is so evident in the back to poignant back-to-back fence scene with his musician buddy. Hongshen says of this movie: "it's a good chance to think about my life." And I might add, become a New Actor, one bound to art and life. Like Lennon, he has gained success without a loss of identity. | 1 |
23,166 | [
1200,
1300
] | 980 | 1,243 | Favela Rising is a documentary about the slums of Rio, the favelas, specifically the most violent one, Vigário Geral. According to this film, a lot more kids have died violently in Rio's favelas over the last decade or so than in Israel/Palestine during the same period -- a fact astonishing if true, which shows how under-recognized this social problem is in the rest of the world. This is an important topic, especially for those who see hope in grassroots efforts to marshal the neediest and most at risk through a vibrant cultural program. This is a compelling documentary, if occasionally marred by a somewhat too personality-based version of events and by grainy digital video and film that sometimes may make you think you need to have your eyes examined.<br /><br />Drug lords rule in the favelas and gun-toting teenage boys are the main drug dealers, like in parts of Colombia. Fernando Meirelles' movie City of God/Cidade de Deus has been accused of celebrating violence (Cidade de Deus is another of Rio's many favelas). But the early section of Favela Rising shows that in fact favela boys do celebrate violence and want to deal drugs where the money and the action are. It's cool to carry a gun there, cool to work as a drug trafficker: it's fifty times more profitable than the earnings available by other means.<br /><br />Mochary first discovered the AfroReggae movement and its leaders Anderson Sá and José Junior while visiting Rio for a conference and quickly persuaded his friend and mentor Zimbalist to quit his job and come down to help make a film with his own promise to fund it. Sá's eloquence and charisma and a startling twist in his life make him the center of the film and its chief narrator, but like the favelas themselves the film teems with other people. No doubt about the fact that Sá is a remarkable leader, organizer, and artist.<br /><br />Vigário Geral is compared to Bosnia: shooting there was very dangerous. Anderson Sá's friendship and protection and caution and diplomacy in the shooting enabled the filmmakers to gain access and shoot detailed footage of their subject matters while (mostly: there were close calls) avoiding any serious confrontations with drug lords or drug-dealing cops. They also trained boys to use cameras and left them there on trips home. That resulted in 10% of the footage, including rare shots of violent incidents including police beatings. It's hard for an outsider to keep track of police massacres in Rio. There was one in the early 1990's that looms over the story and inspired Sá, who ended his own early involvement in drug trafficking to lead his cultural movement. The cops are all over the drug trade and if anybody doesn't like that the ill trained police paramilitaries come in (often wearing black ski masks) and shoot up a neighborhood, killing a lot of innocents.<br /><br />This is pretty much the picture we get in Meirelles' City of God, except that this time Sá, Junior, and the other guys come in, starting in Vigário Geral but spreading out eventually to a number of other favelas to give percussion classes that attract dozens of youth -- girls as well as boys. Their AfroReggae (Grupo Cultural AfroReggae or GCAR) program, formed in 1993, is a new alternative way of life for young black men in the Rio ghettos. It leads them to leave behind smoking, alcohol, and drugs (that's the rule) to explode into rap, song, percussion, and gymnastics in expressive, galvanic performances. Eventually the best of the performers led by Sá wind up appearing before big local audiences with local producers, and their Banda AfroReggae has an international recording contract.<br /><br />Other centers and groups have been created by or through the GCAR over the years in Vigário Geral and other favelas to seek the betterment of youth by providing training and staging performances of music, capoeira, theater, hiphop and dance at GCAR centers.<br /><br />The performance arts aren't everything, just the focal point. GCAR is also a movement for broader social change Gathering public awareness through such performances, the centers also provide training in information (newspaper, radio, Internet, e-mail links), hygiene and sex education, to seek to bridge gaps between rich and poor, black and white, and to offer workshops in audio-visual work, including production of documentaries. The program is currently active in four other favelas.<br /><br />There are many scenes of favela street and home life in Favela Rising and they look very much like the images in City of God with the important difference that the focus and outcome are very, very much more positive. Not that it isn't an uphill battle. And the corruption of the police, the inequities of the social system, and the indifference of the general population of Brazil are not directly addressed by any of this. But there's a scene where Sá talks to some young kids in another favela, cynical boys not enthusiastic about AfroReggae and determined to work in the drug trade as Sá himself did as a boy. Sá doesn't seem to be convincing any of them despite pointing out that traffickers don't make it to the age of fifty. But we learn that the most negative boy in this group, Richard Morales, joined the movement five months later. There's also the account of a freak accident that disabled Sá, but with a positive outcome.<br /><br />It would be great if the images were sharper and clearer and if the story were edited down a little, but this is vibrant, inspiring material and represents committed, risk-taking documentary film-making and it's nice that Favela Rising has been included in seven film festivals and won a number of awards, including Best New Documentary Filmmaker at the Tribeca Film Festival. It's currently being shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London. However, a wide art house audience in the US seems somewhat unlikely.<br /><br />Included in the SFIFF 2006. | 1 |
23,473 | [
1200,
1300
] | 993 | 1,293 | Hollywood movies since the 1930s have treated gays as lepers. In condemning homosexuality, the film industry has reflected only what the repressive society of its day espoused as an ideology. For example, in the 1962 Otto Preminger melodrama "Advise and Consent," straight actor Don Murray was cast as a queer congressman who commits suicide rather than confess his alternative lifestyle. Gay movie characters have covered a lot of ground since "Advise and Consent." In the 1997 movie "In & Out," (**1/2 out of ****), heterosexual actor Kevin Kline is cast as a homosexual teacher who comes out of the closet on his wedding day. While the conservative Hollywood of yesteryear stipulated that the congressional queer in "Advise and Consent" had to commit suicide, the liberal Hollywood of today dictates that the gay English teacher should be embraced rather than maced.<br /><br />Basically, "In & Out" preaches good citizenship in the garb of a politically correct comedy. Director Frank Oz and scenarist Scott Rudnick endorse honesty as the best policy because honesty always ensures happiness. High school teacher Howard Brackett (Kevin Kline of "The Big Chill") will be happy only after he comes out of the closet, just as his once-fat-but-now-thin fiancée Emily (Joan Cusack) will only feel happy when she can ditch her diet. Ultimately, the movie contends that straight society will accept gays when homosexuals can act with greater honesty and candor about themselves. The happily outed gay tabloid reporter played by straight actor Tom Selleck here effectively dramatizes this open-minded commentary.<br /><br />Rudnick's lightweight script embellishes the true life incident that occurred at the Oscars when Tom Hanks paid tribute to a high school teacher. In "In & Out," Cameron Drake (Matt Dillon), a blond, Brad Pitt style bimbo type actor, wins the Oscar for impersonating a fruity foot soldier. Drake honors his mentor Howard Brackett during his acceptance speech. Not contend to stop there, the candid Cameron reveals to a live, television audience that Howard is gay! Suspicion, paranoia, and horror set in as the media descend upon the sleepy town of Green Leaf, Indiana. (When would a no-name high school English teacher's sexual deviance spark such massive media concern?) Among those reporters lurks Peter Malloy (Tom Selleck of "High Road to China"), and he wants to do a week-long exclusive one on Howard. Howard, however, wants nothing to do with the witch-hunting media, especially the pesky Peter Malloy. Howard denies Drake's gay charges to everybody, including his fiancée and his mom. Malloy lingers because he smells a scoop. The revelation has turned Green Leaf upside down. High school principal Tom Halliwell (Bob Newhart) squirms nervously with all the media coverage. Halliwell warns Howard that were his marriage not imminent, he'd have to give him a pink slip. Meanwhile, Peter bets Howard that his marriage to Emily will fall through at the last moment and he'll be there to record the result on camera.<br /><br />Howard resorts to audio tapes about macho men. He struggles to reform himself. But Howard's efforts are futile. Guilt swells up inside him. And then there is Peter Malloy, who rags him to come clean about his homosexuality. Finally, at the altar in the sight of God, Howard bursts. Of course, bride-to-be Emily Montgomery is floored by Howard's gay confession. Predictably, the school fires Howard, but he shows up for graduation. Drake shows up, too, and rushes to Brackett's defense. Not only has the school stripped Howard of his job, but they've also given his teacher-of-the-year award to somebody else. Drake appeals to the principal and wins Howard the unanimous support of the community.<br /><br />The biggest defect in Rudnick's contrived script is Howard himself. Rudnick has created a character too chaste to be true, either by gray or straight standards. Howard Brackett looms as more of a saint than a sinner. He helps one student gain admission to college, and he coaches the track team. How often do you hear of an English teacher doubling as a coach, too? Everybody at his high school adores Howard. He doesn't have a mean bone in his body. Further, Rudnick and Oz ask us to believe that nobody else in Green Leaf is gay. Where are Howard's gay friends? Are they too scared to come to his defense? No, "In & Out" is not targeted strictly at homosexual audiences. Oz, whose screen credits include cute comedies like "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and "House Sitter," as well as Rudnick teeter on a politically correct tightrope. "In & Out" is not a gay recruiting movie. The filmmakers show no interest in what prompted either Howard or Peter Malloy to prefer the gay lifestyle. Instead, Oz and Rudnick are only interested in shoring up a thin premise: Is he or isn't he gay? They flesh it out to involve the community response to the answer. Finally, when Howard admits that he is gay, the filmmakers devote the rest of the movies to showing how a conservative, Norman Rockwell-like town can accept him despite his difference.<br /><br />The most shocking scenes in "In & Out" is probably when tabloid reporter Malloy does a lip lock on Howard. Straight guys kissing each other in a movie about a gay identity crisis are as hilarious as they are phony. Kline and Selleck grind their faces together in what appears as more of a head-on collision than a closed-mouth kiss. Nothing at all like the controversial 1994 British movie "Priest," "In & Out" emerges as an engaging but labored piece of social propaganda with its okay-to-be-act message. If "Ellen" weren't the TV equivalent, "In & Out" would probably be heading toward TV as a new sitcom. Watching "In & Out" is not so much about dealing with the issue of gay or straight, but how to be a decent person in the last days of the 20th century. What makes "In & Out" a tolerable comedy about sexual intolerance is its equal opportunity cheers and jeers about queers and steers. | 1 |
23,553 | [
1200,
1300
] | 960 | 1,292 | "The belief in the Big Other as an invisible power structure which exists in the Real is the most succinct definition of paranoia." Slavoj Zizek <br /><br />This is a review of "Marathon Man" and "The Falcon and the Snowman", two films by director John Schlesinger.<br /><br />Though Hitchcock and Lang brought the "conspiracy thriller" to Hollywood, the genre only blossomed in the late 60s and 70s, with films like "The Parallax View", "Z", "Marathon Man", "Capricorn One", "The Manchurian Candidate", "Three Days of the Condor" and "All The President's Men". This was the age of Vietnam and Watergate, the public deeply suspicious of all political leaders.<br /><br />The genre remained quiet in the 80s and early 90s, until the "X Files" TV series sprung to life. With taglines such as "The Truth Is Out There" and "Trust No One", the series posited a world of vast conspiracies and government plots, the common man at the mercy of all manners of ridiculously elaborate schemes. The only way out of the maze? "Fight the future!" as the tagline of the series' final season proclaimed. It was apparently our duty to trawl through the labyrinth of information, discovering some elusive "truth" that ensured our own freedom.<br /><br />This trend ended with the boom of the internet, conspiracy thrillers now giving way to "conspiracy documentaries". The internet generation lapped up such independent documentaries as "Loose Change" and "Zeitgeist", whilst in the mainstream Michael Moore titillated his audience with stuff like "Fahrenheit 9/11". All these documentaries believed in a "secret order", a cabal of wealthy politicians and businessmen who conspire to reduce human rights and enslave the world. They struggle to create a mono-myth, linking various conspiracies and hidden agendas into a single, all encompassing narrative that explains the purpose and point and future of everything.<br /><br />This need to "streamline narratives", to make them more "efficient", is reflected in the scientific community, who battle to create a "Grand Unification Theory" and ultimately a "Theory of Everything", merging everything from Quantum Mechanics to Special Relativity into one giant all encompassing formula.<br /><br />So ultimately, the "conspiracy thriller" is rooted in man's desire to have control. The modern subject is one who displays outright cynicism towards official institutions, yet at the same time believes in the existence of conspiracies (an unseen Other pulling the strings). This apparently contradictory coupling of cynicism and belief is strictly related to the demise of the big Other. Its disappearance causes us to construct an Other of the Other (conspiracy) in order to escape the unbearable freedom its loss causes. Conversely, there is no need to take the Big Other seriously if we believe in an Other of the Other. We're therefore allowed to display cynicism and belief in equal measures. <br /><br />Man thus seeks to assert control over a wayward universe, to create a kind of paternal babysitter (be it God, a mathematical formula, a conspiracy theory, an explanation for violence/conspiracies/murder/war etc) who provides meaning and symbolic order. The Big Other provides reassurances to the believer. It's a "lifestyle choice", akin to religion, in which his place in the world is dependent on sheer irrationality. <br /><br />The problem with most "conspiracy thrillers", from the innocent days of Hitchcock's "Topaz" all the way up to modern fare like "The Da Vinci Code", are two fold. Firstly, they are not incorrect in suggesting that something is "wrong" amongst the "elite" or "best people", but they are incorrect in individualizing and personalizing processes that are social, collective and systemic, an approach which implies that it is just a question of personal morality rather than social structures. Secondly, and most importantly, these "conspiracies" ignore the fact that the Big Other simply doesn't exist. There is no symbolic order pulling the strings.<br /><br />Some modern "conspiracy thrillers" ("Eyes Wide Shut", "Existenz" etc) acknowledge this, with their untangleable webs of lies, accidents, truths and half truths, nothing ever adding up, nothing ever making sense, the real and the hyperreal, the truth and the desire, all blurred, without any identifiable ground zero, but these are mostly films by intellectual directors.<br /><br />Compared to these modern "conspiracy thrillers", "Marathon Man" and "The Falcon and the Snowman" are positively archaic. "Marathon Man" is a about a grad student (Dustin Hoffman) who gets embroiled in his big brother's business (Roy Scheider), which unfortunately has to do with spies, guns, double agents, diamonds and evil Nazi dentists. Scheider is suave, Hoffman is excellent and Schlesinger hits us with some neat visuals (the reveal of the Eiffel tower is stunning), but what's most interesting about the film is the way that its various plot lines don't intersect until the 1 hour mark. Even then, it takes a further half hour for things to start making sense. Unfortunately, the film ends with a clichéd showdown between the villain and the good guy, everything neatly resolved and explained.<br /><br />"The Falcon and the Snowman" is a bit more ambitious. Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton play two friends who sell government secrets to the Soviet Union. Hutton works at a civil defence contractor and smuggles information out of his office and into the hands of Penn, a small time drug dealer who has no qualms selling to the KGB. Penn does this strictly for the money, whilst Hutton is disillusioned with the American government (particularly its attempt to depose the leader of Australia) and so sells the secrets strictly because he hates how his country conducts crimes and games of espionage. In other words, the film is about a conspiracy undertaken as a response to conspiracies.<br /><br />"Marathon Man" 7.9/10 <br /><br />"The Falcon and the Snowman" 8/10 <br /><br />Aside from an oddly slapstick car crash and its clichéd ending, "Marathon Man" is an effective thriller, with several neat scenes. "The Falcon and the Snowman" is even better, Penn turning in a memorable performance. | 1 |
23,718 | [
1200,
1300
] | 1,015 | 1,254 | On account of my unfortunately not being able to find them anywhere, I have not gotten to try any of the other entries in the series, although I certainly would not mind, and trust me, I have looked. For anyone who does not know, this is a point-and-click adventure title. That means that the mouse is what you use to interface with everything that you can do so with in this, though there is one particular case in this where that is inaccurate. I won't spoil it here, for anyone who haven't yet tried it. Nevertheless, regardless of how little experience you have with computers, you can sit right down and try this. There isn't even terribly many bits of this where you need to be fast or have swift reflexes. Heck, you can adjust the speed of the text(if you have it have subtitles on), and thus, of the talking in it, and it's not enormously awkward or forced when slow. Accessing your inventory is easy, as well as combining or using items. Clicking and holding down the button at anything you can affect gives three options for what to use with it(be it a person, a specific part of the surroundings or an object): Hand(push, pick up, open, etc.), eyes(examine, look through, etc.) and mouth(eat, converse, etc.). This all adds up to a welcoming, friendly environment, where you can approach the plentiful puzzles(the amount of them is varied, based on which of the two difficulty settings you try this on) at your own pace, and explore and take in the dozens of individual, creatively done characters and areas in this to your heart's content. The length of this will be determined by how much time you take to do such(you'll hear no blame from me, they're worth it), and your skill at figuring out the solutions. There are a few points in this where you get to decide if you want the harder way of completing that or not. This can be enjoyed by anyone, from any age. There's no material that isn't acceptable for children. This is one of the products that help prove that that very fact does not have to mean that it is intolerable for older audiences. The animation is quality work, smooth, everything moves as it should, and the 3rd dimension honestly isn't that sorely missed when trying this. The story-telling is well-done, and you're never unclear as to what is going on. There are numerous well-directed cut-scenes, kept in the same colorful, mostly bright 2D world as the rest, with well-done camera motion. "Cartoony" is an appropriate word to describe this, and not only the visual style. It can be applied to all of this. The entire world of this is very similar to, but not quite the same as, ours, with a mix of past and present, inhabited by people and filled with things that we can sort of recognize or understand at least portions of, but the absurdity makes them funny. That would have to be one of the greatest strengths of this, right there: It's hilarious. A lot of that comes from the lines spoken(what is said as well as how it is), and those who dig British efforts with focus on verbal, the likes of 'Allo 'Allo or the BlackAdder franchise will want to check this sucker out. However, there are several different types of jokes, including, but not limited to the following: Satire, cleverness, dark, spoofs, irony, gross-out comedy(not exactly my favorite aspect of this) and more. There's self-awareness, with the lead addressing you, personally, and, for example, explaining why he isn't going to do what you just asked him to. There are references to pop culture through a couple of decades. Almost all of it works, hardly any gags fall flat, and if you aren't in stitches during this, my best guess as to the reason would be that it's simply not compatible with your sense of humor... a situation that warrants no judgment, and if one suspects that could be the case, and wishes to find out, I suggest the demo version, where you, for free, can see if you care for the brand of play and/or laughter. The plot is well-written(nearly all of this is, really), develops nicely throughout and keeps your interest well. The audio is all excellent, crisp and well-done. The sound effects are spot-on. The music is well-composed with no exceptions. The voice acting is impeccable, with a celebrity or two. Armato is fantastic as Guybrush Threepwood(gotta love that name), whom you control. Boen is incredible as LeChuck, the deceased(and still threatening) zombie villain. The designs are immensely well-done, highly imaginative and all fit. In spite of the relatively limited disposition of our hero when it comes to pirate deeds, you do get to engage in some. Steer a ship, board that of others, and match blades in a rather unique, and marvelously thought up, way. The re-playability lies mainly in the choices, during dialog, etc. This is linear, with a tad freedom as far as the order goes, so the buccaneer sitting down with this, for at least the second time, has not got that large an amount of possibilities as far as being challenged by this goes, unless he or she has forgotten what to do in the meantime. Ah, nothing is perfect. Anyone who would care to delve into a thoroughly well-crafted and fascinating fictional universe, and crack up countless times should get a real kick out of this. The good kind, not the ones that hurt and potentially leave bruises. Don't forget, kids, do *not* eat books... that is just begging for a paper-cut. I would wager a guess that those who like the others would appreciate this one, too. And they're not the only ones who may get into this. I recommend this to, apart from members of aforementioned group, any fan of this genre of VGs, as well as anyone to whom this review appeals. 8/10 | 1 |
23,975 | [
1200,
1300
] | 990 | 1,288 | This is a wonderful new movie currently still showing in cinemas in my country. Its director, the Calabrian Gianni Amelio, is in my humble view perhaps the only contemporary Italian director, along with Nanni Moretti, to deserve being called great (that is, apart from the old masters who're still around and occasionally still churning out movies). It's one of my greatest regrets that contemporary Italian cinema has been ailing since the mid-70s, mostly due to a dire lack of funding and nurturing of new talent, something which can be transferred to most fields and which makes Italy one of the most static industrialised countries of our time production-wise (both in an industrial and cultural sense)... unlike, say, China. And this, among other things, is precisely the subject of Amelio's latest movie. Few directors can speak to me about the true, present state of my country and the world as Amelio can, yet his pictures also have a precious timelessness and universality. And for those already worrying that they may be slow, ponderous and worthy - rest assured: of the ones I've seen they most certainly aren't, at least not if you're used to quality European cinema.<br /><br />The basic plot outline: Vincenzo Buonavolontà is a technician at an obsolete steel plant factory somewhere in Italy, probably the North. He is played by Sergio Castellitto, one of contemporary Italy's most versatile and talented actors. When a major Chinese steel company purchases some of the Italian steel plant's industrial machinery, Vincenzo, who struggles to make himself understood with the non-Italian speaking Chinese director, tries to tell him that the machine is defective and its converter needs substituting, an element he's working on custom-building himself. He warns them that not doing this might have very dangerous consequences. Meanwhile a young Chinese woman called Liu Hua acts as interpreter between the two men, but seems to struggle to find adequate translations for some of Vincenzo's technical jargon. The Italian eventually loses his patience with her, virtually pushing her aside and asking her to hand him the Chinese-Italian dictionary so that he can do the translating himself.<br /><br />Despite Vincenzo's warnings, the following morning he finds that the Chinese factory director and his employees have returned to their own country while not heeding his advice about the adequate use of the industrial machine at all. Thus Vincenzo, equipped with his great integrity, sets off for China. And here begins an endlessly fascinating road movie through China, a very topical 21st century Odyssey through the Asian Giant. A latter-day Marco Polo's quest for the secrets of the mysterious nation? Not quite. As in all of Amelio's movies, the journey itself becomes far more important than whether its ultimate "mission" is carried out or not. In fact, the way in which the point is literally brought home, not without a touch of humour, is a lovely, poignant paradox and irony, which made my eyes well up while I was simultaneously smiling. The spectator is let in on the secret that Vincenzo's trip was ultimately completely useless, but he himself doesn't know it, and goes home a satisfied man, a deluded innocent. At least, you figure, he's happy. Sort of.<br /><br />The journeys that Amelio's characters embark on totally uproots and strips them down to their bare, human essentials. They are momentarily without name, status or someone to put in a word for them. These Theo Angelopoulos-like themes are also explored in Lamerica, actually my favourite Amelio movie, closely followed by La stella che non c'è in order of personal preference. In the 1994 movie Lamerica, two Italian racketeers travel to Albania to "do business". Just like Vincenzo, they intend to go there, do what they have to do and then go back home. Instead, one of these two Italians accidentally ends up on an almost Homeric journey through this devastated land just after the fall of Communism.<br /><br />But let us go back to La stella che non c'è: once Vincenzo is in China, he predictably discovers that the seemingly "simple" task of handing the converter to its new owner is anything but straight-forward. The piece of machinery's new location is seemingly almost impossible to determine, unless he embarks on an arduous journey through China. When he comes across Liu Hua, the young interpreter he'd mistreated now working as a librarian, he tries to speak to her but she reacts in a hostile manner, informing him that because of him, she'd lost her job as interpreter back in Italy. Played by the relative newcomer Ling Tai, Liu Hua soon becomes a Virgil to Vincenzo's Dante when she grudgingly figures that she could do worse than to act as guide and interpreter for the Italian on his trip (obviously for a consistent sum of cash). This young Chinese actress may not have the beauty of Ziyi Zhang, nor the movie star glamour of Gong Li, but her charming, expressive and pretty face oozes a combination of defiant strength, intelligence, dignity and wry humour that'll make her features difficult to forget once you've seen the movie. Furthermore, she and Castellitto have wonderful emotional chemistry as co-stars.<br /><br />Amelio weaves dramas that are serious, poetic, mythical, post-neo-realist and humorous all at once, while maintaining a heart-warming ability to explore the fleeting essence of humanity in everyday, commonplace circumstances. A documentary-like naturalness conceals what is actually a meticulously conceived tapestry of faces and places, a vista which also manages to incorporate a cinematography of breath-taking beauty. The photography here is functional yet gorgeous, as befits a movie on the displaced in an industrial and emotional wasteland.<br /><br />Amelio's observant eye is a grown-up, disillusioned one, yet also never a cynical or misanthropic one. The masterful camera angles also often gives a sense of Vincenzo's alienness in the eyes of the Chinese, bringing home a sense of objectivity and cultural impartiality that's very rare in movies about a "familiar" Westerner exploring an "unfamiliar" non-Western country. I cannot recommend this movie enough. | 1 |
24,232 | [
1200,
1300
] | 903 | 1,206 | This film by the well-known Czech director and writer collaborator Petr Jarchovský is remarkable for its particularity but annoying and distracting in its details. Taking its theme and title from a Robert Graves poem, it deals with a woman with several men and some obnoxious relatives in her life who's trying to survive and protect her two children, 15-year-old Lucina (Michaela Mrvikova) and little blond asthmatic Kuba (Adam Misik).The poem is much in evidence, but the theme--it gets a little lost.<br /><br />Marcela (Anna Geislerová), the Beauty, and Jarda (Roman Luknár) have lost everything in the Prague floods of 2002 and have nothing left, it seems, but good sex, which they go at with such a vengeance in their tiny apartment that Lucina and Kuba, in front of the telly, must hold their ears against the noise. Hrebejek relishes such explicitness and skates on the edge of embarrassment or shock. There's no good explanation precisely why, but financial desperation has led Jarda to processing stolen cars in the big garage that adjoins his flatlet. His car-thief cohort drives off a posh Volvo the easygoing Benes (Josef Abrham) has left with the keys in the ignition while visiting a large property he owns. Benes is a super-nice guy, but no fool. His Volvo is wired for tracking by satellite in cases like this and that leads the cops straight to Jarda's garage and he and his cohort are off to jail.<br /><br />"Beauty in trouble flees to the good angel,/On whom she can rely," begins the Graves poem. But actually this fracas leads Benes to Marcela, when he meets her at the police station. He introduces her to sushi and how to drink wine and plies her with a picture book about Tuscany, where he, though Prague-born, owns a lovely villa and has lived most of his life. He's here to reclaim the house in Prague now occupied by a couple with an ancient and infirm mother, whom he allows to remain. Benes' every gesture is benevolent, even though he doesn't prevent Jarda from going off to jail.<br /><br />In the circumstances Marcela must retreat with Lucina and Kuba to depend on the charity of her mother, Zdena (Jana Brejchova) and the far less tender mercies of Zdena's present husband, the scrawny diabetic Richard Hrstka (Jiri Schmitzer)--who, for the kids, starting when they commit the cardinal sin of consuming his dietetic cookies, proves to be the uncle from hell. Jiri Schmitzer hijacks the film at this point, and never quite lets it go. Even in the final scene he is a figure of leering menace. It is surprising that the obnoxious Richard doesn't sexually abuse one or both of the children. He is insistent that Marcela needs to get out on her own, and when Benes offers to take her under his wing he and Richard become improbable allies. Improbable--perhaps implausible. Why should Benes like him? But then, what is Benes's whole story? About some things the film gives too much information and about others, not enough. <br /><br />Clearly the "good angel," Benes is infallibly kind--and a polished, good-looking older man whose manners befit his Italian upbringing. It's only at the end, when he's pushed to the limits over his Prague property by the devious occupants, he proves that he is not one to won't lie down and be walked over. <br /><br />Also to be dealt with is Jarda's religious fanatic mother Sdena (Jana Brejchova), and her interactions with Zdena and Richard are something to watch. But she is just another wild card that does not augment the deck. <br /><br />The poem has been set to music in a Czech translation and is sung on screen by the accordionist-vocalist Raduza, first in a tiny scene, then in a more extended one staged at a prison performance witnessed by Jarda and the car thief pal. If you revere Hrebejk as an auteur you may relish this sequence; otherwise it tends to feel gratuitous. Also included are a number of songs by Glen Hansard/Marketa Irglova of the Oscar-award-winning Irish musical film 'Once,' including the latter's theme song, "Falling." They feel more out of place than they would otherwise because of their familiarity from 'Once'--though this film came first.<br /><br />Hrebejk's people are arresting; even little Koba has his Shakespearean-child moments and a wealth of charm; but the director and his writer seem unable to resist the temptation to digress and to over-expand. The property hassle Benes endures may be useful for showing he has a tough side. But such an elaborate demonstration wasn't necessary. The acting is fine, and there is a wonderful with quirkiness and specificity, but the basic themes of love, sex, and money get lost in the shuffle and Marcela's conflicts and how she resolves them never become clear. It's fine that there is no resolution and true to the theme and to Graves's poem that Marcela still has hot sex with Jarda during a revisit to Prague after moving to Tuscany with Benes and her kids. But there are too many questions remaining about what to make of the obnoxious Richard or of Jarda's annoyingly pious mother (Emília Vásáryová). How come all of a sudden we learn Koba is getting letters from "India" purported to be from his dad, who's in prison? When did that come about? Interesting details, hastily pasted in. This seems a world in which you can't see the forest for the trees. | 1 |
24,257 | [
1200,
1300
] | 1,007 | 1,278 | In a world in which debatable and misunderstood subjects can be listed endlessly, this powerful 1995 film takes on one at the top of that list; moreover, it does it objectively and realistically, and with a sensibility and sensitivity that makes it a truly great film by anyone's measuring stick. And to add some irony to it all, even the subject matter of this film has been widely misunderstood, as it is wrongly perceived that this is a film about the pros and cons of the death penalty; it is not. At the heart of `Dead Man Walking,' directed by Tim Robbins, is a subject that in reality is possibly the most misunderstood of all, and with good reason, because it just may be the hardest thing there is for a human being to really-- and truly-- understand. And it is what this film is actually all about: Forgiveness. Real forgiveness; not excusing a heinous crime or the perpetrator thereof-- not saying that what's happened is okay-- but finding the strength to go on, and to do so by choosing life.<br /><br /> Director/screenwriter Tim Robbins has crafted and delivered a faithful adaptation of the novel by Sister Helen Prejean, in which she discusses her involvement with the death-row inmates to whom over the years she has ministered her faith in God. As chronicled in the film, what for her was to become a lifelong pursuit of not only justice, but human dignity, began with a simple letter from a death-row inmate at the Louisiana State Prison at Angola. Sentenced to death for rape and murder, Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn) was reaching out to anyone who would listen, when his letter ended up in the hands of Sister Prejean (Susan Sarandon), who soon found herself venturing into a territory of which she had absolutely no knowledge or experience. And Robbins has successfully captured Sister Prejean's emotional and turbulent journey succinctly, while managing to keep it devoid of any maudlin sentimentality, which makes it not only real, credible and believable, but makes it a poignant and thoroughly emotionally involving experience for the audience. Through the medium of the cinema, what was once a personal, significant emotional experience for Sister Prejean, becomes one for everyone who sees this film, as well.<br /><br /> For her soul-stirring, impassioned portrayal of Sister Prejean, Susan Sarandon deservedly won the Oscar for Best Actress. Sensitive and fraught with emotional depth, her performance is incredibly touching and real, especially in the way in which she conveys Sister Prejean's underlying natural fragility and vulnerability, which she adamantly tempered with the toughness she needed to carry on with her endeavors on behalf of Poncelet (and in reality, a total of five since she began). Whatever your point of view regarding the matters examined in this film, Sister Prejean is without question an individual of heroic proportions, which Sarandon exquisitely personifies here; and she does it without resorting to any superfluous melodramatics, but rather by keeping it real, by subtly and humbly exploring the humanity of the person in a very believable expression of characterization. It's an extraordinary performance, arguably the best of Sarandon's brilliant career. <br /><br /> Turning in a career-best performance, as well, is Sean Penn, who was nominated for Best Actor for his portrayal of Poncelet (he lost out to Nicolas Cage, who won for his performance in `Leaving Las Vegas). Perfect for the part in every way, Penn has quite simply never been better, before or since. He effectively presents Poncelet as a real person, rather than as an overblown caricature of a monster capable of perpetrating the crimes depicted here. Not that it makes Poncelet any less despicable; just the opposite, in fact. It makes it genuinely disconcerting to be faced with the fact that someone who looks like a guy who could live next door to you could be capable of such things. And that's the strength of Penn's performance-- it's so disturbingly real, presented with depth and nuance; you have but to look into his eyes to find the imperfections of a troubled soul. A terrific performance, and -- as good as Cage was in `Vegas'-- Penn should have received the Oscar for it.<br /><br /> In another stand-out performance, Raymond J. Barry is memorable in a supporting role as Earl Delacroix, father of one of Poncelet's victims. With limited screen time, he nevertheless develops his character in such a way that enables you to empathize with him, as well as with Sister Prejean, as it is through him that we are given some insight into just how complex and seemingly tenuous her position is, at least on the surface. Barry presents Delacroix in such a way that gives the necessary balance and perspective to the story, which is ultimately extremely effective and helps to underscore the message of the film.<br /><br /> The supporting cast includes R. Lee Emery (Clyde Percy), Celia Weston (Mary Beth Percy), Lois Smith (Helen's Mother), Scott Wilson (Chaplin Farley), Roberta Maxwell (Lucille Poncelet), Margo Martindale (Sister Colleen) and Jack Black (Craig Poncelet). It is doubtful that this film will change anyone's mind one way or another about the death penalty, but that was never the intention; what was intended, was to make a thought-provoking, emotionally involving film, which is exactly what Robbins has accomplished with `Dead Man Walking.' Regardless of your personal point of view, this film will have an impact, and hopefully will open some minds to the true nature of forgiveness. For, as we see through the character of Earl Delacroix, true forgiveness is not something one merely decides to do, but is a task that can become a lifetime's work. And it's possibly one of the hardest things in life to effectively accomplish; and you come away from this film with an appreciation for individuals like Sister Prejean, who has selflessly dedicated her life to helping those in need, and to filmmakers like Robbins and Sarandon for bringing her to life for millions of people who otherwise would never have known her. I rate this one 10/10. <br /><br /> | 1 |
24,981 | [
1200,
1300
] | 916 | 1,232 | "Gaming? Nicotine? Fisticuffs? We're moving in a descending spiral of iniquity!" So says the head of St. Swithen's upon inspecting the master's common at Nutbourne. The faculty and students of St. Swithen's have been ordered to share facilities at Nutbourne to avoid German bombs during World War II. Then there's the masters' library. "The Diary of Samuel Pepys? Abridged...well, that's something to be thankful for. What's up here? The Memoirs of Casanova? Wasn't that the book we caught Jessica James reading in the closet? Decameron Nights! Well, really! What ever else this place may or may not be, it's no place to bring carefully nurtured girls!" <br /><br />Yes, a terrible mistake has been made by the Ministry of Education. Nutbourne is a school for boys. St. Swithen's is a school for girls. And what makes this one of the best post-WWII British comedies, Nutbourne's head master is Wetherby Pond...played by Alastair Sim, while St. Swithen's head mistress is Muriel Whitchurch...played by Margaret Rutherford. <br /><br />"St. Swithen's?" says Pond. "You don't mean to say that yours is a school for boys and girls?" he asks one of the early girls. "Only girls" she says cheerfully. "Does this mean, sir," asks one of Nutbourne's teachers, "that we are to expect 100 young girls?" "It means that not only have the ministry made a mistake in sending a school here at all, but that it is guilty of an appalling sexual aberration!" <br /><br />Margaret Rutherford's Miss Whitchurch, as positive and immovable as a battleship, intends to make the best of it, by briskly taking over Nutbourne if possible. Alastair Sim's Pond is exasperated up to his big bald head and is determined to salvage his school. In the meantime, there are 100 young girls and 170 young boys to be fed and places found for them to sleep (along with all their teachers). The cooks and caretakers, totally put upon, walk out. Miss Whitchurch and her girls, however, are up to the cooking tasks. "Come now, Angela," she says to one girl who is trying to stir something in a big pot, "haven't you made porridge before?" "Yes, but no one ever had to eat it." "That's a defeatist attitude, my dear. Stir it well and don't shilly shally." <br /><br />Things are hardly going well when Pond discovers four governors from a school he hopes to lead are arriving at any moment to see for themselves how well led Nutbourne is. And Miss Whitchurch learns that four wealthy and influential parents have just arrived to see how their daughters are doing in the new -- boy free, they were told -- facilities. The only solution? Miss Whitchurch and Pond, their teachers and their students, concoct a split-second shifting of classes to give the allusion that Nutbourne has no girls and that St. Swithen's has no boys. After the parents inspect a dorm and leave for a class, the girls in the beds duck under and the boys who'd been hidden under leap up into the beds, just as the governors walk in. The boys are observed at rugby and, as soon as the governors turn their backs, the goal posts are taken down, nets for lacrosse are put up, and just then the parents walk over to observes the girls. One parent spots her daughter in a science class, then moments later sees her in a choir practice, then moments later.... "There's Angela again," she says to Miss Whitchurch. "Why so it is," she replies, hustling the parents out to avoid the governors who are approaching just around the corner. "The child's quite ubiquitous." <br /><br />When we leave Nutbourne, everything has been discovered. The students are milling about. The teachers are dazed (except for two who are kissing.) The Education Ministry has just sent several more busloads of students. The parents are speechless but the governors are not. "We're waiting for an explanation," one says sharply. Pond holds his head and shudders. "Can't you see I'm trying to think of one." <br /><br />The film moves from one complicated and ridiculous situation after another, braced by a very funny script and two hugely comedic performances by Rutherford and Sim. Sim's droll exasperation and Rutherford's implacable determination are so well matched that's it's a shame this is the only movie they ever made together. Joyce Grenfell, as Gossage, St. Swithen's tall, awkward, loping sports teacher gives them some competition. If you keep your eyes open, you'll also find some amusing references director Frank Launder works in, including a gong at Nutbourne that looks just like a midget version of J. Arthur Rank's, a faint echo of the zither theme from The Third Man and a shot stolen from David Lean's Oliver Twist, except this time the little boy walks up holding his porridge bowl and says, "Please, sir. I don't want anymore." <br /><br />Frank Launder and his partner, Sidney Gilliat, were responsible for some of the best films produced in Britain during the Thirties, Forties and Fifties. They wrote, produced and directed, sometimes doing one, sometimes the other. In one way or another they were responsible for such first-rate films as Green for Danger (with a masterly droll performance by Sim), I See a Dark Stranger, The Lady Vanishes, Night Train to Munich, Wee Geordie, The Belles of St. Trinian's, The Rake's Progress and many others. With The Happiest Days of Your Life, Launder wrote and directed while both produced. It's one of their best. | 1 |
386 | [
1100,
1200
] | 961 | 1,179 | I watched the 219 minute version and have to say that dollar-for-dollar, it it probably one of the worst films ever. Now I am NOT saying it's THE worst film ever--but if you look at a ratio of cost over how much an average person would enjoy it, this is a very, very bad film.<br /><br />I would say that the single biggest factor making this a bad film is the writer/director, Michael Cimino. Rarely can so much blame be placed on a single person. Had he not been so self-indulgent, a film just as bad could have easily been made at about 90 minutes--saving the studio millions! <br /><br />The film begins with a completely unnecessary prologue that's supposed to be set at Harvard. The scene is HUGE but completely without context. You have no idea exactly what is occurring nor do you know why the students (in particular, John Hurt) are behaving so boorishly. I find it very hard to imagine a commencement going like this in 1870--and it looks a lot more like 1970. This is a half hour where you have no idea what is happening, who the characters are or their motivations. <br /><br />The next scene is 20 years later. Inexplicably, the two Harvard grads (Hurt and Kris Kristofferson) are in Wyoming. So, they went to the best school in America and now one is only a law man in the middle of no where and the other is....well, what IS John Hurt in the film?!?! He just appears here and there and seems to be either a jerk (the prologue) or a pathetic and pointless drunk who hangs out with murderers--even though he is apparently against them!? His entire character made no sense. They never explained why he was a Brit living in the middle of nowhere (it was impossible to hide his accent), why he bothered to come along with the hired army IF he was so against their wicked plan nor why he would risk his life for a cause he didn't believe in at all. As for Kristofferson, his excellent acting and better defined character made his character more believable, though having him move to Wyoming AND risk his life for a prostitute made no sense at all.<br /><br />This brings up the worst aspect of HEAVEN'S GATE. While the scenes are WAY TOO LONG and needed trimming, the worst part of the film is that the characters were like cardboard. John Hurt (a wonderful actor with nothing to do in the film), Jeff Bridges and many other big names are there but you have no idea why. In fact, other than Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert (as a hooker with a heart of gold--quite the cliché) and perhaps Christopher Walken, EVERYONE is completely one-dimensional. It's hard to imagine a movie THIS long where you don't know or understand the characters. <br /><br />Much of the film also seems anachronistic. Who would have thought to have a giant roller rink constructed in the middle of no where in 1890? I am sure that just getting the basic supplies in this region in the West would have been very, very difficult--and yet we are expected to believe that trains filled with roller skates and lumber arrived instead of FOOD. Maybe if they hadn't spent a bazillion dollars building and frequenting the roller rink, the farmers could have afforded to BUY food and avoided this war over purloined cattle!!! And what's with the guy on roller skates with the fiddle? What did this have to do with a land war? <br /><br />The most obvious problem you are left with is that it's a film where very, very little actually happens until the big battle late in the film. There are lots of scenes of filth and flat nothingness. So much nothingness that by the time the battle occurs, many audience members would have left or are now so hostile to the film that it's inevitable that nothing could salvage the film.<br /><br />As for the final battle, it was done reasonably well but had problems. First, this minor skirmish on the prairie lasted longer than the D-Day invasion!! Second, while details of the actual events of the so-called "Johnson County War" are a tad sketchy, we do know that the characters played by Huppert and Kristofferson never actually were there, as they'd both been hung BEFORE the battle. Third, I can't believe that Cimino actually killed animals throughout the film--especially during the final battle. While I am far from a bleeding heart about animal rights, his need to use animal guts and actually kill some of the horses is a low point in cinematic history. Watching and knowing that some of the horses died to achieve Cimino's "vision" for the film is very sad.<br /><br />Finally, after the big battle, we have an epilogue. While it is blessedly short, it also seemed completely unnecessary and vague. We see Kristofferson on a fancy yacht, so we can assume that he's finally putting some of that Harvard education to work for himself. We also see a woman who appears to be one that Kris looked at a couple times during the prologue. Most importantly, nothing is said and you have no idea what the final outcome. I read up on it myself and found that the film often got the facts wrong.<br /><br />Overall, to say the film is long and needed tons more editing was like saying WWII was a "minor tiff". Well, I've certainly seen a lot worse, but if you factor in the cost of production, I truly think it might just be one of the worst films in history.<br /><br />Finally, when a film has this much explicit nudity I warn parents. However, as no child COULD sit through this film (even with a promise of sex), the warning is not necessary. | 0 |
528 | [
1100,
1200
] | 963 | 1,182 | I'm an atheist. To me history and truth mean a lot.<br /><br />This film is made after a novel published in 1921, which is still being updated up to this day as if it was a history book. Well it's not. The movie is about the novels 1950s version. Some actors were GREAT but that doesn't cover the plot.<br /><br />In short man invents a super-bomb so God and his friends hold a tribunal to see if they must intervene. The devil analogy persecutes man, and for defense we have the spirit of man. What is the spirit of man anyway? And why was the first defendant Adam? Eventually you just get US Christian propaganda in a 5th grade history book of the time. Though other religions are mentioned, only European Christianity is explored.<br /><br />First we get the caveman story. The women are scrawny stereotypes of damsels in distress. Real cave women were as strong as men and just as resistant. Hard times, hard life, adapt and survive. All this is watered down by mid-century stereotypes.<br /><br />Next we get Egypt's first pyramid construction. Today we see a different story and know that there were a lot less deaths and regular citizens at work as well. Loosing mentioned amount of many lives in the process would have been a national disaster and nobody after would try to beat it. As if there was only ONE pyramid build.<br /><br />The part about Moses and one true god was as if the Spanish inquisition was asking nicely. Inquisition itself was never even mentioned in the movie.<br /><br />Helen of Troy's evil grim was so vile that I didn't see why so many were even interested in her. In reality they were just soldiers, following commanders orders, who were "discussing" a political issue of power. She was just an excuse.<br /><br />The Cleopatra story was were I saw this film was to inaccurate and filled with propaganda. Here brother was a LOT younger. She was not obsessed with poison, was quite educated to restore library content, and was politically competitive to drag beaten down Egypt out of dirt.<br /><br />The part with Nero and praying Christians in a cave were disgusting. Yes, Rome burned down. Yes, there was persecuted Christianity. But the way they portray it was as if the Coliseum build itself and there was no Vespasian to rebuild Rome.<br /><br />Attila the Hun appears in a short seen and than we jump to King Arthur. The crusades are mentioned with minimal bloodshed. And there is no mention of the crusades east to Russia that ended in an ironic battle. The knights just went home and started jousting for fun of it. A LOT of stuff is put down like no indoor pluming, hygiene and plagues.<br /><br />Then they cover Joan of Ark, where she always has to much makeup and looks like a princes. Territorial politics were replaced with an unjust court. The sidesaddle alone on a stool makes me want to ask how someone could follow here. At here burning I wanted to yell "Hura! Now die already! Cheap special effects, where is the fire?".<br /><br />By the time they mentioned Leonardo I already got fed up with the movie. Columbus, Spanish slaughter of America, yelling Queen Elisabeth "kick the Spanish armada" and so on and so on.<br /><br />The ONLY reason I wanted to see this movie was the fact that it was the last one with all 3 Marks brothers. And all they got was the scene with Manhattan and Indians. Amusing, but no more than a smile.<br /><br />The witch-hunts are mentioned briefly, as well as plagues (after renascence). When they start portraying revolutions, things gut power-hungry and anarchistic. The US revolution was pursued by the French revolution. Oppression and incompetence are bad, but you can't just blow the old way up out of anger, you must replace it with something. So they replaced the French monarchy with new French monarchy. So we get Napoleon and his ambitions to go to India by land. But they replace his motives with unity and band him for only the title "Emperor". The conquests in Europe, defeat in Russia are sacked to Waterloo.<br /><br />The US civil war, the English rich inventors (Tesla not included). "Mister Watson, come here, I want you" almost made me laugh for teenage reasons. Technological hard work was watered down to the final discovery and comedic misuse.<br /><br />Eventually after 85 minutes we come to world wars and organized crime, but none of its horrors. Adolph's words "I invade Russia. This is my last territorial demand" were hilarious. It was his LAST territorial demand.<br /><br />To build suspense God puts a countdown clock to doomsday on the "wall" for the final words. All mighty cant pause the universe for a second? There was no need for the persecution speech but the defense made one last throw.<br /><br />Last we see the man of tomorrow as the final defense. Apparently a paradox man, because the bomb was to go of today. His toys are a music box in the shape of a gun and a pencil box sword. Now that is so wrong
Pens and pencils drew so many weapon blueprints that its kill count surpasses the atom bomb. And making music out of a weapon? Deluded egoistic generals make music out of weapon fire. So the man of tomorrow is already a monster.<br /><br />The way I see it, all the defense had to do was blame the devil as the true conspirator for mans demise and case closed. And honestly, compared to all barbaric stuff our ancestors did centuries ago we are pretty humane at painless backstabbing these days.<br /><br />To summarize all I will just quote "Firefly"s episode "Jaynestown": "It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of son of bitch or another. Ain't about you, Jayne. It's about what they need". | 0 |
697 | [
1100,
1200
] | 883 | 1,116 | Oh, why did it have to end like this? Laurel and Hardy's last film, from the crudely cranked-up Cuckoo theme (with erroneous credit to Hal Roach) to the closing "Nice mess"/"I couldn't help it" schtick, this is the duo as a grotesque parody of themselves. In between, their relationship is now solely constructed of uncertain acting, asinine dialogue and half-hearted slapstick. People slate King of New York, but Chaplin's final bow-out was nowhere near as undignified as this.<br /><br />What really hurts to someone who loves Laurel and Hardy is the appearance of the two comedians. The video cover I'm holding shows them at their prime, all boyish smiles and glowing skin, with a blurb on the back that reads "The photograph on this sleeve is for illustrative purposes only and does not necessarily reflect the content of the film." Necessarily? It doesn't even come close. The actual film sees them at least fifteen years older than the photographs that adorn the sleeve, with Ollie distressingly overweight. This is not humorously, or comically, fat, as he would normally appear, but ill looking and on the verge of obesity. He would be dead seven years after this film was made, after a series of strokes. Stan, meanwhile, suffering a prostrate problem and dysentery, looks ghoulish as his weight has plummeted drastically. Every time something bad happens to him, such as getting squashed between a lifeboat and a table, you fear for his life. Even Ollie giving him a traditional slap makes you terrified he could be killed. He would last for another fifteen years after the completion of this film, eventually passing away from a heart attack in 1965. It's upsetting to think of such cherished performers growing old and dying painful deaths. And it's distressing watching their deterioration, both in health, and in performance, on screen. When I, and, I'm sure, almost everyone else, likes to think of Laurel and Hardy, I think of Way Out West, Busy Bodies or Our Relations. Seeing them in such physical ill health and performing dire routines at the dog-end of their career is a blight on my happy memories of them.<br /><br />The warning signs are clear right from the opening credits, which list not only four writers, but also someone to come up with the concept, and a credit for "gags". So if Monty Collins was writing the "gags", then what were the other four writing? And in that case, why was Monty Collins paid a fee, given that there's no evidence of a single "gag" in the whole film? Over 40% of the movie is spent travelling to the eponymous island, during which we experience some of the most painfully unfunny scenes the boys were ever involved in. When I saw the bat scene I wanted to curl up and die, so great was its childish ineptitude. Yet what kills the film stone dead is that all of the support cast are dubbed, unable to speak English. Not only does this make the film disjointed, but also it severely depletes Stan and Ollie's reactions to their co-stars. Flatly directed with appalling film stock and absolutely atrocious editing, this totally belies the rumoured $2 million that was spent on it. Frankly, it looks terrible, and while a DVD release might clean up the picture, the sound and image quality is vastly inferior to any of their Hal Roach work.<br /><br />Stan and Ollie's "friends", Giovani and Antoine are charisma-free bores who stand out greatly against Laurel and Hardy's outdated repertoire. This is another major problem with the film, in that none of the supporting characters are funny, or keyed in to the boys' innocent mentality. The dubbed harshness shown to L & H ("you - the fat one") makes them stand out as isolated social misfits, rather than loveable sub-anarchists. There is evidence of some darker political satire - though Duck Soup this ain't - and the concept of an island with no rules is an interesting topic. Perhaps more relevant now than it ever was, a film that looks at the problems of immigration and the American constitution suddenly becomes most topical in 2003. Sadly, however, beyond an amusing scene where Stan is elected "the people", this doesn't really go anywhere. And this somewhat black humour does have its harsh edges - or is a Laurel and Hardy movie where rape is directly implied and Stan threatens a man with a bottle, only to accidentally glass someone in the face, your idea of a good time? After all the years of Stan and Ollie sharing a bed, we also get a definite reference, with Stan accidentally kissing him - Ollie wipes off the kiss in disgust. Also worrying is the implication that Stan and Ollie's illegal immigrant friend, Antoine, ends his life being eaten by a lion. Mind you, I never thought I'd see a Laurel and Hardy movie where they were due to be hanged, either. The need for the intrusive and unfunny narration is a further pointer to how messy the whole thing is, with the American release (the same version available on video) hacking out 16 minutes in a vain attempt to improve it.<br /><br />Almost completely unwatchable, this horrifically made, relentlessly unfunny movie serves only to tarnish the reputation of Stan and Ollie - avoid at all costs. | 0 |
714 | [
1100,
1200
] | 769 | 1,109 | Wrestlemania 2 is the only Wrestlemania|thank god| to be held at three different locations, and While it was an interesting idea, it didn't really work. There are only really two matches that really struck out, with the rest being decent, or most of them, pretty terrible. There are some entertaining celebrity's on hand, like Susan Saint James, Ray Charles and Cathy Crosby, but the experience was a waste of time for the most part. The British Bulldgos Vs The Dream Team match, is worth the price of admission itself, but you can honestly see that anywhere.<br /><br />Matches.<br /><br />Nassau Coliseum.<br /><br />Paul Orndorff Vs The Magnificent Muraco/W Mr.Fuji. For the time it had, and despite the crappy finish, this was surprisingly bearable stuff, with the crowd being really into it. Crowd chants "Bullsh*t" at the end. That being said it did nothing for either's career. Match ends in a double count out with them fighting outside the ring<br /><br />2/5<br /><br />Intercontinental Championship Match. Randy Savage|C| Vs George "The Animal" Steele. Not that great wrestling wise, but heavily entertaining due to the antics involved, and some great comedy from Steele, besides savage can wrestle a potato and make it look interesting. Savage wins when he puts his feet on the ropes, for leverage.<br /><br />2 1/2 /5<br /><br />Jake "The Snake" Roberts Vs George Wells. For a throwaway match, this was better than it should have been, but it's too short to make any impact what so ever. Roberts wins with the DDT, pulling out the snake afterwords, which disgusts Saint James.<br /><br />1 1/2 /5<br /><br />Boxing Match. Mr.T/W The Hati Kid&Joe Frazier Vs Roddy Piper/W Lou Duva&Bob Orton. A huge failure in my opinion. I was bored senseless throughout this, and while it may have been a marketing success, it certainly didn't succeed at entertaining me. Lot of Rowdy chants are noticeable as well. T wins by DQ, when Piper slams T.<br /><br />1/5<br /><br />Rosemont Horizon<br /><br />Women's Title match. Fabulous Moolah|C| Vs Velvet Mcintyre. Ends too quickly, before it even gets a chance to start, making a record for quick pin fall, as far as Woman's matches are concerned. Moolah wins when she takes advantage of Velvet's missed splash from the top rope<br /><br />0/5<br /><br />Corporal Kirchner Vs Nikolai Volkoff/W Classy Freddie Blassie. Big pop for the Corporal. Stupid match up, with boring offense from both involved, while being much too short to matter. Corporal wins when he whacks Volkoff with Blassie's cane.<br /><br />1/5<br /><br />Battle Royal. William Perry and Andre get the biggest pops. This is pretty entertaining stuff, despite all the NFL talent involved. It's also noteworthy for Bret Hart's 1st ever Wrestlemania appearance. Andre wins when he chucks The Hart Foundation out.<br /><br />2 1/2 /5<br /><br />Tag Team Titles. British Bulldogs/W Lou Albano&Ozzy Osbourne Vs The Dream Team/W Johnny Valiant|C|. Absolutely tremendous match, that is one of the best wrestlemania matches of all time. You won't have time to catch your breath, with all the maneuvers on hand, and the excellent in ring psychology. This is pure wrestling at it's finest, you cannot call yourself a Wrestling fan, if you dislike this match. Bulldogs win when Dynamite Kid collide's heads with Valentine<br /><br />4/5<br /><br />Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena<br /><br />Ricky Steamboat Vs Hercules Hernandez. Pretty decent match up here, with both men putting on solid performances. Hercules is a nasty brute, with above average skills, and it contrasted well with Steamboat's high-flying style. Steamboat wins with a high-flying cross body off the top rope.<br /><br />2 1/2 /5<br /><br />Adrian Adonis Vs Uncle Elmer. Terrible match, with annoying comedy involved. The fans love Uncle Elmer, but I do not. Adonis wins with a top rope maneuver.<br /><br />0/5<br /><br />The Funk Brothers Vs Tito Santana&JYD. Pretty solid match here, with a lot of memorable bumps taken from Terry Funk|the one through the table was something else for that time|. I would have to rate this as my 2nd favorite. Funks win with help from Jimmy Hart's megaphone.<br /><br />3/5<br /><br />WWF Championship. Hulk Hogan|C| Vs King Kong Bundy. Decent pop for Hogan. One of the most over-hyped matches in Wrestlemania history. Hogan can't wrestle worth a lick, and Bundy is not that great himself. The violence was brutal for the time, but Hogan's superhero act is kind of annoying, and there are too many boring moments. Hogan wins when he escapes before Bundy.<br /><br />1/5<br /><br />Bottom line. Wrestlemania 2 is a failure in most aspects. Die hard wrestling fans should see this once, but you really don't have too. There isn't enough here, to satisfy a true wrestling fan. Vince blew it on this one. Don't be fooled by the hype of the main event, it really is a boring affair, like most of the card. Not recommended, and ranks as one of the worst Wrestlemania's, outside of the brilliant tag title match.<br /><br />4/10 | 0 |
823 | [
1100,
1200
] | 956 | 1,140 | I honestly don't know where to begin when reviewing a movie as pathetic as Ernest Goes to Africa. Aside from two or three good laughs dispersed throughout the film, there is nothing positive about this hour-and-a-half waste of time and life. It is incredible that someone was able to round up a group of people willing to act, film, and edit this piece of trash, and even more incredible that this is the eighth installment in the Ernest series.<br /><br />During the opening credits of the movie, we see Ernest posing next to various African objects, such as wooden masks and the heads of African animals, making faces and gestures that would probably make most 3rd graders laugh. This opening scene gives the viewer a taste of Ernest's frequent attempts at humor, and demonstrates how his comedy falls flat 95% of the time.<br /><br />The first thing that really hit me about this movie is how bad the acting is. Everyone in the film is a typical C-movie actor, but Linda Kash stands out as especially terrible. She is the epitome of overacting; all of her lines are delivered with shockingly inhuman enthusiasm that you'd find only in a middle school play. Most high school theater students probably could have replaced these actors and delivered a more powerful performance. Jim Varney at least displays some comedic ability every now and then, but for the majority of the movie he just acts like a complete retard, trying to be humorous by making stupid faces and speaking in different voices.<br /><br />Ernest Goes to Africa begins in Africa, where an archaeologist has stolen two priceless gems from an African tribe. The gems then make their way back to the United States, where an unidentified man is seen running from several henchmen through a flea market. He hides them in a bucket of "two for a dollar" items, and then runs from the scene. Ernest is looking for a gift to buy for Rene, a waitress he likes, so he goes to the flea market and of course buys the priceless gems. He later takes them back to his house, paints them, and glues them together to make a yo-yo. He gives the yo-yo to Rene and she explains that they can never be together because he is just an average shmoe, and she wants a man of adventure. Rene and Ernest are tracked down by the henchmen, and are then brought to Africa to be kept as prisoners.<br /><br />Most of the movie really doesn't make sense. Once Ernest is in Africa, he falls out of the truck that they are carrying him in and lands in a river. In the next scene, we see him as a Hindu servant named "Hey You." His skin is dark and he is wearing a loin cloth. At first, I thought Jim Varney was playing another role in the film in addition to Ernest, but I immediately recognized Ernest's idiocy once Hey You began to speak.<br /><br />Another scene that sticks out in my mind as being completely ridiculous is the car chase scene in the African wilderness. Rene and Ernest have taken an ostrich farmer's truck and are being chased by the henchmen. Driving at about twenty miles per hour on a fairly straight road, both henchmen are shooting at Ernest, who is in the back of the ostrich farmer's truck. Ernest, on the other hand, is throwing ostrich eggs at the henchmen and their driver. The henchmen never hit Ernest once during the five minute chase, but Ernest is able to fend them off by hitting them and their driver in the face, making their car swerve off the road and explode in a giant column of smoke. I should also add that Ernest is slingshotting the eggs, two at a time, from a large bra.<br /><br />The set design is also incredibly poor in this movie. There is a large portion of the film in which Rene and Ernest are walking in Africa, trying to find civilization. During their hike, we see them walking through fields and jungles, which probably could have been shot anywhere in the United States. The fields are simply plain grassy fields, with no indication whatsoever of being anywhere near Africa (they could have at least digitally added some African trees in the background), and the jungles look like the woods of rural Connecticut with papier mâchè skulls, vines, and thorns hanging from trees. According to IMDb.com, the film was actually shot in South Africa, but I still wouldn't believe that at all.<br /><br />The movie goes on and on, Ernest joke after Ernest joke. The rest of the movie doesn't really make any sense either; the African tribesmen all speak English for some reason, and Ernest is later challenged to a "Battle of Truth" by the lead henchman, who is suddenly dressed in an outfit that resembles that of a ninja, yet also somewhat resembles that of a bondage submissive. The henchman has a table of axes, swords, knives, and maces before him, while Ernest has a table with a sandwich, a teddy bear, and a few other worthless items. However, Ernest wins the battle and somehow ends up saving the day.<br /><br />Overall, this movie is painful to watch. I couldn't handle it in one sitting; I had to stop halfway through and do something productive for a few hours to compensate for the brain cells lost while trying to appreciate Varney's humor. They should really put a Surgeon's General Warning on the box to let people know that they will in fact be slightly more retarded upon finishing this movie. I would have to say that out of all the movies I have ever seen, none comes close to being as pitiable as Ernest Goes to Africa. | 0 |
987 | [
1100,
1200
] | 870 | 1,144 | It's like someone took a fantasy-type video game and put it in a blender, and the resulting scene mishmash is what we have to sit through.<br /><br />Now let me go on record by saying how much I love Chinese fantasy films. From the fun and silly, to those focusing on martial arts, to the more dramatic and romantic typesit's a genre I very much enjoy. Films like "A Chinese Odyssey: Pandora's Box" and "A Chinese Odyssey: Cinderella" (both of which were written and/or directed by Jeffrey Lau); "The Bride with White Hair"; "Butterfly & Sword"; "Green Snake"; "A Chinese Ghost Story"; "Swordman II"; "Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain"; "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"; and others. Which is why I was looking forward to "A Chinese Tall Story." One of the film's characters is the "Monkey King" (aka Sun Wukong), an extremely well-known character in Chinese mythology, first told in the stories of the "Journey to the West," the epic adventure written about 500 years ago. (The story of the Monkey King and his disciples is also the focus of the "Chinese Odyssey" films, amongst many others). Other familiar characters that appear in the film are Zhu Wuneng (the pig character) and Sha Wujing.<br /><br />So how does it all go wrong? Well, let's take an example familiar to Western audiences. How about the Robin Hood mythology? A well known story from ye olden days. Let's say that our Robin Hood film starred Wesley Snipes as Robin Hood, and Haley Joel Osment as Friar Tuck. Maid Marian is none other than Rosie Perez. Let's give Sir Robin an Uzi as well, because you never know when you might have to waste the Sheriff of Nottingham. They might need rocket packs also, and while we're at it, give them a tactical nuclear weapon because that sure could come in handy. If you think this sounds like a really neat retelling of the Robin Hood tale, then "A Chinese Tall Story" is the movie for you! As I indicated above, this movie is a jumbled mess. In the first 30 minutes, we are introduced not only to Sun Wukong, Zhu Wuneng, and Sha Wujing, but also to the monk Tripitaka (who is actually the main protagonist), kidnapped children, a "millennium bug demon" (which shoots laser beams), an underground Tree God, a lizard imp tribe, an angelic girl in an intergalactic egg, the Lord Chancellor Tortoise, a Sea Dragon King, a ever-morphing magic golden staff, a chatterbox imp girl, wormholes in space, and the Four Heavenly Knights. All this wouldn't be too bad--the tales and myths passed down over the years certainly do have all sorts of fantastical elements. But I guarantee you the Chinese mythology does not include much of the stuff we get subjected to in the last half of the film. (Helpful advice to the filmmakers: Just because your computer effects guys CAN come up with cool looking spaceships and depictions of intergalactic war, does not mean they SHOULD).<br /><br />You know your Chinese mythology movie is on the wrong track when the director asks (and I am not making this upit's a direct quote from the commentary) "I asked the composer whether or not we can have a more rock-and-roll type music when she transforms into some kind of android-like thing." Is there a story hidden in here somewhere? Yes. Yes, there is. Most of the adventure follows Tripitaka (played by Nicholas Tse"Gen-X Cops," "Time and Tide," "My Schoolmate the Barbarian") and Meiyan, the lizard imp girl (played by Charlene Choi and a computer). Choi is the best thing going in this film. You may know her as half of the Canto-pop group "Twins" and from other films such as "The Twins Effect" (a fun flick) and "Just One Look" (a surprisingly good drama/romance/comedy). Poor Choi, being a lizard imp and all, is hardly recognizable with her warts, snagged out teeth, doughy nose, and hunched back. That is until the computers get a hold of and beautify her, which somehow makes it worse. Tse is passable, but all of the supporting actors were abysmal. A couple of recognizable faces in bit parts are wasted.<br /><br />At one point I was debating with myself if "A Chinese Tall Story" was a spoof. I was almost able to convince myself that it was when the intergalactic egg girl (played by a very pretty Fan Bing-Bing) got out and lit up a Marlboro (!) while talking with Tripitaka who was practicing martial arts dressed in a Spider-Man costume (!!). But it is not a spoof. Of course there is the typical Hong Kong silliness, but the movie takes itself seriously enough, with enough scenes of romance and pathos (scored with a sledghammering of violins and evocative cellos) and rousing action and adventure.<br /><br />You might think that you could watch this on a Netflix rental and it wouldn't cost you anything. (Oh, but it'll cost you, all right).<br /><br />Is there anything good to say? Sure. The colors are vibrant (they are the best thing about this movie). And the filmmakers certainly were trying very hard. Too bad all that effort went into a movie that is not much more than a bad video game. | 0 |
1,023 | [
1100,
1200
] | 988 | 1,153 | Sometimes it is funny to watch films implode from your couch, but other times it is just horribly painful to both your eyes and your mind. House Party 4: Down to the Last Minute is one of those rare examples of when both your eyes and your mind are pleading with you to turn the film off. This final installment to the House Party series is by far the worst, not just sequel, but film released by Hollywood. It becomes very apparent early on in this "feature" that director Chris Stokes loved Ferris Bueller's Day Off with a passion. I say this because it becomes very clear that Stokes had no trouble lifting the originality of Bueller off John Hughes' hands and choosing to create a film completely void of humor. You would think that by "stealing" themes and images from a funnier film, your own film would at least be able to generate a giggle or two. With House Party 4, Stokes proved that he does not have what it takes to direct a sequel, much less a Hollywood film. From his confusing and choppy story, the inability to make sense of his characters, and recycled old/tired cliché moments, all Stokes is doing is hitting a bigger nail into the coffin that holds the House Party films. It reminds me of that student that forgets about his project due in an hour and quickly slops together super glue, macaroni, cat hair, chewing gum, and straws and presents it as "Hannibal Crossing the Alps". It just looks horrible and you feel embarrassed for the creator.<br /><br />So, where did this film first take the plunge into the realm of comic stupidity? Honestly, I do not think that most places will allow me to speak that long, so instead I would like to hit upon some of the larger topics that hit me the hardest. To begin, I still cannot shake the Ferris Beuller rip-off. It was as if director Stokes was ashamed of having to direct another sequel to House Party and decided to bring in a completely random formula (from a funnier film) and see if he could cut and paste elements from the original series into that formula. That was a huge mistake. When a director tries to do this, what eventually happens is confusion within the audience. We think that we are going in one direction, but instead we head in another one. That is exactly what you can witness in House Party 4. In one instance we have John-John trying to have the "biggest party of the decade" while also trying to score a record deal (ok, kinda reminds me of the original House Party), but then we whisk away to this random island where Uncle Charles is afraid of flying, Grandma gets drunk, and some idiotic mind-dulling moments with a supposed killer. Again, we begin somewhat strong, and end chaotic. This is the confusion in which I speak. Director Stokes did not have the ability to keep his hand on either the pulse of humor or the ability to tell a sequential story. He would rather cut corners, keep the jokes cheap, and think that the audiences are idiots than attempt to revive a stone-dead series. One would think that when a director was handed that task of filming another House Party film he would walk into it thinking that he/she would be the one to revive it or bring it back to life, instead Stokes just wanted to get paid.<br /><br />I realize that I am slowly growing older as the days go quickly by, but I do believe I still keep my hand in the younger generation's culture. I listened to rap and R&B growing up, but the group "Immature" never made it to either my cassette deck or my CD player. Why? I don't think they ever quite had a following, but apparently to director Chris Stokes, it would be beneficial to cast them as leads in his new House Party film. Didn't anyone at any studio realize that this was going to be in the red rather quickly? Or how about the option to have Stokes himself play the comedic car repairman, nothing like a director with no sense of comic timing casting himself as the only source of possible humor. It was one of those few instances when I actually missed Robin Harris, and I never thought I would find myself saying that to any film. Outside of a go-nowhere band playing the lead role, I also thought that the remainder of the cast only continued to suck the life out of this film. Uncle Charles was annoying when he attempted humor. Kim Whitely was completely wasted for her scenes (both literally and figuratively) while
well
everyone else pretty much falls into that category.<br /><br />Where did Chris Stokes spend most of the budget for this film? Not for special guest stars because while this film may have boasted some, there were definitely none present at the "unforgettable" House Party, nor the possible dream that perhaps Kid or Play would make one final appearance. House Party 4 followed no preset design, which ultimately ruined this feature from the foundation down. Can anyone explain to me why there was any need to use the "escaped murderer who happened to be a licensed taxicab driver" routine for humor? Stokes was reaching deep within the bottom of the barrel and only produced more muck instead of substance. For once I can admit to there being no redeeming value to this film. House Party 4 buried the series, and while I do hear that there may be more in the pipeline, I only hope Hollywood realizes that this series has died. Hollywood needs to let this series end, forget about the past and move forward in the future. I think a sequel to Who's the Man? would get them started in the right direction.<br /><br />Grade: * out of ***** | 0 |
1,066 | [
1100,
1200
] | 967 | 1,180 | All I could think while watching this movie was: "Will it ever end?!" It was unbearably boring to watch. I was wishing I could just turn it off, but I wanted to do this review justice so I fought the good fight and withstood the torture of watching this movie all the way through so that you, the good reader, need not bear that pain also.<br /><br />This movie sounds like it has a great premise if you read the premise on paper. However, the actual movie does not deliver on this premise at all.<br /><br />The opening scene features a mineshaft in the early 1900's, where they are forcing kids to carry dynamite into the tunnels that aren't big enough for the adults to fit into. This seems to be setting up the premise for an interesting movie. But after 4 minutes, it becomes clear that is not the case. The adults who committed these crimes are never punished; there is no consequences shown in the movie for their actions. The opening scene is way better than, and completely irrelevant to, the rest of the movie. The last time an opening scene misrepresented a movie so grievously was the opening scene of 28 Days Later which was the only good scene in *that* whole movie. Wicked Little Things/Zombies (a movie so crappy they changed the title to try to disguise it's crappiness and sell it again) is exactly the same in this regard. The opening scene is the only watchable scene in the whole movie.<br /><br />Instead, the movie flashes forward to present-day. A single mother and her two bratty, foul-mouthed kids. Right here is when it would have been wise to press the STOP button and never go near the movie again.<br /><br />In the first hour, the zombie kids are barely even seen. They get maybe 3 minutes of screen-time, total. All they do is kill a pig, that's it. The rest of the hour is spent showing the dumb mother and her dumb kids buy things at the local store, wander around the forest, and have inane conversations with each other. The dumb teenage daughter goes and hangs out with some other idiot teenagers and smokes weed with them.<br /><br />There would be no reason to care at all if the zombie kids dispatched anyone in this movie. Every single character is both dumb & annoying, with no redeeming qualities at all. Not to mention one-dimensional and clichéd.<br /><br />This movie would have been *vastly improved* if the mother and her dumb kids were dispatched in the first 10 minutes by the zombie kids, as they were driving up to their new house, then the end credits rolled. That right there would instantly change the score from 1/10, to 10/10. Honestly! When the dumb mother takes her eyes off the road and almost crashes into a pedestrian on the road, her daughter scolds her: "You almost killed us, mom!" Of course, anyone with common sense knows that if the mom had hit the pedestrian, it would be the pedestrian who would be dead --- not the people safely encased *inside* the car. I guess this line was put into the movie to show firsthand that the utter stupidity of the main characters knows no bounds, and runs in the family.<br /><br />Wicked Little Things/Zombies runs for 1 hour and 34 minutes, but it definitely felt like 5 hours or more to me. Trying to not fall asleep was a tremendous challenge. It's not until over an hour has passed into the 1 hour and 34 minutes that the zombie children actually bother to kill any person. Then the scene shows the dumb teenagers drinking beer and making out in a car and saying lines like, "If you ever wanna get in my pants again, you better start the car and get my ass out of here right now." Seriously, that's verbatim from the movie. The teenagers are so clichéd, one-dimensional, badly-acted, dumb & annoying that when the zombie kids finally get around to hacking 3 of them up 1 hour and 5 minutes into the movie, it feels like a cause for celebration. Of course the "Princess" dumb weed-smoking foul-mouthed beer-drinking loser daughter of the main mother character gets away scott-free. What a buzzkill that was! She was on the screen longer than the others and hence the most annoying of the 4 of them, and most deserving of a pickaxe to the head. All the more reason why she should have been dispatched within the first 10 minutes, as aforementioned. To still keep her around past 1 hour and 5 minutes though, is totally inexcusable.<br /><br />The reason for this of course is that feature length movies need to be padded to at least 1 hour and 30 minutes. So by keeping her alive long-past when she should be, they have an extra 27 minutes to pad the movie with her and her mother running through the woods. By 1 hour and 22 minutes in, it's the *second* time in the movie where the annoying daughter is trapped in a vehicle where the engine won't start whilst the zombie kids are coming to get her.<br /><br />The zombie kids are completely generic. Never say anything. No character development at all for any of them.<br /><br />In the end, all 3 of the annoying, idiotic main characters live. Which in my opinion, is the filmmakers' way of giving a final flipping the bird gesture to the viewing audience. In my opinion, the filmmakers surely know that they have bamboozled anyone who has had the great misfortune to watch the whole movie. Why not rub their faces in it by not even giving them the satisfaction of seeing any of the 3 main characters who should have been dispatched within the first 10 minutes, die.<br /><br />Avoid Wicked Little Things/Zombies like the Bubonic Plague. | 0 |
1,165 | [
1100,
1200
] | 963 | 1,153 | I was very willing to give Rendition the benefit of the doubt when it came to all the negative press I had read concerning it. Even about three-quarters of the way through, I still thought it was jumbled and a bit incoherent, but otherwise a solid tale reaching its conclusion. And then the bottom fell out. Not wanting to necessarily ruin the film for anyone, but the conclusion flips everything you held to be fact about what and when things have been happening on its headfor no particular reason whatsoever except to maybe tell the world, yeah I'm cool, and I know it. I love a good twist, I love a good ah-ha moment, but only when it is relevant to the story at hand. The complete misguidance on the part of the filmmakers serves no purpose on the overall tale, timelines didn't need to be parallel and they didn't need to be separated by a week. All the revelation did was destroy any merit I was about to give director Gavin Hood and screenwriter Kelley Sane, which may be a good thing, because looking back, it wasn't really as solid a movie as I initially was going to blindly give it credit for.<br /><br />It is an admirable thing to try and get the term rendition out into the film-going public's consciousness, but it needed a story that delved deeper into the connotations and politics involved, rather than gloss over those issues for a tale of a woman in distress over her husband's disappearance and the angst-filled rebellion of a daughter against her "interrogator" father. I understand that the bottom-line film attendee needs a human quality to grasp onto and for that reason I don't fault it for going that route. My only qualm is that we don't get enough of what the title says we should be getting. Instead we are shown numerous plot lines, all confusingly brought to the forefront before being sent back into the nether regions of our consciousness, never to be returned to. So much is going on that you forget what you are supposed to be caring for, the wife? the interrogator? the CIA agent? the victim? the senator? the Middle Eastern daughter and her zealot boyfriend? At the end I really just gave up and let the film take me where it would, which ended up being someone totally different than what it first laid out.<br /><br />Everything that occurs happens as the result of a bomb explosion. This bomb is at the center of every story thread and finally ends up being so innocuous that you can't believe how huge the waves it spread were. The old butterfly wings flapping quote is in full effect, because one boy's mission for revenge ends up destroying the lives of so many. Whether by death, destruction, physical and emotional abuse, or career suicide; no one really escapes unscathed. However, at the end of the day, only the story about the man who has been excised to Egypt for torture is really interesting. We are led to believe he is unequivocally innocent from the start, yet he is waterboarded, electrocuted, etc. in order to extract any information he might have. When those in power include a man with no compassion or reason to stop until something is spilled, (whether true or not), and an observer without the guts to partake or stop it, the situation lends itself some intrigue as to how it could possibly end. The three actors involved all are the best parts of the film and prove once more that the movie should have concerned itself with them for the entirety.<br /><br />I don't want to belittle people like Reese Witherspoon, (the victim's wife), or her Senate employed ex, played by Peter Sarsgaard, because they actual do a good job with what they are given. Even Meryl Streep, her kooky accent, and Alan Arkin don't detract too much. However, it is the trio of Jake Gyllenhaal's CIA agent, Yigal Naor's interrogator, and Omar Metwally's victim that truly shine. Naor is brilliant as the Egyptian trying to stay sharp as a razor during working hours yet compassionate and worry-filled as a father attempting to locate his daughter. This man is brutal, but he is because that is what his occupation calls for and why he is relied upon to find answers. Metwally never gives a false second during the pain and suffering inflicted upon him. Whether he is lying or truly knows nothing about the terrorist who has been calling his cell phone, we totally buy into his plight and desperately wait to see how the situation turns out. As for Gyllenhaal, someone who seems to have one performance recycled throughout his career with varying degrees of success, he finds a part that suits him. The demons entering his soul throughout the ordeal he is forced to be a part of wear on his body and mind, causing both ambivalence and a need to intervene. The two feelings wrestle with each other until he makes a final decision, and his stoic, boyish demeanor suit that battle perfectly.<br /><br />It is just too bad that the one plot line working never finds itself as the main focal point, despite being the namesake of the film. With all the clutter around the edges, we as an audience get bounced around too much, lulled into a sense of time and sequence, and then slapped in the face as it all unravels in more of a laugh on us then a, "bet you didn't see that coming." I felt cheated and unfortunately that is the lasting effect I have taken from the movie. Had it been more straightforward I might have enjoyed myself more, but as is, one can still take some positives from the severely flawed whole. | 0 |
1,804 | [
1100,
1200
] | 987 | 1,160 | Interferencia starts as unemployed Martin Sanders (Andres Bagg) hears something strange on his phone, he hears a mysterious man talking to a prostitute named Diana & arranging to meet her. Soon after Martin reads a local paper & sees the front page story about a prostitute being murdered & thinks back to what he heard. Martin confides in his friends Laura (Virginia Lustig) & Aaron (Oliver Kolker) but they don't believe him. Then shortly after the same thing happens again, the phone call, the man, the prostitute & her death reported in the papers. Martin decides he has to find the killer & put a stop to his killing spree but who is it?<br /><br />This Argentinian production that was apparently shot in just eight days (why so long?) on a budget of about $3,000 (why so much?) was written & directed by Sergio Esquenazi & I cannot believe some of the glowing comments Interferencia has on the IMDb. Out of 195 user ratings as I write this 113 of them rate this pile of crap 10 out of 10, I am sorry but there is no way anyone should be giving a film this bad a quite literally perfect score of 10 out of 10. If a score for a film on IMDb is fixed then this is it, I honestly don't believe that if you showed Interferencia to 195 average people that well over 100 of them would rate it as being absolutely perfect, no way on Earth. The user comments are also amazingly positive, all by IMDb users who have only wrote comments for one film, this. The one user (besides me) who has actually written more than one comment gave it a rock bottom 1 out of 10 which sounds just about right. Everyone is entitled to an opinion but I would stake my life on the fact most of those positive comments are from fake accounts set up purely to big this piece of crap up. Where do I start? How on Earth can I adequately describe how bad Interferencia is? The plot is a mess that basically lives or dies by it's terrible twists, while most twists turn a plot on it's head & alters the perspective of everything that has gone before in a clever & relevant way & are genuine surprises here in Interferencia the twists destroy the first half of the film & makes it utterly pointless in a 'it didn't actually happen' sort of way & the twist is so poorly handled that it leaves you asking more questions than it answers. What made Martin go mad? Why did he imagine the phone calls? Why did he imagine a killer? Why did he imagine the newspaper headlines? No explanation is given for Martin's behaviour during the first hour or so of the film, there's just this absurd revelation that it was all in his mind & that's it, that's all the exposition there is. Then there's a plot twist about Martin's missing wife & her lover before Martin for reasons unexplained starts to kill his friends for no apparent reason. I am sorry but Interferencia is so bad, it's so boring, it's so badly written & thought out that I honestly can't think of a positive thing to say about it. Sorry guy's but that's how I feel, quite simply Interferencia is one of the worst films I have ever seen & is a complete mess both conceptually & technically.<br /><br />According to the IMDb Interferencia was hot in just eight days, to be honest it doesn't feel like that at all. Nope, it feels more like it was shot in five days! The whole film is an eyesore, Interferencia has probably the worst nighttime shooting I have ever seen. It's like no attempt was made to light the scenes, it's like the makers just went into a dark room or basement or whatever & just shoot the scene regardless of whether you could see anything. The scenes set outside in the daytime have this horrible unnatural blue green tint to them for no apparent reason which just looks daft & becomes increasingly irritating. This strange tint is not repeated on indoor scenes so they are also quite jarring & noticeable. There's no real horror or scares, in fact I would say Interferencia is more of a thriller than a horror. As far as gore goes there are two decapitated heads in a fridge, a knife is stuck in someones mouth & nothing else.<br /><br />According to the IMDb this had a budget of about $3,000 which makes Interferencia one of the lowest budgeted films ever commercially released surely? Some people think just because a film is low budget all reasonable viewing standards should go out of the window & we should accept any old crap, wrong! To watch this on DVD you will still have to pay good money & I personally think we have the right to expect some sort of good product. If this can get released & praised like it's Oscar worthy then we can all release our holiday camcorder footage (including embarrassing karaoke footage & scenes of total blackness as we forgot to take off the lens cap) & win top prizes at the next Cannes film festival! The acting is awful although the female lead Virginia Lustig is actually rather sexy & helps ease the pain of the final twenty odd minutes as she features a fair bit.<br /><br />Interferencia is an absolutely terrible film, seriously I beg you don't be fooled by all the fake positive comments, there is no way anyone not involved in this or have some sort of agenda is going to give it a 9 or 10 out of 10. An amateurish mess that is truly horrible to sit through. Sorry but that's the way I see it, sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind... you have been warned! | 0 |
2,145 | [
1100,
1200
] | 907 | 1,165 | Before launching into whether this film is worth your time or not, I should inform you I've never seen another adaptation of Carmen, so if you're looking for a review on how it ranks amongst others, this might not be of much use to you.<br /><br />The only time I've come across Carmen was on the car stereo when driving through Spain on a family holiday when I was a teenager. I didn't pay much attention to it because I didn't like opera at the time and I didn't know any better. The story has been around for 150 years or so. Do I feel I've missed out after seeing this movie? Yes, mainly due to the plot, but also because if all the actresses who played Carmen looked like Paz Vega, I would have all the adaptations happily sitting in my DVD collection.<br /><br />Directed by Vicente Aranda (who also co-rewrote the story with Joaquim Jordà), the story is told through the eyes of the original author Prosper Mérimée, a French writer making his way through 19th century Spain. He comes across José (Leonardo Sbaraglia), a delinquent soldier and one of many men who fall in love with Carmen (Paz Vega), a sultry, sexy, bedazzling gypsy woman, who has the mouth of the devil, the temper of a 'toro' and who recklessly leads men to their doom. The moment she meets José, she is attracted by his stand-offish behaviour. But she hooks him, reels him in and lets him go, many-a-time. Until one day, José is wanted for murder. Carmen persuades him to join her band of gypsy smugglers. They seem to be settling, she's fallen in love with him, but she meets the charming Escamillo, the bullfighter. Can José hold his jealousy in check, or does it destroy him? <br /><br />It's a beautiful,seductive story, something that resembles, almost, a Shakespearian or Ovid plot, with the portrayals of immense passion and emotion that can make or break us and transform us to do things out of character. It's poetic, fiery, and above all, slutty. I was left hanging on, I didn't know which way it was going to turn. I always hoped that José might change Carmen's dirty little ways. I won't tell you if he succeeded or not.<br /><br />The above synopsis is what I took away from the film, but I was not impressed by the film itself. It was only after I watched it that I dug a little deeper into the story and I realised how much of a missed opportunity Aranda had made of retelling Mérimée's classic. It was a shallow, slutty period-drama blunder, that saw Paz Vega spend a lot of the time partially or completely naked (not that I'm complaining about this in particular!).<br /><br />First of all, the acting was poor. I was not impressed by Sbaraglia as José. I'm still unsure whether he was a weak actor or José was supposed to be a weak character, I've not read the book. He's supposed to be a man who with burning desire for Carmen, but he spends much of the time looking confused, jealous and a bit dim. Paz Vega was slightly better as Carmen. I was convinced by her hardened, wicked character, although I have seen more convincing performances by her in other films, such as Zapping and Lucia y El Sexo. She seems too pretty to play a gypsy woman (not that I've come across many Andalusian gypsy women), so in a way, the role didn't really fit her. The other actors in the film weren't great either. They seemed to do everything half-heartedly. The story is passionate, emotive they looked half-arsed, as if they couldn't wait to get out the tight 19th century costumes they were wearing.<br /><br />However, the costumes, I was impressed with - one of the redeeming factors of the film. I like Spanish culture, I liked the soldiers' uniforms, the top-hats and the women's Flamenco dresses. They fitted the time well. That's all I can really say about that. Sorry, back to the criticism.<br /><br />The script, as stated above, was co-rewritten by Vicente Aranda and Joaquim Jordà, and done so badly, so much that it would leave Mérimée turning in his grave. It was boring. It didn't make best use of José's intense passion for Carmen (or maybe that was just the acting). There were cheesy lines piled upon one and other, Satan and devil connotations everywhere, amongst the millions of swear words. I know the Spanish are partial for the odd swear word, but the film was littered with puta, 'whore', in literally every line Maybe it was realistic in 19th century poverty-stricken Seville, but the story itself didn't need it.<br /><br />The editing and camera work was dull and ordinary. There was only one bit I actually liked, and that was when the camera follows a fly close-up in mid-air, which lands on Carmen's face. That was good. But the rest? Boring.<br /><br />To conclude, it is sad to see such a great story go to waste with unconvincing acting and directing. If you're a literature teacher, by all means let your class watch this adaptation to get an idea of the story. However, only the male half of the class will be paying any interest to the film, thanks to Paz Vega. Otherwise, stick to the opera version (even though I hate musicals). I give this film 4, just for the fact I love the storyline! And Paz Vega! | 0 |
2,268 | [
1100,
1200
] | 957 | 1,187 | Meltdown opens on a scene of scientists preparing to conduct an important test on a missile system developed to deflect asteroids should they be on a collision course with earth. Nathan (Vincent Gale) mentions some misgivings to his, but the test appears to be an unqualified success. Then the asteroid breaks apart, and the largest piece is pushed into a direct collision path with earth. Fortunately, the huge rock skips off of earth's outer atmosphere and ricochets into space. Unfortunately, the glancing blow is just enough to alter earth's orbit, and the planet begins to spiral closer to the sun.<br /><br />While all of this is going on above their heads, Los Angeles cops Tom (Casper Van Dien) and Mick (Greg Anderson) are on a stake-out. They're supposed to collect evidence against a suspected drug dealer, but the deal they're watching quickly devolves into a shooting match. Afterward, Tom takes a few minutes to be interviewed by a local television reporter who also happens to be his girlfriend, Carly (Stefanie von Pfetten).<br /><br />At a nearby hospital where Mick is treated for a minor injury, Tom has a brief chat with his ex-girlfriend Bonnie (Venus Terzo), who is a nurse. He tells her he's concerned about the fact that their 17 year-old daughter Kimberly (Amanda Crew) is dating a man named CJ (Ryan McDonell). Once Tom explains to Bonnie that he's discovered CJ has a criminal record, she's a little worried herself.<br /><br />It's not long, however, before everybody has something else to worry about. The temperature is rapidly rising all around the world. Carly is one of the first non-scientists to learn what's really happening. Nathan, who is her brother, calls her to say he may have a way that they can survive. Carly calls Tom; he, of course, promptly contacts Bonnie.<br /><br />In relatively short order, the motley group is on the road. Before they can reach their ultimate goal, however, they've got to make their way through bands of looters, deal with a catastrophic water shortage, and manage to travel in temperatures that are high enough to kill.<br /><br />Casper Van Dien is a good looking guy, and I actually enjoyed him in Starship Troopers. That may be because he's good in action scenes. It might also be because he didn't talk much in that movie. In Meltdown, he's unfortunately given just enough lines in situations that are just dramatic enough to showcase his entirely average acting abilities. Amanda Crew is also okay, and Ryan McDonell isn't bad, either. Vincent Gale and Stefanie von Pfetten are also both reasonably good, but Venus Terzo is sadly on a par with Van Dien.<br /><br />What really makes or breaks a movie, though, is the story and the script. While the story here is okay and actually has some real potential, the script is just awful. The science part of the science fiction is non-existent starting with the asteroid pushing the earth out of orbit and escalating with the notion that the "gravitational balance of the solar system" might "pull the earth back" into its usual orbit "over time." When the temperature in LA hits 120 degrees, cars start blowing up.<br /><br />You know what's even worse than the bad science? The bad continuity. Okay, really hot. Why are people in the movie not only wearing long sleeved shirts, but jackets, too? Why are people mugging each other for bottled water instead of turning on the taps at home? Why are the streets completely empty, but the freeways completely full? And why are the freeways full of unexploded? It's almost superfluous to note that the sets, costumes, and production values were good, especially when that only forces me to say that the edits were not.<br /><br />So basically, you take a pretty good story idea and combine it with mostly mediocre acting, a terrible script, low-end special effects, utterly irrational plot twists, and poor edits, and what do you have? A movie that's even less than the sum of its inconsiderable parts. I'm sorry to say that I can't recommend Meltdown: Days of Destruction to anyone.<br /><br />POLITICAL NOTES: There is mention here that Congress finally loosened the purse strings enough to fund the tests that start the movie rolling. While the tests here were wholly irresponsible (targeting an asteroid with a nuke and not knowing the composition of the big rock is, in fact, well beyond irresponsible and approaching the insane), the fact is that such scenarios are a very real danger to the planet. Unfortunately, we've tracked nowhere near all of the near earth asteroids that could be worrisome in some orbit some day; and our ability to spot something on a collision course with us is limited at best.<br /><br />Once we do discover we're going to be hit, we quite literally have no system in place to deal with it. There are no nuclear-tipped space missiles we can launch; the space shuttle is completely incapable of going beyond earth orbit, and if it were, we couldn't launch enough of them or launch them quickly enough for it to matter. I'm not big on the government doing anything beyond its constitutional mandates, but I certainly think protecting the planet from destruction coming at us from outer space could be construed as defending the country, don't you? FAMILY SUITABILITY: Meltdown: Days of Destruction is rated R for "some violence." I frankly didn't find the violence here anything beyond a fairly typical T-rated video game. If your teens are keen on seeing Meltdown and you can't talk them out of it, the R-rating shouldn't dissuade you from letting them see it. It's not, however, a good idea to leave the younger kids in the room with their elder siblings. While the shootings aren't too graphic in the main, some of the dead bodies are. | 0 |
2,778 | [
1100,
1200
] | 959 | 1,136 | The Vindicator opens with the memorable scene of a monkey in a cage attacking a ripping apart a small toy robot as part of a scientific experiment. This random act violence sold it for me and I'm happy to say the rest of Vindicator provided a veritable feast of cheese.<br /><br />The Vindicator is about a scientist (David McIlwraith) who is nearly killed an explosion in his lab whose tattered remains are put inside an experimental body suit/armour. For some unfathomable reason he is fitted with a Rage Response Activator, a device wired into his brain that will turn him homicidal if he comes into physical contact with any other person. They give some daft explanation about how it is a necessary defensive mechanism but I cannot see the logic in installing such a device unless you wanted a rampaging cyborg killing machine. It is especially ridiculous when it is indicated the suit Carl is wearing is actually an experimental space suit. What possible need would there be for an astronaut to turn into the incredible hulk whilst on a mission? He predictably breaks out of the lab and proceeds to battle the dodgy scientists who put him in the suit, along with the ninja assassin Hunter played by Pam Grier (No, really).<br /><br />The Vindicator itself looks pretty damn goofy. It is basically a dude in a mangled golden foil suit. He also has a perpetually bewildered look in his eyes, that doesn't inspire fear or even compassion. I guess you can't blame him for that, most people watching the movie will have that same look on their faces.<br /><br />The acting is of the really bad, stilted, 'I'm not sure what the character's emotions or thoughts are that this point so I'll take a punt and spurt out my dialogue in a random tone of voice whilst trying not look at the camera' school of acting. The actor playing the funky black scientist even struggles with this last part.<br /><br />It is after this initial accidental death that the Vindicator goes after the scientists. Strangely enough the whole Rage Response Activator 'touch me and I'll kill you' thing doesn't play as big a role as you might expect with Carl going after his former colleges in a reasonably detached manner. There was one scene where he rather brutally kills some street punks who push him around. I know that it is de rigueur for street gangs to randomly assault the lead characters in eighties movies but surely one of them must have realised it might be a bad idea to attack the hulking cyborg guy even if he does look like C3PO's retarded cousin. As it is they don't even seem that surprised to see a mangled golden cyborg walking down the street as though it was an every day occurrence for them. The only other time this rage response activator comes up in the movie is when old Carl can't give his wife a hug. When Hunter tries to turn this against him by throwing her into him so he'll be forced to kill her he casually remarks he has reprogrammed himself (Off-screen naturally) so this doesn't happen. They could have left out the whole Rage Response Activator thing and just gone with a straight revenge story and it wouldn't have made a huge difference to the movie.<br /><br />There is an amusing sequence in the sewers as Grier and her cronies track down the Vindicator. Due to his armoured hide they are all armed with weapons which fire 'vapourised acid.' For some bizarre reason when these weapons fire it is represented on screen by cartoonish red lines that streak toward their targets ala Ghostbusters. The Vindicator fights back by ripping a gas pipe out of the wall and incinerating all of Grier's goons in an enormous streak of flame that comes out. The resulting fireball is so huge and powerful that it comes out of the sewers out of a man hole and blows up the van a couple of the scientists are. Strangely enough Grier escapes by throwing herself down into the inch deep water despite the fact she was closest to the Vindicator. This is one of several fake fiery explosions throughout the movie, including the death of funky black scientist when the vindicator sends his van of a cliff. (This is after they capture The Vindicator by trapping him in a giant lump of gello- no, seriously). <br /><br />There is also one unsettling and long and out of place sequence in which Carl's treacherous overweight friend, who looks like a poor man's Ned Beatty, reveals his infatuation with Carl's wife and tries to rape her. It goes on for about 5-10 minutes and is full of disturbing shots of the guy slobbering over the wife's face, gyrating on top of her and trying to pull her dress off. It is icky to say the least and seems really out of whack with most of the rest of the movie which is kind of cartoonish and larger than life in its violence.<br /><br />The movies finale involves the Vindicator battling a whole bunch of other dudes in battle suits. For whatever reason all these other dudes are less kick-arse than Carl, some of them being dispatched by the wife simply by having a protruding tube in their side ripped out. Luckily for Carl the suit he is wearing lacks this crucial design flaw. The only really memorable part toward the end is the death of Grier. Doing something I've never seen a baddie do in a movie before, in the middle of her confrontation with the Vindicator she decides she really doesn't stand a chance against him and in a rather of matter of fact manner blows her own brains out with his pistol. | 0 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.