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24,696 | [
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] | 308 | 386 | This is a love story set against the back drop of television news. The three main stars, William Hurt,Holly Hunter and Albert Brooks create a love triangle whilst working at the Washington bureau of a TV network.<br /><br />Tom Grunick(Hurt)is the handsome reporter who is being groomed to be a star.Jane (Hunter)is the producer who recognises that Tom lacks the intellectual gravitas to be a real journalist, but falls for him anyway.Aaron Altman(Brooks)is the man who shares her beliefs in journalistic standards is also the man who truly loves her.<br /><br />Holly Hunter was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award ,but lost out to Cher(Moonstruck!).She was robbed! This is Hunter's film.Her character Jane is smart,ruthless and totally driven. She is also hilariously neurotic. Her performance is perfect.Just watch her face when she watches the tape of Tom's interview of a rape victim. The scales literally fall from her eyes.<br /><br />Wiliam Hurt's performance is less showy.He plays a man who is well aware that he is a himbo and a fraud,but is smart enough to know that his rise will be facilitated by people like Jane.He gives little hints of a man who is extremely calculating.<br /><br />The film comments on celebrity, journalism,integrity and the commercial pressures on news in a medium that is focused on the bottom line. It predicted that news would be dumbed down, that standards would slowly be lowered due to commercial pressures.<br /><br />Think about this:this film was released before the end of the Cold War and before rise of reality TV.Yet, it predicted the dumbing down of the news.Paris Hilton's release from jail was treated like a major news story! To see how prophetic this film is,just watch your evening news and note the set, the graphics and the presenters.Tom Grunick and his clones are well and truly alive! | 1 |
24,698 | [
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] | 256 | 315 | I haven't actually seen a lot of movies with Holly Hunter, but seeing her in Broadcast News was a pleasant surprise. She is a hard-nosed journalist, Jane Craig, who has devoted all of her time to TV news show. Her colleague Aaron Altman has carried her torch for a long time without saying anything. The love triangle is completed by Tom Grunnick. He is the slightly aloof ex-sportscaster who is the new reporter. To Jane, he symbolizes everything she doesn't like about news reporting - turning it into edutainment, not serious business. Much to her surprise, Jane finds herself attracted to Tom.<br /><br />Holly Hunter is doing a great performance as the perky journalist. But I don't quite see what she finds so charming about her new colleague, Tom. It's something with them that prevents us from getting up close and personal with him. Almost as impressive is Albert Brooks, who gives his all in the role of a professional who gives more than 100 percent for his job but doesn't get quite as much in return. Actually, for a while I thought he was Steve Guttenberg from Police Academy (1984). He has a few funny lines and if this was a Meg Ryan-picture, they'd call it a romantic comedy.<br /><br />Running over two hours, a few scenes could have been edited or left out completely, eg. Jane's and Aaron's trip to Central America. Also, I'm a sucker for happy endings and had preferred a different ending than just a reunion between the three of them seven years later. | 1 |
24,708 | [
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] | 268 | 325 | Early 80's creature feature concerns a long abandoned gold mine that some intrepid miners are determined to check out. Naturally, they find no gold down there but one very hungry monster that slithers along in search of prey.<br /><br />While I have to be honest and admit I found it dull at first (I personally prefer the thematically similar "The Boogens"), it actually grew on me as it went along. Now, the characters aren't too interesting nor the actors either. The closest to an interesting character is Morgan, played by Keith Hurt. In any event, female lead Terri Berland is quite good looking and Rolf Theison makes his domineering jerk an easy person to hate. The writer played by effects man Mark Sawicki wears thin quickly.<br /><br />It begins in a comfortably predictable enough way, with a nighttime set piece in which two victims are claimed to get things off to an acceptable start. The monster itself is intriguing for its design (as you can imagine, it gets revealed a bit at a time until late in the game) and for being the product of stop motion animation when this process was no longer used very much. Director Melanie Anne Phillips (directing under the pseudonym of David Michael Hillman) and crew deserve some credit for their creation of atmosphere. They manage to make the film look quite claustrophobic and gloomy, and their use of lighting works well. The film does build in intensity towards a pretty good ending. Suffice it to say, they do the best they can on their low budget.<br /><br />An obscure little item worth looking into for die-hard horror buffs.<br /><br />7/10 | 1 |
24,721 | [
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] | 242 | 302 | This is one of the better sci-fi series. It involves character development, a few really tensionate moments and reasonable episode scripts. As one other commentator said here, it looked as if it were a mini series, not a full blown series with filler episodes and low budgets.<br /><br />The problem with the show, which in short is a Godzilla series, is that it started too big, with incredible monsters, fantastic science, then it all boiled down to local Americans doing stuff. Then, the show ended too soon, since the Olympics were coming and hey! a sci-fi show is a sci-fi show, but half naked athletic people running around aimlessly is much more important. So they only did 15 episodes instead of the expected 22. The audience was small, too, as people didn't really caught it on at 20:00. In the end the suits did it. Trust a marketing plan to destroy anything that looks remotely original and promising.<br /><br />Conclusion: you have a show with good special effects, stuff like huge monsters killing people or destroying boats, then going into genetic engineering, transforming people, human clones, end of the world, tsunamis. Also, the only fillers are scenes with aggressive rednecks or other annoying people being killed for their stupidity. The down-side is that after 15 episodes that prepare something huge, the show ends. No real ending, no closure, just a bitter taste of cloth in one's mouth, as if you just swallowed a piece of suit. | 1 |
24,766 | [
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] | 284 | 365 | I quite this Anne Rice book adaption. While most of the film is filmed here in Australia it offers a great amount of scenery and a fantastic area to shoot in. Lestat (Stuart Townsend) has recently woke up from a long period time of sleep and has decided to betray his vampire oath by revealing himself to a band. When he becomes a popular movie icon his fellow vampires, understadebly, go mad and plot his death. Meanwhile Jesse (Marguerite Moreau) a orphaned member of the supernatural studies, who has an ancient vampire family tree, has become deeply obsessed with Lestat. Her boss David (Paul McGann) understands her obsession and revaeals his obsession with the vampire Marius, (Vincent Perez)who is an ancient vampire and the man who made Lestat a vampire too. Jesse is given Lestats diary and reads of his first killing and an encounter with the Queen of the Damned- Akasha (Aaliyah). When Lestat holds a concert in Death Valley he receives news that not only will angry vampires be there Akasha may come as well. Meanwhile Akasha has other plans. She goes to a vampire coven, a bar, and kills everyone in her path. With Lestat tempted with royality and loving care by Akasha the ancient vampires consisting of Marius and Jesses Aunt Maharet (Lena Olin) plot against them. Join Her Or Die?<br /><br />I thought the film was fantastic, it had great fight scenes, great music and great locations. Aaliyah sadly passed away in a plane crash shortly before the films premiere, but she looked stunning on the set and off the sets.<br /><br />I gave this film 10/10 because it was a fantastic film and I urge you to see it! | 1 |
24,782 | [
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] | 257 | 342 | After 10 viewings in 20 years I too think this was the Crazy Gang's best effort on film, with more cohesion in the plot than their next best, "Alf's Button Afloat". They were indeed a crazy trio of double acts thrown together mainly on stage, sometimes in front of royalty, until Chesney Allen retired in the '40's through "ill-health". He outlived them all by years. Apparently they were just as mad outside "work", regularly playing practical jokes on one another.<br /><br />The Six Wonder Boys troupe head for I'll-Get-Her-To-Tell-Me (Alaska) to dig for the gold that was being found there. It seemed a better idea than going to Mansfield ... because they'd been there. When they get to Red Gulch they find their information was a mere 40 years out of date - they thought that the chips that were in the guilty newspaper they'd read tasted funny. But by then it doesn't matter as they've all fallen in love with Snow White and want to help her grandad find his long lost stash of gold. Baddie Bill "M" McGrew wants it himself however.<br /><br />The number of verbal and visual puns is astonishing, but most of them will probably only make sense(?) to Brits and ex-pats interested in seeing '30's British b&w comedies. Imho nearly all of the gags and routines work, including the Gold If patter between Bud & Chesney and the "Whistle While You Work" pastiche - even the "Always Getting Our Man" Mountie inserts. A marvellous little film, in a rather tired looking condition but utterly recommended. | 1 |
24,784 | [
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] | 340 | 393 | After getting thrown out of their last job and finding employment scarce in the United Kingdom, the six members of the Wonder Boys, better known as The Crazy Gang see an advertisement for employment in the gold strike town of Red Gulch in the Yukon Territory. It's from a newspaper clipping and on the back there's a story about Chamberlain saying the country better be prepared for war. Off they go to the Yukon and The Frozen Limits.<br /><br />By the way, it's case of misplaced Chamberlains. The clipping is forty years old and it refers to Joe Chamberlain and the Boer War rather than Neville in the current crisis. But that's typical of how things go for this crew. I can see Stan Laurel making the same mistake.<br /><br />Of course when they get there it's a ghost town inhabited only by young Jean Kent and her grandfather Moore Marriott. He's getting on in years and is a bit touched in the head. Marriott's got a gold mine that he's misplaced somewhere that he goes to in his sleep, that is when he's sleepwalking. The Gang better help him find that mine or otherwise pretty Ms. Kent won't marry stalwart trapper Anthony Hulme, but rather saloon owner Bernard Lee, a fate worse than death.<br /><br />This was my first exposure to the Crazy Gang and I can see both why they were so acclaimed in the UK and why they never made any impact across the pond. The jokes come fast and furious and then were a number of things that the Code in the USA just wouldn't allow. The jokes are also strictly topical British and a lot just wouldn't be gotten over here.<br /><br />The sight gags are universal, the final chase scene is worthy of anything that the Marx Brothers did in America. My suggestion is that if you watch The Frozen Limits, tape it if you have a working familiarity with British history and run it two or three times just to make sure you pick up everything. It will be worth it. | 1 |
24,790 | [
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] | 230 | 304 | I know that Chill Wills usually played lovable old sorts in Westerns. But his role in this segment is something I've remembered for a long time. Wills could be a first rate villain. Yes, Burgess Meredith's Fall was correct! That look in Hepplewhite's eye! It expressed porcine greed, ignorance, and the threat of violence all at once. Quite a performance, I think.<br /><br />The segment itself was a good one, too. Question: couldn't the little black bag cure alcoholism? I guess it did, sort of, with Fall. But the doctor would have been wise to apply the cure, if he had it, as quickly as possible to Hepplewhite.<br /><br />There is one moment that was annoying but also necessary. And it is something that appears to recur in these Night Gallery segments. It's Serling's constant need to sermonize. For that's what we got, one more time, with Dr. Fall. I don't know what was more frustrating, losing the black bag and all its miracles or not being to stop Fall from preaching about the bag's benefit for humanity, all while rubbing Hepplewhite's greedy face in the mud, and, therefore, all but begging for Hepplewhite to strike out at him. But as I say, it was necessary. At least it was for me. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to see Wills' performance discussed above. All done without moving a muscle or speaking a word. | 1 |
24,808 | [
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] | 245 | 315 | First, I rated this movie 10/10. To me, it's simply one of the best I saw since I was born (I'm 23, but I saw numerous films). The story is cruel, but reality is, too, not ? It went deep into me and stirred my bowels. I saw it about 5 or 6 years ago and it still shakes me - and I still remember it !<br /><br />Second, there is no 'national preference' (this expression is a direct translation from the French) for this movie. I mean it's not because it is a French movie that I put it so high : it has really caught me when I saw it. Furthermore, I don't know well Marcel Carne's filmography, so I don't know if it is or not his best movie, but I know it is not his most famous : Hotel du Nord, Quai des Brumes and Les Enfants du Paradis are the most famous.<br /><br />Third, the movie's in B&W, but it deals with inter-temporal problems of youth (not acne) like love, friends and studies in a modern way. It could even be remade frame-by-frame with actual young actors, a Dolby(tm) sound and special effects (a car crash), it would still be a great film !<br /><br />Problem : Maybe is it a film to be seen by young adults (from 16 to 25 years old) - and above, of course - for its message to be well understood... Did I say it was a great movie ? | 1 |
24,809 | [
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] | 244 | 300 | I blow hot and cold over Carné. He really can be a puzzle for me. I think perhaps his inspiration left him a little earlier than it did for other directors of his generation. Certainly a man who came to maturity in the Thirties with the Popular Front seems ill at ease in the France of the Fifties, with its rampant commercialism and heavy American influence. He is almost thirty years older than his young stars, and it shows. The party scenes go on much longer than they should, as if he were trying to buy time for the anemic scenario to work. Roland Lesaffre's character--he plays Pascale Petit's older brother--seems to exist only to reassure the director that his old-style ideas are still sound.<br /><br />At two hours, this picture is far too long. Still, let me praise Pascale Petit for her game performance; she was a natural who should have challenged Brigitte Bardot for sexpot supremacy, but somehow lost her way. Andrea Parisy is excellent too as the girl who gets pregnant and wants Charrier to marry her and make her baby legitimate (yes, they still thought that way in the Fifties). Laurent Terzieff is the only French actor who could play an anarchist convincingly: he is great here as he rescues a cat from death, then remarks he can't stand cats. Jacques Charrier only reminds me how mediocre he was as an actor, with that constant little grin and those blank eyes. | 1 |
24,810 | [
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] | 269 | 392 | It's generally an accepted fact that Marcel Carné's 1936-1946 movies are masterpieces and it's considered polite to say that the rest are mediocrities.This is an unfair opinion:at least ,two of the latter era are eminently watchable:"Thérèse Raquin" ,his best post-war work,and "les tricheurs" (the cheats).<br /><br />There's a strange evolution from the Prevert golden hour to "les tricheurs":in "les enfants du paradis" "quai des brumes" or "le jour se lève",true love is thwarted by the villains. In "les tricheurs" true love does not exist anymore:we deal with a bunch of young people who believe in nothing;falling in love would be incongruous for this youth.The adults are not the villains at all:Mic's brother and mother are kind people ,but she is beyond their command.Very few grown-ups appear anyway.<br /><br />During two hours,the characters do not stop playing around,dancing,listening to jazz records(a music which was not still part of the bourgeois culture),and heavily drinking .When two of them discover they care for each others ,it will be too late.<br /><br />The cast is rather good ,Laurent Terzieff as an existentialist cynic and Andréa Parisy as a rich kid are the stand-outs.On the other hand,Pascale Petit and mainly Jacques Charrier(who married Brigitte Bardot the same year as "les tricheurs")do not possess the ambiguity their parts ask for.They are all smile,too sweet and to nice to be believable.<br /><br />Oddly,"les tricheurs" was labeled "nouvelle vague"!When you know what the priests of this cinema school (the likes of Godard)thought of Carné ,it's really a good joke.But this disenchantment you feel throughout the whole movie is really disturbing. | 1 |
24,814 | [
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] | 239 | 307 | It kept me on the edge of my seat. True, the story has a few plot holes, but the sheer tension of it, the way the director just keeps challenging the premise is simply fascinating.<br /><br />José Coronado and Adriana Ozores are two of Spain's best actors (see La vida mancha and Héctor) and here they appear as a happy upper-middle class couple. Beneath it all, the truth is that all of Coronado's life is a lie. He's not an economist, never went to college or does not work in Spain's Central Bank Reserve, as everybody else believes. We get a few insights as to how he kept up appearances or manage to do it, and while not very plausible it is still somehow believable.<br /><br />The inner-workings of the scam are shown intermittently, but it is credible because Coronado is a source of self-assurance and assertiveness. He not only believes in the scam, he also believes in the film premise, and therefore he carries it.<br /><br />Sure, it tests belief that a wife would not know the inner workings of a marriage's finances for almost 10 years, but again, since he's supposedly a brilliant economist.<br /><br />It has been said, in a nationalistic tone, that the movie is not "distinctively Spanish", as if that were a litmus test for good film. True, no castanets or odd cabbies in this one, just a taut thriller. You'll want to know how this story ends once you start watching. | 1 |
24,828 | [
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] | 259 | 347 | One of the best silent dramas I've seen. As dark and shadowy as anything the German Expressionists produced, but featuring performances that were quite understated and naturalistic for the day. No camera mugging and no unintentional laughs due to wild-eyed arm-waving histrionics. Sjostrom gave a convincing performance as the drunken, mean-spirited and frightening David Holm.<br /><br />Set mostly at night in a dingy Swedish slum, the film had a very claustrophobic set-bound feel to it, aided by the low key lighting and extensive use of irising.<br /><br />There was a deep, and typically Scandinavian, sense of despair and hopelessness to the narrative: the film begins in a rather grim present, and then we're told David Holm's story in a series of flashbacks (and flashbacks within flashbacks--a pretty complex story structure for 1921), where his character is offered numerous chances at redemption, but he doesn't take them, and we know he won't take them, because we've seen him die drunk and wretched and mean as ever in the present. The penultimate scene is as dark as any I have seen in all of cinema.<br /><br />The writing and directing is tight and intelligent, even by today's standards. In several instances, Sjostrom skillfully sets the audience up to suspect one thing, and then pulls out a surprise. The ending might not be such a surprise to some viewers, but I didn't see it coming.<br /><br />This movie deserves a full restoration and DVD release. Or even a crappy budget release. It just needs to be out there so people can see and appreciate it.<br /><br />9.5/10, which rounds up to 10/10 | 1 |
24,829 | [
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] | 250 | 315 | This film is a masterpiece to put it simply. Especially the double exposure made by the cameraman Julius Jaenzon. It is skillfully made even with the standards we are used to today seventy eight years later. Viktor Sjöström, the director, also plays the main character, David Holm. On the night of new years eve he is killed in a fight, and the legend says that the first one who dies on the new year, will have to work as a soul-collector in the form of a transparent ghost. There is a new soul-collector to be appointed every year.<br /><br />The scene in which the alcoholic, David Holm, rises up from his dead body (like the soul is leaving his earthly body) in the churchyard (where the fight took place) is a real award for a filmloving eye. Also when the present soul-collector arrives with his horse and carriage is a beautiful but also a scary scene. David Holm recognizes this soul-collector as a drinkingfriend from earlier life. It is now his turn to take over. Just like Scrooge in Dickens story "A christmas tale", David is shown what his life and doings has led to for the people around him.<br /><br />The film is about the danger of abusing drugs, in this case alcohol. It is based upon a book by Nobel prize winner Selma Lagerlöf. Viktor Sjöström filmed a few more of her books, but this is the one with the best outcome, maybe because this book is the most filmic of them.<br /><br /> | 1 |
24,835 | [
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] | 233 | 311 | In the New Year's Eve, the tuberculous sister of the Salvation Army Edit (Astrid Holm) asks her mother and her colleague Maria (Lisa Lundholm) to call David Holm (Victor Sjöström) to visit her in her deathbed. Meanwhile, the alcoholic David is telling to two other drunkards in the cemetery the legend of the Phantom Coach and his coachman: in accordance with the legend, the last sinner to die in the turn of the New Year becomes the soul collector, gathering souls in his coach. When David denies to visit Edit, his friends have an argument with him, they fight and David dies. When the coachman arrives, he recognizes his friend Georges (Tore Svennberg), who died in the end of the last year. George revisits parts of David's obnoxious life and in flashbacks, he shows how mean and selfish David was.<br /><br />"Körkarlen" is an impressive and stylish silent movie, with magnificent special effects (for a 1921 movie). The characters are very well developed; however, the story is dated and there is a weird and unexplained situation, when Sister Edit tells that she loves David Holm. Why should a enlightened woman love such a despicable man that wasted his life corrupting other people? Despite being religiously dated in the present days, it gives a beautiful message of faith and redemption in the end. My vote is nine.<br /><br />Title (Brazil): "A Carroça Fantasma" ("The Phantom Coach") | 1 |
24,837 | [
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] | 299 | 364 | Not as well known as the English, American, German and French cinema, though cinema from Sweden from the '20's was also quite good, interesting and revolutionary.<br /><br />This is a movie that is made great by its story. The story is told in 'A Christmas Carol' kind of way, in which the death himself confronts the deceased with his past, present and what could have been. It's of course a story that concentrates on morals and it does this very well. The message comes across as very powerful and effective. This is of course also definitely due to the effective directing from the father of Swedish cinema; Victor Sjöström.<br /><br />The story is based on the novel by other Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf. The story is adapted by Victor Sjöström himself, who perhaps should had taken out a few more elements, to let the story and movie flow better. It perhaps takes a bit too long before the movie starts to take form and the story gets clear but when the movie does take form and pace it becomes a really wonderful one.<br /><br />The movie does not only have a great story, it also is a good looking one. The movie uses some early and effective effects and uses some different color filters to create the right mood and to indicate what it past, present and 'future'.<br /><br />Sjöström did not only wrote and directed this movie, he also plays the main character. Of course the acting in the movie is over-the-top at times, by todays standards but not as bad as in for instance early German movies was the case. And after all, this movie is more about its story and morals than it is about the acting, so it really doesn't matter much, or distracts.<br /><br />A really great and effective underrated silent-movie classic from Sweden.<br /><br />9/10 | 1 |
24,839 | [
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] | 240 | 310 | Victor Sjöström was quite the master in this film, having starred in it, directed it and even wrote the screenplay! That's pretty amazing. While today few have any idea who Sjöström was, he might be familiar to Ingmar Bergman fans as the star one of Bergman's most acclaimed films, WILD STRAWBERRIES.<br /><br />As far as this film goes, it's a very mixed bag. On one hand, you have to respect it because for 1921, it's a very good film. The idea of the Grim Reaper sitting down with a dead man to discuss his wasted life is pretty imaginative. Plus, the special effect of the Phantom Carriage is pretty convincing and technically speaking this is a well-crafted film. On the other hand, it's an amazingly dated and preachy film--more like something you'd expect to be shown in Sunday School instead of in an honest to goodness theater. Plus, some of the story elements just don't make sense. Instead of coming off as dedicated or good, the dying Salvation Army worker seems like a sap--a very sad and confusing sap. Why is she "in love" with this man? Am I missing something?<br /><br />So, my recommendation is that if you are insanely in love with silents (like me), then by all means watch it. But, if you aren't a silent fan, this film might do nothing to convince you that this style film is brilliant because the story is so overly melodramatic and dated. | 1 |
24,844 | [
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] | 248 | 379 | Once upon a time, in Sweden, there was a poor Salvation Army sister. At death's door, she requests, "Send for David Holm!" But, Victor Sjöström (as David Holm) cannot be located, because he is spending New Year's Eve in a graveyard, with his drinking buddies. Dying Sister Astrid Holm (as Edit) wants to see if praying for Mr. Sjöström's soul, over the past year, has produced any results; arguably, it has not. In the graveyard, Sjöström tells the story of "The Phantom Carriage", which he heard from his dead friend Tore Svennberg (as Georges). According to legend, the last person to die in each year must pick up the souls of all the dead people, until being relieved next New Year's Eve...<br /><br />Director Sjöström, whose lead performance is very strong, combines with photographer Julius Jaenzon to create a visually appealing film. The great "double exposure" effect is used frequently, but never seems overdone; and, it doesn't make the film's other dramatic highlights any less memorable (for example, Sjöström's tearing of his sewn coat and axing of the door). A Selma Lagerlöf story probably wasn't one you could, or would want to, tamper with in the 1920s - which may, or may not be, why the ending of this film is a letdown. And, unlike similar spiritual stories, it's difficult to suspend your disbelief, if you think too carefully about what is really happening in "Körkarlen".<br /><br />******* Körkarlen (1/1/21) Victor Sjöström ~ Victor Sjöström, Hilda Borgström, Tore Svennberg | 1 |
24,853 | [
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] | 303 | 369 | One Dark Night has a typical teen horror film set-up with a quite a unique twist. The ultra-brooding musical score and Gothic/claustrophobic atmosphere adds greatly to this small film that delivers. Meg Tilly is excellent as "Julie," and leads us through the maze of the mausoleum, giving a sense of foreboding and loneliness. The other teens are equally effective in their roles as is Melissa Newman, the ultimate heroine of the film. The special effects are excellent, though dated. This film is highly overlooked, but that may be good so that it was never ruined by endless sequels. There is a great, dark magic flowing through this film; once tapped into, you really get it and you're in for some fun. The double-disc DVD is available, though the original negative could not be found to restore the film. Maybe someday it will be located. I guess in some ways the carbon speckles in parts do help the film by giving it an old school respectability and making it more unexpected at the end when suddenly there are plenty of effects.<br /><br />The second disc has a rough cut/alternate version with a temp score version of the film that gives more explanation of the demise of two of the girls, very Poe-ish("The Cask of Amontillado" comes to mind in a new way!) Also, great ending tension going in on the dark crypt opening. Not sure it had the punch for main stream audiences, but certainly worked for me and extremely creepy.. . also, there is a making of documentary that is interesting because it gives info on what was going on at the time with the actors, crew, director and writer; candid material, then current logos, discussions of shots and scenes, rehearsals. Very unique that this stuff exists for a small film back then. | 1 |
24,866 | [
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] | 250 | 303 | I saw this film when it was released to theaters. It's definitely one to remember, I had forgotten the title until recently. A friend found it via online search.<br /><br />One Dark Night is rather unusual for the suspense/horror genre of the time in that it contains no blood. It is of the teen fright variety yet the teens are respectable in their own ways. It's a nice, old-school film with props and scenes that reflect the times. Our hero rides a motorcycle with no brain bucket, for example.<br /><br />As has been mentioned by previous reviewers, One Dark Night is currently available on DVD. The original negative was not available for the DVD transition. Some reel changes are a bit rough but this doesn't take away from the story. That being said, the colors are vibrant and the lighting is very good.<br /><br />Adam West plays a rather smallish part in this film as RayMar's son-in-law. His role as an overbearing and indifferent husband is thankfully short.<br /><br />The story builds over the course of the film. Unlike many horror films of the era, One Dark Night is a great suspense story that gives the viewer time to absorb what is happening.<br /><br />The final 20 minutes or so of One Dark Night are what make it so memorable. RayMar's telekinetic abilities are used to open old graves in the mausoleum, pull the coffins out, open them and move the corpses around. Attention was afforded to great detail in the final scenes. The rotting, worm-riddled corpses look quite real. | 1 |
24,867 | [
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] | 262 | 319 | I didn't know anything about this movie before I watched it. It seems to be a lesser-known teen horror from the 80's. What struck me were the ways it differed from so many other movies from that era.<br /><br />The first thing I noticed was how slowly this movie builds. It doesn't do the typical setup of showing characters being murdered one by one. It takes its time building the back story, leaving a little bit of mystery about what might happen. I was almost starting to think no one would even really get hurt in this movie. But everything leads to the climatic sequence during the last 15 minutes, and then it gets fairly graphic (this was a bad time to take a snack break--I almost couldn't finish my pizza once it started).<br /><br />The characters also seem slightly more three-dimensional than a lot of the cheap teen scare flicks. There conversations were refreshingly level-headed for the most part, as opposed to the over-the-top stereotypes you'd expect. For example, the girl who is the popular, snobby, queen-bee of the clique isn't constantly spouting insults at everyone, but is capable of having doubts and showing some consideration for others.<br /><br />So, to summarize, I felt this movie was somewhat original compared to what I expected, and a little better made as well. It drew me in, kept me interested, and then let me have it. As I said, it's pretty gory during the finale, but almost family friendly much of the rest of the time. I don't need to own it, but I'm glad I discovered it. | 1 |
24,873 | [
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] | 309 | 395 | I can't describe the feeling when I got this crappy VHS rental cassette in my hands about 20 years ago. Somehow I got my father to rent it for me and I watched it twice with my little brother. Yes, we got nightmares. This film was originally rated as PG in the US, in many other countries, including Finland, it was restricted under 18 or 16. The film was aimed to teenagers, but this must be the goriest PG-rated film ever. There's no bad language or nudity in it what so ever. Originally made in 1981, stayed on the shelves for a couple of years before release.<br /><br />This is an A-class B-movie, a true, well made 80's horror flick. A bunch of college girls decide to spent a night in a mausoleum, not knowing that a supernatural evil awaits... <br /><br />You can almost smell the rotting flesh and feel the atmosphere of this movie. It's campy, utterly stupid, but they just can't make these movies anymore. There is definitely a certain feel to this 80's horror genre. This one is still effectively spooky and entertaining after all these years.<br /><br />The effects are just oozing quality by Ellis Burman Jr and Thomas R. Burman. The make-up effects play a big part in this flick, otherwise it would've been just a boring teen slasher.<br /><br />It's now available on DVD at last and it's a Special Edition DVD including some extras too. Commentary track is interesting.<br /><br />(In fact, this version isn't so special after all. Below average transfer on DVD, some glitches and scratches here and there) At first it was going to be released by the Blue Underground but unfortunately it was canceled, so Shriek Show released it without restoring the print. Too bad!)<br /><br />Great date-movie!<br /><br />Recommended!!!<br /><br />Note! I only gave 8 out of 10 because of the "nostalgic values", otherwise 6 out of 10 | 1 |
24,876 | [
300,
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] | 288 | 338 | This is my favourite movie of all time. And I always think of it as John Huston's requiem.<br /><br />I must have seen it at least 20 times and never tire of it. The mood, the script, the singing, the dinner, it is like being invited into someone's home and observing the events and not able to participate even though you want to... It is a rare treasure, this movie and I cannot write enough praise for it.<br /><br />It is cast incredibly well, with quite a few Abbey Theatre faces and also the wonderful tenor voice of Frank Patterson. Lady Gregory's poem recited in the movie is one of the most moving ever written. Anjelica's scene walking down the stairs as she listens to the song is one of the best performances every seen on film. I cry every time I see it..for all the right reasons.<br /><br />We have all had love lost at an early age and weep for our young hopeful selves.<br /><br />Donal McCann acted in far too few movies for my liking, he just loved stage work and stuck to it, and it is our loss that we do not have more of his performances on film as he does so much with this delicate role by expression and the portrayal of a deep love for his wife that will never be reciprocated and he conveys such inner sadness at knowing this.<br /><br />If you want your movies action and plot packed avoid this, there really is no beginning, middle or end just a lens onto the characters at a dinner party in Dublin 80 years ago and all the little nuances and shadings of the personalities portrayed so beautifully.<br /><br />Bravo to all who were involved in this production. 10 out of 10. | 1 |
24,877 | [
300,
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] | 265 | 347 | John Huston was seriously ill when he made his final achievement,and it's thoroughly his testament:uncompromising,difficult ,a thousand miles away from crazes and fashions,it will stand as the best "last film" you can ever dream of.A very austere screenplay,no action,no real hero,but a group of people coping with the vanity of life,the fleeting years and death.The party doesn't delude people for long.Admittedly,warmth and affection emanate from the songs and the meal,complete with turkey and pudding.But the passage of time has partly ruined Julia's voice,first crack in the mirror.Then the camera leaves the room where the guests are gathered and searches the old lady's bedroom.For sure,hers seems to have been a happy life,but it's a life inexorably coming to an end-A shot shows towards the end of the movie Julia on her future deathbed-.Maybe an unfulfilled life,because she remained a spinster,with no children to carry on .Only some poor things,yellowish photographs,bibelots and trinklets.... But are a human being's hopes and dreams all fulfilled?Look at Gretta.She 's a married woman ,about thirty-five,she's still beautiful and healthy but she knows something is broken.What Julia is today,she will be tomorrow,that's why,in her stream of consciousness,she goes back to her past,only to find out how harrowing her memories are: a young man committed suicide for her,a symbol of her youth now waning.The final monologue,if we listen closely to it,involves us all in this eternal tragedy,the doomed to failure human condition,John Huston's masterly lesson. | 1 |
24,905 | [
300,
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] | 279 | 370 | When Melville's "Pierre; or The Ambiguities" hit bookstores in 1852, his first publication since "Moby Dick" a year earlier, the public response was similar to that found among the IMDB reviews of "POLA X". Newspapers even published headlines like: "Melville Insane!" which, of course, he wasn't. But, when one compares the writing styles found in "Moby Dick" and "Pierre," one finds in the latter a sharp departure from the simple and often declamatory style found in the former. Clearly, he was mimicking the overly florid style of the now-forgotten Victorian Romances that were easily outselling his immortal "Moby Dick." He was not content, however, to turn out the sort of product that his publishers wanted, and that surely would have sold. His version of a Victorian romance was a twisted, cynical one, perhaps, but brilliant in its synthesis. The alternate title: "The ambiguities" is quite appropriate. As Pierre searches for, and thinks he finds, truth, we become more and more uncertain what and whom to believe. As he searches for happiness, he becomes more and more miserable.<br /><br />"POLA X" is a fascinating adaptation of this novel, set in modern or nearly modern France. Though, in some ways, it leaves little to the imagination, and shows us graphically the incestuous relations that Melville could only hint at, the ambiguities which make the novel and its message so alluring are perfectly in tact. The questions it raises are ones that few films have thought to ask, yet the answers are left to the viewer.<br /><br />I recommend a reading of the novel, which is much shorter than "Moby Dick," before seeing this movie. I hope more people discover this tantalizing film. | 1 |
24,914 | [
300,
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] | 270 | 328 | I've tried to reconcile why so many bad reviews of this film, while the vast majority of reviews are given a rating of between 7 and 10. The reason may be this film is kind of hard to describe in a positive review, although a few have done that quite nicely already. This film is confusing, depressing, and doesn't have a happy ending. I still gave Pola X a rating of 10, because it is basically for me literature and art combined on film. That is really my favorite kind of filmmaking. I've only seen two of Carax's films: this one and Mauvis Sang. As with this film, I'm being somewhat pretentious when I call this one of Carax's best films- but I am. Carax has a minimalist style. If that type of film does not appeal to you and is boring, then it would be best not to watch this. But Pola X was less minimalist than Mauvis Sang, so it had quite a lot of intensity for a thriller- at least for my taste. I found it quite interesting and absorbing. The two lead roles did an excellent job acting. (I mean the lead and the young woman he thought was his half sister.) Catherine D. is always great, but her role was not very large or significant in the story. But everyone did a fine job. I thought the cult stuff was great. It may have not been very believable, but that is due to its being rather abstract. There is a lot going on between the lines in this film. This is a very Freudian psycho-thriller. | 1 |
24,926 | [
300,
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] | 258 | 301 | The Director loves the actress and it shows. The actress inhabits the character, whom we love at first sight and sound. The character loves her jealous unprepossessing husband and he loves her. His childhood friend secretly loves his wife and the fact that his friend is a beautiful woman makes the love tragic and ironic. His wife is jealous of his childhood friend and thinks her attentions are out of secret love for her husband.<br /><br />Then there is a murder and the investigating police lieutenant, who loves only his bi-racial son, and resents being taken from his company by the above characters, who have had some unpleasant contact with the deceased and are all lying to one degree or another, unravels the mystery with some of the most precise and authentic procedural detail ever captured on film.<br /><br />And then there are the atmospherics of a post-war Paris, where coal is in short supply, music is filled with erotic longing and wistful memory, and innocence has long ago been washed away by the rain.<br /><br />All of this in a milieu of magicians whose tricks don't always work, dogs who walk on their hind feet and express music criticism, hungry news reporters and exhausted cops.<br /><br />And then there are many of the finest actors of their generation who have been through some very bad years directed by, to come full circle, a man who is in love with his lead actress and who, with full justification, was a respected friend of Picasso.<br /><br />I've seen this film often and I love all of them and it. | 1 |
24,931 | [
300,
400
] | 253 | 332 | Clouzot followed Le Corbeau, where no one knew who was penning the poison thus everyone was suspected, with another masterpiece, Quai des Orfevres four years later in which we know from the outset (or think we do) whodunnit. Top-billed Louis Jouvet doesn't appear for forty minutes by which time Clouzot has established a rich milieu of Music Hall, music publishers, etc and a fine cast of colourful characters; Angela Lansbury lookalike (Lansbury appeared in Woman of Paris that same year) Suzy Delair scores as the chanteuse whose desire to improve her lot inspires the jealousy of her husband/accompanist Bernard Blier who follows her to the home of an elderly letch only to find he is already dead. From here things go seriously wrong, his car is stolen before he leaves the premises so his pre-arranged alibi is out the window whilst meanwhile, unknown to him, his wife confesses to the murder to the photographer neighbour, a closet lesbian in love with her, who volunteers to return to the crime scene and retrieve Delair's scarf and as long as she's there,thoughtfully wipes her prints of the murder weapon, a champagne bottle. At this point investigator Jouvet gets involved and from then on it's a case of keeping the plates spinning in the air. Clouzot's output was relatively small but virtually all of it was, as Spencer Tracey said in another context, 'cherce', with Le Salaire de peur and Les Diaboliques still to come. In short this is a must for French cinema buffs. | 1 |
24,940 | [
300,
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] | 249 | 338 | Ruthless mercenary Bruno Rivera (Paul Naschy in peak nasty form) betrays his pregnant partner/girlfriend Meiko (well played by Eiko Nagashima) in order to have exclusive dibs on a fortune in stolen diamonds. But Meiko manages to seriously wound Bruno before he gets away. Bruno winds up in the swanky chalet of kindly rich doctor Don Simon (a fine performance by Lautaro Murua). He also attracts the attention of Simon's two hottie daughters: the fiery Monica (luscious Silvia Aguiler) and the sweet Alicia (nicely essayed by the lovely Azucena Hernandez). However, Bruno soon realizes that something is very amiss about the isolated place and plans to escape as soon as he can. Meanwhile, the bitter Meiko tries to find Bruno so she can exact her revenge on him. Naschy, who wrote and directed as well as stars, concocts one of his strangest, most twisted and perverse horror vehicles ever with this little seen oddity. The offbeat plot and mysterious atmosphere become more weird and unnerving as the story unfolds, eventually leading to a genuinely startling surprise downbeat ending. This film further benefits from occasional moments of graphic gore (watch out for the memorable sequence with one poor guy being devoured alive by vicious flesh-eating pigs!), Alejandro Ulloa's slick cinematography, and a decent sprinkling of nudity and soft-core sex. Good supporting turns by Roxana Dupre as sassy maid Raquel, Pepe Ruiz as amorous playboy Don Serafin, and Julia Saly as the deranged Teresa. A pleasingly grim and worthwhile shocker. | 1 |
24,941 | [
300,
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] | 250 | 325 | After I first saw this, I thought, "Wow, this is the most spectacular movie, visually-speaking, I've ever seen." Since that time, I've seen some that topped it but it still ranks as one of the best in that department. I'm just disgusted the long-awaited DVD was so poorly done, the quality of this transfer hardly better than the VHS tape.<br /><br />The jungle scenes are filmed in Cameroon, and "lush" is the best adjective to describe what you see. Except for jungle sounds, "seeing" is certainly almost everything in the beginning as there is almost no "hearing," no dialog until Tarzan (Christopher Lambert) befriends Ian Holm and vice-versa....so be ready for that, if you haven't watched this film. <br /><br />Story-wise, all I'll say is this is not the Tarzan many of us came to know in Johnny Weismuller films.....but that's not a complaint. For those craving action, and don't care about cinematography as I do, you just have to get past that silent introduction period <br /><br />In this Tarzan version, our hero goes back to Scotland (his roots), adapts to that environment (for the most part....and a little too quickly for credibility, frankly) and then returns to the jungle without Jane. This is supposedly more true to the Tarzan books, written by Edgar Rice Burroughs.<br /><br />The special effects in here were done by Rick Baker, one of the best in the business. Sharp DVD or not, this is still a stunning film to view and very interesting throughout its 2 hours and 15 minutes. | 1 |
24,945 | [
300,
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] | 296 | 382 | This begins a series (which I'll hopefully keep up every week-end) of films that came out during my childhood in this case, it's one I've only managed to catch now. It was clearly intended as the last word on the subject, which basically had been debased to the level of hokum over the years; however, in its uncompromising striving for a serious-minded approach (a sure measure of which is that the protagonist is never once referred to by the name he's been known all this time the world over!), the film-makers rather lost track of the fact that the thing was intended primarily as entertainment! Consequently, we get a decidedly staid representation of events with more care given to meticulous period reconstruction than in providing a functional thematic environment for its mythic jungle hero! Even so, Christopher Lambert rose to stardom as did another debutante, Andie McDowell, playing his love interest (named Jane, of course) with the title role, which he handles creditably enough under the circumstances. However, Ralph Richardson (to whom the film is dedicated, this being his swan-song) steals every scene he's in as Tarzan's natural grandfather who, in spite of showing obvious affection for his long-lost kin, can't bring himself to forget tradition in an effort to understand his predicament; the hero, in fact, is much more comfortable interacting with primates (even contriving, after having gone back home, to save his adoptive 'dad' from captivity). The film is otherwise very good to look at (with cinematography by Stanley Kubrick regular John Alcott, no less), features an appropriately grandiose score as well as remarkable make-up effects (by Rick Baker) and, while essentially disappointing as a Tarzan outing, retains considerable value nonetheless as a prestige picture of its day. | 1 |
24,965 | [
300,
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] | 313 | 369 | I remember seeing this film in the theater in 1984 when I was 6 years-old (you do the math). I absolutely loved it. I was Tarzan for the 2 weeks after seeing it (climbing the furniture, jumping around making monkey sounds). It started a fascination with Tarzan and monkeys, but oddly enough a longer lasting love for Christopher Lambert (keep in mind that I saw Highlander very shortly after this). 1984 was the last time I saw that film, until about a month ago. It happened to be on cable as I was getting ready for bed at 3:30 am and even though it was late and I was tired and I had to be at work at 9:00 am, I stayed up to watch this movie that I loved as a kid. <br /><br />Upon viewing it I realized that it was not that great of a film and even odder then that, that Andie MacDowell's voice was dubbed by someone else. Ian Holme was of course solid as usual, and surprisingly the monkey suits still kind of held up, but what was most surprising was how good Lambert was as Tarzan. He was great! The depth he managed to capture in so few lines, his primal body language and most importantly his ability to bring this character through its extremely large ark, were just amazing.<br /><br />As I stated earlier I am Lambert fan, but I'm used to Highlander, The Hunted and Fortress. In this film he was really quite good and it is a shame that he never got a chance to portray a character with such depth again.<br /><br />So to make a short story way too long, I was a little disappointed that the film was not that good, but I was glad to see that Lambert was good and I do not regret staying up until 6:00am to see it. | 1 |
24,991 | [
300,
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] | 275 | 341 | In the veins of Jeepers Creepers and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Monster Man surprisingly well-made--though mindless--little horror. Throw in a little buddy-comedy, nice gore and intense scare. It's hard no to say that Monster Man is really entertaining. The low budget seem pretty obvious, but it doesn't effected the presentation of the movie in general and put more big budget horror movies in shame.<br /><br />Yes, the plot somewhat generic as possible. Pair of friend, Adam (Eric Jungman)and Harley (Justin Urich) are driving cross country to interrupt the wedding of a woman Adam has always loved. While Adam is more nerdy type, Harley is a self-proclaimed ladies man and very offensive loudmouth. Adding a bonus to the plot, then they picked up a sexy hitchhiker, Sarah (Aimee Brooks). Things turn into nightmare when a monster truck with scary face drive stalking them. When dead body starts counting, they must do the race against the time before their own life on risk.<br /><br />The plot is obviously reminiscent of many prior famous horror movies, but Michael Davis as the writer and director succeed in keeping the tension. The scare is build well enough, where characterization is never be the best, but fairly okay. The script also littered with comedies that works for the funny moments and they quite enjoyable rather than annoying and also wait for the twist in the finale. It's hilarious and shocking in the same time, which is pretty amusing.<br /><br />As conclusion, Monster Man surprisingly entertaining. It deserves more attention in the big screen. It proves that big budget doesn't make an effective horror movie, but skill does! Something that the director has shown and delivers. | 1 |
1 | [
200,
300
] | 211 | 263 | Worth the entertainment value of a rental, especially if you like action movies. This one features the usual car chases, fights with the great Van Damme kick style, shooting battles with the 40 shell load shotgun, and even terrorist style bombs. All of this is entertaining and competently handled but there is nothing that really blows you away if you've seen your share before.<br /><br />The plot is made interesting by the inclusion of a rabbit, which is clever but hardly profound. Many of the characters are heavily stereotyped -- the angry veterans, the terrified illegal aliens, the crooked cops, the indifferent feds, the bitchy tough lady station head, the crooked politician, the fat federale who looks like he was typecast as the Mexican in a Hollywood movie from the 1940s. All passably acted but again nothing special.<br /><br />I thought the main villains were pretty well done and fairly well acted. By the end of the movie you certainly knew who the good guys were and weren't. There was an emotional lift as the really bad ones got their just deserts. Very simplistic, but then you weren't expecting Hamlet, right? The only thing I found really annoying was the constant cuts to VDs daughter during the last fight scene.<br /><br />Not bad. Not good. Passable 4. | 0 |
5 | [
200,
300
] | 188 | 212 | I had high hopes for this one until they changed the name to 'The Shepherd : Border Patrol, the lamest movie name ever, what was wrong with just 'The Shepherd'. This is a by the numbers action flick that tips its hat at many classic Van Damme films. There is a nice bit of action in a bar which reminded me of hard target and universal soldier but directed with no intensity or flair which is a shame. There is one great line about 'being p*ss drunk and carrying a rabbit' and some OK action scenes let down by the cheapness of it all. A lot of the times the dialogue doesn't match the characters mouth and the stunt men fall down dead a split second before even being shot. The end fight is one of the better Van Damme fights except the Director tries to go a bit too John Woo and fails also introducing flashbacks which no one really cares about just gets in the way of the action which is the whole point of a van Damme film.<br /><br />Not good, not bad, just average generic action. | 0 |
7 | [
200,
300
] | 170 | 207 | It actually pains me to say it, but this movie was horrible on every level. The blame does not lie entirely with Van Damme as you can see he tried his best, but let's face it, he's almost fifty, how much more can you ask of him? I find it so hard to believe that the same people who put together Undisputed 2; arguably the best (western) martial arts movie in years, created this. Everything from the plot, to the dialog, to the editing, to the overall acting was just horribly put together and in many cases outright boring and nonsensical. Scott Adkins who's fight scenes seemed more like a demo reel, was also terribly underused and not even the main villain which is such a shame because 1) He is more than capable of playing that role and 2) The actual main villain was not only not intimidating at all but also quite annoying. Again, not blaming Van Damme. I will always be a fan, but avoid this one. | 0 |
11 | [
200,
300
] | 190 | 232 | Blind Date (Columbia Pictures, 1934), was a decent film, but I have a few issues with this film. First of all, I don't fault the actors in this film at all, but more or less, I have a problem with the script. Also, I understand that this film was made in the 1930's and people were looking to escape reality, but the script made Ann Sothern's character look weak. She kept going back and forth between suitors and I felt as though she should have stayed with Paul Kelly's character in the end. He truly did care about her and her family and would have done anything for her and he did by giving her up in the end to fickle Neil Hamilton who in my opinion was only out for a good time. Paul Kelly's character, although a workaholic was a man of integrity and truly loved Kitty (Ann Sothern) as opposed to Neil Hamilton, while he did like her a lot, I didn't see the depth of love that he had for her character. The production values were great, but the script could have used a little work. | 0 |
15 | [
200,
300
] | 186 | 229 | Now, I LOVE Italian horror films. The cheesier they are, the better. However, this is not cheesy Italian. This is week-old spaghetti sauce with rotting meatballs. It is amateur hour on every level. There is no suspense, no horror, with just a few drops of blood scattered around to remind you that you are in fact watching a horror film. The "special effects" consist of the lights changing to red whenever the ghost (or whatever it was supposed to be) is around, and a string pulling bed sheets up and down. Oooh, can you feel the chills? The DVD quality is that of a VHS transfer (which actually helps the film more than hurts it). The dubbing is below even the lowest "bad Italian movie" standards and I gave it one star just because the dialogue is so hilarious! And what do we discover when she finally DOES look in the attic (in a scene that is daytime one minute and night the next)...well, I won't spoil it for anyone who really wants to see, but let's just say that it isn't very "novel"! | 0 |
16 | [
200,
300
] | 245 | 297 | This cheap, grainy-filmed Italian flick is about a couple of inheritors of a manor in the Italian countryside who head up to the house to stay, and then find themselves getting killed off by ghosts of people killed in that house.<br /><br />I wasn't impressed by this. It wasn't really that scary, mostly just the way a cheap Italian film should be. A girl, her two cousins, and one cousin's girlfriend, head to this huge house for some reason (I couldn't figure out why) and are staying there, cleaning up and checking out the place. Characters come in and out of the film, and it's quite boring at points, and the majority of deaths are quite rushed. The girlfriend is hit by a car when fleeing the house after having a dream of her death, and the scene is quite good, but then things get slow again, until a confusing end, when the male cousins are killed together in some weird way, and this weirdo guy (I couldn't figure out who he was during the movie, or maybe I just don't remember) goes after this one girl, attacking her, until finally this other girl kills him off. Hate to give away the ending, but oh well. The female cousin decides to stay at the house and watch over it, and they show scenes of her living there years later. The end. You really aren't missing anything, and anyway, you probably won't find this anywhere, so lucky you. | 0 |
19 | [
200,
300
] | 207 | 280 | Every movie I have PPV'd because Leonard Maltin praised it to the skies has blown chunks! Every single one! When will I ever learn?<br /><br />Evie is a raving Old Bag who thinks nothing of saying she's dying of breast cancer to get her way! Laura is an insufferable Medusa filled with The Holy Spirit (and her hubby's protégé)! Caught between these harpies is Medusa's dumb-as-a-rock boy who has been pressed into weed-pulling servitude by The Old Bag!<br /><br />As I said, when will I ever learn?<br /><br />I was temporarily lifted out of my malaise when The Old Bag stuck her head in a sink, but, unfortunately, she did not die. I was temporarily lifted out of my malaise again when Medusa got mowed down, but, unfortunately, she did not die. It should be a capital offense to torture audiences like this!<br /><br />Without Harry Potter to kick him around, Rupert Grint is just a pair of big blue eyes that practically bulge out of its sockets. Julie Walters's scenery-chewing (especially the scene when she "plays" God) is even more shameless than her character.<br /><br />At least this Harold bangs some bimbo instead of Maude. For that, I am truly grateful. And if you're reading this Mr. Maltin, you owe me $3.99! | 0 |
20 | [
200,
300
] | 173 | 200 | Low budget horror movie. If you don't raise your expectations too high, you'll probably enjoy this little flick. Beginning and end are pretty good, middle drags at times and seems to go nowhere for long periods as we watch the goings on of the insane that add atmosphere but do not advance the plot. Quite a bit of gore. I enjoyed Bill McGhee's performance which he made quite believable for such a low budget picture, he managed to carry the movie at times when nothing much seemed to be happening. Nurse Charlotte Beale, played by Jesse Lee, played her character well so be prepared to want to slap her toward the end! She makes some really stupid mistakes but then, that's what makes these low budget movies so good! I would have been out of that place and five states away long before she even considered that it might be a good idea to leave! If you enjoy this movie, try Committed from 1988 which is basically a rip off of this movie. | 0 |
25 | [
200,
300
] | 202 | 239 | I of course saw the previews for this at the beginning of some other Lion's Gate extravaganza, so of course it was only the best parts and therefore looked intriguing. And it is, to a point. A young college student (Sarah)is finding riddles all over the place and is becoming obsessed with answering them, and in doing so she's unwittingly becoming involved in some game. Now that's fairly intriguing right there but unfortunately it all gets rather muddled and becomes so complicated that the viewer (like myself) will most likely become frustrated. Characters appear with little introduction and you're not really sure who they are or why Sarah knows them or is hanging out with them. All of this has something to do with this woman who tried to drown a young boy years ago and her reason for that was that it's "all part of the design". In reality, it's all part of the "very sketchy script" and when the film is over you'll find yourself feeling that you've lost about an hour and a half of your life that you want back for more productive uses of your time, like cleaning the bathroom, for instance. 4 out of 10. | 0 |
26 | [
200,
300
] | 216 | 281 | I gave this a 3 out of a possible 10 stars.<br /><br />Unless you like wasting your time watching an anorexic actress, in this film it's Carly Pope, behaving like a ditz, don't bother.<br /><br />Carly Pope plays Sara Novak, a young college student, who becomes intrigued with a game of riddles, that leads her down into subway tunnels underneath the city - a dangerous thing for even a well-armed man to go in alone.<br /><br />There are various intrigues in the film -- a weirdo classmate who is apparently stalking Sara, a cynical shopkeeper who runs some kind of offbeat hole-in-the-wall establishment that appears to be located in the back alley of a ghetto, a nerdish dim-wit that hangs around the cynic's shop, and a woman named Emily Gray, who is back in prison.<br /><br />Sara's father is a lawyer who is handling Emily Gray's case. <br /><br />A few years back, Emily Gray attempted to drown a 12 year old boy. Emily was put in a mental hospital for 5 years, and for some cockeyed reason they let her out again, even though it is obvious she is still dangerously deranged.<br /><br />The only explanation Emily has ever given for her crime is: I never sinned.<br /><br />It's all part of the design.<br /><br />Well, my friend, don't expect to ever get any better explanation than that, because you won't. | 0 |
27 | [
200,
300
] | 213 | 248 | I was looking forward to this movie. Trustworthy actors, interesting plot. Great atmosphere then ????? IF you are going to attempt something that is meant to encapsulate the meaning of life. First. Know it. OK I did not expect the directors or writers to actually know the meaning but I thought they may have offered crumbs to peck at and treats to add fuel to the fire-Which! they almost did. Things I didn't get. A woman wandering around in dark places and lonely car parks alone-oblivious to the consequences. Great riddles that fell by the wayside. The promise of the knowledge therein contained by the original so-called criminal. I had no problem with the budget and enjoyed the suspense. I understood and can wax lyrical about the fool and found Adrian Pauls role crucial and penetrating and then ????? Basically the story line and the script where good up to a point and that point was the last 10 minutes or so. What? Run out of ideas! Such a pity that this movie had to let us down so badly. It may not comprehend the meaning and I really did not expect the writers to understand it but I was hoping for an intellectual, if not spiritual ride and got a bump in the road | 0 |
30 | [
200,
300
] | 210 | 251 | Lowe returns to the nest after, yet another, failed relationship, to find he's been assigned to jury duty. It's in the plans to, somehow, get out of it, when he realizes the defendant is the girl he's had a serious crush on since the first grade.<br /><br />Through living in the past by telling other people about his feelings towards this girl (played by Camp), Lowe remembers those feelings and does everything in his power to clear Camp of attempted murder, while staying away from the real bad guys at the same time, and succeeding in creating a successful film at the same time.<br /><br />I've heard that St Augustine is the oldest city in the US, and I also know it has some ties to Ponce de Leon, so the backdrop is a good place to start. Unfortunately, it's the only thing good about this movie. The local police are inept, the judge is an idiot, and the defense counsel does everything in her power to make herself look like Joanie Cunningham! I don't know whether to blame the director for poor direction, or for just letting the cast put in such a hapless effort.<br /><br />In short, this movie was so boring, I could not even sleep through it! 1 out of 10 stars! | 0 |
31 | [
200,
300
] | 193 | 253 | Seriously, I can't imagine how anyone could find a single flattering thing to say about this movie, much less find it in themselves to write the glowing compliments contained in this comment section. How many methamphetamines was Bogdonovitch on during the filming of this movie? Was he giving a bonus to the actor that spat his lines out with the most speed and least inflection or thought? The dialogue is bad, the plot atrocious, even for a "screwball" comedy, and claims that the movie is an homage to classic film comedy is about the most inane thing I've ever heard. The cinematography is below the quality and innovation of that exhibited by the worst made-for-TV movies, the acting is awful (although I get the feeling that the fault for that lies squarely in the lap of the director), and speaking of which, did I mention the direction is so haphazard and inscrutable that it defies the definition of the word? The whole thing is a terribly unfunny (even in the much-beleaguered world of so-bad-it's-funny clunkers), soul-sucking, waste of two hours of your life that you'll never get back. Be afraid, be very afraid... | 0 |
34 | [
200,
300
] | 196 | 266 | I quite enjoyed The Wrecking Crew (1999), which was the last of the three films in this series (the first being Urban Menace (1999) which I've yet to see). I know it was baaaaad, but the three leads did a pretty decent job, all things considered.<br /><br />This, however, was truly atrocious. Ice-T was dreadful, and he's the producer! Can't say I've ever heard of Silkk The Shocker (who apparently never learnt how to spell), but his performance was one of the worst I've ever seen in a movie.<br /><br />Miss Jones did pretty well in her small role, though she later went on to make some atrocious, racist "jokes" on her radio show after the SE Asian tsunami (plus other occasions sadly). Way to go, girl...<br /><br />No-one else comes out with any credit. Strangely, TJ Storm and Ernie Hudson (who are both pretty bad here) are far better in The Wrecking Crew, which was made, along with Urban Menace, at the same time as Corrupt. How that works, I don't know.<br /><br />I'm going to try the Ice-T commentary now, to see whether he apologises for the film, or tries to make us think it's a great piece of film-making. | 0 |
37 | [
200,
300
] | 238 | 287 | The only reason this movie is not given a 1 (awful) vote is that the acting of both Ida Lupino and Robert Ryan is superb. Ida Lupino who is lovely, as usual, becomes increasingly distraught as she tries various means to rid herself of a madman. Robert Ryan is terrifying as the menacing stranger whose character, guided only by his disturbed mind, changes from one minute to the next. Seemingly simple and docile, suddenly he becomes clever and threatening. Ms. Lupino's character was in more danger from that house she lived in and her own stupidity than by anyone who came along. She could not manage to get out of her of her own house: windows didn't open, both front and back doors locked and unlocked from the inside with a key. You could not have designed a worse fire-trap if you tried. She did not take the precaution of having even one extra key. Nor could she figure out how to summon help from nearby neighbors or get out of her own basement while she was locked in and out of sight of her captor. I don't know what war her husband was killed in, but if it was World War II, the furnishings in her house, the styles of the clothes, especially the children and the telephone company repairman's car are clearly anachronistic. I recommend watching this movie just to see what oddities you can find. | 0 |
39 | [
200,
300
] | 164 | 212 | Wow, what an overrated movie this turned out to be! It was supposed to be "an extremely suspenseful tale of a crazed killer holding a woman hostage and in terror in her home." Well, I doubt it terrorized audiences in the early '50s and I know it would put today's audiences asleep.<br /><br />"Sends shivers down the spine," proclaims the New York Times. No, the only shivers I get is that anyone is left on the planet who believes anything the N.Y. Times prints about anything.<br /><br />Well, it was about a deranged man who held a woman hostage for a short time in her house but the man. "Howard Wilton" (Robert Ryan) was actually harmless and friendly. In fact, this was one of the nicest roles Ryan ever played! Yes, "Wilton" was nuts but he never harmed the woman and only wanted a friend to trust.<br /><br />The film even turned boring after awhile with very little going on except a lot of yakking. <br /><br />Beware, my reader.....this sucks. | 0 |
40 | [
200,
300
] | 251 | 293 | I can't believe the high marks people have given this film on this site. The writing is incredibly bad with people coming in at just the right time and revealing exactly what the heroine is doing to try to escape. (Don't you just hate it when that happens?). And the acting is so very, very bad that you may get a splinter in your eye from all the scenery being chewed.<br /><br />A nut is holding her hostage, children are outside the open screen, so she whimpers for help instead of screaming when only a moment ago she was brave enough to be smashing windows to yell to these same children.<br /><br />She's finally free and alone in the house. Her chance to go for help, so what does she do? Wanders around the house and lies down. She's in the basement, locked away. So what does she do? Takes a little nap. Come on! Most of the movie is the nut wandering away and finding her sitting there snoozing when he wakes her up. Four times! What? If the writer is too bored to actually write a real plot why should we be paying attention? I think the key here is that it was originally a play for the radio, so they filled in with the heroine just sitting around rather than pretending to be screen writers and actually writing any action.<br /><br />And the ending is horrendous.<br /><br />The whole movie is completely implausible, horribly written and almost comically acted. Beware this movie at all costs! | 0 |
42 | [
200,
300
] | 201 | 240 | I have no idea how anyone can give this movie high marks. I didn't rent it thinking it was the next great horror flick, the next great horror spoof, or the next great low-budget horror spoof. Obviously, this isn't meant to scare, but one fatal flaw with the production entirely sapped the joy out of the viewing experience. The sound editing was horrible. I had to work the volume control the entire movie. You can imagine how difficult it is to get into something - even a low-budget spoof - when you're either turning the volume up or down, or trying to anticipate the next time you have to do so. The regular dialogue is very low, and all screams, noises, etc., are VERY loud. We're not talking about toggling between 5 and 7 on the volume control, finding a happy medium at 6. We're talking toggling between 2 and 9 on the volume where it is virtually impossible to leave the volume alone. Again, this movie might be a decent example of what it is meant to be, but you're going to be spending so much time adjusting your volume control that you'll never have the chance to enjoy it. | 0 |
43 | [
200,
300
] | 218 | 267 | Seeing the title of this movie "Stupid Teenagers Must Die" made me believe this was a spoof of some kind. I discovered later on the original title was "Blood and Guts". Both titles are misleading, though. This is not a spoof, neither a serious splatter movie. This is something in between, failing in both areas. A group of teenagers is attending a séance at a spooky house and then the killing starts. Sounds over familiar, doesn't it. Well, this movies adds nothing whatsoever to the endless stream of similar movies. And it is badly made. Because of the lack of light the entire film is grainy. Now this effect can be highly effective, but it isn't in this case. The young cast isn't acting too badly, but the director has no clue as what to do with actors. In numerous scenes the actors are clearly waiting for directions, but these are given too late. It could also be an editor's mistake, of course. The characters are unrealistic and the story line just stinks. The sound is terrible at times: conversations are undecipherable, but when talking loudly or screaming the actors are very loud indeed.<br /><br />This is not the worst horror movie I have ever seen, but it still is a bad one. For me a 3 out of 10. | 0 |
44 | [
200,
300
] | 191 | 229 | Now I understand that this took two months to shoot. Really? I'm pretty certain my crew could do it in less than a week. This movie sucked so bad I couldn't even pay close attention. Just more proof that boob bearing women can't always save you from horrible writing, acting and direction. Now I understand it was a no budget endeavor, but there is also no continuity and no real reason to not to turn it off and watch infomercials or foreign news in a language you don't understand. Oh, there are a few decent looking females showing the goods. Still, there aren't enough sexy women alive to warrant watching this travesty perpetrated on the film industry. One of the longest 80 minutes of my life. I trooped it out though with the help of my old friend Jim Beam. Do yourself a favor and get your gun ready cuz you may want to use it after this hack job. Lastly, the individual (moron) who left a comment before mine thought this was a great movie and LOVED it. Just more proof that siblings shouldn't pro-create. Ow, BURN!!! - Captain J | 0 |
52 | [
200,
300
] | 191 | 219 | This film is about a couple that decides to take a vacation to The Everglades along with another couple and the family dog. When they first get there, they are not welcomed by the neighboring gas attendant that warms them to stay away from the cabin in which they are to spend the night at for the week. After pestering with the old man, three hillbillys also do not take kindly to their arrival as they approach their car and threaten them to leave. After asking some of the local dummies that can't speak or just don't want to answer, they finaly find the cabin. After they settle in, strange things happen to the visitors including discovering crap on their car, the man thats the head of this trip thats an idiot shoots the family dog thinking it was a killer clawing at the door and a series of deaths later on in the end. Adding a church group did not make the story any better. Then at the end, the idiot that survives the whole ordeal goes around the town carrying a shot gun. Lame. thats what this movie is. | 0 |
59 | [
200,
300
] | 158 | 202 | Witchy Hildegard Knef traps a group of people in an isolated hotel and picks them off one by one in twisted, disgusting ways. I thought I'd seen it all until one unfortunate man here is crucified and then has his head set on fire. Hildy is quite the prankster too: she takes a nagging harpy and sews her mouth shut...then hangs her upside down in the chimney just in time for a roaring fire! "Witchery" made me sick. It made my eyes hurt. I was ready to write it off as the worst movie ever-ever-ever made by otherwise competent people...until the finale. I have to admit I loved the ending. It involves a boy and his toy tape-recorder cornered by Linda Blair looking fantastically possessed. The scene only lasts for about a minute and the movie's over, but you know that old saying: "If you've got a great ending, people will forgive you for just about anything!" | 0 |
72 | [
200,
300
] | 187 | 243 | I thought maybe... maybe this could be good. An early appearance by the Re-Animator (Jeffery Combs); many homage's to old horror movies; the Troma label on the front
this movie could be a gem! I thought wrong.<br /><br />Frightmare is a boring, overplayed, half assed homage to the fright films of yore. The story is an old one, young people breaking into a house, getting drunk, making love, and tampering with things that shouldn't be tampered with. The oft recycled slasher film formula is used here, this time with a thought to be dead actor named Conrad Radzoff doing the killing. In fact, the performance by the Radzoff's actor Ferdy Mayne is the only redeeming quality of this film. He does the snooty Dracula style character very well. But as for the kids, its not so good, with Combs only having a minimal part.<br /><br />The film lacks entertainment value, and only features one cool character, and one or two scenes that can hold your attention. I do not recommend this film unless you are desperate for something to watch, and this is the only movie left at blockbuster. | 0 |
75 | [
200,
300
] | 196 | 265 | Conrad Radzoff(Ferdy Mayne), a hammy cult icon, dies from a heart ailment(not before disposing of an ungrateful assistant and TV commercial director, both of whom disrespected him with showers of insults). His body is removed from his mausoleum by some film students(they wish to "invite him to dinner"..they are quite big fans). What these kids(..including a young Jeffrey Combs)don't expect is that Radzoff will be resurrected by a medium to wreak havoc on those who removed him from his place of rest.<br /><br />The list of violent acts include Radzoff pulling one guy's tongue out, setting a woman on fire, elevating a casket which crushes a woman's face, decapitates one fellow, and cremates another guy alive in a coffin. A really weird soundtrack and pesky fog wraps around Radzoff's ghoulish activities.<br /><br />Silly hokum from Troma is limited by a very, very low budget and slowwwwww pace. The film feels a lot longer than it is. The film isn't really that gory and we can hardly see much violence because the film is often too damn dark. At times, Radzoff is an ominous presence, yet at other times he just looks real silly. | 0 |
77 | [
200,
300
] | 194 | 213 | My parents used to rent a lot of horror movies when I was a child. We loved watching them even when they were bad they made for some enjoyment. This was one such movie, kind of hard to review as I have only seen it the one time as a child, but it is not anything I want to track down again so I can do a more in-depth review. The story has some old horror actor legend dying. I seem to remember he acted a bit like an over the top Vincent Price, without being likable and classy. He commits murders and dies, but what is this? Is the movie over already? No, as some kids for some reason snag the body and are prepared for a fun night of being killed by the ham from beyond the grave. I remember the murders were nothing all that special after the first couple and I remember this movie was rather disappointing. Seemed to have a good premise, but it just failed to deliver the goods as more cool kills were needed and that super horror actor needed to add a bit to his repertoire. | 0 |
87 | [
200,
300
] | 177 | 234 | I bought this on VHS as "Terror Hospital", and when I got home I checked IMDb and was like OMG it's the legendary "Nurse Sherri"!!! So here's another one from Al Adamson, who had clearly learned some minuscule amount about film-making since the "Blood of Dracula's Castle" days. Where that earlier effort is a more or less totally sclerotic lump, this one mixes it up a little, adding a definite element of variety and surprise amid the incompetence. Sure half of the movie is a blind post-op football player shooting the breeze with his stacked nurse, but at any moment we might be cutting away to the cackling disembodied head of the satanist mastermind, or Nurse Sherri running a farmer through with a pitchfork, or a wee bit of abstract student-film quick cutting to go with the pulsing-blob effects in the possession scene, or the most gratuitously half-hearted topless bit ever, or god knows what else (I forget, to be honest). As dumb-ass pieces of sh*t go, this one runs toward the high end. Congrats, Al. | 0 |
90 | [
200,
300
] | 215 | 268 | The first 20 minutes were a little fun because I don't think I've seen a film this bad before {acting, script, effects (!), etc....} The rest of the running time seemed to drag forever with every cliche in dialog used to no effect. These people seemed to not really like horror movies or how to make them or any other movie. There's no adult language, a bit of brief nudity, and no gore except fake blood smeared over no open wounds, etc.. It would have been rated PG in the early eighties and PG-13 nowadays. I'm not sure how it got an R rating or if it really did. I saw the American International release titled Hospital Of Terror. I've seen 100 horror films in the past 12 months and this is probably the worst film I've ever seen. Here's an example of how bad it is: There's one scene where something green comes through the door. I'm not sure what it's supposed to be but what it is on screen is some kid's green crayon scribblings {I'm not exaggerating} super-imposed over the film, semi-moving inside the door, then its supposed to do something to Nurse Sherri to possess her I suppose. I could not believe they had the lack of pride to show this embarrassment. | 0 |
91 | [
200,
300
] | 157 | 206 | This film, which I rented under the title "Black Voodoo" should be avoided. I was expecting a blaxploitation/horror flick; but what I got was a very dull, standard "ghost extracts vegence". In this case the ghost was that of a religious cult leader who tried to refuse treatment, but who's plea was ignored and he died in an operation. The result: his spirit posesses Nurse Sherry and forces her to commit acts of murder. The only voodoo connection was to one of the three black characters, in this case a blinded ex-football player, who's mom practiced voodoo. The film is very slow and very dull. There is a very standard ending that provides on excitement, followed by a horrificly stupid ending (warning: SPOILER)<br /><br />In which a woman actually manages to defend herself against murder charges by saying she was possessed. This movie is slow, and bad in a non-funny, just stupefying way. Avoid it at all costs. | 0 |
95 | [
200,
300
] | 235 | 293 | This film seems well made, and more efforts should be made to promote films by women. That aside, this film is also profoundly disturbing in that it justifies the manipulative and psychotic machinations of a character that is profoundly disturbed. If you've seen any of the promotional material, you might think this is a poignant film about a relationship that's reached its end, but none of that suggests how really disturbing the central premise is:<br /><br />A woman threatens suicide unless her soon to be ex agrees to relive here most treasured memories of their relationship. When told how unfair (to say the least) that such a threat is, Tessa (the purported protagonist) suggests that "life's not fair."<br /><br />Huh??? This character also uses tears to manipulate her former lover into staying, and coaxes him into sexually oriented behavior (which she initially denies as a motive) all the while assuring him "this isn't sex."<br /><br />Reverse the genders, have the leads played by Tracey Gold and Brian Austin-Green and this could air in feature length on Lifetime with a title like "Hostage to Obsession." There is no medically accepted definition of sound mental and emotional stability that would encompass Tessa's behavior in this film.<br /><br />Props to Kristen Thomson for playing a border-line psychotic, manipulative ex to a T, perhaps too well because there is no well-adjusted person, male or female, who could watch this and not have shivers run up their spine. | 0 |
97 | [
200,
300
] | 193 | 266 | Rita Hayworth is just stunning at times and, for me, the only reason to watch this silly film. Despite the overdone 1940s lipstick, Rita was one of the all-time glamor women of Hollywood. In fact, for a couple of years I can't imagine anyone that looked better, except maybe Elizabeth Taylor in her prime.<br /><br />Anyway, the co-star of the show, Gene Kelly, does not play his normal likable, at least the kind of guy we all know him from in "Singin' In The Rain." Here, Kelly's "Danny McGuire" pouts much of the time. Phil Silvers, who I loved on TV at "Sgt. Bilko," is so stupid in here as "Genius" you will just cringe listening to his dumb jokes....and they are stupid.<br /><br />The visuals are good with great Technicolor, which almost looks terrific. You get to see a lot of pretty women in here, too, not just Hayworth. Unfortunately, the story isn't all that much. It centers around Hayworth deciding about a career choice. Along the way, we get the normal shabby treatment of marriage and we get an insultingly-dumb ending. All in all, an unmemorable film, except as a showcase for Hayworth's beauty. | 0 |
106 | [
200,
300
] | 215 | 255 | Bloody Birthday is a totally rubbish slasher movie from beginning to end. <br /><br />I found the acting to be pretty good considering the genre of movie and its obvious low budget. I don't know what was going on with the cinematography but it looked ghastly. Way too over-saturated. Maybe this is a bad transfer to DVD or maybe it always looked like that, I don't know. <br /><br />There really are no redeeming qualities to speak of. There are a few deaths but not really gory. I wouldn't bother with it if I was you. The best thing about the DVD was the 15 minute interview with producer Max Rosenberg who was very amusing and honest. He didn't have anything good to say about director Ed Hunt and admits the movie was a failure, but he would like to re-make it as he believes it has a decent plot. However, he died in 2004 so I guess it will be up to someone else to take on that challenge. With the way things have been going in the last few years it wouldn't surprise me, there's at least one re-make per week at the cinema these day. It couldn't be any worse than the original I suppose but I couldn't care less whether it got re-made or not. | 0 |
116 | [
200,
300
] | 179 | 246 | Julie Andrews satirically prods her own goody-two-shoes image in this overproduced musical comedy-drama, but if she approaches her role with aplomb, she's alone in doing so. Blake Edwards' film about a woman who is both music-hall entertainer and German spy during WWI doesn't know what tone to aim for, and Rock Hudson has the thankless task of playing romantic second-fiddle. Musicals had grown out of favor by 1970, and elephantine productions like "Star!" and this film really tarnished Andrews' reputation, leaving a lot of dead space in her catalogue until "The Tamarind Seed" came along. I've always thought Julie Andrews would've made a great villain or shady lady; her strong voice could really command attention, and she hits some low notes that can either be imposing or seductive. Husband/director Edwards seems to realize this, but neither he nor Julie can work up much energy within this scenario. Screenwriter William Peter Blatty isn't a good partner for Edwards, and neither man has his heart in this material. Beatty's script offers Andrews just one fabulous sequence--a striptease. *1/2 from **** | 0 |
119 | [
200,
300
] | 206 | 245 | I'm not a big fan of musicals, although this technically might not qualify as a musical. But I thought I would give it a chance as I love war movies. It was mediocre at best.<br /><br />Hudson seems totally out of kilter in this role. It just didn't work for me. Julie Andrews probably played her part as best as she could, but I just find it hard to buy her as a conniving, deceptive spy. Sorry, I know that is classic stereotyping on my part. But I have to say I think this is Julie at her most beautiful and feminine looking. I always thought of her as more matronly, but then surely that's a result of her roles in Sound of Music and Mary Poppins. No doubt they were desperately trying to get her out of that typecasting in this role. She was quite beguiling in appearance here, but I still didn't buy her as a spy.<br /><br />I couldn't keep my focus through the whole movie and found myself tuning in and out - and having conversations with those in my room (which I usually never do - I'm always shushing everybody). So that tells you how little it held my attention. Don't waste your time! | 0 |
120 | [
200,
300
] | 203 | 260 | Blake Edwards' legendary fiasco, begins to seem pointless after just 10 minutes. A combination of The Eagle Has Landed, Star!, Oh! What a Lovely War!, and Edwards' Pink Panther films, Darling Lili never engages the viewer; the aerial sequences, the musical numbers, the romance, the comedy, and the espionage are all ho hum. At what point is the viewer supposed to give a damn? This disaster wavers in tone, never decides what it wants to be, and apparently thinks it's a spoof, but it's pathetically and grindingly square. Old fashioned in the worst sense, audiences understandably stayed away in droves. It's awful. James Garner would have been a vast improvement over Hudson who is just cardboard, and he doesn't connect with Andrews and vice versa. And both Andrews and Hudson don't seem to have been let in on the joke and perform with a miscalculated earnestness. Blake Edwards' SOB isn't much more than OK, but it's the only good that ever came out of Darling Lili. The expensive and professional look of much of Darling Lili, only make what it's all lavished on even more difficult to bear. To quote Paramount chief Robert Evans, "24 million dollars worth of film and no picture". | 0 |
123 | [
200,
300
] | 172 | 212 | Alas, another Costner movie that was an hour too long. Credible performances, but the script had no where to go and was in no hurry to get there. First we are offered an unrelated string of events few of which further the story. Will the script center on Randall and his wife? Randall and Fischer? How about Fischer and Thomas? In the end, no real front story ever develops and the characters themselves are artificially propped up by monologues from third parties. The singer explains Randall, Randall explains Fischer, on and on. Finally, long after you don't care anymore, you will learn something about the script meetings. Three endings were no doubt proffered and no one could make a decision. The end result? All three were used, one, after another, after another. If you can hang in past the 100th yawn, you'll be able to pick them out. Despite the transparent attempt to gain points with a dedication to the Coast Guard, this one should have washed out the very first day. | 0 |
124 | [
200,
300
] | 161 | 207 | Wow, another Kevin Costner hero movie. Postman, Tin Cup, Waterworld, Bodyguard, Wyatt Earp, Robin Hood, even that baseball movie. Seems like he makes movies specifically to be the center of attention. The characters are almost always the same ... the heroics, the flaws, the greatness, the fall, the redemption. Yup, within the 1st 5 minutes of the movie, we're all supposed to be in awe of his character, and it builds up more and more from there.<br /><br />And this time the story ... story? ... is just a collage of different movies. You don't need a spoiler; you've seen this movie several times, though it had different titles. You'll know what will happen way before it happens. This is like mixing An Officer and a Gentleman with Backdraft, but both are easily better movies. Watch Backdraft to see how this kind of movie should be made ... and also to see how an good but slightly underrated actor, Russell, plays the hero. | 0 |
127 | [
200,
300
] | 168 | 204 | Once again Mr. Costner has dragged out a movie for far longer than necessary. Aside from the terrific sea rescue sequences, of which there are very few I just did not care about any of the characters. Most of us have ghosts in the closet, and Costner's character are realized early on, and then forgotten until much later, by which time I did not care. The character we should really care about is a very cocky, overconfident Ashton Kutcher. The problem is he comes off as kid who thinks he's better than anyone else around him and shows no signs of a cluttered closet. His only obstacle appears to be winning over Costner. Finally when we are well past the half way point of this stinker, Costner tells us all about Kutcher's ghosts. We are told why Kutcher is driven to be the best with no prior inkling or foreshadowing. No magic here, it was all I could do to keep from turning it off an hour in. | 0 |
132 | [
200,
300
] | 179 | 229 | This movie should have been billed as three movie-summaries linked together to form a full-length feature film (including lots of shots of people slowly walking down dark corridors and streets). BE WARNED! The first hour of this movie is simply a re-hash of the first two Aztec movies as told by the main character. The actual movie doesn't start until the thing is almost over. I must say, the overacting on the part of the Bat is quite hilarious.<br /><br />As for the robot, I thought a robot was a mechanical device that may or may not resemble a human. The Bat's "robot" consists of a radioactive reanimated corpse encased in a lead robot-body. As Tom Servo put it, "He's not that impressive; he doesn't even have knees!" That, and it takes the robot about an hour just to lumber across the room. But once he catches you, WATCH OUT! He'll disintegrate you with a touch (powered by radium? Pluh-ease!).<br /><br />This is a great movie when accompanied by Joel and the Bots. Otherwise, you're just a glutton for abuse. | 0 |
133 | [
200,
300
] | 201 | 261 | Despite having a very pretty leading lady (Rosita Arenas, one of my boy-crushes), the acting and the direction are examples of what NOT to do while making a movie.<br /><br />Placed in southern Mexico, Popoca, the Aztec Mummy (real Aztecs, by the way, DID not made mummies) has been waken up by the lead characters and starts making trouble in Mexico City suburbia, during the first movie (The Aztec Mummy). In this second part, the leading man and woman want to find th mummy and put it in its final resting place (a fireplace would have been my first choice...)<br /><br />Into this appears The Bat, a criminal master-mindless stereotype of a criminal genius who creates a "human robot" (some idiot inside a robot SUIT) to control Popoca and (get this) take over the world. The final match between the robot and the mummy is hilarious, some of the worst choreography ever witnessed. The funniest part is that this movie was made and released by a serious Mexican movie studio!<br /><br />The acting is just as awful hearing the movie in Spanish as it is in English (they dubbed the over-acting!). You should watch this movie through MST:3000. The comments are even funnier. | 0 |
139 | [
200,
300
] | 209 | 282 | Following the pleasingly atmospheric original and the amusingly silly second one, this incredibly dull, slow, and uneventful sequel comes across as a major letdown. Once again the nefarious criminal mastermind the Bat (hammy Luis Aceves Castaneda) is trying to steal valuable jewelry from the Aztec mummy Popoca. The Bat builds a hilariously clunky lumbering robot with a human brain in order to achieve this heinous goal. Flatly directed by Rafael Portillo, with a talky and tedious script by Alfredo Salazar and Guillermo Calderon, cruddy continuity (for example, the Bat was clearly killed at the end of the previous film, but is miraculously alive and well here!), an excruciatingly sluggish script, an excessive amount of stock footage from the first two flicks, a meandering narrative, a crippling lack of action and momentum, largely dreary going through the motions (non)acting from an understandably disinterested cast, and a poorly staged climactic battle between the mummy and the robot (the movie finally bursts to sidesplitting stupid life with said big bash, but alas it barely even lasts two lousy minutes and thus proves to be much too little far too late to alleviate the severity of the general overwhelming boredom), this numbingly dry, drippy, and draggy snorefest rates as a complete washout. | 0 |
141 | [
200,
300
] | 245 | 293 | With the dialogue in the dubbed version of this film, I don't think that Shakespeare is in any great danger. This is the story of an ancient Aztec mummy who has been disenfranchised. His stuff has been taken and this really ticks him off. He seems to know who's doing this even though he's a gyrating, raving entity. I loved the two dull men who tell the story of how the mummy was found and the doctor who is determined to destroy the creature. There are all these scenes in this ridiculous graveyard, full of cheap crosses and other junk. There's a mausoleum where the mummy is kept. I can't begin to reproduce the idiocy of this, including a snake pit where the good doctor is thrown (there is a door next to it so he can crawl out) to the robot, a mass of metal cans with a guy inside. The dialogue is awful. There are long pauses between speeches as if someone offstage is feeding them their lines. I love the scene where the two little kids accuse their mother of going out at night (she goes into this zombie state or something). Nonetheless, if your looking for a film that you can laugh at and never takes itself seriously, watch this. Have a couple beers first. Like a direct line from the mummy's tomb, "Watch this and your eyes will bleed and your breath will stink." What more can I say? | 0 |
153 | [
200,
300
] | 217 | 279 | Bruce Willis, as usual, does an excellent job.<br /><br />[warning: may be considered a "spoiler"]<br /><br />While my friend thought it was good, I kept glancing at my watch during the entire movie wondering when it would end. After seeing such great flicks as "The Patriot" and "Chicken Run" I was really disappointed in Disney's "The Kid."<br /><br />Willis plays a middle-aged man with a harsh and realistic attitude on putting a positive spin on people's images (he's an Image Consultant). An unknown kid shows up. Yes, it's him but younger, and even Lily Tomlin can see him. At this point I'm reminded of a cross between a poor "Quantum Leap" episode and a bad time traveling flick.<br /><br />Kid and Willis go through trying to figure out why he's in that time period. They figure it out. They meet Willis when he's older. Nevermind that it never goes into detail how old Willis teleports them between time periods and gets them together to begin with, how he got that knowledge to begin with, how he came to the realization that he needed to do this, and so on.<br /><br />Basically, it's a very tired, unoriginal, uninspiring plot that has some great actors in it. The good news is that "the Kid" actor is nowhere near as annoying as he's presented in the trailers on television. | 0 |
159 | [
200,
300
] | 175 | 210 | I had been amazed by director Antal's Kontroll back in 2003. His first American project, Vacancy, was less impressive but a decent start. Armored is his second feature and while the visual signature is recognizable, the film never rises above the level of a B movie. <br /><br />It's a shame because the main premise has all the ingredients for twists and turns and the ensemble cast featuring many quality actors should be able to deliver. Antal could have made a great heist film but instead goes for an action flick. Then again he could have shot a cool action flick but it doesn't really deliver in that department either. <br /><br />What you are left with is one implausible situation after another, a group of poorly sketched characters bicker and fight over a sum of money. If you look past the sharp cinematography, cast and the tight music score, you're left with what could have been a below average direct-to-video featuring Van Damme or Seagal. <br /><br />This was probably the most disappointing movie for me in quite some time. | 0 |
161 | [
200,
300
] | 161 | 203 | I went to see this movie today, with hopes that it would involve an at least half-intelligent story. I was extremely disappointed, as it did not. The plot, and the decisions by the main character, were so far-fetched. I was hoping for a "Dog Day Afternoon"-type movie, but instead got something totally unacceptable. I actually found myself totally hoping for the "hero" to be knocked off, and I nearly walked out of the theater on several occasions when this should have happened but didn't. Heist movies are notmeant to be feel-good flicks, and this one tried to be just that. Every couple of minutes during the second half of the movie, I found myself saying, "no way". Without giving the whole story away, it revolved around an armored car guard who was financially down and out, and whose house was going into foreclosure. He was invited in on a heist, and accepted, only to back down once the action began. Weak. | 0 |
164 | [
200,
300
] | 204 | 242 | This movie is one of the worst movies I have ever seen! The cast was fantastic, but the movie itself was horrible. It was so awful, I had to register just to say how bad it was.<br /><br />I watched this movie, and I wanted to break it every minute I watched. It could have been great. Had a great premise. If you're going to rob an armored car, and there's a homeless person which sees you, you have to do, what you have to do. For the main character to decide to get a cop killed, and kill his friends and co-workers after the homeless guy was already dead, it's just ridiculous. And yes, I'm sure there will be responses to this about how his conscious got to him, but come on.<br /><br />The main character crawled out the bottom of the armored truck, no one saw him. He blew up the stash of money and grabbed and dragged the cop right behind the other guards and no one saw him. He was able to get back in the armored car, and no one saw him... This movie had potential, but blew it.<br /><br />You couldn't pay me to watch this movie ever again! DON'T EVER watch it! Aggravating... | 0 |
165 | [
200,
300
] | 173 | 205 | Unbelievably disappointed. The pace was slow. The characters unbelievable and throughout the film as a whole just let me feel bored and unfulfilled. There was no real plot that could keep you revolving around the film and keep you interested. The heist itself never offered any excitement and didn't seem very well though through.<br /><br />There was not enough depth or background to any character and Laurance Fishbourne's character was one I eagerly awaited for, unfortunately Laurance has no idea how to play the thuggish brut and is much preferred as a likable character. Columbus short one of my favourite actors (in stomp the yard) let me down with his performance, his character was dark and you could hardly see what drove his reasoning.<br /><br />The only character I think offered anything to the film was Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli in Heroes). Though his character quite small and insignificant I think his touch added to an all around dull film.<br /><br />In Conclusion buy the DVD if you want to find a new way to waste your time. | 0 |
170 | [
200,
300
] | 213 | 241 | OK I for one thought the trailer was quite good so was hopeful for this film, plus with the cast line up I was sure it couldn't get less than a 6 in my books. However I got annoyed half hour into the story... just where normal films get good, this film hit rock bottom. <br /><br />SPOILER * The guy who everyone is trying to help is so caring of other people getting hurt in the middle of the hustle that he turns on his colleagues to save a tramp and then locks himself inside one of the armoured trucks. Not only that, he constantly tries to get other peoples attention by which he ends up endangering more people and long story short, the outcome is that he is responsible for not just the tramps death, but also a police officer getting shot and the kidnapping of his younger brother... oh and all 5 of his colleagues dying disgraced deaths. <br /><br />But in the end he is HAPPY because he came to his senses halfway through the endeavour, so what if all his colleagues are now dead rather than sticking to the plan and being a millionaire. This film tried to be so politically correct it makes me sick! Ruined a good story. Shame really. | 0 |
184 | [
200,
300
] | 168 | 217 | Just watched on UbuWeb this early experimental short film directed by William Vance and Orson Welles. Yes, you read that right, Orson Welles! Years before he gained fame for radio's "The War of the Worlds" and his feature debut Citizen Kane, Welles was a 19-year-old just finding his muse. Besides Vance and Welles, another player here was one Virginia Nicholson, who would become Orson's first wife. She plays a woman who keeps sitting on something that rocks back and forth courtesy of an African-American servant (Paul Edgerton in blackface). During this time a man (Welles) keeps passing her by (courtesy of the scene constantly repeating). I won't reveal any more except to say how interesting the silent images were as they jump-cut constantly. That's not to say this was any good but it was fascinating to watch even with the guitar score (by Larry Morotta) added in the 2005 print I watched. Worth a look for Welles enthusiasts and anyone with a taste of the avant-garde. | 0 |
187 | [
200,
300
] | 163 | 222 | I've liked Milos Forman's movies since I saw "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Amadeus" (two big masterpieces), but when I saw "Hair", I kept wondering if this was the same Milos Forman. This movie is boring and uninteresting to say the least. OK, the music is pretty good, but on screen it only seems like a bunch of drugged people dancing around (wait a minute... that's what it really is!). In fact, the only interesting part, and the only part where Milos' talent shows up, are the last 15 minutes or so, (SPOILER!!) since when Berger takes Claude's place as a soldier set to the Vietnam war. That 15 minutes are moving and well-directed, but it's a shame that we have to endure so much awful material before that.<br /><br />Well, maybe this is one of those movies you need to be "on the subject" to enjoy (the subject being marijuana, acid and other drugs the film glorifies). I'm not, so... | 0 |
188 | [
200,
300
] | 227 | 284 | I should start off by saying I have something of a love-hate relationship with musicals. Some of them are fantastic, some are downright crap. So I expected Hair to fall into one of those categories. However, it didn't, falling instead in the middle.<br /><br />The songs aren't brilliant, though the "Sodomy" song did make me smile a lot, and everything is rather dated looking. But the movie didn't draw me in as others have, such as Rocky Horror. Although that's a bad example, since for years I hated Rocky Horror, then all of a sudden I got it and have loved it ever since. Maybe Hair will be the same. Although I doubt it will get as much exposure as Rocky Horror due to the language and nudity content, so I doubt I will get the chance to have it grow on me. Gettit? Hair....grow...oh suit yourself.<br /><br />Anyhow, I didn't get to see the last fifteen minutes or so due to a technical glitch, which was a shame, since I would have liked to see how it ended, especially after reading some of the reviews here.<br /><br />Not a film for the casual cinema-goer, but definitely one for musical lovers. I really hope they don't re-make it, though, since I think any such re-make would end up a shallow, pale, PC version of the original.<br /><br />Worth a look for lovers of the genre. | 0 |
194 | [
200,
300
] | 178 | 266 | In 1904 Tangier, a wealthy American woman and her two children are kidnapped by Berbers, murderous desert pirates who scorn the Moroccan government and, by doing so, kidnap "American pestilence", which attracts the attention of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. Fictitious historical epic is less a grand adventure than it is a peculiar, somewhat exhaustive throwback to the desert-sheik films of the 1940s (with a bit of "The King and I" interjected, besides). Portraying the cloaked, mustachioed, bloodthirsty leader and his snippy, haughty captive, Sean Connery and Candice Bergen could be acting in two entirely different movies (neither one seems to know how far to carry the camp-elements of their characters and dialogue, and both seem singularly without proper direction). The various (and anonymous) slashings and beheadings which occur are arbitrary: we don't know any of these victims, and the big action scenes become blurry, noisy montages of sand-swept violence on horseback. The pluses: a much-lauded music score by Jerry Goldsmith (Oscar-nominated, but a loser to John Williams' "Jaws"), fine location shooting and cinematography. *1/2 from **** | 0 |
196 | [
200,
300
] | 174 | 207 | and I still don't know where the hell this movie is going? I mean really, what is this movie about? Is it about demonstrating Sean Connery's complete lack of Arabic? Is it about showing that if he could play the role of a Moroccan warlord then he was a natural to play the role of Ramirez in highlander? Why was Teddy Roosevelt even in this movie? Why was there so much sand that was put to so little use? Where was there so much table slapping? Why did Teddy ignore the Japanese guy who he was shooting archery with? Did he realize the man was Japanese? Why was no no credible excuse given for Connery's accent? At least Jean Claude Van Damme has an excuse for his French accent, whether it be being raised by French nuns in Hong Kong (Double Impact), being raised on the bayou in Louisiana (Universal Soldier), or having a French mother and being raised in Indochina (I cannot even remember the name of that movie)? Can anyone explain this? | 0 |
201 | [
200,
300
] | 147 | 201 | Honest young insurance agent Ronald Reagan (as Eric Gregg) is optimistic, but poor. His wife, scheming Sheila Bromley (as Nona Gregg), longs for the finer things in life. Describing herself as "not weighted down with tons of righteousness," Ms. Bromley begins to spend more money than Mr. Reagan earns. Bromley obtains the finer things in life, but puts the couple in debt. Bromley is a fun shrew.<br /><br />Handsome Reagan attracts other women, like perky clerk Gloria Blondell (as Patricia Carmody); but, he doesn't indulge. To pay the bills, Bromley gets tangled up in the insurance fraud racket - which helps get her husband fired. An unemployed Reagan seems to be tempted into a life of crime - will he remain straight up, or get crooked? Clinton Rosemond has an uncomfortable "broken arm" scene.<br /><br />*** Accidents Will Happen (1938) William Clemens ~ Ronald Reagan, Sheila Bromley, Gloria Blondell | 0 |
207 | [
200,
300
] | 170 | 206 | The filmmakers try to paint the influence of the Mondovis and Robert Parker as a travesty on par with the German occupation of France and the reign of Fascism. But they never find a victim in this film. We hear wine makers, critics and distributors bemoan that while the wine industry grows it becomes increasingly homogeneous. But the film never makes a case that this has resulted in the loss of any good wine or exploitation of any person or culture other than naive Wine Spectator readers with lots of cash. If they want to pay hundreds of dollars for a dull wine, so be it.<br /><br />If this were a film about the diamond trade, where the DeBeers corporation's market domination results in human suffering, the muckraking style might have been appropriate. But as it is it just comes off as anti-American, anti-modernization and anti-capitalist. Had the filmmakers been around in the 1870s they most likely would have protested the grafting of American vines in the effort to save French wine. | 0 |
209 | [
200,
300
] | 143 | 204 | I've heard people compare this movie to Sideways. How this comparison was made, I'll never guess because this movie was in no way comparable to Sideways.<br /><br />These 2 films were as different as Star Wars and the Thornbirds. The only thing they had in common at all was they both had wine as a subject.<br /><br />Though the interviews in this documentary were semi-interesting, they were ruined by the absolute worst camera work ever...attempted. I've never seen worse camera work in my life and I'm comparing it to home videos accidentally taken by 5 year olds.<br /><br />I give this two stars, ONLY for the interesting interviews with French wine types and for showing how pushy and corrupt the American wine companies are (Aren't all companies pushy and corrupt?) I'd give it -10 stars (Yes, that's NEGATIVE 10) for the deplorable, terrible, horrible, awful, VERTIGO-INDUCING, 5-year-old-could-do-better camera mess. | 0 |
213 | [
200,
300
] | 185 | 227 | There were so many classic movies that were made where the leading people were out-and- out liars and yet they are made to look good. I never bought into that stuff. The "screwball comedies" were full of that stuff and so were a lot of the Fred Astaire films.<br /><br />Here, Barbara Stanwyck plays a famous "country" magazine writer who has been lying to the public for years, and feels she has to keep lying to keep her persona (and her job). She even lies to a guy about getting married, another topic that was always trivialized in classic films.<br /><br />She's a New York City woman who pretends she's a great cook and someone who knows how to handle babies, etc. Obviously she knows nothing and the lies pile up so fast you lose track. I guess all of that is supposed to be funny because lessons are learned in the end and true love prevails, etc. etc. Please pass the barf bag.<br /><br />Most of this film is NOT funny. Stanwyck was far better in the film noir genre. As for Dennis Morgan, well, pass the bag again. | 0 |
214 | [
200,
300
] | 177 | 229 | I think I watched a highly edited version because it wasn't nearly as graphic as I expected - based on the other reviews that I have heard.<br /><br />Other than 1. being written by the same person who wrote the original "Emmanuelle" (1974), Emmanuelle Arsan, 2. the lead character being a sexually free spirit, and 3. being set in the exotic locale of Asia, "Laure" doesn't have the same flair as its predecessor.<br /><br />I just found this film way too talky with philosophical topics that I'm really not that interested in, i.e. the voyeuristic, open relationship between Laure and Nick, "I'm just happy with whatever brings her pleasure"...something along those lines. I cannot relate to this mentality and the film/characters don't really shed any light.<br /><br />The second half about finding the Mara tribe just seemed as though it were a completely separate film. One that I didn't care for. By that time, I was just hoping that it would turn into a porn so that at least it would keep my interest.<br /><br />Maybe I just didn't get it.<br /><br />I'll leave it at that. | 0 |
217 | [
200,
300
] | 187 | 243 | An odd, willfully skewed biopic of Dyan Thomas in which we hear little more than a dozen lines of his poetry. Instead we have to endure a raw character exposée seen through the prism of his proto-bigamous relationship with wife (Sienna Miller) and childhood love (Keira Knightley). Matthew Rhys plays Thomas with sufficient charm to inoculate us against his otherwise repellent self-interest and Cillian Murphy makes up the persistently tense lovetet.<br /><br />The film never seems to decide on where it's going. There's no arc so much as a viaduct from one end of the war to the other. Maybury seems much more interested in his two female leads (who wouldn't!?) than in the man who brings them together and then divides them. Miller is the choice of the two (I found Knightley competent at best but then I have never found her sympathetic) but they both offer dreadfully inconsistent Welsh accents. Other funny decisions include too much for the inconsequential character of William (Murphy), arty production (eg double crossfades) that is neither impressionist nor symbolic and the old chestnut act of period footage which doesn't blend. 4/10 | 0 |
222 | [
200,
300
] | 202 | 242 | This film is about the complicated friendship, romance and deceit between two men and two women during the World War II.<br /><br />A lot of effort has been put to make "The Edge of Love"look the right period. However, I find this effort too excessive, particularly in terms of the tone of the colours. Most of the first half of the film is processed so much to have a strong bluish tone. It's hard to make out who's who in this tone.<br /><br />Another detrimental point is the fancy use of image splitting lens. There are many scenes that have three or four images of the same thing, such as three Keira Knightley smiling face or four pairs of arms in embrace. That simply makes the film confusing and hard to follow, instead of being artistic.<br /><br />As for the plot, it is plain boring. The way the story unfolds is not engaging at all. Sienna Miller's unstable character is annoying. In fact all the main characters are annoying and unlikeable. Keira Knightley's accent is impossible to understand, making it a further impediment to understanding the plot.<br /><br />I strongly advise avoiding "The Edge of Love", unless you watch a film only to appreciate great costumes, nice sets and lighting. | 0 |
226 | [
200,
300
] | 216 | 249 | The (DVD)movie "The Tempest", directed by Jack Bender, was published in 2001. It didn't make its way to German cinemas and neither the director or an actor were able to receive an important award for this movie. The movie refers to the Shakespearean play "The Tempest" which was published at the end of the 16th century. The director tried to create an modern version of this play, but failed. At the beginning of the movie the plantation owner Prosper gets in a conflict with his brother Antonio about the treatment of their slaves. Antonio sets his brother a trip and tries to kill him but with the help of a witch, Prosper is able to escape and flees with his daughter and a slave called Ariel to a small island nearby the Mississippi river. For over twelve years he has lived isolated on this island, till a lucky chance enables him to take revenge on his brother....If Prosper will be lucky you have to find out by yourself.<br /><br />In my opinion this film is really a bad try to create a modern version of the original play by William Shakespeare. The story of the movie is confusing as well as the characters. Prosper doesn't have the same powers as in the tempest..... END OF PART I | 0 |
228 | [
200,
300
] | 227 | 296 | I keep waiting for Peter Fonda to start acting. For someone who comes from such a talented family, it's a mystery to me why Peter Fonda can only play Peter Fonda trying to play someone else. And, that's the good news in this disappointing dog of an adaptation of The Tempest. A string of loosely connected ideas that only suggest a relationship with the Bard's great play is what we're served. The setting is the Civil War and Prospero's (here Guideon's) evil brother looks like an 1890's melodrama villain, complete with Snidely Whiplash moustache. I kept waiting for him to go "Uh ha hah!" which would have been a high point in this dreary presentation. None of the supporting cast was memoriable and Peter Fonda's lack of expression and wooden body movements made the lackadaisical story drag on and on. <br /><br />The Tempest is the Bard's statement about the rage of man's unjust treatment of man. The only believable character was the Gator man, the Caliban counterpart. The transferrence to the swamp had possibilities but the Civil War setting just didn't make it. All in all, a very disappointing production. I saw it on video and would advise, if you want a Willy Shakespeare fix, save your money on this one. Rent something else, like Branagh's Much Ado about Nothing, or Kevin Kline in Midsummer's Night Dream. | 0 |
232 | [
200,
300
] | 214 | 251 | This movie just didn't do it for me. I like horror and splatter movies but this one has very little to do with horror. The effects are cheap and when they chop of one of her feet it looks so fake. The same goes for the other effects like the tongue torture and the gut sex. They could have spent of few extra bucks on the effects.<br /><br />With lots of sex (with pixelization as in all Japanese movies) this is just a sick fetish porn and there seems to be a market for sick stuff like this. While bloodier, for me it fits in with titles like Squirmfest / Purge and the Genki series. These movies feature girls eating and playing with every fluid that comes out of your body, eating bugs and fish in a gross way and having sex with all kinds of weird animals, like toads, eels and... One look at the covers will tell horror fans to look elsewhere. No horror here,just sick and degrading sex scenes.<br /><br />Horror fans should avoid this one and are better of checking out Guinea Pig2: Flowers of Flesh and Blood or even August Underground Mordum. While these are not great they at least offer a horror experience and Niku Daruma absolutely fails in that department. | 0 |
233 | [
200,
300
] | 180 | 239 | Not near as well made as the "Guinea Pig" flicks it was inspired by ("Flowers of Flesh and Blood" or "Devil's Experiment") and not conveying any real philosophy, this video feature, which is barely feature length, adds hardcore sex (with mosaic censoring) to its inspiration. The special make-up effects, which include stomach slitting and disembowelment, are pretty good, if overlit. The amateur feel of the production is a distraction. It all looks cheap and lazy. The lighting is harsh and the sound and editing are sloppy. The simple story involves a porno actress who ends up starring in a real snuff movie. Just when she gets tired of being abused, the real abuse begins. In the film's hero scene, an actor cuts the woman's stomach open in graphic close-up, stuffs his member inside it, and proceeds to do his thing. I didn't find "Psycho - The Snuff Reels" shocking. On the contrary, I found it to be a desperate attempt by amateurs to one-up "Guinea Pig" and its bloody ilk. Interestingly, this was distributed by Aroma, a leading fetish producer. | 0 |
250 | [
200,
300
] | 225 | 274 | These days, writers, directors and producers are relying more and more on the "surprise" ending. The old art of bringing a movie to closure, taking all of the information we have learned through out the movie and bringing it to a nice complete ending, has been lost. Now what we have is a movie that, no matter how complex, detailed, or frivolous, can be wrapped up in 5 minutes. It was all in his/her head. That explanation is the director's safety net. If all else fails, or if the writing wasn't that good, or if we ran out of money to complete the movie, we can always say "it was all in his/her head" and end the movie that way. The audience will buy it because, well, none of us are psychologists, and none of us are suffering from schizophrenia (not that we know about) so we take the story and believe it. After all, the mind is a powerful thing. Some movies have pulled it off. But those movies are the reason why we are getting more and more of these crap endings. Every director/writer now thinks they can pull it off because, well, Fight Club did it and it made a lot of money. So we get movies like The Machinist, Secret Window, Identity, and this movie (just to name a few). | 0 |
256 | [
200,
300
] | 181 | 208 | What do you do with all the material that does not make the final edit of a film? You might keep it aside in case a director's cut or extended version is released one day. You might sell some it as stock footage to be used in a part of another film. You might just bin it. Or you might collect it, accumulating more and more from each film you make and then use it to make another film, disregarding coherence or any sense. Throw a very primitive skeleton of a narrative into it and line up a number opportunities (nay, excuses) to slot in your celluloid cast-offs. Excuse the abjectly nonsensical nature of the plot by framing it all in the mind of a horror film director and you've got yourself an awful film. This can all be done with just a few days shooting. And idiots like me will waste two hours of their life watching it. And then come on here and try to warn others away. The whole chain of events is one big waste of time. | 0 |
259 | [
200,
300
] | 253 | 283 | This one kind of is like an earlier movie from 1987 "Masters of the Universe" based on the cartoon "He-man". Basically, you have a great old world and they for some reason have to have nearly all the action of the movie take place on modern earth. Well I guess it is not so modern earth now and that it is an ancient world now of strangeness and a den of good times gone by. Well I guess I can figure why they did in fact place nearly all the movie in modern times in this and that movie. To save money on costumes and sets. It is a lot easier to recreate what is going on in the present than a strange world like that of Eternia in He-man or an ancient world with cults and strange pyramids, sacrifices and strange creatures that hug you to death. This movie is forgettable and not very entertaining, your first clue that it is not going to be the best movie in the world is that Robert Z'Dar is in it. The only thing this one has going for it is the animals which are not as prevalent in this one as they were in the last. Marc Singer is back and it is sad to seem him in this state, the guy was a fairly good actor reduced to trying to make a sequel to a movie that really did not need one, and even if it did it came five years to late. | 0 |
260 | [
200,
300
] | 186 | 225 | If you are ever in the mood for a truly terrible film, it would be hard to find something that could even compare to this. I have spent a lot of time watching a lot of terrible movies just for the sheer joy I get from it, and man, this is one of the worst. This movie was so bad, I had to buy the third Beastermaster online. That one wasn't as bad, which is amazing since it was straight to video. This is one of those films that is hard to comprehend how it was made in the first place. I mean, someone had to actually have read the script (or many scripts, I'm sure they made several drafts) and said "Yeah, that's it. Here's some money." Actually, they probably just wanted to make a Beastmaster 2 before they even had a script, then went with whatever they had. Ack, horrible. So, if you are a fan of really bad movies, watch this one. It is a true classic, and film doesn't get much worse than this. And if it does, please let me know. | 0 |
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